The propaganda at the moment is israel is winning, iran isnt using missiles because of "air superiority", and the US is able and willing to detroy the nuclear capacity via the air. All of these claims are false. Iran's capacity to strike back remains vast using only its own resources.

What the US has been dragged into by israel is an amazing opportunity for a US peer competitor (china) to grind down its arms -- it would be remarkable if China doesn't take it. It can hardly afford the US to be a well-armed protector of Taiwan.

The iranian regieme's apparent hesitation at the moment is not as extreme as russia's on the first days of the ukraine war, and look at where we are now. This apparent hesitation is waiting for israel to deplete its missile defense, waiting for a more stable intelligence environment (presumably moving assets, etc. around out of uncovered israeli operations), and most of all, waiting for a moment to strike off-guard.

What do Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, and Dubai have in common?

All of their oil tankers sail through a 20mi strip of water called the Straight of Hormuz, completely bordered by Iran on one side. Saudi Arabia has access to the Red Sea and a bunch of pipelines to take some of their oil there, but most of their maritime ports are in the Persian Gulf.

You don't need hypersonic ballistic missiles to take out an oil tanker. Save those for Israel, all you need is a few drones, speedboats, and mines.

Oh, what's that, a good chunk of attack drones undergoing "field trials" in Ukranian population centers are Iranian-made purchased by Russia? And those drones are designed to be launched from mobile trucks in any non-descript garage instead of static missile silos?

We've seen what a rag-tag group of Yemeni rebels with some light rockets have done to ocean shipping at the chokepoint to the Red Sea, now we're gonna see what the people supplying the Houthi's can do at the chokepoint to the Oil Sea.

Hope y'all enjoyed your sub-$2 gas prices.

For as long as I've been alive, every action from the US in the middle east been a "1 and done" exchange, and Bush famously hosted a "Mission Accomplished" party two months after the start of the invasion of Iraq.

I'd be surprised if this was the only action from the US' side during this war, based on history, but maybe things are different today, seems highly unlikely though.

Either way: This doesn't stop here, and it was never about these bogus nuclear weapons (which are just around the corner since the 80's) just like Iraq was not about weapons of mass destruction. They want to place a puppet government...what could go wrong?

It's possible that #2 will happen via domestic uprising, but not at all clear whether the result of that would be a friendlier regime that is less interested in going nuclear. It could very plausibly instead be hardliners who are pissed the regime failed to put up a strong enough fight. (I think that would be what would predictably happen in the US in this scenario, for instance!)

And if it's not a domestic uprising, it's a bloody regime change war like the ones fought in the 00s, which ... didn't turn out great, if you recall!

Possibly #1 is a better outcome. But I'm very skeptical that "we'll just bomb a big country periodically" is a strategy that will never escalate into protracted war.

Chance of terrorist activity on US soil in the next 10 years has increased.

I don’t think it’s improved things for the US.