(Lack of) US Iran Peace Agreement Part 5

[OnePeppyFatball]

Part 5

I don’t think the Houthis have ever either been as vulnerable or had as much to lose.

Lose the battle but win the war. As I said, short term vs long term objectives. Houthis are not a conventional 'army'. They are not us, and this is where we fail in understanding and by extension, dismissing them.

Just posting the attached for reference. I clipped it from CNN.

The below two articles is why I think the Houthis could be completely defeated. I don’t think that they have enough base support within Yemen to survive if everyone turns against them. They aren’t really a ‘resistance’ movement where, when one is killed, others join the cause.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjly0zqq27e4o

www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2026/10/8/yemens-government-needs-tribes-to-defeat-the-houthis-will-they-join

Genocide the Houthi ?

I agree they are more of a tribal cult than a political movement. But I think there are ethics involved. There was a long truce between them and SA, and it was broken when an Iranian plane tried to land. But if there was a treaty, it should be possible to get another.

@Newbutoldfather did you also listen to this, which was on the same page as the article you linked?
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cmy56nzd6y69o

@RedTagAlan ,

‘Genocide the Houthi ?’

Umm, no. I am suggesting defeating them, not killing them all. They aren’t an ethnicity but an armed paramilitary movement, more like the IRA. I don’t think defeating the IRA would have been genocide.

I am sure the minority Zaidis can learn to live in peace with the majority of Yemen without trying to rule the country or send missiles at their neighbours.

Ok, I've now read the aljazeera article and even less convinced of it as evidence. I understood it as saying to be cautious in making assessments because there are so many variables at play.
So I'm not writing off Houthi resilience just yet.

@trumpredcard ,

I’ve just watched the BBC video, and I am unconvinced that they will have to make a deal!

The BBC have portrayed it as if there is no meaningful Yemeni opposition to the Houthis and they can retreat to their mountain base undisturbed. But there is plenty of local opposition who would love to defeat them.

I guess time will tell.

This opinion piece sets out the options better, I think. I like the phrase 'cost of conflict calculus' as being more appropriate in this instance than risk v reward.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2026/10/6/what-would-it-take-for-the-yemen-offensive-to-succeed

Sheik Hamdan bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan’s super yacht Yas has just appeared in the bay of where I live. Coincidence or bad omen??

Joint Statement from Foreign Ministers regarding RAF Fairford and Iran State Threats.

The Foreign Ministers of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States condemn in the strongest terms Iran’s use of violent attacks, including the acts of lethal plotting, arson, sabotage, cyber-attacks, and other hybrid activities against us and our partners.

We recognise the United Kingdom’s attribution of Iran’s involvement in the incident at RAF Fairford on 27 September. The UK has also concluded this event demonstrates the IRGC’s continued willingness to project hostile activity beyond its borders through covert networks and proxy actors.

This comes soon after the recent campaign of attacks across Europe targeting Jewish communities, Iranian journalists, and U.S. interests, claimed by Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya (HAYI).

Any attempt by Iran to threaten, silence, intimidate, harass, harm, or coerce people on our territories through proxies or any other means is unacceptable. Anyone who conducts hostile activities on behalf of Iran, or any other state, should know that we will take action to identify, investigate, disrupt, and prosecute these acts. Iran should be in no doubt that we are united and remain committed to safeguarding our sovereignty and strengthening our international coordination, bolstering our national resilience, protecting our communities, and ensuring that those responsible are held to account.

www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-statement-on-iran-12-october

That is a good strong statement.

The United States condemn in the strongest terms Iran’s use of violent attacks, including the acts of lethal plotting

How two faced is this. One could even replace the word Iran with the US ....
Wasn't the US embarrassed, putting their name to it?

Nope, they likely bullied their vassals to agree to the statement (probably in exchange for continued US support of Ukraine). Acknowledging Trump’s actions would require the kind of self reflection not present in America since the likes of General George Marshall during WW2, leaders who would be turning in their graves to see what the country that they sacrificed so much for has become.

Shades of Tony Blair enthusiastically announcing that "The document discloses that his [Saddam Hussein's] military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them." and we all know how that turned out.

https://www.declassifieduk.org/blair-misled-parliament-over-1998-iraq-bombing-files-show/

Sorry @TopPocketFind I meant to answer the post containing the statement and not your comment specifically.

The whole thing is laughable.
This section is as bad 'We recognise the United Kingdom’s attribution of Iran’s involvement in the incident at RAF Fairford on 27 September.'

So they have decided to conveniently attribute this to 'Iran's involvement', whatever that even means, without any proof whatsoever. I think attention needs to be paid to the choice of words in the statement here and the fact that all those questioned were quickly released. Does anyone think that suspected terrorists are released immediately?
I suspect that the US has had a hand in this section too.

Thanks for the declassified link @BelleHathor. It's fascinating reading through the articles.

This very ironic story is now hitting msm.

Anthropic says operators in northern Yemen ran parallel Claude Code instances to design guidance software, simulate trajectories, and analyze a failed rocket test, effectively compressing specialist missile-engineering work into an AI-assisted workflow.

A cell in northern Yemen used Anthropic’s Claude Code to perform work that would ordinarily require a missile engineering team, developing software for guided rockets, a long-range ballistic missile and a hypersonic glide vehicle concept.
Anthropic’s September threat report describes operators running several Claude instances at the same time, dividing tasks between coding, research and technical review.
The company assessed the cell as highly likely to be linked to the Houthis, according to the material provided.
The operation marks one of the clearest examples in the report of generative AI being applied directly to conventional weapons development rather than used simply for research or information gathering.

https://clashreport.com/world/articles/houthis-used-claude-code-to-develop-missile-guidance-software-anthropic-s52mnx4pwpo

The Houthis aren't the only ones rejigging their cost of conflict calculus.
The intern warrior doing Kegsbreath's accounts is now having to factor in the cost of taking on the Houthis as well.

The multibillion-dollar reasons Trump hesitates to resume Iran war
Renewed fighting could backfire given that the US is still to repair much of the damage from Operation Epic Fury, while Tehran is ready to strike back

Ever since the summer cessation of bombing Iranian targets, Trump has been threatening to launch a new round of strikes to “annihilate” the Tehran regime.
Pete Hegseth, his war secretary, has assembled an even bigger armada in the region, including three aircraft carrier strike groups, ready to carry out his commander-in-chief’s orders.
But beneath the public bellicosity, the president may be harbouring doubts about the wisdom of another “hot” phase of fighting.
The reasons for his hesitancy are clear: Iran’s retaliation to the US-Israeli assault caused billions of dollars of damage to US bases in the region, destroyed more than 80 American warplanes, forced the US military to use up large stocks of anti-missile interceptors, and persuaded the Pentagon to withdraw 12 long-range B-1 Lancer bombers from RAF Fairford, over fears they were vulnerable to a Iranian plot to attack the base with a swarm of drones.
The 81 US aircraft damaged or destroyed — many of them targeted by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) with the assistance of satellite intelligence from China and Russia — included 12 F-15 Strike Eagles, nine of them as a result of Iranian fire; two A-10 Thunderbolt ground attack planes, both hit by IRGC strikes; seven HC-135 Stratotanker air-refuellers, five of them struck in an Iranian attack on a Saudi Arabian airbase; one E-3 Sentry airborne early warning aircraft, destroyed on the ground by a direct hit; and 45 MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drones, each costing about $34m.
...
With the war against Iran having already cost the US more than $43bn since it began in February — rising to $1bn a day at the height of Operation Epic Fury — Trump has to calculate whether a return to bombing would force Tehran to sign a deal the White House could claim as a victory, or trigger a fresh round of Iranian attacks in the region.
The omens are not good. Despite a US naval blockade of Iran’s oil exporting ports, which has crippled the country’s economy, the regime has repaired much of the damage done by the US and Israel to its missile and drone launchers, and weapon production facilities.
The IRGC has said it is ready to strike back if US bombing is resumed. At the same time, it continues to target shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, demonstrating its ability to threaten the safe passage of oil tankers through the chokepoint.

The cost to the US of repairing the damaged bases and replacing the destroyed aircraft would run into tens of billions of dollars. It has already pulled out from its bases in Iraq, some of which were damaged by Iranian fire, but insists this was a long-planned withdrawal.
A former senior US defence official said: “The damage to bases, munitions shortfalls, especially air and missile defence interceptors, as well as the aircraft losses, are all weighing on the decision-makers, although those concerns would not necessarily be [the deciding factor].
“Much will depend on how far the current Iranian escalation in the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz extends — if, for instance, a US ship was hit with significant casualties — but these factors as well as political calculations will weigh heavily.

The 12 B-1 bombers were withdrawn from RAF Fairford because the aircraft were sitting ducks at the base, parked out in the open. The US Air Force has estimated it would cost $4.2bn to upgrade Fairford and the two other bases used by the US in the UK — RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall — including protecting aircraft from drone and missile attacks, and building storage facilities for air-launched nuclear bombs.
The Times.

https://archive.ph/h60TD

@trumpredcard ,

That article is interesting.

However, for scale, the ‘war on terror’ is estimated to have cost $2 trillion. A few tens of billions is relatively small change for the U.S.

And, of course, a war machine does provide employment and money to those involved in the manufacturing process.

I do agree, though, that Iran could do a lot of damage. It seems easier to squash the proxies (2 pretty much down, one to go) and continue economically strangling Iran.

The thing is escalation will lead to both sides losing. Maybe Iran would choose that over a slow ‘death’ economically,

I've only recently become interested in the geopolitics of the ME and as someone who always asks 'why' as a precursor to understanding any situation, I'm wondering why we got involved into 'the war on terror'.
Once again, with no reason apart from history, I suspect an element of 'we are here because you were there' (the immigration/slavery argument) will feature.

Anyone on this thread with a recommended video/reading list on the origins of the war on terror, please share.

A good place to start is always Smedley Butlers book "War is a Racket" written in 1935 by a retired American General https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket

In War Is a Racket, Butler points to a "variety of examples, mostly from World War I, where industrialists, whose operations were subsidized by public funding, were able to generate substantial profits, making money from mass human suffering.

The work is divided into five chapters:

War is a racket
Who makes the profits?
Who pays the bills?
How to smash this racket!
To hell with war!
It contains this summary:

"War is a racket.
It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.
It is the only one international in scope.
It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people.
Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about.
It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many.
Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

Butler confesses that during his decades of service in the United States Marine Corps:

"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914.
I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.
I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street.
The record of racketeering is long.
I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909–1912 (where have I heard that name before?).
I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916.
In China I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts.
I operated on three continents."

copy here on archive:
https://archive.org/details/war-is-a-racket-smedley-d.-butler/mode/1up

It's usually about powerful interests shaping regions in order to be able to exploit resources and very little to do with morality.

Another great resource is Scott Hortons "Enough Already - Time to end the War on Terror"
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Enough-Already-Time-End-Terrorism/dp/1733647341?th=1&psc=1

“If you only read one book this year on America’s unending ‘War on Terror,’ it should be this persuasive and devastatingly damning account of how the United States created the original al Qaeda terrorism threat by its own actions and then increased that threat by orders of magnitude by its wanton killings in one country after another in the name of ‘counter-terrorism.’ Once I started reading it, I couldn’t stop!” — Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower and author of The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.

Scott is a fountain of knowledge including all the little terrorist groups "We" funded, trained and armed. Grab a notepad and pen, cos you will make notes!

Here is a fascinating PBS Documentary released in 2003:

"FRONTLINE examines the hidden story of what is really driving the Bush administration to war with Iraq. The investigation asks whether the publicly reported reasons — fear of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction or a desire to insure and protect America’s access to oil — are only masking the real reason for the war. Through interviews with well-placed sources in and outside of the administration, FRONTLINE unravels a story known only to the Washington insiders."

Lobbying and preparation for the "War on Terror" started decades before. Look up the following:

• Project for a New American Century.
• A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm https://bylinetimes.com/2026/03/04/trumps-iran-war-revives-israeli-plan-to-remake-middle-east-that-drove-post-9-11-invasions/

Thank you @BelleHathor . The amount of money BP and Shell made in Iraq after the war, was not lost on me.

eta
And the fortunes made from slavery and the sugar trade.

I think that 9/11 was always going to provoke a legitimate response (much like 7/10). Quite why the Saudis got away without any consequences, and Saudi private jets were literally the only jets in the sky over the U.S a few days after 9/11, is an ongoing question and, I think, the subject of an ongoing lawsuit.

Again, the Taliban were harbouring Al Qaeda and providing a training ground for terrorists. They were always going to come under attack.

As to Iraq, however, that is an ongoing question. I was told, via my job, prior to the attack on Afghanistan, and a long time before WMD were ever mentioned, that Iraq was next. The only justifications given to me were ‘not enough targets in Afghanistan’ to Bush finishing off his dad’s war.

The whole thing seems quite pointless in retrospect.

It has also shown how much easier, with a combination of drones and AI, if is for weaker nations to fight an asymmetric war today than in the early 2000s.

I also do think Cheney, and Bush to a lesser extent, believed in the neocon doctrine. They genuinely thought that everyone would become richer and safer if the U.S could project its brand of democracy globally.