Don't interrupt your enemy when they are busy making mistakes.

Iran is shaping up to be a quagmire worse than Afghanistan or Iraq. Even if Trump pulls back from the brink, the GCC economies are significantly damaged, Iran will extort a massive wergild, and European and Asian economies will suffer another energy shock. China is relatively unscathed.

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cyanydeez 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Iran is too close to china to make any real issue. USA can stop shooting themselves in the feet at any time and redirect to Taiwan.

If China wanted USA tied up, theyd get south america or cuba problems, forces away from China.

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angry_octet 9 hours ago | parent [-]

"any real issue"? Like crippling the world economy? They can extract a tithe on every gallon of oil leaving the Gulf. Without Qatari/Iranian natural gas there is a global energy crunch.

South/Central America has no significant military opponents, most especially none that will consume large quantities of exquisite armaments. It would mostly consume Army resources in COIN, which they are extremely experienced with from Afghanistan.

It's actually mystifying that Trump started the beef with Iran, when he could have just invaded Cuba and had an easy win. The Israeli factor of course, truly America's greatest weakness.

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nyc_data_geek1 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Without Qatari helium, there's a massive global semiconductor crunch.

The fertilizer crunch and food scarcity too.

It's wild to me how oblivious ostensibly intelligent people on this site regularly manage to be.

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angry_octet 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, the downstream effects of the helium shortage are going to be extremely painful. Chip production, MRI machines, welding, many scientific uses. (We can't forget the previous era of US insanity in dumping the helium reserve under the 'party balloon gas' anti-science/anti-facts 1990s Congress.[1])

The world still produces enough fertiliser, but prices will rise significantly. The biggest producers (China, India, USA) also consume most of their supply, and China and India get their methane from elsewhere or from coal. Russia is a leading exporter, so they could easily tighten the screws now, leading to further economic shocks. Big importers will feel a crunch [2] and this will leader to significant crop price increases.[3]

[1] https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/02/21/federal-governm...

[2] https://wits.worldbank.org/trade/comtrade/en/country/ALL/yea...

[3] https://farmonaut.com/mining/largest-urea-producers-2026-glo...

	▲	nyc_data_geek1 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Significant crop price increases, which tends to be bad news for anyone who eats food.