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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.
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.
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.
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.
Hamas is Sunni
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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.
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.
Only for very idiosyncratic definitions of "under attack" and "occupied".
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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?
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