Iran War Roundup: Day 16
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
WaPo (“Trump is eager to declare victory, but a battered Iran still has cards to play“):
After two weeks of war against Iran, President Donald Trump may soon be ready to declare victory. But he confronts a challenge: Tehran also gets a vote.
With most of Iran’s navy eliminated, much of its missile stockpile destroyed and top leaders killed, Trump is nearing the goals his military leaders set at the outset of the war.
But two weeks of conflict have not achieved the broader aims Trump has sometimes declared. A hardened regime in Tehran remains in power, and it is roiling global oil markets by choking off the vital shipping lane that allows oil and gas out of the Persian Gulf.
The country’s leaders may be more eager than ever to race toward a nuclear weapon, diplomats and analysts say. Iran retains control of what the United States and allied nations believe is 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, giving it another chip as the regime battles to defend itself and endure the U.S. and Israeli onslaught.
The paradox poses a challenge to Trump’s ability to end the war as he faces increasing pressure from his own party to refocus attention on the economy ahead of the midterm elections.
Gasoline prices have spiked 25 percent since the United States and Israel began bombarding Iran, farmers are facing rising fertilizer costs, and the death toll of U.S. troops is rising. Tehran has proved resilient in its ability to attack ships that try to brave the Strait of Hormuz, making it unclear whether a unilateral halt to the war by the U.S. side would be enough to ease energy prices.
Iranian bombardment has also posed huge challenges to Persian Gulf nations that have traditionally been U.S. allies and host American military bases.
Trump continues to assert that he, alone, controls the pace of the fighting.
The war will end “when I feel it, feel it in my bones,” Trump told Fox News Radio on Friday, saying that he didn’t think it “would be long.”
He added: “We’re way ahead of schedule. Way ahead.”
WSJ (“Iran Tests U.S. Military Might With a Guerrilla Assault on the Global Economy“):
Two weeks in, the war in the Persian Gulf has become an asymmetric contest, pitting the unrivaled conventional military might of the U.S. and Israel against an Iranian government waging a guerrilla fight to block oil shipments and upend the global economy.
The Americans and Israelis quickly took control of Iran’s skies and have used thousands of airstrikes to pummel the country’s leadership and its armed forces—destroying much of the navy and its ability to launch long-range missiles.
But the past century has shown that even the world’s largest and most modern militaries can be humbled when attacking tenacious adversaries willing to endure more pain to defend their territory despite overwhelming odds.
Tehran has taken control of the Strait of Hormuz using far less sophisticated weaponry than the U.S. has unleashed and can now choke energy supplies and commercial shipping through the vital waterway. The goal: to drag the U.S. into a war of economic attrition, inflicting pain on America and its allies around the world.
[…]
For Iran, long fearful of an American attack, the struggle is an existential one that it has spent decades preparing for. It shows no sign of relenting despite Trump’s recent comments that strikes are progressing well and the U.S. is on course to prevail.
“Simply because one side declares a war is over does not eliminate the inconvenient truth that the enemy always gets a vote in when a war ends,” said retired U.S. Navy Admiral James Stavridis. Americans “might be losing interest in the war, but the war may continue to be interested in us.”
U.S. and Israeli air power has reshaped politics in the Middle East and far beyond during the war. Iran’s fledgling nuclear-weapons program, already bludgeoned by U.S. and Israeli strikes last year, is now even further from producing a viable bomb. Tehran’s arsenal of missiles and rockets able to hit distant targets is in tatters. Iran’s air defenses lie in ruin.
“Stopping the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon is a more important goal than maintaining oil prices at the previous level,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a foreign-policy and defense specialist at the Brookings Institution.
But it was “somewhere between extremely optimistic and delusional” of Trump and Israel to think air attacks alone would cause the regime to collapse, he said.
[…]
The ability of Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, to fire some 200 rockets into Israel this week—less than two years after Israel claimed victory in crushing the militant organization—also offers a reminder of Tehran’s ability to keep fighting despite relentless pressure. Built on a glorification of martyrdom and loathed by many of its own citizens, the regime’s appetite for risk has skyrocketed.
WSJ (“They Were Promised Regime Change. Now Many Iranians Feel Betrayed.“):
At the start of the war on Iran, Israel and the U.S. said they were paving the way for Iranians to rise up and topple their government. Many Iranians cheered on the offensive as a last resort to overthrow rulers who killed thousands of protesters in January.
Now, they are grappling with the possibility that the war will end with them living under the same authoritarian rule and crushing international sanctions, but in devastated cities with an aggrieved government that has vowed to take an even harder line against dissent.
One Tehran-based civil-society activist and former political prisoner said Iranians were truly hopeful two weeks ago as the war began. Now, the person said, they feel betrayed. An English-language teacher living in Tehran who is opposed to the government but also the war was more blunt. “We were f—ed over,” the teacher said, saying they were turned into an excuse to launch a devastating war. “It’s like we have gone back a hundred years in time.”
The disappointment was triggered by a U-turn by Israeli and U.S. officials, who now are suggesting the time isn’t ripe for regime change.
President Trump has hinted the war could end soon, saying American forces have already struck all the targets that could be hit. On Friday, he told Fox News Radio that he thinks it is unlikely that Iranians will rise up soon against a regime that remains dangerous.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken on a similar tone, saying in a speech Thursday that Iranians might not be able to bring down the regime, just days after he exhorted them to be ready for the coming moment to strike.
“The penny has dropped for a lot of people that this may be much more about state collapse than regime change,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
WSJ (“For Xi, Iran War Reinforces View of U.S. as Dangerous Superpower“):
President Trump’s use of military force in Venezuela and Iran reinforces a view long held in Beijing: The U.S. will use all means necessary to assert American dominance around the world—a posture that threatens China’s core interests.
Trump’s extraordinary military gamble in the Middle East, following fast on the heels of his decapitation of the Maduro government in Venezuela, reinforces Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s longstanding view that the U.S. must be approached with toughness.
But underlying China’s hard-nosed stance is a belief that the U.S. could ultimately weaken itself with such interventions.
[…]
Meanwhile, the Iran war could create some immediate advantages for China in a potential conflict over Taiwan. The Trump administration has relocated key military resources to the Middle East and is burning through large stocks of key weapons.
Still, the extent and longevity of those gains are unclear. Analysts say Xi is unlikely to try to launch an attack on Taiwan just because of the U.S. war on Iran.
“Xi has not in the last 13 years demonstrated a tendency towards recklessness,” said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute. “Calculated risk-taking, yes. But recklessness? He’s not once demonstrated it. To go to war potentially with the U.S. over Taiwan, on the assumption that Americans will run out of ammunition in a relatively short period, would be pretty reckless.”
More broadly, the U.S. actions and the spiraling conflict likely confirm Xi’s deeply held belief that to project strength, China must insulate itself from risks at home and abroad, a posture that makes concessions more difficult.
Xi’s success in reducing China’s economic vulnerabilities—and squeezing those chokepoints it controls—has strengthened his hand in negotiations with Trump.
AP (“Two weeks into war with Iran, Trump has been knocked back on his political heels“):
In the two weeks since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran, President Donald Trump increasingly has been knocked on his political heels.
He’s grown more agitated with news coverage and has failed to find a way to explain why he started the war — or how he will end it — that resonates with a public concerned by American deaths in the conflict, surging oil prices and dropping financial markets. Even some of his supporters are questioning his plan and his overall poll numbers are declining.
[…]
Iran also has even divided Trump’s “Make America Great Again” base, between those who support the action and others who say that Trump expressly campaigned on ending wars.
Leading figures on the right, including Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, have sharply criticized Trump. Trump, though, has continued to insist that he created the MAGA movement and that it will follow him anywhere, on any issue.
So, to recap, the war has
- Cost tens of billions of dollars
- Cost the lives of 14 American service members and counting
- Sent the global economy into crisis
- Killed hundreds, injured thousands, and displaced millions of innocent civilians
- Created havoc for American allies and partners in the region
- Bolstered the position of our great power adversaries
- Weakened the President’s party in the upcoming elections
but has not
- Achieved its ostensible political objective, which has now been all but abandoned
Do I have that right?
I very seldom have the patience to watch videos, but IMO this one is well worth 20 minutes or so of your time:
“Left Hook“
Sadly, yes.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Iran has been attacked/bombed several times now by Israel and by the United States. The end state they (Iran) seek includes guaranteed never bombed again. This seems like a pretty difficult end state to get to, it might take a while to get there if it even can be achieved. And Iran has other demands also, e.g., reparations, so the war might drag on a bit.
ETA:
The “Power of Positive Thinking,” Trump version – the World does what I tell it to do.
Trump has found his Goebbels in Brendan Carr –
FCC chair threatens to throttle news broadcasts over ‘hoaxes’ about Iran war
Seizing the mantle of arbiter of “all things in public interest,” Carr overlays Trump’s malignant narcissism atop of this nation’s own need for an uncensored press. Carr crystalizes his threat:
Trump’s “Ministry of Propaganda” has been given its talking points:
– Fake News Media
– Lowlife Papers
– Want us to lose the War
– They are truly sick and demented people
– the damage they cause America
– the exact opposite of actual facts!
During World War II, the (old) War Department had its own propaganda unit that maintained a foundational principle: counter threatening rumors with a succinct and oppositional message to the public, and then repeat, repeat, repeat, until it became fact in the mind of the public, drowning all else.
Over the ensuing decades, as we expanded the “democracy consciousness” of this nation, with the freedom of the press growing its role of providing accountability for the actions of our government — essential to a society that values the principles of liberty.
Trump and his MAGA movement seeks to drag America backwards by truncating the freedom of the press and drawing a cloak over its own administrative actions. We are now embroiled and enmeshed in an elective war that threatens global stability, interminable impacts, deadly consequences, and at the hands of incompetent leaders who draw upon a bygone era for their inspiration and aspiration to unlimited power. Visions of “unconditional surrender” and absolute victory, dance in their heads without nary of thought of the “actual facts” governing the lives and powerful beliefs of the people they hope to subdue and subjugate.
There is no real plan other than smash things, grab oil. These imbeciles — Trump, Hegseth, Rubio, Lindsey Graham, Miller et. al. — are shooting from the hip (with our missiles). Any vestige of a goal is so thinly conceived, as to be seemingly sketched out on the rumpled napkin left next to their gaming console after a night of bro’-dom revelry — “yeah dude, hit ’em hard and “all your base belong us” wazzup!” — That it, the totality of what has been unfolding.
Set in motion by a simulacrum of a Defense Secretary in behest of a mimicry of a President. The lack of depth to their thinking is eclipsed by their sheer stupidity which is funneled through pathological cruelty.
Carr is telling the American press that it must operate in the interest of Trump’s twisted, herky-jerky whims, or “they will lose their licenses.” — his words. Don’t scrutinize, question, or challenge the Trump criminal enterprise masquerading as a government administration. Cheerleaders wanted, to blow smoke. Critical thought be damned, full speed ahead!
@charontwo:
It’s not Trump’s “power of positive thinking” so much as his legerdemain, a con-man’s redirects, self-propaganda.
Here is something I found at Adam Tooze’ site (it is paywalled):
@charontwo: @Rob1:
It appears you both know that the Trump family attended Norman Vincent Peale’s Marble Collegiate Church.
As demonstrated by W, Trump, the entire Republican party. and all their billionaire backers.
Trump-Hegseth were hoping they would be greeted as liberators perhaps?
You are all worse than each other’: anti-regime Iranians turn on Trump
When bombs and missiles are raining down from the skies non-stop, blowing up neighborhoods, wiping out families, and girls schools, its kind of hard to pour into the streets propelled by thoughts of popular revolution, and with no weapons — against people who have all the weapons — months after thousands protesters have already been killed, and tens of thousands of protesters have been jailed.
No, Trump’s encouragement to the people of Iran to rise up against the theocratic regime, is just be more of his cynical, twisted pot-stirring, rabble rousing manipulation of people to act carelessly in his interest. Very much in line with his Jan 6 2021 inflammatory speech encouraging his MAGA rabble to go to the Capitol building and bring down our own government. He should have been tried and convicted of treason then. We would not be staring a global catastrophe now.
Trump is willing to toss people to their very deaths with economy of his mere words, if it gets him what he wants. Human welfare be damned. The “Christian” Right has approved of this behavior. They persecute themselves with their own hypocrisy.
The Christian right is giddy over what they view as a victorious holy war versus infidels. Does Donny care about disappointing them with a TACO?
“Holy War”
Above are a few excerpts, there is lots more at the link.
ETA: Most self-styled “MAGA” Republicans are also right-wing Christian, not all “Christian Nationalist” but at least in that neighborhood.
This all seems like excellent news for Cuba, who would otherwise be on Trump’s regime change radar.
I don’t know the full list of countries he wants to attack, or the order — I would suspect reverse alphabetical, but there are so many countries between Venezuela and Iran — but Cuba really has lucked out.
I wonder if Greenland is filed under G for Greenland, D for Denmark or C for Canada?
It doesn’t matter how stupid you think Trump and his sycophants are, they are worse:
“Malcolm Nance”
Etc., etc.
@charontwo: General Riper, seriously there’s a General Riper? You say Riper and I say Ripper, Riper, Ripper, let’s call the whole thing off.
@gVOR10: Legendary in the Corps. Retired as a 3-star in 1997.
@charontwo:
One thing is perceived to be as close to a guarantee as a country can get.
@charontwo:
“Iran has been attacked/bombed several times now by Israel and by the United States. The end state they (Iran) seek includes guaranteed never bombed again.”
Because we all know how well promises like that have worked with, say Ukraine and Russia?
It may be that the most likely result of the last few decades is to demonstrate that North Korea’s actions in completing its nuclear weapons was the best course of action for a country’s leaders to take. Countries which gave them up in exchange for promises (Libya, Iraq) have been invaded and its leaders overthrown. Iran tried a middle way, agreeing to verifiably stop building them, while keeping the ability to do so later if necessary, and have seen the US abrogate the agreement and attack it. Meanwhile, North Korea has not been attacked.
This is, of course, exactly the wrong message to be sending.
@charontwo:
This is the whole nuttiness with the “seize Kharg and win!” scenarios currently being touted by some sections of MAGA.
It first requires effective control of the straits, and if you have that, there’s zero sodding point taking Kharg.
Meanwhile, it’s going to take weeks to assemble the forces and logistics even to secure Hormuz, which seems pretty certain to require ground operations.
Seldom has a serious war been undertaken so unseriously.
My word, but those people are so dumb.
The other teensy little issue is, if you don’t get “regime change”, how the hell do you secure the 60% enriched uranium hexafluoride at Isfahan (and/or Natanz and/or Fordow)?
That would require effective control of a large area for at least days, more likely weeks.
It will be bloody, to put it mildly.
@Moosebreath:
Experience is a teacher – for example, touching a hot stove might teach one to not do that.
I am no expert on Persian thinking or motivation, but my impression is they plan to inflict enough pain to get across the message “Don’t do this again.”
@Moosebreath:
I can think of several cinematic ways to make sure security guarantees stick, but we’re still not living in an action movie.
China must be looking on with great satisfaction. After only two weeks of war with a third-rate military power, America is running short of its most sophisticated weapons and begging other countries to come do a task which its own navy regards as too dangerous to do itself. There must be a huge question mark about America’s ability to offer sustained opposition to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, despite all Trump and Hegseth’s bluster about the might of their military power.
@Ken_L:
The most ironic outcome of all this idiocy would be a China/India joint expeditionary force in control of the Strits of Hormuz, and the Gulf states with a majority population of Iranian refugees.
@JohnSF:
One of the important lessons from Ukraine is that the Russian S-300 and S-400 air defense systems aren’t as good as everyone thought. One lesson from Iran that might be critical in the future is neither is the THAAD. It’s really bad when a third-rate power with drones takes out the radar unit for your premier air defense system.
@Gustopher: No they aren’t. A blockade is a recognized act of war and we are blockading Cuba from getting petroleum, a critical resource. Lights are going out in Cuba. Pretty sure looks like most of North Korea does in the night sat photos already. Cities have begun to run out of food. How many missed meals was it between every government and a revolution? I recall “seven” but personally I tend to get rather cranky after “one”.
Strong possibility only reason it’s not being bombed is Rubio deemed that unnecessary. Might be a correct assessment too.
@JohnSF: Strongly recommend the Trita Parsi interview in Charron’s first post of this thread.