So ok what do people think, how will this end? Trump, for one, is hyping this war up enormously, it will be over yesterday with a US victory according to him and yet I don't how they achieve that? So scenarios:
- The US/Israel wins the war with airpower alone. That almost never happened in history (although the recent Venezuela operation might be an example) and it doesn't look at all likely that Iran is about to throw up a white flag soon? Remember only a small proportion of Iranian missiles have to hit home in the builtup modern cities of Israel and the Gulf states, for them to hurt much more than Iran, which is simply protected by its size. (For example, by my crude calculations, Israel, admittedly minus the West Bank, is only about 10 miles across at its narrowest point, and Iran at its narrowest point is about 500 miles wide! Its bound to be the case in an artillery duel, which this is, that that small country would lose out.)
- The US launches a ground invasion, maybe beginning with an incursion via the Kurds in Iraq. They are certainly talking about and leaking that now, but that doesn't make it very easy. Iran fought a huge war along that frontier with Iraq not that long ago, they will know all the mountain passes (a lot of it is mountainous in the Kurdish region) and they are well capable of throwing up a few artillery shells to stop that, and are reported to be doing that already.
That said the US has some gigantic military assets to use if it did come to a ground invasion, helicopter gunships etc etc, it is possible they could prevail quickly, or at least destabilise Iran?
- Israel gives up and sues for peace and is taken over by some multinational military mission? That's not impossible, they look very extended and they could easily just lose in Lebanon say and hurt too much under Iranian bombardment.
- Either side uses nuclear weapons. For Israel or the US to use them now looks catastrophic for their world standing, because they said that was the reason for attacking Iran in the first place, but maybe if they got desperate (and Trump sounds a bit like that now)? If Iran used it now its possible they would actually have some international sympathy.
- A huge worldwide recession is sparked off by this crisis, with its effect on the petrodollar etc etc. If the powers that be had planned this recession before then they could use this crisis as an excuse to kick it off, meaning instead of blaming central banks you have Iran as a scapegoat?
Anyway what do people think?