Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 08/11/06 4:46 pm:
Excon,

Do you think that any such bombing would be limited to Ahmadinejad? Don't you think that we'd also be bombing the hell out of the Iranian military too? And their nuclear R&D sites?

As for them having a lot of pissed off soldiers, so what. They spent 20 years at war with Iraq and couldn't defeat the army that we defeated in 3 weeks. The Iranian army is a third rate military that has spent decades fighting the likes of Iraq to a tie and getting their collective asses kicked by Israel. They are no match for the US military. That's why Ahmadinejad wants nukes.

So if we take Ahmadinejad out of the picture and destroy the Iranian nuclear R&D system, we could either pull back to our starting point or we could invade with ground forces.

If we invade with ground forces, we'll tear through their military in days or weeks, just as we did with the Iraqi military.

If we choose not to invade with ground forces and the Iranians instead decide to attack our bases in Iraq, we'll be fighting from fixed and fortified positions with lots of equipment, and they will be fighting a mobile war with inferior equipment and training. Fighting from fixed positions is easier than fighting a mobile war, and given the qualitative and quantitative differences in our militaries, we'd mash the Iranian military into paste.

So all Iran can really do if we decide to take out Ahmadinejad is bitch and moan.

The one thing that I'm much more concerned about is if we get Ahmadinejad but fail to destroy the nuclear R&D sites. That is a potential disaster. And I think that for us to be fully successful in getting the nukes, we have to have at least some level of ground forces. If that is the case, I would take out Ahmadinejad and send in the ground forces simultaneously, use overwhelming force (300,000-400,000 troops and support) to take out the vital parts of the Iranian nuclear program, and then pull out to the Iran/Iraq border. Such a plan will cause more casualties than the invasion of Iraq did, but the cost is worth it (strategically speaking--- naturally, those who lose their lives might disagree, but from a purely strategic point of view, the cost would be worth the goal).

But all of this is doable. It wouldn't even tax our military resources all that much. But whether we go that way or not, Ahmadinejad won't be around in the aftermath.

Elliot