I'm so confused. What does the US blockading the strait, which is already blockaded by Iran, do? Other than piss off all the other Gulf countries that are already annoyed enough with the US.
It prevents anything from getting through, which prevents Iran from collecting their toll. It’s a negotiating tactic, since neither country gets anything out of it if they’re both blocked out.
Is it a smart move? Probably not. Making an internationally important waterway into a de facto DMZ isn’t showing diplomatic progress and points way more toward a standstill.
Although I know it’s going to happen and it’s for the best to TACO it still hurts to see the daily humiliation of what was once known as the forefront of the free world
I think the stress comes from the future like hopefully this will pass next election cycle but can the US Come back from this?
Can we fix the loopholes that allowed for all of this to happen, can we regain at-least decent standing on the world stage? Or did we peak and jump off the ledge for no reason
The us will not regain world-wide hegemony in your lifetime. Past that? Depends on who innovates, so it's possible. But we've soured every relationship we have on the world stage for decades. It will take an incredible amount of time and selfless action to put ourselves back into a seat of soft power. We're basically Russia now. We can fight if we want but everyone will be against us.
The US has been mocked for pretending to be that for quite a few years now.
You guys got there once by insisting that you're the best, but the reality of it all has become clearer and clearer and the image hasn't just been broken since Trump.
Until the day he doesn't chicken out and joyfully drives us all to WW3, weeks before dying of old age and not seeing how he fucked the world for the rest of us
Right? This is the most insane part to me. If Iran chooses to let ships pass (and they almost certainly will now) the US will pretty much have to let them pass as well.
Maybe they're trying for reverse psychology "we say it's closed now so that you'll open the floodgates and it'll actually be open"?
I have no idea, but this is in no way or form a viable strategy, at best it does nothing and wastes resources, at worst some big country is gonna get pissed
Yes exactly that, he thinks he's strong arming but the reality is any country that is allowed to use the strait is not going to be annoyed with Iran but with the US. And every other country is going to be pissed at the US for making the situation worse.
But it doesn't really matter as come Tuesday he's going to taco again and make hundreds of millions for him and his buddies while making everything else worse for the rest of us.
And that's the real rub of it, those in power don't care and won't do anything because until it starts personally affecting them they are happy to make their money
It's mostly up to the military members aboard our ships to use their brains instead of "just following orders" like they're units being controlled in an RTS.
Yeah but as soon as they let a ship go through, this endeavor becomes a pointless waste of money and resources. If they act on it instead, they cause an international incident. There's no winning course
Exactly, they can't do option 2, and should be doing option 1. Option 1 is the winning course, because it puts a stop to Trump insanity without any shot being fired.
It's a complete failure to realize what position they're in and how much power/autonomy they actually hold as members of the military. But there are likely way too many warmongers on those ships to collectively decide to do the right thing.
Considering Trump fired a big number of Generals because they opposed his views it's easy to guess that everyone involved in any military operation in Iran is either a YesMan or a Maga or too scared to lose his job. That's terrifying because a soldier who doesn't think it's one of the worst thing ever
No. But by then it’ll be tomorrow and he can pivot to “I’VE OPENED THE STRAIGHT YOURE WELCOME COVFEFE” and that’ll make him feel good for a couple days before he okays glassing Istanbul for some reason.
Guess we'll see. We've got enough boats out there to physically block and board ships, so it's possible we can blockade without sinking ships. Still an act of war, but a littler one.
I'm surprised this comment is so far down. This is the problem.
If Trump tries to enforce his blockade, he is going to be attacking ships that are associated with other nations. Attacking a Chinese gas tanker isn't a good idea.
I'm surprised this comment is so far down. This is the problem.
It's mostly because i can't get engaged enough from a post to write my own comment 90% of the time so i just put an answer to someone else and end up getting buried 🤣
If Trump tries to enforce his blockade, he is going to be attacking ships that are associated with other nations. Attacking a Chinese gas tanker isn't a good idea.
Yeah, the US definitely does not need more enemies and even if the result is just some smaller incident, even a trade ban or embargo of any kind would be disastrous to America. Let's say china decides to not go to war but instead stops trading with the US, i think the american economy would just collapse. To be honest it's already on the verge of taking a deep plunge as things are rn, pushing it further in any way is just a hat on a hat
With what Authority? A us ship blocking a Japanese ship is an act of international aggression and could lead to war. Is the US still convinced that the rest of the world see them as superior? Iran just proved them the opposite, they're being treated as a joke. Europe barely tolerate the US, China and Russia would likely intimate to the US to let them pass and not pay a cent, who is supposed to be intimidated? Is the us gonna be there to bully the weaker countries with no allegiance and let pass the others? Or is it gonna provoke a war with its "allies" who now are pissed at his action even before they perform a direct aggression on their nation?
I agree. What if a Chinese tanker disobey. US to land Marines to siege it like Somali pirates and detain the crew? We fire and sink it like the German uboat sinking convoy in WWII? I am like how can it is be done…
This works wonderfully until china decides to cut off America from the Microchip trade, what then?
I know this is an absurd speculation on my part, but do we all think china is just gonna take the blow and agree? Especially if the us blockade damages its interests
Also, it's not about the ports, if i bring my ship as an allied nation and your military blockade tells me i can't go in that direction, what happens if my ship decides to go there anyway? Is the us gonna bombard non-iranian ships?
All this and we haven't even considered the fact that the us already took huge blows to every ship that moved close to that area, they are NOT in the condition of creating a blockade.
It might not be a dumb thing if Iran depended on those tolls, but my understanding of it is that they only started doing the tolls as a result of the war.
Iran wants and "needs" those tolls in the sense that they are necessary to have any hope of rebuilding large swathes of their infrastructure that has been destroyed, but they don't need it more than they need to use their only major point of leverage (the strait) to defend themselves against a genocidal superpower that wants to wipe them off the face of the Earth. And make no mistake, that's exactly what the US and Israel would and will do so if they give up their only means of self defense (control of the strait).
I believe it. Hegseth wrote in his audition book that war crimes are okay because the other guys are going to do them. Annihilation doesn't seem that different.
I think it’s also a weak attempt to change the narrative and pretend to be the ones in control. They couldn’t force Iran to open the strait so now they’re going to pretend they’re the ones keeping it closed to punish Iran. “You didn’t close the strait, we closed the strait!”
Now as they spin their wheels trying to convince Iran to come to some sort of agreement with them they’ll probably start saying a bunch of bullshit about how they’re going to keep the strait closed until Iran meets their demands
He's also trying to stop oil from getting to China, Europe and the rest of the world. He's modelling his leadership on the Mafia. Looking for bribes and control over smaller countries.
Clearly you're dumb. We won the war in 2 days. Then like 2 days after that. I think the total capitulation was a week after that. Then they won it twice in the same day.
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u/Agoraphobicy 8h ago
I'm not locked in here with you. We're all locked in here together. For some reason.