Quick Draw Walker and War With Iran

Quick Draw McGraw (1959-1962)

So Scott Walker thinks he'll have to go to war with Iran on his first day in office. The Oval Office carpet cleaners will still be finishing up as he send his spiffy B-2 bombers on their killing mission.

The whole of the world, save Israel, will rightly call it an unprovoked war crime. Israeli PM Netanyahu will applaud that his White House puppet is so immediately obsequious.

What effect will bombing have? Jon Perr has a good analysis.

• The US has a handful of 30,000 pound "bunker busters" that allegedly can penetrate 200 feet of rock. Iran has at least one facility buried under 375 feet of mountain.
• When the US violates the agreement all bets are off. Russia, certainly, and China, probably, will help Iran rebuild any damaged facilities faster than the US can bomb them. Iran will hurry to build nuclear weapons as a deterrent.
• Russia and China will provide Iran with high-altitude anti-aircraft missiles both to help defend Iran and to test their efficacy against US stealth technology. Some of America's 21 B-2s will be shot down.
• Iran will do all it can to close the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices will skyrocket.
• With bombing ineffective the pressure will build from neocons for a ground invasion. A joint Anglo-Soviet invasion was successful in 1941 but it was a sneak attack, not possible this time, and Russia had two nice, big borders with Iran to invade through.
• Iran has a standing army of over 500,000 plus 1.8 million reservists. Even allowing for the technical superiority of US forces, America would have to dedicate its entire Army and Marine Corps forces to have a chance at victory. Remember the US is a rogue nation in this invasion, there will be no NATO help. As for Israel? They will keep their troops at home and use the Iran invasion as an excuse to attack Hezbollah and Syria.
• The cost of military action against Iran will be in the trillions of dollars.

What would an invasion look like?

Iran is a mountainous trap. The best invasion path would be through Afghanistan but that would be a logistical nightmare. Pakistan would refuse passage so everything including food and fuel would have to be airlifted in. Iraq is possible but Iraq is allied with Iran so the US might first have to invade and reconquer Iraq before using it as a stable base. The third option is an amphibious invasion from Saudi Arabia. Even if the landing is successful the next step is winding through the narrow passes of the Zagros Mountains. The roads will be mined. Iranian infantry will have a mobility advantage over the US mechanized force stuck on those roads.

US causalities will be enormous, certainly exceeding the 58,000 combat deaths in Vietnam.

Of course, knowing Scott Walker's simplistic thinking process, he may just carpet bomb Iran with nuclear weapons. Easy peasy.