We're not talking about Venezuela here. We're talking about a regime so absolutely determined to hold onto power that in the nearly decade long war with Iraq, the mullahs sent literally tens of thousands of children -- children! -- to certain death on the front lines, as part of endless, pointless, murderous "human wave" attacks. Many of them were drugged, all of them were promised entrance to Paradise if they died for Khomeini.

You think these very same mullahs are going to simply surrender because of air strikes? Not a chance. Unless we're willing to plunge into a ground war that will make Iraq look like Panama, we're not changing this regime anytime soon.

I am not here to argue the merit of this fiasco, but to say it is for regime change is remarkably ill informed. Even the White House has walked that one back after workshopping it with the press pool. The Iranians just appointed a new supreme leader. They don't even have to change the nameplates under the photos. No regime in world history has ever been unseated by aerial bombing alone and unless the US wants the straits closed forever, they need to strike a deal or launch an all out invasion. Guess which one they will opt for?

I have waved to and looked in the eyes of Iranians swarming our heavily armed military ships with speedboats. They could have taken out $50B worth of military hardware with a few small boats (or missiles, or mines) and they prove it every time a ship goes through, which is why our ships are currently not in the Arabian Gulf, but are sitting way outside.

In any case, my post was meant to say that the wisdom of the markets seems to think this will wrap up sooner than later. I guess we shall see.

Nothing is worth an American life in that region. Nothing. None of them are allies in a cultural sense, especially not our greatest ally. We did everything to put the mullahs in power and have been paying for it ever since.

Short term pain for long term gain is a Fox News sound byte. This quagmire isn’t what I voted for.

We’ll either declare victory and go home or the leaders decide nukes are pretty expensive sitting around in silos and maybe we oughta use em when the IRGC doesn’t realize it’s defeated.

Neither is a good solution. I’ve spent enough time playing in the sand to realize I was sold a raw deal and all of our leaders are bought and paid for to protect someone else’s interests, not mine.

Of course it's for regime change. The US and Israel have long wanted this(along with most of the Western world). A country doesn't continuously bomb a regime's leadership without that goal in mind. Whether or not it actually happens is another question entirely, as it's not easy and certainly not an exact science. Taking out their nuclear capabilities and navy is an added bonus. Even if we don't end up getting full regime change, this campaign has likely decimated the Iranians for many years, if not decades to come. As for the comments from the White House, I would not take anything they say as gospel, the opinion of the Orange Man and policy direction of this administration changes by the minute.

This may turn out to be true, in which case the B-2's and F-35's will continue to rain down on them.

And the regime will continue to not change. You can go back thousands of years. Bombs don't change leaders. Ever.
But you guys are right, this time will probably be different.

Only sort of true. Yes, Hirohito remained in power as a figurehead, while Tojo and other senior military zealots - and you have only to look at Japanese actions in China, Indochina, Burma, and Korea to see that their zealotry equaled or exceeded that of the current theocracy in Iran - were either hanged or committed suicide before capture. But the Island-hopping campaign obviated the need for a lot of boots on the ground until we could take Tinian to get in B-29 range and complete the A-bombs which definitely avoided the deaths of hundreds of thousands of our military had they had to invade the Japanese home islands.

Fortunately we now have weapons whose range and payload greatly exceeds that of a B-29 and weapons whose power dwarf those two A-bombs and don’t really require a ground war to get into range to do serious damage.

Um...we invaded Japan. Home islands or not, it happened. A lot of men lost their lives. My grandfather was on Iwo Jima and was forever affected. That was the last just war this nation fought.

The situation is not an all or nothing as you have outlined. Maybe we get regime change, maybe we don't. Another outcome which we have basically already achieved is a substantial depletion of their nuclear program, navy and leadership chain which will indeed take years to rebuild. It's hard to fight back against the enemy when your new leader has to constantly go into hiding and carry the paranoia that they'll be blown away upon acceptance of their new leadership position. The world is a power vacuum, if we sit back and allow them to operate with no pressure, they will pursue nuclear weapons and continue to fund terrorism around the world as they've done for the last 50 years.

If Israel wants to fight a war, and depose the Mullahs, they can do it themselves. We fought multiple wars on their behalf already. I’m tired of American lives being lost in that region.