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So. Why can't the US just get bored of blowing stuff up, declare mission accomplished and then leave without resolving the SOH?
Is Iran going to impose a permanent toll on the SOH anyway? Are they actually able to do this long term? Why didn't they figure this out until this month? Presumably they should have done this all along?
Something doesn't quite add up.
Cause oil prices are and would remain high and the political consequences are severe.
From what I understand, that's what they are trying to do, they are trying to get "US recognition" that the SOH is theirs to control. Once there is US recognition, that's pretty much it. Though that would certainly piss off a bunch of countries.
Iranians didn't want to fight. Now that it's existential for them, they're pulling out the cards of trying to control the strait de facto. Maybe some of them are also surprised at how effective it is and wonder maybe they should have done it earlier. But there is a difference I think being "the one that started it". For what its worth, I think a strong and persuasive narrative from the Iranian regime is that "yes things were tense, but we were at the negotiating table when the other side started blasting so we had no choice".
Well, unlike Panama, they don't control both sides of this narrow passage. And I suppose that's the point of the thousands of American boots on the ground that is gearing up into the region.
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Because doing so would trigger a war like this and get the entire leadership killed. Now that the war has happened and the entire leadership has been killed, there's no cost to doing it, that's already been paid.
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