A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran.
There is value in much of what you're saying in your post, even though I don't necessarily agree 100% with all of it. However, no one involved in planning or starting this attack, underestimated the size of Iran at all. All of that would have been covered by all briefings. The US admin and military knew all of this, and frankly has planned all of this.
The US has some of the most capable spy networks, knowledge, and military experience on the planet. And yes, even the current admin takes advantage of this.
So the real question is, what is the end goal? None of the noise we hear from mouthpieces is really it. I suspect that causing trillions in damage to Iran is likely simply it. A bloody nose. I'd be astonished if 1000s of exit strategies weren't deep planned, maybe a dozen best-outcomes planned, before a single plane bombed anything. The US knows how to exit this.
The US military, and daily briefings have all covered every aspect of what's been happening in the Ukraine war. They know. They've been studying it. They're not surprised by it. They 100% knew that Iran has been supplying drones to Russia in vast quantities.
What I strongly suspect is that Iran is being given a message. One it didn't listen to when it was bombed months ago. Don't help Russia. Don't align with China. Don't sell oil to China. And also?
Right now, all those drones made-in-Iran? All the munitions. All the missiles. All the tech they've been shipping Russia? It's ground to a complete halt. So whether or not Iran was stubbornly going to continue to export these things to Russia, it can't, as it needs them domestically now.
Russia is now cut off from that supply chain, because Iran needs it for itself.
If you look at what's happening, Russia has been forced to withdraw from the world stage as it is bled dry by the Ukraine war. It first pulled back from Syria, and it (Assad) fell. It pulled out of Cuba, out of Venezuela, all troops and aircraft and support. Russia has ceased to be a world power, it's literally done. It's become nothing but a regional power, incapable of projecting any power on the world stage.
The Ukraine war is serving its purpose. The West and the US are only supplying enough weaponry to keep Russia bleeding. Never enough weaponry for the Ukraine to win, never enough support, the US just trickles weaponry to them. The Ukraine just serves one purpose -- keep Russia fighting, keep it off the world stage, keep it bleeding all its power and might until it's a complete empty husk.
Yet as Russia has pulled back, China has attempted to moved to fill that vacuum. It's been buying oil from places like Venezuela, and Iran. It was extending soft power into Cuba. The US cannot tolerate this, and back to the start, I suspect that this is also a secondary message being given. A message to China. "Don't do this".
Cutting Russia and China off, each for different reasons, could be viewed as a good success for the US. My thoughts are -- what's next? What other thing does the US want to cut off from China, and Russia?
Because I suspect that's where things will pivot to.
--
(One thought here is, about exit strategies, is that just walking away and leaving the straight Hormuz a mess, will literally force Western allies to police that straight with their navies. The US has been pulling back from policing shipping lanes world wide over the last 20 years, and unhappy with its allies for not taking up the slack, or what it deems a "fair share". With Hormuz, US allies will be forced to take up the slack, an interesting outcome. This too would be an immense success for the US.)
> will literally force Western allies to police that straight with their navies
If it can't be done by the US navy, it can't be done by Western navies either. What will actually happen is the Eastern countries (including Australia for this purpose!) will just pay the toll. Much cheaper than a military operation.
Iran has already achieved an important objective: getting un-sanctioned.
All this "message" stuff? That's not coming in the public messaging.
> If you look at what's happening, Russia has been forced to withdraw from the world stage as it is bled dry by the Ukraine war. It first pulled back from Syria, and it (Assad) fell. It pulled out of Cuba, out of Venezuela, all troops and aircraft and support. Russia has ceased to be a world power, it's literally done. It's become nothing but a regional power, incapable of projecting any power on the world stage.
This has certainly happened, but Russia can stop at any time. It's their Afghanistan (again) or Vietnam. Your analysis also completely leaves out the EU and rNATO role.
> It's been buying oil from places like Venezuela, and Iran. It was extending soft power into Cuba. The US cannot tolerate this, and back to the start, I suspect that this is also a secondary message being given. A message to China. "Don't do this".
Intercepting international trade on the seas is just piracy. China may get the message but they're under no obligation to respect it.
The US didn't refill it's own strategic oil reserve before it attacked and raised its own oil prices, there is no foreseeable exit strategy where Iran doesn't now effectively own and charge usage for the straight, and Russia (and Iran but I digress) are now more able to sell their oil than before, bolstering their economy and helping them continue to attack Ukraine.
And what happens if Iran doesn't fold like Venezuela? Then the gates are open to trade in whatever is not dollars. Which means that the US economy will die.
You have it backward, Iran is not shipping shahed drones to russia anymore its not 2022, the trend reversed and russians are teaching iranians about their mods that improve penetration chances. russians are now fully self-sufficient with shaheds.
The rest I fully agree with, although its a half-assed effort that will likely backfire long term.
Re: I'd be astonished if 1000s of exit strategies weren't deep planned, maybe a dozen best-outcomes planned, before a single plane bombed anything. The US knows how to exit this.
Isn't this just wishfull thinking?
I mean, more mature administrations than Trump's have blundered into Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan without real exit strategies...
Re: Iranian drones to Russia:
Russians now (for quite some time) have their own production and development of Shahed derivatives, I doubt there are shipments from Iran to Russia.
Re: policing Hormuz:
Europe won't do it, for the same reason US is not doing it (it is an impossible task).
Re: the overall aim:
deny China the access to the Gulf oil, succeeding so far, but ultimately pointless (China will be lifted by greatly increased demand for its renewables and battery tech, as well as their electric cars)
> Re: I'd be astonished if 1000s of exit strategies weren't deep planned, maybe a dozen best-outcomes planned, before a single plane bombed anything. The US knows how to exit this.
> Isn't this just wishfull thinking?
The administration could have asked their favorite LLM to plan 1000 exit strategies, kind of like how, if you asked an LLM to make up a reciprocal tariff formula, you would have gotten approximately the administration’s formula.
None of this means that the results are at all useful.
It's not just drones, but parts for drones. It's also munitions, shells, missiles. It's about production volume. The Ukraine is also getting large supplies of the same from the West. No side can produce domestically, what the other can product domestically + import. The imports matter.
It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. Is this accurate, however?
In terms of oil, the US has recently cut China off from Venezuela as well. Short term supplies are important, "the future", a cloud of probabilities about oil shortags helping China, is not immediately apparent. It's suffering shipment halts from two lead suppliers now, both which were non-open market shipments, and volumes are unclear.
I wonder, what if the Ukraine suddenly stepped up and crippled deliveries of Russian oil to China? Or what if Saudi Arabia was told "don't do that". From where I sit, it's China that's being most directly affected by these actions in terms of energy supply.
> It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done.
> Is this accurate, however?
Note that as long as there is a risk (even 1 to 20, maybe 1 to 100) that your tanker will be attacked, you just won't sail. (The logic of commercial shipping.)
Hence, blocking Hormuz does not mean total blockage, just a credible threat.
How do you propose to stop such a threat?
Adding warships to the mix, to shoot down incoming drones, simply adds those warships to the risked assets. What happens if a couple of escorts are hit/sunk?
We were not able to stop Houtis. What makes you think we can stop Iranians?
I do not understand this whole "Cripple China" thing. What do you think will happen if China decides that US is REALLY GOING AFTER IT NOW?
Maybe it will be enough for them to just stop shipping crap to US. What will the US do if suddenly the shop shelves become empty, CCCP-style?
> It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. Is this accurate, however?
There have been plenty of analyses pretty much all concluding the same thing. How do you propose to do it? In normal times there were > 150 per day travelling through the gulf. Remember the coastline of Iran along the Gulf is about 2000km, all allowing them to launch strikes against ships (and they don't need to be sophisticated). So would you put a warship with every cargo ship? Occupy the whole coast? I don't see any feasible solution to police it.
This reads as a Tom Clancy wet dream of American Machiavellian geopolitical maneuvering and not (what it is) yet another historic military intervention blunder - the likes of which we've seen multiple times in just our lifetimes alone (Vietnam/Iraq) - lead by some of the dumbest people to ever grace the highest positions of our military apparatus.
Not only is China still receiving oil from Iran but Russias oil revenues have spiked significantly because of the conflict with the FT considering Russia the biggest winners of this conflict so far.
Hard to really analyze your post because you look at geopolitics through the lens of Jack Bauer
> The US has some of the most capable spy networks, knowledge, and military experience on the planet.
Oh how cute, we are dusting off the cover on the greatest hits! I remember hearing this one back in the early 2000's! Unrelated, how many WMDs did they find in Iraq again? You know what, never mind, i'm sure it was just LOADS obviously!
> The US knows how to exit this.
Oh yeah, how's that? They gonna spend twenty years and $2.3 trillion dollars there?
I doubt this admin is playing 4d chess with Iran. The more likely scenario is that Trump was given all information about Iran and was given several plans for a more indirect way to deal with them but he simply did not listen. He'd rather listen to lies fed to him by Netanyahu then his own staff.
There is value in much of what you're saying in your post, even though I don't necessarily agree 100% with all of it. However, no one involved in planning or starting this attack, underestimated the size of Iran at all. All of that would have been covered by all briefings. The US admin and military knew all of this, and frankly has planned all of this.
The US has some of the most capable spy networks, knowledge, and military experience on the planet. And yes, even the current admin takes advantage of this.
So the real question is, what is the end goal? None of the noise we hear from mouthpieces is really it. I suspect that causing trillions in damage to Iran is likely simply it. A bloody nose. I'd be astonished if 1000s of exit strategies weren't deep planned, maybe a dozen best-outcomes planned, before a single plane bombed anything. The US knows how to exit this.
The US military, and daily briefings have all covered every aspect of what's been happening in the Ukraine war. They know. They've been studying it. They're not surprised by it. They 100% knew that Iran has been supplying drones to Russia in vast quantities.
What I strongly suspect is that Iran is being given a message. One it didn't listen to when it was bombed months ago. Don't help Russia. Don't align with China. Don't sell oil to China. And also?
Right now, all those drones made-in-Iran? All the munitions. All the missiles. All the tech they've been shipping Russia? It's ground to a complete halt. So whether or not Iran was stubbornly going to continue to export these things to Russia, it can't, as it needs them domestically now.
Russia is now cut off from that supply chain, because Iran needs it for itself.
If you look at what's happening, Russia has been forced to withdraw from the world stage as it is bled dry by the Ukraine war. It first pulled back from Syria, and it (Assad) fell. It pulled out of Cuba, out of Venezuela, all troops and aircraft and support. Russia has ceased to be a world power, it's literally done. It's become nothing but a regional power, incapable of projecting any power on the world stage.
The Ukraine war is serving its purpose. The West and the US are only supplying enough weaponry to keep Russia bleeding. Never enough weaponry for the Ukraine to win, never enough support, the US just trickles weaponry to them. The Ukraine just serves one purpose -- keep Russia fighting, keep it off the world stage, keep it bleeding all its power and might until it's a complete empty husk.
Yet as Russia has pulled back, China has attempted to moved to fill that vacuum. It's been buying oil from places like Venezuela, and Iran. It was extending soft power into Cuba. The US cannot tolerate this, and back to the start, I suspect that this is also a secondary message being given. A message to China. "Don't do this".
Cutting Russia and China off, each for different reasons, could be viewed as a good success for the US. My thoughts are -- what's next? What other thing does the US want to cut off from China, and Russia?
Because I suspect that's where things will pivot to.
--
(One thought here is, about exit strategies, is that just walking away and leaving the straight Hormuz a mess, will literally force Western allies to police that straight with their navies. The US has been pulling back from policing shipping lanes world wide over the last 20 years, and unhappy with its allies for not taking up the slack, or what it deems a "fair share". With Hormuz, US allies will be forced to take up the slack, an interesting outcome. This too would be an immense success for the US.)