SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: Washington needed to look like it was winning because Iran and Oman were reportedly getting close to deciding the future of Hormuz without bothering to save America a chair.

https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2094245538853990831

 The U.S. brought a BB gun to a gunfight

America hit Iranian missile launchers. Iran answered by hitting Jordan, Kuwait and reportedly Al Udeid in Qatar.

Retired Navy Commander Bobby Jones has a fairly brutal assessment of what happened next: Washington needed to look like it was winning because Iran and Oman were reportedly getting close to deciding the future of Hormuz without bothering to save America a chair.

And according to Jones, the military cupboard isn't exactly overflowing.

Munitions are limited. Minesweepers are sitting in Philadelphia. Logistics are stretched to Diego Garcia. Ships are supposedly escorting tankers through Hormuz while simultaneously protecting carriers, maintaining a blockade and intercepting missiles across the Gulf.

At some point the Navy apparently discovered each ship can only be in one place at a time.

Jones has a simpler test for victory: bring the destroyers into port.

Fujairah. Jebel Ali. Bahrain.

If American warships still can't safely pull in for fuel and resupply, he doesn't care how many victory laps Washington runs on television.

Then comes the bill.

Indo-Pacific assets have been stripped away. Carrier deployments keep getting extended from seven months to nine and potentially a year. Jones expects retention to crater and stop-loss orders to follow.

And he thinks Iran knows exactly where the pressure point is.

His warning is that Tehran could escalate in October, squeeze oil during early voting and turn an American war into an American election problem.

Meanwhile, Washington is reportedly discussing changes to nuclear doctrine that could make tactical weapons easier to use.

So when Jones was asked whether America could simply escalate conventionally, he didn't reach for some grand speech about overwhelming American power.

He asked the only question left:

“With what?”

@bobbydownes