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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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