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PaperclipPerfector  11d ago (text post)   25257 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026

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I'm not sure if you're ignorant or being actively disingenuous

Well I would like to think I'm more ignorant than disingenuous...

the passage on 2/14/2025 was covered by the initial ceasefire that didn't stick.

Oh good point, but in my defense, you specifically said

The Houthis agreed to stop attacking the US Navy, which were the only "US vessels" that even attempted to cross the Bab el Mandeb during Trump's term.

...which wasn't quite right.

So once again, you're proving my point.

Your point is that Rough Rider "does not represent any kind of influence on Houthi behavior," but the Houthis and the US reached an agreement (that cut the Israelis out) on May 6, 2025, when there was no Gaza ceasefire, correct?

and on the contrary, Lloyd's List reports that the ceasefire did basically nothing to increase traffic.

Lloyd's measurement (which only includes larger vessels) excludes ships that Admiral Gryparis might have included, but both articles did agree that traffic was still lower than pre-blockade numbers.

Lloyd's List reported in early September (so before the Gaza peace plan) that traffic was increasing, although incrementally, with August traffic increasing by 10% over July. Again, definitely lower than pre-blockade numbers, but the trend, I think, indicates that the May truce did nudge the behavior of shipping.

Regardless, what can't really be contested is that yanking Bibi's leash was more effective in opening Red Sea traffic than fighting the Houthis was.

This might be the case, although I suppose there's more than one direction to nudge Bibi - the May 6th agreement between the US and the Houthis happened the day after Israel began airstrikes on Yemen, right?

Israel is infinitely more pliable to American pressure than Iran or Yemen.

I really doubt it's infinitely more pliable. I understand the point you are making, it's just unclear to me exactly how pliable Israel is at the end of the day.

Similarly, the path to keeping the Strait of Hormuz open ran through preventing Israel from starting an unwinnable war, not in committing American forces to said unwinnable war.

In the short term, certainly. Over an indefinite period, as I said previously:

Because Iran is engaged in proxy warfare with the Saudis and Israel, we have no particular reason to believe that the US departure from the area would cause the regional crisis to cease, nor do we have a guarantee that Iran wouldn't do things such as blockade the Red Sea or Straits of Hormuz. In fact we know that Iran did this sort of thing in the past during their war with Iraq!

Of course it's reasonable to point out that that's a theoretical risk, whereas this is a real one.

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