[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

[antonvs]

The Stuxnet cyberattack on Iran's nuclear capability was a joint US-Israeli operation in 2010. This has been going on for a long time.

But that doesn't mean that the timing of the current war, and the choice to start it, wasn't due to Trump's desire for a distraction.

[hersko]

To me it seems like just "the current thing" that the media is accusing trump of. In his first term it was russaigate. If Trump was in the Epstein files in any meaningful way you think the Biden administration wouldn't have leaked it?

[solumunus]

This proves my point, Trump didn’t simply decide to do this because of Epstein.

Israel have wanted to do this for over 4 decades. Netanyahu has been spreading this “we can’t let them get a bomb” rhetoric much earlier than 2015.

The point is that this recent attack, Israel approached Trump with the idea and said they are going to do it with or without him. This isn’t speculation, this is what we know.

[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.