If Washington’s participation in Israel’s June 2025 war with Iran elevated U.S. military force to a perfectly viable instrument of the United States’ Iran policy, the success of current talks would signal the formal undoing of that logic. But should the failure of talks pave the way for another full-scale war, the United States and Israel will be fighting an Iran vastly different from June. For the Iran of today appears to have made its peace with the grim conclusion that while a decisive slog with Israel and the United States is sure to be agonizing, it is preferable to the recurring attrition of repeated wars and a chronic strategic vulnerability that only emboldens adversaries to target Iran and its regional allies.
Iran already did in the 12 day war with Israel? What? Are you kidding? Air defense missile production capacity in the west was shown to be completely incapable of sustaining a complete blanket defense against a barrage of Iranian missiles and it has been a discussion since about how to address that. The air defenses work, clearly, but they run out quick.
In order to continue challenging air defenses, there has to be someplace left to launch an air attack from. And since Iran has nothing to stop US air attacks, that becomes an issue long before US air defense runs out.
Where is your evidence that will happen? Especially in the geography in which this conflict will occur?
I think the precise opposite has been demonstrated.
The entire concept of extremely long range missile trucks is the ability to fully exploit interior expanses as launch points for offensive strikes.
Who cares if you learn the location of a missile launch if the vehicle is already moving and chose an irrelevant place in the near backline to fire from?
The entire concept of long range missile launch from mobile trucks like this is the idea of mobility as an fully organic individualized capability… a problem air power is least equipped to neutralize since the targets are maximally decentralized in a spatial sense and in motion.
The US is showing up with 4 times as many cruise missiles as Iran has total launch systems, on day one. The US has a working supply chain to bring more. Iran won’t have a supply chain from anywhere, and construction won’t be an option without materials, which would also be targeted.
Iran has no chance of standing up to the US military, that’s never really been a question. The only thing they can, and probably will do, is cause some losses to the Navy and any land troops. Unlike Iraq or Afghanistan, the US will take serious casualties if it goes into Iran. That won’t be enough to stop the invasion, or really even slow it down. Internal politics would be a far more likely reason to stop any open invasion.
No, if Iran does a serious amount of damage to the US it is going to have MASSIVE blowback in the US. It might not immediately translate into the US backing off but the idea that Trump will pay no political cost in real terms if Iran does serious damage to the US military I just don’t think holds up.
Long term I think it will just make the rightwing even more war obsessed but that is independent of a direct tactical transaction going on here in political power. If Iran hits the US hard during the attack Trump will look worse and it will cost him and his allies materially.
In the US War Cycle we are at the Brenschluss, the point where fascists completely take over the war machine from the remnants of a decayed irrelevant professional/elite class and the centrist/establishment warhawks are temporarily all onboard just before the first massive catastrophe utterly destroys the coalition’s image of power and once again we fall subject to gravity, same as everyone else.