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Comment by marricks

19 hours ago

> why would the US concede?

Because it has no way of achieving its objectives.

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.

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.

  • 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?

  • 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