And if recent reporting about munitions depletion are correct then very soon he won’t even have the option of continuing with his (pointless) carrot and stick ‘strategy’.
It’s shit or bust time Donald.
More here from CNN on the precariousness of the US miltary position when it comes to deciding next steps , and the utter bind that Trump finds himself in.
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Let a clown run things, and it’ll be a circus.
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Somehow that feels old, or it should do. I mean the US should have never started it in the first place but when they did getting out should also have been an obvious thing some time ago.
Unless they stretched it out because of the games being played in the oil market.
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Yeah,he just keeps falling in..because he believes he is god!
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Fake intelligence leads also to this:
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Midnight Hammer
It’s a complete shit show in planning. A relief group should have been sent months ago and if none was available, begs the question as to why not when about to start a war.
Another example of Pistol Pete and co thinking this would have been over in a week.
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The correct answer is that military planners have that as an option on the menu, but that the US and the incumbent government with it’s orange fruit-Fuhrer, absolutely, really doesn’t want to for several, some linked and some different; reasons.
The entire problem of course, is that many influential people in Iran understands this just as well as I do.
Notably, such an operation is also far more costly now, than 3 months ago. So basically, risk of large ground campaign wanes with time, it does not wax due to cost of having enough assets in the region on standby for larger operations.
My prediction: this will go on for months still, but only really with variations of Tit for Tat and with very low intensity.
It’s going to be: I hit ship, you hit ports, i hit another ship, you hit something. I bomb your base, you bomb a couple of mine..So a Shitshow, but at very low intensity. It-s zero sum, so Iran will suffer of course, but so will the US and the rest of the world due to far higher costs
I think what you are missing here is the US electoral cycle. Trump has so far run hot and cold in reaction to how much pressure he is feeling. Iran has lived through that, but are now embracing that logic. I expect them to escalate dramatically around the beginning of October.
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I am aware, but cost for operation will still rise and I doubt there will be anything but low intensity tit for tat (note, what I call low intensity can still be viewed as relatively high by some, but I refer to mobilised resources and intensity of operations over more than a couple of days).
Time will tell though, but i doubt Iran will force a land invasion with some sudden escalatory strike. They are as you note, clearly calibrating their actions (though of course, its government is not unified). But we’ll see. There is a lot of killing and destruction that can be done, and a lot of economic strangling, short of all out war.
Iran really don’t need to escalate.
They can continue the same playbook they’ve been following all the while. Block the straits , hit the Saudis with the houthis. There’s no need for any escalation. Not when they need to buy time till the mid terms.
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And the Iranians are entrenched in their positions. where would they even launch the ground invasion from ?
My suspicion is that the Mandab Strait will be shut down with a dramatic escalation right around October 1
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- I have a feeling many of those 1500+ ships taking the Dark Route were either from the Iranian Shadow Fleet, or had tactic understanding with Iran/IRGC.
- How much Iran has collected from those 1300+ ships going through its designated route?
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@Magnus meant forcing the US hand to put troops on the ground, I’m sure.
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