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Notes -
Deal reached to end Iran war
Details of the deal are not publicly available right now. However, Trump has authorised an end to the US naval blockade, and Iran has agreed to reopen the Strait.
Not surprisingly though, Israel continues to bomb Lebanon and refuses to cede lands seized in southern Lebanon.
But MORE surprisingly, Trump actually reprimanded Bibi.
So it seems we were lucky to return to the pre-war status quo, even Trump had to tepidly admit that he bit off more than he can chew and Iran's regional dominance is not going anywhere.
So nobody knows what really happened, but at least we're having fun.
Does anybody else remember our discussions from a few months ago? Because what's been reported so far looks nothing like what many confidently predicted back then. Iran closing the strait would lead to massive energy spikes that would cripple the global economy and America would rush to surrender. And Iran would win on all points. Iran's nuclear program would continue uninterrupted. Iran's neighbors would be cowed into submission. Many people speculated that Iran would soon sink American ships, or innocent oil tankers, and that nobody would be able to stop them.
In fact, Iran's power was so strong that they would be able to toll the straits of Hormuz. Iran would be stronger than ever.
That seems to not have happened.
Likewise, the global energy crisis has not materialized. Where I live gas is about a buck-and-a-quarter more expensive than it was before the war. Plane tickets are more expensive and fertilizer costs have gone up. But, otherwise, nothing continues to happen. And America did not rush to surrender.
In fact, curiously, Iran is apparently giving up their greatest leverage by opening the straits. Why would they do that? We have heard that nobody can take the straits back from them, so why are they ceding it?
The terms now called losing terms were winning terms a few months ago: America bombed Iran, decapitated its leadership, destroyed the bulk of its capacity to manufacture missiles and drones, and will suffer no lasting consequences. The Straits, apparently, will be opened and a ceasefire will be maintained.
The questions now are whether this can be turned into a longer-lasting and more regional peace, and what will become of Iran's nuclear dust. (Not that they can do much with it, because we destroyed the nuclear facilities they would need to use it.) Trump, at least, is pushing to expand the Abraham Accords and lock the entire region into a broader framework for peace. Which doesn't sound like a loss of American prestige to me.
Of course it's possible that fighting will break out again or that the deal will not be as reported.
But wasn't America supposed to have lost?
America has lost. The goal of the war was regime change, the goal failed immediately and predictably.
Basically everything you said is wrong or unfounded. Firstly, the straits are not actually open (mines that were laid still remain there!). Shipping is not currently passing through.
https://hormuzstraitmonitor.com/
https://straits.live/
There's $300 billion that the Gulf states are apparently going to provide to Iran as war reparations, plus another $24 billion in unfrozen funds. So Iran may be getting a lump sum instead of ongoing fees on the straits. Note that war reparations are not usually paid to defeated countries...
Destroyed them twice over now, after the 2025 air raids. When are people going to develop a basic level of skepticism about US bombing and these amazing claims made by the US military? General Caine said it, so it must be true?
Yes, I actually made a very similar point to that in the first and last sentences of this comment here:
https://www.themotte.org/post/3805/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/452932?context=8#context
True... I was editing and removed that sentence before I saw that you replied here.
But it's still a pretty big loss for the US based just on what has been reported. The primary goal of the war wasn't achieved. Attacking political leaders had nothing to do with the nuclear/missile and reopening the straits pivot later on. The initial goal was regime change. On that alone the war is a loss, decapitating leaders is no more useful than removing hydra heads one by one. Then there's the unsanctioning of Iran and war reparations...
Ok fair enough I just didn’t want to reply to your broader points if I was being skimmed as a caricature.
I just don’t think it’s true that “ The goal of the war was regime change”. I think that is one of the scenarios under which America would have won. I know Trump said he would like to see regime change, and that a broader media ecosystem declared the lack of regime change as losing. But I don’t think it’s true.
It’s also true that we don’t know what the real terms are, and I suspect this will really be several deals spaced over time with lots of face-saving formulations. But we’re very far away from where we were a few months ago when war critics said that Iran was invincible and America was on the cusp of momentous failure. Iran scored 13 American casualties and they couldn’t even keep the oil bottled up.
Ultimately America will achieve its aims, which are to cripple the worst of Iran’s ability to project force. They won’t have nukes. They won’t have missiles or drones. Not enough to matter. They won’t have militias and terror cells.
Once Iran accepts this, we have nothing essential worth fighting for. They can’t destroy Israel and they can’t bully the Saud. They’re stuck there, they have to live between the crescent and the sea. Forever.
So then it becomes possible to return to diplomacy and even become friends. Or frenemies. We can give them hundreds of billions of dollars to do that, or we can keep bombing their ships. They can’t have nukes. They can have prosperity. This is better.
This is the Trump Doctrine, it’s playing out in Venezuela and in North Korea and now the Middle East. It’s the same logic as any good Shonen anime (I’ve tongue-in-cheek called this “Trump is Naruto Theory”.) It’s the same logic as Lyin’ Ted and Lion Ted. One day you’re enemies and the next day you’re friends. Because you fight and someone wins and the loser has to get over it and when you’re pure of heart they’ll let you grab them by the pussy.
What I mean is, if you believe in Capitalism, if you believe in diplomacy and trade, there are benefits when everyone cooperates. There are also bad and evil men and communists and terrorists and we can’t always make friends. And maybe Iran is run by evil men and they won’t make peace.
But Iran can’t really win what they want with war. Nobody can. America is the greatest power in the world and will remain so. We have the nuclear submarines and satellites and the engineers and factories. We have a country of beautiful warm-hearted people who want to share our excellence with the world. You can’t beat us. The global system runs through America, while you are droning oil ships we are moving the entire world’s economy to rockets in space. We can crush you. We don’t want to. So it’s actually all cheaper if we all get along.
Iran will recover some and they’ll build some rockets, but it will leave a sour taste knowing we can destroy those whenever we want and they can’t do anything about it. They’ll slowly stop calling for death to Israel. Their militias will dry up. They’ll never have nukes and they can have hundreds of billions of dollars instead to enjoy saffron rice and air conditioning and families who don’t know war. We’ll sign treaties and deals. In 20 years they’ll elect a liberal. In 40 years it will be like none of this ever happened.
It’ll be like when Rome conquered the Mediterranean and all that was left was the pirates, or like when Naruto and Sasuke stopped fighting and had kids.
????
How does this happen? The US expended a huge amount of its munitions arsenal on Iran and achieved what?
Somewhere around 30% Tomahawk, >20% JASSM, ~20% SM-3/SM-6 - more like half of THAAD, PrSM.
They didn't stop Iran firing missiles and drones at whatever remains of US radar and bases in the region. They didn't open the straits of Hormuz forcefully. The straits are still closed. The oil is bottled up, Iran controls the straits. US says 'oh we blew up all these missiles' but that doesn't change the facts on the ground. Iran's missiles and drone forces are going to disappear from negotiations when they're the forces that won Iran the war? These aren't US missiles, they're not ridiculously expensive and can be quickly rebuilt. The drones are cheaper than cheap.
They just did man. USA just took a big fat L. Because America lacks the power to accomplish all these ambitious military goals against forces specifically designed to counter their techniques. America tried to bomb Iran's missile forces into submission and failed. That is why the Gulf Arabs are apparently going to pay war reparations to Iran. It's not a sign of strength when the loot flows from US allies to Iran, it's a sign of weakness. It's a sign of weakness when the sanctions campaign designed to help pressure the regime into collapse is to be withdrawn, when Trump has to return all these Iranian assets.
So far as I can see, Iran is getting things they didn't have before the war, like sanctions relief and return of assets. The US is getting nothing new. Nuclear negotiations are being put off into the future.
Dressing it up like an anime trope is just cope, a loss is a loss. Trump hates Iran and he was forced by Iranian strength to agree to things he really didn't want to do. He railed and railed against Obama returning a small fraction of Iran's assets. He's worsened America's position at vast expense.
So why didn't you? USAF tried and failed. Iran kept launching rockets. Iran can do something about US bombing, they can win wars, they can close the straits and impose oil pressure on America and the rest of the world. We just saw that. This is what an Iranian victory looks like. Trump was militarily strapped down on Dr Goldfinger's laser-table, watching the beam approach his gentleman's area and so he squealed. He lived to tell the tale and may yet weasel away with limited losses but that is not a win!
If there's any truth to the rumor/leak that Iran will receive 300 billion usd of financing for rebuilding... Wow. The whole war has been such a massive own goal by the US.
The hypothesis that Trump is a foreign asset (or someone who might as well be one) is strengthened again.
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We don't even have the terms of the deal and you're already declaring it a loss. I also don't think you actually know how many munitions were actually expended because the true size of America's arsenal is going to be classified. It seems like you're getting all your information from a social media fog of war that isn't all that accurate -- it's not true that Iran controls the strait when the American navy can blockade it and run ships through it against Iranian interference. It sounds like you just want to declare it an American loss and have decided that the only reliable information is the Iranian propaganda that declares it is one.
I read this as: We don't know what's in the deal, but lets pretend to. Since you then wrote a post that declared the deal a victory and a vindication of Trump without knowing what was in it.
I mean, what was the point of the original comment if you were going to pull out this stop, which applies to everything you've said in equal measure?
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