Comments by "" (@tomk3732) on "Could US military successfully invade Iran?" video.

Iran would secure a lot of systems for free or next to free from China and some from Russia. Nothing better to sap all US energy into a long war that would make Vietnam look cheap. Imagine trillions spent on Iraq - now multiply few times given larger area and much larger population with topography of Afghanistan.
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@attackmaster519 In welfare you play as much as the enemy allows you to play. Iraq did not have a vast air defense system - it had a system build by the French capable of stopping limited Iranian intrusion - which it did very well - even better then specified - remember it took down over 50 aircraft. It was never intended to take on enemy as large as US & it was not operated by trained staff. Even older system in Serbia & many times smaller was not destroyed despite expending few times more Harm missiles. Armies in ME are basically welfare institutions. Society is tribal. The allegiance of the armed forces to ruler in Baghdad is based only on limited scope tribal loyalty. This is why they are called checkpoint armies. Also note that after billions spent on their training a small rag tag group called ISIS won battle of Mosul - despite defenders outnumbering them 20 to 1. But who were ISIS - many were Iraqis! Iraq did not have any "decent" armor - they had around 200 export versions of T-72, aka T-72M / T72M1 (probably) some local copies without much quality to them (downgrade) and mostly grossly outdated T-55 clones. They also had 1970s export Soviet ammo. Crews had no training with them missing shots at US tanks from just 500m (!!!) Iraq did not have any navy to speak off - few speed boats do not really count. Similar for Iran except they have few subs. Airforce as both Israel and Iran have shown was not that great. They had next to no training. It was also not that "new" - they had few new planes but mostly similar situation to tanks. Iraqi command could not command a unit larger then brigade.... But it all came down to WILL. As you can see US as everyone before it took over Afghanistan rather quickly. But after 20 years US finally lost its WILL and thus lost the war. Afghans did not loose their WILL. They have defeated the Soviets whom actually went into the bush after them - defeating US was just matter of time given their "fortify at base" idea. US also lost last war in Iraq - for "undisputed" leader of conventional welfare US is loosing all conventional wars - with few exceptions. Finally.... US lost in Vietnam and spend 1T in todays $$$ US lost in Afghanistan and spend also... same... $$$ - about 1T. This pales in comparison to Iraq - well over 2T (!!!) for another loss. So what do you think a loss in Iran would run US like? It is more then 2x Iraqi population with geography of Afghanistan. 4T? 6T? Imagine the party in Beijing! And Moscow!
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@attackmaster519 Well, US had superior weapons in Afghanistan. Spend Trillions. Lost BAD. Certainly Iran has a) better weapons b) more then 2x population and c) more then 2x land with similar geography. You argument is mostly everyone goes and attacks at any cost. In this scenario Israel would loose most wars - Egypt may have lost millions of people but eventually through sheer numbers it would win. Then again what is victory? This has to be defined - usually as meeting the objectives set at the start of the war. With that we can see that US lost almost every war past WWII. So if say US wanted to invade China and it was all 100% just conventional and even if US ignored losses and give 100% I claim it would loose. It cannot match China. China has 4x the population and at least 2x manufacturing capacity. It is also as big as US & it is 1000s of miles away making logistics a nightmare. Finally China would be defending their homes. Wars of the WWII style are in the past - no one looks at them with any "reality".
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@kurt5490 If US "Win" condition is say taking Teheran and holding it for a week - then yes, they would win at huge cost. Even holding the country may be possible at enormous cost. Problem here is cost. Winning war against Israel by the Arabs is quite possible - they simply cannot mobilize themselves enough to bear huge costs. There is no WILL.
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