The US strategy in Iran is one of economic warfare through sanctions and blockade forcing: Iran to give in or a revolution in Iran. There doesn’t appear to be the forces necessary in Iran to create a successful revolution, but it’s not impossible.
The war isn’t the US economy VS Iran’s economy, it’s Iran’s economy and a regime willing to let its people take extreme suffering VS something breaking in the international economy that forces the US to give up.
Israeli settlers in the West Bank have been stealing people’s homes and harassing those who try to stay. The IDF tends to protect settlers and not sufficiently punish settler crime against Palestinians. Leaders will condemn settler violence, but not actually enforce the law against them.
Palestinians have agency and many of them have used it to commit themselves to terrorist tactics in order to target civilians and destroy Israel and then hide amongst their own population so that if Israel wants to aggressively defend themselves, they have to kill many many civilians. The mass death in Gaza is primarily the fault of Gazan terrorists who chose to prove their commitment to the destruction of Israel on October 7th.
Israel is a bad actor and its founding was unjust. But, it’s a country now that has existed and developed for multiple generations. I understand why Palestinians would refuse to accept Israel and commit themselves to its destruction, but, if they are going to do that, then they are choosing to get their own people slaughtered when they use them as human shields.
There will be no peace in Palestine if the Palestinians don’t give up on terror and give up on ending Israel. It’s hard to seriously push Israel to stop its own bad actions when they are honestly in an endless struggle with terrorists determined to slaughter Israelis and end their country.
Blockading Iran is hurting them economically. This could get them to the negotiating table, but it could take time and is quite costly for the US to maintain, both militarily, and the economic consequences of Iran mostly closing the Strait.
If Trump did not parade around the world like an asshole, threatening and attacking allies, there could have been a chance of a blockading coalition to help convince Iran the world will not tolerate them terrorizing the Strait of Hormuz. Oh well.
Anyone who followed Iran a little bit knew that Iran was likely to close the Strait of Hormuz. The Navy knew that US bases anywhere near Iran and the Strait would have minimum use because the US can’t stop enough Iranian drones and missiles. The Navy also knew that this would put difficult logistic pressures on supplying carriers in a conflict that wasn’t real quick. Yet, there seems to have been completely inadequate preparation for this logistics. This is because the president was convinced by the Secretary of Defense, Israel, and his own foolishness that the Strait would not be closed and the conflict would be quick. The problems we are seeing are partly due to a lack of preparation for a long conflict, even though that was a likely outcome and the president should have known this.
The US does not have enough servicing ships to keep US fighting ships supplied. This was okay when the US operated near land bases, but with Iranian missiles and drones making many US bases unusable, the US has trouble keeping its ships supplied.
The US does not have enough military ships either because the ships need time for repairs and the crews need time off, so the navy actually needs an extra ship or two for every two in military operations. While two are doing operations, one is in repairs and rest. War-level operations, including blockade, are 24/7 work that degrades sailors’ capabilities without rest.
DHS said they needed airplanes immediately to deport people, so they bought used planes from a Trump administration donor in a no-bid contract. The planes have hardly been used, but that Trump administration donor made some profit.