An F-35 may have been hit by an Iranian anti-air missile. The plane and pilot survived, making it safely to a base in the Middle East. Stealth makes the F-35 harder to detect and hit, but not invisible. If a video given by Iran purporting to be the F-35 getting hit is real, then it looks like a smaller payload delivered by a relatively short-ranged infrared or electro-optically guided weapon, or even a shoulder fired missile. If a radar guided weapon targeted it, the plane would sense it and the pilot would be trying to avoid it. And if larger, longer-range weapons hit it, the plane would not have survived that size of payload.
Militarily opening the Strait of Hormuz will be incredibly hard. Iran only has to get through once, the US needs to stop every weapon. It will require the great risk of putting a lot of forces close to Iran.
Iran was prepared for the US to dominate with “overwhelming” airpower. Iran saw the US take out Saddam’s centralized command with airpower and decided to focus on missiles, drones, and decentralization. Taking out the snake’s head is less effective when there are many snakes with their own weapons, each able to lash out. Iran knew it couldn’t go toe to toe with the US in the skies, so scattered and hid their weapons. Iran knows that the US would not like a long war, so they planned for a long war where a determined Iran can outlast a US that grows weary with the costs of war.
Producing Iran’s shahed drone requires many advanced components. Logistic supply lines need to remain open for Iran to continue producing many of those. Not only can the US and Israel bomb the factorites themselves, but it can also disrupt these supply lines.
W Bush focusing on fighting insurgencies while China was rising, led to the US not having the military industrial base and stockpiles of certain munitions. If the US uses too many munitions fighting Iran, it will be greatly weakened for a fight against China. This also weakens US deterrence against China.
However, if Iran is in too much chaos to pump oil, or if it is friendly enough with the US that in the event of a China-US war it would not sell oil to China, that would be a huge advantage in starving China of oil in the event of a war.
“A last chance to avert war with Iran played out Thursday in Geneva, where Trump administration officials told Iranian counterparts they must not take certain steps needed to build a nuclear bomb.
It didn’t go well.
As the U.S. delegation laid out its position that Iran couldn’t enrich uranium for the next 10 years, the Iranian side balked, said a senior Trump administration official who described the meeting on condition of anonymity.
Iran has an “inalienable right” to enrich uranium, Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, told the Americans. And the U.S. has an “inalienable right” to stop you, Steve Witkoff, a member of the U.S. delegation, replied.
After having heard the U.S. demands, Araghchi started yelling at Witkoff, who was accompanied at the meeting by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, among others, said the senior official.
“If you prefer, I can leave,” Witkoff said.
Araghchi’s representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Afterward, the American delegation reported back to Trump what had happened. Trump was “nonplussed,” the senior official said.
By Saturday morning, the U.S. was at war.
…
“They weren’t willing to stop their nuclear research,” Trump said. “They weren’t willing to say they will not have a nuclear weapon. Very simple.””