ShapurII
Trusted Member
Russia started their "special operations" with barely 150K-200K soldiers. It took 4 years for the Russians to increase their troops to 700K.Russia is something else than some MEK/separatists armed from abroad. Let's be reasonable here, Russia has at least 700k men, battle hardened first world army, operating at the frontlines. With that army, they would have taken Iran 5 times over, regardless of FPV drones. This is not apples to apples comparison.
And no, it appears, lets hope I'm right, that the plan B is too costly, or has decided to be too costly. It appears US decision makers, especially Vance and Rubio, who both wanna run in 2028, have also pressured Trump to halt. Why? Even hitting Iranian energy won't fix the problem, the strait HAS to reopen (can't close it, and now Mandab, even if a bit leaky, for 2 years, that's just impossible).
It appears a mou 2.0 is coming and this time the US will do what it said, or at least mostly.
It seems sometimes even a declining superpower, even if run by juice, will hit a brick wall and walk back.
And one of the reasons I want to say this is this: the satanyahu/Trump meeting was very short. Nothing meaningful can be decided in a very short meaning, except a big fat NO! Satanyahu is talking in the press about how Hormuz is Iran's now (because he said WE will help bypass it in the future). That's a loser's spin. Yeah go build pipelines for years to bypass something. Sure.
Also, nobody was comparing Russia to MEK/separatists. We were comparing Russia to the US Army, and yes, the US Army is much better equipped than the Russian armed forces and unlike Russia, they won't intend to blitzkrieg through Iran to Tehran. Their plan is to take some of our Iranian islands and possibly the energy-rich Khuzestan and Bushehr. Insurgency will be only a distraction, not part of their actual plan. And Russia hasn't been able to establish air superiority over Ukraine yet, while the US will be able to establish air superiority over Iran, even if we claim they haven't done it yet. So, apples and oranges.
Even if the Kurdish insurgents can disrupt our imports/exports from our western borders, that will be a huge problem for us. The US has been talking about enforcing a land blockade recently and this is an actual possibility that has to be considered.
The US will never honor any of its MoUs or even UNSC-approved agreements with Iran. Let's forget that idea because it is not realistic. As long as the US thinks it can bully Iran, it will do so. Iran needs some sort of strong deterrence to fight back, not a memorandum of understanding to give more time to the US to prepare for the next round.








