Another quagmire in the Middle East…..

[Yssup Rider]

Originally Posted by Turner2099

I don't think Witkoff was played---I think he is complicit. I think he is exactly where Trump wants him and does what he is told.

I think he was played by Bibi, though I don't disagree with you.

[fd-guy]

Originally Posted by Schwarzer Ritter

So, you're willing to take a chance on some rogue regime getting a nuke.
How many times do we read about killing baby Hitler to save the Jews.
How about killing baby Islamic terror state to save the Jews?
Some of you know that the Jews are first on the list but America is second.

Imminent threat...where's does that begin? When your angry, criminal neighbor talks trash about you?
Or your angry, criminal neighbor kills your dog?
Or your angry, criminal neighbor is threatening your family?
How about when he says he getting his gun?
How about when he returns with his gun which may or may not be loaded?
Do you let him fire the first shot?
Or do you let him wound you so you are now convinced that he is a problem?

The discussion was about whether Iran had an imminent nuclear capability.

The neighbor analogies don’t really address that. They turn a factual question about intelligence and timelines into a hypothetical moral scenario.

Whether something is an “imminent threat” depends on evidence about capability and intent, not on analogies about neighbors with guns.

[fd-guy]

Originally Posted by Lantern2814

Just more insults and whining from the lefties here. It's all they have since they don't understand anything pertaining to reality. Nor do they have any proof of their ridiculous claims. Your support for terrorists is noted. Continue to embarrass yourselves and make yourselves look worse than we ever could.

That’s mostly just insults directed at other members, which is against the forum rules.

If there’s an argument or evidence to present, that would be more useful to the discussion than calling people “lefties” or accusing them of supporting terrorists.

[elghund]

The quagmire continues…….now they are spinning the fact that they have no endgame for this idiotic war.

“As the Middle East tumbles into uncertainty, it’s unclear what the administration’s endgame is, who Iran’s next successor could be or even when the war might end….”

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...table-00812016

elg…

[Lantern2814]

Originally Posted by Yssup Rider

What insults?

Looking through these posts - and the forum at large - it looks like the "ridiculous claims" by the left are backed up with references that aren't from some troll's Twitter account.

Again, the insults are coming from you buddy.

No. Just "backed up" by leftist garbage "media" that has misrepresented everything. And the insults are from you, rooster, and the rest of the lefties here who are all upset that we have a President who doesn't back down and bend over for radical Islamist terrorists. He just removes them.

[lustylad]

The Washington Iran War Pessimists

Rarely have so many seemed so eager to predict American defeat.

By The Editorial Board
March 4, 2026 5:25 pm ET


When the Marines headed toward the beach on the Tarawa atoll in 1943, things didn’t go well. The tide was lower than expected, so the landing craft were hung up on a reef. Marines became easy targets for the Japanese defenders, and hundreds died that day, with more than 3,100 killed or wounded in the four-day battle.

We shudder to think what the reaction would be in Washington if the battle of Tarawa were fought again today. The New York Times wrote after Tarawa in 1943 that “we must steel ourselves now to pay that price” going forward. Today it would be calling for Franklin Roosevelt’s impeachment, as would a parade of outraged right-wing podcasters.

This history seems apt given the remarkable pessimism in the media and political class about the U.S. bombing campaign against the terrorist regime in Iran. Five days into the war, you’d think from the coverage and commentary that the U.S. is losing.

Financial markets are said to be in turmoil, the war is “engulfing” the region and maybe the world, the U.S. is running out of missiles, the war is a gift to Russia, and there’s no plan for how this ends - these are only a few of the dire media themes.

It’s true that war is unpredictable and this one could take bad turns. The six U.S. dead and others wounded are heart-breaking. But judging from the Beltway panic, you’d think America is destined for defeat and deserves it. Rarely have so many seemed so eager to predict American humiliation.

Yet on the evidence so far, the war is going better than expected. Iran’s political and military leaders were killed in the first hour in a remarkable display of intelligence collection and precision bombing. Iran’s missile stocks, its launchers and production are gradually being destroyed. Its navy may soon be reduced to a few fast skiffs, if they dare to leave shore.

Gen. Dan Caine, the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, said Wednesday that “Iran’s theater ballistic missile shots fired are down 86% from the first day of fighting, with a 23% decrease just in the last 24 hours.” Their “one-way attack drones” are down 73% from opening salvos.

The Pentagon says U.S. dominance of the air is so complete that it no longer needs to use as many “standoff” weapons that fire from a distance. Instead it can use more precision-guided gravity bombs that the U.S. has in far greater numbers. Israel and the U.S. are now turning these weapons against the regime’s means of domestic control - the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the paramilitary basij.

As for the markets, the surprise so far is how relatively mild the disruption has been. The prices of oil and gasoline are up, but Brent crude is barely higher than it was amid Operation Midnight Hammer last June. A long-term shutdown of oil and natural gas through the Strait of Hormuz would do greater harm, but President Trump says the U.S. Navy may escort tankers. U.S. equity markets dove at first but have since largely recovered.

All of this looks like progress toward achieving the war aims that President Trump laid out on Saturday. The Iranian nuclear sites and missile and naval forces are being degraded to an extent that it would take years to rebuild them, and U.S. casualties have been light.

Yes, regime elements remain in control, and no one knows whether the Iranian people will be able to rise up and overthrow them. Even if they do, the outcome is impossible to predict. A pro-Western regime might emerge, as could rule by leaders who are part of the current regime but swear off designs to build a bomb, dominate their neighbors, or spread terrorism around the world.

A worse outcome is also possible, such as a long civil war that creates refugees that destabilize some neighbors. Wars always lead to surprises, and Mr. Trump took a risk in choosing to bomb again. We wish he had prepared the country better before the war.

But now that the war is underway, and our troops are in harm’s way, our perhaps old-fashioned view is that we ought to hope for American success, both military and strategic. The world will be safer if there is a better regime in Tehran that isn’t bent on the mission of “death to America.” And maybe, before anticipating or cheering failure, we could wait and see how it goes.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/iran-war...itary-4217dc2c

[lustylad]

The Democrats’ Instant ‘No’

A savvier party would have waited before lashing out against the attack on Iran.

By Barton Swaim
March 4, 2026 5:12 pm ET


On Saturday, Donald Trump became a wartime president. The conflict in Iran will likely dominate his attention from now until he leaves office in 2029. Some of his extracurricular fixations - personal vendettas, online foolery - could get less attention. Whatever the war’s outcome, by authorizing a direct attack on a dangerous regime, Mr. Trump has given his remaining time in office to a president’s highest duty—protecting America’s homeland, military bases and allies from menace.

Liberal commentators and Democrats on the Hill responded to this momentous turn of events in precisely the way they would have responded if Mr. Trump had done the opposite: with imputations of incompetence and foul motives. If the president hadn’t called a massive fighting force to the Persian Gulf and launched an attack, his despisers would have accused him of wasting resources on - fill in the blank - and ignoring the real threat in Tehran.

Democrats, with a few brave exceptions, accuse the administration of proffering a variety of “rationales” for the war, with the implication that it acted in pursuit of some hidden goal. They ignore the possibility that an administration might have more than a single reason for assaulting an enemy.

The Iranian regime’s enduring malignity, together with its people’s demonstrated desire to be free of it, makes the administration’s explanatory duties easier. Anyway, as our experience in Iraq reminds us, it’s possible to overexplain and overplan. What’s more interesting is the Democrats’ instantaneous and intense hostility to the operation.

Their stated reasons are basically three. First, it’s “illegal” and “unconstitutional.” Second, the threat from Iran wasn’t “imminent.” Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, writing for the Journal on Sunday, combined these two: “As a member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees... I can state plainly that there was no imminent threat from Iran to America sufficient to warrant committing our sons and daughters to another war in the Middle East—especially without the congressional debate and vote that the Constitution requires.”

Hooey. If the Constitution requires congressional approval, there’s no “especially” about it. The senator has seen the long list of war-making decisions taken by presidents of both parties in the absence of congressional votes. As for his denial that the threat was “imminent,” I wonder what the word could mean: Iran has attempted to assassinate assorted American dignitaries, including the president. It funds terror groups across the Middle East and slaughtered 30,000 demonstrators a few weeks ago. Its rulers express Nazi-like ambitions of annihilating its enemies, even as they don’t bother to hide a mad hunger for long-range missiles and nuclear technology. For Mr. Kaine, I guess, imminence would mean the ayatollah’s finger poised above a red button labeled LAUNCH.

The third stated reason for opposition, this one invented on the fly, has to do with Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s supposed admission that Israel dragged the U.S. into war. In context, Mr. Rubio was explaining why the launch happened on Saturday, Feb. 28, instead of some other day, not why it happened at all. But parts of the Democratic base will thrill to the claim that Israel made us do it.

Those are the stated reasons for Democratic hostility. The unstated reasons?

The Democrats’ reaction to the attack on Iran arises partly from the pusillanimous urge to avoid all friction with the progressive left. That’s the same urge that led the Biden administration to modify its Mideast policy in deference to the Muslim vote in Michigan, which Kamala Harris lost anyway.

Then there is the experience of Iraq. In 2002, 81 House Democrats and 29 Senate Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, voted to authorize force in Iraq; six years later, Barack Obama defeated Mrs. Clinton and won the presidency on the strength of having opposed the war. Democrats have internalized that lesson.

The differences with the Iraq war are several. The obvious one is the absence of a ground invasion in Iran, but others deserve a mention. Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons in the past, and his need to represent himself as a Middle East bad boy prevented him from proving he didn’t have the weapons anymore. In 2026, the Khamenei regime hasn’t managed to get a deliverable nuclear device, but for years it has advertised its aim to get and use one.

Which takes us back to Mr. Obama. He premised his foreign-policy outlook on the proposition that the George W. Bush administration had everything exactly wrong. This led him to hold Gulf allies and Israel at arm’s length and to embrace Iran. In one of history’s great displays of educated gullibility, legions of foreign-policy experts accepted the belief that Iran’s rulers would learn the benefits of civilian-use nuclear power and join the community of nations. That delusion more than any other prevented U.S. policymakers for more than a decade from acknowledging Iran’s constant, active malevolence.

A savvier opposition than today’s Democrats would have practiced some circumspection in the early days of Epic Fury. Now they’ll benefit only if America fails.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-demo...nt-no-23876a3e

[lustylad]

From the archives... a post I made over 8 years ago, dated Jan. 1, 2018.

"Never Trust a Dem on Matters of War and Peace"

Originally Posted by lustylad

Since we are discussing how dim-retards like flighty keep trying to re-write history to cover up their chronic foreign policy blundering, we might as well remind everyone how the fucking Democrats have gotten it wrong on every important war vote/decision over the past 30 years.

Let's recap the history, shall we?

First, Democrats voted overwhelmingly against the 1990/91 Persian Gulf War. Ooops! That one (Operation Desert Storm) turned out to be a success, liberating Kuwait and making the Dems look stupid and unpatriotic.

To compensate for this mistake, they voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which called for Saddam's ouster and was signed into law by Slick Willy. And when Bush Jr. decided to follow through on this legislation and actually oust Saddam 5 years later, many Dems (including a majority of Senators) voted in favor of the 2003 invasion. Ooops again!

When the Iraq war started to go sour, the Dems naturally wanted to cut and run, as they always do when the going gets tough. So they came out against Bush's 2007 surge in troop levels – just in time to see it succeed in pacifying Iraq. Ooops a third time!

Then soon after Odumbo got elected, they tried to take credit for ushering in a “stable” and “representative” Iraq. Our far-sighted Veep Joe Biden even called it “one of the great accomplishments of this administration” (see post above)... but then they stupidly failed to leave any troops behind to keep it that way. Ooops a fourth time!

So the Democrats have consistently gotten it wrong on Iraq. And they have been wrong in a flip-flopping way that makes it obvious they view our military servicemen and women as cynical pawns whose sacrifices in lives and limbs are secondary to their political ambitions. In a nutshell, Democrats have amply demonstrated they cannot be trusted with the nation's foreign policy or security. They have no guiding principles beyond political expediency and doing what the polls say will help them get elected.

Here is a revealing conversation recounted by former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates in his book "Duty":

“....Hillary told the president that her opposition to the [2007] surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary.... The president conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political. To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.”

[rooster]

Originally Posted by lustylad

From the archives... a post I made over 8 years ago, dated Jan. 1, 2018.

"Never Trust a Dem on Matters of War and Peace"

Good Christ. I can't imagine anyone read it then....

At least that one was your own thoughts though, so kudos for that.

The WSJ OpEds suck, dude. Really. If you're gonna keep posting it, I'm gonna dump on it once in awhile. Sorry. Kinda.

The pompous bombasity of these self-anointed turds....

"We shudder to think what the reaction would be in Washington if the battle of Tarawa were fought again today...."

Jeezis Christ. The histrionics...fuggin melodramatic cucks.

And the mutherfucking gall...comparing WWII to this war of choice.... it's goddam nauseating.

.

[adav8s28]

Originally Posted by rooster

Good Christ. I can't imagine anyone read it then....
.
The WSJ sucks dude. Really. If you're gonna keep posting it, I'm gonna dump on it once in awhile.
.

I don't have a problem with the WSJ. I don't think they are biased towards a particular party. Don't forget the WSJ wrote that Kamala Harris won the presidential debate over Trump.

[txdot-guy]

So, let’s recap.

Spending money on Ukraine is a waste of taxpayer money but spending a billion dollars a day attacking Iran is a spend worthy investment.

Does anyone else think this is a total waste of taxpayer money besides me.

[rooster]

Originally Posted by txdot-guy

...
Does anyone else think this is a total waste of taxpayer money besides me.

Money. Resources. Human lives. Infrastructure. International credibility and political good will.

It's a waste of all of it.

.

[adav8s28]

Originally Posted by Schwarzer Ritter

.

Imminent threat...where's does that begin?

In the case of Iran. It would begin when they have enriched the uranium to at least an 85% concentration of U-235 Uranium. They would need another 5% to get bomb with similar power to the bombs the USA used against Japan in WW2. Plus they would need a rocket with a delivery system that can travel across the Atlantic to be a threat to the USA.


They have neither at this point in time. If Trump had not backed out of Obama's nuke deal with Iran that six other countries signed (Including Russia) Iran would not even be at the 60% enrichment they have now. Lustylad posted some enrichment charts that showed how far Iran had enriched to before the Iran nuke deal was signed several years ago. Iran had enriched to like 20%. In order to have the trade embargo lifted Iran was allowed to keep 5% enrichment and turn off like 10,000 high-speed centrifuges.


With Trump breaking the deal in 2018 when his own people said the Iran was complying with the agreement , this allowed Iran to enrich up to the 60% in about an 8 year time period. So, its Trumps fault that Iran has 60% enrichment right now. There was no reason for Trump to break the Obama nuke deal with Iran. A link for the JCPOA is below.


The moral of the story is give diplomacy a chance before you jump into another ENDLESS war. Trump has not learned from Bush43 and Iraq with the so called WMD's that never was.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_...Plan_of_Action

[pxmcc]

Originally Posted by txdot-guy

So, let’s recap.

Spending money on Ukraine is a waste of taxpayer money but spending a billion dollars a day attacking Iran is a spend worthy investment.

Does anyone else think this is a total waste of taxpayer money besides me.

yup. and all this pointless spending right after cutting Medicaid-cue the rural hospital closures-and defunding the Obamacare subsidies. this all comes down to having fucked up priorities.

[elghund]

Originally Posted by rooster

Good Christ. I can't imagine anyone read it then....

At least that one was your own thoughts though, so kudos for that.

The WSJ OpEds suck, dude. Really. If you're gonna keep posting it, I'm gonna dump on it once in awhile. Sorry. Kinda.

The pompous bombasity of these self-anointed turds....

"We shudder to think what the reaction would be in Washington if the battle of Tarawa were fought again today...."

Jeezis Christ. The histrionics...fuggin melodramatic cucks.

And the mutherfucking gall...comparing WWII to this war of choice.... it's goddam nauseating.

.

Barton Swaim is a right wing opinion columnist, of course his view is slanted. Its opinion, not news.

elg…