Perhaps the US Navy under the direction of Trump and Hegseth is so feeble and incompetent that it doesn’t have the capability to deal with armed speedboats? That is what my phone keeps telling me. Under “capable” Democrat leadership, I am assured that obstacles like speedboats would be brushed aside like gnats. But for now, it seems that Iranian speedboats are the masters of the seas, with the entire world’s economy at their mercy.

That is definitely not true and to be honest I’m not even sure where you are seeing it on your phone. Truth be told even given the poor findings of many search engines on my phone it has been accurate enough in detailing loss reports. At present the Mullahcracy is having a negative exchange rate, trading more speedboats than it has inflicted individual crew casualties. To say that is not sustainable jn the long run and probably not even in the intermediate run is an understatement. They really have fallen off in comparison to the Tanker War of the 1980s.

And we can also remember that legacy media is never, ever going to give us anything like the full picture if it would in any way benefit Trump.

I’d rather not use the coarse but short and descriptive term, but legacy media nowadays can only do two things: regurgitate information supplied to them by the people they choose to amplify, and quote each other. They cannot collect their own facts any more. They do not want any facts about how the war is going and they will peddle as much FUD as they can spin out of their fundaments.

— Niketas Choniates

This^^.

We simply don’t know, in any reliable detail, what’s going on in the Middle East. We get bits and pieces filtered through various agendas. Trump and Co. will be gauging everything for how it helps their war effort, and the right-wing media will mostly echo them. The mainstream press will filter everything they can get through ‘how does this harm Trump and weaken America?’ and they’ll echo each other.

Is Iran winning? Probably not. Their government is in tatters. Are they defeated? Probably not, at least not totally. Everybody involved is mostly making this up as they go along.

Perhaps the US Navy under the direction of Trump and Hegseth is so feeble and incompetent that it doesn’t have the capability to deal with armed speedboats? That is what my phone keeps telling me. Under “capable” Democrat leadership, I am assured that obstacles like speedboats would be brushed aside like gnats. But for now, it seems that Iranian speedboats are the masters of the seas, with the entire world’s economy at their mercy.

Trump’s aim is the end of Iran’s nuclear program. This is stated, & clear. The Dems claiming Trump doesn’t know what he wants are willfully ignoring this, or deliberately lying.

Neo is certainly correct that Trump doesn’t want the Iranians to know what he’ll do, which does make testing actions against public plans a bit unfalsifiable.

Most human rights supporters want regime change, so there is some disappointment that Trump is claiming, or acting, as if that’s the goal, despite Trump claiming it’s desirable.

If regime change happens, it likely won’t be mostly US boots on the Iranian mainland. It will be Persians rising up, and Kurds & Azeris & others, against the IRGC. Which falls with the least bloodshed when most of the Army and a lot of the IRGC fighters go With the people, mostly unarmed, rather than against them.

Or maybe UAE & other Sunni Arabs come to liberate Iran from the Shia tyrants. Or maybe Mossad is distributing arms & starlink connections & organizing a resistance that will, soon? (Or later?), with or in parallel to the Shah Prince’s call for active rebellion. The IRGC is trying to stop starlink use, with executions of users.

Trump is opportunistic, but opportunities that are publicized in advance allow the other side to take action to stop them. Like starlink distribution.

So I’m more interested in actual news, Trump letters & actions & Iran actions, over speculations, which are more fun. And I like fun, too. It’s a bit of fun to hate the mullahs.

As Neo wrote, wars are unpredictable.

No visible connection to Project Freedom, or pausing that.

“Navy needed some additional time to fine tune it’s shield protecting commercial tankers they will assume responsibility for exiting the Gulf”

Well, that’s disconcerting a thought. If the Navy wasn’t ready they should have said so before kicking off. Again, incoherence.