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“They don’t have a navy. They don’t have an air force. They don’t have any equipment,” Trump continued.

Trump’s comments come nearly three weeks into the U.S.-Israel war against Iran, which has turned into a broader regional conflict. They signal no quick end to the conflict, which sent stocks tumbling on Friday and has caused oil prices to soar

Earlier Friday, Trump said in a phone call with MS Now’s Stephanie Ruhle that the U.S. could end the war “right now” but that he planned to press on with the offensive.

“I think we’ve won,” he said Friday from the South Lawn. “All they’re doing is blocking up the Strait [of Hormuz]. But from a military standpoint, they’re finished.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/20/trump-iran-war-cea...

I think he genuinely doesn't understand that if they are still able to block the Strait of Hormuz, they aren't finished, from a military standpoint.

It doesn't much matter that they don't have a navy or an air force - those were never the source of Iran's power to resist the United States. It's always been their ability to use a very small amount of material (a few missiles, boats, or now drones) to cause massive disruption in the global energy supply. It's devilishly difficult to conclusively end an opponent's ability to conduct asymmetric warfare. Which is why we haven't opened the Strait ourselves, and why we are sending more military resources to the area. Despite the fact that "we've won."

I still love the one phrasing of it, which captures it perfectly:

"Trump Declares Victory, Vows to Fight On!"

"Trump Declares Victory, Vows to Fight On!"

This phrase will be kept alive for the next fifty years in the stand-up routines of a thousand comedians.

I think he genuinely doesn't understand

In other breaking news, the sun is expected to set in the West this evening and rise in the East tomorrow morning.

Trump is well versed in bullying weaker opponents to do his will. But he rarely goes up against strong opponents - opponents who are figuratively (or in this case, literally) willing to fight to the death.

He has put himself in a no win situation in Iran. He may or may not yet realize that. I suspect he has an inkling that he’s in a weak position, as he’s getting more strident, which is a bully’s go-to tactic when things are bad.

The big risk is that he will resort to nuclear weapons to “win” in Iran. That would be a disaster of epic proportions.

Let’s hope that he can be reined in before it comes to that.

—Peter

He has put himself in a no win situation in Iran. He may or may not yet realize that. I suspect he has an inkling that he’s in a weak position, as he’s getting more strident, which is a bully’s go-to tactic when things are bad.

The big risk is that he will resort to nuclear weapons to “win” in Iran. That would be a disaster of epic proportions.

It seems like he's actually more likely to just declare victory and go home:

“We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the Terrorist Regime of Iran,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

The president went on to cite the objectives as degrading Iranian missile capability, launches “and everything else pertaining to them,” destroying the country’s defense industrial base, eliminating its navy and air force, never allowing Iran to get close to nuclear capability, as well as protecting U.S. allies in the region, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait.

Trump went on to address the Strait of Hormuz, saying nations that use the vital shipping lane will have to guard and police it.

“The United States does not! If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated. Importantly, it will be an easy Military Operation for them,” he said.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/579403...

Which...wow. Really? So we mobilize one of the largest deployments of U.S. military might in a generation, and we thereupon completely: i) fail to secure the most strategically important part of the military theater (even though it would be "an easy Military Operation"); ii) fail to dislodge the regime; and iii) fail to take any action that would materially impede them from restarting their nuclear program. All for the low low price of many tens of billions of dollars and alienating nearly all of the countries in the Gulf were trying to build a new security edifice around (so much for the Abraham Accords model) by exposing them to massive threats without consulting them. Oh - and as an added bonus, we've almost certainly increased the nuclear threat posed by Iran; after all, we've completely proven the hardliners' theory that the U.S. and Israel will not be deterred by a sub-weapon threshold, and that they need to race to an actual nuke in order to secure their borders.

Trump will declare it a victory and all his followers will oblige, praising his masterful stroke of accomplishing....whatever it is, without it taking years. We will have eliminated the stuff that never really posed a threat to anyone (like their navy and conventional Air Force), and some of the stuff that's exceptionally easy to replace (like their missile program and some of their drone inventory). And this will be treated as if it was an amazing accomplishment, even though we're almost certainly worse of than if we hadn't done this at all.

A terrible result, if he ends up doing it. The only good news is that it might be the least bad outcome, because the only real alternative to going home but calling it a victory might be a long grinding ground war. We failed to achieve Venezuela 2.0 in the very early days (either because we inadvertently killed anyone we might be able to bargain with or because there was never any such person to begin with). The Iranian precautions to protect the regime proved too durable for us to quickly overcome by killing leadership, so the regime wouldn't collapse. The recent Israeli assessment that any civilian uprising would simply be massacred by the IGRC rather than succeeding probably put the kibosh on any last hopes of the regime falling that way. Without the regime falling, there's little chance that we can defend Hormuz without putting boots on the Iranian coast (and even then?).

nations that use the vital shipping lane will have to guard and police it.

Spankee shot himself in both feet with that statement. Clueless as usual.

Let the 'vital shipping lane' close because the US does not use it.

THEN watch what happens next.

3...2...1... Gas prices go sky high. Spankee War !!!

trump sports ~70% gop approval\agreement for each of his dozen+ total victory claims in iran.
65% believe trump saying he will not send troops...after he has already sent them.
55% opposes sending troops (until they realized already sent?)

i.e., the gop voter long reached its IQ cap on any topic and stable for decades still.

“They don’t have a navy. They don’t have an air force. They don’t have any equipment,” Trump continued.

Neither did the VC. I remember the news reporting that, while the VC could drop Katyusha rockets in downtown Saigon, at the start of US involvement in the war, by the time of the peace treaty, after some ten years of fighting, they could only drop rockets in the suburbs of Saigon.

General Westmoreland said "light at the end of the tunnel", on November 21, 1967, echoing the words of a French General, wrt Indochina, in 1953. Three months later, the Tet Offensive showed the VC and NVA were not even slightly dead.

Kissenger said "peace is at hand" just before the 1972 election. The treaty was not signed until January 1973.

Ever notice how mountainous Iran is, especially near the Gulf of Oman, just east of the Strait? Remember how successful the US was in prying the Taliban out of the mountains of Afghanistan?

What the USian media is not telling us. Apparently, Israeli civilians don't like running for a bomb shelter, multiple times a day.

Netanyahu struggles to maintain control as Israelis protest in Tel Aviv over Iran war

Thousands of Israelis took to the streets of Tel Aviv, chanting for an immediate end to the ongoing war with Iran and de-escalation with Hezbollah, even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck a note of reserved optimism about restoring some sense of normal life amid the conflict.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/netanyahu-str...

Steve

nations that use the vital shipping lane will have to guard and police it.

Or, they bid against USian consumers for US controlled oil...and USian big oil laffs all the way to the bank.

Steve

nations that use the vital shipping lane will have to guard and police it.

The desanctioning of Iranian oil sitting in tankers proposal was fleshed out on the news this evening.

Currently, China is large enough and wealthy enough to ignore the sanctions and buy that oil, at a relatively low price. By desanctioning the oil, everyone can bid for that oil, so China no longer has exclusive access, nor buy it on the cheap.

So, yes, Trump the Conqueror is sticking it to Xi, by desanctioning the oil.

iirc, that action covers about 140M barrels. Shipments out of the Gulf, before the war, averaged 17-18Mbpd, so the action will cover about 8 days worth of pre-war Persian Gulf shipments.

Steve

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