This is completely standard journalistic practice when reporting a quote on something that is currently contentious or unproven. For example, consider the two hypothetical headlines:
Activists decry police murder of protester
Activists decry police "murder" of protester
The first implies that the police murdering the protestor is an established fact. The second makes it clear that it is the activists who used the term "murder" rather than it being a non-contentious fact.
It doesn't help when snippets are post leaving out the other context clues where things like "according to" or "anonymous source stated" or similar attribute of the quote. Just putting words between quotation marks does not lead me to believe they were quotes if there is no attribution. Otherwise, it's a Trump level "people tell me" type of "quote".
It's because they been taken to court for mindlessly parroting shit they hear, but instead of actually verifying the truth of the claim (ya know, the entire purpose of a journalist) they just put it in quotes as some kind of "buyer beware" disclaimer
It's a garbage habit that they've all fallen into. The quotes will fall away when future stories refer back to this story.
That single quoted phrase was set in the context of other words, and that context defined its meaning. We know this to an extent that almost no one could have imagined since LLMs have become a huge part of the world.
My favorite example of this is how no article in Britain during Corbyn's leadership of the labor party would ever quote an entire sentence that he had said. Thousands of articles, and the quotes were all fragmentary phrases and lone words framed in editorial.
edit: Brits and the BBC especially do this more than most, likely because of their bizarre libel laws (that were once even worse than they are now.)
Will this bring oil prices down in Europe? Oil tankers could still go to the mediteranian via the suez canal. This will not help asia, but I can imagine if it is too dangerous the go through bab al-mandab strait it is more lucrative to sell the crude oil to europe at a discount?
This is part of the Houthis preventing Saudi Arabia from exporting any oil at all. So no I don’t think it’s gonna make oil lower. Higher probably. But oil is doing very weird things.
No. A cynic might think a significant part of this half-arsed Iran war was:
- make sure fuel prices increase globally
- The US economy is relatively well-shielded from the fallout by its own fossil fuel sources, local and in colonies like Venezuela.
- export more US fossil fuels, especially to Europe, at inflated prices. US insiders reap the profits.
- further kneecap European competitiveness in energy intensive sectors, steal market share. Oh well, small gift to China here too, but still a net win for the US.
Sure, if you make oil prices increase, US oil companies and their shareholders rake in more cash. But it's harmful for the average American because filling up the tank costs a lot more. Then that price hike spreads to everything else that relies on oil (which is pretty much everything) leading to inflation and rising interest rates (already starting to happen, the shielding you mention doesn't seem to be working, which makes sense in a relatively free-market economy). If the situation drags on, unemployment rises due to soaring costs across the board, and the economy goes to hell.
A rise in crude prices might pay off for a small country that lives almost exclusively off it (say, Saudi Arabia, in the hyphotetical case that it could keep exporting as normal) but for the US? I don't think it does. Surely, Europe is more exposed than the US and will suffer even more, but this is not a zero-sum game.
So I don't think it's an elaborate plan, it's just Trump being reckless as usual.
I wouldn't assume this administration gives a shit about inflation or rising interest rates or how the rest of the economy is doing. Do you have any reason to believe they do?
This administration keeps trying to intimidate the Fed into lowering interest rates, which makes me believe it holds that as important, and they keep claiming there isn't inflation regardless of reality. I don't think they really care about how the economy is doing, but they care about how the summary numbers look.
> But it's harmful for the average American because filling up the tank costs a lot more.
The fun part about this is that it shows what people actually care about.
What happens if petroleum prices go up? People use less. It's the entire premise of a carbon tax. Fuel costs more so people buy a hybrid or electric vehicle, power utilities find renewables or nuclear more attractive relative to natural gas, etc. In a market economy this is the primary way to get people to switch from something to alternatives -- which is pretty important if you think climate change is a problem.
This is obviously not why Trump is doing it, but it's the consequence of it anyway. So now we get to see what people care about. Do you like higher oil prices because it speeds up the transition away from fossil fuels, or dislike them because of who it is that caused it this time?
The greatest happiness is to vanquish your enemies, to chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth, to see those dear to them bathed in tears, to clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters.
The US is the world's most vulnerable economy to oil shocks. I mean the real economy, not the farce that the markets currently are.
The Venezuela comment is extremely weird. You know Venezuela has negligible production, right, and that it would take 100s of billions of investments, over decades, to get reasonable production that would make a difference. That's ignoring that currently there is a laughably illegitimate puppet government -- literally just Madero's government minus him, as they did the coup with the US -- that has a 100% chance of a violent overthrow in the future. Which is exactly why all of the oil companies are shrugging and saying no thanks.
Venezuela is a farce -- much like $5000 "dividend" for a government literally on the precipice of bankruptcy, as Bessent runs around, near tears, trying to convince everyone that they're the house and he's the big dog German Shepherd instead of the face of a failing empire having its last pathetic gasp, to laughter all around -- that Trump thinks gives him leverage against Canada. It is unbelievably pathetic business, like renaming a 400+ year old name on a lake like a little bitch.
There is zero scenario where this has benefitted the US, but a drunkard incompetent secdef (sorry "secwar") convinced a foolish demented rapist, who already had Israel whispering in his ear, how easy and painless this foolish debacle will be.
Using that lens then you could view the Iran war is simply a failed ( so far ) attempt to grab Iranian oil revenues, perhaps emboldened by the relatively quick success of the Venezuela adventure.
The truth is probably much more multi-headed - though hard to see how the US would have gone to war without some assessment of their own energy situation.
This is actually a pretty popular take. And it's not just oil. US is gaining dominance in LNG as well. Qatar is now buying US LNG exports. Europe, now cut off from both Russian and Iranian oil, is the most dependent on the US its been since reconstruction.
When Iran hit some of Exxon's oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, their stock actually shot up. Because they have an even greater investment in LNG in Texas which are now incredibly valuable
I've never seen oil prices decrease due to any regional disruption; the market is global. If the price in Alberta went up when the Straight closed, I wouldn't hold my breathe for Europe in this scenario.
>I've never seen oil prices decrease due to any regional disruption; the market is global.
oil spiked and then crashed during the gulf war & the iraq war in 03.
the gulf war probably because of western price control methods kicking in, the iraq war because of an increase in confidence that the region would produce oil after western 'securing' of oil fields allowing further volume investment from the UAE and friends.
I guess it really just depends on what the definition of 'regional disruption' is.
It doesn't matter if in Texas wells are producing it at a penny for barrel, if the global prices are high that oil is going to be sold to Philippinos, Japanese, Italians or South Africans.
So, at the same time, it doesn't matter if some new routes open or close, it doesn't particularly favor one or the other buyer, it's still sold globally on a bid.
i don't see why deals can't change. It's just a contract, the IRS could create a tax incentive for US producers to sell to US refineries at a discount. US producers could do it on their own if they so chose as well.
Not really. It is very hard and expensive to get these oil well pumping again. That is why we had negative oil prices during covid. Plus, when we are talking about the Gulf states, they have extremely low production cost. The discount would be against world prices, not production cost.
VLCCs are too large to fit through the Suez Canal. I don't know how much of Saudi export is using VLCCs versus Suezmax or smaller tankers, but I've heard that much of the Red Sea oil export is currently going through Bab al-Mandab, not that I have a source on hand.
I wouldn’t count on safe Med passage, I think last month a drone attacked a ship in Egypt. And the channel to Suez isn’t exactly wide or out of range for Houthis.
GCC will have to talk to Iran now, there is no reasonable way out of this quagmire other than a regional accommodation with Iran. Talk about a regression but here we are.
There’s no reason to think someone else won’t escalate this further disrupting supplies even more. That will push prices up.
Even if they don’t, if oil can’t get through this straight it will have to go somewhere else, which will increase shipping traffic and demand for “your oil” right? And wouldn’t that also push up prices?
The Iranian-backed Houthis also struck the Saudi East-West oil pipeline [0], pumping stations and refining capability. Reductions in export output initially estimated around 700,000 barrels per day now missing from the market.
His supporters are a minority. There are others who voted for him as they felt it was the least bad option, but they are not supporters (and many of them regret their vote, though they probably would have stayed home, or voted third party). The supporters are a loud and vocal minority though.
Well at some point the problem becomes so acute that others in the world are going to have to step up and help solve it.
Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. It's an intolerable premise and if the price to be paid is global oil catastrophe it's a price well worth paying and America will force the issue as we have. You can deny this or you can accept that other actors have agency in the world and interests and they may take action that negatively affects you indirectly. You can help them, ignore them, fight against them. But we live in a world where other countries and other people will do things and you have to figure out how to best deal with it.
We have seen what happened with North Korea, but at least China and Russia can somewhat keep a lid on it. Which is the minimum they owe the rest of us since they created that problem. Iran's government is ideological in a way that westerners don't really understand (and to some extent Putin is too via his desires regarding Ukraine but the Russian system isn't too alien to our own views - they play tennis and vacation in Europe and all that stuff). Their government is simply not interested in the things that you and I are interested in.
With Iran you add in the pursuit of a nuclear weapon, Iranian continued attacks coordinated in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Israel via Palestine and it's desire to continue to destabilize the region, supporting Russia's war against Ukraine, and helping Russia evade sanctions (never mind domestic repression and murder) and you've really got a problem on your hands that needs solved one way or another if we're going to go the whole peace and stability for the globe route. The primary problem right now is that the rest of the world would rather see the United States take care of this problem (and it's having a tough time but there's a lot of nuance there) then to help because if you are Europe you're somewhat on Iran's side for some god awful reason, if you are Russia, well you work with Iran, if you are the gulf powers you have no power besides your oil, and if you are China you are not going to spend any resources (nor do you have power projection capabilities). So what do we do?
You can sit here yelling until you are blue in the face that this is Trump's war, or he shouldn't have started it (ignoring history) or some nonsense about ancient colonialism (Iran itself is attempting to be a Neo colonial power) or how Israel is so bad or something but Iran's behavior in the region simply cannot continue if you value peace and stability and global trade. Yea whatever Trump isn't a force for that either I get it, but that's not a good argument to make things worse by also letting Iran do crazy shit.
China's stockpiles are dwindling, strategically that's bad for China especially if they want to invade democratic Taiwan. You still need oil to run the military, no amount of batteries are going to power jet fighters or missiles for the foreseeable future. But dwindle they will and eventually China (and others) will be forced to buy oil and it will raise prices. We're all going to have to deal with that eventuality.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine also cut off large amounts of oil and gas supplies via sanctions, and the United States clamping down on both Venezuela and Iran has further restrained oil supplies as the US has also gone after Russian shadow fleet tankers which were adding additional capacity to the market. The EU has done a little bit here too after the US led the way.
Global chokepoints are a problem. Having so much of the world (primarily Asia) rely on oil and gas from the Middle East where you've got these militant groups funding by Iran who can at a whim decide if they don't get some concession that they're going to cut off oil for everyone else is intolerable. Again, say what you want but we as a planet should not be beholden to this kind of behavior.
China is the reason we don’t have 5-6 dollar gas. They literally cut their imports to prevent economic disaster. If they begin buying at regular levels we would be the ones hurting more.
"Ancient" colonialism? The US and Israel are both actively seeking to expand their colonial territory.
This was an interesting piece of fiction you've written, with some very impressive mental gymnastics on display. However, it's so wrong that engaging with it would be doing you a disservice because it would make you think it's even an intellectually respectable position to have in the first place.
> Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. It's an intolerable premise
Actions have consequences. The continual attack on the sovereignty of countries around the world has made nuclear weapons one of the few ways to avoid being a client state of the US at the expense of your own population. Iran has figured out another method it seems.
This is blowback. The simple lesson that we refuse to learn.
They don't announce their secret nuclear weapons programs before they are complete (though they are sometimes discovered), but some countries have violated international law and developed them, precisely to protect their sovereignty:
- North Korea
- Israel
- India
- Pakistan
All retain their sovereignty, though I can't prove any causal effect and certainly nuclear weapons isn't the only cause.
Others have pursued them, includng Libya, South Africa, etc. Libya agreed to surrender their program, and then their government was deposed with Western help. Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons (left over from being occupied by the USSR) in exchange for peace from Russia, and you can see what happened. That doesn't encourage the next person to give up theirs.
There is no large country left which is not an American client state to pursue nuclear weapons . India was in the 90s, and they pursued nukes, tested them and got sanctioned by the west.
How are you defining large? Geography? Population? Certainly you've got countries like Brazil or South Africa or Indonesia. I'm sure we could think of a few more.
> Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. It's an intolerable premise and if the price to be paid is global oil catastrophe it's a price well worth paying
Says you.
All other nuclear nations behave (even Pakistan and India, which are at each other throat all the time). What makes you think that Iran won't? It will also have Russia and China keep a lid on them, same as North Korea. And I don't buy the "Iran is different" gospel. North Korea and China have completely different mindsets than the western world and still play ball.
Additionally, if Iran really is that adamant in getting nukes, I can see them asking some enriched material to Russia as a payment to the 100s if not 1000s of drones they are giving them. They share a "land" border through the Caspian sea and smuggling a few 10s of kilos of enriched material would be relatively easy.
Finally, it is not a good proposition if the hypotethical benefits will be reaped by US/Israel while the suffering is globally spread.
Iran is Muslim. They believe in eye-for-an-eye punishment unlike the west. And, since they adopted Palestine, and Israel killed 70,000 innocent Palestinians, Israel knows they have it coming to them. This is why they're so concerned with "justifying" their actions. This is also why they are so adamant on ensuring Iran not have power. Because Iran is the most likely state to give the west what it deserves for terrorizing the middle east for decades.
Not every, but I hope it is hard to deny that concentration of radicalized members of Hamas is very high in that area, they historically use civilians as human shield, thus casualties.
Hamas is claiming a total of around 70k. Israel is claiming a total of over 20k combatants. Thus at most Israel killed something under 50k innocents, and probably a lot less.
Russia, China, the U.S., North Korea, Israel. These are all countries that absolutely do not behave. Each commits atrocities on a regular basis. Them having nukes makes accountability much more difficult.
Just to be clear: the current situation is a huge mess caused by one deranged leader.
> Just to be clear: the current situation is a huge mess caused by one deranged leader.
Sorry that's just dead wrong. This doesn't happen in a vacuum. I mean you could simply add Netanyahu and make your statement incorrect here. Nevermind all the other actors, Iran's deranged death cult, and more.
> Just to be clear: the current situation is a huge mess caused by one deranged leader.
Agreed. The situation is worse than before the U.S. attack.
Iran has proven they can control the straight, threatening the world's energy supply. This is a more powerful weapon than a nuke (which multiple agencies, including U.S. intel, said they didn't have when this all started). New leadership in Iran is more galvanized against the U.S. than ever.
The U.S. already lost this war. Iran is dictating terms. Allies in the region have seen that the U.S. cannot protect them, and are making other accomodations, reducing U.S. influence in the region and beyond.
> The U.S. already lost this war. Iran is dictating terms. Allies in the region have seen that the U.S. cannot protect them, and are making other accomodations, reducing U.S. influence in the region and beyond.
Let me break it down some for you, and anyone else who may be interested:
1) Iran is dictating terms
Look how often Trump has changed his story on how long the war will last [0]:
> March 2, We will easily prevail. We're already substantially ahead of our time projections
> March 9, We're ahead of our initial timeline by a lot. I would say that we probably would not have thought after a month we'd be here
> March 17, We'll be leaving in pretty much the very near future
> March 31, I think two or three weeks
> April 1, I'm pleased to say that these core strategic objectives are nearing completion
> June 11, We just made a great settlement of the war with Iran
> Aug. 6, I think it's going to end pretty soon
Now he's sayign the war will be over right after the midterms [1].
Then there's all the times he said the straight was open, when Iran still was able to strike ships trying to transit.
Does that sound like someone who is in control of events? I've never heard a U.S. president who was wrong so many times.
2) Allies in the region have seen that the U.S. cannot protect them
> During the conflict, Iran reportedly carried out attacks or hostile actions against multiple countries and targets across the region, including Israel, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman—where specific incidents involved ports and ships—Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, the British overseas territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, and the West Bank. Additional alleged activity was reported in Azerbaijan, while maritime targets included vessels of the United States Navy and Thai-flagged ships operating in the region. [2]
The above page includes a detailed list of all of the above attacks [3] and caulaties [4]. More ally citizens have been killed than U.S. military personel.
Trump even threatened to bomb an ally at one point:
> President Donald Trump has threatened to bomb Oman - a US ally - if it "gets in the way" of his administration's own talks with Iran, Fox News reports. [5]
And now the war is expanding, with the Saudis, a U.S. ally, being attacked:
> Yemen's Tehran-backed Houthis attacked four cities in the south of U.S. ally Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, wounding more than 70 people and setting oil installations ablaze. [6]
The Saudis and even some of our European allies are restricting U.S. air traffic [7]
3) and are making other accomodations
Regional powers are making alliances amongst themselves, alliances that do not include the Unites States:
> The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, formally the Mecca Defence Alliance, is a defence pact between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey signed into force on 7 August 2026 [8]
4)reducing U.S. influence in the region and beyond
China is using this as an opportunity to increase their influence in the region:
> Iran expresses willingness to continue diplomatic negotiations but vows to defend its sovereignty firmly, appreciating China's role in regional peace and seeking deeper cooperation with China. [9]
The U.S. has shown itself as incapable of securing shipping in this straight, and, by implication, other strategic straights. Countries have seen how having U.S. bases in their territories become a liability, drawing enemy fire, enemy fire that the U.S. is not able to intercept. This will echo for a loong time.
A large part of U.S. influence, and related military and economic power, was build-up over 80 years. Eighty Years of alliances and goodwill. And all that is very much in decline.
And you're getting downvoted because the truth is too unpleasant.
Everyone else realized that the world wasn't ready for anything but appeasement, our idiot didn't understand and pushed it into open conflict. Didn't change the basic situation, though.
Trump sure is an idiot, but it seems somewhat likely that Netanyahu pressured him to perform this particular idiocy that is also against his previous anti-war attitude - one of the few things that was good about his first term.
> Trump sure is an idiot, but it seems somewhat likely that Netanyahu pressured him to perform this particular idiocy that is also against his previous anti-war attitude - one of the few things that was good about his first term.
Turns out the last 6 or US presidents were presented the same stupid pitch and guess who finally fell for it...
It's funny reading literature from the mega hawks in US politics during the Cold War.
Descriptions of the Soviet leadership basically word for word use the same apocalyptic terms used for the ayatollahs/IRGC by current neocons about Iran. Just swap in "Islamist" for "Communist" as the current ideology that makes any kind of realpolitik impossible.
"These leaders aren't rational like previous adversaries, they don't fear annihilation, in fact they want catastrophe to prove their own fatalist belief system. There can be no negotiation with this sort of enemy, their singular goal is our destruction even at the cost of their own lives."
It's always different this time, and all assumptions about self-serving human nature need to be thrown out the window. Anyone who thinks force isn't the only solution is a naively deluded suicidal peacenik. All out war right now on our terms is the only rational way to avoid world destruction.
I keep wondering about this western worldview where they keep equating a militant failed state with the largest democracy in the world. I can't fathom why they do it.
And you think Iran will get a bomb and be peaceful? They're already backing multiple genocides. A bomb is immunity from retaliation--until Israel can't tolerate the situation anymore and blows them off the map.
Iran's government is ideological as a fig leaf of continuity with the Revolution. True believers are few these days, and the IRG is largely keen to stay in power in order to protect its vast business interests.
"We have seen what happened with Venezuela, but at least Mexico and Canada can somewhat keep a lid on it. Which is above and beyond what they owe the rest of us since they did not create that problem. The United States government is ideological in a way that westerners don't really understand. Trump is too via his desires regarding Greenland and Canada but the American system isn't too alien to our own views - they play tennis and vacation in Europe and all that stuff. Their government is simply not interested in the things that you and I are interested in."
Bad argument for many reasons (and lazy). But Maduro was a criminal, supported Russia evading US and EU sanctions, and his gang and their disastrous economic policies resulted in around 1/3rd of Venezuelans leaving the country resulting in a humanitarian disaster.
Nevertheless, Venezuela remains in the same situation as before. Aside from Maduro, the corrupt and criminal government remains intact, the head of state handpicked by the US president, no public elections in sight. There has been no political change whatsoever apart from the takeover of oil fields.
Yeah Chinese oil reserves were much larger than was publicly known. They immediately cut imports by a massive amount as soon as the war started and have been able to keep it up for months. Without that the economic fallout would have been far greater.
Not that they are doing it for this reason, but they have done a lot to shield trump from the consequences of his stupid war. But those supplies can only hold for so long; things can get much worse for the world economy in the near future.
China took 5.5 million barrels per demand of demand off of the table overnight. A quarter of what went through the strait. They single-handedly stopped catastrophe by months.
Even with that, global strategic petroleum reserves are quickly draining. Last I looked, the US was down to ~290M. There is a legal limit of 250M (though laws don’t matter anymore). The structural floor is also estimated to be somewhere north of 200M.
The world is about to not be able to meet all oil demand for any price.
Don't think that's 100%. They do have a ton of stockpiles and timed additional buys very well, but their reduction in oil imports (9%?) appears to be actual usage drops rather than running down stockpiles. They're at much higher levels now than when this kicked off.
Which if correct is a crazy display of flexibility in the economy
All we had to do was not bomb Iran (starting with a school full of girls). There was no benefit to the US in this war, it’s 100% for Israel. Bribery and blackmail, not democracy, are now determining world events.
That's why relying on mercs (which is what both UAE and Saudi chose in Yemen) is a double edged sword. At some point the cash isn't enough of a motivator and they will just run away.
We seem to be in need of a mercenary Uber, where individual mercenaries will have their reputation and the potential customers will be able to check it.
> It's just the stated goal is impossible given the political RoE.
People need to keep in mind tactical versus strategic success. For Iran, the military operation was a complete tactical success, it's just that the strategic goals — assuming there were any to begin with, which seems to be an unanswered question — were not, and it was questionable whether military operations were a useful tool to achieve them at all.
“War is the continuation of policy with other means.” — Carl von Clausewitz
'What is one's stated policy / goal, and is war a useful tool for achieve it', is a question that needs to be asked by civilian leadership. Sometimes (often?) the answer is "no".
It looks like the strait is still closed, the Taliban is back in charge and Syria is run by a former ISIS fighter. I think maybe the point is that the US has put in a lot of effort and resources into these areas with no outcomes benefitting our country, or the the world even
Most southern Yemenis don't want unification. North and South Yemen were separate countries for decades. When unification first happened there was optimism but South Yemen (which is about 20% of the total population of Yemen) was always hesitant about how little political power they'd have. North Yemen is 80% of the population and, today, almost entirely controlled by the Houthis.
I don't think native Yemeni are motivated enough to fight for unification. That's why all the fighters are mercenaries hired by the UAE or Yemen
the Houthis won't desert as they're fighting an ideological war vs the Saudi backed forces which are just mercenaries.
idealogical fighters fight to the death. & in almost every case besides the nazi's etc they always win. whether the ideology is right or wrong that's a conversation for a different day.
My quibble here is with the house style "Iran-backed" that they attach to every mention of the Houthi's. While it's fine for governments to use that language, I don't think journalists should use it without being very specific to its relevance to the particular subject under discussion. The "Houthis claim major advance in Yemen - what you need to know" article could omit "Iran-backed" in its entirety and lose no information of substance, and amend the last bullet point to say that this is especially relevant given the current US-Iran conflict.
As I type this I feel somewhat vindicated by the update to the page, "Iran does not dictate every Houthi decision - but they appear increasingly aligned", which I think does a good job of clarifying the relationship. It does, however, say "Iran has publicly backed the Houthis during the latest fighting. The geography helps explain why", which is useful factual evidence (since Iranian officials have indeed made public statements in support of the Houthis) but the use of "backed" in this sentence is bad style since that word has been used in exactly this context to have a much deeper meaning than Iran saying "we've got your back bro"
Ansar Allah is an operational arm of the IRGC, with devolved autonomy over local matters --- approximately the same relationship an American state has with the federal government. What's your issue with "Iran-backed"? They're explicitly Khomeinist and most definitely are backed by Iran.
I think people read things like "Iran-backed" and immediately frame it in terms of US/Iran conflicts, but GCC/Iran conflicts are the more salient geopolitical frame, at least until like last year.
>Iran is the Houthis’ primary benefactor, providing them with security assistance, such as weapons transfers, training, and intelligence support. In July 2025, for example, the Yemeni National Resistance Forces seized the largest-ever shipment of Iranian munitions intended for the Houthis. The shipment included 750 tons of conventional weapons, including advanced drone parts, missile warheads, and radar systems, many of which were made by a U.S.-sanctioned firm linked to Iran’s defense ministry. Such aid typically reaches the Houthis via Iran’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which also helps advise the Houthis’ military command.
Iran facilitates a supply of more sophisticated weaponry than the Houthis could acquire on their own, especially missiles and drones. While Iranian support has helped the Houthis gain and maintain military superiority within Yemen, experts say it has had greater effect elsewhere. “The role of Iran has been decisive in providing the Houthis with smuggled weapons and expertise to project power into the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait,” Gulf analyst Eleonora Ardemagni wrote [PDF] for the Yemen-based Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies in 2023.
This war started as a regime change operation in Iran, one of the shakiest regimes in the world pre-war, but ironically the war might end up with most of the nations who supported the war (either vocally or quietly) "regime changed" (loosely defined), including Israel, US, some European countries and now possibly some Gulf nations, awhile the Iranian regime seem to have tightened its grip more than ever.
Yet MAGA supporters were saying early in the war that they are "plan trusters" as prior US admins sucked at regime change because it is a "skills issue" and none of the prior admins had the triple digits IQ of Hegseth, Trump and Bessent.
Not sure where you get the shaky regime idea, but Iran was not on the verge of collapse from protests prior to the war. It may have been on the verge of more aggressive clamping down from the IRGC, but collapse wasn’t around the corner.
Do you even realize that one of the only reason anybody still supports this war is precisely because of comments like yours? By dividing people into teams, and antagonizing them, you result in people never willing to stomach giving an inch and doubling down on stupid.
Obviously this war has been the US' latest great failure, and at the beckoning of a foreign power which makes it especially catastrophic. If people could focus on this, rather than trying to divide things into teams and then sling mud, they'd have vastly better outcomes come November (and on) than just using it for divisive mudslinging which does nothing but ensure that all elections, regardless of how bad the decisions of a incumbent, or how awful a challenger, will remain these sort of 50/50 coinflips.
I am saying that adding your tribal bit to your post is just completely self defeating. And yes, the goal is indeed to avoid hurting people's feelings. I don't know why you'd mock that. People are not machines, and when you make somebody angry at you, or otherwise make him feel insulted - he'll happily argue that 2+2=5 just to avoid giving an inch to you.
Bridge building hasnt worked. Hillary's biggest campaign failure was drawing back from her deplorables comment, she should have leaned into it - thats what Trump did, go harder into division, and he's president now. Instead of being milktoast corporate stooge full of fake politics talk, she might have seemed to actually stand for something. You're bringing 1990s politics into the 2020s and its proven multiple times it doesnt work any more. A small group of fanatics is actually more powerful than a large cohort of half-committed these days.
It's not about bridge building, but rather not bridge burning. When people are antagonistic to 'the other side', it means the last thing in the world they'd ever think of doing is aligning with you. 2028, after Iran, should be a landslide. But watch - it's going to be another coin flip. And people themselves are creating that scenario by acting like half-witted tribal kids on a playground, instead of actual thinking/empathetic adults.
Do you realise that the only reason the average US taxpayer keeps getting wrecked into one pointless forever war after the other no matter who is in power is because the elites are never held accountable for their mad self-enriching adventures?
Holding people like Hegseth (who literally insider traded defense equities right before the start of the war) and Trump accountable (who practically made a gazillion insider trading each mad meme he posted while the world burnt) is not "dividing people into teams"
And why aren't they held accountable? Precisely because of incendiary tribal rhetoric like the GP's which drives people into a corner where they'll happily argue that 2+2=5 before giving an inch to "the other side."
This is something I realized long ago in religious debates. Militantly anti-religious? You're not going to convince anybody of anything who didn't already agree with you. Treat other people with respect and dignity and give them 'outs'? Suddenly even as sensitive a topic as religion, it becomes entirely possible to have reasonable debate and discussion.
It's universal. Politics in the US has become so completely broken. Last presidency was Weekend at Bernie's, now we have one where El Presidente is trying to LARP as General Jack D. Ripper.
The reason people accept, and even defend, all of this is solely because they find "the other side" detestable, and people like our GP here play exactly into this by making themselves completely detestable to anybody that's already not as far out, and in the same direction, on the partisan horseshoe of stupidity as they are.
If they were going to try this it needed to be done months earlier when the protests were raging. Instead the brain trust fumbled the initiative and let the Iranian leadership kill and scourge their local allies into compliance. Then fumbling the decapitation strike coupled with the decades of preparation for a decapitation strike (via redundancy of command) the genius brigade seemed to be unaware of because they fired all the experts, and the total repression of the protesting populace, led to an unusually strong system in Iran. They also almost certainly let racism play a big role in underestimating the Iranians, who are a very technically sophisticated society and have been preparing for this scenario since day one of the revolution.
Everything that’s happened was predictable and predicted, which is why other administrations who were more than happy to topple foreign governments when it suited them to not do so in Iran. MAGA feels like the junior dev that blames the compiler for their own syntax errors.
>This war started as a regime change operation in Iran
I believe this war started with a tomahawk missle murdering a school full of children and then the US denying involvement. I very clearly remember it. US attacks Iran unprovoked. First act, murder their children in school. If you wanted to solidify opposition to the US in Iran, I don't think they could have done a more effective job.
They haven't denied it yet, it's still under investigation. They may be able to workout they were the only country in this war with Tomahawks responsible for the triple-tap missile strike, after the mid terms. Or they may just move on from it and never talk about it again, like the Epstein files.
All the Kingdoms in middle east are very fragile. Gulf coast countries economies are crashing due to the blockade. Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia. One Arab spring away from a new government and this could be the spark.
The goal wasn't regime change. They didn't even propose a replacement, unlike Venezuela where there was someone to step in.
Some Iranian-Americans are very pro-Shah, particularly the many kicked out during the revolution. They were celebrating the war like it'd bring back the Shah, but frustrated that the US govt and even Western media as a whole ignored the exiled royal family... because that's not the point of the war. I have friends like this, I told them, they said only Persians get an opinion on this.
The U.S. leadership has a bad habit of starting conflicts that the bulk of the population doesn't want, which leads to large political costs and resulting half-measures. Our current leadership literally ran on "no more wars." Morons.
This would be the wrong conclusion to take from it. Trump is incredibly unpopular domestically and the war is dumb and pointless and was sprung on the US population by surprise and planned and executed with complete and utter incompetence, and the negative economic consequences are way out of proportion to any conceivable benefit we will get out of it. It's not a lack of resolve, it's a rational reaction to incompetent leadership.
More properly called Ansar Allah, supported by Iranian regime, and guilty of war crimes against everyone from fellow Yemenis to people thousands of miles away.
Women, gays and infidels are pubished by Houthi police.
> Women, gays and infidels are pubished by Houthi police.
The EU & US don't have ANY issues supporting and financing governments that punish gays and infidels. Hint: New Syrian government, Saudi government (which is also famous for publicly beheading gays)
So why not accept the Houthis too ? Otherwise, my apologies, your stance just sounds like the usual disgusting Western sanctimonious hypocrisy.
What would you expect instead? I think the US supports the Saudis because they are the primary competitor to Iran in the middle east. But no one (?) in the middle east has great support for women, gays, or infidels.
I think you're right that strategic / economic interests have outweighed cultural issues / human rights.
Strategic / economic interests have always outweighed cultural issues / human rights. The women, gays, infidel line is purely to get political support or deflect political criticism from a portion of the population.
Jemen is a destitute failed state. I don't blame their soldiers not wanting to die for a few dollars just so that Euros can get their Christmas presents.
If that's true, it's insane that it worked. It should be obvious to not take orders from twitter. There's a chain of command for a reason and random people on social media are no part of it. Sounds like the opposition forces would have to be so stupid that any number of Looney Tunes style tricks would have worked. Maybe next they can send out a rabbit in a dress to make opposition fall in love with it.
I just realized how much money one could make by hacking Truth Social and posting some "truths" under Trump's account. It's a relatively new, relatively complex platform; surely there are bugs.
> The US President routinely announces policy decisions on social media…
Yes, our current President also does stupid things, and our military forces shouldn't be using his incoherent ramblings on Twitter to make snap judgements on the battlefield without checking with their chain of command either.
> ...and our military forces shouldn't be using his incoherent ramblings on Twitter to make snap judgements on the battlefield without checking with their chain of command either.
You mean the chain of command that has been purged of experienced professionals?
You don't come back, you slide back to normal country status while 2 generations of people pretend you're still an empire until you really can't anymore.
This belies a fundamental misunderstanding of Yemeni society. Arab political structure is based on tribal loyalty. Leaders of tribes pledge allegiance to other tribes or coalitions of tribes. They're not part of the same command structure because such a thing does not exist. Usually instead of being defeated tribal loyalties change with the political winds. Twitter is also ubiquitous in Arabia.
While that's helpful and insightful, it's not hugely the issue.
The military units are not very well organized, they don't have clear and stringent command, control and communications.
They understood a regional commander to be fleeing, units fell back.
This is kind of stuff is absolutely as old as time, and it's #1 rule in conflict aka deception.
The parallel would be reproducing a General's order to withdraw - meaning the command would have legitimacy among troops and junior officers, believing their own commanders were just out of the loop.
And yes - their command structure will be de facto organized along social lines, but it's more descriptive.
Not the military stuff but Arab tribal society, read "The First Muslim" by Lesley Hazleton, about Arab society around the year 600. It's an absolute eye-opener.
AoW is one of the most important historical treatises, it's not just 'something that was written in history', maybe the oldest true 'textbooks' of objective knowledge, and also realpolitik. Also there's hints of metaphysics in there, in a way. It absolutely stands up today.
The very first work of the Western Cannon: Trojan Horse.
Information / espionage and deception has made most of history; Hannibal, Caesar, Alexander etc.
A fun exercise would be to look at battles of history from the lens of information warfare and deception, and contemplate the outcome without it.
That sounds like a fake storyline. The much simpler explanation
is that the local Saudi merc army sucked. If you followed the
whole conflict in the last 20 years this is largely the case -
the Saudis aren't really great at warfare, typically depending on
foreign mercenaries (also for cleaning etc...). These in turn
have very low morale.
It’s actually embarrassing the industry haven’t implemented optional signing into everything with a text box,
with the press of a USB key or other device into/onto what you’re using.
This can be used to verify consistent identities for the cost of an AirTag or less - but without mandating it as a government-involved thing, which is most of the holdup.
The problem is that "being at war" isn't really the problem, it's a symptom. A lawless and destabilized gulf region is the result of incomplete and inneffective military action, and in a darkly hilarious way is only treatable by more whack-a-mole warfare.
It wasn't a war we could win. We fought it anyway. Now we're stuck trying to lose in a tolerable way. Which requires more fighting.
At some point the balance will tip and China will take over patronage of the right selection of powers to push us out, which will disentangle western involvement (and make it their problem, of course). But at this stage there really is no hope for genuine stability.
While it is hard to say, all signs point to China not wanting to take over. That isn't to say they could, but China seems content to rule their corner of the world and let the US rule the ocean. (their corner includes Taiwan which the US is not content to allow China to rule)
Which is completely insane. The Venezuelan ship attacks have zero to do with what force was authorized for. The AUMF was for the use of force against those responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Were people on the boats in Venezuela? No. Then it's not force authorized by that AUMF.
But Trump found a smokescreen to hide behind. And Congress is too spineless to impeach him for unauthorized use of military force. And here we are.
People talk disparagingly about the US acting as world police but maybe we need something like a real world police that follows agreed laws and avoids violence where possible.
Donald Trump hosted roughly 20 oil and gas executives from major companies including Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Occidental Petroleumat his Mar-a-Lago resort on April 11, 2024.
His message to the room was essentially that giving $1 billion to his campaign was a low-cost investment that would guarantee massive financial returns for their companies
This is the ballad of the black gold
They call it Texas tea
But it's bigger than a cowboy with a lasso
It's deeper than a black hole
Create monopolies
Except they collect your fee when you pass Go
Crisis international
The government de facto
We got no control of this fiasco
Darker than the back roads
Bubble hotter than Tabasco
More than what you bargained for or asked for
The Houthi's have a Saudi backed adversary, I haven't heard about them lately in mainstream media how are they faring? I just thought they would be a tough resistance for the houthis restraining them from what they're currently doing
My understanding is that the Saudi are basically fighting the war in Yemen but denying it's them. The de jure government has effectively lost this war ATM.
They're making big noises about taking Sana’a in their current offensive and there's been heavier fighting than in recent months. Other than that, it's hard to tell. Personally, it seems like the Yemeni gov't forces have quite a hill to climb.
The mainstream media has made it sound like the fall of Mocha was at least somewhat surprising, but I don't think that's accurate. It was pretty clear the Houthis would reach the port as late as last week.
The Houthis are one side of a protracted civil war between North Yemen and South Yemen, which was until relatively recently two different countries, and the other side of that civil war is heavily backed by the Gulf States. The Houthis are also a Shiite minority opposing an overwhelmingly Sunni population.
Ansar Allah (Houthis) is a terrible Islamist group that commits warcrimws against both Yemenis and people thousands of miles away.
Here’s just one example, executing men for gayness:
“In addition to death sentences that include crucifixion and stoning, the Houthi court sentenced 23 men to prison for periods of up to 10 years. Three of them were also sentenced to public flogging”
> Ansar Allah (Houthis) is a terrible Islamist group that commits warcrimws ...
The Syrian President and current Western/Israeli "good boy" - belongs to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham which has committed warcrimes which make the Houthis look like choir boys. He was former Al-Qaeda too with a multi-million dollar bounty. Done an utterly ridiculous number of beheadings, chaining & rape of women, torture, the whole galore of works carried out by a popular ruthless terrorist in a long career.
Now he is fully supported by the US.
So, any time, any citizen of a Western nation complains about "war crimes" and wants "regime change", I call them deeply disgusting, sanctimonious hyprocrites. You fellows have lost any and all moral standing to talk about "war crimes".
Geopolitics is way too complicated for such black and white thinking. Do you know who amongst the governments of those countries decided to back this Syrian president? I certainly don't. What percentage of the (huge) populations that you're damning as "deeply disgusting, sanctimonious hypocrites" do you think know who the current Syrian president is, his history, know who amongst their governments backed him, voted for the people who backed him? Humans just physically can't keep track of everything, especially things so far outside of their daily life and physical experience. You can't reasonably hold them responsible for everything bad that happens in the world, especially things that are entirely abstract for them.
> Geopolitics is way too complicated for such black and white thinking. Do you know who amongst the governments of those countries decided to back this Syrian president? I certainly don't.
I am very much against black and white thinking. But the typical US and even EU liberal citizen is mired in such thinking. If you don't know who in the EU govt decided to back this Syrian President, then I can only facepalm since even as a "poor-nation", third-world, low-IQ citizen, I am educated on the same. Please look at Ursula von der Leyen and her €620 million support package.
Yes, I will hold you folks responsible. This is not some "abstract idea" - it is basic, common knowledge and you fellows always, always fall to your media propaganda.
Really? You’ve spent the time to learn every member of the EU government that supported them? And you think that’s a good use of everyone’s time? I guarantee you that the average US citizen hasn’t bothered to do that with even their members of congress, many don’t know the name of their representative, let alone those of a foreign government, they’re generally much more concerned with how they’re going to make enough money to pay to live as costs rise. Not to mention the flurry of domestic cultural infighting related concerns.
You’re certainly free to hold whoever you want responsible, but I’d argue it’s not a realistic position. And keep in mind that it’s hard for someone living here to have an accurate view of what the average American believes, even harder for someone living outside the country - dominant opinions vary widely between regions of the US. I’m sorry that our government supports war criminals of varying degrees on our behalf, though, would certainly be nice if our leaders were more principled on that front.
> Geopolitics is way too complicated for such black and white thinking.
Your comment reeks of western superiority and exceptionalism.
Its not black and white thinking. It just hypocrisy at the highest level.
The EU does not spend a single day without going around telling anyone and everyone that human rights are very important and that we should do absolutely everything to keep things that way but then turns around and welcomes the head of a (former) terrorist group in Europe.
Even Macron welcomed the guy in Paris even though ISIS killed hundreds of French citizens.
Can anyone then reasonably blame China or India when they continue doing business with Russia? If so why the double standards?
The US and the EU love to criticize other nations but don't mind supporting war criminals and dictators when its suits them and even give them money and/or sell them weapons.
After the Ukraine war ends, I'll bet you you'll see Putin or his successor being invited to cocktail parties in Frankfurt or London, no question about it.
No, I don't blame China or India for continuing to do business with Russia, it seems completely rational for them to do so. They're powerful enough to ignore the structures the US has built to try to exert leverage internationally. Seems like you're building lots of straw men in your mind of what US/EU citizens actually think, or the propaganda apparatus you're using to keep on top of this stuff has built them for you.
The U.S. has proven to the world that rouge regimes can target strategic shipping routes to stay solvent and also that those are more powerful than nuclear capabilities. That Pandora’s box is now open thanks to this administration and we will see a wave of such incidents.
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[ 0.25 ms ] story [ 34.0 ms ] threadGas is gonna hit $10 a gallon in Texas by the time this is over.
Activists decry police murder of protester
Activists decry police "murder" of protester
The first implies that the police murdering the protestor is an established fact. The second makes it clear that it is the activists who used the term "murder" rather than it being a non-contentious fact.
> actually verifying the truth
That's the job of the reader, not the journalist. Unless you're living under oppression. So you have misunderstood the purpose of reporting.
That single quoted phrase was set in the context of other words, and that context defined its meaning. We know this to an extent that almost no one could have imagined since LLMs have become a huge part of the world.
My favorite example of this is how no article in Britain during Corbyn's leadership of the labor party would ever quote an entire sentence that he had said. Thousands of articles, and the quotes were all fragmentary phrases and lone words framed in editorial.
edit: Brits and the BBC especially do this more than most, likely because of their bizarre libel laws (that were once even worse than they are now.)
- make sure fuel prices increase globally
- The US economy is relatively well-shielded from the fallout by its own fossil fuel sources, local and in colonies like Venezuela.
- export more US fossil fuels, especially to Europe, at inflated prices. US insiders reap the profits.
- further kneecap European competitiveness in energy intensive sectors, steal market share. Oh well, small gift to China here too, but still a net win for the US.
A rise in crude prices might pay off for a small country that lives almost exclusively off it (say, Saudi Arabia, in the hyphotetical case that it could keep exporting as normal) but for the US? I don't think it does. Surely, Europe is more exposed than the US and will suffer even more, but this is not a zero-sum game.
So I don't think it's an elaborate plan, it's just Trump being reckless as usual.
The fun part about this is that it shows what people actually care about.
What happens if petroleum prices go up? People use less. It's the entire premise of a carbon tax. Fuel costs more so people buy a hybrid or electric vehicle, power utilities find renewables or nuclear more attractive relative to natural gas, etc. In a market economy this is the primary way to get people to switch from something to alternatives -- which is pretty important if you think climate change is a problem.
This is obviously not why Trump is doing it, but it's the consequence of it anyway. So now we get to see what people care about. Do you like higher oil prices because it speeds up the transition away from fossil fuels, or dislike them because of who it is that caused it this time?
The Venezuela comment is extremely weird. You know Venezuela has negligible production, right, and that it would take 100s of billions of investments, over decades, to get reasonable production that would make a difference. That's ignoring that currently there is a laughably illegitimate puppet government -- literally just Madero's government minus him, as they did the coup with the US -- that has a 100% chance of a violent overthrow in the future. Which is exactly why all of the oil companies are shrugging and saying no thanks.
Venezuela is a farce -- much like $5000 "dividend" for a government literally on the precipice of bankruptcy, as Bessent runs around, near tears, trying to convince everyone that they're the house and he's the big dog German Shepherd instead of the face of a failing empire having its last pathetic gasp, to laughter all around -- that Trump thinks gives him leverage against Canada. It is unbelievably pathetic business, like renaming a 400+ year old name on a lake like a little bitch.
There is zero scenario where this has benefitted the US, but a drunkard incompetent secdef (sorry "secwar") convinced a foolish demented rapist, who already had Israel whispering in his ear, how easy and painless this foolish debacle will be.
ROFL.
The truth is probably much more multi-headed - though hard to see how the US would have gone to war without some assessment of their own energy situation.
When Iran hit some of Exxon's oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, their stock actually shot up. Because they have an even greater investment in LNG in Texas which are now incredibly valuable
That can't end well?
oil spiked and then crashed during the gulf war & the iraq war in 03.
the gulf war probably because of western price control methods kicking in, the iraq war because of an increase in confidence that the region would produce oil after western 'securing' of oil fields allowing further volume investment from the UAE and friends.
I guess it really just depends on what the definition of 'regional disruption' is.
It doesn't matter if in Texas wells are producing it at a penny for barrel, if the global prices are high that oil is going to be sold to Philippinos, Japanese, Italians or South Africans.
So, at the same time, it doesn't matter if some new routes open or close, it doesn't particularly favor one or the other buyer, it's still sold globally on a bid.
Also, US cannot really use the oil it produces, because it cannot refine it.
The US refines heavy oil that's harder to refine and hence more profitable to import since it has few buyers.
I suspect they would sooner curtail production rather then sell at a discount due to route restrictions.
And against, not with, Western Europe?
So being prices down where, in eastern Europe?
GCC will have to talk to Iran now, there is no reasonable way out of this quagmire other than a regional accommodation with Iran. Talk about a regression but here we are.
Instability is instability. Oil is fungible.
There’s no reason to think someone else won’t escalate this further disrupting supplies even more. That will push prices up.
Even if they don’t, if oil can’t get through this straight it will have to go somewhere else, which will increase shipping traffic and demand for “your oil” right? And wouldn’t that also push up prices?
The Iranian-backed Houthis also struck the Saudi East-West oil pipeline [0], pumping stations and refining capability. Reductions in export output initially estimated around 700,000 barrels per day now missing from the market.
[0] https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Saudi-Oil...
Those conditions seem to be changing.
Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. It's an intolerable premise and if the price to be paid is global oil catastrophe it's a price well worth paying and America will force the issue as we have. You can deny this or you can accept that other actors have agency in the world and interests and they may take action that negatively affects you indirectly. You can help them, ignore them, fight against them. But we live in a world where other countries and other people will do things and you have to figure out how to best deal with it.
We have seen what happened with North Korea, but at least China and Russia can somewhat keep a lid on it. Which is the minimum they owe the rest of us since they created that problem. Iran's government is ideological in a way that westerners don't really understand (and to some extent Putin is too via his desires regarding Ukraine but the Russian system isn't too alien to our own views - they play tennis and vacation in Europe and all that stuff). Their government is simply not interested in the things that you and I are interested in.
With Iran you add in the pursuit of a nuclear weapon, Iranian continued attacks coordinated in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Israel via Palestine and it's desire to continue to destabilize the region, supporting Russia's war against Ukraine, and helping Russia evade sanctions (never mind domestic repression and murder) and you've really got a problem on your hands that needs solved one way or another if we're going to go the whole peace and stability for the globe route. The primary problem right now is that the rest of the world would rather see the United States take care of this problem (and it's having a tough time but there's a lot of nuance there) then to help because if you are Europe you're somewhat on Iran's side for some god awful reason, if you are Russia, well you work with Iran, if you are the gulf powers you have no power besides your oil, and if you are China you are not going to spend any resources (nor do you have power projection capabilities). So what do we do?
You can sit here yelling until you are blue in the face that this is Trump's war, or he shouldn't have started it (ignoring history) or some nonsense about ancient colonialism (Iran itself is attempting to be a Neo colonial power) or how Israel is so bad or something but Iran's behavior in the region simply cannot continue if you value peace and stability and global trade. Yea whatever Trump isn't a force for that either I get it, but that's not a good argument to make things worse by also letting Iran do crazy shit.
China's stockpiles are dwindling, strategically that's bad for China especially if they want to invade democratic Taiwan. You still need oil to run the military, no amount of batteries are going to power jet fighters or missiles for the foreseeable future. But dwindle they will and eventually China (and others) will be forced to buy oil and it will raise prices. We're all going to have to deal with that eventuality.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine also cut off large amounts of oil and gas supplies via sanctions, and the United States clamping down on both Venezuela and Iran has further restrained oil supplies as the US has also gone after Russian shadow fleet tankers which were adding additional capacity to the market. The EU has done a little bit here too after the US led the way.
Global chokepoints are a problem. Having so much of the world (primarily Asia) rely on oil and gas from the Middle East where you've got these militant groups funding by Iran who can at a whim decide if they don't get some concession that they're going to cut off oil for everyone else is intolerable. Again, say what you want but we as a planet should not be beholden to this kind of behavior.
This was an interesting piece of fiction you've written, with some very impressive mental gymnastics on display. However, it's so wrong that engaging with it would be doing you a disservice because it would make you think it's even an intellectually respectable position to have in the first place.
Actions have consequences. The continual attack on the sovereignty of countries around the world has made nuclear weapons one of the few ways to avoid being a client state of the US at the expense of your own population. Iran has figured out another method it seems.
This is blowback. The simple lesson that we refuse to learn.
Name the other countries pursuing a nuclear weapon. Maybe you are drumming up a fear that nobody else really has.
Others have pursued them, includng Libya, South Africa, etc. Libya agreed to surrender their program, and then their government was deposed with Western help. Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons (left over from being occupied by the USSR) in exchange for peace from Russia, and you can see what happened. That doesn't encourage the next person to give up theirs.
Says you.
All other nuclear nations behave (even Pakistan and India, which are at each other throat all the time). What makes you think that Iran won't? It will also have Russia and China keep a lid on them, same as North Korea. And I don't buy the "Iran is different" gospel. North Korea and China have completely different mindsets than the western world and still play ball.
Additionally, if Iran really is that adamant in getting nukes, I can see them asking some enriched material to Russia as a payment to the 100s if not 1000s of drones they are giving them. They share a "land" border through the Caspian sea and smuggling a few 10s of kilos of enriched material would be relatively easy.
Finally, it is not a good proposition if the hypotethical benefits will be reaped by US/Israel while the suffering is globally spread.
Iran is way more aggressive in spreading influence in region (hoothis, hezbollah, hamas, Syria, Iraq, denying Israel existence).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_war
https://americandreaming.substack.com/p/wikipedias-islamist-...
Russia, China, the U.S., North Korea, Israel. These are all countries that absolutely do not behave. Each commits atrocities on a regular basis. Them having nukes makes accountability much more difficult.
Just to be clear: the current situation is a huge mess caused by one deranged leader.
Sorry that's just dead wrong. This doesn't happen in a vacuum. I mean you could simply add Netanyahu and make your statement incorrect here. Nevermind all the other actors, Iran's deranged death cult, and more.
as for iran, they've been the picture of restraint since trump's first term.
Agreed. The situation is worse than before the U.S. attack.
Iran has proven they can control the straight, threatening the world's energy supply. This is a more powerful weapon than a nuke (which multiple agencies, including U.S. intel, said they didn't have when this all started). New leadership in Iran is more galvanized against the U.S. than ever.
The U.S. already lost this war. Iran is dictating terms. Allies in the region have seen that the U.S. cannot protect them, and are making other accomodations, reducing U.S. influence in the region and beyond.
literally no part of this sentence is accurate.
Let me break it down some for you, and anyone else who may be interested:
1) Iran is dictating terms
Look how often Trump has changed his story on how long the war will last [0]:
> March 2, We will easily prevail. We're already substantially ahead of our time projections
> March 9, We're ahead of our initial timeline by a lot. I would say that we probably would not have thought after a month we'd be here
> March 17, We'll be leaving in pretty much the very near future
> March 31, I think two or three weeks
> April 1, I'm pleased to say that these core strategic objectives are nearing completion
> June 11, We just made a great settlement of the war with Iran
> Aug. 6, I think it's going to end pretty soon
Now he's sayign the war will be over right after the midterms [1].
Then there's all the times he said the straight was open, when Iran still was able to strike ships trying to transit.
Does that sound like someone who is in control of events? I've never heard a U.S. president who was wrong so many times.
2) Allies in the region have seen that the U.S. cannot protect them
> During the conflict, Iran reportedly carried out attacks or hostile actions against multiple countries and targets across the region, including Israel, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman—where specific incidents involved ports and ships—Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, the British overseas territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, and the West Bank. Additional alleged activity was reported in Azerbaijan, while maritime targets included vessels of the United States Navy and Thai-flagged ships operating in the region. [2]
The above page includes a detailed list of all of the above attacks [3] and caulaties [4]. More ally citizens have been killed than U.S. military personel.
Trump even threatened to bomb an ally at one point:
> President Donald Trump has threatened to bomb Oman - a US ally - if it "gets in the way" of his administration's own talks with Iran, Fox News reports. [5]
And now the war is expanding, with the Saudis, a U.S. ally, being attacked:
> Yemen's Tehran-backed Houthis attacked four cities in the south of U.S. ally Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, wounding more than 70 people and setting oil installations ablaze. [6]
The Saudis and even some of our European allies are restricting U.S. air traffic [7]
3) and are making other accomodations
Regional powers are making alliances amongst themselves, alliances that do not include the Unites States:
> The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, formally the Mecca Defence Alliance, is a defence pact between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey signed into force on 7 August 2026 [8]
4)reducing U.S. influence in the region and beyond
China is using this as an opportunity to increase their influence in the region:
> Iran expresses willingness to continue diplomatic negotiations but vows to defend its sovereignty firmly, appreciating China's role in regional peace and seeking deeper cooperation with China. [9]
The U.S. has shown itself as incapable of securing shipping in this straight, and, by implication, other strategic straights. Countries have seen how having U.S. bases in their territories become a liability, drawing enemy fire, enemy fire that the U.S. is not able to intercept. This will echo for a loong time.
A large part of U.S. influence, and related military and economic power, was build-up over 80 years. Eighty Years of alliances and goodwill. And all that is very much in decline.
[0] https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/08/28/donal...
[1] LorenPechtel ↗ And you're getting downvoted because the truth is too unpleasant. ahartmetz ↗ Trump sure is an idiot, but it seems somewhat likely that Netanyahu pressured him to perform this particular idiocy that is also against his previous anti-war attitude - one of the few things that was good about his first term. Sabinus ↗ The consequences of electing a wealthy grifter with obvious personality defects and a contempt for professional politics. oblio ↗ > Trump sure is an idiot, but it seems somewhat likely that Netanyahu pressured him to perform this particular idiocy that is also against his previous anti-war attitude - one of the few things that was good about his first term.
Everyone else realized that the world wasn't ready for anything but appeasement, our idiot didn't understand and pushed it into open conflict. Didn't change the basic situation, though.
Turns out the last 6 or US presidents were presented the same stupid pitch and guess who finally fell for it...
Descriptions of the Soviet leadership basically word for word use the same apocalyptic terms used for the ayatollahs/IRGC by current neocons about Iran. Just swap in "Islamist" for "Communist" as the current ideology that makes any kind of realpolitik impossible.
"These leaders aren't rational like previous adversaries, they don't fear annihilation, in fact they want catastrophe to prove their own fatalist belief system. There can be no negotiation with this sort of enemy, their singular goal is our destruction even at the cost of their own lives."
It's always different this time, and all assumptions about self-serving human nature need to be thrown out the window. Anyone who thinks force isn't the only solution is a naively deluded suicidal peacenik. All out war right now on our terms is the only rational way to avoid world destruction.
Iran already misbehaves, exporting violence to the entire region. How do you think they are going to act when they have nuclear weapons?
Because Iran's leadership is actually crazy.
(In other words, just because we haven't blown ourselves up yet doesn't mean it's safe to have nukes in the hands of lunatics.)
I’m not sure the only country that has used nukes on people should be the one to decide that
“The United States will never condone leadership by corrupt criminals who are supported by and support Russia”
Not that they are doing it for this reason, but they have done a lot to shield trump from the consequences of his stupid war. But those supplies can only hold for so long; things can get much worse for the world economy in the near future.
Even with that, global strategic petroleum reserves are quickly draining. Last I looked, the US was down to ~290M. There is a legal limit of 250M (though laws don’t matter anymore). The structural floor is also estimated to be somewhere north of 200M.
The world is about to not be able to meet all oil demand for any price.
Which if correct is a crazy display of flexibility in the economy
[9%] https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-fa...
I'm sick of this equivocation. Nobody is claiming that Jewish people in general manipulated Trump into touching the stove.
Some facts:
* Netanyahu met with Trump in February to show him a presentation intended to convince him to attack Iran.
* Netanyahu convinced Trump that it would be fast and easy.
* Trump's own intelligence agencies and cabinet members called this "farcical" and "bullshit."
* Trump gave the green light anyway, based on Netanyahu's presentation, and against the advice of CIA, State, and the Joint Chiefs.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-wa...
People need to keep in mind tactical versus strategic success. For Iran, the military operation was a complete tactical success, it's just that the strategic goals — assuming there were any to begin with, which seems to be an unanswered question — were not, and it was questionable whether military operations were a useful tool to achieve them at all.
“War is the continuation of policy with other means.” — Carl von Clausewitz
'What is one's stated policy / goal, and is war a useful tool for achieve it', is a question that needs to be asked by civilian leadership. Sometimes (often?) the answer is "no".
It's not a perfect book, but it illustrates a lot of military failures that haven't really been encountered much in the West in the last 80 years.
I don't think native Yemeni are motivated enough to fight for unification. That's why all the fighters are mercenaries hired by the UAE or Yemen
idealogical fighters fight to the death. & in almost every case besides the nazi's etc they always win. whether the ideology is right or wrong that's a conversation for a different day.
There is a well coordinated group here that seems unusually allergic to inconvenient truths.
As I type this I feel somewhat vindicated by the update to the page, "Iran does not dictate every Houthi decision - but they appear increasingly aligned", which I think does a good job of clarifying the relationship. It does, however, say "Iran has publicly backed the Houthis during the latest fighting. The geography helps explain why", which is useful factual evidence (since Iranian officials have indeed made public statements in support of the Houthis) but the use of "backed" in this sentence is bad style since that word has been used in exactly this context to have a much deeper meaning than Iran saying "we've got your back bro"
I think people read things like "Iran-backed" and immediately frame it in terms of US/Iran conflicts, but GCC/Iran conflicts are the more salient geopolitical frame, at least until like last year.
Iran facilitates a supply of more sophisticated weaponry than the Houthis could acquire on their own, especially missiles and drones. While Iranian support has helped the Houthis gain and maintain military superiority within Yemen, experts say it has had greater effect elsewhere. “The role of Iran has been decisive in providing the Houthis with smuggled weapons and expertise to project power into the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait,” Gulf analyst Eleonora Ardemagni wrote [PDF] for the Yemen-based Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies in 2023.
https://www.cfr.org/articles/irans-support-houthis-what-know
Yet MAGA supporters were saying early in the war that they are "plan trusters" as prior US admins sucked at regime change because it is a "skills issue" and none of the prior admins had the triple digits IQ of Hegseth, Trump and Bessent.
Obviously this war has been the US' latest great failure, and at the beckoning of a foreign power which makes it especially catastrophic. If people could focus on this, rather than trying to divide things into teams and then sling mud, they'd have vastly better outcomes come November (and on) than just using it for divisive mudslinging which does nothing but ensure that all elections, regardless of how bad the decisions of a incumbent, or how awful a challenger, will remain these sort of 50/50 coinflips.
Holding people like Hegseth (who literally insider traded defense equities right before the start of the war) and Trump accountable (who practically made a gazillion insider trading each mad meme he posted while the world burnt) is not "dividing people into teams"
This is something I realized long ago in religious debates. Militantly anti-religious? You're not going to convince anybody of anything who didn't already agree with you. Treat other people with respect and dignity and give them 'outs'? Suddenly even as sensitive a topic as religion, it becomes entirely possible to have reasonable debate and discussion.
that seems like a moronic reason to support a moronic war.
The reason people accept, and even defend, all of this is solely because they find "the other side" detestable, and people like our GP here play exactly into this by making themselves completely detestable to anybody that's already not as far out, and in the same direction, on the partisan horseshoe of stupidity as they are.
If they were going to try this it needed to be done months earlier when the protests were raging. Instead the brain trust fumbled the initiative and let the Iranian leadership kill and scourge their local allies into compliance. Then fumbling the decapitation strike coupled with the decades of preparation for a decapitation strike (via redundancy of command) the genius brigade seemed to be unaware of because they fired all the experts, and the total repression of the protesting populace, led to an unusually strong system in Iran. They also almost certainly let racism play a big role in underestimating the Iranians, who are a very technically sophisticated society and have been preparing for this scenario since day one of the revolution.
Everything that’s happened was predictable and predicted, which is why other administrations who were more than happy to topple foreign governments when it suited them to not do so in Iran. MAGA feels like the junior dev that blames the compiler for their own syntax errors.
One digit each.
I believe this war started with a tomahawk missle murdering a school full of children and then the US denying involvement. I very clearly remember it. US attacks Iran unprovoked. First act, murder their children in school. If you wanted to solidify opposition to the US in Iran, I don't think they could have done a more effective job.
Some Iranian-Americans are very pro-Shah, particularly the many kicked out during the revolution. They were celebrating the war like it'd bring back the Shah, but frustrated that the US govt and even Western media as a whole ignored the exiled royal family... because that's not the point of the war. I have friends like this, I told them, they said only Persians get an opinion on this.
No! Money down!
This would be the wrong conclusion to take from it. Trump is incredibly unpopular domestically and the war is dumb and pointless and was sprung on the US population by surprise and planned and executed with complete and utter incompetence, and the negative economic consequences are way out of proportion to any conceivable benefit we will get out of it. It's not a lack of resolve, it's a rational reaction to incompetent leadership.
Women, gays and infidels are pubished by Houthi police.
The EU & US don't have ANY issues supporting and financing governments that punish gays and infidels. Hint: New Syrian government, Saudi government (which is also famous for publicly beheading gays)
So why not accept the Houthis too ? Otherwise, my apologies, your stance just sounds like the usual disgusting Western sanctimonious hypocrisy.
I think you're right that strategic / economic interests have outweighed cultural issues / human rights.
Apparently, this helped the Houthis advance quickly as the opposition forces were in disarray.
https://x.com/BashaReport/status/2097862335494795579
We should stop everybody else from developing AI, except for both of them which are the most appropriate stewards for this technology.
Where in the battlefield decision making process are they listening to social media recordings to make combat decisions?
Sauds, on the other hand . . .
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/12/truth-social...
it's actually amazing to type that out and notice it's not a joke
You’d lose a lot of money always waiting for news through officials channels.
Who knows how slow Yemini military channels are.
You’d bet your life on it?
Yes, our current President also does stupid things, and our military forces shouldn't be using his incoherent ramblings on Twitter to make snap judgements on the battlefield without checking with their chain of command either.
You mean the chain of command that has been purged of experienced professionals?
Most European countries know this feeling. :)
This is why it succeeded: lizard brain decisions overcame training in the armed forces.
The military units are not very well organized, they don't have clear and stringent command, control and communications.
They understood a regional commander to be fleeing, units fell back.
This is kind of stuff is absolutely as old as time, and it's #1 rule in conflict aka deception.
The parallel would be reproducing a General's order to withdraw - meaning the command would have legitimacy among troops and junior officers, believing their own commanders were just out of the loop.
And yes - their command structure will be de facto organized along social lines, but it's more descriptive.
I've only very recently become interested in ancient history, so I'm still very ignorant about this.
Are there any particular examples of this tactic you'd suggest studying?
I'm case it's helpful to anyone, here's one review of it: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2vxts5/comme...
Seems like a tough area of history to be certain about.
"18. All warfare is based on deception. "
AoW is one of the most important historical treatises, it's not just 'something that was written in history', maybe the oldest true 'textbooks' of objective knowledge, and also realpolitik. Also there's hints of metaphysics in there, in a way. It absolutely stands up today.
The very first work of the Western Cannon: Trojan Horse.
Information / espionage and deception has made most of history; Hannibal, Caesar, Alexander etc.
A fun exercise would be to look at battles of history from the lens of information warfare and deception, and contemplate the outcome without it.
with the press of a USB key or other device into/onto what you’re using.
This can be used to verify consistent identities for the cost of an AirTag or less - but without mandating it as a government-involved thing, which is most of the holdup.
It wasn't a war we could win. We fought it anyway. Now we're stuck trying to lose in a tolerable way. Which requires more fighting.
At some point the balance will tip and China will take over patronage of the right selection of powers to push us out, which will disentangle western involvement (and make it their problem, of course). But at this stage there really is no hope for genuine stability.
source: https://www.raffaellocortina.it/scheda-libro/piergiorgio-odi...
I don't have the book here with me so I cannot check the exact amount of years but it's ridiculously small.
Plenty to consider there
I thought the remaining issues were a dispute related to the timing requirements in the War Powers Resolution, plus unsettled Constitutional law.
The 2001 AUMF hasn't been repealed. It was used as recently as 2025 to justify attacks on Venezuelan ships.
But Trump found a smokescreen to hide behind. And Congress is too spineless to impeach him for unauthorized use of military force. And here we are.
His message to the room was essentially that giving $1 billion to his campaign was a low-cost investment that would guarantee massive financial returns for their companies
Reflection Eternal | Ballad of the Black Gold https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryFMKYNJeTM
The mainstream media has made it sound like the fall of Mocha was at least somewhat surprising, but I don't think that's accurate. It was pretty clear the Houthis would reach the port as late as last week.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/03/27/yemen-houthis-sentence-m...
“In addition to death sentences that include crucifixion and stoning, the Houthi court sentenced 23 men to prison for periods of up to 10 years. Three of them were also sentenced to public flogging”
The Syrian President and current Western/Israeli "good boy" - belongs to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham which has committed warcrimes which make the Houthis look like choir boys. He was former Al-Qaeda too with a multi-million dollar bounty. Done an utterly ridiculous number of beheadings, chaining & rape of women, torture, the whole galore of works carried out by a popular ruthless terrorist in a long career.
Now he is fully supported by the US.
So, any time, any citizen of a Western nation complains about "war crimes" and wants "regime change", I call them deeply disgusting, sanctimonious hyprocrites. You fellows have lost any and all moral standing to talk about "war crimes".
I am very much against black and white thinking. But the typical US and even EU liberal citizen is mired in such thinking. If you don't know who in the EU govt decided to back this Syrian President, then I can only facepalm since even as a "poor-nation", third-world, low-IQ citizen, I am educated on the same. Please look at Ursula von der Leyen and her €620 million support package.
Yes, I will hold you folks responsible. This is not some "abstract idea" - it is basic, common knowledge and you fellows always, always fall to your media propaganda.
You’re certainly free to hold whoever you want responsible, but I’d argue it’s not a realistic position. And keep in mind that it’s hard for someone living here to have an accurate view of what the average American believes, even harder for someone living outside the country - dominant opinions vary widely between regions of the US. I’m sorry that our government supports war criminals of varying degrees on our behalf, though, would certainly be nice if our leaders were more principled on that front.
Your comment reeks of western superiority and exceptionalism.
Its not black and white thinking. It just hypocrisy at the highest level.
The EU does not spend a single day without going around telling anyone and everyone that human rights are very important and that we should do absolutely everything to keep things that way but then turns around and welcomes the head of a (former) terrorist group in Europe.
Even Macron welcomed the guy in Paris even though ISIS killed hundreds of French citizens.
Can anyone then reasonably blame China or India when they continue doing business with Russia? If so why the double standards?
The US and the EU love to criticize other nations but don't mind supporting war criminals and dictators when its suits them and even give them money and/or sell them weapons.
After the Ukraine war ends, I'll bet you you'll see Putin or his successor being invited to cocktail parties in Frankfurt or London, no question about it.