Trump melts down over reports Iran may be mining Strait of Hormuz

If you know absolutely nothing about how Donald Trump's Iran War is going, then congratulations: You still know more about it than Donald himself seems to. We are in a bizarre state where the war may be "almost" over, or may be about to escalate, and the United States and Israel appear to be at odds about what to bomb and how much, and Iran may have already decided to mine the Strait of Hormuz, shutting off much of the world's oil supply for the indefinite future, or they might be bluffing on that, sending the American president into one of his frothing, scenery-chewing social media fits.

Entering a war for no greater apparent reason than you think it might be neat is a bit like boldly riveting your tongue to the last boxcar on a local train. It's anyone's guess what's going to happen next, but you're probably not going to be in charge of what does.

For the umpteenth day, there's no way to describe the current state of the Notta War in any way that makes sense. Everything is anecdote, speculation, and various public figures' aspirational interpretations of what they think a not-stupid president and his cabinet might do in this situation, even though a not-stupid president wouldn't have put his tongue there to begin with.

So here we are. Again.

First, let's drop some highlights from yesterday's two Iran-related Trump pressers. Let's have a look at how the man himself thinks his war is going.

Oh yeah, we're screwed. He's out of his gourd all right.

But sir, would you like to add on any specific braggadocio about committing war crimes?

The United States president has the mind of a child. A very, very disturbed child.

Moving on to today's news, then: The most pressing speculation today is over whether Iran has begun to mine the Strait of Hormuz. CBS News sources indicated that such preparations seemed to be underway; soon afterwards, CNN reported that U.S. intelligence sources believe it has already begun.

While Iran's navy has been decimated by U.S. strikes, Iran is still said to have many smaller boats capable of deploying such mines. It also doesn't need to lay very many to shut down the strait's shipping traffic for an extended period: Shipping companies have already all but ended passages through the strait. Any confirmation that the channel has been mined will halt traffic until shipping companies and their insurers can be made confident they've been swept back up again. And if a ship is hit—either military or civilian—then we'd all better get used to the highest gas prices the world has ever seen.

The next question, then, would be whether it'd be in Iran's own interests to close down the strait. The short answer is absolutely not; Iran itself uses the Strait of Hormuz as its primary means of oil exports, and their tankers would be put at just as much risk as those of other nations.

That was the conventional wisdom, anyway. But two things have happened that may undermine such speculation. One, the apparent efforts by Israel to destroy Iranian oil depots and energy infrastructure.

Israel's strikes on 30 Iranian fuel depots Saturday went far beyond what the U.S. expected when Israel notified it in advance, sparking the first significant disagreement between the allies since the war began eight days ago, according to a U.S. official, Israeli official and a source with knowledge.

Why it matters: The U.S. is concerned Israeli strikes on infrastructure that serves ordinary Iranians could backfire strategically, rallying Iranian society to support the regime and driving up oil prices.

Well, there you go. One of the best ways to convince Iranian hardliners that they're losing nothing by mining the Strait of Hormuz is to blow up the infrastructure that allows them to export oil to begin with. There's no danger to Iranian tankers if Israel's new campaign against oil infrastructure means those tankers remain parked and empty at the docks.

The second reason for thinking that Iranian leaders may choose the maximal approach of poisoning the strait for everyone is Donald Trump. Trump launched a war of "regime change," assassinating key Iranian figures and bellowing that the next people in charge can expect the same, if the United States doesn't get whatever concessions it's imagining. That makes the war very, very personal: Iran's new supreme leader is the son of the previous ayatollah, a man who lost much of his family in the first night of U.S. strikes and who is now himself on Donald's list of preferred targets.

The United States has presented no reason for Iran's new government to not take the most belligerent possible actions. It is existential; their only means of survival is to cause a worldwide energy crisis so severe that Trump has no choice but to declare victory and leave. In addition, mining the straits will require U.S. military assets to venture closer to Iranian shores than they presently are, if the U.S. intends to clear the mines—which, in turn, places those assets squarely where Iranian missiles and drones can best target them.

If you want to know whether Trump thinks this Iranian threat might endanger his own visions of victory, Whatever The Hell Those Might Be, all you need to do is check his social media feed. He's letting the whole world know he's bug-eyed livid about it.

Meanwhile, Israel appears to think that Trump is already searching for ways to declare victory and pretend none of this ever happened. That means they, too, are ramping up their strikes.

A source familiar with Israel's war plans earlier told Reuters the country's military wanted to inflict as much damage on Iran as possible before the window for ​further strikes closes, under the assumption Trump could end the war suddenly.

As we have previously discussed—ad nauseam, in fact—Donald Trump is a feckless, self-absorbed, dementia-addled, thoroughly incompetent sociopath who has been launching new unprovoked wars because he likes seeing the resulting violence on television. But he also gets bored of events quickly, rapidly moving on to obsessing over his "ballroom" or a new "triumphal arch" or whatever is on television at any given moment.

The man's character makes long-term strategy impossible: he relies on making impulsive moves, watching as it all goes sideways, then declaring imaginary victory and moving on to something else. Any Iranian moves to fight back robs Trump of his opportunity to declare victory and leave.

So now we've got Trump in a full-on rage over the mere thought that Iranian leaders could, and fairly easily, escalate the crisis beyond what his little pea brain first envisioned.

All of the above, however, gives the impression that both sides are thinking even halfway logically through their options. That is a trap we always fall into, and it's impossible not to.

To dissuade us of the notion that anybody involved here knows what the hell they're doing, then, let's cover the rest of the day's events.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy blasted the administration after a closed door briefing on the war:

Specifically, Murphy said that the Trump team is no longer claiming the destruction of Iran's nuclear program to be among the war's goals:

Dropping what Trump himself continues to insist on as his primary justification for the war may have something to do with military planners pointing out that there's no plausible way to achieve that objective without major ground operations inside Iran.

Recovering Iran’s remaining highly enriched uranium stockpile believed to be sitting in a storage facility deep underground, an objective the Trump administration has been discussing, would require a significant number of US ground troops beyond a small special operations footprint, seven current and former officials familiar with the military planning told CNN.

You can't put a small, Venezuela-style special operations team in with the intent of kidnapping Iranian's nuclear stockpiles. It's a major endeavor, in the middle of a hostile nation with a large military of its own and substantial drone and missile resources available. Trump can't do it unless he's willing to commit to a ground war.

Which he might, or might not, depending on what Fox News hosts tell him through his television set in the coming days.

What of the now widely-reported news that Russia has been aiding Iran in targeting U.S. military assets, most notably the radar installations underpinning U.S. anti-missile defenses?

Oh, well that's good news. Case closed, says Trump's extremely sketchy negotiator!

Please stop. Now you're just teasing us.

UPDATE: