...we can still reasonably acknowledge the following: At some not yet determinable point, the current war against Iran could involve one form or other of nuclear weapon use.
Drifting Toward Chaos: Donald Trump, Iran and Nuclear WarIt’s no longer the stuff of fiction. By his willful indifference to science-based explanation, US President Donald Trump is heightening the likelihood of a nuclear war.
There are necessary clarifications. For the first time, a threat of nuclear war links with the unsteady behavior of an American president. In the continuously dissembling Trump era, one casus belli atomicum is apt to be a presidential incapacity to understand complex military challenges. More precisely, scholars and policy-makers should now be focused on growing prospects for decisional miscalculation, psychological breakdown, cognitive impairment (including transient dementia) and (by both Trump and his Iranian counterparts) outright irrationality.[2]
EXCELLENT piece that goes beyond a news clipping service into analysis and reasoned prognostication from
MODERNDIPLOMACY.EU I have bookmarked their page and intend to consult it frequently.
Good night.
11:47 am:
Death Toll in Lebanon from Israeli Attacks: 1,029,
118 children, 79 women
11:15 am:
Schizo, ADHD, Child BrainTrump: From "winding down," Strait "will open itself", to
Trump says US will ‘obliterate’ Iran’s power plants if it doesn’t open Strait of Hormuz
12:57 am:
The template for Iran to win against U.S.-Israel is the Islamic Republic's "foundational myth", the Iran-Iraq War
From the Wall Street Journal article.
Iran liberated every inch of its territory by 1982—but only agreed to a cease-fire with Saddam Hussein’s regime in 1988, after massive destruction and hundreds of thousands of casualties on both sides
With all its horrors, the Iran-Iraq war also created the foundational myth of the Islamic Republic, cementing its power for the ensuing decades. The regime’s most dangerous enemy now is the Iranian people: The Islamic Republic killed thousands of protesters as it suppressed demonstrations in January.
The current conflict may provide the regime—if it survives—with renewed strength at home, cautioned Nicole Grajewski, an expert on Iran and a professor at the Sciences Po university in Paris. “The regime could play this off as a new Iran-Iraq war,” she said. “There is an outcome of this war that makes the regime more entrenched and more militaristic, with a new mythology around survival and around managing to withstand the U.S. and Israel.”
TACO has no idea. TACO and his short attention span are what the Iranians count on. Trump and Izvassal could literally drop atomic and thermonuclear weapons on them, the Islamic Republic will not surrender. Like Britain in its darkest hour against the Nazis, Churchill said if the island were successfully invaded, the Empire would continue from Canada and the Dominions. For Iran, if their country is irradiated, the Islamists will scatter throughout the world. They will wage asymmetric warfare against the U.S. and Izvassal from wherever they are. They will target civilian gatherings with alacrity. They have threatened festivals and celebrations. The Alliance of Stupid will stop 95% of them, at great cost. But 5% will get by. And the damage from those small sleeper cells can be devastating. Trump and Netanyahu personally will be targeted.
But the grand strategic aim is control of the Strait of Hormuz and the world's energy supply. Iran will allow and has allowed countries, Turkey, India, China and others, to transit the Strait free of harassment and attack. They have stated explicitly that they will sink only ships of their enemies, the U.S. and Izvassal.
Kharg Island is their redoubt. From there they can do as they please in the Strait. TACO knows the threat but he has little stomach for it. The number of marines on their way has doubled. With determined, overwhelming firepower and, crucially, a Marines ground invasion, they could capture Kharg. But the marines on Kharg would be honey to Iran's guerrilla bees who would float and sting and cause hundreds of American casualties. The task for the Americans is not only to seize Kharg but to hold it. It is every guerrilla's wet dream to have enemy forces trapped on an island indefinitely surrounded by them. America and Iran have the same goal in the Strait, to make it theirs and to hold it forever. But this is not Staten Island surrounded by America, this is Kharg surrounded by Iran. Both want to make it their country's toll booth.
Who has the greater resolve? Iran. Who has the inestimable value of proximity? Iran. Who has the greater conventional arms? The U.S., obviously. But TACO is preparing for peace talks. The Iranians malevolently laugh at TACO's naivety and imbecility. TACO does not know, and he is preparing for "what peace talks with Iran will look like". He will find out. TACO can escalate but he will be alone and vacillating. Iran is alone but is not vacillating. The progress of the war from here will resemble the Iran-Iraq war if Iran can keep Trump from nuking Iran. Iran can escalate but the U.S. can escalate exponentially further. Exponential escalation by TACO will bring the world's opprobrium down on him. The U.S. will be further isolated, increasingly a pariah.
As long as the Strait remains closed to American shipping, the price of gas at American gas pumps will continue to inflict pain on Americans--which I support.
This is the American peoples' fault, not a dictator's. Trump was fairly elected. That is his legitimacy.
But Iran has its "foundational myth". That is its legitimacy, its motivation and that is worth a lot of materiel. America and Israel are not going to conquer Iran. A ground invasion will unify Iranians against the invader and will fail. Iran's goals are defined, it is closer to succeeding in accomplishing them than the Americans' with no or shifting, retreating, threatening, conflicting goals.
In short, Iran is winning the war. America is losing. That doesn't mean that America cannot snatch some claim to victory out of the festering asshole of defeat. But the chalk tonight is with the clearer-sighted Iranians. Good night.
