/r/WorldNews Discussion Thread: US and Israel launch attack on Iran; Iran retaliates (Thread #17)

The US military knows that this is an absolutely stupid enterprise, but they do not make the big decisions. If the President gives a lawful order to go, they are obligated to execute the order. They can only mitigate the disaster.

The problem is Trump doesn't know what he's doing. Hegseth EXTREMELY doesn't know what he's doing. Ratcliffe doesn't know what he's doing. And they've all gone and fired all the competent high level agents/generals because they weren't Trump sycophant yesmen.

I don't think Trump would be bothered by a deal that left Iran in control of the strait. He sees it as an opportunity to sell more US (and Venezuelan) oil. Arguably, though it hurts the US, it hurts Europe and especially Asia even more. Trump doesn't care about other people. Plus, I bet he sees Iranians charging a toll as an opportunity for the US to seize waterways and charge tolls too. I don't think this is realistic, but I also don't think that Trump is realistic.

Remember Liberation day? Those giant tariffs on China? Doing something stupid. Backing off. Then declaring victory because he avoided the worst case scenario of a situation he caused in the first place is his whole shtick.

Europe and Asia will pay a few dollars more per barrel with a toll. Manageable. The problem is Trump's relationships in the region. Telling off both Israel and the GCC at the same time is problematic because they have the money and influence to cause problems in US politics for Trump. Particularly with how enmeshed the Gulf States have gotten with him financially. So it's not going to happen unless he is desperate.

Our global hegemony was on the way out once we declared a trade war on the entire world and started abandoning and threatening our allies nonstop. Launching this Suez Crisis 2.0 event was just one more unforced error designed to cripple the US because we have insider threats at the highest level of government.

It’s a war as long as it’s convenient to be one, then it becomes an “excursion” when legality comes up. War’s waged without clear objectives (Trump’s objectives change every time he’s asked about it) and paths to victory don’t get better by just “sticking with it”. Feel free to browse the Wikipedia pages for the Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan Wars for examples of this. US hegemony has been far more damaged by waging this war in the first place than it will be by its outcome. US hegemony has come from both the carrot and the stick. And the stick has, by and large been used to enforce the carrots (freedom of navigation is a big one). Not random acts of aggression like we’ve seen from the current administration. The modern American lifestyle has been supported by c**** goods from Asia (primarily China, although that is changing somewhat). To think otherwise is a delusion. Meanwhile, inflation’s just shot back up to 3.8% and will continue to stay high, if not rise significantly more, the longer the war continues. That will more directly affect Americans’ lifestyle more than the result from this war will.

You sound like a lost soul from the Vietnam War. "no kid wants to die for the credibility of Lyndon Johnson"

"Pulling out now would be catastrophic for the US" \- Pulling out now would only be catastrophic for Mr Trump and his pro-Israel financiers and backers. NOT for the USA. \- Not pulling out now, this would indeed be catastrophic, both for the USA and also for the "western" world. It would mean boots on the ground. It would require more boots than Vietnam did, which you could only get with a draft. It would take 5 to 20 years, and the outcome would not be automatically assured in the favor of the USA. It would mean a closed strait for at least one year, likely longer. It would mean burning oil fields and desalination plants in the gulf. And a famine for developing and some emerging countries, due to acute and prolonged fertilizer shortage. Get rid of Trump and his MAGA fanatics instead, and keep enjoying one of the highest living standards in the world. US Americans enjoy today rank 17th according to the latest human development index. Why risk that dropping down, just for a shoulder tap from Israeli settlers? Before Mr Trumps first term the USA ranked 10th on that list globally.

Right, but which option gets you there? We bombed and bombed and bombed and they still have 90% of their missiles. If we start bombing again, what will happen is that Iran will take out all the oil infrastructure in the Middle East. What's worse is that they may hit desalination plants. This will leave tens of millions without water across a bunch of countries, which will be one of the largest humanitarian crises in modern history. Meanwhile, oil will be limited for *years*, and we will sink into recession if not depression. And there's no guarantee it works. So I guess I will say that I agree we have to make decisions where we are and not where we wish we could be, but also we do have to look at the deal Iran sent, the fallout of another bombing, and talk about which one is worse. Just like we can't *just*wish Trump never screwed this up so badly, we also can't just pretend like there is a path to Iran even being in the position they were in at the start of the war.

Iran still has ~90% of its missiles edit: missile *sites* and is unwilling to discuss missiles, the strait, or nuclear. It sucks, but Trump has 3 choices- to give them everything they have wanted, keep the strait closed for a long time, or restart the war and see massive oil and humanitarian crises balloon. Edited because I had the fact wrong. It's missile sites not missiles.

Oil flowing is the only thing that matters to the world... USA has failed in the worlds eyes 

Yeah OP just asked what is happening. This is the state of affairs.

I'll have you know, Pete invited me himself 😤

> a large percentage of their capabilities have been diminished I guess the definition of "a large percentage" could be debated. But as the CIA reported last week, it still has about 70 percent of its prewar stockpiles of missiles.

Why did they stop in the first place?

I think there are practical issues with hitting some of these missile sites. Like Iran designs these sites, since they aren't able to be moved, to be a very hard target. Think built into a hillside. Sheltered by hundreds of feet of rock. It seems the attacks, and previous attacks were mainly at the entrances, which the Iranians promptly dug out. So the US can hit them again, but Iran also know the US will target them again, so designs them to be able to withstand a hit. A tough egg to crack.

The German General Staff ignored its own logisticians who warned that they wouldn't be able to supply the army indefinitely if it invaded the Soviet Union.

And we also used all our tomahawks, PRSMs, bunker busters, not to mention interceptors in the first round. So the second round we’ve just got c**** jdams hitting dirt and won’t be able to do half the destruction the first round did.

Their best option to disrupt the status quo so far. Without their desalination plants, the gulf states only have enough water to serve 1/10th of their population. Desalination plants don't move. Things are bad, but they could also get a lot worst.

The ME air bases are where the US would be launching strikes from for any continued fighting. The US's ability to defend them or lack thereof is one of the biggest factors for the next stage of the war. If the US feels they can't defend them adequately it may make them less likely to start hostilities. If the US can defend them and use them to launch more attacks it gives the US more options to push Iran for concessions.

Iran can only destroy so much before the blowback to their own civilian energy facilities is catastrophic

The missile program has not been substantially degraded at all, maintaining 90% of your operational capability underground where your entire stock is placed after the US Israel coalition dropped 20k bombs all over you means the underground missile program works as intended and unless the US plans to invade Iran, there is no destroying it, just as Iran will be able to resume and continue their nuclear program and there is nothing short of a US ground invasion that can stop them judging by this war

Every single point you make is factually wrong > The US and Israel can knock those facilities back out, if they need to. They didn’t knock them out the first time. At best they lightly damaged them. And we already spent all our best munitions. We’ve got very small stockpiles of bunker busters capable of damaging underground facilities at all. And the numbers are classified but it was estimated before the 12-day war that we had like 20 total and we’ve dropped plenty since then. > They demonstrated that they could degrade Iran's missile forces 90% within a week Based on their daily fire rates? Maybe the Persians are just tactful in not trying to shoot all their ammo in 2 weeks. In late March their fire rates were climbing substantially and their hit rates were skyrocketing. If all the intel is correct, we barely degraded their missile launch capabilities at all despite 15k sorties. > and that the anti missile defense systems can intercept the vast majority of them. Yeah, while we had nearly all our global interceptor stockpiles in place in the region beforehand and fire 6-10 interceptors at every threatening missile because our EW radars all got blown up in the first days. We’ve spent half our patriots and they’ve got ~70% of their missiles left by our own estimates (and 120% by their claim). How long can we keep that track record and what are the future implications of trying? > The Iranians have inflicted less than one casualty per missile, by fatalities it's about 25 missiles per fatality. Okay what are our casualty rates per bomb dropped? 0.1? Stupid way to try to assess the success of war operations. Objectives matter, and we’ve achieved none. > You can't really destroy underground facilities with conventional weapons from the air. It's way easier to dig deeper than create a conventional bomb large enough to destroy an arbitrarily deep bunker. Exactly. That’s why the US is failing this campaign.

Considering the bombing stopped but Iran still didnt agree to any demands, seems like Iran's deterant of attacking gulf state infostructure worked well

Losing the Navy and Airforce was completely useless to the US, slightly less useless to Israel. The problem was, is and will remain their missiles and their hold over Hormuz. If it's true that missile production is basically intact, then this operation has been a complete failure. Yeah, it'd be great for their economy to be taken out, if not for the fact that they're going charge millions of dollars at Hormuz now. Killed their leaders? Genuinely, who gives a shit? You replaced.him with son who is probably in a come. Kill *that* guy too, who cares? The IRGC obviously in control.

And yet they have the US by the balls

Having a child rapist as president was ok for too many people...

Yes because Trump doesn't even know what an emdash is or that it even exists.

That and "I hate Taylor Swift"