In what way were they chased away? Iran tried to sink them and didn't hit any shots, and many on Iran's side died trying. Many IRGC soldiers dying and not even scratching the paint on US vessels doesn't show US to be weak.

> Hilariously the USS George HW Bush had to go the long way around Africa rather than risk transiting the Bab El Mandeb after the Houthis defeated the US Navy last year.

Valuing the lives of your crewmen and avoid terrorists is bad how? USA not wanting their soldiers to die is weak? Would you want more deaths on US side to show strength?

USA can win this war with barely any casualties, why would you not do that? And USA being able to do this with barely any losses shows tremendous strength to me, Iran was more powerful than Ukraine but USA could establish aerial superiority immediately with no losses, this is so much stronger than what Russia displayed.

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jcranmer 37 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> USA can win this war with barely any casualties

What do you mean by "win"? What strategic goals can the US achieve in this war? We're at a point where merely achieving status quo ante bellum--i.e., Iran doesn't charge for passage through the Strait of Hormuz--seems to require giving concessions elsewhere.

In many ways, this looks like the American version of Pearl Harbor--a stunning tactical victory that is simultaneously a crushing strategic loss.

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srean 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Given how expensive they are they were presumably supposed to do more than primarily stay out of range. There are less expensive ways of doing that.

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Jensson 4 hours ago | parent [-]

They block Iranian ports so Iran can no longer export oil, that is doing a lot.

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srean 4 hours ago | parent [-]

And Iran has blocked the strait too. It's at best a stalemate.

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Jensson 3 hours ago | parent [-]

But this stalemate benefits US corporations by raising the price for oil, so its not really hurting the attacker. In order to hurt a plutocracy like USA you need to hurt the American stock market but American stocks are doing great.

	▲	srean 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That's true. Both USA and Russia should be quite happy with the current state of affairs. China not so much. Rest of the world is quite pissed with USA. But that's just emotion. Unless it gets realised into something concrete it matters little.
	▲	yongjik 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Trump is at -20% net approval and it's steadily getting worse even now. Seems like most Americans don't decide whether things are going great by looking at S&P 500.

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LorenPechtel 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

We are quite incapable of dealing with a mass attack by Iranian small boats with bombs.

	▲	Jensson 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		They are not, they updated their tactics to account for that so they destroyed a lot of Iranian small boats with bombs trying to attack the vessels. If they were incapable of countering that we would have seen American casualties in these skirmishes but only Iranians died.