Comment by noelsusman
15 hours ago
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.
Call it a draw then. Which is crazy against the world superpower. And terrible for the US
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?
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?