Well now that we have the text of the MOU and know that it’s garbage, the obvious follow up question to ask is.. why?

Why, if Iran was backed into a corner and we had all the leverage, did we just sign an agreement that so heavily favors Iran?

A few possible explanations:

1. Our position of leverage was greatly overblown by cheerleaders of this war

2. We are in a position of leverage and our negotiators are just straight up retarded

3. We’re using the MOU as a cover for more surprise attacks

4. We’re taking a temporary L to preserve the midterms and then gonna get down to business for real after that

5. Trump just wants out of this completely and will accept any terms necessary to do so

I think it’s a combo of #1 and #5 but would be happy to discuss. At the very least I think this MOU should give pause to anyone who was previously glazing our strategic positioning in this war. Pretty unusual to totally wreck somebody and then sign a deal capitulating to their terms..

Edited Monday at 06:55 PM2 days by Pooter

100% not #1. But, 4 and 5 are the most likely cases. 2 is possible, but I think 4/5 are significantly more plausible/likely accurate. On 5, all of us said the proposed timeline was absolutely undoable; the objectives are sound and achievable, but not on the initial timeline. Trump bought the timeline sales pitch, and now I think he wants out, primarily due to the midterms. Because that’s what the US does in modern history - make war-related choices based on politics, which is asinine.

Edited Monday at 07:18 PM2 days by brabus

Trump also said he doesn’t care about the midterms.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5897526-trump-paxton-texas-victory-midterms/

32 minutes ago, Sua Sponte said:

Trump also said he doesn’t care about the midterms.

(as in calling bullshit on his statement that he doesn’t care)

1 hour ago, Pooter said:

Well now that we have the text of the MOU and know that it’s garbage, the obvious follow up question to ask is.. why?

Why, if Iran was backed into a corner and we had all the leverage, did we just sign an agreement that so heavily favors Iran?

A few possible explanations:

1. Our position of leverage was greatly overblown by cheerleaders of this war

2. We are in a position of leverage and our negotiators are just straight up retarded

3. We’re using the MOU as a cover for more surprise attacks

4. We’re taking a temporary L to preserve the midterms and then gonna get down to business for real after that

5. Trump just wants out of this completely and will accept any terms necessary to do so

I think it’s a combo of #1 and #5 but would be happy to discuss. At the very least I think this MOU should give pause to anyone who was previously glazing our strategic positioning in this war. Pretty unusual to totally wreck somebody and then sign a deal capitulating to their terms..

Well given that all the TDS experts on here have gone completely quiet on here since the MOU and the VP just confirmed we've lifted sanctions on Iran effective today in return for literally nothing it's certainly a combo 1, 2, and 5.

1 hour ago, brabus said:

……. Because that’s what the US does in modern history - make war-related choices based on politics, which is asinine.

Sadly this is so true. Even lame duckers refuse to make the long term correct decision and just compromise for short term approval. And, we as citizens overwhelmingly respond to the shiny and glittery (hollow) instead of the substantive and enduring. Both sides of the aisle give us what we (the masses) demand instead of what would benefit us long term.

3 hours ago, brabus said:

100% not #1. But, 4 and 5 are the most likely cases. 2 is possible, but I think 4/5 are significantly more plausible/likely accurate. On 5, all of us said the proposed timeline was absolutely undoable; the objectives are sound and achievable, but not on the initial timeline. Trump bought the timeline sales pitch, and now I think he wants out, primarily due to the midterms. Because that’s what the US does in modern history - make war-related choices based on politics, which is asinine.

Shack. 4 definitely, 5 maybe, and 2 exacerbating the whole thing.

I think its more likely that Israel convinced Trump and his Tards that this was imminently necessary right now, but maybe someone untarded enough eventually figured out that its not quite the case. And the following edits to the list items I think are likely

1. Our position of leverage was greatly overblown by Tards, or more likely, the Tards didn't have a full plan, were way out of their depth, didn't understand the adversary, and thought they could mean tweet their way to victory.

4. We’re taking a full-time, big ol fat fucking LOSS because the Tards think it will preserve the midterms, and then they'll just forget this whole Iran thing after that.

4 hours ago, brabus said:

(as in calling bullshit on his statement that he doesn’t care)

He literally said he didn't care about the midterms in that video.

22 minutes ago, Sua Sponte said:

He literally said he didn't care about the midterms in that video.

Read, boy. Read!

Over/under hegseth makes it to the mid terms?

1 hour ago, Sua Sponte said:

He literally said he didn't care about the midterms in that video.

Yeah I know, and I’m saying he’s full of shit (he does care about the midterms). We’re in agreement.

Yahoo News

The Latest: Pentagon asks Congress for roughly $80 billio...

The Pentagon has told senators it needs roughly $80 billion, mostly to cover the cost of the U.S. war against Iran, adding to an already sizable military spending boost sought by President Donald Trum

Of course

I so hope it's 4. (Get down to business after the mid-terms) Our politicians are largely oblivious to the fact that their negative comments are watched closely by the IRGC and like many of our conflicts since 1945 our wars are not lost on the battlefield but in the court of public opinion. Iranian oil refining/transportation infrastructure needs to start having a run of industrial accidents especially after the first week in November.

The morality of the general public, whether correct or incorrect, is going to prevent us from bringing the firepower needed for Iran to capitulate if this kicks off again. The administration vastly under-estimated the effort needed to succeed.

We are world champs at converting tactical success into strategic loss.

14 hours ago, frog said:

The morality of the general public, whether correct or incorrect, is going to prevent us from bringing the firepower needed for Iran to capitulate if this kicks off again. The administration vastly under-estimated the effort needed to succeed.

We are world champs at converting tactical success into strategic loss.

Short of a dropping nukes or a full ground invasion, I think this conflict has proven we don’t have the firepower needed for Iran to capitulate. It’s not about what the public will or won’t support, because we already proved we’ll go ahead and launch a super unpopular war. I’m talking about the real world limits of our military power.

This might be a tough pill to swallow but we had 3x the fighter squadrons we do now when we took down the far smaller country of Iraq in 1990. And in desert storm, airpower was paired with a ground invasion. The notion that we can ramp up to some previously unseen level of air power just isn’t reality. Almost the entire tanker community is deployed already and run ragged with crew rest waivers. We redirected more carriers to the region than at any point in the last 30 years and one of the CSG’s retasked for this thing just completed the longest carrier deployment since WW2.

Idk if you guys follow the meme pages but one of the running jokes right now is that big blue basically took the entire AFFORGEN model and threw it in the trash when this kicked off. They just said fuck it and deployed everybody. Now folks are tired and ready to be done with it. There’s no world where we turn this back up to early March levels of strikes, let alone exceed that intensity.

We shot our shot, and it didn’t work. And now we’re taking a crap deal to get out of a crap situation. I think this is a super valuable lesson to learn after Venezuela folding like an house of cards got us high on our own supply. If we’re serious about deterring China we need to learn the actual lesson here: we aren’t all powerful anymore. If you want to sustain operations against a determined opponent, you need volume, and a deep bench. We’ve become insanely good at lighting people up night 1 with all the shiniest most expensive toys. But we’ve become terrible at sustaining that pressure over time.

The country that gets to AGI first, wins the military game.

54 minutes ago, Sua Sponte said:

The country that gets to AGI first, wins the military game.

Maybe I’m old fashioned or just naive on the wonders of AI, but the side getting strategic wins here is the one with the massive TBM stockpile and control over a critical global trade route, while the side with all the fancy AI tools is getting humiliated on the global stage.

Although.. a slightly smarter version of grok could’ve advised us this war of choice was a shit idea to begin with, in which case I’m all for embracing our robot overlords