As the Trump administration mulls a ground deployment in Iran, veterans fear a grueling, long-term campaign lies ahead — and that the U.S. military may be ill-prepared to sustain it.
First of all, ongoing preparations and deployments suggest the administration has prepared for the worst. As Virginia Burger, a Marine veteran and senior defense policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight's Center for Defense Information, tells RS, two Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs), rapid reaction units in ships of over 2,000 Marines each, are both on their way to the Middle East, where the 11th MEU is to join up with the 31st MEU.
This could point to an extended, likely perilous, endeavor, perhaps involving Marines seizing Kharg Island — which some veterans are already calling a potential “suicide mission.” “Why are we going into something that [could be] be so protracted?” Burger asked. “Iran [has a] vote in this, right? We don't exist in a vacuum — the Marines aren't just going to walk onto Kharg Island [unopposed]. What is that going to look like, as far as loss of American lives, loss of American equipment?”
Mike Prysner, veteran and Executive Director of the Center on Conscience & War, told RS that, based on his organization’s extensive contact with armed service members and their families, many military units are preparing to fight.
“What people don't realize is that the U.S. is preparing for a big war,” Prysner told RS. “Everyone's getting ready to go."
Strategic concerns
But an extended fight with Iran will be difficult. Although the U.S. has the tactical means and personnel to plant boots on the ground, troops deployed will likely face frequent attacks, casualties, and strategic setbacks, according to John Byrnes, a veteran and the strategic director for Concerned Veterans for America.
“I am certain we can get our boots on the ground. I am more concerned about a long-term operation,” Byrnes told RS. “Every step along the way [in a ground deployment], there's going to be some U.S. casualties — and what generals might think is going to take a week suddenly might take a month or two months.”
James Webb, a national security and political consultant who served in Iraq as a Marine infantryman, warned that Iran’s mountainous geography could be a logistical nightmare for a ground deployment to navigate — and that Iranians are ready to fight. “When you start talking about the geography and the population [of Iran] of about 90 million people — the geography is not conducive to offensive operations at all,” Webb told RS. “It's their home turf. As somebody who's fought on the home turf of another country, you're always at a disadvantage.”
“When you're taking a look at the conduct of the war from the Iranian side, they have measured this in every single way that they possibly could. They were prepared to fight,” Webb stressed.
An extended conflict in Iran might “be something more akin to Gallipoli than Vietnam,” Webb said, referring to the failed, heavy-casualty allied campaign to capture Turkish straits during World War I.
Tenuous battlefield logistics aside, larger strategic issues for the U.S. are at play. In moving munitions from critical locations to keep up the war effort, the U.S. is showing signs of overextension.
“We're moving defensive interceptor missiles from South Korea to the Middle East, right? That is not insignificant. That is a huge move out of the theater, to move the THAADs [missile interceptor systems] from South Korea to CENTCOM,” Burger told RS. “Senior military officials are wondering [if these moves are] weakening our ability to respond to any other situation, specifically in the Pacific.” Military leaders see “how much we're expending our already dwindling stockpiles of munitions, and questioning what we would be able to do if we did have to go into a war that was not a war of choice,” Burger said. “The sheer lack of strategic forethought that [the administration] put into this shows you how little they care about the safety and considerations of our armed service members.”
Low morale
As prospects for extended operations in Iran grow, veterans contend that low morale among armed service members — some of whom see little reason for the U.S. to be at war with Tehran — could fuel a long-term crisis of confidence.
“We don't have a justification from the White House. We don't have solid messaging or anything that elicits any confidence from the Secretary of Defense,” Burger said. “You're going to create this disillusionment that's going to cause retention problems and recruitment problems down the line.”
“I think a lot of older folks in the military, who've been around a long time, who served and saw losses during the global war on terror, are maybe a little skeptical: ‘Hey, you know, this isn't really good, and it's not going to be great for our troops’ morale long-term,’” Byrnes said.
"The young folks will probably mostly be okay...They're often very torn: they're scared and excited, and they're not sure it's a good war, but they're happy to be able to go on the ground and prove their stuff," Byrnes explained. But "their families are going to take a morale hit, right? ‘Why are we fighting in Iran? Why did my husband not come home when he was scheduled to be home?’”
Looking to break ranks altogether, some service members are seeking conscientious objector status. As Mike Prysner tells RS, many soldiers cite the probable U.S. attack on a school in Minab, Iran, at the end of February, and broader disenchantment with U.S. foreign policy, as reasons to become conscientious objectors.
“The most common [reason] I hear [from armed service members] for not wanting to be part of [the war] is the Minab school massacre,” Prysner told RS. “Service members watch[ed] the Gaza war happen,” he said. “And then — the first big war that the U.S. embarks on since the war on terror…starts with the U.S. doing something that looks exactly…like one of the worst war crimes Israel did in the Gaza war.”
For those who stay and fight, low morale risks hindering the war effort.
“If your head and your heart is not in it when you go to war, it's going to be a lot more difficult to accomplish your objectives — if at all,” Webb said. “That's the bottom line.”