The question is not about whether the US can blockade the Hormuz Strait but who gets blamed for the blockade. Iran is messaging that it is making serious attempts to reopen the strait, while China and Russia are probably reinforcing the message. When people around the world suffer from the consequences of the blockade, they are more likely to blame America for their troubles. Or at least that's what Iran is trying to achieve.
And cryptocurrency should be even better for deniability. In reality it would be a really good idea for certain governments that rely heavily on Middle Eastern oil (e.g. Philippines) to pay fees in the short term. More than a month ago the Philippines was already claiming to have "safe and preferential access", if that involves money they'll pay it. (https://www.rappler.com/business/philippine-flagged-ships-sa...)
Its secondary blockade of the Strait seems to be driven by optics and PR rather than strategic value.
Now Iran is demanding money in exchange for the uranium which is the primary roadblock.
These are power plays to signal that world dominance is not decaying but in case of Iran it has backfired and pushes China’s narrative as a pillar of stability.
Saddam played the same game where they pretended they just wanted nuclear for energy, even though they were a petrol state... which is why in 1981 Iran helped bomb Iraq's reactors (where Iran teamed up with Israel to do so) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera
If Iran didn't believe Iraq's peaceful nuclear intentions, I'm not sure why anyone would believe Iran then buying tons of uranium from Russia was any different. Not to mention building underground lairs to enrich it while also building ICBMs.
Why you'd want to play this 'tough guy' game in the era of the Internet is wholly beyond me. You have a fantastically well outfitted military that in the absence of diplomacy stands a really good chance at getting us all killed.
Jingoism is a mind poison.
Same for the major airports, they keep working, people keep flying to the asia, albeit in less numbers.
Yesterday Iran stuck a nuclear plant with a drone, and launched them at other targets as well. And there is news on it even...
https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-uae-nuclear-drones-71e7e5...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-a-e-has-been-secretly-car...
The US can also fuck with Iran by getting slight cooperation from ships in the Gulf of Oman by getting some small inflatable boats with remote control and AIS transmitters on them. Put the boat in the water next to a ship, turn of the ship's AIS, turn on the boats AIS, and send the boat through. Send hundreds of them. IRGC won't know what to shoot at or will expose their positions by firing at a rubber raft.
1. US fucks up by engaging Iran, Iran closes strait.
2. US fucks up the negotiations and fails to reopen the strait.
3. US decides to try and rescue its initial war goals, through a mutual blockade with Iran, starts sinking the very vessels it demands Iran gives passage to.
Does Mutley get a medal?
You can't block the strait if we block the strait! lmao
https://www.suezcanal.gov.eg/English/Navigation/Tolls/Pages/...
https://www.shipuniverse.com/panama-canal-transit-fees-expla...
[1] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-oil-trade-through-t...
Hilariously the USS George HW Bush had to go the long way around Africa rather than risk transiting the Bab El Mandeb after the Houthis defeated the US Navy last year.
> Hilariously the USS George HW Bush had to go the long way around Africa rather than risk transiting the Bab El Mandeb after the Houthis defeated the US Navy last year.
Valuing the lives of your crewmen and avoid terrorists is bad how? USA not wanting their soldiers to die is weak? Would you want more deaths on US side to show strength?
USA can win this war with barely any casualties, why would you not do that? And USA being able to do this with barely any losses shows tremendous strength to me, Iran was more powerful than Ukraine but USA could establish aerial superiority immediately with no losses, this is so much stronger than what Russia displayed.
What do you mean by "win"? What strategic goals can the US achieve in this war? We're at a point where merely achieving status quo ante bellum--i.e., Iran doesn't charge for passage through the Strait of Hormuz--seems to require giving concessions elsewhere.
In many ways, this looks like the American version of Pearl Harbor--a stunning tactical victory that is simultaneously a crushing strategic loss.
The problem with the claim of nuclear weapons program is that the dominant assessment of the intelligence communities is that Iran didn't have a nuclear weapons program at all. Khamenei the elder was known to be against having a nuclear weapons program, and the US's achievement is to replace him with his son... who is known to be in the pro-nuclear weapons program. Considering that the nuclear enrichment centers were targeted in last year's strikes, it's not even clear that the strikes this year have had a meaningful effect in even a temporary delay in enrichment progress.
At this point, I suspect that Trump never had any strategic war aims in the first place, but was instead motivated by an operational aim (regime change in Iran, à la the Venezuela operation), and has been flailing about since then because the administration simply doesn't have anyone with the capacity to actually understand the strategic reality of the situation and is substituting operational and tactical goals for strategic ones.
No, there is no reality where the world will let Iran take tolls here, no matter what happens that part wont happen. The world depends too much on straits being open and toll free, if you let that slide once it will be done by others and that will break down the entire world order.
Rest of the world is quite pissed with USA. But that's just emotion. Unless it gets realised into something concrete it matters little.
The ship went the long way around because why risk being attacked by missiles? It's less that the US Navy "was defeated", which itself is a plainly asinine comment which only serves a purpose of trying to incite others, and more so a practical safety concern.
But if you really want to argue that the US Navy was defeated, I would submit our next step should be to utilize nuclear weapons on Yemen and destroy the Houthis. That way you can't make these claims and we'll see who really is defeating who :)
s/n/d/6
When the US violates the law of the sea in the South America, why not. Everybody complains but understands.
1) no one owns the strait, Iran has never owned it, its international waters.
2) Who says they keep it at $2 million? Due to the location they could say anything and people would pay it, that would have a massive impact in worlds economy. And any plans to bypass the strait would get heavy attention from Iran and their friends - because no one wants to lose their cash cow.
3) if Iran is allowed to do that, everyone starts to do that - you think oil is expansive now? Good luck when every country with similar bottlenecks nearby starts their tolls. Again, these are international waters.
As for the US breaking law of the sea in South America, I assume you mean blowing up boats? Has anyone proven that they have been civilians and that they have lied about the targets?
The baffling part of this is that nearly everyone was aware that Iran could close the straight if pressed hard enough. The fact that this outcome is surprising represents a very loud and public failure on the administration's part.
There are now similar asymmetries emerging across war-fighting and even though warships can still be effective (and less vulnerable) in other scenarios, this specific one seems especially bad. The other factor is that most of what ships carry through the straight isn't going directly to the U.S. so the impact on the U.S. is mostly secondary, reducing the risk the U.S. is willing to take. Of course, all this was known beforehand by military strategists which makes this all look even worse for the U.S. administration.
The last time this happened the US opened the strait by accidentally shooting down an Iranian passenger plane after sinking a large chunk of Iranian navy. The Iranians assumed the US shoot the passenger plane down on intentionally as a war crime and assumed the US would was planning to escalate the conflict. This fear deterred further Iranian attacks on tankers.
This isn't going to work this time because the US started the war by performing of the most serious escalations possible, a decapitation strike against top Iranian leadership in a surprise attack using a diplomatic negotiation as cover. The US did this while the strait was open and Iran was considering a peace deal.
Threats of escalation are no longer effective at deterring Iran because Iran now believes the US will take such actions regardless of what Iran does. What does Iranian leadership have to lose by staying the course? Very little. On the other hand if Iranian leadership back down, they loose all their leverage, they look weak internally, they look weak externally and the US might decide to attack them out of the blue again.
This is why decapitation strikes are generally not done. They remove options and they undermine deterrence and paint belligerents into a corner.
> I think americans have the false belief that US is some of kind of benevolent force acting for the good of the world and promoting freedom and democracy.
A state can still make mistakes without saying it is good in everyway
The first and second event are undeniably different than the third in at least one crucial respect, the third was never even claimed to be unintentional by anyone involved - while the first two were repeatedly claimed to be unintentional by everyone involved. Of course, that doesn't prove they were unintentional but not even mentioning the accused's claims of innocence as you assert guilt does prove you're not presenting the comparison honestly.
> I think americans have the false belief that US is some of kind of benevolent force acting for the good of the world and promoting freedom and democracy.
I haven't thought that since I was a teenager, quite awhile ago. At certain points in history the U.S. did sometimes promote the cause of freedom and democracy but it was usually when doing so also aligned with U.S. strategic interests. A notable example was Radio Free Europe (aka Radio Liberty) started in 1950. The U.S. wisely realized the best counter to internal propaganda and totalitarian repression was just telling the truth, so RFERL was (almost always) genuinely unbiased, helpful for the cause of freedom AND good for U.S. strategic interests.
It's also worth mentioning that the Nagasaki bombing is often used as a case study on the ethics of war. They use it as a case study because, once I understood the full historical context of the war and what the U.S. side knew at the time, the decision to drop the A-bomb wasn't as clear-cut as I'd always thought. After spending four weeks on it in an advanced ethics class, my eventual assessment changed from absolute certainty to feeling the Hiroshima bomb was probably reasonably justified but that the Nagasaki bomb was not. The class started out 100% opposed to both but after four weeks was nearly evenly split on Nagasaki.
In the full context I'm kind of surprised there was any kind of split twixt the two given the full context that both H & N were on a very long target list being systematically worked through and both were destined to be destroyed and effectively levelled regardless of whether untrialled prototype nuclear weapons were tested on those cities or not.
As were 72 other cities (including Tokyo) prior to either H or N being touched.
ie. In the full ethical context the deeper question is really about programs of total war / total destruction rather than the edge case of using two targets as test sites for novel weapons.
You don't think autocrats have a strong incentive to not die?
What does Iran still have to lose? Well, a lot. All their oil is exported through the strait that is now blockaded by the US. The regime while having survived so far and executing thousands of people is still vulnerable over the long term. Leaders can still be hit and potentially the penetrations that led to the success of the initial strikes is still there. Iran's energy sector which is what the regime needs to maintain control (pay salaries etc.) has still not been hit. Other strategic targets that are dual use have also still not been hit.
Iran is never going to capitulate, until it capitulates. Their rhetoric is going to remain that the US has no more levers and can't change anything, because admitting otherwise invites those levers to be engaged. There is some truth to certain individuals likely willing to pay a large price but it's far from clear how deep and wide that extends and what is the tipping point. It is possible that Iran can withstand an oil blockade and even a resumption of air strikes for a very long time but it's also possible they can't. I can't tell and I doubt many people can. There are analysts and various experts with all sorts of opinions.
EDIT: Some of you may remember the Iraqi rhetoric before the US invasion. Then when the US attacked Iraq it crumbled like a paper tiger. The US lost 139 people or so (the coalition lost a bit more) to take Iraq and the Iraqi army largely surrendered or ran away. Assad's huge army with tanks and fighter jets, supported by Russia, collapsed from a bunch of ragtag ex-ISIS guys on Toyotas. The Iranian regime is a lot weaker than what you'd think by listening to them talk because any projection of weakness is the end of them. Ofcourse the US Iraqi invasion ended up very badly after this tactical success and that's the actual problem. Defeating Iran on the battlefield - not so much.
Iran was considering a peace deal. I agree that the most plausible was they would reject it.
> What does Iran still have to lose? Well, a lot.
The US could do this, sure, but then Iran would have even less to lose. This might work if the US started small and threatened escalation to try to compel Iran, but the US started at massive escalation so any additional airstrikes are likely to be less escalatory and thus less of a threat.
Even worse, there is a fundamental problem with madman theory, if Iran believes they are dealing with a madman, then threats aren't effective because a mad man doesn't keep promises. If you think your opponent is not rational, then you should not expect them to follow cause and effect.
> Iran is never going to capitulate, until it capitulates. Their rhetoric is going to remain that the US has no more levers and can't change anything, because admitting otherwise invites those levers to be engaged.
I agree that we don't know exactly how much pressure is on Iran. Iran historically has been willing to suffer almost any cost. During the Iran Iraq war then sent enormous numbers of teenagers in human wave attacks over and over. It is my estimation that the current war with the US has helped to stabilize the Iranian government and that they benefit more from the war continuing than from a peace deal.
The only military lever the US has left on the table is an invasion of Iran. Maybe limited to the coastline or maybe complete regime change. Trump has not even attempted to bluff that he is doing this.
Iran does not think they are dealing with a madman. I don't believe for a second that they think that if all the demands made of them are met someone will harm them just for the fun of it. The maximalists demands. The problem is those maximalists demands run against everything this regime stands for. Not that those demands are bad for the Iranian people, they're actually good. What is true (and it's not a question of madman theory) is that the US and Israel will absolutely take some concessions and be willing to delay dealing with the rest of the problems. That is not irrational. That is 100% rational. And ofcourse the Iranians knows this as well. What the US and Israel want is a stop to the proxy wars, a stop to long range missiles, a stop to the nuclear program and a stop to "exporting the revolution". No workarounds or funny business.
I think the regime is very weak. Conditions in Iran are worse and a population that already wanted them gone now wants them even more gone. Their boisterous rhetoric is a sign of weakness that westerners misinterpret. The more they sound threatening and winning the more they are losing.
The "enemy of my enemy" concept suggests that even if the people hate their government, their immediate pain is being caused by the United States and Israel, so I'm less confident about that.
> Iran does not think they are dealing with a madman.
Iran does think they are dealing with a mad man, or at least a government practicing a policy (as the US administration's apologists have termed it) "intentional volatility".
A far more interesting issue here is the oil supplies available in the Pacific. Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Australia, and others are all ramping up production capacity. Non-OPEC oil production is increasing generally in response. This is likely to undermine the Middle East's ability recovery from current constraints as non-OPEC players gain clout in the markets.
Right now people are talking about China and California have limited supplies. But those are enormous, powerful entities that are deploying multi-pronged strategies to secure energy resources. Look at what they're doing and bet there. You also see developing countries retooling to support less oil-intensive economies, like increasing work-from-home options. Solar and wind are currently feeling weak without their subsidies but are exhibiting staying power as people look to move off more petroleum-dependent energy resources.
As for the tactical issue, the concept people seem to be trying to get at is "cost-per-kill". That needs to come down. Yes, we can kill drones with supersonic interceptors. But spending $6M to shoot down a $6K drone has terrible long-term economics.
We're going to agree to disagree. I know this is what "people" are saying about the US. But it's not what Iran thinks and it's not what the US is actually doing. This is what Iran wants you to think, as it weakens the US, and what it's going to say. Are you saying that the US will go to war with Iran if all the demands I listed were fully and transparently met? A by the way there is that Europe and Canada (e.g.) also don't think the US administration is "mad". Everyone is playing their little geopolitical and local political games.
I also doubt Iranians think their immediate pains are caused by the US and Israel. Some might but most don't.
I agree with you the energy crisis aspect is overblown (I think that's what you're saying). Supply increases in other places and alternative power sources can displace some usage- certainly over time. The other thing that's going to happen are more strait bypassing pipelines.
EDIT: So the problem isn't mad people or rationality. The problem now, as before, is simply that the Iranian regime is religiously and ideologically unable to give in. Giving in will likely result in their fall even if they were able to give in. This is what's driving the main dynamics here. It's not Iranian negotiation tactics or the US supposed not negotiating in good faith or being "mad". The "mad man" are those that believe that Iran is interested in giving in on its exporting the revolution and the destruction of Israel.
Whether or not actual mental deficiency is involved here is irrelevant; the strategy is the same whether performed intentionally or otherwise. Unfortunately, its track record is dismal in both cases.
I think you need to provide some evidence for your claim. The US had a deal with Iran. A madman ripped up that deal, started a war with a decapitation strike, and is now attempting to negotiate a deal we already had before we spent billions of dollars killing school kids. The “People” you dismiss includes scholars, strategists, experts on international relations.
You could possibly explain trumps behavior as rational if you believe he is trying to avoid getting arrested for pedophilia, but that doesn’t build trust. In any case, the issue of competence comes up. Even if you could trust the person who renamed the Defense department to the War department, that person simply isn’t competent.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-kept-his...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/world/middleeast/trump-ir...
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/trump-...
Many including Trump have long said the deal was a terrible deal. You can disagree with that (and you'd be wrong) but I'm not sure how we get from that to your statements.
Enough evidence? What sort of evidence are you looking for? Can you provide evidence for your claims?
EDIT: Also can you prove that we are looking to get the "same deal" we used to have?
The JCPOA was set to expire on 18 October 2025 after which Iran would not have any limits on pursuing their nuclear program. Are you suggesting the US is seeking a deal now that Iran would pause their nuclear program until 2025? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal#Expiration
EDIT2: The JCPOA:
- Kept the Iranian regime in power with massive capital influx resulting in horrendous human rights abuse and 10's of thousands of deaths.
- Was being violate by the Iranians. Iran had nuclear sites at Turquzabad, Varamin, and Marivan, which they hid from the IAEA (something that was discovered after Israel stole documents about the Iranian nuclear program). Iran hasn't declared those sites and generally refused access to them for years after the fact. When the sites were eventually inspected years later (in 2020) there was evidence of undeclared nuclear material. https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/06/1164291#:~:text=Iran%20...
- Was time bound and didn't address many other issues.
- Trump said he would withdraw from the agreement. That was his election promise. Trump also said on multiple occasions (and in fact it had been US policy forever) that Iran would never be allowed to have nuclear weapons.
Any rational person adding would agree that the US attack on Iran is in line with its long standing policy. They would also agree that Iran had no other reason for the amount of highly enriched Uranium they amassed other than the manufacturing of nuclear weapons. So I'm not seeing the irrationality here. Ofcourse if your position is that Iran should have nuclear weapons, should oppress their people, and should use proxies to attack others then from your perspective this is an unwelcome development. It's still rational though.
Sure, clearly not a madman if he tells you he's going to do it first. o_O
No one knows but the Iranian leadership. The Iranian leadership has been famously bad at modeling the intentions and motivations of other nations leaderships. A bolt of the blue decapitation strike, followed by the US having plan if Iran closes the straits which is the obvious response by Iran, does at face value appear to be the work of a madman. Now in the US we might conclude that Trump and Hegseth are just wildly incompetent and unprepared, but it seems likely to me that Iranian leadership see irrationality instead of incompetence.
Likewise the closing of the strait was no surprise. These sort of scenarios are planned for and there is zero doubt the closing of the strait was a scenario considered by the US and Israel military planners.
Not a ton we can say other than that. Maybe the US and Israel thought the blow would be so hard the regime would crumble. Maybe they thought Iran wouldn't dare. Maybe they thought that if Iran closed the strait they'd be able to reopen it by force. Indeed this could be where over-confidence, or incompetence, or inexperience, comes in on the US side. It's also that one can never fully predict how things would develop. There could have been over-optimism and under-estimation of the Iranians ability to withstand the air campaign or to effectively close the strait.
All that said, both sides are rationally pursuing their interests. Iran's regime wants to survive and it wants to keep building missiles and nuclear weapons and expand it's religious and political influence. The US and Israel want to put a stop to this before Iran has an arsenal of nuclear weapons mounted on long range ballistic missiles. Both sides will do their best to not tell you what they think or what their plans are (and the Iranians are definitely much better at this than the current US admin).
The real problem is that there are too few such vessels to sustain convoy escort operations. Each destroyer can only provide area air defense for a handful of merchant vessels, and they can only stay on station for a few days at a time before they have to cycle out to refuel, rearm, and conduct critical maintenance. Some of the key munitions also appear to running low. And it appears that the other Gulf states are refusing to allow use of their facilities over fears of Iranian retaliation.
Other countries generally aren't really in a position to assist as part of a coalition either. They either don't have sufficiently capable warships at all, or lack the logistics train to sustain them in the Persian Gulf / Gulf of Oman region. After the Cold War a lot of countries like the UK and Germany essentially dismantled their navies so that they now exist only as government jobs programs.
Short of a nuclear strike (which isn’t on the cards thankfully) nothing short of a ceasefire can get shipping moving again. Sending more warships doesn’t help with that.
So it’s not just that helping Trump would be incredibly unpopular at home - there’s also no guarantee the huge expense would lower energy bills at all.
Other countries are not volunteering to help prosecute more attacks on Iran, because they are already victims of those attacks, and it's bad enough that the USA and israel aren't even apologizing for hurting them, much less paying for the damages.
Thus, the offer to "help patrol the strait" once the USA and israel stop attacking is meant to persuade the USA and israel to stop attacking, not an indication of support for the USA and israel's attacks. Indeed, most countries do not support the USA and israel's attacks on Iran, were totally okay with the status quo, and would have preferred if the USA and israel had not attacked Iran.
That's without taking into account other things like high grade helium or specific niche products.
The us does export more refined products than it imports but it’s highly dependent on crude imports for it’s significant refining capacity.
This does seem to be true of israel, but as for the USA, it does not, hence the USA limiting their attacks.
> If other countries are going to make themselves dependent on fossil fuels from the Persian Gulf region then they'll either have to secure their own sea lines of communication or accept that supplies are unreliable.
This sort of rhetoric is why other countries do not support the USA and israel: the other countries already did that, then the USA and israel came and attacked those supply lines, thus attacking those countries.
It strikes me as gaslighting abuser language to attack someone else, then blame it on them for not protecting themselves better. It's better for the attackers to acknowledge their mistakes, apologize for them, and pay restitution.
Yes, I know ww2 comparisons are tired but honestly the Lebensraum explanation makes more sense than what trump has said publicly, so here we are...
The UK's NHS is not why it's not taking part in this mess.
I believe the equation is a bit more complex than that.
https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/breaking-news/w...
Stop laughing for a minute because I do have a point.
As a software engineer, I typically build something and engineer it so I can iterate quickly and improve it. I know that the first version won't work.
Isn't this a perfect opportunity for Iran to iterate on sinking cargo ships? I'm struggling to believe that a regime that is (allegedly) weeks away from a nuclear bomb wouldn't be able to keep launching missiles at ships until they notice the right type of hole.
And, think of the apprenticeship opportunities.
While there are religious, cultural and political aspects to this, the Iranian govt has primarily become a kleptocracy in recent years. It sustains power through the Revolutionary Guard (aka IRGC) which has grown into what's essentially a state-run, money-making commercial enterprise. It collaborates and colludes with various entities across the Iranian economy which it controls either directly or via bribes and coercion. While reasonable people can debate what the recent attacks on Iran accomplished, they certainly nerfed a large part of the IRGC's income. The new Hormuz extortion scheme isn't just retaliation or vengeance, it's replacing lost income which is urgently needed to prop up the Iranian government.
And large merchant ships, especially crude oil tankers, and quite tough to sink. When they take a hit it usually just causes some damage.
Houthis closed their straight some years ago and US wasn’t able to do anything about that neither. And Houthis are nowhere near as capable as Iran.
US gambled on decapitation strike and failed.
You also have a lot more tries with cheap drones since the target is lower value, so you have hundreds of data points on how each iteration performs vs hitting a naval ship which is an extremely rare event, so it's hard to see whether your iteration on a rocket actually succeeded.
That's because the US has kept the surface combatants far back from the Persian Gulf for the duration of the war.
As far as we know, they have attempted to run the strait twice and had to turn back because they were under sustained attack.
I assume these ships can defend themselves for some period of time, but eventually the munitions run out, and they become sitting ducks. There is a reason the US Navy fled the Persian Gulf on Feb 26 and has not returned since.
Two US Arleigh Burke Class Destroyers transited Hormuz a couple of weeks ago without damage and are still there last I heard. The Iranians were really upset, but couldn't do anything to stop it.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2-us-navy-destroyers-transit-st...
The extreme narrowness of the strait right next to so much enemy-controlled shoreline is a unique problem. All of the destroyers and frigates from all the world's navies combined couldn't sustain protecting the massive number of merchant vessels wishing to transit the Strait of Hormuz on a daily basis.
The second crossing was conformed to be such an escort mission. They shot down everything Iran threw at them, but the cost assymetry still holds.
> All of the destroyers and frigates from all the world's navies combined couldn't sustain protecting the massive number of merchant vessels wishing to transit the Strait of Hormuz on a daily basis.
My point exactly: the argument that the "US Navy isn't as large as it used to be" is moot
Ships need a robust, sustained ceasefire.
It's not the billion-dollar warships that transport oil, it's the much more fragile and unarmed tankers.
Even if the US Navy begins full escort duty, it can't remain on-station forever. What are shippers to do afterwards? One drone strike might cause a tanker to have a very bad day, yet it's extremely difficult to so permanently degrade an entire country that they become incapable of launching sporadic attacks.
Ultimately, the status of the Strait must be settled diplomatically, and the US and Iran are each betting that the other side will blink first.
The US began to patrol the strait with Destroyers and immediately stopped when the scared Saudis immediately realized that Iran was about to attack Saudi oil rigs.
--------
Iran has too many targets and the only thing that can stop them is the equivalent to an Israeli Iron Dome across the entirety of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE, maybe more.
Another key issue is Iran's regional neighbors haven't invested significantly enough becoming credible military threats against Iran. Instead they tried to play an in-between game of being tacit frenemies because Iran and its proxies could be politically useful. But in the last 3 years, Iran lost most of its proxies through a series of catastrophic miscalculations, dramatically shifting regional dynamics. Iran now has less reason to cooperate regionally and its neighbors lack of credible offense is costing them dearly.
A contributing factor is that the direct customers for much of what passes through the strait are Western European countries who've failed to sustain any real naval power beyond ceremonial presence. In recent years, the U.S. Navy had to quietly ask the German navy to stay away from the Western Indian ocean due to the additional burden of guaranteeing the safety of the German "warships" if they were attacked by Somali pirates.
However, it can be simultaneously true that most countries in Western Europe and many in the Middle East have under-invested in their military readiness for so long, they've lost the ability to secure their own strategic interests. You're right to be annoyed other countries provoked a regional bully for their own misguided reasons. While Trump is our problem, relying on a bully like Iran not being a bully against the EU's global interests is Europe's problem.
Unfortunately, we live in a world of super powers including Russia, China and, yes, even the U.S. who at best have their own strategic interests which may not always align with yours and at worst will take from you whatever you can't defend. If you can't secure your own economic interests militarily, there will eventually be steep costs. Even if your own country carefully tiptoes around bullies for fear of provoking them, you can still be trampled under the feet of other countries fighting for stupid reasons which have nothing to do with you.
Note: I say this as an American who likes our European allies and who thinks Trump has been an idiot on almost everything. Even back when Trump was just a bad reality TV host, I could see the U.S. should stop trying to be "World Police." It was never going to be sustainable over decades and it was distorting the behavior of other countries, both enemies and allies. Since the end of the cold war the U.S. has subtly harmed our allies by enabling some of them to under-invest in their own military readiness.
Wasn't Iron Dome coverage deteriorating due to low munitions? The cost asymmetry between drones and interceptors makes any drawn-out conflicts mutually punishing - unless someone on the future decides to gamble on another decapitation strike. The Iron Dome is great against improvised pipe-rockets, but less effective against ballistic missile salvos.
Back in WWII you could sail your navy up a river and expect positive results. In the 21st century, the idea of attacking an enemy-held strait with navy doesn't work
Still the most powerful navy in the world, but spread increasingly thin (turns out "the whole world" is quite a big place).
This is no longer Reagan's (almost) 600 ship navy, and projecting power halfway round the world is no mean feat when your opponent can lob missiles and drones at you from their back garden
a rudimentary calculation then gives the probability of hitting (not sinking) the ship as 0.1^N per launched missile; so it seems that given enough budget to spend on independently developed missile interception systems allows to drive down the penetration success rate arbitrarily.
Multi-billion sounds like $ 10^10; so assuming an attacker can launch say a million missile attempts then the statistical loss would be 0.1^N * 10^10 * 10^6; so the statistical loss can be driven down arbitrarily say to $ 1 by developing ~ 16 independent interception systems.
16 independently developed intercept systems doesn't sound like unobtainium for a vested nuclear power.
furthermore, the development cost of 16 independent intercept systems can be amortized over many more installations than a single ship, it can be amortized over multiple ships, multiple bases, multiple strategic assets across the globe.
Unless your interceptor system is unobtainium laser system with unobtainium cooling system, backed-up by unobtainium power source, you are going to run out of interceptor missiles (or even Phalanx bullets) way sooner than 'million missile attempts'.
Quite possibly 100-200 Shaheds + half a dozen proper anti-ship missiles will cause you to turn tail.
there are so many options from coil guns, to lasers, to jammers, to non-nuclear EMP's, ... that don't involve the caricature of a million dollar missile intercepting it.
And the Ukraine war has demonstrated the issues with jammers.
Even worse. They don't need to attack _warships_. They can just attack civilian vessels, especially tanker ships, that don't have any defenses.
A hit on a tanker and the subsequent oil spill would be catastrophic.
Being a little pedantic, as per my knowledge, the Strait of Hormuz is not “international waters”. It’s territorial waters belonging to Iran and Oman. AFAIK, Iran hasn’t ratified UNCLOS either, and claims it is not subject to it.
The trick is that it's still an 'international strait', or a segment of water that forms the only connection between two areas of high seas -- in this case the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. The principle of freedom of navigation establishes that innocent traffic (civilian traffic, and even warships in peacetime) have a right to use the strait to go from one body of international water to the other.
Iran may claim that it doesn't have to abide by that right, but international law is never self-executing. One question to be resolved by this war is whether Iran will ultimately recognize the right to navigation in any settlement (and then choose to abide by said settlement).
As with other recent trade wars, the value of this kind of behavior goes down when other nations start to retaliate. A ship might be able to pay the insurance from Iran, but can they afford to pay the same fee for each time they pass some other nations territorial waters? At some point the US blockade won't matter and the profitability of the venture will be zero.
They are shooting down neutral tankers outside of their territorial water, so stop with the bullshit. If they only shot ships in their own waters traffic in Hormuz would already have returned to normal.
> the idea that western powers would scrupulously adhere to international mores if subjected to a full-on kinetic attack by another nation state is absurd on its face.
We know they are, we have Ukraine as an example they don't start attacking neutral nations civilian vessels just because Russia attacked them. Only evil regimes do that, you don't "defend yourself" by committing terrorism against innocent neutral country ships that aren't shipping anything related to the country you are fighting.
There is no reason at all for Iran to start shooting ad Indian ships just because USA attacked Iran, no western nation would defend themselves that way, many western nations has been attacked and conquered in history so we know how they act.
"freedom of navigation" seems to be from UNCLUS no? So why should a country (Iran) that didn't ratify UNCLUS care about the terms it binds it's signatories to?
Which isn't unique. Bunch of countries haven't ratified it and aren't legally bound by it but do follow it in spirit. US, Turkey, UAE, Israel etc.
But US law is not international law. Internationally you are at war, whatever you call it internally doesn't matter to me.
https://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-V...
> In 1959, Iran altered the legal status of the strait by expanding its territorial sea to 12 nmi (22 km) and declaring it would recognize only transit by innocent passage through the newly expanded area. In 1972, Oman also expanded its territorial sea to 12 nmi (22 km) by decree. Thus, by 1972, the Strait of Hormuz was completely "closed" by the combined territorial waters of Iran and Oman.
Claiming it does not make it so.
However, I believe Oman also collects fees. So in practice the distinction wrt shipping is moot
> Ok, so just de facto iranian.
No, the route is entirely outside of Iranian waters. They attacked ships that were in Oman waters and put mines in Oman waters and now shoot at anyone trying to removing those mines in Oman waters. Nobody, not even the Iranian government, claims that is their water.
A huge part of the reason sovereign nations built navies was to fight piracy. It’s not really true that waters were open historically.
The framing in general of “Japan only took military action and the US sank to attacking civilians” is wrong too. Take a look at what Japan did to the Chinese during that time period if you think they were only attacking military targets.
Japan also invaded an Alaskan island. https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2010/06/07/the-japanese-...
> Are you saying USA cared about the Chinese?
I’m saying it was not beneath Japan to commit horrific atrocities on civilians. You can’t pretend they were some high moral actor that was only performing a military action to defend themselves.
World war 2 was the war of 3 different evil ideologies, you had the fascists vs the communists vs the imperialist England and France. The war ended with both the Imperialists and the Fascists defeated so European imperialism ended there, England and France had to give up their colonies.
If not for USA likely Europe would still have colonies and just be as imperialist as they used to be, same with Japan. USA might not be as good as these defeated imperialists, but it was still USA that ended the age of European imperialism that was so much worse than anything USA has done since ww2.
(I'm a European)
“The American navy closed international waters.” Not in the Pearl Harbor context. Before Pearl Harbor the U.S. was not conducting a naval blockade of Japan that closed international waters. The U.S. cut off Japan from US oil in July 1941. That is not the same thing as the U.S. Navy closing the Pacific.
“The USA blockade was the reason Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.” False. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because it wanted to neutralize the U.S. Pacific Fleet while Japan seized the "Southern Resource Area”, especially oil-rich East Indies, Malaya and other regions in the pacific. The U.S. oil embargo might have played a small factor, but that wasn't a US-only thing; various countries were increasingly unwilling to sell oil and other resources to Nazi-aligned Japan while they were attempting to conquer China and most of the Southeast Pacific.
The United States formed our Navy because of Islamic Pirate/Slavers causing a lack of open waters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_corsairs
"The Barbary threat led directly to the United States founding the United States Navy in March 1794."
Our Glorious Leader :: Their Wicked Despot
Our Great Religion :: Their Primitive Superstition
Our Noble Populace :: Their Backward Savages
Our Heroic Adventurers :: Their Brutish Invaders
Our Legal Embargo :: Their Illegal Blockade
The world already knew.
The real strength of the prior admins was in simply not needing the military force. The 2015 Iran nuclear deal is a relevant example here. It didn't cost the US anything.
This claim is not supported by evidence. The "best" we can say about the regime is that it persists. So far.
Is it? Depending on how far back into "prior administrations" you go, the modern US Navy is a shadow of itself.
Using conventional weapons only, what prior year's US Navy could beat the 2026 US Navy in combat?
It's probably even more powerful than peak cold war/WWII US Navy at force projection while adjusting for technology and adversary capability. Cruise missiles, much more capable aircraft, larger carriers, etc.
At securing the high seas or forcing open trade routes? Just the sheer loss in number of deployable warships available to surge into an area is nowhere comparable. That and logistical capability is nearly nonexistent and relies mostly on nearby basing vs. tankering/supply ships. Not to mention a much larger Merchant Marine they used to be able to fall back on.
There simply is not the ability for sustained operations at sea at any scale any longer, even if you had unlimited munitions to expend. You can certainly float a couple aircraft carriers 700 miles off some coast and keep them on station more or less indefinitely as you rotate them out, but that's really about it. And that's really the only sort of war the US Navy has had to fight for the past 30+ years.
It's fair to say the British navy is a shadow of the former British navy that more or less conquered the world. It's also obvious the current one with an aircraft carrier would beat the former one with wooden ships and cannons.
The same applies to the US navy even when the difference is the quality and quantity of integrated circuits and not the difference between a telescope and radar.
From most perspectives (civilian, political, financial), the "better" military is the one that wins. Your'e arguing that a navy can be a shadow of its former glory and still also be what is understood as "better" by most people. This doesn't make sense.
phil21 makes a relevant point that navies are used for different purposes, and the current US Navy is tuned for a different task than that which it currently faces in the Gulf.
It's not that I think any of these things are wise, but this is part of the risk calculus you make when you decide to wage war. It's more like a debate: if you don't have a plan for uncomfortable questions you're a poor debater. The US has the physical means to prevent the closure, but I think it's quite clear that this administration ignored known risks and acted recklessly. And more importantly, apparently had very little contingency planning if things didn't go their way.
Also the Strait of Hormuz is an international strait not international waters. The entire strait lies within Iranian and Omani waters. Frankly it's a bit absurd to complain that your ships can't transit a country's waters while you bomb them.
Everything is either what you hold by force, or have a friend who holds it by force for you.
Yes
> (and the world)
No
If it was just USA and Israel and Nato even then you'd see a ton of ships go through and the world wouldn't be very affected, since almost all ships that go through the strait are not Nato aligned.
The issue is they block all non-Iranian ships, not just American ships. Basically nobody would have complained if they only blocked American ships.
https://iranwire.com/en/news/152407-30-ships-passed-through-...
They likely didn't pay to move their goods through the strait.
You don't pay money to terrorists to make them not bomb your stuff, you eliminate the terrorists, otherwise you get more terrorists.
> The fact that this outcome is surprising represents a very loud and public failure on the administration's part.
You can't teach stupid!! The coward, sleepy, dementia ridden, pretentious commander-in-chief declared victory over Iran the next day after starting the war.
Pirates are many things, maybe even criminals under international law, but terrorists they are certainly not.
Piracy has to be the canonical example of criminals under international law...
$300/launcher here: https://www.un.org/depts/los/nippon/unnff_programme_home/fel...
A decade ago it wasn't terrorist groups funding them.
Not if they seize a cargo ship it isn't. Criminals can afford the tools to commit crimes by using those tools to commit crimes.
"I have no evidence, but I can't think of other scenarios so it must be true!"
But seriously, if they were being funded by other groups, why pirate in the first place?
1. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Reagan_s...
I think it's much more likely it's just easy money and is relatively cheap to pull off.
From the writings at the time 'Muslim sources, however, sometimes refer to the "Islamic naval jihad"—casting the conflicts as part of a sacred mission of war under Allah'
These Islamic pirate/slavers are the SPECIFIC pirates that "The Barbary threat led directly to the United States founding the United States Navy in March 1794.". These are the specific type of pirates that the US Navy was founded to combat to protect ships being seized and their crews sold into slavery.
problem is when your Commander in Chief is a Idiot In Chief who wants to surround himself with "YES" men.
actual solid pragmatic advice won't be listened to - i.e that Iran is a millennial empire with asymmetrical advantages.
if you have no strategy to counter that asymmetrical strategy - then don't fight the war.
You can reuse this line for most of things this administration has been doing.
More to the point, Iran has been preparing for war with the US for decades. The US prepared for _this_ war with Iran for a couple of weeks.
That's a little unfair, it would be more accurate to say that the US has war gamed the region for decades and had a good grasp of the pitfalls and requirements, and then to add that the current US administration ignored all that prior work and insight and simply blundered in on a whim.
The first star was intense civilian unrest, the months leading up to the strikes was marked by riots and protests.
The second star was the meeting of Iran's top brass in one spot at one time, both of which Israel knew about.
It was almost certainly sold to Trump as a domino event, where the US would blow the head off and the people of Iran would ravage the body. On paper it looks clean, and certainly he was riding on a high after the swift coup in Venezuela.
Of course though, that did not happen, and now he had to go to China to beg under a thin veil for them to pressure Iran to back off. Trump rolled a critical failure on what appeared to be a moderate-low risk attempt.
It looks like it appeared that way to Trump. But you make it sound like it appeared that way to most people. As one of those "most people", I can say that's wrong. The reaction of most people was "WTF is Trump thinking?".
It's been clear he's not the sharpest tool in the shed for a while. But he should be surrounded by very bright people for are able to provide frank and fearless advice. Looks like he fired most of those people, and whats left have been cowered into sycophants.
The chaos and stupidity narrative only mask and sustain the far grimmer reality of this operation.
We weren't defeated in a attempt to "keep Hormuz open". Hormuz closed because we we started an entirely unrelated war. And lost. There's a difference!
https://www.ft.com/content/eabadd1a-a712-4b44-99bf-bb50eb753...
That is the modus operandi of this administration.
All tactics, no strategy.
The problem is that Israel bombed their entire leadership structure and there's seemingly nobody to deal with now. It's fragmented between people who want to make deals, people who can even facilitate any kinds of agreement and the radicals who simply want the world to burn and will throw any human in the way to die for that end.
We can absolutely continue destroying their capacity to do things, but the terrorists do not care about their own people or the world. They will use human shields and continue seeking nuclear weapons. They do not value human life or rules. This is why they can never have a nuclear weapon.
At the same time, showing the vulnerabilities in getting oil from that region means China is now buying more oil in USD and even directly from the US via the Pacific which helps further deter World War 3. In the case that something did still happen as part of a global strategy by China, Iran no longer exists as a lever that can be pulled to expand the chaos of a war with the aim of further diffusing the US military away from the Pacific.
If we wanted to fully end this mess, we would probably have to send the military in on the ground, which nobody wants except Iran. They are extremists in general and willing to die over this nuclear issue.
Barring that, we've largely neutered their capacity to make war and reorganized oil trade further in favor of the US. We will have to wait to see if Iran's leadership structure sorts itself out and they come to the table. Until then, if Iran wants to prevent their neighbors from benefiting from international shipping, Iran can be denied that too. Countries are developing workarounds to rely less on the strait, so the longer Iran sticks with this strategy the weaker it will get over the years.
It's popular to say the US lost this or the US lost that and it's a ridiculous country, but it's usually some kind of political gymnastics or financial judgement as it pertains to cost vs benefit. We always lose fewer soldiers and generally come out of it better than if we hadn't done anything at all. We almost always go into something for many more reasons than are publicly stated. A lot of the benefits of intervening in Iran seem to be paying off right now.
Sometimes doing the right thing is unpopular, but you should still do it.
I, umm, disagree fairly wholeheartedly.
Maybe there's some long term <something> that has changed direction slightly as a result, but right now literally everything immediate is worse than it was beforehand.
It's the US and Israel that are the "terrorists" and yet both have nuclear weapons. You literally say yourself that we can "continue destroying their capacity to do things", and like your definition of terrorists, the US/Israel are using us (US citizens) as human shields.
Why did Saudi Arabia attack Yemen? For fun? No, they were reacting to Iran-backed terrorist groups. Why did Iraq attack Iran, for fun? No, even back then they were reacting to Iran exporting their terrorism to Iraq.
Their strategy has been to try to look innocent by avoiding direct attacks from Iran and have diplomats that pretend Iran is a nice actor on the international stage, while using their country as a stable foundation for exporting terrorism. This isn't exclusively a strategy for achieving state power, it is a religious imperative to achieve a radical vision of global Islam.
The US has worked with the Middle East for many years to settle on some kind of peace after thousands of years of conflict (which was also the case for Europe). There can never be peace as long as Iran manufactures conflict regularly.
When the US does things, there is usually a strong and valuable logic behind it, even if it is not expressed publicly. For Iran, the reasons tend to be religious. Their goals and behaviors are not the same as you would expect from a rational state actor.
No they don't, that is ridiculous. In what way could US citizens take collateral damage in this war? They aren't in harms way at all. You could argue they use Israeli and Arab civilians as human shields since they are the ones taking the attacks, but not American ones. And even for the Arabs that has US bases there are no girl schools inside those US bases like Iran puts in theirs. (the girl school was inside the walls of an irgc base, probably an old repurposed house)
In a sense, this is the defeat of the US by bin Laden - it's been a steady slide until the trump cliff since then.
This completely ignores the MAD era and the Soviets taking over Eastern Europe by force. It also ignores the Korean war stalemate, the Vietnam war loss, as well the most recent Afghan loss.
Post-Soviet disintegration management, the successful integration of Eastern Europe, China, and India into the Western Bloc ways were genuine wins. That's post-1989, not post-ww2 (yes, I realize technically that's post-ww2). So there was not really a world-wide dependency between WW2 and 1989 on the American military. Western Bloc, yes, world-wide no.
The current stalemate is only a surprise to the unaware and folks listening only to American news channels. Before the beginning of the current conflict, even $20 chatgpt provided enough insight to accurately chart the course of the conflict in probabilities. Even without chatgpt, folks keeping track and keeping an eye on real news and past policy decisions and progress were able to predict that Ukraine had a very good chance of stopping Russia in its tracks.
The trouble isn't with the availability of this data, it's hubris. Time and time again. Caesar. Napoleon. Hitler. Korea. Johnson in Vietnam. Soviets in Afghanistan. US in Afghanistan. Ukraine. Iran.
But hubris exists because sometimes it works, and for quite some time. Genghis Khan. Pax Romana. Soviets in Eastern Europe. US in Western Europe. Europeans in the Americas. Russians in Eastern Asia. Europeans in Asia and Africa. Palestine. Tibet.
Why it works, and why it doesn't, is an active research topic. [1]
Analysts paid to predict the future will of course argue this vehemently from their pet PoV. And the decision-makers are too domain-challenged to know whom to believe*. They didn't have chatgpt :-)
[1] https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/phillips-payson-obr...
* Or they just don't care
The US is now exporting more oil than it has in a decade.
Why can none of these supposedly smart people see this plan?
Trump thought it would go exactly as Venezuela and has no idea how to fix it. They tried to kill enough of Iran's leadership to get to somebody that would be subservient but it turns out nobody is left alive in Iran that is.
This only strengthens USA's oil sector and ideally we all know the perils of dutch disease. The weakening of every other american export for a dieing industry is not strengthing it.
What the US did was show it would make life uncomfortable for those who challenged the liberal trade order and politically-and-economically offer benefits for those who embraced this order.
What Trump has done is just attack Iran (during negotiations) with no real counter-offer. Iran has responded by attacking everything in sight because nothing was being offered by the US.
Clearly the result is indeed a serious failure on the part of the Trump administration but it's a failure that seems to come from not even understanding that "Pax Americana" has depended on the carrot and the stick.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1448330470095627
Thank you for letting me in!
Sol Roth
PS:
Hope you like the décor. I’m redecorating your thoughts permanently.
All of the advisors in the room with Trump (Cheung, Caine, etc.) told him explicitly after the meeting with Netanyahu that attacking Iran was a horrible idea. His military advisors told him that Strait closure was the most obvious consequence.
The root cause here, is that all decisions are being made by a single biological neural network with a really high error rate, which is increasing.
If the US military fails to keep international waters open, that harms everyone, and everyone more so than the United States. There's this continued misunderstanding that America did this or that, or securing global shipping is for America to do, or what have you. But you can't have your cake and eat it too here. If you accept American hegemony of the seas and the associated benefits, you have to also accept American action in places like Iran. It's a package deal - you get both or neither. There seems to be a misunderstanding about that, I hope it's a little more clear now.
> It would be quite stunning Iran defeated the united states in this sense.
To this second point, the US can just keep the Strait closed. No big deal. It isn't really possible for Iran to forcibly win here because while the US has higher gas prices, we're the #1 oil and gas market and we can stomach the pain much longer less you get complaints from MAGA/far-left anti-American types. Iran would simply watch their entire economy collapse, while Americans are paying a couple bucks more for cheeseburgers and milkshakes.
But the perspective that the US would be defeated is the incorrect one. In fact, what would be defeated here is that very American-led world order. For the US to be defeated here, as so many seem to rejoice at the prospect of, you would also lose American naval power and security, and instead each and every country would have to spend a lot more human capital and treasure to secure their own shipping and trade arrangements, because there would be no America to come help and save the day. No more NATO. No more caring about Taiwan or Ukraine (remember Iran helps Russians kill Ukrainians?) or getting involved in expeditionary affairs. You can not separate these things. Iran happens for the same reason NATO happens. The world will be much more transactional - pay to play and a global American security tax. A scenario like the one in Iran, in which a genocidal dictatorship that is all to happy to steal tribute from weaker nations simply becomes the norm, if not simply more common, and the EU or China or whoever can deal with it.
So I'd say, be careful to join other isolationists and smugly cheer for the US to "lose" to Iran, and in which case you can expect much worse as the US says "forget it" and only seeks to protect its own vital interests without regard to the rest of the world - the Trumpian and far left view which is a marriage of convenience.
When was the last time they actually did that?
> 'because there would be no America to come help and save the day'
No more American meddling would result in much saner and safer world. Wherever they stick their fingers, the instability and wars ensue.
> pay to play and a global American security tax That's the current world.
Imagination land.
>No more American meddling would result in much saner and safer world. Wherever they stick their fingers, the instability and wars ensue.
We need the USA to defend us against the results of the USA defending us.
Only in the sense that the US has forgotten its a participant in trade. But that seems to be pretty standard at this point.
>There's this continued misunderstanding that America did this or that, or securing global shipping is for America to do, or what have you.
I honestly would be happy if the world implemented the total blockade on the US that it seems to desperately imagine would be the best outcome for its own economy. Like some giant north korea. Seal the US shut and watch its economy explode with amazing mercantilist economic forces.
It would be nice if they hadn't stuck their dick in this particular bee hive. Its not that we collectively expect the US to secure shipping, but that we would be happy if the US didn't take actions seemingly calculated to make life worse for everyone else on the planet.
>So I'd say, be careful to join other isolationists and smugly cheer for the US to "lose" to Iran, and in which case you can expect much worse as the US says "forget it" and only seeks to protect its own vital interests
I am just waiting for the EU\UK\AU to get its shit together and clean up Trumps mess, so we can move to the point where the global order works without the US. The US didn't provide these services just for the fun of it, its largely just a soft power move, to engender the willing support of other nations. We can and will have successful global trade without the USA. And we can and hopefully will just let the empire rot and seethe from behind its own closed borders.
>Iran would simply watch their entire economy collapse, while Americans are paying a couple bucks more for cheeseburgers and milkshakes.
Iran's economy wasn't exactly in the best position before this. I wouldn't underestimate them. At least not again.
>But the perspective that the US would be defeated is the incorrect one
The US losing decades of work on shoring up willing support and soft power is a massive defeat. And it comes off the back of several other similar losses. It used to be the case that a lot of the planet put "America first" but that's becoming an untenable position. Trump has successfully turned worldwide public opinion against the US. Its electoral suicide in a lot of countries to give in to his nonsense. Every ounce of good will towards the US bought since WW2 has been spent.
>No more caring about Taiwan or Ukraine
Not like a lot of this has been going on. Looks like France is supplying 2/3rds of Ukraines intelligence. Actually the reverse is true here. If the US wants to retain some shred of its predominant position, it needs to get stuck in. Otherwise honestly we will just manage without you.
>remember Iran helps Russians kill Ukrainians?
There's been US weapons in basically every war zone going back decades. ISIS loved Humvees. The US is helping Israelis kill a lot of people right now. If Israel doesn't have a plane capable of delivering the US ordnance, the US will step in to provide it. I don't think this is a glass house that any supporter of the US should be throwing rocks in. Heck I think the US bombed those F 14 Tomcats you supplied to Iran in the opening strikes of this war. "But but the arms sales" he cries as he sells arms to war criminals. This is exactly why the US developed soft power, so that it could say that certain arms sales were illegal and have people reliably agree with them. Those credits have been spent. Its crazy to me that you would expect people to treat you with the respect that you have demonstrated you don't deserve.
>you can expect much worse as the US says "forget it" and only seeks to protect its own vital interests without regard to the rest of the world
Literally current US foreign policy. Why warn people that what is currently happening, might happen? Only slight correction is that the US sees Israels interests as its own vital interests, or can be reliably fooled into doing so at everyone else's expense.
What problem? Most of the 'problems' Americans talk about when referring to Iran is just the justifications fed to them by Israel.
>Britain is on the brink of falling to hostile Islamists
Ahh, I think I see where you're coming from.
>Congratulations. Free Palestine.
There it is!
Am Yisrael Lie!
Fast forward to today and the US has sustained billions and billions of dollars costs. To still not have any clear success, or to even have any promise of success possible. Nothing seems like it will be better in the end. Freedom of Navigation (Carter, 1979) seems off the table for the world now. Oil production facilities in the region have been massively impacted. The US doesn't seem able to deal with mines. And with US intelligence saying there's still vast reserves of Iranian drones and missiles to cause ongoing problems. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/05/07/...
The tough talk perspective would be vaguely endurable if there were any signs of planning or competency, if there were any possible actual ways things were going to get better here. It just looks like more blustering bullying, but there was no plan, and no objectives ever get met, have any chance to get met. Trump threw away peace long ago, sat around doing nothing while protesters were getting slaughtered, and then engaged in a very pointless act that by all indicators he thought would be a clear victory like Venezuela. Tough or not, it's ridiculously frelling stupid.
Meanwhile the US continues to itself engage in lawless international savagery on the high seas, blowing up boats at a steady pace in the Caribbean. And starving Cuba & denying them electricity. All this anti-woke anti-"mollycoddling" looks deranged, and has been actively terrible for the world, achieving nothing, and is empty fury bearing nothing.
1 - US oil and gas companies make money as oil proces rise. The US is the largest producer in the world.
2 - China loses it's major source of oil and gas.
3 - Iran gets neutralized. It may not look like it now, but it will probably end up that way.
Its a win for me laughing at Americans spending more on oil based products.
>China loses it's major source of oil and gas.
Its like 12% of Chinas Oil. China is 90% of Irans oil market. I think people get this around the wrong way.
>Iran gets neutralized. It may not look like it now, but it will probably end up that way.
Why is death and economic destruction a good thing? Like 99.99999% of these effects are worn by iranian citizens, not their government.
Just a massive strategic blunder, one for the history books.
Any minor damage to China is tiny compared to the strategic loss America has undergone here
For one, this would be the end of the Petrodollar and with it the ability to have huge trade deficits siphoning more than 1 trillion in goods and services from the rest of the world in exchange for fancy green paper.
Otherwise, 1) and 2) are true, Europe is bleeding through the nose with buying US oil and depending on its current antagonist, not smart long term situation that we need to move away asap.
Somebody in US government is making literal billions on shorts and various trade deals just before major announcements keep happening, those are not that hard to see in markets. Current top public bet on this is trumps family and his close coworkers, and their families. If you ever want a witch hunt on traitors and collaborators against US citizens and society, smart up, forget Wall street and just follow those money very directly to culprits.
Have a look at some pics from Tehran and let me know if you notice something:
https://apnews.com/photo-gallery/tehran-iran-daily-life-cafe...
The real crazy savages are not it Tehran but in TelAviv and Washington.
The Iranians are just defending themselves from monsters who still think civilized people nukes and napalms civilian population, finance Latin American and African dictatorships and torture, etc.
The most prolific terrorist groups in the last decade has been ISIS and their satellites, followed most of the time by groups such as The Taliban, Al-Shabaab, Maoist/Communist Party of India, Bloch Liberation Army, Haftar, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and other group with ZERO relationship with Iran.
It is only more recently, than Hezbollah, Ansar Allah and Hamas has been show with more proeminence in US Department of State compilation. But this is a bit complicate, because at least for Hezbollah and Ansar Allah, it is clear that they engage more with Israeli military targets, congruent with you would expect from nationalist liberation movements.
Other than the October 7th, Hamas also had stopped attacks against civillians since they took power in Gaza around 2005, and even in the October 7th we need to separate fact from israeli propaganda, as it could be argued that it was mostly an operation to kidnap Israeli soldiers to exchange with palestine prisoners in negotiations, and that a lot of the civilian deaths were caused by the reaction of the IDF itself, applying the hanibal doctrine, something you can easily do by reading Israeli newspaper such as the Haaretz. Remove the comically fake atrocity propaganda lies about supposed mass rapes and babies in ovens, and it is not that different from IRAs action against british forces in the 70s.
And no America is not bad. America did a lot of good to the world also besides the bad things. All the world used to admire and try to emulate america, I don't know a single person who have lived in America who doesn't have good things to say about the American people But... America has a big problem with an absolutely out-of-control military-inteligence-corporate subterranean parallel state, with an absolutely suicidal best-ally and a thoroughly incompetent president and war secretary.
Spin harder.
The truth is after the start of this war Iran has been importing Shia militias members from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan to be their enforcers because the Islamic regime does not have legitimacy with the Iranian populace.
Americans not understanding that half of the world says the same thing about them is the funniest shit ever... Propaganda is one hell of a drug
Which is why Trump 2 promptly started bombing foreign countries.
The pure ironic inversion of our world is wild to live through.
So is USA.
I guess it might work if shipping company is non-Western (such as Chinese or Russian) - but I’m not sure what the advantage of bitcoin is in that case, as opposed to simply paying in yuan or rubles
I'm curious what makes your think these ships are unknown. There are 2 blockades in place and suspicion of mines in the conventional shipping route through Omani controlled waters.
Whereas if it's not traceable then all that others know is that your ship got through the strait and there's at least some plausible deniability of why it got through
Shock of the unsavvy
But of course Iran doesn't need mines to enforce the blockade. They have drones and missiles that can be operated safely from 100's of kilometres away. They have anti-ship sea-skimming missiles. Not to mention the very large fleet of small armed fastboats.
Using it to pay off a shipping protection racket is prettymuch par for the course.
Like, say, cash, or check, or wires, or any other payment mechanism?
I have read many comments that the regime wants to money launder the inflow. Bitcoin would be rather inconvenient for that.
https://www.reuters.com/investigations/how-trumps-crypto-ven...
It can be untraceable with CashFusion
It's quite the achievement, that the inventor(s) of Bitcoin have continued to stay anonymous to this day.
Given modern computer consumer hardware, I don’t see why they couldn’t even have built implosion lens based fission devices without testing. DPRK would probably provide them with all the data they needed for the simulations.
Iran has been a few weeks from having a few bombs for the last 30 years because they decided not to build it.
Which, when you think about it, shows that the 'Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb' argument for this war is not exactly the true motivation (not to say that the US and Israel really don't want them to have a bomb).
This war is about trashing Iran. Adding it to the string of other failed states in the area. It would be more honest for Trump and Netanyahu to say that the motivation for this war is to ensure that Iran becomes a state that is incapable of developing the bomb (i.e. a failed and fractured, or weak and compliant).
On the other hand, I'm not exactly sure why Iran doesn't give up all its nuclear capabilities. It would cost them nothing except pride, and would remove any excuse from the table for the US and Israel for their aggression and sanctions.
Or, for that matter, Ukraine giving up its nuclear capabilities.
Israel doesn't have much in the way of a credible defense against Iranians advanced hypersonic missiles. Iran could create a mess in Israel by obliterating their de-salinization installations. If they were the blood thirsty fanatics propaganda paints them to be, that would be exactly what they would do, even knowing that in that case Israel wouldn't have much choice than making Tehran a giant glass parking lot.
It seems like most newly built computing resources are at the disposal of a few companies and a few people...
[Hearsay, I don't actually know more than what has been reported in the news ...]
So the few payouts for normal claims would be dwarfed by the war insurance premium currently being charged. They could even offer a discount to loyal clients and still have insane margins.
Yeah, I don't see how the US is coming out ahead in this conflict. Israel might have won some against their adversaries, setting them back a while or two.
there is a lot of examples on how to design it, and it doesn't really seem like this Iranian one for shipping is designed well if its just an insurance pool in bitcoin at all times
but if they are using the bitcoin blockchain to sign the insurance records of a policy and claim, and then the state administrator is acquiring bitcoin to pay out policies at time of claim, then that could work. that was one of the bullish cases theorized for bitcoin back in 2011, 2012, its a long list
Corrupted but there's more I guess.
Convert it into Euros. Or Yen. Or Yuan.
Like the Treasury/Dept of Commerce & others did with North Korean backed Tornado Cash. Some very quickly retrieved/not well researched (caveat reader) search links; https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0916 https://www.paulhastings.com/insights/crypto-policy-tracker/...
They could also make it illegal for any US financial institution to do business with any financial institution that interacts with crypto.
They could probably also make it a crime to buy/sell crypto in America.
Its also trivial to turn your crypto into yuan and your yuan into $. So I'm not sure such a ban would be even remotely effective.
This comment chain starts with "Maybe after the mobster losers in the white House finally get kicked out we can just ban this thing forever."
In America? KYC would suffice.
> In America?
No.
If the Dems don't win the Senate, nothing will change until maybe February 2029 but pretty sure the same people that gave him this power of insanity are just going to vote for the next nightmare, there's no lesson learned, not even with $5 gas and $6 diesel
I don't even think a full blown recession would change anything
And now they are bringing the warships back to Cuba so get ready for next distraction from this distraction from the other distraction while they crime-spree away
Whatever is going to happen over the next 24 months is already in motion. All we can do now is prepare. And maybe get a little less squeamish.
I don't give a f--k about Bitcoin but I wouldn't want governments to start banning it.
Because then why not ban VPN forever too? And require a digital ID for anyone going on to the Internet?
And why not also mandate cameras operated by the state in every room of your apartment/house to make sure you behave?
And backdoor in every cryptographic protocol.
I mean why stop at banning Bitcoin komrade?
BTW the EU is thinking about creating an EU-wide registry of every single asset owned by every single EU citizen, down to every gold coin (oh btw maybe we should ban individuals owning gold coins too?), every jewel, every painting, sculpture, old car, watch, pokemand and Magic the Gathering card: they literally have a plan to make an inventory of every single asset. When asked, by a member of the EU parliament I think, if they could promise this would never be used as a basis for confiscation the EU Commission answered they couldn't promise that.
Where do you draw the line? Is there one point at which you start saying that freedom shouldn't be taken away?
The best place to start this would be with the offshore tax havens.
Also, most governments are more susceptible to being bombed than Iran. They’ve been preparing for it for decades. If nearly any country (except for maybe a couple of Irans neighbors) tried, they’d be easily routed.
Oman is known as the "Switzerland of the Mideast" and has served as a trusted mediator in the region for a long time. Ostensibly, the Omanis have advised the US about the perils of attacking Iran, which is why no president before the current one was stupid enough to do it.
The US is the second largest foreign investor in Oman, and Oman is one of just 14 countries the US has a Free Trade Agreement with. US citizens can own a business in Oman 100% without a local partner.
I can only see two natural allies here (US and India) and clear reasons why Russia and China benefit from the current order, or at least are harmed less than the US.
Also multiple partners don't need to ally to necessarily guarantee the UAE. UAE has been growing closer to China recently and now that UAE has left OPEC+ they could make deals with China for protection for favored oil contracts. The US could do the same.
They IMO embarrassed themselves hugely by shooting missiles and drones at their neighbors; not sure they'll want to also try to sink (literally) a new way for the world to get oil from that peninsula but through other routes.
Though of course propaganda knows no rest. They'll likely bend over backwards and do a front flip to again make it the fault of everyone else but not them.
[1]: https://gulfnews.com/business/energy/uaes-new-west-east-pipe...
Sure Iran is funding Hezbollah but USA is funding various rogue militias as well... (Syria war for example)
same hahaah
"terror state". I would have hoped that HN users would be smarter than to parrot FOX news propaganda.
Too bad trump and Hegseth killed them all as they were wantonly blasting targets in Iran and now there is nobody in a good position to take over.
Even the most leftist publications in the west acknowledged that the iranian regime has been slaughtering 30 000+ of its own, unarmed, civilians in january this year. They went as far as following the, still unarmed, wounded into hospitals to finish the job.
Iran also then, once they came back to Iran, publicly hung iranian athletes who spoke against the islamist regime while competing abroad.
Now of course the leftist propaganda machine being what it is in the left, here's a documentary I saw on "Arte" (a heavily left-slanting TV channel producing movies and documentaries): as they couldn't not mention the 30 000+ deaths the iranian regime made, they made a documentary about it...
But the entirety of the documentary was about the "hurt feelings" of a poor islamist guard of the iranian regime who was forced, poor him, to kill innocents.
That movie channel, Arte, literally managed to make a documentary turning the thing on its head and presenting the killers as the victims because it was "so hard" to kill unarmed civilians.
So enlighten me a bit a propaganda please.
These descriptions are from objective scholars including Jewish ones btw.
It doesn't care in the slightest for Iranians and wish utter turmoil in the country, we have seen it's treatment to Arabs clear as day in Gaza and the West Bank.
If anything, in the current war, Iran has suffered far more civilian casualties than it has inflicted.
The fact that many states are now using it for funding purposes to get around the banking system further adds proof to bitcoin's potential origin.
Also, it doesn't help that Satoshi Nakamoto means basically central intelligence in Japanese...
I'm not saying Bitcoin was created by the government, but if it was there are signs...
This kind of thing explains in part why despite being an obvious scam, the government allowed cryptocurrencies to grow so large that eventually they formed their own feedback loop so strong that crypto bros were the biggest funders the 2024 presidential campaigns.
Maybe Trump should bomb them some more?
What Iran has learned from this is they don’t need sympathy, they need to exercise the leverage they do have, and there’s no way they’re ever going to willingly give that leverage up - they’ve seen what would happen.
Geopolitics understands one language alone.
The main thing it resulted in is the Europe led coalition that aims to ensure the strait will never get blocked again, so Iran can never play this card again, that will lose them a lot of political power in the future since this card is now gone.
"never get blocked again" just like when it was claimed by the U.S. it wouldn't be blocked in the first place, or that it would only be a few days...sure sure. I'm sure the IRGC is about to call the European and U.S. leaders and tell them how bigly they are and how scared of more bombing they are.
Second of all, it's also more likely the USA will back down as a result of widespread disapproval, than it is that USA will effectuate a full ground invasion (which would result in heavy losses).
Whereas if they had complied with the don's demand that they be a vassal state of the USA and israel, they would not be a sovereign country anymore.
This isn't exactly abnormal: for a USA analogue, look at Patrick Henry's comments on liberty.
What? I understand sympathy but I am not understanding what the path could've been to meaningful support against US aggression here.
Seriously dumb. And now this mafia-esque blackmail?
From who?
There are protests against the war/against the US/against Israel in major capitals, the Lego videos go viral, news regularly mention EU heads of state talking to Iranian ministers. After weeks of the strait being shut, no EU country has joined US and Israel. Every EU opposition party is including the end of the war in their manifesto. Does any of that look like no support?
For most of the world, Iran is the victim of two dangerous countries. I bet you a tenner that when the US and Israel give up and the end of the war is officially announced, there'll be dancing in your streets.
This doesn't sound like the don to you? "hey Iran, nice country you have there..."
> Maybe Trump should bomb them some more?
If the USA is going to be bombing every country which doesn't give up their sovereignty and bend the knee to the don, then the USA is going to need more bombs.
Poe's Law in action, I guess. In general, sarcasm isn't a good way to have a good discussion. Better to just say what you mean, rather than the opposite of what you mean, with the assumption that everyone will know you didn't actually mean it.
