US carries out fresh strikes against Iran after tanker struck in Hormuz, escalating hostilities

The U.S. military said it struck Iran again, hours after a tanker was hit in the Strait of Hormuz, in the worst escalation since the two sides signed an interim peace deal two weeks ago.

Each of the warring sides has accused the other of violating the agreement reached two weeks ago to end the four-month-old conflict.

"There may come a point ‌when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started. If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!" U.S. President Donald Trump posted on social media on Saturday.

U.S. Central Command said its forces carried out fresh strikes after a Panama-flagged tanker was attacked by an Iranian drone early on Saturday.

Saturday's attack on a tanker in the strait followed another on a cargo ship on Thursday that triggered the latest escalation. Iran has made a fresh bid to assert control over the world's most important energy shipping route, which has begun to reopen after months of disruption.

I think most people suspect a peace deal with Iran won't work.

Some people probably hope that to be the case.

If this peace initiative does fail, I hope we have the argument that we tried, sincerely.

IMHO, even though the left will quickly forget and find some other argument to criticize in what will become an ugly air campaign, there are enough people out there who think independently, to realize the cause of those continued hostilities rests fully on the shoulders of the Iranian leadership.

A nuclear armed Iran is a no go.

We attempted to negotiate, on three separate occasions that I know of. We had a graduated, step by step escalatory approach and offered off ramps. We were willing to offer them concessions in the deal which caused an outcry (many on our side did not want to make), had to restrain our ally Israel, and even as they kept taking pot shots at us continued the negotiating with a limited / measured response...

If the negotiations fail, Iran in the most public way, has told the world “they” are not interested in peace and think that through force and sheer will power (willingness to take blow after blow) can outlast us.

Challenge accepted.

I do not think Iran realizes what sort of pain we can dish out, and in a sustained way!

It's nice to have a massive industrial and manufacturing base, huge war industry geared for big wars and basically at idle, have the economic volume to afford it, a huge tech base to evolve with the threat, and all the resources in the world (access to everything you need to build these things).

(Time for self love) Iran is messing with a nation that can kill every human on earth, three times over, every year, just in what our small arms 7.62 manufacturing capacity is (if we go full out). Without mobilizing anything, with a peacetime footing, we can achieve in excess of 100,000 155mm shells per month and we still have 105, and MLRS (we're heavy on the missile artillery)... A while back, we were able to produce well over 3,000 JDAMs guidance kits per month. I have no idea what the General Dynamics plant in Garland TX can produce in terms of bomb cases, but it surely by far exceeds the guidance kits we can manufacture and in addition to JDAMS there is laser and EO, (years past). We can make it rain bombs and missiles if we really want.

We can see that place optically, thermally, with synthetic appeteur radar, we can sniff their emissions, we have human sources, and we can see many of their internal communications... Hell, we have sensors that tell us how many vehicles, tracked or wheeled pass through an area, we can tell if people are walking in areas based on seismic signatures, we can bounce radar, see things high angle...

Hiding isn't all that easy like in the past and things like bridges, tunnels, water desalination and purification plants, water towers and aqueducts, major grain silos, irrigation facilities, dams, train engines, mine entrances, larger manufacturing plants, airfields, major agra equipment, cratering major roads, power generation facilities, high power transmission lines, major communications nodes and towers, most the civil government bureaucracy (facilities), oil wells, refineries and pipelines, sea port cranes, main train stations, are all easy targets: known locations, impossible to hide, immobile, hard to defend, soft, easy to do BDA...

I think, they might not realize that in a way, they are on trial. They are being judged by their Gulf neighbors, the Euros (they will always find some critique unless they want our help), and US public. If they show a lack of sincerity and malicious intent, few will be sympathetic with them even as they try their hardest to pull a green helmet guy once the bombs start falling. If they don't negotiate in earnest or simply can't come to agreement internally and keep things together on their side, no matter how ugly, it will be on them.

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