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If you’re gonna use AI, at least remove the Em-Dashes 😂 Have the robots taken over the old guy accounts?

I bet if you ask Obama, he would probably say he intended to accomplish the same goal by using money. How or where it comes from doesn't make this time different. It didn't work last time, I bet it won't work this time.

A recommended a slight change to the deal since some in Iran want to fuck around some more. Subtract our expenses so far from the $20B.

The biggest contributor to that is our total force size. For the guys that weren't born yet: during Desert Storm we had at least one ANG fighter unit in just about every state. In the subsequent no-fly zone patrols, guard units did 30 day deployments and the part timers swapped out half way through. Our CAF is a little over 1/3 the size it was then. Now most ANG units that aren't on the coasts can't even train with other squadrons on a normal basis because they're too far apart for normal training.

As someone with a TS (who retired 6 years ago) and used to have some fun upper clearances: open source usually had around 80% of what we had total Intel for. I do not buy the Intel is completely different from open source game. Also strait is closed again 😅

Despite the sniping from the trolls I think there’s a difference between writing a check and unlocking leverage—and too many people are blurring that line when it comes to Iran. In 2016, the Barack Obama administration transferred roughly $1.7B to Iran. That wasn’t foreign aid—it was the settlement of a decades-old legal dispute over pre-1979 funds, including $400M that was literally delivered in cash because sanctions had cut Iran off from the global banking system. It looked bad. Optically, strategically it handed the regime a win with minimal immediate pressure tied to behavior. What’s being discussed now is fundamentally different. We’re not talking about pallets of cash showing up overnight. We’re talking about controlled, conditional access to Iranian funds—money that is already theirs, but frozen—and releasing it in phases tied to compliance, outcomes, and leverage. That distinction matters. I am not in favor of flooding Iran with cash they can redirect to proxy groups or destabilizing activities. That’s reckless. Economic power isn’t just about denial, it’s about calibration. If you only ever tighten the vise, eventually you lose the ability to trade relief for behavior. And then your only remaining tools are escalation or stalemate. The goal isn’t to “help Iran.” The goal is to shape outcomes in a way that serves U.S. interests and regional stability.

I made a comment about giving Iran money last time in relation to our letting them sell their sanctiined oil this time. I'm still against both of those actions At face value, I'm completely against allowing them access to $20 billion in frozen assets. However, if they agree to allow the IAEA come in and remove all of their nuclear material, and oversee the dismantling of their nuclear program, I think there's a case to be made for allowing them access to some or all of these funds. The release of funds wouldn't start until those actions occurred, and would be spread out over a period of say 10 years upon continued IAEA inspection access and "good behavior". I unfortunately doubt this will happen.

Sure, it’s MCO. The fact is we’ve been so used to GWOT-level risk for 30+ years, so MCO-level risk to infrastructure/our mil assets seems insane. The thing is we’ve actually done incredibly well and the impact has been extremely limited when looked at through an MCO lens. For sure. Lots of people, in addition to the Ford, have spent 10+ months deployed over the last year and change. I have some real problems with force apportionment at the operational level for both AD and Guard.

interesting change of tune here 🍿

That was a problem in the Desert Storm. We, gunships, were chopped to the conventional savages.

They have to have some money to feed the populace. If (and that's a big IF right now), we get the nuclear material that is IMHO a huge win. Navy = gone, AF = Gone, ability in the near-term to produce TBM's = gone, nuclear material = gone...in the aggregate it is a big win. Potentially a harder line government in place is not good, but it is not over yet. BTW - Oil is dropping like a rock. Time will tell.

A trinket to help them recover from the nearly $300B dollar loss they've suffered over the last 6 weeks of fighting? Not an attempt to buy them off. Encouragement to adhere to the dollar system? Who knows. Now, I'm not fully on board with handing them cash at this juncture, but it's a far cry from allowing them to hold us ransom while they thumb their nose at the previous "deal." Anyway. I get the gimmick being employed: point at something that looks the same (money going to Iran). Call it the same. Declare hypocrisy. Proceed to mock. Shallow, but fun I guess?

Too early to tell. IF money is transferred/released and if those figures are accurate, than it's not as bad as last time as last time was $50 billion. Still not good though. Also, they will likely need to spend a fair amount of that rebuilding all the stuff we blew up. Not trying to make it sound like it's good because it's not. But, in the big picture, it isn't as bad as last time. Hopefully the release of those funds would be contingent on the transfer of the uranium. If that were the case, that would be far better.

There are literally 30 different stories floating out there on every main sticking point of this war closing out. Strait is open/Strait is closed Money unfrozen/No money involved Peace in Middle East/No peace Take your pick right now.

Why did the Afghan take his sheep towards the edge of the cliff? So they would push back harder.

Wasn't there some here that objected to Obama giving Iran money and how that didn't solve anything? Any of those care to opine on this? Same? Different? Nany Nany boo boo?

Stock market - up (after the war tanked it) Oil - down (after the war spiked it) Straight - open (after the war closed it) The Dow, oil prices, and commerce in the straight were all humming along just fine before we started this boondoggle and now that we trashed all three and have begun to unf—-k the situation I’m supposed to admit some big win happened? We are slowly progressing to get back to square one. The mullahs and IRGC still run Iran. They still have nuclear material. They still have ballistic missiles that can hold our bases in the region at risk. Now we’re lifting sanctions on Iran to get a fragile ceasefire and commitments that they won’t develop a nuke—which is exactly what the JCPOA was the whole time…

This is why I will no longer engage with you guys... It is conservatively estimated that 17% of all US. deaths in Iraq were directly tied to Iran. Since this regime took power THOUSANDS of Americans have died thanks to their sponsorship of terror around the world. JCPOA did NOTHING to stop that, in fact, Obama made $1.7B in cash payments to Iran..I am sure they used it to build schools and education systems for women and homosexuals.

The irony of you ignoring the signals all around you to pin this on...me? Is not lost. I can only imagine the tune you'd be singing if the stock market was crashing, if shipping was still halted, and if oil were approaching $200. But you can't point to any of those things, so you make up some thing in your head that "I" speak for the world? LOL, no. I'm just looking at the signals the world is sending. Every one this morning is positive (for us). Merely pointing out that you're (still) ignoring them. Leaving that aside, you claim to know things that are unknowable. Iran has had an internet blackout for the entire conflict, yet you state that they're more aligned with the regime than ever? M'kay. But whatever. You're impermeable to facts and unable to even observe, it seems. Your mind is made up, and that's fine. I just don't understand the point of coming on here and attempting to argue a position without bringing any facts, novel interpretations, or even re-interpretations of things that other posters may say, but which you disagree with because <reasons>. You've got none of that. You're not arguing, you're just trolling.

Are you suggesting that Iran has basically been unaffected by this war? Where do they make the drones? What about the ballistic missiles? How do they enrich uranium? Is a regime defined by the name, or by the leadership? Which leaders are "intact?" What is Iran's control of the Straits currently accomplishing for them? Would you say that Iran (the Islamo-fascist regime, not the abstract country) is going to be better off, the same, or worse off in 10-20 years as a result of this war? Will they represent more or less of a regional threat? And where is your claim about the population support coming from? I asked this before (with no answer), but why is Iran blocking the Internet still if the population is rallying behind them? You just say things, eh?

😂 my mistake I didn’t realize you speak for.. the world

Well I know we already disagree about this war but to your broader point I would argue our tolerance for casualties is right where it should be.. in inverse proportion to how stupid the conflict is and the amount of lies used to sell it.

Collectively, the world thinks we're winning.

Yeah I was surprised by it a bit, by their opinions. This thread has gone thru many orbits, we brought up the idea of two light attack, one SOF oriented and one conventional ops oriented before. I think the powers that be (fighter mafia) would probably get more comfortable with a non traditional light(er) platform that had a passing resemblance to what they know/love, namely a manned jet. In their defense, who doesn’t? My druthers, based on what we’ve seen in Ukraine, Red Sea and now Iran, a light crewed expeditionary platform, designed for delivering relevant effects efficiently and in control of unmanned assets (directly controlled all the way to authorized autonomous ops, surface and air assets) to cover large areas, numerous attack vectors and saturation waves is needed and would be accepted by the AF. That is important, they have to see themselves flying it and it as worthy of the AF. I remember a show on the -117 Nighthawk, an engineer was relaying a little funny anecdote about the jet being painted black vs a light pastel color that would have been more effective as a visual camouflage, he told the GOs this and they replied “Real men don’t fly funny looking pastel colored aircraft.” So it got the dark black paint job, looks cool and clandestine and the rest is history… Cheap enough to buy in mass, cheap enough to fly a lot, cheap to maintain and designed from the get go to work with and against unmanned vehicles / drones. Range, ACE and enough performance to defend itself.

the 20MM rounds are "supposed to self-destruct but not all function correctly. Regardless, you would be raining metal on residential areas. So many layers to this and obviously not the forum to discuss in detail. Their success was not as much associated with low inventory of interceptors as it was commander decisions to park aircraft in the way they did, the Chinese entering the fight and providing high quality, near real-time decision intel and a lot of luck. With regard to the exchange ratio, that is more associated with UAS attack vectors not TBMs. That being said, there is work being done on that front as well. The bigger issue is the American way of war, we are VERY averse to casualties and grown more sensitive through the years. On September 17, 1862 23,000 Americans died in 12 hours of fighting at the Battle of Antietam. On September 26, 1918 2,300 Americans died in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. On October 24, 1944 2,600 were killed during fighting in World War II On November 27 – December 4, 1950 6,000 Americans were killed in Korea On January 32, 1968 246 Americans died fighting in Vietnam During combat operations in Operation Desert Storm 148 Americans died Since Feb. 28, 13 U.S. service members have been killed in the Iran War, 6 of those in a KC-135 during an accident during a support mission. Our news cycle is so accelerated and our loss tolerance is low we miss the bigger strategic picture. Over 13,000 DMPIs struck, Iran's Navy is gone, Iran's Air Force is gone, they are forced down to local tactical fighting using IR weapons which are still deadly but have a much smaller impact.