[jameshilliard]

> The biggest mistake US & Israel did was underestimating Iran, specifically their defensive capabilities. They've prepared for this war for 47 years, _literally_ praying for it. You had Abbas Araghchi on TV literally inviting American army into Iran for a ground invasion.

Iran would be highly unlikely to be able to prevent a ground invasion from the US since Iran's convention military capabilities are not particularly strong(hence why Iran often fights through proxies or other non-convention means). They can obviously cause a lot of damage but they would obviously lose that war if the US decided they had to remove the regime by force.

> What the West doesn't understand is that you can't really dismantle an ideology by dropping bombs on civilians. It didn't work in Afghanistan, it didn't work in IRAQ and it's not working with IRAN.

The problem is more that those with the ideology have all the weapons in Iran, so even though the regime and their ideology may be extremely unpopular it's still quite difficult to change things when the fanatics are the ones in power.

> The Shia martyrdom culture is misunderstood. I was not being hyperbolic when I said they have been praying for this war.

Yeah, unfortunately this likely is going to end up resulting in a ground invasion being inevitable at some point as Iran seems to be unwilling to abandon their goal of destroying Israel and nuclear weapons program.

[iugtmkbdfil834]

Ngl, anyone arguing for a ground invasion of Iran will have a hard time convincing US population. I get that president's war powers are pretty expansive, but everything has limits.

[jameshilliard]

> Ngl, anyone arguing for a ground invasion of Iran will have a hard time convincing US population.

I agree under current conditions it would obviously be quite difficult to convince the US population, and if it ends up happening obviously the US would want as much support as possible from other countries, my point was just that it's probably going to be inevitable at some point due to the Regime's ultimate ideological goals.

[macintux]

> They can obviously cause a lot of damage but they would obviously lose that war if the US decided they had to remove the regime by force.

That is far from obvious. A command structure scattered around a huge country should be able to outlast U.S. willingness to throw bodies into a shredder.

[onemoresoop]

It’s easy to look at Ukraine for example. Since drones came into the picture it’s way harder to do a successful ground invasion. Russia has unimaginable losses and they still haven’t reached their strategic goal.

[jameshilliard]

> Since drones came into the picture it’s way harder to do a successful ground invasion.

Harder, sure, but it's unlikely Iran could stop a US invasion since a ground invasion would almost certainly only happen with the US having complete air supremacy.

> Russia has unimaginable losses and they still haven’t reached their strategic goal.

Russia does not have control of the airspace in Ukraine, the US was flying even non-stealth aircraft over Iran for most of the war with negligible losses for those aircraft.

[macintux]

I’m reminded of the cold war joke: two Russian generals meet up in Paris in the closing days of WWIII. One asks the other: “So who won the air war?”

[jameshilliard]

> two Russian generals meet up in Paris in the closing days of WWIII. One asks the other: “So who won the air war?”

The US with combined arms warfare capabilities and air supremacy is very difficult to defend against for a country like Iran in the event of a ground invasion.

[awesome_dude]

The Vietnamese proved that it's not the bombs you can throw at the country - it's whether you have hearts and minds on your side.

The Americans learnt from that and went to Iraq claiming to have hearts and minds on their side - but quickly discovered that, in fact, they did not (and still do not).

The Americans need to take stock of their own actions in this conflict - they put Trump in the white house, they allowed him to be influenced by other governments, they gave him the power to get involved in the conflict.

[JumpCrisscross]

> they can obviously cause a lot of damage but they would obviously lose that war if the US decided they had to remove the regime by force

I'm genuinely sceptical of this. If America literally invaded Iran, there is a good chance Chinese production comes to back them up. At that point we're fighting with a long logistics chain on someone else's territory (giving them advantages of knowing the land, having local sympathies and having a greater reason to fight) while getting pelted by asymmetric-warfare tactics we can't meaningfully reciprocate.

> unfortunately this likely is going to end up resulting in a ground invasion being inevitable at some point

Why? Just remove their ability to destroy Israel. Keep taking out their nuclear programme from time to time and have the Congress ratify the JCPOA in case they come back to the table.

[jameshilliard]

> If America literally invaded Iran, there is a good chance Chinese production comes to back them up.

It could happen, but even if it did I'm not so sure how big a difference it would make, would highly depend on what weapons systems were provided. So far it doesn't seem like China is all that interested in getting all that involved in any conflict with Iran and the US.

> At that point we're fighting with a long logistics chain on someone else's territory (giving them advantages of knowing the land, having local sympathies and having a greater reason to fight) while getting pelted by asymmetric-warfare tactics we can't meaningfully reciprocate.

There's also many Iranians that hate the regime so it's hard to say how things would play out.

> Why? Just remove their ability to destroy Israel.

That's easier said than done, obviously one can keep bombing nuclear/missile facilities but I'm not sure how sustainable a strategy that is long term.

> Keep taking out their nuclear programme from time to time and have the Congress ratify the JCPOA in case they come back to the table.

JCPOA was just a delay tactic on the part of the Iranians. The main Iranian threats to the region are proxies, Missiles and Nukes. The JCPOA only addressed the Nukes issue over a limited time frame.