Oops! Iran's HEU is buried under millions of tons of rubble...and the terms of the deal require them to surrender it -- with US aid to retrieve it, as it's physically impossible for them to reach it themselves.
Nor was regime change the goal of the war:
"No, the United States never officially cited regime change as a stated policy goal for the war in Iran. While President Donald Trump encouraged the Iranian public to overthrow their leaders, administration officials consistently clarified that their actual military objectives were strictly operational...."
- Spoken with too much confidence. If the US and Israel knew where the HEU was, they would go in and get it out themselves.
That's a major problem. We hope it's entombed but there was really nothing stopping Iran from scattering the HEU across the country, given they have underground defense complexes that would make the Swiss blush.
Anyhow, Iran still retains a substantial portion of its weapons capability 20% if you ask Trump or 70% if you ask the CIA, still has their speedboat navy, still has their HEU *somewhere*, and still has their proxies fighting a second front in Lebanon and Yemen.
Literally none of the goals of the operation have been achieved.
Learn history. Fully unconditional surrenders are extraordinary rare in modern war, and have *never* happened without the victor's troops occupying all or a significant portion of the defeated nation.
-Right, which Trump is unable or unwilling to do given it would be a deathtrap.
Good god, The Strait was open, with the US Navy safely escorting tankers through. Roughly half the normal trade still refused to transit it, due to the large number of mines Iran had placed in the Strait; clearing them will take time:
-Oh, linking congressional depositions? It's starting to all make sense. You're usually the data guy, so let's get some actual data.
If you look at actual data instead of propaganda, the picture becomes much more stark:
https://datalab.wto.org/Strait-of-Hormuz-Trade-Tracker.
Who told you Iran is bombing GCS infrastructure? Seriously, where do you get these absurd tales?
-Ohkay, it's making way more sense. Up to this point I figured we agreed on the facts but disagreed on the policy, but now I understand that this is one of those post truth discussions.
Anywhere from 30-40% of GCS oil infra has been damaged or destroyed. Some of it minor, some of it extensive. It's going to take a long time to get back to where the Persian Gulf was on February 27th.
Maybe by design, to help out American oil producers?
Unfortunately these are all older when we thought things would be wrapping up mid April. Various airports, Amazon Web Services, and other infra has taken damage since. Hard to find good articles on those however.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/h...s-as-the-u-s-and-iran-meet-for-talks-c21f7ada
War damage to Gulf energy infrastructure could cost up to $58 billion to repair, far higher than earlier estimates, with some facilities taking years to recover.
oilprice.com
It could take years to repair damaged energy infrastructure in the Middle East and restore production to prewar levels.
www.cnbc.com
Why not be honest? Your hatred of Trump has blinded you to the reality here. Iran has no more nuclear program; it has no HEU to build a dozen plus nuclear warheads; it has no more ICBM or cruise missile factories.
-I don't even dislike Trump. He's a good shake-up and a pipe cleaner for ideas everyone else would be too weak to attempt (assassinating leaders instead of fighting ground wars for example). He also hangs loose and isn't a complete ***** like most politicians.
Problem is he's a do first, sort things out later, say whatever it takes, keep everyone guessing, concept of a plan kinda guy.
He also talks out of every side of his mouth and is sensitive to his political weakness in the US given the upcoming midterms.
That might work for fast and loose real estate deals, or if you're going to take on a loser country like Venezuela, but a country that has been prepping for this it's entire existence and is already deeply distrustful of the US requires a much more nuanced approach.
I figure this whole thing falls apart in short order, but not until Iran gets a little cash infusion. Israel has already said this peace deal can go stuff it, and Iran has been consistent in including Lebanon in its demands.
