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
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 2. Continued Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz
> 6. Termination of all United Nations Security Council resolutions against Iran
> 7. Termination of all International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors resolutions against Iran
These seem remarkably outside the USes power to unilaterally agree to.
The first violates international treaties and while I'd be thrilled with the precedent as a Canadian eyeing my countries future revenue streams I doubt the rest of the world's countries are going to be happy to give up freedom of navigation through international waterways.
The second is something that can only be done by the UN security council with a majority vote and none of the permanent members vetoing the termination.
I don't actually know how the IAEA works, but it seems all but certain that that's up to their board of governors not the US.
If the US wants the IAEA to agree to something like this, especially considering the global economic impact of refusing, I imagine the IAEA could be convinced.
The JCPOA came about when the US pushed for it in 2013.
It's interesting that these days any treaty that the US hasn't signed is probably a decent one, especially if hundreds of other countries have signed it.
It's usually the US and a bunch of garbage regimes on these lists, I guess there was a message being sent over time.
Although i think they mostly recognize it as customary international law.
Nonetheless international law isn't really worth the paper its written on. The bigger thing is there are a bunch of other countries dependent on the strait that might have something to say about it.
It’s unlikely that Iran will get it’s demands at least all of them, and further it’s likely that this ceasefire will break no matter what.
The strait is actually not international waters. It’s shared between Oman and Iran remember (deep water shipping lanes does not exists everywhere in it as well). There was reporting of an agreement on both sides to some sort of shared booth.
Only the US would be the permanent party to vote against it which would be against which would be weird if the agree to the conditions in the first place.
IAEA are stooges, they will do what the US tells them and they’ll come up with some legitimate way of doing it.
Among many other items this would never be accepted. This momentary cease fire is just regrouping time for everyone involved and that has always been the case for Iran.
It is acceptable, if only enriched for civilian reactors, not weapon grade what they did - and Iran was about to agree to that condition before their leadership was wiped out. If the new leadership will agree, remains to be seen. But I believe china or russia are also not strongly interested in a nuclear armed Iran.
There no feasible escalation path for the US. Trump has alienated allies and much of his anti war supporters. A forever war quagmire in a country 3x larger than Iraq is unlikely, as is carpet bombing. So what's left? A JCPOA style agreement with a Maga bumper sticker on it, with heavy concessions to Iran to prevent them from racing to a bomb, which is the best option from their pov at this point.
Carpet bombing would be a waste of munitions. Iran to your point is massive and surface level bombing would mostly take out civilians. The civilians have been through enough. Most of Irans military and religious leaders are in missile cities that are 500 meters+ under mountains of rock, the same places they are creating nuclear material. These bunkers are immune to bunker busters and nukes. That will require ground troops and likely a lot of them. How that plays out specifically I have not a clue. I can only hope that they share body-cam footage and that casualties are kept to a minimum. If there is one thing I can give Iran credit for that is building some amazing and very impressive bunkers using US dollars.
with heavy concessions to Iran to prevent them from racing to a bomb
This game has already been played out many times before. Obama unfroze 1.7 billion, Biden gave them upwards of 6 billion. All together the US has given them upwards of 60 billion to pinky promise they wont build nukes. Never pay a bully, ever. They used that extortion money to build bunkers, pay their proxy soldiers to attack Israel and all the gulf states and to work on their bunkers. There will be no more of that. Shame on anyone that falls for those shenanigans again.
Age old story of all choke points of course. I was taught about choke points by a family member that served in WWII and it's funny, thinking back I was in trouble because I could not find the Strait of Hormuz on a world globe that had no writing on it. I mean seriously ... who keeps such a globe just sitting around for such an obscure moment? That lesson stuck with me. It was a strange lesson but it stuck nonetheless.
Was just reading that this is the first time a waterway choke point (other than canals which are man made) has had a toll. The implications are intriguing for their novelty and unknown second order effects.
Also, the comment about the globe reminds me of a quip from The Daily Show that went something like "... something something War, or how Americans learn geography." You are lucky to have prior generations which provide such inter-generational teaching moments.
The Iran nuclear agreement was absolutely working for the year or so it lasted. International inspectors finally got to see things. Iran did not have a significant nuclear program during Trump's first term when he killed the agreement.
After Trump killed the agreement, what was Iran supposed to do? If the US can just ignore a diplomatic agreement, there's no reason for Iran to follow it. That means diplomacy is basically off the table. So they built a nuclear weapons industry again.
If Iran just wants to kill kill kill, why did it shut down it's chemical weapon industry? Why no dirty bombs? Why no gas attacks? Why is Iran, fighting an actually existential war, pulling it's punches? Why is it not hitting desalination plants like it can? They demonstrated that they have weapons that could hit Europe.
International inspectors finally got to see things.
Or so we are told. I have my doubts that they had access to all the missile cities. We will never know. Nobody will ever know until ICBM's, SRBM's and SRAM's start rolling out of their bunkers and Iran becomes a nuclear power. I believe this has been the goal of their stalling tactics and bullying. Too many nations trust but never really verify. This is how things went wrong with North Korea.
Give tourists paid access to all the bunkers. I want to ride an e-bike through all of them.
> Never pay a bully, ever. They used that extortion money to build bunkers
Which bully are we talking about here? I'm guessing Donald Trump, who took millions in "donations" to demolish a 3rd of the white house to build a new bunker with a stupid ballroom on top (which will never get built, but the GOP will just shrug when asked where the money went).
The differences in the various 10 point lists have been noticed. I wonder if different lists are being produced to make each side look better to their respective populace?
Still, either way lifting sanctions seems like a win for Iran. Also seems like Iran is going to be allowed to charge a transit fee through the SoH. Trump's going to spin this as a win, but it seems like a big loss. Maybe he's just desperate enough to get out of this that he's going to let it slide?
Well we've already found out because Israel broke it. With Gaza they've gotten used to very flexible ceasefires where you can still bomb the other side repeatedly and the ceasefire "holds". Iran has shown that this will not work with them, and they closed the strait again
It doesn't seem much different. Both involve guaranteed stop of all hostilities plus payment for what you did plus keep we Strait Of Hormuz. The only difference is how the payment for the attack goes.
"Acceptance of Iran's nuclear enrichment rights" (enrichment to what degree?)
"Termination of all International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors resolutions against Iran" (what does this actually mean, that they tear up previous reports and findings? Ignore undeclared nuclear facilities and unaccounted for uranium?)
I mean, are Iran basically asking that they be allowed build nuclear weapons unchecked? Or is there another way to read this?
Absolutely not. It will takes months to years to rebuild onshore infrastructure, and shipping companies will be very reluctant to send tankers into the Gulf. Negotiations may collapse and hostilities resume at any moment, especially since Israel does not know the meaning of the word ceasefire.
The president just went from threatening genocide to begging Pakistan to set up a deal that doesn't even have agreed-upon terms. Seems like they have quite a lot of leverage.
I’m not sure the terms of negotiation are even worth discussion. Every time this administration has negotiated with anyone on matters pertaining to Israeli interests, it’s only been a ruse to position for another attack.
My guess is that they know good and well all the marine landing craft are going to get smoked and are using a false peace to preposition the ground invasion. The ridiculous James Bond scheme they tried to pull off which resulted in us destroying a dozen of our own aircraft and, quite probably a few of our own operators was a Hail Mary inspired by too much television. That failure leaves the administration with quite the dilemma. Surrender and call it a victory, which Israel will not allow. Or repeat the Syracuse Expedition as farse.
It’s a bit depressing to think about, but my hope is that these catastrophic failures will get false allies out of the decision loop and we proceed as a more peaceful and wiser country.
You can just say Israel. I wonder how long it will still take that Netanyahu has not US (or anyone’s at this point, except himself) interest in mind. Even Trump must be able to put two and two together at this point, no?
> Even Trump must be able to put two and two together at this point, no?
How have you looked at the the last couple of decades of Trump and come to that conclusion? The man's a total idiot and that was even before his mental decline
He is an extremely prickly idiot that has very accute senses when somebody is crossing him over. So does any two-bit hustler. Or maybe he really did start a war just to bury the Epstein files for a brief moment, god only knows at this point.
Oh at this point you should probably wonder not whether he gets it, but what leverage does Israel he have over him, and if it's directly from Epstein files.
If his support from budge from him assaulting a minor sexually, Israel might have a file proving he is the antichrist, it would not matter. It’s more akin to a death cult than a political party.
There was some journalist that said he had discussed with Steve Bannon even whether it would have mattered if the now infamous “pss tape” had actually materialised. Bannon said something along the lines of that Trump would have just called it fake and it would not have mattered even slightest to his voters.
Yikes, so basically Iran gets everything it wants. It paid a heavy price for it, but it would get so much out of this. At pre war ship rates, that toll would be ~$90B per year ($45B if split half with Oman). Iran's government generates something like $40B in income, so this would be absolutely monumental.
Posts like this from the HN community are almost surreal. Any review of the actual deal would show a two week ceasefire in exchange for the strait being open and safe while negotiations continue. This 10 point plan is just a place to start talking, no country has agreed to anything on it. How is this missed on the community here?
No it would be trivial to gain a thorough understanding of Middle East politics and the oil market for an enlightened people who were able to become foremost experts in epidemiology, molecular biology, global supply chain logistics, the war in Ukraine, semiconductor manufacturing, and many other fields entirely self-taught simply by obsessively reading social media and wikipedia.
"Infotainment" is the term I've heard to describe Reddit and other talking websites. People are looking to "win" like they do in sports or other recreational activities. It's a kind of fun that disguises itself as learning-- minus, of course, the actual work.
I understand this perspective a lot more.
I assume they're going to haggle and work on a few items, and adjust pieces here and there.
What if they at least get sanctions lifted, that would be huge, no?
Going to be an interesting couple of weeks.
Change this line from : "so basically Iran gets everything it wants"
to "so basically Iran would get everything it wants under this plan".
I'm not so dumb to understand that this will be the final plan, just commenting that this is incredibly bad for the US as is laid out.
> Any review of the actual deal would show a two week ceasefire in exchange for the strait being open and safe while negotiations continue.
Speaking of this community being kinda dumb - do you really think this ceasefire is enough for all ships to go on their merry way? Deals mentioned over social media are not enough to convince insurance companies that all is safe. And 12 hours later we now have evidence of this - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/08/business/strait-hormuz-sh...
Also, my original point is that there is nothing in that deal that is a better long-term outcome than what we had before the war. Maybe that will change in the final deal, but the fact that the starting point of the negotiation is 100% on Iran's side is not where you want to be.
Nobody knows what "the actual deal" is because we have pathological liars on both sides (well, especially pathological on one side, most just utilitarian on the other)
Iran's version of events includes the Iranian military controlling the Strait and incurring fees.
he's chickened out of getting regime change primarily.
in terms of shifting war goals, he's chickened out on getting back to the status quo from before the war.
rather than chickened out, the US is the sound loser of this war. the best outcome the US can negotiate for now is worse than what they could get before the war
Meanwhile Iran continues to blow up oil prices which is devastating for the entire world's economy, to say nothing of the USA's economy and especially Trump's popularity.
How is it backing down when his threat was we’d do it if they didn’t agree to open up the strait, which is now open?
I don’t like the way he does things but we’ve seen Trump’s playbook enough to see what he does. Big threat, followed by the US getting some sort of capitulation from it. He then doesn’t follow through with the threat.
That’s not chickening out. That’s just negotiating with a big stick.
The strait is not open, Trump is pretending it is, to save face. Iran is charging $2M per ship, which will net them $90B and that is significantly higher than their oil revenue ($60B). Plus they get to keep their enriched uranium. Yes they lost some buildings and bridges but the strait fee is enough to rebuild. Iran is in a stronger position now than when the war started. TACO Trump lost the war.
Iran wants to charge $2M per ship as part of it's ceasefire conditions - which will almost certainly be rejected since that would impact every ship/nation traversing these waters. Waters that are not owned by Iran.
> Plus they get to keep their enriched uranium.
There's 0% chance of that happening.
> Iran is in a stronger position now than when the war started.
All of Iran's senior leadership are dead. Most or all of the "second-string" leadership is dead. All but their ground-force military is destroyed.
It's stunning to me, that people still do not understand Trump's one-and-only playbook. He literally published a book about his one-and-only strategy all the way back in 1987 - yet people still freak out when he makes big demands then settles for more realistic options. The guy literally has used the same strategy over and over, and everyone acts like it's the first time every time.
It's also stunning to me the very same people that were losing their minds about threatened events immediately switch into "TACO" mode when those events don't happen.
In this situation, Trump made wild threats and demands if Iran didn't agree to a ceasefire. Iran initially rejected but then some 6 hours later accepted. The one-and-only playbook strikes again.
What is stunning here is that some people think Trump has a reasonable strategy. What works in the business world is not the appropriate approach when working with other nations. When you threaten to kill an entire civilization, that damages US's reputation, regardless of what that threat accomplishes. Today the Pope is admonishing us and our closest partners such as UK is shunning us. US is now seen as a shit country on the level of North Korea. TACO Trump needs to be removed from office ASAP.
Even as Trump was threatening to wipe out Iran’s civilization unless Tehran agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, he was actively looking for a way out of the crisis. Trump then got Pakistan to post a fake plea to himself on X [1]. A few hours later Trump accepted the fake plea.
I mean, neither one did what they said they would do, if they had both done what they said they'd do, I guess we'd have nuclear war, so. (To the extent that you can't get anything consistent out of what Trump says he will do it's literally not possible, because he constantly contradicts himself.)
If the madman act had worked there would've been some significant changes before the bombings last year. Or, ok, maybe you gotta show them you're serious. But the madman act would at least then prevent needing to attack for weeks this year. Oh, nevermind. But... third time's the charm, right! He's definitely gonna get what he wants this time?
The people running the country, killing protestors, etc, aren't trying to "win" in the same way Trump is. It's easier to avoid regime change than it is to cause it from air strikes.
We must have a completely different definition of 'it worked'. The only thing that worked here is that he managed to get Epstein off the front pages, but that will only work for so long. Oh, then there is Cuba of course.
Why do you still believe there's any crime at all that could somehow turn around the people who support Trump?
Do you really think, after over a decade of buying into a cult, they will suddenly give up after seeing slightly better proof of things that are already widely known?
It's delusion to think this has to do with Epstein. Israel committed to this war Oct 7th, and the Trump admin jumped in for worse reasons: They thought they were special and could win. They thought they would be seen as strong.
Why do Trump friends own so much news and media if Trump believes he has to make up a war to distract from Epstein?
No amount of preachers raping kids has stopped fundamentalists christians from supporting their institutions that enable such activity. They are some of the same people who support Trump. They don't care if he personally raped a kid. "The ends justify the means". 2A folks support him even though he has directly said he wants to take guns from people without due process and even though he said Pretti should not have brought a gun to a protest, something that Kyle Rittenhouse supporters probably should have a problem with.
They don't care. The ends justify the means. They've never cared about the actual person involved. Everything they say in defense of him is post-hoc rationalization and entirely a front. They do not care.
The 12 D chess explanation, people still believe this?
This whole thing is a debacle. Trump was manipulated by his betters into engaging a war he doesn't understand at all [0], and while flailing he just reached for the most insane threat he could imagine.
The madman theory ironically actually requires a sane and competent person to perform the bluff, [1] which is not the case here.
That is certainly a favorable interpretation of events. I don't buy it. I think there's more evidence that he's actually an erratic, compulsive liar than some master strategist. What great deals has he secured for the US?
it really seems like the US is just ceding to iranian terms. the US cant solve the hormuz strait problem militarily, and so it has to come to the table
"I will end your civilization" is not credible. He'd lose a war powers vote and likely be removed if he even started down that path. To say nothing for the logistical impossibility.
He's not doing some Scott Adams master persuader nonsense. He spent a month being ignored by his counterparty so he just kept amping up the rhetoric until he was threating actual genocide. With human shields placed around the infrastructure he promised to attack, the president desperately begged Pakistan to broker a ceasefire with two sets of terms.
They also got to keep their new Ayatollah and continue with their religious government. An escalation of the war would have certainly ended with a complete regime change. Which would have been very expensive in life (Iranians) and money (Americans).
Or with their people rising up, which is I think what the US and Israel were hoping for - though they didn’t seem to plan for a way to actually make it happen.
We will see what happens at the end of this war when people come out of their homes to a crumbling country. They could decide that enough is enough and bring in some change.
Without arms, it is probably impossible for the people to take back their country.
We take the Second Amendment for granted here in the US - but the lack of a similar thing in Iran is what will keep the civilian population under the regime's control - or else another 10k-30k+ massacre.
Getting collectively bombed tends to have a unifying effect. If anything, bombing a populace would decrease the risk of an uprising that supports the bombers.
How would you feel if your city was being bombed by a hostile foreign nation, including a school full of kids? Magnanimous toward the attackers?
Yeah they will come out of their homes and decide that we should acquiesce to Israel because enough is enough. How’d that go with the Palestinians? In the real world, Israel’s abhorrent behavior unites these populations /against/ them. Your logic is in a fantasy realm.
There was never going to be a regime change. Continuing the war meant many Americans were going to die (in addition to bankrupting the US). I'm a US citizen and very glad Iran came out on top here.
But, if you had an amazing reputation for paying your debts, and get super low interest rates because of it, and all of a sudden you change your reputation and demand for holding your debt and currency goes down, well, then that's created a massive problem for the currency that reduces everyone's quality of life drastically.
why do we care? there are many other countries around the world that are much worse and we are not sending our soldiers to die there or spending billions of dollars bombing various islands and mountains to fertilize them for next harvest season
Imagine russia or china sponsoring and arming protesters in US. The last time US was actualyl attacked it put 120k japanese people into concentration camps just because they were japanese.
It's ironic that a country ruled by a pedophile and mass child murderer talks about how good or bad another country ruling class is. Wtf look at you own rulers and ruling class before worrying about what other countries rulers are doing. Most of you buy the bullshit of you being the good guys vs them being the bad guys there is no such thing.
Yea, I do wonder, why that might be? Why is a country 1500 miles away, that doesn't even share a common border, preoccupied with the destruction of Israel to the point it invested hundreds of billion of dollars in its offensive capabilities and network of proxies on every side of Israel, had a special paramilitary wing (Quds Force) for operations inside Israel, had a public clock counting down the existence of Israel and called for the destruction of Israel on each and every opportunity?
What's the obsession with the destruction of Israel? Could it be related to the fact that an Islamic Republic of (...) could not accept a Jewish rule right in the middle of the great Muslim Ummah?
Well, for starters just today they hit cental, civilian areas of Beirut with 100 attacks in just 10 minutes - killing more Lebanese civilians in ten minutes than Iran killed Israeli civilians in months of war. Absolutely vile, with clear genocidal intent, and with the aim of stealing Lebanese land.
You are ignoring the elephant in the room: Hezbollah was literally founded in 1982 under IRGC direction; 1,500 Revolutionary Guards deployed to the Bekaa Valley to organize and train it. It is arguably the most successful export of the 1979 revolution's "velayat-e faqih" ideology. So Iran colonized Lebanon.
Hezbollah formally accepts Khamenei as wali al-faqih the supreme juridical authority. That's not alliance, that's religious-political fealty to a foreign head of state.
Iran provides an estimated $700M–$1B/year, plus missiles, drones, training. Without Iran, Hezbollah's strategic arsenal doesn't exist.
It operates as a parallel state inside Lebanon (own military, telecoms, social services, foreign policy), displacing Lebanese sovereignty in the south and Bekaa.
You are ignoring the mammoth on the room: Hezbollah only even exists because of Israeli aggression; murder, rape, land theft, and as we saw yesterday, civilian massacres.
> So Iran colonized Lebanon
They haven't "colonised" anything, and, at best, it's disingenuous to describe training a resistance group as such.
> It operates as a parallel state inside Lebanon (own military, telecoms, social services, foreign policy), displacing Lebanese sovereignty in the south and Bekaa.
To claim the "officially recognised" Lebanese state is sovereign is utterly ridiculous! They are stooges, tasked with sitting back and doing nothing while Israel carries out ethnic cleansing and genocide. An MI6 front (Westminster Foundation for Democracy) even has an office inside the Lebanese parliament.
Turns out that if you take over a country's government and continuously carry out appalling attrocities against it's people for decades, they will resist.
"To claim the "officially recognised" Lebanese state is sovereign is utterly ridiculous"
Wow, this is quite a take. If Hezbollah doesn't have to respect Lebanon sovereignty
then why does Israel?
"Turns out that if you take over a country's government and continuously carry out appalling attrocities against it's people for decades, they will resist."
This is just a insane conspiracy theory. Hezbollah is the organization that actually partially took over the Lebanese government with Iranian help.
Hezbollah attacks Israel with absolutely no concern for the damage Israels counterattacks will do to Lebanon.
Israel would not be attacking Hezbollah if Hezbollah wasn't attacking Israel. Israel just wants to exist while Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran all want to destroy it. Don't expect Israel to just passively accept this. Try to imagine how the US would react to a Mexican cartel shooting rockets at El Paso. I couldn't feel sorry for that cartel when the US counterattacked.
Let me ask you a few questions
1) do you think Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran can defeat Israel with force?
The US and Israel have killed over 3,000 civilians in this war, mostly in Iran and Jordan. Iran has killed like 30. Their attacks are literally a hundredth of what they got and we're still trying to portray them as the bad guys. Don't get me wrong, Iran sucks, but not because of this
Iran has killed thousands of its civilians. The only reason it has only killed a few Israelis (excluding Oct 7) is because they can't easily get past Israeli defenses.
If what you said was true, we'd have seen many, many civilian deaths in Israel over the course of the war - there have, officially, been less than 50 (note that in the same time period Israel - which has targeted civilian infrastructure such as hospitals in Iran - has killed over 3,000 Iranian civilians!).
But what you're saying isn't true - any of it! Iran has been hitting military targets. And they've been using MIRVs, not anti-personell cluster munitions (you know, of the kind Israel has dropped over 1M of over Lebanon). MIRVs split into multiple, independently targetable missiles when high above ground near the target zone. Cluster munitions wait until they are only some meters above ground, and then explode into bomblets.
On April 6, as many as 50 sites were impacted by missiles and their cluster munitions.
“Iranian cluster munitions struck roughly 50 locations across central Israel, wounding at least six, including a seriously wounded woman in Petah Tikva and a moderately wounded man in Ramat Gan,”
Iran has focused on using cluster munitions in its ballistic missile salvos since the first two weeks of the conflict. However, the proportion of these munitions has increased. By March 10, Israel’s Home Front Command said that 50 percent of the Iranian missiles contained cluster munitions.
On April 1, The Times of Israel reported that “12 missiles carrying conventional warheads with hundreds of kilograms of explosives […] struck populated areas in Israel, causing extensive damage. There have also been more than 30 incidents of missiles carrying cluster bomb warheads hitting populated areas, with over 200 separate impact sites.” A ballistic missile attack on April 4, which led to at least 10 impact sites, illustrated how large an area can be affected by one missile with cluster munitions.
Iran is absolutely not using MIRVs. They are only used with nuclear warheads because they are very expensive. Iran is using good old fashioned cluster warheads where the bomblets are randomly dispersed, which is an evil weapon to use against civilians.
You are wrong[0], see Khorramshahr. Maybe Iran found ways to make them more easily produced. And there are videos where you can see missiles splitting into other missiles, some of which go in different directions.
As before, it's Apartheid Israel that uses cluster bombs (and white phosphorus too).
You are wrong if you think Iran is targeting each sub-munition of the ballistic missiles it is firing at Israel civilians. No country has ever used any ballistic missiles that has conventional MIRVs because it simply doesn't make sense.
Iran is far more of an apartheid state because Jews are considered to be Dhimmis and officially discriminated against. Dhimmi status is not equality. Recognized-minority status under the 1979 constitution comes with hard ceilings: Jews cannot hold senior military, judicial, or executive positions; inheritance law historically favored any family member who converted to Islam (a Jew converting could inherit the entire estate from Jewish relatives, a direct incentive structure against the community); testimony of non-Muslims is weighted less in court; blood money (diyya) was unequal until reforms in the 2000s. The reserved Majles seat is one out of 290, tokenism, not representation.
The funny thing is that many Sunnis don't consider Shia to actually be Muslims. Shia twelvers are obsessed with the 12th Imam who they think is still alive after 1150+ years while Sunnis don't care about this at all and consider the entire concept blasphemous.
It depends. If it later comes out that their nuclear material was secured by the US, this is much more acceptable - it would seriously incentivize pipeline construction by making passage through the Strait more expensive. Given that closing it is really the only lever Iran has that can put pressure on the US at all, this attenuates that a great deal.
It’s not acceptable on its face, but there’s a lot going on in this conflict that isn’t making the news.
Iran has also been freely bombing Israel and US assets around the Middle East. The Zionists bit off more than they could chew and now Iran is better positioned than ever before. Not only that Iran has earned a lot of respect globally and Israel/the US has lost what little they had left.
> Iran didn't escalate against anyone except their aggressors.
This is categorically false. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iraq, Qatar, (Kuwait,) even Oman and Turkey at various times, and Cyprus. Iran demonstrated superiority in only one respect during this war, and that was in recruiting otherwise well-meaning, levelheaded figures in media and government, even religious leaders, to spout incoherent nonsense as you did here.
Its neighbors are hosting US bases which were used to launch attacks on Iran. Bahrain in particular hosted the largest US radar station in the region which was being used as the control centre to coordinate the attack on Iran [1]. These countries were absolutely not 'non-aggressors'.
Doesn’t excuse bombing actual civilian targets, apartment complexes, &c, nor does it excuse executing peaceful domestic protestors - all of which this Iranian government has done.
Maybe if they, idk, stopped funding Hamas, Hezbollah, and Yemen rebels stopped trying to get a nuke, stopped stockpiling missiles for no reason and stopped chanting death to America we wouldn’t be here.
The Iranian government is terrible, but that doesn’t mean that the U.S. relationship with the gulf states isn’t worse off than in February. The United States made our alignment with Israel hard to ignore and was significantly unable to protect allied countries while drawing fire onto them. It’s entirely possible for both sides to lose a war and I’d bet we’re going to see enough of a shift away from us, likely to China, to solidly count this as a loss.
It hard to say which way this goes. It's a possibility. But China can offer even less protection than the US can.
We have seen that the US ability to project power is great. We've also seen (and I don't think anyone didn't know that) that power has its limits. Especially when it comes to fighting fanatics with nothing to lose.
The US is still the only world power that has the ability to e.g. prevent Iran from just walking in and taking the gulf countries. It's true that protection isn't hermetic.
But hermetic protection is REALLY important when your entire economy is based off of oil and water desalination plants. Iran still retains the ability to damage that infrastructure. The Gulf countries have some hard decisions to make, but I wouldn’t be surprised if several of them sprint closer to Iran. Already we are hearing of a joint Omani-Irani agreement on Hormuz administration…
But it's not new that there's no hermetic protection.
There is no real possible alignment between the regime in Tehran and the Sunni Emirates or Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. There is no way they are sprinting closer to Iran.
Oman is more complicated but they are also not going to align with Iran.
It's hard to evaluate but I don't see huge shifts from the gulf states. The US is still their best bet (not to mention that they are heavily invested in that). They have major investments that aren't oil, i.e. unlike Iran they can live very comfortably even if the energy sector is shut down. They prefer to make money from oil and gas but they also prefer a weaker Iran.
It's looking like more of the same and counting down to the next round.
> it's not new that there's no hermetic protection.
I think what new is the realization of Iran’s willingness to escalate.
> There is no real possible alignment between the regime in Tehran and the Sunni Emirates or Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. There is no way they are sprinting closer to Iran.
Can you please expand on that? I don’t understand why they couldn’t be aligned.
Basically they believe the rulers of the gulf countries should be overthrown and that those countries should be run by Islamic rules. So basically MBZ who rules the UAE (as an example) wants to keep ruling the country and strike some balance between economic prosperity and maintaining his rule while Iran would want to see him removed and his government replaced by a theocratic regime. Naturally the UAE also wants not to be bombarded by Iran but the personal survival of the UAE rulers is a bit more important to them than that goal.
> But China can offer even less protection than the US can.
I think a lot of those states are wondering how much protection they’d need if we weren’t based there and drawing fire. China can offer economic stability and sales of modern military equipment for self-defense, and I think the entire world is working through the implications of the United States allowing an unsound octogenarian to destabilize the dollar or declare a major war on a whim. There’s a lot to dislike about China but the gulf states aren’t exactly sticklers for democracy and stability is good for business.
> We have seen that the US ability to project power is great. We've also seen (and I don't think anyone didn't know that) that power has its limits. Especially when it comes to fighting fanatics with nothing to lose.
My unprovable pet theory is that the US would've had less black eyes if we didn't have incompetent people like Kegseth in charge, and especially if he hadn't been allowed to dismiss top brass across the military just because they were too woke/not "warrior" enough.
Hegseth didn’t help matters at all but the problem started at the top. In past administrations, the various people leading the military & State would’ve pushed back against Netanyahu/Graham’s sales pitch that it’d be an easy war, identified actual goals, and planned ahead to achieve them (e.g. assembling a coalition like their counterparts did against Iraq twice) but everyone with backbone or independence was purged under the Republican’s new unitary executive theory. Hegseth was selected because he would never say “sir, that’s a bad idea” as happened so many times during Trump’s first term.
Nobody is taking the side of the IRGC here, it's an awful regime that should fall in a just world. But it's inevitable they will retaliate against their neighbors, if their neighbors are complicit in attacking them. Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait are not innocent, they picked a side and are paying for it.
That’s fine just stop grandstanding about little ole’ Iran being attacked or civilians dying if you don’t care that innocent civilians in other countries are dying. When you do you are taking a side and suggesting Iran is the moral actor here. They’re not.
Lots of people here are taking the side of the IRGC. It's not ok to attack the civilians of the gulf countries because they are aligned with the US whichever way you look at it. Attacking US military assets are fair game.
Lots of people are taking the side of the US, which has attacked civilian infrastructure and killed civilians in Iran and threatened to completely destroy Iran. And you have lots of people taking the side of Israel, which is has been conduction a genocide openly. All the sides have blood in their hands but I would argue the IRGC has the least blood in their hands.
There is no data based view of this world where the IRGC and the Islamic Republic doesn't have the most blood on their hands and is the least moral player here by modern standards by far. Just in 1988 they executed 30,000 people. In 2025 at least 1000. In 2026 10's of thousands.
Dissidents are being hanged in Iran as we write this.
Israel has claims of self defense after being brutally attacked. The US has claims of wanting to take down the regime and prevent them from getting nuclear weapons. You can argue about claims and actions. The Iranian regime has no shred of excuse other than their total lack of humanity.
What in the world?? Iraq was a million civilians killed by the US. Gaza was 100,000 civilians killed by Israel in the last 3 years. And that’s not including all of the other atrocities committed by the two countries.
And there is no proof of the 10s of thousands of protesters killed claiming. That was just propaganda to enable this recent war.
Countries can claim this and that about defense and brutal attacks, and depending on who you are you believe the propaganda or not, but in the end what matters is the destruction and killing they do. Which US and Israel and done more of by a long shot.
I would still call countries that host a radar station non-aggressors as they were not active participants. Either way Iran was pretty selective in terms of its "aggressor" definition. It didn't attack Syria or Iraq despite those countries contributing their air space. It didn't really attack Turkey other than like 3 rockets that were shot down.
Clearly this was not about attacking someone that's attacking you or military assets. This was about leverage. Attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure of countries that are assumed to have some lever over the US to force it to stop while at the same time are too weak or too afraid to defend themselves (which is why you did not see the same scale of attacks e.g. against Turkey despite it also hosting the US). It's a tactic. It's also a war crime.
Russia is the aggressor there, and I don't recall Ukraine targeting other countries with Russian bases. Also, the war in Ukraine is about Russia expanding territory so it involved boots and occupation since day one, which is not the case in Iran.
At least there is an idea that at least one of the reason Russia attacked Ukraine was to prevent it from joining NATO, which would have enabled US military bases in Ukraine.
Probably a risk worth taking; defending a pipeline is much easier than escorting huge, slow-moving ships through a 24km-wide Strait laced with mines and peppered by artillery and missiles.
Pipelines can be protected. Just putting it in the ground for example. Or you build a "bomb" proof shelter over it - Iran's missiles are not bunker busters, we know how powerful they are and can design for that. Air defense systems are getting better too.
The US has mostly achieved their objectives (as best as I can tell - the strategy isn't exactly coherent) - Iran has much less missiles, and much less ability to produce them.
If there was any outside visible thread of reasoning for this war it was "Iran seems like it could have regime change" and I haven't heard anything saying they're more likely to have a different form of government.
I doubt the revolutionaries sympathizers within Iran liked their children being murdered or infrastructure getting destroyed. All the US has done is a repeat of the same thing they've done for half a century: start a war and immediately get more enemies within the middle east. Perhaps the only change is now the US's allies are distancing themselves faster and further than ever before.
There was a lot more - since mid last summer the US and Iran have been talking. There was some progress on nuclear issues. However Iran refused to discuss their ballistic missile program or funding for the likes of Hezbollah. Just based on that alone it is no surprise that the US got fed up. However you have to pay a little more attention to see that even though it is public.
Sometimes you want someone to do something, but you don't have authority to order them around, and you are bad at persuasion and dealmaking, so you don't get what you want.
If you're not ok with walking away at that point, maybe put a better offer on the table?
I fail to see a better offer. Support for those trying to kill jews is not something I can accept. I don't like any option for dealing with it, but walking away is still evil.
I can't speak for you, but for me, as a jew, killing innocent people just to get what you want is bad, even if they aren't jewish. Support for genocidal wars of conquest (like russia's and israel's) isn't something I can accept.
Additionally: supporting the killing of innocents, war crimes, genocide, etc, just because the perpetrators are jewish, is eviler still. Israel's actions make all jews (like myself) look bad, and puts us at risk around the world.
Maybe try diplomacy instead? And no, diplomacy doesn't mean "take our offer with no changes or we will kill you all". It means recognizing that israel isn't better than other countries, it means treating others as equals, it means you don't get to boss around co-equal countries, and it means giving first if you want to receive.
More accurate to say that the US is not willing to pay the price to achieve its objectives I think (depending on who/when you’re asking what exactly the objectives are of course).
Iran was little threat to the US before the US attacked. Now the US likely has earned itself more decades of terrorists, while simultaneously losing its military and political support from other countries.
If the US objective was self destruction or massive face plant, it is certainly getting closer to its objective.
It ignores we already had that, in 2016, with experts from all over the world doing inspections and agreeing it worked. Then Trump blew up the deal against the wishes of the rest of the free world, claiming he’d make a better deal, which he got zero from. Advisors, both hand picked and military, told him this would be the outcome, which he ignored.
We have not set their program to zero. They now have, and will continue to have, people trained in the knowledge of how to rebuild it. They now have massively more incentive to do so. Countries in the region now have more reason to help. Countries the world over have more incentive to contain US idiocy, as yet again we screw their economies for made up reasons.
As do their allies, and the raft of allies the US has lost over this idiocy will hurt US for decades, likely never to be repaired.
This is why Iran has won. The US has so destroyed brand US that it’ll never regain trust anywhere, economically, militarily, or morally.
> It ignores we already had that, in 2016, with experts from all over the world doing inspections and agreeing it worked. Then Trump blew up the deal against the wishes of the rest of the free world, claiming he’d make a better deal, which he got zero from. Advisors, both hand picked and military, told him this would be the outcome, which he ignored.
1) JCPOA was in effect for barely more than two years. Iran's nuclear work prior started way back circa 2000. It was killed before we can say anything about its effectiveness.
2) IIRC, JCPOA didn't prevent Iran from developing nuclear tech. It only limited capacity. They were free to do all the R&D they wanted.
3) Iran was doing weaponization work prior to the deal which they didn't disclose. So taking them at their word on the subject is probably not a good idea.
Trump pulling out from the deal was dumb, because it probably was slowing weaponization down, but the idea that the deal was stopping Iran from developing weaponization tech is not supported by the aims of the deal itself.
> We have not set their program to zero. They now have, and will continue to have, people trained in the knowledge of how to rebuild it.
Very close to it. Lots of facilities were destroyed, and I believe a majority of their scientists were killed.
> They now have massively more incentive to do so.
Debatable. I can see it going either way.
> Countries in the region now have more reason to help. Countries the world over have more incentive to contain US idiocy, as yet again we screw their economies for made up reasons.
Nearly all the countries in the region want Iran gone. They are a destabilizing force for all their neighbors.
> As do their allies
Iran has pretty much 0 official allies. Their only allies come in the form of "we hate the US too, so we will help you be a thorn in their side"
> This is why Iran has won
Won what? If that's winning, then I'll take losing.
> The US has so destroyed brand US that it’ll never regain trust anywhere, economically, militarily, or morally.
This remains to be seen I think. Honestly, if Europe kicks us out I'll be happy personally. I look forward to the day the US isn't running the oceans as a toll road for the globe and everyone handles their own backyards. I think we are far enough past WW2 that the world no longer needs a nanny.
4 years as an provisional deal was done earlier. All us intelligence agencies agreed and testified to congress that Iran was not working towards a bomb as Trump ripped up the agreement. They were all wrong or what?
>This remains to be seen I think. Honestly, if Europe kicks us out I'll be happy personally. I look forward to the day the US isn't running the oceans as a toll road for the globe and everyone handles their own backyards. I think we are far enough past WW2 that the world no longer needs a nanny.
Pretty rich to day this given what US is doing now.
You are ignoring the fundamental difference between the JCPOA's goals and the argument here. JCPOA was not a denuclearization agreement, it wasn't even a "no atomic bombs" agreement. All it did was limit centrifuge count, and enrichment density. Iran complying with those was mostly useless for the goal for the goal of preventing them getting an atomic bomb. It was effectively a stalling maneuver, one that would have partially expired last year.
Or it was working, as intel agencies seems to agree on, and set the stage for future agreements and getting Iran on a path of normalization.
Instead Trump ripped it up and then got involved in yet another useless zionist middle eastern war that only seems to have made Iran stronger and further destroying US reputation.
Comparing their progress towards building a bomb under and after the agreement? We know they followed the agreement with minor discrepancies, and when sanctions started they started breaking it. With no diplomatic agreement and sanctions in place what should Iran be doing? Might as well build a bomb then.
> Comparing their progress towards building a bomb under and after the agreement?
Well yeah, like I said, it was a stalling maneuver. It slowed things down.
> We know they followed the agreement with minor discrepancies, and when sanctions started they started breaking it. With no diplomatic agreement and sanctions in place what should Iran be doing? Might as well build a bomb then.
Well yeah, they were doing that before and during the JCPOA. Why wouldn't they do it after?
Maybe the US military is aiming for a greater level of confidence in order to say "definitely destroyed" than some random guy online needs in order to say "possibly destroyed"?
To whom, and to what? A military threat to the continental US, sure. To US allies in the region, and to the global economy, it appears Iran is a much bigger threat than we were lead to believe, and still are. If anything, they're justifiably more emboldened now than ever.
If you keep picking fights with someone don’t be surprised if they learn how to fight. There’s literally a line in Sayings of Spartans about teaching your enemy to fight by making war with them.
So far, Trump said that the Straight of Hormuz closed is cutting off China’s oil supply and isn’t important to the US, the US doesn’t need allies, but after Trump got zero help from Europe he then proceeded to ask China of all countries to help in the straight?!
Knowing people travelling near and through the Straight, Iran has all the cards. “Iran is of little threat” doesn’t hold water when the US can’t even send ships though to protect container ships
Depends on what you mean by "win". It would be possible to go in, topple the regime and secure the nuclear material. But only at astronomical cost and years of blowback
"Regime Change" has become a modern term for vassalization. We should not be surprised that countries with no reason to be a US vassal, and no long-term ties to the US refuse to remain vassals.
So then what would we achieve? nuclear material is cheap (10s of billions) relative to a multi-decade occupation (single digit trillions). It's undoubtedly true that Iran would revert to it's preferred form of government, geopolitical orientation, and nuclear capability once the US left.
Winning a war means achieving your political goals while preventing the enemy from achieving theirs. Most of the time, you've won the war when the enemy effectively admits they lost.
The lack of will to use sufficient force to win a war is fundamentally no different from not having that force in the first place. Both are equally real constraints on your ability to win the war.
How’d that plan work out in Iraq or Afghanistan, both much smaller, less armed countries? Decades and trillions spent, and what exactly did the US “win”?
Why would the US start this in the first place? Be assured that however this comes out, a “Truth” will be posted assessing it as the Greatest Deal Ever and a Total Win, end of story.
It’s been repeatedly stated by officials that we fought this war for Israel. We had nothing to gain and much to lose, and lose we did. Thankfully Israel also lost and I think this was their last chance at using the US as their attack dog.
People are looking for conspiracy theories when the truth is simple - trump did it because he thought it would be an easy quick win that will put him in the history books.
It’s not a conspiracy theory if Trump and all parties involved explicitly state this was for Israel. The simplest explanation is that they are telling the truth, which makes sense since the US had nothing to gain from this.
Netanyahu has wanted to do this for decades. If you rob a bank, you don't get to say "oh, well, my crazy friend down the pub has been saying we should rob a bank for ages, and I suddenly decided he was right"; you do have some personal responsibility.
Sidenote; there's this weird thing that people sometimes do wrt to Trump (and I think it's both his supporters and detractors to an extent) where they kind of treat him as if he's without agency, and stuff is just happening to him. I think it might be a kind of subconscious response to him being old and coming across as a bit senile, but it is nonsensical.
a major reason would be that they didnt think iran could selectively close the strait, and the intelligence about how not liking the current government is not the same as supporting the US
Because Trump is already facing a bloodbath in the midterms and his next step is either a ground war or dropping a nuke, and both of those will ensure he not only loses the midterms but has a legitimate shot at seeing the inside of a prison cell.
Because the escalation Trump was talking about would have wrecked the ME with Iran's retaliation on desalination plants, oil infrastructure, power plants, etc. Which would have been a massive shock to the global economy, along with a large humanitarian crisis inside of Iran and it's neighbors.
Not the military, the IRGC. Which is a religiously indoctrinated military.
So it would still be a theocracy, same as before, but now also run by people who are conditioned to believe that more violence is always a solution to any problem.
> Hegseth: "God deserves all the glory. Tens of thousands of sorties, refuelings, and strikes, carried out under the protection of divine providence. A massive effort with miraculous protection."
The old govt was about to be toppled by people sick of it. The US attack unified those people behind the leaders son, someone they’d not have taken before, and entrenched a new generation against the US. So far the carrot and stick has them openly mocking Trump and the US as Trump makes threat, draws line, folds yet again, repeats.
Sadly they have dropped requirements that Netanyahu be turned over to the ICC, but it's important to recognize that this ceasefire is between Iran and the US only and not necessarily a deal between Iran and Israel.
>> 1. Guarantee that Iran will not be attacked again
Hard for the Iranians to take anything the US says seriously. US launched attacks in the middle of the last two negotiations.
Yeah, it would be ridiculous that the IRGC terrorist regime, which fired super-inexact ballistic missiles that split to cluster bombs that spread in 70 parts on a 3 miles radius in residential areas, for a whole month, on a daily basis, would ask that someone _else_ will be held go to the ICC tribunal...
Do you have a source for this being the 10 points which form the basis of negotiations, rather than something released to the media to shape those negotiations?
I can’t accept the theocratic tyrants who implement terrorism, execute their own people and slaughter them as they protest remain in charge. They should be forced out of power.
I wonder if the US had struck when momentum was high during the popular uprising, it could have being self sustaining, with arms and logistics setup to feed the resistance advance.
Your post is ambiguous until the second part, FYI. In this conflict, it's a good idea to be clear on which nation you are talking about from the start.
The delusional idea that one can affect regime change through bombing is the cause of quite a bit death and destruction throughout the world.
Maybe the problem wasn't the timing, but the fact that thousands of people were killed and millions lived in fear for the future for the past month? That's enough to cause most people to stand behind their government, no matter how reviled they might be.
The second day of the war Israel gave everyone in Tehran a day-long oil shower. Imagine cleaning that out of your kid's hair, you're not going to overthrow the government that's shooting back.
The civilian casualties of the war is still significantly lower than the number killed by the regime (according to Amnesty International with conservative number). So while I agree that people don’t want bombing, I highly doubt that the war makes them like their oppressors. They love their country and Iran and islamic regime are not the same exactly.
The idea there was bombing to support the popular uprising that does the actual work. I think that might have been the fantasy here, too, but it seems like the window closed.
I'm not arguing that Iran has been executed well, but military force has topled MANY regimes. If you're arguing "bombs" specifically and only, the U.S. won the war with Japan by dropping just two big ones. If you'd like a more contemporary example: Libya, 2011. NATO’s campaign relied overwhelmingly on air and missile strikes, and NATO officially did not deploy a conventional foreign ground force. The regime was finished by Libyan rebel forces on the ground. This is likely the scenario Trump was hoping for.
Japan was on its last legs was and the US had already gone all-in with a war machine unlike anything seen before. At that point no one was going to lose elections about lost lives while invading Japan. The bombs were a time and life saving device. And the US army still had to actually occupy Japan after that (much smaller than Iran)
You may be right about the political challenges (and I'm neither arguing for or against them), I'm simply pointing out that the war was won with two bombs. Perhaps it was wise to station troops in Japan after victory, but I don't think it was necessary. Even if it were, the peacekeeping forces were far smaller and there was almost zero violence. This would be politically palatable to Americans.
Sorry I should have been more nuanced. Bombing can win conflicts but one thing is does not do is regime change.
I'd argue the occupation was necessary: The political system that led to militarism was still intact and there were still factions against surrender until the very end. It was regime change per se but a regime transformation and I don't think it would have been possible without an occupation.
I think that's fair. The leadership remained in power. However I would argue that in the case of Iran, Trump doesn't care if leaders remain in power, as long as they do what he wants. Specifically on uranium enrichment. I think he wanted to follow the Venezuela example, but this is not that.
This definition is perfectly congruent with a regime losing all autonomous power and becoming subservient to a foreign power. I would argue the U.S. "toppled" Venezuela's regime despite the existing party remaining in power. They do as they are told now.
There was, and still is, no scenario in which US and/or Israel attacks Iran and effects regime change. Come on, we've been over this multiple times over the past few decades.
Any direct military action will galvanize population against the existential threat, not against the tyrant who's still your countryman, no matter how rotten.
If they wanted true change, grassroots support was the only way. Was, because at this point more than likely any revolution has been pushed back by a few years at least, probably decades.
I see your point. You don’t think most Iranians want freedom from tyrants? I see 90% dislike the tyrants, and 80% want Trump to eradicate them. Leveling the field for the popular revolution I hope takes over.
Iranian here, no we don't want Israel and United States to bomb our children to "free us".
We already have 90M intelligent people in the country and can figure it out eventually.
We still has ways to go to develop, IRAN lacks some women's rights (however it's not as bad as people make it to be) and freedom of speech (similar to other Gulf nations). Most people have major grievances regarding the economy.
After the uprising of "Woman, Life, Freedom" in 2022, followed by the Mahsa uprising, the government started to loosen the Hijab laws for example. They stopped enforcing it severely (though they can change it at any time), the clerics have realized that theocratic laws will backfire with young people. I think the future of Iran is going to look like other nations, where religion becomes a "cultural thing".
The biggest blockers at the moment are sanctions and the ongoing issues with Israel.
We've survived for 3,000 years, we can survive for another 3,000 years without the help of US.
90m imbecilles that rather have sharia law and complete utter opression and deconstruction of the persian DNA. you are so full of shit its incredible, any iranian that took refugee in europe can contest your so full of propaganda shit.
Go die for allah that is what you love and 90m of your fellow brothers.
This is a very naive view. Things do not happen like that, especially in the Middle East, where killing a tinpot dictator just causes two more radical ones spring to usurp his place. We've been over this where US military interventions in this century alone caused ISIS to spread like wildfire, and make things worse long term in many of the countries affected.
I think some Iranians, perhaps even a vast majority of them, would like freedom from Khomenei, but the westerners have just conducted massive bombing operations, killing many innocent civilians at the behest of their mortal enemy Israel, so any freedom movements are at the very least very unpopular now, with people becoming radicalized by deaths of their loved ones, especially their children, pushing them into the arms of those in power, who can justifiably point and say "see? They are the enemy, not us!". One almost wonders if that wasn't also one of the goals of the invasion, preventing the formation of a secularized and stable Iran.
That’s OK, you may be right. And all my comments here on the Iranian situation may be wrong. Which is also perfectly okay because I don’t have to make any decisions affecting the Persian people.
Would you want Americans to take Trump down yourselves, or would rather China come and take him down for you? Iranians have as much agency as Americans do. Denying them that never ends well.
Exactly, but Hacker News is upvoting this because it wants the US to be seen as the loser of this conflict.
Both sides in a conflict (or any negotiation) make demands that they know the other will not accept. You can't just take someone's list like that and assume that'll be the exact outcome.
As does this one. The 10 points aren't the agreed-upon terms, though. The agreed-upon terms are: stop bombing for two weeks, and open the straits for two weeks.
hackers are often leftwing sweaty tryhards, obviously not all of them ;) but whatever, let them suck on those circumsized penis while the local paki rape gangs rule the streets of europe.
Spain has held a firm line, but even others such as UK/FR have allowed use of facilities or engaged their air craft carriers or facilitated US movements.
Not really practical to exempt Spain even if they wanted to, with Spain being within the EU and therefore able to freely move goods and services to other EU nations.
Cyprus/UK [0] faced attempted strikes; the UK is running defensive sorties for the UAE [1], Qatar [2], and Iraq [3]; and British bases in Oman and the UAE were struck [4]. France has done similar actions as well [5]. The UK and France have mutual defense pacts across the Gulf as well which they need to maintain.
Additionally, Ukraine has now begun providing defensive capabilities to the Gulf States, which Iran argues makes it an active combatant [6]. By this precedent the UK and France are also active combatants against Iran.
The reality is, the Iran War and the Ukraine War are tied to the hip. If defending Ukraine against Russian drone strikes conducted by Iranian ground troops [7] and using Iranian technology [8] is critical to European security, then ending Iran's tactical support is critical as well.
Ironically, this is probably great news for Ukraine. Russia's geoint support for Iran [9] has made it easier for my peers still on the Hill to make a case to double down and enhance American support for Ukraine, as well as pulling Gulf States who were previously neutral to supporting Ukraine as well [10].
This is also why Ukraine is calling out Russian disinfo ops about the war [11]. Iran has doubled down on similar information warfare [12] and hybrid [13] operations in the UK and Mainland Europe
Frankly, we need to call a spade a spade - the Ukraine War and Iran War have merged into a single transnational war.
If you support Ukraine you cannot support Iran, and this is Ukraine's stance as well [14][15][16][17][18].
> There is no particular reason to assume that the side you take in one conflict should have an impact on your stance toward another conflict
What you are describing is compartmentalization - something which you posited is false [0]
If Qatar and UAE's dual use infrastructure is within the rights of Iran to strike despite both having dealings with both Iran and the US and if Ukraine can be treated as a combatant by Iran [1], then this precedent holds for all of Iran given how they have aided and abetted Russia in Ukraine.
With the precedent Iran set against Qatar, compartmentalization no longer holds. And Ukraine's stance is that Iran is a terror state and an enemy of Ukraine [2], so frankly if you stand with Ukraine you also have to stand against Iran.
> Surely that has to be the default position. They all have a right to defend themselves and a valid claim for reparations.
Iran has been providing Russia ballistic missiles [3], drones [4], artillery [5], boots on the ground [6], ammunition [7], and other support against Ukraine.
If Iran deserves reparations from the US, then Ukraine deserves reparations from Iran. Yet Iran has doubled down in opposing Ukraine [1].
Look, if you continue down that road to GCC countries engaging Iran, then you have a multiparty nuclear armed conflict with combatants stretching from Europe to the Chinese border.
At that point it really does sound like ww3 started from the same causes as ww1 - nobody will win, nobody will know why they are fighting, and most of the fighting will be drones being slung over trenches.
> At that point it really does sound like ww3 started from the same causes as ww1 - nobody will win, nobody will no why they are fighting, and most of the fighting will be drones being slung over trenches.
Name me one war of aggression that ended up being a long term win for the aggressor.
The first time I saw a graph describing relationships between various factions in the Middle East was probably in the late 90s. I remember being amused by it. It turns out that if you are a region full of conflicts, the ally of your ally is often your enemy.
On the other hand, it should have been obvious. Real-world relationships are not transitive.
There is no particular reason to assume that the side you take in one conflict should have an impact on your stance toward another conflict. At least if you are not some kind of a rationalist who values logical consistency over practical implications.
Also, another question: Do you think that World War III or something close to a global conflict will start as you mentioned that the Ukrainian-Russo War and the Iran War "have merged into a single transnational war"?
My stance is the same as Fiona Hill (former Senior Director for Europe and Russia in the US NSC and now a Defence Advisor for the Starmer administration) [0] as well as Zelensky [1].
Frankly, Canada does not have the power projection capabilities needed for West Asia.
That said, Canada is best served protecting the Arctic, North Atlantic, and the North Pacific, all of which now face increased pressure from Russia and China, and threaten much of North America, Northern Europe, and Northern Asia.
This is also the stance of the Government of Canada [0][1]
Trump ensured that there is absolutely no reason for any nation, not just Iran, to believe what USA says in the future. No agreements/treaties with the USA can be trusted. And not just with Trump administration, since he demonstrated clearly that he can tear any treaty/agreement that was made under different administrations as well. The United States demonstrated that it has very, very limited control over the actions of an elected president.
Why would the US accept these terms? They could just keep crippling Iran’s infrastructure and fuel supply and more until their new leadership fractures. Is this entirely about midterm elections?
Their entire leadership, navy, airforce, petrochemical and steel industries as well as the entire supply chain for the ballistic and drones industries which is also a lucrative export to Russia.
I am not sure they "lost a little else". When looking at what the US lost, it's pretty small in comparison
Russia and China would likely disagree as they count their gains:
- yet another massive blow to their trust and reputation among allies
- again massively undermining NATO thereby fostering global instability
- weakened credibility vis a vis defending Taiwan
It's not a complete US success, but what the OP said was a huge understatement. Iran situation had gotten much worse during this war.
Regarding NATO, this is a European effort of undermining the alliance no more than it is the US.
Europe is rightfully saying that Ukraine is our, the entire western world, war.
However, when the US bombs the very factories that manufacture these drones used in Ukraine, and the nation that quite frequently kidnaps european citizens as political chips, the europeans say "this is not our war".
So this 10 point plan that was “not good enough” according to Trump on Monday 6th April, now as the deadline looms, it’s suddenly “a workable basis” for negotiations?
Frankly if Iran get nothing more than a complete lifting of sanctions this would be a massive climb down for the US.
Trump's rhetoric was all bluster, he actually had no leverage and was unwilling to pay the cost to continue the war (mostly in terms of cost to himself). He needed an offramp and this was it.
To summarize: a far worse deal than what Obama had and Trump ripped up, and worse than the status quo that existed before Trump started illegally bombing Iran.
There is a reason Trump had to be saved over and over during his 'career'. Extreme incompetence + clinical narcissism = "I am a winner". This conman and more importantly the powers that prop him up have been very costly for the world, including the USA, and it is about time to hand the bill to MAGA.
Rednecks gonna redneck, the USA clown show has some very determined sponsors, so I don't count on any improvement, but I prefer they at least enjoy their party indoors.
Iran if they have any sense should be prepared for a massive self defense and counter attack. "Talks" from the USA and Israel have a precedent of being attacks and invasions.
If there's one thing that's pretty clear, it's that the Iranian government is quite aware of this and of how the US acts. The US government, on the other hand, seems oblivious to anything about how the Iranian government acts.
The US government seems to be pretty oblivious to how it itself acts, expecting them to understand another country's motivations is so many steps beyond that.
I am honestly surprised and shocked to admit but Iran is the sanest and least immoral side in this conflict and it's not because my views of Iran improved or changed much. I couldn't imagine I'd be saying such a thing a few years ago.
Are Israeli concerns the axis around which the world must revolve? In any case they can keep busy ethnically cleansing south Lebanon and murdering Palestinian children.
Do you think only the Israelis are pissed about the Iranians funding the Houthis and Hezbollah?
The Saudis were at war with the Houthis for several years, Hezbollah assassinate Lebanese politicians and repeatedly starts wars that nobody else in Lebanon wants, which also includes intervening in the Syrian civil war on behalf of Assad and starving out Syrian villages. Ask the Syrians how they feel about Hezbollah.
No, what I think it really tells you is that these just Iran's proposal. So far as I know, the US (and Israel) have not actually agreed to these.
I've seen several posts here saying that they have, but what I haven't seen is any evidence or links. Until I do, I reserve the right to believe that the US has not actually agreed to Iran's plan.
But my (grandparent) post was off. If these are Iran's proposed points, of course they're going to say that Israel stops attacking Hezbullah but that Iran is free to keep arming them.
It's not oblivious. It's more willfully ignorant. Even that is not right. Most people are just so anti-America and anti-West that they side with actual despots and choose to believe strange things. If we send 10,000 bombs to Iran and lose an F-16E and have to search for a pilot for a few days, these people believe this means Iran has won the war. If China puts a balloon on our coast, these people believe China has defeated us militarily. I responded to a post the other day where someone was claiming Cuba could "easily" neutralize the entire U.S. Navy with a handful of drones or something.
> If we send 10,000 bombs to Iran and lose an F-16E and have to search for a pilot for a few days, these people believe this means Iran has won the war.
Is your objective just sending 10k bombs to Iran?
If your objective is death, then yeah, the US won. Enjoy the all that death, because seemingly it's all it got from the war. Double points for the exploded schoolgirls, perhaps?
It would confirm that the US is truly a vile country. Not to anyone's surprise, really.
If they would read the actual news the ceasefire is contingent on immediate opening of the strait. That’s the deal, open the strait and the bombing stops while we negotiate over the next two weeks.
I don't think this ceasefire is going to last as long as people think. It just gives a chance for everyone to bury the dead, resupply, rearm and continue the war.
By that logic, the US and Israel should have never offered a ceasefire and stuck to the regime change narrative. Accepting a ceasefire shows that America was never serious about controlling the Strait, and passes the initiative back to the Iran/China axis instead of straining it through a joint blockade. The tactics make zero sense, considering the objectives laid out at the start.
It's been weeks of war, America should have something to show for it. Right now, Iran has successfully used America's offer as a way to muzzle Israel in Lebanon and muster their own strength with Russia and China. Even from a Zionist perspective, this is a terrible result.
It passes Iran the initiative. Since the beginning of this war the onus has been on America and Israel to apply pressure and make Iran sue for peace. In terms of controlling the ground, the mass and structure of Iran's forces are nearly the same as when they started. There was no assistance from the Kurds, there was no coordinated multilateral assault with America's allies, nothing happened. Iran can regenerate their proxies and seek assistance while stringing America and Israel along on a proposal they won't sign.
From a strategic perspective America needs to deprive Iran of their allies. If they are serious about fighting this war, a line has to be drawn with Russia and China that prevents them from providing world-class reconnaissance. China particularly has to be economically sanctioned for their assistance, but the US Navy let them sail their tankers right through the Strait without a single PLAN vessel nearby. Opening the strait weakens Russia's (already battered) share of oil exports while rewarding China for supporting Iran and condemning the US. It's stupid.
From where I'm standing, last week would have been a great time for a Shock and Awe campaign to finish this off and make it a tidy weekend war for the folks back home. But we saw none of that, instead America is ostensibly cutting it's losses and (reportedly!!!) entertaining the same 10-point plan that concedes Iran's nuclear program and missile program to them.
Because it's becoming another Middle East quagmire which the American public has very little patience for, and it's bad for Wall Street, bad for prices at the pump, and bad for the global economy.
Do you understand how escalation works? US policymakers have discussed this for literal decades at this point, I'm shocked that we have to reiterate this.
Neither America nor Israel are willing to put boots on the ground. The bombing campaign failed, the naval campaign did not secure the Strait of Hormuz, and the enriched nuclear material is not going anywhere. If the war continues to escalate, America and Israel will be directly blamed for the humanitarian consequences of desalinization, ammonia and nitrogen plants being attacked. They cannot alleviate these issues with a air war, so they have to sue for peace or commit to a real invasion. Thus, the escalation ladder entirely belongs to Iran, they decide what the US and Israel coalition bleed for.
It's why the US threatened civilian infrastructure; they ran out of leverage. The stated goals were not attained, the home front in Iran is not divided, the China/Russia support axis is not disrupted, and America's allies won't fight alongside them for Israel. It's over, this is the damage control phase for both sides.
It is not pedantic. You said that Iran funded terrorism “across Europe”. When asked for sources, half of what you provided was not relevant to the statement. I surmise you are arguing in bad faith.
Every state involved here is a sponsor of terrorism. If we had a real global liberal order all of their leaders would be in the Hague . There's only one directly doing genocide with expansionist ambitions, so I'm going to root against that one.
lol at directly, meanwhile the houthis literally have “Death to America Death to Israel Curse on the Jews” written on their flag. You sure can pick the good guys.
The indirect perpetrator I was implying was the US. Saying "death to America/Israel" isn't doing a genocide, even if the words really really hurt your feelings.
The bus supposedly only had Israelis. Israel attacked a neutral country Qatar with a missile to eliminate some supposed enemy agent to a civilian building, so I don't think they have any problems with this.
It's disheartening to hear people talk about this in terms of won and lost. Is that how you think of these events? I think of them in terms of sadness and horror. The US threatened to obliterate a country and people, because gas was getting a little expensive. If winning and losing is the way you are framing this, instead of thinking about the humans that these actions affect, then we all have lost.
That doesn’t align with the perspective of actual Iranians I know.
There are news reports of Iranian expats and opponents within Iranian who are disappointed with the ceasefire. They wanted trump to go further and destroy the regime.
That aligns with conversations I’ve had with Iranians friends in the US and family members within Iran who want the regime destroyed so there is a chance of removing the Islamic theocracy that governs the country currently.
My general impression is many people want the regime destroyed, which seems clear from talking to people but also just all the protests. I haven't asked but I'm skeptical they are for things like attacking of every bridge, railroad, and power plant (which are important civilian infrastructure). The threat was specifically that their "whole civilization will die tonight"
I will tell you exactly what my Iranian wife said when I asked her about people congregating on the bridges after Trump said he’ll bomb them: she said (paraphrasing) “bomb them, they’re all regime supporters”.
The country is basically on the verge of civil war. The reason it’s not is because the anti-regime forces are disorganized with no clear leader, have no weapons, and rely on internet to organize.
With all due respect to you and your Iranian wife, just because someone has these views, does not mean that it represents the majority of the people of Iran. I am also Iranian and find support for war crimes, even if you disagree politically with the victims, to be horrendous.
That’s fair! I would love to hear your thoughts as an Iranian.
My only goal has been to surface conversations I’ve had with actual Iranians. I think that’s been missing from these Internet conversations, and I think it’s really helpful that people know what actual Iranians think.
Otherwise, you fall into the funny situation like what happened with Maduro, where Internet commentators were upset, while ordinary Venezuelans (and expats) were celebrating.
War crimes as a concept was invented by the current US hegemony to punish others, not to be bound by.
I think about it this way: would I have had any problem with the allies bombing Nazi rallies, even though they were mostly civilians? My answer is absolutely not. I feel the same way when I see pro-Islamic regime or pro-Hezbollah rallies. In fact, I think the limited repercussions for these extremist civilians - and their very tangible support for the regimes - is what keeps these movements alive and powerful. Cost to civilizations - military and civilian alike - is what ends wars.
"Corruption" is all but meaningless. It happens in every society and the only people that get prosecuted for them seem to be people outside the elite. /s
I don't think holding such views is helpful.
Besides, a few people have been prosecuted for war crimes while being on the winning side (or by their own side), some examples:
William Calley (US), convicted for his role in the 1968 My Lai massacre, in which American troops killed hundreds of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians.
Donald Payne (UK), for abuse and death of an Iraqi detainee.
Charles Graner (US), sentenced to 10 years in prison for the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.
However, we can agree those are very few and far between, compared to all crimes committed. But it's more useful to condemn them and advocate for more accountability than to claim it's useless anyways and normalize calls for more crimes.
But the huge disconnect between what people call war crimes and what actually gets prosecuted makes the term meaningless.
If you go by the definition used in online discourse, every US President this century would be prosecuted for them.
There is using nerve gas on children and there is posting a picture of Maduro in hand restraints and a blindfold. Both receive the equal screech of “war crime” by keyboard warriors.
> censorship [...] that prevent people from hearing all perspectives
A casual conversation is not to be held to the rigour of legal or legislative opinion. But perspectives, like other sorts of opinions, are not all equal in value.
Some opinions are just noise and there is no value in "hearing all the perspectives" from sources that have no interest in even trying to think things through.
The worst opinions are calls to violence -- that lead to actual violence in some cases -- from people who incur zero risk from their extremism.
Idle statements about bombarding civilians, flattening countries, committing war crimes, "sending countries back into the Stone Age where they belong", are examples of arm-chair blather from people of whom the best we can say is that they have never lived under bombardment nor served in a time of conflict in any capacity whatsoever.
I still think it’s valuable to hear Iranian voices during this conflict.
I’m definitely not saying you have to follow through on what they say!
But it’s valuable to see where people are emotionally. Because when I asked my wife and she essentially said “bomb the regime supporters” it says a lot about where anti-regime Iranians are emotionally.
It also helps people understand why anti-regime Iranians have been pro Trump during this conflict.
Keep in mind that my wife is from Tehran, and has a huge network of family in Tehran. This isn’t some abstract thing to her. And it’s consistent with the other expats I know who want continued pressure on the regime.
Yes, many Iranians want regime change, but that's not going to happen by bombing everything in the country, and Trump isn't willing to send troops. I'm not sure what your point is actually.
I was responding to a comment about bombing bridges.
I quoted an actual conversation i had with an Iranian where they said essentially “go ahead and bomb the bridges”. That got flagged for some reason.
I’m simply trying to surface conversations I’ve had with Iranians. So often these Internet conversations occur in a bubble.
My point? I guess there’s this idea that Iranians are disgusted with Trump’s comment today. That hasn’t been my experience at all. My wife is Iranian. I’m connected to a large Iranian expat community. They are very pro Trump because of the war. The initial reaction I saw was disappointment with the ceasefire. They want continued pressure on the regime, and they feel that a cease-fire works against that.
You often find expat communities have the exact opposite viewpoint as those that remain, part of the reason they are expats. See cuban expats, nicaraguan expats, not to say they are wrong but they are not a monolith representing all of a civilization. Presumably those standing around the bridges don’t want them bombed.
I’m just giving my personal experience as a data point.
All my in-laws are in Tehran: aunts, uncles, cousins. Everybody is anti-regime.
It’s hard for us to understand in the west. Speaking out against the regime is not possible.
These people who congregated on the bridges were phoned up by the regime as a marketing stunt. Perhaps they were family members or friends of the IRGC. Perhaps they were forced to go, because you can’t say no to the regime. They hang protesters.
I saw someone in another thread compare it to the USSR. Or maybe North Korea.
I’m not saying that there aren’t regime supporters, there definitely are. But you have to be very suspect whenever you see videos of “grassroots” supporters of the regime and remember that opposition voices are not allowed.
It's not because you've found an Iranian that wants their country destroyed that this is the right thing to do.
All military experts agree that bombing a country isn't going to trigger a regime change, and it hasn't so far after weeks of intense bombing. So the answer should be, keep bombing more things and target civilians?
Besides, the Iranian expat community is also a bubble, maybe not representative of the ones who are actually bombed.
Uh no, your wife said to bomb the civilians on the bridges, because they're regime supporters. Clearly advocating for a war crime, so who gives a shit that she's an Iranian expat? No wonder it was flagged.
You have to be very suspect of “grassroots” supporters of the regime in these videos.
Another thread compared it to the USSR. Or maybe North Korea.
Opposition voices are not allowed. Protesters are hanged.
When the regime tells you to go to the bridge for a marketing stunt, you go.
I’m absolutely not saying that I believe they should be bombed!
I’m just trying to share the perspective of actual Iranians. To you, my wife wants to bomb civilians. To my wife, these are just marketing stunts that are fully orchestrated by the regime.
I gotta say, that's really fucked up. Like, I'm Russian, I hate what Russia is doing, I think support for Putin in Russia is far higher than it has any right to be, but I'd never casually throw out a "bomb them all, they're all complicit." I think people with these sorts of opinions need therapy.
The other side (regime) publicly state “execute them all” and the response is “bomb them all”. To be clear, I’m not agreeing with the sentiments and agree that bombing the infrastructure is awful, just stating my observation of the state media vs opposition voices.
even Putin’s FSB with all its arbitrary arrests and torture in jail is very very far away from public lashing and hangings, from using actual children in real fighting (beyond kindergartens dressed as tanks which is disgusting but different than sending kids to demine fields or be used as human shields). The scale of torture and jailing is also different with Iran probably being closer to Stalin’s 1937.
My impression is that Iran is much closer to a civil war than Russia is. It’s very polarized.
You have to put yourself in the mindset of someone against the regime. They feel that their country was hijacked by an islamic theocracy.
This is a regime that forces little girls to cover their body. Dancing and singing in public is illegal. Protesters are hanged.
My wife was sent home from school as a kid because her headband didn’t properly cover her forehead. At the age of 30 my wife still has trouble wearing shorts because she is self-conscious about showing her legs.
This is the kind of mental trauma that women have to recover from after leaving Iran. And I’ve only skimmed the surface.
There is zero sympathy from the anti-regime side for those who support the theocracy.
> At the age of 30 my wife still has trouble wearing shorts because she is self-conscious about showing her legs.
Just as an extra data point: I (a man) still feel weird about going running with a tank-top, because nearly 3 decades ago at a gym in Turkey I was politely asked to cover my shoulders.
I'm sure she and other Iranians have endured far far worse; my only point is that "Is uncomfortable showing skin" isn't necessarily evidence of that, as it doesn't necessarily take much to trigger.
I get what you’re saying, but if you’ve ever met someone who has grown up in an extremely religious environment, then you know what I mean.
Inculcating into young girls (and boys to some degree) that their bodies are shameful, sex is shameful, hell is real and waiting for them if they disobey, causes lifelong mental trauma.
It’s not unique to Islam. I’m sure there are extreme versions of Christianity and Judaism that also make women feel ashamed of their bodies.
Sure but that response about the people is entirely ignoring the vastly larger issue of does she (or, more importantly, people actually in Iran) want every single power plant bombed because that is what the threat was (also all bridges and some railroads). This is talking about the country being without power and stable food or water infrastructure for the foreseeable future and a lot of normal people dying (not particularly regime supporters)
My impression is that people don’t take Trump‘s words literally. Trump often exaggerates and plays word games. If you take every statement from Trump literally you’re going to be constantly triggered.
But even so, I think the response you’ll get from most anti-regime Iranians is “go for it, if it may let us get our country back”.
Iranians who wants the regime overthrown are very conflicted right now. They see their country being destroyed, but they also hate the regime and want a revolution.
They literally feel that their country was hijacked by an Islamic theocracy. They want that destroyed, so they’re thankful that Trump is attacking it.
How far should Trump go? I just saw news reports that Iranian expats and anti-regime Iranians were disappointed with the cease-fire. That aligns with the initial reaction from my family and the Iranian expats that I know.
So it’s a complicated answer… Do Iranians want all their infrastructure destroyed? If it would guarantee the regime was defeated I think most would say yes.
I have never seen any diaspora have more contempt for their own people than Iranians. Thankfully more recent diaspora in the US are both more level-headed and diverse (coming not just from Tehran and a few other major cities but many other places and ethnic groups). I know an Azeri Iranian who was nothing but contempt for the regime (especially after thousands of protesters were murdered) but is horrified by what the US/Israel has been doing.
Diaspora communities are never representative of their home country. This is something I know from my own community, since selection bias leads to a very particular (and privileged) set of people with the means to emigrate, almost universally from a single ethnic group that is less than 11% of the total population. Perhaps you should consider whether the Iranians you know are representative of the Iranian population as a whole.
I would agree that there is some bias amongst expats, I think that’s a fair point.
I think saying diaspora “never represent” their home countries is an exaggeration.
All the Iranians in the US I know are first generation immigrants who have been here maybe 5-20 years. I’m not talking about second generation Iranians. They all still have family in Iran. And their views do not differ from their family.
My mother-in-law is the most anti-regime person I know, and she lives in Tehran. A bomb recently exploded nearby and broke all the windows in her house. But life goes on, Iranians are extremely resilient.
> All the Iranians in the US
Maybe thats the only demographic in the US? They are anti-regime and must clear interview at US consulate, can't exactly get into US if you are pro-regime?
No, she’s not a monarchist, and she’s actually very uncomfortable with people referring to “prince” Reza Pahlavi.
I think she understands that every movement needs a leader, so she’s ok with Mr. Pahlavi leading that, i.e. a constitutional assembly. But beyond that she doesn’t recognize the monarchy
That's much better then. And I personally am just very wary of any entity claiming they will "just" be a king for a while and cede power given how dictatorial the last pahlavi was.
This is what a lot of diaspora are like when a country has had a western friendly puppet regime overthrown.
The people who left tend were often in a privileged position under the previous regime and the bitterness at having their privilege revoked often echoes through the generations.
They might feign concern for human rights when the regime they hate is violating them (i saw a lot of that when the alleged killing of tens of thousands of protestors) but it's the bitterness of lost privilege which truly drives them.
Ive seen it with Cubans, Venezuelans, Angolans, even the odd Russian.
I’m just giving my personal experience as a comparison.
I have not met a single Iranian expat who was in a privileged position. All the Iranian expats I know are in their 20s and 30s and were just very lucky to get a visa, many in the Obama years. I suppose there were some changes during Obama that allowed more Iranians to immigrate?
For my wife, her family is actually very anti-monarchist. Exactly because of the feeling that there were privileged and unprivileged class during the Shah monarchy.
My wife grew up middle/lower middle class in Tehran and did not have any privileges in life. She was lucky to get a visa to the US, worked 2 jobs + odd jobs all through college to afford it. Constantly scrounging and networking to survive.
That’s why I love first generation immigrants. I think they’re the hardest working, most resilient people you’ll ever meet.
Your wife doesnt live in iran im assuming? She wont risk her child being killed in preschool by a tomahawk, or having to live without electricity or transportation or drinking water because trump bombed it?
As someone from and in a thirdworld country, these expats can be even more arrogant and psychopathic than the imperialists they live under
My in-laws all live in Iran. My wife has many aunts, uncles, and cousins. I don’t even know how many people - it’s probably 20 to 30 people at least. All in Tehran.
My mother-in-law is the most anti-regime person I’ve met.
I have friends in the US that want the US government destroyed, there are people in the southern US that think the south won the civil war. Who cares?
Every government in all of human history has had its detractors and supporters, more detractors probably exist in expatriated communities, their existence does not really prove anything.
the no kings movement draws a line between no kings in the USA, and leaving other countries to pursue the same.
didn't Donald Trump campaign on no more foreign wars? doesn't America First mean not starting some forever war?
and if there is a good case for intervention: then make it! what are the objectives? Regime change? we killed most of their leadership, and they are still running the show. We killed Osama... and then fled Afghanistan decades later. why is there such a short memory in this case? these dudes HATE US: their recruiting propaganda gets more effective with every bomb we drop on them.
and if regime change is so important, than surely we will invade North Korea next right? and Russia? what about them? how about Venezuela? ohhh, yeah we left the regime in place, with no change for the people living under it.
perhaps was controlling oil the key objective? well... we stopped sanctioning the Iranian regime, and they are still in a position to stop traffic in Hormuz: the current terms they are asking gives them more control over the strait, rather than less?
so what the hell is our objective? can we just admit that we have no idea what we're doing, because we have no strategy?
Be an apologist for something that isn't truly riddled with internal inconsistency.
I’m not sure what your point is. Are you suggesting that anti-regime Iranians are a minority?
I’m not sure if we have good statistics on this. So everyone may have a different perspective.
All I can say is this: I’m married to an Iranian woman, and through her I’ve met many Iranian expats, and I’ve talked to her family members within Iran.
I think you’ll find that Iranian expats are pretty unanimously against the regime. That’s millions of Iranians. My in-laws who lives in Tehran are anti-regime, along with every single person on my wife’s side of the family: aunts, uncles, cousins. Everybody.
Thousands of protesters were killed opposing the regime. And that’s just the latest protest.
This is a regime that will kill women who don’t cover their hair correctly. Dancing and singing in the street is illegal.
Don’t be concerned on behalf of the regime. This is a just war supported by Iranians. You are on the right side of history to kill people who hang protestors and force little girls to cover every part of their body.
>That’s millions of Iranians. My in-laws who lives in Tehran are anti-regime, along with every single person on my wife’s side of the family: aunts, uncles, cousins. Everybody.
How do you square this with the absolutely massive pro-government rallies that we've seen all across Iran for the entire duration of the conflict? Millions of Iranians opposed to the regime, in a country of 90 million+, might still be a fringe minority.
If you asked some American expat their thoughts on MAGA, and they responded "China should bomb MAGA rallies so we can be free from the Republican party, my whole family in the US agrees".....that person would be considered a fringe lunatic, even if Trump's regime has record-low approval like it does now (and rightly deserves, I hope he is impeached and jailed).
In a country of 90 million, if the regime has 20% supporters, that’s 18 million supporters.
Tehran population is 9 million, 20% of that is 1.8 million.
So it’s easy to understand why you might see videos of hundreds or thousands of regime supporters in the streets. That doesn’t mean they’re the majority.
Maybe they should go be the boots on the ground for the next quagmire if it's so important to them? Commander in Chief Bonespurs and the Secretary of Booze can lead the charge straight up the Straight.
Or maybe they should just focus on being Americans in America and some day Iran will sort itself out without the US' "help".
why do we have a moral obligation to help? and why them? there are many places on Earth with a lot worse situation for citizens than Iranians, do we have a moral obligation to help everyone and prioritize?
again, why do we care? about this region in particular. and for whom
would it be “game-changing” other than Israel?
> we have to be pragmatic and choose our battles
this sounds very far removed from “we have a moral obligation”
bottom line, we should not give two shits about what is happening there and we even went voting for a candidate who told us he’ll be the one to make sure we don’t give two shits about it except of course he turned out to be worse than all previous ones combined :)
Surely you can steel man this yourself. Iran wants nukes. Iran has stated it would like to destroy the US and Israel. Israel is an outpost of Western democracy and our ally. Iran has missiles that can reach Europe. Iran is an ally of Russia and China. Iran wants to control the passageway for a big chunk of the world's oil. Cooperation between Israel and its neighbors would be a great asset to the world economy.
This is not comprehensive and maybe you can quibble with some of it, but it is not mysterious why we might care.
>Israel is an outpost of Western democracy and our ally.
The former is a meaningless characteristic when said democracy commits a genocide and runs an apartheid state (hard to deny with the recent capital punishment law exclusively for Palestinian prisoners). Hardly model behavior for anyone else in the region to emulate. The latter is meaningless since this ally only ever drags us into problems, almost all of which are of its own making.
> Cooperation between Israel and its neighbors would be a great asset to the world economy.
It's easier to cooperate with your neighbors when you stop squatting on their territory, or stop massacring them.
>but it is not mysterious why we might care.
I think "people who care" should volunteer to serve in the IDF, and leave the rest of America out of it. Kinda like the various low-friction pipelines for people to go fight/die for Ukraine without committing US Service Members to such a wasteful endeavor.
I'm well aware of the insane perspective of Iranian monarchists in America. Frankly it's not really their fault, American interventionists have pushed them into this brainrot.
But having an opinion doesn't make it a good opinion and there is no way to say "please get my grandmother's blood on your hands for my insane vision of Iran" sanely.
Thanks, I hadn’t seen that article before. Interesting read.
My take is that GAMAAN likely overstates the opposition, but all surveys on Iran are imperfect, not just GAMAAN.
I know Pew has done surveys in Iran, but didn’t directly ask if people support the regime.
I personally believe that the opposition group is larger than the regime supporters. I think there’s enough data to infer that.
But I’ll also admit that there’s probably a sizable percentage of ambivalent/non-revolutionary Iranians who would just be satisfied with a better economy.
I trust the people who are close to this more than what you hear on the news. My guess is 90%+ of the readers here know nothing of Iranians except what they read or hear on the news.
How many of you have been to Iran, have family members there, etc? I'm guessing very few.
And a significant portion of the opposition wish he was dead.
It’s not about “minority vs majority” it’s the very biased phrasing of “we should bomb Iran because people want regime change” Imagine if Iran was bombing USA because the majority of Americans want regime change.
I understand the desire to end that murderous regime. If I were Iranian, I'd want to see it ended too. But do they really think bombs will achieve that? More importantly, would more bombing actually bring the regime down?
Regimes rarely fall because civilians are reduced to searching for food and water. Destroying Iran's infrastructure would be more likely to produce desperation and disorder than revolt. It would hurt the weakest most, not those closest to the regime and best positioned to shield themselves from scarcity.
If outsiders want to help bring the regime down, supporting opposition forces would at least make more sense than bombing civilians into misery.
This is where not betraying the Kurds (several times) would have come in handy...
I don’t think civilians are being bombed into misery. My in-laws live in Tehran.
During the entire war, life goes on. The bakeries are open. They go about their life. My in-laws were driving back-and-forth across the city throughout the entire war. They recently bought a fridge.
They were seeing bombs and smoke from the city, sure. But it’s like living in uptown Manhattan, and seeing smoke come from the financial district. It doesn’t really affect your life, although it may be scary.
Only after a month of war did a bomb finally go off in their neighborhood. The shockwave
broke the windows in their house. But the Red Crescent was in the neighborhood to support.
I agree with you that arming the opposition is probably the best move. All I can say is that whatever we’ve been doing the last 40+ years has accomplished nothing. Anti-regime Iranians want action.
Is this iranians in iran or the diaspora? If its people in iran then theyre walking the walk which is admirable. If its the diaspora then theyre psychopaths for sacrificing innocents for government change in a country they dont live in
I have a serious problem with calling 100+ schoolgirls who - at best - got instantly dismembered by a bomb and didnt suffer (too much) and at worst were crushed to death or bled out from shrapnel wounds "evil"
I was referring to the US government verus the Iranian government. People think its good v evil but thay bombing and the double tapping shows it might be evil v evil
Obviously no one is calling the victims evil. You have to suspect thats a misinterpretation if thats what you get from a comment
> They wanted trump to go further and destroy the regime.
It would require a large scale ground operation which is off the table. A few more weeks of air strikes would not have destroyed the regime anyway but a few more weeks of asymmetric strikes (when Iran strikes its neighbors because it can do little about the US/Israel) would have destroyed gulf oil infrastructure inflicting lasting economic pain on the whole world.
That's what I hear, but it seems like pure desperation. The reality is, Israel calls the shots here, and they aren't interested in a regime change that would strengthen Iran in the long term. They weren't happy with Pahlavi either.
I’ve never seen an example when foreign news really reported what people think on the ground. Especially because people on the ground usually lie. For example in Hungary, the voters of the current “opposition” prime minister candidate would tell you that they vote for him because they want democracy. Yet, they haven’t cared about that for more than a decade. Even when the real reason: inflation was obvious that it would be enormous after the election in 2022, before the previous election. The same with the US, news across the pond doesn’t explain why people vote for Trump, I had to go to the US several times to figure that out.
They really don't know with Iran. It's illegal to protest the government there, and at the same time US and UK propaganda says everyone there wants to overthrow their govt.
Destroying infrastructure and making live hell for normal people does not remove the regime. When will people learn that air-wars don't magically change governments?
Also, the Iranians you likely hear, are not representative. I don't think most people who depend on energy and water don't want that infrastructure destroyed.
> There are news reports of Iranian expats and opponents within Iranian who are disappointed with the ceasefire. They wanted trump to go further and destroy the regime.
That's the diaspora's luxury. They don't have to endure the pain of the conflict or sanctions, and they always end up being the biggest hardliners for that reason.
Was one of them BBC, who quoted one Iranian resident as saying they were ok with the US nuking Iran, and then quietly removing that bit from the quotes with no note that the article was edited?
Those news reports must be so trustworthy (!). They drunk the kool aid and propaganda just like Iranians of the opposite idea. But the difference is your Iranian friends probably never lived in a day in Iran.
> There are news reports of Iranian expats and opponents within Iranian who are disappointed with the ceasefire. They wanted trump to go further and destroy the regime.
Iranians hoping that war and death will save them are chasing a gruesome mirage. The US has successfully liberated exactly one country by regime change since 1945: Panama in 1989. Every other intervention has either supported a rebellion (secession) instead of a revolution, or it has ended in failure (Afghanistan, Vietnam, Somalia) or a prolonged civil war (Iraq, Libya, Yemen). Anyone hoping for such a fate to befall their own country is morally compromised.
Looks like an interesting article, but it’s paywalled. Would love to read it. Do you have a different link or can you summarize it?
From my conversations with Iranians, they know regime change is a long shot. But what are they to do?
Anti-regime Iranians literally feel like that their country was hijacked by an Islamic theocracy. 40+ years of status quo has done nothing to change that.
So yes, they enjoy seeing the regime being bombed. Do they really expect a revolution? Maybe the tiniest sliver of hope in their heart believes in it. But that’s better than nothing.
Trita Parsi recently stated in an interview that he has data showing the support for regime change among the Iranian diaspora has significantly increased from 5% to around 30% but only a minority of them accept the 'at all costs' premise: https://youtu.be/dUyJubRB-ek?si=9wl8pc3sEgTrDlql
Calling Iranians who are against their current government “morally compromised” is real reprehensible for someone sitting in an armchair. Hoping foreign power can help overthrow the domestic lord is nothing new. That’s literally how the U.S. gained its independence with French military assistance.
And to your point, US interventions saved South Korea, Kuwait, Grenada, Bosnia, in addition to Panama. The legacy of Vietnam is complicated with the country rejecting communism, becoming capitalistic, and embracing the U.S. in recent years. This is in stark contrast to countries like North Korea. We don’t know how Iraq and Venezuela will turn out in the current timeline either.
Even more problematic though, is the fact that many of the US interventions happened in countries at the brink of free fall. These are failed states who are more likely to experience turmoils with or without the U.S.. Yes, civil wars can be worse than dictatorship. But that’s one of many possible outcomes. Avoiding all changes due to the fear of the worst potential outcome is weirdly privileged view. Kurds in Iraq can attest to this. Iraq has become much better for them nowadays because the Saddam era was pure hell. They were desperate and any alternative was thought to be better.
However, I don’t think intervention in Iran necessarily serves the US interest to begin with. So sure, I agree with you that the U.S. really shouldn’t waste more time in Iran.
>Calling Iranians who are against their current government “morally compromised” is real reprehensible for someone sitting in an armchair.
What I said was that anyone who wants their country to meet the fate of other countries the US has attempted to regime change is morally compromised. Simply hoping that the Islamic regime will go away is completely rational. Knowing that it will definitely fail and wanting to try it anyway is insanity.
And the diaspora fools cheering for more bombs and destruction are also in armchairs. They have no sympathy from me.
>Hoping foreign power can help overthrow the domestic lord is nothing new. That’s literally how the U.S. gained its independence with French military assistance.
Not regime change, a rebellion.
>And to your point, US interventions saved South Korea, Kuwait, Grenada, Bosnia, in addition to Panama.
South Korea was a response to invasion, Kuwait was a response to invasion, Grenada was a coup (response to a coup — edge case because the end state was much easier to define and also the country is minuscule), Bosnia was a rebellion. None of these are regime change.
>Kurds in Iraq can attest to this.
Also a rebellion. You might want to recheck the criteria.
>We don’t know how Iraq and Venezuela will turn out in the current timeline either.
23 years of civil war is too many. You can't just say "well eventually it worked out", that could justify anything. Other dictatorships have ended faster without violence. Venezuela was not a real regime change war because a deal was made with the VP before the invasion and also the Bolivarians are still in power.
> There are news reports of Iranian expats and opponents within Iranian who are disappointed with the ceasefire. They wanted trump to go further and destroy the regime.
Good question. From the conversations that I’ve had with Iranians, it’s unclear. The regime is too embedded. There’s no easy answer. Killing Mojtaba would be a good start.
Anti-regime Iranians are basically holding onto any sliver of hope that they can regain their country.
Of course, it’s all very unlikely, but I can’t help sympathizing with them. I think their cause is just. I think a non-theocratic Iran that could rejoin the global economy is a dream worth fighting for.
It was a great start. Iranians celebrated his death, which made me happy.
I think one idea is that if you can kill enough regime leaders, perhaps a moderate leader may emerge?
Or perhaps there may be a military coup? Which may be a lesser of two evils?
The Iranians I’ve spoken to don’t feel like it was counterproductive. They actually feel like Trump has done more than any other president to damage the regime.
What’s the alternative? More economic sanctions? The status quo of the last 40+ years has accomplished nothing.
Anti-regime Iranians want action. They want us to make a move. We killed a lot of regime leaders and destroyed their military capability. That’s something. Now we have to see how that chess move played out.
Don't know why this is downvoted, people must forget that the weeks leading up the war, Iran was pulling the plug on the internet and shooting regime protestors in the street.
It seems Trump and Israel expected an internal revolution once the bombing started, but it doesn't seem that manifested.
Your perspectives of Iranians seems to be too biased, given also that you have partner from Iran and confess that you "only" talk to their inlaws and friends.
The Iranian diaspora is more divided on the matter than you think [1], and given your background, you're probably in the bubble of the diaspora that wouldn't mind sending threatening messages to anyone not being completely aligned with anti regime stance.
It's like someone marrying a deep south confederate flag waving MAGA American, moving there, and judging from talking to their friends and their hate for everything not MAGA, conclude that every American is like this. Or same scenario but California and liberals.
I’ve never sent threatening messages to people, and would never do that, so I’m not sure what that’s in reference to?
I’ve responded to this idea of bias in other threads.
I’m open to the idea that I’m perhaps biased by my wife, her friends, and my in-laws.
I’ll admit that it may be a little hard for me to accept that given that I’ve been to so many Iranian celebrations, and met so many different people, and heard the same perspectives again and again. I feel that what I’ve conveyed on hacker news in my comments does reflect truly the conversations I’ve had.
Most importantly, my goal in making these comments is to surface what actual Iranians are thinking.
Many Iranians in the US are afraid to speak out because they have family in Iran, or they’re here in the US on a visa. They fear that if they speak up, they’ll never be able to go home and see their family again.
As a US citizen, who is connected with the Iranian community, I feel it’s my duty to surface these conversations I’ve had.
My apologies if it came off as I was accusing you or your wife for sending threatening messages. That wasn't the intent
It was (supposed to be) a reference to the content of the linked material:
>Individuals and opposition groups took it upon themselves to allege relationships between diaspora Iranians and the Islamic Republic and guided their followers to conduct purity tests that sought to target, silence, and excommunicate anyone with whom they disagreed, labeling them as apologists or agents of the Islamic Republic for having called for reform in years past (now deemed too soft on the Islamic Republic), or for being unwilling to name the then-nascent protest movement a “revolution” or, in more extreme cases, for being unwilling to support regime change by any means necessary.
And a comment about the fact that you and your close Iranian relatives and friends probably hold the anti regime views strongly, and so does many (especially the ones that had to flee the revolution, or the childrens of) of their friends. I'm not questioning that fact, but pointing out that it's quite obvious that your friends and relatives probably wouldn't hang around the Iranians with different views.
It's not the only group and in a political climate like the Iranian diaspora, individuals (or groups) with opposing views or nuanced views are often silenced relentlessly.
It's simply unavoidable dynamics: iranian diaspora strongly wanting regime change are also not the ones that have to carry the blunt of that cost (they're outside Iran already), but reap most of the benefits. They're also spreading that message on platforms in countries that have an incentive to push for that message (USA, Israel) so the discourse will be highly amplified around anti-regime rethoric. The fact that it's not their house that is being bombed, also means that there aren't really any counteracting weight put on any potential opposing discourse, the discourse will maintain or go more extreme in is anti-regime rethoric going even more "any means necessary" route.
The Iranians against the regime inside Iran, I would assume, have a more nuanced view now. They might be against the regime, but not to the point they're willing to sacrifice their children, neighbors, and society collapsing Libya or Syria style. So they're probably less "any means necessary" about regime change.
May be the expats are doing well financially and they have different perspective, what about the majority ones , especially the students who were opposing the regime during some death of a girl, has they converted. This is what I am interested in
I don’t personally know. But I don’t see why students who protested during the “woman, life, freedom” protest a couple years ago would be any less anti-regime now. If that’s what you’re asking.
I deplore the “lunatic” and also support any attempts of liberating the entire Middle East from the deplorable Iranian regime. So many of the problems of this region can be traced back to them.
I’m probably stretching what you said beyond what you meant, but while also deploring that regime I don’t support any attempt. I support effective action. This war was not effective action. I think it was utterly counterproductive.
Yes, we have lost sound leadership and stability. Pakistan has brokered the cease-fire in a war started by the US for no good reason. The current US administration was supposed to be non-interventionist.
It is hard to watch the grim spectacle of the US fallen to the point of simultaneously making despicable threats to destroy another country and sending love and best wishes at election-time to Hungary's anti-EU, pro-Russian Orban.
> > The US threatened to obliterate a country and people
> So the same thing Iran has been chating for decades
That indicates that the US has become more like Iran than Iran has become like the US.
Coincidentally (or perhaps not) the US is also increasingly authoritarian and theocratic, like Iran and its regional neighbors (both friends and foes).
It's a messy situation but it basically kicked off when the Iranian people had mass protests and the government started shooting them whereupon Trump tweeted “Iranian Patriots, keep protesting – take over your institutions!!! … help is on its way" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/13/trump-promises...
Not much about gas getting expensive there. I think the recent threats were mostly hyperbole for negotiating purposes.
The largest military the world has ever known was recklessly used towards a foe against decades of internal warning not to go there. People on both sides who didn't ask for this war paid with their lives.
High gas prices might have been a great cause for it ending, but the win for the world is that a escalation towards WWIII was averted, and that even idiotic leaders have learned that the world is a complex system and there's no such thing as a far away war anymore.
One third of the voters sat the 2024 election out. To those voters, there was no daylight between either of the 2 candidates.
And to give an example of the viability of third party candidates... I used to live in Colorado. To get onto the ballot as a Presidential candidate as a minor party candidate (aka neither D nor R candidate) one needs to get 10 people to swear to be Electoral College voters (if that candidate wins). Many times, those third party candidates get less than 10 votes in the entire state of Colorado.
> It's disheartening to hear people talk about this in terms of won and lost. Is that how you think of these events? I think of them in terms of sadness and horror
Its because you're such a better person than them, wow, incredible. Nobody else knows what war is.
We already attacked Iran twice during "talks," is there any indication that we mean it this time, or are we just going to bomb them again while negotiations are ongoing?
They underestimated Iran's unique mix of capabilities and strategy. It's not that Iran is undefeatable but it seems that the price is going to be far too high both globally and especially regionally for the tiny coalition of Israel and the US to succeed in the long term.
I think it says something that the US paid such a high price to try to produce a "viral military campaign" video of a Uranium heist. Straight out of the cold war. The palatable options must be steadily dwindling.
This coalition is "tiny" insofar NATO & the GCC (well, apart from Bahrain and the UAE) refused to join the attacks, despite Iran's transgressions. The US could wage this war for many years all alone, and force the GCC to watch as the region burned. I guess, Trump's administration isn't willing to go as far as the current Israeli leadership may have hoped or wanted. That said, the war could very well still flare up, if the events from past 2 years following "talks" are any indicator.
I don't disagree, but the expectation from the US Admin was some of their NATO allies would join (like they did in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq). Especially since the Oil spike hurts Europe (where the NATO nations are) the most.
> NATO is a defensive agreement
Turkey was attacked by Iran, though, it is unclear if Turkey would have invoked Art5 even if Iran had kept escalating.
Ceasefires are not in place until they are in place. Before they are in place, war is still ongoing. Discussing a ceasefire does not mean there is a ceasefire currently.
I have a Naive question, "why aren't the discussions related to public matters be telecasted live like a football match to the whole world? why isn't the public privy to the discussions about its own future?"
> "why aren't the discussions related to public matters be telecasted live like a football match to the whole world? why isn't the public privy to the discussions about its own future?"
It gives the parties more room to manoeuvre with regards to the give and take that is often/usually necessary when it comes to negotiating. If you demand X at one point, but revert so you can get Y, then the absolutists will be outraged (either actually or performatively) that you are being "soft" and "weak", etc.
There are a lot of people who think in zero-sum, winner-take-all ways, which is generally not how the world of foreign relations works. And modern-day outrage machine will create more difficult situations if you give here and take there (ignoring the fact that the other side gives there and takes here in return) even though it may be necessary to get a result (even it it's not perfect).
There is flip side to it. If one party has pre-determined not to negotiate, but is just following the script to show offical reachout and due process, then people don't know the real reason why the talks failed?
> […] then people don't know the real reason why the talks failed?
A party can always disclose what's going on in negotiations.
This is generally not done as it is often is a violation of trust, but if there's no good faith there in the first place it's hardly a loss. Negotiations can always be broken off with the reason being "the other side is not negotiating in good faith" without particular negotiated-to-day conditions being released.
But my original proposition keeps everyone honest and pragmatic which was the reason for the proposal. I truly believe in transparency as a way to keep everyone honest and not treat other people as childish that they can't understand complex matters.
Because most world leaders are actors. They put on a show to get elected or retain power. They don't want to look weak and want to spin the final outcome to their favor. That can include one side allowing the other to take credit for an idea that wasn't their's.
Compared to the last World War, things are broadcasted quite immediately. The delay is just barely enough to create a narrative that fits the audience.
Because Trump’s war caused massive oil price hike, destabilised energy supply for the whole world, was extremely unpopular even amongst Maga and Iran regime showed that to beat them into submission you would have kill 92 million people making Trump a Hitier-level war criminal and US a global pariah.
It will be very difficult for Trump to start his war again. He is not thinking about US or even his supporters at this point, but his own legacy, but he is too dumb to understand when Israel and his own staff are lying to him.
That’s why Iran has a very strong position to go to the negotiations. You also killed all the more sensible people in the regime, so there’s only hardliners left. There is nothing to win US or Trump, everything to lose. Iran on the other hand only has to sit tight.
This is how a nation stops being a super power and an empire falls.
Iran launched three waves of ballistic missiles at Israel after the ceasefire was announced; the first wave happened about an hour after the ceasefire announcement, then another 5 hours after, then another 8 hours after.
Iran also launched waves of drones at UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia within the first few hours of the ceasefire, and they've continued more over the next 12 hours. Multiple major energy facilities were struck, including desalination plants and oil facilities. Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline was hit. In Kuwait, three power stations a water desalination plants were severely damaged following drone attacks.
Israel announced the ceasefire does not apply to Lebanon, and launched a massive wave of airstrikes on Lebanon about an hour ago. Iran said this is a ceasefire violation, and resumed launching drones and missiles.
This ceasefire is done, nobody wants to stop fighting, the war will be back to usual in the next few days.
I wonder why this isn't being covered in western news outlets. Every politician who is in AIPAC's pocket needs to be shown these headlines and be held accountable.
Israel won't get sainthood anytime soon, but Hezbollah is Iran-backed, based in Lebanon, and breaking ceasefires with Israel without direct provocation. Israel has killed over a thousand Hezbollah militants since March 2.
What would you do if you were Israel?
FTA:
> Over 1,500 people have been killed in Lebanon and about a million displaced since March 2, according to Lebanese authorities. The IDF says it has killed some 1,100 Hezbollah operatives, including hundreds of members of the terror group’s elite Radwan Force, in that period.
I get your point. I don't think it's effective here.
What do you have to say to Hezbollah confirming 400 combatant losses? The Lebanese health ministry also confirmed 1500, of which only 300 were women, children, and health workers.
Stop pretending like collective punishment produces results? It obviously doesn't, Israel's strikes on Lebanon have gotten to the point that it feels like another illegal expansion project.
You're right, they should just let indiscriminate rockets hit their civilians.
If it was not for the iron some, there would be 100k dead Israelis.
It's disgusting how westerners think their high and mighty approach works in the middle east.
Blowback. Israel is responsible for being an impossible neighbor.
A better question to ask: what do you do when an ethnosupremacist state sets up shop near you and immediately begins territory expansion and meddling in your local politics while funding militant groups to destabilize your government? That's the question all of Israel's neighbors have had to answer for the last 60 years.
The entire neighborhood was already there, and then Israel showed up as a settler-colonialist state.
I don't really sympathize with any State's desire for self preservation (especially since, like Israel, most states will happily sacrifice their citizenry to do so).
The radicalization necessary to feed recruitment to Hamas and Hezbollah is only possible because of the incredible violence Israel subjects the region to. Without Israel, Hamas would almost certainly not even exist, or at least would be some minor radical group with no political power.
Your argument isn't principled because starting in the 20th century is arbitrary. Why not go back in time to the 15-1600s when the Ottoman Empire went "colonial" on Jews?
We don't have a time machine.
In the present, Israel could go full pacifist, and Hezbollah doesn't go away.
> Your argument isn't principled because starting in the 20th century is arbitrary.
No it isn't, we were alive in the 20th century, it's recent and we are fully capable of, and responsible for, handling fallout from decisions made during it. Your argument justifies any imperialism. "Last year Israel occupied more Palestinian territory - it's the same as ancient history, demanding they give it back is like demanding Greece re-establishes the sovereignty of Athens."
> In the present, Israel could go full pacifist, and Hezbollah doesn't go away.
Pretty speculative. An Israel that gives back sovereignty and autonomy as well as stolen land back to Palestine (and now Lebanon), releases prisoners, and regime changes out the ethnosupremacist government takes basically all the wind out of the sails of groups resisting it as the evil it currently is.
Actually negotiating and following through is something current Israel can't swallow because it's deeply racist against the people with whom it's meant to be negotiating.
"we"? Your point's either literal (false) or figurative (arbitrary).
Why would you say something so misleading? You'd be 100 years old for the pre-Israel British-colonial period or almost 80 for the instantiation of Israel. It seems you're unclear when Israel showed up as colonialists.
> Your argument justifies any imperialism.
Fallacy: Israel's actions and Hezbollah's actions can both be bad.
> Pretty speculative.
No, you made my point! LOL!
Now, observe your list of conditions needed (return land, release prisoners, regime change). Isn't it ironic that you laid out a bunch of actions that are far more aggressive than what I proposed? You're basically saying that a more extreme compromise is needed than what I proposed!
> it's deeply racist against the people with whom it's meant to be negotiating.
Let's accept this is true (which is terrible). The flaw is that you're blindly dismissing Hezbollah/Hamas as moderates and their stated goals to eradicate Israelis. You can't leave them out of the picture and to do so is arbitrary.
Is your proposal to "just stop doing war?" There's a reason it's happening - Israel has engaged in imperialism and genocide, and there are people alive today from whom Israel and its settlers have taken land. There's still a lot of Palestinians who can't return to their homes. Of the three entities, Israel is the one with the most (literal) ground it needs to give back to "even the scales."
Undoubtedly Hezbollah and Hamas have antisemitic members that are very interested in killing Jewish people, just as there's clear evidence for the same in the IDF, however of the two, only one has engaged in actualized genocide (the IDF), so the dissolution of the State that promoted this is a moral good. It doesn't require "the eradication of Israelis" as you say, and again, Hamas only exists because of Israel, whereas the elimination of Hamas obviously is doing nothing to stop Israel's genocide against the Palestinians (and it's clear interest in expanding this genocide and imperialism against anyone it can describe as "Arab").
You seem to be accusing me of being arbitrary because you're claiming Hezbollah/Hamas is equal to Israel in terms of evil behavior, when that isn't true: Israel is the far more evil entity, and the goal of Hezbollah and Hamas to resist and dissolve the Israeli state - there's a reason Hamas revised their charter to remove all the obviously anti-semitic stuff and focus instead on resistance ethno-supremacy movement that underlies every aspect of Israel's existence as a State.
Why not simply make all of Israel ruled by the PA? Can you make an argument against that that isn't Islamophobic? Because the reality is that Hamas and Hezbollah are moderates when compared to the actions of Israel over the past few decades, and in any case the PA was absolutely moderate and liberal compared to Israel.
> I encourage you to put this in an LLM and ask if you're being fair.
Or, I could engage in a conversation with a human, like you. LLMs only tell you what you want to hear. This is disappointing that you suggested this to me, it leads me to believe you're doing this, which means your beliefs aren't backed by evidence, they're just things you thought of and then had an LLM validate.
> Don't believe me?
Nope. I am correct, objective, and historically accurate, and you're failing to demonstrate otherwise.
> E.g., calling an Iran backed Shia militant group "moderate" compared to Israel is hyperbolical.
You're just throwing around scare terms now. Nothing about "Iran" or "Shia" makes me think they're inherently more evil than "Israel." It smells like Islamophobia to me to suggest otherwise.
Israel is continually committing war crimes, every day, including today. Every Israeli strike against Iran civilians constitutes an war of aggression and violates the UN charter and is a war crime. It has engaged in collective punishment of Palestinians, blockade, denial of water and destruction of wells, forced relocation, has admitted to using white phosphorous (including in residential areas and against Unifil peacekeepers), attacked schools, refugee camps, churches, mosques, and civilians seeking food, and has shot and killed children.
Now convince me that the IDF as a radical ethno-supremacist militant group led by a terrorist country is less evil than "an Iran backed Shia militant group."
I challenge you to find a third party, credible news source that calls Hezbollah "moderate" as you framed them.
Until then, you really can't defend your fundamental claims. I suspect you're intentionally avoiding uncomfortable truths about your core beliefs.
>is less evil than "an Iran backed Shia militant group.
See. Examples like this demonstrate you can't keep your thoughts consistent. Is it a scare term or as you just acknowledged, a proxy terrorist group funded by a foreign entity?
Per your article, Israel stopped bombing Lebanon in a November 2024 ceasefire. However, Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon broke that prior ceasefire on March 2 in retaliation for the death of the Ayatollah.
> Israel has carried out massive airstrikes and pushed troops farther into Lebanon after Hezbollah, on March 2, launched its first rocket attack on Israel since the November 2024 ceasefire deal.
It should be noted that they are not just bombing, but using airburst white phosphorus munitions over civilian areas attempting to scorch the earth and give people a lifetime of health problems.
I'm not a bot, my email and website contain my full name and are visible on my HN profile, and my website has pictures and videos of me.
First, collective punishment is not acceptable. Shooting through a baby to kill the criminal holding it hostage is obviously monstrous, so your argument that there's "Hezbollah around" is invalid. Civilians present? Then find another way, Israel. But Israel refuses because terms always include something along the lines of leaving occupied Palestinian territory, which Israel refuses to do for many indefensible reasons.
Second, though, is that Israel has lost all credibility. You say Hezbollah is in the area and the thousand people killed are Hezbollah? I say, Israel once released a picture of a calendar and said it was a list of terrorist cells. Israel has lied too much to be trusted anymore.
There's also horrifying reality that's becoming increasingly clear as more street interviews from Israel are released: it's becoming clear that much of this bloodshed is fed by ethnosupremacy and Islamophobia. Israel is becoming the next Nazi state.
Gonna need at least a single link to a source before I believe this. Googling provides Facebook links and YouTube videos from Fox News and AI generated “news” sites.
Well sure, but I was referring more to the "fast" part of parent comment than the "truth" part. Every politician lies, but this one in particular lies too fast for anyone to keep up with fact checking.
> Israel will also agree to the two-week ceasefire, Axios reported, citing an Israeli official, adding that the ceasefire would enter effect as soon as the blockade of the strait of Hormuz ceased
The US is one thing but there is no possible way Israel will stop bombing. They will openly say they will, and continue to do so. It just gives them more breathing room to calculate bigger and more serious strikes. Israel has literally nothing to lose. The US is taking all the heat for any actions in Iran. Israel and Iran are mortal enemies, one can not continue to exist while the other lives, this is how they view it. Iran wants Israel erased, Israel wants Iran erased. This isn't going to stop until one of them suffers catastrophic damage.
I believe from what I have heard and read that Israel will likely only stop if US formally withdraws military support in a sense that they stop supplying weapons (?)
Israel has a lot to lose, the question is only how much of the lost will be replaced by american taxpayers' money. They're almost out of anti-air interceptors, the war they started in lebanon is going badly and iran still has tens of thousands of drones left. There's also hamas and hezbollah and more and more of the world is turning against them, be it in proper politics or even mundane stuff like the eurovision.
Israel will be fine. They have nuclear weapons if shit really starts to get bad. They'll tell you they don't (while smirking), but they do, and have for like 70 years.
If Israel uses nuclear weapons, that's the end of any shred of sympathy left for them in the world.
There would be massive political consequences for Israel. Sanctions, embargoes, no more ability to travel abroad, the end of any hope of any positive diplomatic relations with other countries, etc.
I'm not that optimistic, they're already accused of genocide in Gaza, rightfully so, and even the european countries that supposedly recognize the ICC in Hague don't arrest Netanyahu. US will of course back them up, as always.
As a result of Israel's actions over the last 2.5 years, world public opinion of Israel has tanked. There will already be serious consequences for Israel down the line because of that.
But it can get worse for Israel. Use of nuclear weapons is a massive taboo, and if Israel were to cross that line, it would be impossible for any government to continue to support Israel.
> Israel were to cross that line, it would be impossible for any government to continue to support Israel.
The same could be said for running a massive pedophile and human trafficking ring, but that line has been crossed and it seems that nobody seems to want to address the country that's found itself at the heart of it all.
>that's the end of any shred of sympathy left for them in the world. There would be massive political consequences for Israel
They genocided Palestine. They are bombing the shit out of Lebanon and will likely ethnically cleanse them too. Words have been said but no action has been taken. Nobody seems to give a shit.
Bibi could parachute into Mecca, take a shit on the Ka'aba, draw the Prophet (SWT) eating pork, and all we'd get would be a strong finger wagging from the US, Russia, France, etc... and no action.
>Sanctions, embargoes
Mossad has gathered enough blackmail over the years to ensure these won't work.
>no more ability to travel abroad
over 10% of Israel has dual citizenship with another country (mainly USA, Russia, France, Poland, Ukraine). Such restrictions won't affect them.
> the end of any hope of any positive diplomatic relations with other countries, etc.
Define "positive". Look at what Epstein did, yet the West as a whole (UK, France, US, etc) plus some MENA nations still hold Israel in the highest regard and refuse to critique them, much less break off diplomatic relations. I think you're being naive here
If the war (population displacement / genocide / ethnic cleansing, you can call it however you want to) in Gaza has taught the world something is that the current Israeli regime is visceral and they clearly think they are above any international conventions. Of course they will not stop bombing any of its neighbors until we 1) stop funding and 2) start sanctioning them for their war crimes.
I wonder if regime change could help alleviate the tensions in the region.
I'm not sure why you got downvoted. The current admin seems to love regime changes. Why not Israel? Israel is killing medics in Lebanon (supposedly collateral damage but they don't see it that way https://www.npr.org/2026/04/05/nx-s1-5763606/lebanon-medics-... )
I'm just curious here: if we really think about today's conflict in the Middle East regarding the GCC, Israel, the US, and Europe, we can trace this back to US-USSR relations in 1945, as well as the 1980s leading up to 2001. I'm wondering what are everyone's finding on this and what are your opinions?
The deliberate destruction of a group of people and its culture (completely or partially).
This fits the general description of what Israel has been up to in Palestine since 1948, but especially during the past few years.
Indiscriminate killing of civilians. Planned starvation. Poisoning wells. Denying Palestinians the right to return to their homeland. Forbidding the use of Palestinian cultural symbols. Denying Palestinians the right to fish/conduct business. Keeping them under curfew and surveilling their every move, making them as miserable as possible. Mass imprisonment. Denying Palestinians home-ownership.
Systematically destroying Palestinians and any chance for them to thrive/ found a state/ have human rights.
I see you have replied, but your comment has been marked as dead, so I cannot reply back.
You fed my comment to an AI and based your response on what it said. You said some of the claims were "incorrect".
Let's leave aside how ridiculous it is to fact-check with an LLM. if you go back and read what the AI actually generated, however, you will see that every claim has factual basis, the LLM just marked some as "narrow factual basis", for no particular reason. If it has been documented, it is fact, the LLM is just confused.
Every one of these, when done systematically (and they are) is a component of genocide. About half of them would be enough to constitute genocide on their own.
Displacing more than half of a population (as Israel has done TWICE in history) is definitely genocide.
If you are truly interested in educating yourself, you can start by reading the following wikipedia page (even just the intro):
Genocide definition is: the deliberate, systematic destruction—in whole or in part—of a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group
Israel most probably did war crimes (white phosphorus usage seems to be confirmed, while IDF says they have not used it), but I don't think that Israeli has intention to destroy Palestinians. The have intention to destroy Hamas or Hezbollah.
2) Israel has had genocidal plans for Palestinians since before Hamas existed (see the Nakba). In fact, Likud brought Hamas to power, because they saw them as a more fitting opponent than other groups (who were less militant).
3) Israeli politicians (not just current ones) have candidly stated they wish to destroy Palestine, Palestinians, and any chance for them to live in theur homeland
For gods sake, educate yourself. One easy thing to look up is a timeseries of deaths/year of Israelis due to Palestinian violence vs. deaths of Palestinians due to Israeli violence. That should do enough to dispel you of the idea that Palestinians are the terrorists in this case
In this specific case it is something interesting to follow and to analyze. This will definitely have consequences on Russian-Ukrainian war too. UN overall is powerless - there are 7000+ UN peacekeepers in South Lebanon right now. What are they doing there?
I don't understand your point. You contested a fact "legally", but in your opinion the only authority that should have the final "legal" say in the matter is an impartial and weak one.
That's the best we have and it is better than random internet commenters who make judgement like they have a solid evidence of what's going on. Lastly depending on outcome this can be used for more fruitful discussions in the future.
It is not the best we have at all, and the choice is not between random internet commenters and the ICJ. You have the International Association of Genocide Scholars and a plethora of human rights associations.
Why not? There is at least theoretical chance to get some justice regarding Benjamin Netanyahu crimes if they are proved. As well Israel is democracy and can be changed. It is not like Russia where people don't have freedom of word.
Well, considering that the odds of a person on Earth not being a descendant of Abraham is practically zero, why not give Israeli citizenship to everyone? Of course, with special protections for the Jewish people. Then, we can be done with the everlasting conflict.
Getting downvoted by all the emotional people here is not worth it; this thread does not welcome a polite discussion especially from the pro-Israel side. Like in any social media with a voting system (terrible idea, I might add), the vocal and active majority wants to disentivise the disagreement.
I don’t see any pro-Israel side commenter here but me at best. IMHO I do my best to keep discussion as polite as possible having in mind the sensitivity of the topic.
I probably wasn’t clear in the above comment - but what I tried to say is that the thread disincentivizes pro-Israel comments; I am pro-Israel as well and prefer not to engage.
The strict definition of the Geneva conventions does not include forced displacement but in some parts of the world that is included in the definition of. And legality is a matter of tribunal and none has been held so far.
Well now it looks like the ceasefire never went into affect at all. Iran never stopped firing and the parties disagree on what was agreed on with regards to lebanon.
The Israelis are playing this like a strategy game and using ancient tactics. Therefore, I predict they will try to get all US military-aged men into Iran before they nuke it. Then, they will unleash all of the drones they have hidden all across the US.
All bigotry is bad. Islamic extremists trying to eliminate Jews are bad, Jewish extremists hellbent on eliminating Arabs/muslims are bad. All humans are equal. No to apartheid and genocide.
I don't know why you are downvoted for saying "bigotry is bad"
however you make a mistake when you call zionism apartheid or genocide.
there are religious extremists who use this word like it's some sort of "lebensraum" but that's just a specific type of zionism. source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_Zionism
actually zionism just an idea that jews can have a country where their ancestors lived. everybody in the world wants the same thing but no one needed to invent a term because most people already have a country where their ancestors lived. there's a metric ton of christian and muslim countries around if you look.
> actually zionism just an idea that jews can have a country where their ancestors lived.
If Zionism means that Jews are entitled to their ancestral lands at the expense of the people that have been living on those lands for thousands of years, then that is a perverse idea.
No one, regardless of your race/religion/ethnicity has the right to displace a group of people. If Zionism means apartheid and genocide of the Palestinians, then I am against zionism.
You clearly didn't read the article or my comment, because there is a definition of zionism and different types are listed. Lots of people who support the idea of Jews having a country also don't support the idea of oppressing other people in the area
Closing your ears and shouting is not a way to have a productive argument but judging by your comments here you are not interested in that.
> There is no military solution to open the strait.
There is no cheap & fast military solution. There are certainly military solutions if you are ok with it taking a while or costing a lot of lives.
> Iran has capability to hit back
They have demonstrated they can make the surounding countries miserable. They arent capable of actually getting a military victory.
Which is why a deal is plausible. USA doesnt want to spend (in money and lives) what it would cost to open the strait. Iran demonstrates it can hit back enough to be annoying but not enough to force a victory. Sounds like neither side is exactly capable of "winning" (without us spending more than it wants), so a deal sounds plausible.
Yes, seems a bit of a gap between US and Iranian opinions on the state of the strait. US says "open it", while Iran has for some time claimed it is open - only subject to conditions. Then, as you mention, the Israelis talk of an end to the blockade.
I foresee a possible relaxation of conditions on the strait by Iran while keeping their hand on the lever providing substantial leverage during any actual negotiations. I also note that it seems the US are considering Iranian demands - not the other way around. Even with that, Trumps' toughest negotiations may be with the Israelis.
I don’t see how the majority of comments paint this as a victory for Iran. Your entire formal military apparatus was destroyed, nuclear sites in rubble, defense industrial complex leveled, two levels of leadership KIA, and the only thing preventing you from permanent destruction or regime change is an impotent threat of attacking ships? I guess I’m missing something. War sucks but in this case Iran is a shell of the threat it was a month ago.
1. Nuclear sites are not "in rubble", uranium is very much intact. They attempted to extract some of it with the failed F15 mission and had to scrap it (oversight by CIA) near Isfahan.
2. Leadership KIA doesn't matter, IRAN has a decentralized leadership, not a top down one.
3. Military apparatus is intact, majority of missile cities are still operating, over 1M IRGC forces mobilized with many more men willing to sign up.
4. Strait of Hormuz is fully under control of IRAN, "impotent threat of attacking ships" (even though IRAN has much more power) is more than enough to control it.
6. No regime change, IRGC is stronger than ever
7. Millions of dollars of damage to all US assets in the gulf
8. Multiple US air crafts damaged and many wounded (we'll see what the actual numbers are after CENTCOM releases them finally)
9. Sanctions lifted on Russia, helping them majorly profit. China is still collecting cheap oil.
10. Israel took heavy damage, losing many interceptors as well.
11. Brent 100$+ for 40 days, causing major global issues.
To be fair, US did manage to kill 170 kids on day 1 and bomb bridges, hospitals, universities and civilian areas.. so I guess that's a "win" for you?
The reality is far more nuanced, and not clearly a win to Iran. We saw how degraded their military capabilities became when they couldn't capture a pilot on their own land for nearly 48 hours. We also saw that the number of rockets that they used "in total" has only just recently reached the number they used in the June war last year with Israel.
Diplomatically, we saw Lebanon, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia expelling Iranian diplomats (some even threatening war with Iran). And the entire gulf region unite against Iran. All while Iran's allies were mostly passive.
It's quite likely that Iran would need to deal with the mess both internally (as the power grab in the leadership vacuum could take place), and externally with the neighbors it bombed. Iran needs to make it appear as a win internally, and that's something that would affect any long term agreement.
Regardless, whether it's a win to ETTHER side remains to be seen when a more permanent agreement is signed. If for example Iran actually manages to impose a fee on passing ships, then that's a major achievement for Iran, and could create a dangerous pretendant for other regions (like the strait of Malacca in Indonesia, Bab El-Mandeb and even the South China sea.
The only thing really destroyed is the image of the west and particularly it’s leader the US. Whatever you view of Iranian acts, even wars have laws related to portionality that has been broken.
Also if there ever was an ounce of internal resistance then this war have probably galvanized the population and is aligning everyone to common cause of working on the build up of particularly their national security.
Perceptions are fickle, and that includes the local population. There are many cases of countries the US bombed whose population later became strong supporters of the US.
Iran’s government haven’t been toppled. People are rallying and united in opposition to foreign invasion and interference.
Iran is a strategic important ally of China and Russia.
US is no longer the world superpower as it once was and has dropped it’s use of soft power completely and relies only upon military force or it’s threat and barely any diplomatic efforts.
The world is not what was even a decade ago. So don’t expect a repeat on what happened after Vietnam and Japan.
Not capturing the weapons officer (the pilot was quickly rescued) was a missed opportunity for Iran, not a failure. The Trump Admin was incredibly lucky there is not currently a hostage situation and no one else was killed or injured[1] in the rescue. "Merely" 10s or 100s(?) of millions of dollars in equipment was lost in the process.
A bunch of US servicemembers have died or been maimed to achieve a rocky ceasefire with the end state looking worse than before the operation.
I certainly feel for the civilians affected, but from a pure "America First" perspective, this is a complete and total US failure.
[1]: Though I'm skeptical about the truth in this when officials have been bragging about helicopters with bullet holes in them.
Can you refute them? This is an insane performance to distract from withheld Epstein files. The DOJ has not done their duty, and the only reason the American public is ignoring it is the Iran War.
The US was goaded by Israel into joining a war that has not achieved it's stated objectives. America is deriding NATO for not joining this suicide mission, burning goodwill that would be valuable in a Russia/China conflict, because it's more valuable for Israel's geopolitical microcosm. Hegseth gutted the US' officers leading up to the war, precipitating war crime-adjacent strikes that have been decried even by GOP politicians.
Neither America nor Israel are better off because of this conflict, and China (once again) wins by embracing diplomatic capitalism. The economic soft-power of the dollar is now even more precarious than before.
>We saw how degraded their military capabilities became when they couldn't capture a pilot on their own land for nearly 48 hours
This is a such a armchair opinion. One country has the location information and other has vast forest and mountains. How it took 48 hrs for US is a eye opening scene for rest of the world. Multiple trillion of defense budget still a minion.
All policy aimed at preventing nuclear Iran has one goal: buy time. I think it is hard to argue that time has not been bought (though how much and whether the price was right is another question). The only semi-stable long term option is a friendly Iranian government. The IRGC's main purpose is to occupy Iran, so anything that makes them weaker, less stable and more decentralized improves the odds of successful internal revolt in the long run. It is really hard for me to see how any of this has made the IRGC more stable in the long run.
The threat of the strait closure has always been a major factor in Iran policy from all relevant nations, it is just now explicit. It's hard to take the Russia point seriously when the war forced both Russia and Iran to shift resources form the Ukrainian theater to the Persian Gulf; it seems to be close to a wash. It's also kinda silly to gas up using interceptors for their intended purpose as "heavy damage" or catastrophize about rounding errors in damage to USA assets, while simulatenously writing off the total effect of all USA/Israel actions as inconsequential.
Disruption to global fossil fuel supply chains was also a goal of this war, so I am not sure you should list it as a negative. In the current state of the world, USA interests and global economic interests are becoming increasingly decoupled, and one shouldn't assume they are automatically aligned.
Also this has probably done more to hasten the world's weaning off fossil fuels than any action by any other government.
IRGS domestic propaganda has always been that US is a military murderous malevolent regime, mercilessly going after their land and their children.
With just a little bit of propaganda spin, or even without it, US just proved to the entire Iranian population that IRGS was right all along.
This should strengthen or even harden their regime as they will have new generation of hardliners join the movement.
This is like 1930s Germany kinda thing. Who won or lost is semantics at this point, the regime is free to spin it any way they want, and will have quite the support to do it.
> All policy aimed at preventing nuclear Iran has one goal: buy time. I think it is hard to argue that time has not been bought (though how much and whether the price was right is another question).
Given that Iran has been one week/one month/one year away from acquiring nuclear capabilities since 2014 - first Trump Presidency, and they are not any closer a decade later this "buying time" rhetoric is nothing short of "Iraq has WMD" level of absurdity.
It is not jist Bibi, but also the IAEA and other international organizations. And at least the last 5 US administrations. I suppose they could also all be in Israel's pocket though.
Iran's 60% enriched uranium stockpile is really not up for debate. Iran is happy to tell everyone that they have it. With the proper equipment, 60% can go to 90% in a single month. So the question is how advanced is the Iranian infrastructure for the final enrichment step, and (less commonly talked about) how ready they are to actually make a fission bomb out of that material. The latter task is not considered to be very hard, North Korea did it after all, so the main focus has been on the former. There does seem to be some decent information that the centrifuge array has been under active development at various points, and has been consitently, actively targetted by Mossad/CIA for at least the past 20 years or so. For example, Stuxnet was a joint CIA/Mossad operation that begain in 2005 and continued through both GWBush and Obama.
Unfortunately, even with some nice bribes from Obama, Iran was always a little cagey with the IAEA inspectors, and officially kicked them out in 2021. So after that, the only sources for the state of Irans nuclear infrastructure information effectively became Iran itself and Mossad.
I'm not gonna argue whether it is true or false, but the scale of the conspiracy you are proposing is pretty massive. Multiple orders of magnitude bigger than anything that is currently within the mainstream public consciousness.
In this case, I think a network of mostly independent actors whose interests happen to align makes more sense. But maybe sometimes those interests are a little different than what people commonly understand them to be.
>It is really hard for me to see how any of this has made the IRGC more stable in the long run.
It's not hard for me to see. It's very similar to the situation in Ukraine. They have suffered losses but I can only imagine that their morale and confidence is through the roof. Conversely, the population must feel that there is no hope of getting rid of them. The cavalry sounded the horns but mostly rode into the river.
>Disruption to global fossil fuel supply chains was also a goal of this war
I am not convinced that a population that just recently had 30k people die in a revolt is gonna immediately rally around their oppressors after a foreign power kills 2k. I have yet to see compelling evidence that formerly IGRC-hostile segments of the population have switched alleigances. It is possible. But one could also imagine an exhausted population that is tired of a goverment they despise putting a target on their backs. The Iranians I personally know suggest that the second idea is more true, but it is anecdotal evidence with heavy selection bias. Another factor is that Iran has an unstable food and water supply, and people who lack food and water tend to focus their anger on whoever is closest that has food and water.
The Trump administration is actively interested in the dissolution of the current global economic order. This is why they are relatively unbothtered by the global economic shock that is a Strait of Hormuz closure, whereas the globally-oriented neoliberal administrations of the past wanted to avoid this at all costs.
That will take hundreds of years to accomplish. No Iranian has forgotten Operation Ajax in 1953[0] - overthrowing the lawfully elected government of Iran and replacing it with a dictator[1].
> In the current state of the world, USA interests and global economic interests are becoming increasingly decoupled
This is entirely due to Trump constantly "ripping up" previous agreements and treaties. It has become obvious to all observers that the US can no longer be trusted to act in the interests of any other nation. For their own survival, they have to become independent of US economic and political interests.
> It is really hard for me to see how any of this has made the IRGC more stable in the long run.
It's not really that hard to see - if you open your eyes.
If you refuse to do that, to the point where you see nothing but the hint of a silver lining in every carcinogenic cloud, then yeah I guess things must look pretty silvery.
It’s a nation of 90 million people. Now that basically every facet of society has been hit by a single common enemy, they will galvanize and it won’t matter what name IRGC or whatever you give it they will start to work in unison for common security and deterrence.
> They attempted to extract some of it with the failed F15 mission
This is fake Iranian propaganda. It makes no logical sense. The force sent to extract the F15 officer (approx 2 C130s of equipment) is far to small to retrieve tons of nuclear material stored at Isfahan.
> Military apparatus is intact
No, the IRGC is struggling. After weeks of bombardment, they are unable to provide food or basic supplies for its own army. https://www.iranintl.com/en/202604074692
Sources said that over the past 72 hours, operational forces have faced acute shortages of basic supplies, including edible food, hygiene facilities and places to sleep.
Recent strikes on infrastructure and bases have left many Guards and Basij personnel sleeping in the streets, and in some areas they have had access to only one meal a day.
According to informed sources, some personnel were forced to buy food from shops and restaurants with their own money after expired rations were distributed.
At the same time, disruptions affecting Bank Sepah’s electronic systems have reportedly delayed the salaries and benefits of military personnel, fueling fresh anger and mistrust within the ranks.
Iran International had previously reported similarly dire conditions in field units, including severe shortages of ammunition, water and food, as well as growing desertions by exhausted soldiers.
Even in the Guards’ missile units, which have historically received priority treatment, sources reported serious communications failures and food shortages. They said commanders were continuing to send only technical components needed to keep missile systems operational, rather than food or basic individual supplies for personnel.
> majority of missile cities are still operating
Missile launch volume is down ~90% from the beginning days of the war.
> Millions of dollars of damage to all US assets in the gulf
Iran has taken $150-200 billion dollars in damage, to its assets, and also economy.
Their entire missile manufacturing supply chain was destroyed, with the destruction of both the Parchin Military Complex and Khojir Missile Production Center, they have no ability to produce more. The Iranian missile problem was one of the primary causes of this conflict.
Both the Mobarakeh Steel & Khuzestan Steel factories have shut down. They are responsible for 1% of Iran's GDP, and billions of dollars of profits which fund the Iranian economy.
If there were no ceasefire, Iranian power and petroleum facilities would be destroyed today. Both sides do not want this to happen, because it would set back the Iranian economy by a decade, and cause an enormous humanitarian crisis.
It is not possible to run a modern economy without fuel or electricity.
> Multiple US air crafts damaged and many wounded
Iran lost its entire air force, and navy; losses are far higher on the Iranian side than US/Israeli.
So far, the US/Israel have not lost any ability to continue combat operations; they can maintain this level of bombardment for months.
It is not possible to run an advanced economy, capable of manufacturing missiles and drones at scale, under perpetual bombardment.
I basically believe you're right, but I can't wrap my head around this: How is it that they still have any control at all of the strait after all of this? Is their significantly depleted missile force enough of a threat as long as they have any credible capability whatsoever left?
Iran "controls" the strait by shooting missiles at any ship that passes through without paying them a protection fee. This includes ships that pass through Omani waters, which it has no legal control of. It's terrorism, and also an act of war.
Iran built thousands of fast-attack speedboats which patrol the strait, get up close, fire a few missiles, and quickly return. This video gives a good explanation of their strategy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKJHaODzP-0
This can be mitigated by the US/Gulf Countries, with a large number of airplanes / drones patrolling the Iranian shore, and preventing these boats from launching.
Yes, Iran built underground caves specifically to store their attack speedboat fleet. The US and Israel bombed the entrance to one on Qeshm Island multiple times, and it's unknown how many boats are still functional.
The straight is narrow enough that they could use artillery to hit the ships in it.
And for US and/or Israel to prevent it, they would have to occupy the correspondingly wide strip of Iranian coast. At which point we're talking about a massive ground invasion (and of course then the same artillery would be firing at those troops, so you can't really just stop there either).
Desert Storm involved half a million troops on the ground. Iran is about 4x the size of Iraq and has more than 3x the population. The part of Iraq involved was flat desert terrain. Most of Iran is mountainous.
> During Desert Storm, US batteries returned fire before enemy rounds even hit apogee.
That's something ground-based. And to avoid counter-battery fire, tanks move after every shot.
The Arleigh Burke class of destroyers[0] might have similar capacity since each one holds 90 missiles in the vertical launch system[1] (so they might be loaded with anything: anti-ship, anti-sub, anti-satellite, anti-aircraft, ground attack or maybe anti-missile missiles). However, to reload those missiles involves several days in port. There are only 75 Arleigh Burke destroyers at this time. Not all are near the Gulf. It wouldn't be too hard for Iranian forces to fire $10k drones that require $1M missiles to stop.
1. There is only a narrow passage through the strait which is "navigable" (meaning deep enough for supertankers - many are too big for the Suez Canal). This passage is within artillery range of the coastal mountains along the strait.
2. Now that the region is a "war zone", no insurance company will cover ships entering/transiting the strait. This was an issue during the Iran-Iraq war only solved by US Naval vessels escorting tankers. At that time, hitting a US ship would have started a war. This time, the US is an active participant in this war and every ship escorted by US ships would be a valid/legitimate military target. Shipping companies work on razor thin margins and cannot afford the risk themselves. Losing one ship (or it being out of service for months due to missile strikes) is an existential threat to the smaller shipping companies.
> This is fake Iranian propaganda. It makes no logical sense. The force sent to extract the F15 officer (approx 2 C130s of people) is far to small to retrieve tons of nuclear material stored at Isfahan.
And how does it make any logical sense to send 100+ spec ops guys in two big planes to rescue one (1) guy in a remote mountainous location? That's begging for >1 casualties and PoWs in situation which would otherwise be capped at 1. Mickey mouse nonsense.
It's far more logical that there was a different operation planned, one that would actually require hundreds of special ops guys, like securing a strategic site. And just because two planes were "stuck in the mud" doesn't mean there weren't more involved or planned to be.
> And how does it make any logical sense to send 100+ spec ops guys in two big planes to rescue one (1) guy in a remote mountainous location?
I’m a former Air Force officer, and can attest that this is in fact a long-term standing policy. “Never leave a man behind” exists because if we didn’t have that policy, pilots would be too risk averse to fly the missions aggressively.
Check out the “Notable Missions” section for a few very public examples over the past decades:
I never claimed there was no CSAR operation, and you still can't explain why you need 100+ spec ops guys in two big landing planes for this particular operation.
The US military had information assymmetry and aerial dominance. They established contact with the missing WSO through a magical CIA technology known as a "satellite phone". They secured the area with aerial surveillance and strikes, then sent in a couple helicopters to do the extraction. Nowhere does this require 100s of operators on the ground, risking their lives and escalating to a ground war. This isn't the 1960s in Vietnam.
It's one of the reasons the US military is so good. As a soldier, you know they will come for you, behind enemy lines, so you can fight like hell, knowing that your fellows have your back.
> And how does it make any logical sense to send 100+ spec ops guys in two big planes to rescue one (1) guy in a remote mountainous location? That's begging for >1 casualties and PoWs in situation which would otherwise be capped at 1. Mickey mouse nonsense.
Fucking software engineer "logic." They're not playing starcraft, pushing around mindless units that will thoughtlessly follow any stupid order you give them?
I'm a person. You make it clear you'll abandon me the moment it's "logical," I will abandon you. If you make it clear you'll go the extra mile for me, I may be motivated to do the same for you.
No, I would absolutely not want 100s of guys blindly crawling over the dirt, I would want someone to pick up my satellite phone calls and send a couple helicopters.
1. Why pretend like you have any insight into the state of Iranian uranium? Just immediately makes you unreliable.
2. Ah yes, "supreme leader" doesn't sound "top down" at all
3. If by "still operating" you mean, not shooting missiles out of fear of getting destroyed. Sure. But that's silly.
4. For now. But very unlikely to last, imo.
6. "IRGC stronger than ever" is an insane take. How could they be stronger than before this war? They aren't. Again, shows that you're completely unreliable on this subject
7. "Millions of dollars" haha. Oh no, not millions with an "M"!
8. Sure. But how are you going to downplay the damage to Iran and then emphasize the damage to the US when they are many orders of magnitude different? Like, surely you don't think the damages are at all comparable
9. So long as Iran has oil to sell, yes
10. K.. again, playing up damages that are orders of magnitude less than what Iran has sustained
11. True
You seem to be very confident in your understanding of what is currently going on in Iran, despite the fact that you no longer live there. Obviously the IRGC has the internet turned off for a reason. They want to be able to control the narrative. And if it were all roses like you're making it out to be, they would personally be paying the internet bill of every Iranian to spread the word. Yet instead, they silence your people.
And do you really want to bring up the school, as tragic as it was, after your government slaughtered like 30,000 of its own citizens days before that? Motes and beams and all that.
you seems very confident about 30k casualties propagated by western media. all we, in the south east, see from west media and leader are just lies and hypocrisy
Wars are about objectives. The USA managed to accomplish none of its objectives. Iran forced USA to concede and call for ceasefire before US could achieve objectives. That’s the definition of defeat. Iran won by not losing and holding out.
Iran has more leverage at the end of this war than it did at the start. Iran has proven that it has the capability to catastrophically disrupt global economy.
Discovering? It was announced a thousand times, maybe you dismissed because none of them were easily achievable?
Opening the Strait, renouncing nuclear program, renouncing ballistic program, regime change. Even Israel will be forced to retreat from Lebanon.
Iran won by choking the Strait and telling USA and Israel they could endure far longer than their aggressors could endure a few missiles and domestic support drop.
A Pakistani-made taco was not in my radar for today.
Opening the Strait was not a goal of this action; the Strait was open before this war started. They are trying to sell as a win a return to the status quo ante.
I dismissed them because the president and the Pentagon could not seem to articulate the objectives of the war in a way that was cohesive with one another.
Yeah obviously opening the strait wasn’t an objective. I think what you’re suggesting is that the mentioned reason - denuclearization of Iran - is unlikely to be the real reason, which may have been something like distraction.
This war is happening today, to exchange a future nuclear war with Iran with a conventional war today.
The US and Israel can fight a conventional war with Iran. They cannot fight a nuclear one. In a nuclear war, Israel would be destroyed by nuclear missiles in the two days. The possibility of a nuclear Iran is an existential crisis for Israel, and Israel will do anything possible to prevent Iran from gaining nukes.
That is why we have this conventional war happening today, (with unclear goals), to prevent a nuclear one in the future.
This war was unavoidable btw, it was going to happen sometime this year or next.
> This war was unavoidable btw, it was going to happen sometime this year or next.
Iran was, as per the latest reports I've read, complying with terms and not enriching uranium to weapons-grade or close to weapons-grade. Are there credible reports suggesting otherwise?
Those reports are old. IAEA inspectors have not been able to access any of Iran's nuclear facilities since the start of the 12 day war on June 13, 2025. Currently, nobody knows what Iran is doing with their nuclear material.
Although it might reflect actual considerations of Israel and, by extension, the US, that's ultimately a very unreasonable take. Iran might not have been trying to build nuclear weapons in the past, as they claimed. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. In contrast, Iran will try to build nuclear weapons in the future with certainty. They'd be insane not to try now, after having been bombed for weeks in an illegal war of aggression against them and having been threatened with massive war crimes and genocide.
This sounds like goalpost moving. Like if you fail to acheive regime change, just say whateber the consequences of your failure were had been your objectives from the start. According to "some" who might "say"
You speak like you and I discussed this before, and you remember where the original goalposts were.
Many analysts suggested that the attack was a smoke-and-mirrors, and the actual goal has always been financial. Similar to the tariffs story. According to that opinion the outcome of the attempt is irrelevant. Regardless of whether the regime have changed or not, the goal is still achieved.
Come on man. The goal was regime change. They said its regime change. They were chasing the high of the maduro kidnapping. But then they ended up replacing Khamenei with Khamenei like they replaced the taliban with the taliban in afghanistan. Its fucking embarrassing
What action can Iran take today that they couldn't take a year ago? No one who has been paying attention should be surprised that Iran can shut down the straight. It has been a known factor for decades.
They have less leverage. The have so much less that they are forced to openly use their last and most powerful card for their survival, when they never have had to before. That is a position of weakness, not strength.
>The have so much less that they are forced to openly use their last and most powerful card for their survival
That is not their most powerful card. Their most powerful card is mining the Strait of Hormuz and taking out all GCC desalination and oil infrastructure. That would result in a global depression, and probably end the Gulf countries as we know them.
Destroying the gulf states would dramatically reduce the importance of the Strait, which would make mining it or otherwise shutting it down somewhat pointless anyway. It is a bit of mutually assured destruction, but the USA is probably in the best position of anyone to weather that storm.
I suppose it is more powerful in an absolute sense than just temporarily shutting down the Strait, but like Russia's nukes, I think the threat is more useful than the play itself. Unless they are just looking to take others down with them.
> What action can Iran take today that they couldn’t take a year ago?
Remove of sanctions, ability to monitize traffic through the strait, guarantees against aggression and a cessation of military bases in their region. IMO, a much stronger position than they were in a year ago.
1. The strait had freedom of navigation before, now Iran controls it.
2. It was suspected Iran would shut the strait in a conflict. Its ability to enforce the closure was question. Iran has now proven it can enforce control of the strait and American can’t do anything about it.
3. The negotiation plans mentions nothing of denuclearization. Iran doesn’t even need a nuclear deterrence now they have proven that closing the strait works so well.
4. The regime didnt collapse, leader replaced by the more hardline son. Command and control continued to function despite attempted decapitation.
5. Iran inflicted billions of dollars worth of damage to US assets forcing US soldiers to flee and reside in hotels.
6. Despite taking a pounding by America for over a month they can still target and destroy local targets as retaliation as they proved yesterday by striking large Saudi petrochemical plant and striking in the heart of Israel.
You keep making comments making it sound like you have a better view of the world than the people you're responding to, but just making personal attacks. The person you're responding to, for that specific point, is referring to: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/us/politics/troops-iran-h...
“Flee and reside in hotels” not equal to relocate and continue mission. The major operational staff at these bases still work there. Support was relocated not fleeing.
Iran looks like it will get a toll on Strait traffic. This money, plus even a partial lifting of sanctions, will be a windfall.
Any Iranian leadership whose brains are not made of sawdust will use that money to race to a nuclear weapon. Clearly, we are in an era where the only reliable nuclear umbrella is locally sourced and homegrown. Expect a dominant geopolitical theme to be proliferation as every state that feels somewhat threatened boots up a nuclear weapons program. From ~9 states today, we should expect to see ~30 within the next 10-15 years.
> Your entire formal military apparatus was destroyed, nuclear sites in rubble, defense industrial complex leveled, two levels of leadership KIA, and the only thing preventing you from permanent destruction or regime change is an impotent threat of attacking ships?
* Which doesn't mean much nowadays: see Ukraine, and the perseverance of the Taliban who eventually got their way.
* Are you talking about now? Or last year when everyone was told that the nuclear program was obliterated? If it was then, why was there a second round of attacks in this year? And it's not like the existing stockpiles of enriched uranium vanished.
* As Ukraine has shown, you can have a defence industry in people's basements churning out 4M drones per year that can do a lot of damage.
* Yes, the past leadership was KIA. And new people were put in place who are more hardliner hawks than what was taken out. So how is a more hawk-ish regime a "win" for the US?
* An "impotent attack" that has kept several thousand ships sidelined in the Gulf? That has caused fuel (petrol, diesel, kerosene, LNG) prices skyrocket? That have caused helium (needed in chip manufacturing, MRIs, etc) prices to triple? If that's "impotent" I would hate to see effective.
Perhaps stop taking the administration's claims at face value. Their army has not been destroyed. They continue to launch missiles daily and have been extraordinarily successful in targeting US/Israel radar and defensive assets throughout the region. They have suffered air force and naval losses, but if you look back at analysis from before the war started, exactly nobody considered the Iranian air force or navy to be of any strategic significance. Iran operates on a distributed military structure rather than a centralized command, so the assassination of senior political and military leaders is not the crippling blow the US expected it to be.
And really, that expectation is itself stupid. Suppose the US got involved in a hot conventional war with another superpower, and in the first week they killed the President, the vice President, a bunch of Representatives and Senators, and a bunch of senior figures at the Pentagon. Would the US just fold, or would it fill those positions via the line of succession, declare a national emergency, and fight back vigorously? You know the answer is #2, and the idea that other countries might do the same thing should not be a surprise. It appears the US administration has fallen into the trap of believing the shallowest version of its own propaganda about other countries, and assuming that Iran was just like Iraq under Saddam Hussein but with slightly different outfits.
The Iranian strategy is basically Mohammed Ali's Rope-a-dope: absorb punishment administered at exhausting cost (very expensive munitions with limited stocks) while spending relatively little of their own (dirt cheap drones with small payloads but effective targeting, continually degrading the aggressor's radar visibility and military infrastructure). The one limited ground incursion so far (ostensibly to rescue an airman, but almost certainly a cover for something else) resulted in the loss of multiple heavy transport aircraft, helicopters, and drones at a cost of hundred$ of million$.
The companies with billions on the line didn't seem to think Iran's threats to attack ships were impotent.
Their military capabilities are diminished in the short term, but if their ability to impose a toll on the Strait of Hormuz holds then that's a massive win for Iran in the medium/long term. A mere $2M per ship represents 10% of Iran's GDP. They would become the only country in the world to impose a toll on international waters, and they would have established a defensive deterrent almost as effective as having a nuclear bomb.
They took on the most powerful military ever seen and lived to tell the tale. It's hard to spin that as a loss for Iran.
The thing to remember about Iran is it's a country run by religious fanatics. Ask a secular democracy if they would trade the lives of most of their political and military leaders for a 10% boost to GDP and they would look at you like you're insane. Ask 86 year old Ali Khamenei if he would trade dying from an Israeli bomb landing on his house for Iran establishing a stranglehold on global oil trade and securing $100 billion in annual toll revenue, and he would have been ecstatic.
Yes, we basically pressed a magic button that eliminated two layers of leadership (as well as hundreds if not thousands of civilians). Now, what strategic objectives have we accomplished?
The best Iran could hope for given its inevitable defeat by a far superior aggressor was to deny the invader any kind of spoils. And by those standards they seem to be succeeding.
So now we have a pointless war that has resulted in thousands of dead with no tangible benefit to anybody, except of course those cronies of the administration doing insider trading.
This is not pointless. It exists to exchange a future nuclear war with Iran with a conventional war today.
The US and Israel can fight a conventional war with Iran. In a nuclear war, Israel would be destroyed by nuclear missiles in the two days. The possibility of a nuclear Iran is an existential crisis for Israel, and Israel will do anything possible to prevent Iran from gaining nukes.
Most people do not comprehend this conventional war is happening today, (with unclear goals), to prevent a nuclear one in the future.
Hitting desalination plants across the gulf isn't much better than a nuclear war. If anything, the takeaway from this conflict is that nobody is ready for even the modest number of conventional ballistic missiles produced by an impoverished and dysfunctional state.
So instead of using diplomacy to ensure Iran stopped short of acquiring nukes - which had been effective - the US preemptively has attacked them, disrupting the region, killing civilians... to continue to prevent them from getting nukes.
What is the cost to the US to go on this excursion in an effort to simply maintain the status quo wrt nukes? Of course there's the real cost in treasure and the damage to its gulf allies, but there's a continued erosion of soft power and a deeply weakened relationship with other NATO countries.
So the upside here - the reason to suddenly switch from "diplomacy" to "aggression" was - what exactly? Oh, it's that Israel saw its opening, Netanyahu wanted a boost in his polls, and the old man in charge of the US was glad to do what his friend asked of him [0].
People want to believe that there's some purpose here, that there's method in the madness. But that continued belief relies on being blind to the reality before us.
> It exists to exchange a future nuclear war with Iran with a conventional war today.
That's just ridiculous. Nobody can predict the future, so trading uncertain war in the future for a certain war today is completely irrational. (And for the same reason, the war today is unlikely gonna be easier than the war tomorrow.)
Besides, Iran has avoided having nuclear weapon, because it causes too many civilian casualties, and that's against their beliefs. In this, they're more civilized than Americans (and Europeans), despite that this might be considered to be an irrational view by barbarians like you.
I think you're just coping with the fact that this war was utterly pointless, destructive for almost everyone in the world, and a poor attempt to increase power by a small group of people.
Former Iranian Majles member Ali Motahari said in an April 24, 2022 interview on ISCA News (Iran) that when Iran began developing its nuclear program, the goal was to build a nuclear bomb. He said that there is no need to beat around the bush, and that the bomb would have been used as a "means of intimidation" in accordance with a Quranic verse about striking "fear in the hearts of the enemies of Allah."
"When we began our nuclear activity, our goal was indeed to build a bomb,” former Iranian politician Ali Motahari told ISCA News. “There is no need to beat around the bush,” he said.
Read the last two lines of that interview. Khamenei interpreted Islam as forbidding even building the bomb, and he is the moral authority on this, like it or not.
Japan could also have built a nuclear bomb, but chose not to. They decided that out of nothing else than their moral beliefs.
You simply don't want to accept than other cultures can be (in some respects, and even regardless of what individuals think on average - that's probably similar for large enough groups) more ethical than your own.
Iran enriched over 450kg of uranium to at least 60%.
There's no need for anything over 5% for powerplant use. They were preparing HEU for weapons; whether those weapons were to be built now or in 20 years is irrelevant.
Per international agreements, it was their right. The idiotic thing about this argument is that now everyone knows they want nukes and that not having ones is strategic mistake. Because Iran and Ukraine did not have one. Meanwhile, countries with nukes are safer.
Yes, I agree, except it's not irrelevant whether they built functional nuke or not, because this is used as a justification for war. (Not to mention, as a justification for war, "they could have built a nuke" is even more barbaric than "they have built a nuke".)
Still, that doesn't counter the fact they didn't actually make a nuclear bomb out of the material, nor the fact that their highest moral authority banned them from doing that, so it doesn't do anything to disprove that culturally they are more civilized (in that respect).
(Maybe an example from a corporation would clarify this better - the fact that there is a group of people in it doing things unethically doesn't mean that the company as a whole condones this behavior, even if structurally - how the corporation or capitalist society is constructed - might lead to some people doing it internally off the books. But once it is known to the CEO - the highest moral authority in a corporation, if he is not to be implicated in this, he must tell them to stop.)
It's frankly just moving the goalpost in an attempt not to accept your own barbarism. Is your culture OK with using nuclear weapons, even in self-defense? If yes, how do you dare to judge?
> their highest moral authority banned them from doing that
This means nothing. Iran says one thing publicly, then privately does another. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his country will not develop ballistic missiles with a range exceeding 2,000 kilometers [0]; yet they secretly developed missiles with a range of 4,000 km [1].
> The best Iran could hope for given its inevitable defeat by a far superior aggressor was to deny the invader any kind of spoils
clearly not, they had an already planned goal to remove the american ability to impose sanctions, and implemented the plan, while sufferjng a ton of losses to personel and materiel.
this is a major improvement from where the US could impose sanctions and states would comply. surviving iranians are in a much better position now than before the war
I think the nature of war has changed. A slow moving swarm of drones, will keep large Aircraft carriers well outside the range of their fighter jets.
A nation can swarm an aircraft carrier with a 1000 drones, each costing about 40k USD. Only a few are needed to seriously damage the carrier. Not to mention ballistic missiles.
In this scenario, does a US massive, slow moving aircraft carrier possibly carrying hundreds of billions of assets really work ? Can the US meaningfully project power with these?
In this scenario, who holds more power or leverage ?
An aircraft carrier can project power within 500 miles. The idea is to use a few of these to knock out the air power of the opposing nation, basically airfields, missile stockpiles, factories, power infra, etc. And then drop in a ground invasion force.
Does this now work? I dont think so. 10 drones can be launched from the back of a truck.
The US Navy has quite a few more tricks up its sleeve apart from aircraft carriers. Just one publicly known that immediately comes to mind: amphibious assault ships, which can launch/land F35s.
Have you been living under a rock for the last quarter century?
It doesn’t take planes, ships, or missile launchers to defeat the US military. The average American gun owner is better equipped than the insurgents that have defeated our armed forces.
Define defeat here. I think everyone in this thread confuses actual defeat with indifference and political risk. If the US military could be defeated so easily America would cease to exist, no? It just loses interest and moves on. Nobody attacks the US because they would lose.
Defeat is failure to achieve strategic goals. (The fact that you’re even asking that question is a strong signal that you have no idea what you’re talking about, and that you think rhetorical questions are a substitute for critical thinking)
Anyone who thinks America would cease to exist due to foreign military action is a fool. Canada and Mexico do not have the logistical capabilities and no one else has trans-Pacific/Atlantic force projection.
That's why the US won in Vietnam. Guerrilla warfare was no match for the planes and ships of the US military which swiftly defeated the Vietnamese and installed a friendly capitalist government.
Air power alone does not win any conflict. This is well known and proven over and over. Iran is not giving up its nuclear material for the asking, and there is no way for the US to secure without committing ground forces. Iran would love th US to commit ground forces, because it has a massive defensive advantage due to its terrain and decades of preparation for asymmetric conflict.
The US military is a paper tiger. All of the planes, ships and missiles are of limited utility when they're so afraid of 1 pilot getting captured.
That's not to say the rescue mission was wrong, the psychological advantage of Iran capturing the pilot would have been immense. But, it demonstrates just how weird the US military is.
Most militaries would have had no choice but to let the pilot get captured and then negotiate a prisoner swap at a later date. The US had the option to mount a rescue mission, and merely having that option available is a strategic disadvantage. Now Iran knows that the US is very unwilling to suffer captures. Now Iran is incentivised to maximize captures in the case of a ground invasion.
The US could probably win with a ground invasion, if they committed all their forces. But they're definitely not willing to suffer the consequences, so the effect is that they cannot win[0]. The US Army is a supremely powerful force that nevertheless cannot be used offensively anymore because the US is unwilling to suffer the consequences of doing so, kind of like a nuclear weapon.
[0] it reminds of Feynman's anecdote about a stage hypnotist. When the hypnotist invites you on stage and tells you that your eyelids are heavy and you cannot open them, you are aware that you could open your eyes if you wanted to. But in front of the watching crowd, you of course "choose" to obey the hypnotist and keep your eyes closed. So were you really able to open your eyes? The US military "chooses" not to open its eyes.
Except there was fight and the US lost multiple aircraft in that rescue and required the use of the most elite personnel US has. Let’s just say I don’t take Trump for his word.
That’s where you’re wrong, kiddo. They don’t need to win a set piece battle like it’s a chessboard. They’ve already woken everyone up from Pax Americana. I’m not sure what’s going to happen when the GCC realizes that pumping billions into the United States economy comes with no security guarantees or real benefit at all. We’re operating from a highly leveraged position. It’s going to take a while, but with a few more years of hindsight, the depth of what a monumental strategic blunder this is will seem hard to believe. We’re not sending our best to Washington.
Those “few drones” have completely kept the US military, ships and all, far away since they can damage and sink large expensive vessels with tiny cheap drones.
How did the planes and ships and missles fare in Iraq or Afghanistan? Oh yeah, decades and trillions spent and nothing changed. Iran is much larger and well armed everywhere, with support by China and Russia and others….
Sure, but they can still hit critical infrastructure. Iran still has missiles that can hit Israel, they just launched some more tonight.
War is about achieving political gains, even if it means material losses.
Compare the proposal that the US rejected in February to the 10 point plan that Trump now says is a "a very significant step" which he now " believes it is a workable basis on which to negotiate."
The proposal in February mentions limiting nuclear enrichment.
"The Iranian proposal does not meet core US demands. US officials told the Wall Street Journal that Iran’s proposal would force Iran to reduce enrichment to as low as 1.5 percent, pause enrichment for a number of years, and process its enriched uranium through an Iran-based regional consortium.[11] Four unspecified Iranian officials told the New York Times on February 26 that Iran would also offer to dilute its 400 kg of 60 percent-enriched uranium in phases and allow IAEA inspectors to oversee all steps.”
The new 10 point agreement (see top comment on this story) explicitly mentions
"Acceptance of Iran's nuclear enrichment rights"
and
"Payment of damages to Iran for loss in the war" as conditions (along with lifting sanctions).
The new plan is CLEARLY a step backwards from the perspective of the USA and the fact that the US is entertaining it while Iran literally is still launching missiles to Israel means that this is clearly a step backwards for the US.
All the ships stuck in the Gulf probably didn't consider the threat impotent.
On the other side: what more can the US do? Target civilian infrastructure? There is no appetite for getting stuck with boots on the ground, and everyone (including Iran) knows this.
You're probably right that it won't a win for anyone. If some of the points includes removing sanctions from Iran, it might be a huge win -- for Iran, or at-least it's population.
This is true. 90% destruction of military is meaningless if 10% can wreck havoc on the strait. The cost associated with eliminating that 10% was deemed too much. That is Iran’s “win”.
It not that impotent. Attacking civilan targets in the age of drones is not that hard - a small motor boat with explosives or a shahed style drone is all you need. And to keep the strait closed they don't need to attack all ships. Even 0.1% probability of an attack (maybe even 0.01%) is enough to halt the traffic. And they don't need to sink the ship - a fire on board is enough to create an unacceptable security risk for tankers and LNG carriers.
It was a while since Houthis attacked any ships and yet traffic via Suez is still 60% down from what is was befor attacks started in 2023. Because the risk of an attack is not zero.
> Iran is a shell of the threat it was a month ago.
That's why it is crippling the entire world's economy and demanding concessions bigger than the status quo ante bellum, with the US powerless to stop it. Because it's no threat.
> 90% destruction of military is meaningless if 10% can wreck havoc on the strait. The cost associated with eliminating that 10% was deemed too much. That is Iran’s “win”.
You've been paying attention to what's happened over the last few weeks and you qualify that threat as impotent? That impotent threat basically brought the rest of the world to it's knees.
They hit like 20 ships, people died. That’s why insurance went up. Literally the US navy will not go near the strait due to the ballistic missile threat.
They've frustrated the biggest military on the planet to the point of issuing expletives. It's a huge moral win. Symbolism matters more than anything else in these situations.
I don't think its a victory for either Iran or the US.
Iran suffered a lot of losses in terms of people and widescale destruction of infrastructure.
But the US lost too, we come out of this war looking much weaker and more chaotic than we did going in, not to mention the amount of money we poured into it while accomplishing nothing (nothing we destroyed in Iran was a threat to us until we bombed them in the first place).
It's hard to see how the US benefits because the US is geographically very far away from this region but I don't think it was an expensive war: short duration, mostly just an air campaign. IMO Trump did this to send a message to the world.
Gulf countries and Israel should feel much better though, despite the losses, knowing that Iran's capacity is now limited to terrorist-like harassment. This is not the end however as the US, Israel and hopefully other countries should continue to monitor Iran closely.
"Not expensive" is a ridiculous claim. In another week or two we will have spent as much as the Department of Transportation's entire annual budget.
Worse than that, Iran has now proven that they have the ability to wreck the world economy at will, giving them a lot more leverage in all future negotiations.
If the proposal that Iran start collecting tolls on all traffic through the strait happens, that will give them such a large cash infusion that it's impossible to call this anything other than a decisive victory for Iran.
iran paid costs they expected to pay beforehand, but the result of negotation is that they dont need to give the concessions they were previously willing to give.
thats a pretty clear win. they paid a heavy cost for it sure, and war is expensive, but as a negotiation tactic goes, doing the war was a success
Asymmetric warfare shouldn't be measured on the metrics of conventional warfare. Iran can continue to cause enormous economic pain for the world without any of that.
> This is true. 90% destruction of military is meaningless if 10% can wreck havoc on the strait. The cost associated with eliminating that 10% was deemed too much. That is Iran’s “win”.
You arguably can't run gorilla large-scale manufacturing. There are obvious limits to what you can achieve when the opposition can run decapitation strikes every few months.
lol no, they both have lost substantial influence in Iran... the US has been chipping away at the spheres of influence for both China and Russia in recent months, first with Venezuela and now Iran. Hopefully Cuba is next.
And the US surveillance capabilities are substantially greater than they were during the Iraq and Vietnam wars. Smuggling in drones or missiles isn't some trivial affair.
And again, if they do that, we just decapitate their leadership again. And again. Until they stop.
Seeing diehard MAGAs in these comment threads is always so amusing. Clearly Agent Orange didn't think the threat was impotent if he crawled on his knees to negotiation table hastened by dire predictions of impending economic collapse but you somehow think it was "impotent" ? Astonishing :)
> Your entire formal military apparatus was destroyed, nuclear sites in rubble, defense industrial complex leveled, two levels of leadership KIA
the same thing the media keeps asking trump: what do these things matter?
there's a meaningful change to iran's negotiating position basically forever into the future: the US cannot impose sanctions without also banning states from using the strait, and its clear what states will choose between the two. I still dont think they care about nukes, but now they can keep enriching as much uranium as they want to 60% and they can use that as a negotiation chip for something else.
the US and israel are not nearly the threats they were a month ago, not just iran has paid the costs of war
the real problem for iran is that now they actually have to deliver good stuff for their citizens - for all the western bluster, its still a democracy, and they do have to hydrate their population
It's not clear to me they are much less of a threat than they ever were, but it's also not clear to me they were ever much of a threat.
They did everything they could in this war, didn't they, and apparently it didn't do too too much? (other than the economic damage of closing the strait, which seems to be what worked). But I think they could probably keep doing everything they've been doing still? (including controlling the strait).
With battery tech going the way its going in two years how far do you think these drones will fly? Enough to hit all surrounding countries and cause chaos. There is also the Al bab whatever its called strait as well to shutdown.
I worry this war has only made things worse in every regard and pulling out at a time like this is also bad. The reason no one wanted to get into this position is because it takes some fucked shit and some pain to get out properly.
That's asymmetric warfare basically. The regime is more or less intact. There are no US booths on the ground. And Iran just demonstrated it can majorly disrupt international energy markets by blocking the strait of Hormuz more or less indefinitely. With a major power like the US seemingly unable to prevent that or put a stop to it militarily.
Painting this as a victory for Iran would be a stretch. But they definitely did not lose either.
This is something that keeps on happening to the US. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. are all conflicts where the US won militarily and then had to withdraw anyway. Vietnam is still ruled by the communists, Afghanistan is ruled by the Taliban once more, and the regime in Iraq is nominally Iran supported and not exactly on the best of terms with the US either. This conflict seems to be a repeat of past mistakes. The US went in, bombed the shit out of stuff for a few weeks and only then steps back to literally think "Now what?!". It could have done that a few months ago and saved us all the trouble of having to deal with this BS.
Painting this as a US victory is also quite a stretch. Iran never really posed a credible military threat beyond its borders. Nor did Afghanistan or Iraq. I think China might consider this a win though. And they definitely pose a non trivial military threat. Some historians might end up arguing the US took some long term strategic hits here for essentially very little meaningful gains. And we'll see in November how Republicans fare on the economic aftermath of what you might describe as a gigantic cluster f** at this point.
1) Trump threatens stone age for Iran if they don't open the strait.
2) Iran agrees to open the strait if they're not attacked.
What happened here is they caved under Trump's threat but they're going to make it look like they're opening the strait on their terms, while Trump will make it look like they're opening the strait on his terms (which actually makes more sense, because if they didn't open the strait we'd have probably started bombing them)
And Iran's military hasn't been destroyed, they still control the strait. How do you explain that if they don't have a military?
I think you are right. Leadership vacuum will not resolve by itself: Iran either will go democratic way or into some internal fights (this one more probable IMHO).
I can't figure out what was even USA goal in this war ? they have said everything and it's contrary, so there is no way to know if they won or if they lost. I guess it's a smart move.
But on the other hand,
Iran still has enriched uranium, nuclear facilities and now they even have put in the agreement a recognition of Iran's right to seek nuclear technology.
Iran missiles.. they still shoot them and there is nothing to prevent them to build more. They are going to get a big cash-flow with that control of the Detroit, recognized in the 10 point agreement.
Iran government has not been replaced. I'd say it's even stronger now that it 'won' the war (that's the way they're going to show it on national television) and they even asked to get UN sanctions lifted. That will bring them some legitimacy back.
What other usa war goal were proclaimed ?
I vaguely remember a national security thing where Iran was going to bomb America. I guess the war didn't prevent that because Iran did kill American soldiers and caused billions of $ in loss.
Iran goal on the other hand ?
Destroy the evil American ? They weren't going to anyway.
Survive ? I guess they did.
And now the population that was supporting their government is even more radicalized.
> Iran government has not been replaced. I'd say it's even stronger now that it 'won' the war (that's the way they're going to show it on national television) and they even asked to get UN sanctions lifted. That will bring them some legitimacy back.
That's the thing, winning depends on your goals.
Iran's goal was to survive as a country, and the autocratic theocracy that rules it to stay in charge. Not only it managed that so far, but it now effectively controls the flow of all exports going through the gulf. It is an actual victory.
US' goals were unclear. A lot was said. Regime change? Stop Iran's nuclear program? Stop its support to proxies in the region? Take Kharg Island? None of that was done. It was a deafeat.
Israel's goal is murder. It murdered a lot of people during this war. Double points for murdering children. I think Israel can also claim victory here.
Yeah, on second thought I think that the real winner is Israel.
After all, it's their war. American shouldn't even care and yet they got convinced to spend billions and billions on this war that will benefit mostly Israel.
And the greatest achievement ? Before you mention it in the comment, I even had forgotten that Israel was cobeligirent in that war. They go under the radar when they are those who actually reached their goal: kill, murder Iran official, destroy their infrastructures, 'lay down the grass' as they say.
And now they even invaded Lebanon while the world is happy because the Detroit is open again.
Exactly. People always focus on discussing whether the US is succeeding or failing, whether Iran will control the strait or not, and they forget that Israel is an active party there.
Meanwhile they are also invading Lebanon, and never abandoned the genocide against Palestinians. That "final solution" is still ongoing, but completely fell of the radar.
> Iran still has enriched uranium, nuclear facilities and now they even have put in the agreement a recognition of Iran's right to seek nuclear technology.
You can figure out the goal. What you can't figure out is a goal that actually had a snowball's chance in an oil fire of being achieved.
Insider trading. People surrounding Trump like when he does crazy stuff that shifts markets, so they influence him to do so. And Trump is really easy to influence.
Let me articulate the thing which I believe is on many people's minds:
What is the chance the president will order a nuclear strike on Iran as this war proceeds?
We would hope the odds are vanishingly small, because doing so would be profoundly disadvantageous. But the same was true for initiating this war in the first place. The logic -- such as it is -- of some people in power may lead them to conclude once more that shock and awe can succeed. We've already struck the country with powerful conventional weapons at scale and it has not led to a weakening of Iranian resolve.
All the above said, my personal hope of course is this will never happen. I'm curious what other folks think however.
My real question is not whether it would achieve anything meaningful, but what would be the side effects of such a strike on allies in the region.
I don't have a remotely decent mental model of fallout etc from modern nuclear weapons - my assumptions are they're still toxic enough to be a bloody terrible idea anywhere near someone you like.
I think the main concern would be escalation, e.g. Netanyahu feeling emboldened to use his weapons too. And of course Putin, to try to shock Ukrainian forces and population (good luck).
Alliances might get reshuffled as everyone realizes they need to reassess their nuclear defense and deterrence. It would fundamentally change the nature of modern warfare, not for the better. Let us hope this never happens.
1. They replaced the decrepit Khameini with a much younger and more formidable Khameini.
2. “Pulled a Ukraine” vs the US showing defiance and have now rallied any wavering regime supporters against the American and Jewish “devils”.
3. Reminded the anti regime population that they’re not going anywhere and that the US can’t help them.
4. Showed everyone in the ME and the world that if anyone messes with them they’ll close the straight. Then gas prices go up. Then your own domestic pop gets pissed. Then your chances of re-election drop.
5. Destabilised the whole region costing the ME lots and lots of money.
I'm no fan of this administration but another way to look at things is that the US can essentially destabilize a region while facing mild commodity price increases. Actually it shows that the US could eliminate the leadership at its leisure even if it can't hand select the replacements. I'm also not sure the powers that be in the ME hate the rising oil prices.
Again, not a fan of the situation and while I think it is the US's loss I do not really see how it is a win for Iran.
$2MM per tanker for safe passage is an extra $100 billion a year in revenue, which is peanuts next to the world's de facto acknowledgement that Iran now has sovereign control of the Strait of Hormuz and can charge whatever it wants. The ceasefire also includes lifting all sanctions on Iran, and notably says nothing about its nuclear program, which becomes de facto acceptance of its right to continue it to its logical endpoint of Iran becoming a nuclear power.
Before this started, it was impossible to imagine that Iran could achieve all this. It's hard to how this isn't a massive win for Iran.
> to the world's de facto acknowledgement that Iran now has sovereign control of the Strait of Hormuz
That people thought the sovereign waters of a nation were not their sovereign waters absolutely blows my mind. Is it poor schooling, some kind of warped world view?
> That people thought the sovereign waters of a nation were not their sovereign waters absolutely blows my mind. Is it poor schooling, some kind of warped world view?
Because they are not? Oman clearly shares a part of it.
its also the sovereign waters of oman as well, its just oman outsources its military to the USA, who didn't have the ability to enforce its sovereignty.
But this was a know risk, and there are at least 20 years of plans, thoughts risk assessments for the Strait of Hormuz. Had the state department not fired everyone, or the DoD not fired all its strategic advisors, they'd have been able to tell the exec all of these problems.
1. $2MM is their initial demand, expect it to be negotiated down.
2. There is a lot of missing details. Most ships transiting the Hormuz are Asian. Will Iran also charge China, their ally, or will they get a discount? And countries like Pakistan and India who have been neutral to slightly Iran-leaning? Can the US even "sign" such an agreement on behalf of the world? As far as non-parties to the conflict are concerned, Iran's toll is literal highway robbery.
3. "Lifting all sanctions" is again Iran's initial negotiating position. Most likely, the final agreement will keep some sanctions.
> As far as non-parties to the conflict are concerned, Iran's toll is literal highway robbery.
Yes.
But before the US started this stupid war, everyone knew that Iran had strategic control over the strait, and Iran reasoned that if they were to impose a toll on ships passing the strait, the rest of the world would gang up and bomb the shit out of them, removing their strategic control of the strait. So it was kept open.
But now the US went in and bombed the shit out of them anyway, whereupon Iran discovered that despite that, the US wasn't able to secure the strait. What they previously feared turned out to be manageable. They can close the strait, and the cost of stopping them is much, much higher than the US, or any other country wants to bear.
So the rest of the world is choosing between joining the US' illegal fiasco of a war in Iran to help open the strait, or simply paying the comparably tiny toll the Iranians are asking for, in return for oil shipments resuming immediately. So far, everyone is choosing #2.
As a bonus, Iran has also discovered that they can break through the defences of the other gulf states and legitimately threaten their oil facilities, desalination plants, and other infrastructure. Previously, the mostly US-supplied missile defences they had was assumed to be 100% effective, but by testing it, Iran now knows that they're not.
And all of this because the US, in its hubris and arrogance, assumed Iran was as defenceless and vulnerable as Venezuela, and that it would work out splendidly like that time. Idiocy.
<< And all of this because the US, in its hubris and arrogance, assumed Iran was as defenceless and vulnerable as Venezuela, and that it would work out splendidly like that time. Idiocy.
This. It is hard to express the level of exasperation past few week brought. The move left US in a notably worse strategic position than when it began.
Just because there are no worthwhile violent means by which to stop Iran from putting a toll booth in international waters doesn't mean that it can do it at no cost.
Doing this is going to make Iran a global pariah and piss off its only ally, China, who has to pay 70% of the toll (ostensibly, unless they cut a deal).
$2m is the current toll that Iran has already successfully charged any ships it allows. It amounts to an extra $1/barrel, so it's a trivial tax in comparison to what the supply shock is causing in fluctuations. China has already paid, and will happily pay going forward if it stabilizes the supply chain.
Expect it to go higher as negotiations cement Iran's highway robbery. Which, yes, it is highway robbery, but it's robbery no one is able to stop without invading and occupying Iran to execute proper regime change... which no one, least of all the US, is stepping up to do.
The U.S. has lost all negotiating leverage. It's been demonstrated that they're unable to militarily impose their will on Iran, and they're far more sensitive to economic disruption than Iranians are--who are, as I type this, forming human shield rings around vital bridges and facilities, ready to die if the U.S. bombs them. Negotiations are, at this point, about the U.S. coming away with some face-saving outcomes.
They're happily paying it because it is a wartime toll.
Consider also the renewed impetus for pipelines on the Arabian peninsula to bypass the strait.
Consider that China has now recognized this as a point of weakness and will be finding ways to reduce or eliminate their exposure.
There is only one permanent solution to blackmail. Shelling out the extortion money is only a temporary one. Blockading international waters is super illegal.
> Consider that China has now recognized this as a point of weakness and will be finding ways to reduce or eliminate their exposure.
China has always seen its need to import oil as a weakness and has been working on solutions to that, solutions it is now very happy to export to other countries that now recognize the threat as well. This war is a huge boon to China which probably helped it avert a recession that was otherwise going to happen this year or next.
The only real shocker is that the USA (well, the MAGA crowd) refuse to see this as a weakness. We have a way to literally make the Middle East irrelevant, and yet we’ve decided to pull back on our anemic (in comparison to China) efforts in moving in that direction.
There are already pipelines in the Arabian Peninsula. None of those help - on the contrary, they are more vulnerable than tankers. The Houthis have already targeted the Saudi pipelines in the past.
The only possible solution would be underground pipelines but a.) sunk costs into existing pipelines, b.) capex needed is much higher, c.) you can't transport all of the oil and gas, or even a significant fraction of it through standard sized pipelines.
Saudi Arabia will invest into a port on the Jeddah side, that's for certain.
China has understood their dependency on seaborne oil for years and been actively working to mitigate it with EVs etc. Their electricity mix is coal, renewables and nuclear with not a lot of natural gas.
International law doesn't really exist and if it did, the US and particularly Israel have committed far worse violations (including the most taboo one of all, genocide). Redrawing some borders on a nautical chart by force is minor in comparison
So is declaring that you won't abide by the Geneva Conventions, targeting civilian infrastructure and double tapping a girls' school, but here we are at the logical conclusion of the dumbest war in centuries.
Another question is, how is Iran going to enforce this?
It doesn't seem Iran still has a navy that could board ships and force them to stop without actual violence.
What happens if a tanker decides to not pay and chance it? Will Iran sink it? That would constitute an act of war (a reprise of the war). Hard to pull off politically (even if it's easy to do technically).
Now imagine how the international community feels about the toll - “sure would be nice if Iran’s leadership was replaced so we don’t have to pay a toll for an international waterway”.
The whole situation further isolates Iran globally (they were already isolated before the war).
Now imagine how the international community feels about the US starting a war of aggression against Iran without even consulting with its allies and trading partners beforehand.
The whole situation further isolates the US globally (they were already isolated before the war due to threats of taking Greenland, making Canada the 51st state, leaving NATO, etc.).
How do you know allies and trading partners weren’t consulted? Of course they were! The US had to get overflight permission the first day.
Iran had long been a thorn in the side of Europe and the Middle East countries. There is no love lost if the US decides to attack Iran. Most US allies would welcome deposing the current Iranian regime.
The US is anything but isolated. Notice how happy Europe is now that the US is bankrolling the Ukraine war?
Don’t confuse public statements intended for local consumption with what’s happening behind the scenes. Countries will happily talk tough to keep their own people happy all the while partnering behind the scenes.
> Notice how happy Europe is now that the US is bankrolling the Ukraine war?
The US is not currently bankrolling Ukraine in the way it was in 2022–2024. Under Donald Trump, no new large aid packages have been approved, and support now largely consists of delivering previously authorised funds and equipment.
mopsi provided a link to data. Please at least look at it before making unsubstantiated statements. It clearly shows that the US has not contributed since the beginning of 2025, let alone 'bankrolled' it.
If you consider the topology, it is way less viable.
If you go through UAE (the narrow part) you are attempting to build a canal through mountains and desert.
Any other route (the non narrow parts) would just be 3-4x the length of the Suez Canal but through a desert, but since its not sea level the whole way, with locks (which means more water... again, desert), and at the end forces you through an even narrower strait at the end (Bab-el-Mandeb). The Houthis in Yemen have blasted Israeli-affiilated ships in that strait before, and they are Iran-backed.
Also, even if any of that were done: As ACOUP pointed out, the problem is not just the strait itself. Iran controls the entire eastern coast of the gulf and could harass ships from any location there. Even if ships could somehow bypass the strait, they'd still be in danger as long as they are in the gulf.
Essentially, Iran showed it can control most of the gulf if it wants to.
You can't cross the Arabian peninsula to the Red Sea either as there's also a mountain range on the west of it.
The only viable passage would be through the center of Oman (no mountain here) but that would be a gigantic canal. And that wouldn't really solve the issue, as the Iranians could easily block the canal as long as it is within reach of their drones and ballistic missile: you just need to hit one ship in the canal to effectively block it.
Or you could, like China did, build a massive railway from China directly to Teheran, thereby bypassing most of the maritime sanctions and maybe even transport oil directly to China:the 5 nations railway corridor https://fountainbridge.substack.com/p/china-iran-rail-corrid...
That's not a US specific strength though, anybody with the ability to strike someone with shorter range than theirs can do that. I.e. Netherland can destabilize South America through attacking Panama and its very unlikely that Netherlands will be bombed.
Sure, when US Brazil etc. are pissed off enough, Netherland can just TACO like the US did.
China and Russia can do the exactly same thing to Iran too and Iran won't be bombing Moscow or Beijing either.
It might demonstrate madness though, which in same cases can be useful.
This is an insane take. Why would Netherlands do this when America exists? And even if they didn't rest on their laurels and let America do it, they would not be able to establish a kill chain the way USA can, and so they would need American support. And even if they forewent the support, they would be denounced on the global stage and suffer massively economically. You are massively underestimating just how much liberty USA has to say YOLO and do whatever it wants.
Russia has established that it cannot in fact do this! That is why the two week special operation has gone on for so long.
China? It remains to be seen.
For now the best assumption is that USA is in a league of its own when it comes to imposing its will on other nations.
Maybe the Dutch are willing to risk it all to annoy the libs so they will elect and transfer all the power to a complete clown and attempt to make some money on the stock market and betting sites in the process.
I don't think parent is arguing that is a wise or prudent thing to do, but merely that violence is very much accessible to the state as an option. Just because it is not exercised with reckless abandon like, especially more recently, in the case of US, does not mean it suddenly does not exist.
<< For now the best assumption is that USA is in a league of its own when it comes to imposing its will on other nations.
You are wrong in general on this point. European countries in general have a long and exciting history of imposing its will upon others ( unilaterally and not ).
> For now the best assumption is that USA is in a league of its own when it comes to imposing its will on other nations.
It literally lost and wasted huge amount of resources in the process. Everyone else politely nodded until insulted too much, but otherwise ignored what USA wanted. When insulted, they exchanged some words while continuing to practically ignore what USA wants.
> For now the best assumption is that USA is in a league of its own when it comes to imposing its will on other nations.
I don't think that is a correct take away.
assuming that this ceasefire holds (big fucking if) it proves that the US is unable to defend it's self and allies against sustained drone attack.
Part of the reason why the middle east's US allies are allied is the implicit deal that they won't fuck with the oil supply, and the US will protect them against their enemies.
In the 90s, the USA would park a few carriers in the gulf and project complete air superiority. They can't do that anymore, and now needs land bases controlled by allies who the USA openly despises.
China doesn't need to bomb places to make its will felt. It's slowly and subtly built out bases over the south sea, effectively fortifying areas that are not chinas. They have also pretty much compromised most of the telecommunications infra through the various typhoons. (I've also heard rumours that intelligence agencies are leaking like a sieve as well.)
Part of the reason that WWI happened was because a massive military power tried to crush a "primitive" opponent, they fucked it up and demanded help from its allies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cer this then dragged everyone into a massive fuckup.
It’s not the ME countries who are profiting, because they can’t export. So it’s a net loss. (Saudi and oman win a bit, but in no comparison to the iraq kuwait loss)
The winners are mostly: Russia, Iran itself and (margibally) the US. But mostly Russia.
The biggest winner is China. Countries/people who have any common sense will switch to solar, induction stoves (replacing LPG/LNG), batteries, electric vehicles (of all kinds). China is the only supplier of solar, batteries, EVs and all things electric with everyone else being a rounding error.
But that's what has changed. Even short term solar is becoming the obvious solution. Look at countries like Pakistan and their solar hyper growth.
Everybody thought it has to be western countries (mostly europe) switching to solar first. But west might actually be last to get off fossil because they can afford it and populist politics will force fossil. It's like burning fossil for nostalgia.
Ya, look at what happened in Nepal, poor access to oil via India, who imports it themselves, but lots of hydro potential. China being next door with an actual rail and truck connection, and cheap EVs.
The developing world has the potential to achieve developed living standards for a much cheaper price, while the west rots away catering to vested interests.
Russia has banned the export of gasoline starting April 1st, because hits on infrastructure by Ukraine are causing internal shortages. They may be profiting in some other way but it’s unlikely through major exports.
Over the past few months their oil facilities have been heavily attacked. It’s hard to believe they’re actually making a big profit from this in the short term.
The US isn’t winning. The owners of us oil companies may have won a little. Commodity gamblers won a lot by knowing what Trump would say and betting before he said it.
The US government and population have lost a lot of wealth.
US, in the past (eg - iraq) has shown that it can destabilize a region without any effects to the US, not even a mild price increase domestically. So this one is a big degradation from that earlier stance.
The $2m toll per strait crossing, at 120 ships a day, is going to pay dividends in perpetuity for them. Their economic situation is now actually better than it was pre-war.
The Islamic regem lost all its legitimacy in Jan. Even some loyalist where angry at them but they gain support of part of the people and found a reason to exist as the defender of the country.
They will survive and become stronger particularly if they get an economic lifeline out of this peace deal.
It helps the discussion if you would correctly restate what has been agreed. The first obvious mistake is that the US have agreed Iran can charge tax on ships passing the strait; at 32000 ships a year and a nominal $2M, that amounts to $64B alone, doubling their revenue from oil exports and making any foreign currency they like appear in their accounts.
And no, Europe and others definitely do not owe you any debt for this catastrophic war of choice (that still, they enabled! good luck flying there without them!). You will permanently lose many of the ME states to China.
There’s a good argument that European counties should be taking Trump to court and sanctioning him personally for the damage caused by a war he started.
Not sure which world you're in, but Iran has put forward a 10-point demand plan, and it looks like the US (or rather Trump) will likely accept all of them instead of getting stuck in a quagmire before elections.
Yeah, they did. Did you compare to their original 5 point plan? Their 10 point plan sounds like they've given up removing US bases, taxing Hormuz AND the safety of their proxy armies. No "right" to nuclear bombs (sorry "power stations"). No reparation payments. No removal of US bases.
Any agreement with Iran doesn't matter anyway, because Iran hasn't held up it's previous agreements, so there's no real long term point to any agreement. I wonder if they'll let the US clean up their nuclear stockpile and their centrifuges. That is the real question that matters to the west: does the US (or someone trustworthy) get to go in and remove that shit? Does the US (or someone trustworthy) get to go in and demine Hormuz?
(oh sorry, did propagandists claim Iran didn't mine Hormuz? Well, they lied. And we could point out that that is yet another islamist warcrime ... but what's the point? Frankly it's a pathetic warcrime compared to what they do to people in Iran itself, Syria and Yemen)
> According to state media, Iran will only accept the war’s conclusion once details are finalised in line with a 10-point peace plan reportedly submitted to the White House via Pakistani intermediaries.
> The list of 10 points, published by Iranianstate media, include a number of conditions the US has rejected in the past. The plan requires:
> The lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions on Iran.
> Continued Iranian control over the strait of Hormuz.
> US military withdrawal from the Middle East.
> An end to attacks on Iran and its allies.
> The release of frozen Iranian assets.
> A UN security council resolution making any deal binding.
> In the version released in Farsi, Iran also included the phrase “acceptance of enrichment” for its nuclear program. But for reasons that remain unclear, that phrase was missing in English versions shared by Iranian diplomats to journalists.
> I'm no fan of this administration but another way to look at things is that the US can essentially destabilize a region while facing mild commodity price increases.
Oil spiked over 40% at its peak and US gas prices are up 25-35%, and that's before things got to the point where there were "real" supply issues. I don't know how you can reasonably consider this "mild".
> Actually it shows that the US could eliminate the leadership at its leisure even if it can't hand select the replacements.
Everyone and their brother has known that the US can assassinate virtually any world leader if it really wants to. The question you haven't answered is: to what end?
> I'm also not sure the powers that be in the ME hate the rising oil prices.
Notwithstanding the fact that this situation only increases the attractiveness of oil alternatives, you're missing a few points, including:
1. If oil prices rise too much, too fast, it leads to demand destruction. Nobody captures the higher profits for long because the global economy falls into recession if oil stays above a certain price point.
2. Price stability is just as important as price.
3. Significant long-term damage was done to oil infrastructure and Iran demonstrated how easily infrastructure can be effectively targeted despite all of the advantages its neighbors have in terms of American support, American defense technology, etc.
Your comment also doesn't consider the geopolitical costs of this "excursion". The administration's actions have further alienated America's strongest allies (except for Israel) and added fuel to the "America is undependable" fire. This is good news for China:
> China surpassed the United States in global leadership approval ratings last year, as Donald Trump's second administration began its term in earnest, according to a new Gallup survey.
> The polling firm reported Thursday that the median global approval rating for Chinese leadership stood at 36% in its 2025 world survey, exceeding the 31% recorded for U.S. leadership. It marked the first time in 20 years that China's approval rating topped that of the United States by more than 5 percentage points.
If we're being honest, there are no winners in war but since we live in a world that likes to have winners and losers, a loss for the US is a victory for Iran.
Not only has Iran managed to survive being battered by the most powerful military in history, it has:
1. Created a global energy and economic crisis.
2. Effectively demonstrated that it can control the Strait of Hormuz even without much naval and air firepower. In doing so, it showed that the US Navy is not capable of controlling the seas anywhere and anytime.
3. Caused the US and its allies to spend billions of dollars worth of advanced weapons systems (many of which were already in short supply) to defend against much cheaper drones and missiles.
4. Incited Trump to lash out at the European countries that have historically been America's biggest allies, accelerating the trend of America's now possibly irreparably damaged relationships with these countries.
5. Baited Trump into publicly and belligerently positioning the US as a hostile state willing to threaten war crimes/genocide to get its way.
A lot of Iran’s victory simply revolves around Trump being so incompetent. But then again any president with half a brain wouldn’t touch a war with Iran given our negative experience in the region fighting much weaker countries.
I think I broadly agree with you. Even if we accept the premise that it is not a win for anyone in a war ( there are counters here, but lets say that we accept it ), the reputational damage to US is hard to be overstated. I am not entirely certain some of it will be salvaged. That is how bad it is.
I am not a fan of Trump, but I was mostly ambivalent about most of his escapades. He clearly got really lucky with Venezuela and it went to his head.
> (...) another way to look at things is that the US can essentially destabilize a region while facing mild commodity price increases.
I'm afraid you are yet to experience the real impact of this war. The actual effect of closing the strait hasn't hit your wallet yet. It's a repeat of the same old tariff bullshit.
Also, Iran did inflicted heavy damage on some of the infrastructure of US's allies. You will start to feel that in a few months.
The only party that clearly stood to benefit from this event was Putin's regime. Orban is not the only vassal at his command.
You weren't paying attention because that's what the US does since decades... Just now it impacts Western countries directly (Ukraine and Iran come to mind)
I think you're mostly right, except maybe a bit misinformed on #1. The younger Khamenei is, according to recent reports, in a very unstable condition, has likely never actually had an input on the leadership of Iran so far, and his future state is uncertain.
So I think there will be another leader elected soon.
> So I think there will be another leader elected soon.
That alone is another clear sign of Iran's ruling regime emerging as the clear victor. Not only there was no regime change but also their primary regional and global antagonists tried their hardest and completely failed to overthrow them.
Moreover, some neighboring countries who were in the US sphere of influence were very quick to fold and remove themselves from the conflict, while others saw their primary economy attacked by Iran and helplessly so.
Forget about Iranian regime's internal opposition. So did the US.
Is there any question on who emerged the clear winner?
1. A power struggle is more likely than an election. Even if an election, it would be a bit Putinesque considering the IRGC has killed 30k protesters this year, that likely included any viable opposition leaders.
2. Only Qatar, and it is speculated because it was one of 3 countries in the region not intimated by the US about the attack, and they aren't very happy about that.
This is mostly true, but I have to push back against the 30k number. That's a number that only the US regime has been touting. HRANA has verified about 7000.
> I think you're mostly right, except maybe a bit misinformed on #1. The younger Khamenei is, according to recent reports, in a very unstable condition, has likely never actually had an input on the leadership of Iran so far, and his future state is uncertain.
> So I think there will be another leader elected soon.
What does that have to do with anything? The USA (my country, sadly) provoked a far smaller nation and was proved incapable of dominance.
Trump will claim victory, but it's not what they thought they'd get.
What the eff do you even mean? I'm not trying to be inquisitive. I'm pointing out a very specific fault. You're trying to reframe my point and you're full of it.
> What does that have to do with anything?
That's not an actual question. That's me saying "wtf are you talking about".
I'd say more like a loss for the US than a win for Iran.
> 4. Showed everyone in the ME and the world that if anyone messes with them they’ll close the straight. Then gas prices go up. Then your own domestic pop gets pissed. Then your chances of re-election drop.
Everyone knew from the beginning that closing the strait was something Iran would do. But it is current US government that is either inept or too smart for their own good and thought with US producing surplus oil for domestic use, it will not impact them. They didn't care for the consequences and it came back to bite them.
Also, wasn't it that even if the war was stop/ceasefire oil prices will take a long time to recover? If that is true the domestic pop getting pissed might be true even with this ceasefire and it will hurt the current government in their upcoming elections.
> 3. Reminded the anti regime population that they’re not going anywhere and that the US can’t help them.
More like galvanized people against a common enemy. Regime is going to come down hard on the protestors than ever before and some might find it easier to blame the power which claimed to deliver the regime change. Then Americans will talk about how Iranians hate their way of life and the attack was justified.
> thought with US producing surplus oil for domestic use
I have to assume that at least someone in the room was well aware that all oil is not created equal and that US refineries were designed from the beginning for Venezuelan and similar oil rather than US oil.
That's why I said either inept or too smart for their own good because closing of the strait was a real threat before the war and was ignored, leading to the tweet on Easter.
Even if US refineries were designed for US oil to keep domestic prices low one would have to introduce export restrictions because oil is a global commondity. Big oil will not be happy about that and it seems they have a great influence over the respublican party and Trump.
Nationalization doesn't define who is in charge though. You can have the state taking over industry, you can also have industry taking over the state. Both ultimately lead to nationalization of the industry.
Still looking at the details, but this morning, one of the biggest French newspapers was basically headlining (a slightly more polite version of) TACO.
Not a good image for the US around the world, including its (former?) allies, I guess.
One should never draw a redline they aren't willing to cross. Trump of all people should know this, he gave Obama shit for years over the uninforced redline with Syria over chemical weapon use.
To Trump, when someone else does something, it's worthy of reproach, but when Trump himself does it, it's the cleverest 4D chess anyone could ever imagine.
A more fundamental aspect of his character is that everything his enemies does is bad and stupid and everything he does is good and genius.
So if Obama allows red lines to be crossed, it's totally different. Trump has a long history of bluster and hyperbole and - look - we re-elected him so I guess it can be a winning strategy.
Or it was. Now that people are calling his bluff on tariffs and genocide, there isn't so much winning.
This war (not the ceasefire) is basically a loss for the USA. Many people don't yet grasp the scale of the reputational, economic, and power damage that has occurred and will continue to occur.
Just the attack on data centers has caused certain conversations in my circles that basically comes to down to some guys will try to get off of foreign clouds and into local hosting in their own countries (most seems keen for co-location hosting because of the static ip ranges & other admin sugar and reliable power; not concerned about hardware pricing as the hardware is less than 10% of the equation). All thanks to a couple attacks on data centers that we are not even hosting on.
> 3. Reminded the anti regime population that they’re not going anywhere and that the US can’t help them.
More like: Reminded the anti regime population that US has no interest to help them and will happily kill all Iranians and proudly destroy all of civil infrastructure.
> 5. Destabilised the whole region costing the ME lots and lots of money.
In this case, the destabilization is firmly the fault of USA and Israel.
It's very hard for me to see this war (regardless of final outcome) as anything other than a massive strategic loss for the USA. The US has spent a stunning amount of materiel and political capital to achieve nothing of lasting benefit to themselves, and have killed thousands while further destabilising and impoverishing the region. A catastrophic outcome.
It's absolutely possible for both sides in a major conflict to lose, and they've managed to do so in this case.
I disagree. Iran was about to lose. If this ceasefire had not happened, the US and Israel would bomb all of Iran's electricity and fuel facilities. That's what was supposed to happen today, and is what forced Iran to the negotiating table with an hour to spare.
Without electricity, there is no modern life. There is no ability to communicate, pay salaries, run a business, have running water, etc. Without fuel, there are no logistics; there is no capability to transport an army. Nor is there an ability to transport food, people will starve; it would cause an enormous civilian crisis, and this would cause massive riots bigger than the ones seen in January.
The Iranian government would have no ability to coordinate a response, and Iran would collapse within a week. The country would devolve into chaos, into paramilitary factions, and a civil war would start, similar to in Syria.
The US and Israel have been sitting on this the entire time. They don't want to do it, because it would cause near permanent economic damage to Iran.
Once Iran showed it had no ability to prevent the US/Israel from doing a indiscriminate bombing campaign, it was clear the US and Israel could always win this war through this outcome.
It never had any ability to prevent an indiscriminate bombing campaign, and never did. And nobody ever thought otherwise.
It only ever had to prove it could keep the strait closed. Which it did. And now the americans are going away, and they can get back to hanging students from cranes.
The USA has failed to achieve any of its strategic goals, and is going home, defeated.
The conflict is far from over, this ceasefire is unsustainable as neither side wants to agree to the demands of the other.
A ceasefire mostly benefits the US, since it can bring in more military assets across the globe. Ships and troops are still weeks away from arriving & being able to participate in combat operations.
A negotiated settlement is preferable to total destruction of the Iranian economy, and large destruction in the middle east, by all parties involved.
I expect the conflict to resume after two weeks, or later this year, after midterms.
…except very few died. The Iranian and US casualties and entire ME casualties since the operation started combined are less than 15% of the Iranian citizens slaughtered a month before this all started.
Do we not care about deaths anymore? Avoiding war and death is a win for everyone.
They did not manage to bomb Germany, North Korea, or North Vietnam into submission and they tried for years. Winning through bombing alone has never worked.
No, it would achieve the three primary goals of this conflict.
It would cause catastrophic economic damage to Iran, and given how politically unstable Iran currently is (millions of people rioted earlier this year), the regime would not survive the oncoming civil unrest.
It would be a humanitarian disaster, but from the US/Israel's point of view, it would be a victory. An Iran with no electricity has no capacity for industry, and has no ability to manufacture missiles, drones, or have a nuclear program.
Without ability to manufacture missiles, Iran would be unable coerce people to buy into it's Hormuz transit toll system, and the strait would reopen.
This weakened Iran would have no ability to produce nukes, close the strait, and make missiles; for at least a decade while they recover economically.
> This weakened Iran would have no ability […], close the strait, […]
Here is where we disagree. And i think this is the only point which matters.
I agree with you that the US always had the ability to destroy Iranian civilian infrastructure. I agree with you that doing so would cause catastrophic economic damage, civilian unrest, regime overthrow etc. It would seriously disrupt their nuclear program for sure.
What it wouldn’t do is reopen the strait. As long as some ships pay the toll those monies can be used to pay the “warfighters” and their weapons. It is relatively cheap to do so. Ukraine demonstrated this with their unmanned surface vessels. This they can do even if the whole hinterland of Iran is in flames and turmoil.
In fact the more their economy collapses the more lucrative this coastal piracy “business” relatively to other opportunities becomes. People who “before the bombing” had better things to do will find that shaking down foreign ships is still doable “after the bombing”. Some of it will be out of ideology and hate for sure, destroying all the civilian infra of a country tends to whip up emotions in people. But fundamentally they can keep doing it because it is a business which pays.
And regime overthrow won’t help with this either. In the absence of a strong central coordinating force you might get multiple separate pirate outfits camping at different parts of the coast trying to take tolls. That obviously wouldn’t improve their economic success, but would increase chaos and hinder transportation even more.
In short while the USA could destroy Iran as a nation, doing so would not eliminate the threat to shipping in the region.
Iran's "toll booth" only functions because they shoot missiles at ships that don't pay up. If they didn't shoot missiles, nobody would pay. They have no legal ability to do this; the strait is split between Iranian and Omani territorial waters. Iran does not have legal control over Omani waters. Actually enforcing their "toll" means firing missiles at ships in Omani waters who don't pay. It's a combination of piracy, terrorism, and an act of war (violation of Omani sovereignty).
This situation is unacceptable for every other Gulf country. It may not be dealt with in the coming weeks, but will be addressed in the coming months, in a similar fashion to how Somali piracy was neutralized.
Also, a neutered Iran would not have the capability of producing anti-ship missiles, which is the primary enforcement mechanic of this toll.
"Without ability to manufacture missiles, Iran would be unable coerce people to buy into it's Hormuz transit toll system, and the strait would reopen."
You don't need missiles to keep Hormuz closed. Cheap drones, naval mines and such are enough, and those don't require that much production capabilities, especially if you get some help from Russia. It's enough to hit a ship every now and then, which keeps the insurers away.
Even without any infrastructure IRGC could wage a guerrilla war for a long time.
In an industrial collapse scenario people in Iran, including IRGC, might have something more urgent than antagonizing ships. Things like subsistence farming.
That's not something I would cheer for. For what it's worth, this did not Germany, Japan, North Korea or Vietnam to collapse. What makes this time different?
Iran is already teetering on the brink of collapse, the country is suffering from a decade-long economic crisis, and massive riots nearly tore apart the country earlier this year.
It is highly urban country, where 75% of people live in modern cities. Cities cannot survive without a constant influx of food and water, both of which require electricity and fuel to be delivered. In the previous conflicts you mentioned over 50 years ago, Japan, North Korea and Vietnam had large rural populations that were less affected by access to electricity and fuel.
Also, consider how much of modern life now relies on vehicles and computers, which would be disrupted immediately if this conflict continues.
Regarding Germany, the allies did not focus on destroying German electrical infrastructure, they actually didn't consider it as a priority target. However, post-war analysis determined that if they performed a targeted bombing campaign on Germany's electrical generation, it would have significantly hampered Germany's industrial capacity, and pushed the war to a close months sooner.
> Iran is already teetering on the brink of collapse
"We only have to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down"
- Adolf Hitler about invading the Soviet Union.
Again, I must reiterate my point: terror bombing has never ended a war. Post-war analysis also confirms that despite a very costly strategic bombing campaign, Germany tripled its production. Things fell apart when they lost men, ground, harvests and alloy mines to the Red Army. The war ended with the Soviets in Berlin, firing howitzers at government headquarters with open sights.
Perhaps the strategy that failed every single time so far will work if we ramp up the cruelty a few notches, but that's not a possibility I am excited about.
It's still a victory. It postpones Iran's nuclear and missile capabilities by a decade, and kicks the can down the road so another administration can come back and clean up the mess again.
Putting aside the fact that the humanitarian disaster you envision would not produce the simple result you expect, it's quite disturbing that you have completely glossed over the fact that destroying Iran's ability to produce electricity is a war crime.
Committing an act of genocide against a country of 90+ million people would be the death of the US as we know it.
Ah yes, a comment from the morality police. According to international law, if the electrical grid directly enables Iran's military, then it is a valid military target. In every major conflict since WWII, electrical infrastructure has been targeted. This includes WWII, the Korean war, Vietnam War, Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf wars, 2003 Iraq War, and the Russo-Ukrainian War.
So no, it's not automatically a war crime, it's a case-by-case basis.
And claims of "genocide" from are laughable and ludicrous, the target is the IRGC, and regime change. If they wanted genocide there are far more effective ways to do so.
Russia bombing civilian infrastructure does not make it "not a war crime". The fact is, USA and Israel did committed war crimes here and planned to commit more of them.
And yes, according to international law. No, you do not get to bomb desalination plants, eletricity plans, universities, hospitals, bridges and schools and claim "it is not a war crime because soldiers in area exist".
It is not possible to take your moral high-ground "war crime" argument seriously, when Iran is doing the exact things you are accusing Israel of doing.
This is a textbook definition of terrorism. That the military uses the civilian infrastructure is a justification that not even the US tried to use. This is pure terror bombing, and they admitted as much.
> According to international law, if the electrical grid directly enables Iran's military, then it is a valid military target.
This is not what international law states. The Geneva Conventions forbid direct attacks on civilian assets. Where assets are dual-use, the principle of proportionality applies and your intent cannot be to cause suffering, destroy civilian morale, etc.
I think anyone with an ounce of human decency and who isn't playing keyboard warrior saw Trump's threat to destroy "a whole civilization" for what it was, which is why so many military and legal scholars were disturbed by it.
For those who actually care about what the law says instead of beating their chests:
Well yes, if cruelty is the goal, bombing civilians is cruel.
If I'm not mistaken, the Obama administration was about to accomplish every single one of those goals with a treaty, which the Trump administration cancelled. Bombing a country into accepting terms that they had already agreed to is not that impressive.
Do not underestimate the effects of modern precision bombing, the technology moved forward (especially if we compare it with II. world war). Today it's much easier to destroy any kind of infrastructure, power plants, bridges, dams, water preparation facilities, waste treatment, cement, steel production, food silos, fuel storage, vehicle manufacturing, etc.
This is very important because, population in cities is much more dependent on infrastructure, than rural population. Rural population is mostly self sufficient. Over 60% of Iranians live today in cities, but under 20% of Vietnamese lived in cities at the time of Vietnam war. Vietnam was also strongly supported by China, with transportation using Laos and Cambodian.
So a large scale bombing of all Iranian infrastructure would probable not cause the fall of the regime, because they have the guns and can take anything they want, but the suffering and famine of Iranian people would be enormous.
Sometimes large scale bombing causes submission, for example fire-bombing of Japanese cities (atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was in the scale of destruction and loss of life comparable to Tokyo fire bombing, only much cheaper in the number of airplanes).
My point is that you can't bomb a country into submission. You can use strategic air power in addition to other methods, but the bombing alone was proven again and again to fail. More often than not, it hardens the enemy's resolve.
Bombing Britain failed. Bombing Germany failed (except for dragging the Luftwaffe into a war of attrition). Bombing Japan failed on its own until Japan had no navy left afloat, and the Russians savaged their army in China. The bomb accelerated a victory achieved through other means.
In Korea, Americans levelled cities and infrastructure until there was nothing left to bomb. That did not win the war.
In Vietnam, Linebacker failed. Linebacker II bought slightly more favourable terms for the US in negotiations, but in the end, North Vietnam won.
Even the Desert Storm curbstomp would not have worked without boots on the ground.
Yes bombing of Japan was a factor in surrender, but not the only one. Destruction of much industry, destruction of navy, all their allies were defeated. There were preparations for invasion of Japan or continuous atomic bombing, if Japan would not surrender.
"Two more Fat Man assemblies were readied and scheduled to leave Kirtland Field for Tinian on 11 and 14 August"
"At Los Alamos Laboratory, technicians worked 24 hours straight to cast another plutonium core. Although cast, it still needed to be pressed and coated, which would take until 16 August. Therefore, it could have been ready for use on 19 August."
The rate of bomb production was one of the Manhattan Project’s most closely guarded secrets. Expected rate of production by General Groves:
"The production rate of 3 bombs per month in August was expected to rise to 5 bombs per month in November, and 7 bombs per month in December. In 1946, it could rise much higher."
"In Vietnam, the same problem complicated any effort at industrial bombing: the factories that supplied the North Vietnamese forces (both the regular PAVN and irregular NLF) were in China and especially the USSR. Moreover the population was not broadly dependent on centralized utilities (like electricity) which could be bombed."
The article tries to apply lesson from past bombing campaigns to war in Ukraine, but this don't apply because Russia could not establish air supremacy over Ukraine and could not apply large scale heavy bombing. And I hope that they never will...
> The US and Israel have been sitting on this the entire time. They don't want to do it, because it would cause near permanent economic damage to Iran.
That is such an incredible interpretation of the situation that basically requires you to ignore basically every economic problem being faced from this insanity currently and in the near future.
Sure, the US an Israel were just "too concerned" about the Iranian economy to do war crimes.
The Iranian military is very decentralised and designed specifically with American capabilities in mind. So am not sure they would collapse. And a defending force is far less dependent on logistics in the short term. Also, Iran has a culture of sacrifice.
Iran and the US exist in a state of equilibrium of opposite strategies. The US is unwilling to risk its troops and sees sacrifice as weakness but otherwise applies maximal pressure. And Iran is willing to sacrifice its citizens and sees that as noble. And outside of a black swan event there is little hope of change.
Each side sees its enemies greatest military strength as a moral weakness and will keep fighting. Whilst conversely believing that sacrifice/maximal remote force may someday work. Iranians are not going to pivot because their culture has been forged as a response to exactly this kind of pressure. Nor will America suddenly see the sacrifices of thousands of it's men as virtuous. So things probably just revert back to the same equilibrium.
The point is that America blowing up power plants and Iran absorbing casualties is just an extension of the status quo.
If the US ended up damaging power plans and desalination plants, that would mark a clear inflection point in the number of "friends" the US has militarily, economically, and politically. Sure, Israel would still be a big fan, and maybe Saudi Arabia, but otherwise the US would become a pariah.
It would be damaging to Iran and potentially hundreds of thousands or millions would die.
That's a lot of blood debts.
There is no way the US would walk away from that situation into a better outcome.
Hundreds of regime leadership is gone. Massive destruction of infrastructure. Bombed all their neighbors who weren’t even at war with them. Pushed those same neighbors into closer partnership with Israel and the US.
This would make sense if the regime command structure had apparently not designed itself for this exact type of conflict.
They were in a fight, took losses, and made significant gains.
They proved their planning was correct, that the distributed nature of their power grid was correct, that they are able to project force and genuinely destabilize the strait.
Things have been proven that were previously uncertain, and they have not been proven in America’s favour.
Crucially America’s ability to defend its allies was tested and found wanting. The entire conflict was of unit economics, in that a cheap 30k drone beat out billion dollar investments.
America also spent the better part of this administration alienating themselves from the one allied nation with extensive drone combat experience.
Admittedly, this is the interesting part. Ukraine via its leader apparently did try to reach US in exchange for money, but, and there stories get confused, was ignored. I have to wonder if Trump has some actual fixed winners table in his mind ( because he does not seem to follow the most optimal path ).
None of those things matter if they survive and control the straight, which seems to be the situation. The toll revenue will be enough to rebuild several times over. They have proven that they can absolutely crush the gulf states with missiles and drones.
I think the fact that Trump accepted their 10-point plan as the basis for negotiation, instead of them accepting the American 15-point plan, makes it obvious this is America taking the loss.
And they haven’t come close to “crushing the gulf states”. Lobbing a middle at the oil facility is not “crushing”, it’s harassment. If anything the gulf states have decided to not retaliate themselves, but if they did it would be even worse for Iran.
Trump did not “accept” the 10 point plan. Not even close. It’s simply a list of demands from Iran, nobody has agreed to anything.
Real world events are conditional. Would you prefer I talk in absolutes?
Defacto Iran still controls the strait, as they have since the start of the war. If they start letting the ships through with no toll, I think that would indicate a tactical loss but strategic draw for Iran (well, the IRGC). If they don’t, it’s a strategic win. We’ll find out I guess.
The small gulf states are incredibly fragile because of their water supply. Major disruption to their power or desalinisation directly renders them largely uninhabitable.
You’re misquoting me on the 10 point plan. He accepted it as the _basis for negotiation_. Here’s direct quote from him on Truth Social:
“We received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate”
Lining up multiple low probability events and talking like it’s certainty isn’t that helpful to understanding the conflict.
Iran does not “control” the strait any more than neighbor controls my front door because he threatened to stop me from using it. If the US or other naval power tried to pass it would have no issue.
Have you noticed when the Houthis did the same thing (fire on ships) last year the tone was very different? Many people noticed.
Accepting something as a “basis for negotiation” means nothing. During the Korean War the US accepted a term forcing them to leave the Korean Peninsula when peace talks started and last I checked the US is still there.
> Iran does not “control” the strait any more than neighbor controls my front door because he threatened to stop me from using it. If the US or other naval power tried to pass it would have no issue
If your neighbour threatened to shoot anyone attempting to use your front door, and followed through on their threat a few times, and now no one uses your front door, I would say they control it.
Well the “expert” analysis you mentioned said the world would grind to a halt last month but that didn’t happen did it?
India and Pakistan have been running the “closure” several times with escorts, successfully. All it would take a is a naval coalition of 3-4 countries and the strait is effectively open - and no toll.
Iran is in a far worse position now than it was a month ago (and it was in a bad position back then). It’s a matter of time before Iran is no longer able to project any force in the gulf. And all the countries in the Middle East will be happy it happened.
Yup, and it's a demonstration that the US is unable to just impose its will wherever it wants, making the US look weaker.
Failure all around.
But no doubt Trump and his people will tell the world what an amazing success the whole thing was, and how they exceeded all their goals, whatever those goals might have been.
More loss for US, as in customary US not winning fast is functionally the same as losing.
Heavy weight boxing a teen it should have brained in round 1.
Teen lands a few punches back is embarrassing.
Teen slapping heavy weights protectorates more embarrassing.
Teen surviving week 4 is like heavy weight failing to brain teen by round 7.
At this point it's looking like we're going to round 10 TKO, whoever "wins", US loses. People still going to wank over if US wins on TKO because muh K:D ratio or something, but real signal is teen's strategy was to survive hits and ultimately 10000s of heavy weight hits weren't haymaker strong enough to brain a teen. At >2% of GDP of PRC, Iran is basically teen/toddler territory that drew down significant % of US active force and munition stockpiles, so there's also layer of US losing more based on relative effort expended.
To China, the conflict is a clear demonstration of the impotency of the US war machine. Before this "military operation", one could imagine the US defending Taiwan.
Now, it's a laughable thought. It couldn't even if it wanted to.
Remember that the defender has home team advantage. That’s precisely what you see happening both in Iran and Ukraine. That advantage exists with Taiwan. There’s a reason that China hasn’t made a move in all these years, and the US is only one part of that equation.
Homefield advantage is relative, between Ukraine - Iran - Gaza, Taiwan is closer to Gaza, which is to say not much after mitigating outside spoilers. Maybe less than Gaza vs force disparity involved. US is/was one part of equation, but big part of equation.
There will be a 2 week ceasefire, western countries will move ships out of the straight, the Saudis will reroute oil, the 10 point plan is idiotic and the US will have an easy excuse to resume bombing them.
I agree with you that this is just temporary, but for entirely different reasons. I think that stock market fluctuations are making some people very very rich. It's the same game as they did with the tariffs on/off every week and it's not over yet.
I don't think we know if the ceasefire will hold or if it's another attempt by trump at strategic delay/deception, but remember that the strait carries a lot more than oil and those things cannot be transported via a pipeline.
My assumption is that, by now, Trump just wants to save face and move on to an easier target, one that can't strike back. He's been preparing the US opinion for Cuba.
So I wouldn't be surprised if negotiations just... stopped, without anything happening. Pretty much what happened, if I understand correctly, to the economic negotiations with Japan, EU, Canada, Mexico and anybody else regarding US import taxes.
> And? Reduced capacity for awhile raises prices, the Saudis can sit on some oil and have the US get rid of their geopolitical and economic rival.
That pipeline is a strike away from being out for months, if not years.
> Because the Iranian 10 point plan is so ridiculous even Trump isn't dumb enough to take it.
The whole situation is ridiculous, and Trump is overtly desperate to stop the nightmare at any cost. Calling something ridiculous is no argument, particularly when we are living in a timeline where stupidity reigns.
Ok. This is getting silly and on par with 'the straight is open; it is only closed, because Iran is blocking it' quip from Hegseth. Tensions are high, because there are trapped hips AND there is no viable alternative.
It's a war, everybody loses, but given that the US started this with the explicit goal of regime change and has manifestly failed to accomplish this, it's a victory by default for Iran.
Although it wouldn't surprise me if the final deal includes Khameini Jr stepping down and being replaced by somebody with a more palatable last name.
Winning is not the absence of anything negative. Winning is emerging in a stronger position than before.
Yes the US started the conflict for reasons which are unclear. Yes a lot of lives were lost, and a lot of infrastructure destroyed.
Because the US goals are so murky it's hard to determine their standard for "winning". Certainly no one (myself included) is a fan of the Iranian regime. But that hasn't changed. The nuclear threat is unchanged. (A threat which only exists because of Trumps actions in his first term.)
What we have seen is the threat of the strait closing move from the theoretical to practical. We've seen the impact that has on the global sentiment. Iran has a card to play, and they played it, and now we all understand what it means. That strengthens their position.
Israel also ends up weaker here. The nuclear threat is unchanged. But the deaths in Iran will fuel enlistment in anti-Israel terrorist organizations for another generation.
America has lost some global prestige. (Not for the first time recently.) They've shown that they are powerless to open the strait by force.
"Winning" is a loaded term. But so far they have prevented the US from achieving their goals (if they even had any). Lots of countries declined the invitation to join in. Iran is now diplomatically stronger than before. The US and Israel are weaker. Call it whatever you like.
> Israel also ends up weaker here. The nuclear threat is unchanged. But the deaths in Iran will fuel enlistment in anti-Israel terrorist organizations for another generation.
I agree with everything else you wrote, but I'm not sure that this is considered a loss by Israel's current government.
1. Israel is used to having enemies all over the world, so by now, the population doesn't care all that much.
2. The Likoud and its far-right alliance actually needs enemies to remain in power.
Also, any reduction in the number of missiles that Iran can launch at Israel, and any reduction in the number of AA armament that prevents Israel from bombing Iran again is good for Israel.
Where Israel will feel the loss is the 2M$ levy, because this means that Iran will rearm that much faster.
True, if the presence of active terrorist organizations is beneficial then this is a win.
Politically it might suit Israel to have overt enemies. I'm not sure it's necessarily advantageous to the population, but that probably doesn't matter.
I suspect one clear outcome is that Iran now completely understands the importance of cheap, effective, munitions (drones and missiles) and so will likely build those up quickly. That might affect munitions targeted at Israel.
> I suspect one clear outcome is that Iran now completely understands the importance of cheap, effective, munitions (drones and missiles) and so will likely build those up quickly. That might affect munitions targeted at Israel.
I think that this has affected Israel for decades by now. See all the rocket factories in South Lebanon or Gaza. I imagine that this is the reason for which Israel demonstrated a few years ago prototypes of laser-based anti-missiles. I don't know if they will could work against drones, but I'd be very, very surprised if there weren't a dozen Israeli startups currently competing to come up with cheap anti-drone countermeasures.
What is even the point of all the flip flopping if there’s ongoing talks? I feel like the doesn’t put any real pressure on Iran, but I may be uninformed.
There are no talks or anything. Iran has no incentive to negotiate with a party as unreliable as the US is under Trump. I would literally negotiate with a dead opossum before I would continue to negotiate with Witkoff and Kushner.
I mean, as much as I don’t like the Iranian government, put yourselves in their position. You have the US and Israel literally leveling the equivalent of Balfour or the White House and taking out other government officials in a decapitation strike that failed, but killed off all of the moderates. The government is then replaced by hardliners who see this attack as existential. You have little to lose at this point, so you go for broke.
Since the US seems unwilling to put boots on the ground, cannot form a coherent reason for any of this and is lead by a man who is unable to accept that he can commit errors, it degrades into a war of attrition and, in the case of Trump, influence peddling since it is clear that Israel and the Saudis would like to see Iran wiped off the map and all Trump cares about is how he can internalize it as yet another reason why he is a victim and entitled to the Nobel Peace Prize.
IMHO, I think there is tremendous pressure to, at the very least restore the Strait of Hormuz as an international waterway not subject to Iranian control or tolling, but that’s an after-the-fact thing. I think Trump simply thought it would be an easy win and play well on TV. I suspect what will happen is the US pays a massive indemnity/bribe to Iran, Iran agrees to not contest control of the Strait of Hormuz and the US looks like morons which Trump will internalize as a win that nobody will believe except himself.
> There are no talks or anything. Iran has no incentive to negotiate with a party as unreliable as the US is under Trump. I would literally negotiate with a dead opossum before I would continue to negotiate with Witkoff and Kushner.
> Iran, while rejecting all the plans presented by the enemy, formulated a 10-point plan and presented it to the US side through Pakistan, emphasizing the fundamental points such as controlled passage through the Strait of Hormuz in coordination with the Iranian armed forces, which would grant Iran a unique economic and geopolitical position, the necessity of ending the war against all elements of the axis of resistance, which would mean the historic defeat of the aggression of the child-killing Israeli regime, the withdrawal of US combat forces from all bases and deployment points in the region, the establishment of a safe transit protocol in the Strait of Hormuz in a way that guarantees Iran's dominance according to the agreed protocol, full payment for the damages inflicted of Iran according to estimates, the lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions and resolutions of the Board of Governors and the Security Council, the release of all of Iran's frozen assets abroad, and finally the ratification of all of these matters in a binding Security Council resolution. It should be noted that the ratification of this resolution would turn all of these agreements into binding international law and would create an important diplomatic victory for the Iranian nation.
> Now, the Honorable Prime Minister of Pakistan has informed Iran that the American side, despite all the apparent threats, has accepted these principles as the basis for negotiations and has surrendered to the will of the Iranian people.
> Accordingly, it was decided at the highest level that Iran will hold talks with the American side in Islamabad for two weeks and solely on the basis of these principles. It is emphasized that this does not mean an end to the war and Iran will accept an end to the war only when, in view of Iran's acceptance of the principles envisaged in the 10-point plan, its details are also finalized in the negotiations.
> These negotiations will begin in Islamabad on Friday, April 11, with complete distrust about the US side, and Iran will allocate two weeks for these negotiations. This period can be extended by agreement of the parties.
When you use words like "decapitation strike that failed, but killed off all of the moderates," what do those words mean to you? With all due respect, I don't really get the Internet brain way of thinking of things. What decapitation failed? I guess, if you mean, there are still Islamic Revolution people in charge, I still can't see the point. When you say "failed" that would imply that they were literally attempting to kill literally every single member of the government at once. I don't think anyone serious would think that. Also, "failed?" I can't recall ever a decapitation happening so swiftly or so massively within the first few hours of a conflict. Also, the meat of what I wanted respond to was this idea of "killing the moderates." I get that most people here think the West and America is evil or whatever but the idea the Ayatollah and top members of the IRGC were moderate is just an affront to morality. The same people think that Trump is Hitler for doing things that 90s Democrats agreed with (even ones currently serving), would hold vigils for a truly monstrous regime. This is like some Billie Eilish "no one is illegal on stolen land" type stuff. We are talking about brutal executions for no reason at all.
decapitation was intended to result in regime change, but instead showed that the iranian system is perfectly capable of peaceable changes in power. what particularly failed is that the people the US wanted to champion as the new leaders of iran were also killed in the decapitation.
you can compare against the successful decapitation from christmas, where the US removed maduro, and championed rodriguez and now takes a cut of all venesuelan oil sales.
i think there's a reasonable argument that the ayatollah was a moderate, in a much more militant government. He's the guy that was making sure iran never built a nuke, and by observation, iran stood down after each attack the US/israel did on iran up until he was gone
"no one is illegal on stolen land" is perfectly reasonable - the american government has no actual legitimacy to control who comes and goes from land that doesnt belong to it. the various tribes do. its impractical in that the US genocided the legitimate owners and took it over by force, but its still the right and just end view. the US gets to kick people out of certain borders because it did a ton of brutal executions
> I get that most people here think the West and America is evil or whatever but the idea the Ayatollah and top members of the IRGC were moderate is just an affront to morality.
I really don’t understand this logic. I find it rather myopic and based on one’s own pain. Everything is relative, unfortunately. The idea that I would in any way condone or argue that the Iranian regime is not culpable of its own massive war crimes, grifting and other crimes against its own people is…bizarre. I am well aware of the crimes of the Iranian regime and look forward to the day it is removed, but I don’t think this is it. Even Trump admits that they killed off all of the people they thought would be more amenable to work with the US which is just a level of incompetence I can’t fathom, but here we are.
Unfortunately, in practice, moral absolutism does not exist in international relations. The evidence is right in front of your face of this fact. We could go through the litany of crimes against people that we (the US) have condoned or facilitate or been unresponsive to. The folks in Beijing have also committed unspeakable acts against their own people and others, so why aren’t we bombing them right now? Why Iran right now? Haiti is a failed state nobody seems interested in caring about. We failed to stop a genocidal massacre in Rwanda…
> When you say “failed” that would imply that they were literally attempting to kill literally every single member of the government at once.
I literally believe that Trump thought this given that he openly admitted he ignored the military and intelligence agencies telling him that this was a terrible idea. I agree that nobody rational would think this, but I argue that Trump never lies even when he says he is joking. He literally thinks as POTUS he can do whatever he wants.
But only some sort of sociopath would upend the world just to make a buck. Esp if they're already a billionaire with literally hundreds of other conflicts of interest.
Yes, markets weren't taking his "normal" market manipulation tweets seriously, so he had to go hyperbolic with the NUKE tweet. I am definitely sure Trump is not serious. That's why Iran said we will continue this discussion with complete distrust.
It is, but he is weakening the credibility of the United States in the process. Never make a threat you aren't willing to back, otherwise everyone knows you make idle threats.
It's just another military adventure ending in a disaster - probably the most humiliating in a long long time. But to your point, it's better for the US to admit defeat now, than in 2 or 3 weeks, let alone in 2 or 3 years. If a parallel can be made, Russia would have been best advised to have done the same 3 years ago.
It only requires reading your refusal to give a straight answer, eg your deflection to a passive-voice observation of the Roman Empire's collapse while avoiding the actual question of how you characterize an explicit threat to terminate a civilization.
I used to attend elementary school on a military base. I didn't feel like a human shield at the time, then again I was more naive and had less life experience than I do now.
You weren’t a human shield. It would have been very easy for the US and Israel to not have blown up a school, the attack was intentional.
Notice they had 0 issues precisely striking the building housing Iranian leadership when this whole thing started. They didn’t “accidentally” hit the grocery store two blocks away.
So you think there was a conspiracy to target a school? Who do you think did it? Why? What was their goal?
I think either an intelligence failure, or a mistake or a miss is more likely. Maybe missiles don't always hit where they were meant to go. Especially if there is anti missile defences (which Iran is likely to have). Maybe Iran anti-air hit the school, or sent a US missile off course?
More than a conspiracy, they actually did attack the school - twice - about 30 minute apart (double tap).
They would have had live video feed from drones, and images sent from the first tomahawk missile for target confirmation. Yhey knew exactly what they were targeting and hitting.
> They would have had live video feed from drones, and images sent from the first tomahawk missile for target confirmation. Yhey knew exactly what they were targeting and hitting.
You sure? IIRC it was one of about 6000 strikes. Was it all a cover to bomb one school?
Forget "rules based order" or any sympathy from US Military/Pentagon/DoD.
When "arabs" bomb "the West" - it's "terrorism". When "the West" bomb "arabs" - it's a "mistake".
Same forces that did laser precision strikes against Maduro or countless military heads of Iran are attacking civilian infrastructure with double tap precision.
I am amazed how since WW2 there wasn't a military coup in USA as many wars from them were against any logic. I guess it just proves year after year, generation after generation that US military from top-to-bottom thinks that they are the only "good guys" and have been brainwashed just as their counterparts (be it Iraqis, Iranians, Chinese or anyone).
It is amazing how readily some people believe we target civilians, often based on the words of actual terrorists.
With this particular incident with apparent US strikes on a school adjacent to a military complex, and formerly part of that military complex, you would think it must be obvious to any reasonable person that we did not knowingly target a school.
And if it was an accident it only gives us more reason to oppose the whole operation. Why should we believe what they think they "know" about uranium stocks or anything else, if they couldn't figure out a building has been a school for 10+ years?
I also wonder if they really should have known by the second or third strike, but I can't readily find whether they had a live visual or anything, so probably did not. Arguably you can't in good conscience strike a target you can't see well, but I'm sure it happens all the time and doesn't usually go this bad.
When terrorists like the Trump administration openly admit to it in some cases and threaten to do it in others, and we see the evidence, it’s easy to believe our eyes and ears over your fantasies.
We are so far past there being any merit to “Israel would never knowingly target civilians/children/hospitals/etc” that you just shouldn’t even bother. Just own it, if your leadership thinks the only winning strategy is the annihilation of another people, or at least their complete displacement, own it. Stop trying to hide behind “it was a mistake” while simultaneously showing you have no issues putting a missile through a singular car window to assassinate people labeled an enemy. Nobody buys it anymore.
For planning Operation Epic Fury, the US military utilized the Maven Smart System, an artificial intelligence software designed to streamline the targeting process and greatly reduce the amount of personnel involved in it. Capable of producing 1,000 target packages in one hour, with the use of the system the US military said it had struck 6,000 targets in Iran during the first two weeks of the war.
...it goes on to say...
The [NYT] inquiry suggested that the school was likely targeted due to outdated coordinates provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency
Advanced rockets bolted onto mainframes guided by data from Palantir.
> For what reason would they attack a single school?
Couldn't it be to terrorise the other side while still being able to claim that it was a mistake? Remember that the school was hit by three distinct strikes.
"The Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' elementary school in southern Minab was attended by both boys and girls, taught on separate floors.[9] According to locals, the school was previously a military facility.[10] Its location was near[c] the Sayyid al-Shuhada military complex which included the headquarters of the Asif Brigade of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN).[13] As of early 2026, the school had existed as a civilian institution more than 10 years, close to but separate from the IRGCN compound."The Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' elementary school in southern Minab was attended by both boys and girls, taught on separate floors.[9] According to locals, the school was previously a military facility.[10] Its location was near[c] the Sayyid al-Shuhada military complex which included the headquarters of the Asif Brigade of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN).[13] As of early 2026, the school had existed as a civilian institution more than 10 years, close to but separate from the IRGCN compound.
For more than ten years. That's Palantir caching for you.
military bases are targets. I don't know how you jump from that to victim blaming like little kids had a say in where to build a school or where to go to school or whether to shoot rockets. it's a tragedy.
Sure. But when they're next to schools, you try to avoid the school or school hours. Not doing that isn't just mean, it's strategically self defeating.
Today on several news media were a story that people of Iran were called by the government and formed human shields at the bridges and power plants that Trump threatened to bomb if no deal reached by the deadline.
No it's not. International law is generally exceptionally clear that one war crime doesn't justify another, and using civilians as human shields is about as core a war-crime as war-crimes get.
> The prohibition of using human shields in the Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol I and the Statute of the International Criminal Court are couched in terms of using the presence (or movements) of civilians or other protected persons to render certain points or areas (or military forces) immune from military operations.[18] Most examples given in military manuals, or which have been the object of condemnations, have been cases where persons were actually taken to military objectives in order to shield those objectives from attacks. The military manuals of New Zealand and the United Kingdom give as examples the placing of persons in or next to ammunition trains.
The situation in Iran is not this. The suggestion was that humans might volunteer to go to non-military sites.
As an extreme hypothetical, are humans living in their homes acting as human shields for those homes? How about people at school? How about people parading on a bridge? Does it become different if someone threatens to blow up a bridge and people parade there in response?
Eh, the quoted text, and also the literal text of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 28 [1], doesn't qualify "certain points or areas" as only "military sites". While the other side should only be attacking military sites I don't see how that could possibly justify protecting non-military sites with human shields.
> As an extreme hypothetical, are humans living in their homes acting as human shields for those homes? How about people at school? How about people parading on a bridge?
Generally speaking I read this as not, because they aren't being "used to" render those points immune from attack, they just happen to be doing so. Hypothetically if you were to rush civilians back to their homes in an evacuated town to protect it from an attack - or as you suggest organize parades on bridges that are threatened - that would seem to meet the "used to" requirement.
Article 54 gives some sites that may not be attacked. Maybe a protected person cannot render at least those sites “immune” since they are already immune.
When Lithuania was fighting for independence from USSR civilians gathered around key government buildings to protect them. in a sense they were human shields as none of them were armed. but they did it voluntarily. this happens when you threaten total annihilation of your homeland.
how do you know that iranians are forced to do this now by their government and not doing this in support of their country? do you think there are gunmen taking them to the bridges?
It was a government call. I grew up in USSR and know very well how those government "calls to volunteer" work in totalitarian regimes. Especially in a wartime country where even in peacetime they would kill people even just for being incorrectly dressed.
Anyway, as i said in the other comment, it is actually not that important how all those people got there. The key thing here is that it was a deliberate government act of human shield creation.
what a coincidence i too grew up in USSR and my parents and friends were part of above mentioned human shield. And i can tell first hand that there was no coercion. just call to action.
Threatening total annihilation was possibly the dumbest move Trump could have made.
“ Soldiers when in desperate straits lose the sense of fear. If there is no place of refuge, they will stand firm. If they are in the heart of a hostile country, they will show a stubborn front. If there is no help for it, they will fight hard."
Look at recordings from other totalitarian regimes - enthusiastic people doing government bidding. The key is deliberate act of human shield creation, not the specific way to do it.
My wife is Iranian and I know many Iranian expats, and all my in-laws are in Iran.
This attack on the school comes up all the time as a talking point. And I will tell you exactly how most Iranians react: they find it weird that you’ll talk about this school, but you won’t talk about the thousands of protesters killed by the regime.
Yes. People die in war. It’s sad. But most Iranians will say “whether we go to war or not Iranians are being killed” and it’s better to fight for regime change than to just accept the status quo.
Imagine being against the American Revolution because some innocent civilians will get killed? Yes, people die in war, but if there’s a chance for something better than it’s definitely worth it!
Every Iranian I know thinks it’s worth it and they danced in the street when Khamenei was killed.
"This attack on the school comes up all the time as a talking point. And I will tell you exactly how most Iranians react: they find it weird that you’ll talk about this school, but you won’t talk about the thousands of protesters killed by the regime."
The US government is not in any way responsible for the murder of protesters in Iran. That is done entirely by the government in Iran.
The USA and Israel ARE responsible for the murder of the kids (and adults) in that school. If you are American or Israeli you can care about the murdered protesters, but it it not really your responsibility. The murdered kids are however.
I understand what you’re saying, but I think you’re missing the point of my comment.
People bring up the school as a way of discouraging American military bombing Iran. It’s a way of shaming Americans, as if we are bad, making us feel guilty for bombing. Right?
What I’m trying to say is that Iranians I’ve spoken to are happy that we are bombing the regime. From their perspective, they are already being killed. The regime is dangerous to them. Bombing the regime and possibly destroying the regime is worth the risk.
So don’t be so hard on yourself. Iranians want your help. People die in wars, there is always collateral damage, but sometimes war is just. Sometimes the ends do justify the means. That’s how the Iranians I’ve spoken to feel.
Trump and Hegseth have declared the regime has been changed, so hopefully either Iranians are already better off now, or the US military will... finish the job regardless of what their commanders say?
In a few weeks when Trump needs a new country to attack to keep "flooding the zone", he will leave Iran, maybe the same regime still there, with some extra hundreds or thousands of innocents killed. I truly hope it goes better than that, but why should I believe that anything good will accidentally be accomplished by the demonstrably selfish, dumb, lazy, lying people at the helm of the US? They barely pay lip service to helping Iranians, let alone appear competent enough to do it.
> Imagine being against the American Revolution because some innocent civilians will get killed?
What was so great about the American revolution anyway? It's not like it gave any average people the right to vote, and it arguably preserved slavery for an extra 30 years.
Because it seems nigh impossible to actually get the 18-27 crowd to actually go and vote. Doesn’t matter if their life sucks, they just can’t be bothered to go do it. Of course you’ll get people that try and deflect blame and say that “my vote doesn’t really change anything” but these people know it does change things and they still just stay at home on voting day.
tbh I think that vote would succeed, if one happened right now. his approval poll results are abysmally bad.
what do you think the vote would be, though? "we don't like him"? last I checked, change.org-petition-style voting didn't have much of an effect on country laws.
Too many are either disinterested in politics because it's ugly, or mad that their assigned candidate betrayed one of their values (e.g., genocide in Gaza). I think a lot of younger people just don't want to be bothered.
Being against genocide isn't a "value". It's not idealistic, or naive either.
It's a duty. Moral, and legal; domestic and international.
Drawing a hard red line at genocide is damn near the very least any human must demand from their leader; perhaps only exceeded by "don't threaten entire civilizations with nuclear weapons".
Same with prosecuting rapist insurrectionists, and going after billionaire's child-trafficking/murdering blackmail rings. These are not "nice to haves" - ya simply gotta do it.
If you're not "mad" when people fail to do these things, then are you really "interested in politics", or are you simply caught in some kind of us-vs-them death spiral?
People don't seem really engaged in politics. They find it a frustrating waste of time because the news doesn't bother explaining anything to them, so they don't see the results of elections. They say both sides are the same. They don't take part in local elections. A mix of taught helplessness, learned helplessness, laziness, and the fact that if you're a white guy gas prices might affect you more than foreign wars and death squads
Both factions are filled with criminals that hate America (but LOVE Israel) and solely seek to exploit Americans as tax cows and organ donors. I take the third position: I'm a decline enjoyer and prepper.
Most people on Hacker News aren't ignorant, but they might be biased. You say both fractions are filled with criminals, and while parts of that might be true, it's far from the whole picture. Can you name anyone in the Democratic party who has caused as much damage as Trump? Missiles killing over 100 innocent children, inciting MAGA to storm Capitol Hill on January 6th, using presidential power to increase personal wealth by billions in one year, straining relationships with almost all democratic allies, massive layoffs in federal research institutions, and severe cuts to research funding that could damage the US research system for decades. His insane tariffs led to skyrocketing prices, economic disorder, and possibly a recession.
Yes, most Democrats support illegal or virtually unlimited immigration at a rapid rate which destroys the social fabric of society and leads to a rise in criminality. They are basically the West's version of the NKVD, but instead of the state ordering them to suppress the people directly, the state just selectively allows them to get away with any crimes that have the same effect as what they wished they could order a secret police force to do directly.
They learn which crimes are the approved crimes just how an AI machine learning model learns through stochastic gradient descent. They start out committing crimes basically at random, but over time they pick up on the patterns on what crimes are punished (those that are harmful to the system) and which crimes are NOT punished (beneficial to the system), and this causes them all to gravitate towards becoming system enforcers. They themselves aren't aware of their role in the system. They are just blindly following the path of least resistance the state sets up for them, but the state is aware and sets up this reward mechanism to create a system to suppress the citizens that doesn't rely on direct orders that could be traced back to them.
If they were using a secret police force they would slowly lose the trust of the people and begin losing their authority. By using this stochastic citizen suppression model they are able to keep their hands cleaner. People still know they are here and that they are letting them get away with crimes. This arrangement works as long as people think this is good and nobody can make the connection between selective enforcement and an effective police state where criminals are the police.
If the state was caught using secret police to, for example, suppress voters, perform blockbusting, or engage in generally demoralizing behavior they would need to explain themselves. If the state was caught using letting them in and enabling millions of them to suppress the citizenry then you need to explain yourself since you are now a racist bigot.
Nukes are not really for actual use but for deterrence so likely no lives would have been lost. Israel has nukes and they don't use them unless somebody attacks them with nukes. Same with other countries. Ideally both Israel and Iran as well as North Korea, maybe also Pakistan and India should not have nukes. And even more ideal it would be if nobody had them but the cat's out of the bag already.
They've also stated at various times that they believe first use or any use to be against Islamic law.
I don't find any of these statements to be particularly credible, but I also don't think they're going to strap the first bomb they make to the closest missile they find and immediately send it at Tel Aviv when it surely means the total destruction of the Iranian state.
No, I'm not saying that, how do you extrapolate my position from there. It would good if Iran continue not to have nukes but also it would be a great example for the region if Israel didn't have them either. If we allow Israel to have them we're applying a double standard. Any unhinged country should not have them.
There's not much precedent to get a powerful, vulnerable country to willingly disarm their nukes. It's fair to say Israel shouldn't have them but I'd be far more uncomfortable with Iran
All their leaders have repeatedly called for the elimination of Israel and t that must be "wiped off the map" or "erased from the page of time"
They have a much more abhorrent track record of domestic repression, state-sponsored terrorism, and explicit elimination-ist rhetoric toward Israel makes an Iranian nuclear capability far more destabilizing.
A nuclear Iran would likely embolden its proxies and heighten the risk of catastrophic escalation in a region where they have actively worked through proxies to encircle and attack Israel for decades
OP basically said every country is the same, has the same motive, so therefore it's ok for them to have nukes if others have them. That couldn't be more naive, and the Nazi regime is a prime example.
What part of this war has made Iran less likely to get a nuclear weapon?
There could have been a good war in Iran. A coalition of nations going in to secure the uranium. It would have been messy. But it would have had a clean objective.
As objective yes but whose lives would be spared for this objective? Messy is relative to policies. Aren't other ways to attain this objective other than through war? I really think there were attempts and progress in that direction.
Sure, in a purely physical sense, I suppose they could launch a nuke, triggering MAD and Israel's Samson Doctrine and ending human civilization for no reason. Currently I think Israel, the US, North Korea, and Russia have a higher (though still low) risk of doing that. In that order, by the way, though I could probably be convinced to bump Russia up higher.
I think that would be more believable, or at least the US/Israel would be more supportable in this, if they hadn't testily insisted on terms like "obliterated" and "set back by years" several months ago. You can only cry "nuke" so many times in a year. https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2025/06/irans-nuclear-fa...
they have a religious law against making or using them, and theyve been sitting at "they could make a nuke within a week" for the past 20 years or more
it feels like people are falling for iran's bargaining chip - they want people to think they could make one, but not actually make one
There was zero evidence they were close to a nuke. In fact, they've been alleged to be weeks away from a nuke for over 20 years. And the accusations come from the ones with the illegal nukes themselves!
Iran shouldn't have nukes, but starting a war—burning billions of dollars a day, killing kids and innocent civilians, and leveling bridges and universities—is objectively the worst possible way to prevent it.
The JCPOA under Obama actually did a solid job of constraining their nuclear development. That was the pragmatic approach, but Trump just unilaterally scrapped the deal. He doesn't have an actual strategy, maybe just "concepts of a plan".
This regime has been around for half a century. We supposedly destroyed their nuclear program last summer. And somehow their nuclear potential just became a war-worthy threat in February? Come on. Don’t tell me you actually believe that shit.
Unless we actually invade, all this war will do is demonstrate to Iran that obtaining nuclear weapons is an existential necessity for them, and kick the program into high gear. Oh, and provide them with plenty of funding for it due to their newfound ability to collect tolls for a vital shipping chokepoint.
> We supposedly destroyed their nuclear program last summer. And somehow their nuclear potential just became a war-worthy threat in February?
What news are you even reading? You are terribly misinformed or out of touch. Not all of it was destroyed. A lot of enriched uranium was saved. The IAEA still could not verify the stockpile's location, size, or composition due to denied access. Iran refused full inspections post-strikes.
The rest of your post is pure conjecture and nonsense.
The guy who said their nuclear program was destroyed last summer is the same guy who says we have to go to war to stop them from developing nuclear weapons now.
Do I believe it was actually destroyed? No. Do I believe the guy who said it was? No. Do I start believing that guy now that he says there’s an imminent threat? Also no.
It's pure conjecture that they are now collecting tolls from ships that transit the Strait of Hormuz? You don't think they're going to sprint for nukes at any cost now?
"As a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated. There has been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability. The entrances to the underground facilities that were bombed have been buried and shuttered with cement," Gabard wrote in an opening statement ahead of the hearing.
Joe Kent, who made big news when he stepped down on Tuesday as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said in an interview with Tucker Carlson on Wednesday that intelligence assessments did not show Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States or was close to developing a nuclear weapon, undercutting central justifications for the military action.
Trust me, I wish it weren't the case. Nobody likes being bombed and he's now a symbol of resistance. Most of the urban middle class has always hated the mullahs and various ethnic groups have conflict with the state as a whole, but Khamanei had and has support from basically every other element of society.
Replaced by an enraged son whose whole family had been killed in front of him. Basically Iran's Ayatolah is now younger and angrier. Thanks to Trump and Israel's Trump.
Iranian people were about to topple their own regime some months ago. Now the regime is cemented again since Iran was attacked indiscriminately. Again, thank the 2 Trumps.
How is this in any way a counter argument to the US bombing a school? That their own government would stoop to such lengths gives free reign to foreign governments?
The idea is that incurring a few hundred civilians deaths to liberate Iranians from a regime that slaughtered them by the thousands or tens of thousands is a net positive for human life. Of course this only works as a justification if the Iranians actually are liberated front their regime, which I don't think they will.
But the justification, if the liberation actually transpires, is sound. An order of magnitude more French and Dutch died at the hands of Allied bombing and shelling in 1944. I think most agree the the upside of being liberated from Germany makes the Allied landings a net positive, though.
But to reiterate, I really doubt the revolutionary guard is going to lose control of Iran.
The French and Dutch were members of the Allies, with Charles de Gaulle as leader of the Free-French forces and Queen Wilhelmina the head of the Dutch government-in-exile, both in London. Both wanted the allies to get the Germans out of their countries.
There is no government-in-exile calling for the bombing of Iran as a method for liberation.
Just as Laos did not call for the US to drop some 2 million tons on that country - more than were dropped on Japan, Germany and Britain during World War II - resulting in the deaths of over 200,000 people, as part of the US's ineffective attempt to "liberate" North Vietnam.
If killing those kids was instrumental in a greater good, only then is it worth being philosophical about. From what I've seen, they were too eager with the bang bang boom boom to actually double check that it was a valid target.
The ends do alter the acceptability of the means. E.g. if I offered you the means of “pay money to flip coin to make money as many times as possible” and the numbers involved were $50k if heads, lose $1k if tails and $50 buy in that’s way different if the numbers involved were $1k if heads, lose $50k if tails and $500k buy in.
If you can’t alter your reasoning to include outcomes then you will make poorer decisions.
No one wants to liberate Iran. Israel just wants to continue committing genocide and apartheid without any opposition. Iran arms Hezbollah and Hamas, the main forms of Palestinian resistance. The whole point of this operation is to decimate those groups so ethnic cleansing can continue without any resistance. Israel could care less about the Irani people.
You are very naive if you think the IRGC truly killed 10's of thousands of it's own people. Israel openly talks about Mossad organizing and supporting the coup, and good old Donny has admitted they have given weapons to organized resistance.
I estimate that many of the death numbers come from armed resistance being killed by the IRGC, not ordinary peaceful protestors. I also think armed resistance killed many Irani citizens. There is obviously fog of war here. The thousands of deaths were likely inflated and obfuscated.
Look at the coups we have backed in the middle east (including formerly in Iran which is what originally led to the Islamic revolution) -- and you will see a pattern. Both US and Israel provide material support to groups like ISIS or actors like Bin Laden. An Al-Qaeda fighter is literally the head of Syria now thanks to Israel.
I don't love Hamas, IRGC or Hezbollah, I don't like their ideology. But it is myopic to think they exist in a vaccum.
I wouldn't personally do so, but arguably those tens of thousands rest at our feet considering the current government was political blowback from the US and UK regime changing Iran back in the '50s.
It's even less likely to work because Trump has already claimed, publicly, to arming the protestors. That already makes any regime change illegitimate. They're all foreign backed agitators.
Saying "Accidents happen in war" is absolutely a way of saying "Accidents are acceptable in war".
That's what's being said here. Otherwise, it's a useless thing to say.
> What's your brilliant plan? Let Iran have nukes?
There was no evidence that Iran was pursuing nukes. Certainly no evidence that they were `n days` away from getting nukes.
My "brilliant" plan would have been the negotiations that were happening where Iran agreed to pretty strict monitoring and stipulations on nuclear fuel development.
The "Iran was getting nukes" rhetoric needs real evidence that was actually happening not "we think that might be happening because Trump said so."
> Saying "Accidents happen in war" is absolutely a way of saying "Accidents are acceptable in war".
Bridges fall down sometimes. I don't think it's acceptable. It's a statement of fact. There are always going to be mistakes, in every field and in pursuit of every goal. Your objection and implications aren't particularly charitable here.
> My "brilliant" plan would have been the negotiations that were happening where Iran agreed to pretty strict monitoring and stipulations on nuclear fuel development.
Iran was not complying with the monitoring requirements.
> The "Iran was getting nukes" rhetoric needs real evidence that was actually happening not "we think that might be happening because Trump said so."
Intelligence agencies under both Biden and Trump (and since at least the 90s) have repeatedly confirmed it.
This isn't really a question or doubt any reasonable person can have. There can be an argument about how close they are at any given moment, but they are actively pursuing nuclear weapons.
I disagree with your interpretation of these reports.
The ODNI report wasn't saying that Iran was perusing nuclear weapons, but rather that it was stockpiling weapons grade uranium. And, in particular, it calls out the reason they did this. Because the US withdrew from the JCPOA. It also called out the fact that Iran continued to say that they'd rejoin the JCPOA if the US was willing to.
Trump in the first term withdrew from our agreements, why should Iran have continued obeying the terms of an agreement that the US renegged on?
That's why I say they weren't pursuing nuclear weapons. They were stockpiling enriched uranium mostly because they were trying to use that as a negotiation tactic with the US.
But in negotiations with Trump both before the 12 day war and this time, they had agreed to re-enter the monitoring regime with the JCPOA and to completely destroy their stockpile, in return for lifted sanctions.
> Iran uses its nuclear program for negotiation leverage and to respond to perceived international pressure. During the past year, it has modulated its production and inventory of 60-percent uranium. Tehran has said it would restore JCPOA limits if the United States fulfilled its JCPOA commitments and the IAEA closed its outstanding safeguards investigations.
I see in your bio that you work on cars. Surely you've heard of car accidents? Clearly we find them acceptable enough to keep driving, wouldn't you agree?
Sure. The point is this was a particularly tragic accident. And it happened for, from the looks of the ceasefire conditions, jack shit.
More pointedly: if it was an accident, it should be investigated. Honestly. Openly. Not only is it horrible, bombing children is a strategic blunder in a war for hearts and minds.
The counter argument is missing some justification. Is it reasonable to go killing people on the hope that something good will come out of it? Is there no less violent way to achieve those objectives? Do we really think that people will organize a toppling while they're being bombed without Internet access? Do we think they'll topple the current regime for one that is less antagonistic to Israel and the US after the bombings?
Aside from the fact that the events you linked to have no connection whatsoever to why the US started attacking Iran, there is absolutely no reality or moral code in which "a government kills a couple hundred of its citizens" justifies another government on the other side of the world blowing up a hundred plus schoolchildren and other civilians.
> Here's hoping the regime is destabilised enough to topple by itself.
It's looking like this is the exact type of magical thinking of the most useless "president" ever. Meanwhile in the real world, such things take hard work.
When the French helped us during the Revolutionary War, they didn't shore bombard the colonists' kids because it would have been bad and counterproductive.
At most there were a couple thousand casualties from violent riots that involved armed gangs (or sleeper cells if you want to go that route).
There were not "60,000" peaceful protestors executed by the government, as Trump claimed yesterday without evidence. That is murderous propaganda, blood libel intended to deflect from the actual mass murder of civilians by American forces e.g. the Minab school.
It was a narrative specifically designed to induce comments like yours.
* The people responsible for murdering ten thousand protesters are now dead.
* The IRGC's military capability is significantly degraded.
* Their nuclear program is likely set back even further. It's hard to get real information here but we should assume that supporting facilities were high on the target list.
That's not nothing. From a strict utilitarian perspective, it's probably "worth it". Which sucks, but I haven't heard a better plan.
i dont think those are nearly as clearcut as suggested.
some of the iranian side for events that resulted in a bunch of death have been killed... while also killing a bunch mkre iranians, but have the americans/israelis that armed the protestors into terrorists and incided them to violence been killed?
i think theres enough police, mossad, and cia folks left to do that again and again until the protestors are all gone.
similarly, its blatantly obvious for everyone that the US destoryed the iranian capabilities that dont matter. iran is still capable enough to seter both putting american ships in the strait, and boots on the ground, so that degradation is not significant. optimization without profiling.
from a strict utilitarian perspective, definitely not worth it. the costs were extraordinarily expensive and havent been fully paid yet, and the profits for the US is a worse position than they started it
theres some light benefits to the gulf and ukraine in that the gulf realizes that they can spend much less on defense by buying from ukraine, but that pales in comparison to the costs paid in destroyed oil infrastructure and interceptors that could have gone to ukraine
Does this mean that Iran will have functional nukes in two weeks? Given how previous "ceasefires" turned out (blowing up their leadership), I don't think they are naive again and don't seem desperate to end it.
The access to highly enriched uranium or separated plutonium is the limiting factor for construction of nuclear weapons.
It really depends on how small and how efficient you need to make weapon, a nuclear weapon fitting inside a rocket nose cone is much more sophisticated than nuclear weapon that has to be only transportable by truck, ship or airplane.
For example, the simple design of Little Boy used on Hiroshima contained 64 kilograms of uranium, but less than a kilogram underwent nuclear fission.
"Unlike the implosion design developed for the Trinity test and the Fat Man bomb design that was used against Nagasaki, which required sophisticated coordination of shaped explosive charges, the simpler but inefficient gun-type design was considered almost certain to work, and was never tested prior to its use at Hiroshima."
So with access to highly enriched uranium (enrichment greater than 90%), a large and crude bomb could be produced in few weeks. How could they deliver it anywhere? They don't have airplanes. Truck? Speedboat?
And the agreement continued with other nations, but IAEA started raising concerns in 2019 and Iran started breaking conditions. A bunch of countries tried to reinstate it under Biden but the Iranians wouldn't do it. Maybe they would have stayed compliant, maybe not. We'll never know. What we do know is that they wouldn't continue the agreement with other parties nor recommit to it later.
I hate bombing as much as the next guy but areas close to military structures, especially to ones that have already been bombed during the last 24 hours, should have been evacuated.
> On 28 February 2026, between 10:23 and 10:45 a.m
That's the exact same time the other buildings were hit. It was all part of the same strike package. The school was hit directly, not accidentally, and The Guardian has previously reported on evidence that these targets were selected with AI assistance
This is Israel's "business as usual" stuff. Mowing the lawn, fake ceasefire, distraction, expansion and greater Israel project let's go! stuff. Stretch goal is to make Iran a failed state. Primary goal is distraction from the very real annexation of Palestinian and Lebanese territories, one war crime at a time.
I am not justifying them as inevitable. I am justifying them as beneficial for us, even if the means they employ are morally questionable at times (even if they happen to be that way for the lack of choices).
I support Israel because it is a no-brainer who to support between them and so-called "Palestine" (which in practice means Hamas), and there is no practical way to be neutral because Hamas will never accept existence of Israel and thorough genocide of Israelis is only acceptable option for them.
> even if the means they employ are morally questionable at times
> [...]
> thorough genocide of Israelis is only acceptable option for them
What a sickening double-standard. I hope you understand why the majority of Americans disagree with this perspective, and have no interest in dying for Israel's expansionist escalation policy. Hamas is not a threat to America, Israel is.
It's possible you haven't visited America recently and experienced this firsthand, so I'll excuse you for thinking you have a populist stance. Even the Christian Zionists are getting sick and tired of dealing with the Liability in the Levant right now, I think you'll be shocked how fast the GOP abandons Likud when the ceasefire inevitably snaps.
I'm not at all an American and have never been to the US, and don't give a flying fuck about it. "Beneficial for us" - for the whole white, Christian (i am an atheist), civilised world.
Big difference in Israeli and Palestinian stance is that Israel is fine with the existence of Palestine. They never had a policy goal to destroy Gaza/West Bank or exile entirety of their population. Hamas does have a goal of doing the same to Israeli.
If Israel is fine with the existence of Palestina, why is it occupying the West Bank with illegal settlements? There is no Hamas in the West Bank, not any threat whatsoever and the policy is ethnic cleansing, as in Gaza. Do you know the current stance of the far-right Israeli government?
"The white, civilized world". There is not such a thing outside the mind of a white-supremacist, which you seem to be by this comments.
If it is to recover what Israel occupied illegally, good. If Palestine did what Israel is doing, that would be bad. What happened in October the 7th was also horrible and condemned. We really need to deescalate the whole situation and stop the violence. Every one of these violent actions (in which Israel is the main perpetrator by far), not only create suffering and deaths in the short term, but makes a possible solution harder and harder.
This is so unhelpful. What has happened in the last 5 weeks has hugely escalated the violence in an already difficult situation. It's not wishful thinking or naive to think that deliberately inflaming a difficult situation is a bad idea.
But in land of Israel/Palestine itself, there's no significant violence going on right? Hamas is isolated, there is an ample security zone, it's cut off from border and unable to militarily recover - problem is solved. West Bank is split into many enclaves, surrounded by walls and buffer zones, incapable of doing much harm and seems to be unwilling to try it in any case - any such outbursts will be contained if they happen.
For now, problem looks like it's solved - Palestinians on either side are incapable of harming Israel much, and Israel doesn't need or want to harm them either simply because endgame is unclear - ideally they are pushed out but no country will accept them so it's futile.
What is the exact problem we are discussing here? Actions in Lebanon are simply about creating a buffer zone there to make remnants of Hezbolla to threaten Israeli northern towns. Once zone south Litani river is secured, things will calm down.
Problem is solved for Israel, right. Gaza is still in ruins, cut off from everything, there is a massive humanitarian crisis, the systematic dispossession campaign in the West Bank is accelerating, but I guess all of that just affects Palestinians, so it doesn't count...
Problem here is that first and foremost, Gaza needs two things to fix their housing stock: cement and pipes... And they aren't getting either because cement immediately goes into building tunnels, and pipes into producing rockets. No way Israel will be fooled that way again - and now they control what goes in or not because of buffer zone.
Yeah no. The current "debate" from what I understand is about mobile homes and any kind of temporary shelter that is more durable than a tent. The Israeli government straight up said "no, mobile homes count as 'reconstruction' for us and reconstruction in any form is forbidden until Hamas is disarmed. So tents is all they get".
This is Palestine, not Minnesota :) I live right next to it. It never gets below zero. No snow.
And yes that's what was the condition of ceasefire. Of course Israel knew Hamas won't yield power. They are made so that Hamas can be now blamed for the plight of Palestinians. Question is, who elected Hamas to power?
Things were calm until Israel attacked Lebanon. They did it, after Israel and America started an illegal war against Iran.
At this point, everyone knows Israel is the aggressor.
One of the first acts of Operation Epstein's Fury was to attack a girls school and murder over 170 kids with a Tomahawk. Why?
I have two girls myself. I’d want to know exactly what happened and why, and to hold whoever made this deplorable mistake accountable. So I’d want to know this. Wouldn’t you? I think the AI targeting aspect of this is very disturbing.
Sorry, I misread your comment as a justification the first time. The US and Iseael are involved in war crimes and I am so tired of people justifying it.
I think the alternative he was alluding to was that Iran is the project of ultra-religious hostile expansion. Which of course they would do if they could. Pick your poison - nationalist fanaticism or religious fanaticism.
Obviously neither would be best but that isn't a realistic possibility. I think I'd probably rather Israel conquered the Middle East than Iran.
Iran "would" expand (and citation needed) is very different than Israel "is in the process of" expanding, invading, suppressing peoples of different cultures within and without the borders of its state.
> I think I'd probably rather Israel conquered the Middle East than Iran.
I'd rather that whomever pursues a project of Lebensraum (that includes Russia) to be reminded of its place in the world, one way or another.
This is absurd. Iran hasn't done hostile expansion during its entire history as a modern state. Meanwhile the Greater Israel project is being aggressively pursued, with Israel currently (as in today, Wednesday April 8th) ethnically cleansing South Lebanon for indefinite occupation, as well as annexing the West Bank.
But Iran was involved in war abroad, trained militias and send weapons to Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, Lebanon, .. and also had personal on the ground.
They even try to enforce a death sentence worldwide and allmost succeded against a author who never even has been in Iran for writing a fantasy book (Salmom Rushdi).
It is absurd claiming they are peaceful. None of this justifies what Israel religious and nationalists are doing, but this black and white painting is not what is solving the conflict.
Or else they'll eventually alienate a majority of their patron state's voting population, and finally get hemmed in / risk losing your military (and other) funding that their state is dependent on.
We can reverse the whole thing -- lift sancions on Iran, sell them weapons, let them have their bomb and impose embargo on Israel. That should cool tbe delusions of grandeur pretty quick.
It was upvoted by so many people actually because of reason and evidence.
Also, please stop using race card, no one is blaming a race, people are pointing out to the country who is carrying out these cruelties and majority of government supporting it and majority of army is executing the commands
You .
The links you said are very misleading when looking at reality and the whole picture.
So the fact you chose these hilariously misleading links means you are misled.
Where did that misleading come from? You have to be fueled with emotions to get to that incorrect conclusion of yours (again, only based on your links).
So I am assuming you hate the jews/zionism/israel/something related and that hate fueled your failed journey at reaching the truth.
"Israel should extend its border with Lebanon up to the Litani River deep inside the country's south, Israel's finance minister said on Monday as Israeli troops bombed bridges and destroyed homes in an escalating military assault.
The comments by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich were the most explicit yet by a senior Israeli official on seizing Lebanese territory in a fight Israel says targets Iran-backed Hezbollah militants."
Yes, a lot of context.
Otherwise your linked article would indeed favor your argument. But given without enough context this article is a pure backwards nonsense that can and does confuse uninformed people like yourself.
I see this claim repeated over and over. You should be aware that it is false. As far as I am aware, Israel never funded Hamas. Israel allowed Qatari money to the Gaza authority to pay for civil servants, humanitarian aid and basic services, while it was run by Hamas.
> Only a Zionist would call equal rights and the right to self-determination a "maximalist" position
They had equal rights and self-determination in Gaza. For decades. They never built a society from it, instead begging the international community for food, and then starting a war they knew they would lose, only for the PR points of losing badly.
Where's a blockaded tiny slice of coastal land no more than a few miles wide with no water and no arable land supposed to even get food? Nobody is convinced by the "they're just beggars" racist stuff, man. Those poor people were actively expelled from their homes and continuously oppressed and have had their new homes flattened countless times. The fact those poor people still survive and try to rebuild each and every time shows that those people work hard.
It's physically impossible for land that small to grow enough food to provide for their population. Those people were driven from their land and forced into an incredibly tiny and unsustainable space. And the whole "They never built a society from it" thing is what the most extreme racists and slave traffickers said about Africans so they could justify their treatment of them. It's dehumanizing and absolutely disgusting way to talk about a group of human beings and people should be shamed for saying such things.
I wasn't saying they had to be self sufficient. I don't think Israel is either. You do have to have something though.
You're trying to argue from rage instead of facts and I'm not buying it. You can be as angry and insulting as you want, but it doesn't change the fact that the reason is that you jump to insults is that you don't have a point.
We DO need to free palestine. But from Hamas. From jihadism. That's what's killing them. Blaming Israel guarantees the kind of dysfunction that allowed Hamas to fester and jihadist nazism to be taught in UN funded schools.
You might want to point out something specific. And why are people just blaming Israel when Gaza has a border with Egypt? The answer is obvious isn't it?
Israel are unwilling or unable to hold to agreements and that makes them an unreliable partner. The same has been true of America with Iran.
Both Iran and America also have a maximalist approach in terms of use of remote weapons and reluctance to accept casualties. That limits the effectiveness of "might makes right". Massively more so in the larger Iran.
And whilst Gaza might seem like a collosal defeat it could be seen in a more positive light in a culture that views sacrifice as noble. Again same could be true of Iran.
Not true. Hamas wanted to do hostage exchange for Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons and truce within the first week. Israel refused.
Ridiculous take. Israel wants a secular Iran, not a failed state. Most Iranians don’t hate Israel. They hate the Islamic regime. But westerners just looove to support all Iranian proxies these days.
Israel does want a failed state - they want to balkanise Iran, letting their ISIS head-choppers, the Uigher terrorists etc at it. See Syria and how that's going.
Of course, Israel is a pure white dove. For instance, they have rallies for "the right to rape prisoners" (and recently to kill them) [0]. Or to willingly mutilate peaceful protesters presenting no risk[1].
The problem is that the total lack of moral limits in Israel only forces their opponents to escalate, or accept to be treated like animals (in the case of the West Bank Palestinians). It also affects the US, since that they have to follow along with Israel' way of doing the war (mainly, war crimes).
The problem is that once a party starts to commit atrocities, all others tend to do it. Atrocities by Israel are not new, and Israel has a long history about it, since its inception:
That is the consequence of a long-term policy. Israel made sure the Palestinian authority was sidelined and helped Hamas get full control of the Gaza Strip. History did not start in October 2023.
> was the Nova music festival massacre justified resistance
Intentionally killing civilians is never justified. But this still makes Palestine/Hamas the (much) smaller genocidal terrorist in this conflict. Free people don't need freedom fighters ;).
Now, I have no horse in this race, I am not related to any of the peoples involved, and live far away. I'm just the voice that finds genocide wrong. You on the other hand look like you're happily riding the terrorist, genocidal horse. I don't expect anything from you in terms of quality debate.
no massacre is justified, but can you remind us how and where did Hamas get helicopters and tanks and all of a sudden all cars were smashed? maybe Hannibal directive handed them over their tanks
As a first step they could give back some of their illegal settlements. Then over time give back more, until they are back in UN recognized borders. That would be a start. They could also start to persecute violent mobs that chased people out of their own homes and the people in the military covering them. They could also release unjustifiably imprisoned people.
You know, things that basic human decency would demand of them.
The war started by Israel, ostensibly as a retaliation for a dispute about a bit of water, which Israel used as a pretext to invade the West Bank? What about it?
The 'both sides' thing when one side is occupying the other is pathetic.
There's only one side that needs to stop the occupation immediately, the Israeli one.
We can go from there.
This is preposterous revisionism - Israel didn't just leave Gaza alone, they turned it into an open air concentration camp, controlling everything going in and out. And they were utter bastards about it too, literally counting calories going into Gaza, and classing just about anything as "dual use" so not allowed (e.g. tent poles could be used to hit someone).
Israel has never stopped being the aggressor. Maybe if they stopped occupying, stealing, raping, murdering and massacring, the entire region might be more peaceful. Not likely for a genocidal, apartheid state filled with religious supremacist fanatics though.
Translation: Israel is always the victim, even if the whole world outside it sees it as the aggressor.
I guess illegal settlement in the West Bank is the result of a Nintendo console not being launched the same day in Israel as in Japan? Or any other made up thing that shifts the blame from Israel to a 3rd party?
This comment is exactly why there is no hope out there. Literally zero understanding of middle-Eastern geopolitics other than trite slogans.
Come on. Do you think everyone is going to suddenly start holding hands and singing kumbaya? Or more realistically, like nearly every other surrounding state it'll be the elimination and exodus of Jews and Israelis?
Hamas didn't have prior knowledge of the festival, and partygoers were also murdered by the Israeli army. And in general flattening entire cities don't leave their habitants very keen toward Israel either. It just reinforces the cycle of aggression, which allows Israel to take more land.
No it's not ok, if the goal is peace and not the achievement of the "Greater Israel" that the current religious far-right in power is pursuing, with the support of the zionist christians in the US.
That's a crazy way to defend an ongoing genocide. The scale is so different that the only way to miss it is willful bad faith.
How long and how far do you go with that justification? Does it work the other way too? Are "their" actions justified forever because of something wrong that was done to them? Can anyone in the world do to you anything and everything forever if they were ever wronged by someone born in the same general geographic area as you?
Whenever you find yourself defending any genocide, under any excuse, defending the killing of innocent children because some other guys from the same general area also killed people, you are the bigger problem and no amount of fresh accounts justifying it makes you better.
I didn't defend. I just pointed out that the "freedom fighters" in everyone's minds are raping murdering bastards and I refuse to take a moral position and support or defend them for it.
That in itself is an abhorrent position and I am disgusted at anyone who takes it.
And further extrapolation as you edited it, if a child has a gun pointing at your head and has been trained to fire it at you, which is exactly what they have been doing, then they are legally combatants. But it makes a good statistical and PR job which is just as abhorrent. Legally and statistically speakingh, children... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD2FezhJgqA
That sure sounds like defending the killing of children because for sure they were all holding a gun and trying to kill you. Including the babies.
If you show all the YouTube videos in the world, the moment when you find a justification to kill any innocent children is when you become irreversibly the problem.
Your second point literally makes no sense and is based on the straw man that babies are holding guns where I made no point even related to that or collateral kills (which are unacceptable). Secondarily my point is based on internationally legal definitions of combatant and evidenced with a video of combatants being trained. Not like the UN and UNICEF haven't been all over this for decades.
Don't use child soldiers and you won't get statistically significant child casualties.
> I just pointed out that the "freedom fighters" in everyone's minds are raping murdering bastards
So, like Israeli soldiers?[0]
> if a child has a gun pointing at your head and has been trained to fire it at you, which is exactly what they have been doing
Israelis do exactly the same[1]
As long as Israelis rely on violence, war crimes and human rights violations, there can be no deescalation. We see it in the current ceasefire, where Israelis refused to stop their annexation war (and flattening) of Liban.
Genocide, apartheid, and 50 years of terrorism murder of children, destruction of hospitals, churches, schools, universities and imprisonment of a people’s in a Ghetto (yes, a fucking ghetto) is the moral bottom however. Israel is indefensible morally.
There is one other possibility: Finish the genocide. Finish ethnically cleansing the region and put the remaining Palestinians into reservations. After a while once the current threat is eliminated, Israel can become Greater Israel and the Israelis can do land acknowledgements while they enjoy their new Riviera and Gaza.
It's so sad to see this ridiculous argument every time. Israel is the aggressor, the murder and the main threat to the region's peace, not the victim. This, of course, does not mean that Iran is not another threat, but its actions seem like nothing compared to what Israel is doing.
The only endgame I see for the region is sadly the complete and utter annihilation of all civilizations there, possibly through nuclear means.
I do not say this lightly and I say it with a deep sadness in my heart for the people of the middle east, but also with the sober realization that this is the only end of the path that is currently walked.
There's a much less grim end, probably coming at short term:
If the US stop giving unconditional blank check support to Israel, then the nuisance power of the Jewish supremacists there disappears overnight. The US popular support for Israel is now at an all time low, and the recent war may be the straw that breaks the Camel's back.
All that's needed to stabilize the region is some amount of pushback to the destabilizing country here. Iran have been a destabilizing force for the past decade, but since 2023 Israel is by far the biggest threat to the region, and it's mostly due to Netanyahu's political survival relying on the state of perpetual war he's put the country in.
Should the US put even a modicum amount of pressure to Israel (or even just declare they wouldn't support them should the EU put economic sanctions on Israel), then the current cabinet collapse, Netanyahu ends up in prison for corruption and the middle east is stable for a decade.
All of this madness is happening because the US enables a madman to escape his own judicial system through foreign wars.
As an outsider here's the point of my fear . Looks at democratic countries and muslim unification during gaza issue, this is a threat but as far as Jews are concerned they don't have this type of threat to democracy
> Becker argues that a basic duality in human life exists between the physical world of objects and biology, and a symbolic world of human meaning. Thus, since humanity has a dualistic nature consisting of a physical self and a symbolic self, we are able to transcend the dilemma of mortality by focusing our attention mainly on our symbolic selves, i.e. our culturally based self esteem, which Becker calls "heroism": a "defiant creation of meaning" expressing "the myth of the significance of human life" as compared to other animals. This counters the personal insignificance and finitude that death represents in the human mind.
> Such symbolic self-focus takes the form of an individual's "causa sui project", (sometimes called an "immortality project", or a "heroism project"). A person's "causa sui project" acts as their immortality vessel, whereby they subscribe to a particular set of culturally-created meanings and through them gain personal significance beyond that afforded to other mortal animals. This enables the individual to imagine at least some vestige of those meanings continuing beyond their own life-span; thus avoiding the complete "self-negation" we perceive when other biological creatures die in nature.
You can find big similarities such as the promised land as the immortality vessel, heroism as a response to historical trauma and the ongoing attacks on their sovereignty, and the immortality project would be the nation-state. Becker goes on to categorize all of this similar to a mental illness. You can read the wikipedia page here, I find it very helpful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death
TL;DR: If you look through Becker's lens, you start to realize how stupid such wars and expansionist ideals seem. People should focus on what exists now and stop chasing projects that'd span beyond their lifetimes while making life today worse.
The book doesn't support anything in "their" favor. The idea boils down to nobody being "them".
Related part from Wikipedia:
> Becker argues that the conflict between contradictory immortality projects (particularly in religion) is a major source of the violence and misery in the world such as wars, genocide, racism, nationalism and so forth since immortality projects that contradict one another threaten one's core beliefs and sense of security
"Iran's Supreme National Security Council announced that Iran has achieved a major victory, compelling the United States to accept its 10-point plan. Under this plan, the U.S. has committed to non-aggression, recognized Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz, accepted Iran’s nuclear enrichment, lifted all primary and secondary sanctions, ended all Security Council and Board of Governors resolutions, agreed to pay compensation to Iran, withdrawn American combat forces from the region, and ceased hostilities on all fronts, including against the heroic Islamic Resistance of Lebanon."
"because you said <that>, I won't do <this>" is rarely an issue in these matters. What people say, and what people do, are divorced.
This isn't contract law. The WH can declare victory and stop, or declare victory and continue, or declare defeat and stop, or declare defeat and continue, or declare nothing and {stop, continue} and what the Iranian government say is not relevant. But, stopping or not stopping sending up UAV and sending over missiles and aircraft, IS relevant.
ie, this is just speech. we judge on outcomes not on words said.
[edit: that said, under this administration, the reverse is also true - "because I heard you said <this> I will now do <that> which is totally irrational, but I now have an excuse in my own mind, for what I intended doing anyway." ]
The Supreme National Security Council is quoting the agreement that Trump supposedly agreed to. And if that agreement holds, it is hard to see it as anything but a complete Iranian victory.
Keep in mind, the losers in a conflict have more of an incentive to lie than the winners. The US and Israel seem very much the losers here.
I don't really disagree, but I just want to observe there is no neutral arbiter here. There isn't some platonic ideal "he won, they lost" outcome.
What I think, is that a french metric tonne of value has been sucked out of the world economy, a lot of future decisions are now very uncertain, power balances have shifted, and none of this is really helpful for american soft or hard power into the longer term.
The Iranians have lost an entire cohort of leadership and are going to spend years reconstructing domestic infrastructure, and a rational polity. But, the IGRC has probably got a stronger hand on the tiller. Their natural Shia allies abroad are in shellshock, but still there.
I'd call it a pyrrhic victory for America, on any terms. Wrecked the joint, came out with low bodycount in the immediate short term, have totally ruined international relations (which they don't care about) and probably won't win the mid-terms on some supposed "war vote" -But who knows? Maybe the horse can be taught to sing before morning?
A lot of very fine bang-bang whizz devices got used, and they learned how much fun that is. A lot of european and asian economies learned how weak they are in energy and fertilizer and will re-appraise how to manage that, and there's a lot of fun in that. A big muscly china is watching quietly and we're pretending there's nothing to see there, and meantime the tariff "war" continues to do .. 5/10ths of nothing.
The pace of worldwide alternative energy adoption has gone up. Is that an upside?
The Iranian PR on this is like the DPRK. Except the DPRK wear Hanbok not Chador. The Iranian citizenry has been badly let down. No green revolution on the horizon.
I genuinely do not understand how people read the words
> We received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran
and conclude that this means anything remotely resembling that Trump "supposedly agreed" to do everything Iran wants.
(Just in case this is somehow the reasoning: "points of past contention" clearly do not refer to the "points" in the "proposal". That's not how English works and not how time works. But that's the only wild guess I can genuinely even think of, after going over it repeatedly.)
If you get into the details, the two biggest "points of past contention" (nuclear enrichment and sanctions) are in the ten point proposal. I only see four ways to resolve that conflict:
1) The US agrees to the resolution of those that Iran publicly claims in the proposal (aka we lost)
2) Iran is lying publicly, and actually agrees to keep sanctions in place and/or give up uranium enrichment (maybe, but the plausible version of this is just reversion to the diplomatic status quo ante - a de facto defeat for everyone).
3) Trump is lying publicly, and there is no agreement on any of this (plausible, but it's unlikely to end better than #1 or #2)
4) This is just a rhetorical trick in service of a stall tactic ("almost all" does not include the ones that actually matter - plausible, but it's unlikely to end better than #1 or #2)
#2 is best case for the US, and represents a defeat in that costs were paid but nothing achieved. It's also a defeat for Iran, but I don't think many of us care about that?
Edit - I guess it is also plausible that Iran's current leadership is sufficiently fragmented that "what Iran agrees to" is not a coherent concept right now. That is just the practical effect of #3 by another route, though.
Just to make sure: you understand that "workable basis on which to negotiate" does not mean anything remotely resembling "thing to which we have agreed", yes?
Yes? "Workable basis on which to negotiate" generally does not include things that directly contradict existing agreements, though. I am pointing to "Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to" to establish that he's claiming some agreement on the past points of contention that matter.
If the "workable basis for future negotiation" contradicts that agreement, then someone is lying about something.
> "Workable basis on which to negotiate" generally does not include things that directly contradict existing agreements, though.
I disagree, and don't understand why you see it that way. Of course each side's negotiating position includes things they couldn't get before. The point of negotiating is to get things they didn't have before.
I'm just not sure how to respond to this, because this criticism doesn't seem to actually address the point. I suppose I could have communicated poorly, but I'm not sure how I could have been more clear.
"Almost all of the past points of contention have been agreed to" is pretty specific language, that indicates a new negotiation. What does "have already been agreed to" mean?
Do you think Trump was referring to an agreement that was in place prior to the war? If so, why did the war happen at all?
Do you think he was referring to future negotiations? "Have been agreed to" would be an odd way to phrase that.
Do you think he was referring to an agreement that lifts sanctions and permits uranium enrichment? That's #1, US lost.
Do you think he was referring to an agreement that contradicts the public 10-point proposal? That's #2, everyone lost.
Do you think that was just something he said, that doesn't have any truth behind it? That's #3, he's lying.
Do you think he was referring to negotiations that did not include uranium enrichment or sanctions? That's #4, he's using an obvious bad-faith rhetorical trick to stall.
Do you think he was referring to something not in one of those categories? Then what?
I don't buy it. The only way this could be more humiliating for the US is if Trump agreed to do a public apology from Tehran. No way the Gulf countries and Israel would even entertain the thought.
The Gulfs would just follow whatever US wished. They also received the grim reminder that US being far away can just go at a moment notice. Iran is there for eternity figuratively speaking. They all need to learn to live together
With all due respect, I feel people that hold your views would believe it if someone told them that not only did Iran complete defeat and demoralize the U.S. war power in Iran, that Iran has actually successfully bombed the U.S. into submission and the U.S. essentially no longer exists except as a vassal to Iran. I really think there is no Anti-American narrative that is too ludicrous for people that hold this view to believe. I actually find it fascinating.
I hope that one day humanity learns that in war there are no winners. We're all just brothers and sisters born on different corners of the planet. We share the same home.
I hope that we stop attacking one another and find peace and work together as a race to overcome our challenges.
I used to think this way, however lately I understood that all wars, I mean all of them (even those religious ones) are motivated by resources. Those resources are money, power, control. People deciding on war to begin are those who benefit from it (usually, unless they've been manipulated).
And sometimes there is crazy. But crazy I can't explain, sorry.
Yet, we all mostly understand we are people and we love each other. But then the big guys come and lead us to war. To get more gas, to get more power, to get influence. Ukraine? They threatened to become independent from Russia (influence). Afghanistan? They threatened to use gold as price factor (influence). Iran? here it might be the third factor I won't explain, but also motivation by money I guess...
I doubt scarcity has had anything to do with wars for the last 100 years, maybe even longer. It has always been about ideologies, fanaticism, and lording it over one another. Even when men lived in smaller tribes during periods of abundance, they still went around killing each other for false glory, ideology, and expansion. No economic solution can solve the problem of war and human nature.
Even if men ever colonize Mars and the wider galaxy, and resources were abundant, I doubt it would take long for wars to break out there, whether for a specific reason or none at all.
I doubt it very much that either Russian war on Ukraine or the US attacking Iran happened due do scarcity of resources.
Old folks in power want their page in history books.
Human nature is more about attacking left and right and grab other people’s stuffs. At least some humans. Part of the human gene is like that. Aggressive, invasive, relentless.
This is a lovely notion that most well adjusted people can get behind, but if you've ever had a person with narcissistic personality disorder in your life, you'll understand that they need to create conflict to emotionally regulate themselves. Unfortunately these people tend to acquire wealth and power, and are never satisfied. Then the rest of us have to deal with it.
Amen. Also, nature is awesome and we live in a period of technological plenty and instant global communication with arbitrary knowledge and decent translation available in seconds, so why are we still acting like lunatics and hating on groups?
Parents: stop teaching your children to identify with irrelevant concepts of ethno-nationalism, and instead teach them to be globalist scientists with empathy.
Nationalismus ist eine Kinderkrankheit. Die Masern der Menschheit. ("Nationalism is an infantile disease: the measles of mankind") - Albert Einstein, 1929. Who, incidentally, turned down the presidency of Israel.
"Should we be unable to find a way to honest cooperation and honest pacts with the Arabs, then we have learned absolutely nothing during our two thousand years of suffering and deserve all that will come to us." - Einstein on Israel, late 1920s.
It's times like these when most people recognise that parents in all corners of the world worry about their kids just the same.
War should never break out. But it does. We had international rules to prevent war, but they're gone. We had international rules to prevent governments deliberately killing innocent people under the guise of war, but they're gone too.
It took two world wars and roughly 80 million killed to create those rules.
You could argue about when they got destroyed. In Ukraine, in Gaza, Iran - but it's clear now that they don't exist any more.
The most powerful country in the world is run by an elite class of genocidal pedophiles who also (allegedly) eat people. People in the west are fed lies through the media that those same people have full control over. We are given a false sense of freedom. Freedom of speech only protects you from those who have significantly less power than those you actually need protection from. If those people want you gone you'll disappear without trace.
OK I guess it is pause time. US and Israel are probably restocking on whatever missiles they can get, while Iran doing the same, and Russian/China rushing stuffs to Iran through sea and railroad.
At least I got a cheaper tank of gasoline tomorrow…
The way I recall things, in 2022 they took half the year to go up and were back to normal by the end. The statistics I can easily find corroborate this.
There's no ceasefire until Israel stops attacking. Iran retains control over the strait, and their demands haven't changed. Nothing's new other than Iran is ready to sit at the negotiating table because Trump caved-in enough.
It's interesting how the hackernews-biased views of the war outcomes don't align with how Iranians themselves see that. For instance you can translate from persian the following geopolitical view which will shed a totally different light on the situation to whoever depends solely on hn comments
https://x.com/i/status/2041693098833518976
Hey there, semi related to your comment above, I read your point that "Sad that my comment got flagged, this is a major problem with hacker news - censorship of comments that prevent people from hearing all perspectives" and agree completely. I've been flagged and shadowbanned for mentioning Iryna Zarutska and in general, anything that people would rather silence than address with words and reason. I'd love to talk more about this. It's sad because most of the people here regard themselves highly but this doesn't match the experience of "this opinion is counter mine therefore it must vanish and I can go on believing no one disagrees with me"
> How does anyone just open a strait that has mines in it in 2 weeks?
The strait has been open for weeks for friendly countries' ships that pay Iran $2M per passage through their "toll booth", an unmined route through Iranian territorial waters.
This ceasefire appears legitimize that situation. If it holds, Iran is about to make huge amounts of money on top of sanctions relief.
The strait is barely mined, at most a few dozen mines were placed. Multiple ships have transited through in Omani waters since the start of the conflict. So far none have been struck by mines.
The threat why boats do not cross are Iranian missiles / drones striking ships attempting to pass thru, without paying a protection fee. It's basically a terrorism protection fee.
Iran doesn't have legal control over the entire strait; approx half of the strait is Iranian territorial waters and the other half is Omani territorial waters.
For Iran's toll system to work, they would need to strike at ships sailing in Omani territorial waters, which is an act of war.
but iran has physical control. lets call it a buffer zone for toll collection. And funny that you mention act of war like it was(would be) caused by iran.
international law doesnt actually exist. the strait is close enough to irans borders such that they can enforce police activity, so its theirs.
the alternative is that oman and many others can also do the same thing, and the lot of states interested in trade in the area need to get together an negotiate a setup that everyone can agree to
A good analogy to this situation is the analogy of playing chess with a pigeon, who knocks over the pieces, takes a shit on the board, struts around for a moment, and flies away.
Except in this case, the pigeon has a ton of yes-men worshiping it, and praises each of its moves as genius. Except it hasn't made any chess moves, it's literally knocked over pieces and shit on the board, leaving the board and pieces in worse shape. Worse yet - there's a narrative being built by the pigeon's yes-men that the actions by the pigeon were indeed genius, and the situation is better....and people believe the yes-men.
It will not happen. The only way Iran can enforce the fee is by actually shooting missiles at ships that don't pay. This is an act of war and terrorism; and in our current international order, is not viable solution. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, and other gulf countries, will never agree to it.
Another reason it won't work -- by Iran's logic, every nation adjacent to a strait of water can levy a toll on ships that pass through.
Why doesn't the UK charge tolls on ships that pass through the English channel, and bomb them if they don't pay up?
The same logic applies to the Strait of Gibraltar (Spain, UK, Morocco) and the Strait of Malacca (Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia).
Gibraltar's political situation is what it is because this was sorted out in the Treaty of Utrecht three hundred years ago, and Europe got very tired of leaders that thought they could redraw the map at the cost of millions of lives.
Probably the best we can expect from Iran is a frozen conflict like Korea or Cyprus, that stays frozen.
I disagree. If this ceasefire had not happened, the US and Israel would bomb all of Iran's electricity and fuel facilities. That's what was supposed to happen today, and is what forced Iran to the negotiating table with an hour to spare.
Without electricity, there is no modern life. There is no ability to communicate, run a financial economy, pay salaries, etc. Without fuel, there are no logistics; there is no capability to transport an army. Nor is there an ability to transport food; it would cause an enormous civilian crisis, and this would cause massive riots.
Iran would collapse, within a week. It would collapse into factions, and a civil war would start, similar to in Syria.
The US and Israel have been sitting on this the entire time. They don't want to do it, because it would cause near permanent economic damage to Iran.
Once Iran showed it had no ability to prevent the US/Israel from doing a indiscriminate bombing campaign, it was clear the US and Israel could always win this war.
Look, I'm glad we're pausing this. But I'd like to understand why an article on the pause shoots right to the top, but news of a tweet from the president indicating a plan to annihilate a whole country does not see a similar rise to the top.
It's too random a process to be precisely answerable about a specific data point or two.
One could argue that this is a doing-something as opposed to a saying-something, and thus more substantive. Or perhaps people want some good news to believe in? I don't know - one can make up lots of just-so stories about these things (see paragraph 1).
Trump tweets insane things hourly. A reputable news organization announcing something actually happening with quotes from both sides confirming is news worthy.
I used to feel this way, but I think at this point you don’t need much of a brain to realize he’s a narcissist grifter that serves only himself without limit. A fellow gets tired of seeing his mouth shit all over the place. Peace/less killing is a positive break I’d much rather hear about.
"We received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated."
The ten point plan which had previously been rejected outright? The 10-point plan which leaves Iran in an incredibly better financial position? So, apart from blowing up children, what did the US gain out of this?
> I don't think the people paying half again as much at the pump feel like it benefited them.
Since when has the current US government done anything to benefit average citizens?
The war in Iran helps those who actually matter -- the oil companies that spent 445 million dollars getting Trump and other Republicans elected in 2024.
Just pointing out that oil prices going up definitely looks like a benefit to the people the government is beholden to (which ain't the average citizen).
There have been some pretty large protests and such, but US citizens were definitely not prepared for what happened to them in 2024. The US government has operated for our lifetimes on voluntary norms that were casually accepted as if they were law. People still haven't figured out how to effectively deal with a bad actor that has the full power of the executive and no restraint. Aside from yelling, nobody knows what to do other than wait for the next election.
Giving the oil companies, some of the richest companies on the planet, MORE money is a benefit? Is that your idea of good governance? You don't think there's better uses of that money that's coming right out of your pocket and everybody elses?
That's absolutely not my idea of good governance, playing with oil prices is extremely dangerous considering that economy is strongly tied to them. Starting a useless war is crazy in the first place.
But it is more money in America (for the government / oil producers to misuse) which is a benefit from the standpoint of the government. Not sure it exceeds the losses though.
I think this 10 point plan drops the need for US to pay reparations instead relying on transit fees which will be split with Oman.
Missiles are still flying so it’s hard to say who has really agreed to what.
I’ve heard rumors that Iran has agreed to dilute its highly enriched uranium so maybe the US could count that as a win. Given they’ve demonstrated sufficient conventional deterrence they may feel that they don’t need the nukes, especially if they can get some sort of Chinese backed security guarantee. But that might be a trial balloon or wishful thinking.
FWIW, money is the easiest term to agree to. We have lots and lots. I agree, it will never be called "reparations", but you can trivially structure it in a zillion ways that just look like foreign aid or debt forgiveness or whatever. The WHO forgives some loans or the UN agrees to build some infrastructure, and we coincidentally make a new fund of about the same size, etc...
Iran and US can each declare "victory". TRUMP can say he achieved his objectives, IRAN can say it "won".
What IRAN is really after is lifting the sanctions and ensuring that Israel will not attack again randomly in 2 months.
The problem is that Israel is not going to be happy about this, so I full expect another round of escalation eventually. The only way to deter this is Nuclear Weapons unfortunately and IRAN very well understood this.
No matter what the agreement says, we can be assured Israel will break it, as it has done time and time again. Why would this round be different?
Yeah, the US overplayed its hand and is in a weak bargaining position and will likely have to accept less than what it could have had. Now with TACO Tuesday who could take his maximalist carpet nuking threats seriously anymore. I hope to be wrong but I doubt the ceasefire holds.
Under Obama's plan they agreed to reduce its Uranium 97% and keep it well under weapons grade and got $2B for the assets that were seized after the revolution.
Here they stand to make $100B a year on tolling the gulf and get to keep their weapons grade Uranium that they stockpiled after Trump pulled us out of that agreement.
Its only a 2 week ceasefire. Maybe after 2 weeks the sides stay settled down. Maybe they go back to shooting each other. I wouldn't call it over yet.
As far as the geopolitical consequences of all this, i think its still pretty unclear where the chips will fall, but whether a win or a loss for usa, i think the consequences of this war will be significant.
some people got very very rich. like rich - that their great grandkids don't have to work.
that's the price of "freedom".
both sides get to save face - Trump says they won, his cronies n himself got rich. Iran gets a better deal than before.
Israel gets rid of US bases in the Middle East via Iran.
of course the poor and downtrodden get shifted - that never changes.
Honestly? I presume Trump and Iran both gain the ability to kick the can... which they both want. That ten-point plan is 'unrealistic' but he gets to beat his cheats and it looks like both sides are 'claiming' victory here. That this isn't a workable long-term solution seems almost irrelevant. We're at a point where our bargaining frictions are so high, that we'd both rather remain in this standoff as long as possible even if we don't actually resolve it, because resolving it means serious pain on both sides, whereas the US has about a week before the pain really starts hitting consumers and investors.
"What Causes Wars: An Introduction to Crisis Bargaining Theory", by William Spaniel, PHD and professor, specializing in game-theory and specifically crisis bargaining theory: https://youtu.be/xjKVcl_lDfo?si=NFHvjOdWbLbPOOvA
IMHO that's bad analysis. This is a VERY good solution from Iran's perspective. They stared down a superpower and won. They've gone from an international pariah and nuissance to a genuine regional overlord in a single tweet.
"Whoah there, folks. Stop your tankers please. Thanks. Last year was rough for our farmers. We're increasing tolls on the straight again. Don't like it? Come on over and bomb us again you infidel fucks. See how your precious stock market likes that."
If it holds they’ll be a regional hegemon instead of Israel, which is why Israel will not let it hold. They put everything on the line and they’re not going to give up now.
I warned you specifically that this Iran war was coming and would not end up in Israel’s favor. As I stated “the Iran war is already unpopular and it hasn’t even started yet.” I understand that it is not yet over.
Iran and its proxies can slow squeeze Israel like Israel was squeezing Gaza. I see this war as a breakout attempt to fracture Iran into a failed state so that Israel would be the uncontested regional hegemony. Israel is losing popular support, which precedes losing political support and military support. You had some fantasy that Israel would dump America and find some other client state to support it.
> Israel is losing popular support, which precedes losing political support and military support
This is a very Western-centric view. Step outside that gap and you'll find Israel maintains solid ties in the Emirates, India and even in Europe. In any case, on the time horizons you're talking about anything can happen. If someone wants to hold on to random hopes, I'm not going to rain on their parade.
> Iran and its proxies can slow squeeze Israel like Israel was squeezing Gaza
This doesn't make sense. Gaza was blockaded. Iran and its proxies have zero ability to blockade Israel. (Hell, Israel has an easy option if they do–bomb Kharg.)
Take Israel's nonsense in Palestinian territories and Iran's penchant for terrorist proxies out of the equation and the Middle East is more or less balanced. (Famous last words.)
> You had some fantasy that Israel would dump America and find some other client state to support it
Israel isn't dumping America. If you're continuing a thread from another time, I was probably arguing that the notion that Israel existentially depends on America is nonsense. Israel depends on America to be a regional hegemon. (Probably.) But it's perfectly capable of turning its military-export machine and gas fields into sources of sovereignty. Anyone who thinks the region is anything less than transactional has emotionally wedded themselves to a cause the world isn't invested in.
We will have to agree to disagree on Israel’s long term viability without the support of the US. Perhaps if Iran was defeated but so far that has not happened.
look again at iran's peace terms - there's nothing in them about destroying israel, and this is Iran shooting its best shot.
Israel might not be able to contjnue with the genocide, expand its borders, or be a hegemon without US support, but the other powers around aren't calling to destory it or using the lack of its destruction as a bargaining chip. Israel's continued existence is pretty secured unless it falls apart from within
Until they are able to rebuild their country, they are actually in a very, very bad position. Saving face is great and all, but rockets are still hitting much of their infrastructure anyway.
My point is that their demands are not realistic. That the can has been kicked is good for Iran, it's also good for Trump. Conflict here is bad for both parties, the problem is there I currently don't see a way to step back from the precipice at this point.
> rockets are still hitting much of their infrastructure anyway
As has been extensively discussed over the past week, hitting civilian infrastructure with rockets (or otherwise) is a war crime, and we aren't doing it.
They lost some military hardware they couldn't have deployed anyway, they have a bunch of holes in runways that they'll fill within the week. They lost their head of state and a bunch of miscellaneous leaders, but it turns out their chain of command was robust. It's gotten stronger for the stress and unity, not weaker.
No, we have to take the L here. The USA went to war with Iran and got its ass kicked. We achieved nothing useful in the short term, and made things much (much) worse for our interests in the long term.
> As has been extensively discussed over the past week, hitting civilian infrastructure with rockets (or otherwise) is a war crime, and we aren't doing it.
I agree, but want to add that the threat of hitting civilian targets is itself a war crime, so there's a pretty solid case that we already did over the last few days:
"Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited." -Article 51(2) AP1 to Geneva Conventions
> threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population
If Trump's tweet meets this bar, it's a meaningless rule. The purpose wasn't to scare civilians. It was to scare Iran's leadership. What it probably wound up doing was scaring American leadership into talking the President down from his ledge.
Cool that's a nice workaround of the Geneva conventions - any threat you make while negotiations are underway is actually a negotiation strategy! The law tends not to be friendly to such workarounds in my experience, especially if it's trivially easy to enact ("be in negotiations"). Or perhaps you can help me understand what distinguishes this situation in the way you suggest.
> any threat you make while negotiations are underway is actually a negotiation strategy
No, I'm saying there is no evidence the threat was made "to spread terror among the civilian population." If the threshold is just any act of war, which naturally causes some amount of terror among civilians, then the rule is meaningless. Whether it's done during negotiations is irrelevant.
I don't have a crystal ball into Trump and Hegseth's minds. But I don't get the sense the threats were aimed at the civilian population. Instead, they were aimed at leadership.
Ah. Didn't he threaten to destroy every power plant and bridge in the country? Do you not find this threat credible? I think the US military is capable of it and obviously that's a threat against the lives of civilians. But it's not a war crime if it's "aimed" at the leaders or because Trump generally bloviates something like that? Any explanation I come up with is exactly the kind of legal workaround I'm talking about.
"A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will,"
> "just any act of war, which naturally causes some amount of terror among civilians"
I think we just may be working with totally different perspectives on this since I'm struggling to see this the same way as you.
> hitting civilian infrastructure with rockets (or otherwise) is a war crime, and we aren't doing it.
I mean there is no world policeman that’s going to stop Trump. While I agree with you on the practicality of the situation, we have been on tenterhooks all day exactly because Trump can dramatically escalate this if he wants. It’s just that that escalation will be extremely painful in all sorts of ways, especially if Iran wipes out the oil production infrastructure.
My point here isn’t to “pick a side.” I obviously think this whole escapade was unwise. My point is only to point out that the bargaining frictions point to continuing the conflict.
Iran is happier to delay because the oil crisis is about to hit America. Trump is happy to delay because he can always launch a strike tomorrow, and concessions via existing infrastructure breakdown, or improve his position with intelligence, and this may prevent a more serious oil crisis.
That means both parties see opportunity in maintaining the status quo.
> Until they are able to rebuild their country, they are actually in a very, very bad position
Iran will get a buttload of cash from China. If we're copying their kit [1] China can one hundredfold. (If Iran can keep playing its role as a heatsink for American weapons, better still.)
The war began because the Epstein compromising material will likely be made public soon. Once that material is public it ceases to have any value to those who were holding it over various people. Those people in turn were ensuring US military support of a certain country. The logic of the war is that it had to happen now, before that material is released, because after that there is some chance the USA would no longer support said country.
The best steelman argument[1] is that it was a failed gamble. The protests of a few months back (also the improbable success in Venezuela) made them think they could topple the regime. They couldn't.
It's been clear for weeks now that the US has lost this war. The only question was how long it would take Trump to disengage and what the trigger would be.
And the answers appear to be "two more weeks" and "when one plausibly genocidal gaffe went too far and fractured his domestic coalition".
[1] Which... I mean, steelman analysis has its place. But really no, this was just dumb.
> Which... I mean, steelman analysis has its place. But really no, this was just dumb.
I rarely hear people use the term "steelman" while arguing in good faith. It's basically a tacit admission that you are either advancing a position that you don't actually hold (why...?), or more likely you know it's an unpopular position and you want to argue it while having plausible deniability that you may not actually hold it (which is just cowardly).
Stepping through other peoples logic to understand why they may have a position that you do not understand/agree with is sensible for sure. But if you do that in conversation with others so often that you need to preface it with a special term I'm going to be suspicious that you're just trying to obfuscate your actual opinions.
(see also: "just playing devil's advocate here, but...")
The term "steelman" arose from people who misunderstand the term "strawman". Such people coined it out of the idea thinking that a strawman was an an attempt to make an opponents argument look weaker than it is, while a "steelman" elevates it to it's highest state before attacking it.
In reality, a steelman is just another strawman. A strawman was never simply a matter of making your opponent's argument look weak, they're about making a separate argument that your opponent isn't even arguing, and attacking that to make it look like you're winning the argument while not actually addressing the opponent's actual argument/position. A steelman does the same. In other words, they're about fabricating an argument and making it look like it came from the opponent, before attempting to prove it fallacious. They're both failures in logic - a fallacy of relevance.
The US should seize total control of the Strait of Hormuz, including all land necessary to ensure safe passage of ships. The population should be evicted. The US should collect high fees for safe ship passage to pay for everything.
Wild that the US accepted Iran's maximalist demands as starting point for negotiations. There seem to be some uncertainty around what those 10 points are - multiple versions floating around, but they all read very much like a US strategic defeat. Full retreat from region, reparations to be paid etc.
So with all the bluster we are able to roll the clock back successfully to pre Obama stage of negotiations? Essentially starting from discussing if Iran should have nuclear capability or not and then adding new stuff like Iran controlling the strait and collecting toll on it. Awesome, so much winning!
Countries that send their oil through the strait of Hormuz will build alternative routes. But for such routes to be ready a few years will be needed. Once alternative routes are in place, and since Iran will likely not have a nuclear weapon by then, full obliteration of Iran will ensue.
Is it terrorism? radicalization seems like a pretty natural human response when your family/home/community gets indiscriminately obliterated by missiles from the sky.
This is not over yet and it may just result in an established fee for each shipment through the strait to Iran. We won’t/havent hear from Israel which is the key player here. They just do what they want to do because they know the whole world will look the other way.
TBH as an outsider, I am just so frustrated on Trump deciding that US invading Iran large scale is a great idea. (And why even is it involving Israel for gods sake?!)
If you guys wanted to be supportive to the Iranian protests, US could instead just selectively target some of the leadership and give the protests a push (and give the whole world a hint that US is supportive of them).
After 40 years of Iran constructing a thearchy government, the Iranians finally started having a huge protest on throwing up the thearchy government and possibly talking about a new west-friendly government.
And then Trump just decides to wholesale invade Iran with Israel?
That's just giving so much more reasons for the current government to be in power and the Iranians to hate the US and more generally the western world. It took 40 years for the Iranians to realize that there's enough problems in the thearchy system and want their more secularized country back; and then Trump just destroyed the whole premise!
Does the US just really think that they will be loved by everyone when they rage in and invade any random country? Do they really think like that? I'm just frustrated so much. How can the US be so egocentric?
if you look at the iranian response over the past month, the theocracy really hasn't played into it.
no calls to jihad, no ayatollah dorecting anything, no nothing.
as far as i can tell, the revolution is already dead. if the US had just sat around, chances are that iran would have moved towards something more like a constitutional monarchy. still the ayatollah as a figure head and religious leader, but with the rest of the power in the democratic institutions' hands
Can you point out some signs of concession from islamic regime? I think they wouldn’t concede, with or without war. That’s not in their DNA. They are religious extremists.
Everything else aside, really relieved for the tanker crews stuck inside the Gulf, with no port that will take them, who are not-so-slowly running out of food.
Didn't the US and Israel gather intelligence during previous "talks" which ended up with senior Iranian leadership dead? It seems unlikely that this relationship would be fixed by now, and a deal would require big concessions from one side... of which one is polling real badly at home currently.
Between the threats to NATO allies, high oil prices, lifting of sanctions on Russian oil, US personnel losing their lives, military equipment losses, and broken campaign promises... I don't think this is something you just walk away from. It's still not clear why we're there in the first place; one could speculate that Trump was convinced by Israel that this operation would be like Venezuela which seems plausible because no US intelligence agencies backup the notion that Iran was developing or trying to develop nuclear weapons.
I don't know if you're implying kompromat or assassination but I think the explanation that they played into his ego and got him to do their dirty work in Iran is much simpler and makes more sense. Every President before Trump has told Israel no when they asked for "assistance" with Iran.
I had a teacher in school who would sometimes stand at the front of the class with her hand raised and three fingers extended, announcing, “I'm going to count to three, and then you'll all be quiet!” Of course, that never worked. I never understood why she kept putting herself through that farce over and over again. Every deadline that passes without consequence is a loss of face. The same goes for Trump. He can sugarcoat it all he wants: the world sees it as a defeat. The only thing missing is him collecting shells on the beach and ordering the construction of a lighthouse.
Whats the irans citizens feel about this while thing. As an outsider I see there was lot of protest against islamic regime with the killing of young girl for not covering the head or something like such.
But after trump killed the leader it seemed people rooting for islamic regime. Whats the state of people. Is there a way to know
Iran's citizens probably gave up hope when their civilian infrastructure was attacked by the United States. I doubt any of them actually were foolish enough to think the Kurds, Mossad or US Army would march in to help them to begin with. Both the US and Israel would much prefer the mass-punishment of Iranian citizens than a humanitarian ground operation, that was obvious even before the bombs started dropping.
If I was an Iranian citizen, I'd be seeing America as a nation of racist sociopaths. This conflict entrenches the current Iranian regime and manufactures consent for Israel and the United States to violate even more conventions of warfare to avoid a ground deployment. The intended result is obviously the balkanization of Iran.
Reality on the ground is: US has been amassing troops in tens of thousands. Their mercenary IDF is claiming territory like a field day. Market has barely capitulated (which is the only thing this admin care about).
I expect this is just Trump buying time until he launches ground invasion after two weeks of failed negotiation. You don't spend millions sending tens of thousands of soldiers and billion dollar worth of hardware to just call them back to base.
Trump will "negotiate" and then in the middle of negotiation start a ground invasion just like they did in the past while they map all the military targets for ground invasion (which is hard to when missiles flying all the time). Possibly also replenish their interceptor stocks from other regions which has been running low.
If you follow the kind of people advising him and have his ears (Witkoff, Kushner, Loomer, Levin) they are all for ground invasion.
But yeah, win for US. Oil prices will rebound giving economy the breathing time. Possibly also time to arm the insurgents to regroup for regime change.
> Trump will "negotiate" and then in the middle of negotiation start a ground invasion just like they did in the past while they map all the military targets for ground invasion (which is hard to when missiles flying all the time)
Why is it hard map military targets while missiles are flying? Don't missile launches reveal targets? And I would assume that the mapping is mostly done via satellite, which aren't affected by missiles
The real winner in this war is Israel. Iran's military might is now a shadow of its former self while all the costs have been paid by someone else: American taxpayers, gas consumers around the world, Arab states. Even the political costs are on Trump.
Certainly economically. NIS-USD exchange is now 3.09 and continuing to drop, reflecting optimism.
Strategically, it remains to be seen what will happen to the nuclear material in the peace talks. If Iran emerges from the war with an intact nuclear program due to a lack of American stamina to carry through and achieve its war goals, that would be an enormous strategic defeat for Israel.
Full disclosure: Iran VS USA is just an excuse to dismantle feudalism. That is the real war. The rest are just logistics exercises. If feudalism ends all wars end.
Trump wanted tariffs on everyone to increase everyone's operations expenses so that he can somehow enact a protectionist policy. It was repeatedly shut down by the Supreme Court. Now, even with this ceasefire you will have the new Hurmuz tax long after the insurance premiums wind down, and everyone who's heavily dependent on ME oil have increased expenses. Mission accomplished, I guess? At what cost, though.
If Israel actually stops attacking Iran, that will be a win for the world. Will it happen? I doubt it. The last thing Netanyahu wants is a ceasefire or diplomacy. I think even if Trump tells him to stop he'll keep going.
The furniture salesman knows he's in trouble for the all the illegal gifts he has received and all the other horrific crimes he has committed. He'll hold on for as long as he can. The world be damned.
Will people buy more American / Venezuelian / Russian oil now that the ME is going to be perpetually under the threat of another Iranian squeeze ?
Will pipelines with creative routing make a comeback ?
Or will people, you know, try to reduce their dependency on oil and gas by using less prehistoric technology ? Naaaah that would require R&D. Leave that to the Chinese. We have pensioners to support.
TACO fortunately. Let's hope this is resolved. Question: what are Trump next plans, who is he going to harass now? he seems to go crescendo in the craziness. Maybe he'll calm down a bit before the mid-terms though.
We should not make fun of both of these lying cheating idiots in charge of either faction.
Look, it's really easy to dunk on them, like super easy. This is a very dumb war and will continue to be so, we all can see that.
But both sides are in a escalate-to-deescalate trap. Neither wants to back down in order to save face. So they can only make things worse.
And things can get a lot worse.
Lots of people legitimately thought that Tehran was going to be a glowing hole by the time you are reading this. That would have been ~17 million lives wiped out. A ground war is a generation in each country that is just decimated like Ukraine is seeing. Already there has been far too much death and destruction, too many children that are now without parents, too many parents now without children.
If avoiding that means not dunking on these barbarous morons for a little while, so be it, a small price.
I know that some random internet comments are about as important as the fly on a horse's ass is to a hurricane, but it has to start somewhere.
I'm not saying we should not hold them to account. No, this mess is maybe something that will snap everyone out of it, it's already so dumb and bad. They deserve, like we all do, the best justice we can give them. And it will not be kind to either side, we all know that.
But, let them have this win. Do the best we can to encourage others to let both sides walk away from this horrible trap. If the do so scot free, hey, that's a win in all of our books.
Let Donny strut about, walk away. Stop it with the TACO nonsense. Let him feel like a big man, a winner, whatever his little pudding brain needs.
Just let the war end before it gets even more out of hand.
Before even more babies have only pictures and stories to know their father by.
The number of comments here trying to argue that this is anything other than utter humiliation for Trump and America ...
I guess I should get used to it now. At least 1/3 of Americans will be swayed at nothing and will stand behind their beloved leader, whatever happens. I wonder what will happen to the price of oil in the coming months and whether that will cause some people to change their minds.
Let's not forget the road to war started in 2016 when Trump walked into the White House at withdrew from the JCPOA. He's wanted the war for years, got it, and lost it.
JCPOA was a really stupid, badly designed deal, it never placed any limits on missile or drone production. Obama wanted a deal badly, and it was rushed through negotiations without addressing this point for a quick political win.
Iran kept developing its ballistic missiles and drone program even after the deal was signed, and a decade later, Iran has hundreds of thousands of drones and 20,000+ ballistic missiles. A thousand ballistic missiles do as much damage, if not more, than a single nuke.
It also leads to the interceptor problem, namely, it is not possible to stop thousands of missiles coming towards you, and eventually you run out of interceptors and get overwhelmed.
It was a really dumb deal, and this issue was called out at the time, but nothing was done about it. It's like an agreement between Mom and two kids that are fighting. Mom tells one kid, "Okay, promise not to kick your brother!" and he agrees. So he starts learning to punch instead.
From all reports the regime has not lost control domestically, and internationally it is now emboldened - the US tried to get rid of them and has failed, and they have demonstrated their power to disrupt the region and much of the world's economy.
>Iranians danced in the streets when Khamenei was killed. And have felt hope for the first time in decades that they may change their government.
This is a dumb take, I will guarantee that more people will dance on the street if Trump, or Modi gets killed, doesn't mean it is righteous to do that.
Hey now, the JCPOA was designed to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, and was working effectively at doing that. That’s completely different from what Trump is demanding now, which is to prevent Iran from getting nuclear..
Weird how Iran is able to come to a ceasefire when their whole leadership has been killed times over. Who exactly does Trump think he’s negotiating with?!
president after president has had the choice but haven't.
the best you get from that interview is that she was unwilling to say a yes or a no. probably a no, and she's not one to make decisions on a whim based on people stroking her ego
There is exactly a 0% chance of the 25A happening. It will be a cold day in hell — these people worship Trump. They're not ousting him.
Impeachment would be more likely, but an impeachment conviction still seems utterly improbable. You'd need to flip a lot of seats in November, and this country is going to have forgotten all about this set of genocidal threats well before then. There's no way the current House/Senate GOP impeach, let alone convict.
> get in contact with Doug Burgum
I have absolutely no idea why you think Burgum would ever support a 25A invocation against Trump.
I'm from North Dakota. My reps know him. I know they're all cowards and cucked by Trump, but I'm going to keep calling them, demanding they do this, and reading insane Truth Social posts to them because I don't know what else I can do.
Burgum is a fucking disgrace to this state. I wish he'd grow some balls like the cowboy character he sometimes cosplays as and stand up to Trump. I wish my cucked reps would do the same.
Forgive my ignorance, but doesn't allowing them to collect a tax on transit pretty much continue to fund themselves to continue this bullshittery forever.
A lot of American and Israeli degenerates here egging on the military to continue their war crimes (bombing of civilian infrastructure and civilians) in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon while simultaneously calling the Iranians evil. Anyone who points that out is downvoted to oblivion. The cognitive dissonance is real.
While you guys live in this bubble of false moral superiority, the majority of people (in the global south) have rightfully started viewing the Americans and Israelis as the real terrorists.
> A lot of American and Israeli degenerates here egging on the military to continue their war crimes (bombing of civilian infrastructure and civilians) in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon while simultaneously calling the Iranians evil. Anyone who points that out is downvoted to oblivion.
Any American's I've spoke to either are so sick of wars and of course don't want this or they actively oppose it.
The only people you find wanting this war is israelis and their kind. They sit back and relax while having their blackmail controlled, ancient, American politicians do all of the dirty work while sending their sons and daughters to die for isreal.
All Americans I have met had the same discourse: "I am ashamed, it's a pity Trump is in power, it's hard for us too, we don't support him", etc. I am rather sick of it.
A democracy is not an "us versus them" system, it's a closed loop. One cannot hide behind "these imbeciles votted for him and I am held hostage by their ignorance". Pros and antis Trump are equally responsible for his election.
Maybe if the US was not such an individualistic country, with growing educational and wealth inequality, half the population wouldn't have voted for exploding the status quo.
Politicians are no more corrupt than the population not impeaching them.
The US is basically in a streak of blatantly stealing resources of other countries, mafia style, and we are long past the point where the population can argue "we didnt know, we thought they had weapons of mass destruction, I am so against it".
I disagree. If this ceasefire had not happened, the US and Israel would bomb all of Iran's electricity and fuel facilities. That's what was supposed to happen today, and is what forced Iran to the negotiating table with an hour to spare. China and Pakistan told Iran to come to the table, and negotiate, because they do not want a collapsed Iran.
Without electricity, there is no modern life. There is no ability to communicate, run a financial economy, pay salaries, etc. Without fuel, there are no logistics; there is no capability to transport an army. Nor is there an ability to transport food; it would cause an enormous civilian crisis, and this would cause massive riots.
Iran would collapse, within a week. It would devolve into factions, and a civil war would start, similar to in Syria.
The US and Israel have been sitting on this card the entire time. They don't want to do it, because it would cause near permanent economic damage to Iran.
Now reason without water, aka Israeli + GCC desalination. Iran with shit water situation is still less existentially water stressed. Iran 5% vs others 80/90%+ dependency on desalination = once Iran demonstrated survivable regional strike complex, they own the top end of escalation ladder that can take out everyone with them while coming out least harmed.
This not to mention, relative to US performance / conemps, i.e. going back to standoff munitions, there's not really enough discretionary high end munitions to take degrade all Iranian infra vs Iran has enough in reserve to take out all regional desalination. Nevermind US expending 1000s more TLAMs / JASSM(ER)s leaving it unprepared for any other near peer conflict. Reminder Iraq was 20% size of Iran, and so far US+Israel only flew ~20% of sorties via Iran than it has Iraq. Even factoring in precision munitions, US would have to expend more munitions than it has to actually cripple Iran on par with Iraq.
they dont want to do that attack, because Iran can still respond in kind, and both Israel and the US have some value in electricity, oil, and water existing around the gulf and in Israel.
if you make Iran pay that war cost ahead of time, what are you gonna negotiate for after?
Israel, I would think, would claim that Iran getting the bomb would be existential to them, so I don't think it's reasonable to think that Israel would agree to allowing enrichment.
I'm a little surprised that recognizing Israel as a nuclear power isn't in Iran's list of demands, considering how destabilizing it would be.
The CIA (lets for now ignore the alleged Director of the CIA) has for years been saying Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. Iran has been saying for years it does not have a nuclear weapons program. Every country has the right to pursue a civilian nuclear energy program.
The IAEA said earlier this year that Iran had enriched uranium to 60%. Uranium is enriched to 3-5% for nuclear energy, and 90%+ for weapons.
Don't be silly. Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Were they actively racing to a bomb? No. (That's what the CIA was saying). Did they enrich uranium to near-weapons grade so they _could_ race to a bomb, in a matter of weeks, if they decided to do so? Absolutely.
They need one or at least the idea of one if they want to deter Israel who has 200/300 bombs. If they don't want to end up like Iraq or Syria they kind of need this.
This is when people like me comment "According to US media, Iran has been a matter of weeks away from developing a nuclear bomb for over 20 years now".
Their now dead leader wrote a fatwa against nuclear bombs (as well as chemical bombs). Probably because Saddam using US chemical bombs on more than 50000 civilians a few decades ago did radicalize him against WMD.
They definitely have a 'nuclear program'. They have a 'nuclear program' to generate energy. They are a country on this earth and have the right to do this.
Just because we play rhetorical tricks and try to equate "nuclear program" with "nuclear weapons program" does not make it true.
Building a nuclear weapon that can be carried by Iraq's missiles is relatively difficult, because miniaturizing nuclear weapons requires much more complex designs. It took the US and the USSR quite a few test explosions to achieve such a warhead.
Building a bulky nuclear weapon that fits in, say, a shipping container, is not hard if sufficient highly enriched uranium is available. That's Hiroshima level nuclear technology, the gun-type bomb.[1]
This is the difference between the "years away" and the "weeks away" estimates.
Depends on whether the the delivery method is an ICBM or a shipping container.
To be 100% fair to the GP: indeed, Iran does not currently have an active weapons program. But they do have a weapons program, but they used it so far more for leverage. The truth is nobody really knows what they would have done had they achieved the status of nuclear armed power. But given that even the mullahs understand that there is a bit of a difference between threatening to annihilate Israel and actually doing so with all of the consequences attached to that I think they would be more like Kim or Putin than say the UK or France. They would use it for even more leverage and as insurance against being attacked.
Either way: the US is quick to say who can and who can not have nuclear weapons, but at the same time the US is the only country that ever did use them and it is one of very few countries that has (implicitly) threatened their use in recent memory. The only other two countries to do so are Israel and Russia.
Or maybe they know how much more difficult it is to go from 60% to 90%+?
Iran will pursue the bomb now with triple the effort they put into it so far. As will every other crappy country that has the talent, the facilities and the money. That's a lot of countries. Because all of them see the difference between Ukraine, North Korea and Iran: if you have the bomb, they leave you alone. Kim obviously had sponsorship.
The only thing holding back an Iranian nuke tomorrow is the fact that Pakistan and Iran do not see eye to eye on a few things. But Pakistan has vowed that if Israel should ever use nuclear weapons on Iran that Pakistan would hit Israel in the same way.
Keep in mind that they are right next door to each other and have a long term relationship.
When Trump canceled the Nuclear agreement with Iran, Iran immediately started enriching uranium into ship's reactor grade, and apparently started working on a nuclear submarine.
At the same time Iran emitted a domestic law prohibiting anybody from working towards nuclear weapons. The law was in effect up to the moment Trump ordered and killed the Ayatollah, by the way.
USA, #1 world power, nukes etc, failed to win. Iranian regime wasn't destroyed, and the HE uranium is still there. Two carrier battle groups weren't enough to re-open the straits. Burned $45bn and achieved nothing much.
Iran, fourth-rate regional power, failed to lose. Regime still in power, and still has its HE uranium. Oil infrastructure intact. Military knocked-about a bit, but still capable of controlling the straits and bringing in the $$$. They get to keep brutalising their frightened population.
Israel, premium regional power, suddenly all on its own running a hot, two-front war with no easy exit, because Trump cut and ran. Netanyahu is probably toast in the upcoming elections, which means hes going to jail for all the corruption stuff.
China, mega military power, picked the right side and comes out of it clean. Looks like a model, dependable global citizen. Access to the oil without paying the $2m/boat straits fee. Didn't blow $45bn on nothing.
Russia, third-rate power on the way down, made some roubles on the oil price thing, but still has all the same problems as before. Meatgrinder war. Economic and demographic collapse still imminent. Global pariah, except for Orban and Erdoğan and the Belarus guy. Putin's getting pretty old.
EU+UK basically sat it out. Sensible. Much economic damage though.
Thousands of dead/wounded/traumatised adults and children -- a running sore that shames us all. Plus all the victims of the Gaza and Lebanon wars. Deep, deep anger for multiple generations. Revenge, etc.
----
Officially its a ceasefire, but everyone knows the US won't restart after this. Its six months to the mid-terms, and the genius orange guy in Washington has other things on his mind. And Epstein is still hanging around like a bad smell. What to try next?
I'm very sure that Trump just announced the ceasefire to save face and brag that his threats worked to get the strait reopened, and the whole thing will be just a ruse to regroup for further attacks.
I can't see cooler heads in Washington agreeing to these 10 points, and Israel will certainly have something to say.
If these points are agreed, it's a catastrophic strategic defeat for the US.
They already lost most of their bases in the region (13/18 I believe), and would now have to evacuate the rest. We've learned that American military is not so mighty after all.
America's reputation as upholding a rules-based world order is in the toilet.
Iran will emerge as the dominant regional power, with global leverage and a steady extra income due to their complete and accepted control of Hormuz.
The smaller states will be scrambling to find a new international security partner, and China seems like a likely candidate.
The Petro-dollar is likely toast.
I mean if Vlad Putin himself were to direct every decision Trump has made, he could scarcely have done a better job of damaging America and disrupting the world order. Making America Grotesque Again.
The timing is really suspicious. The fact that all this opposition in internal meetings is leaked could mean two things:
1) The establishment is genuinely upset with Trump.
2) The ceasefire is a ruse and all this purported opposition is deliberately leaked to pretend that the US now really wants peace but is actually shipping ground troops to the region (at best) or manufacturing internal consent for nuclear bunker busters (at worst).
The fact that Trump posted that he considers the maximalist Iranian 10 point plan as a basis for negotiations points to 2). He has always attacked Iran during "negotiations".
I wonder why this post is worthy of staying on the HN front page but all the articles about Trump's threats that "A whole civilization will die tonight" got flag killed. I guess the president making genocidal threats isn't "interesting" enough to meet HN's moderation standards.
We all know he’d say something like that and that there’s a chance he’d actually do it. It isn’t really newsworthy. This isn’t the set of minds that needs to change to affect change in the short term anyway.
I don't understand enough about the US system of government. Are there any hopes of seeing Trump unseated before his term is up? If not for the astonishing damage he's doing to the western world, then only for the sheer fatigue from having every media outlet saturated by him on a daily basis.
If the Dems win the house in the midterms he will be impeached again. If there are 60 votes in the senate he will be out. Dems are unlikely to win the senate, let alone 60 seats.
It’s a bizarre situation in that US elections have such a huge impact on a world that has no say.
I really hope the democrats won’t start the impeachment nonsense showbusiness again and instead focus on actual policy that benefits people. I am very worried that Congress will go even lower and devolve into permanent investigations and impeachments while the country has actual serious problems that aren’t worked on.
I wouldn’t worry, that’s a sure thing. Next on Trump’s list is Cuba. He has to do these things now because after the midterms it’s just going to be investigations and impeachment for two years. Then the Democrats lose again because who cares about more pointless impeachments?
> It’s a bizarre situation in that US elections have such a huge impact on a world that has no say
No say (or at least, no influence) might be a bit strong given foreign election interference.
I'm sure if Britain or France or whoever wanted to, they could have their intelligence services release dirt on candidates or engage in some dirty tricks.
He's been impeached by the _house_ not by the Senate. The US Senate is extremely complicit with the administration. Something the founders did not intend
Upthread is discussing whether the Dems could flip the necessary seats to impeach and convict.
(And no, there is no way they will. It would take winning 20 out of the 22 seats, and losing none, assuming a party-line vote w/ independents siding with Dems. That won't happen. Also, the required vote in the Senate is two-thirds, not "60".)
No. Theoretically congress could impeach him, but his party has proven they will support him no matter what his crimes. Theoretically his cabinet could remove him with the 25th amendment but they are all complicit and will need pardons for themselves.
I don’t get how congress doesn’t have the power to deny/approve this war. Dont even impeach, dont you have to get congressional approval for this stuff?
Barring something catastrophic happening, I would bet that nothing will unseat Trump until January 20, 2027, at 12:00 PM (noon).
At that point, when J.D. Vance is inaugurated, he would be allowed to run and serve for 2 additional full terms (10 years total as president).
Before that, his partial term would count as a full term, and he could only run, win and serve one additional term.
This is all based on the 22nd Amendment, which established term limits.
JD is basically Peter Thiel's manchurian candidate, and some have claimed that it's the plan all along that Trump would probably not complete his term, leaving JD as the president and presumptive nominee for future terms.
Putin also respected term limits for a while, also with a sock puppet. 8 years should be plenty of time to have the Supreme Court Jesters come up with a solution. They already pardoned Steve Bannon!
This seems extremely likely. I’m already unconvinced the elections are going to be fair this year, but I am certain an impeachment would piss the conservatives off so much there would be another red swing during 2028 elections. Then after 4 years of JD Vance we will be living in the United States of Jesus so nothing will matter much anymore.
JD being less popular that Trump is an advantage that the Democratic party can easily squander.
He is pretty popular with the base, and only needs to look more palatable than whomever the opposition puts forward to the swing voters. The fact that he's relatively boring will suppress Democratic turnout somewhat.
And in the case that Trump leaves office due to health reasons, there will be a "rally around the flag" vibe that gives him a boost.
That's not to say that he's certain to win, but he would have many advantages if he serves a partial term and seems to be tracking better.
> Are there any hopes of seeing Trump unseated before his term is up?
I don't think so.
There's two routes, one improbable, one "hell freezes over" level.
The first route is impeachment & conviction. Our legislative branch is composed of two parts: the House and the Senate. The House would impeach him, and if impeached by the House, he would be tried by the Senate.
Currently, the GOP (Trump's party) has a majority of both the House & the Senate. It would require a 2/3rds vote in the Senate to convict an impeached president, and I do not see the Democrats winning the necessary seats in the next election (Nov 2026). We do not re-elect every seat at every election in the Senate (they are staggered). Assuming the vote is along party lines, i.e., Dems/Indepedents vote to convict, and GOP vote to acquit, of the 22 GOP seats up for election, all but 2 would need to flip in November in order for a party-lines vote to convict. 4 of the GOP-held seats were won with 65% or higher votes in their last election. I do not see enough seats flipping, nor enough politicians cross parties lines.
The other route, which social media is for whatever reason abuzz right now with, is the 25th Amendment. It permits the Vice President & the Cabinet members to issue a declaration that Trump is unable to discharge his duties. The President himself can end such a declaration, which in this case, I would expect he would immediately do; it would then have to be contested by VP/Cabinet, at which point it would go to Congress, and both House & Senate would need a 2/3rds vote to make it stick.
Impeachment & conviction seems the far easier route, only requiring a 2/3rd vote in the Senate. (The vote to impeach is, somewhat oddly to me, a simple majority vote.)
Trump’s party runs on a platform of subservience and fear and a lot of people either eat that stuff up or else believe their vote doesn’t count. The electoral college basically keeps the populous parts of the country hostage to the rural areas. And the rural areas believe that they contribute all the taxes for all the federal programs their parents created. We’ve basically become completely demoralized as a nation since the Baby Boomers took over for their parents and we’re busy continuing the plot. It won’t be over until we pull our heads out of our butts and start building things together or we become a third-world country.
They're utterly embarrassed it's just that they've been persistently encouraged via their amygdalas to project their own shame and insecurities onto others, as well as to swallow insane rationales as to why even though these people are evil it's a necessary bitter pill for the worldly government to swallow in order to bring in the eternal kingdom
I call the orange guy many things! I believe he's an accidental president. DNC screwed up big time both times. The stakes were higher than ever, so they could have played it safe by looking at past elections, but nope. They wanted to write history, but got the other guy to do it.
Bush (reminder: a republican) screwed things so bad that the country opened to something that had never happened before - A black President.
Now, orange guy (again, a republican, see the pattern) has screwed, and I'm not sure where his bottom is, will set the country to accept again something that hasn't happened before - A Woman President; maybe a black one. There's still time until the 2028 general election.
Also, what do conservatives conserve? They conserve their brains by not using them. Don't take my word; just look at the history, what they have done so far! They are the same everywhere - be it the US or India - same hate mongering lunatics!
It's not, i don't think so. For the first time Trump did a belligerent announcement while the market were open, and not on a late Friday. as expected, the market cratered. Then 4 hours later, this announcement? Crazy coincidence (which it might be, but frankly when it come to market manipulation, i think this admin has lost the benefit of the doubt).
Isn't that precisely the definition of TACO, though?
Trump does a thing, the market goes down as a result, so he does a 180 on the thing.
That he may also be doing it to lower prices for friends and family so they can buy up stocks just before he does a reversal and the market rebounds, making them all a lot of money, is immaterial to whether this counts as TACO.
The USA and Israel could always win the war, at any time, by playing the "destroy all your power plants and fuel facilities" card. They've been sitting on this card the entire time.
They don't want to play it, because it would cause near permanent economic damage to Iran. It is not possible to run a modern economy without fuel or electricity.
Without fuel, there are no logistics; there is no capability to transport an army. Nor is there an ability to transport food; it would cause an enormous civilian crisis, and this would cause massive riots.
Iran (and most of this thread) does not understand this, and that's why there were kindly encouraged by Pakistan and China to go to the negotiating table, before this conflict gets worse.
Iran can still escalate too. Past a certain point we really have to examine what "winning" means if regime change is only feasible via mass starvation.
Escalate, how? By bombing gulf countries infrastructure? So they cannot produce oil, gas, and water; extending the humanitarian crisis to the rest of the Gulf countries?
Doing so does nothing to prevent Iran from being bombed itself. Iran (so far) has shown no ability to prevent the USA and Israel from dropping thousands of bombs on Iranian daily.
It seems to be more likely on the unlikely side because (1) Iran planned for distributed operations (2) missiles are still apparently flying, speculated that any agreement may not have disbursed to all the independently operating groups (3) your point, it's unclear if there is any actual agreement (4) is Israel party to this agreement, will they honor any such agreement? Same for Hezbollah and Hamas
Declaring someone an enemy does not automatically lead to war. America considered the USSR an enemy of democracy for 50 years. They never went directly to blows.
I'm specifically referring to the attacks on Iran that started this mess ~6 weeks ago. If the US and Iran agree, but Israel decides to continue bombing campaigns, then this ceasefire will be very short-lived.
Trump is now threatening CNN with legal repercussions for publishing the Iraninian government's take on this, so I think it safe to say we all lost this war.
I told ya the Ayatollah would end up keeping the gate.
Tolling all the tankers that want to pass through the straight.
The US cannot game this cockamamie new Khameini.
So unless you're a tankie you won't be thanking him later.
The Hegemon can make demands but can't avoid demand destruction.
Steal the oil from Iran, was that the plan? Just like a child abduction?
Trump doesn't have the gumption to snatch enriched uranium
nor does he have the cranium to manage prices at the pump.
Never lower, always higher. Where he sees smoke, I Cease fire.
For Nukes and Nikes Nixon hollered "Abandon gold for Petrodollars!"
The Ayatollah is now doling Trump a lashing for his trolling.
Heed Shaheeds and bleed? No need! Say "Fuck it dude" and just go bowling.
India supported Israel until Iran started to look like winning. Modi visited Israel right the day before Israel strike on Iran leading to this war. They never thought Iran could fight USA.
The talks are theater. Trump is running around like a headless chicken, so it may look like a lot of "diplomacy" is happening, but if you look at the Iranian side, they remain in control over the strait, and their demands haven't changed. The fact that Iran agreed to talk is because Trump caved-in enough.
I find it a little odd when you're clarifying someone's comment and someone else wades in and replies (without even a "not the person you replied to but ..")
Iran's 10-point plan includes:
1. Guarantee that Iran will not be attacked again
2. Permanent end to the war, not just a ceasefire
3. End to Israeli strikes in Lebanon
4. Lifting of all US sanctions on Iran
5. End to all regional fighting against Iranian allies
6. In return, Iran would open the Strait of Hormuz
7. Iran would impose a Hormuz fee of $2 million per ship
8. Iran would split these fees with Oman
9. Iran to provide rules for safe passage through Hormuz
10. Iran to use Hormuz fees for reconstruction instead of reparations
Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency (via China's state news agency Xinhua[0]) claims the 10 points are:
1. U.S. commitment to ensure no further acts of aggression
2. Continued Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz
3. Acceptance of Iran's nuclear enrichment rights
4. Lifting of all primary sanctions
5. Lifting of all secondary sanctions
6. Termination of all United Nations Security Council resolutions against Iran
7. Termination of all International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors resolutions against Iran
8. Payment of damages to Iran for loss in the war
9. Withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the region
10. Cessation of hostilities on all fronts, including Lebanon
Which is much different.
[0] https://english.news.cn/20260408/dd8df6148df94252aaa1d3fbb59...
The Ayatollah Booth is egg on the US's face regardless, but $2M/ship is about $1/barrel for perspective. Spot price is $95/barrel right now.
$2M/ship is $1/barrel for VLCCs, but it's a lot more for smaller ships. Practically, nobody will use a ship smaller than a VLCC with the toolbooth.
VLCCs are already 2/3 the oil traffic, but yeah, rough day to be a small ship with cheap cargo.
Israel is already breaking the ceasefire conditions. Ref: "Netanyahu: Ceasefire doesn’t cover Lebanon" https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/netanyahu-cease...
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.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Israel%E2%80%93Lebanon_ce...
Have Israel ever respected a ceasefire?
Has Hamas or Hezbollah?
You seem to be implying Israel is no better than a terrorist group.
Not only is it no better, it is significantly worse.
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.
Not sure why you're replying to me?
I'm not the one comparing Israel, Hamas, and Hezbollah.
Though next time I'll put terrorist group in quotes, as everyone has their own opinion.
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What's my argument? He's the one that used them for comparison.
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Are you sure? The ADL says Jewish Voice for Peace are antisemitic: https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/jewish-voice-peac...
Less times than Israel, and usually in response.
Israel has done more terrorism than Hamas.
Not only that, but Israel financed Hamas to politically destabilize Palestine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas
why is that relevant? Israel is a nation state, the others are 'terrorist groups'. are they equivalent? your response seems to imply that.
Interesting.
Israel is not a nation state but a western colony in Palestine (like Tibet is a Chinese colony, or Algeria was for france).
Hamas is the government in Gaza who the ceasefire was with and whose acts it was contingent on.
Hezbollah is part of the government in Lebanon and who the ceasefire was with and whose acts in was contingent on.
The relevance is pretty obvious.
'why are do you want to include both sides (including the actual governments on both sides) in a discussion about ceasefire' is a wild take.
They have a far better track record. The other side constantly lies and violates every rule.
Yes
Textbook whataboutism.
Israel would not be doing this if not for the continuous attacks from those jihadist groups (well funded by Iran). But you know that.
The Nakba was not provoked by jihadist groups, it was provoked by colonial invaders. The victimization narrative never worked.
Ceasefire include removing Hizballa from Lebanon, but facts doesn't matter for terror supporters
Territorial expansion was probably always Israel's goal of this, with a bonus of weakening a regional rival.
In the 75 years of their existence it seems like they suck at expansion.
They should take a page from Indonesia’s book for example. Or turkey.
Indonesia?
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…
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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.
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> 1. Assure there will not be forces
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.
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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.
Hamas was created with Israel support.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas
"...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..."
>Palestine would still be a liberal democracy
When was Palestine a liberal democracy?
PA
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.
Man, Hezbollah was, literally, created as an answer to Israel attacks.
> 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.
nobody in your echo chamber you mean?
Of course not, why would I mean that?
Are you sure you aren't in one of your own? Look to UNGA resolutions to see what it looks like outside the chamber.
Forward-defending by making a million people homeless and taking 13% of the country.
I think that expelling all shia muslims from the recently conquered territory is a bit more than defending oneself.
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).
> without attacks from Hezbollah there would be no military actions in Lebanon.
Without attacks from israel, there would be no response from Lebanon, Palestine, Iran, etc.
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.
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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.
If Israel is interested in protecting its citizenry, it should probably stop letting them occupy the territory of its neighbors, or rape prisoners.
Sometimes preventing blowback is the best strategy.
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.
They’ll probably receive most if not all of Iran’s focus now.
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Perhaps they'll pro-rate it by size.
Maybe they'll end up with a sliding scale fee based on ship size/capacity
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
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.
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.
Pipelines are expensive and slow to build and notoriously vulnerable. Also you would need many I to match even half of the Hormuz throughput
Also Iran can drop the price of the Taxes whenever they want to in order to drive the alternatives into a loss.
$2M/ship is $100B/year at pre-war crossing rates.
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.
So we spent a ton of money and a bunch of people died to negotiate a much worse situation.
5D chess!
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.
Of course Iran wouldn't block its own ships at its own checkpoints, but the US is capable of easily interdicting Iranian shipping if it wants to.
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.
While the crisis would be worse, I am not that sure that China will confront US on this militarily. So far they have stayed out of other's fights.
Is that an argument for them not being to enforce the ayatollbooth or its price to remain reasonnable ?
good for them, hopfeully they will be able to better protect themseves from rogue nations that don't respect international laws.
We‘re still talking about the largest funding nation of terror cells mate
Who enforces "international laws" anyway?
Not quite, since they plan to share the revenue with Oman, or at least that’s what they’re currently claiming.
Trump cancelled the Iran deal, replaced it with nothing and now Iran has found an infinite money glitch.
100B/Year
How are they spinning this, that it is not Reparations?
"10. Iran to use Hormuz fees for reconstruction instead of reparations"
What is the splitting of hairs here?
I think reparations could be spent as they see fit. Reconstruction implies the money is going to exactly that.
But I agree it's a weird nitpick at this stage, as it seems almost impossible to verify once in place
No, the point is that instead of the US paying reparations from their own pocket they will allow Iran to tax Gulf countries.
That sentence is just worded badly, I would rewrite it as:
10. Iran to use Hormuz fees for reconstruction instead of demanding reparations from the US.
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.
Nice. I wonder what the costs of reparations would be if the ceasefire were to end the war?
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.
Truly an Art of the Deal - make countries that didn't choose to attack Iran... Pay for reparations.
With friends like Uncle Sam, who needs enemies?
Soon the dubai influencers will flock to Teheran.
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.
Geography and missiles? Iran have everything to lose and have been put in a position where they literally have to fight for their existence.
Militarily Iran is a giant and Saudi Arabia is a minnow.
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.
Does Saudi really want to fight an existential battle alone with Iran over 100B? probably not possible politically too.
well "want to" isn't "does not have to"
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.
That would mean Saudi Arabia is starting a war with Iran, which they presumably don’t want to do.
Isn't it already happening ?
Rather than $2M per ship, it's €1.7M or 13.7M CNY per ship.
1$/barrel - of barrels they are not producing surely ? That would make them able to levy Saudi Arabian and UAE oil and gas.
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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.
So we go and say "a whole civilization will die tonight".
They had to rapidly back off when they realized which civilization that was
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.
California is more reliant on foreign oil. https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...
And seems about 23% comes from the Middle East. https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...
Gas prices going up across the country shows that all of the US is reliant on foreign oil, even if none of it ever touches the state.
The idea of counting "reliance" based on the exact shipping route that serves you today is nonsense.
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.
Funny how the only people who believe that are the people who have been wearing the red hats for years now
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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.
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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...
https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...
"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."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/iran-missiles-production-threa...
"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.
I will concede that it is more of an ethnostate.
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...
Oil is a mostly liquid (pun intended) market.
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> 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.
Is this not the war they're currently losing? the US is their military.
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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.
Be realistic.
> 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.
https://www.voiceofemirates.com/en/news/2026/04/08/oman-deni...
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.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1163660721369...
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.
> It's ok to just admit you were wrong.
I mean, nobody can be evaluated as right or wrong today about what will happen in two weeks. We shall have to wait and see!
> 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.
[1] https://www.rferl.org/a/us-says-iran-rejected-nuclear-offer-...
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.
This is a wildly uncharitable interpretation of my statements, bordering on illiteracy.
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.
Iran would close the Straight later.
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?
Why do you have some need to pretend the US surrendered? Just trolling, or do you actually believe that?
Either way, thx for the laugh.
The US just forced Iran to stop launching missiles at ships in the Straight in exchange for halting bombing operations.
> 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?
US -> Stop launching missiles by 8PM ET for two weeks or we'll bomb you severely.
Iran -> Ok we will agree to that.
The situation in the Straight already occurred. The US doesn't give a hoot about the short term economic base of these vassal states.
> Which one explains Trump abandoning all original demands regarding regime change and even threats to destroy civilian infrastructure?
The one I wrote does.
Iran -> get the fuck out of the region, pay tariffs to us from now on, and let us develop nuclear weapons. (The 10 point plan)
US -> Ok we will agree to that.
is surrender
the meaningful change is that ships can move with volume through the strait again, no?
ships could register and pay the toll without having to take a stroll by iran's toll booth, so the volume of ships can go back up
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.)
Change relative to before the war… where ships could just pass freely. So that's a loss.
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.
But everyone still pays them right? I mean that's the deal.
Why would I want to be paying them if you're, at the same time, telling me they don't have the muscle to make me pay?
Why is anyone paying Iran anything if we won? Someone's gonna need to explain that to me.
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?
------------
Via BBC:
-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.
Jeez. Just do nothing!
Doing nothing would have been better than this.
> Via BBC:
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.
> As always I thank Trump for the amazing investment opportunities he is always creating! =)
Disgusting.
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.
Pretty obvious sarcasm.
How so?
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.
Is it genuinely always bad to buy the dip?
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.
Freedom of navigation is a core global principal
Like not attacking civilian infrastructure?
> Like not attacking civilian infrastructure?
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.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_navigation
> I'd actually say freedom of navigation is almost the definition of a Pax
Right, and “Pax” are rare enough that we actually name them. I.e. Pax Romana etc. what we are seeing here is the end of Pax Americana.
> and “Pax” are rare enough that we actually name them. I.e. Pax Romana etc. what we are seeing here is the end of Pax Americana
Fair enough.
> "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.
You are correct, I was mistaken - UNCLOS I was indeed ratified by the USA.
> No. I'd actually say freedom of navigation is almost the definition of a Pax
like, say, across a civilian bridge?
> like, say, across a civilian bridge?
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.
If freedom of navigation is so fundamental, why does it depend on flags?
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.
This is such a made-up idea.
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.
> colonial powers effectively invented it
“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.
What is the source?
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.
— "The Right of Navigation" <https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-history-o...>
> 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.
So blockades weren’t ever a thing?
You mean commercial navigation
It's broader than that [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_navigation
Food for thought
Thanks
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> Armed robbery of unbelievers always has been a core tenant of the islamic world.
Which is why the fairly big Jewish population in Tehran is targeted by armed robbers on a daily basis?
I mean it happened just yesterday (not a robbery per se). It was just not the "islamic world" targeting them.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/7/synagogue-in-tehran-...
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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.
Panama's canal, anyone?
> Iran has been respecting that principle for decades
May 2022: two Greek Tankers seized by IRGC commandos
2023: Tankers Advnatage Sweet and Niovi seized by IRGC commandos
Jan 2024: St. Nikolas seized by Iranian Navy
Apr 2024: MSC Aries seized by IRGC commandos
During the Tanker War 1981 - 1988: Iran was responsible for approximately 168 attacks on merchant ships
July 1987: Kuwait tanker MV Bridgeton struck by Iranian mine April
1988: USS SAmuel B. Roberts nearly sunk by Iranian mine.
2019 Limpet Mine Attacks
July 2021: Iranian drone strike on MT Mercer Street
Nov 2022: Pacific Zircon struck by Iranian drone
You forgot:
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.
Whataboutism doesn't save your argument about Iran "respecting international law" being proven wrong.
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?
is that really reason to go to war though?
the US has been doing that in the gulf of mexico; should we be destorying the american civilization as a result?
> is that really reason to go to war though?
Funding armed groups to essentially make war on your behalf does seem like a valid reason for the person being targeted to go to war.
As a general rule, if you shoot someone they will shoot back if capable.
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What other option is there?
I don't approve of war (and Trump didn't handle it well). However I also don't approve of what Iran has been doing.
There are two crazy nations I know that can nuke without morals. Hint: Not Iran
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.
Israel and the US are both nuclear armed and are doing crazy shit.
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.
Oil is fungible, so the cost will find an equilibrium regardless of source (excluding quality differences).
> play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Yeah, the game Iran is now trying to play is called “Pipelines and Pirates”.
There’s actually a ship deployed to the region right now named after the standard US response to this game, the USS Tripoli.[1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War
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.
No dude you don’t get it, Iran == bad, USA == good
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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.
>and any country should expect their ships to sail peacefully
Tbf the US seized plenty of theirs, others and such.
>Last I checked it’s the US and Israel at war with Iran, not others
The US bases and provided landing spots and ports, etc kind of speak otherwise and they don't have other ways of getting money from the US I believe.
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 is liked about as much as the US and certainly more than Israel.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/america-has-lost-arab-wo...
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.
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>Nobody forced Iran to build all these missiles
Saddam did.
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.
And if Sadam did, then by proxy the US did.
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.
> But proxies aside (which is a big aside), they were fairly self contained until we started hitting them.
That “big aside” is an understatement, on par with ”but CIA-funded death squads aside the US has been pretty hands-off with Latin America”.
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.)
I am not talking about stakes; I am talking about territory.
Uh if you say so. Can you point me to the rule stating that I need to keep engaging in a discussion I am not interested in having?
> I am talking about territory
Yeah. As you suggested, "look at a map." The UAE controls most of the Musandam Peninsula.
> that I need to keep engaging
You don't. But you also don't need to storm off.
Just came back to this. In what world is Musandam mostly controlled by the UAE? Can you point this out on a map?
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> bombs work and settle the issue
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:
https://acoup.blog/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/
> 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.
It seems like at one point we were moving away from AWACS but maybe the Air Force is changing its mind: https://breakingdefense.com/2026/03/following-congressional-... (there may be better or more informative sources out there I just grabbed one)
There was also an article here talking about the US moving to space-based systems which makes sense to me: https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/u-s-to-cancel-e-7-wedgetail-...
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:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Irani...
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
> Israel has illegal nukes
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.
Being shortsighted implies you aren’t looking that far ahead.
Even the shortsighted could see that the straits would get closed.
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.
I'm american, I am just not proudly stupid.
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.
How would that work if the Gulf Countries formed human chains around the desalination plants? Iran can't strike civilian targets right? ;)
Forming a human chain around a desalination plant is irrelevant when everyone dies anyways when they have no water.
This isn't little league.
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they can destroy whatever they want, but are unwilling to move ships in, and unwilling to put boots on the ground.
if the US/israel believed their own propaganda, they'd be doing both of those things.
> US and Israel don’t go around just announcing everything they’re doing. They don’t need propaganda
Why does Trump talk so much then? It would be lovely if stopped.
> 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.
The Panama Canal is a man-made construct and costs money to operate. How is that comparable?
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.
> Constructing the Strait of Hormuz
Who dug it up?
Think of it as reflecting the will of God.
>"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"
Sounds exactly like the US with the exception that they prefer to kill other people, not their own.
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from the outside it seems getting bombed is more antagonizing than propaganda.
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Weird, from the outside it seems like bombing civilians and infrastructure is more inflammatory and antagonizing than some words/propaganda.
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Ask the same dumb question, get the same answer.
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No. You made the same argument twice and got the same response twice.
I didn't make any argument twice. I only responded with an argument once. What did I argue twice?
Let me summarize the argument more cleanly:
Words are violence!!! Hearing death to America hurt me badly!!
vs actual invasions and bombings of your mainland from two hyperviolent countries with a long history of the same
Who's argument are you summarizing? Is this about the repeat comment?
The persons you were talking to.
The were arguing the opposite of what you said if anything. You sure you didn't respond to the wrong comment?
Big scary words are not violence. They can't hurt you. Bombings and invasions that killed people are violence.
I agree, I'm just confused where that fits in this thread.
Actual violence is much more antagonizing than mere hurt feelings.
I wouldn't classify full scale war as "antagonizing," but, if you want to downplay it, be my guest.
Sorry but US has created this b roll since the 50s.
The US creates "death to America" b-roll?
Do you also believe that 9/11 happened because they hate your freedom?
No, I think that had a lot to do with post WW2 imperialism in the middle east, along with religious motivations.
>The US creates "death to America" b-roll?
>No, I think that had a lot to do with post WW2 imperialism in the middle east, along with religious motivations.
And these are not related?
How can a thing that doesn't exist relate to history?
So 9/11 happened due to US imperialism. And there's no incident ever in Iran related to US imperialism?
> So 9/11 happened due to US imperialism.
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?
Their actions create it?
The US's actions caused the US to create anti-US propaganda? I'm getting lost here.
The US creates "Red Menace", "Terrorist", "Axis of Evil" or "whatever the imperialist excuse of the day" b-roll.
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.
To the Iranians, America is "The Great Satan".
To the Americans, Iranians are "Terrorists".
To a bystander they're both deranged warmongers using transparent excuses.
There is plenty of evidence Iran funds terrorism. I don't know of any evidence that Americans are biblical monsters, but I'm open to new information.
"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?
> "Terrorism" is inherently a subjective, ideological label
If the US started calling Iran "Satan" would you see that as an escalation of rhetoric, or business as usual?
Business as usual. It's all just scary terms to dehumanize. No different from "Yellow Peril".
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.
Terrorism or resistance against western imperialism and colonization?
That is a question one could ask. A little beyond me to answer.
> 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.
> If you want to argue from a power prospective then the US and Israel can just do whatever they want too
Yes, that’s exactly my point. any country can do whatever they want … within the limits of their powers.
What is currently stopping US/Israel from forcing Iran to open the strait of Hormuz?
I don’t believe they have the ability to take out enough of Iran’s missiles/drones to prevent Iran from exerting its control of the Strait.
> It’s a matter of principle
“ 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
“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.
The arguments that the Athenians give also go unheeded. Nobody gives any arguments that have an effect. What do you want to conclude from that?
> I think it’s appropriate to attribute the quote to Thucydides.
Sure, just as appropriate as attributing "Somalis should go back to where they came from" to NBC.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-calls-il...
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> Iran doesn’t control the straight though. It just has the ability to launch missiles at ships and such. There is a difference.
There really isn't a difference. They can turn off the flow at will, they're the only ones who can, nobody can stop them. They control it.
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.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9d415g55nno
> 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.
And hey, let's look at the ceasefire. If you have another source, happy to take a look but here's one to start with: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/8/us-iran-ceasefire-de...
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.
> https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9d415g55nno
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.”
https://x.com/jonkarl/status/2041839012097229086?s=46
https://thehill.com/policy/international/5821343-trump-us-ir...
> 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?
That's veto power, what other kind of control do they need?
> Sounds good - and the US can bomb Iran. Might makes right.
Might doesn’t make “right” but it determines geopolitical realities.
> Iran doesn’t control the straight though.
Then why was Trump demanding that Iran “open the fuckin’ Strait”?
“Transit volume through the Strait of Hormuz remains a fraction of what it was before the Iran conflict”
https://maritime-executive.com/article/traffic-through-strai...
> 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
We all live as hostages to America. Well except China. Not even Trump is insane enough to mess with them the PLA shoots back.
Closing the strait for 1 week is 1.9% of annual traffic if equally distributed, so it is very similar.
Exactly, I think the Iranis are shrewd enough to price their tax so that it looks attractive to the alternative.
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").
hmm? Suez is a man-made facility, and it costs money to operate it
so... maybe we should go back to the pirate days yarrr?
> Suez is a man-made facility
If only the comment you're replying to had included another example.
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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.
They have the advantage here
> 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?
> I can tell you what will happen to any boat that doesn't pay the extortion (toll) and enters the straight. (sic)
Whatever "might" happen won't be happening for very long when the entire country at large is in the stone age.
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.
Weapons aren't magic, and there exists no rule that says "destroy them all or you lose."
Eventually they will have none or few left, and without power or running water, they won't be able to feed their people, much less manufacture more.
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.
> Exercising control and staying in power amounts to them hanging 19 year old kids.
If you're going to play the utilitarian card, you need to actually compare the numbers.
How many kids does Iran government execute every year?
How many kids have died in that one single school that was hit by US? How many more of that will happen if the war continues?
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.
You're absolutely right that the ratification of laws isn't of consequence here and that we live in the real world.
And in this real world Iran has successfully exerted their will over the waterway and is clearly in control of it.
That's real and that's not going away so countries will continue to pay them because they have no choice.
Iran is holding all the cards here.
How many "cards" will they be holding with no functioning infrastructure to speak of?
"They" care about as much about the sufferings of their own people that Trump cares about "his people". Very, very little.
If those cards can inflict damage to their enemies, that's what matter.
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:
and more...> 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.
this
think there will be some coalition of some sorts
just mentioning "toll" is enough to "be made an example"
> 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
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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.
Principles are just power in disguise.
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.
That's how every empire falls.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8GgdL2xBYY
Given all that, maybe we shouldn't have attacked. Doesn't seem like it really did anything.
On the contrary, it accomplished a lot. We're no closer to any of our goals, but Iran is much closer to many of its goals.
> 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.
There's not much of a real way to see what we say on this site because most of it gets flagged in violation of the rules.
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.
Not really
> 2. Continued Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz
> 6. Termination of all United Nations Security Council resolutions against Iran
> 7. Termination of all International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors resolutions against Iran
These seem remarkably outside the USes power to unilaterally agree to.
The first violates international treaties and while I'd be thrilled with the precedent as a Canadian eyeing my countries future revenue streams I doubt the rest of the world's countries are going to be happy to give up freedom of navigation through international waterways.
The second is something that can only be done by the UN security council with a majority vote and none of the permanent members vetoing the termination.
I don't actually know how the IAEA works, but it seems all but certain that that's up to their board of governors not the US.
If the US wants the IAEA to agree to something like this, especially considering the global economic impact of refusing, I imagine the IAEA could be convinced.
The JCPOA came about when the US pushed for it in 2013.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal
> The first violates international treaties
Yeah, but USrAel never ratified UNCLOS. Iran is in the same boat.
It's interesting that these days any treaty that the US hasn't signed is probably a decent one, especially if hundreds of other countries have signed it.
It's usually the US and a bunch of garbage regimes on these lists, I guess there was a message being sent over time.
Although i think they mostly recognize it as customary international law.
Nonetheless international law isn't really worth the paper its written on. The bigger thing is there are a bunch of other countries dependent on the strait that might have something to say about it.
Trump could easily agree to it and consider that “their problem”. (I think Iran realize other countries have a say as well.)
It’s unlikely that Iran will get it’s demands at least all of them, and further it’s likely that this ceasefire will break no matter what.
The strait is actually not international waters. It’s shared between Oman and Iran remember (deep water shipping lanes does not exists everywhere in it as well). There was reporting of an agreement on both sides to some sort of shared booth.
Only the US would be the permanent party to vote against it which would be against which would be weird if the agree to the conditions in the first place.
IAEA are stooges, they will do what the US tells them and they’ll come up with some legitimate way of doing it.
3. Acceptance of Iran's nuclear enrichment rights
Among many other items this would never be accepted. This momentary cease fire is just regrouping time for everyone involved and that has always been the case for Iran.
It is acceptable, if only enriched for civilian reactors, not weapon grade what they did - and Iran was about to agree to that condition before their leadership was wiped out. If the new leadership will agree, remains to be seen. But I believe china or russia are also not strongly interested in a nuclear armed Iran.
There no feasible escalation path for the US. Trump has alienated allies and much of his anti war supporters. A forever war quagmire in a country 3x larger than Iraq is unlikely, as is carpet bombing. So what's left? A JCPOA style agreement with a Maga bumper sticker on it, with heavy concessions to Iran to prevent them from racing to a bomb, which is the best option from their pov at this point.
Carpet bombing would be a waste of munitions. Iran to your point is massive and surface level bombing would mostly take out civilians. The civilians have been through enough. Most of Irans military and religious leaders are in missile cities that are 500 meters+ under mountains of rock, the same places they are creating nuclear material. These bunkers are immune to bunker busters and nukes. That will require ground troops and likely a lot of them. How that plays out specifically I have not a clue. I can only hope that they share body-cam footage and that casualties are kept to a minimum. If there is one thing I can give Iran credit for that is building some amazing and very impressive bunkers using US dollars.
with heavy concessions to Iran to prevent them from racing to a bomb
This game has already been played out many times before. Obama unfroze 1.7 billion, Biden gave them upwards of 6 billion. All together the US has given them upwards of 60 billion to pinky promise they wont build nukes. Never pay a bully, ever. They used that extortion money to build bunkers, pay their proxy soldiers to attack Israel and all the gulf states and to work on their bunkers. There will be no more of that. Shame on anyone that falls for those shenanigans again.
At $2M per ship, assuming an average of 90 ships per day, Iran would bring in roughly $65B a year just in tolls.
Age old story of all choke points of course. I was taught about choke points by a family member that served in WWII and it's funny, thinking back I was in trouble because I could not find the Strait of Hormuz on a world globe that had no writing on it. I mean seriously ... who keeps such a globe just sitting around for such an obscure moment? That lesson stuck with me. It was a strange lesson but it stuck nonetheless.
Was just reading that this is the first time a waterway choke point (other than canals which are man made) has had a toll. The implications are intriguing for their novelty and unknown second order effects.
Also, the comment about the globe reminds me of a quip from The Daily Show that went something like "... something something War, or how Americans learn geography." You are lucky to have prior generations which provide such inter-generational teaching moments.
The Iran nuclear agreement was absolutely working for the year or so it lasted. International inspectors finally got to see things. Iran did not have a significant nuclear program during Trump's first term when he killed the agreement.
After Trump killed the agreement, what was Iran supposed to do? If the US can just ignore a diplomatic agreement, there's no reason for Iran to follow it. That means diplomacy is basically off the table. So they built a nuclear weapons industry again.
If Iran just wants to kill kill kill, why did it shut down it's chemical weapon industry? Why no dirty bombs? Why no gas attacks? Why is Iran, fighting an actually existential war, pulling it's punches? Why is it not hitting desalination plants like it can? They demonstrated that they have weapons that could hit Europe.
International inspectors finally got to see things.
Or so we are told. I have my doubts that they had access to all the missile cities. We will never know. Nobody will ever know until ICBM's, SRBM's and SRAM's start rolling out of their bunkers and Iran becomes a nuclear power. I believe this has been the goal of their stalling tactics and bullying. Too many nations trust but never really verify. This is how things went wrong with North Korea.
Give tourists paid access to all the bunkers. I want to ride an e-bike through all of them.
> Never pay a bully, ever. They used that extortion money to build bunkers
Which bully are we talking about here? I'm guessing Donald Trump, who took millions in "donations" to demolish a 3rd of the white house to build a new bunker with a stupid ballroom on top (which will never get built, but the GOP will just shrug when asked where the money went).
We are talking about Donald Trump, right?
Interesting. I have noticed that news about events in Iran has been markedly different within the US and outside the US for years.
The differences in the various 10 point lists have been noticed. I wonder if different lists are being produced to make each side look better to their respective populace?
Still, either way lifting sanctions seems like a win for Iran. Also seems like Iran is going to be allowed to charge a transit fee through the SoH. Trump's going to spin this as a win, but it seems like a big loss. Maybe he's just desperate enough to get out of this that he's going to let it slide?
The whole concept of the ceasefire is absurd - it's like the joke that to combat the rise of suicides, the government made them punishable by death.
There's no enforcement mechanism, only big dog, small dog logic. What happens if one party breaks the ceasefire? The other starts shooting?
Well we've already found out because Israel broke it. With Gaza they've gotten used to very flexible ceasefires where you can still bomb the other side repeatedly and the ceasefire "holds". Iran has shown that this will not work with them, and they closed the strait again
Um, yes?
It doesn't seem much different. Both involve guaranteed stop of all hostilities plus payment for what you did plus keep we Strait Of Hormuz. The only difference is how the payment for the attack goes.
Withdrawal of US troops from the region and acceptance of uranium enrichment appears nowhere in the other 10 points.
There are permanent US bases in the region.
Seriously? Those are major differences.
Aljazeera is sharing roughly the same list
Yeah 0% chance the US agrees to this.
The US doesn't have the cards
Hmm.
"Acceptance of Iran's nuclear enrichment rights" (enrichment to what degree?)
"Termination of all International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors resolutions against Iran" (what does this actually mean, that they tear up previous reports and findings? Ignore undeclared nuclear facilities and unaccounted for uranium?)
I mean, are Iran basically asking that they be allowed build nuclear weapons unchecked? Or is there another way to read this?
Even that is wildly worse than when we started the war. This is a unmitigated loss.
Have the U.S. and Iran agreed the points? Or is this two weeks to hammer them down?
Of course not. It's a framework of a framework of a framework, unilaterally suggested by Iran.
Two weeks of open Strait to nail the final version, yes.
I guess gas prices in US will cool down to pre-war price averages and the pressure not to resume aggression will be huge.
Absolutely not. It will takes months to years to rebuild onshore infrastructure, and shipping companies will be very reluctant to send tankers into the Gulf. Negotiations may collapse and hostilities resume at any moment, especially since Israel does not know the meaning of the word ceasefire.
No chance. Up like a rocket, down like a feather.
and that's without considering the lost production capacity.
Two weeks of open Strait [1]
[1]: in coordination with the Iranian military [2]
[2]: with preference for Iran's friends[3]
[3]: and fees paid to Iran
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Either way, it's maximalist aims, not realistic aims. Negotiations will obviously converge closer to US aims since Iran has no leverage.
> Iran has no leverage.
Patently false. Else there'd be no ceasefire.
The president just went from threatening genocide to begging Pakistan to set up a deal that doesn't even have agreed-upon terms. Seems like they have quite a lot of leverage.
I’m not sure the terms of negotiation are even worth discussion. Every time this administration has negotiated with anyone on matters pertaining to Israeli interests, it’s only been a ruse to position for another attack.
My guess is that they know good and well all the marine landing craft are going to get smoked and are using a false peace to preposition the ground invasion. The ridiculous James Bond scheme they tried to pull off which resulted in us destroying a dozen of our own aircraft and, quite probably a few of our own operators was a Hail Mary inspired by too much television. That failure leaves the administration with quite the dilemma. Surrender and call it a victory, which Israel will not allow. Or repeat the Syracuse Expedition as farse.
It’s a bit depressing to think about, but my hope is that these catastrophic failures will get false allies out of the decision loop and we proceed as a more peaceful and wiser country.
> false allies
You can just say Israel. I wonder how long it will still take that Netanyahu has not US (or anyone’s at this point, except himself) interest in mind. Even Trump must be able to put two and two together at this point, no?
> Even Trump must be able to put two and two together at this point, no?
How have you looked at the the last couple of decades of Trump and come to that conclusion? The man's a total idiot and that was even before his mental decline
He is an extremely prickly idiot that has very accute senses when somebody is crossing him over. So does any two-bit hustler. Or maybe he really did start a war just to bury the Epstein files for a brief moment, god only knows at this point.
Oh at this point you should probably wonder not whether he gets it, but what leverage does Israel he have over him, and if it's directly from Epstein files.
What leverage could possibly Israel have that could be worse than this? https://newrepublic.com/post/207508/13-year-old-trump-accuse...
If his support from budge from him assaulting a minor sexually, Israel might have a file proving he is the antichrist, it would not matter. It’s more akin to a death cult than a political party.
How about video of it?
There was some journalist that said he had discussed with Steve Bannon even whether it would have mattered if the now infamous “pss tape” had actually materialised. Bannon said something along the lines of that Trump would have just called it fake and it would not have mattered even slightest to his voters.
Trump is probably being black mailed. Epstein must have given them some really heinous footage of Trump on camera.
Yikes, so basically Iran gets everything it wants. It paid a heavy price for it, but it would get so much out of this. At pre war ship rates, that toll would be ~$90B per year ($45B if split half with Oman). Iran's government generates something like $40B in income, so this would be absolutely monumental.
Posts like this from the HN community are almost surreal. Any review of the actual deal would show a two week ceasefire in exchange for the strait being open and safe while negotiations continue. This 10 point plan is just a place to start talking, no country has agreed to anything on it. How is this missed on the community here?
Who knew tech employees weren't exactly across international politics.
No it would be trivial to gain a thorough understanding of Middle East politics and the oil market for an enlightened people who were able to become foremost experts in epidemiology, molecular biology, global supply chain logistics, the war in Ukraine, semiconductor manufacturing, and many other fields entirely self-taught simply by obsessively reading social media and wikipedia.
"Infotainment" is the term I've heard to describe Reddit and other talking websites. People are looking to "win" like they do in sports or other recreational activities. It's a kind of fun that disguises itself as learning-- minus, of course, the actual work.
Team sports for the higher class
That's why people come here, they learn these things in the comments.
It's not the people who just come to learn though.
> This 10 point plan is just a place to start talking
Its probably not even that. PR statements for public consumption rarely reflect bargaining positions behind closed doors.
I understand this perspective a lot more. I assume they're going to haggle and work on a few items, and adjust pieces here and there. What if they at least get sanctions lifted, that would be huge, no? Going to be an interesting couple of weeks.
The community is not as sophisticated as you may perceive it to be.
Change this line from : "so basically Iran gets everything it wants"
to "so basically Iran would get everything it wants under this plan".
I'm not so dumb to understand that this will be the final plan, just commenting that this is incredibly bad for the US as is laid out.
> Any review of the actual deal would show a two week ceasefire in exchange for the strait being open and safe while negotiations continue.
Speaking of this community being kinda dumb - do you really think this ceasefire is enough for all ships to go on their merry way? Deals mentioned over social media are not enough to convince insurance companies that all is safe. And 12 hours later we now have evidence of this - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/08/business/strait-hormuz-sh...
Also, my original point is that there is nothing in that deal that is a better long-term outcome than what we had before the war. Maybe that will change in the final deal, but the fact that the starting point of the negotiation is 100% on Iran's side is not where you want to be.
Safe but not open. The agreement Trump tweeted says ships must "coordinate" with IRGC.
Welcome to HN where users with little domain knowledge make comments of utter certainty about any topic under the sun.
Yeah. Exhibit A: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47688395
Nobody knows what "the actual deal" is because we have pathological liars on both sides (well, especially pathological on one side, most just utilitarian on the other)
Iran's version of events includes the Iranian military controlling the Strait and incurring fees.
AP is reporting Iran's version as the true one.
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No one has agreed to the Iran's 10 point plan, and they're not going to get all of it.
The provisional ceasefire actually goes against the Iranian proposition. Point 2 explicitly is "permanent end to the war, not a ceasefire".
Iran backed down a bit here from their maximalist aims (which is what the 10 point is).
Trump literally said he would bomb them to the stone age. It doesn’t get more maximalist than that and it was the US that backed down.
A ceasefire agreement isn't an end of war agreement.
Typically that means backing down on objectives/demands otherwise that would be the end of it.
Stone age is old news. The latest threat is that an entire civilization will die. And yes, US backed down -- TACO Trump shows up again.
TACO enjoyers always come out on top.
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he's chickened out of getting regime change primarily.
in terms of shifting war goals, he's chickened out on getting back to the status quo from before the war.
rather than chickened out, the US is the sound loser of this war. the best outcome the US can negotiate for now is worse than what they could get before the war
Meanwhile Iran continues to blow up oil prices which is devastating for the entire world's economy, to say nothing of the USA's economy and especially Trump's popularity.
Crude oil is down 17% today alone.
Dude, they still have a huge drone force, or otherwise there would be tankers sailing
How is it backing down when his threat was we’d do it if they didn’t agree to open up the strait, which is now open?
I don’t like the way he does things but we’ve seen Trump’s playbook enough to see what he does. Big threat, followed by the US getting some sort of capitulation from it. He then doesn’t follow through with the threat.
That’s not chickening out. That’s just negotiating with a big stick.
The strait is not open, Trump is pretending it is, to save face. Iran is charging $2M per ship, which will net them $90B and that is significantly higher than their oil revenue ($60B). Plus they get to keep their enriched uranium. Yes they lost some buildings and bridges but the strait fee is enough to rebuild. Iran is in a stronger position now than when the war started. TACO Trump lost the war.
> Iran is charging $2M per ship,
Iran wants to charge $2M per ship as part of it's ceasefire conditions - which will almost certainly be rejected since that would impact every ship/nation traversing these waters. Waters that are not owned by Iran.
> Plus they get to keep their enriched uranium.
There's 0% chance of that happening.
> Iran is in a stronger position now than when the war started.
All of Iran's senior leadership are dead. Most or all of the "second-string" leadership is dead. All but their ground-force military is destroyed.
So we go back to all out war and a closed straight when no agreement is made.
The leadership clearly doesn't matter as neither the regime has collapsed nor have moderates emerged.
Claims of destruction of "all" military are continually invalidated by the ongoing drone and missile strikes.
> which is now open?
Is it? Iran seems to be under the impression it is subject to their control.
Big stick?! More like whacking himself with a big stick.
Read up on his ‘playbook’ with russia, north korea, china etc ..
> US backed down -- TACO Trump shows up again.
It's stunning to me, that people still do not understand Trump's one-and-only playbook. He literally published a book about his one-and-only strategy all the way back in 1987 - yet people still freak out when he makes big demands then settles for more realistic options. The guy literally has used the same strategy over and over, and everyone acts like it's the first time every time.
It's also stunning to me the very same people that were losing their minds about threatened events immediately switch into "TACO" mode when those events don't happen.
In this situation, Trump made wild threats and demands if Iran didn't agree to a ceasefire. Iran initially rejected but then some 6 hours later accepted. The one-and-only playbook strikes again.
He did it with Xi Jinping but the Chinese immediately responded in kind.
Bullying only works against the weak.
What is stunning here is that some people think Trump has a reasonable strategy. What works in the business world is not the appropriate approach when working with other nations. When you threaten to kill an entire civilization, that damages US's reputation, regardless of what that threat accomplishes. Today the Pope is admonishing us and our closest partners such as UK is shunning us. US is now seen as a shit country on the level of North Korea. TACO Trump needs to be removed from office ASAP.
Even as Trump was threatening to wipe out Iran’s civilization unless Tehran agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, he was actively looking for a way out of the crisis. Trump then got Pakistan to post a fake plea to himself on X [1]. A few hours later Trump accepted the fake plea.
How pathetic is this!
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/08/world/middleeast/trump-pa...
I mean, neither one did what they said they would do, if they had both done what they said they'd do, I guess we'd have nuclear war, so. (To the extent that you can't get anything consistent out of what Trump says he will do it's literally not possible, because he constantly contradicts himself.)
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It's a bad strategy.
A high schooler could tell you that.
Fools hacker news every day. And it worked on the Iranians.
Did it? I’m pretty sure a cease fire is something they appreciate, and they haven’t given up anything for it yet.
If the madman act had worked there would've been some significant changes before the bombings last year. Or, ok, maybe you gotta show them you're serious. But the madman act would at least then prevent needing to attack for weeks this year. Oh, nevermind. But... third time's the charm, right! He's definitely gonna get what he wants this time?
The people running the country, killing protestors, etc, aren't trying to "win" in the same way Trump is. It's easier to avoid regime change than it is to cause it from air strikes.
And yet it was worked for him time and time again.
I don’t like it because we’re needlessly hurting relations, but to say it’s a bad strategy is silly.
We must have a completely different definition of 'it worked'. The only thing that worked here is that he managed to get Epstein off the front pages, but that will only work for so long. Oh, then there is Cuba of course.
Why do you still believe there's any crime at all that could somehow turn around the people who support Trump?
Do you really think, after over a decade of buying into a cult, they will suddenly give up after seeing slightly better proof of things that are already widely known?
It's delusion to think this has to do with Epstein. Israel committed to this war Oct 7th, and the Trump admin jumped in for worse reasons: They thought they were special and could win. They thought they would be seen as strong.
Why do Trump friends own so much news and media if Trump believes he has to make up a war to distract from Epstein?
No amount of preachers raping kids has stopped fundamentalists christians from supporting their institutions that enable such activity. They are some of the same people who support Trump. They don't care if he personally raped a kid. "The ends justify the means". 2A folks support him even though he has directly said he wants to take guns from people without due process and even though he said Pretti should not have brought a gun to a protest, something that Kyle Rittenhouse supporters probably should have a problem with.
They don't care. The ends justify the means. They've never cared about the actual person involved. Everything they say in defense of him is post-hoc rationalization and entirely a front. They do not care.
> Why do you still believe there's any crime at all that could somehow turn around the people who support Trump?
Did I say that? Or did your reply get attached to the wrong comment? Either way, no I don't believe that at all.
The 12 D chess explanation, people still believe this?
This whole thing is a debacle. Trump was manipulated by his betters into engaging a war he doesn't understand at all [0], and while flailing he just reached for the most insane threat he could imagine.
The madman theory ironically actually requires a sane and competent person to perform the bluff, [1] which is not the case here.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-wa...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory
> The US didn't back down, it used a credible mad-man style threat to get what it wanted.
Okay. Tell me, what did the US got? You say they got what they wanted. What is that they wanted and now got?
That is certainly a favorable interpretation of events. I don't buy it. I think there's more evidence that he's actually an erratic, compulsive liar than some master strategist. What great deals has he secured for the US?
it really seems like the US is just ceding to iranian terms. the US cant solve the hormuz strait problem militarily, and so it has to come to the table
"I will end your civilization" is not credible. He'd lose a war powers vote and likely be removed if he even started down that path. To say nothing for the logistical impossibility.
He's not doing some Scott Adams master persuader nonsense. He spent a month being ignored by his counterparty so he just kept amping up the rhetoric until he was threating actual genocide. With human shields placed around the infrastructure he promised to attack, the president desperately begged Pakistan to broker a ceasefire with two sets of terms.
People keep saying this, and yet Trump just sounds like a fucking moron to me, if you’ll pardon me quoting his former Secretary of State.
Can you give me some examples of where he’s done this in the last and it actually worked?
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> In making threats about a civilization dying he lowered the country's standing in the world.
That threat was really about the death of American civilization as we know it, and he made good on it a long time ago.
The US is in a worse spot than before the war. Iran won.
They also got to keep their new Ayatollah and continue with their religious government. An escalation of the war would have certainly ended with a complete regime change. Which would have been very expensive in life (Iranians) and money (Americans).
A complete regime change would probably only come with a large scale invasion, bigger than Iraq's. A huge majority of Americans don't want that.
Or with their people rising up, which is I think what the US and Israel were hoping for - though they didn’t seem to plan for a way to actually make it happen.
We will see what happens at the end of this war when people come out of their homes to a crumbling country. They could decide that enough is enough and bring in some change.
Without arms, it is probably impossible for the people to take back their country.
We take the Second Amendment for granted here in the US - but the lack of a similar thing in Iran is what will keep the civilian population under the regime's control - or else another 10k-30k+ massacre.
I was wondering why we aren't considering the Liberator pistol v2.
Getting collectively bombed tends to have a unifying effect. If anything, bombing a populace would decrease the risk of an uprising that supports the bombers.
How would you feel if your city was being bombed by a hostile foreign nation, including a school full of kids? Magnanimous toward the attackers?
Yeah they will come out of their homes and decide that we should acquiesce to Israel because enough is enough. How’d that go with the Palestinians? In the real world, Israel’s abhorrent behavior unites these populations /against/ them. Your logic is in a fantasy realm.
There was never going to be a regime change. Continuing the war meant many Americans were going to die (in addition to bankrupting the US). I'm a US citizen and very glad Iran came out on top here.
US is bankrupt to the tune of trillions already.
When you don't the money, you can't go bankrupt.
But, if you had an amazing reputation for paying your debts, and get super low interest rates because of it, and all of a sudden you change your reputation and demand for holding your debt and currency goes down, well, then that's created a massive problem for the currency that reduces everyone's quality of life drastically.
Their new Ayatollah is braindead. It's not over yet.
How much do you think is fair for being attacked by a superpower for no reason in illegal military action with war crimes sprinkled throughout.
Imagine it happened to you.
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The Ayatollah that the Americans assassinated under the guise of peace talks had a fatwa against having a nuke.
America has admitted that they (tried to and maybe were successful in) sending arms to the fifth column attempted uprising.
Try to get your information from somewhere that isn't American/Israeli propaganda.
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Try to get your information from somewhere the sun shines.
why do we care? there are many other countries around the world that are much worse and we are not sending our soldiers to die there or spending billions of dollars bombing various islands and mountains to fertilize them for next harvest season
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That is us and Israel made up bull shit
When did the US "make up" the spraying of bullets at protesters in Tehran? 5,000+ dead people in the streets.
The ones armed by US? https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
And provided with starlink: https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-smuggled-thousands... ?
Imagine russia or china sponsoring and arming protesters in US. The last time US was actualyl attacked it put 120k japanese people into concentration camps just because they were japanese.
> ones armed by US?
Were there any armed protests in Iran? I thought they were peaceful?
It's ironic that a country ruled by a pedophile and mass child murderer talks about how good or bad another country ruling class is. Wtf look at you own rulers and ruling class before worrying about what other countries rulers are doing. Most of you buy the bullshit of you being the good guys vs them being the bad guys there is no such thing.
The US attack on Iran was wrong but don't forget that Iran loves to lob ballistic missiles at Israel civilians.
> Iran loves to lob ballistic missiles at Israel civilians
Phew and I wonder why that might be!
Yea, I do wonder, why that might be? Why is a country 1500 miles away, that doesn't even share a common border, preoccupied with the destruction of Israel to the point it invested hundreds of billion of dollars in its offensive capabilities and network of proxies on every side of Israel, had a special paramilitary wing (Quds Force) for operations inside Israel, had a public clock counting down the existence of Israel and called for the destruction of Israel on each and every opportunity?
What's the obsession with the destruction of Israel? Could it be related to the fact that an Islamic Republic of (...) could not accept a Jewish rule right in the middle of the great Muslim Ummah?
So you really can't see what the problem is that the Israelis have caused in this region, can you.
In the spirit of this positive community, I'm looking forward to hearing about those problems.
Well, for starters just today they hit cental, civilian areas of Beirut with 100 attacks in just 10 minutes - killing more Lebanese civilians in ten minutes than Iran killed Israeli civilians in months of war. Absolutely vile, with clear genocidal intent, and with the aim of stealing Lebanese land.
That's just today...
You are ignoring the elephant in the room: Hezbollah was literally founded in 1982 under IRGC direction; 1,500 Revolutionary Guards deployed to the Bekaa Valley to organize and train it. It is arguably the most successful export of the 1979 revolution's "velayat-e faqih" ideology. So Iran colonized Lebanon.
Hezbollah formally accepts Khamenei as wali al-faqih the supreme juridical authority. That's not alliance, that's religious-political fealty to a foreign head of state.
Iran provides an estimated $700M–$1B/year, plus missiles, drones, training. Without Iran, Hezbollah's strategic arsenal doesn't exist.
It operates as a parallel state inside Lebanon (own military, telecoms, social services, foreign policy), displacing Lebanese sovereignty in the south and Bekaa.
You are ignoring the mammoth on the room: Hezbollah only even exists because of Israeli aggression; murder, rape, land theft, and as we saw yesterday, civilian massacres.
> So Iran colonized Lebanon
They haven't "colonised" anything, and, at best, it's disingenuous to describe training a resistance group as such.
> It operates as a parallel state inside Lebanon (own military, telecoms, social services, foreign policy), displacing Lebanese sovereignty in the south and Bekaa.
To claim the "officially recognised" Lebanese state is sovereign is utterly ridiculous! They are stooges, tasked with sitting back and doing nothing while Israel carries out ethnic cleansing and genocide. An MI6 front (Westminster Foundation for Democracy) even has an office inside the Lebanese parliament.
Turns out that if you take over a country's government and continuously carry out appalling attrocities against it's people for decades, they will resist.
"To claim the "officially recognised" Lebanese state is sovereign is utterly ridiculous"
Wow, this is quite a take. If Hezbollah doesn't have to respect Lebanon sovereignty then why does Israel?
"Turns out that if you take over a country's government and continuously carry out appalling attrocities against it's people for decades, they will resist."
This is just a insane conspiracy theory. Hezbollah is the organization that actually partially took over the Lebanese government with Iranian help.
Hezbollah attacks Israel with absolutely no concern for the damage Israels counterattacks will do to Lebanon.
> This is just a insane conspiracy theory
Absolutely disgusting - look at the massacres Apartheid Israel committed in Lebanon just yesterday.
> Hezbollah attacks Israel with absolutely no concern for the damage Israels counterattacks will do to Lebanon
That's the same logic wife-beaters use... "it's their own fault I hit them!".
I'm not going to engage any further with your genocidal rhetoric.
Israel would not be attacking Hezbollah if Hezbollah wasn't attacking Israel. Israel just wants to exist while Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran all want to destroy it. Don't expect Israel to just passively accept this. Try to imagine how the US would react to a Mexican cartel shooting rockets at El Paso. I couldn't feel sorry for that cartel when the US counterattacked.
Let me ask you a few questions
1) do you think Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran can defeat Israel with force?
2) do you want them to?
That’s unrelated to my question though. The obsession Iran has with Israel spans four decades now. It hasn’t started with any attack today.
That's simply not true - when, in Iran's entire history - has Iran attacked Israel without first being struck by Israel? Not once.
Iran's so called "obsession" is simply their desire to remain a sovereign state.
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Israel's first ally in the Middle East was the secular Iran government under Mossadegh.....
Because they have a very deep and irrational hatred of Jews that stems directly from the way the koran talks about them.
Here's a comment to the contrary from another poster which I found illuminating: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47605903
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The US and Israel have killed over 3,000 civilians in this war, mostly in Iran and Jordan. Iran has killed like 30. Their attacks are literally a hundredth of what they got and we're still trying to portray them as the bad guys. Don't get me wrong, Iran sucks, but not because of this
Iran has killed thousands of its civilians. The only reason it has only killed a few Israelis (excluding Oct 7) is because they can't easily get past Israeli defenses.
Jordan is a US ally, I think you are confusing it with some other country
The Shia Theocracy controlling Iran has killed thousands of civilians protesting their oppressive regime.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide?wprov=sfla1
Not that long ago. Just a reminder.
If the USA and Israel had really wanted to stop evil regimes they could have gone to Sudan maybe?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Fasher_massacre?wprov=sfla1
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What? Iran was attacked by israel numerous times, including today. It has the right to defend itself.
If anything, it's israel here that has attacked almost all countries in the area and annexed land from them ("buffer zones").
Israel also gets to pretend it has no nuclear weapons.
How does shooting ballistic missiles with cluster warheads at residential areas help defend Iran?
If what you said was true, we'd have seen many, many civilian deaths in Israel over the course of the war - there have, officially, been less than 50 (note that in the same time period Israel - which has targeted civilian infrastructure such as hospitals in Iran - has killed over 3,000 Iranian civilians!).
But what you're saying isn't true - any of it! Iran has been hitting military targets. And they've been using MIRVs, not anti-personell cluster munitions (you know, of the kind Israel has dropped over 1M of over Lebanon). MIRVs split into multiple, independently targetable missiles when high above ground near the target zone. Cluster munitions wait until they are only some meters above ground, and then explode into bomblets.
https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2026/04/iranian-ball...
On April 6, as many as 50 sites were impacted by missiles and their cluster munitions.
“Iranian cluster munitions struck roughly 50 locations across central Israel, wounding at least six, including a seriously wounded woman in Petah Tikva and a moderately wounded man in Ramat Gan,”
Iran has focused on using cluster munitions in its ballistic missile salvos since the first two weeks of the conflict. However, the proportion of these munitions has increased. By March 10, Israel’s Home Front Command said that 50 percent of the Iranian missiles contained cluster munitions.
On April 1, The Times of Israel reported that “12 missiles carrying conventional warheads with hundreds of kilograms of explosives […] struck populated areas in Israel, causing extensive damage. There have also been more than 30 incidents of missiles carrying cluster bomb warheads hitting populated areas, with over 200 separate impact sites.” A ballistic missile attack on April 4, which led to at least 10 impact sites, illustrated how large an area can be affected by one missile with cluster munitions.
Bullshit, they are just calling MIRVs "cluster munitions" - they are not, and naming them as such will not make it so.
Iran is absolutely not using MIRVs. They are only used with nuclear warheads because they are very expensive. Iran is using good old fashioned cluster warheads where the bomblets are randomly dispersed, which is an evil weapon to use against civilians.
You are wrong[0], see Khorramshahr. Maybe Iran found ways to make them more easily produced. And there are videos where you can see missiles splitting into other missiles, some of which go in different directions.
As before, it's Apartheid Israel that uses cluster bombs (and white phosphorus too).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khorramshahr_(missile)
You are wrong if you think Iran is targeting each sub-munition of the ballistic missiles it is firing at Israel civilians. No country has ever used any ballistic missiles that has conventional MIRVs because it simply doesn't make sense.
Iran is far more of an apartheid state because Jews are considered to be Dhimmis and officially discriminated against. Dhimmi status is not equality. Recognized-minority status under the 1979 constitution comes with hard ceilings: Jews cannot hold senior military, judicial, or executive positions; inheritance law historically favored any family member who converted to Islam (a Jew converting could inherit the entire estate from Jewish relatives, a direct incentive structure against the community); testimony of non-Muslims is weighted less in court; blood money (diyya) was unequal until reforms in the 2000s. The reserved Majles seat is one out of 290, tokenism, not representation.
lol you are so full of shit its incredible, but muslim lovers will do whatever it can do to come up with bullshit.
The funny thing is that many Sunnis don't consider Shia to actually be Muslims. Shia twelvers are obsessed with the 12th Imam who they think is still alive after 1150+ years while Sunnis don't care about this at all and consider the entire concept blasphemous.
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Nothing has been agreed yet except a 2 week ceasefire.
It depends. If it later comes out that their nuclear material was secured by the US, this is much more acceptable - it would seriously incentivize pipeline construction by making passage through the Strait more expensive. Given that closing it is really the only lever Iran has that can put pressure on the US at all, this attenuates that a great deal.
It’s not acceptable on its face, but there’s a lot going on in this conflict that isn’t making the news.
Iran has also been freely bombing Israel and US assets around the Middle East. The Zionists bit off more than they could chew and now Iran is better positioned than ever before. Not only that Iran has earned a lot of respect globally and Israel/the US has lost what little they had left.
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“Zios” completely obliterated the top command of the regime attacking them.
I don’t think you understand Iran
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>Iran didn’t escalate against anyone except their aggressors
What about the missiles launched at Dubai?
> Iran didn't escalate against anyone except their aggressors.
This is categorically false. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iraq, Qatar, (Kuwait,) even Oman and Turkey at various times, and Cyprus. Iran demonstrated superiority in only one respect during this war, and that was in recruiting otherwise well-meaning, levelheaded figures in media and government, even religious leaders, to spout incoherent nonsense as you did here.
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Err what? They bombed various countries in the Middle East (not just US bases) and even a British base in Cyprus.
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Its neighbors are hosting US bases which were used to launch attacks on Iran. Bahrain in particular hosted the largest US radar station in the region which was being used as the control centre to coordinate the attack on Iran [1]. These countries were absolutely not 'non-aggressors'.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cddq7j48p35o
Doesn’t excuse bombing actual civilian targets, apartment complexes, &c, nor does it excuse executing peaceful domestic protestors - all of which this Iranian government has done.
Maybe if they, idk, stopped funding Hamas, Hezbollah, and Yemen rebels stopped trying to get a nuke, stopped stockpiling missiles for no reason and stopped chanting death to America we wouldn’t be here.
The Iranian government is terrible, but that doesn’t mean that the U.S. relationship with the gulf states isn’t worse off than in February. The United States made our alignment with Israel hard to ignore and was significantly unable to protect allied countries while drawing fire onto them. It’s entirely possible for both sides to lose a war and I’d bet we’re going to see enough of a shift away from us, likely to China, to solidly count this as a loss.
It hard to say which way this goes. It's a possibility. But China can offer even less protection than the US can.
We have seen that the US ability to project power is great. We've also seen (and I don't think anyone didn't know that) that power has its limits. Especially when it comes to fighting fanatics with nothing to lose.
The US is still the only world power that has the ability to e.g. prevent Iran from just walking in and taking the gulf countries. It's true that protection isn't hermetic.
> It's true that protection isn't hermetic.
But hermetic protection is REALLY important when your entire economy is based off of oil and water desalination plants. Iran still retains the ability to damage that infrastructure. The Gulf countries have some hard decisions to make, but I wouldn’t be surprised if several of them sprint closer to Iran. Already we are hearing of a joint Omani-Irani agreement on Hormuz administration…
But it's not new that there's no hermetic protection.
There is no real possible alignment between the regime in Tehran and the Sunni Emirates or Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. There is no way they are sprinting closer to Iran.
Oman is more complicated but they are also not going to align with Iran.
It's hard to evaluate but I don't see huge shifts from the gulf states. The US is still their best bet (not to mention that they are heavily invested in that). They have major investments that aren't oil, i.e. unlike Iran they can live very comfortably even if the energy sector is shut down. They prefer to make money from oil and gas but they also prefer a weaker Iran.
It's looking like more of the same and counting down to the next round.
> it's not new that there's no hermetic protection.
I think what new is the realization of Iran’s willingness to escalate.
> There is no real possible alignment between the regime in Tehran and the Sunni Emirates or Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. There is no way they are sprinting closer to Iran.
Can you please expand on that? I don’t understand why they couldn’t be aligned.
Iran are Shia and the other gulf countries are Sunni. There is a big religious gap between these and historical animosity and rivalry.
The Islamic Republic of Iran believes in exporting the revolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exporting_the_Islamic_Revoluti...
Basically they believe the rulers of the gulf countries should be overthrown and that those countries should be run by Islamic rules. So basically MBZ who rules the UAE (as an example) wants to keep ruling the country and strike some balance between economic prosperity and maintaining his rule while Iran would want to see him removed and his government replaced by a theocratic regime. Naturally the UAE also wants not to be bombarded by Iran but the personal survival of the UAE rulers is a bit more important to them than that goal.
> But China can offer even less protection than the US can.
I think a lot of those states are wondering how much protection they’d need if we weren’t based there and drawing fire. China can offer economic stability and sales of modern military equipment for self-defense, and I think the entire world is working through the implications of the United States allowing an unsound octogenarian to destabilize the dollar or declare a major war on a whim. There’s a lot to dislike about China but the gulf states aren’t exactly sticklers for democracy and stability is good for business.
> We have seen that the US ability to project power is great. We've also seen (and I don't think anyone didn't know that) that power has its limits. Especially when it comes to fighting fanatics with nothing to lose.
My unprovable pet theory is that the US would've had less black eyes if we didn't have incompetent people like Kegseth in charge, and especially if he hadn't been allowed to dismiss top brass across the military just because they were too woke/not "warrior" enough.
Hegseth didn’t help matters at all but the problem started at the top. In past administrations, the various people leading the military & State would’ve pushed back against Netanyahu/Graham’s sales pitch that it’d be an easy war, identified actual goals, and planned ahead to achieve them (e.g. assembling a coalition like their counterparts did against Iraq twice) but everyone with backbone or independence was purged under the Republican’s new unitary executive theory. Hegseth was selected because he would never say “sir, that’s a bad idea” as happened so many times during Trump’s first term.
Nobody is taking the side of the IRGC here, it's an awful regime that should fall in a just world. But it's inevitable they will retaliate against their neighbors, if their neighbors are complicit in attacking them. Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait are not innocent, they picked a side and are paying for it.
That’s fine just stop grandstanding about little ole’ Iran being attacked or civilians dying if you don’t care that innocent civilians in other countries are dying. When you do you are taking a side and suggesting Iran is the moral actor here. They’re not.
Lots of people here are taking the side of the IRGC. It's not ok to attack the civilians of the gulf countries because they are aligned with the US whichever way you look at it. Attacking US military assets are fair game.
Lots of people are taking the side of the US, which has attacked civilian infrastructure and killed civilians in Iran and threatened to completely destroy Iran. And you have lots of people taking the side of Israel, which is has been conduction a genocide openly. All the sides have blood in their hands but I would argue the IRGC has the least blood in their hands.
There is no data based view of this world where the IRGC and the Islamic Republic doesn't have the most blood on their hands and is the least moral player here by modern standards by far. Just in 1988 they executed 30,000 people. In 2025 at least 1000. In 2026 10's of thousands.
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202601255198
https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/mde130...
https://www.ecpm.org/2025/02/20/the-death-penalty-in-iran-th...
Dissidents are being hanged in Iran as we write this.
Israel has claims of self defense after being brutally attacked. The US has claims of wanting to take down the regime and prevent them from getting nuclear weapons. You can argue about claims and actions. The Iranian regime has no shred of excuse other than their total lack of humanity.
What in the world?? Iraq was a million civilians killed by the US. Gaza was 100,000 civilians killed by Israel in the last 3 years. And that’s not including all of the other atrocities committed by the two countries.
And there is no proof of the 10s of thousands of protesters killed claiming. That was just propaganda to enable this recent war.
Countries can claim this and that about defense and brutal attacks, and depending on who you are you believe the propaganda or not, but in the end what matters is the destruction and killing they do. Which US and Israel and done more of by a long shot.
> Doesn’t excuse bombing actual civilian targets, apartment complexes, &c, nor does it excuse executing peaceful domestic protestors
Reading just this far and it could be either the US or Iran you’re talking about. It almost makes you think…
I would still call countries that host a radar station non-aggressors as they were not active participants. Either way Iran was pretty selective in terms of its "aggressor" definition. It didn't attack Syria or Iraq despite those countries contributing their air space. It didn't really attack Turkey other than like 3 rockets that were shot down.
Clearly this was not about attacking someone that's attacking you or military assets. This was about leverage. Attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure of countries that are assumed to have some lever over the US to force it to stop while at the same time are too weak or too afraid to defend themselves (which is why you did not see the same scale of attacks e.g. against Turkey despite it also hosting the US). It's a tactic. It's also a war crime.
Correct. The implied pressure was "you want to stop the retaliation, demand the US to withdraw their bases from you territory".
Iranian strategy in this war will be studied for ages.
But isn't the same thing done by Putin to Ukraine?
I fail to see what similarity you are implying.
Russia is the aggressor there, and I don't recall Ukraine targeting other countries with Russian bases. Also, the war in Ukraine is about Russia expanding territory so it involved boots and occupation since day one, which is not the case in Iran.
At least there is an idea that at least one of the reason Russia attacked Ukraine was to prevent it from joining NATO, which would have enabled US military bases in Ukraine.
Azerbaijan does not have US bases. It was bombed anyway.
It attacked American assets in the Gulf.
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A pipeline will circumvent Iranian tolls, but would be vulnerable to Iranian strikes in a war.
Probably a risk worth taking; defending a pipeline is much easier than escorting huge, slow-moving ships through a 24km-wide Strait laced with mines and peppered by artillery and missiles.
As opposed to a single continuous structure in a well known location, full of flammable liquids?
Pipelines can be protected. Just putting it in the ground for example. Or you build a "bomb" proof shelter over it - Iran's missiles are not bunker busters, we know how powerful they are and can design for that. Air defense systems are getting better too.
The US did not secure nuclear material. No one has even made that claim and it was logistically impossible.
It all sounds great. Which government? Is it a different regime? If not, why would the US concede?
> why would the US concede?
Because it has no way of achieving its objectives.
I don't think that has stopped anything so far, but I appreciate your optimism.
The US has mostly achieved their objectives (as best as I can tell - the strategy isn't exactly coherent) - Iran has much less missiles, and much less ability to produce them.
If there was any outside visible thread of reasoning for this war it was "Iran seems like it could have regime change" and I haven't heard anything saying they're more likely to have a different form of government.
I doubt the revolutionaries sympathizers within Iran liked their children being murdered or infrastructure getting destroyed. All the US has done is a repeat of the same thing they've done for half a century: start a war and immediately get more enemies within the middle east. Perhaps the only change is now the US's allies are distancing themselves faster and further than ever before.
There was a lot more - since mid last summer the US and Iran have been talking. There was some progress on nuclear issues. However Iran refused to discuss their ballistic missile program or funding for the likes of Hezbollah. Just based on that alone it is no surprise that the US got fed up. However you have to pay a little more attention to see that even though it is public.
Sometimes you want someone to do something, but you don't have authority to order them around, and you are bad at persuasion and dealmaking, so you don't get what you want.
If you're not ok with walking away at that point, maybe put a better offer on the table?
I fail to see a better offer. Support for those trying to kill jews is not something I can accept. I don't like any option for dealing with it, but walking away is still evil.
I can't speak for you, but for me, as a jew, killing innocent people just to get what you want is bad, even if they aren't jewish. Support for genocidal wars of conquest (like russia's and israel's) isn't something I can accept.
Additionally: supporting the killing of innocents, war crimes, genocide, etc, just because the perpetrators are jewish, is eviler still. Israel's actions make all jews (like myself) look bad, and puts us at risk around the world.
Maybe try diplomacy instead? And no, diplomacy doesn't mean "take our offer with no changes or we will kill you all". It means recognizing that israel isn't better than other countries, it means treating others as equals, it means you don't get to boss around co-equal countries, and it means giving first if you want to receive.
More accurate to say that the US is not willing to pay the price to achieve its objectives I think (depending on who/when you’re asking what exactly the objectives are of course).
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Iran was little threat to the US before the US attacked. Now the US likely has earned itself more decades of terrorists, while simultaneously losing its military and political support from other countries.
If the US objective was self destruction or massive face plant, it is certainly getting closer to its objective.
I’ve had no spam calls. Mission Accomplished.
This ignores the possibility that we have set their nuclear program back to starting from scratch.
It ignores we already had that, in 2016, with experts from all over the world doing inspections and agreeing it worked. Then Trump blew up the deal against the wishes of the rest of the free world, claiming he’d make a better deal, which he got zero from. Advisors, both hand picked and military, told him this would be the outcome, which he ignored.
We have not set their program to zero. They now have, and will continue to have, people trained in the knowledge of how to rebuild it. They now have massively more incentive to do so. Countries in the region now have more reason to help. Countries the world over have more incentive to contain US idiocy, as yet again we screw their economies for made up reasons.
As do their allies, and the raft of allies the US has lost over this idiocy will hurt US for decades, likely never to be repaired.
This is why Iran has won. The US has so destroyed brand US that it’ll never regain trust anywhere, economically, militarily, or morally.
> It ignores we already had that, in 2016, with experts from all over the world doing inspections and agreeing it worked. Then Trump blew up the deal against the wishes of the rest of the free world, claiming he’d make a better deal, which he got zero from. Advisors, both hand picked and military, told him this would be the outcome, which he ignored.
1) JCPOA was in effect for barely more than two years. Iran's nuclear work prior started way back circa 2000. It was killed before we can say anything about its effectiveness.
2) IIRC, JCPOA didn't prevent Iran from developing nuclear tech. It only limited capacity. They were free to do all the R&D they wanted.
3) Iran was doing weaponization work prior to the deal which they didn't disclose. So taking them at their word on the subject is probably not a good idea.
Trump pulling out from the deal was dumb, because it probably was slowing weaponization down, but the idea that the deal was stopping Iran from developing weaponization tech is not supported by the aims of the deal itself.
> We have not set their program to zero. They now have, and will continue to have, people trained in the knowledge of how to rebuild it.
Very close to it. Lots of facilities were destroyed, and I believe a majority of their scientists were killed.
> They now have massively more incentive to do so.
Debatable. I can see it going either way.
> Countries in the region now have more reason to help. Countries the world over have more incentive to contain US idiocy, as yet again we screw their economies for made up reasons.
Nearly all the countries in the region want Iran gone. They are a destabilizing force for all their neighbors.
> As do their allies
Iran has pretty much 0 official allies. Their only allies come in the form of "we hate the US too, so we will help you be a thorn in their side"
> This is why Iran has won
Won what? If that's winning, then I'll take losing.
> The US has so destroyed brand US that it’ll never regain trust anywhere, economically, militarily, or morally.
This remains to be seen I think. Honestly, if Europe kicks us out I'll be happy personally. I look forward to the day the US isn't running the oceans as a toll road for the globe and everyone handles their own backyards. I think we are far enough past WW2 that the world no longer needs a nanny.
4 years as an provisional deal was done earlier. All us intelligence agencies agreed and testified to congress that Iran was not working towards a bomb as Trump ripped up the agreement. They were all wrong or what?
>This remains to be seen I think. Honestly, if Europe kicks us out I'll be happy personally. I look forward to the day the US isn't running the oceans as a toll road for the globe and everyone handles their own backyards. I think we are far enough past WW2 that the world no longer needs a nanny.
Pretty rich to day this given what US is doing now.
You are ignoring the fundamental difference between the JCPOA's goals and the argument here. JCPOA was not a denuclearization agreement, it wasn't even a "no atomic bombs" agreement. All it did was limit centrifuge count, and enrichment density. Iran complying with those was mostly useless for the goal for the goal of preventing them getting an atomic bomb. It was effectively a stalling maneuver, one that would have partially expired last year.
Or it was working, as intel agencies seems to agree on, and set the stage for future agreements and getting Iran on a path of normalization.
Instead Trump ripped it up and then got involved in yet another useless zionist middle eastern war that only seems to have made Iran stronger and further destroying US reputation.
"It was working"
I'm trying to discuss what that means, because I think that's where we are disagreeing.
What does that mean to you?
To me (and it's crafters) the JCPOA "working" meant slowing Iran down temporarily.
Comparing their progress towards building a bomb under and after the agreement? We know they followed the agreement with minor discrepancies, and when sanctions started they started breaking it. With no diplomatic agreement and sanctions in place what should Iran be doing? Might as well build a bomb then.
> Comparing their progress towards building a bomb under and after the agreement?
Well yeah, like I said, it was a stalling maneuver. It slowed things down.
> We know they followed the agreement with minor discrepancies, and when sanctions started they started breaking it. With no diplomatic agreement and sanctions in place what should Iran be doing? Might as well build a bomb then.
Well yeah, they were doing that before and during the JCPOA. Why wouldn't they do it after?
Weird, just a few days ago he said we needed two more weeks of war to destroy their nuclear program.
Maybe the US military is aiming for a greater level of confidence in order to say "definitely destroyed" than some random guy online needs in order to say "possibly destroyed"?
All those ships stuck on either side of the Strait of Hormuz and their insurers would beg to differ.
For the sake of peace... yes ;)
The most deadly attack on US soil from the Middle East didn't come from nukes.
How sure are you that we're reducing net total future threats in the Middle East under Trump?
To whom, and to what? A military threat to the continental US, sure. To US allies in the region, and to the global economy, it appears Iran is a much bigger threat than we were lead to believe, and still are. If anything, they're justifiably more emboldened now than ever.
If you keep picking fights with someone don’t be surprised if they learn how to fight. There’s literally a line in Sayings of Spartans about teaching your enemy to fight by making war with them.
Then why was Trump threatening their annihilation prior to accepting the ceasefire around their proposal?
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You must not be paying attention…
So far, Trump said that the Straight of Hormuz closed is cutting off China’s oil supply and isn’t important to the US, the US doesn’t need allies, but after Trump got zero help from Europe he then proceeded to ask China of all countries to help in the straight?!
Knowing people travelling near and through the Straight, Iran has all the cards. “Iran is of little threat” doesn’t hold water when the US can’t even send ships though to protect container ships
I don’t think the US signed up to protect Chinese or Indian ships through the Strait. Also, it’s not blocked.
https://www.citriniresearch.com/p/strait-of-hormuz-a-citrini...
Because it doesn’t have a choice. There is no path to winning this war, just ways of making larger and more complex versions of the Iraq occupation.
Depends on what you mean by "win". It would be possible to go in, topple the regime and secure the nuclear material. But only at astronomical cost and years of blowback
"Regime Change" has become a modern term for vassalization. We should not be surprised that countries with no reason to be a US vassal, and no long-term ties to the US refuse to remain vassals.
So then what would we achieve? nuclear material is cheap (10s of billions) relative to a multi-decade occupation (single digit trillions). It's undoubtedly true that Iran would revert to it's preferred form of government, geopolitical orientation, and nuclear capability once the US left.
Winning a war means achieving your political goals while preventing the enemy from achieving theirs. Most of the time, you've won the war when the enemy effectively admits they lost.
The lack of will to use sufficient force to win a war is fundamentally no different from not having that force in the first place. Both are equally real constraints on your ability to win the war.
How’d that plan work out in Iraq or Afghanistan, both much smaller, less armed countries? Decades and trillions spent, and what exactly did the US “win”?
The US won the removal of a regime in Iraq that strongly opposed Iran. </sarcasm>
Why would the US start this in the first place? Be assured that however this comes out, a “Truth” will be posted assessing it as the Greatest Deal Ever and a Total Win, end of story.
It’s been repeatedly stated by officials that we fought this war for Israel. We had nothing to gain and much to lose, and lose we did. Thankfully Israel also lost and I think this was their last chance at using the US as their attack dog.
People are looking for conspiracy theories when the truth is simple - trump did it because he thought it would be an easy quick win that will put him in the history books.
It’s not a conspiracy theory if Trump and all parties involved explicitly state this was for Israel. The simplest explanation is that they are telling the truth, which makes sense since the US had nothing to gain from this.
Netanyahu has wanted to do this for decades. If you rob a bank, you don't get to say "oh, well, my crazy friend down the pub has been saying we should rob a bank for ages, and I suddenly decided he was right"; you do have some personal responsibility.
Sidenote; there's this weird thing that people sometimes do wrt to Trump (and I think it's both his supporters and detractors to an extent) where they kind of treat him as if he's without agency, and stuff is just happening to him. I think it might be a kind of subconscious response to him being old and coming across as a bit senile, but it is nonsensical.
We will see if this is all the chips that Epstein bought
a major reason would be that they didnt think iran could selectively close the strait, and the intelligence about how not liking the current government is not the same as supporting the US
> If not, why would the US concede?
Because Trump is already facing a bloodbath in the midterms and his next step is either a ground war or dropping a nuke, and both of those will ensure he not only loses the midterms but has a legitimate shot at seeing the inside of a prison cell.
Because the escalation Trump was talking about would have wrecked the ME with Iran's retaliation on desalination plants, oil infrastructure, power plants, etc. Which would have been a massive shock to the global economy, along with a large humanitarian crisis inside of Iran and it's neighbors.
The old government is largely dead. The new one has a carrot and a stick in front of them.
The new government is led by the Ayatollah Khamenei. The son of the last one, younger and out for revenge.
Knocking off Saddam gave us ISIS. These things have a way of going sideways.
> new government is led by the Ayatollah Khamenei
Let's see. It may be a military dictatorship using Khamenei, who may or may not even be in Iran, as a figurehead.
Not the military, the IRGC. Which is a religiously indoctrinated military.
So it would still be a theocracy, same as before, but now also run by people who are conditioned to believe that more violence is always a solution to any problem.
Unfortunately, it's now theocrat vs. theocrat.
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3miybj6ff622f
> Hegseth: "God deserves all the glory. Tens of thousands of sorties, refuelings, and strikes, carried out under the protection of divine providence. A massive effort with miraculous protection."
Knocking off the Taliban gave us the check notes the Taliban
The IRGC is probably more analogous to the Ba’ath party than the Taliban if we’re limiting ourself to regional comparisons
This son is reportedly in coma and in no position to rule.
Yay! We cut off two of the hydra’s heads! That always ends well.
So who has the authority to claim that Iran has agreed to a ceasefire?!
Reported by whom?
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The old govt was about to be toppled by people sick of it. The US attack unified those people behind the leaders son, someone they’d not have taken before, and entrenched a new generation against the US. So far the carrot and stick has them openly mocking Trump and the US as Trump makes threat, draws line, folds yet again, repeats.
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Sadly they have dropped requirements that Netanyahu be turned over to the ICC, but it's important to recognize that this ceasefire is between Iran and the US only and not necessarily a deal between Iran and Israel.
>> 1. Guarantee that Iran will not be attacked again
Hard for the Iranians to take anything the US says seriously. US launched attacks in the middle of the last two negotiations.
Yeah, it would be ridiculous that the IRGC terrorist regime, which fired super-inexact ballistic missiles that split to cluster bombs that spread in 70 parts on a 3 miles radius in residential areas, for a whole month, on a daily basis, would ask that someone _else_ will be held go to the ICC tribunal...
Do you have a source for this being the 10 points which form the basis of negotiations, rather than something released to the media to shape those negotiations?
This is not the deal. Iran had published this earlier as their list of demands, just like the US did. The reality is something in the middle of that.
I can’t accept the theocratic tyrants who implement terrorism, execute their own people and slaughter them as they protest remain in charge. They should be forced out of power.
I wonder if the US had struck when momentum was high during the popular uprising, it could have being self sustaining, with arms and logistics setup to feed the resistance advance.
Your post is ambiguous until the second part, FYI. In this conflict, it's a good idea to be clear on which nation you are talking about from the start.
Lol
The delusional idea that one can affect regime change through bombing is the cause of quite a bit death and destruction throughout the world.
Maybe the problem wasn't the timing, but the fact that thousands of people were killed and millions lived in fear for the future for the past month? That's enough to cause most people to stand behind their government, no matter how reviled they might be.
The second day of the war Israel gave everyone in Tehran a day-long oil shower. Imagine cleaning that out of your kid's hair, you're not going to overthrow the government that's shooting back.
Regime change with air invasion is unlikely.
The civilian casualties of the war is still significantly lower than the number killed by the regime (according to Amnesty International with conservative number). So while I agree that people don’t want bombing, I highly doubt that the war makes them like their oppressors. They love their country and Iran and islamic regime are not the same exactly.
The idea there was bombing to support the popular uprising that does the actual work. I think that might have been the fantasy here, too, but it seems like the window closed.
I guess you’re right. I was thinking a peoples army, armed by US logistics and calling in US air support.
But i guess you know more than i do
I'm not arguing that Iran has been executed well, but military force has topled MANY regimes. If you're arguing "bombs" specifically and only, the U.S. won the war with Japan by dropping just two big ones. If you'd like a more contemporary example: Libya, 2011. NATO’s campaign relied overwhelmingly on air and missile strikes, and NATO officially did not deploy a conventional foreign ground force. The regime was finished by Libyan rebel forces on the ground. This is likely the scenario Trump was hoping for.
Japan was on its last legs was and the US had already gone all-in with a war machine unlike anything seen before. At that point no one was going to lose elections about lost lives while invading Japan. The bombs were a time and life saving device. And the US army still had to actually occupy Japan after that (much smaller than Iran)
You may be right about the political challenges (and I'm neither arguing for or against them), I'm simply pointing out that the war was won with two bombs. Perhaps it was wise to station troops in Japan after victory, but I don't think it was necessary. Even if it were, the peacekeeping forces were far smaller and there was almost zero violence. This would be politically palatable to Americans.
Sorry I should have been more nuanced. Bombing can win conflicts but one thing is does not do is regime change.
I'd argue the occupation was necessary: The political system that led to militarism was still intact and there were still factions against surrender until the very end. It was regime change per se but a regime transformation and I don't think it would have been possible without an occupation.
I think that's fair. The leadership remained in power. However I would argue that in the case of Iran, Trump doesn't care if leaders remain in power, as long as they do what he wants. Specifically on uranium enrichment. I think he wanted to follow the Venezuela example, but this is not that.
Hirohito was King of Japan from 1926 to 1989.
Kangaroo Suzuki was PM from 1868 until his death in 1948.
So arguing that the atomic bomb having toppled the regime is factually wrong.
I strongly disagree. Toppling regimes doesn't only mean the nation becomes democratic. It also means obeisance to the invading force.
You can't just change the definition when it suits you Nothing was toppled. You're wrong and just too childish to accept it.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/toppling
This definition is perfectly congruent with a regime losing all autonomous power and becoming subservient to a foreign power. I would argue the U.S. "toppled" Venezuela's regime despite the existing party remaining in power. They do as they are told now.
Keep believing it buddy
There was, and still is, no scenario in which US and/or Israel attacks Iran and effects regime change. Come on, we've been over this multiple times over the past few decades.
Any direct military action will galvanize population against the existential threat, not against the tyrant who's still your countryman, no matter how rotten.
If they wanted true change, grassroots support was the only way. Was, because at this point more than likely any revolution has been pushed back by a few years at least, probably decades.
I see your point. You don’t think most Iranians want freedom from tyrants? I see 90% dislike the tyrants, and 80% want Trump to eradicate them. Leveling the field for the popular revolution I hope takes over.
Iranian here, no we don't want Israel and United States to bomb our children to "free us".
We already have 90M intelligent people in the country and can figure it out eventually.
We still has ways to go to develop, IRAN lacks some women's rights (however it's not as bad as people make it to be) and freedom of speech (similar to other Gulf nations). Most people have major grievances regarding the economy.
After the uprising of "Woman, Life, Freedom" in 2022, followed by the Mahsa uprising, the government started to loosen the Hijab laws for example. They stopped enforcing it severely (though they can change it at any time), the clerics have realized that theocratic laws will backfire with young people. I think the future of Iran is going to look like other nations, where religion becomes a "cultural thing".
The biggest blockers at the moment are sanctions and the ongoing issues with Israel.
We've survived for 3,000 years, we can survive for another 3,000 years without the help of US.
How are you commenting? I thought the internet was turned off in Iran.
Murdering tens of thousands of protesters couple months ago, tho?
90m imbecilles that rather have sharia law and complete utter opression and deconstruction of the persian DNA. you are so full of shit its incredible, any iranian that took refugee in europe can contest your so full of propaganda shit.
Go die for allah that is what you love and 90m of your fellow brothers.
This is a very naive view. Things do not happen like that, especially in the Middle East, where killing a tinpot dictator just causes two more radical ones spring to usurp his place. We've been over this where US military interventions in this century alone caused ISIS to spread like wildfire, and make things worse long term in many of the countries affected.
I think some Iranians, perhaps even a vast majority of them, would like freedom from Khomenei, but the westerners have just conducted massive bombing operations, killing many innocent civilians at the behest of their mortal enemy Israel, so any freedom movements are at the very least very unpopular now, with people becoming radicalized by deaths of their loved ones, especially their children, pushing them into the arms of those in power, who can justifiably point and say "see? They are the enemy, not us!". One almost wonders if that wasn't also one of the goals of the invasion, preventing the formation of a secularized and stable Iran.
That’s OK, you may be right. And all my comments here on the Iranian situation may be wrong. Which is also perfectly okay because I don’t have to make any decisions affecting the Persian people.
I think the people in Gaza want freedom from tyrants.
Would you want Americans to take Trump down yourselves, or would rather China come and take him down for you? Iranians have as much agency as Americans do. Denying them that never ends well.
Iranians are not armed tho
Iran's 10-point plan (that no one else has agreed to)
Exactly, but Hacker News is upvoting this because it wants the US to be seen as the loser of this conflict.
Both sides in a conflict (or any negotiation) make demands that they know the other will not accept. You can't just take someone's list like that and assume that'll be the exact outcome.
Oftentimes ceasefires have agreed-upon terms.
As does this one. The 10 points aren't the agreed-upon terms, though. The agreed-upon terms are: stop bombing for two weeks, and open the straits for two weeks.
Does Iran acknowledge the second one or do they believe they are the toll takers of the strait?
Good question! And I don't know the answer. "Reopen the strait", but I haven't noted whether it's with or without toll for the two weeks.
hackers are often leftwing sweaty tryhards, obviously not all of them ;) but whatever, let them suck on those circumsized penis while the local paki rape gangs rule the streets of europe.
Contrast it with the JCPOA by Obama
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/joint-comprehensive-p...
Key Aspects of the JCPOA: Enrichment Limits: Iran capped uranium enrichment at 3.67% for 15 years.
Centrifuge Restrictions: Reduced operating centrifuges to 5,060 IR-1 machines for 10 years.
Stockpile Restrictions: Limited enriched uranium stockpile to 300 kg for 15 years.
Facility Redesign: Redesigned the Arak heavy water reactor to prevent plutonium production and converted Fordow into a research center.
Monitoring: The IAEA receives enhanced access and monitoring capabilities.
Sanctions Relief: UN, EU, and US nuclear-related sanctions were lifted, restoring Iranian oil sales and banking access.
What an awful failure that agreement was. Iran accepted the sanctions relief and ignored the terms of the agreement.
They didn't, they followed it with very minor discrepancies ,until US left it and applied sanctions.
While since Trump dropped that deal, Iran had enriched around 440kg to 60%. Nobody knows for sure where any of that is.
yep, the US fucked up by not properly ratifying the JCPOA
tearing it up and pissing all over it led directly to this quagmire
So much winning.
What about the other Middle East countries involved such as the UAE and what about Europe?
Europe, thankfully, stayed out of this mess. Some countries even rejected to even give logistical support to the US.
and some (most?) countries offered support...?
Spain has held a firm line, but even others such as UK/FR have allowed use of facilities or engaged their air craft carriers or facilitated US movements.
I wonder if uninvolved nations will also be required to pay the safe passage fees.
> wonder if uninvolved nations will also be required to pay the safe passage fees
If Iran is smart (and Iran gets the fees, which remains a big if) they would exempt Spain.
Not really practical to exempt Spain even if they wanted to, with Spain being within the EU and therefore able to freely move goods and services to other EU nations.
> with Spain being within the EU and therefore able to freely move goods and services to other EU nations
Fair enough. Spain gets N free tankers a month, with N calibrated to Spanish consumption.
Aside from Iranian allies, it seems likely.
So this would have the downstream effect of further degrading international sentiment towards US military operations in the future.
> Europe, thankfully, stayed out of this mess
Cyprus/UK [0] faced attempted strikes; the UK is running defensive sorties for the UAE [1], Qatar [2], and Iraq [3]; and British bases in Oman and the UAE were struck [4]. France has done similar actions as well [5]. The UK and France have mutual defense pacts across the Gulf as well which they need to maintain.
Additionally, Ukraine has now begun providing defensive capabilities to the Gulf States, which Iran argues makes it an active combatant [6]. By this precedent the UK and France are also active combatants against Iran.
The reality is, the Iran War and the Ukraine War are tied to the hip. If defending Ukraine against Russian drone strikes conducted by Iranian ground troops [7] and using Iranian technology [8] is critical to European security, then ending Iran's tactical support is critical as well.
Ironically, this is probably great news for Ukraine. Russia's geoint support for Iran [9] has made it easier for my peers still on the Hill to make a case to double down and enhance American support for Ukraine, as well as pulling Gulf States who were previously neutral to supporting Ukraine as well [10].
This is also why Ukraine is calling out Russian disinfo ops about the war [11]. Iran has doubled down on similar information warfare [12] and hybrid [13] operations in the UK and Mainland Europe
Frankly, we need to call a spade a spade - the Ukraine War and Iran War have merged into a single transnational war.
If you support Ukraine you cannot support Iran, and this is Ukraine's stance as well [14][15][16][17][18].
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_drone_strikes_on_Akrotiri...
[1] - https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/uk-warplanes-do...
[2] - https://www.thetimes.com/uk/defence/article/is-uk-war-iran-n...
[3] - https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/trump-starmer-s...
[4] - https://www.thetimes.com/uk/defence/article/will-could-uk-go...
[5] - https://www.politico.eu/article/france-sends-anti-missile-an...
[6] - https://www.kyivpost.com/post/72965
[7] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/24/iranian-milita...
[8] - https://jamestown.org/dirty-business-the-russian-iranian-str...
[9] - https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/2040716892650803610
[10] - https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-deepens-gulf-securit...
[11] - https://english.nv.ua/nation/moscow-panics-as-ukraine-signs-...
[12] - https://www.thetimes.com/uk/social-media/article/iran-war-fa...
[13] - https://www.ft.com/content/adc3e954-5928-471b-b7f2-e4385bbca...
[14] - https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/01/10/8015528/
[15] - https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/06/15/7517248/
[16] - https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/12/20/7381481/
[17] - https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/11/06/7375231/
[18] - https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/05/24/7403733/
---
Edit: can't reply
> There is no particular reason to assume that the side you take in one conflict should have an impact on your stance toward another conflict
What you are describing is compartmentalization - something which you posited is false [0]
If Qatar and UAE's dual use infrastructure is within the rights of Iran to strike despite both having dealings with both Iran and the US and if Ukraine can be treated as a combatant by Iran [1], then this precedent holds for all of Iran given how they have aided and abetted Russia in Ukraine.
With the precedent Iran set against Qatar, compartmentalization no longer holds. And Ukraine's stance is that Iran is a terror state and an enemy of Ukraine [2], so frankly if you stand with Ukraine you also have to stand against Iran.
> Surely that has to be the default position. They all have a right to defend themselves and a valid claim for reparations.
Iran has been providing Russia ballistic missiles [3], drones [4], artillery [5], boots on the ground [6], ammunition [7], and other support against Ukraine.
If Iran deserves reparations from the US, then Ukraine deserves reparations from Iran. Yet Iran has doubled down in opposing Ukraine [1].
[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47623496
[1] - https://english.nv.ua/amp/iran-threatens-ukraine-after-accus...
[2] - https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/12/20/7381481/
[3] - https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/11/07/7375314/
[4] - https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/11/03/7374835/
[5] - https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/03/08/7392485/
[6] - https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/02/17/7389742/
[7] - https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/05/7405318/
Look, if you continue down that road to GCC countries engaging Iran, then you have a multiparty nuclear armed conflict with combatants stretching from Europe to the Chinese border.
At that point it really does sound like ww3 started from the same causes as ww1 - nobody will win, nobody will know why they are fighting, and most of the fighting will be drones being slung over trenches.
> At that point it really does sound like ww3 started from the same causes as ww1 - nobody will win, nobody will no why they are fighting, and most of the fighting will be drones being slung over trenches.
Name me one war of aggression that ended up being a long term win for the aggressor.
Us revolutionary war. China taking Tibet. US Mexican war.
> At that point it really does sound like ww3 started from the same causes as ww1
My stance on this is the same as Fiona Hill's [0] and Zelensky's [1].
I'd argue the date this began was 24th February 2022 [2]
[0] - https://xcancel.com/FrankRGardner/status/2027098560647348410
[1] - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgj9p15y87o
[2] - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60503037
> If you support Ukraine you cannot support Iran, and this is Ukraine's stance as well
The three countries that have been attacked, including civilian infrastructure, are Ukraine, Lebanon and Iran
Surely that has to be the default position. They all have a right to defend themselves and a valid claim for reparations.
The first time I saw a graph describing relationships between various factions in the Middle East was probably in the late 90s. I remember being amused by it. It turns out that if you are a region full of conflicts, the ally of your ally is often your enemy.
On the other hand, it should have been obvious. Real-world relationships are not transitive.
There is no particular reason to assume that the side you take in one conflict should have an impact on your stance toward another conflict. At least if you are not some kind of a rationalist who values logical consistency over practical implications.
The UK's involvement is minimal and we do not see ourselves part of this war / nor want to be part of it.
And FYI I live in the UK, so I'm better placed to comment than you listing a bunch of links.
It doesn't matter what you think.
The RAF is still conducting defensive military operations in the Gulf [0][1] which Iran now treats as active combat against Iran.
[0] - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrmg6x2rgxo
[1] - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/raf-personnel-become-firs...
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Also, another question: Do you think that World War III or something close to a global conflict will start as you mentioned that the Ukrainian-Russo War and the Iran War "have merged into a single transnational war"?
My stance is the same as Fiona Hill (former Senior Director for Europe and Russia in the US NSC and now a Defence Advisor for the Starmer administration) [0] as well as Zelensky [1].
[0] - https://xcancel.com/FrankRGardner/status/2027098560647348410
[1] - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgj9p15y87o
This is was a really insightful read, thank you! Also, what are ya'll thoughts about Canada and their refusal to engage in the Middle East?
Frankly, Canada does not have the power projection capabilities needed for West Asia.
That said, Canada is best served protecting the Arctic, North Atlantic, and the North Pacific, all of which now face increased pressure from Russia and China, and threaten much of North America, Northern Europe, and Northern Asia.
This is also the stance of the Government of Canada [0][1]
[0] - https://international.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/corporate/...
[1] - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-arctic-military-exerci...
Lifting of all US sanctions on Iran
I do not see that happening.
Did we get "The Art of the Deal"'ed?
Someone is experiencing materiel gain, that's for sure.
I don't think he read that book. He certainly didn't write it.
Where did you get those points from? Do you have a source? The 10 points I've read in the media are different, e.g. https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/us/2026/04/08/what-is-i...
Trump ensured that there is absolutely no reason for any nation, not just Iran, to believe what USA says in the future. No agreements/treaties with the USA can be trusted. And not just with Trump administration, since he demonstrated clearly that he can tear any treaty/agreement that was made under different administrations as well. The United States demonstrated that it has very, very limited control over the actions of an elected president.
So basically complete American surrender. And America accepted this deal.
Why would the US accept these terms? They could just keep crippling Iran’s infrastructure and fuel supply and more until their new leadership fractures. Is this entirely about midterm elections?
We could have done that, but Donny Two-Scoops had to go and threaten them with total destruction. That limited his options greatly.
Does it include a end to Hezbollah strikes on Israel from Lebannon, Hoothi strikes on Israel? Sounds like the us just surrendered?
Congratulations, Iran has won the ability to fund its politics many times over in this way and they've lost little else.
Their entire leadership, navy, airforce, petrochemical and steel industries as well as the entire supply chain for the ballistic and drones industries which is also a lucrative export to Russia.
I am not sure they "lost a little else". When looking at what the US lost, it's pretty small in comparison
Russia and China would likely disagree as they count their gains: - yet another massive blow to their trust and reputation among allies - again massively undermining NATO thereby fostering global instability - weakened credibility vis a vis defending Taiwan
It's not a complete US success, but what the OP said was a huge understatement. Iran situation had gotten much worse during this war.
Regarding NATO, this is a European effort of undermining the alliance no more than it is the US.
Europe is rightfully saying that Ukraine is our, the entire western world, war.
However, when the US bombs the very factories that manufacture these drones used in Ukraine, and the nation that quite frequently kidnaps european citizens as political chips, the europeans say "this is not our war".
That's just anchoring.
Ok, so that won’t happen right? Israel won’t agree to #3
Can you please cite the source of these ten points?
So this 10 point plan that was “not good enough” according to Trump on Monday 6th April, now as the deadline looms, it’s suddenly “a workable basis” for negotiations?
Frankly if Iran get nothing more than a complete lifting of sanctions this would be a massive climb down for the US.
Trump's rhetoric was all bluster, he actually had no leverage and was unwilling to pay the cost to continue the war (mostly in terms of cost to himself). He needed an offramp and this was it.
Right.
Are this points for discussion or demands by Iran?
To summarize: a far worse deal than what Obama had and Trump ripped up, and worse than the status quo that existed before Trump started illegally bombing Iran.
There is a reason Trump had to be saved over and over during his 'career'. Extreme incompetence + clinical narcissism = "I am a winner". This conman and more importantly the powers that prop him up have been very costly for the world, including the USA, and it is about time to hand the bill to MAGA.
Rednecks gonna redneck, the USA clown show has some very determined sponsors, so I don't count on any improvement, but I prefer they at least enjoy their party indoors.
Seems reasonable given their advantageous position.
> Iran would split these fees with Oman
Hard to imagine Trump splitting any fees if he was the leader of Iran.
Source please. I think we should all get the source of these 10 points from somewhere.
Source please. Please provide the source for that plan.
Iran if they have any sense should be prepared for a massive self defense and counter attack. "Talks" from the USA and Israel have a precedent of being attacks and invasions.
If there's one thing that's pretty clear, it's that the Iranian government is quite aware of this and of how the US acts. The US government, on the other hand, seems oblivious to anything about how the Iranian government acts.
The US government seems to be pretty oblivious to how it itself acts, expecting them to understand another country's motivations is so many steps beyond that.
I am honestly surprised and shocked to admit but Iran is the sanest and least immoral side in this conflict and it's not because my views of Iran improved or changed much. I couldn't imagine I'd be saying such a thing a few years ago.
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Are Israeli concerns the axis around which the world must revolve? In any case they can keep busy ethnically cleansing south Lebanon and murdering Palestinian children.
Do you think only the Israelis are pissed about the Iranians funding the Houthis and Hezbollah?
The Saudis were at war with the Houthis for several years, Hezbollah assassinate Lebanese politicians and repeatedly starts wars that nobody else in Lebanon wants, which also includes intervening in the Syrian civil war on behalf of Assad and starving out Syrian villages. Ask the Syrians how they feel about Hezbollah.
The fact that none of these were considered critical discussion points tells you just how desperate the US/Israel coalition is for a ceasefire.
It really does feel like the rescue op was a failed raid on Isfahan, and this is the Plan B.
No, what I think it really tells you is that these just Iran's proposal. So far as I know, the US (and Israel) have not actually agreed to these.
I've seen several posts here saying that they have, but what I haven't seen is any evidence or links. Until I do, I reserve the right to believe that the US has not actually agreed to Iran's plan.
But my (grandparent) post was off. If these are Iran's proposed points, of course they're going to say that Israel stops attacking Hezbullah but that Iran is free to keep arming them.
It’s amazing to me to see the amount of people willfully ignorant in this war, and having extremely short memory.
In June we had the 12th day war with Iran, it also ended with a ceasefire which continued to negotiations which collapsed and here we are.
Now, a ceasefire again, and people already claiming that Iran has won and trump accepted their demands.
I’ve seen people saying at first that Iran didnt agree to the ceasefire and then saying that they won’t open the strait. Completely oblivious people.
It's not oblivious. It's more willfully ignorant. Even that is not right. Most people are just so anti-America and anti-West that they side with actual despots and choose to believe strange things. If we send 10,000 bombs to Iran and lose an F-16E and have to search for a pilot for a few days, these people believe this means Iran has won the war. If China puts a balloon on our coast, these people believe China has defeated us militarily. I responded to a post the other day where someone was claiming Cuba could "easily" neutralize the entire U.S. Navy with a handful of drones or something.
> If we send 10,000 bombs to Iran and lose an F-16E and have to search for a pilot for a few days, these people believe this means Iran has won the war.
Is your objective just sending 10k bombs to Iran?
If your objective is death, then yeah, the US won. Enjoy the all that death, because seemingly it's all it got from the war. Double points for the exploded schoolgirls, perhaps?
It would confirm that the US is truly a vile country. Not to anyone's surprise, really.
If they would read the actual news the ceasefire is contingent on immediate opening of the strait. That’s the deal, open the strait and the bombing stops while we negotiate over the next two weeks.
I don't think this ceasefire is going to last as long as people think. It just gives a chance for everyone to bury the dead, resupply, rearm and continue the war.
By that logic, the US and Israel should have never offered a ceasefire and stuck to the regime change narrative. Accepting a ceasefire shows that America was never serious about controlling the Strait, and passes the initiative back to the Iran/China axis instead of straining it through a joint blockade. The tactics make zero sense, considering the objectives laid out at the start.
It's been weeks of war, America should have something to show for it. Right now, Iran has successfully used America's offer as a way to muzzle Israel in Lebanon and muster their own strength with Russia and China. Even from a Zionist perspective, this is a terrible result.
How does Iran's proposal, which neither the US nor Israel have accepted, muzzle Israel in Lebanon?
But I will agree that the tactics make zero sense.
It passes Iran the initiative. Since the beginning of this war the onus has been on America and Israel to apply pressure and make Iran sue for peace. In terms of controlling the ground, the mass and structure of Iran's forces are nearly the same as when they started. There was no assistance from the Kurds, there was no coordinated multilateral assault with America's allies, nothing happened. Iran can regenerate their proxies and seek assistance while stringing America and Israel along on a proposal they won't sign.
From a strategic perspective America needs to deprive Iran of their allies. If they are serious about fighting this war, a line has to be drawn with Russia and China that prevents them from providing world-class reconnaissance. China particularly has to be economically sanctioned for their assistance, but the US Navy let them sail their tankers right through the Strait without a single PLAN vessel nearby. Opening the strait weakens Russia's (already battered) share of oil exports while rewarding China for supporting Iran and condemning the US. It's stupid.
From where I'm standing, last week would have been a great time for a Shock and Awe campaign to finish this off and make it a tidy weekend war for the folks back home. But we saw none of that, instead America is ostensibly cutting it's losses and (reportedly!!!) entertaining the same 10-point plan that concedes Iran's nuclear program and missile program to them.
Why would the US be desperate for a ceasefire?
Upcoming midterm elections and lack of public support for the war.
Lack of domestic support, lack of international support
the requirement for congressional approval if the conflict persists longer than 90 days from the first “military operation”
potential for escalation by various allies into a much more involved conflict
downstream impacts of Hormuz being impassable
among I’m sure several other reasons I’m not informed enough to point out.
One preference the US public seems to reliably deliver via elections is the desire for lower prices.
Because it's becoming another Middle East quagmire which the American public has very little patience for, and it's bad for Wall Street, bad for prices at the pump, and bad for the global economy.
Do you understand how escalation works? US policymakers have discussed this for literal decades at this point, I'm shocked that we have to reiterate this.
Neither America nor Israel are willing to put boots on the ground. The bombing campaign failed, the naval campaign did not secure the Strait of Hormuz, and the enriched nuclear material is not going anywhere. If the war continues to escalate, America and Israel will be directly blamed for the humanitarian consequences of desalinization, ammonia and nitrogen plants being attacked. They cannot alleviate these issues with a air war, so they have to sue for peace or commit to a real invasion. Thus, the escalation ladder entirely belongs to Iran, they decide what the US and Israel coalition bleed for.
It's why the US threatened civilian infrastructure; they ran out of leverage. The stated goals were not attained, the home front in Iran is not divided, the China/Russia support axis is not disrupted, and America's allies won't fight alongside them for Israel. It's over, this is the damage control phase for both sides.
All those ships are needed for an easy win in Cuba.
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> Iran funding terrorism across Europe
Provide strong evidence or retract your statement.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8rm14lkkvzo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Burgas_bus_bombing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMIA_bombing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Iranian_operations_inside...
I can add more if that’s not “terroristy” enough for you.
1) In Germany, a man was arrested recently over a suspicion of belonging to Hamas and planning attacks. A suspicion. Belonging to Hamas.
2) Alleged by the authorities to have been done by Hezbollah.
3) Not Europe.
4) Not Europe, and it's been merely alleged by PM Albanese that the incident had anything to do with Iran.
> I can add more if that’s not “terroristy” enough for you.
Please do, as the ones above are really not meeting the bar.
Two of these are outside of Europe.
Great job in being pedantic and missing the point.
It is not pedantic. You said that Iran funded terrorism “across Europe”. When asked for sources, half of what you provided was not relevant to the statement. I surmise you are arguing in bad faith.
So if I said instead that they fund terrorism across the world you believe me?
Every state involved here is a sponsor of terrorism. If we had a real global liberal order all of their leaders would be in the Hague . There's only one directly doing genocide with expansionist ambitions, so I'm going to root against that one.
lol at directly, meanwhile the houthis literally have “Death to America Death to Israel Curse on the Jews” written on their flag. You sure can pick the good guys.
The indirect perpetrator I was implying was the US. Saying "death to America/Israel" isn't doing a genocide, even if the words really really hurt your feelings.
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So resistance against genocide is bad but the genocide is fine? There are clear good and bad guys here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Burgas_bus_bombing
Good ol genocidal Bulgaria I guess huh?
Strongly disagree with the attack of course but it claims the bus was full of Israelis so it's quite targeted and not against Bulgaria.
so the good guys attack Bulgaria because Israel?
The bus supposedly only had Israelis. Israel attacked a neutral country Qatar with a missile to eliminate some supposed enemy agent to a civilian building, so I don't think they have any problems with this.
Why would Iran agree to any of this?
So they don't get destroyed
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It's disheartening to hear people talk about this in terms of won and lost. Is that how you think of these events? I think of them in terms of sadness and horror. The US threatened to obliterate a country and people, because gas was getting a little expensive. If winning and losing is the way you are framing this, instead of thinking about the humans that these actions affect, then we all have lost.
That doesn’t align with the perspective of actual Iranians I know.
There are news reports of Iranian expats and opponents within Iranian who are disappointed with the ceasefire. They wanted trump to go further and destroy the regime.
That aligns with conversations I’ve had with Iranians friends in the US and family members within Iran who want the regime destroyed so there is a chance of removing the Islamic theocracy that governs the country currently.
My general impression is many people want the regime destroyed, which seems clear from talking to people but also just all the protests. I haven't asked but I'm skeptical they are for things like attacking of every bridge, railroad, and power plant (which are important civilian infrastructure). The threat was specifically that their "whole civilization will die tonight"
I will tell you exactly what my Iranian wife said when I asked her about people congregating on the bridges after Trump said he’ll bomb them: she said (paraphrasing) “bomb them, they’re all regime supporters”.
The country is basically on the verge of civil war. The reason it’s not is because the anti-regime forces are disorganized with no clear leader, have no weapons, and rely on internet to organize.
With all due respect to you and your Iranian wife, just because someone has these views, does not mean that it represents the majority of the people of Iran. I am also Iranian and find support for war crimes, even if you disagree politically with the victims, to be horrendous.
That’s fair! I would love to hear your thoughts as an Iranian.
My only goal has been to surface conversations I’ve had with actual Iranians. I think that’s been missing from these Internet conversations, and I think it’s really helpful that people know what actual Iranians think.
Otherwise, you fall into the funny situation like what happened with Maduro, where Internet commentators were upset, while ordinary Venezuelans (and expats) were celebrating.
> “bomb them, they’re all regime supporters”
Even those regime supporters are civilians. This is literally advocating for a war crime.
War crimes as a concept was invented by the current US hegemony to punish others, not to be bound by.
I think about it this way: would I have had any problem with the allies bombing Nazi rallies, even though they were mostly civilians? My answer is absolutely not. I feel the same way when I see pro-Islamic regime or pro-Hezbollah rallies. In fact, I think the limited repercussions for these extremist civilians - and their very tangible support for the regimes - is what keeps these movements alive and powerful. Cost to civilizations - military and civilian alike - is what ends wars.
We agreed on the concept of war crimes after the horrors of WWII, so that it wouldn't happen again.
If you think bombing them is ok, then bombing you (or e.g. Trump supporters - you know, the ones who tried to throw the 2020 election) is ok too.
It cuts both ways.
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"Corruption" is all but meaningless. It happens in every society and the only people that get prosecuted for them seem to be people outside the elite. /s
I don't think holding such views is helpful.
Besides, a few people have been prosecuted for war crimes while being on the winning side (or by their own side), some examples:
William Calley (US), convicted for his role in the 1968 My Lai massacre, in which American troops killed hundreds of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians.
Donald Payne (UK), for abuse and death of an Iraqi detainee.
Charles Graner (US), sentenced to 10 years in prison for the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.
However, we can agree those are very few and far between, compared to all crimes committed. But it's more useful to condemn them and advocate for more accountability than to claim it's useless anyways and normalize calls for more crimes.
But the huge disconnect between what people call war crimes and what actually gets prosecuted makes the term meaningless.
If you go by the definition used in online discourse, every US President this century would be prosecuted for them.
There is using nerve gas on children and there is posting a picture of Maduro in hand restraints and a blindfold. Both receive the equal screech of “war crime” by keyboard warriors.
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> censorship [...] that prevent people from hearing all perspectives
A casual conversation is not to be held to the rigour of legal or legislative opinion. But perspectives, like other sorts of opinions, are not all equal in value.
Some opinions are just noise and there is no value in "hearing all the perspectives" from sources that have no interest in even trying to think things through.
The worst opinions are calls to violence -- that lead to actual violence in some cases -- from people who incur zero risk from their extremism.
Idle statements about bombarding civilians, flattening countries, committing war crimes, "sending countries back into the Stone Age where they belong", are examples of arm-chair blather from people of whom the best we can say is that they have never lived under bombardment nor served in a time of conflict in any capacity whatsoever.
I hear your point.
I still think it’s valuable to hear Iranian voices during this conflict.
I’m definitely not saying you have to follow through on what they say!
But it’s valuable to see where people are emotionally. Because when I asked my wife and she essentially said “bomb the regime supporters” it says a lot about where anti-regime Iranians are emotionally.
It also helps people understand why anti-regime Iranians have been pro Trump during this conflict.
Keep in mind that my wife is from Tehran, and has a huge network of family in Tehran. This isn’t some abstract thing to her. And it’s consistent with the other expats I know who want continued pressure on the regime.
> has a huge network of family in Tehran. This isn’t some abstract thing to her.
If the huge network of family in Tehran is clamouring to be bombed, I will concede your point, Sir.
Yes, many Iranians want regime change, but that's not going to happen by bombing everything in the country, and Trump isn't willing to send troops. I'm not sure what your point is actually.
I was responding to a comment about bombing bridges.
I quoted an actual conversation i had with an Iranian where they said essentially “go ahead and bomb the bridges”. That got flagged for some reason.
I’m simply trying to surface conversations I’ve had with Iranians. So often these Internet conversations occur in a bubble.
My point? I guess there’s this idea that Iranians are disgusted with Trump’s comment today. That hasn’t been my experience at all. My wife is Iranian. I’m connected to a large Iranian expat community. They are very pro Trump because of the war. The initial reaction I saw was disappointment with the ceasefire. They want continued pressure on the regime, and they feel that a cease-fire works against that.
You often find expat communities have the exact opposite viewpoint as those that remain, part of the reason they are expats. See cuban expats, nicaraguan expats, not to say they are wrong but they are not a monolith representing all of a civilization. Presumably those standing around the bridges don’t want them bombed.
I’m just giving my personal experience as a data point.
All my in-laws are in Tehran: aunts, uncles, cousins. Everybody is anti-regime.
It’s hard for us to understand in the west. Speaking out against the regime is not possible.
These people who congregated on the bridges were phoned up by the regime as a marketing stunt. Perhaps they were family members or friends of the IRGC. Perhaps they were forced to go, because you can’t say no to the regime. They hang protesters.
I saw someone in another thread compare it to the USSR. Or maybe North Korea.
I’m not saying that there aren’t regime supporters, there definitely are. But you have to be very suspect whenever you see videos of “grassroots” supporters of the regime and remember that opposition voices are not allowed.
They're often from the families of the privileged or elites under the old, america friendly regime.
Indeed, the entitlement complex is probably why so many of them (in the iranian diaspora) were happy to rally behind an actual monarch.
This is not a normal thing to do for somebody who has supposedly adopted western values.
It's not because you've found an Iranian that wants their country destroyed that this is the right thing to do.
All military experts agree that bombing a country isn't going to trigger a regime change, and it hasn't so far after weeks of intense bombing. So the answer should be, keep bombing more things and target civilians?
Besides, the Iranian expat community is also a bubble, maybe not representative of the ones who are actually bombed.
Iranian expat communities have these radical views because they won't have to live with the consequences.
Uh no, your wife said to bomb the civilians on the bridges, because they're regime supporters. Clearly advocating for a war crime, so who gives a shit that she's an Iranian expat? No wonder it was flagged.
You have to be very suspect of “grassroots” supporters of the regime in these videos.
Another thread compared it to the USSR. Or maybe North Korea.
Opposition voices are not allowed. Protesters are hanged.
When the regime tells you to go to the bridge for a marketing stunt, you go.
I’m absolutely not saying that I believe they should be bombed!
I’m just trying to share the perspective of actual Iranians. To you, my wife wants to bomb civilians. To my wife, these are just marketing stunts that are fully orchestrated by the regime.
I gotta say, that's really fucked up. Like, I'm Russian, I hate what Russia is doing, I think support for Putin in Russia is far higher than it has any right to be, but I'd never casually throw out a "bomb them all, they're all complicit." I think people with these sorts of opinions need therapy.
The other side (regime) publicly state “execute them all” and the response is “bomb them all”. To be clear, I’m not agreeing with the sentiments and agree that bombing the infrastructure is awful, just stating my observation of the state media vs opposition voices.
even Putin’s FSB with all its arbitrary arrests and torture in jail is very very far away from public lashing and hangings, from using actual children in real fighting (beyond kindergartens dressed as tanks which is disgusting but different than sending kids to demine fields or be used as human shields). The scale of torture and jailing is also different with Iran probably being closer to Stalin’s 1937.
I think that makes sense.
My impression is that Iran is much closer to a civil war than Russia is. It’s very polarized.
You have to put yourself in the mindset of someone against the regime. They feel that their country was hijacked by an islamic theocracy.
This is a regime that forces little girls to cover their body. Dancing and singing in public is illegal. Protesters are hanged.
My wife was sent home from school as a kid because her headband didn’t properly cover her forehead. At the age of 30 my wife still has trouble wearing shorts because she is self-conscious about showing her legs.
This is the kind of mental trauma that women have to recover from after leaving Iran. And I’ve only skimmed the surface.
There is zero sympathy from the anti-regime side for those who support the theocracy.
> At the age of 30 my wife still has trouble wearing shorts because she is self-conscious about showing her legs.
Just as an extra data point: I (a man) still feel weird about going running with a tank-top, because nearly 3 decades ago at a gym in Turkey I was politely asked to cover my shoulders.
I'm sure she and other Iranians have endured far far worse; my only point is that "Is uncomfortable showing skin" isn't necessarily evidence of that, as it doesn't necessarily take much to trigger.
I get what you’re saying, but if you’ve ever met someone who has grown up in an extremely religious environment, then you know what I mean.
Inculcating into young girls (and boys to some degree) that their bodies are shameful, sex is shameful, hell is real and waiting for them if they disobey, causes lifelong mental trauma.
It’s not unique to Islam. I’m sure there are extreme versions of Christianity and Judaism that also make women feel ashamed of their bodies.
Sure but that response about the people is entirely ignoring the vastly larger issue of does she (or, more importantly, people actually in Iran) want every single power plant bombed because that is what the threat was (also all bridges and some railroads). This is talking about the country being without power and stable food or water infrastructure for the foreseeable future and a lot of normal people dying (not particularly regime supporters)
My impression is that people don’t take Trump‘s words literally. Trump often exaggerates and plays word games. If you take every statement from Trump literally you’re going to be constantly triggered.
But even so, I think the response you’ll get from most anti-regime Iranians is “go for it, if it may let us get our country back”.
Iranians who wants the regime overthrown are very conflicted right now. They see their country being destroyed, but they also hate the regime and want a revolution.
They literally feel that their country was hijacked by an Islamic theocracy. They want that destroyed, so they’re thankful that Trump is attacking it.
How far should Trump go? I just saw news reports that Iranian expats and anti-regime Iranians were disappointed with the cease-fire. That aligns with the initial reaction from my family and the Iranian expats that I know.
So it’s a complicated answer… Do Iranians want all their infrastructure destroyed? If it would guarantee the regime was defeated I think most would say yes.
I have never seen any diaspora have more contempt for their own people than Iranians. Thankfully more recent diaspora in the US are both more level-headed and diverse (coming not just from Tehran and a few other major cities but many other places and ethnic groups). I know an Azeri Iranian who was nothing but contempt for the regime (especially after thousands of protesters were murdered) but is horrified by what the US/Israel has been doing.
Diaspora communities are never representative of their home country. This is something I know from my own community, since selection bias leads to a very particular (and privileged) set of people with the means to emigrate, almost universally from a single ethnic group that is less than 11% of the total population. Perhaps you should consider whether the Iranians you know are representative of the Iranian population as a whole.
I would agree that there is some bias amongst expats, I think that’s a fair point.
I think saying diaspora “never represent” their home countries is an exaggeration.
All the Iranians in the US I know are first generation immigrants who have been here maybe 5-20 years. I’m not talking about second generation Iranians. They all still have family in Iran. And their views do not differ from their family.
My mother-in-law is the most anti-regime person I know, and she lives in Tehran. A bomb recently exploded nearby and broke all the windows in her house. But life goes on, Iranians are extremely resilient.
> All the Iranians in the US Maybe thats the only demographic in the US? They are anti-regime and must clear interview at US consulate, can't exactly get into US if you are pro-regime?
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No, she’s not a monarchist, and she’s actually very uncomfortable with people referring to “prince” Reza Pahlavi.
I think she understands that every movement needs a leader, so she’s ok with Mr. Pahlavi leading that, i.e. a constitutional assembly. But beyond that she doesn’t recognize the monarchy
That's much better then. And I personally am just very wary of any entity claiming they will "just" be a king for a while and cede power given how dictatorial the last pahlavi was.
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It's a good thing the people of Iran are not represented by these diaspora Iranians then
This is what a lot of diaspora are like when a country has had a western friendly puppet regime overthrown.
The people who left tend were often in a privileged position under the previous regime and the bitterness at having their privilege revoked often echoes through the generations.
They might feign concern for human rights when the regime they hate is violating them (i saw a lot of that when the alleged killing of tens of thousands of protestors) but it's the bitterness of lost privilege which truly drives them.
Ive seen it with Cubans, Venezuelans, Angolans, even the odd Russian.
I’m just giving my personal experience as a comparison.
I have not met a single Iranian expat who was in a privileged position. All the Iranian expats I know are in their 20s and 30s and were just very lucky to get a visa, many in the Obama years. I suppose there were some changes during Obama that allowed more Iranians to immigrate?
For my wife, her family is actually very anti-monarchist. Exactly because of the feeling that there were privileged and unprivileged class during the Shah monarchy.
My wife grew up middle/lower middle class in Tehran and did not have any privileges in life. She was lucky to get a visa to the US, worked 2 jobs + odd jobs all through college to afford it. Constantly scrounging and networking to survive.
That’s why I love first generation immigrants. I think they’re the hardest working, most resilient people you’ll ever meet.
Your wife doesnt live in iran im assuming? She wont risk her child being killed in preschool by a tomahawk, or having to live without electricity or transportation or drinking water because trump bombed it?
As someone from and in a thirdworld country, these expats can be even more arrogant and psychopathic than the imperialists they live under
My in-laws all live in Iran. My wife has many aunts, uncles, and cousins. I don’t even know how many people - it’s probably 20 to 30 people at least. All in Tehran.
My mother-in-law is the most anti-regime person I’ve met.
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False dichotomy. You can be against the current Iranian regime and against intentionally bombing civilians at the same time.
There's is no valid claim from anyone credible that civilians were intentionally bombed.
It's all cover for IRGC and their minions in the Levant.
I've seen it go as far as Wikipedia edits and I'll always speak up.
This has no place on HN. Please read the guidelines and be a better person moving forward.
I'm already a better person than Khamenei and the IRGC. And those who cover for them and their minions covertly or overtly.
I would have been a worse person for keeping silent
I have friends in the US that want the US government destroyed, there are people in the southern US that think the south won the civil war. Who cares?
Every government in all of human history has had its detractors and supporters, more detractors probably exist in expatriated communities, their existence does not really prove anything.
the No Kings movement doesnt seem to care about Ayatollahs
the no kings movement draws a line between no kings in the USA, and leaving other countries to pursue the same.
didn't Donald Trump campaign on no more foreign wars? doesn't America First mean not starting some forever war?
and if there is a good case for intervention: then make it! what are the objectives? Regime change? we killed most of their leadership, and they are still running the show. We killed Osama... and then fled Afghanistan decades later. why is there such a short memory in this case? these dudes HATE US: their recruiting propaganda gets more effective with every bomb we drop on them.
and if regime change is so important, than surely we will invade North Korea next right? and Russia? what about them? how about Venezuela? ohhh, yeah we left the regime in place, with no change for the people living under it.
perhaps was controlling oil the key objective? well... we stopped sanctioning the Iranian regime, and they are still in a position to stop traffic in Hormuz: the current terms they are asking gives them more control over the strait, rather than less?
so what the hell is our objective? can we just admit that we have no idea what we're doing, because we have no strategy?
Be an apologist for something that isn't truly riddled with internal inconsistency.
I’m not sure what your point is. Are you suggesting that anti-regime Iranians are a minority?
I’m not sure if we have good statistics on this. So everyone may have a different perspective.
All I can say is this: I’m married to an Iranian woman, and through her I’ve met many Iranian expats, and I’ve talked to her family members within Iran.
I think you’ll find that Iranian expats are pretty unanimously against the regime. That’s millions of Iranians. My in-laws who lives in Tehran are anti-regime, along with every single person on my wife’s side of the family: aunts, uncles, cousins. Everybody.
Thousands of protesters were killed opposing the regime. And that’s just the latest protest.
This is a regime that will kill women who don’t cover their hair correctly. Dancing and singing in the street is illegal.
Don’t be concerned on behalf of the regime. This is a just war supported by Iranians. You are on the right side of history to kill people who hang protestors and force little girls to cover every part of their body.
>That’s millions of Iranians. My in-laws who lives in Tehran are anti-regime, along with every single person on my wife’s side of the family: aunts, uncles, cousins. Everybody.
How do you square this with the absolutely massive pro-government rallies that we've seen all across Iran for the entire duration of the conflict? Millions of Iranians opposed to the regime, in a country of 90 million+, might still be a fringe minority.
If you asked some American expat their thoughts on MAGA, and they responded "China should bomb MAGA rallies so we can be free from the Republican party, my whole family in the US agrees".....that person would be considered a fringe lunatic, even if Trump's regime has record-low approval like it does now (and rightly deserves, I hope he is impeached and jailed).
We have limited data on this. There have been surveys, but survey data isn’t always very accurate.
Here was one survey that showed 81% disapproval of the Islamic Republic: https://gamaan.org/2023/02/04/protests_survey/
In a country of 90 million, if the regime has 20% supporters, that’s 18 million supporters.
Tehran population is 9 million, 20% of that is 1.8 million.
So it’s easy to understand why you might see videos of hundreds or thousands of regime supporters in the streets. That doesn’t mean they’re the majority.
Hey man, 60% of americans disapprove of the current government, that doesn't mean they want to nuke Washington DC.
All I can tell you is to go talk with Iranians. I don’t know where you live, but every major city has an Iranian expat community.
All I’m trying to communicate is the conversations that I’ve had with my Iranian wife, her expat friends, and my in-laws in Tehran.
Maybe they should go be the boots on the ground for the next quagmire if it's so important to them? Commander in Chief Bonespurs and the Secretary of Booze can lead the charge straight up the Straight.
Or maybe they should just focus on being Americans in America and some day Iran will sort itself out without the US' "help".
It won’t just resolve itself, unfortunately. The last 40+ years have proven that.
A non-theocratic Iran is in the US interest.
If you give the Iranians arms, I’m sure they would be happy to fight. Have we armed anti-regime Iranians?
I do think we have an obligation to help. That’s just my personal opinion.
As an analogy: if your neighbor is beating his wife, it’s not moral to just put your earplugs in and go back to sleep. You have to take action.
you mean like when we deposed the Shah, creating the current regime?
you mean like when we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan? So many great examples of successful intervention to refer to!
you mean like Libya, right? or North Korea? should we fix them again too?
how... how do you hold this position without reading even just 20 years of history?
> If you give the Iranians arms, I’m sure they would be happy to fight. Have we armed anti-regime Iranians?
lmmaaaaaooo
why do we have a moral obligation to help? and why them? there are many places on Earth with a lot worse situation for citizens than Iranians, do we have a moral obligation to help everyone and prioritize?
Yes, we absolutely do!
We should prioritize. We have to be pragmatic and choose our battles. We can’t be everywhere at once.
Iran has destabilized the region for decades. It’s hard to imagine how game changing it would be to remove that.
again, why do we care? about this region in particular. and for whom would it be “game-changing” other than Israel?
> we have to be pragmatic and choose our battles
this sounds very far removed from “we have a moral obligation”
bottom line, we should not give two shits about what is happening there and we even went voting for a candidate who told us he’ll be the one to make sure we don’t give two shits about it except of course he turned out to be worse than all previous ones combined :)
Surely you can steel man this yourself. Iran wants nukes. Iran has stated it would like to destroy the US and Israel. Israel is an outpost of Western democracy and our ally. Iran has missiles that can reach Europe. Iran is an ally of Russia and China. Iran wants to control the passageway for a big chunk of the world's oil. Cooperation between Israel and its neighbors would be a great asset to the world economy.
This is not comprehensive and maybe you can quibble with some of it, but it is not mysterious why we might care.
>Iran wants nukes.
Entirely rational, given their desire for sovereignty and avoiding getting bombed to oblivion.
> Iran has stated it would like to destroy the US and Israel.
The linguistic nuance of the slogan "Death to America" has been articulated and clarified over a decade ago.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/irans-ayatollah-ali-khame...
https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/what-does-death-america-r...
>Israel is an outpost of Western democracy and our ally.
The former is a meaningless characteristic when said democracy commits a genocide and runs an apartheid state (hard to deny with the recent capital punishment law exclusively for Palestinian prisoners). Hardly model behavior for anyone else in the region to emulate. The latter is meaningless since this ally only ever drags us into problems, almost all of which are of its own making.
> Cooperation between Israel and its neighbors would be a great asset to the world economy.
It's easier to cooperate with your neighbors when you stop squatting on their territory, or stop massacring them.
>but it is not mysterious why we might care.
I think "people who care" should volunteer to serve in the IDF, and leave the rest of America out of it. Kinda like the various low-friction pipelines for people to go fight/die for Ukraine without committing US Service Members to such a wasteful endeavor.
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I'm well aware of the insane perspective of Iranian monarchists in America. Frankly it's not really their fault, American interventionists have pushed them into this brainrot.
But having an opinion doesn't make it a good opinion and there is no way to say "please get my grandmother's blood on your hands for my insane vision of Iran" sanely.
Mint Press News has a good article about why Gamaan's methodology is unsound:
https://www.mintpressnews.com/gamaan-iran-polling-regime-cha...
Thanks, I hadn’t seen that article before. Interesting read.
My take is that GAMAAN likely overstates the opposition, but all surveys on Iran are imperfect, not just GAMAAN.
I know Pew has done surveys in Iran, but didn’t directly ask if people support the regime.
I personally believe that the opposition group is larger than the regime supporters. I think there’s enough data to infer that.
But I’ll also admit that there’s probably a sizable percentage of ambivalent/non-revolutionary Iranians who would just be satisfied with a better economy.
I trust the people who are close to this more than what you hear on the news. My guess is 90%+ of the readers here know nothing of Iranians except what they read or hear on the news.
How many of you have been to Iran, have family members there, etc? I'm guessing very few.
> that anti-regime Iranians are a minority?
A majority of Americans want Donald Trump removed https://www.newsweek.com/majority-americans-want-trump-compl...
And a significant portion of the opposition wish he was dead.
It’s not about “minority vs majority” it’s the very biased phrasing of “we should bomb Iran because people want regime change” Imagine if Iran was bombing USA because the majority of Americans want regime change.
Those people didnt lose faith in the US after it bombed a preschool? At one point you have to wonder if this is good versus evil or evil versus evil
I will respond to your comment honestly. I have literally talked about this topic with actual Iranians.
The Iranians I’ve spoken to feel that the ends will justify the means.
They believe that people will die either way, protesters are dying right now. So if they can destroy the regime, then it will be worth it.
I understand the desire to end that murderous regime. If I were Iranian, I'd want to see it ended too. But do they really think bombs will achieve that? More importantly, would more bombing actually bring the regime down?
Regimes rarely fall because civilians are reduced to searching for food and water. Destroying Iran's infrastructure would be more likely to produce desperation and disorder than revolt. It would hurt the weakest most, not those closest to the regime and best positioned to shield themselves from scarcity.
If outsiders want to help bring the regime down, supporting opposition forces would at least make more sense than bombing civilians into misery.
This is where not betraying the Kurds (several times) would have come in handy...
I don’t think civilians are being bombed into misery. My in-laws live in Tehran.
During the entire war, life goes on. The bakeries are open. They go about their life. My in-laws were driving back-and-forth across the city throughout the entire war. They recently bought a fridge.
They were seeing bombs and smoke from the city, sure. But it’s like living in uptown Manhattan, and seeing smoke come from the financial district. It doesn’t really affect your life, although it may be scary.
Only after a month of war did a bomb finally go off in their neighborhood. The shockwave broke the windows in their house. But the Red Crescent was in the neighborhood to support.
I agree with you that arming the opposition is probably the best move. All I can say is that whatever we’ve been doing the last 40+ years has accomplished nothing. Anti-regime Iranians want action.
Is this iranians in iran or the diaspora? If its people in iran then theyre walking the walk which is admirable. If its the diaspora then theyre psychopaths for sacrificing innocents for government change in a country they dont live in
I have a serious problem with calling 100+ schoolgirls who - at best - got instantly dismembered by a bomb and didnt suffer (too much) and at worst were crushed to death or bled out from shrapnel wounds "evil"
I was referring to the US government verus the Iranian government. People think its good v evil but thay bombing and the double tapping shows it might be evil v evil
Obviously no one is calling the victims evil. You have to suspect thats a misinterpretation if thats what you get from a comment
> They wanted trump to go further and destroy the regime.
It would require a large scale ground operation which is off the table. A few more weeks of air strikes would not have destroyed the regime anyway but a few more weeks of asymmetric strikes (when Iran strikes its neighbors because it can do little about the US/Israel) would have destroyed gulf oil infrastructure inflicting lasting economic pain on the whole world.
That's what I hear, but it seems like pure desperation. The reality is, Israel calls the shots here, and they aren't interested in a regime change that would strengthen Iran in the long term. They weren't happy with Pahlavi either.
I’ve never seen an example when foreign news really reported what people think on the ground. Especially because people on the ground usually lie. For example in Hungary, the voters of the current “opposition” prime minister candidate would tell you that they vote for him because they want democracy. Yet, they haven’t cared about that for more than a decade. Even when the real reason: inflation was obvious that it would be enormous after the election in 2022, before the previous election. The same with the US, news across the pond doesn’t explain why people vote for Trump, I had to go to the US several times to figure that out.
They really don't know with Iran. It's illegal to protest the government there, and at the same time US and UK propaganda says everyone there wants to overthrow their govt.
Destroying infrastructure and making live hell for normal people does not remove the regime. When will people learn that air-wars don't magically change governments?
Also, the Iranians you likely hear, are not representative. I don't think most people who depend on energy and water don't want that infrastructure destroyed.
> There are news reports of Iranian expats and opponents within Iranian who are disappointed with the ceasefire. They wanted trump to go further and destroy the regime.
That's the diaspora's luxury. They don't have to endure the pain of the conflict or sanctions, and they always end up being the biggest hardliners for that reason.
Was one of them BBC, who quoted one Iranian resident as saying they were ok with the US nuking Iran, and then quietly removing that bit from the quotes with no note that the article was edited?
Those news reports must be so trustworthy (!). They drunk the kool aid and propaganda just like Iranians of the opposite idea. But the difference is your Iranian friends probably never lived in a day in Iran.
Every Iranian I know is either a first generation immigrant to the US, or they live in Iran.
All my in-laws live in Tehran. They’re all anti-regime.
> There are news reports of Iranian expats and opponents within Iranian who are disappointed with the ceasefire. They wanted trump to go further and destroy the regime.
Most of them realized their mistake:
https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2026/04/01/...
Iranians hoping that war and death will save them are chasing a gruesome mirage. The US has successfully liberated exactly one country by regime change since 1945: Panama in 1989. Every other intervention has either supported a rebellion (secession) instead of a revolution, or it has ended in failure (Afghanistan, Vietnam, Somalia) or a prolonged civil war (Iraq, Libya, Yemen). Anyone hoping for such a fate to befall their own country is morally compromised.
Looks like an interesting article, but it’s paywalled. Would love to read it. Do you have a different link or can you summarize it?
From my conversations with Iranians, they know regime change is a long shot. But what are they to do?
Anti-regime Iranians literally feel like that their country was hijacked by an Islamic theocracy. 40+ years of status quo has done nothing to change that.
So yes, they enjoy seeing the regime being bombed. Do they really expect a revolution? Maybe the tiniest sliver of hope in their heart believes in it. But that’s better than nothing.
Trita Parsi recently stated in an interview that he has data showing the support for regime change among the Iranian diaspora has significantly increased from 5% to around 30% but only a minority of them accept the 'at all costs' premise: https://youtu.be/dUyJubRB-ek?si=9wl8pc3sEgTrDlql
Calling Iranians who are against their current government “morally compromised” is real reprehensible for someone sitting in an armchair. Hoping foreign power can help overthrow the domestic lord is nothing new. That’s literally how the U.S. gained its independence with French military assistance.
And to your point, US interventions saved South Korea, Kuwait, Grenada, Bosnia, in addition to Panama. The legacy of Vietnam is complicated with the country rejecting communism, becoming capitalistic, and embracing the U.S. in recent years. This is in stark contrast to countries like North Korea. We don’t know how Iraq and Venezuela will turn out in the current timeline either.
Even more problematic though, is the fact that many of the US interventions happened in countries at the brink of free fall. These are failed states who are more likely to experience turmoils with or without the U.S.. Yes, civil wars can be worse than dictatorship. But that’s one of many possible outcomes. Avoiding all changes due to the fear of the worst potential outcome is weirdly privileged view. Kurds in Iraq can attest to this. Iraq has become much better for them nowadays because the Saddam era was pure hell. They were desperate and any alternative was thought to be better.
However, I don’t think intervention in Iran necessarily serves the US interest to begin with. So sure, I agree with you that the U.S. really shouldn’t waste more time in Iran.
>Calling Iranians who are against their current government “morally compromised” is real reprehensible for someone sitting in an armchair.
What I said was that anyone who wants their country to meet the fate of other countries the US has attempted to regime change is morally compromised. Simply hoping that the Islamic regime will go away is completely rational. Knowing that it will definitely fail and wanting to try it anyway is insanity.
And the diaspora fools cheering for more bombs and destruction are also in armchairs. They have no sympathy from me.
>Hoping foreign power can help overthrow the domestic lord is nothing new. That’s literally how the U.S. gained its independence with French military assistance.
Not regime change, a rebellion.
>And to your point, US interventions saved South Korea, Kuwait, Grenada, Bosnia, in addition to Panama.
South Korea was a response to invasion, Kuwait was a response to invasion, Grenada was a coup (response to a coup — edge case because the end state was much easier to define and also the country is minuscule), Bosnia was a rebellion. None of these are regime change.
>Kurds in Iraq can attest to this.
Also a rebellion. You might want to recheck the criteria.
>We don’t know how Iraq and Venezuela will turn out in the current timeline either.
23 years of civil war is too many. You can't just say "well eventually it worked out", that could justify anything. Other dictatorships have ended faster without violence. Venezuela was not a real regime change war because a deal was made with the VP before the invasion and also the Bolivarians are still in power.
> There are news reports of Iranian expats and opponents within Iranian who are disappointed with the ceasefire. They wanted trump to go further and destroy the regime.
And how he would do that, exactly?
Good question. From the conversations that I’ve had with Iranians, it’s unclear. The regime is too embedded. There’s no easy answer. Killing Mojtaba would be a good start.
Anti-regime Iranians are basically holding onto any sliver of hope that they can regain their country.
Of course, it’s all very unlikely, but I can’t help sympathizing with them. I think their cause is just. I think a non-theocratic Iran that could rejoin the global economy is a dream worth fighting for.
Wasn't killing his father a good start? If it wasn't, why would killing him make a significant difference?
I'd love to see a democratic Iran, but this was was utterly pointless and counterproductive.
It was a great start. Iranians celebrated his death, which made me happy.
I think one idea is that if you can kill enough regime leaders, perhaps a moderate leader may emerge?
Or perhaps there may be a military coup? Which may be a lesser of two evils?
The Iranians I’ve spoken to don’t feel like it was counterproductive. They actually feel like Trump has done more than any other president to damage the regime.
What’s the alternative? More economic sanctions? The status quo of the last 40+ years has accomplished nothing.
Anti-regime Iranians want action. They want us to make a move. We killed a lot of regime leaders and destroyed their military capability. That’s something. Now we have to see how that chess move played out.
> They wanted trump to go further and destroy the regime.
Did they also want Trump to destroy the whole civilization and have the country back to stone age like he claimed he would do?
Don't know why this is downvoted, people must forget that the weeks leading up the war, Iran was pulling the plug on the internet and shooting regime protestors in the street.
It seems Trump and Israel expected an internal revolution once the bombing started, but it doesn't seem that manifested.
Your perspectives of Iranians seems to be too biased, given also that you have partner from Iran and confess that you "only" talk to their inlaws and friends.
The Iranian diaspora is more divided on the matter than you think [1], and given your background, you're probably in the bubble of the diaspora that wouldn't mind sending threatening messages to anyone not being completely aligned with anti regime stance.
It's like someone marrying a deep south confederate flag waving MAGA American, moving there, and judging from talking to their friends and their hate for everything not MAGA, conclude that every American is like this. Or same scenario but California and liberals.
[1] https://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/on-unity-fragmentation-i...
I’ve never sent threatening messages to people, and would never do that, so I’m not sure what that’s in reference to?
I’ve responded to this idea of bias in other threads.
I’m open to the idea that I’m perhaps biased by my wife, her friends, and my in-laws.
I’ll admit that it may be a little hard for me to accept that given that I’ve been to so many Iranian celebrations, and met so many different people, and heard the same perspectives again and again. I feel that what I’ve conveyed on hacker news in my comments does reflect truly the conversations I’ve had.
Most importantly, my goal in making these comments is to surface what actual Iranians are thinking.
Many Iranians in the US are afraid to speak out because they have family in Iran, or they’re here in the US on a visa. They fear that if they speak up, they’ll never be able to go home and see their family again.
As a US citizen, who is connected with the Iranian community, I feel it’s my duty to surface these conversations I’ve had.
My apologies if it came off as I was accusing you or your wife for sending threatening messages. That wasn't the intent
It was (supposed to be) a reference to the content of the linked material:
>Individuals and opposition groups took it upon themselves to allege relationships between diaspora Iranians and the Islamic Republic and guided their followers to conduct purity tests that sought to target, silence, and excommunicate anyone with whom they disagreed, labeling them as apologists or agents of the Islamic Republic for having called for reform in years past (now deemed too soft on the Islamic Republic), or for being unwilling to name the then-nascent protest movement a “revolution” or, in more extreme cases, for being unwilling to support regime change by any means necessary.
And a comment about the fact that you and your close Iranian relatives and friends probably hold the anti regime views strongly, and so does many (especially the ones that had to flee the revolution, or the childrens of) of their friends. I'm not questioning that fact, but pointing out that it's quite obvious that your friends and relatives probably wouldn't hang around the Iranians with different views.
It's not the only group and in a political climate like the Iranian diaspora, individuals (or groups) with opposing views or nuanced views are often silenced relentlessly.
It's simply unavoidable dynamics: iranian diaspora strongly wanting regime change are also not the ones that have to carry the blunt of that cost (they're outside Iran already), but reap most of the benefits. They're also spreading that message on platforms in countries that have an incentive to push for that message (USA, Israel) so the discourse will be highly amplified around anti-regime rethoric. The fact that it's not their house that is being bombed, also means that there aren't really any counteracting weight put on any potential opposing discourse, the discourse will maintain or go more extreme in is anti-regime rethoric going even more "any means necessary" route.
The Iranians against the regime inside Iran, I would assume, have a more nuanced view now. They might be against the regime, but not to the point they're willing to sacrifice their children, neighbors, and society collapsing Libya or Syria style. So they're probably less "any means necessary" about regime change.
I think that’s fair. You’re probably right that the diaspora is more anti-regime than people inside Iran.
I will say that my in-laws live in Tehran, and last week a bomb blew up near their house, and the shockwave broke all the windows in the house.
They had been seeing lots of bombs dropped onto Tehran, but this was the first one near their house.
My mother-in-law is very anti-regime and was actually in the streets during the protests. I don’t think that’s changed at all since the war.
It’s hard to speak for all Iranians. I wish we had better surveys and statistics to understand public opinion.
Source please. How to get informed opinion on what the actual iran people feel.
It seems from new media the support for khameni family has increased after the leader was killed.
My wife is Iranian, so I’m connected with a large Iranian expat community, and all my in-laws are in Tehran.
The best recommendation I can give you is to connect with your local Iranian community
I’m not sure where you live, but every major city has one. You will experience great food and great parties and great dancing.
Iranian expats love to dance because dancing and singing in public is illegal in Iran. So they do it as a big middle finger to the Islamic republic.
May be the expats are doing well financially and they have different perspective, what about the majority ones , especially the students who were opposing the regime during some death of a girl, has they converted. This is what I am interested in
I don’t personally know. But I don’t see why students who protested during the “woman, life, freedom” protest a couple years ago would be any less anti-regime now. If that’s what you’re asking.
It is possible to deplore the human cost, while also looking at the reasons why such conflicts occur, and what the goals of those involved are.
The reason of the conflict being a lunatic and spineless supporters.
I deplore the “lunatic” and also support any attempts of liberating the entire Middle East from the deplorable Iranian regime. So many of the problems of this region can be traced back to them.
I’m probably stretching what you said beyond what you meant, but while also deploring that regime I don’t support any attempt. I support effective action. This war was not effective action. I think it was utterly counterproductive.
> then we all have lost.
Yes, we have lost sound leadership and stability. Pakistan has brokered the cease-fire in a war started by the US for no good reason. The current US administration was supposed to be non-interventionist.
It is hard to watch the grim spectacle of the US fallen to the point of simultaneously making despicable threats to destroy another country and sending love and best wishes at election-time to Hungary's anti-EU, pro-Russian Orban.
In a war, usually both sides lose.
> The US threatened to obliterate a country and people
So the same thing Iran has been chating for decades
> > The US threatened to obliterate a country and people > So the same thing Iran has been chating for decades
That indicates that the US has become more like Iran than Iran has become like the US.
Coincidentally (or perhaps not) the US is also increasingly authoritarian and theocratic, like Iran and its regional neighbors (both friends and foes).
It's a messy situation but it basically kicked off when the Iranian people had mass protests and the government started shooting them whereupon Trump tweeted “Iranian Patriots, keep protesting – take over your institutions!!! … help is on its way" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/13/trump-promises...
Not much about gas getting expensive there. I think the recent threats were mostly hyperbole for negotiating purposes.
It's a win.
The largest military the world has ever known was recklessly used towards a foe against decades of internal warning not to go there. People on both sides who didn't ask for this war paid with their lives.
High gas prices might have been a great cause for it ending, but the win for the world is that a escalation towards WWIII was averted, and that even idiotic leaders have learned that the world is a complex system and there's no such thing as a far away war anymore.
I actually think it is important to talk about winning and losing, more so when the overwhelmingly stronger party loses.
> even idiotic leaders have learned
Call me a cynic, but if you are dumb enough to start the war in the first place you are too dumb to learn any lesson.
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> The US threatened to obliterate a country and people, because gas was getting a little expensive.
That’s not the reason. The US is an occupied government.
Occupied by who exactly? We elected this government, we get what we deserve.
One third of the voters sat the 2024 election out. To those voters, there was no daylight between either of the 2 candidates.
And to give an example of the viability of third party candidates... I used to live in Colorado. To get onto the ballot as a Presidential candidate as a minor party candidate (aka neither D nor R candidate) one needs to get 10 people to swear to be Electoral College voters (if that candidate wins). Many times, those third party candidates get less than 10 votes in the entire state of Colorado.
> One third of the voters sat the 2024 election out
Not voting in an election doesn't mean you didn't participate in its outcome, especially if you normally vote but choose to sit out an election.
> It's disheartening to hear people talk about this in terms of won and lost. Is that how you think of these events? I think of them in terms of sadness and horror
Its because you're such a better person than them, wow, incredible. Nobody else knows what war is.
We already attacked Iran twice during "talks," is there any indication that we mean it this time, or are we just going to bomb them again while negotiations are ongoing?
This will be the one ceasefire that Israel respects?
They underestimated Iran's unique mix of capabilities and strategy. It's not that Iran is undefeatable but it seems that the price is going to be far too high both globally and especially regionally for the tiny coalition of Israel and the US to succeed in the long term.
I think it says something that the US paid such a high price to try to produce a "viral military campaign" video of a Uranium heist. Straight out of the cold war. The palatable options must be steadily dwindling.
> tiny coalition of Israel and the US
This coalition is "tiny" insofar NATO & the GCC (well, apart from Bahrain and the UAE) refused to join the attacks, despite Iran's transgressions. The US could wage this war for many years all alone, and force the GCC to watch as the region burned. I guess, Trump's administration isn't willing to go as far as the current Israeli leadership may have hoped or wanted. That said, the war could very well still flare up, if the events from past 2 years following "talks" are any indicator.
why would NATO join the attacks? NATO is a defensive agreement, not a "kick a hornets nest and drag your former friends into it" agreement
> why would NATO join the attacks
I don't disagree, but the expectation from the US Admin was some of their NATO allies would join (like they did in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq). Especially since the Oil spike hurts Europe (where the NATO nations are) the most.
> NATO is a defensive agreement
Turkey was attacked by Iran, though, it is unclear if Turkey would have invoked Art5 even if Iran had kept escalating.
Building coalitions is slow, deliberative work. Not a skills match for this administration, whatever your assessment of their overall aptitude is.
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No. They like stealing land.
missing /s at the end of that sentence
Ceasefires are not in place until they are in place. Before they are in place, war is still ongoing. Discussing a ceasefire does not mean there is a ceasefire currently.
I have a Naive question, "why aren't the discussions related to public matters be telecasted live like a football match to the whole world? why isn't the public privy to the discussions about its own future?"
> "why aren't the discussions related to public matters be telecasted live like a football match to the whole world? why isn't the public privy to the discussions about its own future?"
It gives the parties more room to manoeuvre with regards to the give and take that is often/usually necessary when it comes to negotiating. If you demand X at one point, but revert so you can get Y, then the absolutists will be outraged (either actually or performatively) that you are being "soft" and "weak", etc.
There are a lot of people who think in zero-sum, winner-take-all ways, which is generally not how the world of foreign relations works. And modern-day outrage machine will create more difficult situations if you give here and take there (ignoring the fact that the other side gives there and takes here in return) even though it may be necessary to get a result (even it it's not perfect).
There is flip side to it. If one party has pre-determined not to negotiate, but is just following the script to show offical reachout and due process, then people don't know the real reason why the talks failed?
> […] then people don't know the real reason why the talks failed?
A party can always disclose what's going on in negotiations.
This is generally not done as it is often is a violation of trust, but if there's no good faith there in the first place it's hardly a loss. Negotiations can always be broken off with the reason being "the other side is not negotiating in good faith" without particular negotiated-to-day conditions being released.
But my original proposition keeps everyone honest and pragmatic which was the reason for the proposal. I truly believe in transparency as a way to keep everyone honest and not treat other people as childish that they can't understand complex matters.
Because most world leaders are actors. They put on a show to get elected or retain power. They don't want to look weak and want to spin the final outcome to their favor. That can include one side allowing the other to take credit for an idea that wasn't their's.
Compared to the last World War, things are broadcasted quite immediately. The delay is just barely enough to create a narrative that fits the audience.
There are ego maniacs and people from shame cultures who would be animalistically obstinate in the face of globally televised embarrassment
I mean...we have body cams for police..
That's beside the point.
Because Trump’s war caused massive oil price hike, destabilised energy supply for the whole world, was extremely unpopular even amongst Maga and Iran regime showed that to beat them into submission you would have kill 92 million people making Trump a Hitier-level war criminal and US a global pariah.
It will be very difficult for Trump to start his war again. He is not thinking about US or even his supporters at this point, but his own legacy, but he is too dumb to understand when Israel and his own staff are lying to him.
That’s why Iran has a very strong position to go to the negotiations. You also killed all the more sensible people in the regime, so there’s only hardliners left. There is nothing to win US or Trump, everything to lose. Iran on the other hand only has to sit tight.
This is how a nation stops being a super power and an empire falls.
The ceasefire is over.
Iran launched three waves of ballistic missiles at Israel after the ceasefire was announced; the first wave happened about an hour after the ceasefire announcement, then another 5 hours after, then another 8 hours after.
Iran also launched waves of drones at UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia within the first few hours of the ceasefire, and they've continued more over the next 12 hours. Multiple major energy facilities were struck, including desalination plants and oil facilities. Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline was hit. In Kuwait, three power stations a water desalination plants were severely damaged following drone attacks.
Israel announced the ceasefire does not apply to Lebanon, and launched a massive wave of airstrikes on Lebanon about an hour ago. Iran said this is a ceasefire violation, and resumed launching drones and missiles.
This ceasefire is done, nobody wants to stop fighting, the war will be back to usual in the next few days.
The ceasefire was never between Israel and Iran, Israel did not stopped bombing even after first announcement.
Nope, Israel did stop its strikes on Iran. However, they did not stop bombing Lebanon.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-backs-iran-truce-opp...
The poor people in Lebanon, seems Israel is targeting everything from funerals to medics.
I wonder why this isn't being covered in western news outlets. Every politician who is in AIPAC's pocket needs to be shown these headlines and be held accountable.
Israel won't get sainthood anytime soon, but Hezbollah is Iran-backed, based in Lebanon, and breaking ceasefires with Israel without direct provocation. Israel has killed over a thousand Hezbollah militants since March 2.
What would you do if you were Israel?
FTA:
> Over 1,500 people have been killed in Lebanon and about a million displaced since March 2, according to Lebanese authorities. The IDF says it has killed some 1,100 Hezbollah operatives, including hundreds of members of the terror group’s elite Radwan Force, in that period.
Israel kills people then calls them "operatives" after the fact. They have no credibility around these kinds of reports.
I get your point. I don't think it's effective here.
What do you have to say to Hezbollah confirming 400 combatant losses? The Lebanese health ministry also confirmed 1500, of which only 300 were women, children, and health workers.
It's a tragedy.
> What would you do if you were Israel?
Stop pretending like collective punishment produces results? It obviously doesn't, Israel's strikes on Lebanon have gotten to the point that it feels like another illegal expansion project.
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You're right, they should just let indiscriminate rockets hit their civilians. If it was not for the iron some, there would be 100k dead Israelis. It's disgusting how westerners think their high and mighty approach works in the middle east.
Israel was never forced to commit war crimes in retaliation. If they truly want peace, they should submit to the ICC or prepare to fight the long war.
Blowback. Israel is responsible for being an impossible neighbor.
A better question to ask: what do you do when an ethnosupremacist state sets up shop near you and immediately begins territory expansion and meddling in your local politics while funding militant groups to destabilize your government? That's the question all of Israel's neighbors have had to answer for the last 60 years.
>impossible neighbor
The entire neighborhood sucks.
Doesn't this also apply to Hezbollah in Lebanon?
> "[Hezbollah's] struggle will end only when this entity [Israel] is obliterated" [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah#Attitudes_and_action...
The entire neighborhood was already there, and then Israel showed up as a settler-colonialist state.
I don't really sympathize with any State's desire for self preservation (especially since, like Israel, most states will happily sacrifice their citizenry to do so).
The radicalization necessary to feed recruitment to Hamas and Hezbollah is only possible because of the incredible violence Israel subjects the region to. Without Israel, Hamas would almost certainly not even exist, or at least would be some minor radical group with no political power.
Your argument isn't principled because starting in the 20th century is arbitrary. Why not go back in time to the 15-1600s when the Ottoman Empire went "colonial" on Jews?
We don't have a time machine.
In the present, Israel could go full pacifist, and Hezbollah doesn't go away.
> Your argument isn't principled because starting in the 20th century is arbitrary.
No it isn't, we were alive in the 20th century, it's recent and we are fully capable of, and responsible for, handling fallout from decisions made during it. Your argument justifies any imperialism. "Last year Israel occupied more Palestinian territory - it's the same as ancient history, demanding they give it back is like demanding Greece re-establishes the sovereignty of Athens."
> In the present, Israel could go full pacifist, and Hezbollah doesn't go away.
Pretty speculative. An Israel that gives back sovereignty and autonomy as well as stolen land back to Palestine (and now Lebanon), releases prisoners, and regime changes out the ethnosupremacist government takes basically all the wind out of the sails of groups resisting it as the evil it currently is.
Actually negotiating and following through is something current Israel can't swallow because it's deeply racist against the people with whom it's meant to be negotiating.
> we were alive in the 20th century...
"we"? Your point's either literal (false) or figurative (arbitrary).
Why would you say something so misleading? You'd be 100 years old for the pre-Israel British-colonial period or almost 80 for the instantiation of Israel. It seems you're unclear when Israel showed up as colonialists.
> Your argument justifies any imperialism.
Fallacy: Israel's actions and Hezbollah's actions can both be bad.
> Pretty speculative.
No, you made my point! LOL!
Now, observe your list of conditions needed (return land, release prisoners, regime change). Isn't it ironic that you laid out a bunch of actions that are far more aggressive than what I proposed? You're basically saying that a more extreme compromise is needed than what I proposed!
> it's deeply racist against the people with whom it's meant to be negotiating.
Let's accept this is true (which is terrible). The flaw is that you're blindly dismissing Hezbollah/Hamas as moderates and their stated goals to eradicate Israelis. You can't leave them out of the picture and to do so is arbitrary.
> (return land, release prisoners, regime change).
Is your proposal to "just stop doing war?" There's a reason it's happening - Israel has engaged in imperialism and genocide, and there are people alive today from whom Israel and its settlers have taken land. There's still a lot of Palestinians who can't return to their homes. Of the three entities, Israel is the one with the most (literal) ground it needs to give back to "even the scales."
Undoubtedly Hezbollah and Hamas have antisemitic members that are very interested in killing Jewish people, just as there's clear evidence for the same in the IDF, however of the two, only one has engaged in actualized genocide (the IDF), so the dissolution of the State that promoted this is a moral good. It doesn't require "the eradication of Israelis" as you say, and again, Hamas only exists because of Israel, whereas the elimination of Hamas obviously is doing nothing to stop Israel's genocide against the Palestinians (and it's clear interest in expanding this genocide and imperialism against anyone it can describe as "Arab").
You seem to be accusing me of being arbitrary because you're claiming Hezbollah/Hamas is equal to Israel in terms of evil behavior, when that isn't true: Israel is the far more evil entity, and the goal of Hezbollah and Hamas to resist and dissolve the Israeli state - there's a reason Hamas revised their charter to remove all the obviously anti-semitic stuff and focus instead on resistance ethno-supremacy movement that underlies every aspect of Israel's existence as a State.
Why not simply make all of Israel ruled by the PA? Can you make an argument against that that isn't Islamophobic? Because the reality is that Hamas and Hezbollah are moderates when compared to the actions of Israel over the past few decades, and in any case the PA was absolutely moderate and liberal compared to Israel.
You're not being objective or historically accurate in your take.
Don't believe me?
I encourage you to put this in an LLM and ask if you're being fair.
E.g., calling an Iran backed Shia militant group "moderate" compared to Israel is hyperbolical.
> I encourage you to put this in an LLM and ask if you're being fair.
Or, I could engage in a conversation with a human, like you. LLMs only tell you what you want to hear. This is disappointing that you suggested this to me, it leads me to believe you're doing this, which means your beliefs aren't backed by evidence, they're just things you thought of and then had an LLM validate.
> Don't believe me?
Nope. I am correct, objective, and historically accurate, and you're failing to demonstrate otherwise.
> E.g., calling an Iran backed Shia militant group "moderate" compared to Israel is hyperbolical.
You're just throwing around scare terms now. Nothing about "Iran" or "Shia" makes me think they're inherently more evil than "Israel." It smells like Islamophobia to me to suggest otherwise.
Here is a list of Israeli war crimes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_war_crimes
Israel is continually committing war crimes, every day, including today. Every Israeli strike against Iran civilians constitutes an war of aggression and violates the UN charter and is a war crime. It has engaged in collective punishment of Palestinians, blockade, denial of water and destruction of wells, forced relocation, has admitted to using white phosphorous (including in residential areas and against Unifil peacekeepers), attacked schools, refugee camps, churches, mosques, and civilians seeking food, and has shot and killed children.
Now convince me that the IDF as a radical ethno-supremacist militant group led by a terrorist country is less evil than "an Iran backed Shia militant group."
I challenge you to find a third party, credible news source that calls Hezbollah "moderate" as you framed them.
Until then, you really can't defend your fundamental claims. I suspect you're intentionally avoiding uncomfortable truths about your core beliefs.
>is less evil than "an Iran backed Shia militant group.
See. Examples like this demonstrate you can't keep your thoughts consistent. Is it a scare term or as you just acknowledged, a proxy terrorist group funded by a foreign entity?
It's more complex than your comment.
Per your article, Israel stopped bombing Lebanon in a November 2024 ceasefire. However, Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon broke that prior ceasefire on March 2 in retaliation for the death of the Ayatollah.
> Israel has carried out massive airstrikes and pushed troops farther into Lebanon after Hezbollah, on March 2, launched its first rocket attack on Israel since the November 2024 ceasefire deal.
>Israel stopped bombing Lebanon in a November 2024 ceasefire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Israel%E2%80%93Lebanon_ce...
Really?
This is from your wiki you linked.
>On 2 March 2026, the ceasefire effectively broke down amid the nascent 2026 Iran war,
I believe you have read the rest of the article.
Did you not read it before sharing?
What is your point?
It should be noted that they are not just bombing, but using airburst white phosphorus munitions over civilian areas attempting to scorch the earth and give people a lifetime of health problems.
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I'm not a bot, my email and website contain my full name and are visible on my HN profile, and my website has pictures and videos of me.
First, collective punishment is not acceptable. Shooting through a baby to kill the criminal holding it hostage is obviously monstrous, so your argument that there's "Hezbollah around" is invalid. Civilians present? Then find another way, Israel. But Israel refuses because terms always include something along the lines of leaving occupied Palestinian territory, which Israel refuses to do for many indefensible reasons.
Second, though, is that Israel has lost all credibility. You say Hezbollah is in the area and the thousand people killed are Hezbollah? I say, Israel once released a picture of a calendar and said it was a list of terrorist cells. Israel has lied too much to be trusted anymore.
There's also horrifying reality that's becoming increasingly clear as more street interviews from Israel are released: it's becoming clear that much of this bloodshed is fed by ethnosupremacy and Islamophobia. Israel is becoming the next Nazi state.
LiveUAMap shows no such activity currently. Normally it provides information pretty quickly if something like that has happened.
Yes it does. https://iran.liveuamap.com/
Gonna need at least a single link to a source before I believe this. Googling provides Facebook links and YouTube videos from Fox News and AI generated “news” sites.
Maybe. I'll wait for confirmation from sources outside of the usual "fast news" channels like X, which are full of disinformation.
Part of this "fast news" channel also includes POTUS's incessant "Truths" which are also full of disinformation even about his own administration.
Really hard to find facts these days!
Absolutely! And the best part is, you can fill in any recent "POTUS" in your statement and it still applies!
Well sure, but I was referring more to the "fast" part of parent comment than the "truth" part. Every politician lies, but this one in particular lies too fast for anyone to keep up with fact checking.
I hate that my first thought is: but then why is the DOW still up 2.5%?
Stock markets move with storytelling, not facts.
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Better article with text: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/07/trump-iran-w...
> Israel will also agree to the two-week ceasefire, Axios reported, citing an Israeli official, adding that the ceasefire would enter effect as soon as the blockade of the strait of Hormuz ceased
There’s the catch.
The US is one thing but there is no possible way Israel will stop bombing. They will openly say they will, and continue to do so. It just gives them more breathing room to calculate bigger and more serious strikes. Israel has literally nothing to lose. The US is taking all the heat for any actions in Iran. Israel and Iran are mortal enemies, one can not continue to exist while the other lives, this is how they view it. Iran wants Israel erased, Israel wants Iran erased. This isn't going to stop until one of them suffers catastrophic damage.
I believe from what I have heard and read that Israel will likely only stop if US formally withdraws military support in a sense that they stop supplying weapons (?)
> Israel has literally nothing to lose.
Israel has a lot to lose, the question is only how much of the lost will be replaced by american taxpayers' money. They're almost out of anti-air interceptors, the war they started in lebanon is going badly and iran still has tens of thousands of drones left. There's also hamas and hezbollah and more and more of the world is turning against them, be it in proper politics or even mundane stuff like the eurovision.
And it's not just the aljazeera and similar media, the israelis said it themselves: https://www.timesofisrael.com/zamir-said-to-warn-cabinet-tha...
Israel will be fine. They have nuclear weapons if shit really starts to get bad. They'll tell you they don't (while smirking), but they do, and have for like 70 years.
If Israel uses nuclear weapons, that's the end of any shred of sympathy left for them in the world.
There would be massive political consequences for Israel. Sanctions, embargoes, no more ability to travel abroad, the end of any hope of any positive diplomatic relations with other countries, etc.
I'm not that optimistic, they're already accused of genocide in Gaza, rightfully so, and even the european countries that supposedly recognize the ICC in Hague don't arrest Netanyahu. US will of course back them up, as always.
As a result of Israel's actions over the last 2.5 years, world public opinion of Israel has tanked. There will already be serious consequences for Israel down the line because of that.
But it can get worse for Israel. Use of nuclear weapons is a massive taboo, and if Israel were to cross that line, it would be impossible for any government to continue to support Israel.
> Israel were to cross that line, it would be impossible for any government to continue to support Israel.
The same could be said for running a massive pedophile and human trafficking ring, but that line has been crossed and it seems that nobody seems to want to address the country that's found itself at the heart of it all.
>that's the end of any shred of sympathy left for them in the world. There would be massive political consequences for Israel
They genocided Palestine. They are bombing the shit out of Lebanon and will likely ethnically cleanse them too. Words have been said but no action has been taken. Nobody seems to give a shit.
Bibi could parachute into Mecca, take a shit on the Ka'aba, draw the Prophet (SWT) eating pork, and all we'd get would be a strong finger wagging from the US, Russia, France, etc... and no action.
>Sanctions, embargoes
Mossad has gathered enough blackmail over the years to ensure these won't work.
>no more ability to travel abroad
over 10% of Israel has dual citizenship with another country (mainly USA, Russia, France, Poland, Ukraine). Such restrictions won't affect them.
> the end of any hope of any positive diplomatic relations with other countries, etc.
Define "positive". Look at what Epstein did, yet the West as a whole (UK, France, US, etc) plus some MENA nations still hold Israel in the highest regard and refuse to critique them, much less break off diplomatic relations. I think you're being naive here
If the war (population displacement / genocide / ethnic cleansing, you can call it however you want to) in Gaza has taught the world something is that the current Israeli regime is visceral and they clearly think they are above any international conventions. Of course they will not stop bombing any of its neighbors until we 1) stop funding and 2) start sanctioning them for their war crimes.
I wonder if regime change could help alleviate the tensions in the region.
I'm not sure why you got downvoted. The current admin seems to love regime changes. Why not Israel? Israel is killing medics in Lebanon (supposedly collateral damage but they don't see it that way https://www.npr.org/2026/04/05/nx-s1-5763606/lebanon-medics-... )
I'm just curious here: if we really think about today's conflict in the Middle East regarding the GCC, Israel, the US, and Europe, we can trace this back to US-USSR relations in 1945, as well as the 1980s leading up to 2001. I'm wondering what are everyone's finding on this and what are your opinions?
If we have to choose, it seems the world would be better off without Israel committing genocide
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Israel can do better, but Israel committing genocide is not the fact legally.
It is a fact factually, however.
I could witness a murder and the murderer committing murder would still not be a fact legally. It's still a fact.
Murder and genocide is not the same. Genocide has strict definition.
So does murder.
So what's your definition of genocide? Maybe we are discussing about different things.
The deliberate destruction of a group of people and its culture (completely or partially).
This fits the general description of what Israel has been up to in Palestine since 1948, but especially during the past few years.
Indiscriminate killing of civilians. Planned starvation. Poisoning wells. Denying Palestinians the right to return to their homeland. Forbidding the use of Palestinian cultural symbols. Denying Palestinians the right to fish/conduct business. Keeping them under curfew and surveilling their every move, making them as miserable as possible. Mass imprisonment. Denying Palestinians home-ownership.
Systematically destroying Palestinians and any chance for them to thrive/ found a state/ have human rights.
I see you have replied, but your comment has been marked as dead, so I cannot reply back.
You fed my comment to an AI and based your response on what it said. You said some of the claims were "incorrect".
Let's leave aside how ridiculous it is to fact-check with an LLM. if you go back and read what the AI actually generated, however, you will see that every claim has factual basis, the LLM just marked some as "narrow factual basis", for no particular reason. If it has been documented, it is fact, the LLM is just confused.
Every one of these, when done systematically (and they are) is a component of genocide. About half of them would be enough to constitute genocide on their own.
Displacing more than half of a population (as Israel has done TWICE in history) is definitely genocide.
If you are truly interested in educating yourself, you can start by reading the following wikipedia page (even just the intro):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide
Thank you, I will check the article
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So why isn't what Israel doing genocide?
Genocide definition is: the deliberate, systematic destruction—in whole or in part—of a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group
Israel most probably did war crimes (white phosphorus usage seems to be confirmed, while IDF says they have not used it), but I don't think that Israeli has intention to destroy Palestinians. The have intention to destroy Hamas or Hezbollah.
1) Hezbollah is not Palestinian.
2) Israel has had genocidal plans for Palestinians since before Hamas existed (see the Nakba). In fact, Likud brought Hamas to power, because they saw them as a more fitting opponent than other groups (who were less militant).
3) Israeli politicians (not just current ones) have candidly stated they wish to destroy Palestine, Palestinians, and any chance for them to live in theur homeland
For gods sake, educate yourself. One easy thing to look up is a timeseries of deaths/year of Israelis due to Palestinian violence vs. deaths of Palestinians due to Israeli violence. That should do enough to dispel you of the idea that Palestinians are the terrorists in this case
In your opinion, which international entity do you regard as the final authority for the formal recognition of this legal fact?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa%27s_genocide_case...
So you would believe an authority of the UN. Considering the US has imposed sanctions on UN employees, do you see any conflict of interest there?
In this specific case it is something interesting to follow and to analyze. This will definitely have consequences on Russian-Ukrainian war too. UN overall is powerless - there are 7000+ UN peacekeepers in South Lebanon right now. What are they doing there?
I don't understand your point. You contested a fact "legally", but in your opinion the only authority that should have the final "legal" say in the matter is an impartial and weak one.
That's the best we have and it is better than random internet commenters who make judgement like they have a solid evidence of what's going on. Lastly depending on outcome this can be used for more fruitful discussions in the future.
It is not the best we have at all, and the choice is not between random internet commenters and the ICJ. You have the International Association of Genocide Scholars and a plethora of human rights associations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide#Academic_and_leg...
You are choosing who to listen to because you don't like what you are being told by everyone else.
"...is an ongoing case..."
Exactly
I don't see how anyone can defend Israel at this point. How?
Why not? There is at least theoretical chance to get some justice regarding Benjamin Netanyahu crimes if they are proved. As well Israel is democracy and can be changed. It is not like Russia where people don't have freedom of word.
What's your proposal and vision regarding Israel?
Well, considering that the odds of a person on Earth not being a descendant of Abraham is practically zero, why not give Israeli citizenship to everyone? Of course, with special protections for the Jewish people. Then, we can be done with the everlasting conflict.
No you make fun of me and that’s it.
I'm sorry that came across that way - I honestly wasn't trying to make fun of you.
Getting downvoted by all the emotional people here is not worth it; this thread does not welcome a polite discussion especially from the pro-Israel side. Like in any social media with a voting system (terrible idea, I might add), the vocal and active majority wants to disentivise the disagreement.
I don’t see any pro-Israel side commenter here but me at best. IMHO I do my best to keep discussion as polite as possible having in mind the sensitivity of the topic.
I probably wasn’t clear in the above comment - but what I tried to say is that the thread disincentivizes pro-Israel comments; I am pro-Israel as well and prefer not to engage.
We are all being civil here. Could you please stop insinuating otherwise.
"If it doesn't fit, you must acquit" followed closely by the bestseller "If I Did It: Confessions of the Genocider"
I guess this is sarcasm, but I don't even understand what you want to say.
The strict definition of the Geneva conventions does not include forced displacement but in some parts of the world that is included in the definition of. And legality is a matter of tribunal and none has been held so far.
You are mixing war crime and genocide IMHO.
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I do not stand with societies that do not do human rights for women.
Israel has murdered tens of thousands of women in the past few years alone.
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Israel seems likely to do anything they can to start things up again.
They dont have to do anything but wait. Its only a 2 week ceasefire.
Usually Israel does not even wait a day to break a ceasefire.
When Trump says his healthcare plan or infrastructure plan come “in two weeks” it means never.
Well now it looks like the ceasefire never went into affect at all. Iran never stopped firing and the parties disagree on what was agreed on with regards to lebanon.
What a mess.
They already have
They will try for a last minute "false flag" to bait the US to think that Iran broke the ceasefire first as always.
To Downvoters: You do understand that it was Israel that attacked first right? They are not happy with this provisional ceasefire agreement.
The Israelis are playing this like a strategy game and using ancient tactics. Therefore, I predict they will try to get all US military-aged men into Iran before they nuke it. Then, they will unleash all of the drones they have hidden all across the US.
The scary thing is this is totally plausible. Israel has the US wrapped around its little finger.
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Being anti Zionist is the only moral position.
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All bigotry is bad. Islamic extremists trying to eliminate Jews are bad, Jewish extremists hellbent on eliminating Arabs/muslims are bad. All humans are equal. No to apartheid and genocide.
I don't know why you are downvoted for saying "bigotry is bad"
however you make a mistake when you call zionism apartheid or genocide. there are religious extremists who use this word like it's some sort of "lebensraum" but that's just a specific type of zionism. source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_Zionism
actually zionism just an idea that jews can have a country where their ancestors lived. everybody in the world wants the same thing but no one needed to invent a term because most people already have a country where their ancestors lived. there's a metric ton of christian and muslim countries around if you look.
> actually zionism just an idea that jews can have a country where their ancestors lived.
If Zionism means that Jews are entitled to their ancestral lands at the expense of the people that have been living on those lands for thousands of years, then that is a perverse idea.
No one, regardless of your race/religion/ethnicity has the right to displace a group of people. If Zionism means apartheid and genocide of the Palestinians, then I am against zionism.
You clearly didn't read the article or my comment, because there is a definition of zionism and different types are listed. Lots of people who support the idea of Jews having a country also don't support the idea of oppressing other people in the area
Closing your ears and shouting is not a way to have a productive argument but judging by your comments here you are not interested in that.
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They don’t seem to agree
https://x.com/AP/status/2041689524955222201
Ok, I've switched the link above to that and put the submitted URL in the toptext.
If there are other good links, we can add them.
They will stop bombing as soon as Iran comes back to the situation for which it was bombed.
Yep. No way they’re opening the Strait of Hormuz until the US/Israel gets the fuck out of Iran.
They’re not in Iran. Both countries have announced an end to offensive operations in the past half hour or so.
I thought it was only for two weeks? Unless I'm missing some big news.
And no way US stops bombing them unless they open the strait (I say US because Israel doesnt care about the strait).
I think such an agreement is plausible. Trump really cares about oil prices, and i imagine Iranian leadership would really like to stop being bombed.
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> There is no military solution to open the strait.
There is no cheap & fast military solution. There are certainly military solutions if you are ok with it taking a while or costing a lot of lives.
> Iran has capability to hit back
They have demonstrated they can make the surounding countries miserable. They arent capable of actually getting a military victory.
Which is why a deal is plausible. USA doesnt want to spend (in money and lives) what it would cost to open the strait. Iran demonstrates it can hit back enough to be annoying but not enough to force a victory. Sounds like neither side is exactly capable of "winning" (without us spending more than it wants), so a deal sounds plausible.
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Yes, seems a bit of a gap between US and Iranian opinions on the state of the strait. US says "open it", while Iran has for some time claimed it is open - only subject to conditions. Then, as you mention, the Israelis talk of an end to the blockade.
I foresee a possible relaxation of conditions on the strait by Iran while keeping their hand on the lever providing substantial leverage during any actual negotiations. I also note that it seems the US are considering Iranian demands - not the other way around. Even with that, Trumps' toughest negotiations may be with the Israelis.
I don’t see how the majority of comments paint this as a victory for Iran. Your entire formal military apparatus was destroyed, nuclear sites in rubble, defense industrial complex leveled, two levels of leadership KIA, and the only thing preventing you from permanent destruction or regime change is an impotent threat of attacking ships? I guess I’m missing something. War sucks but in this case Iran is a shell of the threat it was a month ago.
1. Nuclear sites are not "in rubble", uranium is very much intact. They attempted to extract some of it with the failed F15 mission and had to scrap it (oversight by CIA) near Isfahan.
2. Leadership KIA doesn't matter, IRAN has a decentralized leadership, not a top down one.
3. Military apparatus is intact, majority of missile cities are still operating, over 1M IRGC forces mobilized with many more men willing to sign up.
4. Strait of Hormuz is fully under control of IRAN, "impotent threat of attacking ships" (even though IRAN has much more power) is more than enough to control it.
6. No regime change, IRGC is stronger than ever
7. Millions of dollars of damage to all US assets in the gulf
8. Multiple US air crafts damaged and many wounded (we'll see what the actual numbers are after CENTCOM releases them finally)
9. Sanctions lifted on Russia, helping them majorly profit. China is still collecting cheap oil.
10. Israel took heavy damage, losing many interceptors as well.
11. Brent 100$+ for 40 days, causing major global issues.
To be fair, US did manage to kill 170 kids on day 1 and bomb bridges, hospitals, universities and civilian areas.. so I guess that's a "win" for you?
The reality is far more nuanced, and not clearly a win to Iran. We saw how degraded their military capabilities became when they couldn't capture a pilot on their own land for nearly 48 hours. We also saw that the number of rockets that they used "in total" has only just recently reached the number they used in the June war last year with Israel.
Diplomatically, we saw Lebanon, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia expelling Iranian diplomats (some even threatening war with Iran). And the entire gulf region unite against Iran. All while Iran's allies were mostly passive.
It's quite likely that Iran would need to deal with the mess both internally (as the power grab in the leadership vacuum could take place), and externally with the neighbors it bombed. Iran needs to make it appear as a win internally, and that's something that would affect any long term agreement.
Regardless, whether it's a win to ETTHER side remains to be seen when a more permanent agreement is signed. If for example Iran actually manages to impose a fee on passing ships, then that's a major achievement for Iran, and could create a dangerous pretendant for other regions (like the strait of Malacca in Indonesia, Bab El-Mandeb and even the South China sea.
The only thing really destroyed is the image of the west and particularly it’s leader the US. Whatever you view of Iranian acts, even wars have laws related to portionality that has been broken.
Also if there ever was an ounce of internal resistance then this war have probably galvanized the population and is aligning everyone to common cause of working on the build up of particularly their national security.
Perceptions are fickle, and that includes the local population. There are many cases of countries the US bombed whose population later became strong supporters of the US.
Iran’s government haven’t been toppled. People are rallying and united in opposition to foreign invasion and interference.
Iran is a strategic important ally of China and Russia.
US is no longer the world superpower as it once was and has dropped it’s use of soft power completely and relies only upon military force or it’s threat and barely any diplomatic efforts.
The world is not what was even a decade ago. So don’t expect a repeat on what happened after Vietnam and Japan.
Not capturing the weapons officer (the pilot was quickly rescued) was a missed opportunity for Iran, not a failure. The Trump Admin was incredibly lucky there is not currently a hostage situation and no one else was killed or injured[1] in the rescue. "Merely" 10s or 100s(?) of millions of dollars in equipment was lost in the process.
A bunch of US servicemembers have died or been maimed to achieve a rocky ceasefire with the end state looking worse than before the operation.
I certainly feel for the civilians affected, but from a pure "America First" perspective, this is a complete and total US failure.
[1]: Though I'm skeptical about the truth in this when officials have been bragging about helicopters with bullet holes in them.
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Is this the level of discussion we have devolved to now on HN?
As above, so below.
Can you refute them? This is an insane performance to distract from withheld Epstein files. The DOJ has not done their duty, and the only reason the American public is ignoring it is the Iran War.
The US was goaded by Israel into joining a war that has not achieved it's stated objectives. America is deriding NATO for not joining this suicide mission, burning goodwill that would be valuable in a Russia/China conflict, because it's more valuable for Israel's geopolitical microcosm. Hegseth gutted the US' officers leading up to the war, precipitating war crime-adjacent strikes that have been decried even by GOP politicians.
Neither America nor Israel are better off because of this conflict, and China (once again) wins by embracing diplomatic capitalism. The economic soft-power of the dollar is now even more precarious than before.
It's a loss for the US. That's not equivalent to a win for Iran... both sides can and frequently do lose in wars.
>We saw how degraded their military capabilities became when they couldn't capture a pilot on their own land for nearly 48 hours
This is a such a armchair opinion. One country has the location information and other has vast forest and mountains. How it took 48 hrs for US is a eye opening scene for rest of the world. Multiple trillion of defense budget still a minion.
All policy aimed at preventing nuclear Iran has one goal: buy time. I think it is hard to argue that time has not been bought (though how much and whether the price was right is another question). The only semi-stable long term option is a friendly Iranian government. The IRGC's main purpose is to occupy Iran, so anything that makes them weaker, less stable and more decentralized improves the odds of successful internal revolt in the long run. It is really hard for me to see how any of this has made the IRGC more stable in the long run.
The threat of the strait closure has always been a major factor in Iran policy from all relevant nations, it is just now explicit. It's hard to take the Russia point seriously when the war forced both Russia and Iran to shift resources form the Ukrainian theater to the Persian Gulf; it seems to be close to a wash. It's also kinda silly to gas up using interceptors for their intended purpose as "heavy damage" or catastrophize about rounding errors in damage to USA assets, while simulatenously writing off the total effect of all USA/Israel actions as inconsequential.
Disruption to global fossil fuel supply chains was also a goal of this war, so I am not sure you should list it as a negative. In the current state of the world, USA interests and global economic interests are becoming increasingly decoupled, and one shouldn't assume they are automatically aligned.
Also this has probably done more to hasten the world's weaning off fossil fuels than any action by any other government.
IRGS domestic propaganda has always been that US is a military murderous malevolent regime, mercilessly going after their land and their children.
With just a little bit of propaganda spin, or even without it, US just proved to the entire Iranian population that IRGS was right all along.
This should strengthen or even harden their regime as they will have new generation of hardliners join the movement.
This is like 1930s Germany kinda thing. Who won or lost is semantics at this point, the regime is free to spin it any way they want, and will have quite the support to do it.
> All policy aimed at preventing nuclear Iran has one goal: buy time.
Buy time to do what?
> All policy aimed at preventing nuclear Iran has one goal: buy time. I think it is hard to argue that time has not been bought (though how much and whether the price was right is another question).
Given that Iran has been one week/one month/one year away from acquiring nuclear capabilities since 2014 - first Trump Presidency, and they are not any closer a decade later this "buying time" rhetoric is nothing short of "Iraq has WMD" level of absurdity.
> Iran has been one week/one month/one year away from acquiring nuclear capabilities since 2014
Not disagreeing, but Bibi is saying this since 1980s. Now he found US leader stupid enough to believe these tales.
It is not jist Bibi, but also the IAEA and other international organizations. And at least the last 5 US administrations. I suppose they could also all be in Israel's pocket though.
Iran's 60% enriched uranium stockpile is really not up for debate. Iran is happy to tell everyone that they have it. With the proper equipment, 60% can go to 90% in a single month. So the question is how advanced is the Iranian infrastructure for the final enrichment step, and (less commonly talked about) how ready they are to actually make a fission bomb out of that material. The latter task is not considered to be very hard, North Korea did it after all, so the main focus has been on the former. There does seem to be some decent information that the centrifuge array has been under active development at various points, and has been consitently, actively targetted by Mossad/CIA for at least the past 20 years or so. For example, Stuxnet was a joint CIA/Mossad operation that begain in 2005 and continued through both GWBush and Obama.
Unfortunately, even with some nice bribes from Obama, Iran was always a little cagey with the IAEA inspectors, and officially kicked them out in 2021. So after that, the only sources for the state of Irans nuclear infrastructure information effectively became Iran itself and Mossad.
> I suppose they could also all be in Israel's pocket though.
Now you're getting it.
I'm not gonna argue whether it is true or false, but the scale of the conspiracy you are proposing is pretty massive. Multiple orders of magnitude bigger than anything that is currently within the mainstream public consciousness.
In this case, I think a network of mostly independent actors whose interests happen to align makes more sense. But maybe sometimes those interests are a little different than what people commonly understand them to be.
>It is really hard for me to see how any of this has made the IRGC more stable in the long run.
It's not hard for me to see. It's very similar to the situation in Ukraine. They have suffered losses but I can only imagine that their morale and confidence is through the roof. Conversely, the population must feel that there is no hope of getting rid of them. The cavalry sounded the horns but mostly rode into the river.
>Disruption to global fossil fuel supply chains was also a goal of this war
..what?
I am not convinced that a population that just recently had 30k people die in a revolt is gonna immediately rally around their oppressors after a foreign power kills 2k. I have yet to see compelling evidence that formerly IGRC-hostile segments of the population have switched alleigances. It is possible. But one could also imagine an exhausted population that is tired of a goverment they despise putting a target on their backs. The Iranians I personally know suggest that the second idea is more true, but it is anecdotal evidence with heavy selection bias. Another factor is that Iran has an unstable food and water supply, and people who lack food and water tend to focus their anger on whoever is closest that has food and water.
The Trump administration is actively interested in the dissolution of the current global economic order. This is why they are relatively unbothtered by the global economic shock that is a Strait of Hormuz closure, whereas the globally-oriented neoliberal administrations of the past wanted to avoid this at all costs.
I am not suggesting that the IRGC has gained popularity, I am suggesting that they are emboldened, and conversely that the population is discouraged.
>they are relatively unbothtered
I mean, obviously, Trumps word is worth about as much as the air it's spoken into, but his recent "truths" don't seem unbothered to me.
> a friendly Iranian government
That will take hundreds of years to accomplish. No Iranian has forgotten Operation Ajax in 1953[0] - overthrowing the lawfully elected government of Iran and replacing it with a dictator[1].
> In the current state of the world, USA interests and global economic interests are becoming increasingly decoupled
This is entirely due to Trump constantly "ripping up" previous agreements and treaties. It has become obvious to all observers that the US can no longer be trusted to act in the interests of any other nation. For their own survival, they have to become independent of US economic and political interests.
Notes:
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
1 - The book The Persian Puzzle explains much of the history behind why the US/Iran relationships have always been and will always be terrible. https://www.amazon.com/Persian-Puzzle-Conflict-Between-Ameri...
> It is really hard for me to see how any of this has made the IRGC more stable in the long run.
It's not really that hard to see - if you open your eyes.
If you refuse to do that, to the point where you see nothing but the hint of a silver lining in every carcinogenic cloud, then yeah I guess things must look pretty silvery.
It’s a nation of 90 million people. Now that basically every facet of society has been hit by a single common enemy, they will galvanize and it won’t matter what name IRGC or whatever you give it they will start to work in unison for common security and deterrence.
Yes - but OP would need to take off their blinkers to see any of that.
As long as they refuse to do that, they can keep claiming this war was a big cool success.
> No regime change, IRGC is stronger than ever
Pretty sure they've seen better days
> They attempted to extract some of it with the failed F15 mission
This is fake Iranian propaganda. It makes no logical sense. The force sent to extract the F15 officer (approx 2 C130s of equipment) is far to small to retrieve tons of nuclear material stored at Isfahan.
> Military apparatus is intact
No, the IRGC is struggling. After weeks of bombardment, they are unable to provide food or basic supplies for its own army. https://www.iranintl.com/en/202604074692
Sources said that over the past 72 hours, operational forces have faced acute shortages of basic supplies, including edible food, hygiene facilities and places to sleep.
Recent strikes on infrastructure and bases have left many Guards and Basij personnel sleeping in the streets, and in some areas they have had access to only one meal a day.
According to informed sources, some personnel were forced to buy food from shops and restaurants with their own money after expired rations were distributed.
At the same time, disruptions affecting Bank Sepah’s electronic systems have reportedly delayed the salaries and benefits of military personnel, fueling fresh anger and mistrust within the ranks.
Iran International had previously reported similarly dire conditions in field units, including severe shortages of ammunition, water and food, as well as growing desertions by exhausted soldiers.
Even in the Guards’ missile units, which have historically received priority treatment, sources reported serious communications failures and food shortages. They said commanders were continuing to send only technical components needed to keep missile systems operational, rather than food or basic individual supplies for personnel.
> majority of missile cities are still operating
Missile launch volume is down ~90% from the beginning days of the war.
> Millions of dollars of damage to all US assets in the gulf
Iran has taken $150-200 billion dollars in damage, to its assets, and also economy.
Their entire missile manufacturing supply chain was destroyed, with the destruction of both the Parchin Military Complex and Khojir Missile Production Center, they have no ability to produce more. The Iranian missile problem was one of the primary causes of this conflict.
Both the Mobarakeh Steel & Khuzestan Steel factories have shut down. They are responsible for 1% of Iran's GDP, and billions of dollars of profits which fund the Iranian economy.
If there were no ceasefire, Iranian power and petroleum facilities would be destroyed today. Both sides do not want this to happen, because it would set back the Iranian economy by a decade, and cause an enormous humanitarian crisis.
It is not possible to run a modern economy without fuel or electricity.
> Multiple US air crafts damaged and many wounded
Iran lost its entire air force, and navy; losses are far higher on the Iranian side than US/Israeli.
So far, the US/Israel have not lost any ability to continue combat operations; they can maintain this level of bombardment for months.
It is not possible to run an advanced economy, capable of manufacturing missiles and drones at scale, under perpetual bombardment.
I basically believe you're right, but I can't wrap my head around this: How is it that they still have any control at all of the strait after all of this? Is their significantly depleted missile force enough of a threat as long as they have any credible capability whatsoever left?
Iran "controls" the strait by shooting missiles at any ship that passes through without paying them a protection fee. This includes ships that pass through Omani waters, which it has no legal control of. It's terrorism, and also an act of war.
Iran built thousands of fast-attack speedboats which patrol the strait, get up close, fire a few missiles, and quickly return. This video gives a good explanation of their strategy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKJHaODzP-0
This can be mitigated by the US/Gulf Countries, with a large number of airplanes / drones patrolling the Iranian shore, and preventing these boats from launching.
But we've been bombing them for a month... They hide the boats in caves or something? (I'm really trying to learn here, not trying to argue)
Yes, Iran built underground caves specifically to store their attack speedboat fleet. The US and Israel bombed the entrance to one on Qeshm Island multiple times, and it's unknown how many boats are still functional.
More information here https://news.sky.com/story/iran-unveils-underground-naval-ba...
Hard to believe the video when they use all AI generated clips.
The straight is narrow enough that they could use artillery to hit the ships in it.
And for US and/or Israel to prevent it, they would have to occupy the correspondingly wide strip of Iranian coast. At which point we're talking about a massive ground invasion (and of course then the same artillery would be firing at those troops, so you can't really just stop there either).
Or, you know, counter-battery systems and hundreds of patrolling drones.
During Desert Storm, US batteries returned fire before enemy rounds even hit apogee.
Desert Storm involved half a million troops on the ground. Iran is about 4x the size of Iraq and has more than 3x the population. The part of Iraq involved was flat desert terrain. Most of Iran is mountainous.
> During Desert Storm, US batteries returned fire before enemy rounds even hit apogee.
That's something ground-based. And to avoid counter-battery fire, tanks move after every shot.
The Arleigh Burke class of destroyers[0] might have similar capacity since each one holds 90 missiles in the vertical launch system[1] (so they might be loaded with anything: anti-ship, anti-sub, anti-satellite, anti-aircraft, ground attack or maybe anti-missile missiles). However, to reload those missiles involves several days in port. There are only 75 Arleigh Burke destroyers at this time. Not all are near the Gulf. It wouldn't be too hard for Iranian forces to fire $10k drones that require $1M missiles to stop.
Notes:
0 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke-class_destroyer
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_41_vertical_launching_sys...
1. There is only a narrow passage through the strait which is "navigable" (meaning deep enough for supertankers - many are too big for the Suez Canal). This passage is within artillery range of the coastal mountains along the strait.
2. Now that the region is a "war zone", no insurance company will cover ships entering/transiting the strait. This was an issue during the Iran-Iraq war only solved by US Naval vessels escorting tankers. At that time, hitting a US ship would have started a war. This time, the US is an active participant in this war and every ship escorted by US ships would be a valid/legitimate military target. Shipping companies work on razor thin margins and cannot afford the risk themselves. Losing one ship (or it being out of service for months due to missile strikes) is an existential threat to the smaller shipping companies.
> This is fake Iranian propaganda. It makes no logical sense. The force sent to extract the F15 officer (approx 2 C130s of people) is far to small to retrieve tons of nuclear material stored at Isfahan.
And how does it make any logical sense to send 100+ spec ops guys in two big planes to rescue one (1) guy in a remote mountainous location? That's begging for >1 casualties and PoWs in situation which would otherwise be capped at 1. Mickey mouse nonsense.
It's far more logical that there was a different operation planned, one that would actually require hundreds of special ops guys, like securing a strategic site. And just because two planes were "stuck in the mud" doesn't mean there weren't more involved or planned to be.
> And how does it make any logical sense to send 100+ spec ops guys in two big planes to rescue one (1) guy in a remote mountainous location?
I’m a former Air Force officer, and can attest that this is in fact a long-term standing policy. “Never leave a man behind” exists because if we didn’t have that policy, pilots would be too risk averse to fly the missions aggressively.
Check out the “Notable Missions” section for a few very public examples over the past decades:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_search_and_rescue
Love it! Thanks for the context.
I never claimed there was no CSAR operation, and you still can't explain why you need 100+ spec ops guys in two big landing planes for this particular operation.
The US military had information assymmetry and aerial dominance. They established contact with the missing WSO through a magical CIA technology known as a "satellite phone". They secured the area with aerial surveillance and strikes, then sent in a couple helicopters to do the extraction. Nowhere does this require 100s of operators on the ground, risking their lives and escalating to a ground war. This isn't the 1960s in Vietnam.
It's one of the reasons the US military is so good. As a soldier, you know they will come for you, behind enemy lines, so you can fight like hell, knowing that your fellows have your back.
The gains in morale can not be underestimated.
> And how does it make any logical sense to send 100+ spec ops guys in two big planes to rescue one (1) guy in a remote mountainous location? That's begging for >1 casualties and PoWs in situation which would otherwise be capped at 1. Mickey mouse nonsense.
Fucking software engineer "logic." They're not playing starcraft, pushing around mindless units that will thoughtlessly follow any stupid order you give them?
I'm a person. You make it clear you'll abandon me the moment it's "logical," I will abandon you. If you make it clear you'll go the extra mile for me, I may be motivated to do the same for you.
Below answered well, but if you were that 1 guy, wouldn't you want 100+ spec ops looking for you?
No, I would absolutely not want 100s of guys blindly crawling over the dirt, I would want someone to pick up my satellite phone calls and send a couple helicopters.
I thought the consensus was that Iran had less than 500kg of enriched uranium?
1. Why pretend like you have any insight into the state of Iranian uranium? Just immediately makes you unreliable.
2. Ah yes, "supreme leader" doesn't sound "top down" at all
3. If by "still operating" you mean, not shooting missiles out of fear of getting destroyed. Sure. But that's silly.
4. For now. But very unlikely to last, imo.
6. "IRGC stronger than ever" is an insane take. How could they be stronger than before this war? They aren't. Again, shows that you're completely unreliable on this subject
7. "Millions of dollars" haha. Oh no, not millions with an "M"!
8. Sure. But how are you going to downplay the damage to Iran and then emphasize the damage to the US when they are many orders of magnitude different? Like, surely you don't think the damages are at all comparable
9. So long as Iran has oil to sell, yes
10. K.. again, playing up damages that are orders of magnitude less than what Iran has sustained
11. True
You seem to be very confident in your understanding of what is currently going on in Iran, despite the fact that you no longer live there. Obviously the IRGC has the internet turned off for a reason. They want to be able to control the narrative. And if it were all roses like you're making it out to be, they would personally be paying the internet bill of every Iranian to spread the word. Yet instead, they silence your people.
And do you really want to bring up the school, as tragic as it was, after your government slaughtered like 30,000 of its own citizens days before that? Motes and beams and all that.
you seems very confident about 30k casualties propagated by western media. all we, in the south east, see from west media and leader are just lies and hypocrisy
yikes
Wars are about objectives. The USA managed to accomplish none of its objectives. Iran forced USA to concede and call for ceasefire before US could achieve objectives. That’s the definition of defeat. Iran won by not losing and holding out.
Iran has more leverage at the end of this war than it did at the start. Iran has proven that it has the capability to catastrophically disrupt global economy.
That analysis requires discovering what the US’s objectives were. Not sure we can…
Discovering? It was announced a thousand times, maybe you dismissed because none of them were easily achievable?
Opening the Strait, renouncing nuclear program, renouncing ballistic program, regime change. Even Israel will be forced to retreat from Lebanon.
Iran won by choking the Strait and telling USA and Israel they could endure far longer than their aggressors could endure a few missiles and domestic support drop.
A Pakistani-made taco was not in my radar for today.
Opening the Strait was not a goal of this action; the Strait was open before this war started. They are trying to sell as a win a return to the status quo ante.
Right. So the objectives for US were regime change in Iran and end of nuclear program. Iran wanted sanctions dropped and continued nuclear program.
I think you will find that Biden closed the straights and that it was going to be reopened and China was going to pay for it. (/s?)
I dismissed them because the president and the Pentagon could not seem to articulate the objectives of the war in a way that was cohesive with one another.
Also,the Strait was open before the war.
Yeah obviously opening the strait wasn’t an objective. I think what you’re suggesting is that the mentioned reason - denuclearization of Iran - is unlikely to be the real reason, which may have been something like distraction.
> Opening the Strait
So the US started a war with an objective to open the Strait which only closed due to the war they started.
Can you explain what you mean here mate?
How on Earth was opening the straight an objective of this war, when the straight was open before the war.
It's like Russia declaring that Russian control of Moscow is an objective of the war with Ukraine.
> renouncing nuclear program,
If that was the objective, the US should be declaring war on the guy who scrapped the Iran nuclear deal, because it was accomplishing just that.
I explained the primary cause of this war here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47684632
This war is happening today, to exchange a future nuclear war with Iran with a conventional war today. The US and Israel can fight a conventional war with Iran. They cannot fight a nuclear one. In a nuclear war, Israel would be destroyed by nuclear missiles in the two days. The possibility of a nuclear Iran is an existential crisis for Israel, and Israel will do anything possible to prevent Iran from gaining nukes.
That is why we have this conventional war happening today, (with unclear goals), to prevent a nuclear one in the future.
This war was unavoidable btw, it was going to happen sometime this year or next.
> This war was unavoidable btw, it was going to happen sometime this year or next.
Iran was, as per the latest reports I've read, complying with terms and not enriching uranium to weapons-grade or close to weapons-grade. Are there credible reports suggesting otherwise?
Those reports are old. IAEA inspectors have not been able to access any of Iran's nuclear facilities since the start of the 12 day war on June 13, 2025. Currently, nobody knows what Iran is doing with their nuclear material.
If only there was an agreement in place to help with that. Oh wait, that got canned by someone when started this nonsense.
What do you make of Netanyahu claiming that Iran was weeks from a nuclear bomb, 20-30 years ago?
What do you make of US/Israel assassinating the supreme leader that had declared a fatwa against nuclear weapons?
> This war was unavoidable btw
Wars of choice, thousands of miles away from the nearest US city, are extremely avoidable, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
This is fantasy with no real evidence to support this view.
Although it might reflect actual considerations of Israel and, by extension, the US, that's ultimately a very unreasonable take. Iran might not have been trying to build nuclear weapons in the past, as they claimed. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. In contrast, Iran will try to build nuclear weapons in the future with certainty. They'd be insane not to try now, after having been bombed for weeks in an illegal war of aggression against them and having been threatened with massive war crimes and genocide.
A lot of stuff leaked today:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-wa...
The main one was stayed to be regine change. That didnt happen
Some might argue that the US's (or the POTUS's) objective was simply to disrupt the financial markets.
And that benefits them… how?
Not sure, but any event, positive or negative, will benefit those who know the exact timing in advance.
This sounds like goalpost moving. Like if you fail to acheive regime change, just say whateber the consequences of your failure were had been your objectives from the start. According to "some" who might "say"
You speak like you and I discussed this before, and you remember where the original goalposts were.
Many analysts suggested that the attack was a smoke-and-mirrors, and the actual goal has always been financial. Similar to the tariffs story. According to that opinion the outcome of the attempt is irrelevant. Regardless of whether the regime have changed or not, the goal is still achieved.
"Some", "many analysts"
Come on man. The goal was regime change. They said its regime change. They were chasing the high of the maduro kidnapping. But then they ended up replacing Khamenei with Khamenei like they replaced the taliban with the taliban in afghanistan. Its fucking embarrassing
Well if the objective was just about distracting from some domestic issue, then maybe it doesn't matter from Trump's perspective.
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What action can Iran take today that they couldn't take a year ago? No one who has been paying attention should be surprised that Iran can shut down the straight. It has been a known factor for decades.
They have less leverage. The have so much less that they are forced to openly use their last and most powerful card for their survival, when they never have had to before. That is a position of weakness, not strength.
>The have so much less that they are forced to openly use their last and most powerful card for their survival
That is not their most powerful card. Their most powerful card is mining the Strait of Hormuz and taking out all GCC desalination and oil infrastructure. That would result in a global depression, and probably end the Gulf countries as we know them.
Destroying the gulf states would dramatically reduce the importance of the Strait, which would make mining it or otherwise shutting it down somewhat pointless anyway. It is a bit of mutually assured destruction, but the USA is probably in the best position of anyone to weather that storm.
I suppose it is more powerful in an absolute sense than just temporarily shutting down the Strait, but like Russia's nukes, I think the threat is more useful than the play itself. Unless they are just looking to take others down with them.
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Maybe recession but not depression. Oil prices have been this high before.
> What action can Iran take today that they couldn’t take a year ago?
Remove of sanctions, ability to monitize traffic through the strait, guarantees against aggression and a cessation of military bases in their region. IMO, a much stronger position than they were in a year ago.
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More leverage with less conventional firepower? Objectives of reducing conventional military threats and nuclear weapons seem less now, no?
1. The strait had freedom of navigation before, now Iran controls it.
2. It was suspected Iran would shut the strait in a conflict. Its ability to enforce the closure was question. Iran has now proven it can enforce control of the strait and American can’t do anything about it.
3. The negotiation plans mentions nothing of denuclearization. Iran doesn’t even need a nuclear deterrence now they have proven that closing the strait works so well.
4. The regime didnt collapse, leader replaced by the more hardline son. Command and control continued to function despite attempted decapitation.
5. Iran inflicted billions of dollars worth of damage to US assets forcing US soldiers to flee and reside in hotels.
6. Despite taking a pounding by America for over a month they can still target and destroy local targets as retaliation as they proved yesterday by striking large Saudi petrochemical plant and striking in the heart of Israel.
US soldiers get hotels when fleeing? Wtf lol
You keep making comments making it sound like you have a better view of the world than the people you're responding to, but just making personal attacks. The person you're responding to, for that specific point, is referring to: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/us/politics/troops-iran-h...
“Flee and reside in hotels” not equal to relocate and continue mission. The major operational staff at these bases still work there. Support was relocated not fleeing.
Soldiers hiding in hotels because their army bases are being bombed... Sounds a bit like using civilians as human shields to me.
Iran looks like it will get a toll on Strait traffic. This money, plus even a partial lifting of sanctions, will be a windfall.
Any Iranian leadership whose brains are not made of sawdust will use that money to race to a nuclear weapon. Clearly, we are in an era where the only reliable nuclear umbrella is locally sourced and homegrown. Expect a dominant geopolitical theme to be proliferation as every state that feels somewhat threatened boots up a nuclear weapons program. From ~9 states today, we should expect to see ~30 within the next 10-15 years.
> Your entire formal military apparatus was destroyed, nuclear sites in rubble, defense industrial complex leveled, two levels of leadership KIA, and the only thing preventing you from permanent destruction or regime change is an impotent threat of attacking ships?
* Which doesn't mean much nowadays: see Ukraine, and the perseverance of the Taliban who eventually got their way.
* Are you talking about now? Or last year when everyone was told that the nuclear program was obliterated? If it was then, why was there a second round of attacks in this year? And it's not like the existing stockpiles of enriched uranium vanished.
* As Ukraine has shown, you can have a defence industry in people's basements churning out 4M drones per year that can do a lot of damage.
* Yes, the past leadership was KIA. And new people were put in place who are more hardliner hawks than what was taken out. So how is a more hawk-ish regime a "win" for the US?
* An "impotent attack" that has kept several thousand ships sidelined in the Gulf? That has caused fuel (petrol, diesel, kerosene, LNG) prices skyrocket? That have caused helium (needed in chip manufacturing, MRIs, etc) prices to triple? If that's "impotent" I would hate to see effective.
Perhaps stop taking the administration's claims at face value. Their army has not been destroyed. They continue to launch missiles daily and have been extraordinarily successful in targeting US/Israel radar and defensive assets throughout the region. They have suffered air force and naval losses, but if you look back at analysis from before the war started, exactly nobody considered the Iranian air force or navy to be of any strategic significance. Iran operates on a distributed military structure rather than a centralized command, so the assassination of senior political and military leaders is not the crippling blow the US expected it to be.
And really, that expectation is itself stupid. Suppose the US got involved in a hot conventional war with another superpower, and in the first week they killed the President, the vice President, a bunch of Representatives and Senators, and a bunch of senior figures at the Pentagon. Would the US just fold, or would it fill those positions via the line of succession, declare a national emergency, and fight back vigorously? You know the answer is #2, and the idea that other countries might do the same thing should not be a surprise. It appears the US administration has fallen into the trap of believing the shallowest version of its own propaganda about other countries, and assuming that Iran was just like Iraq under Saddam Hussein but with slightly different outfits.
The Iranian strategy is basically Mohammed Ali's Rope-a-dope: absorb punishment administered at exhausting cost (very expensive munitions with limited stocks) while spending relatively little of their own (dirt cheap drones with small payloads but effective targeting, continually degrading the aggressor's radar visibility and military infrastructure). The one limited ground incursion so far (ostensibly to rescue an airman, but almost certainly a cover for something else) resulted in the loss of multiple heavy transport aircraft, helicopters, and drones at a cost of hundred$ of million$.
In your hypothetical scenario of the US losing its political leadership, we would probably be better off.
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If his point is that unserious you could just, you know, refute it.
I already did, 2 comments above.
The companies with billions on the line didn't seem to think Iran's threats to attack ships were impotent.
Their military capabilities are diminished in the short term, but if their ability to impose a toll on the Strait of Hormuz holds then that's a massive win for Iran in the medium/long term. A mere $2M per ship represents 10% of Iran's GDP. They would become the only country in the world to impose a toll on international waters, and they would have established a defensive deterrent almost as effective as having a nuclear bomb.
They took on the most powerful military ever seen and lived to tell the tale. It's hard to spin that as a loss for Iran.
Hormuz isnt international waters. Its split between iran and oman, as woukd the toll be in irans proposal
Hard to spin your supreme leader and all your generals and military commanders being flattened as a win.
The thing to remember about Iran is it's a country run by religious fanatics. Ask a secular democracy if they would trade the lives of most of their political and military leaders for a 10% boost to GDP and they would look at you like you're insane. Ask 86 year old Ali Khamenei if he would trade dying from an Israeli bomb landing on his house for Iran establishing a stranglehold on global oil trade and securing $100 billion in annual toll revenue, and he would have been ecstatic.
Yes, we basically pressed a magic button that eliminated two layers of leadership (as well as hundreds if not thousands of civilians). Now, what strategic objectives have we accomplished?
Call it a draw then. Which is crazy against the world superpower. And terrible for the US
do they matter if everyone else gets incredibly rich after?
the US killed an old man and his family, and also a bunch of people who'd already written all of their handoff docs
Not really that hard when the alternative is the regime collapsing and/or giving up their nuclear program?
In most wars, everybody loses.
The best Iran could hope for given its inevitable defeat by a far superior aggressor was to deny the invader any kind of spoils. And by those standards they seem to be succeeding.
So now we have a pointless war that has resulted in thousands of dead with no tangible benefit to anybody, except of course those cronies of the administration doing insider trading.
This is not pointless. It exists to exchange a future nuclear war with Iran with a conventional war today.
The US and Israel can fight a conventional war with Iran. In a nuclear war, Israel would be destroyed by nuclear missiles in the two days. The possibility of a nuclear Iran is an existential crisis for Israel, and Israel will do anything possible to prevent Iran from gaining nukes.
Most people do not comprehend this conventional war is happening today, (with unclear goals), to prevent a nuclear one in the future.
Hitting desalination plants across the gulf isn't much better than a nuclear war. If anything, the takeaway from this conflict is that nobody is ready for even the modest number of conventional ballistic missiles produced by an impoverished and dysfunctional state.
You think Iran's takeaway from this will be that they don't need nukes?
They always wanted nukes. So this war doesn't change already strong resolution to get them but can reduce resources available for this.
So instead of using diplomacy to ensure Iran stopped short of acquiring nukes - which had been effective - the US preemptively has attacked them, disrupting the region, killing civilians... to continue to prevent them from getting nukes.
What is the cost to the US to go on this excursion in an effort to simply maintain the status quo wrt nukes? Of course there's the real cost in treasure and the damage to its gulf allies, but there's a continued erosion of soft power and a deeply weakened relationship with other NATO countries.
So the upside here - the reason to suddenly switch from "diplomacy" to "aggression" was - what exactly? Oh, it's that Israel saw its opening, Netanyahu wanted a boost in his polls, and the old man in charge of the US was glad to do what his friend asked of him [0].
People want to believe that there's some purpose here, that there's method in the madness. But that continued belief relies on being blind to the reality before us.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-wa...
> It exists to exchange a future nuclear war with Iran with a conventional war today.
That's just ridiculous. Nobody can predict the future, so trading uncertain war in the future for a certain war today is completely irrational. (And for the same reason, the war today is unlikely gonna be easier than the war tomorrow.)
Besides, Iran has avoided having nuclear weapon, because it causes too many civilian casualties, and that's against their beliefs. In this, they're more civilized than Americans (and Europeans), despite that this might be considered to be an irrational view by barbarians like you.
I think you're just coping with the fact that this war was utterly pointless, destructive for almost everyone in the world, and a poor attempt to increase power by a small group of people.
You've got the wrong premise. Iran was actively developing nuclear weapons, and officials even admitted to it when interviewed.
https://www.memri.org/tv/former-iranian-majles-member-motaha...
Former Iranian Majles member Ali Motahari said in an April 24, 2022 interview on ISCA News (Iran) that when Iran began developing its nuclear program, the goal was to build a nuclear bomb. He said that there is no need to beat around the bush, and that the bomb would have been used as a "means of intimidation" in accordance with a Quranic verse about striking "fear in the hearts of the enemies of Allah."
"When we began our nuclear activity, our goal was indeed to build a bomb,” former Iranian politician Ali Motahari told ISCA News. “There is no need to beat around the bush,” he said.
Read the last two lines of that interview. Khamenei interpreted Islam as forbidding even building the bomb, and he is the moral authority on this, like it or not.
Japan could also have built a nuclear bomb, but chose not to. They decided that out of nothing else than their moral beliefs.
You simply don't want to accept than other cultures can be (in some respects, and even regardless of what individuals think on average - that's probably similar for large enough groups) more ethical than your own.
Iran enriched over 450kg of uranium to at least 60%.
There's no need for anything over 5% for powerplant use. They were preparing HEU for weapons; whether those weapons were to be built now or in 20 years is irrelevant.
Per international agreements, it was their right. The idiotic thing about this argument is that now everyone knows they want nukes and that not having ones is strategic mistake. Because Iran and Ukraine did not have one. Meanwhile, countries with nukes are safer.
Yes, I agree, except it's not irrelevant whether they built functional nuke or not, because this is used as a justification for war. (Not to mention, as a justification for war, "they could have built a nuke" is even more barbaric than "they have built a nuke".)
Still, that doesn't counter the fact they didn't actually make a nuclear bomb out of the material, nor the fact that their highest moral authority banned them from doing that, so it doesn't do anything to disprove that culturally they are more civilized (in that respect).
(Maybe an example from a corporation would clarify this better - the fact that there is a group of people in it doing things unethically doesn't mean that the company as a whole condones this behavior, even if structurally - how the corporation or capitalist society is constructed - might lead to some people doing it internally off the books. But once it is known to the CEO - the highest moral authority in a corporation, if he is not to be implicated in this, he must tell them to stop.)
It's frankly just moving the goalpost in an attempt not to accept your own barbarism. Is your culture OK with using nuclear weapons, even in self-defense? If yes, how do you dare to judge?
> their highest moral authority banned them from doing that
This means nothing. Iran says one thing publicly, then privately does another. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his country will not develop ballistic missiles with a range exceeding 2,000 kilometers [0]; yet they secretly developed missiles with a range of 4,000 km [1].
[0] https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2017-12/news/irans-leader-se...
[1] https://www.sipri.org/commentary/topical-backgrounder/2026/w...
> The best Iran could hope for given its inevitable defeat by a far superior aggressor was to deny the invader any kind of spoils
clearly not, they had an already planned goal to remove the american ability to impose sanctions, and implemented the plan, while sufferjng a ton of losses to personel and materiel.
this is a major improvement from where the US could impose sanctions and states would comply. surviving iranians are in a much better position now than before the war
I think the nature of war has changed. A slow moving swarm of drones, will keep large Aircraft carriers well outside the range of their fighter jets.
A nation can swarm an aircraft carrier with a 1000 drones, each costing about 40k USD. Only a few are needed to seriously damage the carrier. Not to mention ballistic missiles.
In this scenario, does a US massive, slow moving aircraft carrier possibly carrying hundreds of billions of assets really work ? Can the US meaningfully project power with these?
In this scenario, who holds more power or leverage ?
An aircraft carrier can project power within 500 miles. The idea is to use a few of these to knock out the air power of the opposing nation, basically airfields, missile stockpiles, factories, power infra, etc. And then drop in a ground invasion force.
Does this now work? I dont think so. 10 drones can be launched from the back of a truck.
The US Navy has quite a few more tricks up its sleeve apart from aircraft carriers. Just one publicly known that immediately comes to mind: amphibious assault ships, which can launch/land F35s.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Tripoli_(LHA-7) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCMSKTxgQI4
No need to swarm the carriers. Support craft are far more vulnerable, absolutely required, and low in numbers at this time.
A bunch of drones can’t be sent to knock out the American president and all its top generals and intelligence agents.
QED
> Your entire formal military apparatus was destroyed
How are they still firing missiles and downing aircraft?
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> Manpads and a few drones from tunnels aren’t a military. Planes, ships, and most missile launchers are… ?
This is a myopic view of engagement options. "Understanding Irregular Warfare":
* https://www.army.mil/article/286976/understanding_irregular_...
"Defense Primer: What Is Irregular Warfare?":
* https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IF/PDF/IF1256...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregular_military
The Afghan Mujahideen / Taliban didn't need planes, ships, and missile launchers to force the Soviets/Americans out.
There’s a difference between occupation (where this wins) and deterrence (where they can’t attack your country). The latter was the primary objective.
> (where they can’t attack your country). The latter was the primary objective.
Wasn't it "regime change"? Anyhow, how was Iran attacking "your country" (assuming you're talking about the US and not its proxies / clients).
> There’s a difference between occupation (where this wins) and deterrence (where they can’t attack your country).
How many countries was Iran attacking, or could attack, when they still had their "military" intact (in, say, December 2025)?
They couldn’t attack us to begin with.
Have you been living under a rock for the last quarter century?
It doesn’t take planes, ships, or missile launchers to defeat the US military. The average American gun owner is better equipped than the insurgents that have defeated our armed forces.
Define defeat here. I think everyone in this thread confuses actual defeat with indifference and political risk. If the US military could be defeated so easily America would cease to exist, no? It just loses interest and moves on. Nobody attacks the US because they would lose.
You can defeat someone without killing them. You can defeat someone without attacking them.
You don't even have to be in the same room as someone, nor in the same century, to defeat someone.
Defeat is failure to achieve strategic goals. (The fact that you’re even asking that question is a strong signal that you have no idea what you’re talking about, and that you think rhetorical questions are a substitute for critical thinking)
Anyone who thinks America would cease to exist due to foreign military action is a fool. Canada and Mexico do not have the logistical capabilities and no one else has trans-Pacific/Atlantic force projection.
> Nobody attacks the US because they would lose.
And anytime the US attacks someone it loses.
That's why the US won in Vietnam. Guerrilla warfare was no match for the planes and ships of the US military which swiftly defeated the Vietnamese and installed a friendly capitalist government.
This is now Vietnam with no boots on the ground or years of war? Wow! Thanks
Air power alone does not win any conflict. This is well known and proven over and over. Iran is not giving up its nuclear material for the asking, and there is no way for the US to secure without committing ground forces. Iran would love th US to commit ground forces, because it has a massive defensive advantage due to its terrain and decades of preparation for asymmetric conflict.
The US military is a paper tiger. All of the planes, ships and missiles are of limited utility when they're so afraid of 1 pilot getting captured.
That's not to say the rescue mission was wrong, the psychological advantage of Iran capturing the pilot would have been immense. But, it demonstrates just how weird the US military is.
Most militaries would have had no choice but to let the pilot get captured and then negotiate a prisoner swap at a later date. The US had the option to mount a rescue mission, and merely having that option available is a strategic disadvantage. Now Iran knows that the US is very unwilling to suffer captures. Now Iran is incentivised to maximize captures in the case of a ground invasion.
The US could probably win with a ground invasion, if they committed all their forces. But they're definitely not willing to suffer the consequences, so the effect is that they cannot win[0]. The US Army is a supremely powerful force that nevertheless cannot be used offensively anymore because the US is unwilling to suffer the consequences of doing so, kind of like a nuclear weapon.
[0] it reminds of Feynman's anecdote about a stage hypnotist. When the hypnotist invites you on stage and tells you that your eyelids are heavy and you cannot open them, you are aware that you could open your eyes if you wanted to. But in front of the watching crowd, you of course "choose" to obey the hypnotist and keep your eyes closed. So were you really able to open your eyes? The US military "chooses" not to open its eyes.
> Air power alone does not win any conflict
Air power alone can absolutely win a conflict, provided a compatible theory of victory. What it can't do is effect regime change.
If it isn't Vietnam, there are plenty of other humiliating US losses to pick from.
That’s why it took over 100 aircraft to rescue that pilot?
Search and rescue. Yes, it takes assets. Correct.
Except there was fight and the US lost multiple aircraft in that rescue and required the use of the most elite personnel US has. Let’s just say I don’t take Trump for his word.
US blew up C-130s stuck in sand. A few got shot up. Iranians on the ground got the brunt of the bullets, however.
If you have to blow up multimillion dollars worth of assets perhaps the operation wasn’t such a piece of cake.
That’s where you’re wrong, kiddo. They don’t need to win a set piece battle like it’s a chessboard. They’ve already woken everyone up from Pax Americana. I’m not sure what’s going to happen when the GCC realizes that pumping billions into the United States economy comes with no security guarantees or real benefit at all. We’re operating from a highly leveraged position. It’s going to take a while, but with a few more years of hindsight, the depth of what a monumental strategic blunder this is will seem hard to believe. We’re not sending our best to Washington.
Those “few drones” have completely kept the US military, ships and all, far away since they can damage and sink large expensive vessels with tiny cheap drones.
How did the planes and ships and missles fare in Iraq or Afghanistan? Oh yeah, decades and trillions spent and nothing changed. Iran is much larger and well armed everywhere, with support by China and Russia and others….
Good luck
Sure, but they can still hit critical infrastructure. Iran still has missiles that can hit Israel, they just launched some more tonight.
War is about achieving political gains, even if it means material losses.
Compare the proposal that the US rejected in February to the 10 point plan that Trump now says is a "a very significant step" which he now " believes it is a workable basis on which to negotiate."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/article/trump-agrees-to-two...
The proposal in February mentions limiting nuclear enrichment.
"The Iranian proposal does not meet core US demands. US officials told the Wall Street Journal that Iran’s proposal would force Iran to reduce enrichment to as low as 1.5 percent, pause enrichment for a number of years, and process its enriched uranium through an Iran-based regional consortium.[11] Four unspecified Iranian officials told the New York Times on February 26 that Iran would also offer to dilute its 400 kg of 60 percent-enriched uranium in phases and allow IAEA inspectors to oversee all steps.”
https://understandingwar.org/research/middle-east/iran-updat...
The new 10 point agreement (see top comment on this story) explicitly mentions "Acceptance of Iran's nuclear enrichment rights" and "Payment of damages to Iran for loss in the war" as conditions (along with lifting sanctions).
https://english.news.cn/20260408/dd8df6148df94252aaa1d3fbb59...
The new plan is CLEARLY a step backwards from the perspective of the USA and the fact that the US is entertaining it while Iran literally is still launching missiles to Israel means that this is clearly a step backwards for the US.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/no-immediate-re...
> is an impotent threat of attacking ships?
All the ships stuck in the Gulf probably didn't consider the threat impotent.
On the other side: what more can the US do? Target civilian infrastructure? There is no appetite for getting stuck with boots on the ground, and everyone (including Iran) knows this.
You're probably right that it won't a win for anyone. If some of the points includes removing sanctions from Iran, it might be a huge win -- for Iran, or at-least it's population.
This is true. 90% destruction of military is meaningless if 10% can wreck havoc on the strait. The cost associated with eliminating that 10% was deemed too much. That is Iran’s “win”.
> is an impotent threat of attacking ships?
It not that impotent. Attacking civilan targets in the age of drones is not that hard - a small motor boat with explosives or a shahed style drone is all you need. And to keep the strait closed they don't need to attack all ships. Even 0.1% probability of an attack (maybe even 0.01%) is enough to halt the traffic. And they don't need to sink the ship - a fire on board is enough to create an unacceptable security risk for tankers and LNG carriers.
It was a while since Houthis attacked any ships and yet traffic via Suez is still 60% down from what is was befor attacks started in 2023. Because the risk of an attack is not zero.
> Iran is a shell of the threat it was a month ago.
That's why it is crippling the entire world's economy and demanding concessions bigger than the status quo ante bellum, with the US powerless to stop it. Because it's no threat.
> 90% destruction of military is meaningless if 10% can wreck havoc on the strait. The cost associated with eliminating that 10% was deemed too much. That is Iran’s “win”.
The winner of a war is not the side with a bigger K/D ratio, it's the side that accomplished its objectives.
Objectively, the US has in every respect backslid on its objectives compared to a month ago.
Iran, on the other hand, went from not controlling the strait to controlling the strait.
> impotent threat of attacking ships
You've been paying attention to what's happened over the last few weeks and you qualify that threat as impotent? That impotent threat basically brought the rest of the world to it's knees.
Cost of insurance for ships did.
They hit like 20 ships, people died. That’s why insurance went up. Literally the US navy will not go near the strait due to the ballistic missile threat.
And why did the cost of insurance for ships rise?
Uncertainty.
Yes, of mines and fiery death.
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I try not to say things like this on here, but readong all your comments in this thread, it really feels like your not arguing in good faith
Your opinion on the matter is meaningless when in reality the strait is effectively closed for anyone that doesn’t have an agreement with IRGC.
Not interested in arguing semantics.
They've attacked ships multiple times since the conflict began, why are you discussing this like it's some fantasy hypothetical?
Some examples:
Tracking the wave of ship attacks that has choked off Strait of Hormuz
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c80j4rln8zmo
‘There’s no safe place here’: Kuwaiti tanker hit by Iranian drone attack in Dubai port
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/31/kuwaiti-tanker...
They've frustrated the biggest military on the planet to the point of issuing expletives. It's a huge moral win. Symbolism matters more than anything else in these situations.
I don't think its a victory for either Iran or the US.
Iran suffered a lot of losses in terms of people and widescale destruction of infrastructure.
But the US lost too, we come out of this war looking much weaker and more chaotic than we did going in, not to mention the amount of money we poured into it while accomplishing nothing (nothing we destroyed in Iran was a threat to us until we bombed them in the first place).
It's hard to see how the US benefits because the US is geographically very far away from this region but I don't think it was an expensive war: short duration, mostly just an air campaign. IMO Trump did this to send a message to the world.
Gulf countries and Israel should feel much better though, despite the losses, knowing that Iran's capacity is now limited to terrorist-like harassment. This is not the end however as the US, Israel and hopefully other countries should continue to monitor Iran closely.
"Not expensive" is a ridiculous claim. In another week or two we will have spent as much as the Department of Transportation's entire annual budget.
Worse than that, Iran has now proven that they have the ability to wreck the world economy at will, giving them a lot more leverage in all future negotiations.
If the proposal that Iran start collecting tolls on all traffic through the strait happens, that will give them such a large cash infusion that it's impossible to call this anything other than a decisive victory for Iran.
iran paid costs they expected to pay beforehand, but the result of negotation is that they dont need to give the concessions they were previously willing to give.
thats a pretty clear win. they paid a heavy cost for it sure, and war is expensive, but as a negotiation tactic goes, doing the war was a success
Asymmetric warfare shouldn't be measured on the metrics of conventional warfare. Iran can continue to cause enormous economic pain for the world without any of that.
Agree with same comment as above.
> This is true. 90% destruction of military is meaningless if 10% can wreck havoc on the strait. The cost associated with eliminating that 10% was deemed too much. That is Iran’s “win”.
But we can eliminate 90% of senior leadership at any time. How do they measure that cost?
One facet of guerilla element asymmetric warfare is to just do without that whole reliance on hierachy.
You arguably can't run gorilla large-scale manufacturing. There are obvious limits to what you can achieve when the opposition can run decapitation strikes every few months.
China and russia can. And they can send that shit to iran through pakistan and the caspian
You gotta bet china and russia loved what happened here
lol no, they both have lost substantial influence in Iran... the US has been chipping away at the spheres of influence for both China and Russia in recent months, first with Venezuela and now Iran. Hopefully Cuba is next.
And the US surveillance capabilities are substantially greater than they were during the Iraq and Vietnam wars. Smuggling in drones or missiles isn't some trivial affair.
And again, if they do that, we just decapitate their leadership again. And again. Until they stop.
and now you're into mesh logistics and distributed supply from outside backers in interesting terrain with long borders.
Irrelevant if you can keep doing decapitation strikes on leadership.
> Iran can continue to cause enormous economic pain for the world without any of that.
should every non-Western country be subsidizing all consumer fuel costs?
>impotent threat of attacking ships
Seeing diehard MAGAs in these comment threads is always so amusing. Clearly Agent Orange didn't think the threat was impotent if he crawled on his knees to negotiation table hastened by dire predictions of impending economic collapse but you somehow think it was "impotent" ? Astonishing :)
We’re both #DudesForKamala
> Your entire formal military apparatus was destroyed, nuclear sites in rubble, defense industrial complex leveled, two levels of leadership KIA
the same thing the media keeps asking trump: what do these things matter?
there's a meaningful change to iran's negotiating position basically forever into the future: the US cannot impose sanctions without also banning states from using the strait, and its clear what states will choose between the two. I still dont think they care about nukes, but now they can keep enriching as much uranium as they want to 60% and they can use that as a negotiation chip for something else.
the US and israel are not nearly the threats they were a month ago, not just iran has paid the costs of war
the real problem for iran is that now they actually have to deliver good stuff for their citizens - for all the western bluster, its still a democracy, and they do have to hydrate their population
We'll see if gas prices go down I suppose?
Stop watching Fox. You are completely misinformed on global politics.
> Your entire formal military apparatus was destroyed, nuclear sites in rubble, defense industrial complex leveled
According to whom? POTUS claimed to have done this back in June 2025.
It's not clear to me they are much less of a threat than they ever were, but it's also not clear to me they were ever much of a threat.
They did everything they could in this war, didn't they, and apparently it didn't do too too much? (other than the economic damage of closing the strait, which seems to be what worked). But I think they could probably keep doing everything they've been doing still? (including controlling the strait).
You think the US could destroy the regime, but has not? Can you explain? How would this work?
in 2 years they'll have 100x the drone production and chinese anti ship missles
In 2 years Hormuz will not matter potentially. You can’t win with the same strategy twice.
With battery tech going the way its going in two years how far do you think these drones will fly? Enough to hit all surrounding countries and cause chaos. There is also the Al bab whatever its called strait as well to shutdown.
I worry this war has only made things worse in every regard and pulling out at a time like this is also bad. The reason no one wanted to get into this position is because it takes some fucked shit and some pain to get out properly.
Well it's all settled then! Guess the show's over. Everything will be fine from now on. What else can be done to avoid the Epstein files?
We threatened to invade Cuba unless they "make a deal", whatever that means.
Probably be the next Venezuela, except they help us against drug dealers, so I'm not sure what lies will be told to justify this one.
That's asymmetric warfare basically. The regime is more or less intact. There are no US booths on the ground. And Iran just demonstrated it can majorly disrupt international energy markets by blocking the strait of Hormuz more or less indefinitely. With a major power like the US seemingly unable to prevent that or put a stop to it militarily.
Painting this as a victory for Iran would be a stretch. But they definitely did not lose either.
This is something that keeps on happening to the US. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. are all conflicts where the US won militarily and then had to withdraw anyway. Vietnam is still ruled by the communists, Afghanistan is ruled by the Taliban once more, and the regime in Iraq is nominally Iran supported and not exactly on the best of terms with the US either. This conflict seems to be a repeat of past mistakes. The US went in, bombed the shit out of stuff for a few weeks and only then steps back to literally think "Now what?!". It could have done that a few months ago and saved us all the trouble of having to deal with this BS.
Painting this as a US victory is also quite a stretch. Iran never really posed a credible military threat beyond its borders. Nor did Afghanistan or Iraq. I think China might consider this a win though. And they definitely pose a non trivial military threat. Some historians might end up arguing the US took some long term strategic hits here for essentially very little meaningful gains. And we'll see in November how Republicans fare on the economic aftermath of what you might describe as a gigantic cluster f** at this point.
1) Trump threatens stone age for Iran if they don't open the strait.
2) Iran agrees to open the strait if they're not attacked.
What happened here is they caved under Trump's threat but they're going to make it look like they're opening the strait on their terms, while Trump will make it look like they're opening the strait on his terms (which actually makes more sense, because if they didn't open the strait we'd have probably started bombing them)
And Iran's military hasn't been destroyed, they still control the strait. How do you explain that if they don't have a military?
I think you are right. Leadership vacuum will not resolve by itself: Iran either will go democratic way or into some internal fights (this one more probable IMHO).
And the US / Israel demonstrated that Iran has their balls in a vice.
Win some lose some.
And destroyed a school full of children too.
Have you missed the lessons of the last 25 years of US involvement in the middle east I guess?
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Insightful
I'm seeing your handle all over the page here, and respectfully, I think you'll benefit from logging off for a little while.
I was merely responding to replies directed at me. But that is probably good advice. No opinion was ever changed online. :)
Before the war, Ships passed freely through the strait, and Iran did not profit from it.
US gas was affordable, keeping not only passenger vehicle fuel low, but farming costs and groceries/ transporting goods in US.
Trump then claims Iran is dangerous and building nukes and is a threat, despite IAEA reports to the contrary.
At Geneva, Iran offers to hand over all their uranium. Trump refuses.
Hours later trump starts bombing Iran.
Iran closes the strait to choke US economy.
US fuel costs skyrocket affecting CPI basket.
Trump demands they open the strait, and makes threat if they don’t.
Iran now says “okay, we will open it if u stop bombing us but now we will charge 2million fee for vessels passage”.
Now US fuel remains high, an additional fee is in place, and Iran keeps their uranium.
No regime change. No uranium shift. Just a major inflation spike to the US (and global) economies. Oh, and Iran gains full control of the strait.
Art of the deal
I can't figure out what was even USA goal in this war ? they have said everything and it's contrary, so there is no way to know if they won or if they lost. I guess it's a smart move.
But on the other hand,
Iran still has enriched uranium, nuclear facilities and now they even have put in the agreement a recognition of Iran's right to seek nuclear technology.
Iran missiles.. they still shoot them and there is nothing to prevent them to build more. They are going to get a big cash-flow with that control of the Detroit, recognized in the 10 point agreement.
Iran government has not been replaced. I'd say it's even stronger now that it 'won' the war (that's the way they're going to show it on national television) and they even asked to get UN sanctions lifted. That will bring them some legitimacy back.
What other usa war goal were proclaimed ?
I vaguely remember a national security thing where Iran was going to bomb America. I guess the war didn't prevent that because Iran did kill American soldiers and caused billions of $ in loss.
Iran goal on the other hand ?
Destroy the evil American ? They weren't going to anyway.
Survive ? I guess they did.
And now the population that was supporting their government is even more radicalized.
> Iran government has not been replaced. I'd say it's even stronger now that it 'won' the war (that's the way they're going to show it on national television) and they even asked to get UN sanctions lifted. That will bring them some legitimacy back.
That's the thing, winning depends on your goals.
Iran's goal was to survive as a country, and the autocratic theocracy that rules it to stay in charge. Not only it managed that so far, but it now effectively controls the flow of all exports going through the gulf. It is an actual victory.
US' goals were unclear. A lot was said. Regime change? Stop Iran's nuclear program? Stop its support to proxies in the region? Take Kharg Island? None of that was done. It was a deafeat.
Israel's goal is murder. It murdered a lot of people during this war. Double points for murdering children. I think Israel can also claim victory here.
Yeah, on second thought I think that the real winner is Israel.
After all, it's their war. American shouldn't even care and yet they got convinced to spend billions and billions on this war that will benefit mostly Israel.
And the greatest achievement ? Before you mention it in the comment, I even had forgotten that Israel was cobeligirent in that war. They go under the radar when they are those who actually reached their goal: kill, murder Iran official, destroy their infrastructures, 'lay down the grass' as they say.
And now they even invaded Lebanon while the world is happy because the Detroit is open again.
Truly a masterclass.
Exactly. People always focus on discussing whether the US is succeeding or failing, whether Iran will control the strait or not, and they forget that Israel is an active party there.
Meanwhile they are also invading Lebanon, and never abandoned the genocide against Palestinians. That "final solution" is still ongoing, but completely fell of the radar.
> But on the other hand,
> Iran still has enriched uranium, nuclear facilities and now they even have put in the agreement a recognition of Iran's right to seek nuclear technology.
You can figure out the goal. What you can't figure out is a goal that actually had a snowball's chance in an oil fire of being achieved.
Unsurprising as America is currently run by a bunch of second rate TV presenters
I thought it was to create "Greater Israel"
Insider trading. People surrounding Trump like when he does crazy stuff that shifts markets, so they influence him to do so. And Trump is really easy to influence.
Let me articulate the thing which I believe is on many people's minds:
What is the chance the president will order a nuclear strike on Iran as this war proceeds?
We would hope the odds are vanishingly small, because doing so would be profoundly disadvantageous. But the same was true for initiating this war in the first place. The logic -- such as it is -- of some people in power may lead them to conclude once more that shock and awe can succeed. We've already struck the country with powerful conventional weapons at scale and it has not led to a weakening of Iranian resolve.
All the above said, my personal hope of course is this will never happen. I'm curious what other folks think however.
No chance. A nuclear strike on Iran won't achieve anything that a large number of conventional strikes would.
My real question is not whether it would achieve anything meaningful, but what would be the side effects of such a strike on allies in the region.
I don't have a remotely decent mental model of fallout etc from modern nuclear weapons - my assumptions are they're still toxic enough to be a bloody terrible idea anywhere near someone you like.
I think the main concern would be escalation, e.g. Netanyahu feeling emboldened to use his weapons too. And of course Putin, to try to shock Ukrainian forces and population (good luck).
Alliances might get reshuffled as everyone realizes they need to reassess their nuclear defense and deterrence. It would fundamentally change the nature of modern warfare, not for the better. Let us hope this never happens.
You're assuming the current president operates on rationale. He simply would love to be the guy who uses a tactical nuke.
How much would you wager? It's easy to to say what you're saying because it's popular.
If you watch action and not social media bs, the probability is close to 0%.
The shock and awe from a nuclear strike is unmatched
Yeah, that "shock and awe" would probably destroy any remaining US alliances.
Wouldn't*
This is basically a win for Iran.
1. They replaced the decrepit Khameini with a much younger and more formidable Khameini.
2. “Pulled a Ukraine” vs the US showing defiance and have now rallied any wavering regime supporters against the American and Jewish “devils”.
3. Reminded the anti regime population that they’re not going anywhere and that the US can’t help them.
4. Showed everyone in the ME and the world that if anyone messes with them they’ll close the straight. Then gas prices go up. Then your own domestic pop gets pissed. Then your chances of re-election drop.
5. Destabilised the whole region costing the ME lots and lots of money.
I'm no fan of this administration but another way to look at things is that the US can essentially destabilize a region while facing mild commodity price increases. Actually it shows that the US could eliminate the leadership at its leisure even if it can't hand select the replacements. I'm also not sure the powers that be in the ME hate the rising oil prices.
Again, not a fan of the situation and while I think it is the US's loss I do not really see how it is a win for Iran.
$2MM per tanker for safe passage is an extra $100 billion a year in revenue, which is peanuts next to the world's de facto acknowledgement that Iran now has sovereign control of the Strait of Hormuz and can charge whatever it wants. The ceasefire also includes lifting all sanctions on Iran, and notably says nothing about its nuclear program, which becomes de facto acceptance of its right to continue it to its logical endpoint of Iran becoming a nuclear power.
Before this started, it was impossible to imagine that Iran could achieve all this. It's hard to how this isn't a massive win for Iran.
> to the world's de facto acknowledgement that Iran now has sovereign control of the Strait of Hormuz
That people thought the sovereign waters of a nation were not their sovereign waters absolutely blows my mind. Is it poor schooling, some kind of warped world view?
> That people thought the sovereign waters of a nation were not their sovereign waters absolutely blows my mind. Is it poor schooling, some kind of warped world view?
Because they are not? Oman clearly shares a part of it.
its also the sovereign waters of oman as well, its just oman outsources its military to the USA, who didn't have the ability to enforce its sovereignty.
But this was a know risk, and there are at least 20 years of plans, thoughts risk assessments for the Strait of Hormuz. Had the state department not fired everyone, or the DoD not fired all its strategic advisors, they'd have been able to tell the exec all of these problems.
1. $2MM is their initial demand, expect it to be negotiated down.
2. There is a lot of missing details. Most ships transiting the Hormuz are Asian. Will Iran also charge China, their ally, or will they get a discount? And countries like Pakistan and India who have been neutral to slightly Iran-leaning? Can the US even "sign" such an agreement on behalf of the world? As far as non-parties to the conflict are concerned, Iran's toll is literal highway robbery.
3. "Lifting all sanctions" is again Iran's initial negotiating position. Most likely, the final agreement will keep some sanctions.
> As far as non-parties to the conflict are concerned, Iran's toll is literal highway robbery.
Yes.
But before the US started this stupid war, everyone knew that Iran had strategic control over the strait, and Iran reasoned that if they were to impose a toll on ships passing the strait, the rest of the world would gang up and bomb the shit out of them, removing their strategic control of the strait. So it was kept open.
But now the US went in and bombed the shit out of them anyway, whereupon Iran discovered that despite that, the US wasn't able to secure the strait. What they previously feared turned out to be manageable. They can close the strait, and the cost of stopping them is much, much higher than the US, or any other country wants to bear.
So the rest of the world is choosing between joining the US' illegal fiasco of a war in Iran to help open the strait, or simply paying the comparably tiny toll the Iranians are asking for, in return for oil shipments resuming immediately. So far, everyone is choosing #2.
As a bonus, Iran has also discovered that they can break through the defences of the other gulf states and legitimately threaten their oil facilities, desalination plants, and other infrastructure. Previously, the mostly US-supplied missile defences they had was assumed to be 100% effective, but by testing it, Iran now knows that they're not.
And all of this because the US, in its hubris and arrogance, assumed Iran was as defenceless and vulnerable as Venezuela, and that it would work out splendidly like that time. Idiocy.
<< And all of this because the US, in its hubris and arrogance, assumed Iran was as defenceless and vulnerable as Venezuela, and that it would work out splendidly like that time. Idiocy.
This. It is hard to express the level of exasperation past few week brought. The move left US in a notably worse strategic position than when it began.
Just because there are no worthwhile violent means by which to stop Iran from putting a toll booth in international waters doesn't mean that it can do it at no cost.
Doing this is going to make Iran a global pariah and piss off its only ally, China, who has to pay 70% of the toll (ostensibly, unless they cut a deal).
$2m is the current toll that Iran has already successfully charged any ships it allows. It amounts to an extra $1/barrel, so it's a trivial tax in comparison to what the supply shock is causing in fluctuations. China has already paid, and will happily pay going forward if it stabilizes the supply chain.
Expect it to go higher as negotiations cement Iran's highway robbery. Which, yes, it is highway robbery, but it's robbery no one is able to stop without invading and occupying Iran to execute proper regime change... which no one, least of all the US, is stepping up to do.
The U.S. has lost all negotiating leverage. It's been demonstrated that they're unable to militarily impose their will on Iran, and they're far more sensitive to economic disruption than Iranians are--who are, as I type this, forming human shield rings around vital bridges and facilities, ready to die if the U.S. bombs them. Negotiations are, at this point, about the U.S. coming away with some face-saving outcomes.
They're happily paying it because it is a wartime toll.
Consider also the renewed impetus for pipelines on the Arabian peninsula to bypass the strait.
Consider that China has now recognized this as a point of weakness and will be finding ways to reduce or eliminate their exposure.
There is only one permanent solution to blackmail. Shelling out the extortion money is only a temporary one. Blockading international waters is super illegal.
> Consider that China has now recognized this as a point of weakness and will be finding ways to reduce or eliminate their exposure.
China has always seen its need to import oil as a weakness and has been working on solutions to that, solutions it is now very happy to export to other countries that now recognize the threat as well. This war is a huge boon to China which probably helped it avert a recession that was otherwise going to happen this year or next.
The only real shocker is that the USA (well, the MAGA crowd) refuse to see this as a weakness. We have a way to literally make the Middle East irrelevant, and yet we’ve decided to pull back on our anemic (in comparison to China) efforts in moving in that direction.
Willing or not, the Hormuz toll will be paid for many years to come.
Thanks, Donald. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Dues
There are already pipelines in the Arabian Peninsula. None of those help - on the contrary, they are more vulnerable than tankers. The Houthis have already targeted the Saudi pipelines in the past.
The only possible solution would be underground pipelines but a.) sunk costs into existing pipelines, b.) capex needed is much higher, c.) you can't transport all of the oil and gas, or even a significant fraction of it through standard sized pipelines.
Saudi Arabia will invest into a port on the Jeddah side, that's for certain.
China has understood their dependency on seaborne oil for years and been actively working to mitigate it with EVs etc. Their electricity mix is coal, renewables and nuclear with not a lot of natural gas.
International law doesn't really exist and if it did, the US and particularly Israel have committed far worse violations (including the most taboo one of all, genocide). Redrawing some borders on a nautical chart by force is minor in comparison
So is declaring that you won't abide by the Geneva Conventions, targeting civilian infrastructure and double tapping a girls' school, but here we are at the logical conclusion of the dumbest war in centuries.
Another question is, how is Iran going to enforce this?
It doesn't seem Iran still has a navy that could board ships and force them to stop without actual violence.
What happens if a tanker decides to not pay and chance it? Will Iran sink it? That would constitute an act of war (a reprise of the war). Hard to pull off politically (even if it's easy to do technically).
Now imagine how the international community feels about the toll - “sure would be nice if Iran’s leadership was replaced so we don’t have to pay a toll for an international waterway”.
The whole situation further isolates Iran globally (they were already isolated before the war).
Now imagine how the international community feels about the US starting a war of aggression against Iran without even consulting with its allies and trading partners beforehand.
The whole situation further isolates the US globally (they were already isolated before the war due to threats of taking Greenland, making Canada the 51st state, leaving NATO, etc.).
How do you know allies and trading partners weren’t consulted? Of course they were! The US had to get overflight permission the first day.
Iran had long been a thorn in the side of Europe and the Middle East countries. There is no love lost if the US decides to attack Iran. Most US allies would welcome deposing the current Iranian regime.
The US is anything but isolated. Notice how happy Europe is now that the US is bankrolling the Ukraine war?
Don’t confuse public statements intended for local consumption with what’s happening behind the scenes. Countries will happily talk tough to keep their own people happy all the while partnering behind the scenes.
> How do you know allies and trading partners weren’t consulted? Of course they were! The US had to get overflight permission the first day.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/gulf-allies-disappointed-...
https://www.newsweek.com/nato-nations-defy-trump-refuse-to-h...
https://lavocedinewyork.com/en/news/2026/03/19/nato-trump-in...
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/31/trump-america-first-policy-t...
> Notice how happy Europe is now that the US is bankrolling the Ukraine war?
The US is not currently bankrolling Ukraine in the way it was in 2022–2024. Under Donald Trump, no new large aid packages have been approved, and support now largely consists of delivering previously authorised funds and equipment.
That’s a funny way of saying the US is still bankrolling the Ukraine war.
Except it isn't: https://www.kielinstitut.de/fileadmin/_processed_/4/3/csm_mi...
Would you say “if one country is the largest individual donor, then its bankrolling it”
I would
mopsi provided a link to data. Please at least look at it before making unsubstantiated statements. It clearly shows that the US has not contributed since the beginning of 2025, let alone 'bankrolled' it.
It just isn't though.
Why, despite the facts being as clear as crystal, do you insist on lying?
> so we don’t have to pay a toll for an international waterway
I don't think it was international. I think it was 50% Iran's and 50% Oman's.
Looking at the map, wouldn’t a suez canal type construction be viable somewhere on that peninsula?
If you consider the topology, it is way less viable.
If you go through UAE (the narrow part) you are attempting to build a canal through mountains and desert.
Any other route (the non narrow parts) would just be 3-4x the length of the Suez Canal but through a desert, but since its not sea level the whole way, with locks (which means more water... again, desert), and at the end forces you through an even narrower strait at the end (Bab-el-Mandeb). The Houthis in Yemen have blasted Israeli-affiilated ships in that strait before, and they are Iran-backed.
Also, even if any of that were done: As ACOUP pointed out, the problem is not just the strait itself. Iran controls the entire eastern coast of the gulf and could harass ships from any location there. Even if ships could somehow bypass the strait, they'd still be in danger as long as they are in the gulf.
Essentially, Iran showed it can control most of the gulf if it wants to.
https://acoup.blog/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/
You can't cross the Arabian peninsula to the Red Sea either as there's also a mountain range on the west of it.
The only viable passage would be through the center of Oman (no mountain here) but that would be a gigantic canal. And that wouldn't really solve the issue, as the Iranians could easily block the canal as long as it is within reach of their drones and ballistic missile: you just need to hit one ship in the canal to effectively block it.
Look at a topographic map instead, this is a mountain range that goes up to 1934m.
Ships aren't going up there in this century.
Why dig a whole canal when you could just set up a pipeline for much less money?
Or you could, like China did, build a massive railway from China directly to Teheran, thereby bypassing most of the maritime sanctions and maybe even transport oil directly to China:the 5 nations railway corridor https://fountainbridge.substack.com/p/china-iran-rail-corrid...
That's not a US specific strength though, anybody with the ability to strike someone with shorter range than theirs can do that. I.e. Netherland can destabilize South America through attacking Panama and its very unlikely that Netherlands will be bombed.
Sure, when US Brazil etc. are pissed off enough, Netherland can just TACO like the US did.
China and Russia can do the exactly same thing to Iran too and Iran won't be bombing Moscow or Beijing either.
It might demonstrate madness though, which in same cases can be useful.
This is an insane take. Why would Netherlands do this when America exists? And even if they didn't rest on their laurels and let America do it, they would not be able to establish a kill chain the way USA can, and so they would need American support. And even if they forewent the support, they would be denounced on the global stage and suffer massively economically. You are massively underestimating just how much liberty USA has to say YOLO and do whatever it wants.
Russia has established that it cannot in fact do this! That is why the two week special operation has gone on for so long.
China? It remains to be seen.
For now the best assumption is that USA is in a league of its own when it comes to imposing its will on other nations.
> Why would Netherlands do this
Maybe the Dutch are willing to risk it all to annoy the libs so they will elect and transfer all the power to a complete clown and attempt to make some money on the stock market and betting sites in the process.
I don't think parent is arguing that is a wise or prudent thing to do, but merely that violence is very much accessible to the state as an option. Just because it is not exercised with reckless abandon like, especially more recently, in the case of US, does not mean it suddenly does not exist.
<< For now the best assumption is that USA is in a league of its own when it comes to imposing its will on other nations.
You are wrong in general on this point. European countries in general have a long and exciting history of imposing its will upon others ( unilaterally and not ).
> For now the best assumption is that USA is in a league of its own when it comes to imposing its will on other nations.
It literally lost and wasted huge amount of resources in the process. Everyone else politely nodded until insulted too much, but otherwise ignored what USA wanted. When insulted, they exchanged some words while continuing to practically ignore what USA wants.
> For now the best assumption is that USA is in a league of its own when it comes to imposing its will on other nations.
I don't think that is a correct take away.
assuming that this ceasefire holds (big fucking if) it proves that the US is unable to defend it's self and allies against sustained drone attack.
Part of the reason why the middle east's US allies are allied is the implicit deal that they won't fuck with the oil supply, and the US will protect them against their enemies.
In the 90s, the USA would park a few carriers in the gulf and project complete air superiority. They can't do that anymore, and now needs land bases controlled by allies who the USA openly despises.
China doesn't need to bomb places to make its will felt. It's slowly and subtly built out bases over the south sea, effectively fortifying areas that are not chinas. They have also pretty much compromised most of the telecommunications infra through the various typhoons. (I've also heard rumours that intelligence agencies are leaking like a sieve as well.)
Part of the reason that WWI happened was because a massive military power tried to crush a "primitive" opponent, they fucked it up and demanded help from its allies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cer this then dragged everyone into a massive fuckup.
It’s not the ME countries who are profiting, because they can’t export. So it’s a net loss. (Saudi and oman win a bit, but in no comparison to the iraq kuwait loss)
The winners are mostly: Russia, Iran itself and (margibally) the US. But mostly Russia.
The biggest winner is China. Countries/people who have any common sense will switch to solar, induction stoves (replacing LPG/LNG), batteries, electric vehicles (of all kinds). China is the only supplier of solar, batteries, EVs and all things electric with everyone else being a rounding error.
I've been waiting for people to have common sense in this domain for decades. The short term always wins
But that's what has changed. Even short term solar is becoming the obvious solution. Look at countries like Pakistan and their solar hyper growth.
Everybody thought it has to be western countries (mostly europe) switching to solar first. But west might actually be last to get off fossil because they can afford it and populist politics will force fossil. It's like burning fossil for nostalgia.
Ya, look at what happened in Nepal, poor access to oil via India, who imports it themselves, but lots of hydro potential. China being next door with an actual rail and truck connection, and cheap EVs.
The developing world has the potential to achieve developed living standards for a much cheaper price, while the west rots away catering to vested interests.
China also benefits that demonstrated its influence (by persuading Iran to negotiate) and from its supply of cheap Iranian oil:
https://x.com/shanaka86/status/2041682779948380317
Russia has banned the export of gasoline starting April 1st, because hits on infrastructure by Ukraine are causing internal shortages. They may be profiting in some other way but it’s unlikely through major exports.
https://m.economictimes.com/news/international/world-news/ru...
Over the past few months their oil facilities have been heavily attacked. It’s hard to believe they’re actually making a big profit from this in the short term.
The US isn’t winning. The owners of us oil companies may have won a little. Commodity gamblers won a lot by knowing what Trump would say and betting before he said it.
The US government and population have lost a lot of wealth.
US, in the past (eg - iraq) has shown that it can destabilize a region without any effects to the US, not even a mild price increase domestically. So this one is a big degradation from that earlier stance.
And that’s before you compare to the damage bin laden did with 20 people and a million dollars
American has been getting weaker and weaker for 25 years.
The $2m toll per strait crossing, at 120 ships a day, is going to pay dividends in perpetuity for them. Their economic situation is now actually better than it was pre-war.
$2 split between Iran and Oman...
The Islamic regem lost all its legitimacy in Jan. Even some loyalist where angry at them but they gain support of part of the people and found a reason to exist as the defender of the country.
They will survive and become stronger particularly if they get an economic lifeline out of this peace deal.
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It helps the discussion if you would correctly restate what has been agreed. The first obvious mistake is that the US have agreed Iran can charge tax on ships passing the strait; at 32000 ships a year and a nominal $2M, that amounts to $64B alone, doubling their revenue from oil exports and making any foreign currency they like appear in their accounts.
And no, Europe and others definitely do not owe you any debt for this catastrophic war of choice (that still, they enabled! good luck flying there without them!). You will permanently lose many of the ME states to China.
There’s a good argument that European counties should be taking Trump to court and sanctioning him personally for the damage caused by a war he started.
> Europe and even China owe a great debt of gratitude to the US
Absolutely not, USA actions harmed Europe and Europe knows it.
> Putin will be absolutely furious, since he's now betrayed by both the EU
In what alternative universe?
Not sure which world you're in, but Iran has put forward a 10-point demand plan, and it looks like the US (or rather Trump) will likely accept all of them instead of getting stuck in a quagmire before elections.
Yeah, they did. Did you compare to their original 5 point plan? Their 10 point plan sounds like they've given up removing US bases, taxing Hormuz AND the safety of their proxy armies. No "right" to nuclear bombs (sorry "power stations"). No reparation payments. No removal of US bases.
Any agreement with Iran doesn't matter anyway, because Iran hasn't held up it's previous agreements, so there's no real long term point to any agreement. I wonder if they'll let the US clean up their nuclear stockpile and their centrifuges. That is the real question that matters to the west: does the US (or someone trustworthy) get to go in and remove that shit? Does the US (or someone trustworthy) get to go in and demine Hormuz?
(oh sorry, did propagandists claim Iran didn't mine Hormuz? Well, they lied. And we could point out that that is yet another islamist warcrime ... but what's the point? Frankly it's a pathetic warcrime compared to what they do to people in Iran itself, Syria and Yemen)
Did you bother reading the actual plan, or are you too MAGA to do so?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/08/iran-10-point-...
> According to state media, Iran will only accept the war’s conclusion once details are finalised in line with a 10-point peace plan reportedly submitted to the White House via Pakistani intermediaries.
> The list of 10 points, published by Iranianstate media, include a number of conditions the US has rejected in the past. The plan requires: > The lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions on Iran. > Continued Iranian control over the strait of Hormuz. > US military withdrawal from the Middle East. > An end to attacks on Iran and its allies. > The release of frozen Iranian assets. > A UN security council resolution making any deal binding.
> In the version released in Farsi, Iran also included the phrase “acceptance of enrichment” for its nuclear program. But for reasons that remain unclear, that phrase was missing in English versions shared by Iranian diplomats to journalists.
> I'm no fan of this administration but another way to look at things is that the US can essentially destabilize a region while facing mild commodity price increases.
Oil spiked over 40% at its peak and US gas prices are up 25-35%, and that's before things got to the point where there were "real" supply issues. I don't know how you can reasonably consider this "mild".
> Actually it shows that the US could eliminate the leadership at its leisure even if it can't hand select the replacements.
Everyone and their brother has known that the US can assassinate virtually any world leader if it really wants to. The question you haven't answered is: to what end?
> I'm also not sure the powers that be in the ME hate the rising oil prices.
Notwithstanding the fact that this situation only increases the attractiveness of oil alternatives, you're missing a few points, including:
1. If oil prices rise too much, too fast, it leads to demand destruction. Nobody captures the higher profits for long because the global economy falls into recession if oil stays above a certain price point.
2. Price stability is just as important as price.
3. Significant long-term damage was done to oil infrastructure and Iran demonstrated how easily infrastructure can be effectively targeted despite all of the advantages its neighbors have in terms of American support, American defense technology, etc.
Your comment also doesn't consider the geopolitical costs of this "excursion". The administration's actions have further alienated America's strongest allies (except for Israel) and added fuel to the "America is undependable" fire. This is good news for China:
https://en.sedaily.com/international/2026/04/05/china-overta...
> China surpassed the United States in global leadership approval ratings last year, as Donald Trump's second administration began its term in earnest, according to a new Gallup survey.
> The polling firm reported Thursday that the median global approval rating for Chinese leadership stood at 36% in its 2025 world survey, exceeding the 31% recorded for U.S. leadership. It marked the first time in 20 years that China's approval rating topped that of the United States by more than 5 percentage points.
Not really in disagreement with any of this. I'm just pushing back on "this is a win for Iran".
If we're being honest, there are no winners in war but since we live in a world that likes to have winners and losers, a loss for the US is a victory for Iran.
Not only has Iran managed to survive being battered by the most powerful military in history, it has:
1. Created a global energy and economic crisis.
2. Effectively demonstrated that it can control the Strait of Hormuz even without much naval and air firepower. In doing so, it showed that the US Navy is not capable of controlling the seas anywhere and anytime.
3. Caused the US and its allies to spend billions of dollars worth of advanced weapons systems (many of which were already in short supply) to defend against much cheaper drones and missiles.
4. Incited Trump to lash out at the European countries that have historically been America's biggest allies, accelerating the trend of America's now possibly irreparably damaged relationships with these countries.
5. Baited Trump into publicly and belligerently positioning the US as a hostile state willing to threaten war crimes/genocide to get its way.
Can also add: made it clear that hosting US air bases on your territory is a liability, not an asset
A lot of Iran’s victory simply revolves around Trump being so incompetent. But then again any president with half a brain wouldn’t touch a war with Iran given our negative experience in the region fighting much weaker countries.
I think I broadly agree with you. Even if we accept the premise that it is not a win for anyone in a war ( there are counters here, but lets say that we accept it ), the reputational damage to US is hard to be overstated. I am not entirely certain some of it will be salvaged. That is how bad it is.
I am not a fan of Trump, but I was mostly ambivalent about most of his escapades. He clearly got really lucky with Venezuela and it went to his head.
The US have been removing leaders for decades.
> (...) another way to look at things is that the US can essentially destabilize a region while facing mild commodity price increases.
I'm afraid you are yet to experience the real impact of this war. The actual effect of closing the strait hasn't hit your wallet yet. It's a repeat of the same old tariff bullshit.
Also, Iran did inflicted heavy damage on some of the infrastructure of US's allies. You will start to feel that in a few months.
The only party that clearly stood to benefit from this event was Putin's regime. Orban is not the only vassal at his command.
“Mild commodity price increases” - I’ll try to remember the OP’s comment in July.
Inflation tends to be a ratchet, not a wave. But that’s too complicated for the below-average voter…
You weren't paying attention because that's what the US does since decades... Just now it impacts Western countries directly (Ukraine and Iran come to mind)
I think you're mostly right, except maybe a bit misinformed on #1. The younger Khamenei is, according to recent reports, in a very unstable condition, has likely never actually had an input on the leadership of Iran so far, and his future state is uncertain.
So I think there will be another leader elected soon.
> So I think there will be another leader elected soon.
That alone is another clear sign of Iran's ruling regime emerging as the clear victor. Not only there was no regime change but also their primary regional and global antagonists tried their hardest and completely failed to overthrow them.
Moreover, some neighboring countries who were in the US sphere of influence were very quick to fold and remove themselves from the conflict, while others saw their primary economy attacked by Iran and helplessly so.
Forget about Iranian regime's internal opposition. So did the US.
Is there any question on who emerged the clear winner?
Is this an AI comment?
1. A power struggle is more likely than an election. Even if an election, it would be a bit Putinesque considering the IRGC has killed 30k protesters this year, that likely included any viable opposition leaders.
2. Only Qatar, and it is speculated because it was one of 3 countries in the region not intimated by the US about the attack, and they aren't very happy about that.
This is mostly true, but I have to push back against the 30k number. That's a number that only the US regime has been touting. HRANA has verified about 7000.
> So I think there will be another leader elected soon.
Maybe not soon. The power now has shifted from mullah to IRGC commanders and they likely will want to keep it while having Khamenei as a figurehead.
> I think you're mostly right, except maybe a bit misinformed on #1. The younger Khamenei is, according to recent reports, in a very unstable condition, has likely never actually had an input on the leadership of Iran so far, and his future state is uncertain. > So I think there will be another leader elected soon.
What does that have to do with anything? The USA (my country, sadly) provoked a far smaller nation and was proved incapable of dominance.
Trump will claim victory, but it's not what they thought they'd get.
What the eff do you even mean? I'm not trying to be inquisitive. I'm pointing out a very specific fault. You're trying to reframe my point and you're full of it.
> What does that have to do with anything?
That's not an actual question. That's me saying "wtf are you talking about".
[dead]
The 'what does that have to do with anything' attack, yes quite effective at making yourself appear inquisitive and collaborative, and open-minded. /s
Also, I would expect Iran cultural influence to continue to grow in its region. And they now have the strait toll as a new source of revenue.
Note that it is also a win for Israel, so far. They are still invading Lebanon with no plans to stop.
And a clear loss for the US who literally got nothing from that whole thing and triggered a massive global crisis
I'd say more like a loss for the US than a win for Iran.
> 4. Showed everyone in the ME and the world that if anyone messes with them they’ll close the straight. Then gas prices go up. Then your own domestic pop gets pissed. Then your chances of re-election drop.
Everyone knew from the beginning that closing the strait was something Iran would do. But it is current US government that is either inept or too smart for their own good and thought with US producing surplus oil for domestic use, it will not impact them. They didn't care for the consequences and it came back to bite them.
Also, wasn't it that even if the war was stop/ceasefire oil prices will take a long time to recover? If that is true the domestic pop getting pissed might be true even with this ceasefire and it will hurt the current government in their upcoming elections.
> 3. Reminded the anti regime population that they’re not going anywhere and that the US can’t help them.
More like galvanized people against a common enemy. Regime is going to come down hard on the protestors than ever before and some might find it easier to blame the power which claimed to deliver the regime change. Then Americans will talk about how Iranians hate their way of life and the attack was justified.
> thought with US producing surplus oil for domestic use
I have to assume that at least someone in the room was well aware that all oil is not created equal and that US refineries were designed from the beginning for Venezuelan and similar oil rather than US oil.
That's why I said either inept or too smart for their own good because closing of the strait was a real threat before the war and was ignored, leading to the tweet on Easter.
Even if US refineries were designed for US oil to keep domestic prices low one would have to introduce export restrictions because oil is a global commondity. Big oil will not be happy about that and it seems they have a great influence over the respublican party and Trump.
Oh I expect its a very real possibility that the oil industry would just be nationalized if push came to shove.
I don't expect this to happen given how powerful is oil lobby in the US. At least not when Republicans control house and senate.
Nationalization doesn't define who is in charge though. You can have the state taking over industry, you can also have industry taking over the state. Both ultimately lead to nationalization of the industry.
Still looking at the details, but this morning, one of the biggest French newspapers was basically headlining (a slightly more polite version of) TACO.
Not a good image for the US around the world, including its (former?) allies, I guess.
What's à good image of the US nowadays ? Artemis maybe. That's all.
Wait for re-entry.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47582043
Would a better image be destroying the power plants and water desalination of 90M people?
I personally would have a better image of the ongoing war if it had any objectives that felt achievable.
Out of curiosity, what do you think is the best realistic outcome for this war, from the US perspective?
One should never draw a redline they aren't willing to cross. Trump of all people should know this, he gave Obama shit for years over the uninforced redline with Syria over chemical weapon use.
To Trump, when someone else does something, it's worthy of reproach, but when Trump himself does it, it's the cleverest 4D chess anyone could ever imagine.
A more fundamental aspect of his character is that everything his enemies does is bad and stupid and everything he does is good and genius.
So if Obama allows red lines to be crossed, it's totally different. Trump has a long history of bluster and hyperbole and - look - we re-elected him so I guess it can be a winning strategy.
Or it was. Now that people are calling his bluff on tariffs and genocide, there isn't so much winning.
We are in an era of clickbait; mainstream media tends to be sycophantic to the views of its readers.
FWIW, this was the title around 6am. By 8am, they had changed it to something a little bit more respectable.
This war (not the ceasefire) is basically a loss for the USA. Many people don't yet grasp the scale of the reputational, economic, and power damage that has occurred and will continue to occur.
Just the attack on data centers has caused certain conversations in my circles that basically comes to down to some guys will try to get off of foreign clouds and into local hosting in their own countries (most seems keen for co-location hosting because of the static ip ranges & other admin sugar and reliable power; not concerned about hardware pricing as the hardware is less than 10% of the equation). All thanks to a couple attacks on data centers that we are not even hosting on.
The US foreign policy has perfected the art of turning a stream of tactical victories into a strategic defeat.
They used to spend years to do that, now they managed to do it in just over a month.
> 3. Reminded the anti regime population that they’re not going anywhere and that the US can’t help them.
More like: Reminded the anti regime population that US has no interest to help them and will happily kill all Iranians and proudly destroy all of civil infrastructure.
> 5. Destabilised the whole region costing the ME lots and lots of money.
In this case, the destabilization is firmly the fault of USA and Israel.
Let’s discuss this again in two weeks. I suggest.
This ceasefire will defuse the global economy’s tensions. That’s its sole purpose.
It’s unlikely they’ll find enough common ground for a lasting agreement.
The real winners are those psychic commodities/future traders and the arms industry. Again.
It's very hard for me to see this war (regardless of final outcome) as anything other than a massive strategic loss for the USA. The US has spent a stunning amount of materiel and political capital to achieve nothing of lasting benefit to themselves, and have killed thousands while further destabilising and impoverishing the region. A catastrophic outcome.
It's absolutely possible for both sides in a major conflict to lose, and they've managed to do so in this case.
I disagree. Iran was about to lose. If this ceasefire had not happened, the US and Israel would bomb all of Iran's electricity and fuel facilities. That's what was supposed to happen today, and is what forced Iran to the negotiating table with an hour to spare.
Without electricity, there is no modern life. There is no ability to communicate, pay salaries, run a business, have running water, etc. Without fuel, there are no logistics; there is no capability to transport an army. Nor is there an ability to transport food, people will starve; it would cause an enormous civilian crisis, and this would cause massive riots bigger than the ones seen in January.
The Iranian government would have no ability to coordinate a response, and Iran would collapse within a week. The country would devolve into chaos, into paramilitary factions, and a civil war would start, similar to in Syria.
The US and Israel have been sitting on this the entire time. They don't want to do it, because it would cause near permanent economic damage to Iran.
Once Iran showed it had no ability to prevent the US/Israel from doing a indiscriminate bombing campaign, it was clear the US and Israel could always win this war through this outcome.
It never had any ability to prevent an indiscriminate bombing campaign, and never did. And nobody ever thought otherwise.
It only ever had to prove it could keep the strait closed. Which it did. And now the americans are going away, and they can get back to hanging students from cranes.
The USA has failed to achieve any of its strategic goals, and is going home, defeated.
The conflict is far from over, this ceasefire is unsustainable as neither side wants to agree to the demands of the other.
A ceasefire mostly benefits the US, since it can bring in more military assets across the globe. Ships and troops are still weeks away from arriving & being able to participate in combat operations.
A negotiated settlement is preferable to total destruction of the Iranian economy, and large destruction in the middle east, by all parties involved.
I expect the conflict to resume after two weeks, or later this year, after midterms.
…except very few died. The Iranian and US casualties and entire ME casualties since the operation started combined are less than 15% of the Iranian citizens slaughtered a month before this all started.
Do we not care about deaths anymore? Avoiding war and death is a win for everyone.
They did not manage to bomb Germany, North Korea, or North Vietnam into submission and they tried for years. Winning through bombing alone has never worked.
No, it would achieve the three primary goals of this conflict.
It would cause catastrophic economic damage to Iran, and given how politically unstable Iran currently is (millions of people rioted earlier this year), the regime would not survive the oncoming civil unrest.
It would be a humanitarian disaster, but from the US/Israel's point of view, it would be a victory. An Iran with no electricity has no capacity for industry, and has no ability to manufacture missiles, drones, or have a nuclear program.
Without ability to manufacture missiles, Iran would be unable coerce people to buy into it's Hormuz transit toll system, and the strait would reopen.
This weakened Iran would have no ability to produce nukes, close the strait, and make missiles; for at least a decade while they recover economically.
> This weakened Iran would have no ability […], close the strait, […]
Here is where we disagree. And i think this is the only point which matters.
I agree with you that the US always had the ability to destroy Iranian civilian infrastructure. I agree with you that doing so would cause catastrophic economic damage, civilian unrest, regime overthrow etc. It would seriously disrupt their nuclear program for sure.
What it wouldn’t do is reopen the strait. As long as some ships pay the toll those monies can be used to pay the “warfighters” and their weapons. It is relatively cheap to do so. Ukraine demonstrated this with their unmanned surface vessels. This they can do even if the whole hinterland of Iran is in flames and turmoil.
In fact the more their economy collapses the more lucrative this coastal piracy “business” relatively to other opportunities becomes. People who “before the bombing” had better things to do will find that shaking down foreign ships is still doable “after the bombing”. Some of it will be out of ideology and hate for sure, destroying all the civilian infra of a country tends to whip up emotions in people. But fundamentally they can keep doing it because it is a business which pays.
And regime overthrow won’t help with this either. In the absence of a strong central coordinating force you might get multiple separate pirate outfits camping at different parts of the coast trying to take tolls. That obviously wouldn’t improve their economic success, but would increase chaos and hinder transportation even more.
In short while the USA could destroy Iran as a nation, doing so would not eliminate the threat to shipping in the region.
Iran's "toll booth" only functions because they shoot missiles at ships that don't pay up. If they didn't shoot missiles, nobody would pay. They have no legal ability to do this; the strait is split between Iranian and Omani territorial waters. Iran does not have legal control over Omani waters. Actually enforcing their "toll" means firing missiles at ships in Omani waters who don't pay. It's a combination of piracy, terrorism, and an act of war (violation of Omani sovereignty).
This situation is unacceptable for every other Gulf country. It may not be dealt with in the coming weeks, but will be addressed in the coming months, in a similar fashion to how Somali piracy was neutralized.
Also, a neutered Iran would not have the capability of producing anti-ship missiles, which is the primary enforcement mechanic of this toll.
"Without ability to manufacture missiles, Iran would be unable coerce people to buy into it's Hormuz transit toll system, and the strait would reopen."
You don't need missiles to keep Hormuz closed. Cheap drones, naval mines and such are enough, and those don't require that much production capabilities, especially if you get some help from Russia. It's enough to hit a ship every now and then, which keeps the insurers away.
Even without any infrastructure IRGC could wage a guerrilla war for a long time.
In an industrial collapse scenario people in Iran, including IRGC, might have something more urgent than antagonizing ships. Things like subsistence farming.
That's not something I would cheer for. For what it's worth, this did not Germany, Japan, North Korea or Vietnam to collapse. What makes this time different?
Japan: Not without total defeat on every front
Iran is already teetering on the brink of collapse, the country is suffering from a decade-long economic crisis, and massive riots nearly tore apart the country earlier this year.
It is highly urban country, where 75% of people live in modern cities. Cities cannot survive without a constant influx of food and water, both of which require electricity and fuel to be delivered. In the previous conflicts you mentioned over 50 years ago, Japan, North Korea and Vietnam had large rural populations that were less affected by access to electricity and fuel.
Also, consider how much of modern life now relies on vehicles and computers, which would be disrupted immediately if this conflict continues.
Regarding Germany, the allies did not focus on destroying German electrical infrastructure, they actually didn't consider it as a priority target. However, post-war analysis determined that if they performed a targeted bombing campaign on Germany's electrical generation, it would have significantly hampered Germany's industrial capacity, and pushed the war to a close months sooner.
> Iran is already teetering on the brink of collapse
"We only have to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down"
- Adolf Hitler about invading the Soviet Union.
Again, I must reiterate my point: terror bombing has never ended a war. Post-war analysis also confirms that despite a very costly strategic bombing campaign, Germany tripled its production. Things fell apart when they lost men, ground, harvests and alloy mines to the Red Army. The war ended with the Soviets in Berlin, firing howitzers at government headquarters with open sights.
Perhaps the strategy that failed every single time so far will work if we ramp up the cruelty a few notches, but that's not a possibility I am excited about.
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Turning Iran into another Afghanistan would not have been a win for anyone with a memory longer than the last two election cycles.
It's still a victory. It postpones Iran's nuclear and missile capabilities by a decade, and kicks the can down the road so another administration can come back and clean up the mess again.
Putting aside the fact that the humanitarian disaster you envision would not produce the simple result you expect, it's quite disturbing that you have completely glossed over the fact that destroying Iran's ability to produce electricity is a war crime.
Committing an act of genocide against a country of 90+ million people would be the death of the US as we know it.
Ah yes, a comment from the morality police. According to international law, if the electrical grid directly enables Iran's military, then it is a valid military target. In every major conflict since WWII, electrical infrastructure has been targeted. This includes WWII, the Korean war, Vietnam War, Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf wars, 2003 Iraq War, and the Russo-Ukrainian War.
So no, it's not automatically a war crime, it's a case-by-case basis.
And claims of "genocide" from are laughable and ludicrous, the target is the IRGC, and regime change. If they wanted genocide there are far more effective ways to do so.
Russia bombing civilian infrastructure does not make it "not a war crime". The fact is, USA and Israel did committed war crimes here and planned to commit more of them.
And yes, according to international law. No, you do not get to bomb desalination plants, eletricity plans, universities, hospitals, bridges and schools and claim "it is not a war crime because soldiers in area exist".
It is not possible to take your moral high-ground "war crime" argument seriously, when Iran is doing the exact things you are accusing Israel of doing.
Iran is actively targeting:
1) Desalination plants (confirmed strikes) https://x.com/StealthQE4/status/2038421212435558429 https://x.com/EveryoneKnws1/status/2041843348613308922
2) Electricity generation facilities (multiple confirmed strikes) https://x.com/InsidConflict/status/2040604164527702153
3) Schools and Universities (targeted, no confirmed strikes yet) https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/04/05/american-uni... https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iran-war-middle-east-news-u...
4) Bridges (targeted, no confirmed strikes yet) https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260402-iran-publishes-li...
Iran is also firing ballistic cluster munitions, which have no military purpose, at civilian areas, almost daily.
Why did Iran start shooting?
This is a textbook definition of terrorism. That the military uses the civilian infrastructure is a justification that not even the US tried to use. This is pure terror bombing, and they admitted as much.
> According to international law, if the electrical grid directly enables Iran's military, then it is a valid military target.
This is not what international law states. The Geneva Conventions forbid direct attacks on civilian assets. Where assets are dual-use, the principle of proportionality applies and your intent cannot be to cause suffering, destroy civilian morale, etc.
I think anyone with an ounce of human decency and who isn't playing keyboard warrior saw Trump's threat to destroy "a whole civilization" for what it was, which is why so many military and legal scholars were disturbed by it.
For those who actually care about what the law says instead of beating their chests:
https://www.justsecurity.org/135797/war-crimes-rhetoric-powe...
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-hegseth-and...
Nobody with any slight acquaintance with history could believe any of these.
Well yes, if cruelty is the goal, bombing civilians is cruel.
If I'm not mistaken, the Obama administration was about to accomplish every single one of those goals with a treaty, which the Trump administration cancelled. Bombing a country into accepting terms that they had already agreed to is not that impressive.
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Do not underestimate the effects of modern precision bombing, the technology moved forward (especially if we compare it with II. world war). Today it's much easier to destroy any kind of infrastructure, power plants, bridges, dams, water preparation facilities, waste treatment, cement, steel production, food silos, fuel storage, vehicle manufacturing, etc.
This is very important because, population in cities is much more dependent on infrastructure, than rural population. Rural population is mostly self sufficient. Over 60% of Iranians live today in cities, but under 20% of Vietnamese lived in cities at the time of Vietnam war. Vietnam was also strongly supported by China, with transportation using Laos and Cambodian.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-livin...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-livin...
Iran is even now under sever water crisis.
https://www.wri.org/insights/iran-war-water-crisis-middle-ea...
So a large scale bombing of all Iranian infrastructure would probable not cause the fall of the regime, because they have the guns and can take anything they want, but the suffering and famine of Iranian people would be enormous.
Sometimes large scale bombing causes submission, for example fire-bombing of Japanese cities (atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was in the scale of destruction and loss of life comparable to Tokyo fire bombing, only much cheaper in the number of airplanes).
https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/d01171/
My point is that you can't bomb a country into submission. You can use strategic air power in addition to other methods, but the bombing alone was proven again and again to fail. More often than not, it hardens the enemy's resolve.
Bombing Britain failed. Bombing Germany failed (except for dragging the Luftwaffe into a war of attrition). Bombing Japan failed on its own until Japan had no navy left afloat, and the Russians savaged their army in China. The bomb accelerated a victory achieved through other means.
In Korea, Americans levelled cities and infrastructure until there was nothing left to bomb. That did not win the war.
In Vietnam, Linebacker failed. Linebacker II bought slightly more favourable terms for the US in negotiations, but in the end, North Vietnam won.
Even the Desert Storm curbstomp would not have worked without boots on the ground.
I'm just rehashing a better post on this exact topic: https://acoup.blog/2022/10/21/collections-strategic-airpower...
The destruction of Japan and Germany was much more extensive than Britain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World...
Yes bombing of Japan was a factor in surrender, but not the only one. Destruction of much industry, destruction of navy, all their allies were defeated. There were preparations for invasion of Japan or continuous atomic bombing, if Japan would not surrender.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Shot
"Two more Fat Man assemblies were readied and scheduled to leave Kirtland Field for Tinian on 11 and 14 August"
"At Los Alamos Laboratory, technicians worked 24 hours straight to cast another plutonium core. Although cast, it still needed to be pressed and coated, which would take until 16 August. Therefore, it could have been ready for use on 19 August."
The rate of bomb production was one of the Manhattan Project’s most closely guarded secrets. Expected rate of production by General Groves:
"The production rate of 3 bombs per month in August was expected to rise to 5 bombs per month in November, and 7 bombs per month in December. In 1946, it could rise much higher."
https://www.dannen.com/decision/bomb-rate.html
As is written in: https://acoup.blog/2022/10/21/collections-strategic-airpower...
"In Vietnam, the same problem complicated any effort at industrial bombing: the factories that supplied the North Vietnamese forces (both the regular PAVN and irregular NLF) were in China and especially the USSR. Moreover the population was not broadly dependent on centralized utilities (like electricity) which could be bombed."
The article tries to apply lesson from past bombing campaigns to war in Ukraine, but this don't apply because Russia could not establish air supremacy over Ukraine and could not apply large scale heavy bombing. And I hope that they never will...
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> The US and Israel have been sitting on this the entire time. They don't want to do it, because it would cause near permanent economic damage to Iran.
That is such an incredible interpretation of the situation that basically requires you to ignore basically every economic problem being faced from this insanity currently and in the near future.
Sure, the US an Israel were just "too concerned" about the Iranian economy to do war crimes.
Yes? How is it a misinterpretation?
The Iranian military is very decentralised and designed specifically with American capabilities in mind. So am not sure they would collapse. And a defending force is far less dependent on logistics in the short term. Also, Iran has a culture of sacrifice.
Iran and the US exist in a state of equilibrium of opposite strategies. The US is unwilling to risk its troops and sees sacrifice as weakness but otherwise applies maximal pressure. And Iran is willing to sacrifice its citizens and sees that as noble. And outside of a black swan event there is little hope of change.
Each side sees its enemies greatest military strength as a moral weakness and will keep fighting. Whilst conversely believing that sacrifice/maximal remote force may someday work. Iranians are not going to pivot because their culture has been forged as a response to exactly this kind of pressure. Nor will America suddenly see the sacrifices of thousands of it's men as virtuous. So things probably just revert back to the same equilibrium.
The point is that America blowing up power plants and Iran absorbing casualties is just an extension of the status quo.
If the US ended up damaging power plans and desalination plants, that would mark a clear inflection point in the number of "friends" the US has militarily, economically, and politically. Sure, Israel would still be a big fan, and maybe Saudi Arabia, but otherwise the US would become a pariah.
It would be damaging to Iran and potentially hundreds of thousands or millions would die.
That's a lot of blood debts.
There is no way the US would walk away from that situation into a better outcome.
> much younger and more formidable Khameini
Formidable?
more crazy then his father is what i hear
He's likely in a coma or already dead.
guy has spent his whole life being labeled as a monster simply for being born. I'm sure that causes a guy to develop some sort of complex.
This is in no way a win for Iran.
Hundreds of regime leadership is gone. Massive destruction of infrastructure. Bombed all their neighbors who weren’t even at war with them. Pushed those same neighbors into closer partnership with Israel and the US.
Now the regime is severely weakened.
This would make sense if the regime command structure had apparently not designed itself for this exact type of conflict.
They were in a fight, took losses, and made significant gains.
They proved their planning was correct, that the distributed nature of their power grid was correct, that they are able to project force and genuinely destabilize the strait.
Things have been proven that were previously uncertain, and they have not been proven in America’s favour.
Crucially America’s ability to defend its allies was tested and found wanting. The entire conflict was of unit economics, in that a cheap 30k drone beat out billion dollar investments.
America also spent the better part of this administration alienating themselves from the one allied nation with extensive drone combat experience.
Admittedly, this is the interesting part. Ukraine via its leader apparently did try to reach US in exchange for money, but, and there stories get confused, was ignored. I have to wonder if Trump has some actual fixed winners table in his mind ( because he does not seem to follow the most optimal path ).
None of those things matter if they survive and control the straight, which seems to be the situation. The toll revenue will be enough to rebuild several times over. They have proven that they can absolutely crush the gulf states with missiles and drones.
I think the fact that Trump accepted their 10-point plan as the basis for negotiation, instead of them accepting the American 15-point plan, makes it obvious this is America taking the loss.
That’s a whole lot of “ifs”.
And they haven’t come close to “crushing the gulf states”. Lobbing a middle at the oil facility is not “crushing”, it’s harassment. If anything the gulf states have decided to not retaliate themselves, but if they did it would be even worse for Iran.
Trump did not “accept” the 10 point plan. Not even close. It’s simply a list of demands from Iran, nobody has agreed to anything.
Real world events are conditional. Would you prefer I talk in absolutes?
Defacto Iran still controls the strait, as they have since the start of the war. If they start letting the ships through with no toll, I think that would indicate a tactical loss but strategic draw for Iran (well, the IRGC). If they don’t, it’s a strategic win. We’ll find out I guess.
The small gulf states are incredibly fragile because of their water supply. Major disruption to their power or desalinisation directly renders them largely uninhabitable.
You’re misquoting me on the 10 point plan. He accepted it as the _basis for negotiation_. Here’s direct quote from him on Truth Social:
“We received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate”
Lining up multiple low probability events and talking like it’s certainty isn’t that helpful to understanding the conflict.
Iran does not “control” the strait any more than neighbor controls my front door because he threatened to stop me from using it. If the US or other naval power tried to pass it would have no issue.
Have you noticed when the Houthis did the same thing (fire on ships) last year the tone was very different? Many people noticed.
Accepting something as a “basis for negotiation” means nothing. During the Korean War the US accepted a term forcing them to leave the Korean Peninsula when peace talks started and last I checked the US is still there.
> Iran does not “control” the strait any more than neighbor controls my front door because he threatened to stop me from using it. If the US or other naval power tried to pass it would have no issue
If your neighbour threatened to shoot anyone attempting to use your front door, and followed through on their threat a few times, and now no one uses your front door, I would say they control it.
Al Jazeera are reporting that Iran is planning to continue with the toll: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/8/us-iran-ceasefire-de...
Your assessment of the military situation in the strait doesn’t align with any expert analysis I’ve come across.
Well the “expert” analysis you mentioned said the world would grind to a halt last month but that didn’t happen did it?
India and Pakistan have been running the “closure” several times with escorts, successfully. All it would take a is a naval coalition of 3-4 countries and the strait is effectively open - and no toll.
Iran is in a far worse position now than it was a month ago (and it was in a bad position back then). It’s a matter of time before Iran is no longer able to project any force in the gulf. And all the countries in the Middle East will be happy it happened.
Trump’s talking about a “joint venture” with Iran for charging tolls, weird that he feels that might have to make this concession, right?
https://x.com/jonkarl/status/2041839012097229086?s=20
He’s mentioned this possibility before, by the way.
We’re 5 years into Trump being President and you still take what he says at face value?
Most of what he says is to rile up the people opposing him.
6. Permanently destroyed many US bases and radar installations in the Middle East which aren’t coming back anytime soon.
Yup, and it's a demonstration that the US is unable to just impose its will wherever it wants, making the US look weaker.
Failure all around.
But no doubt Trump and his people will tell the world what an amazing success the whole thing was, and how they exceeded all their goals, whatever those goals might have been.
Parable of the sun and the wind..
More loss for US, as in customary US not winning fast is functionally the same as losing.
Heavy weight boxing a teen it should have brained in round 1.
Teen lands a few punches back is embarrassing.
Teen slapping heavy weights protectorates more embarrassing.
Teen surviving week 4 is like heavy weight failing to brain teen by round 7.
At this point it's looking like we're going to round 10 TKO, whoever "wins", US loses. People still going to wank over if US wins on TKO because muh K:D ratio or something, but real signal is teen's strategy was to survive hits and ultimately 10000s of heavy weight hits weren't haymaker strong enough to brain a teen. At >2% of GDP of PRC, Iran is basically teen/toddler territory that drew down significant % of US active force and munition stockpiles, so there's also layer of US losing more based on relative effort expended.
To China, the conflict is a clear demonstration of the impotency of the US war machine. Before this "military operation", one could imagine the US defending Taiwan.
Now, it's a laughable thought. It couldn't even if it wanted to.
Remember that the defender has home team advantage. That’s precisely what you see happening both in Iran and Ukraine. That advantage exists with Taiwan. There’s a reason that China hasn’t made a move in all these years, and the US is only one part of that equation.
Homefield advantage is relative, between Ukraine - Iran - Gaza, Taiwan is closer to Gaza, which is to say not much after mitigating outside spoilers. Maybe less than Gaza vs force disparity involved. US is/was one part of equation, but big part of equation.
There will be a 2 week ceasefire, western countries will move ships out of the straight, the Saudis will reroute oil, the 10 point plan is idiotic and the US will have an easy excuse to resume bombing them.
I agree with you that this is just temporary, but for entirely different reasons. I think that stock market fluctuations are making some people very very rich. It's the same game as they did with the tariffs on/off every week and it's not over yet.
I don't think we know if the ceasefire will hold or if it's another attempt by trump at strategic delay/deception, but remember that the strait carries a lot more than oil and those things cannot be transported via a pipeline.
Reroute where? Nonsense. If that was the case then the tensions wouldn’t be this high.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East%E2%80%93West_Crude_Oil_Pi...
Tensions are high because of all the trapped ships. Not because there's no alternative.
The Saudi & UAE pipelines combined can only carry around 9mbpd and are already maxed out, compared to an average of 20 through the Strait.
And? Reduced capacity for awhile raises prices, the Saudis can sit on some oil and have the US get rid of their geopolitical and economic rival.
Again, short term goal is to clear out the stranded ships and the war can resume.
Because the Iranian 10 point plan is so ridiculous even Trump isn't dumb enough to take it.
My assumption is that, by now, Trump just wants to save face and move on to an easier target, one that can't strike back. He's been preparing the US opinion for Cuba.
So I wouldn't be surprised if negotiations just... stopped, without anything happening. Pretty much what happened, if I understand correctly, to the economic negotiations with Japan, EU, Canada, Mexico and anybody else regarding US import taxes.
But there's no oil to gain in Cuba, no stock market interests, and no pushing from Israel. So, why would he do that?
Because it feels like a quick win?
That's what I'm saying. There's nothing to win.
> And? Reduced capacity for awhile raises prices, the Saudis can sit on some oil and have the US get rid of their geopolitical and economic rival.
That pipeline is a strike away from being out for months, if not years.
> Because the Iranian 10 point plan is so ridiculous even Trump isn't dumb enough to take it.
The whole situation is ridiculous, and Trump is overtly desperate to stop the nightmare at any cost. Calling something ridiculous is no argument, particularly when we are living in a timeline where stupidity reigns.
> And? Reduced capacity for awhile raises prices
That oil is being consumed somewhere, countries/industries will face shortage (in addition to the price increase).
That has a capacity of 7M barrels a day, so not an alternative. It'll lessen the blow a tiny bit but that's all it does
Ok. This is getting silly and on par with 'the straight is open; it is only closed, because Iran is blocking it' quip from Hegseth. Tensions are high, because there are trapped hips AND there is no viable alternative.
Wait until you hear about the Houthis.(or the fact that the pipeline is only a small fraction of the capacity of the strait).
All the proxies Iran arms is a good argument for continuing to attack them.
Only on hacker news is the destruction of all your military hardware and the death of all your leaders a win
Those can be replaced. The damage to US reputation and influence will last the rest of our lives.
Not just HN, just about all social media except far-right Trumpist echo-chambers have been calling it a Iran win or at least a US loss.
Buddy France lost it's country and still won WW2
It's the war, not the battle.
https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/sivy5j/comment/hvi...
Boy is that a terrible analogy. France "won" nothing, they actively collaborated with the Nazis, and they were pretty useless for most of the war.
Why isn't Iran doing more? It seems like they are pandering to the USA when they have the moral high ground.
Moral high ground? They lost it long ago when they were hanging people for being gay and sponsoring terrorist groups.
First thing is something US wants to do and they've done the other a lot.
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It's a war, everybody loses, but given that the US started this with the explicit goal of regime change and has manifestly failed to accomplish this, it's a victory by default for Iran.
Although it wouldn't surprise me if the final deal includes Khameini Jr stepping down and being replaced by somebody with a more palatable last name.
Winning is not the absence of anything negative. Winning is emerging in a stronger position than before.
Yes the US started the conflict for reasons which are unclear. Yes a lot of lives were lost, and a lot of infrastructure destroyed.
Because the US goals are so murky it's hard to determine their standard for "winning". Certainly no one (myself included) is a fan of the Iranian regime. But that hasn't changed. The nuclear threat is unchanged. (A threat which only exists because of Trumps actions in his first term.)
What we have seen is the threat of the strait closing move from the theoretical to practical. We've seen the impact that has on the global sentiment. Iran has a card to play, and they played it, and now we all understand what it means. That strengthens their position.
Israel also ends up weaker here. The nuclear threat is unchanged. But the deaths in Iran will fuel enlistment in anti-Israel terrorist organizations for another generation.
America has lost some global prestige. (Not for the first time recently.) They've shown that they are powerless to open the strait by force.
"Winning" is a loaded term. But so far they have prevented the US from achieving their goals (if they even had any). Lots of countries declined the invitation to join in. Iran is now diplomatically stronger than before. The US and Israel are weaker. Call it whatever you like.
> Israel also ends up weaker here. The nuclear threat is unchanged. But the deaths in Iran will fuel enlistment in anti-Israel terrorist organizations for another generation.
I agree with everything else you wrote, but I'm not sure that this is considered a loss by Israel's current government.
1. Israel is used to having enemies all over the world, so by now, the population doesn't care all that much.
2. The Likoud and its far-right alliance actually needs enemies to remain in power.
Also, any reduction in the number of missiles that Iran can launch at Israel, and any reduction in the number of AA armament that prevents Israel from bombing Iran again is good for Israel.
Where Israel will feel the loss is the 2M$ levy, because this means that Iran will rearm that much faster.
True, if the presence of active terrorist organizations is beneficial then this is a win.
Politically it might suit Israel to have overt enemies. I'm not sure it's necessarily advantageous to the population, but that probably doesn't matter.
I suspect one clear outcome is that Iran now completely understands the importance of cheap, effective, munitions (drones and missiles) and so will likely build those up quickly. That might affect munitions targeted at Israel.
> I suspect one clear outcome is that Iran now completely understands the importance of cheap, effective, munitions (drones and missiles) and so will likely build those up quickly. That might affect munitions targeted at Israel.
I think that this has affected Israel for decades by now. See all the rocket factories in South Lebanon or Gaza. I imagine that this is the reason for which Israel demonstrated a few years ago prototypes of laser-based anti-missiles. I don't know if they will could work against drones, but I'd be very, very surprised if there weren't a dozen Israeli startups currently competing to come up with cheap anti-drone countermeasures.
What is even the point of all the flip flopping if there’s ongoing talks? I feel like the doesn’t put any real pressure on Iran, but I may be uninformed.
Market manipulation.
Although, it seems like the markets have started to get a sense of this as well and are not so swaying.
Trump is cornered. There is no “winning” this for him. Expect Iran to get some major concessions that Trump will talk up as win.
Market manipulation..
There are no talks or anything. Iran has no incentive to negotiate with a party as unreliable as the US is under Trump. I would literally negotiate with a dead opossum before I would continue to negotiate with Witkoff and Kushner.
I mean, as much as I don’t like the Iranian government, put yourselves in their position. You have the US and Israel literally leveling the equivalent of Balfour or the White House and taking out other government officials in a decapitation strike that failed, but killed off all of the moderates. The government is then replaced by hardliners who see this attack as existential. You have little to lose at this point, so you go for broke.
Since the US seems unwilling to put boots on the ground, cannot form a coherent reason for any of this and is lead by a man who is unable to accept that he can commit errors, it degrades into a war of attrition and, in the case of Trump, influence peddling since it is clear that Israel and the Saudis would like to see Iran wiped off the map and all Trump cares about is how he can internalize it as yet another reason why he is a victim and entitled to the Nobel Peace Prize.
IMHO, I think there is tremendous pressure to, at the very least restore the Strait of Hormuz as an international waterway not subject to Iranian control or tolling, but that’s an after-the-fact thing. I think Trump simply thought it would be an easy win and play well on TV. I suspect what will happen is the US pays a massive indemnity/bribe to Iran, Iran agrees to not contest control of the Strait of Hormuz and the US looks like morons which Trump will internalize as a win that nobody will believe except himself.
> There are no talks or anything. Iran has no incentive to negotiate with a party as unreliable as the US is under Trump. I would literally negotiate with a dead opossum before I would continue to negotiate with Witkoff and Kushner.
The Iranian Supreme National Security Council said in their victory statement that there would be talks starting on Friday: https://www.tasnimnews.ir/en/news/2026/04/08/3560026/snsc-is...
> Iran, while rejecting all the plans presented by the enemy, formulated a 10-point plan and presented it to the US side through Pakistan, emphasizing the fundamental points such as controlled passage through the Strait of Hormuz in coordination with the Iranian armed forces, which would grant Iran a unique economic and geopolitical position, the necessity of ending the war against all elements of the axis of resistance, which would mean the historic defeat of the aggression of the child-killing Israeli regime, the withdrawal of US combat forces from all bases and deployment points in the region, the establishment of a safe transit protocol in the Strait of Hormuz in a way that guarantees Iran's dominance according to the agreed protocol, full payment for the damages inflicted of Iran according to estimates, the lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions and resolutions of the Board of Governors and the Security Council, the release of all of Iran's frozen assets abroad, and finally the ratification of all of these matters in a binding Security Council resolution. It should be noted that the ratification of this resolution would turn all of these agreements into binding international law and would create an important diplomatic victory for the Iranian nation.
> Now, the Honorable Prime Minister of Pakistan has informed Iran that the American side, despite all the apparent threats, has accepted these principles as the basis for negotiations and has surrendered to the will of the Iranian people.
> Accordingly, it was decided at the highest level that Iran will hold talks with the American side in Islamabad for two weeks and solely on the basis of these principles. It is emphasized that this does not mean an end to the war and Iran will accept an end to the war only when, in view of Iran's acceptance of the principles envisaged in the 10-point plan, its details are also finalized in the negotiations.
> These negotiations will begin in Islamabad on Friday, April 11, with complete distrust about the US side, and Iran will allocate two weeks for these negotiations. This period can be extended by agreement of the parties.
When you use words like "decapitation strike that failed, but killed off all of the moderates," what do those words mean to you? With all due respect, I don't really get the Internet brain way of thinking of things. What decapitation failed? I guess, if you mean, there are still Islamic Revolution people in charge, I still can't see the point. When you say "failed" that would imply that they were literally attempting to kill literally every single member of the government at once. I don't think anyone serious would think that. Also, "failed?" I can't recall ever a decapitation happening so swiftly or so massively within the first few hours of a conflict. Also, the meat of what I wanted respond to was this idea of "killing the moderates." I get that most people here think the West and America is evil or whatever but the idea the Ayatollah and top members of the IRGC were moderate is just an affront to morality. The same people think that Trump is Hitler for doing things that 90s Democrats agreed with (even ones currently serving), would hold vigils for a truly monstrous regime. This is like some Billie Eilish "no one is illegal on stolen land" type stuff. We are talking about brutal executions for no reason at all.
> What decapitation failed?
decapitation was intended to result in regime change, but instead showed that the iranian system is perfectly capable of peaceable changes in power. what particularly failed is that the people the US wanted to champion as the new leaders of iran were also killed in the decapitation.
you can compare against the successful decapitation from christmas, where the US removed maduro, and championed rodriguez and now takes a cut of all venesuelan oil sales.
i think there's a reasonable argument that the ayatollah was a moderate, in a much more militant government. He's the guy that was making sure iran never built a nuke, and by observation, iran stood down after each attack the US/israel did on iran up until he was gone
"no one is illegal on stolen land" is perfectly reasonable - the american government has no actual legitimacy to control who comes and goes from land that doesnt belong to it. the various tribes do. its impractical in that the US genocided the legitimate owners and took it over by force, but its still the right and just end view. the US gets to kick people out of certain borders because it did a ton of brutal executions
> I get that most people here think the West and America is evil or whatever but the idea the Ayatollah and top members of the IRGC were moderate is just an affront to morality.
I really don’t understand this logic. I find it rather myopic and based on one’s own pain. Everything is relative, unfortunately. The idea that I would in any way condone or argue that the Iranian regime is not culpable of its own massive war crimes, grifting and other crimes against its own people is…bizarre. I am well aware of the crimes of the Iranian regime and look forward to the day it is removed, but I don’t think this is it. Even Trump admits that they killed off all of the people they thought would be more amenable to work with the US which is just a level of incompetence I can’t fathom, but here we are.
Unfortunately, in practice, moral absolutism does not exist in international relations. The evidence is right in front of your face of this fact. We could go through the litany of crimes against people that we (the US) have condoned or facilitate or been unresponsive to. The folks in Beijing have also committed unspeakable acts against their own people and others, so why aren’t we bombing them right now? Why Iran right now? Haiti is a failed state nobody seems interested in caring about. We failed to stop a genocidal massacre in Rwanda…
> When you say “failed” that would imply that they were literally attempting to kill literally every single member of the government at once.
I literally believe that Trump thought this given that he openly admitted he ignored the military and intelligence agencies telling him that this was a terrible idea. I agree that nobody rational would think this, but I argue that Trump never lies even when he says he is joking. He literally thinks as POTUS he can do whatever he wants.
I am guessing that the Oman's share Homruz fees will also shared with Trump businesses (via loss making investments, or another plane etc)
To manipulate the price of oil.
But only some sort of sociopath would upend the world just to make a buck. Esp if they're already a billionaire with literally hundreds of other conflicts of interest.
> But only some sort of sociopath would upend the world just to make a buck.
You may be on to something there.
All he does is flip flop. Was the same with tariffs against everyone last year - he kept backing off at the last moment.
Amusing that it's on a Tuesday again. TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) Tuesday.
Yes, markets weren't taking his "normal" market manipulation tweets seriously, so he had to go hyperbolic with the NUKE tweet. I am definitely sure Trump is not serious. That's why Iran said we will continue this discussion with complete distrust.
Help me understand. Isn't it a good thing that Iran wasn't blown to pieces?
It is, but he is weakening the credibility of the United States in the process. Never make a threat you aren't willing to back, otherwise everyone knows you make idle threats.
The chicken is always the good part of the TACO. That doesn't make the whole thing great.
It's just another military adventure ending in a disaster - probably the most humiliating in a long long time. But to your point, it's better for the US to admit defeat now, than in 2 or 3 weeks, let alone in 2 or 3 years. If a parallel can be made, Russia would have been best advised to have done the same 3 years ago.
Yes.
But it’s still bad that the US threatened a genocide this morning.
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As an uninvolved /newcomments reader that sees things scroll past, I didn't flag it either .. but literally anybody currently active might have.
Likely not the GP and not necessarily anybody "left".
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Perhaps you should read the site guidelines, then.
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It only requires reading your refusal to give a straight answer, eg your deflection to a passive-voice observation of the Roman Empire's collapse while avoiding the actual question of how you characterize an explicit threat to terminate a civilization.
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I haven't flagged you at all. You're just trolling...poorly.
How am I trolling? I simply explained how it is.
Sometimes a spades a spade
What in anything parent said makes you think it’s not a good thing?
Calling someone a chicken is seen as derogatory.
I too would take issue with being compared with that guy if i were a chicken.
There are no talks.
I'm putting this[0] here just as a reminder of how horrible things can be and for basically nothing.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_attack
I used to attend elementary school on a military base. I didn't feel like a human shield at the time, then again I was more naive and had less life experience than I do now.
You weren’t a human shield. It would have been very easy for the US and Israel to not have blown up a school, the attack was intentional.
Notice they had 0 issues precisely striking the building housing Iranian leadership when this whole thing started. They didn’t “accidentally” hit the grocery store two blocks away.
So you think there was a conspiracy to target a school? Who do you think did it? Why? What was their goal?
I think either an intelligence failure, or a mistake or a miss is more likely. Maybe missiles don't always hit where they were meant to go. Especially if there is anti missile defences (which Iran is likely to have). Maybe Iran anti-air hit the school, or sent a US missile off course?
article mentions that this was triple tap. i doubt that missiles missed three times hitting same spot.
It's being increasingly hard to believe people argue from a point of good faith on here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_on_schools_during_the_...
More than a conspiracy, they actually did attack the school - twice - about 30 minute apart (double tap).
They would have had live video feed from drones, and images sent from the first tomahawk missile for target confirmation. Yhey knew exactly what they were targeting and hitting.
Ok so bad intel or a similar mistake?
> They would have had live video feed from drones, and images sent from the first tomahawk missile for target confirmation. Yhey knew exactly what they were targeting and hitting.
You sure? IIRC it was one of about 6000 strikes. Was it all a cover to bomb one school?
> Ok so bad intel or a similar mistake?
Forget "rules based order" or any sympathy from US Military/Pentagon/DoD.
When "arabs" bomb "the West" - it's "terrorism". When "the West" bomb "arabs" - it's a "mistake".
Same forces that did laser precision strikes against Maduro or countless military heads of Iran are attacking civilian infrastructure with double tap precision.
I am amazed how since WW2 there wasn't a military coup in USA as many wars from them were against any logic. I guess it just proves year after year, generation after generation that US military from top-to-bottom thinks that they are the only "good guys" and have been brainwashed just as their counterparts (be it Iraqis, Iranians, Chinese or anyone).
For what reason would they attack a single school? Some strikes being well some doesn't mean others can't be mistaken.
Some Israeli’s believe that they should kill the children of their enemies:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/11/benjamin-netany...
“Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”
Maybe an extremist Israeli put together that particular target list?
Same reason they're attacking universities, medical research labs, power stations, bridges, hospitals, paramedic teams, civilian rescue teams...
It is amazing how readily some people believe we target civilians, often based on the words of actual terrorists.
With this particular incident with apparent US strikes on a school adjacent to a military complex, and formerly part of that military complex, you would think it must be obvious to any reasonable person that we did not knowingly target a school.
Yet here we are.
> we did not knowingly target a school
They should have known, so it may still be a war crime. https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/the-weekly-cons...
And if it was an accident it only gives us more reason to oppose the whole operation. Why should we believe what they think they "know" about uranium stocks or anything else, if they couldn't figure out a building has been a school for 10+ years?
I also wonder if they really should have known by the second or third strike, but I can't readily find whether they had a live visual or anything, so probably did not. Arguably you can't in good conscience strike a target you can't see well, but I'm sure it happens all the time and doesn't usually go this bad.
Who are these actual terrorists you speak of?
When terrorists like the Trump administration openly admit to it in some cases and threaten to do it in others, and we see the evidence, it’s easy to believe our eyes and ears over your fantasies.
Gaza has entered the chat
We are so far past there being any merit to “Israel would never knowingly target civilians/children/hospitals/etc” that you just shouldn’t even bother. Just own it, if your leadership thinks the only winning strategy is the annihilation of another people, or at least their complete displacement, own it. Stop trying to hide behind “it was a mistake” while simultaneously showing you have no issues putting a missile through a singular car window to assassinate people labeled an enemy. Nobody buys it anymore.
From the Wikipedia article...
For planning Operation Epic Fury, the US military utilized the Maven Smart System, an artificial intelligence software designed to streamline the targeting process and greatly reduce the amount of personnel involved in it. Capable of producing 1,000 target packages in one hour, with the use of the system the US military said it had struck 6,000 targets in Iran during the first two weeks of the war.
...it goes on to say...
The [NYT] inquiry suggested that the school was likely targeted due to outdated coordinates provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency
Advanced rockets bolted onto mainframes guided by data from Palantir.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Maven#Technology
> For what reason would they attack a single school?
Couldn't it be to terrorise the other side while still being able to claim that it was a mistake? Remember that the school was hit by three distinct strikes.
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I'm...not seeing how the comment you're responding to "blames the victims."
"The Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' elementary school in southern Minab was attended by both boys and girls, taught on separate floors.[9] According to locals, the school was previously a military facility.[10] Its location was near[c] the Sayyid al-Shuhada military complex which included the headquarters of the Asif Brigade of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN).[13] As of early 2026, the school had existed as a civilian institution more than 10 years, close to but separate from the IRGCN compound."The Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' elementary school in southern Minab was attended by both boys and girls, taught on separate floors.[9] According to locals, the school was previously a military facility.[10] Its location was near[c] the Sayyid al-Shuhada military complex which included the headquarters of the Asif Brigade of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN).[13] As of early 2026, the school had existed as a civilian institution more than 10 years, close to but separate from the IRGCN compound.
For more than ten years. That's Palantir caching for you.
military bases are targets. I don't know how you jump from that to victim blaming like little kids had a say in where to build a school or where to go to school or whether to shoot rockets. it's a tragedy.
> military bases are targets
Sure. But when they're next to schools, you try to avoid the school or school hours. Not doing that isn't just mean, it's strategically self defeating.
Yes. But you are simply agreeing with me that it's a tragedy and a US fuckup.
How people get from "school next to military base = human shield" to victim blaming kids for being bombed is a mystery
Yeah I'm not following what they mean there.
Today on several news media were a story that people of Iran were called by the government and formed human shields at the bridges and power plants that Trump threatened to bomb if no deal reached by the deadline.
https://www.ms.now/news/iran-youths-protect-power-plants-sau...
Sounds like a blatant violation of all the conventions and a war crime.
It’s hard to imagine that international law actually intends to consider civilians hanging out as “human shields” at civilian sites to be a war crime.
No it's not. International law is generally exceptionally clear that one war crime doesn't justify another, and using civilians as human shields is about as core a war-crime as war-crimes get.
I tried to look it up: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule97#ti...
> The prohibition of using human shields in the Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol I and the Statute of the International Criminal Court are couched in terms of using the presence (or movements) of civilians or other protected persons to render certain points or areas (or military forces) immune from military operations.[18] Most examples given in military manuals, or which have been the object of condemnations, have been cases where persons were actually taken to military objectives in order to shield those objectives from attacks. The military manuals of New Zealand and the United Kingdom give as examples the placing of persons in or next to ammunition trains.
The situation in Iran is not this. The suggestion was that humans might volunteer to go to non-military sites.
As an extreme hypothetical, are humans living in their homes acting as human shields for those homes? How about people at school? How about people parading on a bridge? Does it become different if someone threatens to blow up a bridge and people parade there in response?
Eh, the quoted text, and also the literal text of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 28 [1], doesn't qualify "certain points or areas" as only "military sites". While the other side should only be attacking military sites I don't see how that could possibly justify protecting non-military sites with human shields.
> As an extreme hypothetical, are humans living in their homes acting as human shields for those homes? How about people at school? How about people parading on a bridge?
Generally speaking I read this as not, because they aren't being "used to" render those points immune from attack, they just happen to be doing so. Hypothetically if you were to rush civilians back to their homes in an evacuated town to protect it from an attack - or as you suggest organize parades on bridges that are threatened - that would seem to meet the "used to" requirement.
(Good discussion though)
[1] https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/art...
> Article 28 - Prohibition of using human shields
> The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations.
Article 54 gives some sites that may not be attacked. Maybe a protected person cannot render at least those sites “immune” since they are already immune.
https://youtu.be/u7J3_EX7rQk
I think this was done voluntarily as a demonstration of sacrifice and nationalism.
When Lithuania was fighting for independence from USSR civilians gathered around key government buildings to protect them. in a sense they were human shields as none of them were armed. but they did it voluntarily. this happens when you threaten total annihilation of your homeland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Events
These civilians did this without government coercion. Big difference.
how do you know that iranians are forced to do this now by their government and not doing this in support of their country? do you think there are gunmen taking them to the bridges?
It was a government call. I grew up in USSR and know very well how those government "calls to volunteer" work in totalitarian regimes. Especially in a wartime country where even in peacetime they would kill people even just for being incorrectly dressed.
Anyway, as i said in the other comment, it is actually not that important how all those people got there. The key thing here is that it was a deliberate government act of human shield creation.
what a coincidence i too grew up in USSR and my parents and friends were part of above mentioned human shield. And i can tell first hand that there was no coercion. just call to action.
you can ask your parents why they didn't want to live in a country where one had to volunteer when the government would call the one to volunteer.
Threatening total annihilation was possibly the dumbest move Trump could have made.
“ Soldiers when in desperate straits lose the sense of fear. If there is no place of refuge, they will stand firm. If they are in the heart of a hostile country, they will show a stubborn front. If there is no help for it, they will fight hard."
Sun Tzu
It said it was call of the government. Bloody authocratic government. A call you can’t refuse.
That’s certainly not the vibe I got from that video, nor the several others I’ve seen of Iranis at power plants and bridges.
Look at recordings from other totalitarian regimes - enthusiastic people doing government bidding. The key is deliberate act of human shield creation, not the specific way to do it.
My wife is Iranian and I know many Iranian expats, and all my in-laws are in Iran.
This attack on the school comes up all the time as a talking point. And I will tell you exactly how most Iranians react: they find it weird that you’ll talk about this school, but you won’t talk about the thousands of protesters killed by the regime.
Yes. People die in war. It’s sad. But most Iranians will say “whether we go to war or not Iranians are being killed” and it’s better to fight for regime change than to just accept the status quo.
Imagine being against the American Revolution because some innocent civilians will get killed? Yes, people die in war, but if there’s a chance for something better than it’s definitely worth it!
Every Iranian I know thinks it’s worth it and they danced in the street when Khamenei was killed.
"This attack on the school comes up all the time as a talking point. And I will tell you exactly how most Iranians react: they find it weird that you’ll talk about this school, but you won’t talk about the thousands of protesters killed by the regime."
The US government is not in any way responsible for the murder of protesters in Iran. That is done entirely by the government in Iran.
The USA and Israel ARE responsible for the murder of the kids (and adults) in that school. If you are American or Israeli you can care about the murdered protesters, but it it not really your responsibility. The murdered kids are however.
I understand what you’re saying, but I think you’re missing the point of my comment.
People bring up the school as a way of discouraging American military bombing Iran. It’s a way of shaming Americans, as if we are bad, making us feel guilty for bombing. Right?
What I’m trying to say is that Iranians I’ve spoken to are happy that we are bombing the regime. From their perspective, they are already being killed. The regime is dangerous to them. Bombing the regime and possibly destroying the regime is worth the risk.
So don’t be so hard on yourself. Iranians want your help. People die in wars, there is always collateral damage, but sometimes war is just. Sometimes the ends do justify the means. That’s how the Iranians I’ve spoken to feel.
"People die in wars, there is always collateral damage, but sometimes war is just. Sometimes the ends do justify the means."
What exactly is this "ends" you are describing?
Trump and Hegseth have declared the regime has been changed, so hopefully either Iranians are already better off now, or the US military will... finish the job regardless of what their commanders say?
In a few weeks when Trump needs a new country to attack to keep "flooding the zone", he will leave Iran, maybe the same regime still there, with some extra hundreds or thousands of innocents killed. I truly hope it goes better than that, but why should I believe that anything good will accidentally be accomplished by the demonstrably selfish, dumb, lazy, lying people at the helm of the US? They barely pay lip service to helping Iranians, let alone appear competent enough to do it.
> Imagine being against the American Revolution because some innocent civilians will get killed?
What was so great about the American revolution anyway? It's not like it gave any average people the right to vote, and it arguably preserved slavery for an extra 30 years.
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Because it seems nigh impossible to actually get the 18-27 crowd to actually go and vote. Doesn’t matter if their life sucks, they just can’t be bothered to go do it. Of course you’ll get people that try and deflect blame and say that “my vote doesn’t really change anything” but these people know it does change things and they still just stay at home on voting day.
tbh I think that vote would succeed, if one happened right now. his approval poll results are abysmally bad.
what do you think the vote would be, though? "we don't like him"? last I checked, change.org-petition-style voting didn't have much of an effect on country laws.
And some percent will say they deserved it
Too many are either disinterested in politics because it's ugly, or mad that their assigned candidate betrayed one of their values (e.g., genocide in Gaza). I think a lot of younger people just don't want to be bothered.
Being against genocide isn't a "value". It's not idealistic, or naive either.
It's a duty. Moral, and legal; domestic and international.
Drawing a hard red line at genocide is damn near the very least any human must demand from their leader; perhaps only exceeded by "don't threaten entire civilizations with nuclear weapons".
Same with prosecuting rapist insurrectionists, and going after billionaire's child-trafficking/murdering blackmail rings. These are not "nice to haves" - ya simply gotta do it.
If you're not "mad" when people fail to do these things, then are you really "interested in politics", or are you simply caught in some kind of us-vs-them death spiral?
A good chunk of America watch "news" crafted by right-wing billionaires and think he's doing a bang-up job.
Because another ~11% of Americans think the Democrats would be worse.
People don't seem really engaged in politics. They find it a frustrating waste of time because the news doesn't bother explaining anything to them, so they don't see the results of elections. They say both sides are the same. They don't take part in local elections. A mix of taught helplessness, learned helplessness, laziness, and the fact that if you're a white guy gas prices might affect you more than foreign wars and death squads
Both factions are filled with criminals that hate America (but LOVE Israel) and solely seek to exploit Americans as tax cows and organ donors. I take the third position: I'm a decline enjoyer and prepper.
Most people on Hacker News aren't ignorant, but they might be biased. You say both fractions are filled with criminals, and while parts of that might be true, it's far from the whole picture. Can you name anyone in the Democratic party who has caused as much damage as Trump? Missiles killing over 100 innocent children, inciting MAGA to storm Capitol Hill on January 6th, using presidential power to increase personal wealth by billions in one year, straining relationships with almost all democratic allies, massive layoffs in federal research institutions, and severe cuts to research funding that could damage the US research system for decades. His insane tariffs led to skyrocketing prices, economic disorder, and possibly a recession.
Yes, most Democrats support illegal or virtually unlimited immigration at a rapid rate which destroys the social fabric of society and leads to a rise in criminality. They are basically the West's version of the NKVD, but instead of the state ordering them to suppress the people directly, the state just selectively allows them to get away with any crimes that have the same effect as what they wished they could order a secret police force to do directly.
They learn which crimes are the approved crimes just how an AI machine learning model learns through stochastic gradient descent. They start out committing crimes basically at random, but over time they pick up on the patterns on what crimes are punished (those that are harmful to the system) and which crimes are NOT punished (beneficial to the system), and this causes them all to gravitate towards becoming system enforcers. They themselves aren't aware of their role in the system. They are just blindly following the path of least resistance the state sets up for them, but the state is aware and sets up this reward mechanism to create a system to suppress the citizens that doesn't rely on direct orders that could be traced back to them.
If they were using a secret police force they would slowly lose the trust of the people and begin losing their authority. By using this stochastic citizen suppression model they are able to keep their hands cleaner. People still know they are here and that they are letting them get away with crimes. This arrangement works as long as people think this is good and nobody can make the connection between selective enforcement and an effective police state where criminals are the police.
If the state was caught using secret police to, for example, suppress voters, perform blockbusting, or engage in generally demoralizing behavior they would need to explain themselves. If the state was caught using letting them in and enabling millions of them to suppress the citizenry then you need to explain yourself since you are now a racist bigot.
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Nukes are not really for actual use but for deterrence so likely no lives would have been lost. Israel has nukes and they don't use them unless somebody attacks them with nukes. Same with other countries. Ideally both Israel and Iran as well as North Korea, maybe also Pakistan and India should not have nukes. And even more ideal it would be if nobody had them but the cat's out of the bag already.
Iran has repeatedly stated their intent to use them.
They've also stated at various times that they believe first use or any use to be against Islamic law.
I don't find any of these statements to be particularly credible, but I also don't think they're going to strap the first bomb they make to the closest missile they find and immediately send it at Tel Aviv when it surely means the total destruction of the Iranian state.
Iran has repeatedly stated they will not develop nuclear weapons.
do you remember what usa president stated just couple of days ago? to destroy whole country. didnt it sounded credible enough?
India, The biggest democratic country should not have nukes but its ok for a bunch of colonizers and authoritarian state like china to have.
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No, I'm not saying that, how do you extrapolate my position from there. It would good if Iran continue not to have nukes but also it would be a great example for the region if Israel didn't have them either. If we allow Israel to have them we're applying a double standard. Any unhinged country should not have them.
There's not much precedent to get a powerful, vulnerable country to willingly disarm their nukes. It's fair to say Israel shouldn't have them but I'd be far more uncomfortable with Iran
All their leaders have repeatedly called for the elimination of Israel and t that must be "wiped off the map" or "erased from the page of time"
They have a much more abhorrent track record of domestic repression, state-sponsored terrorism, and explicit elimination-ist rhetoric toward Israel makes an Iranian nuclear capability far more destabilizing.
A nuclear Iran would likely embolden its proxies and heighten the risk of catastrophic escalation in a region where they have actively worked through proxies to encircle and attack Israel for decades
I have it on good authority that Hitler didn't want Iran to have nukes. Are you siding with Hitler??
Sure. Hitler was also a vegetarian. Is that really your best argument?
> Is that really your best argument?
(That is your argument.)
Is "something something Hitler" your best argument?
OP basically said every country is the same, has the same motive, so therefore it's ok for them to have nukes if others have them. That couldn't be more naive, and the Nazi regime is a prime example.
> Ideally both Israel and Iran as well as North Korea, maybe also Pakistan and India should not have nukes.
I assume this applies to the big H as well! Their follow up was in the context of a very different world than that of WWII.
> we should have let Iran have nukes?
What part of this war has made Iran less likely to get a nuclear weapon?
There could have been a good war in Iran. A coalition of nations going in to secure the uranium. It would have been messy. But it would have had a clean objective.
As objective yes but whose lives would be spared for this objective? Messy is relative to policies. Aren't other ways to attain this objective other than through war? I really think there were attempts and progress in that direction.
> So we should have let Iran have nukes? How many lives would have been lost then?
Fewer, because we would've been deterred from attacking them. Unless we decided to risk nuclear war, I guess.
US doesn't have to engage for Iran to use nukes. But of course we should prevent that from becoming a realistic scenario?
> US doesn't have to engage for Iran to use nukes
Sure, in a purely physical sense, I suppose they could launch a nuke, triggering MAD and Israel's Samson Doctrine and ending human civilization for no reason. Currently I think Israel, the US, North Korea, and Russia have a higher (though still low) risk of doing that. In that order, by the way, though I could probably be convinced to bump Russia up higher.
If Israel can have them, yes. Ideally, neither Israel nor Iran would have them.
I thought Iran's nuclear capability was destroyed in the June 2025 bombings?
They were able to move and hide a lot of the enriched uranium ahead of those bombings. Not all of it was destroyed.
I think that would be more believable, or at least the US/Israel would be more supportable in this, if they hadn't testily insisted on terms like "obliterated" and "set back by years" several months ago. You can only cry "nuke" so many times in a year. https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2025/06/irans-nuclear-fa...
does iran even want nukes?
they have a religious law against making or using them, and theyve been sitting at "they could make a nuke within a week" for the past 20 years or more
it feels like people are falling for iran's bargaining chip - they want people to think they could make one, but not actually make one
There was zero evidence they were close to a nuke. In fact, they've been alleged to be weeks away from a nuke for over 20 years. And the accusations come from the ones with the illegal nukes themselves!
Why do we "let" Israel have nukes?
Iran shouldn't have nukes, but starting a war—burning billions of dollars a day, killing kids and innocent civilians, and leveling bridges and universities—is objectively the worst possible way to prevent it.
The JCPOA under Obama actually did a solid job of constraining their nuclear development. That was the pragmatic approach, but Trump just unilaterally scrapped the deal. He doesn't have an actual strategy, maybe just "concepts of a plan".
This regime has been around for half a century. We supposedly destroyed their nuclear program last summer. And somehow their nuclear potential just became a war-worthy threat in February? Come on. Don’t tell me you actually believe that shit.
Unless we actually invade, all this war will do is demonstrate to Iran that obtaining nuclear weapons is an existential necessity for them, and kick the program into high gear. Oh, and provide them with plenty of funding for it due to their newfound ability to collect tolls for a vital shipping chokepoint.
> We supposedly destroyed their nuclear program last summer. And somehow their nuclear potential just became a war-worthy threat in February?
What news are you even reading? You are terribly misinformed or out of touch. Not all of it was destroyed. A lot of enriched uranium was saved. The IAEA still could not verify the stockpile's location, size, or composition due to denied access. Iran refused full inspections post-strikes.
The rest of your post is pure conjecture and nonsense.
The guy who said their nuclear program was destroyed last summer is the same guy who says we have to go to war to stop them from developing nuclear weapons now.
Do I believe it was actually destroyed? No. Do I believe the guy who said it was? No. Do I start believing that guy now that he says there’s an imminent threat? Also no.
It's pure conjecture that they are now collecting tolls from ships that transit the Strait of Hormuz? You don't think they're going to sprint for nukes at any cost now?
> What news are you even reading? You are terribly misinformed or out of touch.
What news are YOU reading?
https://time.com/article/2026/03/18/tulsi-gabbard-iran-nucle...
"As a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated. There has been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability. The entrances to the underground facilities that were bombed have been buried and shuttered with cement," Gabard wrote in an opening statement ahead of the hearing.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/headlines/2026/03/19/ken...
Joe Kent, who made big news when he stepped down on Tuesday as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said in an interview with Tucker Carlson on Wednesday that intelligence assessments did not show Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States or was close to developing a nuclear weapon, undercutting central justifications for the military action.
Evil dictator who killed millions of people in his lifetime is also now dead.
He was 86 and is now, unfortunately, a beloved martyr rather than the symbol of an old and decaying regime.
>beloved
by whom? ROFL, good luck substantiating this claim
are we ignoring the fact that he massacred countless people for protesting against him THIS YEAR?
Trust me, I wish it weren't the case. Nobody likes being bombed and he's now a symbol of resistance. Most of the urban middle class has always hated the mullahs and various ethnic groups have conflict with the state as a whole, but Khamanei had and has support from basically every other element of society.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/polarised-ira...
[2] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/rare-moment-indias...
[3] https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2026/3/1/thousands-in-iran...
More than half of the people who voted in the US voted for Trump. A lot of people in Iran most probably liked the old leadership there.
Replaced by his son.
>Replaced by his son.
Replaced by an enraged son whose whole family had been killed in front of him. Basically Iran's Ayatolah is now younger and angrier. Thanks to Trump and Israel's Trump.
Iranian people were about to topple their own regime some months ago. Now the regime is cemented again since Iran was attacked indiscriminately. Again, thank the 2 Trumps.
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This is the counter argument: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Iran_massacres
Here's hoping the regime is destabilised enough to topple by itself.
How is this in any way a counter argument to the US bombing a school? That their own government would stoop to such lengths gives free reign to foreign governments?
The idea is that incurring a few hundred civilians deaths to liberate Iranians from a regime that slaughtered them by the thousands or tens of thousands is a net positive for human life. Of course this only works as a justification if the Iranians actually are liberated front their regime, which I don't think they will.
But the justification, if the liberation actually transpires, is sound. An order of magnitude more French and Dutch died at the hands of Allied bombing and shelling in 1944. I think most agree the the upside of being liberated from Germany makes the Allied landings a net positive, though.
But to reiterate, I really doubt the revolutionary guard is going to lose control of Iran.
The situation is hardly comparable.
The French and Dutch were members of the Allies, with Charles de Gaulle as leader of the Free-French forces and Queen Wilhelmina the head of the Dutch government-in-exile, both in London. Both wanted the allies to get the Germans out of their countries.
There is no government-in-exile calling for the bombing of Iran as a method for liberation.
Just as Laos did not call for the US to drop some 2 million tons on that country - more than were dropped on Japan, Germany and Britain during World War II - resulting in the deaths of over 200,000 people, as part of the US's ineffective attempt to "liberate" North Vietnam.
> Of course this only works as a justification
If killing those kids was instrumental in a greater good, only then is it worth being philosophical about. From what I've seen, they were too eager with the bang bang boom boom to actually double check that it was a valid target.
Double checked?
They fed ancient intelligence into an AI which spit out a target list that nobody seems to have checked, period.
This aligns with conversations I’ve had with Iranians. They really do believe that the ends justify the means here if they can destroy the regime.
Iranians abroad or Iranians in Iran?
Because the ones abroad don't have a lot to lose and much to gain. The ones in Iran have a lot to lose as well.
Like being killed if they said they want regime change.
Congratulations for rediscovering Machiavelli. “The ends justify the means” is such a winning philosophy.
The ends do alter the acceptability of the means. E.g. if I offered you the means of “pay money to flip coin to make money as many times as possible” and the numbers involved were $50k if heads, lose $1k if tails and $50 buy in that’s way different if the numbers involved were $1k if heads, lose $50k if tails and $500k buy in.
If you can’t alter your reasoning to include outcomes then you will make poorer decisions.
No one wants to liberate Iran. Israel just wants to continue committing genocide and apartheid without any opposition. Iran arms Hezbollah and Hamas, the main forms of Palestinian resistance. The whole point of this operation is to decimate those groups so ethnic cleansing can continue without any resistance. Israel could care less about the Irani people.
You are very naive if you think the IRGC truly killed 10's of thousands of it's own people. Israel openly talks about Mossad organizing and supporting the coup, and good old Donny has admitted they have given weapons to organized resistance.
I estimate that many of the death numbers come from armed resistance being killed by the IRGC, not ordinary peaceful protestors. I also think armed resistance killed many Irani citizens. There is obviously fog of war here. The thousands of deaths were likely inflated and obfuscated.
Look at the coups we have backed in the middle east (including formerly in Iran which is what originally led to the Islamic revolution) -- and you will see a pattern. Both US and Israel provide material support to groups like ISIS or actors like Bin Laden. An Al-Qaeda fighter is literally the head of Syria now thanks to Israel.
I don't love Hamas, IRGC or Hezbollah, I don't like their ideology. But it is myopic to think they exist in a vaccum.
I wouldn't personally do so, but arguably those tens of thousands rest at our feet considering the current government was political blowback from the US and UK regime changing Iran back in the '50s.
It's even less likely to work because Trump has already claimed, publicly, to arming the protestors. That already makes any regime change illegitimate. They're all foreign backed agitators.
I bring it up because this shit is messy.
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> Accidents are common in war
That's precisely why you don't just start wars to show the world that your dick is still bigger than everybody else's.
> Accidents are common in war;
As an engineer a substantial amount of my professional effort is spent on preventing them. They aren't acceptable.
Nobody is saying they are acceptable. But it'd be naive to say there's ever zero risk. What's your brilliant plan? Let Iran have nukes?
> Nobody is saying they are acceptable.
Saying "Accidents happen in war" is absolutely a way of saying "Accidents are acceptable in war".
That's what's being said here. Otherwise, it's a useless thing to say.
> What's your brilliant plan? Let Iran have nukes?
There was no evidence that Iran was pursuing nukes. Certainly no evidence that they were `n days` away from getting nukes.
My "brilliant" plan would have been the negotiations that were happening where Iran agreed to pretty strict monitoring and stipulations on nuclear fuel development.
The "Iran was getting nukes" rhetoric needs real evidence that was actually happening not "we think that might be happening because Trump said so."
> Saying "Accidents happen in war" is absolutely a way of saying "Accidents are acceptable in war".
Bridges fall down sometimes. I don't think it's acceptable. It's a statement of fact. There are always going to be mistakes, in every field and in pursuit of every goal. Your objection and implications aren't particularly charitable here.
> My "brilliant" plan would have been the negotiations that were happening where Iran agreed to pretty strict monitoring and stipulations on nuclear fuel development.
Iran was not complying with the monitoring requirements.
> The "Iran was getting nukes" rhetoric needs real evidence that was actually happening not "we think that might be happening because Trump said so."
Intelligence agencies under both Biden and Trump (and since at least the 90s) have repeatedly confirmed it.
This isn't really a question or doubt any reasonable person can have. There can be an argument about how close they are at any given moment, but they are actively pursuing nuclear weapons.
> Intelligence agencies under both Biden and Trump (and since at least the 90s) have repeatedly confirmed it.
Cite your source. When did this happen under Biden?
This isn't buried or hard to find, but in good faith:
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ODNI-Un...
https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/congressional-testimo...
I disagree with your interpretation of these reports.
The ODNI report wasn't saying that Iran was perusing nuclear weapons, but rather that it was stockpiling weapons grade uranium. And, in particular, it calls out the reason they did this. Because the US withdrew from the JCPOA. It also called out the fact that Iran continued to say that they'd rejoin the JCPOA if the US was willing to.
Trump in the first term withdrew from our agreements, why should Iran have continued obeying the terms of an agreement that the US renegged on?
That's why I say they weren't pursuing nuclear weapons. They were stockpiling enriched uranium mostly because they were trying to use that as a negotiation tactic with the US.
But in negotiations with Trump both before the 12 day war and this time, they had agreed to re-enter the monitoring regime with the JCPOA and to completely destroy their stockpile, in return for lifted sanctions.
> Iran uses its nuclear program for negotiation leverage and to respond to perceived international pressure. During the past year, it has modulated its production and inventory of 60-percent uranium. Tehran has said it would restore JCPOA limits if the United States fulfilled its JCPOA commitments and the IAEA closed its outstanding safeguards investigations.
I see in your bio that you work on cars. Surely you've heard of car accidents? Clearly we find them acceptable enough to keep driving, wouldn't you agree?
> Accidents are common in war
Sure. The point is this was a particularly tragic accident. And it happened for, from the looks of the ceasefire conditions, jack shit.
More pointedly: if it was an accident, it should be investigated. Honestly. Openly. Not only is it horrible, bombing children is a strategic blunder in a war for hearts and minds.
These kinds of accidents seem to be particularly common in wars waged by Israel for some reason.
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The school was bombed by US Tomahawk missiles, twice via a double tap so the medical personnel were killed too.
It's absolutely absurd to think this would be caused by a misfire from Iran.
Investigation isn’t finished, but it was almost certainly the US. If it was Iran Trump or Hegeseth would not have been able to contain themselves.
The American commander in chief was, as of yesterday, vowing to end their entire civilization.
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The counter argument is missing some justification. Is it reasonable to go killing people on the hope that something good will come out of it? Is there no less violent way to achieve those objectives? Do we really think that people will organize a toppling while they're being bombed without Internet access? Do we think they'll topple the current regime for one that is less antagonistic to Israel and the US after the bombings?
Aside from the fact that the events you linked to have no connection whatsoever to why the US started attacking Iran, there is absolutely no reality or moral code in which "a government kills a couple hundred of its citizens" justifies another government on the other side of the world blowing up a hundred plus schoolchildren and other civilians.
> Here's hoping the regime is destabilised enough to topple by itself.
It's looking like this is the exact type of magical thinking of the most useless "president" ever. Meanwhile in the real world, such things take hard work.
> This is the counter argument
When the French helped us during the Revolutionary War, they didn't shore bombard the colonists' kids because it would have been bad and counterproductive.
This is black propaganda, not a counterargument.
At most there were a couple thousand casualties from violent riots that involved armed gangs (or sleeper cells if you want to go that route).
There were not "60,000" peaceful protestors executed by the government, as Trump claimed yesterday without evidence. That is murderous propaganda, blood libel intended to deflect from the actual mass murder of civilians by American forces e.g. the Minab school.
It was a narrative specifically designed to induce comments like yours.
i dont imagine spending a bunch on the military and oil is nearly enough to topple the US government.
what case does it make that the constitution needs to be abandoned?
> for basically nothing
* The people responsible for murdering ten thousand protesters are now dead.
* The IRGC's military capability is significantly degraded.
* Their nuclear program is likely set back even further. It's hard to get real information here but we should assume that supporting facilities were high on the target list.
That's not nothing. From a strict utilitarian perspective, it's probably "worth it". Which sucks, but I haven't heard a better plan.
i dont think those are nearly as clearcut as suggested.
some of the iranian side for events that resulted in a bunch of death have been killed... while also killing a bunch mkre iranians, but have the americans/israelis that armed the protestors into terrorists and incided them to violence been killed?
i think theres enough police, mossad, and cia folks left to do that again and again until the protestors are all gone.
similarly, its blatantly obvious for everyone that the US destoryed the iranian capabilities that dont matter. iran is still capable enough to seter both putting american ships in the strait, and boots on the ground, so that degradation is not significant. optimization without profiling.
from a strict utilitarian perspective, definitely not worth it. the costs were extraordinarily expensive and havent been fully paid yet, and the profits for the US is a worse position than they started it
theres some light benefits to the gulf and ukraine in that the gulf realizes that they can spend much less on defense by buying from ukraine, but that pales in comparison to the costs paid in destroyed oil infrastructure and interceptors that could have gone to ukraine
Does this mean that Iran will have functional nukes in two weeks? Given how previous "ceasefires" turned out (blowing up their leadership), I don't think they are naive again and don't seem desperate to end it.
No, there is more to building a functioning nuke than just fuel enrichment.
The access to highly enriched uranium or separated plutonium is the limiting factor for construction of nuclear weapons.
It really depends on how small and how efficient you need to make weapon, a nuclear weapon fitting inside a rocket nose cone is much more sophisticated than nuclear weapon that has to be only transportable by truck, ship or airplane.
For example, the simple design of Little Boy used on Hiroshima contained 64 kilograms of uranium, but less than a kilogram underwent nuclear fission.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_boy
"Unlike the implosion design developed for the Trinity test and the Fat Man bomb design that was used against Nagasaki, which required sophisticated coordination of shaped explosive charges, the simpler but inefficient gun-type design was considered almost certain to work, and was never tested prior to its use at Hiroshima."
So with access to highly enriched uranium (enrichment greater than 90%), a large and crude bomb could be produced in few weeks. How could they deliver it anywhere? They don't have airplanes. Truck? Speedboat?
Given how the past nuclear deals went over decades, there's little hope of follow through now.
JCPoA compliance was verified by the US and the IAEA regularly until the agreement was suspended by Donald Trump in 2018.
And the agreement continued with other nations, but IAEA started raising concerns in 2019 and Iran started breaking conditions. A bunch of countries tried to reinstate it under Biden but the Iranians wouldn't do it. Maybe they would have stayed compliant, maybe not. We'll never know. What we do know is that they wouldn't continue the agreement with other parties nor recommit to it later.
Pinning this right here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_attack
Responding with this: https://youtu.be/8_AiSeYsDeA?si=xsZTGWxcVaVRbXCi
Iranians responding with excitement and hope as we bomb the regime.
I hate bombing as much as the next guy but areas close to military structures, especially to ones that have already been bombed during the last 24 hours, should have been evacuated.
> On 28 February 2026, between 10:23 and 10:45 a.m
That's the exact same time the other buildings were hit. It was all part of the same strike package. The school was hit directly, not accidentally, and The Guardian has previously reported on evidence that these targets were selected with AI assistance
This is Israel's "business as usual" stuff. Mowing the lawn, fake ceasefire, distraction, expansion and greater Israel project let's go! stuff. Stretch goal is to make Iran a failed state. Primary goal is distraction from the very real annexation of Palestinian and Lebanese territories, one war crime at a time.
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What are you trying to say? Stop justifying Israel's actions as inevitable. They are not.
I am not justifying them as inevitable. I am justifying them as beneficial for us, even if the means they employ are morally questionable at times (even if they happen to be that way for the lack of choices).
I support Israel because it is a no-brainer who to support between them and so-called "Palestine" (which in practice means Hamas), and there is no practical way to be neutral because Hamas will never accept existence of Israel and thorough genocide of Israelis is only acceptable option for them.
> even if the means they employ are morally questionable at times
> [...]
> thorough genocide of Israelis is only acceptable option for them
What a sickening double-standard. I hope you understand why the majority of Americans disagree with this perspective, and have no interest in dying for Israel's expansionist escalation policy. Hamas is not a threat to America, Israel is.
It's possible you haven't visited America recently and experienced this firsthand, so I'll excuse you for thinking you have a populist stance. Even the Christian Zionists are getting sick and tired of dealing with the Liability in the Levant right now, I think you'll be shocked how fast the GOP abandons Likud when the ceasefire inevitably snaps.
I'm not at all an American and have never been to the US, and don't give a flying fuck about it. "Beneficial for us" - for the whole white, Christian (i am an atheist), civilised world.
Big difference in Israeli and Palestinian stance is that Israel is fine with the existence of Palestine. They never had a policy goal to destroy Gaza/West Bank or exile entirety of their population. Hamas does have a goal of doing the same to Israeli.
If Israel is fine with the existence of Palestina, why is it occupying the West Bank with illegal settlements? There is no Hamas in the West Bank, not any threat whatsoever and the policy is ethnic cleansing, as in Gaza. Do you know the current stance of the far-right Israeli government?
"The white, civilized world". There is not such a thing outside the mind of a white-supremacist, which you seem to be by this comments.
I mean, other way around is if "Palestine" advances on Israel.
If it is to recover what Israel occupied illegally, good. If Palestine did what Israel is doing, that would be bad. What happened in October the 7th was also horrible and condemned. We really need to deescalate the whole situation and stop the violence. Every one of these violent actions (in which Israel is the main perpetrator by far), not only create suffering and deaths in the short term, but makes a possible solution harder and harder.
> We really need to deescalate the whole situation and stop the violence.
Yes. Also, I would like a poney.
This is so unhelpful. What has happened in the last 5 weeks has hugely escalated the violence in an already difficult situation. It's not wishful thinking or naive to think that deliberately inflaming a difficult situation is a bad idea.
So what's the alternative? Wanting to deescalate this massacre is nonsense, but the actions of Israel make sense?
But in land of Israel/Palestine itself, there's no significant violence going on right? Hamas is isolated, there is an ample security zone, it's cut off from border and unable to militarily recover - problem is solved. West Bank is split into many enclaves, surrounded by walls and buffer zones, incapable of doing much harm and seems to be unwilling to try it in any case - any such outbursts will be contained if they happen.
For now, problem looks like it's solved - Palestinians on either side are incapable of harming Israel much, and Israel doesn't need or want to harm them either simply because endgame is unclear - ideally they are pushed out but no country will accept them so it's futile.
What is the exact problem we are discussing here? Actions in Lebanon are simply about creating a buffer zone there to make remnants of Hezbolla to threaten Israeli northern towns. Once zone south Litani river is secured, things will calm down.
There's lots of violence towards Palestinians ongoing in both the West Bank and Gaza. While a million(!!) are newly homeless in Lebanon.
The complete lack of regard for non-Israeli life says more than any propaganda ever could.
Problem is solved for Israel, right. Gaza is still in ruins, cut off from everything, there is a massive humanitarian crisis, the systematic dispossession campaign in the West Bank is accelerating, but I guess all of that just affects Palestinians, so it doesn't count...
Problem here is that first and foremost, Gaza needs two things to fix their housing stock: cement and pipes... And they aren't getting either because cement immediately goes into building tunnels, and pipes into producing rockets. No way Israel will be fooled that way again - and now they control what goes in or not because of buffer zone.
Yeah no. The current "debate" from what I understand is about mobile homes and any kind of temporary shelter that is more durable than a tent. The Israeli government straight up said "no, mobile homes count as 'reconstruction' for us and reconstruction in any form is forbidden until Hamas is disarmed. So tents is all they get".
All that during several winter storms.
This is Palestine, not Minnesota :) I live right next to it. It never gets below zero. No snow.
And yes that's what was the condition of ceasefire. Of course Israel knew Hamas won't yield power. They are made so that Hamas can be now blamed for the plight of Palestinians. Question is, who elected Hamas to power?
Things were calm until Israel attacked Lebanon. They did it, after Israel and America started an illegal war against Iran. At this point, everyone knows Israel is the aggressor. One of the first acts of Operation Epstein's Fury was to attack a girls school and murder over 170 kids with a Tomahawk. Why?
The school building used to be part of the adjacent IRGC military base, but was converted into a school. The targeting database hadn't been updated.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/mar/26/ai-got-the-blam...
Tell that to the parents of the 170 girls.
I have two girls myself. I’d want to know exactly what happened and why, and to hold whoever made this deplorable mistake accountable. So I’d want to know this. Wouldn’t you? I think the AI targeting aspect of this is very disturbing.
Sorry, I misread your comment as a justification the first time. The US and Iseael are involved in war crimes and I am so tired of people justifying it.
What do you mean?
As long as the state of Israel is a project of ultra-nationalist hostile expansion, yes. Respect your neighbours or else.
I think the alternative he was alluding to was that Iran is the project of ultra-religious hostile expansion. Which of course they would do if they could. Pick your poison - nationalist fanaticism or religious fanaticism.
Obviously neither would be best but that isn't a realistic possibility. I think I'd probably rather Israel conquered the Middle East than Iran.
> Iran is the project of ultra-religious hostile expansion. Which of course they would do if they could.
Would they? I wish we could start making decisions based in reality and not on hypotheticals.
Iran "would" expand (and citation needed) is very different than Israel "is in the process of" expanding, invading, suppressing peoples of different cultures within and without the borders of its state.
> I think I'd probably rather Israel conquered the Middle East than Iran.
I'd rather that whomever pursues a project of Lebensraum (that includes Russia) to be reminded of its place in the world, one way or another.
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This is absurd. Iran hasn't done hostile expansion during its entire history as a modern state. Meanwhile the Greater Israel project is being aggressively pursued, with Israel currently (as in today, Wednesday April 8th) ethnically cleansing South Lebanon for indefinite occupation, as well as annexing the West Bank.
But Iran was involved in war abroad, trained militias and send weapons to Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, Lebanon, .. and also had personal on the ground.
They even try to enforce a death sentence worldwide and allmost succeded against a author who never even has been in Iran for writing a fantasy book (Salmom Rushdi).
It is absurd claiming they are peaceful. None of this justifies what Israel religious and nationalists are doing, but this black and white painting is not what is solving the conflict.
Ultra religious expansion.
Sadly there's no Babylon this time.
Or else what? You can’t do anything.
Or else they'll eventually alienate a majority of their patron state's voting population, and finally get hemmed in / risk losing your military (and other) funding that their state is dependent on.
Heavens to Betsy please don't be so passive.
We can reverse the whole thing -- lift sancions on Iran, sell them weapons, let them have their bomb and impose embargo on Israel. That should cool tbe delusions of grandeur pretty quick.
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> reason and evidence
It was upvoted by so many people actually because of reason and evidence.
Also, please stop using race card, no one is blaming a race, people are pointing out to the country who is carrying out these cruelties and majority of government supporting it and majority of army is executing the commands
You guys are so correct that you have to flag everything that shows how irrational you are being.
I think you are attacking people for flagging it, without reading the actual content of the reply.
I'd also be depressed if I were in your shoes account created 8 minutes ago
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-minister-c...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/nearly-20-nations-slam-israels...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/expansion-of-west-bank-rule-ap...
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wouldn't it be reasonable to provide counter sources then?
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hate? who's full of hate?
You . The links you said are very misleading when looking at reality and the whole picture. So the fact you chose these hilariously misleading links means you are misled. Where did that misleading come from? You have to be fueled with emotions to get to that incorrect conclusion of yours (again, only based on your links). So I am assuming you hate the jews/zionism/israel/something related and that hate fueled your failed journey at reaching the truth.
"Israel should extend its border with Lebanon up to the Litani River deep inside the country's south, Israel's finance minister said on Monday as Israeli troops bombed bridges and destroyed homes in an escalating military assault. The comments by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich were the most explicit yet by a senior Israeli official on seizing Lebanese territory in a fight Israel says targets Iran-backed Hezbollah militants."
Am I missing something?
Yes, a lot of context. Otherwise your linked article would indeed favor your argument. But given without enough context this article is a pure backwards nonsense that can and does confuse uninformed people like yourself.
There is no context that justifies ethnic cleansing.
Your gaslighting doesn't work on me
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yx8knpr5no
I must be missing where there was any hate in this discussion whatsoever.
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Israel hates negotiations. Netanyahu funded Hamas. And you're writing comedy and I just can't be bothered. You got me. No you didn't.
Only a Zionist would call equal rights and the right to self-determination a "maximalist" position.
Answer me one thing. Who will be the people who flow into Israel while the whole world sees the ugly state it has become?
A weirdly supremacist ethno-state is not a solution. It might seem like a good idea but I don't think it has legs to be honest.
> "Netanyahu funded Hamas"
I see this claim repeated over and over. You should be aware that it is false. As far as I am aware, Israel never funded Hamas. Israel allowed Qatari money to the Gaza authority to pay for civil servants, humanitarian aid and basic services, while it was run by Hamas.
> Only a Zionist would call equal rights and the right to self-determination a "maximalist" position.
To be clear, this was not Hamas’ position during negotiations.
> Only a Zionist would call equal rights and the right to self-determination a "maximalist" position
They had equal rights and self-determination in Gaza. For decades. They never built a society from it, instead begging the international community for food, and then starting a war they knew they would lose, only for the PR points of losing badly.
Where's a blockaded tiny slice of coastal land no more than a few miles wide with no water and no arable land supposed to even get food? Nobody is convinced by the "they're just beggars" racist stuff, man. Those poor people were actively expelled from their homes and continuously oppressed and have had their new homes flattened countless times. The fact those poor people still survive and try to rebuild each and every time shows that those people work hard.
Israel managed to build agriculture there, that's why they left all that agricultural gear that Hamas repurposed to making rockets.
> Nobody is convinced by the "they're just beggars" racist stuff, man.
Nobody is convinced by the "you're just racist" stuff, man.
It's physically impossible for land that small to grow enough food to provide for their population. Those people were driven from their land and forced into an incredibly tiny and unsustainable space. And the whole "They never built a society from it" thing is what the most extreme racists and slave traffickers said about Africans so they could justify their treatment of them. It's dehumanizing and absolutely disgusting way to talk about a group of human beings and people should be shamed for saying such things.
I wasn't saying they had to be self sufficient. I don't think Israel is either. You do have to have something though.
You're trying to argue from rage instead of facts and I'm not buying it. You can be as angry and insulting as you want, but it doesn't change the fact that the reason is that you jump to insults is that you don't have a point.
We DO need to free palestine. But from Hamas. From jihadism. That's what's killing them. Blaming Israel guarantees the kind of dysfunction that allowed Hamas to fester and jihadist nazism to be taught in UN funded schools.
'They had equal rights and self-determination in Gaza. For decades. They never built a society from it'
Uneducated statement by an uneducated user. Actually quite shocking. Information is free, educated yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip
You might want to point out something specific. And why are people just blaming Israel when Gaza has a border with Egypt? The answer is obvious isn't it?
Whats the answer? bomb Lebanon?
The answer to why people are just talking about Israel when Egypt also ran the blockade.
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Israel are unwilling or unable to hold to agreements and that makes them an unreliable partner. The same has been true of America with Iran.
Both Iran and America also have a maximalist approach in terms of use of remote weapons and reluctance to accept casualties. That limits the effectiveness of "might makes right". Massively more so in the larger Iran.
And whilst Gaza might seem like a collosal defeat it could be seen in a more positive light in a culture that views sacrifice as noble. Again same could be true of Iran.
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List them. Every single incident.
Lol. No.
People really love this "might makes right" stuff till it's their civilians being killed in large numbers, then suddenly it's a problem.
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Your arguments directly conflict
Not true. Hamas wanted to do hostage exchange for Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons and truce within the first week. Israel refused.
Other way around.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/qatar-leads-talks-...
Ridiculous take. Israel wants a secular Iran, not a failed state. Most Iranians don’t hate Israel. They hate the Islamic regime. But westerners just looove to support all Iranian proxies these days.
Israel does want a failed state - they want to balkanise Iran, letting their ISIS head-choppers, the Uigher terrorists etc at it. See Syria and how that's going.
What option is there for israel.
Maybe not systematically murdering civilians and stealing their land and homes every day might be a start. Baby steps.
https://www.hamas-massacre.net
Of course, Israel is a pure white dove. For instance, they have rallies for "the right to rape prisoners" (and recently to kill them) [0]. Or to willingly mutilate peaceful protesters presenting no risk[1].
The problem is that the total lack of moral limits in Israel only forces their opponents to escalate, or accept to be treated like animals (in the case of the West Bank Palestinians). It also affects the US, since that they have to follow along with Israel' way of doing the war (mainly, war crimes).
[0]: https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2024/8/13/israeli-p...
[1]: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2020-03-06/ty-article-ma...
Oh no they are a rotten old pigeon as well and I don't disagree.
What I object to is the "freedom fighters" being painted with moral virtue when they are raping murdering bastards.
The problem is that once a party starts to commit atrocities, all others tend to do it. Atrocities by Israel are not new, and Israel has a long history about it, since its inception:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cast_Thy_Bread
Rather than deshumanizing parties, deescalation is needed to achieve peace. And an end of the US support to Israel.
That is the consequence of a long-term policy. Israel made sure the Palestinian authority was sidelined and helped Hamas get full control of the Gaza Strip. History did not start in October 2023.
Yes I am aware of the full history of the Middle East back to the middle ages...
The problem really kicked off after the Ottoman reform (Tanzimat) period.
We call Hamas "terrorists" for far less than Israel's actions.
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For sure my "genocide supporting" brain center took critical damage and is not operational.
As we're talking absolutes clearly, was the Nova music festival massacre justified resistance?
> was the Nova music festival massacre justified resistance
Intentionally killing civilians is never justified. But this still makes Palestine/Hamas the (much) smaller genocidal terrorist in this conflict. Free people don't need freedom fighters ;).
Now, I have no horse in this race, I am not related to any of the peoples involved, and live far away. I'm just the voice that finds genocide wrong. You on the other hand look like you're happily riding the terrorist, genocidal horse. I don't expect anything from you in terms of quality debate.
no massacre is justified, but can you remind us how and where did Hamas get helicopters and tanks and all of a sudden all cars were smashed? maybe Hannibal directive handed them over their tanks
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Fair. Clearly they need the land back GOD gave them 3000 years ago.
Well if one would get theological about it, I do believe they were given the land and then expelled by god. The Bible is quite explicit on that point.
I don’t remember seeing the memo that god gave “back” the land, so logically speaking they are acting against the will of god.
I mean realistically what peaceful propsals are there. Every neighbour country is threating what else they can do.
As a first step they could give back some of their illegal settlements. Then over time give back more, until they are back in UN recognized borders. That would be a start. They could also start to persecute violent mobs that chased people out of their own homes and the people in the military covering them. They could also release unjustifiably imprisoned people.
You know, things that basic human decency would demand of them.
The best plan is one democratic state from the river to the sea for all peoples governed by the Israel government.
> Every neighbour country is threating what else they can do.
See above. When Israel finally stops trying to be a Jewish supremacist state things can finally start getting better.
Has it ever entered your mind that maybe it is actually Israel that is threatening every other country?
Israel remembers the Six-Day War...
The war started by Israel, ostensibly as a retaliation for a dispute about a bit of water, which Israel used as a pretext to invade the West Bank? What about it?
Does that give a perpetual licence to kill, or do we try something productive at some point?
The only productive solution is to get rid of all religious ideology out there (both sides).
Good luck.
The 'both sides' thing when one side is occupying the other is pathetic. There's only one side that needs to stop the occupation immediately, the Israeli one. We can go from there.
Yeah remember when they left Gaza in 2005. What happened then?
They levelled it, tens of thousands killed.
'left' as in imposed a blockade on it, you mean?
This is preposterous revisionism - Israel didn't just leave Gaza alone, they turned it into an open air concentration camp, controlling everything going in and out. And they were utter bastards about it too, literally counting calories going into Gaza, and classing just about anything as "dual use" so not allowed (e.g. tent poles could be used to hit someone).
Israel has never stopped being the aggressor. Maybe if they stopped occupying, stealing, raping, murdering and massacring, the entire region might be more peaceful. Not likely for a genocidal, apartheid state filled with religious supremacist fanatics though.
Everyone remembers The Nakba. Or the Suez Crisis
And?
Nakba - Entirely the result of Ottoman foreign policy, WW1, WW2, League of Nations being a total fuck up.
Suez Crisis - Egypt being dicks
Six Day War - attacked from all sides.
Bit of a contrast, no?
Translation: Israel is always the victim, even if the whole world outside it sees it as the aggressor.
I guess illegal settlement in the West Bank is the result of a Nintendo console not being launched the same day in Israel as in Japan? Or any other made up thing that shifts the blame from Israel to a 3rd party?
Re-integration. One democratic state "from the river to the sea". And leave the neighboring states alone.
This comment is exactly why there is no hope out there. Literally zero understanding of middle-Eastern geopolitics other than trite slogans.
Come on. Do you think everyone is going to suddenly start holding hands and singing kumbaya? Or more realistically, like nearly every other surrounding state it'll be the elimination and exodus of Jews and Israelis?
Carpet bombing, artillery and gunfire hasn’t brought peace, but maybe the next salvo will, right?
Ballistic rockets and massacring people at music festivals don't either.
There's no moral high ground here so don't even pretend there is one.
https://archive.ph/Gsw1y
Hamas didn't have prior knowledge of the festival, and partygoers were also murdered by the Israeli army. And in general flattening entire cities don't leave their habitants very keen toward Israel either. It just reinforces the cycle of aggression, which allows Israel to take more land.
So that's ok then?
No it's not ok, if the goal is peace and not the achievement of the "Greater Israel" that the current religious far-right in power is pursuing, with the support of the zionist christians in the US.
That's a crazy way to defend an ongoing genocide. The scale is so different that the only way to miss it is willful bad faith.
How long and how far do you go with that justification? Does it work the other way too? Are "their" actions justified forever because of something wrong that was done to them? Can anyone in the world do to you anything and everything forever if they were ever wronged by someone born in the same general geographic area as you?
Whenever you find yourself defending any genocide, under any excuse, defending the killing of innocent children because some other guys from the same general area also killed people, you are the bigger problem and no amount of fresh accounts justifying it makes you better.
I didn't defend. I just pointed out that the "freedom fighters" in everyone's minds are raping murdering bastards and I refuse to take a moral position and support or defend them for it.
That in itself is an abhorrent position and I am disgusted at anyone who takes it.
And further extrapolation as you edited it, if a child has a gun pointing at your head and has been trained to fire it at you, which is exactly what they have been doing, then they are legally combatants. But it makes a good statistical and PR job which is just as abhorrent. Legally and statistically speakingh, children... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD2FezhJgqA
I would not do this to MY children.
> I didn't defend.
Didn't you?
> if a child has a gun pointing at your head
That sure sounds like defending the killing of children because for sure they were all holding a gun and trying to kill you. Including the babies.
If you show all the YouTube videos in the world, the moment when you find a justification to kill any innocent children is when you become irreversibly the problem.
No I didn't.
Your second point literally makes no sense and is based on the straw man that babies are holding guns where I made no point even related to that or collateral kills (which are unacceptable). Secondarily my point is based on internationally legal definitions of combatant and evidenced with a video of combatants being trained. Not like the UN and UNICEF haven't been all over this for decades.
Don't use child soldiers and you won't get statistically significant child casualties.
> I just pointed out that the "freedom fighters" in everyone's minds are raping murdering bastards
So, like Israeli soldiers?[0]
> if a child has a gun pointing at your head and has been trained to fire it at you, which is exactly what they have been doing
Israelis do exactly the same[1]
As long as Israelis rely on violence, war crimes and human rights violations, there can be no deescalation. We see it in the current ceasefire, where Israelis refused to stop their annexation war (and flattening) of Liban.
[0]https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2024/8/13/israeli-p...
[1]https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20170708-israel-gives-sett...
See my other comments. I'm not defending them either.
I am defending facts and stating there is no moral high ground.
Yes, although Israel has the power to deescalate, but hasn't done it. They also have a lot more power to inflict suffering to civilian populations.
So complaining about it while continuing to bomb civilians with white phosphore is rather hypocritical and cruel.
Genocide, apartheid, and 50 years of terrorism murder of children, destruction of hospitals, churches, schools, universities and imprisonment of a people’s in a Ghetto (yes, a fucking ghetto) is the moral bottom however. Israel is indefensible morally.
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There is one other possibility: Finish the genocide. Finish ethnically cleansing the region and put the remaining Palestinians into reservations. After a while once the current threat is eliminated, Israel can become Greater Israel and the Israelis can do land acknowledgements while they enjoy their new Riviera and Gaza.
This has been happening to Jews everywhere they’ve been since the dawn of time. Maybe some introspection would help.
By that logic muslims are even more hated, because their behaviour is uniform across democratic country.
You mean “Muslims are a monolith”?
...
Are you saying that it's Jews themselves who are to blame for having been killed or exiled from numerous places?
Pretty disgusting to tell Jews they have to own Israel’s genocide (among other crimes against humanity)
It's so sad to see this ridiculous argument every time. Israel is the aggressor, the murder and the main threat to the region's peace, not the victim. This, of course, does not mean that Iran is not another threat, but its actions seem like nothing compared to what Israel is doing.
Perhaps not be a genocidaire apartheid state?
The only endgame I see for the region is sadly the complete and utter annihilation of all civilizations there, possibly through nuclear means.
I do not say this lightly and I say it with a deep sadness in my heart for the people of the middle east, but also with the sober realization that this is the only end of the path that is currently walked.
There's a much less grim end, probably coming at short term:
If the US stop giving unconditional blank check support to Israel, then the nuisance power of the Jewish supremacists there disappears overnight. The US popular support for Israel is now at an all time low, and the recent war may be the straw that breaks the Camel's back.
All that's needed to stabilize the region is some amount of pushback to the destabilizing country here. Iran have been a destabilizing force for the past decade, but since 2023 Israel is by far the biggest threat to the region, and it's mostly due to Netanyahu's political survival relying on the state of perpetual war he's put the country in.
Should the US put even a modicum amount of pressure to Israel (or even just declare they wouldn't support them should the EU put economic sanctions on Israel), then the current cabinet collapse, Netanyahu ends up in prison for corruption and the middle east is stable for a decade.
All of this madness is happening because the US enables a madman to escape his own judicial system through foreign wars.
All of this madness is happening because the US enables a madman to escape his own judicial system through foreign wars.
All of this madness is happening because the US enables two+ madmen to escape their own judicial system through foreign wars.
Fixed it.
In fairness, it's the Biden administration who gave Netanyahu the blank check first.
Having another mad man at the head of the US makes the issue worse, but even impeaching him wouldn't solve the problem on its own.
As an outsider here's the point of my fear . Looks at democratic countries and muslim unification during gaza issue, this is a threat but as far as Jews are concerned they don't have this type of threat to democracy
Stop the immortality project and stop the massive suffering happening right now. People should really read "The Denial of Death".
Please share more
Pasting from Wikipedia:
> Becker argues that a basic duality in human life exists between the physical world of objects and biology, and a symbolic world of human meaning. Thus, since humanity has a dualistic nature consisting of a physical self and a symbolic self, we are able to transcend the dilemma of mortality by focusing our attention mainly on our symbolic selves, i.e. our culturally based self esteem, which Becker calls "heroism": a "defiant creation of meaning" expressing "the myth of the significance of human life" as compared to other animals. This counters the personal insignificance and finitude that death represents in the human mind.
> Such symbolic self-focus takes the form of an individual's "causa sui project", (sometimes called an "immortality project", or a "heroism project"). A person's "causa sui project" acts as their immortality vessel, whereby they subscribe to a particular set of culturally-created meanings and through them gain personal significance beyond that afforded to other mortal animals. This enables the individual to imagine at least some vestige of those meanings continuing beyond their own life-span; thus avoiding the complete "self-negation" we perceive when other biological creatures die in nature.
You can find big similarities such as the promised land as the immortality vessel, heroism as a response to historical trauma and the ongoing attacks on their sovereignty, and the immortality project would be the nation-state. Becker goes on to categorize all of this similar to a mental illness. You can read the wikipedia page here, I find it very helpful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death
TL;DR: If you look through Becker's lens, you start to realize how stupid such wars and expansionist ideals seem. People should focus on what exists now and stop chasing projects that'd span beyond their lifetimes while making life today worse.
Where is the source . This is just some random text
The text is from Wikipedia, which summarizes the ideas from the book, both of which have been linked/referenced in the comment already.
Comments on the Israel situation are my thoughts.
Is there anything else I missed?
Israel is simply protecting itself and the attack is retaliation to the islamic religious terrorism.
How is this book supports any thing even remotely in either favor.
If anything , this applies more to religious terrorists ie. Hamas.
Not to a national democratic state
The book doesn't support anything in "their" favor. The idea boils down to nobody being "them".
Related part from Wikipedia:
> Becker argues that the conflict between contradictory immortality projects (particularly in religion) is a major source of the violence and misery in the world such as wars, genocide, racism, nationalism and so forth since immortality projects that contradict one another threaten one's core beliefs and sense of security
There you go.
And to anyone who doesn't buy this comment, I strongly suggest "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" by Mearsheimer.
"Iran's Supreme National Security Council announced that Iran has achieved a major victory, compelling the United States to accept its 10-point plan. Under this plan, the U.S. has committed to non-aggression, recognized Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz, accepted Iran’s nuclear enrichment, lifted all primary and secondary sanctions, ended all Security Council and Board of Governors resolutions, agreed to pay compensation to Iran, withdrawn American combat forces from the region, and ceased hostilities on all fronts, including against the heroic Islamic Resistance of Lebanon."
Can't see this holding
But we've had messaging for domestic consumption worldwide since the trojan wars.
What people say in either direction is not a reflection of what happens, it's what they want to say, and have some cohort believe happened.
This is for domestic consumption. As will the WH reports be, facing the US domestic audience.
They didn't have the internet back then, everything is global now im afraid.
"because you said <that>, I won't do <this>" is rarely an issue in these matters. What people say, and what people do, are divorced.
This isn't contract law. The WH can declare victory and stop, or declare victory and continue, or declare defeat and stop, or declare defeat and continue, or declare nothing and {stop, continue} and what the Iranian government say is not relevant. But, stopping or not stopping sending up UAV and sending over missiles and aircraft, IS relevant.
ie, this is just speech. we judge on outcomes not on words said.
[edit: that said, under this administration, the reverse is also true - "because I heard you said <this> I will now do <that> which is totally irrational, but I now have an excuse in my own mind, for what I intended doing anyway." ]
The Supreme National Security Council is quoting the agreement that Trump supposedly agreed to. And if that agreement holds, it is hard to see it as anything but a complete Iranian victory.
Keep in mind, the losers in a conflict have more of an incentive to lie than the winners. The US and Israel seem very much the losers here.
I don't really disagree, but I just want to observe there is no neutral arbiter here. There isn't some platonic ideal "he won, they lost" outcome.
What I think, is that a french metric tonne of value has been sucked out of the world economy, a lot of future decisions are now very uncertain, power balances have shifted, and none of this is really helpful for american soft or hard power into the longer term.
The Iranians have lost an entire cohort of leadership and are going to spend years reconstructing domestic infrastructure, and a rational polity. But, the IGRC has probably got a stronger hand on the tiller. Their natural Shia allies abroad are in shellshock, but still there.
I'd call it a pyrrhic victory for America, on any terms. Wrecked the joint, came out with low bodycount in the immediate short term, have totally ruined international relations (which they don't care about) and probably won't win the mid-terms on some supposed "war vote" -But who knows? Maybe the horse can be taught to sing before morning?
A lot of very fine bang-bang whizz devices got used, and they learned how much fun that is. A lot of european and asian economies learned how weak they are in energy and fertilizer and will re-appraise how to manage that, and there's a lot of fun in that. A big muscly china is watching quietly and we're pretending there's nothing to see there, and meantime the tariff "war" continues to do .. 5/10ths of nothing.
The pace of worldwide alternative energy adoption has gone up. Is that an upside?
The Iranian PR on this is like the DPRK. Except the DPRK wear Hanbok not Chador. The Iranian citizenry has been badly let down. No green revolution on the horizon.
I genuinely do not understand how people read the words
> We received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran
and conclude that this means anything remotely resembling that Trump "supposedly agreed" to do everything Iran wants.
(Just in case this is somehow the reasoning: "points of past contention" clearly do not refer to the "points" in the "proposal". That's not how English works and not how time works. But that's the only wild guess I can genuinely even think of, after going over it repeatedly.)
If you get into the details, the two biggest "points of past contention" (nuclear enrichment and sanctions) are in the ten point proposal. I only see four ways to resolve that conflict:
1) The US agrees to the resolution of those that Iran publicly claims in the proposal (aka we lost)
2) Iran is lying publicly, and actually agrees to keep sanctions in place and/or give up uranium enrichment (maybe, but the plausible version of this is just reversion to the diplomatic status quo ante - a de facto defeat for everyone).
3) Trump is lying publicly, and there is no agreement on any of this (plausible, but it's unlikely to end better than #1 or #2)
4) This is just a rhetorical trick in service of a stall tactic ("almost all" does not include the ones that actually matter - plausible, but it's unlikely to end better than #1 or #2)
#2 is best case for the US, and represents a defeat in that costs were paid but nothing achieved. It's also a defeat for Iran, but I don't think many of us care about that?
Edit - I guess it is also plausible that Iran's current leadership is sufficiently fragmented that "what Iran agrees to" is not a coherent concept right now. That is just the practical effect of #3 by another route, though.
Just to make sure: you understand that "workable basis on which to negotiate" does not mean anything remotely resembling "thing to which we have agreed", yes?
Yes? "Workable basis on which to negotiate" generally does not include things that directly contradict existing agreements, though. I am pointing to "Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to" to establish that he's claiming some agreement on the past points of contention that matter.
If the "workable basis for future negotiation" contradicts that agreement, then someone is lying about something.
> "Workable basis on which to negotiate" generally does not include things that directly contradict existing agreements, though.
I disagree, and don't understand why you see it that way. Of course each side's negotiating position includes things they couldn't get before. The point of negotiating is to get things they didn't have before.
I'm just not sure how to respond to this, because this criticism doesn't seem to actually address the point. I suppose I could have communicated poorly, but I'm not sure how I could have been more clear.
"Almost all of the past points of contention have been agreed to" is pretty specific language, that indicates a new negotiation. What does "have already been agreed to" mean?
Do you think Trump was referring to an agreement that was in place prior to the war? If so, why did the war happen at all?
Do you think he was referring to future negotiations? "Have been agreed to" would be an odd way to phrase that.
Do you think he was referring to an agreement that lifts sanctions and permits uranium enrichment? That's #1, US lost.
Do you think he was referring to an agreement that contradicts the public 10-point proposal? That's #2, everyone lost.
Do you think that was just something he said, that doesn't have any truth behind it? That's #3, he's lying.
Do you think he was referring to negotiations that did not include uranium enrichment or sanctions? That's #4, he's using an obvious bad-faith rhetorical trick to stall.
Do you think he was referring to something not in one of those categories? Then what?
> Can't see this holding
Me either. Now one must ask who gains most from time. Israel, America or Iran.
I don't buy it. The only way this could be more humiliating for the US is if Trump agreed to do a public apology from Tehran. No way the Gulf countries and Israel would even entertain the thought.
The Gulfs would just follow whatever US wished. They also received the grim reminder that US being far away can just go at a moment notice. Iran is there for eternity figuratively speaking. They all need to learn to live together
I wonder how badly damaged the Gulf countries as Israel were in the past few days.
I have the impression a lot of the damage caused by Iran is being hidden and downplayed.
None of the targets have anything remotely resembling free press. So yes, the real effects were censored.
With all due respect, I feel people that hold your views would believe it if someone told them that not only did Iran complete defeat and demoralize the U.S. war power in Iran, that Iran has actually successfully bombed the U.S. into submission and the U.S. essentially no longer exists except as a vassal to Iran. I really think there is no Anti-American narrative that is too ludicrous for people that hold this view to believe. I actually find it fascinating.
What views are you talking about? That neither party involved in the was has any incentive to be truthful?
The only difference is that Iran can't do much to hide it.
The US-Israel axis on the other hand... https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/5/us-satellite-firm-pl...
It was still a more realistic announcement than anything Trump said since the beginning of this war.
So Trump completely capitulated then? Not like he had an option because the only other option was essentially genocide/mass murder.
I hope that one day humanity learns that in war there are no winners. We're all just brothers and sisters born on different corners of the planet. We share the same home.
I hope that we stop attacking one another and find peace and work together as a race to overcome our challenges.
I used to think this way, however lately I understood that all wars, I mean all of them (even those religious ones) are motivated by resources. Those resources are money, power, control. People deciding on war to begin are those who benefit from it (usually, unless they've been manipulated).
And sometimes there is crazy. But crazy I can't explain, sorry.
Yet, we all mostly understand we are people and we love each other. But then the big guys come and lead us to war. To get more gas, to get more power, to get influence. Ukraine? They threatened to become independent from Russia (influence). Afghanistan? They threatened to use gold as price factor (influence). Iran? here it might be the third factor I won't explain, but also motivation by money I guess...
That will happen on the day there is enough to go around.
Unfortunately I fear that time has long gone.
As long as the population is growing and/or the (fossil) energy is falling there will never be enough to go around.
I doubt scarcity has had anything to do with wars for the last 100 years, maybe even longer. It has always been about ideologies, fanaticism, and lording it over one another. Even when men lived in smaller tribes during periods of abundance, they still went around killing each other for false glory, ideology, and expansion. No economic solution can solve the problem of war and human nature.
Even if men ever colonize Mars and the wider galaxy, and resources were abundant, I doubt it would take long for wars to break out there, whether for a specific reason or none at all.
I doubt it very much that either Russian war on Ukraine or the US attacking Iran happened due do scarcity of resources. Old folks in power want their page in history books.
Human nature is more about attacking left and right and grab other people’s stuffs. At least some humans. Part of the human gene is like that. Aggressive, invasive, relentless.
This is a lovely notion that most well adjusted people can get behind, but if you've ever had a person with narcissistic personality disorder in your life, you'll understand that they need to create conflict to emotionally regulate themselves. Unfortunately these people tend to acquire wealth and power, and are never satisfied. Then the rest of us have to deal with it.
Amen. Also, nature is awesome and we live in a period of technological plenty and instant global communication with arbitrary knowledge and decent translation available in seconds, so why are we still acting like lunatics and hating on groups?
Parents: stop teaching your children to identify with irrelevant concepts of ethno-nationalism, and instead teach them to be globalist scientists with empathy.
Nationalismus ist eine Kinderkrankheit. Die Masern der Menschheit. ("Nationalism is an infantile disease: the measles of mankind") - Albert Einstein, 1929. Who, incidentally, turned down the presidency of Israel.
"Should we be unable to find a way to honest cooperation and honest pacts with the Arabs, then we have learned absolutely nothing during our two thousand years of suffering and deserve all that will come to us." - Einstein on Israel, late 1920s.
PLUR
It's times like these when most people recognise that parents in all corners of the world worry about their kids just the same.
War should never break out. But it does. We had international rules to prevent war, but they're gone. We had international rules to prevent governments deliberately killing innocent people under the guise of war, but they're gone too.
It took two world wars and roughly 80 million killed to create those rules.
You could argue about when they got destroyed. In Ukraine, in Gaza, Iran - but it's clear now that they don't exist any more.
The most powerful country in the world is run by an elite class of genocidal pedophiles who also (allegedly) eat people. People in the west are fed lies through the media that those same people have full control over. We are given a false sense of freedom. Freedom of speech only protects you from those who have significantly less power than those you actually need protection from. If those people want you gone you'll disappear without trace.
rainbows and unicorns are cool while you're under 9
OK I guess it is pause time. US and Israel are probably restocking on whatever missiles they can get, while Iran doing the same, and Russian/China rushing stuffs to Iran through sea and railroad.
At least I got a cheaper tank of gasoline tomorrow…
Gas won’t be any cheaper. While gas prices rise by the hour they take months to ever so slowly go down.
Oh brother, gas goes up in a hurry, it takes its sweet time to come down.
The way I recall things, in 2022 they took half the year to go up and were back to normal by the end. The statistics I can easily find corroborate this.
Not really. The fact we have a cease-fire signals the U.S. does not want to continue further with the war.
The reality is making statements re. actions associated with committing war-crimes has left the US with no friends... except Israel.
There's no ceasefire until Israel stops attacking. Iran retains control over the strait, and their demands haven't changed. Nothing's new other than Iran is ready to sit at the negotiating table because Trump caved-in enough.
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It's interesting how the hackernews-biased views of the war outcomes don't align with how Iranians themselves see that. For instance you can translate from persian the following geopolitical view which will shed a totally different light on the situation to whoever depends solely on hn comments https://x.com/i/status/2041693098833518976
Yes, just a regular Iranian. Hahaha.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_International
You can read who funds this channel.
Posted from Maryland?
Too bad the internet inside Iran was shut down by the IRGC terrorists regime
Thanks for sharing perspectives from actual Iranians.
Hey there, semi related to your comment above, I read your point that "Sad that my comment got flagged, this is a major problem with hacker news - censorship of comments that prevent people from hearing all perspectives" and agree completely. I've been flagged and shadowbanned for mentioning Iryna Zarutska and in general, anything that people would rather silence than address with words and reason. I'd love to talk more about this. It's sad because most of the people here regard themselves highly but this doesn't match the experience of "this opinion is counter mine therefore it must vanish and I can go on believing no one disagrees with me"
Up until a couple months ago, none of these people would even describe themselves as “Iranian.”
They would all use another term to distinguish between themselves and those living in Iran.
Two weeks who would have guessed xD
Came here to say this
How does anyone just open a strait that has mines in it in 2 weeks?
> How does anyone just open a strait that has mines in it in 2 weeks?
The strait has been open for weeks for friendly countries' ships that pay Iran $2M per passage through their "toll booth", an unmined route through Iranian territorial waters.
This ceasefire appears legitimize that situation. If it holds, Iran is about to make huge amounts of money on top of sanctions relief.
The strait is barely mined, at most a few dozen mines were placed. Multiple ships have transited through in Omani waters since the start of the conflict. So far none have been struck by mines.
The threat why boats do not cross are Iranian missiles / drones striking ships attempting to pass thru, without paying a protection fee. It's basically a terrorism protection fee.
does policemen shooting at you when you don't listen to his orders is considered terorism? i would say its just enforcing tax collection.
Iran doesn't have legal control over the entire strait; approx half of the strait is Iranian territorial waters and the other half is Omani territorial waters.
For Iran's toll system to work, they would need to strike at ships sailing in Omani territorial waters, which is an act of war.
but iran has physical control. lets call it a buffer zone for toll collection. And funny that you mention act of war like it was(would be) caused by iran.
Completely untrue. Iran has no legal rights to Omani waters, and has no physical control over them either, since Iran doesn't have a navy.
they have drones though and they are quite physical.
A silly argument. The US and Israel also have drones. These drones can reach Iran. By your logic, the US and Iran have physical control of Iran.
international law doesnt actually exist. the strait is close enough to irans borders such that they can enforce police activity, so its theirs.
the alternative is that oman and many others can also do the same thing, and the lot of states interested in trade in the area need to get together an negotiate a setup that everyone can agree to
"international law doesnt actually exist." Wow that's an interesting way to put it.
A good analogy to this situation is the analogy of playing chess with a pigeon, who knocks over the pieces, takes a shit on the board, struts around for a moment, and flies away.
Except in this case, the pigeon has a ton of yes-men worshiping it, and praises each of its moves as genius. Except it hasn't made any chess moves, it's literally knocked over pieces and shit on the board, leaving the board and pieces in worse shape. Worse yet - there's a narrative being built by the pigeon's yes-men that the actions by the pigeon were indeed genius, and the situation is better....and people believe the yes-men.
If the USA walks away and lets every other country pay a new fee to Iran… That would be interesting…
It will not happen. The only way Iran can enforce the fee is by actually shooting missiles at ships that don't pay. This is an act of war and terrorism; and in our current international order, is not viable solution. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, and other gulf countries, will never agree to it.
Another reason it won't work -- by Iran's logic, every nation adjacent to a strait of water can levy a toll on ships that pass through.
Why doesn't the UK charge tolls on ships that pass through the English channel, and bomb them if they don't pay up?
The same logic applies to the Strait of Gibraltar (Spain, UK, Morocco) and the Strait of Malacca (Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia).
Gibraltar's political situation is what it is because this was sorted out in the Treaty of Utrecht three hundred years ago, and Europe got very tired of leaders that thought they could redraw the map at the cost of millions of lives.
Probably the best we can expect from Iran is a frozen conflict like Korea or Cyprus, that stays frozen.
I disagree. If this ceasefire had not happened, the US and Israel would bomb all of Iran's electricity and fuel facilities. That's what was supposed to happen today, and is what forced Iran to the negotiating table with an hour to spare.
Without electricity, there is no modern life. There is no ability to communicate, run a financial economy, pay salaries, etc. Without fuel, there are no logistics; there is no capability to transport an army. Nor is there an ability to transport food; it would cause an enormous civilian crisis, and this would cause massive riots.
Iran would collapse, within a week. It would collapse into factions, and a civil war would start, similar to in Syria.
The US and Israel have been sitting on this the entire time. They don't want to do it, because it would cause near permanent economic damage to Iran.
Once Iran showed it had no ability to prevent the US/Israel from doing a indiscriminate bombing campaign, it was clear the US and Israel could always win this war.
Can you please stop copy/pasting the same comment into different trees of this whole thread. It's super annoying.
Who is going to invade Iran and stop them from shooting missiles at passing chips?
It will unify countries against Iran and maybe they’ll actually participate to open the strait like Trump asked them to
Look, I'm glad we're pausing this. But I'd like to understand why an article on the pause shoots right to the top, but news of a tweet from the president indicating a plan to annihilate a whole country does not see a similar rise to the top.
It's too random a process to be precisely answerable about a specific data point or two.
One could argue that this is a doing-something as opposed to a saying-something, and thus more substantive. Or perhaps people want some good news to believe in? I don't know - one can make up lots of just-so stories about these things (see paragraph 1).
Trump tweets insane things hourly. A reputable news organization announcing something actually happening with quotes from both sides confirming is news worthy.
I used to feel this way, but I think at this point you don’t need much of a brain to realize he’s a narcissist grifter that serves only himself without limit. A fellow gets tired of seeing his mouth shit all over the place. Peace/less killing is a positive break I’d much rather hear about.
Trump says a lot of shit all the time, and often contradicts himself right after.
Listening to what he has to say is nearly worthless. Better to react to his actions.
"'Two weeks' is one of President Trump’s favorite units of time. It can mean something, or nothing at all."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/world/middleeast/trump-ir...
Thank goodness. Let's hope some peace and quiet comes out of this.
> what did the US gain out of this
Market manipulation and the media largely forgetting about a certain set of files that reference many people in powerful positions.
Yeah the friends and family made a fortune from this, and we are teed up for the WTI options date which is… two weeks from today.
How much did Iran make? There’s plenty of unregulated futures markets for them to make a massive short bet on oil.
Less oil on the market meaning higher fuel prices with the US being a net exporter.
Not sure that was the plan but it looks like a benefit.
> looks like a benefit
To who? I don't think the people paying half again as much at the pump feel like it benefited them.
Oil producers that weren't disrupted over the last few weeks.
> I don't think the people paying half again as much at the pump feel like it benefited them.
Since when has the current US government done anything to benefit average citizens?
The war in Iran helps those who actually matter -- the oil companies that spent 445 million dollars getting Trump and other Republicans elected in 2024.
I think you may be agreeing with my sentiment, though it is hard to tell since your point is entirely orthogonal.
I am definitely agreeing.
Just pointing out that oil prices going up definitely looks like a benefit to the people the government is beholden to (which ain't the average citizen).
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> I cant even talk without insults when it comes to you, and so does everybody I know.
That sounds awful. Touch grass, perhaps? Even MAGA does not talk about me that way.
> microscopic shrivelled balls
I would like to think HN participants were better than this type of rhetoric. But I see your account is fairly new, so maybe things are changing.
On the one hand the comment was highly emotive and out of line.
But the basic point does stand that the US has not done itself many favours in worldwide relations recently.
Think of all of the people worldwide associating "US war with Iran" and their personal living cost inflation.
With a large population the US surely has many nice/intelligent/courageous/competent people.
Not very many of them are visibly meaningfully active to the rest of the world however.
There have been some pretty large protests and such, but US citizens were definitely not prepared for what happened to them in 2024. The US government has operated for our lifetimes on voluntary norms that were casually accepted as if they were law. People still haven't figured out how to effectively deal with a bad actor that has the full power of the executive and no restraint. Aside from yelling, nobody knows what to do other than wait for the next election.
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Giving the oil companies, some of the richest companies on the planet, MORE money is a benefit? Is that your idea of good governance? You don't think there's better uses of that money that's coming right out of your pocket and everybody elses?
That's absolutely not my idea of good governance, playing with oil prices is extremely dangerous considering that economy is strongly tied to them. Starting a useless war is crazy in the first place.
But it is more money in America (for the government / oil producers to misuse) which is a benefit from the standpoint of the government. Not sure it exceeds the losses though.
It is a benefit if you're a stakeholder in those companies, or your friends are stakeholders and will pass on some of the winnings as a "thank you."
Are you talking about the Epstein files that he is in?
His insider buddies bought the dip so it's time to pump. It's all about enriching themselves with inside information
I think this 10 point plan drops the need for US to pay reparations instead relying on transit fees which will be split with Oman.
Missiles are still flying so it’s hard to say who has really agreed to what.
I’ve heard rumors that Iran has agreed to dilute its highly enriched uranium so maybe the US could count that as a win. Given they’ve demonstrated sufficient conventional deterrence they may feel that they don’t need the nukes, especially if they can get some sort of Chinese backed security guarantee. But that might be a trial balloon or wishful thinking.
FWIW, money is the easiest term to agree to. We have lots and lots. I agree, it will never be called "reparations", but you can trivially structure it in a zillion ways that just look like foreign aid or debt forgiveness or whatever. The WHO forgives some loans or the UN agrees to build some infrastructure, and we coincidentally make a new fund of about the same size, etc...
I think it’s less about the money and more about a formal declaration who won the conflict. The loser sues for peace / pays reparations.
Iran and US can each declare "victory". TRUMP can say he achieved his objectives, IRAN can say it "won".
What IRAN is really after is lifting the sanctions and ensuring that Israel will not attack again randomly in 2 months.
The problem is that Israel is not going to be happy about this, so I full expect another round of escalation eventually. The only way to deter this is Nuclear Weapons unfortunately and IRAN very well understood this.
No matter what the agreement says, we can be assured Israel will break it, as it has done time and time again. Why would this round be different?
What if Iran refuses payment in USD? For reparations, tolls, or for future sale of oil?
IIRC they had already agreed to dilute the HEU during the negotiations ongoing at the time Trump launched the most recent war / not war / excursion.
Yeah, the US overplayed its hand and is in a weak bargaining position and will likely have to accept less than what it could have had. Now with TACO Tuesday who could take his maximalist carpet nuking threats seriously anymore. I hope to be wrong but I doubt the ceasefire holds.
Under Obama's plan they agreed to reduce its Uranium 97% and keep it well under weapons grade and got $2B for the assets that were seized after the revolution.
Here they stand to make $100B a year on tolling the gulf and get to keep their weapons grade Uranium that they stockpiled after Trump pulled us out of that agreement.
Just so much winning
He said we would be tired of winning
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Its only a 2 week ceasefire. Maybe after 2 weeks the sides stay settled down. Maybe they go back to shooting each other. I wouldn't call it over yet.
As far as the geopolitical consequences of all this, i think its still pretty unclear where the chips will fall, but whether a win or a loss for usa, i think the consequences of this war will be significant.
some people got very very rich. like rich - that their great grandkids don't have to work.
that's the price of "freedom".
both sides get to save face - Trump says they won, his cronies n himself got rich. Iran gets a better deal than before. Israel gets rid of US bases in the Middle East via Iran.
of course the poor and downtrodden get shifted - that never changes.
Honestly? I presume Trump and Iran both gain the ability to kick the can... which they both want. That ten-point plan is 'unrealistic' but he gets to beat his cheats and it looks like both sides are 'claiming' victory here. That this isn't a workable long-term solution seems almost irrelevant. We're at a point where our bargaining frictions are so high, that we'd both rather remain in this standoff as long as possible even if we don't actually resolve it, because resolving it means serious pain on both sides, whereas the US has about a week before the pain really starts hitting consumers and investors.
"What Causes Wars: An Introduction to Crisis Bargaining Theory", by William Spaniel, PHD and professor, specializing in game-theory and specifically crisis bargaining theory: https://youtu.be/xjKVcl_lDfo?si=NFHvjOdWbLbPOOvA
> That this isn't a workable long-term solution
IMHO that's bad analysis. This is a VERY good solution from Iran's perspective. They stared down a superpower and won. They've gone from an international pariah and nuissance to a genuine regional overlord in a single tweet.
"Whoah there, folks. Stop your tankers please. Thanks. Last year was rough for our farmers. We're increasing tolls on the straight again. Don't like it? Come on over and bomb us again you infidel fucks. See how your precious stock market likes that."
If it holds they’ll be a regional hegemon instead of Israel, which is why Israel will not let it hold. They put everything on the line and they’re not going to give up now.
> they’ll be a regional hegemon instead of Israel
No, neither Israel nor Iran would be hegemon. (Is there a term for contested hegemony?)
> They put everything on the line and they’re not going to give up now
When does Israel have to hold eletions?
I warned you specifically that this Iran war was coming and would not end up in Israel’s favor. As I stated “the Iran war is already unpopular and it hasn’t even started yet.” I understand that it is not yet over.
Iran and its proxies can slow squeeze Israel like Israel was squeezing Gaza. I see this war as a breakout attempt to fracture Iran into a failed state so that Israel would be the uncontested regional hegemony. Israel is losing popular support, which precedes losing political support and military support. You had some fantasy that Israel would dump America and find some other client state to support it.
> Israel is losing popular support, which precedes losing political support and military support
This is a very Western-centric view. Step outside that gap and you'll find Israel maintains solid ties in the Emirates, India and even in Europe. In any case, on the time horizons you're talking about anything can happen. If someone wants to hold on to random hopes, I'm not going to rain on their parade.
> Iran and its proxies can slow squeeze Israel like Israel was squeezing Gaza
This doesn't make sense. Gaza was blockaded. Iran and its proxies have zero ability to blockade Israel. (Hell, Israel has an easy option if they do–bomb Kharg.)
Take Israel's nonsense in Palestinian territories and Iran's penchant for terrorist proxies out of the equation and the Middle East is more or less balanced. (Famous last words.)
> You had some fantasy that Israel would dump America and find some other client state to support it
Israel isn't dumping America. If you're continuing a thread from another time, I was probably arguing that the notion that Israel existentially depends on America is nonsense. Israel depends on America to be a regional hegemon. (Probably.) But it's perfectly capable of turning its military-export machine and gas fields into sources of sovereignty. Anyone who thinks the region is anything less than transactional has emotionally wedded themselves to a cause the world isn't invested in.
We will have to agree to disagree on Israel’s long term viability without the support of the US. Perhaps if Iran was defeated but so far that has not happened.
look again at iran's peace terms - there's nothing in them about destroying israel, and this is Iran shooting its best shot.
Israel might not be able to contjnue with the genocide, expand its borders, or be a hegemon without US support, but the other powers around aren't calling to destory it or using the lack of its destruction as a bargaining chip. Israel's continued existence is pretty secured unless it falls apart from within
This is not peace terms it’s a ceasefire, and most likely it’s not even that. It appears little has changed except Iran can now charge a toll.
Until they are able to rebuild their country, they are actually in a very, very bad position. Saving face is great and all, but rockets are still hitting much of their infrastructure anyway.
My point is that their demands are not realistic. That the can has been kicked is good for Iran, it's also good for Trump. Conflict here is bad for both parties, the problem is there I currently don't see a way to step back from the precipice at this point.
> rockets are still hitting much of their infrastructure anyway
As has been extensively discussed over the past week, hitting civilian infrastructure with rockets (or otherwise) is a war crime, and we aren't doing it.
They lost some military hardware they couldn't have deployed anyway, they have a bunch of holes in runways that they'll fill within the week. They lost their head of state and a bunch of miscellaneous leaders, but it turns out their chain of command was robust. It's gotten stronger for the stress and unity, not weaker.
No, we have to take the L here. The USA went to war with Iran and got its ass kicked. We achieved nothing useful in the short term, and made things much (much) worse for our interests in the long term.
> As has been extensively discussed over the past week, hitting civilian infrastructure with rockets (or otherwise) is a war crime, and we aren't doing it.
I agree, but want to add that the threat of hitting civilian targets is itself a war crime, so there's a pretty solid case that we already did over the last few days:
"Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited." -Article 51(2) AP1 to Geneva Conventions
> threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population
If Trump's tweet meets this bar, it's a meaningless rule. The purpose wasn't to scare civilians. It was to scare Iran's leadership. What it probably wound up doing was scaring American leadership into talking the President down from his ledge.
Cool that's a nice workaround of the Geneva conventions - any threat you make while negotiations are underway is actually a negotiation strategy! The law tends not to be friendly to such workarounds in my experience, especially if it's trivially easy to enact ("be in negotiations"). Or perhaps you can help me understand what distinguishes this situation in the way you suggest.
> any threat you make while negotiations are underway is actually a negotiation strategy
No, I'm saying there is no evidence the threat was made "to spread terror among the civilian population." If the threshold is just any act of war, which naturally causes some amount of terror among civilians, then the rule is meaningless. Whether it's done during negotiations is irrelevant.
I don't have a crystal ball into Trump and Hegseth's minds. But I don't get the sense the threats were aimed at the civilian population. Instead, they were aimed at leadership.
Ah. Didn't he threaten to destroy every power plant and bridge in the country? Do you not find this threat credible? I think the US military is capable of it and obviously that's a threat against the lives of civilians. But it's not a war crime if it's "aimed" at the leaders or because Trump generally bloviates something like that? Any explanation I come up with is exactly the kind of legal workaround I'm talking about.
"A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will,"
> "just any act of war, which naturally causes some amount of terror among civilians"
I think we just may be working with totally different perspectives on this since I'm struggling to see this the same way as you.
He does, he's unhinged and no one from his government / chain of command is willing to stop him.
He doesn't sound dangerous because he's cunning and smart, he's unpredictable because he's demented and his court is fine with it.
Funny how the smart people in the room sometimes turn out to be right.
> hitting civilian infrastructure with rockets (or otherwise) is a war crime, and we aren't doing it.
I mean there is no world policeman that’s going to stop Trump. While I agree with you on the practicality of the situation, we have been on tenterhooks all day exactly because Trump can dramatically escalate this if he wants. It’s just that that escalation will be extremely painful in all sorts of ways, especially if Iran wipes out the oil production infrastructure.
My point here isn’t to “pick a side.” I obviously think this whole escapade was unwise. My point is only to point out that the bargaining frictions point to continuing the conflict.
Iran is happier to delay because the oil crisis is about to hit America. Trump is happy to delay because he can always launch a strike tomorrow, and concessions via existing infrastructure breakdown, or improve his position with intelligence, and this may prevent a more serious oil crisis.
That means both parties see opportunity in maintaining the status quo.
> Until they are able to rebuild their country, they are actually in a very, very bad position
Iran will get a buttload of cash from China. If we're copying their kit [1] China can one hundredfold. (If Iran can keep playing its role as a heatsink for American weapons, better still.)
[1] https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/iran-war-shah...
> We're increasing tolls on the straight again.
They're increasing tolls on the strait again. This strait isn't particularly straight.
The US got what it actually needed in the Obama area nuclear deal. Trump wont get much more useful stuff.
> Trump wont get much more useful stuff.
If Iran can kickback 8- or 9-figures of the strait tolls to Trump's personal accounts, he'll find it very useful.
No available evidence suggests that Trump and Hegseth don't just like blowing up children.
Trump's partial to more than that.
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Well it's a good thing we blew up those children before they could blow up those children I guess...
A least Iran isn't poised to come out of this in a stronger position than it started.
It's possible for both parties in a conflict to be horrible.
Whatabouting the "other guy" doesn't make any kind of cogent point here.
The Ayatollah was fucking awful. Trump is awful. Hegseth is awful. They are/were all three fucking awful.
It successfully pushed the Epstein files out of the news cycle for an entire month.
The war began because the Epstein compromising material will likely be made public soon. Once that material is public it ceases to have any value to those who were holding it over various people. Those people in turn were ensuring US military support of a certain country. The logic of the war is that it had to happen now, before that material is released, because after that there is some chance the USA would no longer support said country.
> what did the US gain out of this?
The best steelman argument[1] is that it was a failed gamble. The protests of a few months back (also the improbable success in Venezuela) made them think they could topple the regime. They couldn't.
It's been clear for weeks now that the US has lost this war. The only question was how long it would take Trump to disengage and what the trigger would be.
And the answers appear to be "two more weeks" and "when one plausibly genocidal gaffe went too far and fractured his domestic coalition".
[1] Which... I mean, steelman analysis has its place. But really no, this was just dumb.
> Which... I mean, steelman analysis has its place. But really no, this was just dumb.
I rarely hear people use the term "steelman" while arguing in good faith. It's basically a tacit admission that you are either advancing a position that you don't actually hold (why...?), or more likely you know it's an unpopular position and you want to argue it while having plausible deniability that you may not actually hold it (which is just cowardly).
Stepping through other peoples logic to understand why they may have a position that you do not understand/agree with is sensible for sure. But if you do that in conversation with others so often that you need to preface it with a special term I'm going to be suspicious that you're just trying to obfuscate your actual opinions.
(see also: "just playing devil's advocate here, but...")
You'd be right to be suspicious.
The term "steelman" arose from people who misunderstand the term "strawman". Such people coined it out of the idea thinking that a strawman was an an attempt to make an opponents argument look weaker than it is, while a "steelman" elevates it to it's highest state before attacking it.
In reality, a steelman is just another strawman. A strawman was never simply a matter of making your opponent's argument look weak, they're about making a separate argument that your opponent isn't even arguing, and attacking that to make it look like you're winning the argument while not actually addressing the opponent's actual argument/position. A steelman does the same. In other words, they're about fabricating an argument and making it look like it came from the opponent, before attempting to prove it fallacious. They're both failures in logic - a fallacy of relevance.
I don’t know, but I hear the Trump boys are going to be doing a JV on some gold plated Persian toll booths. That family has unreal foresight.
Trump kept his name in the headlines, for a narcissist that's all that matters.
What are the chances Claude was used on both sides of this negotiation?
This thread is not about Claude or LLMs.
The US should seize total control of the Strait of Hormuz, including all land necessary to ensure safe passage of ships. The population should be evicted. The US should collect high fees for safe ship passage to pay for everything.
Wild that the US accepted Iran's maximalist demands as starting point for negotiations. There seem to be some uncertainty around what those 10 points are - multiple versions floating around, but they all read very much like a US strategic defeat. Full retreat from region, reparations to be paid etc.
So with all the bluster we are able to roll the clock back successfully to pre Obama stage of negotiations? Essentially starting from discussing if Iran should have nuclear capability or not and then adding new stuff like Iran controlling the strait and collecting toll on it. Awesome, so much winning!
Countries that send their oil through the strait of Hormuz will build alternative routes. But for such routes to be ready a few years will be needed. Once alternative routes are in place, and since Iran will likely not have a nuclear weapon by then, full obliteration of Iran will ensue.
The terrorism recruitement numbers are gonna go through the roof in the next few years based on this alone.
Is it terrorism? radicalization seems like a pretty natural human response when your family/home/community gets indiscriminately obliterated by missiles from the sky.
A thread documenting a market reaction just before the announcement: https://www.reddit.com/r/PrepperIntel/comments/1sf8u1e/iran_...
This is not over yet and it may just result in an established fee for each shipment through the strait to Iran. We won’t/havent hear from Israel which is the key player here. They just do what they want to do because they know the whole world will look the other way.
TBH as an outsider, I am just so frustrated on Trump deciding that US invading Iran large scale is a great idea. (And why even is it involving Israel for gods sake?!)
If you guys wanted to be supportive to the Iranian protests, US could instead just selectively target some of the leadership and give the protests a push (and give the whole world a hint that US is supportive of them).
After 40 years of Iran constructing a thearchy government, the Iranians finally started having a huge protest on throwing up the thearchy government and possibly talking about a new west-friendly government.
And then Trump just decides to wholesale invade Iran with Israel?
That's just giving so much more reasons for the current government to be in power and the Iranians to hate the US and more generally the western world. It took 40 years for the Iranians to realize that there's enough problems in the thearchy system and want their more secularized country back; and then Trump just destroyed the whole premise!
Does the US just really think that they will be loved by everyone when they rage in and invade any random country? Do they really think like that? I'm just frustrated so much. How can the US be so egocentric?
if you look at the iranian response over the past month, the theocracy really hasn't played into it.
no calls to jihad, no ayatollah dorecting anything, no nothing.
as far as i can tell, the revolution is already dead. if the US had just sat around, chances are that iran would have moved towards something more like a constitutional monarchy. still the ayatollah as a figure head and religious leader, but with the rest of the power in the democratic institutions' hands
Can you point out some signs of concession from islamic regime? I think they wouldn’t concede, with or without war. That’s not in their DNA. They are religious extremists.
Invasion lol.
Everything else aside, really relieved for the tanker crews stuck inside the Gulf, with no port that will take them, who are not-so-slowly running out of food.
They can get out? Right? Right Anakin?
Didn't the US and Israel gather intelligence during previous "talks" which ended up with senior Iranian leadership dead? It seems unlikely that this relationship would be fixed by now, and a deal would require big concessions from one side... of which one is polling real badly at home currently.
Between the threats to NATO allies, high oil prices, lifting of sanctions on Russian oil, US personnel losing their lives, military equipment losses, and broken campaign promises... I don't think this is something you just walk away from. It's still not clear why we're there in the first place; one could speculate that Trump was convinced by Israel that this operation would be like Venezuela which seems plausible because no US intelligence agencies backup the notion that Iran was developing or trying to develop nuclear weapons.
He was convinced for other reasons to proceed with the operation. Reasons to do with what might happen to him personally if not.
I don't know if you're implying kompromat or assassination but I think the explanation that they played into his ego and got him to do their dirty work in Iran is much simpler and makes more sense. Every President before Trump has told Israel no when they asked for "assistance" with Iran.
I pray for peace in the world. While the past has shown these things to be complicated and sometimes temporary, I accept progress over perfection.
An hour before the "deadline", by the way
I had a teacher in school who would sometimes stand at the front of the class with her hand raised and three fingers extended, announcing, “I'm going to count to three, and then you'll all be quiet!” Of course, that never worked. I never understood why she kept putting herself through that farce over and over again. Every deadline that passes without consequence is a loss of face. The same goes for Trump. He can sugarcoat it all he wants: the world sees it as a defeat. The only thing missing is him collecting shells on the beach and ordering the construction of a lighthouse.
Interesting, if the Mossad appears to be in the comments.
So before this war the strait was open and now it's gonna reopen? So much progress!
Whats the irans citizens feel about this while thing. As an outsider I see there was lot of protest against islamic regime with the killing of young girl for not covering the head or something like such.
But after trump killed the leader it seemed people rooting for islamic regime. Whats the state of people. Is there a way to know
Iran's citizens probably gave up hope when their civilian infrastructure was attacked by the United States. I doubt any of them actually were foolish enough to think the Kurds, Mossad or US Army would march in to help them to begin with. Both the US and Israel would much prefer the mass-punishment of Iranian citizens than a humanitarian ground operation, that was obvious even before the bombs started dropping.
If I was an Iranian citizen, I'd be seeing America as a nation of racist sociopaths. This conflict entrenches the current Iranian regime and manufactures consent for Israel and the United States to violate even more conventions of warfare to avoid a ground deployment. The intended result is obviously the balkanization of Iran.
Always look at the actions, not the talks.
Reality on the ground is: US has been amassing troops in tens of thousands. Their mercenary IDF is claiming territory like a field day. Market has barely capitulated (which is the only thing this admin care about).
I expect this is just Trump buying time until he launches ground invasion after two weeks of failed negotiation. You don't spend millions sending tens of thousands of soldiers and billion dollar worth of hardware to just call them back to base.
Trump will "negotiate" and then in the middle of negotiation start a ground invasion just like they did in the past while they map all the military targets for ground invasion (which is hard to when missiles flying all the time). Possibly also replenish their interceptor stocks from other regions which has been running low.
If you follow the kind of people advising him and have his ears (Witkoff, Kushner, Loomer, Levin) they are all for ground invasion.
But yeah, win for US. Oil prices will rebound giving economy the breathing time. Possibly also time to arm the insurgents to regroup for regime change.
> Reality on the ground is: US has been amassing troops in tens of thousands.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq had 500,000 troops, for a country smaller in area than Iran and with fewer people.
The current 50,000 US troops isn't going to do much against Iran as a whole.
Tens of thousands of troops are not really enough to invade a country the size of Iran.
The US used an order of magnitude more in Iraq, which had a third of the population, and a smaller and more geographically forgiving territory.
And the IEDs were in the ground not flying overhead. Asymmetric war has completely changed the math.
Yeah, but the Iranian armed forces have been obliterated...
Just like it's nuclear program…
Trump and Netanyahu believe they can win this one [1]:
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-wa...
> Their mercenary IDF
Lol, under what definition?
Personally, I have a hard time seeing any good actors here.
But of all the actors, I kind of doubt Israel is in it for the money.
> they are all for ground invasion
Ahh those titans of military stragegy.
> Trump will "negotiate" and then in the middle of negotiation start a ground invasion just like they did in the past while they map all the military targets for ground invasion (which is hard to when missiles flying all the time)
Why is it hard map military targets while missiles are flying? Don't missile launches reveal targets? And I would assume that the mapping is mostly done via satellite, which aren't affected by missiles
Israel's agreement with the GCC countries:
1. Guarantee that Israel won't attack a neighbouring state again.
2. Respect borders and refrain from engaging in expansionist activities.
3. Declare their nuclear weapons and respect the rights of neighbours to possess such weapons.
4. Desist in all genocidal activities for a period of forever.
5. Submit any and all Israeli leaders for whom international arrest warrants have been issued to the appropriate authorities.
6. Be responsible for those occupied by the state of Israel, in accordance with international law.
7. All second hand furniture should be registered with Bibi Netanyahu's office for evaluation.
8. Bibi Netanyahu should not use his thumb on the map in his office while describing the Greater Israel Vision because it's annoying and illegal.
9. Bibi Netanyahu must declare all gifts of second-hand furniture to the state of Israel to avoid further corruption charges.
10. Bibi Netanyahu must submit himself to a psychiatrist with utmost immediacy.
Looks like I'm buying the oil futures dip this week!
The real winner in this war is Israel. Iran's military might is now a shadow of its former self while all the costs have been paid by someone else: American taxpayers, gas consumers around the world, Arab states. Even the political costs are on Trump.
Certainly economically. NIS-USD exchange is now 3.09 and continuing to drop, reflecting optimism.
Strategically, it remains to be seen what will happen to the nuclear material in the peace talks. If Iran emerges from the war with an intact nuclear program due to a lack of American stamina to carry through and achieve its war goals, that would be an enormous strategic defeat for Israel.
Full disclosure: Iran VS USA is just an excuse to dismantle feudalism. That is the real war. The rest are just logistics exercises. If feudalism ends all wars end.
At ease everyone.
I felt it in my bones that Trump would see a way to agree to a 2 week extension
Trump wanted tariffs on everyone to increase everyone's operations expenses so that he can somehow enact a protectionist policy. It was repeatedly shut down by the Supreme Court. Now, even with this ceasefire you will have the new Hurmuz tax long after the insurance premiums wind down, and everyone who's heavily dependent on ME oil have increased expenses. Mission accomplished, I guess? At what cost, though.
If Israel actually stops attacking Iran, that will be a win for the world. Will it happen? I doubt it. The last thing Netanyahu wants is a ceasefire or diplomacy. I think even if Trump tells him to stop he'll keep going.
The furniture salesman knows he's in trouble for the all the illegal gifts he has received and all the other horrific crimes he has committed. He'll hold on for as long as he can. The world be damned.
Will people buy more American / Venezuelian / Russian oil now that the ME is going to be perpetually under the threat of another Iranian squeeze ?
Will pipelines with creative routing make a comeback ?
Or will people, you know, try to reduce their dependency on oil and gas by using less prehistoric technology ? Naaaah that would require R&D. Leave that to the Chinese. We have pensioners to support.
TACO fortunately. Let's hope this is resolved. Question: what are Trump next plans, who is he going to harass now? he seems to go crescendo in the craziness. Maybe he'll calm down a bit before the mid-terms though.
It would seem all arrows are pointing at Cuba, which I'm sure won't put up quite as much of a fight.
Peace in our time!
Aside:
We should not make fun of both of these lying cheating idiots in charge of either faction.
Look, it's really easy to dunk on them, like super easy. This is a very dumb war and will continue to be so, we all can see that.
But both sides are in a escalate-to-deescalate trap. Neither wants to back down in order to save face. So they can only make things worse.
And things can get a lot worse.
Lots of people legitimately thought that Tehran was going to be a glowing hole by the time you are reading this. That would have been ~17 million lives wiped out. A ground war is a generation in each country that is just decimated like Ukraine is seeing. Already there has been far too much death and destruction, too many children that are now without parents, too many parents now without children.
If avoiding that means not dunking on these barbarous morons for a little while, so be it, a small price.
I know that some random internet comments are about as important as the fly on a horse's ass is to a hurricane, but it has to start somewhere.
I'm not saying we should not hold them to account. No, this mess is maybe something that will snap everyone out of it, it's already so dumb and bad. They deserve, like we all do, the best justice we can give them. And it will not be kind to either side, we all know that.
But, let them have this win. Do the best we can to encourage others to let both sides walk away from this horrible trap. If the do so scot free, hey, that's a win in all of our books.
Let Donny strut about, walk away. Stop it with the TACO nonsense. Let him feel like a big man, a winner, whatever his little pudding brain needs.
Just let the war end before it gets even more out of hand.
Before even more babies have only pictures and stories to know their father by.
The number of comments here trying to argue that this is anything other than utter humiliation for Trump and America ...
I guess I should get used to it now. At least 1/3 of Americans will be swayed at nothing and will stand behind their beloved leader, whatever happens. I wonder what will happen to the price of oil in the coming months and whether that will cause some people to change their minds.
Let's not forget the road to war started in 2016 when Trump walked into the White House at withdrew from the JCPOA. He's wanted the war for years, got it, and lost it.
How do you reconcile this with the fact that he supposedly got no opportunity for it in four years the first time around?
How do you reconcile this supposed war-mongering attitude with the existence of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Accords ?
JCPOA was a really stupid, badly designed deal, it never placed any limits on missile or drone production. Obama wanted a deal badly, and it was rushed through negotiations without addressing this point for a quick political win.
Iran kept developing its ballistic missiles and drone program even after the deal was signed, and a decade later, Iran has hundreds of thousands of drones and 20,000+ ballistic missiles. A thousand ballistic missiles do as much damage, if not more, than a single nuke.
It also leads to the interceptor problem, namely, it is not possible to stop thousands of missiles coming towards you, and eventually you run out of interceptors and get overwhelmed.
It was a really dumb deal, and this issue was called out at the time, but nothing was done about it. It's like an agreement between Mom and two kids that are fighting. Mom tells one kid, "Okay, promise not to kick your brother!" and he agrees. So he starts learning to punch instead.
The nuclear program is orders of magnitude more important than everything else. If you think JCPOA was bad, take a look at Iran's 10 point plan.
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And where has that gone now?
From all reports the regime has not lost control domestically, and internationally it is now emboldened - the US tried to get rid of them and has failed, and they have demonstrated their power to disrupt the region and much of the world's economy.
They come out of this looking stronger.
>Iranians danced in the streets when Khamenei was killed. And have felt hope for the first time in decades that they may change their government.
This is a dumb take, I will guarantee that more people will dance on the street if Trump, or Modi gets killed, doesn't mean it is righteous to do that.
One supreme leader replaced by another, even more hardline, supreme leader. Trump failed.
Hey now, the JCPOA was designed to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, and was working effectively at doing that. That’s completely different from what Trump is demanding now, which is to prevent Iran from getting nuclear..
Wait I think Trump dementia’d again
Israel would still get the US to attack Iran regardless.
Weird how Iran is able to come to a ceasefire when their whole leadership has been killed times over. Who exactly does Trump think he’s negotiating with?!
I've been calling my reps and demanding they impeach Trump and Hegseth and get in contact with Doug Burgum and get going on the 25th amendment.
Kamala Harris would have started this exact same war. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48DxQTPOouU
Sometimes, it doesn't matter who you vote for.
would she though?
president after president has had the choice but haven't.
the best you get from that interview is that she was unwilling to say a yes or a no. probably a no, and she's not one to make decisions on a whim based on people stroking her ego
And she'd be in the wrong too. Our country is run by psychopaths.
There is exactly a 0% chance of the 25A happening. It will be a cold day in hell — these people worship Trump. They're not ousting him.
Impeachment would be more likely, but an impeachment conviction still seems utterly improbable. You'd need to flip a lot of seats in November, and this country is going to have forgotten all about this set of genocidal threats well before then. There's no way the current House/Senate GOP impeach, let alone convict.
> get in contact with Doug Burgum
I have absolutely no idea why you think Burgum would ever support a 25A invocation against Trump.
I'm from North Dakota. My reps know him. I know they're all cowards and cucked by Trump, but I'm going to keep calling them, demanding they do this, and reading insane Truth Social posts to them because I don't know what else I can do.
Burgum is a fucking disgrace to this state. I wish he'd grow some balls like the cowboy character he sometimes cosplays as and stand up to Trump. I wish my cucked reps would do the same.
Forgive my ignorance, but doesn't allowing them to collect a tax on transit pretty much continue to fund themselves to continue this bullshittery forever.
Bad behavior can't be encouraged.
A lot of American and Israeli degenerates here egging on the military to continue their war crimes (bombing of civilian infrastructure and civilians) in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon while simultaneously calling the Iranians evil. Anyone who points that out is downvoted to oblivion. The cognitive dissonance is real.
While you guys live in this bubble of false moral superiority, the majority of people (in the global south) have rightfully started viewing the Americans and Israelis as the real terrorists.
> A lot of American and Israeli degenerates here egging on the military to continue their war crimes (bombing of civilian infrastructure and civilians) in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon while simultaneously calling the Iranians evil. Anyone who points that out is downvoted to oblivion.
I see nothing whatsoever resembling that ITT.
Any American's I've spoke to either are so sick of wars and of course don't want this or they actively oppose it.
The only people you find wanting this war is israelis and their kind. They sit back and relax while having their blackmail controlled, ancient, American politicians do all of the dirty work while sending their sons and daughters to die for isreal.
Sorry but I just dont buy this argument.
All Americans I have met had the same discourse: "I am ashamed, it's a pity Trump is in power, it's hard for us too, we don't support him", etc. I am rather sick of it.
A democracy is not an "us versus them" system, it's a closed loop. One cannot hide behind "these imbeciles votted for him and I am held hostage by their ignorance". Pros and antis Trump are equally responsible for his election.
Maybe if the US was not such an individualistic country, with growing educational and wealth inequality, half the population wouldn't have voted for exploding the status quo.
Politicians are no more corrupt than the population not impeaching them.
The US is basically in a streak of blatantly stealing resources of other countries, mafia style, and we are long past the point where the population can argue "we didnt know, we thought they had weapons of mass destruction, I am so against it".
So, to summarize:
- Trump spent a lot of money
- a lot of people were killed
- basicly, he gained nothing?
- in the future, street of hormuz will be an ongoing conflict
thats the result?
America surrenders...hehehe.....Looks like Trump basically agreed to all 10 points (Truth and Social post).
I disagree. If this ceasefire had not happened, the US and Israel would bomb all of Iran's electricity and fuel facilities. That's what was supposed to happen today, and is what forced Iran to the negotiating table with an hour to spare. China and Pakistan told Iran to come to the table, and negotiate, because they do not want a collapsed Iran.
Without electricity, there is no modern life. There is no ability to communicate, run a financial economy, pay salaries, etc. Without fuel, there are no logistics; there is no capability to transport an army. Nor is there an ability to transport food; it would cause an enormous civilian crisis, and this would cause massive riots.
Iran would collapse, within a week. It would devolve into factions, and a civil war would start, similar to in Syria.
The US and Israel have been sitting on this card the entire time. They don't want to do it, because it would cause near permanent economic damage to Iran.
Now reason without water, aka Israeli + GCC desalination. Iran with shit water situation is still less existentially water stressed. Iran 5% vs others 80/90%+ dependency on desalination = once Iran demonstrated survivable regional strike complex, they own the top end of escalation ladder that can take out everyone with them while coming out least harmed.
This not to mention, relative to US performance / conemps, i.e. going back to standoff munitions, there's not really enough discretionary high end munitions to take degrade all Iranian infra vs Iran has enough in reserve to take out all regional desalination. Nevermind US expending 1000s more TLAMs / JASSM(ER)s leaving it unprepared for any other near peer conflict. Reminder Iraq was 20% size of Iran, and so far US+Israel only flew ~20% of sorties via Iran than it has Iraq. Even factoring in precision munitions, US would have to expend more munitions than it has to actually cripple Iran on par with Iraq.
Its not yet clear who blinked, really.
they dont want to do that attack, because Iran can still respond in kind, and both Israel and the US have some value in electricity, oil, and water existing around the gulf and in Israel.
if you make Iran pay that war cost ahead of time, what are you gonna negotiate for after?
That's not at all what it says; and a higher standard of rhetoric really should be expected from comments here.
US just agreed to:
Commitment to non-aggression
Continuation of Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz
Acceptance of uranium enrichment
Lifting of all primary sanctions
Lifting of all secondary sanctions
Termination of all UN Security Council resolutions
Termination of all Board of Governors resolutions
Payment of compensation to Iran
Withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the region
Cessation of war on all fronts, including against Hezbollah in Lebanon
TLDR US lost the war, hilarious.
Source? Do you seriously think the US just agreed to accept Iranian nuclear enrichment?
Israel, I would think, would claim that Iran getting the bomb would be existential to them, so I don't think it's reasonable to think that Israel would agree to allowing enrichment.
I'm a little surprised that recognizing Israel as a nuclear power isn't in Iran's list of demands, considering how destabilizing it would be.
Yeah, but they’ll just keep killing every nuclear scientist that gets closed to doing anything like they’ve been doing for decades.
Yes. From what I've read, they can't stop enrichment unless they deploy soldiers for occupation and they are unwilling to do so.
Yes, Trump is playing this as a two week period only so they could enrich for the next two weeks.
Things have slide backwards.
The CIA (lets for now ignore the alleged Director of the CIA) has for years been saying Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. Iran has been saying for years it does not have a nuclear weapons program. Every country has the right to pursue a civilian nuclear energy program.
The IAEA said earlier this year that Iran had enriched uranium to 60%. Uranium is enriched to 3-5% for nuclear energy, and 90%+ for weapons.
Don't be silly. Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Were they actively racing to a bomb? No. (That's what the CIA was saying). Did they enrich uranium to near-weapons grade so they _could_ race to a bomb, in a matter of weeks, if they decided to do so? Absolutely.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-stored-highly...
They need one or at least the idea of one if they want to deter Israel who has 200/300 bombs. If they don't want to end up like Iraq or Syria they kind of need this.
This is when people like me comment "According to US media, Iran has been a matter of weeks away from developing a nuclear bomb for over 20 years now".
Their now dead leader wrote a fatwa against nuclear bombs (as well as chemical bombs). Probably because Saddam using US chemical bombs on more than 50000 civilians a few decades ago did radicalize him against WMD.
It's as if the person your replying to is intentionally being misleading
If you're responding to me, no I'm not.
US intelligence agencies continue to state Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. They just don't.
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-202...
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/17/politics/israel-iran-nuclear-...
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-built-its-case-...
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/us/politics/iran-nuclear-...
They definitely have a 'nuclear program'. They have a 'nuclear program' to generate energy. They are a country on this earth and have the right to do this.
Just because we play rhetorical tricks and try to equate "nuclear program" with "nuclear weapons program" does not make it true.
For various reasons I'm inclined to agree that Iran likely doesn't have much of a nuclear weapons program beyond enrichment.
That doesn't mean that they lack plans or means to advance one, and they certainly have the talent.
As for US intelligence agencies, it's worth being reminded they've let slip nuclear weapons development programs before: https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/98-672.html
Building a nuclear weapon that can be carried by Iraq's missiles is relatively difficult, because miniaturizing nuclear weapons requires much more complex designs. It took the US and the USSR quite a few test explosions to achieve such a warhead.
Building a bulky nuclear weapon that fits in, say, a shipping container, is not hard if sufficient highly enriched uranium is available. That's Hiroshima level nuclear technology, the gun-type bomb.[1]
This is the difference between the "years away" and the "weeks away" estimates. Depends on whether the the delivery method is an ICBM or a shipping container.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun-type_fission_weapon
To be 100% fair to the GP: indeed, Iran does not currently have an active weapons program. But they do have a weapons program, but they used it so far more for leverage. The truth is nobody really knows what they would have done had they achieved the status of nuclear armed power. But given that even the mullahs understand that there is a bit of a difference between threatening to annihilate Israel and actually doing so with all of the consequences attached to that I think they would be more like Kim or Putin than say the UK or France. They would use it for even more leverage and as insurance against being attacked.
Either way: the US is quick to say who can and who can not have nuclear weapons, but at the same time the US is the only country that ever did use them and it is one of very few countries that has (implicitly) threatened their use in recent memory. The only other two countries to do so are Israel and Russia.
Or maybe they know how much more difficult it is to go from 60% to 90%+?
Iran will pursue the bomb now with triple the effort they put into it so far. As will every other crappy country that has the talent, the facilities and the money. That's a lot of countries. Because all of them see the difference between Ukraine, North Korea and Iran: if you have the bomb, they leave you alone. Kim obviously had sponsorship.
The only thing holding back an Iranian nuke tomorrow is the fact that Pakistan and Iran do not see eye to eye on a few things. But Pakistan has vowed that if Israel should ever use nuclear weapons on Iran that Pakistan would hit Israel in the same way.
Keep in mind that they are right next door to each other and have a long term relationship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Pakistan_relation...
When Trump canceled the Nuclear agreement with Iran, Iran immediately started enriching uranium into ship's reactor grade, and apparently started working on a nuclear submarine.
At the same time Iran emitted a domestic law prohibiting anybody from working towards nuclear weapons. The law was in effect up to the moment Trump ordered and killed the Ayatollah, by the way.
> Payment of compensation to Iran
Fox News is still singing in chorus about the billion dollars payment to Iran by Obama.
Jfc the US didn’t agree to any of that. Read the news ffs.
Report Card:
USA, #1 world power, nukes etc, failed to win. Iranian regime wasn't destroyed, and the HE uranium is still there. Two carrier battle groups weren't enough to re-open the straits. Burned $45bn and achieved nothing much.
Iran, fourth-rate regional power, failed to lose. Regime still in power, and still has its HE uranium. Oil infrastructure intact. Military knocked-about a bit, but still capable of controlling the straits and bringing in the $$$. They get to keep brutalising their frightened population.
Israel, premium regional power, suddenly all on its own running a hot, two-front war with no easy exit, because Trump cut and ran. Netanyahu is probably toast in the upcoming elections, which means hes going to jail for all the corruption stuff.
China, mega military power, picked the right side and comes out of it clean. Looks like a model, dependable global citizen. Access to the oil without paying the $2m/boat straits fee. Didn't blow $45bn on nothing.
Russia, third-rate power on the way down, made some roubles on the oil price thing, but still has all the same problems as before. Meatgrinder war. Economic and demographic collapse still imminent. Global pariah, except for Orban and Erdoğan and the Belarus guy. Putin's getting pretty old.
EU+UK basically sat it out. Sensible. Much economic damage though.
Thousands of dead/wounded/traumatised adults and children -- a running sore that shames us all. Plus all the victims of the Gaza and Lebanon wars. Deep, deep anger for multiple generations. Revenge, etc.
----
Officially its a ceasefire, but everyone knows the US won't restart after this. Its six months to the mid-terms, and the genius orange guy in Washington has other things on his mind. And Epstein is still hanging around like a bad smell. What to try next?
What a clown show.
I'm very sure that Trump just announced the ceasefire to save face and brag that his threats worked to get the strait reopened, and the whole thing will be just a ruse to regroup for further attacks.
I can't see cooler heads in Washington agreeing to these 10 points, and Israel will certainly have something to say.
If these points are agreed, it's a catastrophic strategic defeat for the US.
They already lost most of their bases in the region (13/18 I believe), and would now have to evacuate the rest. We've learned that American military is not so mighty after all.
America's reputation as upholding a rules-based world order is in the toilet.
Iran will emerge as the dominant regional power, with global leverage and a steady extra income due to their complete and accepted control of Hormuz.
The smaller states will be scrambling to find a new international security partner, and China seems like a likely candidate.
The Petro-dollar is likely toast.
I mean if Vlad Putin himself were to direct every decision Trump has made, he could scarcely have done a better job of damaging America and disrupting the world order. Making America Grotesque Again.
The NYT is throwing Trump under the bus and protects Vance as the next candidate:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-wa...
The timing is really suspicious. The fact that all this opposition in internal meetings is leaked could mean two things:
1) The establishment is genuinely upset with Trump.
2) The ceasefire is a ruse and all this purported opposition is deliberately leaked to pretend that the US now really wants peace but is actually shipping ground troops to the region (at best) or manufacturing internal consent for nuclear bunker busters (at worst).
The fact that Trump posted that he considers the maximalist Iranian 10 point plan as a basis for negotiations points to 2). He has always attacked Iran during "negotiations".
How much money did we spend on this nothingburger?
trumps supreme negotiation skills have gotten us a worse agreement than before the senseless, baseless, and aggressive attack on Iran.
What a complete moron.
Worse agreement to some, to others, if the US went through with all of these proposed 'points' it would be an act of global healing.
> have gotten us a worse agreement
A "workable basis on which to negotiate" is not anything remotely like an agreement.
So: worse than the Obama treaty. Got it.
I wonder why this post is worthy of staying on the HN front page but all the articles about Trump's threats that "A whole civilization will die tonight" got flag killed. I guess the president making genocidal threats isn't "interesting" enough to meet HN's moderation standards.
Let's just be glad somebody talked him out of using nukes. For now.
We all know he’d say something like that and that there’s a chance he’d actually do it. It isn’t really newsworthy. This isn’t the set of minds that needs to change to affect change in the short term anyway.
I was just answering a similar comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47683437.
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I don't understand enough about the US system of government. Are there any hopes of seeing Trump unseated before his term is up? If not for the astonishing damage he's doing to the western world, then only for the sheer fatigue from having every media outlet saturated by him on a daily basis.
If the Dems win the house in the midterms he will be impeached again. If there are 60 votes in the senate he will be out. Dems are unlikely to win the senate, let alone 60 seats.
It’s a bizarre situation in that US elections have such a huge impact on a world that has no say.
I really hope the democrats won’t start the impeachment nonsense showbusiness again and instead focus on actual policy that benefits people. I am very worried that Congress will go even lower and devolve into permanent investigations and impeachments while the country has actual serious problems that aren’t worked on.
I wouldn’t worry, that’s a sure thing. Next on Trump’s list is Cuba. He has to do these things now because after the midterms it’s just going to be investigations and impeachment for two years. Then the Democrats lose again because who cares about more pointless impeachments?
Need 66 senate votes to impeach in the senate.
> It’s a bizarre situation in that US elections have such a huge impact on a world that has no say
No say (or at least, no influence) might be a bit strong given foreign election interference.
I'm sure if Britain or France or whoever wanted to, they could have their intelligence services release dirt on candidates or engage in some dirty tricks.
Trump has been impeached before. Doesn't matter. The seriousness of the word 'impeachment' has been greatly devalued.
He's been impeached by the _house_ not by the Senate. The US Senate is extremely complicit with the administration. Something the founders did not intend
Nobody forsaw that the same party might control both?
It has become a tool to fire up party supporters but otherwise achieves nothing.
… because he was acquitted.
Upthread is discussing whether the Dems could flip the necessary seats to impeach and convict.
(And no, there is no way they will. It would take winning 20 out of the 22 seats, and losing none, assuming a party-line vote w/ independents siding with Dems. That won't happen. Also, the required vote in the Senate is two-thirds, not "60".)
No. Theoretically congress could impeach him, but his party has proven they will support him no matter what his crimes. Theoretically his cabinet could remove him with the 25th amendment but they are all complicit and will need pardons for themselves.
25A removal is temporary pending a bar in congress even higher than that for impeachment (2/3 of house and senate).
I don’t get how congress doesn’t have the power to deny/approve this war. Dont even impeach, dont you have to get congressional approval for this stuff?
> [The Congress shall have Power ...] To declare War,
One might even think that not getting Congress's permission, as required, might be an impeachable offense.
But you should read about [the War Powers Clause](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Clause#History_and_...), and in particular, our messy, messy history with it starting at the Korean War and continuing to the present day.
Barring something catastrophic happening, I would bet that nothing will unseat Trump until January 20, 2027, at 12:00 PM (noon).
At that point, when J.D. Vance is inaugurated, he would be allowed to run and serve for 2 additional full terms (10 years total as president).
Before that, his partial term would count as a full term, and he could only run, win and serve one additional term.
This is all based on the 22nd Amendment, which established term limits.
JD is basically Peter Thiel's manchurian candidate, and some have claimed that it's the plan all along that Trump would probably not complete his term, leaving JD as the president and presumptive nominee for future terms.
Now that's a bleak picture of the future.
Look on the bright side; that picture respects terms limits.
Putin also respected term limits for a while, also with a sock puppet. 8 years should be plenty of time to have the Supreme Court Jesters come up with a solution. They already pardoned Steve Bannon!
This seems extremely likely. I’m already unconvinced the elections are going to be fair this year, but I am certain an impeachment would piss the conservatives off so much there would be another red swing during 2028 elections. Then after 4 years of JD Vance we will be living in the United States of Jesus so nothing will matter much anymore.
Trump has power because he shows up to a rally and tons of folks join. People want to follow him. JD who?
JD being less popular that Trump is an advantage that the Democratic party can easily squander.
He is pretty popular with the base, and only needs to look more palatable than whomever the opposition puts forward to the swing voters. The fact that he's relatively boring will suppress Democratic turnout somewhat.
And in the case that Trump leaves office due to health reasons, there will be a "rally around the flag" vibe that gives him a boost.
That's not to say that he's certain to win, but he would have many advantages if he serves a partial term and seems to be tracking better.
> Are there any hopes of seeing Trump unseated before his term is up?
I don't think so.
There's two routes, one improbable, one "hell freezes over" level.
The first route is impeachment & conviction. Our legislative branch is composed of two parts: the House and the Senate. The House would impeach him, and if impeached by the House, he would be tried by the Senate.
Currently, the GOP (Trump's party) has a majority of both the House & the Senate. It would require a 2/3rds vote in the Senate to convict an impeached president, and I do not see the Democrats winning the necessary seats in the next election (Nov 2026). We do not re-elect every seat at every election in the Senate (they are staggered). Assuming the vote is along party lines, i.e., Dems/Indepedents vote to convict, and GOP vote to acquit, of the 22 GOP seats up for election, all but 2 would need to flip in November in order for a party-lines vote to convict. 4 of the GOP-held seats were won with 65% or higher votes in their last election. I do not see enough seats flipping, nor enough politicians cross parties lines.
The other route, which social media is for whatever reason abuzz right now with, is the 25th Amendment. It permits the Vice President & the Cabinet members to issue a declaration that Trump is unable to discharge his duties. The President himself can end such a declaration, which in this case, I would expect he would immediately do; it would then have to be contested by VP/Cabinet, at which point it would go to Congress, and both House & Senate would need a 2/3rds vote to make it stick.
Impeachment & conviction seems the far easier route, only requiring a 2/3rd vote in the Senate. (The vote to impeach is, somewhat oddly to me, a simple majority vote.)
Nah, he's here until he exits on his own. Sorry.
Nope. Maybe a cheeseburger and mother nature.
Vance is actually worse. He’s basically a sock puppet for Peter Thiel.
Trump’s party runs on a platform of subservience and fear and a lot of people either eat that stuff up or else believe their vote doesn’t count. The electoral college basically keeps the populous parts of the country hostage to the rural areas. And the rural areas believe that they contribute all the taxes for all the federal programs their parents created. We’ve basically become completely demoralized as a nation since the Baby Boomers took over for their parents and we’re busy continuing the plot. It won’t be over until we pull our heads out of our butts and start building things together or we become a third-world country.
People died for this shit.
And congress did nothing to stop this insanity.
Don’t blame Trump. Blame the elected officials.
A reminder that both things can be true at the same time:
1. Trump is a bad president
2. The Islamic Republic of Iran should not be allowed to have nuclear weapons
> The Islamic Republic of Iran should not be allowed to have nuclear weapons
Neither should Israel, right ... right?
I just don't know how his supporters aren't embarrassed.
Nominative determinism is insane. one man trumped the legacy and fortunes of a great nation.
It's a self selection or axiomatic property: if you're his supporter then you have no capability for being embarrassed in the first place.
They're utterly embarrassed it's just that they've been persistently encouraged via their amygdalas to project their own shame and insecurities onto others, as well as to swallow insane rationales as to why even though these people are evil it's a necessary bitter pill for the worldly government to swallow in order to bring in the eternal kingdom
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I call the orange guy many things! I believe he's an accidental president. DNC screwed up big time both times. The stakes were higher than ever, so they could have played it safe by looking at past elections, but nope. They wanted to write history, but got the other guy to do it.
Bush (reminder: a republican) screwed things so bad that the country opened to something that had never happened before - A black President.
Now, orange guy (again, a republican, see the pattern) has screwed, and I'm not sure where his bottom is, will set the country to accept again something that hasn't happened before - A Woman President; maybe a black one. There's still time until the 2028 general election.
Also, what do conservatives conserve? They conserve their brains by not using them. Don't take my word; just look at the history, what they have done so far! They are the same everywhere - be it the US or India - same hate mongering lunatics!
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TACO
It's not, i don't think so. For the first time Trump did a belligerent announcement while the market were open, and not on a late Friday. as expected, the market cratered. Then 4 hours later, this announcement? Crazy coincidence (which it might be, but frankly when it come to market manipulation, i think this admin has lost the benefit of the doubt).
Isn't that precisely the definition of TACO, though?
Trump does a thing, the market goes down as a result, so he does a 180 on the thing.
That he may also be doing it to lower prices for friends and family so they can buy up stocks just before he does a reversal and the market rebounds, making them all a lot of money, is immaterial to whether this counts as TACO.
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Don’t forget trans people. Those 4 trans women competing in sports was just too much to bear…
Woah, don’t be so hasty. Those were just folks that take email security really seriously
It wasn’t just morons. It was helped by greedy tech bros just as much who believed they might be able to enrich themselves in the process.
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We should be glad he did.
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I don't know. The Kuwaitis might feel differently about your brilliant assessment.
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like a healthcare plan, always 2-3 weeks away
Trump said "repeal and replace Obamacare" so many times during his first term I can clearly hear it in my head in his voice.
Not only Trump. Most Republicans want to repeal. They are just struggling a little with the replace part.
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The USA and Israel could always win the war, at any time, by playing the "destroy all your power plants and fuel facilities" card. They've been sitting on this card the entire time.
They don't want to play it, because it would cause near permanent economic damage to Iran. It is not possible to run a modern economy without fuel or electricity.
Without fuel, there are no logistics; there is no capability to transport an army. Nor is there an ability to transport food; it would cause an enormous civilian crisis, and this would cause massive riots.
Iran (and most of this thread) does not understand this, and that's why there were kindly encouraged by Pakistan and China to go to the negotiating table, before this conflict gets worse.
Iran can still escalate too. Past a certain point we really have to examine what "winning" means if regime change is only feasible via mass starvation.
Escalate, how? By bombing gulf countries infrastructure? So they cannot produce oil, gas, and water; extending the humanitarian crisis to the rest of the Gulf countries?
Doing so does nothing to prevent Iran from being bombed itself. Iran (so far) has shown no ability to prevent the USA and Israel from dropping thousands of bombs on Iranian daily.
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NYT is reporting that Pakistan is saying the Ayatollah agreed, and it was due to Chinese pressure regarding the global economy.
It seems to be more likely on the unlikely side because (1) Iran planned for distributed operations (2) missiles are still apparently flying, speculated that any agreement may not have disbursed to all the independently operating groups (3) your point, it's unclear if there is any actual agreement (4) is Israel party to this agreement, will they honor any such agreement? Same for Hezbollah and Hamas
Probably not since they just launched a barrage of ballistic missiles.
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FTA Israel has agreed to the ceasefire and will also suspend its strikes, a White House official said.
That's what they said about Palestine, but the strikes continue.
I saw that, but it would be good to hear it straight from Netanyahu himself.
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Declaring someone an enemy does not automatically lead to war. America considered the USSR an enemy of democracy for 50 years. They never went directly to blows.
Sure, but Iran did sponsor proxies that did attack Israel. And whether something is direct war or proxy war feels more like meaningless semantics imo.
Historically speaking I think it's clear Iran has been the aggressor in this specific conflict.
Not that I think Israel took smart actions, but that's a different matter.
Korea was a proxy war between the US and China - which is very different from a direct war between those two countries, wouldn’t you say?
That proxy war never reached China or the US borders.
The Israel - Iran proxy war is happening on/in Israel's borders, it's way more "direct", and not happening in some far away land.
Could you imagine if a Chinese proxy attacked the US directly?
I'm specifically referring to the attacks on Iran that started this mess ~6 weeks ago. If the US and Iran agree, but Israel decides to continue bombing campaigns, then this ceasefire will be very short-lived.
The parent said war, and the aggressor of the 12 Day War is unquestionably Israel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-Day_War
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Thank you dogemaster2026 for the insightful comment.
gee, i wonder who helped put those religious fanatics in power and have helped them retain power by raining down death from the sky
Fanatics exists in every religion given enough population. How do they attain power consistently in islamic countries.
I think thats because it's easy to convert even educated open minded people to side with religion because of the incentive structure in islam.
Clown world.
Trump is now threatening CNN with legal repercussions for publishing the Iraninian government's take on this, so I think it safe to say we all lost this war.
Did the USA just lose a war to fucking Iran?
I told ya the Ayatollah would end up keeping the gate. Tolling all the tankers that want to pass through the straight. The US cannot game this cockamamie new Khameini. So unless you're a tankie you won't be thanking him later.
The Hegemon can make demands but can't avoid demand destruction. Steal the oil from Iran, was that the plan? Just like a child abduction? Trump doesn't have the gumption to snatch enriched uranium nor does he have the cranium to manage prices at the pump.
Never lower, always higher. Where he sees smoke, I Cease fire. For Nukes and Nikes Nixon hollered "Abandon gold for Petrodollars!" The Ayatollah is now doling Trump a lashing for his trolling. Heed Shaheeds and bleed? No need! Say "Fuck it dude" and just go bowling.
wow you're like m&m or summin
Seems like Trump agreed to give Iran control over the Strait of Hormuz:
https://xcancel.com/araghchi/status/2041655156215799821
What in that do you read as "Trump agreed to give Iran control over the Strait of Hormuz"?
For two weeks, you're going to have to consult with Iran to get through the straits.
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What they didn’t have until last month. If this ends with Iran being able to tax shipping, it’s a major change.
Why does india support iran while enemies to Palestine. Is it because of shia vs sunni sects
India supported Israel until Iran started to look like winning. Modi visited Israel right the day before Israel strike on Iran leading to this war. They never thought Iran could fight USA.
The fact that so many people on this thread believe any of this is real is really a sobering reminder. The entire thing, top to bottom, is theater.
To which extent exactly? The images of destruction are faked?
I know what you're saying just not sure how literally to take your words
The talks are theater. Trump is running around like a headless chicken, so it may look like a lot of "diplomacy" is happening, but if you look at the Iranian side, they remain in control over the strait, and their demands haven't changed. The fact that Iran agreed to talk is because Trump caved-in enough.
I find it a little odd when you're clarifying someone's comment and someone else wades in and replies (without even a "not the person you replied to but ..")