The CatGirl Plan: My Modest Proposal for a Ground Invasion of Iran (And how the US Will Screw it Up)
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Many Trump loyalists and others are predicting a short war or that it’s already over… This fundamentally misunderstands (purposefully misrepresents?) the dynamics of the budding Iran war.
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Iran wants a long and painful war: lasting some 8 months to 3 or 4 years, ideally.
Iran has been sanctioned, suffered major economic decline as a result, had agreements it has signed reneged upon, and been surprise attack during negotiations not just recently but during the Twelve Day War last year… not to mention Iranian allies like Hamas and Hezbollah having their leadership assassinated AT NEGOTIATIONS in nominally neutral gulf countries under the banner of peace.
Then during the most recent negotiations they were surprise attacked, had their own leadership assassinated, and had unarmed naval ships attacked “While they thought they were safe in international waters” (War Secretary, Pete Hegseth) but really while they thought they were safe, as an unarmed participant in peaceful naval exercises with India.
Now, you might have to reach back in your imagination to kindergarten or childhood, or WWE, or maybe tap into some prison experiences… But the basic game theory, that even children and wrestling fans understand, is when you’ve suffered treachery, or sucker punches, or surprise attacks when someone pretends to be trying to negotiate with you… is that, assuming you cannot kill them off (which children, wrestlers, and nation states generally can’t) you have to hit them back or inflict some other pain hard enough that you suitably disincentivize future treachery, and make them not want to mess with you again.
Very much like how your dad (or the dad of your neighbor who was happy) will tell you that you have to stand up to bullies and fight back… ya they’ll kick your ass, that’s why they’re bullying you! You’re weaker than them. But you have to fight back and take your punches, because it still hurts them when you get your few punches in, and as long as you don’t cry too much when you probably inevitably lose… they’re going to conclude the effort wasn’t worth it, and not try to push you around again because the risk and pain of having to fight you isn’t worth status gain… they’ll pick on someone else who doesn’t fight back.
This is the very loose game theory that basically holds wherever the laws of civilization don’t regulate conflict: like International relations, prison, WWE, or American Schools.
(NOTE: There’s a moral connotation when we talk about “bullies” strip that away. There is no morality in International Relation (or American Schools) this is law of the jungle survival, and the game theory doesn’t change or cease to hold just because the most obvious familiar example is juvenile and has a moral connotation…)
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So even if Iran’s getting hit much harder than it’s hitting back… Iran’s not going to stop.
They’d much rather get bombed for the next 8 months to 4 years but make America, Israel, and the international community suffer enough they fear ever doing it again… Than let the precedent stand that you can sanction them, violate all norms of negotiation, airstrike them by surprise, arm foreign mercenaries to try and overthrow them, assassinate their leaders, sink their ships, bomb their girl’s schools… And then go “that’s enough, we’re cool until next time”.
Because they know that there WILL be a next time.
Just as the Twelve Day War last year ended not with peace but with rolling subsequent attempts to overthrow the Iranian government ending in the current war… They’re not going to accept terms whereby they just sit around waiting for the next US-Israeli surprise attack that attempts to overthrow their government, or accept the uncertainty is going to just shred their economy into permanent decline.
Indeed the Shia religion and sexism of the Iranian regime actively encourages them to value the struggle and suffering and deaths they’ll endure in a way most western secularists, who structure their lives around the screeching comfort seeking of old women, can’t imagine.
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So in short: Iran is not going to stop firing missiles and drones at Israel and the Gulf states. And It’s not going to open the Strait of Hormuz… And its Certainly not going to do so in any timeframe that spares international oil markets or American consumers in a way that rescues Trump’s political prospects and US domestic tolerance for Israel… The entire point of this exercise is to make this conflict hurt international supply lines and the Israeli public such that it becomes less likely they’ll deal with this again, or that some politician will propose a “grass mowing” operation 5 years from now.
Iran is purposefully going to try to crash boomer’s stock-market portfolios so that Trump suffers domestic political death and so every subsequent politician knows their constituents can lose their retirements if he gives into the Israel lobby and tries to hit Iran again.
But can they succeed?
The Current Strategic Game
Currently Iran is hitting 7+ countries in the Middle East, most notably basically all the US bases in the region. But also Hotels (thought to be housing US officials, several instances of oil infrastructure and other targets… Notably Power infrastructure and desalination plants have been hit back and forth in several countries… Although Iran so far has not yet, seemingly, attempted to take out any country’s entire grid or water infrastructure… Which in several countries would kill hundreds of thousands given the near complete lack of Ground Water in several.
Rather it appears these strikes have been “Warning shots” to terrify leadership or extract some minor under the table concessions from individual players.
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Simplifying greatly:
Iran is hitting its enemies with Conventional Missiles, Ballistic and Hypersonic advanced Missiles, and domestically produced drones, as many as 80,,000 in stockpile.
On paper Iran has enough missiles and drones to keep a constant barrage for months, years, or even indefinitely if domestic production keeps up with what they’ve stated…
Meanwhile the US and Allied interceptor missile stockpile is drawing dangerously low and may already be effectively exhausted.
On paper the numbers do not favor the US. On paper.
This however runs into the question of Whether Iran could get these Missiles and drones off.
The Drones can be launched from the back of pickup trucks, and are highly effective… Russia BUYS Iranian Shahed Drones for use against Ukraine.
But they’re also slow and easy to detect and shoot down with Machine Guns air defenses, Flak, other Close-in Weapon Systems, or via guns on aircraft.
Thus to effectively employ the drones, Iran would have to strategically use its missile stockpile to overwhelm and disable US, Israeli, and Gulf air defenses… BEFORE the US could take out its missile launch Vehicles and stockpiles.
It was quite conceivable if the US timed its attack to perfectly coincide with the peak of their intelligence knowledge of Iran, or if they had gotten an intelligence coup… They could have crippled Iranian launch capabilities on the ground and taken out a good chunk of Iran’s stockpiles at the start of the war.
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However 10+ days in what actually seems to have happened is the US and Iran simply had a mutual degradation of capabilities. Indeed Iran’s successes in hitting multibillion dollar US Radar installations might mean that US capabilities have degraded faster than Iran’s.
Already America had the problem that interceptor missiles able to hit another missile midair cost vastly more than common missiles that just have to vaguely hit a coordinate on the ground, and you almost always had to fire two… but with the reduced radar intelligence and warning time, the US is often having to fire 3+ million dollar missiles to take out one 50,000 dollar missile from Iran. Indeed I’ve seen several reports of Iran taking out or damaging America’s THADD launchers, of which maybe fewer than 2 dozen exist in the world.
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And before you ask Yes! This is exactly like the missile point defense in a 2000s game of Supreme Commander, minus the bubble shields:
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No End in Sight
Iran has explicitly said they want this war to continue through the midterms, have the economy in ruins, and at least one set of American political careers as a sort of monument as to why no one should ever fuck with them.
This might be rather odd to you… Iran is still losing militarily. The US has killed 100x the number of Iranians to Americans lost (according to official US numbers) and even if you believe the Iranian numbers and think the US military is copying the Ukrainian handbook and hiding hundreds of casualties and deaths (which at least the wounded they do seem to be hiding, US Military Hospitals in Germany have ceased providing Natal care to soldier’s spouses “in preparation” for a rush of wounded)… The US is still up 2 to 1 in even the wildest Islamic Revolutionary numbers.
Edit: It’s been confirmed the US is lying about Casualties.
On the face of it the Americans winning…
Except 25% of all the world’s oil goes through the Strait of Hormuz. And Iran can shut it down.
At only 32 miles wide at its narrowest, even conventional artillery… Stuff WW1 militaries had available to them could shut down the Strait.
Now the US is a net oil producer, it hypothetically could have just enjoy the rising oil prices, subsidize domestic gas with the resultant revenues, and prosper as the world burns… Except the entire US financial system and government has slaved itself to world oil markets with the petrol-dollar, the US Government spends 3 dollars for every 2 dollars it brings in and has a budget deficit of 1.6 TRILLION dollars per year… That it currently absorbs into the international financial system through debt financing and money printing.
Unless the gulf states are selling oil for dollars and the global financial system is forced to absorb all those US Bonds and Dollars at below market rates to get their oil (effectively letting the US backdoor tax all global oil transactions for a percentage annually, amounting to about 1.6 trillion a year)… Suddenly the US gets runaway interests rates and inflation and the entire American system collapses… With inevitable riots and societal breakdown as soon as all that welfare, gibs, government pensions, and boomer retirement subsidies, either stops or has to be paid for with taxes or inflation.
Seriously the US was on track for a literal race war in the 70s before the petrol-dollar system was codified. 3000 bombs were detonated in 1972 alone, and ambush and sniper killings of police were staples of the late 60s and 70s. (See Days of Rage by Bryan Burroughs) The US bought its way out the civil war it should have had, with mass debt spending and petrol-dollars.
Thus despite being a net oil exporter that receives almost ZERO oil from the Gulf, the US is highly dependent on the Gulf oil economy, and Iran has a chokehold on it.
This is beyond the threat to Europe and South Asia… With European countries and India specifically being HIGHLY dependent on Gulf Oil, such that Europe might be forced to backstab Ukraine if the crisis continues given they’ll require Russian Oil and Gas to simply survive… This is if they make it that far, since their own societies are simply not stable, and hard ethnic conflict between whites and migrants could erupt at any economic downturn. India is even more poorly placed, with the risk that any extended disruption could… possibly… kill hundreds of millions of them. India’s dependence on gulf oil and gas is extreme… And they’re the last customer to get product. They have the least buying power, and they’re at the end of the supply chain.
If Oil goes to $10 a gallon the average American won’t like it, but they will find a way to afford enough before they freeze to death, and they probably wouldn’t even have to afford it because the US government would freeze exports or impose price controls since the US is a net exporter and controls the flow of oil from North America. India is at the back of the line, they have to pay market prices, and they can’t afford it because they’re broke Indians with a GDP per capita of $2,500 per person per year… and that’s BEFORE they have a generational economic downturn, famine, and resultant internal instability.
If you’re in India or another poor South Asian country… I’d suggest planning your exit soon.
China is also at the end of the Chain… But they have 5x the GDP and the CCP has been planning for this for years and have a lot of built up redundancy (not least foreign exchange reserves)… They certainly would suffer, but they have more options. China I’d watch to invade Taiwan and go for a breakout to try and secure their own supply lines while they’re already effectively blockaded by circumstance, US is already tied down with drained armaments, and thus they have less to lose relative to a normal year.
China’s situation looks a lot like Japan’s in early 40s with regards to oil.
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But what options do the US and its “allies” have?
I have a proposition… A Scenario.
I’d say a “Prediction” but I’m almost certain what they actually wind up doing will be considerably dumber, more Ad Hoc, more chasing of SOME WAY to drag the west into a dumber war.
I suspect by the time this is over this will look like a cross between how the Suez Crisis broke the British Empire, on the one hand, and how US political will broke and Indochina was lost in the 70s on the other.
But here’s my presentation of what I think is the best way to do a dumb thing and double down on a mistaken bet.
Ground War: The CatGirl Plan!
It’s Just a Quick Invasion of Persia! What could go Wrong?
“In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before everything else. For whereas the endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middle game and opening must be studied in relation to the end game.”
-Jose Capablanca, "Chess Fundamentals" (1921)
When making a plan you have to consider victory conditions… Specifically you have to consider Minimum Victory Conditions.
What is the least America could achieve that its objectives would be tolerably achieved?
This is a relatively difficult question because seemingly I am the first person on planet earth to ask this.
Now Israel has its victory conditions… It wants Iran removed or permanently crippled as a geostrategic player, such that it cannot threaten Israel’s regional hegemony again, and specifically it has to do this before America’s forming Left and Right Bipartisan Anti-Zionist consensus can form within the next 4-8 years.
Towards this we’ve seen all the efforts of the past year and a bit, and all the domestic political belligerence in the US as basically every Zionist or Jewish commentator, and member of the Epstein class has realized this is their exit, and they can make their fortune and secure their safe harbor outside the country by throwing it all against the wall: NOW.
And whatever happens to the US… Who cares.
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But US Leadership… no matter how compromised, is composed of a wide cross-section of people who DO intend to live in the US going forward and who expect their children to live in the US. Lindsay Graham and Ben Shapiro, and the Trump clan increasingly look like they’re willing to jump in the escape hatch… But your average General and Department Head? Even if they’re generally stupid and evil, and would gladly betray the constitution and sell out your civil liberties for a cushy seat on corporate board, they need the US to survive and not have Russo-Japanese War type disaster resulting in a mini or actual revolution and escalation to domestic political violence in which the populace quite possibly kills their family. Likewise they don’t want to risk WW3 and they don’t want to risk nukes… They live in the types of Urban Areas that generally tend to attract nukes.
Even if Benjamin Netanyahu and Lindsay Graham don’t care what happens to the US once opinions on Israel finally kill the alliance…
Most of US leadership almost certainly wants to avoid a draft, avoid domestic instability, and avoid any nuclear escalation which would result in proliferation and radically increase the risk of a nuke hitting DC in the next 50 years.
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This gets rather difficult when you consider the default is that the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, gas hits $10 a gallon and Israel probably escalates to nukes out of its paranoia that Iran is going to kill it economically and Geostrategically with it’s continued missile barrage… And most likely that Iran escalates to a nuke back (most of that nuclear material is still there, and they have redundant centrifuges) and then Israel’s surviving command structure releases the Samson option out of spite.
So… The Oil has to flow. The US can’t escalate to a draft or totalitarianism. The nukes have to stay in their silos and hangars. And Israel has to stay happy enough that they don’t rage quit like your gay little cousin in Call of Duty.
This requires a ground invasion.
US politicians don’t like it the idea. The US public doesn’t like the idea. But I can guarantee you the US Government is going to talk itself into it.
Indeed there’s already a lot of speculation a false flag is incoming to try and get the public and politicians in line, which might backfire stupendously given basically all sides of the US political ecosystem has been trained to form conspiracy theories… Not least the US political elite, who if anything tend to be more conspiratorial than the general public (it was just revealed that for 50+ years Senior Airforce Officers have been convinced Secret Alien spaceships have been experimented on in classified facilities… Elsewhere… not because it was true, but because lying about this was part of a recurring hazing ritual amongst Airforce Officers).
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And this is probably the first point at which my scenario is NOT going to follow reality. What I will present will be an optimal coherent plan, or at least what will be my attempt at one, whereas in reality even if they do come to my plan… I expect it to be fumbling, walked into backwards, horribly executed, and strategically found mostly by accident.
Even if some talented officers present what follows as the best of the bad options… I expect their political leadership will almost certainly make ridiculous demands, pussyfoot it, insist on useless symbolic gestures or lies told to them by Netanyahu… Before coming to the least retarded course action after exhausting every mistake they can think off.
But these are the Minimum conditions:
-The Oil Must Flow
-The US can’t Escalate to a Draft or Complete Totalitarianism
-The Nukes stay room Temperature
-Israel has to stay above an apocalyptic level of anxiety…
This last condition is maybe the hardest.
Israel has been called the Psychopathic nation… It might also be called the Bipolar nation. Keeping Israel above an apocalyptic level of anxiety is about as easy as keeping your crazy ex-girlfriend above an apocalyptic level of anxiety.
Israel Is fighting an “8 Front War”, their words, of which “the most important”… THEIR WORDS… Is the US homeland. Not Gaza or Hezbollah or Iran who fire rockets into their country… but you. Which should make your blood boil that a foreign country feels it can wage war on US citizens, even if we allow that that’s allegedly supposed to be “metaphorical” and they’re merely violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act to do exactly what Russia was accused of doing during Russia-Gate but on a level larger that all other nations in US history combined.
They consider US public opinion so vital to their national strategic interests… And they’re losing it, and they’re going to lose it.
Zoomers fucking hate them. Exactly for reasons like this.
Israel is on a timeline, despite all the cash infusions they’re running out of money, domestic will, and economic maneuverability… Even the Zionist billionaire class is spending a ton and will probably see a lot of their paper assets wiped out in any downturn… None of their 8 fronts are really winding down or stable… Hezbollah just rose from the dead and hit them with tons of rockets (further draining their interceptors)… And so the Israeli leadership, not incorrectly, think their survival depends on drawing the US into war with Iran NOW. And actually getting the US to destroy Iran is basically the only thing that will actually reassure them… And then immediately they’ll start whining about Turkey, because the real problem is they can’t exist peaceably with any military power near them.
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So how does the US achieve all of that?
The CatGirl Plan: Minimum Viable Ground-War
Iran is one of the worst countries on the planet you could get into a Ground War with.
The place is nearly a thousand miles wide, is dominated by massive mountain ranges perfect for asymmetric warfare, it has a population of 92 million or about as many people as the German Reich in 1940.
And worst of all… The Iranian government is set up exactly for this war.
Indeed they’ve already fought it.
The Iran-Iraq War was 8 years from 1980 to 1988, and Iran suffered between 200k and 600k military dead, and as many as 500k wounded.
And this was at a time when their population was half as large.
The war had a brutal back and forth that bogged down into attritional fighting… And the US even supplied Saddam with chemical weapons including nerve gas and blood agents to use against the Iranians… but without producing a breakthrough or regime collapse in Iran.
Indeed the Iranians are said to have been so casualty tolerant that they consistently used “Human Wave” tactics… which has been disputed, but no one disputes that they were able to use poorly trained or even raw troops aggressively and effectively.
Put simply any ground invasion could expect to meet quite possibly 1-2 million enemy forces in the field after volunteers and conscripts are rolled into Iran’s pre-war active and reserve force of 960,000, and almost certainly more over any extended period of time.
For reference the Germans suffered 5.3 million CASUALTIES… and managed to mobilize 18 million during the 6 year war… Which some have criticized as proportionately low compared to the Soviet Union or some of the Allies under less strain.
By contrast the US has a military of 2 million active and reserve… but with so many global obligations that even aggressively activating reserves, the US could probably only commit about 200,000… And would suffer major volunteer problems going forward, as we saw during the mid-Iraq War with the introduction of stop-loss measures for want of volunteers to replace soldiers who’s contracts were up.
On the face of it almost any ground war would require an immediate conscription policy to meet manpower requirements for a country the size of Iran, with casualties in the hundreds of thousands amongst those conscripts.
Which is why no US administration is ever going to bite off a country the size of Iran if they don’t want angry disillusioned parents assassinating the children of Administration officials in revenge: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a child for a child”.
However…
What if you didn’t bite off Iran? What if you just nibbled it a bit?
Remember our win conditions: Oil flows, no nukes, no draft, no Israeli meltdown…
Nowhere in there did we say you had to take Tehran.
The only thing you actually have to achieve with the ground invasion is you have to get the oil flowing through the gulf again.
Sure the Israelis want the missiles and drones to stop hitting them, but as long as there’s progress on that, and they see lots of goys dying for them in the middle-east… You can string them along! “Look Bibi, we’re working on it. Look we've just crossed the border… we have to say we’re not going to Tehran, that has to look like we were forced into it later”… And with political opposition, military realities, the budding hatred of Israel… with luck you could draw it out, run out the clock on Israel’s influence, and hopefully persuade the Israelis and the Epstein class to accept some extended air campaign.
Indeed the ONLY thing you actually have to achieve on the ground… Is you have to get the oil to flow.
Israel can be strung along for years expecting Iran to collapse any day, the global economy can’t last many months without oil.
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So it goes from an impossible ground campaign… To one You could talk US political leadership into.
The goal of the plan is to secure not the country… but Just the Persian gulf. And for this you need only to secure two provinces out of thirty one..
Kuzestan and Hormozgan.
You take these two and you take away 80% of Iran’s coastline, its entire chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and most of its Littoral logistical capacity.
The middle coastal province of Bushehr has only 5 roadways connecting back to Fars and the rest of Iran without the Coastal roads.
Fewer than 20 Special Forces in hidden spotter positions in the mountains could report all the real-time road traffic along these mountain roads, and air assets would have hours to pick them off since the winding of the narrow mountain roads drags out the distance so much. With only coastal raids and airstrikes needed to suppress the province, just as Coastal raids and airstrikes will be needed against Iranian Islands in the Persian gulf.
Likewise the Province of “Sistan and Baluchistan” doesn’t need to be taken because it’s past the mouth of the strait and by hugging the shore of Oman ships can quicky can stay out of range of most Iranian assets, with the open sea giving US fighters and weapons systems clear radar environments and lots of space to maneuver against any long range drones. And speed-boats manned or unmanned would need to cross hundreds of miles of open water once the Ships clear the Strait and are safely in the Gulf of Oman.
At most raids and airstrikes are really needed to suppress that threat.
But in Kuzestan and Hormozgan a proper ground war would be needed.
Now the ultimate problem of and US ground-war is the raw lack of manpower in the the US military compared to what Iran can bring.
Between all of America’s other commitments 100-300k is probably the upper bound the US could maintain without a draft and almost certainly less and declining as the conflict becomes politically unpalatable, and recruitment dries up like your girlfriend when you cry.
This seems almost hopeless against the millions of existing military, volunteers, and conscripts of their own that Iran can probably field.
FORTUNATELY… Iran is a mountain country and its southern and western approaches utterly unnavigable by massive armies.
THAT’S RIGHT. We’re going to use their own mountains against them.
Remember in this plan we’re not going to Tehran.
We just need to secure the gulf for oil transit. If you can get 50-100 kilometers in and just deny artillery, short range drones, and easy sighting of targets to the Iranians… That’s all you need to do. Let the Airforce and the Mossad worry about how they’re going to topple the second Ayatollah, and then the third, and then the forth.
The Khuzestan Campaign
In the Khuzestan Campaign carried out by the US Army and “Allies” the US basically recreates the logistical operation from Desert Storm and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but instead of going to Baghdad they cross the River at Basrah and further up, using Superior American Air-Support, Air Cavalry, and Armored Cavalry to capture the small province of 4 million and push into the first mountain range.
Mountain passes deny logistical maneuverability, and having reached the first range suddenly the enemy is limited to the few roads and passes available, and are left vulnerable to Airstrike for want of other routes, and when they finally reach the front are funneled into a handful of little Thermopylae type battles where the narrowness of the maneuver room lets American skill, intel, firepower, and money make up for their lack of numbers once the “shock and awe” of the initial push wears off and the reality of attritional fighting sets in.
The Main problem however, is the flat geography before the mountains doesn’t favor it.
This region HAS to be taken: with its maze of Canals and Snaking river deltas that have defined battles in this area since the days of the 10,000 under Xenophon…. There’s an infinite number of tiny waterways whereby a slapped together kamikaze drone-speedboat can be put in the water and then gun it through the rivers until it’s in the gulf and hits a Kuwaiti or Iraqi Tanker with little notice.
But these same rivers also make the ground-war vastly more complex, and navigating armies vastly harder… As Xenophon and the 10,000 found out when they tried to navigate themselves out during their Persian expedition, and got caught up and lost between these exact canals and rivers.
As soon as Proxenus had said: “I am he, whom you seek,” the man replied: “I have been sent by Ariaeus and Artaozus, who have been trusty friends to Cyrus in past days, and are your well-wishers. They warn you to be on your guard, in case the barbarians attack you in the night. There is a large body of troops in the neighbouring park. They also warn you to send and occupy the bridge over the Tigris, since Tissaphernes is minded to break it down in the night, if he can, so that you may not cross, but be caught between the river and the canal.”
-Anabasis of Xenophon
I expect the Army core of Engineers to have a heart attack at just the raw number and BREADTH of the Rivers they’re going to have to keep bridged, and I expect the Iranians are 100% going to strike those bridges…
Crossing the Tigris, and the Euphrates, and all their canals, and the Karun river…. None of which travel in the convenient direction, will be quite the nerve wracking task for the Army’s logistical chain.
But this is an ancient problem, and many armies have had to bridge multiple rivers mid battle (ask Napoleon)… And If if done with speed and violence of action it can be overcome… If you get bogged down however and the Iranians are given the opportunity to take out the bridges you could have 20,000 Americans and their equipment trapped just across the river with 500,000 Iranians descending upon them.
However… IF everything goes well and US gets across the rivers in Quick succession, Americans need only take the Million person provincial capital of Ahvas… itself on the 300 meter wide Karun River, the City of Dezful with a population of 300,000, and a half dozen outlying cities with 10s of thousands… All whilst maintaining momentum and pushing hard to that mountain chain before 1-2 million Iranian fighters can get their human wave on.
Its a tall order for 50-150k US Army to do… especially without marine corp support and their airpower divided.
but the good news is once you have the line established… You can pawn it off on the Arabs.
Remember our rule NO DRAFT in the US.
I didn’t say no drafts… period. Now did I.
Once the battle lines the US wants are established in the first mountain chain, It’d be politically impossible to just keep US soldiers there indeffinitely enduring casualties.
Politically that’d be just untenable, Americans would stop enlisting, and then you’d need a draft… And American parents won’t tolerate that being done to their children.
So make Arab Children do it.
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(^Press Gangs Recruit in Ukraine, average survival time on the front for the forced mobilized is 4 hours)
Its THEIR OIL. Its THEIR COUNTRIES… Its THEIR WATERWAY….
Let them die for it.
And let the Gulf states security aparatus do something useful for once, and all the cousins and mercenaries of the Gulf monarchs can do their work dragging Arab boys off the street to die for Israel in Iran.
Once US troops hit the first Mountain range and can dig in, there’s no reason for them to stick arround destabilizing domestic politics… Just give the Gulf states the Ukraine Treatment, keep those US troops well back from the front where they can provide “security”…
And over time you’ll find all the Gulf monarchs become really REALLY compliant with the US and all American demands, because their population would slaughter them if the US ever left.
The Hormozgan Campaign
By contrast the Hormozgan Campaign is going to be an entirely different nightmare for military plannners.
One opposed Marine landing is risky… Dozens will be a nightmare.
Iran has Dozens of little 4-10 mile wide Islands in the Persian Gulf and lots of little bays and Inlets… Most EXACTLY at the Strait of Hormuz.
These have to be taken.
The Island of Qeshm is the largest at over 100km long and Directly on the Strait.
This is the Single most important to take, and the single hardest.
Fortunately however… It IS an Island, not a peninsula. The only road access to the Mainland of Iran is a 2 km ferry. Meaning that once a beachhead is established the Iranian logistical challenge is almost exactly as difficult as the US logistical challenge of getting more supplies across the Strait from the Gulf States.
Here US technological, financial, and skills superiority can reasonably be expected to best the Iranians before their numbers can defeat the US… And once the base is established Artillery positions, real time spotters on the Islands mountains can start hitting and identifying positions on the mainland from which the enemy is spotting and launching shells and drones at the strait.
The Marines aren’t done yet however…Because Iran Can still hit the Strait from basically anywhere else on the coast… So just like like the Army up north, they’re going to have to do water crossings, push out and take territory til they’ve hit the mountain passes that can be secured and locked down…
I expect this to take the form of layered positions, since they are so VASTLY more vulnerable to being cut off than the army up north, but once the thresholds are hit, just like the Army up north… They can immediately hand those positions over to the Arabs who can die like Ukrainian conscripts, while the Marines provide “security” mostly on Qeshm were they have a nice 2 km wide motte in case things get really bad.
NOTE:
Shahed Drones have an operational range of 2,500 km when hitting a ground targets. They can use a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) or even Inertial Navigation if that’d jammed or shut off… But to hit MOVING targets they largely need active signal back and forth from an operator on some kind of radio frequency.
If you deny the coast up to the first mountain chain, that becomes impossible since radio frequencies are almost all “Line of Sight” (this is why you lose them in the mountains, and why antenna arrays and cell towers are on high poles)…
Some MAY have some form of automatic target recognition and terminal guidance (a basic AI or Algorithm) but as a rule all of these tend to be dependent on User input and guidance til final approach (which you deny for dozens of miles) or some point at which autonomous detection is activated. Denying them visual and radar on the strait radically reduces their strike capability and control and feedback over any drones that are sent, and gives the US and allies ample early warning and intercept options (not least jamming) on the advanced drones that can still be used on shipping.
Global Security… For a Price
Basically to achieve any politically tolerable support from the US public Trump and Co. would have to sell the Idea that “This time it’s Different” and nothing about how they are carrying out the war is going to resemble Iraq at all.
No nation building, no extended occupations, no push to the capital…
And the fastest way to do that is to make the Gulf states pay for it in blood and treassure… And make the Gulf states visibly suffer to get their oil out.
Sure you have force conscript your men off the street like Ukraine to die holding the mountain passes of Iran…
But AMERICA is the one holding the Strait of Hormuz… Sorry, Strait of America. And so if you want your tankers to transit the Gulf, you’re going to be paying highly inflated insurance premiums and transit fees… To America (and tacitly via the backdoor to Israel).
This will put the Squeeze on the Gulf (since American tankers out of the US aren’t paying this and so they as the supplier get squeezed), but it will also put the squeeze on South Asia and Europe… Who are now doubly paying for America’s war in the increased costs from the risks, and now the fees America charges to mitigate that risk.
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And if you’re thinking “Ya right, the American government would never put American interest over that of the gulf states who buy them off and hire them onto corporate boards” remember that as costs mount, and Israel’s economic and political reality reveals itself, and the US government itself probably enters a fiscal crisis… This is basically the one “Infinite money” lever the US administration will have whereby they can keep from avoiding any consequences of the decades of the their descision…
Thus the US would go from effectively employing a financial toll/extortion system on the world via the Petro-dollar… To a litteral river toll system where they just directly charge fees and take cuts right at the Strait with military force (I mean I assume the paperwork would still be done in offices… but it’d be way more visually obvious)…
The Problem: It Won’t Work…And These People Certainly Won’t Get It to Work
So even if the US does all of this perfectly… Even if they can actually secure these two provinces without a military blunder or disaster. Even if they can actually stop the Iranian drones by pushing far enough in to regain early warning capabilities and cut off Iranian radar and visual sighting on the strait.
The Gulf states would probably erupt in popular rebellions and hatred of their own governments for going along with the neccessary drafts of line holders, and the US position in the Middle-East would get tenuous as hell.
I expect that the final ground plan will look something like this, that the institutional forces that don’t want to do it and the institutional forces that demand it will finally meet at the Idea of being “a little bit pregnant” and “just nibbling Iran a bit” and “War but no draft”…
The Generals and skeptics will think it the best of the bad options (avoid stepping into it as much as you can), the war hawks will see it as progress towards the bigger war they want… Major players in New York and on the market will see it as the only way to get stable or atleast create the expectation of stability.
And in the process of compromising, avoiding, dodging, blame shifting, and cajoling… They’ll finally come to something like this… Badly. And too late.
Something else will go wrong, another world crisis will erupt… A rebellion will kick off in Europe or the Middle East, China will invade Taiwan, India will enter famine, some Leroy Jenkins at the FBI will leak the full unredacted Epstein files, Israel will start to lose in Lebanon or the west bank will erupt…
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And then instead of this Chaotic plan that still makes sorta sense… they’ll wind up escalating to ground war with Iran in the same way they got into the Air war with Iran in February… Half-cocked and at the last second, rushing because Israel was going to do something else if they didn’t… and then the gameboard will be a complete mess as they try desperately to make it resemble a coherent “No Nukes, No Draft, Oil Flows” state… Before another things happens and it all falls apart.
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Think of this “Catgirl Plan” how many things have to go right and technical details have to line up just so to make it even sorta work with lots of prep and pre-planning, and then realize China might invade Taiwan in the midst of it and we’re in the midst of a world crisis in which India has no oil flowing to it.
You don’t plan your way out of a world crisis… you survive it… And this is looking like the beginning of the Dominoes falling.
Think of the US domestic front where no one under the age of 50 has any class or ethnic loyalty to the government that would carry this out.
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Honestly maybe the most coherent outcome would just be a military coup followed by the removal of the Israel lobby as a factor in US politics. Trump faces the firing squad then the successor could negotiate with Iran to restore oil-flows to the world… but that’s almost completely impossible within the structure of the US system and you’d almost certainly see a Draft, riots and, the start of Civil War in the US before the military actually did something independent for the good of the country.
Oh… And also Iran is almost certainly rushing to finish the enrichment of the Uranium it has squirrelled away… So depending on how much you thing Trump was lying when he “obliterated” the Fordow site… We might see a Nuke as soon a “TWO WEEKS” or months to a year from now when Iran tests the first of them.
There really is not a solution to this…
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And even Israel going nuclear preemptively doesn’t do much.
What that’d guarantee is both Turkey and Saudi Arabia rush to get the Nukes Pakistan has quietly promised them over the years (in exchange for various economic things they’ve done), Iran probably would just march on… It’s 90 million people, even a 1 Megaton nuke in Tehran, and 2 More at key military sites won’t actually cripple their military capability… Just kill 1-2 million and make them double and triple down while their population disperses more loosely…
Germany and Japan both tolerated massive firebombing without breaking politically (Japan surrendered not due to the Nukes, but due to the Soviets finally declaring war).
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You can’t make a Chinese finger trap loosen by pulling harder, and you can’t make a country more internally divided and less resolved to fight by attacking it and killing it’s civilians.
Indeed to the extent the atrocities (assassination of major government figures, attacks on hospitals, attacks on girl’s schools) have been at Israel’s behest or influence hoping to lock the US and Iran into a major attritional war…
They severely miscalculated at just how Impossible it is on any near time horizon with current US conventional resources, political will, and interests.
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The mistake people make when looking at fights between countries is thinking of as a sheer test of numbers or ability.
Ya the US is a bigger country and in a no holds barred straight up fight with unlimited will and an unlimited draft… The US would almost certainly win. The US has 3x the Population with 100x the GDP.
The problem is the question isn’t “Can you win” its “can you win at tolerable cost”.
My Grandpa could beat your Grandpa in an all out knife fight, but it wouldn’t matter because both men would get stabbed multiple times and old men don’t heal from stab wounds.
The question is “Can you win without getting stabbed?”.
Can the US fight Iran, a country of 90 million…
Within a fast enough timeline that the world oil market doesn’t die
Israel isn’t put in perpetual decline from all the missile and Drone hits
without a draft that would start a civil war
without resorting to nukes and starting WW3?
No. It can’t.
All of those conditions have rendered it beyond the strength disparity between the US and Iran.
You can take the kid in a fight, but not without him messing up your face for the next week.
Even superior power is not limitless. Once you start adding conditions and limits and costs, even the most powerful empire in history encounters things it can’t do.
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I think this plan falls apart on its assumption that the Gulf monarchies can supply troops to hold the occupied territory. The GCC is not Ukraine: Arabs are not Europeans, in competence or morale; the GCC's worker population (your conscription base) is largely subcontinental foreigners rather than natives; and many of the Gulf monarchies are hanging on by a thread already. Holding foreign territory at the behest of a hated religious enemy is also not the same as defending your own territory. The Gulf monarchies would be far more likely to leave the American alliance and make up with Iran … or to be overthrown and replaced with leaders who will do so.
Strangely, this is the exact war plan I laid out on my podcast something like two years ago as what would be necessary to defeat Iran in a war, then said it was impossible with the military we had, and so we shouldn’t get into this war to begin with. My cohosts were skeptical then and are still under the delusion that Iran is going to magically surrender unconditionally today. I’ll wait a few weeks to send them this article, but you nailed it 100%.