The US just burned up every bargaining chip it had with Iran, while Iran still has large part of its bargaining chips.
War is a test of will and capability. They now know our capability, if they ever doubted it, and we now know their will.
Ground invasion of Persia has the same discouraging history as ground invasion of Russia. Don’t do that.
There is no alternative to a deal, and any deal has to reflect realities. Well, what are the realities that have been revealed? The big thing we have learned is that our most potent bargaining chip is worth far less than we thought, for their will and cohesion is greater than we thought.
Well one unknown remains: They don’t know and we don’t know if we can stop them blocking the Persian gulf. If we can, we win, and they have no alternative but to cut a more balanced deal. But I very much doubt that we can, and finding out whether we can or not is going to be very expensive. If we cannot, well, any deal will have to be Persians just flat out win, US just flat out loses.
As with any war, you go in hoping that known unknowns will be resolved in your favor. Seeing dissent, incompetence, and corruption, it was reasonable to doubt Iranian will. They are wickedly and insincerely failing to follow their faith, adhering to the letter while violating the spirit, in the same style as the Jews that they condemn, so how strong could their will be? Well, turns out there are no atheists in the trenches.
The big US bargaining chip was the ability to kill Iran’s leaders. OK, killed them. Now Iran is governed by Ayatollah Khamenei son of Ayatollah Khamenei and if he wants to keep all ports near the Persian Gulf closed till hell freezes over, who can stop him? That is what he thinks. He is probably correct. We shall very soon know.
Iran can close the straits, it can close ports on the Persian gulf. Its capacity to rocket its neighbors has been greatly reduced by using up most of its rockets, and the US blowing up anything it failed to launch, and its ability to drone its neighbors has been substantially reduced by the same factors, but its ability to render the Persian Gulf unusable from end to end with mines and aquatic drones is just fine, and chances are there is nothing the US can do about it.
Can Iran build nukes while the US continues to bomb? Quite possibly. Nazi Germany was able to build rockets even though the US had far more liberty to bomb Nazi Germany that it has to bomb Iran. And Iranian proxies seem to be feeling frisky. The death of Ayatollah Khamenei, the use of America’s most potent bargaining chip, seems to have let them off the leash.
When you go into a war, you need to consider plan B. What happens if the known unknowns do not resolve in your favor, or if it turns out the enemy has some unknown unknowns up his sleeve?
Well, what is Trump’s plan B? Any plan B that is good for the US, good for Maga, and good for Trump is likely to be really bad for Israel.
If the known unknowns had resolved in our favor, it would have been possible to continue evading Tucker’s question: America First, or Israel first?
And would have been possible to continue kicking that question down the road. We are now running out of road.
What if China puts it foot down and demands full reopening of the strait as well (Russia wont they are probably the only country on earth that totally benefits from the straits being closed)?
If the strait is closed with drones and such, Iran can simply allow Chinese ships to pass. Not yet clear whether Iran needs mines to close the strait
A carveout of select Chinese tankers still leaves China dealing with crippling prices even if they have minimal oil supplies, China wants free navigation of the straits.
There is another unknown, namely the will of the US and possibly Israel to use nukes. Threating the use of nukes might be another bargaining chip, but I very much doubt Iran would surrender simply because of such a threat.
Not a serious possibility unless the straits are closed for 6 months or something. US would be feared for doing it but also about as internationally liked as Pol Pots Cambodia…
Just a small 15KT explosion I promise
I predict that Moabs (which apparently are 22KT) or a similar weapon will almost certainly be used if there is no surrender soon but no nukes. The supposed nuclear burial site is likely to get its entrances blown by Moabs…
Won’t carry quite the same diplomatic horror.
There is a video making the round of DOGE staffer , what look like disposition.
Is some investigation about DOGE currently going ?
Are the dems starting trials early ?
We could get internal war before the end of year
>”Ground invasion of Persia has the same discouraging history as ground invasion of Russia. Don’t do that.”
Concur, you must bring a religion to a holy war. The rainbow mafia is sorely lacking, but we shall see.
Russias had one truly successful invasion by the Mongols, Germany in WW1 arguably won too but they weren’t trying to take all Russia but take the best farmland and grind them down.
Persia has been successfully invaded by Alexander, Trajan, the Arabs, Ghenghis Khan, Timor, the Ottomans and jointly by the British and Russians during WW2.
Im not saying the idea is wonderful but it ain’t like invading Russia.
I cannot envision underground factories being successful if they are being politically incorrect about it, destroying the related power infrastructure, the food trucks, the personnel, water supplies, the raw materials, any kind of inputs into the factories. Add to that the arms race in tunnel recognition. This is something Israel and the USA have been focusing their research into for decades
If Khamenei was an insincere actor, common for that region of the world, there wasn’t much of a bargaining chip to begin with. Trump’s long negotiation period implies that they found him saying one thing but doing another
I accept that if you kept killing the visible, you can end up with invisible personal networks, living in deep tunnels and communicating with word of mouth, but it is a stretch to have this while maintaining the infrastructure and logistics required for development of advanced technology