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They can just wait until Congress forces Trump to give up, or a new President takes over and gives up. I think that's their strategy. They're still keeping pressure on by attacking ships in the strait and killing crewmen, though the remaining shipping seems to be accepting the danger as a cost of doing business.
I see none of these victories in Iraq. Also the strategic reserve is still being drawn down, suggesting an even shorter time limit for Trump's actions. Iran can win a war of attrition, because as an ironclad autocracy they don't have to worry about political realities. And they have 90 million citizens, probably 80 million of whom could die before they lost the ability to wage war.
Even a hypothetical jew-hating democrat president isn't going to surrender to Iran's humiliating demands. Trump is ready to slink away in defeat if Iran just lets him out. They won't let him and they won't let a democrat out either.
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Iron autocracies have to worry about political realities all the time. It’s one of their defining features.
I guess what you mean is that Iran specifically can suffer indefinitely. I’m not sure why this would be the case; I think this is magical thinking — see also:
It doesn’t work like that at all, this is absurd. It’s almost impressive that you are imagining that Iran could lose tens of millions of people, and call that a win.
USSR lost 20 million people and won WW2. And you’re just pretending not to understand what they are saying about ironclad autocracies. They don’t have to care about suffering and public opinion like democracies do, and that is just obviously true. They have already caused massive suffering for the Iranian people and are still in charge.
The USSR inflicted a few ten million casualties itself. This is nowhere close to Iran’s situation, which does not even have a Supreme Leader who has ever shown his face in public. Iran is nowhere close to achieving anything.
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How many Iranians would have to die before Iran wouldn't be able to shoot at ships in the Strait any more? I claim the answer is "almost all of them".
Nevermind 10 million, if even a dozen soldiers survive in the whole country then Iran can technically shoot at ships in the Strait.
But at some point between 80 million and 12 the threat devolves from war to something like Somalian piracy.
It's already not much more than Somalian piracy. It's just if we take the boot off they can make it Somalian piracy with nukes. My point is we can't beat them with attrition because they just don't need most of their civilian population in order to be Somali pirates.
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Iran is shooting at ships in the Strait right now and it doesn’t seem to be winning the war for them. It’s the only card they have to play and it’s not working.
"Not working" how? The alternative viewpoint is that shooting at the Strait is literally the thing we care about, the one thing we want them to stop doing, and so long as they get to keep doing it then we're losing.
“Iran still hasn’t given up” is not really much of an argument. Besides, their navy is depleted, their drones are depleted, their missiles are depleted. They pose less of a threat to ships than they ever did, which is why ships are now crossing the gulf. Give it a few more months and they won’t even be able to do that.
We can check in 4 months then? If you think more time needed, please say so
Sure, what’s the specific bet you would like me to commit to
That maritime risk return to baseline levels within 4 months. If there is at least 1 verified attack or insurance premiums stay high that would go against "they won’t even be able to do that". Naturally if US and Iran would make a deal, then we hate to look at concessions to view the winner, so it should be a separate bet
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