The Grand Illusion
In practical terms, Iran is a theocratic equivalent of the Third Reich, except it has far greater internal control than Hitler and his minions could ever have dreamed of. Iran is governed by an absolute autocrat, whose rule is enforced strictly and often violently by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Over more than 40 years, the IRCG has established itself as not only an armed social control force, but also as an independent military/paramilitary force of more than 90,000 men with its own independent ground, naval, and air units, as well as the elite Quds Force, which is responsible for “extraterritorial operations,” essentially organizing and supporting all the Iranian guerilla proxy groups across the Middle East. The IRGC also has the ability to call up another 500,000 men. At present, the IRGC Navy is now Iran’s primary force exercising operational control over the Persian Gulf, serving as a de facto coast guard, which suggests that the Strait of Hormuz is unlikely to be opened to oil tankers any time soon.
While the “regular” Iranian armed forces (the Artesh) are theoretically independent, and the Artesh is primarily the force assigned for national defense, the regime has continually embedded ideological and political representatives within the Artesh to ensure loyalty to the Supreme Leader.
In addition, because of various sanctions and embargoes, most of Iran’s military hardware is domestically manufactured, and Iran became an exporter of arms by the 2000s, particularly of missiles and drones, many of which have gone to Russia for use against Ukraine. The Iranian drones are far easier and less expensive to manufacture than the vast majority of weapons being used by U.S. forces against Iran.
The U.S. has so far lost three F-15 fighters (if to Kuwaiti air defenses) at a replacement cost of $90 million per jet. A single Patriot (MIM-104) missile, specifically the advanced PAC-3 MSE variant, costs approximately $4 million to $5 million per interceptor. A newly produced Patriot battery, including radar, control station, and 5–8 launchers, costs over $1 billion. Even “cheaper” U.S. missiles can cost $1-3 million each.
By comparison, Iranian Shahed drones, which are so slow that high tech systems have trouble detecting them, each cost from $20,000 to $50,000 or less. In addition, Russia is now building more sophisticated Shahed drones and has ramped up production enough that it conceivably could export them for Iranian oil.
So… what happens when the U.S. runs through all its expensive and lethal weapons?
A short war? Really?
Well, some may disagree, I do believe this was a distraction, manipulated by Israel to get Trump to enable them to more thoroughly disrupt the theocracy of Iran. The overall cost is irrelevant as the administration is primarily a criminal enterprise bent on asset stripping as much as they can of the federal government, you have the criminal element enabled by tens of millions of charismatic Christians are looking forward to the end of the world, and Trump is the enabler for that “end”, I realize this is not a popular sentiment amongst more rational people.
So in your view, Trump is an idiot manipulated by Israel and others, and quite willing to go along with the wishes of extremist apocalypse promoting “Christians” even though you likely wouldn’t credit him with actual principles or beliefs independent of his own ego.
Even allowing for considerable skepticism, that’s inconsistent. He may be right or wrong about whether this a good idea, but he’s not either a fool or a pushover. He doesn’t agree 100.00% with anyone but himself (and not even that if he changes his mind). It’s another question whether or not he might be all sorts of unfit things, but your description is absurd.
BTW, Iran had a huge inventory of missiles and drones and was working to increase the range of the missiles. Their launches of both have been considerably reduced, on the order of 90%, over a week. That doesn’t mean their inventory is gone, but at the least a lot of their missile launchers have been taken out with the remainder presumably sheltered when not in use (and sometimes taken out very shortly after use), and the opportunity to launch either missiles or drones has been reduced. But given that they were improving their missiles and increasing their inventory and maintaining brinksmanship on how close they were to making a nuclear (or at any rate atomic) warhead, this would have to have been done sooner or later, probably within a year. Easier now than later, with their capabilities further improved. And as their recent use of cluster missiles against Israel shows, they hadn’t yet revealed everything they had.
(I like in theory the idea of isolationism and letting the rest of the world blow itself up as long as they leave us alone. But in practice I prefer kinetically opposing the moves of violent or expansionist dictators when feasible, or supporting those who do; esp. if they’ll get worse if unopposed. I don’t fully love Ukraine (they do have a corruption problem, as most of the former SSRs do), but I HATE Putin and would cheerfully defecate on his grave once he’s in it, hopefully sooner rather than later; and likewise any likeminded successor.)
And the US has cloned the Iranian drones (via captured ones from Ukraine), at a cost of under $40k apiece, somwhat higher than the lowest estimate for the Iranan drones, but not much higher given some likely improvements in functionality or reliability. They’re known as the LUCAS FLM 136, and have been in production for some months now with a target of 10,000/yr by 2027, and are being used in the current conflict.
Can’t speak for Terence, but –
“So in your view, Trump is an idiot…”
He sure is in my view.
“he’s not either a fool…”
No?
“…or a pushover…”
TACO.
I don’t really want to start another pointless argument with you though, given that we have, shall we say, differing views as to what’s real.
So I stopped reading at this point.
By all means respond, but don’t expect me to.
I don’t expect you to, because in my view, the entire left and most of what passes for the center now (which has been moved left of where it once was by the left’s too successful attempts to mainstream themselves, which is why compromise is a dirty word rather than a pragmatic middle ground) are either naive to the point of being the true idiots, or enemies of liberty and humanity, just like some of the communists they’ve admired (think back to when Fidel was alive, and Democrat acolytes would visit adoringly). Anyone left of the late great Barry Goldwater (met him once with my parents when I was about 5, I gather they knew him; that mushroom cloud campaign against him was one of the worst smear jobs ever) doesn’t have my respect regarding politics. I sympathize with libertarians, but I think that starting with the borders and outward from there, they’re almost as naive as the not actually malevolent part of the left is.
Doing the things others think unthinkable is sometimes necessary and overdue. We don’t need that kind of disruption all the time, but at least every 20 years or so, IMO it’s good to offend everyone and break or at least challenge the usual ways of doing things. That’s Trump’s approach to most things, keep people off balance, start off making impossible demands, and then back down to more than he would have gotten if he’d started out reasonable. It’s totally against all the rules of DC or international diplomacy or common courtesy, but sometimes it just works better.
I still say let’s wait and see on this one. The Iranian senior leadership truly believes God is on their side (Khomeini had once issued a sermon on the religious significance of how to wipe oneself properly, really? THAT’s their idea of “submission”, every last detail of life dictated, delegating our thinking to someone who claims to speak on our presumed creator’s behalf rather than at least somewhat using the brains he gave us), so they’ll just have to be sent on their way to find out in person, because they’ll never change while alive. Once enough of the old guard are gone, their way of governing will go with them.
You seem to be overlooking the fact that the “younger” members of the IRGC are just as hard line, if not more so, than the “old guard,” which doesn’t bode well for a purely military solution. You might remember Afghanistan.
Yeah, what Terence said.
And, of course, as soon as Mr. Presidementia’s attention wanders to something else, “victory” will be declared, and a series of further distractions will ensue to keep the US public from noticing that the war is going on and on and on…