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> What's the goal of the US/Iran war?

To make certain people money by shorting the oil market. There is a reason why these "peace" deals are always announced on Fridays.

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That’s exactly why it could continue indefinitely. A war with no goal can’t be won. Nor can it be abandoned without bruising powerful egos.
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Per the spec of the last 25 years, they will let it run until the party in control of the White House changes. The new party will be responsible for the exit & cleanup phase.
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Once you've lost something (I think sooner or later, Iran will succeed in sinking a big US ship) then even if you cant win, you also cant leave else its an admission of defeat - so it drags on and on and on.
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There hasn't been a clear goal for an American war since the first Gulf War.
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The goals for intervention in the Serbia/Bosnia conflict were clear and noble, IMO.
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The US had the power to start the war. The US doesn't have the power to stop the war.
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It absolutely does, it can simply choose to not bomb Iran after Iran enforces regulations on its (shared with Oman) waterway.

Bombing Iran for a month because Iran fired on 4 ships that were violating its SoH rules is wildly disproportionate and optional.

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Initially it's unclear what the goal was. But now the goal must be opening the strait of Hormuz ASAP. There's going to be serious economic fallout if that doesn't happen[0]. It remains to be seen how realistic that goal actually is. Iran has big advantages in their favor.

[0] https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/08/business/iran-oil-trump-strai...

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Can we agree on "the strait was open before the war" so it can't be a goal for the war.
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the goal of the war in iran is to produce a regime change that will prevent them from having nukes targeting israel

islamic iran with nukes makes israel untennable and the us puppets in the gulf too

the us will be forced to physically invade now that the first strike failed

the us in its current form will not tolerate an existential threat to israel

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Pakistan has nukes and I don't see the Gulf/Levant quaking in their boots
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It has no way to deliver them to Israel, and it is in itself a US vassal
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> the us in its current form will not tolerate an existential threat to israel

It seems to be tolerating Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir just fine!

Imagine the different place Israel would be if it pursued Oct 7 as a criminal act instead of a pretext to commit genocide. Enormous strategic blunder by the Netanyahu regime. Israel would not be a global pariah state and it's entirely possible that regime change in Iran would have succeeded. But you are never going to regime change a people who know with certainty that they will be butchered/raped/tortured by their supposed "saviors" the Israelis. There is literally nothing worse than surrendering to Israel.

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the prevalence of secular jews in the state department makes them completely unable to read islamic countries. it's the third time this happens in a decade

by punching islamic regimes you create a feedback loop of islamic eschatology

the only way out now is forward ie boots on the ground. this is gonna happen whether dems or reps are in power

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This is not a very charitable explanation, it takes politicians at their word during a war. (One should not do that, and you can refer to Putin’s language at 2022 as a parallel example to Trump’s)

The initial US goals clearly were: 1. Regime change 2. Denial is of nuclear weapons

It’s also clear these goals were not achieved. So the US changed tactics and goals. (Same as Russia no longer plans on capturing Kiev it seems)

Most likely the US is stalling for time due to oil markets and has the same intentions as before, limited only by current capability.

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According to The Economist, the Iranian theocracy is no longer in power, the IRGC is. Still, not the regime change Trump was hoping for, that's for sure.

> Khamenei’s killing has accelerated Iran’s transition from a theocracy to an ambitious nationalistic state dominated by military men. The irgc appears to wield power with few constraints. Clerics who challenged its influence—including former Presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani—were conspicuously absent from the [funeral] processions.

https://www.economist.com/interactive/middle-east-and-africa...

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I think regime change is likely to happen within two years. Just not in Iran.
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> What's the goal of the US/Iran war?

What's the goal?! The US/Iran war has a ton of goals! Every day a new goal, each as improbable as the last.

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Not only that, but even the status of the goals is insane.

Right now Republicans are just flipping a coin every day to decide whether each "goal" is (A) a critical need where only Dear Leader can save us or (B) a glorious victory for Dear Leader who has solved everything forever.

We saw the same with the the mutually-incompatible and shifting "goals" of the illegal taxes on American buyers (tariffs.) Some of those "goals" were being pre-declared as achieved simply by announcing the policy. (Narrator: "They weren't.")

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As with Ukraine, it's a David and Goliath kind of conflict and in both conflicts, the temptation for Goliath to escalate by leveraging scale is predictable, tempting and frought.
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Iran is not David in this case. They’ve shown that their drone warfare is just a little bit under what the US military can provide. Remember that they destroyed a quarter of a trillion dollars radar installation. And the US has spent billions on munitions. The US can’t actually keep going in this war.
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I once compared the historic GDP values, and IIRC if Iraq-vs-US in 2003 is 1x baseline, then Iran-vs-US today is 7x. Plus Iran (today) has 2x the population and 3x times the land area than Iraq (today).
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> What's the goal of the US/Iran war?

kneecaping china by cutting off a huge source of its oil imports. Russia will not be able to make up the difference.

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Write off depreciation on military hardware?
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> What's the goal of the US/Iran war?

Distract from the Epstein files. If you think anything else you:

    1 - Haven't been paying attention since 2008.

    2 - Are giving the administration way too much undeserved credit.
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I'm not sure anything is a distraction from the Epstein files. I don't think the administration cares about the Epstein files. What would be the fallout if they were all released? We already know that a lot of wealthy people were raping children. It's not like the US is going to prosecute.
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Depends on who's in it.
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> What's the goal of the US/Iran war?

It varies. Which is the problem.

I can think of a few:

1) Severely kneecap the Iranians' nuclear ambitions. This one might actually be working to an extent.

2) Severely kneecap the Iranians' military ambitions in the Middle East as a whole, particularly with respect to Israel. This remains unknown. Their neighbors seem content to give them a pass for launching missiles into their infrastructure, possibly on the grounds of shared religion. Maybe they'll get tired of it.

3) Cause regime change in Iran. Not happening now. Might not happen in the foreseeable future.

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The Trump administration forgot all of the lessons of Vietnam.
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If it weren't for those bone spurs maybe that war wouldn't be so forgotten
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Maybe because they dogged it?
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The goal is a very simple one: make Trump look good. It wouldn't be the first war in history to be driven by pure vanity of an absolute ruler.
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It's to distract from the Epstein files.
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[dead]
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Well at this point the goal is for Iran to stop randomly blowing up innocent cargo ships. Or firing missiles at airports and cities in retaliation.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/iran-war-live-us-says-iranian-...

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That sounds like it would be a return to the status quo.
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The don't blow randomly ships.

The US and Iran agreed (Point 4 and 5) on, for the next 60 days, Iran is "chief of traffic" in the strait.

Iran say now, ships have to take the route close to Iran. But some ships like to take the route close to Oman. Iran is just shooting on these ships.

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If that's the goal then the US and Israel are doing their best to stop it from happening. Iran is responding to provocations. Stop provoking them, no more blown up ships.
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Iran has shown a willingness to do these things through proxies regardless of anyone else before.

Furthermore, if they want to deal with the US or Israel, then they should target American or Israeli assets. Not third party ships manned by citizens of neutral nations who just want to get to port and remit cash to their families back home.

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Should they avoid doing that because it’s working really well at putting their opponents in a bad spot, while costing them almost nothing?

Those ships are bearing goods from (or taking goods to) countries that are hosting US forces attacking them. They’re valid targets, and blockading their shipping… I mean, the US does that to countries that haven’t even helped attack us, seems insane to suggest it’s somehow a foul to do that to countries that are helping attack you.

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Running a blockade is a risky proposition; it's not something that happens by accident.

A lot of these "neutral" countries either host US military bases, US companies, or are otherwise aligned generally with the US.

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