> More relevantly for us, Iran is 3.5 times larger than Iraq and roughly twice the population.
Worth noting that at the time of invasion of Iraq they had about 25 million people per gemeni. They now have about 46 mil people per wikipedia. All else equal, we are comparing 25 mil to 93 mil and not half of 93 mil to 93 mil.
Also don't forget that Iran is far more technologically advanced than Iraq was. Iraqis had 70s tech, while Iran has stuff like hypersonic missiles that even the US can't produce right now.
> And I do want to stress that. There is a frequent mistake, often from folks who deal in economics, to assume that countries will give up on wars when the economics turn bad. But countries are often very willing to throw good money after bad even on distant wars of choice.
On the other hand isn't this how the russian revolution happened? An economic crisis due to a prolonged war leading to a revolution? While i wouldn't bet money on it, it seems at least possible that something similar could happen to Iran.
He writes that the region is not very important to the USA. It's not, but it is a strategically important area, not only in terms of its location, at the nexus of Asia, Africa and Europe, but also because of the oil there.
Now the US is not dependent on Middle Eastern Oil, but Japan, China and other countries are. So controlling the region will mean a lever of power over those regions.
It seems there's a flawed reading coming from a single point in time analysis
Region instability had ben regularly threatening freedom of navigation in the last five years
And USA may not consider the individual country strategic, but cares deeply about freedom of navigation, because the single market is basically the pillar for their hegemony.
Sarah Paine lectures give overall better lenses to look at this engagement.
> Please understand me: the people in these countries are not important, but as a matter of national strategy, some places are more important than others.
I assume/hope this was meant to say "the people in these countries are not [un]important"? (or just "are important")
As an entirely secular person, I believe every innocent human life is important.
> They did not and now we are all living trapped in the consequences.
They (rich and well connected) did, but they won't have to suffer the consequences, everyone else will. The Pedo of the United States is now a billionaire that will walk away in 4 years shrugging his shoulders laughing all the way to the bank with them.
Not one person that could stop it, did stop it. Legislature is sitting on their thumbs pretending not to work for Israel and selling us out to big tech and defense spending.
All the Baby Boomers are in the south enjoying the sunshine and shrugging their shoulders.
The amazing part to me is just the perceived invincibility this small circle within the US administration has. You can find dozens of articles with a search limited to Feb 1~Feb 27, plenty of analysis warning of the risks that have now become reality, everything - the strait, no revolution, further radicalization, critically low US stockpiles, abandoning other US partners, gulf destabilization, etc.
In the fantasy imagination of some people, they really think you can take out some military targets of another country and then the oppressed masses will magically revolt, as they completely ignore the failed revolution just a month prior. Surround yourself with enough of these people while excluding and firing those who don't and this is what you get.
There are too many people, enriched by the status quo, who won't move until their personal discomfort erodes, even while they're watching it get closer and closer (in denial). People who are going to be jobless in 6 months carrying water for the admin because they're afraid of losing their jobs now. This isn't a hypothetical, because it has been happening continuously for the past year-and-a-half. Yours truly is not exempt, but it's certainly frustrating watching people hem and haw from the other side of the line.
I get that people like me have no pull because we're already designated losers, but it would be nice if y'all would just take our word for it.
Well, there's more than just perceived invincibility.
The alternative is recognizing that you can effectively cow large populations of people into submission, no matter how much it sucks, and that the people who do this (in this case, the Islamic theocrats of Iran) can and will forever be a part of the geopolitical landscape with thrall over tens of millions of lives, and seek to influence even more. That there will always - ALWAYS - be a segment of humanity that has no real chance to think differently, to improve their lot, and to peacefully see the changes they want made to their society.
The hope in the immediate post-Soviet era of the early 1990s is that liberalized representative government would spread around the world, and that rules-based order would allow for peaceful resolution of problems through democratic processes and markets. And for a while, this seemed to be the route. Then it became apparent by the late 90s that there were still parties who didn't like the general direction that this was taking, particularly Russia, China, and at least some of the Middle East.
Now that China and the Middle East have become engines of global economic growth, there seems to be a tacit agreement, at least among the people who matter, than authoritarianism is fine so long as the right people get paid and that line continue to go up. In fact, it's more than fine; it's perceived by these people as more efficient at creating economic growth than that messy back-and-forth of representative government. And God forbid you have to set up that representative government after getting rid of an authoritarian one like in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Is it a harbinger of dystopia? Absolutely. But that's the reality that we inhabit.
West is living in its own bubble of misinformation. Including the government.
On many occasions I've read self-soothing wishful thinking messages about my country. In 2022 it was that Russian army is fleeing, all Russian tanks were burned down, and Russian soldiers are deserting from a front lines with a speed of 100,000 persons a day. Here on HN. Written by the people who had no clue how to distinguish Russian tank from Ukrainian tank.
Or in 2022-2023 EU leaders said that Russian soldiers are fighting with shovels and stealing microwaves and washing machines to extract microchips from them.
Or just recently someone wrote to me that we are living in the stone age, whatever that means.
On the other hand, I'm happy that West prefers to live in a bubble with no access to real information. And if you try to convey real information, they'll call you "Kremlin bot" or "North Korean bot" or "Chinese bot". It means that less countries will fall prey to neocolonial practices and wars because you cannot wage wars and govern colonies based entirely on misinformation from propaganda your own media creates out of thin air.
I think it's pretty clear that this war was initiated by Israel, who asked/hoped that the US would go along with it.
While I can easily imagine the Trump crew is a bit impulsive and unprepared, I am VERY sure Israel went in to this with their usual competency, including very clear plans and targets.
If this eventually results in a half decent Iranian government, that would be the best thing that happened to the world this century! A period of war and high oil prices is a cheap price to pay, IF that actually happens.
> an find dozens of articles with a search limited to Feb 1~Feb 27, plenty of analysis warning of the risks that have now become reality, everything - the strait, no revolution, further radicalization, critically low US stockpiles, abandoning other US partners, gulf destabilization, etc.
To be fair, one can find plenty of analysis positing everything for the Middle East. The pointed criticisim is, in Devereux's words: "Iran would thus need a ‘lever’ closer to home which could inflict costs on the United States. For – and I must stress this – for forty years everyone has known this was the strait. This is not a new discovery, we did this before in the 1980s."
> plenty of analysis warning of the risks that have now become reality
You can also easily find analysis warning of the opposite: the risks of not invading Iran. See Nazi Germany and WW2 for an example what happens when you fail to contain a belligerently rogue country.
This is nothing new, history repeats. Prior to the invasions of Afghanistan & Iraq there were numerous regional experts warning that the result would be chaos, failed states, a rise in extremism and long term instability in the region and indirectly the rest of the world. Millions of us marched through the streets, asking our governments not to make what was obviously a massive mistake.
The US & UK governments were convinced that they would recreate the liberation of Europe, with cheering crowds, flowers in their hair, Mission Accomplished banners and then simply totally dismantle a government & civil service and recreate a new one to their favour. Groupthink is a powerful thing.
Could it be fantasy reinforced by some LLM "advisors"? I have a strong feeling that the people in US administration are talking to LLMs which constantly reassure them that their imagination is the best
>Iran would have to respond and thus would have to try to find a way to inflict ‘pain’ on the United States to force the United States to back off. But whereas Israel is in reach of some Iranian weapons, the United States is not.
This is too complacent for my liking. Every rusty trawler is a viable launch platform for Shahed type drones (operational range ~2500 km per Wikipedia). Nearly every US oil refinery and LNG terminal are on the coast. And then there are floating oil platforms (e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perdido_(oil_platform))
The article then says:
>One can never know how well prepared an enemy is for something.
And:
>And if I can reason this out, Iran – which has been planning for this exact thing for forty years certainly can.
> Every rusty trawler is a viable launch platform for Shahed type drones
The point is Iran isn't going to be landing tactical, much less strategic, fire on America unless we royally fuck up. It will be closer to terror/psyop attacks.
1. The straight of Hormuz is crazy because of the sheer amount of options Iran has to threaten shipping. It's so narrow that they can even hit ships with artillery fire. No need for missiles or drones at all! Lobbing kinetic shells may sound primitive, but anti-missile defences are designed to deal with large projectiles with minutes or hours of warning, not shell-sized projectiles that hit within seconds. If a U.S. war-ship enters the straight, they could be struck by fire from artillery that's been concealed for decades before they know they're under fire. It's also worth noting that Shahad drones have a larger range than the size of Iran, and they're hidden all over the country. Any ship transiting Hormuz or any ground force trying to land in Iran could face drone attack from anywhere in Iran, or all of it simultaneously. A few drones are easy to intercept, but give Iran a juicy enough target and they could make the decision to simply overwhelm it. Drones are a heavily parallel capability.
2. There are only a couple of lanes deep enough for large ships in the straight. So far, no ships have been sunk outright, and that's probably a deliberate choice on Iran's part. If they sink a ship at the right spot, the straight could become barricaded. Clearing that barricade under threat of fire would be a far worse pickle than what we're seeing now.
3. The critical question to ask is, "How does the U.S. end this?" Just continuing to bomb Iran is phenomenally expensive and likely won't accomplish much. This is a regime that has been preparing for an American invasion since they overthrew the CIA-installed Shah 47 years ago. They probably never seriously expected to win an air-war against the U.S. and have obviously planned for an asymmetric conflict. The U.S. is not going to win this one without phenomenal amounts of blood, treasure, and will, but all of these are in short supply. A ground invasion of Iran would likely be worse than Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam rolled into one. The U.S. can't win this war because they simply can't pay the price. Unfortunately, the straight of Hormuz gives Iran the ability to prevent Trump from simply TACO'ing out and proceeding to invade Cuba. Iran could keep the straight closed even after the U.S. withdraws their forces, and likely will to make sure everybody knows they can control the world economy at will. They're going to expect a peace settlement, and it won't be cheap.
4. This conflict lights a fire under the behinds of all nascent nuclear states. Iran would not have been invaded if they'd managed to build nuclear weapons. Even Iran is more likely to develop nuclear weapons now. Contrary to what some think, Iran isn't going to give up their enriched uranium and end their program just because the U.S. promises not to attack them again. Something like the JCPOA only works if some level of trust is possible, but Trump personally burned that. The best the U.S. is likely to get in negotiations is a superficial promise not to develop nuclear weapons, backed up by absolutely nothing. If the U.S. decides to end the program by force, the result will also be uncertain. Say the U.S. locates and extracts Iran's HEU from those underground facilities. How will they ever be certain they got it all without occupying the whole country?
The Straight of Hormuz is open to any country willing to pay $2M per voyage. Any country except the U.S. and Israel.
The most important aspect of the "toll" is that Iran prefers payment in yuan, not dollars.
If Iran succeeds in nationalizing the Straight and is successful in enforcing the toll, it represents a very serious threat to the dominance of the U.S. Dollar as the world's reserve currency for trading energy.
> The most important aspect of the "toll" is that Iran prefers payment in yuan, not dollars.
> If Iran succeeds in nationalizing the Straight and is successful in enforcing the toll, it represents a very serious threat to the dominance of the U.S. Dollar as the world's reserve currency for trading energy.
This theory seems to predict that CNY/USD should have gone up since Feb 27 as everyone rushes to trade and obtain yuan so they can pay the Iranians. But in fact the opposite is the case; that currency pair peaked Feb 27 after a bull run (well, only about +7%) since approximately "liberation day".
USD dominance isn't going anywhere, because all of the critical metrics are still basically uncontested by any alternative. China and Russia are losing allies left and right. They're demonstrating that they support terrorism. Nobody is going to decide that their currencies are the new hot thing.
China poses a huge threat, but some of their worst advantages aren't viable. We know things they have, so we tell them things we have. If you do X, we do Y. Thus some of their big advantages are nullified, unless they get reckless. Same as the nuclear issue, weapons you've invested in yet cannot even use, because they become part of new rules.
Some of that has been clarified in the trade tug of war, showing each other's dependencies. Some is being shown by also showing how easy it is for Russian infrastructure to be hit, or how easy it is to put a choke hold on critical energy, or to simply capture a dictator for that matter. It isn't even just those things, it's also the cadence and timeframe. Venezuela, Cuba, Iran and Russia all under severe pressure within just a few months at the start of 2026.
At most we've maybe seen some limited sabotage of infrastructure inside the US and perhaps aboard a carrier, some sharing of targeting information, etc.
If Russia and China are leveraging any of their real potential for pressure, it sure is hard to tell.
Author seems to not care about the prospect of the Iranian regime developing nuclear weapons, putting those weapons into the hands of its terrorist proxies, and sitting back while those proxies turn Western Europe and Palestine into radioactive wastelands (yes, Palestine, because it is not possible to restrict the fallout to just Tel Aviv, and the regime has shown itself to be far more anti-Israel than pro-Palestinian, the prospect of Palestine being a radioactive wasteland for a century is an acceptable price for destroying Israel). The US and the rest of the West should, apparently, just accept this as inevitable historical destiny, because $5/gallon gasoline or putting boots on the ground are apparently so utterly reprehensible.
Author's analysis, as critical as he is of American presidents breaking their promises, is completely absent of analysis of what would happen if American presidents broke their promises to never allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. Never mind that JCPOA had a sunset clause that would allow Iran to resume nuclear enrichment to weapons-grade after the sunset clause.
The author's analysis pretty blatantly exposes reality: the West is losing because it does not have the political stomach to win. Instead of deciding that maybe society should try to develop that political stomach, instead of paying attention to a Trump who got elected in large part on mantras about how America was losing and it needed to start winning, no, Author says this was all a horrible idea and implicitly we should just sit back while our enemies progress along the road of putting nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists.
You seem to suffer from selective memory, your president declared Irans nuclear program "totally, totally destroyed" and your post "fake news". That was half a year ago. What necessitated another obviously useless strategic air campaign?
Its ironic it's not even discussed anymore in the US. A year in and you can't find a political post on HN, it's all blackholed - we've gone past "I didn't vote for him" straight to posts like this from alternative reality where he doesn't exist, doesn't say or do things.
you miss the asymmetry here:
If there's a country goes thousands miles from far away to invade the US, then American can endure much more to fight than the invading country. The balance will be the opposit.
The often missing asymmetry reflects something deep in the mindset of large portion of western population.
Amazing to me how impatient people are. It was six to seven months between the 12 day war in June and the mass uprising seen in December/January which was ruthlessly crushed. It will likely be a while between the end of this war and the next mass uprising. But every uprising that happens against a massively weakened regime means there's more chance of real change. Totalitarian regimes fall in ways that are hard to predict, but gradually and then suddenly.
117 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 104 ms ] threadWorth noting that at the time of invasion of Iraq they had about 25 million people per gemeni. They now have about 46 mil people per wikipedia. All else equal, we are comparing 25 mil to 93 mil and not half of 93 mil to 93 mil.
On the other hand isn't this how the russian revolution happened? An economic crisis due to a prolonged war leading to a revolution? While i wouldn't bet money on it, it seems at least possible that something similar could happen to Iran.
Now the US is not dependent on Middle Eastern Oil, but Japan, China and other countries are. So controlling the region will mean a lever of power over those regions.
Region instability had ben regularly threatening freedom of navigation in the last five years
And USA may not consider the individual country strategic, but cares deeply about freedom of navigation, because the single market is basically the pillar for their hegemony.
Sarah Paine lectures give overall better lenses to look at this engagement.
I assume/hope this was meant to say "the people in these countries are not [un]important"? (or just "are important")
As an entirely secular person, I believe every innocent human life is important.
They (rich and well connected) did, but they won't have to suffer the consequences, everyone else will. The Pedo of the United States is now a billionaire that will walk away in 4 years shrugging his shoulders laughing all the way to the bank with them.
Not one person that could stop it, did stop it. Legislature is sitting on their thumbs pretending not to work for Israel and selling us out to big tech and defense spending.
All the Baby Boomers are in the south enjoying the sunshine and shrugging their shoulders.
In the fantasy imagination of some people, they really think you can take out some military targets of another country and then the oppressed masses will magically revolt, as they completely ignore the failed revolution just a month prior. Surround yourself with enough of these people while excluding and firing those who don't and this is what you get.
I get that people like me have no pull because we're already designated losers, but it would be nice if y'all would just take our word for it.
If by that you mean Iranians in Iran chanting "better our a-hole than yours", I'm not so sure that's radicalization.
The alternative is recognizing that you can effectively cow large populations of people into submission, no matter how much it sucks, and that the people who do this (in this case, the Islamic theocrats of Iran) can and will forever be a part of the geopolitical landscape with thrall over tens of millions of lives, and seek to influence even more. That there will always - ALWAYS - be a segment of humanity that has no real chance to think differently, to improve their lot, and to peacefully see the changes they want made to their society.
The hope in the immediate post-Soviet era of the early 1990s is that liberalized representative government would spread around the world, and that rules-based order would allow for peaceful resolution of problems through democratic processes and markets. And for a while, this seemed to be the route. Then it became apparent by the late 90s that there were still parties who didn't like the general direction that this was taking, particularly Russia, China, and at least some of the Middle East.
Now that China and the Middle East have become engines of global economic growth, there seems to be a tacit agreement, at least among the people who matter, than authoritarianism is fine so long as the right people get paid and that line continue to go up. In fact, it's more than fine; it's perceived by these people as more efficient at creating economic growth than that messy back-and-forth of representative government. And God forbid you have to set up that representative government after getting rid of an authoritarian one like in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Is it a harbinger of dystopia? Absolutely. But that's the reality that we inhabit.
On many occasions I've read self-soothing wishful thinking messages about my country. In 2022 it was that Russian army is fleeing, all Russian tanks were burned down, and Russian soldiers are deserting from a front lines with a speed of 100,000 persons a day. Here on HN. Written by the people who had no clue how to distinguish Russian tank from Ukrainian tank.
Or in 2022-2023 EU leaders said that Russian soldiers are fighting with shovels and stealing microwaves and washing machines to extract microchips from them.
Or just recently someone wrote to me that we are living in the stone age, whatever that means.
On the other hand, I'm happy that West prefers to live in a bubble with no access to real information. And if you try to convey real information, they'll call you "Kremlin bot" or "North Korean bot" or "Chinese bot". It means that less countries will fall prey to neocolonial practices and wars because you cannot wage wars and govern colonies based entirely on misinformation from propaganda your own media creates out of thin air.
While I can easily imagine the Trump crew is a bit impulsive and unprepared, I am VERY sure Israel went in to this with their usual competency, including very clear plans and targets.
If this eventually results in a half decent Iranian government, that would be the best thing that happened to the world this century! A period of war and high oil prices is a cheap price to pay, IF that actually happens.
To be fair, one can find plenty of analysis positing everything for the Middle East. The pointed criticisim is, in Devereux's words: "Iran would thus need a ‘lever’ closer to home which could inflict costs on the United States. For – and I must stress this – for forty years everyone has known this was the strait. This is not a new discovery, we did this before in the 1980s."
You can also easily find analysis warning of the opposite: the risks of not invading Iran. See Nazi Germany and WW2 for an example what happens when you fail to contain a belligerently rogue country.
The US & UK governments were convinced that they would recreate the liberation of Europe, with cheering crowds, flowers in their hair, Mission Accomplished banners and then simply totally dismantle a government & civil service and recreate a new one to their favour. Groupthink is a powerful thing.
Could it be fantasy reinforced by some LLM "advisors"? I have a strong feeling that the people in US administration are talking to LLMs which constantly reassure them that their imagination is the best
My takeaway from the war in Ukraine is: it’s going to get worse and last longer than anyone ever imagined.
This is too complacent for my liking. Every rusty trawler is a viable launch platform for Shahed type drones (operational range ~2500 km per Wikipedia). Nearly every US oil refinery and LNG terminal are on the coast. And then there are floating oil platforms (e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perdido_(oil_platform))
The article then says:
>One can never know how well prepared an enemy is for something.
And:
>And if I can reason this out, Iran – which has been planning for this exact thing for forty years certainly can.
I'll leave it here for y'all to ponder.
The point is Iran isn't going to be landing tactical, much less strategic, fire on America unless we royally fuck up. It will be closer to terror/psyop attacks.
1. The straight of Hormuz is crazy because of the sheer amount of options Iran has to threaten shipping. It's so narrow that they can even hit ships with artillery fire. No need for missiles or drones at all! Lobbing kinetic shells may sound primitive, but anti-missile defences are designed to deal with large projectiles with minutes or hours of warning, not shell-sized projectiles that hit within seconds. If a U.S. war-ship enters the straight, they could be struck by fire from artillery that's been concealed for decades before they know they're under fire. It's also worth noting that Shahad drones have a larger range than the size of Iran, and they're hidden all over the country. Any ship transiting Hormuz or any ground force trying to land in Iran could face drone attack from anywhere in Iran, or all of it simultaneously. A few drones are easy to intercept, but give Iran a juicy enough target and they could make the decision to simply overwhelm it. Drones are a heavily parallel capability.
2. There are only a couple of lanes deep enough for large ships in the straight. So far, no ships have been sunk outright, and that's probably a deliberate choice on Iran's part. If they sink a ship at the right spot, the straight could become barricaded. Clearing that barricade under threat of fire would be a far worse pickle than what we're seeing now.
3. The critical question to ask is, "How does the U.S. end this?" Just continuing to bomb Iran is phenomenally expensive and likely won't accomplish much. This is a regime that has been preparing for an American invasion since they overthrew the CIA-installed Shah 47 years ago. They probably never seriously expected to win an air-war against the U.S. and have obviously planned for an asymmetric conflict. The U.S. is not going to win this one without phenomenal amounts of blood, treasure, and will, but all of these are in short supply. A ground invasion of Iran would likely be worse than Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam rolled into one. The U.S. can't win this war because they simply can't pay the price. Unfortunately, the straight of Hormuz gives Iran the ability to prevent Trump from simply TACO'ing out and proceeding to invade Cuba. Iran could keep the straight closed even after the U.S. withdraws their forces, and likely will to make sure everybody knows they can control the world economy at will. They're going to expect a peace settlement, and it won't be cheap.
4. This conflict lights a fire under the behinds of all nascent nuclear states. Iran would not have been invaded if they'd managed to build nuclear weapons. Even Iran is more likely to develop nuclear weapons now. Contrary to what some think, Iran isn't going to give up their enriched uranium and end their program just because the U.S. promises not to attack them again. Something like the JCPOA only works if some level of trust is possible, but Trump personally burned that. The best the U.S. is likely to get in negotiations is a superficial promise not to develop nuclear weapons, backed up by absolutely nothing. If the U.S. decides to end the program by force, the result will also be uncertain. Say the U.S. locates and extracts Iran's HEU from those underground facilities. How will they ever be certain they got it all without occupying the whole country?
The most important aspect of the "toll" is that Iran prefers payment in yuan, not dollars.
If Iran succeeds in nationalizing the Straight and is successful in enforcing the toll, it represents a very serious threat to the dominance of the U.S. Dollar as the world's reserve currency for trading energy.
> If Iran succeeds in nationalizing the Straight and is successful in enforcing the toll, it represents a very serious threat to the dominance of the U.S. Dollar as the world's reserve currency for trading energy.
This theory seems to predict that CNY/USD should have gone up since Feb 27 as everyone rushes to trade and obtain yuan so they can pay the Iranians. But in fact the opposite is the case; that currency pair peaked Feb 27 after a bull run (well, only about +7%) since approximately "liberation day".
China poses a huge threat, but some of their worst advantages aren't viable. We know things they have, so we tell them things we have. If you do X, we do Y. Thus some of their big advantages are nullified, unless they get reckless. Same as the nuclear issue, weapons you've invested in yet cannot even use, because they become part of new rules.
Some of that has been clarified in the trade tug of war, showing each other's dependencies. Some is being shown by also showing how easy it is for Russian infrastructure to be hit, or how easy it is to put a choke hold on critical energy, or to simply capture a dictator for that matter. It isn't even just those things, it's also the cadence and timeframe. Venezuela, Cuba, Iran and Russia all under severe pressure within just a few months at the start of 2026.
At most we've maybe seen some limited sabotage of infrastructure inside the US and perhaps aboard a carrier, some sharing of targeting information, etc.
If Russia and China are leveraging any of their real potential for pressure, it sure is hard to tell.
Author's analysis, as critical as he is of American presidents breaking their promises, is completely absent of analysis of what would happen if American presidents broke their promises to never allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. Never mind that JCPOA had a sunset clause that would allow Iran to resume nuclear enrichment to weapons-grade after the sunset clause.
The author's analysis pretty blatantly exposes reality: the West is losing because it does not have the political stomach to win. Instead of deciding that maybe society should try to develop that political stomach, instead of paying attention to a Trump who got elected in large part on mantras about how America was losing and it needed to start winning, no, Author says this was all a horrible idea and implicitly we should just sit back while our enemies progress along the road of putting nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists.
Its ironic it's not even discussed anymore in the US. A year in and you can't find a political post on HN, it's all blackholed - we've gone past "I didn't vote for him" straight to posts like this from alternative reality where he doesn't exist, doesn't say or do things.
When dealing with the Middle East we keep underestimating the amount of hardship the people I these countries can endure or be forced to endure.
The often missing asymmetry reflects something deep in the mindset of large portion of western population.
Inflation means hardship.
Iran is the first conflict in many years that might inflict tangible suffering on the American people.
I'm not an American so I'm not sure if the voting base actually believed him.