2026 Iran War Strategy and Analysis

enroger said:

Again who cares what Trump thinks is right or not? He has exactly zero moral fiber in his body. Normal countries would consider an agreed upon ceasefire within a period as a promise, unilateral breaking of ceasefire is considered a betrayal. If you really dislike the word "betrayal" perfidy is also fine.

I'd like to not dwell on the wording, as I said I predict US will break the ceasefire and conduct some sort of sneak attack, lets wait and see.

Edit: So we're pass the misunderstanding theory at least I hope?

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If you're going to start throwing around terms like "betrayal" it implies that there is such a thing as moral fiber in geopolitics to begin with.

The fact that the ceasefire may have already broken down, suggests to me that all of the relevant players very much were not on the same page.

Blitzo said:

If you're going to start throwing around terms like "betrayal" it implies that there is such a thing as moral fiber in geopolitics to begin with.

The fact that the ceasefire may have already broken down, suggests to me that all of the relevant players very much were not on the same page.

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I was not making a moral accusation though, my whole point was that Trump did not plan to honor any agreement in the first place therefore he did not care about the actual terms of agreement, he hastily agreed to it just to get a ceasefire.

Ceasefire breaking down does not contradict with what I said, Trump not honoring the agreement is exactly what I said would happen. Though I concede it does happen a lot sooner than what I expected so your misunderstanding theory has it's merit too. While Trump's brain is a mush he still has a cadre of professional diplomats going through the stuff, how they could let it slip is a mystery to me.

enroger said:

I was not making a moral accusation though, my whole point was that Trump did not plan to honor any agreement in the first place therefore he did not care about the actual terms of agreement, he hastily agreed to it just the get a ceasefire.

Ceasefire breaking down does not contradict what I said, Trump not honoring the agreement is exactly what I said would happens. Though I concede it does happen a lot sooner than what I expected so your misunderstanding theory has it's merit too. While Trump's brain is a mush he still has a cadre of professional diplomats going through the stuff, how they could let it slip is a mystery to me.

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As I said, the most reasonable answer and least dramatic answer, is just incompetence.

Your post basically failed to answer every point I made. I think you're having an emotional reaction to Lebanon getting hit so hard and you want to vent and blame something so the ceasefire is the closest thing you can grab.

PandaAI said:

Lebanon was supposed to be part of the ceasefire but they are getting destroyed

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That literally has nothing to so with the ceasefire because it would have happened with or without it.

PandaAI said:

and now they’ve been abandoned.

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How are they more or less abandoned than they were before the ceasefire? They got hit, they're hitting back and Iran's hitting back for them too. It's just another day.

PandaAI said:

Now many people are angry at China because they think China capitulated to Trump’s threats and pressured Iran to negotiate.

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Who is "many people"? Show me these people and how plentiful they are. Without China, no country can stand against the US and its gang.

PandaAI said:

Why is China giving the US an out from its quagmire?

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Because it's probably better than the US nuking out or whatever they were going to do so Trump could say that he had carried out his threat of destroying a civilization. Honestly, it might even be better for China if they did, but China doesn't need such a sacrifice from Iran. We got this already. America's race with China is stuck in quicksand while China's basically flying.

The war can best be described as one where all parties see it as a matter of survival, save for its most powerful player, the USA, which has always seen it as a matter of politics. And since the political winds say that the Republicans are in for a drubbing in the midterms due to the economic damage, not to mention the actual split in the party itself driven by voices like Tucker Carlson, Trump wants out.

Thing is, Israel won't let him go that easily and on top of the fact that we are constantly told that the only reason the world has freedom of navigation is because of the hegemony of the US Navy, what are we to make of that narrative when they can't even guarantee freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf against an impoverished country like Iran? Classic case of little kid getting on a scary roller coaster thinking he can brave it and wanting off after the first plunge, but unfortunately he's already strapped in and there are 5 more plunges to go. Have fun.

So it's been an entire day since Israel's attack on Lebanon yesterday and the Israeli strikes on Lebanon are still ongoing. Actually Israel struck Lebanon just an hour ago. Yet Iran has not fired a single bullet on Israel even though not just Iran but even the mediator Pakistan said Lebanon is part of the ceasefire.

Has Iran been fully cucked into submission with Trump's "an entire civilaztion will die tonight" threat? If you are that scared then why did you even bother make an enemy out of the US 47 years ago? You knew what the US was capable of.

PandaAI said:

Lebanon was supposed to be part of the ceasefire but they are getting destroyed and now they’ve been abandoned.

Now many people are angry at China because they think China capitulated to Trump’s threats and pressured Iran to negotiate.

Why is China giving the US an out from its quagmire?

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It's been clear since the 12 day war that Israel does it's own thing. They even come up with empty promises to their US counterparts on various matters and the US plays along after the fact. I am not going into who is controlling who in this war, but it's clear Israel will do it's own thing and they couldn't care less what the US tells them.

So now Iran can choose whether they want to continue the ceasefire solely with the US or just withdraw from it altogether.

Anyways, this respite is well needed for Iran for the isolated units to receive some resupply and rest.

Blitzo said:

The shooting has stopped for now, but once Trump realizes what he has actually agreed with, I suspect we are going to see him react poorly.

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The ceasefire, the way I interpret it, is that President Trump does not want to escalate this anymore.

That raid related to the downed F-15E pilot, people like Larry Johnson and Scott Ritter, (and Prof Mearsheimer agreed and accepted their views on that incident), it was an attempt to steal the Iranian uranium.

Then somehow it morphed into a search and rescue mission. Now Hollywood has their story for a movie about this war.

That the US did this raid, meant they escalated. But it failed.

However, they had a compensation prize, so Trump took it and ran with it, boasting of how he saved that colonel.

Read somewhere in the American media, that the White House was deeply split about all of this. This raid was opposed by half of the people around Trump. It was high risk and if it failed, then Trump is just Carter, whose secret raid into Iran to rescue the hostages failed. No way that anyone in the Trump administration wanted to be associated with President Carter.

There was a 3 hour fire-fight according to Scott Ritter. The US forces had to evacuate quickly before Iranian army showed up.

Trump did not take off to Florida on Easter weekend to play golf, as he always goes to Florida on the weekend to play golf. He stayed in Washington, but no one is saying what he did. So, it look like that is the real story, it was US raid that failed, but a stroke of luck meant there was a chance to get out.

If they want to do this again, it probably will not work. It went bad this time. It probably will go bad again if they try another raid like this. Then Trump would be Carter.

Logically, if Trump wants to continue up this escalation ladder as Prof Mearsheimer likes to talk about, then another raid probably will not do it. What is next then?

A full blown WW II invasion?

Nukes?

If Trump is not willing to go up the escalation ladder with a full army or nukes, then he has to get out.

So the details of the ceasefire is not important in my view at the moment. The important point is both sides actually are communicating, and both sides want a ceasefire.

Just three days ago, that seemed impossible.

obj 705A said:

So it's been an entire day since Israel's attack on Lebanon yesterday and the Israeli strikes on Lebanon are still ongoing. Actually Israel struck Lebanon just an hour ago. Yet Iran has not fired a single bullet on Israel even though not just Iran but even the mediator Pakistan said Lebanon is part of the ceasefire.

Has Iran been fully cucked into submission with Trump's "an entire civilaztion will die tonight" threat? If you are that scared then why did you even bother make an enemy out of the US 47 years ago? You knew what the US was capable of.

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I would say its acknowledgment the ceasefire is bs and the need to use the opportunity to regroup and recalibrate their forces for the next round. The fact that the US seemed all hell bent on using ground troops to reopen the strait, only to walk back and accept this ceasefire shows that Iran just with a few drones aimed at cargo ships has all the aces in this situation.

Nothing changes the fact that the US and Israel went into the conflict hedging their entire strategy on formenting a revolution within Iran and taking nothing else into consideration. Now that strategy failed, everything they're coming up with now outside of bombings is just improvisation, so time is on Iran's side. The only wild card is whether Trump or Netanyahu are willing to use nuclear weapons.

PandaAI said:

Lebanon was supposed to be part of the ceasefire but they are getting destroyed and now they’ve been abandoned.

Now many people are angry at China because they think China capitulated to Trump’s threats and pressured Iran to negotiate.

Why is China giving the US an out from its quagmire?

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China likely has no direct role in this drama.

Both sides use China as excuse and weight.