Originally Posted by RainMaker

All they have to do is lob missiles in the strait or send out drones and commercials liners will avoid it for liability reasons. If the Houthis could shut down shipping on the Red Sea, Iran can cause havoc there.

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

they will not be alone, as that is an action against the world economy, not just the US.

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho (Post 3465143)

Actually, the country is mostly mountains. Geographically it's more akin to Afghanistan than Iraq, which is flat as a pancake except for the very far north. Of course Iran has a coastline while Afghanistan does not.

It's not impossible, sure, but any invasion, much less occupation, would be much, much more costly in U.S. lives than either Iraq or Afghanistan.

I can't believe we're even contemplating this.

Originally Posted by RainMaker (Post 3465156)

Ignoring the fact that we lost that war, Iran actually has defenses and a much tougher terrain. Pakistan is also not letting us use their country as staging for this war.

Your only option is the Gulf and that's if Saudi Arabia allows us to send hundreds of thousands of troops through. And with only one way in, you're taking a ton of casualties to just enter Iran and still be a long ways from their most important cities.

People really need to look up Iran on a map. There's a reason why every military expert considers it suicide.

Originally Posted by RainMaker (Post 3465156)

Ignoring the fact that we lost that war, Iran actually has defenses and a much tougher terrain. Pakistan is also not letting us use their country as staging for this war.

Your only option is the Gulf and that's if Saudi Arabia allows us to send hundreds of thousands of troops through. And with only one way in, you're taking a ton of casualties to just enter Iran and still be a long ways from their most important cities.

People really need to look up Iran on a map. There's a reason why every military expert considers it suicide.

Originally Posted by GrantDawg (Post 3465157)

If we wanted to leave troops in Afghanistan forever, the Taliban wouldn't be in power and we would still have operational control there with just a few thousand troops. We can project power very well. The problem in Afghanistan was political, not military.
And Houthis inconvenienced shipping the Red Sea. They were still moving ships through. The Strait is much more straight forward to defend. It is not as much space to contain and control. They tried to do it one time before, and US task force stopped it. Their technology has gotten better, but so has ours. I'm not saying it would be a cake walk, but it is again far from impossible.
I still don't buy they will do it. Again, the countries most inconvenience by shutting down shipping out of the Gulf would be India and China who get over 50% of their oil from there. We get about 10%. This is the big threat, but the actual action will be something else.

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz (Post 3465159)

** That the other countries would be willing to go to war with Iran under any condition. That is not how I read reactions to other world events, such as how Europe responded to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
** That they would blame Iran, not the US/Israel, if this happened. I don't think it's at all foregone that China, India, etc. would view it that way. I wouldn't even call it likely.

Originally Posted by RainMaker (Post 3465163)

20 years and couldn't eliminate the Taliban. Sorry, but we lost. It was the entire reasoning for the war.

Iran is much more powerful than the Taliban.

Originally Posted by GrantDawg (Post 3465165)

Again, political. We controlled the entire country and could have kept control forever if we want to leave troops there. Military wise it was a victory. Politically it was a total failure. You can occupy with soldiers, you can't make people love you with them.

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz (Post 3465159)

This. Open for warships is one thing. Open for commercial traffic is something else. The only way it stays open commercially is if Iran decides it is, or Iran is conquered and someone else is making that choice.

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Europe would join a war if it meant opening the gulf.

Originally Posted by GrantDawg (Post 3465169)

I will go further with Afghanistan. The goal should have been to root out and remove the terrorist training camps and destroy Al-Qaeda. That should have been the extent of the mission, and they did successfully do that. It was idiotic to think we were ever going to place some permanent western goverment there. The actual objective that could be done with soldiers was accomplished. But short of ethnic cleansing or full on colonization, we were not going to change the very culture of the people.

Originally Posted by GrantDawg (Post 3465169)

But short of ethnic cleansing or full on colonization, we were not going to change the very culture of the people.

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz (Post 3465168)

This is the opposite of what I think would happen, based on their demonstrated behavior in recent decades.

Originally Posted by Edward64 (Post 3465172)

I agree with you. There'll be help but probably not significant military assistance other than maybe UK.

It's good that our European allies want to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP but they're too fragmented to act in unison militarily unless it's literally at their doorstep.

Originally Posted by GrantDawg (Post 3465169)

we were not going to change the very culture of the people.

Originally Posted by GrantDawg (Post 3465174)

We don't have many minesweepers, and the Brits have a few more than us but not many.

Originally Posted by RainMaker (Post 3464821)

Originally Posted by Passacaglia (Post 3464829)

Does it matter? Watch how much it changes in mere days if we do become involved.

Originally Posted by GrantDawg (Post 3465210)

We really should have wheeled out some old plane that was about to be scrapped and let them hit it. "Oh, they destroyed this highly valuable E6! Curse them!" and then go about simmering things down.