Already have an account? log in
This article is FREE for you
Create a free account and join institutional investors, analysts and strategists from the world's largest banks
By submitting your email address you agree to receive communication by email
After Khamenei, Who’s Next?
As the bombs kept falling across Iran on Sunday, remaining high-level officials in the capital sugge
OR, subscribe now for unlimited access
By submitting your email address you agree to receive communication by email
By submitting your email address you agree to receive communication by email
You are by far the most knowledgeable resource I know of on this material, I have been looking forward to seeing what you would pen since I saw the news of the attacks.
Do you have any insight into how this may play out? I think Trump has shown an unwillingness to be patient and this scenario, that we created, demands it. This leaves me assuming he’s going to select the quick and easy way out of this and then declare flawless victory. However this situation is far more globally impactful than anything Trump has ever been party to before.
How do you see this going?
Suppose the regime stubbornly refuses or be overthrown, and remains a threat to Israeli and US interests. In other words, the air campaign fails. Then what?
There is no scenario in which Trump will invade Iran for real. He might be convinced to send special forces to go in, destroy a nuclear facility, and get out. But I think he’d rather leave a re-arming Iran to be someone else’s problem than launch a large and sustained US ground campaign.
There is, I think, an alternative that his advisors will push. The US can starve Iran out by shutting off its exports. The US can destroy whatever oil and shipping infrastructure it wants. I don’t think Iran can export much overland through Afghanistan etc. Eventually, when military and IRGC go unpaid long enough, and enough of their leaders are unalived, the security apparatus might fail. The US can also try to identify and arm opposition groups, while placing ads in Tehran’s newspapers for the next Delcey.
This will take a long time to “work”, if it even does, and the Republicans will go into the midterms with the bonus of higher oil prices and starving, dying Iranian civilians. Probably still better than the bonus of American soldiers bogged down in a large ground war.
Listen friends,
This war has nothing to do with Iran and everything to do with the mid term elections. How could Iran be a nuclear threat when he stated last summer that he obliterated the treat. It’s all made up for the simple calculated idea, that he knows he can’t take over our state run elections. The legal push back will be harsh. When he tries, it will for sure get to the Supreme Court in an emergency decision and allow him the right to screw with the vote because we are at war.
His minions are working overtime in laying out possible future legal outcomes to get to what they want. Trump is not the brains of this outfit, Miller and the religious nuts like Russell Vought are the draftsman. Trump is just the empty vessel that they needed to accomplish and create their fever dream of an American Taliban. They can stroke this guy in every direction as long as they feed his narcism and keep him where they want him, that means happy ego!
What a cocktail of cosmic events that had to come together to join this band of band of bozo’s together, oh wait, I mean Highly Intelligent Zealots.
These guys are 20 steps ahead of everybody.
There will never be American boots on the ground, Just a series of nonsense until this fiasco has served its purpose, then it is cut and run and claim victory. Total Shit Show!
Sorry, but some parts of this comment simply aren’t accurate. I agree with the general sentiment, but it’s overwrought and yes, this war has quite a bit to with Iran.
Maybe this comment is overwrought, but the anxiety doesn’t come from this one exercise over the weekend. What happened this weekend is just another chess move on the road to full autocracy. I live in the Twin Cities, I’m watching it in real time, quite literally out my front window. I have good friends of mine that are American born and of Mexican decent that I went to grade school and high school with. They are carrying around their birth certificates and passports. I live in a suburb that has a large population of Mexican people where most of them are second and third generation, like my friends, American born.
This war is about Iran because it was the target of choice and because of the history. It can be conveniently justified. Is Iran a bad actor on the world stage, YES! From some of the reporting that I have read, and I’m sure you have a better understanding of it, is that in the talks with Iran, Trump had a better deal that Obama had. Could Iran be trusted, no, but this is a war of choice at this time by this administration with the hopes that they can capitalize on it in the from of some emergency powers in this election year. Is that projection, yes, but they have been projecting Project 2025 on us for 13 months and they mean business.
In what world does anybody think Trump or the Zealots want the Democrats slapping his ass around for two years? They will stop and nothing and that’s just where we are. Everybody is in the weeds, while the Zealots are in the tree tops.
Just saying….
I love your work and respect your opinions.
And the winner is: the Nepo Baby, of course.