There’s a saying often invoked in the run-up to wars: If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.
The late Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reportedly cited it privately within the George W. Bush administration as U.S. troops deployed to Baghdad, then publicly in 2013 to criticize President Barack Obama when the United States was fighting the Islamic State in Syria.
And while President Donald Trump said this week that America will be ending its war against Iran “very soon,” thousands of U.S. troops have continued streaming into the Middle East in a campaign the president says could last another two to three weeks. In a primetime address Wednesday night, President Trump declared that the American strategic objectives are “nearing completion.”
Why We Wrote This
As more ground forces head to Iran, shifting threats and end goals could either baffle opponents and lead to success, or pull the United States into another forever war.
“We are going to hit them extremely hard,” he said. “We’re going to bring them back to the stone ages, where they belong.”
“We are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly, very shortly,” he added, claiming that the month-long conflict has been a success as he tried to assuage high oil and gas prices caused by the war. “We have all the cards, and they have none.”
Still, veterans and analysts warn that the combination of force without a clear end goal in Iran could be a recipe for the kind of mission creep that turned conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan into quagmires.
For his part, Mr. Trump said last week that he could walk away from the war with or without a deal.
But such a move by President Trump would be difficult to fathom, analysts say. The Strait of Hormuz is essentially closed for business, driving up gas prices for U.S. voters, which, given this fall’s midterm elections, could jeopardize control of Congress by Republicans, the president’s party.
Iran still has enriched uranium buried underground as well, which could be used to make nuclear weapons. Preventing that possibility is the primary reason Mr. Trump said he went to war in the first place. And the Iranian regime still rules the country.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday that U.S. bases in the region are getting “more and more bunkers” and that all options remain on the table, including sending in U.S. ground troops to Iran.
When a reporter asked the defense secretary this week what he would say to Americans who “love the president” but “are very worried about this notion of boots on the ground,” Mr. Hegseth pushed back. “I don’t understand why the [Republican] base … wouldn’t have faith in his ability to execute on this,” he said.
The U.S. military is preparing for a number of possible scenarios, analysts say, such as using Army paratroopers or special Marine expeditionary units to seize control of Iranian islands, or perhaps to occupy them. This could precede or follow missions to sweep mines and escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, reopening the passage to commercial traffic.
Pentagon officials have also likely drawn up several plans for sending U.S. special operations units into Iran to secure enriched uranium. That uranium is believed to be buried under rubble following the massive U.S. bomb strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites last June. Open-source intelligence reports show increased air traffic from U.S. bases in the region where Delta Force and Ranger Regiment units are currently stationed.
Having growing numbers of U.S. forces on hand in the region “almost builds up an impetus all its own,” says retired Army Lt. Col. Brad Taylor, who served in special operations, including eight years as a commander in the Delta Force.
This can create momentum to employ ground troops, he says. “You’ve done so much planning, it’s almost like, ‘Well, I guess we’re going to use them.’”
The U.S. military has struck more than 11,000 targets in 30 days, and officials say Iran’s ability to deploy missiles is degraded, but not destroyed.
“Yes, they will still shoot some missiles,” Mr. Hegseth told reporters. “But we will shoot them down.”
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Kharg Island
Some administration advisers have argued that an operation like taking Kharg Island would be relatively low risk.
Michael Rubin, a neoconservative analyst formerly of the Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority, has called it a “no-brainer” that would “protect its oil facilities for a post-war economy.”
“Destroying Guard Posts on the Island Sets the Stage for U.S. Forces to Occupy It,” wrote Dr. Rubin, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, amid reports that he has been advising Trump administration officials.
Such an operation could still happen, “especially if people are telling Trump that this would be the easy way out that he’s been looking for,” says Harrison Mann, a former Army major who specialized in Middle East analysis at the Defense Intelligence Agency.
In a textbook scenario, Kharg Island could be taken by 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers parachuting in by plane, or by Marines from expeditionary units dropped off by helicopters.
The latter would be more dangerous, since helicopters have to land at some point, making them relatively easy to hit. Planes carrying airborne troops are targets, too, but they don’t have to land.
Planes are also largely safe from Iranian drones, and fighter jet escorts can suppress remaining Iranian air defenses. But paratroopers land in a dispersed way that could also leave them vulnerable to capture, says Mr. Mann, now associate director for policy and campaigns at Win Without War, a network of progressive grassroots organizations.
“Especially if it’s a combat jump where the aircraft is probably going to be going low and fast, it’s a hard landing, like you’re getting pushed out of a third-story window,” Mr. Mann notes. “Those soldiers are not hitting the ground with their weapons up.”
Kharg Island has a decent-sized civilian population that may or may not have friendly feelings toward U.S. forces.
Iran could initially let U.S. troops land unopposed, Mr. Mann notes, which could amount to a trap to draw in and potentially target even more forces.
Troops on the ground need resupplies, logistical support, and medical care – all of which require security escorts. Then there is the matter of extraction, he adds. “As dangerous as it is to bring troops onto the island, it’s even more dangerous to get them off of it.”
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The matter of nukes
Keeping Iran from making nuclear weapons has been a reason frequently cited by the Trump administration for starting the war. Mr. Trump cited it again this week.
Delta Force, an elite U.S. Army unit that specializes in raids and high-value target captures, was made for such missions as securing Iran’s uranium, with training in securing chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear hazards (known as CBRN).
But stores of enriched uranium – like those believed to be in Iran – are considered hard and deeply-buried targets (which also get their own acronym, HDBTs, in military parlance).
“People keep talking about special operations forces doing that. Yeah, we train for things like that, but this is just rubble,” says Mr. Taylor, who writes novels about military missions. When it comes to extracting Iran’s uranium, given the previous bombing raids, he adds, “You’re not looking at Special Forces guys – you’re looking at engineers with bulldozers.”
If they were to be sent in, these forces would need a “huge contingent” of protection, he adds. This could amount to upward of 1,000 additional U.S. troops to form a security phalanx around the Special Forces troops, as well as the military engineers who would need to accompany them as they do their jobs.
Though the U.S. might get forces on the ground without much resistance, Iran could mount pinprick attacks, like single sniper attacks, to drive up U.S. casualties one by one, further inflaming resistance to the war at home in the U.S.
And even if Special Forces troops were successful in securing enriched uranium at some sites, there would continue to be questions about how much might still be out there.
Hypothetically, some intelligence assessments might conclude that there are five canisters of the material left, others 10, for example. If the U.S. finds eight, could the intelligence be wrong? Or could two canisters be missing? “It’s hard to prove a negative,” Mr. Taylor says.
For now, Mr. Hegseth says the administration will not “foreclose any options” in Iran, though the defense secretary acknowledged that this refusal could be a strategic feint.
“You can’t fight and win a war if you tell your adversary what you’re willing to do or what you’re not willing to do,’’ he told reporters. “Our adversary right now thinks there are 15 different ways we could come at them with boots on the ground. And guess what? There are.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect President Donald Trump’s address to the nation about the war in Iran on Wednesday night.