Sapper Redux said:
YouBet said:
Sapper Redux said:
I bleed maroon said:
Sapper Redux said:
I bleed maroon said:
Dr. Doctor said:
Glad to know that we went into this quagmire with zero planning against an enemy that has been preparing for the past 40+ years.
Who's looking to take on their perceived 'bully' and bloody some noses.
I'm sure nothing bad will come of this...
~egon
I'm sure you know this, but this is a total fabrication and lie. Don't let your political bias intrude into your desired truth.
The US military, intelligence, and diplomatic community has in fact been planning a version of this action for over 40 years themselves. Israel as well. Think about it - you know this. The difference is that we didn't have a leader during this past time period that posted his every thought and whim on social media on an hourly basis. Past leaders had decorum, discipline, and judgment that were above this sort of thing. THAT's the difference, and is the primary wildcard here - no need to embellish or exaggerate.
The military is usually good at planning operations. They are complete **** at planning for the consequences of operations. People love to blame politicians for failures in Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan, but the simple fact is that the military does not fully consider the consequences of military action. You only need look at the horrible assumptions made regarding strategic bombing or "shock and awe." Additionally, the Pentagon doesn't give two ****s about oil prices or the stock market.
This is where you need civilian leadership to step in and apply their expertise and offer a critical eye towards military plans. It appears there was none in this case.
The hyperbole is strong on all sides in this conflict. Trump may end up royally screwing this up in the end (I have no faith in his Commander in Chief performance myself), but:
1. Zero planning or oversight of the military? Silly falsehood.
2. "Quagmire"? After three weeks? Get real.
3. Fun to exaggerate things to make your political opponents look bad? Sure.
1. What's the endgame here? Seriously, what's the goal and what does success look like in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years? Has any of that been explained with any reliability? Because the goals seem to shift daily. The measure of success seems extremely arbitrary. And buy-in from allies and strategic partners who could help guarantee the outcome was never sought and instead the plan seems to be to insult them until they acquiesce. The military can plan different operations for different strategic goals, but the choice of targets and the integration with a larger strategic vision relies on the civilian leadership.
2. Can you point to where I said quagmire? I said there appears to be no planning for the full scope of this conflict and I stand by that. The history of these "operations" is not good and the application of overwhelming force alone, particularly bombing, has an awful history of producing the long term results you want.
3. I'm not exaggerating anything. Trump and Hegseth are doing little more than trolling in public. They haven't done anything to explain the conflict to the American people or explain the actual goals. Those goals seem to shift moment to moment.
I'm not sure why this keeps getting asked. There are 4 goals which have been stated multiple times by Trump and his admin since day one. Those goals have never changed. Conditions, fog of war, and typical plans getting punched in the mouth have happened along the way which are common to every kinetic engagement ever undertaken. Those result in different tactics during the engagement. However, this incessant questioning of the end game and the goals when they are known and public is just disingenuous and gaslighting.
Now, if you want to bag on him for not explaining the much larger global strategic reasoning for all of this then maybe you have an argument but there has been plenty of articles and analysis walking through all of that including this board.
Choice and scope of targets has also been highly communicated. We are going after infrastructure and physical capacities while Israel focused more on the leadership.
I won't argue Trump's typical trolling and antagonism towards allies, but most of our traditional allies are worthless anyway. I say all of this as someone who wasn't a huge fan of Trump doing this but I also understand why he's doing it.
And regardless of all of that this deal will end by April 29.
Which of these 4 goals were concisely and coherently elucidated before the war and which goals are met on any kind of long term manner?
The nuclear threat was supposedly annihilated in June. So suddenly it wasn't? Is that the claim? Is their nuclear program so resilient it can become near indestructible?
Iran's ballistic missile program poses no threat to the U.S. and was certainly not so immediate a threat as to require a full scale military response with no input from allies and regional actors. The best you can say is that it may have warranted some kind of targeted strike at some point with plenty of intelligence and likely support from allies.
The Strait of Hormuz is simple to strangle with minimal resources and was not a major issue until the war started, so claiming that as a war aim is disingenuous at best. It's a consequence of Trump's war, not a causus belli. Even now, what's the plan to permanently prevent Iran from shutting down traffic with drones and mines? Because I haven't seen anything.
Iran's proxies have been devastated before this war. Hamas and Hezbollah are seriously weakened. Assad's Syria has fallen, making Iran's ability to support their proxies much more complicated. None of that required attacking Iran in a sudden action without support. Additionally, the Iranian regime is busy consolidating power behind a hardline conservative whose father and wife were just killed by the United States and Israel. But I'm sure he'll be a reasonable negotiating partner.
As for our "traditional allies are worthless," that's a load of horse**** that will bite us in the ass. The EU is a massive economic block and a huge trading partner. Sorry, but you can only piss people off for so long before you start losing any leverage. Maybe Trump can ride being an ******* for the rest of his term, but there are going to be serious consequences.
And why is April 29 the new date? Even if you stop the bombing the consequences of the war are going to linger and be felt for a very long time.
Look up the goals yourself. Will take you 2 seconds. Been public since day 1. Not my problem you aren't paying attention or are just being obtuse. My opinion and many other geopolitical strategists as to why Trump attacked Iran: this is largely a culmination of events that landed in Trump's lap, and the opportunity that presented itself was one he simply couldn't pass up. All of this became Trump's version of not letting a crisis go to waste to borrow the Democrat modus operandi.
October 7 is the biggest miscalculation by the Iranians they ever made. That one event was the Butterfly Effect of everything that has happened since. That led to the destruction of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. It led to the destruction of Iran's Air Force, air defenses, and the vast majority of their missile capability. It's now led the end of the Ayatollah.
Throw in the fact that Hezbollah was operating out of VZ in our hemishphere....now also gone in a 1 hour operation that removed Maduro which also eliminated his Cuban security force, while neutralizing Hez in VZ. VZ, Cuba, and Iran (and Russia and somewhat China) are linked via oil, arms, and security.
Once you put all of it together, it's easy to see and understand why he did it even if you don't agree with it. There is a larger geopolitical strategy and shift in play here. In addition, the ROI on these events so far is extremely high.
And Cuba's commie leader will fall next simply because they are out of resources and we aren't even having to do much to cause that one. But even if we do, it will likely be a slight nudge and then he's gone and someone new that is friendly to us will run it.
The EU is worthless because they have few assets in which they can actually contribute. Mark Rutte (SecGen of NATO) openly laughed at his EU counterparts a few weeks ago when they started making noise about going it alone militarily without US resources. He made the comment that they would have to increase their military spending to 10x of what it is to offset us not carrying the burden of NATO. Obviously, they can't / won't do that because they don't have the means. While Europe is huge, they are a financial mess largely because they went all-in on green energy. Dumb, but different topic.
April 29 is not a new date. It was always the date because it's the 60 days from when this war started and when Congress has to approve any further resources or action. And Congress won't approve anything further beyond that.
