Originally Posted by 2StgTurbine

I think you are correct. That does not mean I like it, but honestly I do believe we put ourselves in a corner and the only way out is to turn Iran in to Gaza. Judging by your posts, you personally, might like that. But since the point of this thread is the ECONOMIC impacts, let's stay on topic to keep the moderators happy.

I will join you and put my realpolitik hat on. The current Iranian regime is a long-term existential threat. The regime is similar to the USSR in that they have to be in a perpetual cold war with the rest of the world to justify their authoritarian rule. Just as Orwell wrote, getting an entire country to direct their hate towards an outside figure distracts them from their day-to-day issues. The U.S. serves as that punching bag. Do they want a hot war or just a cold war to justify their existence? For the sake of this, let's say they want war. How can we eliminate this regime in a way that has the least economic impact on us then?

Let's see how Xi Jinping is handling his similar goal of taking over Taiwan. He is trying to make a stable economy. He is popping housing bubbles, investing in strategic industries, and is making an alternate finical system separate from the West. At the same time, he is modernizing his military. Both of these are done with long horizons. China's economic modernization has taken decades, and so has it's millitary. It is nowhere near ready to invade Taiwan, but Xi Jinping has put his country on a roadmap where that could happen in 10-20 years.

Meanwhile, we seem to have stumbled into Iran. Benjamin Netanyahu clearly needed this war to happen now since the only way he can evade prosecution is to be in a constant state of war. He forced our country to commit to a war before we were ready. Everyone knew war with Iran was going to require Naval action, yet our Navy is in a transition state. We had no minesweepers in place and new drone swarms have absorbed all of our escort capacity. We don't have the naval power to protect the Strait of Hormuz. The fact that we didn't have minesweepers in theater shows that this was poorly planned.

If our goal was to replicate Venezuela, then we failed on that too. If this was planned correctly, we would have used the CIA to reach out to leaders in the government who would take over and be willing to negotiate. IF we did that, then Israel killed them which took away our assets. So our next best option is a complete revolution. Again, we would have needed the CIA to establish resistance groups years before we attempted this. There are plenty of middle class people in Iran who want a revolution. But they never had a chance to organize. Do you really think some doctor in Tehran will turn on is TV one night to see the U.S. killed the Ayatollah and say, "Yeah, I was going to eat dinner with my kids, but I guess I have to overthrow the government that recently killed thousands for protesting even though I have no idea how functional this totalitarian state is right now." So we had no plan to replace the leaders in government and no plan to organize the local population. That leaves only one path... total war.

The only way out of this mess is to completely destroy Iran. Bombing them to the stone age and declaring victory won't be enough. We will simply create a generation of terrorist who want revenge and will will start the cycle all over again. THAT is why Netanyahu has turned Gaza to rubble. The only way to prevent future terrorist is to kill the entire population. Again, morals aside... do we have the capability to do that? How many cruise missiles will it take to level Iran? I don't see how an air campaign can accomplish our goals. Since you seem very gung-ho on this, how do you think this war ends? Do we eliminate the current stat of Iran?... What will it cost? Do we cut our losses, declare victory, and leave?...won't we simply be right in the same place we were 6 months ago but now with our best weapons depleted and our national debt even higher?

Xi Jinping is loving this! All of our expensive missiles are being used, or Navy is pushed to their limits, and our debt is ballooning. If we cant protect the Strait of Hormuz from Iran, we have no shot of stopping China from taking Taiwan in 10 years.