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This is where the issue appears - the US is not strong enough to do this without using H-bombs. And even if it were possible, it would be extremely costly and dangerous.
It is very hard to bomb an industrious country into being a failed state. Intense bombing was tried on North Vietnam and Cambodia. The US dropped about 50-70 kg of bombs per person on these relatively small countries. Iran is a large country. The number of bombs needed is extremely high! Even burning down whole cities is not sufficient. That was tried on Japan and Germany and again, did not work. A-bombs, famine, a Soviet ground invasion of Manchuria and the destruction of Japan's offensive capabilities in sea/air power were needed to force a near unconditional surrender. A ground invasion was imminent and they were preparing for it. In Germany the Red Army had to storm Berlin before surrender.
Let's throw the 'decapitation strikes killing leaders' theory of war right out, that has never worked in history and clearly isn't working here. Bombing people just makes them hate you more, they become less willing to surrender.
The US does not have the necessary ground forces for a ground invasion of Iran. It's extremely mountainous, difficult terrain on the other side of the world. The US navy doesn't even dare enter the straits of Hormuz because of all the drones and ballistic missiles. How is America supposed to deploy a million men or more to Iraq, to what bases, with what supplies? Those bases are being bombed and shelled. It'd take 12-18 months to get all the forces in the field. Would a million men even be enough? It's politically impossible, would incur a staggering number of casualties over a multi-year war with disastrous effects for broader US strategy. Iran doesn't fear a ground invasion, they know the US wouldn't try.
And then there are all the things Iran can do to strike back. Iran could attack with dirty bombs if they so chose, against the US or Israel. They could wreck oil production across the Middle East in revenge. They could launch drone strikes against the US homeland like how Ukraine does against Russia. There are all kinds of things 90 million smart people can do to make problems if they want.
It's not possible to force compliance by taking one small island. To force compliance you need to have enough strength to conquer the country. If the war goal is SMO style 'demilitarization', 'denuclearization' and 'de-antisemitization' (per Trump's rambling about picking the leader of Iran) then the US needs to credibly threaten a successful invasion and conquest of the country. Russia's ground invasion needs to reach that stage to secure victory. The Ukrainians would capitulate if their army was smashed. But they haven't capitulated since their army hasn't been smashed, they hold out hope for improved circumstances and just draft more troops.
Americans need to stop thinking as though the US is global policeman and more like a successful gangster. Lots of money and guns. But other gangs also have guns. Other gangs can impose costs too. The gains of a street war may not be worth the costs in blood, wealth and bitter feuding.
You were suggesting that this would work against Taiwan earlier this month.
The United States would probably not struggle to turn off the majority of the power in Iran. I hope we don't, for humanitarian reasons, but we absolutely could. (The Russians have had considerable success doing this in Ukraine despite having less airpower and inferior targeting capabilities, while Ukraine also has better defenses and an open line of supplies from its border with the world's richest economies; Iran will not have this advantage) The target set isn't that big (about 600 power plants, if we trust Google AI.) The US production line supports upwards of 100 JDAMs kits per day, so without even expanding production, the USAF could in theory hit every power plant in Iran weekly without dipping into reserves.
This might not cause Iran to collapse into anarchy or overthrow the regime but it would pretty much turn them into a "failed state" in the sense that state capacity would plummet.
Taiwan is an exception, as I said then. Only small islands with massive reliance on imported food and energy can be bombed into submission. Large countries with land routes cannot. It also matters if the power in question doing the bombing has China-level industrial capacity.
Iran would retaliate by wrecking the rest of the Middle East's energy infrastructure, including Israel. This would probably end up being a US strategic defeat when considering the global-level balance of power.
Trump is trying to keep energy strikes 'off limits' for the war, as per his latest tweets. He is not keen on an energy-destruction war!
As I explained, US munitions production is likely adequate to sustain the suppression of an Iranian power network indefinitely.
Good! As I said, I don't want the US to destroy Iran's power-production ability. But you seemed skeptical that the US had the capability to inflict catastrophic damage on the Iranian power grid, and I do not think that is the case.
The key factor is more sortie rates and speed at which grid infrastructure can be repaired/rebuilt than raw munitions production. Long range B-1 strikes and in-air refuelled F-35s may not have the necessary throughput given other targets. But say that the Iranian grid can be destroyed.
The standard of bombing needed to destroy the grid may not induce state collapse. Germany and Japan were bombed very aggressively but retained their industrial capacity. If even burning down whole cities didn't destroy the grid and military industrial capacity generally then how is the US going to fare today? Iraq's state did not collapse despite a Coalition air campaign successfully wrecking their electrical infrastructure, despite a Kurdish uprising, despite much of the Iraqi army being smashed in Kuwait. Iran is much bigger, smarter and stronger than Iraq in 1991, it seems doubtful that an air campaign alone could destroy their state capacity.
Iran's military facilities probably have their own hardened power sources too like Ukraine. They can probably get China to send them some transformers or power infrastructure, China and Iran are both on 50 Hz grids after all.
Furthermore, if the bombing campaign is explicitly part of a state destruction effort, wouldn't this strongly motivate nuclear weapons development? It seems like a bad option strategically, which is the 'even if it were possible, it would be extremely costly and dangerous' part of my argument.
This is pretty much all I am saying.
Sure, and that's why I said that their state capacity would plummet. It would not be destroyed. It would be badly degraded by a sustained anti-power campaign. Which I hope we do not carry out!
After skimming through some IAEA documents (thanks, Motte!) I'm pretty convinced they were doing this anyway, even before the US pulled out of the JCPOA.
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Of course the US is strong enough to do this without H-bombs. Bombing all of Iran's industry and infrastructure can be accomplished conventionally. Oil, electrical, manufacturing and water. The last being quite critical -- it'll be hard for Iran to rebuild while its population is dying of thirst. It wouldn't be all that costly or dangerous (except to Iran); the expensive part was taking out air defenses, B-1 missions with gravity bombs are much cheaper. And this isn't WWII; the US can hit the targets a lot better. It would kill a LOT of Iranians, however.
This US did that before. The US took Afghanistan, as you may recall. And held it for 20 years. Couldn't quash the insurgency (partially because it was based in Pakistan) but that's a different matter.
The US navy will enter the straits of Hormuz.
Not much, not anymore. The US evacuated the bases, but now that Iran's capability to bombard them is way down, the US COULD use them for staging.
Maybe. If they can still get their nuclear material. And if they don't mind starting a nuclear war with two nuclear powers when all they've got is nuclear waste.
Afghanistan is in a totally different league to Iran. Afghanistan didn't have much of anything but light infantry in technicals (and that was still enough!) Iran is an industrialized country. They know how to fight.
If the goal is just killing lots of Iranians, there's a simple tool for that: H-bombs. Killing people is not sufficient to achieve US strategic goals, which are more complex than just destruction. The US wants some kind of positive regime change - this strategy has achieved the reverse. The US wanted security of energy markets and to retain control of the seas. The petrodollar is now under attack by Iran's control of the straits of Hormuz.
You seem to think the war is all but won. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Iran's capability to bombard US bases is not 'way down'. The US has been evacuating its in-air refuelling aircraft further away after Iran keeps striking them with missiles deep into Saudi Arabia. A meagre sortie rate from a couple of carrier groups and a handful of strategic bombers is not sufficient to win this war. 44 B-1s at 47% readiness are not going to do much.
The much-vaunted US navy couldn't secure the Red Sea against the Houthis after a whole year of escort operations and bombing, how the hell are they supposed to secure the straits of Hormuz? They're staying well away from the straits because they're not complete fools.
The whole concept of this war is unfathomably dumb. Even people like Bolton are publicly questioning war with Iran. Do you have any idea how off the rails this has gone if the hawk's hawk, the warmonger's warmonger who's been agitating for this war for decades is criticizing the strategy? The plan was clearly 'quick war', they never anticipated that they'd need to bring in marines or extra THAAD from Korea. They are improvising because the strategy has already failed.
The US took Iraq also (including defeating the Republican Guard), and they were supposedly a juggernaut as well.
There are lots of tools for that. Daisy cutters, thermobaric weapons, chemical weapons. The former two aren't even technically WMDs. Bombing water infrastructure, cutting off food supplies. Just shooting them. The world's militaries have been killing people wholesale since long before Edward Teller was a gleam in his father's eye. Atomic bombs are special in only two ways -- you can do the same destruction in far fewer bombs, and the persistent radioactive effects.
Iran struck them once. That Iran's capability to bombard is down doesn't mean it's zero.
The Houthis were being supplied from Iran.
Perhaps it just means Bolton is a reverse weather vane.
Five weeks to a few months is what the administration has been saying. They haven't been too consistent but we haven't even reached the shortest timeframe.
Iraq was an Arab country, they didn't make weapons and never showed much proficiency in fighting. They just relied on Soviet weapons, US assistance in their unsuccessful war with Iran, who was fighting alone. Iraq was also strategically unprepared for the US invasion, they hadn't built up their military specifically over decades to deal with America.
Consider also that the Iraqis are the ones who quickly collapsed to ISIS and had to be bailed out by the US and Iran.
Iran is bigger, smarter and stronger with much more defensible terrain and decades of preparation.
They just fired off their big alpha strike at the start and have since switched to a more sustainable firing pattern. Same with the US. The US launched its big alpha strike at the start and since then sortie rates have greatly fallen.
And now the challenge is fighting Iran... I don't see how that supports your case.
What, so he was calling for war for the last 30 years and it was dumb then but suddenly it's smart now, when he starts expressing doubts publicly? What's the mechanic here? I think 'reverse weather vane' is an idea that sounds a lot more clever than it actually is.
Iraq fought Iran to a stalemate in the Iran/Iraq war (which Iraq started). They fell to ISIS after the US had destroyed their military and government the first time. The idea that Iran has a far superior warfighting ability than Iraq under Saddam is not supported.
Are you the Iran Propaganda Minister?
The point is the US could blow up the Houthi's missiles and they would just get resupply from untouched capacity in Iran. Iran itself doesn't have that option.
There's clearly a huge gulf between our information sources on this war. You and I are not commentating on the same conflict, at a fundamental level. Maybe you're listening to the mainstream, 'approved' sources. I too saw a little bit of them. On day 1 they were clearly expecting some kind of mass revolution that overthrows the regime. They were clearly delusional. These are the same people who just recycle atrocity propaganda and 'Israeli government sources confirm' or 'US military announces' as news.
If the war was going well, would the Trump administration really be unsanctioning Iranian oil? They're flailing around like a drowning man.
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Agreed, the USA could do this. Would it be worth it though? Would this be accretive for Pax Americana? Does this make America more secure as the world Hegemon? Or is it instance #69 of China getting to sit back and look like the rational reasonable alternative to the western "rules based world order"?
Sure, we can practically genocide (I know this word is not to be used lightly, however I'm not sure what else to call "wouldn't it be a shame if something happened to your clean water and energy nationwide?") Iran, but does that really make things better?
"The USA destroys Iranian industrial civilization, millions die" strikes me as one of the main events students memorize in 2126 for the "5 main things that caused the fall of American global empire"
Obviously this would be a terrible choice; I don't know if it would be better or worse than not preventing Iran from getting nukes. Depends on whether it makes them North Korea or they actually start a nuclear war or attempt nuclear blackmail (e.g. "Israel's Jews all leave or we nuke things") over it. I don't think these are the only two choices, but if they were, the choice of committing genocide upon Iran would be available.
Reasonable take! I like it
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Are you implying that NATO did genocide in Serbia?
"If President Milosevic really wants all of his population to have water and electricity all he has to do is accept NATO's five conditions and we will stop this campaign. But as long as he doesn't do so we will continue to attack those targets which provide the electricity for his armed forces. If that has civilian consequences, it's for him to deal with but that water, that electricity is turned back on for the people of Serbia"
I mean I'm not a fan of that either for similar reasons, so if NATO had choked out Yugoslavia so hard that hundreds of thousands-millions of Serbs/etc started dying of dehydration and chlorea then yeah, that would be.
Im not a big "collective punishment" or "just overthrow your government despite the fact you don't have electricity or water (they do, they have guns so they have what's left of it)" and if you accomplish this impossible task you can drink clean water again"
If we want the Iranians to overthrow their government (I do , I want this for them) we should actually help the fucking protestors. But we clearly missed that window bc the Iranian govt killed 10-30,000 of the people most likely to stand up and rally around.
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How is it a different matter? What we learned from Afghanistan is that even 20 years of boots on the ground didn't make for anything sustainable, the system we created collapsed within a year.
The takeaway here would suggest that we need permanent occupation in Iran and that the forever wars need to be basically indefinite in order to feign meaningful success. That's incredibly relevant when talking about other operations in the middle east.
Like what's the plan here, just keep playing whack a mole with the arab nations forever? Are we gonna loop this now, just spend tons of money fiddling around, pull back and then immediately go back in? "This time the mole won't pop up again, my predecessors just weren't smart enough to hit them with the plastic mallet"
It's a different matter because the question was whether we could successfully invade, not whether we could successfully build a US-friendly regime.
If invasions don't result in US friendly regimes, why would we be invading then?
To destroy an unfriendly regime's capacity to act on their unfriendliness.
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