Why Invading Iran Could Become America’s Biggest Military Mistake | OilPrice.com
James Durso
James D. Durso is the Managing Director of Corsair LLC, a supply chain consultancy. In 2013 to2015, he was the Chief Executive Officer of AKM…
Trending Discussions
Premium Content
By James Durso – Oct 19, 2026, 4:00 PM CDT
- A U.S. ground invasion of Iran could become a military catastrophe, with difficult terrain, entrenched defenses, and the risk of prolonged guerrilla warfare.
- An invasion could send oil prices toward $200 per barrel, worsening inflation and imposing enormous economic and military costs.
- Diplomacy offers a less destructive alternative.
The ghosts of Baghdad and Kabul should be enough to silence any talk of sending American troops into Iran. Yet here we are, more than seven months into a war that began on 28 February with U.S.-Israeli strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and voices in Washington and Tel Aviv are again whispering that only boots on the ground can finish the job. Plans to seize Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal, or push inland to seize Iran’s enriched uranium have circulated since March. They are wrong. An invasion would be a strategic catastrophe, a moral failure, and a self-inflicted wound from which America might never recover.
First, the military reality is brutal. Iran is not Iraq in 2003. It is four times larger, with 90 million people, a professional military hardened by decades of sanctions and asymmetric warfare, and terrain from the Zagros Mountains to vast deserts perfectly suited for guerrilla warfare against invaders. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps prepared for this: mines, drone swarms, missile barrages on Gulf infrastructure, and allies from Hezbollah to the Houthis. The Pentagon’s wargames have shown that attacking Iran would fail, requiring hundreds of thousands of troops, years of occupation, and casualties dwarfing the post-9/11 wars.
This year’s air and naval campaign has proved the point. After 11,000 strikes in five weeks, a leaked intelligence assessment found Iran still held roughly 70 percent of its missiles and launchers. Iran then closed the Strait of Hormuz and claimed sovereignty over it. A June memorandum signed by Presidents Trump and Pezeshkian collapsed on 8 July. The Houthis, who joined the war in March, now hit Saudi airports; a 10 October attack on Riyadh’s airport killed twelve people. About 50,000 U.S. troops are now deployed to the region into 2027.
We already know how that movie ends: initial tactical (and TV-ready) success followed by endless bleeding. General Stanley McChrystal, who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan, says on war with Iran, “I tell people about this war, if you like this war, enjoy this first part, because this is the best part. Because everything after this will be harder, because it will be more equal, even though we will have bombed them.” Related: Qatar Offers Lebanon 2 Gas Plants and 20 Years of LNG Piped Through Syria
Second, the strategic blowback is already global. Fighting without an imminent threat or United Nations mandate has shredded American legitimacy, and allies from Europe to the Pacific declined to join. Russia and China reportedly supply Iran with drones and missiles, and analysts credit Chinese satellite imagery for sharper Iranian strikes on U.S. forces. Brent crude topped $104 this month amid the largest oil supply disruption on record, forcing Washington to buy Russian diesel. An invasion could send prices to US$200 a barrel, as the U.S. economy struggles with a US$40 trillion national debt (larger than the US$31 trillion Gross Domestic Product) and a war that cost US$113 billion by June, while 95 percent of U.S. adults believe the country is facing an affordability crisis, that has arguably been worsened by the Iran war.
Our Persian Gulf partners, whom the U.S. failed to protect, have become targets of Iranian and Houthi missiles, drones, and attacks on airports and energy facilities. And inside Iran, an invasion would do what decades of sanctions failed to achieve: unite the Iranian people behind the regime Washington seeks to oust. There have been no signs of the military defections a regime change requires, and a foreign army would hand hardliners a nationalist rallying cry while reformers are silenced as traitors.
Third, the human and fiscal cost is indefensible. The Iraq war cost almost $3 trillion and over 4,400 American lives, plus hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead and millions displaced. This war has already killed 21 U.S. service members, wounded over 800, and, by Iran’s count, killed over <a href="https://www.aljazeera
Source: oilprice.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.
