Scott Walker just announced that he would bomb Iran on his first day in office. At least half of the other GOP candidates also want to start a war with Iran just to prove their manhood.
What would happen to the US if we did what the GOP wants? The US will become the new "Axis of Evil".
All of the scenarios spelled out in the War Games the US Joint Chiefs of Staff have done over the last fifteen years have said that starting a war with Iran will inevitably lead to a Nuclear First Strike attack against Iran's Natanz and Esfahan facilities.
This article was first posted by me in 2006 with Bush II as the Villain.
The War Games Scenario for the Iran War goes like this:
1. The US or Israel [with US cooperation] prepares to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities at Natanz and Esfahan. A few Generals and Admirals resign but the attack happens anyway. The attack causes 10,000 civilian casualties and major surface damage at Natanz and Esfahan but does not penetrate through the layers of reinforced concrete and steel to the level of the Centrifuges and Uranium processing facilities. The attack is a failure but it starts a US/Israeli war with Iran.
2. Iran announces it is withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran attacks any oil tankers passing through the Straights of Hormuz and the US Aircraft Carriers and their escorts in the gulf using swarming speedboats, torpedoes, mines and silkworm cruise missiles and sinks at least 1 carrier and several other ships causing 5,000-15,000 US casualties.
3. The US Air-force starts large scale bombing of Iran's infrastructure.
4. Iran's Revolutionary Guard invades southern Iraq with 300,000-400,000 ground troops and cuts off all supplies to US forces in Baghdad and southern and western Iraq.
5. The US bombs areas of southern Iraq where Iranian soldiers are blocking US supplies and the US bombing causes mass civilian casualties.
6. The Iraqi Government orders the US to leave Iraq immediately or be attacked by the Iraqi Army. The Iraqi Shiite and Sunni Mullahs issue a Fatwa directing all Insurgents and Militias to attack US soldiers and not each other.
7. US forces are besieged by 100,000 ISIS Insurgents in the north and west and 300,000 Iranians and 100,000 Iraqi Army, Insurgents and Militia soldiers in the south and east. After 30 days of intense fighting and 50% US casualties, the US troops in Iraq run out of fuel, ammunition and food.
8. The US troops in Baghdad and southern and western Iraq are forced to "Retreat Under Fire" to the Baghdad airport to be airlifted out while Iranian soldiers are shooting them down with shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles.
9. The Iranians seize the abandoned US weapons and bring in fuel and supplies and turn the weapons on any remaining US forces.
10. The US claims the excuse of "Protecting US Troops" and uses tactical nuclear bombs to attack the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Militia forces in southern Iraq and nuclear bunker buster bombs to destroy Natanz and Esfahan in Iran. There are 300,000 immediate civilian casualties caused by the blast and radiation and 750,000 cases of radiation poisoning in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Northern India.
11. All Oil production in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Iraq and Iran stops for 9-18 months [50% of world oil production]. All Middle-East Oil shipments through the Straights of Hormuz are stopped [40% of world oil production]. All middle-eastern countries together impose a total Oil Embargo on supplies to the US and Israel. Venezuela, Bolivia and Argentina join in the Oil Embargo. Gasoline and Heating Fuel-oil prices rise to $25.00 per gallon, Natural Gas prices rise to $15.00 per CCF and gasoline rationing is imposed. Energy intensive industries shut down. Frequent major blackouts occur crippling the server farms that power the Internet. The US economy suffers a meltdown.
12. Iran abrogates the Non-Proliferation Treaty [which they had already withdrawn from] and either reprocesses Plutonium from their research reactor or processes Uranium to 90% at Natanz to produce 1-2 crude nuclear bombs which are used to destroy Tel Aviv and Israel's nuclear facility at Dimona. Israel responds with their own nuclear bombs destroying Tehran.
13. A general war of all Islam vs. the US and Israel ensues. All US bases in the middle-east are attacked causing 50,000-75,000 US casualties before the US forces can escape. Israel is invaded from all sides by Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and the Palestinian Territories. The US and Israel are branded by the world as the "Axis of Evil".
All this and more can happen if we bomb Iran and our top military strategists say it is the likely outcome.
The worst Decisions Bush made in his two terms as President were to include a Nuclear First Strike as an allowed response in cases of US troops "Retreating Under Fire" and to insist that the use of Nuclear Bunker Buster bombs remain in the Pentagon's planning for dealing with Iran. One of the top 10 bad decisions by Obama was to not rescind those orders.
Iran may be telling the truth or Iran may be lying when they say that they are only trying to enrich Uranium for nuclear power. If Iran is telling the truth and their goal is just nuclear power, then using a Nuke against Iran will guarantee that Iran will go for The Bomb in self defense. If Iran is lying then using a Nuke against Iran will only delay Iran getting The Bomb by one or two years and will guarantee that they will attempt to use it against the US or Israel.
The US B61-11 Nuclear Bunker Buster bomb is only able to penetrate hard rock to a depth of 10-20 feet before it detonates. At 20-ft penetration and maximum yield, the B61-11 can only destroy a facility that is buried less than 600-ft below ground. Blast forces can be blocked by simple inexpensive materials like a 100-ft thick layer of gravel or a 75-ft thick layer of bags of sand or granulated salt. The limitations of the B61-11 have been known for years and any Iranian weapons facility will have been built with those limits in mind.
The Natanz facility in Iran is known to have a double roof of thick reinforced concrete with 50-75-ft of gravel between the concrete layers. The roof is sufficient to protect against any non-nuclear bunker buster (even the US air forces MOAB bomb). Natanz could probably also survive a low yield Nuclear Bunker Buster bomb.
If the US actually used the B61-11 bomb in Iran against the Natanz or Esfahan facilities more than 500,000 civilian deaths could be expected in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
The short term consequence of the US starting a war that ends with a Nuclear First Strike will be a meltdown of the US economy much worse than the Great Depression. The long term consequence will be a world wide depression that will probably last a decade or more. The final consequence will be massive nuclear proliferation by every country capable of developing nuclear weapons resulting in either a new World Order where the US is no longer a Superpower or an eventual all-out Nuclear War.
A Nuclear Armed Iran would not attempt a First Strike against the US or Israel because they know that our retaliatory strike would destroy them. What a Nuclear Armed Iran would do is to deter the US and Israel from a First Strike attack against Iran.