Sen. Tom Cotton says U.S., allies looking at "weeks, not days, of joint efforts" in Iran

[paleotn]

17. Define "massive"

You cannot topple the Iranian regime externally simply with air strikes. You can't. The country is too big, too spread out, and they've been planning for this since Jimmy Carter. You're simply going to rally the masses in SUPPORT of the regime, not against it. Bombing by a foreign power who's not particularly liked tends to do that. While some of the Iranian masses aren't happy with the regime, it's not like they view us, or freaking Israel!, as saviors. That's naive in the extreme.

You can only do external regime change with boots on the ground. Massive numbers of US troops invading a country the size of freaking Alaska. Period. EOM. Invading Iran will make the 2003 Gulf War look like a weekend exercise in scale AND cost (read treasure and blood). Without that "no go" option, this will end in failure. And Iran will keep on keeping on.

Bad as it is, there are millions of Iranians who tied economically and philosophically to the regime. It's Iraq on steroids in that respect. Will internal decent be enough to topple the regime? Maybe. But so far, that same internal decent hasn't toppled Vladimir Putin's Russia. And Iran has been under strict sanctions since Carter and Reagan, not since the early twenty teens like Russia.

This is a fools errand. At best it will not accomplish anything but creating rubble. Worse case is something I'd rather not think about.