The penny is dropping. Reeves’ denial of reality is no longer sustainable. As I have been saying for weeks, Trump and Netanyahu’s war is likely to deliver an outcome requiring a response at least as great as that required after WWII.
We face shortages of gas, oil, other raw materials, and components for many manufacturing processes. The impact will already last for years, given that no immediate end to this conflict is now in sight.
Hardship, poverty, potential famine, business and personal bankruptcy, recession, and a resulting collapse in government revenues, and more, are very likely to result.
We need rationing, much more progressive taxation to balance enhanced social security payments, and major institutional reform to create resilience as a core element of defence policy to achieve the outcomes we need.
We might have a recession. So, increase taxes.
I think he’s getting a teeny bit jealous that Dale has found a much more lucrative grift than simply shouting”Moar tax!!!” every five minutes and waiting for the ermine.
But he simply can’t bring himself to become apostate and say that buying your oil and gas from other people because you’ve completely fucked up your own energy system is now looking utterly insane…
Word salad, and he seems to be relishing the (possible) chaos doesn’t he? Unhinged, completely unhinged.
Yep. He’s FOR IT.
Yeah, seems to get off on it. For some reason he imagines that the collapse of society will result in him being crowned emperor.
He thinks it’ll prove him right, a bit like Gollum getting his Ring back before falling into the volcano with it.
Leftists tend to be catastrophists, because anything other than egalitarian green socialism will – inevitably! – lead to disaster!! So nose-rings for all…
When there’s chaos in the country, the People will call for a Strong, Wise Leader; perhaps a retired accountant currently residing in East Anglia?
I haven’t noticed bombsites that need rebuilding or the long queues at the undertakers
You’ve not been to Bishop Auckland.
Been there and apart from the castle it was such a dump I jumped on the Arriva to a much nicer place nearby. Eldon Lane.
Actually I have been to Bishop Auckland and I didn’t notice any bombsite – or are you saying that Trump has bombed it to punish Starmer for not joining his attack on Iran?
I believe the war is just market manipulation by Trump and his pals. Same with the tariffs. And this isn’t “bad Trump”. It’s a rational exploitation of the job.
Tell your pals to buy calls on oil, then go into a war. Everyone makes a shitload of money. Then they buy puts, and you announce a ceasefire.
The opportunity is there. Find a thing the public will go along with (bringing back jerbs, killing arabs) and clean up as you can control the news.
Most people go into politics to change the world but if you did it to make dosh (and Trump is a business guy mostly), why wouldn’t you do it?
It’s why I don’t buy this WW3 thing at all.
This level of appreciation is a set of blinkers not dissimilar to that of 60s/70s/80s progressive Hollywood, and I wouldn’t be surprised if therein lies the origin. Like all blinkers they get in the way of a wider view, merely offering a simple and comforting aspect that perhaps gives an illusion of sophisticated understanding.
Throw another child on the fire, Fortescue, it’s getting chilly in here.
[cigarette holder back in mouth]
I am not some mad anti-Trumper. Trump, Hilary, Biden, Harris. Bunch of useless cunts as far as I’m concerned.
I’m saying, is it possible that this could be happening. Yes. You know if you are going to declare war, or make a speech saying there’s a ceasefire. You can bet on that outcome and profit. This isn’t 9/11 magic explosives.
And secondly, would Trump do it? He’s not exactly Terry Waite, is he? And you’ve got to understand where I’m coming from. I’m not judging his morality doing it. I’m coldly analysing the situation. Lots of politicians have sent men to their deaths for not much more than ego (Tony Blair for example). I don’t think doing it to make money is any less honourable than that.
No, you said you believed it was the only thing happening.
This could be what a self-satisfied Telegraph columnist tell himself when he regurgitates some shit he’s swallowed from the Guardian. Indeed, the notion of Trump causing death and devastation just to manipulate the markets for personal profit is childish dumb-fuckery worthy of Richard Murphy.
possible/believe. It’s a qualified statement. But OK. I think it is the most plausible explanation.
“Indeed, the notion of Trump causing death and devastation just to manipulate the markets for personal profit is childish dumb-fuckery worthy of Richard Murphy.”
Why is it? What did Henry V do? He fought the French and got richer. Al Capone? Killed other gangs to get their territory.
And what would it personally cost Trump to manipulate the markets for a 40% gain this month? It’s not his F-15 crashing, his military budget being burned.
It’s quite possible (indeed likely) that Trump is simultaneously doing this for all the right reasons, saving the world form a MullahBob, and cashing in. These states are not mutually exclusive.
And if he saves us from a MullahBomb he and his mates are welcome to the dosh, as far as I’m concerned. Cheap at twice the price.
And you’ve got to understand where I’m coming from.
You are a man of limited financial resources and you project your money grubbing on Trump.
Mossad and CIA briefed Trump that as soon as the Iranian leadership was decapitated, there would be a popular uprising, end of story. No uprising, the story continues.
Mossad and CIA never wargamed Iran holding out this long, and the resulting oil crisis. No plan survives first contact etc.
Your analysis of the situation leading up to the war, carefully omitting nukes and Iran’s policy of political destabilisation throughout the Middle East, is somewhat naïve.
You know this how?
Hormuz closed for a few weeks and he is expecting the same chaos as after the end of the biggest war in history? Oil is down below $90 a barrel, although Spud has explained that markets are simply wrong in this case. Candidly, if you are not fist typing in piss-drenched knickers you have underestimated the scale of the crisis.
This is Trump’s Vietnam, and we should give him the same response as Macmillian and Wilson: fuck off, we’re not joining in.
I take it you’re happy for the mullahs to be allowed to set off nukes, then.
It depends where. The Middle East is really just Saudi and Iran scrapping over territory. Like the French and English scrapping over Poitiers and Aquitaine.
The only reason they have the whole “Death to America” thing is because America gets involved. It helped get the Shah into power, it fights alongside Saudi. You don’t hear Death to Sweden, because they aren’t involved.
The gulf is a bunch of cunts. No-one says anything about all the nasty shit the Saudis do because they’re our cunts. The cunts nuking each other won’t make much long term difference. Once the radioactive dust clears, we can drill for oil again. It’s not like Iraq or Kuwait are solving the Travelling Salesman Problem, or giving us the next Billy Ocean. In 200 years, lots of lovely oil is about it.
The funny thing here is that they’re setting fire to a flag that already has fire printed on it. Suppose it helps when no-one can read the instructions.
Look at a globe. Where are the major shipping pinch points?
Hormuz, surrounded by mozzers
Bab el‑Mandeb, surrounded by mozzers
Suez, controlled by mozzers
Panama, surrounded by dagos but largely under Trump’s control.
Which of these pinch points are within range of Iran’s proven 4000km-range missiles? And if nukes are dropped anywhere near them, what happens to the shipping trade?
Interested is right. With nukes Iran has the globe by the balls for that short period before the mullahs use them to bring The End Of Days, which is their whole purpose in acquiring them. It turns out, unexpectedly, that a large quantity of $50,000 Shahids stashed in the Hormuz mountains is also capable of gripping the world’s balls.
I don’t buy this “end of days” stuff. You have to be a fucking loon and you don’t get to run a country being a fucking loon. You live out in Wyoming with about 20 other loons. Does the average bloke in Tehran want a nuclear winter? Do the troops in the revolutionary guard want to see their kids fried?
Or, the other explanation is that someone has managed it in Iran, and nowhere else in the world.
There’s a rational explanation, which is about either attacking or defending against Saudi Arabia. Own a nuke, and you can tell them to give you a load of oil fields.
This level of naivety, or lack of education, is rare – we should have you stuffed.
In no particular order, the following were all fucking loons and all ran or run countries.
Hitler
Stalin
Mao
Pol Pot
Idi Amin
Mugabe (in fact, almost all African national leaders)
Kim (various Kims)
and that’s just the bigger ones in the last 80-100 years.
Go back a bit further and you get Caligula, Nero, Vlad the Impaler, and I most certainly could go on.
In the western world, we have lived in relative safety since the end of WWII.
But that is not the history of the world, and nice focus group triangulating ‘democracy’ is not it, either.
Mad tyrants are probably the norm.
Tbf, I’d happily find myself on that list the way I feel nowadays.
You could (and should) add Blair/ Brown and Keir Starmer to that list – certainly they are in the same ballpark
Perhaps if tenderised a little first.
Tenderised?…
What does a cannibal do after eating a vegetable?
Sell his wheelchair…
I’ll get my coat…
They are forking loons, and they are running the country. They are also running it into the ground, because they are forking loons. The mad mullahs belong to the Twelver Shia sect – a mad “religion” whose sole purpose is to bring the End of Days, because that’s the only way the Second Coming of their version of Mohamed, their Messiah, happens.
No the average bloke in Tehran is not a Twelver loon and no they don’t want nuclear war. But the loons in charge absolutely do want one. Unlike the Christians who are content to wait for their Messiah’s Second Coming at the End of Days, the Twelvers aren’t waiting. Some may have gotten comfy holding supreme power over their people, while making noise about nuclear war and end of days, and holding the globe hostage while doing it. That last Ayatollah was pretty old. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
It’s about time someone stood up to their lunatic bullying. I’m all for giving them the martyrdom they claim to desire. I also don’t want to be collateral damage in their attempt to bring about the End of Days.
To repeat:
“You have to be a fucking loon and you don’t get to run a country being a fucking loon.
This level of naivety, or lack of education, is rare – we should have you stuffed.”
Billy Ocean?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZA08Ff2HVI&list=PL_9gWeiShHFGbq0EzuopoVq-0Hf1gERXB
Who’s the whitey in the sunglasses?
This ‘war’ was always a matter of when, not if.
China has allegedly 60 – 90 days of oil reserves so expect some pressure from them towards the mullahs, and with the oil revenue curtailed, the IRGC, who are actually the ones in charge, may have to cut the funding to the three H’s.
China will be all right. They’ve invested record amounts in renewables dontcha know, some of which has been connected.
It’s exactly like Vietnam, except the goodies are winning easily, at minimal cost to them, and Iran isn’t even able to capture an F-15 pilot on their own territory after getting lucky with an infrared missile.
It’s exactly like Vietnam, except Russia and China have proven themselves incapable of offering any kind of meaningful military assistance which might tip the scales against the United States.
It’s exactly like Vietnam, except the US and Israel can keep bombing and sanctioning Iran forever, while Iran has a hard limit to how much damage they can sustain before food riots and massive outflows of refugees.
So it’s not much like Vietnam at all. My word is poontang.
It’s also the response Chamberlain would have given..
I’ve seen it said that people who used to go into politics had often run something – a business, an estate, a regiment, a trade union, a city council, even a school. Now none of them have. So I’m not looking forward to our ruling class having to run an economic emergency, except, I suppose, they will provide ample opportunities for mocking laughter.
“Polanski” appears never even to have run a bath.
Baths aren’t Green – only 5 second showers permitted, like in Blade Runner 2049.
I’m not sure he’s ever run one of those either.
Buggery requires some hygiene…
That’s ‘cos he’s Roland Rat (whose real name is David Paulden).
His real name is Jerk Hypnotitz.
Fr. Spodo Kimodo
I thought our defence policy was to save the boat people, keep what few ships we retain safely moored up in port and no straight white men in the cockpit.
Trump is winning, actually. This bloke’s a fuckwit.
Eh. Another attempt at getting on the rationing board.
Which first means you have to get the rationing board set up.
Iran (or more properly the IRGC which runs the gaff, not the Iranian civilian ‘government’) refused to allow inspections of its nuclear sites, admitted to having enriched uranium far beyond what was needed for civil purposes, said it would not give up its nuclear ambitions, and lied about its delivery systems (it said it was self-limiting to 2000km, and we know it actually had missiles capable of hitting targets 4000km away, because it just used them).
(It supposedly told Steve Witkoff during negotiations that it had 460kg of 60%, which could be enriched to 90% in 7-10 days, and could provide enough material for eleven nuclear weapons – thought that doesn’t need to be true, though I imagine it is, in context of the preceding paragraph, for direct action to be indicated IMO.)
The advances of drone technology – land, sea and air – meant that we were probably approaching a point when Iran could have shut the Strait of Hormuz without much fear of retaliation beyond an actual massive ground war, and possibly nuclear annihilation, both which would have been mildly counter-productive if the goal is to maintain the flow of oil to the world economy, and so I suspect the stated reason for this war is the actual reason for the war: ie if we don’t do this now we are absolutely fucked.
Say the above analysis is correct (and if it’s not I’d like to hear where it’s wrong), and within twelve months Iran would have had a genuine capability of turning a large part of the world’s oil and gas off at will, I’d say Trump has done the entire world a massive favour.
Bizarrely, in some ways, because he doesn’t even need their oil and gas.
That’s without factoring in that Iran has repeatedly promised to wipe Israel off the map (and we’re friends with Israel, or should be), has referred to the US and the Great Satan and us as the Little Satan), has been behind terrorist attacks in Europe and elsewhere for decades, and has the blood by proxy of hundreds of European and thousands of American soldiers on its hands via its IED trainers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This is not a time for Neville Chamberlain, in my view.
“There is never a right time to do something like this but there is a time when it is too late.” – Friedrich Merz
If it’s actually too late, or if not, for having been brought to this brink, I blame Obama. The really significant Iranian developments – of ballistic missiles and cheap drones – all happened during his three terms. Trump 1.0 was preoccupied with other things and many of his levers of power didn’t work. This time they do and he’s using them, and the world should be extremely grateful to him for it. Oh, and Bibi, too.
Iran’s ability to threaten to, or actually, close Hormuz comes from naval minelaying and coast-launched antiship missiles; the mines they’ve always had, but going from a few big, obvious Chinese Styxalikes to the large numbers of truck-launched C802s and derivatives (that basically meant that trying to clear Q Routes through Hormuz risked rerunning Dardanelles 1915) happened under Bush Jr. in the 2000s.
Drones and ballistic missiles are relatively easy to counter, by comparison (for very different reasons…) hence why they’re nuisance weapons against protected VLCCs.
…but countering them is expensive with current kit. It’s going to take a while for us to rearm with Ukranian-style cheap interceptors.
Not really, no. Antiship ballistics are expensive (missile cheap, guidance more pricey… if you want it to work, anyway) and come in small numbers – plus Iran’s not going to be unmasking its ballistic-missile TELs to take random shots at shipping, nor launching large salvoes at shipping.
The long-range drones, to get the range and payload to menace ships, have to be big, which means they’re detectable, and can be engaged by anything from APKWS (cheap 70mm rockets with not-expensive laser guidance) to Martlet LMM (designed from the start to be an affordable counter to cheaper threats like UAS – I was peripherally involved with Thales in their concept work) to a Wildcat helicopter flying alongside, while the observer uses the M3M machine gun (cries of ‘Git sum! Git sum!’ optional). And the really basic point, is that the drones either “fly to fixed location” targeted off Google Earth to hit an airfield or a refinery… or, to hit a moving target, need either a radar seeker or a datalinked EO feed to find and hit a ship, which is jammable (especially at longer ranges, where you’re on the winning side of the signal/noise equation).
What remains a challenge, is stuff like the C802 / Noor / Ghadr family – basically the Chinese took the old Exocet, updated and improved it (turbine engine instead of solid rocket, newer guidance electronics). Cheap, numerous, launchers look exactly like Mercedes box-body trucks until they push the covers back, they can stop, launch and be gone in a minute (and the IRGCN sent a fire unit to Beirut in 2006, which did exactly that right under the Israelis’ noses). The missile isn’t a huge challenge to spot and splash, being a capable if unexceptional subsonic sea skimmer… except there can be quite a lot of them, and they can come from a lot of directions (they can go wide and dog-leg in from unexpected approaches) which makes it harder to guarantee the ships you’re protecting don’t get hit.
And, of course, the usual expectation of “counter the anti-ship missile threat” involves getting onto your desired ASMD course and speed… which is a big problem if you’re stuck in a half-cleared Q Lane protecting the minehunters as they work their way through. Going “levers ahead 70, starboard 30” to position against the missile threat might be awkward if you then discover an Iranian mine the hard way. (As the saying goes, “any ship can be a minesweeper… once”)
Not wishing to be nerdy, and military nerdiness isn’t my speciality, but AIUI Shaheds cost around $35,000. A Typhoon costs £75,000 per hour to fly, so a Shahed is worth 20 minutes. And that’s before the Typhoon fires any weapons. Perplexity tells me a reasonable rough estimate for a Wildcat on a Mediterranean Martlet patrol is about £6,000 to £10,000 per flying hour. This is all way too expensive to be sustainable in the long term.
Hormuz is not very wide and the shipping lanes are close to the Iranian coast. Ships might well be close enough to be within range of un-jammable fibre-optic drones, as featured by the Russians in Ukraine. I doubt it would be impossible to modify a Shahed or similar for fibre-optic FPV control. All that is necessary is a credible threat that makes a ship uninsurable.
The problem with asymmetric warfare is that one side fights much more cheaply than the other. In 2001 the USA was brought low by 19 blokes with Stanley knives. This lesson evidently was not lost on the IRGC.
Shaheds don’t work on moving targets: you’re needing some sort of terminal guidance, which then needs to guide onto the target without getting easily confused, distracted or seduced (as well as “do we just shoot it down?”) which puts cost up and brings in mutual interference issues.
Run the ships close to Oman (for land-based cover and standoff, but still in deep enough water) and you’re twenty miles from Iranian soil, which also helps in a number of ways – like, if you’re using remote piloting, you’re struggling with line-of-sight comms (and fibre optic, over water, depends on no dhows, go-fasts or any of the other myriad small stuff cutting it where it’s settling on the sea surface)
Correct on asymettric warfare, but for closing the Straits the main weapons are mines and CDCM (cheap, numerous, hard to counter); UAS might be distractions, but would be more used against shore targets than ships underway.
The Hormuz Strait is little wider than the English Channel at its narrowest point.
Seems to me the destroyed Iranian armed forces could do a better job of policing the vessels through La Manche than our £50bn’s worth of military kit is doing.
A few drones dropping grenades on those fucking dinghies? Why not?
This is not a serious response to the idea that Iran is building nuclear weapons and cares about hitting Hoboken and Tunbridge Wells.
If that’s real and imminent, you need conscription, a full on sea and air invasion, the country put under NATO control and decades of industrialisation.
Remember how we went into this and how it was about regime change? The Iranians were going to rise up? What happened to that?
“That’s without factoring in that Iran has repeatedly promised to wipe Israel off the map (and we’re friends with Israel, or should be), has referred to the US and the Great Satan and us as the Little Satan), has been behind terrorist attacks in Europe and elsewhere for decades, and has the blood by proxy of hundreds of European and thousands of American soldiers on its hands via its IED trainers in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Really? How many Israelis helped us to recapture the Falklands? How many helped to liberate Kuwait? I’ve nothing against them but why do people consider them as being any more special than Papua New Guinea? Iran have been behind terror attacks in the west? Sure. So were Saudi Arabians funding Al-Qaeda. The Saudi government murdered Jamal Khashoggi in Istanubul. Osama bin Laden came from Riyadh. But no-one likes to talk about that because of good US and UK relations with the Saudis.
It was imaginary bollocks.
Trump’s stated goals at start of Epic Fury:
Destroy Iranian ballistic missiles and related industries.
Destroy Iranian Navy.
Disconnect Iranian proxies.
Prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons.
Regime change not mentioned. Iranian people advised to shelter indoors.
28th February
https://www.whitehouse.gov/videos/president-donald-j-trump-on-the-united-states-military-major-combat-operations-in-iran/
“Finally, to the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand…when we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
29th March
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4GIBct9cHzY
We’ve had regime change. If you look already because the one regime was decimated, destroyed. They’re all dead. The next regime is mostly dead. And the third regime, we’re dealing with different people than anybody’s dealt with before. It’s a whole different group of people. So I would consider that regime change.
So is it or is it not about regime change, and did regime change happen or not?
Yer man says there’s been regime change. Not me.
1 Trump suggests (after he’s listed the war goals) that the Iranian people take over their government “when we are finished”. Therefore regime change by the US not a war goal.
2 Killing the current leadership as part of achieving the war goals is not regime change. The regime in Iran is still Mullahs (ostensibly) leading the IRGC and Basij; it hasn’t changed. Trump waffle doesn’t alter that.
If the goals are achieved with the current regime in place, then not.
No.
Trump says all sorts of things in freeflow. In freeflow you should take him seriously but not literally. If you think the war was about about regime change, and that regime change has occured, then you’ve answered your own questions above and taken the flounce out of them at the same time.
No you don’t. Trump is showing you this in real time.
‘so I suspect the stated reason for this war is the actual reason for the war: ie if we don’t do this now we are absolutely fucked.’
Didn’t Tulsi Gabbard under oath deny that there was an immediate risk of the moolahs getting nooks?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m in favour of kneecapping the prehistoric fuckers just on general principles. But if Gabbard was telling the truth, then why the particular hurry in the last few weeks?
I suppose, just playing Devil’s A for a moment, and picking up on WB’s point about how there’s never a Death to Sweden moment with the moolahs, is it conceivable that, getting nukes and being left alone by Uncle Sam and the Israelites, the moolahs would confine their apocalyptic menace to neighbours? Yes, the price of oil would shoot through the roof, but we cannot be held to ransom by ragheads forever, so we’d have to find an alternative, and let the buggers sink back into the primordial sand.
Tough on Israel, I grant, and I am in favour of Israel and in favour of Israel getting on in life.
But I suppose my Devil’s A thing boils down to this: what is in it for us? What would a British government with the interests of the British people do, if it is conceivable that we let the moolahs get on with their own version of enrichment?
Wildish card: the moolahs have fired missiles at us, yet (surprise!) we play possum.
Temperamentally I veer towards squashing the barbarian bugs, no holds barred. Yet, as a thought experiment, I do wonder what might happen if we just left them alone. Trouble is, maybe, neither we nor the Septics, or anyone else, ever moves beyond a willingness to wound for fear of striking.
I’m not exactly against properly dealing with the fuckers, but I don’t think most people are. It doesn’t mean aerial bombardment of a few bits, but getting medieval. It means 100,000+ western lives lost to do it, and America isn’t going to do that. It’s not hard to defeat America. You let them blow the shit up, then kill lots of them with guerilla warfare until the American people decide they don’t like this anymore and demand they come home.
There’s going to be no chance of any asymmetric warfare now, because of cheap drones. They’ll just kill any foot or vehicle patrols and anyone who sits in a fixed base and blow up any aircraft you base in-country. Most of the wars we have seen turn into forever wars are no longer viable to even begin. In fact they’ll do it in your home country too, as we saw over the wekend with the Kensington Gardens flap. All you end up with is a shattered country in the hands of whoever wants it most. Can’t see that being a western democracy in the face of all the fanatics.
This isn’t even a drone problem. You can go back to Vietnam, to the French war in Algeria. Women with bombs in their shopping bags hitting bars troops hang out in.
Occupation requires things like brutal cultural destruction, ethnic cleansing or immigration. Encourage your soldiers to take foreign wives, and little boys and girls will be brought up thinking The Reich is normal. A couple of generations and everyone in Poland is speaking German and being called Fritz instead of Stanislav.
But no-one is willing to do it. So you get an invasion, and then Taliban or FLN types still around that hate you.
´…brutal cultural destruction´
See Dewsbury.
This is part of history I can’t make sense of. Parts of the Balkans area were under Ottoman rule for 500 years. Do they speak something similar to modern Turks? No.
The New Testament is in Greek, but why not Latin given the Romans had been in charge 100 years before that Easter Rising we all get a Bank Holiday for. The Romans just wanted the trade routes, they had no interest in changing the local culture.
China is different, an independence referendum in Tibet would fail, as the Han have established themselves and are more than the llama population now. There’s a real effort in Xinjiang to change the culture too.
Ireland gaeltacht spoke Gaelic until the young figured they could make headway in life by learning English and perhaps emigrate out of the schithole and go to America ‘cos that’s where the opportunities were.
God Bless America – the world owes you more than you know.
This is true. Everyone talks about the US being the most militarily powerful nation and formally that looks about right.
But you’ve got to be willing to accept casualties, and lots of them.
The Septics went on and on and on about losing, what, 50,000 men in Vietnam.
We lost that many and more on the first fucking day of the Somme.
100 years later, our losses in Afghanistan were comparatively trivial, but each one was treated almost as a state funeral.
I don’t say any of that with blood lust and, IPOF, I agree with Conrad Black that the carnage of WW1 is something from which Europe has never recovered, morally or demographically.
I just think it’s the truth. If you cannot accept casualties then it does not matter how good your kit is. We might as well get with the asymmetric guys. Drones, IEDs, bombs in handbags – plus fertility rates and infiltrating the fuckers borders by unconventional means.
Let’s actually get medieval, again.
Theirs, perhaps. The idea that the yanks have to go all in on the ground in Iran and take the country to achieve what’s needed is bonkers.
Why?
I mean, I can see a good argument for the usual 48-hour shock and awe that the Septics is good at. But, if that’s what they’re going to do, then they should clear off at the end of that time, perhaps leaving a post-it note not to catch their eye again or they’ll be back once more in six months time. That’s a strategy and would probably achieve what, or some of what, is needed. Rinse and repeat as necessary. Nice bit of gunboat diplomacy.
I can also see a good argument that the Ayatollahs are perhaps the single most malevolent force in the world and have been for some decades and that lancing the boil of them once and for all via a ground invasion is worth doing from the perspective of US interests (and everyone else would also benefit). Iran is not intrinsically a basket case. It has the human capital to rediscover civilisation.
But what is actually happening? It looks like it started out as the 48-hour wham-bam and is now ending up as the usual half-in half-out neither-fish-nor-fowl Septic approach.
As I’ve said before, I wish them well. But to me it looks like the usual Yankee buggers muddle, and that buggers muddle arises from an unwillingness either to disengage after 48 hours, or to commit to substantial losses in a proper fuck-the-enemy-come-what-may invasion so they always end up falling between those two stools.
I don’t see any evidence of “quagmire!”, though I do see evidence of the shitstream media trying to create that narrative.
Currently it seems that the IRGC might have placed the Iranian President and a couple of other leading civilian guys under house arrest. If they are attempting a coup then that might spook the Artesh, Iran’s regular armed forces. Opportunities for civil war, and therefore deals, in Iran are numerous, and no doubt Mossad is watching carefully. Even the structure of the IRGC offers a route to division and a deal (corruption bungs are almost exclusive to the old leadership, with younger members getting crumbs).
The siege (blockade) of Iran is causing a lot of problems therein, and a lot of nervous fidgeting in China. Lots of pressure can be brought to bear. The IRGC would like to play a waiting game (US midterms, US allies sqeaking, etc) but I don’t think they’ll get that.
.
And that’s just the sensible stuff. If we want to talk going all medieval, why not just neutron bomb them into submission? Why have mass death our side when they are available for that role?
Okay, officially there aren’t any neutron bombs but you get the idea.
I agree with Conrad Black that the carnage of WW1 is something from which Europe has never recovered, morally or demographically.
100%. WWII sealed it. And now, after 80 years without a war that has directly affected us, our soft, anxious, fat, lazy population, addled by luxury beliefs, is ripe for takeover by vigorous heterosexual people with cultural confidence. And that is precisely what is taking place.
A Defense Intelligence Agency assessment last year determined that Iran would not be capable of building 60 intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles capable of hitting the USA until 2035. Which seems an odd thing to say, to me, merely obscuring any useful appreciation of imminent and immediate threat (how long until 1 such missile?). Given the variables, and the consequences, now seems about the right time to remove the danger.
No matter how furiously George edits, Han shot first and lived to apologise for the mess.
I don’t know what I don’t know. I don’t know what Tulsi Gabbard knew, or when she knew it. Suppose she came out of that hearing and was handing documents showing that actually the picture had changed? I’m not saying she was – I don’t know.
They’ve generally criticised the West, but sure, they haven’t got to Sweden yet because there are bigger fish to fry. They are probably quite pleased that there are between 50,000 and 150,000 Shia in Sweden though.
I think they would certainly have let the US use its bases here for offensive actions, and would have given at least SF support.
The advances of drone technology – land, sea and air – meant that we were probably approaching a point when Iran could have shut the Strait of Hormuz without much fear of retaliation….
One serious Iran watcher, an Iranian and native Farsi speaker, reckoned on the Goodfellows podcast that shutting the strait was always a last resort for the IRGC and they were hit so badly they went for it sooner than planned.
The real threat for all those drones and their increasing stock of ballistic missiles was the threat overwhelming their neighbours air defence systems so they’d be allowed to develop their nukes in peace.
I don’t think that Wittkoff story was ergo proctor hoc as some claimed, I reckon the administration was genuinely spooked because they’d never negotiated with the likes of the IRGC.
Yep, who knows? Not me, for sure. They’ve threatened to close it loads of times but have usually been bribed (or sanctioned) not to.
I am saying that at some future point a nuclear-armed Iran could have shut it and kept it shut, and that that could not be allowed to happen. Not a risk we could or should have taken.
Funny – I think the IRGC was genuinely spooked because they’d never negotiated with the likes of the Trump admin.
Twenty years ago a big part of my day job was helping the Navy with contingency plans for “what if Iran closes the Straits of Hormuz?” (the short answer was “a military solution will be expensive and difficult” and basically meant burning through about three times as much ammunition as we actually had stockpiles of… cashing in the Peace Dividend had already cast some long, large shadows that haven’t got better since)
Iran have had that capability for a long time, it was ignored outside some fairly narrow areas, and a charitable interpretation of US actions is that their leadership simply forgot (or had never really known) that it was a risk they ought to plan for.
And in the same timeframe, I was recently returned from a tour of Iraq (well, I saw the airfields at Basrah and Baghdad…) where Iraq had absolutely, definitely, super-duper truthily, stockpiled huge quantities of combat-ready weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, radiological, working towards nukes we promise!) which they could use on us at “45 minutes notice” and which made it absolutely essential we invade them right now. After years of searching… we found some old chemical shells. In fact, we found fewer rusty relics of the 1980s war with Iran, than farmers around Ypres plough up every year. Which has made many, very cynical about claims that Iran was “days from firing nuclear missiles at…”
At the same time, Syria had more, newer, better chemical weapons, and had integrated them onto Scud missiles. Oh, no, that’s different, those chemical weapons weren’t an issue, it was whataboutery, Assad was a good chap… until he wasn’t, and CW-warhead Scuds were a problem, and we ended up doing Op RECSYR to take them away. (Without a shooting war, that time)
Very little faith in the pronouncements of politicians to be had here…
a charitable interpretation of US actions is that their leadership simply forgot (or had never really known) that it was a risk they ought to plan for.
The notion that the Pentagon, CIA, Mossad and the IDF somehow forgot about Hormuz is a deeply silly one.
Part of an even sillier narrative that this war happened on a whim of “Trump”. Two Tier likes to say “he has no plan” because Two Tier has no balls and wasn’t entrusted with America’s war plans.
Because the British government is no longer trustworthy or trusted by the Yanks.
I’ve seen lots of noises from the British government, the EU, and other losers to the effect that they still believe they are the adults in the room. But their only plan was appeasement and denial while Iran flaunted its uranium enrichment programme.
Nota benny, from military pov, Iranian capabilities to control the strait are already severely attritted. They’re down to speedboats armed with machine guns and the odd Shahed now. And they’re only able to operate because the United States granted a ceasefire. It’s not Iran’s military might – now largely non-existent – that’s keeping the sea lane closed. It’s an excess of caution by shipowners and insurers, plus the temporary indulgence of the US.
This suits the United States just fine in the short term, they’re making money hand over fist in LNG shipments.
Yet there was, quite evidently, surprise that Hormuz was “declared closed” and a confused scramble to react.
Note that the Pentagon may well have been warning “if it kicks off with Iran, one of their contingency plans is to try to prevent shipping through Hormuz”.
Was that listened to and acted on, though? Doesn’t seem to have been. That’s my point: if higher command don’t know, or declare that your concerns are exaggerated, they own the results.
And the “close the Straits” plan involves hundreds of very inconspicuous CDCM TELARs that haven’t featured in any “we have obliterated lots of these” (because they’re really hard to find and smite), plus minelaying by anonymous platforms – threats that get overlooked, ignored, or (again) just don’t seem to register.
Doesn’t mean all is lost and we’re doomed… but one thing’s for sure, there aren’t many ships going through Hormuz.
Who do you think is running the US war effort? I think it’s highly unlikely to be Donald Trump, or Pete Hesgeth, micromanaging orders like in a game of Command and Conquer. They probably have entire floors in the Pentagon working on this.
That’s not really true tho, is it? USAF and IDF have been very aggressively hunting down their launchers since day one. As you say, they’re not easy to find. And Iran has been stockpiling for this eventuality. But a lot have been destroyed by allied aircraft loitering over missile cities.
Was there? One of the curiosities of this war is the determination of the MSM to give comfort and aid to the Iranian regime. They’re straining to paint a picture of incompetence and uncertainty in their eagerness to Get Trump. (Next time, Gadget!) But incompetent people don’t successfully launch 16,000 airstrikes with almost no losses to the goodies.
one thing’s for sure, there aren’t many ships going through Hormuz.
Remember tho – this is hurting Iran a lot more than it could ever hurt the United States. The longer the blockade goes on, the more trouble the regime is in. They need exports to pay the bills. I wonder when the IRGC last got paid?
It’s all gone Pete Tong for the mullahs. They were supposed to have been able to at least menace the US carrier battle groups with their missiles, and they hoped closing the strait would cause so much economic damage it would defeat Trump. But it’s not working for them.
Israel and the US have been going after ballistic missile TELs, which are a lot more distinctive (and a lot less dispersed), and concentrated more to the northeast (where they can fire at Israel, or Kuwait, or Bahrain…).
The typical Noor CDCM launcher is… just a box-body truck until the cover goes back, and sixty seconds later it’s a truck again. The Iranians brought one into Beirut in the middle of the 2006 fighting (right under Israel’s nose while they were in full search-and-destroy mode), volleyed off the weapons (damaging the INS Hanit and sinking an unfortunate merchant ship) and got out undetected.
And they’re out of easy Israeli reach… which adds to the problem, they’re down around Bandar Abbas which isn’t seeing anything like the same sort of attention for targets that are ISTAR-critical.
Good tactical drills, and poor strategic planning, can easily co-exist.
And “closed Hormuz” hurts a lot of people: and the mad mullahs of Tehran think suffering is good for their souls while enjoying inflicting it on others.
Doesn’t mean we’re all doomed, but this is not looking like a well-planned operation that looked at “…and what might Iran do?”
It is most bizarre. Having given up subs to the Times and Telegraph i have been looking at the Daily Mail online more than is healthy. Much of its coverage of the war could have come straight from Iran’s propaganda department.
The closure of the Strait could easily have been a desired tactical outcome; it enables the US to block China’s energy supply without overtly doing so, whilst hammering the IRGC in ways they can’t hide from. Exploit an entirely predictable outcome to your advantage.
Evidence of surprise, confusion, fluster and frustration comes via the shitstream media. Recently we saw Trump go from genocidal maniac to cowardly loser in one afternoon because he utilised threats to engineer a ceasefire. Just today we have the Daily Mail repeating as fact a NYT hit piece claiming he was so raving he had to be removed from meetings. Maybe his market bets went south.
The udder thing – and I think Jason is quite right about the whiplash messaging and various parties scrambling to spin an evolving, complex, messy situation – is that there’s genuine uncertainty over who’s actually in charge in Iran, if anyone.
So the Americans may have thought they were closing in on a deal, only to see IRGC thugs overrule the civilian government. “Mosaic defence” sounded good on paper to the regime. In practice it may have destroyed the ability of the Iranian state to make agreements.
But for a crazy man, Trump is playing a blinder imo. We should all be crazy like that. He’s managed to blunt Iran’s last credible weapon – economic threats – using the power of his tweets.
NB – the reason the Yanks didn’t give prior warning to Her Majesty’s government was because that information would have been leaked and the Ayatollah – and all his evil little minions – would have escaped the reckoning.
And people are still crying about mean old Trump damaging the “special relationship”. The special relationship died when the Americans realised the British government is determined to turn Britain into a Muslim country that kowtows to the Chinese Communist Party. Maybe Reform can restore our credibility and America’s trust, but until then, the Yanks have taken the measure of our world class confident bluffers and their tiny, not very useful military capabilities.
But it was funny seeing TT and the French midget promising to defeat the strait – AFTER the US does all the work and there’s no actual defending required. Such monstrous vanity begs for a bonfire.
And yet:
“There is never a right time to do something like this but there is a time when it is too late.”
“Something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do it”.
Iran’s been “thinking about nuclear weapons” since the 1970s.
https://www.globalnerdy.com/2008/08/22/even-the-shah-of-iran-has-done-a-celebrity-tech-endorsement/
Their programme got obliterated last year. Except, apparently, it wasn’t, or it was replaced incredibly quickly…
Whilst I acknowledge your obviously deep background knowledge I revert to the prime mover: Iran is governed by a millenarian military-religious sect determined to “remove the obstacles to the return of the Mahdi” via an “apocalypse”. They are determined to acquire nuclear weapons so that they can use them, preferably within their lifetimes.
They’re not in a rush, though. Far more important is that they eventually succeed. They rule a country with vast oil reserves and a 90 million population with high levels of intelligence and education, capable of building and sustaining a military-industrial complex able to develop and produce the low-cost automated munitions that, shrewdly deployed en masse, render it economically and politically infeasible to stop them.
The only question is that set by Merz: whether it’s already too late. The rest is nerdy whataboutery.
There’s a secondary question, though: whether the simple mercenary mafiosi thugs in the IRGC who’d like to stay alive decide to topple the martyrs.
I knew Iraq was a fraud when it was revealed that 45 minutes meant “British military base in Cyprus”. It’s like Clinton’s “did not have sexual relations”. Technically accurate. That doesn’t include a blowjob. But everyone thinks “sexual relations” means some action. I knew everything had been cooked. Find one bloke, however unreliable to say that WMDs exist. Now you have “good information”. Add in a 45 minute claim to scare the public. And of course politicians can hide behind things being classified.
And within days, of the war, it was obvious Blair knew it was bollocks because the narrative changed to “well, we got rid of a bad man”.
I do believe Iran wants nuclear weapons, Are they days away, or do Israel just want to see them bombed though?
I do believe Iran wants nuclear weapons,
It’s not as if they’re doing much to hide it. The IRGC publicly crying that they’d rather die than hand over their enriched uranium is a bit of a clue. But their terms are acceptable to the United States.
Another clue was Iran building and launching ballistic missiles that can reach London.
Are they days away, or do Israel just want to see them bombed though?
Yes.
Israelis are smart, tough and brave people. Nobody’s fools. They take war seriously and are masters of the art, because losing could mean another Holocaust. Never again is not just a slogan to Israelis. I can only guess, but I reckon their calculation – and Trump’s – was based on the Iranian regime’s intent, made clear in negotiations, and the historic weakness of the Iranian regime after Mossad started taking apart Hamas and Hezbollah.
As in, the Iranian regime is an escaped mental patient, dressed as Santa, sharpening an axe. Doesn’t make sense to wait until he gets inside your house to start protecting yourself. Clock him on the head when he least expects it instead. Idiots and policemen will tell you that it’s ILLEGAL to pre-emptively defend yourself. But why quote laws to men bearing squadrons of F-35 stealth fighter-bombers?
F-35is, too. Extra spicy.
I know – it’s a piece of piss. It’s keeping it closed that’s the problem. Would a nuclear Iran find that harder or easier?
That strikes me as absurd. Trump has been talking about the Strait of Hormuz since the 1980s (strange but true) and the idea, by extension, that you knew all about it (or at least remembered all about it) and the US mil didn’t is unlikely.
Far more likely: they wanted to provoke the closure.
Note I said it was “leadership”, not “military” that seemed to have overlooked the issue.
Is there any sign of a MCM force with sufficient escort, to clear and protect a Q Lane through Hormuz, being within… a thousand miles?
Back in 1991 it took a force of 25 minehunters (with a strong support force) working for over three weeks, to clear a much shorter route to get two US battleships into gunnery range of the Kuwaiti coast.
Which does leave the US limited in its options, to get ships through Hormuz…
1991? You mean the thirty-five years ago 1991?
And there’s a lot less mine clearance capability available now, than we had back then (and in 1991 two US warships, the Tripoli and the Princeton, were badly damaged in the effort). Have the mines got less lethal since then?
Minelaying keeps catching people out: back in October 1950, a US Navy Admiral was bemoaning how “We have lost control of the seas to a nation without a Navy, using a pre-World War I weapon, laid by vessels that were utilized at the time of the birth of Christ” where North Korea had prevented the planned landings at Wonsan.
As I said, Trump has been talking about it for forty years.
The US isn’t particularly strong in minesweepers – as I understand it – because this capability was expected to be shouldered by other NATO nations.
Didn’t happen, maybe they should have anticipated that. Equally, I can easily imagine a scenario where the other NATO leaders thought he was bluffing.
I’m not saying Trump is playing 5D chess, though I can’t think of any other Western leader in recent times who would have fired shots into the engine room of an Iranian freighter that was threatening to break his blockade.
But that’s irrelevant to my point, which is that if Iran was nuclear armed it would make it a great deal harder to deal with.
Would Gaddafi have been overthrown and knife raped if he’d had nukes? Would Russia have invaded Ukraine if Ukraine had kept its? These are obvious questions with obvious answers, I know, but they go to the heart of it.
I understand your 45 minute point – a lot of good people died in Iraq because of that lie. I must admit I bought the lie at the time – I didn’t believe my government would send blokes to war on a lie. I was a fool, what can I say. That doesn’t mean this is a lie, too.
The penny is dropping. Reeves’ denial of reality is no longer sustainable. As I have been saying for weeks, Trump and Netanyahu’s war is likely to deliver an outcome requiring a response at least as great as that required after WWII.
I do not see it myself – albeit he is not alone in thinking this. I would hasten to add. However, most of those that do think this way are not normally the kind of people he would have time for.
We face shortages of gas, oil, other raw materials, and components for many manufacturing processes. The impact will already last for years, given that no immediate end to this conflict is now in sight.
But I thought we needed to start rationing people’s consumption anyway so doesn’t this just start the process? Surely the high end audio equipment needed for news channels and other public interest facilities needs to be taken out of private hands, especially when its owned by people peddling sensationalism on social media?
Hardship, poverty, potential famine, business and personal bankruptcy, recession, and a resulting collapse in government revenues, and more, are very likely to result.
The government is already spending more than it has and has been for decades. Hardly a result of the war.
We need rationing, much more progressive taxation to balance enhanced social security payments, and major institutional reform to create resilience as a core element of defence policy to achieve the outcomes we need.
If you think the recent arrivals in the UK are going to wait for ration cards an queue then I have a bridge to sell you. Given you have the police busy worrying about social media posts I am not sure they have sufficient resource to ensure any rationing scheme. As for ‘progressive taxation’ – anyone labouring under the impression the UK is a low tax country is delusional.
And we need major reform of our economic thinking and of our international institutions, most of which have clearly failed, and a new economic model that rejects the long, tortured, climate-unsustainable, and carbon-dependent supply chains neoliberalism promoted.
Yes – because things like the transition to wind power and electric cars are working so well….Let’s double down
Quite why bank consent is required to deliver any of these outcomes is very hard to imagine: none of this is their business, but it seems Reeves thinks it might be. This implies that, as yet, she neither understands any of the issues we are facing nor that they create a need for her to act, rather than outsourcing action to third parties. The time for such neoliberal responses has long passed, yet Rachel Reeves still misses that point. Maybe she’ll never get it. That’s why her career as a politician looks to be decidedly limited now.
So Banks have gone from being fundamental to the creation of money in the economy to having no role whatsoever. As people here say – it’s just a ‘Word Salad’ at this point. Let’s hope the IGRC allies get hold of him first.
What he has wanted all along. He is conspicuously attempting to exploit a crisis.
“War! What is it good for?!”
Getting rationing, much more progressive taxation . . . .
He fails to notice that the balance between essential and discretionary spending has inverted since WW2.
If we decided to buy nothing from China for say three years – no solar panels, no windmills, no gadgets – only the wankers who have to have the very latest iphone would notice, and we’d all be much better off.
I’m not so sure about that, only the iPhone wankers noticing. Lots of very basic stuff appears to be imported from China, that we can’t do without. Its estimated that 80% of global medicine production is based on Chinese APIs (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients). Plus lots of simple electronic components etc. If there was a 100% embargo on purchases from China then the UK would start losing basic functions very soon afterwards.
This is the point I keep banging on about – we have allowed the basic sort of production capacity thats required to keep a large urban society running be offshored, not only that but offshored to a very obvious potential geo-political opponent. It was an error that has the potential to end the Uk as we know it, and it was all done by the likes of our host telling everyone that we can always get stuff from abroad and importing everything makes us wealthier. Complete gibberish that borders on treason IMO.
I was doing some cursory searching for parts for some projects I’ve been sketching out. 6551, MAX232, generic glue, etc. The top half dozen search results are invariably Chinese suppliers.
Agreed.
Plainly this also includes your oil production.
Of course, you’re at liberty to point out that we Aussies have done exactly the same.
Imagine if the Tories had used their 14 years in power to unleash Britain’s vast cheap energy potential, instead of deliberately making electricity as expensive as possible.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, we’d have been well positioned to export gas to the continent, helping the balance of payments, strengthening the Pound, and strengthening our NATO allies and trading partners in Europe.
Instead of a Net Zero productivity growth economy, Britain would be booming thanks to low cost power. Jobs are a cost – but they’re a benefit to employees, and instead of mythical “green jobs” we’d have created hundreds of thousands of good paying opportunities for British workers.
Oh well! Thanks, Tories.
You’ve got what BBC wanted. That the Tories didn’t put up a good enough fight has merit. But that’s just history now.
BBC is still in control. I think it critical that Reform be asked, “What are you going to do about BBC?”
That the Tories didn’t put up a good enough fight
Eh? The Con Party did exactly what it set out to achieve. This was treason, not a lack of fight.
The Conservatives actively sustained the BBC. Being lazy would have meant just leaving the license fee where it was, and inflation would have caused a lot of damage. Instead they raised it, funding people who hate them.
They actively sustained the railways, retaining a massive subsidy introduced during Covid, keeping Labour voting union members funding the opposition. And started HS2, an enemy project.
I think they know exactly what they intend to do about thee BBC but are keeping schtum about it for obvious reasons. And I think the BBC knows that.
“Jobs are a cost” doesn’t mean jobs don’t also have value. The point is that creating jobs in and of itself is a cost. When you pay Crystal for a lapdance at Roxies, it is a cost, but you get her boobs in your face which is a benefit. Paying her to do interpretive jazz dance is a cost with no benefits.
We’d be richer with gas drilling in the UK not so much because of the gas but because we’d tax the gas companies for it. I can’t quite follow the numbers, but bare minimum 25% of the profits. That’s money we can use to have more hip operations, potholes filled or just cutting income tax.
We’d be richer with gas drilling in the UK not so much because of the gas but because we’d tax the gas companies for it
Not quite, we’d get richer because it would bring down the cost of energy, which brings down the cost of everything. Including lap dances, because Crystal and the nightclub have leccy bills to pay. Tax receipts are gravy. All the oil and gas jobs and spin off jobs are gravy. Lowering the cost of living and the cost of business is the beef.
Lower energy costs are one of them comparative advantages.
He’s mad. I mean certifiable. It can be the only explanation.
Housing is essentially rationed, yet this hasn’t resulted in greater happiness. Taxation has become more progressive and yet people feel poorer. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of this strategy.
The siege has begun. Iran has no chance. Iran needs the SoHormuz more than anyone else. Trump has blocked it. That’s it. Conflict over. No need to blow up civilian infrastructure, like power plants.
We wait for Iran to do double back flips to satisfy Trump.