I? agree with former Sens. Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad in supporting the Iran nuclear agreement. Conrad and Dorgan both wrote about consequences of a war with Iran. War with Iran is the likely result if the U.S. Congress walks away from these diplomatic international nuclear negotiations. The Iranian military has 2.3 million men with 540,000-plus men on active duty – counting reserves, militia forces and Quds forces. Iran has thousands of heavy weapons in each category of tanks, armored vehicles, heavy artillery pieces and artillery rocket launchers. Iran’s air force has nearly 500 jet warplanes.




Oil choke point

The Iranian Navy has thousands of Russian sea mines, and many hundreds of speed boats with anti-ship cruise missiles. If the Iranians use swarm suicide tactics with these boats combined with cruise missile attacks, a U.S. carrier task force group could be neutralized or even destroyed, making it impossible to get oil out of the Strait of Hormuz for an extended period of time. At least 20 percent of the world’s oil goes through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran also can lay down thick layers of Russian-made sea mines that can sink tankers or warships. Plus, Iran has Kilo class submarines, midget submarines and various small mine-laying naval craft that can lay down sea mines or torpedo U.S. warships or tankers. Most of the resources of the U.S. Navy and Air Force would be tied down hunting all of these small coastal Iranian naval targets for extended periods of time while expensive oil worked its ruinous magic on the U.S. economy.

Time is not America’s friend under this likely war scenario. Iranian military strategy uses asymmetrical tactics to exploit this American weakness. A prolonged quagmire war ends in Iranian political victory even if they suffer heavy casualties from U.S. firepower. The U.S. military could win every battle but still lose the political war. Iran just has to survive to win a stalemated war, something most Americans do not comprehend. Iran’s regime will ruthlessly trade tens of thousands of their own men’s lives in bloody suicide bombing attacks to exploit a prolonged quagmire war America cannot afford to fight. High oil prices at home while U.S. casualties mount overseas from continuous suicide bombings will destroy the domestic political will to fight a prolonged war against Iran.

Ground combat?

American ground combat units would be indispensable in clearing or occupying a portion of Iran’s coastline, such as the Strait of Hormuz, to neutralize those Iranian naval weapons that block the oil trade. Most of our Guard and Reserve units would eventually be called up for combat service in Iran. Now we would be facing prolonged ground combat against Iran’s 2.3 million-man military. Suicide bombers, roadside bombs, and ambushes in an urban guerrilla warfare setting could last for years, resulting in a bloody quagmire war with Iran. Iran has at least 1,000 short-range ballistic missiles to pulverize the Persian Gulf oil infrastructure.

We know also that Iran’s advanced petrochemical industry would mean they have the technical and industrial ability to easily make chemical weapons in large quantities including mustard gas or various nerve gases if threatened. Few hard facts are known by military analysts about Iran’s secretive chemical weapons programs, but most analysts believe Iran can produce upward of a 1,000 tons of chemical weapons annually. Iran produced plenty of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

Costly quagmire

So we need to ask those Republican senators how many thousands of American casualties in a quagmire war with Iran – that could cost trillions of dollars in additional debt, along with likely $200-per barrel oil at home – their constituents want to suffer or pay for? The price of war with Iran for the U.S. could quickly match Vietnam or Korean war-casualty levels. Intellectually myopic Republicans have not thought through what the price of war with Iran really means in blood and treasure for our country. No one knows where such a war could escalate into once ballistic missiles crash into Israeli or Persian Gulf urban centers with likely chemical or high explosive warheads. This war scenario could rapidly escalate into a large regional conventional war that snuffs out millions of lives in the region. Conservatives’ flippant attitudes toward this likely holocaust war scenario with Iran is deeply disturbing to anyone capable of critical thinking. President Barack Obama’s peaceful multilateral diplomatic approach with Iran is the correct one for our nation, rather than unilateral military action that ends in an unmitigated disaster for America.

This article was written by  Kyle Stoutenburg for In Forum on Aug. 30, 2015