[LS]

"You're living in a drug-addled fantasy world if anyone thinks we're invading Syria or Iran anytime in the remotely foreseable future." This is exactly right. I've had debates here with guys who think we can just go in, no problem, and take over these other countries.

The numbers "on paper" say we can, but when you figure in troop rotation, funding, and most of all the media management of yet "another" war (and I know, it's the SAME WAR, the ORIGINAL WAR, but it won't be played that way), well, I think we have to make sure Afghanistan and Iraq are completely set before we go after the next target. But I'm all for eventually taking out all these creeps.

[BushMeister]

Obviously, we can't seal the borders of any Middle-eastern nations we occupy, only attempt to contain the influx of foreign fighters. So if we invaded Iran, we would continue to have to fight for control of Afghanistan (easily infiltrated from Pakistan) and Iraq (Syrian incursions)

If we strike into Iran, we'd need at least 200,000 ground troops. And we would probably have a nice buildup in Afghanistan- probably not for Iran-bound troops- but to pacify Afghanistan itself.

Teheran itself is in the north-central of Iran (slightly west of center), near the Caspian Sea. It's about 500 miles from the Afghan border, so invading troops would almost certainly come from Iraq. Another front could be opened from the Persian Gulf. Here's a good physical map of Iran:

This is probably all mental onanism. It's extremely unlikely that we will actually invade Iran. If there is a "grand plan" to take out these terrorist nations one-by-one, Syria would probably be next.

If we do invade either Syria or Iran, the stability of Pakistan and control of its nuclear weapons becomes a crucial consideration.