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.

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.

In modern times we increasingly seem to have entered into an era where people are willing to believe what they want 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.

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.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

You elect clowns, you get a circus.

The US has turned into a Wall-e society just getting off on entertainment and bored with civilized, thoughtful politicians. This is the end result of TOO MUCH prosperity for the average American.

They haven't experienced true hardship in generations and we (the rest of the world) is paying the price of their hubris.

> an 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.

To be fair, one can find plenty of analysis positing everything for the Middle East. The pointed criticisim is, in Devereux's words: "Iran would thus need a ‘lever’ closer to home which could inflict costs on the United States. For – and I must stress this – for forty years everyone has known this was the strait. This is not a new discovery, we did this before in the 1980s."

Its what happens when you surround yourself with incompetent yes men.

I have been thinking about this scene a lot recently: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hj_4KIKHRFY&t=60s

America is isolating itself in so many ways. You could rewrite that scene and reach the same conclusion.

The failed revolution a month prior may have been the US too.

It's after the ramp up in production of weapons used in the shooting war started.

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.

There are too many people, enriched by the status quo, who won't move until their personal discomfort erodes, even while they're watching it get closer and closer (in denial). People who are going to be jobless in 6 months carrying water for the admin because they're afraid of losing their jobs now. This isn't a hypothetical, because it has been happening continuously for the past year-and-a-half. Yours truly is not exempt, but it's certainly frustrating watching people hem and haw from the other side of the line.

I get that people like me have no pull because we're already designated losers, but it would be nice if y'all would just take our word for it.

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.

"further radicalization,"

If by that you mean Iranians in Iran chanting "better our a-hole than yours", I'm not so sure that's radicalization.

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.

Well, there's more than just perceived invincibility.

The alternative is recognizing that you can effectively cow large populations of people into submission, no matter how much it sucks, and that the people who do this (in this case, the Islamic theocrats of Iran) can and will forever be a part of the geopolitical landscape with thrall over tens of millions of lives, and seek to influence even more. That there will always - ALWAYS - be a segment of humanity that has no real chance to think differently, to improve their lot, and to peacefully see the changes they want made to their society.

The hope in the immediate post-Soviet era of the early 1990s is that liberalized representative government would spread around the world, and that rules-based order would allow for peaceful resolution of problems through democratic processes and markets. And for a while, this seemed to be the route. Then it became apparent by the late 90s that there were still parties who didn't like the general direction that this was taking, particularly Russia, China, and at least some of the Middle East.

Now that China and the Middle East have become engines of global economic growth, there seems to be a tacit agreement, at least among the people who matter, than authoritarianism is fine so long as the right people get paid and that line continue to go up. In fact, it's more than fine; it's perceived by these people as more efficient at creating economic growth than that messy back-and-forth of representative government. And God forbid you have to set up that representative government after getting rid of an authoritarian one like in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Is it a harbinger of dystopia? Absolutely. But that's the reality that we inhabit.

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?

> plenty of analysis warning of the risks that have now become reality

You can also easily find analysis warning of the opposite: the risks of not invading Iran. See Nazi Germany and WW2 for an example what happens when you fail to contain a belligerently rogue country.

Perceived? US politicians are all mutli millionaires no matter what happens they will be golfing in Hawaii.

At least Roman emperors got assassinated by their own bodyguards.

West is living in its own bubble of misinformation. Including the government.

On many occasions I've read self-soothing wishful thinking messages about my country. In 2022 it was that Russian army is fleeing, all Russian tanks were burned down, and Russian soldiers are deserting from a front lines with a speed of 100,000 persons a day. Here on HN. Written by the people who had no clue how to distinguish Russian tank from Ukrainian tank.

Or in 2022-2023 EU leaders said that Russian soldiers are fighting with shovels and stealing microwaves and washing machines to extract microchips from them.

Or just recently someone wrote to me that we are living in the stone age, whatever that means.

On the other hand, I'm happy that West prefers to live in a bubble with no access to real information. And if you try to convey real information, they'll call you "Kremlin bot" or "North Korean bot" or "Chinese bot". It means that less countries will fall prey to neocolonial practices and wars because you cannot wage wars and govern colonies based entirely on misinformation from propaganda your own media creates out of thin air.

I think it's pretty clear that this war was initiated by Israel, who asked/hoped that the US would go along with it.

While I can easily imagine the Trump crew is a bit impulsive and unprepared, I am VERY sure Israel went in to this with their usual competency, including very clear plans and targets.

If this eventually results in a half decent Iranian government, that would be the best thing that happened to the world this century! A period of war and high oil prices is a cheap price to pay, IF that actually happens.

(1) Why do you think this is worse for the Chinese government than the US? Also, this view of the strategic goals of the war seems fundamentally incompatible with both how it began and the ongoing US government narratives about it.

(2) I think we all (the author included) agree with you that it's easier to break things than to build them--both hardware and relationships--so it's obvious that maintaining trade through these kinds of choke points requires some degree of cooperation on all fronts. Iran does have a geographic advantage over other players, though (partial exceptions to Oman and the UAE), as well as a clear acute interest in constricting traffic through the strait. Sure, it may be bleeding them, but it seems to be one of the few ways they can meaningfully attack their enemies. It'll be interesting to see if anyone has the will to force the strait open against Iran's efforts.

Generally agree on Ukraine/Taiwan and the bigger geopolitical picture though.

The continued stalemate will likely continue in my opinion. Continued daily strikes by the US and Iran squeezing the strait. China is severely squeezed by loss of oil. Russia benefits from rising oil prices. Everyone else will get to relive the 1970s. Stagflation here we come.

Exactly. ~90% of Iran's crude went to China. The oil revenue was ~75% of Iran's budget. Iran has been a significant area of military development for China, serving somewhat as a forward base.

> the strategic window when it can do so

What's the latest thinking on the 2028 window?

love your very cute assumption that China is going to sit there and do nothing.

you must be living in the Disneyland?

The tl;dr here is, with all due respect, that your premises are basically all wrong.

> (1) reducing oil shipments to China is good posturing for the US

No, it isn't. For several reasons:

1. China has stockpiled ~1.4 billion barrels of oil. it'a net importer. Supplies from Russia aren't disrupted. At present, Iranian oil is still gointg to China;

2. China is rapidly decreasing its dependence on fossil fuels with renewable energy projects on a scale where they're building more solar, for example, than the rest of the world combined. They also produce those panels so there's no supply chain risk there;

3. While the US is a net oil exporter, it's not universal. California, for example, has no pipelines so 75% of its oil comes from the sea. ~20-25% of that comes from Iraq and is disrupted by the Strait being closed;

4. Qatar produces 20-30% of the world's Helium supply and ~20% of the world's LNG, both of which are disrupted;

5. ~30% of the world's fertilizer is disrupted by the Strait being closed. The US is way more impacted by fertilizer disruption than China is.

> (2) Iran isn't the only one who can control passage throught the strait. All gulf countries can do so.

The other Gulf states are US client states. Why would Saudi Arabia close the Strait, which especially hurts US interests?

I also doubt any of them can to the same degree. The entire Iranian military is geared towards this strategy with drone and ballistic missile production on a scale no other country is really built for. It has hardened military infrastructure designed for decades to resist US bombardment.

Other Gulf states don't have this hardened infrastructure and are more vulernable to Iranian attack if it came down to it. Take desalination plants as an example. Yes Iran has those too but Iran also has significant snow melt as a source of water, Mountains, remember? Iran has ski resorts they have that much snow.

> Russia invading Ukraine and failing

Russia has basically succeeded. You have fairly stagnant battle lines where neither side can particularly advance but Russia holds certain Ukrainian territory now for years. Russia is just going to wait for the West to get bored and give up. Russia's economy has proven itself to be surprisingly resilient.

Sanctions just don't work on enemies like Iran, Russia or North Korea as well as they do on allies or former allies because enemies have an entire national project to resist American imperialism. They have to be self-reliant in a way that allies just don't.

This is also why the US client states in the Gulf are hurting way more from the Strait being closed: their economies aren't built for it. Iran's is.

> ... the weakened China (due to oil constraints) would be simply unable to attack in 2028, the strategic window when it can do so.

So this is where you've really gone off the deep end. China is less affected by this, in part because of long-term strategy but short-term because Chinese shipments are still going through the Strait.

American imperialists (which is both Republicans and Demorats, for the record) have this weird idea that China will invade Taiwan. Or wants to. Or it can. None of those things are true.

It really feels like projection, like every accusation is a confession. China must be doing violent imperialism because that's what the US is doing.

China can blockade Taiwan but that won't really do anything any more than an aerial bombardment will do anything to Iran. China doesn't have the amphibious capability to land an invasion on Taiwan any more than the US does in Iran. If you think otherwise, I'm sorry but you're gorssly mistaken.

But all of that ignores the real issue: China doesn't need to invade (or blockade) Taiwan. Why? Because all but ~10 countries in the world already view Taiwan as part of China. In the US (and Europe) it's called the One China policy. It is US government policy and consistent across both parties.

Why would China upset the international order when everybody already agrees with them?

I agree. He's missing a lot. If the US ends up with some measure of success this is a big counter to China and Russia. Is this some sort of 4D chess by Donald Trump. Probably not. But it can still have good outcomes. Are there risks? Sure.

"I am not, of course, an expert on the region nor do I have access to any special information, so I am going to treat that all with a high degree of uncertainty." - Then proceeds to tell us about the Iranian regime and other things he is not an expert on.

- Iran's conflict with the US didn't start in June 2025. While it had its ebbs and flows Iran has been in conflict with the US since the Islamic Revolution.

- Iran has been helping Russia in its war with Ukraine. That does have strategic implications to the US. So it's not true that Iran does not matter strategically. Those Shaed drones are flying into Ukraine by the thousands.

- Iran has supported the Houthis in Yemen (which effectively can close the Suez Canal traffic when they feel like it) and has levers on Saudi Arabia both directly and indirectly through Yemen. Another strategic lever.

- The whole comparison to Iraq's ground war is completely irrelevant. Iran and Iraq are very different countries with very different history and this conflict is very different in many ways. The US is not going to invade and conquer Iran.

- If Iran has made so much trouble over the years without ICBMs and nuclear weapons should we just wait for them to acquire these technologies? What do we think about the rationality of this regime vs. the North Korean one? Is North Korea really the right analogy? "Iran was not a major strategic priority" maybe add yet? When it becomes a major strategic priority with ICBMs and nuclear weapons then what?

Nobody knows where this war will end. Did the US have to go to war now? Probably not. Was there an opportunity between the internal unrest, the massacre of Iranian civilians, the intelligence and military superiority. Yes. What would the outcome be of not going to war? What's the certainty of that outcome? I don't think a nuclear Iran with ICBMs would be a good thing for the world and they would definitely go there.

Excellent catch.

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.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47114530

[1] https://worldfactbookarchive.org/archive/2003/IZ

Also don't forget that Iran is far more technologically advanced than Iraq was. Iraqis had 70s tech, while Iran has stuff like hypersonic missiles that even the US can't produce right now.

The elections would happen by default in October: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Israeli_legislative_elect...

The budget will likely be approved in parliament. Netanyahu has a solid majority and his partners are not interested in triggering elections. I'd be very surprised if that wasn't the case. Netanyahu survived many worse political crisis. I'll be happy to see him gone but he always pulls out some magic trick from his hat. The biggest factor will be whether the Arab parties will unite and actually get their people to go and vote. That they didn't in the last elections is how Bibi got to form the government again. Even if that happens this becomes tricky because you'll likely end up with a minority government.

90 days vs. October isn't that much of a difference either and a lot can change in 90 days.

This toothpaste is probably not going in the tube by March 31, even if Netanyahu tries to scrape it back in.

Iran has made it quite clear that it is not up to the aggressors as to when this ends.

…so? Did Netanyahu invent settlerism? Whoever makes it into government will be as much of a Jewish ethnosupremacist as Bibi was, or possibly even more so.

The problem isn't even in the government, really! The problem is that nearly every single Israeli Jew is a bloodthirsty monster who wants to rape and execute (not necessarily in that order) every single sheigetz and enslave every shiksa in existence, because they're the chosen ones and they have a G-d given mandate to shed blood.

Unless Maki somehow magically conjures more than three guys in their bunker, this will only get worse.

> The Straight of Hormuz is open to any country willing to pay $2M per voyage. Any country except the U.S. and Israel.

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).

USD dominance isn't going anywhere, because all of the critical metrics are still basically uncontested by any alternative. China and Russia are losing allies left and right. They're demonstrating that they support terrorism. Nobody is going to decide that their currencies are the new hot thing.

China poses a huge threat, but some of their worst advantages aren't viable. We know things they have, so we tell them things we have. If you do X, we do Y. Thus some of their big advantages are nullified, unless they get reckless. Same as the nuclear issue, weapons you've invested in yet cannot even use, because they become part of new rules.

Some of that has been clarified in the trade tug of war, showing each other's dependencies. Some is being shown by also showing how easy it is for Russian infrastructure to be hit, or how easy it is to put a choke hold on critical energy, or to simply capture a dictator for that matter. It isn't even just those things, it's also the cadence and timeframe. Venezuela, Cuba, Iran and Russia all under severe pressure within just a few months at the start of 2026.

At most we've maybe seen some limited sabotage of infrastructure inside the US and perhaps aboard a carrier, some sharing of targeting information, etc.

If Russia and China are leveraging any of their real potential for pressure, it sure is hard to tell.

> The most important aspect of the "toll" is that Iran prefers payment in yuan, not dollars.

> 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.

This theory seems to predict that CNY/USD should have gone up since Feb 27 as everyone rushes to trade and obtain yuan so they can pay the Iranians. But in fact the opposite is the case; that currency pair peaked Feb 27 after a bull run (well, only about +7%) since approximately "liberation day".

Seems pretty unlikely that the Yuan is going to be the dominant world currency, given its capital controls.

The list is longer than just the US and Israel, it includes all allies and nations supporting them, so, most of the gulf states.

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

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?

No one in the US asked for this. Such a dumb move from the current administration.

idk this move, along with firing missiles even to non-combatant countries, is going to fuk-up iran...

I mean, even before the $2M toll, if you're kuwait/UAE/saudi/etc, what choice do you have? form a coalition against iran

now.. with that $2M toll, iran just learnt it can just toll the ships...

so what choice do all those strait-using countries have? pay $2M or more, even after US leaves?

nope... they'll form a coalition against iran

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

> A war continuous until one side has caused the other more suffering than it can take.

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.

you miss the asymmetry here: If there's a country goes thousands miles from far away to invade the US, then American can endure much more to fight than the invading country. The balance will be the opposit.

The often missing asymmetry reflects something deep in the mindset of large portion of western population.

"Qui vincit non est victor nisi victus fatetur" -Ennius, Annales, XXXI

Translation: "The victor is not victorious if the vanquished does not consider himself so”

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 which I believe is the current count on the ground not counting the 50k naval forces.

In January, the youtuber Technology Connections did a whole rant about how ridiculous it is that we're not rushing as quickly as possible to get off of non-renewable energy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9nt2ZeGM

Self-sufficiency is a myth. Even if you wanted to try and be energy independent, for the short and medium term (and maybe longer, who knows?) you will be dependent on China and all the baggage that they bring because of their dominance of rare earth mineral processing. Need a new solar panel? Don't make a certain country mad (whether that's your local Ayatollah or CCP official).

And that's just energy. What about pharmaceuticals? Financial markets? Who protects your shipping lanes? Who builds your semiconductors? Where do those factories get their energy from?

I support the diversity of energy sources because they all have strengths and weaknesses. We've got to figure out climate change. But we also can't have, even if you want to somehow "move off of oil" a single country run by lunatics who can decide whenever they don't get their way that they get to seize 20% of the global oil supply. We can't have China dominating rare earth processing either. For some others it may be a reliance on American military technology.

I'd love to believe this, but very recent history has shown (in the US at least) that we are moving backwards and trying to resist renewable energy.

The petrochemical industry is huge we've yet to find alternatives for it. Half the stuff around you was made with something derived from oil, and you can't replace that with wind or sunlight in the foreseeable future.

It will be a boost for renewables, but hardly the end for natural gas. Keep in mind that while ~20% of natural gas was supplied via the Persian Gulf, that means 80% was not.

I expect that batteries will eventually solve the day-night cycle for solar, but for seasonal storage, natural gas is much easier to store, so this still looks to me like a mix of energy technologies, with renewables getting a larger share.

this misses the fact that petroleum is incredibly useful outside of the burn it to make electricity and burn it to make car move use cases.

> Wether it's wind, solar or hydro, a underappreciated property of renewable energy is the energy sovereignty they provide.

If your sovereign territory happens to support them geographically. This is true for many, but not all countries.

Also, without large storage capacity, you might end up being self-sufficient during sunny, windy days, but find yourself very dependent on your neighbor countries for imports on overcast days or at night without wind.

The combination of all of this is especially unfortunate for hydro, where you're pretty much fully dependent on the geography you've been handed.

So I'd say the self-sufficiency story of renewables doesn't fully hold. They benefit from regional cooperation and trade just as much as fossil fuels, if not more. (In my view, that's not really a counterargument, but it does raise the importance of having a well-integrated, cross-border grid even more.)

On the dark side, it will take quite a while to offset the environmental costs of this war, even if this provided an essential incentive for switching. (In reality, energy infrastructure is often locked in longterm and not easy to switch in just in a decade or so.)

> war seems more than likely to drive up oil prices not only in the near term, but in the medium and long terms too

"This recovery period doesn’t just get pushed out by 24 hours each day it gets longer as more production is forced to shut down or is damaged in the fighting. As I write this, futures markets for the WTI seem to be expecting oil prices to remain elevated (above $70 or so) well into 2028."

Only a small fraction of a typical barrel of oil is allocated to energy generation. The majority goes to transportation/industrial use-cases. The transportation usage can be allayed with sonar energy, but the industrial use-cases cannot.

Pessimistically, this will lead to the return of old-school Imperialism to secure the necessary oil supplies and increased exploitation of known deposits.

Just because there's an obvious good choice for the average citizen doesn't mean we'll take it, as recent history has more than proven.

There are still processes that we haven’t replaced petroleum for, like Haber-Bosch. China has already banned the export of fertilizer for this reason.

Nice.

Another upside seems to be that every Arab country in the Middle East seems to be on the same side as Israel. Nothing unites like a common enemy!

For the US to start going that route we need a certain group of politicians to stop telling everybody that windmills are killing whales and birds en masse, claiming solar "isn't there yet" (somehow it never is), and that there is such thing as "clean coal." Literally the only thing I don't hear them fighting (loudly) against is hydro power.

As evidence supporting the "bright side" outcome of this conflict, two separate people I know here is Australia have fast-tracked a decision to replace their ICE vehicles with an EV. It only took a week's sticker shock at the fuel bowser to take them from "Eh, sometime next year" and "comparing a hybrid with ICE" to "Buying a BYD car ASAP". I'd be curious to know if there has been any significant effect of the market for electric scooters and bikes, also.

The US just gave away a billion dollars to NOT build renewable energy.

Why didnt Iran use this earlier to get rich?

It's very helpful to understand energy density to evaluate what a shift to renewables actually entails or what is even possible. Vaclav Smil is a good source or for a less dense version Nate Hagens has podcasts about it.

I am not sure getting a million people killed in another decades-long middle-eastern war (one whose scale and tragedies will likely overshadow all the previous wars we have seen so far in region) in a country of 90 million people is really worth the push to renewables.

> Every rusty trawler is a viable launch platform for Shahed type drones

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?

> operational range ~2500 km per Wikipedia

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.

> Every rusty trawler is a viable launch platform for Shahed type drones

The point is Iran isn't going to be landing tactical, much less strategic, fire on America unless we royally fuck up. It will be closer to terror/psyop attacks.

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: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/valero-oil-refinery-explosion-t...

At present, gasoline prices in China have risen by 11% since the war started. In the U.S., they have risen by 33%.

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.)

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.

The article states that it's not important for any reason other than oil and shipping:

"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."

China is a primary adversary for the US. Oil is a major resource for both countries, supporting economics and defense.

First, observe the top 10 oil reserve countries:

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

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.

In my view, this partially explains the move in Iran, considering a 3-10 year strategic timeline.

So it’s not about nuclear weapons?

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.

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.

>On the other hand isn't this how the russian revolution happened?

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.

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.

Are we talking about Iran or US?

> While i wouldn't bet money on it, it seems at least possible that something similar could happen to the USA.

Fixed that for you.

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.

Can you elaborate a bit on what was unrealistic? (Maybe you have different posts or claims by him in mind?)

I am just as annoyed at the Democrats, but let us not always pretend the Republicans lack agency. The majority Republican congress could do any number of things to curb his power, but they choose to abstain.

Of course, find a way to blame Democrats. As if they're not trying to protect the scraps of everything else the Republicans have ruined.

The reality is that plenty of Democrats are "animated" about the war.

> Trump's one quality that may save us all from this quagmire is his ability to do a complete 180 on his previous committed path - "TACO" as his detractors like to call it.

If you haven't been paying attention, Trump has declared victory and called it quits roughly every other day for the past several weeks. It hasn't stuck, principally because Iran is the main actor that can decide whether or not to call it quits, and they have no reason to call it quits until they believe that Trump is actually serious in calling it quits.

One of the most surreal things is the sheer disconnect going on. The energy sector and everyone who's impacted are basically running around going "the strait's gonna be closed for months, we're turbofucked." The finance people are betting that the crisis will be over if not tomorrow then next week at the latest. And Trump et al are acting as if the crisis ended yesterday.

> I wonder if it will weigh on them at all if another school gets blown up or another thousand people die while they slow-walk the vote on the next war powers resolution.

The Democrats are the minority party. They don't control the agenda of legislative votes. But sure, blame them for the things they don't control, rather than the Republicans who want to avoid embarrassing their dear leader even as he leads his party to what looks to be utterly crushing defeats in the next elections with some of the most historically unpopular policies ever.

The problem is that Iran has the Houthi's in Yemen. And they're within missile/bombing range of the current pipeline.

You can bomb a pipeline too

Of those options I'd guess Hedgseth as he seems to be the one cheering the war and also using Christian rhetoric. Trump has also suggested he may have relied on Hedgseths advice to scapegoats Hedgseth in recent days..

> Maybe no one actually wanted this and they just went along because no one was actively saying it was dumb?

It is possible that the current war launched by the US Department of War by the chairman of the Board of Peace is the result of the Abilene Paradox.[1]

However, this vile collection of idiotic thugs more likely reached a Dunning-Krugerian consensus that this would be a quick and easy win. They all think themselves smarter and even nobler than everyone else.

They are however simply more remorselessly corrupt than most people imagined.

[1] _ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox

> It's so narrow that they can even hit ships with artillery fire.

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).

So drones (both UAV and unmanned USV) are likely more viable options for Iran.

> 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.

Replace "Iran" with "Ukraine", the difference being that the latter gave them away.

> If they sink a ship at the right spot, the straight could become barricaded.

Just a minor point, but, the shipping routes are thin, but they are not that thin. It would take several ships to do that.

> Unfortunately, the straight of Hormuz gives Iran the ability to prevent Trump from simply TACO'ing out and proceeding to invade Cuba.

Iran already proposed a soft-victory condition that Trump could use to TACO-out. He can just claim it's Europe problem, so Europe deal with the toll.

It's Israel that won't allow TACO.

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.

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).

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.

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.

Any state considering such weapons development already knows this. So this war is not new information.

And it's far from over yet.

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.)

> 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.

Israel is a nuclear power, there is no conceivable scenario in which Israel would cease to exist that doesn't involve nuclear war. Israel also has a long history of defeating coordinated attacks from their neighbors with conventional means alone.

We saw regime collapses in the Arab Spring - it's not a simple or short process, most regimes survived (either directly or via reversion). Even when a regime was overthrown, the replacement was usually not more hostile to Israel. e.g. Syria isn't more hostile than it was. Thing is there isn't all that much 'fury' since Arabs already assume the worst of Israel, while reasons for relative peace remain as is or are actually strengthened by the revolution process (e.g. economy, desire for quiet following violent revolution, new regime wanting to establish itself, etc.)

A not-unlikely outcome in this war is the fall of many gulf monarchies. A great outcome for some. A terrible outcome for others (such as Israel and the US).

"That would be catastrophic to Israel: they could face Iran from the air and Arab ground forces from multiple directions. "

Israel has little to fear from Iran in the air, the IRIAF has been destroyed and ballistic missile launches have tapered off.

In terms of Arab ground armies, only Egypt and Saudi pose much of a threat; the others are small, unintegrated and inexperienced and rely heavily on Western contractor support.

And if Israel, which has the most combat experienced air force in the World, somehow did struggle to defend against those forces, they always have the Samson Option of nuclear-tipped missiles from silos and submarines.

> 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.

It would be a black swan if this didn't happen.

This is exactly why the Saudi leadership have been quick to debunk Western propaganda about the Saudi's itching to join the war, despite Iran's strikes on GCC territory. The domestic blowback in the GCC states would be fatal to the political system.

The GCC elites there are living well, with escape plans, but the people know they are viewed as subhuman "arabs" by the Israelis, and are in line for the Gaza Method (which is currently being deployed in the West Bank and Lebanon).

I think culturally he was important to a lot of folks in the 40-60 year old range, but the cultural take of the younger (20-30 year old) demographic really feels like all of Iraq was a huge waste of lives, time, and money.

Was he important? Genuinely curious because all I know is cultural vibes.

Bin Laden was not from Iran.

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.

> a potential strike against China

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.

> It's an unprovoked war by the USA and its handler, Israel, against Iran.

Iran via their proxies have waged war for years against the US and Israel, the war is in no way unprovoked.

>Even US hostage Merz is starting to stutter about it.

Is he stuttering into an iron dome?

"Volkswagen may turn car factory into Iron Dome hub with Israel partnership"

https://www.business-standard.com/world-news/volkswagen-isra...

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.

Trying to parse the whole sentence, especially the "but" afterwards, the most reasonable explanation is that there is a "not" missing.

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.

The typo is fixed now.

He emphasizes relative importance, he doesn't claim that the actual people are not important.

No one who understood what Trump is believed him. You shouldn't have either.

This guy is a weirdo that believes Jesuit illuminati run the world (listen to the end of his Breaking Points interview), his qualification is a BA in English, he teaches at the high school level, and holds discussions with manosphere figures like Sneako. Not sure I'd elevate what he says just because he has a good online presence and really don't understand why he would be at the time of this post in the top comment in this discussion.

N.B. The video is from May 2004 (during the Biden administration)

>"There is a great deal of ruin in a nation." That is a quote by Adam Smith when one of his students lamented at the "ruin of the nation" when the American patriots had won their independence.

Crazy how impatient people are while millions of people suffer, thousands die, and prices go up around the planet.

The ability of a state to run on energy pulled out of thin air is an obvious strategic benefit.

Surely the resources required to build and maintain solar panels, turbines, dams, and nuclear reactors are logistically more stable than oil has proven to be.

The ends don't necessarily justify the means. And it might just as well be a shift to nuclear energy instead, which greens are traditionally against.

I was just thinking how much this situation benefits China and their solar power industry.

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?)

What makes you think they will give nuclear weapons to terrorists or use those weapons at all?

This does not happen even in the most insane examples like North Korea.

The more likely outcome would be that they would be able to avoid getting their schools/hospitals etc. bombed.

In your mind US should just nuke iran so there is regime change? Can you calculate how this would play out after that happens?

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.

JCPOA was highly flawed, but it was a lot better than nothing, which is what Trump traded it for.

If Trump was serious about stopping Iran's nuclear program, he would have made taking Isfahan a top priority of the initial strikes.

You seem to suffer from selective memory, your president declared Irans nuclear program "totally, totally destroyed" and your post "fake news". That was half a year ago. What necessitated another obviously useless strategic air campaign?

Its ironic it's not even discussed anymore in the US. A year in and you can't find a political post on HN, it's all blackholed - we've gone past "I didn't vote for him" straight to posts like this from alternative reality where he doesn't exist, doesn't say or do things.

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.

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.

> the author seems to be subtly implying that America is a "stupid fascist nation"

He does nothing of the sort.

I can clarify for you: the mention of fascist countries being bad at war is a link to another article by the author, which explains that fascist countries such as Mussolini's Italy and Nazi Germany were very bad at a war even while they mythologized and romanticized it, and derived their "sense of nation" out of symbolic struggle and might. The article you linked to describes many fascist or fascist-like nations, like Putin's Russia, but does not mention liberal democracies such as the USA.

I recommend you read it.

So why did the author mention that article in this context? Because he wanted to explain that countries -- unless they are fascist countries -- have strategic goals for going to war, and so does the US in this case, and therefore it's warranted to look into those goals and whether they have a chance of being met.

Again, I recommend you read the article in question (the one about fascists being bad at war) before jumping to unwarranted conclusions.

> IMO: this war is just the next step in the 1200-year old Shia-Sunni conflict.

US and Israel attacked Iran because of Shia-Sunni issues?

That's the internet for you. People read a wikipedia article or two and think they're an expert. I remember another article on here talking about beekeeping and suddenly everyone was a beekeeping expert. It's kind of amusing to watch, if nothing else.

I find it quite amusing.

Moderation? LMAO. This is peak HN.

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.

Can you point out a better source or the major points that become invalid due to other circumstances?

> This kind of amateur analysis is not worth being front page of HN.

The author is a military historian and professor with a PhD, so not an amateur.

If you think this isn't high grade, or that it is mistaken, please explain how and why.

Nah it's good. It shows exactly how far you can get with just a modest understanding of what strategy actually is at the level of nation states plus publicly available facts from the news.

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 is, what considerations are part of deciding to use it to accomplish a goal.

If you're going to accomplish a strategic goal with a military action, that goal had better be achievable through military action 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?

That's one way to make sure people living under aerial bombing firmly support a regime defending their sovereignty, hence legitimizing the islamic republic. Example: Taliban, with boots on the ground, didn't get any weaker at the end.

"There are a lot of people who say that bombing can never win a war. Well, my answer to that is that it has never been tried yet, and we shall see." - Sir Arthur Harris

The response is as applicable now as it was then. Time will tell.

The US bombed basically all of the Iraqi military in 1991, yet the war didn't end and Iraq didn't leave Kuwait until troops on the ground went in. Air power alone cannot control territory or compel political change

Russia has been bombing Ukraine for years, and they're not closer to winning the war now than they were when it starts.

I don't think we could see a bombing campaign like the one we've seen so far anywhere near that length of time. Partly for munitions reasons and partly for target reasons. There is only so much stuff to blow up and only so many bombs to blow things up with. We can't produce them at any where near the rate that would be required to just to do this for years.

Many of their military assets are underground out of reach of bombers. And you need somewhere to stage out of. Probably not the Gulf bases that are being wiped by missiles and drones at the moment. The aircraft carriers have been having issues and are being pushed back out of missile range. So it becomes more difficult and expensive to keep the bombing up.

The second the first bomb hit, the Republican Guard went from a standing military force to a guerrilla army, similar in a lot of ways to what the US faced in Iraq, just vastly better-trained and better-equipped. The US couldn't subdue Iraq with hordes of troops on the ground for years, so why would anyone imagine an air-only campaign would have better results against a stronger and larger opponent?