It makes one think if, when things go "well enough" (depending on your personal POV), if there may be a chance to see the corrupt ruling families in at least some Gulf states maybe getting the Pahlavi treatment.
Some — or even most — of the royal houses ruling Arab sheikhdoms can be characterized as complicated, problematic or even outright bad (depending on your perspective and the ruling clan in question), but the potential non-royal alternatives may turn out far worse.
To explain why I think that's on the table, we have to consider that there's a rather big divide between the general population and the ruling class when it comes to their opinion on the US, Israel and the wider middle east. When we also factor in that the US could be too distracted to continue propping up these corrupt leaders, and the population smelling the opportunity for change, feeling completely abandoned and betrayed (perhaps having put up with being cozy with US and IL due to protection, which has evidently not aligned with reality).
Grassroots regime change is rare, especially without savage economic turmoil as a catalyst.
What's more likely is that some enterprising prince is going to recognize popular discontent as an opportunity to coup his cousin, brother, uncle or father.
Then all there's left is for the Police and parts of the military to flip and maybe being eager to take a shot at establishing a new government.
Just something that crossed my mind, as some of these Gulf states seem only held together with oil, dollars and american troops.
The militaries and security forces of Arab sheikhdoms are often difficult to flip by design.
Forces like the Saudi Arabian National Guard and the Jordanian Royal Guard typically recruit on the basis of tribal loyalties, while certain other enterprises hire thousands of foreign mercenaries who are disinterested in local politics and grievances.
You talk as though the only way to determine American capability is what they say.
The entire Iranian army has nothing to do right now.
Sending in special forces just means they get wiped out, or worse paraded before getting hanged
You don't need Trump to say anything to know that's not an option.
Highly unlikely the US will conduct SOF raids inside Iran without the neutralization of Iranian air defenses (minus MANPADS) in the general vicinity of the objective, and the allocation of significant quantities of CAS and ISR assets overhead.
In other words, any Artesh or IRGC ground troops approaching a JSOC strike force will get shredded and bombed before they're even close enough to make contact with direct fire (unless they're waiting inside a UGF to execute an ambush, or possibly if US forces are restrained by ROE due to the need to capture or extract someone alive).
Regardless, even if the Iranians manage to smoke an entire Ranger company, they'll pay for it with casualties that will be at least a full order of magnitude greater.
I get this forum tends to be rather sympathetic to Iran, and it's understandable given who their principal enemy is. However, the Iranians are functionally overmatched by the US military in almost every possible kinetic scenario, with the primary exception being a prolonged COIN campaign.
