Ask HN: Will US send ground troops to Iran?

jleyank

I think it will come down to the government's tolerance for casualties. This has not been a, erm, popular subject since ‘Nam but people forget too easily. If they think they’ll profit from it, they’ll throw them in. They’re NPC’s after all, not their kids.

anovikov

It might be a good thing to resolve the crisis - just take over entire coastline to some depth where the first easily defendable natural barrier occurs, throw all locals out of there and make sure no one can infiltrate - then threat to shipping will be gone.

Guestmodinfo

Not a chance. Iran is much much bigger georaphy than Iraq. And now all countries are better prepared for their traditional foes than bygone era. US has done a misadventure thinking it is the middle East of early 2000. No now everyone is prepared thanx to Russia and China taking turns to equip traditional foes. Even though the Indian media did not say outright but even India and Pakistan war last year was a tough one for India. It was no easy victory. Rather there was no victory. Just ceasefire. Now everyone is prepared.

BLKNSLVR

They already are aren't they? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15643983/Trump-depl... https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/why-th... https://archive.is/uVFSV

softwaredoug

I wouldn't be surprised if there's limited special forces / ground troops to secure Straits of Hormuz. US has sufficiently pissed off gulf allies that securing this reliably may be the only way to regain their trust. Not to mention avoid global economic collapse.

chistev

This will get flagged for being political.

Bender

Yes. 5000 marines for now but they will ultimately have to send more if a goal is regime change. They will also need more to carefully breach and clear the deep bunkers that the bunker buster ordinance can not penetrate likely also containing tripwires . There will also need to be some to patrol the shorelines of the straight, a lot more. IRGC are 200K highly trained zealot soldiers.

mindslight

It's likely. Actual troops will be a more attractive target than commercial ships for Iran to send drones at. Dead Americans don't cause the markets to drop. And ultimately, "line goes up" is the only moral that politically matters to this regime. (Also I'd be highly surprised if they haven't run the numbers and calculated scores for which specific units contain the most non-citizens, new citizens, and other untermensch. So from their perspective it's basically a 2-for-1)