As President Donald Trump warns Iran against using mines to threaten oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. Navy’s purpose-built minesweepers are sitting stateside thousands of miles away with no plans to put them to use while the war rages on. As gas prices in the U.S. continued to skyrocket, Trump on Tuesday took to Truth Social to demand that Tehran “immediately” remove any mines placed in the vital seaway and to do so “forthwith” lest the Iranian military suffer “consequences … at a level never seen before.” That warning came after multiple news outlets reported Iran had begun mining the strait, a narrow waterway that is the only passage from the Persian Gulf into open ocean. He also threatened to use drone strikes to “permanently eliminate any boat or ship attempting to mine the Hormuz Strait” and boasted of having done so against 10 Iranian “inactive mine-laying boats” in a separate post several minutes later.
This guy is always stepping on rakes. Every decision he makes is stupid, choosing the wrong course consistently. It’s remarkable
The goal is to put the US in disarray so that he can declare it’s too dangerous to have elections this November.
Not going to happen.
We held elections during the War of 1812, the Civil War and WW2.
Operation Epstein Fury isn’t shit compared to those.
Yeah, and we’ve had peaceful transfers of power up until this one fucking guy…
You think it’s a mistake? This was done on purpose. Trump may be stupid, but the people pulling the strings aren’t.
They’re trying to prime WW3
Just to get Supply-Side Jayzuz to show up.
I can hear this.
SMACK eugheugheugheugh
Apropos, Bob’s a Republican, too!
Of course he is, his primary character arc is him stalking a child.
That’s what happens when you assume you’re always smarter than those so-called “experts”. You just take whatever they say is a good idea, and do the opposite. Works every time.
Unless he’s working for our enemies.
And whatever he does always somehow ends up helping Russia.
They were struggling with gas prices being low and sanctions.
Now he removed sanctions and blocked any other source of oil.
The problem is that he is so incompetent that Occam’s Razor dictates that’s most likely the reason. Watching legacy news is like gaslighting yourself because they hold so much water for him and paint him as an idiot savant. He spits out a bunch of random BS and they imbue it with meaning.
That last line made me think of this scene from Silicon Valley
https://youtu.be/i92Ws7qPTRg
Occam‘s razor: misinterpreted to provide plausible deniability for criminals since 1547.
I’m not saying he’s a Russian asset, but he certainly tends to act like one would act if one were a Russian asset.
Funny how him “being an idiot” and it “just being his incompetence” is also about the only way he can get off scot free after having done what he has done. Every other possibility can be prosecuted, except the ones where people argue he didn’t have intent.
When in doubt, just take the Mussolini route.
I mean yes it raises gas prices which will help Russia on the one hand but for their war in Ukraine that may not be as big a help as having Iran still standing and putting political pressure on NATO assets as well as being a weapons manufacturing hub that Ukraine couldn’t easily infiltrate and bomb.
Russia is already producing Shahed drones themselves.
While they may produce most of the components for the drones Iran probably kept some production parts homegrown to ensure Russia pays their licensing fees. That doesn’t mean Russia can’t make their entirely homegrown production line from beginning to end but that would take time when most of the production line was set up on Iran and they could purchase those components for their production run. Even if that isn’t a factor in a shooting war you probably want the maximum production of weapons needed to continue shooting.
I think assuming they operate their economy like the US does has a high probability of leading to committing grave errors
I’m not saying they do, but to assume that Iran transferred all data on how to produce a Shahed drone without some kind of ensurance that they will keep getting paid out in some form and not just forgotten the moment being friends with Iran is inconvenient for Russia is a graver error to commit. They may not be being paid in money but before this current bombing campaign I’m sure Russia was transferring the minimum they could get away with to Iran without hampering their own technologly transfer for the drones. All dictatorial governments (call them small coalition governments for more accuracy for this discussion as all brands of autocracy have their own rules but rely on a small group of people to run the government with loyalty to the ruler being paramount) have a corruption issue, be it Russia with their crony Oligarchy or Iran who has a specific group of people who handle the money for the country and can never be legally prosecuted for money disappearing from the government coffers. If we can know for sure that both of those governments have corruption issues we can also surmise that pocketing as much money as they can is going to be a part of their governments standard operating procedure and to avoid being robbed if they have a licensing agreement they will have physical impedements to avoid the licensing infringement, and they are not the only people to do this the F-35 for all exports except for 1 have a similar scheme in place.
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that Trump wants this blockade and war to end. If that were the case, why would he have started it? The fact that we are stuck here is entirely the point. Do you REALLY think its an accident that the fourth largest producer of oil in the world accidentally started a war that simultaneously raised the price of oil AND blockaded the top three oil producers on earth?
Immediately after directing a military incursion toppling the leadership in Venezuela; which sits on massive oil reserves which coincidentally, are of the variety American oil companies are equipped to refine.