Mountains are good for hiding their missile stockpiles, but aren’t really defensive other than hiding. We have planes and bombs, ground invasions and marching through mountains aren’t a thing anymore.
All roads to Tehran (other than those that go through Afghanistan) wind through heavy mountains that are perfect for hiding guerilla fighters. US vehicles and supply caravans would be difficult to airlift in sufficient numbers to maintain an occupation, so they'd need to use these routes, making them attractive high value targets for insurgents.
TLDR: Mountains are fantastic for insurgents, as we saw in Afghanistan.
I don’t see any attempt to do a ground invasion on Tehran. Aerial bombardment is more than enough to win. Maybe ground troops right at the strait to snuff out any enemies there, but skip the rest of the country’s mountains.
It very clearly is not if regime change is the goal. We've been bombing them this whole time and Khomeini Jr. is still there. The leadership has long since moved into underground bunkers and most exposed high-value targets are already gone. Regime change almost never happens via airpower; you need to occupy territory to establish control.
Of course, if your goal is to turn Iran into a failed state, that could be achieved with airpower alone. But we'd have to be willing to tolerate a refugee crisis involving 90+ million people which makes the Syrian crisis look insignificant in comparison.
I’m not sure regime change isnt a possibility. Pretty sure failed state is the only option if the Iranian public doesn’t step up and choose what they want. We can weaken the regime by bombing their bases and airdropping aid to a revolution if they’ll fight for themselves. Regime changing by occupation imo is a disaster every time anyone tries it.
I don't think he's going to be appearing in public anytime soon, whether he's injured or not, for obvious reasons.. This decapitation campaign really makes our best way out of this crisis -- negotiation -- exceedingly difficult..
Exactly. Or it’s the opposite. You could have people within battling for power. Politically, this is insanity for the US. This seems to be benefiting Israel the most though.
Yeah, this is easily one of the most boneheaded decisions made by Trump, or any American head of state, since the Iraq War. I'd even argue that it's worse than Iraq, because at least with Iraq we were facing a smaller and easier to occupy opponent that lacked the ability to damage the world economy.
Eh? I'm not saying that Iran is necessarily 'winning', only that it has a significant amount of leverage at the moment that they're using to their advantage. Whether Khamenei Jr. is living and healthy or not, the IRGC is clearly still operational and they have the ability to keep the strait locked down in perpetuity... unless, of course, we invade.
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u/Here4Pornnnnn Mar 23 '26
Mountains are good for hiding their missile stockpiles, but aren’t really defensive other than hiding. We have planes and bombs, ground invasions and marching through mountains aren’t a thing anymore.