You watch how many Chinese flood in to rebuild Iran.
Iran War Watch
- Thread starter Hawkeye10
- Start date
James R. Webb
@JamesWebb_16
I just heard from a source very close to top of the White House that, following today’s shootdown of an F-15, an A-10, and the successful hits on multiple helicopters and other aircraft, the WH is choosing further escalation, including US troops on the ground. This would be madness. I truly hope that someone in the Pentagon or elsewhere can prevent this from happening. If anything was proven today, it’s that Iranian AD is still very capable and very intact.Any US ground operation will be heavily reliant on helicopters and other slow-moving airframes. Despite the assertions of both the Pentagon and POTUS, it is crystal clear that we have not reduced Iranian AD to the point where a ground operation is even a remotely wise decision. Let alone potentially inserting by air and then being exclusively reliant on an air corridor for things such as resupply and CASEVAC. History is replete with examples where this reliance has been disastrous. Further, the hard part would be after troops were on the objective. Our lack of manpower leaves little room for maneuver, and once static (which would be required), Americans will become a stationary target for the entire inventory of Iranian indirect fire capabilities on Iranian soil, and it is a recipe for failure.Simply put, this is not an existential war for the US's survival. It’s a war of choice that should never have happened in the first place, and POTUS should be finding a way out, rather than clumsily and recklessly sacrificing America’s finest.
@JamesWebb_16
I just heard from a source very close to top of the White House that, following today’s shootdown of an F-15, an A-10, and the successful hits on multiple helicopters and other aircraft, the WH is choosing further escalation, including US troops on the ground. This would be madness. I truly hope that someone in the Pentagon or elsewhere can prevent this from happening. If anything was proven today, it’s that Iranian AD is still very capable and very intact.Any US ground operation will be heavily reliant on helicopters and other slow-moving airframes. Despite the assertions of both the Pentagon and POTUS, it is crystal clear that we have not reduced Iranian AD to the point where a ground operation is even a remotely wise decision. Let alone potentially inserting by air and then being exclusively reliant on an air corridor for things such as resupply and CASEVAC. History is replete with examples where this reliance has been disastrous. Further, the hard part would be after troops were on the objective. Our lack of manpower leaves little room for maneuver, and once static (which would be required), Americans will become a stationary target for the entire inventory of Iranian indirect fire capabilities on Iranian soil, and it is a recipe for failure.Simply put, this is not an existential war for the US's survival. It’s a war of choice that should never have happened in the first place, and POTUS should be finding a way out, rather than clumsily and recklessly sacrificing America’s finest.
The Hormuz Letter
@HormuzLetter
BREAKING: A massive line of US Air Force C-17 transport aircraft is currently crossing the Atlantic toward the Middle East, alongside KC-135 refueling tankers. A second wave is already over Europe heading for the eastern Mediterranean. C-17s carry troops, armored vehicles and heavy equipment. This is the largest visible airlift movement since the war began.The Doomsday Plane landed at Andrews tonight for a reason. This may be it.
@HormuzLetter
BREAKING: A massive line of US Air Force C-17 transport aircraft is currently crossing the Atlantic toward the Middle East, alongside KC-135 refueling tankers. A second wave is already over Europe heading for the eastern Mediterranean. C-17s carry troops, armored vehicles and heavy equipment. This is the largest visible airlift movement since the war began.The Doomsday Plane landed at Andrews tonight for a reason. This may be it.
Donald J. Gorbachev
@donaldgorbachev
Will gets it. The incomprehensible willingness. 15-20 personnel. 8-10 airframes. 200 miles inside Iranian territory. To rescue the WSO of an F-15E. The desperation is the classification. You don’t sacrifice that many aircraft and that many personnel for a weapons systems officer from a 1986 airframe. You sacrifice that much when the person on the ground knows what he was flying and the empire needs him back before the IRGC puts him on television and the 495th Fighter Squadron becomes the story the $1.7 trillion program can’t survive.
Are you Iranian?
If you know so little about me why would I take your opinions about me seriously?
It wasn't an opinion. It was a question...
Wyatt Reed
@wyattreed13
Former CIA counterterrorism chief says there’s a “complete blackout” on “the actual amount of damage” done to US bases and buildings, after it was revealed that Iran penetrated Saudi air defenses, blew a hole in the exterior of the American embassy, then sent a drone through it to destroy the most secure areas.Iran “was able to produce an indigenously made weapon, fire it across hundreds of miles and put it into the embassy of their top opponent, which means they could have hit anything they wanted in the city,” he says.
Shaiel Ben-Ephraim
@academic_la
The IDF has informed the Israeli cabinet that the air war has reached the limits of its effectiveness in its current form of focusing on military targets. Ron Ben Yishai, Israel's premier military analyst says Israel is considering two paths:1) Gradual infrastructure degradation. The progressive destruction of bridges, power stations, and transport links to make the regime unable to provide basic services. The downside: it takes time, allows adaptation, and lets Iran continue disrupting oil markets and striking Israel meanwhile.2) The "Dahiya Doctrine": Ben-Yishai's preferred recommendation. This involves pre-warning civilians to evacuate specific neighborhoods in Tehran, particularly those housing families of senior regime officials and Revolutionary Guard commanders, then completely flattening those areas from the air. He argues making senior IRGC commanders personally homeless and displaced would, in his view, make them far less willing to reject Trump's ceasefire offers.Neither of these options will work. But they are both based on the intentional and massive commitment of war crimes.
@academic_la
The IDF has informed the Israeli cabinet that the air war has reached the limits of its effectiveness in its current form of focusing on military targets. Ron Ben Yishai, Israel's premier military analyst says Israel is considering two paths:1) Gradual infrastructure degradation. The progressive destruction of bridges, power stations, and transport links to make the regime unable to provide basic services. The downside: it takes time, allows adaptation, and lets Iran continue disrupting oil markets and striking Israel meanwhile.2) The "Dahiya Doctrine": Ben-Yishai's preferred recommendation. This involves pre-warning civilians to evacuate specific neighborhoods in Tehran, particularly those housing families of senior regime officials and Revolutionary Guard commanders, then completely flattening those areas from the air. He argues making senior IRGC commanders personally homeless and displaced would, in his view, make them far less willing to reject Trump's ceasefire offers.Neither of these options will work. But they are both based on the intentional and massive commitment of war crimes.
Babak Taghvaee - The Crisis Watch
@BabakTaghvaee1
BREAKING: According to my Israeli sources, unfortunately, the Bushehr nuclear reactor in Iran has been placed on the target list of the IDF to be struck after the end of Trump's ultimatum. Russia has evacuated all of its workers at Israel’s request. This is going to cause major radioactive pollution in the Persian Gulf region—Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia will be exposed. The lives of not only Iranians but also people in these countries will be affected by this action.
@BabakTaghvaee1
BREAKING: According to my Israeli sources, unfortunately, the Bushehr nuclear reactor in Iran has been placed on the target list of the IDF to be struck after the end of Trump's ultimatum. Russia has evacuated all of its workers at Israel’s request. This is going to cause major radioactive pollution in the Persian Gulf region—Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia will be exposed. The lives of not only Iranians but also people in these countries will be affected by this action.
Policy Tensor
@policytensor
The conventional deterrent in Asia vanished not with the expenditure of missile inventories. It vanished once it was demonstrated that the US cannot suppress Iranian missiles and that US forward bases cannot survive under Iranian missile fire. This is elementary but important to understand. The conventional deterrent threat in Asia is that the US will fight China if the latter attacked Taiwan. Can the US now credibly promise to do that?No, it cannot. In order to fight China, US forces need to survive in the Western Pacific. Where are they supposed to survive? Which bases are secured from Chinese missile fire? Which ships are secure? If you have dispersed forces, as the Archipelagic Defense proposal suggests, maybe survival rates would be marginally higher. But how do you propose to resupply them without a functioning surface fleet in the region?How does the US propose to fight the air war? Even if the Anderson and Press proposal for base hardening is followed, what will be the survival rate of the hardened bases? They model a 30 day war. Why will China stop at day 30 if there are bases still standing?On top of the paramount issue of base vulnerability is the magazine depth issue. Not in the sense that Kelly is implying: that we’re emptying the magazine. Rather in the sense that if even the full magazine is insufficient to subdue Iran, it was already laughably insufficient for war in Asia. Iran has proven that the US cannot fight China. Get over it. Or we will end up in a vastly larger military humiliation than we are suffering right now.
@policytensor
The conventional deterrent in Asia vanished not with the expenditure of missile inventories. It vanished once it was demonstrated that the US cannot suppress Iranian missiles and that US forward bases cannot survive under Iranian missile fire. This is elementary but important to understand. The conventional deterrent threat in Asia is that the US will fight China if the latter attacked Taiwan. Can the US now credibly promise to do that?No, it cannot. In order to fight China, US forces need to survive in the Western Pacific. Where are they supposed to survive? Which bases are secured from Chinese missile fire? Which ships are secure? If you have dispersed forces, as the Archipelagic Defense proposal suggests, maybe survival rates would be marginally higher. But how do you propose to resupply them without a functioning surface fleet in the region?How does the US propose to fight the air war? Even if the Anderson and Press proposal for base hardening is followed, what will be the survival rate of the hardened bases? They model a 30 day war. Why will China stop at day 30 if there are bases still standing?On top of the paramount issue of base vulnerability is the magazine depth issue. Not in the sense that Kelly is implying: that we’re emptying the magazine. Rather in the sense that if even the full magazine is insufficient to subdue Iran, it was already laughably insufficient for war in Asia. Iran has proven that the US cannot fight China. Get over it. Or we will end up in a vastly larger military humiliation than we are suffering right now.