Iran Super Thread- Merged

[brihard]

If I was the rest of the G7, I’d be having an after meeting to come up a consensus on what to do when it all goes to hell.

Save mum, shoot Phil, go to the Winchester, have a pint and wait for this whole thing to blow over.

 

[Infanteer]

All kidding aside, it is useful to go back to look at the (stated) military objectives and (assumed) political war aims and to compare them to the agreement the US just signed with Iran.

It isn't necessary to try to divine US strategic objectives in this war - Hegseth and Caine explicitly listed them in a press conference:

1. Dismantle Iran’s missile launch capability
2. Degrade Iran’s defense-industrial base
3. Degrade Iran’s navy
4. Prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon

The one (major) issue is a mercurial President who seems to flip-flop daily on whether regime change is the stated political aim to guide these objectives, or if simply establishing deterrence will do.

While these provide a clear list of strategic objectives, I did hear a great podcast listing three potential political objectives driving these (different policy makers are probably driven by one or a combination of these):

1. Underwriting Iran as a threat in a future confrontation with China. Combining this with mollifying Russia by trying to offer it Ukraine means the US can face China alone. (geostrategic objective)
2. Eliminating a long-standing enemy of the United States who has consistently opposed it and attacked it when it can, and who is deeply despised by many Americans. (ideological objective)
3. Establish control over additional crude oil production. Combining this with Venezuela means that the US could have a direct say in the sources for 25% of China's oil (even more if friendly Gulf Arab states are included), and can enable Trump to cut deals. (economic objective)

First, military:

• Dismantle Iran’s missile launch capability - nope, clearly didn't do that as Iran continued to fire them off at will and there were constant assessments that underground missile facilities were being brought back on-line. Trump, yesterday, said that Iran should have missiles, which only speaks to the inability of the US to achieve this objective.
• Degrade Iran's defense-industrial base - maybe? But that can be fixed.
• Degarde Iran's navy - maybe, but did they get the important stuff? Iran's ability to keep the straits closed tells me they didn't do this to the extent that they wanted.
• Prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon - maybe, it is a point in the agreement, but the JCPOA said the same.

Now lets go to political:

• Underwriting Iran as a threat in a future confrontation with China - nope. Apparently China was busy shuttling things into Iran, and this war will only bring Iran further under China's wing (just like Ukraine has brought Russia to it as well). Add to this that Iran significantly ran down US magazine stocks, and gave the Chinese a good assessment of the strengths and weakness of current US systems and munitions, and you'd say the Chinese truly benefited from this war.
• Eliminating a long-standing enemy of the United States who has consistently opposed it and attacked it when it can, and who is deeply despised by many Americans - nope, IGRC is running the place. Go look up the biography of Vahidi and tell me if that's better than Khameini. The first day decapitation strike, while spectacular, was a failure and the lack of any real plan to impose regime change only amplified this failure.
• Establish control over additional crude oil production - nope, by giving up the Straits, Trump basically repudiated the Carter Doctrine, and the stability of that US guarantee is now gone.

It is hard to sell that as anything other than a political and military failure to achieve stated or implied objectives.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Boom...

https://twitter.com/x/status/2067586401273520237