Since the U.S. knew that Iran was 100% going to close Hormuz since Jimmy Carter, who also refrained from taking Kharg island precisely for that reason, the second order effects appear to be desired.

Otherwise they'd impeach Trump by now. Even if they make a 2 month ceasefire deal now, it will start again after that.

▲

drnick1 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

The U.S. should form a coalition with the neighboring countries and "finish the job" once and for all. Negotiations with Iran will always amount to kicking the can down the road.

▲

sfifs 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

What is "finish the job"? Iran is a large populous country that's mostly been a unified polity since Cyrus the Great. They are a different people and culture from their Arab neighbours - how will the Arabs rule and why will the Persians follow them? American colonial rule will be more disastrous than the experience in Iraq or Afghanistan - in those days cheap autonomous drones didn't drop grenades on soldiers.

The present US President is smart enough to realise that now. In this case he let himself be misled by Israelis & their supporters that Iranians would rise up and replace their own Government. That indeed might have happened if the US had intervened when the Iranians were actually protesting some months before the present crisis but that window was missed. Now the US President are looking for a way out without and Iran is looking to haggle on the price.

▲

kergonath an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The US are incapable of finishing the job. That's what they tried to do in Iraq and look how it turned out. Iran is much more organised, has a competent secret police, is huge and better armed than Iraq was. It's physically impossible to carpet bomb the country like Israel is trying to do to Lebanon, so whatever you do you can be sure that there will be plenty of armed partisans. If the central power disintegrates, there will be a mess of Kurdish forces, the remains of governmental armies, and you can expect other interesting groups to show up along the borders with Iraq and Afghanistan. Even if the US were lead by competent people with a decent strategy it would be worse than a long shot. And they are not.

They are also incapable of forming a coalition. They pushed the Saudis and all the Gulf states, who hate Iran with a passion to the moderate "maybe starting a war was not such a good idea" camp. The latest noises about forcing them to make friends with Israel is exactly what you would do if you wanted to be absolutely sure that they will never help you. The noises about annexing Greenland and Canada made sure that nobody in Europe is going to be part of any coalition there willingly.

That's what happens when you take stupid decisions on your own because you're a big bully boy and allies are for chumps.

▲

drnick1 39 minutes ago | parent [-]

Destroying what remains of their missiles and drones and forcibly reopening the straits is absolutely possible. Estimates vary, but so far about 50% of their offensive capabilities seem to have been destroyed. Continue combat operations and destroy the rest. Escort ships trapped in the Gulf out. Maintain the blockade on Iranian ports to apply maximum economic pressure on the theocracy. I don't care about the internal politics of Iran. If the country descends into chaos or civil war, so be it. Hopefully, this may result in a collapse of the so called Islamic Republic. It is for the Iranians to decide what government they want, so long as it does not interfere with global and in particular U.S. interests.

	▲	joxdosba 26 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Iran going like Syria would certainly interfere with US and global interests.

▲

crikeykangaroo 4 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Absolute delusional take, considering that the US is not trustworthy as they started bombing twice during negotiations. Not to mention that the US keeps moving the goalpost every time Iran agrees, because the US gets its orders from Israel. The US should get out of the region. Enough havoc has been caused because of it.

▲

wat10000 38 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

From the point of view of the people who would actually do it, the most important effect of impeaching Trump would be a messy political fight and likely losing reelection in November. The most important effect of not impeaching him is they get to stay in office. Everything else is unimportant by comparison.