This is an actual headline from the New York Post:
To the victor go the naming rights.
President Trump is prioritizing taking control of the Strait of Hormuz as he grows frustrated with the lack of help from allies to force open the crucial waterway. And once Trump ends Iran’s reign of terror over the shipping route, he’s considering rechristening it the “Strait of America” or even naming it after himself, sources told The Post.
“We are taking the Strait back. It’s guaranteed, and they will never blackmail us on that strait,” one senior administration official said. “You can take it to the bank.”
While Trump said Iran is virtually decimated and wants to make a deal, he wants to finish the job in the Middle East — including ensuring Iran can no longer stop shipping and claim authority over the Strait of Hormuz.
This was published Friday. At the time the plan seems to have been for the U.S. to seize that part of Iran that controls the strait and occupy it indefinitely. Whether that’s still his plan I cannot say. What I can say is that seizing that much territory will require ground troops and could easily be a bloodbath.
I’m reading that Iran is still engaging in missile and drone strikes. Their military capabilities have not, in fact, been obliterated. Does Trump comprehend this? I am not sure that he does.
I did go to a No Kings event yesterday. It was very cold, and I got very chilled. And now i have the mother of all head colds. So I am going to stop now and blow my nose for a while.
"Seizing" the Strait of Hormuz is not a realistic goal. To force open the Strait, the US would have to control several hundred miles of Iranian coastline and push dozens of miles inland across a few ridgelines. Taking such territory *might* be possible, but would require *much* larger forces than anything I've heard being sent that way. And then we'd be occupying Iranian cities, towns, and villages, which won't be any easier than it was in Iraq or Afghanistan (or Vietnam).
I'm pretty sure that the Joint Chiefs are smart enough – and steely enough – to tell Trump that we can't do that. (The Navy has obviously already said No to Trump's harebrained schemes to just sail a fleet through the Straits).
The Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs) and Special Forces (SOF) that are on the way there are probably enough to take a few islands in the Strait (Abu Musa, Siri, Greater & Lesser Tunb), but that wouldn't "open the Strait", and any troops we put there would be vulnerable to missiles & drones launched from the Iranian mainland. Just as bad, any troops there would to be resupplied (daily?), and any ships, planes, or choppers we use for that would be obvious targets. So, expensive (in lives and materiel), and basically useless, but doable; it would be something for Trump to crow about, so I don't rule it out.
Tale care, Maha, there are some nasty Bugs going around.
Agree with elkern that we can do some stuff but we can't win a war. Not if 'winning' means opening the Straught for unfettered commerce. So some ships will get through and IMO, some will be set on fire with small drones. It may take a missile at the waterline to sink a ship, but the insurance companies have a low tolerance for claims. The Straight will be closed if the claims nick the bottom line.
Speaking of pain tolerance, I suspect Iran has the fortitude of a masochist. Hegseth is a drama queen. He's all for bringing the pain to force Iranian leadership into a fetal position of begging for mercy. Which won't happen – they have a Klingon mentality. Death with honor is a good way to go. So Hogs Breath will change in with other people's lives, making macho about "No quarter", ordering war crimes. We need to equip our troops with cyanide pills for suicide, because it may be preferable to capture. Payback for murdering children can be ugly. (I am not in any way happy about my warning – I am a vet myself. But I'm pretty sure of the outcome of being the 'bad guys' in a war that we prosecute with 'no rules.' So will they.)
I'm going to order a red stamp for bills bearing the signature of the Idiot-in- Chief. "RAPIST" is what I'll label that currency with and put it in circulation. I might even go to the bank to get and rotate a stack of notes daily.
The Imperial Idiocracy must attempt to exercise control and true to its ideology do so in a stupid manner. Then again, the forces of sanity on earth may prevail and we all get by, by the skin of our teeth. We, as they said in Brother Where Art Thou, are in a really tight spot.
Right now, we need oil to get by until we get sufficient sustainable energy with a world population size that is sustainable. We do so with world leaders who struggle with the word affordable.
The law of entropy is not on our side. Simple prevails in the long run. Humans are not simple and have defied the law of empathy as does life itself, even in its simplest form for some time now. Humans (at least some of them) know that law, the law of empathy, exists in the universe. Stephen Hawkins left us with the best explanation of this fact we have to date existed, though our very existence in our universe, which must obey the law empathy, is near paradoxical.
I guess life and especially human life has always been in a really tight spot.
Woopie, another existential crisis is all we need.
Is it just me or is it just really hot in this corner of the universe?
Bernie said: "Right now, we need oil to get by until we get sufficient sustainable energy with a world population size that is sustainable."
Spot on. And the super wealthy think that it will work if they just kill 90% of the world's humans, leaving only the super wealthy and their robots…and somehow they will be able to use enough less petroleum to sustain the petroleum-based life style for the remaining (deserving) 10%. Easy peazy.
As @elkern says, "Seizing" the Strait of Hormuz is not a realistic goal.
Fairly reliable sources report that the Iranians have about 1 million men under arms, ≈ 650 thousand regulars and 350k militia of various types with the ability to activate more reserves.
Prof. Saud Mohamad Marandi, a Univ of Tehran professor with what appears to be good gov’t contacts seems to have said that Iran has stopped producing Shahed drones not because of war damage or lack of materials but because Iran has run out of storage space.
This top map shows a not–terribly–favourable landscape for an invasion assuming the US ground forces can get anywhere near shore. One gets the impression one might see the worst US military disaster since the late Colonel Custer’s slight tactical error.
Iranian Topographical map
OOPS that should be "Said"