[unyttigfjelltol]

1. By a show of hands, who was surprised that the cataclysmic warnings of the weekend subsided into talk of diplomacy on Monday?

2. Let’s hypothesize the US gov’t or allies did pre-release this info to traders as a policy tool, inviting them to sell oil profitably, shaping the later price action . In a practical sense they may have brought more speculators to the short side than otherwise would have been there; is that scenario really beyond the pale?

3. News of war and sovereign relations on an international stage necessarily will test the boundaries of traditional law of confidentiality and fair practices.

[inaros]

If you run the numbers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47504505

You will see, that anything else other than a ground invasion, is guaranteed to give Iran a war victory.

[roncesvalles]

The loss of ability to intercept missiles does not mean that the war is lost for America. It just means that it now has to contend with more of its own losses during the war.

America always goes to war with the handicap that 1 American life is worth hundreds of enemy lives. This handicap is why one gets the impression (illusion) that countries like Iran are able to hold their own against the great mighty USA. But if America stops playing as cautiously as it does, it turns into a very different war machine.

[ithkuil]

But that handicap is due to domestic politics which is a real world force that shapes the american war machine ability more than anything

[roncesvalles]

If oil hits $150 and there's real pain on the streets, Americans will assent to a much bloodier war.

In fact, I suspect this "15 point peace plan" is just theater to this effect. "Look we tried everything, we're gonna have to go in and really knock them out."

[fakedang]

That handicap is due to the fact that the USA today doesn't fight defensive wars. It's hard to justify fighting wars happening in the Old World to Americans.

Woodrow Wilson only joined WW1 once the Lusitania was sunk, which caused American deaths. FDR only joined WW2 once Pearl Harbor was attacked. Reagan got away with Grenada because it was a quick and dirty operation. Same with GHWB and First Gulf War. The younger Bush could justify the Afghan invasion only because of WTC, yet even as more Intel dropped on the identity of the terrorists and the lack of progress in locating Bin Laden, domestic support fell.

> But if America stops playing as cautiously as it does, it turns into a very different war machine.

Good luck trying to convince average Americans to do that. On the other hand, the US and Israel have managed to convince the same for the Iranians. They literally rained bombs on the upper class neighborhoods of Teheran, the places where moderates and regime opposition actually lived.

[saidnooneever]

if a ground invasion goes they will destroy oil trade and everyone is screwed.

The war should not be won. it should be ended before everyone loses.

[mmooss]

The US would not win a ground war in Iran. Before every US war, people tend to think the US military and their $800 billion/year budget are unbeatable. But look at outcomes of significant US ground wars since WWII - only one clear victory:

  * Korea: Stalemate, which is still a problem now 70
    years later
  * Vietnam: Loss
  * Gulf War: Victory
  * Afganistan: Loss, after 20 years of fighting
  * Iraq: Mixed results after 8 years: Saddam Hussein threat
    eliminated, Iran and ISIS made significant gains

Iran is larger and has more people and resources than Afghanistan and Iraq combined. Terrain in Iran is a game world-builder's fantasy of defensibility:

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...

Iran is far more capable militarily than Iraq and Afghanistan and, particulary, their military may be world's the leading experts on assymetric warfare; they train everyone else - Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc. Their proxies held off the US military and allies in Iraq, a neighboring country, where Iran had far less motivation than to defend their own homes from a US invasion.

The US could win given unlimited political will and time, but it would be very costly and anyway, the US couldn't sustain that will for much easier situations in the prior two wars. Nobody is crazy enough to launch a ground invasion of Iran, I hope.

[vjvjvjvjghv]

All the lost wars had very vague objectives. A war where you try to fight a military while trying to “liberate” the population in the same area basically can’t succeed. In WW2 they bombed the hell out of Japan and Germany and after the war they were the winners who set the course. They were also lucky that Germany and Japan were functioning societies that didn’t have much violent infighting. In Gulf War 1 there was a clear objective to get Iraq out of Kuwait.

All the other wars depended on installing a friendly and competent government that would take over. That is a very hard thing to do. It’s too easy to support a friendly government that’s also corrupt and incompetent.

In Iran it will be the same problem after military victory. The US doesn’t want to run the show so what’s next? Nobody knows and it will take years to see where this is going. I hope they don’t destroy too much infrastructure there so people can rebuild quickly and society goes back to some normal.

[etempleton]

The Middle East conflicts have all been follies because there is no real victory condition without completely seizing territory and claiming as your own. Not saying this would be a good or moral position, but half measures only, at best, kick the can down the road or, at worst, exacerbate the situation.

[justsomehnguy]

> They were also lucky that Germany and Japan were functioning societies that didn’t have much violent infighting.

> functioning societies

Sorry?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives

[aucisson_masque]

> I hope

I sincerely hope too but the man is lunatic.

[metalliqaz]

Depends on how bad the leaks from the E-files are

[pfannkuchen]

But if the goal was actually to destabilize those places then maybe it worked as intended?

[mmooss]

I can't think of any examples of that and don't see that in the wars listed above. Destabilized countries are bad news for entire regions and can become havens and recruiting grounds for terrorists, criminals, etc. And those things spread across borders.

The idea that the Iranians will act on his wishes is a fantasy of someone who wants to win without paying the costs, as a freebie.

[pfannkuchen]

Destabilized nations are good if you are a nearby nation wanting to expand and you expect those other nations to oppose you.

[pseudohadamard]

The current lot in Iran came to power through revolution and they've made very sure that the same thing can't happen to them. The whole system of government, or at least rule, is designed from top to bottom to make as sure as it's possible to get that it can't be overthrown from within. I'm sure Trump's highly qualified expert advisors on the subject, Witkoff and Kushner, told him about this small problem before he launched his attacks.

[vjvjvjvjghv]

Kushner’s main interest is to get money from Middle East investors. I think it’s important to remember that. Not sure about Witkoff. His main interest seems to be to protect Putin.

[actionfromafar]

If think assume too much competence. I'm sure there are various plans (ok maybe not with this "administration", their "plans" seems to be fast-forward grift) but I have very little confidence in them going in any particular direction.

[inaros]

>> The war should not be won. it should be ended before everyone loses.

My analysis and my comment I linked to agrees. And that is a strategic victory for Iran, Russia, China and a defeat for Israel, and the US. The worst will be the Gulf States hostages of their dueling stock pile of defense missiles running out...to which they will have to queue for, with US DOD at the front of the queue.

[password54321]

>a defeat for Israel

False, Israel has used the whole war to take over Lebanon almost silently from mass media attention. They are about to annex a part of it.

[pasquinelli]

> False, Israel has used the whole war to take over Lebanon almost silently from mass media attention.

i wonder why you think mass media attention would matter.

[password54321]

If public opinion didn't matter on geopolitics we wouldn't see massive astroturfing campaigns across the internet.

[ngruhn]

They are at war because Hezbollah attacked... again.

[password54321]

Let me repeat: They are about to annex a sovereign nation while reducing the capital city to rubble. May or may not remind you of another country further north.

[fakedang]

Read accounts of former UN peacekeepers who've served at UNIFIL, or actual thoughts of Lebanese themselves. Israel has been longing to acquire South Lebanon since ages, and the only thing that has prevented them from doing so were the Hezbollah. Israeli troops would block roads, fire and shoot at UNIFIL positions, as well as carry out espionage and sabotage. Every peacekeeper will attest to Israeli troops being far more problematic and dangerous than Hezbollah attacks and rockets. Lebanese themselves will echo the above opinion, and further add that Israeli looting is pretty much the same as Russian looting in Ukraine - everybody stopped buying stuff because they would know that IDF troops would seize it from them within days during the previous occupation. Shops would rather remain shut and lose business than keep themselves open under Israeli watch. Even moderate Israeli media has been extremely hostile to the very idea of UNIFIL.

The Hezbollah has always been a boogie man excuse for the Israelis to expand into Lebanon. Well, Hezbollah's gone now and we already know what's happening. Lebanon is losing close to a fifth of its land.

[mmooss]

Israel has been bombing (and conducting raids in?) Lebanon for years. They attacked Hezbollah's ally, Iran. And Hezbollah has been attacking Israel for years. It's not true that the conflict began with Hezbollah's recent actions.

[megous]

No proof of course.

[rasz]

Lebanon is about UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and 20 years on it not being enforced. UNIFIL failed spectacularly, looks like Israel decided to enforce it themselves.

https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/in-lebanon-there-are-no-mo...

"For the first time, a country enamored of compromises, half measures and trickery is watching these options vanish, replaced by a brutal choice: confront Hezbollah and risk destruction, or ensure it by doing nothing."

[lenkite]

It would be great if Israel also implemented UN Security Council Resolution 497 (1981) and gave up Golan Heights to Syria, etc. But they won't do that.

> confront Hezbollah and risk destruction, or ensure it by doing nothing."

This is ridiculous. When your nation's citizens are being wiped out into non-existence and your land occupied, will you support the invaders or the guys who are fighting the invaders ? Hezbollah now all of Lebanon as a recruitment pipeline. They have utterly no shortage of volunteers now.

[soperj]

> The war should not be won. it should be ended before everyone loses.

No one ever really wins in war, except those not participating.

[cmrdporcupine]

and the parties that initiated it know that. they actually have no interest in geo-strategic goals. they are interested only in selfish commercial ones.

The US is an oil exporting country and the people pulling the puppet strings of the dominant party in power directly benefit from high oil prices.

Further, oligarchical political-economic structures also benefit from "chaos is a ladder" scenarios where their privileged knowledge and access to decision makers gives them the ability to benefit from every new conflagration. The insider trading examples are only the trip of the iceberg.

The "war" will wind down after they've made their profits and redistributed the wealth and control as they set out to do.

Gone are the days where ruling elites benefited from international commercial stability. Those with power right now want chaos, and they will continue to create it until they are held to account.

Note that all of above applies just as well to the rulers of Iran as it does to the United States. It is the people who suffer, not the elites.

[metabagel]

I don't think so. I think Trump just thought it would be easy and with no repercussions.

[ngruhn]

This. That man is not playing 4D chess. His only superpower is such blatant disregard for norms that he can do stuff everyone assumed is impossible.

[cmrdporcupine]

Absolutely no way he's playing 4D chess but he is a very willing sock puppet for people much smarter than he is.

[scrubs]

Liked comment 'Gone are the days where ruling elites benefited from international commercial stability.'

Interesting point.

[unyttigfjelltol]

I think you’re just seeing the logic of US defense by offense, and the reason why the excursion was launched as it was three weeks ago.

If you step back, in 1979 Iran launched a revolution that had an avowed goal of “death to America”. If the Iranians play the kinetic scenario to the bitter end, they simply are demonstrating this was not mere poetry and there never was any other off-ramp, just tactically deciding at what relative strength these two systems will collide.

So Iran loses by demonstrating irrational resolve in antisocial tactics, like firing missiles randomly at neutral neighbors, which is the same precondition you take as gating victory. Conflicts are played out in the real world specifically to resolve inconsistent modeling like this held by different sides, and all parties would be well served by finding a better way to resolve the conflicting modeling here, because the most likely scenario currently is that everyone loses.

[soperj]

> If you step back, in 1979 Iran launched a revolution that had an avowed goal of “death to America”. If the Iranians play the kinetic scenario to the bitter end, they simply are demonstrating this was not mere poetry and there never was any other off-ramp, just tactically deciding at what relative strength these two systems will collide.

Step back further and you see that they were overthrowing a dictator that the US had installed over their democratically elected government.

[malfist]

If you take a step back even further, perhaps you don't bomb a girls school three times because someone 47 years ago said something mean about your country and then never followed up.

[malfist]

Which country is engaging in antisocial behaviors again? I can't keep it straight. Is it the country that started an unprovoked war or the country defending themselves?

[inaros]

The Iraq-Iran war, in the eighties....who had Iran lining up a million soldiers in battle, for eight years, has shown Iran is ready for a level of endurance, the US cant even imagine.

[beachy]

The same scenario played out in Vietnam. The US could never succeed because:

- the enemy was intermingled with the "friendly" civilians, and they couldn't be told apart, leading to everyone being treated brutally and potential friends becoming enemies

- the enemy was prepared to fight to the death, for years if need be, and knew they could outlast US public opinion

- the enemy knew they could prevail because of centuries of history defeating much larger opponents (in Vietnam's case, of them previously defeating France and China).

All of these same conditions would be present in a ground war in Iran, with some religious fanaticism thrown in on top.

[InitialLastName]

Don't forget:

- the enemy had plenty of material, technical and financial support from adversarial superpowers who were all too happy to see American lives, money and military resources wasted.

That external support is not fully scaled up yet (despite clear reports of Russian intelligence support for Iran), but you can bet it would be in the event of a major ground assault, occupation, and/or counter-insurgency quagmire.

[4ndrewl]

It's an incursion. He got confused and keeps saying excursion, which is a different thing.

[pseudohadamard]

No he's describing himself. His term so far has been a power excursion that's just getting more extreme as it goes on.

[sph]

It’s an excursion: a lovely hike onto the mountains of Iran. It’s just that the locals aren’t too friendly.

[themafia]

> that had an avowed goal of “death to America”.

31 million people just woke up and decided to hate America? Or.. was there a little more to that story?

[throw310822]

> death to America

These Iranians are so evil they want to kill even love:

https://fa-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/%D9%85%D8%B1%DA...

[sph]

The hatred has been there since the 70s, at the very least. Watched a great video on Iran from Rick Steves filmed in 2009, and when he visited a mosque there was a large sign calling for the death of America and Israel.

[bigfatkitten]

Since the 1950s, and I wonder why that might be?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

[orwin]

For anyone saying that's dumb: it's not even true. Iran real issue with the USA started with the iran-iraq war, where Iraq had the support of the US, and used US-made chemical weapons against civilians.

[megous]

"death of America and Israel" These are states. A particular instance of cooperating individuals, with some overall vector of behavior that affects people elsewhere. Wishing for that to end is hate how exactly?

I would not mind, and I actually wish america and israel and russia and few other states end as they are today (not just a mild refactoring, end and split to 10s of smaller independent entities, that can cause a lot less harm individually) and end up with reduced externalities on the rest of the world, and lot less power to walk over rest of us.

I don't even mind calling it death to america or whatever, because it would be. So why not.

[phs318u]

You know history goes back before the 70’s right?

[Hikikomori]

They just hate American freedom or what?

[zahlman]

What does "victory" or "defeat" actually entail here? It's not as if the US risks any territory?

[ZeroGravitas]

A massive failure could blunt or slow their attempts to seize Cuba, Greenland and Canada.

On the other hand an inadvertant success, like Venezuela, could accelerate those plans.

[carefree-bob]

These are very jingoist terms focused more on domestic political reactions than anything happening on the ground.

All conflicts, with the exception of genocidal or total war style conflicts - end with some kind of settlement, in which each side makes concessions, and then tries to sell it as a victory to their domestic audience.

This will be no different, which is why people are already lining up to spin everything and argue about who is the real winner or loser. That they have no problem expoliting the conflict for domestic political gain makes it clear that no one takes this war very seriously.

If there was a real winner or loser, no one would need to argue about it, it would be clear to everyone, since the loser would be under occupation, and that's not going to happen here, neither to the US, nor to Iran. This entire war is two sides shooting missiles and bombs at each other from a safe distance.

[komali2]

> safe distance

Iranian people are being killed, so no. Cynically if you mean Iranian leadership, they're also being killed, so no.

American leadership and the Americans living in the seat of imperialism, sure.

[carefree-bob]

Sure when Iran is being bombed, that is not a safe distance when it comes to receiving fire. But there are also US, Israeli, Kuwaitis, mariners being hit by Iranian missiles. The proportions are not the same, but this isn't a situation of only one side landing blows. Iran is also landing blows and putting up a fight.

But the point is that the missiles are being shot from a distance. There is no invasion. When Iran hit Dimona or Kuwait, it wasn't sending troops there, it was firing off long range drones and missiles. I never claimed the war has zero casualties, but I very much doubt the number of casualties will be even within an order of magnitude of a full scale ground invasion. It will be in the thousands, not hundreds of thousands.

[CommenterPerson]

"If the US doesn't win, it loses. if Iran doesn't lose, it wins"

.. per [John] on Krugman's substack.

[orwin]

War can't be won by everyone, but it can absolutely be lost by all concerned parties, even those who didn't participate.

[aucisson_masque]

Victory or defeat as in war goal.

Trump war goal are to destroy Iranian nuclear capabilities, and to change the Iranian government.

If he succeed, victory. Otherwise, defeat.

[conception]

I think his war goal was the change the headlines away from constant evidence of child sex trafficking.

Victory I guess.

[tokai]

This is so naive and uninformed.

[aucisson_masque]

You convinced me !

[metabagel]

Iran can block the Strait of Hormuz indefinitely. They are demanding war reparations from the United States. Since Trump won't do that, the best case scenario seems to be that one or more third parties - Europe, India, Japan, Saudi Arabia, etc. - offer(s) Iran a package of financial incentives and security assurances which convince Iran to end the war.

If only Muad'dib were here. He could find a way through.

[citrin_ru]

> Iran can block the Strait of Hormuz indefinitely.

So can the US leaving Iran without means for existence. Right now Iran can export own oil but denies Arab countries form exporting their oil, I don't think such arrangement could last indefinitely.

[tokai]

On the contrary, Iran get the sanctions on their oil lifted. They are in a significantly improved position economically now.

[ndsipa_pomu]

If only Muad'dib were here, we'd have already won the Butlerian Jihad and got rid of the AIs.

[manofmanysmiles]

What's the spice?

[ithkuil]

We burn the spice

[zehaeva]

>He who can destroy a thing has the real control of it.

[tim333]

Trump could do something like say we destroyed your military and leadership, we win, we are going home. If you do bad stuff we'll do that again.

Not saying it's a great plan but I think Trump may be thinking that way.

[Spooky23]

Not traders. Friends and family. These guys are idiots who figure they will all be pardoned before Trump leaves office, or part of the junta that replaces him if he doesn’t leave office.

[tim333]

Also I'm not sure insider trading commodities like oil is actually illegal?

[dumah]

Cool. It is!

https://www.whistleblower.gov/whistleblower-alerts/Insider_T...

[hedora]

1. I was, but felt dumb, like Charlie Brown.

2. They definitely did. There's evidence from prediction markets too, and the timing is within 15 minutes of the press conference. It's beyond the pale because this was a quid pro quo action, where Trump toyed with people's lives so that his campaign donors could profit off his otherwise pointless war.

3. Not true. It is unusual for militaries to preannounce their battle plans to wall street speculators so that those speculators can make a quick buck.

[saidnooneever]

no one was surprised.

i imagine both sides are actually in the same game.

why do u think trump allow iran to sell oil still -_-. there was a lovely post earlier today on HN laying it all out pretty eloquently.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47499822

i personally think the people who do _business_ on both sides will find their way to profit out of this. as they always do.

if u look at the timing of statements u can see its just a game.

[casefields]

What’s wrong with your shift key?

[The_President]

Passes the turing test.

[triceratops]

Must be a billionaire