Let's Be Realistic For A Moment
Could Iran win an asymmetric naval war against us?
I am 100% sure a cocky, unprepared, bloated army can lose to a dedicated, fast, smart army in a limited war. Positive. But let's not blow Iran's military might out of proportion, okay? This is a country who fought to a stalemate against Saddam's Iraq from 1980-1988. In two wars against Saddam, we drove him out of Kuwait in under a month and then, 10 years later, deposed his entire regime in 3 weeks. We whooped Saddam's army and this is the army Iran couldn't defeat in 8 years of fighting. During it, they conscripted children to either fight or search for mines. I know they've gotten more sophisticated since then and you should never underestimate an enemy...but you also shouldn't overestimate an enemy. Wars have nearly been lost because of it - see the Civil War.
And don't think I'm underestimating the insurgency. I don't consider the insurgency Saddam's army since it never was in his control. I don't underestimate Bin Laden or Al Queda or the use of asymmetric warfare by non-state actors - these guys are serious fighters and we need to take them seriously. Maybe states will adopt their tactics effectively - but also let's be clear about this as well - since 9/11, they haven't been able to deal us a blow. They drove us out of a few places in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan, but we've gotten most of the Iraq places back.
3 comments:
You forgot to mention that in the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq was aided and abetted by the United States. Would Iraq have been able to survive that war without US aid? Probably not. In fact, that war merely delayed the inevitable: a full-blown Shia influence into Iraqi politics. Makes sense, considering the population...
Also, what does that war's stalemate say about Iraq's military back then? They needed help from a major world power just get a draw. In Iran's case, Soviet aid was very limited, and no where near the scale of US aid to Iraq, so the standard Cold War proxy wars don't have the same basis of comparison. In fact, because of Soviet involvement in Afghanistan, their meddling with another Islamic country would have worked well for them. But I'm stating the obvious here. Apologies.
The US's victory over Saddam both in 1991 and 2003 is akin to the Dream Team whipping Angola's ass. I say this because I don't want folks to underestimate Iran's present day potential based on a decades-old war. Given China and Russia's economic ties to Iran, the Iranians would prove to be a formidable adversary if the US were to tussle with them. Even if it were only through air strikes.
So, ultimately, I disagree with you. I think it's almost always better to overestimate one's adversary -- it keeps you on your toes and fights back against myopic arrogance.
But, let's hope it doesn't come to that...
P.S. Your original post went online last night at 9:11 pm... Giuliani would be proud.
Naveen makes a fair point, although I'm not sure how much help we provided Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. Certainly our assistance was limited to money and perhaps arms - we weren't training the Iraqi army and definitely didn't have troops on the ground.
I think our "support" of Iraq was more similar to our "support" of Israel in the Hezbollah-Israel war in 2007 - where we financially support one side - but don't have any troops or advisers on the ground, than say, our "support" of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan where we've got agents in place running specific weapons to specific groups for specific use, ie Stingers to shoot down Hinds.
But I'm not sure about this, I'll need to read more.
I remember in the build up to the first Iraq war everyone was sure Saddam was going to be a tough adversary because he had the fourth largest standing army in the world. I remember my US history teacher in 7th grade explaining how Iraq was a weaker fighter, but was almost certainly going to get in some punches. Safe to say now, those predictions were wrong.
Anyhow, I'm not an advocate of war with Iran. I'm an advocate of running out the clock against the mullahs, but like Obama, think the acquisition of a nuke is a regional game changer. I think the most likely scenario is Israel's preemptive strike against Iran's facilities should they get close. There's no way Israel can afford an Iran with a nuke. Israel is a tiny country of 6 million people and an Iranian nuke poses an existential threat.
It's all a very tricky situation. Should a war erupt, Russia and China's interests in Iran certainly will need to be weighed because getting bogged down in a proxy war against those two would not be good for us. But again, I think it's worth reiterating - overestimating your enemy can have negative consequences, just as much as underestimating. To use the dream team example - the later dream teams faced European and South American opponents who weren't intimidated by the US stars and ended up beating them in the Olympics in 2004. Had they bought into the hype, they could of easily folded. I'm certainly not advocating a myopic arrogance, but simply trying to paint as accurate a picture as possible. Al Queda is actually an example worth looking at: certainly prior to 9/11 we underestimated their abilities - wrongly. But it could (and has been) argued after 9/11 - we've greatly overestimated their abilities and consequentially are bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And the civil war is the most obvious example where in the first two years, the Union generals were afraid of taking large losses and failed to take the initiative against the south who was almost always numerically disadvantaged. A more aggressive, less worrisome, and more accurate assessment of their adversary would have shortened the war.
I think all that stuff about Saddam having a "formidable" military in the run-up to the first Iraq War was the US military playing the media with an expectations game. Publicly, the US raised the standards of their adversary, but behind closed doors, they had the accurate intelligence on what Saddam's true force abilities were (or lack thereof), and neutralized him quickly.
The US is not going to get involved with a boots-on-the-ground military invasion into Iran. They will either use Iraq as a staging ground for strategic strikes, or use Israel as a proxy to take out Iranian nuclear development sites (as you already know, this is something Israel has done before in the early '80s against Iraq).
And yes, the later "Dream Teams" were defeated by their opponents in 2004 -- and yes -- those opponents did not buy into the Dream Team hype. But, the actual "Dream Team" DID buy into their own hype of being the best, and thus underestimated their opponents. That 2004 team was also a team divided and -- to my great dismay -- poorly coached by Larry Brown.
Anyhow, my point is that given the binary situation of underestimating vs. overestimating, I'd rather overestimate my adversary, if only to keep me ultra focused on the task at hand.
It's a good topic of discussion, though. I'm glad you started the thread.
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