The US has no desire or intent to occupy Iran. It would take a year just to move enough forces to even contemplate it. Iran is mountainous which makes this a lot harder than Iraq.
It is also completely unnecessary. There are two options. Either the current regime makes a "deal" or it's going to get crippled to the point of irrelevance or removed.
Iran and Iraq are very different. Different culture, people and history. It's also worth remembering Iran is not homogeneous, only 61% of the population are Persians. There are Azeri, there are Kurds and various other ethnic/region minorities.
Iran is extremely vulnerable. It has internal issues, constantly oppressing/suppressing its people. Its economy is in terrible shape. Most of its economic engine can be easily taken out (its main oil terminals). The bulk of its military can be destroyed from the air, it has little defensive or offensive capability. They know it.
I think what you are missing is how vulnerable the United States and its allies are in the region.
There are much much softer targets than Tel Aviv, many of which Iran has successfully attacked in the past.
The argument that the Iranian people hate their autocratic government might be correct. But a symmetric argument can be made about many of the regimes which work with the United States. No one in those countries is going to war with Iran to defend the US right to have military bases in the Middle East.
One way of looking at last week's ballistic missile attacks is that they were a way of demonstrating Iran's ability to retaliate in the wider region.
If Ramat Gan is not safe, then the UAE's resorts and airports, Saudi's oil processing facilities, the US installations in Iraq and in the Gulf, etc are not even remotely safe.
Israel reportedly took out >50% of the launchers. With complete control of the air space a launcher becomes a single use rather than its intended multiple use. The USA can defend its positions with Aegis/THAAD and its detection capabilities give early warning.
Israel has taken a lot of damage but relatively little loss of life.
Iran would be foolish to expand the war and they know it. They're not going to attack the UAE or Saudi. Iran's bluff has been called.
well israel would, because israel's existance depends on them.
from an israeli perspective, things cant be going better. if the US gets pulled into invading iran, then their only effective opponent in the world is vietnam'd. which is great if your soldiers arent the ones dying to IEDs.
without iranian funding/management, Hamas shrivels up and palestine is open to be ethnically cleansed. israel wins a 3000 year old war, and only has to deal with sternly worded letters from the UN for it.
against who? the persians beat the babylonian tyrants and enabled the rebuilding of the temple way back when. Cyrus is a messiah rather than ancient enemy
Then wouldn’t it be best to prop up groups on the inside? Start with providing restricted airspaces to groups who hate the regime, and let them be autonomous regions. That wouldn’t need any boots on the ground.
Say you give the Kurds their own part of Iran and help protect their area could weaken the rest. I think there is already such a deal in in Iraq afaik.
Can't compare Ukraine, which is a democracy where the government enjoys broad support, to Iran, which is a dictatorship where 80% of the population wants the government gone and rules by an iron fist and public executions.
> or it's going to get crippled to the point of irrelevance or removed.
how are you gonna do that without boots on the ground?
Trump talking about annexing canada made them go from being sick of the liberal party becuase of trudeau to swinging back around to supporting it to an upset victory because they were the only ones standing up to america. and thats america's closest ally, iran is their most bitter foe
this is either gonna end any chance of cooling things off with iran (and make them realize they need a nuclear deterrent yesterday), or turn into another vietnam/afghanistan
the regime was unpopular, the US could have collapsed them slowly like they did the soviets, but instead they let israel's "trust me bro" on nukes pull them into another quagmire.
Don’t think the current guy in the white house is much into nation building. Also after Iraq and 20 years wasted in Afghanistan - Americans are less likely to care about rebuilding a country.
The US occupied Japan and West Germany after WW2. Admittedly mostly with the support of local authorities. But that was the US with a pop of ~133m and Japan with a pop of ~70m. So yes, if the US had the political will it could occupy Iran.
Does it have the political will? No way!
Michael Shurkin-- a former rand analyst and I strongly recommend his podcast-- says that politicians say "there is no military solution" when they mean there is no military solution that people would politically support. The US could do all sorts of things in Iran but the US people would not accept the casualties or the human rights abuses.
No, it's damn near geographically impossible or would require cooperation from countries who would be absolutely be opposed to it, and the Pentagon knows it even the small brained people in fancy suits in Washington don't.
i doubt israel cares. if they can get the US to invade iran for them, then no matter what happens, their only effective opponent is dismantled. you can definitely hope to springboard that to regional dominance and guaranteeing your existance
This is true, no Americans have the desire to invade Iran after Iraq and Afghanistan. If Trump goes in then the next politician that runs on ending the invasion would win in a landslide. Further, there’s just nothing to justify an invasion. Regime change or not, Iran’s nuclear program and militias can now be destroyed from the air uncontested, why invade?
Well, its done now. All we can do is to hope for the better outcome and ever more powerful ideological regime is not the better outcome. Trump might just guaranteed that though. He isn’t good at this international relations and peacemakings stuff.
60%? Serious citation needed. The largest Christian population in Iran are Armenians. There are far fewer than 1 million Armenians in Iran. So unless you have evidence for the claim that there are 50+ million atheists in Iran, the number just defies belief.
I would be shocked if there were 50 million atheists in America. Maybe if you included people who are spiritual but do not believe directly in a god. Maybe I could accept it then, but at that point, you are stretching the definition of 'atheist' to its breaking point.
Not arguing your point. Just thought I’d share that of the emigres I know (big families that left starting in the late 60s) all are either Christian or Zoorastrian (to some degree). To them the Islamic conquest of Persia is not old news!
Trump thinks regime change will happen instantly and easily. Maybe he has secret source front NSA and CIA, who track private messages of Iranians! 60% of Iranians are secret christians. 38% are closeted gays!
A few bombs, everyone comes out of closet, unconditional surrender, democracy, live happily ever after... Sounds like American movie...
It's like there's an echo from every other stupid poll-raising middle east adventure we've ever gotten into.
This is a stupid war being waged by idiots against idiots . Unfortunately none of those idiots calling the shots will die, it'll be a bunch of kids who just made the mistake of not being rich and powerful enough.
America allies, Saudi head chop more than Iran. And there are 100K Jews in Iran and they get into parliament too. Show me that in Israel. You got confused with Saudi and Pakistan. Dont think 60% there Christian or atheist there. Westrrn media is always BS. They got so many wrongs since 2 deacdes ago, I read way less western stuff these days. Otherwise my whole world view looks like Marvel MCU and Tom Cruise with Arnie running around with guns.
Your numbers are way off: there are between 10k and 20k Jews in Iran. There are also 5 parliament seats in Iranian parliament (out of 290 members) that are reserved for religious minorities, of which two seats are for Armenians, one for Syrians, one for Jews and one for Zoroastrians.
It is ending a bit like Ming dynasty and Rome towards the end. Corruptions rife everywhere. Leaders try to be competent and yet ended making more mess. You can already see China is doing 5nm. Best camera phone is Huawei. Best EV in both variants models and quality and total volume sales, BYD. Tesla get decimated. Even AI China is on par. In terms of talents, you can see how well Americans read and count. In 30 years time, you need to learn Chinese and maybe Russian. I dont see America will be much viable pass the next 30 years. If you get a Dem prez, the country will be saturated with illegals. If you get JD, debrs will spiral out of control while opening a warfront in the middle east with Iran and China. This is basically empire ending scenario.
>If you get a Dem prez, the country will be saturated with illegals
Is this, in your mind, how empires end? I'm not sure if you've cracked a history book in a while, but immigrants built this country. We are a country of immigrants. We win when we get the hardest working, most entrepreneurial, boldest and smartest people to come here. Immigrants are no couch potatoes - on average they work harder than American born citizens do by an order of magnitude for way less pay.
In 30 years time there will be fewer Mandarin speakers than there are today, and far fewer Russian speakers. This has nothing to do with Americans; four out of five English speakers live in other countries. It's the consequence of Metcalf's Law in age of internet communication, combined with obvious demographic trends.
This is more likely to be the end of the American empire than an actual change in Iran.