Aaaaaand right on cue the flagging brigade promptly flagged this to get it off the front page.

What's stunning is that there doesn't seem to be a single way in which the United States has come out ahead on this conflict.

We have

* Established that US zero ability or will to protect it's 'allies' in region beyond Israel.

* Permanently ceded de facto control over the straits of Hormuz to Iran

* Significantly strengthened the hardliners in the Iranian regime and cleared the way for them to have absolute power by eliminating all moderates

* Spiked inflation at home and doubled down on pissing off pretty much every single country except Russia by heaping sky rocketing energy costs on them

* Exploded the myth of US military superiority with US warplanes unable to approach Iran and the carrier groups unable to go anywhere near the straits.

And to think we got this in exchange for spending more on our military than the next few countries combined, and the military is asking for 1.5 Trillion more to continue to fight this war.

All of this to get to a point where we are negotiating a deal which is worse than what we already had with the JCPOA.

I think we will look back on this as the US version of the Suez crisis, the beginning of the end of the US empire.

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nevi-me 38 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Well, people don't want to talk politics, but will gladly engage in climate conversations and other random things that are affected by politics, because the one thing where people are chosen to lead on popularity than merit is not interesting while it affects us and is currently causing more deaths than anything else (DOGE defunding, 'eradicated' viruses returning, unauthorised wars).

The front page only has so much space anyways, and they can't flag everything forever.

	▲	watwut 8 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		People talk politics and want to talk politics here. But, there are groups of people who flag politically uncomfortable stories. And it is systematic. I yes, I read new so I dont buy the neutrality or randomnness of put of topic claims.

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zmgsabst 41 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

I agree with you right until the end:

This is closer to the end of the Roman Republic — and strange events such as threats against Greenland and Canada can be interpreted in that context as well.

That is, we’re not seeing the downfall of the US empire but the downfall of the US republic that will eventually retreat to North America and retrench its position — hence moving Canada and Greenland (and Cuba and…) from informal relations with a hegemon to formal vassals of an empire. And emerge as an actual empire, much like Rome before.

While I understand the emotional temptation, using the word “empire” in place of “hegemony” can lead to inaccurate predictions — eg, total US collapse versus pullback for retrenchment and reformation.

	▲	matusp 7 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The transformation from Roman republic to Roman empire was mainly about how the top-level government is organized. It was not about the relations with vassals/periphery. The Roman republic was as imperialistic as empire in this regard. In fact, most of the Roman conquering was already done when the republic ended.
	▲	ljf 24 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		To add to this, in the same way that Rome and the Roman Empire in some ways lived on through the Catholic Church, I think the 'church of capitalism' will mean that the American empire lives in far far into the future, and retains some of its power.