Is it though? It might actually be good reporting of current events.

The Pentagon just asked for a $200 Billion supplemental. Enough to fund the war for another year at least. They know it's going to be nothing but mission creep from here on out.

Everyone thought George Foreman was winning the Rumble in the Jungle. Ali was up against the ropes while Foreman was unloading huge volleys of punches on him. But poor George exhausted himself, and Ali took over.

We're expending millions of dollars per missile to take out Shahed flying bombs that can be assembled in a garage.

It's hubris to go into this Rope-A-Dope blindly. And hubris has been this administration's motto.

Finding it is a challenge, but also less significant if their only refinement capability is neutralized to circling rubble quickly in a car.

I don’t watch the view. I’m basing my point on listening to direct, shifting, frequently contradictory statements from POTUS and high level cabinet members.

-I’m not sure specifically what you mean by missile bases. We have total air domination and have essentially run out of targets. Barring regime change or boots on the ground, how do we make sure “they can never rebuild”. What will stop them from rebuilding, assuming we aren’t there forever occasionally dropping JDAMs?

-their navy is already destroyed

-again, barring regime change or BOG, how do we ensure they don’t start again? How do we get the nuclear material that is scattered got knows where all over Iran?

I've deleted numerous such posts, more than on the other side actually. If I missed one, report it and give us time to get around to it.

There's no need in these thread to discuss or reference domestic politics or voters.

Wow, so you are in saying in only two short weeks we have accomplished 80% of our military objectives? God Bless the USA (I hope that dose of patriotism didn't trigger some of you as I know it tends to do sometimes)

Put up the Mission Accomplished banner!

Again, we are the best military in the world and I am proud of my fellow service members over there.

But don’t you see the pickle we’re in? Iran has no incentive now to not just launch 1000 dollar drones from pickup trucks whenever they want to keep the straight closed. Barring regime change or boots on the ground a trillion dollar military CAN’T stop that.

As I've said, I did not approve of this adventure. But now I am interested in how it's going to play out.

Nobody in the SCIF had any illusions about the SoH, I was frankly surprised that IR waited as long as they did. Mitigation measures were devised, but ultimately it was going to come to NCA as to whether gain would be worth the pain. NCA decided (I assume he was briefed on the plan).

It's entirely possible that we've serviced > 50% of DMPIs. That's just math.

That's not the same as overall operational, or strategic, objectives.

Long-term, they can be blockaded, including their oil exports.

This whole thing is a mess (which is why no previous admin went there). But it's a bigger mess for IR.

There is possibly a little more to the story..."

Navy Cmdr. Conrad Chun, a Pentagon spokesman, said the banner referred specifically to the aircraft carrier's 10-month deployment (the longest carrier deployment since the Vietnam War) and not the war itself: "It truly did signify a mission accomplished for the crew."[10]

On April 30, 2008, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said: "President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said, 'Mission accomplished for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission.' And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner."[19] In November 2008, soon after the presidential election in which Democrat Barack Obama was elected to succeed him, Bush indicated that he regretted the use of the banner, telling CNN, "To some, it said, well, 'Bush thinks the war in Iraq is over,' when I didn't think that. It conveyed the wrong message."[20] In January 2009, Bush said, "Clearly, putting 'Mission Accomplished' on an aircraft carrier was a mistake."[21]

Bad Optics.
.............

If “this is all bad and will only get worse” is the APC threshold for “derangement syndrome”, there are an awful lot of people here guilty of BDS and ODS. Remember when wearing a bicycle helmet was cause for mass hysteria? Point being, we should be able to call a spade a spade here. It is apparent that we have an administration that is making decisions without fully understanding the consequences and that such ill advised “excursions” have the potential to have dire consequences for our profession. Maybe it’ll all work out in this case (I sincerely hope it does), but I would prefer a little more measure from the people who have been entrusted with making such consequential decisions.

Maybe, but the US stands to lose a LOT more than Iran does in this whole ordeal. I don't really care how bad it is for them, I care how bad it is for us and our careers.

And this absolutely was not our fight.

If restricting trade could end authoritarian regimes, then Cuba and North Korea would have failed long ago. The daily cost to the Iranian regime is just a few hundred of their civilians being killed everyday. That’s a cost they have proven they can stomach for decades. But there isn’t enough money in the world for us to continue this style of warfare for much longer than a few months. We will go broke long before the death toll will even be a concern to that regime.

Yes. It’s feasible. For how long, undetermined. Recall all that’s really required is a horizontal non-proliferation treaty. Now why wouldn’t a clerical republic agree to that?

perhaps not. But when a state has been chanting “Death to America” for 47 years, and sponsoring terrorists that have attacked Americans for much of that time, and are about to up their military capability with ICBMs and nukes, you don’t have to be paranoid to believe maybe we need to do something about it.

I thought we did. As a matter of fact, Trump said we “obliterated” their capabilities back in June. What happened?

It clearly would be cheaper to just destroy their oil and gas infrastructure and just leave. Be ripough on Europe and Asia but woukdn’t hurt us all that much.

Do you really think bomb damage assessment Intel is 100% accurate? On deep underground bunkers?

More fool you then. If you don’t get secondary explosions (which with 60% enhanced Uranium you won’t) BDA likely doesn’t mean squat. I used to work in an underground bunker with a rubble field over it and it was ALLEGEDLY good to withstand tactical nukes. Fortunately, I never had occasion to test that though.

https://i.imgur.com/wLGmtpd.png

https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/...are-fake-news/

So tell me, were they lying then or are they lying now?

Yo, judge, winning without strength of purpose is possible. Comes a lot sooner with it of course. Hoot & holler at tailgate parties. Place bets on the odds line. Life is unforgiving to mistakes. We demand payment for this job. No excuses.
https://youtu.be/O31rBYqYkuQ?si=5qnwvvj7OBpPT4gp

Oh so he lied then…what?

It wouldn't hurt us all that much? ROFLMAO that's 🤣

Welp, just got a message from our CEO saying they are expecting Oil to hit $175/ Barrel. Thats a wee bit concerning.

So let's summarize for the moment, the current economic effects of the war and ask: who is benefiting?

Crude oil has nearly doubled in cost, thereby pumping significantly more revenue into the coffers of .. Russia and Iran. Some of the added dollars you pay at the pump, are directly funding those regimes. And now that we're lifting sanctions on Russian oil (with SecTreas contemplating doing the same to Iranian oil), we're helping our enemies earn even more money, with which to buy more weapons and strengthen their own military capabilities.

American oil companies will also see their profits increase significantly. None of that, however, will be returned to consumers. Chevron execs will do very well from this whole quagmire.

Weapons manufacturers will all do quite well.

The American taxpayer, meanwhile, is now being asked to pony up an additional $200 BN , which will of course be rolled into the already catastrophic national debt. Overall inflation will absolutely increase (there is no way it can't, considering that the cost of oil directly affects so many of the goods that we buy.) Yet at the same time you'll see economic growth slow or reverse, because when gas goes to $10/gallon (as it might well do), consumer spending will absolutely take a hit.

For those of you who remember the late 70s, that's what stagflation was. Rising prices coupled with a shrinking economy and rising unemployment. The last time stagflation happened, it was triggered by an oil shock created by OPEC. This time -- it'll be entirely our own doing. A rather stunning "own goal." Bravo!!

So just to review:
Essentially what we're accomplishing is a wealth transfer from American consumers (and consumers in allied countries) to a couple of pretty terrible regimes, plus the execs and shareholders of a few very large companies (oil and defense, mostly). That flow of wealth will directly strengthen our adversaries.

So much winning!

Yup I saw yesterday the Saudis are forecasting $180/barrel.

$150/bbl is generally considered the level at which the American economy will tip into a severe recession.

Please tell me that’s fake or the Onion. Did the WH press really put that out there? Wow!

Generally, in a war, BOTH SIDES LIE, if only by omission. After the Battle of Savo, the US didn’t admit it had lost 1000 personnel and three heavy cruisers in a 21 minute night engagement delaying even the notices of death for almost three months.

https://www.history.navy.mil/about-u...09/h009-1.html

An excerpt:

Yeah, the only difference is this administration was very obviously full of [mod edit] from the get go. Unless you are neck deep into the cult, anyone with multiple brain cells knew there was no way of knowing their nuclear program was "obliterated." Questioning that was not "fake news."

It's a trick question. The answer is not lying then or lying now. It's both.

So taking them at their word about a imminent nuclear threat in March 2026, when they were lying about destroying the imminent nuclear threat in June 2025, is just plain dumb.

The "both sides lie" BS is a cop out and a poor attempt to handwave the fact that this administration quite literally ran on no new wars, and ran on the idea that if Kamala were president, we would go to war with Iran. If any MAGA voter can't call this for what it is, they are truly in a cult.

We are in a war with Iran, and we have been lied to plain and simple.

US Pauses Sanctions on Iranian Oil

I thought this was satire at first…

It hit $150 in 2008 IIRC, which with $4/gal gas was when the economy started to crumble.

$4 in 2008 is $6 in 2026, but wait, there's more. CAFE average fleet fuel economy was ~25 mpg in 2008, today it's ~34, a 35% increase. So $4 gas has a similar effect to the overall economy as $8 would in 2026.

Except the price of oil affects a lot more than what you pay for auto gas. Pretty much every physical product you can buy, goes through multiple shipping stages. And then you've got things like jet fuel -- if you saw Scott's note today, oil at $175/bl will cost United 250 percent of its best-ever annual profits. I could go on, but auto gas is just one small component of the price shock that's coming if this war continues much longer. We've seen this movie before. "Stagflation II: Trumpflation" will be one for the history books.

U
 

I'm dying to hear the MAGA crowd's justification for this one.

It was Sun Tzu in the Art of War that famously said: “They know Kamala and her warmonger Cabinet will invade the Middle East, get millions of Muslims killed and start World War III,” he adds, pledging to “BRING BACK PEACE!”

Tulsi gabbard admits iran did not rebuild its nuclear capes and declined to answer if they were an imminent threat to the united states. Yay team!

Seriously…this is one of those ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ moments. I can’t wait to hear the MAGA spin on this one. Go ahead, Dear Leader loyalists….

I don’t understand it. So we are at war with them, but we LIFT the sanctions on their oil, which is now worth double the price on the open market, BECAUSE we’re at war with them, and they can now use this windfall, to help wage war against us…