Anthony Rossano: I guess you’re pretty pleased with yourself.
Oscar 1991
“Snaps” Provolone: My father would have been proud. I got my money back, and nobody got shot.
Anthony Rossano: Not so fast. I’ve been tricked. (reaches for the bag of cash)
“Snaps” Provolone: (grabs his hand) I wouldn’t do that if I were you.
Anthony Rossano: You forget, Mr Provolone, you’re going straight today.
“Snaps” Provolone: You’re right, I am going straight today, (points to the Finucci brothers in the next room) but they’re not.
One of the problems with social media in general and X in particular is the amount of extreme stupidity without thought that is expressed by people who believe the world is a video game because they haven’t had to deal with actual real world consequences of actions nor ever had real responsibility for anything that involves someone other than oneself.
Which brings us to the Iran deal or Memorandum of Understanding.
You can make the argument that we should have gotten regime change. I would have liked that very much and as a student of history and of war I’m even of the opinion that if a war which cost 10,000 US troops as causalities ended in the fall of the Mullahs it would, in the long run be to the benefit of the world in general and the US in particular. It’s worth noting that almost nobody I know would have borne the brunt of the fighting nor would have I have the responsibility of either convincing America that it’s worth the cost or writing the wives, mothers or children of those who would fall in such an action which would take at best many months, that the country is grateful for the sacrifice of their loved ones.
You could make the argument that we should have just kept bombing, that’s fine but who and what are we bombing? Do we hit military targets? Mosques? The oil fields? Are there strategic targets that would advance our efforts more that are worth our time? They have very little that can project power outside of their country left and what is able to project power inside of their country is embedded within the people. You can argue it’s worth doing but eventually it becomes big booms for small returns.
You could make the argument that we should have simply continued with the operations we were doing. That’s a strong argument as Iran is reaching a crisis point economically, and the costs of such a move military are negligible. The cost in cash to support our military on station isn’t all that much more than doing so elsewhere and our logistics are in place and every existing tanker in the gulf that we get out is one less that Iran can intimidate.
For the record I would have supported any of those three actions as being old enough to remember the hostage crisis in the Jimmy Carter years and seen what the rise of the Mullahs has done to the world (you don’t get what you have in Europe today without them) I think it’s worth it.
The problem with all three of the above scenarios is that the American people do not have the political will for any of them. Maybe when I was a kid we might have, but we live in a different society right now where not even on in 100 people serve in our military or know people who have. Where the price of gas is more valued than the price of lives by voters and where one political party has been doing all it can to support Iran & encourage them to hold on because their hatred of Donald Trump far exceeds their love for their country as both their actions and the polls clearly show.
So Donald Trump has decided on a deal a “60 day” deal which I strongly suspect will turn into a 150 day deal. I’ve read the text of it and it reads like it was written by Sir Humphrey Appleby. Most things that happen happen if other things happen first, it pretty much kicks cans down the road and basically says we’ll leave them alone as we talk to make an actual deal.
The great advantage for Iran is that it allows them, as a face society to claim some kind of victory and a bunch of people are trying to make that argument, but consider:
- They no longer have a navy
- Their air force is hiding in other countires
- Their entire senior leadership is dead
- They have exhausted a large amount of their drone and missile supply
- They have been hurt financially to the point where their ability to project power overseas with cash is completely non-existant.
There are those who are saying that the 60 or 150 days allows them to reverse those factors but DOES it?
- Are they going to rebuild a navy in 150 & find men willing to join?
- Is their air-force ready to return to bases in Iran to become potential targets?
- Are their new leaders going to feel safe anywhere in groups of 3 or more without a large amount of human shields?
- Even if places like Russia & China have the will and the additional supplies to help Iran rearm there is
- Insufficient cash on hand to do so
- Limited cash from oil sales available as other suppliers are safer
- Any Frozen assets released once used are gone
- The base cost of rebuilding infrastructure that has already been bombed
Moreover we have the absolute ability to monitor all of this stuff via satellite & other methods, every supply method, every route will be visible and become a target for the next round of bombing when it comes.
Furthermore this isn’t a game of Civ 6 when you click a button and damage is rebuilt in one turn. It actually take real people physical time to do these things. I’m not going to say it will be as slow as the railway to nowhere that the left in California has been leeching off of for years and years but Iran is not going to be able to rebuild or project power or fund Hezbollah & send them arms for years let alone in 60, or 90 or 180 days.
Meanwhile consider what will be happening in the US both economically and politically for the Trump administration..
- The economy continues to roll
- Our ability to resupply & rearm for fleet and forward troops continues unabaited
- Our manufacturing jobs continue to soar
- With the drop of gas prices (down .36 cents in the last two weeks) the political pressure on Trump continues to drop
- With the increase of American Oil exports the demand for Iranian oil decreases
- Every day the Saudi pipeline to bypass the gulf moves closer to completion
- Every tanker that leaves the gulf is one less tanker that the Iranians can use as hostages
- Every Iranian tanker on the high seas becomes a target that can potentially be seized without much effort.
And all of that takes place with US forces still close enough to go after Iran at any time Donald Trump decides they aren’t playing ball.
Even worse for Iran the drop in gas prices undermines their allies on the left that have been doing their best to prop them up and hurts them politically. Unless they can engineer a crisis before the midterm elections it’s very likely that a strong economy will “Trump” the left’s desire to handcuff the final two years of the Trump in office.
What do they have to play: “Trump said ‘Unconditional Surrender’ hah he lost!”? Seriously? Have none of these people read his book on deal making?
Cripes you might recall US Grant who coined the phrase “Unconditional Surrender” ended up giving generous terms to Lee and Johnston (vs Sherman) to end the war. Did he lose?
If you want to find a historical parallel to what we have now it’s in the battle between the frigates USS United States and the HMS Macedonian during the war of 1812.
The United States with heavier longer range guns pulverized the Macedonian for a long while and then sailed off briefly to repair minor damage done the British ship’s cannon fire.
As soon as it was ready it sailed back toward the heavily damaged British frigate that during the brief respite was able to do little if anything to put itself back in fighting shape.
Stephen Decatur then put the United States in a position to rake the British ship (that is shoot with any danger of their guns replying) and held his fire. The brits took the hint and Decatur ended up taking the ship as a prize of war.
That’s where we are right now. Trump will spend the next six months getting his economy and his supplies in order knowing that he can at any time bomb again. Once he has finally secured a stable alternate oil supply for the world he will be in the position to seize Kharg Island if he wishes.
Iran can not rebuild or rearm or generate sufficient cash to stop this. If Trump does this things the Iranian oil industry is permanently done as the Mullahs only choice will be to destroy the pipelines that feed it or the target the oil on the island with drones. The moment that happens Iran becomes a nation without assets that can be safely ignored as it will never be able to project power or obtain revenue for generations.
In short they become a footnote to the world another Afganistan, a bunch of fanatics without the power to harm anyone but themselves
Put simply we continue to grow stronger while Iran at best struggles to maintain a semblance of order.
And any thought of reconstituting their nuke ambitions? Please, the labs, the trained techs and the machinery doesn’t grow on trees. All of that takes time, effort and heavy construction that Iran can’t do at the moment and that if it starts can be blown up at will.
In short Trump won this war the moment he started shooting & killed the Iranian leaders. He hoped Iran would fold easy, but they did not so he has the choice of winning it fast with high causalities or slow with minimal risk. He has chosen the latter and no amount of fools on social media saying otherwise changes that fact.
The only “Victory” Iran has is the ability to publicly claim it, which as a “face” society means a lot to them, but Egypt has been claiming that the 1973 war with Israel was a “victory” for 53 years but it didn’t make it so.
Or to put it another way. In what sense is Iran in better shape than the day before Trump started hitting them? (short answer, they’re not).
Closing thought 1: There seems to be a lot of talk about Israel, Lebanon and Hezbollah concerning this deal but having read the document I didn’t see the words “Israel” or “Lebanon” or “Hezbollah” anywhere.
Closing thought 2: To my knowledge Israel is not a signatory to this deal. Therefore they are not restrained by it at all. There is nothing stopping them from hitting Lebanon, hitting Hezbollah, hitting Gaza or even hitting Iran. I suspect if they do Trump will make loud public protests after the fact that will upset allies of Israel, but do nothing to prevent it before the fact. Bibi is Trump ace in the hole:
Closing thought 3: You can also make the argument that like all Tyrannies this is a crack in the dam that will eventually cause them to fall. Tyrannies always seem invincible to the outside world just before they collapse suddenly.
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