Most people just don't understand what a monumental rewrite of global politics this is and (IMHO) it will go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and it's not even close. Some might say "what about Vietnam?" No, this is worse, geopolitically. WhY/ Because there was never any possibility of success. The US simply doesn't have the military capability to depose the regime or open the Strait and Pentagon military planners all knew this beforehand.

The big winners are:

- China. They're already going renewable at a rapid pace. They have a massive stockpile of oil (~1.4B barrels) and they're still receiving oil from Iran. This diminishes US influence in the the world and increases China's influence;

- Russia: this crisis will probably force the West to make peace with Russia and they'll retain any current Ukrainian territory just to secure Russian energy exports, particularly natural gas;

- Iran: the sanctions are over. Prior to all this Iran was selling oil to China for below market rate, less than $50/barrel. Now? They're legally able to sell it and get market rates, which are more like ~$120/barrel. Iran may well still get a regime of charging ships to traverse the Strait after the war is over;

Who are the losers?

- Europe: this is going to massively increase energy costs for years;

- Ukraine: see above (Russia);

- The US: massively decreased influence, particularly in the Middle East;

- Israel: there will be no regime change in Iran, Iran will come out in a better position and this may well be the first crack in the US-Israel relationship because Israel dog-walked the US into this war. The Iron Dome has shown to be not as impenetrable as once thought;

- The Gulf states: they face a tough choice between remaining US client states or breaking free. Breaking free probably means their monarchies and despotic regimes will fall. The myth of the US security guarantee has been broken. These regimes will probably stick with the US for their own survival and we may see some of them fall anyway (eg Bahrain).

I agree with your main point: "just go renewable" is both naive and utterly useless advice. That's a decades-long project. Also, who makes all the solar panels (and probably windmills)? China.

It is a little different because the US is a net energy exporter now and definitely wasn't in the 1970s. Still, there will be higher prices for everything and the US can't realistically block exports to keep prices low because other countries will stop sending us stuff.

Were the president anyone else, they would be impeached and removed from office. That's how bad this is. But we live in a post-truth world the the president is the leader of a cult.

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12lak-123 a day ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, but is it a mistake or deliberate? The Iran war has been planned since GW Bush.

Now we have a president who hates the EU and Ukraine more than he hates Russia and China and he has Greenland ambitions.

He is currently dragging out the war and Rubio was in the EU to string people along yet again.

If he drags out the war long enough, the EU might need to make concessions on certain issues.

What the EU should do but is too stupid to do: It should immediately negotiate with China and Russia to create jealousy (that is what Trump does, he understands that) and say: While you are doing your extended Iran adventure, we'll drop sanctions on Russian gas and import LNG.

That is literally the only language Trump understands and then the deep state will put him on a leash. Trump would hate nothing more than EU overtures to Putin while he is left out of the negotiations.

Sometimes you have to use all options to get things done.

	▲	youngtaff a day ago \| parent [-]
		Why should the EU drop sanctions on Russian gas and oil – that’s just appeasing an aggressor and abandoning Ukraine?

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oblio a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Russia: this crisis will probably force the West to make peace with Russia and they'll retain any current Ukrainian territory just to secure Russian energy exports, particularly natural gas;

The West is not the only party in this war and Ukraine has shown many times that it can do its own thing. Ukraine was supposed to roll over and die in 3 days and it has just managed to liberate about 500sqkm of territory, 4 years after the start of the war. Plus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22xoretdhbm

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jmyeet a day ago | parent [-]

Ukraine is completely dependent on arms from the US and Europe to sustain the war effort. Ukraine is running out of men to serve in the Army. Ukraine has no path to reclaim the territory it's lost.

I'm not making a judgment about whether or not this is right. This is just a sober analysis of the situation. And that is that the war is stalemated and the only way this gets resolved is to declare peace at the current borders. This grand misadventure by the US and Israel in Iran just made that more likely.

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onlypassingthru a day ago | parent | next [-]

>Ukraine is running out of men to serve in the Army.

Ukraine has made some remarkable achievements lately in doing more with less while Russia seems to be perfecting how to do less with more.

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oblio a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Your sober analysis of the situation overlooks what many respectable analysts are saying.

Ukraine has become probably the de facto #1 drone based military in the world right now.

It's made the first production use drone type that uses practically 0 Chinese manufactured components. It's making more types that use off the shelf components but are otherwise 100% Ukrainian made. Its drone types are getting more and more sophisticated and larger, with the biggest having a 3000km, 1 ton payload. That's besides the ground or sea drones.

Watch the video I linked (and several more from the same channel if you have time).

Also Russia's army is being attrited faster than reconstituted, at the moment. That's a long way to say that the Russian army in Ukraine is shrinking.

Ukraine is dependent on European finances. And the EU has guaranteed funding for at least 2 more years. The US isn't helping with any equipment, weapons. Every US weapons Ukraine uses is paid for, by Ukraine and its allies.

The real danger is if Europe flinches, which would be a monumentally bad decision as Ukraine is finally winning the war of attrition.

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jmyeet a day ago | parent [-]

> Ukraine has become probably the de facto #1 drone based military in the world right now.

I think Iran may well have that crown. Ukraine certainly was a testbed for drone use, first starting with cheaper but still military grades drones like the Bayraktar [1] but now with more homegrown versions. But Russia has followed suite and adapted.

> Also Russia's army is being attrited faster than reconstituted,

Russia has a larger army and a larger population. It also has several knobs it can adjust with the biiannual draft [2]. Russia has oil, raw materials, can produce its own food, a history of conscription and what is basically a war economy [3]. And thanks to an unlucky spate of oligarchs falling out of windows and dying in car accidents, Putin is still in control of the country.

Zellensky on the other hand doesn't have most of those things and is subject to the changes in political winds in Europe and the US. He also has the added pressure of Europe's energy crisis.

I also believe that it was Ukraine who on their own decided to blow up Nordstream to prevent Europe settling with Russia to turn back on the gas supply.

> The real danger is if Europe flinches, which would be a monumentally bad decision as Ukraine is finally winning the war of attrition.

The West gets bored amd impatient. I remember thinking this in 2023: Putin is just going to hold on until the West gives up or mores onto some new crisis. There's a quote misattributed to Kissinger that goes "It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."

I also don't agree Ukraine is winning any war, let alone one of attrition. Weirdly, this has become a WW1 trench war basically but with drones. And look at how the Western Front changed from 1914 to 1917.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baykar_Bayraktar_TB2

[2]: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/05/russia-planned-war-...

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_economy

	▲	oblio a day ago \| parent [-]
		You are so far behind the news that it's funny. Bayraktar stopped being good in this war - or cutting edge - about 3 years ago, which is an eternity. Do yourself a favor and ask your favorite chatbot about the Ukraine drone industry and their military use. Ask about FP-1, FP-2, FP-5 Flamingo, Ukraine's ballistic missiles, their ground drones, their naval drones, their Shahed interceptor drones (which the Gulf States want to buy!), fiber optic FPV drones, etc. I'm actually following this war daily and have followed since it started. Use your chatbot and if you want more look for Paul Warburg, Lines on Maps (both YouTube), UnderstandingWar.org, etc - also follow their sources. Regular people have NO idea what kind of military Ukraine has built. If Ukraine's economy is supported for 2 more years, their odds of bringing down the Russian military are probably 80%.

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weakened_malloc a day ago | parent | prev [-]

> I agree with your main point: "just go renewable" is both naive and utterly useless advice. That's a decades-long project. Also, who makes all the solar panels (and probably windmills)? China.

This is the key point a lot of people miss, the vast majority of equipment needed to actually use renewables requires Chinese products. If you go 100% renewables, you're only replacing one form of dependence (oil) for another,

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Krssst a day ago | parent | next [-]

Once you get NREs set up you don't need a constant uninterrupted supply of replacements as fossil fuels do (we burn them after all).

We'd need replacements as old infrastructure ages out but it seems much easier to wait out a supply disruption compared to oil since this just means using old equipment while the supply is cut; sure some might break after a while but electricity production wouldn't fall immediately.

	▲	genxy a day ago \| parent [-]
		I can't believe they made an account for that comment. Like each action carries the same weight. Renewables, esp solar are super low maintenance. When you buy panels, barring some manufacturing defect, you buy them for the life of the project, not the panel. Solar lasts so long, it is a one time purchase.

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tzs a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Once you have a sane people in charge of policy the building out of renewables quickly using Chinese panels and turbines can be accompanied by incentives do build up domestic manufacturing for them.

Solar and wind equipment lasts a long time so it is OK if it takes a decade or two to ramp up domestic production to the point that it can handle all our needs.

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dbtc a day ago | parent | prev [-]

US post colonial empire method was to create markets overseas, China was watching and learning!