damn the whole operation is all-or-nothing... US just shouldn't have started this if it couldn't finish off the regime cleanly

this is going to become a worldwide economic disaster:

iran learnt it can 1. bully nearby gulf-nations 2. block hormuz

without much retaliation, and US can't do much due to internal politics (well a lot of people don't like Trump...)

so what cards do each nations have left?

can US "talk" with / use threats against iran and "make it a good guy"?

just talking threats can't force current regime to 'become good' -- bombing's not scary anymore

even economic gifts won't work: economically, iran is not vietnam: it has huge oil reserves, and it can hold hormuz hostage -- so time and effort can't make current regime 'a friend of US'

so... diplomatic chance is LONG GONE...

even if biden or obama becomes the president, they can't solve this: the 'benefit of doubt' is gone

so... unfortunately... the only card left for US and its allies... is ground troops... or some alternative to hormuz...

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watwut 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

> can US "talk" with / use threats against iran and "make it a good guy"?

Problem is Iran leadership especially would need to retarded to trust any good guy promisses from USA.

I mean, USA breaks promisses to literally anyone, but it specifically bombed Iran already twice during negotiations. And its history involves usa turning hostile each time relationships seems to get better.

How can you play good guy with history like that? And with present of attacking literal own allies?

	▲	sysguest 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		yeah that's why I said the whole operation is "all or nothing"

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gmerc 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

remember Afghanistan? There's no "finish the regime quickly". These are religious fanatics. See Taliban.

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jurgenburgen 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

This is not religious fanaticism, it’s just a hated state apparatus trying to survive. If I was in the Iranian government making decisions I would squeeze the strait of Hormuz until Trump cries uncle because that’s the best way to survive.

A bad deal will just give a short break before Israel and US strike a third time.

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sysguest 6 days ago | parent [-]

> it’s just a hated state apparatus trying to survive.

well unfortunately its survival would mean tighter control of iranian populace: it now has an excuse to do so ("are you an american spy? why do you disobey higher command?")

iran will become more like north korea more than before...

as for the iranian people? well those guys could have been driving porsche like qataris people...

	▲	donkyrf 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		They could've been driving Porsches, except for the D'Arcy Concession which only left Iran with 16% of the profit from oil business in their country for a few decades... followed by Britain using their military might when Iran decided that a few decades of that was enough... followed by the US supporting regime overthrows after that... and so on and so on... Iran is the way it is because the West has been ruthlessly exploiting their resources, undermining their government, and attacking them militarily for the last 100 years.

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sysguest 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

well I didn't expect this to be easy

but at least I expected US to be more prepared than this

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mindslight 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> US can't do much due to internal politics (well a lot of people don't like Trump...)

I don't know why you're throwing this out casually, like the difficulty is merely due to political dissent? People "don't like" Trump precisely because all of his policies are exactly like this idiotic attack on Iran - poorly thought out, and inevitably end up doing the exact opposite as what he claims they will do. Trump's whole modus operandi has always been aggressive escalation against other parties, then making negative-sum "deals" to extract wealth. This half-works in business but absolutely fails in international relations (why all of our traditional allies are sitting this one out, at best).

You keep attributing these actions to the "US", but the truth of the matter is that the competent people at the top who was coming up with options like "here is a plan but it requires hundreds of thousands of US troops for years" would have been sidelined and replaced with a Party loyalist sycophant who said it would be easy. For further reading, see this HN thread on the Military Failures of Fascism https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47523207

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sysguest 3 days ago | parent [-]

well if the current president was Biden, people wouldn't complain even if the plan was bringing 100,000 ground troops.

Of course whether people like/trust the current president or not matters on the range of military power he can project on foreign land

dang if it was obama, it could have been 500,000 and almost no one would even fuss

	▲	mindslight 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		You're saying that you personally wouldn't complain if it were Biden sending 100,000 troops, or Obama sending 500,000 troops? I certainly would. But the fact that the US doom industry has been beating the drum at Iran for years, while the US military intelligence community has still held back on actually attacking speaks volumes about what a poor idea this was.