4 ms·

Not really. The U.S. can send in the ground force to restore the trade around the Gulf. The BUT is obvious in this case tho.

by liuliu 7mo ago

solid_fuel 7mo ago
That's not a reasonable option, it's a bear-trap. Once troops are on the ground it will be another decades-long slog, and one that ends like Afghanistan at best. At worst, this looks like America's version of Ukraine.
- YZF 7mo ago
  I can argue both sides but under the assumption (which I think is true) that 80%-90% of Iranians want to remove the regime there's some possibility of success. That said there's also the possibility of screwing things up completely and getting the entire population to fight you as an invader. One thing for sure, it's not going to look like Russia invading Ukraine. The Iranians don't have the resolve or the support or the capabilities that Ukraine had and has. It will look more like Iraq in terms of the ability of the military to put up any resistance. The problem with "boots on the ground" isn't that it can't succeed. The problem is it has zero support from the American public. People feel about this a lot more strongly than the other topics dividing the public.
  - orwin 7mo ago
    Iranian polls show that 20-25% Iranians living in Iran support the IRGC, but due to how the questions were formulated, you can't know who would support a regime change. Polls after the 12 day bombing campaign in 2025 showed that 60% disapproved the bombing. That means you probably have at least a 40% base of support for active overthroing, growing, to change the regime, which is larger than the current supporters. Maybe you could have done something with it. Wait until the previous Komenei died of his cancer instead of martyring him, and wait for the new nomination and the protests that would follow to strike (decapitation of the morality police, species to open the prisons, etc). The way it was done just feels like the US wanted chaos and death, not meaningful change.
_heimdall 7mo ago
Trump, the neo-cons, and much of the Republican party might as well hang up their hats if they put boots on the ground (beyond special forces which is often ignored for some reason). The US will be bogged down for years at a minimum if we entered Iran on the ground, or we would lose quickly and tuck tail. This isn't a fight to be won in a conventional war, the administration put every chip they had on a gamble that regime change was possible with air superiority alone. I don't know of any historical example of that working, but I guess we'll see what happens.
- YZF 7mo ago
  Everyone says there's no historical examples but there is no exact parallel either. I wouldn't argue based on historical precedence here. The challenge is that regime is large and armed and they can hide and weather the storm. They'll hide in hospitals, and mosques, and schools and amongst civilians. Getting them and disrupting their organization to a point where a popular revolt can take over seems ... lessay hard. What needs to happen is that some parts of the military, who are a bit less fanatic, switches sides. The probability of that is very hard to gauge. There are stories of some defecting but hard to know if it's true or not.
  - _heimdall 7mo ago
    Historical precedent is important with regards to predictability. We have no idea if simply bombing them to hell will be enough for regime change, while we do know that there is some lower bound of military involvement on the ground that would have likely success with that goal. Personally I don't see how an air campaign alone can lead to any regime change we'd actually want to see. We are all being told the Iranian public is a cohesive unit with a strong majority wanting to go back to 1978, I don't buy it. The only likely outcomes I see, if the regime is changed at all, is a military coup with even worse people coming in, a very bloody civil war, or a faction in the country we never hear about taking over quickly by promising the world to the public. For the last one, I'd expect that to be a group more akin to the Nazis than some group that actually means well for Iranians.
  - orwin 7mo ago
robertjpayne 7mo ago
The ground deployment to the mountains on Iran's side of the strait will have to be absolutely insane to actually eliminate the threat (if it's even possible to) of Iran launching drones or suicide boats at tankers.

Not really. The U.S. can send in the ground force to restore the trade around the Gulf. The BUT is obvious in this case tho.

by liuliu 7mo ago

Not really. The U.S. can send in the ground force to restore the trade around the Gulf. The BUT is obvious in this case tho.

solid_fuel 7mo ago

That's not a reasonable option, it's a bear-trap. Once troops are on the ground it will be another decades-long slog, and one that ends like Afghanistan at best. At worst, this looks like America's version of Ukraine.

YZF 7mo ago
I can argue both sides but under the assumption (which I think is true) that 80%-90% of Iranians want to remove the regime there's some possibility of success. That said there's also the possibility of screwing things up completely and getting the entire population to fight you as an invader. One thing for sure, it's not going to look like Russia invading Ukraine. The Iranians don't have the resolve or the support or the capabilities that Ukraine had and has. It will look more like Iraq in terms of the ability of the military to put up any resistance. The problem with "boots on the ground" isn't that it can't succeed. The problem is it has zero support from the American public. People feel about this a lot more strongly than the other topics dividing the public.
- orwin 7mo ago
  Iranian polls show that 20-25% Iranians living in Iran support the IRGC, but due to how the questions were formulated, you can't know who would support a regime change. Polls after the 12 day bombing campaign in 2025 showed that 60% disapproved the bombing. That means you probably have at least a 40% base of support for active overthroing, growing, to change the regime, which is larger than the current supporters. Maybe you could have done something with it. Wait until the previous Komenei died of his cancer instead of martyring him, and wait for the new nomination and the protests that would follow to strike (decapitation of the morality police, species to open the prisons, etc). The way it was done just feels like the US wanted chaos and death, not meaningful change.

_heimdall 7mo ago

Trump, the neo-cons, and much of the Republican party might as well hang up their hats if they put boots on the ground (beyond special forces which is often ignored for some reason). The US will be bogged down for years at a minimum if we entered Iran on the ground, or we would lose quickly and tuck tail. This isn't a fight to be won in a conventional war, the administration put every chip they had on a gamble that regime change was possible with air superiority alone. I don't know of any historical example of that working, but I guess we'll see what happens.

YZF 7mo ago
Everyone says there's no historical examples but there is no exact parallel either. I wouldn't argue based on historical precedence here. The challenge is that regime is large and armed and they can hide and weather the storm. They'll hide in hospitals, and mosques, and schools and amongst civilians. Getting them and disrupting their organization to a point where a popular revolt can take over seems ... lessay hard. What needs to happen is that some parts of the military, who are a bit less fanatic, switches sides. The probability of that is very hard to gauge. There are stories of some defecting but hard to know if it's true or not.
- _heimdall 7mo ago
  Historical precedent is important with regards to predictability. We have no idea if simply bombing them to hell will be enough for regime change, while we do know that there is some lower bound of military involvement on the ground that would have likely success with that goal. Personally I don't see how an air campaign alone can lead to any regime change we'd actually want to see. We are all being told the Iranian public is a cohesive unit with a strong majority wanting to go back to 1978, I don't buy it. The only likely outcomes I see, if the regime is changed at all, is a military coup with even worse people coming in, a very bloody civil war, or a faction in the country we never hear about taking over quickly by promising the world to the public. For the last one, I'd expect that to be a group more akin to the Nazis than some group that actually means well for Iranians.
- orwin 7mo ago

robertjpayne 7mo ago

The ground deployment to the mountains on Iran's side of the strait will have to be absolutely insane to actually eliminate the threat (if it's even possible to) of Iran launching drones or suicide boats at tankers.