[nerfbatplz]

American destroyers and aircraft carriers have been chased away from the Strait multiple times now.

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.

[Jensson]

In what way were they chased away? Iran tried to sink them and didn't hit any shots, and many on Iran's side died trying. Many IRGC soldiers dying and not even scratching the paint on US vessels doesn't show US to be weak.

> 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.

[jcranmer]

> USA can win this war with barely any casualties

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.

[nradov]

The primary US strategic war goal was to slow down Iran's nuclear weapons program. That was not a smart reason to launch an attack, but the attack was at least somewhat successful in achieving the goal. Much of Iran's critical equipment is now destroyed or buried, so from the US perspective that's at least a minor, temporary strategic gain. I'm not claiming that any of this was a good idea or that it will work out well in the long run but let's be clear about the real goals.

[jcranmer]

The US administration has given several contradictory claims as to what the strategic goals of the war are supposed to be.

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.

[mullingitover]

> The primary US strategic war goal was to slow down Iran's nuclear weapons program.

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.

[antonvs]

> let's be clear about the real goals.

You should watch “Wag the Dog”, a 1997 movie about a president who starts a war to distract from a sex scandal. The real goals here have nothing to do with anything Iran has ever done.

[solumunus]

Ultimately Israel started this war. Is it a useful distraction from Epstein, sure, but that’s clearly not the primary reason for this war.

[hersko]

Here's a video of Trump in 2015 talking about how he would make sure Iran never got a bomb [1]. Crazy that the Israelis we're already planning it then.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIDNonMDSo8

[Jensson]

> 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.

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.

[jcranmer]

What you're skipping over here is how that happens. If Iran wants to charge tolls on the strait, someone has to do something to keep Iran from doing that. And when you start gaming out the possible identities of that someone, the possible things of that something... well, the most likely route of this is via negotiating some concessions to Iran (i.e., at minimum sanctions relief and maybe even concrete progress to a nuclear bomb). That assumes that Trump even considers freedom of navigation as something worth concessions in the first place, which I don't take as a given.

[protocolture]

Which as they say, will require concessions elsewhere to achieve.

[potatototoo99]

Buddy, I have bad news about that world order already...

[tpm]

So now you pivoted from the US to the world. Yeah Trump tried that, first to engage 'the Europe', then eastern Asia (Japan, South Korea), now China. He has to own his failure, nobody will solve it for him. Meanwhile the SPR is draining, reserves all over the world are dwindling, thw world is hungry for oil - they will pay the tolls happily.

[srean]

Given how expensive they are they were presumably supposed to do more than primarily stay out of range. There are less expensive ways of doing that.

[Jensson]

They block Iranian ports so Iran can no longer export oil, that is doing a lot.

[srean]

And Iran has blocked the strait too. It's at best a stalemate.

[Jensson]

But this stalemate benefits US corporations by raising the price for oil, so its not really hurting the attacker. In order to hurt a plutocracy like USA you need to hurt the American stock market but American stocks are doing great.

[runsWphotons]

It benefits a few corporations in the short term but not America in general. And if the oil prices rise and stay high, there will be demand destruction. US sits on top of the capital food chain and will be hurt.

[srean]

That's true. Both USA and Russia should be quite happy with the current state of affairs. China not so much.

Rest of the world is quite pissed with USA. But that's just emotion. Unless it gets realised into something concrete it matters little.

[yongjik]

Trump is at -20% net approval and it's steadily getting worse even now. Seems like most Americans don't decide whether things are going great by looking at S&P 500.

[LorenPechtel]

We are quite incapable of dealing with a mass attack by Iranian small boats with bombs.

[Jensson]

They are not, they updated their tactics to account for that so they destroyed a lot of Iranian small boats with bombs trying to attack the vessels. If they were incapable of countering that we would have seen American casualties in these skirmishes but only Iranians died.

[genxy]

Blowing shit up and killing people isn't winning. Winning is getting what you want strategically and operationally. Unless you are 12, most outcomes aren't just big explosions.

[chrisco255]

Not one U.S. ship was damaged by the Houthis. Meanwhile airstrikes took out a ton of Houthi assets.

[TitaRusell]

Americans always say they are winning. Nobody believes it.

[chrisco255]

I guess, you know nowadays it seems like if an enemy scratches one of our ships it is called a total loss for the U.S. meanwhile other nations have their entire air force taken out along with all of their targeting systems and most of their missile supplies and even their heads of state are taken out by F35s or arrested by special forces and somehow that is called "losing" by armchair internet dwellers.

[ericmay]

> 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.

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 :)