Would the world be safer or less safe with the Mullahs having nukes? Since they took over during Carter, have they made any attempts at peace in the Middle East? Have they supported, sponsored, directed terrorism(attacks) on US interests throughout the ME, Europe and anywhere else they could? Have you talked to any Iranians that fled Iran? These *******s needed to be obliterated 50 years ago.

Yes it’s gambling. And they’re letting a very short timer bet a damn fine farm he doesn’t own.

Were those leaders you looked up to?

Please explain to us how the Gulf States, the Iranian people, and world oil markets are going to be better off. We have decapitated the Iranian leadership, only to see a head grow back that will be just as radical, if not more so.

We have given Iran the opportunity to demonstrate that they can, in fact, effectively close the Straight of Hormuz, even in a severely weakened state. We have doubled or tripled (depending on who you talk to) Iranian oil revenues vs pre-war. The Iranians may yet try and charge tolls for traffic passing through the straight. They have not, and most likely will not agree to a nuclear inspection regime on the ground. Do you think some of their newfound revenues just might be used to restart their nuclear program? That money will certainly be used to replenish their stocks of missiles, drones, and mines.

We have demonstrated to Iran & every other rogue nation on the planet that it is in their best interest to develop nuclear weapons as quickly as possible, lest their leadership suffer the same fate as the Ayatollah, or Maduro, or whoever we decide we don’t like this week. The worst possible outcome here was allowing the regime in Iran to survive and rebuild which is exactly the direction we are headed.

The regime in Iran was never going to collapse à la Venezuela & the American people were never going to have the stomach for actual regime change in Iran. I guarantee you that at least some of the president’s advisors know this. If we value our way of life, we should start insisting that he listen to them.

No, fix bound to fail. I believe in no party. No deity. But that’s just one cowboy talking cowchit. The vice is elected for a reason. If he’s ever going to step out from behind a rather large, looming shadow this might not be the worst moment.

Well this thread is all over the place.

A good book about "victor's justice" is "Nuremberg, The Last Battle" by David Irving.

The general theme is that very few of the crimes prosecuted at Nuremberg wouldn't have also been easily and equally applied to the victors.

---------

One of the better discussions about the tension between the average soldier's political obligation vs their own morality is in Shakespeare's Henry V when King Henry disguises himself and talks to the common trooper about who is ultimately responsible for the death and destruction they're inflicting on everyone around them.

The Kenneth Branagh movie adaptation is excellent, but I can't find that clip.


Is the cause just? Should the average soldier even care? If it is not just, doesn't the sin lie upon the king's head, because it's the soldier's duty to follow the king?

This one is pretty good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3Gh_Nfls20

This is correct. The guy objectively lost a legit election and then hijacked the government.

I don't necessarily think it was a great idea going in there in force, but the US simply arrested a narco boss, not a "head of state".

Also correct. This is chapter four or five of the Oct 7 war, which was actually started by Iran (the proxies don't wipe even their arses without permission from the guys in Tehran).

I tend to think he wouldn't. I also tend to think the system would intervene. The "button" isn't wired up directly to nuclear missiles, it's just a communication system. There are people in the process.

But it's possible if he perhaps pre-briefed key civilian and military leaders and convinced them that it was a good idea, or at least not too bad of an idea, they might follow orders. For military targets only, nobody is going along with counter-value strikes that would clearly be war crimes under the circumstances.

Don’t I know it. Pilots are better than most at recognizing the irregular. As life under the big top goes, this one gets 5x5 for crossing the ropes. Like when the white tiger ate Roy.

What is a head of state, if not the person who is in charge the state (whether by consent or by force)?



Oct 7 was started by Hamas (the group funded and backstopped by IL via Qatar).

The Oct 7th War? Do tell.

Fair point.

But our general intent and policy to respect heads of state doesn't philosophically apply to obviously illegit rulers.

Maduro was the worst case of that... his populace clearly and quantifiably rejected him.

Even in PRC and DPRK you can kind of argue that rulers have some degree of consent from the governed in that there's been no obvious attempt to replace them.


That's tinfoil hat stuff that we're not going to discuss here. Drop it.

Hamas is an IR proxy, which exists to leverage the perceived plight of the displaced locals to facilitate Iran's ulterior motives.

Disaster might not be a strong enough word.

-We replaced an 86 yr old Ayatollah who had cancer and whose regime had become widely unpopular with his 56yr old, more hardline son while giving the Iranian people cause to rally behind the government they were previously trying to overthrow.

-Iran still has enriched Uranium (which they offered to completely surrender during negotiations before the war started)

-SOH was open for commerce previously. Now Iran is asserting control over it and charging 2M in tolls per ship and opening/closing it at their will.

-Saw F-15s and F-35s hit and taken down, diminishing American military credibility.

-US bases destroyed across GCC and failed to adequately defend these countries against Iranian strikes, further diminishing American credibility and trust

-Gave Iran the greatest sanctions relief in decades, allowing it to collect money to fund it's war effort

-Gave Russia sanctions relief as they were providing the Iranians with intelligence to kill Americans, helping to fund the enemies' war effort.

Is this the plenty we have to show for this conflict?

Don’t forget our tax money in expensive weapons to deal with the 20k drones.

Zero tankers going through the strait right now. So effectively no change, yet oil price has dropped. Eventually this see-sawing of the market based on loud proclamations from both sides is going to be irrelevant. The product won’t be where it needs to be.

Again, drop the IL/Hamas conspiracy stuff. I will have the last word on that for clarity of those who might not know...

Hamas is funded/backed/controlled by Iran. Whatever they may have intended to be, IR hijacked them and their cause, turning them into a proxy for IR's interests.

Is it possible that mossad handed a Hamas member a bag of cash? Sure. That's a routine HUMINT intelligence operation, paying a source. Especially in the ME, where they're not culturally inclined to loyalty to institutions or nations, other than self, family, clan. It's the wild, wild west, not what we're used to where people line up on sides of a clearly marked line of scrimmage, with distinct uniforms.

While we think of NFL football, the game over the is soccer... with everybody on a team of one (brief alliances of convenience are possible).

Feel free to start a separate thread on hamas in hangar talk.

Now back to the Iran to the east...

I’m thinking the timing of this pseudo ceasefire correlates pretty well with the time necessary to get the remaining Marine Expeditionary Unit and the 82nd airborne into position. I think Iran is about to lose possession of a number of islands - perhaps permanently. The big loser? China. They buy the vast majority of Iran’s oil - as much as 1.4 million barrels a day prior to the war.

Worth noting that while you might be able to make a functional weapon with 60% enriched uranium, it would depend on technical skill and it would also be very large and very sensitive to any design, production, or handling errors. Ie, not reliable.

Normally practical nuclear weapons require at least 90% enriched U, and north of 95% for a compact efficient weapon. Little Boy was >90%.

I'd hazard a guess that if IR wanted to detonate a bomb at a fixed location as a test/demonstration, they could probably do that. If they already tried and failed, we might not even know, if it was underground. But I doubt they would even try that, since it would invite consequences from IL for sure.

In order to deliver a weapon via TBM or using one of their long-range heavy bombers (oh wait...), they still have some work to do.

If I was IL, I'd be concerned that they'd build a large crude bomb, load it on a merchant ship, sail it through the Red Sea and Suez, and detonate in the Med off TLV. But IL doesn't need me to figure that out.

Multiple "things" can be true at the same time, even if they produce apparent paradoxes.

History is repleat with hubristic actors attempting to influence events by manipulating individuals or groups that end up not following the script. Possibly like Hamas?

Example:
When asked why Hindenburg, bowing to the advice of Franz von Papen and others, had named Hitler as chancellor in January 1933, von Papen replied, "You are wrong, we have only hired him."

It didn't work out as planned.

Consequences from actions taken continue for eternity.
People who substitute action for deliberation usually get poor results, and frequently seed long-term catastrophe.

Hedgehogs are not noted for either their ability to consider multiple factors simultaneously or for their imagination.

The IAEA has already said they found 84% enriched dust in non-sanctioned facilities so it’s reasonable to assume they are beyond the 60% mark in some capacity.

going to be very hard to hold those islands in the SOH..lives will definitely be lost..idk. I think you may be right, but im not sure it's a good idea.

It’s a terrible idea and everybody knows it.

What we may have here friends, is the Caine Mutiny bridge in the storm scene. Only ours is a very real time drama and there’s no Van Johnson around to make the tough divert call. Much less make it stick.
https://youtu.be/fWYs-bFK9_s?si=xLGoUVpxPOECUVMx

I have to say this again, apparently.
The war is a disaster.
Billions of $ spent, dead soldiers, dead civilians, and nothing to show for it.
Iran now controls the straight.
No clear objective going in. None today.

As repeated many times here and elsewhere; oil is a global commodity. You take a big chunk out of circulation, we all pay more. Short of the U.S. banning oil exports & nationalizing our own industry to include recalibrating our refineries or building new ones to use our own oil (not happening anytime soon), taking that oil off market will hurt everyone. The reason we de-sanctioned Iranian and Russian oil in the middle of a war was to put downward pressure on prices that were quickly becoming untenable. As usual, these issues are far more complex than an evening news sound bite or even a 3hr podcast hosted by a UFC fighter can convey.

Oh, absolutely. And it would have been far easier to just look the other way in WWI and just concentrate on Japan in WWII and let the UK and the USSR fight it out with Nazi Germany and Italy. The US sustained a lot of casualties and civilian rationing that lasted until 1946 ( https://www.nationalww2museum.org/wa...ng-during-wwii) and incurred a lot of debt that we could have avoided had we let the rest of the world just beat itself to death protected by our two big moats to East and west.

Not sure we’d have liked the result though.

That’s quite a history lesson to follow up with a quote that isn’t actually from Thomas Jefferson.

I forget, how much did we give Ukraine?

How has the policies against Iran worked from ‘78 to 2/26?

Life was really good, gas was low… things were humming along nicely. It would seem
anyone with a modicum of common sense can conclude that to risk losing that, there was most likely a threat that a President finally had the balls to address rather than saying “Don’t”.

I’ve got between 51 and 111 days for oil to
retreat to $70, the stock market to gain about 1k, no furloughs to happen and no
a/c delivery changes. I like my chances.

I said several pages back oil would retreat 20-30% almost immediately when a deal
was reached. It retreated 17% on nothing more than a ceasefire announcement. Where are my oil” to the moon” chicken littles at?

If this were any other president, Democrat or Republican, the narrative would be far different.

About $127 billion over the four years the war has gone on. Was a good investment in promoting peace and freedom in the world as far as I’m concerned. Of course, that’s before we de-sanctioned Russian oil & tossed their war machine a lifeline. Yep. 5D chess. 😐

Oh, and in case you were curious, estimates range between $20 and $30 billion for what’s been spent in the first MONTH of the Iran war. Of course, that doesn’t consider intangibles like American lives lost or forever changed by wounds suffered in the conflict, the impossibility of replacing out of production aircraft like F-15Es, KC-135s, and E-3s, the fact that we have far outpaced precision ordinance production with the massive amount we have expended, or the fact that we have taught Iran that our bases are vulnerable to $25,000 drones and that they can shut down the straight whenever they like. Then we can talk about the inevitable costs of keeping a force in the region indefinitely to ensure the peace once the dust settles.

Feel free to keep doing you (I have little doubt you will), but I very much prefer the approach where we support a nascent democracy and gut an adversary’s ability to threaten its neighbors with zero direct involvement or lives at risk vs. the one where we Leroy Jenkins our way into an ill conceived and poorly planned operation that leaves American servicemen dead and wounded, depletes our military’s resources exponentially, blows up the world economy, and leaves our enemies in a better strategic position than when we started.

But, hey, that’s just me.

It’s a terrible idea until it actually happens, right? Then it’ll be more winning?

You're correct. Because no other President would have been stupid enough to do this.

such a brave and original take on things. Many previous Presidents have done numerous “stupid” things along these lines. Unless you have ALL the BTS info, you’re just spewing your partisan BS. (I don’t like the situation, either)

Is that even a question? No nukes, no problem. Signal the fleet to make steam. Nice work sailors, try not to get cuffed on shore leave.

Apples and oranges.

Iran is a war of choice that Israel manipulated the US to pursue. It has been a disaster and the US is objectively in a strategically worse position because of it while Iran has been strategically strengthened.

Ukraine is a conflict initiated by Russian aggression rather than a war of choice. Supporting Ukraine has resulted in Russia and its military being significantly weakened, a good thing given they are a chief adversary to US interests around the world.

In any case, the aid we have provided to Ukraine pales in comparison to that given to Israel over the years, so I'm not sure this point has the salience you think it does.


Dissent against the government in Iran was at an all time high until we started dropping bombs. Who knows if the regime would have survived succession once the elder Khomeini, who was 86 and ailing with cancer, would have died a natural death in the next 6 months to a year. That probably would've been the best bet to achieve regime change.

Instead we made him a martyr and made ourselves the villain by threatening to genocide the Iranian people.

I'm glad you have blind faith in a President who has grown increasingly deranged and erratic, posting evermore unhinged rants. Despite your trust, all reporting indicates that he did so at the behest of the Israel rather than due to any specific threat on the ground. There was no evidence of an imminent threat from Iran.

I think it's less about having the "balls" to do it than having the good sense to recognize that US and Israeli interests are not one and the same.

Ironic though that you talk about "balls" and machismo even though he has thrown a weeks long temper tantrum about how NATO hasn't come to our aid in our war of choice.

Time will tell whether you are right. However pegging all your hopes to futures prices doesn't reflect reality. Futures pricing may have dropped significantly, but spot prices remain extremely elevated:

"The futures and spot prices are rarely exactly the same, but the gap between them has grown unusually big in the past few weeks, so much so that oil executives and analysts say futures prices no longer accurately reflect the extent of the supply shock that the world is experiencing.

“The futures market is not representing the on-the-ground and on-the-water reality of oil at all,” said Vikas Dwivedi, global energy strategist at Macquarie Group, an Australian financial services firm. “It’s quite broken.”

Mike Wirth, the chief executive of Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company, expressed similar concerns last month at a Houston energy conference, CERAWeek by S&P Global.

“Physical prices and physical supplies would reflect a tighter market than I think the forward curve reflects,” Mr. Wirth said, referring to the futures market."

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/10/b...il-prices.html

Nah. The fact you said that shows your bias / side you’re on.



This war is stupid. Period, full stop. He’s doing the exact same thing he said he would not do, ran on not doing, and in fact, accused that the Democrats would start a war with Iran and take us into another ME war.

Someone would have to do it eventually, democrat or republican. No one would let them get a nuke. And if there was evidence they had enriched to 84% 3 years ago, it’s not a stretch that they were close to doing so now with the delivery vehicles they already have.

Unfortunately, it’s somewhat of a dichotomy given the stranglehold the Islamists have on the government. Complete annihilation or let them get a nuke.

I can’t wait for Iran to finally agree to stop making nuclear weapons and agree to allow outside inspectors to ensure there is no illegal enrichment going on.

Yeah, unfortunately there is actually no way to do that in a manner which they would comply. That’s why JCPOA was a pipe dream. Unless there was a way to remove every ounce of nuclear material and forever prevent it from entering the country covertly, both of which would never happen, they would always seek one. It’s just the nature of terrorists. Negotiating with them is a fool’s errand.

Oh ok. I guess JD is going to Pakistan just to eat biryani and play golf. Someone should really tell him about the whole fool’s errand thing. But I’m sure this Khamenei is so honest compared to the last one.

I agree, you should finish what you start.