Posted on 03/26/2026 12:25:22 PM PDT by Miami Rebel
An official from one of the countries mediating between the US and Iran tells The Times of Israel that US President Donald Trump appears to be leaning toward ordering a major US ground operation against Iran, with Washington convinced Tehran will buckle under such military pressure.
The official intimately familiar with the mediation efforts says the US privately recognizes that Iran is not likely to agree to the concessions presented in Washington’s 15-point plan and has dispatched thousands of troops to the region in order to capture Tehran’s Kharg Island on Trump’s orders.
A second official from a mediating country warns that while the US may be able to capture the island, holding onto it for an extended period of time will require many more soldiers and an extended period of fighting — far beyond the four-to-six week window that Washington has told the public that the war would last. While Saturday will be the four-week mark, the US still claims to be well ahead of schedule.
Both officials from mediating countries say that the Islamic Republic is not likely to capitulate, regardless of whether a ground operation moves ahead.
They insist that Iran will now agree to terms that it wasn’t willing to accept before the US launched the war.
Trump on Monday announced that he was delaying until Friday his deadline for Iran to agree to his 15-point proposal for ending the war or face a bombing campaign against its power plants.
Thousands of additional US Marine troops are slated to arrive in the region around that new deadline.
Take Kharg island but let the Iranians keep pumping and selling oil. If they try to stop shipping in the straight we cut off oil until they learn their lesson.
Take Kharg intact and we got the I's by the nuts.
Take Kharg island but let the Iranians keep pumping and selling oil. If they try to stop shipping in the straight we cut off oil shipments until they learn their lesson.
Take Kharg intact and we got the I's by the nuts.
Clown. Trump does not take orders from Netanyahu. Ironically you think Netanyahu has super powers. Trump has his own reasons for us being in Iran, that are beyond your IQ to connect the dots.
Hint - Saudi Arabia/MBS has massive development plans that Shiite Iran is blocking.
Why did you vote for traitor Trump who lies to everybody as demonstrated then? You like to be lied to? Kharg Island will look like that gif above.
Sounds good, but Kharg isn’t Iran’s only oil loading port...there are “Asaluyeh” and “Qeshm” (an island right off of the urban area of Bandar Abbas in the strait) too. And even if you cut off their oil shipping they have some of that $1.7 billion left that Obama gave them?
What do you want broken?
My belief is that Kharg island would be a bad target for an amphibious attack. I have explained why. It is too close to potential sources for a counterattack and too hard to resupply.
There are also too many civilian workers there. That greatly complicates the logistics of military supply.
Some of the risk problems can be solved. Maybe they are already solved. I can only use open-source information and there is a lot of deliberate noise in all of it. If you have better information, I have ears to hear it.
Maybe there are other, better targets with less risk available.
The central problem we are dealing with is a treasonous press and a great many people in Congress who do not want an American victory. They will exploit any military setback to turn public sentiment against the war. It is important that we do not give them any such thing by over-extending US forces.
If you have substantial opinions, by all means, post them.
So you want to leave it to the US to piss off the Chinese and hurt the Japs, Koreans and the Indians and raise the price of oil on the world stage again to hurt the Iranians while they control the straits but selectively so and retaining the ability to shut off all shipping through the straits to anyone? Sounds like they retain greater leverage in that deal.
Controlling Kharg controls the flow of Iranian oil but does not necessarily control them or the straits. Cutting off oil to their customers may bother the Iranians but it causes their customers to put pressure and rightful blame on us. Maybe that does not matter to some but I think it should.
Truth is, the straits should have been an international free trade zone controlled by a consortium of interested countries decades ago. Instead the most affected nations kicked the can down the road and we, the US, have consistently stepped in to take care of them like the magnanimous Daddy Warbucks chumps we are. Now, for the first time in decades we would not have gas lines if we did nothing but the price of fuel would go up. Too bad we are a nation spoiled to believe that the Real cost of fuel should be going down against inflation instead of flat or slightly increasing.
Since we have kicked the hornet’s nest over and protected the world from Iranian nuclear ambitions for a bit, and I think justifiably so, why don’t we just leave and let the interested parties work things out? Let the people who need to sell and buy Persian Gulf products work things out with Hormuz and create that international trade zone by making or enforcing an agreement? At this point defeating Iran to control that area can’t be too hard for them.
I’m no strategist like you so this surely is a bad set of thoughts. It is a shame we can’t all be brilliant and approach your excellence. We should probably just go ahead and take Kharg Island and commit ourselves to a long term operation of protecting it and adjudicating the dispersal of iranian oil to the buyers while they continue to control the Straights of Hormuz. As you say, that solution is a no brainer.
This thing is spinning out of control. Ugh.
To take focus off the Epstein files?
“To take focus off the Epstein files?”
that’s what 9 out of 10 clones say
You’re so wrong. Go hide under a rock.
By the way, I have noticed, as have many others that those who feel compelled to extol their own virtues usually don’t need to.
Thank you for your carefully considered response to terminate our exchange.
Maybe for defeatists. Those drones are crap for AP purposes. And the good guys have total air supremacy.
We had total air supremacy in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
That would be news to the NVA.
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