[thfuran]

>The Strait of Hormuz is, basically not a big deal unless you're driving your big ole' truck

Are you serious? Even ignoring the other things that ship through there, a significant disruption to global energy supply is significant to most people. If you're not driving a truck, you're probably using goods that contain plastic or took energy to produce or were moved from one place to another in fuel-powered vehicles. If, somehow, you're not, you're probably using services that are.

[macintux]

Not to mention the countries heavily reliant on LNG from Qatar that are facing a very difficult time.

[ericmay]

The best course of action now is to spend less time criticizing the United States and more time working with the United States, sending assets, military capabilities (if able), or at least providing political and diplomatic support &c. to stop the Iranians.

The world let this disease (IRGC) fester in the region for too long, and now because of that the fix is going to require significant pain. The IRGC in its current form has run its course and will not be allowed to threaten American interests, allied interests (whether that's Israel, UAE, Saudi Arabia, or otherwise), and they will not be permitted to build a nuclear weapon or threaten global trade.

[majormajor]

So the best thing the rest of the world could do is send their own people to die because the US keeps bashing its head against a wall here since the 50s?

What's your sales pitch exactly for how that's the best thing for the non-US rest-of-the-world? What's the US's post-WWII track record, success-wise, in regime-change foreign wars, how much would you trust the US on this one?

[ericmay]

Well they don’t have to, but we aren’t going to let Iran obtain a nuclear weapon or build up such a missile and drone stockpile that they could then threaten and attack their Gulf neighbors and implement restrictions maritime trade, which they were likely to do, hence the build up.

> What's your sales pitch exactly for how that's the best thing for the non-US rest-of-the-world? What's the US's post-WWII track record, success-wise, in regime-change foreign wars, how much would you trust the US on this one?

Honestly not all that bad for the US.

Korea - we stopped the North Koreans from taking over the entire peninsula. It’s China and Russia’s fault that the hell hole we know as North Korea exists today.

Vietnam - unnecessary war, but we won the peace.

Panama - took out Noriega

Desert Storm - stopped Saddam and kicked his thugs out of Iraq.

Serbia and Bosnia - NATO campaign. I’m personally a little unsure if the results were good or not but I understand we collectively stopped a genocide.

Afghanistan - we tried our best and made some mistakes along the way. Eventually got Bin Laden though. Too bad the rest of the world didn’t help. Now we’re seeing a massive regression in women’s rights there.

Iraq - probably not worth the money, but Iraq went from a brutal dictatorship under Saddam to a much more stable and peaceful country with a Parliament.

Venezuela - Took out Maduro with no losses.

Iran - TBD on the long term but we’ve stopped the IRGC buildup and at least bought time to figure out what to do.

The rest of the world stands on the sidelines and complains and complains yet the United States actually has the balls and will to do things. We aren’t perfect, but without US military action or at least the threat the world would be much more dangerous and much worse off. China sure as hell isn’t going to send troops to liberate Kuwait. Europe doesn’t have the military capability to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and exerting a stranglehold on a large chunk of global oil supply.

[toraway]

  > Vietnam - unnecessary war, but we won the peace

I’m struggling to understand what this spin is even supposed to mean?

  > Afghanistan - we tried our best and made some mistakes along the way. Eventually got Bin Laden though. *Too bad the rest of the world didn’t help.* Now we’re seeing a massive regression in women’s rights there.

Why are you lying about this?

  > At its peak between 2010 and 2012, ISAF had 400 military bases throughout Afghanistan (compared to 300 for the ANSF) and roughly 130,000 troops.[7] Forty-two countries contributed troops to ISAF, including all 30 members of NATO.

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

[ericmay]

> I’m struggling to understand what this spin is even supposed to mean?

Are you unfamiliar with the term? In the case of Vietnam we “lost” the war, yet today we have pretty strong and good relations with Vietnam. Hence we won the peace.

> Why are you lying about this?

I have a different perspective, but that doesn’t mean I’m lying.

Of course many countries contributed in various ways to Afghanistan, and as a former member of US military I have incredible respect for our friends and allies and still do today. But at the end of the day the vast majority of the manpower, cost, and equipment was American and the country could not be won solely on military power alone and needed much more support diplomatically, politically, economically, and in terms of aid.

The other problem with your argument is if you claim that Afghanistan was an American failure it contradicts your assertion and instead everyone failed, except that the US contributed the most. You can’t have it both ways.

[majormajor]

There's a reason I mentioned regime change in there. It's a FAR more difficult operation than a war of defense or a tactical campaign. And it's why I think none of these support your "not all that bad" conclusion. You listed 9 things, 2 are far too recent to evaluate, and of the remaining 7 these 5 are regime-change failures (or simply not-regime-change-attempts):

> Korea - we stopped the North Koreans from taking over the entire peninsula. It’s China and Russia’s fault that the hell hole we know as North Korea exists today.

The regime still existed, and wasn't prevented by that restriction from nuke/missile development like you are so worried about in Iran. "It's other countries fault" isn't an excuse here, it's something that should be taken into consideration more generally in advance.

> Vietnam - unnecessary war, but we won the peace.

But no regime change accomplished with the war itself, yes?

> Desert Storm - stopped Saddam and kicked his thugs out of Iraq.

I think you mean "kicked his thugs out of Kuwait". And let's keep that in mind: a defensive operation worked well.

> Serbia and Bosnia - NATO campaign. I’m personally a little unsure if the results were good or not but I understand we collectively stopped a genocide.

I don't really think this qualifies as "regime change" vs intervention campaign in a "traditional" existing conflict?

> Afghanistan - we tried our best and made some mistakes along the way. Eventually got Bin Laden though. Too bad the rest of the world didn’t help. Now we’re seeing a massive regression in women’s rights there.

"Got Bin Laden" isn't a regime change, and now obviously the regime is not good. What was the rest of the world supposed to do to make it better? Occupy every square mile of the country with soldiers for a couple generations?

And then this one:

> Iraq - probably not worth the money, but Iraq went from a brutal dictatorship under Saddam to a much more stable and peaceful country with a Parliament.

There's no face of a dictator like Saddam anymore but I think "stable and peaceful" oversells it. But yeah, this is the most direct not-yet-imploded regime change in the area on the list.

Notably left off your list regime-change-wise here is Iran in the 50s. That one seems to have backfired. (And that's a great example of why Venezuela, Afghanistan, this-iteration of Iran, even Iraq all are still open-books with potential unforeseen consequences left to come.) The biggest direct threat to date from the Middle East to the US itself hasn't been from nation states, it's been terror groups that have festered post-intervention attempts.

The calculus for this attack on Iran assumes that they were going to escalate imminently in a new, more direct, way and that it would directly threaten the US itself; both of these seem a bit far-fetched after decades of the status quo. It's also an area where the US seems to not have much credibility because there was that whole less-than-a-year-ago "we knocked back the nuclear program" post-bombing claim.

And in particular:

> we aren’t going to let Iran obtain a nuclear weapon or build up such a missile and drone stockpile that they could then threaten and attack their Gulf neighbors and implement restrictions maritime trade, which they were likely to do

seems like that actually did happen, and maritime trade is already impacted? Seems a bit silly to say "the US must act to prevent the very thing that the action will provoke."

[ericmay]

> seems like that actually did happen, and maritime trade is already impacted? Seems a bit silly to say "the US must act to prevent the very thing that the action will provoke."

No it’s not silly. It’s called a preemptive action. It’s a very well understood concept. In the case of Iran it’s very straight forward. We could do nothing and then in a few years they just say hey the Strait is now closed, pay us, and then there isn’t anything anyone can do about it. We can disagree on the likelihood but I think it’s dishonest, as many pro-IRGC folks like to do, to suggest that it wasn’t a possibility, certainly a strong one, that Iran was moving in that direction.

Why is it that Iran, after all the US has tried to do (US because nobody else has any ability to do anything) that they need special treatment and to hold the world hostage else they get to develop nuclear weapons? I don’t think Iran or more countries in general having nuclear weapons is a good thing. Do you?

> You listed 9 things, 2 are far too recent to evaluate, and of the remaining 7 these 5 are regime-change failures (or simply not-regime-change-attempts):

Sure, what list of regime change operations do you want to use? Happy to discuss any of them. But at the same time you can’t simultaneously criticize American action here as being ineffective and then also say for other operations that “You listed 9 things, 2 are far too recent to evaluate”.

> The biggest direct threat to date from the Middle East to the US itself hasn't been from nation states, it's been terror groups that have festered post-intervention attempts.

Currently sponsored by Iran. Why don’t they just stop?

Is it lost on you that nobody in America gives the slightest shit about Iran except that they keep funding terrorists and killing people, selling drones and helping Russia murder Ukrainians, killing 30,000+ of their own people who were peacefully protesting, and constantly trying to build a nuclear weapon? If they just stop doing these things, which are unique to Iran, mind you, then none of this needs to happen.

> Notably left off your list regime-change-wise here is Iran in the 50s. That one seems to have backfired. (And that's a great example of why Venezuela, Afghanistan, this-iteration of Iran, even Iraq all are still open-books with potential unforeseen consequences left to come.)

Not a great point because, well, the world is always changing.

> The regime still existed, and wasn't prevented by that restriction from nuke/missile development like you are so worried about in Iran.

And the world is worse off for it. Millions of North Koreans are living in one of the most brutal and inhumane dictatorships to ever exist. Them obtaining nuclear weapons isn’t a model to follow.

> "It's other countries fault" isn't an excuse here, it's something that should be taken into consideration more generally in advance.

It’s not an excuse it’s just the fact of the matter. Communist governments in China and Russia are responsible for North Korea. We should prevent more such countries from coming in to existence if we can.

Alternatively, I’m fine being an isolationist. It’s a lot cheaper and everyone else can just worry about all this stuff instead. There is no in between. You get the US involvement and the good that it does, or you get isolationism. You don’t ever get “America only takes international actions that I agree with”. Impossible standard. Which do you want? I’m happy to lift sanctions on Russia and Iran and North Korea and everyone else, withdraw the US military, and leave everyone else to fend for themselves militarily unless we have an interest we want to pursue. It’s a valid enough strategy.

[sofixa]

Hate to break it to you, but the IRGC isn't going anywhere.

The reason nobody was dumb enough to attack them before is that it's an unwinnable conflict. They don't need a lot to close the Strait of Hormuz, a few guys rolling mines off a beach would do that. And they have a lot more, like missiles and drones to do damage at a distance too.

And it's a regime that has at least a million loyal fanatics ready to fight for it (the Basij, the org that did unarmed meat waves against Iraq to defend the regime). So any invasion is an absurd proposition.

So what, the hope is that the theocratic kleptocracy will give up? Not even a child could be so naive. They literally believe in martyrdom, whacking a few of the top dogs means nothing.

It's like the Kims, nobody can unseat them. Only this is far worse, because Iran has the leverage of Hormuz, and it knows it can wait - because they don't care about the people - while the US and global economy suffer until they fold. Especially with midterm elections coming, the US will fold.

[ericmay]

Watch and see.

> Especially with midterm elections coming, the US will fold.

These are the kinds of misunderstandings that are disappointing to see. There is no disagreement here amongst the political class. It is political theater for votes. Apparently you’re susceptible to the marketing.

We don’t need to invade Iran. We just keep the Strait closed since we control it and then Iran’s economy simply fails and the worst thing that happens for America is higher prices. But we can handle that.

[sofixa]

> These are the kinds of misunderstandings that are disappointing to see. There is no disagreement here amongst the political class. It is political theater for votes. Apparently you’re susceptible to the marketing

The political class answers, in a way, to the population. The American population is extremely sensitive to the price they get at the gas station (because of the complete lack of alternatives in driving in most places, and the average car having bad fuel economy). If by election time the prices are the same, the ruling party will get punished. And the ruling party doesn't want that.

[PygmySurfer]

The festering disease is the United States of America, not the IRGC.

[hdgvhicv]

Countries should be sanctioning the warmongers that caused this. Confiscating trumps golf courses would be a start.

[ericmay]

Yes I'm rather serious. For the US it's not a big deal (again unless you're driving one of those giant trucks where you're spending $300 to fill up, not my problem). Are $5 gas prices great? Not really, but is it a catastrophe? No, far from it. We have dealt with high gas prices before and we'll see high gas prices again. We just learn to live with it and find other ways to get efficient or whatever we need to do.

Some Americans need to have their understanding of the world checked. If you think high gas prices are the end of the world, just wait until we have a real problem. Are we going to be incapable of fighting a war because Netflix and Pepsi prices went up or it's too expensive to coal roll down the highway?

Separately as someone who supports both Ukraine and the US and taking down the Iranians it's amusing to see each political tribe get mad about gas prices as it is convenient for them. When Russia invaded Ukraine, MAGA was screaming from the rooftops and putting Joe Biden "I did that" stickers on gas pumps. Now that we're taking on the Iranians all of the commies are doing the same thing (aren't gas prices good anyway since we need to do something about global warming?). Neither side of populist is worthy of serious consideration. Stay the course, whether that's supporting high gas prices because of Russia or because of Iran.

[GIFtheory]

The US does not exist in a vacuum. Cuba just ran out of fuel. These things have cascading effects. Even if you do believe the U.S. exists in a vacuum and you don’t drive a big truck, there are still obvious effects. Spirit airlines went bankrupt, for one. Will this be a global catastrophe? I hope not, but it could be if we’re unlucky.

[ericmay]

It won’t be a global catastrophe but if folks around the world think it will be they better figure out how to stop the IRGC and get the Iranians to knock it off. Otherwise we will just keep the Strait closed and deal with it. Don’t forget, Iran is the one making and selling drones for Putin to bomb innocent Ukrainians. That alone is a good enough reason to bomb their military capabilities.

Cuba ran out of fuel because we took out their thug partner in Maduro. If they wanted to drop the whole authoritarian communist dictatorship stuff and their involvement in the disaster that became Venezuela and partnering with the Russians then they'll be better off.

[tardedmeme]

Why would they stop the IRGC? This disaster is solely caused by the USA, they'd figure out how to stop the USA. Or switch to a lot more renewable power. Don't forget the USA is the one who is attacking ships who cross through the strait - Iran is only shooting American ships, which is reasonable since America started a war with them, America is shooting all other ships because it wants the whole world to suffer.

Since when is it acceptable to invade another country just for being communist or a dictatorship? Conventionally it's up to the people in those countries to overthrow a dictator. Other countries only get involved if the dictator attacks them (like the USA dictator did).

[ericmay]

> Since when is it acceptable to invade another country just for being communist or a dictatorship? Conventionally it's up to the people in those countries to overthrow a dictator.

Such is the burden America must face, unfortunately. If we do nothing then Iran builds more and more missiles and a nuclear bomb and then they close the Strait and there’s nothing we can do about it. Then we get asked “why did America let this happen?”. Same with Ukraine. Sure let’s but out of other people’s business… only to get asked why we are abandoning Europe or whatever.

Secondarily, it’s plenty acceptable all the time. In the case of Iran I think it’s justifiable simply on the merits of them providing help to Russia in its unacceptable invasion of Ukraine. Never mind the strategic concerns I’ve mentioned, that Iran murdered over 30,000 of its own citizens, and spreads conflict and devastation throughout the region via proxy groups and other methods. Take out Iran and we are pretty much left with peaceful countries remaining.

[incanus77]

You're right, ever since we developed trucks, trains, and ships that run on pure atmospheric air, we haven't had to worry about pesky price fluctuations on every physical object that we buy or sell!

[ErroneousBosh]

> For the US it's not a big deal

Do you like being able to buy food?

[ericmay]

Yes, and will continue to do so even if it’s at higher prices. What in the world do you think is going on here? Do you think the US is going to run out of food or something because prices are a little higher?

[thfuran]

https://www.fb.org/news-release/nationwide-survey-most-farme...

Food production will decrease, and even moderate increases in food prices mean many people unable to afford enough food.

[ericmay]

We’ll be alright. We handled it in 2022 when Russia (who is helped and supported by Iran by the way) invaded Ukraine. The world didn’t end when gas prices were crazy high then, we just kept chugging along.

[ErroneousBosh]

The price of fuel is irrelevant.