TL;DR: Iran is winning everything and the illusion of dominance is going to make United States and their allies to fail if they pursue a war, making Israel and Saudi Arabia the new dominant power.
If I tell you that Iran is winning the war currently1, I know this is hard to swallow but bear me your attention that I can justify and give an insight with historical patterns that US is making mistakes that did it previously. So, before we move, war is something lots of people are pushing in the Trump administration but three main groups are the ones we're interested.
- The Israel Lobby: This lobby has some much financial and political influence2. They have the christian zionist faction and the 100% jewish faction (AIPAC). Both groups seeks to put support to take down Iran due its support to Hezbollah, Hamas et al.
- Saudi Arabian Monarchy: If we going to take the muslim world, we need to take about the rivalry between Iran's biggest rival wich Iran sees as direct threat3. Saudi Arabia, let's recall made effort to weak Iran.
- US Imperialism: Wall Street and their components (startups, businesses, companies) make profits from war in the Middle East and also is the root for justify their military presence and economic manipulation through control of trade routes.
There are more but these three are the biggest as we speak converging Trump's officials and family such as Jared Kushner, White House's liason between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Let's recall also that Jared Kushner's financial interests make him a perfect conduit to promote war4.
Trump is anti-Iran
I'm not saying anything new here. Trump made big efforts to weak Iran in his first term: withdraw the Iran Nuclear Deal, relocate US embassy to Jerusalem, assesinate General Qasem Soleimani. Let's recall these action were supported for both Israel and Saudi Arabia lobbysts.
Now, in this term, Trump is taking advice from pro-Israel lobbysts and slowly take down the nuclear development and prevent terrorism. However you think of it, this is not benefitial to US interests but only serves the elite interests, elites mentioned above.
Trump is making a mistake
Trump said that US is controlling the sky, military has the up-to-date techs and of course, special forces, those we play in Call of Duty. Military shifted their warfare principal, from securing supply lines and mass forces to a model similar to shock and awe. Overconfidence is inside Iran's plan.
Say, as a mental exercise, the allies (US, Canada, UK et al) send 100.000 troops to mountainous Iran to demonstrate Iran they're not fucking around. They gonna lose everything. Iran, 18th biggest country in the world, with almost 90.000.000 people, a Revolutionary Guard prepared for war and big hostility to US will make impossible to win this war.
- Iran has mountain terrain, troops would be encircled
- 100.000 troops is impossible to overpower a nation of ~90.000.000 people.
- The resupply would be a nightmare, they're going from conquerors to hostages.
Do you remember...?
If someone is advising Trump against the entire thing about Iran, they should recall:
- Ukraine (2022-today) in their current war overestimated its capacity and engaged with self-destructive offensives. Recall, these moves were influenced by external advisors.
- Vietnam (1955-1975): There's a good documentary in Netflix about the Vietnam war, that only started with advise to military to an entire military deploy even when early intelligence such as Pentagon Papers scandal, stated that they can't win the war. This is a classical example of "sunk cost fallacy".
All this to say that previously they pursued irrational wars and was disastrous because of pride, misinformation and hubris, overconfidence.
What do we want, what we need
Now, game theory tells us that all the actors seeks different things. On one hand you have United States that seeks regime change in Iran. Sorry to dissapoint but that's not gonna happen because Iran learned the lesson of his closest neighbor, Irak. United States went there and stated that was mission accomplished, they brought prosperity, invest, democracy for these people. CUEK!
Iran saw the entire massacre and sabotage and also, yes, current theocracy is not as popular as one might believe but the hate sentiment towards a country that supported the Savak and an Empire that made famines something as normal routines, it's not love, you know? So..no, Iran won't have democracy. At least for now.
On the other hand, we have Iran, country that was humilliated in the past and now looking for revenge. They want to be invaded, they want a new Vietnam so to speak. And finally, we have two actors that want both Iran and US weakened: Israel and Saudi Arabia. Why? Because both countries will become the dominant regional power.
Just imagine, anon, US troops trapped in Iran with now withdraw plan just because pride. Is nuclear escalation a thing? well..
Trump (might) push the red button
I'm not saying he'll do it but since we're talking war, it's real. In order to regain control, United States uses a nuclear bomb UNLESS you put the only country in the world capable of preventing this in our equation: Russia. We know Russia maintains miltary agreements with Iran so, say Putin could be the deterrent by declaring that any use of nucelar bombs has consequences, a retaliation.
So, now you just made war unsustainable and you fall into Iran's trap. The revolutionary guard are the new heroes.
Short conclusion
Israel and Saudi Arabia benefits from this current scenario. Make a war without thinking about the enemy, Iran, is just stupid and blindness towards historical patterns. United States don't need this conflict, only Israel and Saudis.
Footnotes
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This article is part of an outstanding class called the Iran trap. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y_hbz6loEo& ↩
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They have money and I mean a lot. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/american-israel-public-affairs-cmte/summary?id=D000046963 ↩
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This is an ongoing match, see sunni muslim vs shia muslim ↩
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Kushner is pro-saudi af https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/10/us/jared-kushner-saudi-investment-fund.html ↩