Piotr Prosol

The Iran War is a clash between two civilizations: one of abstractions, management, finance and the other of energy, chemicals, mining. In the first people manage people and processes and capital, in the other people manipulate atoms and molecules. Curiously if you get abstract enough you forget, as Enron did, that ultimately electricity must flow. You forget from what the derivatives derive. And so you saw off the branch you’re sitting on.

There are two main possibilities: 1. A lot of what we are being told about the war, the reasons for it, how it's going, etc., is a lie, like in all the prior wars, or, 2. There's a first time for everything.

It’ll take 3-6 months for this to become commonly accepted but Trump has destroyed the Republican coalition along generational and ideological lines in a lasting way. So pat yourselves on the back if you’re the normies listening to Fox News. All the intellectual energy and youthful vigor is gone.

This is far more dramatic and one sided than Vietnam. Amazingly this war was started and run in such a way that the vast majority, and counting, of people worldwide are cheering for Iran.

It’s startling how anyone can think it’s realistic to set a goal that not only Iran doesn’t get nuclear weapons but doesn’t even get into the ballpark of being strong enough to possibly one day get them. How do you ever enforce that standard? Just freeze the whole country in amber?

America First voted for Trump and he flagrantly turned on us. The only way to fix this is to unmistakably show Republicans they cannot win without America First. Only a disciplined Grover Norquist approach - where if you cross us we will make sure you lose - can make this faction matter.

We may witness, tragically, a modern Battle of Leuctra, where the Spartans committed the bulk of their best units against a fundamentally new tactical approach, lost, and it broke their back. Let’s hope America’s best soldiers aren’t carelessly sent against drones in tough terrain to bail out a failed strategy.

If we wake up in a few weeks to a deal where Europe buys oil in Euros and Asia in Yuan, or other local currencies, and Arabs comply, what does America do then?

Another sign we are the 1980s Soviet Union is that our self important foreign policy establishment, which loses every war at ruinous cost, is facing their Ceausescu Moment, where they make grand pronouncements as the youth especially jeers them with utter contempt.

Trump thought process has hit an infinite loop: America can bomb Iran into dust Therefore Iran should surrender But Iran can ruin the Middle East and world economy So we cannot bomb Iran into dust But we need them to surrender America can bomb Iran into dust ...

Imagine how much needless destruction would be avoided if every politician who starts a war must enlist one son or daughter in a frontline unit. And for old erm bachelors like Lindsay Graham you go yourself.

Factors that make Iran’s targets harder to destroy: 🏔️ Buried infrastructure: ~10–20× Fordow alone required the world’s largest conventional bomb, dropped repeatedly, just to maybe destroy one facility. Germany’s factories were above ground. Burying multiplies the ordnance required per target by an order of magnitude easily. 🗺️ Dispersal across 1.6M km²: ~3–5× Iran deliberately spread everything over a country 4.6× Germany’s size. Finding and hitting dispersed mobile launchers, hidden fuel depots, and redundant facilities requires far more sorties per unit of damage. ⛰️ Terrain (mountains, desert, distance): ~2–3× Zagros Mountains, central desert, and sheer distance from bases all complicate targeting, loiter time, and bomb delivery accuracy compared to flat industrial Germany. Combined multiplier: roughly 60–300× Meaning 1 ton of bombs on Iran’s hardened/dispersed targets does roughly 1/60th to 1/300th the structural damage of 1 ton on Germany’s concentrated above-ground industry.

The escalation ladder is broken for America. At the lower levels there is too much parity or even advantages to Iran like control of the strait or retaliation against infrastructure. If America escalates to the point where it has clear dominance the retaliation though much smaller relatively will get so costly it brings the whole world economy down. If you can’t dominate the escalation ladder you can’t win.