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It doesn't take a Thiel-tier political genius to see that 'starting a guaranteed-loss war with Iran' will greatly damage Trump and perceived Trump allies.
Fuel prices were very damaging to the Biden administration. Humiliation/botched withdrawal in Afghanistan was pretty damaging. Amp both factors up considerably, what does that do to Trump?
Can't keep draining the SPR forever, can't keep manipulating markets with announcements forever. How can Trump survive midterms if there is a fuel crisis? There will be a fuel crisis by September unless Iran opens the straits. How can Trump survive midterms if he makes objectively humiliating concessions to Iran, who is not exactly beloved by Republican voters? They've been told that the war has been won about a dozen times by now, so a humiliating defeat is not going to go down well.
There can't be an 'Only Trump could go to Iran' moment like Nixon, not after a surprise attack Trump started. Few consider world-historically deft diplomacy to be a Trump strength either.
Thiel is to the left as Soros is to the far-right, they hate him a lot. But the left actually goes after enemies with institutional power.
Now I predict someone is going to come and suggest a military breakthrough will rescue the day for Trump and America. But what military breakthrough can there be? If there are amazing anti-drone weapons or other wonderweapons, why haven't they been used already? Or used against the Houthis earlier? If the straits can be secured, why haven't they been secured already? If there is ongoing work to degrade Iranian capabilities that will soon show fruits, why has the US been so quick to look for a diplomatic solution, why accept a partial truce that logically enables Iran to regroup and prepare for further fighting? If the blockade was going to degrade Iranian oil infrastructure why hasn't this happened already or when Iran lowered oil production in 2020? If Iran were to be more aggressively bombed, how would this prevent Iran destroying more oil infrastructure and heightening the fuel crisis?
US can end the Iran War in 36 hours if we wanted to. We choose not to because of stupid liberal war ethics. And that’s without using nukes. A few key hits on infrastructure and Iran surrenders.
That strikes me as wishful thinking. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan surrendered, they had to be taken, and each of them took more than 36 hours, as would Iran, due to their geography and population, if nothing else.
I am specifically saying “Not if you do war crimes”. We clearly can’t do regime change etc with just air strikes on military targets. But we do have the ability to bomb basically anything in the country. We can nearly completely cut power/water in Iran.
The regime will shoot protestors to maintain power. If we credibly threatened civilian infrastructure and it became topple the regime or die I think we could succeed.
You said you can "end the Iran War", how do you propose cutting power, and ruining their infrastructure will do that? They have stockpiles, underground bases, and a fanatically devoted military. They'll keep shooting at ships until you mop them all up. I'm not saying you're unable to do that, but thinking you can do that in 36 hours is delusional.
How well can a modern army operate without electricity? Can you make drones in the dark? Do starving populations riot for regime change? Do starving soldiers still fight?
There are good reasons to not do things that lead to a large loss of civilian human life. But let’s not act like it wouldn’t be effective.
No, but you can store them.
Who cares? Are they going to stop you from shooting at ships from your secret underground bases?
Who says they're starving?
“Can store them” - eventually run out.
if you don’t control your own country and hinterland then the underground missile launch points you propose eventually run out of supplies
“who says their starving” That is why you take out civilian infrastructure. Cut electricity, power, key bridges and suddenly your farms don’t have irrigation and the food disappears.
So all you did was ignore the entire point I made of taking out civilian infrastructure. You just ignored it. You didn’t even counter that it would fail for x,y,z reason. Which it may.
How long would America last if a country had air superiority and bombed every power plant and oil refinery?
But certainly after much more than 36 hours.
You can also easily store years worth of food.
Your point is moot. Taking out the civilian infrastructure will not help you end the war.
Depends on the war objectives. If the goal was to get America to retreat from some distant part of the world, that would work. If the goal was to conquer and occupy America, it would have been a nightmare for anyone that tried.
The current American goal of opening the Strait of Hormuz is closer to the latter scenario than the former.
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