Antiwar - The Pentagon is preparing for “weeks” of ground operations in Iran, The Washington Post has reported, citing unnamed US officials, as thousands more US troops have arrived in the Middle East in recent days.
Any potential US ground operations would mean a major escalation of the war and would likely result in significant US casualties as American forces would face significant Iranian missile and drone fire, and Iranian media is reporting that Iran is mobilizing one million soldiers to face any ground invasion.
The Post report said that any US ground operations would stop short of a full-scale invasion, which would require hundreds of thousands of troops, but could involve raids that involve a mix of special operations forces and conventional ground troops that would target Iranian islands or strategic areas along the coast
The Guardian - Iran has warned the US that it is prepared to confront any ground assault, accusing Washington of secretly planning a land attack while publicly seeking talks, as the war that has killed thousands of people and caused the biggest ever disruption to global energy supplies entered its second month.
In a message published to mark 30 days since the start of the war, the Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said: “The enemy signals negotiation in public, while in secret it plots a ground attack.”
“Our firing continues,” Ghalibaf said. “Our missiles are in place. Our determination and faith have increased.” He said Iranian forces were “waiting for the arrival of American troops on the ground to set them on fire and punish their regional partners for ever”.
The Guardian - Let me say, we’ve won,” [Trump] told a rally in Kentucky on 11 March. “I think we’ve won,” he said on the White House south lawn on 20 March. “We’ve won this war. The war has been won,” he said in the Oval Office on 24 March. “We are winning so big,” he promised a fundraising dinner on 25 March.
Donald Trump keeps declaring victory in Iran. But saying it over and over does not make it so. While the US president insists that his military campaign in the Middle East is a historic success, the world is bracing for a conflict that continues to metastasize and could wreak havoc on the global economy.
The war is turning into the ultimate test of an operating principle that has guided Trump for decades: construct a narrative, declare it to be true and relentlessly force the world to submit to it. It has proved effective in Manhattan boardrooms, on reality television and even at the heart of power in Washington.
But in Iran, Trump’s unique brand of “truthful hyperbole” has collided with the truthful truth. His reality distortion field has run into a brick wall.
“This is war and you can’t just will a win into existence in war,” said Tara Setmayer, cofounder of the Seneca Project, a women-led political action committee. “The American people are not on board with what’s going on because he cannot articulate an argument for why we’re there or what victory actually looks like.”
....Crucially, Iran wants Israel to stop attacking Iranian allies in the region, something Israel is unlikely to agree to. Tehran also reportedly wants reparations for war damage and the removal of American bases from the Middle East.
Last week after Trump said the US and Iran had held “very good and productive conversations” about ending the war, Iranian officials quickly denied any such talks had occurred. Iran has said the US is secretly plotting a ground attack while displaying a message of diplomacy. The US is reportedly considering plans to occupy or blockade Kharg Island to pressure Tehran to reopen the strait of Hormuz.
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