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Trump just announced they destroyed all military targets on Kharg Island, so, presumably they'll conquer that?
Kharg Island, I have learned through situation monitoring, is the way Iran processes 90% or so if its oil for export.
I have no idea how sane this is. Maybe it'll be fine?
Sounds like more bad news for oil prices.
At worst we are seeing a slow but emerging strategy of just running Iran into the ground like with Syria and all the rest. Where sub par targets get selected due to a lack of better options. The decision makers have to make decisions, after all.
Sub par targets? Kharg Island is one of the most important targets in any Iranian scenario because it’s where all the oil gets processed. Please stop thinking in hour-long news cycles and imagine what an Iranian operation would look like if it was planned to take five weeks and we were only halfway into it.
I like this game we're playing where there's definitely a plan that's been clearly communicated, if you ignore half of what POTUS says, a third of what the SecState says, and two thirds of what the SecWar says.
Why do you think that press releases are a reflection of the true plan? I'd argue the opposite - that the Trump admin uses deliberate strategic ambiguity in their public statements. To quote 2016 candidate Trump: "I don't want to broadcast to the enemy exactly what my plan is."
Because that's been the expectation of every American president in wartime basically forever. That the president and his administration would clearly communicate the causes of the war, the motivations behind the actions of the war, the aims of the war. To do otherwise is morally unacceptable to me.
To accept that Trump has a plan but is lying to us about it repeatedly is to accept the status of subject rather than citizen, to be a slave rather than a man. "L'etat? C'est lui!" You seem to draw some line that Trump is lying to the press, he isn't lying to the press, he's lying to us.
I'm not anti-Trump or against regime change in Iran in principle, but I'm not going to "trust the plan." That's un-American.
Congress has the power to declare war (a point I agree on), but do the people? Should we hold a referendum before we attack our enemies?
I consider this perspective naive to the reality of military conflict. Apparently a big reason we struck when we did is because we had accurate intelligence that multiple Iranian leaders were in one place, and we had to act quickly to take advantage of the opportunity. There's a reason the executive is in charge of this - because it requires decisive action.
I'm sorry, but the expectation that the military explain its goals to you during the conflict is inane. Not just military goals, but diplomatic ones too, are closely held secrets. Why? Because we are in conflict with an adversary and denying them information is the obviously correct thing to do. Trump is refreshing in this aspect.
Too many of our Presidents are afraid to take action because of their fear of poll numbers. Talk to me in a few months when we actually know the results.
What comment are you replying to exactly? It sure ain't mine. Either that or you're truly arguing for a system of periodic slavery. Nowhere did I ask that the president share targeting information or war plans, just
That's not a big lift, if you have clear justifications for the war.
Maybe you missed that part. The state department has publicly facing documents describing our goals in our relationships to different countries, but they also have secret documents for the same, because the true motivations behind many of our actions are not the same as the gloss that political actors put out in press gaggles.
Beyond that, you're asking for
In other words, what our military objectives are. This is exactly what I'm objecting to. If we said 'our aim is to take out Iran's missile program' or 'to find and destroy nuclear facilities' or 'to kill XYZ leaders' or 'to stabilize oil shipping in the Strait' etc. etc. - now the enemy knows exactly they need to focus their strategy on to stop us. Surely you can understand that?
Even beyond that, the US has communicated the causes of the war, you just apparently don't think they're being clear enough. E.g. "Which is it? Are we taking out their nuclear capability or are we helping protestors?" When in reality, there are many interlocking reasons for the conflict and many of the actors, even within the US government, have different motivations. It is an error to try to simplify and say "This is the real reason," but it does appeal to people to try to do so. That's a big part of why many people say things like, "It's all because of Israel," or "It's all because of oil," and cease thinking further. It absolves them of the difficulty of weighing multiple factors.
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