An invasion of Iran with US ground forces is "on the table" according to the Trump administration. This would be a giant undertaking, requiring many more months of moving equipment and troops to the middle east. At this time there is little evidence that this is happening. The USA seems to still believe it can win a war through air power alone, though it seems obvious from this war and from the historical record that this is impossible.
There is no viable way to invade Iran. Analysts, including myself, have racked their brains for a potential invasion route that wouldn't result in complete catastrophe for a US invasion force. The truth is that such a route does not exist. While the road the Baghdad in 2003 was over flat terrain with little urban centers between the sea and Baghdad itself, the same can not be said for Iran. Any route the USA might choose to reach Tehran would go through hundreds of miles of mountain terrain, over bridges and through large cities.
Large cities in Iran would be a disaster for the USA to try to take or hold militarily. Large urban centers such as Tabriz, Isfahan, Mashhad and Qom all have extensive underground metro tunnels and untold miles of Iranian military infrastructure in between them. Large cities, combined with these tunnels, pose a huge urban guerilla combat paradise. Tehran itself has miles of metro tunnels and highway tunnels. It is quite likely that the IRGC and Basij forces would use these as staging grounds for urban combat.
Iran learned a lot from the USA's invasion of Iraq in 2003. The IRGC and company would not be confronting the US military in a conventional war using tanks and helicopters. Rather, they will use guerilla tactics and smaller mobile weapon system such as ATGMs, mortars and RPGs. The Basij forces have hundreds of thousands of soldiers that can be called up to confront any US invasion. Even if the IRGC is conventionally defeated, the remnants will continue fighting a guerilla war for years longer.
Even if the USA could get over the mountains and through the urban centers, the fight for Tehran would be particularly fierce and difficult. As previously stated, the metro tunnels will provide a staging ground for urban combat operations against the invading force. The Shur river running south of Tehran has a number of bridges that would undoubtedly be detonated, making reaching the city itself difficult to begin with.
The port cities of Bandar Abbas, Bushehr, Bandar-E Mashahehr and Chabahar are likely landing areas for US forces. A crossing from Iraq is possible, but unlikely. All of these ports, should they become a bridgehead for US forces, will be subject to intense missile and drone attacks from across the country. Supply issues stemming from these attack and the extreme distance and rough terrain between the ports and the advancing troops would cause an impossible logistical situation and supplies would run low as the US forces advanced through the country.
The USA may continue to attempt victory through a bombing campaign alone, which the historical record shows is not going to result in Iran's defeat. Bombing campaigns on North Vietnam, for example, failed to achieve a military defeat of the NVA and in fact strengthened their resolve to fight. Iran is many times larger than North Vietnam ever was. Trump and his cabinet are not well versed in military tactics, geography or history. For this Reason, they may choose a ground invasion even against the advice of US generals. This ground campaign would inevitably lead to defeat for US forces.
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