Trump’s aim here is a deal not more destruction of Iran. The sadly ironic thing is he has a deal already but he can’t see it.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC
The world waits for the 💡to go on for Trump that he has a no nukes Iran deal already
Photograph of Trump from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File😃onald_Trump%2852250930172%29%28cropped%29.jpg
Trump could in principle call for a resumption of the bombing of Iran but it would delay a deal, keep the strait blocked and achieve nothing of lasting military value.
The idea of targeting bridges and power stations makes no sense. There’s no military justification so his generals would refuse and they are also practically very hard to destroy even with glide bombs from aircraft flying low over the target. He could destroy the central spans of bridges or the substations that connect power stations to the grid but both of those can be replaced over days to a couple of weeks. That’s only worth doing during an active ground war or similar.
What he could do with a level of military justification enough so his generals would be told by their Judge Advocate Generals that they can obey the order is to do a wave of bombing to destroy the launchers that Iran has unearthed and reseal the underground storage facilities that they have opened up again. The US is sure to have a list of new targets from looking at the activity of the Iranians to restore their missile capabilities.
Then they did target some strategic railway bridges in the war and one power station substation all quickly repaired - he could target those again as they must have had military justification and may have a few more they can target. Repaired in hours to days.
It still wouldn’t serve more than a temporary purpose and the Strait would remain blocked throughout and once it was over he’d be back to square 1 and achieved nothing by way of unblocking the Strait. The Iranians would unblock the underground caverns and restore launcher capacity.
And it would dent his party’s chances more for the mid terms and also lead to more calls for Congress to pass a resolution to stop the war under the war powers resolution (which can’t be filibustered).
The latest votes were just two short in the Senate and one short in the House from passing. This is the sort of thing could nudge a few more Republicans in each chamber to vote against Trump.
Which he could veto and they probably couldn’t get to the ⅔ majority to overturn the veto. But it would be a very public confrontation with his own party before the midterms.
And it is all very silly because he can never get the Iranians to agree to zero enrichment. This is a consensus over the entire range of political views in the Iranian government. None of them can agree to zero enrichment, while if he had better understanding of Arms Control and terms like breakout time and stockpiles, enrichment levels and enrichment capacity, the Iranians have already offered a deal to him multiple times that’s far stronger than the JCPOA and means no nukes ever.
Essentially, the world is waiting for the 💡to go on for Trump that he can’t get the Iranians to agree to zero enrichment.
He can’t use nukes.
BLOG: Why nobody can use nukes in the Iran war
— and why a US general would also have to refuse an order to target a civilian power plant with conventional bombs
You can read it here:
https://robertinventor.substack.com/p/why-nobody-can-use-nukes-in-the-iran
And if he orders US generals to destroy civilian bridges or power plants he needs a military justification for each one - that it achieves some military goal and doesn’t have disproportionate effects on civilians. There’s also a practical limit. At the height of the war, the US and Israel were dropping about 100 glide bombs a day - that was from planes flying low over Iran. And probably about 1 ton bombs. It’s not possible to destroy a bridge with a single one ton bomb. You can destory the central span but not a pier and the span is easy to replace.
It’s similar figures for power stations. You could temporarily disconnect a lot of power stations from the grid for a few hours to days with 100 one ton glide bombs. But you could only destroy one or maybe two power stations for good - which would then take several years to replace. And to do that would almost certainly be a major war crime.
I go into details here:
BLOG: Trump can’t end a civilization in 4 hours
— COULD get Israel to TEMPORARILY cut major bridges + disconnect major power plants
— US generals would refuse
— BIG risk is to Trump not US
— likely TACO Trump Always Chickens Out
— BUT IF NOT it’s mainly about when he is impeached, before or after the mid terms
You can read it here:
https://robertinventor.substack.com/p/trump-cant-end-a-civilization-in
You can restore a short span temporarily within a few minutes to tens of minutes with the technology the military use to cross rivers and streams - a kind of unfolding bridge that is packed concertina fashion on a truck.
Iran has 14 Chieftan AVLBs from the 1970s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chieftain_(tank)#Current
The Iranians opt for a more permanent solution. During the war they replaced bridge sections within 48 hours, a few took several days. They restored a substation for a power station in a few hours.
https://wanaen.com/rapid-infrastructure-recovery-in-iran-during-the-40-day-war/
I should add that to my bridge / power stations debunk.
Trump isn’t cornered. If he agrees to negotiate, the war will be over in a couple of days. And he will get a better than JCPOA deal out of it if he is willing to accept what Iran has to offer.
It is a gap of understanding. Trump doesn’t understand nuclear technology or Arms Control and he has this simplistic idea that the only way to stop nukes is zero enrichment and he’s not willing to look at other ways to stop nukes.
There will surely be a few around him that are asking him to look at a stronger than JCPOA deal and his allies in Europe want that. They are surely saying this to him privately.
BLOG: Why Europeans can never join the war with Iran
— the Iranians proposed a far stronger than JCPOA deal before the war started
— no sunset clauses so no nukes ever
— and Europe never opposed the JCPOA
— and Trump is just trying to achieve the impossible by withdrawing US soldiers from Germany
You can read it here:
https://shortdebunks.substack.com/p/why-europeans-can-never-join-the
He might just agree to them as the only way out while not truly understanding how it works. But understanding that others will see it as a resolution including the Europeans, the IAEA, the Iranians, the Gulf states including Oman, and Pakistan and some of his advisors and the Chinese, if he raised this with Xi JingPing he’d say it is a solution too. Russia would also say the same.
Trump has a lot of self confidence. But when everyone else is telling him something different he has to know it’s an option.
In short, the situation isn’t going to resolve by itself but Trump can stop the war at any time. What he misses most of all is that he has a better than JCPOA deal just for the taking if he drops his impossible zero enrichment and give the enriched fuel to US demands. Iran can never accept either of those demands and that’s across the entire spectrum of Iranian politics.
But they CAN accept zero stockpiles, low enrichment, low enrichment capacity, and large breakout times - and exporting the highly enriched uranium to a trusted third party that would only return it to Iran if the US breaks its deal.
Trump would be able to sell that as a win. For some reason he isn’t doing that yet. He seems to have advisors telling him falsely that if he only applies enough pressure Iran will agree to his demands.
But he has lots of pressure the other way from Congress and from rising gasoline prices and disapproval in the USA and the approaching mid terms and European allies.
Or if not, he ends up with some very weak Memorandum of Understanding and perhaps a zero enrichment pause of a decade or something, beyond the end of his presidency and then a future president can renegotiate.
BLOG: Iran negotiations underway for Memorandum of Understanding
— Trump: US attempt to get ships through the blockade paused
— Rubio: Epic Fury war has ended
— Iran and US blockades continue for now
You can read it here:
https://robertinventor.substack.com/p/iran-negotiations-underway-for-memorandum
See also:
BLOG: Block on Hormuz strait nowhere enough to cause global recession
— not even in IMF scenario where it’s blocked to end of 2027
— and US IS affected
— Trump under pressure to unblock well before midterms
— and effect on consumer price increases for G20: 1.2%
You can read it here:
https://robertinventor.substack.com/p/the-block-on-the-hormuz-strait-is
BLOG: How Trump can end the Iran negotiations impasse
— just shift to a new position
— and say he never shifted and that he’s won
— why you almost never catch him changing position
You can read it here:
https://robertinventor.substack.com/p/how-trump-can-end-the-iran-negotiations
BLOG: Trump has some leverage over Iran but not huge: Iran can easily withstand the blockade of its oil exports
— independent experts
You can read it here:
https://robertinventor.substack.com/p/trump-has-some-leverage-over-iran
