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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   26575 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

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And what have the warmongers got to say for themselves? @Shakes? @Iconochasm?

I was more "passively war-tolerant". War with Iran was not something I was actively rooting for, and if you'd asked me beforehand I would have urged against it, but I was willing to let bro cook and see how it played out. Both in terms of reasons for the war and how the negotiations are going, I think the degree of misinformation and chaff is so extreme that normies watching the news (including all of us) have little ability to distill a signal from the noise. Especially for the latter, as I expect everything from the Trump administration to be positional maneuvering rather than statements of fact, and of course the same has always been true for Iran.

In fairness, that's also pretty much how I interpret everything you say, and why I usually just skim your posts.

I'm not even mad anymore, after all you lost, contra my expectations. I'm just kind of curious: can you process that this was a terrible idea and many supposedly cuckoo people who pointed out that the US will lose the war (like Scott Ritter) were, actually, straight up correct, at least?

See, this is what I mean.

See, this is what I mean.

See what? You're basically hiding in the fog of war and proposing a deeply nihilistic epistemology that Trump's tendency to brazenly bullshit everyone makes every circumstance completely open to interpretation. I don't believe this is how this works. Operation Epic Fury had been declared Over in early May already, by the Secretary of State, who doesn't have remotely Trump's reputation. The US and Iran have signed - not announced, not "leaked" – an MOU which is clearly an admission of defeat relative to any claimed early-war objective of the US, and a bunch of obvious Ws for Iran. Could Trump ignore it all, restart the war, and actually beat Iran this time? Quite possibly. Such things happen in history. But that'd be another, separate war. The terms accepted now suggest the US was pretty desperate for an off-ramp.

clearly an admission of defeat relative to any claimed early-war objective

This assessment seems very far from defensible to me.

Trump on February 28 in his speech articulating the rationale of the attacks [excerpts]:

Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people.

It has always been the policy of the United States, in particular, my administration, that this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon. I'll say it again. They can never have a nuclear weapon.

They rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can't take it anymore. Instead, they attempted to rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing long-range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas and could soon reach the American homeland. Just imagine how emboldened this regime would be if they ever had and actually were armed with nuclear weapons as a means to deliver their message. For these reasons, the United States military has undertaken a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests. We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally, again, obliterated. We are going to annihilate their navy. We are going to ensure that the region's terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces, and no longer use their IEDs or roadside bombs, as they are sometimes called, to so gravely wound and kill thousands and thousands of people, including many Americans.

And we will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. It's a very simple message. They will never have a nuclear weapon.

Finally, to the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government.

From the MOU:

The Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran have agreed to resolve the disposition of stockpiled enriched material pursuant to a mechanism that will be mutually agreed upon in accordance with the schedule mentioned in paragraph seven, with the minimum methodology to be down blended on site under the supervision of the IAEA.

I think it's completely reasonable to:

  1. Question whether the objective of preventing Iran from procuring a nuclear weapon will actually succeed
  2. Interrogate the degree to which the United States accomplished all of its objectives; there seems to be (at best) mixed or conflicting evidence that the US succeeded in anything that might be characterized as "raze[ing] [Iran's] missile industry to the ground" or "totally...obliterat[ing]" Iran's military or preventing their proxies from acting.
  3. Suggest that the cost/benefit ratio was not in the favor of the United States, insist that the war went poorly for the United States, or otherwise criticize the decision to go to war or the outcomes or assess that they indicate US weakness relative to Iran

I criticized going to war with Iran before it happened on here. I still think it's too soon to tell how things are going to fall out, so I've been withholding judgment, but my preliminary assessment probably wouldn't be viewed as exactly a pro-Trump gloss.

However, I think you are badly mistaken if you to look at a US declaration of war that emphasizes "no nuclear weapons," look at an MOU where Iran agrees "no nuclear weapons" and then claim that the MOU is "clearly an admission of defeat relative to any claimed early-war objective."

Wikipedia gives the following incomplete list of objectives:

The Trump administration gave various explanations for starting the war, including forestalling Iranian retaliation after an expected Israeli attack,[84] destroying Iran's missile capabilities, preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon,[85] seizing Iran's oil and gas resources,[86][87][88] or regime change.

Oil and gas shitposting has obviously failed. Regime change, well, you see. Unconditional surrender, not mentioned, certainly failed. "Destroying missile capabilities" – significant attrition but that's a cope, Witkoff wanted them to give up on production, something absent from the MOU which even proscribes interfering in such matters. "Forestalling Iranian retaliation", worse than failed, it was caused by the aggression. Proxies – Iran had forced the ceasefire in Lebanon (thus, preservation of Hezbollah) to be the #1 issue in the MOU, if you go through the timeline you can see that this isn't really what the US wanted and not a win for the US+Israel either.

The nuclear stuff is the biggest sticking point, I agree. But the thing is, did Iran even move far from their pre-war position? It seems to me that they did not, in which case the US didn't even need the war to "win" here, therefore this is not an achievement of a military objective.

Iran has to take some responsibility. It has never published its seven-page written offer for a new deal, including the annexe, which was shown to Witkoff during the final round of talks in Geneva, despite calls from inside Iran to do so. Araghchi has said he hoped the truth of what happened on the final day of talks, 26 February, would soon become known. He could do this himself by publishing Iran’s offer – one that Jonathan Powell, the UK national security adviser who was present at the talks, thought worth pursuing. Kushner admitted a deal could have been presented that was better than the Obama nuclear deal secured in 2015.

It may also have been a mistake not to allow Witkoff to keep a copy of the offer, since he could at least have shown it to technically more competent officials in Washington. Witkoff would later describe their reticence to hand over the document as a “tell” that they were not interested in a deal, and were just playing for time.

However, Kelsey Davenport, the director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association (ACA), said it was understandable the Iranians did not want to hand over their negotiating position given Trump’s record of publishing confidential material on his Truth Social web platform.

Also, Iran was talking about lifting 80% of the sanctions as their carrot. Now they get 100%, for much the same terms. So no, I think this is still American defeat, and the only way to spin it otherwise is to claim that Iranian terms were untrustworthy when originally proposed but are more trustworthy now that they know just how brutal and perfidious the US can be. I find that to be a pretty flimsy argument.

I am noticing how, when you make your list of Trump's different objectives, you dodge away from the actual text from Trump that I provided as a reference point to an incomplete ("various explanations...including") Wikipedia summary so that you don't have to concede that the United States dealt a severe blow to Iran's ability to project naval power, an objective that was reiterated by Hegseth on March 2 in case you just thought it was a one-off.

But most of your evidence for a resounding Iranian victory is the same evidence there is for a resounding American victory: namely, extrapolation from the MOU (that may not hold) onto a final state that has not been achieved yet and could resolve in a way that is relatively favorable for either Iran or the United States. I think your argument is passable enough: it seems very plausible to me that Trump got in deeper than he anticipated and was looking for any out that let him save face and was willing to settle for something he could have mostly gotten via conventional negotiations. But it also seems plausible to me that the US will be able to notch some Ws in the post-MOU negotiations on top of the degradation of Iranian military they have achieved. It also seems quite plausible to me that negotiations will break down and we'll see the resumption of military strikes in earnest.

As I said previously, "[i]t's possible that the war will end in a way that makes it easy to determine the winner, but it also seems plausible to me that the war will end with both sides claiming victory and the real measure of that victory will be measured in subsequent behavior over years or decades."

We're in the "both sides claiming victory" stage now and I think saying anything "clear" at this stage is premature.

so that you don't have to concede that the United States dealt a severe blow to Iran's ability to project naval power, an objective that was reiterated by Hegseth on March 2 in case you just thought it was a one-off.

I don't dodge it, I just deem it to be a cope. What "project naval power"? How was Iran ever a credible naval force? For years of reading about the Iranian Question, I don't remember ever seeing a serious concern about their growing naval capabilities specifically. IRIN was always doomed to sink at the first contact with the USN, at least I believe so, the USN has crushing advantages in every aspect; and Iran wasn't preparing to go on some aggressive expedition, so there was no great incentive to do it now. Russia, itself mediocre in naval projection, also wiped out Ukrainian naval capabilities early on in the war (which it's arguably losing now); this changed very little. The success here had been overdetermined, but that's also why it couldn't have been the goal – it couldn't endow Iran with a credible coercion/deterrence tool in the way that threatening Hormuz or Israeli desalination plants or South Pars field does. (Moreover the MOU doesn't say they can't rebuild their Navy if they so choose, and with the reconstruction funds and lifted sanctions they'll be able to afford it. Though it'd still be of little irrelevance.)

I see a pattern where Americans overstate their investment in impressive but strategically irrelevant feats just because these are things they can actually do. It's a cheap way to pad the metrics by announcing a thing you're confident about as the goal. Murdering Khamenei and other guys, destroying the Navy, "infiltrate Iranian land space and build an airstrip". So? What does this gain for you as a nation, relative to a scenario where you didn't do it? Not having to do it a bit later? It's a good flex on its own technical terms, but why should I believe these flexes were strategic objectives rather than instrumental moves in service of some cogent strategic objective? For all other goals, from "regime change" to "stopping missile and drone production" and even "steal oil", I see the answers. For nukes, I also see the answer but again, Iran was willing to compromise on the nukes from the start, the war at best changed something on the margins of the JCPOA 2.0 (and seemingly not in favor of the US). For the navy and assassinations… eh.

Before you accuse me of motivated reasoning, consider how the defenders of the war – and you – also apply Straussian lens to Trump's communications, correctly assuming that he's untrustworthy (just in a different direction) and his Actual Intentions (like reasons to sign such an MOU) must be deduced from first principles.

…All that said, ultimately my thinking is simpler. The US is a vastly superior power, and chipping away at the margins is beneath it. The real «objective of the war», universally and sometimes openly understood and lobbied for over decades, spelled out by Netanyahu, evident in the bulk of Trump's and Hegseth's communication too, was a generic Neocon/Zionist intention to «finally solve Iran». Remove it from the regional calculus, deny its resources to proxies, and make it unable to threaten Israel in the long term, by whatever means work: aiding an organic power transition, installing a pro-American/Zionist puppet regime, collapsing the nation into civil war, imposing treaty terms that defang it relative to the status quo, or "bombing it into stone age". Iraq, Syria, Venezuela… And Iranian objectives, on the contrary, were to survive, preserve the status quo, and hopefully improve on it by getting sanctions relief. In this sense, the present situation indicates Iran overachieving on its objectives, whereas the US has not just failed but made its position worse.

Agreed that this is very premature given previous fake-out "deals". But I do think that the MOU is qualitatively different, and American eagerness to sign it, allows me to say that Iran won. If, say, negotiations break down and the US resumes high-intensity strikes, that'll be a separate arc. I'm not saying Iran won forever.

I don't dodge it, I just deem it to be a cope.

I would agree that it's a cope to point to it as a success if the other elements of the settlement end up poorly for the US, but if the US had said "our only goal is to sink the Iranian navy," the operation would be a success goals-wise (not necessarily a strategic victory in the big scheme of things, since succeeding at dumb goals can be bad). So if that was a goal, it ought to be counted.

It's a cheap way to pad the metrics by announcing a thing you're confident about as the goal.

And omitting it is a cheap way to overstate your case and obscure the actual outcomes of the war, the same as when pro-Trump people omit the damage done to US bases by Iranian ballistic missiles.

Iranian objectives, on the contrary, were to survive, preserve the status quo, and hopefully improve on it by getting sanctions relief.

Wouldn't you say that Iran also intended (and quite plausibly still hopes) to establish a strait toll regime as a war goal? I would agree with you if you said that it was a stretch goal or seemed like part of a motte-and-bailey play, but don't you think that was also on their bucket list as a war objective?

Agreed that this is very premature given previous fake-out "deals".

On this we agree.

allows me to say that Iran won.

This is where I disagree. I actually think it's too soon to rule out a Venezuela-like ending to this thing, for Iran. Not that I would bet on it, necessarily. I think both countries are basically going to try to get as much as they can out of the post-MOU bargaining and possibly they are both betting that the other guy will blink on some things they really want.

If, say, negotiations break down and the US resumes high-intensity strikes, that'll be a separate arc. I'm not saying Iran won forever.

And maybe this is why I disagree: from my point of view, the MOU is a temporary ceasefire instrument to be replaced by something more permanent or (as Trump and I think also Iran) have warned, a return to war.

And omitting it is a cheap way to overstate your case

This is a fair outsider perspective but I stand by my arguments for why it's valid to omit.

Wouldn't you say that Iran also intended (and quite plausibly still hopes) to establish a strait toll regime as a war goal?

There has, to my knowledge, never been a serious Iranian discussion of the toll regime (as opposed to just closing the Strait) before this war which they did not choose. They rolled out tolls as a financial cope and negotiating tactic well under attack, after they learned that Hormuz denial is indeed very effective even though their fleet is gone. I tend to agree with Noah Smith of all people that "Before the war, Iran didn’t control the strait, simply because it didn’t realize it could. Drone technology had advanced to the point where Iran was able to shut down Hormuz, but Iran didn’t know that until the U.S. attack forced it to try the risky and desperate move of actually shutting down the strait.". Of course, war aims can change, so now they pursue legitimization of the toll booth through MOU negotiations, because come on, it's an awesome new revenue source and influence lever. But it was not part of their core objectives and strategic thinking (and neither was sinking their Navy for the US). To be clear I think they might win this, too, but I wouldn't weigh it heavily either way.

from my point of view, the MOU is a temporary ceasefire instrument to be replaced by something more permanent

Guess I have to agree to disagree. The MOU is extremely close to the original Iranian counter-proposal they published in response to Kushner&Witkoff's "deal" (terms of capitulation). That the US saw it fit to sign on to this shows that the US is really weary of the war and willing to end it on net unfavorable terms. Of course, Trump being Trump, he might just ignore the reputational damage and risks of Iranian gains solidifying for a few weeks of open Strait and US forces regrouping, and secretly intends to defect on most terms. But on the sum of evidence so far (eg Israel and Lebanon related noises), I do believe he strongly prefers to not continue in the short-medium term, so it is an end to, at least, the First US-Iran war, and the actual terms of it having been concluded.

I tend to agree with Noah Smith of all people that "Before the war, Iran didn’t control the strait, simply because it didn’t realize it could. Drone technology had advanced to the point where Iran was able to shut down Hormuz, but Iran didn’t know that until the U.S. attack forced it to try the risky and desperate move of actually shutting down the strait."

Well, Noah Smith (at least judging by this paragraph) is wrong to frankly an almost unbelievable degree. Iran has been aware that they could threaten to close the strait since the 1980s (at least), because you don't need drones to do that when you have mines. There was a major flare up where they specifically threatened to do so during the Obama administration. And they have been kicking the idea around of tolling the strait seriously since 2019 (at least).

That the US saw it fit to sign on to this shows that the US is really weary of the war and willing to end it on net unfavorable terms.

I think if the US was really desperate to end the war we wouldn't keep striking Iran.

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