(03-23-2026 01:34 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 01:29 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 01:16 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 01:12 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 01:03 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  Praying it’s a bluff. But if not — yeah that would be a terrible mistake, imho.

I'm not seeing a path that doesn't lead to troops on the ground and I haven't for a while. The regime is not falling from just air strikes, there is no revolution on the ground coming (and it's always been fantasy that it would happen IMO) and I see no terms either side would actually agree in the near term to that would allow this to end.

The only way to avoid boots on the ground in Iran is to position them in the more amenable countries which border Iran and have them create safe zones for refugees from Iran. Drop the leaflets instructing Iranian citizens to one of the safe camps and explain to them that they had 7 days to make preparation and leave.

Then use some wonderfully aged technology to end this. B52 carpet bombing of everything still standing in Iran. Whatever crawls out after that won't be sufficient to put up a struggle. The difficulty here, and it is huge, is how to distinguish refugees from combatants if you invade. And avoiding the deaths of those who don't support the regime. Optics here will set the tone for future interventions. Make every effort to spare the innocent and this will work quicker should there be a next time somewhere else. Fail, and it will be boots every time.

That strategy didn't work when that aged technology was actually modern. Also didn't work when pretty much every country in WW2 attempted it, whether it was the German's to the Brits, the Brits and the US to Germany, German's to Russia, the US to the Japanese, etc. The only "bombing" that ended a war was using nukes.

And that was due to the scale of it in WWII where destroying the means of production did speed the end of the war, but that was "precision" bombing instead of carpet bombing. It didn't work in Korea and Viet Nam because of the DMZs established in both conflicts. It wiped out the Republican Guard in Iraq, and only failed where Corporations friendly to America had property they wished to protect from the war so Iraqis occupied their buildings and our guys had to go door to door to secure Baghdad and other such cities.

With Iran you have a large % of populace who would like not to be bombed and to escape. The remnant of the regime under a carpet bombing assault would be emotionally shocked to the point that continuance wouldn't be likely. The scale is workable, there is a sizeable innocent population, and there is no where for the bad regime to hide that they can't be severeley shaken by the experience.

Like I'm completely ignoring any questions of morality here with this idea, because obviously that's a waste of time on this board. There are 90 million people in Iran, I have no idea what % of that group you think fall into the populace that's innocent, but the idea there's the desire from neighboring countries or even just the literal space and resource requirements to create safe zones that could hold feed and care for 10's of millions of people at once is just insane. That's the most logistically stupid thing I've ever heard.

(03-23-2026 01:56 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 01:34 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 01:29 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 01:16 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 01:12 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  I'm not seeing a path that doesn't lead to troops on the ground and I haven't for a while. The regime is not falling from just air strikes, there is no revolution on the ground coming (and it's always been fantasy that it would happen IMO) and I see no terms either side would actually agree in the near term to that would allow this to end.

The only way to avoid boots on the ground in Iran is to position them in the more amenable countries which border Iran and have them create safe zones for refugees from Iran. Drop the leaflets instructing Iranian citizens to one of the safe camps and explain to them that they had 7 days to make preparation and leave.

Then use some wonderfully aged technology to end this. B52 carpet bombing of everything still standing in Iran. Whatever crawls out after that won't be sufficient to put up a struggle. The difficulty here, and it is huge, is how to distinguish refugees from combatants if you invade. And avoiding the deaths of those who don't support the regime. Optics here will set the tone for future interventions. Make every effort to spare the innocent and this will work quicker should there be a next time somewhere else. Fail, and it will be boots every time.

That strategy didn't work when that aged technology was actually modern. Also didn't work when pretty much every country in WW2 attempted it, whether it was the German's to the Brits, the Brits and the US to Germany, German's to Russia, the US to the Japanese, etc. The only "bombing" that ended a war was using nukes.

And that was due to the scale of it in WWII where destroying the means of production did speed the end of the war, but that was "precision" bombing instead of carpet bombing. It didn't work in Korea and Viet Nam because of the DMZs established in both conflicts. It wiped out the Republican Guard in Iraq, and only failed where Corporations friendly to America had property they wished to protect from the war so Iraqis occupied their buildings and our guys had to go door to door to secure Baghdad and other such cities.

With Iran you have a large % of populace who would like not to be bombed and to escape. The remnant of the regime under a carpet bombing assault would be emotionally shocked to the point that continuance wouldn't be likely. The scale is workable, there is a sizeable innocent population, and there is no where for the bad regime to hide that they can't be severeley shaken by the experience.

Like I'm completely ignoring any questions of morality here with this idea, because obviously that's a waste of time on this board. There are 90 million people in Iran, I have no idea what % of that group you think fall into the populace that's innocent, but the idea there's the desire from neighboring countries or even just the literal space and resource requirements to create safe zones that could hold feed and care for 10's of millions of people at once is just insane. That's the most logistically stupid thing I've ever heard.

There's about 9 million Iranians. That's roughly the size of the greater Miami DMA. It's manageable and has been in hurricane destruction. Here it would be for a couple of months until the regime had been erased and the people could move back to Iran. If 30% of the nation is considered innocent of the crimes of this regime you are talking about 2.7 million people divided by the number of safe camps in neighboring nations. The number of temporary refugees is manageable. There are those who do, and those who gripe and moan. The ethical question is should the innocent victims of that regime be spared? Yes. What does that do for the future? Makes the assault on future criminal regimes much more manageable as those citizens which oppose them aren't equally terrified of both sides. D-Day was a logistical nighmare. The tsunami which hit SE Asia, East Africa, and the Islands was a bigger logistical nightmare. And it was managed.

(03-23-2026 02:19 PM)JRsec Wrote:  There's about 9 million Iranians. That's roughly the size of the greater Miami DMA. It's manageable and has been in hurricane destruction. Here it would be for a couple of months until the regime had been erased and the people could move back to Iran. If 30% of the nation is considered innocent of the crimes of this regime you are talking about 2.7 million people divided by the number of safe camps in neighboring nations. The number of temporary refugees is manageable. There are those who do, and those who gripe and moan. The ethical question is should the innocent victims of that regime be spared? Yes. What does that do for the future? Makes the assault on future criminal regimes much more manageable as those citizens which oppose them aren't equally terrified of both sides. D-Day was a logistical nighmare. The tsunami which hit SE Asia, East Africa, and the Islands was a bigger logistical nightmare. And it was managed.

92M-93M is the estimated current population of Iran.

(03-23-2026 02:21 PM)mlb Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 02:19 PM)JRsec Wrote:  There's about 9 million Iranians. That's roughly the size of the greater Miami DMA. It's manageable and has been in hurricane destruction. Here it would be for a couple of months until the regime had been erased and the people could move back to Iran. If 30% of the nation is considered innocent of the crimes of this regime you are talking about 2.7 million people divided by the number of safe camps in neighboring nations. The number of temporary refugees is manageable. There are those who do, and those who gripe and moan. The ethical question is should the innocent victims of that regime be spared? Yes. What does that do for the future? Makes the assault on future criminal regimes much more manageable as those citizens which oppose them aren't equally terrified of both sides. D-Day was a logistical nighmare. The tsunami which hit SE Asia, East Africa, and the Islands was a bigger logistical nightmare. And it was managed.

92M-93M is the estimated current population of Iran.

At least now I can rationally understand how he'd have ever believed that was possible, just imagine the population in question is over 80 million less than it is.

Maybe he doesn't understand the difference between Tehran and Iran. There are a little over 9 million in the city of Tehran, and over 16 million in the metro.

Iran decided to continue the attacks against neighboring countries and Israel. And I return US and Israel attacks military bases.

(03-23-2026 02:21 PM)mlb Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 02:19 PM)JRsec Wrote:  There's about 9 million Iranians. That's roughly the size of the greater Miami DMA. It's manageable and has been in hurricane destruction. Here it would be for a couple of months until the regime had been erased and the people could move back to Iran. If 30% of the nation is considered innocent of the crimes of this regime you are talking about 2.7 million people divided by the number of safe camps in neighboring nations. The number of temporary refugees is manageable. There are those who do, and those who gripe and moan. The ethical question is should the innocent victims of that regime be spared? Yes. What does that do for the future? Makes the assault on future criminal regimes much more manageable as those citizens which oppose them aren't equally terrified of both sides. D-Day was a logistical nighmare. The tsunami which hit SE Asia, East Africa, and the Islands was a bigger logistical nightmare. And it was managed.

92M-93M is the estimated current population of Iran.

Sorry about that, I was looking at Tehran. You have 5 nations that I can see friendly enough to handle refugees. That's still 5.4 million per nation. I picked 30% because it was a high figure. For temporary facilities and to permit unrestricted warfare for an assault to eliminate the current regime that's still workable. That might be an assignment better suited for many of our allies, and targets of the Iranians to handle while we prosecute the war to its conclusion. You aren't looking at permanent relocation, and if Iranians can segregate themselves in safe ways that still lessens the refugee problem.

The resistance to arming those who might attack the current regime is that it creates more confusion instead of less. And makes it harder to hit the bad guys without collateral damage to those we are claiming we want to assist.

War is messy, but the more we can segregate those we desire to spare from those we don't the better off we are and the faster this all ends.

I don't want boots on the ground either, but neither do I want any of the current regime left in control. This is absolutely a case of "We need to finish what we started."

Apparently Ghalibaf was allowed to leave Iran to Pakistan to meet with Kushner and Witkoff.

(03-23-2026 04:58 PM)hburg Wrote:  Apparently Ghalibaf was allowed to leave Iran to Pakistan to meet with Kushner and Witkoff.

So we may have our Delcy Rodriguez after all. If this guy falls in line with Israel and the US, he may get shot the second he goes back. I do not think he is a mullah. If he does come to an agreement and pulls Iran into the US sphere of influence, hopefully he has enough backing of authority there to see it through, or else he will get executed the second he returns. However, if he did in fact get on a plane, he must have some control of the regime considering he was allowed to leave on a plane.

All this while Cuba is praying there is no deal and the war goes on and on.

(03-23-2026 09:01 AM)otown Wrote:  Trump is playing chess when everyone else, including the press, is playing checkers. Why did Trump say 5 day pause on the infrastructure threat? Why specifically 5 days? Well, he salvages the market tanking and oil spiking. He pretends he is talking, whether real talks or informal or none at all. The market stabilizes this week, which it looks like it has, just off of a single post. Then after trading is done on Friday, which is 5 days later, BOOM. Its not like he is pausing airstrikes on everything else. What this also does is screws Iran into a corner with regards to striking the Gulf allies during this 5 day pause. If they continue to hit the Gulf allies during the "pause", which really is keeping the status quo, it gives Trump cover to smash them this weekend.

This was actually a brilliant play.

Not making any meaningful plans about the very stark probability that Iran would close the Hormuz is 'playing chess'? Lolz.

I dont see us using nukes. I also think any ground war would see a HUGE Middle Eastern component in terms of soldiers on the ground. US troops would typically be the tip of the spear in the interests of effectiveness---but since I suspect we would largely operate with complete air supremacy---most difficult chores would simply be handled with smart bombs rather than brute force frontal assaults. Arab troops would be primarily used as additional forces where necessary and to secure the cleared areas behind the tip of the spear. The coalition forces would take out nuclear sites, ballistic missile "cities", and coastal batteries along the Straight of Hormuz first---then any assaults needed to eliminate and collapse the regime would follow once their abilities to project power outside of Iranian borders are removed. Best case scenario----the Turks and Middle Eastern nations make up the largest part of the force---with maybe 10-20K in NATO troops---along with as few US troops as possible (ideally, I'd like to see less than 20K in country)---I think we could defang the regime and topple it fairly quickly after the ground effort begins.

Turn it over to the Arab coalition forces to set up elections and get our kids the heck out of there. No nation building. That said, Id prefer a simple verifiable deal where we defang the current regime completely and leave it vulnerable to overthrow in the future---but Im not sure at this point if leaving this crazy Iranian regime in charge is a viable solution anymore.

(03-23-2026 06:31 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 09:01 AM)otown Wrote:  Trump is playing chess when everyone else, including the press, is playing checkers. Why did Trump say 5 day pause on the infrastructure threat? Why specifically 5 days? Well, he salvages the market tanking and oil spiking. He pretends he is talking, whether real talks or informal or none at all. The market stabilizes this week, which it looks like it has, just off of a single post. Then after trading is done on Friday, which is 5 days later, BOOM. Its not like he is pausing airstrikes on everything else. What this also does is screws Iran into a corner with regards to striking the Gulf allies during this 5 day pause. If they continue to hit the Gulf allies during the "pause", which really is keeping the status quo, it gives Trump cover to smash them this weekend.

This was actually a brilliant play.

Not making any meaningful plans about the very stark probability that Iran would close the Hormuz is 'playing chess'? Lolz.

How do you prevent the closing given that it takes very little to close it in the first place? It only takes a couple of missiles or drones hitting a few ships to stop traffic. No mines were ever laid from what I can tell. Also, consider that no civilian ship will want to move if there’s only a 5% chance of getting hit.

Iran objectively had missiles that traveled twice as far as they claimed and had uranium enriched well above what’s needed for peaceful uses. You think letting them carry on was he right call instead?

(03-23-2026 02:41 PM)JRsec Wrote:  I don't want boots on the ground either, but neither do I want any of the current regime left in control. This is absolutely a case of "We need to finish what we started."

Artist: Frank Sinatra
Song: "All Or Nothing At All"
Songwriters: Arthur Altman, with lyrics by Jack Lawrence
May 24, 1943 Columbia Records

Amir reporting gas infrastructure attack in Iran and Iran just countered and started attacking infrastructure in the gulf countries. Also he reports that power is out in Kuwait due to an attack.

Not sure if this is accurate or not. Sometimes Amir jumps the gun.

(03-23-2026 08:30 PM)otown Wrote:  Amir reporting gas infrastructure attack in Iran and Iran just countered and started attacking infrastructure in the gulf countries. Also he reports that power is out in Kuwait due to an attack.

Not sure if this is accurate or not. Sometimes Amir jumps the gun.

I'm suspect of this report, b/c Trump said today that he asked Bibi to hold off on striking oil and gas for now, after Israel made the initial strike.

(03-23-2026 07:50 PM)miko33 Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 06:31 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 09:01 AM)otown Wrote:  Trump is playing chess when everyone else, including the press, is playing checkers. Why did Trump say 5 day pause on the infrastructure threat? Why specifically 5 days? Well, he salvages the market tanking and oil spiking. He pretends he is talking, whether real talks or informal or none at all. The market stabilizes this week, which it looks like it has, just off of a single post. Then after trading is done on Friday, which is 5 days later, BOOM. Its not like he is pausing airstrikes on everything else. What this also does is screws Iran into a corner with regards to striking the Gulf allies during this 5 day pause. If they continue to hit the Gulf allies during the "pause", which really is keeping the status quo, it gives Trump cover to smash them this weekend.

This was actually a brilliant play.

Not making any meaningful plans about the very stark probability that Iran would close the Hormuz is 'playing chess'? Lolz.

How do you prevent the closing given that it takes very little to close it in the first place? It only takes a couple of missiles or drones hitting a few ships to stop traffic. No mines were ever laid from what I can tell. Also, consider that no civilian ship will want to move if there’s only a 5% chance of getting hit.

Iran objectively had missiles that traveled twice as far as they claimed and had uranium enriched well above what’s needed for peaceful uses. You think letting them carry on was he right call instead?

You preposition naval, air, and land units to at least counter some of the efforts. Instead of sparking this off after sending all of the mine -sweeping capabilities elsewhere. Or prepositioning localized or theater interception capabilities. or pre-planning what might be needed to help with defined convoying issues.

Trump sparked this off with predetermination it was going to be a rollover.

Now he closed the Hormuz with that dumb*** prediction, and without apparently putting anything in place to help the situation.

Hey, lets just play 'heads or tails' with the most important trade and economic artery that has ever existed in history. No, that doesnt sound smart. It doesnt sound smart in the slightest.

As for your last paragraph. that may be the case. You seemingly forget that the reason that they had the 60% EU was because Trump tore up the original agreement, which strapped a bottle rocket to the Iranian effort for 6 years to get to the point. Trump *literally* caused *every* IAEC inspector, camera, and on-site monitor to go dark in the first place 6 years ago.

Further, Khamanei had issued three fatwas against further processing and against the development of a weapon. Doesnt sound fing bright to bomb him -- yeah, lets remove the biggest internal block to nuclear development.

As to your last question -- I dont think there was an iota of thought as to a 'bad' outcome. trump saw a chance to 'get rid of a regional problem' (much like N. Korea is), and decided to do it. As a result we have a full case of Hormuz constipation. All without *any* consultation with *any* other branch of the government. Nor with any ally aside from Israel. I dont think there was much balancing of concerns in the slightest from this administration, and although the 'special military action' has been successful in terms of tactical success, I think it extremely foolhardy and apparently done without concern in the slightest to the massive reaction that could occur, that was likely to occur, and has occurred.

(03-23-2026 11:03 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 07:50 PM)miko33 Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 06:31 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 09:01 AM)otown Wrote:  Trump is playing chess when everyone else, including the press, is playing checkers. Why did Trump say 5 day pause on the infrastructure threat? Why specifically 5 days? Well, he salvages the market tanking and oil spiking. He pretends he is talking, whether real talks or informal or none at all. The market stabilizes this week, which it looks like it has, just off of a single post. Then after trading is done on Friday, which is 5 days later, BOOM. Its not like he is pausing airstrikes on everything else. What this also does is screws Iran into a corner with regards to striking the Gulf allies during this 5 day pause. If they continue to hit the Gulf allies during the "pause", which really is keeping the status quo, it gives Trump cover to smash them this weekend.

This was actually a brilliant play.

Not making any meaningful plans about the very stark probability that Iran would close the Hormuz is 'playing chess'? Lolz.

How do you prevent the closing given that it takes very little to close it in the first place? It only takes a couple of missiles or drones hitting a few ships to stop traffic. No mines were ever laid from what I can tell. Also, consider that no civilian ship will want to move if there’s only a 5% chance of getting hit.

Iran objectively had missiles that traveled twice as far as they claimed and had uranium enriched well above what’s needed for peaceful uses. You think letting them carry on was he right call instead?

You preposition naval, air, and land units to at least counter some of the efforts. Instead of sparking this off after sending all of the mine -sweeping capabilities elsewhere. Or prepositioning localized or theater interception capabilities. or pre-planning what might be needed to help with defined convoying issues.

Trump sparked this off with predetermination it was going to be a rollover.

Now he closed the Hormuz with that dumb*** prediction, and without apparently putting anything in place to help the situation.

Hey, lets just play 'heads or tails' with the most important trade and economic artery that has ever existed in history. No, that doesnt sound smart. It doesnt sound smart in the slightest.

As for your last paragraph. that may be the case. You seemingly forget that the reason that they had the 60% EU was because Trump tore up the original agreement, which strapped a bottle rocket to the Iranian effort for 6 years to get to the point. Trump *literally* caused *every* IAEC inspector, camera, and on-site monitor to go dark in the first place 6 years ago.

Further, Khamanei had issued three fatwas against further processing and against the development of a weapon. Doesnt sound fing bright to bomb him -- yeah, lets remove the biggest internal block to nuclear development.

As to your last question -- I dont think there was an iota of thought as to a 'bad' outcome. trump saw a chance to 'get rid of a regional problem' (much like N. Korea is), and decided to do it. As a result we have a full case of Hormuz constipation. All without *any* consultation with *any* other branch of the government. Nor with any ally aside from Israel. I dont think there was much balancing of concerns in the slightest from this administration, and although the 'special military action' has been successful in terms of tactical success, I think it extremely foolhardy and apparently done without concern in the slightest to the massive reaction that could occur, that was likely to occur, and has occurred.

I'll agree with you wrt Trump shooting his mouth off and "declaring victory" a number of times despite things still being unresolved at the moment. I'll even grant that the talk from the WH about tactical victories is grossly premature considering we may not get a strategic win in the end.

We know three things about Iran at this point in time:

• Iran possessed 60% EU - currently - despite a fatwa indicating they were NOT to pursue nuclear weapons per the supreme leader. Why keep it if these fatwas are to be believed?
• They currently have ballistic missiles that can travel over 4,000 km despite their assurances they were only pursuing max ranged missiles around 2,000 km. Wasn't there a fatwa about that too?
• They have been and still are a sponsor of terrorism for decades.
  

Still, it leaves us with whether we can trust that Iran was going to peacefully coexist with everyone knowing their record of deceit. We supposedly have intelligence that indicated Iran was going to fire a lot of missiles in the near future on their timeline.

No matter how much planning or how many parties would have been brought in prior to starting it - neither political party has the stomach to plan for boots on the ground in Iran. Frankly, I don't know how you secure the straight of Hormuz without boots on the ground from the outset.

If Zelensky and Ukraine has a "better mouse trap" than current U.S. military doctrine and he offered Ukrainian assistance to Trump - then Trump was an idiot to send him away the way he did. The dick has to realize that you get your allies on board when they offer help - even if it's "after the war was already won". Wouldn't it have been nice to have a British aircraft carrier in the Middle East right now? Maybe proximity would have made a difference on whether the UK would have lent a hand over the past few days...

(03-24-2026 06:35 AM)miko33 Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 11:03 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 07:50 PM)miko33 Wrote:  How do you prevent the closing given that it takes very little to close it in the first place? It only takes a couple of missiles or drones hitting a few ships to stop traffic. No mines were ever laid from what I can tell. Also, consider that no civilian ship will want to move if there’s only a 5% chance of getting hit.

Iran objectively had missiles that traveled twice as far as they claimed and had uranium enriched well above what’s needed for peaceful uses. You think letting them carry on was he right call instead?

You preposition naval, air, and land units to at least counter some of the efforts. Instead of sparking this off after sending all of the mine -sweeping capabilities elsewhere. Or prepositioning localized or theater interception capabilities. or pre-planning what might be needed to help with defined convoying issues.

Trump sparked this off with predetermination it was going to be a rollover.

Now he closed the Hormuz with that dumb*** prediction, and without apparently putting anything in place to help the situation.

Hey, lets just play 'heads or tails' with the most important trade and economic artery that has ever existed in history. No, that doesnt sound smart. It doesnt sound smart in the slightest.

As for your last paragraph. that may be the case. You seemingly forget that the reason that they had the 60% EU was because Trump tore up the original agreement, which strapped a bottle rocket to the Iranian effort for 6 years to get to the point. Trump *literally* caused *every* IAEC inspector, camera, and on-site monitor to go dark in the first place 6 years ago.

Further, Khamanei had issued three fatwas against further processing and against the development of a weapon. Doesnt sound fing bright to bomb him -- yeah, lets remove the biggest internal block to nuclear development.

As to your last question -- I dont think there was an iota of thought as to a 'bad' outcome. trump saw a chance to 'get rid of a regional problem' (much like N. Korea is), and decided to do it. As a result we have a full case of Hormuz constipation. All without *any* consultation with *any* other branch of the government. Nor with any ally aside from Israel. I dont think there was much balancing of concerns in the slightest from this administration, and although the 'special military action' has been successful in terms of tactical success, I think it extremely foolhardy and apparently done without concern in the slightest to the massive reaction that could occur, that was likely to occur, and has occurred.

We know three things about Iran at this point in time:

[*]Iran possessed 60% EU - currently - despite a fatwa indicating they were NOT to pursue nuclear weapons per the supreme leader. Why keep it if these fatwas are to be believed?

For the same reason NK has made their own nuclear force. And why Israel has as well. It is a survival card. If/ when the gloves come off, much better to have 60% EU sitting around than nothing.

Quote:[*]They currently have ballistic missiles that can travel over 4,000 km despite their assurances they were only pursuing max ranged missiles around 2,000 km. Wasn't there a fatwa about that too?

I dont believe I heard about that. Would be happy to consider if sourced.

Quote:[*]They have been and still are a sponsor of terrorism for decades.

Yes, they have. Absolutely. Based on that I have zero problem with an end result of them being gone. I think that this Administration jumped into this extremely precipitously.

Quote:Still, it leaves us with whether we can trust that Iran was going to peacefully coexist with everyone knowing their record of deceit. We supposedly have intelligence that indicated Iran was going to fire a lot of missiles in the near future on their timeline.

Not unexpected if true -- Israel on June 20 - 28 pretty much sucker punched them. Along with us. And the comments made by Rubio prior to him 'getting in line' may have been accurate -- if Israel was going for the big Kahuna and taking out the entirety of the Iranian regime, we would be included in retaliation for our material aid in Natanz and Forwor. And the same applies to any supposed Iranian strike against Israel. We set the sides and actions in place in late June. If Israel is going to be missiled, US bases would be as well.

I seriously doubt the immediacy if the source was Israel -- they have too much on the line to not make sure we are in at the get go.

And I doubt the claims as they stand. The testimony of Gabbard was damning as to when questioned *she* felt or thought there was an 'imminent threat'. Im not chastising her for her answer, which completely sidestepped it into 'only the President can determine if there was an immediate threat'. But it is very insightful into the how carefully she answered.

Quote:No matter how much planning or how many parties would have been brought in prior to starting it - neither political party has the stomach to plan for boots on the ground in Iran. Frankly, I don't know how you secure the straight of Hormuz without boots on the ground from the outset.

You dont fully do that at the outset. What you *do* do is place assets that can deal with a portion of it -- a prophylactic measure or measures. In order to at least offset a full closure.

I am positive if the US had emplaced theater level interceptor ground- and ship- based systems it would lead to an initial level of reduction of threat. Couple that with dedicated convoys -- but that would be done with coordinating with the people who are getting hit the most at the first -- that is Europe and Japan, and other portions of Asia. tell them you are going to do this, and it would be in their best interest to help with the stuff. I would practically guarantee that that each of Thai, Indian, Malaysian, Philippine, and Japanese dedicated naval units would have jumped in. Its called 'coalition building'. Join together for a better end result.

Having patriot and multiple Aegis umbrellas would significantly offset ballistic or aerial cruise threat. Having direct present escort vessels would significantly offset water drone and speedboat attack vectors. Having CAP over Hormuz would significantly offset aerial drone attack. Having Tomahawk assets and larger naval guns (with land attack air patrol) would significantly offset artillery fire concerns.

Each of those would absolutely lead to insurance carrier notice. And instead of the current 6 million price tag for transit, (up from the normal 150k), you could get that down significantly. To the point that the owners of the vessels would in fact take, say, a 600k transit price risk.

But, Trump jumped in precipitously without that. He created a huge conflagration and cesspool of a mess, and only after the fact has alternately tried, then dissuaded, then tried, then scorned -- help from the people he could have conspired / coalitioned with to get a better outcome to Hormuz.

Im pissed because this administration sparked something off and didnt seem to have a clue that Hormuz was the logical pressure point for Iran. With tossing only a handful (less than 15) armaments -- Iran has placed the West into a oil headlock. Absolutely foreseeable. Yet nothing was done to even plan for that it appears.

Quote:If Zelensky and Ukraine has a "better mouse trap" than current U.S. military doctrine and he offered Ukrainian assistance to Trump - then Trump was an idiot to send him away the way he did. The dick has to realize that you get your allies on board when they offer help - even if it's "after the war was already won". Wouldn't it have been nice to have a British aircraft carrier in the Middle East right now? Maybe proximity would have made a difference on whether the UK would have lent a hand over the past few days...

Agree completely.

(03-23-2026 11:03 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 07:50 PM)miko33 Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 06:31 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(03-23-2026 09:01 AM)otown Wrote:  Trump is playing chess when everyone else, including the press, is playing checkers. Why did Trump say 5 day pause on the infrastructure threat? Why specifically 5 days? Well, he salvages the market tanking and oil spiking. He pretends he is talking, whether real talks or informal or none at all. The market stabilizes this week, which it looks like it has, just off of a single post. Then after trading is done on Friday, which is 5 days later, BOOM. Its not like he is pausing airstrikes on everything else. What this also does is screws Iran into a corner with regards to striking the Gulf allies during this 5 day pause. If they continue to hit the Gulf allies during the "pause", which really is keeping the status quo, it gives Trump cover to smash them this weekend.

This was actually a brilliant play.

Not making any meaningful plans about the very stark probability that Iran would close the Hormuz is 'playing chess'? Lolz.

How do you prevent the closing given that it takes very little to close it in the first place? It only takes a couple of missiles or drones hitting a few ships to stop traffic. No mines were ever laid from what I can tell. Also, consider that no civilian ship will want to move if there’s only a 5% chance of getting hit.

Iran objectively had missiles that traveled twice as far as they claimed and had uranium enriched well above what’s needed for peaceful uses. You think letting them carry on was he right call instead?

You preposition naval, air, and land units to at least counter some of the efforts. Instead of sparking this off after sending all of the mine -sweeping capabilities elsewhere. Or prepositioning localized or theater interception capabilities. or pre-planning what might be needed to help with defined convoying issues.

Trump sparked this off with predetermination it was going to be a rollover.

Now he closed the Hormuz with that dumb*** prediction, and without apparently putting anything in place to help the situation.

Hey, lets just play 'heads or tails' with the most important trade and economic artery that has ever existed in history. No, that doesnt sound smart. It doesnt sound smart in the slightest.

As for your last paragraph. that may be the case. You seemingly forget that the reason that they had the 60% EU was because Trump tore up the original agreement, which strapped a bottle rocket to the Iranian effort for 6 years to get to the point. Trump *literally* caused *every* IAEC inspector, camera, and on-site monitor to go dark in the first place 6 years ago.

Further, Khamanei had issued three fatwas against further processing and against the development of a weapon. Doesnt sound fing bright to bomb him -- yeah, lets remove the biggest internal block to nuclear development.

As to your last question -- I dont think there was an iota of thought as to a 'bad' outcome. trump saw a chance to 'get rid of a regional problem' (much like N. Korea is), and decided to do it. As a result we have a full case of Hormuz constipation. All without *any* consultation with *any* other branch of the government. Nor with any ally aside from Israel. I dont think there was much balancing of concerns in the slightest from this administration, and although the 'special military action' has been successful in terms of tactical success, I think it extremely foolhardy and apparently done without concern in the slightest to the massive reaction that could occur, that was likely to occur, and has occurred.

You could not stop Iran from making it too risky to go through the Strait. Blaming Trump is just TDS. Completely destroying their navy and exhausting their missiles is the only way.

For Tanq - this article wasn't behind a paywall

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new...716340.cms

Quote:United States officials, cited by The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, confirmed on Wednesday that Iran launched two intermediate-range ballistic missiles toward the remote US-UK military installation at Diego Garcia, a strike attempt spanning 4,000 kilometres across the Indian Ocean. The operation, reported by The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, represents a definitive breach of Tehran's previously self-imposed 2,000-kilometre missile range limit and signals a new phase ..

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new...aign=cppst