Could be deliberate theater. The real plan is a containment and a slow economic collapse of Iran anyway.
If the EU and Japan pay higher energy costs, that is an added bonus for Trump.
If the EU and Japan pay higher energy costs, that is an added bonus for Trump.
- Remove Ghaddafi and have chaos in Libya (accomplished).
- Remove Saddam and have chaos in Iraq (accomplished).
- Install a puppet regime in Egypt and suppress the muslim brotherhood (accomplished).
- Remove Assad and install an ex al-Qaeda (note the irony) puppet (accomplished).
- Have regime change in Iran (ongoing).
Syria took nearly a decade. The US does not need outright military victory, it uses proxies and will at some point try to activate the Kurds or someone else.
If Iran is destabilized enough to undermine the Caspian Sea coalition and get the resources of Turkmenistan, that is also a victory. Unless the other theory is right and the US wants to export its resources first.
We don't know the exact plans, but the grand scheme is not Trump's idea. It goes back to the Bush era.
It can be true that Trump was the useful idiot who actually signed off the Iran plan, which another president may not have done. But the plans are there, including Caspian sea plans from decades ago.
Kind of like Russians storming into Ukraine in 2022 thinking that it is Prague 1968 but it turned out into Afghanistan 1979 and then slowly mutated into World War 1 1914
Doesn't seem like there's a coherent plan. What you are saying is the old plan from long before Trump, that was torpedoed. Going back to that is saying they've failed in whatever this was.
Also that is iran's plan as well, survive while the US suffers and eventually gives up like Vietnam ...
> If the EU and Japan pay higher energy costs, that is an added bonus for Trump.
US also pays added costs... and Trump is hurting from that
The only one profiting is China since they've mostly transitioned away from oil...
They had to use their own oil reserves to regulate the market, where they win is in soft power
hows that going for them?
"In its July 15 report — based on interviews with more than forty-two thousand people across thirty-six countries — Pew found that China is now viewed more favorably than the United States in most nations surveyed." [0]
[0] https://www.cfr.org/articles/china-now-outranks-the-united-s...
sonething tells me this will shift by the end of the decade
Quite optimistic to assume that there ever was a plan. Reminds me of the '4D chess' masterminds sitting in the Kremlin.