I think you’re just seeing the logic of US defense by offense, and the reason why the excursion was launched as it was three weeks ago.

If you step back, in 1979 Iran launched a revolution that had an avowed goal of “death to America”. If the Iranians play the kinetic scenario to the bitter end, they simply are demonstrating this was not mere poetry and there never was any other off-ramp, just tactically deciding at what relative strength these two systems will collide.

So Iran loses by demonstrating irrational resolve in antisocial tactics, like firing missiles randomly at neutral neighbors, which is the same precondition you take as gating victory. Conflicts are played out in the real world specifically to resolve inconsistent modeling like this held by different sides, and all parties would be well served by finding a better way to resolve the conflicting modeling here, because the most likely scenario currently is that everyone loses.

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soperj 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> If you step back, in 1979 Iran launched a revolution that had an avowed goal of “death to America”. If the Iranians play the kinetic scenario to the bitter end, they simply are demonstrating this was not mere poetry and there never was any other off-ramp, just tactically deciding at what relative strength these two systems will collide.

Step back further and you see that they were overthrowing a dictator that the US had installed over their democratically elected government.

	▲	malfist 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		If you take a step back even further, perhaps you don't bomb a girls school three times because someone 47 years ago said something mean about your country and then never followed up.

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malfist 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Which country is engaging in antisocial behaviors again? I can't keep it straight. Is it the country that started an unprovoked war or the country defending themselves?

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inaros 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The Iraq-Iran war, in the eighties....who had Iran lining up a million soldiers in battle, for eight years, has shown Iran is ready for a level of endurance, the US cant even imagine.

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beachy 7 hours ago | parent [-]

The same scenario played out in Vietnam. The US could never succeed because:

- the enemy was intermingled with the "friendly" civilians, and they couldn't be told apart, leading to everyone being treated brutally and potential friends becoming enemies

- the enemy was prepared to fight to the death, for years if need be, and knew they could outlast US public opinion

- the enemy knew they could prevail because of centuries of history defeating much larger opponents (in Vietnam's case, of them previously defeating France and China).

All of these same conditions would be present in a ground war in Iran, with some religious fanaticism thrown in on top.

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InitialLastName 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Don't forget:

- the enemy had plenty of material, technical and financial support from adversarial superpowers who were all too happy to see American lives, money and military resources wasted.

That external support is not fully scaled up yet (despite clear reports of Russian intelligence support for Iran), but you can bet it would be in the event of a major ground assault, occupation, and/or counter-insurgency quagmire.

	▲	aucisson_masque 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> the enemy had plenty of material, technical and financial support from adversarial superpower Vietcong weren't exactly fighting with 'plenty of material'. They used weapons from second world war, sometimes first world war, cheap Chinese crap.. Are you comparing that to Americans aircraft, bombs, helicopters ? It was as asymmetrical as it would be against Iran.

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4ndrewl 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's an incursion. He got confused and keeps saying excursion, which is a different thing.

	▲	sph 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It’s an excursion: a lovely hike onto the mountains of Iran. It’s just that the locals aren’t too friendly.

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themafia 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> that had an avowed goal of “death to America”.

31 million people just woke up and decided to hate America? Or.. was there a little more to that story?

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throw310822 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> death to America

These Iranians are so evil they want to kill even love:

https://fa-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/%D9%85%D8%B1%DA...

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sph 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The hatred has been there since the 70s, at the very least. Watched a great video on Iran from Rick Steves filmed in 2009, and when he visited a mosque there was a large sign calling for the death of America and Israel.

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megous 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

"death of America and Israel" These are states. A particular instance of cooperating individuals, with some overall vector of behavior that affects people elsewhere. Wishing for that to end is hate how exactly?

I would not mind, and I actually wish america and israel and russia and few other states end as they are today (not just a mild refactoring, end and split to 10s of smaller independent entities, that can cause a lot less harm individually) and end up with reduced externalities on the rest of the world, and lot less power to walk over rest of us.

I don't even mind calling it death to america or whatever, because it would be. So why not.

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phs318u 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You know history goes back before the 70’s right?

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singleshot_ 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Maybe he means 70-79 CE

	▲	defrost 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		500+ years prior the Greeks and Iranians were going at it for half a century in the Greco-Persian Wars (499 BC - 449 BC). That's, what, 2,000 years before the settlement of Jamestown by Europeans.