I think rather the matter is the quality of the plan. “Going to the beach and having fun!” is a plan (I consider even a rudimentary listing of goals as a plan). And as long as you can take care of the problems on an ad hoc basis, like here, finding a place to stay or getting sun screen lotion, you don’t need a complex plan.
The problem here isn’t the pure absence of a plan, but the absence of key parts of planning for this war with Iran: such as weak war justifications, no serious exit strategy, and failure to anticipate enemy action.
On that last part, consider that the US didn’t have sufficient anti-drone and anti-rocket defenses in place, didn’t have the power in place at the start of the war to keep the Hormuz Strait clear, and now has mixed military-civilian targets because part of US military staff are working out of hotels. We have now global disruption of energy and chemical markets. That happened because the US didn’t expect Iran to attack and damage US bases nor close the Hormuz Strait.
Obviously, there was a plan. But the problems show that the planning was incompetent and chock full of wishful thinking about what the enemy would do.
Finally, consider what the author wrote:
Final note, as I have mentioned on recent episodes of the Midrats Podcast and elsewhere, I am standing by the marker I put down on March 2,
If this degenerates into another long, drawn-out conflict where we put boots on the ground, my opinion will change. If it drags on for weeks of diminishing returns, my opinion will change.
It’s been four weeks now with not much to show on the US side. When is he going to start standing by what he wrote?
…Number 2, build up some delayed courage and just TAKE IT. You’ll have to learn to start fighting for yourself, the USA won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil! – President DJT.
Given the current state of the UK Navy. They can’t. Rather than ships (of which they have few) maybe they could send over some of their 100 admirals to negotiate with the remnants of the Iranian goverment for passage “rights” through the Strait of Hormuz.
What we may have overlooked or not realized, after seeing the Iranian people marching by the millions a few months ago, is that as soon as we started blowing up their government and the IRGC, we removed the need for urgent action on their part.
Why would Iranians risk their lives to overthrow their government when we might end that government in a couple more days or weeks, without the protesters getting shot? If it’s like a domestic situation involving some neighborhood chaos, when the cops finally show up, there’s a natural inclination to let the police handle the situation instead of continuing to risk life and limb in some street fight.
So perhaps the Iranians aren’t going to rise up in any numbers while US combat operations are continuing. They might be waiting to see what’s left of the IRGC and the regime, and when we’re done, and then they’ll decide what their next steps are. But it’s also quite possible that the Mossad and key Iranian anti-regime people are executing a plan, and part of that plan is to not do anything during this bombing phase so that they don’t attrit their forces over weeks with lots of small, indecisive attacks that will fill Iranian jails with protesters, thus putting those jails off limits for later strikes against the regime’s control apparatus.
If the latter is true, going public with a story that JD Vance is ranting at Netanyahu about the Iranian people not rising up might be a very deliberate misdirection.
So the plan was to let the Israelis kill an 86-year-old that was already half a foot in the grave, while we took the opportunity to kill over 100 schoolgirls with our Precision Strike Missle in the first 24 hours. Let’s also not forget our great sinking of an underarmed boat with mostly members of a navy band on it returning home from a goodwill mission.
All caused the bombing this past summer didn’t stop the nuclear program that has been “hours from a nuclear bomb” for the past 30 years. Jeez, Obama’s evil, horrible, no-good deal kept the Iranians from a bomb by multiple orders of magnitude longer than the “Midnight Hammer” complete and utter obliteration did.
Though I suppose another reason could be the president encouraged protests by promising to protect them and threatened the leaders. Which he couldn’t follow through on in a timely manner due to having sent a naval carrier strike group with an Aegis Balistic Missle Defense umbrella to the Caribbean so they could destroy a few fishing boats and aid a foreign military coup and collect some oil shipment money to store in his personal Qatari bank account. While the brave dissidents who might have help overthrow the Iranian regime got slaughted by the thousands.
After getting drunk on such success with the Caribbean jaunt, knocking off a strongman and collecting the bribe from coup-d’état members. Decided they could repeat it with a regime that survived for 60 years and has been built around infrastructure to persist after changes of leadership and not a cult of personality.
Iran has set up a toll system along one of the most economically important choke points in the world. Have cost us an AWACS and at least 2 airborne tankers, destroyed a multi-billion dollar fixed ballistic radar position, and sent our troops in the theater out of the military bases to stay in hotels to be safe (talk about human shields). They have shipped more oil in the past few weeks than they had in the previous similar timeframe, while also enjoying a doubling of the price of oil. Have demonstrated still having the capability to destroy oil tankers in foreign ports, launching ballistic missiles at a range previously not known to be capable of.
Rand, shouldn’t you be sticking to your wheelhouse and railing about how the administration is about to set in motion a series of events that will kill 4 astronauts in about 11 days by your own formulation? Maybe due to the administration needing a distraction for starting a war without properly planning contingencies and potential secondary effects.
Why would we ask our incompetent allies for their advice? We don’t want to lose..
I think rather the matter is the quality of the plan. “Going to the beach and having fun!” is a plan (I consider even a rudimentary listing of goals as a plan). And as long as you can take care of the problems on an ad hoc basis, like here, finding a place to stay or getting sun screen lotion, you don’t need a complex plan.
The problem here isn’t the pure absence of a plan, but the absence of key parts of planning for this war with Iran: such as weak war justifications, no serious exit strategy, and failure to anticipate enemy action.
On that last part, consider that the US didn’t have sufficient anti-drone and anti-rocket defenses in place, didn’t have the power in place at the start of the war to keep the Hormuz Strait clear, and now has mixed military-civilian targets because part of US military staff are working out of hotels. We have now global disruption of energy and chemical markets. That happened because the US didn’t expect Iran to attack and damage US bases nor close the Hormuz Strait.
Obviously, there was a plan. But the problems show that the planning was incompetent and chock full of wishful thinking about what the enemy would do.
Finally, consider what the author wrote:
It’s been four weeks now with not much to show on the US side. When is he going to start standing by what he wrote?
…Number 2, build up some delayed courage and just TAKE IT. You’ll have to learn to start fighting for yourself, the USA won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil! – President DJT.
Given the current state of the UK Navy. They can’t. Rather than ships (of which they have few) maybe they could send over some of their 100 admirals to negotiate with the remnants of the Iranian goverment for passage “rights” through the Strait of Hormuz.
Perhaps instead of sending all of the admirals they just send the one from the HMS Pinafore….The Ruler of the Kings Navy!
Sounds like the UK has better mine sweeping capability than the US though.
The UK hauled their last minesweeper back from the ME (on a semi-submersible) earlier this year.
What we may have overlooked or not realized, after seeing the Iranian people marching by the millions a few months ago, is that as soon as we started blowing up their government and the IRGC, we removed the need for urgent action on their part.
Why would Iranians risk their lives to overthrow their government when we might end that government in a couple more days or weeks, without the protesters getting shot? If it’s like a domestic situation involving some neighborhood chaos, when the cops finally show up, there’s a natural inclination to let the police handle the situation instead of continuing to risk life and limb in some street fight.
So perhaps the Iranians aren’t going to rise up in any numbers while US combat operations are continuing. They might be waiting to see what’s left of the IRGC and the regime, and when we’re done, and then they’ll decide what their next steps are. But it’s also quite possible that the Mossad and key Iranian anti-regime people are executing a plan, and part of that plan is to not do anything during this bombing phase so that they don’t attrit their forces over weeks with lots of small, indecisive attacks that will fill Iranian jails with protesters, thus putting those jails off limits for later strikes against the regime’s control apparatus.
If the latter is true, going public with a story that JD Vance is ranting at Netanyahu about the Iranian people not rising up might be a very deliberate misdirection.
So the plan was to let the Israelis kill an 86-year-old that was already half a foot in the grave, while we took the opportunity to kill over 100 schoolgirls with our Precision Strike Missle in the first 24 hours. Let’s also not forget our great sinking of an underarmed boat with mostly members of a navy band on it returning home from a goodwill mission.
All caused the bombing this past summer didn’t stop the nuclear program that has been “hours from a nuclear bomb” for the past 30 years. Jeez, Obama’s evil, horrible, no-good deal kept the Iranians from a bomb by multiple orders of magnitude longer than the “Midnight Hammer” complete and utter obliteration did.
Though I suppose another reason could be the president encouraged protests by promising to protect them and threatened the leaders. Which he couldn’t follow through on in a timely manner due to having sent a naval carrier strike group with an Aegis Balistic Missle Defense umbrella to the Caribbean so they could destroy a few fishing boats and aid a foreign military coup and collect some oil shipment money to store in his personal Qatari bank account. While the brave dissidents who might have help overthrow the Iranian regime got slaughted by the thousands.
After getting drunk on such success with the Caribbean jaunt, knocking off a strongman and collecting the bribe from coup-d’état members. Decided they could repeat it with a regime that survived for 60 years and has been built around infrastructure to persist after changes of leadership and not a cult of personality.
Iran has set up a toll system along one of the most economically important choke points in the world. Have cost us an AWACS and at least 2 airborne tankers, destroyed a multi-billion dollar fixed ballistic radar position, and sent our troops in the theater out of the military bases to stay in hotels to be safe (talk about human shields). They have shipped more oil in the past few weeks than they had in the previous similar timeframe, while also enjoying a doubling of the price of oil. Have demonstrated still having the capability to destroy oil tankers in foreign ports, launching ballistic missiles at a range previously not known to be capable of.
Rand, shouldn’t you be sticking to your wheelhouse and railing about how the administration is about to set in motion a series of events that will kill 4 astronauts in about 11 days by your own formulation? Maybe due to the administration needing a distraction for starting a war without properly planning contingencies and potential secondary effects.