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Trump pulled mine-sweepers from Middle East before Iran War — they’re in Philadelphia
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2026
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Some context from the end of the article:
The mine sweepers in question are four decommissioned wood and fiberglass vessels from the Desert Storm era whose capabilities are being replaced by littoral (giggity) combat ships.
It’s hard for me to believe that this operation wouldn’t include priority strikes on sea mine facilities. Just the specter of mines in the strait is enough to make shipping insurance infeasible. If Iran is successfully mining, what happened? Was this war so hastily planned that this was overlooked? If the strait is so vital to shipping, you’d think they would want every minesweeper available.
If the US military (who are acutely aware of Trump’s openly hostile disrespect towards service members by the way) are actually listening to Trump’s logistical advice, he’s going to run them into the ground faster than his Vegas casinos.
Planned isn't the term that I think should be applied to what the US is doing. Iran has been planning how to make an attack on their land as painful for the world as possible for a long time. They know their military can't compete, so they utilize strategy to make an outsized impact. There is no "mine facility" to bomb, they have thousands of mines in decentralized storage. All of this, including Iran's plans to make this painful, is public information that the US military had access to.
The unfortunate reality is the civilian leadership in charge of planning this are fucking idiots. Pete Hegseth, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump are fucking morons. They know jack shit about any of this but are running our foreign policy.
The Trump Admin is doing the bidding of Israel here, hands down, as influenced by Israel's assets within the US government, such as certain members of Congress, who have plainly stated as much. Israel doesn't care about oil prices, they care about destroying Iran and an ancillary goal: As we speak, Israel has displaced almost a million people in Lebanon and is clearly about to annex Lebanese land. This is a footnote in the news because of Trump's actions in Iran, but would have garnered international condemnation otherwise.
You think America, one of the largest oil producers in the world, really cares all that much that Saudi Arabia and Iraq can't get their oil out? You realize they are making money on this, right? The US has no interest in opening the straight. Why do you think they started a war to close it?
Not all oil and its child products are created equal.
There are serious knock on effects occurring right now that we won't see the impact of for a month or two as companies burn through their inventory
Machine oils/lubricants, aviation fuels and of course fuel. Not to mention LNG, fertilisers and other petrochemical feedstock.
In fairness, the Trump admin didn't think about any of those things either.
I did not realize that! Given how sensitive America voters are to gas prices, I guess they’re relying on voter suppression.
Who exactly does benefit from closing the strait other than Iran?
The two largest oil producers outside of the gulf: The United States of America and Russia.
What I read today is that Iran deployed twelve mines. Twelve.
Presumably the US was striking their missile launches, and a couple more than twelve were launched... it's consistent with all that that their ability to lay mines is heavily degraded.
Yeah, this seems like kind of a nothingburger. I get the desire to hit Trump on everything and anything, but you generally don't put minesweepers in the middle of active combat zones.
I'm also pretty confident that the rumours about Iran deploying mines aren't even true, because if they are then their recent offer to allow safe passage doesn't make any sense.
Also, gotta love the LCS catching strays here. Canada has plenty of issues with ship-building, mostly thanks to our sourcing all the work to a monopoly corp that couldn't give two shits, and even we look competent compared to the US navy's steadily growing graveyard of failed projects.
The mining and safe passage make sense together. They'd deploy mines, then escort and/or pilot the ship through the unmined channel.
I feel like that only works in a world where satellite and drone surveillance don't exist. As soon as you escort one ship through the mines, they stop really being a threat because now everyone knows where the safe route is.
I'm sure I could be wrong here, but either way I think we need to keep in mind that the mining is only rumoured at this point. Nothing is even close to confirmed and the evidence is pretty thin.
Edit: OK, I've now seen somewhat more credible sources on the mine laying, so good chance I am wrong here. So it goes.
Have the safe route come within convenient range of heavily entrenched shore-based artillery.
Sort of. Live, continuous satellite surveillance is a scarce resource, despite what TV might show you. And keeping a drone on station in hostile airspace is risky.
Not to mention, some mines can be activated and deactivated by shore control.