With respect…..you are are missing the point

This whole timeline is a SNL skit, starting at the ride down the escalator.

Hopefully the point isn't partisan in nature.

I wasn’t attacking the fact the you were a reservist. I was stating the way things are (or at least were). If as a reservist you were in the office for a few days a month, you couldn’t own any program or process. We had reservists on EAD who brought lots of corporate knowledge from other areas of government who were just as competent as their AD peers.

lolz, the point has nothing to do with partisan politics. It wouldnt matter who was in charge. Starting a war with no clear ability to keep 20% of the worlds oil supply moving and ultimately asking for help with hat in hand from the chinese like a poor little orphan, weeks into the conflict is beyond ridiculous and embarrassing. I question the actual sanity of anyone that thinks both of those objective facts are in any capacity good for the US.

If anyone reads that as a partisan take then they need to reevaluate their ability to remain objective

I think you are very right to throw this out there. My company and I would imagine all of the companies that make up employers on this thread have the FAR 121.627 responsibility written into the FOM or equivalent. For those going to another tab to google, it is basically saying the the PIC cannot allow a flight to continue toward any airport for which it has been released if in the opinion of the captain the flight cannot be operated safely. Now I can tell you, having worked at JetBlue, the company really pushes the boundaries of that definition for every single flight to Port Au Prince……but I would Imagine a maritime equivalent exists for FAR 121.627.

That's why I said up front we aren't going to discuss how we got here or why, it doesn't matter at this point (as I've said countless times, I don't think this was a good idea, like about 70% of the rest of America). We wouldn't even be discussing it all except for the fact that it's going to affect the airlines.

It is a valid point, and reportedly one of the factors limiting current traffic.

But those crews operate in pirate-infested waters all the time, have for years in the modern era (for millennia, historically). It's just a matter of providing the right mitigation and potentially compensation.

Also aircrew are at quite a bit more risk from kinetic actions than 12 guys on a VLCC/ULCC... those things are *really* massive, so while they can suffer costly damage and potentially leak oil with really costly environmental consequences, they're not likely to sink and the crew isn't at anywhere near the same risk as aircrew.

Point being, long-term, global oil supply will not remain choked off because of crews... they'll be protected, incentivized, or replaced.

Guys, guys, guys. We are still paying less than we were for 89 from 2022-2023. Chill.

Too many people getting spun up. Natl avg in 2022 was $4.13...so.

We are absolutely obliterating a thorn in the side of the world, aka Iran. Step back and bask in the effective efforts of our forces and the IDF.

This operation is a perfect example of the insane shortsightedness and bonkers level of instant gratification that we, the US, and more of the world have now; no one stands to have any inconvenience in their lives or God forbid, actual sacrifice.

Love the news reads of "war drags on in the Middle East." GMAFB, ops haven't been happening for a month and they write it like its 5 years into a war.

True. Everything has a price. Follow the money. Clarity approaches 20/20 the nearer you get.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Felt[/url]

https://youtu.be/vETxuL7Ij3Q?si=ijdANHKUU8_K_ky9

Dawg....

Nobody here is worried about our ability to engage the Iranian's conventional military. What I don't want is to pull another Iraq. Remember that? Rolled into Baghdad in the blink of an eye, did the "Mission Accomplished" banner on a carrier and everything.....and then we stayed a REALLY long time. Nobody wants to stay there a really long time. They say they have no intention of doing that. I'll believe it when I see it.

Very true. I agree and hope we avoid that.

and yet, they’ll have to be dealt with sooner or later. you choose. iran is much more of a threat than iraq ever was. so we screwed the pooch on iraq. doesn’t mean we say “no more” because of reasons. it’s like saying “why do we have police? haven’t people learned not to commit crime?”

cat…

I don't trust this sudden and convenient change on narrative from the crowd that was chanting "no more pointless wars" a year and a half ago and the same president that denounced this exact thing when his opponent eas in charge. And I haven't seen a compelling enough justification for this change of heart.

So to your analogy: I'm not question why we have police. I'm suspicious as to why this officer is so hell bent on enforcing a specific law when during his job interview he told us all that enforcing this specific law was wreckless.

Never thought I'd see the day that POTUS would publicly ask the PRC for military support. And yet here we are.

Separate topic: for those of us hyper-focused on the price of a barrel of oil, you are missing the forest for the trees. It's true that oil has certainly been more expensive, on an inflation-adjusted basis, in our recent history. Gas prices in the US have not (yet) exceeded their all-time highs. The impact on things like airline ticket prices and people's daily commutes (to name a few things) will be obvious to all. The reason we are so sensitive to gas (oil) prices is partly because it's just about the only product in the world where you get multiple daily reminders of the price, simply by passing a gas station, which most of us do many times a day. So the psychological effect of rising gas prices is more acute than it is for other commodities. If the price of wheat rises, you'll eventually notice that bread is more expensive, but it's not driven into your mind multiple times a day.

What is not as obvious is the less visible, but very real, effect of a near-closure of the SOH on all sorts of other things that modern civilization depends on. LNG is one of them. Fertilizer as well -- fully 30% of the world's seaborne-traded fertilizer goes through the SoH. Without fertilizer, you can't grow crops. Without crops, you can't feed people. That's not politics. That's just reality.

So when people say things like "Oil is down today!" as a justification for the current madness we're witnessing, I really feel that they're only looking at one part of the picture.

And then you have the second- and third-level effects, such as:

• Huge boost to Russian oil earnings, which will help them continue to pulverize Ukraine. And if you can watch what's been happening to civilian lives in Ukraine since 2022 without being horrified and revolted, I don't know what to tell you.

• Massive credibility and economic hit to our allied Gulf nations. Those countries have helped enforce a level of stability in the Gulf for decades. While the Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, etc. have plenty of financial reserves to cushion the blows (ie the near total shutdown of commercial aviation, just to name one), the rulers of those nations have (mostly) held Islamic fundamentalism at bay, through a pretty clear bargain with their citizens: we'll keep you rich, and you help us keep the peace. But the current chaos, if prolonged long enough, could lead to significant unrest in those countries, which is the last thing an already-destabilized Middle East needs.

• This has already been raised, but in this current attempt to topple the Iranian regime, we've managed instead to replace an 86-year-old autocrat with his son (likely more hard-line than his father). We also killed his wife, at least one son, his mother, a sister, and likely more. So let's think about that for a moment. You're the new leader of Iran. Your #1 enemy just killed pretty much your entire extended family. How likely are you to behave more rationally than your father? Not bloody likely, I'd say.

I only see three ways this goes:

1) Iraq, but worse. A fruitless attempt to take and hold significant ground in Iran, sparking off a conflict with no end in sight and (realistically) no potential for an American victory.

2) Stalemate. We continue a relentless aerial campaign until we've done to urban Iran what Israel did to Gaza. That won't bring the Iranian regime down. It'll just turn one hundred percent of the population against us. Kill enough civilians, especially kids in schoolhouses, and even the most anti-government folks in Iran will hate us more than they hate Khamenei and his ilk. And then we'll have another 9/11, just maybe with drones instead of hijacked airliners.

3) POTUS declares "victory" and moves on to the next distraction. Hopefully not involving a nuclear-armed state.

To be clear: I detest the Iranian regime with all of my being. (It's personal, for me.) And I supported the June 2025 strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. I'd love to see this regime gone.

But this war is not going to topple the mullahs. Only the Iranian people themselves can do that. All we are doing is creating even more instability in a region that was already waiting to blow.

Trump - "we don't want to say we won too soon...but we won, in the first hour, it was over."

Are any updated reports after the first hour available? Why's he asking for China to help it we won 12 days ago?

Unfortunately, the bandaid should have been pulled off decades ago, but here we are. It was going to happen sooner or later. Later perhaps would have rallied the world into making it Iraq and Pakistan’s largest parking lot, but no one really knows.

As I pointed out in another thread, we cooperate with PRC in that region for anti-piracy on an ongoing basis.

They are practical, not like say IR or DPRK, and careful not to antagonize or alienate us to a degree that prevents collaboration on activities of mutual interest. They do have an interest in global oil prices.

Yes, not ideal at all. But it sounds like junior is in a coma, maybe not going to recover. So hopefully he might just be a virtual figurehead for the committee in charge while they figure out WTF to go from here.

Agree, worst case. But I'm cautiously optimistic that congress will put their feet down at that point, and reclaim the War Powers which they've abdicated (along with so many other powers).

Also tend to think that Trumps inner circle and family will talk him out of that, if he were to decide to go there.

But there is a fine line, we *might* be able to occupy Kharg Island and select beach-front real estate near the Strait with minimal BoG to extort their oil export economy and protect the rest of the world's imports. Maybe without getting into a quagmire. This is what I'd consider the realistic worst case... OIF style BoG is pretty unlikely.

Unlikely I thik. We are being *extremely* selective about targeting, avoiding not only civilians but critical civil and economic infrastructure. Last analysis I saw indicates that the Iranian Man on the Street blames the regime for this mess, not the US (yet). Yes there are always Baby Milk Factories, but as long as 99% of the civil population doesn't have any first-hand experience they might not fall in behind the regime. The military leaders running this grew up learning hard lessons from their predecessors.

Could be. Regime would then have a very strong incentive to lay off the SoH... that might even be explicitly negotiated through cutouts on the DL.

Same. I was not in favor of this, but IL was going in last year regardless, and we had the tools to really get after the problem so it made sense to follow through in 2025.

True, and I'm not optimistic.... IRGC fanatics are deeply embedded in all aspects of society, economy, and government. It's basically like the old KGB... regime falls and what do you get? Putin.

Actually many other gulf nations, especially the GCC, will consider the region to be more stable after this, since IR will have lost all of their air, sea, and most of their TBM capability. IR will almost certainty stay home and lick their wounds for a long time to come, even if their attitude hasn't been adjusted one bit. Especially considering most of their malign influence proxies have already been neutered by IL. I wouldn't have advocated for it, but now that the bandaid is ripped off, it might be better in the long run.

One thing I can say is that IR's intentions towards us couldn't have gotten any worse, they had been systematically killing Americans for a couple decades.

They specifically told us it was thoroughly yanked off and not to question them on it...
https://i.postimg.cc/fLHFMG1D/Screen...6-175158-2.jpg

Yes. That was the first pull. I wasn’t referring to this or that in isolation. Eventually someone was going to have to level that place.

Had it been before the proliferation of cheap drones, this would be looking very different right now.

If only there was a multi year conflict that we are a principle supporter of whose primary means of destruction has been drones that we could intel share with.

Also, I want to point out how silly it sounds to say, effectively, that if they'd be fighting a war that we planned for 20 years ago, things would be different. War has literally always been cutting edge.

It only sounds silly if your opponents version of cutting edge was an F-14 in 2006.

Their version of cutting edge is using cheap flying IEDs against an opponent who only planned on defending against F-14s. It doesn't have to be flashy and $1B to be effective. There are very few countries on earth that are capable of going toe to toe with the US military which, you'd think, we would have figured that out during the 20 year quagmire in that exact same region.

So you are agreeing with me then.

Military procurement really can’t do cheap. Not won’t, but literally can’t. The labyrinthian procurement laws stacked upon one another by Congress over the last hundred years really preclude any but the few big established defense contractors from bidding on pretty much any requests for proposals - just because of the overhead of keeping in place people who understand the damn rules. Then, assuming you really are successful in the years long process you have to split the work up into 40-50 pieces to farm out enough of the work to enough states to assure that Congress will actually fund the production. So the process of contracting is guaranteed to be long and expensive and the production itself will be widely geographically distributed and involve intricate supply chains with all the logistics and management issues that requires.

Worst of all, you have so few competitors due to the resulting defense contractor consolidation that you have no real way of managing them because they are now too damn big to allow them to fail. Look at Boeing and all the problems with the KC-46.The selection of the Boeing bid was made in 2011 as the KCX to replace the KC-135. Now, 15 years later, the KC-135 is still an integral part of the tanker force and Boeing is still working on getting the KC-46 up to the contract requirements. But you can’t really discipline Boeing. You let them fail and no one can support the aircraft they’ve already delivered.

Just out of curiosity, how many of you out there work for airlines still flying the 707?

No, I really didn’t think so.

You have to wonder how the KC46 would have played out had Northrop/Airbus kept their initial win.

yeah. That part of the procurement chain delayed things another 4-5 years IIRC.

My surface level observation of this whole thing: I feel like we tend to so much better quietly with SOF and aerial assets operating quietly than whenever we try these big "conventional" operations in the public eye. The nuke site bombing actually seemed to go well since there was a clearly defined goal and objective.

alt=""url=https://postimg.cc/kDYsZHXJ]https://i.postimg.cc/28rtqpsZ/IMG-7959.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/KvxWKX6H/IMG-7960.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/rFMHd6BH/IMG-7961.jpg



https://understandingwar.org/researc...lenges-remain/

Wait, are you actually saying you think the President launched strikes on Iran to distract from the Epstein Files???

Does this surprise you given all the other insane and downright comical things these people actually believe in?

As part of the debate last summer, people mentioned to the administration that there was trucking activity at the site in the weeks leading up to the bombing and suggested most of the material had been relocated. The administration attacked the reporters who dared suggest that.

Hence the release above.

This is a fair point.

Assessments can and do change. Not sure if that fully explains the ‘now’, or if the Iranians greatly accelerated their efforts, or both.

nothing surprises with these people’s derangement.

the number of L’s they’ve taken since March 2020 is astonishing yet they keep trying.

It is an odd headline. If you pull up that post (it’s still there ironically), most of the quotes refuting the fake news are more measured, indicating a reduction, not elimination of capabilities.

It seems like the “now” was that Israel was determined to seize the opportunity to strike the supreme leader. They gave courtesy notice to the US.

Iran was determined to drag the US into the Israel fight because they lost the Syria/Hezbollah threats to check Israel.

Trump’s options were shoot down Israel planes, withdraw iron dome support for civilians, or hunker down while Iran responded to the Israel strike.

Trump decided to own the whole thing instead of just responding to Iranian aggression provoked by Israel.

Sounds like midnight hammer set them far enough back for Trump to be happy but not for Bibi to be happy, which is why Trump has an obvious pivot.

What evidence to you have which led you to that conclusion?

“Seems” like an Armchair General take, which reveals a pretty stark bias.

I don’t have any evidence.

It’s reported in the news Trump needs congress to do this unless there isn’t time for congress.

The only way to explain the urgency is the idea Israel was going to act alone if need be, and Iran had a creditable threat of attacking US if Iran was attacked by Israel.


Everyone can armchair.

Did Japan surrender to the US because of the atomic bombs destruction or because Russia declared war in Manchuria.

No one can prove Japan was going to surrender anyway without Russia declaring war. It’s just sort of obvious to everyone except the Japanese.

They think we dropped the bomb for no reason, and they would have surrendered when Russia declared war without dropping it. Just a bunch of indiscriminate killers.

No partisan politics unless it matches the political inclination of the two mods here, Fangs and rickair. You people said it was off limits to discuss the why or how we got to this war, and only the impacts going forward could be discussed.

But if you’re asking:

Since you asked the question, I assume it can be answered without getting banned. Yes, one of several reasons. Another reason was the SCOTUS turning down his entire tariff agenda. This was published Feb 21 literally one week before the war on Iran started. A close ally to him saying now an Iran attack would be imminent to try to save and define his legacy.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15579503/amp/Trump-tariffs-defeat-Iran-attack.html