Middle East Major Attack against Saudi Aramco Refinery

[Quickdraw101]

Just as I'm getting ready to enlist, Iran starts up with more of their bullshit. Quite frankly, I'd be fine if we left that god forsaken region already and just let the Persians and Arabs beat the shit out of each other. We've lost enough men and women in that place, no need to be dragged in again.

 

[Cherico]

Just as I'm getting ready to enlist, Iran starts up with more of their bullshit. Quite frankly, I'd be fine if we left that god forsaken region already and just let the Persians and Arabs beat the shit out of each other. We've lost enough men and women in that place, no need to be dragged in again.

We are already in the process of leaving the middle east thing is the situation has changed.

We are energy independent a Iran SA war hurts Europe and asia we will be fine.

 

[ShieldWife]

I wonder why anybody would attack Saudi Arabia, it's not as though they would ever do anything to any other nation, they are a people who are almost strangers to war and conflict.

Getting involved in a war over this would be ridiculous. Let the Saudis reap as they sew. Trump ran on America First, please stick to that.

 

[Deleted member]

The question of whether or not escalation will happen is primarily in the hands of the Arab Kingdoms at this point. And it is an open question of whether or not the Iranians will keep pushing them.

 

[MikeKozlowski]

Saudis have enough high tech toys and foreign mercenaries to deal with this without USA holding their hand. Afterall, they undeniably proved their quality in Yemen.

...Actually, they don't. The Saudis have sufficient resources to pull it off, but the problem lies in their ability to use those resources to do so - they may be just cocky enough to think they can execute a US-style strike, but they are at best little-c competent. Their military still relies to a great extent on foreign civilian tech support (not mercenaries, who the Saudis would never trust).

Put another way, unless we're talking about them whacking Yemeni rebels, they know just enough to be dangerous.

Mike

 

[PsihoKekec]

As I said they proved their quality in Yemen. Now they need to git gud, instead of yanking USAs leash via lobbyists anytime some khat chewers outwitt their inbred princes.

 

[Deleted member]

Half of the military sealift command (25 ships) reserve fleet has been ordered mobilised.

 

[Bacle]

Half of the military sealift command (25 ships) reserve fleet has been ordered mobilised.

Well, looks like Iran may have miscalculated.

I doubt there will be an invasion of Iran, but I suspect tha the US AA/SHORAD presence in SA is about to massively increase. And the Houthi's may find themselves up against a concerted US effort to squash them with more than drones.

 

[ShieldWife]

Ugh, well that isn’t good. Then again, Trump has threatened attacks in the past and backed off or attacked in minor ways, so I am hoping that will be the case again. We don’t need another ridiculous Middle Eastern quagmire.

 

[The Original Sixth]

Saudis have enough high tech toys and foreign mercenaries to deal with this without USA holding their hand. Afterall, they undeniably proved their quality in Yemen.

Yes they did.

Somehow though, I'm not impressed with unrestrained civilian casualties so the Saudis can improve their aim.

Iran needs the War to start before November 4th 2020.

Ideally, yes.

A war between Iran and the Saudi/Israel alliance is all but inevitable at this point, and the best case for Iran is that the US is only neutral in SA/Israel's favor. More realistically, the US would provide political cover, ramp up economic attacks on Iran, provide SA/Israel with a nigh limitless ability to resupply, provide C4I assistance, unless the NSA/Cyber Command to show the Russians and Chinese how to really do cyberwarfare, and have the USAF and USN striking high value targets inside Iran/supporting the alliance.

I disagree.

Trump, if he wants to get involved at all, will not take us to war, because that is not in the US's best interest. Nor is it in his best interest as President. What IS in his interest is to sell weapon systems to Israel and Saudi Arabia. It is also in his interest to defend Israel, thanks to politics within the GOP. And that can be done in various ways without going to war. The Neo-Cons and Zionists might scream, but they don't have the pull and they know a war will cost Trump his position.

What Trump can do, with minimal damage to himself, is to instead give intelligence, material support, and strategic guidance to SA and Israel. Maybe even use of American bases. First, Trump puts the full pressure of SWIFT upon Iran. Then he encourages Israel to take out Kharg Island.

Kharg Island - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Take Kharg Island out and Iran can say goodbye to 98% of its crude oil exports. The damage that will do to the Iranian war machine, in addition to what Trump can provide without having any US owned military assets firing a single shot is more than enough to put Iran's victory into doubt.

SA and Israel aren't really ready for war with Iran today, and the US is not interested in an ME war until after the elections. Iran's best chance is to get the war started now, prevent a quick alliance victory, and let the political cost of said war get Trump out of the Whitehouse; and then sue for peace with the newly elected Democrat. The risk Iran is taking is that Trump will decide that his best play is to go all in and will unleash the US military with the loosest of ROE's inside Iran and orders to render harmless/destroy the nation of Iran and its ability to do anything as rapidly, efficiently, and safely as the US military can manage (with no attention paid to Iranian civilian casualties).

I say no.

The fact that Bolton is no longer part of the Trump Administration tells me that Trump is not interested in a prolonged conflict with Iran. The most he might do is make a few military strikes, like he did before. Americans really don't care too much if we fire missiles at people. What we care about is an expensive war in which human lives are sacrificed without any apparent gain for the US.

There is no rational that I can find for why Trump will want to take the bait.

 

[StormEagle]

Let the Saudis and the Iranians bleed each other dry, and leave us out of it.

The only support the House of Saud should get from us is more weapons and whatever intelligence we can give. Otherwise?

They can claim victory or hang in defeat on their own merits.

 

[Deleted member]

Today I saw USNS Cape Kennedy being taken out of reserve and positioned for Operation Turbo-Activation down on the NOLA waterfront.

 

[ShieldWife]

I don’t see how this is any of our business. The Saudi’s have been attacking Yemen for years, isn’t a retaliation to be expected and even morally justified? If Iran helped arm the Houthis, why does that have any bearing in anything, we arm the Saudis.

Far better to let Saudi Arabia fight its own wars than spend American blood and treasure for another pointless, immoral, destructive, and illegal war.

 

[Lanmandragon]

I don’t see how this is any of our business. The Saudi’s have been attacking Yemen for years, isn’t a retaliation to be expected and even morally justified? If Iran helped arm the Houthis, why does that have any bearing in anything, we arm the Saudis.

Far better to let Saudi Arabia fight its own wars than spend American blood and treasure for another pointless, immoral, destructive, and illegal war.

I'd tend to agree excepting the "illegal" part. International law is and always has been a farce. America should do what's in our interest. Regardless of what the world thinks. At best we should consider the Anglo countries view. Even that is pushing it in my opinion.

 

[Cherico]

I'd tend to agree excepting the "illegal" part. International law is and always has been a farce. America should do what's in our interest. Regardless of what the world thinks. At best we should consider the Anglo countries view. Even that is pushing it in my opinion.

To be fair international law garenteed Belgian independence and respect for their neutrality after the treaty of London in 1838 and it worked.

Exccept in the years 1870-1871, 1914-1918, and 1939-1945 other then that 11 year blip its worked perfectly fine for them honest.....

 

[ShieldWife]

I'd tend to agree excepting the "illegal" part. International law is and always has been a farce. America should do what's in our interest. Regardless of what the world thinks. At best we should consider the Anglo countries view. Even that is pushing it in my opinion.

I’m not talking about international law though, I don’t really care about that. I’m talking about the Constitution of the United States. The power to declare war belongs to the Congress, a president can’t take us into war because he wants to even if an ally is attacked. For decades we haven’t been calling our military actions war, subverting the Constitution and it’s purpose of limiting government power. If there is sufficient justification for us to attack another nation, then Congress should have to declare war.

I don’t agree with the Iraq War, but at least George Bush got a Congressional vote on going into Iraq, which we can’t say about numerous foreign interventions since then.

 

[Lanmandragon]

To be fair international law garenteed Belgian independence and respect for their neutrality after the treaty of London in 1838 and it worked.

Exccept in the years 1870-1871, 1914-1918, and 1939-1945 other then that 11 year blip its worked perfectly fine for them honest.....

That had jack all to do with "international law" and everything to do with British stregth and guarantees.

I’m not talking about international law though, I don’t really care about that. I’m talking about the Constitution of the United States. The power to declare war belongs to the Congress, a president can’t take us into war because he wants to even if an ally is attacked. For decades we haven’t been calling our military actions war, subverting the Constitution and it’s purpose of limiting government power. If there is sufficient justification for us to attack another nation, then Congress should have to declare war.

I don’t agree with the Iraq War, but at least George Bush got a Congressional vote on going into Iraq, which we can’t say about numerous foreign interventions since then.

See I can agree with this.

 

[Lanmandragon]

Anyway morality and legality aside. After Trump wins in 2020 we're ging to do something to the Persians. Whether that be war or supplying Isarael. It's going down like it or not.

 

[Bacle]

I do not support any invasion of Iran, even a limited occupation of Kharg Island, but I think something akin to Operation Preying Mantis could be justified after the 2020 election.

Smashing IRGC assets, both naval and aircraft, or just smashing their oil infrastructure, while upping support for Israel and SA wouldn't be that hard to justify.

 

[Francis Urquhart]

I’m not talking about international law though, I don’t really care about that. I’m talking about the Constitution of the United States. The power to declare war belongs to the Congress, a president can’t take us into war because he wants to even if an ally is attacked. For decades we haven’t been calling our military actions war, subverting the Constitution and it’s purpose of limiting government power. If there is sufficient justification for us to attack another nation, then Congress should have to declare war. I don’t agree with the Iraq War, but at least George Bush got a Congressional vote on going into Iraq, which we can’t say about numerous foreign interventions since then.

There's a saying for that. "If it isn't a threat to us, we shouldn't be there. If it is a threat to us, it shouldn't be there.

The reason why the power to declare war belonging to Congress thing died was that reaction times collapsed and there simply wasn't time to go through the system. We had 20 minutes from the first alert to missiles hitting American cities. In fact, there were some scenarios in which we got 90 seconds warning which is why we have things like airborne command posts (and a lot more that is unbelievably highly classified).