2026-09-14
Send Ground Troops to Iran
Regarding the Liberation of Iran
Dear Prime Minister,
In May 2005, I wrote to Prime Minister John Howard requesting a declaration of war on Iran. That letter is on the public record at antisubjugator.blogspot.com/2005/05/declaration-of-war-on-iran.html. It asked for air superiority, a call for the Iranian population to rise, and bridgeheads for defecting conscripts and liberated towns. It asked the Australian government to lead.
The Australian government did not lead. It did not respond in any substantive form. The response is also on the record.
Twenty-one years have passed. In February 2026 the United States and Israel struck Iran. The air campaign has degraded the regime's military capability. A ceasefire is in effect. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Iran's ports are blockaded.
I am writing again. Not to say I was right. The record already contains that. I am writing because the situation now presents the same question in a new form, and the answer the Australian government gives will determine the outcome.
The United States is reluctant to commit ground forces. Air power alone has not produced regime change. The regime survives. The population has not risen. The pattern is familiar.
The reasons are documented in the corpus I have produced over the intervening years. The short version is this.
The Iranian population has watched Afghanistan. They have watched Libya. They have watched the United States liberate a country, support the installation of a government, and then withdraw before the installation had taken hold. They have seen the Afghan military collapse when the air support was removed. They have seen the Libyan militias fill the vacuum after the coalition left. They have learned the lesson: do not rise up for a coalition that will leave.
Air power does not address this. Air power is the same instrument that was supposed to be sufficient in Libya. Air power was the instrument that abandoned Afghanistan in 2021. The Iranian population has watched the pattern fail twice. They will not rise for a pattern that has already failed twice in twenty years.
What is missing is not firepower. What is missing is credibility. The Iranians do not believe the coalition will stay. Until they believe it, they will not move. Until they move, the regime will survive. The air campaign becomes a stalemate. The war produces no change.
The credibility signal is the missing piece. Australia can provide it.
I am asking the Australian government to commit a ground presence to the Iran operation. Not a large force. Not a coalition invasion. A token force whose purpose is not military capability but credibility. A force the Iranian population can see and believe. A force they know will not leave the moment the shooting stops.
The model is the one that worked in Afghanistan in 2001. A small number of special forces. Air supremacy. Local allies doing the ground work. The coalition provides the bridgehead, the signal of commitment, and the sustained presence through the transition. The population rises. The defecting conscripts have somewhere to go. The regime collapses. The installation begins.
That model did not fail in Afghanistan in 2021. It was abandoned in Afghanistan in 2021. The failure was political will, not military methodology. The same failure pattern is repeating in Iran now. The air campaign alone will not produce the outcome. A ground presence is what makes the air campaign work.
I am not asking for an occupation. The difference between a credibility signal and an occupation is precise and it is the difference the Australian government must understand.
An occupation is a coalition force that intends to govern the country. It installs a government of its choosing. It stays indefinitely. It treats the population as subjects of its administration. In the end it becomes the same category of thing the original regime was.
A credibility signal is a coalition force that exists to support the population's liberation. It does not govern. It supports the government the population installs. It stays only as long as the installation requires. It treats the population as the tribe it is defending. It leaves when the installation holds.
The framework that makes the second possible is documented. It is the anti-subjugation framework. The installation window. The tribe expansion. The pledge. The family government. These are the tools that make the difference between a liberated country and an occupied one. Australia has the framework. The United States has the firepower. Neither alone is sufficient. Together they are the complete operation.
I am asking the Australian government to consider this. Not as a demand. As a proposal. The Iranian population is being shot in the street. Women are being raped in state prisons. Students are chanting "Death to Khamenei" and then disappearing. They are waiting to see whether anyone will stand with them. Air power is not enough. A ground signal is what is missing.
This letter is the same category as the last one. It is an open letter. It is on the record. It is published on my blog. Any response, or non-response, will be recorded alongside it.
The Iranians are waiting. The pattern is known. The signal is what is missing.
Yours sincerely,Paul Edwards
