> I meant that demographically, if your populace isn't as poor, battle hardened and religious (like Afghanistan) maybe going into a long ground war is less politically feasible?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War

Excerpts:

> 95,000 Iranian child soldiers were casualties during the Iran–Iraq War, mostly between the ages of 16 and 17, with a few younger

> The conflict has been compared to World War I: 171 in terms of the tactics used, including large-scale trench warfare with barbed wire stretched across trenches, manned machine gun posts, bayonet charges, human wave attacks across a no man's land, and extensive use of chemical weapons such as sulfur mustard by the Iraqi government against Iranian troops, civilians, and Kurds. The world powers United States and the Soviet Union, together with many Western and Arab countries, provided military, intelligence, economic, and political support for Iraq. On average, Iraq imported about $7 billion in weapons during every year of the war, accounting for fully 12% of global arms sales in the period.

That was 40 years ago though. So no one fighting on the ground in that war would be fighting on the ground in a war that starts today.

No, but they're the ones making the decisions about fighting such a war. The child soldiers in the 1980s are the politicians, the diplomats, and the generals in the 2020s.

They say that for WWI that it was one of the aspects that kept it "more civilized" (whatever that means in the context of war).

“…and we turned out just fine!”

> if you feel that Israel is a threat

Israel is very clearly, without any question or doubt, a serious threat to every one of its neighbors.

Jordan seems pretty safe and happy to me.

Like the Pager attack thats just another long game it seems: https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/14tcxgq/zionist_ve...

EDIT, clearer map: https://www.islam21c.com/wp-content/uploads/The-alarming-det...

It has a peace treaty with Jordan and Egypt. Also, they signed the Abraham Accords with UAE and Bahrain. As far I know, there is no risk of conflict with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, nor Oman. Who else am I missing?

Half joking: (ignoring Trump's recent "threats") Is the US a threat to Canada or Mexico?

Mexico is more of a threat. So many drugs flow North. It’s slowly killing generations of people for decades.

Egypt, Jordan, Cyprus? Really?

Lebanon and Syria have a clear path to peace, Israel does not. Jordan and Egypt are at peace. Gaza and the West bank are a fucked up situation but at least there is peace in the West bank and Gaza has a clear path to obtain peace as well, if only they weren't ruled by a terrorist organization.

There isn't peace in the West Bank - Israel is actively conducting military operations there.

Ah I see what you mean. Yes they don’t have the birth rate (or the suicidal fanaticism) to sustain a decades long attritional war against an occupation like Afghanistan or Yemen can.

But given the size of the existing Iranian population and geography, and the lack of any significantly sized pre-existing anti-government military faction, I’m not sure the US military is large enough to even occupy Iran in the first place, absent a draft.

It would be reaaalllly stupid for the USA to invade Iran.

Hopefully Iran is the one that blinks for the reasons above.

Why would they blink when they know they are safe from a boots on the ground invasion for the forseeable future?

I think they probably like having an GDP 25x larger than North Korea's. Gets a lot harder to export your products around the world when you're squared off against the US.

How does that follow?

We don’t need to occupy Iran to absolutely decimate their economic output.

What else are you going to do? Iran has been sanctioned by the US for decades.

Can you really sell "we'll be bombing civilians for years"?

They still trade oil with China, that is as much as the rest of the world they need. Of course, getting trade overland is a bit more difficult than by boat which is mostly cut off during a war.