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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.
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
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.
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