Trump’s desperation over his failed war with Iran is getting more obvious, especially his threat to bomb Oman, a long-time ally, using his usual vulgar language.
“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them,” Trump told Fox News on Monday, the second time he has directed such a threat at Muscat, a longtime US strategic partner that has traditionally served as a key backchannel between Washington and Tehran.
…Trump also dismissed concerns that Washington’s own arsenal was being depleted by nearly six months of fighting, telling Fox News that what the US had expended against Iran so far is “peanuts”.
He suggested many of the US’s more advanced munitions, including air defense systems, had already been “given away” to Ukraine under his predecessor, Joe Biden – a claim that echoes warnings from defense analysts earlier in the war that US and allied stockpiles were being drawn down faster than they could be replenished.
…In a casual aside at a cabinet meeting in May, the president also threatened to “blow up” Oman if it failed to “behave”.
Trump seems to think that being rude and disrespectful to other nations is a sign of his dominance when it actually indicates weakness. Theodore Roosevelt made famous the saying,, “Speak softly and carry a big stick”, used as an aphorism as to how diplomacy should be conducted. It is a sign of strength to keep calm and be measured. Trump’s bluster is indicative of his weakness because bombing Oman is not something that anyone credits as a realistic threat. Of course, he is capable of ordering it because it is after all Trump we are talking about, someone with the mentality and attention span of a toddler, but while it might be accepted by his cult followers who have no idea about Oman, and by Fox News who parrot everything Trump says, it would be a bridge too far for even some of his most ardent Republican supporters in congress.
Trump seems to be angered by the Omanis talking with the Iranians to arrive at some joint agreement to control traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. That Oman is seeking a separate deal is likely because they see that Trump was getting nowhere with his war and they want shipping to resume. But while Trump keeps saying that Iran has already been defeated or, contradicting himself, that they must surrender, no rational person believes either of those things. It is hardly to be surprised that other nations, even putative allies, are seeking alternative solutions. We should not be surprised if other Gulf states, even Saudi Arabia (a long-time enemy of Iran), start talking with Iran since the continued closure of the Strait is hurting them. It is possible that even the last bastion of support for Trump, the nations of Europe, start to negotiate with Iran, leading Trump to threaten to bomb his NATO allies as well.
And as if Oman’s defiance was not enough to rattle trump, today the US Supreme Court once again rebuffed his attempt to avoid paying the $5 million judgment levied against hm for his sexual assault of E. Jean Carroll.
Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, said: “We are pleased that the United States supreme court has declined again to hear this case. As a result, the jury’s unanimous verdict that Donald Trump sexually assaulted and then defamed E Jean Carroll is now final and cannot be challenged in any court.”
That is not all.
Carroll also brought a separate defamation suit against Trump in 2024, a separate federal jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $83.3m in damages after concluding that he had defamed her in 2019.
Trump’s lawyers are appealing that ruling to the supreme court. And according to NBC News, the court is not set to act on that appeal until later this year.
Last September, a federal appeals court upheld the $83.3m jury award.
While Trump and his family continue to profit from his office, in almost everything else he is a stone-cold loser.
Almost everything about this war has been a huge failure and loss for the USA.
.1. The obvious one is that now Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz and it is shut down for the foreseeable future.
.2. The Trump regime has lied about US casualties and losses big time.
Most of our bases in that area are heavily damaged or destroyed.
While US dead soldiers are low, the number of seriously wounded casualties is high.
.3. One of the reasons US deaths are low is because we used standoff weapons to hit Iran; missiles, cruise missiles, drones. . We are all but out of those weapons. And, they are high end weapons that cost a lot and take years to replace.
One of the missiles we used against Iran cost $28 million for a one time use.
.4. We are also almost out of anti-missile defense armaments.
.5. We can’t even keep our navy ships supplied in the Persian/Arabian gulf. The Navy supply base was in Bahrain, got hit during the war, and it is on the wrong side of the Strait of Hormuz anyway.
That would be the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and its escort vessels.
All of this tells the world one thing.
The US military isn’t anywhere near as good as they pretend to be.
We can make limited strikes against a much weaker enemy. We can’t sustain that effort for very long though.
PS As I’ve pointed out many times, this war is also a failure at preventing Iran from making nuclear weapons. The US attack has made Iran getting nuclear weapons a necessity instead of an option.
No one attacks countries with nuclear weapons and everyone saw what happened to Ukraine after they gave up theirs.
And the US failures and routinely attacking what were our allies has made nuclear weapons a lot more important to the rest of the world.
If the Europeans, Canadians, and Asians are smart, they are very quietly starting up nuclear programs, rather than rely on the USA.
And Saudi Arabia is very publicly starting up a peaceful nuclear program that involves…enriching uranium to 90% U-235.
@raven:
With regards to Canada, it has been official government policy to be against nuclear weapons for decades now, and we haven’t even had nuclear-powered ships.
That said, Canada has had a nuclear power industry for a long time: we were one of the major suppliers of Uranium to the U.S. dating all the way back to the Manhattan Project, the Candu reactor was for a time one of the better nuclear reactors in the world (it’s essentially impossible to make it melt down because the coolant and the moderator are the same thing, so a coolant loss automatically shuts down the reactor without any mechanical assistance), and part of the reason we didn’t sell it elsewhere much is that some aspects of it could be repurposed as a breeder reactor. Somewhere around 1/8th of Canada’s energy production is nuclear.
Even the ‘no nuclear-powered ships’ aspect, while still valid currently, has been taking a lot of pressure, especially as the last batch of diesel submarines we got have been, frankly, disasters spending most of their time in for maintenance and repairs, and nuclear is a lot more useful for Arctic patrols. (Though the current deal deal being negotiated for replacement subs with ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems is probably still diesel-electric.)
While I don’t see Canada actively building nuclear weapons anytime soon, we’ve certainly got the expertise to do it, and have had for quite some time.
Does it officially count as treason yet to point out that military personnel must not obey illegal orders?
Raven @ 1:
To add to point 5, the US logistics fleet was gutted in the ’90s. See e.g. this video.
Sadly, I no longer believe that there is any “bridge too far for even some of his most ardent Republican supporters in congress”.
I think the threats against Oman are actually substantially worse than you indicate. One of Iran’s long-term strategic goals is to weaken and eventually break the relationship between the US and its various client states in the region. One of the ways in which it has been working towards this during the current war is by demonstrating that the US is not able to effectively protect them. But for Trump to then turn around and directly threaten to attack one of them takes this to an entirely different level… He’s not just showing his own weakness, he’s directly advancing one of Iran’s main strategic objectives.
You can also be sure that every other US ally is taking note. For example, I would expect that the plans being drawn up to respond to any potential Russia move against NATO in Europe will include an entire suite of scenarios based on the assumption that the US does not honour its commitments under Article 5. Meanwhile, South Korea is pushing for a dramatic restructuring of their military relationship with the US.
Not actually true. Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in 1973, when Israel already had nuclear weapons. Iran has also attacked Israel with missiles, as have Hezbollah and the Houthis (although in these cases it’s at least reasonable to say Israel “started it”). India has fought border wars with both China, and more seriously Pakistan, at times when both belligerents were nuclear-armed. China and the Soviet Union also fought a border war when both were nuclear armed. Argentina seized UK territory (the Falklands/Mavinas) at the start of the War of Thatcher’s Face in 1982. The political costs to using nuclear weapons, even against a non-nuclear-armed adversary, are such that their possession is by no means a guarantee against being attacked.
No one launches an *existential* war against nations with nuclear weapons. Or even a minor war against a nuclear power with utterly unpredictable leaders (North Korea).
It is unclear wether the Iranian program is just a bid to create an advantage for negotiantions. If so, it was certainly a success when Obama was president.