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Next5. American Soldiers on the Ground in Iran — Videos

American Soldiers on the Ground in Iran 2025–2030 — Articles

You have heard that Iran is being bombed. This section answers the question an American family asks next: will our sons and daughters be sent to fight on the ground inside Iran? "On the ground" means soldiers and Marines standing on Iranian soil, not pilots overhead or sailors offshore. The answer this investigation finds, in the published record, is that the road to that outcome is being built one step at a time, while the public is told that nothing of the kind is happening.

Start with how the war is described. On 28 February 2026 the United States and Israel launched a joint air war on Iran, called Operation Epic Fury by the Pentagon and Operation Roaring Lion by Israel. It came eight months after the June 2025 "twelve-day war," when US bombers hit Iran's nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. From the first day, Washington said this would be a war from the air and sea. President Trump said "I'm not putting troops anywhere." Secretary of State Rubio said the goals could be met "without any ground troops." Those words are real. So is everything that happened around them.

Israel's leaders said the war needs soldiers on the ground, and Israel's own press said they would not be Israeli. Three weeks into the war, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters in Jerusalem: "you can't do revolutions from the air ... there has to be a ground component, as well," and declined to say whose. On CBS's 60 Minutes in May he said Iran's enriched uranium must be removed: "You go in, and you take it out." In the same weeks, Israel's Channel 12 reported that "Israeli soldiers will not be participating on the ground" in any US operation, and the Times of Israel explained why: Israel's army was stretched across Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank, and its own chief of staff warned it was about 20,000 soldiers short. Put those together and the ground component has one candidate left: Americans.

An Israeli newspaper then printed the number. On 30 August 2026 the Jerusalem Post, Israel's best-known English-language daily, ran a column by security analyst AJ Jaff estimating that a successful ground campaign against Iran would take "between 750 thousand and 1.5 million American troops," noting that the entire active US Army is about 452,000, and proposing to fill the gap by wiping out the student loans and credit-card debt of young Americans who enlist. That is where the "half a million to a million Americans" you may have heard about comes from. Iran's foreign ministry answered it by name. American papers on the right and left called it what it is: a plan to recruit indebted young Americans for Israel's war.

The Pentagon drew up the ground plans and moved the ground forces. CBS reported on 20 March 2026 that commanders had made "detailed preparations for deploying U.S. ground forces into Iran," down to "where Iranian prisoners-of-war would be sent." Axios reported "final blow" options that "could include the use of ground forces." The Washington Post reported the Pentagon preparing "weeks of ground operations" to raid the coast near the Strait of Hormuz and seize islands, and Israel's Times of Israel and Jerusalem Post carried it to Israeli readers the next morning. Meanwhile the forces built for going ashore arrived: the 31st and 11th Marine Expeditionary Units, the 82nd Airborne Division's rapid-response brigade, special operations units, and more than 50,000 American troops in the region, with deployments since extended into 2027.

Americans have already fought on Iranian soil. In April 2026, after an F-15E was shot down over Iran, more than 90 American service members went in on the ground to bring the two airmen home, under fire. The head of US Central Command called them "the first acknowledged US 'boots on the ground' in Iran in 46 years." In June, CNN reported that a ground mission to seize Iran's uranium had been prepared and then paused by the President. In July, the New York Post reported a uranium raid that "would involve thousands of ground troops storming Iran's nuclear facilities."

And the price is already being paid, and undercounted. At least 19 Americans have died and more than 860 have been wounded by the Pentagon's own public count; five US officials told the Washington Post the real number of dead is at least 22. In July the Pentagon took four of the dead off the Epic Fury count and refiled them under a new label that began on the same date the administration used to restart the War Powers clock. The war has cost between $33 billion and $45 billion by official estimates and drained up to two-thirds of certain US missile-defense interceptors. The Pentagon rewrote its rules to call former soldiers in the Individual Ready Reserve "a mobilization asset," the Marine Reserve's commander told his Marines that "a mass mobilization could become reality," and automatic draft registration of every young man 18 to 26 begins in December 2026.

That is the pattern this section documents: a foreign government that wants a ground war it will not fight, a newspaper in that country sizing an American army to fight it, a Pentagon that plans and positions for it, and officials who tell the public "no boots on the ground" in the same week. Every page below is built from sources you can open yourself, starting with Israeli outlets writing in English, because no one can dismiss them as hostile outsiders.

In this section

Israel wants a ground war it will not fight

Israel's leaders have been careful with their words, and the care is the point. Netanyahu said a ground component is needed and "I take the liberty of not sharing with you all those possibilities." Former defense minister and IDF chief Benny Gantz, asked about ground troops two days into the war, said "I exclude nothing." Israel's ambassador in Washington, Michael Leiter, declined on CBS to rule out boots on the ground. A State Department legal opinion, dated 21 April 2026, says the United States entered the war "at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally." And in June 2025, during the first round, Axios reported a senior US official saying "Israelis are effectively encouraging the US to engage in a ground war with Iran if an air war doesn't immobilize Iranian nuclear sites."

The other half of the picture comes from Israel's own media. Channel 12 and Israel Hayom reported that Israel would contribute airstrikes, intelligence, and airpower to a US ground operation, but not infantry. Israel's defense minister Israel Katz said Israel has "never asked the United States to fight alongside us in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria" — and in the same breath credited Netanyahu with "bringing the United States to act alongside Israel against Iran."

The number: 750,000 to 1.5 million Americans

The largest figure anyone has published for an American ground army in Iran appeared in an Israeli newspaper. The Jerusalem Post column set the need at 750,000 to 1.5 million US troops against "Iran's 31 provincial commands and its Mosaic Defense Doctrine," and proposed a "federally administered debt-forgiveness enlistment program" to get young Americans into uniform. Its author later wrote that the Pentagon would need those soldiers "(or mercenaries)" for "a ground invasion by Q3 2027." The same half-million-to-a-million range turns up from former Army officers, analysts, and the White House's own adviser David Sacks, who warned an invasion could take "possibly a million soldiers." Every figure, who said it, and where, is on one page.

What Israel's press tells its readers

Israeli outlets in English and Hebrew covered the push for American ground troops openly: op-eds urging the President to send them, analysts explaining why only American boots can seize the uranium, Ynet explaining to Israeli readers how automatic US draft registration raises fears of a return to conscription, and a Mako report on an actor calling for a US draft. Behind the current war sits an older pattern, in which pro-Israel voices argued for keeping and adding American troops in the region to confront Iran, including a 2019 report that Israel pushed for 14,000 more US troops in the Middle East.

Why an air war leads to a ground war

Air power alone has never toppled a government. CSIS's Mark Cancian said so in the war's first week: "Air power alone has never been able to effect regime change. So, they need something else." The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Dan Caine, told lawmakers "Air power has its limits," and Central Command went looking for "new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran." Each stated war aim — regime change, the uranium, the Strait of Hormuz — is one that bombing cannot finish. That is the logic that walks an air war onto the ground.

The plans, the targets, and the forces

The Pentagon's March 2026 ground options were reported by CBS, NBC, Axios, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, and carried in Israel by the Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post, Israel Hayom, Haaretz, Ynet, i24NEWS, and Channel 13. The named targets are specific: Kharg Island, which handles about 90% of Iran's oil exports; the coast along the Strait of Hormuz; and the buried nuclear sites that hold roughly 450 kg of highly enriched uranium. The units sent are the ones built to go ashore.

Already on Iranian soil

The April 2026 rescue is the first acknowledged American ground action in Iran since 1980: more than 90 service members on the ground, hundreds more in the air, 155 aircraft, two MC-130J transports destroyed on Iranian ground so they would not fall into Iranian hands. Israel's papers reported it in detail. Iran, for its part, has run drills near Tehran simulating a US invasion, and its parliament speaker claims millions of volunteers have signed up for exactly that fight.

"No boots on the ground" — set against the record

This is the heart of the section. Put the official words next to the dated events and a pattern appears. On 20 March 2026 the White House said the President had "no plans" to send troops into Iran — the same day CBS reported the Pentagon's detailed ground preparations and the Wall Street Journal reported thousands more Marines on their way. Trump said "I'm not putting troops anywhere," and in the same breath: "If I were, I certainly wouldn't tell you." Defense Secretary Hegseth said Iran "thinks there are 15 different ways we could come at them with boots on the ground. And guess what? There are." The same pattern ran in June 2025: the White House said reports of a US attack were "not true" five days before US bombers struck Fordow. Congress heard something different behind closed doors; Sen. Richard Blumenthal came out of a classified briefing saying "We seem to be on a path toward deploying American troops on the ground in Iran."

How big a ground war would be

Washington has sized this war on paper for twenty years: an Army staff college thesis in 2007 on using land power against Iran's nuclear program, Brookings's Which Path to Persia? in 2009, the Iran Project's 2012 cost study, RAND's 2017 force-projection study, and a 2019 Pentagon plan to send as many as 120,000 troops to the region. Scale the 2003 Iraq invasion to Iran's population and size and the estimates run from 600,000 to 1.6 million troops, several times the whole active Army. That is why every serious ground-war estimate leads to the same place: the draft.

Read more: Force-Planning Documents · Troop Math

The price, the hidden toll, and the road to a draft

The war fought "from the air" has already killed Americans at bases in Kuwait, Iraq, and Jordan, and the count has been managed: the dead refiled under "Overseas Operations," dozens of wounded added quietly, a Defense Secretary calling the Post's reporting "a complete lie." The money runs to tens of billions, taken partly from training and maintenance budgets. And the machinery for the next step is being assembled before anyone announces it: the Individual Ready Reserve redefined as "a mobilization asset," Guard units deployed, automatic Selective Service registration, and a draft "readiness simulation."

The articles themselves

Every claim on these pages goes back to a published article. The shelf holds 253 of them, each with its own page: 147 from Israeli outlets in English, Hebrew, French, Russian, and Spanish; 42 from Jewish and pro-Israel publications abroad; 29 from think tanks and official records; and the rest from American and international news and social posts. Each topic page above lists the articles filed under it, and the index lists them all by outlet and date.

Evidence at a glance

Claim	Rating	Page
Netanyahu said "there has to be a ground component" and would not say whose	CONFIRMED	Israeli Leaders
Israeli media reported Israel would send no infantry to a US ground operation	STRONG	Israel Keeps Its Infantry Home
The Jerusalem Post published a plan sizing an American ground army at 750,000 to 1.5 million, recruited through debt forgiveness	CONFIRMED	The Jerusalem Post Column
A State Department legal opinion says the US entered the war "at the request of" Israel	CONFIRMED	Israeli Leaders
The Pentagon prepared options for weeks of US ground operations in Iran in March 2026	CONFIRMED	Pentagon Ground Plans
Ground-capable forces (MEUs, 82nd Airborne, special operations) were sent toward Iran	CONFIRMED	The Buildup
More than 90 US troops fought on Iranian soil in April 2026	CONFIRMED	Americans on Iranian Soil
Official "no ground troops" statements were made alongside the plans and deployments that contradict them	CONFIRMED	"No Boots on the Ground"
A full ground war would need several times the active Army, pointing to a draft	STRONG	Troop Math
The public count of American dead was cut and relabeled in step with the War Powers clock	STRONG	The Hidden Toll
Mobilization machinery (IRR policy, automatic registration, draft simulation) is being built ahead of any order	CONFIRMED	Reserves and the Road to a Draft
Israel's government pressed for American ground forces it would not supply	MODERATE	A Long Pattern

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

In this section​

Israel wants a ground war it will not fight​

The number: 750,000 to 1.5 million Americans​

What Israel's press tells its readers​

Why an air war leads to a ground war​

The plans, the targets, and the forces​

Already on Iranian soil​

"No boots on the ground" — set against the record​

How big a ground war would be​

The price, the hidden toll, and the road to a draft​

The articles themselves​

Evidence at a glance​

Related Areas​