Posted on 06/22/2025 8:06:42 AM PDT by MtnClimber
One of the great weaknesses of American foreign policy has been our predictability. Our opponents have been able to pinpoint what we would and would not do.
While one President Trump’s greatest strengths has been his unpredictability. And on the Iran strikes, he not only kept everyone guessing until the last minute, but used sophisticated means to draw everyone off. Tucker Carlson’s pal Dan Caldwell was booted from the Pentagon over allegations of leaking. So were a number of others. When the strikes were actually launched, there were zero leaks despite claims by some in the media that they were getting information from anonymous “officials”. Everyone had learned to stay quiet on the big issue.
The media and social media analysts were misled about our staging prep for an attack which proceeded quite differently.
President Trump’s “two week” deadline may have been sincere but fell apart when Iran refused to engage in high-level negotiations, but it may have been another level of the feint.
Either way everyone was caught by surprise. Including yours truly. And that’s a good thing.
It’s also a message to China. The CCP believes that it can anticipate and predict us. When it can’t, it gets nervous. Any CCP plan for Taiwan just became a lot shakier because there is no way that Xi and top officials can look at what happened with Iran and believe that they can gauge America’s response with any degree of certainity.
The Israeli response after Oct 7 against Hezbollah and now Iran already showed how war plans by their allies could go awry through misdirection and sophisticated planning. The Iran strikes are a more direct warning to China that America’s moves cannot be predicted and that, like the Israelis, we might be capable of something more sophisticated than our actions in the last generaton would suggest.
China’s allies in the Middle East are losing. And America just became unpredictable. That might buy us the time we need in the Pacific.
It now seems likelier that Xi will push back whatever he was planning for after 2028.
I think rocket man in North Korea with his nukes in a mountain bunker just took notice and now wants to hide them underwater with that destroyer they built that sunk as soon as it came off the dock. He’s hiding that one in the drink too.
GOOD!!!
We need to keep other countries off balance.
Good thinking - but a nice torpedo or two would work much better..
Good thinking - but a nice torpedo or two would work much better..
Putin and Xi now realize that they are not prepared for the US war machine. But as with Covid, the CCP plays by different rules.
Jimmy Carter would be very unhappy if he was still alive. Replacing the shah with the Islamic Republic was the crowning achievement of his Presidency.
A message to the Norks, too.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.