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 5 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 4 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 3 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.