According to Congressional officials familiar with the situation, President Trump has frozen a $105 million military aid package for the Lebanese Army, money which had been authorized by both the State Department and Congress, and called for by the Pentagon.
Officials had argued in favor of the aid in several ways, saying that the money was meant to make the Lebanese Army less reliant of Hezbollah’s military wings, and also that they need to keep up a bulwark against Islamist groups.
The freeze was decided recently by the White House, and both the State and Defense Departments only learned in the past few days. They say they are unclear if anyone has actually told Lebanon yet.
What few officials offered a comment just reiterated their department’s existing position. The State Department referred the matter to the budget office, which had no comment. The Pentagon referred all questions to the White House, and the White House similarly refused to comment.
Though Trump has been keen to cut foreign aid, there had been no previous indication Lebanon might be among those facing a cut, nor has there been any suggestion as to why they would be the next hit.
“Trump freezes $3.4 billion military aid to Israel”
Headline I’d love to see.
yep
Another preamble to a US war against Hezbollah in support of Israel.
While giving aid to the Lebanese military was supposed to “make the Lebanese Army less reliant of Hezbollah’s military wings”, the reality is that in the event of another attack by Israel on Lebanon, the Lebanese military would support Hezbollah in resisting.
Also, Russia has been offering Lebanon a “military cooperation agreement” which would allow the Lebanese military access to Russian military maneuvers as observers and other benefits. I don’t know whether Lebanon has accepted that deal. Supposedly the Lebanese Prime Minister has been postponing accepting that deal, but he has denied that recently. So the deal is still up in the air.
So stopping aid to Lebanon makes it easier for the US and Israel to threaten Lebanon. Trump is highly likely to support Israel directly in the next Israel-Hezbollah war.
Trump will support any rich person doing anything they want to do, but I don’t think he would participate in a war against any opponent who can defend themselves. That definitely applies to Lebanon with Hezbollah now.
Hezbollah is capable of keeping Israel out of Lebanon solely by virtue of their ability to devastate the Israeli economy by keeping most of the population in bomb shelters 24×7 for months as a direct result of the number of missiles they can deliver across much of Israel.
However, Hezbollah does *not provably* have the ability to defeat the Israeli military if the *full* force of that military were applied – which it was not in 2006 – *absent* that ability to devastate the economy.
That wouldn’t matter given they do have that capability. But if the US were to commit B-52 tactical bombing and a full air campaign and perhaps ten thousand US Marines in support of a full-scale Israeli assault, the tide might well be turned in Israel’s favor. Hezbollah does not have that many troops – a maximum of 45,000 depending on whose estimate one believes – nor does it have air power (albeit they do have anti-aircraft capability.) Hezbollah’s new tank battalion won’t last long against US Marines and air power. Probably quite a bit of their missile arsenal and underground bunkers would be taken out by B-52 strikes (as happened in Vietnam.)
And it may well be a bloody effort, but with ten thousand US Marines with full air support, and say, 100,000 Israeli soldiers out of the total 600,000 available (including reserves), in as many as 12 combined arms divisions, which are estimated to include 18 tank, 18 mechanized infantry, six armored infantry, seven reconnaissance, and six armored engineering companies, which means around 14,000 armored vehicles (tanks and APCs) committed directly to the front, Hezbollah’s 45,000 man force might well find itself in trouble.
It all depends on how committed Israel would be to ending the Hezbollah threat once and for all – or at least committed to trying.
But even if it didn’t, the fact remains that the goal of both Israel and the US neocons – that is to say, war with Iran – can not be achieved until Hezbollah is taken out. Which means neither country is going to back off from getting that war regardless of the risk of failing to defeat either Hezbollah or Iran.
So even if Trump won’t start such a war before the 2020 election, there will be absolutely nothing to stop him *after* the election. And should he lose, there will be nothing to stop the next warmonger in office.
Numbers on paper don’t mean much unless they’re deployed. Israel and any unlikely America forces only have 1 direction from which to attack, and that pathway is very heavily fortified by the Hezbollah militia. It’s true, if they attack in sufficient numbers, Hezbollah’s numerical disadvantage would show – they couldn’t hold out forever. However, in order to deploy 100,000 soldiers and marines, they’d make themselves very vulnerable to Hezbollah’s rocket artillery. They’d suffer thousands of fatalities.
It’s my understanding that for the Israeli public and their conscript army, this is unacceptable. For the neo cons, sure, 50000 US and Israeli dead would be a small price to pay to control the east Mediterranean. But the neo cons do not have that kind of political power. The Israel public don’t care how many Arabs die, but they won’t sacrifice their own sons for an unnecessary war – and Hezbollah has no intention of pushing Israel to start it.
There won’t be anywhere near 50,000 dead Israelis. In the 2006 conflict, which lasted a month (albeit with only a little ground combat until the last week), there was perhaps somewhere north of 100 dead and a few hundred Hezbollah.
In the new conflict, the US and Israel will be bombing Hezbollah heavily. Most importantly will be the US B-52 bombing, which is going to force Hezbollah to keep their heads down inside bunkers and reduce the level of missile launches they can initiate. Those B-52s can deliver 70,000 pounds of ordinance with much better accuracy than they did in Vietnam. That ordinance can dig twenty-foot-deep craters all over southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley..
It’s the one thing the US can supply that Israel doesn’t have and the one thing that can offset the Hezbollah missile arsenal, to a degree at least.
That air campaign would soften up Hezbollah considerably. The Israeli and US troops would only enter Lebanon once southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley are significantly softened. Then it would be a matter of routing the remaining Hezbollah out of any bunkers that survived the bombing campaign (which might be quite a few.)
That would be bloody, but not much different than the conflict in Iraq was. I would estimate US casualties at a few hundred, Israeli casualties at less than a thousand. Hezbollah casualties would be in the multiple thousands – and Lebanese civilian casualties would be in the multiple thousands as well. In 2006, a thousand Lebanese civilians died, and the new conflict, with its emphasis on heavy strategic bombers used tactically, will cause many more thousands to die.
Whether it would be a complete success is debatable, but if it even manages to suppress the majority of Hezbollah’s missile arsenal, that will be sufficient for Israel. They don’t need to destroy Hezbollah, just the majority of the missile arsenal. Once the threat of that Hezbollah ability to devastate the Israeli economy is degraded, Israel and the US can proceed to get the Iran war started.
The neocons most definitely have the power to get an Iran war started. Remember, it’s not just the neocons – the entire US establishment is itching for a war with Iran – the military-industrial complex, the oil companies, the banks who finance them, and most of Congress.
Neither the US nor Israel can achieve their most desired policy goals in the Middle East without taking out Iran. And only Hezbollah stands in their way. So they don’t have a choice. Hezbollah has to go – and then Iran has to go. It’s that simple. When you have this level of enmity between states, war is inevitable.
Israel said it lost 121 soldiers, Hezbollah said it lost 250 militiamen. Israeli casualties were low because they were being very, very careful. If you’re not careful in a conflict like that, you lose thousands and thousands of men very very quickly.
In 2006, Hezbollah only had unguided rockets. Now they have a lot of guided missiles and drones. That’s a big difference. They can hit back very hard.
B52s aren’t a magic wand. Yes, they can drop a lot of bombs. But they’re vulnerable to air defences, and there’s a lot of political cost to saturation bombing of civilians. The Western public still don’t see themselves as baddies. They don’t want that to change.
B52s aren’t magic – but they can devastate wide areas to twenty-foot depths. They are vulnerable to air defenses, but Hezbollah has relatively limited numbers of those and they are likely devoted to dealing with Israeli lower-level air attacks. The B52s can hit from very high altitudes these days and still be fairly precise with the new targeting mechanism.
You might want to read what the Joint Direct Attack Munitions can do. These aren’t just gravity bombs – they are gravity bombs that can be fired and guided by GPS from fifteen miles away.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Direct_Attack_Munition
Whether Hezbollah has antiaircraft missiles that can hit a B-52 at 40,000 feet is a big question. Most of Iran’s missile systems – other than the Russian S-300 and the Iranian variants – probably can’t – and Iran would be the source of any systems Hezbollah possesses. So the probability of Hezbollah shooting down B-52s at high altitude is much less likely than, say, Russia doing so using its S-400 systems.
As for civilian casualties, Israel caused a thousand Lebanese dead within four weeks last time. That was partly why the war stopped, due to international pressure – which the US ignored – and also due to those 121 casualties.
Again, everyone is assuming Israel and the US are just going to let Hezbollah slide forever because of the risk of attacking them. Hezbollah is not North Korea. They aren’t Russia and they aren’t China. They aren’t even Iran. They aren’t invulnerable or invincible.
And if Israel and the US want their domination of the Middle East – and everything they’ve done up to now to not be a waste of time – then they have to man up and do it. It’s that simple.
Indeed Hezbollah doesn’t have the resources of North Korea or Iran, but it isn’t totally alone. The main purpose of attacking it for Israel and the USA would be to open the path for overthrowing the Syrian government. The Syrian government know this, and might well intervene directly as they did in the 1982 when they fought tank battles with Israel. An s300 should have no problems shooting down a b52.
In terms of the usefulness of saturation bombing, the land area of Lebanon is 10,000 sq km. America’s entire conventional arsonal would probably be exhausted after destroying 10 or 20 sq km. This is why the massive artillery formations of ww1 never broke the trench lines – there are some problems that you simply can’t blow your way out of. A well equipped, well dug in infantry force with strong morale is one of them.
Assad is not an idiot. Neither he nor Russia will intervene directly against Israel and the US. That would give the US direct reason to attack Syria. This is not 1982. Only if the US and Israel deliberately extend the conflict into Syria will Syria and Russia respond directly.
The main purpose for attacking Hezbollah is not to overthrow Syria. The reverse is true. The US and Israel support of the jihadists in Syria was intended to wreck the Syrian military and justify the imposition of a US no-fly zone a la Libya, which would be used to destroy the Syrian government. That would allow Israel to attack Hezbollah by going through Syrian territory to hit Hezbollah in the Bekaa Valley, which is Hezbollah’s “defense in depth”, in a classic pincer movement.
There is no need to saturation bomb all of Lebanon. The Hezbollah missile arsenals are undoubtedly located in two main areas – Southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley – which are Hezbollah strongholds and closest to Israel.
And there is no comparison between WWI artillery and modern heavy strategic bomber ordinance. One B-52 can drop 70,000 pounds of bombs in one sortie.
They were used against Serbia but that was mostly ineffective except for some strikes where Serbian battalions were caught in the open. Most of the Serbian military assets survived because they were hidden in the mountains and forests across the entire country.
The Bekaa Valley is around 110 miles long and 9-16km wide with an elevation of 2,500 feet. It is a valley after all. Southern Lebanon has more varied terrain. Most of the villages are on hills separated by deep valleys. This is bad territory for armored columns unless they are heavily supported by infantry – something Israel failed to do in 2006.
But B-52s can literally “clear land” for miles, destroying all vegetation and trees in an area. I quote a comment from over at Colonel Pat Lang’s blog:
Bill Hatch said…
I would never want to be on the receiving end of a B-52 carpet bombing or “Arc Light” as they were called in VN.
I was a helo pilot at Quang Tri, 13 miles south of the DMZ. In the fall of 1968 we conducted a battalion troop lift into the DMZ. The mission
was to capture a NVA soldier in the DMZ so that Henry K would have a visual aid for the Paris talks.
Our LZ was to be prep’d by 3 Arc Lights. Each strike would consist a cell of 3 B-52’s. We were standing on the tarmac at Quang Tri watching the 1st Arc Light. Even though it was 13 miles away, the ground trembled under our feet. We manned our aircraft & loaded our troops & launched toward the DMZ. North of Dong Ha we dropped to tree top level. I could hear the tree tops hitting the belly of the aircraft. We approached the LZ just after the 3d Arc Light. There was red dust & smoke in the air. The ground was a moonscape of 20′ craters & uprooted, splintered trees. Occasional I’d catch a
glimpse of NVA soldiers in a crater lying flat on their backs firing their AK’s straight up into the air. Other aircrew reported seeing stunned NVA staggering about bleeding from their noses & ears. The only organized resistance that we had was NVA artillery from the north impacting in the LZ. The only damage to my aircraft was a broken
landing light & twigs in the landing gear.
The B-52 is an old aircraft; but, in a benign environment it is an awesome weapon of destruction.
End Quote
Here’s an article from 1991 about B-52s in Vietnam and in Iraq:
COLUMN ONE : B-52 Fears Echo From a
Past War : Vietnamese survivors of U.S. bombing recall the terror. But
they also caution against underestimating the endurance of America’s
current enemy.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-16-mn-1039-story.html
One point to note is that in 2006, Israel had a plan to destroy Hezbollah on the ground, by sweeping in with thousands of troops, isolating Southern Lebanon from the north to cut off re-supply, then search and destroy Hezbollah units. The key point is that Israel never executed that plan. The leaders decided to rely on air power and small unit operations against specific towns. That was fatal to Israel success.
Israel won’t repeat that mistake next time.
Hezbollah can expect a fair amount of their caches and bunkers that are outside the expected area of conflict to survive. That is why the US will commit troops to support Israel in ground operations. US forces don’t have to enter bunkers – they just have to find them – and bury whoever is in them. The US dealt with the Viet Cong in Vietnam who hid in bunkers, so this isn’t something new. The US will have operational plans and equipment detailed precisely to accomplish that goal.
Obviously no one can predict whether this operation will be as successful as either the US or Israel wants it to be. But I re-iterate that the US and Israel *have no choice*. They *have* to take on Hezbollah if they want Iran’s regional influence degraded.
And if they do, it’s not going to be a “win” for Hezbollah, even if it’s not a “win” for the US and Israel. Israel for its part can’t afford to lose a third time. It lost in 2000, it lost in 2006. It won’t stop until it “wins” – to whatever degree they think is a “win” – this time.
It’s quite profound that I disagree with basically everything you’re saying! By mentioning Vietnam and Serbia, you’re giving two examples of your favourite heavy warplane failing to provide victory.
The territory in Lebanon is very similar to that in Serbia – mountains, forests. The defending militia well organised, well dug in, well armed. The 16km by 110km bekaa valley is a total of 1760 sq km – that’s plenty of room to hide. And Hezbollah are not limited to that – they can move freely around the whole of Lebanon – and much of Syria. And they’ve got lots of allies in Iraq who’d love to have a pretext to attack the US bases there.
You’re saying the b52 is more powerful than ww1 artillery – that’s untrue. Ground artillery can deliver far more heavy bombardment than aircraft, even the b52. The 520mm French Schneider Howitzer fired 3,130 lbs shells. I bet it could fire more than 22 rounds in the time it takes for the b52 to load up, fuel up, take off, file to the target, carry out it’s bombing run, and return to base. Ground artillery is always more powerful than airstrikes when the target is in range. And it doesn’t matter – you don’t know where a dug in enemy is, they’re hiding, so they’ll survive any non- nuclear strike, and possibly even a nuclear one, and then they’ll come out and kill all your ground forces when you advance.
Maybe Syria would hesitate to attack US or Israeli forces in Lebanon – I’m not sure because Syrian air defences have been repeatedly shooting at Israeli targets over Syria and it’s quite likely an invasion of Lebanon would spill into Syria, especially with Hezbollah crossing the boarder so freely.
The Lebanese government, on the other hand, has been repeatedly vowing to fight any future Israeli invasion – and the Lebanese army has deployed to the south of Lebanon, so direct combat is unavoidable, Israel would not be at war with Hezbollah, but with all of Lebanon.
Air power doesn’t deliver victory, I’m well aware of that. What it can do – if B-52s are used – is destroy wide areas of cover and destroy bunkers. This enables ground troops to expose the enemy and root them out with artillery, tanks and manpower. In short, it requires competent use of combined arms. This is standard military doctrine today.
WWI is not relevant because heavy artillery is delivered from the ground – and is subject to counter-battery fire. If a force has air superiority – which the US and Israel does – it can deliver massive tonnage without fear of being destroyed itself. Hezbollah has no ability to shoot down B-52’s (as opposed to lower flying aircraft) – and Syria and Russia won’t.
I would also point out that Israel and the US can bring heavy artillery to bear on Hezbollah as well, once air power has exposed the targets. But as I also said, that isn’t necessary, either. All the US and Israel have to do is locate Hezbollah bunkers and tunnels and collapse them – as Israel has been doing to the Palestinians for years. In fact, Israel recently (allegedly) located Hezbollah cross-border tunnels. Both the US and Israel are quite competent at doing so.
The allies in Iraq who can attack US bases there are not relevant to a discussion of what happens in Lebanon. They are only relevant in an Iran war.
Hezbollah can move around Lebanon, and I expect that is how they will survive a combined US-Israeli attack. The problem for Hezbollah is that being forced north is the goal for Israel – to reduce the number of missiles Hezbollah has that can cover all of Israel. Whether that will work is problematic – but it can’t be discounted. And in any event, once again, that is the *goal* of Israel’s attack – which means they have no choice but to try. Which in turn means *any* capability Hezbollah has – short of nukes – is *irrelevant.*
Obviously Syrian air defenses can shoot at Israeli planes – as long as Russia is there to prevent Israel from attacking Syria any time Israel wants – which is what happened before Russia showed up. As I mentioned, the Lebanon conflict could spill over into Syria – quite likely, in fact. All that will do is subject Syria to US full-scale attack – *if* the US is willing to risk war with Russia. But neither Russia nor Syria will unilaterally attack Israeli aircraft attacking *Lebanon.* It is not their job to defend someone else’s country.
The Lebanese Army is not a serious factor. Their Air Force is irrelevant, as is their Navy. They have 65,000 men under arms which is barely more than Hezbollah – and they are probably much less motivated. Their workhorse “armor” is the M113 APC which is from the 1960’s – irrelevant against Israel 2,000 tanks. They also aren’t as dug in as Hezbollah. Even if they use Hezbollah’s fortifications with Hezbollah permission, they still aren’t going to successfully repel an Israeli invasion.
And if Israel really commits its forces, it can put more than 100,000 men into the field. So the notion that Hezbollah’s maximum 45,000 men – even with the assistance of the Lebanese Army – short the ones destroyed by the B-52s – can just rush out and kill all the Israelis is absurd. I repeat that Israel will suffer more casualties than they have in decades – but so will Lebanon and disproportionately more. That’s just the fact of the relative power of the forces.
Any conflict between Lebanon and Israel depends entirely on Hezbollah’s missile arsenal threatening Israel’s economy. Any mediation of that threat renders Lebanon virtually helpless against Israel. And it is precisely the US contribution of heavy bombers and additional forces (Marines, undoubtedly) that will help perform that mediation.
As a side note, the US has actually considered selling B-52s to Israel for precisely that reason – it is the one thing the Israeli military lacks to be dominant over all other forces in the region.
The bottom line is that Hezbollah is likely to survive a combined US-Israel attack – but it is going to pay a heavy price both in manpower and their stocks of missiles. As I indicated, Israel may pay the heaviest price in decades as well. The political cost may be the only reason Israel hasn’t moved until now.
But again, Israel has *no choice* if it wants Iran degraded in an Iran war. So all discussion of the cost is almost irrelevant, short of Israel risking an existential threat – which Hezbollah can not deliver other than economic (and neither can Iran.)
And if Israel decides to risk that economic threat – which it can only do with US help – then the US will have no choice but to join in. And then both countries will do what is necessary to insure that Israel does not succumb to that threat.
The bottom line: Don’t assume a country won’t attack another due to the alleged cost. Geopolitical considerations often over-rule common sense in history. And there is little common sense in both the Israeli and US elites.
I don’t think American air support is functionally any use to Israel. You can’t see an underground bunker from a b52. Israel already has the maximum airpower it can use, it already has all the drones it needs, it already has the maximum command and control. Israeli pilots have more battle experience than American pilots. Bringing in the US military would just lead to more Israeli casualties from friendly fire because American forces have a lower level of literacy and general education than Israeli ones.
As I see it, Israel has been effectively deterred. Of course they want to attack, they want to destroy their rivals. So do all regimes in history. But it’s not just the economic cost of war that deters them – it is also a matter of lives. They are less bothered about civilian casualties than military casualties because they have a citizen conscript army. They don’t want their sons to be blown apart for a neo con war. The worry that Hezbollah can possibly shoot Israeli civilians is less important than avoiding definite unnecessary losses amongst Israeli soldiers.
The B52 doesn’t have to see the target. The target is a wide area based on GPS coordinates. The B52 only has to blow everything up in that area – which at 70,000 pounds per sortie isn’t going to be hard.
Claiming that the US is going to cause more Israeli casualties is irrelevant.
Israel *is* deterred – without US help, Israel can’t dislodge Hezbollah alone. That’s my whole point.
And while the Israeli citizenry may worry about Israeli casualties, the Israeli ruling elites don’t – except for the effect on future elections – that they do care about. But if any Israeli government can destroy or damage Hezbollah – they get re-elected. Even if it costs them a thousand casualties.
And yes, they do care about getting rid of Iran – and Hezbollah – more than they care about their casualties. That is also true of every regime in history – including the US.
And probably very few Israeli civilians understand the intention of either the US neocons or the Israeli elites. Ninety-nine percent of US civilians don’t and I presume the same applies to Israeli civilians.
Basically your opinion boils down to that same bugaboo I harp on all the time here – cognitive dissonance. You can’t accept the likelihood of a new Lebanon war – let alone an Iran war – because it’s not emotionally acceptable. You can’t accept how corrupt or how willing ruling elites are to sacrifice civilian and military lives to achieve their goals.
I can.
In any event, we’ll see within the next couple years, I suspect. So I think we can conclude this discussion.
On the contrary, I strongly expected such wars during the Obama years. The rhetoric was all very strong and the pace of change rapid, particularly with the collapse of Libya and the mercenary war in Syria. That seemed very much to be a prelude to war with Lebanon and Iran. It made total sense then – to defeat Syria they had to rout Hezbollah, a key defender of the Baathist government. And to take on Iran they had to defeat both. When Obama was ratcheting up sanctions against Iran, calling for the downfall of the Syrian government, and the pro-Israel lobby was gagging for airstrikes, all the pieces seemed to fit together. There were even large scale demonstrations in Iran against the Iranian government, and the Russian economy was on the brink of collapse.
However, now they’ve totally missed this their moment. The Syrian government is stable and secure. Hezbollah is stronger than ever with new upgraded missile stocks. The Russian government is more strongly than ever allied with both Iran and China. Saudi Arabia is now on the defensive in its war on Yemen. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is fully occupied in his efforts not to be impeached, contemplating a major war in the Middle East is very far from his mind.
The signs of impending war are not subtle – they can be seen from far away, the build up of major armies and their munitions is rarely hidden from plain sight, and the same applies to the political movements that pave the way for it. Right now there’s no sign of this happening.
“Right now there’s no sign of this happening.”
Then you need to pay more attention to the articles on this Web site.
I really am – try this one! https://original.antiwar.com/hallinan/2019/11/06/the-new-middle-east-thats-coming/ “As Saudi Arabia slowly backpedals, we could see an end to the Yemen war, an easing of Iran’s isolation, and a reduced role for the U.S.”
Except that article really didn’t provide any evidence for those assertions. The US won’t have a “reduced role” in the Middle East until it loses the Iran war – and that will take ten or twenty years just like Afghanistan. In the process much of Iran’s civilian infrastructure will be destroyed, just like Iraq.
And the US military-industrial complex will profit accordingly.
It would only take 10-20 years if the USA managed to occupy Iran, I think any such invasion would be defeated in much less time than that
Maybe, maybe not. We know how the US hates to totally withdraw and admit defeat. Even if they have to withdraw any ground troops used in an invasion, they could still keep up the air war. As long as the military-industrial complex is making a profit…
So long as the war lasted, the Straits of Hormuz would be closed. That would put the invaders under huge pressure to get it done quickly, one way or another. Time would not be on their side, and even the MIC would not be able to withstand the pressure from the rest of the world to end the war.
Remember that during the first Gulf War, Saddam kept regular launching of scuds at Israel, despite a massive air campaign attempting to destroy his launchers. It’s extremely difficult to destroy mobile launchers, so the USA would not be able to reopen the Straits when any ship attempting to pass could be quickly sunk.
So long as the war lasted, the Straits of Hormuz would be closed. That would put the invaders under huge pressure to get it done quickly, one way or another. Time would not be on their side, and even the MIC would not be able to withstand the pressure from the rest of the world to end the war.
Remember that during the first Gulf War, Saddam kept regular launching of scuds at Israel, despite a massive air campaign attempting to destroy his launchers. It’s extremely difficult to destroy mobile launchers, so the USA would not be able to reopen the Straits when any ship attempting to pass could be quickly sunk.
With the Straits closed, the oil price goes up. The oil companies profit while the rest of the economy goes belly up. The MIC and the oil companies couldn’t care less about “pressure” – they own the politicians. Granted, over some years the electorate in Western countries will start voting some politicians out if things stay bad. The problem with that is that they will vote in the same corrupt clowns because that’s the only choices they will have.
Look at the Afghan war. The electorate has allowed that to go on for 18 years. Then they voted in Trump, who said he would pull out of unnecessary wars. How’d that work out for everyone?
There’s no doubt that a major war like this would end eventually – and possibly sooner than Afghanistan which was a small war. But the pressure will be both ways – to end it and to keep it going. Only if the electorate can finally seize control of the US government is it likely to end – and there are social issues that may prevent that.
I agree that Iran is likely to be able to keep launching missiles for years. They may run low – especially on mobile launchers – but there will be countries like Russia and China who will keep supplying them – and they can eventually keep building their own in underground factories although that will be hard to conceal. But depending on the logistics, the incidence of missile attacks after the initial weeks or months will dwindle down so that it won’t affect the outcome of the war. Missiles that aren’t nukes really can’t affect the outcome of a conflict. Only ground troops can do that.
Once the war starts, no ships will move in the Persian Gulf due to insurance issues. So it won’t matter that they can be sunk. The antiship missiles may run low eventually, but Iran has thousands of sea mines – estimated as many as 20,000, which is probably the largest mine arsenal in the world and certainly the region. The US can’t remove them. US mine ships are old *wooden* hull vessels that will be easily sunk. The last time the US did a mine-clearing exercise in the Gulf, they couldn’t find half the dummy mines used. So no ships will move while a serious mine risk remains.
The other thing to keep in mind is that this war is likely to expand to engulf all of the Middle East countries from Israel to Iran. That means major US military assets in all the countries involved, as well as in Israel. This war will cost probably four times what the Iraq and Afghan wars combined cost. That will tend to keep the conflict going even though it costs more.
All in all, I expect the war to go on for at least several years and probably a decade or two. But it may be the war that finally provokes the US electorate to outright revolt. That would be a good thing – if it ends up actually achieving anything, which is problematic. If we end up with a civil war in this country, that won’t be good, either, even if it ends the external wars.
And then of course there’s the risk of the US having to confront Russia and China. That would end the Iran war at the cost of WWIII. People think this risk will prevent an Iran war, but in my view the people who want the war are going to convince themselves that they can avoid that risk while still getting the benefits of an Iran war. Hitler thought one country could dominate the world. He found out that really wasn’t feasible. The nutcases who run Israel – and narcissistic lunatics like Trump and the power-crazies like Hillary Clinton – aren’t easy to dissuade once they get an idea in their heads.
Bottom line: Prognosis sucks.
The biggest beneficiaries of the oil price shooting up would be places link Russia still able to export oil. The biggest losers would be India and China and other places dependent on importing oil. Everyone would lose out from the world economy grinding to a halt.
Russia would be happy to let the war grind on as it exhausts America, and they can sell lots of oil and weapons to everyone. China however would probably sell to end the war early through America’s defeat by sending Iran all her latest anti aircraft and anti ship missiles, along with the most up to date radar and electronic warfare equipment and technology.
If America can’t approach Iran with ships, if her planes get shot down and her bases surrounding Iran are getting destroyed by drones, there’s no way America can keep waging war on Iran.
I don’t think the MIC has quite understood how precarious their position is now. Yes, they’ve still got the biggest guns. But that doesn’t mean they can do what they like – and a ground and rocket war in Asia is where they would be absolutely weakest.
I’m profoundly calm about the way this is heading. Except for the millions of lives probably at stake. It would be a very loud wake up call for the MIC, but I’m confident if it happens, it wouldn’t be a long war.
“Everyone would lose out from the world economy grinding to a halt.”
Not the oil companies. For them it’s windfall profit time. And not for the rich who can afford $20-30/gallon gas. And not for me, since I don’t drive. As long as Social Security keeps coming my way, I’m going to be just fine.
China and Russia will sell to Iran, perhaps, but the US would make extreme efforts to see to it that hardware never arrives. The US will have bombed the rail lines from every country into Iran – on the Iranian side of the border, of course – and since Iran would be under an embargo enforced by the US Navy and Air Force, nothing is going to get in.
Just because the US Navy can’t enter the Persian Gulf doesn’t mean they will let anyone else in, either. Iran isn’t going to be able to sink the entire US Navy, whatever you believe. All the US Navy has to do is move far enough out to render Iranian missiles useless, while still allowing Navy jets to fly their sorties. The Iranian Navy will be annihilated within the first week, except for their smallest boats.
And most of the US bases in the region outside of the UAE will continue to function just fine. B-52s and other strategic bombers can fly in from places Iran can’t reach, and hit targets from altitudes Iran can’t hit. Which, after a few months, isn’t going to leave much of Iran’s civilian infrastructure and any identified military infrastructure still standing.
Of course, that won’t stop or defeat Iran’s military per se. But you keep forgetting how much damage the US Air Force and US Navy can do on their own with aircraft and cruise missiles. Iran won’t be able to shoot down *all* US aircraft or even the majority regardless of how well developed their indigenous antiaircraft defenses are. That’s what US satellites and cruise missiles are for – to take out every Iranian radar installation in country – and they will. You can’t hide radar installations – even mobile ones – once their signals are up. And your radar does you no good if your antiaircraft missiles can’t hit targets at the highest altitudes.
If you think it won’t be a long war, I can only say I hope you’re right – and that Iran comes out on top.
But Iran is going to take one hell of a hit before it ends. And I sincerely doubt anyone in the MIC is going to take an equivalent hit.
Indeed, Iran can’t destroy the entire US Navy, and it lacks the ability to shoot down stealth bombers, or for the matter advanced fighters which fly very carefully below the radar. However, they don’t have to. They only have to sink one or two ships and the US Navy will stay well away – no target in Iran is worth as much as a single US frigate and its 200 crew. The US navy will stay at least 2000 km away from Iran’s shores.
If you want to know how the US air force would attack Iran, look at the way Israel has been attacking Syria. Low flying F-16s hit a target and run. It would be a lot harder when attacking Iran though, because the F-16s will be flying from much further away and would have to go through much more Iranian territory to reach their target. They’d be stationed at airbases as far away as possible to avoid Iranian drones, cruise and ballistic missiles.
This is a serious problem for the US because most US firepower isn’t on these small hi-tech fighters, it is in the B52s as you point out, and even more so in the A-10 Warthogs, which are massively effective close support weapon systems. However, Iranian S300s would shoot down the B52s very easily, regardless of how high they fly, S300 rockets go higher and faster, and warthogs can’t be used against an opponent with even the most superficial air defenses. They’re propeller planes, good against the Taliban and other low-tech militias, not against an actual nation state.
In Syria, those B52s have only been used to carry cruise missiles into range, and then fly away without actually getting close. That’s how the US would attack Iran, from a distance, or flying low. And even those cruise missiles won’t be very effective – they’re subsonic with rather predictable flight paths, and they can’t fly below radar like suicide drones.
In terms of Iranian radar, yes it would get shot up when they turn it on – but not before Iran shoots back. US forces would only be able to shoot at it from a distance, because they can’t risk their flashy expensive planes cruising over Iran waiting for a target to reveal itself. Radar is cheap, it’s a 1930s technology. If it gets blown up, they’ll just replace it.
Iran’s strategy would be to shower US bases in range, bunker down, take pot shots at targets that come within range, but if the US actually presents a big target like a proper land incursion, strike with overwhelming force and weight of numbers. For this, they’ve built up a decentralised command and control system with a high level of redundancy in their communications network. The US can take out one or many HQs, and through everything it has at Iran’s communications, but Iran will just switch from one system to then next and one HQ to the next. They’ll still have full control of their military. They can do all this with low tech means – they don’t have to compete with the US in the high tech field.
The biggest danger for the US in such a war though wouldn’t be what the US throws at their own troops, or the impact on the world economy. It would be what Iran might be able to do to US allies. The House of Saud may not be as secure as Washington would hope – Iran could send its allied militias in Iraq to rush into Saudi Arabia at high speed, occupying Saudi cities, and the Saudi military might melt away and disappear in just the same way as the Iraqi military in Mosul did when ISIS stormed them. If the House of Saud fell, America’s war would be really, really over. They’d have no bases left to run their war from. Their invasion plans would be like Monty Python’s dead parrot sketch – are you familiar with that one?
” Israel and any unlikely America forces only have 1 direction from which to attack [Syria]”
What direction would that be? I can think of at least two (from the Mediterranean, and from an Iraqi regime that might bitch about US troops operating from/transiting their territory but probably wouldn’t do more than stand aside and let militia/insurgent forces do what they could).
From the Mediterranean – Hezbollah would love that. It would make the dday landings look like a walk in the park. The Nazis never had the rocket arsonal Hezbollah has.