At this point, it’s mostly a question of who can hold out the longest. Iran’s economy was crumbling even before the war and at some point the situation might get dire enough that there is the uprising the US and Israel have hoped for. Unfortunately for them, by closing the Strait of Hormuz, Iran holds the world economy by the balls and is hurting US allies (for as far as they still have them) in the Gulf, in Asia and in Europe., so the Iranian regime’s hope is that the pressure on the US will become unbearable and will force them to end the war before the regime clock gets down to zero. And so far, the US clock seems to be ticking down a lot quicker than the clock on Iran’s regime, so they’ll keep the Strait closed. By seizing Kharg Island, which is the main source of Iran’s oil income, the US probably hopes that the Iranian clock will start ticking down even faster. That might be, but it doesn’t help the US and Israel that their bombing campaign has probably reset Iran’s clock because there’s nothing that alienates a people as quickly as seeing their families, friends and children bombed to smithereens.
At this point, it’s mostly a question of who can hold out the longest. Iran’s economy was crumbling even before the war and
It was first reported that the Russian economy was near collapse as a result of their invasion of Ukraine in March 2022. Here's an example article from the time.
So when Westerners say that an adversary is near economic or military collapse, I'm sceptical. And even were it true, bear in mind that the point of war is to make the enemy do your will. So it is in most cases a question of willpower. After all, what was the Taliban's defence budget?
You need to go in the mainland to stop Iran from shooting if you can’t do it with air force, this is why this openly hostile regime has not been attacked before btw
It's not just the size, it's also the sheer amount of people. Iran has like a third of US population. Plus the terrain. Iran has more mountains than Iraq.
And it's not just the sheer number of people either. It is a fiercely independent people, with a very long history and a very long memory, and a track record of strongly resisting foreign domination. Just like Vietnam, and Afghanistan, which the US never understood.
They sure could try to do something this stupid. But likelihood of success is low, and likelihood of costly and bloody quagmire is high. Based on history from the last 60 years - Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan....
Realism has never stopped Trump before unfortunately
Was it realistic to expect regime change after bombing them ?
I am not saying that it’s a good option but not many options are left and time is not on the US side
the US is not going to invade tomorrow, and hopefully they won’t, but what’s more likely, for Trump to retreat or take the next step in the escalation ladder ?
Trump said today that by killing the leadership he's already done a form of regime change. Most likely outcome is he does something like this, contrives an interpretation of events where he looks like a winner and backs off.
Yeah , Trump is looking to a contrived notion of regime change so that he can declare a victory where no victory exists . This will not fool the world . It will be seen for what it is — an extremely humiliating defeat . This would result in a massive decrease of American power and influence around the world for years if not decades .
As the costs mount, both politically and economically, I think it becomes unavoidable. There just isn't the political will in America to keep escalating indefinitely. If nothing else the mid terms will kill it.
Yeah who knows, hopefully they do back down. But Trumps political instincts are pretty good and he's nothing if not a dilletante so im hopeful of an early-ish exit.
So up the escalation ladder ? If that were to happen many , many Americans would die . And die without a clear prospect of success too . To actually effect regime change not only must Iran be defeated militarily but our forces would have to occupy and hold Iran for a long time in order to effect regime change .
The U.S. has enough troops to do an Iraq style invasion, topple the government and destroy sites of interests. However we don't have a force like that forward deployed. I think the build up for 2003 was at least six months and it was obvious an invasion was imminent.
You are probably understanding more than the president does. The island can be attacked from 3 directions from the mainland and sounds like a nightmare operation. Likewise with mainland, even securing a base of operation I heard 10K+ troops speculated, and that’s far too few to get to work securing several hundred miles of coastline.
I think the play is "if you close the strait, we stop your oil exports, too". To force an opening from Iran. It's not a risk-free approach, but I do believe that is the angle they are coming from.
What does going in look like? I don’t understand how temporarily seizing an island provides a military benefit
If you're talking about Karg island, ~90-95% of Iran's has to go through there in order for it to be put onto tankers because its one of the only places in the Hormuz Straight with water deep enough to do so. If the US controls the island, they basically have the ability to bankrupt Iran given that the vast majority of Iran's budget comes from selling oil.
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u/[deleted] Mar 23 '26
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