Trump’s tactical success and strategic failure. A pyrrhic victory at best for now. Argue all you want but show me wrong.
He thought they would fold like Venezuela. Somebody probably misguided him to that conclusion. I heard Israeli rumblings to the effect that Iranians were ready for home grown regime change. Clearly the Iranians have not risen up against their regime. A study of why is more speculation. Could it be that he said if protesters were murdered he would intervene but he did not until some tens of thousands of them were killed?
He can’t shut down Iranian crude trading without pissing off people like China or hurting people like S. Korea and Japan. Meanwhile, he is hurting us and the rest of the world with this continuing action. Iran is hurting most of the Arab states around the Gulf by stopping their commerce.
The mass of Iranian weapons had to be taken out but without taking out radical Iranians it is only a partial victory. Without genocide and without causing considerable pain to our would-be allies there is limited leverage with Iran.
Take the Straits. You can control them until Iran regains enough power to irritate you at the least. Take Kharg Island, hurt the Iranians, you hurt our would be allies at the same time and ccontinue to hurt the price of oil. To control the Straits the US just about have to allow all commerce to pass or none of it.
Trump realizes this now i think. He is looking for an excuse to end this soon. First he gave 48 hours, then 5 days and now 10 days for Iran to negotiate favorably. He can give them 10 years, the result will likely be the same. Their goal now is to humiliate Trump.
Another belly button, another opinion. Time will tell.
You're not wrong.
The marines and 82nd were never part of the initial plan - they weren't even plan-b. They're plan " let's jump through our asses."
That's the plan you pull out when your only plan was to spend a billions, assassinate heads of state, smash up everything and count on regime change...again.
At least death-pig Netanyahu is getting the destabilized Mideast he wanted, while America and the rest of the planet gets f'd.
Choke Iran into permanent submission.
I think this is a tragic misunderstanding about how the Old world countries are set up. They are not primarily concerned with ideology or even religion, but with ethnicity. Russians would not die for Communism or Stalin, but they would for Mother Russia against the "foreigner", ie. Germans. The Vietnamese would not sacrifice themselves for Communism or Ho Chi Min, but they would for their ethnic identity against the Americans. And the Sunni Arabs, and now Iranians. They hate the regime but they have more in common with those bastards, because they are Iranian bastards. It's in the blood, or genes, however you want to call it. It's completely different from the New world countries which are inclusive and based more on political identity.