I know the Iranian conflict is almost 2 weeks in now, but why are some people dooming at this stage? USA casualties haven't even entered two digits yet as far as I read (eight). Still terrible to have death but compared to the 2k+ Iran is dealing with? Yeah.
The other thing people in the thread have talked about is the anger of the Iranian people and the possible arming of an uprising with a regime change. While I don't know how much crap the USA and Israel are moving to them or if it will end up a failure, there's still time. The only thing the USA seems to be suffering from is oil prices, cultural memory of other middle eastern wars, and reputation in the countries that want to stay passive to things (like Canada). Am I missing something? Why we dooming? We just got here, it's day 12.
It's hard to overstate how badly Vietnam and GWOT absolutely raped the consciousness of two generations. They'd rather wait around until some other superpower is literally firing nukes at them than take any proactive action.
Its easy when you're entire life has been peaceful and sheltered to think that military action is not needed. And the massive work necessary to actually get peaceful and sheltered tends to be forgotten. The US reaped the dividend of becoming the dominant power after the world wars and then the Cold War so people have no idea that sometimes a country has to fight for survival.
We survived the Cold War just fine so obviously it was completely unnecessary and evil. We should have let the commies do whatever they wanted with no interference whatsoever and everything would be exactly the same.
Going further back Muslim militancy hasn't been a serious existential threat to the West in ages so obviously they never were and never will be. We should just forget that time when they nearly wiped Christendom off the map.
Western Europe suffers from an especially acute case of this, since under US protection they haven't had to work very hard for their own defense for decades to the point where the Royal Navy now looks like some rich dude's private fleet and many of their own citizens don't even realize the US is protecting them. The seaways remain clear of pirates naturally and the Ruskies just stay on their own side of the fence. So whats the deal waving your penis compensating stick around here chud?
A side effect of this, and generational consumption of movie and tv slop and propaganda. Is that what military action does occur has to live up to impossible standards and it has to simultaneously be concluded in a neat and tidy obvious traditional victory. All wars need to be finished within a day with 0 casualties, 0 collateral damage in lives and property, and a complete regime change to a guy wearing a business suit and waving the American flag announcing the country will be America's BFF forever as he stands in a brand new sparkling western style city so that people watching TV understand unambiguously that they have won. After all, Iron man and superman can do it.
And as has been pointed out by other posters these goals end up running into each other sometimes making the failure even bigger than it would have been otherwise and you get stuff like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. And so the attitude reinforces itself out of the mess it created.