As President Donald Trump warns Iran against using mines to threaten oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. Navy’s purpose-built minesweepers are sitting stateside thousands of miles away with no plans to put them to use while the war rages on. As gas prices in the U.S. continued to skyrocket, Trump on Tuesday took to Truth Social to demand that Tehran “immediately” remove any mines placed in the vital seaway and to do so “forthwith” lest the Iranian military suffer “consequences … at a level never seen before.” That warning came after multiple news outlets reported Iran had begun mining the strait, a narrow waterway that is the only passage from the Persian Gulf into open ocean. He also threatened to use drone strikes to “permanently eliminate any boat or ship attempting to mine the Hormuz Strait” and boasted of having done so against 10 Iranian “inactive mine-laying boats” in a separate post several minutes later.
This guy is always stepping on rakes. Every decision he makes is stupid, choosing the wrong course consistently. It’s remarkable
Unless he’s working for our enemies.
And whatever he does always somehow ends up helping Russia.
They were struggling with gas prices being low and sanctions.
Now he removed sanctions and blocked any other source of oil.
The problem is that he is so incompetent that Occam’s Razor dictates that’s most likely the reason. Watching legacy news is like gaslighting yourself because they hold so much water for him and paint him as an idiot savant. He spits out a bunch of random BS and they imbue it with meaning.
Funny how him “being an idiot” and it “just being his incompetence” is also about the only way he can get off scot free after having done what he has done. Every other possibility can be prosecuted, except the ones where people argue he didn’t have intent.
When in doubt, just take the Mussolini route.
That last line made me think of this scene from Silicon Valley
I mean yes it raises gas prices which will help Russia on the one hand but for their war in Ukraine that may not be as big a help as having Iran still standing and putting political pressure on NATO assets as well as being a weapons manufacturing hub that Ukraine couldn’t easily infiltrate and bomb.
Russia is already producing Shahed drones themselves.
While they may produce most of the components for the drones Iran probably kept some production parts homegrown to ensure Russia pays their licensing fees. That doesn’t mean Russia can’t make their entirely homegrown production line from beginning to end but that would take time when most of the production line was set up on Iran and they could purchase those components for their production run. Even if that isn’t a factor in a shooting war you probably want the maximum production of weapons needed to continue shooting.
The goal is to put the US in disarray so that he can declare it’s too dangerous to have elections this November.
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that Trump wants this blockade and war to end. If that were the case, why would he have started it? The fact that we are stuck here is entirely the point. Do you REALLY think its an accident that the fourth largest producer of oil in the world accidentally started a war that simultaneously raised the price of oil AND blockaded the top three oil producers on earth?
Immediately after directing a military incursion toppling the leadership in Venezuela; which sits on massive oil reserves which coincidentally, are of the variety American oil companies are equipped to refine.
Apropos, Bob’s a Republican, too!
I can hear this.
SMACK eugheugheugheugh
You think it’s a mistake? This was done on purpose. Trump may be stupid, but the people pulling the strings aren’t.
They’re trying to prime WW3
Just to get Supply-Side Jayzuz to show up.
That’s what happens when you assume you’re always smarter than those so-called “experts”. You just take whatever they say is a good idea, and do the opposite. Works every time.
It’s another pump-and-dump.
My bad.
Trump-and-dump.Newsflash:
The United States is one of the largest oil exporters on earth. They have exactly ZERO interest in reducing the price of oil.
How are people not understanding that THIS is the exact intended outcome here?
The US imports raw oil and exports refined oil. The US has great interest in keeping raw oil prices low. This isn’t 5d chess, our leaders are genuinely incompetent.
And then factor in Venezuela….
Yeah it doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist to see what’s happening.
Some context from the end of the article:
But Matthew Buckley, a former U.S. Naval aviator who spent considerable time serving in the Middle East region in the 1990s, told The Independent that the U.S. air campaign against Iran is likely executing long-held plans that would negate the need for the minesweepers by eliminating Iran’s ability to lay mines.
“When I was flying combat sorties off to Abraham Lincoln in the mid 90s, you know, we were doing operation Southern Watch no fly zone missions over Iraq. And guess what we were doing during our downtime? We were strike planning Iran … and one of my big strikes that I had planned was against an Iranian mine facility deep in the middle of Iran,” he said.
He added that the Avenger-class ships would not necessarily be readily available to clear any mines that might be laid because they’re “not built for a dynamic environment.”
“Obviously the LCS does have its issues, but it does have a lot of weapons on board, and it is more designed for actual combat and littoral … mine sweeping,” he said.
The mine sweepers in question are four decommissioned wood and fiberglass vessels from the Desert Storm era whose capabilities are being replaced by littoral (giggity) combat ships.
It’s hard for me to believe that this operation wouldn’t include priority strikes on sea mine facilities. Just the specter of mines in the strait is enough to make shipping insurance infeasible. If Iran is successfully mining, what happened? Was this war so hastily planned that this was overlooked? If the strait is so vital to shipping, you’d think they would want every minesweeper available.
If the US military (who are acutely aware of Trump’s openly hostile disrespect towards service members by the way) are actually listening to Trump’s logistical advice, he’s going to run them into the ground faster than his Vegas casinos.
Was this war so hastily planned that this was overlooked?
Planned isn’t the term that I think should be applied to what the US is doing. Iran has been planning how to make an attack on their land as painful for the world as possible for a long time. They know their military can’t compete, so they utilize strategy to make an outsized impact. There is no “mine facility” to bomb, they have thousands of mines in decentralized storage. All of this, including Iran’s plans to make this painful, is public information that the US military had access to.
The unfortunate reality is the civilian leadership in charge of planning this are fucking idiots. Pete Hegseth, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump are fucking morons. They know jack shit about any of this but are running our foreign policy.
The Trump Admin is doing the bidding of Israel here, hands down, as influenced by Israel’s assets within the US government, such as certain members of Congress, who have plainly stated as much. Israel doesn’t care about oil prices, they care about destroying Iran and an ancillary goal: As we speak, Israel has displaced almost a million people in Lebanon and is clearly about to annex Lebanese land. This is a footnote in the news because of Trump’s actions in Iran, but would have garnered international condemnation otherwise.
The unfortunate reality is the civilian leadership in charge of planning this are fucking idiots. Pete Hegseth, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump are fucking morons. They know jack shit about any of this but are running our foreign policy.
They’re wholesome entertainment for Putin.
You think America, one of the largest oil producers in the world, really cares all that much that Saudi Arabia and Iraq can’t get their oil out? You realize they are making money on this, right? The US has no interest in opening the straight. Why do you think they started a war to close it?
Not all oil and its child products are created equal.
There are serious knock on effects occurring right now that we won’t see the impact of for a month or two as companies burn through their inventory
Machine oils/lubricants, aviation fuels and of course fuel. Not to mention LNG, fertilisers and other petrochemical feedstock.
In fairness, the Trump admin didn’t think about any of those things either.
I did not realize that! Given how sensitive America voters are to gas prices, I guess they’re relying on voter suppression.
Who exactly does benefit from closing the strait other than Iran?
The two largest oil producers outside of the gulf: The United States of America and Russia.
What I read today is that Iran deployed twelve mines. Twelve.
Presumably the US was striking their missile launches, and a couple more than twelve were launched… it’s consistent with all that that their ability to lay mines is heavily degraded.
Yeah, this seems like kind of a nothingburger. I get the desire to hit Trump on everything and anything, but you generally don’t put minesweepers in the middle of active combat zones.
I’m also pretty confident that the rumours about Iran deploying mines aren’t even true, because if they are then their recent offer to allow safe passage doesn’t make any sense.
Also, gotta love the LCS catching strays here. Canada has plenty of issues with ship-building, mostly thanks to our sourcing all the work to a monopoly corp that couldn’t give two shits, and even we look competent compared to the US navy’s steadily growing graveyard of failed projects.
The mining and safe passage make sense together. They’d deploy mines, then escort and/or pilot the ship through the unmined channel.
I feel like that only works in a world where satellite and drone surveillance don’t exist. As soon as you escort one ship through the mines, they stop really being a threat because now everyone knows where the safe route is.
I’m sure I could be wrong here, but either way I think we need to keep in mind that the mining is only rumoured at this point. Nothing is even close to confirmed and the evidence is pretty thin.
Edit: OK, I’ve now seen somewhat more credible sources on the mine laying, so good chance I am wrong here. So it goes.
because now everyone knows where the safe route is.
Have the safe route come within convenient range of heavily entrenched shore-based artillery.
Sort of. Live, continuous satellite surveillance is a scarce resource, despite what TV might show you. And keeping a drone on station in hostile airspace is risky.
Not to mention, some mines can be activated and deactivated by shore control.
Due to AIDS
Iran’s submarines have entered the room.
Because of course they are
Haha, Philly might be the one place on Earth that is more hostile to Trump than Iran…
Is there a lot of minesweeping work to be done in Philadelphia?
Oh I’m sure he’s going to permanently eliminate any boat or ship attempting to mine the Hormuz Strait.
Of course, people who aren’t as old as the sun realize that drones can carry mines, so this threat is worth less than the paper it would take to print it out.
I think a sea mine is a bit big for a drone
Depends on how big the drone is.
I guess it could be those naval drones Ukraine uses.
Wouldn’t be that hard to develop and build a sea drone that is a mine.
A drone with a heavy explosive payload that could be remotely piloted into the desired position, then submerged just under the water and hold that position, waiting to trigger.
It would need to come in two pieces: a flotation/propulsion/payload upper segment and an anchor/ballast lower segment. Lower segment is basically a big hollow anchor filled with air. When filled with air, the whole thing is easily buoyant enough to float freely and move around. When ready to deploy, fill the anchor segment with water, making it much heavier and sinking it to the bottom. Have a cable on a winch connecting the two sections. Once the anchor hits the sea floor, reel in the winch until the upper segment begins to sink. Stop the winch when the upper segment reaches the desired depth. The upper segment needs to be buoyant, but not buoyant enough to lift the anchor off the bottom. Once in place, you can shut off most of the electronics and only have a vibration/magnetic/mechanical/whatever trigger waiting to detonate the payload. (If you want to be more elegant and ethical about it, also have it operate the winch to resurface on a regular basis to expose its antenna and listen for a disarm signal.)
Ship shipping ship shipping ships.
