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US to deploy additional troops to the Middle East, officials say

reuters.com

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Re: US to deploy additional troops to the Middle East, officials say

#21

Post by toomuchtodo »

adriand wrote: post #8
vkou wrote: post #3

A war with no objective, no timeline, not authorized by congress, inflicting massive damage to the national and world economy, and the executive going cap in hand begging for more borrowed money to run it.

It will go down in history as one of the most monumental avoidable disasters of all time.

It's so wild to me that the world invests in US treasuries to fund a country that spends like a drunken sailor on wars and stock buybacks, with no plan to ever pay down the debt, nor to invest in its domestic future via infrastructure or state capacity. "You need another $200B for a conflict with no purpose or need? Sure, here you go."

Re: US to deploy additional troops to the Middle East, officials say

#22

Post by vkou »

netsharc wrote: post #20
vkou wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retreating is a viable option for the US. The world will return to the status quo in a week or three, and he will look every bit the fool that he is. Nobody wants to get involved when Iran is fighting back against US aggression. The world would get a lot more interested in doing so if it were just conducting unprovoked, unilateral piracy in the straight. Withdrawal is a viable option for everyone but the man who star…

I don't know, in my scenario, Iran will keep attacking the Middle Eastern countries, angering them enough to yell at Trump to fix the shit he's started. But maybe China could get them to stop... But this is amateur geopolitics commentary (A great quote about Internet commentariat when the Russian invasion started was "Last week I was an epidemiologist, this week I'm a geopolitical expert!")

They won't. Their demands before restoration of the status quo are just internal messaging and posturing.

If Russia withdrew all its troops tomorrow, Ukraine wouldn't keep bombing Moscow.

Re: US to deploy additional troops to the Middle East, officials say

#23

Post by AnimalMuppet »

shevy-java wrote: post #10

It is hard to predict the future, but to me it looks as if the USA already lost that war. Now, we can say "define losing", but in my opinion the strategy used by the USA is not clear here. Yes, they can shift constantly and willy-nilly define new goals, but everyone ends up being confused. In Iraq it was the lie that it is about weapons of mass destruction. They don't even seem to try for anything here now. The strat…

> The interesting thing is that Trump is now stuck in the war, just like Putin is in Ukraine.

Trump still has a small bit of time to take an off-ramp. US casualties have been in the single digits; there's not much national pride lost in walking away.

There may be lots of Trump's pride lost in pulling back, though, so yeah, he may be stuck in this war. The US is still better off than Russia, though, because we can get rid of Trump easier than they can get rid of Putin.

> So WHO is really doing the policy in the USA?

Events have their own momentum. Once you start the snowball rolling downhill, it's really hard to stop. Trump may not want to go to troops on the ground, but he's going to have to do that, or stop and pull back and eat his pride with Iran still unconquered (and angry). Since he will do almost anything rather than lose pride, he's trapped by the need to make this a win. In the same way, Iran is also trapped in the need to make this a win. (Not "need to win" - both sides need to make it appear to their people as a win, which is not quite the same thing.)

Re: US to deploy additional troops to the Middle East, officials say

#24

Post by Jtsummers »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #23
shevy-java wrote: post #10

It is hard to predict the future, but to me it looks as if the USA already lost that war. Now, we can say "define losing", but in my opinion the strategy used by the USA is not clear here. Yes, they can shift constantly and willy-nilly define new goals, but everyone ends up being confused. In Iraq it was the lie that it is about weapons of mass destruction. They don't even seem to try for anything here now. The strat…

> The interesting thing is that Trump is now stuck in the war, just like Putin is in Ukraine. Trump still has a small bit of time to take an off-ramp. US casualties have been in the single digits; there's not much national pride lost in walking away. There may be lots of Trump's pride lost in pulling back, though, so yeah, he may be stuck in this war. The US is still better off than Russia, though, because we can get…

> US casualties have been in the single digits; there's not much national pride lost in walking away.

Fatalities are in double digits (13) though 6 are from a plane crash with no one claiming the Iranians caused it. Casualties are in the triple-digits, since it includes injured, not just killed.

But yes, the numbers are still small enough we can pull out without that influencing the decision (from a public opinion perspective) substantially.

Re: US to deploy additional troops to the Middle East, officials say

#25

Post by aworks »

vkou wrote: post #15
netsharc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump's always admired Putin, and now just like Putin, he's also entered his own quagmire... Retreating isn't even a viable option, as far as I understand, an angry Iranian regime will keep disrupting the region, so now Trump's only option is to escalate. Too bad the whole world has to sit and watch itself get fucked...

Retreating is a viable option for the US. The world will return to the status quo in a week or three, and he will look every bit the fool that he is. Nobody wants to get involved when Iran is fighting back against US aggression. The world would get a lot more interested in doing so if it were just conducting unprovoked, unilateral piracy in the straight. Withdrawal is a viable option for everyone but the man who star…

Foreign Affairs suggests Iran would rather fight a protacted war with the US than repeated wars with Israel. And in either case, they would continue to attack US regional interests.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/how-americas-wa...

Re: US to deploy additional troops to the Middle East, officials say

#26

Post by avuton »

vkou wrote: post #3

A war with no objective, no timeline, not authorized by congress, inflicting massive damage to the national and world economy, and the executive going cap in hand begging for more borrowed money to run it.

Congress lack of action kind of makes it authorized.

Re: US to deploy additional troops to the Middle East, officials say

#27

Post by soupfordummies »

ZunarJ5 wrote: post #2

But healthcare is far too big of an ask. Btw, they've been planning on this. https://web.archive.org/web/20260304105404/https://www.indee...

Holy shit… what a poignant and succinct modern reminder of the tragedy of war.

Re: US to deploy additional troops to the Middle East, officials say

#28

Post by soupfordummies »

vkou wrote: post #15
netsharc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump's always admired Putin, and now just like Putin, he's also entered his own quagmire... Retreating isn't even a viable option, as far as I understand, an angry Iranian regime will keep disrupting the region, so now Trump's only option is to escalate. Too bad the whole world has to sit and watch itself get fucked...

Retreating is a viable option for the US. The world will return to the status quo in a week or three, and he will look every bit the fool that he is. Nobody wants to get involved when Iran is fighting back against US aggression. The world would get a lot more interested in doing so if it were just conducting unprovoked, unilateral piracy in the straight. Withdrawal is a viable option for everyone but the man who star…

It’s really wild how thin his skin is and how the gop just allows every bit of it.

Re: US to deploy additional troops to the Middle East, officials say

#29

Post by Bender »

colonCapitalDee wrote: post #13
Theodores wrote: post #9

What I don't understand is that the talk on this concerns marines going through the Strait of Hormuz to then annex the Iranian terminals on Kharg Island. Now, I know marines are kind of into doing water things, but the USA owns the GCC countries, and I think Iraq was conquered a little while ago. So why can't a different route be taken? Can't they just drive across the desert from the country known as Israel? Or from…

They're probably going to do an aerial insertion via helicopter (Ospreys technically), which doesn't require transiting Hormuz. These big amphibious assault ships are built for both maritime and aerial insertions.

They've very recently also been practicing static line drops at 800 feet.

Re: US to deploy additional troops to the Middle East, officials say

#30

Post by recursivecaveat »

So he's going deploy ground troops to occupy Kharg island so he can stop the flow of oil through there. At the same time he's lifting sanctions on 140M barrels of Iranian oil on tankers. So uhhhh which is it? Do we want Iran to sell oil or not? The only constancy seems to be a desire to dig deeper into the hole.
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