This came up in this thread – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=354548 – but I think it deserves a thread of its own. Assuming the U.S. decided on all-out war with Iran – not fomenting subversion or supporting dissidents, but an Iraq-style war with regime change and at least temporary occupation as its goal – could the U.S. win? Do we have the resources? The troop strength? The money? I have my doubts. We seem to have bitten off almost more than we can chew in Iraq (if you take the occupation period into account), and Iran is a much bigger country – population 68 million to Iraq’s 26 million; land area 1.6 million square kilometers to Iraq’s 437,000. Plus a government that probably enjoys much more public support than Hussein’s did. Even if we pulled out of Iraq entirely and freed up those troops, I don’t think we could do it. Unless we get the Russians to participate as allies – and then we’d have to let them participate in the post-war reconstruction and share in all the spoils of war.
Highly unlikely. Given what happened in Iraq, any attempt against Iran will be an even bigger disaster.
The Army has fewer Farsi linguists than it does Arabic linguists. I wouldn’t have high hopes of any sort of reconstruction.
Of which there are five*
Well, those gay linguists during the Bush Administration, so you know where the blame goes – right to El Maximo Stupido.
You have to define ‘successful invasion/regime change’. If we’re talking abaout an invasion like the Iraq war, in which you have to invade, occupy, stabilize, maintain order, and shepherd in a new political order while keeping the country running smoothly, then no, the U.S. probably doesn’t have the capability.
However, if the U.S. is facing an existential threat and invasion is the only way to prevent it, and therefore all you are interested in is, “Can the U.S. destroy Iran’s military, bring down its government, and neutralize its nuclear program”, then the answer is undoubtedly yes.
I’m not saying the U.S. IS facing such a threat. I’m just saying that there’s a big difference between toppling a government and occupying a country for years.
I think if we went to war in Iran we’d have to go to war in Syria as well.
I’ll second what Sam Stone said. Without a doubt given the fact we’re currently involved in Afghanistan and Iraq we definitely could not do a regime change ala Iraq in Iran.
If Iran decided to launch a military attack against Israel, or against a NATO ally, or even against U.S. forces, could the United States counter that?
Yes, absolutely. While it is likely Iran’s leadership would see fit to take precautions and make themselves difficult to find, using our more advanced technology and our more powerful military we could effectively castrate Iran. We could destroy all of their major power plants, we could destroy their infrastructure and plummet Iran’s quality of life to that of Sudan. We could destroy their major military forces without suffering great loss ourselves.
And then, we could step back and watch as the chaos that Iran has become turns into nothing but an anarchic mess for the next decade. Even if it doesn’t get quite that bad, we will have effectively destroyed their ability to threaten us on a global military scale.
Could we then move in and impose order, establish an American-friendly regime? Very doubtful. But if the need arose we could send Iran into enough bedlam that they would no longer represent a threat on the national level. They could, of course, still constitute a threat as terrorist groups would have access to equipment in Iran to a greater degree than ever before. And what was left of the Iranian command and control structure would take great efforts to help these terrorists out as that would be their only effective means of hurting the United States.
We could also make moves to keep Iran destablized. We could give moderate support to dissident groups in Iran to keep the Iranians busy trying to manage their country. We could even try to work Iran’s former ruling family back into the picture to make the matter even more convoluted for the Iranians. It would be seen as a success as long as our goal was simply to keep Iran a complete and unmanageable mess.
Heh, if we invade Iran we’ll be at war straight across the entire middle east, and it would destabilize the entire oil producing region. It could smash the world economy. Reading this thread and the other thread on the subject I have come to the conclusion that most people are not thinking very far past what would it take militarily to crush Iran as a powerful nation-state. Being able to overrun your opponent does not constitute victory, as Iraq and Vietnam are both clear examples of. So no, we could not even hope to win a war with Iran, everyone in the world would lose.
In most modern-day wars everyone always loses a great deal. You can really only define the winners based on the post-war result. After my proposed war plan with Iran we would be in bad shape, but Iran would be in worse shape by far.
I was going to start a thread on a question I have but this topic seems to suit it, so I’ll post it here. And I’m honestly not fully informed on this subject so please enlighten me and try not to be too harsh on my ignorance because I honestly don’t know the answer to this.
What’s to stop the US from just bombing the ever-loving crap out of Iran and then just… leaving? Just like with Saddam in GWI. Blow up anything that looks military, blow up a bunch of infrastructure, blow up anything related to WMD research and then just up and leave. Let the Iranians sit in the smoking rubble of their former military machine and let what happens happen. Iraq is proving that putting boots on the ground in hostile territory isn’t exactly equalling profit and the spread of democracy. So why bother? Why endanger good soldiers trying to hold perpetually hostile ground? Let the Iranians keep it, just deny them any assets that might allow them to hurt anyone else.
The way I see it, without a strong military and without infrastructure, it would be painfully difficult for the Mullahs to maintain such an iron grip on the country. I’ve read in various places that there’s lots of dissent among the youth. Now if US tanks and troops are rolling down the streets of Tehran, it gives the disaffected youth a nice target for bombs/guns/etc. But if the US throws a war and then doesn’t bother to come, what are they going to do then? My theory is that they would take it out on (what’s left of) the government that failed to protect them. So there could be a whole new revolution in Iran if the youth overthrow the mullahs. And if the mullahs win, wait until they rebuild their meeting hall and bomb it when they first meet. Lather, rinse, repeat. I’m sure I’m missing something though. Why wouldn’t this work?
General disgust from the rest of the world? More domestic opposition to US casualties, particularly given any flimsiness in justification? Increased terrorist attacks on US citizens and interests domestically and abroad?
Militarily I think the US can take on the whole region by itself. Equipment and personell the US is very very ahead. The Arab military reputation isn’t a brilliant one. The US would just have supply problems.
Now rebuiliding and regime change are obviously way beyond the abilities of the current and probably any US government.
Well, Afghanistan wasn’t exactly a military superpower. However, it was a convenient base for terrorist operations where they could recruit, train and plan with the cooperation of local government, and it caused plenty of problems for the US (and Russia) as a result.
What you are proposing would effectively create a terrorist training and supply area many times times larger, with far more sophisticated technologies available for terrorist wannabees (think of all those nuclear scientists and missile technicians) and with a far larger pool of eager recruits. One which has very long and difficult to guard borders with Russia, Pakistan, Turkey, Afghanistan and Iraq and also constitutes one side of the exit bottleneck from the Gulf.
I really don’t think it sounds like a very sound plan unless you are trying to make things harder for yourself.
Yeah, and of course no one will mind the world Oil Draught that will ensue afterwards, no! That wouldn’t matter at all! It wouldn’t matter that China and Russia both get their oil from Iran, and that the crushed infrastructure keeps them from getting their needed oil.
No, really it’s simple America big and mean, Iran small and weak! That’s all we need to know right?
Why?
The winning strategy in Iran isn’t go engage in a war. That’s an absolute last resort which no one wants. The winning strategy has got to be based on somehow empowering the people of that country:
The population of Iran is young, modern, and relatively pro-American. There’s got to be a way to leverage that. Whether it’s through funding, or special ops, or even just plenty of rhetorical support. But the Iranian people themselves are the best chance for ending this conflict peacefully. Or at least, without an outright invasion.
Shi’ite ruling party. www.evolvetv.tv This is a project we did with Markos Moulitsas from the Daily Kos, Duncan Black from Atrios, and we had people like Juan Cole come and talk. Watch the two Juan Cole episodes. He talks about a Tehran, Baghdad Damascus triangle of Shi’ite rule.
Erek
We have the capability to kill, to destroy, and devastate.
We can almost certainly blockade Iran to prevent exports by sea. This is historically an act of war. It will not prevent pipelines from being built or functioning, though as noted above we can destroy them, though this could lead to frictions with other countries.
We do not have the capacity to conquer Iran without a massive increase of forces and/or diverting forces from Iraq. Conquer implies ground forces plus duration.
We do not have the capacity to force regime change on Iran. We can kill visible leaders which may lead to civil war, to the remaining government going underground, to regime change (with a better or worse government from our or the Iranians point of view) or the total annhilation of negotiating partners. Without the ability to take and hold the important parts of the country we will not be able to choose who rules.
We may or may not have sufficient intelligence to destroy the Iranian nuclear program.
We can conquer Iran- as in we can destroy their miltiary and then get an occupying force IN. However, we can’t occupy it- esp if we are going to occupy Iraq at the same time.
One idea might be to get Russia and China to invade with us, and then let them keep the oilfields they want. They’d do it too, I bet. They certainly have the army to occupy. (In fact China’s army would be perfect for an occupation force).
Oddly- Iran is a very real threat to the whole free world. Iraq- OTOH- was only a local threat: to the Kurds, the Isreali’s and Iran. Not us.
Note that I do not nessesarily support such miltitary action.