Yes, Donald, stop talking about a deal with Iran. Just defeat them.
[Update a couple minutes later[
Win or lose, the old Iranian regime’s fate is sealed.
And yes, it should be viewed as an opportunity for UN reform.
[Update a while later]
The shadow cabinet of Soros (which lies at the root of a lot of this mess). DataRepublican follows the money.
There is no negotiating with the mohammedans: They are not people of laws
It appears Hamas and the Palestinians think of the Geneva Conventions lists of war crimes as a bucket list. And they checked off most of the boxes on 07 October.
Meeting with the IRGC and regime representatives is a complete waste of time. They won’t concede anything, and if they do they’ll be lying. There are 90 million Iranians, and most of them probably want us to finish off the regime that routinely slaughters normal (non psycho) Iranians.
And a theory about why they didn’t rise up occurred to me early on in our campaign. Months prior there was blood in the streets and people were desperately fighting (and getting shot by the regime). Then the cops showed up in force (the US and Israel), and like most normal people anywhere, folks went back to their houses to let the police (the US and Israel) handle things. If F-35s are going to wipe out the regime regardless of whether they rebel or not, why should they go out in the streets and get shot? That would be pointless and stupid.
I would suggest this is a general pattern when police show up to quell some massive domestic disturbance in a neighborhood. The normie homeowners say “Oh thank God. The police are here in force. I will sit in my kitchen and watch the mass arrests through the window while I make some tea.”
Could be.
Iran imported foreign fighters to deal with their own people, which shows they don’t think they have the support from security forces for mass murder.
At some level it feels like this is in effect a hudna from our side. The Iranians are expecting us to cave (hell we did so for the last 47 even when the issue cost us 241 Marines and the French 58 of their people). Trump seems to be angling either for an off ramp with the desired outcome (particularly no nuclear weapons or materials for Iran) but I think he is also realizing he’s up against the War Powers act limits and is trying to finesse those by a halt. Honestly I think its time for a variant on the old Mortal Combat meme and shout “Finish Them!!!” We’re not playing (thankfully) by the Colin Powell “You break it you own it” rules. Take out their ability to be a danger, and if the Iranian people rise up give them weapons and support short of boots on the ground. The old British Empire’s methods of this (Lets you and him fight) seems an eminently desirable strategy. We no longer have the stomach or political continuity to play 50 year support gamed like we did for post WWII Germany and Japan. Honestly, rampant Islam is probably as much of a threat as those two militaristc governments were and the Soviet Union. Im not certain how well we did in the WWII fixes, Japan seems OK if a little bit odd and broken at times. Germany’s politics are an absolute mess, and the problem children are descendants of our BDR folks, not the DDR east Germans.
Yeah, the pause helps with war powers act requirements while maintaining pressure on Iran.
There are a lot of people saying we have no more targets to hit but both sides have been preparing for the next stage of fighting, so there will be a lot of things that need taken out before we can do anything to deal with their enriched uranium.
No one thought the ceasefire would be the end, especially not Trump or Iran.
The negotiations are performative but it is good that they are happening. They provide the potential of an offramp that allows the Iranian leadership to stay in power and wedges factions.
With reports that Iran bought a satellite from China, I wonder if the Space Force will get involved or if we keep those capabilities secret
Between the Israelis and us, all the offensive an defensive weapons that we have targeting for have already been bombed. The same for their nuclear development. The final end to that is recovery of the enriched uranium and confirmation of the destruction of the centrifuges. That has to be done on the ground.
The targets that remain are the power grid and oil production. Destroying the oil production facilities takes about 2 MBPD off the market for the foreseeable future and will keep prices high for at least the short run although we and Venezuela can make up the difference given a little time.
Destruction of the power grid would be deadly for the mass of Iranians that we would, ostensibly, try to protect from the depredations of the regime. Remember also that Iran has a large food deficit that is met by imports financed by oil. You can be sure that the guys with the guns will have the generators, fuel and food.
The blockade costs us essentially nothing while ratcheting the pressure on Tehran. For crying out loud, we were piddling away trillions and lives in Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 years, a few more weeks of floating around the Persian Gulf instead of somewhere else to get rid of Iranian nukes, once and for all is nothing. Patience.
American voters, especially Democrats, are not known for patience.
Realistically, the end point is no more than weeks and not many. Not enough time for Trump & Co. to lose control. War Powers is a non issue. I’m not looking for Trump to be the first president to pay attention to it.