They sure had guts.

https://www.youtube

'iran has no navy', after knocking out much of its small conventional surface fleet, most of which was unoccupied and docked. The overwhelming majority of Iranian navy personnel were not harmed.

This is its 'navy', thousands of speedboats hidden underground with anti-ship missile launchers...

On 3/9/2026 at 10:10 PM, Matt! said:

If they indeed have some sort of exit strategy from this sh**f***ery, I doubt Iran is going to escalate immediately. They might rather spend years planning a revenge strategy and attack when nobody expects it. I really hope that’s not the case, but these types of delayed retaliatory hits are not uncommon.

Iran has been preparing for war with the US since the US did the ground invasion of Iraq in 2003. They saw the way the US destroyed Iran first by supporting Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war. After Iran defeated Iraq and massively weakened Saddam's Army, the US turning on them with an economic blockade, sanctions, and years of strategic bombing.

Iran's conventional forces, including reservists are about 1 million men strong. They also have a jihadist structure of militias all throughout the country, which can mobilize millions of men, and even boys as they did in the Iran-Iraq war. During that war the Iranians fought are bravely as the Japanese in WW2....

The Foreign minister of Iran said that if the US sends in ground troops, it would be the disaster for them. The Iranians have vast numerical superiority in infantry. If the US launches ground operations to seize a beachhead around the strait IMHO the Iranians would swamp them with a ground offensive.

I don't know if modern Iranians are as brave as their grandfathers and fathers were but in that war they fought to the death, doing human wave attacks to win at all cost. Their religion provides them with the spiritual strength to be unafraid of death, unlike Americans who want to live for 100 years. The Ayatollah was not afraid of death and all the dead commanders got replaced. In their religion they were all heroes that went to heaven to be with God.

The current Iranian strategy is called "mosaic" strategy, which means basically death by 1,000 cuts. They know that the US has total air and naval supremacy, and would destroy everything on the surface for 20 years. They care so little about their surface fleet and their air force that they still fly ancient F-4 Phantoms. So all of their military budget went into missiles, drones, and building hidden underground facilities all across the country, many of which are hidden in mountains. This is where they launch their missiles and drones outside of their surface launchers. In these 20 years they focused on becoming self-sufficient on building drones and missiles, like North Korea.

Their navy is really just thousands of speedboats with anti-ship missiles, also hidden underground.

While Iran's missile capabilities can be reduced through firing and combat losses, their use Drone warfare is basically infinite, as their drones are cheap and effective. Also China is a strategic ally and is continuing to pass through the strait to trade with them, meaning they can get all the dual use civilian gear they need. China has the world's largest commercial drone production capability and has been supplying both sides of the conflict in Ukraine, and will also supply Iran.

What I see happening is that Iran will continue attacking strangling world trade/energy markets and terrorizing the GCC countries that hold US bases.

The US bases will continue to get attacked. While only a few billion of losses have been sustained on these bases so far (recently South Korea saw US withdraw Radars etc. to replace those that the Iranians destroyed) if this goes on for months the bases will get completely trashed by continuous attacks.

Iran's maximum goal (from me watching their officials and reading Muslim telegram) is to eliminate the US from the middle east, making them run away like they did in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran's minimum goal is to punish the US by inflicting massive economic and military losses on them to the point that they will never consider attacking Iran again. In the minimum goal, the US still occupies the bases.

Currently their diplomats/officials are communicating that it is Iran, not Trump or the US that determines when the war will end. It is also evident that they would really like to damage if not sink at least 1 US carrier with missiles & drones to damage America's military reputation.

TBH they remind me of the Naavi' in Avatar LOL.