Hegseth fired top general for warning Iran ground war would be logistical nightmare: Analyst

The sudden dismissal of the top US Army general may not be about personnel promotions as reports suggest, but a signal that Secretary of War Peter Hegseth is pushing for a ground invasion of Iran, according to a US-based geopolitical analyst.

Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, a geopolitical analyst, in a post on X, said General Randy George, the US Army's Chief of Staff, was unceremoniously removed because he opposed Hegseth's aggressive posture toward Tehran, raising concerns that the administration is preparing for a land war that many military minds believe would be disastrous.

According to Ben-Ephraim, George, a seasoned infantry officer who was involved in the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, had raised serious concerns about the high costs and logistical nightmares of a ground war in Iran's difficult geography.

The top American general reportedly argued that a ground invasion of Iran would be "too costly to launch and too destabilizing to sustain."

The friction between George and Hegseth reportedly escalated as thousands of soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division began arriving in West Asia.

Unlike Marines, these soldiers fall under direct Army control. While the Trump administration has publicly avoided confirming plans for a ground war, the deployment of these elite units is widely seen as clear preparation for one – a move George reportedly resisted as premature or strategically unsound.

Ben-Ephraim noted that Hegseth has publicly criticized senior military leadership for being "overly concerned with the legalities of warfare" and has sought to install officers more aligned with what he calls a "lethal mindset" for immediate combat.

George, a Biden appointee, was increasingly viewed as an obstacle to this openly aggressive and potentially disastrous posture.

George's removal is the latest in a series of more than a dozen high-level firings by Hegseth.

It occurred just one day after President Donald Trump's national address, in which he claimed the aggression would continue against Iran for a few more weeks.

Hegseth hastily moved to replace George with an interim military officer, General Christopher LaNeve, a close former aide to the war secretary.

Ben-Ephraim drew a parallel to the 2003 dismissal of General Eric Shinseki, who was sidelined after disagreeing with the Bush administration over the troop levels needed for the Iraq War, which ended up being a disastrous military excursion.

"This shows very clearly that Hegseth is pushing for an invasion," the analyst stated.

What remains unclear, Ben-Ephraim noted, is whether Trump is fully on board with Hegseth's apparent push for a ground invasion.

"My feeling is that he is very hesitant to do it because of the terrible political position he is in and the analysis from all serious military minds that it would be a disaster," he said.

According to NBC News, citing US officials, Hegseth dismissed two other army generals as well on Thursday – Maj. Gen. William Green, the chief of chaplains, and David Hodne, the commanding general of Army Transformation and Training Command.

Hegseth has removed many military officials during Trump's second term. Last year, he fired Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, who headed the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, after a preliminary assessment by the agency in June suggested that US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities had been less extensive than Trump had claimed.

Before that, he sacked Navy Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, the US military representative to NATO's military committee.

Others that have been fired by Hegseth include Joint Chiefs Chairman CQ Brown Jr.; Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh, who led the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command; Navy Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Navy's top officer; and Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan, according to NBC News.

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