Pentagon forecasts U.S. would be pulled into regional war if Israel strikes Iran

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

A classified Pentagon war game this month forecast that an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities would likely draw the United States into a wider regional war in which hundreds of American forces could be killed, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

The war games' results have "raised fears among top American planners that it may be impossible to preclude American involvement in any escalating confrontation with Iran," the Times Mark Mazzetti and Thom Shanker wrote.

Defense experts said the reported war games results are another attempted warning signal to Israel not to go it alone or risk harming relations with the United States.

"The apparent results of the war game reported by the Times suggest that it will be much more difficult than Israeli leaders assume to keep the United States out of the conflict," former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Colin Kahl told Yahoo News by email. "In the retaliatory spasm following an Israeli strike, the odds that Iranian actions and miscalculations could drag the United States military are substantial."

The two-week war simulation exercise--dubbed "Internal Look"--was conducted by the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida. It posited a scenario in which an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities led to Iran retaliating by striking a U.S. "Navy warship in the Persian Gulf, killing about 200 Americans," thus drawing the United States into the war, the Times' report said.

"Internal Look" is designed to "refine the command's battle rhythm and assess the staff's ability to coordinate and communicate on a modern battlefield," U.S. Central Command spokesman Col. John Robinson told Yahoo News in an email Tuesday. The classified exercises took place between February 26 and March 3 at the MacDill Air Force base in Florida and at some overseas locations, he said.

But some former officials urged caution when interpreting the war games' reported results. "It's clear the administration believes an Israeli strike on Iran would be extremely problematic," Ken Pollack, a national security expert at the Brookings Institution Saban Center for Middle East studies and a former director for Persian Gulf affairs at the National Security Council, told Yahoo News in a telephone interview Tuesday. "But it is not at all clear that the game demonstrates that an Israeli strike could produce American casualties." Pollack, who has designed and directed many such war games, explained that the designers of the game could simply have created an Iranian attack on the U.S. Navy ship as a method for testing America's control system to see if it could handle it.

The report on the war games comes as Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Benny Gantz is in Washington for consultations. Meantime, the State Department's lead international Iran nuclear negotiator, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, is in Brussels Tuesday for meetings with her international counterparts to prepare for upcoming, high-stakes talks with Iran over its nuclear program, a State Department official told Yahoo News Tuesday.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/pentagon-war-game-forecasts-u-pulled-war-israel-151532986.html

[l'Enfermé]

Oh, yeah, that's the problem! The fact that people that voluntarily signed up to be trained as killing machines and murderers might get hurt! Of course, no one involved is considering the thousands of civilians that will die in a "regional war".

[piet11111]

The Israeli's do not want the Americans to stay out of their war for fucks sake that is the only reason they haven't attacked yet.

Without American stealth bombers they would get utterly annihilated by Iranian anti air defenses and that is assuming they would even be able to get there and back again without the mid air refueling support they need to make that trip with any meaningful number of bombers.

They are still trying their best to get upgraded bunker busters from the Americans as without them they would just be blasting holes in the sand without doing any serious damage to the hardened facility's the Iranians have built.

[Bostana]

If you speak out against the evils Israeli Imperialism has done then they label you an anti-semetic

[sithsaber]

Oh, yeah, that's the problem! The fact that people that voluntarily signed up to be trained as killing machines and murderers might get hurt! Of course, no one involved is considering the thousands of civilians that will die in a "regional war".

If revolution were to succeed army defections would be necessary. They are not all animals (and the others would be useful in the short term

[Guy Incognito]

Oh, yeah, that's the problem! The fact that people that voluntarily signed up to be trained as killing machines and murderers might get hurt! Of course, no one involved is considering the thousands of civilians that will die in a "regional war".

Soldiers worldwide are human. They are not "murderers", they are people. And people in bad situations where anyone around them can be an enemy, do terrible things after so long. They are in a terrible situation in which they were lied to. They were told they would be saving lives, defending the freedom of people around the world.
You want to call someone a murderer? Call the men who send them there murderers. The assholes on both sides who are safe in their little bunkers beign waited on hand and foot. Can the Iranians stop sabre rattling, and trying to build nukes at any time? Yes. Can the U.S. back the fuck off and tell Israel to deal with it's own fucking problems? (and from a national standpoint, when the leader of a country says he wants to wipe you off the map, you have a problem) Yes. Can Israel stop murdering and terrorizing palestinians? Yes. Can the Palestinians stop shooting rockets at civilians, giving the Israelis a (flimsy) excuse on the world stage to "fight back"? Yes. All of this shit is done by men with a hunger for power. THAT is what needs to stop. They are the murderers.

[Agathor]

I'm slightly worried that although the US is opposed to a war with Iran they are completely committed to fight with Israel if they attack Iran, meaning the Obama administration is effectively as hawkish as the Likud government.