Just thought I'd reply to this post from 2025 to draw attention for anyone who hasn't seen it. Actually I was surprised to have to go back to last year to find a mention of Brian Berletic, given the amount of YouTube vids posted here recently. He is one of the few people with a sober, big picture view who isn't only gossiping or cheerleading.
He did a long interview with the Alex's from the Duran last week, who themselves have a good grasp on the situation, but are very careful in what they say. Worth a listen if you have a long drive coming up:
The 2009 Brookings Institute paper he references often -
Which Path to Persia? - is interesting, especially for that point you mentioned Ben: Page 89, "Leave it to Bibi", i.e. let Israel start it, and let them take the fall (and all the missiles). The paper also shows just how deeply the empire understood Iran's capabilities from the start, and what the consequences could be.
It can be found here by the way:
Many astute people across the internet seem to be forgetting this, and taking a very plebian view of this whole thing, talking about how it's all just Trump's ego, or Israel tricked us into it, or the US just blundered in without a plan and got humbled on day one. Now maybe they have blundered, but it will be more subtle than that. There is wishful thinking, but let's not fall into wishful thinking about how dumb they are.
The empire so far may find the current situation quite acceptable. The strait is closed, which is good for strangling China. The only people taking missile hits are US vassals, and the only people getting economically hurt via the energy blockade are either US vassals, enemies, or irrelevant.
Just now Trump even said this:
Also don't forget they've always wanted their great reset - maybe this will be the trigger.
Militarily, again people are assuming that the US side really expected this to be 2 day Team America regime change miracle, and have been blindsided and made total fools of. In reality, maybe not.
They were well prepared for at least a few weeks, are moving more assets into place now, and seem quite happy for this to roll on for more weeks or months. They are straying further into Iranian airspace, and they are looking to switch to closer range weapons as soon as possible.
On the other hand Iran has almost certainly surprised them in some respects, with missile accuracy, electronic warfare and air defense. Iran has expended a lot of the Empire's missile defences, and hit the region fairly hard. Most importantly, they have already forced the US to expend a huge number of advanced long range weapons, which makes them weaker in their coming war with China, further changing the global balance of power.
Whether it's going well for the empire or not, they will pursue this global chessboard strategy until their dying breath, whatever Trump says, or whether netenyahu is dead or alive, or whatever else.
