Taking a look at the activity in the Strait or Hormuz, it looks like our mostly peaceful pause is at an end and things are about to get kinetic again. Looking at the Iran Livemap, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has resumed attacking both shipping and its neighbors.
Some incident entries:
Iran also claims to have have ““hit a U.S. Navy frigate,” but CENTOM is saying this is BS.
“A U.S. official has said that U.S. forces will destroy any Iranian boats and missiles attempting to attack shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.” Obviously. “[U.S.] Forces have been authorized to strike any immediate threats in the local region, including Iranian boats and missile positions.”
Signs point to an American response already in progress:
Large amount of US airforce refuelling tankers just launched from Tel Aviv Israel.
— WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 (@WarMonitor3) May 4, 2026
It appears the IRCG regards Trump’s slow economic strangulation via blockade as a bigger threat to their tenuous hold on power than American and Israel bombs falling on them. They’re probably correct in that assumption. The operational pause has allowed U.S. and Israeli forces to resupply and rearm, and I suspect we’ll soon see what military and regime assets are left to hit.
This is very much an in-progress post put up before the big fireworks kick off again.
Tags: Central Command (CENTCOM), Dubai, Foreign Policy, Iran, Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Israel, Jihad, Military, Navy, Operation Epic Fury, Strait of Hormuz, UAE
I confess that I don’t know why we don’t have a robust anti-missile defense in the UAE now. Talking with a UAE friend last month; they had no missile defense in the first few days and took dozens of hits.
Are we intercepting Iranians missiles launched at the UAE now?
At this point I’m going to assume it will be like this for the rest of the year, accompanied by more jawboning than before.
Per Adm. Cooper, CENTCOM , they are taking ineffective fire and blowing stuff up in reply, (cite https://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/Transcripts/Article/4477143/adm-brad-cooper-centcom-commander-conducts-a-media-conference-call/):
“So, I can break it down in broad terms. The cruise missiles were going after both U.S. Navy ships, but mostly after commercial shipping. We defended both ourselves and consistent with our commitment, we defended all the commercial ships. We’ve had drones launched against commercial ships, all of which were defended against, consistent with our commitment. And then the small boats were all going against commercial ships, and all were sunk by Apaches and Seahawk helicopters.”
As I figured, escorting through the Strait would be down by helicopters rather than WWII type destroyer escort convoys. There are not enough surface combatants for that type of convoying and the threats are better handled by attack helicopters. They will need long loiter surveillance and maybe support by faster moving A-10s, but that’s the way to re-open the SoH.
I thought IRGC stood for “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” not “Iranian.” Sorry to pick nits.
“I confess that I don’t know why we don’t have a robust anti-missile defense in the UAE now. Talking with a UAE friend last month; they had no missile defense in the first few days and took dozens of hits.
Are we intercepting Iranians missiles launched at the UAE now?”
The Iranians destroyed most of the air defense RADARs on the other side of the Gulf in early March. The utter destruction of the dedicated THAAD RADAR at Al Ruwais base in the UAE prevents long-range tracking of incoming weapons and eliminates the fire-control quality data necessary for interceptor cueing and engagement sequencing.
The UAE and our other allies are reduced to spray and pray interception, using PAC 2 interceptors because the supply of PAC 3 interceptors is exhausted.
Replacing the destroyed radars will take a decade due to the shortages of certain critical minerals.
corrected
10×25 is correct.
If you’ve been in the Fix News bubble you’ve missed half the story, of US and allied challenges on the defensive side, with critical radars taken out and higher tech interceptor stocks getting depleted, none of which are quickly replaceable.
About 5 or 6 weeks even Fox finally had one story about the sutuation, but then its mostly been back to rah rah.
Our interception ability was getting degraded and we were having trouble taking out their launchers sufficiently, given a country the size of Texas and more mountainous, to hide them in. They were launching fewer but more were starting to get through.
if you only read the stories how we were kicking butt on offense the ceasefire by our side had to seem a bit mysterious if it was as lopsided as presented.
The elites that have been in charge of our country approximately since Bubba won a plurality of the vote—and started boinking in the Oval Office are not serious people. How else to explain willfully rendering ourselves beholden to our #1 enemy? It’s inexcusable. But then, we the people are the idiots voting for all of it.
Squandering tens of trillions of dollars on handouts of one kind or another over the years. Maybe ~$1T+ in waste, abuse and fraud each year at the federal level alone, and elite parasites positioning themselves along the pathways through which resources flow to the notional recipients of our massive welfare state to intercept their cut, much like Cymothoa exigua latched onto a fish’s tongue, at once rendering the poor fish—like our permanent welfare class on government support—unable to survive without the parasite yet slowly being killed by it.
A dilatory space program whose tiny budget has been devoted to pork and items peripheral to core national/military interests. National debt service costs that are greater than our entirety of our defense budget.
A wide open border with no rule of law and our citizens suffering countless depredations by foreign nationals who have forced their way into our country. Our #1 enemy free to fly its nationals into our country to give birth to an unlimited number of Chicom babies and then to take them home to vote in our elections 18 years hence by absentee ballot as the Chicom voting bloc.
An education system captured by loony Leftist females that has spent the last few decades destroying its inheritance, its reputation, its meritocracy, its research base, and wasting tens of trillions of dollars each year on Leftist social engineering that is the opposite of excellence. DEI navel-gazing. Armies of useless administrivials. And instead of cleaning up the mess, our leaders have let it fester.
Watching as our big business and academia sold off, gave away, allowed to be stolen and expropriated, or neglected the bulk of our research and industrial base—the Crown Jewels of our IP—to our adversary.
Our defense budget is finally being given some priority but the only way to right this ship long-term is by reducing entitlement spending. Fat chance of that happening even as more and more egregious fraud is exposed.
Under the Rex Obama and the Autopen Regency, military ennui and social engineering with a backdrop of a shrinking Navy and a shrinking Air Force in terms of vessels and aircraft, and a malaise across the services, unable even to recruit to full strength. It will take longer than 4 years of reverting to traditional standards and culture to cycle out the woke cadres in the officer corps and fix the services. Deteriorating standards across the board. Political promotion and blatant quotas. Procurement and the military industrial complex has withered well past the point of prudence. Pure malpractice.
Rusted hulls and enviro-paint, colliding vessels, egregiously poor seamanship and discipline, are only a few of the obvious consequences of a Navy and Air Force stretched way, way too thin for their commitments and the wrong people in senior positions making decisions. An Obamian military polluted with DEI toxicity.
Oh, and a spoiled, disunited, ignorant, solipsistic elite presiding over a fractious and equally ignorant population a non-trivial percentage of which is composed of people who actively hate our own country. God help us.
Anybody seeing ANY evidence that we’re trying to help the Iranian people? So far as I can tell the goalposts have been thoroughly moved and POTUS isn’t even acknowledging regime change as a goal any more. Somebody prove me wrong please.
Somebody prove me wrong please.
Well first; provide evidence that POTUS ever acknowledged regime change as a goal. There is a viral video of Marco Rubio asking people to perhaps write down the goals as he stated them:
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, first of all, it’s important to remember the objectives of this operation from the very beginning. We were going to – we are destroying Iran’s navy. We are destroying their ability – their missile launchers by a significant percentage. We’re going to wipe out their defense industrial base, meaning their ability to make new missiles and new drones in the future, because it posed a great threat to the region.
No mention of regime change. Here’s the original DoW statement on the goals.
The Iranian regime will change if that is what the people of Iran want. Trump has offered to support them, but it is not nor has it ever been a stated goal of Operation Epic Fury. If you want a more nuanced discuss “Russ in TX”, then lookup Senator Ted Cruz’s interview on Triggernometry, when he says exactly what I write above, while also suggesting that Trump would like regime change yet why it isn’t a goal.