Iran War: wanting the Promised Land without the Wilderness
Some Iran news:
Vance and company have arrived in Pakistan for the talks, Trump announces we will be mine-clearing in the Strait of Hormuz, and Fox reports that an Israeli intelligence office says that the IRGC is currently in control of the Strait (no surprise there) and is charging tolls. I’ve read a lot of conflicting reportage on that last point.
I’ve also seen many reports – here’s one – that China plans to give Iran new air defense systems during the ceasefire. This is according to “sources with knowledge of US intelligence.” That’s not even sources within US intelligence; just “with knowledge of” (let me guess: a Democrat in Congress?). No way to tell if it’s true or false, but it’s certainly plausible, and Chinese denials are meaningless. But I assume that if it does happen, we and/or the Israelis will be getting intelligence on that.
And two US Navy destroyers have reportedly already passed through the Strait without incident, while Iran supposedly forgot where they put the mines in the first place.
Meanwhile, indeed:
The main takeaway from the Iran war is that American domestic politics is the greatest impediment to US military success. Our military put on a clinic but American constituencies have done everything possible to prevent a win. China is smiling watching America’s pundit imbeciles.
— Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) April 11, 2026
Also this, in which Bill Maher has apparently expressed the “we lost!” point of view, and Douglas Murray responds:
Douglas Murray just shattered the “failure” narrative with receipts after Bill Maher declared the Iran operation a disaster and called for the U.S. to “cut and run!”
MAHER: “We did it and it didn’t work.”
“Now what? Do we cut and run or do we stay the course?”
“I hope Donald… pic.twitter.com/uZZgRdX19l
— Overton (@overton_news) April 11, 2026
I came across this video last night, which I recommend. You don’t have to watch the whole thing, but it’s well worth watching because it explores this widespread impatience that makes it nearly impossible to carry out any effective major military campaign that lasts more than a couple of days. I got the title of this post from an analogy he makes to the Biblical Exodus tale:
It was Dick Motta, Washington Bullets coach who delivered “It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings”, bless his forgotten heart.
I think the IRGC has blinked, letting two– 2! — US destroyers pass thru Hormuz. Crews on those ships were brave and well-equipped, defensively better equipped than we can realize.
The Muzzies have figured out, “Hey! We can make money!” by charging each ship except US and Israeli ships a toll, reportedly $1mill, to transit.
It is also alleged the IRGC has identified locations of the mines to the commercial vessels, and, oddly, there’s a report the mines are being removed by them.
CICERO:
So many different reports,including denials of the toll reports. Very hard to tell what’s actually true.
Neo-
As is all too often the case.
“letting two”, bless their hearts. What it looks like is that the US is going to clear channels that avoid Iranian control, and there isn’t much Iran can do about it. Hezbollah is going to be ruined, the Houthis have been mostly quiet, the Iraqi Shia militias are out of favor even in Iraq, and the Arabs are united against Iran. I would count this as a big time loss that will become more apparent as time passes. There are also rumors of new pipelines being planned.
Oh, and the two destroyers turned on AIS so they could be tracked.They didn’t sneak around, they announced their presence.
Whatever the IRGC big shots say, the guys on the sharp end, launching whichever munition, know they’re dead men. Maybe the promised reward looked better when things were quiet and you could always kidnap a young woman for fun, didn’t have to die for that first.
VP Vance reports:
https://x.com/i/status/2043141775263461717
See link for short video with Vance’s statement. Sounds like the US delegation is returning to Washington to await events.
Wilderness?
Um, right…
“Iran Appointed to UN Program for Women’s Rights, Disarmament, and Terrorism Prevention”—
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2026/04/11/iran-appointed-to-un-program-for-womens-rights-disarmament-and-terrorism-prevention/
Were I advising National Command Authority, I’d have a plan to mine the “toll booth” and the approaches to Bandar Abbas the instant the ceasefire breaks.
Well, the Marines should be in place in the Strait by this time.
Thomas Friedman shows once again how much of a serious thinker (and moral arbiter) he is…
(He didn’t have to, mind you, but he thought we must have needed reminding…)
Jon,
POTUS was listening. Naval blockade on SOH in effect until further notice.
Yes, it looks like Vance et al left by giving Iran one final offer that has not been detailed and now awaiting a response.
This morning I found this NYT article. I don’t really care about the article. What struck me was the picture at the top of Tehran supposedly taken last Sunday. It doesn’t really look like a city in the midst of a losing war does it? If it’s not a fake from many years ago claiming to be recent, then “Bridges and Power Plants day should come very soon. Also if real, I can see why the leaders of Iran are holding firm. That city doesn’t closely resemble London or Berlin in 1945.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/11/us/politics/china-iran-war-missiles-supplies.html?unlocked_article_code=1.aFA.ip3N.3tZkywiNcpmk&smid=url-share
Oops. The link to the above Tom Friedman show:
“‘Strengthens Trump and Bibi’—Thomas Friedman’s Iran dilemma;
“NYT columnist says that while he supports the downfall of the Iranian regime, he would not want to see it politically strengthen the leaders of the US and Israel, who he called ‘terrible, terrible people.'”—
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/425357
@physicsguy
We didn’t attack civilian infrastructure, you could see traffic and city lights even as the weapons storage sites went up in smoke. If you are thinking WWII with blackouts and bombs falling all over the cities, you have the wrong picture. What we, and the Israelis, hit was selected infrastructure. If the hot war starts up again, bridges, power distribution, and maybe refineries will be hit. That will turn out the lights, but not permanently. The next step would be destruction of the power plants. None of those will leave Tehran looking like Hamburg after the fire storm. That is why I say it might take a while for the IRGC to realize how hard they have been hit. The currency collapsing won’t take down any buildings, but it will take down the economy.
Headline Israel News7: Trump announces a naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz
The U.S. president ordered the American Navy to block all vessels in the strait and seize ships that paid “protection money” to Iran. “The Iranians are carrying out global extortion.”
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/425365
John Spencer:
https://x.com/i/status/2043323185815306666
See link for a screen-cap of Trump’s Truthpost.
I didn’t know how blinkered friedman was until I read battle for the minds, which I have mentioned before, the author a former israeli stringer for the Times, eviscerated the whole host of so called cognoscenti, that included paul pillar and co, who are at best ignorant of the underlying realities
he was the mariner in the early part of the lebanon war and he got most of it wrong,
like halberstam did in vietnam, that mark moyar has just started to correct,
Chuck,
I understand all your points about targeting civilian infrastructure, but what also struck me was how the population in the picture seems to be going about their daily life with little or no concern. Just seems incongruous to me.
Impatient. That’s us. I see it in the way we drive (well, not me!). Dangerous lane changes just to get a little bit ahead in the traffic flow. TIS – Terminal Impatience Syndrome.
Impatience will get you killed.
Pingback:Generational Defeat vs Setback: Iran, Russia, Trump Collide
”That city doesn’t closely resemble London or Berlin in 1945.”
Of course not. In World War II only about 30% of the bombs dropped landed within **5 miles** of the target. The other 70% landed further away than that. Thus trying to bomb a single target within a city would naturally destroy most of the city.
By contrast about 90% of JDAMs land within *20 feet* of the target. We can bomb almost a dozen targets within a city and hit nothing but targets. That’s going to have a dramatic effect on both the targets and the rest of the city.
mkent,
See my comment at 959. Ignore the lack of destruction, does the population look like they care about a war going on?
Seems to me physicsguy that it’s possible (only possible, due to the “internet”/communications blackout) that we’re seeing not merely simple unconcern in the Iranian population at large but a manifestation of a positive delight that there’s a war being made (successfully!) on their country, where they genuinely hope to have a liberation come to them at the war’s end. Of course, that liberation won’t come without that same population picking up arms to slaughter their oppressors without mercy when the time comes, many of their own dying in the effort — yet I also believe they fully understand that’s what will be required.
Iran is obdurate, tenacious. Negotiations in Pakistan were fruitless, and are over; Iran controls the Strait, now the US is blockading all traffic into Hormuz. Despite the bombing, Iran seems to have an endless supply of mines, missiles and drones.
Question is whether the oppressed Iranians will tolerate their economic suppression, with much of the country in ruins, and for how long; or whether Trump will cave and leave the dirty, hard work to Israel.
Meanwhile, the US is running out of key ammo, which will take years to restock! Toothless?
There’s nothing like a war to unite a populace with its rulers, no matter how bad that rule has been for it.
Tissue of IRI propagandistic tripe there Cicero. Sad.
Zineb Riboua, NYPost: https://nypost.com/2026/04/11/opinion/a-weakened-iran-is-about-to-be-completely-defeated/
no they don’t they are playing the best of a bad hand,
the khoramshahrs were apparently few and far between,
the strikes have been very precise, at a narrow row of targets,
Blockading the Straight of Hormuz – didn’t someone here recommend that weeks ago?
Endless doesn’t mean what they want you to believe. Imagine that.
We haven’t seen MOABs used yet. IIRG beware, overpressure is a thing.
Surely a coincidence…(!)
“…Iran played its biggest card and the main result is that the United States became the world’s emergency gas station and China’s cheap energy subsidy evaporated….”—
https://instapundit.com/789245/
Meanwhile, PM Starmer seems rather upset about something or other…which I would imagine is a very good thing…
sdferr at1259: please correct that you called “tripe” in my post. I believe I am realistic. There is no prompt fix that will hold, in my view.
They don’t have and endless supply.
From today’s WSJ: “If the U.S. does seek a deal, it will have to find a way to address Iran’s nuclear threat, along with Tehran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, which gives it the ability to squeeze the global economy.”
Seems a reasonable assesssment. I don’t see Iran relinquishing its power position any time soon, regardless of how desperate its internal economy becomes.
By Cicero’s logic Roosia’s endless supply of Shahed-type of slow small drones have already forced Ukraine to surrender because Ukraine could not possibly figure out ways to counter them.
Ding ding ding, we have found Mr. Wobbly!
Ok, it’s a tissue of lies, not tripe, then. How’s that?
The Trump/Hegseth approach to Iran’s control of the situation has been brute force, and it’s been working very well. I doubt Iran, whoever is running it, will control Hormuz much longer.
President Trump has been consistent throughout this.
From the initial negotiations before the conflict began his demands were clear– no nuclear material, no missiles/drones that threaten the region, no funding proxies. Regime change was a bonus.
He’s waging a 2-front war, against Iran it’s proxies aided by Russia and China; and the globalist socialist left and American isolationists/woke right. The military is busy destroying Iran’s ability to terrorize it’s neighbors and the world, while is Trump is accused of “manipulating the markets” trying to maintain global oil prices in a sustainable range. Interesting that trying to keep oil prices low to the benefit of the American/World consumer is somehow a bad thing.
From before the initial military strikes, the President has offered the Islamic Regime an off-ramp. The recent cease fire was just the latest offer to end the destruction. Each time it establishes the fact that it’s the Islamic Regime, not the US that is the impediment to ending the war. The next phase could severely disrupt global oil prices– blockading the Strait.
The President has been clear to Iran. Meet our goals, our “red lines” and the destruction will stop. The President has been clear– he doesn’t relish the death/destruction war brings– but the fanatical Islamic Regime in Iran that seems to revel in their own destruction.
The blockade will force the IRGC to retaliate showing their positions while we finish off their military capability along the coastline. At that point global shipping can resume, while we remove the oil lifeblood that funds the regime.
The question is– how will China react, since their economy will suffer from the blockade.
well we don’t have to level tehran, just take out the nodes, like missile batteries communication towers et al, as I recall from the ‘once and future spy’ there is a technical college in the outskirts of tehran that does nuclear research, the twist in the story, is the op to make it go critical, (‘ill leave that out) i think we did strike them early in the war,
there’s a host of details that seem to have gone by the wayside why was a full bird colonel, flying over khuzistan, did it have to do with the nuclear stockpile, what is the real disposition of the ayatollah in hiding
if the reports about the mines are true, who is still at the top of the IRIN, Nebaja in Farsi, who still has control over it
“there’s a host of details that seem to have gone by the wayside why was a full bird colonel, flying over khuzistan, did it have to do with the nuclear stockpile, what is the real disposition of the ayatollah in hiding” – miguel cervantes
Interesting questions.
So what is actually going to happen tomorrow, according to Fox News tonight, is a blockade of all Iranian ports. No traffic into or out of Iran. Ships not coming from or going to Iranian ports will be permitted to pass through the Strait.
sdferr”: Not good enuf.
“Iran is betting they can hold out longer than the U.S. and the global economy.” says the WSJ, and I agree. The global economy is not a nation, not an entity. It is a shabby construct signifying little.
”Ignore the lack of destruction, does the population look like they care about a war going on?”
OK, I think I know now what you’re asking. It’s a different effect of the same cause. The Iranian people know that the Americans and the Israelis fight with JDAMs, not carpet bombing, so they feel relatively safe being out and about even when American and Israeli planes are flying overhead.
It’s kind of like law-abiding Americans feeling safe going to the airport while ICE patrols inside but would not if the airport were patrolled by Basij militias.
We always look to the WSJ for comprehensive tactical and strategic wisdom in military matters (sarc x 11)
They are part of the MSM, caveat emptor. The news portion being not quite as ludicrous as the NYT or WA Post.
Interesting questions.
Which were answered several days ago. IIRC, it isn’t unusual for a Vice Wing Commander to fly in a combat role. Expected, even.
It is noteworthy how remarkably little talk there has been of civilian casualties in this campaign to date.
And I don’t think I’ve even seen one report of a wedding getting hit with bombs.
There has only been a he girl’s school. They haven’t even tried the ‘austere religious scholar’ spin. They have been remarkably quiet about the Iranian’s killed by the minions o’mullahs. I would expect the left to be screaming how unjust it is that the Americans and Jews have been slaughtering the patriotic defenders of innocent Iran, that it isn’t a ‘fair fight.’
Um, there was this girls’ school, I believe…located near or next to some sort of Iranian military target.
Hit early on with many casualties; but the details are, as far as I know, not altogether clear. (At least not to me.)
An errant Iranian missile?
An errant American bomb?
Pretty safe to say that whatever happened it’s Trump’s fault and/or Israel’s.
Guaranteed, actually!