Summarizer

A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran. Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. More than 2x Iraq. More than any country in Europe. About 2/3 of Russia. Expecting to win a war on the cheap was a fantasy. Especially since Iran has been fighting Israel for years. On the naval front, Ukraine sunk the Moskva with a few truck-mounted missiles. That finally made it undeniable that sending naval vessels anywhere near a hostile shore is a thing of the past. Countermeasures can take out some attacking missiles, but not all of them. This is a real problem for the U.S. Navy, because they've invested heavily in craft intended to operate near hostile shores. Littoral combat ships and amphibious assault ships are intended to operate offshore of trouble spots. This worked a lot better when the trouble spots couldn't do much to them. The size of Iran means that knocking out drone and missile production for long won't work. Russia has been trying to do that to Ukraine for years now. Ukraine produced 4 million drones last year, and production continues to increase. Ukraine even exports drones now. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE have been making deals with Ukraine for air defense systems. Iran exports drones to Russia. Mass-produced drones today are a simple airframe, a lawnmower engine, and the smarts of a cell phone. Ukraine has people making them in basements. Presumably, so does Iran. The US can't just pull out, either. The enemy gets a vote on when it's over. Israel, Iran, and Yemen now all have to agree. Probably the best deal the US can get at this point is a cease fire with Iran collecting tolls on the Strait of Hormuz. Worst outcome is the US attacks Cuba, Cuba allies with Iran, it turns out that Cuba has been stocking up on Iranian drones, and Cuba becomes a forward base for drone and missile attacks on the southern US.

> Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. More than 2x Iraq. More than any country in Europe. About 2/3 of Russia. According to [0], in 2025 Iran had 86M people. Ukraine had 29M (~33%), Germany (highest in Europe) had 83M (~96%, uh?), Iraq had 46M (~53%), and Russia had 146M (~168% / ~59% reversed). Wildly, wildly wrong about Germany but not too far off the rest[1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen... [1] Although if you include Turkey in "Europe", "more than any country in Europe" droops a little because Turkey's 86092168 (99.456%) is basically identical to Iran's 86563000 when it comes to projection and estimation errors.

I think the comparisons were referring to land area, but I agree this is not that clear from from the comment

Presumably they meant WW2 Germany.

Germany's population in 1938 was higher. Around 86 million.

The big mistake was underestimating the appetite for rebellion despite 70%-80% wholesale opposition to the regime.[0] I personally know many, many Iranians who welcome the attacks along with their families. All of the high-profile assassinations involve intelligence from Iranians. However, no one has guns, and government-backed militias roam the streets to maintain order.[1] There is no possibility of military coup. Many officers lives and livelihoods are at stake post-revolution, and they will go to great lengths to protect it. Remember, they killed 30K of their own to quell an uprising.[2] Surveillance is everywhere online and in person.[3] One spy in ten can ruin a revolutionary group. To make things worse, there is no unification around a leader or what should come next. If anything, this war demonstrates the tyranny and tentacles of the modern state. The well seems forever poisoned once power is lost to despots. [0]: https://gamaan.org/2025/08/20/analytical-report-on-iranians-... [1]: https://www.npr.org/2026/03/19/g-s1-114144/iran-voices-war [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jan/27/i... [3]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/iran-built-a-vast-camera-...

> Remember, they killed 30K of their own to quell an uprising.[2] There is absolutely no way to know if it's true or not

There are ample indepentant sources for that estimate. We don't know an exact number but we know it is close to that.

All the more reasons for Iran to drop their self imposed fatwa on nuclear weapons and get a few. Iran has been on the receiving end of weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapons by way of US sponsored Saddam Hussain and lost close to half a million of their people. Yet they never for once retaliated with such weapons.

The willingness to fight until the end, whatever the cost, is not something you rate a priori. The thing with war is that once you have it for a certain amount of time, you create a generation of people whose kids died, wife died, neighbors and family died, you have nothing to loose anymore. There is a critical mass of casualties upon which you effectively create a population whose sole purpose, for generations, will be to resist and harm you, and that is not dependent on culture or whatever "tourism orientation" a country is labeled.

Assuming the scenario happened the first bombing runs would be over after 2h and would continue for the next 48h until amphibious assault fast response finishes landing, by which time it’s safe to assume there isn’t much left to defend (though rubble makes a horrible war zone for the attacking side). Cuba simply isn’t Iran. They’re a blockaded island with not much military experience. Iran is a huge mountainous country preparing for war for the last 40 years with first hand experience of getting blown up from above and from the inside by USA allies and surviving just fine.

> Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine Population size is relevant but not the most important factor. Russia has 146,000,000, more than 4x than Ukraine. It doesn't guarantee that Russia will win the war. > On the naval front, Ukraine sunk the Moskva with a few truck-mounted missiles. Ukraine also had Bayraktar TB2 overhead which distracted Moskva's crew and provided targeting information. Russia probably didn't sent a fighter to down it because skies around Ukraine are contested. Skies not only around but over Iran are not reallty contested. Having said that Iran could sink an american ship if the navy will become complaicent and will assume there are no threats. > The size of Iran means that knocking out drone and missile production for long won't work. Russia has been trying to do that to Ukraine for years now. Russia cannot fly planes over Ukranian territory. The US can fly not only F-35 but even B-52. That's a big difference. The only thing which could prevent the US from knowking out missile and drone production is insufficient intellegence.

...also, Germany has 84,000,000 people, so definitely not half of Iran. > Having said that Iran could sink an american ship if the navy will become complaicent and will assume there are no threats. Also, this is an election year in the US, and the war is already hugely unpopular, so despite all of Hegseth's posturing, they're probably playing it extra extra safe. That's also the reason why Trump is so angry that other countries aren't willing to take the risk in their place...

Germany has 80+ mil inhabitants. Also 90,000,000 people doesn't mean 90,000,000 soldiers, especially when a large part of them hate their own regime.

> Also 90,000,000 people doesn't mean 90,000,000 soldiers, especially when a large part of them hate their own regime. You know what engenders nationalism? Attack on your way of life and the murder of someone you know by said attack.

If my countrymen were killed by my government by the thousands, I'd not be super happy about defending that government. If the enemy does the same kind of mindless killing to the civilians, then I would have different ideas.

> If the enemy does the same kind of mindless killing to the civilians, then I would have different ideas. You mean like bombing a school and killing about 150 schoolgirls? The USA had a lot of local support and goodwill in Afghanistan, and turned it into support for the Taliban, because they kept killing civilians in their attempts to beat the Taliban with bombs, because they wanted to limit the unpopular ground troop deloyments. The chance that the same will happen in Iran is precisely 100%

The truth barely matters anymore. People believe whatever they want to believe, or whatever they are told to believe. You can be sure that Iranians are being blasted with propaganda just the same as Americans are being blasted with propaganda, except that currently Iran is cut off from the internet so the effect is much stronger. You can't say for sure that you wouldn't wilfully join up if you were in that kind of information environment.

Information does go around even without the internet - doubt that iranians do not know about the things their government is doing in those mass executions.

Knowing is not the same as believing. ICE shoot innocent people in the street but there's still enough Fox News watching idiots who believe the victims somehow had it coming. Now take that and add no Internet access, no independent media, living under sanctions, etc. If the Fox news watching Americans can be broadly supportive of this war, you'd best believe that there's an equally large contingent of Iranians who feel an equal and opposite antipathy towards the US.

Right re 80 million in Germany. After a bombing campaign, most of the people tend to hate whoever bombed them.

Was it true for Japan and Germany post WWII? Or between European nations after the same said war? On the other hand, until a couple of years ago, Iranians and Israeli never directly exchanged even a bullet between them and yet Iran was dedicated to the destruction of Israel, so YMMV.

First, new leadership is MORE hardline. Second, Khamenei in fact presided over Iran who exercised restrain in their responses to attacks and was willing to enter international agreements. And followed them to reasonable level. They did cause destabilization by proxis, they were still regime they were. But like, what Iran regime learned was that restraint makes them look weak and makes them be bombed every couple of months. And that negotiation and international agreements mean nothing. Third, frankly, as evil regime was, American history and role in Iran was destructive one. You cant take down elected president, put cruel monarchy in power and then play victim when revolution happens. And yes, who ends up winning bloody revolution does not tend to be nice pro-democratic side either. It tends to be the side willing to kill and risk more.

Germans were salty about being bombed and Germany destroyed. They were also occupied for years and also victory forces made sure the victory was absolute - no peace agreement but armies everywhere. There were other aspects too - like nazi doing a lot of destruction of the Germany by themselves. Germans back then seen the whole thing as a tragedy for Germany and Germans. The rebuild phase where allies put a lot of effort and money into rebuilding Germany did a lot to ensure good result there. And you still see fascists being popular in Germany, especially in former easter block. It is just that everyone else is still traumatized by the past, school system make sure everyone knows past and nazi propagation is literally illegal.

They seem to work not very well, considering the number civilians they've killed in Iran.

Does it matter, at this point? If you go and tell someone who’s lost their home and half their family in a strike, "oops, it was just bad intel", do they hate you less?

its always that, and absolutely nobody cares

I bet that "large part" isn't thrilled about the US bombing civilians, including children, either.

Indeed it’s an odd argument. The regime is immensely unpopular. If it weren’t for the murderous crackdown they would have been overthrown long ago.

There is a good case to be made that if it weren't for the consistent pressure, sanctions and assassinations from US/Israel, the moderates would have prevailed in Iran.

Saddam was immensely unpopular. The Taliban was immensely unpopular. It doesn't mean that people like America- or Israel. Every country has it's own elite who have their agenda independent from whatever the White House wants.

Sorry, irrelevant to what you‘re saying, but Germany has 85 mio inhabitants. You might mistake it for Poland.

> Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. Germany has 83.000.000 people

Not sure where you get your numbers from but 80*2 is more than 90. Germany has about 80 million inhabitants.

"Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. " >Germany's population is approximately 83.5 to 84.1 million as of early 2026 agree with analysis of iran industry etc, cant see cuba happening. usmil could roll over cuba in a few months and the local population probably wouldnt be hostile

90M > 2x Germany? You might wanna check your math on that...

The global Shia’s population is even larger than Russia’s population, and more willing to fight the US/Israel. Russia is of course superior to Iran technologically but Iran has the larger support worldwide.

TIL: Germany (85m) has almost the same population as Iran (90m)

> Iran has 90,000,000 people. [..] More than 2x Germany. TIL: Germany has less than 45m inhabitants. Less than Spain! /s

> A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran. Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. Not necessarily disagreeing with your other points, but Germany has a population of ~84 million, so comparable size.

Germany has a population of ~87,000,000 though.

Germany has over 83M people.

Can we just appreciate that if we’re at a place where anyone “makes mistakes appreciating scale” in the space age, we have much bigger problems

Germany has 80M people.

> More than 2x Germany. Nope, your numbers are way off.

it's not 2x Germany. Germany is ~83.5M.

Just to note, Germany has 83 million people, so not 2x Germany.

Why do you think the number of people in Iran matters? I think most of what you said is just speculation, not founded on reality. The only thing that would stop the US from invading Iran in under 3 months is political will. Russia doesn't have the scale and power of the US airforce, or the ability to project that power using the US navy and all the bases in the middle-east. Any comparison with russia at all makes me question your entire analysis. Iran is big and geographically challenging, Afghanistan is notorious in the same sense as well, even more so by their infamous defeat and expelling of Russia in the 80's. The US invaded afghanistan in a matter of 1-2 months and held on to the country for 20 years. Establishing a FOB initially will be challenging but with Kuwait and KSA eagerly cooperating, it won't be a challenge. Drones are effective when your enemy is nearby and you can project it against them. Iran can threaten just about any US interest in the region but not the US homeland itself. They can't attack Europe because that would risk drawing them into the conflict, so their only option is to attack existing enemies in the region and do their best to inflate the price of oil. And therein is their strategy that might win the war, it isn't all the reasons you listed, but political will as a result of economic pressure. The US lost in Afghanistan, Vietnam, and even arguably in Iraq because of loss of political will to continue the conflict. But then again, the current administration will not be deterred by pesky things such as the will of the american people, they'll use it to declare emergencies and attempt to hold on to power instead. The only thing that can defeat the US right now is the republican party in the US willing to turn on their beloved dictator. > Ukraine has people making them in basements. Presumably, so does Iran. The US has bunker-busters. Even though your analysis is full of many technical flaws the most critical flaw in my opinion is how you aren't considering aerial advantage for the US, but yet you seem to think drones are an advantage. Drones are only useful at attacking pre-determined regional targets to influence political will. For the US however, unlike Russia, the US doesn't have a decrepit airforce, and doesn't flinch at launching $70~M/launch tomahawks. The ukrainain army right now isn't withstanding a constant barrage of bomber jets dropping on them. Russia is several decades behind US equivalent fleets from what I understand. The US military hasn't been sitting on their hands watching the Russia-Ukraine conflict either. They've been testing all kinds of anti-drone tech in the desert for a while now, but this is the real opportunity for them to battle-test different techniques. No one is sanctioning the US either (more like sanctioning itself), and there is no real or practical shortage of war-chest funds (unlike Russia), and having a big war every two decades means the US military-industrial complex far more capable to meet the supply-chain logistics demands. The US military certainly is the biggest in the world, dwarfing all other countries' militaries combined. But the thing most people don't realize is that is not what makes it the most capable invading force in the world, it is the sheer efficiency of the logistical effectiveness unseen the history of war before, backed by the ability to fund years-long wars without so much as flinching on the domestic economy front. I would argue that the if the political will existed, the US can invade the entire region, from the Mediterranean to the Himalayas in less time than how long Russia has been at war with Ukraine. Even if the US couldn't use the bases and airspace in Europe at all, the calculus remains the same. > This worked a lot better when the trouble spots couldn't do much to them. Huh? what do you mean? They're entirely designed to address hostilities, they're not designed establish access in a non-hostile littoral, this goes back to WW2 beachead establishments (like normandy). The carrier ships are never meant to be close to land to where they're a target, but the carrier group itself is entirely designed to establish a beachead and deploy an expeditionary force under hostile conditions. I admit, maybe my history recall is lacking, do you know of any post-WW2 conflicts where the US navy established a beach head as part of an invading force that didn't face both aerial and naval resistance? Iran and Afghanistan didn't require it, neither did Korea or Vietnam as far as I know.

I think they were extremely fortunate that their complex plan actually went off without a hitch. Its quite a lot of moving parts and hoping that certain people will react in certain ways. > Maybe US also had people on the inside in Iran, but killed them by accident on the first strike with the "precision bombings". Yeah but no. Iran isn't Venezuela by a long shot, extremely different properties all round. Its hubris to think what worked out well in one case would apply to a completely different one on the other side of the world.

> destroying much of Iran's military and leadership Good at hitting targets, terrible at achieving goals. Same as Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc. Were the Taliban destroyed by killing their upper echelons several times over? In terms of resilience, the Iranians are similar, arguably much more so.

So he'd have a better idea of what the govt would want to do? Keep in mind that a govt that feels (admittedly reasonably) that it has been backstabbed and has its head assassinated would not hesitate to call bluffs instead of acting cool. You've ever seen how a cornered wild animal behaves?

I think being the "home team" makes swallowing those casualties easier (as easy as they can be, anyways); it's easy to perceive the situation as a fight for your life. Obviously, there were other things going on in Vietnam (and Afghanistan and the larger War on Terror) to keep them fighting but it's much easier to muster up the manpower when a war seems existential because it's happening in your neighborhood.

In pure amoral military terms, the US military has barely suffered a scratch in this war, losing only a few soldiers and pieces of equipment. It has failed to subdue Iran, so in that sense so far at least it has not achieved a victory. However, it has also not suffered a defeat. If the Iranian government ends the war still in power and with the ability to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed whenever they want to, I will consider that a a US defeat. However, the defeat would not have been caused by any serious damage that Iran has done to the US military, it would have been caused by the combination of Iranian resilience to damage and its geographic advantage of being right next to the Strait of Hormuz.

It's not the first time that overwhelming force fails to deliver results for the US when they get bogged down in an asymmetric war. The Korean and Vietnam wars last century still involved air carriers parked off the coast of Korea and Vietnam. But in the end, those wars turned into messy grinds. And even with extensive navy and air support resulted in eventual withdrawal/cease fires on unfavorable terms. Vietnam especially was painful. Asymmetric war fare against a determined enemy is just hard and it always has been. Cheap drones and missiles are part of wars like that now. You can stash them all over the place and dig in. The Russians learned that the hard way in Afghanistan. As did the British before them. And more recently the US of course. The withdrawal from Afghanistan rivaled that of the one in Vietnam. Complete with chaotic scenes of people desperately trying to get out. That's only a few years ago. In the Gulf, the Houthis still pose a threat after years of determined efforts to take them out. In the same way, it took the Israeli's very long to neutralize Hamas in Gaza. And that's a few tens of miles away from their capital. Same with Hezbollah on their northern border. In Iraq, IEDs kept grinding away at the US forces long after victory was declared. And that was with massive amounts of boots on the ground and the country fully defeated and occupied. Iran of course has been supplying weaponry for proxy wars like this for decades. Iran is much bigger than Iraq or Afghanistan and much better prepared for a land/guerilla war on their own territory. The country was built on asymmetric warfare like this and has had decades to prepare and dig in and lots of experience via the various proxy wars I mentioned. The unfortunate reality is that that straight is only going to open when Iran decides that is in their interest.

It is hard to game out the best scenario here. Wait, it really isn't. We should just stop. Make a deal with Iran, accept egg on our face and step back. Why? Because they are destabilized. They are likely to crumble. If we keep attacking then they stay alive. If we go away then they have to deal with their broken infra and deeply unhappy population. They were on the path until we hit them. Then, like nearly every country ever, it gave their government legitimacy. If we walk away and focus, hard, on helping the gulf nations that we just hurt badly it will stabilize the region and allow them to fall. But that will never happen because we went into this due to ego and we will stay due to ego.

"Cruise missile carriers" are what the Burke class destroyers are. It's also what Russia built their navy around. How'd that work out? The US carriers have been involved in every naval action since WWII. They're hardly unused. But attacking a country of 90 million people and a high level of military sophistication AND who's been expecting the attack and planning for it for many years was always going to be a tall order.

> the basically flawless decapitation strikes in the opening weeks of the Iran conflict Ah, the flawless decapitation strikes that have shown Iran we truly mean business. Remind me, how quickly did they surrender after those strikes? Oh, they didn't? Maybe they weren't "flawless", hmm?

While it can very well be true, I wonder if we don't exagerate the will of the iranian regime and its ablity in the current time to think this far ahead. I see them more in survival mode, I'm not sure they fight for future deterence, maybe the goals align currently but seems to me to be happenstance. They seem resilient but I wonder how much they would be close of falling. Of course, I wouldn't have done this war, and I certainly would stop it now.

> They seem resilient but I wonder how much they would be close of falling While neither of us have any special insight into that, and no-one has certainty, I urge you to read the essay linked, as this topic is in fact discussed with historic examples. "There is a frequent mistake, often from folks who deal in economics, to assume that countries will give up on wars when the economics turn bad ... There is a great deal of ruin in a nation." You are right that the the Iranian regime's short and longer term goals align. But, happenstance or not, they are aligned and likely will stay that way.

Since 1979, every US president has known that the US can send a couple of aircraft carriers and bomb the shit out of Iran. And yet none did. Because they listened to their security chiefs and advisors who would tell them, Iran is a highly complex multiethnic geographically complex country. If you can contain it with diplomacy, that’s preferable. When listening to “experts” becomes taboo, there will be consequences. The inhabitants of the Iranian plateau have been the subject of the ire of the military superpower of their era quite a few times. Alexander the Great conquered them and set their capital and their sacred books on fire and yet a mere 70 years later his Hellenic dynasty was gone. They were conquered by the Arabs and were forced to give up their religion but somehow, unlike Egypt and Syria/Lebanon and many other ancient places, these guys somehow kept their language and distinct culture intact. They were decimated (maybe even worse ) by Genghis Khan and followed quickly by Tamerlane and yet, it was their Turco-Mongol rulers who ended up adopting their language and culture. The inhabitants of this land have deep memory of knowing how to suffer, to endure and to survive. It wasn’t that long ago that from Constantinople to New Delhi, the language of the Imperial Court was Persian.

But that approach has demonstrably not worked in this instance because Iran has been planning for this exact scenario.

That doesn’t work if a nation has strong institutions and hierarchies of command. Russia and Nazi Germany (and Iraq) were organized around a strong central leader who personally granted authority to his subordinates, but Iran’s rulers are given authority by a process. If the new supreme leader is killed, they will simply elect another one. Imagine that FDR was visiting Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked. Would the US government have collapsed? How many politicians and generals would the Japanese have had to kill before the US surrendered?

: Stupidly, yes, with carpet bombing. Practically, no, that would be horrible. Could that work? It didn’t end well in Vietnam, which is about a fifth of the land area, and, in 1970, half the current population of Iran. Also, they’ll pack a bigger punch, but I think the USA has way fewer bombers now.

> probably depopulate critical areas around the coasts while ships transit. (looks at map) the city of Bandar Abbas, population ~500k? It's already being hit as it contains the Iranian Navy HQ, but actually depopulating it is a much bigger project.

They have and Ukraine haven’t surrendered (nor do they look like they will any time soon), so I don’t see how it wit k a in Iran.