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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   27230 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026

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What does the anti-war side in the US want in the Iran conflict? I'm woefully ignorant on this point of view, so I'm wondering if I can get some steelmans here.

The special military operation has not necessarily turned in the US's favor. And I understand why a majority of people were against getting into this absolute mess in the first place. But now that this mess has happened, it doesn't seem so easy to just pack up and go home. Assuming that the US passed a war powers vote, or otherwise just decided just to drop everything and go home, what next? It's a total capitulation, and to me it seems braindead obvious that Iran isn't going to stop harassing and extorting nearby shipping. I mean, what have they got to lose, meanwhile the more they extort the more money they get. So it seems like the only way that the shipment of oil can return to a normal state is if Iran is backed into a corner and is forced to stop what they are doing.

So I don't really understand the point of view of the anti-war side, such as the Democrat establishment

Schumer said Democrats will continue to force war powers votes "every week until Republicans see reason and help us end this war." He claimed "they would be doing Donald Trump a favor."

"Every day this disastrous war continues, Donald Trump digs himself deeper and deeper and deeper into a hole," he said.

If their vote actually succeeded wouldn't this be pretty much the worst possible outcome? Iran commits piracy and extortion and the rest of the word twiddles their thumbs and just lets Iran do it? I can see a few hypotheses, but none of them seem to be a principled anti-war stance:

  1. The politicians are actually pro-war, but are taking these votes as a performative way to #resist trump, but if they actually had a remote chance of passing then suddenly they would stop happening.
  2. They worst possible outcome is good, because wrecking the world economy is an even bigger way to dunk on trump
  3. They believe that if the US just packed up and went home, Iran would forget this ever happened and join the side of world peace.
  4. They have no idea how to do better, but just that they believe a way to do better exists.

I'm sure I'm missing something here. What are the strongest ideas that make the anti-war side's case in terms of what should be done about the situation?

My outsider perspective is that the Democratic party considers its outgroup to consist of Israel and Republicans, and therefore supports an Iranian victory against that outgroup.

From the perspective of someone like Schumer, who is maybe a small z zionist, the assertion made here:

and to me it seems braindead obvious that Iran isn't going to stop harassing and extorting nearby shipping

is irrelevant. The assumption is not that Iran will for no reason harass and extort nearby shipping. Because that's not what they were doing before. There was always a catalyst: Hostile Israeli action under the leadership of Netanyahu.

The democrat anti-war position is a mix of internal Israel politics, where Netanyahu is seen as a corrupt moron that is turning the world against Israel, and internal US politics, where Donald Trump is seen like a corrupt moron that is turning the world against America. I don't think one can argue that this position is wrong at this point.

What should be done? I mean, what needs to be done? These problems are caused by US and Israeli action under Trump and Netanyahu and are demonstrably inferior to prior state of affairs. They need to stop.

I think a question the pro-war side needs to answer is: what are we losing? Sure, it's extremely embarrassing for anyone who put their stamp on approval on this war to fail your objective of meaningfully weakening the enemy so spectacularly that you are forced to strengthen him instead. But if you're an American voter with no particular interest in bombing Iran, what's the loss?

Such resolutions are the intended mechanism for Congress to maintain its Article I power over declarations of war. I don’t think one needs a principled reason to say “yes, let’s follow the rules set up 50 years ago for this exact situation.” But I suppose I can hit a few of the other options.

There are more important things than returning oil shipments to a normal state.

For example: killing civilians. Or, on the more prosaic side, avoidance of Middle Eastern entanglements. If a stance doesn’t actually incur any costs, it’s not really principled, is it?

It will sort itself without our involvement.

Other nations have an interest in stopping Iranian extortion. We can let them apply pressure instead. Maybe the geopolitical consequences of backing off on freedom of navigation are somewhere between neutral and positive.

Alternately, we’ve already screwed the pooch, and letting others handle negotiations is the best path to peace.

We have to restore credibility.

You do one surprise attack, and suddenly people don’t trust your assurances of ceasefire. Making further action illegal is one way to show that you’re serious about stopping.

Somebody has to pay.

We did something wrong, so we should own up to it and accept the penalties. It’s only just.

Of course, one subset of this position replaces “we” with “President Trump.” It’s not a very principled stance if it’s just an extension of existing grievances. That said, there’s also a game-theoretic formulation. Taking the hit here shows our sincerity for subsequent dilemmas. Actions have consequences, and letting others know that we take those seriously is part of cooperation.

When you find yourself in a hole, the first step is to stop digging.

Come on, this one is self-explanatory.

If spending blood and treasure doesn’t actually get us closer to our goal, maybe we…shouldn’t do that? And we definitely shouldn’t double down, just one more occupation, just a few boots on the ground. Even if the situation sucks, we can stop making it worse.

Some arguments in favor of the US either ending the war or losing the war are the following:

  1. The war encourages the "imperial Presidency", a dangerous concentration of power in the top of the executive branch. This may have negative effects on checks and balances in the US. Which is not to say that the imperial Presidency is anything new in US history, of course. Trump's version is just the latest in a long line of them. Nonetheless, Trump's extremely broad ability to make sweeping foreign policy decisions feeds into a "populist strongman" image that is appealing to many people but may be bad for the country in the long run. For example, victory in the war could encourage Presidents in general to seek the optics of easy foreign policy wins in order to make up for domestic policies that do not actually do much for the average American.

  2. The war encourages the growth of an unhealthy fusion between American, Israeli, and Gulf Arab elites, a fusion that I think likely involves shady corruption and motives of personal enrichment and might even include intelligence agencies working together to bypass their theoretical legal restraints. Israel at least is a democracy. The close cooperation with the Gulf Arab elites is of course not new, but Trump's policy is likely to bring them even closer to the US-Israel fold than they were already, and since Trump probably doesn't really care much about democracy, he is unlikely to pressure them to reform their political systems. It is geopolitically understandable why during the Cold War the US supported any brutal dictator it could find who was willing to fight communists, although this policy partly led to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths - however, such close ties between the US and authoritarian governments are, to say the least, unlikely to help the political health of the US.

  3. The US seems to lack the political will to do whatever it takes to overthrow Iran's government, something that might in fact require a ground invasion. As a result, continuation of the war causes the Iranian people to suffer without actually giving them a better government. This also affects future US foreign policy: in the future, people who are being encouraged by the US to rise up against their governments may have second thoughts based on what is currently happening in Iran.

  4. It is possible that the overwhelming military success in the war could cause US foreign policy decision makers to become overconfident in confrontations with China, which could potentially increase the chance of a mutually devastating war between the two countries.

  5. The unilateral and gangster-esque way in which the US and Israel have been conducting their various military operations (kidnapping, surprise assassinations, threats to send another country into the Stone Age, etc.) allows the two countries to achieve short-term wins but at a high reputational cost. Given how Iran acts, I'm certainly not going to argue that such conduct is one-sided. I'm pretty sure that the Iranians would like to assassinate Netanyahu and Trump and bomb US and Israeli civilian infrastructure on a large scale the second they could do so, it's just that they don't have the capability to do it. And Israel's massive military response to 10/7 is understandable. However, people expect ruthless conduct from Iran, whereas the US has spent decades attempting, often successfully, to depict itself as the champion and linchpin of a "rules-based international order". So such conduct from the US deflates American soft power to some extent and complicates relationships with normally friendly countries, for example in Europe. It also reduces the US' ability to make moral arguments against, for example, Russian foreign policy. If history is any guide, it is also likely that long-enough continuation of such unrestrained power flexing will encourage the growth of counterbalancing anti-US blocks.

I was writing up my own post, but this is basically a more articulate version of what I was going to say. The one thing I would add is that continuing the war against Iran degrades morale and readiness in the US military against dramatically more important threats (specifically, the China-Taiwan issue).

degrades ... readiness

This is true in the short term with stockpiles and deferred maintenance, but long term (12+ months, at least) is less clear if investments are made in production rates and improved tactics and technology. For sufficiently large conflicts, day zero stockpiles are less a deciding factor than production and distribution rates.

My impression is that morale is sky-high. Military folk love to play with their toys and they're getting to play with essentially zero risk right now. The US Navy is doing all sorts of things it hasn't had the change to do since WWII, like sinking ships with submarines and launching broadside attacks with cannons. As much as I disapprove morally, these are legitimately fun things to do.

btw, where do you get military morale or keep an ear on the ground? I don't quite trust the various military subreddits.

These are very well thought out, thanks for sharing.

Thank you.

What does the anti-war side in the US want in the Iran conflict?

A Domestic policy focus, the continued removal of the woke cancer from American institutions, a weakening of the war hawks and the globohomos, a reduction in executive fiat and the abrogation of congressional powers and at this point a complete divestment from the sandbox from hell.

The War Hawks keep seem to be either missing the message in regards to the average citizen’s desire for empire building in 3rd world shitboxes, or more realistically they understand if they get us into a quagmire then with no good options to extricate ourselves without humiliation they can get their way. They keep hitting the defect button, at this point we might as well make the cost for doing so, ugly otherwise they will never get the message.

Hmm this actually makes alot of sense. Getting the worst possible outcome sends a message of "wars suck" while salvaging a decent outcome only emboldens the people in charge to start more.

Yeah... it sucks that its going to have to be such a costly lesson but idk how else to get them the message at this point. I assume their careers and self interest are super aligned with foreign adventures so to stop this kind of behavior will require a steep cost to them personally and their careers, to act as a warning for the next gen of war hawks.

I also want Congress to rein in some of their powers. I'm tied of "special operations" that take a whole carrier battle group over months. If you are doing large scale operations, you are at war.

They keep hitting the defect button, at this point we might as well make the cost for doing so, ugly

That was the entire point of getting Trump in, as far as I understood it. There comes a point where one starts doubting the point of democracy itself...

Maybe a rich, vain real estate mogul wasn’t actually the best man to “drain the swamp.”

If you can't have Vetinary, bull in china shop works just fine.

Depending on what you mean by "swamp", that was not even the point. He could engage in all the corruption he wanted to, for all I care, as long as he broke from the current foreign policy establishment.

Also, if he wasn't the best, who do you think was better? I'm a pretty cynical bloke, and my sympathy for Trump didn't even come from his promises, but from the kinds of people who hated him, and the crying bluehairs weren't half as important here as the crying Bill Kristols. Did Kamala even promise to do less foreign wars than Trump?

If the straightforward read on politics is a road to disappointment, and so is the cynical read, what is there left?

We missed our chance to elect Ron Paul.

Deep in my heart of hearts, I'm a 2008 Paultard.

Oh yeah, I was there too. Somehow all the never-Trumpers didn't like him either.

I'd never call myself a "never"-Trumper, because any reading of history will tell you that things can get much worse than him, but if I lived in a swing state I'd probably have held my nose and voted for the other shameless crook in 2016, the other mentally declining old man in 2020, and the other dishonest auto-coup fan in 2024. Maybe that's close enough, practically, even if I'm still not certain that any of those votes would really have been the lesser evil?

I still loved Ron Paul. If we'd made him Emperor he could have been a sufficiently radical (reactionary?) libertarian to throw the country into anarchy, but as a mere President I bet he'd have been great. Remember back when we had the chance to work on fixing a federal debt that was "only" ten trillion dollars? Good times.

I'm a pretty cynical bloke, and my sympathy for Trump didn't even come from his promises, but from the kinds of people who hated him,

Pretty much my stance when I voted. Trumps not really my "hated-outgroup" even if I'm not a fan. but the kind of people who hated him are. And I think he's a vindictive bully who would attack my hated-outgroup, dismantle their hold over American institutions. Until Iran it was kinda looking that way., now... idk. But I am not happy.

What are the strongest ideas that make the anti-war side's case in terms of what should be done about the situation?

The geopolitical realist position held by Mearsheimer and Pape is that Trump set America down the path to defeat the moment he chose to start a war with Iran. There is no "positive outcome" available, just bad and worse outcomes. Cutting a deal with Iran or leaving them in control of the strait is bad, fighting an inconclusive war for months if not years that leaves all of the Middle East.

LBJ refused to accept a small embarrassment in Vietnam and in escalating he turned it into generational disaster. Had he taken the L at the beginning America would have been immeasurably better off.

I'm pretty sure #1 is the model you should assume. If it so happened that the Democrats were in a position to stop the war, and that they were to still take these votes then they'd have some dastardly blue dog democrats in purple states "betray" them. That's their main duty to their party. The party can maintain the virtue signaling while achieving the result the politicians want, the blue dog Democrats find their position in their purple state strengthened by their appearing "bipartisan".

The special military operation has not necessarily turned in the US's favor.

Shakes starts gesticulating wildly

Donald Trump is successfully reordering the entire planet around a new model of American interests. This will be so obvious in due time that I expect it will be totally unremarkable, we will all move on to debating woke lasik for dolphins, or something. Especially now that the novelty has worn off and gas has stabilized at a buck higher than it was before and nothing much else has happened, it becomes harder to construct a reality where Iran is winning.

Basically everything happening now is within the risk tolerances predicted by American military strategists, and America is on the cusp of a very important peace.

Democrats are against this of course but it’s not even necessarily for a grand particular reason. They’re against Trump and it’s rational for them to oppose anything that increases his power and prestige. But I wouldn’t then drill that down further into a debate about whether they have a genuinely good reason to oppose the war or are anti-American as such in some way etc. It’s more the case that they have no power to do anything to stop Trump, after ten years of failed theories about how to stop Trump, and they are rather coasting toward the midterms and hoping by opposing Trump on this issue they can pick up another part of a coalition to acquire a House majority.

In a strange way the anti-war side is primarily the right wing. It’s on the right that these debates are happening most loudly and openly. It’s the people who feel betrayed by Trump who are the most visible faces and names. In this respect I guess opposition comes down to two main factions: people who oppose most war in general and people who oppose this war in particular (probably because of Israel).

Care to enlighten me how this will turn out in USA favor? I am pro trump, but it is hard to believe he is playing 4d chess, and he is too much of a coward to finish what needs to be done with the needed ruthlessness.

Before Trump went to war with Iran he secured Venezuela for their oil.

In the middle of the war he secured an alliance with Indonesia. America now controls Panama, Malacca, and Taiwan and is in the process of controlling Hormuz. The world’s great supply chain chokepoints.

These are not isolated events but obviously part of a greater vision. Tariffs and manufacturing and industrial policy are all related. Im not even interpolating any meaning, this is all contained within November’s National Security Strategy published by the White House.

The Middle East is now coming into a framework governed by the Abraham Accords, where Israel is no longer a pariah state and major players abandon funding terrorism for a stable security framework. Iran is the only power that has not essentially signed on to this deal. It is being reduced so that it will either eventually accept the new terms of the Middle East, or be functionally unable to oppose them anyways.

This is all more or less contained in specific military goals such as destroying Iran’s nuclear capacity and their ability to fund terrorist militias. Which the US is now accomplishing.

The theory that this is not progressing in America’s favor relies, on this point, solely on Iran’s threats over the straits. Which America is now blockading. The price of oil has stabilized and instead of totally escalating over Iran Trump is choosing to negotiate to see if they will accept terms. The might not, but clearly the theory that America is losing and will cut its losses is falsified already by the fact that America hasn’t surrendered yet. (Maybe the terms the Iranians imposed are so overwhelmingly embarrassing that even Trump can’t surrender to them. Hard to imagine how American military planners weren’t aware that Iran would try to close the straits when this was the central fact of American war planning with Iran for 50 years. But I’m sure we can invent some explanation about how Donald Trump has no plan or vision despite all evidence to the contrary.)

America is reshaping the world on its terms and Iran is a minor conflict in that bigger picture. We have basically triumphed over Iran militarily already, and the only question left is how to manage their surrender.

In the middle of the war he secured an alliance with Indonesia. America now controls Panama, Malacca, and Taiwan and is in the process of controlling Hormuz. The world’s great supply chain chokepoints.

Oh, in the middle of the war. Way to undermine your "smart geopolitically sophisticated Trump voter" posture.

First, this is not an "alliance" but a defense agreement. Read the terms. Indonesia gains a capability boost. You get… what? For example, you don't get an overflight permit:

RRI.CO.ID, Jakarta - Indonesian Ministry of Defense confirmed that U.S. aircraft overflight permits are not part of the newly signed Major Defense Cooperation Partnership (MDCP) between Indonesia and the United States. Officials stressed that sovereignty remains the government’s priority.

The Ministry's Defense Information Bureau Head Brig. Gen. Rico Ricardo Sirait said that the agreement does not include provisions for U.S. aircraft to fly over Indonesian airspace. “The MDCP does not cover overflight clearances,” he said on Tuesday, April 14, 2026, as quoted by Antara.

Rico emphasized that any future decision on airspace access will be guided by sovereignty, national interests, and compliance with Indonesian and international law. “All cooperation must deliver tangible benefits for Indonesia without compromising sovereignty or independent foreign policy,” he said.

He added that the MDCP offers opportunities to strengthen Indonesia’s defense capacity, improve weapon systems, and enhance military education and training, while reinforcing long-standing defense ties with the U.S.

Second, such things are not done in a rush. The negotiations have started October 31 2025 at the latest. Moreover, it's a relatively routine continuation of partnerships between the US and Indonesia, following such deals as the 2010 Defense Framework Arrangement, 2015 Joint Statement on Comprehensive Defense Cooperation, and Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of 2023. A bit earlier in October 2025, Jakarta has claimed they'll be buying Chinese jets. They're friendly to the US, but rather opportunistic fair-weather friends and have deals with a large array of countries. For example:

Russian Navy vessels arrive in Indonesia for rare bilateral drills By Ridzwan Rahmat | 01 April 2026

In a statement on 31 March, the Indonesian Navy described the visit as a symbol of growing defence ties between the two militaries.
“The presence of three Russian Federation warships in Jakarta is not merely a port call, but a strong symbol of bilateral relations,” Rear Admiral Uki Prasetia, Commander of the Indonesian Navy's Third Naval Area Command, said.
“We hope that synergies between the Indonesian Navy and the Russian Federation Navy will continue to deepen and also serve as a platform for positive cultural exchange,” he added.
All vessels in the delegation are operated by Russia's Pacific Fleet and are scheduled for a series of bilateral engagements including subject matter expert lectures, mutual ship visits, and naval drills.

Indeed:

The deeper meaning of the visit lies in Indonesia’s continuing effort to practise multi-vector defence diplomacy, engaging different major powers across the maritime domain without binding itself into an exclusive security architecture.
That approach is particularly important for a state sitting astride critical sea lanes, because Indonesia’s geography makes naval neutrality, maritime access management, and diversified security relationships central to its broader national resilience. By receiving Russian naval units while maintaining other defence relationships across the region and beyond, Jakarta reinforces the message that its foreign and defence policies remain sovereign, transactional, and rooted in national rather than bloc priorities.

Third, under Trump Indonesia has become even more pro-China than it was. In The State of Southeast Asia Survey Report, there's an annual question "If ASEAN were forced to align itself with one of the strategic rivals, which should it choose?". A year ago, 72.2% of surveyed Indonesians answered "China" (this was done right before the Liberation Day tariffs, where ASEAN in general and Indonesia in particular got fucked hard, and had to do a demeaning deal). Now it's 80.1%*. Malaysia slipped from 70.8% to 68.0%, though – good job there. Meanwhile Singapore, the only one which was more pro-US, has completely flipped, from 47.1% to 66.3% (what the hell, honestly). Those are the three states controlling the Strait of Malacca. (Overall ASEAN has gone to 52% in favor of China). Do you really think you're getting them on board with some blockade? When China is their economic lifeline, the natural regional hegemon and the 800 pound gorilla, and you've got a stable genius in control?

*correction, it was 80.1% before the beginning of the war with Iran, horrific fuel shortages throughout ASEAN, rapid depletion of US arsenal and the removal of THAAD from Korea (which, to remind you, had paid dearly for accepting said THAAD despite Chinese protests). I really wonder what ISEAS'2027 survey will be like! I predict 60% overall for ASEAN, and above 75% in the Strait.

This was just a little illustration of how much context there can be for every triumphalist Patriotic headline.

You have to realize that you're living in a MAGA information bubble where things get reported selectively and strategically, to construct a narrative. Things are even made happen to the same end. Trump urgently needs a Win to bolster morale of the Patriots, so he reaches into a cache of prefab "wins" and – aha, MDCP! – takes out one to present you as part of a 4D chess plan. It's not substantially different from his Truth Social posts where he says that the Strait is open or in the process of being opened three times a week. Trump himself is a victim of the same bubble, so he gets excited like a baby by videos of big explosions until it's clear even to him that the war is becoming a quagmire. You're expertly cheerleading for a pro wrestler who's deluded himself into thinking he really is a martial artist.

The might not, but clearly the theory that America is losing and will cut its losses is falsified already by the fact that America hasn’t surrendered yet.

The problem with surrendering to Iranian terms – or indeed, just ignoring Iran and leaving – is that this discredits the entire American Empire project, it is an admission of weakness following foolishness. You've already discredited the Empire a great deal with extracting THAAD missiles from Korea and freezing paid-for supplies to Europe, that's an unfalsifiable demonstration that you cannot currently sustain a high-intensity war against a peer adversary. But there's the cope that if Iran is vanquished or forced to accept some tolerable terms (which allow the US or Israel to repeat the aggression after replenishing the stockpiles, that is), the US will salvage its global standing. It's false, but just giving up will, of course, genuinely be worse. The longer this goes, the greater is the cost of cutting losses, and the greater the incentive to "see it through to the end". So you're simply stuck. It's not an enviable position to have.

Hard to imagine how American military planners weren’t aware that Iran would try to close the straits when this was the central fact of American war planning with Iran for 50 years.

Certainly, this was known, which is why everyone with half a brain in the admin told Trump that the war is a bad idea and Israelis are full of shit. However:

After a persuasive February briefing from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Situation Room, and repeated conversations with a group of outside allies that included Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), he said he trusted the military to pull it off. Look, he said to advisers, at how quickly they had “won” in Venezuela, where the U.S. had, in a matter of hours, captured its president and ended with his more compliant deputy in his place. ---

Trump has since marveled at the ease with which the strait was closed. A guy with a drone can shut it down, Trump has said to people, expressing belated irritation that the key waterway was so vulnerable. He has publicly oscillated between demanding support from allies to help open it and insisting that the U.S. doesn’t need or want military assistance.

Trump is not the avatar of the great machinery of the United States Government. Remember: he's the guy you elected to drain the swamp.

P.S. It's unclear if you control Panama either.

P.P.S. Regarding the control of Taiwan, KMT is likely to win. Kuomintang Chair Cheng Li-wun has just met with Xi in Beijing, delivering a very interesting speech:

Today, after a lapse of ten years, leaders of our two parties are once again able to come together under the same roof for exchanges. …… The 15th Five-Year Plan has just begun, and it will surely take development to a new level. It is something well worth looking forward to. Although people on the two sides of the Strait live under different systems, we shall respect one another and also move toward one another. I believe that peace is a shared moral principle and shared value across the Strait. Both sides should rise above political confrontation and work together to think through and build a win-win and prosperous cross-Strait “community of shared future”, while seeking an institutional solution to prevent and avert war, so that the Taiwan Strait may become a model for the peaceful resolution of conflict in the world. …… Today I came to the Mainland at the invitation of General Secretary Xi as the representative of the Kuomintang. So, in my capacity as Chair of the Kuomintang, I naturally also hope that, following another rotation of parties in government in the future, I may be able to invite General Secretary Xi to visit Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu.

Make of that what you will.

Trump himself is a victim of the same bubble, so he gets excited like a baby by videos of big explosions

Such a good article

Certainly, this was known, which is why everyone with half a brain in the admin told Trump that the war is a bad idea and Israelis are full of shit.

If I was paying couple of trillion yearly, this is the point I will start firing and demoting people. The US not having the capacity of preventing the strait from being closed is inexcusable.

The US military is theoretically supposed to do everything everywhere. Fight terrorists around the world, man bases, do exercises with allies around the world, deter China, deter Russia, fight a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine... and also handle Iran. Doing all of that successfully costs way more than a trillion a year. This year the US has been bombing Somalia, Nigeria, Syria, Iraq, Venezuela, Iran and Yemen. The US can't do all of these tasks properly.

It's perfectly reasonable that they just don't have the strength to stop Iran blocking the straits. Iran only has to do a couple of things with their military, in one place. They've prepared for decades for this campaign, created fortifications just to do this. They're focused where America is dispersed.

And that's why the war shouldn't have been started, the US clearly had no plans to go in and secure the straits of Hormuz because of just how hard that is. It's an innately challenging mission. The Iranians aren't pushovers like the Gulf Arabs. They produce roughly as many engineering graduates each year as America does. This is not a shithole country.

On the other hand, in Ukraine War + 4 the US really should have better anti-drone capabilities.

Oh, Trump has fired plenty of competent people and replaced them with the likes of Kash Patel. But that doesn't much help against asymmetric harassment of commercial ships, which makes passage unsafe. This kind of finegrained large area policing without boots of the ground is a whole dimension of capability the US hasn't been building, because it's a somewhat absurd capability which would not be of help against any realistic threat to the US.

The US has largely lost its capability for WWII-level minesweeping too. On the other hand, the US has proven to be excellent at killing enemy leadership. A shame that this power also doesn't stop an IRGC dude in the general vicinity of the Strait from launching a drone from some foxhole here and there, and is the reason he's doing this in the first place.

Way to undermine your "smart geopolitically sophisticated Trump voter" posture.

Not a very good way to open a post by the way, I’m not really interested in the rest of what you have to say, it’s like that Joker quip in the Dark Knight you’re not supposed to start with the head otherwise the victim can’t feel the torture from the neck down.

Moreover, it's a relatively routine continuation of partnerships between the US and Indonesia

Well I’ve been assured that Donald Trump is uniquely destructive to American prestige and other countries can no longer treat negotiations with America as routine. Guess we agree?

A year ago, 72.2% of surveyed Indonesians answered "China" (this was done right before the Liberation Day tariffs, where ASEAN in general and Indonesia in particular got fucked hard, and had to do a demeaning deal). Now it's 80.1%*

A minute ago you were mocking my pretensions to understand anything about geopolitics and now you’re arguing about the implications of an Indonesian poll.

You have to realize that you're living in a MAGA information bubble where things get reported selectively and strategically

You really don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Trust me when I say the vast majority of MAGAworld I interface with is extremely skeptical of the war and there is no MAGAworld info bubble one-party state. (I wish there were!)

The problem with surrendering to Iranian terms – or indeed, just ignoring Iran and leaving – is that this discredits the entire American Empire project, it is an admission of weakness following foolishness. You've already discredited the Empire a great deal with extracting THAAD missiles from Korea and freezing paid-for supplies to Europe, that's an unfalsifiable demonstration that you cannot currently sustain a high-intensity war against a peer adversary. But there's the cope that if Iran is vanquished or forced to accept some tolerable terms (which allow the US or Israel to repeat the aggression after replenishing the stockpiles, that is), the US will salvage its global standing. It's false, but just giving up will, of course, genuinely be worse. The longer this goes, the greater is the cost of cutting losses, and the greater the incentive to "see it through to the end". So you're simply stuck. It's not an enviable position to have.

I think this is delusional. Nobody serious is prognosticating American collapse over bean-counting questions like moving a few THAAD missile systems. Frankly you can’t even count the beans because everything is classified and obfuscated by the fog of war. But I guarantee that outside of Twitter OSint third worldist groupchats nobody serious is watching the American military put Iran through its paces and concluding America is weak. What we observe, actually, from Latin America to Oceania to the Middle East to Asia is everyone scrambling to become more closely attached to American power.

Not a very good way to open a post by the way

You're welcome, I believe honesty is the best policy.

Well I’ve been assured that Donald Trump is uniquely destructive to American prestige and other countries can no longer treat negotiations with America as routine

If you need to resort to such snark, it kind of gives the game away. What is the point? Initially, you've said: "In the middle of the war he secured an alliance with Indonesia. America now controls Panama, Malacca, and Taiwan and is in the process of controlling Hormuz. The world’s great supply chain chokepoints. These are not isolated events but obviously part of a greater vision. Tariffs and manufacturing and industrial policy are all related."

So i'm commenting on this idea, not some general principle that Trump makes every country committed to tearing down every possible deal and MOU with the US.And as I've said, Indonesia gains more in this partnership (it is not clear what the US gains). Prabowo is a pragmatic guy, he'll accept handouts, from Trump, Xi, Putin or anyone else. So long as they don't get to put a leash on him.

and now you’re arguing about the implications of an Indonesian poll

Minor nitpick: it's a Singaporean poll, of Indonesians. Specifically of those with good information access and influence on making decisions:

A total of 2,008 Southeast Asians completed the survey from both non-panel and panel providers. Respondents came from five affiliation categories: (a) academia, think-tankers, or researchers; (b) private sector representatives; (c) civil society, NGO, or media representatives; (d) government officials; and (e) regional or international organisations personnel.

It's not a survey of third worlders in the streets.

Trust me when I say the vast majority of MAGAworld I interface with is extremely skeptical of the war

I salute your loyalty to the cause, then.

But I guarantee that outside of Twitter OSint third worldist groupchats nobody serious is watching the American military put Iran through its paces and concluding America is weak.

But you are weak. Not relative to Iran, that'd be ludicrous and nobody except unironic third worldists predicted that, but relative to the inflated image which you have created.
You've started a war and clearly want out of it already. Abandoned bases in a wide radius around Iran. Your soldiers have been hiding in civilian hotels. You're unable to open the Strait, so you instead resort to blockading it This Chad Thundercock attitude towards "beancounting" is very funny when three digits is a good volume for annual production of your standoff munition. This is all material, papable weakness.

What we observe, actually, from Latin America to Oceania to the Middle East to Asia is everyone scrambling to become more closely attached to American power.

I don't know what bubble you are in if not the MAGA one. I also notice the absence of "Europe", but ofc that's not as important as "the Middle East". [Speaking of the Middle East, though](https://archive.is/2criR.

America already basically controlled Panama, Malacca, and Taiwan for all serious intents and purposes before Trump, in the sense that in any serious geopolitical situation before Trump, the US could have decided to drop pretenses of diplomacy and instead directly dominate those regions just as effectively as it could do so now. An alliance with Indonesia is largely irrelevant, I think. The power of the US navy is the key thing whether there is an alliance or not, and that power has existed for a long time.

That said, I do agree that America probably controls the Strait of Hormuz more now than it did before the war, even if it does not necessarily look that way right now, because it has destroyed significant portions of Iran's ability to close it, even though significant portions also still remain. The fact that the Strait was not closed before the war is irrelevant in that sense. The important thing for the US foreign policy establishment's long-term goals is not whether Iran is actually deciding to keep it closed or not at any given moment, but rather the degree to which Iran is capable of closing it at any given moment.

I guess I don't necessarily disagree, but I think there's a significant difference between the American navy having the ability to take Malacca if it wanted to, and being explicitly allowed as part of a partnership in concert with Jakarta. Among other points, I think this goes against the idea floating around that American prestige is down and foreign countries know better than to negotiate with Donald Trump. And in the same way America controls Hormuz more now than it did before, America controls Malacca more than it did before. (There was theoretically nothing stopping China from making that same alliance, right?)

That said I basically agree with the bulk of what you've written here. And I think all this is bullish for America's success with the Iran and America's growing power in the world generally.

Not quite as direct but Argentina is getting interesting. Thiel has moved there for 2 months. Milei was just parting in Israel and secured some tech packages/funding. The country isn’t their yet, but it’s the long-term outpost of a maga-Israel S America hub.

The country isn’t their yet, but it’s the long-term outpost of a maga-Israel S America hub.

"Zionists preparing to flee to Argentina" seems to be one of those instances of history rhyming.

Ouch. Someone hand them an ice pack. Seriously, funniest comment I have read on the internet in days.

Refreshing take, if for no other reason than to oppose the thousands of overly-confident analyses flooding my media everyday. I too think that there are a lot of things we don't know, and that time will tell of the true downstream effects. By that point however, many will have forgotten who made what claim and the cycle of opinionated arrogance will continue. I don't have the knowledge to discern if your take is more or less accurate than what I read but it's simply nice to hear.

Thank you!

What does the anti-war side in the US want in the Iran conflict?

Deportations.

Housing affordability. Fraud reduction. A focus on domestic policy. Spending of political capital on wins for Americans.

To give the maximalist anti war position:

The anti war side observed the fact that we spent 20 years in Afghanistan in the process of replacing the Taliban with the Taliban, and learned not to touch the hot stove; they are the anti-stove touching side.

The pro war people seem to be operating on an object permanence deficit "maybe this time the hot stove won't burn us and it will be fine somehow" theory of the world.

The US can pack up and go home if they offer Iran genuine compensation. We can take off sanctions, pay back the damage we caused, give them loans, open up our markets to their saffron and other products, allow a certain number of scholarships for their students… there are hundreds of creative solutions we can devise that will convince them to open up the strait. The problem is, per Joe Kent, the Israelis needs to be “reigned in”. Right now, America can’t actually be trusted, because of the free reign that Israel has over Trump. So the compensation we provide has to involve genuine “costly signals” of our good faith. So the deal could include reducing the extent of our relationship with Israel, signing a real treaty with Iran, etc. Is any of this likely under Trump? No, I don’t think it’s likely at all, because of his pride. But getting the strait opened isn’t some Herculean task.

Iran commits piracy and extortion

They are obtaining compensation and deterrence against a country that wants to destroy their civilization, kill all of their leaders, kill all their negotiators, kill all of their scientists, and thinks it’s okay to kill 100 students and then pretend it was Iran that did it. They are in a fight against a force that represents, like, a Disney villian rendition of pure evil as personified by Trump. At this point he is like the personification of greed, corruption, and the shadowy underworld (Epstein). And most of the world sees this, which is why they aren’t helping America but actually doing what they can to obstruct their efforts (closing down airspace etc)

The US can pack up and go home if they offer Iran genuine compensation. We can take off sanctions, pay back the damage we caused, give them loans, open up our markets to their saffron and other products, allow a certain number of scholarships for their students… there are hundreds of creative solutions we can devise that will convince them to open up the strait.

Or we could nuke them. It is cheaper. I much prefer Iran to have 2 choices - submission or destruction and let them choose. Closing of the strait means Iran has to be broken to a state where they are incapable and not unwilling to do that.

Starting an aggressive war and then going nuclear is in my opinion a terrible idea. We've kept the nuclear genie in the bottle. Setting it free for marginal gain is a horrible idea. And I'm pretty sure nuking Tehran, might end up with Trump in the Hague and would be much more unpopular then a ground invasion. So why not send in the Marines rather then killing 10 million men women and children and still not getting the straight open.

I do not think nuking them will be cheaper than compensating them.

Wiping out Tehran will not significantly reduce Iranian capabilities to attack ships to in the strait. Rural Afghanistan could interdict passage on the strait if they had the coasts. So you would need to make a few hundred kilometers of coastline uninhabitable up to a few dozen kilometers inland. That does not sound cheap even in direct costs.

And the long term consequences would make W's adventures look like a walk in the park. Consider Denmark. As far as I know, they do not have nukes not because nukes are beyond their reach (their GDP is larger than Iran's), but because for them nukes would be a solution looking for a problem, so far. In a world where Trump has just glassed Iran, they would feel that they would get the same choice really soon. Countries are very willing to spend more than ten percent of their GDP on their own Trident program if they feel that the alternative is their capital getting nuked by Trump.

North Korea has some kinds of nukes and is the world's rank #139 by GDP. Within a decade, every country from Albania to Zambia might start nuclear tests. Or they form defensive pacts with saner countries against US attacks. Probably North Korea could make a killing just by selling their tech.

Wiping out Tehran will not significantly reduce Iranian capabilities to attack ships to in the strait

Yes it will. You can fly drones 24/7 over the areas that shoot anything that breaths and moves.

The nuking was in response to the equally absurd suggestion to bribe them. It is a stupid war, but once started Iran has to be broken. Personally I will start with attacking their oil wells. Once they start burning they will change their tune fast.

You could do that without Nuking Tehran.

You sure could nuke them. In fact, as a non-Iranian, I wouldn't mind seeing this. It is a very flashy way to admit (an unnecessary) conventional defeat and speed up nuclear proliferation and the collapse of your world-system.

The problem is that Trump, for all his faults, doesn't really want to nuke anyone. And even if he could credibly threaten to nuke – the current Iranian leader had barely survived an attack that had wiped out his family. He's well aware the US and Israel have the means to kill with impunity. Do you seriously think more naked intimidation will work? Do you have no theory of mind for men?

Would you say the Russians were foolish to not start nuking the Ukrainians after they failed to achieve total victory in the first month?

Russia's stated goal is to conquer Ukraine, and nuking them would kind of be a detriment to that. The US is no worse off if the entire Iran is a uninhabitable radioactive wasteland and 100 million iranians are dead. But it's certainly troublesome for Russia if all the Ukrainians are dead.

Well, Putin could have nuked Kiev and announced that he would continue to nuke one city every 24 hours until unconditional surrender. The destruction might not have been so different from a few years of conventional warfare. He did not do so because otherwise every one of his neighbors would have started nuclear programs asap, and because it seems entirely possible that the Ukrainian army would have been willing to fight him in the ruins of their cities.

Likewise, for the US, the Iran problem would be over. Instead they would have the problem that every other country in the world (excepting Israel, perhaps) would consider them genocidal maniacs on a scale dwarfing Hitler, Stalin and Mao together. Every non-nuclear country would either try to get nukes or enter defensive alliances with saner countries.

It wouldn’t necessarily need to be that bloody. There are plenty of ways to use nuclear weapons on Iran or Ukraine that would be highly effective and cause minimal civilian casualties.

There are a quite a few nuclear powers, and quite a few have been fighting conventional wars which were very frustrating for them.

If Putin could have won Ukraine in his original timeframe by launching a few small tactical nukes, or Nethanyahu could have installed the Shah by dropping a few tactical warheads on the IRGC, or if the Soviets could have won Afghanistan in a similar way, it seems strange why nobody did so.

I view tactical nukes as similar to chemical and biological weapons. If they were 'I win' buttons, similar to what gunpowder became in Europe, their use would be widespread. Instead, they are long on horror but short on effectiveness.

There is some overlap between the smallest nukes and the largest conventional bombs, and the MOAB and friends are very much niche. If a few tens of kilotons TNT would have changed the Iran war, the US air force could have just delivered that using conventional explosives.

The other thing is that on the scale of hand grenades to city-glassers, chemical vs nuclear energy storage is the Schelling fence. Normalizing the use of tactical nukes will also normalize the use of larger nukes.

it seems strange why nobody did so

It’s a norm that evolved gradually. For most of the forties and fifties it was assumed that nukes were going to become commonplace in combat, and it would only be worrying if superpowers used them against each other.

Then Truman passed on using them in Korea, and Eisenhower passed on using them them to bail out the French at Dien Bien Phu. That began to solidify that these were really only special occasion devices, not just something you use because not doing it would be a pain in the ass.

Once you get to the Nixon administration, it’s starting to get set in stone. The Nixon admin considers using them in Vietnam, but determines the international blowback would be too severe.

Now, we’re getting close to Dune levels of nuclear taboo, where using them in any context would be highly controversial.

They aren’t necessarily an instant win button, but in both Ukraine and Iran they would be extremely useful. Iran’s nuclear facilities and underground missile bases would be pretty easy to dismantle with nuclear ground bursts. In Ukraine, every time the Russians had to spend nine months besieging an empty town like Bahkmut or Kramantorsk, they could have just dropped a 380kt warhead on it and been done in a week (mostly waiting for the fallout to settle).

The problem is, per Joe Kent, the Israelis needs to be “reigned in”.

I think it's "reined it" correctly.

I think "reigned in" might have reached status of being a correct version of the phrase due to popular use, with an invented-etymological explanation being that it's like a king ordering someone to pull back. It's like how "could" now means the same thing as "couldn't" when part of the phrase "could care less," due to how people have been confusing the terms (or rather, it seems that people have made up the explanation that "could care less" is a reference to the fact that they care so little that it's less than anyone or anything - they "could care less [than some arbitrary X, and they do indeed do what they could]"). Or like how "literally" now means "emphatically" or "severely" in some contexts.

None of those things you listed are correct. Popular use does not make something correct, it means that a lot of people speak the language badly because they don't care enough to learn.

"'Good' could mean 'bad' actually," said Chad with a smirk, as he pulled a Coors from the cooler and cracked it open.

"Prescriptivists are too rigid in their etymology."

Good does mean bad though, and has done since Michael Jackson.

Point taken, but the difference is that as opposed to 'could care less' and 'literally' the phrase 'to reign in' makes no grammatical sense.

On a related note, the case of lose vs loose is similar.

"Could care less" and misuse of "literally" also make no grammatical sense. The former is especially egregious, as it means almost nothing as stated. Knowing that someone could care less only tells me that he cares a nonzero amount, but it could be anywhere from "almost completely unimportant" to "the most important thing in his life".

“I could care less” annoys the crap out of me, literally. Literal human waste is being excreted due to my annoyance.

I do find it pretty funny though. “I could care less about your feelings!” almost feels triumphant, like “I could care less, but I don’t care enough to care less!” It’s a joke a competent comedian could probably spin into something hilarious. I don’t love the expression though, both because it confuses so many people and because it’s just a strange way to say “I don’t care.” Just say that.

the phrase 'to reign in' makes no grammatical sense.

Anon, I...

Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

In this case, the phrase 'to reign Israelis in' makes no grammatical sense.

Of course it makes grammatical sense. You've got a verb acting on an object and a preposition. There's plenty of verbs that work this way ("to butter Israelis up"). The question of whether you can use "reign" in this way is one of semantics, not grammar.

Hold up. The phrase "to butter someone up" is in the dictionary and has a definition. On the other hand, "to reign the Israelis in" means "to rule Israelis in". How the heck do you rule someone in?

More comments

Edward the VIII abdicated to reign in his own family instead.

I like a grammatical challenge.

In this case, the phrase 'to reign Israelis in' makes no grammatical sense.

That is correct. "Reined in" as one would control a horse.

I reign over my horse with its reins.

Yes, which is the same reason why people usually mean 'free rein' when they speak of 'free reign'.

Best to just go with "rained in".

The problem is, per Joe Kent, the Israelis needs to be “reigned in”.

Joe Kent is listening to Candace Owens segments about how Charlie Kirk was murdered by Israel and Macron’s wife is a man.

Kirk was killed with an explosive, not a bullet, and the place where it was made was blown up within weeks, killing the witnesses who made it.

This is a strange reply to me so I politely assume you’re making some kind of joke or reference I’m not familiar with. But on the chance you’re not I want to say that this is not true.

They are obtaining compensation and deterrence against a country that wants to destroy their civilization, kill all of their leaders, kill all their negotiators, kill all of their scientists, and thinks it’s okay to kill 100 students and then pretend it was Iran that did it. They are in a fight against a force that represents, like, a Disney villian rendition of pure evil as personified by Trump. At this point he is like the personification of greed, corruption, and the shadowy underworld (Epstein). And most of the world sees this, which is why they aren’t helping America but actually doing what they can to obstruct their efforts (closing down airspace etc)

Correct me if I'm wrong but weren't they killing tens of thousands of their own civilians a couple months ago due to civil unrest? Epstein obsession is also kinda hysterical. I've got no problem with Epstein going to prison but he was a elite whoremonger he wasn't sacrificing people to Satan.

Correct me if I'm wrong but weren't they killing tens of thousands of their own civilians a couple months ago due to civil unrest?

I'm reluctant to keep accepting this claim at face value. Not that I would bet against it, were it put up on Polymarket with a resolver that seemed authoritative enough, but there are at least two complications:

(1) the possibility that it is an outright lie or exaggeration, because the claims are ultimately sourced to bodies who have no particular commitment to speaking the truth to the general public (US or Israeli intelligence? Iranian opposition?)

(2) the possibility that it is technically true but missing some nuance that would significantly change the interpretation. During the height of the uprising being suppressed, I saw some videos circulating (of course themselves of questionable provenance) that purported to depict opposition-aligned fire teams using automatic weapons at least somewhat competently. If the reality of the uprising earlier this year is that the US and Israel had prepared and equipped a mass armed uprising, similar perhaps to the 2014 Donbass rebellion, which was soundly defeated because the government response was more competent than anticipated, does "killed tens of thousands of their own [citizens]" still have the same ring?

We don't normally talk about Ukraine in terms of "killed thousands of their own civilians" in that context (though, naturally, the Russians do). If the US had a Chinese-sponsored uprising that involved tens of thousands of people attempting to storm government buildings and engage in shootouts with authorities, would it being suppressed with a significant number of those involved winding up dead excuse the subsequent casualties of a reckless Chinese bombing campaign?

What does the anti-war side in the US want in the Iran conflict?

The humiliating defeat of Donald Trump. They want the US to leave with its tail between its legs, the Iranian regime in full possession of its nuclear capabilities, the strait in Iranian hands, reparations paid to Iran, and a break between the US and Gulf allies. And a NATO led by Canada and the Europeans. A subset would also like to see the US/Israel relationship broken, but I think anti-Trumpism is a far bigger factor than anti-Semitism.

They don't believe (probably accurately) that this would wreck the world economy; Iran, after all, would open the strait in this circumstance and any tolls it charged would be less damaging than full closure, which has itself not wrecked the world economy. They also don't believe that Iran getting a nuclear weapon would be a big problem, either because they have convinced themselves that the Iranian regime are the good guys actually (TDS at its fullest) or they figure Iran would be no worse than North Korea.

One of the things I liked about Trump was a promise of no new wars. You can't just say it's TDS people that will oppose Trump no matter what when no new wars was a huge campaign point of his.

Straw-man much? "Oh, you are against Trump, so you must love the Ayatollah".

FWIW, I do not think that Iran gaining nukes would cause a catastrophe. I honestly think it is likely (90%) that they and Israel can successfully play cold war.

If Iran getting tolls from Hormuz is the price to pay for Trump getting removed or defanged and the US returning to a more cooperative foreign policy, that is a price I am willing to pay.

A subset would also like to see the US/Israel relationship broken, but I think anti-Trumpism is a far bigger factor than anti-Semitism.

"Oh, you do not approve of the US fighting wars for Israel. You are an anti-Semite."

The current Israel government has very little overlap with my values, nor are they strategically important. The West has little to gain by covering them while they find new Lebensraum in the West Bank or Lebanon. I would very much prefer if they elected a leader who championed peaceful coexistence, but while they let Nethanyahu and his allies run the show I have little sympathy for them -- unlike the Iranians, they could have simply voted for someone different.

Straw-man much? "Oh, you are against Trump, so you must love the Ayatollah".

Did I say anyone loved any Ayatollah? (Nope)

FWIW, I do not think that Iran gaining nukes would cause a catastrophe. I honestly think it is likely (90%) that they and Israel can successfully play cold war.

Iran's a lot bigger, physically; it could absorb a lot more nukes.

I would very much prefer if they elected a leader who championed peaceful coexistence, but while they let Nethanyahu and his allies run the show I have little sympathy for them -- unlike the Iranians, they could have simply voted for someone different.

They used to elect leaders who championed peaceful coexistence. Unfortunately their enemies always chose leaders who championed killing them all.

Hostile powers with nukes aimed at each other certainly pushes the world closer to nuclear use. One Soviet submarine officer prevented the Cuban missile crisis from going nuclear; another successfully nothing ever happens'd a false early warning. India and Pakistan is the most likely flashpoint for nuclear war; they are neighbors, have actually fired missiles at each other, and India even managed to accidentally fire a nuclear capable missile into Pakistan a few years ago. All it takes is one stupid misunderstanding and an overzealous trigger man. Iran and Israel have the mitigating factor of distance, but Iran's paucity of early warning systems will increase paranoia.

I am an anti-war single-issue voter and despite detecting derision in this description, I will admit that this is fairly close to my thinking on the issue.

Some changes I would make so it is more accurate to me, personally:

The humiliating defeat of Donald Trump.

I am not particularly interested in the humiliation of Donald Trump, but rather the humiliation of the MIC, and the pro-war think-tanks, chicken-hawk Republicans, and establishment Democrats that support it.

NATO led by Canada and the Europeans

NATO doesn't really factor into my thinking on the Iran war but I certainly would like to see the dissolution an an expensive alliance that only serves to pointlessly harass the Russians.

A subset would also like to see the US/Israel relationship broken, but I think anti-Trumpism is a far bigger factor than anti-Semitism.

It's the opposite for me, as I would jump for joy if the United States abandoned Israel to reap what it has sown in the region.

Nah, the goal is to salvage the best exit ramp possible. What I think this probably looks like is something like the return of JCPOA and Iran retaining control of the strait, which, I agree, sucks; hopefully we can do better! While I would like Trump to suffer a humiliating defeat in the abstract, I recognize that such a defeat would generally be tied to bad outcomes and thus very much do not want it to happen in the case of Iran. Far better would be for the SC to issue a ruling that completely smashes the administration's tariff rationale or something; a humiliating legal defeat on that issue would be a good outcome for the US, in my view, so I can root for that one unconditionally.

They also don't believe that Iran getting a nuclear weapon would be a big problem, either because they have convinced themselves that the Iranian regime are the good guys actually (TDS at its fullest) or they figure Iran would be no worse than North Korea.

I think you might be underestimating the depth of anti-Israel sentiment. Many share the sense that in the present configuration ever-greater Israeli victory (of conquest, expansion and extermination) is basically inevitable: they can always keep fomenting a bit more instability in their periphery, provoke their neighbours and subjects and then use the reaction to slice off a bit more of their land and remaining freedoms, and it's only a question of how they pace it to maximise their comfort along the way, and if all else fails they always have Daddy America's credit card and their nukes to fall back on. A nuclear-armed Iran is one of the few attainable scenarios that could significantly reshape the game tree there, and for those who don't want Israel to prevail in such a fashion this seems like an important enough goal that they would be willing to hold their nose and accept the Mullahs.

This comment doesn't make much sense. The war was won weeks ago (we won so hard we kept winning 30 times after just to rub it in their face), the strait has been opened numerous times, Iran's military force has been obliterated, it is fake news to imply their nuclear program hasn't been set back by multiple years since the strikes a year ago just by themselves yet alone with these recent strikes which we have a huge 100% chance of obtaining (ignore that it's a less than 30% chance to just get even a token amount by the end of the year, that's also fake news) soon, and it all happened over the first weekend because it was such a huge success. The anti war crowd has been proven wrong time and time again here and if we have to spend a few measly more resources like American lives and tens (hundreds?) of billions of dollars in a boots on the ground operation that will definitely go just as well as the rest of the military operation, that's something people shouldn't be concerned about.

So what doesn't make sense to me is that it doesn't matter if we left now. Everything is already won and handled, so nothing could go wrong by leaving.

As much as I understand your frustration, sarcasm is unbecoming. Please don’t comment like this.

it is fake news to imply their nuclear program hasn't been set back by multiple years

If you want to do sarcasm parody it would be better if you didn’t hold up things that are literally true as objects of ridicule

If it's obviously true then do you agree that Trump leaving right now would be a good move, since Iran is already beaten?

Ahhh there are so many negatives here (the sarcasm, the fake news, the "hasn't been, the "didn't hold up things") that I can't actually tell which position anyone holds!

If you want to do sarcasm parody it would be better if you didn’t hold up things that are literally true as objects of ridicule

Sorry but this is fake news. Israel and the US says that Iran was just a week away from being able to make nukes and we needed to stop them in February. The idea they are set back years by the failed Biden strikes is a lie, Iran is very dangerous and we need the war now!

I guess the important thing is that you’re having fun?

I wouldn't say this is a steelman, more that it seems to me what they are seeking is domestic gain. Force the Republicans to stop the war, then you make Trump look weak/stupid/vulnerable for the forthcoming elections. You have established that Trump, and by extension the Republican party, and so the candidates running for the Republican party in the midterms, is wrong on policy, unable to complete what he and they started, and should be replaced by the sensible, moderate, capable, diplomacy-not-guns party. Which under the two party system in the USA, would be us! Imagine that!

Iran will always be there. Israel will be there. The mess in the Middle East isn't going away. You can safely put it on the long finger to deal with later. Stop the war, get your victory over Trump and the GOP, and secondarily get the oil flowing again so you reap the benefits of "here you go, citizen, you can now fill up your vehicle at a cheap price and your holiday flights have started again, you can thank us by voting for us".

replaced by the sensible, moderate, capable, diplomacy-not-guns party.

I know that this is a kind of internal self-monologue, but for this to be true Democrats would have to abandon letting in tens of millions of migrants, trans surgeries for kids, woke social media censorship, and Black Lives Matter racial struggle sessions. As it is this week the New York Times is platforming Hasan Piker for a giggling interview about how murdering Brian Thompson and theft are both good. Maybe, at least, Democrats won’t become the party of regulating AI and we can have a sensible, moderate, capable party that believes in technology and progress.

So it seems like the only way that the shipment of oil can return to a normal state is if Iran is backed into a corner and is forced to stop what they are doing.

So, your offer is to spend more money and resources (and potentially American lives) to get us close to the status quo antebellum?

I don't see how it is hard to think that the US just shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place, and should have kept Israel on a leash and told them to play nice. But having gotten ourselves into this mess, it is only a good idea to stay in it if we have both clear goals for the political outcome we want, and a realistic path to achieving that. Do we have either of those things?

It seems like the Trump administration is holding out for nuclear concessions, but are they going to get them for a cost that is acceptable to American voters? I suppose we shall see.

It seems to me that if we take it as a given that we are now committed - that this war must continue being prosecuted as a matter of national honor and interest - then we should expect resignations from the senior leadership. Obviously we won't get them, but executive discretion and impunity grows with every year, and rewarding unilateral ineptitude with uncritical support is only going to further worsen it.

So, your offer is to spend more money and resources (and potentially American lives) to get us close to the status quo antebellum?

The only way to return to the status quo antebellum is if America surrenders and rebuilds everything we destroyed. The Iranian government has very little ability left to project force in the region anymore, what little they have left is rapidly dwindling.

If nothing else, I admire your contrarianism. Most 'contrarians' come here to have other 'contrarians' affirm their views and agree with them. At least the graph of tankers flocking to America this week was a point in your favor.

The Iranian government has very little ability left to project force in the region anymore, what little they have left is rapidly dwindling.

In that case...haven't we won already? Why do we need to stay? Couldn't we just leave and Iran won't be able to project power in the strait, or bomb Israel, or whatever else? Can you make concrete predictions about when the US military can pull out given that we've destroyed their military, their leaders and their ability to project power?

Or consider also that dollarization is up:

https://x.com/joumannatv/status/2047159185016848596?s=46

In that case...haven't we won already? Why do we need to stay? Couldn't we just leave and Iran won't be able to project power in the strait, or bomb Israel, or whatever else? Can you make concrete predictions about when the US military can pull out given that we've destroyed their military, their leaders and their ability to project power?

One the one hand we will never leave because American force is stabilizing the Middle East. Pulling out of the Gulf would be like Rome pulling out of Gaul.

On the other hand, to what I suppose you mean about the war specifically:

It will probably last a few more weeks to a few months. This depends on whether Iran wants it the easy way or the medium way. The easy way is Iran surrenders and we wrap things up. The medium way is they drag it out and we continue our blockade. (The hard way is bridge and power plant day, which I imagine Trump won’t commit to at this point unless Iran does something egregious.)

If this war is still going on a year from now it’s because it becomes a proxy war involving Russia and China. I give this extremely low odds because continuation of the war hurts them more than it hurts us. (Russia’s war effort will collapse if they don’t have Irania drones and China will feel the energy squeeze much more acutely than we will.)

In a way it’s like a medieval siege. It could last shorter or longer, we could assault the walls again or keep starving them out, we could dig under the walls or start lobbing stones. But there is no relief force coming to lift the siege. Iran is not going to materialize a brilliant counterattack when they are starving behind the walls.

What does the pro-war side want?

Trump doesn't need to, and shouldn't, share operational and tactical level plans, but in a democracy the side who leads the country into war is traditionally expected to say what the political goals are, and why it thinks they are achievable (which in practice means sharing the big-picture strategy).

I would say Trump has not done so, but it would be fairer to say that he does share goals and strategies, but different ones every speech (and sometimes two different ones in the same speech). Given a choice between "allow Trump to do his thing" and "make him stop", the only argument currently being made in public for allowing Trump to do his thing is that his approach to complex negotiations (as documented in e.g. The Art of the Deal) depends on the enemy having no idea what he wants, and we should trust him on that basis. That argument is not persuasive to people who, based on decades of publicly-documented experience across four careers, consider Trump untrustworthy. (And The Art of the Deal also advocates routine dishonesty in negotiations - one thing Trump is honest about is being a liar).

What does the pro-war side want?

The US government and officials have said it multiple times. The war was started because Israel. Literally, they say it themselves in this press release.

As the United States has explained in multiple letters to the U.N. Security Council, including most recently on March 10, the United States is engaged in this conflict at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally, as well as in the exercise of the United States’ own inherent right of self-defense.

Mike Johnson has said it. Rubio has said it. Lindsey Graham is blatant about it. This war is for Israel.

They say it's not just Israel, and sure maybe it's not the only thing, but it is strange that it's both their first listed reason and most of the release is focused specifically on Israel and Israeli interests. And Israel being listed first happens quite a bit here.

Third, Iran’s extensive, long-term support of Hizballah, Hamas, the Houthis, and various Iran‑aligned militia groups in Iraq and Syria has enabled those terrorist organizations to carry out destabilizing attacks against Israel, the United States, Argentina, and others, including countries seeking to freely exercise transit rights through the Strait of Hormuz.

It's not in alphabetical order, so can't be that. Strange where the focus is.

What does the pro-war side want?

Seems 1d chess to me. Pound, bully, and threaten Iran hard enough until it gives up its nuke program and stops extorting neutral shipping. Is there anything else anyone wants from Iran here?

So a return to the situation under the JCPOA then? A reasonable goal, but one that Trump has consistently said he doesn't support. And if that is the goal, then the war was unlikely to achieve anything compared to the status quo ante - as of December 2025 the Iranian nuke program was non-functional and Iran was not extorting neutral shipping.

People on Twitter might treat Trump like a liar who can’t be trusted. Interestingly this perspective is not shared by e.g., Iranian negotiators, the government of Indonesia, the government of Panama, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar, UAE, Jordan, etc. etc.

People on Twitter might treat Trump like a liar who can’t be trusted. Interestingly this perspective is not shared by e.g., Iranian negotiators

However, Araghchi and Ghalibaf do routinely post on Twitter to the effect that he's a liar and can't be trusted. And given that they did not reopen the strait, nor surrender, after the "civilization will die" threat, and instead issued a pretty ludicrous list of demands (and we know now they did issue that list, since they refused to open the Strait until terms like Lebanon were honored, for one thing), I'd say they believe he's a liar who can't be trusted. So what are you talking about?

Iran’s negotiators believe Trump is a liar who can’t be negotiated with which is why they were… negotiating with him?

You see my point right? I don’t actually care what they’re saying on Twitter because their actions show that there is a faction within Iran ready to surrender. (Or was, let’s see how the rumors from this week shake out.)

Moreover, Trump says negotiations are proceeding. And he’s postponing Bridge and Power Plant Day. So I guess that means, again, that someone in Iran trusts Trump enough to sit down and talk. And if we want to make this a game of he-said-he-said between Donald Trump and the Iranian Regime, I’ll take Trump’s word over theirs. I know how polarizing Trump is for a lot of people, but if you want to argue that the Iranian regime is more reliable than Trump I’ll still call that TDS.

Iran’s negotiators believe Trump is a liar who can’t be negotiated with which is why they were… negotiating with him?

Well, they reportedly walked out in Islamabad, and they're saying they aren't interested in more bullshit.

What are they to do? Just maintain radio silence because Trump is fundamentally untrustworthy? You're grasping at straws. They are simply open to communication. Maybe they are waiting that you guys have a coup and surrender. Would make a lot of sense if Trump was pacified somehow by the cooler heads.

And he’s postponing Bridge and Power Plant Day.

The reason he's postponing is that they are not surrendering, and they are not surrendering not because they still don't get that you can bomb them, but precisely because they do not consider him trustworthy, ie do not expect any viable terms of surrender to be honored (eg, among all else, they want to maintain their capability to use drones and missiles for deterrence, which the US and Israel can proceed to attack at any time). Until this changes, your hope for "a faction" amounts to hope that cretins and/or open traitors somehow prevail against rational actors who operate based on very recent and very raw evidence.

if you want to argue that the Iranian regime is more reliable than Trump I’ll still call that TDS.

You can call it what you want, but I find it obvious that Iranians look and act like educated white professionals, whereas Trump has the credibility of a fent junkie, appoints inept alcoholics to positions of power, and seriously takes the counsel of Laura Loomer and FOX News. It is possible to negotiate with Iranians like with dignitaries of any normal Western nation, but it is not possible to "negotiate" with Trump unless you have some blunt coercive instrument on the table, such as a nuke or a gun to the stock market's temple, and even then he can convince himself it's a bluff. We have seen this in October, with China and rare earths.

A trusted component can break the system's security commitments, a trustworthy one won't. I agree that Trump is widely trusted (mostly by countries which are too weak to have an alternative) despite his lack of trustworthiness.

Of the people on your list, Iran, Saudi, Qatar and the UAE have seen their security break as a result of trusting an untrustworthy component.

I think that in a sense pro-war side achieved some stuff already:

  • Delay of nuclear program by destroying more infrastructure and killing scientists.
  • Calling Iran's bluff on Hormuz, restoring credibility to threats of force on personal and strategic level
  • Aligning at least some Gulf states toward USA. At least Saudis and UAE are calling for more "conclusive action" vis-a-vis Iran.
  • Chaos for Iran proxies such as Hezbollah and Houthis. This is double edged sword of course, it is hard to see.
  • Chaos in Iran by fragmenting leadership between Iranian Guards, civilian governments and the rest of it. Again, double edged sword.

In a sense Iran also shot itself into a foot by claiming to shadow mine the strait as well as by damaging refineries, so it is impossible to return to pre-war oil supply. This makes it hard to negotiate but it also relieves all sides from blame. I think it also means a very good position for Democrats as they may lay into Trump without actually doing anything notably wrong. There is not much more Trump can do at this point, a lot of options are out of his hand.

"Calling Iran's bluff on Hormuz,"

Is it a bluff? The oil is only trickling through. And Iran has proved that in the age of drone warfare there is an attackers advantage going after fixed infrastructure such that even given the vast disparities in capabilities and resources the US and allies was unable to protect the gulf oil infrastructure from Iranian attack.

Why can't you let Trump's objectives be an ineffable and possibly divine mystery?

Trump did actually lay out goals in his first address to the nation speech he gave at the start of hostilities. The problem is that nobody listens to Trump’s speeches because it’s much easier to read tweets.

I can, and I do. I therefore oppose them, for the same reason that I oppose Azathoth's achievement of his similarly ineffable objectives.

What did Azatoth ever do to hurt you so much that you have to compare him to Trump? That’s just rude, man.

Azathoth is blinder but Trump is more idiotic, so it's swings and roundabouts.

That thin, monotonous flute piping gets old.

Eh, I dunno. I think this is kinda catchy.

Admit defeat and move on. May or may not have been a good idea to start the war but now that the war is too expensive to maintain (it would cost like 2 months of social security a year to maintain). War is costly and trying to win an unlimited objective war is a mistake, just end the war now that the ability to successfully coup the government is over and you don't have the milops needed.

If the US packs up goes home Iran will not forget but the cost benefit analysis does not favor continuing

How are the objectives unlimited?

The situation is unwinnable and the lesson from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan is get out fast. The war should never have happened and it was a giant mistake to let Israel suck the US in.

Wars are easy to start but difficult to end. There are only a few paths forward:

  1. Land invasion. Trying to clear the straight y occupying sizeable area of Iran. This is not going to be easy. It took Israel 40 days and dozens of dead and wounded to take a town 10 km from Israel. The US will have a nasty logistics situation with soldiers having to be resupplied by air. Medical evacuation will be difficult and heavy equipment is hard to amass for an airborne invasion.

  2. Naval blockade. This would effectively be what the US had against the Houthis with both sides blockading each other for a year in Yemen. Not only will this blockade be a black hole for the US navy sucking in most of its resources it would also mean potentially years of fertilizer, oil, and gas shortages.

  3. More bombing. Not only a horrific humanitarian crisis to bomb a country to submission but air wars are inefficient. North Vietnam and Laos were bombed relentlessly and they held out. Yemen was bombed for years and held out. To make matters worse the US has burned roughly half their missiles in the first phase of the war. US munitions stockpiles are too depleted for this to be a viable strategy. To make matters worse Iran could bomb oil infrastructure in neighbouring countries causing a long term shortage.

  4. Realize that the war was fiasco and that the US lost this war. If you start a fight and lose you can't set the terms at the end of it. The US is not energy independent. The US needs to import millions of barrels a day to keep its refineries open. Oil prices in the US will be roughly the same in the US as in the rest of the world. Americans consume twice as much oil per capita as Germans. This war will also cause global food shortages as a sizeable chunk of fertilizers come from the region.

For the average American screwing over the global economy for Israel isn't worth it.

Not to say this isn't a fiasco, but re 4, the US is, on net, energy independent and exports more oil products then it imports. The US refineries are more capable then most and so the US imports a lot of sour crude and exports a lot of light crude as that is a more efficient use of refining capabilities, but that sour oil also predominately comes from Canada (who's oil is largely captive on American pipeline infrastructure), Mexico etc. and likely Venezuela in the future. If the US closed the export of oil you'd likely start to see a larger price divergence between the regional oil markets (more akin to Natural Gas where the US price is substantially lower). Not that this would win the US any friends, but it's something I could see Trump trying. There are a few geographic places in the US that import oil from abroad (often the middle east) like CA and HI, but that's largely down to the Jones Act making it too expensive to ship from other parts of the US.

More bombing. Not only a horrific humanitarian crisis to bomb a country to submission but air wars are inefficient.

This is often repeated, but not necessarily true. Even in the context of Middle-East, you had six day war of 1967 that was predominantly about air attack and that resulted in Israel victory. First Gulf War can also be recognized as such - it was a military operation conceived and brought to action within 6 month of Iraq occupying Kuwait, so between August 1990 - January 1991. The air campaign was so decisive that it took only 100 hours for land forces to bring Iraq and its fourth largest army in the world at the time to their knees. First Gulf War was considered as unmitigated success, even most optimists did not conceive of so few casualties and such a smooth ride. General Schwarzkopf projected 5,000 casualties, Pentagon expected up to 30k. The actual number was 292 dead (145 of those were nonhostile deaths mostly vehicle accidents, plane crashes and even 30 heart attacks) and 776 wounded (467 wounded in action).

There were also other precedents, such as bombing of Serbia which resulted in peace from Milosevic or operations in Libya, which resulted in its narrow goal of removing Gaddafi regime from power. There is also Operation Inherent Resolve that resulted in defeat of ISIS without boots on the ground just by using local forces and strategically helping them with air strikes, economic blockades, intelligence operations etc.

First gulf war replaced Saddam with Saddam. It caused horrific civilian suffering and in today's world it would mean having thousands of drones and missiles hit other countries oil infrastructure. For what? What is the point of this war? Why can China be the biggest trading partner with these countries without the constant wars? In 1967 there was a major ground component. The Israelis took sinai.

There were also other precedents such as bombing of Serbia which resulted in peace from Milosevic or operations in Libya,

Both these cases took a year and both of these countries are less than 1/15 the population size of Iran. Again, what is the point of bombing 93 million people into a mega humanitarian crisis that is going to pull the rest of the middle east with it down.

Isis was defeated by tens of thousands of Iranian, Syrian and Hezbollah soldiers on the ground. Major help from the Russian air force absolutely helped. But ISIS was not bombed away.

In the end Trump will be more screwed as selling that he won a war in the middle east by killing large numbers of people will never impress the voters as much as pancaking the economy.

First gulf war replaced Saddam with Saddam.

Well, for a couple million people it replaced Saddam with Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, who, while not a paragon of humane governance, at least didn't descend to the Saturday-morning-cartoon-villain levels of the former.

Sure, of course current war in Iran is different from any other war. That is the nature of analogy and examples. I specifically responded to claim, that air wars are inefficient. And I just pointed out that it is a myth, air wars can be and historically were very efficient.

In the end Trump will be more screwed as selling that he won a war in the middle east by killing large numbers of people will never impress the voters as much as pancaking the economy.

I don't know why not, it already happened for instance with the Gulf War. USA caused massive number of casualties - tens of thousands of killed and over hundred thousand injured Iraqis. And still it caused massive spike of patriotism and pride about how USA is technologically and militarily light years ahead of everybody. In fact it was the point of large number of articles about how Gulf War was the first real time televised war, where people saw fireworks from tomahawks and gun cameras from bombers. It did not cause any major pushback, it was received with cynical glee, something like current videos of Ukrainian drones destroying Russian tanks.

And it was even without the actual objective of Gulf War being something super important or moral - most people did not know where Kuwait was or why it was necessary to go to war for it. They just vaguely knew that USA flexed her muscles in oil region and won easily or something like that.

air wars can be and historically were very efficient.

When has a country of this size been bombed to submission in purely an air war? Also what is the point of this? A monstrous humanitarian crisis for what? Besides, if Iran collapses there is a big risk they bomb their neighbours oil infrastructure and that there are surviving groups that fire drones at ships for years.

and won easily or something like that.

In other words, Trump has failed at that strategy as his war is not going well. 39% of Americans support the war, 54% oppose it. Those numbers will get worse as the oil crisis gets worse. Saddam didn't block Saudi oil.

Also the propaganda isn't as strong this time as this isn't a televised war, it is a war on social media.

When has a country of this size been bombed to submission in purely an air war?

Come on, are you going to play this game of "your analogy is not perfect copy of my situation so it is not valid"? If such a thing hypothetically existed then what, will you update your example request to a country of this size but which is also mountainous, speaks Farsi and it happened during last ten years? Okay, it never happened, you are correct and you win this battle of analogies.

Plus again: just hold your horses, I was literally reacting to a claim that

  • More bombing. Not only a horrific humanitarian crisis to bomb a country to submission but air wars are inefficient.

I put it as a quote in my original post. I did not claim that air war in "country the size of Iran" is always efficient or this specific air campaign is efficient. I posit that the claim about inefficient air war is a myth. That is all.

Come on, are you going to play this game of "your analogy is not perfect copy of my situation so it is not valid"?

Actually having a ground invasion or otherwise supporting ground forces is a pretty big difference. It isn't some minor detail used to casually dismiss the argument.

Serbia

More comments

Lets, say it works as well as Serbia worked despite Serbia having 1/16th the population and was fighting a ground war. It still took one year. Doing it with air power alone against a bigger country is a far more ambitious objective. Are people willing to accept a year-long oil crisis plus months more to ramp production up again?

The fallacy at the heart of the war was the idea that the US could send some missiles and achieve what the US failed to achieve against Yemen in 11 years within two weeks. The air war option could easily fail and even in an optimistic scenario it is a slow and expensive option.

Yes but wars like 1967 and the US invasions of Iraq had lots of backing and land grabbing on the ground to go along with the heavy air campaign.

I don't see how the US can put enough men and tanks etc into Iran to provide that necessary complement to bombing.

edit typo

Assuming that the US passed a war powers vote, or otherwise just decided just to drop everything and go home, what next? It's a total capitulation, and to me it seems braindead obvious that Iran isn't going to stop harassing and extorting nearby shipping. I mean, what have they got to lose, meanwhile the more they extort the more money they get.

Does a politically-viable path to victory exist? If, not--if this is going to be how it ends anyway-- isn't it better to get it over with as soon as possible, rather than after years of fighting that don't actually accomplish anything? The decapitation campaign has clearly failed to break the Iranians. What's next? Boots on the ground? Bombing civilian infrastructure? Nukes?

Iran is short material to wage a war and is being blockaded. They lack the capacity to continue to function as a state. By the latest reports the IRGC has staged a coup to depose the faction that was willing to surrender. (There is a faction that is willing to surrender.) Their Supreme Leader is a cardboard cutout. Every day that the status quo continues the Iranians become closer to permanently unraveling. Apparently, even so, the Iranians are willing to release political prisoners at Trump’s request because they’re scared of escalation.

If you are right, then in a few weeks the north coast of the Strait of Hormuz will be under the "control" of a failed state and anyone who wants to create havoc can set up shop there and harass shipping with cheap land-based drones (with the Houthis being the proof of concept that this is technically feasible, and hard to counter without boots on the ground). This is one of the predictable bad outcomes of a successful war against Iran, and a large part of why conventional wisdom (including among non-leftists) was that the war was to avoided if possible.

The chance of Donald Trump, as the Oracle would put it, invading Persia and destroying a great empire, continues to rise.

A non-state level actor trying to commit piracy in that area won't be able to reliably collect the spoils.

We destroyed a large part of Iran’s capacity to build cheap drones. We can destroy the rest if hot war resumes. We can inflict far more harm on Iran than they can inflict on us. This is why Iran seemingly already contains a faction willing to negotiate with and surrender to us.

The chance of Donald Trump, as the Oracle would put it, invading Persia and destroying a great empire, continues to rise.

If this were the case we would expect American power to be declining, not growing.

For example, someone I know predicted to me that American ships blockading Hormuz would be sitting ducks, and Iran would shoot them all down. Worst naval disaster in American history. This hasn’t happened yet. But at least it’s a theory that looks like America losing. Right now we have Iran half-destroyed, begging for anything but Bridge and Power Plant Day, cardboard cutout of a supreme leader, possibly now an IRGC coup, America is exercising control over the strait, increasing supply of oil from other sources to compensate for what’s being blocked, total air superiority, working with Israel and Saudi Arabia for a final resolution — and I guess America is losing because the price of oil is a dollar higher than it was two months ago or something.

We can't destroy Iran's capacity to build cheap drones without blockading land routes from China and every garage where they can be assembled in Iran. Russia can't do it to Ukraine, Ukraine can't do it to Russia, and we couldn't do it to the Houthis. Shahed type drones (not to mention mines) will always pose a threat to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz unless the Iranians on the coast no longer want to launch drones or are no longer there (read: invasion).

We destroyed a large part of Iran’s capacity to build cheap drones.

The Houthi threat to shipping is not based on the Yemeni drone industry. Failed states do not have domestic armaments industries. Somehow they still seem to be lousy with weapons.

We can inflict far more harm on Iran than they can inflict on us.

And? If the US inflicts a lot of harm on Iran an Iran inflicts a little bit of harm on the US, that looks like a bad outcome for both the US and Iran. War is a negative-sum game, and "neither side gets a good result" is a possible outcome, indeed probably the default outcome.

Right now we have Iran half-destroyed, begging for anything but Bridge and Power Plant Day, cardboard cutout of a supreme leader, possibly now an IRGC coup, America is exercising control over the strait, increasing supply of oil from other sources to compensate for what’s being blocked, total air superiority,

Right now America is doing worse than they were doing in Iraq in 2003. Not much worse - I am happy to concede they are still "winning" in the way they "won" in Iraq. But all you are saying here is that US forces are closer to the "Mission Accomplished" moment than some war-sceptics think they are.

The technical ability of the US to administer air-power-based punishment beatings to Iran is not in doubt. The argument is about what political goals, if any, can be achieved using punishment beatings alone, and whether they are worth the consumption of materiel and damage to the world economy.

And? If the US inflicts a lot of harm on Iran an Iran inflicts a little bit of harm on the US, that looks like a bad outcome for both the US and Iran. War is a negative-sum game, and "neither side gets a good result" is a possible outcome, indeed probably the default outcome.

This is the problem in the analysis. Maybe this is worth exploring.

The potential benefit to America winning this war is huge. We defeat an ancient enemy that has killed American soldiers for fifty years. We create a new order in the Middle East that turns a black hole of money and blood into an oasis of energy and peace. America acquires a dominant controlling position over global energy markets. We control the major global choke points of shipping. America eliminates the artificially cheap source of oil China was using to industrialize at our expense. America eliminates a major provider of arms to Russia. America remakes the entire global order and neutralizes one of our most intransigent foes.

The return on investment here is immeasurable. It almost can’t be measured in money because it is the thing on which money itself has value. America will be in the most dominant global position it has ever been, a new apogee of power.

If you run the Expected Value calculations here, Iran would have to impose tremendous costs on America for this to not be worth it. Collapse of the empire level costs. Thousands of soldiers dead, navies destroyed, American tech revealed as a pipe dream scam, territory lost.

People are talking as if this is happening, but mostly all Iran is able to do is bottleneck the strait and disrupt the supply of oil. This is already being solved. The part that can’t be replaced is so far being digested by global markets.

I’m somewhat aware that as I make this case I sound sycophantic as if denying the costs of war and I suspect this is why may deny my analysis. What I am saying is that in the big picture these costs are rounding errors. Iran is not hitting America where it hurts and probably can’t. Maybe planes shot down and bases attacked are high costs to pay but in the broader context the operation has been extremely successful.

It might not look this way read from European headlines about the chaos Trump is causing and kvetching about oil being a dollar higher than it was before. But overall Trump is playing for all the marbles and has every reason to keep going

The potential benefit to America winning this war is huge. We defeat an ancient enemy that has killed American soldiers for fifty years. We create a new order in the Middle East that turns a black hole of money and blood into an oasis of energy and peace. America acquires a dominant controlling position over global energy markets. We control the major global choke points of shipping. America eliminates the artificially cheap source of oil China was using to industrialize at our expense. America eliminates a major provider of arms to Russia. America remakes the entire global order and neutralizes one of our most intransigent foes.

This is almost word for word what people said in the lead up to the second Iraq war except the names of the adversaries are different. And hey we won! Iraq is a mostly democratic country. Was it worth it? no. The Europeans and the Chinese are able to do business with the Middle East without constantly bombing it. America should do the same.

The Middle East that turns a black hole of money and blood into an oasis of energy and peace.

Dubai was an Oasis of energy and peace. Now the influencers are dodging drones and blocking their condo windows with mattresses. Pre-war the Middle East was at peace except for Israel's borders and Yemen. Now the entire eastern half the formerly peaceful Persian gulf region is on fire and half a dozen countries have been drawn into the conflict.

America eliminates the artificially cheap source of oil China was using to industrialize at our expense. America eliminates a major provider of arms to Russia.

This is getting sad.

Russian drones are made in Russia (with Chinese components). Modern Gerans have little in common with Shahed-136, Iran provided the initial IP, not current supply. You're literally just regurgitating propaganda headlines, in this case "primitive Russians can't make drones and depend on Iranian industry".

And what "at our expense"? You mean at the expense of sanctions you put on Iranian oil, making China the buyer of last resort?

The return on investment here is immeasurable. It almost can’t be measured in money because it is the thing on which money itself has value. America will be in the most dominant global position it has ever been, a new apogee of power.

Very well, let us see.

You're literally just regurgitating propaganda headlines, in this case "primitive Russians can't make drones and depend on Iranian industry".

This style of argument would be a lot more productive and interesting if you didn’t make what I said artificially dumb

That would be my thought - if there is no path to victory, at least not at an acceptable cost, then the best thing to do is cut your losses as soon as possible. If I were a Democrat I'd then bank on blaming the whole thing on Trump. That has the benefit of being true, though hardcore Trump supporters will no doubt argue he was stabbed in the back by congress.

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