War with Iran is Inevitable

[WildCat]

Really? From 1980 to 1988, Iran devoted more of its resources against Israel than against any other nation?

Iran was funding Palestinian terrorists prior to Iraq invading.

eta: and I don't recall Iran ever vowing to destroy Iraq, make it no longer a country.

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

Sorry if it's not obvious to me why Panetta mentioning the possibility of an attack increases the probability of that attack occurring. I would have thought the opposite. Can someone explain this to me?

 

[Minoosh]

Iran was funding Palestinian terrorists prior to Iraq invading.

I'd never say Iran is harmless, but they were our semiofficial ally when we went into Afghanistan. There were U.S. troops on Iranian soil in 2004 - invited after the Bam earthquake. The bluster about Israel is almost all intended for domestic consumption. Some of what Israel's doing could also be posturing.

I remember way back, the Palestinian situation was not cast as a religious issue, it was about territory. Iran got into the "holy war" thing early, and emboldened Sunni Islamists. I think the Iranian people are sick of all that, they want to engage with the world ... but. They're probably pretty sold on their right to have nukes, after all their neighbors do. They'd see it as their sovereign right.

 

[leftysergeant]

Sorry if it's not obvious to me why Panetta mentioning the possibility of an attack increases the probability of that attack occurring. I would have thought the opposite. Can someone explain this to me?

If anything, I would think that Panetta was trying to through a monkey wrench into the gear box. One does not normally announce the time frame of a military operation one wants to succede.

 

[Travis]

I'm thinking this is part of a bluff.

Logistically how would Israel even pull this off? It's not like they have aircraft carriers in the Gulf.

 

[uk_dave]

....to walk the road of peace, sometimes we need to be ready to climb..... the mountain of conflict.

Simon Foster, MP (2009)

 

[tomasF]

Someone writing about Mideast affairs and they think Iran's an Arab country. Brilliant.

Wouldn't Israel just drop the bomb and not leak it through gossip?

Well at this point it seems more like they are discussing it in public. On talkshows, News Tv, the papers.

That's not just gossip, that's public discurse.

 

[geni]

Iran was funding Palestinian terrorists prior to Iraq invading.

eta: and I don't recall Iran ever vowing to destroy Iraq, make it no longer a country.

Different conflicts require different rhetoric. For most the duration of the Iran-Iraq war Iraq was clearly Iran's number 1 enemy by any reasonable definition of the term. Its questionably if Iran's leaders even dislike Israel that much rather than just viewing it as a convenient way to gain at least some allies in a region where people hate them by default.

 

[geni]

I'm thinking this is part of a bluff.

Logistically how would Israel even pull this off? It's not like they have aircraft carriers in the Gulf.

In-flight refuelling. Remember Britain was able to bomb the Falklands from the UK back in 82 on a shoestring in-flight refuelling set-up.

 

[Darth Rotor]

We got rid of Daffy and Mubarak largelybecause their own poeple rose up. This was also true, to very limitd sense in Iran.

If the Iranian people are not ready for a regime change, we would be steppping into the quagmire.

1. Who is this "we," Kimo Sabe?

2. In 2009, at least a portion of the Iranian people took to the streets and indicated a desire for regime change. Do you think they all just changed their minds? I don't think the US of A is going to try an Operation Iranian Freedom deal any time soon. Whatever change is to take place in Iran will come via other means. Each situation has its own logic.

Were Iranians, back in (to pick entirely at random) 1984 saying "Why are we bothering with these Iraqis, when everyone knows that Israel is our #1 enemy?"

One wonders.

I suspect that the Ayatollahs were then, as now, far more focused on "the Great Satan" which is their pet name for the United States of America. (Affectionate little buggers, aren't they?)

I seem to recall that in about 1985 there was a covert arms deal to the benefit of Iran via an agent getting F-4 parts from Israel to Iran for their fight with Iraq. Similarly, Israel did Iran a great favor (though I doubt that was their intent) by taking out the Osirak reactor in Iraq ... AFTER the Iran-Iraq war was in progress.

Things are not as simple as they seem, but in the past ten years, it seems to me that Iranian official political rhetoric has certainly made Israel a centerpiece of its complaints.

And Hezbollah, in Lebanon, is directly traceable to Hezbollah, in Iran, in terms of its lineage. Fourth Generation Warfare in Action. If you weren't sure, the recent news events citing the Iranians in Thailand undertaking attacks on Israelis for political purposes is a fine example of how 4GW works. Iran has been at it with Israel via less direct means since the early 1980s.

Hezbollah (literally "Party of God") is a Shi'a Muslim militant group and political party based in Lebanon.
Hezbollah first emerged in response to the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, during the Lebanese civil war. Its leaders were inspired by Ayatollah Khomeini, and its forces were trained and organized by a contingent of Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Hezbollah's 1985 manifesto listed its four main goals as "Israel's final departure from Lebanon as a prelude to its final obliteration," ending "any imperialist power in Lebanon," submission of the Phalangists to "just rule" and bringing them to trial for their crimes, and giving the people the chance to choose "with full freedom the system of government they want," while not hiding its commitment to the rule of Islam.
Hezbollah leaders have also made numerous statements calling for the destruction of the state of Israel, which they refer to as the "Zionist entity."

Travis:

I'm thinking this is part of a bluff.*

Logistically how would Israel even pull this off? It's not like they have aircraft carriers in the Gulf.

It may be a bluff, but if you make a leap out of the box, and presume that the Saudis would not mind seeing Iran taken down a peg, it is in the realm of the possible, even though unlikely due to OPSEC considerations, that the Saudi Government would permit an inflight refueling track to be set up in their airspace to make the strike possible.

Granted, the Saudis and Israelis don't exactly swap spit on a recurring basis, but they are both very concerned about Iran's various regional moves, for different reasons. The King could also deny, blah blah blah.

In other news, depending upon how the US is or isn't running Iraqi airspace, there might be a few holes in coverage that the Israelis could slip an aerial refueling scheme into. Tougher nut to crack, as I am pretty sure the Iraqi Powers That Be want NOTHING to do with such an undertaking.

I had at one point considered Turkey to be a way to do that, but the past year's rhetoric from Ankara closes that loop. The Turks have enough of their own muscle to deal with Iran, no need to stir up trouble by helping the Israelis. Also, Turks have Article V NATO protection to fall back on.

Which leaves Syria. Is Syrian air defense and air surveillance cohesive, or is their internal trouble creating holes there? How does this open an opportunity for the IAF to exploit? I seem to recall a few years back a raid into Syria that blew up "something" that was explained as a WMD site in Syria.
Maybe the Israelis have the Syrian Air Defense Network so well mapped out that they know how to sneak through with comparative ease.

Food for thought.

Bikewer:
Thanks for the link, even though it makes me depressed.

When Iran and Israel Were Friendly
http://www.salon.com/2012/02/15/when_iran_and_israel_were_friendly/singleton

Nice link, thanks. Some points there that are worth bringing up here:

Phantom fighter planes and weapons for the Iranian army were sent by Israel. One estimate puts Israel’s arms sales to Iran at $500 million annually.

In the mid-1980s Israel was the conduit between Iran and the Reagan administration during the illicit Iran-Contra affair in which the Reagan administration sold weapons to the Iranians and used the proceeds to fund the anti-communist insurgency in Nicaragua. Even as it was relying more on Israel for arms in its war, the Iranian regime increased its poisonous rhetoric attacking the Jewish state, just as the Shah had done. According to the Iranian-born Parsi, such rhetoric was meant to maintain credibility in the wider Muslim world, but wasn’t matched by action. “Israel is Iran’s best friend and we do not intend to change our position,” Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said in 1987.

Two events caused the gradual splitting between the erstwhile allies. First, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, removing the greatest threat outside of the region to both nations’ security. Second, the weakening of Iraq during the Persian Gulf War diluted its menace.

Interesting thought here: consider the law of unintended outcomes regarding the Operation Desert Storm/Gulf War of 1991.

This thread seems to be the child of some careless talk from Leon Panetta.
When all is said and done, Leon Panetta is the wrong man in that job.
He will do more harm than good before he's done.
My only piece of empathy for him is that NOBODY was going to be able to fill Gates' shoes. That gent was a one of a kind Sec Def.

 

[WildCat]

In-flight refuelling. Remember Britain was able to bomb the Falklands from the UK back in 82 on a shoestring in-flight refuelling set-up.

Even that is problematic. Do you see Iraq and other Arab states allowing Israeli tankers to linger in their airspace? They'd have to take the long way to Iran, over the ocean.

Then there's the issue of what to do once they get there. Israel has no heavy bombers, nothing that could carry the type of bunker buster needed to destroy Iran's underground facilities.

I think Israel is bluffing, they simply don't have the capability. The best they can do is continue their shadow war with Iran, sabotaging facilities and equipment with targeted assasinations of key Iranian nuclear experts.

 

[A'isha]

Iran was funding Palestinian terrorists prior to Iraq invading.

You're dodging.

When I asked you how you knew how Iran ranks its enemies relative to each other, you answered by "where they're spending their resources".

So, how has Iran spent its resources against Iraq, against Israel, and against the US, and how does that information point to the conclusion that Israel has "always" been Iran's "No. 1 adversary"?

eta: and I don't recall Iran ever vowing to destroy Iraq, make it no longer a country.

Iranian rhetoric against Iraq during the war, especially from Khomeini, was quite heated. Khomeini made no bones about the fact that he was going to wipe Saddam and his heretical Ba'athist regime off the face of the Earth (and, to a lesser extent, the monarchic regimes of Iraq's mideast allies).

However, because most Iraqis were (and are) Shia, like the Iranians themselves, and Khomeini hoped to sway them towards the cause of Iran and the Revolution and away from Saddam, he also clearly stated that he was not waging war against the Iraqi people themselves. Something that is not an aspect of Iran's rhetoric against Israel, for fairly obvious reasons.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

"War with Iran is Inevitable"

That requires a belief in the supernatural, doesn't it?

 

[A'isha]

Things are not as simple as they seem, but in the past ten years, it seems to me that Iranian official political rhetoric has certainly made Israel a centerpiece of its complaints.

Of course. And had the article in the OP (or Wildcat) stated things that way, I'd have certainly agreed.

But "in the past ten years, it seems to me that Iranian official political rhetoric has certainly made Israel a centerpiece of its complaints" is rather different from the claim that "Iran has always viewed Israel as its No. 1 adversary."

I'm pretty sure, for instance, that the civilians and government officials who were fleeing en masse from Tehran during the attacks of Saddam's Fifth War of the Cities weren't thinking about Israel.

 

[WildCat]

You're dodging.

When I asked you how you knew how Iran ranks its enemies relative to each other, you answered by "where they're spending their resources".

So, how has Iran spent its resources against Iraq, against Israel, and against the US, and how does that information point to the conclusion that Israel has "always" been Iran's "No. 1 adversary"?

If Iraq hadn't invaded Iran there would never have been an Iraq-Iran war. The war wasn't instigated by Iran.

However, Iran immediately set about making war on Israel immediately after the revolution despite Israel being no threat whatsoever to Iran. They attacked Israel without any provocation whatsoever.

To me, that says Iran thinks Israel is their primary adversary. YMMV.

 

[A'isha]

If Iraq hadn't invaded Iran there would never have been an Iraq-Iran war. The war wasn't instigated by Iran.

However, Iran immediately set about making war on Israel immediately after the revolution despite Israel being no threat whatsoever to Iran. They attacked Israel without any provocation whatsoever.

To me, that says Iran thinks Israel is their primary adversary. YMMV.

Have you read anything about the history of the Iran-Iraq War, and events leading up to it?

Iran started funnelling aid to Palestinian and Lebanese terrorist groups, in the immediate aftermath of the 1979 Revolution. They also started funnelling aid to Shia and Kurdish terrorist groups inside Iraq, and as early as June 1979 paired that with rhetoric urging the overthrow of Saddam and his Ba'athists. Sadegh Khalkhali (one of Khomeini's right-hand men and a leader of the Revolution, and the man who tried and executed Amir-Abbas Hoveyda, the Shah's last prime minister) said at the time, "We have taken the path of true Islam and our aim in defeating Saddam Hussein lies in the fact that we consider him the main obstacle to the advance of Islam in the region."

During this period (again, before Saddam's invasion of Iran), Iranian-backed terrorist groups in Iraq like al-Da'wa carried out an extensive bombing campaign, targeting government officials. In April 1980 alone, these Iranian-backed groups killed at least 20 Iraqi government officials, and had made unsuccessful attempts on the lives of Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and Information Minister Nusseif Al-Jasim. These murders were, in fact, part of the casus belli for Saddam's invasion.

How does that rate, on your adversary-o-meter?

 

[madfoot]

If you're trying to back Wildcat up in his support for the assertion that "Iran has always viewed Israel as its No. 1 adversary", you're not doing a very good job.

Do you have to take everything so literally? @_@

 

[WildCat]

Have you read anything about the history of the Iran-Iraq War, and events leading up to it?

Iran started funnelling aid to Palestinian and Lebanese terrorist groups, in the immediate aftermath of the 1979 Revolution. They also started funnelling aid to Shia and Kurdish terrorist groups inside Iraq, and as early as June 1979 paired that with rhetoric urging the overthrow of Saddam and his Ba'athists. Sadegh Khalkhali (one of Khomeini's right-hand men and a leader of the Revolution, and the man who tried and executed Amir-Abbas Hoveyda, the Shah's last prime minister) said at the time, "We have taken the path of true Islam and our aim in defeating Saddam Hussein lies in the fact that we consider him the main obstacle to the advance of Islam in the region."

During this period (again, before Saddam's invasion of Iran), Iranian-backed terrorist groups in Iraq like al-Da'wa carried out an extensive bombing campaign, targeting government officials. In April 1980 alone, these Iranian-backed groups killed at least 20 Iraqi government officials, and had made unsuccessful attempts on the lives of Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and Information Minister Nusseif Al-Jasim. These murders were, in fact, part of the casus belli for Saddam's invasion.

How does that rate, on your adversary-o-meter?

So Iran had issues with Saddam, but even engaged in a full-out war with Iraq they still armed, trained, and equipped Palestinian terrorist groups. They sought the destruction of Israel from Day 1 of the revolution.

Would you argue that during the Vietnam War the Soviet Union wasn't the USA's #1 enemy, North Vietnam was?

 

[geni]

Even that is problematic. Do you see Iraq and other Arab states allowing Israeli tankers to linger in their airspace? They'd have to take the long way to Iran, over the ocean.

What exactly do you think is between the UK and the falklands? Admittedly the weird fantasy we keep hearing about Saudi Arabia allowing them overflight rights suggests the Israeli air force may not be that competent.

Then there's the issue of what to do once they get there. Israel has no heavy bombers, nothing that could carry the type of bunker buster needed to destroy Iran's underground facilities.

Yes and no. You could mount a tallboy on an F-16 and the technolgy must have improved since WW2.

I think Israel is bluffing, they simply don't have the capability. The best they can do is continue their shadow war with Iran, sabotaging facilities and equipment with targeted assasinations of key Iranian nuclear experts.

Isreal needs to rebuild its reputation post Lebanon. Strong incentive to really find a way to pull it off.

 

[Mark6]

Even that is problematic. Do you see Iraq and other Arab states allowing Israeli tankers to linger in their airspace? They'd have to take the long way to Iran, over the ocean.

Not Iraq, considering how friendly it got with Iran lately (and isn't THAT a wonderful outcome of a ten-year war!). But Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar... yes, I can see them allowing Israeli tankers in. Secretly of course, as they will loudly denounce the attack.