Agree. High Value Targets and High Payoff Targets ought to get the priority of effort...

About the various production facilities blowing up:
Iran (and others) are taking a page from the Ukraine and Russian "war against your infrastructure" approach of the last few years.
Lessons Learned, as they say.

Side note: as with the first year of the war in Ukraine, the looming shortage of fertilizer (noted in a few of the posts up thread) will be fell all around the globe and impact global food supplies. That's a strategic concern.

Iran's Position?
"If I'm gonna bleed, you're gonna bleed."

And how is this strategy working so far? :rolleyes:

Response to SWBKCB
Israel is trying out the idea that offing the leadership of a government is how to win a war. (The US seems to be taking a similar approach). Interestingly, they have tried this with Hamas, and with Hezbollah, the latter of whom are not even close to giving up. Iran has greater strategic depth than Hezbollah...

I am pretty sure that Sun Tzu would approve, in terms of military theory. However, when theory meets practice, little details like "being prepared for a succession problem" crop up and things aren't as 'clean' as the theoretical model would suggest.

Heads of state the world over may start sleeping less easily at night, what with the proliferation of drones and their ease of manufacture.

Welcome to the 21st century. There are no front lines in this kind of warfare ...

Sun Tzu also said: An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes.
That little bumper sticker length phrase seems to apply to a number of nations

That might work in some cases, but doesn't seem to be having an impact here.

It could be argued that the Iranian nation is now governed by less experienced, less able leaders making it harder reach a solution.

And nowhere in this tragedy is much attention being paid to what wiping out Iran's Petrochemical infrastructure will do to a nation of 93M or the coincidence that Trump has allowed increased exploitation of US Oli resources ( oh Venezuala too) Are there any estimates at all about Iranian Civilian as well as military casualties

Are you holding your map upside down?

Or the swallows could fly back with the now empty coconuts for refilling? Otherwise you’d need a (practically) infinite number of coconuts, n’est pas?

Why not a bucket chain brigade, that would be quickly installed...

Volunteers, step forward, You can be out in the fresh air all day, there is some exercise, and all those fumes will inspire Your brain.

Salute!

Maybe start another pipeline such as exists and now helping things immensely:

Habshan–Fujairah oil pipeline - Wikipedia

Gums sends...

A pipeline would seem to be an easy target....

What’s going on with shipping.

Seems some ships are hugging the Iranian coast.

If you go back to my post #4013 you will get some of the answers.

I remain bewildered.

1. What part of the current entertainment was not able to be expected before the clowns in the big top elected to start playing with zippo's while doused in gasoline?
2. Where was the pushback from the experts and planners and rocket scientists inside the pentagram thingy that have the remit to push back against utter stupidity?
3. Politically, where was the pushback on the bilateral activity of the new Israel-US hegemony alliance to go around capping parties that are radicalised against Israel, and the US?
4. The parties that were asked to join in the party after the party had started going into a bit of a wild party, were not informed of the intended festivities, but are asked to do the clean-up on aisle 13, women's amenities, after the cage has been rattled; was that not foreseen as being an offer too good to not refuse?

When the corporal decided to move his painting easel 2000 miles east with Opn Barbie on 22 June 1941, he did invite similar minded sociopaths to the party, but then after VP got his butt handed to himself in a sling at S'grad, only to turn up as a witness at Nuremberg some years later, did any of the participants then wonder how history might record their actions?

Right now, our lords and kings have a pretty simple set of choices:
Option A: The "oops, my bad" path. Apologise for the damages and spoilage, and leave by the front door.
Option B: "All In". They get kinetic and start getting boots on the ground as the best of a really bad set of choices, or they start vitrifying Iran. Those are disasters in both cases, but they are at least all in. I would think that both would need to bring fodder for the horses for the 4 riders that will turn up in that case.
Option C: what they will actually do. I cannot imagine the existing tenants of the WH or the Knesset taking Option A, they are tear the tent down sort of guys, bonespurs be damned. Option B is a really bad option, that makes Option A look attractive, but, if you are living in a parallel universe of alternative facts, then this is not beyond the realm of possibilities, it is just, what's the word... ah, yes, "Bad".

The rest of the world needs to be at a distance from the fallout, rhetorical and actual, of this party. Joining in this modern day Operation Barbarossa seems to be contraindicated due to the consequences of the principal architects of the events.

Sending in warships into the gulf is asinine. They are targets, heck, you can go to Alibaba and buy for a few grand a system COTS and fill with some bang and luft it or float it towards the deer in the headlights that the warships and VLCCs etc represent.

The existing oil/gas infrastructure of Iran has about the same level of likelihood of surviving this as most of the gulf states and the KSA, which is, not very high. That means this is a risk to... fertiliser not just the cost of your cars fuel tank, and that means the consequences will be felt disproportionately by the most at risk who do not have the funds to compete for a commodity as it becomes scarce. Historically, removing food from the table of the dispossessed and unfortunate has not ended well, it achieves radicalisation, and that increases the threats that exist that are defended by upright citizens such as Kristy "puppy love" Noem, and that, should give some pause if it is considered that the consequences of the 2:00 AM tweet centric decision making does not come back to add some spice into all of our lives.

Pipe lines across the desert are also called targets.

At least popcorn sales are up.

Gotta say, it is fascinating to see the level of competency play out on the world stage, it is about on par with Olaf the hairy ordering his helmets with the horns on the inside.

PS... pretty patterns of tracks of BONES and BUFFs going across France, and then, surprise, not going across France, or Spain or Europe, and going around the turf and getting a scenic of the rock of Gib on the fly by. Surprise. Diego is about the first real base that exists, and that is not without risk. Tel Aviv is probably going to be suitable to basing DOWaaaah assets, not healthy, but at least they are on the "A-Team"....

If this doesn't end up with a war crimes commission at the end, we will have been remiss in trying to maintain some semblance of civility, and I guess there would be a bit of a complaint on double standards from those that became taller following Nuremberg or achieved free board and lodging from The Hague, like Slob Milo.

Hat, coat, door...

fdr: In order to have a Nuremberg, you have to be the winning side in a war. Not disagreeing with your take on the level of un-thinking that is on display.

LW, my problem is I absolutely agree with you, you gotta be on the winning side, but that leads to the follow on problem; how does this new fangled alternative use for goat parts end up with any winner?

what does winning look like?

Not much of what is happening looks like a cogent plan crafted by experts in sober reflection of consequences. It has all the hall marks of Boris Yeltsin holding a rave party in a vodka production facility.

Hoping they Iran runs out of missiles before Israel runs out of buildings seems like a poor plan. Same for VLCC, warships vs drones, missiles, 120, 155 rounds etc. goats with flippers and aqualung and limpet mines.

Iran has a reasonable position to be irritated with their government being plinked off in an undeclared “expedition”, pretty sure our side would feel that way too.

So where is the exit here?

Iran cannot and will not surrender as long as the present theocracy is in power. The present governments whole raison d´être is resisting the US and Israel, they have spent substantial money, ressources and efforts for this instead of for improving their own country. Irans history is full of foreign powers trying to meddle with it and there is a certain dislike for a further attempt to be expected.

One thing they are not: stupid. They know their hand and are playing it, hitting the attackers where it pains them (Chrushchevs word on Berlin being situated somewhere below the equator on the Wests anatomy and receptive to a good squeeze come to mind) and while their internal organisation is still intact, they have no reason to fold. A system that had 45 years to stabilise itself and plan for this very moment will not fall after being decapitated. And plan they did, the autonomy of the individual Pasdaran units that are free to attack at will without high command ordering them is but one example for structural resilience. Hydra has many heads.

The US and Israel find it hard to stop their attacks as well. Just tucking ones tail in without a victory is not what Mr Trump and Mr Netanyahu are likely to do, even if no real, consistent reason for the war or what would constitute a victory in their eyes has been communicated. This would smack of failure, which both of those alpha males can ill afford or stomach. Mr Trump has elections coming up, the polls are probably not to his liking, and to have wagered and lost a war after having been elected on "America first", "No more foreign wars" and so on is unlikely to get him more votes, gerrymandering or not. Also, Mr Netanyahu will have elections sometime, and judging from his scraping the barrel for a coalition after the last one probably will not like to have a failure attached to his name.

Painted into a corner they all are. I am afraid that this will go on for a long time.

This war has expanded in scope, in part because, as General Mattis used to remind people: the enemy gets a vote regarding how long he wants to fight.
The initial phase was (both sides) primarily targeting military assets and bases. It's gone well beyond that.
From Reutersfor fdr: yeah. From the outside looking in, the plan as implemented appears to have contained a few assumptions that have not paid off. (Again, I am so glad to be out of that business). In two weeks (which is the time scale first advertised for this operation) I wonder what will have changed, besides the 'ammo boxes' being less full.

Fujairah oil terminal (the end of the pipeline where Vessels are loaded) has already been struck twice destroying 3 loading berths and several storage tanks.

There are reports that bunker busters have been dropped on missile storage sites.

Possibilities:

• Champagne corks flying in WH & Israel if missiles gone + tooth gnashing in Iran for failure to heed "use or lose it"
• Surviving missiles, if any, about to be expended before obliteration

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