Razed to the ground? Iran is 3 times the area of France. It is very mountainous. That is foolish talk. Just how stupid are Trumpys?
Two mountain ranges, two deserts, two seas: Iran’s geography is its greatest weapon
Iran’s terrain imposes high costs on invading forces.
Imagine the scene: US troops approach the coast in their transport aircraft ahead of a possible invasion of Iran. What do they see?
A twisting sea dotted with islands; a coastline hundreds of kilometers long, lined with sharp rock faces; and mountains that tower over any unwanted intruder.
With geography like this, it’s no wonder that military and political experts say a ground operation would come at a high cost to the United States.
Iran is vast. It has two long mountain ranges, the Caspian Sea to the north, and the Persian Gulf to the south.
Experts warn that once a ground war begins, its direction and length are hard to direct.
“If you look at the history of such military attacks, you’ll see that generally once ground attacks start, they are very difficult to maintain,” says Arman Mahmoudian, a research fellow at the University of South Florida’s Global and National Security Institute.
“For a ground attack, the assaulting army needs to be close to its bases for logistics, to bring in fresh forces, and to move casualties back from the front,” he said.
“Suppose your goal is to control part of Iran’s coast near the Strait of Hormuz. You may take the coastline, but your forces will remain under constant attack,” he said. “To protect them and set up defensive positions, you would need to push further inland. At that point, any invasion becomes very difficult.”
Iran covers more than 1.4m sq km, making it the 17th largest country in the world. It also includes two major deserts, Dasht-e Kavir and the Lut Desert.
The country has more than 390 mountains above 2,000 metres, including 92 higher than 4,000 metres. The Middle East’s highest peak, Mount Damavand, which rises to about 5,700 metres, is also in Iran.
Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, says these geographic features would favor Iran in a ground war, drawing a comparison with the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
“Iran is about four times larger than Iraq, which means the targets are spread over a much wider area,” he said.
“The country is mountainous, and we know the Iranians have spent years placing military assets underground. On top of that, Iran has prepared for this kind of scenario for a long time and is far more capable of handling it than Saddam Hussein was in 2003.”
Iran's military sites, a chief target for Israel and the US, are also buried under the mountains, hard to reach and easy to defend.
Iran’s size would again become a major factor in such a scenario. Iran has already used its geography to keep up attacks, despite weeks of US and Israeli strikes. Iran’s missile launchers are spread across the country, and its drones and other projectiles are stored in underground facilities.
The US strategy and goals in the war remain unclear.
If the aim is to change Iran’s leadership, as the US and Israel suggested when they began the war on 28 February, weeks of air strikes and the assassination of many military and political figures have not shaken the country's resolve.
If the goal is to increase pressure and push Tehran to negotiate, there is little evidence so far that it has worked, and it has made the Iranian people more determined and resolute.
Experts also warn that any occupation would likely strengthen Iranian nationalism.
Historically, the Islamic Republic has shown it will not negotiate under occupation.
Mahmoudian points to the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, when Iraq captured several small cities, took the port of Khorramshahr and besieged Abadan.
“During the Iran-Iraq War, we saw that Iran does not negotiate or make peace while its territory is occupied,” he said.
“In the first year, when Iraq captured Khorramshahr and besieged Abadan, Iraq offered Iran negotiations. Iran refused as long as its territory was under foreign control.”
Vatanka agrees, arguing that there appears to be no coherent strategy behind the US approach in Iran.
He notes that “regime change”, mentioned by Trump and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the start of the war, was quickly abandoned.
“There is no grand strategy for regime change. The grand strategy amounted to a hope that the people of Iran would rise and take the regime down,” he said.
“That’s not strategy, that’s a hope.”
The last invader to conquer Persia was Alexander the Great, and Trump is no legendary general.
