As posts for this topic seem to be spilling across several different threads now , I thought maybe we need a dedicated thread.
Continuing on from what Magnus had been talking about in the US Politics thread , here’s the (free to read) article from NYT with the self-contradictory interview with President ShitferBrains .
There’s a strange contrivance in play during all this regarding who is involved in this carnage or is not. The Uk is the greyest but Germany and other countries with significant US bases are grey enough. Just because you do not have boots on the ground does not mean you are not aiding and or facilitating.
The whole situation is ugly.
Luckily the UK has a single minded and decisive leader who has made it crystal clear exactly what our position is regarding this conflict.
From today’s FT editorial…
Trump appears to have made his decision to launch a war because the Iranian regime was at its weakest, rather than because it posed any imminent threat. Iran’s proxies have been decimated over the past two years and its nuclear programme severely degraded (if not “obliterated”, as Trump claimed) in the US-Israeli strikes last June. Its legitimacy at home has been shattered.
Trump’s hope may be that, as in Venezuela in January, the US can decapitate the regime and do a deal with insiders. This scenario, however, is not playing out in Iran. Now fighting an existential war it has long prepared for, the regime has lashed out all across the region, targeting Israel and US assets across the Gulf, and disrupting oil flows. That bombs are falling on neighbours that had counselled against a US strike appears to be of little consequence to an Iranian military bent on revenge.
At some point soon, Trump may opt to declare victory in the hope of moving on. As former American presidents found out, it’s easy to start a war in the Middle East but much harder to end it. This campaign has been dubbed “Operation Epic Fury.” Epic Gamble would be more appropriate.
Client Challenge via @FT
A short vid reviewing yesterday’s Sunday shows in the US and Trump allies’ struggling to defend or give any sane rationale for the attack. One stand out moment is the Lindsey Graham admission that they’ve been working in concert with Prince Salman of SA , and that he’s even had a voice in ‘choosing’ a suitable new leader who they can work with. That should go down well.
So the USA had a 5 day intensive bombing campaign planned. What happens after those 5 days?
We now hear that it’s now 4 weeks which will become 5 however the intensity will fall off considerably, surely.
Meanwhile a whole region will completely destabilised. Eventually all the foreign military bases in the middle east will be flattened.
The USA will withdraw.
Everyone will finish defending Israel
The power vacuum will be enormous and all the present regimes under pressure.
Who’s going to pick up the pieces?
Russia goes on what it’s doing in Ukraine.
Israel and Trump along with the Sunni Muslim countries line up to gang up against the Shia majority Iran.
Pakistan continue to bomb Afghanistan. Against the regime that they helped create.
It’s only a matter of time before the alliances are set in stone. But I’m afraid that Iran will not be able to hold out much longer. They can use cheap rockets in bulk and hope to drain Trump and Israel financially. But at the end , they will run out of components.
China isn’t exactly rushing to Iran’s help. It’s waiting and watching and profiteering by supplying components to both sides.
Ive read reports that Netanyahu has been hiding in Germany (unverified but )
The Ayatollah and his cohorts needed to go but it should have been the Iranian people doing that not this action and definitely not imposing Reza Pahlavi who will not be accepted by the average Iranian.
Kuwait just (probably) downed a US jet. Plan 9 from Outer Space rolls on.
Could write about how important deconfliction is, but that requires planning, so.
Note: iran also claims to have downed it, US says Kuwait by mistake and that makes more sense.
Apologies, Kuwait has shot down 3 US jets.
3…
Iran breaking all red lines, bringing all regional states into the war (of course, US should have planned for this, but I believe I have already criticised Plan 9 enough)
Iran also continues attacks on Cyprus, forcing Hellas and the UK to join. Because why not (while i am super critical of the US, Iran’s strategy of bringing France, all Gulf states and the UK in, just to press the US; is militarily insane).
This is perhaps the big debate. Of course as a ‘military power’ in the modern sense. Then it never really was. It has many small arms and a country that is very difficult to invade and control. It’s a country that could hold out a very long time.
Then there’s the tribal factions and how they react to not getting their share.
I’m not going to mention the religious stuff as I haven’t a clue how that will pan out however we are already seeing the top of the iceberg.
Essentially the longer this goes on the more unpredictable it becomes imo.
China doesn’t give a fuck here imo. This is Russian business. So it will be doing as you say keeping an eye on it’s business. Surely they are not happy about this as it’s going to eventually affect trade.
Consequence of Hezbollah’s suicide yesterday, which brought war and devastation to a competely exhausted Lebanon
Iran will not be able to fire ballistic missiles for a month (though they can save a few and launch a couple ofc, if they still have launchers by then), but they can absolutely stay in this war a month, if they are willing to sacrifice. And they might indeed, as have been reported.
Rockets are not the problem long term, it is shaheed drones, which the rest of the world finally notices, after having mocked Ukraine for years for failing to shoot everyone down. In a way, it is some what karmic that certain parties are subjected to Shaheeds.
Not so easy to shoot down all of them, which is why the UK is brining in Ukrainian experts.
Oil and gas prices going through the roof after Iran now has started bombing Gulf State oil and gas production, may force the US to back down before a month has gone tbh (those who scoff at this, should check the US arsenal, how many interceptors have they left, how many have they used, and the answer to this question would shock many and make them understand how fucked up this planning was) . If the Islamic Republic stays in the fight. They will take gigantic losses doing so, but strategic victory isn’t necessarily about symetry and winning battles. It’s also (for Iran) about face and reputation.
Anyway, this is just Day 3, so impossible to predict the future, but I don’t think the US admin feels good about this at current…
This was on Day 1.
But it’s part of the deal.
Trump on Iran: "There are people without arms and legs and faces that have been blown up. Iran is 95% of those. Those horrible events were caused by Iran.
We anticipated two to three weeks to take out some of the leadership, but we’ve taken out all of it in one day.
So that was well ahead of schedule. We always viewed it as a four-week operation.
They want to make a deal badly. I said you should have made it a week ago."
Mmm. You actually thought you could deescalate after 3-5 days, now it is 4-5 weeks with insane economical consequence for extremely unclear gains.