Iran

[ButchPlz]

Y'all are missing the point. There is a lot of random rage here. Here is a sober well reasoned analysis.

This analyst lives in Doha, Qatar and was stationed in Iraq during the Irag war. He has a well-reasoned viewpoint. He says he "worked for the US Department of State and advised defence and intelligence agencies in multiple countries. I have no interest in cheerleading for war."

Two weeks into Operation Epic Fury, the dominant narrative has settled into a comfortable groove: The United States and Israel stumbled into a war without a plan. Iran is retaliating across the region. Oil prices are surging, and the world is facing another Middle Eastern quagmire. US senators have called it a blunder. Cable news has tallied the crises. Commentators have warned of a long war....

But this narrative is wrong. Not because the costs are imaginary, but because the critics are measuring the wrong things. They are cataloguing the price of the campaign while ignoring the strategic ledger.

When you look at what has actually happened to Iran’s principal instruments of power – its ballistic missile arsenal, its nuclear infrastructure, its air defences, its navy and its proxy command architecture – the picture is not one of US failure. It is one of systematic, phased degradation of a threat that previous administrations allowed to grow for four decades.

I write this from Doha, where Iranian missiles have triggered alerts for residents to take shelter and Qatar Airways has started operating evacuation flights.

The US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working. Here is why​

Every aspect of Iran’s ability to project regional power is being successfully degraded.

Once again, an opinion piece is opinion.

Our President is out there making absolutely unhinged pleas for assistance. Arguably the most important transit route for oil is still shut down (I will ask again, if Iran's military and capability is destroyed, who is shutting it down?), with the SecDef saying "well if Iran would just stop shooting at things oil would flow". You absolute ****wits, you're telling us on one hand everything is under control while reality is showing us it absolutely isn't under control (from a US perspective). They, and this guy, clearly think we're all stupid.

If there is "degradation", it's not apparent to anyone on planet earth.

 

[appvol]

 

[ButchPlz]

I agree. Maybe it's because I was younger during Iraq, but the propaganda and the push to hide everything negative seems so obvious this time

Maybe it's just that Trump and his administration are way dumber than ol' W, which is saying something.

Or maybe the internet is actually a bit of a blessing.

 

[appvol]

You didn't watch this did you?

Yes I did. So was this guy good at what he did or bad.

 

[FortSanders]

Hilarious but again, if there's no Iranian navy, air force, or weapons systems, who the hell is closing down the Strait of Hormuz?

Methinks this conflict isn't going as well as we're being led to believe.

Read the above analysis from Al-Jazeera. It only takes one drone or one missile to shut down the Straight. Insurers have classified coverage of tankers as an uninsurable risk.

 

[utvolpj]

, would have produced exactly the crisis everyone claims to fear: a nuclear-armed Iran

 

[ButchPlz]

Read the above analysis from Al-Jazeera. It only takes one drone or one missile to shut down the Straight. Insurers have classified coverage of tankers as an uninsurable risk.

Did the US not offer to provide the necessary insurance? I also don't buy at all that it takes one missile or drone to shut down an entire shipping route. That's BS and anyone with a brain knows it.

And if all this is true, the insurance bit alone tells you exactly what the world thinks of our word in the US.

 

[lawgator1]

The analyst concludes:

[C]ritics are making a different error: They are treating the costs of action as if the costs of inaction were zero. They were not. They were measured in the slow accretion of a threat that, left unchecked, would have produced exactly the crisis everyone claims to fear: a nuclear-armed Iran capable of closing the Strait of Hormuz at will, surrounded by proxy forces that could hold the entire region hostage indefinitely.

Seventeen days in, Iran’s supreme leader is dead, his successor is reportedly wounded and every principal instrument of Iranian power projection – missiles, nuclear infrastructure, air defences, the navy, proxy command networks – has been degraded beyond near-term recovery. The campaign’s execution has been imperfect, its public communication poor and its post-conflict planning incomplete. War is never clean. But the strategy – the actual strategy, measured in degraded capabilities rather than cable news cycles – is working.

The US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working. Here is why​

Every aspect of Iran’s ability to project regional power is being successfully degraded.

No one is saying that Iran was NO threat in the long-term. No one is saying the problem should be ignored.

The issue is that Trump et al have justified this particular action by claiming that Iran was an imminent threat. I am willing to listen to non-partisan intelligence that says that was true, and if so to end up agreeing to this. But so far, all sources (other than Trump, Hegseth, and their minions) say Iran was not an imminent threat.

And it comes off as being an excuse to have agreed to do Israel's bidding, especially given the first comments of Rubio and Johnson, since walked back by them.

 

[NashVol11]

Uh huh

 

[appvol]

 

[NashVol11]

If ANY of that were REMOTELY true Trump would have said it earlier today.

Trump would never say something true, be serious

 

[NashVol11]

Here's Trump incoherently claiming to have destroyed Iran's nuclear capabilities last year, and bringing peace the Middle-East.

He forgot his own slogan

 

[NashVol11]

The analyst concludes:

[C]ritics are making a different error: They are treating the costs of action as if the costs of inaction were zero. They were not. They were measured in the slow accretion of a threat that, left unchecked, would have produced exactly the crisis everyone claims to fear: a nuclear-armed Iran capable of closing the Strait of Hormuz at will, surrounded by proxy forces that could hold the entire region hostage indefinitely.

Seventeen days in, Iran’s supreme leader is dead, his successor is reportedly wounded and every principal instrument of Iranian power projection – missiles, nuclear infrastructure, air defences, the navy, proxy command networks – has been degraded beyond near-term recovery. The campaign’s execution has been imperfect, its public communication poor and its post-conflict planning incomplete. War is never clean. But the strategy – the actual strategy, measured in degraded capabilities rather than cable news cycles – is working.

The US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working. Here is why​

Every aspect of Iran’s ability to project regional power is being successfully degraded.

This one opinion piece has now been posted like 5x in this thread including three consecutive posts from you alone, the war hawks are really desperate to cling to something

 

[appvol]

Uh huh guess Trump changed his mind now

 

[NashVol11]

Do you believe that?

 

[utvolpj]

Can a country start a nuclear war if they don't have nuclear weapons?

 

[DuckInAPen]

ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY

 

[CobbVol]

 

[Vol8188]

“They’re winning”

“They can do this forever”

 

[Matt2496]

It’s looking more and more like Trump had no clear plan. I genuinely think he thought the Iranian people would rise up against their government during the striking, without any consideration for how the Iranians would actually pull such a thing off. They are a completely disarmed populous. How in the world could you not see that they are incapable of revolting in any meaningful way? How in the world could you not see that this was going to be way more dirty and complicated than Venezuela? It’s just baffling on so many levels.

 

[BeardedVol]

It’s looking more and more like Trump had no clear plan. I genuinely think he thought the Iranian people would rise up against their government during the striking, without any consideration for how the Iranians would actually pull such a thing off. They are a completely disarmed populous. How in the world could you not see that they are incapable of revolting in any meaningful way? How in the world could you not see that this was going to be way more dirty and complicated than Venezuela? It’s just baffling on so many levels.

No. This is just another move in the 23D chess game that Trump is playing while the likes of you, myself, and everyone else are playing Candyland.

 

[LouderVol]

there it is. WMDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Volbucky]

Can a country start a nuclear war if they don't have nuclear weapons?

They either had them and wouldnt have used them of they didn’t have them? Pick a lane. Which is it?

 

[DuckInAPen]

How in the world could you not see that they are incapable of revolting in any meaningful way? How in the world could you not see that this was going to be way more dirty and complicated than Venezuela?

By replacing all the conscientious public servants that populated your first administration with a mass of unqualified and unscrupulous sycophants.

 

[NashVol11]

They either had them and wouldnt have used them of they didn’t have them? Pick a lane. Which is it?

Who has said that Iran had nuclear weapons already?