That’s basically what they said in 2003 and look how long America was in Iraq for. Did everyone already forget what happened just two decades ago?

And Iraq was a mostly-functioning country before the US moved in. Iran is a slow-moving train crash in progress, there's no way that the US military will be able to deal with the disintegration that will occur the moment they move in to grab the oil... ah, I mean, restore democracy.

Yes, the risk is: Weeks long now = decade long in a decade.

The key determining factor could be whether any American boots land on the ground or not. Once they do land, there is then no end to the op. I am assuming a simple Venezuelan-style kidnapping of their leader won't work here, or it would have happened already. Fwiw, Iran of course is substantially larger than both Afghanistan and Iraq, so the risk of a prolonged operation is longer.

Yeah, the Russians also though they'd occupy Ukraine and change the regime in Kyiv a matter of weeks. Meanwhile the war has been going on for 4 years.

The US totally botched Afghanistan, Libya and possibly Syria as well. I gueass another civil war is somehow better than rabid religious leaders who hate the US and Israel armed with nukes.

4 years with confirmed Crimea and 20% new land into Russia constitution. Tried and defeated every conventional American weapon. Assisted Iran to let them know how to jam starlink. Oreshnik? Against entire EU and standing much much stronger with 1-2M soldiers trained. Helped NKorea to be significantly stronger to pin down American troops in SKorea? Rise of Brics processing account siphoning 40% of swift volume making it now dark to western analyst? You ask anyone if that is a big lost. And take a look at Ukraine 2 generation of men gone especially the fertile one. This setup for Ukraine war 2 to finish the job 1-2 decades down the road (read how Chechen got tamed). American did that with Iraq 1 and Iraq 2 wars. I dont even know what is the outcome. While Americans drilling oil in Syria, China is deploying Thorium reactors right now. Meanwhile Americans is planning bigger sitting duck fleets that can wipe out by multiple Oreshnick that cost a few million dollars. The golden duck cost? Estimated 22B.

The US could have learned from Russia's Afghanistan debacle but obviously didn't. Always a problem with "this time it's different".

The US is increasingly emulating Russia in all the bad ways. I guess it won't be long before the state starts killing more political opponents here too.

I’m exponentially surprised every day they don’t attack. That means they’re putting a little thought into this. I wasn’t reading the news in 2003, but they seemed so hurried.

Ironically, this time, time would have been of the essence to save the protesters who died. Maybe the US noticed all their potential supporters were rapted and killed.

In 2003, Bush first tried gathering support for invasion in Sept 2002 at the UN. Congress granted authority for use of military force in October, and the troop build up started. Colin Powell tried one more major push for UN support in Jan 2002. The invasion was in March 2003.

That was the public facing attempts to gather support. Internally within the administration, they started working on invasion plans within a few months of 9/11. These plans continued to iterate up to being more or less locked in and approved (by Bush) in Jan 2003.

Glad to see that tens of thousands of people being murdered for demanding the freedom to uncover their hair and criticise governments leaving them without water is only interesting enough to you for you to say that they don’t need you to help them. Disgusting human being that you are

In retrospect the lesson learned here is Iran should’ve built proper counterintelligence and built a few nukes a long time ago.

They are foolish for not having done so already

Meh, I don’t have the patience to educate you

Unlike with Iraq, there's a small, but non-zero probability that we lose a chunk of Chicago or DC over this. Notice how they aren't talking about weapons of mass destruction this time.

On the other hand, it's an almost certainty this will cost Trillions, and accelerate the end the Dollar as the world's reserve currency.

I wonder what the unintended consequences of that would be.

Imagine Americans celebrating, dancing, in the streets the nuclear-fire deaths of their fellow citizens, because at least some of them were of the wrong political persuasion.

Imagine whichever political party is in power in the US for the next 1000 years having a mandate to flatten any city or country for any real or perceived link to it in any way.

That's not what I meant.... I was considering that Iran might be able to pull together a nuclear weapon, and deploy it against us.

I understood that.

I fear boots on ground means soldiers or others returning in boxes. Are people ready and willing to bet their determination against Iran’s?

They shouldn’t be, especially with the recent lessons of Iraq and especially Afghanistan. It will be a catastrophe.

In particular, anything more extensive than wrapping Maduro is going to be politically infeasible for Trump with the mid-terms looming.

I would expect this a 40 years adventure. Are you sure? We know Bush and Dick underestimated against goat herders and Babylon opponents without support that still inflict Americans 10T usd and 20 years of wastefulness allowing China to leap frog. Another 40 years to absolute give China the world dominance and load one 100T extra debts? What they teach at Westpoint? Maybe Putin can assist a better training syllabus.

"weeks"