2026 Iran War Strategy and Analysis

[manqiangrexue]

Scott Ritter in one of the previous videos said the operation to rescue the pilots was originally aimed at taking the nuclear material out of Iran but they had to change the goals.

Personally I think the aim of this ceasefire and negotiations will be to get US inspectors in the underground facilities in Iran to take out the highly enriched nuclear material and any devices that can create new highly enriched Uranium. The inspectors would also double as spies. Essentialy the US wants to achieve through negotiations what they failed to achieve through the excavation spec op.

And once they are sure Iran is fully denuclearized only keeping low enriched uranium they will restart the war.

IMO Iran should only accept US inspectors on the ground coupled with an extreme cap on enrichment if there is a solid security guarantee in place. And by that I mean Iran becoming under the Russian nuclear umbrella. If that is not achieved then Iran shouldnt agree to any denuclearization deal.

Words are no protection. Iran's only safety would be to obtain nuclear weapons to silence all those who wish to wage war against it. They should put everything on the line to complete nuclear weapons development. It is the only guarantee.

 

[Randomuser]

Looking back in hindsight, this looks so embarrassing now.

 

[manqiangrexue]

Miscommunication does not require honesty or dishonesty lol.

Miscommunication may well occur simply due to incompetence, and the US government and Trump in particular are very obviously diplomatically incompetent.

The idea that the US signed onto something thinking it was something else, should be an astronomically high prospect.

It's a matter of what's more likely: dishonesty or incompetence leading to miscommunication. I'm saying that the liklihood of dishonesty far outweighs that of translational incompetence because Trump's team is basically dishonest all the time but multiple people translating a document wrong, especially a document that has gone through Iran, Pakistan, and the US, is much less likely and requires an level of incompetence from so many people that it is unlikely, or far less likely than Trump's dishonesty.

The problem isn't whether Trump changes his mind, the problem is "what does Trump think he agreed to, in the first place".

No, I think the problem is exactly that Trump changes his mind and renegs all the time, and on top of that, he prefers to attack during negotiations. He also does not believe he has any obligations of morality or honor because according to him, Iranian people are animals. That is the problem. I have much higher faith in the proper translation and delivery of a document than Trump's whims.

 

[enroger]

The problem isn't whether Trump changes his mind, the problem is "what does Trump think he agreed to, in the first place".

That is certainly a possibility, but I don't know why you place such a high probability to this explanation. I think it is more likely they're not planning to honor anything so they don't care what they agree to in the first place.

 

[Some1Guy]

It's not about how much money they gain/lose. Its about controlling a greater proportion of the wealth/resources of society in order to have greater control/power over society. That's why you have boom and bust cycles. Once the masses get too comfortable, they wont work as hard.

That's just part of what said though, loosing part of their wealth won't be the painful part, the painful part would be losing the architecture of control that they had over most of the world by loosing the petrodollar, Iran is already making tankers pay their toll in the yuan, meaning a new financial architecture is already taking place that won't involve these billionaires but will involve Russia,China and of course Iran, meaning that they won't have the power to strangle any country anymore, their sanctions will simply be ineffective, and thus no matter the control they had previously, it won't be them making the shots any longer.

I believe this war is not of their own making too at least not for a group of American billionaires, it's the Israelis and the Zionists calling the shots, using black mail and whatever other tools they have to make the current US administration bow down to their demands. I believe the billionaires would have wanted to continue strangling Iran with sanctions because they understood that a war with Iran would be a disaster, and it would cost them their financial system that they spent decades on constructing.

My point is that we're seeing a new financial system take the place of the old one, and if the US hasn't gotten into this war, their financial system could have lasted much longer, and the billionaires could have had maybe a decade more of control over the global financial system with the petrodollar at it's core. The billionaires don't want money, they want power and the petrodollar with the GCC countries at the core, is what allowed them to terrorize the Global South for decades and if it's gone, then their control and power is gone unless they manage to come up with a new system.

 

[plawolf]

While Pakistani negotiators are getting the front page mentions, it’s pretty obvious (even explicitly stated by the Iranians) that it’s China who is the main player moving the pieces in the background.

The most obvious reason for why China would interrupt America as it’s making mistake after mistake is not because of petty economic concerns, especially since China is one of the very few nations actually prepared and ready to weather the economic and supply side storms. Rather, I think maybe Beijing had intel that Trump really had lost the plot and was actually about to use nuclear weapons.

While America openly using nukes would present China with a golden opportunity to fundamentally upend the current world order and deal a death blow to America global power, it is also a path of maximum risk. If Trump has used nukes for real once, it makes it far easier for him to do it again. A timeline where America does full rouge state throwing nukes around like Opera giving out free cars is one I think we can all agree is best avoided.

Moreover, time and momentum is overwhelming on China’s side that it has full confidence that it can utterly outclass, outcompete and even outfight America if needed, that I think there is no real need or justification to choose this path of maximum risk for a slight shortening of its existing timetables.

If America uses nukes in Iran and gets away with it, it makes it that much more likely Russia will decide to follow suit in Ukraine. That path leads to too grave a threat of open all out nuclear exchanges between Russia and NATO. Indeed, with the way the board is set right now, the only way China could realistically loose is if the world descent into all out nuclear madness.

Additionally, if America uses nukes against Iran because it is loosing a conventional fight, it massively increases the risk that it will do so again if it was loosing a conventional war far more badly against China. So better the nuclear Genie stay in the proverbial bottle.

Finally, if Trump was indeed on the very precipice of pushing the Big Red Button, then being able to get him to TACO also gives Beijing invaluable insight into his psychology to better map out how to win a conventional war against him without pushing him over the nuclear threshold.

Once China shared its intelligence that America was ready to use nukes, the Iranians would have been very easily persuaded to give diplomacy another shot. Especially if certain sweeteners were thrown in as part of the package.

America is unlikely to be able to materially improve its combat capabilities in two weeks, but Iran could make a quantum leap with full assistance from China and Russia. Fighter jets and SAMs will be of no use due to the timescales, but China could easily transfer across its entire DF15 and other retired ballistic missile inventories if it chose to. All sorts of advanced AShMs could also be transferred as well as vast quantities of parts and rocket fuel to allow Iran to build drones and domestic ballistic missiles at full pace for years. Hell, if the Iranians were minded, they could excavate out buried nuclear materials, ostensively under the guise of preparing to agree to American conditions about surrendering them, but it could just as easily crash manufacture them into moonshine warheads to place in missiles to achieve a measure of nuclear deterrence.

Indeed, if the ceasefire holds, it actually opens up the most audacious play I mentioned previously where Russia or China secretly fly in one of their own warheads to detonate underground at an Iranian nuclear test facility and basically bluff a nuclear deterrent into existence. That would have been unacceptably dangerous during live hostilities, but during a ceasefire, said nuke could be sufficiently safeguarded as to make the play viable.

But one final point to note is that this is just a ceasefire, not a peace treaty, I fully expect both sides to go right back to clobbering each other once the two weeks are up, or even before that. As their differences are just too wide right now. Just look at Korea and Vietnam all the rounds of ceasefires and resumptions. I think this will be very similar. So rather that treat this as the end of the war, I think it’s far more likely this is just an interlude.

 

[RobertC]

There's one spotlight permitted in US political circumstances....and that spotlight is TRUMP....not Vance, Not Hegseth....but TRUMP and TRUMP Alone. His overt narcissistic clinical symptoms means everything must be about him and him alone. No taking away of the spotlight. Inside Trump's heart, already the jealousy and envy is building up if Vance took that away from him. He already didn't attend the recent CPAC, and he has seen Vance poll numbers overtake him, this is not good sign at all. "Liddle" Macro Rubio is favorite of the current establishment and first choice for the old neocons group but not Vance. Vance need to watch his back, already his two guys Tutsi and Kent(former Counter Terror head already resigned) and is in trouble.

To begin, the Iranians know they are negotiating with the most likely next President of the United States of America. I expect they will treat him as if he were president and work to provide a path to make it so. If Trump tries to remove him I expect the Iranians will stall the negotiations for transiting the Strait of Hormuz until he returns.

Next, most Americans and corporations didn't want this war and now want it over immediately. Iran wasn't a threat to them. To the contrary it was a reliable supplier of cheap oil. And it was much more modernized than the GCC monarchies. They understand we lost lives and dollars in Afghanistan and Iraq and don't need to repeat the mistake with Iran.

In addition to rapidly failing vigor if not health Trump is facing disaster in the ballot box. He's not delivering on his economic promises and his DOGEd government isn't delivering much of anything except out of control "law enforcement."

Trump is trapped and he knows it. He needs a better hand for meeting with Xi next month. If Vance's negotiations with Iran can deliver one then that's the one Trump (and Vance) will take to China. And Vance's power base then expands beyond America's borders.

 

[Jaroslav]

It's not USA but Israel who would drop a nuke and force the entirety of the Western civilization into a conflict against the East. They're already seething at the current ceasefire. Might I add that this is one of their Talmudic prophecies? That Edom (European civilization) will fall after a great battle between the East and the West (whom they also sometimes call Gog and Magog)?

Do you have link to this prophecy

 

[Blitzo]

It's a matter of what's more likely: dishonesty or incompetence leading to miscommunication. I'm saying that the liklihood of dishonesty far outweighs that of translational incompetence because Trump's team is basically dishonest all the time but multiple people translating a document wrong, especially a document that has gone through Iran, Pakistan, and the US, is much less likely and requires an level of incompetence from so many people that it is unlikely, or far less likely than Trump's dishonesty.

No, I think the problem is exactly that Trump changes his mind and renegs all the time, and on top of that, he prefers to attack during negotiations. He also does not believe he has any obligations of morality or honor because according to him, Iranian people are animals. That is the problem. I have much higher faith in the proper translation and delivery of a document than Trump's whims.

I never said anything about multiple people translating a document wrong. Considering the speed with which this last minute climbdown from Trump's "end Iranian civilization" bombing command, it may well be simply incompetence of himself and/or one or two of his cabinet members.

These sort of decisions, made in the last minute, if they are shuttled between only high level politicians, do not always touch the rest of the institution and instead simply reflects senior, head-of-state level dialogues and understandings.


That is also what I mean by incompetence -- both incompetence of Trump himself, and also the lack of process and diligence by his cabinet.

That is certainly a possibility, but I don't know why you place such a high probability to this explanation. I think it is more likely they're not planning to honor anything so they don't care what they agree to in the first place.

Why I place such a high probability to this explanation? It's because the 10 points laid out are absolutely insane for the US to accept in the first place. Either the US thought it signed onto different terms to what Iran put out, or the US has a very very very different interpretation/expectation of "using it as a basis for negotiation" and expect many of those terms to get watered down and/or dismissed.

Per one of Iran's foreign mission handles (their India embassy I believe) --
Iran's 10-point conditions that the US has accepted as "workable":
The US is fundamentally committed to:
Non-aggression
Continuation of Iran's control over the Strait of Hormuz
Acceptance of enrichment
Lifting all primary sanctions
Lifting all secondary sanctions
Termination of all UN Security Council resolutions
Termination of all IAEA Board of Governors resolutions
Payment of compensation to Iran
Withdrawal of US combat forces from the region
Cessation of war on all fronts, including against the heroic Islamic Resistance of Lebanon.

How on earth is any of that considered a viable basis of negotiation from the US perspective?? Particularly, Iran's control over the strait of hormuz, acceptance of enrichment, lifting all sanctions, and terminating all UN resolutions, and paying compensation, and withdrawal of US forces from the region??

And then we have Trump saying:
"Total and complete victory. 100 percent. No question about it," Trump told AFP in the brief call when asked if he was claiming victory with the ceasefire.
and
"We have a 15 point transaction, of which most of those things have been agreed on. We'll see what happens. We'll see if it gets there," Trump said.
and
"That will be perfectly taken care of, or I wouldn't have settled," Trump said, without giving any specifics about what would happen to the uranium.

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So, again, we need to ask -- what on earth does Trump think he actually agreed to???

 

[bebops]

Many people thought when Trump tweeted the end of Iran civilianization by 8PM, they thought he would order the launch of nuke on Iran. It is kind of reminiscence to what Putin said he would nuke Ukraine in the early days of war. Trump advisors and Grok clarified that 0% chance a nuke will be launched.

If Iran hadn't agree to a ceasefire, Trump would ordered the destruction of all oil, water, electricity, and food plants. Without those plants, the population would be lack of basic necessities to sustain life in that country.

China had to step in because knowing those Iran's oil plants are going to be bombed, they will lose Iran oil business. And the entire trade between Iran and all countries will collapse too. It will have huge consequence to Iran economy.

I don't know if Iran wants to accept a huge concession with ending their ballistic missile program and ending their proxy allies support.