WI: The Iranian Hostage Situation, was a massacre?

[Killer300]

No South Vietnam proves me right, South Vietnam fell to armored columns from a foreign country with more logistic support than Eisenhower had in 1944, guerrillas had nothing to do with it and had effectively ceased to exist 6 years prior

Try Jordan 1970, Syria 1982 or Iraq 1991 for what to expect, in both cases resistance was crushed fairly easily with high death tolls, 20,000 in Jordan, 40,000 in Syria and 140,000 in Iraq the RVN was nowhere near this level

Wrong with the first, as the they actually lost to Vietcong when the US wasn't there to support them. They did fall to North Vietnam, but that wasn't what caused the problem that got the US to intervene.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

Wrong with the first, as the they actually lost to Vietcong when the US wasn't there to support them. They did fall to North Vietnam, but that wasn't what caused the problem that got the US to intervene.

Yes the RVN was inconvenienced by guerrillas, it also was not nearly as Brutal as Saddam was

And what does Vietnam have to do with the Middle East anyways

I gave three successful examples from the time period and in the same region on how to crush a guerrilla movement that actually worked

Jordan, Iraq and Syria are for more applicable to Iraq in Iran than Vietnam is

I fail to see how the Khuzestani Arabs, who don't really like the Farsi Iranian government anyways will risk their lives and their families fighting Saddam

 

[Zulufoxtrot]

Yes the RVN was inconvenienced by guerrillas, it also was not nearly as Brutal as Saddam was

And what does Vietnam have to do with the Middle East anyways

I gave three successful examples from the time period and in the same region on how to crush a guerrilla movement that actually worked

Jordan, Iraq and Syria are for more applicable to Iraq in Iran than Vietnam is

I fail to see how the Khuzestani Arabs, who don't really like the Irtanian government anyways will risk their lives and their families fighting Saddam

This, I don't Saddam's going to simply curbstomp the Iranians, but I don't think it's going to drag into a guerrilla war either. After we get done annihilating the Iranian Airforce and whatever else we feel like, Odds are he takes the territory he wants after a bit of hard fighting and then he starts trying to prop up forces that are against the Ayatollah's. The Iranians might be a running sore for him in the areas he takes, but it's not going to be so bad that he just gives it up in my opinion.

 

[Killer300]

While this is perhaps true, gurriella movements wouldn't be worth their salt if it wasn't for their ability to stand up to ANY government, not just ones that, "play nice."

The main about South Vietnam wasn't that it wasn't brutal, it was that it was incompetent. So, the question is this. Is Iraq competent at governing a state? It isn't competent at military affairs, however it is competent at suppressing revolts.

For the previous post, I'd argue the governments of Jordan and Syria are more competent than that of South Vietnam, which is really the test here. Not brutality, competence.

EDIT: I concede the point now, and will let this thread resolve itself.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

While this is perhaps true, gurriella movements wouldn't be worth their salt if it wasn't for their ability to stand up to ANY government, not just ones that, "play nice."

The main about South Vietnam wasn't that it wasn't brutal, it was that it was incompetent. So, the question is this. Is Iraq competent at governing a state? It isn't competent at military affairs, however it is competent at suppressing revolts.

For the previous post, I'd argue the governments of Jordan and Syria are more competent than that of South Vietnam, which is really the test here. Not brutality, competence.

EDIT: I concede the point now, and will let this thread resolve itself.

You are correct, it's not just brutality but a combination of brutality and competence that is needed, Saddam had enough of both albeit barely in terms of competence

Your concession is accepted, you made some very good points, nice debate

 

[modelcitizen]

You are correct, it's not just brutality but a combination of brutality and competence that is needed, Saddam had enough of both albeit barely in terms of competence

Your concession is accepted, you made some very good points, nice debate

(Cough) Cuba! (Cough cough)

Batista, not delicate, but apparently not as smart as Castro

 

[Dave Howery]

FYI the US has not imported oil from Iran since the revolution

in fact, there was one bizarre WTF case where we sent them oil... in that brief time between Khomeini's takeover and the kidnapping of the embassy personnel, the Iranian's refining capabilities went completely to hell, and they desperately needed heating oil. So the US sent them a tanker of it. There was a lot of amusement in the papers at the time that the USA (big importer of oil) was sending oil to an OPEC nation...

 

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

This, I don't Saddam's going to simply curbstomp the Iranians, but I don't think it's going to drag into a guerrilla war either. After we get done annihilating the Iranian Airforce and whatever else we feel like, Odds are he takes the territory he wants after a bit of hard fighting and then he starts trying to prop up forces that are against the Ayatollah's. The Iranians might be a running sore for him in the areas he takes, but it's not going to be so bad that he just gives it up in my opinion.

Saddam isn't going to give up territories full of "fellow Arabs" that happen to produce the vast majority of Iran's oil. Ultimately Saddam is actually the biggest winner of this scenario, you can bet that he'll use Iran's post-revolutionary weakness combined with an even more bitter Iranian-American split to do basically anything he wants to in Iran, and really, he holds all the cards: he has the clearly stronger military after the US cuts its way through Iran's, and he can pull at the strings of various separatist movements while simultaneously "liberating" Arabs from tyrannical Persian rule and proclaiming himself the successor of the Abbasids or whatever delusion of grandeur he happens to be entertaining on that day.

Anyone in Khuzestan who doesn't subscribe to Saddam's method of thinking is going to be smashed the same way Assad smashed the Muslim Brotherhood. This is a man who was rather ineffectual fighting his conventional war against Iran but was quite a ways more capable when fighting an unconventional war against rebels in his country. This is a man who was never afraid to win through inflicting a superior body count.

 

[Orville_third]

Here's an interesting potential minor butterfly. With the embassy captured, those who had been in Iran maybe viewed as potential sources of information to the media... one of whom was a guy by the name of Mitch Pileggi.