Iran War Update
By 
Iran is not convinced that the war will be over in two weeks.
Iran is responding to the threat of a ground operation on its soil by stepping up defenses around its biggest oil port, while threatening to attack a wider array of targets around the Gulf and launching a mass recruitment drive reminiscent of its 1980s war with Iraq.
The steps come as President Trump has ordered thousands of Marines and Airborne troops to the Middle East. While the president hasn’t said he plans to put boots on the ground, the deployments would give the U.S. more options for ground assaults or raids, and they have set off preparations and a wave of new threats from Iran.
Analysts and people familiar with Iranian military tactics say the country is gearing up for a fierce fight that could give it the chance to inflict more casualties than it can against the U.S. and Israel’s dominant air forces.
Tehran is also mobilizing its population in ways that seek to harness the spirit of the 1980s war with Iraq. They include drives to recruit millions of Iranians including children—a fixture of the tributes to martyrs via street signs and posters that are still a part of Iran’s daily life.
Other stuff…
- Some general thinking on the question of war crimes, both in terms of jus ad bellum and jus in bello.
- The war is good for the South Korean defense industry…
- Paul is correct about the general nonsense of trying to derive any meaning from Trump’s speeches…
- As Cheryl has noted there is no non-insane version of s special ops grab of the Iranian nuclear dust…
- Iranian-supported militias in Iraq are operating without clear instructions…
- Pakistan trying to take advantage of the situation to act as a diplomatic intermediary…
Photo Credit: By Avash Media, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=185593018