BigObjectPermanenceShill
No bio...
User ID: 4286
BigObjectPermanenceShill
16d ago
Are we still doing this? Which is it, 39th time? Are Pakistanis fabricating this again? I understand that Trump really, really wants a deal with Iran, he is generally an enjoyer of Deals (wrote a whole book on that, I recall) and more immediately there's the issue of midterms. But Trump has kept announcing this deal, and every damn time it fell through, sometimes with Iranians flat out denying that they even were in contact with the US. I am skeptical about this one too.
The problem is that a) Iran demands for Israel to be subject to the Lebanon-specific terms of the deal, which is not in Trump's authority to guarantee even if he were to agree, nor is it something we can expect of Witkoff and Kushner to approve of, and b) Iran prefers the (painful) stalemate situation to a quick deal that'll result in them being decapitated half a year or a year later, so they will be insisting on a deal that allows them to deter further aggression long-term, which likely means at least the removal of US bases in the region and preserving uranium to keep threatening (even if not implementing) nuclearization.
The whole American posture seems to be premised on expectation that they'll blink, psychologically break and act like an irrational actor. But they have been supremely, coldly rational, modulo some misfires. Why would that change? I mean, even critics of the operation acknowledge that "…Iran should have been dealt with eventually". Do you think they don't get the gravity of the American bipartisan consensus that they're a nuisance to be "dealt with"? There was a more reasonable idea of repeatedly killing every new leader, until the US lands on either a pliant one (Delcy Rodríguez playbook) or one dumb/cowardly enough to reach for a vacuous deal. For some reason – maybe their successful proof of the capability to wreck GCC oil and gas infrastructure, maybe their improved opsec, maybe Pentagon's concern about exhaustion of the munitions stockpile, maybe the vague guess that this still isn't a great plan, I don't know – it was abandoned. So you're stuck with rational Iranians who know they have no choice but to stall and demand a deal which leaves them in a stronger position than ever conceived of before the war. Understandably, the US would rather not accept such terms.
So I'm calling BS on this deal too. Someone will have to give before any real deals can be made.
BigObjectPermanenceShill
28d ago
Most of it obviously happens in Latin America, Nessus is often mapped to Buenos Aires. There are alternative theories, of course.
BigObjectPermanenceShill
28d ago
I want to clarify that I was totally against starting any military conflict with Iran to begin with. However, now that direct hostilities have started, we have to decisively finish any conflict with countries whose official slogan is "Death to America"
…if your problem is with the slogan, then why oppose starting the conflict? Their slogan didn't change, though I suppose they now chant it with more sincerity.
BigObjectPermanenceShill
28d ago
Yes, 36 hours. A few well-placed hits, and they surrender. They're just not realizing how they're outmatched, they think the US is bluffing, the "whole civilization will die tonight" stuff was a joke, but no, it's totally serious. If only liberals weren't in the way…
Sure.
It is edifying to reread the posts around the start of the war, when it was actually measured in hours. I suggest this one. I'll even quote it in full, it's so amazing.
Are we in a new age of hyperpower?
OK, this war in Iran is only 2 days old, and as we all know "truth is the first casualty of war." So this is very much a hot take, and we'll need a lot more time and thoughtful analysis to see how this plays out.
But right now, as an American watching the news, I'm feeling a bit drunk on national power. I can only imagine how Trump and other leaders must be feeling, let alone the actual soldiers who drop the bombs. Already this year we've fought and- it seems- won two wars! The first one with absolutely no losses, and this one also seems quite low casualty. This was done purely with American military (and help from Israel), no NATO help necessary. Iran has spent the last 40 years building up a gigantic military, and now it all just looks like an absolute joke. All their leadership is dead within the first day, and the US has massive air superiority over most of the country. It's now basically just a choice of what targets we want to bomb.
I took this chance to go check back in on Venezuela. I couldn't find many good sources there, but so far it seems... basically fine? There's no civil war or hardline Maduro loyalists fighting to the death. The new president has taken over with basically no issues, and she seems to be cooperating quite well with the US. Lots of Venezuelans are happy that this happened. Of course there are still many problems with the country, but it's fair to chalk that war up as a win.
But what about China? We're supposed to be in a new "multipolar" age, right? The US can't just go throwing its weight around wherever it wants because there are other powers to stop us. Iran was heavily involved in selling oil to China, and was a military ally of them through the Shanghai Cooperative Organization. Well, so far all China has done is say mean things about us. They can't even say it openly, they have to do it in phone calls to Russia. So apparently they're not much of a counter at all.
I think we've reached a tipping point where US air power just crushes all of its adversaries with no counter. It's not any one weapon, but a combination of factors- more satellites, better human intelligence, more stealth aircraft, better radar, more JDAMs and stand off munitions, cyberattacks, and now AI to help us identify targets. The US can completely devastate most countries, even large ones like Iran, without putting a single boot on the ground, unless we want to send special forces to arrest someone like we did to Maduro. And we've got 100 next-gen stealth bombers currently in production, plus... whatever the hell the F47 next-gen fighter can do, so I expect this dominance to increase over the next decade.
But what about nukes? Soviet nukes held the US in check throughout the cold war, surely those also put a break on US imperial ambitions? Well, to some extent they still do, but the US has made some very impressive progress in missile defense lately. THAAD is now hitting its targets with an impressively high success rate, and was recently used to help defend Israel against Iran's missile barage. The main limiting factor there is just building more interceptors, and Trump is pushing for massive funding there as part of his Golden Dome project. That also opens up some intriguing options in space- and, oh hey, would you look at that, the US also has SpaceX utterly dominating LEO launch, and it will likely get even more dominant there if/when Starship becomes practical. Meanwhile China has a relatively small nuclear arsenal, and Russia's is just leftover Soviet junk that might not even work anymore. I think we are rapidly reaching a point where the US has overwhelming nuclear dominance.
The question then becomes- what do we do with this power? Trump used to always preach the merits of isolationism, and he made a big splash early in the Republican primary by being the only candidate who strongly denounced the Iraq war. He clashed heavily with Marco Rubio over that issue. But now he has Rubio as his Secretary of State, and he seems to have rapidly "evolved" to favor military interventions. But, being Trump, he still makes speeches about "taking Venezuela's oil" and other me-first boasting. So far no such boasts about Iran, but I can only assume there will be some.
My guess? He keeps doing this. Cuba is an obvious target, they're pretty much falling apart already. Next would be Panama, where he always talked about wanting the Canal back. After that... I have no idea. Colombia? Mexico? Somalia? Cambodia? He could potentially attack all of those places, if each one is as fast and decisive as this current Iran war seems. I... don't think Trump would actually invade Greenland, or attack China, but... who can say? If he chose to do those things, who could stop him?
Anyone ready for Colombia? Mexico? Somalia? Cambodia? Salivating at the thought of more hyperpower dominance?
BigObjectPermanenceShill
28d ago
The actual obvious part is that Thiel has residences in New Zealand and Uruguay, and I suspect in more places (haven't checked). He's an eccentric billionaire with idle doomsday fantasies. He can afford a mansion in Buenos Aires as well, just for meme value provided by Milei and Nazi jokes alone.
More speculatively: this is, if anything, bullish on Trump. Argentina isn't some neutral safe haven. It cooperates with the USG under Democrats eagerly: consider that in 2022, they've arrested and extradited two random Ruskies, at the American behest, to the US. They'll extradite an American charged with some crimes even more readily. Thiel presumes that Trumpism will survive, and in fact succeed with the Donroe Doctrine program, the entire South America becoming integrated into the new security regime, as per the National Security Strategy document. Palantir will be key to this. And he expresses his enthusiasm by claiming a foothold at the tip of the cone.
I wonder what you wanted to say here.
This does look very funny. The plan trusters certainly have given up on the very idea of credibility as a positive value for American Hyperpower. The capacity to issue a threat or a promise and expect the world to understand with bone-chilling certainty that it will be followed through and backed by the entirety of Imperial might is just… not needed. Instead, this sneaky, shifty, superficially clever "keep 'em guessing" mentality of a twitchy hobo with a shiv is honestly embraced. They even take pride in Trump's labels for his planned hijinks, like Bridge And Power Plant Day.
But it's fundamentally a posture befitting an underdog.
More options
Context Copy link