Chapter 1570 – The Iran-Iraq War

Merrill Lynch is a giant American securities firm, and the Merrill Lynch Group is the world’s leading wealth management, capital markets and advisory firm, with branches and representative offices in thirty countries and territories on six continents, employing 60,000 people.

There are of course offices in London, and the current U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Donald Reagan, used to be a senior member of this company.

He said that the Mountbatten Group is a friend of Wall Street, naturally, is the weight of the Allen Wilson to express gratitude for this commitment, but did not give in, “You know, the war is a big thing. Even if I want to help, but I only have the power to advise, the national policy is still the prime minister’s say. Our Prime Minister strongly defends the national interest.”

If Mrs. Thatcher had not betrayed him, this coming to Frankfurt was indeed supposed to be in firm defense of the national interest, as the two had agreed before coming.

The United States wants to let the United Kingdom to be the villain, and then they take the opportunity to draw blood from Latin America, this operation Alan Wilson is not unable to understand, the United States in specific conditions are not unable to join forces with Russia.

But should not be so and the Soviet Union to join forces, the Soviet Union is to replace the United States of America’s national strength, borrowing a knife to kill is not borrowing a knife to kill themselves, I believe that the United States carry clear.

Dare to test Britain to see if it wants to take action against Argentina for obvious reasons, although the United Kingdom retained a considerable strength, but the distance back to the peak is still far away from some.

Although there is still a powerful navy, in the current world ranked third, yes is third, the Soviet Union Red Navy has exceeded three million tons of total tonnage, is truly the world’s second largest navy.

The U.S. judged that the U.K., while possessing considerable power, was not strong enough to replace itself, so it could cooperate, which is like viewing Russia so many decades later, and in a sense is also considered to be raising the enemy.

As for a country that is really capable of replacing itself, it still can’t really fight, although public opinion is being prepared all the time.

“The Americans have not yet had the idea of wanting to see how much strength Britain still has.” Returning to the Prime Minister, Alan Wilson then made peace with his conversation with the American Secretary of the Treasury.

“The Americans are playing a good game.” Margaret Thatcher grunted in anger, although she also advocated the special relationship between Britain and the United States, but she could not accept that Britain unilaterally suffered a loss, “Listen to you, Washington wants to see the strength of the United Kingdom, and at the same time to take advantage of this war to raise interest rates and suppress inflation.”

“Oh yes, it’s similar to Britain’s purpose.” Alan Wilson nodded his head, but still emphasized that Britain and the United States are different, what exactly is the difference, the United States is stronger than Britain, Britain actually does not want to do it themselves, but there is no good agent in their hands.

Although the Kingdom of Iraq is a pro-British country, but this time it is still being talked to by the Americans, Allen Wilson can only remedy the situation in other areas, to fight for a better result.

If he had a choice, he would like to have good relations with any country, but relations with Iran have been a foregone conclusion since the post-war Mossadegh rebellion against the British, and the UK has no choice but to go one way and hold on to Iraq and provide support for it.

Normally since it knows what the unsuspecting allies are up to, Britain should avoid falling into the trap, even if the US has hinted that it will help Britain hide its true aims and promise false promises for Argentina.

But the problem is that Margaret Thatcher’s approval rating is also very low, which have not yet been dealt with the most difficult miners’ union it, can not pull up the approval rate, Margaret Thatcher on the miners’ union is not hard.

Alan Wilson broke his fingers to calculate the current imperial heritage, is the army seems to be weak a little bit, this weak a little bit refers to after Germany and France, the Cold War period of the Federal Republic of Germany is a country where all males have to serve in the military, similar to the later South Korea, the number of German Wehrmacht more than half a million people, tanks have 4,900, and there are more than 7,000 armored personnel carriers, the spring and autumn penmanship a little bit, who is not also a have had ten thousand Who wouldn’t be a torrent of steel with over ten thousand armored forces?

British Army in the number of not to mention and Germany than, 1,800 tanks in NATO is still behind France, and Italy is a level, which can not be helped, Allen Wilson can not change out of the military spending to maintain the current framework has been considered to be a labor of love and money is of course invested in the Navy and Air Force above.

However, from the degree of armament renewal, Britain more than Germany, France and Italy, especially France and Italy, France’s tank development has taken a detour, a pile of thin-skinned tanks in the country.

The Italian Army can be described as a smaller Wehrmacht, and Leopard tanks are in service with the Italian Army.

The British Army change efficiency and the Federal Republic of Germany, a country specializing in ground warfare is almost the same, but also want to serve five thousand tanks is naturally impossible, but the war-tested Tiger helicopter gunships equipped with land navigation, is the advantage of the British Army.

The two British islands of St. Helena and Ascension had to be utilized if Argentina was to be attacked, otherwise the British strategic bombers would not be of any use.

While Reagan and former President Carter were performing that the United States would never give up any American citizen, Alan Wilson was soul-searching and thinking about where the grip was going to be to fight Argentina.

It would be possible to borrow military bases in South Africa, the UK and South Africa still had an OK relationship, and if it wasn’t for his best efforts to stop it, Margaret Thatcher would have openly sided with the South African government, treating the African countries of the British Commonwealth as if they were air, but it shouldn’t be a problem to get South Africa to assist in a time of war.

The hostages released by Iran, after a physical health check and debriefing of the incident, were flown back to Washington and given a hero’s welcome. The Iranian hostage crisis is over.

The hostage crisis is over, does not mean that the United States will forget to let the United States lose face of Iran, the United States of America is such a country, everything from the strength of the position, the strength of the United States of America will naturally find a reason to forgive you, such as the Korean War and the Vietnam War in a major country.

The United States want to forgive Russia, at least know the king of that line of political forces is really want to United Russia, but if there is no strength, the United States can target you to the end of days.

It is simply naive for Iran to think that with the end of the hostage crisis, the issue has been resolved.

Shortly after the hostage crisis was resolved, the opening act of 1982 began when King Faisal II of Iraq declared his intention to reclaim territory for the UAE that had been seized by Iran, the Iraqi Army crossed the border, and the Iran-Iraq war of this world finally erupted after more than a year’s delay.

The Iraqi air force bore the brunt of the war, striking military targets in Iran to cover the ground forces’ attack, and Iran, which didn’t think Iraq really dared to do anything, paid the price for its self-confidence.

Iran did not think that Iraq really dared to go to war, because Iran’s military power is far more than the Kingdom of Iraq, the size and population is the basis for this, as a basis for the Pahlavi period, the Pahlavi created one of the largest armies in the Middle East, the formation of up to seventy million people of the Royal Army, including the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy, the Royal Army, the Pahlavi when the Commander-in-Chief of the three armies.

Pahlavi King claimed to establish the world’s fifth largest military force, to be equal to the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France, now although the collapse of national defense, but the framework is still in place, did not think that Iraq really dared to do it.

This is something that the Iranians do not know, although the history of Iraq in the period of Saddam claimed to have a million troops, but in fact this is only after the Iran-Iraq war to accumulate, in Saddam attacked Iran, the Iraqi army is only more than 200,000 people, is not what the world’s fourth military power.

Allen Wilson had already helped Faisal II expand his army to four hundred and fifty thousand, which was more than twice the military strength of the same period in Iraq’s history, so what was there to fear.

In fact Iran, caught off guard, soon paid the price for its overconfidence, commanders loyal to the Shah had been purged, and the now seemingly massive Iranian army, whose combat power had slipped considerably, could not hold its own against the hands-on Iraqi army.

White light flashes in the distance, in the heart-rending loud noise, more than two hundred meters away from the armored car’s armor as thin as paper was immediately torn apart, was pierced by the body of the car issued a ga hissing strange sound, twisted and deformed.

The kinetic energy armor-piercing rounds pierced through its front armor and then mercilessly drilled through its wide body, creating thousands of scorching fragments after the rounds penetrated the vehicle, and spraying them indiscriminately inside the vehicle, burning its members to pieces in no time at all.

It then ignited the oil and gas mixture inside the vehicle, and a black and red flame spread out violently from the gap between the roof window and the vehicle, accompanied by the sound of an explosion, the vehicle burned fiercely like a torch that had been set on fire.

The Chieftain main battle tank slowly emerged from the distance, it seems to the distant burning armored car contemptuous sneer, and then slowly turned the turret, leading the convoy behind them to drive toward the front.

The excitement of the crew amongst the Chieftain’s tanks was palpable, although the British tanks had some non-combat related amenities inside and even had a tea set, the combat effectiveness could still be relied upon.

This is marching armored forces in the desert raised the dust and sand in the sky, green smoke and yellow-gray dust into a huge curtain of sand, covering the sky and the moon, together with the ground on the earth-shaking rumble, as if blowing up a huge sandstorm.

So far, the Iraqi army can be said to have taken the initiative, optimistic advance posture, but also let the army appeared optimistic, to Iran’s strong military power on paper less scruples.

Before receiving the order to attack, some soldiers were skeptical of Iran, after all, a lot of things are very intuitive, Iran is a large area with a large population, and the paper military power is also there.

But the fight seems to be not so, apparently the purging of the Royal Army, has seriously affected the fighting strength of the Iranian army. And that impact has been exposed in the middle of the war.