There was the strike that massacred a school, which was the result of DOGE cuts. There was the double-strike on the bridge the other day, for no apparent reason other than to kill first responders. I'm sure there have been other instances of the US causing unjustifiable harm, but those are the two big ones that come to mind. Meanwhile, Israel has been doing pretty much whatever the fuck it wants, razing neighborhoods, bombing medical facilities and schools by the dozen, assassinating moderate leadership, and on and on.
Via the NYT:
Mohammad Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament and a key government figure overseeing the war, took to social media to mock the Trump administration as U.S. forces searched for a missing American airman from a downed fighter plane. “This brilliant no-strategy war they started has now been downgraded from ‘regime change’ to ‘Hey! Can anyone find our pilots? Please?’”he said in a post on X. “Wow. What incredible progress. Absolute geniuses.”
We don't know what downed it yet, so it's hard to say. Iran is hiding and rationing their offensive munitions, we know that, so it's not surprising when the number of drone and missile attacks spikes after weeks of bombing. That's part of the plan. But the ability to take down a US fighter jet is not something they are rationing- it's likely at the edge of their capabilities and they got lucky. If they could be knocking down more, they would be.
That's not a concern it's a reality. Iran is not shut-off or blockaded to any meaningful degree. It has tons of unmolested border crossings and Caspian sea access, and maintains full control within it's own borders (minus the parts that have been blown up).
Also ships are still transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from Iranian ports taking goods in from China, with who knows what on board. They are also exporting more oil now than they were before the war.
I mean special military operation, not war. Only congress can declare war.
Even the Philippines, a US ally, has struck a deal with Iran for safe passage. Meanwhile, Oman is working with Iran on a toll scheme. There's an emerging chance that no US-flagged vessel crosses the Straight of Hormuz again in our lifetimes (except maybe for a retreating 5th fleet).
The Philippines may be a US client state since MacArthur liberated them from Japan, but they need to deal with Iran to keep the lights on. The rationing situation is quite bad in a lot of east Asian countries.
> a US client state since MacArthur liberated them from Japan a US client state since MacArthur liberated them from Japan
And a US colony/territory for the 43 years before Japan invaded. They were ruled by a US puppet state in a supposed "transition to independence" at the time Japan invaded, however it's unclear how much actual independence they would have had in practice.
I mention this because:
1. The way you state it makes it sound like they were somehow independent before the war.
2. It explains why MacArthur was there with the US army to resist the Japanese invasion from the first day it happened (Dec 7, 1941)
3. Its history worth looking into to contextualize just how bad the US has always been at taking over places. Acting as if this is post WW2 (as the media does) is counter-productive to truly understanding the number of really botched invasions the US has done.
Iran's deep investment in asymmetric warfare is paying serious dividends. You wouldn't expect a nation that's being bombed day and night, essentially at will, to still hold so many cards. Not only is the US completely incapable of strong-arming the straight open, but the rate of missile and drone attacks out of Iran and its proxies has been accelerating the last few days, as has the rate of successful hits.
My Iranian ex colleague shares very interesting opinion. They trained during his army time to blow everything in the region up. So if things escalate badly the oil and gas importing countries will stay with a fraction of needed oil and gas for years. There is no backup infrastructure anywhere in the world. It will take years to rebuild the infrastructure. It will destroy world’s economy better than nukes.
Since 1979, every US president has known that the US can send a couple of aircraft carriers and bomb the shit out of Iran.
And yet none did. Because they listened to their security chiefs and advisors who would tell them, Iran is a highly complex multiethnic geographically complex country. If you can contain it with diplomacy, that’s preferable.
When listening to “experts” becomes taboo, there will be consequences.
The inhabitants of the Iranian plateau have been the subject of the ire of the military superpower of their era quite a few times. Alexander the Great conquered them and set their capital and their sacred books on fire and yet a mere 70 years later his Hellenic dynasty was gone. They were conquered by the Arabs and were forced to give up their religion but somehow, unlike Egypt and Syria/Lebanon and many other ancient places, these guys somehow kept their language and distinct culture intact. They were decimated (maybe even worse ) by Genghis Khan and followed quickly by Tamerlane and yet, it was their Turco-Mongol rulers who ended up adopting their language and culture.
The inhabitants of this land have deep memory of knowing how to suffer, to endure and to survive. It wasn’t that long ago that from Constantinople to New Delhi, the language of the Imperial Court was Persian.
Years ago I tried to book a train from San Francisco to Chicago as part of a trip I had planned but found it to be more expensive and, more significantly, a multi-day journey instead of a few hours. If you happen to be an American living near one of the useful passenger rail lines, and desire to go to one of the few destinations it can take you to quickly and affordably, more power to you. But most Americans live nowhere near a useful rail system.
I guess so. We took the girls when they were young to Omaha a few times from the Bay Area. I wasn't even sure passenger trains would be around when they were adults so wanted to give them that experience. I took a train between Kansas City and Chicago as a kid and found it magical.
So, yeah, the train ride was actually a significant part of the experience for those particular vacations.
The second the first bomb hit, the Republican Guard went from a standing military force to a guerrilla army, similar in a lot of ways to what the US faced in Iraq, just vastly better-trained and better-equipped. The US couldn't subdue Iraq with hordes of troops on the ground for years, so why would anyone imagine an air-only campaign would have better results against a stronger and larger opponent?
Take China for an example. No one knows China's true military capabilities, because they're rapidly evolving and because they virtually never use them. If there's an element of surprise to be had, they have it. But that cut's both ways, because China itself doesn't have experience exercising those capabilities. The learning curve could be noticeable. Meanwhile, no one doubts the ability of the US military to execute.
China uses wars like these to test their equipment for example the s300 knockoffs. These were not effective in Iran nor in Pakistan. I am sure the Chinese have made a note of that and debugging the failure.
There's something funny about watching global markets react to Trump's every lazy lie as if Moses himself just passed down orders. Maybe funny is the wrong word. The kicker is that this isn't even Trump's war and he likely lacks the capacity to end it if he wanted to.
> and he likely lacks the capacity to end it if he wanted to.
Nah, he could end it any time he wants. Iran will stop bombing its neighbors in a week or so, and things will more or less return to the pre-war status quo.
He chooses to not end it, because the one thing that he cannot stand is losing face.
Iran will not stop harassing the region, and perhaps not even allow the strait to open, if Israel is still bombing them or fighting a proxy war in Lebanon. So Trump can pack up and head back to this side of the planet, having made our country a few trillion dollars poorer in the process, but the war doesn't ends until Iran and Israel decide it ends.
> Iran will not stop harassing the region, and perhaps not even allow the strait to open, if Israel is still bombing them or fighting a proxy war in Lebanon.
If Israel is still bombing them? Certainly.
This will put incredible international pressure on Israel to stop. It's one thing when the US wrecks the world's economy, and it's hard to push back on. It's an entirely different thing when a country of 10 million people is wrecking the world's economy. International opinion has been turning against it for years, already.
I do think it's very unlikely to continue the war if the bombing stopped, and only the proxy war continued.
People honestly forget that Iranians aren't stupid. Some of them are crazy, but not stupid. Iran has been doing things like saying you're safe in the Strait as long as you trade oil in Yuan, for example. They know exactly why they're doing that.
Now it's not very effective now, but if the US packs up and leaves they can keep doing it. "Trade in Yuan or we drone strike your ships" would lead to every company that operates there doing it provided it actually kept risk and insurance rates down.
