Iran War?

[Sheilbh]

Even if the thought was to use the Venezuelan gambit on Iran, I think there is one big difference.  While Maduro's successors appear to be content to be tithe-paying supplicants in order to maintain their domestic power base...I expect any remnants of the regime (if that is who is fated to survive) that might make a deal with Trump may pay lip service to the demands...but will be seething for revenge at the first/every opportunity.

Also Venezuela was the US alone. This is with Israeli and I think there is a significantly higher risk appetite from Israel on this - and in particular on this point.

[crazy canuck]

If the target was regime change then it makes no sense to encourage the Kurds, which will increase the chances of a long and bloody civil war. It will also annoy the Turks who may well enter Iran just as they did in Syria. The problem with the likely ensuing chaos, apart from the misery inflicted on close to 100m people, is that a long term military presence in the Gulf will be required to keep the straits open.

Yes, and if the goal is regime change it's probably best not to say that Trump was chosen by a Christian god to start the war.

[Legbiter]

Today the Strait of Hormuz is de facto blockaded. Dozens of tankers are stranded, the the few that have tried to leave got hit. That means Japan, South Korea, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc who overwhelmingly get their oil from the region are effectively economically blockaded. The IRGC can strut among the ruins of Iran just like Hamas does today in Gaza but as a geopolitical player funding numerous proxies, not so much after Iran has been bombed back to Central African Republic living standards. 

[crazy canuck]

I think you're overestimating the effect of the American tactical strikes.

[Sheilbh]

I think it also flips the cause and effect.

It was the successful weakening of Hezbollah and Hamas, plus the collapse of Assad that I think enables the attacks on Iran. An uncomfortable truth is that the IRGC's "forward defence" (we'll spend billions fighting you there to stop you from fighting us here) was effective and correct for the regime's objectives.

And ultimately if they are able to effectively close Hormuz especially if they can also act on the Red Sea too that is very significant leverage of a type Hamas and Hezbollah or Sahel states simply do not have.

[crazy canuck]

Yeah, where does the US go from here? They've carried out their attacks, and the only thing that has meaningly changed is the world's oil supplies are greatly reduced, and the region has been stabilized.

Now what?

[jimmy olsen]

Today the Strait of Hormuz is de facto blockaded. Dozens of tankers are stranded, the the few that have tried to leave got hit. That means Japan, South Korea, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc who overwhelmingly get their oil from the region are effectively economically blockaded. The IRGC can strut among the ruins of Iran just like Hamas does today in Gaza but as a geopolitical player funding numerous proxies, not so much after Iran has been bombed back to Central African Republic living standards. 

https://www.wionews.com/photos/strait-of-hormuz-shut-fuel-tanker-on-fire-750-ships-caught-in-backups-as-insurers-cancel-war-coverage-1772514282909/1772514282913

[jimmy olsen]

https://www.gasbuddy.com/charts

According to this, gas in the US has jumped from $2.94 to 3.25 in the last five days (select the one month chart)

[Sheilbh]

Yeah, where does the US go from here? They've carried out their attacks, and the only thing that has meaningly changed is the world's oil supplies are greatly reduced, and the region has been stabilized.

Now what?

I think the relative lack of response to the twelve day war maybe created a false sense of Iran's capacity. Reinforced perhaps by the success in Venezuela and in the attacks on Hezbollah etc.

[crazy canuck]

Sorry, typo - region destabilized

[HisMajestyBOB]

https://www.gasbuddy.com/charts

According to this, gas in the US has jumped from $2.94 to 3.25 in the last five days (select the one month chart)

The gas station near my house has gone from 2.79 Sunday to 3.09 yesterday to 3.19 today. Glad I filled up on the weekend.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I read an interesting analysis that suggests Iran may have made a major strategic mistake in how it designed is ballistic missile system.

Years ago, Iran started storing a large % of their ballistic missiles in underground facilities dubbed "missile cities." Iran was very proud of these facilities and regularly would release videos from inside of them, basically showing these underground warehouses full of missiles--largely safe from any aerial bombing risk.

However, the reason this has become a problem--you can't launch missiles from an underground missile city. They have to be loaded onto a missile launcher and then moved out of the underground facility to a launch site. It appears Israel and the U.S. know where all these missile cities are. And it's also true that they are usually too deep for easy destruction via bombing.

But what is being done is they are now parking slow moving surveillance planes over the missile cities, and the second a missile launcher tries to drive out of the underground area, they notify the attack forces which immediately come in and destroy the missile launcher.

Israel and the U.S. have also been collapsing the entrances to the missile cities in some locations, effectively sealing their munitions underground.

One analysis in the WSJ suggested this was a strategic blunder by Iran--one of the big advantages of these mobile missile launchers is precisely that they are mobile. But if they have to go to well known "missile city" depots to get armed, they now have to centralize themselves instead of decentralize. Israel and the U.S. appear to have been effectively making it near impossible for Iran to make use of these missile cities, and in fact their very existence is making it much easier for the IDF and U.S. to destroy Iranian missile launchers, because the entire strategic premise of them forces the missile launchers to visit well known, centralized areas. That same analysis also said that in strategic terms--a missile launcher is much more valuable to Iran than missiles. Its production pipeline for missiles is easier to ramp up than it is for launchers, so as it is losing launchers trying to escape the missile cities it has limited means of producing more in the short term.

It isn't known exactly what % of Iran's ballistic missile stockpile are in missile cities, but it's believed to be a large chunk of the total.

My suspicion is the premise of the missile cities was an assumption of a more limited war with Israel in which Israel wouldn't have air superiority, e.g. it was insurance against a surprise attack destroying huge above ground missile stockpiles. It seems Iran didn't consider the implications if Israel attacked alongside the U.S. and established aerial supremacy, turning the missile cities into easily neutralized facilities.

Consequently this is likely the single biggest reason Iran's ballistic missiles launches have declined by 90% since war began last weekend.

For Israel in particular this is huge--Iran's ballistic missiles are the primary threat now that Iran poses to Israel (particularly since its Axis of Resistance is in tatters.)

Unfortunately for the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf Oil states, those areas are being hit primarily by Iran's cheaply made drones, the closer distances involved meaning it doesn't need to use its ballistic missiles to reliably hit targets in those locations.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I'm also not 100% sure how powerful the Strait of Hormuz leverage will affect the one key decision maker--Trump.

Trump has already shown unlike in his first term, he has a willingness to do very stupid things that risk the economy. While Trump has also shown his characteristic cowardice when confronted with tough challenges (e.g. his caving to China when they flexed their critical mineral power against him.)

But the thing is gas prices in the U.S. have been, in real terms, flat for almost 15 years. People still cry about them, but the reality is gas was sometimes in the $3 range when George W. Bush was President, which was 20 years ago when $3 was much more "real" money. The current U.S. economy can likely absorb significant increases in gas prices.

Further, he has some breathing room on gas prices--they've gone up some, but because of how the refining/distribution/futures contract market works, the worst impacts on gas prices will be a bit in the future (Trump infamously only cares about the present.) Also the underlying price of oil was so low before the war, that gives Trump a lot of breathing room--WTI Crude is still only $76/barrel today. The U.S. economy has operated normally with oil over $100/barrel before.

The other flipside--the U.S. actually benefits from high oil prices as the world's largest producer of oil. Many of the guys who funded Trump's 2024 campaign are oil industry tycoons, who have actually been getting soaked by low prices. They would absolutely love $100/barrel oil as the domestic oil industry reaps immense profits when oil gets that high in price.

Trump is also likely much less concerned than any prior President with how any of this affects regional allies, while Trump and the Middle Eastern oil sheikhs have a "bromance" going, the reality is Trump his whole life has regularly screwed over his closest allies with no concern whatsoever.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

And it fucks over the eu some more, which the orange turd also hates.

[crazy canuck]

I have no idea why anybody would think that Trump would be making decisions based on anything approaching a careful analysis.