Former SEAL Matt Bracken: So You Want to Put Boots on the Ground In Iran

Kharg Island is the size of Iwo Jima. Qeshm Island is bigger than Okinawa. Both are in artillery, drone and missile range of Iran

By Matt Bracken

So you want to put boots on the ground in Iran? Really give them what-for? Finish the Job!

Let’s start with baby steps. Kharg Island is 600 KM past the Strait of Hormuz, and it’s the size of Iwo Jima. Qeshm Island is bigger than Okinawa. Both are in artillery, drone and missile range of Iran.

During WW2, we pounded Iwo Jima with battleships for weeks before landing 70,000 Marines. 19,000 of them were WIA and 7,000 were KIA. It took a month to wipe out Japanese resistance.

In 1945 we landed 180,000 Marines and Soldiers on Okinawa, which is smaller than Qeshm Island. It took three months to subdue Japanese resistance. The U.S. suffered more than 30,000 WIA and 12,000 KIA.

But what the hell, I’m sure a force of around 10,000 U.S. troops can capture Kharg or Qeshm, while being shuttled in by helicopters and tilt-rotors. From ships and gulf-region staging areas that are in easy drone and missile strike range from Iran.

Or maybe we’ll just bum-rush our amphibious ships loaded with Marines straight into the Strait of Hormuz. For Kharg Island, tack on a 600 kilometer run parallel to the cliffs of the Iranian coast. It should be a piece of cake.

(Note the date of my Substack piece from last year, “If we go to war against Iran, the world economy will crash.”) It was written even before our “12 Day War.”

Our best warships have been forced to stay hundreds of miles from the coast of Iran, due to the threat presented by Iranian Shahed drones and anti-ship guided missiles. The only exceptions have been in-out dashes by a couple of destroyers.

So it’s ridiculous to even consider sailing amphibious ships loaded with Marines to within helicopter range of Kharg or Qeshm island, much less close enough for amphibious assault vehicles and landing craft.

Anybody who suggests this should be mocked as an absolute idiot. Including the retired FOX News generals who were officers during Desert Storm, when we spent months offloading thousands of troops and unlimited tons of supplies into Saudi Arabian ports and airfields in perfect safety. Those days are as long gone as horse cavalry charges.

Today, those same Saudi ports would be blasted with Iranian missiles and drones. In fact, this is what happened to our former 5th Fleet Headquarters in Bahrain. As a result, it’s been evacuated, and the US Navy has been driven out of the Persian Gulf, where it had reigned supreme since World War Two.

Just as a reminder, Iran is ten times bigger than South Vietnam, with six times its 1968 population. Iran is bigger than six Colorados, with even higher mountains. It can’t be “starved out” by a U.S. naval blockade, because it is water and energy self-sufficient, and 90% food self-sufficient. Any food gap can easily be filled overland from Pakistan, and via the Caspian Sea and air routes from Russia and China.

At the height of the Vietnam War, we had over 500,000 troops in country, plus 5,000 combat aircraft from helicopters on up. These were based all over South Vietnam, minutes from takeoff to target. We had B-52s flying back and forth from Guam to Thailand dropping unlimited tons of cheap iron gravity bombs at will along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and North Vietnam. It wasn’t enough. Eventually we gave up, and left.

Iran is ten times bigger than South Vietnam, with heavily contested air space, forcing our attack planes to launch our rapidly diminishing stocks of multi-million-dollar standoff missiles from outside of Iranian air space.

To even consider a “land incursion” in Iran is insanity. Not only is Iran much bigger than South Vietnam, with a much larger population, it’s a technological “near peer” that can fight back effectively, as proven by our warships being forced to stay hundreds of miles away. As opposed to Vietnam, where we controlled the ports, airports, main highways, etc. And we still lost.

Iran has shown the wisdom of adopting “the porcupine strategy” in the 21st Century.

As opposed to the US military trying to maintain a vast and expensive global empire by force, in an era when even 2nd and 3rd tier countries can strike back at the empire’s far-flung regional bases with drones and missiles.

The U.S. has spent over 8 TRILLION dollars on the Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran wars. What do we have to show for these? How have these wars benefited the citizens of the USA? What else could we have done with 8,000 BILLION dollars, if we had spent it on infrastructure inside of America?

Our bases in the Persian Gulf region are now more of a liability than a benefit to our defense posture. They are just missile bait, staked goats held hostage to modern missile and drone fire.

This entire fiasco was a self-inflicted wound, brought about by President Trump’s dishonorable and frankly stupid decision to sneak-attack Iran with assassination missile strikes during negotiations. “See you in Geneva on Monday!” Then kill dozens of Iranian leaders, their families and neighbors, and 170 school girls, with surprise missile strikes on Saturday. As an American, this disgusts me.

And now that it appears we are going back to full kinetic war, a global great depression is almost a certainty. America will be correctly blamed for this catastrophe, and Trump will go down in history as the man who caused it.

Bracken—Out.

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