The Trump administration is weighing possible ground operations in Iran, a step military experts warn would be costly and may not achieve its goals.
“It’s militarily unattainable,” retired Army Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and is a senior fellow at Defense Priorities, told NOTUS in an interview. “Whatever the intent is, it’s going to come at a very high casualty rate. It just almost couldn’t be any other way.”
“With that few troops, and with this massive amount of territory that Iran has along the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman, it’s just pointless,” Davis said. “There’s definitely not going to be any military victory here.”
After weeks of air and naval strikes, the United States has damaged Iranian targets but not yet forced a decisive outcome. Iran is still disrupting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and striking U.S. interests in the region, and negotiations remain uncertain, with Trump signaling diplomacy even as Iranian officials deny meaningful talks are underway.
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The administration has not confirmed whether it would deploy ground troops. President Donald Trump on Wednesday night pointed to what he described as major military gains and warned Iran could be hit “extremely hard” in coming weeks before the war ends, while offering little clarity about what comes next. He has repeatedly declined to rule out ground troops.
And there are signs the ground option is being taken seriously. The Pentagon has continued to build up forces in the region, including Marines, 82nd Airborne units and special operations forces, all of which are commonly used in ground operations.
The Washington Post reported the Pentagon has been weighing options including seizing Iran’s highly enriched uranium, a high-risk operation that would involve sending in large numbers of troops and equipment, breaching underground sites and flying the material out. Kharg Island, the hub of Iran’s energy industry, is another major potential target for ground operations.
Davis said even a limited ground operation would be hard to pull off and harder to sustain, particularly given Iran’s ability to respond with missiles, drones and other asymmetric tactics.
The ground operation would likely begin, Davis explained, with airstrikes on key targets to weaken defenses, followed by troops flown in by helicopters. The aircraft would have to fly long distances over water, leaving them exposed.
The broader conflict has already shown the limits of the current U.S. approach. After weeks of strikes, additional gains from air power alone appear harder to achieve.
“We’ve pretty much achieved everything that can be achieved from the air at this point,” said Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center. “Anything more that the administration wants to achieve is going to require some significant escalation.”
Ashford said a ground operation could be “hugely costly,” hard to contain and potentially disastrous.
“Once you start to have these smaller incursions, once you start to have troops on the ground and they get killed, escalation starts to snowball.”
Public support for a deeper U.S. role has also been thin. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week found that two-thirds of Americans want the war to end quickly, even if the administration does not meet its stated goals. In a separate recent poll, only 14% supported sending U.S. ground troops into Iran, while 62% opposed it.
Despite sustained strikes, Tehran has continued to operate and retain its ability to disrupt shipping and launch attacks.
“I think we underestimated them in a big way,” Davis said.
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