The US is “just” bombing Iran right now. Take for example Pakistan. They launched missiles against each other two years ago. It would be relatively easy for Pakistan to invade Iran and get support from the US and the Gulf states for that. Iran controls some islands in the Strait of Hormuz, which the UAE claims to be theirs. The Azerbijan and Iran also are not exactly friends.
A ground invasion could seriously dethrone the Islamic leadership.
Most of these countries are probably low key happy about the war. It distracts the US from invading Greenland for example. The only big issue is that the strait should be open, so the oil price does not go even higher.
The line is:
We express our readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait.
That is not quite the same thing as safeguard. Appropriate efforts can just be working on peace in the region and brining in some minesweepers to clean up the strait after the fighting ends. My understanding is that most of these countries have ruled out opening the strait by military means.
Which I think is silly given the obvious first continental divide to go would be the Eurasian one that only exists for historical reasons.
America makes sense for historical reasons as well. After all it is a massive settlers colony of different European nations. The Spanish influence very much connects both continents, if you want to do that.
This is about shifting media attention away from Iran. When Miami gets shelled, then the Gulf becomes boring.
Not just that, but Europe is able to pay the oil price, although Russia getting it is a problem. At the same time oil consumption is half of the USAs and falling due to BEVs and heat pumps. It is probably a lot cheaper then to go to war.
Why do you have to kick Netanyahu out of his bed?
Kharg is the most likely. 90% of Irans oil exports go through that island and the US has just bombed it hard, while the units currently moved are specialized in taking islands. Other then that in the Strait of Hormuz Abu Musa, Greater and Lesser Tunbs are decent targets, as the UAE claims them and taking them would be useful to secure shipping a bit better.
If you wanted to secure the Strait somewhat Hormozgan province would have to be taken. With a population of nearly 2million, that is not going to happen with 5000 men. Maybe raids though.
This is not going to be a full scale invasion. For that they need way more soldiers. 5000 is enough to take some islands, run some raids on the coast or do some special ops bs. If they send more we maybe see something bigger.
He can choose to no longer shoot at Iran, but he can not make Iran stop shooting at the US. It takes only one site to keep a war going.
Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and so forth are not part of Israel, but have been attacked by Iran, including attacks on civilian targets like hotels.
It warned that “people of the region should not be within a one-kilometre radius of banks”.
If people actually followed that warning, that would mean emptying every city and town in the Middle East. That is very likely worse, then just staying and hoping that air defence is working and that Iran does not have enough missiles to hit everything. Keep in mind that all countries in the region have a lot of poor people. For some it is the Arab population, for others working migrants.
Bombing never worked, without a ground invasion. It only pisses of civilians. That is true for the US and Israel as well as Iran. The only result of this is more suffering.
but they don’t export their shittiness or make war with their neighbors.
They do that right now and have done it in the past as well. Lebanon is suffering under Hezbollah, which is financed and trained by Iran. Right now they are bombing civilian targets of their Arab neighours. Iran is also attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz, which are not US or Israeli flagged or run. Also they financed and supported a lot of Shia groups in Iraq and actively supported Assads war against Syria.
What we see are three fascists countries fighting a war and a bunch of Arab countries, which are also not saints, stuck in the middle.
That is guranteed to lead to a lot of civilan casulties and might as well be a “we bomb everything” sort of situation. US finance is everywhere after all.
It is really great that there are still people on the internet, who can be convinced by facts. Otherwise you would have given me a source proving me wrong.
If you look at polling, then it is the opposite and still a large group, who see themself as European.
It is always good to not look at what geopolitcal actors say, but what they do. For example the Make in Europe initative, the massive trade deals with Mercosur, India and a lot of other countries and blocks recently, a move towards local weapons and software purchases, working on replacing Visa and Mastercard with the digital Euro and so forth.
European countries were in general close allies of the US. That created a close reliance, which can not be cut without a lot of pain overnight. The biggest issue seems to be Russia right now. Having the US as a NATO member at least on paper defending members against Russia is usefull. As are the ability to purchase some American weapons, without European alternatives or with too low production numbers like Patriot. The smart move is to reduce the dependence on the US steadily, while not causing too many big breaks, which hurt Europe.
Probably a good comparison is what happened with Russia after the full scale invasion. A lot of yelling at each other. Massive fights on different positions and then half a year later the EU mostly cut off Russian fossil fuels, managed to set up a steady supply of arms and other aid to Ukraine, provide support for millions of refugees and so forth.
There were a couple of mongol and Turkish invasion, as well as the Islamic Conquest. Last century the Soviets and British invaded Iran rather easily during WW2 as well.
You use helicopters and paratroopers to take an airport close to Theran and then land troops with planes. That is how the US would invade. Iran has lost its air defense, so that is possible.
I honestly have very little doubt, that the US can take Iran, if they wanted too. The issue is leaving it is a decent state after the war. However Israel does not care about that.