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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   338 thread views

Transnational Thursday for July 9, 2026

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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It looks like things between the US and Iran might be seriously heating up again, with the US saying that they have responded to Iranian ceasefire violations with major airstrikes. Perhaps more significantly, the Treasury pulled the waiver that allowed Iran to sell oil.

I had been told, on here, that the terms of the MOU indicated that the US was desperate to come to the table with Iran. It seems to me that these recent actions by the US indicate otherwise – that the US is comfortable escalating again. However, by the same token, it seems that Iran (or at least the hard-liners) are also comfortable escalating again.

However, the timing does strike me as interesting: it looks, to me, like the US waited until July 4th and America's 250th were comfortable over before upping the strikes on Iran a notch.

But I am curious as to what the rest of the Motte thinks. Does this change your thinking on the conduct of the war so far? Anyone want to predict what happens next? Are we looking at a widening of the war, or will this all fizzle into more extremely protracted negotiations?

The key facet now seems to no longer be regime change or demilitarizing Iran or nukes but about whether Iran can impose a toll or not on the straits. That's what Iran is trying to do. They shot at some freighters using an unapproved route, US struck Iran in retaliation. It has nothing to do with the 4th of July.

It's a bit like the second phase of the Iran-Iraq war where the Iranians pushed Iraq out and sought to install a new revolutionary regime in Baghdad. They overreached there, the US and Soviets made sure Iran couldn't win. We'll see if this is an overreach too...

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