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.
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
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.
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."
America is isolating itself in so many ways. You could rewrite that scene and reach the same conclusion.
It's after the ramp up in production of weapons used in the shooting war started.
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.
If by that you mean Iranians in Iran chanting "better our a-hole than yours", I'm not so sure that's radicalization.
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.
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.
At least Roman emperors got assassinated by their own bodyguards.
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.
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) reducing oil shipments to China is good posturing for the US; hence Venezuela and Iran ahead of 2028. These are shaping operations. China suffers more from these conflicts than the US.
(2) Iran isn't the only one who can control passage throught the strait. All gulf countries can do so. If Iran can cheaply cut off passage, so can Saudi Arabia and UAE and everyone else there. They all have a long term mutual need in keeping this strait open.
All these recent analysis of conflicts in isolation, which always assume a lot of self-interest in disliked politicians, seem to make the analysts and authors blind to a much more probable and sensible grand strategy. Russia invading Ukraine and failing, has been the greatest strategic gift Russia could give to the US against China in setting the stage for shaping a defence of, and deterring an offensive on, Taiwan. Russia lost the ability to defend its proxies at a cost asymetrically small to the US. Hamas broke rank and allowed Israel to eventually decapitate Iran's proxies and air-defense step by step instead of all at once, setting the stage for the opportunity of the current war. And Russia being distracted also gave the US carte-blanche in Venezuela, not only via distraction but by proving that Russian air-defense isn't the thread it was thought to be.
The remaining strategic tension, in my humble opinion, is whether the US depletes its stockpiles too much without a caught up manufacturing capability, so that a Taiwan conflict becomes easy to win by default for China (via a blockade which would essentially be a cold war with few deaths and minimal damage) or if the weakened China (due to oil constraints) would be simply unable to attack in 2028, the strategic window when it can do so.
The situation, in my eyes, is evolving in a state where only two modes become dominant and both are slightly better for Taiwan.
(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.
What's the latest thinking on the 2028 window?
you must be living in the Disneyland?
> (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 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.
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.
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.
Netanyahu has a deadline. He is facing a snap election. If the Knesset doesn't pass a budget by March 31st, Israel votes 90 days later, and Netanyahu is not expected to win. Worse for Netanyahu, he's on trial for corruption charges, and once he's out of office, he's probably headed for jail.
The war was intended to give Netanyahu's popularity a boost, but that did not work out.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/netanyahu-seeks-av...
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.
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.
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).
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.
> 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".
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
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.
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.
The often missing asymmetry reflects something deep in the mindset of large portion of western population.
Translation: "The victor is not victorious if the vanquished does not consider himself so”
This war seems more than likely to drive up oil prices not only in the near term, but in the medium and long terms too! In addition, petroleum usage seems likely to become dependant on sucking Iran's proverbial dick, a notion that very few people in The West will find palatable.
Optimistically then, perhaps this will finally light a fire under everyone's asses to switch to renewable energy sources! Wether it's wind, solar or hydro, a underappreciated property of renewable energy is the energy sovereignty they provide. Once deployed, international trade can stop completely, and you'll still have electricity to heat your homes, cook your food, and drive your car.
No more being dependant on dubious regimes like Iran for your day-to-day.
Admittedly this is true for coal, too, but I think we've already established that it cannot economically compete, so that should play out in favour of renewables in the long run.
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 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.
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.)
"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."
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.
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!
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.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perdido_(oil_platform))
The article then says:
>One can never know how well prepared an enemy is for something.
And:
>And if I can reason this out, Iran – which has been planning for this exact thing for forty years certainly can.
I'll leave it here for y'all to ponder.
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.
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.
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.
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 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."
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.
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.
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.
Fixed that for you.
My takeaway from the war in Ukraine is: it’s going to get worse and last longer than anyone ever imagined.
Can you elaborate a bit on what was unrealistic? (Maybe you have different posts or claims by him in mind?)
Another problem will be getting to through to Trump who seems to be cocooned in a reality distortion field cast by Fox News, the Israel Lobby and Israel-firsters in his administration. If enough people in his base and dissenters in his administration and the government can speak up and get through to him he might be convinced to change course.
The Democratic Party for their part seem to be quite unanimated in all this. It looks like they're playing a cynical double-game, hoping Trump gets further caught up in a web of his own making. 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.
[1] - Interesting interview between Kent and Saagar Enjeti https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XMyC2Cr7X0
The reality is that plenty of Democrats are "animated" about the war.
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.
It talks about how:
- It's much more expensive to shoot down a Shahed drone than to build one. - Iran could decide to attack water filtration plants in the Gulf countries. - It's almost impossible to win a ground invasion without spending a ton of money because of the mountains.
Basically, even if the US wins this war, the entire world economy will suffer tremendously.
I don't think Trump himself particularly cares about Iran (or indeed Israel) - as in I don't think he has strong heartfelt views or moral convictions that cause him to act one way or the other in the strategic sense.
But there are those in the White House who do.
My impression from afar is that JD Vance wouldn't have been very supportive of this war, but his faction lost some power after the success of the Venezuelan adventure.
I think that particular move was Marco Rubio, but I'm not sure he would have been crazy enough to make the jump from that working to thinking that war with Iran was a good idea.
It doesn't seem to have been Stephen Millar's idea either.
So maybe it was a bunch or fairly random people from the pro-Netanyahu faction in the WHite House (not sure of names? Maybe Hegseth?) who really believed that this would be a quick bombing attack to take out the Supreme Leader and degrade some Iranian military capabilities, and it would be quickly over?
Maybe it was just Pete Hegseth trying to seem extra macho and people actually listened?
Writing it down makes it clear how very confusing this it. 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. 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 artillery fire. 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 anywhere 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.
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.
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 phenomenal 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. can't 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.
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 promise 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?
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.
Replace "Iran" with "Ukraine", the difference being that the latter gave them away.
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.
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).
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.)
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.
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.
It would be a black swan if this didn't happen.
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).
How unimportant was Bin Laden?
Was he important? Genuinely curious because all I know is cultural vibes.
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.
This war doesn't make any sense for US to be involved in. It makes every sense for Israel to have the US involved in.
It's an unprovoked war by the USA and its handler, Israel, against Iran.
People are being killed, by choice, by the USA and Israel, and the USA and Israel are irreversibly destroying their own personas on the world stage.
Even US hostage Merz is starting to stutter about it.
Everywhere that isn't the USA or a USA vassal, they call the USA and Israel "The Epstein Coalition".
That's how it is viewed. Think about it. That's how appalling it is.
Downvote me, I have no fucks to give; the field is barren.
Iran via their proxies have waged war for years against the US and Israel, the war is in no way unprovoked.
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 assume/hope this was meant to say "the people in these countries are not [un]important"? (or just "are important")
As an entirely secular person, I believe every innocent human life is important.
I'm not an American so I'm not sure if the voting base actually believed him.
JCPOA was due to expire beginning in October 2025, so it was not a permanent solution. Iranian nuclear proliferation was closely monitored by Israel and others as a top priority, and there's little doubt that this was the end game: no one could explain the vast enrichment activity in hardened, dug-in facilities otherwise (if you claim "Iran never had a military nuclear program!" while faced with the evidence of multiple scattered military-grade facilities, a missile program and nuclear material enriched to above-civilian grade then you're simply an idiot).
The Iranian combination of a huge missile and drone programs and effect on the Middle East through proxies (de-facto controlling Iraq through the Shia militias and Iran affiliated government, Syria through Assad, Lebanon through Hezbollah and Yemen through the Houthis) meant it had geopoltical control of the entire area.
Iran attacked oil infrastructure before; namely Aramco facilities in Saudi Arabia back in 2019. So it's a weapon it was willing to wield even before this war.
Iran was a key player in the Chinese/Russian axis (Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Russia, China) that was a global threat to Western interests.
There are persistent reports that Saudi Arabia wanted this war to happen, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the Gulf states supported that as well, because nothing threatens them more than Iran.
Iran getting nuclear weapons would throw the entire region into a nuclear arms race, so it was much more than the survivability of Israel alone. Saudi Arabia would pursue one, then Egypt (because of the former), and no one knows where it would stop.
I don't think this war was good, but doing nothing was even worse. I trust Israel more than I trust the US to have sound strategy on how this war ends. Israel is entrenched enough in Iran to be capable.
My bet? it will most likely end with a Venezuela situation, where the IRGC remains in place but with different people with different priorities. Iran keeps losing more and more infrastructure by the day, in Iran and outside (like what's going on with Hezbollah).
Assuming Iran can go on like this for a long time with their population suffering (remember the economy was in ruins and there was a serious draught even before this war started) is not realistic. They are playing the Middle Eastern bazaar-style negotiation, but there's not much behind it.
As for Israel: it's enjoying a huge economic boom with defense industry having record backlog (Israel just overtook UK!), massive R&D activities with companies like Apple and Nvidia (see Jensen's latest memo on his unwavering support of Israel and plans to build a 12,000 employee campus in addition to whatever Nvidia has in Israel). Amazon, Google, the works. Very unlikely that trade relations between US and Israel would deteriorate - there's simply no sound reason to do so, unless someone like Mamdani wins the presidency runs a Trump-style amok just with opposite beneficiaries.
P.S. no tears will be shed in Israel for Qatar, either. Qatar is the primary sponsor of anti-Israeli (not to say anti-Jewish) propaganda right now.
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.
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.
All the Baby Boomers are in the south enjoying the sunshine and shrugging their shoulders.
1) They control the flow of oil, as we're seeing now.
2) They provide a huge amount of funding to hostile forces throughout the middle east - Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, pro-Iran militias in Iraq. This destabilizes the entire region, including important partners beyond Israel (Saudi Arabia, UAE). Their support for the Assad regime in Syria and Hezbollah, who killed nearly half a million Syrians during the civil war there, also created a huge refugee crisis throughout Europe that has led to a rise in far-right parties who are reacting to the failed integration of these refugees.
3) They provide drones to Russia and instructions for how to build those drones.
4) They provide oil to Russia and China, two major geopolitical adversaries.
5) They are among the most significant propagandists that use social media to destabilize the west - having been caught repeatedly manipulating social media platforms like Reddit, Instagram, Twitter/X.
There are also some strategic benefits to the current war, especially if you're a narcissistic kleptocrat running the US:
1) We've already seen the market manipulation.
2) Every bomb dropped is a bomb taxpayers must replace; that money goes right to defense contractors
3) Then consider the American oil companies: they stand to make a lot more money from this, as their products are now more scarce and more valuable. The US, as a net exporter of oil (we import low quality oil because we're good at refining it; we export the good stuff), will make more money.
4) The disruption of the Persian Gulf hurts Russia and China far more than it hurts the US and EU. There are some US allies and neutrals who get hurt (those in east Asia, gulf oil states). But it's not a balanced impact - we definitely come out on top in the current situation in my view.
5) Electric vehicles are starting to look a lot better. Who's Trump's bff and biggest financial backer, again? Does he operate in that space?
I think the overall impact of the attacks on Venezuela and Iran sum to an attack on the hostile Russia-Iran-China axis, with the benefit of hurting some of their minor allies as well. It seems too perfect that we attack the two largest non-allied oil suppliers in quick succession for it to be coincidence. It might not be Trump's plan, but it seems like a long-standing plan to achieve a favorable geopolitical environment.
That's it. That's the whole damn "Causus belli" for this so called "Special military operation." It isn't intended to accomplish any specific geo-strategic goals, it doesn't have a plan or purpose, it's just a convenient distraction and way for some already very rich folks to get even richer.
This is honestly my major issue with the whole "Geo-strategic analysis industrial blogger / YouTuber complex" in that I think they far too often ascribe deeper meaning and geo-strategic planning or purpose to state actions when they can far more easily be interpreted through the lens of the political capture of nations and institutions by the wealthy elites, their greed / self interest and their monological desire to preserve the status quo and thus their own political / economic power.
Nations very seldom do pretty much anything these days because it would be of benefit to their nation or people, they almost exclusively only do things that benefit the wealthy elites who control them.
This war, like all wars throughout human history, is a class war, in that the lives and livings of us regular folks are being sacrificed at the alters of power and profit, all so certain rich folks can get even richer and keep their boot on our necks.
Dangerous stuff there pal, AIPAC coming for ya now. /s
Other than that, this whole thing is very well written and thought out. I found myself bobbing my head in agreement repeatedly.
I also must point out this gem: "There is a great deal of ruin in a nation." – Very well said.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
>But countries do not go to war simply to have a war – well, stupid fascist countries do, which is part of why they tend to be quite bad at war – they go to war to achieve specific goals and end-states.
>Again, it is not a ‘gain’ in war simply to bloody your enemy: you are supposed to achieve something in doing so.
There are a few other passages to similar effect, but for brevity, these two will do to illustrate the point: the author seems to be subtly implying that America is a "stupid fascist nation". Actually, the way he keeps clarifying the obvious, I think he expects a good amount of his readers to be "stupid fascists".
I cannot say I wholly disagree with his assessment!
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.
Proceeds to not mention the Epstein files at all. No comment here mentions it either.
All that mess and all those deep connections that were unraveling... I’m not a US citizen, but has that already been forgotten? Do people not consider that they might be relevant in some way to this situation? Or is raising that possibility now generally viewed as a conspiracy theory?
IMO: this war is just the next step in the 1200-year old Shia-Sunni conflict. The Sunnis hate the Shia, and vice versa. Ever since 1979 when Khomeini came to power, the Sunnis have been on edge. The terrorist attack on Mecca shortly after made matters worse ( https://www.brookings.edu/events/terrorism-in-saudi-arabia-p... ). At first they thought they'd get Saddam to take out Iran; but that brutal war ended in a stalemate. Saudis and Kuwaitis gave billions to Saddam for this, and when it ended, they demanded refunds for a job not done.
This caused Saddam to try and take over Kuwait to wipe out his debts, which in turn freaked the Saudis out. They turned to the US to save them; which in turn pissed Osama off, who was riding tall after kicking the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Gulf War 1 happened, but that didn't placate Osama. Then USS Cole, Khobar Towers, 9/11 happened and US got dragged into the MiddleEast again, this time finally taking out Saddam.
When Trump got reelected, the Saudis and Qataris saw their chance to take out their archenemy Iran. They wined and dined him, invested billions into his and his family's shady schemes, gifted him a brand new jet. In that part of the world, every gift comes with strings attached. So, it was only a matter of time before the US would start trading blows with Iran.
And guess what? MBS is now pushing Trump to put boots on the ground: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trump-on-brink-of-groun...
The problem with the rulers of Iran was that they did not see the writing on the wall, and continued to poke at Israel via Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthies. They had already lost Syria (with the ouster of Basher Al Assad); they could have just cut their ties with Hamas and Hezbollah and made peace with Israel.
US and Israel attacked Iran because of Shia-Sunni issues?
People that couldn’t place Iran or Israel or Lebanon on a map, let alone know the first thing about the rivalries in the region or have any skin in the game (beyond “the pump”) just feel like they can comment on any of this - taking cheap shots and crappy cynical takes at it. Where’s the moderation?
Moderation? LMAO. This is peak HN.
Region instability had ben regularly threatening freedom of navigation in the last five years
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.
Sarah Paine lectures give overall better lenses to look at this engagement.
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.
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?
Maybe the strategic balance creates a situation where it's advantageous for Iran to pull US in regardless of non-involvement. They don't do well against Israel alone (see rather low damage of 4 separate large scale attempts at attacking Israel directly), but US is so much easier to pressure via the Gulf. Indeed, this scenario doesn't quite need Israel.
So US risked getting pulled in not due to attacking in June 2025, but because the cheque given to the Gulf was starting to expire, the power balance was objectively swinging in favor of Iran at the location where Devereaux sees as the most important part of the Middle East. Now, say there are powerful states who feel they are in a decent position now but also that the strategic balance would slip away. What do they tend to do? Devereaux can consult his WW1 history.
The response is as applicable now as it was then. Time will tell.
