The reconstitution of Tehran’s missile stockpile has the US guessing.
Iran Still Has up to 2,500 Missiles
In contrast to Trump’s claims, the Wall Street Journal reports U.S. Figures Iran Still Has up to 2,500 Missiles.
The U.S. intelligence community assesses that Iran has between 1,500 and 2,500 missiles in its arsenal, U.S. officials said, leaving Tehran with significant capacity to attack U.S. and allied targets if all-out war resumes.
That is a low-confidence assessment, the officials said, due to the complications of tracking the precise number of missiles Iran has ready for launch or in storage. Even so, officials said it was clear Iran retained a formidable stockpile.
The reconstitution of Iran’s stockpile cuts against statements from administration officials, including President Trump, that Iran’s military had been decimated. It has also informed internal Trump administration discussions about whether to relaunch strikes alongside Israel, U.S. officials said.
Israeli military officials similarly assess that Iran has more than 1,500 ballistic missiles, though estimates vary among officials in the broader region due to the difficulty of pinpointing the exact number.
Simone Ledeen, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East in Trump’s first term, said that even the low-end estimate of 1,500 missiles would mean Iran had replenished more than half of its estimated prewar stockpile. She said that Iran fully rebuilt its arsenal in between the 12-day war in June 2025 and the start of the current conflict in February.
Trump suggested Wednesday during a Veterans Day address that the U.S. hadn’t entirely defeated the Islamic Republic. “We won,” he said. “Now the question is when we want to end. We must have a total victory, not a 93% victory. It’s going to be total.” He later told radio host Hugh Hewitt that it would be a “defeat” for the U.S. if the Iranian regime were still in power at the end of his term.
Estimating how many missiles Iran has is difficult due to the secrecy with which the issue is treated by Tehran, the many different missile producers Iran relies on and unknowns such as how many new missiles Iran can produce from finished components stockpiled underground, said Jim Lamson, a visiting research fellow at King’s College London and former CIA analyst who specialized in the Iranian military.
Further complicating the task is the fact that prewar assessments of Iran’s stockpiles were murky, he said.
“Having done this work for the government, I know it can be extremely low confidence even with all the classified information,” he said.
In April, The Wall Street Journal reported that Iran retained thousands of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles that could be retrieved from underground sites. Israeli and U.S. strikes collapsed the entrances to those facilities, but satellite imagery has since shown that Iran regained access to some by digging them out. Missiles in the underground sites likely survived intact, according to an Israeli official.
In September, the Journal reported that Iran had resumed its production of ballistic missiles from finished stockpiled components.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday used his first press conference in six months to tell reporters that Iran’s defense-industrial base was “gone,” as well as more than 80% of the country’s nuclear-industrial base. “By every measure we achieved a historic military victory,” he said.
What We Know
- Trump is a liar guaranteed to understate any problem
- Israel tells lies for the sole purpose of deceiving Trump to do what Netanyahu wants, and that’s more war
- Iran tells lies but in this case isn’t saying anything, so no lies on the Iranian front on this issue
- The US is struggling mightily to replenish missiles despite lies by Trump and Hegseth
- The US intelligence agencies are guessing
- Trump likes to bluff, but his bluffs are now useless
This setup is roughly the same as before Trump launched this stupid war, except it appears Iran has replenished missiles faster than the US.
And Iran has drones which the US defends with missiles that cost 10 to 100 times as much.
We also know that Iran is confident enough to have just launched an attack on Bahrain.
Iran Attacks Bahrain as Conflict Escalates
The Journal reports Iran Attacks Bahrain as Conflict Escalates
Iran launched an attack on Bahrain early Sunday, the latest incident targeting the island kingdom amid skirmishes between Iran and the U.S. as negotiations to end the war remain at a stalemate.
It wasn’t immediately clear if there was any damage, though people around Manama said they heard blasts.
Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, didn’t respond to requests for comment. Authorities twice sounded missile-alert sirens and urged the public to take shelter.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed the attack, saying it targeted radar positions at Bahrain’s Riffa Air Base with six drones. Riffa sits just south of Bahrain’s capital, Manama.
The attack on Bahrain came after Iran days earlier launched their first attack on the island in two months. Iran claimed to have targeted an American early-warning radar in the country over strikes by the U.S. on southern Iran. The U.S. military’s Central Command said it shot down two Iranian drones targeting Bahrain in that attack and that it caused no damage.
Iran repeatedly hit Bahrain during the war, now in its ninth month. President Trump, meanwhile, has focused on squeezing Tehran economically with a blockade at sea and putting pressure on Iran’s neighbors to halt trade by land.
Trump has signaled that he doesn’t want to return to major combat. Still, the U.S. and Iran have been skirmishing over control of the strategic Strait of Hormuz waterway.
U.S. forces have quietly carried out a series of strikes in recent weeks on Iranian sites including Qeshm Island, which sits along much of the strait’s hairpin turn. The island is home to a major Revolutionary Guard naval facility. The group uses the island to launch drones and missiles.
One Likely Impact
Netanyahu Pushes for War
I am 100% Rooting Against Netanyahu
Rooting for Massie
I always root against warmongers. Always.
I am not like MAGA hypocrites who cheer Trump when he says no more wars then cheer when starts one.
Flashback Irony
An Iranian Drone Plot?
Mish Drone Plot Theory
Recall that campfire game children play whispering something in a person’s ear who passes it on.
At the end of it all, “Let’s fire up the marshmallows” ends up being “Let’s throw Susie into the fire.”
In other words, I propose Iran is sowing seeds that get passed on and on and purposely morphed over time to get the US to react.
As a result of such games, marshmallows become credible threats.
For example, what if Iran suddenly started discussing a desire to destroy marshmallows? The CIA would go bonkers trying to figure who or what that meant.
Then suddenly in deciphered text, Scott Bessent appears in the same sentence with the word marshmallow.
That is just my guess. I could be very wrong. Either way, look at the result.
Rubio, Bessent, Blanche, Miller in Hiding
The thing is, Iranian leaders are laughing their asses off over cabinet level officials are in hiding whether my guess is right or wrong. It makes no practical difference!
Mish Sarcastic Recommendation
The US is forced to react because there would be hell to pay if I am wrong on what I believe is going on with marshmallows.
So, expect more marshmallows.
Addendum
Please note this is the fourth time (at least) the US has reacted to presumed Iranian threats.
- President Donald Trump secretly switched from Air Force One to a smaller military aircraft on July 8, 2026, while departing a NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey. The covert transfer was ordered by the Secret Service after U.S. and Turkish intelligence detected a credible Iranian plot to fire a surface-to-air missile at the presidential jet.
- In early October 2026, the Pentagon pulled B-1 heavy bombers back to the United States from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire after British counterterrorism police arrested suspects near the base in connection with an alleged Iran-backed plot.
- The United States military evacuated approximately a dozen aircraft from RAF Mildenhall in eastern England on November 9, 2026, following intelligence regarding a threat from Iran.
- Days later, on November 13, U.S. Air Force security forces responded to suspected unauthorized drone activity over nearby RAF Lakenheath, while Iranian state television claimed a modified ballistic missile could reach U.S. installations in Britain.
Real or Propaganda?
Iranian state media broadcast reports claiming that an extended-range version of the Khorramshahr ballistic missile could strike U.S. bases in the U.K., following announcements by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that it lifted its self-imposed 2,000-kilometer missile range limit. Senior Iranian officials have stated that bases supporting American operations against Iran are considered legitimate targets.
Key Details of the July 8 Plane Switch
- The Intelligence Threat. Intelligence agencies uncovered a plot involving Iranian-backed operatives planning to target Trump’s plane with a shoulder-fired missile upon takeoff from Ankara. Trump had flown to Turkey on a newly retrofitted Boeing 747 donated by Qatar, which lacked some of the advanced defensive systems of the legacy presidential fleet.
- The Decoy Ruse. To misdirect potential attackers, Trump publicly climbed the stairs into an older Air Force One jet in view of press cameras. Once inside, he was secretly transferred via an airport catering truck to a smaller U.S. Air Force C-32A jet using the call sign “Reach 18,” accompanied by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and a small group of aides.
- The Flight to the U.K. The legacy Air Force One flew as a decoy with journalists and senior cabinet officials—including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—on board, who were ordered to keep the window shades down and were unaware Trump had left the aircraft. Both planes flew to RAF Mildenhall in England, where Trump boarded the Qatari-gifted 747 to complete the trip back to Washington.
If the threat was real, the original plane took off with journalists and senior cabinet officials—including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—on board.
Good Lord. How stupid is that?
Meanwhile, as I said, expect more marshmallows. The US will have to figure out which ones are real.
I bet the threat against American officials are false flag activities by Israel.
The tale of the dog who caught the car and was dragged behind the car for 36 miles over potholes and cacti and still didn’t let go for some reason.
Not as catchy as the original title but I guess willpower and brain cells have an inverse relationship.
So how many missiles, drones, etc., total, are they manufacturing and putting into inventory every month?
The biggest number in this article isn’t Iran’s missile count. It’s the size of the uncertainty surrounding it. That’s where policymakers should be paying attention.
Iran would be fools to assassinate trump he already assassinated himself.
how many other cabinets in history hid out on military bases. has be a message in that
i don’t think most people in USA have really digested that we were faking peace negotiations with Iran and we assasinated their leader and his family at the same time. that is a stunning development in world history of negotiating. kind of reminds me of the US army and the native amerikans and the treaties signed and then genocide and massacres. Donald is going back to the old 1800s amerikan frontier ways of USA gov negotiating. i am sure there are useful idiots that can say it was all constitutional. just like the NDAA extra judicial execution codified under Obama administration………that means outright murder is okey dokey.
knock knock. who is it. bang bang. it’s the us gov with NDAA powers. thanks obama
Totally agree.
It was the U.S. under Eisenhower that stood up the nuclear program in Iran – “Atoms for Peace”. Now granted, it was us that helped install the Shah, but the point is we were allies once with Iran for a couple decades. I would vote to flip the script on all of this. There has never been anything we’ve needed from Israel….nothing at all. Let them rot in the terrorism and genocide they sow. Re-engage Iran and create a better tomorrow for everyone. I’m sure we could even help upgrade the F14s we provided them with some F35s.
As Ford’s Chief of Staff, Dick Cheney approved sales of breeder reactors to Iran in 1977, knowing that a country awash in hydrocarbons had only one use for a breeder reactor.
old richard cheney, like rummy got to be wealthy men by playing with all sides in wars. heroes for amerikans. the amount of shekels is all that really matters here. a truly nihilist empire
Not sure, but they may have at least one nuke.
It’s all pointless anyway. Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Lebanon, etc. What has fundamentally changed in any of those “interfered” countries? The exact same thing will happen with Iran and if they really want a nuke they will get one at some point.
The way things are going over there right now, it’s more likely Saudi and surrounding countries fall than Iran, then Trump will wish he’d never started this in the first place. Imagine Iran controlling ALL the oil in the Middle East.
So trillions of dollars are flushed down the toilet for absolutely nothing while the US crumbles. 49 days till dems take office and neuter Trump.
i agree. except that dollars aren’t flushed. they go to C suite at MIC and wall street bond underwriters…….and investors in MIC………..plus majority of amerikans seem to really love all this worldwide imperial warfare. been going on since at least 1898 and Teddy. democracy works. those EU folks already had their empires crumble long ago. in fact the hotel called 1898 on rambla in barcelona celebrates the end of spanish empire. they hat tip Teddy R.
They may have loved it in the past but the bill comes due, the boomers are going to find that out the hard way in just a few more years. Just watch.
The boomers will find out no such thing. Their children may. But why should they care?
IBGYBG, as they say.
no clue what that shit means. but i do advise my asshole boomer pals not to lump all younger generations together. plenty of young folks are wonderful. same with boomers. the problem is amerikans keep voting for worldwid imperial warfare. i see that as multi generational. since at least 1898. i’d argue much earlier. it’s in the zeitgeist, and propaganda. amerika should rule the world. so our people keep votting for that. twisted stuff.
YBGIBG is a Wall Street acronym: “You’ll be gone, I’ll be gone.”
Meaning that, by the time consequences arrive, you and I will be somewhere else.
thanks for the explanation. i’m a wall street guy. but ancient. late 60s. we just say fuck every other word. like make believe street thugs.
as i have indicated to you, perhaps the opportunities here will be legendary as we crumble. i eyewitnessed this in the old USSR during the 1990s. it was great place for men and women, who were ok with a new regime and new currency……..plus it was very uplifting to see people free from their world wide evil empire. of course nixon was correct predicting they would eventually elect a new Czar. like my Russian pals who had defected in the 1980s and 1970s and went back for the opportunities to be free and make huge money. i had an oligarch as a client. a nice fella, too. he was shocked how it all happened……and was very nervous with his new found riches. he survived the Czar Putin rise to power, too.
I understood that the collapse of the USSR was a calamity for the working folks initially. From Google Gemini:
The “Russian Cross”: This combination of soaring death rates and plummeting birth rates (where deaths significantly exceeded births) created a demographic phenomenon often referred to as the “Russian cross“. For instance, between 1992 and 2007, Russia recorded roughly 34.7 million deaths compared to 22.3 million births.
Russian birth rates have never recovered. Hate to see that happen in the US.
i can only comment on what I witnessed meeting people there. and talking to hundreds of guys and gals since the 1990s in brooklyn……since…….who were there. the teens, 20 and 30 somethings were extremely jacked up to be free. the old geezers were scared for sure. i went to a rock concert in red square for hs and college grads…….. probably the most positive energy i have experienced. i also saw the old geezers with old USSR flag marching about all pissed off. they wanted to go back to the empire and on the government teat………which was everyone. i don’t think it is one story. but the vast majority i met were very excited. met twenty somethings in clubs and was inside board rooms in oil companies……….with the rising oligarchs and their financiers(my russian buddies from nyc who had defected in 70s and 80s, and educated at columbia and LSE etc…………
why would a young couple have children in a country that just had the yoke of an empire implode. from kazakstan to poland to siberia and leningrad……..
boomers? https://x.com/nbcsnl/status/2121852814120910939
Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Syria all were successful, in that these countries are failed states and consequently no threat to Israel.
don’t be naive. afghanistan was a failed state and able to pull off 9.11.01.
“Afghanistan” did not pull off anything.
Al Qaeda were mostly Saudis.
they did it from afghanistan. they were the radicals kicked out of saudi and egypt. of course they pulled off something. probably the greatest military maneuver in centuries. 19 guys with only razor blades took down the crown jewel of amerikan business, the twin towers……. and slammed into the pentagon too. my pal was with them in the caves in the late 70s and 80s when us taxes payed for mujahadeen to fight the USSR and kick them out of afghanistan. they certainly fought with the taliban. and taliban protected them even though afghanistan is an anarchist state. code of pashtunwali. you ought to read up on it. impossible to defeat. no leaders.
That doesn’t mean that Afghanistan did that.
Afghanistan didn’t pull of 9/11. Saudis living in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Germany did.
taliban harbored the mujahadeen. in afghanistan. sure they had cells in europe and usa, too. you are just arguing about BS. it was a very embarrassing blunder of usa. one could almost say it was a welcomed attack. the august 2001 chatter ignored. the greatest gift to the MIC
i’m in the minority of amerikans who believe, israel is just a useful idiot. set up by the british, for that purpose. we just took over. i feel sorry for the jews who migrated there over the past century. i know many from nyc area. useful idiots to the amerikan empire, imho. most amerikans think israel is pushing usa to war with persia. that is correct. but israel is our useful idiot and they behave perfectly in our world wide imperial pursuits. short history. British forces, led by General Edmund Allenby, swept through the region and captured Jerusalem in December 1917, formally ending four centuries of Ottoman administration. The post-war settlement led to the secret Sykes–Picot Agreement, conflicting wartime promises like the Balfour Declaration, and eventually the British Mandate for Palestine
Probably less than they say. They lie to us as much as our government does.
“I always root against warmongers. Always.”
Really? What about the rights of the weapons corporations who are people, as we all have been told by the libertarians? What about their free speech rights, i.e., their ability to use money to buy up the politicians?
Libertarian opposition to wars is like unicorns. It is mythical. It doesn’t exist – except in the form of empty words that mean nothing.
Medea Benjamin has been thrown into jail almost every other day. How many times has any supposedly anti-war libertarian ever been there?
To be fair to Mish – he has had a very consistent stand on warmongering.
….which is why I find his defence of libetarianism a bit bizarre. To me libetarianism is the ultimate theology that eventually leads to division, resentment and wars.
Hard to fight wars without a strong state.
I find Team R “small government, except when it comes to war, in which no expense too great and civil rights no longer apply!” to be more hypocritical.
It is hard not to fight wars when weapons corporations (which are “people” 😉) use their money (which is “speech” 😉) to dictate the decisions made by those in charge of the government.
Make no mistake – a small government that is beholden to these corporations would still do their bidding. It just wouldn’t do anything else.
Exactly. Small government just lets other non-elected entities fill the void.
That’s not to say that the state should not be smaller than it is today in some areas. The theological position that everything the government does should shrink simply plays to billionaires.
bingo. winner comment of this thread.
From the point of view of the very wealthy, the purpose of the state is to make the world open to their control of resources. Which is why we need a strong military to protect “American interests”. American interests don’t involve you or I. They’re the interests of Exxon’s top shareholders in the Middle East oil trade, or Bank of America’s top shareholder’s interests in Brazilian debt.
Ridiculous. Being anti-war means less meddling and fewer wars.
It is absurd to get more wars out of that.
Wars make enemies and lead to stupid long term involvements that make more enemies.
Being anti-war and also thinking nothing about weapons makers buying (er, I mean – funding) candidates in the elections – candidates who get to decide what wars we fight – amounts to talking out of both sides of one’s mouth.
If you are against banning all corporate funding of candidates in elections, go ahead and say it.
at least the libertarians and the green parties advocate for peace. a huge improvement over the uniparty blues and reds. on difference among them is abortion positions.
“Advocating” for “peace” while at the same time, saying weapons makers are “people” and therefore, have the right to free speech – in the form of campaign donations, amounts to talking from both sides of the mouth.
Don’t pay attention to what they say. Pay attention to what they really do.
you are confusing the 2 % peaceniks of greens and libertarians with the Red and Blue uniparty war parties.
The anti-war folks on the left are not just willing to say, but in fact shout from the rooftops that corporations are NOT people, and that money is NOT speech.
How many of the libertarian frauds have said that?!
that just made it easier to get money to the right people. it did NOT increase the amount. if you think wall street…….did NOT underwrite candidates and own them like puppets for the past 2 centuries, i have a bridge in my hometown of brooklyn to sell you. you cannot be this naive. if you think the Blue team are not in bed with corporations you have been asleep the past 100 years. maybe read a robert caro book about LBJ……..who was the richest president to hold office.
Well, I’m not so naive as to think that things were all squeaky clean in the past. But you got to be hopelessly naive to think that things haven’t gotten a lot worse over time, especially in the last 45+ years.
you think the US gov and elections were better 45 years ago? get a history book. please. go back 145 and 200 years too. fucking ranchers used to just vote for their ranch hands down at election site. kegs of beer and free food if you grabbed the right ballot. you used to just pick a slate of ticket. so everyone knew and would bribe you to pick theirs. get a history book. you think shit today is nastier than in past decades and centuries. ??? laughable.
On a relative basis, yes, they were better. That doesn’t mean it was great. Just that it was not as crappy as it is right now (and getting crappier by the day).
To argue that “corporations are people” and “money is speech” didn’t make it worse is to celebrate one’s own ignorance.
i am not arguing with you about that stupid decision about corps are people……of course it’s sleazy as fuck. but it has always been so. hell i know personally from my father after he got home from ww2, he was treasurer for his buddy, a ww2 hero. the man wanted to run for uCongress. they went to DC and the dems put the physical cash on the table. same with the repugs. they went with the larger pile of cash. he won. and ironically died a young man……after only a few terms……..just read some real history books on this subject. robert caro path to power you will enjoy. starts with LBJ father in state house in TX…….
why do you suppose 11 Dems missed the impeachment vote against department of war hegseth? have you no clue ?
Erm.. because both parties are rabidly pro-war?! Something that’s obvious to everyone, but not obvious to you after all this shit??!!
ha ha. listen kid, i understood amerika was an evil worldwide imperial warmongering peoples when i was a little fella. watching my brother happily go off to viet nam. that was so fucking stupid even for a 10 year old. i owned a globe and an atlas……..if you don’t know where you live, and how people here keep voting for warmongering i don’t know what else to tell ya. just too ignorant or innocent to face reality. the people here love world wide warmongering. it’s obvious. democracy works.
Yo, Vietnam was a disaster and Congress eventually got to defund it so that it could come to an end.
How confident can anyone be now that after 25 years in this new phase of the war of (er, I mean “on”) terror, that it will ever happen again?!
like the 11 dems that didn’t bother showing up to vote for hegseth impeachment. you are very naive.
follow the money and body bags. you will see the lefties and righties all shout a lot of bullshit. follow the money………
For starters. Me. I have said corporations are not people and that is the Libertarian position.
Stop your goddamn stupidity.
OK, but how about them buying elections? Saying they are not people but that they can still buy politicians is not a winning argument.
Took me a moment. But whirlaway partially agrees but is distinghuishing between bottom-left and bottom-right quadrants of the politicalcompass (google it,since I can’t post the link).
Like me, Whirlaway believes people in the bottom-right havent dug deep enough in their root cause analysis and end up pitching partial solutions.
Libertarianism, the American version of which should better be called propertarianism, must always lead to bloated government, war, and corruption. Libertarians will never understand why, otherwise they wouldn’t be libertarians.
I believe you are as stupid as you now sound
LOL! Didn’t have much else to say, did ya?
Maybe it is time to shadow ban me again, huh? Like the last time?
I doubt we will go kinetic again. I also doubt we will be able to blockade the straight for the remainder of Trumps term.
Irans attrition of tankers in the Gulf is why I doubt we can keep the blockade on for another 2 years.
Iran has escalation dominance. we may have the capacity to escalate, but Iran will destroy gulf infrastructure.
we lost. the only question is, how big did we lose.
That’s up to the biggest loser in history… I think we have a good bit more losing ahead of us.
ha ha ha. no doubt. i just would add, democracy works. the amerikan people are losers. they love world wide warfare. uniparty for past many decades………….of course that is fighting words. it means assholes have to look in the mirror and take responsibility for being assholes. democracy works. put your dukes up.
The US will likely just go nuclear.
war game it out. USA drops 100 nukes in Iran? who wins that action? the only people that would WIN would be china. they ORDER 10s of millions of their people to occupy and rebuild in the nuke fallout.
Let’s hope that doesn’t happen!
Israel would turn another regional opponent into a failed state.
See: Iraq, Syria, Libya.
and then Iran bombs the gulf states to ruin.
Iran has escalation dominance.
As if Israel or Trump cared.
..,and in other Team America news…
Trump and Putin’s pick as the new Sec Gen of the UN (Lana Nusseibeh of well known democratic country UAE) has actively supported the UAE’s role in Sudan.
Just while US cuts have meant the UN food programme has announced this week it is stopping food support for 900,000 people at risk of starvation due to the war in Sudan.
Wonder if it feels great to be American.
Trump is just babbling. It is useless to listen to him. His blathering bears no relation to what actually will, or will not, happen, and when.
but it is funny. like an old washed up cocktail lounge comedian………..
It’s not the number of missiles necessarily that is the most important factor, it is the number of Launchers. That said, Iran has no doubt reconstituted its offensive missile capability.
I read somewhere that the is military, while budgeting massive amounts for munitions, adjusts what the providers spend funds on, and often reduces the amount applied to munitions so the provider shifts away from munitions and therefore has a slow response to a sudden need.
Amd I’m guessing Iran has been reliably and steadily producing munitions so they are in a better position to ramp up production.
I can’t speak to that but I think there is a significant difference in the technological requirements for the Iranian drones and the American missiles.
Far more complex for America to build one middle/drone than it is for Iran.
Reminds me of Operation Barbarosa. The German tanks were an engineering marvel while the Russian tanks were ugly and unfinished. Considering a tank would only last a short time, it didn’t make sense to grind off flashing on castings or anything “pretty”.
The American military logistics are designed for short battles against hugely inferior forces. We cannot engage in a sustained conflict. We simply do not have the infrastructure or the weapon designs to maintain a sustained war.
We excel at double-tapping girls’ schools.
Catch those fun-size terrorists in their lair.
Make that “short battles with prohibitively expensive weapons…”
But then, as Julian Assange said – the goal is never successful wars; the goal is endless wars.
the only bigger grifters than the farmers and the MIC, are wall street. i put the tech bros companies like google firmly in the MIC category……..
They are now. They figured out that the MIC budget is never challenged by “Patriots”
they had no choice, either. wall street owns amerika. MIC rules amerika. remember when bill gates got a proper spanking decades ago as a young fella who was threatened by Wall St and MIC through their proxies, the us senate……….to bust up mister softie…….msft. he was smart. threw in the towel and paid them off. NVDA guy seemed too stupid to understand who really owned him.
False Flag coming ….
They don’t even have to plan it… they can just blame Iran for the next infrastructure failure that actually kills people.
Too bad Jimmy Carter wasnt around to watch FDT lose a bunch of planes on the ground in Iran.
Jimmy Carter wasn’t petty.
Carter wasn’t as fakely seductive.
that old peanut farmer got us into afghanistan………he was a cunt. like most amerikan presidents have been since at least 1898 start of the imperial over reach.
I’d hardly call him a cunt considering the others who played bigger parts in Afghanistan. Here’s some history to help you along your day.
Relations between Afghanistan and the United States began in 1921 under the leaderships of King Amanullah Khan and President Warren G. Harding, respectively.[1] The first contact between the two nations occurred further back in the 1830s when the first recorded person from the United States explored Afghanistan.[2] The United States government foreign aid program provided about $500 million in aid for economic development; the aid ended before the 1978 Saur Revolution.[1] The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was a turning point in the Cold War, when the United States started to financially support the Afghan resistance. The country, under both the Carter and Reagan administrations committed $3 billion in financial and diplomatic support and along with Pakistan also rendering critical support to the anti-Soviet Mujahideen forces. Beginning in 1980, the United States began admitting thousands of Afghan refugees for resettlement, and provided money and weapons to the Mujahideen through Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The USSR withdrew its troops in 1989.[3]
Zbig B
Where does the buck stop in your world?
Yes, Brzeziński was a piece of shit. Nobody forced Carter to appoint him or listen to him.
You see the plot hole. And you know what? I’m actually grateful.
I think Carter was a great man. A role model.
…except for him sending money and arms to mercs in Afghanistan and probably other places.
Mish,
“This setup is roughly the same as before Trump launched this stupid war, except…”
I think there are a few things you left out.
1. The US’s logistics are way worse because they’ve had to abandon their bases in and around the SoH
2. Trump will have a harder time getting Congressional support in the lame duck session until Jan 20 and afterwards once Dems take control, and also because he is now a lame duck president.
Remember 2006?
Maybe. What specifically are you referring to?
Democrats were swept into Congress on a wave of antiwar sentiment. Nancy Pelosi promised impeachment hearings to start within 100 days. Once in office, all that was dropped like a hot turd. Not only did democrats and liberals fund the wars they promised to end, Pelosi threatened to replace the Chair of the House Appropriations Committee if he held up finding. Of course, then came Obama and 2008.o happy days! He’d surely end the wars, right? Obama did more to neuter antiwar sentiment than anything Dick Cheney could have dreamed Bait and switch is a specialty of democrats and liberals. Dumb scrote voters keep falling for it.
Trump is a one-trick pony and now everybody knows his trick. He has zero credibility and zero respect
His name is “FDT”.
I think it will piss FDT off if he learns comment boards fill up with a meme first coined to mock FJB.
And someone please start pasting “I did this!” stickers of FDT pointing to the price display on gasoline pumps. Ideally, apply them /offset/ over any FJB stickers not yet removed.
I had the same thought a few months back. But instead of just “I did this,” maybe mix it up a little:
“Have you heard about my new ballroom?”
“Have you seen John Husted’s ass lately?”
“It’s just a little bit more expensive, right?”
“This is Zelensky’s fault.”
hahaha! Noice!
I think FTD works better.
As in, F*ck The Donald.”
Matches the syllables in FJB for when you’re changing it at a NASCAR event.
F*ck- The-Don-ald 🪘🪘-🪘🪘🪘
Yes, I hear it. 🙂
Nice job spelling it out so intuitively.
From the start, too many people, even military and military analysts looked at Iran as defeatable through attrition. The smart voices weren’t listened to or widely broadcast. Iran is a permanently resupplied front via Russia, North Korea, China, and other minor allies. They’ll always have more munitions. They won’t run out of resources.
We won’t win without a ground war. A very bloody ground war. This air/naval power junk Trump tried didn’t work and will never work.
Trump tried to make it work by escalating to civilian infrastructure like power plants, etc to truly cripple Iran. That would work, but Iran has too much leverage in that it would tit-for-tat cripple our friendly Gulf countries. Trump could not proceed.
So we could invade or we could blast them into submission, but the consequences of either is not acceptable to Western business interests. What good is securing the straits if the energy industry in the region is destroyed?
Iran will keep its sovereignty and control over the strait. Trumps done and a lame duck. Who knows how the democrats will handle the situation Trump put us in. Personally, I think best thing to do is take the L. Accept that Iran is going to be making a lot of money off transit fees because it’s either fight Iran and commit to a real war, or take the L. Anything else is fantasyland playtime and the potential of it getting even worse than it already is.
Please name the war where the United States was clearly victorious with only using bombs and never setting foot on the territory.
This argument, while attractive to the warmongers, has never proven the least bit successful.
There is no way American can win this war. Even with boots on the ground we cannot win this war. This is not America’s war this is Trump’s war.
Yeah, the first sentence in his second sentence, which also could have been the end of his post, should’ve said “we won’t win.”
No its Netanyahu‘s war who suckered Trump into it … money talks ….
my old childhood pal was in med school, in grenada. our only “win” since 1945. and even then, the USMC had to storm the beaches………he has photos of himself on beach drinking beers watching the great grenada war. which for anyone with a lick of sense, was a morale booster after all those marines were blown up in their barracks in beirut a short time before. raygun era. another swindler actor we had as potus, besides donald.
Serbia.
Suppose Iran was able to blockade exports of US oil worldwide. Would the American people surrender? What if it meant Iran taking over the US government and implementing their form of government on us?
Trump and his sycophants are idiots. There was never a need to have the Iranian people hate us as they do. But we are too evil not to be hated.
thanks to IKE and the CIA and the twats from UK, in 1953 coup we did in persia……
I think we’ve demonstrated pretty clearly that we wouldn’t win a ground war either.
Have we won any since world war II?
We can argue we won the war against Saddam but we’ve hardly “won” in Iraq after 20+ years. I don’t know if these warmongering fucktards will ever figure it out. Sure, we’re getting pretty good at assassinating national rulers but our history of actually winning a war sucks
“We won’t win without a ground war.” Also, we won’t win with a ground war.
https://www.shutterstock.com/shutterstock/photos/2358502279/display_1500/stock-photo-iran-d-render-topographic-map-2358502279.jpg
Ground war? Led by who? We don’t have generals anymore.
The UN has been degraded over the last 40 years largely by US indifference.
It is going massively unreported how the Trump administration is trying to undermine the current selection process for the new Secretary General. They are trying to impose a lackey from the UAE who of course is sympathetic to the spheres of influence approach to global governance.
In other words simply expect more wars as the US flexes its muscles. At the moment it seems difficult to see a positive path without some major event to trigger a rethink.
The US doesn’t have muscles. The US has that stuff you inject into chick’s butts to make them look bigger. All the muscles were siphoned off by the shareholders of Lockheed to build nice mansions in France and Italy.
Bessent Botox