The best way to enact regime change, when the civilians' stomach rumble is louder than the IRGC's gunfire to maintain control. No boots on the ground are necessary(except maybe some green berets as advisors for insurgent proxies).

If those things are true, why is Israel preparing to attack Iran again?

Shouldn't Trump tell them to back off and let sanctions do their work?

BREAKING: Israel is now again preparing for another direct strike on Iran without U.S. involvement, while the IDF is also preparing for renewed fighting with Hezbollah, per Israel Hayom.

The IDF is preparing independent operational options against Iran while also maintaining…

— The Hormuz Report (@HormuzReport) October 5, 2026

Quote:

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Israel is now again preparing for another direct strike on Iran without U.S. involvement, while the IDF is also preparing for renewed fighting with Hezbollah, per Israel Hayom.

The IDF is preparing independent operational options against Iran while also maintaining close intelligence and operational coordination with the U.S., with Israeli forces preparing for both a possible Iranian attack and a renewed escalation on the northern front.

The planning comes as the U.S. floods Israel with C-17 transport aircraft, with roughly 3,000 American troops already stationed across the country and Washington preparing to send additional troops and aircraft in the coming weeks. U.S. and Israeli forces are also coordinating for possible Iranian missile attacks on Israel and Jordan.

Another round of attacks could therefore become increasingly likely before the October 27 Israeli election.

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Probably to try and fully tip the apple cart without Trump having to take direct blame for attacking them.

Dungeon Crawler Carl said:

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If those things are true, why is Israel preparing to attack Iran again?

Shouldn't Trump tell them to back off and let sanctions do their work?

BREAKING: Israel is now again preparing for another direct strike on Iran without U.S. involvement, while the IDF is also preparing for renewed fighting with Hezbollah, per Israel Hayom.

The IDF is preparing independent operational options against Iran while also maintaining…

— The Hormuz Report (@HormuzReport) October 5, 2026

Quote:

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Israel is now again preparing for another direct strike on Iran without U.S. involvement, while the IDF is also preparing for renewed fighting with Hezbollah, per Israel Hayom.

The IDF is preparing independent operational options against Iran while also maintaining close intelligence and operational coordination with the U.S., with Israeli forces preparing for both a possible Iranian attack and a renewed escalation on the northern front.

The planning comes as the U.S. floods Israel with C-17 transport aircraft, with roughly 3,000 American troops already stationed across the country and Washington preparing to send additional troops and aircraft in the coming weeks. U.S. and Israeli forces are also coordinating for possible Iranian missile attacks on Israel and Jordan.

Another round of attacks could therefore become increasingly likely before the October 27 Israeli election.

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He apparently couldn't get them to stop the first time which is the reason he's in this quagmire in the first place!

USS Theodore Roosevelt returning to the region. War is back on (after the mid terms)

Keyno said:

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USS Theodore Roosevelt returning to the region. War is back on (after the mid terms)

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Ground war prediction?

YouBet said:

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Keyno said:

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USS Theodore Roosevelt returning to the region. War is back on (after the mid terms)

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Ground war prediction?

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Yooo I am happy you said that. I think there is another Marine "expeditionary force" including 4000 men are also in that package. I guess we will see

Keyno said:

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YouBet said:

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Keyno said:

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USS Theodore Roosevelt returning to the region. War is back on (after the mid terms)

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Ground war prediction?

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Yooo I am happy you said that. I think there is another Marine "expeditionary force" including 4000 men are also in that package. I guess we will see

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It's going to be "limited" ground action though. So, all good! Definitions refined again for the win!

Keyno said:

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YouBet said:

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Keyno said:

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USS Theodore Roosevelt returning to the region. War is back on (after the mid terms)

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Ground war prediction?

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Yooo I am happy you said that. I think there is another Marine "expeditionary force" including 4000 men are also in that package. I guess we will see

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Keyno said:

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USS Theodore Roosevelt returning to the region. War is back on (after the mid terms)

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It's almost like there never was a plan other than they will give up
after air strikes.

Keyno said:

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YouBet said:

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Keyno said:

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USS Theodore Roosevelt returning to the region. War is back on (after the mid terms)

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Ground war prediction?

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Yooo I am happy you said that. I think there is another Marine "expeditionary force" including 4000 men are also in that package. I guess we will see

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Just so we're clear for the record, not you specifically:

4000 men is not an invasion force, it's a plan to get slaughtered. Even if you unrealistically assume 100% of those are grunts (probably closer to 70%), that's less than a single brigade with very limited fires. Shinseki (rightly) estimated it would take 400k to subdue Iraqistan, and Iran is larger both in population and geographically, and Iraq didn't have the theocratic brainwashing (it was really pretty secular).

The only success of large-scale FID is the Northern Alliance in Afg, but that was a standing army that had been fighting since The Bear Went Over the Mountain. Expecting locals to rise up and fill a power vacuum is folly. There are large Sunni groups that would very possibly flood in and start the same sectarian cleansing that they did in Feb 2005

So Abbott didn't even come to Trump rally in Texas?

Nope. He met with a few folks in BCS instead

NEW: Initial reports from Reuters this morning indicates that Ansar Allah (Houthis) struck an aircraft at the King Khalid Airport in Saudi capital of Riyadh this morning. This marks at LEAST the third time that this airport has been hit by Ansar Allah, and the second in just 24… https://t.co/Vf2ODte75h

— Brett Erickson (@BrettErickson28) October 8, 2026

BREAKING: Pakistan has directly joined the Saudi-led military campaign against Yemen’s Houthis, with Pakistani Air Force fighter jets now reportedly conducting air strikes against Houthi targets, according to a senior Pakistani military official who spoke anonymously to The New…

— The Hormuz Report (@HormuzReport) October 8, 2026

Quote:

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Pakistan has directly joined the Saudi-led military campaign against Yemen's Houthis, with Pakistani Air Force fighter jets now reportedly conducting air strikes against Houthi targets, according to a senior Pakistani military official who spoke anonymously to The New York Times.

Around 8,000 Pakistani troops are already deployed in Saudi Arabia, including Air Force and Army air-defense personnel. Saudi Arabia has reportedly offered huge amounts of money to the Pakistani leadership.

Oil is also climbing as the fighting spreads across the region, with Brent crude reaching above $102 a barrel and WTI near $92.

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Those Paki troops better get busy or this whole Petro dollar thing might come to an end......

BREAKING: US prepares intense three-day military campaign against Iran, targeting Iran's energy facilities, infrastructure, missile and drone arsenal, and IRGC command posts and headquarters, with US military commanders ready to begin the large-scale operations in the coming…

— The Hormuz Letter (@HormuzLetter) October 8, 2026

Shouldn't Trump get a Declaration of War before this happens? The 90 days from the War Powers Act are over for a while now.

Quote:

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The War Powers Resolution of 1973 (often called the War Powers Act) is a federal law designed to limit the U.S. president's ability to commit military forces to armed conflict without the consent of Congress. [1, 2]

Key Rules and Provisions

• 48-Hour Notification: The president must tell Congress within 48 hours of sending U.S. troops into action or building up combat-equipped forces abroad. [1, 2]
• 60-Day Time Limit: Troops can stay for up to 60 calendar days without direct congressional approval, plus an extra 30 days if needed safely to withdraw the military. [1, 2]
• Congressional Action: After the 60-day window, the president must pull the troops back unless Congress declares war, passes a specific authorization (AUMF), or is unable to meet because of an attack on the U.S.

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The War Powers Act is unconstitutional.

HTH.

He got around that by resetting the 90 days....according to their thought process around it. The Dems have no incentive to try and stop him anyway.

YouBet said:

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He got around that by resetting the 90 days....according to their thought process around it. The Dems have no incentive to try and stop him anyway.

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That would require Mike Johnson to call the house back into session and he sure as hell isn't going to do that.

It's more than that. Democrats don't actually oppose the Iran actions, they just want to appear to oppose it. It's something for them to campaign on.

Phatbob said:

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It's more than that. Democrats don't actually oppose the Iran actions, they just want to appear to oppose it. It's something for them to campaign on.

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It's more that it's not popular so why be against something that their mortal enemy is doing that is not popular. It's the primary reason why R's may lose the mid-terms.

Zero incentive for them to try and stop the Republicans from harming themselves. This is classic Sun Tzu.

It's both. They aren't completely stupid, at least not all of them. They know Iran has to be dealt with and anyone who is President would have to do something similar, but Trump can and is doing it without them, so they are free to "oppose" it publicly without changing anything.

So odd that we don't have Iran war protests.




Well, not really.

Probably because no one is all that opposed to the Iran war, they are just opposed to the price of gas right now. That is pretty much the amount of thought the opposition has put into it and no one is going to take the time to protest that.

Phatbob said:

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Probably because no one is all that opposed to the Iran war, they are just opposed to the price of gas right now. That is pretty much the amount of thought the opposition has put into it and no one is going to take the time to protest that.

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Probably going to see a protest on November 3rd

Phatbob said:

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Probably because no one is all that opposed to the Iran war, they are just opposed to the price of gas right now. That is pretty much the amount of thought the opposition has put into it and no one is going to take the time to protest that.

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I disagree. We lost something like 15K service members over the course of GWOT and thousands more committed suicide when they got home.

The GWOT is still fresh in a lot of people's minds and not something they want to return to.

No one in the uniparty is opposed to it, which means no funding for protests. Many citizens are against it.

We aren't seeing protests because the Democrats and left wing NGOs aren't paying for it nor are they promoting it.

Because the Iran war is a losing issue for Trump and the Republicans.

Again, Sun Tzu.

And you have to go back to previous wars to get to that. We currently are at a similar American soldier death toll from a single terrorist shooting at Fort Hood as the entire action in Iran over 8 months or whatever it has been. I get the short sighted isolationist position, but the fear mongering of that position has proven to be just that and at this point it boils down to the price of gas in actuality.

nai06 said:

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Phatbob said:

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Probably because no one is all that opposed to the Iran war, they are just opposed to the price of gas right now. That is pretty much the amount of thought the opposition has put into it and no one is going to take the time to protest that.

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I disagree. We lost something like 15K service members over the course of GWOT and thousands more committed suicide when they got home.

The GWOT is still fresh in a lot of people's minds and not something they want to return to.

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The current Iran conflict death toll is at roughly 10% of the annual accidental death numbers in the military over the same time period, so I don't think that's a big talking point now, just like no one is worried about it turning into WW3 anymore.

Phatbob said:

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And you have to go back to previous wars to get to that. We currently are at a similar American soldier death toll from a single terrorist shooting at Fort Hood as the entire action in Iran over 8 months or whatever it has been. I get the short sighted isolationist position, but the fear mongering of that position has proven to be just that and at this point it boils down to the price of gas in actuality.

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I think gas price is an in your face result that people latch on to for sure. It's something they notice every time they fill up the tank.

This is all to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon right? How much closer are they today than they were 20, 10, 5, even one year ago? In the past year the President assured us their ability to develop a nuclear weapon was obliterated, yet here we are. Call it lying, dishonesty, spin, whatever, it is eerily reminiscent of "Saddam has weapons of mass destruction". We all know how that turned out and I think that is also at the back of a lot of people's minds.


My personal view is that this war is unnecessary. I don't think we really don't have a lot of options at this point

Option 1-All out assault
If you want to win a war you have to kill enough of your opponent so they can no longer fight back and occupy land. Can that be done in Iran? Sure. But you don't win wars from air superiority alone. If that is the route the U.S. is going to take, it will mean a large scale deployment. We know how that turns out. Unless you plan on killing civilians as well, taking out infrastructure creates a whole host of new problems as well.

Option 2. Regulated Enrichment
We go back to a similar agreement that was in place before Trump. Iran would be allowed to enrich for the purposes of energy production with strict controls and oversight.

Option 3. Nuclear
I mean if everyone is dead they can't fight back. I would hope smarter and cooler heads prevail before this is even considered.


My gut feeling is that we end up with option 2. We might bomb them some more or even deploy a small amount of troops but I think we still end up with a regulation program. It will likely be very similar to what Obama came up with but using different names and terms so Trump can declare victory. To be clear that is not a dig at Trump. I think any president who was in the similar situation would do the same. Can't give credit to the other guy because at the end of the day they are all still politicians.

Really the only things that remain unknown is

• How much money are we going to spend to get there?
• How many people will die as a result?

Queso1 said:

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No one in the uniparty is opposed to it, which means no funding for protests. Many citizens are against it.

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Big Cheese on the mark again.

The only people against this war and any others are average American citizens. The uniparty and their owners (Corporations, foreign and domestic) all want the same thing. Keep the money flowing and the American citizens arguing with each other rather than pointing their fingers at the masters. They couldn't give a rip about which "party" is pretending to be in power at any given time.

I think that is way too simple of a list and I think a lot of people are making the mistake of thinking of this as a single event to win or lose rather than as part of a long term strategy of position. Remember, this isn't a game of chess where we are trying to get to the king so we can win, we are trying to get into the best position using the least resources. Our global position doesn't just have a starting point or ending point here, we are aiming for a long term better situation for the long term least cost. I'd say if we end up in 25 years with a nuclear Iran run by reasonable non-Islamist Persians that is a better situation than a non-nuclear Iran still run by the IRGC. I personally don't care if it takes 2 years of whatever we are doing now if our goals can be achieved doing that rather than an invasion that would take 2 months and kill thousands.

So I don't think the slow and steady approach is bad at all. We legitimately are changing the power structure in that part of the world away from Iranian/Russian/Chinese influence and doing so with very little military action (comparatively). What IS bad is the marketing that has been done for it. Trump really sucks at selling slow and steady. He's all about the "best, right now, within 24 hours" salesmanship that honestly just matches with today's culture, but also sets unrealistic expectations.

Phatbob said:

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I think that is way too simple of a list and I think a lot of people are making the mistake of thinking of this as a single event to win or lose rather than as part of a long term strategy of position. Remember, this isn't a game of chess where we are trying to get to the king so we can win, we are trying to get into the best position using the least resources. Our global position doesn't just have a starting point or ending point here, we are aiming for a long term better situation for the long term least cost. I'd say if we end up in 25 years with a nuclear Iran run by reasonable non-Islamist Persians that is a better situation than a non-nuclear Iran still run by the IRGC. I personally don't care if it takes 2 years of whatever we are doing now if our goals can be achieved doing that rather than an invasion that would take 2 months and kill thousands.

So I don't think the slow and steady approach is bad at all. We legitimately are changing the power structure in that part of the world away from Iranian/Russian/Chinese influence and doing so with very little military action (comparatively). What IS bad is the marketing that has been done for it. Trump really sucks at selling slow and steady. He's all about the "best, right now, within 24 hours" salesmanship that honestly just matches with today's culture, but also sets unrealistic expectations.

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Is Afghanistan better off now having spent 20 years fighting there? I suppose the current Taliban might be marginally better than before and Osama Bin Laden is dead. But we also expanded far beyond Afghanistan. If we take out IRGC in Iran what is the likelihood we also go after Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Palestine, and Hezbollah in Lebanon?

I don't want American's needlessly going overseas to die in another war for a "mildly better Taliban" to take over the area. I am not confident that 25 years from now we could have a nuclear Iran not run by the IRGC (which I agree would be ideal).



As an aside, I do appreciate the thoughtful and respectful response from you. I have quite enjoyed the discussion and I do think you have some valid points.

In some ways Afghanistan is like used car calculations. There is an ROI involved that you know are frankly a set tradeoffs for less bad situations. It's less about creating the best case scenario than it is being less costly than the most likely alternatives. I think what we can for sure say about Afghanistan is it was a mixed bag.

I'm not of the opinion that war is always bad. Sometimes it is necessary, and sometimes it is even necessary when we don't want to do it. Like it or not, as long as there are incompatible value systems in the world, we will have wars. Just like I don't want to have to clean out the drains, I like having women in the house, and I like having working sinks, so it's just something unpleasant that goes along with it. I like being a non-Muslim. I want my great grandkids to live in a world where they can be not Muslim. This action in Iran may not fit perfectly into that mold, nothing really will in practice, but in the aggregate it does.

So no, I am not saying war is good, but I am saying that disavowing all war is bad. We just never really know if a good war really is good until we see the long term effects. Until then, it is what it is.

FWTXAg said:

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Queso1 said:

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No one in the uniparty is opposed to it, which means no funding for protests. Many citizens are against it.

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Big Cheese on the mark again.

The only people against this war and any others are average American citizens. The uniparty and their owners (Corporations, foreign and domestic) all want the same thing. Keep the money flowing and the American citizens arguing with each other rather than pointing their fingers at the masters. They couldn't give a rip about which "party" is pretending to be in power at any given time.

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Many people who are or were Trump supporters don't want to see a Democrat House and Senate where they are back in leadership positions. Nobody wants to see the clown circus they can create.

But if that happens many average citizens who were Trump supporters are not going to be Happy that Trump started this war with Epic Fury when he claimed all was taken care of with the just prior Midnight Hammer. When the results of this war, he started, to support Israel/BiBi led to midterm losses!

It's not going to be worth it to many. And to many the results already they are unhappy about!