Subject: Re: The strategy,...is working
Yes. Because we're not going to be able to destroy all of them, and it's not going to take too much time and effort to replenish both the factories and the stockpiles. Again, they got from nearly gone to fully restocked within less than a year of the 12 Day War.

Uh, huh. Assuming the regime is still around and can afford to.

China is a global threat, and what they use the Middle East for is primarily an energy resource.

We've established this is only a partial view of the matter. They use the ME for more than that.

They predominantly achieve their goals in the Middle East through economic and diplomatic means. They derive minimal benefit from Iran's conventional military resources, so it does virtually nothing to China to deplete those conventional military resources. As long as the oil is flowing, China's getting what they need. Notice how we're not stopping Iran from sending oil to China, even though we certainly could? How we're liberalizing the sanctions on Russia so they can sell more oil to China, even though that benefits both Russia and China?

I'm aware. Trump is trying to keep world energy markets from panicking.

The fallacy is obvious. But you keep misinterpreting the discussion as if people were dismissing the threat of China, rather than questioning whether the "something" that we're doing in Iran is actually doing anything to affect China's threat profile more than we're depleting our responsive capabilities. There's a reason why China almost never gets mentioned in any of the Administration's efforts to explain their war goals - because the effect on China is so attenuated and contingent compared to the depletion of our own military resources that they would get serious blowback if they tried to pretend this was about China.

I'm "misinterpreting" nothing. I'm just refusing to allow you to set the terms of the debate, narrow the focus, and wave your hands so as to ignore the bigger picture.

Where was all this concern about "depletion of our own military resources" when the proxies of Iran were shooting missiles at US ships in the Red Sea? This board was dead silent. Those several months of playing defense and not cutting off the head of the snake are what you should be angry at.

If we listened to the democrats, Iran would be free to endlessly replay the scenario where the US Navy sits there and acts as target practice for the Houthis. For months. THAT was stupid on stilts. THAT was a pure waste of time, money and war shots.

Yeah, you keep using the generic phrase "take care of" - but that's the problem. We're not "taking care" of these countries. Venezuela remains governed by a left-wing socialist dictatorship hostile to the U.S. and deeply allied with China. Iran remains governed by an authoritarian dictatorship hostile to the U.S. and deeply allied with China, and there's a good chance that it will come out of the war in the same position. Neither of those countries has been "taken care of" in any material way that affects China. We haven't even gotten started with Cuba, though it's been such a reduced priority for both China and Russia over the last decade or so (mostly relying on support and interaction with other leftist countries in Latin America more than anything) I think the security implications are modest.


And yet, the US is telling Delcy Rodriguez what to do. And she's doing it. Now there are protests going in Cuba and the regime there is on its last legs. How much influence does China have right now in South America? Say, how are things going for them with the Panama Canal? Have you looked lately?

Again, let this scenario play out. As I pointed out the IDF and Mossad are methodically working their way down the list of bad actors. Last night they blew up a gathering of 300 or so street thugs. They're not playing around.