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Bloomberg: Goldman Says Gulf Oil Flows Two-Thirds of Prewar Level
A lot of ships are still making the crossing dark with transponders turned off but the trend is clear. Iran’s (supposed) leverage over the strait is basically nullified, oil is passing through despite Iranian proclamations. Independent analysts now agree with what the US government was saying weeks ago, that millions of barrels are passing through the strait under American auspices.
US CENTCOM agrees, putting out this statement that the US has escorted a few thousand ships through the Gulf, carrying through three-quarters of a billion barrels of oil over the past few months.
What changed?
Axios: "That sucker is open": U.S. gains the upper hand in the battle for Hormuz
The US has apparently de-mined the Straits of Hormuz, although, interestingly, there don’t seem to have been many mines in the first place!
It seems as though Iran’s capacities to threaten ship traffic the Strait were severely degraded by US military action, but that Iran was successfully able to convince news reporters and insurance companies that it could target ships.
For instance, Brady Sullivan at CNBC says
Meanwhile, Reuters: Pipelines and ports: Iran war spurs Gulf infrastructure investment
Not only has Iran lost control over the Straits, but Gulf states are building new pipelines to reroute oil around the Straits so that Iran can never threaten them again.
And how does it look inside Iran?
WSJ: Labor Protests and Panic Buying Signal Growing Pressure in Iran
————
Some might remember Trump’s infamous comments on this subject some months ago:
The Shakes take: Iran will never toll the straits, Iran will never have nuclear weapons, Trump was right about everything, a lot of people who believed Iranian claims are looking very, increasingly, increasingly!, foolish.
Listen, I’m as big a Trump guy and MAGA guy as there is. I was first on the train back in 2015. Even if trump is right here, and he may be, this was was a complete and utter disaster due to the colossal waste of money, lives, and opportunity. In the beginning of ‘26 the economy was getting back on track, tariffs had no meaningful effect on economy, inflation cooling, lots of optimism. It all vanished. And this has been a complete waste of a year. Sadly he sold us out for Israel. I don’t know if I’ll forgive him, Israel, or the rest of the GOP neocons for it. Though admittedly 2 of the 3 were already on my shit list.
Who cares if Iran loses? I’m sure I could come up with 100 problems more important than Iran - pre and post war.
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Oil flows being 2/3 of prewar isn't as bad as what they were around Easter, but even if volume were 100% of prewar, there's more to the story. They're getting to that number by running the straits at night, transloading into smaller vessels, using specialized crews, and doing other things to limit the danger. These things all cost money, on top of the increased premiums insurers are charging. But as you quote in your post:
This is not a good thing. What this means, essentially, that what oil is flowing is largely reliant on a US carrier group positioned in the area. Until that carrier group can leave with little risk of any knock-on effects, the war hasn't been won. You come here every week or so and post the kind of stats that could have easily shown that the US was winning in Vietnam in 1969, in Iraq in 2007, and in Afghanistan in 2015. Yet nobody would consider those wars successes. Trump himself ran on a promise that he wouldn't replicate the mistakes that got us into those wars. And instead he got us into the naval version of any one of those, with worse consequences for failure. Whether it's worse to have 100,000 troops tied up or a whole carrier fleet is a matter for debate. What isn't a matter for debate is that Iran controlling the Strait of Hormuz has real, immediate consequences for Americans that Communists controlling Vietnam or the Taliban controlling Afghanistan simply didn't. Whatever the oil flows actually are, it's cold comfort when I'm paying a dollar a gallon more for gas than I was a year ago. Until the troops can leave without risk of things getting worse, the war isn't over.
The war hasn't been won but this is garbage logic. Having carrier groups in position is a complete nothingburger. Conducting blockade and air patrol is a bit more effort but still not a lot.
It's a far cry from Vietnam which was sending home body bags every day.
Especially since it's not like the carrier group is in some random backwater. It makes sense for the US Navy to have a presence in the area as it's such a crucial and central bit of geography.
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There's an incredibly easy and simple way to check if oil flows are fine and normal now that doesn't involve reading through a bunch of articles or trusting claims by the US government or Iran government or anyone else. A method that is as objective as we could ask for. And that's just to look at the market. Are oil prices at or near pre war levels? Is the price of gasoline or other oil products/futures/etc back down to normal? If not, then no amount of words can refute the truth that things are not in fact resolved.
Because there is an easy criteria through which this claim can be objectively proven, not meeting the criteria is a sign the claim is false.
Five months ago you said that we would need permanent occupation in Iran to achieve any meaningful success. Four months ago you said that America was “wrecking the black economy”. Three months ago you said that it would be very easy for threaten commerce in the straights because they only have to succeed once while America has to protect traffic every time.
Sure yeah we can judge by the price of oil, I guess, but it’s very convenient that you choose this standard now that all the other evidence goes against your predictions before.
I said that prior excursions in the middle east would suggest long-term sustainable change would need at least that, given our prior history.
Even if we accept your claim that the US has won temporarily, something not matched by the market and oil futures or the prediction markets (13% chance by October, I'm giving you a buffer of two months here when you're claiming it's already won now), that is not proof of any long term sustainable change.
And that's of course with just getting back to normal marked as a victory. Not even including supposed long term gains (no meaningful regime change, they still obviously have access to enriched materials they would just need to dig out, etc). If your idea of a win is "we're gonna bomb their facilities every year indefinitely", doesn't seem very sustainable.
I didn't say it was "wrecking the black economy", I said the world economy. Which it objectively has, as someone else in this comment section already pointed out.
Even your claim isn't that the strait is open to prewar norms! Clearly it is a lot easier for Iran than it is the US if American "victory" here is arguing a best case scenario of 2/3rds capacity. Literally the most optimistic official government propaganda stance still can't claim that it's actually restored.
Go bet all your money against those idiots on Polymarket who don't realize the strait is apparently already open, yet alone doubting it will happen in October. You'll make hundreds of thousands if not millions depending on how much cash you can throw at it. This is an insane amount of money on the table, are you grabbing at it? Oh wait, it's not restored and even you know that.
I think there's a significant chance that even if the fully reopens with zero interference or restrictions, that traffic never returns to what it was before. That's not necessarily a loss but just a realignment in the way of doing things.
Sure, we can look at other metrics as well. Them surrendering the enriched uranium in any amount by end of the year is highly improbable https://polymarket.com/event/iran-agrees-to-surrender-enriched-uranium-stockpile-by but also a US invasion (taking the uranium without such agreement) is also highly unlikely.
Therefore by the end of the year, Iran will likely still have all the enriched uranium. In fact it's more likely we get another strait closing https://polymarket.com/event/bab-el-mandeb-strait-effectively-closed-by than for the uranium issue to be solved.
Low chances of further regime change https://polymarket.com/event/iran-leader-end-of-2026 also suggest no victory is to be found there by the end of the year either.
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Except a lot of oil was released from various buffers to keep the price lower and these buffers now have to be refilled. At least for a couple of months you will have some serious extra demand.
No issue with what you wrote but it's clear that people here don't understand the SPR releases so I'll add a little detail.
The releases were not just strait up releases. They were swaps. Meaning the US releases oil now and gets it back later. Except the amount they get back later is 26% higher than what they released.
So, from a starting level of 411m barrels, we'll release 133m, and then get back 168m later over the next three years. This will give the US government a small profit of $2 or $3 billion.
The total amount released is about 1.3 days of worldwide consumption or about 6.5 days of oil that goes through the Strait of Hormuz. It's a relatively small amount in the scheme of things. It's also a good midwit tell. The best SPR we have is the 14 million barrels of oil the U.S. produces every day. The second best SPR we have is in Venezuela and Guyana.
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The US and China are still actively drawing down their oil reserves, the US at least is at a 40 year low. There may be some other buffers sure, but a quick glance suggests that it's the opposite of your claim here and they're still being released, not refilled.
But yes "buffers are refilling" would be another objective way to evidence the claim oil flow and pricing is going back to normal. Maybe OP could provide that instead.
i am not saying that buffers are being refilled. Although if reduction of rate of draw is observed - things are moving in the right direction. I am saying that because they have to be refilled the price relief/signal will be delayed by a lot.
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Are you buying puts or calls?
That's a question for OP, who is claiming oil flows are back to normal and thus there should be a meaningful change in prices in the future.
And your response was to say “I think you are wrong.” My question (for both of you) is are you putting your money where your mouth is?
I'm not the one making a claim current oil futures are wrong! You're asking me to "put my money where my mouth is", but what does that mean when I believe the market is generally accurate and don't have a direction to correct it in? You don't get money for betting what everyone else in the market is doing, you have to take risk (go against them)!
It is OP who is claiming something that goes against oil futures and market predictions, and thus can be asked to put money on it since they would profit if correct. I would get nothing if I'm correct, as the market is already set properly.
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Cool story bro. I hate that you keep putting me on the same side as [
the likes ofETA: self-edit, this was too antagonistic] @hanikrummihundursvin and @coffee_enjoyer (I don't buy the "We did this at the behest of our Zionist masters" narrative), but it looks to me like the situation is materially worse for the US than before the war started, and the fact that it's much worse for Iran does nothing for me. I will ask you again: what is the benefit to me, as an American taxpayer? In what way is America now richer and safer? "We won we won we won!" okay, cool, what did we win?We won a delay in the start of the next nuclear war.
Very debatable. I think this hinges on multiple assumptions
(1) Iran was going to build nukes under the Obama deal. This one feels pretty unknowable, given Trump quitting the deal in his first term made it much less likely to succeed.
(2) Iran having nukes will lead to nuclear war with a high probability. I would instead argue that this probability is small. Sure, more actors having nukes increases the risk, but so far we have a lot of vastly different countries getting nukes and not nuking anyone (with the US being the outlier).
(3) Trump's war delayed them acquiring nukes. I mean the war this year, not the destruction of enrichment facilities in 2025. I think the net effect of 2026 is probably shorter timelines. You killed the ayatollah who had issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons. Now his son is in charge instead. You have also demonstrated to the regime that you will drop billions of dollars of bombs on Iran whenever you feel like it. Sure, you killed a lot of military personnel and destroyed a lot of general purpose infrastructure, but I would not be surprised if nuclear weapons became a top priority for Iran now.
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Iran is losing their ability to finance and supply their Houthis who also cause shipping problems all the time. Iran is losing their ability to finance and supply Hezbollah and Hamas, who create instability in the region. Iran is losing their ability to influence US elections.. Iran is losing their ability to fund protests at US colleges.
Is it worth it? Maybe not but I think we'll find all kinds of things Iran was doing we didn't like once they run out of funds. Taking out Iran is about the same as taking out USAID, but with a lot more upfront costs. We're taking a rook off China's chessboard. Attacking Iran will never win politically because we cannot compare it to the counterfactual world.
Total global economic disruption from this war is likely to be on the order of $1T by end of the year. I'd grant that this is less than I expected--the world economy absorbed the oil shock surprisingly well--but it's still somewhat significant. It's difficult to get a feel for how valuable the new effective constraints on Iran's illicit activities will be compared to the counterfactual of no war, but I'd want it to be $50B or so annually before calling the war a wash. One can fairly say that there are some tail risks that are likely delayed now (e.g. nuclear war in the Middle East), but I'm not sure we can count that against the counterfactual scenario if we don't also count the tail risks of choosing to go to war (e.g. a broader conflict involving China).
I'd put this $1 trillion number in the same category as "March Madness costs the US economy 75 gazillion dollars" news stories that come out each year. It's overly simplistic.
The logic would seem to imply that any increase in oil price is a loss to the economy. In that case, we should build a monument to the frackers. Before the fracking boom kicked off in 2014, oil was at $100 barrel, which is $139 in today's money. Let's do a rough estimate and say that, thanks to fracking, actual realized oil prices have been about $75/barrel since 2014, inflation adjusted.
At roughly 100 million barrels a day, that's 36.5 billion barrels a year, or 438 billion barrels over the period. With cost savings of $64/barrel that's $28 trillion saved by frackers. Get wrecked, Elon.
Of course, this logic doesn't make sense. For one, the money spent on oil is not simply incinerated. It is heavily taxed, distributed as dividends, and reinvested. And furthermore, higher oil prices can lead to increased fuel efficiency and innovations such as electric vehicles.
Finally, lower oil prices are a disaster for the the environment.
Outside of Iran, the true cost of the Iran War, dealing with all externalities, is a tiny fraction of this $1 trillion headline number. Of course, if we factor in the cost to Iran itself, the cost will be multiple trillion over a several year period.
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Well, $1T sure does sound expensive. What fraction of a COVID-19 is that?
If you expect me to defend our COVID response, you're barking up the wrong tree. I'd take a dozen Iran Wars over that.
This is kind of wondering-out-loud. If the populations of the countries most affected suffered more simply because of mass hysteria, then I'm underrating how much wars, which are a far more justified than "scared of the uncommon cold" is, should ideally cost.
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Why do you write in this style? Do you think that if you talk this way people will find it more convincing? Or is this just performance art and trolling? I honestly can't tell. Also, do you honestly think Trump has deeply held beliefs about Iran that he has actually thought through? He can't be "right" about this because he doesn't actually think about it or have deeply help beliefs on this subject.
Inflation is up, Trump's approval rating is in the gutter, the war is unpopular, and by your own admission it's a 2/3 of pre-war levels! Imagine if they didn't go to war -- it would probably be at 100% pre-war levels because there would be no war! The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is currently at a 44-year low of approximately 289.7 million barrels, having fallen below the 300 million barrel threshold for the first time since 1983. What do you think will happen once that runs out?
Trump spent all of his remaining political capital for this amazing "victory". Iran can keep this up for years. They don't give a shit about their people and their suffering. Unless the regime falls, this war was a complete waste of money which of course adds to the debt. There's no guarantee that the Iran regime will fall during Trump's term, and if they are still around in 2 years, we will have probably spent close to a trillion dollars for no tangible benefit.
Instead, Democrats might take all 3 branches now and become the wokest of wokes to ever woke. Public support for the U.S. military action in Iran has hit record lows, with the most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showing just 31% approval, down from 37% in March (so it was never popular). Trump’s approval rating on handling the Iran conflict stands at 25-33% across recent polls, contributing to his overall second-term low approval rating of 33%. How do you think that will go if the war isn't wrapped up soon? If Trump doesn't finish this up by the Midterms and takes a massive L, he's cooked. Republicans may even turn on him.
Right now the war is "unpopular" because the mainstream media is spinning it 24/7 as some sort of unwinnable quagmire, and people are afraid of getting trapped in another Afghanistan type situation. But if he actually wins the war, then it will suddenly be a lot less unpopular. Winning doesn't necessarily have to be a formal regime change, just some sort of obvious symbol of progress, like floating a big convey through the Strait of Hormuz.
But on a broader level, if Republicans lose in the midterms... so what? Trump is a lame duck president and an elderly man, of course he's going to lose popularity. The purpose of winning elections is to do things, you're not trying to do things just to win elections! Trump will still be commander in chief, with wide powers to fight the war as he sees fit. The democrats in Congress can complain, but all they can really do is set budgets.
The war is unpopular because Trump is incompetent and just did it instead of making the case to the American public. So that is 100% on him. The media hates Trump so he has to take that into account when waging an unnecessary war. Of course, he didn't because he thought it would be a short war (was wrong) and here we are.
And yes the point of winning elections is to do stuff. But you want to do stuff that is actually a good idea and leads to your side winning and getting more of what you want. Not sure how spending all your political capital on an Iran War helps there. If he wanted to do something that is unpopular but has to be done, cutting entitlements or the debt would be a good place to start instead of another war.
That's not actually a thing that the president can do though. He doesn't have the power to decide budgets. He does have the power to fight wars. Obama did the same thing in his second term, he mostly gave up on trying to fix healthcare and just spent his time handling drone strikes across the middle east. But it's another reason why losing midterm elections isn't the end of the world... if Democrats win Congress, then it's on them to do the unpopular stuff and cut spending.
In fact the president does not have the power to declare war, so if he's going to do things he doesn't have the power to do maybe he should do things that are actually useful.
Semantics. Legal precedent since Vietnam has given the president wide ranging power to use the military without an official declaration of war. Maybe that's not how the founders intended it, but that's what we've got. But he really, really doesn't have the power to re-make medicare and social security into whatever he wants, that's just college student naivete to think that a president has that kind of power.
"The president's powers aren't bound by the constitution in this area because a previous president broke the rules, but in all the other areas the president has to follow the rules."
I don't know that this is what they call a "stable equilibrium".
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He is the head of the Republican Party and can whip Senate and House into doing this or at least actually attempt to. Or build the wall or long term immigration reform or anything that will help this country long term (things he ran on). Democrats will also never cut entitlements their winning issue is MORE healthcare, entitlements, etc. Trump officials also have another reason to win the midterms and the White House and that’s to not go to prison. Which honestly I hope happens because maybe they will see how serious this is instead of fucking around grifting billions and renaming stuff.
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In some sense it may be better for Trump['s project] to be unpopular due to the war than something like immigration enforcement. If you think that some degree of unpopularity was baked in, the unpopularity of the war is something that the administration can to some degree steer (and also that future Republican nominees can more easily disavow).
It could be copium but I would buy that Iran is working as 5d chess to distract the population from negative newsbites about immigration enforcement. Few people are talking about ice on college campuses or rioting outside federal facilities. Instead normies have turned to armchair experts in drone warfare and oil markets
I don't think Iran was done as a 5D chess move to distract from negative immigration news bites, but I wouldn't be surprised if, now that it is kicked off, the Trump administration (or at least some factions within it) aren't (contra what you would expect from Reading The News) desperate to end it in any rush exactly because it is generating narrative top cover as you describe.
I also do think that the blockade will continue to pay off over the long run and the admin is probably in less of a rush to "win the war" than one might imagine for that reason as well.
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I don't know if Trump has any deeply held beliefs about Iran, but Vance, Rubio and Hegseth certainly do, and I get the impression that Rubio and Hegseth in particular are less concerned with what is "popular" than what they see as "right".
Is it? CPI is reportedly up slightly relative to Trump's first term but still well below it's Biden-era peak
Inflation is obviously up since the start of the Iran War i.e. gas prices etc which is clearly what I meant. This isn't even debatable. But sure, it's not the worst ever so I guess count that as a win. But even if it wasn't, people perceive it as up which is all that really matters when you live in a democracy. And they blame Trump for that.
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We are now two thirds of the way towards how things were prior to us attacking our enemy. None of this has benefitted a single American that is not a zionist. Total Victory!
Three weeks ago you wrote:
It sounds like your position is not consistent internally but is just contrarian to whatever the pro-war case is. Last week America is winning and that’s bad actually, this week America can’t really be said to be winning at all.
How is that inconsistent?
If you enter the 'Who can get kicked in the nuts the hardest' contest and nab first place, where does that leave us? I can recognize that you placed 1st. I can also recognize the icepack on your groin. To ultimately conclude that you won nothing. Repeatedly telling me you 'won' because you placed 1st or that some other guy took a kick much worse than yours doesn't change that.
As I said prior: America in your context is just US foreign policy as dictated by zionists. No American person living an American life sees benefit from any of this. This is just money out of their pocket. The ZOG of America has more leverage in the middle east now. That's the actual extent of your definition of victory. In other areas, that operate on non-zionist assumptions, America is worse off along with the rest of the world.
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Killing the "death to america" leader whose foreign policy was "export islamic revolution" seems prima facie to benefit me a lot
How, exactly? Is it your belief that Iran will now celebrate America and fight Islamic revolution everywhere?
No, I think killing muslims who hate me is a good thing in and of itself. But tbh if I were president I dont think I'd have started this war and I dont think as it stands the benefits have been worth the costs.
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They actually overshot, and now the new leadership of Iran are woke transgender communists. More execution strikes may be necessary to bring them back to equilibrium.
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Not if he's instantly replaced by even more dedicated hardliners who believe the exact same thing.
Do they believe the exact same thing? It doesnt seem so to me. The IRGC strikes me as a military outfit before a religious one. Khomeni was primarily a cleric. Dealing with a military junta seems leagues better than an theocracy, even if they both hate america.
Meh. The IRGC and clerics are fairly interactive with one another, the former taking more dictation from the latter. I think hour more basic point is that from Iran’s perspective, the geostrategic logic is the same regardless of who is in power; because that doesn’t alter the security dilemma you’re caught in.
Ok to engage in realpolitik / geostrategic logic the first assumption is that states are rational actors acting in their own self interest. I dont think khomeni was a rational actor, he was an islamic fundamtalist. I think the junta giving direction to the clerics would be a much better situation, if that is actually the case.
What’s your evidence he wasn’t acting in their national self-interest?
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Goldman is extrapolating from Kpler data with the assumption that Kpler’s estimates are artificially low. Goldman is assuming: because Kpler’s estimates from months ago were later revised to be higher, this means that their estimates this week should also be revised higher. This assumption is speculative and IMO unwarranted. Kpler’s data from months ago was revised because AIS-off transfers were relatively new, but since then they have been tracking crossings by other means, like with satellites. Kpler has not announced in any of their publications the belief there is a large amount of dark shipping through the strait which they haven’t been able to count; they can find ships before and after they pass through even if the passing itself is dark. Maybe there is something more happening (how would anyone know but a guy on the shores with binoculars), but it’s telling that Kpler has never mentioned such a prospect to anyone or in any publication, as far as I can tell. If someone has access to the full Goldman report, that would be cool to check why they actually think it’s warranted to revise the Kpler data upward.
Iran and Oman recently agreed in principle on a route in which ships pass through Iranian waters, only barely passing through Omani waters. The Iran-Oman agreement bans US warships. There continues to be ships struck in the strait. Kpler has only been able to confirm transits through Iranian waters recently. The authoritative information is not looking good.
edit I looked into the Kpler details for more accurate numbers:
Per their Aug 19 report, between July 22nd and Aug 11 there were 4.83 millions of barrel per day on average of crude/condensate that were clearing, ignoring other liquids. [ctrl-f: clearance (mb)]. In 2025 that number was 14.95 mb/d crude + condensates. This is focusing only on crude/co, not the other products. So that’s 32% of prewar levels.
per the report, Kpler’s 12-16 Aug mbd estimate is 4.02 (2.3*1.75). Importantly they state here that their recent estimates are subject to a 1.5-2.0x correction, hence my 1.75 multiplier on their estimate or 2.3. That’s the lowest five-day avg going all the way back to June.
There’s nothing much newer by Kpler, but we can look at the number of vessel crossings between 12-16 which resulted in 4.02mbd to find a relationship. On X they post infographic gifs on this: that’s 10 vessel crossings on average. So, 10 vessels for 4.02mbd. The last three day period reported by Kpler averages 7 vessel crossings. So the last days reported = 2.81mbs crude/co. Which is 18.7% of pre-war levels. And again this is all only for crude/co, not other products, because I think the crude/co category is considered the most economically significant (?). However, the three days before that had some days in the 20s for crossings, so maybe the last 3d inspected period was unusually bad.
It’s possible America has gotten even better at stealth transits, but for that to be possible it would need to have occurred after the 12th. It’s also possible America is pushing more unladen vessels. (Kpler says laden transit fell 27% between Aug 21-23.)
Corrections on my math welcome
If you are reading @coffee_enjoyer's comment without clicking through on the links, you might have been under the impression that this "authoritative information" was based on a done deal, the details attested to by both sides. In fact it is based on an interview with a member of Iran's foreign ministry about a deal that has not been signed.
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False. The image you posted shows routes published months ago and there is zero evidence that those routes are related current negotiations.
According to Iranian authorities, known for pants on fire lies on countless occasions.
I would like to point out that your link has zero connection with your claim.sorry I got my links mixed upIt’s the same route according to a Bloomberg journalist reporting on Gharibabadi’s interview, and the same graphic was used in Bloomberg reporting as of two days ago, a report written by the same journalist.
And WH refuses to respond about it… to Fox News of all outlets.
Is that even true? Has anyone compared the number of false statements by our President vs by official Iranian channels?
So, who do you think struck the Kuwaiti tanker near Omani waters? The ghost of Ahura Mazda?
Well then that journalist is stretching the truth. There is no legitimate evidence that the temporary route under negotiation between Oman and Iran is the same route that was claimed by Iran in June. But simply slapping the same map on top of every article is a neat lazy way to spice it up without being techncially false, if you don't make claims that image relates to the article content.
It's a super common practice for joirnalists to put stock photos or other assets not directly of the event being reported on, just to provide some filler and vibe. Just open any paper and look carefully at the captions.
Examples: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/29/tuareg-rebels-free-more-malian-soldiers-in-prisoner-swap-sources-say
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/29/in-south-korea-it-is-to-travel-to-dangerous-countries-journalists-say-its-making-their-work-impossible
https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/28/asia/taiwan-china-ships-record-intl-hnk
https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/28/politics/trump-venezuela-oil-deal
Trump lying doesn't make Iran's lies less of lies. But I do honestly believe the Iranians and Pakis were saying different stuff behind closed doors than publicly, so the number of pants on fire lies from Trump is actually quite low. Most of his lies I would categorize as "mostly false"
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This conflict has demonstrated an epistemic weakness in many people, not just in the media, but in supposedly rationalist communities that should know better too.
When you hear two competing claims, and the two claims are far apart, it's a pretty familiar human heuristic to "split the difference". So when CENTCOM is saying they've destroyed Iran's navy and airforce, and Iran is claiming they've blown up a U.S. aircraft carrier, many people will say, "The truth is somewhere in the middle. Sounds like a quagmire".
As anyone who tried to buy a rug in Turkey knows, this heuristic is lazy and exploitable. People make extreme claims to try to move the Overton window, then "settle" for the position they wanted anyway.
We should never be splitting the difference here because Iran is full of shit. Oil is moving through the strait. The United States has crippled Iran's offensive capability. The price of oil remains lowish, and Iran's economy is in shambles. At some point, you have to stop splitting the difference and start giving Iran the "Baghdad Bob" treatment. Any pronouncement from Iran's regime should just be laughed at. We shouldn't be making ANY Bayesian updates based on uncorroborated information from Iran.
In any case, that's why I love financial markets. You have to put your money where your mouth is and develop real epistemic hygiene, instead of just making the mouth noises.
I agree with all of this. I'm no military expert, and I have no idea what's going on in the strait. It seems to be a huge fog of war with everyone saying different things, and ships deliberately hiding their traffic. But I can safely tune out all that noise and just look at the price of oil in the financial markets, and I feel like that tells me a lot more than any political commentator. From that, it's easy to see that the price of oil is elevated, but not too much so. Suggesting that, while things aren't exactly "back to normal," it's also very far from a full blockade on oil.
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While Iran is obviously full of shit and their word is worth basically nothing, their continued existence as an enemy power would seem to be pretty strong evidence against the maximalist US claim that they're defeated, have no military power, have no leverage, etc.
That's my worry: that Iran's only leverage is the same leverage that Gaza had, the misery of its citizens.
Iran doesn't have any military targets worth hitting. It has no operational military planes or ships. It can't produce or buy missiles. It can barely launch some weak drones that do little damage if they strike.
Any rational country would have settled on the first day and joined Venezuela in the U.S. circle of orbit. They didn't even need to be a democracy! They just needed to stop funding terror proxies. But clearly Iran, like Gaza, has leaders who are willing to sacrifice all their people to hurt their enemies.
They won't quit, and we're not going to do what it takes to make them because it would be a humanitarian nightmare. That's their leverage, and it's not nothing.
From Iran, we're going to see a pivot from "Death to Amerikka!" to "Halp! Call the UN, we're being genocided!"
From the US, it will be a frozen conflict which will consume about 0.1% of GDP and create a vague since of unease like Iraq/Afghanistan. Eventually, if that goes on long enough, something might change. That's if the Republicans can maintain the Presidency. If the Democrats win in 2028, then they'll make a shit deal with Iran, let them sell oil, and they'll start refining uranium almost immediately.
The one reason they might not is that I think Iran has a bit more national pride, rather than being built on being oppressed.
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All of the following can be true:
In fact, all of the following were true before we attacked. We have spent six months and who knows how many weapons—for what? Delaying a nuclear program? Stimulating defense spending? Getting Republicans out of office?
If Trump expected a special operation, in and out in a couple weeks, he was wrong. If he thought Iran would concede after this level of ass-blasting, he was wrong. If he thought another Middle Eastern slog would boost his approval, he was wrong. If he thought oil prices would go back down, he was wrong. Iran had and has zero chance of winning this war on any conceivable metric. That doesn’t mean it was a good deal.
I'm hoping that this does a little more than simply delay the program, but stops it entirely. A six month bombing campaign seems a completely reasonable cost for that! I feel like people are far too blase with the idea of letting 3rd world dictators have nuclear weapons, especially when they also have long range missiles
What is the mechanism for ensuring this in 2,5,10 years?
Similarly, what is the mechanism for turning bombing lots of random stuff in Iran to stopping the nuclear program?
Nukes are a 1940s tech. Iran has already stood up most/all of the supply chain once. And the first time around they also didn't have access to 2026 technology.
Regular inspections (as well as satellite reconnaissance) are the mechanism. Nukes might be old tech, but they still require a massive industrial apparatus of centrifuges to make the enriched uranium. It's pretty easy to spot, and then blow it up. As well as blowing up all the engineers and the leaders who authorized it, for good measure. America has tremendous power to do things now, we don't have to suffer the learned helplessness of the Obama era anymore.
How you define "do things" is quite load bearing.
I absolutely agree, America can flatten Iran any day of any week, likely forever. But it definitely cannot semi-frequently mow the grass and contain China to the first island chain.
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They were true, but we didn't know they were true. Many people thought that an attack on Iran would lead to U.S. casualties in the thousands (or much greater), a ground invasion, a complete shutdown of the Hormuz, oil at $250/barrel, etc...
None of that happened.
Yes, Iran has always been weak. But that fact was not well understood until now. In fact, among many people, it's STILL not well understood. This is the equivalent of saying, today, that Apple stock was an obvious buy in 2007. Easy to say in hindsight, isn't it?
Right. I remember the stress over possible consequences in what must have been Trump I: their population, their tenacity…none of that materialized. We have absolutely outperformed expectations.
But we still haven’t gained anything.
Like some of the other commenters, I’m not opposed to efficient intervention. I also think the current situation would be preferable to, say, letting Iran do whatever they want with the strait. If they’d started this off by closing it, I’d be impressed that we got back up to 2/3 transit!
What I don’t see are reasons to prefer it to, well, 3/3 transit.
I think it's too early to say whether the war was worth it, but some things have been gained.
Iran's nuclear program is set back a long time. I think in a counterfactual Harris Presidency, they'd be very close by now.
Iran's leverage over the strait has been reduced. Most people really thought they could close it! This was THE scenario that oil bulls pointed to. Now we know that Iran is a paper tiger. This information has value.
Iran is busy not being regime-changed so they have fewer resources to spend arming proxies and terrorists
Iran is isolated. Iran's missile attacks on UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, etc.. have shown to those countries that Iran must never have nuclear weapons or missile capabilities. Iran's only constraints were lack of ability, not willingness.
Despite this, I think the war has NOT gone how Trump hoped it would. The Venezuelan operation had been a massive success. At a trivial cost, we were able to bring Venezuela into the US orbit and increase our energy security while eroding China's. Trump likely thought Iran would go similarly: a decapitation followed by a new, more pliant leadership. Sadly, this has not come to pass and any gains we've made may prove to last only as long as the current administration.
I don't follow your logic here. Iran has long had the ability to launch such missile attacks on these countries. The constraint wasn't lack of ability but lack of motivation.
My logic is that Iran's attacks were seemingly random. They were angry. They wanted to hurt someone. They couldn't hurt Israel or the United States, their enemies, so they instead hurt whatever soft targets they could hit with their missiles.
I've asked ChatGPT to make a full list. Other than Israel, they've also attacked Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iraq, and Jordan. They've also attacked shipping from many neutral countries, including India and China, hilariously attacking one Indian vessel who tried to pay the Iranian "toll" but paid crypto scammers instead. (At least according to rumor).
The only reason they didn't attack countries further afield is that their missiles don't go that far.
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Uh, I bought Apple stock in 2007.
Straight gangster. Well played.
I bought in 2010 when the iPhone boom should have been fully priced in but wasn't. Made a boatload of cash on options while retaining the equity. I got bored in 2019 when Apple traded a PE of 10 for some reason. Like an idiot, I shrugged and said "I guess the market is right" and sold my Apple. Then the stock quadrupled in the next 2 or 3 years as the market decided the actually Apple deserves a PE of 30 after all. Seven figure mistake.
Markets are hard.
Ignoring Iran's threats after the 100th time they've come up empty is easy.
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It's total cope to say that things are going well for the US, though it seems to be trending into a somewhat better position for the US. Unfortunately in reality the fog of war is quite thick. Administration aligned sources are maximally spinning the facts they can to make things look better, and everything Trump says is a massive hyperbole. Meanwhile the majority of Iranian statements are just pants on fire lies, going as far as to deny that it was them blowing up ships. Due to the rules and Iran's silly denials, nobody wants to play polymarket. If it weren't for free copernicus satellite footage, the osint community would basically be totally blind to the entire state of affairs.
Honestly this whole situation has turned me into a huge Iran hawk, but unfortunately Trump is too pussy to finish the job. Despite having substantial strike capabilities, the fact that Iran is only willing to make retaliatory attacks seems to signal that they were on the ropes. That should have been the moment to cross the rubicon and annihilate their supply chains and oil facilities. Now we have a blockade that might eventually give the same results but orders of magnitude slower.
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I'm not going to get on my anti-third worldist soapbox. That's an exhausted line of rhetoric.
But there are an awful lot of people who want to signal that they're skeptical and anti-war. And they bring up comparisons to the War on Terror, and bring up the talking points of that time - even when they're not applicable. But sometimes the richer and stronger and technologically advanced side wins. In fact, that's what happens most of the time. People forecasting the end of the American empire by the number of shells in the shot locker or rockets in the arsenal are selling an narrative that isn't congruent with reality.
We live in a Western society that has transparency, that has motivated partisan actors obsessively analyzing every scrap of evidence to throw against the war. This is the evidence the skeptics tout. But curiously, they're completely unskeptical about Russian, Iranian, and Chinese sources, taking the statements of state media and their organs without comment. You can come to your own conclusions as to why this is.
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