Originally Posted by UGLY

My only question is do they really think they could stand toe to toe with us

If you put it that way, of course not. There's no question the U.S. has the greatest military might. After all, 50% of the world's spending on defense is covered by one country. It's an altogether different question whether they can use that might to subdue a people or to get another nation to kowtow to their will. It didn't work in Vietnam, and it hasn't worked in Iraq. As for Iran, articulate a reason to use armed force against them.

So I guess, in part, I'm questioning your question.

p.s. I can't read the MSNBC link so I'm not sure what it says.

I have the worst luck with links. It basically said Iran is prepared to deal a more devastating strike against the U.S. if we attacked them. It also said that they will thumb their nose at the new sanctions that have been imposed on them and that we can do nothing about it.

The only reasons I can think for us attacking Iran would be, the development of nuclear weapons the support of insurgent groups in Iraq and funding terrorism. All of which I believe they are doing or attempting to do right now. Like I said in my firs post I don't think military action against Iran is an option right now and it would hurt us for sure. They only way to go after Iran is to be brutal unlike they were in Vietnam ( please See Avallone's post on this issue). We would have to go in to exterminate all of the Iran military and a lot of the infrastructure, we would have to be merciless.

I don't know about you, but I'd call 3 million casualities in Vietnam "brutal". No, we threw all our guns and bombs (save nuclear) at them. It didn't work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War

Clone we had them pushed back and could have finished them but the gov. did not give the go ahead. We could have wiped them off the face of the plaet if we wanted too.

Originally Posted by UGLY

Clone we had them pushed back and could have finished them but the gov. did not give the go ahead. We could have wiped them off the face of the plaet if we wanted too.

Lets not rewrite history. After the Tet offensive the VC were done and were no longer a major player. Not so with the NVA. Americas will to fight was undermined by the medias portrayal of Tet as an American defeat which it was not. However the idea to push the ground war into North Viet Nam was not considered an option due to the threat of Chinese and possibly Russian involvement if we did. Many remembered the Chinese involvement in Korea and thought it better not to pull that tigers tail again.