Shirley you can't be serious.

You are so close to hitting the nail on the head. If we didn’t have the will to defeat the Taliban over nearly two decades in Afghanistan, what makes you think the American people will stomach the effort it will take to unseat a regime that is far more sophisticated, better funded, and determined? You may wish the reality were different, but it’s not. An extended campaign, likely involving tens of thousands of ground troops, significant casualties, hundreds of billions of dollars, and real sacrifice from the American public, is a pipe dream and you know it (or at least you should). There’s a reason previous leaders didn’t want to be sucked into such a conflict & it wasn’t because they were all a bunch faint hearted sissy boys. This whole stupid crisis is a realtime lesson in why international policy is not something you just want to walk into unprepared & wing it. Nevertheless, that’s just what we’ve done & we’re now stuck with nothing but bad outcomes. The most likely one is that we make a deal that will be touted as marginally better than the JCPOA, but won’t be. The only question is do we get to that point in a couple weeks, a couple years, or a couple decades?

This is fair. We’ve all been conditioned to paint each other with a broad brush. We should all try harder to resist that temptation.

The Iranians hatred of the Ayatollah and IRGC is far, far lower than their hatred of being bombed by Israel and the United States. That’s why there was no street protest and any overthrowing of the Iranian regime. When a country is attacked unprovoked by a foreign country, said countrymen put aside their differences and unite. Which is why I think the average Iranian would actually be pro-regime if they are under attack.


We are not “winning” this. Best to just throw up a mission accomplished banner and leave. All warships out. And if we are lucky, Iran opens up SOH in 1-3 months then.

I’m thinking unarmed citizens that experience a high rate of murder at the hands of their own government aren’t going to overthrow a hostile regime. How many thousands of Iranians are dead under these radicals? Without a doubt allied assets are on the ground in Iran and at Langley pouring over intel, making contacts and ciphering ideas on arming a resistance faction. Obviously not a short term plan if Iranians are to overthrow the totalitarians.

Economic siege seems to be the main game plan for now. Allows the US to regroup, rearm and reinforce. NATO is waking up slowly and France has decided to make a showing. Now that a Chinese tanker is on fire, I bet they start turning up pressure on Iran to make a deal.

Im hesitant, but it’s still early. Guessing if any boots hit the ground soon it will be Airborne units hitting Kharg Island. I don’t expect any inland American troops based on what’s been said publicly, but I could be very wrong. I hope it doesn’t go that way.

I am of course not an expert, but I do know that every administration prior to this one since the Shah was overthrown had a battle plan for Iran.

Game plans unfortunately that went nowhere good. So yeah, let’s speculate…

Iran; market setting petro handle. ME fertilizer mainstay apparently. Give or take 40m hardcore shariah Muslims chanting before AK47 mullahs. Russian shade. Bone dry as a Mormon wedding reception. Infidel tolerance scale, nil.

Israel; 10m sabbath pilgrims. Surrounded by who knows how many hostiles on every corner. Nukes. Abundant multinational bank and trading leverage. Tacit control of most major motion picture studios and of course 4 mainstream NA networks including fox.

Odds on further engagement…favorable within next 4 quarters. Ck meto out on poly:)

Probably one of then worst takes out there but I'm sure the Iranians just love you telling them what is good for them.

There are no Iranians protesting in the street because the Government mowed them all down with bullets just a couple of months ago. Wow, talk about tone death.

Worked for Truman

Pathetically, he is, and his favorite words are feckless and realpolitik.

You might be surprised, but the Iranian people are actually *not* rallying to the regime flag.

At least not yet, hard to say which direction that will go if this drags out.

What they also did not do, was rise up against the IRGC and overthrow the regime. I never had any high hopes for that.

We kind of kicked the hornets nest, we really are stuck with trying to see it through now. Otherwise they could resume their behavior to some degree if we don't retain economic levers on them.