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PaperclipPerfector  18hr ago (text post)   3107 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 15, 2026

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It’s oil executives and experts who predict an economic catastrophe from a prolonged strait closure. This seems to be the majority opinion among those who know a lot about oil. Iran’s missile capacity has not been meaningfully damaged (only by 30% of pre-war levels and we should assume the remaining 70% is harder to target as tactics developed). The regime is intact and stronger than before. So we got into a ~ $100bil conflict, killed or wounded 400 soldiers, all just to kill an old cleric and sizably damage Iran’s economy. Iran benefits by getting a new tollbooth for their new strait in 60 days, weakening the American-Israel relationship, and plausibly weakening the American-Arab relationships.

Iran’s missile capacity has not been meaningfully damaged (only by 30% of pre-war levels and we should assume the remaining 70% is harder to target as tactics developed).

Says who?

Iran benefits by getting a new tollbooth for their new strait in 60 days,

Oh, ok, we're just discussing vibes and rumors.

US intelligence by way of NYT, WaPo

The fees (toll) has been reported here: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/irans-fars-news-agency-says-hormuz-maritime-fees-added-to-us-deal-last-minute/

US intelligence by way of NYT, WaPo

What does that actually mean? What is it worth? US Intelligence Community produces a lot of intel. There's no guarantee that this is a majority opinion, a generally accepted conclusion. How many hundreds of reports are floating out there right now trying to assess what capabilities the Iranians have left? And the New York Times got to see one of them?

I imagine the CIA would have a team tasked to produce this report. Why wouldn’t the NYT see it? They’ve received leaks in the past.

We can agree that this is the kind of thing we could imagine the CIA might say. I guess that counts for something

What is your source that we had destroyed most of their missiles and launchers? And why would the NYT of all outlets lie about it? We’re not talking Al Jazeera.

See here:

https://www.themotte.org/post/3671/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/429651?context=8#context

General Caine: America has destroyed

80% of Iran’s Air Defense Systems
90% of Iran’s regular fleet
Half of the IRGC’s small attack boats
95% of Iran’s naval mines
90% of Iran’s weapons factories
100% of Shaheed attack drone factories
80% of Iran’s missile facilities
80% of Iran’s nuclear industrial base

“80% of their missile facilities are gone” is not equivalent to taking out 80% of their missile facility capacity. This is a linguistic trick that the administration used for morale. The most important facilities for their missile production are below ground in the missile cities. The easier and less sensitive production facilities are above ground, in a plurality of smaller facilities. Those last 20% of facilities may absolutely dwarf the remaining 80% in importance and complexity.

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