There Is Only One Remaining Question--How Badly Has The USA Lost This War?
Hi All,
Well after having completely obliterated Iran, having forced its unconditional surrender, having destroyed its navy, its army and its missile forces (multiple times each), it seems that Donald Trump is on the verge of agreeing a ceasefire extension with Iran written mostly to fit Iranian strategic needs. Of course this was all rather predictable, as Trump has been twisting in the wind for weeks.
Trump himself tweeted out news of the impending agreement late on Saturday, complete with his obligatory list of other governments that definitely, absolutely, are delighted with his policies.
How did we get here? Well, other than giving in to Iran, Trump’s only options were, first, to either wait a long time for the US blockade to do so much damage to the Iranian economy that the Iranian government would soften its demands or, second, to escalate dramatically by returning to the direct use of military force.
The problem is that neither of these options were likely to achieve anything better. The Iranian government seemed more than set to outlast the blockade, knowing that upcoming US elections were going to force Trump’s hand and as for the military option—that had already failed had revealed how desperate Trump was not to use ground troops.
As such, if an agreement along the lines of what is being reported is actually worked out and put into operation, the only question that really remains is how badly the US has lost the war? This really is a historic moment. Its the quickest and might be the most decisive US military defeat in the history of the USA. The US started this war by choice, and here we are fewer than three months later, after the US threw much of its most modern weaponry and used up masses of its existing stockpiles, wondering how much Iran is going to get.
To understand how bad it could get, it makes sense to start with a list of areas in which there seems to be US-Iran agreement, areas where there seems to be no clarity and, finally, areas where the US has just given up.
