🇮🇷🇺🇸 Iran just struck a Himars battery in Kuwait, the first time since the ceasefire, and the U.S. answered with what's being described as 140 targets in a single wave. This isn't a skirmish anymore.
Brandon Weichert, geopolitical analyst, joined me as the strikes pushed deeper into Iran than anything since the war paused, hitting Ahvaz airport and a heavy-water nuclear facility at Khondab for the first time in this round.
His read: this isn't random escalation. It's a campaign to strip Iran of any ability to threaten the Strait of Hormuz, aimed at a scenario where a Marine expeditionary unit eventually seizes Kharg Island itself to physically control the chokepoint.
"I don't think any of this is going to work, though, and I think it's going to get all of our troops either captured or killed."
He doesn't think degrading Iran's capability makes the regime more compliant. He thinks it makes it more desperate, and a failed landing on Kharg could be the trigger that pushes the conflict toward nuclear escalation, not from Iran, but from an American president unwilling to absorb a defeat of that scale.
Meanwhile Israel's gone quiet, reportedly stretched thin on interceptors and pulling back its own position in Lebanon rather than expanding it.
If the objective really is a permanent grip on the Strait rather than a quick resolution, is this the kind of war that ends in months, or the kind that just becomes the new baseline for the region?
@WeTheBrandon
