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The frustrating thing to me is that this is all so tied up in American electoral politics.
I'm firmly of the opinion that we should escalate the war in Iran until we win it. The cost in treasure and lives would be far less than in Afghanistan or Iraq and for a much more worthy cause, and many of the people I know in the military would absolutely love to get in there.
Unfortunately, there are midterms coming up! The US is largely incapable of pursuing long-term thinking (at least in the open), because any short-term sacrifice will be parlayed into an election loss for the party in power and the long-term plan will be discarded or reversed.
It seems to me that Trump actually wants to win this war. That's why the MOU and the negotiations have largely been a sham. They are not intended to work. They are intended to pacify people until the votes are in. Trump went for a cease-fire because it would lower gas prices, end of story, that's literally all most voters know or care about the war. And after the midterms pass, I expect him to use the overwhelming might of the US military to violently pursue his goals once again, and more power to him.
I don't have specific analysis to back this up, it's just how the overall picture looks to me.
It's also tied up in narrow legalism. The Trump admin claimed they had legal authority to wage war for 60 days without talking to Congress about it. The ceasefire leading to the MOU came at 60 days. Now they're claiming that war was concluded and this is a brand new war. Expect a similar result if we make it another 60 days.
What's frustrating to me is the failure to think about the world that is reflected in so much of the analysis of the war.
Trump chose to start the war the way he did, with no warning and no lead up. This delivered certain advantages to the United States and Israel, allowing them to kill the former Ayatollah and replace him with his gay son, along with various other high level regime figures who were behaving normally and not under threat of assassination.
The cost of this was that there was no sale to the American people. No effort to convince the American people that the sacrifice was worth it. The assumption from the administration was that the US public was so used to being at war with some ragheads or other that people would just accept the war, like my wife getting a Poshmark package and assuming she must have bought something and forgotten about it. And for the most part they seem to be right, the American public will just accept that I guess we're in a war now and deal with the consequences. What they won't do is pay the bill.
Support for the war in public polling peaked at net -10 right at the start of the war, and currently sits at net -21. For comparison, approval of Iraq at this stage was flipped, with 56% in favor. What can we expect when the war was never justified publicly, when the aims have shifted constantly, when it's been over or won or subject to a ceasefire so many times already?
Foreign policy "Realism" is increasingly revealed as Idealism with the serial number sanded off, the realists idealize a world where "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must," and throw tantrums whenever real life gets in the way.
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The Iranians aren't Iraqis and it's not 2003 anymore. The wars against Afghanistan and Iraq were the US hammering soft targets who were unprepared and ill-equipped. Iraq was open plains, suitable for mechanized offensives. The Taliban in Afghanistan didn't have any advanced weapons whatsoever. Iran has advanced weapons, mountains and marshes plus fairly competent soldiers.
Iran is well-prepared, their whole military strategy is designed to counter America. Plus Iran is just a whole lot bigger than Iraq or Afghanistan. Since Iran is 3x Iraq's population, US casualties should be at least 3x higher even if Iranians were at the same tier as Iraqis, which they aren't.
What is the US military supposed to do? More bombing? The last waves of bombing didn't really work, bombing doesn't really work in general as a war-winner, except as a way to weaken a target for a ground campaign. Only special circumstances make bombing effective.
A ground invasion would be a giant million-man extravaganza. That's the whole US Army, Marines and a good chunk of the national guard. How are they even supposed to get in enough supplies when all nearby US bases are being bombed? First Iran's missile and drone forces need to be suppressed which the US hasn't been able to do. If they couldn't do that during the last few months of bombing, why would they be able to do so now or after the mid-terms?
The US military couldn't do much substantial damage to the Houthis in Yemen a couple years back, they'll just bounce off Iran in the same way.
I don't disagree with much of this. But I think the US goals in Iran would be much more modest than the occupation and nation building we saw in Iraq/Afghanistan.
I'm sure there's a plan that's in development for e.g. seizing Kharg Island, and I think there's a good chance that Trump gives the go ahead some time in the next few months. There are also likely plans for direct action against specific sites related to nuclear enrichment and the like. We already had a test run for insertion/recovery into the country with the missions to retrieve those pilots, and they went as well as could be expected.
But there's also unconventional warfare, which takes much longer but may eventually bear fruit (assuming it's even happening, but I think that's a fair assumption). This may even be the main effort, with the bombings, economic sanctions, etc. serving to shape the environment. But we won't learn about all that until the declassified retrospectives are published in a few decades.
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Iran is, unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, developed industrial country.
World #12 in electricity production
World #10 in steel production
World #6 in cement production
World #18 in motor vehicle production
etc, etc...
Serious war against Iran would entail dusting out WW2 playbook and go for full strategic campaign - blockade of the country plus destruction of industrial base. Unlike WW2 times, precision bombing means not "hit the tight quarter of the right city" but "hit the right pane of the right window of the right building" and industrial plants are not something that can be hidden.
But it will still mean multi year prolonged campaign, and it would mean 6-7 figure of Iranians dying, unlike in WW2 times streamed online, and this would not be seen by the world as spreading freedom, democracy and human rights.
Firstly, bombing Iranian industry aggressively means they'll destroy oil industry throughout the Middle East in retaliation, causing severe economic damage via oil shortages. Blockading Iran means they blockade back, they've been doing that the whole time. The whole point of this current phase of the war is to prevent that economic damage, to open the straits, not raze the Gulf oil production.
Secondly, an industrial state is an innately more dangerous opponent. Iran makes things, Iranians are makers. They can rebuild industry, move industry underground, make decoys and so on. At a certain point they'd decide to nuclearize, surely. Or launch strikes against the US heartland with Ukraine-style drone attacks from third countries/special forces against sensitive areas. The US has one factory producing ball powder for munitions and is building one (1) TNT factory, with zero operational. Iran can cause all kinds of problems.
Thirdly, the WW2 playbook means WW2 casualties. WW2 was not a bombing-only campaign, it required a ground campaign or at least the threat of a ground campaign to achieve victory in Europe and against Japan. The US could prevail if it were fully committed I think, if it threw all other concerns aside and focused everything on Iran. But America is not Putin's Russia. Iran doesn't really matter to US interests and the forces that can realistically be brought to bear are not going to get much done.
I don't think that Trump and the US have the necessary political strength to beat Iran, the gulf in will is too great. The strategy just doesn't work given the constraints of geography and capabilities.
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So the best case scenario for the US hawks is a mass casualty and refugee event caused by crippling strikes on infrastructure.
The war goals achieved by this event are the dissolution of the current Iran regime which will potentially prevent Iran from making Nukes. Beyond that there are no guarantees without actual boots on the ground nor are there any relevant beneficial effects for anyone that is not deeply invested in the interest of the state of Israel and its hegemony in the middle East. All anyone gets is cost.
Definitely not what Eetan said. Best case might be something like: the costs of war for Iran lead to internal regime change that replaces the theocracy with technocratic moderates. Or something along those lines.
What Eetan described is probably closer to a below average but survivable outcome that would achieve some US goals at a moderately high cost.
So the revised best case scenario is that with very minimal 'cost of war' for Iran, the regime crumbles. I don't find that scenario very likely and I don't believe the hawks proposing boots on the ground believe so either. But one can always hope.
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Yeah, that's the only goal potentially making the war worth fighting. But it IS a rather big deal.
It's a big deal for a US foreign policy that's predicated on certain ideological priors that maintain that Iran is an existential threat. I don't find those priors very convincing.
With or without a nuke, Iran is not an existential threat to the United States. However, the fallout (more figurative than literal, but some literal) from the nuclear destruction of Tel Aviv would be rather ugly, compared to the current war.
One could presume that Iran knows that as well. So the assumption they would sacrifice themselves to nuke Israel is, again, a very unfounded prior.
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What exactly is this worthy cause? Consolidating control of the sandbox? Greater Israel? Something else?
Iran is in open warfare with the US and its allies, and has been for decades.
It's also run by a radical religious sect that honest-to-God believes a nuclear war is necessary to bring about the return of their messiah. Depending how credibly you take that belief, they are arguably an existential threat to humanity if they acquire nuclear weapons.
Edit: to be clear, I don't necessarily mean this is sufficient reason for the war, just that it's much more convincing to me then the reasons for Iraq and Afghanistan
This is news to me, do you have more information? Is this something specific to Shiism?
It's a specific sect of Shiism called Twelver Shia. They believe that the twelfth Imam, Muhammed al-Mahdi, is miraculously still alive, and that he will return to bring in an eternity of peace and prosperity (and global Muslim rule of course). However, for this to happen certain signs must take place, including an apocalyptic war and the destruction of Israel.
Technically, quite a lot of Shia groups believe in the return of the Mahdi, but Iranian Twelvers in the IRGC are particularly radical, and believe they are required to proactively pave the way for his return.
Why does it require a nuclear war in particular as opposed to a conventional one?
From what I understand, it doesn't require nuclear war, but nuclear war would be the most straight-forward way to achieve their ends (both apocalyptic war and the destruction of Israel). It's not that Iranian leadership definitely wants to launch nuclear Armageddon, but that there are some within the IRGC who would conceivably launch a nuclear weapon at Israel or western countries if they had the capability. Their theology means that normal incentives (mutually assured destruction and the like) do not constrain them - they have a similar mindset to a suicide bomber, ignoring worldly consequences in favor of presumed eternal rewards.
Here's a paper from 2022 from the Middle East Institute that goes into some depth.
If you look at Iran's actions through this lens, they make sense. In particular, the Iranian insistence on acquiring nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
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Yes, at least according to large part of USG decision makers, the Holy Land is what is it all about. Something hard to really grok for aspiring rationalist types, but this is really the best explanation for this mess.
If it was really all about oil, you would not see even one tenth of part of IRL Middle Eastern drama - US would just do business with anyone willing to pump and sell the black goo. See, for example, Africa - Nigeria, Angola, Congo etc are as riven with intractable conflicts, but The Free World(TM) is not tempted to intervene.
See recently deceased Lindsey Graham as typical example
Absurd and theologically confused of course, but I’m curious what /u/FlailingAce meant.
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