Operation Carthage
An Operational Outline of a Campaign to remove Iran as a global and regional threat to peace and stability.
Being my small contribution to Leveraging the Ripples from Osirak Act II.
Those who may question whether we have cause to use force against the mad mullahs of Iran are cordially invited to create a thread on the issue and discuss it amongst themselves. Likewise the discussion of whether we (the United States) should do so is left to others elsewhere.
This thread is a discussion of how to remove Iran as a threat in the most effective and least costly (in terms of our inevitable losses) manner.
Iran’s Threat
Iran poses threats in the following areas:
Global threat to Arabian Gulf Oil Exports (tanker traffic though the Straits of Hormuz)
Naval Threat
Air Threat
Land Based Missile and Artillery Threat
WMD Programs
Funding and Support of Terrorist Organizations
Regional threat to Neighboring countries
Iraq
Turkey
Afghanistan
Critical Resources
Kharg Island (Primary crude oil export and refined products import nexus)
An effective campaign would remove or severely degrade all of the above threats. If I was planning it, it would look something like this
Phase 1
Air Defense Suppression
Destruction of Coastal Batteries
Communications Suppression
Phase One, elements of which will continue throughout the campaign, focuses on destroying Iran’s ability to interfere with our operations, and its ability to close the straits of Hormuz. These will be the primary targets of the initial strikes, and will remain at or near the top of the priority list of targets as the campaign progresses.
Phase 2
Destruction of Naval Assets
Destruction of Aviation Assets
Phase Two focuses on destroying Iran’s ability to interfere with shipping in the Arabian Gulf, and removing their ability to hinder the production and export facilities of neighboring countries. Phase Two will commence when Phase One is evaluated as having opened the way for strikes by non-stealthy assets.
Phase 3
Destruction of Republican Guards units
Destruction of WMD Facilities
Phase Three focuses on destroying Iran’s ability to export terrorism and terrorist support, and upon their ability to produce weapons of mass destruction. Since most of the targets of Phase Three are deep targets, it will commence when the ingress and egress routes from those targets are judged to be safe for non-stealthy assets.
Phase 4
Raid on Kharg Island
Phase Four removes Iran’s ability to export oil (their only source of hard currency) and import distilled petroleum products. This phase will be a prolonged raid upon the Kharg Island facility intended to utterly destroy the petroleum export and import capabilities of Iran. Doing so will effectively destroy their economy and prevent the regime from supporting terrorist organizations, and prevent them from rebuilding the forces which threaten the region and the world.
Phase Four will commence upon the completion of Phase Two and upon completion of the WMD portion of Phase Three. Phase Four will be executed by the Marines with SEAL and SeaBee support.
