[newaccount670]

Hormuz being closed hurts Iran way more than it does the US. It's shocking that they're persisting on this strategy. That's the problem with authoritarians though: they'd rather rule over rubble than be an average citizen in a prosperous society.

[hedora]

Maybe as a percentage of their economy, but not in absolute dollars.

Iran’s doing orders of magnitude more absolute economic damage to the west and its allies than vice versa.

Even the drone strikes followed this math: The patriots were intercepting drones that cost 1% as much as the interceptor.

As far as I can tell, Iran has won every tactical and strategic engagement so far in this war.

[spwa4]

Of course, the percentage is all that matters. If you damage yourself 10% per month, you're dead in a year. And if you do in absolute value 10x the damage to another party but that's only 1% for them ... they're not dead, you are. And the problem gets solved.

Which is more or less what's happening here.

[LarsKrimi]

It's not about the US vs Iran.

It's Iran turning the strait into a wedge between US and the rest of their previous partners. The US has enough oil for themselves, but the hurt is felt everywhere else. And the cause of that hurt points in one direction (the US)

[spwa4]

The argument that the US is the 'cause' of the hurt ignores the fact that Iran is essentially taking the global economy hostage to achieve a political goal. By blocking the strait, Iran isn't targeting the US ... as you noted, the US is energy independent. They are targeting the developing nations and allies of the West. To blame the US for the pain caused by an Iranian blockade is to ignore the agency of the actor actually causing the harm. You cannot blame the victim of a provocation for the destructive methods the assholes chooses to use. Oh, and Iran is committing a warcrime doing this. For months, constantly.

This is pure terrorist tactics, taking innocents hostage in the hope that makes the police go away.

What we need, sorry, is another round of sniper shots, making it clear to the IRGC what the correct response is to hostage taking.

[cbolton]

Would you say that blocking the strait is more unacceptable than bombing the US and killing the President and most high-ranking government officials? Just trying to establish a scale on what's acceptable in terms of war crimes, international law and such.

[spwa4]

I don't think reasonable people are going to defend the Iranian government on moral grounds. The president is fine, btw. It was the "supreme leader" that got killed, and he is known to have ordered the extermination of 600,000 Syrian muslims. Hell, he ordered the extermination of thousands of dissidents over the past years AND the execution of tens of thousands of protestors in his last weeks.

So ... this guy and his cronies that got killed. They had it coming.

[cbolton]

I'm not defending what the Iranian government did to their people. I suppose I am defending their reaction (closing the strait) to the assassination of their head of state and other government officials.

The reaction was predictable and very much understandable from a human psychology perspective. So in my mind the responsibility for the strait being closed rests mostly with the US.

> The president is fine, btw. It was the "supreme leader" that got killed

In Iran the supreme leader is the head of state. In the US it's the president.

> he is known to have ordered the extermination of 600,000 Syrian muslims

Do you mean the Syrian civil war? According to Wikipedia it's 650,000 deaths on all sides together (more than half being combatants). I'm not sure it's fair to attribute all these deaths to Iran. By the way these numbers are similar to those of the Iraq War of GWB.

[spwa4]

> I'm not defending what the Iranian government did to their people. I suppose I am defending their reaction (closing the strait) to the assassination of their head of state and other government officials.

First, the Iranian state was (and is) collapsing. In other words: even though Trump changed the timing of their closing of the strait (not by much), he did not cause it. Iran's government has no choice but to continue the war. Which is another way of saying: the west has no choice but to destroy them. This is just a bunch of little kids arguing: "that's hard! you do it".

Iran is, by the way, not just closing the strait. They are holding Lebanon hostage. They are trying to hold Syria hostage. They are holding the Bab El-Mandeb strait hostage. They are holding (and executing) people as hostages. They are looking to hold internet cables and satellites hostage. They are only limited by their capabilities, which are increasing. Obviously, ignoring the Iran problem will not work even in the medium term.

Plus I hate it when people defend the indefensible, such as Iran's government. Besides, you care about 1 thing: that the oil price rose a bit. As I said, unless the US left the middle east, conflict with Iran was and is unavoidable. US presence was always going to lead to conflict with Iran, only the timing was in question. Iran holding the strait hostage was unavoidable, and the oil price rise was unavoidable.

So what will you do when the inevitable happens? The problem Iran has with Israel, aside from Iran being murderous racists, is that, as the supreme leader has put it, "it is a US military base in the middle east". In other words: Iran's problem with Israel is that Israel prevents Iran from holding Europe hostage (notice that Iran's rockets can obviously reach Israel ... and they're continuing to extend the range, why is that, you think? They are looking to target Europe with nukes). This will mean other countries will have no choice but to do the same. Indonesia, China, they must attack and take control of the Malacca strait if the US retreats. They must conquer oil sources.

You do realize that if a country like Iran acquires ICBMs, nuclear war is the next step, right? That is also what Trump is trying to prevent (in fact that's what the US created the UN for all the way back in 1945, when all that existed of Donald Trump was his father looking very interested at his mother)

In other words, what you're advocating for, US retreat, will not cause a local conflict in the middle east. Let's just call it what it is: you are advocating for is WW3, a nuclear WW3. You're calling in doubt it will be WW3, because it's so much easier and cheaper to let a German dictator run rampant (sorry, I mean Iranian) than it is to deal with the problem ...

And yes, I'm very sorry how inconvenient it is that the rest of the world does not just let you live in peace.

[seanmcdirmid]

Its probably all reflex at this point. The USA killed almost all the top leadership early on in the war, leading to a sub-optimal leadership transition with the feeling that the country didn't have much left to lose. I'm not sure what the US leadership was thinking, maybe they really bought the "the people will overthrow the government and not hate the US if we just do a few strategic assassinations" spiel?

[guelo]

As a citizen of the US I feel the same about Trump tearing everything apart so he can rule unimpeded.