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US weighs sending thousands of troops to region as Iran war rages: Report

US weighs sending thousands of troops to region as Iran war rages: Report - Sopuli

The centrists of the world are still stuck in “But he won’t do that!” and he will. It is unlikely this war will not escalate to a ground war in Iran, there are no offramps and there is little reason to believe any will appear. This is going to end with a ground invasion, a use of nuclear weapons by the US/Israel or both. This is not hyperbole, people need to wake up.

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bestboyfriendintheworld Mar 19

The logistical challenges for a major ground war in Iran are immense. Months of staging are necessary to pull this off.

At the moment the US Navy isn’t even close to Iranian shores.

The war is already unpopular in the US, also among Trump supporters. Elections are upcoming and they don’t look good for republicans.

Oil prices are high now, but could climb immensely. This isn’t only unpopular, but has huge economic consequences.

Support from allies is weak to lukewarm.

Invasion and occupation of a few islands might happen.

I’m not saying it won’t happen, but I wouldn’t say it’s highly likely on a large scale.

Trump can just make up an off-ramp at any time he likes to. Make a flimsy deal with Iran, declare victory, and go home. Maybe choosing a scapegoat to fire is also in the cards. This is how he operates.

How a ground war would go, is uncertain. It very much depends on the Iranian army and if it’s ready to confront the revolutionary guard.

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supersquirrel Mar 19

This kind of thinking is what really worries me, it completely misses that the most cowardly thing for Trump to do here is flatten Iran and leave.

TACO here means bomb this shit out of Iran, do several targeted assaults and utterly dismantle the infrastructure of Iran so it becomes a failed state (not politically but in actual functioning of basic utilities) declare victory and then leave.

I do not think an extended, large ground war is going to happen, I specifically pointed out that what I think is likely is an aerial assault to destroy some aspects necessary for basic civil life in Iran.

At the moment the US Navy isn’t even close to Iranian shores.

The Tripoli is headed straight for the area, 2000 troops aren’t enough to invade and occupy but if you think they can’t penetrate in an aerial assault into Iran and fuck shit up pretty much wherever they want to, again you are misunderstanding the ways in which the jingoism of the US is separate from the reality of military dominance the US has here.

Iran having an entire country full of fighters who will resist means the US cannot occupy Iran in any meaningful sense and succeed, but again and I don’t know why I have to keep saying this, the objective of Trump and cronies is to go in, smash things apart, and leave. This is a vandalization crime, not a military occupation and under this political calculus the cowardly thing for Trump to do is completely kneecap Iran for no reason other than to create disorder, chaos and mass civilian suffering and then run away.

The entire point of a high tempo, focused aerial assault is that it makes for a brief window of time an entire overwhelming and spatially distributed country of resistance fighters and organized military irrelevant if they aren’t PRECISELY where is being assaulted by air. By the time forces within <25km react and get to the area, whatever the US intended to be done will have already been done.

So yeah, I think people who are laughing at what the US military can do here are engaging in a dangerous delusion even as I completely and utterly disagree with what the US and Israel have done in starting this pointless war and I think it amounts to a warcrime.

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bestboyfriendintheworld Mar 22

Yes, aerial and naval assaults and raids are certainly possible.

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supersquirrel Mar 22

I think it is telling enough that western media is conspiciously only talking about assaulting kharg island the most obvious target imaginable, a full on ground invasion or Trump magically having a change in heart and backing down. It tells you all you need to know, that what will happen is none of these three options and very obviously the one missing potential that is not being discussed are aerial assaults on localized parts of Iran to further destabilize the country.

See Libya and the “No Fly Zone” Escalation Doctrine.

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bestboyfriendintheworld

General media is notoriously ignorant of the practical details of all things military. Applies to pretty much any topic though. Journalists only have a surface level understanding at best.

If you look at the defense and military publications, it’s different. See this article on the use of Kurdish local forces in Iran.

A good collection of better quality info than the mainstream media can be found at old.reddit.com/r/credibledefense

Proxy Pressure on Iran: The Promise and Pitfalls of Arming the Kurds

Early in the ongoing war against Iran, the Trump administration and its ally, Israel, believed they could foment a popular uprising to topple the Iranian

War on the Rocks

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supersquirrel Mar 25

I disagree credible defense has some laughable opinions and generally is very willingly blind to blatant geopolitics that simply cannot be ignored in a way that undermines the military discussion.

Some of the credible defense people came over to the fediverse, or someone here attempted to make a mirror community idk and again my same critique applies.

For example if you try to analyze how effective US attacks will be on Iran without recognizing the broader political absurdity and context as Credible Defense type people do everything about your analysis is meaningless no matter how much you know about electronics warfare, bunker busters and F35s.

Similarly the Credible Defense people gladly discuss the Gaza Genocide like it is a war, which if you understand war and are not gullible as hell is another absurdism. A military expert should know tanks and jets are not needed to subdue open air prisons and that using them for such could only mean one thing, Genocide.

This alone should make everyone on that community deeply ashamed of themselves, a cursory search to check again shows no mention of Gaza as a Genocide, only the occasional discussion about it from the framing of a war. These are ENGLISH speaking people talking about war literally ignoring where the VAST MAJORITY of US bombs have been dropped in the last couple of years.

I spit into the dirt

No I do not recommend going there, those people like military stuff because it looks cool and makes them feel powerful, they are children pretending to be adults discussing serious things. They are children pretending you can discuss war apolitcally in an pseudo academic fashion without including the context of the people living where the battlefield is and how they interface with the violence.

Also as a side note the people on Credible Defense are just wrong a lot too? They have been incorrectly forecasting russia’s strength as far stronger than it really is for the past six months and the signs have been obvious to anyone who pays attention to military stuff that russia was crumbling. In other words what people know so far as they do at Credible Defense I don’t think it will actually lead them to disagree with any broader status quo narrative already established about war so shrugs what is the point in reading their opinions?