I believe you are wrong Alex. How is this a win for Iran? Their leaders and war infrastructure have been destroyed, America’s military should scare the heck out of Russia and China and the world is a better place with a weakened Iran. I don’t understand why people can’t just see it for what it is instead of trying to show how smart they are by making statements about a future they have no idea how to predict.
Maybe the war was a mistake, but to say we lost is so beyond myopic.
We won so much more.
We effectively control the EU, China and Russias future. Why do you think China literally forced Iran into this ceasefire?
We exposed the EU and NATO for the frauds they are.
We exposed the fact that Iran, did indeed, have intermediate-range ballistic missiles that could threaten every country within 800-1000 miles, while at the same time exposed them as the paper tiger they are.
We totally reshuffled the geopolitical map in our favor.
We demonstrated we can destroy any country, at minimal cost to us, with terrifying precision and thereby put the fear of God into our adversaries.
We totally decimated Iran's military.
We splintered the mullahs in 31 Provinces where they are weakened to the point that the Iranian people could possibly take their country back.The IRGCs communication and transportation between the provinces has effectively been cut off.
I could go on forever.
I wish to God I could debate AB in person, and write more here to explain, but unfortunately im jumping on a plane.
Trump plays strategically and to win. The world is safer today - and Iran's proxies everywhere must stop. The level of TDS has become deafening. I disagree, Alex. Exposure of weak allies (if they can even be called that) was providential. Inside America, that's where our mayhem lies - we must root that out now. Trump was right again. 🇺🇸
Alex - this is your field - why do the American people appear to not support Trump? Because they are bombarded by the corrupt mainstream media 24/7. What can we do about it?
Trump has been in a chaotic Panic when Musk said "he's in the files" It's right in front of your eyes. Before that - he had his highest approval ratings, and there was talk of a 3rd term - now it's the 25th Amendment. He went from the Tucker Carlson giving speeches for him, with an audience of millions to Mark Lavin and his audience of thousands. There is no rationality here - just panic and deflection.
Nope. The one accusation in the files was never found credible, and the woman herself refused to testify under oath. If there was anything beyond unsubstantiated allegations against Trump in the files, the Dems would have released it during one of the elections. They had full control of govt AND the files for years.
There is also good evidence that Trump was instrumental in bringing Epstein down.
There is another piece to this. There are now 2 factions in Iran.
One is a group of surviving leadership and newcomers that want to negotiate a peace agreement and transition Iran to a new government that supports its people. These are the people Trump keeps referencing as negotiators.
The second is the remnants of the generals and other military sorts that continue to attack from some of the 31 Provinces. They would just as soon die as negotiate.
If you look at all that was said and is happening through this prism, everything adds up.
Trump needs to save enough of the country for the new leadership to be able to get things back to a level of at least minimal functionality after the IGRC is gone.
The challenge here is how to get rid on one while supporting the other. Not sure that can be done without an occupying force to root these people out. I think some of the neighboring countries would contribute heavily to this effort.
But to pretend Iran is winning is simply naïve. The whole world order is changing for the better in front of our eyes.
The losers are the globalists, Western Europe, the terror proxies (Hezbollah, Hamas, ...) and China.
The winners are the US, Eastern Europe (who will join the Board of Peace), and some of the Middle Eastern countries that hated Iran and their terror proxies. Russia likely gets more oil sales (initially) so in that regard they come out OK as well.
I was hoping this would be settled by now, but such is war. But Trump will not lose and will not let Iran survive run by Theocrats.
Seems you have to contort pretty aggressively to turn this into a loss.
MANY factions. I hear economy (ie inflation) in Iran was way up BEFORE the war. Cutting off DAILY oil revenue is a necessary step. Ability to PAY 'enforcers' of the people will be key to whether they can get to place of more freedom. I wouldn't want freedom seekers to be massacred in a new wave!
Thank you for this Ryan. I admit I was fuming a little after reading AB's piece. I'm not saying we should be Polyannish about everything Trump does, but we can legitimately have a net positive take on what is happening in and around the Iran conflict.
Every president, over the last 40 years, has had the same intelligence that Trump had, the difference is Trump had the political courage to do the right thing.
I think there is a lot of naïveté in the US regarding Iran. Make no mistake, if the Iranians get a nuclear weapon they will use it. Thinking the Iranians won’t use it is like thinking Europe will be okay if we just give Hitler Poland. They are religious fanatics and hate us so much that, in their minds, dying themselves is okay if they can kill millions of Americans in the process. If Iran does not agree never to build a nuke the only safe solution for the US is to permanently destroy Iran’s ability to make war. That means destroying all their power plants. They can’t continue to kill us if they don’t have electricity.
They are religious fanatics… who are part of the same fanatical religious sect as: the mayor of New York City! Yes, Mamdani is a Shia 12er.
I agree with you, I just hope that we don’t get distracted by foreign policy while we continue to allow radical anti American immigrants to ruin our homeland!
You think NYC is bad...move to any EU (western aspect) country and especially the UK! They are years ahead ( a decade or more) of the USA in the intentional ISLAMification agenda for the WEST. IF it had been COUP-MALA and Tampon Timmy placed into the WH on Nov 5th 2024 the USA would be well into advanced ISLAMification 15 months into this term! Seems as though in Texas they have not got the memo on the ISLAMifcation. TX of all places WTF!
well, i think a lot of people can reason that if they will machine-gun 50k of their own people who look like them and are related to them - they might be genuinely dangerous to the people they routinely lead death chants against.
that being said - what is the probability of them getting a nuke? who is gathering the intel? do they have reason to overstate or understate the risk to provoke or delay a US reaction?
should we cut off all their arms in case they find a magic lamp and turn a powerful genie against us?
i don't know any of these answers, but i am getting the uncomfortable feeling that the people who purport to know some of them have motivations beyond truthseeking.
The prevailing view is that the 1000 pounds or so of enriched uranium that Iran has is buried under tons of rubble from last year’s bombing raid. Now that might be true, but what I believe is more likely is that the enriched uranium is held at numerous sites throughout the country, many of which we probably don’t know about. The Iranian leadership is evil but they are not fools.
This leadership is now like their 4th or 5th string. America lost not ONE key leader or top general! In reality IRAN was devastated-castrated in the MILITARY sense. This is all about POLITICS as usual as time passes
I think your assessment is a bit early and doesn’t include all the facts. You are a writer, so being first is important. But I don’t think this view will hold up over time. We are not even 24 hours into a ceasefire and the terms of the ceasefire are not yet available. So how do you presume to know what the deal is?
A cease-fire with an organization behind Hamas and Hezbollah, ask Israel how those cease fire arrangements with those two pieces of shit have gone?
Negotiating with evil, you folks never get it, you’re not going anywhere with people who are not interested in trying to be fair, responsible, and caring, and that’s why this country is going to fail in the end, the Left is just as bad as Iran.
And Donald Trump ain’t gonna save this country from the left, keep deluding yourself of that expectation…
As with most things we won’t know the next day who won or lost. If the coalition Trump has formed with the other Mid East nations holds (Board of Peace) the it’s another case of TAW. If the coalition falls apart then Iran wins.
I agree. Regardless of the rhetoric being spouted by various parties, Iran and its proxies have shouted Death to the USA devil and done everything they can to achieve that aim. Russia nor China have not and don't relish the thought of real world order military conflict, unless we keep the notion that Iran can be 'negotiated' with, for that will be no different than quitting VN and those conflicts that followed. If we do quit, they will know we will not fight to win a legitimate threat to our existence, and they will whittle the US down.
I think Trump knows the threat level from all three and better act accordingly. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead........
While the war was most likely a mistake in spite of all the reasons FOR it, to suggest congress would do ANYTHING is crazy. We can’t even get them to pass the SAVE act, with 85% citizen approval
Why would Trump consult a useless, corrupt Congress that has been trying to destroy him for a decade? There is nothing but rabid partisanship in Congress whose goal is to inflame the voters for more donations to the re-election coffers.
Congress does absolutely nothing for Americans, it's ONLY about re-election.
Alex- I will not even attempt to point out how much you have wrong here. You are drawing an opinion based on complete speculation as to what will follow this. Not going to debate you but simply say, wait a month or two and see where this lands. I guarantee it won't be where you think its going too.
Yes, I was going to say something similar. These days we all seem to want to jump in immediately and claim that we have the ultimate take on what happened AND what will happen. And here when Alex asks that we prove him wrong, and without missing a beat says he's not wrong?
Well, that's what he blames Trump for, that Trump thought he was right in his take on Iran and how he moved forward without consulting anyone.
That Trump underestimated Iran's resilience and willingness to attack its Muslim neighbors and even call on children and students to make human chains around the infrastructure? I don't blame him for that. He was willing to take on a massively volatile opponent with little support. I give him credit. I didn't like the strikes, but I can recognize that sometimes we need to do risky things.
Things have changed as a result of this operation. Iran is now weaker. The Arab states have seen that Iran won't hesitate to turn against them. That's worth a lot. And we've seen where Europe stands TODAY in a live situation. Vance and Trump called them out for this, but now we've seen it with our own eyes. Like France agreeing to pay the toll in Hormuz, they will pay along to get along.
That said, I do recognize that their staying out of it did save the situation from reckless escalation. But that may have been a convenient cover for them.
And maybe Trump learned something about Israel: they were not our partners, but rather they used us and did their own thing when it suited them, hanging us out to dry so that we looked like the bad guy when they charged forth.
(Also, please, Alex. Stop with bringing up stuff that's been analyzed enough to show reasonable doubt, like the guy who got shot by ICE. He y had a history of recklessly aggravating law enforcement.)
AWESOME: Strategist explains what Trump is really doing with the Strait of Hormuz
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I know this isn’t a quick read from Chief Market Strategist for Wellington-Altus, James E. Thorne, but he expertly explains what President Trump is really doing with the Strait of Hormuz and our so-called allies in Europe and I think it’s definitely worth a little of your time.
Here’s his “Food for thought.”
Trump, Hormuz and the End of the Free Ride
For half a century, Western strategists have known that the Strait of Hormuz is the acute point where energy, sea power and political will intersect. That knowledge is not in dispute. What is new in this war with Iran is that the United States, under Donald Trump, has chosen not to rush to “solve” the problem. In Hegelian terms, he is refusing an easy synthesis in order to force the underlying contradiction to the surface.
The old thesis was simple: the US guarantees open sea lanes in the Gulf, and everyone else structures their economies and politics around that free insurance. Europe and the UK embraced ambitious green policies, ran down hard‑power capabilities and lectured Washington on multilateral virtue, secure in the assumption that American carriers would always appear off Hormuz. The political class behaved as if the American security guarantee were a law of nature, not a contingent choice. Their conduct today is closer to Chamberlain than Churchill: temporising, issuing statements, hoping the storm will pass without a fundamental reordering of their responsibilities.
Trump’s antithesis is to withhold the automatic guarantee at the moment of maximum stress. Militarily, the US can break Iran’s residual ability to contest the Strait; that is not the binding constraint. The point is to delay that act. By allowing a closure or semi‑closure to bite, Trump ensures that the immediate pain is concentrated in exactly the jurisdictions that have most conspicuously free‑ridden on US power: the EU and the UK. Their industries, consumers and energy‑transition assumptions are exposed.
In that context, his reported blunt message to European and British leaders, you need the oil out of the Strait more than we do; why don’t you go and take it? Is not a throwaway line. It is the verbalisation of the antithesis. It openly reverses the traditional presumption that America will carry the burden while its allies emote from the sidelines.
In this dialectic, the prize is not simply the reopening of a chokepoint. The prize is a reordered system in which the United States effectively arbitrages and controls the global flow of oil. A world in which US‑aligned production in the Americas plus a discretionary capability to secure,or not secure, Hormuz places Washington at the centre of the hydrocarbon chessboard. For that strategic end, a rapid restoration of the old status quo would be counterproductive.
A quick, surgical “fix” of Hormuz would short‑circuit the dialectic. If Trump rapidly crushed Iran’s remaining coastal capabilities, swept the mines and escorted tankers back through the Strait, Europe and the UK would heave a sigh of relief and return to business as usual: underfunded militaries, maximalist green posturing and performative disdain for US power, all underwritten by that same power. The contradiction between their dependence and their posture would remain latent.
By declining to supply the synthesis on demand, and by explicitly telling London and Brussels to “go and take it” themselves, Trump forces a reckoning. European and British leaders must confront the fact that their energy systems, their industrial bases and their geopolitical sermons all rest on an American hard‑power foundation they neither finance nor politically respect. The longer the contradiction is allowed to unfold, the stronger the eventual synthesis can be: a new order in which access to secure flows, Hormuz, Venezuela and beyond, is explicitly conditional on real contributions, not assumed as a right.
In that sense, the delay in “taking” the Strait, and the challenge issued to US allies to do it themselves, is not indecision. It is the negative moment Hegel insisted was necessary for history to move. Only by withholding the old guarantee, and by saying so out loud to those who depended on it, can Trump hope to end the free ride.
This is spot on analysis. The only thing missing is the reordering of the gulf region itself. The soft allegiances the gulf states had toward Iran based on their shared Muslim religion in spite of Iran's persistent status as the neighborhood trouble maker, are now broken. Iran is now seen for what it is, the bellicose trouble making neighbor that brings down property values in the entire neighborhood, leaving Iran more isolated than ever before.
Yes, Trump is very good with this kind of thing. To tell someone they depend on us goes in one ear and out the other if we ease their pain before they can truly feel it. It hurts to see someone feel their pain, but sometimes--for their own good--we need to do it. Feeling our pain is what makes us grow up, and Europe needs to grow out of it rebellious adolescent disrespect of our power and natural authority. They should be grateful and cooperate in their moment of reckoning.
correct! "By declining to supply the synthesis on demand, and by explicitly telling London and Brussels to “go and take it” themselves, Trump forces a reckoning. European and British leaders must confront the fact that their energy systems......"[rely on American 'generosity' without reciprocal respect.] Exactly right!
Trump is forcing a reckoning of the global-status-quo ALLOWED by our own uniparty for far too long. Most everyone is looking at 'trees', while Trump has been analyzing the 'forest' for decades as a builder in a REAL economy. He doesn't speak 'politician', but he does speak instinctually to power players of ALL stripes.
And what Promethean Action says about the insurance cabal is VERY interesting! Remember, Trump has Bessent on his team. There are things going on that Alex doesn't even know enough about to even consider, but Bessent knows the financial underbelly of the world, and he is on Trump's team.
'financial underbelly of the world' Exactly. As I have delineated in later comments of this article today: Trump has been for decades an economic and physical pragmatist and realist. When you BUILD real structures, you have to. (Do you want DEI hires on rockets you must take if you were going into space? You want things that WORK!) It was the economic miscalculations of the so-called 'free trade' that precipitously denigrated American wealth, promise and freedom that provoked Trump into politics. We've all seen the clips of him commenting decades ago on the disasters, then finally concluding, nobody else was challenging the stupidity of it all. I'm cautiously optimistic about the team of MANY astutely informed individuals in specific skill sets (like Rubio, Bessent, etc) all striving for the same pro-American, pro nation state, pro human creativity and freedom goals. NOT hitler, not ayatollah, not globalist dictator death-cult evil.
Thank you MAG, Thank you Kristina Bremnes from Canada. Very informative. and Thank you Alex for providing a forum of freedom loving people because of the covid power grab. We are also critical thinkers on other issues social, political and economic!
You’re a great example of the problem with American Jews, Alex. Even when you try to be conservative, you can’t do it. Why? Maybe because you’ve never killed snakes. When you’re out snake killing the best thing is to cut off their head. The rest of the body writhe until it finally gives up. we finally have a president who knows how to kill snakes. You would much rather send American kids into the meat grinder for 20 years. To win the hearts and minds to ensure diplomacy to build nations to save the world for democracy what we really needed was to kill a den of snakes.
I like everything in your post except for the "send American kids to the meat grinder" phrase. As a journalist who specialized in military matters I can tell you that service people loathe that kind of condescention.
They are not kids!!! Please. The enlistment age is still 18 last time I checked. And they are not "being sent." It's an all volunteer army and people by now know about the risk of deployment and they accept that risk with eyes wide open. In the combat branches you have a whole bunch of guys just itching to "get some". But I agree that we need a whole lotta lotta more strong, armed Jewish conservatives in Europe, the UK and U.S. Paradoxically this is the best way to address antisemitism. People loathe weakness. Playing the victim card, joining the "who's a bigger victim" sweepstakes forever is not a winning strategy.
As a MIL Brat (E8-ret 291/2 USAF; 7DEC41 Hickham Field, pacific duration, WWII, Korea, Cold War, EU NATO, nukes, Vietnam) founder children’s Charity for MIL kids, officer, and organizer of the longest protest in American history, rolling thunder, I have served longer than you have been alive and longer than you’ve been a journalist. That may sound condescending to you, we’re not grateful enough for gungho young men and women who put on the uniform. They’re all kids to me.
As the mother of a 21 year old, I am astonished by your assertion that 18 year olds are “not kids”. Their immaturity actually explains the “get some” mentality. They have no idea of the brutality of war and it changes them forever. Two days ago I watched a documentary on the History Channel about an offensive on a hill in Vietnam. The hill is referred to as “Hamburger Hill”. Guess why.
Well, maybe we should stop supporting a culture that infantilizes our young people so that they don't learn the nature of war until they're thrust into the worst organized, most brutal instances of it. I can tell you that the young men I meet leading platoons or flying planes are not babies but full-grown men
I have called that out in differing ways thru the last few years too. Alex shows signs he can escape that heavy burden of the past indoctrination, but often reflexively or regressively falls back into prior patterns. Its similar to recovering from addiction it seems...
You are not right. Iran is much weaker and if they don't honor the ceasefire and open the strait, it won't be over at all. If that is happening, Trump will do a surprise focused attack and get the uranium or something.
Trump didn't involve congress because he doesn't want a long war--he wants short, focused military operations and he needs the elements of surprise. You have some crazy idea that he can trust Democrats not to leak information.
Since you can see NO good parts of any of this, I imagine you'll be happily miserable no matter what happens. Too bad.
"when federal officers shoot Americans in Minneapolis, for example”
By which I understand you to mean when elected Democrats incite their electorate to violence against duly appointed peace officers, consequences be damned.
"That’s not because most Americans have suddenly changed their views on open borders, transgender rights, progressive policing, or tax increases.”
Then why do they vote that way? Orange Man made them do it? Mamdani, Spanberger, et al weren’t running against Trump. And whether they were, in all but fact, or not, Americans are free to choose (except when elections are rigged). “The people have spoken, the bastards.” - Dick Tuck. Also, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” - H.L. Mencken. Good times are over, now come the hard.
"Israel is already insisting on its right to attack Lebanon and Iran’s ally Hezbollah despite the ceasefire.”
Damn right they are. Israel has to live with these crazed zealots. Actually, they don’t. Not anymore. If Trump wants to Call (it) Off, Israel says “Pardon me” and pushes Hezbollah back north of the Litani River, where the UN was supposed to hold them. (As if.)
If Trump lost, and by how much, remains to be seen. Iran has lost incalculably more. That’s some “win”.
I was not a fan of these strikes, but I'm grudgingly supporting it because I'm giving Trump the benefit of the doubt that an imminient threat (nuclear bomb) was close to being developed. Alex seems to be listing a lot of "facts" (tolls?) that are nothing more than conjecture. It sounds an awful lot like he can't reconcile the fact that previous claims of utter and complete catastrophe were totally overblown.
The idea that Iran didn't present an "imminent" threat is just nuts. I grew up imaging the globe with a big black blot on it, like a storm cloud, that was Iran, the apocalyptic crazies in hot pursuit of nukes (and coming very close a number of times only to be delayed by master strokes like the Stuxnet virus.) From last June until today that black blob is no longer there. In Iran you (had?) have a bunch of devious (look at their history of lying to the IAEA), crazy, people who basically motivate themselves to get up in the morning with the thought of killing us and have historically never slowed their beetle-like quest to enrich uranium to weapons grade.
Removing that black storm cloud from the globe is akin to another unacknowledged Trump accomplishment: Energy independence achieved in our lifetimes...another thing I didn't think could happen
The Iranians always hid stuff from us: The nuclear plant Fordow that was a revelation for the IAEA when it was discovered ("but they said they'd shown us everything!") comes to mind.
There's such a complete lack of historical memory even among smart people (or the sort of people who subscribe to Alex)
Alex, this is a ridiculous take. Plain and simple. Iran did not “win”. Losing their once vaunted military capability is not a win. Losing every ally they thought they had is not a win. Losing almost their entire manufacturing sector is not a win. What is a win in this scenario? A peace deal that ensures safe passage through the Strait. This ceasefire is step one.
Militarily IRAN was defeated soundly no doubt...they are essentially castrated now with no friends in the region as you mention only enhancing the pending Abraham Accords!
Step 1, indeed. Probably, just to prove that they will AGAIN refuse to 'negotiate' away their uranium OR $$$ from the Strait. More truth exposed for the whole world to see......
Remember the board of peace? We basically have the middle east (except Iran) "in our pocket". Iran has nowhere to go...and they need their oil more than we do.
39 days from start to ceasefire? For comparison, Afghanistan required twenty years to reach its first ceasefire, the Doha Accords. Ukraine has been running for going on five years with no meaningful ceasefire. This is an astonishing historic record that should be in every single headline this morning, but of course, Trump Derangement takes its terrible cognitive toll, and honestly, I think they just can’t see it.
All sounds GREAT if this does not creep post cease fire into something MORE in a off and on ceasefire and endless futile terrorist negotiations. If we could just ARM the IRANIAN citizens to fight the regime from within it would be a game changer in my opinion
IRAN is severely diminished (understatement) physically. Yet, still terrorists - and, all over the world - but even terrorists have an economy). But, the FOCUS NOW is the Strait, global political/economic/logistical. Trump has always known this! The pause is a pressure valve release (allows oil price to relax - today). One thing we know for sure is that the haste to be GREEN/climate change hysteria is a joke. It's been the Left's slight-of-hand: look HERE! while, 'behind-the-curtain' they really amass financial power and foment divisions.
Yes good point..I aware of that. WE tusted them and CAN'T going forward now. I was thinking more of a very focused mission with marines to bring into places for the PEOPLE!
To be fair, the Kurds have very little reason to trust the US. We have screwed them over for decades. I served with some of them in OIF, they know what they're doing; if they *did* withhold arms we provided, I suspect they had some very good reasons to do so.
This column was incoherent. We destroyed Iran's war-making ability, we destroyed multiple levels of leadership, we forced them (along with China) to open the Strait, and laid the groundwork for the Iranian people to reclaim their country. So we lost?
Alex, Iran was close to having the material to do suitcase bombs in Tel Aviv or New York. Continued appeasement was no longer an option based on the information the administration had.
Do you think a bunch of psychopaths who didn't hesitate to shoot 35,000 of their own people (and hire mercenaries to help do it at scale) would not hesitate to try to subjugate you with nuclear weapons?
They beat women to death who don't cover their hair. They hang young teens. They fund terror proxies all over the world. They are funding the radical Islamists in the U.S. This action taken by the Trump administration is the very best hope for us to not have to send hundreds of thousands of our young people over there to die in three or four years. There was no other option.
Your take on this is so ridiculously bad, I'm out.
Yes, Iran sees it as a win. Time will tell because while the IGRC licks it's wounds, the alliances in the middle east and Europe have been permanently scrambled. Watch Rubio if you want to know where we are going. Wars aren't won or lost in a day. Trump did what's best for the Iranian people at this point with no boots on the ground. Wait before you draw such sweeping conclusions.
Well, this war isn't over yet, and the plotting and pacing aren't quite on. I am flipping through TikTok on my phone and only half paying attention.
OH WAIT. It's a GD war, not Netflix. Maybe there are some bigger and more subtle things going on here. Maybe it's messy and Iran has had over 40 yrs to set itself up in a number of ways.
I look at all the lionization of the 2nd World War, how perfect and noble it was, when the reality was enormous numbers of people were killed and we intentionally terror-bombed civilians. Now we try hard to avoid any collateral damage and the commentariat complains it's not perfect. The attrition rates on the U.S. side are phenomenally low. Some bomber sorties in WW II had loss rates above 40%. The U.S. military exists to get into combat and kill things, not to provide photo ops for gays and chickie boo-boo pilots.
The oil situation is probably a lot more complicated and the poltical leverage over Europe is long overdue. But according to the commentariat and main stream press, I'm sure the strait would be far more reliable if we just let Iran get a little stronger and build up some more terrorist proxies.
I believe you are wrong Alex. How is this a win for Iran? Their leaders and war infrastructure have been destroyed, America’s military should scare the heck out of Russia and China and the world is a better place with a weakened Iran. I don’t understand why people can’t just see it for what it is instead of trying to show how smart they are by making statements about a future they have no idea how to predict.
Maybe the war was a mistake, but to say we lost is so beyond myopic.
We won so much more.
We effectively control the EU, China and Russias future. Why do you think China literally forced Iran into this ceasefire?
We exposed the EU and NATO for the frauds they are.
We exposed the fact that Iran, did indeed, have intermediate-range ballistic missiles that could threaten every country within 800-1000 miles, while at the same time exposed them as the paper tiger they are.
We totally reshuffled the geopolitical map in our favor.
We demonstrated we can destroy any country, at minimal cost to us, with terrifying precision and thereby put the fear of God into our adversaries.
We totally decimated Iran's military.
We splintered the mullahs in 31 Provinces where they are weakened to the point that the Iranian people could possibly take their country back.The IRGCs communication and transportation between the provinces has effectively been cut off.
I could go on forever.
I wish to God I could debate AB in person, and write more here to explain, but unfortunately im jumping on a plane.
Also it is so naive to think Trump is so naive to believe The Mullahs are not going to break the ceasefire.
But for AB to admit that would be to admit that Trump actually thinks ahead.
And once they do break the ceasefire Trump has moral authority to rain down hellfire.
Trump plays strategically and to win. The world is safer today - and Iran's proxies everywhere must stop. The level of TDS has become deafening. I disagree, Alex. Exposure of weak allies (if they can even be called that) was providential. Inside America, that's where our mayhem lies - we must root that out now. Trump was right again. 🇺🇸
Alex - this is your field - why do the American people appear to not support Trump? Because they are bombarded by the corrupt mainstream media 24/7. What can we do about it?
I prefer Trump's use Ryan of REIGN :)
Ryan...what would "hellfire" include?
Oh probably what he said:
Power plants and bridges.
One thing im certain of after reading comments from Iranians on X is that they truly wanted the bombing to continue.
Its actually heartbreaking how desperate they are.
Trump has been in a chaotic Panic when Musk said "he's in the files" It's right in front of your eyes. Before that - he had his highest approval ratings, and there was talk of a 3rd term - now it's the 25th Amendment. He went from the Tucker Carlson giving speeches for him, with an audience of millions to Mark Lavin and his audience of thousands. There is no rationality here - just panic and deflection.
Nope. The one accusation in the files was never found credible, and the woman herself refused to testify under oath. If there was anything beyond unsubstantiated allegations against Trump in the files, the Dems would have released it during one of the elections. They had full control of govt AND the files for years.
There is also good evidence that Trump was instrumental in bringing Epstein down.
Musk is great, but much like Trump, impulsive, and sometimes inserts foot in mouth.
There is another piece to this. There are now 2 factions in Iran.
One is a group of surviving leadership and newcomers that want to negotiate a peace agreement and transition Iran to a new government that supports its people. These are the people Trump keeps referencing as negotiators.
The second is the remnants of the generals and other military sorts that continue to attack from some of the 31 Provinces. They would just as soon die as negotiate.
If you look at all that was said and is happening through this prism, everything adds up.
Trump needs to save enough of the country for the new leadership to be able to get things back to a level of at least minimal functionality after the IGRC is gone.
The challenge here is how to get rid on one while supporting the other. Not sure that can be done without an occupying force to root these people out. I think some of the neighboring countries would contribute heavily to this effort.
But to pretend Iran is winning is simply naïve. The whole world order is changing for the better in front of our eyes.
The losers are the globalists, Western Europe, the terror proxies (Hezbollah, Hamas, ...) and China.
The winners are the US, Eastern Europe (who will join the Board of Peace), and some of the Middle Eastern countries that hated Iran and their terror proxies. Russia likely gets more oil sales (initially) so in that regard they come out OK as well.
I was hoping this would be settled by now, but such is war. But Trump will not lose and will not let Iran survive run by Theocrats.
Seems you have to contort pretty aggressively to turn this into a loss.
MANY factions. I hear economy (ie inflation) in Iran was way up BEFORE the war. Cutting off DAILY oil revenue is a necessary step. Ability to PAY 'enforcers' of the people will be key to whether they can get to place of more freedom. I wouldn't want freedom seekers to be massacred in a new wave!
Thank you for this Ryan. I admit I was fuming a little after reading AB's piece. I'm not saying we should be Polyannish about everything Trump does, but we can legitimately have a net positive take on what is happening in and around the Iran conflict.
Yeah, well I still love AB.
It's funny, I just made a comment and compared Alex and his sermonizing to Karl Malden's character in...Pollyanna!
Your word “myopic” is perfect to describe AB’s synopsis of the current status in the Iranian conflict. I wish you could debate him too.
Every president, over the last 40 years, has had the same intelligence that Trump had, the difference is Trump had the political courage to do the right thing.
I think there is a lot of naïveté in the US regarding Iran. Make no mistake, if the Iranians get a nuclear weapon they will use it. Thinking the Iranians won’t use it is like thinking Europe will be okay if we just give Hitler Poland. They are religious fanatics and hate us so much that, in their minds, dying themselves is okay if they can kill millions of Americans in the process. If Iran does not agree never to build a nuke the only safe solution for the US is to permanently destroy Iran’s ability to make war. That means destroying all their power plants. They can’t continue to kill us if they don’t have electricity.
They are religious fanatics… who are part of the same fanatical religious sect as: the mayor of New York City! Yes, Mamdani is a Shia 12er.
I agree with you, I just hope that we don’t get distracted by foreign policy while we continue to allow radical anti American immigrants to ruin our homeland!
You think NYC is bad...move to any EU (western aspect) country and especially the UK! They are years ahead ( a decade or more) of the USA in the intentional ISLAMification agenda for the WEST. IF it had been COUP-MALA and Tampon Timmy placed into the WH on Nov 5th 2024 the USA would be well into advanced ISLAMification 15 months into this term! Seems as though in Texas they have not got the memo on the ISLAMifcation. TX of all places WTF!
Yes, to borrow mark steyn’s line, France and the UK will be nuclear-armed Islamic nations before Iran will!
Next level IRAN proxies yes!
well, i think a lot of people can reason that if they will machine-gun 50k of their own people who look like them and are related to them - they might be genuinely dangerous to the people they routinely lead death chants against.
that being said - what is the probability of them getting a nuke? who is gathering the intel? do they have reason to overstate or understate the risk to provoke or delay a US reaction?
should we cut off all their arms in case they find a magic lamp and turn a powerful genie against us?
i don't know any of these answers, but i am getting the uncomfortable feeling that the people who purport to know some of them have motivations beyond truthseeking.
The prevailing view is that the 1000 pounds or so of enriched uranium that Iran has is buried under tons of rubble from last year’s bombing raid. Now that might be true, but what I believe is more likely is that the enriched uranium is held at numerous sites throughout the country, many of which we probably don’t know about. The Iranian leadership is evil but they are not fools.
This leadership is now like their 4th or 5th string. America lost not ONE key leader or top general! In reality IRAN was devastated-castrated in the MILITARY sense. This is all about POLITICS as usual as time passes
I think your assessment is a bit early and doesn’t include all the facts. You are a writer, so being first is important. But I don’t think this view will hold up over time. We are not even 24 hours into a ceasefire and the terms of the ceasefire are not yet available. So how do you presume to know what the deal is?
A cease-fire with an organization behind Hamas and Hezbollah, ask Israel how those cease fire arrangements with those two pieces of shit have gone?
Negotiating with evil, you folks never get it, you’re not going anywhere with people who are not interested in trying to be fair, responsible, and caring, and that’s why this country is going to fail in the end, the Left is just as bad as Iran.
And Donald Trump ain’t gonna save this country from the left, keep deluding yourself of that expectation…
I’m not suggesting that the current cease-fire will or will not work. It is too early to declare victory or failure.
i think iran would have lost, technically, if their civilization had ended
As with most things we won’t know the next day who won or lost. If the coalition Trump has formed with the other Mid East nations holds (Board of Peace) the it’s another case of TAW. If the coalition falls apart then Iran wins.
I agree. Regardless of the rhetoric being spouted by various parties, Iran and its proxies have shouted Death to the USA devil and done everything they can to achieve that aim. Russia nor China have not and don't relish the thought of real world order military conflict, unless we keep the notion that Iran can be 'negotiated' with, for that will be no different than quitting VN and those conflicts that followed. If we do quit, they will know we will not fight to win a legitimate threat to our existence, and they will whittle the US down.
I think Trump knows the threat level from all three and better act accordingly. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead........
While the war was most likely a mistake in spite of all the reasons FOR it, to suggest congress would do ANYTHING is crazy. We can’t even get them to pass the SAVE act, with 85% citizen approval
Why would Trump consult a useless, corrupt Congress that has been trying to destroy him for a decade? There is nothing but rabid partisanship in Congress whose goal is to inflame the voters for more donations to the re-election coffers.
Congress does absolutely nothing for Americans, it's ONLY about re-election.
Why consult with the consortium of evil?
They couldn’t even decide how to end Daylight Savings time
The real mistake would have been to allow Iran to continue to refine the uranium to weapons grade. They would have used it, no doubt.
Alex- I will not even attempt to point out how much you have wrong here. You are drawing an opinion based on complete speculation as to what will follow this. Not going to debate you but simply say, wait a month or two and see where this lands. I guarantee it won't be where you think its going too.
Yes, I was going to say something similar. These days we all seem to want to jump in immediately and claim that we have the ultimate take on what happened AND what will happen. And here when Alex asks that we prove him wrong, and without missing a beat says he's not wrong?
Well, that's what he blames Trump for, that Trump thought he was right in his take on Iran and how he moved forward without consulting anyone.
That Trump underestimated Iran's resilience and willingness to attack its Muslim neighbors and even call on children and students to make human chains around the infrastructure? I don't blame him for that. He was willing to take on a massively volatile opponent with little support. I give him credit. I didn't like the strikes, but I can recognize that sometimes we need to do risky things.
Things have changed as a result of this operation. Iran is now weaker. The Arab states have seen that Iran won't hesitate to turn against them. That's worth a lot. And we've seen where Europe stands TODAY in a live situation. Vance and Trump called them out for this, but now we've seen it with our own eyes. Like France agreeing to pay the toll in Hormuz, they will pay along to get along.
That said, I do recognize that their staying out of it did save the situation from reckless escalation. But that may have been a convenient cover for them.
And maybe Trump learned something about Israel: they were not our partners, but rather they used us and did their own thing when it suited them, hanging us out to dry so that we looked like the bad guy when they charged forth.
(Also, please, Alex. Stop with bringing up stuff that's been analyzed enough to show reasonable doubt, like the guy who got shot by ICE. He y had a history of recklessly aggravating law enforcement.)
https://therightscoop.com/awesome-strategist-explains-what-trump-is-really-doing-with-the-strait-of-hormuz/
AWESOME: Strategist explains what Trump is really doing with the Strait of Hormuz
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I know this isn’t a quick read from Chief Market Strategist for Wellington-Altus, James E. Thorne, but he expertly explains what President Trump is really doing with the Strait of Hormuz and our so-called allies in Europe and I think it’s definitely worth a little of your time.
Here’s his “Food for thought.”
Trump, Hormuz and the End of the Free Ride
For half a century, Western strategists have known that the Strait of Hormuz is the acute point where energy, sea power and political will intersect. That knowledge is not in dispute. What is new in this war with Iran is that the United States, under Donald Trump, has chosen not to rush to “solve” the problem. In Hegelian terms, he is refusing an easy synthesis in order to force the underlying contradiction to the surface.
The old thesis was simple: the US guarantees open sea lanes in the Gulf, and everyone else structures their economies and politics around that free insurance. Europe and the UK embraced ambitious green policies, ran down hard‑power capabilities and lectured Washington on multilateral virtue, secure in the assumption that American carriers would always appear off Hormuz. The political class behaved as if the American security guarantee were a law of nature, not a contingent choice. Their conduct today is closer to Chamberlain than Churchill: temporising, issuing statements, hoping the storm will pass without a fundamental reordering of their responsibilities.
Trump’s antithesis is to withhold the automatic guarantee at the moment of maximum stress. Militarily, the US can break Iran’s residual ability to contest the Strait; that is not the binding constraint. The point is to delay that act. By allowing a closure or semi‑closure to bite, Trump ensures that the immediate pain is concentrated in exactly the jurisdictions that have most conspicuously free‑ridden on US power: the EU and the UK. Their industries, consumers and energy‑transition assumptions are exposed.
In that context, his reported blunt message to European and British leaders, you need the oil out of the Strait more than we do; why don’t you go and take it? Is not a throwaway line. It is the verbalisation of the antithesis. It openly reverses the traditional presumption that America will carry the burden while its allies emote from the sidelines.
In this dialectic, the prize is not simply the reopening of a chokepoint. The prize is a reordered system in which the United States effectively arbitrages and controls the global flow of oil. A world in which US‑aligned production in the Americas plus a discretionary capability to secure,or not secure, Hormuz places Washington at the centre of the hydrocarbon chessboard. For that strategic end, a rapid restoration of the old status quo would be counterproductive.
A quick, surgical “fix” of Hormuz would short‑circuit the dialectic. If Trump rapidly crushed Iran’s remaining coastal capabilities, swept the mines and escorted tankers back through the Strait, Europe and the UK would heave a sigh of relief and return to business as usual: underfunded militaries, maximalist green posturing and performative disdain for US power, all underwritten by that same power. The contradiction between their dependence and their posture would remain latent.
By declining to supply the synthesis on demand, and by explicitly telling London and Brussels to “go and take it” themselves, Trump forces a reckoning. European and British leaders must confront the fact that their energy systems, their industrial bases and their geopolitical sermons all rest on an American hard‑power foundation they neither finance nor politically respect. The longer the contradiction is allowed to unfold, the stronger the eventual synthesis can be: a new order in which access to secure flows, Hormuz, Venezuela and beyond, is explicitly conditional on real contributions, not assumed as a right.
In that sense, the delay in “taking” the Strait, and the challenge issued to US allies to do it themselves, is not indecision. It is the negative moment Hegel insisted was necessary for history to move. Only by withholding the old guarantee, and by saying so out loud to those who depended on it, can Trump hope to end the free ride.
This is spot on analysis. The only thing missing is the reordering of the gulf region itself. The soft allegiances the gulf states had toward Iran based on their shared Muslim religion in spite of Iran's persistent status as the neighborhood trouble maker, are now broken. Iran is now seen for what it is, the bellicose trouble making neighbor that brings down property values in the entire neighborhood, leaving Iran more isolated than ever before.
Yes, Trump is very good with this kind of thing. To tell someone they depend on us goes in one ear and out the other if we ease their pain before they can truly feel it. It hurts to see someone feel their pain, but sometimes--for their own good--we need to do it. Feeling our pain is what makes us grow up, and Europe needs to grow out of it rebellious adolescent disrespect of our power and natural authority. They should be grateful and cooperate in their moment of reckoning.
correct! "By declining to supply the synthesis on demand, and by explicitly telling London and Brussels to “go and take it” themselves, Trump forces a reckoning. European and British leaders must confront the fact that their energy systems......"[rely on American 'generosity' without reciprocal respect.] Exactly right!
Trump is forcing a reckoning of the global-status-quo ALLOWED by our own uniparty for far too long. Most everyone is looking at 'trees', while Trump has been analyzing the 'forest' for decades as a builder in a REAL economy. He doesn't speak 'politician', but he does speak instinctually to power players of ALL stripes.
And what Promethean Action says about the insurance cabal is VERY interesting! Remember, Trump has Bessent on his team. There are things going on that Alex doesn't even know enough about to even consider, but Bessent knows the financial underbelly of the world, and he is on Trump's team.
'financial underbelly of the world' Exactly. As I have delineated in later comments of this article today: Trump has been for decades an economic and physical pragmatist and realist. When you BUILD real structures, you have to. (Do you want DEI hires on rockets you must take if you were going into space? You want things that WORK!) It was the economic miscalculations of the so-called 'free trade' that precipitously denigrated American wealth, promise and freedom that provoked Trump into politics. We've all seen the clips of him commenting decades ago on the disasters, then finally concluding, nobody else was challenging the stupidity of it all. I'm cautiously optimistic about the team of MANY astutely informed individuals in specific skill sets (like Rubio, Bessent, etc) all striving for the same pro-American, pro nation state, pro human creativity and freedom goals. NOT hitler, not ayatollah, not globalist dictator death-cult evil.
I am sold
VERY insightful theory!
Thank you for this. Here’s an interesting thesis as well:
https://hardpressednorth.substack.com/p/the-april-5th-clock-why-the-iran?r=el34k&utm_medium=ios
Thank you MAG, Thank you Kristina Bremnes from Canada. Very informative. and Thank you Alex for providing a forum of freedom loving people because of the covid power grab. We are also critical thinkers on other issues social, political and economic!
Thanks. Great article.
You’re a great example of the problem with American Jews, Alex. Even when you try to be conservative, you can’t do it. Why? Maybe because you’ve never killed snakes. When you’re out snake killing the best thing is to cut off their head. The rest of the body writhe until it finally gives up. we finally have a president who knows how to kill snakes. You would much rather send American kids into the meat grinder for 20 years. To win the hearts and minds to ensure diplomacy to build nations to save the world for democracy what we really needed was to kill a den of snakes.
I like everything in your post except for the "send American kids to the meat grinder" phrase. As a journalist who specialized in military matters I can tell you that service people loathe that kind of condescention.
They are not kids!!! Please. The enlistment age is still 18 last time I checked. And they are not "being sent." It's an all volunteer army and people by now know about the risk of deployment and they accept that risk with eyes wide open. In the combat branches you have a whole bunch of guys just itching to "get some". But I agree that we need a whole lotta lotta more strong, armed Jewish conservatives in Europe, the UK and U.S. Paradoxically this is the best way to address antisemitism. People loathe weakness. Playing the victim card, joining the "who's a bigger victim" sweepstakes forever is not a winning strategy.
Yes this is offensive to my grandson who is into his second year in the Army.
Thank him for his service for me.
As a MIL Brat (E8-ret 291/2 USAF; 7DEC41 Hickham Field, pacific duration, WWII, Korea, Cold War, EU NATO, nukes, Vietnam) founder children’s Charity for MIL kids, officer, and organizer of the longest protest in American history, rolling thunder, I have served longer than you have been alive and longer than you’ve been a journalist. That may sound condescending to you, we’re not grateful enough for gungho young men and women who put on the uniform. They’re all kids to me.
That is your father’s bio of USAF service and not yours, correct?
As the mother of a 21 year old, I am astonished by your assertion that 18 year olds are “not kids”. Their immaturity actually explains the “get some” mentality. They have no idea of the brutality of war and it changes them forever. Two days ago I watched a documentary on the History Channel about an offensive on a hill in Vietnam. The hill is referred to as “Hamburger Hill”. Guess why.
Well, maybe we should stop supporting a culture that infantilizes our young people so that they don't learn the nature of war until they're thrust into the worst organized, most brutal instances of it. I can tell you that the young men I meet leading platoons or flying planes are not babies but full-grown men
Semper Fidelis
I have called that out in differing ways thru the last few years too. Alex shows signs he can escape that heavy burden of the past indoctrination, but often reflexively or regressively falls back into prior patterns. Its similar to recovering from addiction it seems...
i don't disagree, but they seem more akin to a den of batsh*t crazy hydras
Yep… my grandmother would kill rattlesnakes in her garden with a hoe. Off with their heads!
You are not right. Iran is much weaker and if they don't honor the ceasefire and open the strait, it won't be over at all. If that is happening, Trump will do a surprise focused attack and get the uranium or something.
Trump didn't involve congress because he doesn't want a long war--he wants short, focused military operations and he needs the elements of surprise. You have some crazy idea that he can trust Democrats not to leak information.
Since you can see NO good parts of any of this, I imagine you'll be happily miserable no matter what happens. Too bad.
"when federal officers shoot Americans in Minneapolis, for example”
By which I understand you to mean when elected Democrats incite their electorate to violence against duly appointed peace officers, consequences be damned.
"That’s not because most Americans have suddenly changed their views on open borders, transgender rights, progressive policing, or tax increases.”
Then why do they vote that way? Orange Man made them do it? Mamdani, Spanberger, et al weren’t running against Trump. And whether they were, in all but fact, or not, Americans are free to choose (except when elections are rigged). “The people have spoken, the bastards.” - Dick Tuck. Also, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” - H.L. Mencken. Good times are over, now come the hard.
"Israel is already insisting on its right to attack Lebanon and Iran’s ally Hezbollah despite the ceasefire.”
Damn right they are. Israel has to live with these crazed zealots. Actually, they don’t. Not anymore. If Trump wants to Call (it) Off, Israel says “Pardon me” and pushes Hezbollah back north of the Litani River, where the UN was supposed to hold them. (As if.)
If Trump lost, and by how much, remains to be seen. Iran has lost incalculably more. That’s some “win”.
Thank you for addressing the Minneapolis jab in Alex’s post. So much to respond to. He seems to have some serious blinders on.
Haven't heard Dick Tuck's name in a long time. He begat a whole line of liberal oppo research & attack guerillas.
Stupendous ignorance and sounds like a true liberal . Stay in your lane Alex.
Or just "go away, Alex."
I was not a fan of these strikes, but I'm grudgingly supporting it because I'm giving Trump the benefit of the doubt that an imminient threat (nuclear bomb) was close to being developed. Alex seems to be listing a lot of "facts" (tolls?) that are nothing more than conjecture. It sounds an awful lot like he can't reconcile the fact that previous claims of utter and complete catastrophe were totally overblown.
The idea that Iran didn't present an "imminent" threat is just nuts. I grew up imaging the globe with a big black blot on it, like a storm cloud, that was Iran, the apocalyptic crazies in hot pursuit of nukes (and coming very close a number of times only to be delayed by master strokes like the Stuxnet virus.) From last June until today that black blob is no longer there. In Iran you (had?) have a bunch of devious (look at their history of lying to the IAEA), crazy, people who basically motivate themselves to get up in the morning with the thought of killing us and have historically never slowed their beetle-like quest to enrich uranium to weapons grade.
Removing that black storm cloud from the globe is akin to another unacknowledged Trump accomplishment: Energy independence achieved in our lifetimes...another thing I didn't think could happen
I agree about the imminent threat. We found out that Iran has ballistic missiles that can reach Europe.
The Iranians always hid stuff from us: The nuclear plant Fordow that was a revelation for the IAEA when it was discovered ("but they said they'd shown us everything!") comes to mind.
There's such a complete lack of historical memory even among smart people (or the sort of people who subscribe to Alex)
Alex, this is a ridiculous take. Plain and simple. Iran did not “win”. Losing their once vaunted military capability is not a win. Losing every ally they thought they had is not a win. Losing almost their entire manufacturing sector is not a win. What is a win in this scenario? A peace deal that ensures safe passage through the Strait. This ceasefire is step one.
Militarily IRAN was defeated soundly no doubt...they are essentially castrated now with no friends in the region as you mention only enhancing the pending Abraham Accords!
Step 1, indeed. Probably, just to prove that they will AGAIN refuse to 'negotiate' away their uranium OR $$$ from the Strait. More truth exposed for the whole world to see......
Speculation is for speculators, the short term, twitchy doubters. President Trump is a long term investment and I am holding.
Remember the board of peace? We basically have the middle east (except Iran) "in our pocket". Iran has nowhere to go...and they need their oil more than we do.
39 days from start to ceasefire? For comparison, Afghanistan required twenty years to reach its first ceasefire, the Doha Accords. Ukraine has been running for going on five years with no meaningful ceasefire. This is an astonishing historic record that should be in every single headline this morning, but of course, Trump Derangement takes its terrible cognitive toll, and honestly, I think they just can’t see it.
All sounds GREAT if this does not creep post cease fire into something MORE in a off and on ceasefire and endless futile terrorist negotiations. If we could just ARM the IRANIAN citizens to fight the regime from within it would be a game changer in my opinion
IRAN is severely diminished (understatement) physically. Yet, still terrorists - and, all over the world - but even terrorists have an economy). But, the FOCUS NOW is the Strait, global political/economic/logistical. Trump has always known this! The pause is a pressure valve release (allows oil price to relax - today). One thing we know for sure is that the haste to be GREEN/climate change hysteria is a joke. It's been the Left's slight-of-hand: look HERE! while, 'behind-the-curtain' they really amass financial power and foment divisions.
America sent arms to the Iranian people. Unfortunately they sent them to the Kurds to transfer. The Kurds did not give them the arms.
Yes good point..I aware of that. WE tusted them and CAN'T going forward now. I was thinking more of a very focused mission with marines to bring into places for the PEOPLE!
To be fair, the Kurds have very little reason to trust the US. We have screwed them over for decades. I served with some of them in OIF, they know what they're doing; if they *did* withhold arms we provided, I suspect they had some very good reasons to do so.
I don't know how we would do that without drawing attention.
I hear you, but unless the PEOPLE get on a level playing field not much is gonna happen
wow
This column was incoherent. We destroyed Iran's war-making ability, we destroyed multiple levels of leadership, we forced them (along with China) to open the Strait, and laid the groundwork for the Iranian people to reclaim their country. So we lost?
Incoherent is a perfect word.
Alex, Iran was close to having the material to do suitcase bombs in Tel Aviv or New York. Continued appeasement was no longer an option based on the information the administration had.
Do you think a bunch of psychopaths who didn't hesitate to shoot 35,000 of their own people (and hire mercenaries to help do it at scale) would not hesitate to try to subjugate you with nuclear weapons?
They beat women to death who don't cover their hair. They hang young teens. They fund terror proxies all over the world. They are funding the radical Islamists in the U.S. This action taken by the Trump administration is the very best hope for us to not have to send hundreds of thousands of our young people over there to die in three or four years. There was no other option.
Your take on this is so ridiculously bad, I'm out.
Yes, Iran sees it as a win. Time will tell because while the IGRC licks it's wounds, the alliances in the middle east and Europe have been permanently scrambled. Watch Rubio if you want to know where we are going. Wars aren't won or lost in a day. Trump did what's best for the Iranian people at this point with no boots on the ground. Wait before you draw such sweeping conclusions.
Well, this war isn't over yet, and the plotting and pacing aren't quite on. I am flipping through TikTok on my phone and only half paying attention.
OH WAIT. It's a GD war, not Netflix. Maybe there are some bigger and more subtle things going on here. Maybe it's messy and Iran has had over 40 yrs to set itself up in a number of ways.
I look at all the lionization of the 2nd World War, how perfect and noble it was, when the reality was enormous numbers of people were killed and we intentionally terror-bombed civilians. Now we try hard to avoid any collateral damage and the commentariat complains it's not perfect. The attrition rates on the U.S. side are phenomenally low. Some bomber sorties in WW II had loss rates above 40%. The U.S. military exists to get into combat and kill things, not to provide photo ops for gays and chickie boo-boo pilots.
The oil situation is probably a lot more complicated and the poltical leverage over Europe is long overdue. But according to the commentariat and main stream press, I'm sure the strait would be far more reliable if we just let Iran get a little stronger and build up some more terrorist proxies.
Returning you all to the usual masked TDS now.