Subject: Re: Condi's take on Iran
Certainly wrong.

Actually very right.

but whatever impact that had is completely overwhelmed by the increase in Iran's ability to project power resulting from the Strait of Hormuz and their ability to attack regional energy infrastructure. They've now demonstrated they can do both, and that the mightiest military the world has ever known lacks the ability to either force the Strait back to normal or to fully protect the other Gulf States from missile and drone attack.

Also incorrect. I was wondering how soon the "Iran is now a superpower" argument would enter the chat and now here we are.
As I explained earlier, we hadn't really bothered to try to force the strait open. Well now we're quietly escorting ships out.

If we wanted to ramp up strikes on Iran again, we could. This is where Trump is using his political situation at home to affect his CiC decision making and he needs to be focused on the CiC job, not the midterms.

They will be able to rebuild all their missile and drone stockpiles within a very short time, perhaps only a matter of months.</t>

Condi covered that. Let China show their oil suppliers what they really think of them.

It certainly showed that the U.S. is not so great to the Arab world, either. We never consulted with them or solicited their input before we catapulted the region into chaos. We showed that we are unable to protect them against Iranian attacks and forced them to absorb the direct physical damage from Iran's missiles and drones and the economic damage from the Strait being closed.

1. Supposition on your part. BTW to launch attacks from bases in another country you're required to let them know what you're using their territory for. So this was always a falsehood to suggest that the US somehow surprised everyone with the Iran action.

2. Unable to protect? Given the thousands of missiles and drones launched, I'd say the percentages of intercepts have been quite high. If there's something to blame it was the estimates of Iran's stockpiles of weapons - way too low. Marco Rubio said in front of Congress that one reason for starting this was that Iran would soon have so many missiles that we'd have -zero- chance of stopping them.