Get your own damn energy. Or buy some from us. We’ve got plenty.
That was Donald Trump’s message to the world on Tuesday. In delivering it, he essentially confirmed a Wall Street Journal report which suggested the administration’s leaning against committing US ground troops to high-risk operations in Iran. At least for now.
Late Monday evening, the Journal said that in recent conversations with advisors, Trump indicated he might decide to wind down major US combat operations in the Mideast before the Strait of Hormuz reopens.
Rather than chance a series of ground operations which, at the very least, would “push the conflict beyond his timeline of four to six weeks,” Trump could instead declare America’s “main goals” accomplished, “wind down current hostilities” then “pressur[e] Tehran diplomatically to resume the free flow of trade.”
If Trump goes that route, it’ll count among the most well-reasoned major decisions he’s made in his five, going on six, years as US president. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be remembered as a good decision — “gang aft agley” and such — but the alternative’s a Pandora’s box.
If no one has, someone should apprise Trump of the extent to which public debate over the best course of action in Iran is blind to its own hypocrisy on the left (what happened to the left which remembers George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq as a criminally sordid disaster?) and biased by bloodlust on what I’ll call the “traditional” right, where invading Iran is the foreign policy Holy Grail of a neocon consensus enjoying a revival in Trump’s second-term militarism.
It’s incredible (and incredibly sad) that the political left in America seems ready and willing to prioritize their disdain for Trump over the lives of the hundreds of young men and women who’d die during the first weeks and months of ground operations to seize Kharg Island and commandeer strategic coastal assets in Iran.
Of course, the left would claim they’re saying nothing of the sort, but by…
- exaggerating (willfully or not) the IRGC’s designs on leveraging a post-conflict environment to rebuild the nuclear program,
- playing up Iran’s supposed desire to punish its neighbors for complicity in the US war effort even after American bombs stop falling and, most importantly,
- being woefully derelict in explaining just how degraded Iran is, both in terms of its conventional military capabilities and especially in terms of personnel,
… the mainstream (“liberal”) media is in fact raising the odds, or at least doing nothing to lower them, of US ground operations. Operations which, almost invariably, would morph into a decades-long entanglement with all that entails, including thousands of American servicemember casualaties and hundreds of thousands of lost Iranian lives.
Hard as this is to swallow for people who’d sooner lie than give Trump or Benjamin Netanyahu any kind of credit, these last four weeks have been an unequivocal success on the military front against Iran. And how could it be otherwise? The IRGC has no air defenses.
The complete decimation of Iran’s conventional military capabilities comes on the heels of a two-and-a-half-year targeted assassination campaign that killed everyone of any notoriety in the regime’s so-called “ring of fire” — in Qassem Soleimani’s fabled “Shia crescent.”
Try as I might (and have), it simply isn’t possible to communicate to the average reader how astounding that assassination campaign really is. I spent a decade harboring an unhealthy obsession with the life’s work of Soleimani. There’s nothing left of that life’s work. It’s gone.
Those are the facts. Whether the general public understands them as such shouldn’t be (can’t be) relevant for the purposes of a decision about whether to invade a foreign country.
The vast (vast) majority of people know next to nothing about Iran the country, let alone the regime itself. Once you get down to the regime particulars, you’re talking about a highly-specialized field of knowledge.
There are three-, maybe four-dozen people in America with enough Iran-specific knowledge to weigh in intelligently on the extent to which the regime’s debilitated. If you’re the President of the United States, those are the only opinions which should count when it comes time to condemn Marines and Iranians to death, which is what a decision to launch ground operations would mean.
The notion that Trump should care about the “TACO” chorus — and that juvenile acronym has found its way out of the macro-market realm and into the geopolitical discourse — when making this decision is stone, cold crazy.
Think about what we’re saying (and doing) when we employ that derisive meme in this context. We’re saying Trump’s a “chicken” for not sending our neighbor’s 20-year-old to die on an Iranian beach for the oh-so-noble cause of re-opening a waterway to the flow of royally-owned fossil fuels at a time when the US is a net energy exporter.
Not only that, we’re implicitly goading Trump into sending our neighbor’s 20-year-old to die on that beach, and we’re also signing death warrants for God only knows how many Iranian civilians.
All because we’re determined that i) we have intimate knowledge of Bagher Ghalibaf’s internal monologue, never mind that not one in a million Americans had ever even heard of Ghalibaf until last week, ii) “Operation Epic Fury” can’t be remembered as a success, because if it is, that means giving Trump credit. Better our neighbor’s son be dead on that Iranian beach than that.
As far as the resurrected neocon chorus goes, their opinion should be dismissed out of hand. It says a lot about that crowd that Trump’s given them everything on Iran they could’ve ever dreamed of (he scrapped the JCPOA, he assassinated Soleimani, he bombed the nuclear sites, he was directly involved in the assassination of Ali Khamenei and he destroyed Iran’s conventional military capabilities) and it’s still not enough. It’ll never be enough for that crowd. If they have their way, the US will commit half a million troops to a full-scale invasion.
I’m very confident in assessing that this is one case where the political extremes in America (i.e., isolationists on the MAGA far-right and anti-war voices on the Progressive left) have it right. It’s time to go. Call it a win (because it is), and when someone asks about the Strait, tell them Iran will open it eventually of their own accord (because they will, even if passage comes with conditions) or tell them exactly what Trump said on Tuesday.
“All of those countries that can’t get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you,” he wrote, on social media. “Buy from the US, we have plenty, and build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT.”
Trump wasn’t done. “You have to start learning how to fight for yourself,” he went on. “Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!”
Preach, you crazy idiot, you. Preach.
Wow!
Well said H. This is definitely one of Ur best articles and analysis !! The risks of deploying ground troops are far greater than any potential benefits at this point. I think Rubio announced yesterday the four goals that had largely been achieved …and that was the tell.
No more land wars in Asia (or the mideast).
We’ll find out if Trump knows not to make that blunder soon enough. I’m confident he definitely knows not to make the second greatest blunder. He would never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
I hope Trump declares the war won and redraws.
However, I don’t see how it can be considered won. If Iran controls the strait, the war is not finished.
Maybe it’s theirs to control. Ever think of that? And everybody’s overlooking the obvious: Let’s say Iran decides the Strait’s an income-generating asset, which is the worst-case. It only generates income if you allow ships to transit it. And the market will dictate that price eventually. Because if you charge too much, for too long, people will just build alternative infrastructure that bypasses it and/or you’ll alienate people you didn’t necessarily want to alienate.
More broadly, a lot of you folks are ascribing to the Iranians something like total irrationality, and in some cases you’re confusing what you think is rational with what’s actually totally irrational.
And my goodness, I gotta admit to something like astonishment at the omission of the only point that really matters in the Strait discussion: It was open until we started bombing them.
If you’d been in a coma for two months and you woke up today and read three random mainstream media articles about the war, you’d probably be inclined to believe it started because Iran closed the Strait as an act of defiance. Spoiler alert: They closed the Strait because we assassinated their head of state on the way to bombing their capital around the clock for a month.
I’m not defending the regime, but Jesus Christ, we closed the Strait by starting a war, and now we’re acting like the only way to call it finished is by invading the country to re-open it. That’s crazy.
Who is suggesting invading? You talking to me, you talking to me…
Iran can have the strait. I think it is a distinct possibility. Who’s going to take it.
When I say “you” in comment responses, it almost never means “you” specifically. “You folks” refers to thousands of readers.
not that legality matters anymore but it’s illegal to toll a natural waterway under international law, unlike say a man-made Panama Canal.
Yes, I think it’s fair to say, by now, in 2026, that international law’s irrelevant.
It is illegal to toll, but is not illegal to have treaties in place that make allowance for a sovereign state to make transit decisions for /military/ ships based on the state’s national security interests. The Turkish Straits are a an example of that. After Churchill’s 1915 failed adventure to wrest control during world war 1, and a later close encounter in 1922 when britain almost went to war again, the world decided on 1936 that it was better to have a treaty in place that guaranteed commercial transit always but gave the sovereign state decision power on transit of military ships. The treaty held during world war two (perhaps surprisingly) and allowed Turkey to claim neutrality by closing the straits to all combatants (the Axis did try to push the issue but failed). It is still valid today and has had some impact on the war in Ukraine.
“Hey Iran, this is the US, we are calling to ask if we can move a marine battle group through the strait in the way to kharg island…”
The toll Iran has floated is $2 million per tanker to transit, which they seem to have set so that there is a direct comparison to what Egypt gets for operating the Suez Canal (presumably so that it sounds “reasonable”). That has an upper bound of around $800 million per month, if we assume it includes not only oil but also natural gas. The estimates on cost of repair of civilian and energy infrastructure (only) has a lower bound of about $100 billion. So let’s be clear, if Iran /only/ manages to get that, they never bounce back from this.
It doesn’t seem to me this toll gives them enough on its own, unless they get something else out of negotiations (sanctions relief is likely THE thing). The value of the strait closure is (1) taking the global economy hostage and (2) signaling that “if you bomb us again you know how this goes” so that they feel they have some kind of insurance policy. And on (1), the hostage is diabetic and needs and insulin shot: the game for Iran now is “how long can you endure oil at this price, because we (want you to believe we) have all the time in the world.” Note how in this scenario, continuing to hit lower and lower priority military targets from the air doesn’t really help a lot.
Very impressive.
It really speaks to where we’ve sunk that having the Dear Misleader make something approximating a reasonable decision would be a pound the table moment.
Wait a minute …. where and who is this left you are speaking of, who is encouraging Trump to
finish whatever the “job” is?
The liberal media I am reading and hearing never wanted the first bomb to be dropped … let alone continue this war of choice.
For the most part, I and my liberal compatriots have been saying we should stop the attacks on Iran from day one.
You really think Trump has any other choice but to withdraw?
Pretty funny that he thinks the EU should go get their own oil …. after he is the one who is responsible for having it stop flowing.
If you read the NY Times, WaPo, etc, what you’re going to find is a bunch of commentary which by and large doesn’t acknowledge that this was a success. It’s not that the left is saying, explicitly, “Go invade!” it’s that by refusing to give him credit for an operation that achieved every military goal (opening the Strait wasn’t a goal of the operation because it was open when the operation began), the implicit message to someone with Trump’s temperament is “Keep going.” Harping continually on that Strait as if the Iranians are never going to re-open it unless forced, lamenting the plight of American beachgoers for whom gas prices are high, playing up the IRGC’s remaining missiles / drones, and so on, implicitly/accidentally, says to Trump, “If you stop now, it’s a failure and we’re going to cover it as such.”
The left isn’t giving Trump enough credit for the successful attacks on Iran and that encourages him to carry on with the war?
Not sure I agree with appeasement being the best way to get Trump to stop his insanity.
The way I translate the Times critiques is that the war is a failure and any increase in hostilities will result in a bigger failure.
The fact is, we move the goal posts on him. Everything he does is going to be the end of the world and then when the world doesn’t end, we figure out a way to say that it did. You can deny that characterization, but we all know we do it. I certainly do. The difference between me and everybody else is that I’m cognizant of it and I admit it.
If anyone is encouraging him to continue it’s Bibi, MBS and Murdoch. Sure trump needs his “ata boys” but I doubt he’ll make decisions based on where the left leaves the goalposts. I don’t think Americans were losing sleep over the level of Iran’s military capabilities, so most Americans are not seeing this as a success when they look at their wallets or that the threat level is now raised at home.
As a liberal I’m thanking anyone and everyone responsible for the apparent decision not to put boots on the ground. Of course liberals did not want the ill-advised war to begin with especially when the negotiations via Oman were so close to avoiding it.
The case for the war was poorly articulated by the Trump administration and although, as DigitalAnimal suggests, probably most Americans don’t see the whole “military engagement” as a success, there are plenty of American’s who would point to Iran’s previous regime as oppressive to its own citizens and antagonistic to peace in the region e.g. a “bad guys got a whoopin’ and they got taught a lesson,” etc.
As a liberal I’m thanking anyone and everyone responsible for the apparent decision not to put boots on the ground. Of course liberals did not want the ill-advised war to begin with especially when the negotiations via Oman were so close to avoiding it.
The case for the war was poorly articulated by the Trump administration and although, as DigitalAnimal suggests, probably most Americans don’t see the whole “military engagement” as a success, there are plenty of American’s who would point to Iran’s previous regime as oppressive to its own citizens and antagonistic to peace in the region e.g. a “bad guys got a whoopin’ and they got taught a lesson,” etc.
“Once you get down to the regime particulars, you’re talking about a highly-specialized field of knowledge”
I am one of your readers who feels that I have been following the story as you mentioned in these articles for these last years and because of you,
“ in the know” thank you
As it is now world, hunger will probably increase, but if the water supply to the Middle East was compromised millions upon millions could easily die and the world certainly thrown into it a depression.
Lord tRump says “The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!” and the world rightly replies “You broke it. Now you now own it so you fix it. Don’t worry – the hard part is done.”
What goes around comes around and is already on the way Donny. Duck and cover, you dumbass!
See, this is exactly what I’m talking about. Right here.
I mean no disrespect to you by saying that opinions are based on experience and education and some of ours naturally differ. You make the judgement that Trump should be able to kill foreign leaders and civilians, then unilaterally declare success and the end of hostilities to spare the lives of our military. Well, OK. If the Japanese had tried this on December 8th, 1941, the Germans on 6/5/1944, or Bin Laden on 9/12/2001, would history be changed for the better? Not likely in my opinion but if they said that they were very very very sorry and stopped right there, millions of lives would have been saved. So, maybe…
I’m a Vietnam-era Marine, and sometimes that clouds my judgment. For instance, I believe that the only effective way to deal with a bully is to thoroughly kick his butt so that he wakes up with a totally different attitude. Also, when one takes the oath and dons the Eagle Globe and Anchor, they are saying that they will kill and be killed without questioning the reasons. That’s what Marines do—kill and be killed by armed enemies, not defenseless women and children. So after tRump and Netanyahu have slaughtered thousands of civilians with standoff weapons, I just don’t see the scales of justice balancing if the bullies declare victory to allegedly save marine or soldier lives. The souls of hundreds of dead school children cry out for justice, and a price will be paid by us all. I lay the blame for this unholy mess at the feet of tRump, his voters, and most of all, the Project 2025 oligarchs that own tRump. Maybe after we pay the price for this misadventure, we’ll find the collective courage and sense to make the fascists, KKKhristians, and oligarchs wake up with a totally different attitude. Meanwhile, tally ho trumpers!!! An atrocity a day keeps the Epstein prosecutions away.
Yeah, I mean look, the tenor of this comment isn’t really something I can engage with. It starts out fine — and thank you for your service; as is evident in my writing, I genuinely appreciate it — but by the end you’re talking about the Klan and Epstein, and the whole “Rump” thing’s obviously silly. I can’t do anything with that. It’s not really my brand of snark.
Perhaps, but we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. On the eve of potentially dispatching some 3,500 Marines or so into combat, and as someone (he) who once served in Vietnam, I truly value this man’s opinion.
If America and her interests were not in peril, and if our (former?) NATO and European allies were not threatened, and if millions of innocent lives somewhere were not at stake, then launching this war against Iran was an immoral act, full stop. If it is our contention that Iran was committing immoral acts on a regular basis — which they were — and that it was our responsibility to stop them, then we should have been able to form a coalition of like-minded states to join us in this undertaking.
Likewise, we cannot spurn NATO and all of our (former?) trade partners at nearly every turn, and then ex post facto claim that we did this unilaterally (along with Israel) in their best interests. While I agree completely that we should not risk any more lives in order to secure the Strait, we own this thing now, and we should have to answer for it.
That I can see, we do not possess the diplomatic intelligence to repair this properly and in short order. (Meaning: not even Henry Kissinger himself, on his best day, could fix this now.) Trump went a bridge too far here, likely (and perhaps foolishly) anticipating another “Venezuela” type of outcome. Hopefully, Iran will work diplomatically with our (former?) trade partners and allies to restore what is now economically broken. (And we clearly should not expect either of them to do us any favors!) All that we can do now is express or discontent in forums such as this, and hold our administration responsible for their actions in the upcoming midterm elections.
Our discontent . . .
While I see the point that the war can be declared a success militarily, the cost of oil will be a problem going forward.
I understand that the article is focused on the military decision making, and that whether we invade or not, oil is going to (presumably) be high for a long time.
This issue will follow any proclamations of victory from the administration. It will be difficult to sell to the American people that $4-$5 gas was worth the elimination of a bunch of guys nobody’s ever heard of. I guess the question is whether you want high oil with thousands of dead troops or without.
Even if Iran “tolls” the SoH, I wonder what the daily throughput of the Strait would be and logistically how those tolls would be enforced. Full disclosure, I know nothing about the ins-and-outs of oceanic shipping, so maybe this is not a concern.
“I guess the question is whether you want high oil with thousands of dead troops or without.”
Right.
I actually prefer higher oil prices, zero dead troops, and an overwhelming result in the upcoming midterm elections. But I confess, unlike many Americans, I can afford higher oil prices in the short to mid-term.
“Even if Iran “tolls” the SoH, I wonder what the daily throughput of the Strait would be and logistically how those tolls would be enforced.”
Pay the toll in advance or risk a drone amidships… your call. Venmo, PayPal… we’re flexible.
The question was never “Could we win militarily?”; but, “Why should we join Israel in the first place?”. Where was the imminent threat? What did Bibi whisper in Trump’s ear?
Why can’t Oman buy or built some missiles and say they control the strait? Maybe Oman decides the Strait’s an income-generating asset. Why only Iran? Maybe Iran and Oman split the revenue?
By the way, this is the time for Trump to pivot to green energy. Solar, wind, wave, EVs, etc. Imagine how much LNG, oil, etc. that the US could export if we didn’t need it. Texas would get extremely rich!! We could even help block the strait to keep prices high!!
You have to remove wind.
Isn’t the path of least resistance here for Europe to enter into an arrangement with Russia , after, of course an appropriate period of pearl clutching for Ukraine
I don’t know why the onus to fight is on the EU. How about Saudi Arabia stepping up and using some of the tens of billions of dollars of military equipment they’ve bought from us to reopen the SoH? The Gulf states are the ones who need it to make a profit, let them fight.
Thank you.
Yes, grudgingly, thank you. I can see your point on the left-ish (NYT) media counterproductively goading him to continue. Grrr. Damn his narcissistic soul.
Thank you for some great information and ideas. After some thought, I agree that the wise, but short term face-losing approach is to declare victory using some very strong evidence, but I fear that your commander in chief will follow his normal practice of bad decisions.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day, so credit where credit is due. Questions should still be asked, like “Are we better off strategically today than we were on Feb. 27? Have we discredited ourselves as a negotiating partner by allowing Bibi to make his decapitation strike in the midst of talks that seemed to be progressing? Was all the blood and treasure worth it?
Assuming Trump goes ahead and takes the “W” and goes home, who cleans up the mess?”
Valid points H, to a degree. What was the objective in assassinating Khameni and closing the Strait in the first place? Because usually success is defined by the objectives in military action. Was it regime change? Nuclear disarmament? Disruption of oil trade globally?
The regime isn’t really changed, it’s different, but not in a sense that it’s doing any favors for the Iranian people. Nuclear disarmament? Nope. Well he did disrupt oil trade, so that’s where the win is?
I agree that we shouldn’t be putting boots on the ground, but I also think it was stupid to spend billions of dollars on this excursion and kill a dozen service members in the process. It’s quite likely he was duped into taking this action by Israel, that also makes it difficult for me to call this a success.
But where does this land the region long term? I don’t think anyone has a clue there. The IDF could keep blowing up Iranian leadership and that will eventually create a humanitarian crises. #Winning?
This comment seems confused. We didn’t have an “objective” to close the Strait, nor to disrupt global oil traffic. And Iran doesn’t possess nuclear weapons, only enriched uranium.
The idea with assassinating Khamenei was, in Trump’s mind anyway, that maybe the US could get a Delcy situation or a Delcy-ish situation. I think that’s indeed where this is headed as I’ve explained across probably 100,000 words (at least) this month.
This was never about the “Iranian people.” Sure, it would’ve been nice if the two-thirds of Iranian society which wants the regime gone rose up, and it “only” would’ve taken a fraction of that two-thirds to overthrow the regime in a kind of nationwide “bum rush” of every local military-security outpost, but that required coordination and a willingness on the part of, let’s call it 1-2 million brave souls, to lay down their lives to overrun the Guards, overwhelm the Basij, occupy government buildings and so on.
That didn’t happen, so now we’re going to get a garrison state, I think, that skims money from a possibly-unsanctioned energy sector. The other possibility is that Trump and Tehran leave this totally unresolved, which is to say Trump stops bombing, Mojtaba Khamenei emerges in one piece from a bunker and we go right back to where we were before, only with the network destroyed, the conventional military crippled, the industrial base bombed out and the sanctions still in place.
If that’s the way it goes, then people like Bagher Ghalibaf are apparently more ideologically inclined than I figured. Because if I’m the IRGC (current or former), I’m seizing this opportunity to take full control of the country, that way I don’t have to ask a Sayed for permission every time I want to take a leak anymore.
Right, we had a number of objectives depending on which minute of which day you asked Trump, Rubio, and/or Hegseth. At various points they were a) regime change (Trump on Truth Social demanding the IRGC to surrender and the Iranian people to take back their country). b) abandonment of the nuclear program (where it was widely reported he was considering sending in special forces to forcibly take enriched uranium). c) you got me, I really don’t know what the objective was because the goal posts are in different places now.
So your assertion is that the objective was to eliminate the Khameni regime and the remnants of Soleimani’s IRGC leadership so that Trump has a friendly partner to transact with? That was worth billions of tax dollars, expenditure of a large swath of our advanced missiles/anti-missiles, aircraft/ship losses, and service member casualties?
I suppose in Trumpian terms it’s a victory because he found himself another income stream and all he had to do was waste tax-payer dollars and tax payers themselves to do it. But I for one can’t really call that a victory for the United States.
And again, just because he declares victory doesn’t mean this is resolved. Iran is in limbo and the IDF is still doing whatever it wants.
“… eliminate the remnants of Soleimani’s IRGC leadership so that Trump has a friendly partner to transact with?”
This is why comments are a trap for me that I’m best to avoid. As I’ve painstakingly explained over the past month, Bagher Ghalibaf (the likely “partner” for Trump who’s going to be anything but “friendly” in public), was a lifelong friend of Soleimani’s. Did you not see the funny pictures I used as banner images over the past two weeks and/or read those articles all the way through? I get what you’re driving at there, but the way you phrased it is nails on a chalkboard to someone who’s obsessed with the subject, the same way it’d be nails on a chalkboard to a late-1990s Chicago Bulls fanatic if you described Dennis Rodman as “a good rebounder with a wild streak who at time clashed with Michael Jordan.” It’s correct, but it’s so generic, and lacking in depth, that it makes me want to inject bleach.
This is one of those topics where I’ve historically been better served to just put the articles out and let the work speak for itself rather than get into the comments. Getting down in here and trying to paraphrase myself just isn’t feasible. There’s not enough time in a day.
My years of work on Iran speaks for itself. Some readers have testified to that these past few days. You can go back and read those articles. There are hundreds and hundreds of them (maybe even thousands) in the archives. I have a pretty decent track record on this when it comes to assessing what’s next, what is and isn’t a good idea, where consensus has it wrong / right, etc.
Look, I respect your opinion on this material, you have a depth and breadth of expertise that is beyond anyone else I’ve ever read. And I fully expect you to ignore this comment, but perhaps you’re feeling frustrated because the man you’re describing as victorious operates on a very low level. The man doesn’t do anything at all unless he benefits from it, he nakedly displays this every time he makes himself visible. If he can’t explain how he was victorious (via his stated objectives) then how can anyone?
So again, as a former service member who’s seen that service get exploited for varyingly untruthful causes, I can’t quantify the victory narrative in what appears to be a wholly unnecessary engagement that cost service members their lives.
This kind of thing is silly. As a long-time reader you know that. It’s an attempt to justify your frustration with this particular article by imputing to me an emotion which, again as a long-time reader, you know full well I don’t generally exhibit or feel, or not as it relates to anything discussed outside of the Monthly Letters anyway.
If you hate it at 14 dead service members, you’re going to really hate it at 1,400. By 14,000, you’ll be out of your mind. As a veteran, I’m sure you know that. My whole point here is “Let’s stop this before it turns into what we all — you, me and everybody reading this — knows it’s likely to turn into if he doesn’t quit now.” If getting him to quit is telling him he won, then so be it.
Saying that the war is a success is a value judgement. It strongly depends on the value you assign to the realities before the war and a/the potential realities after the war. Part of the potential realities after the war seems to be Iran’s realization that it is a lot easier than imagined for them to close the strait.
I don’t disagree with you on the value judgement, necessarily, although I don’t think is trivial to predict that the world is a safer place now, because is not trivial to predict where this Iran of right now is going to be in a year or two. I think you are extrapolating the destruction of Hamas and emasculation of Hezbollah (already happened) to Iran’s regime debilitation.
My issue however is the lack of actual data to try to make sense of any of this. You say Iran has been decimated in terms of capabilities. Nobody is going to argue with you that they have been decimated in terms of conventional military capabilities, but do those matter? I agree the culling of leaders and the confusion and difficulty of coordination that creates does matter. Yet the strait is still closed, and I saw a picture of a radar US plane destroyed in a tarmac over the weekend. If the russians are passing satellite pictures to help Iranian targeting, and the leadership is all in disarray, who are the russians passing targeting information to? Are they posting it on instagram?
I put forward a few datapoints. around 45-48% of the drones and missiles Iran has lobbed to the other gulf countries since the beginning of the war have gone to attacking UAE infrastructure. The next two countries down that list are Kuwait at 15-18% and Saudi Arabia at 12-16%. That doesn’t sound uncoordinated to me, I can think of one or two reasons why that may be considered a good strategy by Iran. There may be something there too in terms of the calculus for Trump on whether to leave this mess unresolved (I meant the strait closure) and just packing and leaving. The level of tension Trump – UAE right now and the relationship cost to Trump of leaving the UAE out cold with the strait closed and packing probably depends on whether the UAE did lobby for or against this war before it started (can we tell which?).
In any case. Three steps back, I take your impassioned defense of avoiding loss of life, I couldn’t agree more with the feeling here. But we don’t know the future, there is a problem of what is the real Iran left and the net present cost of some future which, honestly, is very hard to predict by anyone. So I would really love to hear more arguments base on data because your writing is full of passion here which is understandable, is the feeling of please please avoid this horrible trap. But again, the predicting the future is the thing. You are betting on a future where not going is net better, but the world is net worse right now after having started this war, just ask sri lanka and south korea about their oil rationing.
Last. I am old enough to remember when Clinton/NATO air bombed Milosevic. Milosevic’s regime response was to ethnically cleanse between 800k and 1mm people. That bombing campaign (as implemented) was a huge mistake and basically a failure of imagination: nobody in the planning side imagined that the regime was capable of doing something like that. They couldn’t image a future with that outcome. So forgive me but is hard for me to just take an emotional argument for “leave now”. I would really really like to hear arguments and supporting data for why a particular implicit better imagined future is more likely than (what it seems to me) as totally possible worse futures.
It’s not “full of passion.” It’s full of coffee.
Also, your data demands are disingenuous, although I can tell you don’t realize it. You’re asking me for data about the future. If you know where to get ahold of such datasets, please do let the community know. Because as a group of investors, we’d very much like access to data telling us how the future will unfold. I think I speak for everyone in saying that we will pay whatever your price is to get our hands on such figures.
Jokes aside, I can give you a lot of “data” on Vietnam and Iraq, and all of that “data” screams, “Don’t invade. Whatever you do, don’t invade.”
I believe you understand what I meant by arguments and data. Popper would say something that can be falsified. I tried to do some of that, eg, leadership in disarray, some available information (“data”) seems to contradict that.
As a group of investors, when we can’t predict the future we say we don’t know. Your piece was not investment advice tho, you were not saying “Trump is going to pack and leave, the market is going to pop, go long”.
Invasion is not the only option against “pack and leave”. You have mentioned before that you are not against a commando raid (you didn’t say specifically, but one possibility is to go try to get the uranium). I am not suggesting that is a good idea, I am just saying between “invade” and “pack and leave”, we have “commando raid”, and “air bomb civilian infrastructure till regime collapse” (not rooting for any of those, but Trump has mentioned them “at passing” …) And who knows what else in terms of military options offered.
“…you were not saying ‘Trump is going to pack and leave, the market is going to pop, go long.'”
No, you’re right. I didn’t say that today. I said that yesterday.
LOL.
I have to echo that your coverage has been outstanding. I have followed your thinking right down the garden path you have painted all along.
Let’s remember that the severe crackdown on dissent and the ongoing violence in Iran under Khamenei’s leadership led to the deaths of over 35,000 Iranians. That was before we took out Khamenei.
H, your coverage and analysis have been absolutely superb over the past few months. Thank you for your ongoing efforts on this.
I see Lindsey “Mr. Okinawa” Graham has flipped to urging peace pronto.
John, you owe me 2,000 words here at least. You’re required to comprise at least 20% of any comment section where there are more than 15 comments. So get to typin’.
I’m just kidding. You’re my guy.
61 comments and counting. That has to be a record.
Shades of “Dystopia Now”. You really ended that chapter of your career with a doozy! 🙂
Ha! You know, I really want the publication rights to some of those articles. Most of them I can live without, but I’d be interested in buying the rights to maybe a dozen of those pieces. I should ask them about that.
Believe it was Iwo.
I appreciate the additional insight provided in your comments, thanks.
The misuse of the term “decimated” or “decimation” astounds me. It means to kill one in ten, but has come to be used as complete distruction or annihilation. What happened to language as a precision instrumenmt?
Sorry ’bout the typo 🙂
Merriam-Webster has a problem with your take.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/the-original-definition-of-decimate
@WMD thank you for this lovely link to yet another lovely example of our ever evolving language
Many people like to say that Iran “controls” the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran has physical proximity, and they are able use that proximity, along with missiles and mines, to stop the flow of traffic.
Iran not the only one with physical proximity.
The UAE, Oman, Qatar, and Bahrain also have physical proximity. As does Saudi Arabia if you count the reach of an F-35 jet.
Is it fair to say that any and all of those nations, also “control” the Strait of Hormuz?
If five nations control that straight, then who actually controls it?
I subscribe to the Heisenberg report because it is very clear to me that Walt knows more about a number of important subjects than I do. I hire consultants because for that reason: they know more about something important than I do. To me debating one of my consultants seems like, at best, a waste of time energy or money, at worst, dangerously foolish.
I don’t see what the problem is with acknowledging that POTUS may have done something good or been correct about something, even though I find his character horrible and his political intentions dangerous. Would anyone have a problem saying that someone they like can make a mistake? So what’s the big deal about saying that someone they dislike can be right?
Debating a consultant for the sake of argument is a waste of time. Collaborative cross-questioning with a consultant is an excellent way to learn something. It’s often very useful to present your arguments/ideas to a consultant and have them explain where you are mistaken.
Fair point. Not sure that was happening in the above comment thread.
And we still have a day or two for everything to change! Does it really have to be this way?
Guys, long-time reader here (if it means anything). I don’t know about the other three, maybe four, dozens people who are “in the know” about Mideast business. I only know one, and it’s Heisenberg. I’ll take his opinions on Mideast and Iran every day of the week. And as far as I can tell, H hates Trump as much as you do, although he wouldn’t acknowledge it and would probably say he doesn’t care that much about Trump in the same way he doesn’t care that much about pretty much anyone else. But I’m pretty confident H hates the idea of Trump – The President. So, when H says Trump is close to making the right decision, it means Trump is close to making the right decision, guys.
Sometimes H seems to like to write in a way that is ‘giving a peek behind a curtain’ rather than lifting the curtain fully, so that we either learn, learn to infer, rather than hand the reader a conclusion. All is usually well and good, but I found this particular article to be harder to parse than I think anything I’ve read over a decade of reading.
I agree that we don’t want to unwittingly push Trump into a ground war. But it’s still hard to countenance his inability to understand the consequences of his hasty approach to rapid change in how the US acts in relation to its (former?) allies. And this military excursion will surely be another example of blowback and unintended consequences that lead to more Middle East suffering for too many decades to come, as is all too usual for the US. That it won’t come from a neutered IRGC is irrelevant.
No, the problem is that people are generally (and genuinely) incapable post-2016 of wrapping their minds around an unbiased article with the word “Trump” in it.
I’ve told you folks 1,000 times if I’ve told you once, and I know I’ve told you once: I’m not some sort of anti-Trump crusader.
As an over-educated liberal steeped in political theory and dedicated to honesty and self-reflection, I’m instinctually averse to his demonstrable ignorance and general disposition, but I don’t get up in the morning thinking, “How many different ways can I deride this guy today?” There are worse people in the world than Donald Trump.
The post-2016 world is one in which Americans are unable to make sense of something that’s unbiased vis-a-vis him. Unbiased = mysterious. Like, “Oh, there must be some hidden message here. Surely H doesn’t mean this. If only I hold it up to a black light, or use a Cracker Jack decoder ring, I’ll be able to discern what he actually meant.”
No. I meant exactly what I said. And it’s the same for all articles. I’m not ever going to apologize for being unbiased. I know you’re not asking for that, Jeff, but I think some other readers are. And no apology’s forthcoming, because none’s needed. This is a place people come to get informed, not indoctrinated.
Stash the link to this comment somewhere in your digital file folder; you’ll have plenty of occasion to point to it in the future, and having the link handy will save you a lot of time spent typing.
Seriously man, people are psychologically out of pocket with him. It’s to the point now where most Americans define themselves only in relational terms to that one guy. I just can’t get there. I’m too egocentric myself for that. I’m usually thinking about me as me, not me as a relation to somebody else.
I agree with this and am guilty of it, as many of my past comments attest.
But I am going to tempt fate here and try to “both sides” the dysfunctional American political landscape in which we now find ourselves. TDS is no doubt a metasticization of an unremitting wellspring of mistakes, lies, greed and even cruelty, but it does have a legitimate basis IMO. It may even be curable or at least sent into partial remission – I, for one, never thought I’d find myself open to much of what Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace or Thomas Massie ever had to say – but I have to admit that it has happened.
But the flip side of TDS is the wholesale demonization of the Democrat party that really kicked in after Obama’s election and which has now given birth to the GOP’s version of TDS — “OTL” or “owning the libs” — merely for its own sake. Stated differently, it doesn’t matter if the policy or the outcome is objectively positive as long as it hurts or pisses off the “other side.”
Weirdly, or perhaps not, I think the mother of both TDS and OTL is the reductive “whatabout” lens that both sides now employ with barely a knee jerk to rationalize their own policies and actions (thank you Russia). Objective standards and circumspection have gone out the window in favor of specious arguments that the matter at hand is “less bad” than what the other side did or might have done.
Despite not being a particularly patriotic American, this conjuncture dismays me, as it undermines any sense of what’s best for the country overall. Instead we look to polls, approval ratings and market indices to keep close track of the score, while practically ignoring that the score doesn’t change the fact that we are all losing. We may get out of Iran, hopefully sooner than later. but I don’t know how we get out of this polarization.
“If getting him to quit is telling him he won, so be it.” To me this line from one of H’s comments captures the gist and potentially can save us a lot of debate on whether the U.S. has “succeeded” in the war that it tags along with Israel.
Personally i think he won the battles as the Commander-in-Chief; but lost popular support as a democratically elected politician. Doesn’t matter if mid-term doesn’t happen or mutates into something of Hungarian flavor.
The article did shed light on the calculation of SOME on the left which is indeed very ugly. However i think it’s too harsh to accuse the liberal media bent in ALL the war reporting/columns of harboring the agenda to prod the man-child into sending ground troops. As in… those who comment that the immigration crackdown is total failure and refuse to give credit for reduced border crossings, i believe most of them are not secretly hoping the man-child up the ante and get more Americans killed by ICE so that the man-child get impeached…
Regarding the moving “the goal posts on him” comment, an curious observation that am still trying to reconcile: we also have kept expanded outwards the red line that he repeatedly crossed, with impunity. How are these repeated moving of goal posts & red lines related? Is it because deep down many think/know that the world actually didn’t end, so they don’t mind moving the red line for him again and again…?
The comment thread of all his policies and words and actions: it’s really really TV worthy! The war was Netanyahu’s initiative, yet Trump dominates all the coverage! To the point that i am so sick of hearing the name in every discussions about the war….
So maybe we should pay a little more attention to the wonders of mother earth (wherever they still exist) and the significance of Artemis II (btw is the address meant to divert attention from the spacecraft launch? Oh sh*t, see how hard it is for my mind to escape the King’s branding prowess)!