#GiftArticle

Brutally honest analysis of Trump’s failure in #Iran & its impact on the #US & #GlobalOrder from Robert Kagan

Checkmate in Iran

It’s hard to think of a time when the #UnitedStates suffered a total defeat in a conflict, a setback so decisive that the strategic loss could be neither repaired nor ignored.

#Trump #failure #TrumpsWar #IranWar #war #ForeverWars #geopolitics #NationalSecurity #MiddleEast #NewWorldOrder
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/05/iran-war-trump-losing/687094/?gift=guxsrl_dAdXUP9zqbQPWxQsNAoumvTwglsKzbozefow

Checkmate in Iran

Washington can’t reverse or control the consequences of losing this war.

The Atlantic

The…losses suffered at Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, & throughout the Western Pacific in the first months of WWII were eventually reversed. The defeats in Vietnam & Afghanistan were costly but didn’t do lasting damage to the #UnitedStates’ overall position in the world….The initial failure in Iraq was mitigated by a shift in strategy that ultimately left Iraq relatively stable & unthreatening to its neighbors & kept the #US dominant in the region.

#Trump #IranWar #geopolitics #NewWorldOrder

Defeat in the present confrontation w/ #Iran will be of an entirely different character. It can neither be repaired nor ignored. There will be no return to the status quo ante, no ultimate #US triumph that will undo or overcome the harm done. The #StraitOfHormuz will not be “open,” as it once was. With control of the strait, Iran emerges as the key player in the region &…in the world. The roles of #China & #Russia, as Iran’s allies, are strengthened; the role of the US, substantially diminished.

Far from demonstrating American prowess, as supporters of the #war have repeatedly claimed, the conflict has revealed a #US that is unreliable & incapable of finishing what it started. That is going to set off a chain reaction around the world as friends & foes adjust to the #UnitedStates’ failure.

#Trump #failure #TrumpsWar #IranWar #Iran #geopolitics #NationalSecurity #MiddleEast #NewWorldOrder

@Nonilex

"at is unreliable & incapable of finishing what it started"

Also prone to threatening allies ("we'll pull out the US troops of a couple of NATO countries, they haven't deserved us") and petty ("Italia won't let us use their air bases for operations against Iran, this will have consequences").

A lote of negotiation skills on the US side seem currently gone AWOL. But what would one expect after them thinning out the ranks of career diplomats?

@Nonilex
Let's hope Mexico takes back Texas 🤔🤣🤣🤣

@Nonilex

The world has also learned that the mighty US military is completely incapable of building a warship with functioning toilets.

@Nonilex Taiwan is effed if China feels like reclaiming it now.
@msbellows @Nonilex And it seems unlikely that we would effectively evacuate our nationals considering how poorly we performed in the mideast.
@Nonilex really funny to think that a combination of US military incompetence and Big Oil interests might be the thing that finally stops Bibi

@ASprinkleofSage @Nonilex

Not to mention destroys the fossil fuel industry. 🤞

@Nonilex Ahead of Nazi Germany's "operation Barbarossa" to invade the Soviet Union, after previously having signed the infamous & deceptive "Hitler-Stalin pact" the paranoid Soviet dictator ordered big parts of the USSR's military leadership to be executed, out of fears of looming rebellion & lacking loyalty.

Trump & his Hickseth didn't choose having possibly critical U.S. military leadership be fired at.

They just chose to fire many of the military's most capable minds, because the Trump regime prefers (criminal) "ideological" over constitutional loyalty!

And that subversive sabotage is threatening the military's capability & readiness, creating weaknesses in service of Trump's buddy & handler in Moscow.

With Trump, your real commander-in-chief's sitting in the Kremlin's presidential seat.

@Nonilex
And yet, and yet, if the brilliant business minds that finance favorable policy decisions had embraced renewable energy and a shift off of fossil carbon, we could have led the world in supplying energy and fertilizer (and, being us, ammonium nitrate for explosives) , with no need to depend on free passage through the strait.

We knew the basic technology for solar, wind, heat pumps, batteries - and had over 30 years to develop and improve it. (60 years starting with President Carter's solar panels). Think of what we could have done - just look at what semiconductor technology did in the same time period.

Unfortunately, the buggy whip lobby dominated.

@PaulWermer @Nonilex

> We knew the basic technology for solar, wind, heat pumps, batteries - and had over 30 years to develop and improve it.

And you could have developed sufficient manufacturing capacity to produce in country instead of having to buy (for example) batteries from China.

@PaulWermer @Nonilex The truly maddening thing is, a number of oil corporations already suspected that there were negative consequences in the 70s, had actual *proof* of it in the 80s, and then chose to bear down harder, paying off politicians, stifling results, etc etc. What they *could* have done was invest quietly in renewables, become the top makers/sellers of renewables, and then suddenly release the studies they did themselves that proved global warming. They would have made a killing.
@PaulWermer @Nonilex If you think about how much they've spent over all these decades trying to stifle the truth, paying off politicians with literal millions every single year, spending millions more on campaigns, etc etc, a simple investment in renewables would have actually cost less anyway *and* made more while also being less evil. But, oh noes, competition would have existed. Can't have that.

@nazokiyoubinbou
In an alternative universe…🪐 I wonder if there’s anyone on their Boards of Directors saying anything like this (or shareholders even…). For a while there I think at least one of the major fossil fuel companies had a green energy division, but it was shut down or they divested (?BP?). Love to know the Board-level stated reasoning for that… and why they all move as a pack, too. 🤔
Important views - thanks for raising & sharing them!🙏🏻

#USPol #fossilFuelCompanies #opportunityCosts #renewables

@PaulWermer @Nonilex

@nazokiyoubinbou @Nonilex
TBH, there was informed speculation about the GHG effect and coal burning 100+ years ago.
@PaulWermer @Nonilex all you have to do is look at what china has accomplished in solar and wind in the last 10 years. While trump shuts down turbine farms and pays off companies building them.