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More from @Mylovanov

Tymofiy Mylovanov

@Mylovanov

May 5

Graham: I love the idea of a Second Amendment solution [arming Iranians to rise up] for the Iranian people.

We do not need American boots on the ground. We have millions of boots on the ground in Iran. They just do not have weapons. 1/

Graham: Give them weapons so they can rise up and destroy this regime. Arm the Iranian people and make the Revolutionary Guard’s life hell.

It is one thing to be bombed by America. It is another to have your own people shoot back. 2/

Graham: The Strait of Hormuz is the only thing left. Iran’s nuclear program has been destroyed, its economy is in tatters, and its military has been decimated.

If we can control the Strait, it is checkmate. Blockade plus. Arm the people. Victory is near. 3/

Read 7 tweets

Tymofiy Mylovanov

@Mylovanov

May 5

Kasparov: I cannot give a precise assessment of Iran, because this time the information is badly distorted from both sides.

Dictators always create fog, but here it is mirrored: Trump is no reliable narrator either. What we are seeing is a mutual deadlock. 1/

Kasparov: Trump has two options on Iran: finish it off or stop. Finishing it is politically almost impossible.

He would not get support even from loyal Republicans, and America likely is not ready for an operation of that scale. That still doesn't rule out some mad adventure. 2/

Kasparov: Pulling troops from Germany would be catastrophic for US. Those bases are not there to defend Germany.

They are the infrastructure that lets the US operate across the world. This is another step toward America’s geopolitical bankruptcy and a direct gift to Putin. 3/

Read 6 tweets

Tymofiy Mylovanov

@Mylovanov

May 5

Vincent Awiti, unemployed in Nairobi, signed up for a shop job in Russia. Weeks later he was wading past corpses floating "like waterlilies" in a Ukrainian river beaten by his squad for losing his gun.

1,000 Kenyans went. 30 came home — NYT. 1/

Vincent met a recruiter on the street who promised a shop job in Russia. The agent paid his flight to St. Petersburg on July 14.

On arrival, Russians handed him a contract in Russian. Sign, or repay travel costs. He had no money. He signed. 2/

Four days of training near Shebekino. Then Awiti's squad was sent to Vovchansk in Ukraine's Kharkiv Province.

The order: cross two small rivers and a patch of open ground to reach a Russian trench. 3/

Read 11 tweets

Tymofiy Mylovanov

@Mylovanov

May 5

Defense analyst Michael Clarke: If I were advising Trump, I would tell him to get out fast.

If he cannot win decisively — this war will define his legacy. He needs an exit he can sell as honorable before it damages not only the midterms, but his place in history. 1/

Clarke: That means moving toward a nuclear deal that looks a lot like 2015, even if Trump would never admit it.

Let Iran keep a civilian program, tighten the breakout routes, build international backing, and sell it as tougher and better than Obama’s deal. 2/

Clarke: If I were advising Tehran, I would say: do not overplay your hand.

The regime may think it has the tactical edge, but the economy is wrecked, most Iranians want it gone, and revenge would be a strategic mistake. The revolution survives only if it winds its neck in. 3/

Read 6 tweets

Tymofiy Mylovanov

@Mylovanov

May 5

Defense analyst Michael Clarke: Trump set six deadlines on Iran and all of them passed.

Now we are on day 61 of a ceasefire with no real date attached. Hormuz is only partly open, Lebanon is still burning, and the whole war is effectively on hold until Trump turns back to it. 1/

Clarke: Friday matters because Trump hits the 60-day limit under the 1973 War Powers Act.

He started this war without congressional approval. Now he must face Congress, ask for more time, or try a legal dodge that is far less likely to work for him than it did for Obama. 2/

Clarke: Iran is not collapsing in the way Trump suggests. There are divisions, but the regime is still strategically coherent.

In fact, Tehran’s strategic vision is clearer than Washington’s. We can see what Iran is trying to do. It is the United States that looks amateurish. 3/

Read 6 tweets

Tymofiy Mylovanov

@Mylovanov

May 5

Fukuyama: Trump and Putin have been convinced for a long time that Ukraine is losing and cannot possibly win this war.

Yet we are now in year five, and the Russian victory they assumed was inevitable still has not happened. 1/

Fukuyama: A lot of Trump’s political posture has been built on the assumption of an inevitable Russian victory.

He has spoken as if Ukraine had no air force and no navy at all. That whole premise has simply not been borne out by the war. 2X