USA Goes to War Against Iran

Iran has a 10 point proposal, don't think they just abandon all those points with no negotiation.
Could see the boat tax staying in place for awhile. They said they'd split the 2mil with Oman, so then Oman could possibly disperse the funds to gcc countries to help pay for damages.

First off, it is a 2 week ceasefire. Just the fact the IRGC agreed to a 2 week ceasefire strongly negates your statement, as their first demand was no temporary ceasefires. For all we know the 2 sides will just start fighting again in 2 weeks, similar to what has happened several times between Israel and Hamas/Hezbollah.

Second, Trump lies all the time. All he said was the 10 point proposal was a starting point, which isn't committing to a single of Iran's points, and even this could be a lie.

Also, The Islamic Republic and the Revolution it stood for is for all intensive purposes dead. The Supreme Leader was killed and an unconscious (dead?) person was propped up Weekend at Bernies style in his place. There are foreign militias roaming the streets of all major cities supressing any dissent. There is no legitimacy at all, except what can be compelled by brute force.

All that is left is the IRGC and what is left of its proxies, which acts more or less like a neighborhood gang that just intimidates and extorts everyone in their territory and all their neighbors.

Even assuming the fighting ends here, we have no clue what this means for the future of Iran or the region.

Decapitation doesn't seem to be a very effective strategy. The only thing that went Israel's way in the past few years was Syria, and Assad was the only guy they didn't decapitate.

Iran is going to be able to turn Hormuz into a toll booth, collecting 10% of their GDP per annum, and there's not a lot the US or Israel can do about it. That will get the currency back in shape and quell a lot of the unrest. Forcing Trump into the mother of all TACOs also does a lot on the legitimacy front.

You really think when all the fighting ends the world is just going to pay Iran $2M/ship to get oil from Saudi, Qatar, UAE and Kuwait?

If it actually came to this (I doubt it will), most of these nations would just divert their oil so they dont use the Persian Gulf. Saudi is already doing this. Qatar has always wanted a natural gas pipeline to Turkey (where Assad in Syria was the main stumbling block, and he isn't around anymore).

I suspect it wont come to this, and when the smoke clear the Strait will be reopened for free for everyone, and even then the GCC's will still find alternate routes for the majority of their oil.

As far as internal legitimacy, we will have to see how things shake out. When they do happen, these things tend to happen fast with little warning. No one would have predicted Assad's fall even one week before it happened.

I'm thinking Trump will just say the Strait is Europe's problem now and be done with it.

I would say Hamas very much went Israel's way. They lost half their territory and all their ability to project violence against Israel. They are just a bunch of teenagers running around with AK-47s terrorizing the people in Gaza, with no capability to project power outside of Gaza. And as long as they are still around making Gaza a lawless Wild West, no need to worry about a Palestinian state. Really couldn't have gone better IMO.

Hezbollah could have gone better, but Israel is in better shape with respect to them than 10/6/2023.

Really things have gone pretty good for Israel on the battlefield; but may have lost the war anyways because of loss of outside support and their own horrible internal demographics (majority of young people far right wing)

Ironically, I would disagree with you on Syria too. Turkey is a much more capable sponsor than Russia/Iran. Netanyahu would have been perfectly fine with a weak Assad staying in power; and Syria could very easily turn into a much bigger headache if it can organize as a Sunni Jihadi nation aligned with Turkey.

Does he? He got practically nothing out of the 12 day War, Houthi War, or threatening to annex Greenland; and still walked away. Being able to shamelessly claim victory where there is none to be found, walk away and move on to the next thing seems to be a super power Trump has.

Even more than Russia and NK, I would say the IRGC has been turned into a CCP client state, reliant on the CCP to prop them up. They have little internal support and are under sanctions by most of the rest of the world.

So at the end of the day they pretty much have to do what China wants. And right now I suspect China wants stable energy, for itself and the states that buy all its ****. So unless the IRGC goes completely rogue/burn it all down, when he smoke clears I think the Strait is going to be open.

We shall see I guess.

Don't get my hopes up

Something else to think of is that all the GCCs have hired Ukranian engineers to help them develop state of the art drone defense. And Israel has developed cheaper pilot programs than Iron Dome and THAAD's for ballistic missile defense which they claim have held up well. And we can hope a big chunk of Trump's $1.5 billion military budget will be R&D for the US modernizing its own warfare capabilities.

As warfare technology evolves, it isn't guaranteed Iran (with currently degraded manufacturing capacity and no functional air defense) will be able to threaten the region moving forward as it has in this war. And that isn't even getting into future domestic economic problems which could really hamstring the IRGC moving forward.

Netanyahu just announced the ceasefire does not include Hezbollah. I actually assumed it did, and if it doesn't, this indicates the IRGC was not acting from a position of strength at all, as this was another important stipulation for them. Again indicating a possible dictate from the CCP to open the Strait.

Especially with its real estate pyramid scheme collapsing, foreign trade and infrastructure projects are vital for the CCP; so the last thing they can afford is a global recession caused by energy shortage.

It may just be on a pause but there's a decent chance that trump just want's out. Which could make this an excuse to get out rather than a pause.

Netanyahu on the other hand desperately need the usa to stay. i doubt he can rely on leading trump by the nose this time but he may be able to help make it too much of a mess to get out of.

I don't think it's particularly charitable to acknowledge that trump is a moron who only got involved thinking he would easily achieve a bigly heroic victory

I would also not exclude the possibility that these 2 weeks are all about replenishing the stocks. USA and Israel have depleted their interceptors and long-range weapons, so a break seems more than desirable for them. That said, I hope chezlaw is right and Trump just wants to get out (what he should).

On a long enough time frame the Islamic Republic of Iran was always going to be an existential threat to Israel, given a main pillar for their entire reason for existing is to destroy Israel. So regime change was really the only outcome that would actually ensures Israel's safety.

As I said before, the Revolution is pretty much dead and power has passed from the Revolutionary Mullahs to the IRGC, which seems to be functioning more as a corrupt extortion racket than a sincere ideological movement.

Will Iran now turn away from Jihad, Revolution and chasing Apocalypse, and become a normal corrupt authoritarian state like Russia or Pakistan, so it is no longer an existential threat to Israel? We shall see.

If Iran transforms into something like Pakistan, that is no friend to Israel but has no rational reason to threaten it or war with it; then that would probably be an acceptable outcome.

It also gives Iran 2 weeks to regroup.

Maybe but unacceptable outcomes are quite likely. trump ****ing off with no regime change for the better is a distinct possibility.

Be great if somehow iran somehow transforms itself in a good way but seems more likely they will see this as a victory for their strategy of strangling the world economy. They will also be more convinced of the needs for nukes and building an even stronger military capability. I doubt they will be better disposed towards israel who despite what some here might claim, have made no friends over this.

Maybe a way forward will be the Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia block backed by China becoming more involved in regional security. Hard to know whether that's a good thing or not but something has to change (some of my long term money has always been on Turkey being key)

I’m guessing that every other country in the ME now sees Iran as their biggest threat instead of Israel, if they didn’t already. Having a US base on your soil and taking an indifferent to proactive stance on aggression towards Israel isn’t a guarantee that Iran won’t launch missiles your way.

Although Israel did seem to lose more support with the American public and western world at large. It could be argued this was already happening. Maybe this accelerated it dangerously, who knows.

From IRGC are the most evil thing on earth and must be destroyed to this post.

Delicious gymnastics.

Closing Hormuz was a wartime strategy that any country would have done in their situation. I hope they reopen it and continue to charge $2M for ships passing through it to repair some of the damage done by the spoilt garbage kids in the US administration.

I don't think Iran needs to regroup, but rather that they are interested in a lasting solution. Iran has basically played tip for tap in this war so far and at least I can't recall them going up the escalation-ladder.

The bold part is the guarantee to having Iranian missiles coming your way and I assume the countries in the ME now realize, that the US is not capable of protecting them from this threat. I expect the US to leave the ME and Trump will spin it as the greatest achievement in the history of mankind. Regarding Israel, not that optimistic for the survival of the state. I'm sorry for the people of Israel, but not for their leading class as they are guilty of genocide. In the case of the US, the tail (Israel) has waved the dog (US), not the other way around and I'd assume money or the Epstein-files to be the reason for that.

From my understanding, in the past the missiles were more telegraphed and limited to military targets instead of hitting places like downtown Dubai. Even if the US leaves the Middle East and abandons billions of dollars worth of investments, that doesn’t solve the Iran problem for the GCC.

I understand chez (we are making progess, chez!) and mostly agree with him on where we are right now.

I think there is a 100% chance that Trump though this would go more smoothly than it did, a >50% chance that Trump is looking for a true off ramp, a non-trivial risk that Israel does something to impede access to that off ramp, and a >50% chance that this exercise will not result in Iranian leadership that is a meaningful improvement over Khameini.

Wouldn't argue with that