That's exactly what I hope is going on, and also my biggest fear is that it isn't. The Iran threat is so explicit that western powers have every reason to have an actual game plan. Playing soft, stupid and weak is a superb strategy if the only purpose is to make Iran lower its guard and underestimate western resolve.

 

There you have it: If you knew you were being hit any minute, wouldn't you be extra alert with all your defensive assets, passive or active? And if you were laughing your a** off on the chaos going on between your potential enemies, would you not get sloppy over time?

 

Whatever the case, it is a good thing that Iranian leaders are laughing. Let's make them laugh even more. Let's act so stupid, that the mullahs laugh so hard they have to come out to catch some breath so their enemies can put rounds through their heads.

 

Thus, so far I haven't seen anything done by Obama that couldn't be extremely smart. He might be piling up, he might know very well what he is doing. We, The Worried Couch Generals' Association, are behaving just as a smart government would have us behave.

 

But if this isn't the case, then things are really going downhill, big time. Anyway, my point is that so far only thing we know about Obama is that he isn't doing things in a hurry and unprepared.Whatever he's doing, we're not supposed to know because then the Iranians would know too.

 

Mikko

Naturally, in an optimum world we would first reduce all the Iranian IADS to rubble before risking any bombers, but the real world is never optimal and furthermore BW wants to talk about a more limited campaign.  In this case, Iran's air defense network is so porous and so lame that there should not need to be a separate phase for gaining air superiority, if time is of the essence and limited strikes over a limited duration are mandated.

 

The initial strikes must target not only nuclear sites but also ballistic missile storage and launch sites.  While even several dozen missiles launched toward U.S. and allied military facilities ringing Iran will accomplish little military effect, the Iranians might try what Saddam tried--shooting at Israel in an attempt to goad them into retaliation.  Hopefully even if some missiles are lobbed Israel's way, their ballistic missile defense will get some, and we can convince the Israelis that the few that do hit them can be tolerated given that we're finally mopping up on Iran.  Disabling their few fixed launch sites for MRBMs would be pretty simple, but trying to catch a substantial number of their mobile SRBMs and even mobile cruise missile batteries (to protect Gulf shipping from anti-ship cruise missile attacks) would be quite a challenge.

While I'm all for decapitating the enemy in a war, in this case perhaps going after national command authorities and military leadership (mullahs, IRGC commanders) might be counterproductive.  Perhaps if we do not attack national level C2, they will see that we are not trying for regime change, and they won't feel threatened wnough to go all-out in retaliation.  Of course, if the roles were reversed, and my country's nuclear program was getting bombed, I'd want my country to declare war on the attackers no matter who they were, and go all-out in our counterattacks, but maybe that's just me....  Hmmm, on second thought, we might as well try to take out their ballistic missile and their Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps C4 while we're at it, since there's no way they're going to just roll over and take this pounding without fighting back, and the IRGC army, airforce, and navy are the ones most likely to engage in counterattacks.

Albywan , I don 't have time to respond to your post , I am very sorry . I will as soon as I have some time off .

We need to go into details .

 

sinoflex and smitty are spot on . This is also why Europe has to act first , to stop Israel to go alone and to a lesser extent to avoid the USA to get involved to soon , at least on the political chessboard (UN) .

 

Cheers .

LB :

I agree with your sentiment here.

If anything, a Euro lead on this would present a greater "western" coalition than a US/Israeli lead action.

 

The key to a Euro lead initiative IMHO is to get countires such as Germany, Holland, Sweden and Russia on board.

 

The UN, again IMHO has let the Middle East down on too many occasions to warrant any real significance. The resolutions it passes are paper, worth as much as the perferated paper i use daily in a small cubicle.