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The peace deal broke down over nukes. If your theory is that the US has lost and will cave eventually your theory is that Iran will get nukes. I guess I’m wondering what the point of US foreign policy was if it turns out Iran had everything it needed to get nukes all along.
I don’t phrase it this way to be dramatic or difficult but I think this point of view obviously disproves itself if you model it out for more than a single step. We destroyed Iran’s military and are going to capitulate that they get nukes?
Yeah this is true in may contexts but there are lots of deals negotiated very quickly. Donald Trump made his name on them.
Like what are we arguing here? America lost so badly that they will have to capitulate but also the negotiations were a pretext so America could escalate, futilely, resisting the obvious conclusion? And the Israelis and the Saudis? What about the oil being rerouted around the straits? America’s growing ability to supply the surplus? Etc
I feel like my position is much more coherent and easily-worked: America won, Iran is full of intransigents, Iran has no cards left to play, America has lots left to play, and eventually Iran will either surrender or be destroyed.
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.
Ok so your theory is that the Iranians refused to agree to never develop nukes because….? Maybe Trump is lying? Elaborate
The American navy passed ships through yesterday to begin de-mining and is now going to blockade the Strait. If you think Iran with a vastly reduced navy can deny America’s navy from the strait I think you’re invested in some delusional media narratives.
Nobody is impacted by Iran threatening the straits more than China. China was only able to industrialize in the first place with access to Irania oil.
Iran hasn't developed nukes despite Israel kvetching about it for 30 years. Just like we needed a war in Iraq because of their WMD they are now selling us another regime change fiasco with the same lie.
They turned around after threats from the IRGC. The US navy failed to defeat the Houthis in a year of fighting and the US lost that war. This is far, far worse. There isn't going to be a battle with a winner. It is an asymmetric fight in which Iran can launch rockets and drones from hundreds of km inland along a thousand km cost and target ships. There is nothing that stops Iran from keeping to shoot. There is no winning. There is no defeating a decentralized war effort that takes occasional shots from a vast mountain region.
China has other oil sources and large reserves. Their economy is also far less oil intensive than the American one.
If your interpretation of events is that the American navy is running scared of the Iranian navy I really don’t have anything else to add. I don’t just think you are wrong and will be rebuked by events but have already been rebuked by events that have already happened.
Again, the US navy failed against the Houthis. The US had better geography in the red sea and a weaker opponent. The US navy runs into a major issue in both places. They can sit off the coast and get shot with no real way of actually winning. They can shoot down drones using several multi million dollar SAM that are in limited supply without achieving much. They are running into the same issues the US army ran into in Afghanistan except on a larger scale.
Besides, we have seen how the US military has failed at defending itself from incoming drones and missiles. The difference here is that there is a 5 billion dollar target on the recieving end.
From Kuwait to the Indian ocean is 1000 km. How many ships will this mission require? What will be the goal apart from having ships pass the same way they passed in January without the tremendous waste.
You're in fantasy land here. You can (and the US and Gulf countries have) shoot down with a Shahed with a machine gun. It's just a small aircraft.
Then why are they getting through and hitting targets? Hitting something moving in 3D at several hundred km/h is far harder than you think.
Also it is 1000 km from Kuwait to the Indian ocean. That is a lot of ships with machine guns to cover that straight.
Ukraine has after years of building up anti Shahed defences a major issue with shaheds getting through. Often Russia uses saturation attacks with multiple drones against a single target.
It's really not very hard. The main problem with Shaheds is ensuring you have the air defense assets in the right place to detect and intercept them.
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