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.

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.

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 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.

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.

My takeaway from the war in Ukraine is: it’s going to get worse and last longer than anyone ever imagined.

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.

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.

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?

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.