~by Sean Paul Kelley
Kerry Burgess on X is reporting this: “General Caine cited Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice on Saturday night, as he refused Trumps order to execute a nuclear strike on Iran.”
Gen. Caine is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and therefore not in the direct chain of command. Would Trump even know that? Probably not.
But this story is gaining traction, from Sky News, the Mirror, and the Daily Express.
I’m speechless.
Yes, the Americans and Israelis are inflicting a lot of damage. But that damage does not appear to be degrading the military enough to really matter. It’s mostly hitting civilians. There is zero possibility of stopping Shahed drone production, they are made with fiberglass bodies, there are hundreds if not thousands of facilities which can make them. The US can’t interdict ground supplies from China and Russia, either, meaning that everything Iran needs to build more missiles, it can get.
And if you think China, especially, won’t send Iran everything it needs you’re whistling past the graveyard. China is winning big time from this war: its ships are allowed into the Strait and every single America ally in the East is seeing that the US not only can’t protect its allies, it can’t even protect its own bases.
Every major US base in the Gulf has been hit and as far as I can tell they’re evacuated. US forces in Iraq are being hit hard and can’t evactuate. Hezbollah is slamming the North of Israel hard, and so far they’re doing very well against Israeli ground forces (as expected, Israel ground forces are crap because they’re occupation troops used to beating up people who, at most, have some homemade weapons.)
The Strait is closed. It cannot be opened till Iran allows it. Period. Iran is hitting oil infrastructure across the Gulf and despite propaganda otherwise, no Gulf interceptors cannot stop Iranian missiles enough to matter, and they WILL run out of interceptors before Iran runs out of missiles, if they haven’t already:
The fire has spread to all fuel storage tanks at the Port of Salalah and has been burning for four hours so far. Containing the blaze is expected to take considerable time. https://t.co/HG7ap8o8hm pic.twitter.com/0vRfJ3fJud
— OSINTWarfare (@OSINTWarfare) March 11, 2026
I see zero prospect of America and Israel winning this war, and if Iran has any sense they won’t allow a ceasefire till they have done enough damage that the US and Israel will be scared to start a new war.
Nukes? Tactical nukes won’t win the war. They’d have to hit Iran with the strategic nukes. All tac-nukes would do is turn the entire world against Israel and the US. Strategic nukes would be a war crime even Europe couldn’t ignore and turn both states into complete pariahs. They might win the war, but they’d lose the peace. And, again, Iran has everything it needs to make a few dirty nukes, and one hit on Israel renders the entire country uninhabitable.
Invasion? Impossible. Iran has a large military and perfect terrain. Any forces sent will be slaughtered. It won’t even be close, it will be a massacre, the worst US loss in generations.
The new leader of Iran is a hard liner and he had most of his family killed by America. The leadership in general knows their lives are on the line. If they don’t win in a way which makes it so Israel and the US aren’t scared to tangle with them again, the assassinations will start up again and there will be a third war. That’s unacceptable and their pain tolerance is FAR higher than America or Israel’s is. Trump is scared about midterm losses. Iran’s leaders’ lives are on the line and the lives of everyone they care about.
This war is a long way from over, but the math I pointed out at the start, that it was a race between Iran’s missile/drone levels and US/Israeli interceptor stocks is happening as I expected: Iran can go longer than the US can.
As Iran I would accept nothing less than all Gulf States and Saudi Arabia kicking out all US bases and the US withdrawing entirely from Iraq. That’s the very least I would tolerate.
In the larger strategic position, this is genuinely the end of the American global Empire. The US had a “one shot” military, to use Will Schryer’s term, and this is the shot. It has proved that the US can’t defend itself or its allies and it will take at least a decade to restock interceptors, if China allows that, which, if they’re smart (and they’re usually smart) they won’t. Remember, the US can’t make ANY advanced weapons without supplies from China.
I’ve lived a long time now and I’ve seen a lot of stupidity from America, but this war is the stupidest thing I’ve seen America do other than making the original decision to send its industrial base to China.
Empires die ugly, but America’s is dying. After this it will be a regional power.
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TRUMP SAYS “I THINK THE (IRAN) WAR IS VERY COMPLETE, PRETTY MUCH” – CBS REPORTER ON X, CITING AN INTERVIEW
A few senior officials in Israel are starting to voice concern about the escalating, open-ended attack on Iran — and suggesting possible exit ramps that might halt the war before it further damages the region and the global economy.Talk of an endgame is early, and a decision about whether to stop the attacks rests largely with President Donald Trump, who continues to seek all-out victory. But in a telephone conversation Sunday, a senior Israeli official familiar with the planning and strategy for the Iran war discussed alternatives to Trump’s call for “unconditional surrender.” The official requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the Iran situation.
A senior Israeli official told The Washington Post: “For fear of an endless war, there is thinking of ending the war without toppling the regime.”
And this… not formally from Iran, but consistent with everything I’ve seen from them:
A senior Iranian political official: Trump is seeking, through intermediaries, to connect with us and Washington to end the war, but at the same time, he claims the opposite.
Trump states in interviews with American media that there is no specific timeline for ending the war, which contradicts the messages he is sending to us.
This American contradiction reflects a state of chaos and deep crisis that Trump is going through, where he has found himself in a major predicament without possessing a clear path out of this quagmire.
Tehran has firmly informed the intermediaries that it is not receiving any message from the American side and will not respond to it Iran has a firm and resolute stance with a strategic objective, which is not to respond to any initiative until the Zionist entity retreats and completely collapses after all the crimes it has committed in the region and the chaos it has caused in the world.
America and Israel are used to wars they can end any time they want. Afghanistan not worth it any more? Just leave. Israel wants a truce with Hezbollah? Make one then break it every single day.
They’re used to being so much stronger than their enemies that they can force a bad deal, or if they can’t, they can just walk away.
Not this time. They forgot that in a real war you either have to completely win or the other side has to agree to end the war.
General Mattis once said “No war is over until the enemy says it’s over. We may think it over, but in fact, the enemy gets a vote.”
Now here’s the problem Iran has, they can’t negotiate with the US.
I mean, they could go thru the motions: send some diplomats, talk about terms, but there is no deal the US (or Israel) has ever made with Iran which they’ve kept. Worse than that, during negotiations they’ve killed negotiators and leaders.
Not only is there no point in making a deal with the US or Israel, since they won’t keep them, doing so is dangerous. Negotiations are just a time for them to re-arm and find new targets.
Russia pointed this out years ago, calling the US “Agreement Incapable.” There’s no deal you can make with the US which they won’t break. This was true before Trump, but he’s ramped it up to eleven out of ten.
So Iran has to keep going. They have to win the war. What’s a win for them? Well, at the least, all US bases out of the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. And now that they’ve taken out most of Israel and America’s radars:
Iran’s IRGC Aeroforce Commander: “From now on, no missile with a warhead lighter than 1 ton will be launched (against Israel). The frequency of launches, their intensity, and the scope of operations will increase significantly.”
Iran Now quoting an Iranian military source: Trump’s claims that the war is nearing an end are a political illusion with no basis on the ground. Iran has categorically rejected all proposals for a ceasefire and says it will continue the war until its stated objectives are achieved. Any US attempt to occupy Iranian islands will face a severe and unexpected response, with consequences extending to countries hosting US military bases in the region.
Any Arab or European country that expels the Israeli and American ambassadors from its territories will be granted full authorization and freedom of passage through the Strait of Hormuz starting tomorrow.
Then, of course, there is the election of the new Supreme leader: the previous leader’s son. Remember that his parents, his wife and his children were all killed. In fact, previous to Trump saying that he was unacceptable, what I had heard is that he was unlikely to be elected: even his father had been against it. But, as with Carney in Canada, Trump’s “endorsement” had an effect.
Iran let the US and Israel off the hook during the twelve day war. The US asked for a cease-fire and they agreed, then the US and Israel came back and tried again.
Iran must, and its leaders personally must, if they don’t want to be assassinated, win this war so decisively that neither Israel nor America will even think about attacking them again. Then, if the new leader is wise, they’ll get some nukes.
This war is, I suspect, far from over. This time America has really fucked around, and it’s really going to find out. Nor are the majority of its allies going to be happy about this as they run out of oil, gas and fertilizer. Further east-Asians have now realized that US bases don’t protect your country, they only make it a target. This is going to reign hell of the willingness of other nations to militarily cooperate with America.
Good chance this is America’s last big war. They’ll push around some Lat. Am countries, but this is it. If it isn’t their last big war, they’ll regret it, there’s no possibility now of winning a war with China or Russia.
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The Iranian strategy in the war has been fairly simple. They’re taking out all nearby American bases and prioritizing hitting all infrastructure, especially radar. While doing so they are running US and Israeli interceptor stocks into the ground, and driving up the price of oil, gas and potash (fertilizer.)
Attacks on radar matter. Accounts suggest that warnings for incoming missiles and drones have gone from fifteen minutes to two or three. And these radars can’t be placed in any reasonable time frame:
I wonder if China will LET the US rebuild it’s military. They do have a veto.
Meanwhile Putin is getting ready to twist the knife into Europe’s guts. The other day he was musing that since Europe intended to end all imports in 2027 anyway, perhaps Russia should just end it now. And now:
Novak: Russia will redirect gas supplies from the EU to other markets Russia is ready to supply gas to friendly countries committed to long-term, constructive relations, instead of Europe, said Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.
“And such opportunities exist. Our companies have confirmed this today. They are already in negotiations, and gas quantities will soon be delivered to other countries,” Novak added.
It’s really hard to overstate how much the past few years have absolutely devastate Europe’s industrial position. Part of it’s just “China scale” but a lot of it has been high energy prices making Germany legacy industry (that’s almost all of Germany’s industry, they don’t have the tech lead in anything but a few obscure niches like lenses) uncompetitive. US natural gas is MUCH more expensive than Russia was.
Meanwhile Iran has targeted both Amazon and Microsoft servers, since both are used by the US and Gulf State militaries, including key targeting systems.
What the world is finding out is that an American base in your country doesn’t protect you, it makes you a target. The US can’t protect either its bases or its allies. Countries like the Phillipines, whose defense strategy was “ally with America, get American bases” have to be realizing the bases are a liability, not an asset.
The US can’t protect its allies. It can’t protect its own power projection capability. Iran hasn’t taken out any aircraft carriers, but every time it fires a salvo at them, the carrier groups scuttle another few hundred miles away, making them less and less useful.
I don’t know if this is America’s last great war, I think there’s one more left, but it’s the war that shows how hollow the US has become. Can’t defend it’s bases. Can’t defend its allies. Can’t keep the trade routes open. Can’t build enough interceptors for a real war. Can’t replace destroyed radars and other infrastructure in any reasonable time span or without Chinese aid.
As for America’s strategy? It’s wasting vast amounts of time bombing civilians, while Iran dismantles its military infrastructure.
The oil shock is going to be much worse than most people realize. Kuwait is already reducing production, all the Gulf States have limited storage and when it runs out they have to stop producing. But if you stop an oil well mid-production, it takes a long time to get them going again, same with refineries, and stopping production can damage oil fields permanently.
This is especially hurting US Asian allies. Both Japan and Korea are cruising for running out of oil and gas. But not China:
This is a complete fiasco for America and its alliance and satrapy system. If you can’t protect your allies and vassals, they are going to want OUT. And the Gulf States are already talking about reducing investments in America and even repatriation, because they’re going to have a lot of rebuilding to do.
Yet again America has wound up a baseball bat, taken a swing and hit its allies and itself.
After this it will take years for the American military to recover, if it ever does. Everyone will be safer as a result, except for a few Latin American countries it can still slap around. Even they will be scurrying to protect themselves: after all, Iran has shown how. Drones and missiles and a decentralized command system. China and Russia and Iran will be happy to sell them what they need and China at least will probably finance them at cut rates.
I remember reading some Chinese Christian Uncle’s theory that Trump was indeed chosen by God: to destroy the American empire. So far, true or not, that assumption has had very high predictive utility, almost everything Trump has done has made America weaker.
Maybe that’ll work out for the US, too, in the medium run. Losing its Empire and having nothing else to do but fix its own problems is what America needs.
But in the meantime, every day Iran makes everyone in the world safer by destroying the very sinews of American war and the myth of American superiority.
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There’s a lot to admire about Khameini. He was personally brave (fought in the Iran/Iraq war on the front lines), he was well educated, and within the limits of his religious beliefs quite humane. He was entirely opposed to nuclear weapons.
And that last bit was his greatest failure. North Korea is fine. No North Koreans are dead because of American attacks.
Iran could have had nuclear weapons any time in the last twenty years, at least. Iran was attacked, twice, because it didn’t have nukes, not because it did.
The lesson of Israeli and American actions makes it clear that every nation in the world needs nukes. Every single one.
This is what the NPT regime and the taboo against using nukes was meant to make unnecessary. But every time. Every time I talk about the possibility of Iran winning the war someone says “well then Israel or America will nuke them.”
If this is true, it means that Iran needs and needed nukes and so does everyone else.
If nukes aren’t “off the table” for pre-emptive use, everyone needs to have them.
This is what America has wrought.
(Secondary note: as a Canadian it is in my self interest for the US to take the largest losses possible. Every hit America takes makes me and my country safer. There is only one country in the world which has threatened to annex Canada, after all, and unfortunately, no one paid attention to me over the last 30 years when I said the US wasn’t trustworthy and we needed a deterrent.)
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Cui bono? (From the Latin, who stands to gain?) Who benefits from our war on Iran, internationally speaking? And who loses?
First, the Ukraine loses bad the longer the attack on Iran continues, as all the oxygen is sucked into a vortext surrounding the Persian Gulf. All the weapon systems the Ukraine desperately needs are being consumed rapidly over the skies of Iran and the Gulf States. This will undoubtedly hasten the Ukrainian Armed Forces collapse as a meaningful battlefield foe. Score one for Russia.
Second, energy prices will rise, and if the Straits of Hormuz get shut the Europeans will have to re-evaluate their energy supplies vis-a-vis Russia. Score two for Russia. Also, score one for Texas oilmen, who have watched WTI rise from $58 a barrel a month ago to $73.78. Royalty checks be getting phat!
Third, diplomatic pressure will decrease on Pootie-poot and Lavrov due to European energy desperation and all the diplo-oxygen being sucked out of the UN and other multi-lateral forumns, as if a thermobaric bomb went off. This widens Putin’s and Lavrov’s room to manuever even more. It also increases the chance Russia delivers a devastating denouement to the ‘Rules Based Order’ with an unmistakable battlefield victory. As my teachers said about school-yard fights when I was growing up (I went to an all boys school most of my life): you get your ass whooped, you probably deserved it. Score three for Russia.
Fourth, with the US murder/assassination of Iran’s Surpreme leader the precedent has been set, nay, locked the fuck in, for Russia to lob an Oreshnik or two Zelensky’s way and damn the consequences. The US could hardly protest. Not with a straight face. Score four for the Russkis.
Not to beat a frog at the bottom of a well, as the Chinese proverb goes, but the Ukraine is the biggest loser thus far and Russia the biggest winner as of today. The Euros are losing as well, but seem determined to snatch fantasy from the maw of reality. Israel is also on the losing end. Have you seen some of the explosions in Tel Aviv? This Iranian strike is positively surreal. Looks like that Israeli Iron Dome has turned into an Iranian Golden Shower.
Then again, if Bibi pops off a nuke or two, all bets are off.
If you didn’t read my two previous piece, the second is about the math of missiles/drones vs. Interceptors. (Spoiler: Iran, if it keeps going, will run the US/Israel and Gulf States out of interceptors long before it runs out of missiles and drones.) The first was a general overview from day one.
I’m going to hit a bunch of different points in this post. First, Trump and Hegseth have said they are considering a ground invasion. This is beyond stupid. First, where will they stage the troops? There’s nowhere near that Iran can’t hit.
Second, have they looked at a topographical map of Iran?
Notice the mountains? Imagine trying to invade that.
The sheer stupid is beyond comprehension by anyone with a room temperature IQ. There is a hangover of people thinking this is 1991 and Iran is Iraq. Iran has better missiles than the US does. It’s larger than Iraq was, it has more people, it has allies. (China appears to be sharing real time satellite intelligence with Iran and has a land route which lets it ship in whatever Iran needs to build more missiles and drones.)
Americans seem to think they still have all the advantages they had in 1991: a military which is more advanced than anyone else’s (no), a much larger military than now, NATO allies who still have their Cold War sized armies, an enemy who will sit still for 6 months while they build up forces, etc… America then and America now are not the same, America is FAR weaker than it was and its allies are virtually disarmed. Only France is at all credible, and even they have a very small military.
A good summary of this is provided by Lee Slusher, writing before the war.
The Gulf States and Saudi Arabia are all being hit hard and the US is not protecting them. The UAE claims a 100% shootdown rate and Qatar over 80%. I believe neither, but even if true, irrelevant, because they will soon run out of interceptor missiles.
BREAKING: The UAE is projected to exhaust its interceptor missile stock within one week at the current rate of fire, and Qatar within four days; both are urgently seeking additional military support from the United States – Bloomberg
(Spoiler: no additional interceptors will be arriving. If there are any extra, they go to Israel.)
A Saudi analyst sums up what I suspect all of them are thinking:
America has abandoned us, and focused its defense systems on protecting Israel, leaving the Gulf states that host its military bases at the mercy of Iranian missiles and drones
Lie down with the devil, get up buggered, as the saying goes.
What the Gulf States, especially, are recognizing is that US bases don’t protect them, they make them a target and that the US doesn’t actually care about them and won’t bother to defend them. They’ve gone from satrapies under US protection (which they were, remember that Gulf 1 was to save Kuwait) to expendable meat shields for the Empire. They have to be thinking they’d be better off without the bases.
There have been hits on energy infrastructure. Iran says they didn’t do it, America says they did. My feeling is that Iran is telling the truth, not because I believe they wouldn’t lie, but because attacking oil infrastructure means their infrastructure becomes a target as well and that’s not in their self-interest. I suspect this is a false flag attack to try and get Saudi Arabia, in particular, to join fully in the war.
Translation:
URGENT | Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister to CNN: We are not responsible for the bombing of Saudi oil fields and we have informed our brothers in the Kingdom of that.
— Russian Market (@runews) March 2, 2026
Germany, France and Britain have said that they will help America militarily. I think the best response to this is Alemanno’s:
The most baffling thing about Europe’s support for regime change in Iran is that it contradicts its own interests. American war leads to: – higher energy price – influx of refugees – ensuing far-right surge – further damage rule-based order
Note also that Germany has almost no interceptors left (they went to Ukraine) and are within range of Iranian missiles. I doubt Iran will attack them, but they can. Germany might want to think hard about that.
Many people are saying this is 12 dimensional chess. The idea is to hurt China’s oil imports. Maybe (no), but it won’t matter much in the middle term:
Around 90% of Iran’s crude exports go to China, but the country is well prepared for disruption. Small independent refineries hold ample near-term supply, while Iranian oil already in transit could cover roughly five months of demand. China has also built large reserves—about 200 days of import cover—helped by discounted crude from Iran and Russia. Bottom line: even if Iranian flows are disrupted, the impact on China is likely manageable.
This also doesn’t make sense because the war with Iran, if goes on even another few days, means war with China is impossible. The interceptor stockpiles will take years to replenish, and China has way more missiles and drones (and the ability to manufacture them at scale) than Iran. By the time they are replenished, China will be so much stronger than the US that even American supremacists will not be able to pretend there is the least chance America could win.
The war, in the end, comes down to math. The US/Israel and whatever pathetic forces European allies commit are in a race: they have to take out launchers and missile suppliers faster than Iran depletes interceptor stocks. My bet is they lose that race, but that’s the race and if you think it comes down to anything else, you are mistaken, leaving aside the possibility of using nukes.
If the US loses this war it is America’s last great hurrah. Everyone will move away from them: they can’t defend their allies, they can’t be trusted to negotiate or keep agreements, and their military will be defenseless for years against the signature weapons of modern warfare: drones and missiles.
Empires die ugly. But America’s empire is dying.
And finally, Iran is in the right here, morally. We all know it.
Update:
Take your pick for a ground invasion of Iran:
Amphibious assault from the south — through waters mined to fuck, with trillions of missiles aimed at them, followed immediately by a wall of mountains where two battalions can hold off an entire corps at the narrow passes
— Russians With Attitude (@RWApodcast) March 2, 2026
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Thaad interceptor missiles have a production of about eight a month. Stockpiles are in the low hundreds. Ground based interceptors.
Patriot missiles had a production of 620 in 2025. Stockpile numbers are unclear, but low thousands is likely. They miss a lot, and usually two to four are shot per interception attempt.
Thirty-nine SM-3 missiles were produced in 2025. Stockpiles are at about 500. These are used by AEGIS naval defenses.
Note that none of these can be manufactured without supplies from China.
Estimates of Iranian missiles are around two to three thousand. Iranian drones? Tens of thousands. They used many up during the last war, but China has helped them rapidly manufacture more.
The math is simple. If Iran keeps firing, and the US/Israel does not take out the launchers and missile stockpiles in large numbers, Iran will run the US and Israel (it has its own variants, but the same supply issues) out of interceptors. At that point Iran hits everything it shoots at.
If Iran just keeps going long enough, it WILL win the war. The main danger is Iran’s leaders accepting a cease-fire too soon. If they are smart and have learned their lesson, they will keep going, and when they have supremacy, they will flatten Israel and all US bases, including taking out Israeli power and their desalanization plants.
If they don’t, the US and Israel will be back in a year to try again.
Iran is in this situation because they repeatedly stood down and did not establish deterrence. They had the theoretical capacity, but refused to use it, making America and Israel think they could just keep attacking Iran and there would be no significant retaliation.
And yes, the US or Israel could use nukes, but if they do, all bets are off, the repercussions would be seismic. (And Iran can make a dirty nuke any time they want, they already have that ability. One dirty nuke hits Israel, a postage stamp sized country, and it is uninhabitable.)
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