Outside the Beltway

Tuesday’s Forum

· Tuesday, March 3, 2026 · 13 comments

FILED UNDER: Open Forum
Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter and/or BlueSky.

Comments

  1. Gregory Lawrence Brown says:
    Tuesday, 3 March 2026 at 09:25

    Good to see OTB is online.

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  2. Daryl says:
    Tuesday, 3 March 2026 at 09:30

    We are sacrificing blood and treasure. Iran is striking our embassies. We are Depleting munitions. And leaving ourselves weaker against real enemies, like Beijing. For what? So Fatso can make Netanyahoo and MBS happy?
    This is the dumbest military action in our history. F-Troop had nothing on these morons.

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  3. Kathy says:
    Tuesday, 3 March 2026 at 09:43

    Re on yesterday’s AG thread, I guess neither Steven nor Tom saw “Contact.” 😉

    BTW, the gist of Arrival is that time isn’t linear, and learning the Heptapod’s language allows humans to experience non-linear time. That’s ridiculous in two ways. And the movie made a hash out of it by showing the life and times of Amy Adams’ daughter throughout the narrative.

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  4. Kathy says:
    Tuesday, 3 March 2026 at 09:46

    The Iran war explained:

    Bibi: Jump!
    El Taco: How high?

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  5. Jax says:
    Tuesday, 3 March 2026 at 09:47

    I actually saw someone bust thru the crossing arm in the short term parking exit at the Eugene airport yesterday. I don’t think she necessarily meant to, she was in a big white van and looked confused as to what was happening….first she pulled right into it, got out, looked like maybe she tried to pay and got an error code, then she got back in the van and gunned it. I saw the arm fly off and land on the ground. She parked for a few seconds, looked at me, then jumped back into the van and screeched off. I was like “Wut just HAPPENED?!” 😉

    Airport police had her pulled over within half a block, so I didn’t have to do anything but laugh. I’m sure it was all on camera.

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  6. charontwo says:
    Tuesday, 3 March 2026 at 10:02

    I was out walking during the eclipse totality period this morning. To me it looked more like a dingy brown than coppery or red.

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  7. Joe says:
    Tuesday, 3 March 2026 at 10:16

    @charontwo: I had forgotten about this opportunity, but rain was heading into my area so there would have been nothing to see.

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  8. gVOR10 says:
    Tuesday, 3 March 2026 at 10:30

    @Daryl:

    We are Depleting munitions. And leaving ourselves weaker against real enemies, like Beijing. For what?

    Via Paul Campos at LGM:

    A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Pres. Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” according to a complaint by a non-commissioned officer.
    From Saturday morning through Monday night, more than 110 similar complaints about commanders in every branch of the military had been logged by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).
    The complaints came from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations, the MRFF told me Monday night.

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  9. Kathy says:
    Tuesday, 3 March 2026 at 10:39

    @gVOR10:

    Remember it’s not a cult.

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  10. Scott says:
    Tuesday, 3 March 2026 at 10:44

    @charontwo: I got up at 0500 (actually close to my usual awake time) but unfortunately, it was cloudy.

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  11. charontwo says:
    Tuesday, 3 March 2026 at 10:59

    @Daryl:

    We are Depleting munitions. And leaving ourselves weaker against real enemies, like Beijing.

    There is less of a distinction than you think. Iran is becoming China’s cat’s paw, a vehicle for projecting Chinese power.

    “Zineb Riboua”

    The urgency is real. Israeli defense planners had tracked how Chinese components, machine tools, and technical guidance were accelerating Iranian production lines, and their projections pointed toward catastrophe: 5,000 missiles by 2027, potentially 10,000 by the end of the decade. Every warhead carried a Chinese fingerprint, from solid-fuel propellant chemistry to the precision guidance systems that turned inaccurate rockets into weapons capable of striking downtown Abu Dhabi. Beijing was not merely trading with Tehran.

    The Chinese government was industrializing Iran’s capacity to hold the Middle East at gunpoint. Whatever Beijing’s full calculus, the military consequences of that investment are legible on at least three levels.

    First, every interceptor the United States fires over the Middle East represents one fewer available for the Western Pacific. THAAD batteries, Patriot systems, and SM-3 carrying naval vessels all draw from the same overstretched production lines. By accelerating Iran’s missile output, China imposed a war of attrition on American munitions without deploying a single soldier.

    Second, Every Iranian salvo also forces the United States to reveal electronic warfare capabilities, radar signatures, and interceptor performance data in real combat conditions, giving Chinese military intelligence a live laboratory to study American defense systems without ever confronting them directly.

    Third, if the United States proved unable to shield its Arab partners from sustained bombardment, every ally watching from Tokyo to Manila to Taipei would draw the same conclusion: Washington’s promises have material limits.

    The drain on American readiness had already begun.

    During the twelve-day war in 2025, the United States burned through roughly 150 THAAD interceptors, munitions that take years to produce and that feed the same queue supporting Pacific deterrence.

    Only a few dozen replacements followed. Iran was rebuilding faster than America could reload. Left unchecked, the math led to a devastating fork: accept Iranian nuclear breakout behind a missile shield too thick to penetrate, or fight a war in the Middle East with stockpiles earmarked for the Taiwan Strait. Beijing had engineered precisely this dilemma. Operation Epic Fury represented the decision to prevent that choice from ever arriving. By destroying the missiles, the United States turned years of Chinese strategic investment and billions in transferred technology to ash.

    This is a very different take than the claims I see all over the web that this operation only serves Israel and Arab interests, not American.

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  12. Scott says:
    Tuesday, 3 March 2026 at 11:02

    @gVOR10: Well, that’s interesting. That story just rose to the top of the stack of Memeorandum.

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  13. Scott says:
    Tuesday, 3 March 2026 at 11:05

    This will please exactly no one.

    Top Republican signals Iran supplemental may be coming

    Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker said Tuesday that lawmakers are considering whether the Pentagon may need additional funding as questions grow over U.S. munitions supplies and the strain of ongoing U.S. strikes on Iran.

    The cost of the operations are likely to surface at the Trump administration’s briefing later in the day for both chambers of Congress. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine are expected to brief lawmakers amid widespread Democratic opposition.

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