“Officials from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain have conveyed in private conversations that they do not want the military operation to end until there are significant changes in the Iranian leadership or there’s a dramatic shift in Iranian behavior, according to the officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.”
An SEC director quit because her bosses wouldn’t let her investigate insider trading by people who include those with ties to Trump’s circle. They won’t even let the SEC investigate insider trading! The Trump administration has gutted the SEC.
Iran says that the reason they enriched uranium past the agreed upon amount was because Trump betrayed the deal Iran made with the United States. They only did it as retaliation for the United States backing out of an agreement both countries agreed to, not because they wanted a nuke.
Multiple times, Trump has drawn a red line about attacking Iran’s energy facilities, and then backed off. Iran has been calling Trump’s bluff. Both economically and militarily, Trump likes to push around countries not willing to stand up to the US. But, when countries do, Trump gets his ass kicked. China won the trade war. Iran is winning this war. Trump is a classic bully who only wins when the victim doesn’t fight back.
Iranian pragmatic officials are being replaced with hardliners.
Trump’s choice may be: accept the L, or massively escalate.
US loss multiple planes in Iranian strike in Saudi Arabia, likely with help from Russian intelligence. The US did not learn or implement the lessons from Ukraine regarding drones and protecting planes on the ground. The US looks like Russia losing expensive aircraft on the ground. The US is losing planes, people, radars, and facilities, and so far has gotten nothing from Iran. Iran shows no sign of giving in, and if they don’t, then the US lost expensive equipment, munitions, and lives for little gain. The US is showing that it is not ready for the new change in warfare.
We’ve watched for four years Russia continuing to not always adapt to protect their assets from drones and missiles, and now the US seems to be failing in the same way.
The US can only confirm that they destroyed a third of Iran’s missiles, and Iran doesn’t need that many missiles to damage neighbors and the global economy. Our assessments may not be good either. Iran could be secretly building more missiles and drones.
The Houthis haven’t entered the war yet, but they may.
Obama was interested in military force in Syria after Syria crossed Obama’s redline, but Obama wanted authorization from Congress. Congress didn’t want to be on the record one way or the other, and told Obama to act if he wanted to act.
Then for Libya, some of the Congressmen who said they didn’t want to be on the record and they wanted Obama to act if he wanted to, complained that Obama didn’t get authorization for Libya.
Not only were Congress people derelict of their duty to discuss and vote on military action, but they dishonestly portrayed their true feelings to the public.