Iran: the collapse

This is a blog post about the Iranian ship we sank. The conclusion is, it was not a war crime, the Iranian ship was a legitimate target.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2026/03/iran-war-update-day-11

 

Trump is such a child, he thinks he’s unpredictable but he has obvious tells that allow you to read him very easily.

When I was younger and attended client interviews during either mediations or when a client was being interviewed under caution, I remember being told to make notes at regular and random times during the interviews, because if I only took notes during moments when I though something important was happening, that would signal to my opponent what my priorities were.

When he was negotiating with the Chinese he couldn’t help but keep talking about magnets and rare earths, which told the Chinese what his weak points were.

Now he’s on Truth Social banging on about hitting Iran twenty times harder if they mine Hormuz, and that if they sweep their own mines that would be a step in the right direction. So basically, he hasn’t planned to clear the strait of Hormuz from mines and really doesn’t want to have to do that.

 

Actually, carriers almost never have minesweepers around them. Minesweepers are sent where and when needed, mostly because mines are most useful in specific locations.

The US Navy is getting rid of their purpose-built minesweepers, mostly because they have a limited lifespan because they are largely made of wood. What is replacing them is the Independence-class Littoral Combat ship with a minesweeping package installed. And yes there are three of those in the area now.

But you can't do minesweeping under threat of attack. Modern minesweeping involves sending remote piloted vehicles into the water, and while you are doing that you can't either respond offensively or move away from an attack.

 

Others have already covered this but just keep in mind…carriers are gonna be holding 500 to 1000 miles away from Iran and the strait.

 

They are in Japan because that's where the threat of mines is greatest. Japan has two really large bays and one mega large I don't know what you call it, but dozens of large port cities can be cut off at very few choke points. And the paths for China to move past the First Island Chain are limited. Mine warfare is vitally important there. Japan has a massive fleet of minesweepers. Conditions are similar in the North Sea, so nations there have an outsized number of minesweepers. America doesn't have to worry about mines around America, so we only need minesweepers for expeditions.

 

"Epic Escort" sounds like the name of an escort service. I'm not googling to confirm that.

 

I agree it is a valid target, but sinking it means the US is outside its norms of proportionality in how it does war. What is it that Trump want's out of this war, and how is sinking this ship supposed to help with that?

 

And that's surprising because ...?

 

Oh, look what just popped up in r/WarshipPorn. These are the four American Avenger-class minesweepers that were stationed in Bahrain being taken home to be broken up on January 27, 2026.



This class was actually created shortly after the Iranian Revolution.

 

This is pretty amazing. These four ships - Avenger-class mine countermeasure ships, called "Sentry", "Devastator", "Gladiator" and "Dextrous" - names pretty much designed to give Pete Hegseth a woody - were decommissioned in September 2025. They were stationed in the Persian Gulf since 2012, in case the negotiations at the time with Iran did not go well.

https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/N...-class-mine-countermeasures-ships-in-bahrain/

Every layer we peel back uncovers a new level of incompetence in this administration.

 

Here's the war plan.
1. Bomb Iran.
2. ?
3. Profit!

 

They could have been useful in a peacetime cleanup afterwards, but if there is the slightest threat the Independence class is better. It can go 44 knots vs the Avenger-class's 14, it can defend itself against most Iranian speedboats, and it has a longer tether to the remote piloted vehicle so it has some more freedom of movement.

To be fair, I don't think the strait's actually been mined yet - there's just been some logistics movements to indicate that is the plan. And while Iran has lots of speedboats, most of them are tiny and can only carry machine guns. The ones that can carry mines (even just one or two) are probably in the dozens.

The problem is that they didn't seem to predict that there would be a threat of mining the strait. And the threat is enough to make captains, owners, and insurance companies not want to send their ships through.

 

If this goes on too much longer, Trump is going to find scapegoats for talking him into making this mistake. Trump is going to make it clear the greatest victim of the bombing of Iran is Trump.

But the scapegoats won't be the friends, family, and world leader who actually did talk him into it. He doesn't seem capable of staying mad at these people. I don't know how many times Putin screwed Trump over, but the next day Trump is back to worshiping him.

 

I don’t think he is capable of admitting to a mistake. He couldn’t even say “sorry we blew up those kids”.

In time he will try to say that his military campaign was a great victory, but the adverse consequences that flowed directly from the campaign were due to others being stupid and not preparing properly.

I don’t see him having an easy exit on this, his only option is to escalate to de-escalate and that won’t work because that’s what the Iranians want. If I were an Iranian decision maker I would prefer a ten or twenty year all out war rather than a quick return to the pre war status quo where the israeli-American forces return to hit you whenever they like (which is a slow strangulation without any fight back).

 

Thankfully he also posts on a non-Nazi site

https://bsky.app/profile/chrismurphyct.bsky.social/post/3mgqotmikak2w

 

Imitating his Boss:

Both sides have portrayed their actions as defensive, citing what experts say are at best dubious claims that they were acting to prevent an imminent threat.

Last week, the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, said the US “didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it”.

Throughout his own war, Putin used strikingly similar language. “We didn’t start the so-called war in Ukraine,” he said in February 2022. “We are trying to finish it.”

Neither leader expected to be drawn into a prolonged conflict. Putin appeared to believe the full-scale war in Ukraine would last mere weeks and that he could repeat the swift seizure of Crimea in 2014.

Trump, meanwhile, came into the confrontation buoyed up by the apparent success of the US operation earlier this year that captured Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro.

Tellingly, some American officials and the Kremlin avoided describing their actions as acts of war, suggesting they expected the conflict to be brief.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-in-iran-parallels-russia-invasion-of-ukraine

 

I guess that question was "settled" since the Orange buffoon said it was more "fun" to sink the Iranian navy ship. I am sure some lawyers will find some ways to justify this but that was totally unconscionable and even worse when they didn't even offer assistance to the shipwrecked.