I don't think the US will be able to win this war, even with boots on the ground. Iran is just too big and unlike Iraq they make their own weapons. Majority of the population has a degree in STEM and lots of PhD.
The President of Iran is a heart surgeon, the Foreign Minister has PhD, their main shit posting IRGC guy on X also has a PhD in mathematics. So these are some smart high IQ people. Even Khomeini was famously seen in video telling a boy, who wanted to do jihad to actually study hard and become a scientist and thats how you defeat the enemies.(I am paraphrasing)
Their long range air defense may have been taken out but they still have a shit ton of short range air defenses which use IR/Thermal optics which can shoot down any stealth jet, if it's within range. They can hide it inside a bedroom of any building.
That is why you still see majority of the strikes within thr country use drones and not manned jets. Even the one time a Israeli F35 was caught flying above 20000 feet, it was seen dispersing flares.
1200+ mile coast line is impossible to seize control in order to open the Straits. They have shit ton of mountains, unlike the taliban which only had RPG and guns. IRGC has modern manpads and Anti-Armor weapons.
Ukraine war as shown that Drones can destroy every western tanks. Iran still has attack helicopters that is hidden from view which are clones of the AH-1 SuperCobra with clone weapons. They also have the Russian Mi 28 which is a Apache equivalent, that had been very useful for Russians to destroy the Panther tanks /Bradley IFV at large distances in Ukraine war during infamous Ukraine counter offensive. Those mountains give them cover from US radars. They also have lot of loitering drones and FPV drones.
They have clones of Israeli, US MALE drones like Predator, Heroin, RQ 170. These will be used when US land invasion begins.
Lastly unlike Sadam and Taliban they are getting real time intelligence from two other miltary super powers, at least one of them has a score to settle.
Russia has been leveling buildings along their offensive line and it still going at snails pace. Even with so much firepower. Below is their attacks on just two days. They have been doing this every week or so since 2023 and this doesn't even include the daily JDAM/drone/MRLS attacks on the front lines.
Even Gaza took Israel like 2 years plus with Hamas having only home made anti tank weapons for counter and no air defenses whats so ever.
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