Originally Posted by
FangsF15
Ahh, ok, I see what you are saying about that cost in your earlier post. Fair enough.
The flip side of the quoted argument is, however, that if they are crazy enough to do all that, shutdown the Straight with drones and mines, cutting their own throats while losing $450M/day in illicit oil revenue, a crashing Rial/exonomy, and no oil storage remaining, forcing them to shutdown production (a major blow not easy to reverse as I understand), what makes you think they only want a nuke for deterrence?
Can people genuinely say there is not a real risk they will use it? Iran is run by radical ideologues. They aren’t in the same category of other rational actors. And in geopolitical terms, even NK is a rational actor.
Part of this is also about countering China over the medium/long term, as an ancillary benefit if not part of the calculus.
so this is my point. We needed to go all in or not at all. This half measure has objectively done a few things
1. cost taxpayers billions
2. Not moved the ball one yard on uranium (subjectively one could say it has only increased the drive to obtain a nuclear shield against US aggression)
3. Educated our very real enemy in a strategy of closing the straight with incredibly cheap military hardware
4. angered our allies and the world at large by causing an economic crisis this further eroding soft power
the list continues, so yes, as to your comment. The only real solution was all in or diplomacy. One could state this as objectively true as evidenced by the current stalemate. Dont kid yourselves, we are currently in a stalemate and i dont see a way out of this other than to back down or establish a full on defense in depth of the entire iranian coastline.
for myself i was in the Air Force from 03-14. Ive seen the absolute dumpster fire of combat ops in the middle east. Enough is enough