3 ms·

“Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia” But on a more serious non-political note, what is the end game here? I

“Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia” But on a more serious non-political note, what is the end game here? It's not hard to see a future with a barren and destroyed landscape of Middle Eastern energy infrastructure, where neither the Gulf states nor Iran can reliably produce and export their energy due to continual risk. The US can never fully defang Iran, unless it happens internally. And from history, we know that aerial bombing campaigns typically don't reinforce the civilian will for revolution. So now we have a pariah state with a decapitated leadership structure, an array of Gulf states who cannot reliably defend their energy assets, and no will for a global detente because of the thousands of entangled interests that sit in the Gulf region. Either this festers, or escalates, but no party seems to be willing to step down and accept a loss.

rapsey 7mo ago
Whatever israel wants.
calvinmorrison 7mo ago
that's a huge boon for US dominance actually. Exporting oil for $$$, china having no way to get massive quantities of cheap oil, etc.
- idiotsecant 7mo ago
  Yes, foreign nation building with murky win conditions and a steadily increasing cost ledger are famously pretty good for US dominance
- sebmellen 7mo ago
  Russia and the US, from a “market share” standpoint, will be massive benefactors… but the knock-on effects of having a crippled global energy economy will be significant. As much as it may seem like a narrow political win for the US to prevent Chinese access to energy infrastructure, China will continue to electrify. At the same time, the US is still massively dependent on shipping and industrial outputs from China. It's all entangled. As are the interests of most energy companies.
- bdangubic 7mo ago
  China will be just fine mate :) They are smartly just watching US destroy itself from within and outside and chillin'
  - calvinmorrison 7mo ago
    They have a heavy dependence on imported crude from the middle east, and their alternative sources like pipelines from russia do not have enough to cover them, their domestic resources are max tapped and thier strategic supply cannot last for an extended period.
    - Gud 7mo ago
      Which will resume trading in Yuan. Anyone who bends the knee, will get to buy oil. But not the US, and not in dollars. Serious 20D chess, it’s so genius it’s incomprehensible.
      - calvinmorrison 7mo ago
        doesnt matter what its trading in, you need to be able to physically move the goods.
    - bdangubic 7mo ago
      yea, this is why they are sitting idle and doing nothing right now, makes sense /s
- rapsey 7mo ago
  ConocoPhillips and Exxon just announced a 20 billion hit due to attacks. No one will leave this thing unscathed.
throw310822 7mo ago
The endgame is a wasteland of miserable neighbours that Israel can control, occupy and plunder without encountering any resistance. As for the US, they are not in control of their own actions, they're a puppet moved by Israel.
- SirFatty 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - cheney_2004 7mo ago
    Well, Isreal has already destroyed several of their neighbors. Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Gaza, now Iran. Infact, Israel was born out of extreme and mass violence (1948). I would be fearful too... maybe its time for peace?
    - damnesian 7mo ago
      insanity!
      - SirFatty 7mo ago
        No doubt, imagine if it were true!
    - SirFatty 7mo ago
      Keep in mind that the middle east tensions started way before Israel. Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916) was a ham-fisted map re-draw, disregarded ethnic, religious, and tribal realities, contributing to long-standing conflicts. I know it's fun the blame all the regional strife on the jews, but the facts don't support it.
  - lemontheme 7mo ago
    Occupying, expanding, and killing does tend to radicalize your surviving neighbors. I mourn the innocents on both sides
  - 7mo ago
Gud 7mo ago
I agree with what you just said except, the leadership structure in Iran is absolutely not “decapitated”. There is a loooooooooooooooooooooong queue to pick up the torch.
- sebmellen 7mo ago
  To make the analogy much more gruesome, I guess you could say the the ears and nose have been cut off, but the head remains.
  - Gud 7mo ago
    I think it’s just business as usual, except the USA is losing their wars quickly, not slowly.
spwa4 7mo ago
I know I'm going to get destroyed for this, but: 1) It's the current Iranian state has always been at war. They are at war with "the little Satan" (Israel) and "the Big Satan" (US). I know this sounds like a joke but they're absolutely 100% serious. Serious enough to organize massacres ("terrorism") on unrelated individuals, like the Argentina bombing in the beginning and the Hezbollah massacres in Syria just last year. And yes, there was a time of military cooperation between Iran and Israel (just after the beginning. Israel was instrumental and helped Iran avoid getting conquered by Iraq/Saddam Hussein and got intelligence on the Iraqi nuclear program in return). This has not changed anything for the ayatollahs. And btw: the Soviet Union has had a much similar experience. They helped the mullahs get to power, helped defend against Iraq, and got an enemy in return, because the mullahs ... well presumably they saw what was happening in Afghanistan. 2) Blocking of the strait of Hormuz by Iran did not start when the current war started. Iran has always created problems for ships' passage through the strait. It has obviously been 10x'ed as a result of the recent aggression, but it's not like they left it alone before.
- sebmellen 7mo ago
  1) Yes, clearly Iran is run by extremist zealots who are horrifyingly committed to their cause. I don't think any reasonable person disagrees with this. To invert my original comment, 'Eurasia has always been at war with Oceania,' right? But that doesn't mean that indiscriminately bombing them is a coherent military strategy. Nor is it leading to the mass civilian uprising that was clearly hoped for. 2) I think the more important difference is that a large amount of gulf state energy infrastructure is being literally blown up. That has not happened before. We also don't know where it will end.
  - spwa4 7mo ago
    1) you implied that the US is perpetually at war and Iran is not, my argument was that it's literally the exact opposite. In fact, let me point out, it's even worse than that. Of the 2 or 3 superpowers that exist, the US is by far the most peaceful one, in fact it's the only one that ISN'T perpetually at war. For the last 10 years, Russia has been at war with Ukraine, and China has been at war, meaning regular kinetic exchanges with ... everyone really. Especially Taiwan, but also Korea, the Philippines, Japan, Vietnam, and, perhaps surprisingly, Russia. In the last 10 years the US has not had any war, and I'm betting everyone kind of understands that compared to Russia's war, the US war with Iran is not even at the level Russia would call a "war". Not even remotely close. If exchanging missiles and long-range drones to and from ships counts, Russia has been at war with the northern and southeastern countries of the EU for pretty much a decade (meaning both the East Sea with Finland/Denmark/Poland/Sweden... and Turkey + Mediterranean countries on the other side) And yet, somehow people seem to be convinced of almost the exact opposite of the facts. Oh and the propaganda both the extreme right and the extreme left in the EU, as well as state media in Russia, are spreading is that the EU is attacking Russia (not the US, that is not a typo, that the EU is attacking Russia), even separately from the Ukraine war. That is the main factor why EU countries are so convinced Russia is close to a large scale attack on the EU. And it also of course means that at least Russia does not care in the slightest who is a threat to them and who isn't. They only care who they perceive as weak. Frankly, the same goes for Iran. Iran is not remotely threatened by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait or Qatar, and yet they're attacking all of them (they're even attacking Saudi Arabia with land forces by the way) 2) As to your second point, Iran was constantly attacking oil facilities pretty much their entire existence, if you include tankers, for at least 40 years, it was just constant. It was "normal", and barely reported. When it comes to land-based infrastructure attacked things heated up and cooled down, but never cooled down fully. The US defended everyone, and the tankers, and by defended I mean we blew the hell out of Iranians, usually sinking boats, occasionally going after fixed installations. I don't think you're going to find many US Navy sailors surprised at what's happened. Outside of that here is a list of attacks on gulf state energy infrastructure, just the last 6 years. You may notice that either by the location or the associations (e.g. Houthi attacks) it's always been Iran doing the attacks since Saddam Hussein left, with the occasional shot in the other direction. I couldn't find a good recent example, but actually it's not just Israel shooting and fighting back, but also Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. Iran isn't even at peace with the Taliban. May 2019: sabotage of oil tankers near Fujairah in the UAE. May 2019: drone strike on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline pumping stations. September 2019: the huge strike on Abqaiq and Khurais in Saudi Arabia, which temporarily knocked out more than half of Saudi output. November 2020: attack on Aramco’s North Jeddah Bulk Plant. March 2021: attempted strike on Ras Tanura and related Saudi energy targets. March 2021: attack on the Jeddah petroleum products distribution plant. November 2021: another Houthi claim of attacks on Aramco facilities in Jeddah. March 2022: attacks on Saudi energy facilities, including Jeddah storage tanks. March 25, 2022: Saudi Jeddah petroleum products distribution/storage site attacked. June 14, 2025: Israeli strike on a Tehran fuel depot and refinery. June 16, 2025: Iranian attack shut down Israel’s Haifa refinery. March 2, 2026: drone attack on Saudi Ras Tanura refinery. March 18, 2026: strike on Iran’s South Pars / Asaluyeh gas facilities. March 18–19, 2026: Iranian retaliatory attacks on Ras Laffan in Qatar, SAMREF/Yanbu in Saudi Arabia, Mina al-Ahmadi and Mina Abdullah in Kuwait, and UAE energy sites including Habshan/Bab. March 19, 2026: another strike affecting Israel’s Haifa refinery.

rapsey 7mo ago

Whatever israel wants.

calvinmorrison 7mo ago

that's a huge boon for US dominance actually. Exporting oil for $$$, china having no way to get massive quantities of cheap oil, etc.

idiotsecant 7mo ago
Yes, foreign nation building with murky win conditions and a steadily increasing cost ledger are famously pretty good for US dominance
sebmellen 7mo ago
Russia and the US, from a “market share” standpoint, will be massive benefactors… but the knock-on effects of having a crippled global energy economy will be significant. As much as it may seem like a narrow political win for the US to prevent Chinese access to energy infrastructure, China will continue to electrify. At the same time, the US is still massively dependent on shipping and industrial outputs from China. It's all entangled. As are the interests of most energy companies.
bdangubic 7mo ago
China will be just fine mate :) They are smartly just watching US destroy itself from within and outside and chillin'
- calvinmorrison 7mo ago
  They have a heavy dependence on imported crude from the middle east, and their alternative sources like pipelines from russia do not have enough to cover them, their domestic resources are max tapped and thier strategic supply cannot last for an extended period.
  - Gud 7mo ago
    Which will resume trading in Yuan. Anyone who bends the knee, will get to buy oil. But not the US, and not in dollars. Serious 20D chess, it’s so genius it’s incomprehensible.
    - calvinmorrison 7mo ago
      doesnt matter what its trading in, you need to be able to physically move the goods.
  - bdangubic 7mo ago
    yea, this is why they are sitting idle and doing nothing right now, makes sense /s
rapsey 7mo ago
ConocoPhillips and Exxon just announced a 20 billion hit due to attacks. No one will leave this thing unscathed.

throw310822 7mo ago

The endgame is a wasteland of miserable neighbours that Israel can control, occupy and plunder without encountering any resistance. As for the US, they are not in control of their own actions, they're a puppet moved by Israel.

SirFatty 7mo ago
[flagged]
- cheney_2004 7mo ago
  Well, Isreal has already destroyed several of their neighbors. Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Gaza, now Iran. Infact, Israel was born out of extreme and mass violence (1948). I would be fearful too... maybe its time for peace?
  - damnesian 7mo ago
    insanity!
    - SirFatty 7mo ago
      No doubt, imagine if it were true!
  - SirFatty 7mo ago
    Keep in mind that the middle east tensions started way before Israel. Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916) was a ham-fisted map re-draw, disregarded ethnic, religious, and tribal realities, contributing to long-standing conflicts. I know it's fun the blame all the regional strife on the jews, but the facts don't support it.
- lemontheme 7mo ago
  Occupying, expanding, and killing does tend to radicalize your surviving neighbors. I mourn the innocents on both sides
- 7mo ago

Gud 7mo ago

I agree with what you just said except, the leadership structure in Iran is absolutely not “decapitated”. There is a loooooooooooooooooooooong queue to pick up the torch.

sebmellen 7mo ago
To make the analogy much more gruesome, I guess you could say the the ears and nose have been cut off, but the head remains.
- Gud 7mo ago
  I think it’s just business as usual, except the USA is losing their wars quickly, not slowly.

spwa4 7mo ago

I know I'm going to get destroyed for this, but: 1) It's the current Iranian state has always been at war. They are at war with "the little Satan" (Israel) and "the Big Satan" (US). I know this sounds like a joke but they're absolutely 100% serious. Serious enough to organize massacres ("terrorism") on unrelated individuals, like the Argentina bombing in the beginning and the Hezbollah massacres in Syria just last year. And yes, there was a time of military cooperation between Iran and Israel (just after the beginning. Israel was instrumental and helped Iran avoid getting conquered by Iraq/Saddam Hussein and got intelligence on the Iraqi nuclear program in return). This has not changed anything for the ayatollahs. And btw: the Soviet Union has had a much similar experience. They helped the mullahs get to power, helped defend against Iraq, and got an enemy in return, because the mullahs ... well presumably they saw what was happening in Afghanistan. 2) Blocking of the strait of Hormuz by Iran did not start when the current war started. Iran has always created problems for ships' passage through the strait. It has obviously been 10x'ed as a result of the recent aggression, but it's not like they left it alone before.

sebmellen 7mo ago
1) Yes, clearly Iran is run by extremist zealots who are horrifyingly committed to their cause. I don't think any reasonable person disagrees with this. To invert my original comment, 'Eurasia has always been at war with Oceania,' right? But that doesn't mean that indiscriminately bombing them is a coherent military strategy. Nor is it leading to the mass civilian uprising that was clearly hoped for. 2) I think the more important difference is that a large amount of gulf state energy infrastructure is being literally blown up. That has not happened before. We also don't know where it will end.
- spwa4 7mo ago
  1) you implied that the US is perpetually at war and Iran is not, my argument was that it's literally the exact opposite. In fact, let me point out, it's even worse than that. Of the 2 or 3 superpowers that exist, the US is by far the most peaceful one, in fact it's the only one that ISN'T perpetually at war. For the last 10 years, Russia has been at war with Ukraine, and China has been at war, meaning regular kinetic exchanges with ... everyone really. Especially Taiwan, but also Korea, the Philippines, Japan, Vietnam, and, perhaps surprisingly, Russia. In the last 10 years the US has not had any war, and I'm betting everyone kind of understands that compared to Russia's war, the US war with Iran is not even at the level Russia would call a "war". Not even remotely close. If exchanging missiles and long-range drones to and from ships counts, Russia has been at war with the northern and southeastern countries of the EU for pretty much a decade (meaning both the East Sea with Finland/Denmark/Poland/Sweden... and Turkey + Mediterranean countries on the other side) And yet, somehow people seem to be convinced of almost the exact opposite of the facts. Oh and the propaganda both the extreme right and the extreme left in the EU, as well as state media in Russia, are spreading is that the EU is attacking Russia (not the US, that is not a typo, that the EU is attacking Russia), even separately from the Ukraine war. That is the main factor why EU countries are so convinced Russia is close to a large scale attack on the EU. And it also of course means that at least Russia does not care in the slightest who is a threat to them and who isn't. They only care who they perceive as weak. Frankly, the same goes for Iran. Iran is not remotely threatened by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait or Qatar, and yet they're attacking all of them (they're even attacking Saudi Arabia with land forces by the way) 2) As to your second point, Iran was constantly attacking oil facilities pretty much their entire existence, if you include tankers, for at least 40 years, it was just constant. It was "normal", and barely reported. When it comes to land-based infrastructure attacked things heated up and cooled down, but never cooled down fully. The US defended everyone, and the tankers, and by defended I mean we blew the hell out of Iranians, usually sinking boats, occasionally going after fixed installations. I don't think you're going to find many US Navy sailors surprised at what's happened. Outside of that here is a list of attacks on gulf state energy infrastructure, just the last 6 years. You may notice that either by the location or the associations (e.g. Houthi attacks) it's always been Iran doing the attacks since Saddam Hussein left, with the occasional shot in the other direction. I couldn't find a good recent example, but actually it's not just Israel shooting and fighting back, but also Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. Iran isn't even at peace with the Taliban. May 2019: sabotage of oil tankers near Fujairah in the UAE. May 2019: drone strike on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline pumping stations. September 2019: the huge strike on Abqaiq and Khurais in Saudi Arabia, which temporarily knocked out more than half of Saudi output. November 2020: attack on Aramco’s North Jeddah Bulk Plant. March 2021: attempted strike on Ras Tanura and related Saudi energy targets. March 2021: attack on the Jeddah petroleum products distribution plant. November 2021: another Houthi claim of attacks on Aramco facilities in Jeddah. March 2022: attacks on Saudi energy facilities, including Jeddah storage tanks. March 25, 2022: Saudi Jeddah petroleum products distribution/storage site attacked. June 14, 2025: Israeli strike on a Tehran fuel depot and refinery. June 16, 2025: Iranian attack shut down Israel’s Haifa refinery. March 2, 2026: drone attack on Saudi Ras Tanura refinery. March 18, 2026: strike on Iran’s South Pars / Asaluyeh gas facilities. March 18–19, 2026: Iranian retaliatory attacks on Ras Laffan in Qatar, SAMREF/Yanbu in Saudi Arabia, Mina al-Ahmadi and Mina Abdullah in Kuwait, and UAE energy sites including Habshan/Bab. March 19, 2026: another strike affecting Israel’s Haifa refinery.