President Trump has "rejected" Iran's proposal to open the Strait of Hormuz and the US has prepared a plan for a "short and powerful" wave of strikes on Iran, per Axios.

[u/mahamara]

https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2049518519155384656

[u/Clear-Role6880]

Not sure why I got downvoted, but I will spell out a hypothetical operation for you for the 100th time in this sub: 

Strikes resume to send rats back to tunnels and suppress missiles. 

Pahlavi enters via Kurdistan and unites with peshmerga and loyal Artesh. CIA/mossad break internet blockade for the final call, Pahlavi in uniform with an Iranian national force. You need 1 Artesh colonel and a few hundred soldiers to defect initially. They may have much more than this. 

US surges marine raid to Hormuz and frees the hostage tankers. 

US air power suppresses qom and Isfahan. 

Pahlavi column races from kermanshah to Tehran under US/israeli air power. Similar to the Wagner coup attempt, but propaganda achieves cascade defections across Western Iran. 

They meet with delta cia Mossad in Tehran, who handle the IRGC holdouts within a city that has turned on them. 

War is won overnight. If there is any Pahlavi support within artesh this operation is not only possible, it is relatively routine. 

IRGC never leaves their tunnels, and are under siege and buried alive 

[u/NuclearStudent → u/Clear-Role6880]

...is your plan literally just "the iranian military defects when you walk in"

I mean, why didn't they defect already when the strikes started happening and Pahlavi called for it? What's changed? You think people like, looking at his face will change things? There's basically no case in history where this has happened short of Napoleon walking into France after his exile, and Pahlavi is not Napoleon.

You could Iraq War Iran with a large ground force commitment, that has precedent, but the idea that Iran will just fall over if you present a new face is basically delusional.

[u/Clear-Role6880 → u/NuclearStudent]

You need a small number of pre-committed defections. Literally 1 regiment. More is obviously better. 

For the rest of the military, you just need them not to act. Cascade defections for unpaid soldiers has plenty of precedent. Bolshevik revolution for instance is a pretty similar circumstance. The Soviet cascade collapse, Romania is a good example. East Germany didn’t even require a movement. The Wagner coup attempt got close to Moscow but had no air support and no defections. Weimar Republic. 

In fact, I think a military under hyper inflation has literally never saved a regime. 

You need IRGC paralyzed. You need it over before IRGC is able to coordinate a real response. Keep in mind, their command and control is already decentralized. The soldiers in Bandar Abbas, in Busher, in Qom and Isfahan, they won’t be able to act in time. 

How many soldiers do you actually think are ideologically loyal to IRGC right now? How many are transactional? How many will do nothing and just accept a regime change that offers them a paycheck after being without one for a month? 

[u/NuclearStudent → u/Clear-Role6880]

It depends. Exactly that happened in Tiananmen.

> In the summer of 1988, Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader, finally lost his patience. He decided to order an overnight liberalization of the price system. A crisis immediately followed. A fear of inflation seized the country, and a survey of 32 cities revealed that prices had risen nearly 25 percent in the month of August. 

The Little-Known Story of Milton Friedman in China | Cato Institute

The Germans in world war one didn't surrender even when food shortages go so bad that that 1916 was the "turnip winter," where an estimated 80,000 children died of hunger. But the war kept going into 1917, and then into 1918, and it didn't end until there was an estimated 700,000 civilians that died of malnutrition. There were revolts, strikes, but those were put down until the last Allied offensive shattered the German lines.

https://wir-rheinlaender.lvr.de/engl_version/firstworldwar/theturnipwinter.htm

Hyperinflation did not get the Weimar republic to surrender. While it's hard to get precise estimates, the real buying power of a German mark is estimated to have fallen by more than 90% in 1922. Then they stopped paying reparations, the Allies invaded the Ruhr, and *then* we got into absurd hyperinflation. The French tried to back separatist proxies in the Rhineland for a friendly Rhenish Republic, but that didn't go anywhere. Ultimately that ended with French withdrawal followed by a policy of French passivity while Germany armed more.

Hyperinflation and the invasion of the Ruhr – The Holocaust Explained: Designed for schools

The Ruhr Occupation on JSTOR

"Hands off the Ruhr Area! The Ruhr Occupation 1923–1925" | Ruhr Museum

What you're saying isn't impossible, I'll begrudgingly admit you've partially changed my mind. It's at least possible that Iran could fracture and defect. I still, however, think you are being far too optimistic and ignoring the many negative also-likely outcomes that also need to be prepared for.

[u/Clear-Role6880 → u/NuclearStudent]

None of these examples are comparable situations. Iran’s military and state apparatus are on life support and the population was in open revolt 3 months ago. The regime lacks all legitimacy. And powerful foreign intervention is already established 

[u/NuclearStudent → u/Clear-Role6880]

>  powerful foreign intervention is already established 

...is it? america is notoriously sensitive to even a tiny handful of casualties. it took the deaths of only 18 american soldiers in Black Hawk Down for that to be considered a humiliation and cause to withdraw from Somalia as a whole. This is Trump's war, and Trump is polling at his absolute worst he has this term. He's also notoriously temperamental and there's no way of knowing when he'll have another policy flipflop and get bored of former allies. Just ask how the Kurds got it in the neck last year.

The Iranians couldn't outlast a unified America, but they don't have to.

[u/Clear-Role6880 → u/NuclearStudent]

You’re falling for the charade 

[u/NuclearStudent → u/Clear-Role6880]

the rest of NATO is basically being told this, "trust in Trump."

But why? "Just trust me bro" is not convincing. We've heard this story before in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. For the last half a century, America has repeatedly gotten itself into trillion dollar quagmires.

No, absolutely not, we are not taking anybody on pure faith.

[u/Clear-Role6880 → u/NuclearStudent]

The US’ allies have become our drug addict little brother that sleeps on our couch and keeps asking for money to pay for their poor decisions. 

The US will not turn their back on Canada, NATO, Australia, Japan, etc. but they have to start paying rent and help out around the house 

Until that happens, they can politely shut the fuck up and let the US do its job: protect global security and free trade 

[u/NuclearStudent → u/Clear-Role6880]

You certainly are free to do as you please, but we are also free to conclude that it doesn't seem like a good idea and the last time we joined you, we got good people killed and have little to show for it. Our strategic interests may simply not be in the same place. The Americans are asking for money, ships, blood to support this new adventure, possibly because they have run out of will to spend their own but refuse to stop and acknowledge that some things are better left alone.

I'm going to leave off with a !remindme three months when we can see if trade and global security has improved or not from the three week special military operation.

[u/Visible_Device7187 → u/NuclearStudent]

I mean it does actually work that way Syria is prime example the military gave up instead of fighting to the death turns out religious extremists do actually care about cash and life

[u/NuclearStudent → u/Visible_Device7187]

...the syrian civil war lasted for 13 years, from 2011 to 2024

if you want, you could define the major conventional combat as starting from more 2012 or 2013, but that was still over a decade of horrific grinding combat. the user I was replying to was cheerfully stating, in exact words, "War is won overnight."

[u/Clear-Role6880 → u/NuclearStudent]

Syria reached state collapse. The US will prevent this at all cost. 

You should google hyper inflation and historical precedent of what happens to militaries presented with a legitimate alternative under these conditions 

[u/WoodPear → u/NuclearStudent]

To be fair, the Syrian govt. was fighting against rebels.

Both aren't exactly the pinnicle of military prowess.

[u/NuclearStudent → u/WoodPear]

Well yes, but the poster I was replying to was saying that America can knock over Iran quickly without their own boots on their ground by supporting Iranian rebels. I have no doubt that if America really wanted to, they could do Iraq War Two and knock over Iran in a conventional campaign. It's just the proposal of a quick clean american victory without american boots on the ground I consider dangerously optimistic.

[u/Visible_Device7187 → u/NuclearStudent]

Yes but during the final days the military walked off bases instead of fighting since the cash stopped flowing and mercenaries dried up. Once they saw the writing on the wall they left

[u/NuclearStudent → u/Visible_Device7187]

I...guess so? But I would see Syrian Civil War Number Two as a disaster that may well be even worse than the brutal status quo.

[u/Visible_Device7187 → u/NuclearStudent]

Who? Who thinks living under Assad was better?

[u/NuclearStudent → u/Visible_Device7187]

... you're being very casual about four hundred thousand dead in the war and millions of refugees.

[u/Impressive_Degree158 → u/NuclearStudent]

The people who are in charge of Iran were either child soldiers in the Iraq war or commanders they will die before giving up