Proof this was long planned
The USA didn't start this war based on negotiations which broke down.
It's another in the USA's long list of wars it started.
US struck Iran with copies of its own drones
The Pentagon has confirmed that US forces struck Iranian targets using weapons that are copies of Iran's own Shahed 136 suicide drones. When Operation Epic Fury began on the morning of February 28, involved in the action was Task Force Scorpion Strike, the US military's first one-way-attack drone squadron, based in the Middle …
-
-
-
-
Monday 2nd March 2026 20:04 GMT elsergiovolador
Re: Proof this was long planned
He tried with declassifying aliens stuff but somehow it was a damp squib.
But given that Krasnov is in Putin's pocket, the war with Iran plays into Russian hands very well. India is already considering resuming buying oil from Russia and with prices likely going up, Krasnov got himself few weeks off the hook and his master happy.
-
Monday 2nd March 2026 21:29 GMT Ken Hagan
Re: Proof this was long planned
I think it is unlikely that the Pentagon has not considered the medium term impact on the global oil trade. 20% of that trade runs through the Strait of Hormuz.
So, either the US expects the Strait to re-open within a few weeks or they have a plan B. It seems absurd to imagine that the current Iranian regime would tolerate plan A so regime change would be necessary for that to happen. Plan B involves finding 20% of the world's oil requirements in a space of weeks. Of course, Venezuela is now "friendly" but it seems unlikely that it could ramp up in just a few weeks.
I conclude that the Pentagon planners are going for plan A and regime change is now an essential part of the US strategy, whatever they might be saying in public.
-
-
Tuesday 3rd March 2026 07:19 GMT LucreLout
Re: Proof this was long planned
America isn't a regime.lol. Hilarious.
America is our most important global ally. It just is. And all the bile from the usual suspects in these parts isn't going to change that. Even in the earliest days where we all ended up on a labour watch list because of the extreme leftist reactionaries that made up the commentariat back then.
-
-
Tuesday 3rd March 2026 23:14 GMT Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch
Re: Proof this was long planned
Regime is simply a word for the system of power in a country, the people in power and the policy exercised through it. Every country with a government has a regime; it suits propaganda agencies to use that word because it has implications that the power is being misused.
When government agents kill citizens exercising their lawful rights, power is being abused, whatever word one chooses to describe the mechanism by which it happens.
-
-
Monday 2nd March 2026 22:03 GMT Dan 55
Re: Proof this was long planned
I'm sure the Pentagon gave all of their detailed reports of all the different wargamed scenarios they've carried out over the years to Trump, who reads them all of them back to back and carefully deliberates the best course of action before taking a decision.
-
Tuesday 3rd March 2026 06:58 GMT Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch
Re: Proof this was long planned
It was opportunism based on Israeli intelligence identifying Khamenei, the head of the Revolutionary Guard and the Defence Chief of Staff in the same place at the same time. When Israel anted with Decapita, the US said I'll see your Decapita and raise you a Regime Change. Because polling.
-
Tuesday 3rd March 2026 10:49 GMT that one in the corner
Re: Proof this was long planned
DJT will carefully examine each item placed before him and autograph it: "Who should I make it out to? Pete - can you spell that for me?"
-
-
Tuesday 3rd March 2026 08:06 GMT kmorwath
Re: Proof this was long planned
They don't care, and they may be happy too.
- Oil and gas can't reach those pesky Europeans? USA is ready to sell it (now US has a lot of Venezuelan one)!
- Chinese goods can't reach Europe easily? Win!
- EU can't export to China and other countries in Asia? Win.Win!
- Putin makes more money from oil and gas? Our comrade needs some help to finish that "special operation" in Ukraine, so Trump can say it ended another war!!
Europe shoud send a fleet to protect traffic and keep it going, but of course, it won't.
-
Monday 9th March 2026 11:42 GMT rg287
Re: Proof this was long planned
I think it is unlikely that the Pentagon has not considered the medium term impact on the global oil trade.
For sure. They've considered it. Trump hasn't.
So, either the US expects the Strait to re-open within a few weeks or they have a plan B.
Lol. Plan B? The first part is right. They thought they'd lob a few missiles, kill the Supreme Leader (Khamenei, not Trump) and then Iran would roll over and elect a new - friendly-ish - leader like Venezuela did. Turns out they've learned absolutely f-ing nothing from Ukraine since 2022 about the new face of warfare (i.e. drones).
There is no strategy from Trump - just (re)action. The Turkish have been itching to kick the US out of Incirlik air base. Taking heat from Iran because they host the US is only going to harden that. They've already been booted out of the F35 programme, so no need to cosy up to Trump for that. Cue various Middle Eastern states saying "hey, will you stop lobbing rockets at-and-around these bases if we kick out the Yanks?".
The only way to do regime change in Iran is by boots on the ground - a trillion dollar commitment no smaller than that of Iraq or Afghan. Trump won't likely do that. He thought he was going to do a "special military operation" and be in and out in a few days, not understanding that what he did in Venezuela was not a military operation - it was a military-enabled policing action. There is a sequence of events here where the US ends up making an ignominious withdrawal, and potentially ending (or significantly scaling back) it's military presence in the region because they're no longer welcome or useful. Korea and Japan are also reassessing whether it's actually helpful to be hosting US bases.
Trump is speed-running the end of the US hegemony, and applying to join Israel as a pariah state.
The other consequence to this is where Israel goes. Netenyahu the nutter has talked about his "seven fronts" - as if Israel can sustain substantive operations simultaneously in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon (x2), Yemen, Syria and Iran long term. They already have a problem with reservists not reporting for duty, and there's domestic division where regular Israelis are losing patience at the service exemption for Haredi scholars. The question is how hard Iran goes chaos monkey on Israel and whether they turn from "nuisance" to "Tel Aviv actually thinks about nuking them because they've run out of conventional forces." Israel definitely can't do boots-on-the-ground, at which point we can expect to see an intervention from Russia, India or China laying down the consequences (for both Israel and the USA) if Israel does something truly stupid - this intervention is frankly overdue given that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza worse than the Serbs managed in Bosnia in the 1990s - when the US belatedly entered the fray and convinced Russia to cut support and militarily starve the Bosnian Serb's campaign of ethnic cleansing.
-
-
-
Monday 2nd March 2026 22:59 GMT Anonymous Coward
The MAGA faithful
Call it Operation Epstein Fury. That should give you a clue that only the most sycophantic Trump suppprters think it's great to go after Iran for not being grateful for the 10 years of uranium enrichment Trump gave them when in 2016 he tore up the 2015 agreement, and that only recently wanted them to sign back up to.
No doubt Eric & Trump jr, patiots that they are like Daddy Bone Spurs, are.on their way to the military recuitment center to enlist.
-
Monday 2nd March 2026 23:01 GMT DS999
Re: Proof this was long planned
At least the press isn't droning about Epstein anymore and that the files with Trump have gone missing
Yes, for the moment. Trump is so stupid he thinks he can make Epstein go away with his foreign adventurism. No one has forgotten about Epstein and the fact that Trump fucked kids and is covering up the evidence. Once either the war ends or it becomes too much of "same news everyday" that pushed Ukraine and Palestine off the news even when those wars continued Epstein will be back and Trump will be panicking and looking for the next distraction. All the while digging republicans a deeper and deeper hole for the midterms.
-
-
Tuesday 3rd March 2026 10:55 GMT that one in the corner
Re: Proof this was long planned
What about that cosy hotel that Trump is building right on the bay down in the south eastern corner of Cuba?
-
-
-
-
-
Monday 2nd March 2026 22:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Proof this was long planned
> The military has plans for everything
It sort of comes and goes:
2017: What Happens If Hostile Aliens Attack? The US Military Has a Team in Place
2024: Watchdog warns the US has no planes to defend against alien invasion despite UFO influx
2026: Trump directs US government to prepare release of files on aliens and UFOs
(Latest news: Trump has finally seen some of the material that he has ordered to be released, along with the DoW's current plans; suddenly needing to take the public's eyes away from the alien preparedness issue...)
-
-
-
Monday 2nd March 2026 19:42 GMT Brewster's Angle Grinder
I'll have what she's having
"We find it difficult to believe that the US couldn't have developed its own one-way attack drone, so perhaps it was just more cost-effective to copy what was already known to work?"
You hit the nail on the head there. The usual suspects would have charged $billions and it would have ended up including a holographic projector to disguise itself by the time everyone had had their say. Much easier to point at an existing model and say "give us some of them". The Iranians gave them the specification.
-
Monday 2nd March 2026 22:56 GMT shinean
Re: I'll have what she's having
I thought I saw quotes in the press around the time the Ukraine War started that Shaheds cost only about $20,000 per when Russia buys them from Iran. Yet the U.S. reverse-engineered version costs $35,000. So yeah, it's cheaper than a $1.5 million Tomahawk, but still its seems the Military-Industrial Complex is ripping U.S. taxpayers off.
-
-
Monday 2nd March 2026 21:04 GMT goblinski
Well, the circle is complete, or almost...
1980s: Germany's Dornier DAR (Die Drohne Antiradar) > Israel's IAI Harpy > South Africa's Kentron ARD-10 during the Border War > design data sold to Israel = all proud parents of the Shahed-131/136 (possibly spawned from either Chinese units - that Israel exported to China - or captured Israeli ones) > LUCAAASSS !!!
-
-
Tuesday 3rd March 2026 15:54 GMT goblinski
Re: So what's the difference between a cruise missile and a "suicide drone"?
...So what's the difference between a cruise missile and a "suicide drone"?...
Weeelll...
THE MISSILE KNOWS WHERE IT IS AT ALL TIMES. IT KNOWS THIS BECAUSE IT KNOWS WHERE IT ISN'T!!!
By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile FROM A POSITION WHERE IT IS TO A POSITION WHERE IT ISN'T, and arriving at a position WHERE IT WASN'T, IT NOW IS.
Consequently, THE POSITION WHERE IT IS, IS NOW THE POSITION THAT IT WASN'T, and it follows that THE POSITION THAT IT WAS, IS NOW THE POSITION THAT IT ISN'T.
In the event that THE POSITION THAT IT IS IN IS NOT THE POSITION THAT IT WASN'T, the system has acquired a variation, the variation being THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHERE THE MISSILE IS, AND WHERE IT WASN'T.
If variation is considered to be a significant factor, it too may be corrected by the GEA. However, the missile must also know where it was. The missile guidance computer scenario works as follows. Because a variation has modified some of the information the missile has obtained, IT IS NOT SURE JUST WHERE IT IS.
HOWEVER, IT IS SURE WHERE IT ISN'T, within reason, and it knows where it was.
IT NOW SUBTRACTS WHERE IT SHOULD BE FROM WHERE IT WASN'T, OR VICE VERSA, and by differentiating this FROM THE ALGEBRAIC SUM OF WHERE IT SHOULDN'T BE, AND WHERE IT WAS, it is able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called error.
Whereas a suicide drone just goes "Prrrrrrrrrrrrr"...
-
-
-
Wednesday 4th March 2026 19:45 GMT Jonathan Richards 1
Mystery not marketing
The original purpose of giving operations code names is exactly that of any code: to obscure the planning and objectives from being observed by the enemy. Once someone has told you which military operation has which code name, that purpose is lost, so in this instance they seem to have gone straight for something that Hegseth thought would play well with Fox News bulletins.
Operation Market Garden comes to mind, being the effort to capture the Rhine bridges at Arnhem (1944). Glory naming was not the fashion back then.
-
Friday 6th March 2026 20:57 GMT Stork
Re: Mystery not marketing
I heard a story of a young officer who came up with Operation Sweaty Gecko. Even if it indicated absolutely nothing about the purpose, his superiors were somehow not happy.
Back to the ongoing one, I am sure other readers can also come up with a fair number of substitutes for "Fury", even if they have to start with F
-
-
-
Biting the hand that feeds IT
