Remember when they were bitching about Biden and the national debt?
Trump Just Surrendered to Iran--Pathetic
- Thread starter GDead_Tiger
- Start date
you might be coming into this debate a little late...As I explained, or tried to, there is a planning sequence to military engagements...The military had not finished with the first part of the operation..you don't just do one segment part way and then move to another then back to the first..that's simply not how it's done for obvious reasons. In the planning order there is something called "concept of operations" which lays out the plans and the sequence. to take the strait would have required ground forces, and as you might recall, the Marines weren't there yet. Now if you want to criticize that the ground forces weren't there, remember, they didn't need to be there first, because the concept of operations didn't require them to be there.
To your second question, if I were part of the planning sequence I would have started pretty much most ground operations do...bomb/lob large shells from offshore ships into areas where we put ground troops. I would have gone after the IRGC ground troops with aviation to take out communication and ground command and control. Then put ground forces in the area where we know the Iranians are launching their missiles and drones. Now how close we were to engaging those capabilities I really have no idea. As to plans, the military has entire groups in the pentagon who do nothing but war planning and war gaming. I watched numerous interviews on numerous networks talking about both those plans and the gaming. There was total agreement that effective plans were in place. I was not part of the planning group, I was in R&D and acquisition during my Pentagon years. So, I'm not an expert on the other side.
On timing of the closure, again from interviews, the military expected strait closure to be an Iranian strategy. But coming back to the concept of operations, it wasn't the first thing to be accomplished.
why don't we wait and see what the agreement is before we draw our conclusions. I know I am. I hear different reports from different people, none of whom have seen the agreement. I'll be among those who criticize it if it's bad for us. But would have to admit he was right on Friday when he said the "war is almost over".
trump will do his usual and lie. He's totally surrendering to Iran but you're wanting to wait for his lies so you can be ok with failure.
I'm not so sure the $300 billion in American spending on Iranian infrastructure is part of the final deal. The MOU with the final, agreed terms has apparently been signed electronically, but will not be released until Friday, when there is supposed to be some kind of wet ink signing ceremony. Until then, it seems like there is a bunch of posturing on both sides as to what the terms of the deal are.
dpic, once again, I point out that just posting a clip of someone that agrees with your position/bias does not make it factual.
Sometimes it just makes sense to wait and hold the criticism until you see what is the actual document.
I don't think anybody is "giving" Iran anything, from what I understand.
I would think it would have been, but the ceasefire interrupted the military side of the conflict.
I don't think I'm making my points effectively. Military actions don't start with the end game as the objective..."win the war" is somewhat of a meaningless term. But "destroy air defense radar here here and here" (would be very specific) would be. You wouldn't from a tactical perspective go after everything on day one...you do it in stages...
Think of WWII..the strategy for sure was to "defeat germany" but to do that you have to gain a foothold in Europe, take control of France, then take control of Italy...and there would be "intermediate objectives" as part of each plan. And since few things in war, as in life, go exactly according to plan, you make adjustments along the way..
Don't lose track of the fact, that all of these plans and stages are approved by the command authority..and ultimately the commander in chief. I would imagine, but don't know for a fact, that the CENTCOM Commander laid out his plan to take control of the strait, the time and forces/resources required - and in spite of what the anti military/trump folks might believe there are plans - and there were factors that president trump decided to go a different direction - the ceasefire, and subsequent economic blockade. I would think, and again don't know, that prospective US casualties in taking the strait might have played a role. And ground forces would have been required and there would have been casualties.
Everybody is entitled to their opinion...so I'll give you my wife's...she believes that Trump really is a person who wants peace and is more humanitarian than warmonger. it is her belief that Trump called off the military so as to not kill more people than necessary. Is she right, or just looking through red colored glasses. Heck, I don't know, but the left logical targets would have been the infrastructure and the ground forces. Trump decided not to go after them...
well one thing for sure, for those of us who have never met either trump or netanyahuu, were not party with any conversations between the two, and disregard anything we are hearing now, we know exactly how trump was led into the war...
well, everyone has his own opinion. I would imagine Thorne is a wonderful human being. Trying to explain military concepts to him, based on his post, is a no win proposition. So rather than beat my head against the wall with a person whose bias is against understanding is just not sensible. If he's really interested he can look it up on the internet. It just seems to me that he wants to be argumentative..old expression...comes from a program manager 10 commandments - when you wrestle with a pig, he likes it, you get dirty. I'm too old to continue the wrestling.
I have no idea of thorne's background, but I've served in two Army combat Divisions, been on Brigade and Division staff - G3-, have graduated from the war college, served in the Pentagon on Department of the Army staff and been a US representative to NATO - twice. So I appreciate Thorne's guidance on how things in the military function
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Despite what CNN tells you, Obama's JCPOA was a terrible deal. It gave tons of cash to Iran to develop their nuclear program and fund terrorism. And the inspections were a joke. The nearby Arab states hated the deal and are thrilled to see Trump's new deal.
Trump is cleaning up Obama's mess.
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Geez @baltimorened go touch grass. We get it, you hate Trump but never stop with your endless stream of both sides drivel to support him with every post. You remind us with every keystroke with how much you "don't support" him. What a joke.
What everyone should be saying is that the soldiers who lost their lives will never come home to their families again, never celebrate a birthday again, drink a beer with old friends, etc. For what? I'm sure you've got a sweet justification on why their deaths were justified. Let's hear it Ned!
What everyone should be saying is that the soldiers who lost their lives will never come home to their families again, never celebrate a birthday again, drink a beer with old friends, etc. For what? I'm sure you've got a sweet justification on why their deaths were justified. Let's hear it Ned!
Assume for a second the reporting is accurate that the Joint Chiefs, VP and Intel community all advised against the war. I always wondered how that goes inside senior levels of the military. Obviously they are professionals who will do the best they can under any circumstance, of that I have no doubt. But I do wonder how they view a war like this if they felt there were less costly ways to achieve the strategic/political objectives. How do you see that dynamic?
I also wonder if their hands were cuffed a bit because the political/strategic objectives were shifting with every WH message (regime change, free the Iranian people, destroy their military, get the uranium, eliminate the nuclear program, prevent further attacks on Israel, and on and on and on). Those disparate objectives would seem to require vastly different military options. For instance to my untrained eye it was highly unlikely we could “free” the Iranian people without troops on the ground.
Just because I school you in these debates doesn't mean I'm old. I'm just smarter.
I'm probably half your age.
Sure. I guess what I’m trying to say is you are saying “the military has effectively and successfully completed every objective they’ve been given” and the rest of us are saying “entering this war without having keeping the strait open is a horrible overall wartime strategy because you are allowing them to keep their biggest piece of leverage in any negotiation attempt at achieving whatever overall goal is for this war (I assume uranium in some way).”
You have a lot of strange thoughts. Other than a few radical liberals like yourself, nobody believes the Chiefs, VP and Intel community all advised against the war.
Trump's war has gone so well that Traveler needs to make believe people in the administration were against it.
Lol, this guy is going to ******* crack at some point.
Meanwhile, in the real world.......
Less than three months ago, Donald Trump was mocking the 2015 deal Barack Obama made with Iran that cleared the regime’s path to a nuclear bomb. “They sent Boeing 757s over there, loaded with cash, hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Trump, referring to the cash ransom Obama aides delivered directly to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or IRGC, to bribe the Iranians to agree to the phony deal. “That’s not going to happen with Trump.”
And yet it seems that’s exactly what’s happening with Trump. According to reports Friday, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a key U.S. regional ally, is making $20 billion of frozen Iranian assets available to the Islamic Republic, with $3 billion of it having already been delivered to Tehran, perhaps by a Boeing 757 and maybe even on wooden pallets like those Obama stacked with cash to pay the terror state. Emirati officials deny that they’re buying off Iran on behalf of the United States, but if Abu Dhabi thought Trump was going to put the clerical regime down for the count, it wouldn’t be giving money to a neighbor that since March has set fire to high-end real-estate properties with hundreds of missile and drone attacks. Instead, the Emiratis are paying tribute to the side that looks like a winner.
Thus, it seems that what Trump has frequently called the worst deal ever negotiated, and has identified for more than a decade as Exhibit A in the case against American loserdom, has now become the pattern of his own Iran policy. And, like Obama’s, the plan is to gorge the IRGC with money and pave the way to a nuclear bomb while restraining Israel from responding to missile attacks by Iran and its proxies for the sake of what it euphemistically calls regional order.
What seems to have held Trump back from green-lighting the memorandum of understanding (MOU) that Vice President JD Vance has negotiated with Iran is his fear that he can’t repackage Obama’s deal as his own big geopolitical win because his base will see through it and think him a loser. And so, for nearly a month, Vance, leader of the White House’s “restrainer” faction, has been trying to convince Trump that MAGA is definitely dumb enough to be suckered into believing that the Iran deal his loyal deputy has captained is a historic win.
On Friday, the “senior administration official” held a call with reporters to say the deal is close at hand—or nearly, as he bragged in a May call with the same media cohort. Ninety-five percent done. He was short on details but assured his captive audience that Iran had committed to dismantling its nuclear facilities, destroying and shipping out its stockpiles of enriched uranium, and giving up its regional terror proxies Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis; in short, Iran was conceding to every U.S. demand. And, the vice president repeated frequently, the Iranians would only be paid when they were in compliance. And to cover all the bases, a strict verification regime would be put in place to make sure Iran was abiding by the deal. After all, neither he nor the president is naive about Iran.
Vance’s validator calls with the press, influencers, and think-tank experts constitute the centerpiece of his communications campaign, which is modeled after Obama’s Iran deal echo chamber but with one big difference. The Obama team set up its comms infrastructure to steamroll Iran deal opponents, like U.S. lawmakers, nuclear proliferation experts, Republican voters, and pro-Israel activists. Vance’s only audience is Trump. By generating positive articles, social media posts, and TV appearances celebrating Vance’s hard-fought progress in bending the Iranians to his will, the vice president is amassing evidence to show Trump that his supporters are 100% behind the president’s new policy of accommodating Iran—Obama’s policy.
In the call Friday, Vance explained that his working theory of Iran is that the regime’s moderate faction is ascendant, and the way to empower them is to make concessions to them so they can show the hard-liners, the IRGC, that they can deliver the goods to the Iranian people.
The schematics sound familiar because it’s exactly how Obama sold the Iran deal. “The people most opposed to the deal are the Revolutionary Guard,” Obama said in 2015, “hard-liners who are implacably opposed to any cooperation with the international community. And there’s a reason for that, because they recognize that if, in fact, this deal gets done, that rather than them being in the driver’s seat with respect to the Iranian economy, they are in a weaker position.”
Did that work? No, the money Iran won from Obama’s deal went to the IRGC. A fact sheet released by the first Trump administration in May 2018 when the president withdrew from what he then called “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into” showed that with the money from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the IRGC “funded a military buildup and continues to fund its terrorist proxies, such as Hizballah and Hamas.” So how would it work differently now?
Because we’re not naive, Vance told the media. The difference between Obama’s deal and the deal Vance is trying to get Trump to sell to his base is that the Iranians get things for performance, and, said the vice president, if we don’t see that performance, then Iran will not get any of the economic benefits of this negotiation. Thus, what most distinguishes the MOU from the JCPOA, Vance insists, is that the Iranians won’t get paid up front, the way Obama paid Iran to sit down and negotiate.
But that’s obviously not true. There are two stages to the MOU, and Iran has conditioned its participation in the second stage, to negotiate over the nuclear issues, on its satisfaction with the concessions it will win in the first stage, negotiations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. So if Vance wasn’t yet bargaining over the nuclear file or even the reopening of the strait, what could he have been negotiating the past month except how to pay Iran up front? It’s taken so long because the trick is making sure that whatever formula he devises for getting Iran paid won’t embarrass Trump by making him look exactly like Obama. Otherwise, the deal may be more than Trump can stomach.
Donald Trump's Pallets of Cash - Tablet Magazine
And yet it seems that’s exactly what’s happening with Trump. According to reports Friday, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a key U.S. regional ally, is making $20 billion of frozen Iranian assets available to the Islamic Republic, with $3 billion of it having already been delivered to Tehran, perhaps by a Boeing 757 and maybe even on wooden pallets like those Obama stacked with cash to pay the terror state. Emirati officials deny that they’re buying off Iran on behalf of the United States, but if Abu Dhabi thought Trump was going to put the clerical regime down for the count, it wouldn’t be giving money to a neighbor that since March has set fire to high-end real-estate properties with hundreds of missile and drone attacks. Instead, the Emiratis are paying tribute to the side that looks like a winner.
Thus, it seems that what Trump has frequently called the worst deal ever negotiated, and has identified for more than a decade as Exhibit A in the case against American loserdom, has now become the pattern of his own Iran policy. And, like Obama’s, the plan is to gorge the IRGC with money and pave the way to a nuclear bomb while restraining Israel from responding to missile attacks by Iran and its proxies for the sake of what it euphemistically calls regional order.
What seems to have held Trump back from green-lighting the memorandum of understanding (MOU) that Vice President JD Vance has negotiated with Iran is his fear that he can’t repackage Obama’s deal as his own big geopolitical win because his base will see through it and think him a loser. And so, for nearly a month, Vance, leader of the White House’s “restrainer” faction, has been trying to convince Trump that MAGA is definitely dumb enough to be suckered into believing that the Iran deal his loyal deputy has captained is a historic win.
On Friday, the “senior administration official” held a call with reporters to say the deal is close at hand—or nearly, as he bragged in a May call with the same media cohort. Ninety-five percent done. He was short on details but assured his captive audience that Iran had committed to dismantling its nuclear facilities, destroying and shipping out its stockpiles of enriched uranium, and giving up its regional terror proxies Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis; in short, Iran was conceding to every U.S. demand. And, the vice president repeated frequently, the Iranians would only be paid when they were in compliance. And to cover all the bases, a strict verification regime would be put in place to make sure Iran was abiding by the deal. After all, neither he nor the president is naive about Iran.
Vance’s validator calls with the press, influencers, and think-tank experts constitute the centerpiece of his communications campaign, which is modeled after Obama’s Iran deal echo chamber but with one big difference. The Obama team set up its comms infrastructure to steamroll Iran deal opponents, like U.S. lawmakers, nuclear proliferation experts, Republican voters, and pro-Israel activists. Vance’s only audience is Trump. By generating positive articles, social media posts, and TV appearances celebrating Vance’s hard-fought progress in bending the Iranians to his will, the vice president is amassing evidence to show Trump that his supporters are 100% behind the president’s new policy of accommodating Iran—Obama’s policy.
In the call Friday, Vance explained that his working theory of Iran is that the regime’s moderate faction is ascendant, and the way to empower them is to make concessions to them so they can show the hard-liners, the IRGC, that they can deliver the goods to the Iranian people.
The schematics sound familiar because it’s exactly how Obama sold the Iran deal. “The people most opposed to the deal are the Revolutionary Guard,” Obama said in 2015, “hard-liners who are implacably opposed to any cooperation with the international community. And there’s a reason for that, because they recognize that if, in fact, this deal gets done, that rather than them being in the driver’s seat with respect to the Iranian economy, they are in a weaker position.”
Did that work? No, the money Iran won from Obama’s deal went to the IRGC. A fact sheet released by the first Trump administration in May 2018 when the president withdrew from what he then called “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into” showed that with the money from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the IRGC “funded a military buildup and continues to fund its terrorist proxies, such as Hizballah and Hamas.” So how would it work differently now?
Because we’re not naive, Vance told the media. The difference between Obama’s deal and the deal Vance is trying to get Trump to sell to his base is that the Iranians get things for performance, and, said the vice president, if we don’t see that performance, then Iran will not get any of the economic benefits of this negotiation. Thus, what most distinguishes the MOU from the JCPOA, Vance insists, is that the Iranians won’t get paid up front, the way Obama paid Iran to sit down and negotiate.
But that’s obviously not true. There are two stages to the MOU, and Iran has conditioned its participation in the second stage, to negotiate over the nuclear issues, on its satisfaction with the concessions it will win in the first stage, negotiations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. So if Vance wasn’t yet bargaining over the nuclear file or even the reopening of the strait, what could he have been negotiating the past month except how to pay Iran up front? It’s taken so long because the trick is making sure that whatever formula he devises for getting Iran paid won’t embarrass Trump by making him look exactly like Obama. Otherwise, the deal may be more than Trump can stomach.
Donald Trump's Pallets of Cash - Tablet Magazine
Let the backpedal begin. Let’s see the written signed MOU.
as an aside, war and for that matter the military is a dangerous business..just look at the crash yesterday that claimed 8 lives...
Now if you have read my posts you'll know that I think Trump bungled this operation. I don't hate trump, I don't hate anyone. sorry. I just don't think trump is wrong on everything the same way a lot of you do, I don't think he's right all the time either.
See I don't get as worked up as you guys do over everything Trump says...and I try to stick with fact as opposed to opinions. Just an example I just responded to a post that said that congress just rubber stamps everything trump wants...sounds good..but isn't accurate. All you have to do is look it up.
And you know what, there are generally tow sides to every discussion. Your response to mine is indicative of that.
I've been in combat and I've lost friends. So I don't need a post to remind me of the pain families go through. My experience was Vietnam and likely more people asked the question "for what" about that war, than this one. Please don't try and lecture me about justifications for service members deaths.
I think that might be accurate, but until the agreement is released maybe we should be so definitive in our statements...Might be true, might not...
This is so pathetically stupid. Real "I declare bankruptcy"/"You can't fire me I quit!" vibes.
"Iran didn't change anything but we won"
bsky.app
"Iran didn't change anything but we won"
Shipwreck (@shipwreck75.bsky.social)
U.S. Vice President to Fox News: We have prevailed whether Iran changes its approach or chooses not to adhere to the agreement.
bsky.app
great questions...first of all in my experience , commanders want and invite comments in the planning process, not as vehement as my experience in industry, but leaders want to know all sides of what potentially can happen once the first shot is fired. The once the command is set, leaders expect you to execute as if the idea/order was yours. Also, in my experience, the determining factor was never financial cost. Risk, lives, ability to support, resources required to accomplish objectives - yes - I don't remember the concept of cost - for battle - ever coming up. You spend what you have to spend to accomplish the objective. Look up the "5 paragraph field order"
I don't know the dynamic of this situation so conjecture on my part. But of course the politics impact the military operation. The military does not enter a war to create a ceasefire. Their objective is to destroy the enemy. But politicians control the military. I doubt that trump's vascilations caused any day to day change in military operations, but in the long run, as I've posted before, when the administration decided on a ceasefire, the operation changed from military to political/economic.
Any experienced officer will tell you that you don't win with air power alone. You only control the ground that you have boots on. To take the strait, just for example, would have required troops - and more than 2 MEFs. And, again conjecture, I don't think Trump was "up" for committing troops. Once he made that decision, the momentum moved to Iran. That's why, from a military perspective, we are where we are. Trump should have not made the decision to attack Iran if he didn't intend to win.
Now Trump is saying we don't need to take their uranium lmao https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mofrvpvjyc2c
I don't disagree with your thoughts, the point I'm making is that the war ended militarily before that part of the military effort was completed. To take the strait, IMO, you need ground troops and you "prepare the battlefield" first...create air superiority, take out as much of the Iranian ground force as possible (remember trump said he didn't want to do that), eliminate the enemy's capability to reinforce those protecting the strait either troops or supplies, take out command and control, and eliminate as many of the attack capabilities - missiles/drones - that could impact ground forces. Then you're prepared to attack...we had not gotten to that point yet.
For some reason, people just can't understand that there is a process and the process was stopped by a ceasefire...
How long ago? Did any of those responsibilities require communicating your knowledge in written text of the English language? Is it possible anything has changed? Does reality in 2026 matter or are you perhaps biased by your experience 50 years ago?
At the risk of shifting the direction of this conversation I worry about your statement that the military does not consider the financial cost. I worry because we have seen in Ukraine and Iran how cheap weapons (e.g. Drones) can create asymmetry in outcomes. Thinks like cheap naval drones taking out ships, oil infrastructure etc. In another example we used very expensive patriot missiles to take out much cheaper missiles and drones.
I hope that dynamic changes because I don’t believe we can afford to keep even half the current budget for the defense department in the long run (debt/deficit eventually catches up to us). So we have to find ways to wage war on a more cost effective footing.
And what people keep saying is that that strategy doesn't make sense. And that the strategy itself is flawed. Not that the military itself has done anything poorly.