HerrDr8

I’ve been very supportive of POTUS on Iran & believe getting rid of Maduro was good. But I’ve been appalled by this Admin's tone, rhetoric, tactics & strategy toward Europe. Denigrating our allies has been terrible. Weakness communicated to Putin has caused grave damage. Passive-aggressive communication toward President Zelenskyy is embarrassing. I hear from our allies about the damage this has done & it’s going to take time to repair.

What are we doing here man?

#1pageAssessIranWar2026 #IranWar Trying to think of a worse wartime head of state in history. Near history: Maybe Austria-Hungary or Russia WW1. Deep history: Rome had a few miserable wartime emperors (Maximinus Thrax... Nero... etc). Generally these types also then cause significant domestic political upheaval. Some analysis required. Starting a war without a plan, effective strategy, facts or capabilities for asymmetric contingencies -and exuding unlimited hubris/bravado/lies - is not a good idea: The Useful Idiot Doctrine. China is a part of the Iran-China-Russia-NK alliance and benefits from American entanglement. And, Useful Idiot request their assistance (screed below). Russia, part of the Iran-China-Russia-NK alliance, has been given a massive economic boost and is coddled while helping Iran target American military assets. Useful Idiot even dispatched one of his poodles to Moscow for consultations. European allies, including Ukraine, were told we didn't need their help - besides Useful Idiot aiding their enemy, Russia. Seems the timing off to now beg for their support. And so, here we are now. Useful Idiot on a golf course. No plan...just chaos: economic, political and military. Hoping for a regime change such that the new regime immediately ends the conflict (but not the chaos set in motion) and suddenly becomes an ally.

Contrary to reports from Axios, U.S. President Donald J. Trump states that the United States “knew nothing” about Wednesday’s attack by Israel against Iran’s South Pars Gas Field, adding that “Qatar was in no way, shape, or form, involved with it, nor did it have any idea that it was going to happen. Unfortunately, Iran did not know this, or any of the pertinent facts pertaining to the South Pars attack, and unjustifiably and unfairly attacked a portion of Qatar's LNG Gas facility.” President Trump states following today’s attack by Israel and retaliatory strikes by Iran, “NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar - In which instance the United States of America, with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before.”

Source: youtube.com/watch?v=C7N6oG…

Stubb: The world order is being redrawn in a transition comparable to 1918, 1945 or 1989. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marked a turning point, pushing the system into disorder where the future balance of power remains unclear. 1/

@Frank_Stones Yup - our @WarInstitute article discussed the implications of Sulphur being cut off on Friday: mwi.westpoint.edu/the-chokepoint…

Got the wife evacuated, so have time to drink a tea and think about the Strait of Hormuz. I've sailed through the it a few times years ago and done antipiracy operations in the Strait of Malacca. Maps can be deceiving. The best way to think about the Strait of Hormuz is a four lane highway, with two lanes per direction for the largest ships like crude carriers, cargo vessels, and warships in the center of the channel where it is deepest and free of obstacles. Then on the outside of those lanes, you have medium sized ships, going Jebel Ali to other regional ports like Sohar, since a lot of international cargo goes direct to Jebel Ali then is cross loaded across the region. On the outside of those lanes, along both coasts, are dhow fishing boats and all manner of local, smaller craft. Maritime trade crisscrossing this region goes back hundreds of years. The Portugese wrote how disappointing it was to find a tight network of trade already established in the region when they arrived in the 15th century. It is hard to describe how crowded these waters are. You sometimes wonder if you could walk to Iran across the decks of ships and not get your feet wet. The amount of traffic makes distinguishing between normal traffic and a threat incredibly difficult. Is that dhow fishing, transiting between coasts, laying mines, gathering intelligence, or a tender for surface drones? Hard to discern while sailing ducks in a row escorting a lumbering tanker or cargo ship. Operation Prosperity Guardian in the Red Sea proved to be a Houthi victory when a land power with no navy to speak of fought the most powerful navy on earth to an agreement. The Hormuz problem is harder now the Iranians have proved they have the will to fight, no matter how much pain is leveled at them from afar. The shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz go around the Musandam penninsula. This turn exposes ships to 270 degree of fire control in layered systems from Qeshm, the surrounding high ground, to further inland, with surface drones now added to the mix. Iran doesn't need to mine the entire strait. Iran just needs to turn that main shipping lanes around Musandam into a kill box and divert approved ships past Qeshm, out of the main shipping lanes like a watery weigh station. It has started doing this. The U.S. has created a hard problem for itself. NATO understandably wants nothing to do with this. If the most powerful navy in the world can't solve this, what difference does European navies make. With the watery weigh station past Qeshm, Iran isn't closing the strait to global commerce. It is simply doing what the U.S. does with the dollar, exerting power over the chokepoint it controls. Understandably the U.S. doesn't like this, so why can't the U.S. just send warships to escort ships through? Well, when you escort a ship through a strait, you tend to stay ducks in a row. So if warships are sent to escort tankers, they are now just another target in the strait. Even if the warships could maneuver through local traffic to screen ships, lets go back to the 270 degree turn around the penninsula. The warships would be receiving layered waves of fire likely worse than they faced off with in the Red Sea against the Houthis from essentially three directions while having the longer route to run to protect the tankers around the peninsula. As the Hormuz Crisis drags on, anything less than breaking Iran's control of the strait will be seen as a loss for the U.S., much like the Battle of the Red Sea was against the Houthis.

"Russia has been expanding its intelligence sharing and military cooperation with Iran, providing satellite imagery and improved drone technology to aid Tehran’s targeting of U.S. forces in the region, people familiar with the matter said... The technology provided includes components of modified Shahed drones, which are meant to improve communication, navigation and targeting, the people said. Russia has also been drawing on its experience using drones in Ukraine, offering tactical guidance on how many drones should be used in operations and what altitudes they should strike from, said the people, who included a senior European intelligence officer. Russia has been providing Iran with the locations of U.S. military forces in the Middle East as well as those of its regional allies, The Wall Street Journal has reported. That cooperation has deepened in early days of the war, with Russia recently providing satellite imagery directly to Iran, said two of the people, the officer and a Middle Eastern diplomat. The assistance is similar to intelligence the U.S. and European allies have given to Ukraine in recent years, analysts say. In the Gulf, Moscow’s aid is believed to have helped Iran with recent strikes on U.S. radar systems in the region, said the people. Those strikes have included an early warning radar for a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad, system in Jordan, as well as other targets in Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman." @tggrove @milanczerny @benoitfaucon wsj.com/world/russia-i…

Actually, the guy who was the point person for Iran at the White House and was fired by the Trump Administration after being Loomered wrote EXACTLY that warning 4 days before the war started. The article was titled “Why Iran Will Escalate.” But who needs experts… foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/wh…

Both Discord and Telegram are being banned for use by Russian forces. I need to underline, this is catastrophic. An unparalleled disaster surpassing the Starlink shutdown. This will have dramatic operational impacts especially for drone teams in the short term if/when implemented.

#1pageAssessIranWar2026 #IranWar Related: My mess - your problem: x.com/CattardSlim/st…

#1pageAssessIranWar2026 #IranWar‌ Trying to think of a worse wartime head of state in history. Near history: Maybe Austria-Hungary or Russia WW1. Deep history: Rome had a few miserable wartime emperors (Maximinus Thrax... Nero... etc). Generally these types also then cause significant domestic political upheaval. Some analysis required. Starting a war without a plan, effective strategy, facts or capabilities for asymmetric contingencies -and exuding unlimited hubris/bravado/lies - is not a good idea: The Useful Idiot Doctrine. China is a part of the Iran-China-Russia-NK alliance and benefits from American entanglement. And, Useful Idiot request their assistance (screed below). Russia, part of the Iran-China-Russia-NK alliance, has been given a massive economic boost and is coddled while helping Iran target American military assets. Useful Idiot even dispatched one of his poodles to Moscow for consultations. European allies, including Ukraine, were told we didn't need their help - besides Useful Idiot aiding their enemy, Russia. Seems the timing off to now beg for their support. And so, here we are now. Useful Idiot on a golf course. No plan...just chaos: economic, political and military. Hoping for a regime change such that the new regime immediately ends the conflict (but not the chaos set in motion) and suddenly becomes an ally.

@World_Insights1 #1pageAssessIranWar2026 #IranWar #iran #StraitOfHormuz Related: x.com/DAlperovitch/s…

#1pageAssessIranWar2026 #IranWar #iran #StraitOfHormuz Saw a tweet from @World_Insights1 (table right). Was curious how Iranian missile and drone strikes compared with 12 Day War and Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Comparison in table left. Data is tough to reconcile between sources, so, treat with caution, BUT, a few items ring out: 1) Iran adapted from 12 day war: see target mix. Target mix has been economic and political attack on Administration's will to wage war. 2) Drones and missile volumes holding steady or slightly increasing last few days after the initial volleys 3) Warfare has dramatically changed since 2022: the Age of Drones

Iran built a military designed to fight without a head. Now it cannot stop fighting because the head is gone. The Mosaic Doctrine divides the IRGC into 31 autonomous provincial commands, one per province, each with pre-delegated authority, local weapons stockpiles, independent decision-making, and sealed orders that activate upon central command failure. The doctrine was formalised after the Iran-Iraq War for one purpose: ensure that the decapitation of Iranian leadership does not stop the Iranian military from fighting. It was designed to survive exactly what happened on 28 February. The Supreme Leader is dead. His successor cannot stand. The defence industrial base is rubble. The communication infrastructure that would transmit a ceasefire has been degraded by 15,000 strikes. And the 31 commands are still firing. Not because someone is ordering them to fire. Because the doctrine orders them to fire until someone orders them to stop, and the someone who would order them to stop is in a hospital bed issuing written statements through a television anchor. The Quds Force overlays the Mosaic with a second network: the proxy architecture. Hezbollah in Lebanon launches hundreds of rockets at Israel. The Houthis in Yemen attack Red Sea shipping and fire at Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Iraqi PMF militias, Kata’ib Hezbollah and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, strike American bases in Iraq and Syria. The coordination flows through secure fibre-optic lines, satellite backups, encrypted applications, and physical couriers carrying cash and operational directives. Funding: $100 to $350 million annually through tunnel smuggling, cryptocurrency wallets, and Hezbollah intermediaries. The proxies have hit American diplomatic facilities. A missile struck the US Embassy helipad in Baghdad. Two Iranian drones hit the US Embassy compound in Riyadh, starting fires. A drone struck near the US Consulate in Dubai. The Kuwait Embassy closed under threat. Three to four verified diplomatic incidents across the region, each producing limited damage but each crossing a line that has governed international conflict since the 1961 Vienna Convention: you do not strike embassies. And then Hamas, the proxy Iran armed and funded for seventeen years, issued a public statement asking Iran to stop targeting neighbouring countries. The organisation that started the war the Mosaic Doctrine is now perpetuating told its patron to stand down. The Axis of Resistance is arguing in public for the first time since its creation. The fracture reveals the Mosaic Doctrine’s fatal design flaw. The system was built for survival, not termination. It ensures that 31 commands continue fighting after decapitation. It does not contain a mechanism for 31 commands to simultaneously stop. Each command fires under sealed orders with local authority. No central node can broadcast a ceasefire because the central node was the target of the first strike. The doctrine that makes Iran impossible to defeat also makes Iran impossible to negotiate with because the entity that would accept terms does not control the entities that would implement them. Hezbollah fires because its orders predate the ceasefire that does not exist. The Houthis fire because their funding pipeline operates independently of any command they would obey. The Iraqi PMF fires because the militias answer to local commanders who answer to a Quds Force whose leader is in a bunker. And the 31 provincial commands fire because the doctrine says fire and nobody with authority has said stop. The war’s most dangerous feature is not what Iran can still launch. It is what Iran can no longer recall. The machine was built to run without an operator. The operator is gone. The machine is running. And the off switch was never installed because the doctrine’s designers believed the machine should never be turned off. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

#putinAmericanCollaborators #UkraineWarNews #Ukraine #1PageAssessUkrWar Little tsar picked and approved Useful Idiot's "negotiators". Witkoff takes Russia at its word and looks the other way as Russia helps Iran target and hit American targets (Useful Idiot - "maybe Putin is helping Iran a little"). A real economic opportunity for both Russia and Useful Idiot with oil going north of $100 bbl. Both will benefit.

#1pageAssessUkrWar #RussianMissiles #RussianMissileTerrorCampaign #TyrantsAndTheirRockets Since Nov 2024, Russian has been launching an average of two "large" terror strikes a month including 36 missiles and 465 drones. This strike had about 2x the missiles. This strike's missile interception/jam rate was 85% - significantly higher than the 72% experienced since NOV 2024. Drone interception/jam rate was at 93% - consistent with rate since NOV 2024. Given lack of Russian battlefield progress since NOV 2024 - and high cost of war - terror strikes allow Russian MoD to tell little tsar they are doing something, besides incurring high economic costs and churning through troops. Unclear how 4 years of these strikes has mitigated in any way Ukraine's ability to resist or changed the strategic situation, other than hardening Ukraine's strategic will.

German Chancellor Merz: Six out of seven G7 countries were clearly of the opinion that sanctions against Russia should not be lifted. We were somewhat surprised to hear this morning that the American government had decided differently.