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Notes -
Nobody wants to mount a ground invasion of Iran because the Iranians have a large military with a great deal of ideological commitment (unlike Saddam).
However, bombing Iran’s oil industry into the Stone Age is pretty doable. Iran’s navy and Air Force would get wrecked very quickly.
What’s tricky is that Iran learned from Iraq and Syria and built their nuclear facilities inside mountains. So there’s no way to destroy the program without boots on the ground.
I don’t know what contingency plans Israel has for enforcing their red line that Iran cannot achieve a nuclear weapon.
Well, I don't know all of them either, but I assume one of them is "pre-emptively nuke Iran".
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This, mostly. It's worth mentioning that the US has invested in bunker busters for the last 15 years almost specifically for this reason, but chances of wiping out all nuclear infrastructure dipped significantly in the last 7-8 years -- it used to be doable, even likely, but most people in the know now believe it to be highly unlikely to be fully successful. Plans for doing it still exist and are updated every once in a while, but at the moment just targeted attacks of medium to high (but not total) effectiveness is still seen as sufficient deterrence. Additionally, the US Navy is still powerful enough to meaningfully set back their ambitions to eventually have some degree of control over not just the nearby gulf but also the larger part of the Indian Ocean that Suez Canal sea trade routes traverse. So conventional conflict would still be quite bad for Iran, no invasion necessary. Air forces, naval forces, and oil facilities all take a long time and a lot of resources to rebuild and believe me, the US Navy (overstretched as they are) are nonetheless capable of sinking quite a few oil tankers. We also have bases/base space VERY close to Iran, in Qatar and the UAE for example, which if you look at the map are like right there.
Don't get me wrong, Iran absolutely HATES this feeling of powerlessness, but if you look carefully they are still pragmatists in the things that count. See for example the Suleimani reprisal, which is about as direct as they would ever be short of war.
Don’t confuse Iran’s lack of effectiveness with the intent to be pragmatic.
They have the intent to assassinate Trump and a whole list of other people they blame for the Soleimani strike.
And if their missile attack had killed Americans in Iraq, Trump would have responded in kind and we don’t know how that escalatory cycle would have gone. (Iran believes they did kill troops, so they think they got one over on Trump.)
I personally think that the Trump assassination plan was one born more of smaller radical elements within an often emboldened and somewhat independent IRGC rather than anything central, so although we heard about the plan I don't really put high chances on them going through with it even if we hadn't figured it out/his security hadn't been increased. Their intentions are still absolutely pragmatic on the whole.
Of course we do know that Trump was literally 5 or 10 minutes away from ordering a larger retaliatory strike against Iran that would have had a direct military death toll of at least a dozen, so yeah the potential for escalation is still there, though I still think neither side truly wants that kind of thing, those sorts of misplaced judgements just happen in military and foreign high-stakes stuff. I do think that in that event, a dozen or more direct military deaths, they would feel obligated, against their better judgement, to actually kill some Americans. Don't mistake their public claims that they killed Americans for an actual belief -- they deliberately say stuff like that to pacify their own populace (and even internal elements) into thinking they weren't as weak as they were (for example claiming they did more damage than they actually did in the 300-odd missile strike at Israel the other month, national TV was showing unrelated footage from something else in order to give the impression that their strike did something, allowing the face-saving measure of saying "ok retaliation complete" and claiming victory).
Although the IRGC is probably more genuinely angry about Soleimani, overriding pragmatism even, though they have a lot of leeway they still aren't actually in charge. The actual leadership, Khomeini for example, probably know that Soleimani was kind of asking for it and that although they obviously weren't happy, still viewed him as at least somewhat a "fair" target. Because intelligence was highly specific that he had planned, and continued to plan, stuff that was directly leading to US deaths in Iraq and elsewhere.
Well you’re wrong.
The IRGC’s whole damn bit is doing what the Supreme Leader wants.
The kill list for US officials involved with the Soleimani strike is not some rogue faction’s idea.
You have no idea how to model the motivations and machinations of the Iranian regime. Khamenei loved Soleimani. Soleimani was carrying out the express wishes of the Supreme Leader in his operations.
They were quite surprised about Soleimani’s death. That was a big change for the US to do that.
The Iranians are quite often high on their own supply and don’t just consciously use lies to placate their dumb citizens (as the Russians do). They are actually religious fanatics. They aren’t insane, but they are not nearly as rational as many in the West want to believe and they really do have ideological commitments we find pretty mind boggling. (For instance, a devotion to destroying the state of Israel.)
There is a very high chance the Iranians stupidly try a major attack (for the death of a Hamas leader, not an Iranian, no less), and then Israel responds a lot stronger than they ever have before. I don’t think Israel is bluffing about their intended response and I don’t think they’ll let Biden restrain them.
Common sense would lead the Iranians to back off any large scale military attacks and merely try more of an in kind response like assassinating a Jew somewhere, but their egos and rhetoric is making it clear they want to do more.
Hopefully, the wiser more risk-aware advisors to Khamenei win the day.
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I’m not sure. Gas prices are already a contentious issue in the USA, and taking a good chunk of oil (about 10% per Google) would spike gas prices by several dollars which would be a political crisis.
Well sure, war has consequences.
Consider that it might be Israel doing it and not the US. If Iran conducts a major missile/drone attack on Israel and does real damage then Israel has said they’re going to take the gloves off. I believe them.
I don’t think the US would attack non-mil infra unless Iran picked a fight with us directly and did some real damage.
Iran would be a failed state pretty quickly if its oil revenue dried up and Israel can destroy that infrastructure from the air. I’m not sure exactly how many strikes it would take to say eliminate half of Iran’s oil output for ~months+, but oil fields, refineries, and pipelines are easy targets that can’t really be hardened.
Of course, the more pressing threat for Israel is if they need to invade Lebanon to attack Hezbollah and its missile sites, in which case they’d be devoting the vast majority of their air power to that operation.
What would be the Israeli game plan for invading Lebanon, I’m genuinely curious?
Like Hezbollah is more than competent enough to assume they’ll take 40% of the country back after Israel leaves. They’ve survived Israeli occupation before. You’d have to get rid of the Shia population that provides their demographic base somehow, and I guess Syria and Iraq might be far enough away for comfort but you’ve gotta assume that Hezbollah will just set up shop again.
I’m not saying Israel won’t regard this as a future problem. But, well, they’re surely aware that a) Hezbollah is too entrenched in Lebanese society to get rid of without restructuring that society and b) lebanon’s population mostly hates them and so won’t cooperate in that endeavor.
Israel’s game plan in the event of war with Hezbollah is to attack as many facilities and kill as many leaders and combatants as they can from the air and then see if they can prop up anyone else in Lebanon who isn’t Hezbollah at that point. If they can’t, they’ll leave and the cycle will repeat itself.
But yes, the general reality that the Sunnis are deeply internally divided grifters, the Christians are all lazy kleptocrats with French passports who want to make their bag and retire to Paris / the South of France and the Shias are the only ones with the discipline and will to make a play for the actual country remains the case. Lebanon lurches from crisis to crisis, but as long as Hezbollah continues to be well-funded by Iranian oil money it has enough funds to buy large amounts of support (which is often more financial than ideological when it comes to many Lebanese, even Shiites).
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Well the main goal would be to wreck Hezbollah.
No idea how they would decide whether to occupy southern Lebanon again.
I’m guessing they wouldn’t opt for an occupation. Gaza is going to be enough of a problem.
But yeah, overall Israel knows it can’t take out Hezbollah the way it can Hamas.
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