In my past life as a consultant, one of the things I would do regularly was eliminate certain legs of analysis because a stringent look at limiting factors, aka boundary conditions, said they were likely to be irrelevant.
It seemed useful to work through that sort of exercise now. Readers can, indeed should, contest certain assumptions which could change the boundary conditions and therefore the conclusions. But please provide evidence if you disagree with the takes on where the boundaries lie!
Our view is that despite Trump having postured so much about Iran needing capitulate to the US or face a promised overwhelming attack as to make it hard to back down, he will find a way to do just that. He is running into too much opposition, aka, reality. Trump likes big shows or noise and force producing fast, easy wins that he can puff up into being more consequential than they are. Our guess is that he will use a pretend revival of JCPOA-type negotiations to temporize, as in he will insist he has his finger on the trigger as he moves naval assets out of the theater. Trump and even more so the hawks will still keep planning for a big later attack. The continued low odds of success even with some sort of better-worked-out scheme means Trump is unlikely to hazard that before the midterms.1 The wild card would be Iran being (again) lulled into complacency. After the negotiation duplicity right before the 12 Day War and the just-failed, admitted regime change operation,2 that seems unlikely.
Trump now looks to be at an impasse. His team has sent demands to Iran that come from Netanyahu and are maximalist: give up any nuclear enrichment, even for peaceful uses such as medical and give up long and even intermediate range missiles, which comes close to making themselves defenseless. Per Aljaazera, the US demands are:
- Iran must not build nuclear weapons, and it must abandon even a civilian nuclear programme.
- Iran must not enrich uranium at all – not even to very low levels that would be useless for military purposes.
- Iran must hand over any enriched uranium it already has.
- Iran must curb the number and range of its ballistic missiles.
- Iran must end its support and links with armed resistance groups across the region.
Alexander Mercoursis depicted this requirements as reminiscent of the July 23, 1914 ultimatum by Austria-Hungarian empire to Serbia, as in clearly designed to be rejected, which it was.
Consider:
Iran has greatly hardened its posture. Before, as we indicated, like Russia before the start of the Special Military Operation, it was conflict-averse, and therefore preferred to try to find negotiated solutions, on which the West repeatedly cheated. Russia concluded that the continued provocations, perhaps most of all President Zelensky asking for nuclear weapons at the mid-February Munich Security Conference and no one rejecting the idea then or afterwards, as the final straw. The latest regime change effort has similarly led Iran to see the conflict as existential. The Supreme Leader has warned that a US attack would trigger a regional war. Iran has now vowed that any attack on Iran will be met with a ferocious response, including strikes on Israel and US bases in the region and closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The US and Israel do not have and will not in any realistic time frame have adequate air defenses. Larry Wilkerson said he would have depicted Israel as having the best air defenses in the world prior to the 12 Day War and was shocked to see how badly they performed. The US used up 1/4 of its THADD missiles during that conflict. And Iran allegedly has hypersonic missiles, against which the West now has no effective protection.3
Despite all the noise about the overwhelming US force in theater, the naval assets can at most engage in a few days, as in less than a week, of intense fire. See Retired Royal Navy Commodore Steve Jermy for details:
The US’ ability to launch air strikes from elsewhere in the region will be constrained. In the 12 Day War, Israel fired into Iran nearly entirely from outside its airspace. Readers can correct me, but the only time hostile planes came into Iran was in the pre-negotiated incursion in connection with the “obliteration” strikes on nuclear sites. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are refusing to let the US use its airspace for an attack on Iran. From what I can tell, Turkiye has not said it will deny US access (the Incirlik airbase is essential) but is visibly very uncomfortable with its position.
Erdoğan is hosting Iran’s foreign minister in a desperate bid to revive talks and stall what may be an inevitable confrontation.
The stakes are regional. If the Islamic Republic collapses, power dynamics shift. Oil access is being floated as leverage, but Tehran’s refusal to… pic.twitter.com/5zLCfJ41Nd
— Tousi TV (@TousiTVOfficial) January 31, 2026
Turkiye has in the past told the US “no,” such as in 2024. It is possible that Turkiye might try being half-pregnant, such as allowing the US to conduct surveillance only.
A longer take by Patricia Marins from last week:
The American naval force is still insufficient for a direct frontal attack on Iran. At best, this would be an attack carried out only by the US and Israel-if Israel even decides to get involved.
No Gulf country is going to join in, and the reason is simple: nobody wants to see missiles raining down on those gleaming skyscrapers in Dubai, for example. I’m not exaggerating, but is necessary just two ballistic missiles hit Dubai, and the Sheikh Mo will cry and ask to stop.
There will be no Qatar, no UAE, no other state within range of Iranian missiles. Another key issue is that these states are far more concerned about the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the impact on their exports.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if Iran closes the strait in a combat scenario, it won’t be for just one, two, or three days. It will be prolonged and will brutally drive up oil prices…..
Iran has a paper-thin air force, but naval warfare is very much in its interest, because modern naval warfare is built around stealth subs, UAVs, UUVs, USVs, and long-range anti-ship missiles, all areas in which Iran has specialized in recent years. This is a much better scenario for Iran than the one in June 2025.
Iran will have no difficulty mapping and acquiring maritime targets. It is one of only six countries that possess operational HALE drones: the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom, China, North Korea, and Iran. Russia and India are still working on prototypes.
Iran has at least 100–200 HALE drones, as shahed 147/149 either armed or SAR/ISR purposes. They don’t match American resolution levels, but they are more than capable for naval target acquisition from high altitudes.
Confirming Marins’ assessment, from John Kirakou on his Friday DeProgrammed show, staring at 8:30:
John Kirakou: I’ve just in the last three or four weeks, I’ve developed some friendships in in three Middle Eastern royal families thanks to podcasts. But anyway, I’ve I’ve been in like close touch with these with these princes and and they’re wellplaced princes. They’re not just, you know, playboy princes living in Beverly Hills and driving Lamborghinis. These are serious people.
And I learned yesterday that the Saudis, the Jordanians, the Egyptians, and the Emiratis all went to the president by phone and said, “Please don’t attack Iran.” The Egyptians went so far as to say that it would lead almost immediately to a region-wide war, which is the last thing that anybody wants.
Ted Rall [crosstalking]:Yeah, I agree with that with that analysis.
John Kirakou: I think so, too. More importantly….
Ted Rall : And the proxies will be triggered.
John Kirakou: Oh, yeah. The Israelis went to the president yesterday and said, “Don’t attack Iran.” Not out of the goodness of their hearts that they’ve had some kind of change of uh change of position, but because they have not been able to replace all of the Iron Dome missiles that they used in the last go-round with Iran.
It is blindingly obvious that closing the Strait of Hormuz is easily within Iran’s capabilities. The live-fire exercises that started yesterday were to drive that point home to morons in the peanut gallery and put Mr. Market on edge. Trump has made it abundantly clear that he is very much fixed on trying to keep oil prices low. and Mr. Market is one of the few things that will put him in reverse gear fast.
The 12 Day War showed the hyper-belligerent Israel is remarkably intolerant of civilian casualties and damage to infrastructure. In addition, as much as Israel very much wants to destroy Iran as a competing power, unlike Iran, it does not regard this fight as existential. By contrast, as Alastair Crooke has stressed, Shia can take remarkable pain. Martyrdom is a deeply-held cultural value. Iran lost one million in its protracted war with Iraq. He has told long-form the story of Shia responses to being told by the Caliphate that they could no longer worships at their mosques. They persisted, losing fingers, then toes, then hands, then feet.
Not as often discussed is that the US is also loss-intolerant. In a fine talk with Danny Haiphong, former Army Ranger Greg Stoker pointed out that the US deployment does not resemble any sort of normal approach (he didn’t use the word “shambolic” but his “I don’t think they have a concept of a plan” was pretty close). He also noted that Secretary Rubio admitted in Senate hearings that the US has 30,000 to 40,000 potential targets in theater in the form of vulnerable armed forces. If the US were preparing for the risk of a regional war, it would be moving troops not immediately needed for combat operations out of harm’s way.
China is now openly supporting Iran militarily. From Defense News in China Sends Type 055 and Type 052D Stealth Destroyers Toward Iranian Waters For Joint Drills with Iran and Russia (emphasis theirs):
China has deployed some of its most advanced naval surface combatants toward the Middle East as part of preparations for upcoming joint naval exercises with Iran and Russia, a move that officials and analysts describe as a direct response to recent U.S. naval exercises in the same region.
An article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal effectively suggests that the US is trying to grope its way to an off ramp, by focusing on the parlous state of air defenses as a way to buy time. From Before Any Strike on Iran, U.S. Needs to Bolster Air Defenses in Mideast:
Trump has yet to say whether and how he might use force. But American airstrikes on Iran aren’t imminent, U.S. officials say, because the Pentagon is moving in additional air defenses to better protect Israel, Arab allies and American forces in the event of a retaliation by Iran and a potential prolonged conflict.
The U.S. military could conduct limited airstrikes on Iran if the president were to order an attack today, U.S. officials say. But the kind of decisive attack that Trump has asked the military to prepare would likely prompt a proportional response from Iran, requiring the U.S. to have robust air defenses in place to protect Israel as well as American troops….
Other military preparations are continuing apace. On Thursday, six F-35s from the Vermont National Guard were seen landing in the Azores, moved from the Caribbean region to a position that is closer to the Middle East. Vermont National Guard F-35s took part in January’s operation to capture former Venezuela leader Nicolás Maduro. Some Navy EA-18G Growler electronic-attack aircraft recently left Puerto Rico and arrived in Spain.
The Thaad deployment is a particularly strong sign that the U.S. is preparing for a potential conflict, since the U.S. has only seven operational batteries, and the units have been stretched thin over the past year.
The US is over-extended. It does not have enough air defense missiles. It does not have the navy to contain Venezuela, Cuba and Iran on a long-term basis. Trump on some level understands this, hence his fondness for intense, intended to be overwhelming blows.
The most likely course is for some sort of sham negotiations to allow the US to climb down for now and for Trump to depict the mere fact of talks as a win and a proof of US domination. But don’t expect the US to relent. But as Greg Stoker pointed out, the Israeli minister of defense was in Washington last week to hand over the strike packages. Israel has not given up on Project Iran. The hawks most assuredly have not.
But it may turn out that the window for Israel and the US to subdue Iran has passed, permanently. The US is not what it once was, militarily, while Iran has survived the US attacks and is getting more help from Russia and even China. Despite determined efforts by Zionist billionaires, the US public is turning ever-more against supporting Israel in funding costs alone, let alone actual expenditure of lives. As we have long said, this was a generational problem for Israel, since younger Jews in the US don’t identify much with Israel. Greg Stoker, who is in deep red Texas and warned loudly and clearly that he does not likely citing personal anecdata, nevertheless pointed out that he’s seen a pronounced shift against Trump. Among other things, Texans understand that the Venezuela crude is of little value to the US oil industry and will mainly be shipped to the Middle East. So he sees even generally foreign-policy-indifferent conservatives turning against Trump’s warmongering.
Israel can be expected to do the obvious, which is to continue to engage in what is too politely called asymmetric warfare or more accurately called terrorism, both to try to destabilize Iran and to preserve credibility among the warmongers in the Beltway. How far that gets in the next few months will be an indicator of how much Iran has been able to ferret out and destroy Mossad networks in Iran after its 12 Day War decapitation attacks and its recent protest escalations.
Trump is admittedly becoming more and more erratic every day. He might wind up concluding he has too much manhood at stake to back down now or any time very soon with Iran. But as you can see, he has many many reasons to try to find a way to retreat, even if he tells himself it is only temporary.
____
1 The only scenario I could see otherwise is as part of a “cancel the elections” scheme, as in attack say in October, with false flag terrorism blamed on Iran in the US, to justify the declaration of martial law or the functional equivalent under another name and set of authorities.
2 It was breathtakingly stupid and arrogant for Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to crow about having trashed the Iranian currency. Recall that was what set off comparatively small, peaceful protests that the US and Israel briefly stoked into larger and much more violent ones. The US taking credit will facilitate Iran setting up mechanisms with allies who do not want a war (which now might even include the Saudis on a stealth basis) to defend the currency. It also tells local businessmen that the currency plunge was due not fundamentals but a raid, which even absent external support might blunt the effectiveness of any second attempt. The rial is so thinly traded that it would not have taken much US intervention to produce a rout….which means defending it ought not be hugely costly either.
3That does not mean they cannot ever be intercepted, but the odds are so low that it would amount to a lucky accident.
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This piece is why EVERYONE needs to support Naked Capitalism. You don’t get writing ;like this just anywhere else!
Agreed, you don’t just get important news. You get strategic wisdom.
Let’s hope this take ages well. May the outbreak of temporary sanity continue!
Russia concluded that the continued provocations, perhaps most of all President Zelensky asking for nuclear weapons at the mid-February Munich Security Conference and no one rejecting the idea then or afterwards, as the final straw.
Lest we forget.
I realize that the article by Yves Smith centers on Iran, yet USanians should also keep in mind just how badly run (downright counterproductive) foreign policy by the U.S. government has been and still is.
The Russians correctly saw the blabbing about nukes for the Ukies for what it was: A casus belli.
PS: More recent obtuseness from the endnotes: “It was breathtakingly stupid and arrogant for Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to crow about having trashed the Iranian currency.” How I long for the days of Antony “Nazipizzeria in Kiiiiv” Blinken and Toria “War-Criminal Cookies” Nuland, who were merely stupid and arrogant.
Trump and handlers are putting fact behind the claim US is the great satan!
I am aghast and note that some US Catholic Bishops have put out preaching against the inhumanity of ICE “enforcement”. If they would get around to applying Christian doctrine to the great satan’s war crimes.
MLK would say “how will you say “no!” to this evil your taxes are funding?”
That Scott Bessent is proving to be a real piece of work, both on the domestic front and internationally. Biden’s Treasury Secretary was Janet Yellen who is mostly forgettable. The damage that Scott Bessent is causing will have people remembering him for a long time.
Agree with the sentiment on Blinken. Tony strumming the guitar in a Kiev cafe, jammin’ good with Azov types, looks like competency compared to the clown car diplomacy of the Trump team.
Not so sure about Nuland. That woman was pure evil.
Let’s not put her in the past tense just yet, although that would be a hoped for outcome – I’m quite sure she’s still lurking somewhere in DC right now plotting perfidy.
I was willing to give Bessent so many benefits of the doubt after he allegedly clocked Musk in the West Wing hallway but I only have so much goodwill. The man is a menace.
On the unacceptable ultimatum, I can literally hear the voice of Binbag Netanyahoo as I read each point. “Marco, are you taking this down?”
There has been a lot of reports of how many US Navy ships and how many aircraft have been sent to the region and it was a helluva lot. After reading this post, I am now wondering how much of that gear was sent through military planning and how many were sent because Trump wanted to overawe the Iranians and so had even more equipment sent than was strictly necessary. For him, more is always better. I’m beginning to think the later.
The presence of the Chinese and the Russian ships will be significant. For a start, they will be supplying the Iranians with real time intelligence so if an aerial armada starts to form up to attack Iran, the Iranians will receive plenty of warning. The radars and sonar on those ships will also be supplying local intelligence of ship movements as well. I would not be surprised to see missiles from those ships knocking out US missiles as they approach Iranian airspace. It will be a headache for Pentagon planners.
Speaking of which, is the Pentagon been getting in more pizza deliveries lately?
In their own perverse and unintended fashion, by having hollowed out the US industrial base, our Neo-Con/Neo-Lib elits may have saved the world from nuclear Armageddon. They are beginning to understand the limits to which the US can now cause death and destruction across the planet, thanks to the increasingly lethal pushback of missile and drone technology by the global majority. With the defeat of the US/NATO project in Ukraine, even a dolt like Lindsay Graham will get it. We might even assume the nuclear option is off the table–since the long sought first strike knockout blow by the US should seem now a dubious proposition even to the war-hawks. Or am I being too hopeful?
reminiscent of july 23rd 1914
Or July 1870, with France doubling down on humiliating Prussia diplomatically, thereby triggering a war. Which did not end well for France.
“But it may turn out that the window for Israel and the US to subdue Iran has passed, permanently.”
I totally agree with this statement. I can’t see China and Russia allowing Iran to fall so even if the US buys time to build more forces Iran will be even more secure with increasing Chinese and Russian air defenses in the mean time.
As I have often mentioned here in the comments, USanians are very bad at negotiating. It isn’t clear to me when the mental break happened, but I know from my career in publishing and elsewhere that USanians ask for idiotic things simply to see if they can get them. Trump is no exception — and I can imagine what his negotiations were like in N.Y. real estate.
Further, people like Trump don’t consider it backing down: They asked you for the blood of your first-born child and you said no. On to the next ridiculous condition pulled out of some USanian’s woo-woo — heck, ask for the golden toilet. (We also saw this ingrained foolishness during Brexit, when the English couldn’t figure out how badly negotiations were going…)
It’s cultural. Note the comment in the endnotes about Scott Bessent, whose punching of Elon Musk says more about Bessent than about the execrable undesirable alien Musk. Note Rubio and his Cuban-exile-revenge fantasies. Then there are Miller, Noem, and Bovino — negotiations as lying and sadism.
Iranians have geography in their favor. The Romans regularly had problems with the Persians — and the Romans were much more serious about tactics than members of Trump’s cabinet are.
Most likely result, as I consider Yves Smith’s analysis, is a kind of violent stalemate, with U.S. “intelligence” led by Israeli intelligence making various messes.
“The Romans regularly had problems with the Persians”
Amusingly, they also had a lot of trouble with the Yemenis — look for Gaius Aelius Gallus and the disastrous campaign he led to conquer Arabia Felix (the Romans never tried again).
The US grew accustomed to impose whatever asked, but this was in exchange of some certainties or assurances that no longer are on offer. The current administration believes they can obtain the first without abiding to the second part of the contract.
An oldie but goodie trying to explain the USians mind set:
https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/nikhil-pal-singh-pervasive-power-settler-mindset/
I doubt there was a ‘mental break’ at all. Witness the birth of US and it’s basically attempted genocide, theft and back-stabbing followed by slavery and indentured servitude. But it goes beyond just ‘muricans, I think white (westerners) are incapable of truthful negotiations.
The Brits were just way better at hiding the deceit or cloaked it in ‘trade’ that was officially separate from the government.
The Romans had problems with the Persians but they rarely if ever actually made it to modern Iran. The locus of Arsacid and especially Sassanid rule was in Iraq and the Roman-Persian wars up to the end under Heraclius were fought there and in modern Syria, Turkey and the southern Caucasus (Greater Kurdistan?) rather than in Fars or Parthia. So they didn’t even have the vast distances of modern Iran to contend with.
Sounds like it is Iran that has “escalation dominance” and that is more true than it ever was. And if that makes the US a paper tiger–absent nukes–then it also makes Israel a paper tiger. Perhaps it’s time the world realizes that and spends a lot less time obsessing over the “Zionist entity.”
In truth they were always a narrative control super power far more than the other kind. They can’t even get a portion of their tiny population to serve in the military.
Of course if Armageddon is the aim then narrative control may be enough in a nuclear age. But perhaps it’s time to give peace a chance.
The US has been a lot more than a paper tiger. Never forget the truth.
The US has attempted or caused violent regime change in dozens of countries over the past 150 years. Sure, the US “lost” in Vietnam, but ~3 million Vietnamese died. It may be terminally incompetent and declining, but it has not just been a “paper tiger” – it’s caused massive amounts of needless suffering over many decades, including many victories that lasted a long time, such as the 1973 coup in Chile.
Maybe I’m paranoid, but I’m deeply concerned that the US will resort to the “nuclear” option out of desperation. I really don’t put it beyond the realm of possibility unless the military balks. Congress, esp. Dems won’t stop it.In an otherwise impeccable analysis, I’m curious why Yves didn’t include nukes as another limiting factor.
I think Trump’s blows are intended to generate publicity, not anything “overwhelming.”
Daniel Davis also spoke with Col. Douglas MacGregor over the weekend. MacGregor pointed out that offensive missiles will eventually overwhelm defensive missiles, and Iran has far more available on site than Israel and US warships combined.
Between that and a closure of the Straits, it was always a losing proposition, not to mention an even bigger financial loss for the US than it already is (moving the fleet there was expensive).
Hopefully the Lobby will be stymied for a long time.
Excellent post! Not mentioned is John Mearsheimer’s take on this (maybe I missed it). He had an interesting discussion with Dan Davis on 1/29 and stated that Israel had asked Trump to NOT attack Iran. That Israel was apparently not prepared for the toll they would suffer. He also said that Israel told the Iranians they were not part of the current build up and to leave them out of it. Iran replied that they would attack both the US and Israel if they were attacked. My feeling is all of these assets were ordered to deploy to the area and then reality set in. I don’t believe the attack will occur now or in the foreseeable future. Here is link to Mearsheimer’s substack which also has the video I referenced; https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/no-way-to-win-in-iran
I brought this up on a previous Iran thread the other dsy (althought it was Davis that brought this up in another interview).
It occurred to me while listening to the point raised that the loudest cheerleaders for the war are in fact Christian Zionists in US, rather than the Israelis. The desire of the former to see both Israel and the Jews who wouldn’t convert to Christianity destroyed is well known, as the necessary condition for the End Times.
Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Close, but the endgame is all little hats to return to Occupied Palestine. Then savior on a stick comes back and makes a xian nationalist utopia worldwide, at which time they choose to either convert or be eliminated. Maybe xians just want fewer pikes to put up.
The Israeli’s chutzpah to claim they would have nothing to do with the pressent US escallation and potential attack. Am I surprised though? Not a bit.
What I find interesting is the enormous Epstein drop at the exact point it became obvious this is serious overreach. Did someone just throw the Zionists under the bus, or was it a form of Samson Option?
If they can’t have total war, they are going to blow the system up.
I’ve actually been wondering something similar too. Going on the working theory that Maxwell & Epstein were collecting blackmail for Israel, the fact the US gov decided to damn the torpedos & release everything is material.
Also, I recently realized that for all the reach of Epstein’s network, AFAIK nobody in the US deep state (career officials with security clearances) has really ever been implicated. And those would be the people who would ultimately decide if these docs come out or not.
One last thing to tie it back to Iran: my impression has been that perhaps the 2 American institutions least interested in a war with Iran are the Army and the Navy. Especially in light of what’s happening in Kurdistan and Iraq, I still think it’s very possible the recent deployments are partly to cover a withdrawal from the theater. It only makes things simpler politically if they let Trump bluster, but I don’t know why people are 1. taking Trump at face-value and 2. assuming the US military is 100% following Trump’s orders even if he means what he says.
I do not and have not believed that Epstein was in the blackmail business. Some of the men at the level he was dealing with would have been very capable of getting Epstein executed if they thought he was a threat to them. And Epstein never had bodyguards.
He looks to have been in the arms-running, money-laundering, and “access asset” businesses. The sex trafficking was a major personal vice that he was able to turn to his advantage.
“would” have been very capable? Hmmm…
I can believe that too, he did seem to get the money from out of nowhere before all the Eyes Wide Shut stuff started.
Like John above, I do think the timing of the files being released is interesting. And it was only recently I realized that the US-Israel connection could be a 2-way street, depending on specifically whom one means by “the USA”. Whatever the Israeli gov may have over elected officials & public figures, the US deep state probably has always been over the Israeli one (i.e. the Nasrallah view of the US-Israeli relationship). Overlapping interests would also muddle the two.
But if there has finally been a break & the American bureaucracy has decided to downgrade Israel’s place in the empire, the Epstein saga would be an ideal, public pressure point to start cutting Israeli counter-influence.
This statement jumped out to me:
I think we can all agree this fight is existential for Iran. Even China & Russia seem to agree.
But I see less arguments as to why this fight would not be existential for the powers-that-be in israhell and the USA. Taking out Iran would allow israhell to float on top of the competing surrounding muslim countries, and would allow the US to kill the nascent multipolar worldview. And not taking out Iran today makes it an even more difficult target tomorrow.
There are perhaps a few people high up in the military trying to say that such an attack is not feasible, but with all of those capabilities now gathered around Iran, what good is a military if you can’t use it?
So I continue to see two parties in an existential fight, and no visible deescalation ladder, Iran being in a similar position to that of Russia in late 2021.
And we know what happened after Feb 12th, 2022.
Saying that Israel would gain significantly in the region if Iran were balkanized or turned into a failed state does not make this an existential conflict for Israel. This is an elective conflict. Iran is not an aggressor. Israel’s survival is not at stake if it does nothing.
Your “…what good is a military if you can’t use it?” confirms that this is not existential.
Israelis are just plain greedy. Being the chosen people, Jacob’s ladder puts them on top of everything at least in the middle east, that is controlling all the important flows in the area and benefiting handsomly from it. And more territory, of course, look how small they are compared with everyone else, not fair for the chosen people. And because if you don’t advance means you are falling behind, wrecking Iran would create a competitive advantage for Israel in the region. What is not to like?
If this fight is existential for Iran, then it would behoove Iran to close the Straits of Hormuz now, until the USA and Europe lift all their sanctions. The USA sent an armada but doesn’t dare to use it. That’s a sign of weakness.
Refusing empty tankers access to the straits could be done without attacking USA or Israeli assets. The USA and Israel would have to decide whether to lift the sanctions or make that attack on Iran they don’t think they can do successfully.
If Iran thinks its existence is at stake because of the USA and Israel it’s going to have to stand and fight at some point. Best for Iran if it initiates the attack for a change.
The live fire exercises are pretty close to a two day closure.
Iran does not want to alienate its neighbors. It needs the US to take an aggressive step first. Iran has now clearly said any US attack, even one that the US regards as performative, will lead to a full-bore Iranian response.
Well argued. There are several points for, if an attack is to occur, the best time is now:
1. As noted in a prior post, setting up an effective A/D is a 1-2 year project, started in June 2025. By the midterms, this will be well advanced; the optimum time is now.
2. US Naval trend (power projection) is negative, with insufficient sailors to man aging ships that are not being replaced. Consider the US can only field 2 ( sometimes 3) of 11 very old carriers due to maintenance (and my swag, cannibalization as replacement parts are inaccessible – lost manufacturing base). Same for airframes, maybe worse, with the replacements, F-35s, having readiness rates of 30%** in peacetime (!!!), rates that will decrease at a high operational tempo -assuming landing strips to return to. WRT other assets (missiles, shells, etc.), attrition in Ukraine continues with inadequate replacement.
3. The day is soon arriving when Russia will emerge from its current war with the most powerful military*, military industrial base, experience (esp. drones), and technology leadership (hypersonics, effective A/D, etc.) to supplement Russian foreign policy.
4. Trump approval, a common presidential trend, is not rising.
The window for Israel’s dream is closing – use it or lose it. I guess it depends on Miriam Adelson versus Trump’s TACO instinct.
* https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/rankings/strong-military
– from a US propaganda outlet that shows its bias by also placing Israel ahead of China!!!
** https://www.pogo.org/analyses/f-35-the-part-time-fighter-jet
It wouldn’t be the first time us attacked during negotiations.
Imo if the Zionists want to roll the dice there’s a decent chance trump will go for it, he really needs a win to shore up the base, especially after the 30% swing in the Texas race. If that extends to other areas not just the house but the senate might go to the useless dems, and in that case trump might be impeached/removed from office. How else can he move the needle – dismiss ice?
Otoh, not while the Russians /chinese ships are there for the Iran exercise. So either very soon or not until march, if at all. How long can the armada sit there? Not hard to drag negotiations for a month or so.
I can imagine frantic Zionists thinking this chance probably won’t come again, imo the genocide is costing them support in the us, eventually there’ll be a more realistic count of human loss.
The Israelis are always willing to roll the dice with the US paying the price. And they are trapped in their own propaganda that Iran was unable to do any damage (even though they sued for peace after just 12 days due to the damage) as being unable to admit there is a downside.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Russia and/or China maintain a permanent presence in theater as long as the “Trump armada” is present to ensure really good ISR to Iran.
Whether Trump wants to back down on alternate Tuesdays and Thursdays versus going full McCain, at some point the terrorist attacks being perpetrated in Iran by the usual Mossad/MI6/CIA suspects are going to elicit a response from Iran. They have no reason to keep passively suffering the death by a thousand cuts that the Empire is trying to inflict on them. And once the first “proportionate” response from Iran hits Israel, Trump is going to feel like he has to do something with the superb military he has sitting around over there. So whatever Trump’s natural inclination in situations like this, and whatever his DoW people are telling him, the potential for stumbling into a wider war is not negligible. We have a deranged megalomaniac US leader, religious nut-jobs running Israel that think they should own the whole Middle East (and probably the whole world eventually), and more religious nutters in Iran that think martyrdom is a wonderful fate. Rational actors these are not.
The Iranians are crafty… if they managed to capture some ‘mossad assets’ during the riots, they might get some useful information… rather than hit ‘Israel’ first and earn the opprobrium of its arab neighbours, find out what the UZSA plan is for the Isil prisoners that will be sent to Iraq… in fact Iran needs to prepare for a new set of ‘hostilities’ in Iraq, the Syrian border, the Azeri border, and maybe even the Pakistani border (though this is less likely).
It is better to have freedom of action and cooperation with the neighbours, for now.
And if the Russian and Chinese naval assets stay in place, and the Russian and a Chinese Sattelite ISR helps illuminate the the battlefield and oceans… and I am sure the Russians are still peeved by the drones that the Ukraine & UZSA used to hit their nuclear bombers and oil refineries….
Waiting to see which seam of US overextension splits first.
Thats great!
Forever 21
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/consumer-healthcare/lululemon-pauses-online-sales-sheer-leggings-are-not-squat-proof
The window for Israel’s dream is closing – use it or lose it. I guess it depends on Miriam Adelson versus Trump’s TACO instinct.
–I concur with the first part of this. It was why I was convinced (and still remain convinced) that an attack will happen within a few months–maybe within a year at the latest.
If you look at the view of Mearsheimer above, it would appear that there is division in Israel over whether the US should attack Iran. He suggests Israel advised the US to hold off; however, I have also read interviews with Israeli officials who state that Israel should join in if the US attacks and who seem very pro Iran-war. I am betting this division among Israeli political/military elites is the reason why we are at a standstill.
“Boundary conditions,” though not called that, are also used in high-level strategic planning. For example, if the British had not held Ascension Island in 1982, the Falklands campaign, knife-edged as it was, might well have been judged unfeasible without a logistic base half way to the islands. In more general terms, boundary conditions mean that it is pointless to demand of the military something they cannot accomplish, and it is pointless for the military to attempt a task they cannot carry out. This isn’t to say that such things don’t happen–they have, throughout history–but the results are usually bad, from successive invasions of Russia to successive invasions of Afghanistan.
Here, you actually have to ask which fundamental objective –“end-state” in the jargon–Trump thinks he is pursuing. If it is the replacement of the regime in Tehran with one well-disposed to the US (shades of Iraq in 2003) then no amount of military force can achieve that, because it’s not the kind of thing military forces can actually do. That is, if you like, a boundary condition. The US can certainly cause a great deal of death and destruction , but it’s not possible to conceive of a situation where some other armed group (let alone pro-western) is suddenly more powerful than the regime, and is able to take power. There are no confessional or other dissident forces with anything like the power of the State, and, unlike Iraq and Syria, the regime in Tehran rules as a group, and does not depend on one individual. All the evidence is that the regime is extremely resilient and that it will see off any challengers, even if gravely weakened (remember Saddam Hussein’s defeat of the Kurdish separatists after the crushing defeat of 1991.)
Since that outcome is not even theoretically possible, the only other course of action–I wouldn’t call it an “objective”–is to do as much damage to Iran as possible, whilst sustaining as little damage as possible. This implies a short and limited campaign, whose only real benefits will be political. But that may be enough for Trump to get off the hook he has impaled himself on, not least by pretending he has accomplished much more than he has.
I don’t think Trump is pursuing anything other than his desire to dominate. He seems to view not being attached to particular ends as a strength. It’s key to his tactic of radical uncertainty.
And as many experts have pointed out since at least the Iraq War, the US has had a tendency to engage in military adventurism with no clear objective. See here for instance:
Thanks for this reminder, it is more prescient than you know.
I cannot recall where I saw the original minidoc video, but the below article encapsulates the gist of it, well worth a read.
Is the orange one angling for a repeat to save his worthless hide?
https://www.history.com/articles/margaret-thatcher-falklands-war
“Britain’s first female prime minister was facing sharp criticism from both her cabinet and the public in response to her domestic policies. Savage government spending cuts, a declining manufacturing industry and high unemployment all pointed to an early exit for the leader.
“It began to look as if the lady who said she was ‘Not for Turning’ would have to do a U-turn, halt her deflationary economic policies, and pump money back into the economy,” says Victor Bailey, a former distinguished professor of modern British history at the University of Kansas and former director of the Joyce & Elizabeth Hall Center for the Humanities. “The Falklands War saved her political skin. She could show all her indomitable will in a single cause with moral clarity: saving the Falkland Islanders and their sheep from the rampaging Argentinians.”
Every American should understand that the Grump is playing playin’ fast and loose with their well being! F++K Congress. Get in the streets.
Thanks for the excellent piece. I want to corroborate the points made by means of this interview on Danny Haiphong’s channel with Ali Alizadeh, an Iranian analyst whom I did not know and whose takes I found extremely lucid. The interview as a whole is very wide-ranging, touching on internal Iranian politics; Alizadeh points out that reformists have held power during the vast majority of the Islamic Republic’s existence, which accounts for the conciliatory posture, but that they are being heavily criticized right now, which points to this conflict, if it occurs, being decisive as opposed to symbolic. Furthermore, on the point of the Strait of Hormuz, he notes that during the Iran-Iraq war it actually did get shut down by Iran when it had very limited means to do war; all it takes, to paraphrase Alizadeh, is some 30 soldiers to quickly mine the strait. Iran’s threats, therefore, should be taken seriously. (Marandi also has been saying as much recently.)
The Times of Israel reported (on Feb. 1 at 6:51P.M.) that “…an Iranian official on Sunday denied that the country had any plans to carry out live-fire exercises in the Strait of Hormuz this week…Speaking to Reuters an Iranian official denied ever planning such an exercise…there was no plan for the Guards to hold military exercises there and there was no official announcement about it, ‘only media reports which were wrong’, the official said.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-us-warning-iran-say-no-plans-to-carry-out-live-fire-exercises-in-strait-of-hormuz/
Times of Israel is contradicted by other sources, such as Aljazeera:
And CENTCOM. Its post on Twitter was in the form of an article, which does not appear in an embed, but most of its text is here:
At this point, maybe it’s time for Iran to start making demands of the US and the Zionist entity. For example, there has been no cease fire in Gaza. None. The Zionist entity is lawless. Someone needs to enforce international law, or we might as well do away with the whole idea of it.
Iran should give the Zionist entity until the count of three to stand down against Gaza, and then go in on ‘2’ anyway. There will be no peace until the Western mistake from 1948 is corrected once and for all.
On the other side of the ledger is the Epstein Files, and perhaps ICE. If the political heat from the latest release is bad enough will he look for a distraction and decide attacking Iran is the ticket? Flooding the zone has been a somewhat successful strategy so far in controlling dissent.
“The US is over-extended. It does not have enough air defense missiles. It does not have the navy to contain Venezuela, Cuba and Iran on a long-term basis.”
How can this be? After all, the Good Ol’ USofA spends significantly more on its military than any other country…
Will also put in Links but germane to this post:
attacking during negotiations seems to be a thing lately…
Wow, thanks for this – an excellent analysis!
I question two assumptions (which could be combined into one) that underpin this analysis, and this is not unique to Trump since we saw Biden act in a similar manner.
The bubble that surrounds American elites (billionaires, political leaders) seems to be very effective at shielding them to just how much they have wrecked America. This bubble was bad enough under Presidents like Clinton, Bush II and Obama, but now it seems to be impermeable. Biden blithely announcing “We’re America! We can do anything!” as he leans into a proxy war with Russia followed a couple years later by Trump mugging the rest of the world with tariffs on “Liberation Day”. I jokingly say these guys must be living large in 1991, but the reality is even worse. None of our elites in 1991 would have said or done what Biden and Trump have tried to do, and if they had tried, Congress might have performed it’s job, and stopped them.
And that gets to the second assumption – that our American elites are getting good advice and counsel. We can see clear examples in the current administration where people either very quickly change their entire belief systems once selected (look no further than Dan Bongino, Cash Patel and the Epstein files) or are quickly sidelined for publicly stating what informed citizens can plainly see is the truth (DNI Tulsi Gabbard). Trump has been known for surrounding himself with fawning sycophants, but here again the reality is even worse. Even if you’re just a career civil servant working DC adjacent, telling the boss what they don’t want to hear ends your job, your future career, and your pension. This was not always true, we all saw that VP Cheney had to twist arms to get lies told to invade Iraq, but the rot from the fish’s head has permeated to much lower levels especially after DOGE came thru and fired people. Congress too, lies dormant, telling their
donorsowners what they want to hear, and doing nothing to stop the “Unitary Executive” (apparently America’s term for our King.)So this is an excellent analysis, but it will never be put forward to our elites because it’s not what they want to hear, and as stupid as that sounds, it’s just that simple. Plus, Trump does seem the kind of guy to learn just enough French to say “Après moi, le déluge”, and act on it.
John Helmer pointed out that in an earlier era, the Persians would have sent Witkoff’s head back to Trump in a basket for the emissary’s betrayal associated with Trump’s June 25th surprise attack on Iran.