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No certainty yet but cnn reporting, presumable, they used the big one. “ We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE! Thank you for your attention to this matter.“

“ NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!”
Seems a bit premature - before we know if the facilities were actually destroyed beyond repair.
We might need to drop a few more yet.

We might need to drop a few more yet.

The Pringles of the middle east indeed.

I wonder if the Trinity bomb was named for von Clausewitz's trinity of war.

Jim

I wonder if the Trinity bomb was named for von Clausewitz's trinity of war.


The code name "Trinity" was assigned by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, possibly inspired by the poetry of John Donne. per Wikipedia

I wonder if the Trinity bomb was named for von Clausewitz's trinity of war.
...
The code name "Trinity" was assigned by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, possibly inspired by the poetry of John Donne. per Wikipedia

Yes, of course.
My comment was intended less literally, as a reminder that that those who start wars, in general but in particular those related to nukes, are at risk of forgetting that one of the three most fundamental aspects of war is unpredictability.


The original idea, in iambic pentameter.

War’s trinity, von Clausewitz did impart:
First, passion’s fire—the people’s violent heart.
Then chance and fate, which generals must rout;
And last, cold reason—policy's last redoubt.


(If you're going to use LLM, might as well make it work hard, but I had to rewrite it a bit)

Jim

BTW, in writing "We might need to drop a few more yet", I did not intend to express a personal view.

Rather, I meant: To achieve the stated goal of destroying Iran's nuclear weapon ambitions, the USA might need to drop a few more bombs yet, and therefore declaring "Now is the time for peace" could very well be premature.

Certainly agree with you Jim, Clausewitz argued against prescriptive warfare rules.
War, being too complex. Brits marching in rows/columns during Revolutionary War comes to mind.

I frame Clausewitz thinking as a three legged stool. The 2nd leg of which you refer to Jim is the "play of chance and probability." The last leg however -“…last, cold reason—policy's last redoubt” refers to the element of reason or political objective. My narrow Pollyanna opinion - War is not an end in itself but a continuation of politics by other means. It SHOULD serve a rational political purpose. Political goals SHOULD serve as the ultimate control over the chaos of war. He seemed to stress the need of critical thinking and moreover the adaptability of the war commanders.

I remain deeply in your debt for your Berkshire quant/qualitative analysis and true wisdom, Jim!

Grateful Always,
PaulnKC

My narrow Pollyanna opinion - War is not an end in itself but a continuation of politics by other means.

Not narrow at all...that was one of von Clausewitz's main points.

To me his relevant point is that the three are interdependent, like the legs of the stool you mention. Starting with one, for example a coldly rational casus belli, isn't enough--you have to remember that once you go in, all three (reason, loathing, and chance) will be major factors and you can't control in advance which will be in the driver's seat at any given time.

After von Clausewitz, perhaps Mike Tyson said it best. "Everybody has plans until they get hit for the first time"
This is probably particularly true for any plan which includes "we know what will happen, so we know what we're getting into".

Jim

And now Reuters and Bloomberg and everybody is reporting "Israel and Iran have agreed to a tentative ceasefire in their conflict that would begin about midnight Washington time on Monday."

Assuming this holds, that puts to bed the fear of a Strait of Hormuz shutdown.

Remember the watchword: Everything you read is a lie. And no I don't have a link.
You also have to keep in mind the 48 hour rule.

In addition to all the shrilling about the bombing, there are a number of alternate takes. One of which is that there was a lot of backdoor discussions & agreements, and there is/was a bunch of kabuki theater. If so, we will never know it unless things get unclassified in 100 years.
Others have opined that the participants have effectuated an offramp, where nobody loses and nobody loses face.

Ex: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/the-bourne-coincy...
Plenty of others, few or none in the mainstream media.

Nope, back on.

I keep hearing about this idea that has never been a reality in my lifetime - peace in the middle east.
Why? They don't want it. Let them kill each other. Good for American oil stocks.
Presumably, in the 70s and 80s, the US needed their oil, so just enough peace to get the oil out and shipped safely was a necessity?

"Others have opined that the participants have effectuated an offramp, where nobody loses and nobody loses face."

After his military parade sort of fizzled (compared to the crisply conducted events held by contemporary autocrats in Europe and Asia), he was probably feeling a bit testy.

Mark Mazzetti, Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman, Eric Schmitt, and Helene Cooper reported yesterday in the New York Times that Trump had warned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu against striking Iran but changed his mind after seeing how Israel’s military action was “playing” on television. The reporters write: “The president was closely monitoring Fox News, which was airing wall-to-wall praise of Israel’s military operation and featuring guests urging Mr. Trump to get more involved.”

He has been itching for a Nobel Peace Prize ever since pre-president Obama seemed to win one by apparently being able to fog a mirror and then, adding insult to injury, having "his" snatched out from his grasp by a Swedish kid with Aspergers.

So along came his chance - both to show how big a punch was able to land (bragging that he had obliterated the Iranian nuclear program, where in reality, while their centrifuges were likely destroyed, their stockpile of enhanced uranium is elsewhere, setting their program back a couple of years) and then that he could broker a quick end to the conflict - and simultaneously trying to enforce a truce.

So far, his efforts at being a "peace-maker" have been stymied by Israel's refusal to continue the terms of their first agreement with Hamas and then continuing with the siege and physical destruction of Gaza, and then by his trying to appear an unbiased mediator, but using extortion and putting his thumb on the scale of negotiating a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. He did seem instrumental in negotiating a ceasefire between Pakistan and India - and Pakistan nominated him for the Nobel Peace prize, only to condemn his "capricious" bombing of Iran the following day.

I guess, in his mind, despite being so obviously trustworthy and keeping his word, other seem to act on what they feel is their best interests rather than following his instructions.

Interestingly, (according to a report in the Kyiv Post), during multiple sessions of war games modeling a conflict between the US and Iran, the Iranian team won because Russia sent a small contingent of "experts" to the Iranian nuclear sites and the US backed off from bombing them out of fear of thwarting "the big one" with Russia. As the great Yogi Berra once said "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice - but in practice there is". Russia did not follow this strategy and thus could prove their friendship to Iran, while letting the US take the heat for the destruction of Iran's potential nuclear bomb program (despite Russia having stated that they would be against Iran developing a nuclear weapon).

This is a war involving strong personalities with "limited" adherence to their own country's laws. In this conflict you now have three belligerents (the US is now involved), all three of which have demonstrated that their word can't be trusted. I remember speaking to someone who was waiting for there to be peace before traveling to the Middle East. Fifty years later, I guess they are still waiting.

Jeff

. I remember speaking to someone who was waiting for there to be peace before traveling to the Middle East. Fifty years later, I guess they are still waiting.


The Middle East has not had peace for the last many hundred years. Couple of thousand years.

If it wasn't that it had oil, nobody outside the region would give a hoot about it.

BTW, "Everything you read is a lie, and no I don't have a link."

Let them kill each other. Good for American oil stocks. Presumably, in the 70s and 80s, the US needed their oil, so just enough peace to get the oil out and shipped safely was a necessity?

Oil is a commodity and the price is set on the global market. Although the US is currently an oil exporter, a disruption in global oil supplies would cause the domestic price to spike. The US economy is dependent on oil. We need the price to be low, hence the meddling in the Middle East.

As we all know, the US has a security agreement with Saudi Arabia. As a mental exercise, try to guess which US president created that arrangement. Nixon? Carter? Nope. It was FDR back in 1945 when the US was the biggest oil producer in the world. Even back then it was clear we needed the oil to flow on a global scale.

In hindsight, I'd say our meddling in the Middle East has mostly backfired. A lot of effort and not many success stories. We need to rethink our energy policy that requires us to get involved in conflicts we don't understand. We seem to be headed that direction a little bit. Time will tell.

According to CNN:

The US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early US intelligence assessment that was described by three people briefed on it.

The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm. It is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath of the US strikes, one of the sources said.

The analysis of the damage to the sites and the impact of the strikes on Iran’s nuclear ambitions is ongoing, and could change as more intelligence becomes available. But the early findings are at odds with President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also said on Sunday that Iran’s nuclear ambitions “have been obliterated.”

Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said the centrifuges are largely “intact.”

“So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops,” this person added.

The White House acknowledged the existence of the assessment but said they disagreed with it.

Jeff

So TACO becomes TAFU.

We seem to always seek the easy answers to tough questions. Safely bomb them - GO!! Solve the problem - NO!!

Complicate the situation even more? YES!!

The only way to stop development of an Iran nuclear bomb is to to remove the already enriched material. That means "boots on the ground", ours or someone else. Extremely difficult to do with a small quantity of easily relocated material in a hostile country.

Mossad now has an even tougher challenge. Or there must be a new Iran government that wants to cooperate. What are the odds?

According to CNN:

🤣 ROFL!!! Americans no longer believe them. When we find out they are lying again, will you recognize it? NO, of course not!

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