The Strait Story

Let's get straight to the point: trump and his pro-war lackeys had no idea what they were really doing starting a war with Iran (via Phillips Payson O'Brien at The Atlantic): 

Astonishingly, President Trump and his aides were caught unprepared when Iran, under air assault from the United States and Israel, retaliated by targeting shipping in the Persian Gulf region and specifically through the Strait of Hormuz. Military planners have pointed out for decades that the waterway—through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes—is highly vulnerable to Iranian assault. But the Trump administration acknowledged in classified briefings, CNN reported last night, that it did not make provisions for a closure because officials assumed that such a move would hurt Iran more than the United States.

In its failure to anticipate Iran’s reaction, the administration ignored a dynamic that former Defense Secretary James Mattis, a first-term Trump appointee, was fond of pointing out: Once hostilities begin, “the enemy gets a vote.” U.S. leaders have drastically underestimated the Iranian regime’s ability to survive, adjust, and strike back. Just two weeks into a war that began at a time of the president’s choosing, the U.S. appears uncertain about what to do next.

You can see the lack of intellectual and operational awareness with trump and everyone in his chain of command - Secretary of Voguing Pete Hegseth especially - when it comes to war planning just by noticing the map of the Strait of Hormuz.

via Wikipedia Commons

It's the geographic bottleneck of politics. I've got no training in military strategy or tactics, and even *I* can tell that narrow gap is a major hinderance to any naval operations. No shipping can slip through that 12 mile gap without detection, and Iran is in a prime position to threaten every oil tanker trying to get out of the Persian Gulf.

They've done this before, by the way. The "Tanker War" during the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s saw Iraq try to tempt Iran to blockade the Strait in order to draw the United States into their fight. Iran tried to avoid that by targeting Iraqi tankers only, delaying any American intervention until 1987 when the Iraqis accidentally struck the USS Stark, giving Reagan's government the excuse to go after Iran (which unfortunately also led to the tragic downing of an Iranian airliner Flight 655).

So considering anyone with a basic understanding of geography, and anyone with a memory of recent history - the 1980s weren't THAT long ago - you'd think there would be enough people even among the neocons and war chickenhawks in the current White House who would have at least done some planning into securing control of the Strait to ensure the flow of trade (oil) would continue unabated.

That - alas - would require someone in trump's administration to be genuinely competent at this point.

trump and Hegseth and every other person involved in this mismanaged war effort simply didn't think or even care to think where the long-term consequences of their actions would lead (as if they ever did).

You can tell they operated on the ass-umption that their "decapitation strikes" - taking out the Ayatollah and any Iranian military chain of command - would lead to the immediate collapse of Iran's government and willingness to fight. That it would lead to the Iranian citizenry - already in decades of protesting the harsh regime of hardliner Shia clerics - rising up in mass protest to overthrow whatever was left to leave a power vacuum to trump's (and Netanyahu's) liking.

It never occurred to trump's circle that Iran's military and leadership have been planning for this kind of situation for decades: Having witnessed the tactics of our armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, believing they've been in an existential fight against American hegemony since 1979 actually since 1953 when the CIA installed the Shah, and moving into more modern warfare methods such as drone bombs and cyberattacks (some of which the US military haven't adapted against yet). 

It hasn't occurred to our government's leadership - not just trump but let's face it most of our Presidents since the Second World War - even with the evidence after Afghanistan / Iraq / hell, Vietnam that bombing a population into submission doesn't work. The Iranian people may be tired and frustrated and willing to rise up against the Ayatollah including the new guy replacing his dead dad, but they're not going to do it while trump and his underlings are bombing schools, museums, and desalination plants.

I've often criticized Duyba's failed war effort in Iraq, pointing out that he and his people may have had a Plan A for going in and forcing regime change, but they had no Plan B when their attempt to install a puppet leader fell through. Considering what trump and Hegseth and the rest of the clowns are doing with Iran, there doesn't even seem to be a Plan A with them.

So, to the 77 million of you who voted for this shitgibbon to return to power: WE WARNED YOU. GODDAMN YOU, WE WARNED YOU and you were too butt-hurt about libruls and diversity to realize the damage you were bringing back.

And now a lot of things will get worse: The price of gas obviously, economic instability here and abroad, the likelihood of troop deployments and thousands of American families watching their loved ones go into harm's way - for arguably no reason at all this time save for the vanity and cruelty of trump and his lackeys - are just the immediate pain points we'll feel. We'll be feeling all of this months or even years down the road.

Gods help us. AGAIN.