Impact of a United States invasion of Iran in the late 2000s

Bad idea. We have good WMD gear and it’s United States policy since the wars in Iraq to respond to a major tactical chemical attack with tactical nukes.

Cheney even had the Pentagon analyze how many tactical nukes were needed to wipe out an Iraqi Republican Guard division in response to an attack.
If the Iranian leadership realizes it's going down for good, there's a good chance they'll unleash the non-conventional stuff as a final "fuck you" to its regional foes. The USA might retaliate, but then you'd have cases of US infantry having to navigate their way around NBC hazards and having to do the clean-up from said retaliation.

Iraq's NBC stockpile was not fired in the first Gulf War because Saddam knew he'd end up with nuclear craters where his army and palaces were. For the ten years following that, Iraq was either systematically disarmed of said arsenal, or was forced to let it go to waste. As a result, the 2003 invasion found very little of Saddam's so-called arsenal, something which greatly damaged the US Administration's credibility.

Iran, on the other hand, has been stockpiling, has not been forced to dismantle said programs (aside from put its nuclear program under foreign observation), and still has a sizable amount of warheads in case it needs a Samson option.
 
If the Iranian leadership realizes it's going down for good, there's a good chance they'll unleash the non-conventional stuff as a final "fuck you" to its regional foes. The USA might retaliate, but then you'd have cases of US infantry having to navigate their way around NBC hazards and having to do the clean-up from said retaliation.

Iraq's NBC stockpile was not fired in the first Gulf War because Saddam knew he'd end up with nuclear craters where his army and palaces were. For the ten years following that, Iraq was either systematically disarmed of said arsenal, or was forced to let it go to waste. As a result, the 2003 invasion found very little of Saddam's so-called arsenal, something which greatly damaged the US Administration's credibility.

Iran, on the other hand, has been stockpiling, has not been forced to dismantle said programs (aside from put its nuclear program under foreign observation), and still has a sizable amount of warheads in case it needs a Samson option.

And chemical attacks don't have to occur in the invasion phase. They would have much more devastating effect if the Iranians wait until after the US has occupied the country and is then ostensibly their to "liberate the Iranian people". What are we going to do? Tactically nuke civilian villages? The same civilians we are supposedly liberating?
 
And chemical attacks don't have to occur in the invasion phase. They would have much more devastating effect if the Iranians wait until after the US has occupied the country and is then ostensibly their to "liberate the Iranian people". What are we going to do? Tactically nuke civilian villages? The same civilians we are supposedly liberating?

Tactical nukes are a bit heavy handed, yes. But you're discounting just how vicious we are at war. So long as you keep the cameras away from the nastier parts of the war I don't think there's too much the US would shy away from doing in the moment. Political/diplomatic fall-out be damned, in any situation where a US-Iran War is has reached this point of escalation, there's probably not going to be that many naysayers in the State or the Military to hold-off any Mai Lai's.

War isn't bound by ideals anymore than anything else. They'll just sweep the US response to any chemical attacks under the rug and spin it into propaganda about the:

"BREAKING NEWS: Supreme Ayatollah Begins Gassing Campaign in Response to US Peacekeeping Mission; Targets Population Centers Through the Liberated Zones"

*Cue Whatever News/Opinion Anchor of Your Choice (It doesn't matter who, really) Making Noises*

My point is that I don't think it would damage the war effort itself, at least not any more than anything else. It's still the most strategically sound use of the weapons though, they're probably more potent being used against the occupation rather than the invasion itself.
 
Tactical nukes are a bit heavy handed, yes. But you're discounting just how vicious we are at war. So long as you keep the cameras away from the nastier parts of the war I don't think there's too much the US would shy away from doing in the moment. Political/diplomatic fall-out be damned, in any situation where a US-Iran War is has reached this point of escalation, there's probably not going to be that many naysayers in the State or the Military to hold-off any Mai Lai's.

War isn't bound by ideals anymore than anything else. They'll just sweep the US response to any chemical attacks under the rug and spin it into propaganda about the:

"BREAKING NEWS: Supreme Ayatollah Begins Gassing Campaign in Response to US Peacekeeping Mission; Targets Population Centers Through the Liberated Zones"

*Cue Whatever News/Opinion Anchor of Your Choice (It doesn't matter who, really) Making Noises*

My point is that I don't think it would damage the war effort itself, at least not any more than anything else. It's still the most strategically sound use of the weapons though, they're probably more potent being used against the occupation rather than the invasion itself.

While I appreciate the sentiment, the US doesn't have the influence or capability to literally hide the use of a tactical nuclear weapon. It would literally be broadcast across the world, through the media and internet. European countries would leave NATO, there would be massive blowback. Even then the actual benefits of using tactical nuclear weapons in a counter insurgency would be nill, and the costs almost infinite. Not only would you fuel Jihad for the next 100 years, you would probably disrupt US global hegemony, especially in the wake of an illegal and probably extremely unpopular invasion. I couldn't even imagine the damage to the global economy...
 
Tactical nukes are a bit heavy handed, yes. But you're discounting just how vicious we are at war. So long as you keep the cameras away from the nastier parts of the war I don't think there's too much the US would shy away from doing in the moment. Political/diplomatic fall-out be damned, in any situation where a US-Iran War is has reached this point of escalation, there's probably not going to be that many naysayers in the State or the Military to hold-off any Mai Lai's.

War isn't bound by ideals anymore than anything else. They'll just sweep the US response to any chemical attacks under the rug and spin it into propaganda about the:

"BREAKING NEWS: Supreme Ayatollah Begins Gassing Campaign in Response to US Peacekeeping Mission; Targets Population Centers Through the Liberated Zones"

*Cue Whatever News/Opinion Anchor of Your Choice (It doesn't matter who, really) Making Noises*

My point is that I don't think it would damage the war effort itself, at least not any more than anything else. It's still the most strategically sound use of the weapons though, they're probably more potent being used against the occupation rather than the invasion itself.

How exactly do you “keep cameras away” when basically every human on the planet carries a camera with them everywhere they go?
 
How exactly do you “keep cameras away” when basically every human on the planet carries a camera with them everywhere they go?

By keeping it off the TV and making sure that the most used social media sites don't let anything about the occupation get trending. The same thing they do now for all the butchery going on in Yemen or Myanmar, it's not a novel idea, it's in practice right now. It doesn't matter how many phones you have.

While I appreciate the sentiment, the US doesn't have the influence or capability to literally hide the use of a tactical nuclear weapon. It would literally be broadcast across the world, through the media and internet. European countries would leave NATO, there would be massive blowback. Even then the actual benefits of using tactical nuclear weapons in a counter insurgency would be nill, and the costs almost infinite. Not only would you fuel Jihad for the next 100 years, you would probably disrupt US global hegemony, especially in the wake of an illegal and probably extremely unpopular invasion. I couldn't even imagine the damage to the global economy...

I was talking about Iran using their chemical weapons, not the US using a tactical nuke. The part about the US's response is about a conventional, but very destructive, strike by the US against already "occupied" areas.
 
Using nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear country simply is not an option for the US. We would find ourselves more shunned and isolated than we've ever been able to accomplish against Iran.
 
Using nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear country simply is not an option for the US. We would find ourselves more shunned and isolated than we've ever been able to accomplish against Iran.
The US policy is to respond to any nonconventional weaponry (be they biological, chemical, or nuclear) with nuclear weaponry. Basically the "deterrent" bit. Here, however, we're arguing if the Iranian government uses them first as a last act of spite during the American invasion of Iran. The US will retaliate, but for the Revolutionary Council, it would be moot as they're not only out of office, the USA will be gunning for them the way they dragged Saddam to court, so they figure "why the hell not" and punish America's regional allies.
 
By keeping it off the TV and making sure that the most used social media sites don't let anything about the occupation get trending. The same thing they do now for all the butchery going on in Yemen or Myanmar, it's not a novel idea, it's in practice right now. It doesn't matter how many phones you have.
Other countries, such as Russia, would have focused their spy satellites on the war zone so that they could detect someone picking their nose. A nuclear blast is simply impossible to conceal anywhere in the world, let alone in an area under surveillance by every military intelligence agency in the world.
 
The US lacks the military manpower to effectively occupy Iraq or Afghanistan on their own. Even if the US completely pulls out of their wars on in these neighbours of Iran, this invasion will be a disaster.

However, I don't think that things would go as quickly as prior posters expect. Iran's military is significantly better led and better trained than that of Iraq, their weapons systems would likely be more of a threat and their bunkers are apparently cutting edge (to the point that the majority of Iranian bunkers may be proof against the US anti-bunker arsenal. So while we'll see a repeat of the pattern of the wars against Serbia and Iraq in that the US will within a few months at most take control of Iran's airspace and will be able to quickly shatter any large Iranian military formations, we're looking at something between "guerilla war on steroids" and "the Iranian military is never destroyed, only forced to remain dispersed and use hit-and-run tactics" (and yes, failure to actually destroy the Iranian military makes a BIG difference).

This coming in the latter part of the 2000s, at the height of oil prices, is not only going to wreck the economies of the major importers (China, India, Turkey, South Korea and Japan) since they will need time (and lots of money) to refit their refineries to accept crude from other sources. It also means that crude across the world and especially refined oil products (which China, India, Turkey, South Korea and Japan will be importing in order to tide their economies over) will soar in price. The 2007-2008 banking crisis will instead become a banking AND oil crisis.

Iran itself becomes a battlefield as various countries and non-state actors seek to influence the outcome. Radical Sunni groups are likely to seek to intervene in order to end what they see as Shia heresy, other groups will be intervening to kill and humiliate Americans, still other entities will intervene in order to gain the gratitude of the Iranian government after the US inevitably admits defeat, still others will seek to foster other ideological groups to fight against the invaders in the hopes that after the US withdraws these groups will be strong enough to come to power in Iran. If Iran's military isn't effectively destroyed, intervention against the US will likely occur on their terms, if the military is destroyed, we're looking at something like the Syria mess, but with a much more dominant position for the old regime in the many-sided struggle.

It will be a mess and the US military and the Iranian people will bear the brunt of it.

I'm not sure that this defeat would break the US though. Failing to effectively occupy Iran doesn't say much that the failure to occupy Iraq or Afghanistan does. My bet is that the US just has a debt a few trillion dollars larger, worse relations across Asia, less respect everywhere else in the world, and with a few thousand people fewer due to deaths in Iran. This won't kill the US hegemony, though it will be several more straws on the camel's back.

fasquardon
 
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