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I made a prediction that Iran might step up attacks before the midterms. Looks like that may be happening and the rates of attacks are up:
Two ships sink near Hormuz after being hit by projectiles amid surge in attacks
Container ship hit by projectile sinks in Strait of Hormuz, Singapore says
The decision to pause the war by Trump remains puzzling to me, and it suggests a lack of conviction in the war effort. A side confident of success would act immediately rather than grant Iran weeks to strengthen its defenses, plan retaliation, consult its allies, and position its assets. One thing it certainly isn't doing is helping with inflation:
Consumer prices rose 3.7% annually in September as gas prices skyrocket
Trump seems to have a plan though, although it is not popular even among Republicans:
Bipartisan group of senators call on Trump to rescind Russian diesel deal
Polling numbers and prediction markets also paint a pretty bleak forecast for the Republicans.
From Nate Silver:
If things go as they seem, we are about to witness the end of the age of Trump. If we get a Blue Tsunami -- and I believe we will -- Republicans are going to turn on him. Why wouldn't they? What can he offer them at this point but big fat L's. The only question now is what comes next on the Right, because it's certainly not Trumpism.
Yeah I predicted shortly after the war began this would continue until after the 2028 election. The Gulf War was an outlier of Middle East conflicts resolving quickly. Iran wants Republicans to lose. And NATO was not going to help either, as they don't feel any inclination to help dig trump out of the hole he created. To profit from this I bet "no on Strait or Hurmuz traffic returning to normal." So far this has been right and extremely profitable. All Iran has to do is just wait for Trump 's successor, presumably Vance, to lose. So far this is working as evidenced by falling approval ratings.
I think this understates the problem. I think a large part of the failures of the Iran war were predictable, but probably not by people in the mainstream, and probably not people in the Trump admin. I have very large outlier views on the matters of Iran and Iran's relations with other countries, which I think would have been necessary to predict what actually happened.
Because yes, NATO not helping is predictable, they barely ever do anything.
What no one in just about ANY mainstream, left or right, warroom would have predicted is that France, Germany, England, etc would be just fine with Iran pirating boats destined for their countries and/or flagged to their countries and/or crewed by people from their countries. Which is what we have seen. Iran bombs a tanker bound for Germany, and Germany just shrugs, or even more derangedly, blames the USA. Its like blaming the SWAT team when a highjacker intentionally kills a hostage during the raid. But this is Europe's mentality now. And IMO not predictable by any mainstream people.
Unless you understood the JCPOA as I did, as tacit approval by all the signatories for Iran to obtain nukes and continue terrorist operations while obtaining nukes for the purpose of deploying them against Israel and ultimately the USA. If you think that is what all those countries actually wanted, then you understand why they act so limply while their ships are bombed by a hostile power.
JCPOA was explicit approval by all the signatories for Iran to maintain, subject to monitoring that ensured they didn't actually enrich to weapons grade while the deal was in force, a nuclear programme that would get them to a place where a c. 2 year breakout was possible (i.e. working centrifuges and a large stockpile of reactor-grade uranium). Iran was complying with their obligations, and the monitoring ended and the breakout process began because Trump tore up the deal in his first term. You don't need to think that anyone was giving Iran tacit approval to nuke Israel for the argument you are making here to stand up, and none of the JCPOA signatories could have given Iran meaningful tacit approval to nuke Israel given Israel's own nuclear deterrent.
Why did a bunch of powerful countries give Iran approval to maintain a dual-use nuclear programme? Because a global coalition was required to contain Iran via sanctions, and it wasn't in the interests of Russia or China to do so (and most Westerners who are not aligned with the US Deep State were sceptical as well, including European elites and Obama's foreign policy team, because Iran was on our side against Al-Quaeda and ISIS at the time).
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