The US needs a million troops to control Iran – not the few thousand on their way

I remember hearing "Our troops will be greeted as liberators" the last time we put troops in a country in the middle east. It didn't work out to well is all I am saying.

What about the Israeli troops? Why aren't they being sent in? Why should our children die for a war that's not even ours to fight?

The neo-cons are back, and they love to send in troops in woefully lower numbers than the mission requires. They do not enjoy providing adequate mission support once the troops are on site.

As long as Donald thinks he can’t somehow declare victory, he’s going to keep this going. There are going to be a lot of lives lost for nothing. I never understood why WWI started. The leaders were all cousins. But now I get it. They were idiots.

Bear in mind global maps often distort scale, so here's some comparisons that will make sense to U.S. citizens: Afghanistan is about the size of Texas, a gigantic state and militias hiding in caves kept the U.S. at a stalmate for nearly 20 years. Iran is 2.5 times larger than Texas, with an organized military and modern weapons. The U.S. isn't capable of invading Iran. And just for additional comparison, Isreal is about the size of New Jersey.

1 million? That's it? Iran has 92 million people, which is 4 times the invasion-era population of Iraq or Afghanistan. "Operation Enduring Freedom" in Afghanistan went in comically low on troops, 2500 at the start of 2002 ramping up to 10,000 by the end of the year. Few locals even knew we were there. "Operation Iraqi Freedom" started out with 150k American troops and 20k allies, waned down much lower (1/6th?), and then scaled back up to 170k American troops for the "Surge" six or seven years later. There seemed to be around 1:1 soldiers to contractor ratios for both wars. Both of these were relentlessly botched by a lack of American troop levels, a low tolerance for American casualties, and a low priority for spending money on the country we just destroyed. The counterinsurgency policies promoted by David Petraeus and others demanded a minimum 50:1 population to troop level (which they never got) with extensive interactions with the local population (or a minimum 10 occupation troops to 1 militant insurgent), which would have had us use around half a million American troops in each country simultaneously, or twice that if we wanted to maximize our odds of success. It was also essential that we do a lot more "nation-building" than bombing; Instead we stayed on our side of the wire as much as possible, and built a Burger King there next to the Rip-It vending machine. Iran is a much more defensible country militarily than Iraq, with a much more developed (100x? 1000x?) military and militia system than Afghanistan, and whose population, we have taken pains to ensure, hates us with a passion. Spitballing it? For Iran to come out as a cohesive ally at the end of it like Germany or Japan? 5 million or so troops. At a time. Total deployment with contractors over the next ten years, maybe 20 million. Maybe 20 trillion dollars. And also? Every. Single. Time. You double tap a wedding or a mosque, or do something equivalent, we add 1% to those numbers. There are no MQ-9-Reaper-based wars that satisfy the success condition.

Trump could have just not do dumb things like tariff and raging wars and the fed would have been cutting rates already and stock will keep pumping. Instead we have this clusterfuck.

He’s going to have 4k troops killed then he’s nuking it

And it's one, two, three What are we fighting for? Don't ask me, I don't give a damn Next stop is \[in Iran!\] And it's five, six, seven Open up the pearly gates Ah, ain't no time to wonder why Whoopee, we're all gonna die

If Trump doesn't know that (and he probably doesn't), Caine will. If they were serious about regime change, the staging for the operation would have started weeks or months ago. Trump surely that thought this was supposed to last just a few days and he would receive a tanker of oil that he could sell for his own account. So far, not so good. He's already getting bored. >A senior White House official, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the administration's thinking, told (MSNOW) that Trump is calling the war already won is mostly hyperbole and said it's part of Trump just wanting to declare victory and move on. That official went on to say, quote, not that he regrets it or something. He's just bored and he wants to move on. >[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS4CDsWVPG4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS4CDsWVPG4)

$120 trillion dollar deficit incoming 

I read one former intelligence person who has worked on Iranian war assessments say that taking Kharg island would be suicide for any ground troops. And also Iran has gamed this out and would easily capture troops and use as hostages.

Or, crazy thought, the US doesn’t need or want to control Iran and we don’t send any troops. Thats a great idea right?

Send ICE, they're all dressed for it. As long as they're not having to move at more than a gentle trot they should be good to go.

Can't wait to dodge the draft

Feels like these are the sacrificial batch whose deaths will justify sending the rest. Vietnam War started with roughly 3,500 Marines from the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade. By the end we had sent over half a million.

Military members and their families are overwhelmingly conservative, so I guess I’m happy they are getting what they voted for.

The incompetency of Trump government will result into deaths of our troops. If Kamala was our president, we wouldn't be in this war. Our lives would have been in better situation. Trump had scrapped the Iran deal so we could start a war.

You need way more than a million troops to occupy a country twice the size of Texas unless you're going to commit genocide with airstrikes prior to invasion.

well, why cant Israel send their military? why must Americans die for this?

Hell, no, we won’t go.

Hope all of the families that voted for Trump so he “wouldn’t send their boys to war like Kamala would” enjoy burying their children.

Correct. Desert Storm required a 650,000 troop invasion force.

im sure out of the 77million devout followers a million shouldnt be hard to muster up

The US has already lost this war. We just don't know it yet.

Guess we'll just have to send ICE to bolster their numbers.

If only we had an epic fail example in Eastern Europe where another smart guy launched a three days operation which, after a million deaths and wounded and over four years is still at the border of the invaded country with no hope of ever winning. Well...

At this point there are a few options Full commital ground war and all to demolish Iranian conventional military capabilities, and thereby their means to threaten the Straight. Would require **raising taxes** to fund the conversion to a wartime economy, since the years this will take will give Iran years to do the same. We can just do it to a far greater extent. Which of course, since it requires raising taxes to actually fund it all, doesn't appear likely. Meaning the more likely outcome. Trump loses interest and signs a humiliating ceasefire that cedes control of the Straights to Iran. Iran operates a toll system. Examples of such historical systems being Denmark did with the Sound Toll. US loses a significant chunk of its global soft power as enforcer of the Straights, as *we* were the ones capable of cutting oil supply to damn near anyone threatening our interests, by pinching Hormuz as Iran does now. Saudi Arabia more than likely militarizes in response to such wins and we'd eventually have open warfare between the two fighting over the exact same region. Aka he tosses this dumpster fire he started down the road for someone else to put out Edit: spelling.

I feel bad for young men. Things genuinely suck for them, and they've been manipulated by a media ecosystem into developing warped world views that fuel emotional and social isolation. That all led them to collectively make political choices that are absolutely suicidal. They need to make common cause with women and everyone else, stat. They can learn social and empathetic skills to make genuine human connections along the way. In doing so, they may just save themselves from a horrible pointless death in 125 degree heat.

Once they get these 10,000 or so killed they will say we need a draft a d start drafting people.

I think the point of the troops is to take over a small island. Not invade the entire country.

A million troups sounds a lot but thinking about the logistics how much actual soldiers are there when the power has to be projected around the world? A million US military personel won't be enough to get to parity to a million Iranian soldiers. And that is not taking into account all the problems operating in a hostile and geographically difficult environment.

Kind of surprised they don't seem to be waiting for a attack on US soil to do this.

Who knew that trying to do what can’t be done with no alleys would fail? They need to put this on his cognitive test.

Who would have thought that it takes more than 50k to occupy 90million?

so send a million!! /s

The administration dismissed anyone with accurate assessment of the situation

lol there are only 1.3M active troops. so good luck with that

Look up the term tripwire force. A small presence that gets attacked is used to justify sending more people.

"helps on the way" 2 months later after +10k dead and a dead supreme leader, and thousands dead and rising.

And they would need to be there for about 30 years

Generals gathered in their masses…

There's 90 million people there it's 4 times larger than Iraq and mountainous. Wtf did you think would happen?

Our current tax structure cannot afford a war

I don’t think they plan to occupy Iran

that's basically all of them.

Nah f*** it if these troops are gonna take the order (instead of going the Vietnam route of blowing up their commanders) trickle them in so they drop like flies Anti-human death corps is all the US military is anymore

Why is the USA heading into a kill box?

Mission creep, already?💀

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/9/us-israel-war-on-iran-a-brief-history-of-mission-creep-and-false-promises US-Israel war on Iran: A brief history of mission creep and false promises

[ Removed by Listnook ]

Even a complete yoyo knows this. Trump knows best. Only way to change his mind is when bodies start coming back in mango crates, stock market collapses and then he is will reverse course. Off course only thing that changes his mind is the stock market not dead bodies

There are about 620,000 troops in the Marines and army combined. If all of them, ALL of them were deployed to iran, it would be nowhere near enough. In fact, I'm not sure how big the number would have to be but, Iran has 93 million people, so the number is sure as shit bigger than our total Ground Forces. It's insane to even talk about this shit.

I fear ambush

They could send 10 million. It wouldn't be enough.

Cannonfodder

Expendable

Actual lol. All of this just to try to make people forget he’s a convicted rapist and pedophile.

Send enough to create a disaster not enough to do anything useful, sounds about right.

Prayers for our troops and their families. God bless them and our country

The troops going aren’t going to control the country. At minimum they’ll be targeted raids against shore targets (raid meaning a planned withdrawal) and at maximum seizing Kharg island and a few bits on the coast.

Draft time??

One million?  Iran is currently recruiting kids age 12.  The Iran-Iraq war battles were like scenes from a zombie movie.  One million?  Yeah right. We’re gonna need a bigger boat. 

lets bring draft back, I wanna see the young gen Z "alpha male" reaction

Trump will soon restart the draft!!

Although a dumb idea...the U.S. military could invade the islands and hold some of the coastline in a limited coastal invasion. No one is talking about a country wide invasion.