Comment by bawolff
6 hours ago
> But rather than protect global sea lanes, the US is bombing Iran. That’s not the same thing.
Arguably the primary threat to modern sea lanes is Iran.
Right now Iran is harrasing traffic. Previously the Houthis, generally considered an Iranian proxy, were harrasing traffic. Its all kind of the same war, this is just the end game.
The first gulf war was 1990. The US has been at war with various factions of the Middle East more or less continuously for thirty five years. The current president specifically campaigned on no new foreign wars and repeatedly tried to bully the Nobel committee into awarding him a peace prize before accepting a second hand one from another world leader and a sham one from FIFA of all things.
What makes anyone think that this latest attack is the "end game" vs just the latest expensive chapter?
The only end game here is distraction from the Epstein files and a potential coup to prevent midterm elections. The whole war is just plain stupid.
Me-of-2000 would be utterly incredulous at just one auto-coup [0] in the US, let alone the potential for two in 6 years.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-coup
If it were that straightforward, right now the US would (A) have a consistent set of demands/goals that include shipping security and (B) a large international coalition of support.
Neither are true.
P.S.: Plus, of course, the whole problem where "protecting global sea lanes" typically requires a different approach than "start a war by assassinating the leadership you were negotiating with."
JD vance whined that we shouldn't protect middle east shipping lanes because he believes it helps Europe more than the US.
Don't make me defend JD vance.
He said Europe should pay their fair share for protection since 40% of their trade passes through those lanes but only 3% of America's.
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US messaging has been all over the place, but stop funding proxies has been one of the more consistent parts.
To be clear, im not saying protecting shipping is the primary reason for this war. I'm just saying if that is what you think usa should be doing, then this war makes sense.
As far as b) there are a lot of factors. Its not like freedom of navigation is the top concern of every country in the world.
People should begin quantifying the commercial freight global costs incurred from the Houthi harassment. There is a basic ROI one can do that impacts not just US interests, but global interests.
> Right now Iran is harrasing traffic
gee, I wonder why they're doing that.
A total mystery!
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"terrorism"
who bombed them first and repeatedly? and embargoed and sanctioned them before that? and tore up the nuclear deal? and before that installed the shah so we could get the oil?
"The terrorists hate our freedoms."
This seems like a perfect opportunity for a revival of David Cross's standup career.
The end game is when the US backed dictatorships collapse, this is the end of American power, not the beginning.
That seems pretty unlikely at the moment.
> Arguably the primary threat to modern sea lanes is Iran.
Such a strange take. Can you share number of attacks by Iran in the last 10 years in sea lanes, where it was started solely by Iran?
> Right now Iran is harrasing traffic
As a response to attacks, Iran AFAIK wasn't harassing anyone in the ocean traffic up until 3 days ago
Houthi harassments was also a byproduct of the Israel-US "self defense" against the Iranian backed hamas attacks. Maybe it is pointless to pontificate whether the the tic-for-tat would have been initiated had the Israel-US coalition had stopped at punishing the Oct. 7 terrorists rather than leveling half of gaza, although I'm not convinced it was an inevitable byproduct.