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Comment by throwaway27448

16 hours ago

> 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.

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  • 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?

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    • 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

      8 replies →

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.