Name: Mearsheimer: Once war with Iran drags on, the US is destined to lose
Uploaded: 2026-03-14T15:39:02.000Z
Duration: 4 min 11 s
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We're now talking about a protracted war.

And in this long war, the United States is going to be at a significant disadvantage.

It's very important to understand that once Iran withstands the initial attacks and the war gets drawn out, Iran is in a much stronger position than the United States and Israel, because all Iran has to do to win this war is to survive and at the same time continue to inflict punishment on Israel, the United States and its allies in the Arab world, and

to continue to shut down the Straits of Hormuz and cause great pain not only in the Middle east, but

So the fact that the United States was unable to win a quick and decisive victory tells you that the United States is in trouble.

As this war settles into a protracted war, there's no way that Iran can defeat the United States military in a fight.

The United States won every battle in the Vietnam War.

There was no way the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong could engage the American military and win a victory on the battlefield.

The United States, as I said, always won the battles, but the United States lost the war.

And the same thing, by the way, was true in Afghanistan.

Nobody would deny that the United States was infinitely more powerful than the Taliban, but

And by the way, the Soviet Union had the same experience in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989.

So what you're going to see happen in the Middle east is that the United States will inflict massive pain on Iran, but

it will not be able to win the war in the long term because it will not be able to overthrow the existing regime, number one.

And number two, replace it with a regime that is subservient to the United States and to Israel.

It's just very important to understand that you cannot get Iran to give up its ballistic missiles, to stop its nuclear enrichment program, and

to stop supporting the Houthis, Hezbollah, and, and Hamas.

Unless you have a regime in place in Tehran that is subservient to the United States and Israel.

And if you look at how this war has started and how it's likely to play out, it's hard to see how the United States is going to get a regime in Tehran that will do what the Americans want and indeed, as the United States and the Israelis, and

That will cause the Iranian people to rally around the regime, to support the regime, and

to hate the Americans and to hate the Israelis and not want to see a regime in place that accommodates American and Israeli interests.

So this serious bombing campaign that we're now engaged in was where we're killing large numbers of Iranian civilians, does not facilitate regime change, it hinders regime change.