It would be a bloody war though, emphasis on 'bloody', and Iran is roughly three times the size of Iraq, there are a lot more people and a lot more land.
The Iranian WMD thing is certainly a convenient causus belli.
Rougher land, too, not that "bloody" needed any further emphasis at all. Iraq had the benefit of being mostly flat, especially in the regions where the population most opposed to occupation primarily resided. With the mass-draining of the marshes under Hussein (with precisely this goal in mind, mind), the only particularly rough land in Iraq was in the Kurdish-controlled northern highlands, which were friendly to the US forces. Iran, by contrast, is dominated by the Zagros Mountains that run from Turkey to Hormuz, and in case one of the roughest mountain ranges of Eurasia wasn't enough, the Alborz and Aladagh ranges dominate northern Iran as well. Moreover, the majority of the population resides in these rough areas; the only flatlands with significant populations are Khuzestan and the Caspian shore, while the two great salt deserts are terrible mixes of ridges, ravines, and sinkholes in which, thankfully, very few people actually live. The best comparator for Iran in terms of geography is Afghanistan, which is similarly dominated by the Hindu Kush and smaller adjoining ranges that fan out westward. Mix that with a largely united population (unlike either Afghanistan or Iraq) that is by and large supportive of their government (especially outside the cities), and it's a recipe for a truly nasty guerilla campaign.
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Topic: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: T+0 (Read 1419524 times)