War between Israel -v- Iran & Co (merged threads)

[Dayuhan]

Now you do understand that for the military contingency planners everything remains "on-the-table" don't you?

Everything is not on the table. We're not going to go nuclear and we're not going to invade. We know it and the Iranians know it.

Your opinion seems to be that Israel is expendable. Further that a disruption to Middle Eastern oil supplies to the US of around 2.5-3 million barrels per day would not affect the US nor be in its interests to secure. Interesting train of thought.

An alternative opinion might be that a nuclear-armed Iran could be contained in the same way that the nuclear-armed Soviet Union was contained, or China, or North Korea... by the assurance that first use of the weapon would result in absolute destruction. It's worked before.

Given the Israeli capacity for retaliation and the lack of any possible gain to Iran even if a strike on Israel were successful, an attack on Israel doesn't seem a likely eventuality.

I'm an ex-Navy Air Force guy who has participated in real-world contingency planning. I know the process. What I am saying is that air strikes aren't going to get you there. We can wreck a lot of things in Iran with air power - we can pretty much destroy their air force, navy, air defense and economy, but the idea that air power can take out Iran's nuclear program is wishful thinking. Air strikes won't get you there - all they'll do is degrade Iran's capabilities. This isn't Entropy's classified assessment or Entropy blowing smoke or Entropy lacking the cajones. The Chairman of the Joint Chief's has publicly said the same thing, the SECDEF too, as have numerous military experts on the topic and others who are in positions to know.

Thank you; I hope that is clear enough to settle that issue.