| The US has a straightforward option to "win" the war via a ground invasion. First, a large scale bombing campaign, targeting Iranian infrastructure. Dropping bombs on every power substation, fuel plant, and generation plant would cripple the economy, and grind the country to a halt. A similar strategy was applied to Japan and Germany in WWII. If these facilities have military purpose, destroying these facilities is not necessarily a war crime. A modern economy cannot function without fuel and electricity. The economy will quickly grind to a halt, and Iran will be forced to confront internal problems before mounting a concerted response. After 2-3 weeks of chaos, the US would launch a ground invasion, though Pakistan and Iraq. It would then remove the nuclear material, clean up Iranian missiles that target ships in the strait, and the US would leave. It achieves the primary, secondary, and tertiary goals of the war: no more nuclear weapons, removal of nuclear material, and reopening of the strait. Combat losses to the US would be minimal. The cost for Iran, though, is astronomically high. It would take years for the country to rebuild, and set back the nation economically for decades. Trump is trying hard to avoid this option. Many other presidents (I'd wager Kamela) would have gone down this path by now. |
The necessary buildup would take several months and would happen within range of Iranian drones.
Neither Iraq nor Pakistan seem to be particularly likely to grant a permission to the US to stage a large-scale land operation against Iran from their own territory. Both have large populations partly sympathetic to the mullahs, the political destabilization caused by taking the side of "infidels" against the "faithful", plus suffering Iranian drone retaliation, would be just too costly for them.
"First, a large scale bombing campaign, targeting Iranian infrastructure."
The US already did that and emptied its arsenals to dangerously low levels. Were they replenished? Probably not yet, this is what we are discussing here; the military-industrial complex in America has grown fat and complacent and cannot quickly increase production beyond the very low level optimized out by post-Cold-War MBAs.
"Combat losses to the US would be minimal."
Uncertain. The US could probably swallow its pride and go to Kyiv to shop for anti-drone know-how and technology. In that case, the combat losses would be lower. If people like Vance and Trump cannot do that, I would rather expect the US losses to be at least in lower tens of thousands. A million cheap FPV drones can do a lot of dirty work, and this is probably the stuff that China can send to the IRGC quite quickly.