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Iran wouldn’t surrender

So is the scenario of a U.S. attack on Iran, with or without Saudi Arabian and Israeli help, still as hopeless a project as it was ten years ago? The United States could certainly bomb all of Iran’s military and industrial facilities to rubble. But this would not force the Iranians to surrender, nor would it prevent Iran’s sea-skimming missiles, fired from mobile launchers anywhere along 3,000 km of coastline, from stopping all the tankers going into and out of the Persian Gulf. (They carry about 20 percent of the world’s oil.) So in the end it would have to be ‘boots on the ground’, just as Zinni said – but the ground war is unwinnable too. Iran’s army is about the same size as that of the United States, but it could quickly expand to ten times that size with volunteers, just as it did during the U.S.-backed Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980-88. The Iranian volunteers would be poorly armed and they would die in droves, but if only one American soldier died for every ten Iranians, the U.S. public would quickly reach its maximum tolerance level for American casualties. It would be a high-speed replay of the Vietnam war, and the US would lose again. On Tuesday, they wheeled out Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan to say it’s OK. Don’t panic. The grown-ups are still in charge. Our timely threats have deterred the Iranians from doing the evil things they were planning to do (or rather that we said they were planning to do), and so there’s no danger of a war. I’d really like to believe him. But actually, nobody’s in charge.

Simulations prove we can’t win

Henry Holloway, 7-7-2019, award-winning reporter for Daily Star Online, "US military simulation shows Iran would WIN war against them," Dailystar.co.uk, https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/790053/iran-us-war-simulation-millennium-challenge-red-team-gulf-oil-tankers-donald-trump//HM

Iran and the US are at each other's throats amid a new wave of tensions in the Gulf. US officials have accused Iran of attacking tankers, and Iran has shot down a US drone flying near the the Strait of Hormuz. It is feared the row – which was initially sparked by the axing of nuclear deal and imposition of crushing sanctions by Donald Trump – could erupt into a hot war in the Middle East. And the US may do well to remember a military simulation dubbed the Millennium Challenge which was run by the Pentagon in 2002. The exercise was designed to test the future of the US military against a Middle Eastern opponent – either Iran or Iraq – and ended in defeat for Washington. Live exercises and computer simulations were carried out in the $250million exercise – which predates the Iraq War. At the time it was the biggest and most expensive military simulation in the history of the US. Red team – representing Iran, dubbed OPFOR – had to preserve its ruling regime and drive their opponents out of the region. Blue team had their objectives is to destroy their weapons of mass destruction, secure shipping lanes and crush the capability of red team to establish dominance in the Middle East. Officially the US won the exercise, but it was leaked later that OPFOR had actually secured a victory until Pentagon top brass changed the rules. Lt Gen Van Riper managed to sink most of the US task force to the bottom of the Persian Gulf in days using the military capability of Iran. Despite having a massive technological disadvantage, the scrappy Vietnam war veteran managed to shame the US. Blue team initially demanded red team surrender, but Van Riper was having none-of-it and prepared for a preemptive strike. The US fleet then arrived in the Persian Gulf for a fight, and all hell broke loose as Van Riper launched a devastating salvo. Van Riper’s forces in the simulation used traditional communication methods to evade high-tech surveillance. His men organised using light signals not seen since World War 2 and motorcycle couriers to transfer orders. And with all this going on, the US fleet didn’t expect a massive onslaught of missiles to come hurtling towards them. The general also ordered small boats and civilian propeller planes to become suicide bombers. Blue team were not prepared, and Van Riper managed to destroy 16 warships – including an aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and six amphibious assault ships. The assault would have killed 20,000 servicemen. And they were chillingly similar tactics to ones used by al-Qaida in a real attack on the USS Cole two years previously in Yemen. Van Riper had used a coded message disguised as a call-to-prayer from a mosque to signal the assault. With the US Navy in tatters and the game seemingly won in a single fell swoop, the Millennium Challenge’s umpires called it off. Van Riper was told by the admirals and generals organising the game that it “wouldn’t have happened”. And he replied by pointing out the attacks just a year prior on the World Trade Centre. Millennium Challenge exercises were suspended, the rules of engagement were redrawn, and blue team got all their ships back. Not pleased at all, Van Riper was told he had to follow a “script” for the rest of the war game. The grizzly marine now completely hamstrung, and no chance of winning, he promptly quit the game. US officials defend the “scripting” of the game as they claim it was designed to test numerous concepts – and a day one defeat would have been unproductive for the expensive programme. And of the course the US military will have learned its lessons for the drill 19 years on, especially amid fears of a looming war in the Middle East. Recommendations based on the Millennium Challenge were forwarded to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And less than a year later the US along with Britain and our allies were embroiled in the Iraq War. Rumblings of war with Iran have reached new highs this year, with fiery barbs from both Washington and Tehran. Trump has insisted however he does not want a war, but said he would be ready to fight them. The US President warned Iran its promise to continue enriching uranium will “come back to bite you, like no one has been bitten before”. Military forces from the US have been sent to the region, including four B-52 nuclear capable bombers, USS Abraham Lincoln and their strike group, and 1,500 troops. Daily Star Online previously revealed a top Brit admiral warning the US it would need “one million” soldiers to beat Iran.

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