User-Agent: 'python-requests/2.25.1'

Knapping and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race

Ole Berns gonna make sure that SS tax goes up when the fund runs dry

Note, the merits of disarming Iran before the arsenal hit critical mass is wholly separate from whether the war was executed well. Should we have had a better plan to stabilize oil markets (Strait control or other) beforehand? Yes. Should we have had a better approach to expediting regime collapse? Yes. Should we have unfrozen billions $ of their assets and wasted a month on the MOU? No. Should we have broken momentum and sentiment with an MOU that read more like a capitulation? No. Should we have given the public rosy expectations about timeline? No. In isolation, everyone from DoW to Treasury to DoE did their part exceptionally well. The failure was near the top at the planning and strategy level. This could have been underestimating the difficulty of keeping the Strait safe, production/refinement alternatives and capacity, the willingness of Kurds to force Iranian ground operations, the willingness of the lower levels of Iranian leadership to fold, or other assumptions. The result is the Navy mostly chills around the Gulf, gas prices remain elevated ~$1/gal and drop like molasses, and we have to wait for more opportunities to collapse the regime. It's right to be disappointed at how it went down, but the issue was never Israel nor the war in and of itself. Those are conflations made by motivated or deceived actors. It's purely that a complicated plan for a necessary security action went sideways, there wasn't a good economic plan, and there were bad optics and messaging by the President and Vice President.

The previous points were reiterated to death by Rubio and others for months. Short-term thinking like "This isn't America First" or "War hurts us during elections" does not address the strategic issue at hand. 10/

Pretend Matt Walsh is right. Who cares about the nuke? The arsenal buildout still gives Iran enormous military leverage over OPEC. They can now set their foreign and trade policy and set oil prices to harm the American economy and influence the political climate. 9/

The US is very politically sensitive to global economic shocks and casualties. If Iran built out a dominant drone and missile arsenal, they could make the Americans balk at an intervention and increase their control over neighbors (i.e. oil exports). 8/

Iran watched their air defenses go up in smoke in the 12 Day War, so the US opportunistically hit reset on their nuclear program. They were entirely exposed and needed a new approach. Instead of wasting resources on dubious defense, they would go all-in on offense. 7/

So we're not able to implement security on incoming materials. That means the only feasible preventative measure is to ensure hostile actors amenable to this kind of warfare do not acquire nuclear weapons. Per history, Iran is this kind of regime. Enter the Iran War. 6/

Legislation was passed in 2006 to scan all containers for nuclear materials before arrival on American shores, but Obama's DHS basically said it's not feasible and such security has been in limbo ever since. 5/ democrats-homeland.house.gov… peters.senate.gov/newsroom/p…

Energy in California and adjacent states would draw down quickly, preventing transportation and electricity production. US goods and energy redirected to other ports would bottleneck and raise prices everywhere. Global shipping would freeze. Global recession ensues. 4/

A small, Hiroshima-sized bomb would destroy the port. The cloud and irradiated vapor would likely follow the seabreeze into the metro area. About 5k would die instantly, 10k-50k would die from fallout, and 150k would be injured. 3/

The Port of Los Angeles example is a real scenario well-covered by security strategists. It handles ~40% of US imports and is adjacent to a dense population center. 2/ rand.org/content/dam/rand/pu…

Some folks like Matt Walsh don't seem to appreciate the downside risk of getting the Iranian nuclear situation wrong. All it takes is a container in the Port of Los Angeles to wipe $1.5T off the economy and send the world into a recession. 1/

Turnout was a real killer