Japan, South Korea, Philippines and Australia are taking notes. Prediction: there is not going to be a war over Taiwan - Taiwan will gradually come to a Hong Kong like agreement with China.
Iran would be attacking other nearby states regardless of whether they host US military bases. Iran has a long history of aggression, including sponsoring terrorist groups. Personally I favor a less interventionist US foreign policy but even if we completely disengaged from the Middle East it would still be a violent neighborhood — probably even more so.
The US has a longer history of aggression and sponsoring terrorist groups:
Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-pro...
During the Iran–Iraq War, which began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran on 22 September 1980,[1] the United States adopted a policy of providing support to Iraq in the form of several billion dollars' worth of economic aid, dual-use technology, intelligence sharing (e.g., IMINT), and special operations training.[2] This U.S. support, along with support from most of the Arab world, proved vital in helping Iraq sustain military operations against Iran.[3] The documented sale of dual-use technology, with one notable example being Iraq's acquisition of 45 Bell helicopters in 1985,[4][5] was effectively a workaround for a ban on direct arms transfers; U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East dictated that Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism because of the Iraqi government's historical ties with groups like the Palestinian Liberation Front and the Abu Nidal Organization, among others.[6] However, this designation was removed in 1982 to facilitate broader support for the Iraqis as the conflict dragged on in Iran's favour.
AFAIK Iran never directly attacked several countries (e.g. UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi, Bahrain) before this war.
Donny also goes back on his word constantly. Look at all the trade agreements that he signed before 'liberation day'. Look at really everything afterwards too.
Even if Iran wanted to sign something, they can't. It will mean nothing. They know that.
One has to wonder how much of the bad US performance is due to deep, systemic problems and how much is due to a rushed and unplanned military operation.
instead the islamic republic's "strategic patience" fully paid off and now most rational people sees them as victims.
what trump's doing is like trying to cure multi-drug resistant bacterial infection with whatever random antibiotics are on hand - the very thing that created resistance.
Here is the craziest thing in Ukraine. We don't even have terms for this, it looks like "air-launched high-speed quad-copter interceptor?"
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:v7762wvbhnna4t4gptkbjogc/po...
now.
Their war propaganda is so much better than that of the US military.
Lego Trump, soul-crushing tweets, with Trump it is like taking candy from a toddler but still…
I’m glad the US is winning so hard they don’t know what to do about it.
Otherwise, they would look blatantly incompetent on a Russian army 3-day special operation level.
I am seriously no longer concerned about Greenland.
My personal preference would have been that the US had built it's bases in the same manor is Iran or better. At least I think we could have possibly done better. Keeping most infrastructure under ground means less dependency on power for cooling, more surface land for other functions. Maybe put some earth-bermed greenhouses on the surface and grow some produce for the locals.
I should add that one way to think of it is that Iran built those amazing underground missile cities just for the US to take over. It won't be easy and there will be mass casualties but I think that since we paid for them we should annex them. Some countries in northern Europe have similar underground bases. I would love to visit them. The closest to that I have been inside was NORAD.
What exactly would that be supposed to achieve? American belief that guns to random people solve everything is beyond absurd.
Basiji are just regular kids with guns. It would make a huge difference.
More important than guns though is probably the ability to coordinate (satellite connectivity, p2p networking, etc..)
I know the inventory size of US military forces...spare me that argument. A superpower is defined by what it can make happen, not what it owns. Russia owns nukes and can't take Kyiv. The US owns eleven carrier groups and needs Pakistan to pass notes to Tehran. Inventory is not power. Outcomes are.
- Ripped up the JCPOA in 2016, freezing Iranian assets while imposing maximum-pressure sanctions; not even lifting them during Covid, blocking medicines and essential supplies which causing untold number of avoidable deaths. Biden also kept most of these sanctions in place during his term.
- Initiated a currency crisis to instigate "popular uprisings" in December of last year ( which immediately followed Netanyahu's sixth visit to the White House and in which Netanyahu secured Trump's go-ahead). The US Treasury secretary boasted : "We created a dollar shortage in the country. The Iranian currency went into free fall, inflation exploded”
- On cue, the CIA , Mossad coordinated and armed the "peaceful protestors" with Mossad openly tweeting in farsi : "Go out together into the streets. The time has come... We are with you in the field." Also Mike Pompeo : "Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them.". As the USS Gerald Ford was making its way over to the Middle-east from murder and kidnapping operations in the Caribbean, Trump truth-socialled to iranians to "KEEP PROTESTING -TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!" and "HELP IS ON ITS WAY,"
- Trump recently also admitted to Fox New that they sent lots of weapons to Iranians via the Iraqi Kurds : "We sent a lot of guns to the Iranian protesters, we sent guns through the Kurds, I think the Kurds kept them."
All of this was on top of decades-worth of covert operations, assassinations, sabotage operations, and (let's be honest for once) terrorist attacks via various proxies. All garnished with agitprop laundered through the mainstream media, "independent media" , NGOs, think-tanks, human-rights and activists groups. Pretty much anything we hear about Irani s filtered through this states-funded, intelligence-directed machinery.
It is when these combined efforts failed that Trump finally resorted to threatening to destroy their civilization (which regardless of the means employed or who was in charge was always the endgame because that was the only outcome satisfactory to the Israelis)
If i had to guess where they failed, it would be doing all this on the back of the Genocidal war in Gaza and Israel's general invasion of the middle-east, plus the 12-day war and the countless live-streamed war-crimes not to mention the countless failed wars and "interventions" in the middle-east; There has been a mass-awakening about Israel's true nature and ambitions and how it has been the driving force for all these wars and behind the foreign policy of the US and its allies w.r.t. Iran. Also alienating, bullying and betraying your allies whether the Europeans, or the Kurds or anyone else, probably didn't help.
The sanctions never worked against the regime, they just brought Iran closer to Russia and China. Russia and Iran have not always been best friends (even recently).
Yes, the US/Israel initiated a currency crisis to instigate "popular uprisings" but they did it at the wrong time, the whole game is knowing when the situation is ripe and they screwed it up.
I would argue that the 2025 12-day war was also a huge mistake, you only get the element of surprise once. The 12-day war and the 2026 operations should have been combined.
They took away from the 2025 strikes that Iran was weak and wouldn’t respond beyond symbolic strikes…and that was wrong.
The whole thing feels rushed and it’s probably because of the midterm elections coming up, Trump thought he could get it done and that the news cycle would move on by November.
Plus I believe that if you took the “11 days away” claim off the table I don’t think you accurately say that a blockade without the military campaign first would have been successful. Seems like we are in a “what came first the chicken or the egg” moment.
There is no doubt in my mind that a blockade with an intact Iranian navy would not necessarily look like this one.
Do you want to cite a good source for this? I think you're confusing having enough 60% enriched uranium for "11 bombs" with "11 days." If Iran was 11 days away then what was the point of the 12-day war last year? The first step would be not blatantly lying to the public
There's way more evidence that iran wasn't building a nuke than that they were:
Gabbard Says Iran Did Not Rebuild Nuclear Program After 2025 Strikes, Contradicting Trump (March 19, 2026)
From the then U.S. Director of National Intelligence https://time.com/article/2026/03/18/tulsi-gabbard-iran-nucle...
Iran was nowhere close to a nuclear bomb, experts say (March 11 2026)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/iran-was-nowhere-...
It will be ironic if Iran gets a stronger position than they had before the war as a consequence of a peace treaty.
That's precisely the trap the Trump administration has created for itself. If the only way out is to lose, then you've already lost. And Iran knows it.
Degrade land based strike sorties and support sorties and push CVG back to ~1000km (where strike stories drop to ~50% due to tanking) = entire strike sortie sustainment math breaks hard. Less strike sorties -> even more dependence on high-end munitions. Combined with resilient antiair also denied US ability to move to budget (i.e. JDAM) mop up phase. Strategically Iran being able to soak US damage and still fire back = US air campaign tactically failed to degrade Iran missile complex chokehold over region. Consider US used up ~half of highend standoff and interceptors (if you believe CSIS) then status quo after crippling forward bases simply broke US war logistics. US cannot sustain (not even matter of afford) to fight Iran with current highend munition burnrate + cvg sortie generation, and and defeat Iran tactically to rely on lowend munitions without more political exposure, i.e. a few more pilot rescues going to start meaningfully chip away at US CSAR fleet. Nevermind political fallout of failed rescue or F35 down in Iranian soil.
Hence Trump pivoted to threatened civil infra / counter-value, US saw limits / diminishing returns on ability to neutralize remaining Iranian counter-force threats. US simply cannot afford to prosecute prolonged counter-force standoff air campaig without further strategic exhaustion. Same reason Iran shifted to counter-value oil/infra because the damage to US basing already done, and their ability to degrade US CSG sorties limited.
Obviously this applies to WestPac.
much of what you are saying sounds plausible to me, but i really don't know much about modern military tactics. do you have any suggestions for where i can learn more about that topic wrt how it applies to this war?
> Obviously this applies to WestPac
do you mean a a potential war with China? i dont think China has leverage over a critical choke point like Hormuz and is instead exposed to one (Malacca) that US would surely blockade.
<https://archive.is/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Fworld%2Fi...>
(All current copies have the same issue.)
In the same spirit, however, it would help to have an extension that auto-archives unpaywalled versions of paywalled articles, and makes them auto-available to users subject to the paywall.
American military bases and other equipment in the Persian Gulf region suffered extensive damage from Iranian strikes that is far worse than publicly acknowledged and is expected to cost billions of dollars to repair, according to three U.S. officials, two congressional aides and another person familiar with the damage.
The Iranian regime swiftly retaliated after the Trump administration attacked on Feb. 28, hitting dozens of targets across U.S. military bases in seven Middle East countries. Those attacks struck warehouses, command headquarters, aircraft hangars, satellite communications infrastructure, runways, high-end radar systems and dozens of aircraft, according to the U.S. officials and an assessment by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.
In the initial days of the war, an Iranian F-5 fighter jet bombed the U.S. base Camp Buehring in Kuwait, despite the base having air defenses, a rare breach that marked the first time an enemy fixed-wing aircraft has struck an American military base in years, according to two of the U.S. officials.
The U.S. bases that came under attack are home to thousands of American troops, and in some cases their families, though they were largely cleared out in the days and hours before the U.S. and Israeli went to war with Iran. The Pentagon has not detailed the extent of the damage to U.S. military bases publicly or, according to the U.S. officials, to members of Congress.
“We do not discuss battle damage assessments for operation security reasons,” a Pentagon official said in a statement. “Our forces remain fully operational, and we continue to execute our mission with the same readiness and combat effectiveness.”
U.S. Central Command declined to comment on battle damage assessments.
Last month, the administration asked private satellite companies, including Planet Labs, to withhold imagery of the bases from the public, making the extent of the destruction difficult to assess, according to the U.S. officials and experts, including a statement from Planet Labs to their customers.
The administration’s request remains in place, a Planet Labs spokesperson said. A White House spokesperson declined to comment.
Some Republican lawmakers privately have expressed frustration directly to senior Pentagon officials about their refusal to provide information about the extent of the damage or any cost estimate for repairs, according to two GOP congressional aides.
“No one knows anything. And it’s not for lack of asking,” one of the aides said. “We have been asking for weeks and not getting specifics, even as the Pentagon is asking for a record high budget.”
Asked for comment, White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said the U.S. had achieved the military objectives of Operation Epic Fury. “As the president has said, this was the last, best time to strike, and — thanks to our heroic warfighters — the operation was a tremendous success,” Wales said in a statement. “President Trump took decisive action to ensure that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon to threaten the United States or our assets and allies in the region, and Americans are already safer for it.”
The damage to and cost of repairing the bases could reignite a yearslong debate over the merits of maintaining U.S. bases in such close proximity to an adversary like Iran. Some national security officials, including some serving in the Trump administration, have for years pushed to move U.S. bases in the region further east and away from Tehran’s reaches. The issue also could embolden critics of America’s military presence overseas who have advocated for shrinking the U.S. presence in the Middle East, one U.S. official and one person familiar with the matter said. The three U.S. officials familiar with the damage to U.S. bases in the Middle East described it as extensive. The headquarters building for the U.S. Navy in Bahrain, the nerve center for the Navy’s operations in the region, sustained serious damage, the officials said. They said other parts of the base in Bahrain also suffered significant damage that is likely repairable.
Multiple hangars and warehouses at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait also were struck, according to the American Enterprise Institute’s unofficial assessment that was reviewed by NBC News. The assessment also shows a munitions storage facility at a military base in Erbil in northern Iraq was damaged and a runway at the sprawling Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar was destroyed.
U.S. bases had been cleared of U.S. troops and other personnel, so many of the bases were left essentially empty and vulnerable to attack by Iranian missiles and drones. Many of the troops who were temporarily relocated are expected to return to the bases once tensions in the region subside.
Thirteen U.S. troops have been killed in the conflict and as many as 400 have been wounded, although more than 90% have returned to duty, according to the U.S. military. The Pentagon has refused to provide specifics, but during an April 8 briefing, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine said the U.S. and partners in the Gulf region intercepted 1,700 ballistic missiles and one-way attack drones during the war. A fourth U.S. official said only a fraction of the projectiles actually got through the U.S. and ally defenses.
Congress is considering legislation to support the cost of the war, including unspecified repairs and other costs in a so-called supplemental bill that could exceed $100 billion, according to two of the U.S. officials and two other people familiar with the matter.
According to the AEI’s assessment, Iran hit more than 100 targets across 11 bases in seven Gulf countries. Those attacks fell on U.S. and host-nation bases in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
“As part of Epic Fury, the potential future costs to rebuild American military infrastructure overseas may include repair, reconstruction, outright replacement, or even abandonment/decommissioning of locales,” Mackenzie Eaglen, a senior fellow at AEI, said in a statement about the group’s assessment. “War damage also includes estimated costs for infrastructure that is unsalvageable.”
Eaglen’s cost estimate for repairing the infrastructure is more than $5 billion, but that amount does not account for some of the radar systems, weapons systems, aircraft and other equipment destroyed in the Iranian strikes, she said. Eaglen has worked on defense and budgetary and military readiness issues for years and is a former Pentagon official.
The Iranians damaged at least two air defense systems in the region, according to the U.S. officials.
Iran has also destroyed U.S. military aircraft. NBC News reported that at least one fighter jet, more than a dozen MQ-9 Reaper drones, two MC-130 tankers and four helicopters known as “little birds” were also destroyed.
Additional helicopters, tankers, an E-3 Sentry plane and two more helicopters known as Jolly Greens were also damaged, according to U.S. officials and information provided during a Pentagon briefing.
Radar systems in the UAE and a satellite communication system in Bahrain were also damaged the U.S. officials said, but it’s not clear whether Bahrain or the UAE would cover the cost of those systems.
https://old.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1svdezz/iran_ca...
Iran as example: Iran is ~5x larger than Iraq by most metrics, US generated ~5x more sorties in Iraq than Iran (with more carriers and regional basing). Factor in hits on Iraq was with 10% precise munitions, Iran has 100%, but Iran doctrine also designed to tank hits by forcing US to expend more munitions etc... rough napkin match suggests mathematically unlikely for US to damage Iran on same scale vs Iraq given Iran's size, US+co sortie #s and air campaign time frame.
Then see initial claims that 100% of Iran regional strike complex destroyed, but Iran obviously still hitting regional targets at XYZ rate (online trackers etc) and you get better sense of picture. News of ~50% of US forward basing hit, enablers like AWACS or radars hit that will further reduce US efficiency, carrier moved from 500km to 1000km standoff, losing airframes flying over Iran, and it's clear Iran maintains ability to fire back, and what they can hit is effectively forcing US to adopt more conservative tactics to stay outside of Iranian fires. Which translates to even less efficiency - less strike sorties (more tanking) and more highend munitions (to reduce risk). Integrate relevant stats as they become available - CSIS report on ~50% of high end stand off, ~50% of high end interceptors expended and numbers suggest US can not mathematically sustain air campaign tempo which has reached marginal effect in terms of suppressing Iranian ability to fire back without unsustainably burning through high end munition stockpiles for much longer before complete strategic insolvency (US cannot fight peer war without these munitions). It all comports to US air campaign cannot defang Iran militarily, even if it might, continuing would be Pyrrhic, then all the talk about blowing up Iranian civilian infra, doing counter blockade to conserve munitions, moving to negotiations suddenly makes sense.
>i dont think China has leverage
In terms of immediate leverage ~90% of highend semi production and/or semi supply chain, reminder many, many, sole source semi suppliers feeding TSMC Arizona / US fabs from east Asia. Arguably bespoke semi supply chain is currently MORE vulnerable, i.e. less redundant than global oil which have many geographic sources.
In terms of blockade, draw a 5000km circle around PRC. That is PRC IRBM / Antiship range covers Malacca, Hormuz, Aden, aka all critical energy SLOCs. PRC have demonstrate coordinated hypersonic antiship missile strike on moving target at sea, with sufficient space ISR to track US shipping in these regions + PRC industrial base = PRC has magnitude greater potential than Iran to degrade US in much broader geographic theaters, and not just land basing but actively deployed navy, i.e. US not capable of blocking Malacca for long because PRC IRBMs can (at least according to demonstrations) take out US ships, their replenishment fleet or the basing that tops up the replenishment fleet... every piece of logistic chain that sustains USN is exquisitely vulnerable to PRC fires. Ditto with USAF tanking/sustainment/logistics.
In terms of REAL PRC leverage, Draw a 8000km circle, this reaches CONUS - 2025 DoD/W China report finally acknowledges PRC has ability conventionally strike west coast. Note earlier disclaimer that important to filter motivations, i.e. these capabilities have existed for years, it was only acknowledged in 2025. Now ask if PRC can make their 10000km+ missiles conventional, then simple geography math will inform that will reach Texas... that's PADD3, i.e. most of US oil strategic production. That's PRC actual leverage to US blockade (legally act of war) - escalating to reciprocal energy disruption on CONUS. US blockade was only viable strategy if damage unilateral/lowcost (i.e. PRC 10-15 years ago / Iran now). Current consequence with respect to PRC is PRC has option to reciprocally degrade CONUS energy extraction/refining at source for mutual disruption. All signs point to PRC skipping US model of CSGs, B21s for rocket based conventional global strike. Hence game theory behind blockade is broken. I surmise will take a few more years before DoD China report acknowledges broader CONUS vulnerability, and once PRC's CONUS level leverage is treated as baseline, a lot of strategic calculations / narratives will have to shift.
It's not up to either of us but to your point I suspect that will occur regardless of what you or I desire. We stepped into the bog of eternal stench that is country #7 Iran. This has been planned for a very long time but every president has been able to back out of it.
Trump started it and only has authorization for about another 5 business days but I suspect congress will begrudgingly approve bipartisan authorization to not only keep our soldiers on the ground but to send another 500k to 700k as anything less would likely be ineffective against their defenses. This can not be solved by technology alone. I can only hope that we undo what we created 50 years ago and give Iran back to it's people and stop the endless proxy wars. Since I can spend hope it's free and nearly meaningless I also hope we welcome our soldiers back with more dignity than we did for the Vietnam veterans this time.
>This U.S. support, along with support from most of the Arab world, proved vital in helping Iraq sustain military operations against Iran.
Is using chemical weapons on civilian targets in cities and villages not terrorism?
Anyway, there are earlier and more direct instances of the US sponsoring terrorists groups.
Intelligence agencies. But you can't ensure it.
>Is using chemical weapons on civilian targets in cities and villages not terrorism?
I'm not an expert on the Iran-Iraq war and I'm a bit tired for research ATM but I'm going to assume the USA did not provide it's help for chemical weapons use, and that there was plenty of conventional conflict going on to provide assistance for.
>Anyway, there are earlier and more direct instances of the US sponsoring terrorists groups.
Sure, but we should point to when that happened. Not when the USA supported a government to do something at the same time as they did something bad.
Wot? Will this apply if goes after Greenland too like he has threatened?
Same as the Ukrainian had the audacity to act as a sovereign nation and seek membership of alliances that benefited themselves.
Air strikes are effective at killing people and destroying property, but their impact on the situation on the ground is limited. Even if you manage to destroy the regime, there needs to be an alternative with sufficient legitimacy and institutional support to replace it. But authoritarian regimes are pretty good at keeping the opposition weak and fragmented, making such alternatives unlikely to emerge. So you either need occupying forces to provide the institutional support, or the likely outcome is a civil war.
You have the Artesh in Iran, their standard military which is bigger than the IRGC and aren't under Islamist rule and they are loyal more to the democratically elected government than the Islamist one.
> But authoritarian regimes are pretty good at keeping the opposition weak and fragmented, making such alternatives unlikely to emerge.
They never destroyed the Artesh, that army has been the same since before the 1979 revolution, so your analysis is wrong for Iran since they do have those power structures in place. If you destroy IRGC the rest of Iran would run just fine. They have elections, they have a democratically elected government of reformists who want to move away from Islamist rule, those elected politicians however don't have the power to do that currently but if you shift the power enough it could happen.
The Gaza war is a good example. Israel quickly reduced Hamas to a mostly reactive resistance force. But it was unable to destroy Hamas as a relevant force.
As for the standard military, authoritarian regimes are also keenly aware of the threat posed by the military. That's why they have large internal security forces, such as the IRGC. Common practices to mitigate the threat include promoting harmless unambitious people to leadership positions and trying to keep the ranks free of people with strong ideological commitments. While the standard military outnumbers the internal security forces, it tends to consist of people willing to serve the regime and choose the status quo over a civil war.
Instead, of course, he tore it up in exchange for... Nothing.
Well, not nothing, Israel likes to have an excuse to bomb Iran whenever Bibi needs an excuse to stay out of prison.
TW forceful reunification even if depopulated husk basically done deal, the real question is whether PRC wants to do an Iran and push US security out of east Asia, which is ultimate grand strategic goal. And to be blunt TW is perfect casus belli to spark this. PRC would be net worse off long run getting TW peacefully and but still deal with US security in region. Hence whether Iran can squeeze US out of CENTOM (even marginally) will set huge precedence.
Forced reunification would risk destroying that, either as incidental damage through military operations, or as sabotage.
Far better would be to sit back and allow the US to continue proving itself incompetent and unreliable, until being subsumed like Hong Kong doesn't seem like such a bad deal.
In my opinion if it’s not true and Iran communicated it…that would be a huge miscalculation by Iran.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACqWRsde4Ys
https://thehill.com/policy/international/5751330-witkoff-ira...
Also, per reports, it was looking like they will have a deal and Iran was making concessions. In both cases, they got bombed as they were making them
Witkoff is an untrustworthy idiot, negotiator unable to make deals.
While I am not big on trust either, I am perplexed why “successful” negotiations would all of a sudden turn on a dime into a regional military event without a major catalyst— especially this close to midterms. This action was not politically helpful to Trump, was risky with his base, yet he did it anyway.
Hilarious but sad that this is the state of HN.
After you get some rest consider reading the article. Maybe you can have it read to you like a audiobook, might be easier? Some of the original CIA documents are at the bottom.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-pro...
I pulled some key quotes for you:
In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq’s war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein’s military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.
The Reagan administration decided that it was better to let the attacks continue if they might turn the tide of the war. And even if they were discovered, the CIA wagered that international outrage and condemnation would be muted
senior U.S. officials were being regularly informed about the scale of the nerve gas attacks
declassified CIA documents show that Casey and other top officials were repeatedly informed about Iraq’s chemical attacks and its plans for launching more
The use of chemical weapons in war is banned under the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which states that parties “will exert every effort to induce other States to accede to the” agreement. Iraq never ratified the protocol; the United States did in 1975.
By 1988, U.S. intelligence was flowing freely to Hussein’s military. That March, Iraq launched a nerve gas attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja in northern IraqTo the extent that this ends in military action, it's going to be the rest of the world protecting the Iranian toll regime from USA piracy. Even Trump won't pull that trigger. Watch for the TACO.
Why do you say that? IRGC lost 90% of their corrupt income when USA blockaded their shadow fleet of oil tankers, they are weaker than ever right now, it is hard for any organization to survive long when losing 90% of their income. They rely on a large amount of mercenaries currently to keep the population under house arrest, but what happens when those no longer get paid?
That seems like a very brittle position to me.
IRGC can't absorb that for more than a few months either, and if the world wants to open the strait they would rather attack Iran over the strait than attack USA, so there is no way this state will benefit IRGC if it keeps up.
It was IRGC mining friendly countries waters and attacking ships in friendly waters, every country affected has the right to go attack IRGC over that but they choose to wait and see for now. But if it gets as bad as you suggest then they will just force Iran to open it, they wont force USA to do anything since its not USA that is illegally blocking it.
Obviously not me personally but is absolutely up to the USA that created the current Iranian government to do so. We made the mess and should clean up the mess. Iran used to be one of the top five most technologically advanced countries and one of the most progressive countries in the middle east up until the point we twerked it up by putting zealots in power and repeatedly funding them.
Yes, exactly this. The US (CIA) and Britain (MI5) were playing let's topple a government and this was the outcome. Even if indirect the end result is that we created the current mess. What I stated holds true.
Do you really think the US can achieve anything positive by putting troops on the ground?
I did not say that. I said that is the only way the desired end result is going to happen and that toppling them through technology will not work such as air strikes, electronic warfare and such. There will be mass casualties, I said that.
Have you learned nothing from Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam or Korea?
It is not up to me to learn something. If it were up to me there never would have been any kinetic wars at all. I prefer to start with economic warfare and then use discreet covert operations until they succeed. It takes longer but people are impatient and greedy. That's not my fault as far as I know.
I've enjoyed our conversation but I must get back on the gaming machine and sink some pirate ships to get my reputation up with the Brethren. Perhaps we can pick this back up tomorrow.
IRGC is an oil money empire, they aren't ideological warriors they are mercenaries that fight for money, remove the oil and the empire crumbles. Its like removing ad revenue from Google, it would destroy the company and what is left would be a small husk of its former self.
So blocking the oil will massively weaken IRGC and keep Artesh the same, since Artesh is made up of people who actually want to fight for the country.
Sure they have some nice statements about ideology and saving the world etc on top, but the main driver is the money.
Authoritarian regimes also understand that they need to keep their core supporters happy. If oil money dries up, everyone else will suffer before the IRGC. See North Korea for an example.
90% of IRGC funding comes directly from their own oil empire, without oil they barely have any funding. They can't make the other parts suffer before themselves here since they get it directly from owning the oil exports, it doesn't go via the government.
If they start trying to take money from the military then they would start the civil war themselves, they can't do that.
> doesn't seem like such a bad deal
This fundamentally doesn't address that US would still retain security architecture in region, i.e. TW doesn't host much US hardware anyway - taking tw does not meaningfully shift security balance. The only way to ensure relative geopolitical sanctuary is to boot US forward basing out of East Asia, and to be blunt that is not something done peacefully from PRC side, i.e. unless US voluntarily abdicate from theatre and I don't see that happening. Now maybe PRC can establish overwhelmingly advantageous regional force balance that it's obvious to all US posture no longer security dilemma for PRC, but I wouldn't discount PRC simply wanting to remove US forces from regional equation just to be sure.
I guess more generally PRC can play a much longer game than the US, which seems intent on destroying its standing with the rest of the world by electing absolute buffoons every 4 years. How many years of this can allies tolerate?
Shutting down the strait of Hormuz for example is extremely damaging to US allies in Asia and we can expect more incompetence over time.
There is scenario where US incompetence will negate security dilemma, but see how hard JP is hedging. I would not put money on it. The additional layer to this is US security architecture of of East Asia is not just US basing, but US hardware in general... forcing region to no longer operate US platforms that gathers intel for US MIC / break region interoperability (including data sharing) with US. PRC unlikely to convince JP/SKR/SG etc to abandon F35s politically (because alternative worse vs PRC), at least within lifespan of platforms. That requires glassing hardware and coercing alternate procurement.
If anything, Taiwan proves that Chinese people can be perfectly fine and rich without the authoritarian grip of the PCC. That's the most likely reason why the PCC clique wants to invade TW.
It can make a lot of sense when you understand the people involved are deeply incompetent, aggressively overconfident, and are surrounded by religious extremists saying this needs to be done for Jesus to come back.
I mean, after all, we bombed them months ago and nothing happened. We just nabbed another head of state with zero issues. Nothing bad is going to happen, we've got this! We'll just breeze in and crush them in a few days. Which we did, mission success, that's why we're all finished already, right?
It was literally only until the last 5 words that I realized you were not talking about Iran. Funny how you ignore their part in all this.
However, I do want to take issue with the idea of “deeply incompetent”. That doesn't fit. They are either extremely competent at implementing their political agenda, or extremely lucky. Additionally this whole situation is contrary to the Trump administration’s normal playbook. If anything is consistent about Trump is that he panders to his base. This was the exact opposite. Why the change?
Thats the problem with assuming that this is Trump business as usual, its not…which is why I feel that there is a catalyst to go off their normal playbook.
Or extremely corrupt and down to take hundreds of millions (billions?) by foreign puppet masters who help them win elections. Maybe competent at exerting their will over people with less power than them and playing up people's hatreds for influence, but other than that I don't really see competence.
How does Witkoff have so much money again? Oh that's right, he's bought and paid for by Qataris.
Under what credentials was Witkoff selected for his role? Clearly he's someone with a deep history of geopolitics right? Maybe some war tactician? Someone with history studying how non-proliferation treaties work, or really any kind of understanding about how uranium enrichment works? If not any of that does he at least speak the language or understand the cultures of the Iranians? Oh that's right, he's just buddy-buddy with the President through running in the same real-estate circles. Sure seems like the competent choice for leading such negotiations.
Even Trump's selection of who to lead negotiations is an obvious example of the extreme incompetence and flagrant corruption of which this whole thing has been executed.
> If anything is consistent about Trump is that he panders to his base
Just like how he's released the Epstein files as promised or built the wall and had Mexico pay for it right? He does whatever he wants and his base just retcons and goes with it.
Both their subsequent behavior and their other statements.
> I am perplexed why “successful” negotiations would all of a sudden turn on a dime into a regional military event without a major catalyst
America and Israel wanted that war regardless of outcome of the negotiations. Iranians making concessions was going against actual goals of these two countries. Israel is actively sabotaging ceasefires and trying to enlarge their territory. American administration simply finds wars cool.
Also, by all reports, Witkoff and Kushner dont know much about nuclear. They are, basically, incompetent. They did not understood the things being give up. And before you call that false accusation, Russia complained about them not understanding their position too - and that is despite Witkoff and Kushner being on Russia side. They are able to bully their way to get some stuff they want - that works with some targets (Venezuela) and did not worked here nor in Ukraine.
> especially this close to midterms. This action was not politically helpful to Trump, was risky with his base, yet he did it anyway.
Majority of republicans support this war. And no one else matter to Trump. Hegseth, Trump and company were proud of starting this war. In their minds, it made them feel and look powerful, manly and strong. Republicans also think it makes them strong and manly.
Trump already made Venezuela into vassal dictatorship, threatened Greenland, threatened Canada, plans to attack Cuba is bombing fisherman boats and murdering sailors, builds concentration camps, supports Russian invasion, supported Orban ... it is all perfectly consistent.
Edit: And if you read or listen conservative analysists from defense background, their idea of ceasefire was "oh, well, we will continue bombing every few months". The war and bombing as something normal other countries are just assumed to accept as just a no big deal thing America does is fairly common ideology among them.
Are Iranians safe now?
The US put the Shah in power which directly resulted in torture and killing of Iranians, and led to the Islamic Revolution.
The US removed Iraq from the list of state sponsors of terrors specifically so that Saddam could bomb Iran, including with chemical weapons.
You sound like you’ve never heard the major arguments against your position.
Notably, Iran did not retaliate in kind to the US sponsored Iraqi attack with chemical weapons, now considered weapons of mass destruction. This might be related to the notion that WMDs are un-Islamic, which got formalized as Khamenei's fatwa against nuclear weapons.
Edit: Since some people don't seem to believe me:
> The clock was programmed to count down from 8,411 days, corresponding to a 2015 statement by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who predicted that "Israel won't exist in 25 years".[1][2][3] He claimed in his statement that there will be nothing left of the Jewish state by 2040.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Square_Countdown_Clo...
Well, that was the reason last Tuesday, or was it the Friday before that? I forget, since there's been so many.
The NYT article on it is interesting (and possibly paywalled). https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-wa...
I would love to know who chose the name "Epic Fury" (other than some kid in a COD lobby). Epic Fury. E.F. Epstein Files.
I don't see that happening... Also if they want to escort tankers, they can escort tankers from US-allied countries, and I assume US would also help.
Overall, I legit do not see a way where countries would pick to fight against US instead of Iran if we ever get there. But maybe, I am wrong, so who knows :)
No, but I believe China and Europe believe that they can stare down Trump and force a TACO more than they believe in their ability to successfully navigate the ridiculous shitstorm in the gulf.
I repeat for like the ninth time: It is the USA, and not Iran, that is actually preventing commerce in the gulf as a matter of national policy. Iran just wants to get paid, basically. Trump wants... what, exactly? And that's the problem. The rest of the world needs a solution and not bluster. Iran offers one, Trump just yells a lot.
In any case, it's just an arrangement that has worked for the IRGC so far. If it stops working, the regime can make other arrangements. Such as extracting more money from the 90% of the population that are not particularly relevant to the continued existence of the regime.
This is not at all obvious to me. Money and economic power historically is downstream of military power - men with guns can expropriate whatever they want or need from their unarmed, isolated population. The only thing that is potentially upstream of military power is ideology, which also favors IRGC and Iran security forces as they seem to be most ideologically fervent faction in Iran.
The USA is literally blockading the strait to prevent tolling. I mean, in some sense you're right: the Trump threat is fake and he'll cave. But the policy you're ascribing to Iran, incorrectly, is actually what your government claims to be doing!
I remain just absolutely dumbfounded at the ability of this administration's defenders to just dig in on obvious lies. Surely on some level you get that you're being lied to, right?
USA is blockading Iran, they don't blockade anyone but Iran.
> But the policy you're ascribing to Iran, incorrectly, is actually what your government claims to be doing!
I'm not an american. And no, USA doesn't block anyone but Iran here, blockading an enemy nations ports is fair game during war, blockading third party ports that tries to sail through their own waters like Iran does is not. The strait isn't Irans strait, they put mines all over the place in Omans waters, that is extremely illegal and basically a declaration of war against Oman to do so.
Edit: Maybe you misunderstood USAs blockade as they blockading anyone who pay Iranian tolls. No they don't do that, that was just a deranged statement by Trump, CENTCOM later announced the real blockade and it was just a blockade against Iranian ports, nothing about Iranian tolls.
For fuck's sake, as it were: https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2043344995181011027
"Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz." - President Donald J. Trump
The inability of people to reason from clear evidence about this president, and instead project onto him whatever rationalizations they've come up with, is absolutely astounding.
Now, again, that is what the president SAID. It is clearly not the actual military stance of the USN in the strait, because that would be insane. But it remains US policy and to argue otherwise is... yikes.
But seriously, why do you think a nuclear bomb is required for Israel not to exist in 25 years?
Haven't Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, East Germany, Serbia, Montenegro, and the Soviet Union all ceased to exist in the last 50 years?
I have no idea what the actual outcome would be other than it would take a massive force and there would be significant (greater than 13%) losses. I defer such simulations to W.O.P.R. and I agree they are not push-overs. That's why every president when suggested to take them on has declined. There are some theories that have suggested they would eventually have to be taken on as part of some global reset and some global push back to the petro-dollar but they are just theories.
I’m not a Trump supporter but I am exhausted watching other people who don’t support him provide such lazy arguments.
It's useful continuing to point out the extreme corruption taking place right in front of us, especially when the topic is if they're competent or not. You're saying they're clearly competent, and yet the people involved hold zero credentials to do the job they're there for.
What about any of this has shown competence to you?
> such lazy arguments.
It's sad to see so many fellow citizens just not care about the extreme corruption and just excuse it. Wake up.
The arguments only seem lazy because they're obvious truths. There's nothing left to debate, they just are. The only question is, do you care about the extreme corruption leading to this absolute shitshow or do you just continue to excuse it?
Witkoff and Kushner are by far extremely poor choices to choose if you want competent people in there. There are probably thousands of people far more qualified to be there. Why do you think they were chosen, if not corruption and nepotism?
They are and were true about literally every Trump administration member. Trump does not tolerate competent people well, he requires loyalty and puts people through loyalty tests. Trump also prefers corrupt people - they are like him and understand each other. All of that appeals to sizable portion of electorate. They also enjoy watching the cruelty, as a bonus.
Trump is good at bullying. You do not need to be competent negotiator or understand nuclear issues to be rich. Especially in an environment Witkoff and Kushner are from - all you need there is bullying and money. (But also, Trump inherited his money and proceeded to fail his business ventures literally whole his life.).
I'm arguing you can't trust what they say about what was said at these meetings, because they've shown they can't be trusted to tell the truth at any time. Bessent says they said that, but you can't trust him. He's a liar. This is the problem when you have an administration that lies all the time even about little things. You can't even begin to actually trust the big things.
But that is a whole separate topic from speaking to the hypothetical “we should have tried a blockade first”. Whether you believe the justification or not there is a honesty to the timing, immediacy, and level of violence of the action here. When you couple that with some indisputable facts here—we know that for nearly five decades Iran has advocated genocide on Israel and the US as a matter of their state policy. We know that they have repeatedly acted when they could to this end. We know they were seeking nuclear weapons. We know that active diplomacy was going on and then it turned on a dime suddenly to military action.
It seems to me that the level of military violence inflicted on Iran with such a short switch from diplomatic talks was consistent with the belief by someone that they were danger close to having a nuclear weapon. You can be dishonest and corrupt, but still see and act on immediate threats.
Other countries can see this as well, USA is letting them through and their navy there says they will, they all know Trump spouts a bunch of bullshit so you look at what they do instead of what they say. I haven't seen other countries say USA must stop blockading so they see this as well, they would complain if USA actually blocked any unrelated traffic through the strait but they never did do that.
Of course not, there were none.
The "facts on the ground" are that the strait is closed to shipping, has been closed, and seems likely to remain closed for the foreseeable future. Yet you think that is somehow not because of the very clearly stated policy of the world's sole superpower which has been pursuing a war in the region?
That's just... batshit. "OK, you said you'd do this. And you did this. And it happened. But you didn't do it!" Literally that's your logic.
Like I said: the ability of the right wing to create for itself a fantasy world that excuses away all the failings of their movement, even to the extent of disbelieving and writing off the actions of their leaders where they don't fit the desired narrative is just amazing.
This situation is in large part due to bad decisions by American leaders, with this one being an absolute stand out.
The thread isn’t eliminated and America looks weaker.
The threat is eliminated, Iran will not be a threat again after this. If USA pulls out Israel will finish the job for sure since Iran isn't in a position to stop Israel bombing their powerplants, and without power they can't do anything.
So the question now is what state we can get after the threat is eliminated, not if the elimination was successful.
I guess we will see. They have worked out how to control the straits quite effectively and made the US look very foolish. It’s weakened a load of US relationships and damaged a load of economies.
For a regime that’s eliminated, it’s sure proving hard to wrap things up, and the oil is not flowing.
It’s going to be interesting to see what any peace settlement looks like as the longer it goes on the worse it hurts everyone. Will Iran be the first to cave?
Is this what America winning looks like?
Israel, on the other hand, has been manipulating the US president into entering an unwinable war, bombs its neighbors, including UN blue helmets soldiers, and now invades Lebanon and Syria. Its officials have publicly stated to agree with the "great Israel" plan.
Why aren't the USA considering that Israel is a threat and bombing it as a result (since it's the only available tool, apparently?).