The greatest current problem I see in the "American Public" dumbed down by TV, Tucker C. and Anti-Western so-called "Democrats". Formerly, dummies like those got executed, now they´re "mayors" and their wives are "artists".
The naval blockade of the Straits of Hormuz is one of the best strategies of the US.
To control the swarms of mosquitoes, it's required to dry up the swamp.
Same goes for terrorist regimes and organizations. Dry up the flow of cash and the rats jump ship.
Keep it up for a few more weeks and the Iranian oil pumps will shut down and clog.
If they still continue to run around the bush, destroy their power stations, bridges and desalination plants. Then wait patiently until the finally collapse.
More importantly, even though - as you say - some confirmation is still outstanding, the theory and the philosophy are proven, and the logic is inescapable.
Amazing that this is the first explanation (I've read) of the waiting game that makes any sense. It also explains why we get such conflicting information on the Iranian stance on everything. Have I missed others-MSM, TFP, ILTV, JPost, Arutz Sheva, Commentary, Israel Hayom? Not even an opinion piece.
Vaughn, interesting analysis, but I think we have to confront one uncomfortable reality: we’re dealing with religious zealots, not normal rational actors. The people controlling Iran have built an ideology around martyrdom and “resistance.” These are leaders who glorify sacrifice and have spent decades teaching that death in service of their cause is victory. That makes traditional economic pressure far less predictable.
Yes, many ordinary Iranians may want change, but they are not the ones holding the guns. The hardliners are. And I struggle to see them voluntarily giving up nuclear ambitions and abandoning the ideology they’ve built their regime around.
Iran reminds me of the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail — he loses an arm, then another arm, then both legs, and still insists he can keep fighting. That’s how this regime behaves. It keeps escalating even as it weakens.
I suspect Trump is hoping for the long-shot diplomatic breakthrough because the upside would be historic. But if we’re being honest, I think this ends only when the regime is physically unable to continue. Military confrontation still feels far more likely than genuine surrender.
That's pretty much what Vaughn described; the corollary is that whilst a faction of the IRGC Leadership is undoubtedly like that, not all will be, many will have families to feed and many will also have overseas assets on which they can no longer rely.
Hence the palace coup option - but I agree they won't move until they are sure of winning.
The analysis is sensible, but hinges on whether Trump has the wisdom to continue the blockade until it works. My confidence in Trump is low, so hope for the best and expect the worst. As for a unified Iran versus its splitting in pieces, I prefer the split scenario because it gives groups autonomy and lessens the power of any of them, making all neighboring states safer.
Great comment. Here’s the rub… Trump has to do nothing. Just keep the Strait closed. No bullets really flying, no boots on the ground. The only cost is the cost of having all of the Navy’s ships in this one choke point and keep the strangle hold on Iran.
If the US cuts a deal with the least ideological, most pragmatic faction of the IRGC, that leaves that faction still in control of the state's repressive machinery. Not very nice for the populace who just died by the tens of thousands for liberation. Just sayin'.
Turn the economy back on, and the arms race will resume, not to serve religious goals this time, but, as North Korea knows, to pose a threat that makes Iran unassailable. How many times can Trump have so much of our military drop everything and converge on the Persian Gulf?
I would also appreciate hearing from the author about why he thinks the federation option, with autonomous zones for the Kurds, Yazidis, etc, is such a bad idea, for us or for them.
Iran has two armies: the IRCG and a regular army. Guess which army is favoured by the regime to continue receiving dwindling pay, food and supplies?
Nazi Germany also had two armies: the Waffen SS and the Wermacht. Sven Hassel, in his book "the Legion of the Damned" recounts what happened: as the Wermacht was receding and being battered by the red army, his unit was shooting at red army forces when an SS caravan was attempting to flee west. Both the Russians *and* Sven's unit stopped shooting at each other and instead started shooting the SS from two directions.
The second scenario you depict in this excellent piece does not necessarily lead to the dire consequences you write about (though they are totally possible). The regular Iranian army may be persuaded to switch allegiance to the Shah. 90% of Iranians oppose the Islamic Regime. The IRGC drows its recruit (at least until recently) from the 10% that support the regime. That means almost everyone in the regular army opposes the regime.
Any way to convince Murphy and all the Jewish senators who want to defund ( rather than defend) israel to join the IRGC and bring their families w them.
Murphy and all the Jewish senators, the self-erasing Jews who are helping to kill Jews have been brainwashed to fundamentally change America, we all know who is their puppet master. Those useful fools will be eliminated after no longer needed. Meanwhile the world's poor populations legally and illegally are trying to get into America, their last place of hope for lifting themselves out of poverty.
There is another “day after” scenario: that the defections of the mid-level IRGC is not ideological and moves to the opposition’s camp. The issue that I have constantly been harping on is that there does not seem to be any organized opposition and, if there is any, that they are not armed. If there were, once some of the IRGC rank and file were to be killed in an uprising, they’ll defect also since they are not getting paid. An army travels on its stomach, said Napoleon.
Yes, Pahlavi may not be the “one” but may be the transition. This would be the optimal outcome. And, as a figurehead, may be enough to unite the country.
The regime's government has been fractured for awhile now with lots of infighting. Araghchi was not asked to go to Pakistan recently, but went of his own accord. These fanatics will never surrender and will go down the road to martyrdom or be found and arrested. Either way, their choice is a lose/lose situation which is why they may not choose at all and face the consequences.
We're all trapped in wishful thinking to a certain extent, but even after considering that, your comment still makes no sense.
How is using your military to destroy your most powerful adversary "wishful thinking"? It might be closer to the opposite, acting instead of just thinking and acting decisively sans illusion.
Neither the Israelis nor anyone who supports Israel are deluded enough to wishfully think that the Islamist terrorists that surround them will ever become tolerant or committed to peaceful coexistence—that's the kind of wishful thinking only deluded Westerners cling to, but that's not really "thinking" just a wish that Israel is either destroyed or hobbled, disguised (poorly) by the fantastical notion that they have peace partners.
Also, maybe some wishful thinking is good if it means the Iranian people can be freed from their theocratic dictatorship. Not everything has to be about Israel, though I realize an unhealthy fixation with Israel and Jews seems to be reaching global pandemic levels.
check your sources. my 50 cents. and don't forget, that the whole world is watching Israel and its constant escalation, creating more and more transparency who are the t. the content of smotrich and ben gvir and all the videos of IOF showing Israel as it is leave no space for misunderstandings.
Anyone can cherry-pick the most extreme members of any society or governing coalition in order to demonize them, this is a lazy game, not to mention that Israeli hardliners have very little sway or say compared to the fanatics that surround them. They are outliers whereas in places like Iran, Lebanon or "Palestine", they would be considered mainstream, especially when it comes to eternal jihad.
"the whole world is watching Israel and its constant escalation, creating more and more transparency"
One person's "constant escalation" is another person's refusal to accept the constant attacks of its neighbors or to trust them with the lives of their own people, when they've been shown repeatedly to deserve no such trust.
And much of this supposed "transparency" of a watching world is just Islamists, the Western Left's "Anti-Zionists" and other useful idiots like the MSM, who place a microscope over every Israel action while turning a blind eye to its fundamentalist genocidal enemies.
Also, I saw that you read Caitlin Johnstone, maybe the world's most deranged Jew hater who's never found an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory beyond the pale, including preposterous fantasies about Jewish weapons vaporizing Palestinians or harvesting their organs. So this supposed "transparency" and "check[ing] of sources works both ways and it's hard to take any of this seriously after all the insane lies and slanders spread about Israel, like the supposed rocket assault on a hospital that never happened or the supposed famine that never happened or, of course, the supposed "genocide" that never happened, but which demented harpies like Johnstone and her ilk have been accusing Israel of for decades.
Your claims about Israel here seems like a predetermined conclusion arrived at first and then supported with spurious facts and distortions and intense bias, all to further demonize the world's only Jewish state, which people have been attempting to do for many decades. It's not a good look for anyone, especially men named Helmut.
We have seen hundreds of videos of turture and killing by laughing IOF . your point of view does not matter, my point of view does not matter. These videos show what smotrich and ben gvir tell and what happens in the westbank by settlers. nobody thinks a minute about smotrich or ben gvir, because the complete picture of all aspects tells one story, there is not any contradiction. it's not about perspective. it's transparency.
"hundreds of videos of turture [sic] and killing by laughing IOF"...
Hundreds!? Cmon, man! And how many have been in any way verified? The demand for evidence of Jewish perfidy far outstrips the supply, but that's what internet entreprenuers are for. I would be careful falling for any of this.
But there's one essential difference here that the Anti-Zionists refuse to consider: in Israel, these acts are condemned and the perpetrators brought before the law, whereas in Iran and "Palestine", killing as many Jews as possible makes you a hero and makes you and your family entitled to lifelong pensions, not to mention that you'll be lauded as a "freedom fighter" if you can make it to any college campus in the West.
You talk about transparency and perspective, but you're mistaking a small part of the picture for its entirety: Israel, as a free liberal society, allows criticism and allows all sorts of human rights NGOs free rein to record and publish whatever it likes, most of which goes feeds the bottomless need of the world to document every supposed misdeed of Israel, up to the point where we know the caloric intake of every Palestinian etc; but this withering eye is never ever turned onto the opponents of Israel, their refusal to accept the existence of the evil Zionist entity, their refusal of many peace treaties over many decades, and their society's total saturation with Jew hate and with desire to destroy Israel.
Yes, if you only watch curated videos of IDF crimes brought to you by the Anti-Zionist industrial complex, you'll think Israel is evil; but without any larger context and without recognizing that they are surrounded by bloodthirsty enemies devoted to eternal jihad (not to mention the events of 10/7), you're not being informed, you're being manipulated.
the opposite is verified. Israels kills the journalists, that's evident. Israel hasn't verified any of its rumours spread. Israel breaks every ceasefire, that's evident. Israel kills medics, that's proven and evident. Israel says after every shooting of children around the "yellow line" there was a t, without prove. Israeli does not allow proving. torturing of innocent victims is evident, the dead bodies showed all the signs of torture. Israel has courts, where all the rapists in jails went free. So you believe in which prove? what's been proven showed illegal action of Israel. from targeted children to killed ambulance drivers. any prove of Israel's conduct?
Hilarious. @Helmut Karas, please tell @clever pseudonym to stop trying to talk sense to ignorant retarded know nothing Western poseur morons like you. Pointless.
You feebs only deserve mockery and laughter at you and your nonsense.
the next funny person who thinks he can tell the world what's happening when everybody sees, what the IOF and smotrich & cie broadcast . believe what you want, it does not matter . there is so much evidence, your statements add nothing about the mess Israel creates, but a lot about you. I bet, the chosen people loose more and more of opportunities. thanks to Iran and thanks to Spain, Slovenia, South Africa, Turkeye, more and more countries will show your people, you re not welcome anywhere. your choice, your results. surround yourself with those you deserve. isnt that great?
Hilarious. You are the funny person. You make me laugh -- at you. You are retarded comedy gold.
The most hilarious part is when you feebs declare imminent victory, which never ever happens but is always JUST around the next corner, promise. LOL. It's very amusing. Israel is strengthening ties with Argentina, Vietnam, and India -- countries that matter -- you ignorant retard.
You sound like an EU retard. Are you? Because you self-centered EU morons always pretend you are important by ignoring every other continent. LOL.
Israel keeps thriving, you keep seething, and I keep laughing at you. See, we all have our parts to play. Your part is to be a miserable angry loser and you are doing a hell of a job. Must be all that experience amirite.
that's fine. Iran will show you what's the difference between a society of thousands of years and a hyperactive misfit, that lost its role of the victim of the shoa for the new image of the paria of the civilized world. the usa will learn what it means to pay the price for zionist greater israel with energy costs for all they need (from fertilizers to chips to electricity-products for data centers) and the closing timewindow for Taiwan because of a lack of tomahawks... Iran will make the world understand, what Israel makes them pay, because nobody is able to secure the strait . I like that picture.
The greatest current problem I see in the "American Public" dumbed down by TV, Tucker C. and Anti-Western so-called "Democrats". Formerly, dummies like those got executed, now they´re "mayors" and their wives are "artists".
I agree with your assessment.
The naval blockade of the Straits of Hormuz is one of the best strategies of the US.
To control the swarms of mosquitoes, it's required to dry up the swamp.
Same goes for terrorist regimes and organizations. Dry up the flow of cash and the rats jump ship.
Keep it up for a few more weeks and the Iranian oil pumps will shut down and clog.
If they still continue to run around the bush, destroy their power stations, bridges and desalination plants. Then wait patiently until the finally collapse.
First class assessment, Vaughn, thank you.
(I shall become a subscriber)
More importantly, even though - as you say - some confirmation is still outstanding, the theory and the philosophy are proven, and the logic is inescapable.
Amazing that this is the first explanation (I've read) of the waiting game that makes any sense. It also explains why we get such conflicting information on the Iranian stance on everything. Have I missed others-MSM, TFP, ILTV, JPost, Arutz Sheva, Commentary, Israel Hayom? Not even an opinion piece.
Thank you. This is the best article I've read on this war. Prayers 🙏
Vaughn, interesting analysis, but I think we have to confront one uncomfortable reality: we’re dealing with religious zealots, not normal rational actors. The people controlling Iran have built an ideology around martyrdom and “resistance.” These are leaders who glorify sacrifice and have spent decades teaching that death in service of their cause is victory. That makes traditional economic pressure far less predictable.
Yes, many ordinary Iranians may want change, but they are not the ones holding the guns. The hardliners are. And I struggle to see them voluntarily giving up nuclear ambitions and abandoning the ideology they’ve built their regime around.
Iran reminds me of the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail — he loses an arm, then another arm, then both legs, and still insists he can keep fighting. That’s how this regime behaves. It keeps escalating even as it weakens.
I suspect Trump is hoping for the long-shot diplomatic breakthrough because the upside would be historic. But if we’re being honest, I think this ends only when the regime is physically unable to continue. Military confrontation still feels far more likely than genuine surrender.
That's pretty much what Vaughn described; the corollary is that whilst a faction of the IRGC Leadership is undoubtedly like that, not all will be, many will have families to feed and many will also have overseas assets on which they can no longer rely.
Hence the palace coup option - but I agree they won't move until they are sure of winning.
The analysis is sensible, but hinges on whether Trump has the wisdom to continue the blockade until it works. My confidence in Trump is low, so hope for the best and expect the worst. As for a unified Iran versus its splitting in pieces, I prefer the split scenario because it gives groups autonomy and lessens the power of any of them, making all neighboring states safer.
Great comment. Here’s the rub… Trump has to do nothing. Just keep the Strait closed. No bullets really flying, no boots on the ground. The only cost is the cost of having all of the Navy’s ships in this one choke point and keep the strangle hold on Iran.
If the US cuts a deal with the least ideological, most pragmatic faction of the IRGC, that leaves that faction still in control of the state's repressive machinery. Not very nice for the populace who just died by the tens of thousands for liberation. Just sayin'.
Turn the economy back on, and the arms race will resume, not to serve religious goals this time, but, as North Korea knows, to pose a threat that makes Iran unassailable. How many times can Trump have so much of our military drop everything and converge on the Persian Gulf?
I would also appreciate hearing from the author about why he thinks the federation option, with autonomous zones for the Kurds, Yazidis, etc, is such a bad idea, for us or for them.
Iran has two armies: the IRCG and a regular army. Guess which army is favoured by the regime to continue receiving dwindling pay, food and supplies?
Nazi Germany also had two armies: the Waffen SS and the Wermacht. Sven Hassel, in his book "the Legion of the Damned" recounts what happened: as the Wermacht was receding and being battered by the red army, his unit was shooting at red army forces when an SS caravan was attempting to flee west. Both the Russians *and* Sven's unit stopped shooting at each other and instead started shooting the SS from two directions.
The second scenario you depict in this excellent piece does not necessarily lead to the dire consequences you write about (though they are totally possible). The regular Iranian army may be persuaded to switch allegiance to the Shah. 90% of Iranians oppose the Islamic Regime. The IRGC drows its recruit (at least until recently) from the 10% that support the regime. That means almost everyone in the regular army opposes the regime.
Any way to convince Murphy and all the Jewish senators who want to defund ( rather than defend) israel to join the IRGC and bring their families w them.
How much of this has US MSM mentioned AT ALL?
Murphy and all the Jewish senators, the self-erasing Jews who are helping to kill Jews have been brainwashed to fundamentally change America, we all know who is their puppet master. Those useful fools will be eliminated after no longer needed. Meanwhile the world's poor populations legally and illegally are trying to get into America, their last place of hope for lifting themselves out of poverty.
There is another “day after” scenario: that the defections of the mid-level IRGC is not ideological and moves to the opposition’s camp. The issue that I have constantly been harping on is that there does not seem to be any organized opposition and, if there is any, that they are not armed. If there were, once some of the IRGC rank and file were to be killed in an uprising, they’ll defect also since they are not getting paid. An army travels on its stomach, said Napoleon.
Yes, Pahlavi may not be the “one” but may be the transition. This would be the optimal outcome. And, as a figurehead, may be enough to unite the country.
Very glad to see that the UAE is shutting the Iranian income channels down!
Excellent article. Agree. This is the exact scenario that I and others somewhat familiar calculated is happening.
The regime's government has been fractured for awhile now with lots of infighting. Araghchi was not asked to go to Pakistan recently, but went of his own accord. These fanatics will never surrender and will go down the road to martyrdom or be found and arrested. Either way, their choice is a lose/lose situation which is why they may not choose at all and face the consequences.
So its true. The Israelis are trapped in their wishful thinking
We're all trapped in wishful thinking to a certain extent, but even after considering that, your comment still makes no sense.
How is using your military to destroy your most powerful adversary "wishful thinking"? It might be closer to the opposite, acting instead of just thinking and acting decisively sans illusion.
Neither the Israelis nor anyone who supports Israel are deluded enough to wishfully think that the Islamist terrorists that surround them will ever become tolerant or committed to peaceful coexistence—that's the kind of wishful thinking only deluded Westerners cling to, but that's not really "thinking" just a wish that Israel is either destroyed or hobbled, disguised (poorly) by the fantastical notion that they have peace partners.
Also, maybe some wishful thinking is good if it means the Iranian people can be freed from their theocratic dictatorship. Not everything has to be about Israel, though I realize an unhealthy fixation with Israel and Jews seems to be reaching global pandemic levels.
check your sources. my 50 cents. and don't forget, that the whole world is watching Israel and its constant escalation, creating more and more transparency who are the t. the content of smotrich and ben gvir and all the videos of IOF showing Israel as it is leave no space for misunderstandings.
Anyone can cherry-pick the most extreme members of any society or governing coalition in order to demonize them, this is a lazy game, not to mention that Israeli hardliners have very little sway or say compared to the fanatics that surround them. They are outliers whereas in places like Iran, Lebanon or "Palestine", they would be considered mainstream, especially when it comes to eternal jihad.
"the whole world is watching Israel and its constant escalation, creating more and more transparency"
One person's "constant escalation" is another person's refusal to accept the constant attacks of its neighbors or to trust them with the lives of their own people, when they've been shown repeatedly to deserve no such trust.
And much of this supposed "transparency" of a watching world is just Islamists, the Western Left's "Anti-Zionists" and other useful idiots like the MSM, who place a microscope over every Israel action while turning a blind eye to its fundamentalist genocidal enemies.
Also, I saw that you read Caitlin Johnstone, maybe the world's most deranged Jew hater who's never found an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory beyond the pale, including preposterous fantasies about Jewish weapons vaporizing Palestinians or harvesting their organs. So this supposed "transparency" and "check[ing] of sources works both ways and it's hard to take any of this seriously after all the insane lies and slanders spread about Israel, like the supposed rocket assault on a hospital that never happened or the supposed famine that never happened or, of course, the supposed "genocide" that never happened, but which demented harpies like Johnstone and her ilk have been accusing Israel of for decades.
Your claims about Israel here seems like a predetermined conclusion arrived at first and then supported with spurious facts and distortions and intense bias, all to further demonize the world's only Jewish state, which people have been attempting to do for many decades. It's not a good look for anyone, especially men named Helmut.
We have seen hundreds of videos of turture and killing by laughing IOF . your point of view does not matter, my point of view does not matter. These videos show what smotrich and ben gvir tell and what happens in the westbank by settlers. nobody thinks a minute about smotrich or ben gvir, because the complete picture of all aspects tells one story, there is not any contradiction. it's not about perspective. it's transparency.
"hundreds of videos of turture [sic] and killing by laughing IOF"...
Hundreds!? Cmon, man! And how many have been in any way verified? The demand for evidence of Jewish perfidy far outstrips the supply, but that's what internet entreprenuers are for. I would be careful falling for any of this.
But there's one essential difference here that the Anti-Zionists refuse to consider: in Israel, these acts are condemned and the perpetrators brought before the law, whereas in Iran and "Palestine", killing as many Jews as possible makes you a hero and makes you and your family entitled to lifelong pensions, not to mention that you'll be lauded as a "freedom fighter" if you can make it to any college campus in the West.
You talk about transparency and perspective, but you're mistaking a small part of the picture for its entirety: Israel, as a free liberal society, allows criticism and allows all sorts of human rights NGOs free rein to record and publish whatever it likes, most of which goes feeds the bottomless need of the world to document every supposed misdeed of Israel, up to the point where we know the caloric intake of every Palestinian etc; but this withering eye is never ever turned onto the opponents of Israel, their refusal to accept the existence of the evil Zionist entity, their refusal of many peace treaties over many decades, and their society's total saturation with Jew hate and with desire to destroy Israel.
Yes, if you only watch curated videos of IDF crimes brought to you by the Anti-Zionist industrial complex, you'll think Israel is evil; but without any larger context and without recognizing that they are surrounded by bloodthirsty enemies devoted to eternal jihad (not to mention the events of 10/7), you're not being informed, you're being manipulated.
the opposite is verified. Israels kills the journalists, that's evident. Israel hasn't verified any of its rumours spread. Israel breaks every ceasefire, that's evident. Israel kills medics, that's proven and evident. Israel says after every shooting of children around the "yellow line" there was a t, without prove. Israeli does not allow proving. torturing of innocent victims is evident, the dead bodies showed all the signs of torture. Israel has courts, where all the rapists in jails went free. So you believe in which prove? what's been proven showed illegal action of Israel. from targeted children to killed ambulance drivers. any prove of Israel's conduct?
Hilarious. @Helmut Karas, please tell @clever pseudonym to stop trying to talk sense to ignorant retarded know nothing Western poseur morons like you. Pointless.
You feebs only deserve mockery and laughter at you and your nonsense.
the next funny person who thinks he can tell the world what's happening when everybody sees, what the IOF and smotrich & cie broadcast . believe what you want, it does not matter . there is so much evidence, your statements add nothing about the mess Israel creates, but a lot about you. I bet, the chosen people loose more and more of opportunities. thanks to Iran and thanks to Spain, Slovenia, South Africa, Turkeye, more and more countries will show your people, you re not welcome anywhere. your choice, your results. surround yourself with those you deserve. isnt that great?
Hilarious. You are the funny person. You make me laugh -- at you. You are retarded comedy gold.
The most hilarious part is when you feebs declare imminent victory, which never ever happens but is always JUST around the next corner, promise. LOL. It's very amusing. Israel is strengthening ties with Argentina, Vietnam, and India -- countries that matter -- you ignorant retard.
You sound like an EU retard. Are you? Because you self-centered EU morons always pretend you are important by ignoring every other continent. LOL.
Israel keeps thriving, you keep seething, and I keep laughing at you. See, we all have our parts to play. Your part is to be a miserable angry loser and you are doing a hell of a job. Must be all that experience amirite.
Anything understood from Ben Devorah and Mr. Fox? Dream ahead , you have no respect, you have just corrupt partners. have fun.
Hilarious. This retard follows @Caitlin Johnstone? That's hilarious.
Caitlin Johnstone is mental illness in real time.
that's fine. Iran will show you what's the difference between a society of thousands of years and a hyperactive misfit, that lost its role of the victim of the shoa for the new image of the paria of the civilized world. the usa will learn what it means to pay the price for zionist greater israel with energy costs for all they need (from fertilizers to chips to electricity-products for data centers) and the closing timewindow for Taiwan because of a lack of tomahawks... Iran will make the world understand, what Israel makes them pay, because nobody is able to secure the strait . I like that picture.
Goodness, I’m praying this is right