Did Trump TACO Again on Iran? Why?

Al Udeid Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC

I spoke with Scott Horton on Friday (I’ll post the video when its available) and told him I fully expected that Trump would deliver on his vow to open the Gates of Hell on Iran. All the warning indicators were flashing red: i.e., Europeans were closing their embassies in Tehran and evacuating staff, major surge in US aircraft into Israel, cancellation of some civilian flights in and out of the Persian Gulf, a flight of several P-8 Poseidon ISR aircraft over the Persian Gulf and Israel opened its bomb shelters. But I failed to consider that Trump was hosting a second try of the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) dinner on Friday night. I heard from a trusted source that Trump called off the attack planned for Friday in order not to distract from his speech at the WHCA shindig.

OK. That means Saturday would be the big day. But early on Saturday I received a note from a source that the two key military components — CENTCOM and AFCENT — were not performing the operations prep and planning that would normally occur if a major attack was imminent. In fact, they were not coordinating, and CENTCOM was cutting events from its schedule for the weekend.

Let me explain the acronyms…CENTCOM is the supported Commander for Operation Epic Fury. It is responsible for US military operations, security cooperation, and contingency planning across a 20-nation area of responsibility that spans the Middle East, Central Asia, and parts of South Asia. AFCENT (officially Ninth Air Force / Air Forces Central) serves as CENTCOM’s dedicated air component. It plans, coordinates, and executes all air operations (unilaterally or with coalition partners) in support of CENTCOM’s objectives.

Although AFCENT’s official headquarters is Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, Al Udeid has functioned as AFCENT’s primary forward operating location and forward headquarters in the CENTCOM area of responsibility for many years. Al Udeid hosted the Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC), which provided command and control of airpower across the CENTCOM region, as well as other key CENTCOM-related elements (including a forward headquarters for CENTCOM itself).

Prior to the start of Operation Epic Fury, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine, the CAOC was relocated to Shaw AFB because CENTCOM correctly anticipated that Iran would target the facility. All US personnel were transferred away from Al Udeid before 28 February. The CAOC building on Al Udeid was decimated. The actual planning for the air campaign took place at Shaw AFB.

The fact that the CAOC at Shaw AFB is not currently engaged in furious operational planning for a massive strike is the clearest indicator that an attack is not imminent… At least not this weekend.

The New York Times published a piece by Eric Schmitt and Jonathan Swan that offers one explanation for Trump’s latest TACO. They write:

President Trump has set aside, at least for now, plans to sharply escalate the American military assault against Iran, with particular concern that intensifying the war could dangerously drain the Pentagon’s already diminished stockpile of Patriot antimissile interceptors and other air defense munitions in the Middle East.

The threat to interceptor stockpiles is one of many considerations that has made a return to major combat operations a hugely risky endeavor, administration officials say. Mr. Trump and his top aides are also uneasy about the prospect of a widening war in the Middle East, the alienation of key Gulf allies who are vulnerable to Iranian attack, a global economic crunch, and growing energy and refugee crises.

But there may be another consideration — one that does not exclude the reasons offered by the NY Times reporters — that involves the US fuel supplies. An economic brief prepared by Karl Miller investigates how the US military’s covert fuel procurement and export operations are depleting the nation’s diesel and jet fuel reserves, particularly during a period when domestic stocks are already critically low. The report details that from May to July, nearly 161 million barrels of distillate and jet fuel were exported, with the East Coast’s buffer falling to less than half its pre-pandemic norm. Much of this fuel is routed through opaque channels, such as the Rotterdam transshipment hub, where the final military or foreign allocation is not publicly reconciled, leaving the American economy exposed to shortage risks while military and foreign operations receive priority access.

A central finding is that the US government operates a parallel, largely unauditable military allocation system that siphons fuel from the civilian market. Public data merges commercial and military fuel categories, and certain military shipments are exempt from standard export reporting, making it impossible to track the true end-use of exported fuel. The report highlights that US taxpayers are subsidizing foreign military fuel needs, notably for Israel, through both direct and likely indirect channels, while the government does not disclose the full extent or funding split of these deliveries. Meanwhile, critical sectors like trucking, agriculture, and civil aviation are left with a diminished safety margin and increased disruption risk.

Miller concludes that the crisis is not due to a collapse in refinery output or a fabricated inventory, but rather a combination of structurally low inventories, high ongoing exports, and fragmented public reporting that obscures the military’s draw on national fuel supplies. The evidence supports the view that Rotterdam acts as a shadow endpoint for US fuel, facilitating onward distribution to US/NATO bases, Israel, and other theaters, but the lack of transparent, reconciled accounting prevents the public from knowing the true allocation. The report calls for a unified, detailed ledger to clarify how much fuel is being diverted from domestic resilience to military and foreign operations.

I am assuming that Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Burgham know this and briefed Trump on it. Stripping the US civilian sector of diesel and jet fuel surpluses at a time when the global supply is still severely constrained by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the Houthi blockade of Saudi oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz increases the risk of damaging the US domestic economy. Did this fact also convince President Trump that a massive attack on Iran at this time would be ill-advised? Worth considering.

So, I give up on predicting when or if Trump will really open the Gates of Hell on Iran. I am convinced that the shortage of precision guided missiles and the potential for major economic damage if the air war continues are genuine risks that should not be ignored.

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Pepe and I did an emergency Transition Protocol on Saturday to discuss the latest developments in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea:

Mario and I discussed the implications of Yemen’s attack on Saudi Arabia’s Aramco refinery:

As with Mario, Nima and I discussed the implications of the Yemeni attack and I explained why I don’t think a new attack is imminent:

Sulaiman and I had an animated discussion about the war in Ukraine: