Comment by jcranmer
17 hours ago
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.
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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
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.
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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.)