"Iran Picks Up The Pace Toward Armageddon"
by David Haggith
"As the average price of Diesel in the US hit an all-time record high over the weekend and gasoline hit an historic high for any Labor Day weekend, Iran is driving the war toward greater intensity and far more danger. That is going to put a lot more pressure on those prices. Hormuz traffic dropped back to its lowest since May over the weekend, so the intensification is working, even though the US president has repeatedly let us all know that he controls the strait.
Now Iran has tightened up the tension screws by making it clear that, if it needs to respond to Trump again, it will destroy US-owned oil infrastructure throughout the Middle East and it will start destroying US Navy ships, including eventually the biggest of them all. It has said it will start the new escalation by just sending 300-400 US sailors to the bottom of the sea. If that doesn’t seal its objectives, it will do more. Iran’s top military commander explained that Iran could have easily sunk every tanker it has struck but said Iran always avoids sinking any tankers in order to avoid creating an environmental catastrophe on its own shores because of all the oil they hold. Instead, it completely disables them with its precision hits.
You may think that is just saber rattling and wonder, if Iran can really do that to US Navy ships, why it hasn’t it? Iran’s resolved objectives in the war, as well as Iran’s recent major change to an offensive war strategy, which will significantly up the costs for the US. It lays out Iran’s calibrated plan, which explains why Iran doesn’t do EVERYTHING that it can do. It explains why Iran retrains itself.
We know, for example, Iran has a lot of WMD - chemical and likely biological - because it used its chemical weapons years ago against Iraq, and it certainly has better weapons today. The US government has long said it expects Iran has sleeper cells in the US, yet it hasn’t activated any of them so far. Why not? We know that it has recently conducted cyberwar against US water facilities, but has achieved nothing. Iran says it was only firing a few cyber shots across the bow SO FAR to show that it can easily reach inside the US.
This weekend Iran test-fired its newest anti-ship ballistic missiles at a US aircraft carrier. The US says the missiles didn’t hit. Iran says it conducted the test in a way to prove they could. At first, Iran even said they hit their target. Did the missiles just hit unarmed because they were intentionally fired as shots over the carrier’s bow to prove that Iran can destroy an aircraft carrier by how close they got? The US has provided no details.
Iran does not want to go as far as sinking US aircraft carriers and you know why. It is not just that doing so would result in much more painful US retaliation against Iran. Unlike Trump, it is actually following a clear plan. (Not clear in terms of what targets will be hit and how, but clear in strategy, and it wants the world to know this.)
Once you know Iran’s three main objectives, you’ll understand why it has been holding back - not using its WMD, not deploying sleeper cells inside the US, not causing any actual cyber harm even as it makes its cyber reach clear. Iran is providing intentional opportunities for Trump to cut and run before the next new escalation, but only as a clearly defeated loser. They are planning to keep escalating to the point of doing the things I just mentioned if that is what it takes to achieve all three of their major objectives. And they don’t care how far they have to go to make Trump the clear loser … all the way to all-out war, no holds barred.
Iran is deliberately following a path of slow, rational escalation in order to achieve the objectives I’ve enumerated without turning the world against it. As it is, the world is more against Trump for starting this war, which is exactly where Iran wants him to end up at the end of this war because its third objective requires that Iran consistently shows itself to the world as the only rational player here. So, it provides opportunities to exit and avoid harsher strikes but the opportunities make it hard for him to take the exit because he would be showing himself to be the total loser. Iran is clearly winning this war on its terms and they are playing Trump to do exactly what they want while keeping him boxed into the war!
Stepping back from Iran and Trump to news that I read today, Prime Minister Netanyahu just indicated that Iran and Israel are both preparing for the likelihood of a multi-front war, regardless of what America does."
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