The 9/11 attack on the U.S. triggered a series of disastrous wars in the Mideast in which the U.S. pursued the goals of overthrowing despots, securing oil supplies, and removing any real or potential military threats to Israel. The result was a large expenditure of blood and treasure for very little geopolitical gain and the destruction and/or destabilization of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Only Iran escaped this ruinous program of aggression in the Mideast. But Iran has remained in the crosshairs of Israel, which considers Iran the last regional power posing a threat. Israel continues its efforts to draw the U.S. into a war with Iran. I will explain why attacking Iran would be a foolish action harmful to the interests of the U.S.
Size Matters
Iran is a much bigger and more populous country than any nation the U.S. has attacked in the Mideast. To depose the regime and eliminate all Iranian military facilities, an invasion would be necessary. Because Iran is four times the size of Iraq (636,400 sq. mi. vs 169,200 sq. mi.) and three times more populous (88 million vs 25 million), a U.S. army of over half a million troops would be required for an attempt to conquer Iran, and this would likely require conscription to supply the necessary soldiers. U.S. Casualties in a ground war in Iran would probably be several multiples greater that those incurred in Iraq (approximately 3,400 KIA and 32,000 wounded in Iraq).
Not only is Iran a big country, it has a large mountainous region, the Zagros range, stretching over 900 miles along its western border. The steep terrain and narrow passes would pose substantial obstacles for any ground invasion force and would facilitate the same defensive tactics employed by the Taliban in similar terrain in Afghanistan.
Zagros Mountains – Welcome to Iran
Although an extended bombing campaign could destroy many of Iran’s military assets, it would be unlikely to secure a capitulation of the regime, and sufficient Iranian weaponry would remain to inflict serious damage on U.S. bases in the region. With an estimated arsenal of over 1,000 ballistic missiles capable of striking U.S. forces in the Mideast, Iran could inflict significant casualties on U.S. personnel, even if there were no ground invasion of Iran.
U.S. Mideast Bases – assets or targets?
Iranian missiles – an adequate deterrent?
The vulnerability of U.S. forces to Iranian attacks is a key reason why Israel may be able to draw the U.S. into a war with Iran. An Israeli strike against Iran would likely trigger retaliation against U.S. forces believed to have enabled the attack. Pro-war Israelis assume that once there are American casualties the U.S. would join in the campaign.
Economic Disruption
A full-scale regional war between the U.S. and Iran would involve the closure of the Straight of Hormuz and the destruction of oil production and export facilities in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf States. Such a conflict could result in a doubling of oil prices, with severe impacts on the world economy. The longer the duration of the war, the more extensive would be the economic damage. The Houthis in Yemen, with far less military capability than Iran, have effectively cut off most shipping in the Red Sea for many months with periodic missile attacks. It is likely that Iran could accomplish a much greater disruption to trade than the Houthis.
Straight of Hormuz – energy choke point
Damage to Israel
Israel has made serious misjudgements of military situations in the past: the Suez Operation, the Yom Kippur War, and the October 7 Hamas attack all revealed failures of intelligence and miscalculations of risk. Launching a war against Iran exposes Israel to serious risks if its intelligence estimates are faulty. If Israel has underestimated the numbers and accuracy of Iran’s missile arsenal, or overestimated its ability to pre-emptively destroy the missiles, it will face devastating retaliatory attacks. If Israel has overestimated the capacity of its anti-missile defenses, it will suffer the loss of critical civilian infrastructure, such as power plants, desalinization facilities, fuel storage sites, and offshore gas production rigs. Even after recovering from such a calamity, a weakened Israel would still be surrounded by hostile neighbors further antagonized by yet another episode of terrible destruction.
Cultural Devastation
Apart from the grave military and economic dangers of war with Iran, there is the hazard of loss of irreplaceable cultural sites and artifacts. Iran is an ancient nation with a rich history spanning millenia. A large-scale war with Iran would risk the destruction, damage, and looting of many great monuments of Persian and Islamic civilization. The failure of invading U.S. forces to prevent widespread destruction and looting of cultural sites in Iraq indicates the magnitude of this danger.
Jameh Mosque in Isfahan – future collateral damage site?
Conclusion
Rational analysis is powerless against entrenched ideology, and the ideology of the U.S. neocons has thus far been impervious to negative outcomes. They view military and political failures as evidence of insufficient application of military force, which they consider the universal remedy for America’s international difficulties. If President Trump is swayed by the Israel lobby and the war hawks in his cabinet, he will add yet another blunder to the sad record of misguided U.S. military adventures in the Mideast and accelerate the decline of U.S. hegemony. Talleyrand said of the Bourbon monarchs “They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.” Let us hope that these words will not be applicable to the U.S. as we approach the brink of war with Iran.
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Strong article overall. I’m not sure if it is the case that Israeli intelligence miscalculated on October 7th. One can argue that this is the result the Israeli government wanted. They’re now in a position to expand their territory into Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria.
Another variable, unmentioned, how should we expect China and Russia to respond? Would they just watch? Or would they provide meaningful military assistance?
PS — it’s not clear if the cultural destruction is actually a disincentive to people in power. They might see it as an advantage.
“it’s not clear if the cultural destruction is actually a disincentive to people in power. “
In Gaza (and to a smaller extent in Lebanon), Israelis showed no compunction whatsoever in destroying all cultural artifacts — from libraries to archaeological and historical monuments. They will do the same against Iran if they feel they can gain an advantage, even infinitesimal, in doing so.
Apart from that, the discussion about how the USA and Israel may proceed against Iran has been going on at NC for quite a while, so I summarize my views.
1) Iran is way too large and populous, so an invasion is infeasible — and both the USA and Israel, which do not even have token expeditionary forces near by, know this; hence, they will not attempt anything like that.
2) Iranian military and atomic assets are located in fortified positions well-defended with AA units. They can sustain and survive attacks. Civilian infrastructure is not hardened, and Iranian forces cannot hope to protect it with a dense enough AA shield.
3) Hence, Israel and the USA will concentrate their attacks on civilian infrastructure — energy, water, etc. This is how they proceeded in Gaza and Lebanon (since they could not destroy the military infrastructure of Hamas and Hezbollah), and how they are proceeding now in Yemen. Therefore, this is how they will proceed with Iran.
4) Before Iran can be attacked, Yemen must be crushed, because neither the USA nor Israel can let such a pugnacious foe operate in their rear while they are dealing with Iran. Hence the massive daily bombardments on Ansarallah-controlled territory — targeting mostly civilian infrastructure (harbours, oil storage, airport, power stations).
What I have no idea is what kind of retaliation Iran will engage in, given that both Israel and the USA have enough crazies ready to go nuclear.
I think your summary appears very rational and level headed, with Queen Elizabeth’s caveat that we should not like war, as they are costly and the outcomes uncertain.
What do you think Russia and China might do if the USA bombs the civilian infrastructure in Iran?
Nothing.
China may get involved if energy infrastructure is at risk – but that may obviously also limit what they allow Iran to do.
Thanks and Queen E spoke centuries ago and wise words never heeded if the 20thC is a measure heading well into the 21st, tho I don’t discourage you – maybe Africa offers hope? V glad you asked about China and Russia also.
I should not that in Iraq, one of the most ancient cities in the world is located there called Ur. So when the US invaded, they built a military base right on top of it causing unknown damage to archaeological remains. I sometimes think that they did so out of spite and jealousy.
The USA shakes their fist at the God of Abraham?
It’s true that they got the result in Gaza that they wanted, but they miscalculated the effect their brutality and criminality would have on their standing in the world. It’s now impossible for all but the most compromised to recognize that Israel is the most depraved and inhumane society on earth. And that Jews who “stand with Israel” are equally complicit and, God willing, will soon face the consequences.
I think an invasion of Iran will require a couple million troops. According to Wikipedia during the First Gulf war, coalition forces included 950k troops. The second Gulf war had +500k troops. There was a website from a few years ago sponsored by a reputable antiwar think tank which estimated the US would need 2-3 million troops for an initial invasion and around 4-5 million troops to effectively occupy Iran. An air campaign won’t achieve much and Iran has anti air defense.
If I find the link of the website I will post it up.
Agreed. The piece was very low end of what is probable. If Hezbollah has 100k missiles, why would Iran only have 1000? And Russia has a signed defense agreement with Iran – not mentioned.
Those 100k Hezbollah missiles include rockets, and maybe ATGMs too. Ballistic missiles are produced in much smaller quantities.
True, though it’s important to note that many of those smaller rockets will target US bases that are nearer to Iran and oil infrastructure.
That said, a few dozen missiles are needed per target. Iran has been prepping for this war for decades, and there are hundreds of Middle East targets, particularly expansive targets like refineries. 1000 missiles is way too low.
The evangelical faction of this administration would be cheering this on as a start to their goal of Armageddon.
Nobody wants to start a nuclear war because todays nuclear weapons are so destructive that whoever uses them can be assured that their own people in their own country will also be killed by the fallout.We all would be damaged to some extent.
I think the USA and UK and Israel will use air force attack over a long period of time bombing cities and towns coupled with a blockade of all sea ports , they will also try and patrol by air the border crossings from Iraq Turkey Azerbaijan Armenia Turkmenistan Afghanistan Pakistan into Iran and use B52H bombers to target points where they think other countries are trying to give logistical support.
USA UK and Israel will plan a long hard squeeze and bomb Irans dams , a water shortage will cause great difficulty in such a hot country.
One big obstacle in my mind is that I’m pretty sure Iran will not tolerate attacks coming from any Gulf state territory. Saudi’s have a lot on the line here and they have access to Trump to make their argument and money to buy the peace. I think this is the main reason US has not conducted any strikes against Iran, Saudis are reigning things in behind the scenes and likely have allies in Hegseth and the rest of America First cabal.
This may be why we are seeing a purge in the DoD and weakening of Hegseth’s position, while Mike Waltz remains unscathed. Removal of Hegseth and the rest of America First staffers leaves fewer voices that oppose the war with Iran. I am still skeptical that this will be sufficient to push Trump into supporting the war, Saudis are heavily invested in the Trump family and are likely much more influential with him than the Israel lobby.
Except the damage to Hegseth’s position/status is completely self-inflicted. While I can totally see this as a happy occurrence for several interested parties, that is a far cry from an a planned strategy to change the position of the DoD with regards to Iran.
The Saudis are also scared of Iranian missiles and have zero trust in US air defenses.
They are also invested in BRICS and cooperatio, both political and military, with Russia in the medium to long term. They won’t give them up, not for anythibg that US can offer now (esp due to lack of credibility.)
Assuming that for some reason we decided to invade Iran it would take more than a half million troops.
Iran with 90 million people could, if needed, mobilize a significant portion of their population. Even if it was only 25% you are talking over 22 million people available to defend their country and given our history with Iran, they would be a highly motivated 22 million people.
I would think you would need between 2 and 3 million troops to even have a chance at subduing a country the size of Iran.
For comparison, Iran’s territory is five times larger than that of Vietnam, and in 1965 Vietnam had less than half as many people.
The 500K number sounded way too low to me as well. off the top of my head:
– How much territory could we even control with that #? I assume a few dozen bases and outposts… maybe a couple cities along the Persian Gulf coast. That still provides a lot of territory for Iran to use to marshal resources and plan attacks. I doubt very much we could get anywhere near Tehran (278 miles from the closest point at the Iraqi border – assuming we could stage an invasion from that country – and 386 miles from the Persian Gulf coast). Baghdad was only 270 miles from our bases in Kuwait, and we had complete air superiority that entire way.
– as far as I know, we haven’t fought a major ground operation since attack drones and swarms have become commonplace on battlefields. If the Houthis could hit Saudi oil infrastructure well inside that country in 2021 (link), what could Iran do in 2025? A lot more? And that’s even aside from their ballistic missile stockpile.
– As noted, we’re struggling to subdue the Houthis right now, and it seems like we’ve given up on attempting to destroy their forces and equipment and pivoted to just bombing the civilian population & infrastructure there.
– I assume our combat capability has degraded even further since we rolled through Iraq to Baghdad in 2003.
– In 2003, it seemed like there was still some positive morale in the ranks, and incentive to recruitment in the U.S., left over from the September 11th attacks. That’s LOOOOONG gone… who wants to sign up to fight in this war?
Question: why do many writers assume Iran would hit Saudi Arabia? That always seemed like a fair expectation until the China-brokered coming together between Iran+Saudi Arabia a few years ago, but since then it seems things have changed. If a war started, why do people think Iran would make an enemy out of SA again?
who wants to sign up to fight in this war?
Some kid whose only opportunities out of a meth and fentanyl infested shithole in deindustrialized fly-over country is to OD, end up in prison, or to join the military.
You are right Leftcoastindie , when Iran went to war with Iraq many years ago it was terrible , children were in the front line used primarily to explode the landmines with the promise of a better life in paradise , waves of children swept across the battlefields like this so that the tanks and armoured vehicles could follow.When people believe in such reward in paradise its incredible what they will do and its possible this kind of fight to the death by millions is still possible.
That is mostly Iraqi and then “independent media” propaganda. Yes, there were a lot of children in both Iraqi and Iranian armies at the time, but both sides used them as regular soldiers. And they were never given any plastic keys to paradise, either.
There are studies stating clearly, that when the war was prolonged and the economies stalled, especially in Iran, where during the Pahlavi regime it had become customary for young boys from poor families to seek employment to support their family, many such boys did volunteer to fight for economic reasons. The other was, not really surprisingly, that they wanted to be where all the adult males were, instead of staying at home with womenfolk and elderly people.
Do not forget that in Pahlavi Iran children as young as six worked as domestic help. The Iranian revolution was first and foremost a social one, even if it was led by priests.
This must be satire. Anti-tank mines require hefty weight on top to detonate. A regular weight soldier would not trigger one, which means that only US-sized child would have a chance of doing it.
Iran has universal male conscription, and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has an actual volunteer reserve force, Basij. Peace-time strength of Iranian Armed Forces (Artesh) and IRGC together is about 600,000. Basij (as in well trained, motivated) reserves are estimated at 640,000 and the Artesh reserve estimation vary between 1,000,000 and 20,000,000 – cohorts within 3 years of their military training would be around 500,000.
So, yes, if one is using something like Correlation of Forces and Means, Iran does have the “forces” in pretty much any scenario.
Iranians are Shia. Imo they will fight to the death if invaded, all of them, including those that hate the regime.
Order of battle and logistics.
If US could put together an invasion force for Iran what ports would it capture and how far are they from military objectives? No suitable Iran ports if U.S. and allies had ships.
Would they transit from Turkiye? Afghanistan is out and Pakistan is wrong side from Atlantic shipping.
The build up time is long, a large part of National Guard would mobilize and train up several months in U.S. That prep would allow setting up forward supply points etc. These would require sealift to get to invasion point where Iran depots would follow. Daunting, more than enough opportunities to bomb depots.
During the year or so build up is an air war. Distances are similar to Guam to North Vietnam or longer. Would Turkiye allow heavy operations out of the 2 Cold War, NATO air bases in East Turkiye? Can these be defended?
What other air bases? Iraq, Jordan, Israel, UAE. Diego Garcia is long way.
Huge logistic tail for air war extending deep into Iran!
All of that air wars not much utility., ground war is only complement to yield success.
Look at what the first 500 sorties has achieved the past month or so in Yemen, who has only air defense against loitering slow drones.
The JCS logistics staff probably told Hegseth “you cannot get all that there”.
If the neocons don’t listen….
Aircraft carriers have to stay too far out to be safe…..Says this AF vet.
Because the peer adversary we’ve decided to attack through Ukraine has had the restraint to not manifest feedback directly to Whitehall or the White House, our Symbol Manipulator in Chief and his minions can maintain the the Curtis LeMay fiction we can bomb our way to success.
It’s never worked, but there’s never been consequences for the failed decision makers either.
Reality for these people is their experience of it, and they’re so wildly narcissistic and sociopathic, and have been so handsomely rewarded for their anti-sociability, why would they behave differently? Some giant, protuberant reality needs to intrude, and the sooner the better.
Agree.
The WW II US Strategic Bombing study proclaimed it was worthwhile. The minority objection included JK Galbraith who deduced the human and materiel resources were possibly better used for other capabilities. Such as more P 47s for close support, for one. More light armor….
A lot of money made building heavy bombing architectures.
A lot of exciting pictures from bomb sight cameras.
Maybe it’s Tehran that wants war. Unfortunately, due to sanctions, anti-government protests in Iran have become more frequent in recent years due to the difficulties of living. In addition, anti-Iranian propaganda from outside the country has become more intense over the years. However, the Iranian people will be forced to unite, whether they want to or not, when a U.S.-made bomb is about to rain down on them.
I don’t get the sense that Iran wants war. What are you basing that on? Israel has repeatedly given them a casus belli several times in the last couple years, as did Trump during his first presidency, and at most they retaliated in a very limited sense, and more or less gave advance notice of that.
Even from my lowly position as a mere consumer of what I read on the internet, I’ve seen absolutely nothing that would even support a claim that Iran wants war.
Iran knows full well that the brunt of war with USRAEL will be borne by the civilian population of their country. The well being of their people is their highest priority which puts them at a serious disadvantage.
“…anti-government protests in Iran have become more frequent in recent years…”
Says the “Iranian” source based out of London and Washington, DC, whose parent company (Volant Media) is owned by a Saudi national?
O.K…
But I strongly disagree that it’s Iran who wants war: the 80’s war with Iraq is still living memory, and it was ghastly.
Based on the hard realities considered in this piece, and others not mentioned, it would seem that the only options available for the USA/Israel decision makers are nuke ’em or nothing. The in-betweens will irreversibly change the world order in a major way. As would the nuclear option.
It is possible that Trump is aware of this and some part of his brain will not allow such damage to his ego and legacy.
That thought occurred to me…. And whilst I don’t believe Iran has “the bomb” I’m wondering how many of its supporters are capable of setting off a dirty bomb somewhere
Stop poking Iran!
Maybe Iran will skip over the 1940’s nuclear technology and go straight to Oreshnik !
Apparently the Israeli “plan” if you can call it that is for Israeli and US bombers to kill the Iranian leadership and then the supposedly repressed masses will rise up to greet us with flowers and candy.
In other words it’s the war in Iraq plan which was also at the behest of the Israelis.
A far easier plan would be for the USG to politically assassinate Bibi by making it clear we will no longer support with weapons until he is replaced. This might also forestall that Israeli civil war that Alastair Crooke keeps talking about.
So the Biden/Trump policy is not even in support of what’s best for Israel but is in reality what’s best for Netanyahu and his American supporters. Antisemitic much? (On a reality level.)
The foolishness of longstanding US policy re Israel does raise the question of who is wagging whom but every president including Bush jr has balked at taking on the 90 million and their oil market threat. Reagan did try to get the Iraqis to make war with Iran and take them down but that didn’t work either. Maybe we should just leave them alone.
The likeliest scenario, I think, is some kind of joint US / Israel bombing campaign, which it’s hard to believe will succeed, given past results.
I don’t think either will be willing to provide the ground forces (who will have to do some serious dying), so that’s a big gap – they broke Iraq, so they can’t, Pakistan and Afghanistan seem pretty unlikely, and the Azeris and Kurds too few. They could try Turkey, but that blade is as likely to cut the wielder as the target.
I think this is much more likely to be a phony war in fits and starts than an opener for WW3, but given the lunatics in charge of the collective west, who can know ?
Israel and the U.S. “Blob” could try using Balochistan separatists as proxies / patsies / puppets / provocateurs / insurgents / a foothold / a wedge. They’ve already been trying to stir things up there all along, under most people’s radar.
https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/iran-hates-and-fears-the-baloch-minority-more-than-it-does-israel/2024/10/06/
The Iran-Russia Security Agreement has now been signed. If Israel attacks Iran it will have attacked Russian. If the US steps in – it is already making stupid proposals about post-conflict Iran – it really enters the big time, as will Europe and Turkey in Europe and the Mideast. China has its own interests in demonstrating its solidarity with Russia and the relationship it brokered between Iran and the Saudis, it also has interests in South East Asia and in enforcing the One China policy accepted by the US in 1972, perhaps in a slightly different modality than hitherto or, as President Putin might say, “There is a nuance”.
But whichever way it goes, Israel goes for good – to the intense relief of its neighbours and those of us who believe that one genocide does not justify the genocidees posterity (and their aquaintances) engaging in a genocide against a different group of genocidees further down the line. There is always a silver lining in the darkest of war clouds.
Great coverage here, Haig, but I think that one thing was missed under ‘Cultural Devastation’. Back in 2020 during the first Trump Presidency, he went out of his way to threaten to bomb Iran’s cultural sites which would have included that beautiful mosque in that photo. It would have been an epic war crime under the 1954 Hague Convention but Trump did not care as he actually has no culture when you think about it. In case Trump made good on his demented threats, Iranians were going around those 52 sites saying goodbye to them. I guess that some people see a bombed cultural site and weep while Trump sees a new opportunity to build an exclusive hotel on that site for the wealthy. His plans for Gaza shows us how he thinks–
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%27s_threat_for_the_destruction_of_Iranian_cultural_sites
Well, board a cheap flight to Hawaii, stroll down Kalakaua Avenue in Waikiki, shop in Ala Moana Center, take the bus to old downtown, admire all the skyscrapers … maybe learn a little pidgin … then go talk Hawaiian history and culture with the sovereignty and independence activists.
As Joni Mitchell sang, “♫ they paved paradise and put up a parking lot …”
Let’s not kid ourselves, it’s not just the way Trump thinks, it’s the way America thinks. And operates.
Patriotic projection, transferring all the many sins of empire onto a single orange-skinned goat whom we hope to drive into the desert after, as did all the leaders before him, he has done the dirty work for us?
Not only Gaza, but Belgrade too (Kushner tweeted 3D renderings together). Trump just want to bring back the good old times when Kyoto was on the shortlist for the nuke, MAGA.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33755182
“… estimated arsenal of over 1,000 ballistic missiles capable of striking U.S. forces in the Mideast, Iran could inflict significant casualties…”
Same was said about Hezbollah and its thousand upon thousands of rockets capable of destroying Israel. Seems those vaunted rockets were not quite as many or deadly.
You seem to be behind the plot. Iran already demonstrated its ability to pulverize Israel. After Israel killed Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ chief negotiator, in Tehran when he was a guest of the government, and then Hassan Nasrallah, Iran threatened retaliation. The West pressed hard to try to stop that. The result was a negotiated attack≤, meaning textbook perfect conditions (Israel and the US knew the time and the targets). Iran even put the launch of its large wave of slow-moving drones on its TV to make sure they were not missed.
Iran hit all its targets with pinpoint precision, despite Israel, the US, the UK, and France spending over $2.3 billion on the air defense. Iran’s attack was estimated to cost $90 million.
You are mixing up rockets and missiles (whether ballistic or cruise ones). Russians have been launching “thousand upon thousands of rockets” every single day, for years. Missiles, not so much. Rockets are frontline weapons and no one with functional brain would think that they could destroy any country, except maybe Vatican.
This is an interesting interview (It’s with Tucker Carlson – I’m not a fan, but it’s a timely interview):
Pete Hegseth’s Top Advisor Framed for Pentagon ”Leaks” (It Was Really About Iran)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg9rKJGlieM
The article leaves out one of the big advantages for Israel during such a war: The chaos will give them free hand to ethnically cleanse Gaza and the West Bank. For this reason I believe Israel will push hard for a general conflagration across the Middle East, not just a short sharp air campaign. Populations displacements on the scale of Syria are on the cards.
Such chaos can be seen as an advantage if it masks or helps spark massive pogroms to drive out Palestinians.
Assuming the USA and Israel can break Iran and cause a regime change: what happens then?
There is no way in hell that any of the other powers with influence and interests in the region will welcome an US/Israel puppet regime. Not Saudi Arabia, not Russia, not China, not India. Not even Turkey, nominally an US ally, would accept an kurd friendly US puppet (and any puppet regime will most likely have to use the kurdish minority).
Considering that the only way to break iran is to target it’s civilians, thus creating even more hate against the US and Israel, and considering that iran is a rather unified country, the US will have to either support a puppet regime for a very long time against many opponents, or will have to create another failed state – near the straight of Hormuz.
What is the plan? devil-may-care is not a plan, and will only create a worse mess.
What happens then is balkanization/syrianiziation/libyanization/whatever-you-wanna-call-it. It’s not like this is the first time USA wants to destroy a country, and the plan is the same as it ever was.
Iran is much more homogeneous than Libya or Syria. That country is old, and isn’t the result of some foreigners drawing borders with a lineal on a map they barely understood.
The plan may be the same old one. The result will not be so.
Besides: no sane person would want a balkanized, instable country at the straight of hormuz, and i still hope for sanity. I don’t expect it, though.
Persians are among the most strident goldbugs i’ve ever known, and when it takes a million of your currency to equal a buck now, versus 5 Rials equaling a buck during the time of the Shah, it made a lot of sense to go with plan B.
We have a history of attacking countries known to be harboring karats, Libya comes to mind.