Please provide more detail than “Trump is a twat” and “epstein distraction” cos that’s fucking obvious
Why: I think it’s mostly a matter of trump wanting to make a name for himself outside of his maga cult. Neocons never liked him, and he hopes this might change it. Plus, a dose of realpolitik in an effort to seem tough usually works.
When: It will have to end soon, otherwise he’ll be shitting in his base. However, while wanting to pull back he’ll realize he has two choices:
- Declare “victory” and leave the regime still in power, leaving people (his base included) asking what all these tax dollars were spent on
- Keep going, losing more and more support from his isolationist base and then some. Iran is, at present, the most unpopular war from a US polling perspective, so it is highly unlikely there will be a rally-around-the-flag effect for him. Even more unlikely the linger it goes on - a war doesn’t become more popular over time.
How: Airstrikes will continue until the paragraph above has been addressed. And since Trump never reads history, he’s probably way too optimistic, never realizing this simple fact: No country/regime has ever unconditionally surrendered because of conventional airstrikes and bombardment alone.
To quote Sarah Paine (renowned military scholar and historian), once you put your enemy on death ground, meaning they will have to fight on or (probably) die, they will not surrender. Trump never offered the Iran regime an offramp, and while it sucks to be in Iran right now, they have no incentive to surrender.
There’s also nothing to indicate that Iran would completely reopen the strait even if the US up and fucked off. What incentive do they have at this point to return to the old status quo?
What incentive do they have at this point to return to the old status quo?
If the US fucks off, then Iran is left in a powerful negotiation position. They could use this incident to help normalize relations with other gulf states by pointing out how the US and Israel started the fight, then left them all high and dry. They could make non-agression and safe passage deals with the gulf states as well as exhert real pressure against the normalization of relations with Israel.
And even if Iran changed their minds, it’s not like the mines will just disappear
They didn’t release mines (yet) though? Or am I out of the loop?
The US sunk 16 of their mine laying ships and has been having to shoot down mine laying drones. No one really going through so no real idea about how many if any mines have gotten through.
Is that verified and were the ships actually in operation? All I saw was “inactive mine-laying ships”
I do believe we sank them before they were active along with or near in time to the first decapitation strike. Personally no idea about whether they have more.
There have been some, but I’m not sure to which extent.
Long term it’s better for Iran if stuff keeps flowing through and nobody moves away or pipelines around the Strait.
Before that was just economically infeasible, but now it’s being shown as a massive vulnerability and there’s no going back.
Unless Iran can make it look so expensive by comparison again.
When you say “his isolationist base” I know that was a talking point early on. Will any part of his base hold him accountable for literally anything ever, though? I would’ve assumed his base is now ecstatic about doing some warmongering no matter what he said five minutes ago?
Time will show. There are some shitheads, such as Nick Fuentes, who have publicly disavowed Trump, and even Alex Jones is having a hard time defending Trump these days. Defection are happening, but any long term effect will probably be seen via a slow trickle and not a sudden drop in approval rating.
The truth is, most people don’t stay up to date on the news, so while the base probably won’t notice that the current Trump talking points are inconsistent at best, come a year or two and they will probably notice that they are objectively worse off after Trump decided to spend billions on a war with Iran for dubious benefits. We will never see a point of “That’s it, fuck you!” on xitter. Suddenly the support will lose critical mass and fade into the background just like the teaparty did.
I’m cautiously optimistic stemming from the fact that ideologies based on hate never succeed in the long run. They either fizzle out, eat themselves, or on rare occasions implode spectacularly.
Trump has also surrounded himself with yes-men, just like this Austrian corporal once did. While Hitler certainly had a loyal staff, they were far from competent; Göhring thought he could bomb UK i to submission. And the rest of the staff were more focused on licking rectoplasm than facing reality.
come a year or two and they will probably notice that they are objectively worse off
This has historically not been the case. Trump supporters are more likely to say things are “great” when asked how the presidents policies have affected them. They are entirely divorced from reality and hang on the presidents words as if their lives depended on it. They accept what he says as truth, and without fail his lackeys repeat those words/lies, things like, “the dow is over 50,000!” that we heard bondi say the other day in a hearing. I think people should be more informed how this is historically similar to nazi germany’s rise to power.
Rectoplasm
Nice choice of words. Now I have a new band to listen to.
I think that most Trump voters support isolationism symbolically. They want a leader who prioritizes them rather than perceived others, but they don’t actually have a strong opinion about specific foreign policies per se. Attacking Iran does challenge that symbolism, but in the absence of direct effects on their own lives, their trust in Trump’s established “America first” reputation will go a long way.
Some of the more Libertarian ones are rallying around Thomas Massie. He seems like one of the few American politicians who are actually somewhat honest.
No country/regime has ever unconditionally surrendered because of conventional airstrikes and bombardment alone.
Are you forgetting WWII? Japan was setting up for a big American invasion of their islands, expecting millions dead, and then we dropped a nuke. Japan still refused, so we dropped another nuke. Then they surrendered.
You’re assuming that we won’t use nukes, simply because it’s immoral and a huge escalation over nothing. Now look who’s giving the orders. An immoral pedophile who hates anyone mentioning how he’s a pedophile. He’ll do ANYTHING to stop people from mentioning he’s a pedophile. I think that includes nukes. This is the same guy who used the phrase “We’re gonna bomb the shit out of them!”
That’s why I said “conventional”, which nukes aren’t
That situation was different though. Japan was 100% getting invaded and they knew that when the bombs were dropped. Maybe not right away, in the very immediate term. Iran does not believe the US will execute a proper invasion as it has not been credibly threatened. If Iran believed that invasion was imminent, then the calculus would be different.
So it’s very hard to illustrate all this in an online forum thread… So I’m gonna try and sort of simplify…
First and foremost, know that there are no good guys in any part of this. Everyone involved is beyond fucked up and everyone involved is Doing this for all the wrong reasons.
For a very long timeIsrael has been very concerned that Iran will develop nuclear weapons, as they should be.
Iran has been executing a proxy war against Israel for 50 years.
Part of that proxy war involves a number of different organizations, one of which is basically in control of Palestine.
The Obama administration negotiated a treaty with Iran that lifted a number of sanctions if they allowed international inspectors to prevent them from enriching uranium, which is a key step in creating nuclear weapons.
The Trump administration in partnership with Israel View that as an absolute disaster.
So they ended the agreement. Which basically opened the door for a Iran to enrich uranium.
Israel has been wanting to bomb Iranian nuclear production sites for decades.
All those sites are underground.
The only country with the ability to bomb shit underground and destroy it is the United States.
One of the most dynamic military leaders in the history of man was an Iranian general who organized and managed that broad coalition of different organizations against Israel. It really is a feat and how well he managed and did all that.
The US military killed him in an airstrike.
The US military has destroyed……. Well, bombed a number of the facilities that iran is enriching or uranium in.
The US military has also killed a number of the political leaders in Iran that’s what’s really messy.
You have to leave the guys alive to turn things off…. There’s no one left to turn things off
You forgot the bit where they’re trying to distract everyone from the Epstein files and the bit where they literally have no plan.
Yeah, as much as the Internet wants to believe otherwise I don’t think the Epstein Files are really all that important to anyone in any power.
You are correct. Nobody involved here has a plan. I mean Israel’s stated Objectiveis total victory yet Netanyahu’s Governmentcan’t articulate. What the hell that is…
I don’t think the Epstein Files are really all that important to anyone in any power.
On the contrary - I think if Iran released any of the blackmail on trump that supposedly exists, things would take a wild turn.
However, I do concede this is likely an optimistic view
You know very well Israel plan is to destroy Iran as a state so it can’t never function again and so that they accomplish the greater israel project
Don’t believe anything this guy say. Israel want to destroy Iran so it can create a greater israel with no resistance
Oh i apologize if my post paints isreal in a good light. There are no good guys here.
I am going out that at the top of my post.
Regardless of how bad iran is . It is Israel the settler colonial power who want to get rid of Iran to steal more land from Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan , Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Don’t waste your time with more dumb propaganda. Iran never planed to build nukes although maybe they will considered it now since israel want to create a failed state in Iran
Iran has control of and does not appear to be giving up, control of the straight of Hormuz. Basically then entire global economy hinges on this one geographically and physically limiting body of water. Any even elementary student of strategy knows this, has known this, and anyone advising world powers would be well aware of the implications of attacking Iran as the Americans and Israelis have done. As far as impacts you will likely feel, in the nearest time frame, this is the most relevant. 20% of global trade goes though this passage. The majority of oil going to south east Asia, China, Japan, Australia passes through this straight.
Like, I don’t really think its valuable to conjecture whats going on behind the eyelids of the administration, but they clearly misunderstood how vulnerable they were in this regard. The US dollar is suspending through enforcement of the petro-dollar: That the GCC nations are captured in the sense that they must trade oil in dollars. The value of the USD as form of fiat is elevated because of this. The GCC nations are all entirely dependent on the straight of Hormuz for effectively all calories going to those countries. These nations simply do not exist without access to the straight. They are also coupled with the fact that for all practical purposes, all of their water is from desalination plants; plants much more easily targeted as Iran has been both a) targeting radar and detection instillation throughout the region, and b) wearing down interceptor stocks.
While Israel basically tricked America into starting this war, its truly been one of their regional goals for decades. However, both Israel and the US suffer from extreme hubris in relationship to their capabilities, its clear both parties have misunderstood the mindset of the Islamic Republic. Both parties (Israel and the US) are used to negotiating with parties that will do practically anything to deescalate the situation. Iran is not like this. As a point of analysis, Iran (I think rightfully) considers what Israel and the US are doing as a war of extermination, and they’ve seen from other regional examples (Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon) what works and what doesn’t work with regards to resisting US/ Israeli hegemony. And we see them doing seems to be very informed by this. In-spite of the power imbalance, Iran has a clear path to victory here and the US has basically none. So long as Iran can keep the straight closed and keep GCC nations shook, the US has no path to victory through air control alone.
What will happen next is:
-
Even if the straight were to open tomorrow, we’re looking at 3 months + of global disruption and we have recent historic precedent for this. See the Evergreen and the Suez canal. And that was with all parties cooperating to re-open the canal as soon as possible.
-
Prices are going to skyrocket and inflation is going to go back to being at risk of spiraling out of control. This is going to be like covid, but also not like covid, in that we don’t have the buffer in interest rates we did had built in the pre-covid times. The US can not both lower rates and prevent inflation. Its not clear there is any path the US can take financially.
-
Before the cold war, full blown wars would often last decades. The period of the cold-war and post-coldwar era are not reflective of how wars are fought historically. Modern war is focused on the doctrine of shock and awe: Dominate the air, use extremely impressive high tech weaponry, and forms of “omnipotent” systems (Wheres Daddy?, Satellite imagery, RF signature analysis ect). The shock-and-awe doctrine is to orchestrate the appearance of such dominance, the other party loses the narrative. However, with a few notable exceptions, this doctrine does not work against an opponent who is determined to resist (See Vietnam, Iraq one, Iraq two, Afghanistan, Hezbollah, etc…). The approach that the US and Israel are dependent upon has been repeatedly demonstrated to fail against a determined opponent. The US will lose this war.
This is probably the best comment here so far. To emphasize the interceptor missile point, the US yesterday pulled interceptor systems from South Korea. You know, the place next to the nuclear-armed country that likes to lob missiles into the ocean just to show off. It should go without saying how dire the situation is if the US is redeploying interceptors from South Korea. Once interceptor stocks are depleted, Iran will be able to consistently, successfully strike targets inside US allied territory. There are some rumblings that Iran’s success rate is already increasing. Once this happens, Iran has the US & Israel backed into a corner even more than they already do.
While Israel basically tricked America into starting this war,
I’m happy with most of your analysis, but this bit bugs me. It seems like a lot of people are eager to avoid American agency when it comes to Trump and his actions - he’s dismissed as a literal agent of Putin, the Russians are blamed for having manipulated the electorate, Musk interfered with the election count directly, it’s all the billionaries’ fault. And now America was apparently “tricked” into killing the leaders of a government by that very government.
No, America owns this.
I’m not offering speculative analysis with this point. The administration made this point:
Rubio contradicting themselves on this point one day after making it
No, America owns this.
Sure, in an existential sense I agree, but what then? Like what do I do with that conclusion that furthers my understanding? as in if I were to take this form of reductive analysis to geopolitics, how does that impact my ability to predict future states of the world? I take something like this sentiment and I ask “does this sentiment add to my models capacity to predict or does it detract?”
I would say this form of reductionism drops my predictive capacity to practically nothing. I can’t make predictions of future states or back test previous states of the world effectively in that framework. Its a form of cliche or jingoism, which while emotionally satisfying, effectively halts critical thinking. Like it might be a more conscilient or parsimonious explanation, but parsimony and consilience are irrelevant if the models they are a being used to value aren’t predictive. What matters first in a model is predictive capacity. After that you can update other values. But if the first thing you value in a model isn’t predicative capacity in some manner, you aren’t operating in the real world, by definition. You’re valuing something other than a models ability to predict reality (simplicity of the model, or ones ability to understand the model, or how well the model rhymes with other things you think you know).
the point isn’t to “win.” the point is to be at war
Great write up!
-
Hiii so basically they fired everyone in the administration who said “Iran will curb stomp the US for many reasons, so like, don’t start a war with them” and then decided to start a war with them
One of the many reasons is that Iran preeeeety much has unilateral control over this extremely interesting geographic feature called “The Straight of Hormuz” which has been one of the most important strategic chokepoints in the world for literally thousands of years. Right at the moment the big thing it’s choking is some crazy number like 20% of the entire oil and natural gas supply for the entire planet earth.
So naturally the first thing that is already happening is gas prices skyrocketing. Of note: the way they’re controlling the straight is with missiles. So we’re also seeing extreme amounts of environmental destruction from the tankers that have exploded
What’s gonna happen long term is anyone’s guess
Trump seizes control of the oil production in Venezuela, then attacks Iran causing them to block the strait of Hormuz and oil prices to skyrocket. Profit.
Iran refused to sell oil using US$ as currency and supplied Hamas with missiles to shoot at Israel. So they were a pain in the US’ and Israel’s ass.
When spies found out that Iran’s leadership would meet in a place that isn’t underground, and Iran’s ally Russia was kinda busy, the US saw a rare opportunity to decapitate the state. For political reasons they asked Israel to strike first.
That was about as much thought as went into the attack.
Iran struck out against every US and Israeli ally in range and closed the straight of Hormus in retaliation, which blocks 20% of global oil trade.No one in the world knows what happens next, which is kinda typical in wars.
I honestly don’t know if US was driving the ship on the decapitation strike. I think Netanyahu might have been the one who wanted to take the shot and Trump just saw it as a convenient distraction at a time when he desperately needs a distraction. Neither here nor there, really, because both are in it together. Maybe they both (Trump and Netanyahu) had their foot on the gas?
Yeah, that info is just a decision based on the political optics of how the joint operation was conducted (who should strike first). If Netanyahu wasn’t in Washington the week before, pressuring Trump to act, would Trump have opted to hold hands and go for it with Israel? I feel like this is what Netanyahu has been trying to get the US to help them do for years and years.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was at the White House last week pressing the administration to do what it must to derail Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missile infrastructure and its support for proxy militias in the region.
Like the kid that keeps asking dad for a PS5, but dad keeps saying no or offering lesser prizes. They finally asked on the right day, when dad was already in the mood to get that PS5, and dad said “fuck it, let’s go get it.” Luckily for Netanyahu, Epstein shit is being stirred and Trump has a nose for making distractions.
Israel wants to des stabilize Iran and become the uncontested regional power on the middle east towards their Great Israel goal.
Trump and his staffers are desperately trying to find a way to TACO but still somehow claim victory like his other two expeditions in Venezuela and Iran (2025), because it clearly didn’t have the effect they thought it would have like when Bush II did it.
Unlike the US, Iranian forces had a plan that was formulated for years. Doesn’t mean things will go as they envision, due to US, Israeli, Gulf state, and internal factors putting a lot of uncertainty in the mix. Iran is okay with the current situation in the short term unlike the US, but there is elevated risk for a potential coup, an Israeli-style drawn out genocide and annexation, just a stalemate war of air defense attrition, or who knows what in Iran. There will be pressure from all sides to figure something amicable between the belligerents, hopefully sooner than later.
I predict: Oil/gas prices will stay high for months, air ship and truck transportation costs will be somewhat higher and goods will be a little higher for the same period. Over the next year, governments, businesses and people will turn to electricity and renewables pretty much out of necessity (look at Indian residents turning to Induction Stoves in droves) that will lower our needs for fuel which will hopefully offset the shock from future oil supply crunches. Optimistically, it could accelerate the world’s efforts to net zero.
Next:
- Trump chickens out somehow. Makes another big missile salvo, puts together another video of it for his fans, then says he’s done
- Iran bides its time then retaliates against the US thru a proxy.
- US gets dragged into another long term war in the Middle East.
- US doesn’t have its shit together. Economy nosedives. Somehow Republicans blame that on Dems.
Think it’s time you watched Dr Strangelove
Trump issued a threat to Iran before negotiations started that he fully intended to carry out regardless. He then launched a series of missile attacks against Iran with the stated goal of regime change and the cooperation of Israel. Iran’s leadership was hit in the early bombings, but they had been preparing for an attack and launched counteroffensives against US bases all over the region, and closed a vital oil shipping route.
Trumps administration is unhinged and vile, so the early targets also included a girls school and many other civilian targets. Hegseth has been going on rants about how there will be no rules. Congress for their part, came together to fail at enacting a war powers resolution that would have made this ?more? Illegal. True bipartisanship in action. For their part many European states have followed suit, by either tacitly endorsing the war or simply refusing to note that the US and Israel are the obvious aggressors. Spain being a bright spot on that front.
Irans’s attacks have been expanding as the US keeps attacking. They seem focused on building pressure internationally to end the war, but are also hitting places that are supporting or housing US or Israeli troops.
For the why, its hard to say. This is a confluence of the entire US political classes obsession with provoking war in the middle east. Schumer, Graham, and the bipartisan warpigs are doing everything they can to justify the war or slow people trying to stop it. Trump for his part is barely there mentally, but has floated war with Iran as a solution to dire political numbers before. He also just seized a bunch of oil from Venezuela and might see the oil supply crisis as an opportunity to profit. There is no motive too low to consider tbh. Worth considering how much is really Trump and how much is Stephen Miller puppeting the gilded meat sack around.
Israels imperial ambitions are also not to be discounted and they’ve been pushing for this for ages.
Let’s not forget that Trump has been attacking Iran since his first term. In November 2018, he unilaterally reäpplied sanctions, violating the antinuclear treaty, despite Iran appearing to have been fulfilling their end of the bargain. As Britain and France desperately tried to get the treaty back on track, Trump had Qassem Solameini assassinated in early 2020. That would have been the biggest news of the year, and likely would have led to a full-on war with Iran, if we didn’t all have to go into lockdown a few months later.
People say this is a distraction from the Epstein files, but I doubt that is more than a minor factor. Trump has had it in for Iran for years. The far more likely conspiracy is that he wants a war so he can declare martial law and be president for life. Even so, what’s more likely is that Trump is doing fascist action for the sake of action.
Kushner took a 2 billion dollar bribe from the Saudis and Trump said it was fine since he wouldn’t be in his admin in his second term.
Kushner was one of the people Trump had negotiating with Iran right up to the breakout of the war.
UAE also forked over another 2 billi in crypto to WLF, which the Trump family hold major stakes in. And that’s on top of the 180 million they put into WLF around the 2nd inauguration.
As for “what will happen next”, the USA seems to want a cease fire and Iran is tired of getting bombed randomly, so Iran is going to close the Strait of Hormuz until it can get a better deal that means something. Israel and the USA don’t seem to want to make that kind of deal.
So Iran is going to start a recession by restricting oil supply for the rest of the world to get the rest of the world to intervene or to get that agreement from the USA and Israel.
This will likely last until November, when the midterm election is supposed to happen. Trump wasn’t popular already. A recession caused by military action is going to get a lot of people pissed. That recession will likely pop the AI bubble, both due to a loss of market liquidity and increased energy prices fueling AI.
Don’t get my hopes up
My sense is that Trump is going for the “we’re at war and therefore it would be imprudent to have elections” argument. I agree that this will drag on, but I think it depends on if Trump is able to successfully pull off the first ever skipped election in US history.
I don’t think his supreme court would go that low to allow it, but…the chance that he succeeds is not 0%, which fucking sucks.
Trump will lose the war with Iran ,one way or another
There was the hope of an uprising from the Iranian people, but 30 thousand protestors killed, and now a response to this war, seems less likely at this point.
Two future timelines I currently see as possibilities:
- The US will pull back, mostly to support Israel and protect transport ships, occasionally firing long distant strikes. (an unlikely best case scenario)
Or
- A lingering war that will continue through to next presidential election, and used as an excuse to not leave the role as potus. (a more likely horrible scenario)
