The Bunkers Impenetrable

In the coming nuclear war with Iran, America is going to be faced with a couple of possibly mutually-exclusive goals (maybe even more than a few), as the natural and predictable consequence of us losing our national manly swagger back when the Obama Democrats took over. To a degree this seems to happen whenever Democrats come into power, but rather than rehash all of post-Civil War history, I want to address some specific upcoming issues focusing on Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.

One does not have to be of a conspiratorial mindset to reasonably suspect a considerable amount of treason is occurring in our negotiations with the rogue pariah state of Iran*. This is going to back us into a corner, option-wise, when the shooting starts because:

A) We** won’t want to use our nuclear weapons.

B) They WILL want to use theirs.

And the Iranians will presumably have that option because the insanity or treachery (or both) of our current Administration will have allowed them to achieve it.

Issue:

I keep reading about how Iran’s nuclear processing centrifuges are in fortified bunkers, buried so deeply as to the point of being “unbombable”.

Well, OK.  Not good, of course, but we can work with this. Let’s lay out our known facts, and our assumptions.

Fact:

I’m an amateur.

Assumption:

Our military strategists – especially our top-flight ones – had better have both solid Intel and well-tested strategies of such superior quality as to make my suggestions look like a dyslexic 4-year-old’s finger paintings, or we’re in far worse trouble than I currently imagine. And since I can easily imagine what I believe to be workable solutions to the Iranian bunker problem, I find myself somewhat less than freaked out by the overall matter, while still hoping my trust is not misplaced.

Fact:

Readily available civilian-grade maps, charts, and GPS data are of sufficiently high quality as to be able to support an invasion of (and resistance within) Iran.

Assumption:

Our military has better than civilian-grade maps, charts, and GPS data. I would hope that all Iranian military surface assets (and many sub-surface assets) are already mapped, tagged, and tracked. These would include not only the locations of subterranean bunkers, but also their ventilation systems, power and water sources, as well as (obviously) all entrance and egress routes. Once open hostilities ensue (or “more open than are currently admitted to by our media”), I would hope our night-vision satellites could distinguish between a bunker trying to hide its thermal signature through a distributed heat-sink system, and an Iranian vegetarian jerboa relieving itself in the dark.

My point:

Whenever our media honks on endlessly about something, I tend to look the other way, or at least around them, to see what they’re hiding or trying to distract from.  And right now one of their catch-phrases is that the Iranian bunkers are impenetrable. Well, OK. So what? So they’re “impenetrable”.  We can bury their exits under tons of glowing rock (even without using nukes).

We can gas their ventilation systems, and if the combination of Geneva Convention rules of war prohibiting war gasses, and the Iranian’s multi-year inventory of bottled air, make such a solution untenable, we can still seal them off and set the multi-year egg timer a’ticking because GOSH surviving for years on bottled air with no way out must be just loads of fun for them down under***.

The whole “impenetrable” thing is a hog-wash smoke-screen****.  Sure they may – MAY – successfully resist a direct impact from one of our bunker-buster bombs. But two, or three, or ten?  I just don’t know.  I keep remembering that quite a few pharos’s tombs in the Valley of the Kings were considered “impenetrable” until someone went to the trouble of doing an awful lot of patient digging.

The truth is that nothing is impenetrable (with the possible exception of Obama’s personal history). We could remove Iran as a serious threat in the Middle East simply by accidentally coughing in the wrong direction, and the real threat, for which all the rest of this is simply a disguise, would still exist in Washington, D.C.

Once THAT’s taken care of, we could simply park Bruce Willis over one of those bunkers with a drill and a bomb and be certain it’d all be handled to our immense satisfaction. 

Just, you know, keep Michael Bay away from it all. Nobody needs that.

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UPDATE: (01/21/2016) Given the recent release of "13 Hours", I hereby regret and rescind my snarky remark about Michael Bay.

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* If you haven’t picked up on my personal bias by this point then let me clarify that I’m not a fan of Iran’s government. They have some spectacular and awe-inspiring geography, and I’m told the majority of their people are pretty nice too, but neither of those are what I’m addressing here.

** By “we” here I mean “The United States Government”. Personally I’m fine with the idea, but our government and I disagree on a wide range of issues.

*** I’m not referring to Australia. Do try to keep up.

**** If you’ll forgive the mixed metaphor, and frankly a “hog-wash smoke-screen” is something I’d pay to see if anyone could figure out how to create one.