Israel violated the 2024 ceasefire over 10,000 times [0], not counting all the ones since Feb. 28. I guess this time they're not satisfied with having only 50 "freebies" a day.
Hamas is the (originally elected by the people) government of Gaza. Hezbollah is a partner of and inside Lebanon's government.
In addition, both parties are who Israel was nominally in a ceasefire with. So extremely relevant to the discussion about Israel and ceasefires and not random whataboutism.
You seem to be implying discussion should be waived away if a counter party is both a government and a terrorist organization.
Takeover of half of Papua New Guinea, now called irian Jaya.
Transmigration, that is, moving Java people there and to Borneo (Kalimantan)in order to flood local populations with Malays.
But this did not make the news that much. Not that interesting I guess…
No…attacks do not follow as a consequence from the action of giving land back. The conclusion from this reasoning would be to forever expand your borders. If it cannot be that the positive action of giving land causes an attack, think about what the real cause may be.
They have given back territory they don’t care about (Sinai), or “given back” territory but kept it under a permanent near-total blockade and military control (Gaza), but never given back territory they do care about and which is the main sticking point of the conflict (East Jerusalem and the West Bank). And they never will unless someone forces them to, which is unlikely.
It's not israel's place as the aggressor to "assure" anything. Lebanon (and Palestine) have *at least* as much right to be safe from israel as israel has to be safe from them.
"Assuring" as used by you here should be taken in the same context as a controlling abuser "assuring" their spouse never disobeys them, or afrikaaners "assuring" that South Africans of other races have no power.
> 2. Acquire a bargaining chip ahead of a future peace agreement with Lebanon
Yes, this is territorial expansion as mentioned above.
> 3. Signal to the Iranian axis and the rest of the Middle East that it has won this war
Why would israel signal that Iran has won this war? Seems like they'd want to avoid attention on that.
Do you not read the news? Israel was bombing Lebanon DAILY and occupying parts of southern Lebanon throughout the so called ceasefire. All without Hezbollah firing a single shot in retalliation until Israel and the US attacked Iran DURING NEGOTIATIONS!
If it wasn't for Israel's dogged expansionism, Hezballah would never have been created, Hamas would never have been created and Palestine would still be a liberal democracy.
"...In an interview with Israeli journalist, Dan Margalit in December 2012, Netanyahu told Margalit that it was important to keep Hamas strong, as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Netanyahu also added that having two strong rivals, this would lessen pressure on him to negotiate towards a Palestinian state..."
Their brief democratic period was inconvenient to Israel, which is why when Netanyahu decided to fund Hamas, he first said that Hamas is important to keep Palestine divided.
> Without attacks from Hezballah and other Iranian backed groups Isreal would not have attacked targets in Lebanon
Israel also bombed southern Syria, to "protect the druze community". Syria has not attacked Israel, there are some random terrorist groups who did, but they attacked Israels' occupying forces in Syria.
Syria tried to genocide the druze. Out in public - and the international community just didn't give a damn. Israel was the only faction to defend minorities against the facist, islamo-supremacist hordes of the current syrian government.
israel is actually genociding Palestinians, so this excuse is pretty laughable. Especially since israel is claiming control over the land, just like they invade Lebanon "for defense", just like they invade Gaza "for defense", and now they attack Iran "for defense".
Wake up: pretty much nobody believes the fascist, judeo-supremacist hordes of the current israeli government.
It is. Actions go beyond what is minimally necessary to ensure security but without attacks from Hezbollah there would be no military actions in Lebanon. Israel doesn't attack Jordan or Egypt because they don't host Iranian backed militants who do attack. Lebanon will be in the same position if Hezbollah will be gone (which is not given).
It's clear that israel is an attacker here, and Iran, Palestine, and Lebanon are defending. Without attacks from israel and other israel backed groups, iran would not have attacked targets in israel. Even the most recent escalation started with israel (and the USA) attacking Iran a few weeks ago, not the other way around.
Your take seems to hinge on holding an unfounded bayesian prior that israel is "the good guy" and therefore everything they do must be "defending". The world does not share this unfounded bayesian prior of yours, and thus remains unconvinced of the resulting conclusions drawn by israel and yourself. You will have to do a better job of convincing others, rather than simply asserting your opinions at them.
I think you are a bit confused as to what the role of a state should be. A state is not set up to appease international bodies, or to be a convenient neighbor or to be likable by throwaway accounts on HN. Its first and only duty is towards its citizens. The same people who pay taxes, vote and serve in the armed forces. And if an Iranian militia sets up post two miles away from your towns, digs cross border attack tunnels to prepare for a raid and shoots missiles and drones at you, you better believe that country is going to respond in force.
Israel had previously turned a blind eye to that after the large big confrontation in 2006, but since October 7th - and conveniently, Hezbollah unilaterally joining the attack on Israel a day later - a switch was flipped and Israel went all out, as was its duty.
It's easy to read your statement as having been said of Ukraine by Putin. And just as oblivious to why your neighbor isn't your friend, and is setting up defenses, and is fighting back against your attacks and frequent territorial incursions.
Both russia and israel feel they should be able to unilaterally control their neighbors, and both have an equal non-right to do so. Both claim neighboring country land should be theirs, and both use military force and genocide to make that happen. Both even believe it is their religious birthright to do so.
israel and russia: two self-righteous peas in a pod.
If Iran's 10 points become the basis of the peace, it ratifies Iran's sovereignty over the strait, at which point they can raise the price. It will be years before alternative routes devalue control of the strait, during which time Iran can siphon a lot of money out of passages taxes.
One thing I've not heard much discussion of is alternative routes. In the early days of this war there were discussions i of pipelines but it tapered off pretty fast
Pipelines are possible, but they take time to build. The pipeline would have to cross several countries (depending on what route is taken - look at a map) which makes it much harder. Will Oman even be interested in this? Saudi Arabia I guess could build a pipeline to the red sea entirely internally, every other country in the region would have to cross someone else.
Still if Iran does charge the $1/barrel of oil they are proposing expect the countries in the region to look into a pipeline. That is a lot of money and a pipeline could potentially be cheaper in the long run.
The big issue with alternative routes is that they don't really solve the problem. Ports in Oman and Yemen outside the persian gulf are still close enough to Iran to be subject to attack by drones and missiles. Saudi Arabia has invested considerably into pipelines to the Red Sea but Iranian-backed Houthis can strike there. Even if there was a safe port somewhere, the pipelines themselves would be easy targets. There's a reason no alternative route has been pursued over the decades.
The most economical option is to just invest in the military technologies to pass through the Strait. Minesweepers, missile defenses, an appropriate number of escort frigates - an appropriate naval force could most certainly escort ships through. It's just incredibly dumb to start a war with an adversary that has been threatening to close a major waterway for decades immediately after decommissioning your minesweeper fleet and while there are zero frigates in your navy.
For reference: This would almost triple their govts funds each year. One must also not forget that they're able to raise tolls in the future, both for monetary investment but also for negotiation purposes.
Making outrageous demands is normal in these negotiations. You can just look at what Hamas demanded during the ceasefires. What usually happens is no strong concessions from either side and hostilities just end. The regimes get to survive just in a badly degraded state.
Most importantly Iran can't afford to keep the strait closed to enforce this. If they block shipping their own will be blocked as well - which hasn't yet happened, they were still allowed to ship oil. Iran was already in terrible financial shape before the war and they aren't negotiating from a strong position of power to take those risks.
> Most importantly Iran can't afford to keep the strait closed to enforce this. If they block shipping their own will be blocked as well - which hasn't yet happened, they were still allowed to ship oil.
Why do you say this? During the war they set up a checkpoint system so their ships and ships they allowed to pass could still pass through.
this would be a worse crisis than we've just had; it'd put China (if not all of Asia) directly against the USA and would put Australia in a very peculiar spot.
Iran charging a massive toll would also cause a crisis with the gulf states and they aren't going to tolerate it. This is much bigger than Iran vs US, and the idea they hold the cards for such a claim is mostly propaganda.
Just pointing out that for the volume of these ships, it's not really a massive toll. It's honestly a bargain, paid for in a really easy to stomach way by the people who allowed this to happen: Everyone else.
Doesn't explain why UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrian, and Saudis would tolerate a fee transiting the strait. Let alone why America would agree to that in negotiations given they have little incentive to agree to any large demands.
If that is agreed upon it's going to come with some concessions by Iran which is even less likely.
They'd tolerate it because they all poked a giant in the eye and it didn't go down. It's by far the cheapest route to peace any of them have.
USA could agree to it because it's not particularly dependent on that fuel supply and therefore would only pay the costs indirectly via market forces, which as the thief-in-chief pointed out, does (the parts he cares about of) their economy no harm as a net petroleum-product exporter, and above all else, they are losing the war.
I think you're right, it's a bracketing ambiguity.
Rather than "Iran to use Hormuz fees for (reconstruction instead of reparations)" it's more likely to mean "Iran to use (Hormuz fees for reconstruction) instead of reparations"
Yeah, I think they want to do it this way, because Iran wants some compensation for damages, but paying reparations directly would be too humiliating for the US, and Trump would never agree to it.
I’m 99% sure that if there is a deal where Iran collects a toll, it’s going to involve counting that toll (and/or sanctions relief, and/or unfreezing Iranian assets) as reparations. I would be very surprised if the US or Israel ever agree to direct payments to the Iranian government.
Not convinced it will happen. What would prevent Saudi Arabia from retaliating and introducing a special fee on all ships coming from Iran. It's not like intercepting those massive cargo ships in a small sea is of any difficulty for a well funded military.
Saudi Arabia has something like twice as many jet fighters than France. Even if you factor incompetence, it's not hard to hit a cargo ship or an oil production facility in absence of any meaningful air defence.
Saudi Arabia needs jet fighters to patrol a very large desert and active threats all around. France doesn't have enemies on all sides, and it has nukes and a navy. There's no pressing need for France to have more planes than Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has FAR more to lose. Paying $1 or its equivalent in Yuan per barrel is utterly nothing for them. Chump Change.
Unfortunately, I do not believe Israel will stand for peace on this terms, so a false-flag sabotage attack will happen as soon as they are freed from their conquest of Lebanon.
Oil is a globally traded commodity so the US definitely does care. The US also does consume oil from the gulf.
That said this term is not going to be acceptable to anyone so it's likely not going to happen. It remains to be seen where we'll be after the two week ceasefire that Iran declared it would never accept (no ceasefire, only end of war). Iran certainly has some leverage but so does the US.
I don't think you understand how commodity markets work, in particular oil, which is easy to ship relative to extraction costs.
It literally doesn't matter where the oil comes from, it only matters how much gets shipped! Only an utter fool could say something like "closing off the strait of Hormuz doesn't matter because our oil doesn't come from there." One merely has to look at current US gas prices to see how utterly silly that notion is!
> One merely has to look at current US gas prices to see how utterly silly that notion is!
We could probably slash gas prices by banning oil exports, thus removing domestic oil supply from global market pricing (barring smuggling). The oil industry would probably hate that, though, for obvious reasons.
Ultimately, though, this is yet another wakeup call for why an economy and society built around lighting a finite resource on fire is a bad idea, and hopefully this time around that wakeup call sticks.
> We could probably slash gas prices by banning oil exports, thus removing domestic oil supply from global market pricing (barring smuggling).
To my understanding, you couldn't do this, no. The US is a net oil exporter, but many of its refineries are tuned for processing oil with a chemical composition that isn't found in the US, or not found in sufficient quantity. So the US has to both import and export oil, it can't just replace imports with exports.
> but many of its refineries are tuned for processing oil with a chemical composition that isn't found in the US, or not found in sufficient quantity
How difficult would it be to retune those refineries to process domestic oil instead? In a world where a heavy-handed extreme like “banning oil exports” is on the table, surely doubling down on the heavy-handedness wouldn't be out of the question.
All oil is global commodity and the US refineries can’t take the oil that the US produces. So they mix it with heavy sours from Canada so the refineries can handle them. So a lot of the oil in the US is dependent on foreign oil as you said.
Uh no. It is empirically not egg on the face of the people who believed it was not possible to improve the Iran situation militarily. The US's failure just proved them correct.
Yes, I agree this is bad. In fact it's worse than it was a few weeks ago.
Your post makes a lot of bold claims (lack of support post-attacks, current missile production numbers, large portion of internal security folks killed). From where did you get that info?
> I'm not sure that we are worse than a few weeks ago
By every measure I can find, we are worse off: everything costs more, I am at greater risk of attack at home and abroad; the theocracy in Iran has moved to consolidate power similarly to the theocracy in israel; more Iranians support the regime since they're all being attacked together; the global standing and trust of the USA is further diminished; allies have been shunned and insulted; war crimes are now OK according to the USA; billions have been wasted; stocks of interceptor missiles and other weapons are dangerously depleted; the USA and israel look like losers on the world stage now. Oh yeah, and a bunch of innocent people (including lots of children) were killed in the bombing. And that's all right now, no "wait and see".
Are there any measures which indicate we're better off? Even if we assume the ones you listed were true, they are outweighed by all the damage listed above, and aren't particularly valuable to the USA, which generally did not suffer from random Iranian missile strikes or invading Iranian internal security forces prior to this war.
This is a very shortsighted and naive way of looking at things. We are better off because Iran has been weakened. The short term issues you mention are real but pale in comparison to what an Iran with nuclear weapons and a much larger missile stock would do. Iran doesn't just want to be left along and live their lives the way they want to. Iran wants to change the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exporting_the_Islamic_Revoluti...
"They are producing, by some estimates, over 100 of these missiles a month. Compare that to the six or seven interceptors that can be built a month. They can build a hundred of these a month, not to mention the thousands of one-way attack drones that they also have. They’ve been doing this for a very long time. And by the way, they’ve been doing it under sanction. You see the attacks they’re conducting right now. They’re attacking airports. They’re attacking hotels. They are hitting, not just military bases; they’re attacking our embassies directly. They’re attacking facilities that have nothing to do with war or with military."
"But he doubts that Iran is still able to produce bigger, longer-range ballistic missiles because the U.S. and Israel have destroyed or disabled known production facilities."
EDIT: I will also add that the reason we're paying a higher price now is the debt we've acquired by not dealing with Iran sooner. This higher price includes the war in Ukraine where Iran's support to Russia is material and possibly even China's current posture. We can also add the situation in Yemen to that long list. You're arguing we should just wait and do nothing because the cost is too high. Just imagine what the cost is going to be down the road.
Israel is mostly secular and is by no means governed by Halakha; it’s not any more of a theocracy than the US is. Netanyahu is not religious at all, and though some members of his coalition are, they’re not the majority partners.
This isn’t a pro-Israel comment (I’m generally not a fan of Israel), it’s just factual. When Israel describes itself as “the Jewish state” it understands “Jewish” as referring to something that could variously be described as a culture, ethnicity or “nation”, not to the religion of Judaism.
Is that your whole takeaway after reading my post?
'yes we are worse off in every measure you listed, but I personally disagree with your use of this negative adjective to describe israel in one of the bullet points about how much worse off we are and also this isn't a pro-israel comment and my opinions are facts'?
I agree with most of your comment; I'm certainly not in favor of the war and think it was both morally dubious as well as a strategic disaster for the US. I'm just saying that Israel isn't a theocracy, which is true.
Also, there were no opinions in my comment; indeed, there were only facts.
yeah, that's why the biggest single problem facing Trump right now is the price of gas at US pumps, which is weird because based on your understanding of global trade it hasn't gone up at all...
US didn't achieve any of the goals it stated during any part of the war. The "goals" it achieved were largely a restoration of the status quo ante, modulo an enormous new revenue stream for Iran.
US spent vast amounts of money on not achieving any meaningful objective, while at the same time granting the opposition items from their long-term wish list (removal of sanctions). That's a loss.
If Iran's leaders' brains are not made of rotten oatmeal, they will massively accelerate their nuclear weapons program with their windfall.
We blew up most of their military, and killed a lot of their leadership.
> If Iran's leaders' brains are not made of rotten oatmeal, they will massively accelerate their nuclear weapons program with their windfall.
How can you possibly arrive at this conclusion? Besides Russia, China, Pakistan, or North Korea giving them money and expertise they aren’t going to just be able to “accelerate” their nuclear weapons program after being so thoroughly damaged.
If Iran (remind me why are they pursuing nuclear weapons again?) continues their program we will just blow it up again. They’re simply not going to be allowed to have nuclear weapons. There is no possible acceleration here. If they start loading up on missiles again to try and close the straight and use that as leverage so they can build nuclear weapons and then really close the straight and hold oil shipments hostage we will blow those up too.
According to the White House, the Iranian nuclear weapons program was totally destroyed 8 months ago. And in under 8 months, the Iranians were able to reboot it and make enough progress that it was an imminent threat again.
(More to my point, "accelerate" does not imply any given velocity. It means move it fast-er. Notably, one must accelerate from a complete stop to move at all.)
Every state that feels threatened must see acquisition of nuclear weapons (or acquiring a nuclear-armed protector) as Job #1. Maybe they buy using the new windfall from the toll on the Strait, maybe they use their own know-how. Maybe a combination.
But yeah, every leader needs to get their country under a nuclear umbrella. Any leader who is not will be replaced for delinquency.
It's abundantly clear that we are entering an age of nuclear proliferation. Ukraine, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba are just the earliest examples. Entirely possible US didn't invade Greenland due to its nuclear protection. Would Israel be cleansing (ethnically) large swathes of Lebanon if there was a risk they could lose Tel Aviv this afternoon? But now it is clear that we are (again) in a geopolitical environment in which the strongest can take whatever they want from the weak. Demonstrated nuclear capability is the only clear deterrent.
> Maybe they buy using the new windfall from the toll on the Strait, maybe they use their own know-how. Maybe a combination.
Just to be clear, there won't be any tolls on the Straight. If I had a way to make you put up money on this 1-1 I would, but unfortunately I don't. US won't tolerate it, Gulf States won't tolerate it, nor should the rest of the world tolerate being extorted. Same thing with Putin - can't live under a threat of nuclear bombing of London all the time and cower in fear at these awful regimes. Also, obviously, showing the need for the US to stop Iran from having a nuclear bomb.
> It's abundantly clear that we are entering an age of nuclear proliferation. Ukraine, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba are just the earliest examples.
Ukraine is the outlier here as the only peaceful country not run by lunatics who are starving and depriving their people of freedom, so let's set that aside.
Venezuela - over 8 million refugees, total economic collapse, all under Chavez and Maduro who enriched themselves and their henchmen at the cost of the people of Venezuela.
Iran - killed 30,000 of its own people (confirmed by the US and EU), is currently recruiting child soldiers, funds terrorist groups (all designated as such by the US and EU) such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis to launch rockets and missiles at people just living their daily lives.
Cuba - A little less straightforward, admittedly, given the history but at the end of the day was working with Venezuela's government to oppress its people and plays nice with Russia who invaded Ukraine.
Nah, none of these countries should have nuclear weapons. As an aside w.r.t Ukraine I'm generally against more countries obtaining nukes, though I guess the good news is we can bomb the ones we don't want to have nukes and let the good ones we do want to have nukes get them like Japan and South Korea so they can blow up China and North Korea if they start shit. But maybe we should get more countries to have nukes. Argentina for example since they've been super cooperative - let's put them under the umbrella and give them nukes. Hmm who else. Taiwan? Yea that would be good. Oh oh and the Baltics and Ukraine if we did give them nukes that could end the war and put Russia in its place right? Oh and since Iran wanted to get a nuke, it's only fair that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Iraq all get nukes too, right? You know what, Trump is a big fan of the AfD in Germany. Maybe they should carve out some territory they like and we'll give them a nuke so that way Berlin leaves them alone. Why not? Anyone that feels threatened is entitled to a nuclear weapon.
Do you see how stupid and quickly escalatory this is? That's why folks are in favor of nuclear non-proliferation.
> Entirely possible US didn't invade Greenland due to its nuclear protection.
I think mostly because Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate pushed back on this. Europe isn't going to nuke the United States over Greenland - that's complete nonsense and wouldn't accomplish anything.
> Would Israel be cleansing (ethnically) large swathes of Lebanon if there was a risk they could lose Tel Aviv this afternoon?
Israel has nukes right? So next time Hezbollah launches rockets at Israel from southern Lebanon - boom Beirut up in smokes. Just. Like. That.
> Just to be clear, there won't be any tolls on the Straight
Not going to debate this, since you seem to know more than the people negotiating this. I can only go by what negotiators (you?) have publicly released through official channels, which is that Iran and Oman will get a windfall at the expense of free maritime navigation.
> Do you see how stupid and quickly escalatory this is?
Yes? To be clear, I am against nuclear non-proliferation. I also understand that internal politics will lean towards populations not being terrorized by their neighbors. I understand that non-proliferation depends on nuclear powers acting responsibly and underwriting a semblance of a security regime. The best course of action would be for the big nuclear powers to act in ways aligned with long-term peace and nonproliferation.
But they are very much doing the opposite. The big nuclear powers are engaging in piracy and seeking to redivide the globe. In those circumstances, it would be folly for countries not to get their own deterrent.
> boom Beirut up in smokes
Yes, look at videos of Beirut today. That is exactly what is happening.
> I can only go by what negotiators (you?) have publicly released through official channels, which is that Iran and Oman will get a windfall at the expense of free maritime navigation.
You don't have to be a negotiator to understand this stuff. Oman hosts a US air base - how are they going to charge another US ally like Saudi Arabia (for ex) for shipping oil if the US says no you're not - and we have said that. This is even crazier than suggesting Iran gets to do it.
Can you please post your specific sources informing you of these things that you believe? I'd like to also read them to better understand what others are thinking. Like where are you reading - the exact article - that the US and Gulf States agreed to pay a fee to Iran and Oman to have ships transit the straight. Who signed off on that agreement for the US for example? It should be in the article.
> Yes, look at videos of Beirut today. That is exactly what is happening.
Israel dropped a nuclear bomb on Beirut today? Jeez. That's unfortunate. But hey, countries need to have nukes to defend themselves and if Hezbollah isn't going to stop, boom straight to the big stuff because that's how the world works.
shows the US agreeing to acceptance of the Iranian 10-point plan as a basis for negotiation. You can find those 10 points from a source you trust, but they include reparations to Iran in the form of payments from ships transiting the Strait.
> Oman hosts a US air base
The 10-point plan also requires the US to remove its combat forces from the region.
> Who signed off on that agreement for the US for example
The President posted this, so it's likely the most official artifact available to the public. Likely nothing is signed yet, it appears the President did not even get Israel onside before announcing so the ceasefire may not make it to the weekend.
wrt Beirut. I don't know how to convey that Israel is only operating the way they are in Lebanon because they do not feel the existential threat that comes with a nuclear deterrent. I'm not really sure I understand your position that nuclear weapons do not deter.
So you know from reading those 10 points that the US isn't going to agree to them. That Iran posited them and the US says sure we can start with this as a basis for negotiation does not mean that the US agreed to Iran's demands any more than it means Iran agreed to the US's 15 point plan.
It's ok to just admit you were wrong.
> I don't know how to convey that Israel is only operating the way they are in Lebanon because they do not feel the existential threat that comes with a nuclear deterrent.
If Lebanon had a nuclear weapon they'd probably use it on Hezbollah so they can reassert control over their territory and stop those maniacs from trying to start wars.
> I'm not really sure I understand your position that nuclear weapons do not deter.
Israel has nuclear weapons yet Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran have not been deterred from attacking Israel. Countries don't just launch nukes the second they feel they are under threat.
> I can only go by what negotiators (you?) have publicly released through official channels, which is that Iran and Oman will get a windfall at the expense of free maritime navigation.
Which negotiators from official channels have stated this?
I'm of course arguing that this won't happen for a variety of reasons, but I'm also arguing that nobody on the US and friends side has agreed to this at all, and Oman from what reporting I have is against it as well though you've suggested they would get a windfall.
You're not going to believe any citation I provide. I would suggest a meta-process instead. Go to the President's official feed on his website. Look at his statements about the ceasefire. Ask honestly whether any of these would inject more money into Iran's economy. In the case of the 10-point proposal, you will have to look elsewhere to find a source you trust to outline the 10 points. Ask whether any of those points, which the President cited as a basis for an agreement, will inject money into the Iranian economy.
And keep in mind that no agreement, apparently not even the ceasefire, have been signed. So this is all armchair analysis from all sides (except you, because you apparently already know).
In any case, it's not clear the cease fire will make it to the weekend so we will all (except you, who have the benefit of already knowing) have to sit tight to find out what happens.
Now you're changing the subject from Iran will charge ships to use the Straight and the US will agree to it, to "Iran will receive some sort of economic benefit". You even said Oman would be part of this scheme and are incapable of providing a source, yet I provided one stating the opposite.
Of course if Iran's government stopped being so fucking crazy the US would be happy to provide economic aid. The US even offered nuclear power to Iran for free, which they turned down. [1]
I'm not believing any citation you provide because you haven't provided any. You looked at Iran's plan (which doesn't matter) and then decided that somehow they had the leverage and the US and Gulf States would agree and have but no choice to pay Iran shipping fees. This is incorrect. Nothing was agreed to. Iran's proposal is mostly worthless, and you're making stuff up.
As part of that effort, Washington offered to support a civilian nuclear program for Iran, *including a proposal to supply nuclear fuel free of charge on a long-term basis*.
Of course Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, etc. shouldn't have nukes, i.e. it would be bad for global stability if they got them. But that's not what the comment you replied to was claiming -- they were claiming that it's in their interest to get nukes, and that there's a good chance they'll try to do so.
There's no chance Venezuela or Cuba will try and get nuclear weapons. They lack not only the capabilities to do so, nor the finances, and the US would destroy any attempt very quickly. It's a different ball game in the western hemisphere.
The OP is in favor of nuclear proliferation and they're asserting a moralistic argument that since the US is big bad guy that its in the interest of these other countries to get nuclear weapons to prevent big bad guy from stopping them from doing things like murdering their own people or using their domestic oil industry to enrich themselves and their henchmen.
But the US isn't big bad guy. It's acting in the interests of everyone including the people in those countries suffering under the direct actions of those regimes that run them. It's a common tactic of dictatorships, autocracies, fascists, communists, &c. to blame internal problems on external factors "colonialism", "great satan" to shield them from blame for these problems that they cause. We know this is true not just because it's just simply true, but because others continually accuse the Trump Administration of doing the same and being a fascist regime - he's just borrowing their tactics. Thankfully America is more resilient than that, but it's certainly concerning.
Before today, only ships Iran deigned to let pass the Strait of Hormuz could go through without risking attack from Iran. As a result of the ceasefire, Iran must let any ship through the Strait... unless Iran objects to its passage.
There does not appear to be an actual meaningful change in the status of the Strait of Hormuz, which does not make it a win. Of course, there's a broader loss which is that the US is strategically in a much worse position than it was a month ago. Reopening the Strait with free passage of ships would be a return to status quo ante bellum, but the US can't even manage that... which means that it's a major loss for the US, quite possibly the worst strategic loss in its entire history.
That’s why they were building all these missiles. Then when they are loaded up with thousands of more missiles the US wouldn’t be able to do anything about it or stop them from pursuing a nuclear weapon because they have too many missiles and the cost would be too great. The US is preventing a geopolitical (> strategic) defeat by acting now.
The US also lets the ships through because it’s just more oil on the market to keep prices low. Iran being able to shoot missiles doesn’t mean they control the straight. Otherwise the US also controls the straight because it can lob missiles at tankers. It’s been 5 weeks, let’s hold off on “possibly the worst strategic loss in all of American history” for a few weeks eh?
There's nothing the US can do any more to stop Iran developing a nuclear weapon. They have just proved that peace talks don't work, negotiations don't work. The only way to defend yourself from America is to have the actual capability to nuke Washington DC from afar. And Iran has a right to defend itself, so it will develop that capability.
What would be the consequences? The same thing that already just happened? America punished them, killed their head of state as revenge for not having a nuke yet.
The US could do pretty much whatever it wants with Iran tbh. Iran’s entire navy is sunk. They have no functional air force. There’s also the obvious way to straight up finish them off, but the cost to Iran’s civilian population would be enormous and it would be unprecedented.
Then why did the US surrender just now instead of finishing the job? They have agreed to all of Iran's terms and imposed no terms of their own. And ships still aren't passing the Strait of Hormuz - why is that, if Iran has no military capabilities?
> The US just forced Iran to stop launching missiles at ships in the Straight in exchange for halting bombing operations.
Interesting choice of words.
Let's try this again: the US implored for a ceasefire in exchange for Iran to stop destroying the economic base of US vassal states in the region and allow ships to go through the strait to mitigate the impending economic disaster this will have on the US economy.
Which one explains Trump abandoning all original demands regarding regime change and even threats to destroy civilian infrastructure?
I'm likely misunderstanding what you're trying to say.
Can you elaborate on how, exactly, ships would be able to evade the toll booth, if they have to pay the toll in any case?
Because on the surface of it, it sounds to me like Iran is tolling the straits. Which is fine. The fee is small enough that I'm not opposed to paying it given the alternative. I understand why the world is willing to pay. Ok. I get it.
But it's hard for me to view this as a win for us. So I'm probably missing something? (Or at least, I hope I'm missing something.)
Ships would have not been able to pass freely at a later point. That’s why Iran was building and buying these missiles. Folks look around and say wow they did so much damage - yea now imagine 2x-5x the number of missiles and launchers and by the way why not build a nuclear bomb to really make sure the rest of the world pays them for oil and energy.
Of course Iran wasn’t going to close the straight yet, they didn’t have the ability to inflict enough pain to deter US, Israeli, and/or Gulf State strikes to prevent them from closing it.
Where are you getting this idea that anyone is paying Iran? Genuinely confused about this. The only thing that has happened is that the US made Iran open the Straight up for two weeks in exchange for a pause in bombing. Nothing else has been agreed to. What source are you looking at that says anyone is paying them and that is has been agreed to?
-Complete cessation of the war on Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen
-Complete and permanent cessation of the war on Iran with no time limit
-Ending all conflicts in the region in their entirety
-Reopening the Strait of Hormuz
-Establishing a protocol and conditions to ensure freedom and security of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz
-Full payment of compensation for reconstruction costs to Iran (via reparations in the form of USD2 Million per ship Hormuz fee to be shared with Oman[?] for some reason? Again, I don't understand why anyone is paying anything to anyone else?)
-Full commitment to lifting sanctions on Iran
-Release of Iranian funds and frozen assets held by the United States (Also to be used as reparations to Iran. Again, why?)
-Iran fully commits to not seeking possession of any nuclear weapons (More on this below. And it's a doozy.)
-Immediate ceasefire takes effect on all fronts immediately upon approval of the above conditions
------------
OK. Now that is the english language version. The Farsi version, which is not being reported in the media, contains the following language as well: "acceptance of enrichment". (Which again, to me, seems like it would be a non-starter.) The idea being that enrichment is a dual use technology I assume?
The full version isn't being reported in English language media, but the Administration has it. When asked about what's in the plan, the White House will only confirm that "yes", it is 15 points and not just the 10 we know about. So that answer at least confirms there are additional points. Which, again, even if there weren't added points, the 10 we know about mean that everyone still pays Iran for passage through the straits.
I'm gonna be honest here, this seems totally unworkable. I'll even go further, and characterize this as Iran giving us a list of conditions for our surrender. This is not acceptable. This is materially worse than the status quo that existed 2 months ago.
This isn't answering what I asked though. This is a statement of Iranian talking points but there is no agreement, the US hasn't "capitulated", nor have further talks taken place. Nobody has agreed to pay Iran anything. It doesn't matter what they say.
When you write things like this:
> Which, again, even if there weren't added points, the 10 we know about mean that everyone still pays Iran for passage through the straits.
It's like who cares what they wrote in these 10 points? They can demand the moon be made of cheese too. There will be no paying to use the Strait because like other points in these 10 demands the US and Gulf States won't agree to it.
When Iran wrote this did you like, think that they made these demands and then other countries are trying to comply with them or something? It doesn't matter what Iran writes. It only matters what the US says will happen as we see fit.
> Doing nothing would have been better than this.
Doing nothing means the following:
- Iran continues to stock pile missiles
- Iran gets to a point where they have so many missiles that it becomes untenable for the US to stop them from buying and building more missiles because the destruction they would create for Gulf States and others that they hold hostage aren't worth the risk
- Because Iran can't be stopped they would continue their pursuit of a nuclear weapon
Then Iran can enact whatever toll they want on the Straight and there's nothing anyone can do about it and we're right here where we are now except the US has pulled out of the region and Iran's crazy regime is making billions from Gulf States and the international community by taxing trade. That's why the US struck now instead of waiting - if we wait there's nothing we can reasonably do!
Sit down and think this through for yourself. Of course you can argue "Iran wouldn't do that" but you have to take them at their word and through their activities which indicate that is indeed what they planned on doing. Doing nothing means we have a much, much bigger problem down the line. Doing something now means we can likely prevent that bigger problem from occurring in the first place.
Maybe I should have been more clear? These are the points in the proposal that the Iranians/pakistanis sent to Trump that Trump said formed the basis for the ceasefire. Which it doesn’t. There is nothing there for us.
It doesn’t matter anymore in any case as Israel just launched a massive barrage. So there will be no ceasefire now anyway.
No worries, sorry if I wasn't clear as well. To your point, I didn't really think a ceasefire would last long anyway because neither side has any interest in changing their perspective and at the end of the day the US holds the upper hand and the folks they are "negotiating" with are, well, rather delusional.
The war hasn't even started. What you have seen is the amuse-bouche. What you would see, if there was a real war going on, is the end of the iranian civilization.
This little school yard fight was just Trump trying to get a peace prize. He miscalculated, so as soon as things are back to normal, he will declare victory, ignore all facts to the contrary and go home.
As always I thank Trump for the amazing investment opportunities he is always creating! =)
> What you would see, if there was a real war going on, is the end of the iranian civilization.
While the US is capable of levelling all settlements, let alone cities, in Iran, it would be an extremely Pyrrhic victory. Like, oil would rise to $200 as a baseline, with occasional spikes at $300, US general inflation would gain 3-7% over baseline (food in particular 25% or so), and piss off all other trading partners worldwide, which amongst other things will make European nations transition even faster to renewables and nuclear using stuff they buy from China and make locally rather than from the US because they actually export useful hardware while the US mostly exports end user licence agreements and what little hardware it exports is itself heavily dependent on China and we can cut out the destabilising middle-man.
Given how many European nations rejected US requests for base/airspace use even with this conflict, a total war against Iran would probably have the US asked to vacate all existing bases in Europe. Even if the US doesn't leave NATO it will become a redundant organisation due to all other members making a new club without inviting the US.
And that's even if the US military obey illegal orders rather than their oaths, given the end of the Iranian civilisation would necessarily involve war crimes.
Not at all... what is disgusting is the loss of life. I have not killed anyone, and contrarians earning based on other peoples irrationality is actually beneficial. It generates tax revenue, it stabilizes stock prices and the global markets, thus helping to maintain a system that provides jobs, more tax revenue, and indirectly, charity, for billions and billions of people.
I think you need to examine your head, and try to understand how stock markets work, before jumping up on your high horses.
Contrarians have probably together, helped more people on the planet, than you sitting at home hating on "capitalists" online.
cause a lot of lives have been lost! they even thoroughly blew up a school. it's generally considered to be in somewhat poor taste to celebrate your personal gain in situations like that. it's like openly celebrating a massive passenger airliner crash because you happen to hold stock in their biggest competitor.
I understand the ethical viewpoint, but does it generalize, and where are the lines of moral good/neutral/bad when you ”buy the dip”?
Bombing civilians is despicable, so obviously bad to buy.
Bombing legitimate targets is accepted warfare, but there are always civilian casualties in war, so war in general must be bad to buy.
Other causes for dips?
Insane tariff policy drives small companies to the ground and leaves low income families struggling, must be bad to buy.
Global recession hits due to a pandemic which claims innumerable civilian lives, must be bad to buy.
Global recession hits due to some other factor, lots of civilians die from depression or violence, must be bad to buy.
A huge market dip hits and causes millions of leveraged investors to lose most of their principal to margin calls, companies go bankrupt, people lose their jobs, lots of civilians die from depression or violence, must be bad to buy.
Is there a scenario where ”buy the dip” is not immoral by these standards?
A defect in a series of automobiles causes hundreds of deaths, causing the manufacturer’s stock price to plummet. Is it bad to buy?
Thousands of people die in car crashes every day and it barely registers.
Civilians die and are killed in horrible ways every day.
I think there's an important distinction in making money off of a tragedy your investment had no part in causing and happily announcing you did so.
To use a slightly hyperbolic example: A company that makes body bags is always going to be making cash when a massive amount of people die in a tragedy. That's fine, without that we wouldn't have body bags which is a thing we need. But they're not gonna do a press release on September 12th 2001 about how their sales volumes have spiked and are expected to continue to rise as victims are being pulled from the rubble. I would hope their execs are not watching CNN and rubbing their hands in eager anticipation when they see the second plane hitting the towers.
No. I'd actually say freedom of navigation [1] is almost the definition of a Pax. It's precedented across millenia in a way prohibitions on total war are not.
Let me be clear, prohibitions on total war are good. But they're also a new concept and one clearly the world's powers don't agree on to one iota. Freedom of navigation, on the other hand, benefits everyone but autarkies, and has for, again, millenia.
> "shall not suffer interference from other states when in international waters"
The strait of hormuz is NOT international waters.
UNCLOS states that "straits used for international navigation" shall allow transit with impedance, which would include the strait of Hormuz, but Iran has never ratified the treaty (and neither has the USA).
While the US never ratified UNCLOS III (with things like economic exclusion zones), they did ratify the preceding UNCLOS I's Convention of the High Seas and it's freedom of navigation.
Cute. But no cigar. Point is if you put a random assortment of countries in a series of rooms, more of those rooms will agree on freedom of navigation than they will on what bridge can be blown up when. In part because the former is a bright line in a way deciding what is and isn't a military target cannot be.
You should mention that USA does not believe in the freedom of navigation.
Before starting the war with Iran, USA has instituted a blockade of Cuba, intercepting the oil tankers going there and causing thus a severe fuel shortage in Cuba.
Iran blocking the Strait of Hormuz was just doing the same that USA has begun doing. So USA has no moral authority to say that Iran should respect "the freedom of navigation", which is a thing that USA does not respect.
Weren't those tankers operating under false flags? Additionally, the US action in Venezuela led to that stream ceasing. I'm not sure what the deal was with Mexico, I read that the US asked them to stop doing business with Cuba but they didn't seem entirely willing to cooperate.
When a properly flagged Russian tanker came through it was left alone.
My impression is that the situation with Cuba is much more complex than the mass media portrayal of a straightforward blockade. Not that I believe the US is free of guilt here; clearly harm is being caused and the motivations seem suspect at best.
Interesting question. I assume piracy and smuggling and various other law breaking but I'm not certain. AFAIK the only requirement is a legitimate registration. Again AFAIK the vessels that were directly interfered with (ie by force) all had either falsified registrations or were flagged under countries that aren't currently in any state to actually manage registrations.
Then there's also their participation in what's been termed a shadow fleet, the associated falsification of origin of sanctioned oil, the accessing of ports where they otherwise wouldn't be permitted berth, the lack of insurance in case of environmental damage, etc. As I said previously, much more complex than the mass media portrayal.
As you say, the shadow fleet exists because of sanctions. In other words, because the biggest bully on the block is committing de facto piracy with their navy. Pretty much the definition of blocking freedom of navigation. Their insurance paperwork not being in order justifies their seizure?
That's a half truth at best. The sanctions in question are hardly unilateral, particularly in the case of Russia. The shadow fleet exists due to a combination of factors; dodging the sanctions is only one of them.
As I understand it (but I'm certainly no expert) the insurance paperwork isn't in order and the fleet not properly registered as a result of the general state of the vessels involved. The US is hardly alone in this - the UK has also recently taken to seizing such vessels that pass too close to them. But generally yes, if due to the risks no country wants to officially register a vessel and no insurance provider want to cover it then it seems entirely justified to seize it in order to protect the commons. These aren't pleasure boats we're talking about here, they're ridiculously large merchant vessels. There's approximately zero legitimate excuses for them to be flying a fraudulent flag.
Ponder for a moment why it might be that the countries involved don't want these vessels flying their own flags and don't want to extend them insurance policies themselves.
Freedom of navigation is a right of countries. Spanish ships have the right to freely traverse the seas next to Greece, etc. So ships have to identify themselves as belonging to a country so that they can benefit from it.
The various treaties about freedom of passage exist precisely because, before the last 200 years, everyone did whatever they wanted with straits and other natural chokepoints, including closing them at will. Freedom of navigation is not an obviously natural right nor one universally accepted, before colonial powers effectively invented it and enforced it with guns. If somebody shows up with bigger guns, it might well disappear again.
Also, I wish the expression "close but no cigar" could be banned on the internet. Unless you're a professor of international relations at a renowned university, you simply don't get to gatekeep what reality is - particularly when making up arbitrary principles like these.
“In both Roman law and Islamic law, notions of a commonality of the seas were firmly established” (Id.). (It’s also weird to describe a custom of commons as colonial. European colonialism was about the opposite, turning historic commons into private rights.)
As a normative concept, you’re right, it’s new. But the notion that a great power would protect sea access for a variety of groups is old. More as a practical matter, granted—it’s hard to project enough power onto an ocean to control it.
Roman and Islamic law were also pretty much "colonial", even though the term is used of modern European empires, Rome was also an Empire, and the Arab Empires were also aggressively imperialist and maritime traders.
> The notion of the commonality of the seas is firmly established in Roman law, which formed the foundation of early modern European discussions on the right of navigation. A series of passages from the Corpus iuris civilis state that the sea, like the air, should be considered, by the law of nature, a res communis – a thing common to all, which cannot be claimed or usurped by anyone for exclusive use. Islamic law, which had a wide impact from the early modern Mediterranean to Southeast Asia, also considers the sea a boundless entity that is common to all mankind and not subject to private appropriation.
> Roman and Islamic law were also pretty much "colonial", even though the term is used of modern European empires, Rome was also an Empire, and the Arab Empires were also aggressively imperialist and maritime traders.
The difference between European empires and Islamic/Roman ones would be what JumpCrissCross advanced + the extent to which the conquered inhabitants are incorporated into the state, no?
Thanks for the quote and source. I believe Corpus Juris Civilis was based on existing law so the concept goes back much further, and I would guess was incorporated into Islamic empire's came from Roman.
> The difference between European empires and Islamic/Roman ones would be what JumpCrissCross advanced + the extent to which the conquered inhabitants are incorporated into the state, no?
Is it not rather more complex than that? The Roman Empire eventually granted citizenship to conquered people's but after centuries and gradually - all free men getting citizenship was 3rd century. When initially conquered a lot of people were incorporated into the state as slaves. AFAIK the Islamic empires were similar, and the price of being treated equally was to adopt the conquerors culture and religion.
The European Empire I am most familiar with (the British) only wanted the ruling class of its colonies to adopt its culture (with consequences such as speaking fluent/native English being a class marker that last to this day). It also (at least later on) gave colonies increasing autonomy.
> I would guess was incorporated into Islamic empire's came from Roman.
I'm uneducated on Corpus Juris Civilis and have a basic familiarity with Islamic law/history but I'm inclined to think that any similarities between the two would be less a product of diffusion than the result of the tangential relationship between Christianity as understood by the Romans of the time and Islam as understood by classical Muslim jurists.
> Is it not rather more complex than that?
Ha! For sure.
I need to do more thinking about this part, re: colonialism/imperialism.
What I had in mind was the distinction between
a) A state/power that conquers a land without integrating the land and its peoples into it
b) A state/power that conquers a land and integrates the land and its people into it
The Islamic empires I'm most familiar with implemented the second form of conquest.
The concept of equality is an interesting one to think about because I'm not sure whether how we envision it today was common anywhere in the pre-modern world. But non-Muslim subjects were afforded their own set of rights and were not incorporated into the state as slaves (the practice of slavery not withstanding, my point is that it wasn't the same case as how you've described Roman civil integration). Additionally, the land was subsumed into the Islamic state.
But I think we are splitting the main argument into two separate (very engaging!) discussions.
The original argument alleged that "colonial powers effectively invented [freedom of passage] and enforced it with guns". Freedom of navigation in the seas was common to both Roman and Islamic law. Whether Roman and/or Islamic empires qualify as "colonial" or "imperialist" is one thing, but they cannot be the colonial powers that the user who made that argument had in mind.
> weird to describe a custom of commons as colonial
When you point at a resource under my control and force me to share it (or else), it's not "a custom of commons" - it's a classic colonial appropriation.
Which is also how Rome and (initially) the Islamic kingdoms saw the sea when they were upstarters - Rome was very much not a naval power to begin with (or ever, really) and Islamic kings resorted to piracy to match Italian and Spanish powers.
Beyond lofty words, when they finally ended up controlling the straits, both empires definitely treated them like personal possession ("mare nostrum", Ottomans closing the Bosphorous...). Like everyone else, in practice.
> No. I'd actually say freedom of navigation [1] is almost the definition of a Pax. It's precedented across millenia in a way prohibitions on total war are not.
What ? The U.S. themselves don't respect this. They only expect OTHER nations to follow it. UNCLOS has been MOCKED by U.S. Presidents all the time. Not just Trump. Reagan & Bush did too. And so do all the neocon U.S. Senators. In their view, the U.S. has a fundamental right to block traffic and setup embargoes.
The hostages are a small slice of what remains- why dont you post a minority graph of jews in the middle east? Or all minorities.. maybe because it looks like a genocide, if you post it..
> Freedom of navigation is a core global principal
And Iran has been respecting that principle for decades. So why exactly did the US and Israel (and GCC countries) think that the status quo would remain even if they keep antagonizing Iran? Imagine getting bombed during negotiations - not once, but twice in a single year! Their sovereignty was being disrespected, so now they're understandably establishing a new status quo.
And btw, if Iran and Oman cooperate, there is no threat to "freedom of navigation" under international law.
In a nutshell: play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Moreover, USA has been the first who has stopped respecting the freedom of navigation, by implementing a blockade of Cuba and preventing the oil tankers to reach Cuba, already since February, before the Iran war.
USA does not respect any international law, but it demands from others to do this.
February 2026: USA blocking all oil tankers from going to Cuba, which has caused much more damage to the ordinary citizens of Cuba, than isolated incidents have done to other countries.
Iran has been funding and arming groups which threaten maritime security for a while now. They also have been obviously attempting a nuclear weapons program while saying if they achieve their aim that they will do crazy shit.
I guess the games you think are stupid depend immensely on your priors.
Are you referring to Ansar Allah? Do you know why they decided to shutdown Bab Al Mandab?
So we are going to ignore the JCPOA? Also, the rumor is that there is another player in the region who has undeclared nuclear weapons and refuses IAEA inspections. Should we bomb them next?
Nukes is irrelevant. If someone dies it doesn't matter at all if it was a nuke or a conventional weapon. Nukes can do a lot more damage in one go, but if you are killed by something else you are just as dead. Iran was clearly working on killing people by non-nuclear means as well.
Iran has been keeping it open to avoid attacks. Their first order of business if they get nuclear weapons would be closing the strait and implementing a far more massive toll. They already have ICBM capable of hitting Europe. This isn't really America's problem though, the price of oil won't go parabolic, it will fracture. That's what the current price action is leaning towards. So cheaper oil in the Americas and vastly more expensive oil in Europe.
Absolutely none of that would happen. It's in Iran's interests to keep the oil flowing at a fee that everyone can stomach and that doesn't offend the sensibilities. $1 a barrel for a year of unprovoked war crimes costing them hundreds of billions of dollars, with the cost effectively shared by all, fits this description. Nor has Iran responded with the kind of zero-sum, suicidal, totalitarian foreign policy that is always attributed to them by their enemies. Serious commentators have all remarked at how restrained they've been during this war. It's almost as though sane people who intend to come to a realistic agreement that everyone can live with are running their foreign and defence policies.
Well that depends on a supply of tankers to transport the oil though. The tanker availability is already constrained. If hundreds are trapped in the strait and transit there is slowed you lose a lot of capacity. So the fungibility drops. It's possible we see demand destruction in areas that maintain their price due to export.
Any idea why they decided to shutdown the strait for the first time in decades? Or did they just suddenly wake up one day and decide that piracy is their calling?
And that deployed ship will do nothing. The only way forward is a negotiated agreement.
I’m no expert, but I think this is a matter of international politics. Imagine if Iran had closed the strait last year. I suspect a rather large coalition would have shown up, quite quickly, to do their best to reopen it. But instead almost every relevant player is pissed off at the US and Israel and has no desire to join in the hostilities.
Not to mention that Iran did not want to have thousands of fancy missiles and bombs lobbed at them, but since that happened anyway, why not close the strait?
> But instead almost every relevant player (...) and has no desire to join in the hostilities
Almost correct, but days ago there was an UN meeting where a resolution to bring forth a naval response from many countries to reopen the Strait by force was voted, and it was vetoed by China and Russia (IIRC also by France).
That news became old very quickly, but it was a move done to force USA to concede a ceasefire because it made the US the only player who could make an offer with Iran to reopen the Strait, even if in undesirable terms.
The fact that this meeting happened and a resolution was blocked made Trump and the US incapable of blaming the EU of not helping reopening the Strait.
Oman isn’t the only country in the region, and any country should expect their ships to sail peacefully. Last I checked it’s the US and Israel at war with Iran, not others - no justification for charging transit fees.
Second, you’re ignoring decades of history and picking an arbitrary point to say that’s when some animosity started. Nobody forced Iran to build all these missiles and to try and build a nuclear weapon or kill their own people or fund actual terrorist groups as designated by the United States and European Union. If you drag out negotiations long enough you never get bombed! What a thought lol.
They’re still not getting money from the US. Those aren’t American ships sailing through the Strait. Striking military bases is legitimate morally though Iran’s “government” should just surrender and turn themselves in, but it doesn’t provide justification for launching indiscriminate strikes against other countries.
> Nobody forced Iran to build all these missiles and to try and build a nuclear weapon or kill their own people or fund actual terrorist groups as designated by the United States and European Union
Iran has absolutely run its strategy as a basket case. But proxies aside (which is a big aside), they were fairly self contained until we started hitting them. At least this time around.
Fairly self contained is an understatement. They proved time and again over the course of the past few years that they were not only pragmatic, but also a much more rational actor than Israel and the US.
Iran has fomented discord in a number of countries, most notably Syria and Lebanon. I think they are “rational” in the sense that they are pursuing their goals of eliminating US influence over the Middle East - but many other states in the MidEast would see that goal as “irrational” in itself.
> They proved time and again over the course of the past few years that they were not only pragmatic, but also a much more rational actor than Israel and the US
When? When they drip fed Hezbollah's missiles into Israel's air defences? When they left their ships in port to get bombed? When they convened an in-person meeting at the Supreme Leader's residence? When they didn't even reprimand Hamas after October 7th?
Iran has acted according to its regime's interests. But I wouldn't say they prosecuted their goals rationally, pragmatically or even particularly effectively.
Who directly in this war has conducted them rationally at at all times? Did Iran drip feed missiles to Hezbollah and Yemen, perhaps. That sort of tactic was used at a much larger scale when US provided arms to Iraq against Iran in their war in the 80s. Israel attacks against it’s neighbors and caused mass refugee flows is also mostly a result of UK, US and France’s foreign policy in the early 20th century when Israel was being established. Israel funded by US of 300 billion dollars is also a kind of proxy.
It’s hard for most people to have actual objective views and see things from multiple perspectives and your statement is showing clear bias in this regards.
> Who directly in this war has conducted them rationally at at all times?
At all times? Nobody. Until last summer, the most strategically buggered was Hamas. Their miscalculations directly lead to a weaker position and a negative return on their goals.
That changed following last year’s airstrikes—then it was Iran. (Though in relative terms, probably still Hamas.) Since this war, it’s might be the U.S.
> That sort of tactic was used at a much larger scale when US provided arms to Iraq against Iran
We didn’t maintain Iraqi arms as a deterrent against Iran. Drip feeding arms into a war of attrition to be a pest has strategic rationale. Drip feeding arms, arms meant to intimidate through the prospect of overwhelming force no less, into air defenses below replacement rates is just dumb.
> Drip feeding arms, arms meant to intimidate through the prospect of overwhelming force no less, into air defenses below replacement rates is just dumb.
That probably depends on the cost of the arms, the cost of the interceptors, and any number of other externalities or indirect goals. If you can reliably induce high end interceptors to fire against cheap rockets (granted, that's a big if) you are definitely winning the immediate economic exchange.
> If you can reliably induce high end interceptors to fire against cheap rockets (granted, that's a big if) you are definitely winning the immediate economic exchange
Tactically sensible. Strategically foolish.
The deterrent value of Hezbollah’s arsenal was in overwhelming Israeli defenses and causing loss of life. That is what democracies, first and foremost, respond to. (Second being cost of living.) Spending a potent deterrent to play economic attrition with Israel, a rich country with a richer friend, was stupid.
Their missile program is a direct response to the section of the Iran-Iraq war where Saddam flew long range bombers for terror raids (hmm who does this remind me of?) and Iran had no answer beyond shelling border cities with 155m.
I mean sure the US provided intelligence, financial assistance, conventional weapons, and the ingredients for chemical weapons to Saddam for this war, but the US was also the one selling Iran missiles in response to Saddam. Though admittedly we weren't doing this to help Iran, we just needed the money to help narco terrorists.
Oh absolutely. But being an idiot with proxies isn't really reason to threaten total war. You go after the proxies and maybe hit ports and production facilities in Iran that arm them. Then commit to keep doing that every time the proxies act up. Nobody needs to liberate Lebanon or Yemen. And nobody needs to try and change the regime in Tehran.
First, look at a map. The strait is entirely contained by Omani and Iranian waters.
Second, I don't have much else to say to you if you actually think that assassinating a head of state in the middle of active negotiations is anything but vile & uncivilized behavior unbecoming of a "civilized" superpower.
Ultimately, this is going to be a major strategic loss for the US and Israel. They have achieved none of the goals stated at the outset of this "operation", outside of perhaps diminishing the Iranian missile manufacturing capabilities & stockpile.
> First, look at a map. The strait is entirely contained by Omani and Iranian waters
The UAE has a stake, too.
> don't have much else to say to you if you actually think that assassinating a head of state in the middle of active negotiations is anything but vile & uncivilized behavior unbecoming of a "civilized" superpower
This statement weakens your argument. (It's also not in line with this forum's guidleines around arguing in good faith.)
If you want evidence that bombs do not settle the issue, you can consider the current Iran war. The US and Israel have dropped a rather impressive number of bombs on Iran. As far as I know, most of them worked. But whatever issue the leaders of the US and Israel thought they were going to settle is most definitely not settled. The regime has changed from Ayatollah Khamenei to Khamenei, the US’s military position is dramatically worsened, and, while Iran has a lot of rebuilding to do, they are arguably in a strategically stronger position than they were before. Maybe you think Iran’s continued existence “can’t happen period”, but Iran still exists and the US’s ability to anything about it is very much in doubt.
It's so fascinating to read comments like this and realize we live in completely different worlds, wouldn't you agree?
On one hand, I see the US parked 3 aircraft carriers outside of Iran, loaded up ground-based bombers, blew up most of Iran's existing leadership and completely destroyed their air force, navy, and is (well was, until yesterday when Iran capitulated) conducting bombing campaigns on HVTs, military infrastructure, missile launchers, and production facilities and yet, since they haven't destroyed all of the missile launchers in the first 5 weeks of the war I now read, from you, that Iran is "in a strategically stronger position than they were before", and the US military position has "dramatically worsened".
How can this be? Where do you get your news from? I'm curious to read what you are reading about this war. It's mind-blowing how different and counterintuitive it is. Like how is the US military in a dramatically worse position? What specific factors are you talking about? Missile capabilities? Air defense? Did Iran recently sink a US aircraft carrier? I would think if something dramatic happened I'd read about it somewhere but I haven't heard of anything majorly bad happening to the US during the course of this war.
If Iran is in a strategically stronger position, why did they need fewer missiles and missile launchers and less military equipment to get stronger? Are you saying by destroying their equipment and killing their leaders that they grew stronger and more capable? If that's the case, why didn't they just kill their own leaders and dismantle their military equipment themselves?
I think we don't have different facts or sources so much as different perspectives.
There's a Starcraft-like perspective in which you're right. The US has repositioned a bunch of long-range-attack units and has consumed a lot of single-use weapons, with which we have removed most of Iran's defense towers and generally destroyed a good deal of their fixed military assets. Maybe the US has reduced the other team to a mostly a bunch of drones. It looks like the US's team will definitely win.
But there are quite a few things about this analysis that don't really apply to the real world. First, we're not playing last man standing. The US's goal isn't to wipe Iran off the map -- it's goal is (hopefully) to ensure stability for itself and its allies and to let the probes (commercial trade) go around the map freely. But the US has not even come close to removing enough of the Iranian forces to allow weak units to go through the strait safely (or even perhaps strong units). Secondly, one needs to count units more carefully: Iran has on the order of 1M military units left -- the US has destroyed several thousand big, obvious, expensive units but has barely touched the total. Sure, the US also has a lot of military units, but they are not in Iran and it would be an utterly terrible idea to send hundreds of thousands of troops.
Additionally, one needs to zoom the map out. There are lots of other important things going on. Just one of them is that there has been a standoff for decades across the Taiwan Strait. It's been fairly stable because no one involved wants to start a shooting war that they will lose (yes, all parties can easily lose simultaneously). The US gets significant economic value from having Taiwan be independent and friendly to the US. But a bunch of those single-use weapons used in Iran and some very high value US units had previously been near the Taiwan Strait are are not any more.
Also, the US lost some very very high value units that it no longer has the ability to rebuild (cough, AWACS, cough).
Here's some good reading for a less tongue-in-cheek perspective:
> Also, the US lost some very very high value units that it no longer has the ability to rebuild (cough, AWACS, cough).
We can build them if we want since we built them before.
But the US is likely moving away from AWACS toward other platforms precisely because they're big easy targets, especially when they're sitting on the ground at an air base. It's unfortunate but not a big deal - we would expect a country armed with thousands of missiles who is then launching them toward both military and non-military targets to land some hits. Aerial refueling tankers are actually the weak link if I had to guess.
But the reporting around these developments and activities doesn't always hit the mainstream media so the sources can be a little lackluster. That's what I have so far though ^^
> Iran
I'm not sure how you are defining military units, but the only ones that really matter much now are missile launchers which are used to disrupt the free transit of oil through the Straight. It has only been a few weeks. The US can just slowly blow these up over time and end most of Iran's capabilities here. The main issue is the cost to the international community for doing so which subsequently affects the US, albeit less so than most other countries.
But there are many options here. The US for example just forced Iran to agree to a ceasefire and to stop attacking ships in the Straight. I don't mean to suggest Iran doesn't also have capabilities, but the commentary on this is very one-sided in favor of Iran and I think that needs, well, it needs balance and it also needs additional thought. Too many people are so caught up in hating Donald Trump that they're not thinking clearly. (not you in particular or anything)
> Taiwan
Agreed it is incredibly important. Likely the US has judged the risk of China attacking Taiwan at this juncture to be acceptably low. Although it's also worth noting that in the past 6 months (just because I forget the timeframe) the US has put the hammer on both of China's primary oil trading partners. You can't fly jets and operate tanks without oil and that's not going to change anytime soon. It's very nuanced. I agree all parties are likely to lose in an engagement there - it would be a nightmare depending on what China actually did and could immediately involve the US, Japan, SK, and NK along with China in a very nasty war.
> the only ones that really matter much now are missile launchers which are used to disrupt the free transit of oil through the Straight.
I’m still not an expert, but the strait is narrow and there are plenty of weapons that don’t need a “missile launcher”. You can have fun reading through here:
Lots of these weapons have more than enough range to shoot clear across the strait and even to hit ships from concealed inland sites.
A poorly armored vessel transiting the strait goes on a narrow, fixed route along a for a shockingly long distance, and basically all of it is within a few miles of Iran’s coast. This isn’t like a rogue country trying to blockade the open ocean — it’s more like if about half of the Eastern bank of the Mississippi decided to blockade shipping, which would have been eminently doable with Civil War-era weapons.
Missile launchers, projectile launchers, doesn't matter. They fire and then in response they are on the receiving end of a US missile. You know we like detect the launches right? Of course Iran can move them around and conceal them and such but they're not perfect about it. Otherwise we wouldn't have destroyed any at all.
They can lob missiles or rockets or whatever they want at ships in the Straight, that's true enough, but the US can continue to degrade that capability over time. And if Iran doesn't stop we can just escalate further and maybe they won't have any fuel or electricity or running water and as they sit there and launch projectiles they continue to run out of them until they really can't do much. Of course there is pressure from the global economy to get Iran to stop this, but the US is largely immune to that pressure, excluding the desire to keep allies happy and stable. Who cares if gas is $6/gallon life goes on. Maybe MAGA anti-war protestors can trade in their trucks for Hondas.
This is very rich given that the US, is the only country to use nukes, and Israel has illegal nukes and wont even accept inspection. Nobody charged anyone to cross a strait until your pedophile leaders decided to kill a head of state and bomb a school full of children
They aren't illegal. The nuclear non proliferation treaty is an optional treaty. The nukes are only illegal if you sign it. Israel hasn't. Most countries sign the treaty because it comes with a lot of benefits, but you don't have to take the carrot.
Therefore Iran and North Korea and any others have the right to make nukes.
USA has lost long ago the moral authority to demand from others to not make nuclear weapons.
USA were supposed to be the "good guys", who will not abuse their monopoly on having the most advanced weapons, so that the weaker countries should feel safe enough that they do not need such weapons themselves and that they should respect the non proliferation principles.
However, with all the unprovoked wars started by USA during the last quarter of century, which have caused not only huge damages to the attacked countries, leaving them in a much worse state than before, but which have also irreparably destroyed important parts of the cultural heritage of the entire humanity, nobody can believe any more that it is fine to be helpless against USA, by not having nuclear weapons.
Nobody has done more against the non-proliferation treaty than USA.
Exactly. 39 days (so far) of bombing will only convince Iran and other countries around the world of why they need to obtain nuclear weapons at any cost. It is existential.
This current US administration is incredibly shortsighted.
Or other countries will see what happens when you try and get nukes and decide they want no part in it.
And i dont just mean the war, some estimates say iran has spent 2 trillion dollars trying to get nukes. If they spent that on conventional defense they wouldnt have been invaded.
> Therefore Iran and North Korea and any others have the right to make nukes.
Unlike Israel, they signed the treaty in question though.
More to the point though, just because something is technically "legal" doesn't mean other countries aren't allowed to be mad about it. Any sort of massing weapons or weapons of mass destruction
development program is going to make other countries nervous, especially when those countries have a history of threatening mass destruction on their neighbours.
Oh come on man, nobody in the west wants those nutjobs to have nukes. Nobody gives a shit about morality or whatever, if you're our enemy and you try to get an advantage over us were going to slap you on the nuts if we can.
You know it's a proper witch-hunt when a bunch of bandwagoners start defending Iran's right to have nukes. Everyone's forgotten Iran is our (the West) enemy, by their own choice. They used to be our ally, then religious fanaticists took over and here we are.
Fuck Iran. They want to be our enemy, this is what happens to our enemy. They could have chosen to not be annoying counts but just like damn near everyone else in the middle East they're incapable of just shutting the fuck up and sitting down and letting things go, they just have to stir shit.
Iran funded Hamas which led to the attack that started the Gaza war, they're funding Hezbollah leading to the Lebanon thing. Iran is at the center of this entire conflict and all you fools are too busy frothing at the mouth over how Israel is defending themselves to recognize that they are in fact defending themselves.
I’m not going to litigate World War II use of atomic weapons, but suffice to say their usage was justified both morally and strategically.
> leaders decided to kill a head of state and bomb a school full of children
Iran murdered 30,000 of their own people. When we kill 30,000 Iranians we can have a discussion. Until then we don’t intentionally target civilians and even the Iranians know this, which is why they dragged a bunch of people out under the point of a gun and made them hold flags on bridges so we don’t bomb them. So you believe something the Iranian government as murderous and hate-filled for America as it is doesn’t even believe about the US lol.
> I guess Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Iraq, and Qatar don’t exist lol
All of those countries except Iraq facilitated this war, the weapon launches were overwhelmingly from land bases on their territory. If they want to talk with Iran about discounts for expelling american airbases, I'm sure they could find an audience.
They won't be paying, no worries there. But separately that excuses attacking actual military infrastructure, it doesn't excuse intentionally attacking civilian targets as Iran has demonstrably done.
You can be pro-IRGC and be critical of their actions too. I'm constantly reminded as an American that "it's my duty as a Patriot to be extra critical of my own country's actions". No reason you can't do the same for the countries you support or owe allegiance to.
All of those gulf countries would face mass, mass casualties if Iran had chosen to target desalination plants. They are smart enough to know what did and didnt happen regardless of your level of understanding.
> I guess Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Iraq, and Qatar don’t exist lol. They’re not just attacking ships in one tiny area - ships have to pass through bidirectionally which affects trade for everyone. Stop trying to defend this stuff.
You must have a real problem with the concept of the Panama Canal.
It's comparable in that it's a nearly-identical construct that functions in an actually-identical way. Constructing the Strait of Hormuz was cheaper than constructing the Panama Canal.† That doesn't change anything about the fact that it exists.
† Cheaper in an abstract sense. In a more literal sense, the tolling authority, Panama, didn't have to pay for the canal; it was built by the United States.
I said that was part of the reason, not all of it.
> And there's no incident ever in Iran related to US imperialism?
I'm not sure what you're asking or why. There have probably been things that have happened inside Iran due to US imperialism. Not sure how that relates to the idea of the US creating self-deprecating propaganda?
So you think "Death to America" and "Death to terrorists and evil" are the same? Do you think saying "criminals should be punished" is similarly wrong to say? Honest question, as I'm confused about your moral boundaries.
"Terrorism" is inherently a subjective, ideological label, just a vaguely threatening name for the Big Other. A classic in the genre, along with "Red Menace", "Yellow Peril", "Rogue State" etc etc.
The Iranian version of this propaganda technique is the "Great Satan".
They're all just big scary terms to throw around and justify ones deeds.
To the Iranians, the Americans are the terrorists blowing up their bridges. Now what?
Fair enough. If you think terrorist and satan have equal grounding in reality then we'll just have to chalk the disagreement up to a difference in priors.
> Imagine getting bombed during negotiations - not once, but twice in a single year!
All other problems with the Iran war aside, there's absolutely nothing unusual about this, this is standard. Countries that go to war with each other are almost always mid-negotiations. Usually negotiations of some level go on throughout a war as well.
They bombed the negotiators who were in a third country who were hosting negotiations.
That's totally different from war continuing while negotiations take place. That's more like something the bad guys would do in a Game of Thrones plotline.
> Freedom of navigation is a core global principal and Iran has no legitimate right to stop other countries from trade.
The US is stopping other countries from trading with Cuba and Iran. The US doesn’t have the “right” to do that, but it doesn’t need the “right”. It
only needs power.
Iran has power over the Hormuz and is exerting it for what it deems is in its interest.
> Gulf States themselves will go to war over it
Maybe? But I doubt it - $1 per barrel amounts to like 1-2% of the price of oil. They may not like it but it’s not going to affect their bottom line nearly as much as closing the strait for 1 week will. A war with Iran would mean utter destruction of all oil infrastructure in the region, so probably better to pay 2% to avoid that.
If you want to argue from a power prospective then the US and Israel can just do whatever they want too and any moralistic argument seems easy to shelve. It cuts both ways.
The Gulf States aren’t going to pay a tax to Iran. It’s a matter of principle - can’t live as a hostage and this is the weakest that the Iranian regime has been in quite some time. Better to keep the straight closed and make it painful for everyone else too.
“Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
—Thucydides
You can't honestly attribute that quotation to Thucydides. The idea appears in his work, but he specifically attributes it to other unnamed parties. It receives this immediate response:
As we think, at any rate, it is expedient — we speak as we are obliged, since you enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of interest — that you should not destroy what is our common protection, the privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is fair and right, and even to profit by arguments not strictly valid if they can be got to pass current. And you are as much interested in this as any, as your fall would be a signal for the heaviest vengeance and an example for the world to meditate upon.
The quote is part of the Melian Dialogue, which is regarded as a dramatization of the events leading up to the siege and conquest of Melos by the Athenians. I think it’s appropriate to attribute the quote to Thucydides.
The arguments the Melians use against Athenians reasons for conquest end up going unheeded though - Athens conquers Melos and enslaves its inhabitants.
Ok we control it too. We can turn off the flow at will. We have 3 aircraft carriers plus a bunch of bases. No ship passes through the straight unless we say so. We should charge actually. Maybe a toll of, say, $2,000,000 until we recoup our costs for stopping Iran.
The US could do that for a while, a few months maybe. They'd get bored and overextended. The logistics are terrible. There's no way that would even be financially positive, even if you ignored how much good will from other countries it would destroy (if there's any left).
> Maybe a toll of, say, $2,000,000 until we recoup our costs for stopping Iran.
The US will never recoup their losses from this unwinnable folly of a war. Nothing positive came out of it unless you wanted the current Iran regime strengthened.
We could just raise the prices until it was financially viable. Just like Iran, we don't need to spend a bunch of money, we can just copy what they do.
> The US will never recoup their losses from this unwinnable folly of a war. Nothing positive came out of it unless you wanted the current Iran regime strengthened.
Incorrect. Well, sort of. Yet again the US has to do the dirty work to keep the world safe and stop chaos from spreading and that does come at a cost we are unlikely to recuperate. But the Iranian regime has been very weakened, leaders killed, lots of military equipment destroyed. Their only card is attacking the ships in the Straight but that's not the same thing as exercising control. It screws everyone, but the US least of all which is why we are there, doing the dirty work. You'd think the international community would want to prevent Iran from continuing to build up their missile capability until they can actually control the Straight which is what they aimed to do and we're preventing, but most can't think past the latest tweet.
> We could just raise the prices until it was financially viable.
By your own logic, just about anyone can do this. It doesn't really make any sense in practice. What makes the Strait any more ours than Russia's or China's or Belgium's? By this logic of the world, every country in the world should be paying every other country "don't get bombed today" extortion every single day.
> Just like Iran, we don't need to spend a bunch of money, we can just copy what they do.
We can't copy what they do. War is logistics. Iran can send some asshole to drag a $2000 drone down to the shore on a kid's wagon and that's an effective weapon. We have to either send a several-million-dollar missile from ages away or throw a billions-of-dollars aircraft carriers in the strait that can then become a target or invade with enough forces to control the shore (which also becomes targets). All of that would be temporary and unpopular and expensive and need constant resupply and be vulnerable as hell.
Did you notice how many of our planes got shot down in this war, how many expensive bases and military installations got destroyed? These things are ~necessary, but they're as much targets as they are assets these days.
> Yet again the US has to do the dirty work to keep the world safe and stop chaos from spreading and that does come at a cost we are unlikely to recuperate.
We stopped no chaos here, we created chaos. Who is happy that this war happened? Who is thanking us? Russia is happy, their ally got strengthened and some of the heat got taken off of the Ukraine war. China is happy, the US got a lot weaker. Anybody else of note?
> But the Iranian regime has been very weakened, leaders killed, lots of military equipment destroyed.
Some people in the regime were killed. A lot of military equipment on both sides was destroyed. The regime itself was strengthened. The people of Iran now have more of an enemy than their own government. The regime has a hugely improved source of funds. The sanctions are gone or heavily weakened so their can sell their oil to the world instead of selling it to China at a relative loss, they have far more of an excuse to exploit the Strait than they did before.
In what actual way are they worse off? We destroyed some of their stuff, then gave them a way to build it back a hundred times better.
Why did the US accept a ceasefire? Because we ~can't open the Strait on our own and we really can't win this war. We can't open the Strait because we did not meaningfully weaken Iran's ability to create effective weapons.
The US had to have a strategy in this war that made any sense, which it did not. Experts have explained why this approach to attacking Iran would never work for my entire lifetime, and then it didn't work in exactly the way that it was obvious it wouldn't work.
> By your own logic, just about anyone can do this. It doesn't really make any sense in practice. What makes the Strait any more ours than Russia's or China's or Belgium's? By this logic of the world, every country in the world should be paying every other country "don't get bombed today" extortion every single day.
Well that's the Iranian logic, not my logic or American logic. They believe they own the Straight. Fine then we'll just take it over instead if they believe someone gets to own it, well, we have the bigger guns so we'll own it.
> We can't copy what they do. War is logistics. Iran can send some asshole to drag a $2000 drone down to the shore on a kid's wagon and that's an effective weapon. We have to either send a several-million-dollar missile from ages away or throw a billions-of-dollars aircraft carriers in the strait that can then become a target or invade with enough forces to control the shore (which also becomes targets). All of that would be temporary and unpopular and expensive and need constant resupply and be vulnerable as hell.
No we can just build cheap drones and missiles and we're working on doing so.
> Did you notice how many of our planes got shot down in this war, how many expensive bases and military installations got destroyed? These things are ~necessary, but they're as much targets as they are assets these days.
Any asset is a target. We've lost basically nothing while completely obliterating most of Iran's military capabilities and killing a lot of their awful leaders. There was no expectation that the US wouldn't lose equipment, and you're just keeping score on the US side because the media is telling you the dollar figures. Go count up the cost for Iran and their equipment. Why isn't anyone publishing those figures?
> We stopped no chaos here, we created chaos. Who is happy that this war happened? Who is thanking us? Russia is happy, their ally got strengthened and some of the heat got taken off of the Ukraine war. China is happy, the US got a lot weaker. Anybody else of note?
It's SO crazy to me to read stuff like this. Truly living different experiences right? I mean, I've got you telling me Iran is stronger and then simultaneously I know for a fact they're not stronger because we've gone in and blown up a lot of their military infrastructure and killed their leaders. Kind of fun to just take a pause here and look at how different the viewpoints are.
> A lot of military equipment on both sides was destroyed.
See above - totally different worlds! I wonder if anyone has a count. That would be cool to see. Then people would propagandize the count too. THat's why you gotta just do what you gotta do and ignore people who say things like this because you know you're right.
> Why did the US accept a ceasefire? Because we ~can't open the Strait on our own and we really can't win this war. We can't open the Strait because we did not meaningfully weaken Iran's ability to create effective weapons.
Doesn't make sense at all. First we can blow up any physical structure in Iran. So where will they make these weapons? Well we'll find wherever they try to make the weapons and boom! Gone in an instant. The US forced Iran into a ceasefire - remember the US demanded it, not Iran, under threat of massive bombardment, and then Iran capitulated. At least for a short while, rumors are they already broke it because their soldiers in Lebanon (Hezbollah - wait why is Iran funding groups in Lebanon?) continue to strike at Israel so they continue to get bombed.
> The sanctions are gone or heavily weakened so their can sell their oil to the world instead of selling it to China at a relative loss, they have far more of an excuse to exploit the Strait than they did before.
This is fun ok so tell me specifically which sanctions were lifted and who lifted them and when. Please provide a source. I'm excited to see what you have to say here. This really illustrates the different worlds we all live in. Ok cool - please let me know when you find out.
> This is fun ok so tell me specifically which sanctions were lifted and who lifted them and when. Please provide a source. I'm excited to see what you have to say here. This really illustrates the different worlds we all live in. Ok cool - please let me know when you find out.
> Well that's the Iranian logic, not my logic or American logic. They believe they own the Straight. Fine then we'll just take it over instead if they believe someone gets to own it, well, we have the bigger guns so we'll own it.
It's the world's logic. If you live there, you own it.
What does the US taking over the strait look like? It's multiple aircraft carriers, and a _large_ boots-on-the-ground invasion of the shore, and even then it's _still_ a mess. And yes, that is physically possible. It's just not politically possible, and it would be forever. The US could never leave.
> No we can just build cheap drones and missiles and we're working on doing so.
Yeah, we're "working on doing so", Iran is _using them_. We're behind in wars of this type. The US is all set to run World War II again. Plus, that would work if Iran was in say the middle of Lake Erie. Where Iran actually exists, we're going to deploy them from where? Aircraft carriers? They're not set up for that, and if they get close enough they'll take on potshots they can't protect against until they have to move back.
Iran has a whole country they control to send potshots from. Unless the US is willing to firebomb the entire country, or invade in force, the US is not winning this war. Neither of those are going to be acceptable politically.
> Doesn't make sense at all. First we can blow up any physical structure in Iran. So where will they make these weapons? Well we'll find wherever they try to make the weapons and boom! Gone in an instant.
Then why is Iran still able to shoot down our fancy jets? Their offensive capability should be already gone right? What are we waiting for?
> The US forced Iran into a ceasefire - remember the US demanded it, not Iran, under threat of massive bombardment, and then Iran capitulated. At least for a short while, rumors are they already broke it because their soldiers in Lebanon (Hezbollah - wait why is Iran funding groups in Lebanon?) continue to strike at Israel so they continue to get bombed.
Did they capitulate or did they break it already? Seems kind of like having it both ways.
I'm sure it will get litigated and argued about to hell, but Israel is bad at ceasefires. Their version of a ceasefire is the kind where they still get to blow up whatever they feel like. Doesn't seem like Israel is too invested in this ceasefire anyway, so it makes sense.
In this article, this is reported to be Iran's ask, which Trump calls “workable basis on which to negotiate”:
- Fundamental commitment to non-aggression from the US.
- Controlled passage through the Strait of Hormuz in coordination with the Iranian armed forces, which would mean that Iran retains its leverage over the waterway.
- An acceptance of Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme.
- The lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions and resolutions against Iran.
- End of all resolutions against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency.
- End of all resolutions against Iran by the United Nations Security Council.
- The withdrawal of US combat forces from all bases in the region.
- Full compensation for damages suffered by Iran during the war – to be secured through payments to Iran by ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
- The release of all Iranian assets and properties frozen abroad.
- The ratification of all these matters in a binding UNSC resolution.
If they get basically any of that it's a win for Iran. What did the regime of Iran lose? They lost some leaders, that's bad but it doesn't exactly weaken the regime itself if we just change who's on top. They lost a lot of stuff, but they gained ways to build 100x as much back.
The people of Iran lost a good amount. They're in a worse position even if you ignore all of the dead ones. Does the regime care? No, the Iranian regime fucking sucks, they're assholes. And the US helped them out by going into a war with no strategy and no achievable objectives.
This isn't a lifting of sanctions in the manner you meant or was being discussed. If anything it's the opposite! The US said we'll let you sell oil to keep prices down so your closure of the Straight has less impact while we bomb you.
> Where Iran actually exists, we're going to deploy them from where? Aircraft carriers? They're not set up for that, and if they get close enough they'll take on potshots they can't protect against until they have to move back.
We can launch missiles from aircraft, we can deploy teams to deploy drones, there's a lot of options here. We don't really need to deploy drones so much as we need just cheaper missiles to launch at drones or for air defense. Both are pretty reasonable for the US to accomplish so I'm not sure what you think is the limiting factor here. Use your imagination.
> Then why is Iran still able to shoot down our fancy jets? Their offensive capability should be already gone right? What are we waiting for?
A guy with a ground to air missile can just run around in the mountains and get lucky once in a while. Not sure how this is a rebuttal to what I wrote. Or are you under the delusion that you can attack a country and never suffer any equipment losses? Many people seem to not know too much about how war works and have set these bizarre expectations. The fact that we've only lost what we have so far while obliterating anything we can find really tells you how ineffective their military is and was made to be.
> Did they capitulate or did they break it already? Seems kind of like having it both ways.
Well initially they capitulated, but yea idk maybe they are breaking the agreement. Guess we'll have to do the 8PM plan then if they are breaking the ceasefire. It's TBD as we get realtime updates. Plus the IRGC doesn't really have complete control over various military units. Remember them launching missiles for no reason at Azerbaijan?
> In this article, this is reported to be Iran's ask, which Trump calls “workable basis on which to negotiate”:
Have you negotiated anything between hostile parties before? You say things like this to just get to the table. Did you forget the US proposal? Why aren't you touting those bullet points and talking about how Iran agreed to them and now they're capitulating and going to the negotiating table?
> If they get basically any of that it's a win for Iran. What did the regime of Iran lose? They lost some leaders, that's bad but it doesn't exactly weaken the regime itself if we just change who's on top. They lost a lot of stuff, but they gained ways to build 100x as much back.
Well to date they lost a lot of military equipment that they can't get back - we would bomb it again too. They've lost any progress toward nuclear weapons unless helped by other adversaries like China, Russia, or North Korea, and they've had their leadership destroyed.
Like, in what world does a comment like this even make sense? "They lost a lot of stuff, but they gained ways to build 100x as much back."
How did they gain a way to build 100x what they lost when they have no ability to build anything at scale that we don't allow? If they build a factory we just blow it up.
> The people of Iran lost a good amount. They're in a worse position even if you ignore all of the dead ones. Does the regime care? No, the Iranian regime fucking sucks, they're assholes. And the US helped them out by going into a war with no strategy and no achievable objectives.
The strategy and objective was to bomb them and stop them from building so many missiles that we wouldn't actually be able to do anything about them doing whatever crazy shit they want to do. If nothing else, it was all worth it just to kill the Ayatollah. Some things are worth more than the money spent. You're right the Iranian people lose, but we're just not going to let this government get more missiles, keep supplying Russia with drones, and build nuclear weapons. It. Will. Not. Happen. There's no question about this.
> This isn't a lifting of sanctions in the manner you meant or was being discussed. If anything it's the opposite! The US said we'll let you sell oil to keep prices down so your closure of the Straight has less impact while we bomb you.
You hopefully realize that _I_ probably know what I meant, and that I'm in the discussion?
This is what I said:
> The sanctions are gone or heavily weakened so their can sell their oil to the world instead of selling it to China at a relative loss
What about that doesn't match the link I provided? Iran gets to sell their oil more easily and for more money, because we dropped sanctions. I didn't mention the why the US chose to do it, but "we fucked up and need to panic and try to do anything possible to keep oil prices down" doesn't make it any less true.
> Well to date they lost a lot of military equipment that they can't get back - we would bomb it again too. They've lost any progress toward nuclear weapons unless helped by other adversaries like China, Russia, or North Korea, and they've had their leadership destroyed.
I don't know the details of their nuclear program, but my understanding is that they have a bunch of highly enriched uranium and they lost ~none of it. I would guess that they're about where they were before except now they certainly know they need to go for a bomb at all costs and will do so. There's no choice, because the US won't stop until they do. They had a deal where they agreed not to pursue a bomb, and the US broke it, and now the US keeps attacking whenever they feel like it.
> Like, in what world does a comment like this even make sense? "They lost a lot of stuff, but they gained ways to build 100x as much back."
> How did they gain a way to build 100x what they lost when they have no ability to build anything at scale that we don't allow? If they build a factory we just blow it up.
They will come out of this with more money due to having a better excuse to exploit the Strait and reduced or eliminated sanctions.
You think we're going to just sit there and blow up every factory they build for all eternity? Then why did we propose a ceasefire? Will the agreement after this war include that they never get to build another factory? What do you think happens from here?
I think I'm good on this discussion, have a good day. Just look at what the _actual_ outcome of this war is in a few weeks and see if Iran's regime is better or worse off than they started. I think if you actually see the truth of what happens you'll be surprised.
Your view of war seems to be rooted in "well I really blew that thing up good, I win!". It's not that simple.
> The sanctions are gone or heavily weakened so their can sell their oil to the world instead of selling it to China at a relative loss
Just a reminder you were wrong about this part: (a lot of equipment on both sides).
Secondly the regime hasn't "hugely improved their source of funds" - sanctions aren't gone, they're still en force related to Iran the country and no sanctions were "dropped" because of Iran's asinine bullet points. The US deciding to let some oil shipments through to help stabilize oil prices so everyone else doesn't have to suffer the pain as much isn't the same thing as what you are implying here. Nobody is panicking - we've dealt with high oil prices before, as recently as 2022. The US also lifted some sanctions temporarily on Russian oil - does that mean we lifted all sanctions and agreed to all of their demands? No. Be mature. These things require give and take, and tactical choices and trade offs.
> I don't know the details of their nuclear program, but my understanding is that they have a bunch of highly enriched uranium and they lost ~none of it. I would guess that they're about where they were before except now they certainly know they need to go for a bomb at all costs and will do so.
Ok that's seems to be one of the misunderstandings on your part. Iran doesn't control this stuff. Whatever uranium they have they have lost access to because if they attempt to retrieve it or move it, we bomb or we come in and take it.
> There's no choice, because the US won't stop until they do.
Right, and we won't let them have a bomb so they'll just get bombed anytime they try and build one. We can run in circles about this all day but the end result is this: Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. Period. No matter what the justification or reasoning is they'll never be permitted to have one.
> They had a deal where they agreed not to pursue a bomb, and the US broke it, and now the US keeps attacking whenever they feel like it.
There's a lot to litigate here, but suffice to say the deal wasn't working. Iran was still pursuing a bomb and denying inspectors appropriate access to nuclear enrichment facilities. They were also enriching uranium beyond what was approved and even when the US offered to supply them with nuclear material for civilian use they declined. They've never pursued a peaceful nuclear program and now finally things have come to a head. It's weird how, everyone else seems to be doing just fine except a few select countries trying to do crazy shit. What if, like, idk, they stopped trying to build a bomb and fund terrorists?
> They will come out of this with more money due to having a better excuse to exploit the Strait and reduced or eliminated sanctions.
Ok but sanctions won't be eliminated, nor will they control the Strait to enact some sort of toll. The US and Gulf States won't agree to that.
> You think we're going to just sit there and blow up every factory they build for all eternity? Then why did we propose a ceasefire?
Yea, what the hell do you think our military is for? It's exactly for doing stuff like this. We proposed a ceasefire because we think now that they've seen how badly we can damage them and how ineffective their military is, that we can find an agreement. The US doesn't actually want war, they want Iran's government to stop being bad actors.
> Will the agreement after this war include that they never get to build another factory? What do you think happens from here?
Yes, the US proposal will include limits on what missile technology they can pursue.
> I think I'm good on this discussion, have a good day. Just look at what the _actual_ outcome of this war is in a few weeks and see if Iran's regime is better or worse off than they started. I think if you actually see the truth of what happens you'll be surprised.
Over the coming weeks/months the outcome will be a ceasefire agreement with Iran giving in to most US demands and the Straight open for business without tolls or additional costs, and the US agreeing to release some Iranian funds that are held or something along those lines. That's how these things go. Some on the Internet like to think and cheer on some sort of US downfall because they're reading Iranian propaganda and taking them for their word instead of thinking through these things logically, but the end result will be pretty much most of what the US wants for now. I don't think anything we do will be permanent though and eventually Iran will be caught funding terrorists yet again (this is honestly so fucking boring) and then we'll do airstrikes or something and there will be some saber rattling and rinse and repeat.
But hey - show some courage and post what you think will happen in a few weeks/months and then we'll check back and see who was right.
> nor will they control the Strait to enact some sort of toll. The US and Gulf States won't agree to that.
I'm not sure President Trump shares your view here:
"ABC News’s Jonathan Karl asked Trump if he approved of Iran’s plan to charge vessels a fee for passing through the strait — a key channel through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil is transported.
“We’re thinking of doing it as a joint venture,” the president told Karl, who shared Trump’s response on the social platform X. “It’s a way of securing it — also securing it from lots of other people. It’s a beautiful thing.”
> But hey - show some courage and post what you think will happen in a few weeks/months and then we'll check back and see who was right.
I mean, I already did. You also don't even agree on what _already_ happened, so I don't expect much to change in the next few weeks there. This for example:
> Just a reminder you were wrong about this part: (a lot of equipment on both sides).
You honestly think that the US didn't lose "a lot of equipment", or am I misreading what you're saying there?
But here's my predictions, consolidated:
The Strait will be monetized by Iran and more controlled compared to pre-war. Sanctions on Iran will be reduced or eliminated from their pre-war levels. There will not be any effective controls on what drones or missiles that Iran can build.
In five years, Iran will have a nuclear bomb. Probably much sooner, but I doubt it will be super public or unambiguous.
> No matter what the justification or reasoning is they'll never be permitted to have one.
Why does North Korea have nuclear weapons now, and why does that not apply to Iran in the future?
> Then why was Trump demanding that Iran “open the fuckin’ Strait”?
It’s a figure of speech. The Straight is open. There are no ships besides the US Navy and those which it allows to transit the Straight.
But ships are worried about potential attacks from Iranian missiles since we haven’t cleared all of the launchers and missile depots out yet - Trump wants them to stop launching missiles so folks don’t fear being indiscriminately shot at or blown up for exercising their right to trade.
You are trying to play a semantic game around “closed” or “open” here because you think Iran has the upper hand and it makes you feel good. US said stop bombing ships or we will really come and obliterate your country, and they said yes great satan we will stop launching missiles at ships.
Iran didn’t force the US to the table. Besides MAGA folks spending a boatload of cash on gas for their trucks the economic impact is minimal. We just had $5-$6/gallon gas in 2022 and got along just fine.
its not particularly might makes right, but bargaining knowing that war is costly. iran could attack every ship that goes through the strait, but that would cost iran both in actual missiles/drones, and an opportunity cost of getting its own ships through, missing a potential toll, and missing potential benefits from being neighbor to rich states. Not to mention that the shots mean that other countries will want to respond
even with might, most conflicts end in a negotiated settlement, and that approximates what each side of a conflict thinks would be the result of fighting the war, plus or minus some bargaining range. its still expensive for the mighty to fight the war, and better for everyone to accept the result of war without fighting
see: the youtube channel "lines on maps" aka "william spaniel" to hear it from an expert in the field of crisis bargaining
Gulf states have no ability to go to war. As this war has shown, the states are entirely dependent on oil and desalination plants, both of which are easily attackable infrastructure.
> Freedom of navigation is a core global principal
Unlike Bosporus & Suez (similar choke points in the region), there's no international arrangement for the Hormuz bottleneck, nor has Iran ratified UNCLOS ("Convention on the Law of the Sea").
And in the real world I see, the Iranian regime is able to absorb a tremendous amount of pain and stay in power.
During their war with Iraq they cleared mine fields with big groups of teenagers.
I think it’s likely they would withstand whatever the US bombing does, and in return damage tons of gulf oil and gas infrastructure, as well as ships already in the gulf.
> And in the real world I see, the Iranian regime is able to absorb a tremendous amount of pain and stay in power.
Tragic for the Iranian people, but also it has only been 5 weeks. We’ve destroyed whatever we can find and their regime is routinely blown up once we find them. Exercising control and staying in power amounts to them hanging 19 year old kids. But sure they’re “in power”.
The US can do damage too. As Trump threatened we could quite literally ensure that the country has no functioning infrastructure forever. No power. Nothing. Meanwhile Iran will eventually run out of missiles, unless of course Russia helps them out. Not that anyone seems to remember Iran helping Russia for some reason when they gloat about how they think the Iranians have the upper hand. Hell the US just forced them to open the straight for 2 weeks and sit down at the table.
The US 'forced' them to do this by agreeing in principal that Iran could charge that toll (along with 9 other points).
The question isn't whether the US can destroy Iran, it obviously could(as evil as that would be). The question is does the US want to pay the price of continuing the war more than the price of agreeing to those points, and would Iran pay the price required to fight back if it does not get the US to capitulate on those points.
I can tell you what will happen to any boat that doesn't pay the extortion (toll) and enters the straight. So realistically it doesn't matter if it's in breach of maritime norms, who's going to restart attacks on Iran to enforce those norms if the US capitulated on it?
The Iranian regime doesn't care what "age" their people are living in and have been stockpiling weapons for enough decades to follow through on their threats.
And every time I read "we have destroyed 3000% of Iran's weapons capability", I read about more missiles and drones flying.
It should be remembered these points have not been agreed - they are the basis for the Iranian negotiation over the next two weeks. There is no guarantee that the US will not simply reject it and start bombing again - in fact, considering the model for Trump's strategies (comrade Vladimir Putin and his "special military operation" in Ukraine), that's probably what they'll do.
Technically this war might be "won" by carrying out this threat--just as it could be "won" by using nuclear weapons--but the long-term strategic damage done to the winner by using those means would perhaps spawn a new phrase with more a sweeping strategic connotation than "Pyrrhic". "Trumpian" springs to mind.
Presumably, the ships that want to pass through the strait will have to care. As you said, there's no room for compromise.
> shows they don’t live in the real world.
i don't think iran is the country living in a world of delusion—to the contrary, they seem to understand how to leverage their position better than israel, the US, and the gulf states combined.
I don’t think they do because they’re not doing anything that wasn’t already prepared for. Remember while prices rise means MAGA is mad about their Ford truck gas prices… big deal… countries in Asia are switching to 4-days in the office and Italian cities are restricting jet fuel. The leverage they have is, frankly, to the extent they can make the world mad against America but most adults in the room know you can’t have these guys holding 20% of the world’s oil hostage. Even China seems to have been pressuring Iran.
> but most adults in the room know you can’t have these guys holding 20% of the world’s oil hostage.
...where, presumably, your understanding of "adult" is whether or not they align with the US? C'mon; be serious. We've been acting like spoiled toddlers throwing a tantrum for the last fifty years because we can't twist iran into kissing our ass.
> ...where, presumably, your understanding of "adult" is whether or not they align with the US?
No, bad assumption. I think about these things for myself though of course nobody is immune to their cultural biases, whether that's the Ayatollah or a MAGA anti-war protestor.
> C'mon; be serious. We've been acting like spoiled toddlers throwing a tantrum for the last fifty years because we can't twist iran into kissing our ass.
Don't think anyone cares about Iran kissing our ass. Instead folks are tired of:
Iran murdering its own citizens
Constantly threatening to destroy the United States and Israel - if words don't matter and we shouldn't take threats seriously, it goes both ways then, so stop pearl-clutching at Trump's threats
Iran loading up on missiles to make it even more difficult to stop them from extorting the rest of the world via threats to blow up ships in the Straight
Iran funding and arming terrorist groups (as designated by the United States and European Union) including Hezbollah, Hamas, and Houthis which are responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians
Iran trying to build a nuclear weapon (see threats)
Iran supplying Russia with drones so that Russia can prosecute its unjust war against Ukraine
> Constantly threatening to destroy the United States and Israel
We should destroy both states, though—they've destabilized the globe enormously and constantly shit on the international order. Especially in the last 25 years. And I say this especially as an American. I have no beef with Iran, and Iran has no beef with me or anyone I love. Israel has killed orders of magnitude more Americans than Iran has.
> Iran loading up on missiles to make it even more difficult to stop them from extorting the rest of the world via threats to blow up ships in the Straight
That's just a rational state acting rationally. Why are we getting involved at all?
> Iran funding and arming terrorist groups (as designated by the United States and European Union) including Hezbollah, Hamas, and Houthis which are responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians
But you're fine with the IDF, who has killed orders of magnitude more civilians (and Americans) than any of the above groups? Why?
> Iran trying to build a nuclear weapon (see threats)
See: a rational state acting rationally. By all logic that we justify our own nukes, the world would be safer off if every state had them. If that weren't the case, surely we would be trying to disarm for the collective safety of all humanity (including us).
> Iran supplying Russia with drones so that Russia can prosecute its unjust war against Ukraine
I don't really care. Ukraine has decided that hundreds of thousands should die before they capitulate and that's their decision.
It was working just fine, until Bibi decided he wanted to be remembered as "the guy who completed Israel" so he needed a distraction to try and finish Hezbollah. It will work just fine once Trump is cut to size and the adults get back in the room.
> I wouldn’t worry about that lol. Gulf States themselves will go to war over it because they sure as hell aren’t paying Iran so that they can sell oil on the free market.
And yet they haven't gone to war (or joined in the war) to open up the SoH so far.
Their military capabilities aren’t that great and they’re scared most likely. Iran is the big neighborhood bully and stockpiled thousands of missiles. Better to let the US Navy and US Air Force take out Iran’s capabilities to limit destruction of their civilian facilities which Iran has threatened to blow up. But hey they can just round up civilians and put them next to the desalination plants like Iran did the bridges. You think that will stop the Iranians? ;)
And folks it has been just over a month. Give it time. The Gulf States are already placing orders for military equipment from countries like Ukraine - the one that has experience fighting drones that Russia buys from… you guessed it - Iran!
nobody will want to fight for Gulf monarchies, it is actually the opposite: population has a great incentive to overthrow the rich decadent UK-installed monarchies and redistribute oil revenues more fairly.
US was a guarantor of peace for monarchies, but seems like not anymore
It doesn’t really bother the US specifically, it raises oil prices for everyone. The only difference is the US is the only that has a military that can actually do anything about it. We’re not going to let them charge ships like that nor would the Gulf States allow it - it’s existential. They expect to be able to trade products on the free market under safe seas like any other country. This is a core global principle. If the US walks away this failure falls on the global community for continuing to stand by and do nothing while these guys load up on missiles and try to build a nuclear weapon and then they can charge even more for the straight.
You're correct about the chain of events, but you aren't modeling the fact that the person who got us into this war had all of this explained to him many times and decided to YOLO it anyway. He was comfortable with that bad decision, why not this one?
But can the US military actually do anything about it? They've been trying for five weeks and Iran has successfully fended them off.
It's really hard to look at this situation as anything but a loss for the United States. Tens of billions wasted in a matter of weeks, years of missile inventory depleted, People of all stripes rightfully calling Trump and Hegseth war criminals, and most of all -- they have nothing to show for it. Nothing.
Iran won this war and they're going to be resupplied and rebuilt by China. This is a "If it bleeds we can kill it" moment for America's enemies. They know that they can stand up against America on the battle field and walk away bruised but still walking.
The way I see it Americans are in complete denial about this right now. Denial is but the first stage of grief and the nation will have to trudge through the rest of that process but they'll eventually come to terms about the death of their empire.
It'll take at least a generation before Americans can appreciate the consequences of their poor choices over the last few decades but they will come to terms with it. They have to or they risk a slow and steady spiral into irrelevance.
The US gained absolutely nothing from this and lost everything.
> We’re not going to let them charge ships like that nor would the Gulf States allow it - it’s existential
We may not give a fuck. Unless the Gulf is going to secure Hormuz, or engage in tit-for-tat with Tehran, this could very well become the new status quo.
From a purely pecuniary perspective, transit fees on Gulf oil means more profit for American exports. (And the party in power doesn't care about California.)
Trump will just spin it as a win by saying that ships are moving through the SoH again and not mentioning the Iran tollbooth. Most of his supporters won't question it.
If something gets flagged down that hard, it’s easy to see in show dead. I almost never see anything flagged/dead that didn’t actually deserve it. The moderation here is excellent.
