>>508142676
if you could somehow utilize Azerbaijan along with either Turkey or Iraq, you could do sort of the same thing the Russians tried with coming down from Belarus while pressuring the eastern fortress in Ukraine. There's a highway that follows all the way down from Azerbaijan along the caspian coast, and has several passes south which all bring you very close to Tehran, the capital. This would synergize with capturing the oil fields on the flatlands near Iraq as the main "distraction" or centre of gravity for enemy force concentration. This is the only flat terrain in Iran aside from the far east which is sparse and useless. However I cannot say how strategically significant Tehran would be, plus, capturing a modern city is extremely hard. See Bakhmut or even the initial fights outside Kiev as examples. We still talk about Fallujah and that was 2 decades ago and not nearly as large or developed. Regardless of where it may start, a massive bombing campaign would have to proceed it. Stationing carriers off the coast and securing the straight of Hormuz would be a must. In the grand scheme this would still hardly cover much surface area of Iran, see picrel. Funny, it would be comparable to how much Russia has taken from Ukraine thus far. I highly doubt the top brass in the US military would consider a ground invasion at all unless there are MUCH higher stakes at play then the public is aware of.