Senator Chris Murphy says he has been briefed on the US’s plan to restart the war on Iran, calling it “insane” and saying it would lead to a “devastating escalation”.
“You’ve heard a preview that it would be a short-duration plan. I’ll just say this: their plan is insane,” Murphy said, speaking at an event organised by the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, on Wednesday.
“It will lead to devastating escalation and the likely destruction of our commitment to the rule of law.”
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“There’s been open reporting as to what we may be planning and the civilian infrastructure we may be targeting,” Murphy said.
"They’ve been asked by the president to develop a plan - whether they believe it will work or not, I do not know. But the plan that they have developed will lead, in my view, to a prolongment and an escalation of this war that will be devastating for our security interests.
“We are seeing the president ready another devastating military campaign after the election, just as illegal as the first iteration was at the time, where Americans are fed up with this war.”
I’ll disagree with other folks here and say I don’t think it’s nukes. The one thing Trump seems to have digested from growing up in Cold War America is that “Nuclear War is bad.” It’s been how he overcame his own cognitive dissonance about being dragged into Netanyahu’s War in the first place, and I think it’s part, though by no means all, of why he kisses Putin’s and Kim’s asses so repeatedly.
It’s literally the last thread that seems to tether him to a human version of foreign policy. Of course, he’s done huge damage in the world that has made nuclear proliferation more likely, particularly among rich nations who avoided making them on the theory that the US had them covered, but I don’t think he wants to be the one to use nuclear weapons.
He is also, however, stupid and cruel, so I think what he has in mind is more of what he was always blustering about before TACO’ing. Massive conventional campaign, but now including civilian infrastructure with a huge tolerance for direct collateral damage and knock-on human suffering. I could even see targeting cultural heritage, because he’s that big a bastard and boor and he’s talked about wiping the civilization off the map (admittedly this is also why I can’t fault someone if they take him at his word and assume nukes). If there’s a nuclear element, it might involve leaving the power plant in Bushehr on their targets list. Fallout is not a mushroom cloud.
There’s also apparently a Marine Expeditionary force involved, which on the one hand is partly just a smaller aircraft carrier for more bombs, but may could also mean enough troops to storm some of the Islands in the Strait itself or even Kharg. You know Hegseth is desperate to get boots on the ground somewhere so it isn’t all the “pussies” in Naval Aviation and the Chair Force who get tot have all the “fun.”
In short, think Dresden or Tokyo, not Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
Yay.
I’m not so sure about that, there were insider reports saying the nuclear option was explored but shutdown by a top General. We have direct orders from him, “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately,”. This sounds nothing like someone who thinks “nuclear war is bad.”
They’re talking about thr MOAB, they dropped one during his first term and all the chuds spent a week memeing and gushing over it, so they want to try that again to improve their moral
Not nukes right away. More like a massive ground invasion.