War with...Iran?

[Alexander]

[responding to wavelet's post in the Venezuela thread]

all the Gulf states have made it clear they'e for appeasing Iran so their populations unlikely to be targeted.

A big part of Iran's threatened retaliation is to hit oil export terminals and big refineries in the gulf (in addition to shutting down the strait of hormuz).

Also Saudi Arabia helping the Trump admin saber rattle:


View: https://x.com/sentdefender/status/2017404498403332273



in completely unrelated news, the US just announced a $9B arms sale to Saudi Arabia on the same day.

 

[Alexander]

The point is that Trump encouraged them into the streets with his “Help is on the way” lie.

That’s standard operating procedure for US regime change targets.

 

[Alexander]

Read a tweet that the Ford had to have an emergency docking in Crete.

The long deployment is almost causing a mutiny and there are suggestions that sailors are sabotaging the sewage system because of the long deployment.

That's what happens when you move an aircraft carrier immediately from one soap box thread to another without any maintenance or downtime between.

 

[Alexander]

War with Iran is incredibly unpopular with US voters, even more so with rank and file Democrats, but popular with Democratic billionaire donors, so Democratic leadership is spiking legislative attempts to stop the headlong rush to war:

[journalist Aída Chávez] said a senior Democratic congressional staffer told her it’s “pretty clear” Democratic leadership is working to “delay or potentially sideline” the vote on the war powers resolution. “If you’ve been around the Hill, this is a familiar playbook,” the staffer said.​

​

“Leadership rarely comes out and says they oppose these votes outright, because they know the underlying issue is popular with the base,” said the staffer, who works on foreign policy. “Instead, you see process concerns, timing objections, and caucus-unity arguments used to slow things down or keep members off the record. We’ve seen the same approach on past war powers votes and foreign policy amendments that clash with the national security elite consensus.”​

​

Democratic leaders have largely tempered their criticisms of Trump’s buildup for what would be potentially the most consequential military action taken by the US in decades.​

Top Dems Reportedly Working to Sabotage Bill to Stop Trump War With Iran

 

[Alexander]

I wonder about the motivations here. While war with Iran is incredibly stupid, it is less destructive to the traditional order in the west than attacking Greenland - or Canada. Are they thinking that it is better to let Trump play in a sandbox on the other side of the world and that once he has failed, he is less likely to take another swing at it?

They (Democratic leadership) want the US to go to war with Iran (because that is what their billionaire check-writers want) AND they want Trump/GOP to be the ones to do it and suffer the political blowback of a humiliating debacle with disastrous consequences for both Iranians and Americans.

I don't think Canada or Greenland come into it. .02

 

[Alexander]

Not sure how accurate or smart that is.



https://www.twz.com/news-features/u...val-off-israel-comes-as-negotiations-grind-on

There was an article a couple of days ago saying Israeli intelligence believes that the US only has enough munitions for about a week of attacking Iran. That could be a reason the US would want IDF to go first.


EDIT - here you go:

But Israeli intelligence has concluded that even with the imminent arrival of the USS Gerald R Ford later this week, the US has military capacity to sustain just a four to five day intense aerial assault, or a week of lower-intensity strikes, an Israeli intelligence official told the FT.​

https://archive.ph/vf9Ll#selection-2385.0-2385.288

 

[Alexander]

1) Nobody likes the Iranian regime.
2) Everybody agrees that the Iranian people were suffering under the regime
3) Winning the initial conventional phase against the Iranian regime was well within the abilities of both the US and some of the local actors banding together. Its not like any of the locals actually like Iran. Some of them only dislike the US, and just go along for the ride when Iran tries to poke the US. Things like "The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy; no more, no less."

Nobody liked the Gaddafi regime, everyone agreed Libyans were suffering, western intervention removing the regime sent the country into decades of civil war, warlordism, open air slave markets.

That's what we're looking at here.

 

[Alexander]

Ayatollah dead, per CNN quoting Israeli sources.

Khamenei was already sidelined and IRGC hardliners were calling the shots after July.

Khamenei's fatwa was the only thing preventing Iran from assembling a nuclear weapon.

 

[Alexander]

I think that depends on just how closed it really is. Iran can say it's closed but if by tomorrow night (when oil futures markets re-open) the Iranian Navy is in disarray then whatever.

I think for the next week or so until the dust settles we'll be seeing oil tankers being escorted by an international force of US, Chinese and European navies. I find it hard to believe keeping the oil flowing wasn't part of this whole plan (if not the Pentagon's, everyone else's). It's not like all of this hasn't been broadcast for weeks.

The Strait of Hormuz is 20 miles across and if for some reason Iran doesn't want to use mines or anti-ship missiles they can literally use artillery.

 

[Alexander]

Somehow, Khamenei returned!

more like:

Somehow, the neocons returned!

 

[Alexander]

"We didn't start the war," says aggressor who literally started the war.

Rubio gave their rationale: Israel was 100% going to attack Iran and the US knew that their Middle East military assets would be targeted in the retaliation, so it was safer to join and participate the attack.

I'm not agreeing with them, I'm laying out their justification.



"we knew that if Iran was attacked ... they would immediately come after us and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow."

View: https://x.com/Acyn/status/2028574121483993523

 

[Alexander]

Right now it looks like the regime most in danger of being toppled by the war is Bahrain.

 

[Alexander]

Travel advisory for US citizens to immediately leave the Middle East:

The latest advisory applies to Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.​

​

In a statement posted on X, Mora Namdar, the State Department’s assistant secretary for consular affairs, said US citizens should “DEPART NOW” from the countries listed using available commercial transportation “due to serious safety risks”.​

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026...tely-leave-over-a-dozen-middle-east-countries

 

[Alexander]

A single Kuwaiti FA-18 pilot shot down the three American F-15's:

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/ir...-15s-initial-reports-say-LNxcLizHKxbncWqJyqaU


"Ghost of Kuwait"

 

[Alexander]

Senator Richard Blumenthal, coming out of a briefing with SOS Rubio, says he's really concerned about the possibility of US boots on the ground in Iran and that there are still no clear objectives for the US:


View: https://youtu.be/BizhPMxrSqU?si=t0scU2zVEx-mBHPn


We are four days into the war.

 

[Alexander]

Meanwhile, a US Senator breaks the hand of a Marine protesting the war:



We've gone from "Thank you for your service" to :: cracking of bones ::

The Marine with the broken hand is also the Green Party candidate for US Senate in NC: https://ballotpedia.org/Brian_McGinnis_(North_Carolina)

 

[Alexander]

Iran builds ~500 Shahed drones a month with the ability to surge to 10,000/month [reuters] at a cost of 20-50K each

US produced 600 PAC-3 Patriot interceptors in 2025 at a cost of $3-4 million each ( = 50/month)

US produced 11 THAAD interceptors in FY 2024 and 12 in FY 2025, surging to 96/year for 2026 (or 8/month) at a cost of ~12 million each

I don't know Iran's ballistic missile production rate, but it's a good guess that it's much higher than 8/month

Following the lessons of America in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran's forces are organized into a "Decentralized Mosaic Defense" system of 31 autonomous military commands that have individual pre-set objectives and a "negative command structure" which means they will continue attacking autonomously and asymmetrically until they are ordered to stop, in other words decapitation strikes or taking out command and control just means there is no one that can order the missiles to stop coming.


EDIT - asymmetrically meaning they will try to inflict economic damage by keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed, hitting oil terminals, hotels where American troops are stationed, etc., making the protracted war as painful as possible for the rest of the world.

They are planning to hunker down and wait out the Americans/Israelis. Iran understands that if they come to the negotiating table now, they will just be subject to strategic bombings and decapitation strike every couple of years going into the foreseeable future. Iran will make the war as painful as possible for the West.

See the Houthis or Taliban for a smaller version of their strategy. That is why there will be American boots on the ground, and why the boots on the ground will be a disaster for America.

 

[Alexander]

And who's going to fund that? Iran's leadership is in disarray, and while you may think of that as "dozens of newly autonomous regional commanders to stop", it's much more likely to wind up similar to Gaza where military weapons production and importation ceases because the institutions of society itself are too damaged to function beyond what's needed to eke out a basic existence.

When I say that Ukraine can't reliably disrupt Russia's weapons production, I'm not simply talking about the physical production, but the economic capabilities and motivations that underpin it.

Iran is simply in no place to sustain a long-term conflict with the combined might of the US and Israel. Last time they tried, they capitulated within 12 days, and that was with the US largely staying out of the fighting.

Yemen is in no place to sustain a long-term conflict with the US and Saudi Arabia, with a starving population and humanitarian crisis, economically devastated. But the missiles keep coming.

The US lost 3 FA-18's ($60M ea, and from falling overboard or similar rather than being shot down) and had 7 MQ-9 Reaper drones ($30M ea) shot down by Houthis during Operation Rough Rider. And the Houthis are still running Yemen and the missiles are still coming, with no way to get them out without a massive and bloody ground invasion.


LATE EDIT: also, Iran capitulated in July, and in 7 months later in February America/Israel simply attacked them again, killing Khameni and the senior leadership.

So Iran has been given a very clear message what capitulation/appeasement means: a continuous future of air strikes and "mowing the grass" whenever it is politically expedient for whoever is in power in Israel or America.

 

[Alexander]

Robert Pape explains why air power has never produced regime change in 100 years of bombing campaigns:


View: https://youtu.be/Fv7EslZ3ZAE?t=83




Time article with an interview:

Q: What is the escalation trap, and how does it apply to this conflict?​

​

[Robert Pape]: The escalation trap occurs when supreme confidence in tactical success leads to not taking seriously that the enemy will become more nationalist, more aggressive as a result of the attack. With precision smart bombs, the trap is especially seductive. Smart bombs are nearly 100% tactically successful. But the goal is not just to crater, knock down buildings, [or] kill individuals. The goal is to produce a change in the policies of the enemy government. For that, you need to change politics in your direction, not just destroy objects or kill people.​

​

However, even when the attacker may have 100% tactical success, politics almost always moves in the opposite direction of what the attacker wants. The bombing itself infuses nationalism in the regime and across the society, and that nationalism as it's infused in the politics, radicalizes and makes the regime and society more coherent against the foreign attacker, more willing to take risks, to retaliate against the foreign attacker, more willing to accept costs, not to give in to the foreign attacker. ​

​

You see this on display in Iran in the last few days. In President Trump’s interviews, his public statements have ranged from describing a short campaign to a potentially longer one. Thirty-six hours ago he publicly spoke about off-ramps. That's the illusion of control, the very illusion of control that is encouraged in the smart bomb age. When a leader sees a PowerPoint briefing that shows over 90% probability of destroying that target, that creates the illusion of control. However, it's a mirage. Tactical perfection does not automatically lead to strategic success and overconfidence that it does is the trap that leads to the opposite—strategic failure.​

https://time.com/7382278/iran-bombing-regime-change-pape/

 

[Alexander]

Get ready for gas shortages like in 1979. Fights, National Guard having to provide security for fuel trucks, people stealing gas from neighbors, odd and even plate fuel days. I wonder how the MAGA folks react to this, they can't continue to blame Biden.

Gas prices will spike and increase inflation as costs ripple through the supply chain, but between 1979 and now the US went from importing ~45% of domestic consumption to becoming the world's largest producer and a net exporter. So there will be high prices and inflation as cost effects ripples through the supply chain but no physical supply shortages (unless artificially created).

Japan (95% of oil from Middle East), South Korea (70%), India (55%), China (50%) are very vulnerable, along with Europe to a lesser degree.

 

[Alexander]

U.S. Grants India Waiver To Buy Russian Oil—As Iran War Drives Crude Prices Near $87

Looks like Modi is getting a nice thank you for not complaining.

edited for: from Forbes

If it’s the same info I read earlier, it only applies to oil already loaded onto tankers, and only if offloaded before some date in April

 

[Alexander]

Ugh. Trump is apparently demanding “unconditional surrender” in the wake of the huge slippery sh*t that every global financial market is taking in unison.

I cannot stress how much I don’t like being in any way at the mercy of degenerate morons.

Karoline Leavitt clarified on Fox News that "unconditional surrender" just means that Trump decides we won:

"President Trump means when he says unconditional surrender is when he, as commander in chief of the United States military and the leader of the free world, determines that Iran can no longer pose a threat to the United States of America and to our troops and our personnel in the Middle East," Leavitt explained.​

​

"When the president determines that Iran no longer poses that threat, that's when that unconditional surrender will take place.​

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/us-iran-israel-war-latest-march-6

 

[Alexander]

Per CNN: Iran’s president apologizes to gulf neighbours for attacking then.. says attacks will cease if no retaliation.

Gee.. who’d a thought that attacking literally everyone around you would be a bad idea?

The apology is limited to those countries they attacked which have not supported the US/Israeli war effort, so Turkey Oman Azerbaijan.

The Oman attack is claimed to be a local commander acting autonomously (see 'Decentralized Mosaic Defense' from earlier) rather than a conscious decision from the leadership.

 

[Alexander]

Iran claims that the US bombed a desalinization plant:

On Saturday, Iranian state media reported the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted US forces at Bahrain’s Jufair airbase in retaliation for an attack on a freshwater desalination plant on Qeshm Island.​

​

Araghchi called the US attack on the plant a “dangerous move with grave consequences”, accusing the US of committing a “blatant and desperate crime”, which affected the water supply to 30 villages.​

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026...-to-confront-threats-as-iran-attacks-continue


If it's true this would be an incredibly reckless, potentially catastrophic escalation by the US. If Iran retaliated and everyone starts destroying each other's desalinization plants, large swathes of the Middle East very quickly become uninhabitable, and a lot of people die and a lot of people flood into other countries as refugees.

 

[Alexander]

Iran claims that the US bombed a desalinization plant:

On Saturday, Iranian state media reported the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted US forces at Bahrain’s Jufair airbase in retaliation for an attack on a freshwater desalination plant on Qeshm Island.​

​

Araghchi called the US attack on the plant a “dangerous move with grave consequences”, accusing the US of committing a “blatant and desperate crime”, which affected the water supply to 30 villages.​

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026...-to-confront-threats-as-iran-attacks-continue


If it's true this would be an incredibly reckless, potentially catastrophic escalation by the US. If Iran retaliated and everyone starts destroying each other's desalinization plants, large swathes of the Middle East very quickly become uninhabitable, and a lot of people die and a lot of people flood into other countries as refugees.

Iran hits desalination plant in Bahrain:

Iranian aggression randomly bombs civilian targets and causes material damage to a water desalination plant following a drone attack.​

View: https://x.com/moi_bahrain/status/2030524621867393119?s=20


(Bahrain Ministry of Interior, using twitter’s built-in translation). Hopefully this is a measured response that tells the US to knock it off rather than the second step on an escalating spiral.

 

[Alexander]

Israel and the FBI manipulated evidence of assassination plots or manufactured them to goad Trump into attacking Iran:

[regarding Thomas Crooks, Ryan Routh:] Officials have yet to produce any evidence that Iran played a role in either of these attempts on Trump’s life. Yet since those fateful events, Israel-aligned Trump advisors, Israeli intelligence, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself have gone to extreme lengths in order to tie Tehran to the plots. More shocking still is the fact that the FBI has manufactured a series of assassination plots, successfully convincing Trump that Iran was hunting him on US soil with highly sophisticated teams of hit men.​

​

The man accused of leading the most significant of these operations, Asif Merchant, is currently on trial in a Brooklyn, NY federal court. After the US granted him a visa despite his presence on a terror watchlist, Merchant was in the constant company of an FBI confidential informant who ultimately steered the contrived plot to its conclusion. He never stood a chance of realizing his plans, and did not appear serious about doing so.​

https://thegrayzone.com/2026/03/06/israel-fbi-assassination-plots-trump-iran-war/

Article goes on to describe more FBI-influenced terror plots, and drops the tidbit that Susan Wiles worked for Netanyahu's reelection campaign in 2020.

 

[Alexander]

The missile is also in “diving mode” meaning it was targeted at the place it struck (rather than a malfunction or something).

 

[Alexander]

Do you have a link to an actual source for this? All I can see is a Bluesky post by The Tennessee Holler, whatever that is. If the BBC reported it, I'd rather see a story from them.

BBC Verify endorsed the authenticity and geolocation of the videos but doesn't go as far as endorsing Bellingcat's framing or analysis, e.g. Bellingcat identifies the missile as an American Tomahawk but BBC doesn't say anything one way or another about that. (contra the claim in the bluesky link)

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yqqyly9n0o

 

[Alexander]

If I'm reading it right, it sounds like Bellingcat does not think the missile shown hit the school and that the school had already been struck and that strike was not shown in the video: "The footage released by Mehr News, and geolocated by Bellingcat, also shows smoke already rising from the vicinity of the girls’ school". I'm really not seeing anything in Bellingcat's article to corroborate the second sentence in the third post from Trevor Ball (posted here). In the article, the same photo comparing the missile to a tomahawk is captioned "Left: Image showing a Tomahawk missile from the airstrike in Minab. Right: A Tomahawk missile flying over Tehran earlier in the conflict." while his post has states "This image shows a comparison between the Tomahawk missile that hit the school and Tomahawk missiles flying over Tehran earlier in the conflict". Those are very different statements and I'm not seeing the evidence on their website. Even the first sentence of that post talks about the missile "hitting a building near the school" so I think he just misworded the second sentence about it hitting the school. Am I missing something?

The picture is taken shortly after the girls' school has been hit, showing an American Tomahawk hitting a different nearby target.

The logic is that only the same actor (the US in this case) is likely to be striking different targets that are very close together in a short timespan.

 

[Alexander]

Israel says next leader of Iran also a ‘target for elimination’

Yup.

None of these articles mention that Mojtaba Khamenei lost his father, mother, wife, and at least one of his three sons, possibly more, during the opening decapitation strike, and was himself injured by the missile sent to assassinate him.

That is who will have his finger on the button when Iran builds a nuke, thanks to Trump and Netanyahu.

 

[Alexander]

Not likely. OPEC is aiming to keep prices as stable as possible, not punish the US--which was the goal in the 1970s.

But yeah, as a child of the 60s, the 70s energy crisis takes me back. If we get anywhere close to that, the expected electoral bloodbath predicted for this fall will look like a good outcome compared to what would then happen.

75% of OPEC production is bottled up behind the Strait of Hormuz.

The OPEC countries not affected by the closure are Algeria, Libya, Nigeria, Angola, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, plus Venezuela.

As I said upthread, the US has transitioned to being a net exporter, so we'll see spikes in prices but few or no physical shortages. Japan, South Korea, India, etc., are fucked.

 

[Alexander]

Thinking about this last night, so now we have a, potentially, more hardline leader in Iran. Have we moved past a potential off ramp for the foreseeable future?

Iran has no reason too stop being belligerent toward the oil traffic in the straight. If anything, the more pain they cause there, the quicker the USA and its gulf allies look to end things, right?

I guess we have no real idea what Trump's tolerance for >$100 barrel oil is. In the past I'd have said low, since he only ever seems to pull back when the markets make it clear he needs to. But this feels like it might be beyond his ability to do. If energy prices stay super high, and bond yields keep going up, how the hell will this not induce a recession at home? How long can these price levels and this much uncertainty in global energy be tollerated?

And at the same time, even if the USA went home this afternoon, how does that not embolden Iran to keep doing what it's doing? There has to be a diplomatic resolution here or there's no reason for Iran to stop messing around, right? How do we even get to diplomacy w/o boots on the ground?

I'm genuinely asking. I really can't get a feel for how this unfolds, like, what's even likely?

The important thing to understand is that the United States cannot stop the war. Only Iran can decide when they will stop wrecking the world economy.

And the new Supreme Leader just had his entire family murdered just eight months after Iran capitulated in the 12 day war and tried to go down the road of caution and restraint. Presumably a mistake they won't make again.

 

[Alexander]

"We are absolutely NOT seeking a ceasefire": Iran's speaker of Parliament says their goal is to break America/Israel's cycle of "war-negotiation-ceasfire-war again":

Absolutely, we are not seeking a ceasefire; we believe we must strike the aggressor in the mouth so that it learns a lesson and never again even thinks of aggressing against our dear Iran.The Zionist regime sees its ignoble existence in perpetuating the cycle of "war-negotiation-ceasefire and then war again" in order to consolidate its domination. We will break this cycle.​

View: https://x.com/mb_ghalibaf/status/2031277205540544892

 

[Alexander]

Bessent is suggesting that the US Navy, with support of an international coalition, could escort tankers through the strait once it's 'militarily possible'. This all smacks a bit of Graham's 'come fight our war for us else there will be consequences', except this time the consequences are risking your ships or oil price inflation. It feels a bit like the penny might be starting to drop that they've bitten off a bit too much here.

I'm not going to look for it right now, but there was an interview with Mearsheimer in the last couple of days where he said something like (paraphrased):

'Iran has an actual strategy, and it's a smart one. For the US, strategy has been replaced by a narrative'

 

[Alexander]

Scott Bessent starring in deleted scenes from ‘Downfall’ bookending the famous bunker rant:


View: https://x.com/clashreport/status/2032369138778378416?s=20


For those unable or unwilling to watch the clip, Bessent is called away to the Situation Room in mid-interview by Trump, and returns visibly shaken and assures us that Iran is going great!

 

[Alexander]

Same FPV drone footage you've seen a thousand times, only this time it's casually loitering around a US military base, shopping for targets



View: https://x.com/WarMonitors/status/2032961648453964209

 

[Alexander]

Iran is allowing Indian tankers to transit the Strait of Hormuz:

https://www.deccanchronicle.com/amp...ly-after-fujairah-oil-terminal-attack-1944137

 

[Alexander]

Link

This just in: Iran has won the war.

IRGC Navy: We guarantee the security of any oil tanker, under any flag, that can convince an American destroyer to escort it through the Strait of Hormuz.


View: https://x.com/PressTV/status/2031768360866677240

 

[Alexander]

[Community Notes]
Iran has shown they'd retaliate against their neighbours for any attacks
Israel just went "Some of you may die get hit, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...l-south-pars-gas-field-saudi-arabia-uae-qatar

Israel's strategy is to make it impossible for the US to extricate itself from the war. They want the US dropping bombs on their enemies in the Middle East as long as possible.

That is why they struck the reserves outside of Tehran after the US told them not to, and why they again hit the South Pars gas fields against the wishes of their ally.

.02

 

[Alexander]

Coalition of the Begrudging