"Trump Who?"

The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to play the (rather humiliating) "Trump Who?" game.  

And  this battle of wills between the United States and Iran  seems to be shifting to a defeat in detail military strategy for Iran which appears to be working in their favor.   

Politically, attacking Iran would have been more broadly accepted by the American general public after our mid-terms. With even a modest shift in seats toward a greater Republican representation in our Houses of Congress, President Trump would have received the "mandate" which he so desperately needs.  As it stands, the power may shift after the November elections.  Timing really is everything.  Bush had his yellow cake. I am not quite sure what our 18 alphabet agencies had in hand. But the timing was definitely bad.

As it stands now, our U.S. Navy has pretty much dropped anchor into the Persian Gulf as the Department of State is reduced to floating barnacles making decisions on how best to extricate ourselves from that which we have strategically mismanaged. 

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/white-house-says-iran-war-terminated-war-powers-deadline-arrives-2026-05-01/

Problematic, is that Tehran has a large cadre of hardcore military strategists and stalwarts who have figured out that playing "Trump Who?" is the least painful course of action.  If the American President barks and nobody listens .... I think you get my drift.

Meanwhile, not only is Tehran engaged in workarounds to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, but the "Powers" (and I do not use that term lightly - because in decimating a chain of command we now do not know what is the real chain of command) are also massaging their relationships with our semi-allies.

I wrote early on about Tehran moving their Ghadir-class miniature submarines into the Strait of Hormuz.  The bad news?  Now they are accelerating the deployment of these mini's across the Strait of Hormuz and into the waters of the Persian Gulf.  Because they are small and designed specifically for occult operations in coastal and shallow waters, they are difficult to track. It is possible they are equipped with weapons systems such as the "Hoot" high-velocity torpedo, but this is not confirmed.

Another interesting aspect of asymmetrical warfare and use of false flags is how Iran placed fake inflatable missile launchers across the landscape which served as carnivores against our own missile stockpiles.  Cost for the inflatable?  $200 U.S. dollars.  Cost to us to take out a cheap  camouflage balloon? Priceless.  I just viewed one of the inflatables, and it is impressive.  (Did China provide them?)

Iran has also released a video from 15 years ago of their Phantom Jets flying at such a low altitude across the Persian Gulf that the view looks like it is coming from a watercraft.  At this altitude, they remain virtually undetectable.  So consider their pilots highly trained.

In the sanctions and "slap yo' Mama"  category, we have SecTreasury Scott Bessent warning of "Economic Fury".

The Iranians, remain pragmatic with this comment:  

"Western media is once again recycling its familiar narrative: Iran on the brink of economic collapse under the weight of the American naval blockade. A familiar tale, one we've heard time and again—and reality has debunked it time and again. This catastrophic image is nothing new. It's the same one that was peddled when they spoke of an imminent social collapse, of a people poised for a regime-toppling uprising. None of that came to pass, because the analytical model employed is fundamentally flawed. The Iranian economy is not a typical one measured by standards of integration into the global market. It is an economy shaped by decades of forced isolation and fourteen years of the most stringent sanctions regime in modern history—and this accumulated pressure has not weakened it but forged within it a rare structural immunity: sophisticated evasion networks, relative self-sufficiency in key sectors, and the capacity to redirect trade through alternative routes."

Just a final thought, and it is only opinion - of course!  But did we take into consideration that Persians hail from a lineage of intelligent men of arts and letters, science and innovation? And the upper classes pride themselves for intellectual thought? Perhaps we thought they would just roll over and play dead. But it hasn't happened.  To the contrary, they are putting their prowess on display. 

I have included a shout out from the Iranian Embassy in Ghana, because I was in Ghana with Fleet Hospital Dallas for WAT02 just one month after 9/11.  The Navy remained undeterred regarding mission.  And I remain proud for my small part in service to our nation.

https://x.com/IRAN_GHANA/status/2049933197031448935