A better headline for Iran Blockades the Strait Again; Negotiations Break Down; Iran Has Upper Hand.

(CNN) Iran renews restrictions on Strait of Hormuz as peace talks approach a critical juncture. Quoting,

• Strait closure: Iran says it is once again shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, blaming the US for “breaches of trust” during the ongoing ceasefire. The move may threaten momentum toward a peace deal between the two countries.

The above is a bit watery. On November 3, 2026, the U.S. will still be at war with Iran. The basis is the innate character of the Iranian regime, which cannot be altered. This has been discussed in fine detail in previous posts; here is the summation:

• There is a fundamental misapprehension of the nature of the enemy, which it is thought can be pressured to behave as a rational actor.
• The overarching war strategy has been to create conditions for a rational actor (according to our definition) to emerge, to accede to U.S. demands.
• The  Iranians believe they can manage the privations of the oil blockade better than the West.
• The Iranians believe they can manage civilian suffering with oppression.
• Control of the Strait is a weapon for which the U.S. has no effective countermeasure.
• The IRG anticipates that November will see the sunset of U.S. operations. That is not long in the scheme of things. They anticipate that as the date approaches, Trump will declare victory and disengage.

The enemy is not a rational actor as we understand it. We don’t have to look outside Western civilization for examples. In the closing days of WWII, in the two week Battle of Berlin, 92,000–100,000 German soldiers and 125,000 civilians  lost their lives. Why was the Wehrmacht unable to concede the inevitable?  Fear of Russian revenge was one factor. The personal loyalty oath of Wehrmacht officers to Hitler has direct analogy to Iran’s authoritarian theocracy, however warped it may be by the IRG. A third reason: In the extremity, they had no  time to think.

Even if there exists a moderate faction, it is almost a mathematical theorem that radical elements will dominate, displacing moderates.  Radicals tend to be meaner and more violent than moderates; hence radicals kill more moderates than moderates kill radicals. See (Brinton) The Anatomy of Revolution. Corollary. This cannot change from external pressure. Social order can only be changed up close, as by an occupying force.

It doesn’t matter whether Vance or Rubio negotiate. For Iran, negotiations are nothing more than a smokescreen. To avoid strategic defeat, completely different tactics are required.

There are many ways to classify war. One is intensity. High intensity is the preferred modality for advanced powers, leveraging technology and industry to minimize casualties. Low intensity is the only option available to insurgencies, and remains an option for developing countries. It has been so successful that one wag advises throwing out all the textbooks on counterinsurgency, because they were written by the losers. Afghanistan, Vietnam, and  the 2003 Iraq occupation that followed invasion were asymmetric, where the U.S. / allied effort was mostly high  intensity, against low-intensity insurgent opponents.

With isolated exceptions, such as the occupied Philippines during WW2 (see Wendell Fertig), the Green Berets in Vietnam / small scale ops elsewhere, and an abortive effort in Syria during the Obama administration, U.S. history shows a strong preference for high intensity warfare. Iran is perhaps the most audacious, with an all-air approach that maximizes intensity per combatant. Optimistic predictions were likely based on Iran’s preference for the same.  Simultaneous decapitation and destruction of Iran’s high-intensity base would leave it with “no cards to play.” They actually have a whole other deck. We can “bomb them back to the Stone Age”, as was attempted in Vietnam, only to find they have backup spears, furs, and flints. This is one of Clausewitz’s choices. We don’t decide what the Iranians need to fight. They do.

It was anticipated that, even with an Iranian “backup deck”, the regime would collapse. Here logic was replaced by faulty intuition. Quoting from What Are the Mullahs of Iran Thinking?,

An insurgency is vital to seize power; otherwise it will simply lapse to surviving elements of the current regime.

High intensity warfare has another limitation. It deprives the adversary of time to change their mind.  Readers who have spouses are doubtless familiar with the tactic of wearing down, or being worn down, conceding over time what is unthinkable in an instant.

The alternative. We need to flip the script, with the current maximal intensity reduced to something like what Israelis call “mowing the lawn. This can be a hybrid approach; we don’t have to go all the way in that direction, but the level must be sustainable indefinitely. But how does the switch open the Strait?

Negotiation with Iran has been proven not to work. So replace it. The broad success of B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning, with animals as diverse at rats and humans, suggests Iranians are not likely to be immune. See Advice for a New Secretary of State, Part 6; How to Use a Skinner Box. Quoting,

We want the Russians to cease subversion of our political process via social media and fake news.  B.F. Skinner’s numerous publications explain in general terms how this should be done. Now let’s get specific.  A U.S. response, what Skinner calls the reinforcer,  to inhibit the Russian operant,  should:

• • • Occur quickly after the operant, preferably overlapping the operant itself.
    • Be  implemented according to Skinner’s research on schedules. This rules out actions that are one-shots, without the possibility of unlimited repetition.

The reinforcer is transit of the Strait, a set of rules that determine how often, how much, and where-to Iran may transit the Strait in response to successful  transit by U.S. allies. The rules do not have to be simple; they can be capricious and punitive, but they must be consistent. The rules must represent the cheaper alternative to aggression. The Skinner box buys the Iranians time to think.

The alternative also buys  time to establish an insurgency. It is potentially politically durable, removing the Iranian anticipation that they only have to hold out until political pressure in the U.S. terminates U.S. action.

Quoting from (CNN) Trump agrees to two-week ceasefire with Iran; Strategic Deadlock,

Some time before the last battle, when things become obvious, four trends are possible:

• • • • We’re winning, and we know it.
      • We’re losing, and we know it.
      • We’re winning, but we think we’re losing.
      • We’re losing, but we think we’re winning.

One possibility was left out, the current situation of strategic deadlock. Both parties can sustain the conflict almost indefinitely.

Both the present and the future remain in doubt.

(CNN) Trump agrees to two-week ceasefire with Iran.

Open source often must rely on after-the-fact deduction. Quoting from Iran Conflict Myths; Seven Fallacies,

Myth 1. The press, and various open source authorities, such as retired military, voice strong and contradictory opinions at how this war is going. The data required to inform these opinions is not available in open source. Political spin dominates. What about the war planners who have the data? Their accuracy is impaired by the chaos of war. Some time before the last battle, when things become obvious, four trends are possible:

• • • • We’re winning, and we know it.
      • We’re losing, and we know it.
      • We’re winning, but we think we’re losing.
      • We’re losing, but we think we’re winning.

One possibility was left out, the current situation of strategic deadlock. Both parties can sustain the conflict almost indefinitely.

In this swirl the foremost question was, could the U.S. open the Strait of Hormuz? In the past few weeks, this has become the missing demonstration of U.S. power, a requirement rather than an option. If it were possible, the destruction of Iran’s electrical grid would not have been made the substitute. Execution would deprive the U.S. of even the most tenuous support of allies, with additional restrictions on the use of bases, and preeminently, loss of congressional support.

This is the way open source intel works. We cannot directly evaluate the feasibility of war plans, seen or unseen. We know that in the 1990’s  when Iran had lined the shore with ponderous Chinese Silkworm missiles. there were plans to dig them out, with an estimated time for the task of two weeks. The Strait was still approachable by naval vessels, which could competently deal with the Silkworm. Since that time, faster, smaller, more accurate missiles require much greater separation. A single Iranian missile is not guaranteed a hit; the math of repetition works against a navy.

So we can now infer that in at least one way, Iran has the upper hand. We can also infer something about the broad strategy. It was thought that air strikes would degrade Iran’s war-making capacity to insignificance, rendering Iran incapable of concentrating forces along the coast of Hormuz. This may have been partly successful, but the problem of concentrated missile fire at compact area, such as a small island, remains. The 1-2 ton warhead of an Iranian ballistic missile can demolish any field bunker Marines might build.

What options does Trump have? Choices of abandonment or modification remain open. 

• It has been suggested that he could declare victory and disengage. This is a hard sell.
• He could switch to a  low intensity approach.
• He could hold Iranian tankers  hostage in an ocean corral off Oman and sell their oil, using the revenue as a carrot.
• There are ways to disable a power grid which are more easily repairable than destroying power plants.
• He could promote an insurgency, the absence of which is the greatest flaw of the plan.

While POTUS cannot completely duck this situation, he cannot be expected to understand military plans in detail.  His judgement depends on really smart, well balanced administrators, devoid of strange beliefs and agendas. Military science, in combination with intelligence and diplomacy, informs us of what is possible, what is desirable, and what is avoidable.

To POTUS: Changes must be made. You probably know what you have to do and who to do it to.

***How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying***

See Iran’s Next Move? The SAM Trap.

(CNN) Smerconish: Now that we’re in Iran, we cannot afford a premature exit. Subtitle: Smerconish examines the current state of the war with Iran, and the necessity of securing the Islamic Republic’s enriched uranium.

Examining the inconsistent ways the Administration has expressed goals of U.S. action, Smerconish settles on the conceptually simplest one: seize a hard, dense metal, enriched uranium, that facilitates  great harm. If only this could substitute for the messy business of upending a regime of terror by men with guns and replacing it with a nice bunch of people with no guns!

Quoting Iran Conflict Myths; Seven Fallacies,

Myth 2.  U.S. objectives can be achieved without regime change. A  popular phrase associated with U.S. objectives is “once and for all“, permanent de-nuclearization and de-missilization.

This myth results from a confusion of physical infrastructure with mental infrastructure. It is feasible to raze the industrial base of Iran; it is not  feasible to nullify Iran’s work force. Engineering is a very high status profession in Iran,  even more than in the U.S. How long would it take to build new infrastructure, considering China would sell them brand new factories on easy credit?…razing Iran’s industrial and military infrastructure would buy at most a decade.

Smerconish does not specify whether the uranium stockpile is to be surrendered or seized. The first assumes something about the IRG that may not be true. Quoting Why Trump is Optimistic about Iran Conflict; Role of Technology; Flexible Goals, substitute uranium for bases:

Hence a purely kinetic solution to Iran’s missile bases may not be possible.  A trade may be envisioned. Destruction of Iran’s industrial base is feasible. At some point, the surviving power structure may be amenable to sacrificing the bases in exchange for remaining infrastructure. This assumes some minimal commonality of values. Sometimes there is, sometimes not. North Vietnam is most pertinent. This ingenious culture valued infrastructure, yet was completely willing to sacrifice it for a political goal. The self-destructive Taliban are even more extreme.

So what if they won’t give it up? Then we have to go in and get it. That would require transporting hundreds or thousands of troops through airspace that has recently proven unsafe. It also requires that the Iranians are dumb. The IRG is not full of brilliant minds, but it take little to imagine a booby-trapped fortress, where thousands of tons of rock comes crashing down on Special Forces. The uranium can be dug out at the Iranians’ leisure. For a dramatization, see Could U.S. Special Forces Seize Iran’s Enriched Uranium from Secret Cave?

Suppose we take the uranium. Is that the end of the question? No; the IRG would prefer to make the Bomb themselves, but that is largely a matter of pride. North Korean nukes are vastly more sophisticated, much more powerful, smaller, and, I daresay, for sale at  the right price.

We are left with the only true  defense  against nuclear proliferation, Nice People.

This argument between Michael Smerconish in the Philly Burbs and Bob Morein in the Philly Burbs may be a subject matter first for the Philly Burbs. How about them Eagles?

What follows is not predictive of how this war will turn out. Seven fallacies of press and pundits are discussed. If you are employing one or more, consider reformulating your argument.

Myth 1. The press, and various open source authorities, such as retired military, voice strong and contradictory opinions at how this war is going. The data required to inform these opinions is not available in open source. Political spin dominates. What about the war planners who have the data? Their accuracy is impaired by the chaos of war. Some time before the last battle, when things become obvious, four trends are possible:

• We’re winning, and we know it.
• We’re losing, and we know it.
• We’re winning, but we think we’re losing.
• We’re losing, but we think we’re winning.

Those who think  their predictions are so accurate as to certainly be among the first two should review their records of the Ukraine conflict.

To evaluate the military effort, the first data required are  air attack attrition rates of launchers, missiles, and drones, per day, and remaining stockpiles, including error bars. If the  data is good, it can be used to game  further options, possibly revealing a path to a positive strategic outcome.

Myth 2.  U.S. objectives can be achieved without regime change. A  popular phrase associated with U.S. objectives is “once and for all“, permanent de-nuclearization and de-missilization.

This myth results from a confusion of physical infrastructure with mental infrastructure. It is feasible to raze the industrial base of Iran; it is not  feasible to nullify Iran’s work force. Engineering is a very high status profession in Iran,  even more than in the U.S. How long would it take to build new infrastructure, considering China would sell them brand new factories on easy credit?

The answer comes from China itself. In 1972, when Nixon visited China, that country had political impediments to economic development far more severe than Iran today. It was frozen in a Maoist orthodoxy that prohibited economic development. In 1978, when Deng Xiaoping assumed power, capital accumulation was finally encouraged. In 2010,  only 32 years later, the industrial output of China passed the U.S.  But China lacked Iran’s skilled work  force, so razing Iran’s industrial and military infrastructure would buy at most a decade.

Myth 3. “Imminent threat” is the proper measure to determine the validity of U.S. deployments. When a threat becomes  imminent, it is  is often too late to prevent serious consequences.

Myth 4. The Strait of Hormuz is irreplaceable in world commerce. See New Pipelines for the Middle East; Bypassing the Strait of Hormuz . Some commentators have pointed out that other bulk commodities, such as fertilizer and petrochemicals, also transit the strait.  In the U.S. all bulk commodities other than oil, and some oil too, go by rail.  Is it difficult to build a railroad in Arabia?  Before World War I, the Turks built the 810 mile Hejaz railway on the west side of the Arabian peninsula, which ran from Damascus to Medina. A freight line  on the east side of the peninsula, along with pipelines, to Salalah in Oman, would devalue the strait.

Myth 5 (possible). A quick end to hostilities, even if Iran is left with considerable capacity to regenerate, is preferable to a drawn-out conflict. This is driven by blockage of the Strait. If the Strait is devalued, we can take our time and options open up,  with opportunity for Kissinger’s diplomacy backed by force. The longer the time frame, the more possible regime change becomes.

Myth 6. Bypassing the Strait with pipelines and freight rail is too expensive. It’s actually much cheaper than fighting a war: $10M/mile for a pipeline, $5M/mile for a single freight track. You do the math.

Myth 7. Iranians can overthrow their captors without guns. Anchors conditioned by senseless gun violence in the U.S. barely manage to sputter “and guns” at the end of their homilies.  I got over this by sheer force of logic. You can too.

(CNN) Iran building up defenses of Kharg Island to protect against potential US ground attack, sources say.

A very effective countermeasure exists.

(AP)  Trump says Iran gave the US a gift ‘worth a tremendous amount of money’.

As to what the gift is, here is a reasonable guess, with the attractiveness of reciprocity:

Iran will permit the transit through the Strait of Hormuz of oil equal in value or quantity to the 140 million barrels of Iranian oil  stranded at  sea now subject to sanctions relief. Against a background of endless negotiations, renewals will be contingent on U.S. strikes cessation, and unverifiable Iranian concessions.

Iran takes the initiative in relief of the markets, while the U.S. can only obstruct the markets. International opinion, including allies, swings sharply against the U.S. Continuation is contingent on cessation of hostilities. The result, vindicating the mullahs, is discussed in

What Are the Mullahs of Iran Thinking?

This action by  Iran  results in a return to a frozen conflict. This is the low risk option. It leaves Iran in a position to block the Strait at will.

The alternative U.S. option, preserving the original strategic objectives, involves seizure of several strategic Iranian islands. It potentially frees the Strait from Iranian threat, while exposing occupying troops to continuous, low intensity fires.

Which option would you take?

(CNN) Trump says Vance and Rubio are participating in talks with Iran to end war. In preface, my sympathies lie with General Jack Keane of ISW. Nothing in this critical appraisal should be accepted uncritically.

Quoting CNN,

The speaker of the Iranian parliament has been talked of as a potential interlocutor with the Trump administration.

CNN’s Fred Pleitgen has more on Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf…

Choice of a hard line Iranian interlocutor over a moderate or reformer may be capitulation to reality on the ground in Iran,  to domestic politics, or a combination of the two. While support for this action increased in the first weeks, the American public has no appetite for drawn-out conflict. Ghalibaf knows this, and will exploit it. Trump should expect a second Putin experience.

In fairness, the timing, before development of an insurgency,  may have been forced by more than the gathering of Khameini’s inner circle above ground. Netanyahu claims that new subterranean fortifications, invulnerable to conventional munitions, were soon to come online. I had a similar anticipation, of a switch to harder, igneous rock.

There may have been no time to develop an insurgency. A planning deficit would be more serious. Has the intelligence community lost expertise in the anticipation and foment of revolution? Quoting Why Trump is Optimistic about Iran Conflict; Role of Technology; Flexible Goals,

Set the stage for revolution, which involves getting guns to the street. As this is written, there is news that the CIA is working with the Kurds. (CNN) CIA working to arm Kurdish forces to spark uprising in Iran, sources say. Another possibility: Sistan and Baluchestan.

This suggestion, arming the street with guns, was mildly shocking to several commentators. My response: It is incongruous to offer Iranians nothing more than a quick martyrdom. Guns are a curse here in the U.S., but an unavoidable tool in the overthrow of the worst tyrannies. Mao Zedong , famous tyrant, knew this: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun “

The contrast between excellence of military planning and poor political planning is eerily reminiscent of the “neoconservatives” of the 2003 Iraq War, when, straying far beyond Iraq, one abortive goal of that establishment was the invasion of Iran. Then, as now with their equivalents, the neoconservatives exercised their form of political orthodoxy to believe things about these countries which had no basis in reality. See What Are the Mullahs of Iran Thinking? Quoting,

Can a decapitation strike in Iran achieve the goal of regime change? The answer depends on three calculations we may not know how to make:

• • • Success of the strike, measured against the survival of the target.
    • Political implications. See Iran Protests; Is Revolution Nigh?
    • Viability of an insurgency.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf offers three illusions. The first is Ghalibaf himself; brutal and steeped in the Iranian practice of deception, which is actually codified in Shi’ism via its roots as a heretical splinter of Islam.

The second is that Ghalibaf is a unitary entity. He is not; he is embedded in a society and system. His free will is constrained by that  system.  His thoughts are cultural expressions. In Should Fox Apologize to Putin?, I wrote

After I had studied Vladimir Putin for a while, I realized that it is impossible to separate the man from the world in which he is embedded. It is an ethnocentric world of corrupt institutions and extrajudicial punishments, coexisting with a western yearning that willed the city of St. Petersburg into existence. In this milieu, there is a significant minority of completely modern people who have hybridized themselves with the west. They are just like us, a confusing veneer.

The parallels are obvious. Putin cannot turn his ship to leave Ukraine;  Ghalibaf cannot expunge Iran’s constitutional goal to eradicate Israel, or the other external goals of the IRG.

The third is that Ghalibaf can deliver. The power structure, consisting of dual elements of command and consensus  forming elements, is broken. That it has come together is a leap from sparse messaging from some elements. The absence of the command element is exemplified by a dead or comatose Supreme Leader. If there were a competent consensus-forming mechanism, this would not be allowed to persist. Both command and consensus are inoperative.  The mechanism that would delegate to Ghalibaf does not exist.

Even if Ghalibaf tries to find a new consensus, he has a motive to talk indefinitely: It keeps him off the kill list.

Two point six years million years ago to  present (2.6 MYA)

The Quaternary Present; Oil on Panel (click to enlarge))

There evolved a species so powerful, so eminent, predominant, so superlative in every way, it has the potential to change the very course of the  planet itself. But with that ownership comes great responsibility.

You break it, you own it.

See New Art Series #2; Traces of the Past; Painting the Cambrian Period; Att: Larry Gagosian.