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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran | |
| Iran's Military No Match For U.S. | |
| 2004-12-24 | |
"Whatever plans have been announced and whatever grandiose reports have sometimes surfaced, Iran has not been able to acquire significant numbers of modern aircraft," Anthony Cordesman, a senior researcher at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said. "It has not been able to reconfigure and rebuild its major surface ships. It has imported surface-to-air missiles, but some of those missiles are more than a quarter of a century old in terms of design and technology." Addressing a seminar on Iran's military power, Cordesman, a former senior Defense Department official, said Iran has been unable to develop sensors and command and control systems required to fight a war against the United States. Iran spends about $3 billion a year for defense, less than one-sixth of the expenditure of Saudi Arabia. | |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #20 More Zionist plots to kill more Americans for the state of Israel -- visit A merican D efense L eague dot com -- no spaces. |
| Posted by: Spemble Whaimp3886 2004-12-24 11:03:05 PM |
| #19 More Zionist plots to kill more Americans for the state of Israel -- visit A merican D efense L eague dot com -- no spaces. |
| Posted by: Spemble Whaimp3886 2004-12-24 11:03:05 PM |
| #18 More Zionist plots to kill more Americans for the state of Israel -- visit American Defense League dot com -- no spaces. |
| Posted by: Spemble Whaimp3886 2004-12-24 11:01:42 PM |
| #17 More Zionist plots to kill more Americans for the state of Israel -- visit American Defense League dot com -- no spaces. |
| Posted by: Spemble Whaimp3886 2004-12-24 11:01:42 PM |
| #16 More Zionist plots to kill more Americans for the state of Israel -- the truth will set you free! |
| Posted by: Spemble Whaimp3886 2004-12-24 10:59:03 PM |
| #15 More Zionist plots to kill more Americans for the state of Israel -- the truth will set you free! |
| Posted by: Spemble Whaimp3886 2004-12-24 10:59:03 PM |
| #14 Well, maybe it wasn't such a Good Idea for the Wahabbi and like minded people to start spreading the same blood libel lies against Israel and America at the same time. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2004-12-24 11:42:37 PM |
| #13 More Zionist plots to kill more Americans for the state of Israel. |
| Posted by: Spemble Whaimp3886 2004-12-24 11:03:59 PM |
| #12 The putative militia of the Iranians ( the rabble of impressed 'soldiers' ) would be easy to break. And you only need to break one unit in order for the right result to spread throughout an army unit ( panic and/or desertions ) The Iranian Army faces logistical problems of gathering these 'volunteers', getting them to the front, getting them prepared for a human wave attack against a highly trained, highly mobile, highly motivated military which will be deploying snipers, paid black operatives, and a high degree of battlefield intelligence from the air, from space and from captees(sp?). Smart elements of the Pasdaran have already likely realize that the WWI sryle battle tactics used against Iraq will only get the cadres of units captured and killed, and their charges deserting. When, not if, but when that happens, the religious authority have only their own professional military to rely on, and that is when politics could come into play. Professional Iranian Army officers likely already know just how badly they will be beat in the event of an US invasion, and may well already have their own eyes and ears out for a way out. We should start now letting them know there is. Iranian Army officers would much rather plan to have a parade than to fight in a battle they know they will lose. |
| Posted by: badanov 2004-12-24 10:05:54 PM |
| #11 Considering the 04' US Defense Expenditure tops $400 Billion, we can easily see how grossly mismatched Iran would be if they picked a fight with the Bald Eagle!! |
| Posted by: smn 2004-12-24 10:01:01 PM |
| #10 And we have better (faster rate of fire) machine guns, too, heh. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-12-24 8:26:49 PM |
| #9 I was just reading something written by "Robert X. Cringely" around the time of the election; he recounted a time when he was covering the Iran-Iraq War, and witnessed a bayonet charge by Iranians against the Iraqis, where several battalions got out of the trenches and marched into machine-gun fire, dying to absolutely no real effect (the stated intended effect was to "intimidate the cowardly Iraqi soldiers.") He therefore concluded that there was nothing whatsoever we could do against such believers, and therefore the Bush Doctrine would never work. (Of course, he wouldn't suggest anything that would work... and I don't think he's figured out that surrender would mean converting...) He seems to be oblivious to the possibility that the soldiers in question (most of them in their early teens) might have committed suicide under orders for a different reason than those stated by the mullahs: to keep their own families from being killed, and that the mullahs might have done it for a different reason: killing off large numbers of the segment of the population most likely to overthrow them. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2004-12-24 8:20:50 PM |
| #8 Iran’s Military No Match For U.S. BG |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-12-24 7:30:42 PM |
| #7 thks Badanov. From my talks with Iranian expat engineers, the country's ripe for tipping. They talk/travel back to visit, and say it's worse than we ever hear... the populace wants freedom |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-24 3:42:31 PM |
| #6 Here you go, asshole. As I said, what I wrote was speculation. |
| Posted by: badanov 2004-12-24 3:19:36 PM |
| #5 Can you provide support for this statement? |
| Posted by: gromgorru 2004-12-24 2:59:07 PM |
| #4 My understanding is that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRG) ( AKA Pasdaran ) are a religious element in Iranian military life, like the Soviet Commisar system in the Soviet Union 1921-91. Being that, Pasdaran ground units are called Pasdaran when they have at least one battalion per Brigade. I do not known if there is a mullah attached to Iranian command staff at any level, but, speculating here, it would seem prudent to keep IRG infleunce in as many units as possible. So, a Brigade Mullah could have a staff that does this sort of thing in regular army units, or the obverse: Brigade Mullahs are like chaplains and there is a seperate additional staff representing the religious authority in Iran. I would say that if the second instance is true, not only is the Iranian army a worthless rabble, but units are far more likely to stand down/surrender in the event of an invasion. You know: make the Mullah's staff take a one way vacation, courtesy of Mr. Makarov Express... |
| Posted by: badanov 2004-12-24 1:20:47 PM |
| #3 I'd bet they have learned how to build IEDs. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-12-24 1:01:21 PM |
| #2 Anonymoose: I guess that depends on how thoroughly the regular military has been purged of potential coup plotters. I don't know if the Iranian regulars are saddled with commissars, like the Soviet military; if not, there might be a secret cabal of officers concerned with maintaining the independence of the military from the state, much as the German army did between the wars. Perhaps if it came to a real crisis the Iranian army would confine itself to barracks or even side with, say, student insurgents. It would be nice to think that CIA/SIS are in contact with such a cabal, but I'm not optimistic. |
| Posted by: Jonathan 2004-12-24 12:51:47 PM |
| #1 So the bottom line is the Iranian leaders, those amazing priests who gleefully sent tens of thousands of their countrymen as infantrymen to be slaughtered by Saddam's mechanized infantry. Men who are so delusional they believe that *most* of the US defense budget is spent to arm Israel, and that the Iranian navy controls the Arabian Gulf. Will the Iranian military take over the government to prevent the destruction of their country, or has nuclear fever spread to them, too? |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-12-24 12:28:01 PM |