Your last sentence shows, why an atomic-bomb is useless as weapon, because it can trigger and justify such an outcome for the Iran. Without that the USA are unable to use atomic-weapons. Even when the Iraq has had used some of its chemical weapons at hand, I had not seen a nuke over Bagdad.
.

Nope. History has proved – MAD is working conception. If you believe what iranian mullah’s have the guts to do another 9/11 than, logicaly, you should have no problem to believe what they will have guts to explode A-Bomb in Los-Angeles. Allthought Bush can persuade americans what another 9/11 is “unlikely”, but “acceptable” price for democratic Iran (or, for cynics, for Iranian oil) it will face revolution if he will try to persuade americans what burned radioactive New-York or LA is acceptable price for freeing poor iranians from fanatical mullah’s (or, for cynics, iranian oil). He could try to make color revolutions in Iran all he want, he could send killers to assasinate Iran’s president every day, but he will not order B-2’s to bomb Iran. After all, even if Mr. Bush personly speaks with god every morning, there are still enouth sane peoples in American goverment.

Perhaps… North Vietnam did it with their style of warfare. But I have a feeling Iran will be just like Iraq. 100 hours of war, Iran will surrender and America will have only lost 100 people.

NV was fighting greatly, true. But that wouldnt help them to win without USSR backing them up with a loads of weapons, instructors, and direct political support which translated to somewhat limited ROE by americans. My point – it doesnt matter how good Iranian will fight, or how good they equipment will be. You are looking at a difference between 200 dead americans solidiers and 2000 (well, 20000 dead if every iranian men and women are real fanatics) dead american soldiers here. It doesnt matter nor for iranian, nor for americans. Only thing what can save them in case of direct military conflict with USA – is A-Bomb. All else is useless. True, americans will not be able to conquer Iran if its peoples are ready to die defending its country (full-scale genocid is not something even USA could do in 21th century). But USA can bomb Iran to **** destroying all infrastructure and industry, and they can kill its entire goverment. So in the sence, they will destroy Iran as a country.

You cant defeat the U.S, It is impossible. And russia is no longer a superpower, They cant even afford to pay their pilots anymore. And most of their aircraft have not recieved spare parts in decades. And china will not do anything against the u.s since they are not a superpower either, China needs the U.S more then the U.S needs them. China’s eco relies on the U.S outsourcing too much. And china is not willing to risk this on a Dumpster Like Iran.

Well, its certainly true. You cant defeat USA. But you can succesfully defend against it. Thats for sure.

Not much. B-2’s are nuclear hardened since their original job was to deliver free fall nuclear weapons which would still leave them in the EMP effect range. They could potentially knock out some systems that were operating at the time and possibly make it a ‘mission-kill in that the crew couldn’t complete their mission, but it would not bring down the plane. They’d likely do more damage to their own country’s power and defense infrastructure than to a B-2 and leave themselves even more open to a follow-on strike (potentially with nuclear weapons since they used nukes againt us first).

I would assume what any EMP device exploded close enouth to affect B-2 would be better filled with pure HE+metal rods. B-2 is hardened good enouth to survive 15-20 km proximity nuclear explosion without mission kill. Now figure yourself how close 1000000 times weaker EMP device should explode to affect B-2.

And steal oil? That’s a laugh. All we’ve done is rebuild and repair the oil infrastructure, we’re not taking the oil and selling it ourselves. Try and prove that one :rolleyes:
.

Well, how uncommon it sounds, i really agree with you. The iraq oil by itself was certainly not a prime reason for a war. But, the control over said oil was one of the prime reasons for USA nationalistic heads – to deny China and Europe easy way to get that oil. The other prime reason was increasing oil prices – low oil price is very bad for USA oil companies. Yet there was another reason for the war – and probably most important one. Money what USA goverment distributed due to this war. Money for Iraq “rebuilding”. Money for Iraq invasion. Money for new weapon. Money for new equipment. USA spent 10x as much money as they recived it from Iraq oil. Where all these tax payer’s money landed? We all know it. Habillitron, Bush, Ramsfeld, etc.

well comunism can hardly be a success can it? I didnt see alot of Russians bothered about it and marching in the street for the return of communism when it all borked up for them. Communism just isnt very popular with the people who live under it it would appear – maybe im tottally ignorant of the millions living in bliss under a red goverment. Be interesting to find out really.

Well, between 2 political systems one should lose, dont it? Besides, we can also point to China. And, to make matter even more complicated, its not a first time in the history when more progressive political formation lost to less progressive – Rome comes to mind here.
To make it clear, i dont think what later USSR pure socialism (they didnt call it communism, you know?) was better than, say, Schwitzland or Germany “hybrid” socialism. Of course, it was worse. But the question is NOT if socialism in USSR was worse than capitalism in USA. The true question IF socialism in USSR was worse than capitalism in USSR. So far, most ppls think what its not. And keep in mind, they compare 25 years old life standard with today live standard – and by any means in 25 years socialist USSR could have gone a looong way to better peoples lives standard. Just look at China – how far they gone … Of course, now its completely impossible to return to communist ideology – mainly, becouse said ideology place too much restrictions for elite. Plus, of course, most active part of socium what useally make revolution have much better chances to find a good place in “free market” live. Still, we can observe clear trend what shifts “wild capitalism” to “hybrid socialism” in the last 100 years. If we extrapolate it futher, we can get surprising result – in 100 years we will see semi-socialist political formation with big “private” corporations and very strong state control over these coporations. Hardly an capitalistic world.

fella on this thread who claims 5 million or something Iraqis were killed by us. 🙂

It will make you fell much better if we agree at “just” 100.000 thousands of Iraqis killed by american hands, and 1.700.000 died due to invasion and lack of medicine/water/food/whatever? I have nothing against USA invading Iraq, but i have a LOT against calling it “democratisation” and “making iraqis lives better”.

So, you are losing the bulk of your AD network, and all your valuable assets what you wanted to protect, in an attemt to make WHAT? To shot down 5-10-15 american Aircrafts? Let me tell you, USAAF will be happy with such exchange.
You can forget however about shotting down AWACS and striking american bases with any planes. Just not gonna happen no matter what. Your best bet would be long-range artillery and MRLS.