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Can Iran Be Saved?
In its March 2012 issue, Commentary published Can Iran Be Saved? by Sohrab Ahmari. The magazine's own page dates the essay to March 1, 2012. An American family should care because this is an early map of a ground war in Iran, written long before the bombing they have been watching. Ahmari weighs a Western land invasion, a smaller strike, and what a thin Western force on Iranian soil would mean after a government fell. It is a commentator's scenario, written fourteen years early.
Evidence rating: MODERATE. The rating covers Ahmari's own analysis in Commentary, March 2012, and the Hoover Institution writer he quotes on how Revolutionary Guard loyalists would fight "occupation forces" in Iran.
What the article says
Ahmari writes that Iran's nuclear program could lead to a military clash with the West. He says that clash might be an all-out land invasion or, more likely, a limited intervention meant to delay a nuclear weapon. He says either path could bring down the clerical government. He also says the government could fall from protests and sanctions, with no invasion at all. He writes that a full Western land invasion to topple the clerics is unlikely. A limited strike, he writes, could still cause a collapse, because the nuclear sites are spread out and a successful strike would have to wreck much of the country's defenses.
He then asks what happens after a collapse. He names the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the regime's main armed force, often called the Revolutionary Guard, and the Basij, a paramilitary force tied to it. He writes that dismantling them would be hard. If the collapse came from a limited strike or from sanctions, he writes, the problem would be worse, because the West would likely have only a minimal presence on the ground in Iran.
He quotes Leif Eckholm, then writing for the Hoover Institution, on an occupation. Eckholm wrote that occupation forces in Iran would meet the greatest resistance from Guard members loyal to the clerics, who would fall back, hit supply lines, and try to wear an invading army down. Ahmari writes that in a land invasion the Guard would probably try to bog foreign armies down in a long war of attrition. If the regime fell without that invasion, he writes, the Guard would likely try to overthrow whatever came next. He argues that a new government, with Western support, would have to bargain with some Guard factions and coerce the rest. He draws that lesson from Iraq in 2003, where he writes that dissolving the army and purging the Baath Party helped fuel the insurgency.
"The likelihood of an all-out Western land invasion aimed at toppling the mullahs is low."
Sohrab Ahmari, Commentary, March 2012.
What other reporting and posts add
Another 2012 estimate of what an invasion would cost. The same year, retired Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell under President George W. Bush, was quoted by Corporate Crime Reporter: "the only way you are going to get regime change and no nuclear weapon, you are going to need invasion. And that is going to take 500,000 troops, ten years and $2 trillion to $3 trillion." He also said "The American people – who polls show overwhelming oppose a war with Iran – need to wake up to the reality of the military industrial Congressional complex." Corporate Crime Reporter, 28 September 2012 (not opened; lines as captured). (capture: twitter/t03__v034.md)
How the numbers looked in 2026. Retired Gen. Philip Breedlove noted on Fox, as the World Socialist Web Site summarized it, that the 2003 Iraq invasion "required more than 300,000 US troops," while "the American force now in the region number 50,000, but few are ground troops." WSWS, 16 July 2026. (capture: twitter/t56__v668.md) In August 2026, a Jerusalem Post opinion column put the figure for a ground campaign at 750,000 to 1.5 million American troops; see The Jerusalem Post column.
What it shows
Fourteen years before the bombing, a pro-war magazine was already gaming out Western "occupation forces" in Iran and how the Revolutionary Guard would try to "bog foreign armies down in a long war of attrition." The same year, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, put the price of regime change by invasion at "500,000 troops, ten years and $2 trillion to $3 trillion."
The idea of American soldiers holding Iranian ground did not start in 2026; it was written into the debate years earlier. By 2026 an Israeli newspaper was sizing the force at 750,000 to 1.5 million Americans. See Force-Planning Documents and The Jerusalem Post Column.
Check it yourself
The essay is at https://www.commentary.org/articles/sohrab-ahmari/can-iran-be-saved/.
Status: Sohrab Ahmari is alive.
Why read a 2012 essay now: the war that began on 28 February 2026, when the United States and Israel started bombing Iran, is the kind of "limited intervention" Ahmari sketched fourteen years earlier. Commentary is a conservative American monthly, long associated with neoconservative foreign policy and strong support for Israel; Sohrab Ahmari, Iranian-born, was then an early-career writer and is now a well-known conservative editor. The Hoover Institution, whose scholar he quotes, is a conservative think tank at Stanford University. His central warning, that a thin Western force on the ground after a collapse would face Revolutionary Guard resistance, is the problem families face if "limited" becomes "occupation."
Research captures: twitter/t03__v034.md, twitter/t56__v668.md
Last Updated: 2026-09-26