Comment by holografix

That's not a US specific strength though, anybody with the ability to strike someone with shorter range than theirs can do that. I.e. Netherland can destabilize South America through attacking Panama and its very unlikely that Netherlands will be bombed.

Sure, when US Brazil etc. are pissed off enough, Netherland can just TACO like the US did.

China and Russia can do the exactly same thing to Iran too and Iran won't be bombing Moscow or Beijing either.

It might demonstrate madness though, which in same cases can be useful.

It’s not the ME countries who are profiting, because they can’t export. So it’s a net loss. (Saudi and oman win a bit, but in no comparison to the iraq kuwait loss)

The winners are mostly: Russia, Iran itself and (margibally) the US. But mostly Russia.

US, in the past (eg - iraq) has shown that it can destabilize a region without any effects to the US, not even a mild price increase domestically. So this one is a big degradation from that earlier stance.

The Islamic regem lost all its legitimacy in Jan. Even some loyalist where angry at them but they gain support of part of the people and found a reason to exist as the defender of the country.

They will survive and become stronger particularly if they get an economic lifeline out of this peace deal.

> I'm no fan of this administration but another way to look at things is that the US can essentially destabilize a region while facing mild commodity price increases.

Oil spiked over 40% at its peak and US gas prices are up 25-35%, and that's before things got to the point where there were "real" supply issues. I don't know how you can reasonably consider this "mild".

> Actually it shows that the US could eliminate the leadership at its leisure even if it can't hand select the replacements.

Everyone and their brother has known that the US can assassinate virtually any world leader if it really wants to. The question you haven't answered is: to what end?

> I'm also not sure the powers that be in the ME hate the rising oil prices.

Notwithstanding the fact that this situation only increases the attractiveness of oil alternatives, you're missing a few points, including:

1. If oil prices rise too much, too fast, it leads to demand destruction. Nobody captures the higher profits for long because the global economy falls into recession if oil stays above a certain price point.

2. Price stability is just as important as price.

3. Significant long-term damage was done to oil infrastructure and Iran demonstrated how easily infrastructure can be effectively targeted despite all of the advantages its neighbors have in terms of American support, American defense technology, etc.

Your comment also doesn't consider the geopolitical costs of this "excursion". The administration's actions have further alienated America's strongest allies (except for Israel) and added fuel to the "America is undependable" fire. This is good news for China:

https://en.sedaily.com/international/2026/04/05/china-overta...

> China surpassed the United States in global leadership approval ratings last year, as Donald Trump's second administration began its term in earnest, according to a new Gallup survey.

> The polling firm reported Thursday that the median global approval rating for Chinese leadership stood at 36% in its 2025 world survey, exceeding the 31% recorded for U.S. leadership. It marked the first time in 20 years that China's approval rating topped that of the United States by more than 5 percentage points.

$2MM per tanker for safe passage is an extra $100 billion a year in revenue, which is peanuts next to the world's de facto acknowledgement that Iran now has sovereign control of the Strait of Hormuz and can charge whatever it wants. The ceasefire also includes lifting all sanctions on Iran, and notably says nothing about its nuclear program, which becomes de facto acceptance of its right to continue it to its logical endpoint of Iran becoming a nuclear power.

Before this started, it was impossible to imagine that Iran could achieve all this. It's hard to how this isn't a massive win for Iran.

The $2m toll per strait crossing, at 120 ships a day, is going to pay dividends in perpetuity for them. Their economic situation is now actually better than it was pre-war.

The US have been removing leaders for decades.

> (...) another way to look at things is that the US can essentially destabilize a region while facing mild commodity price increases.

I'm afraid you are yet to experience the real impact of this war. The actual effect of closing the strait hasn't hit your wallet yet. It's a repeat of the same old tariff bullshit.

Also, Iran did inflicted heavy damage on some of the infrastructure of US's allies. You will start to feel that in a few months.

The only party that clearly stood to benefit from this event was Putin's regime. Orban is not the only vassal at his command.

You weren't paying attention because that's what the US does since decades... Just now it impacts Western countries directly (Ukraine and Iran come to mind)

> So I think there will be another leader elected soon.

Maybe not soon. The power now has shifted from mullah to IRGC commanders and they likely will want to keep it while having Khamenei as a figurehead.

> So I think there will be another leader elected soon.

That alone is another clear sign of Iran's ruling regime emerging as the clear victor. Not only there was no regime change but also their primary regional and global antagonists tried their hardest and completely failed to overthrow them.

Moreover, some neighboring countries who were in the US sphere of influence were very quick to fold and remove themselves from the conflict, while others saw their primary economy attacked by Iran and helplessly so.

Forget about Iranian regime's internal opposition. So did the US.

Is there any question on who emerged the clear winner?

> I think you're mostly right, except maybe a bit misinformed on #1. The younger Khamenei is, according to recent reports, in a very unstable condition, has likely never actually had an input on the leadership of Iran so far, and his future state is uncertain. > So I think there will be another leader elected soon.

What does that have to do with anything? The USA (my country, sadly) provoked a far smaller nation and was proved incapable of dominance.

Trump will claim victory, but it's not what they thought they'd get.

> thought with US producing surplus oil for domestic use

I have to assume that at least someone in the room was well aware that all oil is not created equal and that US refineries were designed from the beginning for Venezuelan and similar oil rather than US oil.

What's à good image of the US nowadays ? Artemis maybe. That's all.

Would a better image be destroying the power plants and water desalination of 90M people?

We are in an era of clickbait; mainstream media tends to be sycophantic to the views of its readers.

Just the attack on data centers has caused certain conversations in my circles that basically comes to down to some guys will try to get off of foreign clouds and into local hosting in their own countries (most seems keen for co-location hosting because of the static ip ranges & other admin sugar and reliable power; not concerned about hardware pricing as the hardware is less than 10% of the equation). All thanks to a couple attacks on data centers that we are not even hosting on.

The US foreign policy has perfected the art of turning a stream of tactical victories into a strategic defeat.

They used to spend years to do that, now they managed to do it in just over a month.

It never had any ability to prevent an indiscriminate bombing campaign, and never did. And nobody ever thought otherwise.

It only ever had to prove it could keep the strait closed. Which it did. And now the americans are going away, and they can get back to hanging students from cranes.

The USA has failed to achieve any of its strategic goals, and is going home, defeated.

They did not manage to bomb Germany, North Korea, or North Vietnam into submission and they tried for years. Winning through bombing alone has never worked.

The Iranian military is very decentralised and designed specifically with American capabilities in mind. So am not sure they would collapse. And a defending force is far less dependent on logistics in the short term. Also, Iran has a culture of sacrifice.

Iran and the US exist in a state of equilibrium of opposite strategies. The US is unwilling to risk its troops and sees sacrifice as weakness but otherwise applies maximal pressure. And Iran is willing to sacrifice its citizens and sees that as noble. And outside of a black swan event there is little hope of change.

Each side sees its enemies greatest military strength as a moral weakness and will keep fighting. Whilst conversely believing that sacrifice/maximal remote force may someday work. Iranians are not going to pivot because their culture has been forged as a response to exactly this kind of pressure. Nor will America suddenly see the sacrifices of thousands of it's men as virtuous. So things probably just revert back to the same equilibrium.

The point is that America blowing up power plants and Iran absorbing casualties is just an extension of the status quo.

> The US and Israel have been sitting on this the entire time. They don't want to do it, because it would cause near permanent economic damage to Iran.

That is such an incredible interpretation of the situation that basically requires you to ignore basically every economic problem being faced from this insanity currently and in the near future.

Sure, the US an Israel were just "too concerned" about the Iranian economy to do war crimes.

If the US ended up damaging power plans and desalination plants, that would mark a clear inflection point in the number of "friends" the US has militarily, economically, and politically. Sure, Israel would still be a big fan, and maybe Saudi Arabia, but otherwise the US would become a pariah.

It would be damaging to Iran and potentially hundreds of thousands or millions would die.

That's a lot of blood debts.

There is no way the US would walk away from that situation into a better outcome.

more crazy then his father is what i hear

To China, the conflict is a clear demonstration of the impotency of the US war machine. Before this "military operation", one could imagine the US defending Taiwan.

Now, it's a laughable thought. It couldn't even if it wanted to.

None of those things matter if they survive and control the straight, which seems to be the situation. The toll revenue will be enough to rebuild several times over. They have proven that they can absolutely crush the gulf states with missiles and drones.

I think the fact that Trump accepted their 10-point plan as the basis for negotiation, instead of them accepting the American 15-point plan, makes it obvious this is America taking the loss.

This would make sense if the regime command structure had apparently not designed itself for this exact type of conflict.

They were in a fight, took losses, and made significant gains.

They proved their planning was correct, that the distributed nature of their power grid was correct, that they are able to project force and genuinely destabilize the strait.

Things have been proven that were previously uncertain, and they have not been proven in America’s favour.

Crucially America’s ability to defend its allies was tested and found wanting. The entire conflict was of unit economics, in that a cheap 30k drone beat out billion dollar investments.

America also spent the better part of this administration alienating themselves from the one allied nation with extensive drone combat experience.

I agree with you that this is just temporary, but for entirely different reasons. I think that stock market fluctuations are making some people very very rich. It's the same game as they did with the tariffs on/off every week and it's not over yet.

I don't think we know if the ceasefire will hold or if it's another attempt by trump at strategic delay/deception, but remember that the strait carries a lot more than oil and those things cannot be transported via a pipeline.

Reroute where? Nonsense. If that was the case then the tensions wouldn’t be this high.

Not just HN, just about all social media except far-right Trumpist echo-chambers have been calling it a Iran win or at least a US loss.

Those can be replaced. The damage to US reputation and influence will last the rest of our lives.

It's a war, everybody loses, but given that the US started this with the explicit goal of regime change and has manifestly failed to accomplish this, it's a victory by default for Iran.

Although it wouldn't surprise me if the final deal includes Khameini Jr stepping down and being replaced by somebody with a more palatable last name.

Winning is not the absence of anything negative. Winning is emerging in a stronger position than before.

Yes the US started the conflict for reasons which are unclear. Yes a lot of lives were lost, and a lot of infrastructure destroyed.

Because the US goals are so murky it's hard to determine their standard for "winning". Certainly no one (myself included) is a fan of the Iranian regime. But that hasn't changed. The nuclear threat is unchanged. (A threat which only exists because of Trumps actions in his first term.)

What we have seen is the threat of the strait closing move from the theoretical to practical. We've seen the impact that has on the global sentiment. Iran has a card to play, and they played it, and now we all understand what it means. That strengthens their position.

Israel also ends up weaker here. The nuclear threat is unchanged. But the deaths in Iran will fuel enlistment in anti-Israel terrorist organizations for another generation.

America has lost some global prestige. (Not for the first time recently.) They've shown that they are powerless to open the strait by force.

"Winning" is a loaded term. But so far they have prevented the US from achieving their goals (if they even had any). Lots of countries declined the invitation to join in. Iran is now diplomatically stronger than before. The US and Israel are weaker. Call it whatever you like.

Moral high ground? They lost it long ago when they were hanging people for being gay and sponsoring terrorist groups.