Shakes
18hr ago
Yeah sure I’m already on record in this comment chain predicting that Iran will not be allowed to toll the strait
Shakes
18hr ago
I am literally on record in this comment chain saying that Iran will not be allowed to toll the strait.
Shakes
20hr ago
Correct, because I’m right. America is beating Iran and the peace deal will obviously reflect this.
Shakes
22hr ago
I don’t know who Patricia Marins is or why her estimate is significant but her analysis seems at odds with General Caine’s. She claims that Iran has significant missile reserves left and also notes that Iran has a huge industry dedicated to building missiles. General Caine says that America believes we have destroyed 80-90% of this industry already.
Likewise I can’t read Lloyd’s paywalled report, but your summary seems at odds with some known facts. One is that some ships have run the strait without seeking Iranian approval. Another is that the terms of the ceasefire prohibit Iran from tolling the strait. — If they feel strong enough to do so anyways and the ceasefire breaks down, well, we will see who is winning the war after America bombs Iran’s electrical grid back to the Stone Age. It’s just as likely though that this war ends without Iran tolling the strait, which would prove what I’ve been saying all along.
Shakes
1d ago
(reminder that he has been successfully sued, in civil court, of sexual assault)
This was long after he began his political career and is therefore subject to extreme political bias. The female accuser in that case could not even remember when exactly the alleged assault was supposed to have occurred, or apparently have told anyone at the time about it, but can definitely attest that Donald Trump came and ripped her bodice off dramatically in a public shopping mall randomly on a random given day without even knowing who she was. She also had a history of exaggerated claims of rape and of writing rape fantasies in public gossip columns, and none of this was allowed to be admitted into court. But yes Trump was found liable for calling her a liar.
Shakes
1d ago
I am repeating claims made by General Caine a few days ago see here:
https://www.themotte.org/post/3671/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/429651?context=8#context
Besides the missiles we have destroyed we have destroyed the vast majority of Irania factories that build missiles and the parts for missiles.
then why is the strait allowing <10% of traffic even now?
“Allowing” is the wrong verb. Iran has threatened shipping and some ships have paid the bribe to pass unmolested. Some ships have also run the strait without paying the bribe. The strait has never been completely closed but the risk is still higher than what most ships are willing to accept. Iran does not control the strait but still threatens it.
According to the terms of the ceasefire, Iran is supposed to allow strait shipping unmolested. Many ships are still not moving because of the perceived risk.
Shakes
1d ago
What I am doing is noticing. I'm noticing that I am not the only one asking you to define victory, to define winning, to define "allow." You just keep repeating "We bombed Iran, we won!" And reasonable people are asking "What did that gain us?" "How does this change the situation?" And most importantly "Can you actually make a prediction with falsifiability?"
We destroyed 80-90% of Iran’s military, what else do you want me to say? They’re running out of drones and missiles and boats and they have very little left to oppose us with and we didn’t even destroy their oil refineries or power plants. You keep wishcasting this into a stupid opinion. But destroying Iran’s military is victory and was one of the major terms of the operation laid out in the beginning by Trump.
Your predictions are also not even incompatible with mine. Iran will never be allowed to acquire nukes, and it’s also possible that in five years they’ll take another crack at it. I don’t see how that would contradict what I’ve laid out. If a bank robber is locked up and later gets out and robs a bank again, you don’t say that jail was a failure and we should have let him roam free instead.
You are trying to box me into a very stupid and simplistic opinion and then expect me to sign up for my chastisement if everything isn’t a best-case scenario for all time. No, I refuse. I notice accurately that we have destroyed the vast bulk of Iran’s military and the peace deal will reflect that because America is winning. Everyone else here seems to think America lost because Iran is still making increasingly-impotent threats at passing merchant ships.
You criticized my prediction that Iran would not toll the strait. Ok, so you think they will be allowed to keep tolling the strait? When this doesn’t happen because America actually won the war will you admit I was right? An apology? Anything?
I have advanced a consistent position since the war began that America was obviously winning and everyone else was being silly. How else would we explain Iran accepting a ceasefire? They’re winning but willing to show mercy? This is obviously delusional which is why I keep repeating that we have destroyed so much of their military. And yet you and everyone here seems to accept that that doesn’t matter at all.
Shakes
1d ago
You’re just ranting and raving at me for no reason I can charitably make out except some kind of animus, it’s annoying if not rude and I’ll prbalu never define terms to your liking. Whatever man. The vast majority of people understand what I mean when I say Iran won’t be allowed to get nuclear weapons. Look you can just tell me to go fuck myself I’m not actually going to get offended and it’s much easier that way than continuing to misunderstand me in the most basic terms possible.
Likewise the hot tub story is not that deep man it’s obviously for color, actually it’s about how you can lead a horse to water but you can’t convince him of anything. We are winning the Iran war because we destroyed their military and there’s basically nothing they can do about it. Therefore I predict the peace will be mostly on America’s terms. Because we’re winning. This is the simple meaning of my words there is no 5D thesaurus lookup where I’ve actually redefined losing as winning so I can be a gooned out stoner boy blissfully dreaming of magacock. I’m saying we won. I’m saying that’s obvious. I’m saying the peace deal will obviously be on winning terms. Or we’ll keep bombing Iran. And that no matter what I can’t really convince anybody who doesn’t want to be convinced because I’m still sitting in hot tubs with guys who think Trump sold us out to the Norks because Vladimir Putin has nuclear pee tapes or whatever.
Shakes
2d ago
We don’t. We can bomb them back to the Stone Age by destroying electrical plants we haven’t even touched. We can blow up infrastructure that will take decades to rebuild. We couple leave Iran an impoverished husk for generations.
Your question is really about the nature of deals itself, why ever negotiate from a position of strength? There are actually things we can get by making deals we can’t get from force, that’s how society works. Iran could become a normal state and contribute to prosperity in the Middle East. They could stop subsidizing China’s industrial rise with below-market rates of oil. They could become our friend. It’s better to make friends than kill them.
Deal making and diplomacy is actually a higher art than war because cooperation is a more advanced aim than competition. This is something Trump understands intimately because he’s spent his life making deals.
Why not leave Iran a smoking crater after destroying its military? Because there are higher ends than that. Because we could have peace and oil and tall buildings and Jews and Christians and Sunni and Shia holding hands singing Kumbayah. Because we could turn the Middle East from a black hole of treasure and blood into a peaceful oasis in the desert. Because we could make Iran great again. Or not, it’s their choice. If they don’t want to be our friends we will simply destroy them before they can destroy us.
Shakes
2d ago
The Islamic Republic survived the worst we could do without invading
We destroyed most of their army and the whole world freaked out when Trump threatened to do more than that. America has total escalation dominance.
Shakes
2d ago
Except it turns out they have effectively infinity missiles
? No they don’t. Missiles are made in factories and those all have addresses and names. We’ve already destroyed 80-90% of those. Meanwhile we have satellites in space that detect missiles in real time and are getting better at intercepting them. Iran has fewer missiles than ever before of worse effectiveness and we can keep killing the guys who launch them until they’re willing to stop.
Shakes
2d ago
Well the problem with a neutral observer is that conflict is a moving target. We could all agree about something for a thousand years and tomorrow someone says men can become women. Now you need a neutral observer to get to the bottom of it. Well honestly the neutral observer is supposed to be your own self
Shakes
2d ago
Genuinely there used to be every few years there was a North Korea crisis and everybody was vexed by how to handle them because we couldn’t maintain basic relations with them. It used to be a major news story and it gave Washington conniptions. Now it’s relegated to background noise because Trump solved the problem of how to talk to them. If you want to be more optimistic about it, I’m even reading that the Norks want to distance themselves from Iran so they can enter closer to the American orbit.
Shakes
2d ago
Ok so you can swear and that makes your opinion powerful or whatever but it seems like you still don’t understand cause and effect. We destroyed Iran’s military. They can project very little force anymore in the region. Of course they could rebuild, that’s just a property of time having a forward direction. We can also stop them from rebuilding. We can bomb them again. We can do that whenever we want and they can’t stop us.
This is what winning looks like. It is in fact concomitant with several win conditions Trump laid out at the beginning of the war. This is not like Afghanistan or Vietnam where our goals were to occupy and govern country. Our goal was to destroy Iran’s military itself. They can continue to be a theocracy for all we really care, they can’t bomb Israel if they don’t have any missiles. They can’t threaten the strait if they don’t have a Navy. They can’t fund transnational militias if we keep killing their leaders.
This isn’t really even about Trump, America just destroyed Iran’s military and everyone is acting like Iran won a great victory. Well, actually, I don’t think people would act this way if it were Obama or Bush, it’s so goofy.
Shakes
2d ago
Why would America let Iran toll the strait when we just destroyed the navy Iran would use to do it? It doesn’t even make any sense and somehow I’m the outrageous one for adding two and two to get four
Shakes
2d ago
Yes this was the crisis that preceded what I described. Famously it included Trump’s threat that he had a nuclear button that was bigger and better than Kim Jong Un’s, and it gave many experts and professionals conniptions that Trump’s reckless foreign policy would lead to war. Then they started holding real negotiations and talks. Now North Korea is, for all its may faults, at least conducting normal diplomacy with America instead of creating a missile crisis every other year.
Shakes
2d ago
Well I think that’s right, and since we destroyed 80-90% of Iran’s military capacity I’m certain that it’s my perspective on victory that’s correct.
Shakes
2d ago
Well, sure, but the importation of a vast worker class of laborers without rights is how you get the Emirates or Sparta. It becomes extremely unstable because you do need an extremely powerful military to suppress the strangers you’ve let in who do not incorporate full political rights. So I guess I don’t see what good it does to be logically consistent if the thought experiment falls apart five seconds later. (What does it even mean to support human rights if the majority of humans in your society can’t have them?)
Shakes
2d ago
https://x.com/rapidresponse47/status/2041860966418157757?s=46
General Caine: America has destroyed
- 80% of Iran’s Air Defense Systems
- 90% of Iran’s regular fleet
- Half of the IRGC’s small attack boats
- 95% of Iran’s naval mines
- 90% of Iran’s weapons factories
- 100% of Shaheed attack drone factories
- 80% of Iran’s missile facilities
- 80% of Iran’s nuclear industrial base
It will take years for Iran to rebuild everything we destroyed. Assuming we let them, because we could always do this again.
Which part of this is represented in your hypothetical? What part of this sounds like giving Iran everything they wanted and America losing?
Maybe the White House is lying? Maybe the Pentagon is lying? Maybe General Caine is lying? I’ve seen lots of media reports that the Intelligence Community doesn’t agree with this war at all, so it shouldn’t take too long for someone to debunk these very specific claims. I’ve seen lots of Iranian government accounts tweet that they’re definitely winning. I’ve seen some cute AI-generated videos using American technology in the English language depicting Trump’s cabinet as LEGO villains pouting about the war. LEGO is Danish right? Maybe it can’t really be an American cultural victory.
It will take Iran years to rebuild what was destroyed and we would have to let them do it, and they have no navy with which to police the straits anymore. But they can still launch a random missile we haven’t destroyed yet at random third-party countries. Maybe this is victory?
Well, not exactly because America has a near-monopoly on satellites and we know within seconds whenever Iran has launched a missile and we’ve intercepted thousands. And the success of each missile attack goes down as they have fewer missiles to shoot and we eliminate all their bases. But the risk will never be zero, so maybe that’s victory? And we can’t reduce the risks in the Strait to zero and many ships refuse to sail — so that’s it! Iran has won!
It must be the case then that Iran is about to toll the straight and America can’t stop them so Trump is surrendering. Humiliating. Iran’s greatest military victory was shooting down one plane such that Americans then opened a secret military base inside Iran’s own territory and built a runway to get him out. Trump knows he’s beaten.
As for the nuclear program, that was supposedly "obliterated" last June, and I haven't heard much about it in the present war other than that they were continuing to bomb nuclear sites, so how much the program has actually been set back is anyone's guess.
Well no actually the American military is making very specific claims about how much has been destroyed as I laid out above. It’s more the case that people on Twitter don’t read anything but the specifics actually amount to something. Case in point: the June strikes destroyed a very specific compound that was built underground specifically to be beyond the reach of American missiles, which is was not. Whereas now we’ve been destroying the rest of Iran’s facilities. These are two different and specific claims but if you conflate them all into a very lose sense of destroyed then it does get confusing. Yesterday Trump claimed third base, today he’s claiming a run, why did he need to advance at all if he was already at bat? Inconsistent to say the least.
The Supreme Leader's death was completely without consequence. The guy was 87 years old and in bad health. If he had died of natural causes on the same day and was replaced with the same guy, I don't think any international analyst would be saying that this was a positive development for the United States.
The new Supreme Leader is supposedly a vegetable and has not been seen in public to the point that they literally inaugurated a cardboard cutout of his face. All according to plan? Maybe Iran can run the first successful government in history out of a bunker and the leadership class won’t even need to physically interact with the people they’re supposed to rule. This would require we leave them the electrical plants we haven’t bombed yet but probably Trump is chastened enough not to bother. A New York Times report quoted an anonymous source as saying Trump is bored with War. It will be a major victory for Iran.
Did you actually read the ten point plan that Trump himself was claiming will form the basis of negotiations?
Well notably the plan as claimed by Iran is not what the Trump White House is claiming was the deal and so no Trump did not actually capitulate. But I guess if you believe Iran losing 80-90% of its military and raising the price of Gas is a victory, I guess that’s at least consistent. But I also think it’s goofy
Shakes
2d ago
The Americans specifically want to be allowed to send in soldiers to dig up the uranium and take it. Trump claims we know exactly where it is. This is an extremely believable claim if you are anywhere familiar with the network of sensors America maintains to collect intelligence. If Iran allows this to happen, trivially, my claim is correct.
Of course there are other avenues too. If Iran refuses to allow America to take the uranium and continues to try building nukes, then America could resume the campaign of bombing. This is also an example of not allowing Iran to acquire nukes.
If Iran were allowed to acquire nukes, I would obviously be wrong. Likewise if America gave Iran nukes or refused to stop Iran from acquiring nukes. This seems incredibly unlikely? (?) Yet it seems as though people here are arguing that this is exactly what will come to pass? Or else that Iran will not be allowed to acquire nukes, but this is somehow part of Iran's victory condition. To me it seems more consistent if you want to argue that Iran won the war therefore they will get nukes. But that's so ridiculous maybe nobody wants to put 2 and 2 together and make 5.
Look this discussion is probably too degenerated now for either of us to understand each other but in the spirit of dialogue I’ll try again like this:
The Iran War is part of a larger vision of rearranging the global order in America’s terms. In this context destroying Iran’s military is a major goal in and of itself.
The Middle East has been a sinkhole of American blood and treasure for almost 70 years.
In consequence, Trump and Kushner renegotiated a new framework for the region now called the Abraham Accords. Israel become a country with normal political status. The Saudis stop funding militias and promoting proxy wars. America comes to control the global energy supply. (Indeed fracking + Venezuela + Canada already makes America more dominant of an oil player than OPEC.)
The major obstacle to peace in the Middle East right now is Iran. The Abraham Accords can not be made to last if Iran continues to fight the Israelis and the Saudis. Therefore there are two options: they can be enticed to negotiate, or they can be bombed I until they are irrelevant.
In this context destroying Iran’s military is a primary goal. It isn’t just an instrumental goal. This isn’t Vietnam or Afghanistan where our political goals are separate from the major question of military success. Military success is our political goal, because an Iran that cannot project force in the Middle East is an Iran that is essentially already bound to the Abraham Accords.
I imagine right now all this is being explained to the Iranians and concessions are being negotiated to entice them to come to and stay at the table. Removal of sanctions is one reward that can be applied. If Iran integrates normally into the region it doesn’t matter if they have an Islamic theocratic government or not. Technically, Britain is a monarchy and has a state church.
I am not just wishcasting competence on an incompetent Trump administration. This is all obviously the plan and has been signaled as such. There is a clear throughline articulated in moves such as deposing Maduro and tariffs. There is a clear vision for the Middle East centered around the Abraham Accords. It’s articulated by Trump in speeches. It guides the actions of his diplomats. It’s advanced in white papers and November’s White House National Security Strategy. These are not random moves. Trump has a vision and he is using it.
So then, war with Iran breaks out and we destroy the vast majority of their military capacity. Now I’m supposed to believe that the war is an incompetent mess because, even though we destroyed their military, the Iranians responded by threatening the straits, a move every analyst going back to Carter has predicted they would do. Which is more likely: Trump doesn’t read plans and is an idiot and nobody can speak honestly to his face and Hegseth is a drunkard and the Israelis and Saudis sat back and watched it all happen without any of pointing out the obvious? — or that the war has only lasted for a few weeks so far and America is working through its list of options while the 24-second news cycle obsessively decries every predicted setback at the ultimate embarrassment?
Because, ultimately, if Iran refuses to cooperate over the straits, we can keep escalating. We can destroy basic power plants and electrical infrastructure and knock Iran back to the Stone Age. Then we can clear the straits by force, and Iran will protest and they will have no more power to stop us than they would have power to stop us from paving over the moon. But we would rather not do that when we can negotiate and find a deal that works for everyone. Because, yes, Trump prefers to cut deals and make his enemies into friends, like Naruto. Because although we have the power to act unilaterally it’s much more stable when we act in concert with partners and allies.
My theory entails specific predictions, which I have made many times now, about what the structure of the peace will look like. I feel confident it will come to pass exactly as I’ve described. Iran will not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, will not toll the strait, etc. etc. Of course I remain open to the possibility of the details coming out all wrong because they don’t matter all that much. Ie Trump (probably jokingly) said that he could charge a joint strait toll with Iran. I don’t think that’s the likeliest outcome, but if it did happen I’m not going to believe that it’s because Iran defeated the American military with plucky courage when they have no navy or missiles left.
Likewise another of your objections has been that Iran could always rebuild and we’d have to fight another war. My reaction is: so what? Maybe we will. I don’t see how it’s a failure of this war if it doesn’t prevent all future wars. I imagine after they were defeated so handily the Iranians are reconsidering their strategies and aims vis-a-vis America. But maybe they’re irrational. The Europeans certainly are. Well, in that case, we just bought a few years in which Iran has no ability to project force in the Middle East, and five or ten years from now if they re-arm we’ll be even stronger and can do it all over again.
Finally, I would like to discuss the mythic component, which is maybe the part of my theory most prone to caricature and misunderstanding and yet also to me the most important. They say that history is written by the victors but that doesn’t seem meaningful to me. It seems that history is governed by the worship of heroes. We relate within history most to the lives of individuals. Those individuals shape how we think about the whole and the designation of who is a hero shapes our perception of the entire history. Washington was a man but he becomes a hero so it doesn’t matter if he sins or makes a mistake. He comes to be identified with the founding of the nation and even his flaws acquire a holy taint.
Trump is obviously the hero of the moment. Sure there are systemic forces at play and lots of other people involved and Trump can even be a little ridiculous. But it doesn’t really matter in this sense. The entire global order is being rewritten right now and the man leading the charge is President Trump. Politics for generations now will be bad imitations of his tweets like Newsom trying a parody. Exaggerated “dealmaking” or land development will take on new important as imitators cargo cult every aspect of Trump’s personality. Even those who despise Trump will feed this hero worship as they react against him desperately and attempt to find their polar opposite anti-Trump. In the long run Trump’s image becomes more powerful. He reshaped New York, he met Elvis and Nixon and Michael Jackson and Muhammad Ali, he invented a new style of War, he vanquished the Clintons, etc. etc. You can respond with, well, he wasn’t such a hotshot his businesses failed nine times, but in heroic logic that his failures were so great only makes him more powerful. He did casinos before online gambling got big! He sold name-branded steaks and wine before social media invented grifters! Etc. etc.
Napoleon gambled on Russia and failed and was destroyed and his whole legacy ended and, basically, he was already so monumentally important that it was impossible to wash away his legacy and we now name a whole era of history after him.
I believe that Trump is such a figure. And the historic logic dictates that even if Trump “loses” on these terms it’s a kind of success on a higher meta-logic. Because nobody else could fail as spectularly as Trump, you see. And that’s also a kind of mythic power. Although I remain confident given the above that what we’re seeing in Iran is basically a huge success.
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