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So, perhaps this too much of a war question, rather than a culture war one, but I'm having trouble understanding why Iran is launching attacks on random cargo ships in the Red Sea via proxies in Yemen, and now apparently directly https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-67811929 .
Ok, at least some of the vessels are Israeli linked, and they're hitting at US warships, but my confusion is what this hopes to achieve. Operation Preying Mantis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis seems an apt concern for the Iranians as a repeat: they cant hope to exert serious pressure on Israel's economy, and the moment they sink or damage a warship they're getting hit hard surely? And is it earning them any friends?
Meanwhile Hezbolah is Iranian backed and maybe directly controlled, and has done little in the current conflict. If you want to apply pressure to Israel, isnt that the way, especially given that Hezbolah has resources Hamas does not and could seriously threaten another front that would need actual Israeli resources. Iran isnt going all out with its assets, or the assets in cases are refusing to for self preservation.
So why hit ships? Is it really all they can do? Do they assume the US cant respond? Maybe it earns them some respect from the muslim world for standing up, but it just seems... odd. I'm not exactly Bismark, but I'm clearly missing something.
One of the problems with being hegemon is that everyone has interest in weakening you. I think that some state actors have noticed something - while the US has the military capacity to respond, they no longer have the administrative one. Look at how many crisis there are that are not being handled well - US Southern Border, Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Gaza, the strings of coups in sub-Saharan Africa, the saber rattling of Ethiopia, the saber rattling of Venezuela. Just sowing chaos may lead to the demise of the sovereign or at least pushing it into isolationism.
Only one of these directly involves the US, that being the Southern border, which has been a basket case forever. The rest, at worst, is indirect, like Israel/Gaza. The US has not been that successful regarding Ukraine, because the political will is lacking to expend more resources, and Russia was underestimated. In any decade there are at least some conflicts going on, some of of which may affect the US indirectly. This is not much different. Compared to as recently as the late 80s, in which the Cold War and Eastern Bloc was still extant, things are looking not bad.
There is a lot of antipathy to the US though, especially in the Middle East, Russia, and some of China, but this is hardly new. A watch and wait approach is ideal now.
Regarding this latest development between Iran and the US, I predict there will be no escalation and the issue will resolve itself. The US knows that Iran is useful, even as an enemy, because it helps keeps Sunni power in check. Sunnis are arguably worse, owing to long history of terrorism against Western targets that have nothing to do with Israel, and also state-sponsored terrorism by Sunni-majority countries. Iran has a long history of making provocations against the US that are self-contained, like in 2020 https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/01/08/irans-attack-on-us-base-in-iraq-underscored-depth-of-max-pressures-folly/
That is not how things work when you have a unipolar world. There are no crises that don't involve the hegemon. In a multipolar the flares on the borders of spheres of influence are expected. Let's take Ethiopia - Eritrea - while the likes of china and russia are to be contained (not controlled), the US diplomacy lacks the capacity to tell Abiy Ahmed to sit on his ass and shut up. Which is a strong signal to other countries - that if you want to stir shit, now is the moment. Part of it is that the non first world is just too big to ignore - so it is possible to have a form of parallel world economy.
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If nothing else, the 10/7 attack and Gaza war have driven a huge split in Biden's coalition on the issue, and has probably done a number on his approval and election polling numbers.
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