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The Democratic Party is working hard to give MAGA the mid-terms despite everything.
Apparently, the resolution failed by two votes. However, my understanding is that this would have been largely symbolic, as a bill would require both the House and the Senate to vote in its favor, and actually require 2/3 majorities to override the presidential veto which can be taken as granted.
Strategically speaking, preventing Trump from continuing his war seems like a classic case of interrupting your opponent while he is making a mistake. It seems clear that MAGA is searching for an off-ramp whose taking they can sell as a win. But the next best thing to a win is a scapegoat. If Congress stops Trump from bombing Iran, Trump will surely claim that his strategy was going great and Iran was just about to surrender unconditionally when he was stabbed in the back by the radical leftists. Half the country will end up believing that sure, Trump's war raised the gas prices for a while but it was the Democrats who made sure it was all for nothing.
From the perspective of the Democrats, MAGA should obviously be a much larger threat to the US than even a nuclear armed Iran. Who knows how many lives a pandemic managed by RFK Jr would claim, or what blunders Trump might commit while conducting (or failing to conduct) a war over vital interests of the US through social media? By contrast, the damage Iran is likely to do seems limited, even if they take tolls for passage that would not a much of a threat to the US, plenty of countries with questionable regimes have nukes.
Obviously the Democrats would not want Trump to earn a triumph for his war, but I doubt that there is much chance of that. The most powerful person in Iran had his father and his wife killed by US strikes and also adheres to the same religion as Hamas does. I seriously doubt that he will be willing to make large concessions to the US.
This again? Maybe you haven’t been following the news? The blockade is working, oil tanker traffic in the strait is up, Iran might be coming to the table. Oil tankers are coming to the US to refuel. Trump is hosting talks between Israel and Lebanon. America announced a new partnership with Indonesia which will give America control over the strait of Malacca. We now control Venezuela, Panama, Hormuz, Taiwan, Malacca. America controls not a majority of the important sources of global energy, and the chokepoints through which that energy is traded.
Maybe Trump and Hegseth had a plan after all?
The idea was that, even though America destroyed Iran’s military and military-industrial base, Iran was winning because they controlled the Strait of Hormuz. Not anymore! We took that back in an afternoon. We always could have. Because America has total dominance over Iran, because we won. The delay was not some kind of epic American failure but the natural ebb and flow when negotiating terms, working out deals, testing military alliances and technologies etc. (America is not happy that Europe denied us use of our bases — and refused to condemn Iranian terrorism.)
However I do see that the Iranian Consulate in Hyderabad got 116K likes on a tweet saying America can’t block Iran when Iran blocked us first. And I have to admit that one of the Iranian LEGO AI Trump-Hegseth “Epstein Fury” rap videos is pretty catchy and has been stuck in my head all week. Call it a tie?
Basically, Trump is rearranging the whole global order on America’s terms. Of course Democrats would want to be stop that. It would be good for them if they could. The idea that it would be bad for them is some kind of reverse jiu-jitsu that requires the war actually be going so badly for Trump that they would be saving him. I don’t know that it adds anything at this point for me to say that l obviously, if you believe that, I disagree. But just as obviously Trump launched a war that is deeply divisive with his base and relatively unpopular domestically and even at this great point of vulnerability Democrats can’t stop him. So I don’t think it’s a convincing use of power for the Dems. Their best hope is that the negotiations with Iran drag out for months and the blockades last a while and oil stays closer to $5 a gallon. Which is always possible. But it’s probably a bad idea for them to rest on their laurels and hope that Trump’s sign of timing suddenly fails him right before the midterms.
You mean Khomeini Jr.? The puppet? They literally inaugurated a cardboard cutout because he couldn’t be seen in public.
These 2 statements are contradictory.
No serious analyst claimed Iran controlled Hormuz directly, as if they had an armada guarding it or something. The point was always that they could block it through threats and asymmetric action, which they clearly did, and the US has thus far been unable to rectify.
At any day Iran might come to the negotiating table, but this war has been full of fits and starts and so I wouldn't trust any "public statements" from either side until they've been put into practice for several days at the very least.
The only thing Trump has done has been to unite the world against the US. He's shown the world the US military is strong tactically, but is still woefully deficient in terms of long-term strategy due to a number of factors -- exceptionally low pain tolerance, overstretch, insufficient missile stocks for long campaigns, political winds shifting, etc.
We are blockading Iran and allowing other traffic through the strait.
Well I don’t know what this qualification “no serious analyst claimed” means but I know that this was widely discussed and claimed in many places, including here. If anything it sounds like you’re trying to carve yourself an exception: but the problem is Iran never controlled the straits and never could, because of the American military operation.
You should go look at today’s news. Actually, before you do, would you give me a confidence rating that your analysis will hold up? What do you think the odds are that the US will reopen the Straits of Hormuz?
Venezuela is in America’s orbit now, Indonesia is in America’s orbit now, Iran is at the negotiating table, Japan is re-arming, we control Panama, we control Taiwan — wait I’m just repeating myself. America is more isolated than ever as its power over global sea lanes and energy supply rises — sure yeah let’s go with that.
I have not seen anyone claim this, including on this site. I've been paying attention to the conversation pretty well though obviously I might have missed something. Please provide a source for this. Specifically I'm looking for evidence that people thought Iran "controlled" the straits beyond simple area-of-denial.
There have been a lot of claims people in the war, especially Trump, have made that subsequently failed to hold up. On April 11th he claimed unequivocally that the US had destroyed the entire Iranian military, and that the strait would soon be open. There was also the "ceasefire" where Iran was supposed to open the strait, but they just didn't. I wouldn't trust any "breaking news" until it's been in effect for several days and verified by at least a few independent sources.
I can't speak to the likelihood of the straits opening through diplomacy since that could change at any time.
In terms of a military campaign wherein the US navy tries to open the strait in the face of Iranian opposition, I'd say it's relatively unlikely by the end of April, but maybe a 50-50 by the end of May and then slightly higher by the end of June. By "open" I mean any single day in the IMF portwatch showing >= 60 ships passing, which would be on the lower end of pre-war traffic.
Now please give me your confidence rating.
A country "being in America's orbit" doesn't mean much beyond rhetoric. Indonesia signed some minor cooperation agreement with the US but it's hardly a steadfast American ally now. It's a similar story with Venezuela -- they're a bit more pliable to US demands but they're hardly some US asset now.
These are paltry gains compared to the huge rupture of trust between the US and the rest of NATO. America actually could really use the rest of NATO's help now in patrolling the straits, but Trump failed to get European buy-in for his Iran adventure before the war, so that + threats of invading Greenland have given the Europeans no motivation to pull America's chestnuts out of the fire.
So you're looking for someone who says "control" and means "control", which is not any of the people saying "control" and meaning "area denial"?
Bit of a tough ask, because you can always say that words mean whatever you want them to, but:
BBC, tanker representative
Lloyd's List, but I guess you could argue they didn't control the Strait, merely the traffic through it, and that those are two very different things.
Financial Times, and if they continue to control it, well, that must mean they already had control.
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