Editorial: If the ceasefire holds, Donald Trump’s ill-starred foray into the Middle East will have left the Iranian regime stronger than it was before the conflict
It only works when the US navy doesn’t engage the way it can. Trump lost there because he pulled out the navy but left it limp, just sitting on the front yard. If it went hard and actually did something substantial, the picture would have been very different.
Trump ran into the same problem Dubya and his daddy did in Iraq & Afghanistan- sure we can topple the government and defeat their military. That’s easy-peasy. But after we do that, who’s gonna run the country? In all cases, the answer is “nobody who is acceptable to the US”, so the US ends up having to step in and run the place for a time so that it doesn’t immediately devolve into “new boss, same old bullshit”. Leave a political vacuum in that part of the world and it gets filled by Al Quaida, ISIS, Taliban, or other radical groups that battle it out among themselves for decades, creating another Lebanon. Or Iraq. Or Afghanistan.
The government has been trying this weird half-assed interventionism since actual interventionism is such a hard sell post-Iraq and Afghanistan. Some bombing here, an attempt to arm rebel groups there… and if it fails, that’s for the locals to clean up. I’d argue this goes back to Obama and Trump continued it, but in a room temp IQ way that only Trump can manage.
If by different you mean the loss of american war ships and the same result, sure.
Not saying those are not capable ships, just that that is not the environment they where made to operate in. A nightmare theater for any navy, let alone one with almost no small escort ships (an issue they are well aware of). To make it worse there is nothing for them to do, nothing to really fight there, just risk, mines, minisubs, and land based death. I can see an destroyer in that strait intercepting missiles and drones all day, but to what end? No civilian tanker was going to join them.
It sounds like cope but… yeah pretty much this. Trump was too scared of dead soldiers, a sunk boat or downed planes to allow any commitment of assets in a way that would have accomplished any of his goals, and as a result the US military was stuck with strategies proved useless by HERMANN FUCKING GORING. It was such a fucking ridiculous loss of life because seventy years of military history have shown that it could never have accomplished anything and was entirely just trump being a pissbaby, but this time with a couple thousand dead people as a backdrop.
It only works when the US navy doesn’t engage the way it can. Trump lost there because he pulled out the navy but left it limp, just sitting on the front yard. If it went hard and actually did something substantial, the picture would have been very different.
How could the navy had gone harder? Should they move closer so air refueling is not necessary? This would probably get them hit.
Trump ran into the same problem Dubya and his daddy did in Iraq & Afghanistan- sure we can topple the government and defeat their military. That’s easy-peasy. But after we do that, who’s gonna run the country? In all cases, the answer is “nobody who is acceptable to the US”, so the US ends up having to step in and run the place for a time so that it doesn’t immediately devolve into “new boss, same old bullshit”. Leave a political vacuum in that part of the world and it gets filled by Al Quaida, ISIS, Taliban, or other radical groups that battle it out among themselves for decades, creating another Lebanon. Or Iraq. Or Afghanistan.
The government has been trying this weird half-assed interventionism since actual interventionism is such a hard sell post-Iraq and Afghanistan. Some bombing here, an attempt to arm rebel groups there… and if it fails, that’s for the locals to clean up. I’d argue this goes back to Obama and Trump continued it, but in a room temp IQ way that only Trump can manage.
well said.
If by different you mean the loss of american war ships and the same result, sure.
Not saying those are not capable ships, just that that is not the environment they where made to operate in. A nightmare theater for any navy, let alone one with almost no small escort ships (an issue they are well aware of). To make it worse there is nothing for them to do, nothing to really fight there, just risk, mines, minisubs, and land based death. I can see an destroyer in that strait intercepting missiles and drones all day, but to what end? No civilian tanker was going to join them.
It sounds like cope but… yeah pretty much this. Trump was too scared of dead soldiers, a sunk boat or downed planes to allow any commitment of assets in a way that would have accomplished any of his goals, and as a result the US military was stuck with strategies proved useless by HERMANN FUCKING GORING. It was such a fucking ridiculous loss of life because seventy years of military history have shown that it could never have accomplished anything and was entirely just trump being a pissbaby, but this time with a couple thousand dead people as a backdrop.
FUCK this fucking administration.