Is The Felon Being Told the Truth About Iran?

If one looks back at America's disastrous wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, a common thread is that too often the top civilian leadership from the president on down were given rosy assessments and promises of eventual victory by the military and Secretary of Defense. With the Felon's ego and temperament and desire to always be a "winner" some fear - including JD Vance for whom I usually only have contempt - are questioning whether or not the Felon is receiving fully honest and complete information on where things stand with the war of choice with Iran and the state of America's weapons stockpile. Hegseth acts as if the entire war is one big video game and is clearly desperate to maintain the confidence and support of the Felon. This obviously sets the stage for telling the Felon what he wants to hear as opposed to what he needs to hear.  As noted, I am no fan of Vance, but at least he is asking questions that need to be asked as the price of oil is currently over $100.00/barrel and there appears to be no clean exit for the USA as Iran seemingly believes it can outlast the Felon.  Here are highlights from a long piece in The Atlantic that examines what information is getting to the Felon and what reality might be instead:

In closed-door meetings, J. D. Vance has repeatedly questioned the Defense Department’s depiction of the war in Iran and whether the Pentagon has understated what appears to be the drastic depletion of U.S. missile stockpiles.

Two senior administration officials told us that the vice president has queried the accuracy of the information the Pentagon has provided about the war. He has also expressed his concerns about the availability of certain missile systems in discussions with President Trump, several people familiar with the situation told us. The consequences of a dramatic drawdown in munitions reserves are potentially dire: U.S. forces would need to draw from these same stockpiles to defend Taiwan against China, South Korea against North Korea, and Europe against Russia.

Both Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, and General Dan Caine, who chairs the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have publicly said that U.S. weapons stockpiles are robust, and portrayed the damage to Iranian forces after eight weeks of fighting as drastic. . . . . Vance is trying, the advisers suggested, to avoid making this personal, or to create divisions in Trump’s war Cabinet. Some of Vance’s confidantes, however, believe that Hegseth’s portrayal has been so positive as to be misleading.

Trump has echoed many of Hegseth and Caine’s positive statements about the war, declaring weeks ago that the damage wrought by U.S. forces already constituted victory and that U.S. stockpiles of key weapons are “virtually unlimited.” Some advisers suggested that Hegseth’s sanguine portrayals and at times combative approach with the press appear designed to give the president what he wants to hear . . . .

Pentagon leaders’ positive portrayals present an incomplete picture at best, people familiar with intelligence assessments told us. According to those internal estimates, Iran retains two-thirds of its air force, the bulk of its missile-launching capability, and most of its small, fast boats, which can lay mines and harass traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. At least in terms of resuming stalled maritime commerce, “those are the real threat,” one person told us. . . . And Tehran brings more missile launchers back online every day; roughly half are accessible again after an initial two-week cease-fire that was scheduled to expire last Tuesday, according to people familiar with the assessments.

Officials and outside advisers told us that the use of key weapons—including interceptors that defend against Iranian missiles, and offensive weapons such as Tomahawk and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff missiles—has produced a serious shortage that erodes America’s ability to fight future wars, despite an effort to quickly manufacture replacements. Vance has raised concern about munitions shortages in meetings with the president and other national-security officials. Already, the United States may have gone through more than half of its prewar supply of four key munitions . . . . Pentagon officials have warned that the deficits jeopardized the military’s ability to prevail in a hypothetical conflict against Russia or China.

Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesperson, told us in a statement that Hegseth and other Pentagon leaders “consistently provide the president with the complete, unvarnished picture.”

Vance and Hegseth both have a major stake in the war’s outcome. Several people close to Trump believe Vance now sees his political future as tied to what happens in Iran, one of the senior officials told us. Other officials and individuals familiar with those involved told us Hegseth harbors his own ambitions for elected office, even possibly for president.

Hegseth’s career depends on retaining the president’s support at all costs. . . . Hegseth has fewer fans among congressional Republicans than many other Cabinet secretaries, leaving him singularly reliant on Trump’s favor. Hegseth “strives to tell the president exactly what he wants to hear,” one former official told us. “I think that’s dangerous.”

People who know Vance say that he came to believe that the Afghan and Iraq Wars were flawed from the start. “We were lied to,” he proclaimed while serving in the Senate. Vance has argued that America’s interests are best served by prioritizing resources at home. Before becoming vice president, he warned that assisting Ukraine would diminish crucial U.S. weapons stockpiles. “This is not our war,” he declared.

Far from Hegseth’s predictions of a quick, decisive win, the Iran war has now drifted into a costly, indeterminate muddle. Last Tuesday, as the minute hand ticked toward the end of the initial cease-fire, Vance’s plane idled on the runway, ready to fly him to peace talks in Pakistan. But when Iran appeared unprepared to dispatch its own negotiators, Trump backed down, extending the truce indefinitely. Meanwhile, the two countries’ standoff in the Strait of Hormuz escalated last week when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized commercial vessels for the first time—a sign that its forces remain potent and that the war could again defy the upbeat assessments from the Pentagon’s leaders.