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Originally posted by Skins2881:
I still don't think this MOU is a good agreement. Maybe you guys can further tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about. Maybe toss an insult or two for good measure.

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Originally posted by sigfreund:
As I have asked before, what major conflict in history has been decided entirely by air power? I certainly hope this will be the first, but I am not betting the rent that it will be.
I would, however, bet a whole handful of nickels that no one of significance anticipated that the Iranians would be able to fight back as effectively as they have. Did anyone here?

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Also, it should have been positioned as “We are giving Iran the rope to save them, or they can choose to hang themselves - their call”

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Air power can absolutely achieve the following aims:

1. Complete degradation of Iran’s ability to refine and process oil.

2. Substantial degradation of Iran’s ability to make and import conventional weapons.

3. Substantial degradation of Iran’s ability to make and launch nuclear weapons.

• Lebanon Intervention (1982–1984): US Marines deployed as part of a multinational force during the Lebanese Civil War and Israel's invasion of Lebanon. Involved peacekeeping that turned into combat; ended after the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing.
  
• Operation Praying Mantis (1988): US naval retaliation against Iran during the Tanker War phase of the Iran-Iraq War (protecting oil tankers; part of broader US involvement in the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War).
  
• Gulf War / Operation Desert Storm (1990–1991): US-led coalition expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait after Iraq's invasion. Large-scale air and ground campaign; also known as the First Persian Gulf War.
  
• Operation Desert Fox (1998): US and UK airstrikes on Iraq in response to non-compliance with UN weapons inspectors.
  
• War in Afghanistan (2001–2021): Launched after 9/11 against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Often grouped with Middle East operations under the "War on Terror," though Afghanistan is in South/Central Asia. Longest US war.
  
• Iraq War (2003–2011): US-led invasion to remove Saddam Hussein (citing WMDs and terrorism links, later disputed). Followed by occupation, insurgency, and civil conflict; also called the Second/Third Persian Gulf War.
  

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We were told that #3 was accomplished.
I thought that was the goal?

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Originally posted by lastmanstanding:
They are masters at buying time and that's all the MOU did.

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What is the point of this conflict, and how do we seek to achieve that?

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Originally posted by 83v45magna:

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What is the point of this conflict, and how do we seek to achieve that?

He tells you in this video which was posted on the previous page. Clearly at least a few here didn't watch it.

The whole thing is only 9 minutes long, but if you must skip ahead, start at 4:09.

[FLASH_VIDEO]<iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h1ggr3HvyS4?si=pKqzfeP9V3nJPsKK&start=35" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>[/FLASH_VIDEO]

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VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: So where are we now?

I think we can see what he's doing. The last four days, he's had very, very strong strikes. Some of his critics have said, on the right, "We are hitting all of these dock works and this small mosquito fleet and the fuel for missiles. Why didn't we do that earlier?"

Well, we didn't do it earlier because we were negotiating, and we were measured and proportionate. To deal with the Iranians now, you have to be unmeasured and disproportionate.

So what we are seeing now is a full-scale effort to destroy all of their military abilities. That would mean going to the factories, the industrial complex that makes these missiles; finding where their launchers are; finding their drone fields; clearing the corridor near the strait of all of their anti-aircraft ability, their missiles, their drones, and their small fleet of vestigial boats that they use to mine the strait and attack tankers. Clear it all out. Do this for a week or two weeks, and then stop and see if they want to concede.

If they do not want to concede, then I think you would have another week of dual-use targeting. That would mean they were going to bring in the B-2s and hit Pickaxe Mountain, seal the areas under suspicion of harboring enriched uranium, hit the bridges, hit some of the power grid, and then go home and say to our allies:

"Iran is now mostly inert. They have no air force. You in the Gulf, you have 600 combat frontline aircraft. You have missiles. You have missile defense. You can defend yourself from an inert Iran. You Europeans, Japanese, South Koreans, Taiwanese—you all want to use the strait. We don't. But we've cleaned it out now, and all you have to do is send a couple of vessels each, and under our leadership—we always have forces in the Persian Gulf. We have frigates. We have a carrier that rotates in and out. We will help you organize the ability and the willpower to keep the strait open."

And it's not going to be difficult because Iran has suffered enormous damage, and that would be in two or three weeks.

In other words, then he could pivot and say that Iran is now militarily and nuclearly inert, and we are back home, and our allies are taking part of the burden, and they're keeping the strait open.