The US can beat Iran at its own game, and without boots on the ground

Iran isn’t trying to defeat the U.S. in a conventional war. It is trying to exhaust it.

For decades and in this war, Tehran has pursued a disciplined strategy of imposing steady costs. It kills Americans through proxies, disrupts energy markets, raises gasoline prices, and rattles financial systems until U.S. political will collapses. Iran is betting that the legacy of “forever wars,” combined with domestic polarization, will once again force Washington to walk away.

It is a strategy built on a simple assumption: The U.S. cannot sustain a long war of attrition.

That assumption is wrong if the U.S. chooses to fight on its own terms.

Iranian leaders believe they can win because the U.S. has little appetite for a large-scale ground invasion, the kind many analysts argue would be required to dismantle the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and topple the regime.

They may be right about America’s reluctance to deploy troops. But they are wrong to conclude that this makes American victory unattainable.

The U.S. can win a war of attrition against Iran, but only if it stops fighting on Tehran’s terms.

Victory does not require occupation forces. A ground invasion would strengthen the regime’s narrative, potentially unifying the population against the U.S. while imposing unsustainable costs. The path to victory lies in exploiting Iran’s internal vulnerabilities and aligning U.S. strategy with the aspirations of its people.

Early predictions of rapid regime collapse were naïve. They underestimated both the ideological zealotry of Iran’s leadership and its willingness to use extreme violence against its own population. The regime has spent decades hardening its security apparatus and perfecting repression. The Revolutionary Guard, which dominates major sectors of the economy, is deeply invested ideologically and financially in the system’s survival.

The central question is not whether Iran can be defeated quickly, but whether the U.S. can win a........

© The Hill