Americans greatly underestimate how much people in other countries are willing to suffer and sacrifice.
Just look at the merciless bombing inflicted on the Vietnamese during the US war on them.
But in the end, the Vietnamese communists were victorious.
And after 20 years in Afghanistan, the US lost to the badly outnumbered and outgunned Taliban.
They took down the flag as a sign of surrender to keep the Taliban from looting it and humiliating the US even more.
So I wonder how well my country, the US, will fare against Iran. Below is a clue.
Mohammad Hossein Fahmideh (Persian: محمد حسین فهمیده;[1] 6 May 1967 – 30 October 1980) was an Iranian child soldier and an icon of the Iran–Iraq War. During the First Battle of Khorramshahr in 1980, he served with the Basij and fought invading Iraqi forces in and around the city of Khorramshahr. Fahmideh is credited with having halted the advance of an Iraqi tank column after he jumped underneath an Iraqi tank and detonated a full grenade belt, killing himself in the process. He is celebrated as a war hero in Iran.
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It will be a cold day in hell when Americans recruit, deploy, and celebrate the suicide combat deaths of child soldiers.
Iran lost about 2% of their population during their 10-year war with Iraq. That's a similar percent to what the US lost during its civil war. To this day, there are hundreds of monuments to that war in the US, even though the war ended over 160 years ago. And even today, the war inspires strong feelings.
They have a cemetery in Tehran with a "blood" fountain to honor their dead from the war with Iraq.
Sacrifice and martyrdom are powerful themes in Islam and especially Shia Islam, the main religion of Iran.
In a similar way, the Israelis greatly underestimate the tenacity of the Palestinians.
During WW2, Germany lost about 10% of its population and Japan about 5% of its population. That is what is required for unconditional surrender. Iran has 90 million people today. Are US leader willing to kill 5 or 9 million Iranians to compel their unconditional surrender? I think not.
Also, if the US does kill 5 million Iranians, doesn't that make them just as bad as the Iranian hardliners who want to wipe Israel off the map?
My advice to American leaders is to declare victory and stop bombing Iran. Otherwise, Iran will drag out this war to make us look like even bigger idiots than we have been already.
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At a March 2026 Christian worship service at the Pentagon — the first since the U.S. and Israel began military operations in Iran — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asked Pentagon officials to pray for “overwhelming violence” against enemies in Iran and elsewhere, invoking the “mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ”
Hegseth recited a prayer he says was given by a chaplain to troops ahead of the U.S. raid on Venezuela and the kidnapping of then-President Nicolás Maduro in January. The prayer, drawn from passages in Psalm 18:37–42 and other biblical texts, includes verses such as:
“I pursued my enemies and overtook them. I did not turn back till they were consumed. I thrust them through so that they were not able to rise. They fell under my feet… And those who hated me, I destroyed. They cried for help, but there was none to save” .
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I like Psalm 18:37 too, but that's John Wick stuff, not strategy.
Maybe Hegseth is unfamiliar with the "blessed are the peacemakers" and "turn the other cheek" - some of the most powerful words Jesus ever spoke.
Jesus was not a warrior and never killed anyone. Aside from that freakout at the temple with the blasphemous moneychangers, he never did violence of any sort.
And what kind of warrior turns himself over to his enemies to be tortured and humiliated? I don't believe Jesus rose from the dead. I do believe there was a real man named Jesus who said and did most of things described in the New Testament. Like Socrates, Jesus wanted to make statement with his death.
Thic Quang Duc did something similar on camera.
Various samurai endured excruciating seppuku suicide to make a point.
Iran is not a threat to the US, so we should not be fighting them. Israel needs to build walls a post guards, not buy F-35s or other fancy gadgets.
Israeli regular infantry is a joke. They'd be better off hiring fat, drunk, unemployed rednecks to protect them.
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