The question is not about whether the US can blockade the Hormuz Strait but who gets blamed for the blockade. Iran is messaging that it is making serious attempts to reopen the strait, while China and Russia are probably reinforcing the message. When people around the world suffer from the consequences of the blockade, they are more likely to blame America for their troubles. Or at least that's what Iran is trying to achieve.
A toxic mix of staggering arrogance, moral bankruptcy, a lack of strategic thinking, non-existing historical awareness and a desperate need to divert attention because of the Epstein files.
Try debating a MAGA supporter. The stupidity is astounding.
And cryptocurrency should be even better for deniability. In reality it would be a really good idea for certain governments that rely heavily on Middle Eastern oil (e.g. Philippines) to pay fees in the short term. More than a month ago the Philippines was already claiming to have "safe and preferential access", if that involves money they'll pay it. (https://www.rappler.com/business/philippine-flagged-ships-sa...)
Its secondary blockade of the Strait seems to be driven by optics and PR rather than strategic value.
Now Iran is demanding money in exchange for the uranium which is the primary roadblock.
These are power plays to signal that world dominance is not decaying but in case of Iran it has backfired and pushes China’s narrative as a pillar of stability.
Saddam played the same game where they pretended they just wanted nuclear for energy, even though they were a petrol state... which is why in 1981 Iran helped bomb Iraq's reactors (where Iran teamed up with Israel to do so) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera
If Iran didn't believe Iraq's peaceful nuclear intentions, I'm not sure why anyone would believe Iran then buying tons of uranium from Russia was any different. Not to mention building underground lairs to enrich it while also building ICBMs.
Stop spreading bullshit.
“This stockpile could potentially enable Iran to construct as many as 10 nuclear bombs, should it choose to weaponize its program, Grossi told The Associated Press last year.”
Same for the major airports, they keep working, people keep flying to the asia, albeit in less numbers.
Yesterday Iran stuck a nuclear plant with a drone, and launched them at other targets as well. And there is news on it even...
https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-uae-nuclear-drones-71e7e5...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-a-e-has-been-secretly-car...
Why you'd want to play this 'tough guy' game in the era of the Internet is wholly beyond me. You have a fantastically well outfitted military that in the absence of diplomacy stands a really good chance at getting us all killed.
Jingoism is a mind poison.
The US can also fuck with Iran by getting slight cooperation from ships in the Gulf of Oman by getting some small inflatable boats with remote control and AIS transmitters on them. Put the boat in the water next to a ship, turn of the ship's AIS, turn on the boats AIS, and send the boat through. Send hundreds of them. IRGC won't know what to shoot at or will expose their positions by firing at a rubber raft.
1. US fucks up by engaging Iran, Iran closes strait.
2. US fucks up the negotiations and fails to reopen the strait.
3. US decides to try and rescue its initial war goals, through a mutual blockade with Iran, starts sinking the very vessels it demands Iran gives passage to.
Does Mutley get a medal?
You can't block the strait if we block the strait! lmao
[1] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-oil-trade-through-t...
The major thing they have in common is not respecting American trade embargoes against themselves, which, of course they don't.
Iran has been pretty clear that they'll open the strait if the USA lifts the blockade. How can we complain about fair passage while maintaining a blockade ourselves?
Hilariously the USS George HW Bush had to go the long way around Africa rather than risk transiting the Bab El Mandeb after the Houthis defeated the US Navy last year.
> Hilariously the USS George HW Bush had to go the long way around Africa rather than risk transiting the Bab El Mandeb after the Houthis defeated the US Navy last year.
Valuing the lives of your crewmen and avoid terrorists is bad how? USA not wanting their soldiers to die is weak? Would you want more deaths on US side to show strength?
USA can win this war with barely any casualties, why would you not do that? And USA being able to do this with barely any losses shows tremendous strength to me, Iran was more powerful than Ukraine but USA could establish aerial superiority immediately with no losses, this is so much stronger than what Russia displayed.
What do you mean by "win"? What strategic goals can the US achieve in this war? We're at a point where merely achieving status quo ante bellum--i.e., Iran doesn't charge for passage through the Strait of Hormuz--seems to require giving concessions elsewhere.
In many ways, this looks like the American version of Pearl Harbor--a stunning tactical victory that is simultaneously a crushing strategic loss.
No, there is no reality where the world will let Iran take tolls here, no matter what happens that part wont happen. The world depends too much on straits being open and toll free, if you let that slide once it will be done by others and that will break down the entire world order.
Let’s be realistic, this was probably about Israeli domestic politics first and US domestic politics second, and maybe thirdly as a favor to the Saudis. It’s crooks running all three countries for their own purposes and issuing BS PR cover stories.
The problem with the claim of nuclear weapons program is that the dominant assessment of the intelligence communities is that Iran didn't have a nuclear weapons program at all. Khamenei the elder was known to be against having a nuclear weapons program, and the US's achievement is to replace him with his son... who is known to be in the pro-nuclear weapons program. Considering that the nuclear enrichment centers were targeted in last year's strikes, it's not even clear that the strikes this year have had a meaningful effect in even a temporary delay in enrichment progress.
At this point, I suspect that Trump never had any strategic war aims in the first place, but was instead motivated by an operational aim (regime change in Iran, à la the Venezuela operation), and has been flailing about since then because the administration simply doesn't have anyone with the capacity to actually understand the strategic reality of the situation and is substituting operational and tactical goals for strategic ones.
Rest of the world is quite pissed with USA. But that's just emotion. Unless it gets realised into something concrete it matters little.
The ship went the long way around because why risk being attacked by missiles? It's less that the US Navy "was defeated", which itself is a plainly asinine comment which only serves a purpose of trying to incite others, and more so a practical safety concern.
But if you really want to argue that the US Navy was defeated, I would submit our next step should be to utilize nuclear weapons on Yemen and destroy the Houthis. That way you can't make these claims and we'll see who really is defeating who :)
s/n/d/6