Brett Erickson

Journalists/Media: Glad to chat economic warfare and sanctions. Just send me a message.

EXCLUSIVE with @EllenAMilligan: UK government officials are blaming each other for the extraordinary situation that has seen Britain loosen sanctions on Russian oil. The EU will NOT waive sanctions. It means the UK has departed from the EU’s approach and now has looser sanctions on refined Russian oil products than Europe. UK officials privately concede it weakens the Britain’s case for its G7 allies to maintain and bolster sanctions against Russia. One says it’s the fault of Keir Starmer and No10 for not taking the lead on measures sooner to prepare for limitations on jet supply. One says Ed Miliband’s restrictions on expanding energy supply have left the UK in a more vulnerable position. The sanctions waiver highlights how Britain has become more reliant on fuel imports than other major European nations. Others say the Treasury and Foreign Office have wavered at the first sign of strain. The Foreign Office is unable to explain its position this morning and remarkably DESNZ is declining to comment. Foreign Affairs Committee chair Emily Thornberry says the people of Ukraine have been "very let down" by the decision to relax sanctions. “They don’t understand, given that we promised that we would stop this loophole in October, and we still haven’t done it. In fact, it seems to have got worse," Thornberry tells the BBC. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

@Mpolymer How many times can we screw up in this conflict? He backed out after we injured him.

Or as a former agency colleague in Iran ops just told me “that sounds like a fucking stupid plan.”

@JHegarty11712 Give up take. Best cast ~3.5, worst case scenario>10

@BrettErickson28 5 to 6 weeks?

You know it’s bad when Fox is starting to ask how much longer until Iran is out of oil storage 😭 (We’re not close)

@Hattusilis_III I don’t know 😂😭

@BrettErickson28 Why would the US think that Ahmedinejad would be sympathetic to their approaches – Iran’s nuclear programme escalated under his presidency.

Breaking: US plan was to install former Iranian President Ahmadinejad… And they try telling us it “wasn’t about regime change”

@london_Iran Pahlavi is a joke.

@BrettErickson28 Probably that's why we're in this situation now. Instead of helping HRH Pahlavi to lead people to topple the regime and provide air support, they came up with this? I doubt it's was an Israeli plan. Surely Venezuela model hallucination by Stephen Miller or some other moron.

@P_dubya_S Agreed.

@BrettErickson28 Regime change without boots on the ground and other such unpopular words, but Regime change, has always been the end game.

@BaggooAlan I mean it’s still ~1.75M bpd via SoH

@BrettErickson28 Iranian oil volume can be easily replaced. It’s just a matter of getting other Gulf oil to safe ports. That will eventually be achieved.

Let’s work through this logically: If you’re the regime in Iran, would you be willing to endure (at most) potentially a few more months of economic hardship in order to monetize the leverage you hold with control over the Strait of Hormuz? This is the major issue with the logic Washington is trying to employ. Economic warfare is not distributed evenly across a population. The regime elites will not have food shortages. They will not have challenges getting essential medical supplies. But the average Iranian citizen? They certainly will. And yet… the Trump Administration believes that if we impose enough economic pain onto Iran, the population will rise up and overthrow the regime? If they were wanting to do that, they would have done so already. If your counterargument to that is, “well they didn’t have the weapons to do so”… why do we need an economic warfare campaign if that is the underlying issue? If the Trump Administration is not hoping for purely regime change, and is instead employing this economic warfare campaign in order to force concessions at the negotiating table, we need to think through the decision matrix logically as though we are the ones in Tehran. You know that the odds of mass public uprisings are low. You know that if they do happen, they in no way are guaranteed to topple the regime. You know that you may personally see a degree of financial pain, but also know that sanctions relief is right around the corner with a peace deal. Sanctions relief would be exponentially more economically beneficial than the pain Iran would see from another couple of months of Operation Economic Fury… by orders of magnitude. And if Iran is able to effectively negotiate sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz? That would be more than their entire oil and gas revenues each year. So if you are sitting in Tehran, making the decision about whether to capitulate at the negotiating table… why on earth would you do that?

@AppSimplePhone @rocinante2d Yeah. We’ll just pay more.

@rocinante2d @BrettErickson28 But can the American people hold out that long

@supadjdnb I mostly agree…

@BrettErickson28 There will be no public uprising for the simple fact the people are no.longer mad at the government. They were before but this time they know it's the Americans causing their pain. They will become more united against the usa

@gbrew24 “My friend AQ”

I'm beginning to think this man can do literally anything.

I’m gonna let y’all in on a little secret… Iran doesn’t have 10% of their missile and drone capacity, nor do they have 90%. thx

@JSchanzer @EFittonBrown Fun fact, they wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t launch this ridiculous war

At what point will America’s western allies begin to grasp that this regime is a threat to them, too?

@clifkee Because they don’t need to yet. They still have plenty of storage.

@BrettErickson28 I'm curious, Why do you conclude this? It may be preferable (to them) to capping the wells. They could perceive it as additional pressure on Trump from environmentalists.

@nolawhiskeyneat Intentionally dumping oil. Use critical thinking here.

@BrettErickson28 So all the videos of the oil on their coastline and dead fish and bird are fake?

Fox News: Iran close to shutting in their oil wells! … A) no they’re not, B) it’s been 36 days

@gbrew24 Unilaterally withdrawing seems insane

US options, as of today: -accept terms laid out by Iran: end war and blockade, offer up-front sanctions relief and unfrozen funds, agree to discuss nuclear issues in second stage with no commitment on long enrichment pause or surrender of HEU. -resume bombing -unilaterally withdraw

@junertcb The world pays a far higher price than the United States… you would think that responsibility affects decisions, but it appears not.

@BrettErickson28 The world tires of how casually the US targets a country and tries to destroy them slowly and painfully, all for money and resources. Disgusting!

@FernandoLeanme @joekent16jan19 *Excursion

@BrettErickson28 @joekent16jan19 Can't we just give him a 50 pound gold trophy engraved with "DJ Trump, for winning the Iran military exercise"?

The NYT article reveals that our military is telling President Trump what has been obvious from the onset of this war: there is no quick military solution in Iran and our early actions set the conditions for the stalemate we are in now. Trump’s best option is to declare victory and walk away now. Limit our exposure in the region, reduce the risk of Iran restarting the war on their terms, and reset negotiations with sanctions relief as both carrot and stick. The Iranians have adapted to our attacks. They can “win” simply by not losing. Future strikes will be less effective, cost us more in casualties, and further harden Iranian resolve. Killing the Supreme Leader rallied the Iranian people around the regime. By also eliminating many moderate leaders, we’ve left ourselves with mostly hardliners to negotiate with, who are unlikely to give Trump the concessions he’s demanding. Two lessons we should have learned in the GWOT: 1. If you stay within reach of the enemy, they will adapt and ultimately win the long war by grinding us down. Iran is doing this on a massive scale with ballistic missiles, air defenses, and drones—the same concept as IEDs, just more advanced. 2. Attacking a nation will rally the people around the regime we’re trying to overthrow, or around forces far worse. Regime change is a fool’s errand.