Pragmatically Distributed

The most certain way to remove the threat the Ayatollahs pose to traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is by collapsing the regime.

A regime collapse can happen rapidly if there are successful armed protests in Tehran that destroy or throw out internal security personnel, and if Kharg Island is no longer able to produce oil revenue for the regime (at least 50% of all regime revenue comes from Kharg alone).

A takeover of Tehran by protesters armed with guns taken from US and Israeli stockpiles (perhaps delivered by airdrops from cargo planes) would cause rapid collapse of regime forces across the rest of Iran and stop missile firing on oil tanker traffic navigating Hormuz.

And when the regime collapses its threat to tanker traffic will also end.

Halting Kharg Island from exporting oil would further cause chaos amidst the remaining regime forces.

Although Kharg could be taken by US land forces, the island could be booby trapped and the oil facilities there could be bombed by the regime, which (if hitting oil storage or industrial machinery) would release toxic smoke that would make the air unbreathable for US ground forces.

Since the end result is to remove Kharg as a major source of regime income, it would be better to bomb a few, select, parts of the oil infrastructure so that it can no longer produce or export oil. At the same time, it would be better that whatever damage is inflicted on the infrastructure could be repaired within a few months (instead of years worth of damage). This way, a new regime would be able to repair the island rapidly and start gaining oil income to stabilize the country after the rule of the Ayatollahs ends.

Trump has brilliantly weakened Iran to a point where armed protesters (backed by US and Israeli drones and airstrikes) in Tehran could overrun security forces.

An armed uprising in Tehran is the ideal place to start a civilian revolt because if the regime loses control of Tehran it will cause a domino effect across the rest of the country.

In addition, once Tehran is lost the regime would be unlikely to get it back because to regain control they would need to send sizable regime reinforcements to the city; forces that would be highly vulnerable to US and Israeli airstrikes.

The last piece is, therefore, to get as many handguns, assault rifles and ammunition into the hands of as many Iranian citizens in Tehran (and elseswhere) as possible, either through airdrops from cargo planes, land routes, both, or some other method.

Since conscription is mandatory in Iran, most of the male population of fighting age likely has, at least, intermediate level training in handling firearms. They simply need the US and Israel to get guns in their hands ASAP and be supported by drones and air power to takeover Tehran and trigger the collapse of the regime.

Because of how interconnected the oil production system on Kharg Island is, the entire production on Kharg can be stopped without blowing up all of the machinery associated with it.

Hitting only a few points of its infrastructure would bring production to a complete halt; but not cause so much damage that a new Iranian government that replaced the Ayatollahs couldn’t repair the damage relatively quickly and use the oil money to start rebuilding the country.

Meanwhile, as long as the current regime exists, the US can prevent the regime from restarting production simply by attacking any engineering crews that try to repair the damage (and thus cutoff the regime from over 50% of its annual budget revenue).

Then, once the regime falls, the US can allow the energy machinery to be fixed by technicians and restart energy production.

With Trump having the Ayatollahs behind the 8-ball, and on the brink of achieving the greatest US geopolitical victory since Reagan facilitated the fall of the Soviet Union (perhaps even greater), the only thing needed for a total victory that topples the Iranian terrorist regime is for the US to trigger an uprising in Tehran that overwhelms the internal security forces of the city.

A successful protester takeover of the city, one that overwhelms the regime’s riot control personnel, would rapidly cause a collapse of the regime’s control across the rest of the nation.

Now that the US and Israel are targeting the positions of Basiji in Tehran with drones armed with hellfire missiles, and with the destruction of other targets such as warships, missile manufacturing, etc., etc., being wrapped up, here are additional ways the ground can be prepped for the protesters to take to the streets of Tehran and drive out or destroy whatever internal forces are left –

1) Deliver guns into the hands of Tehran protesters.

This can be achieved by the US and Israel air dropping assault rifles, handguns, and ammunition via cargo planes and/or by smuggling weapons via some type of land route to Tehran civilians (and other cities, as needed).

2) Pressure regime internal security by disrupting the regime’s ability to pay them.

Continued attacks against regime banks, financial assets, and somehow removing Kharg Island from the regime’s control (either through airstrikes on the oil machinery or landing US ground forces to take the island) will disrupt the financial loyalty Iran has over internal security, and encourage forces to abandon their units and go AWOL.

3) Isolate security forces in Tehran from reinforcements outside the city.

CENTCOM would be wise to declare that any reinforcements of loyalists they detect approaching Tehran will be immediately bombed. This would largely deter any large formations of reinforcements from moving to Tehran in the event of uprisings (and guarantee destruction of reinforcements that are not deterred). Small groups of reinforcements could still sneak into the city, but they would not be able to bring heavy military vehicles like were used to attack protesters across the country in January. Isolation from security reinforcements would be very problematic for regime forces in Tehran because they would require large amounts of help to control a very large city with a population of 9 million residents in the city proper, and 15 million including the Tehran metro.

4) Increase dispersal of regime forces by expanding airstrikes across the entire country on positions of ground personnel, military equipment warehouses, and buildings.

Increased targeting of all regime ground forces across the entire country (IRGC, Basiji, regular Army, etc.) as well as their supply warehouses and buildings will force greater dispersal of whatever ground forces the regime has left. The more they disperse, and the fewer supplies they can draw from storage, the harder it will be for their officers to control and communicate with them. With the combination of drone strikes, economic pressure and isolation of Tehran in steps #2 and #3 it will be extra problematic if forces are dispersed from their officers because it will become more tempting for them to abandon their posts when they are under severe stress while not close to someone to keep them doing their job properly.

5) Offer security forces in Tehran the option to flee Tehran for Iran’s Northeast.

The US could tempt more regime forces to leave Tehran and go AWOL by promising not to attack any security personnel who drop their weapons, put on civilian clothes, and leave Tehran to go to Iran’s Northeast. With the application of economic pressure, drone strikes, isolating internal security in Tehran from reinforcements, and with regime land forces across the country being attacked to disperse them, the promise of being allowed safe passage to the Northeast of Iran would break down unit cohesion in Tehran even further.

These steps, combined with other US and Israeli actions, will leave the remaining internal security forces in Tehran extra vulnerable for the moment when the US and Israel are ready to tell the residents of Tehran that the conditions are right to rise up and overrun regime forces across the city.

Now that Israel and the US are providing close drone support by attacking Iranian riot control forces, the opportunity has come where the US can give an ultimatum to Iran to cease their attacks on Strait of Hormuz shipping and the Gulf Arabs.

If they refuse, the consequence would be the US would bomb Kharg Island and the remainder of Iran’s oil and gas export facilities.

Taking down their energy export infrastructure would guarantee the regime falls because 70% of the government’s revenue comes from energy exports.

Objective: Complete the collapse of the Iranian Government by preventing regime riot control from setting up crowd control formations when Iranian protestors take to the streets again.

Method: The US and Israel provide close air support to protestors using US Reaper drones (or similar drones) capable of loitering around Iranian riot police positions and firing Hellfire missiles at regime forces (preferably around the Tehran area) to force riot control to disperse as much as possible.

In addition to close drone support, somehow deliver surplus US and Israeli military grade assault rifles, handguns, ammunition, body armor, communication devices (like Starlink, military communication devices, and similar) to protesters so they can coordinate and launch attacks against regime riot control forces (with weapons and supplies provided by the US and Israel via supply airdrops and/or land delivery routes).

 

Justification: The reasoning for this approach is perfectly simple: At some point in the near future there will be new street battles between extremely angry Iranian protesters and Iranian riot control forces.

If riot control forces are overrun by protesters in any given city then the regime would automatically lose control of that area. They would also be very unlikely to take it back with US and Israeli air power monitoring any regime ground forces that might move to retake it. Losing a control of a city (especially Tehran, or another large city) would also increase the chances of riot control panicking and losing control elsewhere in Iran.

Therefore, from the regime’s perspective, the riot police must not be overrun (which may be an additional to problem if they are facing a possible ground assault from Iranian Kurds and/or Azerbaijan).

However, in order for the Ayatollah’s riot control to successfully stand up to protesters they would have to secure large sections of cities with riot control arrayed in line formations (which could be easily attacked by US and Israeli drones) because it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to hold back large crowds of protesters if they are dispersed.

Deploying a single riot control agent (or a handful of agents) in a street would be vulnerable to a handful of protesters moving through a back ally street route and jumping them by surprise.

If the regime deployed individual riot control agents on rooftops to snipe at protesters (without also having regime forces positioned on the ground) this would leave the regime forces on roofs vulnerable to protesters lighting on fire the first floor of the building they are in, or, giving the location of the building to US and Israeli intelligence so an airstrike could be launched on the building.

It would also be harder for an individual riot control agent (or a small group of them) to communicate and coordinate actions with other riot control forces and leadership if they are dispersed and separated from larger formations of riot control.

If any regime riot control forces in an area disperse in the face large protests, the regime’s riot control system will rapidly be overrun by protesters in that area.

Therefore, the US and Israel should use Reaper (or similar) attack drones to force the dispersal of riot control. The Hellfire missile that the Reaper can fire is an ideal weapon to use at regime riot control positions because the explosion is relatively smaller compared to a jet launched bomb, and is therefore less likely to kill protesters who might be nearby. However, the explosion a ingle Hellfire missiles cause is large enough to kill many regime police forces and cause the survivors to panic and break formation.

The drones can also loiter around an area longer than fighter jets can and provide realtime intelligence and targeting information to other US and Israeli air assets, and whatever Iranian resistance leaders have contact with US and Israeli intelligence.

In addition, delivering supplies of military grade assault rifles and handguns, body armor, communication devices, etc through supply air drops and/or land routes will arm the Iranian protesters sufficiently that they will be able to attack riot control, further pressuring them to break.

If only one city were to be chosen for this mission, Tehran is the best place to execute this strategy of close drone support and supply airdrops because if riot control forces lose to protesters in Tehran, then riot forces almost everywhere else in Iran would disintegrate into chaos.

There are, primarily, two diplomatic options for America to deal with the currently besieged Ayatollahs –

Option 1) The US implements Trump’s “Maduro Option” in Iran whereby the US removes the Ayatollahs (with some sort of military action to support the protestors) just like Trump brilliantly removed Maduro to get a new Venezuelan Government, and then Trump gets a brand new Iranian leadership with which Trump can make a vastly superior deal than would be allowed by the current, religious fanatic, Ayatollah run regime.

Option 2) The US doesn’t help the protestors, the regime stays in power by crushing the protestors, and the US has to continue to manage with a completely untrustworthy terrorist regime for years into the future, just like if Trump had not used the Maduro Option in Venezuela and Maduro continued to cause problems for Trump if he were left in Venezuela.

Clearly the best strategic option is exercising the Maduro Option, helping the protestors get rid of the current Iranian regime, and then we can easily negotiate a great deal with a brand new Iranian Government, a deal that would be far superior and durable than one that could ever be permitted by the Ayatollahs.

Just like Maduro had proven he was not worth negotiating with because of his unreliability and treachery, and Trump was better off negotiating with a new Venezualan Government, the Ayatollahs have proven they are a waste of time negotiating with.

Any agreement with the Ayatollahs would fail for the same reason negotiations with Maduro could not work: Because the Ayatollahs like Maduro are completely untrustworthy, and they always try to cheat their way out of any agreement they do make with the West.

Besides, after Trump heroically destroyed Iran’s nuclear program last year, the Ayatollahs do not have much left to offer Trump in a potential agreement.

Since the machinery to build a nuclear weapon was destroyed by Trump, we don’t need their agreement to not build a nuclear bomb because they already lack the machinery to build them.

There’s no point negotiating with someone to not get something they do not have the ability to get.

By contrast, everything involving Iran just becomes easier if the Ayatollahs are removed like Maduro.

The new government would be pro-Western because the population is pro-Western, and we will not have to worry about it sponsoring terrorism again.

Additionally, toppling a hostile government gets more historical points with the public than letting a weak enemy cling to power: The fall of the Berlin Wall would not have been an iconic moment for Reagan if the Soviet regime had survived.

Simply ending the Ayatollah’s rule over Iran would be at least as iconic for Trump as the fall of the Berlin Wall and USSR was for Reagan, instead of a deal that would let the Ayatollah’s to bide their time for a few years, waiting for a new Democrat President to let them cheat their way out of any agreement they might pretend to agree to now, just like Maduro cheated.

Trump’s amazing capture of Maduro puts Iran in a difficult strategic position vis a vis its handling of the riots.

The use of force to end the rule of Maduro (which Venezuela initially underrated as a risk) makes it more likely, from the Ayatollah’s point of view, that Trump is not bluffing when he warns he will intervene militarily if the regime harms Iranian protestors.

However, there is no way to end the protests (especially protests this large) without using a significant level of deadly force.

Strategically, the Iranian regime probably has no choice but to continue to kill protestors and hope that Trump is either bluffing, or, if Trump does use force, then to hope the regime can simply weather a US attack.

On America’s side, the US strategy for intervention would be most effective by ending Iranian exports (either by blockading Iranian oil shipments or striking energy export infrastructure) and targeting regime military and police/riot control infrastructure.

The reason for targeting the military and police is to take advantage of the enormous scale of the protests: Iranian riot control is already overstretched trying to repress riots across the entire country. By subjecting their police forces to airstrikes the chances that they lose control increases as they would suddenly have to face US air power on one side, while continuing to repress Iranian protestors on the other.

The situation in Iran has created a golden moment for Trump.

The President now has the historic opportunity to deal the death blow to the Ayatollahs by using US airstrikes on Iranian energy infrastructure to trigger the collapse of the Iranian regime.

In the event the regime collapses, its defeat would be a geopolitical triumph at least as great for Trump (perhaps greater) as the fall of the Berlin Wall and dissolution of the USSR was for Reagan.

This potential, history altering, victory is (because of the weakness of the Ayatollahs) essentially an open goal waiting for Trump to deliver the final strike.

The Ayatollahs are in crisis because they can no longer continue to justify waging their 46 year old proxy war; a war which the entire Iranian public now sees as unwinnable.

After the US destroyed Iran’s nuclear program, and after the defeat of multiple Iranian proxies, the regime cannot give the public any realistic hope that it will be able to defeat the vastly superior military power of the US, Israel, and America’s Gulf Arab allies.

And without any chance of defeating the regime’s foreign enemies there is obviously no point in the Iranian people continuing to suffer the consequences of the Ayatollah’s terrorist agenda; an agenda which has only led to crushing military defeats.

To push the Ayatollahs over the edge, the target of choice is Iran’s energy export infrastructure.

The regime currently gets 70% of its revenue from energy exports.

Given the very weak state of the Iranian economy, if the US Air Force bombs their energy export machinery and logistics system, the Ayatollahs would be unable to spend what little money they have left to pay their security forces.

If their security forces are not paid, it is then very likely the regime collapses in the face of large scale economic protests.

Best of all, since Persians are not Arabs, and because Iranians are favorable to the West there is not the same risk of a worse terrorist organization taking power after the Ayatollahs fall.

The replacement regime would be pro-Western.

In a worse case scenario, even if the regime still held on to power, it would be so deprived of energy revenue that its ability to finance its terrorist and military objectives throughout the Middle East would be much more limited.

Of course, in theory Israel could also strike Iran’s energy export machinery.

But it would be better if Trump could claim all of the credit for delivering the death blow to the Iranian regime by having US air power unleash the airstrike package itself.

Thanks to Trump winning the government shutdown battle by forcing Democrats to concede to reopen the government without renewing funding for Obamacare subsidies, there is now a major strategic opportunity which Trump can seize to score a major healthcare reform win.

The opportunity is that Trump can use a future vote on restoring Obamacare subsidies in Congress (a vote which was separated from the recent Congressional vote to reopen the government) as powerful negotiation leverage to force Democrats to reform how Obamacare, and healthcare generally, functions.

In exchange for renewing Obamacare subsidies, Trump would benefit most in the event he insists on Democrats agreeing to –

•  Allowing health insurers to sell ANY kind of non-Obamacare compliant health plans outside of the Obamacare exchanges (except for, possibly, keeping a SMALL handful of certain mandates such as preventing insurers from discriminating against people with preexisting conditions).
• Allowing any kind of private health insurance to be sold across state lines.
• Making it easy for individuals to signup for group insurance plans.
• Allowing individuals signed up for any Federal health program (Medicare, Medicaid, VA services, S-Chip, Obamacare, etc) to opt out of those programs and instead be given the option to just receive a cash-equivelant in an HSA account so they can buy their own private insurance.
• Allow HSAs to be used to pay insurance premiums.
• All current regulations and mandates on the Obamacare exchanges would continue to remain in place ONLY on Obamacare exchanges, but any other insurance sold outside the exchanges would NOT be bound to follow the same regulations and mandates as Obamacare.

Possibly, Trump could offer to spend MORE money on Obamacare subsidies than the Democrats previously requested if they agreed to the above reforms.

If the Democrats reject these proposals then Trump can continue to hold Obamacare subsidies hostage in negotiations by threatening to veto any legislation that would restore the subsidies without including these reforms.

Refusing this legislative deal would be politically difficult for Democrats to do because it would appear to the public that Trump is willing to restore the subsidies but Democrats were the obstacle – this is a very difficult argument for Democrats to win and puts Trump in an excellent negotiation position to extract concessions.

If Democrats agreed, then it would be a major policy win for Trump because he would, in this case, have covertly repealed Obamacare, without any negative reaction among voters.

The reason this would amount to a de facto repeal is that the primary reason Obamacare has failed is because it limits what kind of private insurance can be sold outside the Obamacare exchanges by requiring all non-Obamacare insurance plans to have similar mandates, and thus, forcing non-Obamacare plans to be (effectively) clones of Obamacare plans.

These regulations prevent normal market competition among different plans from driving down (or at least reducing the growth of) insurance premiums because it is almost impossible for non-Obamacare plans to exist in the private insurance market.

For example, before Obamacare contractors could just purchase a catastrophic insurance plan while paying for their other medical needs with cash. Obamacare ended this by forbidding consumers from buying individual catastrophic plans without also buying an “Obamacare compliant” plan that was loaded with unneeded, very expensive, insurance mandates.

Although Trump recently proposed just giving people cash to buy their own insurance, Obamacare would prevent this plan from working EVEN IF cash were handed out because the mandates on non-Obamacare plans prevent any insurance plan that is NOT compliant with Obamacare from being sold.

So, in effect, without also creating a market of non-Obamacare compliant plans, even if consumers were just given cash, the Obamacare mandates would prevent them from purchasing a non-exchange plan that did not closely resemble an Obamacare exchange plan because non-Obamacare (and thus cheaper) insurance plans are currently blocked from even existing.

Consumers cannot buy a product that does not exist.

The above proposals would restore market competition by (covertly) wiping out the near-monopoly Obamacare-compliant plans have in the private sector by allowing consumers to choose from a large variety of competing insurance products.

Because many insurance plans in this newly restored market system would be cheaper than any Obamacare-compliant plan, consumers would flee the official Obamacare exchanges and, over time, cause the exchanges to collapse.

But because Trump would be appearing to restore Obamacare subsidies, it would be very difficult for Democrats to refuse this deal because it would make them look like they were harming Obamacare’s future by not financing the subsidies.