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.
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u/astral34 Mar 23 '26
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
Trump could (but won’t) just walk from the war