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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   12143 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026

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Except (Sen. Chris Murphy, D-CT):

I was in a 2 hour briefing today on the Iran War. All the briefings are closed, because Trump can't defend this war in public. I obviously can't disclose classified info, but you deserve to know how incoherent and incomplete these war plans are. Here's what I can share:

Maybe the lead is that the war goals DO NOT involve destroying Iran's nuclear weapons program. This is, uh...surprising...since Trump says over and over this is a key goal. But then of course we already know air strikes can't wipe out their nuclear material.

Second, they confirmed "regime change" is also NOT on the list. So, they are going to spend hundreds of billions of your taxpayer dollars, get a whole bunch of Americans killed, and a hardline regime - probably a MORE anti-American hardline regime - will still be in charge.

Ok, so what ARE the goals? It seems, primarily, destroying lots of missiles and boats and drone factories. But the question that stumped them: what happens when you stop bombing and they restart production? They hinted at more bombing. Which is, of course, endless war.

And on the Strait of Hormuz, they had NO PLAN. I can't go into more detail about how Iran gums up the Strait, but suffice it say, right now, they don't know how to get it safely back open.

You are right that Hegseth agrees with Trump:

The mission of Operation Epic Fury is laser-focused. Destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure, and they will never have nuclear weapons.

So, missiles and missile production, fairly straightforward and measurable. Naval "destruction", less. Other miscellaneous infrastructure, obviously not a goal. Deny nuclear weapons? See briefing. It IS, don't get me wrong, a goal, but the only method is: 'hope Iran gives up and negotiates at some point'. That's it. That's the whole strategy. That's kind of a shit strategy, unless we're going to go all WW2 Japan and drop nukes on civilian centers, or some other type of total war shit. (And as mentioned upthread, mutually assured oil production destruction is an option but an insanely bad one)

In other words, there IS a strategic plan but the ACTUAL (tactical) plans we have don't match the grand strategy. At all. IMO, that's enough to fairly claim that there isn't a [real/authentic] plan (functionally speaking).

The most likely reason Senator Murphy can report all this without disclosing classified info is he's just making it up.

Chris Murphy is not a neutral observer, he’s a senator on the anti-Trump team who stands to benefit politically if the story is “Trump has no plan”.

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