U.S. strikes against Iran appear imminent, with two aircraft carriers being positioned in the Persian Gulf. Trump has presented Iran with negotiation terms that would effectively end Iran’s status as a regional power, so it’s no surprise that negotiations have stalled.
The terms laid out by Trump would end Iranian nuclear enrichment, force them to give up long-range missile capabilities, and stop supporting regional paramilitary groups. Spoiler alert: that’s Iran’s entire strategy and security model. Any conflict would likely start in the air, then move to targeting strategic assets like Kharg Island. Once that happens, Iran would be crippled.
Outside intervention would be unlikely, and removing Iranian oil from global markets wouldn’t be the end of the world. The main concern would be destabilizing the region and risking the formation of new terror groups, although things like that take time.
Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from Colorado. It’s the 23rd of February, and we’re going to talk about Iran, because what the United States has been moving into the region in terms of military hardware gives us a good idea of the, type of strike that the Trump administration is considering. The headlines are that one third of all currently deployed U.S. naval assets are in the region, which is really a bad way to look at it, because the Middle East, it’s in the middle.
It’s between things. So it’s really not strange to have a lot of stuff there because it’s coming and going. So let’s talk about more specifics. The USS Abraham Lincoln, which is one of the Nimitz super carriers, is off the coast of Oman. And that’s a country on the southeastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, right at the mouth of the Gulf.
So if the United States wanted that carrier in the Gulf would take a day or two wherever it needs to go. Second, the USS Ford, which is the newest of our super carriers, by far the largest, most powerful military platform humanity has ever created is currently in the Eastern Mediterranean. It was sighted this morning off the coast of Crete.
Crete is an island that’s in the southeastern part of the Greek territory. So it could be going through Suez in a day or two if it wanted to. In addition, there’s at least 60 aircraft in Jordan. If there was going to be a strike, we’re now basically looking at the capacity of hitting hundreds of targets in a very short period of time and suggesting an air war with a duration of a month or less, probably closer to a week or two.
If you want to do anything more, you’re gonna need a lot more supply ships in the area, for replenishing bombs and missiles and whatnot. But it does look like the Trump administration is preparing for a scenario where the Iranians are utterly incapable of striking back at US forces, so they decide to attack Israel. Air go, all of jet aircraft that are in Jordan.
There’s a handful of F-35, so you can see them from satellite imagery, and the rest are basically there to intercept drones as they’re going through. This is a significantly larger deployment into Jordan than what they had, during the last assault last year when they attacked the nuclear program end Iran with mixed results. This is intended to drop a lot more ordnance on a lot more places.
And considering that even if all they do is go after the nuclear program, where there may be 50 sites, they’re going to have a lot more, subsidiary strikes in the areas to take out command and control and air defense in the rest. The question, of course, is whether the Iranians can do much about this. And the answer is no.
Not only did American and Israeli strikes over the last year really gut the air defense network over Iran. No one has been able to step in and replace the equipment. Your options are Russia or China. The Chinese stuff, to be perfectly blunt, is really shitty. And the Iranians are really not interested in getting it unless it’s the only thing that’s on offer.
They’d rather have offensive weapons to serve as retaliation than defensive weapons that really aren’t going to do anything. As for the Russians, the Russians are locked down in the Ukraine war and can’t make enough jets to replenish their own supplies. So while there have been a number of contracts signed to get things like the su 35, which is a fighter bomber jet, to Iran, the Russians just don’t have any to give.
So the only thing that the Russians have been able to provide is some relatively low tech, anti aircraft systems called verbals, which are MANPADs, shoulder launch kind of things. You can use those to take out helicopters, maybe some very low flying jets, but not the sort of strikes that the United States is going to be making.
They’re more about making a statement of solidarity than anything else, because any of the equipment that the Russians could provide is already in use. And as the Israelis and more recently the Ukrainians have proven, even the top notch Russian stuff like the S-400 really isn’t as hot as the Russians have tried to make it sound these last 30 years.
And if they can’t stand against Ukrainian MiGs, they’re certainly not going to stand against American F-35s. So as to the goal here, remember that the Americans are demanding that the Iranians shut down their missile program, their nuclear program, and shut down all funding to paramilitaries throughout the region, which is basically the equivalent of them demanding that the United States shut down the Marine Corps, the Army, their entire air force, and decommission the Navy.
So from the Iranian point of view, if they do this, they’re done as a strategic power. And so what we will probably see is the two of them heading to a collision. And if Trump gives the order, we will have a gutting of a lot of the industrial base in Iran. And it basically just becomes a sea. The state kind of like North Korea, but with not as many sharp, pointy sticks to point at everybody else.
This would destroy their economic capacity to wage meaningful war, because right now, oil income is 90% of their earnings, in 90% of that oil income comes from one spot. And the idea that this administration in this moment is not going to take advantage of that, is pretty slim.
I do want to point out one really weird thing about this, though. Iran doesn’t export a lot of crude anymore. Between sanctions and more importantly, their own idiotic approach to foreign investment that basically penalizes anyone who’s interested in investing in the country. Iran’s oil sector has been in a nosedive for the last several years after degrading for a generation.
So total exports out of Iran are really only about a million barrels a day. And if the export infrastructure is just, disrupted, you know, it’s not going to come back anytime soon. The market can five that right now. And in a post Iran scenario, what’s going to happen is more or less what’s been happening in a pre Iran scenario.
And that Oman and Kuwait and Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates and especially Saudi Arabia will be able to send their crude not to the United States for net exporters, but to the East Asian rim where the vast majority of it goes for China. So, ironically, we’re in a situation here where the strategic.
What’s the word I’m looking for overhang of the United States not liking Iran in a run that like in the United States, that goes back to 1979, it’s kind of outdated. And an economic strategy point of view. No longer is Middle Eastern crude supporting the American ally network. It’s supporting China. And so we’re now in this weird situation where strategic thinking in the United States hasn’t caught up yet.
And we’re considering going to war with a country that has no impact on our ability to fight whatever’s next. Whether you think that’s worth it or not, of course, do your own strategic math. But the old argument that we need to keep oil flowing from the Persian Gulf to support the allies against the Soviet Union, that became outdated more than ten years ago, and now it’s it’s kind of funny that it’s still driving decision making really anywhere.
And I don’t mean that as a pure critique of the Trump administration. That’s a critique of Tehran as well. They just haven’t moved on either.
