[bink]

There definitely won't be boots on the ground and that's kinda the point. Even if we had boots on the ground there's no guarantee that the US getting involved will make things better for the people of the region. We couldn't deliver democracy for Afghanistan after two decades but there are still people who think we'll be greeted as liberators in Iran and we'll be able to claim "mission accomplished" after a few months.

[tptacek]

I don't think there'll be boots on the ground either but Iran isn't Afghanistan or Iraq, both of which were essentially failed states with minimal state capacity riven with internal armed conflict and ethnic tension. There's ethnic tension everywhere, including in Iran, but Iran has at its core an extraordinarily functional and coherent society.