> We're in a war in Iran for reasons that nobody can quite articulate

(1) Nuclear proliferation.

We once had a deal that looked as though it was holding. Trump's nixing of the deal and the happenings in Ukraine accelerated Iran's desire to have nukes.

(2) Taiwan invasion postponement / CRINK disruption

As I've been reading, this might be a second order play to stall China's invasion of Taiwan. If China has to dip into strategic oil reserves to smooth out impact to its economy, it may forgo its Taiwan invasion plans for a bit longer.

It's also throwing a wrench into the CRINK alliance.

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Zigurd 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There's a lot of retrofitting going on here.

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kelnos 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Those are incredibly thin justifications that don't really hold up to scrutiny.

1) The deal was holding. And even if we take Trump's word for it that it wasn't, he told us that he destroyed their nuclear capability a year ago. So either he was lying about that, or there was no serious nuclear capability in the first place. Regardless of how that shakes out, there's no reason we should believe this justification today.

2) This is incredibly speculative, and no serious intelligence analyst or military strategist would suggest "war with Iran" as a solution there. And the joke is on us, anyway: China may be feeling an oil crunch, but we're depleting our stock of a bunch of materiel that we'll need if it comes time to defend Taiwan. On top of that, China's military leadership is seeing how incompetently the US is prosecuting this war, and is likely feeling a lot more confident about their ability to fend off a US defense of Taiwan.

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decimalenough 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The US military is prosecuting the war just fine, US losses of materiel and personnel have been minimal (not zero, but close enough). China's takeaway from this is not going to be that the US military is incompetent.

The fundamental problem is that the declared objectives of regime change and securing control of the Strait of Hormuz cannot be achieved through air power alone. And this is the fault of the president, not the military.

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lazyasciiart 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Achieving the declared objective falls directly within the category of "prosecuting the war", and "the US" certainly includes the Commander in Chief.

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collingreen 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What?

How many is the right number of personnel and materiel to lose for this war that isn't war and seems to have been either purchased for a few hundred million by political bribes or is just a distraction from the administrations involvement in a monstrous child sex ring? Also didn't we already win this war last year, last month, and last week? It is really easy to wave away our fellow dead citizens (and Iranians, including a school full of children!) from an internet comment form but damn, real people are dead here and it's an actual tragedy.

For me, zero deaths seems like the right answer for these objectives and anything else is egregious abuse of power.

I'd love it if everyone stopped being happy with people lying to them. When you catch people lying to you, be angry and stop trusting them!

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decimalenough 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I hate to interrupt a good rant, but we actually agree on this. To spell it out: the abject failure of the war is not a failure of the US military, it's a failure of its executive leadership, meaning Trump and his coterie of yes-men.

	▲	JumpCrisscross 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> the abject failure of the war is not a failure of the US military, it's a failure of its executive leadership It's a bit of both. Our lack of mine-clearing and anti-drone technology is a legitimate weakness, as are our defence-production gaps. The damage done to our system of alliances, moreover, directly weakens our military standing.
	▲	tokai 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Are you one of those that claim the US won the Vietnam war?

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stasomatic 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Even if we destroyed it, RU would be happy to resupply. What has this war that nobody wanted cost just at the gas pumps all over the world and who stood to benefit? I really do think I’d be better off having had been born a century or two ago reading books under a candle and digging outhouses when needed.

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specproc 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The reasons are very clear: Bibi owns Trump, Israel will unlikely have a US president as supportive again, they want as many facts on the ground as they can get whilst they have him.

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1234letshaveatw 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Lefties used to pretend it was Putin. Time flies

	▲	smallmancontrov 7 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I don't know if Trump could walk and chew bubble gum at the same time, but he sure seems able to screw Ukraine and bomb Iran at the same time. He just finished sending Vance to Hungary to stump for Orban, too. The love affair between far-right authoritarian leaders is not a 2 person relationship.
	▲	dudefeliciano 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Is he doing anything that is hindering Putin? That theory still very much holds. Both Putin and Netanyahu can realistically have kompromat on him, seeing how incredibly brazen and stupid he is.
	▲	zulux 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		As a right-winger, I miss the day when Jew haters were just on our side.