Jacki Maniel

Did you know Oman foreign minister, some high level British representative, I can’t remember his name as I type this and IAEA and even Tulsi Gabbard have all confirmed Iran wasn’t almost the same thing? Tulsi said the June operation destroyed it. The British and Oman foreign minister said in the negotiations in Geneva, Iran was going to give up the uranium or dilute it to a sensible level? And there was an agreement to meet the following Monday in Vienna to continue the negotiations and then Bombs dropped on Saturday. You can make excuses all you want and defend Trump all you want which most of you might thing is right and might even see as being patriotic but everything about this war is BULLSHIT. From his tweets and hegseth and every single one of them, they are lying through their teeth. And they surely underestimate Iran severely. I hope this talk of sending boots in is just a rumour because the last time the US tried such an operation into Iran, they didn’t go past the staging area and this Iran is more prepared than then. God help Trump. I’ve said before, the longer this goes on, the harder it will be to get out and it has the potential of literally destroying his presidency. If democrats take both arms of the legislature, they literally could impeach him for this same way that they supported but because they aren’t on record, they can lie and say they didn’t support it.

@Cernovich He also campaigned heavily on the idea that under no circumstances could Iran have a nuclear weapon or the means to make one. That's not rewriting history, it's just a fact.

Trump ran on no new wars and lowering gas prices. I'm quite happy with his term. I would vote for him again. But all of you muppets rewriting history and dismissing legitimate objections are going to cost us the midterms.

$180 is not a ceiling. It is a warning about a floor. The Saudis are not issuing this warning as speculation. They are the world’s largest oil exporter, they have the most sophisticated real-time visibility into global supply and demand dynamics of any government on earth, and they have just watched their own SAMREF refinery in Yanbu get struck today. The last functioning crude export corridor out of the Gulf. They are not guessing at $180. They are telling you what their models show when you run the numbers on sustained Hormuz closure plus Yanbu disruption plus Ras Laffan offline for three to five years plus continued strikes on Gulf energy infrastructure. For context on what $180 means in practice. Brent was approximately $65 before February 28. $180 is a 177 percent increase from pre-war levels. The 1973 oil embargo, the defining energy shock of the twentieth century, produced roughly a 300 percent increase over several months. This conflict is approaching that scale in three weeks and the Saudis are warning it could go significantly higher. $180 oil means US gasoline at approximately $7 to $8 per gallon. It means European energy bills doubling from already elevated post-Ras Laffan levels. It means aviation fuel at prices that ground significant portions of commercial flight. It means fertilizer prices that threaten food security across the developing world. It means recession in every major oil-importing economy simultaneously. Goldman Sachs already forecast 20 percent higher oil prices for all of 2026 in early March when Brent was at $100. That forecast is now catastrophically understated. Netanyahu said there is no timeline to end the war. Iran just launched another barrage. The USS Tripoli arrives next week. A two-week Hormuz seizure operation is being planned. Bessent is releasing Iranian oil for 14 days of price relief. The Saudis are telling you $180 is where this goes if none of that produces a resolution. They are probably right.

JUST IN: 🇸🇦 Saudi officials warn oil prices could surge past $180 per barrel if war disruptions continue.

@AFpost He’s so shameless.

Ben Shapiro is buying up ad spots on YouTube under the search term "Tucker Carlson" to push propaganda that the Iranian regime is "collapsing faster than you think." Follow: @AFpost

Day 20. The heaviest day of strikes yet. And Iran just launched another barrage. The pattern has been identical every single day of this war. Washington announces maximum pressure. Israel announces devastating results. Hegseth announces Iran is destroyed. Netanyahu announces no timeline to end the war. Then Iran launches another barrage. The operational logic being sold from every Pentagon podium is that degrading Iran’s missile capacity will eventually produce silence. Twenty days in, the barrages continue. The Sejjil-2 entered combat for the first time on Day 19. The F-35 was hit today. A strike landed 350 meters from Bushehr. Iran is not firing from a position of desperation. It is firing from a position of calculated endurance. Every barrage that lands after another “heaviest day of strikes” announcement is a direct refutation of the narrative being constructed in Washington and Jerusalem. The missiles are not just weapons. They are messaging. And the message today is the same as it was on Day 1. We are still here.

JUST IN: 🇮🇷🇮🇱 Iran launches new barrage of ballistic missiles toward Israel.

350 meters. That is not a near miss in the traditional military sense. That is a deliberate placement. A precision guided munition that can hit a target within meters did not accidentally land 350 meters from the Bushehr reactor dome. It landed exactly where someone decided it should land. Close enough to be unmistakable. Far enough to deny intent. That is not targeting error. That is calibrated message delivery. The David Sacks point is the one that deserves the most serious attention. When a senior advisor to the President of the United States makes public statements suggesting nuclear escalation options exist and remain on the table, and that statement coincides within hours with a strike 350 meters from an operating nuclear reactor, the combination is not coincidental. That is exactly how Overton Window shifting works in practice. The statement normalizes the concept. The strike demonstrates the physical capability and proximity. Together they tell Tehran, and everyone watching, that the threshold exists and the distance to it is being measured in real time. Your question about Dimona is the correct strategic question and it is one that almost nobody is asking publicly. If Israel has already relocated or dispersed whatever nuclear material it keeps at Dimona in preparation for Iranian retaliation, the escalation calculus changes fundamentally. Iran retaliating against an empty facility achieves nothing militarily and guarantees catastrophic response. Iran not retaliating accepts the nuclear proximity strike as a new baseline. Neither option is acceptable to Tehran. That is a trap by design. The ammunition point about NATO in Libya is analytically precise and underappreciated. European forces depleted in ten days against a low-intensity opponent with no serious air defense. Iran is categorically not that opponent. The six nations who signed today’s Hormuz statement expressing readiness to help are doing so with stockpiles that Rheinmetall has confirmed are bone dry. Their contribution to any Hormuz operation would be symbolic at best and a liability at worst. Where the assessment becomes most uncomfortable is the conclusion about Israel specifically. You are correct that ending this war with Iran still holding enriched uranium is politically catastrophic for Netanyahu domestically. He launched this war partly on the nuclear justification. Ratcliffe confirmed under oath the uranium remains unaccounted for. The IAEA chief said war cannot eliminate the program. If the war ends without resolving that, Netanyahu faces a domestic reckoning that could end his political career and potentially his freedom given his ongoing legal exposure. That creates an incentive structure that points exactly where you identified. Escalation becomes preferable to an outcome that constitutes visible failure. The question of how far that escalation can go before someone with the authority to stop it actually does so is the question that should be keeping every world leader awake tonight. The 350 meter image is the most important single piece of evidence from Day 20.

The Israeli Strike Near Iran’s Reactor is an Ominous Signal The US and Israel find themselves cornered with dwindling options and growing desperation. This is evident in their attacks on Iran’s electrical grid and their calculated attempt to shift the Overton Window toward the nuclear threshold. The statement by Trump advisor David Sacks, suggesting Israel could escalate the conflict with nuclear options, coincides with a missile strike landing just 350 meters from the Bushehr reactor. This isn’t just a warning; it’s a veiled threat. It’s a trial balloon designed to gauge the global reaction to such a catastrophic possibility. A direct hit on an Iranian reactor would inevitably force Iran to retaliate against Dimona, leading us into a spiral of nuclear escalation, but what if Dimona be empty? As global opinion is being tested, this "window" is being meticulously shifted and calibrated. Currently, US-Israeli options, beyond aerial bombardment, include sector-specific ground operations. But what if these operations end in disaster? Even a NATO intervention might change nothing. In Libya, European NATO forces depleted their ammunition in about 10 days during a low-intensity conflict. Today, Rheinmetall claims European stockpiles are bone-dry. While I usually take Rheinmetall’s claims with a grain of salt, this time it actually makes sense. We are looking at a scenario of severe ammunition shortages against a heavily entrenched and well-armed Iran. Any landing operation would be a bloodbath. I believe that, faced with mounting internal and external failures, the US and Israel will gradually push the Overton Window to a choice between total defeat or the use of tactical nuclear weapons, in the event of a catastrophic failure of ground operations. Tactical nuclear weapons are strictly forbidden for use, yet their radiation dissipates within weeks in the current environment. Even so, it would constitute a grave war crime. I do not believe the U.S. would embark on such a path, but I cannot say the same for Israel. Ending the war with Iran still possessing enriched uranium would be equivalent to admitting that Netanyahu, instead of increasing his people's security, did the exact opposite. The internal pressure would be immense. If nothing goes as planned and the death toll rises, I feel this window can shift much faster.

This deployment tells you more about where this war is heading than any press conference has. The A-10 Warthog and Apache attack helicopters are not strategic bombing platforms. They are close air support and low-altitude strike aircraft designed to operate in direct proximity to ground targets. The A-10 specifically was built to fly slow and low, taking hits while destroying armor, vehicles, and personnel at short range with its 30mm cannon. Deploying it to the Strait of Hormuz means the US military is preparing for a fight that happens at close quarters over water, against fast attack boats, mines, and drone swarms operating from Iranian coastal positions. That is a fundamentally different operational environment than the high-altitude precision strike campaign that has defined this war’s first twenty days. It is also considerably more dangerous for the crews involved. The A-10 survives in contested airspace through its titanium bathtub armor and ability to absorb punishment. It does not survive sophisticated surface-to-air missiles. Deploying it near Iranian coastal defenses in the Strait is a significant risk acceptance decision. The 5,000-pound bunker busters targeting coastal missile sites and drone storage facilities connect directly to the Hormuz seizure planning reported by Kann News this morning. You do not clear coastal defenses with GBU-72s unless you intend to operate in that waterway with surface assets that need those defenses suppressed. The Apache deployment is the most telling element. Apaches are used for two things primarily. Escorting ground assault forces and destroying armored or hardened targets at low altitude. Their presence in this theater, confirmed by Caine who said they are already striking Iranian-aligned militia groups in Iraq, signals that the US military posture is shifting from standoff to close engagement. Combined with the USS Tripoli ARG arriving next week, the two-week Hormuz seizure timeline from Kann News, and today being declared the heaviest strike day yet, this deployment package is not defensive maintenance of the status quo. It is preparation for something that happens at the waterline.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Whether these will have the intended impact or not remains to be seen.

The US has deployed the famous A-10 Warthogs, Apache attack helicopters, and 5,000-pound bunker busters to take out Iranian drones, boats, and mines and help secure the Strait of Hormuz, America’s top general has revealed.

If true then this is one of the most important stories of the entire war and it is not getting the attention it deserves. Charles Simmons, father of Tech. Sgt. Tyler H. Simmons who was killed in the KC-135 crash, told NBC News directly that when Hegseth spoke to him at Dover, “that was not something we talked about.” When asked if he said anything to Hegseth or Trump about the need to keep fighting, Simmons said: “No, I didn’t say anything along those lines.”  A public official who was within earshot of Trump’s meetings with families at an earlier Dover ceremony also told NBC News they did not hear any of them tell Trump to “finish the job.”  What Hegseth actually said at the podium was this: “What I heard through tears, through hugs, through strength and through unbreakable resolve was the same from family after family. They said, finish this. Honor their sacrifice. Do not waver. Do not stop until the job is done.”  The father of one of those fallen service members just went on record with NBC News and said that did not happen. Not in his conversation. And a witness said it did not happen at the earlier ceremony either. This matters beyond the politics. Using Gold Star families as human shields for a war policy, attributing words to grieving parents that those parents deny saying, is a specific kind of moral failure. These families are in the most vulnerable moment of their lives. They cannot easily push back publicly without being accused of dishonoring their children’s sacrifice. Charles Simmons did push back. He said he has questions about the war. He said he does not know what is going on. He said who wants war. That is not “finish the job.” That is a father trying to make sense of something that does not yet make sense to him. Hegseth turned private grief into public propaganda. The father of one of the dead just told us so on the record.

Father of service member killed in Iran war said he never told Pete Hegseth to 'finish' the job nbcnews.com/politics/donal…

This number reframes the entire war. $20 billion in losses at a single facility. Built for $26 billion two years ago. Damaged beyond repair for three to five years in two missile strikes that Iran executed within twelve hours of each other last night. To put that in context. The entire first week of Operation Epic Fury cost the United States $11.3 billion by the Pentagon’s own estimate. Iran destroyed nearly twice that value in a single allied nation’s infrastructure overnight. With ballistic missiles that cost a fraction of what was destroyed. This is the asymmetric economics of this war made concrete in a single number. The US is spending $760 million per day in munitions replenishment costs alone. Iran struck $20 billion worth of infrastructure with a handful of ballistic missiles. That exchange ratio is not sustainable for the coalition. The $20 billion loss also represents something beyond the financial figure. Qatar built that facility two years ago as the centerpiece of its post-carbon transition strategy. The North Field expansion, the Pearl GTL complex, the Dolphin gas project, all of it was part of a decades-long national development plan that assumed a stable regional security environment. That assumption was destroyed in one night by a war Qatar did not ask for, was not consulted on, and whose trigger, the South Pars strike, Washington now claims it knew nothing about. The Qatari Prime Minister called for the war to end immediately today. The QatarEnergy CEO just explained why in one number. $20 billion. Built over decades. Destroyed overnight. Reconstruction timeline three to five years minimum. And Netanyahu says there is no schedule to end the war. Someone needs to send him the QatarEnergy invoice.

Qatar Gas CEO : We incurred a $20 billion loss at the facility we built for $26 billion two years ago.

This is Netanyahu finally saying publicly what his targeting decisions have been saying operationally for twenty days. There is no timeline because Netanyahu does not want one. A timeline means an endpoint. An endpoint means a negotiated outcome. A negotiated outcome means Iran survives in some form with some government capable of cutting a deal. That is precisely what Israeli targeting operations have been systematically preventing by killing every Iranian official capable of delivering a diplomatic solution. The divergence between Washington and Jerusalem that was the subject of yesterday’s article x.com/jackimaniel/st… is now stated explicitly by the Israeli Prime Minister himself. Trump has been constructing off-ramps rhetorically for days. “Iran is about to surrender.” “There is practically nothing left to bomb.” “The war will end soon.” He has been signaling he wants an exit. Netanyahu just told him there is no schedule. This also directly contradicts the basis on which European allies issued today’s Hormuz joint statement. Six nations expressed readiness to contribute to “appropriate efforts” to ensure safe passage, implicitly linking their participation to a war that was moving toward conclusion. Netanyahu just told them there is no conclusion in sight. The practical consequences cascade immediately. Every government that has been managing domestic political pressure around energy prices, economic disruption, and public opposition to the war by telling their populations this will be over soon now has to explain Netanyahu’s statement. There is no timeline. Not four to six weeks. Not until Passover. Not until the uranium is secured. No schedule. Qatar’s Prime Minister called for the war to end immediately today. The Omani foreign minister called it America’s greatest miscalculation. Arab allies are fuming about their irrelevance. An F-35 was hit. Ras Laffan is damaged for three to five years. And the Israeli Prime Minister just confirmed he has no intention of ending this war on anyone else’s timeline. Trump has a decision to make that he has been avoiding for twenty days. Either he imposes an endpoint that Netanyahu refuses to honor, which fractures the alliance publicly, or he accepts that he has no control over when this war ends, which fractures his domestic political position. There is no third option. Netanyahu just closed it.

JUST IN: 🇮🇱🇮🇷 Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says there is no "schedule" or timeline to end the war in Iran.

@MarioNawfal So he can’t get views so he’s buying them… Pathetic!!!

🇺🇸🇮🇷 Ben Shapiro is targeting Tucker Carlson's audience with ads about Iran's collapse. Two of the biggest voices on the right, with opposite conclusions about the same war, are fighting over the same viewers. The Iran war is reshaping the Middle East AND it's splitting the American right in real time. And both sides are buying ads about it. @AFpost

You’re asking exactly the right question and it applies with equal force to the F-35 story today. Air superiority is a spectrum, not a binary. No air force in history has achieved complete uncontested control of airspace over a defended adversary for a sustained period without either occupying the territory or utterly destroying every air defense asset. Russia has not done that over Ukraine. The US has not done that over Iran. Israel has not done that over Gaza or Lebanon despite having one of the most capable air forces on earth operating against comparatively limited opposition. On Russia specifically, the Su-34s and Su-35s are not freely roaming Ukrainian airspace for several reasons. Ukrainian air defenses, particularly Western-supplied NASAMS, IRIS-T, and Patriot batteries, have imposed real costs. Russian pilots fly at low altitudes to avoid radar and in doing so become vulnerable to MANPADS and short-range systems. The result is a contested environment where both sides have partial control depending on geography and time of day. The honest answer to your question is this. Superpowers do not automatically dominate the sky. They dominate the narrative about dominating the sky. The F-35 story today is the crack in that narrative made visible.

I agree that Russia is a Superpower.But why is it not dominating the Sky over Ukraine?

When Netanyahu says Iran can no longer build ballistic missiles, there is no independent satellite imagery to check. When Hegseth announces the heaviest day of strikes yet, there is no commercial imagery to verify what was actually hit. When CENTCOM claims 15,000 targets struck, the number floats in a verification vacuum. The official justification is operational security. Doubt that. The practical effect is information control. Both things can be true simultaneously. And in a war where the official narrative has been contradicted by open source evidence repeatedly, removing the open source evidence is not a neutral act.

The U.S. government has forced satellite imaging sites to delay or not publish new data. We have no idea how much (or how little) damage has been done. The claim is that this is needed to prevent Iran and China from knowing what targets have been hit.

🧵 NETANYAHU SAYS IRAN CAN NO LONGER BUILD BALLISTIC MISSILES OR ENRICH URANIUM. Let us think about this carefully. If Iran can no longer enrich uranium… And if Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was ALREADY obliterated in June 2025 per the IC’s own assessment confirmed under oath by Gabbard this week… Then what exactly was the imminent nuclear threat that justified launching this war on February 28? Gabbard confirmed it herself at the Senate hearing. “Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated.” “No efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability.” That was BEFORE February 28. Before the first bomb fell. So the nuclear justification for starting the war… Was eliminated by the PREVIOUS war. Nine months ago. The threat that justified THIS war didn’t exist when this war began. Let that land. Now Netanyahu says missiles are gone too. Here is what we know about that claim. Iran has been firing missiles for 20 straight days. An F-35 was hit today. The Sejjil-2 entered combat for the FIRST TIME on Day 19. The IRGC said the missiles used so far are from DECADE-OLD stockpiles. Post-2025 production hasn’t been deployed yet. Iran will rebuild. They always have. But this time they will rebuild with 20 days of live combat data on exactly which systems penetrated US and Israeli air defenses. Which flight profiles worked. Which guidance systems evaded jamming. Which warhead configurations caused the most damage. Iran’s NEXT missile program will be built on the lessons of THIS war. And the uranium? 450 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. Confirmed still unaccounted for by Ratcliffe under oath. The IAEA chief said this week war cannot entirely eliminate Iran’s nuclear program. They don’t have it. They didn’t get it in June 2025. They don’t have it now. So here is the full picture on Day 20. The nuclear threat used to justify the war was already gone before it started. The uranium they went in to secure is still missing. Iran will rebuild its missiles better than before. 13 Americans dead. Ras Laffan damaged for 3-5 years. $200 billion requested. Oil at $115. Qatar’s PM calling for the war to end. And Netanyahu is declaring victory. We have seen this movie before. The last showing was June 2025.

@FoxNews So we won’t be back here in 6-9 months another imminent threat?

ISRAELI PM NETANYAHU: “Despite the fake news that is unfortunately being spread since the start of the war 20 days ago, we are winning, and Iran is being decimated.” “Iran's missile and drone arsenal is being massively degraded and will be destroyed. Hundreds of their launchers have been destroyed, their stockpiles of missiles are being hit hard, and so are the industries that produce them.” “In Rising Lion, we destroyed missiles, and we destroyed a lot of the nuclear infrastructure. But what we're destroying now are the factories that produce the components to make these missiles and to make the nuclear weapons that they're trying to produce. We're wiping out their industrial base in a way that we didn't do before.”

We have heard this before. June 2025. Operation Midnight Hammer. Iran’s nuclear program was “obliterated.” Enrichment capacity “devastated.” The threat “eliminated.” Gabbard confirmed under oath this week that the IC assessed Iran had no effort to rebuild its enrichment capability after those strikes. Washington and Jerusalem were back bombing Iran nine months later. Netanyahu saying Iran can no longer make ballistic missiles on Day 20 of the heaviest bombing campaign since Iraq 2003 deserves the same analytical scrutiny as every previous declaration of Iranian military annihilation in this conflict. The factual record on similar claims this war alone is not encouraging. Hegseth said Iran has no air defenses. An F-35 was hit today. Hegseth said Iran has no navy. Iran’s naval assets are still laying mines and the strait is still closed. Trump said Kharg was obliterated. TankerTrackers confirmed all 55 tanks intact with vessels loading the same morning. Trump said Iran is about to surrender. Iran struck Ras Laffan twice overnight. On the missile claim specifically, the IRGC spokesperson said in mid-March that the missiles used so far are from decade-old stockpiles and post-June 2025 production has not yet been committed. The Sejjil-2 entered combat for the first time on Day 19. Iran fired its sixth missile salvo at Israel just today. Patricia Marins assessed the total arsenal including cruise missiles and SRBMs at potentially 20,000 plus. Netanyahu’s statement may reflect genuine battlefield assessment. It may also reflect the same pattern of triumphalist claims that have been walked back or quietly forgotten throughout this conflict. The IAEA chief said this week that war cannot entirely eliminate Iran’s nuclear program. The same logic applies to missile production. Factories can be rebuilt. Engineers survive. Institutional knowledge does not disappear with a bomb crater. We have been here before. The question is how many times this cycle repeats before someone in Washington decides the diplomatic off-ramp is cheaper than the next war.

Netanyahu: Iran does not have the ability to enrich uranium or to produce ballistic missiles.

We have heard this before. June 2025. Operation Midnight Hammer. Iran’s nuclear program was “obliterated.” Enrichment capacity “devastated.” The threat “eliminated.” Gabbard confirmed under oath this week that the IC assessed Iran had no effort to rebuild its enrichment capability after those strikes. Washington and Jerusalem were back bombing Iran nine months later. Netanyahu saying Iran can no longer make ballistic missiles on Day 20 of the heaviest bombing campaign since Iraq 2003 deserves the same analytical scrutiny as every previous declaration of Iranian military annihilation in this conflict. The factual record on similar claims this war alone is not encouraging. Hegseth said Iran has no air defenses. An F-35 was hit today. Hegseth said Iran has no navy. Iran’s naval assets are still laying mines and the strait is still closed. Trump said Kharg was obliterated. TankerTrackers confirmed all 55 tanks intact with vessels loading the same morning. Trump said Iran is about to surrender. Iran struck Ras Laffan twice overnight. On the missile claim specifically, the IRGC spokesperson said in mid-March that the missiles used so far are from decade-old stockpiles and post-June 2025 production has not yet been committed. The Sejjil-2 entered combat for the first time on Day 19. Iran fired its sixth missile salvo at Israel just today. Patricia Marins assessed the total arsenal including cruise missiles and SRBMs at potentially 20,000 plus. Netanyahu’s statement may reflect genuine battlefield assessment. It may also reflect the same pattern of triumphalist claims that have been walked back or quietly forgotten throughout this conflict. The IAEA chief said this week that war cannot entirely eliminate Iran’s nuclear program. The same logic applies to missile production. Factories can be rebuilt. Engineers survive. Institutional knowledge does not disappear with a bomb crater. We have been here before. The question is how many times this cycle repeats before someone in Washington decides the diplomatic off-ramp is cheaper than the next war.

BREAKING: Netanyahu says that Iran no longer has the capacity to make ballistic missiles

@DeItaone Hopefully we are not back in 6 months with another “they are close to a bomb”.

NETANYAHU: IRAN HAS NO CAPACITY TO ENRICH URANIUM OR MAKE BALLISTIC MISSILES AFTER 20 DAYS OF WAR

@disclosetv Yes we do

NOW - Netanyahu: "I want to close these opening remarks with one other fake news, and that is that Israel somehow dragged the U.S. into a conflict with Iran. Does anyone really think that someone can tell President Trump what to do? Come on!"

The line is designed to sound like Churchill. It reads like a man trying to reframe a strategic failure as a victory lap. Let us apply it to reality. The US Navy has lost or damaged multiple vessels and aircraft in this theater. The USS Gerald R. Ford pulled out to Crete after a 30 hour fire. Five US Air Force refueling aircraft were damaged at Prince Sultan. An F-35 made an emergency landing today after being hit over Iran. Thirteen Americans are dead. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed on Day 20. Iran’s navy being sunk does not reopen Hormuz. Iran does not need a surface navy to close the strait. It needs mines, underwater drones, shore-launched anti-ship missiles, and explosive boats operating from a coastline it still controls entirely. All of those capabilities remain intact. The IRGC told shipping it cannot pass. Shipping is not passing. That is the operational reality regardless of how many frigates are on the ocean floor. Hegseth’s quip also conveniently ignores that Iran’s strategic objective was never to win a naval battle. It was to close the world’s most important energy chokepoint and hold the global economy hostage until the bombing stops. Oman crude is at $167. Ras Laffan is damaged for three to five years. Qatar’s Prime Minister called for the war to end today. European gas is up 25 percent. Iran gave up the top half of the ocean. Iran kept the bottom half, the mines, the drones, the missiles, and the leverage. Hegseth got the better line. Iran got the better outcome.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ This is all performative.

.@secofwar Pete Hegseth: "We’ve decided to share the ocean with Iran. We’ve given them the bottom half” 🔥

The line is designed to sound like Churchill. It reads like a man trying to reframe a strategic failure as a victory lap. Let us apply it to reality. The US Navy has lost or damaged multiple vessels and aircraft in this theater. The USS Gerald R. Ford pulled out to Crete after a 30 hour fire. Five US Air Force refueling aircraft were damaged at Prince Sultan. An F-35 made an emergency landing today after being hit over Iran. Thirteen Americans are dead. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed on Day 20. Iran’s navy being sunk does not reopen Hormuz. Iran does not need a surface navy to close the strait. It needs mines, underwater drones, shore-launched anti-ship missiles, and explosive boats operating from a coastline it still controls entirely. All of those capabilities remain intact. The IRGC told shipping it cannot pass. Shipping is not passing. That is the operational reality regardless of how many frigates are on the ocean floor. Hegseth’s quip also conveniently ignores that Iran’s strategic objective was never to win a naval battle. It was to close the world’s most important energy chokepoint and hold the global economy hostage until the bombing stops. Oman crude is at $167. Ras Laffan is damaged for three to five years. Qatar’s Prime Minister called for the war to end today. European gas is up 25 percent. Iran gave up the top half of the ocean. Iran kept the bottom half, the mines, the drones, the missiles, and the leverage. Hegseth got the better line. Iran got the better outcome.

🇺🇸🇮🇷 Hegseth just unloaded the coldest line of the war: "We’ve decided to share the ocean with Iran. We’ve given them the bottom half." x.com/libsoftiktok/s…