Why Iran? Why Now?

157 thoughts on “Why Iran? Why Now?”

1. Unfortunately, making it quick relies in part on the Iranians. And so far we haven’t killed far enough down their leadership to reach reasonable people

   Meanwhile (h/t Instapundit), the New York Post has an article up about a very short meeting that the Iranian President had with the Supreme Leader.

   Maybe.

   Because the President met him in a darkened room, didn’t actually see the Supreme Leader, and only heard a man’s voice talking. So he’s not sure that he actually met with the Supreme Leader.

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   1. yeah. I know. I found that bitterly hilarious.
      (I check headlines on waking up, to make sure the world is still there.)

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   2. I saw that. I’m not sure you could even do that in a modern spy film without the audience snickering with disbelief.

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      1. Iranian regime, CCP regime, and EU regime legitimating narratives are a wee bit silly, and nonsensical. At least to American culture ears.

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      2. Dragon in the Eiger Sanction is pretty close, though one could see him in the gloom.

         But out here in meatspace? I Would Be Skeptical.

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   3. I STILL think there is the possibility that the “Supreme Leader” is actually dead or comatose, and the IRGC is running the show using the ” Cardboard Ayatollah” as a transparent fig-leaf. And the IRGC are “The Guardians of the Revolution” the hardcore fanatics; even if the Supreme Leader is gone the enemies of the revolution must be punished until the Final War.

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      1. Yes, a lot of people suspect that Khameini the younger is dead. The NYP article noted that even Iranian TV is starting to wonder about the Supreme Leader’s prolonged absence.

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         1. I would be unsurprised if it comes out that Khameini the Younger assumed room temperature not long after the bombing that sent his father to a Very Unpleasant Place.

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            1. It was public he was wounded in the first night strikes. Some open source had him so severely wounded that he’d had to be smuggled to a hospital in Moscow for better docs and to get away from all the stuff in Iran penetrated by Mossad.

               I think he since died. The cutting out of the “political” side of the government by the IRGC, the release of written directives from the prior head creep saying his son absolutely was totally unsuitable because mumble mumble reasons, and the other inside baseball stuff making its way into western sources, all coming out in public, sure reads more to me as a succession struggle between factions rather than an attempt against someone who is actually alive with any intact power base.

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         2. Gee, kinda like Vichy Mitchy McConnell. Supposedly he’s now in a rehab center, but no live pictures, just press releases. You’d think someone would have managed a bootleg by now….

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            1. As mom used to say in the times under the ancien regime “He’s in the freezer.”

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               1. Weekend at Mitchell’s?

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      2. Gayatollah Kardbordy.

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2. Truly, we have been at war with them since the Iranian hostage situation. Or. at least, at war with the insane mullahs running the place. They’ve been fighting a proxy war against us and the rest of the civilized world for years. The dems, infested with marxism and a love for islamists would do nothing to oppose them, would probably try to appease them if they succeeded in blowing up a US city. While violently trying to silence any American who spoke out against them. Yes, I do believe the rot in the D party is that bad

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   1. Yep. Iran declared war on the USA when they stormed the embassy and took Americans hostage while chanting “Death to America” in what is very much a well-recognized “act of war”. They have continued that same policy since that time. The fact that most politicians and many people (but far less than the media likes to portray) don’t recognize that there has been a state of war between Iran and the USA since 1979, does not change that it exists.

      Those who believe that a nuclear Iran can be dealt with the same was as China or Russia are utter fools. Iran is a religious theocracy ruled by people who believe that they have a divine obligation to bring about an apocalypse so as to usher in their vision of an Islamic paradise. Such people are not rational and cannot be deterred the way even someone like Putin can be deterred (Putin is a gangster who while he blusters, is fully aware what using nuke would do to his “empire”).

      The only way to prevent Iran from getting nukes and using them is to destroy the regime. Likewise the only way to stop their campaign of global terror, and their goal of eliminating every infidel from the Earth (starting with Jews of course) is to destroy the regime. Period.

      The ONLY demand we should be making of Iran is unconditional surrender, the way we did with equally fanatical Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Failure to surrender unconditionally should be total war, until in the words of Harry S. Truman “we have completely destroyed their ability to make war”. Period.

      I am old enough to remember when the show that is now known as “Nightline” first aired as a nightly special report called “America Held Hostage”, during the time when Iran took Americans at the embassy hostage. The regime if anything has gotten even more fanatical. Destroy it. Period.

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      1. How do we even accomplish that though? How do we break the will of the Iranian regime and destroy their ability to make war when they are religious fanatics?

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         1. Well…at this point, it looks like we’re doing a modern day version of ye olde siege tactics. Just nationwide rather than citywide, with a blockade in place. Though why we’re leaving the trains running between Iran, China, and Russia, I am not sure.

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            1. At least one of their rail lines has been hit

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               1. Huh. I hadn’t heard that. Thanks!

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         2. From the sound of things, the current president would be more than happy to make nice. He’s spent most of the conflict making it clear that he has no power. The problem people are more than likely the IRGC leadership. Get rid of them, and the problem resolves itself. The religious leadership is likely a non-issue without the IRGC backing them up.

            The current warplan seems to be a combination of taking out IRGC leadership whenever we can find them, removing the regime’s ability to obtain materials and pay its people, and putting the citizenry into a situation where they decide removing the leadership is less risky than hunkering down.

            There were reports a couple of months ago about the IRGC losing control in some areas. But the lack of internet access within the country has made it difficult to get word out about what’s going on.

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         3. Consider how the USA broke the will of the official fanatics of Imperial Japan and destroyed their ability to continue WWII.

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   2. Doesn’t take any wild stretch to believe that. Look what NYC voted for.

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3. Elsewhere some Liberal is claiming that the Obama “deal” with the Iranians was a “Good Deal” (and Trump had no valid reasons for rejecting it).

   Of course, Obama never submitted the deal to the US Senate to be ratified and the Iranians never ratified that “Great Deal”.

   And yes, the Iranians kept talking shit about the US and Obama after that “Great Deal”.

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   1. The only way Obama and the democrat traitors would agree to fighting against Iran was if all Iran’s manhole covers were made of gold and the democrats were promised the rights to pull them all up for themselves. Democrats should just change their name to The Party of Judas.

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   2. By the way, the Best that I can think of Obama’s “Deal” is that Obama wanted some sort of “deal” with Iran BECAUSE Bush “couldn’t” get a deal with Iran. ☹️

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4. “What is peace?….On historical grounds I could argue that it is no more than an ideal whose existence we deduce from the fact that there have been intervals between wars. Not very many such intervals, or very long ones, either” – Jerry Pournelle

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   1. Wait, there are people who do more than pause attacks so that they can continue them more effectively in the future?

      The peaceable and non-violent tendencies of the American Jacksonian can be understood as purely being optics, and the diplomacy of having the winning side in your camp before you formally initiate the attack.

      We can just hide the theory that the Jacksonians are deciding first who rejects peace. We can hide it under the rug, and nobody will see it, and people might take my statements at face value.

      (I have been modded.)

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5. Whirl Peas explains it perfectly.

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6. Warl peas long enough they stop being peas and just become war.

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7. Quick and decisive … but also not slaughtering (or sacrificing) too many American boys (and girls).

   A sort-of-rational approach would be to say that we can accept as many carefully-spent volunteer deaths as the count of innocents we lost in the WTC attacks.

   This balance would at least expose people to the reality that the government now occupying Iran is out to destroy our country and enslave any survivors, and that they will not stop until they run up against someone willing to stop them–and that will probably be their grinning trading partner, China.

   When someone tries to kill you, you can fight, run, or die. A country cannot run. And if you decide to die, you are taking that decision away from every person–adult, child, infant, or toddler–in the victim country. Their blood will be on your hands, and on what remains of your soul.

   The only thing left is to fight. To annihilation, if necessary. God send that it does not come to that, especially when the aggressor is an occupying power, but the choice of crime is made by the criminal, and the choice of war is made by the aggressor.

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   1. I’ll note that my VN era Combat Veteran Mentors taught me that you NEVER sent a trooper in if a projectile will do the job – Understand that one of those was a 2 combat tour Helo pilot, running a flare ship the first time and Aerial Rocket Artillery the second … and also qualified both on the Honest John and the M-110 203mm (8″) howitzer ….

      I have never found reason to doubt his philosophy – if for no other reasons, it meant that there were going to be far fewer friendlies that I would have to patch up.

      I’m just not sure that there is a good way to have a better result in subduing Iran than we did in Iraq or Afghanistan, because a far too small percentage of the Government types – elected (on both sides of the aisle!) and appointed – and an even smaller percentage of ‘average persons in the street,’ truly understand what it will take to truly conquer and subdue a population that is, by Western Standards, far more likely to carry a suicide bomb than a Japanese pilot was to strap himself into a Ohka suicide bomber. The Iranians hold to an Islamic Creed that believes that every death in the Service of Allah – Believer or not – brings the world one step closer to Revealing the 12th Imam, leading to the Final Judgement, and life everlasting for those who believe as they do.

      That, ladies and gentlemen, meets the Western Definition of Murderous Psychopathy!

      And there are far to many of them, and they are spread far too widely, to be able to lock them away safely.

      That, unfortunately, leaves one solution, but it is a solution that might stain the great goodness of the American Soul so deeply, that we, as a people, may never recover. I have grandchildren of an age to be called to serve. Would that I be able to replace one of them at need, but that is now long in the past.

      Sadly, the alternative – to allow such a rabid belief system to take over the world in service of the return of the 12th Imam – is pure suicide for traditional American Values of Freedom – Review those classic concepts in the four of Rockwell’s greatest works “The Four Freedoms,” at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms_(Rockwell). I’ll note that there is much that FDR espoused and did that I personally do NOT agree with, and would like to see rolled back.

      FDR’s Four Freedoms address in 1943 was our version of Churchill’s 1940s speeches that moved the soul of that country to fight on, despite the dark days ahead.

      Would that we had a wordsmith able to craft such a speech, and a Churchillian class statesman to give it with full effect.

      I can recall three such Presidential addresses in my 7 decades of life – “Ask what you can do for Your Country,” “We Choose to go to the Moon,” and “Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down this Wall!”

      and I only remember the first two because of newsreel footage several years later.

      I leave you to contemplate the alternatives which we face, and to make wise choices in the coming mid term elections.

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      1. Yeah, ‘The Four Freedoms’. [spit!]

         The first two are great; that’s why they’re part of the First Amendment. But the other two? ‘Freedom From Want’ and ‘Freedom From Fear’? What do those even mean?

         How, exactly, is the government supposed to provide ‘Freedom’ from want and fear? Because even our massively bloated and corrupt government can’t satisfy everybody’s ‘wants’ (except maybe those that ‘want’ to steal our money). And fear? What if somebody has a fear that is completely irrational? How is the government supposed to ‘free’ them from it? By forcing everybody else to pander to some nutjob’s irrational ‘fear’? Or using psychiatric treatment, or drugs? Sure, I totally trust the government to do that right. ☹️

         The government (and its corrupt ‘NGO’ appendages) has been busily stoking irrational fears for decades. How about the irrational fear of COVID19 they squandered billions on? The Chicken Littles squawking about ‘Climate Change Catastrophes!!’ that never seem to materialize?

         So don’t go around repeating the bullshit of ‘Freedom From Want!!’ and ‘Freedom From Fear!!’ They’re just two more empty slogans to rouse the rabble with.

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      2. Regarding the “step too far”.

         Dropping a nuclear bomb on Iran population center where the mullahs are hiding out, would guaranty to get the ones remaining. But a step too far.

         Dropping a nuclear bomb on an empty space of desert turning it to glass with the follow up message that XYZ is next. Might work? After all the bridges and infrastructure is deconstructed.

         FYI the above is an evolution of the middle east in general. Which was drop the bomb in an empty desert with follow up message that “Mecca is next” is off the table. Because the other non-Israel countries have gotten a two-by-four clue via Iran already. I did not come up with this, but my response might have been “Ummmmmmm?” …. “No.”

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8. So at this point i am at rather sure they either had a nuke or were close enough to have one before the midterms, because otherwise the president would have waited until after them. There’s also a RAND corporation paper from 98 or 99 that i read… oh, two decades ago… that literally tells them exactly what to do with it.

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   1. This (“or close enough to have one”) is so true, the Bad Guys in Iran actually opened those ‘last chance for peace’ talks earlier this year by bragging they had half a ton (450 kg ~ 1000 lbs.) of 60% enriched uranium… which is enough for several gun-assembly bombs, or rather more implosion type designs (which would be surer to explode at 60%, and maybe higher yield). That’s before any further enrichment, say to ‘weapons grade’ 93% — which wouldn’t take long since that final bit of enrichment doesn’t need much ‘separative work’ to get there (maybe a week?).

      We know (now) they have the missiles; they even fired one at Diego Garcia, several times farther away than Middle East targets and their claimed longest range. We don’t know how good or how light their bomb designs are, but that’s about the only missing piece.

      These are the guys who’ve been screaming “Death to America!” for nearly half a century now. If they start boasting about having multiple bombs’ worth of material ready — act on the intelligence.

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   2. Second try after Mystery Moderation, but shortly: these were the Clever Bad Guys who, as their opening statement at the ‘last chance peace talks’ earlier this year bragged they had half a ton of 60% enriched U-235. Not classical 93% “weapons grade” but likely enough (especially in implosion designs); and in quantity enough for half-a-dozen or a dozen or dozens of bombs (depending, hard implosions compress the uranium more, and so need less of it, while gun-type needs more).

      Add the long-range missiles they claimed not to have, but fired at places like Diego Garcia anyway.

      When your enemy presents you with gift-wrapped credible ‘imminent’ intelligence… act on it.

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   3. precisely.

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9. Our Hostess said

   They believe a final, massive war, will bring about their end times and paradise for the faithful. And they are, yes, sincerely religious. At least the leadership. 2-They either had a nuke, or were very close to having one, and as we have learned through their bombing every one and their cousins, they actually and for real had delivery means. To the US? who knows? And anyway, with a nuke and open borders, there are many means of delivery. 3- Pallets of cash given to them by Obama, which greatly accelerated the nuclear program. Which we supposedly have maybe thoroughly degraded.

   Almost 20 years ago I thought about this in a pair of blog posts the first of which is here:

   https://tregonsee.blogspot.com/2006/01/what-have-iranians-got.html

   I did think about delivery methods in a follow on post .

   Executive summary of that first post:

   I expected Iran to go for a weapon based on an enriched U-235 core with a linear design like that of the US MK-1. I looked at other examples (Pakistan, India, US and Soviet work) and extrapolated from that and known sourcing (It is believed A.Q. Khan the Pakistani head of weapons research, was selling or giving his designs to any Muslim countries as a balance to the US and India). Since I wrote that piece, the Iranians have unfortunately shown a great deal of skill with making explosively formed projectiles (C.F. the 2003 Iran war and later). This is also the exact technology needed to make an implosion type weapon work. This has advantages for making more compact weapons suitable for missile warheads. I would expect they would shoot for something like the US W5 or US W7 warhead which fit on SRBM/IRBM quite nicely.They were alleged to have something on the order of 600Lbs of highly enriched uranium (HEU). It takes ~60 lbs of HEU to form a critical mass so they had source for perhaps 9-10 weapons. It is unclear if we got ALL the HEU in our strikes. The Iranians are insane but relatively clever I suspect at least some of their stash was placed somewhere known to only a few of their weaponeers )or perhaps none and someone else out of that chain knew. This would take Human intel and in that our CIA and NSA are pretty lousy in the Middle East. Mossad tends to be better as they can not lean on National Technical Means like our folks tend to do.

   At present the Iranians are not known to have a missile that can reach Mainland US. However they clearly have missiles (e.g. the Khorramshahr) that can reach Diego Garcia (at least 60% of the time with limited accuracy). Its payload capacity is sufficient for a W5/W7 class warhead if they can produce one. This puts much of Europe (including the southern UK), Israel, and all the Sunni nations well within reach.

   It is clear that the Iranians’ preferred thing to do would be to hit Washington D.C. or more likely New York City, Their goal therein to force us to retaliate and initiate the coming of the 12th Imam. How precisely this works looks more like underpants gnome strategy than anything else, but this is their thing, and damn it Jim, I am a retired Software Engineer, not an Expert in obscure Shia Theology. Potentially within their reach are London, Paris, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Riyadh etc. Would Jerusalem be targeted? Beats me; see my previous statement. Neither Paris or London are likely because both the UK and France have their own retaliatory forces (of dubious functionality due to ill repair). Similarly Jerusalem or Tel Aviv gets a response from Israel, and I can’t imagine Israel playing nice in that situation. But much of my thought depends on the Iranians being rational actors and most of their remaining echelons are NOT rational with respect to this idea.

   What do we do? Well I can see one thing that is NOT working, This good cop bad cop (with Trump playing both halves) strategy. The Iranians have clearly not been negotiating in good faith, nor can they be expected to negotiate in good faith. Why this surprises Trump and his people baffles me. Are they SO ignorant of the behaviors of a face based culture with a strong faith-based component that they do not comprehend that this appears as weakness to the current Iranian leadership? To steal from a little green muppet(not Kermit) , “Do or do not there is no negotiate”. Having made a threat he MUST follow through. At this point there is no way back. Make Iran a 7th century country again and immiserate the Iranians for 20-30 years or walk away. And the results of walking away will inevitably be one or more major cities being destroyed. It absolutely sucks as a choice set, but some days there is no good choice; here we must choose the lesser of two horrible evils, and honestly if it is Iranians suffer or Europeans/Israelis/Americans suffer I know where I stand.

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   1. Trump seems to be giving every chance for the mullahs occupying Iran to be good guys–and letting them show the world what kind of bad guys they are. He’s now got the whole Arab world angry enough to let him do what he wants, and maybe help. In spite of what other nations want, the Kurds have an active force in Iran, tying down and grinding down the IRGC.

      I don’t see his endgame, but I bet he has one.

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      1. In spite of what other nations want, the Kurds have an active force in Iran, tying down and grinding down the IRGC.

         Everything I have seen pins the Kurds as sitting on the sidelines, skimming off the arms shipments we are attempting to send to the Iranian people, and not much else. The question is how much of that is IRGC / Turkish propaganda.

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      2. Wait. The Kurds are actively fighting in Iran?

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         1. Kurdish territory stretches from Syria through Turkey and Iraq into Iran. Another one of the screwups in the aftermath of WWI was skipping over making a “Kurdistan” when drawing the lines to divide up the Ottoman Empire. Everyone who has Kurds in their official borders has had active combat against them in recent decades.

            My boss at one of the tech companies was a company infantry officer in the Turkish Army before he moved to Europe, got his PhD, and then came to the US. His experience was fighting their Kurds. He did not like them.

            Notably the Kurds are now fairly good allies of the US, as we’re pretty much their only ally, but not all of them on everything. One of the things that reportedly happened during this years Persian festivities is the CIA hired some totally reliable Kurds with eyepatches to smuggle a large quantity of guns in to Iran to resistance contacts there, and experts at The Agency got double crossed, with the eyepatch Kurds taking the guns for themselves.

            I have seen reports at various times this year, especially during the initial bombing campaign, of “unrest” and “disturbances” in Kurdish Iranian towns in their northwest that seem to have featured significant exchange of kinetics. Some of those also seem to have totally coincidentally featured JDAMs dropping on local IRGC buildings as well, so some degree of coordination can be assumed.

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      3. I am certain Trump has an endgame. My concern is that it may be based on a ( albeit decent) desire not to cause harm to the main body of Iranian people and a misunderstanding of his opponents and erstwhile allies.

         We have two issues at play here. The cultures (both Arab and Farsi) tend to be VERY tribal. They also are very much a face culture i.e. your standing and honor (by their ruolles) are VERY important. The closest thing we’ve ever seen to this in recent history was the Bushido culture of Japan in the beginning of the 20th century. If anything the Arab and Farsi cultures are far more insular than Japan was. In particular the concepts from Islam of hudna(false truces) and taqiyaa (intentionally misleading Non Muslims) make dealings with those cultures FAR more difficult. Remember the 2003 “Shock and Awe” attacks that pretty much neither shocked nor awed the Iraqis BECAUSE they viewed our fighting limited war as weak and our limited usage of force said to them that we were not serious.

         These cultures are also VERY tightly bound by familial ties. There is a reason first-cousin marriages are common amongst these cultures, and it exists for the same reason European royalty did so: to keep power consolidated within the family. They are xenophobic to a degree that even the Japanese never achieved. Their view of the West (particularly Iran’s) is tainted by a great deal of Khomeni based agitprop that has depicted us as an enemy that literally IS doing Shaitan’s work. You can say the people don’t believe it, but they’ve been conditioned with their 2 minutes hate like “Death to America” chants. In 1984 even Winston Smith finds himself being caught up in the hate; even though he knows it is nonsense, his body is being conditioned and responds. The Iranians have been conditioned for well nigh on 50 years

         You can delay once, maybe twice, but after that they Arab/Farsi cultures wonder if you have the intestinal/testicular fortitude to act. What Trump views as trying to be limited and controlled, they view as being either unable to act or too cowardly to act. He is particularly constrained by previous administrations (Obama, Biden at a minimum) who tried appeasement. They may wonder if they are seeing the stick just to make them take slightly less on the appeasement side of the equation.

         If you are going to threaten, you must make it precise and not be bluster. If you are defied and you conditions violated, you MUST act and act precisely as you said you would. Trump tends to exaggerate for effect. It works in the culture of real estate. It produces undesirable results when used with a strong face based culture.

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      4. Unless the Iranian people rise up I can’t imagine any way for us to be rid of the IRGC/mullahs that don’t involve forever war occupation, or bottled sunshine. I hope I am missing something here.

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         1. I agree.

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            1. Does not have to be US in a forever occupation war. Iran and their IRGC have pissed off the House of Saud enough that the House of Saud will willingly build up and conquer what the US has left open.

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10. I think Iran has been close to being able to assemble a nuclear warhead for a very long time. They had two main obstacles to overcome before such a device could actually be used. They needed to develop their missile systems to achieve the range, reliability, payload, and guidance to make the weapon usable. And they needed enough enriched Uranium for enough warheads to achieve their aims. One or two nukes was barely enough to impact a war eighty years ago. More would be needed now.

    I believe the deal they made with Obama was a way to buy time to finish developing the missiles and continue enriching Uranium. I think they now have the missile technology and are within easy reach of having sufficient enrichment of their fissile material, or at least they were before we stopped them. At this point, they cannot be allowed to resume development, because they are too close to their goals to be stopped again if we let them rebuild.

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    1. A gun-type device is not really that difficult once you have enough sufficiently enriched Uranium. Timing and electronics are dead simple, and there are only a few tricky bits that need physics mojo. And assembled it’s not too big or heavy. That’s why the emphasis can’t be on the device, but the enrichment process – the centrifuges. And that’s why we dropped a mountain on those in the big B-2 raid.

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11. I just wish we’d get out of this, “We have a deal,” followed by Iran attacking somebody (Bahrain today), followed by Trump announcing a massive strike, followed by, “They say they want a deal so I’m holding off on the strike,” cycle. People are starting to make jokes about it.

    Especially with Israel apparently being held back and rumors Vance (and others) are pushing for the Israelis to be, ah, held in less esteem by the US and we should make a deal, the mullahs are really OK and have no reason to go back on their word…

    (Note the rumors are starting for Rubio as well, so someone wants the public to distrust both of them).

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    1. From what I can tell, we are in a position where we don’t entirely need to push the war with Iran to its conclusions as fast as possible. The defacto blockage on the Straits of Hormuz ends up hurting China more than it has us, and our core strategic objective is to prevent them gaining nukes, periodic strikes mostly do that.

       I think his real calculation is that not all of Iran is in the death cult so if we get far enough down their chain of command we may get to someone who is more interested in living than in dying gloriously. If they hand over the uranium rather than continue getting bombed, that’s our win. We only want to go boots on the ground once we have no other option. And even there, if the mulla’s are running things when we do that, there’s a pretty decent chance the uranium disappears.

       It’s not a great situation, but it also isn’t as entirely bad as some say either.

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       1. Yes.

          Absolutely nobody in the world is a real peer threat.

          Where the other nations in the world approach military competence, they do not do so with a mindset that fully mirrors our own.

          Every large and medium population threat actor has its own culture, its own way of understanding the waging of war.

          So, they have manpower, they have the expectations and prep of that manpower, and some timescales around planning.

          We should consider the mirror hypothesis.

          We should think about the case of an internal peace breakdown, where we fight Americans, in various scenarios for prep.

          But, we should also understand that nobody else has a fairly belligerent, skilled, and mentally prepared bunch of Jacksonian tribalists, and that some of the logic that comes /only/ from the mirror hypothesis may not hold true.

          The logic of striking when, and of how decisively, depends on what the enemy might be able to do with the time.

          We don’t live in a world where everyone else has tens of millions of Jacksonians. So we don’t absolutely need to a) hold off on formally starting stuff b) unless we are able to finish things fast c) because otherwise they will have time to prepare and take us out hard.

          It is good for us to be generous in assessing others, because it helps us walk softer.

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          1. When evaluating who is and isn’t a “peer” adversary, it’s tempting to calculate on the kind of war you are prepared for, not the kind of war the other side plans. Was Ukraine a peer adversary of Russia?

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       2. The defacto blockage on the Straits of Hormuz ends up hurting China more than it has us, and our core strategic objective is to prevent them gaining nukes, periodic strikes mostly do that.

          And it hurts some of our allies…but not enough for us to hurt the Iranian people by setting them up to get attacked as “puppet governments.” Our allies want it to go faster, they can step in and do something.

          Which feeds into the whole “guys, pull your own weight, this isn’t our job.”

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          1. Europe is the sick man of Europe. Not sure that’s going to get better in a hurry.

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             1. Not sure they’ll get better at all if they don’t start trying.

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                1. First they must realize they are ill…

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             2. I think building to honor the threat from the Throne of Heaven is the correct way to go, but I can’t help but think something stupid in Europe will kick things off again.

                Note that that’s the main one big reason why “Iran Now On Our Terms and Our Schedule” is the way to go – you don’t want the mullahs kicking things off on their timeline when we’re distracted by “Some Damn Thing in EASTPAC.”

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                1. Heh. “Some Damn Thing in WESTPAC.”

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                2. Hell, given the Formerly Golden State and the other west coast peoples republics, maybe it will be “Some Damn Thing in EASTPAC”.

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    2. If he refuses any sort of deal out of hand, he is the one mongering it (think on how the press would play that) but every time he says “okay we have a deal, and someone in the Gov’t there decided, “No, I’ma shooting at ships and closing the straight again”, he makes them look unreasonable to more of those who just pay a glancing look at it, and identifies yet another specific target to send to oblivion.
       Ideal? No.
       Ideal is impossible. Is it the best? I don’t know. It isn’t for me, but I’m not trying to run things.

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       1. Every time they shoot up a ship it pisses off the Gulf States and the House of Saud.

          This Persians pissing off of their neighbors is not a thing we especially have to prevent.

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    3. Vance has said a few very stupid things. Rubio hasn’t.

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12. See also https://townhall.com/author/print/2680691

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13. Since 1979 the current interpreters of 12er Shia Islam have been calling for the destruction of the US and Israel, and the bringing about of the Last Battle. I see no reason to doubt their sincerity, determination, or desire. Unlike our State Department back in the early 2000s, when they let Ohmydinnerjacket speak in New York and assured everyone that the mullahs didn’t really believe their own theology.

    I feel very sorry for the people caught under that government. I hope said government gets removed ASAP, and something less apocalyptic replaces it. Shiism did not believe that they could trigger the End Times until Kohmeni and his generation of leaders. Let them have their escaton, and leave the rest of us out, please.

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    1. but, what if we could by waging secular war bring about the Christian end times, and the New Jerusalem.

       What if that were really what Christians were supposed to be doing.

       What if we are supposed to learn from the example of the Twelvers about how to be good Christians.

       I mean, on the face of it, such speculation should be about as credible as the hypothesis that we should learn about being good Christians from the communists.

       We do have communists here in the United States trying to tell Christians how to be Christian. For some mysterious reason, I do not think the Christians are heeding those communists. :D

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       1. There were morons that claimed that Ronald Reagan wanted a Nuclear War because it would “cause” Christ’s Return. 😡

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          1. Okay, trying to reconstruct the “logic” chain on that one …nope. Canna do it, Captain.

             And I recall seeing that from nutballs at the time.

             What if… nope. Maybe… no. Can’t see it.

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    2. During George W’s administration, a Liberal (on Baen’s Bar) was claiming that Iran wasn’t going to nuke Israel (if they got the bomb).

       He was sure that it was “False Flag” stuff (from Israel). ☹️

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       1. So gas went from $2 / gal to $3.40.
          I don’t care.
          to keep nukes out of the hands of these psychopaths I am willing to pay whatever the price may be.

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          1. Here in sunny Southern Kalifornistan gas is $5.30 at the station 2 blocks from my house. I’ve seen gas over $6 at stations close to major highways. Those high prices haven’t motivated ‘Teh Voters’ even enough to reduce state gas taxes.

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             1. I hadn’t realized you were in the glorious Bear Flag People’s republic!

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                1. Yeah, I’m stuck behind enemy lines. ☹️

                   On the other hand, I’m well-placed to report on enemy action.

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                   1. And perform acts of sabotage, if needed. Yes. Hugs.

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             2. $5.69 for regular at the Chevron I drove by this morning. I see on Gasbuddy it’s $5.19 a few miles away at Costco.

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                1. We are back up to $4.59 here in the valley in Oregon. Gas attendant (older) said $0.20 jump because a critical pipeline is down, again.

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       2. idiot.

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14. Really not a fan of war. But, and this is a sticking point for me, if we’re going to do it then for the love of Bob and all the kittens can we just fvckin’ go and win the damned thing and go home? I don’t want us nation building, playing buddy buddy with our future backstabbers and enabling a new generation of utter oxygen thieves. Win and go home. Burn, loot, kill the shit of things. Break all that’s breakable. And then go home.

    I don’t want bases, I don’t want alliances with goat humping tribals, I don’t want to give away even a bloody toothbrush let alone a tank. Just go, fvck shit up, win, go home. In that order. And be done with it.

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    1. I hope for otherwise, but “Winning” seems to be a lost art in U.S. GOFO* ranks for wuite a few years now.

       (* GOFO: General or Flag Officer, so Generals and Admirals and suchlike higher ethereal beings)

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       1. “Winning” means extra funding will be cut off, numbers of subordinates will be riffed out, and opportunities to make more rank will be limited. Winning is definitely inferior combat. Particularly when your “combat” is from an air-conditioned office at the Pentagon or an FOB.

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       2. Sadly, I agree. The principle is sound, in my humble opinion. And backed by history.

          But Social Progress continues to Advance. Most especially in the hoity-toity rarified airs of Higher. Almost like the trope has some bones innit:

          “Why do they want us to do ‘Y’ thing when ‘X’ thing makes common sense, works, and is practically* unfuckable by the average enlisted man? Because to get to Higher Ranks, there is a secret medical procedure that removes the common sense from your brain, thusly making the previous things that were unthinkable quite rational, post op.”

          *: Not completely, because nothing is proof against the motivation of the enlisted man.

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15. Way back in the days when Jimmy Carter was president, I joined the Army because of this. It’s time to end it on our terms.

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16. It’s a minor point, but every time Trump calls a time out, it resets the clock on the War Powers Act. I think the War Powers Act is unconstitutional, and probably Trump does too, but this is a way of not setting off the further complication of needing permission from Congress to defend the USA from the Iranian threat.

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    1. This is not a minor point. Even though It think with the current Supremes it would be struck down, it is Roberts, so a strategy of avoiding the whole court challenge route completely by clock-gaming is perfectly reasonable.

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    2. Yeah, this is another one that needs to be explicitly said, because I am wrong to understand that ‘everyone knows’.

       The boog problem is a more serious hazard than Iran, maybe, and this is a better way to manage it than full heartedly arguing the executive power.

       The Democrats are seriously insane, and their goals and their future methods are not fully known. They show every sign of thinking that murdering dissenters will terrify Americans into compliance.

       It is better to Ju Jitsu them into contests that are not direct force on direct force.

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17. Curious, what invoked moderation? Was it my statement that I think a certain law is not in accord with the US Constitution?

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    1. there’s a bunch of things that get flagged for automatic moderation.

       Comes from having a computer do it, with pattern matching.

       I had a long thing today that tripped a flag that I keep on forgetting to avoid.

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    2. Word Press does “kooky” things from time to time.

       I think everyone (but perhaps Sarah) have been hit by Word Press for no apparent reason.

       By the way, Word Press Must Die!!!! [Crazy Grin]

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       1. No, I’ve been hit too when posting from the front panel.

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    3. Yeah, the usual is to groan, and post a comment “got moderated, if someone can fish it out of spam” or similar.

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    4. Only G-d knows. I honestly have no clue why WordPress does its stupid stuff…

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    5. BrickShy, you used the word “def-end” without the protective hyphen. For WP hates the string of letters “eff-ee-enn” in any context whatsoever. The same thing caught one of BobtheRegisterred’s posts. I can’t imagine a legit software bug doing that — my money says it’s somebody’s Good Idea.

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       1. Email me, please.

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18. To those who want an all out win, I would point out that Iran is very mountainous and has a large population (over 90 million). Boots on the ground is not something the American people as a whole will support at this time. And because our human intelligence is so poor in Iran, it would take a lot of boots on the ground to accomplish total victory. I think Trump is fighting the best way he can with the tools that are feasible, both military and political, at this time.

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    1. I think the “Winning” here not necessarily “unconditional surrender”, but rather “they stop resisting and do what we say.” Note how simply killing a bunch of heavily armed Cubans who were helpfully surrounding Maduro and snatching him and his wife away one night ended up doing just that to Venezuela.

       Not nearly as simple with much more embedded fanatics in Persia, but that end state would do nicely.

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       1. Venezuela actions of the US also told others, especially in central and south American countries that the US is not wanting to come in and take over. US wants the people there to manage their own affairs so that the people not only want to stay there, they want to repatriate themselves from the US back home.

          The information is there for any country or territory to read and absorb. The US does not conquer then require statehood. Not even the western expansion did that. Granted statehood, then, was more likely than not to be granted, but it was not guarantied. See Hawaii and Alaska and what it took for them to become states.

          Preaching to the choir, but …

          Statehood in the US requires the people of the territory to petition for statehood. Then two branches, legislative (vote in both branches) and executive (sign or veto override), must agree. It starts with the people who live there. (I think the president has to sign the bill for statehood … too lazy to go look.)

          Which is why certain Canadian reactions to President Trumps poking are so hilarious. My response (not that I am going to post anything on any public forum other than here, and I’m too polite to say anything when we visit, that would be rude) is “I did not know Canadians could be so ignorant.”

          Not sure what it takes to become a US territory, especially new territories now. Some current territories are a holdover from WW2. But what is clear is the people are content with not becoming an independent country or applying for statehood, regardless of the reasons.

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19. What really bothers me are the shit-for-brains former military like Graham Platner who rail against all military action. It’s like they never learned anything while they were in the service and haven’t learned anything else since leaving.

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    1. One of my best friends, who did 3 tours in Iraq (the last with the 101st out of Campbell) was so black pilled on the whole system by the mishandling of Bush/Obama’s GWOT that last time we spoke he was convinced no war was ever justified. It’s an irrational take when you look at it head-on, but it wasn’t come to rationally.

       I rather suspect that the generation-long GWOT and its ignominious end (one of the 13 killed at the Kabul airport in August ’21 was in utero when his father fell in November ’01) will be the albatross necktie of every US military engagement until we WIN one hard, fast, and with finality. Just like Viet Nam was an albatross until the Gulf War.

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       1. I think (and I’m speaking for myself on this), that part of the problem is not being told WHY we have orders to do certain campaigns. I don’t mean the publicly declared reasons often distorted by the MSMS; I mean the underlying information and process where the President, or his cabinet, arrived at the conclusion that we need to go in, blow stuff up, and kill certain people.

          Who convinced Obama, or why did he decide to send money to Iran for promises by them that any sane person knew were lies? Who benefited? Who got paid for it or made money off it? Ditto with Ukraine. Nobody has given the Ukrainians a decisive edge to defeat the Russian incursion. It’s like they give them only enough dribbles and drabs to prolong the fighting and misery, not end it one way or another. Granted, I’m not impressed with the Ukraine’s leaders on this, but incompetence and corruption can only account for so much. Yeah, the Bidens raked in millions for the big guy from both Ukraine and China. But they’re so bad at actually managing money that they can’t even build a Presidential library from him by simply buying a house and stocking it with his books.

          Don’t get me started on the Obama library. We know how he paid for that. Empty promises and zero money.

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          1. Unencumbered as I am by any knowledge whatsoever of what I’m talking about, I see a possible rationale behind the “Goldilocks” approach to arming the weaker side (aside from keeping the contracts/kickbacks rolling in): let each side grind the other down to the Last Man Standing, then shoot him.

             Again, with my mind uncontaminated by actual information, I wish Trump had backed the “Iranian Street” with, say, air-drops of those cheap Liberator(?) zip-guns (“use this to get a REAL gun”) and Starlink sets. (The logistics of this is left as an exercise to those who know better than I. Too bad we outsourced The Making Of Things to the chicoms.)

             I believe Trump is, on some deep, unconscious level, stuck in the 80s, and is dealing with the Mullahs as though they were just another bunch of mobbed-up building contractors whose religion is nothing more than showing up at church on Sunday and mouthing the words.

             If I could meme: Berserk Cujo foaming up the window, JD strapped in the toddler’s seat, and Trump behind the wheel of the Ford Pinto: “I think we’re close to a Deal!”

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20. Please pull my comment out of moderation , if you will. Thank you.

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21. Not completely off topic, I see a posting at the Ace of Spades website that a LOT of retired US generals and admirals are playing footsie with Communist China. For details, check there.

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22. To the Leftroids whining “Why Now?” when they really mean “Why Ever?” my response is “Why not 20 years ago? Or 30? Or 40? We wouldn’t be faced with this nightmare if we had got off the stick any time in the last 47 years.”

    I think part of the reason is, every President (and Pretendent) since Eisenhower has been a politician. They have all been fixated on political solutions. Unlike them, President Trump is a practical man. He’s pursuing practical solutions.

    When politics, appeasement and outright bribery have failed, what is left but war?

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    1. The biggest reason for “Why now?” is that we’re in an unusually dominant position vs Iran. Pretty much everyone in the Middle East – aside from the Iranian troublemaker clients like the Houthis – is united in wanting to get rid of Iran. Additionally, many of the countries in the region have better relations with Israel than they’ve ever had in the past, which negates one of the usual distractions. Finally, we have the systems to actually do this. We’ve always had better weapons. But the capabilities that we have now both in intelligence gathering and in the ability to deliver munitions whenever and wherever we want are to a degree never before seen.

       It’s an unusual moment.

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       1. The only better time would have been while they were panicked as the US Army rolled over Saddam’s vaunted, what was it, fifth largest army in the world, right into Baghdad. Apparently some of the mullahs were certain the US would hang a right and drive right to Tehran, cleaning up all the family business while we were in the neighborhood. Given the Iranians had the recent benchmark where they stalemated agains the Iraqi Army, and then the U.S. rolled right over them, they were right to be worried. Instead we tried to make Iraq into New Jersey and let Iran play the classical insurgency sanctuary.

          As noted Iran is nasty mountainous terrain, but given their panic it would have likely worked, with possibly fewer casualties than the Iraq occupation.

          Of course if we had we’d probably have screwed that occupation up too, but notably we would not have been facing organized IRGC explosively formed penetrator IEDs made with Iranian oil money backing.

          The smart play, as it would have been in Iraq, would have been to decisively beat their military, declare a Kurdistan across both countries with US basing rights (and F the damn Turks), pick some handy General who knew the score to be the new boss in each country, and go home.

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          1. From what I remember at the time from the people I worked with, that was sort of the plan, but Turkey not letting 3ID go through their territory stopped it.

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             1. Which fully justifies every pro-Kurdish position we’ve taken since. F the Turks. DJT is wrong on selling them any F-35s.

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    2. Its the difference we see in all sorts of things. Prior administrations were content (happy even) to “manage” a problem because they get lots of support from the people managing it and so on. President Trump wants to solve problems, which deeply upsets the people managing them because it threatens their income.

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    3. Realistically, we should have issued an ultimatum to Iran to release our embassy personnel immediately, or we would destroy every city in Iran, starting with Tehran. Their violation of international diplomatic protocols should have resulted in the most severe punishment the world could levy on them.

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       1. That would require Jimmeh Cahtah to have grown a spine.

          The hostages were released before Ronald Reagan took office, removing the primary casus belli, so he couldn’t have justified Sunrise Over Tehran.

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          1. By the same reasoning, Dubya coulda and shoulda gotten a Real No Sheet Declaration of War from Congress before Sept 12, demanded Unconditional Surrender by the 13th, and MOAB’d the eff out of everybody in the area, especially our Saudi “friends” on the 14th.

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23. 

    I couldn’t help it.

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    1. It’s Digiorno.🍕

       🥸

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       1. Pizzahead, The Movie.

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24. Despite the spin of various leaks to the Wapo etc., I do think that it is likely that the US has expended more missiles of various sorts than it really ought to have. On the one hand that’s bad because now the US (and allies who ordered US missiles) have fewer for any near future conflict than they expected. On the other hand it strongly incentivizes the US and allies to build more, many many more and to diversify supply sources etc. And on the gripping hand, it’s far better to discover this problem now in a war against Iran that doesn’t have many ways to counter attack than it is to discover this in a few years when the Western Pacific war with the Chicoms kicks off

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    1. And not just on the Iranians. Too much was sent to Ukraine. If we’d had a couple more years to restock…. Ah well.

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       1. ATACMS should have all gone to Ukraine. PrSM should have been production ramped and fully deployed five years ago. Tomahawk production is like 90 a year, which is a non-funny joke. But the troops and fleet all have their multiple trainings on how looking for more than five seconds is harassment, how pronouns are totes important, and all the rest of the time wasting non-war winning crap. Thank the Autopen Administration and especially the GOFOs who avoided the Lightbringer officer purges and kissed their way into Pentagon chairs.

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    2. ATACMS is short range battlefield missile and old (start of ATACMS production was 1986), currently being replaced by PrSM, which is barely in production so only fielded in low numbers yet. Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM)in the latest variant is newer, even though the original entered production in 1983, but the issue is not that we are using them now instead of holding them back for the Throne of Heaven.

       Any WESTPAC festivities will require lots and lots and lots of missiles – USN has something on the order of eight thousand VLS cells across everything in commission, split between anti-air and ballistic missile stuff and land attack cruise missiles, but there’s nothing like the production capacity to keep them filled. Production rates for a lot of these missiles are in the hundreds per year – current TLAM production rate is 90 to 100 per year. That is more of a crafting approach than one of mass production of expendable munitions.

       And that is the part that’s has to change – newer companies like Anduril are competing some of these applications with designs that are optimized for rapid production and lower cost, along the lines of what SpaceX did for space launch, and that does seem to have shaken up some of the large prime contractors at least a bit. But a lot of that shakeup and promised production increases are still just PowerPoints.

       And we also need a lot more VLS cells, and a reasonable way to reload them at sea, or at least in forward unimproved anchorages, but shipbuilding and that VLS cell technical challenge are whole ‘nother issues. But any Middle Kingdom kinetic diplomacy exchange will be a Navy war, and that service has been woefully neglected for the past thirty years.

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       1. Yep build rates of dozens per year is a joke. It needs to be dozens per week for a while.

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          1. Yeah, it is not exactly the reputation from past performance that America has been congratulating itself for having.

             I really really like Anduril philosophically, but I have been looking at their positions closely, and I do not really feel like making a leap to any of them just yet.

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    3. Yeah, at this point I sort of figure that everyone knows about the munitions issue, but that is not actually true, and it is still quite worth explicitly mentioning.

       There are disciplines of engineering that are hard to actually train students in, and which traditionally hire for a smaller number of predictable export controlled positions.

       These are places where it still makes sense to train and hire some white men, because the Indians are not able to do religious in-group only hiring. (Some of the IT stuff might be like Zoroastrians hiring Zoroastrians, but the Americans haven’t noticed yet because they do not know how to notice that distinction, they only key on a bit to born in India. I dunno. )

       Anyway, I happen to know that the hiring is actually quite aggressive right now. Adding on to that is the general demand in semiconductor manufacturing, and that the munitions systems require suitable ICs, and that these all require some fairly similar skillsets.

       (The DoD is quite interested in doing serious research into materials and designs for HEMTs, one of the newer ways of making ICs that could be suitable for use in munitions. )

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    4. Use them or lose them. They don’t last forever in storage. Like most things, they degrade over time. Even doing maintenance on them, the screws get stripped, they corrode, the propellant breaks down, the explosives break down, the electronics need hardening against the newer countermeasures. You want to know what statistics we AREN’T being told? What’s the miss rates for missiles? What’s the failure to detonate rates for missiles and bombs used? What’s the failure to launch rate for the missiles? I will tell you that the older a munition gets, the higher all of those rates climb.

       I spent a temporary duty assignment to Herlong California, Sierra Army Deport, during the run up of Desert Storm. That’s a major munitions storage area, and they have to dispose of old munitions every week. While they disassemble and recycle some stuff, they get rid of a lot of them by stacking them on a mountainside, wiring a bunch of detonators to them, and making really big booms. Watching the shockwaves cross the desert is impressive as all heck.

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       1. I would pay a modest amount to watch that.

          I bet some artistic demolition types could make a show out of it.

          I’m still annoyed that, of the 1,054 nuclear weapons the USA has set off in US territory, mostly in Nevada. Some of the casinos had rooftop parties to watch the flash. But I never got to see the light of ten thousand suns touch the sky.

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25. I hadn’t thought of the risk of a Democrat for president. Very good call.

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26. A point that has started to be hilarious to me is how relatively sane both Palantir and Anduril are on software. What those have in common is mostly mining Tolkien. I think the founder of Anduril did work for Palantir, but it feels like Anduril is its own thing.

    Of course, my knowledge is pretty superficial, etc.

    There are ways to name after Tolkein that would be very very red flag.

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27. Sarah? Is this the real Sarah? Excellent piece and your grasp of English is wonderful to read and behold. Very sensible ideas too.

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28. The one thing I will say about our decisions and about Israel, is that I have maybe seen some blackpilling in Israel’s media.

    This is largely a matter of not understanding the exquisitely troubled state of USA’s internal politics.

    Likewise, some of the EU handwringing about the US and the Ukraine. Though that is more EU internal propaganda, compounded by ignorance, not pure ignorance on its own.

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29. Hi folks, RCPete here.

    Somewhat good news, and rather bad news.

    The somewhat good, I’m through the gatekeeping, and a (possible, see next graf) date for the knee procedure.

    The Rather Bad news: There’s a big fire west of us, “Wrights Spring”. Started Wednesday, and this morning it’s at 8700 acres. It’s about 6 miles west of us, moving NE, but expanding quickly. This is the second time I’ve encountered pyrocumulus clouds, and the first time, 400,000 acres burned. 50-50 if we’ll lose the house.

    We’re currently in Stage 1 (Get ready) evacuation, while the gerrymandered zone next to us (and a bunch more north & NW) are in Stage 2. The cause is “unexplained”, no idea if it was arson or an idiot, though the former is likely. No lightning in a while, and it started in a valley/canyon. $SPOUSE wants to leave ASAP, I’ve promised we’ll go at Stage 2, but we’ve got a lot to do. The hope is an RV park with WiFi, but radio silence will be the order of the day. If I get time, will try to check in.

    So far, most of $TINY_TOWN is OK, but hundreds of people are in Stage 2.

    Whee.

    @dep729: prayers for your procedure. Everybody else, too.

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    1. 🙏🙏

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    2. How big of a firebreak are you able to make around your home?

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       1. Arggh. Moderated. Short answer, with crowning possible, not enough.

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          1. I found the fire on maps: https://wfca.com/fire-map/oregon/wrights_spring

             I pray for you, and your town.

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          2. We just hit Level 2, with additional zones going nuts. Signing off. Will post when possible.

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             1. We’ll keep you in our prayers, my friend.

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    3. Prayers up.

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    4. “Stage 1“

       –

       Damn.

       Sorry. I know you have had a list of property fire prevention/stopping backlog that medical conditions have thwarted quicker resolutions.

       Prayers to keep you both, the dog, your property, and your neighbors places, safe.

       Aunt and uncle’s place is too close to the fires outside of Baker, Oregon. Their place is 40 acres west of Baker out toward Pine Creek reservoir off Pine Creek Road. This is the uncle who recently passed away (yes, this is important). The wildfire in question sparked a spot fire from blowing ashes not far from their place. It was quickly put out by observant locals out and about. But, here is the irony. Uncle was on first responder status (self lately, he was 91 … I mean, really?) because of their place. Never going far during these dangerous fire conditions. To have their place threatened now? After all these years? After he has just died? One can not write this into fiction. It would not be believable.

       Another aunt and uncle just moved into town, Grants Pass, Oregon. I do not know how close their new place is to the fire barely outside of Grants Pass. What is ironic here is they just moved into town from Applegate Valley, where fire danger is high regardless of how minor the fire season is declared. They moved, not because of the fire danger, he has the knowledge to mitigate to prevent and even limit damage at least on their property (did on a different property outside of *Sacramento, CA). But age, and health. He is 91, and she is 85.

       Wildfires can smolder before blowing up a week or so later. The 2003 fire on the Santiam Pass (B&B Complex) did. Lightening mid-week before hit a stump in the wilderness area. Stump smoldered for almost a week before wind kicked it up and away it went. Area still recovering (the baby trees are now visible across the hillside on the west hill side approaching Hoodoo Ski area). So is visible, all the standing dead timber, that which has not fallen, yet. The pass level, north side of the highway, most the burn killed dead timber is down. No baby trees (visible from the highway), the manzanita has taken over.

       However, if no lightening for over a week? Arson is definitely a possibility. Dang, double dang.

       Spokane fire is definitely been declared arson origin.

       Thank you for your prayers.

       (*) When they moved to Oregon, uncle got pissed at the property insurance companies. They kept trying to penalize them for “having a fire on their property”. He pointed out, that “Not true. They were implying the fire started on their property. No it STOPPED on the edge of their property because of his precautions.” Adjustments were made.

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30. Sarah, I think someone knew you…..

    

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31. 

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32. This hits close to home.

    

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    1. Ouch!

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33. The theocratic thug-ocracy in Iran is not a rational regime. Only idiots would expect them to behave rationally.

    The notion of negotiating with them is delusional. They will lie. They call us ‘infidels’. Lying to us is not merely allowed, it is a religious sacrament for them. If they make agreements, they will break them before the sun rises tomorrow. That’s about the only thing you can count on from them.

    Fortunately, the theocratic thugs make up only a small minority in Iran. They are the ones that have to be eliminated. Unfortunately, they rule the rest of the country with an iron fist, and they will never give up until they are dead.

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    1. OTOH Trump can repeatably state “We are trying!” As he holds the lines.

       Technically there are multiple lines in the sand:

       1. No enriched material, ever.
       2. An open strait of Hormuz.
       3. Regarding item #2, if anyone is getting paid to keep it open, it is the US; not Iran.
       4. No boots on the ground (except to rescue personnel).
       5. You break, whatever, agreement? Bye-bye bridge, or whatever was next on the list.

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34. ““No more wars” can’t be a political philosophy BECAUSE THE ENEMY GETS A VOTE.”

    Um, yeah.

    I saw an excellent encapsulation of this on a podcast, can’t remember which one, interview with Palmer Lucky of Anduril. (Huge nerd by the way. Anduril is Elvish.)

    Mr. Lucky noted that the Chicoms gave Iran an ICBM building industry. We know from some of the stuff they’ve been shooting off that they were building missiles that can reach Europe. Paris, London, in range. It’s not all that far, when you look at a map.

    So Iran was building Europe-range missiles capable of carrying a nuclear weapon on top. They built A LOT of them. Like, thousands. They had the stated goal of making nuclear weapons, and were getting close. They fricking well bragged how close they were.

    And, they pay for #HamAss, the Houthis, and a whole lot more #terrorista activity. Oct. 7th, paid for by Iran. They’ve been at war with the USA for 47 years. A hot, shootin’ war.

    So Mr. Lucky was of the opinion that there was no choice but to destroy that ICBM manufacturing capacity, and the stockpiles of completed units, before they nuked somebody. The USA already waited 10 years too long, according to him.

    Not to mention, they probably paid for the nutbar who got #TheDonald in the ear, let’s not forget that. Either Iran or China paid for that, ultimately. That is a sufficient reason all by itself if you ask me.

    Meanwhile in Canada, the biggest antimony mine in N. America was sold to the Chicoms, and it is currently closed. Antimony is a necessary mineral for bullet lead and a lot of other industrial processes. Just in case anyone was still wondering why #TheDonald is kicking #CarkMarney in the nethers every week, there’s a reason for you.

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    1. I don’t think that knowing about Anduril in Tolkein, or naming a company after it, really proves that someone is a huge nerd. It comes across to me as being fairly socially astute.

       Lucky may well be a huge nerd, but the choice of name could be accomplished by someone who was really good at directing staff. Though, it is more likely that someone directing staff could come up with a more ambiguous company name like Palantir.

       There are maybe no more than 20 IPs in Science Fiction and Fantasy that are really big, and a way to reach a ton of engineers in that twenty to forty cohort. Tolkein is big enough, and doesn’t find you crazy nihilists like some of the others do. Now, maybe 99 out of a 100 normies would refuse to select a company name for that sort of reason.

       I personally do not understand naming a company in a way that is boring and also no utility. Okay, sounding boring to investors is one form of utility.

       Look at Nordam, the name makes perfect sense because the founders were extreme fans of Notre Dam football. (Or rather, they came up with money to buy an expiring company in another business, and turned it into the Nordam defense contractor.)

       Anyway, I have read a couple of the Anduril essays/reports. They sound plausible to me, if they can actually deliver. Delivery is always an if, delivering in better ways must be a big if. I am not doubting Anduril more than I would anyone else, I want them to be correct.

       The covid vax order has left me very blackpilled on defense contractors, before every other bit of rumint. Xfiles theme, I want to believe. Defense contracting deliverables are extremely complicated, and we neither learn manufacturing excellence quickly, nor learn how good the delivered designs are until we see some maintenance history.

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       1. “I don’t think that knowing about Anduril in Tolkein, or naming a company after it, really proves that someone is a huge nerd.”

          Perhaps not a definitive proof, but certainly a strong indication. ~:D

          I like his effort to make the drones cheap, and have manufacturing be modular so they can ramp-up fast. Drone warfare is attrition warfare, so hims that gots the mostest does the bestest.

          Note that Chicom “fireworks displays” companies have developed methods of deploying thousands of drones from shipping containers without needing days-long setup times. We need some of that stuff.

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          1. Looks like we’re getting some of it:

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             1. https://redstate.com/wardclark/2026/08/06/get-this-the-navy-is-now-3-d-printing-drones-aboard-ship-n2205290

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35. In 2004, following my first deployment to Iraq, I spent seven months at Fort Bragg’s foreign language school, studying Persian Farsi (the native language of Iran). I believed, that long ago, that we would be FORCED to invade Iran within three years at most: because they would never stop seeking nuclear weapons, and we simply couldn’t allow them to succeed.

    In the years since, near-superhuman efforts by the Mossad— with occasional aid from U.S. intelligence services — kept delaying the Iranian nuke programs. Even so, it was always going to be a matter of kicking the can down the road, and hoping that a change of leadership would change the paradigm. I personally believed the long-suffering Iranian populace would eventually rebel and wipe out a theocracy none of them ever wanted, but the willingness of the mullahs and the IRGC to kill everybody they could identify as opposing them has systematically kept that opposition trimmed down to the ones who know to keep said opposition carefully masked to avoid being expeditiously murdered.

    Like you, I don’t KNOW that Trump is following the precisely correct course. I do know, however, that something had to be done, and he’s definitely doing something. I celebrate that, and I unapologetically pray for his success.

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    1. We can thank Hamas for the chance. Prior to October 7th the threat of Syria, Hamas, and Hezbola made a direct attack on Iran much more dangerous. We now have Hamas no danger, Hezbalo much reduced, and with Syria no longer owned by Iran, it offers a major opportunity. Plus Iran has attacked the other gulf states, and forced them to support us.

       We do have the problem here of those opposed to anything trump supports, but even if the worst happens in the midterm, Trump has 2 more years. I think he wants the people of Iran to have a country, not just craters. Remember the water problem in their Capital.

       It is the economy, stupid Also I fully expect Egypt to land on the Yemen semi-crazies, since anyone who limits shipping in the Red sea threatens the money from the canal. The Saudis have enough money to pay for a division. When Egypt goes in no one will notice any genaside.

       This is why NOW.

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36. Can you be sure? No? Neither can Trump. 

    Though it was half a century ago, neither could Nixon. The USSR and PRC went from Commie BFFs to talking about war, and then there was an earth-shattering kaboom along the border. Nixon wanted to know if a nuke had been used.

    Nobody – not the CIA, the NSA, the NRO, the DIA, or any of the close to a hundred Federal intelligence agencies was willing to give him a straight answer. The NRO’s flash and radiation detection satellites, built and lofted for the exact purpose of detecting atomic weapons, weren’t looking in the right direction at the time. The CIA’s U2s and SR-71s had sampling systems that would let them fly through the fallout cloud and sample it, but none of them were actually configured for that at the time.

    Nixon was *furious* at the incompetence and waste of money, but the intelligence agencies didn’t care; the Presidency was a revolving door, and the intelligence agencies were forever.

    cf: one of Nixon’s several autobiographies; I forget which one.

    Also note Bush’s plan to pay the Norks not to develop atomic weapons was a dismal failure. They took the money, set off a bomb anyway, and had the balls to come back and demand more money. And as far as I can tell, not one component of the entire US intelligence system had been tasked with monitoring North Korea.

    Then there was the fall of the Shah. According to one CIA officer who was there, the Tehran CIA office found out about it from Iranian TV, and they were right there within walking distance of the big event. Interestingly, I read an account from a former KGB office who said the same thing.

    We haven’t been getting intelligence – at least, not in the form of actionable reports – for a long time. They’re just going through the motions and collecting fat Federal paychecks.

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37. If the report that Turkey talked us out of regime change is true, there is the screwup. You can’t win a war with half-assed effort, especially against an enemy like Iran.

    And the fact that Qatar, Pakistan, and, again, Turkey are involved in the “peace” effort…that bothers me even more.

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    1. Turkey’s involvement makes me strongly doubt any claims made about Kurdish behavior.

       They’ve been caught making stuff up about groups of Kurds that don’t even connect with their Turkish-Kurd crazies.

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       1. This. Exactly. The claims and counterclaims and complicated legal frameworks make sorting out reality exceptionally difficult. On top of that, the Kurds are predominately Sunni Islam, as are the Turks, but Kurds seem to have greater fractions of non Sunni and non Islamic groups who are still ethnically Kurds.

          The term “dog’s breakfast” might have been coined to describe this.

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       2. France is one of our NATO allies, and I unconditionally trust them. The Wall Street Journal is a reputable newspaper, that I unconditionally trust. Professor Sumdood is a chair at a major university, so I trust him for every detail, including items not in his area of specialty.

          Thus I have reliable and complete knowledge about Middle Eastern Affairs.

          (There are two possible explanations of above statements. One is that I have just suddenly gone very badly insane. Very badly insane even by my own baseline standards, which were objectively a bit cracked to start with, even if also sometimes functional in crazytimes. The other is I meant them sarcastically. )

          I have serious doubts about whether I ‘know anything’ when comes to things that I can document having studied with some intensity for years.

          I don’t understand Trump’s foreign policy, or what is really happening, or what will happen.

          But, frankly, in context it is maybe really amazing that I can tie my shoes at all, and have been consistently able to tie my shoes for maybe twenty years. Okay, my frustration levels have my hyperbole and examples erring on the pessimistic side, but the full context may make that fairly understandable.

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          1. :twitches:

             Third option, you’re doing your part in spreading insanity and/or dark amusement.

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       3. wrt the Kurds, they seem to be bipolar, especially in their dealings with us. People who have worked with them either think they are awesome, or go “screw it, we should have let Saddam have them), and both have very solid reasoning based on personal experience. Possibly different subgroups?

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          1. Since the guys I knew loved their Kurds, and noted that there were groups their guys said “no, stay away from those guys, Bad News,” that makes the most sense.

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             1. Slightly parallel, I would expect folks to have different experiences of Americans depending on which Americans, and the context. Should be a thing with some sharp multimodes.

                Sparse exposures mean that extremely negative experiences can grab a lot of attention in hindsight.

                There should be a little self selection, or movement even in a very difficult society, and that should maybe help form clusters of very bad and very good, relatively speaking.

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