Falklands War & Iran

The Falklands War & Iran
By Daniel G. Jennnings
Recent history proves that US military action can take down the regime in Iran without invading that troubled nation.
The history is the Falklands War in the early 1980s, for those of you that don’t remember in the early 1980s Argentina was controlled by a worthless military dictatorship whose popularity was falling. As in Iran today the Argentine dictatorship faced a lot of popular opposition.
The mighty Argentine generals were experts at murdering unarmed leftist students but had never actually fought in a war. In 1982 their worthless leader General Gulitari sought to defuse popular opposition by invading a number of islands in the South Atlantic that were British territory but claimed by Argentina. Interestingly enough no Argentines lived in the islands their residents were British. Britain’s prime minister Maggie Thatcher responded to this by sending her military to reclaim the Argentine occupied territory.
The outcome of this war was predictable the highly professional British military easily defeated the Argentine forces. The British were highly trained professional soldiers, the Argentine military’s expertise was torturing unarmed students to death, you do the math. Her Majesty’s forces used Argentine ships and planes for target practice. British commandos stormed into the Falklands and overwhelmed the Argentine military.
The result was that the Argentine military dictatorship collapsed completely and Argentina became democratic. This happened without a single British bomb falling on an Argentine city or a single British soldier landing on Argentine soil. Even though Her Majesty’s Army could have occupied the Argentine capitol, Buenos Aires, in a few hours.
Instead the British simply reoccupied the British territory seized by the Argentines and destroyed the Argentine forces occupying them. The result was that the Argentine military dictatorship was discredited and collapsed completely without a single British solider landing in Argentina. Instead the useless generals who had started the war were driven out of power. A sort of domino effect followed in which a number of South American military dictatorships allied with Argentina collapsed and became democratic.
This makes me wonder, if President Bush were to simply order our Air Force to take out the Iranian nuclear plants. No invasion of Iran, no regime change, simply US planes flying over Iran shooting the Iranian Air Force out of the sky and blasting the Iranian nuclear plants to rubble would destroy the Iranian dictatorship in the way that Iron Maggie brought democracy to Argentina.
Like the Argentine generals the Ayatollahs would be revealed as useless frauds. Like the Argentine Army, Iran’s gestapo, the Republican Guard would collapse and the Ayatollahs would have to back down.
With their military revealed as a worthless farce, and their political allies including this moronic president who thinks of himself as the Iranian Hitler would run for cover. They’d have to explain the Iranian people why we can’ t defend our own country. No American soldiers would have to die in Iran and American taxpayers would pay little.
Of course this doesn’t fit with the Neoconservative World View in which democracy can be achieved with American soldiers occupying foreign countries. Or the liberal world view in which diplomacy can magically transform terrorists into our friends. Unfortunately neither the neoconservatives or their apologists or self proclaimed critics in the media pay attention to Maggie Thatcher or remember how she won the Falklands War. After all history, recent or otherwise is of no interest in our current age.