Originally Posted by
ORAC
Or what evidence he is ignoring because he is determined not to follow his last 3 predecessors in getting dragged into a war in the Middle East.
An explanation for his latest tweet where he says his waiting to see what the Saudis want to do, is because he is exerting substantial pressure to get them to do nothing.
Below is an extract from analysis in today’s Quora digest . Makes interesting reading . Some of the "Warheads" surrounding Trump may not fully understand what they are dealing with when it comes to the Iranian people . Talks of nukes may be a stretch , but any kind of military action will not end well........
"The US is in between a rock and a hard place as a consequence of the latest attack by Houthi rebels on Saudi Arabia. The Iranians were certainly aware of the Houthis’ plans to attack the Saudi oil facilities, and the Houthis must have coordinated the attack with Iran. Nevertheless, if the US gets into a war with Iran, it has the potential to spill into a far bigger conflagration.
In the event of a conflict between Iran and the US, Iran would likely use its commanding position on the mountainous, northern side of the Strait of Hormuz to halt all oil tanker traffic going through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has scores of license-produced copies of the Chinese C-802 anti-ship cruise missile. It is roughly equivalent to the US Harpoon. Lacking any kind of countermeasures or defenses, oil tankers transiting the Strait would be utterly defenseless against missiles and torpedoes launched by the Iranian side.
The US could potentially opt to retaliate with air strikes against Iran itself. However over the past 20 years, Iran has manufactured thousands of precision-guided, ballistic missiles that are specifically designed to knock out the US’s airbases guarding the Strait of Hormuz. In the event that the US directed air strikes against targets in Iran itself, the Iranian government would retaliate by unleashing these ballistic missiles on US bases in Qatar and the UAE.
While the US would likely threaten the use of nuclear weapons in retaliation for such a strike, Russia recently amended its nuclear posture to allow for the use of nuclear weapons in the event that a key ally was struck by nuclear weapons. The Russian government did this specifically to address the possibility that the US would use nuclear weapons against Iran in the event of a war.
Consequently, the US’s options are not particularly envious at the moment. Any strike against Iran will inevitably spiral into a major conflict. The US could opt for a diplomatic response, however the US’s sanctions landed the US in this mess to begin with. Iran is lashing out as a direct consequence of the sanctions. At that, with 50% of Saudi Arabia’s oil capacity knocked offline, the sanctions against Iran have become essentially meaningless as countries like Japan, China and India will be forced to turn to Iran to make up the difference, nullifying the effect of US sanctions."