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I am glad that we've achieved the pre-war status quo, at an economic cost of a half trillion dollars or so.
Though, you also have claimed oil flows had been restored and complete US victory several times before. Maybe this time it'll stick. It'd be rational for Iran to accept peace on pretty much any terms, but that's been true for awhile.
As I commented before, the only way you come up a half trillion dollar cost is by saying that "oil prices going up" means the extra money spent on oil just disappears from the economy. But it doesn't. That money is recycled throughout the economy. The true cost is much lower.
A half trillion cost could also be arrived at via the cost to Iran's economy. That's probably a fairly accurate figure.
For relatively cheap we were able to almost completely neutralize Iran's navy, air force, missile program, and nuclear program. If we get regime change, the war will almost certainly be worth it. Even if we don't, I think it succeeds on the merits.
The one objection that I think holds weight is that it's been a PR nightmare. If Republicans lose the midterms, the cost will have been immense. But that's not really the way Trump thinks.
This is just the broken windows fallacy, gussied up. Higher oil prices mean that people use less oil than they would otherwise; this is a global economic distortion. The half a trillion dollars number isn't coming from naively multiplying the delta in oil prices (that gets you the trillion dollar number) but from (necessarily counterfactual) GDP deltas. I guess a hardcore climate change person could eliminate a lot of those costs by saying oil usage is a net negative.
And, although I don't expect many people to be sympathetic here to Iran's economy, massive destruction of capital is massive destruction of capital.
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To be clear, the pre-war status quo was that the strait was only "open" because Iran was using it as a hostage. Meanwhile they were investing heavily in their nuclear, drone, and ICBM programs, plus funding terrorist proxies abroad. Not to mention massacring any of their people who dared to protest.
All of that is gone now. Their missile factories are destroyed, their funds are gone, and most of their missiles have been used up. The only thing left is finding a way to permanently remove their nuclear material, which has been bombed into dust but is still there. And if they won't come to terms on that, the US and its allies can just keep bombing them indefinitely while other nations' oil goes through the Strait and Iran's economy falls ever further apart.
https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/us/2026/09/10/iran-has-resumed-ballistic-missile-production-report-says/
These destroyed missile factories are surprisingly operational, just like Iran's 'destroyed' nuclear facilities back in 2025, somehow undestroyed by 2026. The US track record of destroying capability with airpower alone is so poor that it's surprising anyone still believes what they say.
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Yes, because the US has been winning the entire time. Trump attacked Iran and destroyed their ability to threaten traffic in the Straits, and proclaimed that the Straits were open. Everyone laughed and then slowly started transiting the Straits under American protection, hence the current "pre-war status quo".
That's the definition of victory. America is at "pre-war status quo," Iran is doing much worse than before the war. Time to admit Trump won and Iran lost.
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