True - but still. They’ve got stuff they want to accomplish, and at some point they will face pressure from Congress to stop this. It’s already hurting their ability to get stuff through Congress - it’s harder to get FISA or the SAVE act or a third reconciliation bill or any of the stuff they want if Congress is mad at them. Plus, they need the money from Congress to keep fighting, and that’s going to get harder and harder if all those Congresscritters are staring down the barrel of $4.50 gasoline for Fourth of July or Memorial Day or (heaven forfend!) Election Day. And the markets will start getting tetchy as well, to say nothing of the Fed not giving them the interest rate cuts they want (or possibly hikes!).
Plus, they’re narcissistic. They can’t abide “loser.” Touching off a global recession is bad. Driving high inflation at home is bad. Getting into a quagmire with fighting going on nine months after the 4-5 weeks you promised is bad. The pressure to declare victory and go home will become really high.
What doesn’t matter is anyone’s impression of it being a loser deal.
He could give away the Strait and still claim it was the best deal ever - and his sycophants will sing his praises. All that matters is the messaging.
Recall, he claimed the boos at MSG were cheers. He said he loves inflation. Nothing matters any more. It is no longer about right and wrong but about Right and Left.
To which the Mullahs will respond by destroying many of the other oil depots and infrastructure in neighboring countries. They have already made feints in that direction, what is to stop them? After which you will have $6 a gallon gas. Followed by $8 a gallon gas. Followed by gas lines. Followed by …
Can we? Will we? Boy, that seems unlikely. Bombing stuff can be done with relatively low risk of casualties, and no boots on the ground. Taking territory carries much higher risk and requires U.S. personnel in Iranian territory. Within drone and missile range.
Plus, it almost seems like he thinks that taking Kharg Island would let us have control over their oil sales…which is wrong? I think? I mean, even if we did take Kharg Island (we won’t) and Iran didn’t attack the facilities (they would) and stopped attacking oil tankers near their coast (they won’t), couldn’t they just shut off the oil flow to Kharg at the other end?
I think there is a real possibility that we will try. I agree that it would require boots on the ground to even have a shot at being “successful”.
Since when has a failure to fully understand consequences stopped us from doing stupid stuff. You’re living in the olden times.
Apparently, countries don’t like having their sailors bombed by the US. For example, India has expressed deep outrage at how the US is carrying out its blockade and killing its citizens. Maybe the shift to taking over Iran’s oil and gas industries is a pivot. After Venezuela, there may be a deluded sense that this will be easy.
“Trump compared his plans for Iran to how the U.S. assumed control of Venezuela’s oil sector after capturing then-president Nicolás Maduro in January.”
Clearly, this guy doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s sleep deprived, demented, and under increasing political pressure. Publicly he will tout his popularity and mandate, much like he did after getting thunderously booed at MSG. Deep down he knows he’s becoming a pariah. Desperation is dangerous.
Maybe. But you don’t have to be smart to be scared. The Administration doesn’t always think through the consequences of their actions, but even they will know darn well that an amphibious invasion of Kharg has a good chance of some troops getting injured or killed. And that holding Kharg for any length of time runs the risk of Iran counter-attacking - with drones, with missiles, or even just throwing their army (which they still have nearly all of) at the Island so that this starts to look like an actual Quagmire-y war that will send Congresscritters scurrying for an exit.
The Administration will be scared of that happening. There’s no “clean” outcome here, even in their imaginations. This won’t be Delcy 2.0, and they’ll know that.
You are assuming someone in this WWE battle is logical. And that war as a solution is illogical. Not that I think war is a logical answer. I think it remains inevitable.
I hope to be wrong and fearful of being right. You may be giving the administration too much credit. There’s little evidence that they care about all the terrible outcomes. What makes you think they’re scared of a quagmire? We’re already in a totally predictable cluster.
That is why his popularity is waning. He may be thinking through consequences no one wants, but his small group of crazies. Everyone else wakes up with a hangover that won’t go away.
Since I have no trust in him, as he wants, I worry or am against or think his wanted outcomes are bad. The difference between wanted and thinking? He knows what he is doing. Perhaps.
I’m assuming nothing of the sort. I’m merely pointing out that given the alternatives, Iran would prefer not getting bombed to getting bombed. That doesn’t require assuming that Iran (or the U.S.) acts logically or rationally, or that war is illogical. Iran, like any entity, has preferences. Those preferences don’t have to be logical, but they do exist - and some of them are readily discernible even to us keyboard koffee klatchers.
Iran would rather not get bombed than get bombed. They’d rather sell their oil than not sell their oil. They’d rather have their assets unfrozen than be frozen. They can (and do!) act irrationally and illogically in a host of areas, and I don’t make any promises about how much weight they give those preferences. But I think we can be pretty confident that those preferences are mostly accurate, and that therefore there exists something that Iran can get out of a deal.
Everything about the operation so far screams that he thought it would be a low-cost high-reward scenario. Another Delcy. All of their messaging on the war in the first few weeks was that it would be over in about a month. Heck, that they thought they had won the war in the first week or three, with nothing more than air power and long-distance naval power. Once that failed, they’ve been spending a lot of time trying to debunk the idea that this is a quagmire - even as they’ve embraced (perhaps a little too gleefully) the other negative consequences of the war like higher inflation.
All that says to me that they don’t want this to lead to a six-month build-up of infantry and mechanized units, with supplies and deployment support, followed by a period of occupation and standing up a new Iranian government.
Agreed. But it wasn’t and isn’t. So, to prevent being a loser, he’s going to have to escalate. He’ll blame Iran for being intransigent (not that exact word…I doubt he knows that word), and then he’ll send in the Marines (I believe we already have at least one America or Wasp class ship in the region), underestimating what force is actually required to do the job (because he’s smarter than all the generals…he’s actually said that on more than on occasion).
He operates under a delusion of infallibility and invincibility, so what makes sense to you and me (and everyone else here, likely) isn’t necessarily what will happen. As it is, he thinks more bombs will bring the Iranians to the table with hat-in-hand (based on our latest actions).
I agree with others here that we’re looking at $6 gas prices. I’d guess, by the end of summer. That will cause across the board inflation since transport prices will increase. Ironically, it will also probably cause a resurgence of alternative sources of energy and EV vehicles (which this administration HATES). I remember the last time gas hit $5…suddenly dealerships were dealing with trade-in trucks they couldn’t resell, and Priuses (Prii?) were sold before they even hit the lot (there was a waiting list…we couldn’t even test drive one because the dealer didn’t have any).
It was a long time ago, but evidently we learned nothing from the oil embargo in the 70s. Now we’re facing a similar shut-off today. It’s unwise to be dependent on foreign sources for something so strategically/economically important. IMO.
By the end of April we had used up roughly 25% of our munitions - 1000 out of 4000 Tomahawks, for example - with an estimated full replacement date to pre-attack levels by 2030. And now we are using up even more. My guess is that if I know this, so do China and Iran. I bet our Generals are getting nervous even if Big Brother is not.
I don’t think he will. He has had ground troops there for weeks. He has lost most of the tactical advantage he had when Iran was flat-footed. They are much better prepared now for such a force.
I was initially worried about this possibility when he was sending in the 82nd IRF - but then they are just sitting on their butts over there drawing some extra hazard pay and getting a free combat patch.
Even today, he has effectively blinked by calling off additional attacks. He is back to his daily “a deal is near” hyperbole.
I think he has been well informed that he will lose his base if we start seeing scenes out of Iran that are reminiscent of Mogadishu.
“Discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved,” including Israel and nine other regional powers, Trump wrote in the latest post.
But Trump — who has claimed for months that a peace deal with Iran is close at hand, only for none to emerge — also indicated that the purported agreement has yet to be made official, leaving it unclear whether an actual deal exists for the warring countries to review.
The U.S. Naval blockade of Iranian ports in the Gulf of Oman will “remain in full force and effect until this Transaction is finalized,” Trump wrote."
I don’t know what the heck is going on, feels like we’re living in the upside-down. We’re announcing our bombings, then announcing when we cancel our bombings. We’re told that a deal is imminent, then it’s not. All of this has the stank of market manipulation and flying by the seat of our pants.
That’s not his MO. He’s not an escalate kind of guy, damn the consequences. He’s the TACO guy, remember? When his bluff gets re-raised, he runs for a way out. He doesn’t want coffins or battlefield footage with our soldie…I mean, warfighters bleeding all over the nightly news.
Plus, he’s kind of past the point where this decision is his alone to make. He needs money. The President has a ton of flexibility in using the military in the short term. But just in the short term. Escalating to having Marines trying to hold Kharg Island in the face of Iranian counterattacks requires a lot of resources. He’s going to have to go to Congress to get topped up…and Congress right now is in no mood for a ground campaign.
What drives a group of people to be that regime? Iran would not want to be bombed. Iran does not want the regime. The regime is beyond our pay grade. Certainly not on God’s pay grade no matter the claims. Nutters. Not grounded in what you or I call decency or dependabiilty. Even our nutter is better.
