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.

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eastbound 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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.

	▲	icegreentea2 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		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.

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petre 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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.

	▲	cjbenedikt an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The US could have learned from Russia's Afghanistan debacle but obviously didn't. Always a problem with "this time it's different".