[Jensson]

> Iran is in a stronger geopolitical position (than the one they held before the war) today

Why do you say that? IRGC lost 90% of their corrupt income when USA blockaded their shadow fleet of oil tankers, they are weaker than ever right now, it is hard for any organization to survive long when losing 90% of their income. They rely on a large amount of mercenaries currently to keep the population under house arrest, but what happens when those no longer get paid?

That seems like a very brittle position to me.

[ajross]

The blockade is 100% unsustainable. It's a joke. The world can't absorb a 25% cut in oil production for anything more than a few months. Reserve capacity is already being tapped. The futures market says it's only a mild disruption because the futures market is predicting (correctly, so far) that it's all a joke that will disappear in a confusing TACO in a few days.

[Jensson]

> The world can't absorb a 25% cut in oil production for anything more than a few months.

IRGC can't absorb that for more than a few months either, and if the world wants to open the strait they would rather attack Iran over the strait than attack USA, so there is no way this state will benefit IRGC if it keeps up.

It was IRGC mining friendly countries waters and attacking ships in friendly waters, every country affected has the right to go attack IRGC over that but they choose to wait and see for now. But if it gets as bad as you suggest then they will just force Iran to open it, they wont force USA to do anything since its not USA that is illegally blocking it.

[oa335]

> IRGC can't absorb that for more than a few months either, and if the world wants to open the strait they would rather attack Iran over the strait than attack USA, so there is no way this state will benefit IRGC if it keeps up.

This is not at all obvious to me. Money and economic power historically is downstream of military power - men with guns can expropriate whatever they want or need from their unarmed, isolated population. The only thing that is potentially upstream of military power is ideology, which also favors IRGC and Iran security forces as they seem to be most ideologically fervent faction in Iran.

[ajross]

> they wont force USA to do anything since its not USA that is illegally blocking it.

The USA is literally blockading the strait to prevent tolling. I mean, in some sense you're right: the Trump threat is fake and he'll cave. But the policy you're ascribing to Iran, incorrectly, is actually what your government claims to be doing!

I remain just absolutely dumbfounded at the ability of this administration's defenders to just dig in on obvious lies. Surely on some level you get that you're being lied to, right?

[Jensson]

> The USA is literally blockading the strait to prevent tolling.

USA is blockading Iran, they don't blockade anyone but Iran.

> But the policy you're ascribing to Iran, incorrectly, is actually what your government claims to be doing!

I'm not an american. And no, USA doesn't block anyone but Iran here, blockading an enemy nations ports is fair game during war, blockading third party ports that tries to sail through their own waters like Iran does is not. The strait isn't Irans strait, they put mines all over the place in Omans waters, that is extremely illegal and basically a declaration of war against Oman to do so.

Edit: Maybe you misunderstood USAs blockade as they blockading anyone who pay Iranian tolls. No they don't do that, that was just a deranged statement by Trump, CENTCOM later announced the real blockade and it was just a blockade against Iranian ports, nothing about Iranian tolls.

[ajross]

> USA is blockading Iran, they don't blockade anyone but Iran.

For fuck's sake, as it were: https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2043344995181011027

"Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz." - President Donald J. Trump

The inability of people to reason from clear evidence about this president, and instead project onto him whatever rationalizations they've come up with, is absolutely astounding.

Now, again, that is what the president SAID. It is clearly not the actual military stance of the USN in the strait, because that would be insane. But it remains US policy and to argue otherwise is... yikes.

[Jensson]

I don't care what Trump says, I look at facts on the ground and fact is that USA never blockaded ships that weren't going to Iranian ports, and the American navy never said they did either. What Trump says in public and what the private orders are obviously very different.

Other countries can see this as well, USA is letting them through and their navy there says they will, they all know Trump spouts a bunch of bullshit so you look at what they do instead of what they say. I haven't seen other countries say USA must stop blockading so they see this as well, they would complain if USA actually blocked any unrelated traffic through the strait but they never did do that.