Ex-US intel analyst, and new Zeteo contributor, Harrison Mann on how the president could earn his way back to the table after killing everyone in Iran who’s tried to negotiate with him.
Harrison Mann describes Iran's demands as "undeniably bold." I think they are more than reasonable. "Financial compensation for US-Israeli strikes, closure of all US bases in the region, ending the Israeli war in Lebanon, lifting sanctions, and recognition of an Iranian-run mechanism to control traffic through the Strait of Hormuz" are what is desperately needed to attain lasting peace in the region.
There is a hidden deep belief or assumption that language and hence treaties and négociation is not to be trusted because of certitude that from each geopolitical game player internal abuse of their population in various ways we do not find moral and that might stem from deep colonialist assumptions of cultural superiority to more universal aspirations of human rights concerns that evil is afoot and as a premise all the most selfish or greedy or evil in one’s imagination is the most probable intent inference. And it seems the last hegemon imperial war machine currrent war project and its minime version of very obsessive denial of others human value per foundational self fulfilling fear elevated to eternal certitude and new nation core tenet having its own non conceivable imperial expansion revision wreaking further self défense preemptive agression engine cycle going full regime. Yes I need to put on the map all that is underlying the apparently rational discourse from all players. And the onus of decrypting might be on the de facto eternal geopolitical hegemon clinging or aspiring ones
Projecting their own « end justify the means » while the ends themselves might be immoral means to glory or elusive peace or safety muse
Well I mean that for those Iranian demands to be measured there is the floating and under deliquencence variable of trust of intent in relation to the language provided
I would ask if looking at that geopolitical game only level where the players have decision option to stop violence and have the means to maintain it. And the industrial power or political power to act on verbalized messages. To look at the past and assess who has been rational and who could have deeds and language to mean something
Relying on deep emotional beliefs of evil as analytical grid sound like a failure
And if looking only at common accessible information I ask whose languge csn be trusted
Also. Any idea how to make this a public effort of monitoring and investigating or researching language and deed track records thst can support international law and give track record historical statistics developping standards of open source information about either languge or media messaging used and known actions
I know sci fi right but I think it might be a seed of an idea
As we might be making extrapolations from past and that might eventually become reputation abuse of credibity
This is directional. But if one can be rewarded from lack of dissonance over time period maybe it could not just be a directional metric of not trustable. It could be also valid in the other direction
For now I think the onus of language or treaty or négociation language value is on the end times lost moral compass imperial agression side.
So yes it would appear reasonable without the evil certitude assumptions
Hidden or implied or even explicit in the crazies. Should I name some very visible
The spearheads of media cognitive warfare going irrational are not really hiding.
Thanks to both Rubio desinhibiting discourse and paradoxically to carney at Davos thst I misinterpreted as
Will to stop bullshitting or lip servicing moral principles or law version of them about international law and human rights
I should have gotten a hint in that it was the totalitarian law that was the lié that the shop owner (banker or inverts or or military economy product to sell?) had to do lip service to
He could have chosen a more recent blatant set of examples but that might not have been « diplomatic »
Maybe something older where it is indeed internal law post 1991. So no more need to transpose
Ok enough rambled. Reader thst makes it here can have their own think on this better than I
I like option 3 best, Rein in Netanyahu. Here's how you do it: US demands a total and permanent ceasefire beginning immediately. Require Israel to withdraw its forces, military and otherwise, from Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran and the West Bank. Meet all of Iran’s demands. Connect Gaza to the West Bank by annexing the land south of Beersheba to create Greater Palestine. Israel and Greater Palestine acknowledge each other’s right to exist. New governments in israel and Greater Palestine. US provides Greater Palestine with $350 billion in aid to rebuild Gaza and repair the West Bank (this is approximately the amount of aid provided to Israel since 1959, adjusted for inflation). Commit the US to provide Israel and Greater Palestine with equal amounts of annual aid. Announce that if either party violates the ceasefire, the US aid is terminated immediately.
Anything less than all of the above will only be a delay until we're inevitably back here again.
The elephant arrived into the room in 1948. When is that going to be recognised as a failed and fraudulent experiment and the root cause by so-called western civilised regimes?
Don't hold your breath, gonads, intelligence and wisdom are all in extremely short supply amongst the western world's current and fraudulent "decision makers".
The presentation by Mann is just excellent and gives me hope... is it possible for trump to stop and think this through? We can hope and pray for this.
Thank you, Mr. Mann I hope and pray that isn’t the same article, that was sent day before yesterday. I am glad you’re here to help people understand this awful war . Many lives have been lost. I pray for our soldiers in the gulf. It’s my prayers that each come home safe from harm. For I am a, Catholic woman who hopes for no harm. People shall again seek their freedom once again, let the light of liberty shine upon them. This Saturday, in the March May America find justice once again in their hearts. If you like Independent Journalism and articles please subscribe to ZETEO.
🍊 IT knows not what he's done. Iran didn't fall to it's knees and beg. A new leader more radical than Papa. ( Daddy didn't want him to ascend). And dead across the region reviving the hatred for what One Bigly Ugly American has wrought.
Tim Snyder and Heather Cox Richardson get together to discuss freedom of which Snyder has written about in books On Freedom, On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom(https://bit.ly/487CWYS)
Snyder talks about how Americans talk about freedom as something they have because they haven’t lost something(freedom from something) But he points out that the positive aspect of freedom is much more powerful and creative It means that WE the People have the freedom to create which is a much more expansive way of seeing freedom
But Cox raises the familiar Nazi Republican trope that less government means more freedom Snyder argues that when there is less government you set the stage for oligarchic rule which we seeing played out in real time with Cheeto and his Nazi allies But government provides the structures/institutions and grants WE the People the positive aspects of freedom, eg clean air, safe food, good health care
The Nazi Republicans self servingly persuaded weak minded evangelicals that the government is the boogeyman They want Americans to believe that their fascist ideas of freedom will promote a better life and that’s true if you’re a wealthy oligarch who will profit from less government while the rest of us suffer with loss of the positive aspects of freedom and lose our creative potential as a free society
Sound reasoning in the options outlined. Unfortunately, the people that need to apply sound and strategic thinking are incapable of doing so. Whether this is due to intellectual shortcomings, an unrealistic outlook for a solution or a combination of both with the additional of unrelenting demands for power and riches, it is daunting to believe they will follow a path making inroads to stopping the madness. Sigh!
This is not DJT/America's war of Choice, but it is Israel's war, and the US Department of War is being used as a mercenary force for Israel. The problem is that US taxpayers are footing the bill for both Israel and the US.
Welcome, Mr. Harrison Mann. Your 3 Points are practical and make sense...to the rational and intelligent. Sadly, DJT is not that. (Mercurial was the adjective used to describe him.) Nor are the "advisors" that surround, and, probably, misinform him.
I’m glad to see there are still a few sane voices left in USA and I’m very glad to welcome Harrison Mann back here.
I have a few comments:
First, the very idea of negotiating is anathema to Iran, given that they have been betrayed not once but twice in the past. And not only has USA and its rabid dog Israel attacked and killed irans top leaders while pretending to negotiate but continue vowing to do so in the future. This is hardly conducive to any kind of peace gesture. It’s clear that neither USA and especially not Israel are to be trusted.
Second, USA’s negotiating team is to consist of some the most pro Israeli and pro Zionist people that surround Trump. Kushner, Witkoff, Rubio, Vance? Seriously? You may as well have Netanyahu negotiate! At least Iran would be negotiating with the actual person pulling all the strings! Instead of proxies.
Third, USA has to dismantle its bases all across the gulf region, all of the ones surrounding Iran for Iran to even concede anything. Can the USA even afford to do that? How will the sycophantic puppets in the gulf states and Saudi Arabia react to this? Will Israel even allow the USA to contemplate such an event? (And will the Epstein blackmail come back into full gear to prevent this?).
Fourth, and this is the real crux of the matter. USA must not just rein in Netanyahu (an impossibility in my view given what I have written above) but totally abandon their blind support for Israel and its genocidal fascist regime (btw, an aside; why does Iran have a “regime” and the rest of the world have governments?). Only when the Zionist state is disabled and Zionism completely dismantled can there ever be any peace in not just the Middle East but frankly in my opinion the rest of the world. I may be naive in thinking so; since humans are incapable of being a peaceable species, but one can always live in hope. With Israel, as it exists today, that hope is totally illusory!
Finally, there has to be full guarantees for both the Palestinians (both inside and outside the territory currently called Israel; this is important since Israel refuses to define its borders!) and for Lebanon (notwithstanding the ridiculous posturing by the Lebanese regime to take its ire out on Iran and not Israel, the actual aggressor).
For now I’ll leave it at that. It’s clearly a pipe dream, this so called peace plan, but good luck to whoever is trying for whatever selfish and self serving reason. Iran holds all the cards right now, and both USA and Israel know this. And the rest of the world is fast coming to that realisation.
Your recommendations are both realistic and common-sense. Otherwise, somewhere in the Persian Gulf, a 19-year-old Marine trusts that the hard questions have been asked. That his trust is not being dishonored.
Somewhere in the Persian Gulf right now, a 19-year-old paratrooper from Fort Bragg is cleaning his weapon, writing a letter home, or trying to sleep in a bunk that smells of diesel and salt air. He does not know whether he will be ordered to jump. He does not know what awaits him if he does. He has been trained to execute the mission he is given. He has not been told — because no one has told him — that the mission as currently conceived has no answer to a mine laid in the dark, no answer to a Shahed drone launched from a fast-attack boat at 3 a.m., and no answer to the question of what happens on day three when the resupply convoy cannot get through. He trusts the people above him to have asked those questions and found satisfactory answers. That trust is not being honored.
The case against the ground invasion of Kharg Island or the Iranian coast of the Hormuz coastline is not a case against the use of force. It is not a case for appeasement, for accommodation, or for allowing Iran to hold the world’s energy supply hostage indefinitely. It is a case for using force intelligently — which means matching the instrument to the objective, ensuring the force is adequate to the task, and defining what success looks like before the first soldier crosses the line of departure. None of those conditions is currently met.
The objective — reopening the Strait of Hormuz — does not require American boots on the ground in Iran. It requires sustained airpower to attrit Iran’s coastal missile and drone infrastructure, mine countermeasure operations to clear the shipping lanes, economic pressure that is already generating real pain inside Iran, and the diplomatic patience to let that pressure work. These are not passive options. They are active, sustained, and costly. They require political will to maintain in the face of domestic pressure for a more dramatic gesture. But they do not require sending a light division into a kill zone against a threat it cannot defeat, nor do they require the United States to absorb a Beirut-scale casualty event that would end the operation and hand Iran a strategic victory it could not have won on the battlefield.
The convoy escort option fails the same test for different reasons. It is not passive enough to avoid the kill zone, nor powerful enough to control it. It places American warships and American credibility in the two-mile transit corridor where Iran’s entire asymmetric arsenal — mines, drones, fast-attack boats, shore-launched missiles — converges on the narrowest possible chokepoint. One tanker lost under American escort is not a tactical setback. It is the end of the operation, the collapse of the insurance market, and a political catastrophe that exceeds the cost of never having attempted the escort in the first place. The gambit fails the moment it is tested, and Iran will test it.
The men and women now moving toward the Persian Gulf deserve a strategy equal to the threat they face. They deserve commanders who have studied the terrain, war-gamed the adversary’s responses, solved the logistics problem before the shooting starts, and defined an exit that does not require Iran’s cooperation to execute. They deserve a Secretary of Defense who reads the Inspector General’s reports rather than dismissing them, who listens to the professionals rather than rewarding the loyalists, and who understands that the performance of toughness is not the same thing as toughness. They deserve, in short, an Eisenhower — someone who will accept delay over disaster, who will refuse to launch until the force is ready, and who will write the failure note in advance, not as an act of pessimism but as an act of honesty about what command actually costs.
They are not getting that. What they are getting is a plan that has not been asked the hard questions, a command structure that has not earned the trust it is being given, and a political leadership that has confused the willingness to commit forces with the wisdom to commit them well. The Light Brigade was not destroyed because its soldiers were cowards or its officers were incompetent. It was destroyed because the men who gave the order could not see what the men in the valley could see — and because the culture of that army made it impossible for the men in the valley to say so.
Nothing about the current situation suggests that culture has changed. The valley is still there. The guns are still at the end of it. And the order, as best as can be determined from the outside, has not yet been given, which means there is still time to ask the questions that should have been asked before the ships left port. How do you hold Kharg Island against sustained drone and missile attack, only 15 miles from a hostile coastline? How do you resupply a garrison when every supply route is within range of Iranian weapons? How do you sweep mines in a two-mile shipping lane while Iranian drones are still active overhead? What is the exit strategy if the garrison takes mass casualties in the first week? Who is responsible when it goes wrong?
Those questions have answers. The answers are not reassuring. And our soldiers deserve to know that leadership in Washington understands and cares about those answers -- a leadership that can overcome the hubris that prevents it from seriously considering your recommendations.
Whoa! Mr. Lou Hoffman, YOU sound like a powerful, as well as an experienced military man. Your comments reminded me of how brilliantly my brother, who fought in the Viet Nam war, used to speak. (He passed away in 2020.) Your descriptions and explanations were as if I were reading a Tom Clancy, or Robert Penn Warren, or Frederick Forsyth novel. You have spoken truth here. Kudos.
Little dick has proved over and over again that he can't negotiate a deal. Any deal he says he has is not something Iran will take to the bank because they know he'll renege on it before the ink dries. So either he dies in office or Netanyahu who does. This is their war just to stay out of jail for all their corruption in the past and into the present day.
Harrison Mann describes Iran's demands as "undeniably bold." I think they are more than reasonable. "Financial compensation for US-Israeli strikes, closure of all US bases in the region, ending the Israeli war in Lebanon, lifting sanctions, and recognition of an Iranian-run mechanism to control traffic through the Strait of Hormuz" are what is desperately needed to attain lasting peace in the region.
There is a hidden deep belief or assumption that language and hence treaties and négociation is not to be trusted because of certitude that from each geopolitical game player internal abuse of their population in various ways we do not find moral and that might stem from deep colonialist assumptions of cultural superiority to more universal aspirations of human rights concerns that evil is afoot and as a premise all the most selfish or greedy or evil in one’s imagination is the most probable intent inference. And it seems the last hegemon imperial war machine currrent war project and its minime version of very obsessive denial of others human value per foundational self fulfilling fear elevated to eternal certitude and new nation core tenet having its own non conceivable imperial expansion revision wreaking further self défense preemptive agression engine cycle going full regime. Yes I need to put on the map all that is underlying the apparently rational discourse from all players. And the onus of decrypting might be on the de facto eternal geopolitical hegemon clinging or aspiring ones
Projecting their own « end justify the means » while the ends themselves might be immoral means to glory or elusive peace or safety muse
Well I mean that for those Iranian demands to be measured there is the floating and under deliquencence variable of trust of intent in relation to the language provided
I would ask if looking at that geopolitical game only level where the players have decision option to stop violence and have the means to maintain it. And the industrial power or political power to act on verbalized messages. To look at the past and assess who has been rational and who could have deeds and language to mean something
Relying on deep emotional beliefs of evil as analytical grid sound like a failure
And if looking only at common accessible information I ask whose languge csn be trusted
Also. Any idea how to make this a public effort of monitoring and investigating or researching language and deed track records thst can support international law and give track record historical statistics developping standards of open source information about either languge or media messaging used and known actions
I know sci fi right but I think it might be a seed of an idea
As we might be making extrapolations from past and that might eventually become reputation abuse of credibity
This is directional. But if one can be rewarded from lack of dissonance over time period maybe it could not just be a directional metric of not trustable. It could be also valid in the other direction
For now I think the onus of language or treaty or négociation language value is on the end times lost moral compass imperial agression side.
So yes it would appear reasonable without the evil certitude assumptions
Hidden or implied or even explicit in the crazies. Should I name some very visible
The spearheads of media cognitive warfare going irrational are not really hiding.
Thanks to both Rubio desinhibiting discourse and paradoxically to carney at Davos thst I misinterpreted as
Will to stop bullshitting or lip servicing moral principles or law version of them about international law and human rights
I should have gotten a hint in that it was the totalitarian law that was the lié that the shop owner (banker or inverts or or military economy product to sell?) had to do lip service to
He could have chosen a more recent blatant set of examples but that might not have been « diplomatic »
Maybe something older where it is indeed internal law post 1991. So no more need to transpose
Ok enough rambled. Reader thst makes it here can have their own think on this better than I
I like option 3 best, Rein in Netanyahu. Here's how you do it: US demands a total and permanent ceasefire beginning immediately. Require Israel to withdraw its forces, military and otherwise, from Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran and the West Bank. Meet all of Iran’s demands. Connect Gaza to the West Bank by annexing the land south of Beersheba to create Greater Palestine. Israel and Greater Palestine acknowledge each other’s right to exist. New governments in israel and Greater Palestine. US provides Greater Palestine with $350 billion in aid to rebuild Gaza and repair the West Bank (this is approximately the amount of aid provided to Israel since 1959, adjusted for inflation). Commit the US to provide Israel and Greater Palestine with equal amounts of annual aid. Announce that if either party violates the ceasefire, the US aid is terminated immediately.
Anything less than all of the above will only be a delay until we're inevitably back here again.
The elephant arrived into the room in 1948. When is that going to be recognised as a failed and fraudulent experiment and the root cause by so-called western civilised regimes?
Don't hold your breath, gonads, intelligence and wisdom are all in extremely short supply amongst the western world's current and fraudulent "decision makers".
Amen! Ain't that the truth!
The presentation by Mann is just excellent and gives me hope... is it possible for trump to stop and think this through? We can hope and pray for this.
Thank you, Mr. Mann I hope and pray that isn’t the same article, that was sent day before yesterday. I am glad you’re here to help people understand this awful war . Many lives have been lost. I pray for our soldiers in the gulf. It’s my prayers that each come home safe from harm. For I am a, Catholic woman who hopes for no harm. People shall again seek their freedom once again, let the light of liberty shine upon them. This Saturday, in the March May America find justice once again in their hearts. If you like Independent Journalism and articles please subscribe to ZETEO.
🍊 IT knows not what he's done. Iran didn't fall to it's knees and beg. A new leader more radical than Papa. ( Daddy didn't want him to ascend). And dead across the region reviving the hatred for what One Bigly Ugly American has wrought.
But the Cult will still cling to Pyrite PINO.
No real resolution.
Dejan Vue all over again.
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/why-israel-wants-a-war-with-iran?r=108sd&utm_medium=ios
Good piece on Israel’s role
Freedom And The Nazi Republican Trope
Tim Snyder and Heather Cox Richardson get together to discuss freedom of which Snyder has written about in books On Freedom, On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom(https://bit.ly/487CWYS)
Snyder talks about how Americans talk about freedom as something they have because they haven’t lost something(freedom from something) But he points out that the positive aspect of freedom is much more powerful and creative It means that WE the People have the freedom to create which is a much more expansive way of seeing freedom
But Cox raises the familiar Nazi Republican trope that less government means more freedom Snyder argues that when there is less government you set the stage for oligarchic rule which we seeing played out in real time with Cheeto and his Nazi allies But government provides the structures/institutions and grants WE the People the positive aspects of freedom, eg clean air, safe food, good health care
The Nazi Republicans self servingly persuaded weak minded evangelicals that the government is the boogeyman They want Americans to believe that their fascist ideas of freedom will promote a better life and that’s true if you’re a wealthy oligarch who will profit from less government while the rest of us suffer with loss of the positive aspects of freedom and lose our creative potential as a free society
Sound reasoning in the options outlined. Unfortunately, the people that need to apply sound and strategic thinking are incapable of doing so. Whether this is due to intellectual shortcomings, an unrealistic outlook for a solution or a combination of both with the additional of unrelenting demands for power and riches, it is daunting to believe they will follow a path making inroads to stopping the madness. Sigh!
No #1 stop talking 🛑
Trump is the most compromised president we have ever had! He will never do anything to rein in Israel!
That is a real problem.
Witkoff and Kusher cannot be involved in any negotiations. They have shown themselves to be bad faith actors and cannot be trusted.
This is not DJT/America's war of Choice, but it is Israel's war, and the US Department of War is being used as a mercenary force for Israel. The problem is that US taxpayers are footing the bill for both Israel and the US.
Welcome, Mr. Harrison Mann. Your 3 Points are practical and make sense...to the rational and intelligent. Sadly, DJT is not that. (Mercurial was the adjective used to describe him.) Nor are the "advisors" that surround, and, probably, misinform him.
I’m glad to see there are still a few sane voices left in USA and I’m very glad to welcome Harrison Mann back here.
I have a few comments:
First, the very idea of negotiating is anathema to Iran, given that they have been betrayed not once but twice in the past. And not only has USA and its rabid dog Israel attacked and killed irans top leaders while pretending to negotiate but continue vowing to do so in the future. This is hardly conducive to any kind of peace gesture. It’s clear that neither USA and especially not Israel are to be trusted.
Second, USA’s negotiating team is to consist of some the most pro Israeli and pro Zionist people that surround Trump. Kushner, Witkoff, Rubio, Vance? Seriously? You may as well have Netanyahu negotiate! At least Iran would be negotiating with the actual person pulling all the strings! Instead of proxies.
Third, USA has to dismantle its bases all across the gulf region, all of the ones surrounding Iran for Iran to even concede anything. Can the USA even afford to do that? How will the sycophantic puppets in the gulf states and Saudi Arabia react to this? Will Israel even allow the USA to contemplate such an event? (And will the Epstein blackmail come back into full gear to prevent this?).
Fourth, and this is the real crux of the matter. USA must not just rein in Netanyahu (an impossibility in my view given what I have written above) but totally abandon their blind support for Israel and its genocidal fascist regime (btw, an aside; why does Iran have a “regime” and the rest of the world have governments?). Only when the Zionist state is disabled and Zionism completely dismantled can there ever be any peace in not just the Middle East but frankly in my opinion the rest of the world. I may be naive in thinking so; since humans are incapable of being a peaceable species, but one can always live in hope. With Israel, as it exists today, that hope is totally illusory!
Finally, there has to be full guarantees for both the Palestinians (both inside and outside the territory currently called Israel; this is important since Israel refuses to define its borders!) and for Lebanon (notwithstanding the ridiculous posturing by the Lebanese regime to take its ire out on Iran and not Israel, the actual aggressor).
For now I’ll leave it at that. It’s clearly a pipe dream, this so called peace plan, but good luck to whoever is trying for whatever selfish and self serving reason. Iran holds all the cards right now, and both USA and Israel know this. And the rest of the world is fast coming to that realisation.
Mr. Shahid N Zahid, your comments are well articulated, appreciated, and I hear you.
Your recommendations are both realistic and common-sense. Otherwise, somewhere in the Persian Gulf, a 19-year-old Marine trusts that the hard questions have been asked. That his trust is not being dishonored.
Somewhere in the Persian Gulf right now, a 19-year-old paratrooper from Fort Bragg is cleaning his weapon, writing a letter home, or trying to sleep in a bunk that smells of diesel and salt air. He does not know whether he will be ordered to jump. He does not know what awaits him if he does. He has been trained to execute the mission he is given. He has not been told — because no one has told him — that the mission as currently conceived has no answer to a mine laid in the dark, no answer to a Shahed drone launched from a fast-attack boat at 3 a.m., and no answer to the question of what happens on day three when the resupply convoy cannot get through. He trusts the people above him to have asked those questions and found satisfactory answers. That trust is not being honored.
The case against the ground invasion of Kharg Island or the Iranian coast of the Hormuz coastline is not a case against the use of force. It is not a case for appeasement, for accommodation, or for allowing Iran to hold the world’s energy supply hostage indefinitely. It is a case for using force intelligently — which means matching the instrument to the objective, ensuring the force is adequate to the task, and defining what success looks like before the first soldier crosses the line of departure. None of those conditions is currently met.
The objective — reopening the Strait of Hormuz — does not require American boots on the ground in Iran. It requires sustained airpower to attrit Iran’s coastal missile and drone infrastructure, mine countermeasure operations to clear the shipping lanes, economic pressure that is already generating real pain inside Iran, and the diplomatic patience to let that pressure work. These are not passive options. They are active, sustained, and costly. They require political will to maintain in the face of domestic pressure for a more dramatic gesture. But they do not require sending a light division into a kill zone against a threat it cannot defeat, nor do they require the United States to absorb a Beirut-scale casualty event that would end the operation and hand Iran a strategic victory it could not have won on the battlefield.
The convoy escort option fails the same test for different reasons. It is not passive enough to avoid the kill zone, nor powerful enough to control it. It places American warships and American credibility in the two-mile transit corridor where Iran’s entire asymmetric arsenal — mines, drones, fast-attack boats, shore-launched missiles — converges on the narrowest possible chokepoint. One tanker lost under American escort is not a tactical setback. It is the end of the operation, the collapse of the insurance market, and a political catastrophe that exceeds the cost of never having attempted the escort in the first place. The gambit fails the moment it is tested, and Iran will test it.
The men and women now moving toward the Persian Gulf deserve a strategy equal to the threat they face. They deserve commanders who have studied the terrain, war-gamed the adversary’s responses, solved the logistics problem before the shooting starts, and defined an exit that does not require Iran’s cooperation to execute. They deserve a Secretary of Defense who reads the Inspector General’s reports rather than dismissing them, who listens to the professionals rather than rewarding the loyalists, and who understands that the performance of toughness is not the same thing as toughness. They deserve, in short, an Eisenhower — someone who will accept delay over disaster, who will refuse to launch until the force is ready, and who will write the failure note in advance, not as an act of pessimism but as an act of honesty about what command actually costs.
They are not getting that. What they are getting is a plan that has not been asked the hard questions, a command structure that has not earned the trust it is being given, and a political leadership that has confused the willingness to commit forces with the wisdom to commit them well. The Light Brigade was not destroyed because its soldiers were cowards or its officers were incompetent. It was destroyed because the men who gave the order could not see what the men in the valley could see — and because the culture of that army made it impossible for the men in the valley to say so.
Nothing about the current situation suggests that culture has changed. The valley is still there. The guns are still at the end of it. And the order, as best as can be determined from the outside, has not yet been given, which means there is still time to ask the questions that should have been asked before the ships left port. How do you hold Kharg Island against sustained drone and missile attack, only 15 miles from a hostile coastline? How do you resupply a garrison when every supply route is within range of Iranian weapons? How do you sweep mines in a two-mile shipping lane while Iranian drones are still active overhead? What is the exit strategy if the garrison takes mass casualties in the first week? Who is responsible when it goes wrong?
Those questions have answers. The answers are not reassuring. And our soldiers deserve to know that leadership in Washington understands and cares about those answers -- a leadership that can overcome the hubris that prevents it from seriously considering your recommendations.
Whoa! Mr. Lou Hoffman, YOU sound like a powerful, as well as an experienced military man. Your comments reminded me of how brilliantly my brother, who fought in the Viet Nam war, used to speak. (He passed away in 2020.) Your descriptions and explanations were as if I were reading a Tom Clancy, or Robert Penn Warren, or Frederick Forsyth novel. You have spoken truth here. Kudos.
Little dick has proved over and over again that he can't negotiate a deal. Any deal he says he has is not something Iran will take to the bank because they know he'll renege on it before the ink dries. So either he dies in office or Netanyahu who does. This is their war just to stay out of jail for all their corruption in the past and into the present day.