“It’s militarily unattainable,” retired Army Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and is a senior fellow at Defense Priorities, told NOTUS in an interview. “Whatever the intent is, it’s going to come at a very high casualty rate. It just almost couldn’t be any other way.”
“With that few troops, and with this massive amount of territory that Iran has along the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman, it’s just pointless,” Davis said. “There’s definitely not going to be any military victory here.”
Davis said even a limited ground operation would be hard to pull off and harder to sustain, particularly given Iran’s ability to respond with missiles, drones and other asymmetric tactics.
The ground operation would likely begin, Davis explained, with airstrikes on key targets to weaken defenses, followed by troops flown in by helicopters. The aircraft would have to fly long distances over water, leaving them exposed.
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