The joint USA-Israeli war of aggression on Iran began with a series of tactical blunders and faulty logic. The USA-Israeli axis underestimated the Iranian response and their ability to endure a sustained air campaign. The assassination of Khamenei and a tomahawk missile strike on a school promptly rallied Iranians around their government.
Trump and Netanyahu called for the Iranian people to “rise up” as they began striking Iranian targets. No such uprising is forthcoming ten days into the campaign. It is clear that these strikes have had the opposite effect. Even those who disliked the leaders have sided with the Iranian government against the attacking foreign force. Anyone who was familiar with history could have seen this coming.
Iran responded instead with a sustained missile and drone campaign on gulf Arab states and Israel. The ability for theses drones and ballistic missiles to bypass air defenses must have been a shock to the US-Israeli axis. Military targets in Bahrain and Kuwait, for example, have been all but leveled. Israel now faces multiple waves of ballistic missile strikes per day, including cluster warheads.
It is unclear what the axis will do next. It is clear that they are unable to stop Iran from hitting them. The only options would be to admit defeat, which seems unlikely. The next option would be a ground invasion by US troops. This seems to be more likely by the day. However, a ground invasion would not go well for the USA. This is not Iraq in 2003.
Iran, unlike Iraq, is armed with a plethora of ATGMs and FPV drones for asymmetrical warfare against any landing force. While Iraq had some Kornet ATGMs in 2003, few soldiers were trained to use them. Iran produces their own copy of the Kornet anti-tank missile, some with dual launchers to bypass active protection systems. Also in the Iranian ATGM arsenal are copies of TOWs (Toophan series), Spike copies (Almas series) and a number of others types.
FPV drones have shown their effectiveness in Ukraine, but what are more significant in this phase of the war are the one-way drones. These suicide drones have been hammering targets throughout the middle east since the war began. Untold thousands remain unfired. Iran’s most enigmatic drone is the Shahed-136. This drone has been copied by Russia, China and now even the USA. To think that just several years ago, USA propaganda had it that Iranian drones could barely fly. A number of other suicide drones are also being used in this war. These include the Arash-2, Hadid-110 and Shahed- 107.
The US-Israeli axis has struck much of the Iranian air force and Navy, but this has made little impact. Now, as targets become difficult to locate, the axis turns to civilian infrastructure and a terror bombing campaign over Tehran. This will only serve to push the Iranian people closer to their government and ensures that an internal uprising is not going to happen.
A US invasion would fail miserably. Iran is four times bigger than Afghanistan and just as covered in mountains. It would take half a million troops or more to occupy the country. Tehran is not close to the coast and a significant distance from the Iraqi border as well. Even if the US forces made it to Tehran, the IRGC and Basij forces would melt into the mountains and become an unstoppable guerilla force.
The IRGC is already a largely decentralized force, a transition to underground fighting would not be difficult. Israel is a rouge actor that may not accept defeat and drag the USA down with it. The USA may be forced into a ground invasion that they will lose. Barring this, Israel could use nuclear weapons. It is highly likely that the IRGC and the Iranians more generally will not be defeated in any case.
Once the war is over, Iran will seek nuclear weapons as a security measure. Even before these weapons are produced, the interwar, pre-nuke period will see the US-Israeli axis afraid to strike Iran again. By this time they would know Iran would respond with a huge wave of missiles and drones. Just as the USA is now afraid to strike Afghanistan, as it doesn’t want to be drawn into another unwinnable conflict, a similar lesson will be learned in Iran. Iran will not only win, but I predict it will become more powerful geopolitically from this conflic
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