Hypothetical Situation: US goes to war with Iran, Iran declares war on Iraq

[ck4829]

There is a lot of bad blood between Iraq and Iran, that's for sure.

So I'm wondering what would happen if the Bush Administration, in it's infinite wisdom, decides to go to war with Iran and Iran responds by declaring war on Iraq and US interests over there as well.

Everybody seems to be saying that it would be mainly an aerial bombardment to strike at Iran's defenses and air force, however no mention is made of Iran's ground forces, navy, or paramilitary forces (Which is about 11 million strong).

Iran could run right across the border and begin attacking the extremely weak Iraq as well as US interests, it could also form a blockade of supplies to Iraq and US interests through the Strait of Hormuz.

There's a strong possibility that this could happen:
The two already hate each other
US has bases in Iraq, if the US attacks Iran and Iran wants to play on the offense, then it will be very easy

Hopefully there won't be a war with Iran at all, that's all we need, another quagmire and more innocent people getting murdered.

[bryant69]

1. I have to assume that whatever fantasies the Bush Administration might hold

as well as it's allies in think tanks and the press, there's no way we can bomb them into submission. Once we start it will escalate probably along the lines that you suggest.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[JackRiddler]

2. Just one question

Why would Iran declare war on Iraq?

Perhaps that would be the talking point on FOX. But the Iranians would describe it exactly as the Americans did, and perhaps with greater credibility, as the liberation of Iraq (from the foreign invaders who first destroyed the nation and in the aftermath followed a divide and conquer strategy, knowingly creating a situation of genocidal chaos).

[Fredda Weinberg]

4. Greater Persia?

They've had an empire before - and there's oil reserves to consider. If Iraq dissolves, the pieces may seek allies they can tolerate. We've seen Iraqi politicians move freely between the two neighbors.

[Fredda Weinberg]

3. So the national borders get redrawn ... oil wealth gets redistributed

which is (pun intended) the fuel behind the middle east conflicts. Does anyone doubt anymore it's the reason we're there?

[JackRiddler]

8. "Ethnic cleansing works." - Ralph Peters

THIS MAP WAS DRAWN UP TO ACCOMPANY AN ARTICLE IN ARMED FORCES JOURNAL LAST SUMMER BY RALPH PETERS (LEADING NEOCON THEORIST):


Original article:
http://live.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/06/1833899

Blood borders
How a better Middle East would look
By Ralph Peters

QUOTES:

International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference — often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war.

The most arbitrary and distorted borders in the world are in Africa and the Middle East. Drawn by self-interested Europeans (who have had sufficient trouble defining their own frontiers), Africa's borders continue to provoke the deaths of millions of local inhabitants. But the unjust borders in the Middle East — to borrow from Churchill — generate more trouble than can be consumed locally.

(MEANING: WHICH IS WHY SELF-INTERESTED EUROPEAN-AMERICANS SHOULD NOW RE-DRAW THE MAP)

While the Middle East has far more problems than dysfunctional borders alone — from cultural stagnation through scandalous inequality to deadly religious extremism — the greatest taboo in striving to understand the region's comprehensive failure isn't Islam but the awful-but-sacrosanct international boundaries worshipped by our own diplomats. (...)

Yet, for all the injustices the borders re-imagined here leave unaddressed, without such major boundary revisions, we shall never see a more peaceful Middle East.

(HOW DO BORDERS GET RE-DRAWN IN PRACTICE? DUH...)

(...) As for those who refuse to "think the unthinkable," declaring that boundaries must not change and that's that, it pays to remember that boundaries have never stopped changing through the centuries. Borders have never been static, and many frontiers, from Congo through Kosovo to the Caucasus, are changing even now (as ambassadors and special representatives avert their eyes to study the shine on their wingtips).

Oh, and one other dirty little secret from 5,000 years of history: Ethnic cleansing works.

My favorite of the Peter Countries is the generic "Arab Shia State" that happens to incorporate all of the richest oil areas of both Iraq and Iran, and wraps around most of the Gulf Coast. And do I see an important future ally to the American interest in stability and democracy, blah blah?

This Peters -- who I think may qualify under international law, at least by the Nuremberg standard, as a planner of war crimes and genocide just on the basis of proposing this map to the military-industrial complex as a good idea -- he can't even come up with a name for it! That's how much he cares.

---

The "Clean Break" document prepared by Perle and Co. in 1996. The PNAC plan for the Middle East, involving all of the top architects of the later Iraq invasion. Now Ralph Peters with the above map. They do not keep their idea secret: the ME should be broken up into new, smaller, more manageable states who are at war with each other. The US will attempt to manage this checkerboard, and make sure the units who control the most oil are peaceful and "friendly."

Never mind that this is hubris and it's not going to work. The heart of the matter is that this was always the plan.

The Iraqi "civil war" is the intended result of US policy in Iraq. It is what Cheney and Rumsfeld expected (barring the greeted-with-flowers scenario, which they understood was bullshit to sucker Americans).

The invasion,
the killing of untold thousands by bombing from the air,
the poisoning of the country with Depleted Uranium,
the destruction of Iraq’s energy and water infrastructure and the cultural treasures of Mesopotamia,
the torture of civilians and its media reception in Iraq, an outrageous affront to their identity and dignity,
the British and presumably American false-flag attacks,
the lies about foreign insurgents and the propaganda construct "Zarqawi",
the creation of death-squads in an Interior Ministry known to be little more than a haven of deputized Shi'a militias,
the arming of different factions by Saudi and Iranian backers...

all of this was expected, encouraged, and welcomed by the real US policy.

The idea was always to create a situation in which the Iraqi people kill each other, and then to pretend that "golly gee, we were incompetent and accidentally started a civil war among these crazy ethnic groups! But now we have to stay and make the best of it…."

[wtmusic]

12. But whatever you do, don't compare them to Nazis

or you automatically lose the argument. :eyes:

onedit: seems one could argue that ethnic cleansing not only doesn't work, but caused the mess in the ME.

[JackRiddler]

13. Well, there are so many other examples...

Romans, Assyrians, Mongols... history is full of charming empires.

[Nimrod2005]

5. WRONG: We attack Iran, Iran declares war on Saudi Arabia, Al Qaeda, Taliban, Hizballah all join Iran

All Shiites in Iraq will side with Iran

[havocmom]

6. What do Russia and China do?

There are insane people in charge of things in the US and the Air Force brass is full of fundy whackos

I keep seeing the end of Dr. Strangelove in my head.

[Moochy]

7. They have been having joint exercices

and not the kind they have up at humboldt state! :)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/17/world/main3178499.shtml

(Christian Science Monitor) This article was written by Fred Weir.

After a newly self-confident, oil-rich Russia teamed up with China in joint military exercises Friday, it is moving to reclaim the former Soviet Union's status as a global military power.

A seven-year, $200-billion rearmament plan signed by President Vladimir Putin earlier this year will purchase new generations of missiles, planes, and perhaps aircraft carriers to rebuild Russia's arsenal. Already, the new military posture is on display: This summer, Russian bombers have extended their patrol ranges far into the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, forcing U.S. and NATO interceptors to scramble for the first time since the cold war's end.

"Diplomacy between Russia and the West is increasingly being overshadowed by military gestures," says Sergei Strokan, a foreign-policy expert with the independent daily Kommersant. "It's clear that the Kremlin is listening more and more to the generals and giving them more of what they want."

[Javaman]

9. You forgot that Syria would probably declare war on Iraq/US

and that Lebanon would probably try to remain neutral, but the hezbolla would no doubt launch an attack on Israel and stage cross border attacks into Iraq. Israel would in turn declare war on all those against the US along with war against their traditional enemies. The Saudi's would stay out of it but would boost their funding to alqueda, while a few nations in Africa would offer their token support for Iran as well as a few southeast asian nations.

China and Russia would scramble their forces and more than likely move some of their navy's close by to "protect" their interests aka oil and nuke power.

I see incursions into northern afghanistan by Chinese troops.

Iran doesn't have to block anything in the straights, all they have to do is lob one large missile at the Basra port and that would be that. Everything would be shut down for months.

If they wanted to duke it out with our navy in the gulf, fine but they would only halt traffic successfully with the sunken hulls of their ships clogging up things.

If anything they will fake an attack in the straights and go for the main artery in basra.

On top of that, the various militias in Iraq that are sympathetic to the Shia there will erupt and that would cause a world of shit in the rear for the US.

[JackRiddler]

10. Syria would declare war?

Surely you got that wrong, and meant to say that Israel would take the opportunity to attack Syria?

[Javaman]

11. Sure without a doubt...

but they may not declare war in the traditional sense but I do see them aiding anyone that is against the US.

Israel has been itching for a long time to get Syria. Syria supports Hezbolla, so therefore, that's all the reason Israel needs.

More than anything, I would see any attack by the US against Iran as an excuse for any nation in that region to support, attack, get a few punches in, etc. All in the name of "peace". LOL

[Johnny Appleseed]

14. Shiites control the country now...

in fact, you can see district by district in Baghdad how all the sunni areas are slowly being removed... thus the lull in sectarian violence. Iran, being Shia dominated, has no reason to attack Iraq. The kurds to the north might be a different story, and they've practically established a country within a country by now. I suppose Iran could maybe go after them.