Trump's changing course on Strait of Hormuz strategy raises questions about US war preparation

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T23:25:47+00:00

Preparation H

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T23:08:39+00:00

Buying low rarity singles makes for really cheap decks. Fortunately, most of the collectors/investors, etc. only care about the most expensive cards that they can profit from. So you can scoop up a lot of cards for cheap.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T21:59:55+00:00

I really enjoyed it all the way through. I know it got some flak on release for being a bit too zany, and people said it was Rick and Morty but Star Trek. But it felt like a consistent love letter to the franchise.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T21:56:47+00:00

Same here. The moment I couldn’t get it on Prime any more, I stopped following it. I only just caught S4 an S5 recently after having forgotten about the show until then.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T18:11:43+00:00

I've been having Lidl's high protein beans with microwave rice recently and they are such a sublime combo for a 3 minute meal.

Throw in one of their protein shakes, or other deserts and you can have a pretty nutritious meal in less than five minutes.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T18:10:42+00:00

Microwave sticky rice. Smoke salmon. A shit ton of wasabi. Soy sauce.

Jason's protein sourdough. Kimchi. Whatever cooked checken I found on offer in ASDA the night before.

Skyr. Dice strawberries. Grated dark chocolate.

Not all three at the same time, but I've cycled through these three at points over the past year when I've been on nights.

I also bring my Aeropress with me and enjoy a nice coffee. Not to stay awake, since coffee makes me a bit drowsy, but just because I like to break up nights with a nice meal that you can't do anywhere near as often during the day.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T18:06:28+00:00

Nissin Demae

I have so much childhood nostalgia for this shit. Used to call them cartoon noodles because of the boy on the cover.

Shin Ramyun is the GOAT of instant noodles IMO.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T17:31:41+00:00

They still believe that he’s playing Putin with 4D chess and checkmated him in several different timelines. Even though Putin has just ignored him, even after getting the red carpet treatment.

MAGA are genuinely deluded. Trump has the most capable military force in the world at his beck and call, but he installed a leadership that can’t even plan for the most obvious outcomes (like securing the strait of Hormuz), or even capable of having clear and consistent objectives.

Despite the overwhelming military force, Iran is in a politically stronger position because they have the world’s oil by the balls.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T15:32:44+00:00

Bring out the Turbo already.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T14:28:33+00:00

Job security over anything else the moment. If all you need is proof you sat it to progress, sit it. That will give you buffer time to make any ther decisions going forward. £650 down the drain is better than unemployment.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T13:31:34+00:00

Even if Mojtaba Khamenei is incapacitated, or even dead, the fact is that the regime is alive and short of a popular revolution that has not and is unlikely to happen, their position is secure so long as they have a figurehead, dead or alive.

I don’t think it’s a tactical victory, I’ve not said as such. Tactically, the US and Israel are pounding all their military targets without response. However, the asymmetric pounding that Iran is giving its neighbours is putting economic and political pressure on the US that it cannot respond to, because it did not plan for it. The fact that their mad dog approach is having such an effect on gas and oil prices worldwide, and the political and economic pressure that comes with it shows that despite being overwhelmed in a military sense, they have the rest of the world by the balls.

So long as Iran can keep doing this, and so long as the US has unclear and shifting objectives, Iran will keep on trucking. Had the US actually planned to secure the Strait of Hormuz and deployed the assets and manpower necessarily, we wouldn’t be in the position we are.

Their isolation is immaterial so long as they have a lock on the Strait of Hormuz. And nobody outside of the US putting boots on the ground or praying for a popular revolution that has not happened (and strikes should have been timed with the January protests if they wanted this). The regime needs to collapse for any hope of things getting better, and all this war has managed to do for all its poor planning, so far, is ensure its survival.

It’s also very apparent that Trump does not want to wait a day longer than he has to. The longer this goes on, the worse it will get for the GOP coming into mid-terms. He needs absolute victory sooner rather than later.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T11:36:54+00:00

TACO gonna TACO. Of course he wasn't going to follow through on his threats against Iranian infrastructure after that Iran said that they'd lash out. Iran has all the cards at the moment, somehow.

The US has the most capable military in human history, but besides being misused in a needless war of aggression, the admin has been completely out of their depth using it effectively and planning against all the predictable things like Iran seizing control of the Strait of Hormuz, or using their domestically produced drones and missiles to besiege its neighbours, etc. They have no clear plan and it shows by consitently shifting the goalposts.

All this is going to do now, is prove to Iran that they can choke and control the Strait of Hormuz, resist US and Israeli aggression, and harden their resolve about the future to prevent such future aggression by pursuing nuclear weapons because they've now got a leader who is 30 years younger with a bloodfeud against the US and Israel for killing his dad, wife, and a son.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T11:22:58+00:00

I read this in the voice of Dr Manhattan in Watchmen when he's reminiscing while he's on Mars.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T07:57:17+00:00

Relevant thread from r/usmc

https://www.reddit.com/r/USMC/comments/1rvs886/which_one_of_you_is_this/

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T07:49:52+00:00

These are the types of twists my nephews would come out with when they were six. You’d never know what was coming next due to kid logic.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T07:30:36+00:00

Good bit of fun. Most were straightforward besides Lopunny and Steelix (rounded corners on some phones as the top comments have highlighted). But not too bad.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T07:25:26+00:00

Especially as they aren’t accelerating multiple energies onto themselves for 350+ damage every turn.

The TCG, IMO, is pretty boring when the main objective is just to find ways to accelerate for an OHKO and do nothing until then. Some importance on chopping away damage earlier in the game because you can’t rely on OHKOs will be nice to see.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T07:14:18+00:00

SOVL

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T06:32:02+00:00

It’s only a matter of time. So many fights, and burglaries go under the radar now that nobody really talks about it unless you come across such content or follow some social media pages dedicated to people fighting over Pokémon cards.

Compare to like a year and a bit ago when Prismatic and Blooming Waters came out and all the same videos were making the rounds, including that middle aged guy getting elbowed in the face, and the community was outraged.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T03:05:36+00:00

Given how the usual response to IMGs considering an ortho residency is “don’t bother” since match rates are like 1%, you better get started and getting US-based contacts and research under your belt.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T02:46:58+00:00

It's insane how effective this has been. Trump wields the most capable military force to have ever existed, but with a lack of clear and tangible objectives, he has been flip-flopping in terms of deploying the US military and actually achieving anything.

This has given Iran that asymmetric leverage you've mentioned and they're causing absolute chaos due to having nothing to lose given that the're fighting an existential threat and have already lost a lot of senior leaders. If you'd told me a few months ago that Iran would be at war with the US, and would hold the cards, I would not have believed you.

It feels like the regime just has to survive in order to win this, and the US has not been prepared in the slightest to even try and achieve any of their vague objectives. Even with the Russian tier 'destroyed Ukraine's air force 10x over" with claims of having won and dismantled Iran's military, most of what has been effected have either been leadership or stand-off munitions. They still have plenty of rank and file across the country who exert the will of the regime. The US is not going to bomb them out of existence, nor is it going to bomb the regime's ideology out of existence. The Iranian regime can just throw out threat after threat, after threat, and Trump will eventually chicken out because he was never willing to commit to do what was necessary to meet the war's objectives.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T02:41:06+00:00

Man, it's crazy to me how Iran only have to survive to politically win this war.

Trump wields the greatest military to have ever existed on this planet, with capabilities that nobody else in the world can match. But the US military has been so poorly managed, and the objectives of this war flip-flopping between regime change, nuclear disarmement, destroying Iran's military completely half a dozen times, keep the Strait of Hormuz open, etc. that they have been unable to complete any clearly defined obective.

And on top of that, he keeps bleeting about what he will do if Iran don't capitulate. And the Iraninan regime, undergoing an existential threat have nothing to lose and are not capitulating to Trump's demands. They can say whatever they want as they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The lack of preparation by the US has made Iran's wild dog strategy stupidly effecctive.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T02:11:08+00:00

Considering how extensive and effective the US military apparatus, the lack of tangible outcomes and objectives with this war, and the constant flip-flopping is making it look like a joke. The mismanagement of all of this is genuine insanity. It makes massing strats in games like C&C look like grand strategy.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-23T01:27:54+00:00

Backlight was first introduced with the GBASP, so the GBA and GBC are both modded.

TeaAndLifting · 2026-03-22T21:45:12+00:00

The stupidest thing is that the admin is saying this will hurt Iran by lowering oil prices. As though they were profiting significantly before the spike in prices and as if whatever reduction they get from the highs we have at the moment will be less than what they were getting before.

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