Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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Nothing is "permanent" - if they were able to get the oil out of the ground the first time, they obviously can do it again, and with existing infrastructure it probably will be easier this time. The question is how much would it cost and who will pay for it. Iranian economy was not in spectacular shape when it started (remember the whole story begun with riots caused by economic hardships) and probably is much worse now. Would it be enough to break the IRGC? Unknown, and maybe not - hardcore organized groups survived in much worse conditions. But it certainly makes it weaker, less capable of projecting its force outside (Iran's favorite mode of operation) and more open to negotiated settlement. "Have to fold" is a very hard condition to satisfy - in WW2, Japan had to get two nukes dropped on them to be ready to fold, and Germany had to be completely occupied. Occupying Iran is not a proposition that is seriously considered, neither is nuking them. That makes "have to fold" hard to achieve - however, "more open to settlement" can still be done. Or at least "beaten up enough they wouldn't ask for seconds for a while" if anything else fails.
More open to settlement, is not a given either. While the people of Iran are and will be suffering, a theocracy led by hardliners don't necessarily have to care about that. Saddam's Iraq survived a long time under brutal sanctions that killed a lot of people. The Taliban was subjected to every hardship yet never surrendered. Same goes for the North Vietnamese.
Time is even more against the world and the US than it is against Iran, I think. People will be starving to death in other places relatively soon. The US is the world hegemon and the guarantor of trade routes. Iran doesn't have those responsibilities.
Well, yes, it sucks to be ruled by insane maniacs. US is not ready to commit the resources necessary to overthrow those maniacs. Nobody else is even remotely capable of doing that. So it will continue to suck for those people, and will probably get worse. At least the US can prevent the insane maniacs from impacting too many people that aren't currently under their rule.
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