Fifteen minutes after the bombs start falling, the Iranians will hand over 5,000 RPG-29s, 1,000 anti-air missiles and 3,000 long-range missiles to 20 million enraged Shiites. The resulting carnage would make Dien Bien Phu look like a tea party. Just too ugly to imagine.
[WS:] There is a big difference between Dien Bien Phu and the Middle East. The Vietnamese received high tech weaponry and other logistical support from the USSR. This scenario is unlikely to be played again in the foreseeable future. Therefore, the Iranian reaction that you hint will be rather short lived and very limited in scope. It may produce rather limited damage to the imperial mercenary forces, and perhaps a bigger damage to the civilian population in the neighboring countries - but that will be easily managed by the empire. Do you think that a few thousand dead mercenaries will have any effect on gangsters in Washington, or for that matter, on the US populace? There will be waving flags and demanding more bombing in revenge, as they have in the past.
If there were draft and the US death rate exceeded 300 a month (the average US death rate in Vietnam) and stayed at that level for a year or two - you may see the US populace and some politicians growing restless. But even that, judging from history, would only bring another Nixon to power.
Wojtek