During the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988, a much larger and probably richer Iran had trouble holding off an Iraqi invasion of their country. Superior manpower and will to win allowed Iran to stabilize the front, ending the war in a stalemate. Iran suffered (very) roughly half a million people killed while Iraq had perhaps half the casualties (again very rough). USA and Israel helped both sides with weapons and intelligence to kill more people and prolonged the war to help USA economy and that is well documented.
As history shows, the US was able to quickly trounce Iraq in the two wars they fought. From then, the US military has only gotten more advanced while heavy embargoes on Iranian purchases of Western arms have somewhat stunted their military. Iran weapons come from Russia and China.
Iran has been developing multiple indigenous designs for various weapons and buying other arms from China and Russia. Either way, any confrontation would be a quick and relatively easy US victory. Iran has more than 2000 small and medium drawn plane that can carry chemical and small weapons to attack Israel and most are stationed in Syria, South Lebanon and close to the Golan height and other 2000 large drawn around Iran to attack ships.Some quick numbers:
- The US has 55 xs as many combat aircraft as Iran
- The US has 20 x more combat vehicles (tanks, APC’s etc) than Iran
- The US has 14 aircraft carriers to Iran’s 0
- The US economy is 20 xs larger than Iran’s
After this hypothetical war, the US has to deal with 84 million people from a proud, ancient, and fiercely independent land spread across mountainous and rugged terrain far larger than Iraq, and many Shia supporters in Iraq, Saudi, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain , Yemen, Lebanon and Syria and other parts of the region and they are ready to attack embassies, and government economical centers to destroy any host country. Hezbollah in Lebanon, alqodos army,Mahdi army, aldawa party in Iraq and every single shia party in Iraq that USA helped to destroy Iraq will turn against the USA ,as Iraqi shia are born traders and do not care for Iraq or the USA ,but are allied to Iran. Same with Hamas in Israel, hotheeen forces in Yemen, and Syrian army they are all connected ,helping each others, spies and have one goal is destroy the USA after USA helped them to destroy Iraq. They used the USA as a tactical move under the Shia name / so called the TAQEYA.
If the U.S.A try to invade Iran, they will have to deal with a very high, organized, and large resistance, for Iran is quite the big target, even for Uncle Sam, that is what the media thinks but Iran is a paper tiger from the inside as the unity fabric of Iran is weak, repressed,the repressed Kurdish populations, the repressed women and students, the repressed communist party of Iran, Bulshistan and Arabestan , mujaheddin khalq ,along with the Iraqi nationalists who are waiting to tear Iran a part if the USA allow them.
- Almost 2,000,000 square kilometers, contiguous with Afghanistan and Shiah regions of Iraq which DE facto makes it even bigger,
- Mountain, desert and every inch want to kill.
- with an 1,000,000+ men (active + reserve) army prepared against an U.S invasion for decades, with thousands of armors, hundreds of planes and helicopters, various air-defense up to Russian S300, and ballistic capabilities convertible in nuclear ballistic capabilities more quickly than one might think,
- Its own domestic military industry (tanks, planes, missiles, etc) to supply the army,
- its own domestic oil production and huge strategic reserves to supply the army,
- 1,400,000 persons reaching military age each year,
- its own proxies-network out of Iran, as demonstrated in Syria, which could lay waste on the whole Gulf (Iraq, Saudi Arabia) oil production, and hence lead the World in a crisis of which the U.S would be deemed responsible for,
- Russia and China in its back to at least provide weaponry, and base commodities, if needed, while Russian oil would replace Saudi oil in Europe,
- And this guy, the highly renowned and experienced General Qassem Soleimani, who’s by his own word “ready for martyrdom”, as are most of his men :
Still, I think (pure conjecture now) that a nation building effort would be more effective in Iran compared to Iraq or Afghanistan exactly because of those above traits. Iran, unlike other Middle Eastern countries the US has tried to interfere in, is not a made up country.
If we are talking actual war, and not the sadistic joke that modern presidents inflict on the US military, it would take a half hour, 45 minutes, tops, to exterminate Iran, down to the last goat, rat, Imam and green plant.
The task of the military is to kill all, break all, sink all, and destroy all. Anything short of this is sadism. Leaving anything alive and functional is saying that political considerations outweigh the lives of American citizens.
How many hundreds of millions of people would have been spared if The US Air Force had nuked the PLA along the Yalu River, in the winter of 1950? Massive overkill is the only way to maintain peace. Would there have been the rest of the Korean War, Vietnam, Gulf 1, Gulf 2, the ‘Stan, if the world was firmly convinced that poking the US would always result in the Calling down the God of Thermonuclear Hellfire?
You would have to ask if those around Stalin would have been willing to tolerate his dictatorship.
The intent of war SHOULD be to inflict so much massive violence that you not only win this battle, but all the rest of the war, back to the leaders who started it. Anything short of this goal is cruelty.
Iran is one of the best country in the world that using computer and internet hacking, after Russia, Israel, Germany, and the UK
The USA must start now to protect every single aspect of the USA defense and commerce centers from such hacking.
An attack on one of USA ships would be a good reason for the USA to fight a total war. Iran already did that and the USA acted like a chicken with roster trump talking but no action.
Remember the last 3 times we fought a total war? WW1, WW2 & Desert Storm. Look what happened to our enemy’s countries and armies. You got to remember, total war means every Iranian soldier, civilian and city is now a legitimate target. With 10 x 50 kiloton nuclear warheads the war would be over in 1 day with an estimated 15-16 million killed just in their largest 10 cities.
If we stayed conventional we could level every major city in approx.2 weeks. Figuring a nonstop air, naval and missile campaign we could destroy their entire navy and air force and degrade their army 25-30% in 3-4 weeks.
This would be before the ground campaign. If Iran didn’t sure for peace by then it would take approx. 3 months to get 500+K soldiers into the theater of operations. Most of our tanks and equip. The USA already started moving closer to Iran since the last year and taken strategic areas .USA is their already.
We could roll thru their depleted army in 1-2 months leaving them with nothing but guerrilla fighter left. Then comes the hard part, do you pick up and leave or occupy?
I would assume that the USA would learn from history and just leave. In response, The Iranians could shoot missiles at Israel and any US forces in Iraq, Kuwait or Saudi Arabia harassing and possibly killing some US soldiers but never affecting the eventual outcome of the war. Iraqi Shia in Iraq will capture and destroy the USA embassy and they might even work with the Sunni to fight beside them and get some revenge.
This is not a boast. Any non-superpower country would not be crazy enough to wage total war with the US or China & Russia for that matter. As modern history shows no one is better at blowing things up than the US military especially if we don’t have to be politically correct about it.
The Americans say they will win, America would ruin Iran etc. First, I bet you all said the same about Vietnam right? Name one country that America has fought against in the past 60 years and won?? I’ll tell you, none!!! North Korea? Well they are still North Korea, and neither side won but in reality North Korea did win.
Vietnam? They won and you lost, Afghanistan?? Few rag heads in some caves and still its going on that isn’t a fight against another country but yet they are still fighting you. Iraqi national party is still fighting and destroying the Iranian forces inside Iraq.
so I think America needs to look at itself and think hard about what they feel is going wrong here, because what I see is nothing but loss after loss, sure you might have a lot of weaponry and advance weapons but what good did that do in Vietnam because that is what you relied on, weapon superiority and it lost. America’s problem is underestimating everything and everyone.
So America and Iran, well I’ll put it this way, if you think you could achieve victory you are wrong. Not that Iran would either but you would most definitely not go in and think you are going to win.
Well, I think it’s very wrong to compare Iran with other dear nations as Iraq and Afghanistan, and also compare today’s Iran with an Iran after a revolution, firstly because both countries, Iraq and Afghanistan were in conflict, crisis and turmoil, thus it was very easy for US to invade the countries , secondly Iran is a superpower in Middle East right now, produce self-made weapons of course for defense, has a unique geographical position, has a control over strait of Hormuz and the south read sea by the hotheeen force and most of the Arabic golf too.
Iran had no plans or strategy in war, had a revolution in 1979 and suddenly Iraq, a country with more advanced weapons, help from US and also good finance attacked an Iran which executed all its army’s generals, didn’t have money, experienced a revolution too! But Iran didn’t let Iraq to occupy itself.
I don’t say that Iran can defeat US or on contrary US can defeat Iran, but it can be a brutal and difficult war, inclusive more damages on US’s side!(Israel and Saudi Arabia)
USA can invade, and the can defeat Iranian armed forces in any open battles, but that is not the key to winning a war, rather, victory comes from the enemy submitting. Iran has two military forces (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps called Sepah and Iranian Army called Artesh) which they are prepared to defend its territory from invasions. In addition, Iran has the third force called Basij (Mobilization Resistance Force) which is active in the country completely and perform maneuver to get people ready for fighting against invaders.
Furthermore, ordinary people have been supporting their country and government. So, if the U.S decided to invade Iran, it would encounter 4 types of forces; so, it would be complicated. In other words, the U.S in other wars has been faced a single army but it should be fight with 4 armies in Iran (Sepah, Artesh, Basij and ordinary people who loves fighting oppressors plus all the Shia in the middleast region including the Ismaili the other shia sects who are well influenced and helping Iran secretly with money and advise and well connected in USA, Canada and Europe.
Iran possesses a lot of developed missiles and weapons which America is afraid of. That is why the Unites States of America has been chasing a way to figure out the amount of Iranian missiles and information. For instance, Iran has missiles like Asoura 450 of them, Ghadeer 230 of them, Shahab 440 of them, Zelzal 250 of them, Saeghe 300 of them, Sejjil 288 of them, and more than 1200 of smaller missiles. Iran will for sure attack the oil field in all the gold states.
Besides, it is naive to think America can occupy Iran in a few days or destroy Iranian military capability because Iranian bases are basically unknown or underground. For instance, Iran has built a lot of missiles cities to defend its territory and attack invaders.
According to what a Revolutionary Guard commander says, there is an underground missile base or silo in every province but some of them have shown on TV states. These cities have been provided merely to improve Iranian capability in self-defense, there are about 24 of those major sites and more than 2000 minor sites, some of them are hiding in mosques and under rivers.