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Yikes, so basically Iran gets everything it wants. It paid a heavy price for it, but it would get so much out of this. At pre war ship rates, that toll would be
by mgfist 6mo ago
Yikes, so basically Iran gets everything it wants. It paid a heavy price for it, but it would get so much out of this. At pre war ship rates, that toll would be ~$90B per year ($45B if split half with Oman). Iran's government generates something like $40B in income, so this would be absolutely monumental.
- cmilton 6mo agoIt all sounds great. Which government? Is it a different regime? If not, why would the US concede?
- lumost 6mo agoBecause it doesn’t have a choice. There is no path to winning this war, just ways of making larger and more complex versions of the Iraq occupation.
- acjohnson55 6mo agoDepends on what you mean by "win". It would be possible to go in, topple the regime and secure the nuclear material. But only at astronomical cost and years of blowback
- lumost 6mo ago"Regime Change" has become a modern term for vassalization. We should not be surprised that countries with no reason to be a US vassal, and no long-term ties to the US refuse to remain vassals. So then what would we achieve? nuclear material is cheap (10s of billions) relative to a multi-decade occupation (single digit trillions). It's undoubtedly true that Iran would revert to it's preferred form of government, geopolitical orientation, and nuclear capability once the US left.
- SideQuark 6mo agoHow’d that plan work out in Iraq or Afghanistan, both much smaller, less armed countries? Decades and trillions spent, and what exactly did the US “win”?
- amluto 6mo agoThe US won the removal of a regime in Iraq that strongly opposed Iran. </sarcasm>
- jltsiren 6mo agoWinning a war means achieving your political goals while preventing the enemy from achieving theirs. Most of the time, you've won the war when the enemy effectively admits they lost. The lack of will to use sufficient force to win a war is fundamentally no different from not having that force in the first place. Both are equally real constraints on your ability to win the war.
- marricks 6mo ago> why would the US concede? Because it has no way of achieving its objectives.
- cmilton 6mo agoI don't think that has stopped anything so far, but I appreciate your optimism.
- firesteelrain 6mo ago[flagged]
- PierceJoy 6mo agoTo whom, and to what? A military threat to the continental US, sure. To US allies in the region, and to the global economy, it appears Iran is a much bigger threat than we were lead to believe, and still are. If anything, they're justifiably more emboldened now than ever.
- throwaway173738 6mo agoIf you keep picking fights with someone don’t be surprised if they learn how to fight. There’s literally a line in Sayings of Spartans about teaching your enemy to fight by making war with them.
- alfiedotwtf 6mo agoYou must not be paying attention… So far, Trump said that the Straight of Hormuz closed is cutting off China’s oil supply and isn’t important to the US, the US doesn’t need allies, but after Trump got zero help from Europe he then proceeded to ask China of all countries to help in the straight?! Knowing people travelling near and through the Straight, Iran has all the cards. “Iran is of little threat” doesn’t hold water when the US can’t even send ships though to protect container ships
- firesteelrain 6mo ago
- jojobas 6mo agoThe old government is largely dead. The new one has a carrot and a stick in front of them.
- ceejayoz 6mo agoThe new government is led by the Ayatollah Khamenei. The son of the last one, younger and out for revenge. Knocking off Saddam gave us ISIS. These things have a way of going sideways.
- jojobas 6mo agoThis son is reportedly in coma and in no position to rule.
- ceejayoz 6mo agoYay! We cut off two of the hydra’s heads! That always ends well.
- sosomoxie 6mo agoReported by whom?
- alfiedotwtf 6mo agoSo who has the authority to claim that Iran has agreed to a ceasefire?!
- joshsyn 6mo ago[dead]
- alfiedotwtf 6mo agoKnocking off the Taliban gave us the check notes the Taliban
- derektank 6mo agoThe IRGC is probably more analogous to the Ba’ath party than the Taliban if we’re limiting ourself to regional comparisons
- wrs 6mo agoWhy would the US start this in the first place? Be assured that however this comes out, a “Truth” will be posted assessing it as the Greatest Deal Ever and a Total Win, end of story.
- sosomoxie 6mo agoIt’s been repeatedly stated by officials that we fought this war for Israel. We had nothing to gain and much to lose, and lose we did. Thankfully Israel also lost and I think this was their last chance at using the US as their attack dog.
- kraken_cult 6mo agoWe will see if this is all the chips that Epstein bought
- mupuff1234 6mo agoPeople are looking for conspiracy theories when the truth is simple - trump did it because he thought it would be an easy quick win that will put him in the history books.
- sosomoxie 6mo agoIt’s not a conspiracy theory if Trump and all parties involved explicitly state this was for Israel. The simplest explanation is that they are telling the truth, which makes sense since the US had nothing to gain from this.
- rsynnott 6mo agoNetanyahu has wanted to do this for decades. If you rob a bank, you don't get to say "oh, well, my crazy friend down the pub has been saying we should rob a bank for ages, and I suddenly decided he was right"; you do have some personal responsibility.
- 6mo ago
- tw04 6mo ago> If not, why would the US concede? Because Trump is already facing a bloodbath in the midterms and his next step is either a ground war or dropping a nuke, and both of those will ensure he not only loses the midterms but has a legitimate shot at seeing the inside of a prison cell.
- goatlover 6mo agoBecause the escalation Trump was talking about would have wrecked the ME with Iran's retaliation on desalination plants, oil infrastructure, power plants, etc. Which would have been a massive shock to the global economy, along with a large humanitarian crisis inside of Iran and it's neighbors.
- petcat 6mo agoThey also got to keep their new Ayatollah and continue with their religious government. An escalation of the war would have certainly ended with a complete regime change. Which would have been very expensive in life (Iranians) and money (Americans).
- spaghetdefects 6mo agoThere was never going to be a regime change. Continuing the war meant many Americans were going to die (in addition to bankrupting the US). I'm a US citizen and very glad Iran came out on top here.
- gizajob 6mo agoUS is bankrupt to the tune of trillions already.
- epistasis 6mo agoWhen you don't the money, you can't go bankrupt. But, if you had an amazing reputation for paying your debts, and get super low interest rates because of it, and all of a sudden you change your reputation and demand for holding your debt and currency goes down, well, then that's created a massive problem for the currency that reduces everyone's quality of life drastically.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- goatlover 6mo agoA complete regime change would probably only come with a large scale invasion, bigger than Iraq's. A huge majority of Americans don't want that.
- Auracle 6mo agoOr with their people rising up, which is I think what the US and Israel were hoping for - though they didn’t seem to plan for a way to actually make it happen.
- testing22321 6mo agoHow much do you think is fair for being attacked by a superpower for no reason in illegal military action with war crimes sprinkled throughout. Imagine it happened to you.
- UltraSane 6mo agoThe US attack on Iran was wrong but don't forget that Iran loves to lob ballistic missiles at Israel civilians.
- ajsnigrutin 6mo agoWhat? Iran was attacked by israel numerous times, including today. It has the right to defend itself. If anything, it's israel here that has attacked almost all countries in the area and annexed land from them ("buffer zones").
- UltraSane 6mo agoHow does shooting ballistic missiles with cluster warheads at residential areas help defend Iran?
- GordonS 6mo agoIf what you said was true, we'd have seen many, many civilian deaths in Israel over the course of the war - there have, officially, been less than 50 (note that in the same time period Israel - which has targeted civilian infrastructure such as hospitals in Iran - has killed over 3,000 Iranian civilians!). But what you're saying isn't true - any of it! Iran has been hitting military targets. And they've been using MIRVs, not anti-personell cluster munitions (you know, of the kind Israel has dropped over 1M of over Lebanon). MIRVs split into multiple, independently targetable missiles when high above ground near the target zone. Cluster munitions wait until they are only some meters above ground, and then explode into bomblets.
- 6mo ago
- Ancapistani 6mo agoIt depends. If it later comes out that their nuclear material was secured by the US, this is much more acceptable - it would seriously incentivize pipeline construction by making passage through the Strait more expensive. Given that closing it is really the only lever Iran has that can put pressure on the US at all, this attenuates that a great deal. It’s not acceptable on its face, but there’s a lot going on in this conflict that isn’t making the news.
- cramsession 6mo agoIran has also been freely bombing Israel and US assets around the Middle East. The Zionists bit off more than they could chew and now Iran is better positioned than ever before. Not only that Iran has earned a lot of respect globally and Israel/the US has lost what little they had left.
- bigyabai 6mo ago[flagged]
- YZF 6mo ago[flagged]
- deminature 6mo agoIts neighbors are hosting US bases which were used to launch attacks on Iran. Bahrain in particular hosted the largest US radar station in the region which was being used as the control centre to coordinate the attack on Iran [1]. These countries were absolutely not 'non-aggressors'. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cddq7j48p35o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cddq7j48p35o
- fernandopj 6mo agoCorrect. The implied pressure was "you want to stop the retaliation, demand the US to withdraw their bases from you territory". Iranian strategy in this war will be studied for ages.
- NomDePlum 6mo ago[dead]
- icegreentea2 6mo agoNo one has agreed to the Iran's 10 point plan, and they're not going to get all of it. The provisional ceasefire actually goes against the Iranian proposition. Point 2 explicitly is "permanent end to the war, not a ceasefire". Iran backed down a bit here from their maximalist aims (which is what the 10 point is).
- sosomoxie 6mo agoTrump literally said he would bomb them to the stone age. It doesn’t get more maximalist than that and it was the US that backed down.
- jrochkind1 6mo agoI mean, neither one did what they said they would do, if they had both done what they said they'd do, I guess we'd have nuclear war, so. (To the extent that you can't get anything consistent out of what Trump says he will do it's literally not possible, because he constantly contradicts himself.)
- 9cb14c1ec0 6mo ago[flagged]
- sosomoxie 6mo agoThe US is in a worse spot than before the war. Iran won.
- hackable_sand 6mo agoIt's a bad strategy. A high schooler could tell you that.
- Invictus0 6mo agoFools hacker news every day. And it worked on the Iranians.
- spuz 6mo agoNothing has been agreed yet except a 2 week ceasefire.
- chasd00 6mo agoPosts like this from the HN community are almost surreal. Any review of the actual deal would show a two week ceasefire in exchange for the strait being open and safe while negotiations continue. This 10 point plan is just a place to start talking, no country has agreed to anything on it. How is this missed on the community here?
- keyle 6mo agoWho knew tech employees weren't exactly across international politics.
- stinkbeetle 6mo agoNo it would be trivial to gain a thorough understanding of Middle East politics and the oil market for an enlightened people who were able to become foremost experts in epidemiology, molecular biology, global supply chain logistics, the war in Ukraine, semiconductor manufacturing, and many other fields entirely self-taught simply by obsessively reading social media and wikipedia.
- beaned 6mo agoThat's why people come here, they learn these things in the comments.
- stinkbeetle 6mo agoIt's not the people who just come to learn though.
- hitekker 6mo ago"Infotainment" is the term I've heard to describe Reddit and other talking websites. People are looking to "win" like they do in sports or other recreational activities. It's a kind of fun that disguises itself as learning-- minus, of course, the actual work.
- 6mo ago