This war initially started with a declaration that it was about stopping Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability.

Once that was debunked Trump quickly pivoted to regime change expecting millions of Iranians to take to the streets while he was devastating their homes factories and infrastructure. Well we all know how poorly that went, and how little the war planners knew.

Now the big mission seems to be securing the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians have been very clever in their tactics and they have caused considerable pain to the world economy and their neighbors. Securing the strait is going to be a very difficult job. In his usual daily bluster, the boviator in chief talked about how easy it was going to be for the US Navy to escort ships through the strait. Well we know that's not going to be the case, it's actually going to be quite difficult.

Trump is likely going to choose some sort of off-ramp very soon, without having achieved any of the goals he set forth, having set Iran back decades in terms of infrastructure, and completely failing at anything in the way of democratic progress or regime change for the Iranian people.

That will be just another war that the US has lost, and will add to the tally of Zero Wars won since World War II unless you count Grenada or Panama. The US military is huge and they do have the largest defense budget of any nation, but they don't seem to accomplish very much with that trillion dollars a year that's being spent.

Just another in the hundreds upon hundreds of failures for big Don.

The Western allies trying to negotiate a way to protect the Strait of Hormuz for energy shipping face a stark reality: a similar effort in the Red Sea that started years earlier cost billions of dollars and ultimately failed against Yemen's Houthis.

The costly Red Sea experience - four ships sunk, more than $1 billion in weapons expended, and ‌a route that the shipping industry still largely avoids - looms over the more complex Strait of Hormuz, the shipping artery used by roughly a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supply and now ‌blocked by Iran, a more formidable adversary than the Houthis.

Iran's threats to the strait and its attacks on energy infrastructure in nearby Gulf nations have sent oil prices soaring in the worst disruption to oil and gas supplies in history. Absent the strait's reopening, shortages will become more acute, threatening higher costs for energy, food and numerous other products worldwide.

"There is no substitute for the Strait of Hormuz," Kuwait Petroleum CEO Sheikh Nawaf Saud Al-Sabah said in a fiery video call streamed to the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston on Tuesday. "It is the world’s strait, under international law and practical reality."

Reuters interviewed 19 security and maritime experts who described the myriad challenges facing the U.S. and its allies in protecting the strait. Iran has far more advanced military forces than the Houthis, an arsenal ‌of cheap drones, floating mines, and missiles, and easy access from its steep mountainous ⁠coast to the narrow waterway.

The U.S. mission to protect Red Sea shipping from the Houthis launched in December 2023, with European nations joining in with their own operation a few ‌months later. The allies shot down hundreds of drones and missiles, but the Houthis still sank four ships between 2024 and 2025. Shippers now largely avoid the passageway, once home to 12% of world trade, opting for a much longer voyage around the Horn of Africa.

"It was a strategic draw, if not a strategic defeat," said Joshua Tallis, a naval analyst at research firm CNA.

The danger zone around the Strait of Hormuz is up to five times bigger than the Houthis' attack area around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that flows into the Red Sea. Unlike the Houthis, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is a professional military with its own weapons factories and access to funding.

Providing escorts for the strait would require as many as a dozen large warships such as destroyers, backed up by jets, drones and helicopters to account for the limitations created by the lack of space to maneuver, some military experts said. ‌Overhead air cover would be critical to protect against flying drones as well as explosive-laden manned or unmanned vessels that can easily blend into sea traffic.

https://share.google/zk7okmke7WqnBwL0N

Trump isn’t in control of this illegal Israeli/US war on Iran.

The U.S. cannot disengage while ever Israel continues to attack Iran.

The tail is wagging the dog.

Has Trump ever done anything the left did not claim was destined to fail? Im just wondering if they offer sincere criticism or is it more a case of He triggers the bejeezus out of us so we'll spit the dummy whatever he does?

I think we all know the answer to that little riddle🤣

42 minutes ago, SunnyinBangrak said:

Has Trump ever done anything the left did not claim was destined to fail? Im just wondering if they offer sincere criticism or is it more a case of He triggers the bejeezus out of us so we'll spit the dummy whatever he does?

I think we all know the answer to that little riddle🤣

So you don’t want to discuss this failing illegal Israeli/US war of aggression yet joined the thread anyway.

4 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

So you don’t want to discuss this failing illegal Israeli/US war of aggression yet joined the thread anyway.

I think there may have already been a few (thousand) threads that were a vehicle for the left to vent about Trump stopping Iran from aquiring nukes.

1 hour ago, SunnyinBangrak said:

Has Trump ever done anything the left did not claim was destined to fail? Im just wondering if they offer sincere criticism or is it more a case of He triggers the bejeezus out of us so we'll spit the dummy whatever he does?

I think we all know the answer to that little riddle🤣

I do have some friends that will come right out and say the man is a butthead, he's an idiot, and he's an absolute clown, but I like some of his policies. Those are the Republicans I admire.

It's an interesting point that you bring up, and one that a lot of Republicans just don't understand these days. During the 20 years that Clinton, Obama and Biden were in office I was continually critical of their policies. Just look back at some of my posts when Obama and Biden were in power. I was not a big fan of Obama for many of the years that he was president and my posts reflect that. As a centrist democrat I criticized a lot of his policies.

I see so little of that coming from Republicans these days, to point where their absolute fealty is actually quite frightening. Most just can't handle critique of Trump, they immediately clam up, get defensive and start making it personal. Instead of behaving like rational intellectuals and debating policy they just start throwing out nonsense, accusations that I've never criticized my own party, or that I get paid to be critical of Trump. That is not only ridiculous, it is inane. I wish somebody would offer to pay me to criticize Trump. I would spend my whole day doing it.

Criticism and open mindedness is what independent thinkers engage in, and it sets them apart from dogmatic subjects of a wannabe king. I invite you to reflect on that for just a moment.

1 hour ago, Chomper Higgot said:

So you don’t want to discuss this failing illegal Israeli/US war of aggression yet joined the thread anyway.

No. Trump devotees simply are not up to having a discussion like that, it's too taxing, it's better to just throw out memes and demonize those who oppose Trump, and his policies, and this very silly and very costly war.

2 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

I do have some friends that will come right out and say the man is a butthead, he's an idiot, and he's an absolute clown, but I like some of his policies. Those are the Republicans I admire.

I don't know anybody saying otherwise. It's hard to watch him live, just such a doofus. But his policies are generally GOLD. It is his anti woke policies that people support, not his style and mannerisms.

2 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Just look back at some of my posts when Obama and Biden were in power. I was not a big fan of Obama for many of the years that he was president and my posts reflect that. As a centrist democrat I criticized a lot of his policies.

I don't believe this. IIRC there was NO criticism of Obama allowed on the forum. The guy was literally perfect in every way. Any mild critiism was vanished in seconds with a warning for "trolling" or a warning for not linking to democrat propaganda media outlets to back up assertions. It was hopeless.

The insanity reached a crescendo a day after Trump 1.0 won with an official warning on the news site that "Barack Obama is no longer President. Thus any mention of him will be deemed as off topic trolling and suspensions given. You have been warned" or words to that effect.

21 minutes ago, SunnyinBangrak said:

I don't know anybody saying otherwise. It's hard to watch him live, just such a doofus. But his policies are generally GOLD. It is his anti woke policies that people support, not his style and mannerisms.

I don't believe this. IIRC there was NO criticism of Obama allowed on the forum. The guy was literally perfect in every way. Any mild critiism was vanished in seconds with a warning for "trolling" or a warning for not linking to democrat propaganda media outlets to back up assertions. It was hopeless.

The insanity reached a crescendo a day after Trump 1.0 won with an official warning on the news site that "Barack Obama is no longer President. Thus any mention of him will be deemed as off topic trolling and suspensions given. You have been warned" or words to that effect.

I'm glad that you wrote this. Personally I didn't notice anything like that, but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

Whilst I understand you have a certain amount of bitterness about that, you should understand that if I had no idea about it, there likely to be others who also had no idea about such a thing occurring. All we see is unwavering support of what appears to be a demagogue.

That's not from a view of being either Left Or Right, but simply historical fact.

You aren't attacking just the Left and/or Obama supporters, but literally the average person who simply has a different perspective than yours.

Think about it, you were angry because you felt that your perspective was being dismissed. That's what you do to others. So the cycle continues. You need to listen to each other and to respect each other.

Once you are able to do that, you will be able to sort the wheat from the chaff.

There are decent people on both sides of the argument who are being manipulated and misled.

Otherwise, divided you will fall.

16 hours ago, IsmeUno said:

I'm glad that you wrote this. Personally I didn't notice anything like that, but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

Whilst I understand you have a certain amount of bitterness about that, you should understand that if I had no idea about it, there likely to be others who also had no idea about such a thing occurring. All we see is unwavering support of what appears to be a demagogue.

That's not from a view of being either Left Or Right, but simply historical fact.

You aren't attacking just the Left and/or Obama supporters, but literally the average person who simply has a different perspective than yours.

Think about it, you were angry because you felt that your perspective was being dismissed. That's what you do to others. So the cycle continues. You need to listen to each other and to respect each other.

Once you are able to do that, you will be able to sort the wheat from the chaff.

There are decent people on both sides of the argument who are being manipulated and misled.

Otherwise, divided you will fall.

Thanks. Agreed. It is quite astonishing to me how MAGA has descended to a level where some of the less intelligent supporters are simply reduced to slogans, name calling as a juvenile tribute to their political Master, and memes rather than intelligent discussions. The whole discussion has gotten really dumbed down, and has become embarrassingly simplistic.

 

All Democrats are communist

All Democrats are baby killers

All Democrats support trans rights. 

All democrats are woke.

 

Do you know where we get our power from? We drink the blood of infants in basements of pizza parlors. 

We are all highly ignorant, we all hate America, and we are the cause of all the problems that America have. All 200 million Americans who don't support the circus clown huckster. 

Lock us up, execute us, we are all traitors, we're disobedient, we don't follow lock step, and we don't agree with everything the circus huckster, warmonger is doing.

17 hours ago, SunnyinBangrak said:

I don't know anybody saying otherwise. It's hard to watch him live, just such a doofus. But his policies are generally GOLD. It is his anti woke policies that people support, not his style and mannerisms.

I don't believe this. IIRC there was NO criticism of Obama allowed on the forum. The guy was literally perfect in every way. Any mild critiism was vanished in seconds with a warning for "trolling" or a warning for not linking to democrat propaganda media outlets to back up assertions. It was hopeless.

The insanity reached a crescendo a day after Trump 1.0 won with an official warning on the news site that "Barack Obama is no longer President. Thus any mention of him will be deemed as off topic trolling and suspensions given. You have been warned" or words to that effect.

That is simply not correct and that is an opinion seen through very subjective and jaundiced eyes. I criticized Obama all the time on this forum, there were countless policies that I objected to and I was very vocal with them back in the days of Thai Visa.

And that's more than I can say for most Republicans these days.

On 3/30/2026 at 10:29 AM, spidermike007 said:

This war initially started with a declaration that it was about stopping Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability.

Once that was debunked Trump quickly pivoted to regime change expecting millions of Iranians to take to the streets while he was devastating their homes factories and infrastructure. Well we all know how poorly that went, and how little the war planners knew.

Now the big mission seems to be securing the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians have been very clever in their tactics and they have caused considerable pain to the world economy and their neighbors. Securing the strait is going to be a very difficult job. In his usual daily bluster, the boviator in chief talked about how easy it was going to be for the US Navy to escort ships through the strait. Well we know that's not going to be the case, it's actually going to be quite difficult.

Trump is likely going to choose some sort of off-ramp very soon, without having achieved any of the goals he set forth, having set Iran back decades in terms of infrastructure, and completely failing at anything in the way of democratic progress or regime change for the Iranian people.

That will be just another war that the US has lost, and will add to the tally of Zero Wars won since World War II unless you count Grenada or Panama. The US military is huge and they do have the largest defense budget of any nation, but they don't seem to accomplish very much with that trillion dollars a year that's being spent.

Just another in the hundreds upon hundreds of failures for big Don.

The Western allies trying to negotiate a way to protect the Strait of Hormuz for energy shipping face a stark reality: a similar effort in the Red Sea that started years earlier cost billions of dollars and ultimately failed against Yemen's Houthis.

The costly Red Sea experience - four ships sunk, more than $1 billion in weapons expended, and ‌a route that the shipping industry still largely avoids - looms over the more complex Strait of Hormuz, the shipping artery used by roughly a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supply and now ‌blocked by Iran, a more formidable adversary than the Houthis.

Iran's threats to the strait and its attacks on energy infrastructure in nearby Gulf nations have sent oil prices soaring in the worst disruption to oil and gas supplies in history. Absent the strait's reopening, shortages will become more acute, threatening higher costs for energy, food and numerous other products worldwide.

"There is no substitute for the Strait of Hormuz," Kuwait Petroleum CEO Sheikh Nawaf Saud Al-Sabah said in a fiery video call streamed to the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston on Tuesday. "It is the world’s strait, under international law and practical reality."

Reuters interviewed 19 security and maritime experts who described the myriad challenges facing the U.S. and its allies in protecting the strait. Iran has far more advanced military forces than the Houthis, an arsenal ‌of cheap drones, floating mines, and missiles, and easy access from its steep mountainous ⁠coast to the narrow waterway.

The U.S. mission to protect Red Sea shipping from the Houthis launched in December 2023, with European nations joining in with their own operation a few ‌months later. The allies shot down hundreds of drones and missiles, but the Houthis still sank four ships between 2024 and 2025. Shippers now largely avoid the passageway, once home to 12% of world trade, opting for a much longer voyage around the Horn of Africa.

"It was a strategic draw, if not a strategic defeat," said Joshua Tallis, a naval analyst at research firm CNA.

The danger zone around the Strait of Hormuz is up to five times bigger than the Houthis' attack area around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that flows into the Red Sea. Unlike the Houthis, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is a professional military with its own weapons factories and access to funding.

Providing escorts for the strait would require as many as a dozen large warships such as destroyers, backed up by jets, drones and helicopters to account for the limitations created by the lack of space to maneuver, some military experts said. ‌Overhead air cover would be critical to protect against flying drones as well as explosive-laden manned or unmanned vessels that can easily blend into sea traffic.

https://share.google/zk7okmke7WqnBwL0N

It's about overthrowing the government and reinstalling Reza Pahlavi, and then providing US corporations with Iranian oil for free.

All of the other reasons are propaganda that has been fabricated to create support in the US public for the invasion.

On 3/30/2026 at 1:29 PM, spidermike007 said:

Trump's war is destined to fail

Oh dear, you're a glass half empty kind of guy 😕

1 hour ago, SAFETY FIRST said:

Oh dear, you're a glass half empty kind of guy 😕

Yes. With anything related to Donald Trump I am a glass half full sort of guy, as you probably can see I despise the man. I don't have one nanogram of respect for him. I think he's a crook and a fraud, and a con man, and I don't think he has a sincere bone in his body. I do not think he cares one iota for the common man, despises the military and US soldiers, is a total non-patriot, a swamp creature, and is bordering on being a traitor to his nation.

Lock him up. In a psychiatric institution where he belongs.