askchapo

Yes, Trump would absolutely fall victim to the most famous of the classic blunders.

If it does I hope all the Americans get turned into purée and get brought back home to their mothers in barf bags.

I struggle to imagine it happening because it would be a catastrophe like the US has never known. If those in charge have even the small modicum of sense they sometimes demonstrate, they'll find some bullshit way to declare victory and then stop attacking. Otherwise, JDPON Don is real.

Yes

https://xcancel.com/Acyn/status/2036963832502055229

Trump: We make the greatest military equipment… you got to make it faster, got to make more of it because we need it. We had an attack. 100 missiles were shot by Iran at a very important thing that we had. I won't tell you what it was for certain reasons. This element of importance.

At this point I think troops on the ground is an inevitability mostly because the US doesn't have the munitions to sustain this war for as long as they need to. A couple different thoughts here.

First, the US has one overriding need in the war: open the Strait. As we all know, Iran is pressing the economic nuke button and it's going to explode in everyone's faces, especially the west. It will prompt instability across the world in all the places the US wants it least: Europe, Latin American comprador states, the Gulf monarchies, the East Asian US military outposts occasionally referred to as Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. Revolutions are on the table in Latin America. US economic collapse, etc, etc. We all know the costs of Iran exerting control over the Strait. It's the most significant problem BY FAR for the US, since all of the empire's adventurism in West Asia is very specifically about This Thing Not Happening. There can be no US victory here without the Strait open to the flow of Arab family dictatorship oil - anything else is a worst case scenario defeat.

Second, opening it simply WILL NOT happen through an air campaign. The threshold for keeping it closed on Iran's part is so low - make Shaheds or the speedboat equivalent and be willing to use them. That's all that's required. The US hasn't knocked down this capacity substantially even before we account for the massive stores of drones they've got stored all around the country. The US would need to be able to maintain this pace for years, not months. Years of constant air campaigns launched from distant bases and rickety aircraft carriers on overstrained airframes with coked-out low morale pilots and expensive munitions. Though the close-up bombs are essentially infinite, the stand-off munitions are dwindling much more rapidly than they can be produced.

Third, therefore, the only way to actually open the Strait is to put in place a comprador government in Iran. The Israelis want state collapse, but that actually wouldn't meet the US objectives, because the endless militant factions that would emerge could just as easily keep the Strait closed to extract concessions or simply to punish the rest of the world for destroying their country. So the US needs to force actual surrender. That could be through a years long campaign (which we know the US is less able to withstand than Iran) or through successfully pulling off a Venezuela. But Trump fundamentally misunderstands what happened in Venezuela or why - it's not a comprador government he hand-picked, but a government following its normal succession procedures and carrying out a partial strategic retreat under immense overwhelming power it's unable to repel. However, the Golden Warfighters will continue to believe they can go in and kidnap Araghchi and Khamenei and whoever else to eventually get to Their Guy. But there is no Their Guy as long as Iran as a nation retains the capacity to resist. Delcy Rodriguez is not Their Guy, she just doesn't have any other choice but to surrender oil control - internally, the revolution remains intact. Iran has the choice to keep the Strait closed.

So the contradictions compel the US to further military entanglement. Retreat is surrendering the Strait and the political foundation for control over it. A gigantic mega epic spec ops beardy boy attack might kidnap and kill some Iranian leaders, but mostly it'll get all the US's best and most fanatical dudes wasted just like Azov in Ukraine. The US at that point can decide to push harder and attempt a larger-scale land invasion, but they'll all just get blown up on the way through Iraq. They can push through that, but it's the sort of thing that turns a US war into a political mass movement and threatens the foundation of the whole system (before even accounting for the economic disaster!). Eventually, the US will be forced to make the choice all empires do at this stage - surrender control over that valuable distant land and retrench around your closer, more pliable vassals. Decline and contraction are an inevitabilty, and boots on the ground are the next important step to make that happen.

Yes.

Whenever you want to know what will happen with American politics just think of the most foolish thing you can possibly imagine and that's the thing most likely to happen.

After Russia did the thing in 2022 I'm not saying "nah that's stupid" ever again

If the dipshits actually dare and go through with it, then we're gonna witness US KIA levels not seen since WW2, entire units will be gutted and the US military could experience an unprecedented morale failure

Iran for the most part will be fine, most of the urban centers are far to the north of anywhere the Americans could conceivably approach logistically, so the ground invasion will be defined by Iranian drone swarms decimating American units bogged down on some sandy shore or hilly outcrop

I just don't see how the US military can absorb mass casualties of the scale an invasion would cost, considering how universally terrible the morale and mental health of the US military is even in normal conditions

It'd be stupid as all hell and has no chance of working out well

However, that sentence could also have just as easily applied to starting the whole damn war to begin with and they did it anyways so what do I know

its gonna be like command and conquer when you try to drop paratroopers inside the enemies defenses and the plane gets blown out of the sky before anyone can even get out.

then the plane doesn't even fall onto anything important.

https://open.substack.com/pub/kenklippenstein/p/is-a-ground-war-with-iran-imminent

If you squint, an invasion seems inevitable. But look closer at the actual state of each force being cited, and a very different picture emerges. How is it possible, for instance, that every news organization from the New York Times on down, can report three ships leaving Japan with the Tripoli group when there were only two? Secrecy. Sloppiness. Sops.

With Trump in charge, one never knows. But even if there were a ground operation against Kharg Island, it would most likely involve Army Rangers and special operations forces, Green Berets and Navy SEALs — not some conventional ground assault à la Normandy. The idea of the U.S. Marines storming the beaches while the 82nd Airborne drops on parachutes from above is a cable news fever dream.

Boots on the ground. I'm all in. Something ever happens.

All I have to add is we'll see what happens when the markets close tomorrow

I'd say it's 50/50 between Trump TACOing and Pete Hegseth dragging us into drunken oblivion. So place your Polymarket bets wisely.

Yes. Even though it would literally be far cheaper and just as effective to have the would-be landing force line up single-file and 1-by-1 jump into a wood chipper, but noooo this empire only knows how to burn money 🙄

yep, although i wonder if they are doing surprise on baluchistan coast, or the opposite, in the west coast. i think islands are a misdirection, unless i completely misunderstand what 5k soldiers can do in stranded environment. but then again, sane options as i see them are just staging parts for beachhead, which will require shipping another 50k troops over time not spending opening the strait, so im kinda baffled.

although i think people underestimate turkey or pakistan backstabbing prowess.

the only other possible read is they are doing delcy, somehow, with someone (pez) to make it look good

i would say it's all bs, if it weren't (a) trump (b) oil prices being what they are.

It'd be a very stupid thing to do but Trump is very stupid so. It's that vs. TACO.

It feels inevitable at this point, but also I don't see a path to US victory here even with boots on the ground? Ground forces are going to be shoved into an absolute meat grinder. This is nothing like Iraq, and the US didn't really even win there.

Ken Klippenstein says his sources are saying bluff

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/is-a-ground-war-with-iran-imminent