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There once was a man named Manuel Noriega.
One afternoon he said there was a state of war between Panama, the nation he was "military ruler" of, and the USA.
George Bush Sr said, "OK."
And shortly thereafter we invaded Panama and dragged Mr Noriega back to the US to be tried for several crimes.
I seem to recall that Iran has, at least once, said that they were at war with the US.
I can't find a specific instance.
If I'm remembering correctly, we could just say, "OK," and have at it.
Our military is all messed up at present, but we're definitely in better shape than we were in 1979.
I dare say we're in better shape than we were for Operation Preying Mantis in '88.
They could ask Saddam Hussein how getting us riled up worked.
Oh. Wait. He's unavailable for comment.
I was involved in Operation Just Cause. Not a war, just a live fire exercise as we deployed on the ground over 8 times the available military forces of Panama (including every police officer and dog catcher) as well as total control of the airspace and naval assets. Our logistics tail was pretty short from Texas to Panama.
ReplyDeleteI think Iran *might* be a tougher cookie, given how it took several MONTHS to deploy forces (and supplies) to a Friendly stepping off Saudi Arabia to take on Saddam. Logisitics, it's a thing. We are well on the way to pissing off every Muslim country in the middle east. Where is our "friendly staging area today, given the improvement in drone warfare and such? Might want to look up the recent wars using drones for details. Cheaper, far cheaper than F16's and Naval Ships and pretty effective. Who's been the Drone Factory for Russia lately?
Has anybody done an inventory of available war supplies we have left after the Ukranian and now Israeli thing?
We'd do far better to follow “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations...entangling alliances with none” ― Thomas Jefferson and step back from being the world's policeman.
But that will not happen until AFTER the Thucydides Trap occurs. America the Indispensable Nation and all that.
I heard that Rome thought so also. Pax Romana, Pax America, history will speak.
The Thucydides Trap, or Thucydides' Trap, is a term popularized by American political scientist Graham T. Allison (1940- ) to describe an apparent tendency towards war when an emerging power threatens to displace an existing great power as a regional or international hegemon.
Going to suck big time after the dollar is reduced to the ruble or if we're lucky peso after a serious military misadventure. Our empire of debt is only supported by our BIG STICK and it has been looking tattered after Afghanistan and the failures in Ukraine.
That and probable Muslim days-weeks-months of Rage inside our country seems likely.
Protect your family and trusted friends. Got plenty of safe water, canned goods both food and ammo?
I don't think we're pissing off everyone. And some of the disgruntled will assist if it's Iran we're going to bomb.
DeleteBut I think it's high time we stopped nation building and went back to war.
You forgot the Pax Britannica in there.
The trap of being the Pax Nation is when you end up keeping the peace for everyone else and not getting much benefit from it. They're getting it for free, you aren't.
Saddam was a softer target than he would have been due to him having wasted tons of his military and financial resources fighting Iran for around 10 years. The time to have taken on Iran ideally would have been while they were likewise depleted from their war with Iraq. Unfortunately they've now had 30 years to replenish and be re-supplied mostly by the Chinese and North Korea. Well, they've sunk a fair amount of resources into fighting proxy wars and supporting terrorists and they've been emargoed with varying degrees of success. But while I agree that Iran might not be a complete pushover, I think it might be worth the effort to give them a good smackdown. They're definitely behind a lot of the troubles of just about all their neighbors, not just Israel. They definitely pull Hamas and Hezbolah's strings.
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