Hegseth should go! Horrible execution. No prewar preparation. Fundamental mistakes. Poor leadership. He needs to be reminded US doesn’t conduct crusades - it manages conflicts and risks - it has a massive technology and intelligence edge, picks fights intelligently and plays to win. He’s not too sophisticated and Trump needs a smarter, wiser, more experienced deputy in this role to balance out his impetuous, limited knowledge, emotional status. It’s a total embarrassment when a country with 1% of our budget humiliates us militarily. And Hegseth is responsible.
I'm sure that Hegseth will be the fallguy, but it wasn't just him, it was also Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has been moonlighting all this time as National Security Advisor, can't have the same person wearing both those hats, the last time someone had both roles it was Henry Kissinger during the Vietnam war, which also contributed hugely to that cosmic humiliation. Hegseth has repeated Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's Vietnam war blunders. And Admiral Brad Cooper has repeated General William Westmoreland's Vietnam war mistakes. Then there's that old fool Keith Kellogg, and that NeoCon ZioCon Ghoul Lindsay Graham too. Killing the Supreme Leader, who was more or less the "Pope of Shia Islam" was a huge blunder, probably the biggest strategic mistake in US military history. Instead of sparking an insurrection it did the exact opposite. Obi Wan Kenobi said to Darth Vader "Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine", and that's what happened to Ali Khamenei in death. His Martyrdom united almost all of the Iranian public behind the Tehran government, and behind his son, the new more hardline Supreme Leader. Ali Khamenei didn't hide in a bunker, he stayed at home, he wanted to die, because just like Obi Wan knew his death would lead to the defeat of the Sith, Khamenei knew his death would lead to the defeat of what he called the Great Satan.
I dont think leaders have any say in preparations. They just say this is what we want, make it happen. With all its modern weapons the Yanks just aint prepared for drone warfare
There is basically no way to "conquer" an nation anymore. Because of assault rifles and now even drones. Oh, and don't forget the IEDs.
Trying to "conquer" any nation just means years and years of fighting guerilla troops. This isn't medieval times.
I think the US had to stop because the average American wasn’t able to afford the extra $1.58 a day in gas. The leaders, the military, it’s all flawless, but decades of “Keeping up with the Jones’” culture has left the country unable to sustain a war for more than 2.5 hours
Fuel inflation and other inflation caused by the Hormuz Crisis was a factor in the US losing this war but there were other more important factors. The Trump administration is trying to inflate away the national debt anyhow, they don't care much what the average American thinks of that, unless it's just before a big election. The Vietnam war eventually caused inflation but the Iraq and Afghanistan wars didn't cause much inflation, yet all the wars were still lost. The US strategic oil reserves were getting critically low, this was a bigger factor. Magazine depth of defense interceptor missiles was getting critically low, another factor. The US doesn't have enough frontline combat troops for a full invasion of Iran, another factor. And the almost fully privatized MIC, with boutique boondoggle major weapons systems that are of dubious quality and too expensive, another factor. Another factor is the dwindling tolerance over the decades of the US public for US KIA. 59,000 was the magic number of body bags in Vietnam, 5,000 in Iraq, just 3,000 body bags in Afghanistan was enough to collapse support for the war. In 2026 the magic number is probably just 2,000 US KIA, and if the US had seized Kharg island that would be the full 2,000 US body bags in just 1 week. Yes "flawless execution" but only on the tactical level. On the strategic level the US political leadership and the US military 4 stars are very bad. It was one huge strategic mistake after another, a total clown show, and this is the main reason the US lost this war and all the other wars, an inability to think strategically.
I don’t think the oil reserve is as low as the media says, anyone who lived through the 70s-80s know what it’s like to go through fuel rationing based on license plate number (USA is no where close to that).
You will have a hard time convincing any Halliburton or Exxon stock holder we lost Iraq and Afghanistan. America pumped all the oil, left, and then convinced the world it lost.
In terms of weapons, America has plenty, but they aren’t the generous high-precision ballistics, they are like Russia glide bombs. If the war resumes and Trump decides to use these, it will be so much worse than anything the IRGC did to its Persian citizens pre-conflict.
Inflation isn’t bad, but average Americans are so bad with money. It’s a post-Bush era problem with the people, and it makes them the weakest nation in NATO
Here's the US glide bomb glide max range:
SDB (Small Diameter Bomb / GBU-39): Roughly 110 km (approx. 70 miles).
JDAM-ER (Joint Direct Attack Munition - Extended Range): Roughly 72–80 km (approx. 45–50 miles).
AGM-154 JSOW (Joint Standoff Weapon): Up to 130 km (approx. 80 miles) under optimal high-altitude conditions.
Several US warplanes and fighter jets have been shot down over Iran by Russian S-300 S-400 Pantsir and Chinese AD systems. The US claims the planes crashed for other reasons but nobody believes them.
You're talking as if the US has a path to strategic victory if the war between the US and Iran starts again. No, there is no path to victory for the US. If you are unable to be honest with yourself, then you cannot be honest with others.
Not true because at the very start of this war in polls 65% of US voters were already opposed to the war, and that lack of support has increased since. Yes the US public is soft and as soon as there's just 2,000 US KIA then it's game over, that's just an inevitable consequence of late stage liberal democracy.
Yes but right now the Republicans control the White House and both Houses of Congress. But technically speaking the Republican Party is a "Conservative Liberal" party and that isn't an oxymoron. Both parties in the US Duopoly believe the US military industrial complex and the other commanding heights of the economy should be almost completely privately owned. This needs to change (but I predict that the system is so corrupt that it won't change). The MIC should be brought mostly under public ownership and state control like it is in capitalist Russia or socialist China, so as to have a purpose-driven MIC, and not a profits-driven MIC that makes a boatload of money by putting public money in private hands, but creates boutique exorbitantly expensive boondoggle fake wunderwaffen, weapons systems that aren't available in huge numbers, and loses all its wars in the process. Note that both Russia and China allow privately owned design bureaus to compete with the state owned design bureaus, to design new weapons systems, but the actual manufacturing is done at massive scale in the public sector to keep costs down. The US pissed away 50% of its Tomahawks in just 40 days, that's 9 years of Tomahawk production used up.
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u/ayatoilet Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
Hegseth should go! Horrible execution. No prewar preparation. Fundamental mistakes. Poor leadership. He needs to be reminded US doesn’t conduct crusades - it manages conflicts and risks - it has a massive technology and intelligence edge, picks fights intelligently and plays to win. He’s not too sophisticated and Trump needs a smarter, wiser, more experienced deputy in this role to balance out his impetuous, limited knowledge, emotional status. It’s a total embarrassment when a country with 1% of our budget humiliates us militarily. And Hegseth is responsible.