This is one of those topics that I find interesting because there's no predictable next step, unlike the weekly cycle of Israel bombing Lebanon or the Trump admin covering up Epstein files.
I think the war must end. It's far too costly to last forever. The US has severely depleted its ammunition reserves, and it seems clear that they're hurting more than Iran at this point. We don't have a lot of information as to how badly the regime is hurting financially with the blockade of their oil, but judging from the skirmishes between the two parties, Trump keeps bluffing and Iran keeps calling it. Ultimately, the Iranians simply have to survive to maintain the upper hand in the conflict. Their speedboat fleets and drone swarms are enough to retain their position.
The Iranians are doing a little better than surviving, though. They keep taking out US radar installations in the ME, which are extremely costly, not easily replaced, and create significant strategic vulnerabilities for any further US campaigns.
The problem on Trump's side is that this is as close to a must-win scenario as he can get, for a couple of obvious reasons. One of them is that the Strait of Hormuz has become a household name, and any further Iranian blockades or tariffs will essentially be total repudiations of his foreign policy success, as well as US military reputation. The embarrassment would be comparable to Reagan pulling back the Marines after the 1984 barracks bombing in Lebanon - an admission that the US is too weak to dictate Middle Eastern politics.
The other problem is that Israel has puppet strings on Trump and, to this point, have made him dance any number they want. But those puppet strings may be fraying at this point, because the battlefield reality is the ultimate power in the world, not Israeli propaganda.
So will Trump actually concede to Iran and try to sell the resulting disaster to the American public? I think this is the most likely option, although I am having trouble seeing how he'll do it. Any finalized deal will include retention of nuclear material and at least partial control of the strait, and the Iranians won't keep quiet about it to help Trump save face. On the contrary, they will rub it in his face constantly. The idea of Trump letting this happen to him is crazy, but "bluster then quietly withdraw with a face-saving deal" was his exact MO with the Houthi bombing campaign last year.
The other option is that Trump goes scorched earth and annihilates Iranian power, water, and oil. Iran would then retaliate in its dying breaths with annihilation of oil refineries and desalinization plants in Israel and the Gulf states, giving us $10 gas and tens of millions of refugees, among many unpredictable consequences. I would've thought this would be inevitable given the iron grip Netanyahu has on Trump, but now I'm not so sure.
Either way, it seems the US-Israel axis is on the way to a big fat L.
One of the biggest problems going in I had with it all is there wasn't a reasonable win condition. I'm not the lefty non-violence is the answer type on being against it. If I throw out trusting Israeli intel about as much as I trust an Indian scammer and just assume we are in this war, then it comes to what? Could we go over there, flatten them, and win? Sure. If the claim is we are out of ammo reserves, I take that more as we are out of reserves that we are willing to use. If we went into a real war against Iran, the sheer resource might of the US crushes Iran. The problem with that is there's pretty much zero political capital to go start a real war over there. The only ones that even want it are the Israel-first fake Americans.
So it comes back to we don't have a win condition. The win is crushing Iran, and the cost to crush them is more than the political capital the war has. Whatever I've seen in this deal is probably a good deal for us, and puts an end to it all, and honestly I think those it stands to piss off the most are the same Israel-first fake Americans.
It doesn't have to be sold. Most of the news cycle will flip quickly. My biggest concern with the whole deal as I've seen is there's no chance Israel goes along with it, and we won't tell them to piss off.
Yes, the US could destroy Iran tomorrow. You can hide drones but you can't hide power plants. But that would also mean the destruction of Gulf oil production and Israeli water.
Pissing off the Mark Levins of the world, yes. I'm interested in how this might be a good deal for us, though.
It's a good deal because it gets us out of some bullshit we never should have had anything to do with to begin with. We can't go back and have never started. We aren't going to go flatten Iran with sheer military might. The only other answer is to piddle around for years shooting bombs at each other and fighting over some water passages. I'd rather take a weaker deal, call it a good deal and move on than that.
That seems what Trump really wants to do. I strongly doubt he ever wanted military action on Iran in the first place.
There's not a win condition, it's win-win. Or maybe win-win-win.
We demonstrated that America can completely destroy a modern military with advanced Russian and Chinese defenses.
We tilted the global economics in our favor, where every dollar we were spending more in gas I'd say was two dollars into the country (probably an underestimate..).
We've repositioned other ME countries toward US and against Iran, and will be selling more weapons to them.
And Trump has re-established madman status giving the US much more negotiating power.
...it's not only wins, for instance we lost a couple planes, but I'll let others make that case.
edit: oh no one-line rage replies, truth really hit a nerve
Delusional cope.
Ok FoxNews
What defenses? And what have they exactly destroyed, other than such anti-air as Iran had?
That's an impressive level of delusion, on par with believing that higher housing prices are an asset and not a cost.
He re-established total buffoon status, which decreases US negotiation power even further. Not that I'm complaining, try using it for something good first.
As I mentioned, they had advanced defenses from Russia and China. Iran was a modern army.
We decapitated their entire leadership, could fly over their country any time we wanted, and took I think zero casualties doing it. This is the reality.
You guys shouldn't live in a make-believe world. How does it help you to pretend.
No, they really didn't, nor would Iranians' inability to use Russian and Chinese weaponry say anything about the inherent quality of those weapons. Remember when the Taliban with AK-47 kicked the ass of your Afghan army armed with state-of-the-art American weaponry?
'I think'. Looks like you didn't think hard enough. Also, just so you know, you were using stand-off munitions because you couldn't fly over their country at all, let alone any time you wanted.
How get a mind, such as it is, get this possessed by propaganda?
Saint Anthony: There will come a time when people who are mad point at those who are sane and say: you're mad, you're not like us.
nigger tier post lmfao