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The Iran War Is a Whole New Level of Quagmire for the US

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71–75 of 75 posts

Re: The Iran War Is a Whole New Level of Quagmire for the US

#71

It's hard to overstate how poorly this whole thing was thought out and executed. They obviously had no plan for what we'd do when Iran seized the strait. This is going to go down as the definitive beginning of the decline leading to the eventual end of US global hegemony. To think anyone ever mentioned defending Taiwan from China lol

Well, Iran is a huge mess, but in terms of strategic lessons, it actually tips the balance closer to "Taiwan, with US help and proper preparation, can deny China control of the strait of Taiwan" (and vice versa, of course). It's clear that asymmetric warfare is good now at denying access to ocean and turning it into no-man's-zone. In a lot of ways, helping defending Taiwan (a very well-scoped objective, "do not let C…

I see what you're saying. But China wouldn't be just trying to control the strait, they'd presumably be trying to take the island over and willing to commit ground troops. Also I'm not sure if you're aware of the extent of the damage Iran did to US bases on the area but you can count on the same thing happening to any of ours in the region. I just don't see what we'd be able to do other than lob some missiles at them. And we're already low on those too now

Re: The Iran War Is a Whole New Level of Quagmire for the US

#72

It's hard to overstate how poorly this whole thing was thought out and executed. They obviously had no plan for what we'd do when Iran seized the strait. This is going to go down as the definitive beginning of the decline leading to the eventual end of US global hegemony. To think anyone ever mentioned defending Taiwan from China lol

> To think anyone ever mentioned defending Taiwan from China lol There are still countries willing to defend democracy out there - Ukraine/Europe/Canada/Japan/S-Korea/Australia. Just not USA.

Wait what? Ukraine hasn't had elections since 2019. Also do you genuinely believe that the power play in geopolitics is about "spreading democracy" ?

Re: The Iran War Is a Whole New Level of Quagmire for the US

#73

Crazy idea: what if the US starts minding its own business and stops bombing countries just because it can?

Trump ran as an anti war, small budget candidate. His second term has been the most brazen scam.

US foreign policy is dictated by Israel at this point. You thought it was only the middle east part but US has been relocating all weapon systems from the allies all around the world only to protect Israel.

Re: The Iran War Is a Whole New Level of Quagmire for the US

#74
post #42

We have the best quagmires. No one does quagmires like we do. You've never seen a quagmire like an American quagmire. Putin tells me he wishes Russia could do a quagmire as good as this, but they can't. Europe hasn't had a good quagmire in years, they don't even know how to make them anymore. Quagmires like this are only made in America.

From the PoV of our enemies and rivals, perhaps. But in the bigger picture? We're still futzing around at amateur hours. The quagmire of the Roman-Persian Wars lasted almost seven hundred years - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman%E2%80%93Persian_wars

It still says something if you have to go back over a thousand years to find a worse case.

Re: The Iran War Is a Whole New Level of Quagmire for the US

#75
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the PoV of our enemies and rivals, perhaps. But in the bigger picture? We're still futzing around at amateur hours. The quagmire of the Roman-Persian Wars lasted almost seven hundred years - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman%E2%80%93Persian_wars

It still says something if you have to go back over a thousand years to find a worse case.

Rome-Persia is an interesting and arguably worst-case quagmire.

For a mere worse case, a few decades ago is more than enough: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq_War

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