[walrus01]

There were numerous simulations/war games run by the US and other militaries going back 20, 25, 30 years that basically came to the conclusion that:

a) If Iran was attacked with sufficient severity they would take the step to close the straight of Hormuz

b) Iran was developing or already had small-boat, mine laying, missile and UAV capacity sufficient to do so

c) Iran was actively working on ways to hide this missile, uav, small boat capacity in the general region of the straight of hormuz in hundreds of small locations (down to the size/scale of a civilian small warehouse or garage), making it impossible to air strike/remove all of this capability with any known certainty without causing absurd levels of civilian casualties

d) The only way to remove the missile, small boat, uav capability would be an extremely large boots on the ground and manpower intensive ground based search to hunt it down. You couldn't be sure you could remove the capability strictly from the air.

[vkou]

e) Invading Iran would not be a thee-week special operation like invading Iraq was.

[MengerSponge]

Counterpoint: it would be a three-week special operation a lot like invading Iraq, in that after minor victories the administration would declare "Mission Accomplished" before burning trillions of dollars and thousands of lives fighting an insurgency.

[vkou]

It wouldn't even get to that point, because in order to be fighting an insurgency, you have to actually win on the ground and occupy the country.

Without a coalition of fools, the US has zero odds of success in that first step. It wouldn't be a long war of insurgency, it would just be a long war.

Iran is far bigger, far more capable, and far more difficult to wage war in than Iraq ever was.

[burnerRhodov3]

not saying this should be a tactic we should employ, but the us has never invaded a country with the intent to conquor(except mexico). like, as in, iran is now part of the us.

the world would be aghast... but they already are?

[vkou]

It couldn't do it without switching to a war economy and full mobilization. And that would spell the end of the current US regime long before it would end the Iranian one.

Trump's approval rating has a floor of 40%, but that would likely send it to the 30s, and turn MAGA into a 30-seat party.

[burnerRhodov3]

I completely agree. I guess i should say it vice a versa. It will be impossible to win Iran and has been proven by everything from vietnam to the middle east escapades...

If you go to war with a country, you cannot allow the country to exist in any form if you truely wish the 'win a war'.

It's a modern, wierd, primarily US based 'design of war', we learned from the cold war. Go in, destabalize it enough, ensure a coup every couple of years, so that region cannot ever be a material threat to you (like the ottoman empire)

[MengerSponge]

(except mexico)

and Canada

and Hawaii

The fact that we've invaded every bordering country with the intent to conquer kind of invalidates your argument...

[burnerRhodov3]

well.. those are the ones we won?

[fulafel]

The death toll was several orders of magnitude more (300k?).

[MengerSponge]

If you're counting Iraqi deaths (which you should) it's probably past 500k. 600k if you count excess deaths. Ghoulish.

My point was what the American administration would burn and care about, and they clearly didn't/don't care about civilian deaths. TBH they only care about American military losses as far as it hurts their political capital at home.