Iran War?

[crazy canuck]

Iran, at least Ali Khamenei, was pretty fucking stupid. Being less stupid than Trump is a very low bar but clearing it isn't in itself a big accomplishment.

And yet they have survived for decades.

[PJL]

Trump on truth social :

"I AM PLEASE TO REPORT THAT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND THE COUNTRY OF IRAN, HAVE HAD, OVER THE LAST TWO DAYS, VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST. BASED ON THE TENOR AND TONE OF THESE IN DEPTH, DETAILED, AND CONSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS, WITCH WILL CONTINUE THROUGHOUT THE WEEK, I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD, SUBJECT TO THE SUCCESS OF THE ONGOING MEETINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP"

Was alerted by my shares portfolio suddenly spiking upwards.

Called it

Still too soon to say that IMO. It's only a postponement not a cancellation. Until that happens all bets are still valid.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Iran, at least Ali Khamenei, was pretty fucking stupid. Being less stupid than Trump is a very low bar but clearing it isn't in itself a big accomplishment.

And yet they have survived for decades.

There's ~200 countries, almost all of which have survived for decades, I'm not on board with ascribing a default, presumed outcome (a country not magically ceasing to exist) with any sort of shrewdness.

The reason Iran is quite stupid, is they chose a maximally bad path for their nuclear program.

Let's review the actions of other powers that either weren't signatory to the NPT or who broke the NPT who decided to obtain nuclear weapons:

1. India / Pakistan - Open defiance of the NPT

These countries both developed nuclear weapons essentially in the open, in intentional and deliberate defiance of the NPT. Both are among a list of 5 countries that never signed the treaty to begin with. Both also are large countries then and now, both in terms of population and in terms of the size of their economy.

Both have made a bit of a strategy out of playing the West and the Anti-West at different times, maintaining a sort of tactical and shifting neutrality. This all basically meant that the international reaction to both countries going nuclear was "muted", while they both paid some diplomatic costs for the development of nuclear weapons, they were mild and receded over time.

2. North Korea - Covert defiance of the NPT and then open declaration of a weapon

North Korea was a signatory of the NPT, and had a deal with the United States in which they received aid in exchange for curtailing their nuclear weapons program. North Korea basically adhered to this deal enough to stay off America's radar, while quietly doing as much as they could get away with to maintain their program. When George W. Bush made his Axis of Evil speech and started two major middle eastern wars, the North Koreans covertly rushed their program to a working device. Once achieved, they detonated it openly and left little doubt they were now a nuclear power. They refused all attempts to negotiate on their status as a nuclear country, and have basically permanently committed to a national autarkic principle to avoid any outside pressure. They have survived through intermittently having good enough relations with China and Russia, and by having a regime with such an iron fist control over its population they can actually survive their form of autarky.

The big thing North Korea did, that Iran never did--was they rushed their program to the finish line completely in secret, while the U.S. was busy with other things. Once achieved, North Korea was an "unassailable" nuclear power.

3. Israel - Secret Nuclear program, ambiguous but known status

Israel went the pathway of never once acknowledging it has a nuclear weapons program, let alone a nuclear weapon. Publicly they simply have "nuclear research facilities." But this is a "diplomatic fiction", Israel has made sure that their true status as a nuclear power is generally well known. By never openly acknowledging it, this allows their Western allies to not have to address the fact Israel is violating the principles of the NPT (note, Israel is not a signatory to the NPT, but broadly speaking the U.S. has taken a stance that no "new" countries should develop weapons, regardless of whether they signed the NPT or not.) Israel's path is shrewd but also facilitated by allies like the United States and France, and the fact that they enjoy much better relations with the West, in general, than revolutionary Iran does.

4. Iran - Secret Nuclear program, intentionally maintained at threshold levels

This option ends up being a "bad middle path." Iran has essentially never acknowledged a nuclear weapons program, but they have publicly boasted about their enrichment capabilities--clearly sending the signal they could develop a weapon. This has resulted in crushing economic sanctions that has caused nearly 20 years of economic devastation to the country, retarding its economic development and leading to the functional collapse of its currency.

Iran has always announced new milestones in amount of centrifuges, % enrichment etc--essentially doing the opposite of North Korea which kept its progress as secret as possible.

Iran's position has put itself in a place where it suffers sanctions as bad as North Korea, but without the trade off of achieving a nuclear shield like North Korea has. By using communication on the status of its program as attempted leverage against the sanctions, it just created a big target for Israel and America saying "Iran is gradually getting nukes, you could blow a lot of their shit up to prevent this for the time being."

North Korea never did this--largely because it is actually stupid. One advantage North Korea had is they would have been very hard to attack even had we known what they were doing--while Iran's "missile shield" is an irritant, North Korea's long-maintained artillery shield against Seoul is much worse. Artillery doesn't get intercepted and is cheap to make in massive amounts. North Korea has had immense artillery batteries, many buried under bunkers and mountains, in range of South Korea's capital for decades. America knew that any strike against North Korea could result in mass casualties in Seoul (estimates have been as high as 100,000 dead in the first day if the North started firing its guns.)

Iran's plan has left it economically weak, even worse off than North Korea, and militarily weak. It has cost its leader his life (admittedly he didn't have many years left), but it also cost the lives of several of his family members and many of Iran's top military and intelligence leaders.

FWIW I expect Iran knows this too, and will pursue the North Korean option of simply rushing to a bomb as covertly as possible, no longer forecasting anything publicly until they have a working device.

Whether they succeed at that like NK did is hard to say--they have some disadvantages, probably most significantly is they have much worse penetration by HUMINT than North Korea ever has. We (either us or Israel) appears to have always had unusually good intelligence from inside Iran, so it will be harder for Iran to rush to completion covertly--harder, but not impossible.

If they're like North Korea they may wait for a time when they perceive America won't be able to react.

[crazy canuck]

Trump on truth social :

"I AM PLEASE TO REPORT THAT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND THE COUNTRY OF IRAN, HAVE HAD, OVER THE LAST TWO DAYS, VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST. BASED ON THE TENOR AND TONE OF THESE IN DEPTH, DETAILED, AND CONSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS, WITCH WILL CONTINUE THROUGHOUT THE WEEK, I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD, SUBJECT TO THE SUCCESS OF THE ONGOING MEETINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP"

Was alerted by my shares portfolio suddenly spiking upwards.

Called it

Still too soon to say that IMO. It's only a postponement not a cancellation. Until that happens all bets are still valid.

Iran called the Bluff of the greatest military power of the world has ever known.  And that military power backed off.
The Iranians have already won the war. There's not much left, but for Trump to declare victory on Fox News and walk away.

And here is a further prediction based on how the Americans conduct themselves in this new age. There will be a declaration in a few days that Trump made the best deal ever and that oil will flow like never before. People won't believe how wonderful the deal is. People have never seen such a great deal. There will be no deal, but it won't matter to the Americans. All that will matter is that Fox News will continuously tell them how wonderful their president is and what a great deal he made.

[OttoVonBismarck]

FWIW Iran state TV has already denied they have had any diplomatic discussions with the Trump administration at all. They have portrayed his statement as a ploy.

I think Trump may find if he does try to TACO out, Iran may not actually let him.

If you are Iran you actually have an incentive to not stop attacking vessels in the Strait until America actually gives you something--reparations perhaps, they have no huge incentive to stop.

Trump has shown he is unlikely to bomb any of Iran's "red line" energy infrastructure facilities. Its valuable military / nuclear facilities have already been destroyed, so they aren't going to capitulate in fear of those being bombed since that's a fait accompli.

[crazy canuck]

Iran has an even greater incentive to demonstrate to their population, and to the surrounding Sunni nations that the United States tried and failed.

The Iranians are a little more long-term thinkers than the Americans who are very transactional and are thinking just about the deal that they can make in the short term.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Iran has an even greater incentive to demonstrate to their population, and to the surrounding Sunni nations that the United States tried and failed.

The Iranians are a little more long-term thinkers than the Americans who are very transactional and are thinking just about the deal that they can make in the short term.

The counter-argument, and the one very likely to be held by the IRGC hardliners, is America and Israel have suffered very little harm from this war, and have been able to bomb 8,000 sites inside Iran. If Iran agrees to a cessation it is setting a precedent that you can blow up a huge % of their military infrastructure anytime you feel like and the most they'll do about it is annoy a bunch of petrostates in the Gulf that Israel and America have shown aren't chief in their concerns anyway.

There is a reason Iranian hardliners have publicly said they intend to impose costs until their adversaries basically learn that they can't attack Iran with impunity. Letting Trump off the second he gets cold feet doesn't accomplish that.

[crazy canuck]

And they have already demonstrated that the United States cannot attack with impunity.  What else is there to demonstrate?

[Valmy]

Iran called the Bluff of the greatest military power of the world has ever known.

Greatest military power the world has ever known? Please. We give the term paper tiger a bad name.

[Norgy]

I think the Israeli nuclear programme is rather well-proven. Norway supplied the heavy water as some gesture of national guilt and since the Norwegian parliament shut down our own nuclear programme.

And maybe I am being difficult, but why would Sunni countries like to see Iran "win"? There are enough Wahabis around the Persian Gulf to fill some tankers of oil.

Much of Shia identity is built on being the party of Ali.

[crazy canuck]

Iran called the Bluff of the greatest military power of the world has ever known.

Greatest military power the world has ever known? Please. We give the term paper tiger a bad name.

As I was typing those words I wondered what Sargon would have to say about that 

[crazy canuck]

I think the Israeli nuclear programme is rather well-proven. Norway supplied the heavy water as some gesture of national guilt and since the Norwegian parliament shut down our own nuclear programme.

And maybe I am being difficult, but why would Sunni countries like to see Iran "win"? There are enough Wahabis around the Persian Gulf to fill some tankers of oil.

Much of Shia identity is built on being the party of Ali.

For the same reason they didn't want the US to attack in the first place, thy are in a sweet spot right now, and don't want the Americans, or Israelis, screwing things up for them.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I think the Israeli nuclear programme is rather well-proven. Norway supplied the heavy water as some gesture of national guilt and since the Norwegian parliament shut down our own nuclear programme.

And maybe I am being difficult, but why would Sunni countries like to see Iran "win"? There are enough Wahabis around the Persian Gulf to fill some tankers of oil.

Much of Shia identity is built on being the party of Ali.

They don't, it's been well reported that while the Gulf states were very against the war, they are actually advocating that now that the war has started, it not be concluded without defanging Iran as a threat to their countries. It doesn't appear the U.S. / Israel are meaningfully taking into consideration the views of the Gulf states in any respect, though.

[OttoVonBismarck]

And they have already demonstrated that the United States cannot attack with impunity.  What else is there to demonstrate?

I'm relaying what Iranian leaders have publicly said--you'd have to ask them if you want a definitive answer. But like I said--very little has happened to the U.S. or Israel.

I think Israel has had a couple of deaths, America has had a couple of deaths. Minimal damage to the infrastructure of either country. America's gasoline went up a little bit in price.

Where is the cost imposed? You may be surprised to find out America doesn't actually care that Qatar had a natural gas facility struck that will take them years to fix, and that's the biggest damage to the Gulf's infrastructure. The U.S. is a natural gas titan and major exporter, if anything U.S. gas companies probably aren't unhappy that facility is now offline.

Trump very likely wants Iran to agree the war is over--so that should make you question if Iran has really achieved anything lasting. Trump is pretty sure, due to being proven right on this time and time again, if he gets out of the war now he has 7 months before the mid terms to tell his base it was the best, strongest war ever--and they'll largely agree. (It probably won't be enough to save GOP control of the House.) But Iran is 100% letting Trump off the hook easily if they agree to let bygones be bygones and reopen the strait simply because Trump decided he's dropped enough bombs.

Now, in my self-interest as an American I want the war to be over since it's a waste of resources--a rare circumstance where something Trump wants also correlates to something that is to America's benefit. But I don't presume it's going to happen simply because Trump has a weak spine, Trump is very unpredictable and Iran has already called out that there's been no diplomatic talks at all.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Here's a sampling of the "substance" of what Trump is claiming:

US President Donald Trump claims the US has been having "productive" conversations with Iran that led to "major points of agreement" on "almost all points."

Asked by reporters before boarding Air Force One to respond to the Iranian foreign ministry's denial of his description of the talks, Trump claims that there's a communication breakdown in Tehran and that those involved in the talks aren't necessarily able to contact other people in the regime.

"If it goes well, we're going to end up settling this. Otherwise, we just keep bombing our little hearts out," Trump says.

Asked who the US is speaking to if, as Trump claims, Iran's first and second tier leaders have been knocked out, the president says, "We're dealing with the man who I believe is the most respected and the leader... We have people who are very representative of the country."

He declines to identify this leader but says it is not Mojtaba Khamenei, who is believed to have been injured in the war's opening strike that killed his father and was subsequently selected to replace him. "We have not heard from the son... . We don't know if he's living."

"We want to see no nuclear bomb, no nuclear weapon, no nuclear missiles, we want to see peace in the Middle East, we want the nuclear dust," he says, referring to Iran's stockpiles of already highly-enriched uranium. He then claims Iran has agreed to hand that over as well.

Asked again about the uranium stockpiles, Trump says that if there is an agreement, "We're going down and we'll take it ourselves."

Asked if his administration is still going to request $200 billion from Congress for the war, Trump responds, "It's always nice to have."