The amazing part to me is just the perceived invincibility this small circle within the US administration has. You can find dozens of articles with a search limited to Feb 1~Feb 27, plenty of analysis warning of the risks that have now become reality, everything - the strait, no revolution, further radicalization, critically low US stockpiles, abandoning other US partners, gulf destabilization, etc.<p>In the fantasy imagination of some people, they really think you can take out some military targets of another country and then the oppressed masses will magically revolt, as they completely ignore the failed revolution just a month prior. Surround yourself with enough of these people while excluding and firing those who don't and this is what you get.
It's not just this administration. Everything with the US military has been going clearly downhill since the Millennium Challenge 2002. [1] It was, appropriately enough, a wargame simulating an invasion of Iran. It was a major event involving preparation in years and thousands of individual operators. When it was carried out the invading force was defeated by unexpected resources and resourcefulness from the Iranian side, not entirely unlike what Iran has done during our invasion.<p>Normally this would have been the end of it, lessons would be learned, and strategic directions adjusted. Instead the game was reset and the Iranian side was handicapped to prevent them from doing various things, effectively imposing a scripted result. This led to the US winning by an overwhelming margin and somehow the results of this rigged game were used to align strategic initiatives moving forward.<p>In modern times we increasingly seem to have entered into an era where people are willing to believe what they <i>want</i> to believe, rather than what they know to be true. And while it's easy to mock politicians and the military for this, this is also a mainstay of contemporary political discourse among regular people, including those who fancy themselves as well educated, on a variety of controversial issues.<p>I don't know what started this trend, but it should die. At least in terms of war it's self correcting. The US can't handle many more botched invasions or interventions, and I suspect we're already beyond the point of no return in terms of consequences of these errors.<p>[1] - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002</a>
The game being reset makes sense - time and resources have been spent to make it happen, and it's best to get as much value from those resources as possible.<p>Of course this means learning the lesson of how the first defeat happened. You reset so that you can learn more lessons. If they ignored the lesson of the first defeat, that's stupid. But the reset itself makes sense.
The Millennium Challenge 2002 is discredited because it had motorcycle couriers that moved at light speed handling all communications and 10' speed boats launching 19' missiles.
After being restarted, the red (opposing) force general resigned due to the restarted game having what amounted to a scripted end, with little to no latitude for the red force to exercise creativity in strategy or tactics. Among the highlights, the red force were required to turn on and leave on their AA radars so that blue force HARMs could take them out, and the red force was prohibited from attempting to shoot down any of the 82nd airborne / marine air assault forces during the assault.<p>Gen. Van Riper's tactics were apparently discredited in 2002 because they were unfair, but Iran seems not to have received the memo since their moves bear more than a passing resemblance to his.
Well shit, we should have paid attention when Iran developed light speed motorcycles evidently.
You elect clowns, you get a circus.<p>The US has turned into a Wall-e society just getting off on entertainment and getting bored with civilized, thoughtful politicians. This is the end result of TOO MUCH prosperity for the average American.<p>They haven't experienced true hardship in generations and we (the rest of the world) is paying the price of their hubris.
Its what happens when you surround yourself with incompetent yes men.
It is a ring of incompetent yes men, but behind those yes men is a nefarious foreign influence operation. These guys didn't arrive at their bad decisions by accident.
.. and a substantial domestic influence organization. Lots of US donors with US passports handing over good old US dollars. Lots of pro-regime news stations. More since the CBS takeover.
When you listen to the director of counterterrorism explain what happened in the run up to him resigning it fits pretty well the theory that Trump is compromised (possibly with kompromat) by a certain Middle Eastern country.
It's not all. I tried as much as I could not commenting on it, but the delusions of _a lot_ of hn users on the subject, even a few whose opinion I respect, were unreal. People who are not MAGA btw.<p>And I'm not sure most of those realise how delusional they were, even now. They will probably rewire their memory to forget what they believed 3 weeks ago, compress the time they were wrong.<p>I initially thought the 'manufacturing consent' part of the war was botched, unlike Irak, but now to me it seems that people are much more susceptible to propaganda disguised as 'almost true' information on social media, and I am afraid I might be in the same boat.
It was certainly notable that so many HNers seemed absolutely <i>certain</i> that the Kurds would come to the USA's aid, ignoring the fact that America had facilitated the one-sided ceasefire imposed on Rojava just weeks before.<p>A few more sceptical voices brought this up, and were told repeatedly that it didn't matter because the Kurds in Syria and Turkey are very different from those in Iraq & Iran.<p>And there's certainly something in that - but it ignored the clunkingly obvious point that, if America had been thinking at all strategically, a bit more support of Rojava and would have demonstrated to <i>all</i> Kurds that "looking west" would be rewarded.<p>It has to be hard for Americans to realise that their government has pissed so much of the world off so badly. I suspect we'll see further such errors in analysis and response before the new reality fully sinks in.
> so many HNers seemed absolutely certain that the Kurds would come to the USA's aid<p>I must have missed those, but I would expect HN to be able to count. There really are not a lot of Kurds.
Turkey- a key US ally- will never allow the formation of an independent Kurdish nation near their borders.
Sure, and the question really came down to how much autonomy they'd end up getting within an integrated Syria. The answer turns out to be "not much".<p>And to make matters worse, Trump didn't even make an attempt to let them down gently - saying "the Kurds were paid tremendous amounts of money, were given oil and other things. So they were doing it for themselves more so than they were doing it for us"...<p>...and then, 4 weeks later, expected their Iraqi and Iranian cousins to ride to the USA's aid!
Possibly they think they can make up what they lost in good will and cooperation with blackmail and pressure. It is doubtful it will work as reliably as in the past, though (second order effects even left aside).
> It has to be hard for Americans to realise that their government has pissed so much of the world off so badly.<p>It is not hard, at all, for roughly 1/3 of Americans to understand this. Another 1/3 don't think it, or anything past their TikTok feed, matters. The last 1/3 thought Team America was a documentary.
> It is not hard, at all, for roughly 1/3 of Americans to understand this.<p>Sorry, but I don't think they do understand.<p>America has managed to piss off Canada FFS. And lets be honest, you've got to work <i>really</i> hard to piss off the Canadians.<p>Frankly, Americans (former) allies have seen the American people VOTE for Trump. Twice. Even if Trump goes tomorrow, the (former) allies know what a significant proportion of the US people want in a leader, and so may be in store at the next election.
The facts are that this administration removed most of the top generals in the pentagon a year ago[0]. Notice the pattern in other areas of the administration when the opportunity for new appointments is created: Loyalty over competence and experience in almost every case. There are a few exceptions, but most were from His first term (Jpowell).<p>[0]<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/21/cq-brown-trump-fired-joint-chiefs-general-00205593" rel="nofollow">https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/21/cq-brown-trump-fire...</a>
Their key insight is that you don't have to manufacture consent when so many voters just love the guy in the White House and will stand by him no matter what.<p>Why waste time convincing anybody of anything, when support for the war will just converge on the president's approval rating anyway?
I don't think that is the whole picture.<p>I suggest a significant cause is Trump's arrogance and only listening to the advice he wants to hear.
Its what happens when your nation state has been raised on an unhealthy diet of warrior narcissism.
Everyone knew the Iranians would close the strait and that it would take time to re-open it. That was the price the administration was willing to pay. Put differently, the regime's traditional deterrence did not work against this administration. You seem to think the administration would not have done this thing with what we know now. What makes you think that?
yeah I did expect US to know all those things...<p>but what I did NOT expect, is how Iran regime would choose strategically suicidal options just to "feel good"<p>missile-rambo even on non-combatant countries? that'll trigger self-defense attacks...<p>$2M per voyage? woah... the stait-users don't have a choice, but "make an example out of" iran...<p>I mean, iran should have just shot israel with all its missiles (select and focus), and bring that "missle interception rate" down to 40%.<p>Now what did iran gain from shooting everyone? making more enemies, and showing your weaknesses (96% missile interception rate, even from UAE? wtf...)<p>don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying Trump was right on starting the war. I actually think what the fk was he thinking back then...<p>I'm just saying even if you're angry and desperate, there are wise choices and dumb choices
I have been thinking about this scene a lot recently: <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hj_4KIKHRFY&t=60s" rel="nofollow">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hj_4KIKHRFY&t=60s</a><p>America is isolating itself in so many ways. You could rewrite that scene and reach the same conclusion.
Honestly, the way this administration has behaved makes me think someone there is obsessed with playing Total War and thinks that’s how the real world works. It’s all about winning battles and painting the map red, white and blue (Greenland, Venezuela, now Iran) with no thought to what they want to achieve beyond that.
I think that criticism legitimately undersells Total War players (and thereby oversells the administrations competence).<p>Total War involves an understanding and exploitation of high ground, rivers, and choke points. Like just about any war gamer, with a glance at the map of Iran one arrives at The Pentagons stated wisdom on the matter for decades. Geography says you invade all of it, or cede the straight.<p>We have this issue many paces in the world and people just don’t get it. North Korean nukes are a threat, but the unstoppable artillery barrage that would kill tens of millions in the first minutes of the war is The Issue. You can’t have snipers on a mountain ridge over your house and feel safe.<p>Dick Cheney and the Bush family spelled it out over and over. They like money and oil.
Don't forget prior saber rattling about Panama. Cuba is still actively on deck.
And here I thought that they acted more like Tropico players.
Hegseth?
They're obsessed with what real white men did the in past centuries, ie old style imperialism, not the current US state of imperialism.
I see a lot of people throw this "no revolution" perspective around when everyone involved has been very clear to the Iranian people: that this is the time to stay safe and inside. People rising up will take time, and will be highly unpredictable. No one said otherwise. You imply "analysts already had this all identified" yet you are putting forward a supposition here that's just wildly unrealistic.
Seriously, all these armchair "experts" are missing very obvious truths -<p>1) Every authority figure is telling the Iranian people to stay inside and wait.<p>2) Revolutions don't happen overnight, the same way that businesses don't succeed overnight, even though from far away it might seem that way.<p>3) Official Israeli statements estimate it could take up to a year after the war is over for a successful overthrow, even if everything is going according to plan.<p>The truth is there's a lot of people who want this war to fail, because it will align with their political convictions and hopes.
Donald trump addressed the Iranian people in a video message and told them to rise up when the war began.
The failed revolution a month prior may have been the US too.<p>It's after the ramp up in production of weapons used in the shooting war started.
Perceived? US politicians are all mutli millionaires no matter what happens they will be golfing in Hawaii.<p>At least Roman emperors got assassinated by their own bodyguards.
Read on the martingale strategy. This is Donald Trump signature strategy. Basically, when something doesn't work, you double down; and it pays off. This strategy keeps working until it doesn't and completely bankrupt the player. Because the strategy has been always paying off for the them (djt & co), they thought they have some kind of a special skill/power that others don't; not realizing that they are just bad at math, geopolitics and strategy.
I think it's perfectly encapsulated by Hegseth's comment about not fighting "with stupid rules of engagement."<p>The implication is that, the US's military failures in the past have been caused by lefty bedwetters wringing their hands about casualties and restricting the military. More generally, caused by "woke" policies that are about political correctness instead of about military success.<p>I would bet at least $10 that the top people in the administration are baffled that they haven't won the war yet. They're saying, we did everything right. We got rid of the trans people in the military. We fired the worst women and black people in leadership roles. We put a real tough guy in charge of the military. We told our troops to stop worrying about rules of war and let them off their leash. So why is Iran still able to fight?<p>That's one of the problems with bigotry and toxic masculinity and that sort of thing. Not only does it lead you to harm people, but it also hurts your ability to actually get things done. Thinking that gay people are destroying society is bad if you're in a position to hurt gay people, but it's also bad if your job involves preventing the destruction of society, because it means that you're going to look at idiotic "solutions" to the problem. And because it's not coming from a place of rationality in the first place, you're not going to eventually say, wait a minute, this isn't working, maybe gay people aren't the problem. You're just going to keep pushing at it harder because you <i>know</i> it's right, and if it's not working then it's just because you haven't done it enough.
Trump doesn't care about the results in Iran. He's getting richer through graft while making himself look big. He's pathetic and we're all paying the price in one way or another.
A war continuous until one side has caused the other more suffering than it can take.<p>When dealing with the Middle East we keep underestimating the amount of hardship the people I these countries can endure or be forced to endure.
> A war continuous until one side has caused the other more suffering than it can take.<p>The article is in large parts about how that's not true. It makes the point that the very existence of the Iranian regime hinges on its opposition to the US, to capitulate would mean for the leaders to lose all support, be overthrown and likely die: so there's no level of suffering that it "can't take anymore". And similar in the US, the leadership cannot survive politically to a capitulation. Hence endless escalation on both sides.
Adding they can hang out in bunkers that are 500 meters under the mountains for decades. US leadership come and go every few years and they know it. They need only wait them out. There are no bunker busters or nukes in existence that I am aware of that can do anything to the missile cities. I would love to be proven wrong by their actions ideally without sacrificing 15k ground troops <i>which I believe is the current count on the ground not counting the 50k naval forces.</i>
<i>"Qui vincit non est victor nisi victus fatetur"</i> -Ennius, Annales, XXXI<p>Translation: "The victor is not victorious if the vanquished does not consider himself so”
The Straight of Hormuz is open to any country willing to pay $2M per voyage. Any country except the U.S. and Israel.<p>The most important aspect of the "toll" is that Iran prefers payment in yuan, not dollars.<p>If Iran succeeds in nationalizing the Straight and is successful in enforcing the toll, it represents a very serious threat to the dominance of the U.S. Dollar as the world's reserve currency for trading energy.
> The Straight of Hormuz is open to any country willing to pay $2M per voyage. Any country except the U.S. and Israel.<p>The straight is not physically closed by Iran. It's closed by insurance companies which asking a very high war risk insurance premiums. Even if you pay $2M it unlikely will reduce the cost of insurance. That's why very few ships are choosing this option (and some of them are shadow fleet tankers which probably have no insurance).
well, you can view it Iranian are willing to insure the vessel for $2M fee - that it will not get hit by them during the crossing ;). Once they are in the Oman sea, they can use traditional insurance.
You can view it like that, but most people don't. At least the people involved manning those tankers don't.<p>And why should them? It appears that the Iranian armed forces started acted quite autonomously, by design. They know that communications are not secure, so local commanders have a very high latitude in what actions they deem correct to take. If such a commander deems that asking and collecting $2 MM per vessel is a good idea, they'll do it. But if another commander thinks that sinking a passing vessel is what their standing orders are, they'll do it too, not being aware that the toll was paid. So, if you are the captain of such a vessel, what do you do? Do you complain to Iran for not holding their end of the bargain?
Seems pretty unlikely that the Yuan is going to be the dominant world currency, given its capital controls.
It would legitimately be hilarious though if the result of this conflict was iran being the one to enact regime change. In terms of the global order
That's what will happen due to iran's dickhead move...<p>Being bombed does not mean it can target non-combatant countries without consequences...
Nor does it mean it can start tolling ships $2M per voyages...<p>Now that current iran regime has learnt it can do those things...<p>what choice do the gulf nations, or even all the asian+european (strait users) nations have?<p>Form a coalition against iran, and send troops to change the regime...<p>even if US backs away, the others will finish the job
> iran's dickhead move...<p>Remind me again, which country started this whole mess?<p>> what choice do the gulf nations, or even all the asian+european (strait users) nations have?<p>They can go <i>"yeah, you know, the US has been less than reliable as an ally recently, what with absurd tariffs, saber rattling around greenland, belitteling NATO, etc., and they seem unwilling to change, so we're just gonna pay the piper, and get oil, and make arrangements with the Chinese (aka. the worlds most powerful industry), and if they US doesn't like it, that sounds like a them-problem..."</i><p>What's very likely not gonna happen, is other countries fighting the US's war for them. NATO already told trump no, other countries won't give different answers.<p>And anyone who wants to actually invade Iran...well, let's put it this way: Iran is 3-4 times the size of Afghanistan, with even more difficult terrain, and has a standing army of 600,000 men, with over 300,000 in reserve. They have an air force, are proficient in the manufacture of drones, have a working intelligence network. And they've had 4 decades to dig into defensive positions.<p>In short, it's not gonna happen.
Don't think there is much of a point replying to this person seriously as he is obviously a troll. You can take half a minute to check his profile
> which country started this whole mess?<p>what has already started, is already started -- I agree on Trump being dick, but does that make iran's "making new enemies" a wise move?<p>> NATO already told trump no, other countries won't give different answers.<p>of course it said no BEFORE IRAN started the $2M toll (and other countries don't like trump due to tariff-for-everyone)<p>if the current iran regime was strategically wise, iran should have fired everything it got to Israel, and make the missile interception rate down to 40%. That would have actually showed it's power.<p>now, with even UAE's missile interception rate of 96%, iran actually showed its missiles are nuisances, not some existential threat.<p>600,000 men and 300,000 in reserve -- well that would have mattered a lot in medieval wars...
"they have an airforce" -- well do they actually have planes?
"have a working intelligence network" -- hmm...<p>no you're way way way over-estimating iran<p>the only strategic move for iran was selecting one specific target (israel) and focusing all its might, not becoming a rambo
Delusional. The GCC has only 40,000 troops.
It's rich to characterize Iran following through on its decades-old deterrence threats as a "dickhead" move while Israel is in actively mass murdering and displacing civilians to steal their land.<p>It doesn't work any more.
woah so you read this as "iran is morally wrong"?<p>well, that's secondary thing right now<p>what's dumb is dumb<p>what's the least thing you should do when fighting a war? making more enemies.<p>even on moral side... if someone in walmart bullies you, and you bully back to your classmates, does that make you morally justified?<p>plus, if you showed your cards ("decades-old deterrence threats"), you're out of options
But Iran let the International Maritime Org that anyone who is not US/Israel or not attacking or supporting attacks on them can pass through the strait of Hormuz. Is the $ 2M still a thing?
idk this move, along with firing missiles even to non-combatant countries, is going to fuk-up iran...<p>I mean, even before the $2M toll, if you're kuwait/UAE/saudi/etc, what choice do you have? form a coalition against iran<p>now.. with that $2M toll, iran just learnt it can just toll the ships...<p>so what choice do all those strait-using countries have? pay $2M or more, even after US leaves?<p>nope...
they'll form a coalition against iran<p>it's highly unfortunate that trump started the war, but iran's way of things are just making more enemies -- it'll pay with regime change within few months
No one in the US asked for this. Such a dumb move from the current administration.
The traders with a five-minute preview of trump's tweets beg to differ
Who could have possibly guessed that when voting for fascists, they'd start doing the same thing as all the other fascists.
You can’t say that. Trump is very inconsistent and a consummated liar, so plenty of people didn’t believe on his promises to deliver fascism. And plenty of people did believe on his promise to end wars. /s<p>Whether your little black heart wishes concentration camps or you’re just hoping your paycheck goes a bit further, voting for a con man is a terrible idea.
You write "/s" but that's unironically the logic a lot of these idiot enablers use.<p>"Oh he's just trolling", "it's a negotiation tactic, didn't you read his book?", "chill out, it's just a joke", "but what about OBAMA!?"
Yeah who could have guessed electing a narcissistic moron surrounded by incompetent clowns would result in dumb moves?
> More relevantly for us, Iran is 3.5 times larger than Iraq and roughly twice the population.<p>Worth noting that at the time of invasion of Iraq they had about 25 million people per gemeni. They now have about 46 mil people per wikipedia. All else equal, we are comparing 25 mil to 93 mil and not half of 93 mil to 93 mil.
Excellent catch.<p>I also used this as an opportunity to reference the now archived[0] CIA Factbook[1] which does put the 2003 Iraq population at 25 million.<p>[0] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47114530">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47114530</a><p>[1] <a href="https://worldfactbookarchive.org/archive/2003/IZ" rel="nofollow">https://worldfactbookarchive.org/archive/2003/IZ</a>
Its important to note that the US' mass murder statistics in Iraq are highly specious and the generally accepted number of murdered is way off base:<p><a href="https://psr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/body-count.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://psr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/body-count.pdf</a><p>Even still today mothers in Baghdad lose half of their babies to deformities caused by the US' criminal use of depleted uranium, so the murder goes on and on ..
I'd be curious about a citation for the "lose half of their babies" statement.<p>This review of the data & papers has some grim numbers, but nothing remotely that dramatic.<p><a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7903104/" rel="nofollow">https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7903104/</a>
>Iran would have to respond and thus would have to try to find a way to inflict ‘pain’ on the United States to force the United States to back off. But whereas Israel is in reach of some Iranian weapons, the United States is not.<p>This is too complacent for my liking. Every rusty trawler is a viable launch platform for Shahed type drones (operational range ~2500 km per Wikipedia). Nearly every US oil refinery and LNG terminal are on the coast. And then there are floating oil platforms (e.g.: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perdido_(oil_platform)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perdido_(oil_platform)</a>)<p>The article then says:<p>>One can never know how well prepared an enemy is for something.<p>And:<p>>And if I can reason this out, Iran – which has been planning for this exact thing for forty years certainly can.<p>I'll leave it here for y'all to ponder.
It's probably an accident, since I would normally expect them to claim responsibility and victory, but a refinery exploded in Texas the other day: <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/valero-oil-refinery-explosion-texas-smoke-flames/" rel="nofollow">https://www.cbsnews.com/news/valero-oil-refinery-explosion-t...</a>
> Every rusty trawler is a viable launch platform for Shahed type drones<p>And where exactly are you planning to operate that trawler out of? Or are you going to send it across the Atlantic on its own (well, with a couple of tankers accompanying it, but never mind that) and hope no-one pays attention?<p>> operational range ~2500 km per Wikipedia<p>I think you either added an extra zero or were looking at the hyped prototypes rather than the models in actual use. The Shaheds have ranges in the hundreds of miles, not thousands.
>I think you either added an extra zero or were looking at the hyped prototypes<p>I thought I was clear where I was looking - here, you may check for yourself: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136</a>.
I assume that smuggling drones into the US is easier than it was for Ukraine to smuggle them into Russia.
2500 km is a realistic range of you follow the war in Ukraine. Kyiv is frequently attacked with Shahed drones and it is far from frontlines.
> Kyiv is frequently attacked with Shahed drones and it is far from frontlines.
reply<p>It's a couple of hundred miles from the frontlines in Kharkiv, and the Russian border to the North is even closer.
Kyiv is pretty close to the Russian border to its north, even Moscow itself is less than 1000km away.<p>I think the furthest hits Ukraine has been able to achieve with drones were on a refinery about 1300km from Ukraine controlled land.
> And where exactly are you planning to operate that trawler out of? Or are you going to send it across the Atlantic on its own<p>China operates fishing fleets all around the globe but Iran is not known for this so Iranian fishing vessel in western Atlantics will rise suspicions. An ordinary cargo vessel heading to the Central America on other hand may sail unnoticed.
He writes that the region is not very important to the USA. It's not, but it is a strategically important area, not only in terms of its location, at the nexus of Asia, Africa and Europe, but also because of the oil there.<p>Now the US is not dependent on Middle Eastern Oil, but Japan, China and other countries are. So controlling the region will mean a lever of power over those regions.
At present, gasoline prices in China have risen by 11% since the war started. In the U.S., they have risen by 33%.<p>The U.S. is dependent on oil and the oil market is global. Even if the U.S. is a net exporter of oil, Americans still pay increased prices for pretty much everything as a result and the economy suffers. The only way around this would be a scheme in which domestic oil producers are forced to sell to American refiners at pre-war prices, similar to the "National Energy Program" that was tried in Canada during the '80's. (Spoiler: It didn't turn out well.)<p>Yes, the U.S. is less likely to see its pumps run dry and U.S. oil companies are going to be very happy with the increased prices. However, unless it goes the NEP route, U.S. companies are going to export more oil creating shorter supply at home. Americans will pay the same high prices everyone else will be paying. As we're seeing now, the U.S. might actually see even higher price increases than countries like China.
China is a primary adversary for the US. Oil is a major resource for both countries, supporting economics and defense.<p>First, observe the top 10 oil reserve countries:<p>1. Venezuela: ~303–304 billion barrels (mostly heavy crude)
2. Saudi Arabia: ~267 billion barrels
3. Iran: ~208–209 billion barrels
4. Canada: ~163–170 billion barrels (mostly oil sands)
5. Iraq: ~145–147 billion barrels
6. United Arab Emirates (UAE): ~111–113 billion barrels
7. Kuwait: ~101 billion barrels
8. Russia: ~80–110 billion barrels (estimates vary)
9. United States: ~40–70 billion barrels (reserves fluctuate with prices/technology)
10. Libya: ~48 billion barrels<p>China is the world's largest oil importer. Stats are hard, things get mislabeled due to sanctions, but somewhere between 15%-20% of China's oil is-or-was from Iran+Venezuela.<p>In my view, this partially explains the move in Iran, considering a 3-10 year strategic timeline.
The article states that it's not important for any reason other than oil and shipping:<p>"The entire region has exactly two strategic concerns of note: the Suez Canal (and connected Red Sea shipping system) and the oil production in the Persian Gulf and the shipping system used to export it. So long as these two arteries remained open the region does not matter very much to the United States."
So it’s not about nuclear weapons?
It was never about nuclear weapons, Netanyahu has been saying Iran was one week away for over 30 years. Europe goes along as an excuse to support politically unpopular war to maintain US support for Ukraine.
What would you expect Europe to do? It’s not like they openly support this war. The Iranian diaspora supports it, there is the secularism element, but the US doesn’t care about the Iranian people anyway
The diaspora is happy about the regime being targeted. They will be much, much more ambivalent if the US starts targeting power infrastructure and innocent people in hospitals etc start dying en masse.
The diaspora somewhat supported it for a week. Then a desalination plant was hit, and I guarantee the support grew way, way weaker. Now we're 3 weeks in, and the only Iranian I keep contact with is extremely sad that the outcome is this bad. I won't tell him 'i told you so', because unlike people on HN who argue for the operation, he doesn't deserve it, but to the 'regime change' supporters: I told you so.
the nuclear weapons program has cost about 2T USD for Iran, and definitely makes certain arguments for intervention more acceptable, but it doesn't negate the other side of the equation. the cost of intervention is still enormous. (and since the enriched uranium is an obvious target it is obviously even more protected)
its always oil and 'freedom'
> And I do want to stress that. There is a frequent mistake, often from folks who deal in economics, to assume that countries will give up on wars when the economics turn bad. But countries are often very willing to throw good money after bad even on distant wars of choice.<p>On the other hand isn't this how the russian revolution happened? An economic crisis due to a prolonged war leading to a revolution? While i wouldn't bet money on it, it seems at least possible that something similar could happen to Iran.
I would not wager money on a revolution coming from this war, either. But if a revolution does come as a result of the war, it seems at least as likely to be in the United States as in Iran.
>On the other hand isn't this how the russian revolution happened?<p>It happened because Russian empire (and German empire) lacked state security apparatus adequate to the threat. It was fixed by most authoritarian states after that, so e.g. Soviet Union survived for 70 years despite many popular uprisings, which happened almost the whole time of its existence. It went down only when elites in Moscow destroyed it from within.
While I agree that a revolution in Iran is not impossible, I rather doubt that whoever comes next will be western friendly and moderate; after the indscriminate military action of the past few weeks they are probably more likely to get ayatollah'd again.
Actually, there are lots of revolutions in Europe after WWI, but keep in mind that in this case the populations were blaming their governments for starting or participating in an unnecessary war with monumental casualties. In this case, the Iran government has two useful scapegoats and any casualties could be easily ascribed to the idiots bombing girl schools and not to the idiots sending millions to their deaths under artillery fire.
> While i wouldn't bet money on it, it seems at least possible that something similar could happen to the USA.<p>Fixed that for you.
Are we talking about Iran or US?
No one seems to discuss the worst case scenario for this war. In the best/average case the world takes an economic hit. But I can think of one really big black swan event which no one seems to even consider (except Nassim Taleb). This war could trigger regime collapses all over the Arab world and put populist leaders in charge who rise to power on the basis of Gaza genocide fury. That would be catastrophic to Israel: they could face Iran from the air and Arab ground forces from multiple directions. In fact there are already signs that Egypt is moving towards that, troops are moving in to the Sinai. There is a real chance that Israel could cease to exist.
That all makes a lot of sense. Mr. Devereux is being more realistic this time than he was at the start of the war in Ukraine.<p>My takeaway from the war in Ukraine is: it’s going to get worse and last longer than anyone ever imagined.
I remember his protracted war posts, and ... indeed there's still a war going there, and fortunately it did not even get into the anticipated guerilla phase.<p>Can you elaborate a bit on what was unrealistic? (Maybe you have different posts or claims by him in mind?)
I checked the blog, You have a point. Brett Devereux was more cautious.<p>"If you are trying to follow the War in Ukraine, I strongly suggest watching the War on the Rocks podcasts for the times they bring in Michael Kofman."<p>I’ve been caught up in “guilt by association” here. Michael Kofman always struck me as a cheap propagandist. (but I should shut up now)
Paying WoR subscriber here. Kofman likes to talk a lot and can't interview others because of it. He is also clearly pro-Ukraine.<p>But I never saw him as a cheap propagandist. Not even an expensive one.<p>Despite his obvious allegiance, he regularly criticised UAs actions and never went for any of the hurrah-hurr-durr delusions you had anywhere else. During the siege of Bachmut he repeatedly and clearly said that UA has nothing to gain from holding out. I remember him openly critical of the sacking of the defence minister, candidly describing the problems in UAs recruitment, never hyped up drones, avoided predictions and after that first fiasco with Trump and Vance last year he did not hold back criticism towards Zelensky and not once can I remember him painting the Russians as morons. On the contrary, in one episode he dismisses any sort of essentialism and related chauvinism, this was when refuting the idea that broad parallels can be seen between Napoleonic and today's Russia.
For all his faults and there are many. The no more wars aspect of Trump's campaign actually made me mildly optimistic.<p>I'm not an American so I'm not sure if the voting base actually believed him.
A comment on this post by aerodog calling Bret a "Jew" for calling the Iranian government odious was the first comment on this post but was either removed by them or a mod. Would be good to keep up so that people can see these clowns.
User > showdead
"Bret Devereaux" sounds more like of French origin, but if the author self-identifies as jew, this is useful meta-information, even if expressed in terms that are culturally unacceptable in US.
Amazing to me how impatient people are. It was six to seven months between the 12 day war in June and the mass uprising seen in December/January which was ruthlessly crushed. It will likely be a while between the end of this war and the next mass uprising. But every uprising that happens against a massively weakened regime means there's more chance of real change. Totalitarian regimes fall in ways that are hard to predict, but gradually and then suddenly.
The biggest beneficiary of this whole thing will be the shift to renewable energy. I am surprised to see the greens up in arms about it all.
> Please understand me: the people in these countries are not important, but as a matter of national strategy, some places are more important than others.<p>I assume/hope this was meant to say "the people in these countries are not [un]important"? (or just "are important")<p>As an entirely secular person, I believe every innocent human life is important.
I think he meant to write "not unimportant". His proofreading isn't perfect and he has typos or missing words in a lot of his work. I'm a fan of the work itself.
He's speaking from a military, America-first perspective (which I suspect may be somewhat affected, because he is hoping to convince people who sincerely think that way). The people in these countries are not strategically important.
Trying to parse the whole sentence, especially the "but" afterwards, the most reasonable explanation is that there is a "not" missing.
He emphasizes relative importance, he doesn't claim that the actual people are not important.
Bret mocks the JCPOA, but the west found a way to work with the Kingdom of Consanguinity and Public Executions. What gives?
He wasn't particularly scathing about it - in the article it's presented as a decent solution to a difficult problem, just that in his opinion too much was paid for it - but that being so it should have stayed in place.
(are you talking about Qatar or Saudi Arabia?)
A few thoughts.<p>1. The straight of Hormuz is crazy because of the sheer amount of options Iran has to threaten shipping. It's so narrow that they can even hit ships with <i>artillery fire</i>. No need for missiles or drones at all! Lobbing kinetic shells may sound primitive, but anti-missile defences are designed to deal with large projectiles with minutes or hours of warning, not shell-sized projectiles that hit within seconds. If a U.S. war-ship enters the straight, they could be struck by fire from artillery that's been concealed for decades before they know they're under fire. It's also worth noting that Shahad drones have a larger range than the size of Iran, and they're hidden all over the country. Any ship transiting Hormuz or any ground force trying to land in Iran could face drone attack from <i>anywhere</i> in Iran, or all of it simultaneously. A few drones are easy to intercept, but give Iran a juicy enough target and they could make the decision to simply overwhelm it. Drones are a heavily parallel capability.<p>2. There are only a couple of lanes deep enough for large ships in the straight. So far, no ships have been sunk outright, and that's probably a deliberate choice on Iran's part. If they sink a ship at the right spot, the straight could become barricaded. Clearing that barricade under threat of fire would be a far worse pickle than what we're seeing now.<p>3. The critical question to ask is, "How does the U.S. end this?" Just continuing to bomb Iran is phenomenally expensive and likely won't accomplish much. This is a regime that has been preparing for an American invasion since they overthrew the CIA-installed Shah 47 years ago. They probably never seriously expected to win an air-war against the U.S. and have obviously planned for an asymmetric conflict. The U.S. is not going to win this one without <i>phenomenal</i> amounts of blood, treasure, and will, but all of these are in short supply. A ground invasion of Iran would likely be worse than Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam rolled into one. The U.S. <i>can't</i> win this war because they simply can't pay the price. Unfortunately, the straight of Hormuz gives Iran the ability to prevent Trump from simply TACO'ing out and proceeding to invade Cuba. Iran could keep the straight closed even after the U.S. withdraws their forces, and likely will to make sure everybody knows they can control the world economy at will. They're going to expect a peace settlement, and it won't be cheap.<p>4. This conflict lights a fire under the behinds of all nascent nuclear states. Iran would not have been invaded if they'd managed to build nuclear weapons. Even Iran is more likely to develop nuclear weapons now. Contrary to what some think, Iran isn't going to give up their enriched uranium and end their program just because the U.S. promises not to attack them again. Something like the JCPOA only works if some level of trust is possible, but Trump personally burned that. The best the U.S. is likely to get in negotiations is a superficial <i>promise</i> not to develop nuclear weapons, backed up by absolutely nothing. If the U.S. decides to end the program by force, the result will also be uncertain. Say the U.S. locates and extracts Iran's HEU from those underground facilities. How will they ever be certain they got it all without occupying the whole country?
> It's so narrow that they can even hit ships with artillery fire.<p>I'm not a military export but it doesn't look like a very good option. To get accurate targeting information Iran will have to use radars. Radars can be detected and destroyed given that the US has air dominance. Also as soon as artillery will start to fire their position will be calculated by counter-battery radars (and they will be destroyed again thanks to air dominance).<p>So drones (both UAV and unmanned USV) are likely more viable options for Iran.
During daytime, a 24 mile artillery hit on a ship the size of an oil tanker is entirely within the capability of WW2-era naval gunnery by optics alone. Provided they have time for a few ranging salvoes.<p>(HMS Warspite, a WW1 era ship, managed a 24km hit on another moving ship!)
Agreed on your points. This conflict, just validated the North Korea style of strategy to all regimes out there. It does the opposite of what it is intended.<p>I hope things do get de-escalated soon, as this is not good for any party (apart Israel and Russia, which are the main gainers of all this mess).
But it didn't really. Iran is poorer than it was before, even more of a problem than it was before. NK has two very special advantages (Seoul is within artillery range, and it is literally in the backyard of one or two relevant superpowers over the decades) whereas Tehran's "force projection" is mostly through proxies and affecting global commodity trade.<p>Without NK's hard deterrence (and without being next door to its allies)
Tehran is an easy target up until the last second. And even then what's going to happen if they detonate a nuclear bomb? Everyone will sit back and let them build as many more as they feel?
> Iran is poorer than it was before, even more of a problem than it was before.<p>Iran seemingly is coming out of this mess stronger than it was before.<p>The regime remains unchanged, and is likely less willing to make concessions now. Hell, even sanctions on it being able to sell oil have been lifted, which is a boon to their economy.<p>They are in effective control of the strait, and justified in exercising it now. Yeah, other gulf countries may try to circumvent it with pipelines and whatnot, depending on how poorly they come out of this war - and it is not like you create a pipeline in a few days. Those are big engineering projects.<p>If I were a betting man, which I am not, I think they will just resume their nuclear weapons program unchallenged after this, and will likely achieve it. It is clear that no one can stop them doing so.<p>And frankly, they should. Every country that can have nuclear weapons should develop them, that much is very clear, as the last decade taught everyone.
> Iran seemingly is coming out of this mess stronger than it was before.<p>This is a wild take. Their top leaders and generals have been killed, they have no control over their own airspace, have their military and civilian infrastructure completely at the mercy of their enemies, and have no navy/airforce any more.<p>Oh, and their currency collapsed.<p>But other than that they are doing great.
Yeah, and for some reason this place that has "military and civilian infrastructure" completely at the mercy of their enemies is right now exercising full control of one extremely important sea trade route, and is wreaking havoc on all gulf states allied to the US, and is successfully hitting targets on Israel.<p>Facts have this annoying tendency of getting in the way of propaganda.
Obviously the current US Mobministration is almost impervious to shame, but of course they still have their own egoistic expectations to grapple with.<p>They are not afraid to spend money (and blood) on a problem, even if it turns out to be bigger than expected. How much? We'll see.<p>The neighbors are motivated to not live next to one more nuclear state. We'll see how much.
> They are not afraid to spend money (and blood) on a problem, even if it turns out to be bigger than expected. How much? We'll see.<p>I agree, but it is unclear if "more money" is the answer here. Iran is a much tougher nut to crack than Afghanistan. Afghanistan is barely a country. Iran is an actual, functioning country, with a territory that is geographically very defensible. And on top of that, they have actually been preparing for this for decades.<p>The ironic bit is that I thought the Iranian regime was on an irreversible decline, as the unrest amongst the population was growing in recent years.<p>The analysis I have read point out that this attack actually further legitimizes the regime and takes steam away from internal unrest, especially if Iran comes out on top.<p>Every authoritarian government needs an enemy. The US-Israel axis provided a very real, tangible one.
> The analysis I have read point out that this attack actually further legitimizes the regime and takes steam away from internal unrest, especially if Iran comes out on top.<p>Yes. Unfortunately both things can be true (irreversible decline) and solidified regime due to any external intervention.
Counter point to 4. The Israeli's wouldn't be trying to kill the Iranian leaders if they hadn't spent the last 40 years waging a proxy war against Israel.
Tehran "spent" 2T USD on the nuclear weapons program, which they could have spent on water desalination for example.<p>Yes having the deterrent is strategically beneficial, but working toward it paints a huge target on your back, while you need to pay for development, endure sanctions, etc.<p>Any state considering such weapons development already knows this. So this war is not new information.<p>And it's far from over yet.<p>Iran could very well end up cut off from the strait as rival gulf states build pipelines, rail, and drone defenses. (Sure this kind of long term thinking is not characteristic of the actors involved, but politics change easier around Iran than inside it.)
> Tehran "spent" 2T USD on the nuclear weapons program, which they could have spent on water desalination for example.<p>(Side note: That... seems like a very high figure to me?) For comparison the US spent close to $1 trillion in 2024 on the military. It <i>could have</i> saved lives and spent that money on healthcare. But that's not how govts work. Iran didn't get a drawstring bag with 2T in it and chose to throw it all on nukes.<p>Additionally, you're trying to bring a (totally valid tbf) logical argument ("Desalination is critical and an excellent place to spend money that's not going into saving lives") to a government that behaves like a cornered wild animal. It <i>will</i> act to save itself first, even if attacking the aggressor hurts itself too in the process.
> It will act to save itself first, even if attacking the aggressor hurts itself too in the process.<p>Of course, but as we see simply focusing on ground forces, drones, and anti-air defenses would be strictly <i>better</i>. (Because they wouldn't be this sanctioned, and they could even have a civilian nuclear energy program too.)<p>> 2T USD<p>It's a number coming from an Iranian trade official.<p>I heard it in this video: <a href="https://youtu.be/OJAcvqmWuv4?t=1084" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/OJAcvqmWuv4?t=1084</a> and unfortunately there's no source cited, but I think it's this one: "As former Iranian diplomat Qasem Mohebali admitted on May 20, 2025, “uranium enrichment has cost the country close to two trillion dollars” and imposed massive sanctions yet continues largely as a matter of national pride rather than economic logic."<p><a href="https://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/nuclear/iaea-report-and-geo-economic-data-expose-irans-nuclear-program-as-weapons-driven/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/nuclear/iaea-report-and-geo...</a><p>see also <a href="https://freeiransn.com/the-two-trillion-dollar-drain-irans-military-spending-versus-national-needs-1995-to-2024/" rel="nofollow">https://freeiransn.com/the-two-trillion-dollar-drain-irans-m...</a>
The reason for the Iran war is very simple: Israel’s instigation, a potential strike against China, and Trump’s political immaturity.
> a potential strike against China<p>I think this is understated in every analysis I've seen. I would bet good money this was part of the main selling point for the US. Just type in "China Oil" into any search engine or even filter the search to 2023 and earlier. China's oil consumption was surging significantly and they get a huge chunk of their oil through the Strait. It wasn't until 2024 I believe that they started reducing their dependence on oil; which I think suggests that they saw the writing on the wall and were worried about this exact scenario. China is America's number one adversary. If we're making large global moves, there's a high chance it's a strategic move against China.
The purpose of the war is to destroy the Axis of Resistance, Iran, Hezbollah and its allies, the only force standing in the way of US/Israeli hegemony in the region.
That’s a purely ideological way of looking at the situation which IMO is not sufficient. As the article states, this war was not unprovoked either, regardless of whether the provocations warrant such a response. Iran is seeking its own hegemony. Now, this does not negate your point on the hegemonic approach of US in the region. I think this war can be viewed as a power struggle between a regional and global power that’s developing into a struggle dominance and survival.<p>edit: typo
Is anyone going to mention what these provocations are? I've yet to figure it out after 6-12 months. Pretty much everything going on seems to involve the Israelis aggressively expanding their borders or viciously attacking anyone who might oppose their expansion. I've lost count of the number of negotiators they've killed.<p>Trump has averaged something like 1 bombing run on Iranian leadership ever 2 years. Iranian provocations must be quite effective at making him see red.
> Is anyone going to mention what these provocations are?<p>Sure, it’s not hard to find. These started long before Trump. You should look beyond the last few months’ news cycles. Iranian government’s issues with Israel are of ideological nature (according to the regime) and their open support (financially and militarily) of a part of Palestinian resistance and Hezbollah. Iran has been active at Israel’s borders for years. Their heavy involvement (including sending troops) in Syria’s civil war is another one to name. All of these are the ones that Iran openly admits to. You can’t explain these away with Israel’s expansionist tendencies because that’s not been a threat to Iran. No serious analyst believes that Israel wants/can to expand into even Iraq, let alone Iran!<p>The hostilities towards US and vice versa are a whole different topic.<p>Now to be clear I’m not siding with Israel on this and not saying that caring for Palestinians is not right, just answering your question and naming a few examples. Now, it’s all happened during many decades and not sure if it matters anymore who started it because it’s become a total shit show that is very hard to reconcile.<p>You might find it surprising that during Iran-Iraq war, Israel was the only country in the region who helped Iran against Iraq (which had the backing of the Arab countries including Palestinians).
Would it be fair to characterise these provocations as all involving Iran providing resistance to Israel aggressively expanding their borders? Because these cases seem to have a tendency to Israel controlling more land at the end of the day. It looks like a pretty classic situation where an aggressive power builds up in a series of "defensive" expansions.<p>> Iranian government’s issues with Israel are of ideological nature<p>I think they're just good at threat assessment. There seem to be a lot of Iranians dying of Sudden Acute Missile Disease this month. Frankly I'm struggling to see what aspect of their actions aren't just common sense over the last decade, except for their charmingly simplicity in that they didn't make a break for a nuclear bomb when they first got within a year or two of being able to develop one. Israel and their supporters have done a very bad job of offering an explanation of why the repeated hits were justified or helpful.
Israel withdrew fully from Lebanon in 2000, and this was certified by the UN, yet Hezbollah kept attacking them anyway.<p>If Hezbollah offered Israel a choice between: peace with Hezbollah OR occupy land in Lebanon, I think Israel would rationally choose peace.<p>But Hezbollah has never offered this. Their stated goal is complete destruction of Israel.<p>So if the options are: Hezbollah shoots at you from right across the border OR you occupy a buffer zone and Hezbollah still shoots at you but from further away:<p>Isn't it perfectly rational to choose the buffer zone?
You keep saying Israel is aggressively expanding its borders like its some WW2 era land-grab which is ridiculous.<p>Israel has given back more contiguous land captured during (defensive) wars its won than probably any other country in history.<p>Pretending the current conflict is because Israel randomly wants to take over it's neighbors is silly.
> Would it be fair to characterise these provocations as all involving Iran providing resistance to Israel aggressively expanding its borders?<p>Considering the results of this war so far and the one before, as well as Iran's military strategy, it doesn't seem plausible to think Iran sees (or ever saw) Israel as a threat to its borders' integrity. This may be the basis for Iran's strategy in the region in some version of the future, but to extend it to what they've done in the past would be hindsight bias.<p>IMO, the regime is not as much worried about Israel as it is about the US. Just compare the number of missiles and drones they shot at Gulf countries vs Israel.<p>But consider that Israel, rightfully or not, can make similar claims, which actually conform to the Iranian regime's long-stated goal of "destruction of Israel".<p>> Frankly, I'm struggling to see what aspect of their actions isn’t just common sense over the last decade.<p>That’s because it didn’t all start in the last decade. As you get closer to “present” in this timeline, it looks more like a one-sided affair. This is similar to the view which sees the whole Israel-Palestine issue only from October 7th onwards.<p>> Israel and their supporters have done a very bad job of offering an explanation of why the repeated hits were justified or helpful.<p>True, I’m also not sure if this is going to turn out as they wish it did. Although the jury's still out, but as the article points out, it seems unlikely.<p>edit: type
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>As the article states, this war was not unprovoked either<p>Using the same extraordinarily broad definition of "provocation" required here, can you name a single war in history that was unprovoked? And if not, haven't we just neutralized all meaning from the phrase "provoked war" with our overly broad definition of "provocation"?
It is to benefit Israel (so it can anex more territory in Lebanon), and it has no benefit to the US. The US had already a deal with Iran, which didn't threat its own interests directly. It is like leave a snake alone, but once you step into it, it will bite you.<p>This war is only to benefit Israel, and right now indirectly Russia (due to the rising prices). Basically, the US is the main loser/sucker in this war, and we are all poorer for doing it.
Israel is an arm of the US empire. It's a very useful ally of the US in the region. And when I talk about the US here I mean ruling elites.<p>The US is doing just fine from this war. The US is an oil and gas producer, the largest in the world. So they benefit from rising prices.<p>I'd say the biggest losers are countries like Europe, and neutral oil importing countries around the world.
The oil and gas producers benefit from higher prices, in the same way that glaziers benefit from broken windows. Everybody else loses though.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window</a>
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><i>on the verge of obtaining nuclear weapons</i><p>I've been hearing that line, <i>from the same person</i> for <i>thirty years</i>:<p><a href="https://www.news18.com/world/weeks-away-by-next-spring-video-shows-netanyahu-warning-of-irans-nuclear-threat-for-almost-30-years-ws-l-9392520.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.news18.com/world/weeks-away-by-next-spring-video...</a>
This comment is simply not true from a US national interest perspective. The article explains why this was not done earlier.
> on the verge of obtaining nuclear weapons.<p>WMD 2.0 The Electric Boogaloo.
There is no evidence Iran has an active nuclear weapons program or has had one since the early 2000s, which even the article's author seems not to know. They have enriched uranium that <i>could</i> be further processed and used to make weapons, but there is no evidence they are doing so or have the capability to do so (and no, Israeli government/military sources are not reliable. They have every interest to lie about Iran having/nearly having nuclear weapons)
Isn't it interesting that the country that takes the nuclear threat most seriously and tries to prevent it is also the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons?
When Trump left the agreement Obama made with Iran all US intelligence agencies agreed that Iran was not working on a bomb. Netanyahu has screeched about Irans destruction for 40 years, he was there to lie to congress about WMDs in Iraq. This conflict is engineered.
Next country to invade is monopoly/risk for 10 year olds inside 70 year old presidents.
Author seems to not care about the prospect of the Iranian regime developing nuclear weapons, putting those weapons into the hands of its terrorist proxies, and sitting back while those proxies turn Western Europe and Palestine into radioactive wastelands (yes, Palestine, because it is not possible to restrict the fallout to just Tel Aviv, and the regime has shown itself to be far more anti-Israel than pro-Palestinian, the prospect of Palestine being a radioactive wasteland for a century is an acceptable price for destroying Israel). The US and the rest of the West should, apparently, just accept this as inevitable historical destiny, because $5/gallon gasoline or putting boots on the ground are apparently so utterly reprehensible.<p>Author's analysis, as critical as he is of American presidents breaking their promises, is completely absent of analysis of what would happen if American presidents broke their promises to never allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. Never mind that JCPOA had a sunset clause that would allow Iran to resume nuclear enrichment to weapons-grade after the sunset clause.<p>The author's analysis pretty blatantly exposes reality: the West is losing because it does not have the political stomach to win. Instead of deciding that maybe society should try to develop that political stomach, instead of paying attention to a Trump who got elected in large part on mantras about how America was losing and it needed to start winning, no, Author says this was all a horrible idea and implicitly we should just sit back while our enemies progress along the road of putting nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists.
What makes you think they will give nuclear weapons to terrorists or use those weapons at all?<p>This does not happen even in the most insane examples like North Korea.<p>The more likely outcome would be that they would be able to avoid getting their schools/hospitals etc. bombed.<p>In your mind US should just nuke iran so there is regime change? Can you calculate how this would play out after that happens?
In all my years, I've never seen Iran care one bit about influencing or bothering any country outside of its sphere of influence. But I've seen Iran be antagonized nonstop and respond accordingly.<p>As an American who lives abroad and travels around the world, I've never had the slightest worry about "oh man what if Iran does something?" But I've had to adjust flight and travel plans several times, I've had cost of living surge, I've witness chaos causing terrorist splinter groups that attack countries around the world because Israel and America have started some stupid conflict and said "we had no choice bro we had to attack them because in 80 years they would've made a bomb that might've killed a civilian bro you have to trust me bro." And frankly, I'm done even taking those arguments in good faith. I simply refuse. The mess these two countries cause has caused far more death than even if Iran had a nuke, ten nukes, or one thousand nukes.
Donald Trump obviously doesn't care either, because every action he has taken during his two terms has increased the risk of Iran developing nuclear weapons.<p>JCPOA was highly flawed, but it was a lot better than nothing, which is what Trump traded it for.<p>If Trump was serious about stopping Iran's nuclear program, he would have made taking Isfahan a top priority of the initial strikes.
People repeat themselves saying "JCPOA was highly flawed, but it was better than nothing", as if JCPOA would have prevented Iran from getting nuclear weapons. It would not - it only <i>delayed</i> Iran getting nuclear weapons, and so by that line of thinking, it only delayed the onset of war.<p>Delaying the onset of war is not worthless, but it is not the same as arguing that war could have been avoided, which is what people who roll out that claim are really trying to argue. It's only true in a universe where Iran would have collapsed from within before the expiration of the sunset clause, and that clearly was not going to happen.
That doesn't change in the least the argument the OP made. The UN's IAEA has declared that Iran deceived them, didn't follow the agreements, and even accused them of violating the agreements with the intent to build a bomb.<p>As to Trump's motivations, they don't change this calculus. Iran intended to nuke their neighbors, and Israel, not just before Trump came to power but literally before the first Bush became president. And the full situation is even worse: right after the mullah's came to power in a leftist revolution in 1979, they begged for US and Israel's help to stop Saddam Hussein from nuking them. They got that help ... and then figured that nukes are a great idea.<p>Here's what the mullahs are most afraid of btw. The biggest threat to their power, the biggest problem for their central-London villas:<p><a href="https://x.com/NarimanGharib/status/2036761330359615897" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/NarimanGharib/status/2036761330359615897</a><p>This local opposition to them has systematically worsened over time, btw. So I wouldn't put it past the mullahs to nuke Iran itself, eventually. It also means that Iran's islamic regime is threatening everyone, for the simple reason that if they make a single concession loosening their grip on Iran, they'll be lynched, one by one, in the streets, by people they went to school with. That is how much Iran's regime is "winning".
You, me, solatic and acoup probably all agree that a nuclear weapon in Iranian hands is a huge danger.<p>But it's only Donald Trump that has used that as an excuse to make that danger greater.<p>And acoup has a great counter-point to your tweet in the article.<p>The Soviet Union dealt with massive internal protest quite successfully for pretty much every single one of its 70 years of existence. The Soviet Union only fell when insiders took it down.<p>Iran appears to be in absolutely no danger of that happening.
JCPOA was followed with minor discrepancies like having less than 1 ton too much heavy water. US intelligence agencies agreed that Iran was not working on a bomb as US left JCPOA, as they testified to in congress.
> They did not and now we are all living trapped in the consequences.<p>They (rich and well connected) did, but they won't have to suffer the consequences, everyone else will. The Pedo of the United States is now a billionaire that will walk away in 4 years shrugging his shoulders laughing all the way to the bank with them.<p>Not one person that could stop it, did stop it. Legislature is sitting on their thumbs pretending not to work for Israel and selling us out to big tech and defense spending.<p>All the Baby Boomers are in the south enjoying the sunshine and shrugging their shoulders.
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"Just" taking Karg Island, 300 km of coastline, and 4 other tiny islands leaves the US occupying forces as sitting ducks under constant bombardment and drone attacks from the Iranian mainland.<p>US service members would be constantly getting killed, causing inevitable escalation and deeper and deeper incursions. It's a quagmire.<p>This stuff is the exact same reason Israel constantly feels the need to peel more territory off their neighbours after each war. "We're getting bombed near the borders, so we need to push our borders out to keep the border regions safe", which of course just creates a new, even bigger border region.
Regarding the first half of your comment, I believe that the article addresses both your recommendations.
Really? The only thing that comes close is the sentence about Iran's regime collapsing "on cue", and let's be honest, the only attention that factor gets is a sound-byte dismissal with barely a reference to what happened in January.
> But a ‘targeted’ ground operation against Iran’s ability to interdict the strait is also hard to concieve. Since Iran could launch underwater drones or one-way aerial attack drones from anywhere along the northern shore the United States would have to occupy many thousands of square miles to prevent this and of course then the ground troops doing that occupying would simply become the target for drones, mortars, artillery, IEDs and so on instead.
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Then I’d suggest you read the article because he absolutely mentions it, twice in fact.
As a consolation prize we can mention the unknown amount of unarmed civillians bombed by US+Israel forces instead.
Did you even read it? He mentions that, and also He says that the regime is 'odious' right in the beginning, and is looking more from the US self interest and strategic perspective.<p>"It certainly did not help that the United States had stood idle while the regime slaughtered tens of thousands of its opponents, before making the attempt,"<p>"Now, before we go forward, I want to clarify a few things. First, none of this is a defense of the Iranian regime, which is odious. That said, there are many odious regimes in the world and we do not go to war with all of them. Second, this is a post fundamentally about American strategy or the lack thereof and thus not a post"
The information on the number of confirmed deaths in Iran is so easy to find, I am a bit miffed that he wrote 'tens of thousands'. We have the number of confirmed deaths, we have a number of death still to verify, if he wanted he could have added both number, it would have been close to the truth imho.
Nor the hundreds of thousands murder by Israel in a genocide, which is why his strategic analysis doesn't see the gulf states are at risk of collapse if they engage Iran on what is perceived to be on Israel's behalf.
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> I don't understand what this article has to do with Hacker News.<p>Taiwan has roughly 10 days left of gas supply.<p>Oil and gas are not only used for energy, but are the primary component of many, many materials and chemicals.<p>Some of the oil/gas plants that were hit will take months to fix. Pipelines have stopped.<p>We have a huge risk of a global supply chain destabilization for any sector. Think what happened with chip supply with covid, and make it much worse since the manufacturers never did stop during covid, while there is a risk they will have to stop now.<p>Not all machines and production can be stopped and started immediately, so even a short interruption can have lasting and cascading consequences.<p>Covid thought us that the world relies too much on just-in-time production, and we lack buffers in many, many fields. This has likely not changed.
> Right off the bat this guy is wrong. Nobody in their right mind would bet that the regime would collapse swiftly.<p>That "nobody in their right mind" would bet this does not, in fact, contradict his assertion that somebody did!
> I don't understand what this article has to do with Hacker News.<p>The continuing slow collapse of the United States is <i>extremely relevant</i> to all things technology and business. The source of all our funding may be cut off. It's important to monitor what's going on there.
Right off the bat your response raises questions because if the US leadership knew from day one this was a protracted fight then they stand having made entirely contradictory statements regarding their intent and expectations in that regard.
> then they stand having made entirely contradictory statements regarding their intent and expectations in that regard<p>Time Traveler, rushing to a computer after seeing a Skyrim for Sale poster and seeing this post: "WHAT YEAR IS IT!!!??"
Lying is second nature to them.
I always wondered what alternative reality are people supporting the administration are living in and this right here is the answer. As someone put it, Americans love to fool themselves in believing they are the ones 'winning' because they killed more people even if it means completely failing at the original objective.
I also love that he goes right to how much America and Israel have been pummeling Iran <i>when the article acknowledges that to be the case</i>, but rightly points out that even with that being true, the US is still in a losing position.
I stll dont understand what you are doing 10000 miles away from the presumed borders of your country, and even more why on earth you think you have the right to dictate to 90 million people (let aside the rest of the world) how to govetn themselves.<p>I suppose it is some right given to you from above, now where have I seen this before..
> I don't understand what this article has to do with Hacker News.<p>Judging by your comment history it seems to be the majority of what you discuss. Maybe you're not the best judge of what HN finds interesting or salient.
I'm basing that opinion on the FAQ that states that most politics stories are irrelevant. But sure, I'm one vote among tens of thousands, and it's up to the mods to decide.<p>It's most of my comment history <i>recently</i> because I have family and friends in the region and I'm admittedly triggered by the callousness, heartlessness and sanctimony I see in these comments. It's not healthy, I know.<p>People are trying to preach good and honest values but are doing so through narrow, biased, misinformed and presupposed views of reality that are completely detached from what's actually going on on the ground, which you could tell by talking to anyone actually living there.<p>But that's beside the point. I was pointing out an objective observation: The Trump administration has said from day one that if regime change happens, it won't be by American hands, but by Iranian protesters' hands.<p>These protesters are being asked by all sides to stay home so the US and Israel can keep bombing Basij outposts without hurting them. They're doing just that. Where is the failure? All that's being demonstrated is this analyst's impatience.<p>It might work. It might not. But we'll only know in a few months.
> The US and Israel have been pummeling them continuously, and they're not done<p>Is this the winning condition? Killing Iranians, all else be damned?
It seems there's a flawed reading coming from a single point in time analysis<p>Region instability had ben regularly threatening freedom of navigation in the last five years<p>And USA may not consider the individual country strategic, but cares deeply about freedom of navigation, because the single market is basically the pillar for their hegemony.<p>Sarah Paine lectures give overall better lenses to look at this engagement.
As the article discusses in detail, if the US actually cares about freedom of navigation, the war was a massive own goal because it looks extremely likely to grant the current Iranian regime de facto control of the Strait.
Iran already had the strait in ransom, directly and indirectly with proxy receiving weapons. You don't get to ignore that part and call this a own goal, since inaction led to the same effective results.
The strait was navigable until three weeks ago. There are very few conceivable paths towards reestablishing this. This is absolutely not the same effective result.
Same effective results as in it was causing constant global inflation and instability?
What are you talking about? The strait was open, and tankers were not paying tolls as they do now.<p>They held the threat of closing it, as a deterrent of an attack, and once attacked, they did just that.<p>You either live in a parallel universe, or are just spewing here propaganda.
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This kind of amateur analysis is not worth being front page of HN. Its not that it doesn't make a few good points, but overall, it just isn't high grade strategic analysis because it lacks a lot of information by the post's own admission.
Can you point out a better source or the major points that become invalid due to other circumstances?
Nah it's good. It shows exactly how far you can get with just a modest understanding of <i>what strategy actually is</i> at the level of nation states plus publicly available facts from the news.<p>Especially in the heavily jingoistic american context, where all of the focus is implicitly on the military means and technology and execution, but people have lost sight of, maybe can not even state plainly, what the point of a military <i>is</i>, what considerations are part of deciding to use it to accomplish a goal.<p>If you're going to accomplish a strategic goal with a military action, that goal had better be <i>achievable through military action</i> and this one plainly isn't. A historian can see it, a blogger can see it, a programmer can see it. Why wasn't it seen by people whose job is ostensibly to see it?