Iran War?

[Sheilbh]

Israel bombed the biggest Iranian gas field today. Iran threatened retaliation.   

This is part of the differing risk calculation. I think Israel is willing to have semi-constant "mowing the grass" strikes against Iran, to have Iran as a failed state, to have Iran Balkanise - or, optimistically, regime change.

And Israel (under Bibi) is basically willing to bear whatever the costs of that are. Such as global economic crisis or effectively the Gulf states (and wider regional instability).

I don't think Trump or anyone else in the US is really in the same place. (Even the bomb Iran types like Bolton at least implied a belief in responsibility and reconstruction.

Edit: And the point on this is even if they want to, who can de-escalate? As Javier Blas pointed out, either Israel did this with US support which is not great or they did it despite US opposition which is very, very bad.

I read an estimate today that the global economic damage from closing the Straits is 14 billion USD per day. 

Although at this point it's not fully closed. Chinese shipping is getting through. Turkiye and India have negotiated passage for their vessels too. I can't help but wonder if this is sort of the beginning of the end of the free maritime passage under American protection - particularly if the Houthis also get involved - and various chokepoints effectively become tolled where you negotiate passage with the powers that can shut them down.

(And basically they're the chokepoints the British empire was obsessed with, particularly after moving to an oil based navy: Suez, Aden/Yemen, the Gulf and Persia, Singapore.)

Strikes a "extensive damage" reported at Qatar's natural gas facility.

Yeah - if Israel's struck major gas fields there is going to be escalation by Iran.

I think there is a challenge for Europe here as the world's largest importer of LNG. It is massively increasing our dependence on the US if Qatari and Russian gas are off our list of options:

[Valmy]

Build nukes

[Legbiter]

Israel bombed the biggest Iranian gas field today. Iran threatened retaliation.   

This is part of the differing risk calculation. I think Israel is willing to have semi-constant "mowing the grass" strikes against Iran, to have Iran as a failed state, to have Iran Balkanise - or, optimistically, regime change.

And Israel (under Bibi) is basically willing to bear whatever the costs of that are. Such as global economic crisis or effectively the Gulf states (and wider regional instability).

Well, yeah there's no Strait of Hormuz problem at all, if all the energy infrastructure in the Gulf and Iran is toast.  

[Tamas]

Based on snippets I have read since the war started my half-educated guess is that Iran was willing to partially bend the knee to Trump in the negotiations, so Bibi convinced him to awe the world with a Venezuela-stlye decapitation instead, since it didn't serve his interest to give Iran or indeed Israel, breathing room.

[Sophie Scholl]

Based on snippets I have read since the war started my half-educated guess is that Iran was willing to partially bend the knee to Trump in the negotiations, so Bibi convinced him to awe the world with a Venezuela-stlye decapitation instead, since it didn't serve his interest to give Iran or indeed Israel, breathing room.

That's more or less my take, too.

[Jacob]

Although at this point it's not fully closed. Chinese shipping is getting through. Turkiye and India have negotiated passage for their vessels too. I can't help but wonder if this is sort of the beginning of the end of the free maritime passage under American protection - particularly if the Houthis also get involved - and various chokepoints effectively become tolled where you negotiate passage with the powers that can shut them down.

(And basically they're the chokepoints the British empire was obsessed with, particularly after moving to an oil based navy: Suez, Aden/Yemen, the Gulf and Persia, Singapore.)

I've seen some talk in Denmark about closing the Sound and Belts to the Russian shadow tanker fleet.

[PJL]

Based on snippets I have read since the war started my half-educated guess is that Iran was willing to partially bend the knee to Trump in the negotiations, so Bibi convinced him to awe the world with a Venezuela-stlye decapitation instead, since it didn't serve his interest to give Iran or indeed Israel, breathing room.

That was definitely a mistake by Iran; they should have continued to play hardball. OTOH, they're in a much better position now than they were before the war, as long as they don't keep losing key figures in the administration and military.

[The Minsky Moment]

This is part of the differing risk calculation. I think Israel is willing to have semi-constant "mowing the grass" strikes against Iran, to have Iran as a failed state, to have Iran Balkanise - or, optimistically, regime change.

That's really nuts if true.  Iran is not Lebanon. Israel does not have the capacity to maintain such a tempo long term. And while it may be possible to create "failed state" conditions, the last time that happened in the region we got ISIS.

And Israel (under Bibi) is basically willing to bear whatever the costs of that are.

No he is willing to have the United States bear whatever the cost. Also not sustainable.

[HVC]

Dumb geopolitical question, can the suez be made deeper to allow tankers through? Even if possible does the traffic make it impractical?

*edit* new pipes would be required too I suppose

*edit 2 * although if you're building new pipelines through Saudi I guess you can just go through the gulf of Aden.

[Sheilbh]

Dumb geopolitical question, can the suez be made deeper to allow tankers through? Even if possible does the traffic make it impractical?

*edit* new pipes would be required too I suppose

Tankers regularly go through Suez already. The problem is the gas fields and infrastructure are in the Gulf (and Iran has already attacked the pipelines that could help bypass the Gulf - they launched that attack after the US bombed Kharg).

If the Houthis get involved the major impact is that a lot of Europe-Asia trade goes through Suez and the Red Sea. So you'd have a major chunk of the worlds fosssil fuels blocked on one side and basically all Europe-Asia trade having to go round the Cape of Good Hope on the other.

[Tonitrus]

Well 50%* of the voting Americans didn't... twice

*and probably a good chunk of those that didnt vote since they would have voted against him otherwise.

Once. 

But of course, the Electoral college worked out differently the first time.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Dumb geopolitical question, can the suez be made deeper to allow tankers through? Even if possible does the traffic make it impractical?

*edit* new pipes would be required too I suppose

Tankers regularly go through Suez already. The problem is the gas fields and infrastructure are in the Gulf (and Iran has already attacked the pipelines that could help bypass the Gulf - they launched that attack after the US bombed Kharg).

If the Houthis get involved the major impact is that a lot of Europe-Asia trade goes through Suez and the Red Sea. So you'd have a major chunk of the worlds fosssil fuels blocked on one side and basically all Europe-Asia trade having to go round the Cape of Good Hope on the other.

The two major pipelines that allow KSA and UAE to bypass the Strait with a portion of their production are both fully operational BTW. The issue is neither is capable of carrying the entirety of either country's production (the KSA pipeline is far more significant), and of course they offer no transit for the other gulf states.

[Valmy]

Well 50%* of the voting Americans didn't... twice

*and probably a good chunk of those that didnt vote since they would have voted against him otherwise.

Once. 

But of course, the Electoral college worked out differently the first time.

In 2024 Trump got 49.8% of the vote. He got 46.7% in 2020 and 46.1% in 2016.

Yes...somehow despite constantly lying and failing and doing insane idiotic things his percentage of the vote has gone up each time. Hence why I have lost faith in my country and it's people.