Iran

I've held off from posting about Iran because I didn't want to, frankly.  I wasn't surprised we went in, Trump had been building up forces in the region for months, but I feared how this would go.  The decapitation strike right off the bat was epic. We hit them hard very fast.  I figured we would have air supremacy easily, we'd hit targets at will, but I just didn't believe regime change would happen from air missions alone.  I was very happy to see Israel hitting Basiji checkpoints and groups with drones, killing hundreds of the most vile among them.  The fact Iran decided to hit US bases across the Gulf was of no surprise.  They got lucky on day one by killing seven Americans in a relatively unprotected location, but also hit some important bases and radar installations.  As the war drug on, the Russians and Chinese were helping them pick targets and they scored some wins against us.  Their targeting accuracy went from 4% to 27% in a few weeks.  How we would allow some of our aircraft, like KC-135's and an E3 Sentry get hit on the ground is beyond me.  Someone lost their stripes over that.  Overall, we degraded the IRGC badly, but could never stop the missiles from flying.  They have built some impressive underground complexes, miles deep, that we would have to infiltrate with special forces to knock out.  Why we didn't do this could only come down to logistics and not enough actionable intelligence.  With our ground penetrating radar from satellites, we have to know where they are.  I had heard that we'd bomb them during the day and the Iranians would dig out the hatches at night and keep launching.  Too deep to destroy.  

I don't believe the remnants of the regime can survive, even if we declare the war over.  There is a deep divide within Iran that will take effect as soon as the bombs stop falling.  The divide I am talking about is the Artesh.  The Artesh was created during the time of the Shah and was comprised of Iranian conscripts and career military men.  They were the Imperial Iranian Army, today about 3 million strong.  When the revolution happened in 1979, Khomeini kept the Artesh in place, but never trusted them.  In fact, he accused some of them as being spies for the United States, but their strength was far greater than he could handle trying to dismantle them, so they made a deal.  The IRGC, a wholly political and religious entity, would be the backbone of the regime's military aims, while the Artesh was left to defend the country from invasion and border control.  The Basiji was created to keep the population under control through terror, arrests, beatings, rapes and wholesale murder.  I'm a little surprised that the Artesh did not move on the regime sooner as they will not help suppress or hurt the population, for they are made up of the average Iranians.  I believed the events in January of this year, where mass protests erupted across the country, denouncing the regime and the subsequent murder of some 40,000 innocent civilians to crush the uprising, have led us to this point and I think there is a simmering anger coming.  The Artesh were mostly Persians and not Muslim fundamentalists, kept in check by fear. There is less fear now and no clear leadership, all of which creates power vacuums.

If you've paid attention to what the Pentagon tells us they have bombed, it isn't the regular army.  Now, they did sink every regular navy ship and hit their airfields, but this kind of campaign required us to do that.  I do believe the ship we sunk near Sumatra was a regular Artesh navy ship, but was commanded by the IRGC.  The truth of that sinking is lost on most people because you've been lied to about it by the media, but we know from survivor testimony that our submarine gave the Iranians at least three and maybe four warnings that they were about to be sunk and that they should abandon ship.  Some sailors did abandon ship, the rest were stopped by the IRGC commander, probably at gunpoint, and they all died as a result.  The head of the Artesh forces was killed in the opening strike of the conflict, but after this, no other Artesh personnel have been targeted on purpose.  This is not a coincidence. 

When you hear Trump say that his administration has been talking to people in Iran about ending the conflict and then the next day you hear an IRGC member say there has been no discussions, you need to understand both of those comments are true.  We aren't talking to the IRGC, they are irrelevant and lying Islamist bastards who can never be trusted, we are talking to more reasonable diplomats.  This conflict will end when the Artesh takes their country back by killing and capturing all the IRGC and Basiji that will be left.  It's 3 million versus about 250,000.  You can add in all kinds of other militias and regular citizens who have been killing the regime forces every night for weeks and the end is near.  The regime miscalculated in many things the past few months.  They didn't think their bloody crackdown had gone too far, they didn't think we'd hit them in broad daylight, they didn't think firing missiles and drones into their neighbors would result in the opposite effect they desired, they didn't think their banks would run dry of funds leaving the IRGC from paying their troops, they didn't think the people would help the Mossad and CIA target their men and they didn't think the Artesh would be the last thing they see in this life.  Now, I could be wrong, I have no advance knowledge of anything, but this seems like a logical conclusion.  I do not think we will put regular troops on the ground, except maybe on Kharg Island.  We have no stomach for losing soldiers at all.  Apparently, the public thinks wars are fought with computers and AI and real people don't need to be involved.   Unfortunately, that isn't true.  The Iranians have already hit us harder than I anticipated by destroying several of our bases, THAAD systems, aircraft and killing seven soldiers on the opening salvo.  Their missile and drone apparatus is more resilient than we'd like.   

There are some regional issues that we are dealing with also.  Turkey has never really been a friend to the west and I've been very dubious of their spot in NATO.  I'm sure they feed Russia information.  They also hate the Kurds and have threatened to attack the Kurds if they move into Iran.  They would not want them to take territory and rewrite the map when it is over, nor gain any legitimacy from this conflict.  It really is a problem.  I had envisioned the Kurds doing one simple task.  Taking one Iranian city and holding it.  The IRGC would rush in forces and we would lay waste to them with Apaches and A-10's.  It would be a field day.  The whole world seeing a city liberated would go a long way for Iranians to see that they have their future in their hands.  Unfortunately, Turkey ruined all that.  It will be interesting to hear about all the fighting that has gone on inside Iran that we don't currently know about.  I've seen a few videos of freedom fighters killing some IRGC, so it is happening.

i have a theory.  It goes something like this.  I'm not convinced the downing of our F-15E really happened.  If it did, we used that opportunity for something much grander than their rescue.  Twenty-four hours before the media announced the WSO was rescued, I had heard he was already rescued by very trustworthy sources.  Then, suddenly those sources went dark.  I had wanted to post something about the rescue, but I then wasn't getting any more info from the intel world.  I started to wonder, and then I knew what I would do.  If the back-seater was really out there in the desert, I would hold off from saying anything publicly so that I could suck in as many IRGC and Basiji forces into little kill boxes and lay complete waste to them.  I would do this because our media is really on the Iranian's side and they could not be trusted with any information.  I would also do this because it makes strategic sense to hit the IRGC hard whenever possible.  The aftermath and cease-fire have proved that our media hates America, so I would kill as many bad guys as possible.  I have heard multiple reports that we killed as many as 1,500 Iranians during that op.  I had also heard many hours before the rescue was announced that the WSO had climbed 7,000 feet of rugged ranges to get rescued and had been in contact with us for almost the whole time through an encrypted radio.  There was a huge firefight and tons of sorties were flown by A-10's, MQ-9 Reapers and fighters dropping a lot of ordnance.  The next day, when some further details came out and I saw the airstrip we supposedly built in the middle of the desert on short notice, I was first amazed and then it hit me.  This was a ruse of the highest order.  We didn't put 200 special forces and dozens of aircraft and helicopters in to get one guy.  We went to Isfahan and got the uranium. 

Four engine C-130's don't get stuck in the sand unless they have tons of material on board.  Now, they did have an explanation that one of them hit a ditch and actually broke the wing off, thus rendering it a total loss.  However, hundreds of special forces and conflicting reports say Israeli special forces were used as well, would not be put in harm's way for one guy.  I could see a squad of Seals going in, but not hundreds.  We did hear that the CIA had put out a false story to the Iranians that the pilot had been found so as to sow confusion, but I'm not buying it.  We got the uranium or at least tried, depending on how buried it was.  That airstrip, again, conflicting stories say it was abandoned, while others say we built it, was just 20 miles from Isfahan.  Then, after that op was over, Trump demanded a cease-fire with hellfire results if it wasn't done and put out a tweet that was universally condemned and we forced the Islamist bastards hands into a shaky cease-fire.  When asked about the uranium right after the deal was announced Trump gave a rather aloof answer that it would be taken care of.  An IRGC commander was also quoted as saying that the pilot was probably a false story to get the uranium, so I am under the belief we got it, or some of it, and stopped the conflict because objective had been achieved.  We have also been rather forgiving for all the missile and drone attacks that have continued after the cease-fire was announced.  It was all too abrupt for me.  I also don't think a Colonel and wing commander would be the WSO on an F-15E.  That position is usually for more junior officers.  Things just don't add up for me. 

We have kept it quiet and stuck to our story, which I'm sure the Iranians are thankful for, because that would not go over well inside Iran to admit we got some of their uranium.  I'm not sure how long we will wait, but if the regime falls soon, we will hear the story.  I'm about 97% sure this happened.  It would make less sense to stop the war if we didn't achieve that important objective.  You can hear them saying it is now buried, but we probably had people in there for weeks digging it out.  I hope this happened.  The other option is we tried, but failed and this was a bit of a fiasco.  We've had plane and helicopter failures before, once in Iran in 1980.  To me, it makes more sense that we couldn't fit the little bird helicopter in the C-130 because it was full of uranium cannisters and disposed of it and truly wrecked the C-130's, but only time will tell.  It has to be killing Trump to not say we got it as he's a braggard, but I'm here to tell you, something else was going on during that operation.

In the end, however that comes, Iran will fall.  The regime will collapse within months if it doesn't fall now.  It has lost all of it's legitimacy and there is no way it will survive the damage it has taken.  I suspect many civilians will die in the aftermath, but every death is another nail in its coffin.  Even when the hot war ends, the cold war will never stop.  Israel cannot allow it to exist and the people of Iran can smell blood in the water.  If you are one the Jane Fonda Democrats that support this regime and you do support the regime if you are not supporting Trump,  you are going to rue the day you opened your mouth.  The mainstream media has been lying from the jump about this operation and the people of America, whether you were in favor of the strike or not, will always support our troops in combat.  Like usual, once the cease-fire was announced, the liberal press jumped all over IRGC propaganda of a 10 point plan.  That was a fake story.  The Iranians presented a 10-point plan and Trump threw it in the garbage.  There is a real 15-point plan that the Iranians have tentatively agreed to behind the scenes.  Everything you hear in the meantime is Islamist bluster, not a bit of truth to it, including what has been happening in the Strait.  We just put two missile cruisers through the strait yesterday morning, looking for mines and finally shut down the Strait to our liking.  The Iranian regime has been terrorizing the world for 47 years and the only reason they didn't topple sooner was thanks to Obama and Biden giving them hundreds of millions of dollars, none of which went to the people.  It was all spent on their proxies and missiles, drones, nuclear material and underground facilities.  Your tax dollars went to bolster one of the worst regimes in modern times.  A regime that has killed thousands of Americans.  I'm glad we killed most of their leaders, frankly.  All horrible people who hate us, but the one thing we know about power vacuums is they are real.  Infighting is almost a guarantee.  I want to believe that we learned they were just days away from 90% enrichment and that we had intel they were going to strike first.  I want to believe they told Kushner and Witkoff they had enough material for 6 bombs.  That's justification enough in my mind.  We knew they were never going to stop trying.  Chinese, Russian and North Korean missile technology was flowing into the country and we did find out their missiles could go further than expected with their missed shot on Diego Garcia.  They apparently fired hundreds of missiles and drones at our carrier, every single day they tried to take it out and never even came close.  You can be assured the Chinese and Russians will be sending in hypersonic missiles in an attempt to hit the USS Abraham Lincoln if hostilities resume.  It would be a huge blow to us and a huge win for the evil regimes, so we need to be careful with this two week break.  I expect all hell to break loose again and this time it will be the end of the Iranian regime.  We now just have to have faith that a death blow is coming that will wrap this up neatly.  If it doesn't the regime is doomed either way as it dies a slow painful death over time.  My last word is fuck off to our allies that didn't help.  Especially Spain.  They were arming Iran the whole time, removed their ambassador from Israel and put one in Tehran.  Their government is socialist and I'm ok with us removing all forces from Spain and kicking them out of NATO.  Britain has become a joke and can no longer protect herself.  They utterly destroyed their culture with unchecked Muslim only immigration and spent all their budget on public assistance and none of national defense.  The ruination of a nation.  France is further down that road, but at least has a military.  So, as much as I don't want us to leave NATO, there will be a reckoning once the conflict in Iran is over.  The old rules-based order of the British empire is at and end and they are kicking and screaming as it dies.  When Lloyd's of London said they would not cover the insurance for any ship transiting the Strait of Hormuz, all ships anchored.  Trump then said the US would cover insurance to get the ships moving.  When the tanker owners tried to come to us, Lloyd's of London threatened all of them  with severe punishments on all kinds of other things.  They put out bullshit stories in the British press about how they were still insuring everyone they canceled, but at higher rates.  No, it was full on panic as their cancellations backfired and losing billions in insurance premiums to the hated Donald was a horror they couldn't withstand.  They have lost some of their customers as tankers stream to the US to on load oil.  Another master stroke.  Double middle fingers to London.