functor
28d ago
Iraq doesn't have WMD, neither does Iran. I didn't fall for the first WMD war and I am not going to fall for it this time. In 20 years we will still be two weeks from Iran having nukes. If we don't want countries to develop nukes maybe a working strategy is to not threaten them with complete destruction.
What did The US win? They have lost access to the straight, driven up oil prices and not achieved any of the initial goals. The US is not safer with chaos in the middle east. US trade in the middle east won't improve.
What winning looks like is what China is doing. They are the biggest trading partner with almost every country in the middle east without having to waste trillions on forever wars.
functor
28d ago
Negotiations are often slow. Even negotiating a share holder agreement for my startup took months with everyone involved actually being friends. The peace agreement is an enormously complicated agreement and far more difficult to pull together. There are plenty of edge cases, nuances, definitions and to debate. The only treaty that can be signed in a day is an unconditional surrender.
Trump ran into the same issue with Russia. There was no way he could end the war with Russia in one day. There are far too many issues and each issue has a long list of sub issues.
The leading theory on this forum a week ago was that Trump was losing so badly he would accept any peace deal as long as it was face-saving and he could declare victory.
He hasn't lost until he has signed. He is kicking the can down the road and not taking the hit and signing a peace treaty. The US should have pulled out of Afghanistan at least 18 years earlier than it did. It was easier to continue the war than to take the short term loss and accept defeat.
I fear that denying this will have me marked as some kind of rabid Trump fanboy who can’t deal with reality but I have to point out that oil was much higher during the 2008 crisis,
That caused over indebted people to default on their loans which then caused a multi year economic crisis. If the straight is blocked for months this could drive oil prices far higher.
The US is a major oil importer and the US exports oil because it imports oil, refines it and sells the refined oil. The US isn't energy independent because the US doesn't produce enough diesel. The US has more light oil that it consumes but not enough of other grades.
The US isn't dictating terms. The US is desperate to open the straight and has abandoned all its original goals and adopted Iran's demands as a basis for negotiating.
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