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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   26624 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026

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Iran declares Strait of Hormuz completely open to commercial ships during Israel- Lebanon ceasefire, but US naval blockade stays in place

Still no significant movement on the maritime trackers. Ships are still grouped at the anchorages on both sides of the Strait. But Trump says Iran is working with the US to remove them. If Trump offers sanctions reliefs and ends the US blockade (which I doubt) in exchange for giving up their nuclear program and ceasing support for proxies against Israel, maybe this war could end quickly and we can return to pre-war status quo by the end of the year.

This is as close to a win-win situation as we can get. For Israel, there's a weaker defeated Iran in the region without means to develop nuclear weapons quickly, and for Iran, they get to survive and have access to sustenance funds. Trump can also claim some victory points for his base.

All of this is of course assuming Trump is being truthful and wants to end the war that he started. There's so much we don't understand or know behind the scenes.

Seems that Iran has closed the strait again, because the US blocked their ships.

To be honest, seems fair. A blockade is an act of war. A ceasefire where one side blocks economic activity while the other does not seems unbalanced. If Trump or Iran had merely blocked weapon systems from passing through the strait, that would be different.

To be honest, seems fair.

No one ever said this before when anyone did this against ships flagged by or en route to neutral countries.

People are making up a bunch of new rules just to help Iran out.

I will grant you that this will give the ships of any country whose ships they deny a legitimate cause for war, just as the US blockading Iran gives any country whose ships they block an excuse to sink their carriers. In practice, third parties affected by either blockade will judge it in their interests not to start a war over it.

From a ceasefire perspective (which is what my quote was about), either blockade is an act of war, but the general narrative I heard was that Iran was willing to open Hormuz before Trump enacted his blockade.

The US has myriad option to impose their will on the world, from soft power to bunker-bursting bombs and invasions. Like the hedgehog, Iran only has one trick, but it is a very good trick. To expect Iran to bear the US blockade and not make the world share their pain by kicking the world economy in the balls would not be reasonable. This is not something specific to the Mullah regime, any country would do the same in Iran's place, international norms be damned.

In practice, third parties affected by either blockade will judge it in their interests not to start a war over it.

This is, also, why in practice the JCPOA was folly.

If you declare 'might makes right' to be your governing principle, it becomes much harder to appeal to other principles (like international law).

The point is that "might makes right" apparently is defacto governing principle. Iran does not give a shit about international law by shooting at commercial ships and going against UN Security Council and other international bodies. The sad thing is that nobody is able to persuade them otherwise.

If there is one social law that actually objectively "exists", that it is adhered to by all organisms, then it is the law of the jungle, the vae victis, eat or be eaten. It is not exactly might makes "right", because law of the jungle does not care about righteousness. Might just uses force to impose your will or your programing onto reality, it is used by wolves when killing baby deers and it is utilized by chimpanzees or humans in wars. This is the default, everything else is only a structure on top of this underlying fact. It is important to remember that always.

The point is that "might makes right" apparently is defacto governing principle

I mean, it's not. There is a facile, trivial sense in which "might makes right" is true. If you can force people to do what you want then you can force people to do what you want. But in a far more important sense, it isn't true. No one rules alone, and the exercise of power requires both will and legitimacy. History has shown again and again that the weak can prevail against the strong by being willing to endure greater costs despite facial material inferiority, and that apparent strength can mask a lack of internal willpower.

A major failing of the midwit thugs that run the Trump administration is that they confuse power with entitlement. We see again and again from Trump himself as well as senior figures like Miller and Hegseth a belief that American power entitles them to do what they want - that others should give way to power because it is powerful. This is not the strong doing what they will, it is a moral appeal. It is not a conventional moral appeal, but it is a moral appeal nonetheless. The trouble for the Trump administration is that it is not a very compelling one. Mere force as a basis for legitimacy is not of interest to our longstanding allies (especially when that sentiment is turned on them, or when they are treated as vassals rather than allies). Hell, it is not of particular interest within the United States.

They compound this deficiency by trying to have it both ways. They sneer at international law and play the transactional bully when it serves them but also want to appeal to the institutions and allies they reject when it suits them. In fairness to the Trump administration, there's always been more than a whiff of "rules aren't for the people who make them" about the American-led order, but Trump et al don't even pay lip service to shared principles (and have been stunningly inept at diplomacy to boot). They cannot appeal to higher principles or laws because they themselves have rejected them.

No one rules alone, and the exercise of power requires both will and legitimacy.

I just want to point out, that international law you so fiercely defend is famously lacking legitimacy on all front ranging from democratic deficit, representation deficit with opaque power structures like UN security council or of course lack/arbitrariness/double standard of enforcement of international law. USA literally has Hague invasion Act since 2002, which preemptively enables US president to attack international court in Hague if they ever dare to apprehend US military personnel.

History has shown again and again that the weak can prevail against the strong by being willing to endure greater costs despite facial material inferiority, and that apparent strength can mask a lack of internal willpower

Yes, history shown that weak can make themselves strong and foment some sort of revolt, they can endure in silence sometimes for decades or even centuries like in North Korea or African tyrannies, weak can also whine and appeal to strong to make their plight more bearable. Sometimes the weak are lucky and strong are more benevolent and even indulge the weak in their power fantasies. In the end it all only affirms the law of the jungle.

We see again and again from Trump himself as well as senior figures like Miller and Hegseth a belief that American power entitles them to do what they want - that others should give way to power because it is powerful. This is not the strong doing what they will, it is a moral appeal. It is not a conventional moral appeal, but it is a moral appeal nonetheless.

So the critique is that they overestimated their strength and their inside and outside enemies are more powerful than them? Yes, this may very well be the case.

They cannot appeal to higher principles or laws because they themselves have rejected them.

The higher principles themselves are only upheld by force. There is no international law in manypolar world, or in a world where the hegemon in form of USA will no longer uphold it. All the "allies" such as in EU or Canada can do is just whine and seethe. They can go and beg China or some other big dog to stand up for them, in the same way let's say Greek city states begged Rome to protect them from Macedonia or some such.

That is the very point I am making. Again, you may be raging that Trump is actually weak, that he endangers the very position of USA as the world hegemon ruling over land and sea by international law threat of violence by nuclear carrier fleet. Without that kind of power you have world roamed by pirates, bandits, warlords or rogue states, where rebels and cartels rule the day. Of course, that is the law of the jungle.

Maybe Trump took a bet an lost and made last of the Iraq > Afghanistan > Iran blunders which make US look weak. Similarly to how USA lost in Vietnam and it was not until the end of Cold War and winning the first Gulf War decisively where US empire reclaimed the title of ultimate planetary macho. So maybe it will take some other US president to show the world the true US power and discipline all the children around the world to adhere to international law or else. But again, it is all just power talk in the end.

They cannot appeal to higher principles or laws because they themselves have rejected them.

Of course they can. International law is no set of "higher principles", it is bunch of shit made up by some bureaucrats. For instance I have more faith in principled stance of my local mayor to protect my rights than, some nonsense spewed by United Nations Human Rights council now led by some nobody from Indonesia. Plus I do not know why Trump or anybody else could not appeal to higher principles ranging from national or even Global Security or God down to things like "because this random council over there approved". It is exactly these principles behind the aforementioned Hague Invasion Act or many instances of ignoring international law.

I just want to point out, that international law you so fiercely defend is famously lacking legitimacy on all front

I'm not defending it; I'm observing that invoking and rejecting it simultaneously doesn't work. If the Trump admin. wants to say "we can do what we want because we are powerful", they can't also appeal to international principles like freedom of navigation to demand other help them out.

Or rather, they can do that in the sense that you can say whatever you want, but it's not going to go anywhere (as we can see).

So the critique is that they overestimated their strength and their inside and outside enemies are more powerful than them?

No. The critique is that they believe 'strength' obliges others to defer to them. This belief, in turn, is undergirded by a kind of brutish naivete about the nature of power. This leads them to make stupid decisions.

The higher principles themselves are only upheld by force

Any how do you gather the force to uphold the higher principles? Even the cruelest totalitarian relies upon their subjects accepting their rule. This is why I said that 'might makes right' (or however you care to formulate the idea that brute force trumps all) is a fatuous truism that obscures the substantive truth of the matter, which is that exercising power requires you to at the very least convince the people who do the actual exercising of your authority.

The Ferengi inside of me thinks Iran has a legitimate grievance, under the Rules of Acquisition they (and Oman) must be allowed to charge tolls on ships that pass through their territorial waters.

Repeat for every country worldwide and shipping is over

Most other countries can make deals with one another to the effect of: 'I won't if you won't'. But to establish such a deal you need mutual respect. Kind of hard to argue in favor of that wrt Iran when the current Iranian government was born out of a revolution against a puppet government that was installed precisely to allow certain foreign entities to not deal with Iran as equals.

Also fails to note that the blockade came about after Iran failed to open the strait as agreed as part of the ceasefire. It's conflict theory all the way down, and for many, siding with the IRGC is preferable to siding with Trump.

Also fails to note that the blockade came about after Iran failed to open the strait as agreed as part of the ceasefire.

April 7-April 8: They agreed to a ceasefire, but the stated conditions were not fulfilled from the US end of the bargain. Israel and Lebanon were still at war. They did not "fail to open the strait as agreed" as the conditions they set were not met.

April 13th: US blockade takes effect, Israel/Lebanon still at war.

April 16th: Israel/Lebanon ceasefire.

April 18th: Iran makes some moves to open up but says

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf,

On the Strait of Hormuz, he said that, with the "continuation of the [US] blockade", the Strait "will not remain open".

Iran of course had not agreed to conditions including a US blockade during the ceasefire talks. They did not "fail to open the strait as agreed" as the conditions they set have now not been met due to the US adding a blockade in and changing the situation.

siding with the IRGC is preferable to siding with Trump.

People acknowledging reality are not "siding" with anyone but public truth. We can't see their closed door talks but we can see things like the Pakistan PM who negotiated the ceasefire who literally said

including Lebanon and elsewhere, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY.

This isn't siding with the IRGC to acknowledge the publicly stated ceasefire terms were being violated by Israel up until the 16th. It's not siding with the IRGC to acknowledge the obvious truths that the ceasefire agreement did not include the US blockade that came after the talks.

The United States did not agree to an Israel/Lebanon ceasefire on April 7-8.

The United States did not agree to an Israel/Lebanon ceasefire on April 7-8.

Then why did the Pakistan PM announce it as such? Maybe there was a misunderstanding and the conditions were not actually agreed upon, but the publicly stated conditions did include Israel/Lebanon.

Then why did the Pakistan PM announce it as such?

Perhaps to stir up trouble. In any case, that Pakistan was the location of the talks does not let the Pakistan PM speak for either party.

That seems unlikely. In peace negotiations, you generally can't chose whom you are negotiating with. Iran can't say they would prefer not to talk with the US and talk with the UK instead, nor can Trump negotiate a ceasefire with Iraq instead.

But generally the host country is one which both sides can agree on. Iran can reject peace talks in Israel, and the US can reject peace talks in Lebanon. Pakistan was something both were willing to agree to, presumably because both thought that Islamabad would not fuck them over.

Generally, the host country has diplomatic influence on the line. If they fuck over either side, e.g. by misrepresenting the ceasefire terms, their diplomatic influence with one side will evaporate. With the Taliban trouble, Pakistan is unlikely to stab the US in the back. So in short, I would trust the host much more than I would trust either side.

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Perhaps to stir up trouble.

Then why has the US not said anything about Pakistan, their continued host for negotiations, fucking with the ceasefire?

There's only three explanations I can come up with.

  1. There was a misunderstanding of the conditions, and therefore there was no agreed upon ceasefire conditions to violate by either side.

  2. The US side has lied, Israel/Lebanon was included and they realized they couldn't get Israel to stop in time/never planned to follow through on it anyway and just hoped Iran would open regardless.

  3. Pakistan lied, despite no accusations from the US about this and continued usage of them as a host for negotiations, actively interfered in the agreed on ceasefire conditions and destroyed the deal.

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Seems that Iran has closed the strait again, because the US blocked their ships.

'Again' implies that they had stopped closing the strait to regional traffic.

Aside from some high-visibility propoganda passages, the open commercial data of, say, Iraqi trade does not show any such unblocking.

To be honest, seems fair. A blockade is an act of war. A ceasefire where one side blocks economic activity while the other does not seems unbalanced.

Why NaN, I wasn't expecting a defense of the Trump's blockade from you of all people. Normally I'd have expected a pithy 'but Trump said the strait was open!' to deny the Iranian role in blocking the economic activity they weren't letting pass.

Why NaN, I wasn't expecting a defense of the Trump's blockade from you of all people. Normally I'd have expected a pithy 'but Trump said the strait was open!' and to treat the blockade as an unprompted offense by Trump.

The strait wasn't closed until Iran had multiple leaders assassinated. Now we could say that the original blockade by the US is fine, but maintaining the blockade during a ceasefire while Iran says they'll lift their closure puts the onus on the US again.

The strait wasn't closed until Iran had multiple leaders assassinated

You're right here but totally ignoring the point which is that after the war started iranian announcements have claimed the strait to be open countless times and it never has been. Since iran's initial attacks on shipping, the strait has not been open for even a minute.

So Iran's announcement of "reclosing" the strait seems especially empty given it wasn't open in the first place.

Iran seems to be dealing with some amount of infighting or at least utter confusion and disorganization internally. There's a funny recording of an Indian ship which got approval from the iranian authorities to cross getting shot up by another iranian boat.

Looking the other events, two dozen ships approached the strait, almost certainly under guidance from iran, only to be turned back right away.

Earlier in the afternoon, a loose group of nearly two dozen bulk carriers and oil tankers – including several very large crude oil carriers (VLCCs) – sailed toward the narrow waterway. But roughly four hours after departing, all appear to have turned back.

Given all the other nonsense that's been posted on twitter and ships not moving at all, there must have been some indication on the ground by iranian authorities that the ships should go. They they all got sent back right afterwards.

Looking the other events, two dozen ships approached the strait, almost certainly under guidance from iran, only to be turned back right away.

The important thing, of course, is to realize this is all on the US, and Trump lied when he said the strait was open.

The important thing, of course, is to realize this is all on the US, and Trump lied when he said the strait was open.

which time? Trump has said wildly contradictory things for 5 weeks now, sometimes within the same hour of another of his statements, frequently being immediately repudiated by the Iranian government itself, including this most recent claim "IRAN HAS JUST ANNOUNCED THAT THE STRAIT OF IRAN IS FULLY OPEN AND READY FOR FULL PASSAGE. THANK YOU!"

is this the one you were trying to defend or was it one of the other times he made a similar statement and was immediately contradicted?

The Iranian foreign minister DID announce the strait was open.

the FM did not announce

"IRAN HAS JUST ANNOUNCED THAT THE STRAIT OF IRAN IS FULLY OPEN AND READY FOR FULL PASSAGE. THANK YOU!"

The important thing is to realize that the IRGC and the Iran’s conventional army, the Artesh, are two different things, the IRGC and the Iranian government are two different things, and the IRGC is making its own moves contrary to the wishes of its political leadership.

This has an interesting graphic: https://x.com/TheIranWatcher/status/2042717802637766685

I dunno, I'm being told by reliable sources that Iran has in fact been thoroughly honest, aboveboard, and consistent the whole time and everything bad that has happened has been becase the US was deceptive and duplicitous.

(And Artesh has been completely absent the whole time)

I would not go that far. It is very possible that more than one side in a conflict is shitty. The Iranian leaders are also not getting a Nobel any time soon.

Iran is clearly a repressive dictatorship, and it is also pursuing nuclear weapons.

But I do have different standards. First, the US and Israel are clearly the aggressors here. This does not make them bad per se, sometimes aggression is required. But it does clear communication out of what might be termed a decent respect to the opinions of mankind. If you talk about bombing your enemy 'for fun', you are making an excellent argument for yourself being evil.

Second, I remember the Iraqi propaganda minister during the W invasion. His statements were about as trustworthy as anything Trump has ever tweeted, yet the Western reaction was amusement, not outrage. This was simply because few people in the West had any expectations for the mouthpiece of a dictatorship not to be a lying sack of shit. By contrast, for the most part past US presidents have tried to avoid telling direct lies or calling their opponents names. Saddam was merely a regional problem, Greenland was perfectly safe from his reach. By contrast, the US under Trump is everyone's problem.

But I do have different standards. First, the US and Israel are clearly the aggressors here.

Iran has been launching missiles at Israel, engaged in near constant terrorism against Israel, and is engaged in a variety of forms of cyberwarfare with the US and Israel.

You can trace back decades in an attempt to figure out who started it "first" but a fight has been going on for a long time.

Iran just mad because they've been punching people in the face without ramifications and Israel and the US said "one more time and I'm going to shoot you in the knee" and then they did.

They are not the aggressors.

My general understanding is that Iran would prefer to support partisan groups against Israel in a matter rather reminiscent of the US support for the Mujaheddin. While I am much more sympathetic towards Ukraine than Hezbollah, I find it difficult to say that e.g. Poland providing rockets to Ukraine which are predictably fired into Russia is okay while Iran providing rockets to Hezbollah which are predictably fired into Israel is a declaration of war on the part of Iran. (Of course, it helps that Ukraine has the ability to pursue their goals through regular military means rather than terror attacks. But there is a continuous spectrum between a soldier attacking legitimate military targets and a terrorist blowing up civilians.)

Israel has meanwhile run a decade-long campaign of slowing Iranian nuclear weapon development through assassination and bombing. As an undeclared nuclear power, Israel is the last country on Earth to have any moral standing for bombing to deny nukes to others.

Or take the assassination of Soleimani in Baghdad, which caused some weak-sauce retaliation against American bases. Sure, you may claim that he had no legitimate business in Iraq, but if instead Iran had killed an IDF general in the West Bank (who likewise would not have legitimate business there) you can bet that Israel would have retaliated as well. Of course, the real retaliation for Soleimani was likely Iran greenlighting the Oct 7 attacks.

Now, it could be that I am genuinely wrong and IRGC forces have habitually launched missiles against Israel, but I recall the Biden years to be rather quiet as far as direct attacks are concerned, presumably because Iran did not want to get into a pissing contest it knew it would lose. All the escalations since Trump took office seem to originate in the US and Israel.

Iran didn’t greenlight October 7, they appear very much to have been surprised by it was the intelligence assessment. Iran was and is much closer to Hezbollah than Hamas, Hamas are Sunni, were on the other side in the Syrian Civil War, etc. It’s more of an enemy of my enemy thing with them.

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Of course, the real retaliation for Soleimani was likely Iran greenlighting the Oct 7 attacks.

So your argument for Israel being the aggressor is that the US and Israel killed the king of terrorists and assassins via assassination? And that this action makes the abduction, rape, torture and murder of over 1000 civilians a legitimate act of warfare and retaliation?

That is certainly a choice.

Any argument that Israel is the aggressor has to deal with 10/7 and the arm of the Iranian military that functionally exists to murder Israeli civilians (the proxies).

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Iran has been launching missiles at Israel,

Has Israel perhaps done something directly prior to these missile attacks?

engaged in near constant terrorism against Israel, and is engaged in a variety of forms of cyberwarfare with the US and Israel.

That's something everyone is engaged in all the time, and it's crazy to act like they're crossing some boundary that warrants a hot war.

Has Israel perhaps done something directly prior to these missile attacks?

Yes yes Iran has always been at war with Israel since the formation of the modern Iranian state, you can always point to some earlier insult in the back and forth. Structurally I think arming, funding, and directing terrorist groups with the primary goal of destroying Israel is a good place to stop with respect to determining initial cause of conflict - but fine, they've always been at war.

hot war

You don't get to decide when someone has enough of you punching them in the face and decides to punch back.

Cyberwarfare, yes. Constant terrorism, no. Iran's proxy Hezbollah has been firing rockets at Israel since October 2023, and never stopped.

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Trump said that a zillion times and the ships didn't move an inch. I'm highly confident that the iranians said something to make them move.

Iran declares Strait of Hormuz completely open to commercial ships during Israel- Lebanon ceasefire, but US naval blockade stays in place

From what I get this basically seems to have been mutual bluff calling and Iran keeps winning it. The Trump admin tried to pull away from ending Israel's war in Lebanon during the ceasefire so Iran just kept the strait closed and Trump finally pulled Bibi in line. Now Trump is saying the blockade will continue so Iran is going "nope, strait still closed then till you lift it" and yep, it still seems to be mostly closed.

If Trump offers sanctions reliefs and ends the US blockade (which I doubt) in exchange for giving up their nuclear program and ceasing support for proxies against Israel, maybe this war could end quickly and we can return to pre-war status quo by the end of the year.

Maybe but Iran giving up their enriched uranium doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon. Even going out to the end of the year, the US obtaining it (any quantity) by any means is still <50%. Weirdly enough agree to surrender is higher at 70% by end of the year but that seems to be because it's agree to surrender (again, any amount), rather than actually surrendering it as it says with "An agreement by Iran to surrender its enriched uranium stockpile as a precondition of a more comprehensive peace process or deal will qualify, even if the agreement is not finalized or part of a formalized peace deal"" so it doesn't have to actually happen. So even something like "10% of uranium for sanctions relief" and then they never give the 10% could count.

Iran is hurt more by the strait being blockade than the U.S. is by it being closed. The question is can Trump home out politically.

Lol, you seem very optimistic (from US perspective) about the amount of hurt Iran can withstand.

Obviously the war so far has hurt Iran far more than the US. It does not matter jackshit. Those who support the the regime mostly believe in their religion, I imagine. The Ayatollah is certainly aware that a continuation of the war will likely cause the deaths of further family members of him.

As a model of Iran, consider Gaza. Both the IRGC and Hamas are militant Shiite extremists. Israel did a lot worse than some economic blockades after the Oct-7 atrocities. They killed Hamas members, turned most of the buildings in Gaza to rubble, starved the population, and so forth. At the moment Hamas seems quiet, but they have very much not gotten rid of it. Even if regime-supporting Iranians are less fatalistic than Hamas, I do not have a good reason to assume that they are less willing to take on hardships than Ukraine.

The idea that the IRGC -- which has just withstood a bombing to the tune of a few dozen billion dollars -- might buckle under a few months of economic hardship seems implausible. "Due to sanctions, I can't buy my kids a new Xbox" is not sufficient argument when you feel your way of life is on the line. Nor will the kids of the IRGC starve.

acoup on the topic. The gist is that locals care a lot more about a war which might destroy their polity than the people in far-away, much stronger nations.

And I do want to stress that. There is a frequent mistake, often from folks who deal in economics, to assume that countries will give up on wars when the economics turn bad. But countries are often very willing to throw good money after bad even on distant wars of choice. For wars close to home that are viewed as existential? Well, the ‘turnip winter‘ where Germans started eating food previous thought fit only for animals (a result of the British blockade) began in 1916. The war did not end in 1916. It did not end in 1917. It did not end until November, 1918. Food deprivation and starvation in Germany was real and significant and painful for years before the country considered surrender. Just because the war is painful for Iran does not mean the regime will cave quickly: so long as they believe the survival of the regime is at stake, they will fight on.

There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.

If the median US voter believed that the survival of their way of life was at stake, I am sure that they could withstand the economic hardships of Hormuz being closed indefinitely. But they have enough of a grasp on reality to know that this is not the case. They were skeptical about the war form the beginning, and will not gladly suffer higher gas prices for some dubious geopolitical goal half a world away.

Both the IRGC and Hamas are militant Shiite extremists.

Hamas is Sunni

I stand corrected. Seems I had them confused with Hezbollah.

lol? Really?

Maybe the IRGC are all true believers or maybe some of them are motivated by pecuniary concerns. You seem very certain of one. I’m less certain.

Nothing Iran has done thus far indicates that they care about making money compared to their Wadiya-like anti-Israel and anti-Western views.

Their claimed conditions for peace before the ceasefire, for some. Reparations from the US, reparations from the Arab countries, the end of sanctions, and right to toll the strait of hormuz were all demands rather indicative of a state that sees money streams as a significant aspect of what they want.

True, but the money is instrumental; they want it because it will help to rebuild their arsenal and finish their nukes.

They can have multiple reasons to want it. Among which is the IRGC's reputation for being corrupt incredibly closely intertwined at all levels of the politically-managed economy, such that each potential new revenue flow is also money for people who like having money and regional patronage networks.

Iran has been under attack or occupation since 1941. Their neighbouring countries of Iraq and Afghanistan were under occupation recently. Iran realizes that they need to inflict a price on countries that attack Iran as that is the best way to prevent future attacks. Iran does not want another war next year and another bombing campaign after that. Instead they are making fighting a war against Iran as costly as possible.

Iran has been under attack or occupation since 1941.

Only for very idiosyncratic definitions of "under attack" and "occupied".

As a model of Iran, consider Gaza. Both the IRGC and Hamas are militant Shiite extremists.

Epistemic status: Twitter, so buyer beware, but it seems that at least one IRGC radio broadcast has been referred to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as an "idiot" and defying his announcement that the strait is opened. I've seen reports that Iranian television (which I do not watch) has criticized him as well.

Aha, well, surely Abbas Araghchi is a moderate? Within the ranks of "Iranian regime officials," maybe, but he was a member of the IRGC during the Iran-Iraq War and participated in the revolution against the Shah. As far as I can tell he's not exactly a secular squish.

Obviously I am very open to the idea that there's some sort of good cop-bad cop routine being enacted here (to say nothing of Twitter just being wrong) but so far there seems to be some directional evidence that the economic sanctions are causing rifts within the ranks of the regime.

Again, I don't blame anyone for a "wait-and-see" approach, I think this is a relatively low-quality information environment so far. But if the Iranians are already fighting over whether or not the "close the strait, make the US feel the pain" strategy is worth keeping up, what does it say about the economic situation of Iran?

How hurt is the Iranian leadership and army though? Being a dictatorship, Iran is a lot less vulnerable to the will of the people. So Trump is gambling that Americans will allow the war to continue despite an increased cost of living, while Iran only needs to worry if the people are dying in the streets.

How hurt is the Iranian leadership and army though? Being a dictatorship, Iran is a lot less vulnerable to the will of the people.

Destroy all powerplants and they will be hurt.

And that's worth all the civilians who will die without access to electricity to you?

That implies that if a nation is reliant on fuel imports, their foe must allow the fuel to continue to flow during a conflict. Hell, taken to an extreme, if a country goes to war with a nation that provides them their electricity, the second country must continue to provide it to their enemy? Sounds... kind of absurd, at least to me.

I don't disagree. Blockades are a longstanding and recognized act of legitimate warfare, if always controversial (re: Turnip Winter). A nation is not obligated to permit the flow of goods into its enemy, although it should keep in mind what cutting off resources like, say, food will actually achieve when compared to the long term consequences of starving a population to death. Most people tend to not appreciate mass civilian death and suffering for little real strategic gain.

But what was being suggested was something entirely different in kind. The complete destruction of all power generation is total war logic against an enemy that has posed an until now unrealized economic threat that was clearly foreseeable and avoidable by not picking this fight in this way, with so little preparation, and managed to saturate US and Israeli air defenses with enough drones and missiles to cause, so far, a few dozen deaths and a bit over 8000 injuries, of varying degrees of severity. Oh, and a nuclear weapons program weeks away from a workable bomb for decades now. An existential threat deserving of existential tactics this is not.

Lack of electricity makes life uncomfortable not impossible. Case in point - Serbia, Ukraine, Majority of the world before 1980.

Iran probably got electrified less than a century ago. For a civilization that proudly claim is 4 millennium old - they made do without electricity for 39 centuries, so I am not worried.

The only thing that will cause millions of deaths will be if they turn the lights off in hospital and water pumping stations. Those objects have backup generators and Iran has diesel.

Now they may have to work the fields with plows, but if they really want medieval theocracy in charge, I see no reason to have access to more advanced than middle age technology.

The pre-electrification comparison doesn't really work. Iran before widespread electricity had somewhere around 20-30 million people, mostly rural and agrarian, and it was a society built around that reality. Modern Iran has 90 million people in a heavily urbanized country whose infrastructure, agriculture, water systems, and supply chains are all built on the assumption of a functioning power grid. The question isn't whether humans can live without electricity in the abstract. It's whether you can remove it suddenly from a modern nation of 90 million without mass death, and the answer is pretty clearly no.

The backup generator argument also assumes an intact fuel supply chain, which in turn requires functional refineries, distribution networks, and so on. If you're actually destroying all power generation infrastructure in a country, those downstream dependencies don't survive either.

Also, why are you advocating for punishing a people who recently were killed in the tens of thousands for protesting their own regime for the actions of that regime? Is getting killed in the streets by the Basij for saying "I don't want this government" a secret signal for preferring a medieval theocracy?

For the same reasons we punished the Serbs for the sins of Milosevic.

More comments

Yes of course. I don't wan't innocent Iranian civilians to die for no reason, but I care about them about as much as I care about ants.

The same way I and most normies don't care about millions of gazans dead either. I have far more important things to worry about, like video games and anime and convincing my waifu to let me buy more power tools and guns.

I don't know, 60% disapproval of Israel's actions would seem to indicate a majority actually do care about dead Gazans, or at least the scale of civilian deaths. But I'm more curious why you think the deaths of other humans are comparable to insects. Is it just proximity? Or is it something about who they are?

Most of the constituent people in the dictatorship want relative stability and less threat of being spontaneously blown up so they can funnel money to their Coachella-bound children. Actual pitched war is very stressful

How hurt is the Iranian leadership and army though

Depends on if they can keep the paychecks going.

And if the paychecks can pay for anything

How are we quantifying harm here? I haven't seen much reason to believe the blockade is that devastating to Iran. I'm also not sure that the US will even stick to a blockade for very long given that we lowered sanctions on Iranian oil because the admin couldn't handle prices going up even more than they already have.

We've also seen with Russia and Cuba that they let ships through because they're afraid of starting things. Will the US shoot down a Chinese ship if it won't shoot down Russian ones?

Polymarket numbers aren't really indicative of anything until that 5 minutes before an official release where all the liquidity is suddenly gooooone. Even if you had solid fairs for this kinda stuff the insane level of adverse selection makes it impractical to trade. The Prediction market thing makes a lot more sense for regularly occurring phenomena like sports betting

Polymarket numbers aren't really indicative of anything until that 5 minutes before an official release where all the liquidity is suddenly gooooone.

More accurate the closer things get is true, but they still seem to be pretty accurate at least a few months yet. I don't know if there's been any analysis of longer term prediction accuracy, but short/mid term seems to be fine. The insider trading makes a lot of personal money, but I'm not sure it's ever been enough to meaningfully change the odds. Maybe something goes from 70% to 90% or whatever.

Like consider how even the 580 million in oil futures traded recently is apparently a small fraction of the trillion+ that gets traded each day. At least this is what I get from double checking with ChatGPT "Total notional trading volume is often in the hundreds of billions of dollars per day In active periods, it can exceed $1 trillion+ daily".

The Prediction market thing makes a lot more sense for regularly occurring phenomena like sports betting

Maybe it's more accurate on those but again, still seems pretty accurate on other things as well. The basic idea at least that people are throwing up their money into a wisdom of the crowds and anyone who thinks they know better can go bet against it holds true does it not?

The Trump admin insider traders do love to wait for the last minute but unless they've got it institutionalized and are taking turns or something, and for some reason Iranian insiders wouldn't do their own insider trading, there should be people who try to come in even earlier and eventually cause a race to the bottom on how early you have to insider trade.

What is becoming clear is that Aragchi is running his own op making calls to foreign officials while having no idea of what’s going on, Ghalibaf is trying to bridge him and the IRGC while keeping his head, and the actual commanders are deciding that the strait is closed and they determine who passes while feeding sometimes contradictory information to the IRIB and occasionally the other competing news agencies who each have their own contacts.

There is no central command and so there can be no negotiation. Nothing in the US position changed overnight but “Iran” decided the strait was open, then closed, then open. What actually happened is that the people negotiating weren’t the people with the guns, and while the IRGC’s aims aligned with a ceasefire since even at reduced firing rates munitions likely got tight around a month in, they’re happy to keep threatening ship traffic. It’s not like the foreign minister is going to stop them.

The straight is closed again

This war isn't ending any time soon. This is going to drag on and on with some limited traffic through. Israel and the US aren't used to having constraints on their behaviour and Iran isn't going to accept the US not sticking to its deals.

For Israel, there's a weaker defeated Iran in the region without means to develop nuclear weapons quickly

Iran has been two weeks from a bomb for 30 years and this hasn't changed as the deep underground bunkers that were annihilated last year according to the Zionists aren't more annihilated now. American troops have been kicked out of Syria and Iraq. The fifth fleet can't sail to its main base in the region and the most loyal American proxy states like UAE and Bahrain are under huge financial strain.

Meanwhile, the straight of Hormuz has become Iran's Suez canal.

Trump can also claim some victory points for his base.

What can he claim more than being Netanyahu's lap dog?

The Strait is not open

And the claims of enriched uranium about to be given up have been rebuffed too.

He is trying to repeat it so much that low information voters will end up thinking some progress was made even though in the end it wasn't. This will be similar to how Americans thought Iraq was related to 9/11. It will be interesting to see the polling on what people think happened to the uranium a year after the war compared to what actually happened.

I gotta say, Im really fucking disappointed in Trump for this. Alienating his base and attacking his own supporters, and then starting a insane war for what seems like no particularly good reason. And to top it all off, the blockade? Why? Seriously?

Its one thing to not like the Iranian government. Fine. But going all out and attacking them in the way he has been doing is really goofy, and is making many on the right utterly regret their vote, and making blue tribe go "I told you so".

The only thing I can hope for is that the public has a short memory and that this all comes under control during midterms. But chances are looking quite slim that that happens....

The blockade is the first good idea that Trump has had the entire war. It accomplishes the same strategic objective as capturing Kharg Island, can be maintained indefinitely, and is low-risk. Makes you wonder what the hell they were thinking for the first six weeks.

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."

Alienating his base and attacking his own supporters, and then starting a insane war for what seems like no particularly good reason.

Comments like this confuse me.

It's not like Trump is some unknown man in a smoky room, he talks all the time. His administration has stated the reasons why. You can believe them or not but they are out there. You can even go beyond the public statements and make some inferences.

If you don't know what the stated reasons are.....try and address that first? It's not hard.

Furthermore it's pretty much impossible to know if the stated reasons are true/accurate or not without access to classified intelligence.

It's entirely possible that 100/100 presidents would have done this. It's entirely possible that 1/100 would have done this.

Anything is possible.

It is possible that aliens have landed in Greenland and any US president would therefore invade in 2026.

It is possible that an oracle has told Trump that America is doomed unless a majority of voters end up believing he is crazy.

It is possible that the Moon has turned into cheese since the last time we checked on it.

For a good Bayesian, anything is possible, but not everything is plausible. We have data how previous US administrations have dealt with Iran, and as you point out, we have Trump's public statements. Perhaps talking about regime change was a 3d chess move and he knew very well that killing the Ayatollah would not destabilize the regime, but had other reasons to do so.

Nor should we fetishize classified intelligence. Classified intelligence rarely changes the big strategic picture. Someone making an effort to follow a war from publicly available sources will generally get the gist of what is going on. Sure, once a century she might be completely blindsided by the US nuking Hiroshima, but most of the time the ministers and generals will have an information advantage of just a few weeks. Intelligence seems more useful in a tactical frame "we can kill the Ayatollah on that date" than on an strategic scale. If the US had military intelligence so great that they could avoid blunders, GWB would have invaded neither Iraq or Afghanistan.

Furthermore, your hypothetical big intelligence revelation would have to be something which involves Iran (so the Iranians likely know) and also known to the US (otherwise they could not have acted on it). It seems unlikely that it would be in the interest of neither party to tell the world about it. As a counterexample, when NATO intelligence had reason to believe that Putin would attack Ukraine, they made their concerns public.

Personally, I think that Trump's behavior can be adequately explained by his personality traits. We all remember the tweets how he predicted that Obama would attack Iran to boost his popularity. Of course, Obama did no such thing, but this is adequately explained by Obama in 2015 having at least 20 IQ points on Trump in 2026 (plus a staff of technocrats instead of brown-nosers) and thus knowing that would turn into a fiasco.

If the US had military intelligence so great that they could avoid blunders, GWB would have invaded neither Iraq or Afghanistan.

This ignores (at least in the case of Afghanistan) the necessity of invasion.

Which is likely what happened here. To me it seems likely if not obvious that some of the governmental claims are correct in a way that makes invasion necessary and appropriate.

Many people disagree. That's fine.

What bothers me is the posters who don't seem to have any idea what the claims and circumstances are, either out of genuine ignorance or for need of rhetorical flourish. This is the first time in years I've felt mainstream media reporting is more reliable and informative than this forum and it's gross.

This ignores (at least in the case of Afghanistan) the necessity of invasion.

From the perspective of US internal politics, one might argue that there was indeed a necessity. The voters were howling for blood after 9/11, and any leader who would not have given them some war would likely not have survived politically. But even then, the 20 years of occupation while trying to build a nation was clearly a wasted effort.

Spending untold billions to get a terrorist who really annoyed you is something which some people might think is worth establishing as a precedent, but I would hardly call it necessary. Other countries had to suffer evil men who committed mass murder against their population enjoy their freedom, and yet they survived.

For Saddam, the case was even more flimsy. Sure, he was an evil piece of shit, but so are a lot of strongmen in the region. Presumably, he had learned his lesson about attacking US allies after the first Gulf war. He certainly did not cook chemical weapons, as W claimed. His removal directly lead to the surge of daesh, which likely was much worse for human rights than Saddam.

Spending untold billions to get a terrorist who really annoyed you is something which some people might think is worth establishing as a precedent, but I would hardly call it necessary.

Bin Laden's attempts to harm Americans overseas were "annoying". His attempt to harm America on 9/11 and get its attention was simply "successful". He made it clear that he had no intention of just being another annoying nemesis nestled in the Outer Rim.

Other countries had to suffer evil men who committed mass murder against their population enjoy their freedom, and yet they survived.

Something can be necessary and not an existential matter. Nations that have the wherewithal and are expected to respond to aggression globally can only be so circumspect.

Packing up and leaving other inconvenient battles may have been what emboldened Bin Laden in the first place.

My take is a different one. 3k people killed in 9/11 is bad, sure, but his real success was to drag the US into a war in Afghanistan. Not only did the Taliban kill another 3k US and allied troops during 'Enduring Freedom', they spent more than 150 billion dollars on it. (I consider W's Iraq trip an unrelated misadventure.)

Unless my math is wrong, that comes to 50 million dollars per 9/11 victim. This is simply not cost-effective when the marginal price of a QALY in US healthcare is on the order of 100k$.

Nor was Bin Laden a comic book super-villain who was much better at hurting the US than the next in line was. Nor are jihadists motivated by fear of retaliation, Bin Laden himself was (I think) a minor Saudi noble who could have happily lived without having to work a single day in his life, but instead spent it hiding in caves doing Jihad. I very much assume that if he had known that he would eventually get gunned down by US special forces, he would not have done anything different.

My take is a different one. 3k people killed in 9/11 is bad, sure, but his real success was to drag the US into a war in Afghanistan. Not only did the Taliban kill another 3k US and allied troops during 'Enduring Freedom', they spent more than 150 billion dollars on it.

At the risk of sounding callous, this was totally survivable.

If all Osama Bin Laden had to show for his actions is a displaced (temporarily or otherwise) Taliban and a bullet in his face it wouldn't have gone down as badly. It might even have been accepted as the cost of having an empire.

The damage domestically was due to the neocons deciding to overdraw on the opportunity he gave them in Iraq by lying.

This is simply not cost-effective when the marginal price of a QALY in US healthcare is on the order of 100k$.

I'd take this seriously if it was a response to a hurricane. Given human adversaries who can respond to your math I think it's not a good idea to tell shoplifters so long as they stay under $X they're good.

It might be more expensive and "pointless" in a sensible world but you're just going to have to ruin some lives here.

Nor are jihadists motivated by fear of retaliation, Bin Laden himself was (I think) a minor Saudi noble who could have happily lived without having to work a single day in his life, but instead spent it hiding in caves doing Jihad.

They may, however, be motivated by weakness. Osama saw the US pull out of Somalia in one of its fits of humanitarianism over a relatively small human cost. This is not the sort of message you want to send to a person like that and the organization he leads.

What bothers me is the posters who don't seem to have any idea what the claims and circumstances are, either out of genuine ignorance or for need of rhetorical flourish. This is the first time in years I've felt mainstream media reporting is more reliable and informative than this forum and it's gross.

'I can't understand the reason for -position X-' is a bit of a peeve of mine when used as a rhetorical tool as opposed to confession of ignorance. If someone wants to understand, by all means, and if an explainer can't be clear that issue is on them. But when people who do understand and simply don't agree with underlying premise use it with the connotations of 'and if I don't understand it it's not reasonable,' it's just a form of consensus building via a implied reasonable person standard that smuggles in the person's standards in lieu of actually engaging other positions.

It's particularly recognizable when someone repeats the premise on the same topic. There's only so many times people can profess to having never heard a respectable counterargument until it's clear the lack of respect is on their end, not the interlocuters.

In all honesty I'm not sure if this criticism is being aimed at me or pro-Iran posters who are confusing me.

If it's aimed at me - it does seem that seem people are formally anti-intervention (which makes sense) or anti-jew (which makes no sense to me but it is hate and hate doesn't always make sense), some of the other posters I cannot establish a theory of mind for, like the people who are mad at the US for being authoritarian and want to support Iran in response (or move to China as a hegemon).

In all honesty I'm not sure if this criticism is being aimed at me or pro-Iran posters who are confusing me.

Neither. It's just a pet peeve I've wanted to express for some time now, but rarely had a chance to express without it being unprompted or an implicit accusation of bad faith (which this was not meant to be against you).

If someone wants to be pro-Iranian, that's a completely different thing. And the Trump administration did itself no favors for not presenting its own case to the public for a 'why,' which I am on records as believing is a perfectly valid/legitimate expectation to ahve. As I said before, if the explainer does a bad job explaining their position, the problem is on the presenter, not the recipient of a bad presentation. I'll also maintain that 'understand' and 'agree' are different issues- you can understand / reasonably characterize someone's position without agreeing or conceding to it. Both confusion and opposition to the war are perfectly reasonable, even if there are unreasonable reasons smuggled in / not being challenged.

The particular rhetorical flourish you describe, which I eventually attribute to bad faith if it goes on after reasonable explanations, just brings out a waspish part of me. After a point, I'm less inclined to go along with faux incredulity which frames the bad faith individual as the one to set the standard of reasonableness, and instead counter it with faux credulity of their claim. If they want to claim inability to understand what's been given to them, ask what how they intend to overcome their self-professed limitations.

Which is not in line with the ethos of this forum, but it is the inclination, and thus the pet peeve.

The blockade is cutting off an extremely important source of revenue and may be causing cracks within the Iranian government, with the foreign minister saying Iran's blockade is lifted and the IRGC issuing a contradictory statement a few hours later.

Whenever the Trump administration pulls stunts like this, it's often claimed to be incompetence of the worst sort, but in keeping with my general tendency to try to analyze actors as rational, let me steelman their actions: it seems possible to me that Iran is doing a good-cop bad-cop routine and/or decided to close the strait again once they realized the US intended to maintain the blockade.

Nevertheless the possibility that Iran's different factions are making different calls could indicate that the government is fracturing internally, which on balance is likely good news for the US (if that is what is happening). Either the IRGC purges the moderates, which would generate a more hardline Iran (bad news for the US) but would likely also weaken the IRGC's legitimacy and narrow the power base of the Iranian government (good news for the US) or the IRGC gets purged by moderates (great news for basically everyone) or Iran continues to issue contradictory statements and shoot at friendly (or at least neutral) shipping, which will begin to turn previously neutral third parties against Iran and make them look like the mad dogs the US government is portraying them as.

Obviously there are certain downsides to the blockade, and it's not over until it's over. But on balance I am much happier with the blockade than I am the proposed "bridge and power plant day," for humanitarian reasons if for nothing else.

As someone who thinks the war is unwise and that the Trump administration seems incapable of competently executing its policies, the blockade makes sense. When Iran closes the Strait, it still lets it own oil out and thus has a strong financial lifeline. The US needs to prevent in order to create leverage, especially because a peace in which Iran tolls the Strait is clearly a massive loss for the US. Even if one cedes, or believes, as I do, that the war was a bad mistake by Trump, the blockade was the only move left.

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