Comment by carefree-bob

That is a unique view of what happened in Vietnam.

But let's look at a more modern example that makes your case: Syria. The US starved that country, seizing the food and oil, funding/arming terror groups - not just the kurds but also Al Nusra and other islamic terror groups, invading portions of the country and placing military bases there to give air support to terror operations and maintain control of the oil wells, blowing up pipelines, for over a decade. Finally after years of starvation and hyperinflation, the government collapsed as the generals were bribed by Qatar (or the Qataris were just intermediaries, we don't know) to lay down their arms and let the Jolani regime take over. When you are convinced your nation doesn't have a future, suitcases of cash and exit visas to mansions in London do wonders.

So yeah, you can punish a nation so much that it is easy to take over.

But, can the world survive 10 years of the straight of Hormuz being closed? I doubt it. Syria was a small country and it held out for a decade. Sure, it had help from Russia and China, but so does Iran now. When the US was strangling Syria, we already controlled the oil and food producing regions of the country. But there is no such arrangement in Iran, and Syria was not able to close off a major shipping lane like Iran can.

So I am skeptical that the US can outlast Iran and inflict enough misery on them to overthrow the region before this Iran adventure is brought to a close by world oil prices and US domestic political unrest.