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Iran War: Brief US Pause Followed by Renewed Strikes as Iran Intensifies Attacks on Bases and Kuwait Desalination; Continued Speculation About US Operation

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Over the weekend, after exchanges where the US hit bridges and a desalination plant in Iran (reportedly repaired very quickly) and Iran’s response included hitting a much more important desalination and power plant in Kuwait and pounding important US operations in Jordan, the US attacks fell way back one night and CENTCOM and even Trump were quiet. Some speculated that more Gulf states were denying the US the use of their airspace and the US was having to make a major regrouping.

However, the US resumed strikes last night, with the pretext that the US had suffered two more military deaths on top of two just reported.1 Trump had promised intensified strikes beginning more or less today if Iran did not return to negotiations, as in capitulate. And as many noted, the US had escalated last week, albeit not to the level of attacks during the initial phase of the war, not just with the number of strikes but also the targeting: the aforementioned desalination plant, bridges, too close for comfort to the Bushehr nuclear plant2 and to a nuclear site under development at Darkhovin.

Many have argued that the latest round of strikes look like shaping attacks in preparation for a ground operation, which pretty much everyone with even a modicum of military knowledge sees as insane.3 Daniel Davis has also mentioned in passing that despite all the noise about using ground forces and other signs of a buildup, such as more refueling tankers flying to Jordan, that Trump was shaken by the near-disaster at Isfahan, where a supposed rescue of a downed pilot resulted in the loss of more air assets than in any single engagement since Vietnam. Many experts have contended that that was an actual operation, a botched attempt to remove some of Iran’s “nuclear dust.”

However, Scott Ritter may have squared that circle. See his brief clip starting at 11:55:

From a lightly-edited machine transcript:

Jawaid: Scott Ritter thinks that Israeli lap dog Trump will soon launch a ground invasion of Iran, but he will fail miserably. Also, this is something Iran has been wanting Trump to commit to for a long time.

Ritter: There’s a a mission called a raid. Um, and I, you know, we already had US troops fighting on the ground. We did a raid to rescue a pilot. We were in limited ground combat operations there.

I think there’s a high potential that the US will conduct a raid here and there because that’s a that’s a a very specific task. A raid is is the only military mission where we plan to retreat. You know, every other military mission there’s no plan. You commit and you go, but a raid is in and out. So maybe we can do a raid, but the idea that we’re going to land in seize territory, there’s zero chance that will happen because there’s zero chance of success.

Now admittedly, if pilot rescue came about as the result of the botched operation in Isfahan, that would be debatable as a raid. Even though the intent again was to retreat, the US would have had to stage equipment for the removal and transport of nuclear material, so there would be a short-lived occupation of terrain and not just a fast snatch and grab, as with Maduro. Nevertheless, the US military may not be totally suicidal, so the plan may be for a fast landing to inflict some sort of concrete form of damage that cannot be well inflicted from the air and then to decamp.

This segment also includes a very informative explanation of how important the operations in Jordan are to the US, and how the Iran intend is destroy bases so that the US has to retreat to Israel and then Iran will proceed forcefully against the remaining assets there.

We’ll soon turn to updates, but to start with some bigger picture considerations: it is disconcerting to see how many commentators resort to the trope that neither side can prevail on the battlefield, that they will in the end negotiate an outcome. As we pointed out, a study of modern wars found that more than half did not. The distrust between the two sides, which has now reached the level of mutual loathing as a result of the fast breakdown of the already likely to fail Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), means any “deal” is vanishingly unlikely. Iran knew even before it entered into talks that the US and Israel intended to execute a “mowing the lawn” strategy, of keeping crippling sanctions in place and beating up on Iran every so often to weaken it and hopefully create severe internal divisions that would trigger an overthrow or balkanization.

Even if Iran’s 47 year record of taking severe punishment and surviving says this plot would probably fail, Iran had been preparing since the Iraq War for the US and Israel to launch a major campaign. After the illegal launch, the assassination of a major part of Iran’s leadership, as well as war crimes exemplified by the massacre of school children in Minab, the nation is highly unified around inflicting a decisive defeat on the US, so that it won’t even think about military action against Iran for at least a decade.

We were far from alone in making that case early in the war and Iran’s resolve has only stiffened as it can see how it has weakened the US while Iran has learned from combat and claims to have even bigger inventories of key weapons than it had at the start of the war. Critically, Iranian leaders have said, bluntly, that negotiating with the US is not just pointless but also demeaning. Consider the germane parts of a recent statement by the Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei,4 as summarized at PressTV:

  • Leader said the United States had once again violated the memorandum of understanding signed between the presidents of Iran and the US, proving that the signature of the American president is worthless and unreliable.
  • He said bullying, hegemonic ambition, and savagery are inseparable characteristics of the United States and that Washington had once again revealed its true, unmasked face to the world.
  • He described the latest developments – US attacks against southern Iran, mainly targeting the civilian infrastructure – as further evidence of America’s deceitfulness, irrationality, unreliability, and wickedness.
  • Leader said the United States is seeking to ignite further war despite facing heavier costs and greater disgrace.
  • He warned that the Iranian nation and the Resistance Front have unforgettable lessons for the United States, adding that the bravery of Islamic resistance fighters and the courageous people of southern Iran have already demonstrated examples of those lessons.

However, Araghchi subsequently gave an interview which can be read as pushing back against the Supreme Leader:5

Keep in mind also that China is still bleating about the need to settle the conflict and Pakistan and Qatar (among others) are also pressing for a resumption of the talks, so Araghchi as Foreign Minister has to keep the idea in play, irrespective of whether he privately places much stock in the idea.6

And there is another way to read Araghchi’s talk:

Kinetic action seems likely to continue to dominate:

Robert Pape also seems confident that US escalation will continue7. I found this discussion noteworthy because Andrew Neil strongly resisted the idea that there would be no negotiated ending and also found it inconceivable that Iran could become, as Pape has argued, the fourth world power. In other words, Neil seems to epitomize a set of normally pretty smart people who find it hard to see where the direction of travel is going because those outcomes so conflict with their priors:

From a lightly cleaned up machine transcript:

Pape: This is not what’s coming in the next few weeks likely. What’s much more likely is he’s [Trump’s] going to do the close blockade and if he can then use the southern corridor with that close blockade to reopen the Strait, he’ll he’ll be probably satisfied with that. Very unlikely that’s going to work and that’s why you’ve got the 82nd Airborne and the Marines there to push back further. Now, I’m not saying this is going to work, Andrew….

Neil: So, I’ve got to ask you some questions in this because I’m unclear. Do you think that the of the limited options President Trump now has, that escalation as you describe it is the most likely?

Pape: Yes.

Neil: And that escalation will begin with a much more aggressive, more comprehensive a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz with the possibility of ground incursion on the northern side of the straight in Iranian territory?

Pape: Yes. Yes, and it’s our and and the first part has already started this week. So, so you’re already seeing in fact last week was the beginning of the air suppression campaign for this week. And as President Trump laid out the bombing schedule last night, the reason he will, if he if this keeps going forward, okay, just keep saying that if, he’s going to want to take out things like electric power and bridges is because he’s going to want to try to suppress as much of Iran’s military defenses as he can as he goes forward here.

And the military is giving him the plans for doing that.

One place where I differ with Pape is that he posits that Congress might get out of bed in six months and Do Something to check Trump then. To again invoke Stein’s Law, if something cannot continue, it will stop. The US and Israel can of course carry on with terrorism within Iran, such as assassinations and cyber attacks. But the level of weapons depletion and on current trajectories, shortly-arriving fuel shortages, seems very likely to put a choke chain on US aggression soon. From Larry Johnson in The US Faces a Strategic Crisis with Iran…The Rapid Depletion of US Battlefield Missiles:8

The tables below are based on the most recent publicly available analyses from CSIS, the Payne Institute, and major media outlets (as of mid-2026), and provide a current (overly optimistic in my opinon) estimate for US inventory levels of these key weapons systems. Please note that actual inventories are classified; these are informed estimates derived from DOD budget documents, procurement records, and reported expenditures during Operation Epic Fury (the US-Israeli war with Iran).

Air Defense Missiles

Anti-Radiation / SEAD

Long-Range Strike (Ground & Sea-Launched) Missiles

These are not just the numbers currently in the hands of US CENTCOM (i.e., the US military command in charge of the war against Iran), these are the total numbers available to all of the US military commands. If these missiles are allocated evenly to the other two critical commands — i.e., EUCOM (European Command) and PACOM (Pacific Command) — then you begin to understand the gravity of this deficit.

Let’s take the case of the Tomahawk missile. Let’s assume there are 3,000 left (I believe that is a generous over estimate) and the remaining number are divided evenly among CENTCOM, EUCOM and PACOM… That means each command gets 1,000. Does anyone want to argue that in the event of a hot war with Russia or China that EUCOM and PACOM respectively would be able to sustain combat operations for more than four weeks? Hell, CENTCOM fired 850 of them during the first four weeks of EPIC FURY.

Here’s another major problem: All eight missile systems rely on rare earth elements — there are no exceptions among modern US precision-guided weapons. The dependence is nearly universal because rare earth permanent magnets are irreplaceable for the high-performance actuators, guidance motors, and seeker gimbals that make these weapons accurate. And who controls the supply chain of these rare earth minerals? China!…

The supply chain isn’t just about mining — it’s about processing, separation, and magnet manufacturing, which China controls:

  • Mining: China ~60% of global rare earth oxide production
  • Refining/Separation: China ~91%
  • Sintered NdFeB Magnet Manufacturing: China **~94%**

Now to updates. From Aljazeera’s live feed:

  • A vessel is on fire in the Strait of Hormuz after being hit by a projectile, forcing the crew to abandon ship. They were later rescued by a tugboat.
  • One person has been killed and several others wounded after the US military attacked the Iranian city of Tabriz in northwestern Iran.

The entries in the feed include ones describing how Mr. Market is taking cheer from the Iran Foreign Ministry admitting they are getting communiques from intermediaries and reviewing them as if they originated from the US. Recall that the negotiators have often developed ideas and tried to sell both sides on them.

Bloomberg’s Javier Blas, who has been a consistent seller of lower oil prices, is refreshingly precise about Iran not saying either way as to whether the missives were from the US or just the negotiators operating on their own:

Contrast that with the Aljazeera account:

Oil prices ease after Iran says US contacts continuing through mediators

Oil prices have scaled back their gains after hitting their highest in a month after Iran said diplomatic exchanges with the US are ongoing via mediators despite renewed conflict in the Middle East.

Grr.

Another Aljazeera live feed entry:

Iran ‘counting down the minutes’ for US ground invasion
[Today’s Iran war post launched more or less complete. I will be off duty for a while. If there are any updates, they will come in the comment section later]

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei says the United States will face “consequences of any adventure” to seize Kharg Island in southern Iran.

He added there are people in Iran’s leadership “counting down the minutes to welcome” US forces in any ground invasion.

Kharg is the heart of Iran’s oil industry. It sits 55km (34 miles) off Iran’s coast in Bushehr province. President Trump has repeatedly threatened to seize the territory during the war.

A raid on Kharg could fit Ritter’s raid scenario, with the US busting things up and then leaving.9 But experts have pointed out that Iran has at least four other export routes. Kharg is the most efficient but losing it while being repaired would be inconvenient as opposed to a fatal blow.

From Bloomberg’s landing page:

From US Bombs Iran for Ninth Day as Standoff Over Hormuz Deepens:

The US conducted a ninth straight day of airstrikes on Iran, trying to force the Islamic Republic to stop shipping attacks and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

The American military bombed military targets and communications networks in a three-hour operation ending around 5:30 a.m. Iranian time on Monday. Iran continued to attack US bases in the likes of Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain and Iraq.

The standoff shows no sign of easing, with Iran refusing to relent over Hormuz and insisting it has a right to manage traffic through the waterway. Energy prices have jumped on the worsening hostilities. Brent crude oil rose to above $90 a barrel for the first time in more than five weeks in early trading on Monday. US gasoline prices climbed back over the $4-a-gallon mark, potentially hurting President Donald Trump and his Republican party ahead of midterm elections in November…

Hormuz Shipping Traffic Slumps as US-Iran Hostilities Worsen

The tit-for-tat attacks are getting deadlier….

Shipping volumes have slumped and the number of tankers and other vessels going through Hormuz is roughly down to the same level from the height of the conflict in March and early April…

US President Donald Trump warned Iran last week he’d escalate airstrikes and widen the scope of targets until it backed down…

Kuwait continues to experience some of the worst attacks from Iran. Over the weekend, Kuwait’s main state energy company said an unspecified site sustained “significant material losses,” causing its evacuation and a number of injuries, while two power and desalination plants have been hit in recent days.

And from Hormuz Traffic Near Standstill as US-Iran Hostilities Escalate:

  • Visible traffic through the Strait of Hormuz appeared at a near standstill Monday after Iran targeted vessels in the narrow waterway.
  • A Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier and a liquefied petroleum gas carrier appeared to approach the strait, with the bulk carrier turning off its transponder while approaching.
  • The targeting of vessels will likely raise fresh concerns over the safety of ships transiting Hormuz, which could deepen disruptions to energy flows from the Persian Gulf to global customers.

Indirectly importance of US operations in Jordan, the lead story in the Wall Street Journal is Jordan Becomes New Flashpoint in U.S.-Iran War as Troop Deaths Rise. But it fails to set forth any of the juicy details that Janta Ka presents. This is the thin strategic gruel offered:

For years, Jordan sought to play down its close military and intelligence cooperation with the U.S. The U.S. aircraft that carried out strikes on Islamic State from a base in Jordan during the American war with the militants didn’t advertise the country they were operating from.

But Jordan’s role is now becoming too prominent to obscure. Jordan has become an attractive location for U.S. armed forces since it is among the most permissive in the Arab world when it comes to allowing the U.S. to operate from its bases.

A bit more on Jordan:

By contrast, the House of Saud published a remarkably revealing document (hat tip Eugene Linden), Iran Struck Prince Sultan and No One Was Required to Say So:

Iranian ballistic missiles struck Prince Sultan Air Base in Al-Kharj on July 18, wounding twelve US service members — two critically — and hitting KC-135 Stratotankers on the flight line while a second rotation was still climbing out. Saudi Arabia’s Civil Defense Authority cleared the sirens six minutes later without naming the weapon, the origin, or the damage, and neither Riyadh nor Washington has issued an official statement since.

The strike was the first direct Iranian attack on Saudi territory in approximately four months, a gap during which the IRGC struck Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, and the UAE while conspicuously sparing the Kingdom. Its return to PSAB — confirmed by a US official to Axios, corroborated by satellite imagery, and detailed by Air & Space Forces Magazine — ended whatever territorial immunity Saudi Arabia believed it still possessed. But the more consequential development is not the strike itself. It is the silence that followed, and the institutional architecture that sustains it: a three-party managed ambiguity in which Iran, Saudi Arabia, and CENTCOM each benefit from leaving the damage question unanswered, because answering it would force a public reckoning with a PAC-3 reserve that is approaching a ceiling none of them can afford to name.

The strike was confirmed by a US official cited by Axios as “the first time the Islamic Republic has directly attacked the kingdom in four months” — a description that the State Department, the Pentagon, and the Saudi Ministry of Defence have each declined to repeat on the record. Air & Space Forces Magazine, drawing on multiple US military sources, reported at least twelve wounded and multiple Stratotankers damaged on the tarmac. Open-source satellite imagery corroborated the impact site within the base perimeter.

Iran’s state broadcaster supplied what no government would. The missiles were launched “moments after American refueling planes took off,” a detail that only makes sense if the IRGC had real-time ISR coverage of PSAB’s tanker rotation schedule. The aircraft hit were those that remained on the flight line after the airborne pair departed — the timing was deliberate, and the targeting message was not about maximising destruction but about demonstrating that PSAB’s daily operational patterns are watched, clocked, and within reach….

Riyadh cannot confirm the strike without confronting two questions it has spent the war avoiding. The first is defensive: if Iranian missiles hit PSAB and wounded US personnel, the Sakhir Declaration — the mutual defence framework Saudi Arabia negotiated with Washington — becomes the operative instrument, and invoking it requires publicly admitting what the Arab Center DC described as the core strategic dilemma: “the PAC-3 architecture is functionally exhausted.” The second is economic. Aramco’s August Arab Light OSP already dropped $11 month-on-month to $1.50 per barrel below Oman/Dubai, the largest such cut in over two decades and the lowest since June 2020. Confirming that Iranian ballistic missiles are landing on military installations 77 kilometres south of the capital forces a sovereign-risk reassessment that Riyadh’s fiscal position — a Q1 deficit of SAR 125.7 billion, with Aramco’s free cash flow at 0.85 times its quarterly dividend — is not structured to absorb….

Washington faces a different but parallel constraint. Confirming the strike means confirming that 2,300 US service members at PSAB are taking casualties at a base where 43 US warplanes have been grounded since Saudi Arabia’s Operation Project Freedom in May 2026. CENTCOM cannot describe a defensive engagement at PSAB without also describing the legal anomaly: the 1977 USMTM memorandum governing US presence is not a Status of Forces Agreement, and Project Freedom severed the operational relationship between American air power and Saudi host-nation authority. An official statement would invite the Congressional question that the Pentagon’s communications strategy is built to defer: why are American troops still at a base where their aircraft have been grounded by the host nation, absorbing Iranian fire under a legal framework that was designed for peacetime advisory missions?

Please read this article in full. It contains remarkable operational detail.

It is over my pay grade as to why it was published, but it seems to suggest considerable unhappiness at Riyadh. Due to the length of this post, we have skipped over the fact that Ansar Allah seems just about to threaten or actually close the Bab el-Mandeb strait:

PressTV’s landing page

This does not look terribly negotiation-receptive.

And some additional sightings from Twitter:

These remarks would seem to negate happy thinking about negotiations:

Done for today! See you tomorrow!
____

1 What kind of admission of weakness is this? Part of the job description of a service member is that they may wind up dying for their country. Admittedly, the US is widely suspected of suffering a much higher body count and covering that up. But this show of extreme sensitivity to losses again shows the US has a glass jaw.

2 Nima also discusses at some length at the top of a new talk with Larry Johnson why they look misguided. He knows Bandar Abbas well, which is where the US has been hitting bridges so as to isolate it. Nima explains and even shows pictures that the bridges exist only to cope with seasonal floods for a few months a year. Those sluices are dry now, so Bandar Abbas is easily accessible by all sorts of routes.

3

4 A new trope in the US-backing commentary community is to depict the new Supreme Leader as a figurehead, which is easy to make stick given his lack of public appearances (I suspect that among other things, he is having facial reconstruction; that can take an extremely long time since procedures are done serially with healing time in between). I believe it was on a recent Dialogue Works talk where Professor Marandi debunked one popular claim, that he IRGC was operating on its own authority. Professor Marandi described the governing structure and said the military (both the regular forces and the Guards) needed approval of the Supreme Leader for its operations.

Having said that, I have commented that Iran seems to have a Japanese-style decision-making structure, as in more bottoms-up than the West. That results in more time to make decisions but much more internal cohesion when they are reached, since those at lower levels would be able to voice concerns and make suggestions. Upon reflection, this would make sense given that Iran adopted its “mosaic” structure of extreme decentralization so as to allow it to function well even when the leadership was killed or incommunicado, as we saw at the onset of the current conflict.

In the Japanese model, decisions are effectively made at the senior-middle level ranks, which does tend result in the board and CEO being ceremonial. But the top level can and does say no, or effectively does so by asking probing questions and sending the matter back down the chain for further study and perhaps some revision. I have been involved in decisions in Japan where the board and CEO were highly engaged, and these were ones that were of critical strategic importance.

5 DropSite has a longer recap of Araghchi’s remarks:

IMHO his analysis is wrong-headed. As indicated above, a bit over half the modern wars do not end with a negotiated settlement. And it is a false dichotomy to say that to win, Iran must conquer the US and Israel. FFS, please explain Vietnam. Bad logistics and depleting weapons mean that ex nukes, the US cannot win against Iran. The question is how long it takes and how much damage is done not just to Iran but also the world economy.

Keep in mind the intermediaries are still busy but motion is not progress:

6 A memorable scene in the Daniel Ellsberg memoir Secrets is when Ellsberg, widely seen as the top US expert on Vietnam, briefed McNamara in a helicopter about how badly things were going. McNamara said, “Just as I suspected,” and then upon landing updated the press on the great progress the US was making.

7 It has taken me too long to see why Pape often acts as if he is speaking to children or the stoopid. Making this his normal manner of presentation means that when he actually is having to speak to someone who is being stoopid, they won’t take offense.

8 However, to quibble with Johnson on another matter: he has been saying, as he does in the talk linked in Footnote 2 above, that the Iran attacks on a former US base in Syria, Al Tanf, were pointless because the base had been vacated for years. Vanessa Beeley, who has spent a lot of time on the ground in Syria and still has contacts there, begs to differ. She says the base was recently restored to service. From Why did Iran target the US Occupation base at Al Tanf, Syria?

On Friday 17th July, Iran carried out an extensive attack on the US occupation base at Al Tanf in Syria. A drone and missile strike targeted a US Special Operations Command base in south-eastern Syria..the first strike on Syrian territory since the toppling of the former government in December 2024.

In a statement, the IRGC said its aerospace forces conducted what it described as the 11th phase of “Operation Nasr-2,” targeting the strategically located base near Syria’s borders with Iraq and Jordan.

The IRGC further claimed the attack destroyed a radar installation and several U.S. military helicopters, while alleging that many American personnel were killed.

This strike occurred as the build up of both Turkish and HTS military forces increases inside Syria, along the border with Lebanon and in the coastal region to the north of Lebanon. I have been reporting on this here and here.

Syrian sources provided more detail on the attack:

Despite previous reports of an almost total evacuation of the Al Tanf base, located on the borders of Syria, Iraq and Jordan, almost 5 months ago – the intensity of the strikes suggested a shift in the site’s operational status. This was not an empty base, in fact, according to sources, the IRGC’s tracking systems and human intelligence in the region detected U.S. forces airdropping “Special Forces” units into the base approximately two weeks before the attack.

Analysis would suggest that the purpose of these drops might be to prepare for a ground incursion across Iraqi territory (Sulaymaniyah Axis) in coordination with the local Kurdish separatist factions in Iraq. One military analyst told me:

The attack reflects the operator’s ability to breach the secrecy surrounding U.S. movements and to convert radio and visual data into precise target coordinates.

According to reports from inside Syria, the strikes inflicted direct damage on the base’s newly constructed infrastructure, neutralised the US elite combat force and derailed the Iraq-Axis operation against Iran. Of course, US media will not report on the planned operations or on the number of casualties – such a critical security breach and the significant scale of damage, as reported, will not be revealed.

9 Maybe mines?

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119 comments

  1. Ben Panga

    I’ve been pondering the question “where might Hegseth’s Heroes attempt their suicide mission?”

    I’m assuming Iran’s furious assaults of the last days targeted one option based in Erbil – an invasion of some kind through Iraq.

    I can’t drop the thought that they will go for Kharg purely to meet the squeaking of the Idiot King’s ego. After all, it was his Delphic Majesty who said to the Guardian in 1988.

    I’d be harsh on Iran. They’ve been beating us psychologically, making us look a bunch of fools. One bullet shot at one of our men or ships and I’d do a number on Kharg Island. I’d go in and take it

    The grandiose inner voices must be screaming at him to go for Kharg, no?

    [Not mentioning the stupidity of such a move as that doesn’t seem to be an obstacle to US decision-making]

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      Hegseth was saying the other day that the deaths of American troops only stiffens his resolve. You wonder if when he heard about those American deaths that something else stiffened.

      Reply ↓
      2. JonnyJames

        “Dude is a sick f*ck” and a coward extraordinaire. A real “tough guy” who takes pleasure from mass death, even his own people, while he is safe and sound with bodyguards and security.

        (Is he abusing steroids and other drugs?)

        Reply ↓
      3. pjay

        Those troops who might lack Hegseth’s “warrior” mentality as they prepare for their suicide mission can line up for their testosterone injections.

        Reply ↓
      4. Travis Bickle

        I would not assume for a moment Trump listens to Hegseth, other than to confirm he’s in line.

        He will listen for what Caine briefs him on options, probabilities of success, and potential loses.

        How he judges those things is another question, but we can safely extrapolate on his wisdom from how well he has done in the past.

        Reply ↓
      5. ChrisPacific

        It would be nice if he was smart enough to avoid obviously Freudian terms like ‘stiffens’, particularly when referring to US combat deaths.

        Reply ↓
      6. Michael Fiorillo

        “Stiffen” is certainly the correct verb under the circumstances, given his intent to create an military of testosterone-jacked monads.

        Reply ↓
  2. Bugs

    There seem to be some cut/paste errors in the paragraph sequence.

    Thanks for these updates. It’s the only way to really get a sense of what’s going on with this.

    On Twitter there were some photos of the Jordan base and it didn’t look like it took much damage, but it’s obvious from what you’ve put together that things are worse than are being reported. Ritter is refreshing when he goes straight to what he knows best and uses that for analysis.

    Reply ↓
  3. ChrisFromGA

    On the PAC-3 shortage, one additional factor is that the Green T-shirt is still begging and bleating for more.
    I think it was NC that mentioned that while he isn’t getting any from the US, there is still a pressure campaign to move some existing stocks from Greece. Probably the EU and clowns like Mark Rutte are doing the pressuring.

    Should that actually come to pass, the depletion will get even worse, as any missiles transferred to the Green T-shirt will inevitably be spent like an alcoholic going through their relatives’ liquor cabinet when they’re not around.

    Reply ↓
  4. Michael Fiorillo

    The Argentinian/Zionist/Nazi thugs lost on the soccer pitch yesterday – further disgracing themselves in the game’s aftermath – and hopefully that’s an omen.

    Reply ↓
        1. The Rev Kev

          Whoa! That’s not very sportsmanlike conduct-

          ‘Tensions were high in a physical World Cup final, and Argentina’s Leandro Paredes grabbed Spain’s Eric García by the throat in a scuffle in the aftermath of Spain’s 1-0 win.’

          I wonder if FIFA is going to penalize them for that Malvinas banner stunt that the team did the other day. They had to do it to them before for the same stunt.

          Reply ↓
          1. JohnA

            And whether FIFA will penalise the US soccer authorities for the illegal half time show. The maximum break between halves allowed is 15 minutes yet the ridiculous superbowl manque ‘entertainment’ was almost twice that. Erstwhile english soccer superstar now BBC pundit Wayne Rooney called correctly when asked his opinion ‘It was crap’.
            https://x.com/utdreport/status/2078938709018267673

            Reply ↓
            1. JonnyJames

              George Galloway said yesterday that there is some serious dirt on Infantino (“Infantosser”) and he will be forced to step down in disgrace.

              Reply ↓
    2. dandyandy

      That was a joy to watch. All that Argies could do, for 120 minutes, was to try injure Spanish players. Hats off to Spain, they took that stoically.

      But the game!!! 30+ Spanish shots at goal, 3 odd Argentinian. Should have been 5-0.

      Reply ↓
  5. JohnH

    Ya gotta love this from Yahoo: “In the Middle East, the US-Iran war escalated again over the weekend after the US engaged in its ninth straight day of attacks and Iran retaliated by bombing US allies in the region, primarily Kuwait. The two sides remain far apart on a ceasefire agreement, even as the death toll from the conflict rises.

    Oil prices reversed gains on Monday after rising on the renewed tensions, as Iran said diplomatic exchanges with the US would continue via mediators. That was seen by some as leaving scope for fresh negotiations.”
    https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/live/stock-market-today-monday-july-20-dow-sp-500-nasdaq-111429441.html

    Where do I get some of what they’re smoking?

    Reply ↓
      1. JonnyJames

        Good one! lol.

        For the non-USian audience who may not get the reference here:. The US (and more recently, New Zealand) are the only major countries who allow BigPharma advertising on TV, internet etc Even in medical offices and doctor’s offices.

        The phrase “ask your doctor if BigParma dope is right for you” has become ubiquitous, but ambrit summed it up brilliantly.

        Reply ↓
  6. Afro

    A lot of people remarked that the refuelers at ben gurion airport are easy targets, but they were not struck. There’s a higher level of chess being played here than any of us have access to, as we only know of some of the pieces on this board, etc.

    One thing I wonder is if we’ll see some borders change in the next year. Borders changing is a norm of history for thousands of years, but hasn’t happened much since 1945.

    Reply ↓
    1. Acacia

      Re: Sparing Ben Gurion

      Isn’t it also a civilian airport?

      Turns out the Zionist rhetoric about Hamas using “human shields” was projection, and the Iranians are likely too savvy to play into that hasbara. That’s my guess, at least.

      Reply ↓
      1. Polar Socialist

        Both Seyed Marandi and Yanta Ka video by Yves above are saying that Iran is slowly but determinedly pushing US bases towards Israel, and only when “all the fish are in the same barrel” they plan to start firing for effect.

        Reply ↓
        1. redleg

          That’s a great strategy. Herding the tankers and other critical aircraft into an apparent safe haven and then first-striking them in place.

          Reply ↓
      2. jsn

        I think Ben Gurion Airport is a specific rung on the escalation ladder for Iran and is being gamed for maximum military and propaganda value.

        Reply ↓
  7. Victor Sciamarelli

    Robert Pape has a different interpretation of a US ground invasion (incursion) of Iran. He agrees it would fail tactically but, at the same time, it could result in a political success for Trump as he solidifies his Maga support. And I would add that Trump desperately needs that support at the midterms.

    From Pape: “So if they [US] start, what’s going to happen is they’re likely going to pay a lot of costs here because the other side’s likely going to fight. Unless the other side [Iran] just gives
    up, we should expect something like 20% casualties. If we can keep it down to 10%, we’re doing good. Right now, there are 13 dead military here. That’s what we paid with Afghanistan exit. This could go up by a factor in 10 over 24 hours. So, this could be much, much different. And when that happens, politics is going to change. Danny, this is what I work on. How when you have military action, how it impacts politics. That’s my specialty.

    And what is likely to happen here? The 40% of support for or the 36% of support for this war, it will probably temporarily at least harden. Why? Because that 36% is going to see those hundred Marines died for me. I supported this. They died for me. And they’re not going to want to just abandon their legacy of those hundred dead Marines. And that’s how you keep doubling. That’s how you keep the costs going up over time. So that’s how this would go from a several day excursion, get ourselves a bloody nose. People would say, “Ah, we get a bloody nose, we’ll pull right out.” You know, most likely once you start, you’re in for a dime, in for a dollar. This I said on Sunday, you start this, you’re probably in a six-month war of attrition minimum.
    Daniel Davis / Robert Pape (29:00) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pUOoaLSsZ8

    Pape later mentions (35:00) that in the OPEC crisis (from the 1970s) they took 6% of the world’s oil off the market for 150 days. Today we’re talking about 20% for who knows how long.

    Reply ↓
    1. Yves Smith Post author

      Regarding Pape, I see him as doing a Keynes beauty contest analysis. Keynes said the idea was not to pick the prettiest girl but the girl that most people would see as the prettiest.

      In keeping, Trump is very deeply invested in branding himself as a winner. His base may not actually be even remotely into that image as Trump is. But Trump, desperate go not look like a loser, is therefore incentivized to take any wager, no matter how long odds, that might keep him from recognizing a loss.

      Reply ↓
      1. Victor Sciamarelli

        I largely agree “Trump is very deeply invested in branding himself as a winner” but I also think the Maga base views him as their champion and a winner.
        Trump, however, has both a political and military problem. An incursion, imo, will improve his political position though do little about his military problem. If Congress interferes, it takes responsibility for a defeat, or bad deal, and if the Dems win the midterms, it makes it difficult for them to interfere while troops are engaged. If he capitulates, which is better for the country, he will be crushed from all sides.

        Reply ↓
        1. Michael Fiorillo

          Trump may get an increase in support at the beginning, but that will likely erode very quickly, especially since it will be a military disaster, despite whatever propaganda is pushed on us. Tough guy MAGA bootlickers will remain faithful to the end, but I sense these types are increasing isolated politically.

          Reply ↓
    2. JonnyJames

      I know it is typically pessimistic but, I don’t see much of a change after these “midterms” that are constantly referred to. By then it will be highly likely that the US will be forced to at least pause the attacks due to financial/economic consequences and the US further depleting ammo stocks.

      And as we have seen time and again, the US is not capable of diplomacy and not capable of agreement.

      This conflict will probably drag on, but on a lower scale with the US/Isr doing their usual terrorist attacks and other dirty tricks.

      Even if the D faction take control of both houses, they may impeach in the House, but I very much doubt that the Senate will convict the “wartime” emperor and remove him from office. A 2/3 majority is required.

      And does anyone really think that JD Vance would be any different?

      Reply ↓
      1. John k

        Imo Vance advised against the war. Maybe if at that point the us had substantially retreated from gulf bases etc he would resist starting things up again.’
        Granted, I thought trump wouldn’t start new wars, and israel might retain great influence in dc.

        Reply ↓
          2. motorslug

            Translation: Since we value your business, we’ll start selling you the product the actual contract specified at merely ridiculous profit margins.

            Reply ↓
  8. The Rev Kev

    It seems that the Chinese and the Russians are helping the Iranians with targeting which seems to shock some American pundits. If you ask them about the US doing the same in the Ukraine they will probably say that that is different. Whatever. So here is the thing. Perhaps a deal was made between Iran, China and Russia about targeting data on US bases. Without it, Iran would be forced to hit fixed targets like GCC oil, gas, water & energy infrastructure. This would probably not suit either China or Russia because of what such mass attacks would do to the world economy which would blow back on their econmies. So they made a deal with Iran. The Iranians would back off mass attacks on GCC infrastructure and in return they would get real-time data on US bases and things like aircraft which would serve to hamstring US operations in this region which would be far more effective. And I suppose for the Russians it would be a nit of payback at the same time..

    Reply ↓
    1. ChrisFromGA

      I wonder if Russia gave intel on Al-Tanf to Iran. I always thought Russia should have taken that base out during the Syrian war. It was stuffed to the gills with rent-a-jihadi headchoppers who were being weaponized to fight a dirty war against Assad. They ended up in Idlib province, and then, when Erdogan gave the green light, they were green-washed into HTS.

      If so, revenge is a dish best served cold. And Iran did what Russia should have done years ago: take out the trash. Putin could also have followed the Israeli example and called it “mowing the grass.”

      Reply ↓
    2. Polar Socialist

      Given that both Russia and China officially deny this – Russians actually say it’s Western propaganda designed to deteriorate the relations even more that they already have, there are reasons to doubt any official info sharing is happening.

      And as it is, Iran has imaging satellites of it’s own very capable of taking pictures of Jordanian/Saudi airfields and have those downloaded for targeting within a few hours. It’s not really real-time, but good enough for cluster munition.

      Moreover, Iran does have decent human intel capability, while the GCC members have tens of millions of abused migrant workers available to eye ball every acre and provide very accurate information on where and where everything is. In pretty much real time, if given proper channels. And millions of abused citizens, too.

      If Iranian intelligence can penetrate IDF it has, with absolute certainty, informants everywhere in the region.

      I wouldn’t be surprised if Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff has a better picture of the US military operations in the region than the Pentagon has. Just by using what they have available in the region.

      Reply ↓
      1. catchymango

        you raise a very good point about human intelligence. While I can’t speak to Iran’s capabilities there, from what I recall the US uses thousands of migrant workers to keep bases functioning; and based on the amenities I’ve learned exist on many of these gulf bases, there are at least hundreds if not thousands of highly exploited workers directly on base who could observe useful information and share it with the Iranians. Al Jazeera had an excellent documentary about Indian workers being essentially trafficked to various US bases using UAE-based intermediaries in the 2000s and 2010s, after being lured to the Gulf with false promises about pay, service duration, and even the location where they would be working.

        and more generally, the book Empire’s Labor had dug into the US military’s structural dependence on such workers for sustaining their presence in the middle east.

        Reply ↓
        1. Michael Fiorillo

          “Stiffen” is certainly the correct verb under the circumstances, given his intent to create an military of testosterone-jacked monads.

          Reply ↓
  9. JohnH

    You have to wonder if the US has considered the fact that “mowing the lawn” to incite division and rebellion might actually apply to Jordan and the Gulf States. After all, several Gulf States have significant Shia populations and Jordan is majority Palestinian. Much of the US presence in this area is undoubtedly intended to backstop these regimes and protect them against their own people. As US “credibility” and armed presence degrades and declines, and local economic conditions worsen due to supply chain problems, how long will it be before political unrest begins?

    Reply ↓
      1. motorslug

        Granted the article is in an izzy publication but I seriously doubt the majority of Jordanians have “low public opinion of Islamic Republic”.
        The unelected leaders, yes maybe.

        Reply ↓
  11. HH

    It doesn’t matter how many PAC-3 missiles the U.S. can produce. PAC-3 is incapable of intercepting hypersonic missiles that maneuver on terminal approach. The PAC-3 can’t adjust its intercept trajectory to realign for a head-on kill within the available time and G-force constraints. That is why the advanced Iranian missiles are getting through.

    Reply ↓
    1. cfraenkel

      Both can be true. This isn’t an either or issue.

      (on the third hand, someone long time ago (weeks) put it as ‘Iran is shooting down $M Patriots with $K dumb rockets)

      Reply ↓
      1. ISL

        But PAC-3 make for comforting video if shown from the right angle that the local government is doing something to make the people safe.

        Ted Postol puts their intercept rate of the warhead at 3-5% for non-hypersonic missiles, though they are useful against Hamas-style slow ballistic missiles.

        Reply ↓
        1. Alice X

          Ted Postol puts their intercept rate of the warhead at 3-5% for non-hypersonic missiles, though they are useful against Hamas-style slow ballistic missiles.

          I heard that from Postol as 2%, no matter, $4 million/per against a few $ten thousands per (Hamas much less) is not a workable formula.

          Reply ↓
  12. DD GE

    So they wanted to manufacture a clean record of “we exhausted every diplomatic option.”

    Among the newly minted pundits that came with this war, there is one AJ Jaff, operating out of https://ajsignalnotnoise.substack.com. He contends many things and time will tell if he’s reliable or not, but one of his points is that the US is doing exactly the-quote-above at home. A psyop, really, to nudge the population toward accepting a wider war.
    “We did everything. Gave ’em a chance”.

    Reply ↓
    1. Acacia

      Thanks. I was looking for that on Telegram and it finally appeared.

      Oil prices have been yo-yoing, e.g.:

      https://www.tradingview.com/x/dE7ZzVFV/

      The last green candle is likely the spike on the news of the Houthis’ blockade, but that follows a drop from almost 84 to 80. It looks like traders failed to price in Yemeni action, which should have been kinda obvious the way they’ve been signaling ever since KSA conducted an air strike on the Sanaʽa airport.

      Does this mean simply closing the Bab el-Mandeb strait, or are the Houthis going to charge tolls too? Lol

      Reply ↓
      1. thoughtfulperson

        Fwiw, crude prices jumped up when markets opened in Asia then dropped back down to where they were at close Friday, when markets opened in Europe this am.

        Analysts such as Jeff Currie have been saying at the moment the markets are not out of crude, but are short on distillates such as diesel and jet fuel.

        Reply ↓
    2. Ben Panga

      From AJ as linked above by Timmy

      Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree says the continued blockade of Yemen’s Sanaa airport “is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated”.

      Saree vowed to retaliate “to the blockade with a blockade and to respond to all escalation with escalation”.

      The Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia for strikes on Sanaa airport last week and retaliated by targeting Saudi’s Abha International Airport.

      “The Yemeni Armed Forces affirm their complete readiness for all options and any foolish act committed by the reckless Saudi enemy,” said Saree.

      “We call upon the people of our great nation to continue the general mobilization and general call to arms, and to be fully prepared for all scenarios and developments, and to support the fronts with fighters.”

      More than just a blockade perhaps.

      Reply ↓
    3. Jason Boxman

      And, things just got real. And CNBC has it now.

      Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen declare maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia (CNBC)

      The Houthis have repeatedly threatened to close an oil export route through the Red Sea during the U.S.-Iran war.
      Saudi Arabia has diverted millions of barrels of oil per day to an export terminal on the Red Sea in response to Iran’s attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.
      Fighting between the U.S. and Iran has sharply escalated as their interim deal to reopen Hormuz has collapsed.

      Reply ↓
  14. The Rev Kev

    Cheeky sods. The Iranians have come out with this-

    ‘Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has thanked Jordanian civilians and military personnel for allegedly providing the “accurate intelligence” it used to strike US forces and aircraft stationed in the kingdom.

    In a statement carried by Tasnim on Monday, the IRGC claimed that ballistic missiles targeted US C-17 military transport aircraft and P-8 command-and-control planes at Aqaba Airport in southern Jordan during its latest round of retaliatory attacks. Several of the aircraft suffered “heavy damage,” according to the statement.

    The IRGC credited Jordanian informants with helping Iran target 20 hangars housing US forces in the Al-Azraq area during an earlier attack. It claimed that the facilities were destroyed and that dozens of American personnel were killed, suggesting that even one of Washington’s closest regional allies is no longer a secure rear base.’

    https://www.rt.com/news/643253-iran-jordan-us-strike/

    That’s one way to ramp up the paranoia in Jordan. American security will now be running around Jordan like crazy trying to find out who rated them out.

    Reply ↓
    1. Acacia

      Yeah, and good luck trying to figure out who exactly ratted them out.

      Isn’t Jordan 50+% Palestinian, plus several million refugees? Can’t imagine they might have some scores to settle.

      Reply ↓
        2. NotTimothyGeithner

          The idea that the US was there to defend the GCC countries from aggressors was always absurd. The US was always there to deter Baath or socialist revolutions and to keep the spice flowing. All those fancy, defense contractor toys were largely part of the deal as the same countries didn’t have a military environment to actually use the weapons.

          The GCC countries are gentler version of 19th century colonies where we let the local elites play in charge.

          Reply ↓
    3. ThirtyOne

      I recall the Dubai hotel strikes. Seems the local untermenschen might have ratted out the “relocating” US operatives.

      Reply ↓
  15. Ex-PFC Chuck

    In the brief Andrew Neil/Robert Pape dialog, I suspect the concluding Neil-labeled segment is actually Pape’s reply to the immediately preceding segment, which is also attributed to Neil.

    Reply ↓
  16. Tom Stone

    The USA really needs a rallying cry to fire up the Military and the general populace, something that captures the essence of this war and its vital importance for the future of FREEDOM!
    Since “Remember Minab” is already taken, I suggest “For Bibi and Likud”.

    Reply ↓
    3. motorslug

      I think the initial moniker is still the best, maybe tweaked a little:
      Operation Epstein Fury
      Epstein Freedom For US

      Reply ↓
  18. jefemt

    Today’s excellent NC post on Oligarchs Selling out the Land Under Their Feet, and this exhaustive exhausting piece have me once again thinking that the only remaining weapons that USrael will have, after a many-months excursion, will be tactical micro-nukes.

    The practical reality of diminishing arms backstock, as well as the timing relative to US mid-terms, Epstein pressure, and other chickens coming home to roost, starting to accumulate around trumps swollen feet and ankles— a dramatic nuclear attack seems inevitable, especially looking at motivations of cornered leadership, and the religious zealots in all three nation-states.

    Hope I am too pessimistic, and wrong. I tend to be both -a fair bit!

    Thank you all for the information and thoughts!

    Reply ↓
    1. Retired Carpenter

      Above my pay-grade, but I will speculate. The Iranians should have gamed this out for due diligence, and might have some sort of a response ready. There might also be some world-wide consequences of such an attack over the years.

      Reply ↓
    2. Henry Moon Pie

      I wonder if the Iranians look at Gaza and southern Lebanon and wonder whether there are some fates worse than nuclear annihilation.

      Reply ↓
    3. Travis Bickle

      The idea of negotiated settlement, construed broadly enough, is hardly impossible if you’re open-minded about its form: the Korean cease-fire was and remains a negotiated “settlement.” Thought of properly, wars never end until the underlying conflict is reconciled, which never happens except (sometimes) through outright conquest. Here things can settle down, if we are beyond lucky, and I continue to think the GCC/Iran can do this between themselves. Evicting the US would be essential, along with tolls on the rest of the world, but that will be the most delicate of propositions.

      Still, this may yet pass. The trouble is how narrow the path is for Iran to nudge things along in a timely manner without an incomprehensibly severe blow to the world economy, never mind Trump lobbing a nuke into things out of pique. A few small nukes might have saved Kennedy at the Bay of Pigs. Or, maybe some hysterical Israeli politician (are there any of those?) will go nuts, or the two of them inspiring similar irresponsibility between the Paks and Indians.

      Now. Pass me that bong.

      Reply ↓
  19. eugene linden

    With regard to HouseofSaud.com:
    I stumbled on the site looking for more granular and credible reporting on Iran’s response to US attacks (Centcom having turned into a propaganda outlet, not a news source). I was struck by the sophistication and level of detail it goes into with regard to the attacks on Saudi turf. In the story Yves quotes there’s also a fascinating section on the “strategic ambiguity” of all the players in the conflict, as they all want to preserve options and avoid triggering obligations under various agreements.
    It bills itself as independent, but it sure looks like it has an open line to Saudi intelligence.
    https://houseofsaud.com/about-house-of-saud/

    Reply ↓
    1. ChrisPacific

      Yes, it’s very interesting. I had a look through some of the other articles. It looks mostly like high quality analysis and professionally done, but there’s a clear editorial line throughout, similar to Asia Times but with better sourcing and evidence. The China-made defence system that is operated by Pakistan and can’t actually be used is a clear sore point, coming up in multiple articles including this one.

      The editorial policy actually looks pretty sound and stronger than most Western outlets:

      https://houseofsaud.com/editorial-policy/

      Provided they actually follow it, that is, which they seem to do inconsistently. I could see no evidence of pieces being tagged as ‘News’ or ‘Analysis’ as their policy requires, for example, despite finding clear examples of both.

      They explicitly claim in the policy that they have no affiliation with the government and receive no funding from them. This is of course definitive as online media outlets with undisclosed revenue sources can be relied on to always tell the truth. I do note that the domain name and branding would appear to be a clear infringement on the royal family identity, but they have apparently not challenged this in the (we’re told) 11 years of its existence.

      Reply ↓
  20. Verifyfirst

    Ok, I’m going to indulge in a completely gratuitous and meaningless swipe….I shouldn’t, I know….

    When I woke up this morning, the first thought in my brain was this:

    Trump call Hegseth in, and says: “Pete–you’re America’s fiercest warrior and our last hope to beat Iran. I need you to lead our landing on Kharg Island, I want you to be the first man off the boat. My sons would join you, but they have heel spurs….hereditary you know.”

    Reply ↓
    2. redleg

      Turning it back to serious, sorry for the buzzkill, Trump needs small-pistol Pete to lead the crackdown on blue state voting in November. Trump is clearly many fries short of a happy meal but even at his most vapid he knows this, just as we all suspect that that crackdown is inevitable.

      Reply ↓
      1. The Rev Kev

        He’s starting to run short of runway space to do something. There are only about *checks notes* 105 days left until the Midterms.

        Reply ↓
        2. lone plateau

          And given that about a dozen states have early voting that starts 28 or more days before Nov. 3, he has somewhere between 75 and 80 days of runway.

          Reply ↓
  21. ilsm

    SMH

    A lead at Yahoo! Stocks move on good news about Mid East.

    A bit early in the day.

    Also, Starship Flt 13 now 23 July. I thought tonight was ‘optimistic “. A lot of study in 4 shutdowns at once. 4/33 is scary failure rate.

    Close, I suggest looking at US depletion rate of guided ordnance; US set requirements before anyone thought CENTCOM would do more than “mow the grass”

    Reply ↓
    1. Samuel Conner

      suggest edit “guided standoff ordnance”. I believe there are still vast numbers of JDAM kits in inventory, which could be employed if US could sufficiently suppress Iranian air defenses. Perhaps the pre-war planning assumed that this could be done and that it would not be necessary to deplete the much more limited inventories of long-range PGMs.

      Reply ↓
    2. JonnyJames

      Lol, “good news” and S&P UP, crude DOWN. Ansar Allah blockade KSA? No problems, good news. The emperor said blah blah blah and we fawn over every word.

      Reply ↓
  22. XXYY

    In the Japanese model, decisions are effectively made at the senior-middle level ranks, which does tend result in the board and CEO being ceremonial. But the top level can and does say no, or effectively does so by asking probing questions and sending the matter back down the chain for further study and perhaps some revision.

    This is super interesting. Making high quality decisions in a large organization, especially ones with diverse specializations, is an unsolved problem in human society.

    In the 19th century in the US, organizational sizes went from a few people (i.e, a family) to thousands, and of course organizational sizes have gotten even more ridiculous in the 20th and 21st century. Even in the rare cases where everyone is sincerely well meaning and interested in the good of the organization as a whole, it’s extremely difficult. IMO shareholder owned organizations have drastically exacerbated the problem by making decision making much more diversified and the overall goal of the organization much less clear.

    I’m just speaking from my own experience in organizations of vastly different sizes but this is doubtless and area of academic research which would make interesting reading.

    Reply ↓
    1. Maxwell Johnston

      The field of decision science has spawned a vast academic (and non-academic) literature. And there is an entire field of study (in the world of business school and management academia) devoted to organizational behavior or ‘OB’ for short (and its close partner, organizational design):

      https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/business-and-management/organizational-behavior

      ‘OB’ might seem at first glance like a lot of MBA Powerpoint 5-Minute-Manager claptrap, but it’s not; there are valuable lessons to be learned. Hiring smart honest hardworking people isn’t enough. Without the right incentives and organizational structure, you’ll end up with the (extremely common) ‘fallacy of hoping for A while rewarding B’, no matter how dedicated your employees are. And once an organization exceeds a certain size, this holds true regardless of the activity in question: a medium-sized business, a global multinational, a sprawling government bureaucracy, the military, a giant non-profit, etc. Structure and controls and incentives are necessary; but which ones…..ay, there’s the rub.

      The Japanese way of taking decisions has its pros and cons. They haven’t solved the problem either. Nor has Iran. No society has.

      Reply ↓
  23. Rob

    “Israelis have never felt less secure. 64% are unhappy with how the endless wars have been run. 73% are upset at how there has been no real investigation of October 7.”

    Um…Yeah…Not gonna happen….

    (NYT) Israel knew the details of the Hamas plans more than a year before.

    (BILLBOARD) Nova Festival location was changed TWO DAYS before open (see “…Re’im site…”)

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html

    https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/israel-music-festival-attack-artist-manager-account-massacre-1235436829/

    https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-israel-killed-hundreds-its-own-people-7-october/49216

    Reply ↓
  24. XXYY

    Even if Iran’s 47 year record of taking severe punishment and surviving says this plot would probably fail, Iran had been preparing since the Iraq War for the US and Israel to launch a major campaign. … [T]he nation is highly unified around inflicting a decisive defeat on the US, so that it won’t even think about military action against Iran for at least a decade.

    It’s been obvious since I was a kid that the US would very much like to attack and invade Iran. Yet, it hasn’t done it until now. I concluded there was a potent element in the US military and think tank world that realized that military action against Iran would be doomed before it started (and how right they were!).

    Only the once-in-a-lifetime alignment of the idiot twins, Netanyahu in Israel and Trump in the US, has apparently made this attack possible. (I find this extra surprising since Trump in his pre-politics days seemed to have a decidedly anti-war bent, which I ascribed to his business background.) So hopefully, once the US gets its ass firmly kicked in Iran, we will go back to the status quo ante where US decision makers felt strongly that this was a bad idea and anyone proposing a “mowing the lawn” strategy against Iran will be laughed out of town.

    Reply ↓
    1. ed

      I don’t really agree with the framing (see elsewhere as well) that this war happened because Netanyahu found an idiot in Trump he could finally talk into it. I think if the Dems had won last time around, war with Iran would have still been on the table. See this interview with Amos Hochstein from the Biden admin saying this was already being planned. link

      I think the catalyst was October 7th. Once they suffered that defeat, they couldn’t let themselves look weak so they needed to bomb anyone who could challenge them into submission. The people at the top of the US see Israel as crucial to their dominance of the region and the world, they were willing to go to any lengths to save it. Inevitably this had to mean regime change in Iran.

      I think that desperation is what’s different now, compared to when previous administrations look at it.

      Reply ↓
      1. John Wright

        I remember Biden referring to Israel as the USA’s “unsinkable aircraft carrier”.

        Others have stated that another name for an aircraft carrier is “target”..

        Biden may not have realized that a fixed location “unsinkable aircraft carrier” may become an unsinkable target with its fixed coordinates locked into an adversary’s firing protocol.

        All the USA bases in the middle east were crucial to USA dominance, not just Israel.

        Iran has opened up a lot of eyes around the world

        Reply ↓
      2. motorslug

        See also Nat’s post today. It’s quite apparent, at least for 20+ years, the zionazis are required to fully develop the ‘Worldwide Palestine’ plan for their control.

        Reply ↓
  25. Anthony Martin

    Instead of reading up on military tactics and strategy, Hegseth thinks injecting himself & others with testosterone will make for better warriors. Empty headed Trump continues to preen himself in front of the mirror claiming to be the ‘greatest the world has ever seen’. Some trajectories are obvious: Add up: No concept of an objective, of a plan, of a strategy, of a logistic’s chain, of the opponents’s tactics . The result: A major kersplat in the making.

    Reply ↓
    1. jhallc

      Yeah- So I guess all those guys hunkered down in foxholes during the Battle of the Bulge or went into the water at Normandy must have been those high T types….Hegseth is a buffoon.

      Reply ↓
  26. ventzu

    Mario Nawfal:

    “China is backing Iran, who’s destroying American bases and military equipment, and killing troops
    And is backing Russia, who’s fighting NATO in a proxy war
    China is weakening the West without firing a single bullet or sacrificing a single soldier
    Don’t complain when they become THE global superpower. We did this to ourselves”

    https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2079193785259692475

    China is at the heart of the axis of evil. Sigh.

    Reply ↓
      1. Don

        The fat lady hasn’t sung yet, but she is doing her vocal exercises. Wouldn’t it be astonishing if three of the four most militarily powerful nations in the early 21st century, have imperial civilizational chops — talk about staying power. I don’t think this is America’s Century.

        Reply ↓
    2. The Rev Kev

      ‘If we lose the war in Iran as well as in the Ukraine, it is all China’s fault. If we can destroy them, then we will win everywhere else’

      Reply ↓
      1. hk

        Heard spoken in 1941…

        “If we lose the war in England as well as in the Ukraine, it is all America’s fault. If we can destroy them, then we will win everywhere else”

        So, will the part of Japan be reprised by, eh, Japan, maybe against the Pearl River rather than the Pearl Harbor?

        Reply ↓
  27. flora

    The T admin’s geopolitical and military strategy seems the same as its economic strategy: Assume a can opener.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lee

      From the linked article:

      Analysts from Goldman Sachs estimated in a note last week that enough Mideast pipeline capacity will likely be added to insulate over 45% of pre-war Gulf exports by the end of next year.

      By the end of 2028, the figure could rise to more than 60%, with an “accelerated scenario” pushing it to 75%.

      Goldman put median construction time for pipeline projects in the region at 2.5 years, “with construction typically occurring more rapidly in response to supply disruptions.”

      If this is their definition of “soon”, soon may be too late to ensure our present modicum of global stability by supporting current levels of world production and consumption. Also, as some prominent pundits, Pape being one, have noted, these workarounds are within striking distance of Iran and its regional allies.

      Reply ↓
    1. Michael Fiorillo

      Krystal is awesome, but my heart goes pitter-patter over Briahna Joy Gray and Katie Halper.

      Reply ↓

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