Donald Trump the Megathread part II - Mod Warning updated in OP 12/2/26

And a large part of the issue is timing. Iran knows that Trump is not in it for the long haul. He has given himself very tight deadlines. And the fact that there is little appetite for this in the US, even from his own base and that Trump had to bypass Congress, means that the clock is ticking on Trump.

Iran needs to dig in and survive. Putting constraints on himself is madness, but he had little choice since he had gathered no actual support for this outside of his own group.

Iran knows this and knows that the rising oil prices and upcoming November midterms play into its advantage.

I have no idea whether they can survive to take advantage of the timeframes, but it is clearly an advantage they have.

Did they miss that he has already said there won't be regime change ?

By the way, it's perfectly possible to think both the Ayatollahs and Trump are *****

Concerns in South Korea that the US are moving THAAD and Patriot missiles out of theatre to reinforce Middle Eastern defences.

The depletion of BMD capable interceptors due to their being expended in defence of Israel and US bases in the ME will have huge strategic implications for South Korea & Taiwan.

Including last year's expenditure in the June war, the magazine depth available to US for THAAD is likely approaching low 3 figure at this point.
The total number of SM3 available to the USN is likely less than 500, that doesn't account for any that have been fired, just the likely total delivered.
Similarly, total number of SM6 delivered to date is likely approx 1500.
That gives the USN 2000 BMD capable rounds, which doctrine would see fired in pairs.

The US army has deeper Patriot magazine but as has been seen in videos released in 1st couple of days of this war.
Multiple rounds are being launched at incoming missiles and the miss rate is reportedly higher than 10%.
Similarly, the US army's THAAD stockpile was already depleted by approx 25% last June with anywhere from 100-250 launched in defence of Israel.

China, North Korea and to a large extent also Russia can only be looking at US missile expenditure with absolute delight.
Both BMD and AA defence across the US allies in the far east and in Ukraine have been crippled for the foreseeable future.
Freeing that Axis from a huge amount of risk and heaping pressure on erstwhile allies.
Japan does at least have a PAC-3 missile manufacturing license, whereas European allies are still awaiting final go ahead for the Germans & Romanians to begin building them in Europe.

The depletion of US Air Defence and in particular the BMD capable missiles must IMHO be viewed against the 2023 Pentagon warning that China would be capable of invading Taiwan in 2027.
The expenditure of missiles over the past 4 days?
Has weakened allies and the US ability to protect and project it's own forces.

Lindsay Graham saying Cuba is next.

There is a colonial war of conquest right here in Europe with Iranian allies flying hundreds of Iranian designed drones night after night for 5 years now

These 50,000$ drones can and are easily being brought down now with 10,000$ drone interceptors

Gulf countries like I mentioned earlier will be left with a war on their doorstep when Trump gets bored and leave the mess he started, the smart ones will take up Zelensky on his offer

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/03/03/zelensky-offers-to-save-gulf-states-iran-war-putin-drones/

people will go to war and die for that nonsense spouting gobshite. The military must be worried that at some stage people think actually I’m not that keen on having people shoot at me for no reason related to America. Absolute lack wits joining up.

Next on the list of things to distract from trumps name being all over the epstein files

If they did I doubt it would help them.

It would only get even more voters asking why they are involved in his present attempt at distraction to counter a supposed imminent nuclear threat of a nuclear weapon being developed by Iran, when he told them a few months ago that Iran`s nuclear facilities had been totally obliterated.

They must definitely be following a delay strategy (if possible).

This is ,after all asymmetric warfare (albeit on their in soil and with their eye on the uprising in the rear mirror)

So sad to be living in such "interesting times"

“Trump claims Iran wanted to negotiate but he said 'too late'

Donald Trump has taunted Iran's remaining leaders by declaring it's 'too late to talk' after suggesting Tehran wanted to negotiate with the US.

In a post on his Truth Social account, the President said: 'Their air defense, Air Force, Navy, and Leadership is gone. They want to talk. I said “Too Late!'

It comes as Trump warns the 'hardest hits' are yet to come as the fighting entered its fourth day and promised to retaliate after the US embassy in Saudi Arabia was attacked by drones.”

So if he doesn’t want to negotiate, just what da fck does he want?
Do we assume he wants to blow up the place a lot more, kill a few more potential leaders and then demand 50% of their oil for free or something?

What does “done” look like? He’s just pissing in the wind if he keeps this up

Just like the Muslims who voted for Trump believing he would be better for Palestine than Harris.

The one consistency of anyone who does anything for Trump is that they regret it afterwards.

I would not be surprised if a lot of those 'community leaders' were bought off to boost Trump.