The Iran War (was Nuclear Program) thread

[kluurs]

Best strategic idea since a mustached guy decided he could wage a 3 front war

[Axtremus]

And just like that ... Greenland is spared.
(Until the next episode.)

[AndyD]

Looks like part of the US to me

[jon-nyc]

He’s getting frustrated. But at the end of the day it will be really hard to declare victory if he can’t open the strait. Giving up without doing so will embolden the regime and change the calculus of our allies in the gulf and beyond.

[Mik]

It's SO too late to pull the "allies" in. You break it...

I'm not sure what they could really add to the picture that we can't anyway.

[jon-nyc]

My understanding is raw numbers of ships for escorts. Something like 130 ships a day traverse the straight. Even in small convoys you need a lot of ships.

[Renauda]

@jon-nyc said:

He’s getting frustrated. But at the end of the day it will be really hard to declare victory if he can’t open the strait. Giving up without doing so will embolden the regime and change the calculus of our allies in the gulf and beyond.

Seems to me, keeping “the Strait” open for safe passage is very much in the interests of several multinational American oil and gas producers. There are also both large and small US based O & G equipment manufacturers and service companies operating throughout the Persian Gulf which depend on those shipping lanes.

The Gulf region supplies Asia with the bulk its sulphur and potash for fertiliser production. With the Strait closed, this driving to price of fertiliser up globally. Owing to this great uncertainty, the rising costs of diesel fuel and fertiliser will make 2026 to be an expensive year for US farmers to sow their fields. Those added expenses will be felt by virtually everyone in the US when they go to the grocery store. If there was no affordability crisis before this, there soon will be especially come autumn.

So for Trump to say “we don’t” [use it] is wholly false.

[jon-nyc]

Yeah as I said before my fear (and, frankly, expectation) is that he’ll give up when the political price of continuing the war gets too high and just paint a bullseye around the current state of things, whatever they happen to be. This could end up being part of it.

[Mik]

I still haven't heard much about the state of affairs in country. Seems like if there were uprisings, we'd be hearing about them long and loud.

[Renauda]

I don’t think we will see Iranians take to the streets anytime soon. Between the bombs and the state organs of repression, they remain sufficiently cowed into passivity. That however could change very quickly and violently if it becomes difficult to find food.

Regardless, the longer the war goes on the more difficult it will be down the road for the West in general, the Israelis in particular and the US specifically, to win many Persian hearts and minds. Based on what I read and hear, that between the US and Israelis, it is only the latter that fully grasps the importance of creating the necessary conditions as soon as possible to effect regime change from below. I don’t sense much savy in that regard coming out of the WH.