Iran Super Thread- Merged

[daftandbarmy]

Why would ‘the rest of the world’ do that though? Self-interest of individual countries will win out. Iran remains useful to Russia and China as a regional foil to the U.S. It also remains useful as a source of discounted oil. India and Pakistan both want to trade for oil as well. Iran has shown willingness to cut side deals regarding SoH transit.

The Strait is a lot easier for Iran for forde closed than for the U.S. to force open. If the U.S. lacks the wherewithal to force it back open, why would other countries think they can tip that scale?

The things you say ‘have to’ happen don’t actually ‘have to’ happen. The stalemate hurts everyone, but Trump has a shorter political countdown on his ability to sustain this. Iran can likely continue to hold the stalemate until it becomes too costly for the U.S. to maintain a maximalist position.

Iran will hold their line, gas prices, inflation, and the. interest rates will continue to rise, and Trump will need an off-ramp… Unfortunately for somebody else (Cuba?) that will probably require a Great Distraction.

Probably all of this happens NLT a few months before the midterms to allow the Republicans hopes of recovering some lost electoral ground. That means the shaping will be starting now or soon.

As always, I may be utterly wrong.

EDIT TO ADD: And, to be clear, this is another case where what Insee and assess is very different from what I would like and prefer. Better if the Iranian regime were to suddenly collapse and there be a relatively peaceful democratic revolution, a detente in foreign relations, a realignment away from China, Russia, etc. But I call it as I see it and sometimes the facts objectively suck.

They sustained a high intensity land war with Iraq for about 10 years, resulting in about a million casualties to both sides, so I doubt a short term 'air only' campaign could put a dent in their ability to do whatever the hell they want to do.

 

[brihard]

your reply suggests that my first scenario is the more likely. As Altair suggested, with Trump having spent the last year or more dumping on every single one of his allies whilst backing Xi and Putin what government in their right mind would go to their aid. I suspect if 9/11 happened today NATO would stay on the sidelines. Without significant outside assistance, namely a united boycott of Iran (not likely) the most likely result would seem to have the U.S. declare victory, Iran allowing Trump his moment of glory and the fleet sailing home. The British led fleet will do their mine sweep and declare its own minor victory and another 10,000 Iranians will be executed.

Sorry, yes- your first scenario is closer to my estimation of the likely outcome. Not sure I’d go so far as to say Trump ‘capitulates’, but that’s haggling over words… He’ll likely achieve some modest aims in concessions from Iran, but it won’t be close to the maximalist demands that have been made initially and up til now.

The wild card is how much of a failure to achieve those aims Israel tolerates. A lot will happen behind the scenes diplomatically that we won’t be privy to, and Israel can play exceptionally dirty in the U.S. domestic political sphere if it suits them. Israel are generally very rational in the context of their own aelf-interest, very willing to be extremely unilateral, and they have a lot to lose with minimal strategic depth.

 

[KevinB]

They sustained a high intensity land war with Iraq for about 10 years, resulting in about a million casualties to both sides, so I doubt a short term 'air only' campaign could put a dent in their ability to do whatever the hell they want to do.

Also conducted mass human wave attacks at the Iraqis, that the Red Chinese would have been impressed with.
Iraq moved to chemical weapons when they could not stop the Iranian waves with conventional firepower.

There were some fantastic interviews with Iraqi soldiers in Macleans and Time during the 80's, about the masses of Iranians that threw themselves at the Iraqi Army.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Also conducted mass human wave attacks at the Iraqis, that the Red Chinese would have been impressed with.
Iraq moved to chemical weapons when they could not stop the Iranian waves with conventional firepower.

There were some fantastic interviews with Iraqi soldiers in Macleans and Time during the 80's, about the masses of Iranians that threw themselves at the Iraqi Army.

I trained with some of them in the UK.

They would fall back and draw the Iranian hordes, led by 14 & 15 year old teenagers to set off the land mines, into a big 'fire sack' then destroy them with indirect and direct fire from three sides.

Then just walk back over the bodies and reoccupy their positions.