Trump to Expand and/or End Iran War Soon
The Art of the Deal in action.
CBS News (“Trump is strategizing means to seize Iran’s nuclear stockpiles, sources say“):
The Trump administration has been strategizing methods and options to secure or extract Iran’s nuclear materials, according to multiple people briefed on the discussions, as a U.S.-Israel-led military campaign against Tehran enters a more uncertain phase.
The timing of any such an operation — if President Trump were to order it — remained unclear Friday night. One source said he has made no decision yet.
But planning has centered on the possible deployment of forces from the secretive Joint Special Operations Command, the elite military unit often tasked with the most sensitive counter-proliferation missions, two of the sources told CBS News.
The private deliberations on the nuclear material come amid an evolving conflict that in its opening focused on degrading Iran’s conventional military capabilities — including air defenses, missile systems and key infrastructure tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
[…]
More recently, the administration turned its attention to a more enduring objective laid out by Mr. Trump at the start of the war: ensuring that Iran is no longer capable of producing a nuclear weapon.
As of last summer, Iran had amassed some 972 pounds of 60%-enriched uranium, which is a short step away from weapons-grade material, according to the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA. Much of that uranium remains buried underneath nuclear sites that were bombed by a U.S. operation last summer.
U.S. officials have said the Trump administration has not ruled out trying to retrieve Iran’s stockpiles of highly enriched uranium as part of the current military campaign. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters earlier this week that “it’s an option on the table for him.”
Any mission to seize the uranium would be arduous and potentially risky.
“We’re talking about cylinders containing gas of highly contaminated uranium hexafluoride at 60%, so it’s very difficult to handle,” Rafael Grossi, the IAEA’s director-general, told CBS News “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” this week. “I’m not saying it’s impossible. I know that there are incredible military capacities to do that, but it would be [a] very challenging operation for sure.”
The U.S. intelligence community assessed last spring that Iran was not trying to build a nuclear weapon, and Iran insists that its nuclear program is intended solely for peaceful purposes. But in recent years, Iran has enriched uranium to 60%, beyond the levels necessary for most non-military uses. The IAEA has said Iran is the only non-nuclear weapons state to enrich uranium to that level.
Since the war’s outset, Mr. Trump has listed ensuring that Iran cannot get a nuclear weapon as one of the war’s goals.
CBS News (“Trump administration making heavy preparations for potential use of ground troops in Iran“):
Pentagon officials have made detailed preparations for deploying U.S. ground forces into Iran, multiple sources briefed on the discussions told CBS News.
Senior military commanders have submitted specific requests aimed at preparing for such an option as President Trump weighs moves in the U.S.-Israel-led conflict with Iran, the sources said.
Mr. Trump has been deliberating whether to position ground forces in the region, sources said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. It was unclear under what circumstances he would authorize the use of troops on the ground.
“No, I’m not putting troops anywhere,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday when asked about ground troops, but quickly added: “If I were, I certainly wouldn’t tell you.”
[…]
The U.S. is preparing to deploy elements of the 82nd Airborne Division into the Middle East region.
The planning involves the Army’s Global Response Force and the Marine Corps’ Marine Expeditionary Unit.
Thousands of Marines are being moved now to the Middle East. Three warships and about 2,200 Marines from an expeditionary unit departed California earlier this week, according to two U.S. officials. It was the second such Marine unit sent since the war began, and it could be a few weeks before it’s in place. The first was sent from the Pacific and is still making its way into the region.
AP (“Iran threatens tourism sites and US sends more Marines to Middle East as Trump hints at wind-down“):
hree weeks into an escalating war in the Middle East, Iran threatened to expand its retaliatory attacks to include recreational and tourist sites worldwide, as the U.S. announced it was sending more warships and Marines to the region.
Following news of the deployments, President Donald Trump said later Friday on social media that his administration in fact was considering “winding down” military operations in the region. The mixed messages came after another climb in oil prices plunged the U.S. stock market, and was followed by a Trump administration announcement that it will lift sanctions on Iranian oil loaded on ships, a move aimed at wrangling soaring fuel prices.
The war, meanwhile, has shown no signs of abating.
[…]
The U.S. and Israel have offered shifting rationales for the war, from hoping to foment an uprising that topples Iran’s leadership to eliminating its nuclear and missile programs. There have been no public signs of any such uprising and no end to the war in sight.
In his social media post, the president said, “We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East.”
That seemed at odds with his administration’s move to bolster its firepower in the region and request another $200 billion from Congress to fund the war.
The U.S. is deploying three more amphibious assault ships and roughly 2,500 additional Marines to the Middle East, an official told The Associated Press. Two other U.S. officials confirmed that ships were deploying, without saying where they were headed. All three spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.
Days earlier the U.S. redirected another group of amphibious assault ships carrying another 2,500 Marines from the Pacific to the Middle East. The Marines will join more than 50,000 U.S. troops already in the region.
Trump has said he has no plans to send ground forces into Iran but also has asserted that he retains all options.
WaPo (“Trump signals U.S. may leave allies to manage Iran fallout“):
President Donald Trump on Friday evening said the United States was considering “winding down” its military efforts in Iran even asthousands of Marines sailed toward the region, leaving unclear whether the White Houseplanned to walk away or escalate its three-week-old war.
Trump’s announcement on social media that he may step back from the war in Iran sought to escalate pressure on allies to assume a greater role in securing the region’s oil shipments — an increasingly urgent concern as energy prices spike. Trump has complained in increasingly bitter terms that U.S. allies are dragging their feet about joining a fight that he launched without consulting them.
“The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not!” he wrote Friday on Truth Social, addingthat he would be open to helping other countries “in their Hormuz efforts.”
“It will be an easy Military Operation for them,” he said.
[…]
Trump said Friday that the United States was close to eliminating Iran’s missile stockpile, destroying its defense industry, navy and air force, and “Never allowing Iran to get even close to Nuclear Capability.”
WaPo (“U.S.-Israeli rift widens over potential endgame in Iran“):
When the United States and Israel initiated the war against Iran last month, their messages were perfectly in sync on the sweeping goal of regime change.
President Donald Trump told Iranians to seize their “only chance” for generations to “take over your government,” and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu implored them to “cast off the yoke of this murderous regime.”
But nearly three weeks into the conflict, the war aims are diverging between a U.S. president who saw the historic opportunity of a quick military victory with only modest economic pain and an Israeli leader with grander visions of toppling a regime he’s sought to vanquish for 40 years, said multiple U.S., Israeli and Middle East officials and lawmakers familiar with the matter.
Trump’s latest outburst against Israel’s attacks on Iran’s huge South Pars gas field on Wednesday laid bare the tensions between the two allies and the inconsistency of the president’s approach to the conflict.
Trump said Israel had “violently lashed out” at Iran and distanced himself from the assault on the world’s largest natural gas deposit, which Iran shares with Qatar, a close U.S. ally and host of Washington’s biggest military base in the Gulf.
“The United States knew nothing about this particular attack, and the country of Qatar was in no way, shape, or form, involved with it,” Trump said on Truth Social.
But multiple officials directly contradicted that claim in conversations with The Washington Post, saying that while the U.S. was not involved in the strike, the Israelis informed Washington about the attack in advance.
The incident, which drove energy prices higher and prompted retaliatory Iranian missile fire at Qatar’s main gas facility and Saudi Arabia’s capital, was indicative of Trump’s vacillation as he’s tried to manage an unpopular war that has killed 13 Americans to date.
[…]
The White House denied that Trump has allowed the war’s scope to become murky or open-ended.
“Unlike the years-long foreign entanglements of the past that lacked clear objectives, President Trump has outlined four distinct goals for Operation Epic Fury,” said a White House official.
The goals are destroying Iran’s ballistic missile program, sinking its navy, neutralizing its regional allies and guaranteeing it can’t obtain a nuclear weapon, the official said.
WSJ (“Iran Believes It’s Winning—and Wants a Steep Price to End the War“):
Three weeks into the war, the Iranian regime is signaling that it believes it is winning and has the power to impose a settlement on Washington that entrenches Tehran’s dominance of Middle East energy resources for decades to come.
This attitude may prove to be a dangerous misreading of President Trump’s determination, or of Israel’s capacity to inflict strategic blows on the Islamic Republic’s surviving leadership and military capabilities.
[…]
Trump said this week the U.S. would wrap up the conflict in the “near future” even as the Pentagon dispatched thousands of additional Marines to the Middle East.
The problem is, Iran also has a say in when the guns fall silent—and, for now, it seems to think time works to its benefit.
Despite optimistic U.S. and Israeli pronouncements about destroying launchers and missile stocks, Iran has retained the ability to fire dozens of ballistic missiles, and many more drones, every day across the Middle East.
[…]
“The Iranians aren’t ready to end the war because they have learned an important lesson: They can, comparatively easily and cheaply, cause a lot of damage and disruption. They now want the whole world to learn that lesson, too,” said Dina Esfandiary, an analyst on Iran and author of a book on Iran’s foreign relations.
Seeing its leverage, Tehran has pledged that it will agree to a cease-fire only if Washington and the Gulf states pay a steep price. The spokesman of the Iranian Parliament’s foreign affairs and defense committee, Ebrahim Rezaei, said after Friday’s meeting with military commanders that any talks with the U.S. are off the agenda as Tehran “focuses on punishing the aggressors.” Other Iranian leaders have been just as triumphalist, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi describing Iran as another Vietnam for the U.S.
That rhetoric may underestimate Washington’s resolve.
“This hubris is dangerous because they are not smart enough to understand that President Trump will never let them win. They don’t understand how far he’s willing to go,” said Jason Greenblatt, who served as the White House special envoy for the Middle East in the first Trump administration. “This can come at a huge cost, but the cost of not taking care of the problem will be many times more expensive over many, many years.”
Demands voiced by Iranian leaders in recent days as conditions for ending the war include massive reparations from the U.S. and its allies and the expulsion of American military forces from the region. They have also called for transforming the Strait of Hormuz—an international waterway where free navigation is guaranteed under international law—into an Iranian toll booth controlling one-third of the world’s shipborne crude oil.
NYT Editorial Board (“Trump Is Hiding the Truth About the War in Iran“):
From his first announcement of the attack on Iran on Feb. 28, President Trump has issued a stream of falsehoods about the war. He has said Iran wants to engage in negotiations, though its government shows no sign of it. He has claimed that the United States “destroyed 100% of Iran’s Military capability” when Tehran continues to inflict damage throughout the region. He has said the war is almost complete even as he calls in reinforcements from around the globe.
Lying is standard behavior for Mr. Trump, of course. His political career began with a lie about Barack Obama’s birthplace, and he has lied about his business, his wealth, his inauguration crowd size, his defeat in the 2020 election and so much more. A CNN tally of Mr. Trump’s falsehoods during one part of his first term found that he averaged eight false claims per day. Many people are so accustomed to his lies that they hardly notice them anymore.
Yet lying about war is uniquely corrosive. When a president signals that the truth does not matter in wartime, he encourages his cabinet and his generals to mislead the country and one another about how the war is going. He creates a culture in which deadly mistakes and even war crimes can become more common. He makes it harder to win by hiding the realities of conflict and by making allies wary of joining the fight. Ultimately, he undermines American values and interests.
[…]
Lies about war also make it harder to achieve victory: The more one spreads falsehoods, the less one feels obliged to face reality. In retrospect, Americans understand that their leaders’ refusal to confront the truth in Iraq and Vietnam led to strategic errors. The pattern is repeating. Before Mr. Trump began this war, he brushed aside warnings from his top military adviser that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz to traffic it does not approve. The global economy is now dealing with the consequences of his overconfidence.
It’s only a lie if you believe it to be untrue. In this case, it’s far more likely that he believes what he’s saying, even though the things he says are mutually contradictory.
As Art of the Deal ghostwriter Tony Schwarz put it, “More than anyone else I have ever met, Trump has the ability to convince himself that whatever he is saying at any given moment is true, or sort of true, or at least ought to be true.”
He believes he’s a man of peace—deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize—despite routinely resorting to military action. As with trade wars, he believes shooting wars are easy to win. Even though his hand-picked military advisor has told him otherwise, he thinks his maximalist goals are achievable quickly and with minimal cost.
In his mind, there’s no contradiction between preparing for sending in ground forces to seize Iran’s nuclear materials—and perhaps more?—and mulling over declaring victory and leaving it to regional partners and allies to pick up the pieces. His gut will tell him which course to take.
As laid out nearly four decades ago:
- “My style of deal-making is quite simple and straightforward. I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing to get what I’m after. Sometimes I settle for less than I sought, but in most cases I still end up with what I want.”
- “Most people think small, because most people are afraid of success, afraid of making decisions, afraid of winning. And that gives people like me a great advantage.”
- “I never get too attached to one deal or one approach. For starters, I keep a lot of balls in the air, because most deals fall out, no matter how promising they seem at first. In addition, once I’ve made a deal, I always come up with at least a half dozen approaches to making it work, because anything can happen, even to the best-laid plans.”
Sure, it may seem like a reckless way to run a war. But it got him to where he is today.
I keep seeing mentions of all the stuff that moves east through the strait – helium, fertilizer etc. What very seldom gets mentioned or considered is that food for the vastly increased populations around the Persian Gulf comes in through the strait. How are all these people to eat with the strait closed?
Opening the strait by force would be enormously dangerous,(with casualties and losses), requiring an enormous commitment but Iran’s ransom demands may be so extravagant that would be necessary.
Some discussion:
“Malcolm Nance“
If I were the Iranians I’d aim a few missiles at the Burj Khalifa for a new and bigger 9/11. The symbolism would be devastating and most likely signal the end of the UAE/Saudi dreams of diversification and integration into the 21st century.
If I were the Chinese I’d create a plan for a politically and economically stable Gulf dominated by China, a political/economic paradigm shift. The disruption of oil flow is a problem for China but also a huge opportunity. Especially if Trump runs away.
As for grabbing the uranium? Didn’t we just bury that uranium under tons of blast debris? How many pieces of earth-moving equipment would we have to chopper in to get started on digging it out? Hard enough if the uranium is all packed into a storage locker in a coastal city. But we were led to believe that is not the case.
If I were Trump I’d declare victory and GTFO of there. The 60% will know he lost, but the 40% will stick with him. That’s all he’s got now, so no change in his cult base. What I expect him to do is to seize Kharg and steal Iran’s oil. He’s just lowered sanctions on Iranian oil. How does he get the oil to market with the Strait closed? Don’t know, but I see no reason why the near-impossibility should bother Trump – I mean, he is Christ’s chosen representative on Earth and the very bestest president ever.
Here is another discussion, text this time, of taking over the strait by force:
“Lucian Truscott”
ETA: Looking ahead, long term, the Gulf Arab states will need to bite the bullet and build pipelines, roads, railroads to the west, relying on getting out and in through the Gulf of Oman will be just too much of a risk.
@Michael Reynolds:
Do we really know where it is? Some may have been moved. Maybe it’s mixed in with a few hundred decoy canisters.
To me, the uranium is a red herring, pretty insignificant relative to closing the strait.
@charontwo:
As long as Iran has the uranium – even buried – Iran has a nuclear program. Trump will have a hard time pretending otherwise. But of course the Strait is the jugular of the world economy. One is cancer, the other is a heart attack. Paging Dr. Robbie.
Keep in mind the effective definition of “open” is that Lloyds of London et al charge no or minimal risk premium for insurance. A pretty demanding standard.
@gVOR10:
Whether it is in the Strait or somewhere else in the gulf, if Iran destroys the occasional tanker, none are moving w/o Iran’s permission. It won’t matter how many boats the US sinks or drones that it downs, it only takes one to get through.
@Sleeping Dog:
We are in the classic trap: we need to succeed 100% of the time, they only need to succeed 1% of the time.
“This can come at a huge cost, but the cost of not taking care of the problem will be many times more expensive over many, many years.” – Jason Greenblatt
“You mean the problem that Trump himself created? That problem?” – Me
I find it odd El Taco is pressuring Europe, China, India, Korea, and Japan to bail him out in Hormuz, but not the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Iraq, and Kuwait, who have even more to lose from a prolonged closure of the strait.
Upthread I posted something from Lucian Truscott about the bloodbath reopening the strait by force would be. Here is what our well-informed President think about that :
“Truth”
Reopening the strait would be so “very easy, simple and safe for them” that the allies should do it, not the U.S.
Here is another discussion worth a watch:
“Left Hook“
@Kathy: It’s because the goal isn’t military. US Navy is more massive than all those navies combined. We don’t need their help in that area, and if we did, what they could contribute would almost be a rounding error.
The goal is political, to defray the political fallout from this not going well. “Don’t call me an idiot, look at all the people that signed on to my brilliant project!”
@dazedandconfused:
I thought it was because many Gulf countries have greased his and his family’s paws.
@charontwo: It’s a nice thought, but about 80% of Gulfie oil goes to Asian markets -East.
Truscott is hip, but he skipped over something major. We can take it and hold it, bloodbath and all, but the question then becomes “For how long?” The Iranians know the drill, home field advantage. As the Talibs liked to say: “You have the watches, but we have the time.”
@Kathy:
The dealers lose some profits, but the users suffer withdrawal. A case of cold turkey that can be fatal.
Trump hopes he will be able to say “It was going fine until I handed it to those guys!”
A 6 post thread, references a new piece in The New Republic:
https://bsky.app/profile/gregsargent.bsky.social/post/3mhkwkrby5223
TNR:
@dazedandconfused:
There’s been mention in the media the Gulf countries import a great deal of food, which won’t pass through the Strait of Hormuz for now. Running low on food can be far more catastrophic than running low on oil.
Of course, it’s possible there are other means to bring it in. Say through Red Sea ports in Saudi Arabia, and thence by truck. It’s also possible these countries might quietly strike a deal with Iran to let food shipments through.
Reports are coming in of Iranian missiles striking Dimona and Arad in Israel.
Dimona is the site of Israel’s breeder reactor, where they make plutonium for their nuclear arsenal.
Israel is not a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty. The other holdouts are India, Pakistan, South Sudan, and North Korea (withdrew).
@Kathy:
The food supply is huge longer-term issue that is being overlooked, by most people, so far.
80% of the food consumption off the Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia is imported.
70% is imported by sea via the straits.
The figures are enormous: at least 25 million tonnes per annum, by my rough estimates.
It seems unlikely that this volume can be handled by any spare capacity available at Saudi Red Sea or Omani Arabian Sea ports, and then by the trucking volumes for the trans-Arabian roads.
However, some of my earlier fears of imminent crisis seem to be mitigated: most GGC countries have grains stockpiles sufficient for four to six months.
But that means there is still a pretty hard timeframe for when the straits must be reopened, one way or another.
Reply to Kathy’s comment on yesterdays forum:
I think there have been some remarks, mainly during the pre-war negotiations, about demands the Iran stop supporting various proxies. Have been less prominant since, but I suspect this is still a key desire of Israel
What the threat is was never, imho, a direct military one from Iran.
It was indirect, but nonetheless quite real.
My view of the strategy from the Iranian pov:
A nuclear project deliberately held at 60% enrichment.
60% is pointless except as a “near weapons grade” level
(Unless Iran was aiming at submarine-type reactors, or neutron flux production “research reactors”; and if my name is Miranda, empress of the pink unicorns.)
60% enables a realitively rapid move to 90% (due to enrichment becoming progressively easier as percentages increase) = weapons grade.
Negotiating a continued “hold at 60” deal provides a means to demand in exchange santions relief, and acceptance of an expanding Iranian ballistic missile arsenal.
That missile force provides a backstop deterrent to Israel mounting a decisive campaign against Hezbollah (and pre-October 2023) Hamas.
Hezbollah is the next step down the deterrence chain: its own missile stocks, along with its fortified position in southern Lebanon were to deter even limited Israeli incursions.
These deterrence levels enable an ongoing Hezbollah/Hamas campaign that is meant to gradually undermine Israel by ongoing missile and rocket attacks from Lebanon and Gaza (and at one point, Syria?) and other attacks.
(This the “underpants gnomes” part of the strategy, imho)
In reality, it was even if carried out, unlikely to collapse Israel
But then, I never said it was a sensible plan.
It sorta-works from the ideological basis of Israel being an “illegitimate entity” which is bound to collapse if resisted, that being the Will of God.
It also overlloked the reality that Israel would never, under any government whatsoever, tolerate eithe Hezbollah, or Hamas, or both, lobbing rockets into Israel.
Or Iran doing similarly, and detrerrence theory be damned.
This entire strategic path was a choice by the Pasdaran/mullah rulers: it was not in any way essential to the security of their rule, except in the sense that is was integral to the idaology that justified it.
Anyhoo, that’s my analysis, for what little it’s worth.
“Other brands are available at other retailers.”
@charontwo:
Missed your comment before posting mine.
Food supply is the elephant in the room.
My hunting about about indicates GCC have stocks for four to six months, of grains.
Likely much less of meat, vegetables, etc.
But the lower volumes of such might make supply by air and overland possible.
But come late summer/early autumn, if the straits are not secured, the Gulf has an existential problem.
And before that their economies are likely to be in collapse if they cannot export.
@Michael Reynolds:
Which was so bloody obvious from before the outset.
And CENTCOM pretty certainly said so.
But Trump and Hegseth are morons, Rubio is pathetically sycophantic (and likely fixated on Cuba), Kushner and Witkoff are bought, and Netanyahu is honey badger.
And honey badger don’t care.
@JohnSF:
Think more a Berlin airlift* kind of solution. Not all the food needed to bring supplies to pre-trump closure levels, but enough to keep the overall population reasonably healthy.
Not easy, not cheap, and not without a myriad complications (like fresh vegetables don’t last that long, even refrigerated). But plausible.
@JohnSF:
I find your analysis quite good, and more succinct than the reading I’ve been doing on the subject online.
It’s as if the Mullahs wear pariah status as a badge of honor.
Of course, this does not deter countries or rulers who care little for niceties like rights and the rule of law from dealing with Iran as if it were a normal country. Especially when Iran has something these rulers need, like Mad Vlad and his Iranian drones.
BTW, when I first heard of the Shaheed drones in connection with their use by Russia, I thought Mad Vlad had been reduced to scraping whatever’s beneath the bottom of the barrel. I was way wrong.
@Michael Reynolds:
The silence from Beijing is deafening.
There are liable to be lot of calculations now going on in Asian and European government various, and in the GCC states, about what to do in the event of a TACO event in the Gulf.
Trump, and Netanyahu, may just have achieved the demolition of the entire US security architecture in the Middle East, and consequently in much of Asia, and in Europe.
Not to mention the petro-dollar system.
It’s potentially the most monumental strategic self-own ever.
@charontwo:
The time to do so is simply not available, if a hostile Iran continues to control the straits.
Both the US and Israel have made quite enormous strategic f@ckup here, and even Trump attempting to declare victory and depart is not going to alter that.
Iran is damn certain to use that leverage, if they think they have it.
See recent reports of demands for war termination that include compensation paymnts, removal of all US bases, and de facto Iranian control of the straits.
@Kathy: @dazedandconfused:
imho, the current obvious ploy in Trump’s excuse for a brain is to assemble a “coalition of the unwilling” and have the US walk away, then blame them for all the obvious failure modes re the global economy and the collapse of the GCC states.
I’ve little doubt he thinks he’s being “clever” again, as per his real-estate deals.
What he fails to realise, I supect, is that he’s now dealing with some very serious people indeed, who are not inclined to follow his silly script.
Hence his venting rage against NATO.
If Iran continues to be equally idiotic, a coalition might coalesce.
But one containing, out of economic necessity, such entirely hard-headed leaders as Xi, Modi, Erdogan, Zadari/Munir, MBS, Sisi, etc, plus Europeans various and Japan, is rather unlikely to have US dominance of the Middle East as a primary concern
No, for that matter, the interests of Israel.
Netanyahu may have ended up outsmarting himself.
How does one say “hubris” in Hebrew?
@JohnSF:
According to google it’s: היבריס. If I recall my Hebrew alphabet correctly, that reads “hybris,” or maybe “hibris.”
I know how to say chutzpah in Hebrew*: חוצפה Interestingly, it ends with a kind of silent equivalent to the Latin “h”.
*And so does everyone else.
@Kathy:
Well, that’s a transliteration.
I was wondering if there was equivalent Hebrew word? 🙂
Chutzpah seems close, but that’s Yiddish, of course.
And seems to have implications of possible daring or audacity, that may fail but may prevail.
The old Anglo-Saxon equivalent was ofermod
Literally “over-pride”
@Michael Reynolds:
This is a war that Iran wins by prolonging. Anything along the lines of “a new and bigger 9/11” risks creating a coalition against Iran, despite Trump’s best efforts to ensure that there will be no coalition.
I would expect Iran’s best move to be to strike oil and gas fields in retaliation, keep the straight closed with the minimal force necessary, and then wait. It’s not often that a war begins with the stronger aggressor basically blowing up their own supply lines and not positioning their forces ahead of time. It adds a new category to Rumsfeld’s “known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns” — the “how the fuck didn’t you know this? It’s-known-to-everybody-other-than-you-somehow-dumbass”
That’s also probably the best short term outcome for Russia, and Iran quite likes Russia.
China might entertain themselves by taking Taiwan, if they think we are weak enough.
(Drone or missile strikes on the energy infrastructure of any country that allows the US to gather forces might be a good idea, if Iran lets prospective hosts of US invasion forces know that it will make them a target)
As Trump continues to clean that no one predicted that Iran would close the straight, and strike the energy production infrastructure of countries aiding the US assault*, I’m disappointed that he has not been asked the second most obvious follow-up question: “who will you be firing for this gross intelligence failure?”
Just a gentle question that accepts his premise. A softball question, really. A question to turn the administration against itself.
(The single most obvious question, of course, being “what the fuck do you mean that no one predicted the thing everyone has been predicting for decades you senile old fuck?”)
*: we have not declared war, so, I guess “assault” is as good a word as any.
@Gustopher:
The US has f@cked up.
And in a manner entirely predicable, and predicted: an attempt at regime destruction (as opposed to just hitting misiles) was bound to Iran going for the straits and and economic targets.
But if Iran attempts to overstretch into attempting to impose hegemony over the Gulf, and control of all Gulf trade flows to extort compliance to their demands, that may turn out to be an even bigger miscalculation by Iran.
@Gustopher:
Don’t-want-to-knows?
Don’t-care-to-knows?
@JohnSF:
There may be a description in Hebrew for hubris. But the word itself is Greek, right? So English just added it.
Chutzpah, now, though it got into English via Yiddish, is a Hebrew word, which got into it from Aramaic. Or so Wikipedia claims.
@Gustopher:
It’s so absurd.
In the entire history of predicted things, this was possibly the thing predicted most.
Yet Trump (cozened by Bibi) assumed he could kayfabe his way to victory; that all things must, somehow conform to the script he had confected in his addled head.
And that if anything went wrong, then various inferiors could be coerced into rescuing him,
Hence his rage against “allies” who have scant motivation for digging him out of the cess-pit.
It may, given the similar self-overestimation of the Pasdaran, that an international coaltion may eventually form to sort out the Gulf and curb Iran.
But if that happens, it will be on terms determined by, and negotiated between, mainly Beijing, New Dehli, Tokyo, Islamabad, Riyadh, and Ankara. (With Europe as bit player?)
It will not be formulated on terms to suit the US.
@Kathy:
I’d need more hard data on food requirement tonnages over time, port capacity, available truck transport capacity, etc. etc. to work out the logistics in a spreadsheet.
(And frankly, can’t be arsed, right now, seeing as no-one’s paying me, nor anyone in decision making circles listening to my vain squawkings. But if these numbers aren’t being run in FO/MoD, you can paint me red and call me a radish.)
But my initial estimates are that it’s not doable.
The tonnages and volumes for the base grain (rice, and wheat for bread) sustainment seem to be WAY over what alternative routes could handle, without capacity upgrades unlikely to be achievable in four to six months.
Possible given time, but if the straits are closed it seems we may run out of time.
And therefore the Gulf out of food.
So:
EITHER
1) A deal must be struck with a Pasdaran Iran to permit food imports.
OR
2) The straits must be secured vs a Pasdaran Iran.
OR
3) A non-Pasdaran Iran must be achieved.
I can’t see any other options than those three.
And all three are buggered to hell and back.
In my entire knowledge of history, this has to be the most idiotically misconceived war ever.
It makes August 1914 look like a pardigm of rationality by comparison.
@Kathy:
It just seems to me that hubris, chutzpah, overmod, etc have somewhat different shadings of meaning.
It’s a thing about translation, from my limited understanting, that apparently analogous words can have different implications.
And that gets far more complicated when considering languages that are highly allusive, and can have very context-dependent meaning, such as (in diffrent ways) Arabic and Han Chinese.
Or so I’ve been told by people who actually translate such.
Personally, I’m doing well if I can parse bit of simple French. 😉
@JohnSF:
2) The straits must be secured vs a Pasdaran Iran.
Just the strait is not enough, there is also the entire north shore of the Persian Gulf, also the north shore of the Gulf of Oman. All of that, I think, just not possible with the present size of U.S. armed forces, also lack of staging areas, even were the U.S. public willing to support, which it would not.
@JohnSF:
Negotiated from position of weakness, by parties (Donny, Bibi) that have demonstrated they can not be trusted.
Art of the deal.
77 million people voted for this. Very few of them are even embarrassed, I think.