Should we send a gift to Iran?

[johnlambert]

How about a cruise missile for each sailor/marine delivered straight to mr im-a-dinnerjacket's chair in the Iranian parliament?

[admarlow]

how about a map?

[johnlambert]

A huge map, wrapped arouind a 20KTonne nuclear warhead?
I like your way of thinking admarlow!!!!
how's the 'nam by the way?

[admarlow]

its a great place, really cheap and tonnes to do....

[jake-the-peg]

So John as a student of military history what in your opinion would be the political and military ramifications of the UK launching an independant, preemptive nuclear strike on Iran?

[crete]

well nuclear missiles being used,great idea , dont think so.

[johnlambert]

jake-the-peg, the political reaction would be sheer amazement, the UK does not have an independent nuclear capability. Although we are buying Trident from the Americans, they will not release the firing codes that trigger the weapon, even the Brits, their closest allies are not trusted not to turn on them.
We would not need to launch a nuclear attack on them, when you consider that we have troops in Iraq (handily right next door) and in Afghanistan, (quite close by), American troops and, lets not forget the regions bogeyman Israel but let us not consider the Israelis yet, an attack by conventional means would be far more probable. However, such an attack would be a political disaster for the West, it would give the Islamic fundamentalists the reason to call a Jihad (holy war) against the West.
Militarily we could beat the Iranians, it took them 8 years to contain the Iraqis, and they were 3rd rate.

[jno]

but johnlambert, do you think troops could possibly be spared from Iraq and Afghanistan? After all Bush is currently pouring more troops into Iraq because the US doesn't have enough there. How many more can they get without introducing conscription - which politically is just not an option in the modern USA?

[johnlambert]

nor in the UK jno,
I assumed that the question was hypothetical , and thought about how I would go about it if I were the Commander in Chief of the UK Armed Forces. As I was only a S/Sgt in the RAMC (medical corps) I have limited knowledge of logistics but my thought proccess went like this:
1) we have troops in the region already, they are climatised and have the equipment modified to fight in the desert.
2)British troops in the UK , Germany, the Balkans and perhaps Cyprus would fly out to Iraq and take over from and re-enforce the troops already there, I would of course mobilise the TA + reservists in order to replace the regulars and again to re-enforce the ones invading Iran.
jno, in my humble opinion, Bush is putting too many troops into Iraq, as they are up against insurgents and not an organized army as such, all that is happening is he is giving them more targets to shoot at. If you are fighting a conventional war in a built up area (OBUA's as we called it) the civilian population will have fled the fighting, you can then allocate the units needed to accomplish your task and defeat the enemy. With the terrorists/insurgents living in the community it changes the rules, you have to take them into consideration, i.e. you cannot use artillery.

[johnlambert]

The terroists live within the community and not in organized formations making if difficult, if not imopssible to identify them, belive me, we had 30 years experience against the IRA, we knew who they were but because we had to stay within the rule of law, we could not carry out offensive operations against them. I imagine that the Iraqi ingurgents are doing pretty much what terrorist around the world do, carrying out shootings, bombings and planting IED (booby traps) then going home to the wife + kids.