Probably not. Afaik only the Dutch have eaten their leader in a time of desperation and while I'm not saying that other nations should have taken notes, we are probably all thinking it...
That's it? Momentary gasoline price is all that matters now? Not geopolitical interests, alliances, _Doing The Right Thing_? If that's the only angle you care about, then US subduing the Iranian regime would go a long way to de-facto dissolving OPEC and bring much more flexibility to oil prices.
>Independent analysis of satellite imagery suggested that the school and the Sayyid al-Shuhada military complex had been struck near-simultaneously by air-delivered munitions.[39]
The objectionable part of double/triple tap strike is that you're killing rescuers or aid workers. Otherwise from a morality perspective there's no meaningful difference between 1 bomb and 2/3 bombs, especially if the actual incident was by all accounts caused by a targeting error.
The "proof" of the mistake is Hanlon's razor and the fact that the school was adjacent a military facility and the building itself used to be for military purposes.
I suppose it comes down to: is it about time for somebody to blunder into this and destructively mismanage the war, or shall we wait another forty years?
Do you think some evil military planners sat in the Pentagon, saw that school, said "let's shoot at it for shits and giggles" and pressed the button? Or are you trying to pollute a grown up conversation with sensationalism and punchy hooks?
In reality someone made a mistake. It can happen. It should be investigated. It should not deter from achieving the military objectives.
> In reality someone made a mistake. It can happen. It should be investigated. It should not deter from achieving the military objectives.
There has been little planning and there are no sane military objectives beyond blow stuff up. How can there be when the objectives of the overall war change depend on what side of the bed Bone Spurs got out.
>I think that if you start an unjustified war of agression against a country [...]
That's just moving the goalposts because the original comment said
>What part of "doing the right thing" is bombing an all girls school?
which is calling out that particular event specifically, other than the war itself. Otherwise you can just head over to the wikipedia page and point out the casualty figures.
You do not get to decide that. If we allow everyone to invade other countries and murder leaders because they deem those people worse than themselves, the world will be engaged in endless war. Or do you think perhaps deciding who to invade and kill is a special privilege reserved only for your country, which should be emperor of the world?
??? Do most of your everyday life decisions involve starting wars or killing people? That's concerning. Are you a high-ranking officer in the US military? As it happens, I'm not, and my decisions do not typically have life-or-death consequences.
I also don't even know what you're getting at. There was nothing "relativistic" or "morally grey" about my argument. My point is that in order for any kind of peace to exist, each country must be able to accept that there will be other people in the world who are morally repugnant to them. Because there will always be leaders who consider each other repugnant, so if you endorse starting wars over that, you're committing to a world where everyone is starting wars all the time as the international norm.
I didn't think the point was that subtle. There is good and evil, right and wrong, survival and destruction. You seem to think that drawing a line around some land and calling yourself a country immunizes you from the moral scrutiny of your neighbors.
While this certainly accords with the promulgations of the morally bankrupt UN, it is not a recipe for existing in our world. This is why it is important to have a powerful military.
It is a matter of pragmatism. Even if I myself consider my perspective on good and evil to be objective, it is a given that each of my neighbors will have their own seemingly-objective sense of good and bad that differs from my own. We are then at an impasse. Do I attempt to kill all of my neighbors in order to rid the world of what I perceive to be evil? Or do I perhaps make peace with an imperfect world in which bad things happen in other countries that are not my jurisdiction to worry about? Apparently you subscribe to the "kill all your neighbors" camp, that your objective brand of morality must be enforced on the entire world by means of military might. World conquest, however, is an utterly irrational thing to attempt, and will only lead to death and destruction, not an idealistic world that conforms to your sense of morality.
I don't know what to tell you. You're restating the paradox of tolerance. You should probably come to some philosophical resolution regarding that before you keep digging.
What I have said has nothing to do with the paradox of tolerance. I am firmly on the side of not tolerating the intolerant, but stating that, "not tolerating" does not extend to "starting wars in an attempt at world conquest to rid the world of the intolerant".
But if you're getting attacked for 4 decades by another country, do you do something about it or are you saying that's also wrong?
My understanding is that the regime in Iran has been terrorizing around the world for decades. It's not just disagreeable. People are seeking justice.
It's one thing to dislike another politician. No one needs justice for repugnancy. But if they are committing acts of terror, that's a totally different thing.
If a guy pays soldiers to sneak into another country, kidnap rape and murder children, and continues similar behavior for 4 decades I can decide he's worse than Trump. I do get to decide that. Some things are worse than others.
The preceding comment was about holding someone responsible. It appears you might have misunderstood that mine points out that this is exactly how the school was hit.
Sovereignty. You only get to hold responsibility of your own citizens, like Jeffery Epstein AND his supporters. You do that right, and then maybe then people will like you as the world police.
Well, a couple of days ago Iran fired 2 missiles at a US base in the Indian Ocean with twice the range of anything they were supposed to be allowed to have.
Right. Under sanctions to prevent them from being a danger to everyone around them while they sponsor terror globally and go on TV talking about getting nuclear weapons to destroy Israel.
Most of Europe is within striking distance of their current capabilities that they were not supposed to have.
Treaties gave terms to limit the range of their missiles. Treaties were agreed to to prevent them from enriching uranium.
They violated both. Had they been allowed to continue on their path, we can all expect that we would be looking at a nuclear terror attack in the near future.
People are going to react for their left/right politics but the Iranian regime is a danger to the entire planet. There’s a reason that Iranian expats world wide have been celebrating in the streets.
Their biggest fear is that we are going to leave before the regime is fully removed.
The real dangers to peace in the Middle East are America, Israel and historically the British, because these three are the bastards that toppled Iran's democracy and lead them to such a defensive posture in the first place. With the utmost respect, kindly blow your judeo-american sanctions out your ass. America should have NOTHING to do with Iran whatsoever, we don't have any moral right to intervention here.
It’s impossible to take anyone seriously who dismisses the threat of developing a nuclear weapon with intent to use it.
Sponsoring and funding global terror networks is not a “defensive posture”. Giving speeches about nuking your enemy while secretly developing those capabilities isn’t either.
Seems in Libanon the IDF is currently targeting hospitals and first responders [0]. Sometimes people are just evil.
Regarding the USA-Iran war, the president of the USA has threatened to destroy essential infrastructure (e.g. electricity) if Iran doesn't surrender in 48 hours. Which, from my understanding, is a war crime. I think Trump is perfectly ok with bombing schools and hospitals.
Possibly so, yes, that may have happened. The strike may have been calculated to inflame the Iranian public and lock them into a prolonged conflict, great for military contractors and their shareholders.
Yes. Evil military planners used AI to generate a list of thousands of kill sites and then engaged them without verification. They attacked a public park by accident because it has the name “police” in it. Recklessly slaughtering children is “grown up” now?
I think the military planners sat in the Pentagon and thought "Hey if we hit this school and kill all these children, that will achieve us X. Shall we do it?" And then they decided to do it. Yes, that's what I think.
Destroying a school is not an "oopsie". It should literally not be possible for it to happen in any organization that values human life at all. This was a precision strike with three missiles hitting the same target, they should have been goddamn sure they knew where the millions of dollars in ordnance they were launching for the purpose of ending human life were headed. Of course, the US military places zero value on not murdering civilians, which it has shown time and time again throughout its history, so this is the obvious result: massacre by intentional negligence.
It's absolutely fucking insane to downplay it like these things just happen and are unavoidable. What is wrong with you? Maybe you don't understand these are not just numbers on a screen? How many children do you know in your life? Is it even close to 150? Can you imagine every single child you know being killed and shrugging that off, insulting people who bring it up as being "sensationalist" and "polluting the conversation"?
Let’s have a serious conversation about downplaying things because this is where all of these conversations go sideways.
Many people, myself included, watch very loud righteous indignation about this awful event…while hearing absolutely nothing from the same people about…
- The Iranian women’s soccer team who are returning home from asylum to likely torture and execution due to regime threats against their families.
- The thousands of Iranian protesters who were shot by the regime.
- The 19 year old wrestling champion who was executed for participating in a protest.
Nobody is saying the school wasn’t terrible, but it’s not some situation where if we just leave the regime in power it’s going to be all sunshine and roses over there.
Show equal parts outrage and people will take you more seriously. Show equal parts outrage and you will find far more outrage from leaving the regime in power.
The entire reason the current Iranian regime exists is because the US overthrew their democracy to replace it with a monarchy that was friendly to their oil interests, which was then overthrown by a popular revolution. Maybe the US should stay the fuck out of Iran because it's not the US's fucking business, and it is most certainly not acting benevolently out of desire to help the people of Iran.
> while hearing absolutely nothing from the same people about…
Also, really? You think anybody who opposes the US bombing a school is cheering on protestors being shot and all other crimes of the Iranian regime? Well, I guess I'll be the first: Iranian regime bad. Killing protestors bad. Executing dissenters bad. There you go. Your argument is defeated. You can no longer make that claim. But I reckon most people aren't couching their statements by bringing up the whudabbouts because first it's not the direct topic of the conversation, and second it's a fucking given. But it being a given that X is bad does not justify doing more bad things.
Totally agree with you. The US also created the Bin Laden problem.
That genie isn’t going back in the bottle though so now we have to deal with the very real threat to the world that we certainly had a hand in creating.
Glad to hear your opposition to all of the evil as well. The desire for vocal, social righteous indignation with most of this dialog does not follow your fervor though. People remain silent until it supports their local politics, for the most part.
You should see how many innocent people US's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq killed. And that's only the ones we know of before the era of smartphones and social media where people could more easily document war crimes. Did anyone go to jail for it? No. Will anyone go to jail for killing innocent people in Iran? Also no.
Trump is gonna fuck some more shit up in the area, declare "victory" when he's bored or the political pressure gets too high while leaving the middle east in a bigger mess than it was before.
Miraculously by US standards, a couple of soldiers (though only a couple, by no means all who committed them) actually did face prison time for war crimes in Iraq, and were then pardoned by Trump because he can't settle for not being the most evil man on the planet: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/27/eddie-gallag...
Because that was not the subject of the conversation. Iran's military killing civilians is bad, but that does not somehow justify also killing their civilians. WTF even is your logic?
The US made a mistake while attempting to ensure that insane theocrats who are close to building nuclear weapons are not able to. The fondest wish of the religious lunatics in charge of Iran (and we know this because they have told us) is to annihilate the US and Israel. They have demonstrated missiles that can reach Europe.
This is a lie. Not only is it not the stated purpose of the war, even Netanyahu himself went out of the way to say that Iran had no remaining capability to accomplish this and that was not why they were invaded.
> They currently have demonstrated missiles that can reach Europe.
The US demonstrated its missile can reach schools in Iran. Why are we more concerned with scaremongering about what hypothetical evil acts Iran could commit while downplaying the evil acts that are actually being propagated by the US?
> Why are we more concerned with scaremongering about what hypothetical evil acts Iran could commit while downplaying the evil acts that are actually being propagated by the US?
Because normal people can understand the difference between a mistake and intentional acts. And between the scales of different actions.
One of which is explicitly not Iran's nuclear capacity, as confirmed by one of the heads of state invading.
> Because normal people can understand the difference between a mistake and intentional acts.
Normal people can also understand that some things are too serious to pass off as "oopsie". We have terms like "manslaughter" or "aggravated murder" for when your reckless negligence leads to loss of human life. You are still responsible for the murders you cause when you take actions with intent that you know will lead to people dying without intending any specific one of those deaths.
>> In reality someone made a mistake. It can happen. It should be investigated. It should not deter from achieving the military objectives.
You should really unpack these statements, especially if you're trying to have a "grown up conversation". You're saying that no price is too high for achieving military objectives, even those that are very unclear and unilaterally defined without justification by a easily distracted narcissist with obvious goals of distracting from his domestic problems.
He isn't saying that at all, though. He is saying that by the nature of war, innocent people will die. Everyone knows this, which is why international law is based on proportionality, not on whether or not a single civilian was harmed.
Then somebody should be punished so severely that incidence would go down dramatically. I dont mean 2 weeks administrative leave (or medal and promotion), I mean lives ruined, names tarnished, and/or people executed/jailed for 20 lives for mass (in)voluntary manslaughter.
In reality, in same vein quite a few US laws are set. If you are not US passport holder you are subhuman. Less rights, less care, more disposable, just a garbage to step on. We saw it enough in past 80 years to see a clear pattern everywhere US went and (mostly) failed.
For those slow in back rows - this is how you get almost endless stream of new fanatical recruits to merry groups like isis or al-queda. Dumb, supremely dumb. Yeah, 'a mistake, it can happen'. Fuck that american self-entitled rotten racist mentality. Then you wonder why whole world hates you now and what you stand for and represent. What a success story for america in past year.
Sometimes a mistake is negligence. If you're going to use lethal force it's a good idea to check your facts first. It's been a school for years, how was that missed?
None of that happened because the US was unprepared for this war. It was Bibi's idea and Trump is weak and incompetent so he just went along with it, ironically because he thought it would avoid making him look weak and incompetent.
> ironically because he thought it would avoid making him look weak and incompetent
Trump is what a weak man imagines a strong man to be like. Just look at his official portrait [1], trying to look tough and dangerous. Compare that to Dwight D. Eisenhower's portrait [2], a man who commanded entire armies in the largest war in human history.
Good try. When you are complicit in genocide in Gaza, destroy multiple countries on pretext of democracy and human rights, start wars with blatant lies, the "let's shoot at it for shits and giggles" is actually being kind.
Have you heard Hegseth speeches lately? Or Trumps?
Like, yes, evil military planners did sat down and said "rules of engagement are woke, the working groups handling civilian safety are waste of money, be maximum lethal".
Also, they had no stable military objectives except "make my insecure masculinity feel manly".
None of which is being handled by the current admin with a modicum of professionalism or competency, so I guess at times you just have to pick _one_ from the laundry list of complaints here.
East Asian economies are severely affected by high fuel prices. People need it to fuel their boats, to get to work, and to heat their homes. And it's the input to many critical industries, most importantly to make fertilizer. Not all countries's stockpiles are large enough to sit this out.
They don't really care what happens afterwards. They openly admitted that a Libya-like situation would be preferable compared to leaving the current regime in power. Whether that's actually a strategically valid assessment is a completely different question.
Oh, now worries, I can take my bicycle or train whenever possible (like right now). And since I am european, I do not just worry about gasoline, but also that the US actually might attack us at some point, Trump did threaten again over greenland and the last time - it was not just words, danish troops took it serious and were ready to shoot.
Also, the gasoline prices are only "momentary" up, if the whole area does not burst into flames. Then it doesn't matter if the trait is closed, as no more oil is being produced.
The only bright side is, this is a great push for renewables.
Oil is a globally priced commodity. This means that downstream consumers of oil in the US will be just as affected by rising prices as European consumers. US producers of oil will benefit, though.
Since WWII you're living under the umbrella of the US, as client states. There was no reason Europe could not amass a significant military power that would grant its sovereignty, but money went to increasing quality of life instead. Trump the 45th even implored EU to do so and bolster NATO.
That's rich, the guy threatening the existence of NATO more than any other factor is trying to bolster NATO. I struggle to imagine how you square this in your mind.
At the outset, he doesn't want to carry the burden of NATO alone. Maybe he has other strategic interests in mind where US deviates from the rest of the world (like Greenland) but he's entirely right that NATO really depends on the US.
Trump's attitude towards NATO member state spend it widely publicized [0] so I don't think there's much to debate here. Trump wanted member states to spend more, not less.
He was somewhat prescient during his 45th presidency, given what happened in Ukraine in 2022 and how it forced US to spend huge amounts of money and military hardware which the EU simply didn't have. Maybe with a stronger standing EU army, that invasion would not have happened in the first place.
Yes. By design. But if the US decouples, the rest of the countries can and will make their own alliance, with blackjack and hookers. Greenland thing is peak wierdness and the only explanation of it would be pride, stupidity or active undermining of NATO.
> Trump's attitude towards NATO member state spend it widely publicized [0] so I don't think there's much to debate here. Trump wanted member states to spend more, not less.
Yes. But, you have a very shallow reading of this and you're taking things at face value. He latched on the spending as a pretext, and as a way to increase US income for the defense industry. He doesn't give a rat's ass about the security of NATO countries. US has entered a very transactional, bully, phase and this is a bad way to maintain international standing.
You don’t think that the person you’re replying to is Donald Trump, do you? He’s not wrong even though I can see why amassing independent defense didn’t feel necessary all this time
> You don’t think that the person you’re replying to is Donald Trump, do you?
I'm confused how this interpretation could ever come about. No, I mean his point about "Trump trying to bolster NATO" is comic, as Trump is actively weakening NATO, no matter his stated goals wrt. improving funding and having member states "carry their load". _Especially_ his threats to Greenland and Canada, for no apparent reason. It's really mind-boggling. Perhaps my fault, since I expect mental consistency from post-truth populists and authoritarians.
Turns out consistency is overrated. We talk as if it's a bare minimum, but there isn't actually any penalty for violating it.
We've still got some kind of karmic notion that inconsistency is bad for you in the long run. Maybe it is, but that run keeps getting longer and longer.
Having contact with reality is quite important when critical moments arise. Fantasy can proper you quite high, but there is a breaking point where it can't carry the day. Trump & Co are both post-truth and detached for reality. I am a bit scared for your country when you get a post-truth populist that is NOT detached from reality. If you can't deal with a buffoon like Trump, how will you be able to deal with someone who is half competent? Truth be told, I don't know how to deal with these people.
Not that my country fared any better with this kind of rhetoric in last couple of years. But we don't have the democratic tradition as rich as you had (or at least I felt you had). I feel like despair will be the feeling for me this decade.
"Trump the 45th even implored EU to do so and bolster NATO."
All he wanted was EU to buy more US weapons (also to help with his wars). Guess what is happening now, we still do buy US weapons where there is no other choice, but apart from that, we build and buy our own things now. Try to get rid of US software depenencies - in general, get rid of any dependency we have towards you. If this was Trump's goal, great job I have to say.
>
Since WWII you're living under the umbrella of the US, as client states. There was no reason Europe could not amass a significant military power that would grant its sovereignty, but money went to increasing quality of life instead. Trump the 45th even implored EU to do so and bolster NATO.
Problem is that Trump wants to eat the cake and have it too. If we’re no longer being protected by the US then US companies should not expect preferential laws and access to the EU market.
Europe didn't slack off militarily during the Cold War. Germany, for example, poured massive amounts of money and resources into the Bundeswehr to be able to fend of the Soviets. The US relied as much on the European members of NATO as the Europeans did on the US.
After the Cold War, both the US and Europe scaled back their military spending and enjoyed the peace dividend. It was only after 2001 that the US increased its budget again – but to fight insurrectionist wars (which EU members aren't particularly interested in), not in a peer conflict. They're not prepared for a pro-longed war against a near-peer power.
So although I agree that Europe should be rearming heavily, and should have started in 2022 at the very latest, it's not like the US did really much better. They're really good at curb-stomping much weaker opponents, like Venezuela or Iran, but they haven't seriously prepared for a war against China.
> They're really good at curb-stomping much weaker opponents, like [..] Iran
That remains to be seen, though. Really winning that war requires either lots of boots on the ground and a long occupation (where the outcome might still be like in Afghanistan) or using nukes, which could escalate quite badly for us all. There is a reason no other POTUS has attacked Iran before.
Of course Trump can at every point in time just declare victory and leave the mess to all others for cleaning up. That is the most likely outcome, IMHO.
I would say gasoline is not all that matters. This has also made clear Israel is not a US ally. They are a disobedient client state.
Given how much money the US has given Israel compared to how tiny their GDP is it is also clear the US financially owns Israel. If I were US president I would annex Israel so that they no longer determine US foreign policy. Of course Israel would agree to be annexed because otherwise they can be easily isolated like the way they isolate Gaza.
Plus if gas prices rise more people might switch to EVs, drive less often, and/or hopefully begin to understand the fragility of our car-only infrastructure and mandatory car ownership and demand better urban planning and transportation options.
Can't wait to get my new iPhone shipped here on an electric cargo ship, and it shouldn't be too much more expensive for my food transported by a fleet of electric semis and trains. Totally worth exploding billions of ordnance and killing a few thousand people!
Trump is now threatening to destroy Iran's power plants if the straight isn't reopened. Is this "doing the right thing"? And doesn't this show he cares more about oil prices than regime change?
But the most important question is, what's next? If depriving tens of millions of people of energy doesn't work, what will he do next?
One hypothesis is he'll threaten Iran with a nuclear strike. In response, either China or Russia or both, will say that's a line that cannot be crossed.
And then, we will either all die, or be living in a world saved by authoritarian regimes from the irresponsibility of the US.
It will be interesting! But probably extremely unpleasant.
good point. i'm more than happy to pay 10x for my diesel and electricity and even change my whole lifestyle for the foreseeable future in support of iran doing the right thing: kicking the murderous usrael regime out of western asia where it should never have been in the first place, if it weren't for their god damned blood soaked petrodollars.
You and both I agree that only violence will solve the conflict between Iran and Israel. They can't really coexist in the same sphere. May the best country win :)
We robbed S Korea of a radar system they paid for which they found highly insulting. We’re causing an energy crisis in Japan. We repealed the sanctions on Russia to try to level oil prices which is the last straw for Ukraine. Europe refused to participate. Fascinating you see this as doing the right thing and motivated by alliances plural.
> That's it? Momentary gasoline price is all that matters now?
Did you not see the lead up to the 2024 election and all the whining about how Biden, specifically, caused gasoline prices to go up? This is a very important issue to Americans because we use gas cars to go everywhere and all our food is transported using vehicles that consume gas. GP is obviously being rhetorical here because MAGAs wouldn't stop railing on Biden for global COVID inflation (mostly out of his control) but they're now making excuses for Trump starting a war that's spiking gas prices.
It's still middle-click in my muscle memory from the Windows XP days!
God, I used to be _really_ into Minesweeper.
One of the earliest games I made back in college was a 3D Minesweeper cube. I remember being really proud of one little detail – the detection and automatic resolution of ambiguous clues that would require guessing, which always annoyed the heck out of me in every other version of Minesweeper.
Doesn't seem to work on iPhone. I suggest having a button to toggle between mine marking mode and regular mode - I used that on my own little vibe-coded minesweeper clone here: https://tools.simonwillison.net/minesweeper
Hormuz is not a minefield though. According to sources, ships are moving near the coast of Iran, according to other sources they are being charged $2M per passage. According to other sources only Yuan paid oil is allowed.
Iran has indicated they will only target ships tied to countries that are involved in the conflict.
That likely means US and Israel. Unclear if countries like the UK that are facilitating the US through use of their bases would be considered legitimate targets (likely yes).
Unfortunately Iran's leadership is in a bit of distress and communication disrupted, and "involved in the conflict" is a very broad term - so they do make some effort to get chinese oil out, but any ship not asking for explicit permission from Iran - will have some great risk of being targeted.
Remember, the strait is not Iranian property, but International waters. So no one would have to ask them for permission, but that is the way it is and most do not risk it (insurance won't cover).
A small number of ships are crossing with AIS off (and without the benefit of GPS, because it is jammed) by coordinating with Iran. For example: https://gcaptain.com/iranian-navy-guided-indian-tanker-throu.... These will not show up on Marine Traffic as they are transiting the strait.
I've seen reports of ship turning off their AIS before attempting the strait, not sure if this is still valid but Marine Traffic only shows AIS signals that are turned on, which is as simple as flipping a switch.
Also something Chinese fishing ships do around the galapagos and other regions to fish illegally.
> Before the war, about 138 ships passed through the strait each day according to the Joint Maritime Information Centre, carrying one fifth of the global oil supply.
> The data provided by shipping analysts Kpler shows 99 vessels passing the narrow strait so far this month, an average of just 5-6 vessels a day.
I mean, it's bad, but it's factually not a minefield. The threat isn't coming from mines anyway.
It might not be. It might be. Uncertainty is the point of what Iran is doing.
There might be mines in the straight that are sophisticated enough to be armed, disarmed, or moved on command, or there might not. There might be artillery emplacements* hidden and not found, ready to pop up... or there might not. There are probably still plenty of drones and missiles all over the country that can be called down on Hormuz at will. Iran might choose to save them for something else... or they might not.
If a few oil tankers get through without Iran's permission, one might conclude everything Iran has in place has been found and that the straight is safe. Then again, it might not be. The Iranians might save a few choice surprises for the first aircraft carrier that gets too close. They might also choose to actually sink a large ship**, blocking the straight long-term. The Iranian regime has been planning specifically for a U.S. invasion since it's inception*** and they probably have some very well hidden and nasty surprises as well as plans to use them to maximum effect.
Merchant vessels can't get insurance to go through because of all this uncertainty. The U.S. Navy has completely refused to go in there because losing a multi-billion dollar military vessel along with hundreds or thousands of sailors for a war that's already unpopular would likely knock the U.S. out of it completely. This is why Trump is desperate for other nations to come in and clear the straight. He doesn't care if they lose ships, but he can't afford to lose even one American ship for a "Wag the Dog" war that's already exploded the budget.
-------------------
*The straight is narrow enough that artillery can actually cover it. Even the most sophisticated anti-missile defence systems aren't meant to deal with artillery shells fired from nearly point blank range.
**The straight has only a couple of channels deep enough for large vessels to transit. One or two well positioned wrecks could block the works.
*** They rebelled against a Shah installed by a CIA backed coup after all.
So what's left of the Iranian regime is basically like the Houthis now, reduced to getting world attention by committing random acts of piracy and firing at random ships off their coast. To make whatever point they were trying to make. Seems like a win to me. Declare victory, say the straight is open, just like the Red Sea is open. If anything moves at shipping, destroy its source. They don't have a right to attack merchant vessels, and there's no reason to negotiate with them either.
> They don't have a right to attack merchant vessels
This is a sovereign nation that is being attacked by a waning superpower. It's war and they are retaliating in really the only way that they can force America to back off - which is make the war really expensive and even more unpopular domestically.
> Declare victory, say the straight is open, just like the Red Sea is open. If anything moves at shipping, destroy its source.
Do you understand the concept of asymmetrical warfare? Hiding hundreds of launchers, firing them, and losing them is already accounted for by Iran, while a decent chance of losing any asset going through is prohibitively expensive. The strait is closed.
I don’t quite agree with making fun of the situation that’s deadly serious to many innocent people. Yet I’m sure the intentions of the author were good.
Comedy and satire is a long-established method of political critique, and is often the only or last available way. It's not making fun of the situation, rather pointing out the pain & sufferring in the face of absurdity.
I don't really agree with rooting against the USA just because you don't like the president. An Islamist Iran with nukes is a scary proposition. I'm glad someone is finally doing something about it rather than sending palettes of cash on an jet to radical Muslims.
> Washington
CNN
—
The Obama administration secretly arranged a plane delivery of $400 million in cash on the same day Iran released four American prisoners and formally implemented the nuclear deal, US officials confirmed Wednesday.
Secretly-ish - it was announced publicly 7 months prior (Jan 2016) and it was the first instalment of a legal settlement, not just some random or ransom payment.
Obviously Republicans decried it with bad faith bullshit because reality and sanity don't matter to them.
While the optics of this may look bad, the same thing happens after armed conflict too; the US has spent boatloads of money in Afghanistan on top of all the military costs, and we're basically in the same situation as before.
And the bad faith keeps on rolling. We get it, you're a MAGA true believer, it's not like you're being subtle. But besides trying to troll the good people at HN, what is your point?
> is there any plan to do this differently to those expensive failures?
Why are you asking me? You can listen to the secretary of war (a veteran of those wars) and the president describe their strategy themselves. They are extremely transparent.
Or machine gun defence when you're protecting tens of thousands of Iranians from the Islamist regime.
The difference is the US had bad intelligence and acknowledges it's a tragedy. The regime intentionally murders by the thousands and would murder more if it wasn't thwarted by the US and Israel. And somehow you're more upset about the former not the latter.
> Since the beginning of the 2025–2026 Iranian protests, the government of Iran has perpetrated widespread massacres of civilians, deploying both its own security forces and also imported foreign militias to suppress widespread public dissent across the country.
Why not remove sanctions so the civilians have less conflict with the regime? The protest and every death can also be blamed on those who cancelled the deal.
The implication being what? "What about Iran" as if I don't think killing schoolchildren is terrible and shouldn't happen?
You missed the entire point of my comment: to us it's a tragedy. To them it's a strategy. That's why we're bombing them in the first place. They are commiting genocide.
It never ceases to amaze me that demonstrating such a weapon on civilian targets somehow made it past the entire chain of command. One of those things that I just can't wrap my head around no matter how many times I come back to it.
They weren't exclusively civilian targets, they were considered "mixed" targets. Hirohito's home wasn't considered strategically-important enough and therefore didn't make the cut.
The sites in question were also specifically selected because they hadn't previously faced conventional attack, enabling a more accurate damage assessment.
> they hadn't previously faced conventional attack
Which, by the way, illustrates a related point: Hiroshima and Nagasaki had stiff competition. WWII was devastating, to cities and civilians all over the map. More people died in the conventional bombing of Tokyo than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. I think the atomic bombs represented some 2 weeks worth of casualties in a war that lasted 300.
No sir that's not a school we're proposing to bomb, it's a complex containing both a school and a vehicle maintenance facility. So it's mixed, meaning there's valid logistical reasons to attack it. Yes, hundreds of children will perish in the attack, but the action will also provide us with legitimate benefits. Just try not to think about the former and focus on the latter. I'm sure no one in the future will judge us too harshly for the decision.
Is that what the Japanese were doing? (Bit of a pointless diversion though because this is a nuclear bomb we're talking about here. Not exactly a surgical strike.)
Last time I checked, only the US and Israel. Europeans don't want anything to do with this war, and the USA's East Asian allies also like it not even a little bit.
It's a piece about showing the detachment from war and you are arguing like idiots again. "Look how easy it is," you say. "Even a child could do it. Let me show you." And just two minutes later, there you are: huffing and puffing, bickering like you’re back on the schoolyard. The irony is almost as staggering as your ignorance.
This is symptom of the misunderstanding among people that somehow more people being knowledgeable about politics will bring about a change. "Pen is mightier than sword" was probably written by a person who only wielded pen. It's a collective psyops inflicted by people on themselves, belonging to an era where it made sense. In today's world, it doesn't matter. Bring missles to a sword / knife fight. Only true power is respected.
You completely misunderstood that. Take into account that you see the swords failing all around you whilst one nation effectively messed up the rest of the world through propaganda and maybe you'll begin to understand the true meaning of that sentence.
Information, used well or abused well, is more powerful than any other weapon of war.
"Information, used well or abused well, is more powerful than any other weapon of war."
Indeed, because people with the swords will decide on that information who to slain or who to defend. If you do it right, you don't need to fight the enemy soldiers, but they will fight for you.
First, conclusion is confounding respect and fear. No one is going to kill a person they respect while they slip or as soon as a window of doability occurs. Fear can bring surface level compliance to orders, but it doesn't provide much respect.
Playing by the book of fear uncertainty and doubt is going to foster hate, distrust and suspicion/paranoia.
Totally. After reading your poorly worded screed on geopolitical ethics, which itself was a random and inane response to a comment mocking that exact type of behavior. Too rich.
I will now go listen to the words of a bloodthirsty fascist. Thank you for the advice.
This sort of ridiculous reductionism has never been true. Do you seriously think all the conflicts we experience have never been there before?
"Only true power is respected"—what’s this even supposed to mean? Right now, the American military is shooting with all its mighty glory on Iran, yet loosing the war, money, and yes, respect from the rest of the world. Well, except for Putin maybe, who is unilaterally benefiting from this disaster.
This little incel power fantasy of rule by force you guys are cooking up there is complete and utter bollocks.
Mearsheimer and Rand... between those two a lot of damage is being done to the psyche of impressionable people. They're all just looking for excuses to act out their inner toddler believing themselves to be in the possession of profound insights. Lesswrong probably also deserves a mention.
It’s rather ironic that you would make this kind of comment at the same time as your other comment (I happened to notice) about the pen being mightier than the sword, considering that it’s light skinned Iranians (including literal Aryans) being killed by a hodgepodge of skin colors in Israel and among the US troops assembled for invasion and who will die killing the light(er) skinned Iranians.
Although the American troops are wildly disproportionately “white” because that is historically the pool of peasants the people with the pen draw on to sacrifice and murder for their wars, if you look at the forces and the US military in general, it’s the most diverse, multi-cultural, rainbow coalition in existence on this planet. You literally have people of every race, ethnicity, and nationality included in a rainbow of killing and they are proud of it; yet here we are being sarcastic about it being as simple as “whites” killing “browns”, not realizing that just demonstrates the pen’s lingering albeit still useful control over the mind.
Your point is well made though, the pen is indeed far more powerful when it can hide in plain sight the multi-cultural, rainbow coalition, diversity sword of the maniacal, narcissistic, psychopathic, child raping, Epstein class right in front of you.
Anything other than lily white is brown, don't you know? More so if they're sitting on top of a bunch of oil, or have the wrong religion, or just happen to be born in the wrong spot.
Racism isn't necessarily perfectly confined to color, it's just a convenient shorthand so people can do what they want to do anyway.
I'd love to read a proper analysis on Americans reducing race and racism to colouring books with pretty little lines. I did read one recently, but it put the onus for it entirely on BLM (since it was focused on a global scale), despite the phenomenon being far older than them.
I do sometimes wonder how Americans would react if I told them the palest person I know is Iraqi.
I get that trope, but as someone who is not lily white, but know people who are and are tortured all their life by what can only describe as psychologically abuse that has been perpetrated against them for…you guessed it…their skin color, while being the most generous, nice, friendly people I know; I will say that racism is vile and sadistic even when the “brown people” feel morally superior and abuse “white people” for it.
But I agree, the pen controlling “racism” in ways that always coincide with ruling class objectives is very correct. It is something people have never understood over the centuries, even at the height of slavery, that it’s always been the parasitic and perfidious, thieving Epstein class of their day who manipulate things like “race” with the common objective being keeping themselves at the top to parasitize everyone else, by forcing and keeping the multitude fighting in many different ways.
Absolutely. It's one of the most puzzling things to me, and I've seen that first hand many times over. Native Americans abusing African Americans, to give you one weird example.
I figure that if you are racist enough you're welcome to the Klan, no matter what your actual skin color.
This was my first thought too."Trump bad" is fine on HN. I've seen it multiple times. The zig guy wrote anti ICE propaganda in the zig docs and everyone here lapped it up and upvoted it. Any pro ICE discussion on HN was literally flagged and removed.
How about you make an app about "winning" that involves flying a cargo plane loaded with so much cash to Iranian Islamists that it struggles to stay aloft. Because that was the strategy before Trump and it led to terror tunnels, terror proxies, and weapons grade nuclear enrichment.
Edit: For the record this actually happened 10 years ago under Obama.
> Washington
CNN
—
The Obama administration secretly arranged a plane delivery of $400 million in cash on the same day Iran released four American prisoners and formally implemented the nuclear deal, US officials confirmed Wednesday.
Listen, you have posted a lot, are very passionate here about this Obama thing. You have multiple times said "how about make an app that...". Why don't you make the app? I for one would love to play a game where you are Obama the money smuggler or whatever, it sounds kind of awesome.
Yes, in 10 years. Because even though gas prices go up hour by hour they take years to ever so slowly drift down.
Edit: *triple tap.
>Independent analysis of satellite imagery suggested that the school and the Sayyid al-Shuhada military complex had been struck near-simultaneously by air-delivered munitions.[39]
The objectionable part of double/triple tap strike is that you're killing rescuers or aid workers. Otherwise from a morality perspective there's no meaningful difference between 1 bomb and 2/3 bombs, especially if the actual incident was by all accounts caused by a targeting error.
Despite the war aims being nebulous, illegal, and ever changing, none of them would be advanced by bombing a girls school.
no shit... this is not proof of a mistake.
The "proof" of the mistake is Hanlon's razor and the fact that the school was adjacent a military facility and the building itself used to be for military purposes.
In reality someone made a mistake. It can happen. It should be investigated. It should not deter from achieving the military objectives.
There has been little planning and there are no sane military objectives beyond blow stuff up. How can there be when the objectives of the overall war change depend on what side of the bed Bone Spurs got out.
That's just moving the goalposts because the original comment said
>What part of "doing the right thing" is bombing an all girls school?
which is calling out that particular event specifically, other than the war itself. Otherwise you can just head over to the wikipedia page and point out the casualty figures.
Also I am confused which contry you mean, mutual bombing has going on there since a while.
Iran bombed Israel in January as a distraction tactic during the protests.
The compound of the school physically separated from the military buildings since 10 years. Clearly visible on sat pictures.
Trump's reaction?
It could have been anyones Tomahawks missiles.
Is that where your information comes from, that there was a missile launcher next to it?
Oh and are you aware that Trump once said he will intentionally kill the families of terrorists, if voted into power?
https://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/02/politics/donald-trump-ter...
You do not get to decide that. If we allow everyone to invade other countries and murder leaders because they deem those people worse than themselves, the world will be engaged in endless war. Or do you think perhaps deciding who to invade and kill is a special privilege reserved only for your country, which should be emperor of the world?
I also don't even know what you're getting at. There was nothing "relativistic" or "morally grey" about my argument. My point is that in order for any kind of peace to exist, each country must be able to accept that there will be other people in the world who are morally repugnant to them. Because there will always be leaders who consider each other repugnant, so if you endorse starting wars over that, you're committing to a world where everyone is starting wars all the time as the international norm.
While this certainly accords with the promulgations of the morally bankrupt UN, it is not a recipe for existing in our world. This is why it is important to have a powerful military.
My understanding is that the regime in Iran has been terrorizing around the world for decades. It's not just disagreeable. People are seeking justice.
It's one thing to dislike another politician. No one needs justice for repugnancy. But if they are committing acts of terror, that's a totally different thing.
The preceding comment was about holding someone responsible. It appears you might have misunderstood that mine points out that this is exactly how the school was hit.
That was pretty validating for the war effort.
"supposed to be allowed to have."
Ridiculous premise. They armed themselves thusly because American politicians have been singing "Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran!" for generations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomb_Iran
Most of Europe is within striking distance of their current capabilities that they were not supposed to have.
Treaties gave terms to limit the range of their missiles. Treaties were agreed to to prevent them from enriching uranium.
They violated both. Had they been allowed to continue on their path, we can all expect that we would be looking at a nuclear terror attack in the near future.
People are going to react for their left/right politics but the Iranian regime is a danger to the entire planet. There’s a reason that Iranian expats world wide have been celebrating in the streets.
Their biggest fear is that we are going to leave before the regime is fully removed.
Sponsoring and funding global terror networks is not a “defensive posture”. Giving speeches about nuking your enemy while secretly developing those capabilities isn’t either.
Regarding the USA-Iran war, the president of the USA has threatened to destroy essential infrastructure (e.g. electricity) if Iran doesn't surrender in 48 hours. Which, from my understanding, is a war crime. I think Trump is perfectly ok with bombing schools and hospitals.
---
[0]: https://x.com/haaretzcom/status/2035545687006298392?s=20
It's never just one mistake. It's usually a chain of mistakes and bad decisions that make the final mistake possible.
I'd estimate that there were likely 77,168,458 mistakes/bad decisions made by individuals before this mistake could happen.
It's absolutely fucking insane to downplay it like these things just happen and are unavoidable. What is wrong with you? Maybe you don't understand these are not just numbers on a screen? How many children do you know in your life? Is it even close to 150? Can you imagine every single child you know being killed and shrugging that off, insulting people who bring it up as being "sensationalist" and "polluting the conversation"?
Many people, myself included, watch very loud righteous indignation about this awful event…while hearing absolutely nothing from the same people about…
- The Iranian women’s soccer team who are returning home from asylum to likely torture and execution due to regime threats against their families.
- The thousands of Iranian protesters who were shot by the regime.
- The 19 year old wrestling champion who was executed for participating in a protest.
Nobody is saying the school wasn’t terrible, but it’s not some situation where if we just leave the regime in power it’s going to be all sunshine and roses over there.
Show equal parts outrage and people will take you more seriously. Show equal parts outrage and you will find far more outrage from leaving the regime in power.
> while hearing absolutely nothing from the same people about…
Also, really? You think anybody who opposes the US bombing a school is cheering on protestors being shot and all other crimes of the Iranian regime? Well, I guess I'll be the first: Iranian regime bad. Killing protestors bad. Executing dissenters bad. There you go. Your argument is defeated. You can no longer make that claim. But I reckon most people aren't couching their statements by bringing up the whudabbouts because first it's not the direct topic of the conversation, and second it's a fucking given. But it being a given that X is bad does not justify doing more bad things.
That genie isn’t going back in the bottle though so now we have to deal with the very real threat to the world that we certainly had a hand in creating.
Glad to hear your opposition to all of the evil as well. The desire for vocal, social righteous indignation with most of this dialog does not follow your fervor though. People remain silent until it supports their local politics, for the most part.
You should see how many innocent people US's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq killed. And that's only the ones we know of before the era of smartphones and social media where people could more easily document war crimes. Did anyone go to jail for it? No. Will anyone go to jail for killing innocent people in Iran? Also no.
Trump is gonna fuck some more shit up in the area, declare "victory" when he's bored or the political pressure gets too high while leaving the middle east in a bigger mess than it was before.
These dots don't seem hard to connect.
This is a lie. Not only is it not the stated purpose of the war, even Netanyahu himself went out of the way to say that Iran had no remaining capability to accomplish this and that was not why they were invaded.
> They currently have demonstrated missiles that can reach Europe.
The US demonstrated its missile can reach schools in Iran. Why are we more concerned with scaremongering about what hypothetical evil acts Iran could commit while downplaying the evil acts that are actually being propagated by the US?
> Why are we more concerned with scaremongering about what hypothetical evil acts Iran could commit while downplaying the evil acts that are actually being propagated by the US?
Because normal people can understand the difference between a mistake and intentional acts. And between the scales of different actions.
One of which is explicitly not Iran's nuclear capacity, as confirmed by one of the heads of state invading.
> Because normal people can understand the difference between a mistake and intentional acts.
Normal people can also understand that some things are too serious to pass off as "oopsie". We have terms like "manslaughter" or "aggravated murder" for when your reckless negligence leads to loss of human life. You are still responsible for the murders you cause when you take actions with intent that you know will lead to people dying without intending any specific one of those deaths.
But when you use autonomous targeting systems (with "human oversight" in theory) and tell your soldiers:
"no stupid rules of engagement,” “no politically correct wars,” and “no nation-building quagmire.” (Hegseth)
And the top commander says that he would intentionally kill the families of terrorists if voted into power:
https://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/02/politics/donald-trump-ter...
Then at some point I do not believe the term "mistake" is appropriate here.
You should really unpack these statements, especially if you're trying to have a "grown up conversation". You're saying that no price is too high for achieving military objectives, even those that are very unclear and unilaterally defined without justification by a easily distracted narcissist with obvious goals of distracting from his domestic problems.
In reality, in same vein quite a few US laws are set. If you are not US passport holder you are subhuman. Less rights, less care, more disposable, just a garbage to step on. We saw it enough in past 80 years to see a clear pattern everywhere US went and (mostly) failed.
For those slow in back rows - this is how you get almost endless stream of new fanatical recruits to merry groups like isis or al-queda. Dumb, supremely dumb. Yeah, 'a mistake, it can happen'. Fuck that american self-entitled rotten racist mentality. Then you wonder why whole world hates you now and what you stand for and represent. What a success story for america in past year.
None of that happened because the US was unprepared for this war. It was Bibi's idea and Trump is weak and incompetent so he just went along with it, ironically because he thought it would avoid making him look weak and incompetent.
Trump is what a weak man imagines a strong man to be like. Just look at his official portrait [1], trying to look tough and dangerous. Compare that to Dwight D. Eisenhower's portrait [2], a man who commanded entire armies in the largest war in human history.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump#/media/File:Offic...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower#/media/Fi...
I have heard more than one Trump-defender say “well they would have grown up to attack us.”
Like, yes, evil military planners did sat down and said "rules of engagement are woke, the working groups handling civilian safety are waste of money, be maximum lethal".
Also, they had no stable military objectives except "make my insecure masculinity feel manly".
"https://www.euractiv.com/news/denmark-considered-destroying-..."
Unpleasant if this escalates.
Also, the gasoline prices are only "momentary" up, if the whole area does not burst into flames. Then it doesn't matter if the trait is closed, as no more oil is being produced.
The only bright side is, this is a great push for renewables.
Trump's attitude towards NATO member state spend it widely publicized [0] so I don't think there's much to debate here. Trump wanted member states to spend more, not less.
He was somewhat prescient during his 45th presidency, given what happened in Ukraine in 2022 and how it forced US to spend huge amounts of money and military hardware which the EU simply didn't have. Maybe with a stronger standing EU army, that invasion would not have happened in the first place.
[0] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01495933.2021.19...
Yes. By design. But if the US decouples, the rest of the countries can and will make their own alliance, with blackjack and hookers. Greenland thing is peak wierdness and the only explanation of it would be pride, stupidity or active undermining of NATO.
> Trump's attitude towards NATO member state spend it widely publicized [0] so I don't think there's much to debate here. Trump wanted member states to spend more, not less.
Yes. But, you have a very shallow reading of this and you're taking things at face value. He latched on the spending as a pretext, and as a way to increase US income for the defense industry. He doesn't give a rat's ass about the security of NATO countries. US has entered a very transactional, bully, phase and this is a bad way to maintain international standing.
- Europe's monetary aid for Ukraine far outweighs that of the US.
- The US military aid for Ukraine mostly consisted of old and obsolete hardware.
- Since about a year or so, all weapons and munitions delivered by the US are paid for by Europe.
Huh, I wonder what happened a year or so ago? What could have led to the US cutting off so much support? /s
I'm confused how this interpretation could ever come about. No, I mean his point about "Trump trying to bolster NATO" is comic, as Trump is actively weakening NATO, no matter his stated goals wrt. improving funding and having member states "carry their load". _Especially_ his threats to Greenland and Canada, for no apparent reason. It's really mind-boggling. Perhaps my fault, since I expect mental consistency from post-truth populists and authoritarians.
We've still got some kind of karmic notion that inconsistency is bad for you in the long run. Maybe it is, but that run keeps getting longer and longer.
Not that my country fared any better with this kind of rhetoric in last couple of years. But we don't have the democratic tradition as rich as you had (or at least I felt you had). I feel like despair will be the feeling for me this decade.
All he wanted was EU to buy more US weapons (also to help with his wars). Guess what is happening now, we still do buy US weapons where there is no other choice, but apart from that, we build and buy our own things now. Try to get rid of US software depenencies - in general, get rid of any dependency we have towards you. If this was Trump's goal, great job I have to say.
Problem is that Trump wants to eat the cake and have it too. If we’re no longer being protected by the US then US companies should not expect preferential laws and access to the EU market.
Europe didn't slack off militarily during the Cold War. Germany, for example, poured massive amounts of money and resources into the Bundeswehr to be able to fend of the Soviets. The US relied as much on the European members of NATO as the Europeans did on the US.
After the Cold War, both the US and Europe scaled back their military spending and enjoyed the peace dividend. It was only after 2001 that the US increased its budget again – but to fight insurrectionist wars (which EU members aren't particularly interested in), not in a peer conflict. They're not prepared for a pro-longed war against a near-peer power.
So although I agree that Europe should be rearming heavily, and should have started in 2022 at the very latest, it's not like the US did really much better. They're really good at curb-stomping much weaker opponents, like Venezuela or Iran, but they haven't seriously prepared for a war against China.
That remains to be seen, though. Really winning that war requires either lots of boots on the ground and a long occupation (where the outcome might still be like in Afghanistan) or using nukes, which could escalate quite badly for us all. There is a reason no other POTUS has attacked Iran before.
Of course Trump can at every point in time just declare victory and leave the mess to all others for cleaning up. That is the most likely outcome, IMHO.
Given how much money the US has given Israel compared to how tiny their GDP is it is also clear the US financially owns Israel. If I were US president I would annex Israel so that they no longer determine US foreign policy. Of course Israel would agree to be annexed because otherwise they can be easily isolated like the way they isolate Gaza.
Who, the US? Quite obedient I'd say.
But the most important question is, what's next? If depriving tens of millions of people of energy doesn't work, what will he do next?
One hypothesis is he'll threaten Iran with a nuclear strike. In response, either China or Russia or both, will say that's a line that cannot be crossed.
And then, we will either all die, or be living in a world saved by authoritarian regimes from the irresponsibility of the US.
It will be interesting! But probably extremely unpleasant.
Did you not see the lead up to the 2024 election and all the whining about how Biden, specifically, caused gasoline prices to go up? This is a very important issue to Americans because we use gas cars to go everywhere and all our food is transported using vehicles that consume gas. GP is obviously being rhetorical here because MAGAs wouldn't stop railing on Biden for global COVID inflation (mostly out of his control) but they're now making excuses for Trump starting a war that's spiking gas prices.
Yes, that's it. The only reason for imperialism is "what's in it for me".
All the rest is bullshit.
Source: I am not American, therefore I know American Imperialism when I see it.
https://strait-sweeper.franzai.com/
Also the ship is not explained at all (the graphics, the controls, the systems). I'd recommend at least a one paragraph help section in the menu.
God, I used to be _really_ into Minesweeper.
One of the earliest games I made back in college was a 3D Minesweeper cube. I remember being really proud of one little detail – the detection and automatic resolution of ambiguous clues that would require guessing, which always annoyed the heck out of me in every other version of Minesweeper.
That likely means US and Israel. Unclear if countries like the UK that are facilitating the US through use of their bases would be considered legitimate targets (likely yes).
Remember, the strait is not Iranian property, but International waters. So no one would have to ask them for permission, but that is the way it is and most do not risk it (insurance won't cover).
That seems to depend on who you ask. Iran has expressed a differing opinion on the matter and appears to be capable of striking the area in practice.
Also something Chinese fishing ships do around the galapagos and other regions to fish illegally.
> Before the war, about 138 ships passed through the strait each day according to the Joint Maritime Information Centre, carrying one fifth of the global oil supply.
> The data provided by shipping analysts Kpler shows 99 vessels passing the narrow strait so far this month, an average of just 5-6 vessels a day.
I mean, it's bad, but it's factually not a minefield. The threat isn't coming from mines anyway.
That's not clear. Mines are generally concealed. It's the reason that mine-sweeping is slow and dangerous.
And there's no public information (AFAIK) that let's us rule out mines having been, or even currently being, laid.
There might be mines in the straight that are sophisticated enough to be armed, disarmed, or moved on command, or there might not. There might be artillery emplacements* hidden and not found, ready to pop up... or there might not. There are probably still plenty of drones and missiles all over the country that can be called down on Hormuz at will. Iran might choose to save them for something else... or they might not.
If a few oil tankers get through without Iran's permission, one might conclude everything Iran has in place has been found and that the straight is safe. Then again, it might not be. The Iranians might save a few choice surprises for the first aircraft carrier that gets too close. They might also choose to actually sink a large ship**, blocking the straight long-term. The Iranian regime has been planning specifically for a U.S. invasion since it's inception*** and they probably have some very well hidden and nasty surprises as well as plans to use them to maximum effect.
Merchant vessels can't get insurance to go through because of all this uncertainty. The U.S. Navy has completely refused to go in there because losing a multi-billion dollar military vessel along with hundreds or thousands of sailors for a war that's already unpopular would likely knock the U.S. out of it completely. This is why Trump is desperate for other nations to come in and clear the straight. He doesn't care if they lose ships, but he can't afford to lose even one American ship for a "Wag the Dog" war that's already exploded the budget.
-------------------
*The straight is narrow enough that artillery can actually cover it. Even the most sophisticated anti-missile defence systems aren't meant to deal with artillery shells fired from nearly point blank range.
**The straight has only a couple of channels deep enough for large vessels to transit. One or two well positioned wrecks could block the works.
*** They rebelled against a Shah installed by a CIA backed coup after all.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/20/risk-london...
And even then: "after you" ... "no, I insist, after you" ...
This is a sovereign nation that is being attacked by a waning superpower. It's war and they are retaliating in really the only way that they can force America to back off - which is make the war really expensive and even more unpopular domestically.
Do you understand the concept of asymmetrical warfare? Hiding hundreds of launchers, firing them, and losing them is already accounted for by Iran, while a decent chance of losing any asset going through is prohibitively expensive. The strait is closed.
I don’t quite agree with making fun of the situation that’s deadly serious to many innocent people. Yet I’m sure the intentions of the author were good.
Hoping for peace.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/03/politics/us-sends-plane-iran-...
> Washington CNN — The Obama administration secretly arranged a plane delivery of $400 million in cash on the same day Iran released four American prisoners and formally implemented the nuclear deal, US officials confirmed Wednesday.
Obviously Republicans decried it with bad faith bullshit because reality and sanity don't matter to them.
With that money they chose to massacre their own people and fund terrorism across the region.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Iran_massacres
Now we're spending a multiple of that literally every day for this war. And screwing the global economy in the process. Is this a better deal?
"I'm glad someone is finally doing something about it rather than sending palettes of cash on an jet to radical Muslims."
Point is you can mock Trump with your minesweeper game and jeer from the sidelines, but it's a better policy than sending bad guys money.
The corruption and incompetence are both unprecedented, but you keep doing your dance!
You mean the US bipartisan strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Is there any plan to do this differently to those expensive failures?
Why are you asking me? You can listen to the secretary of war (a veteran of those wars) and the president describe their strategy themselves. They are extremely transparent.
The difference is the US had bad intelligence and acknowledges it's a tragedy. The regime intentionally murders by the thousands and would murder more if it wasn't thwarted by the US and Israel. And somehow you're more upset about the former not the latter.
> Since the beginning of the 2025–2026 Iranian protests, the government of Iran has perpetrated widespread massacres of civilians, deploying both its own security forces and also imported foreign militias to suppress widespread public dissent across the country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Iran_massacres
You missed the entire point of my comment: to us it's a tragedy. To them it's a strategy. That's why we're bombing them in the first place. They are commiting genocide.
No once can stop it alone But it can be stopped
This is America, the country willing to do the unconscionable when they're not winning fast enough.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
It never ceases to amaze me that demonstrating such a weapon on civilian targets somehow made it past the entire chain of command. One of those things that I just can't wrap my head around no matter how many times I come back to it.
The sites in question were also specifically selected because they hadn't previously faced conventional attack, enabling a more accurate damage assessment.
Which, by the way, illustrates a related point: Hiroshima and Nagasaki had stiff competition. WWII was devastating, to cities and civilians all over the map. More people died in the conventional bombing of Tokyo than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. I think the atomic bombs represented some 2 weeks worth of casualties in a war that lasted 300.
You completely misunderstood that. Take into account that you see the swords failing all around you whilst one nation effectively messed up the rest of the world through propaganda and maybe you'll begin to understand the true meaning of that sentence.
Information, used well or abused well, is more powerful than any other weapon of war.
Indeed, because people with the swords will decide on that information who to slain or who to defend. If you do it right, you don't need to fight the enemy soldiers, but they will fight for you.
Playing by the book of fear uncertainty and doubt is going to foster hate, distrust and suspicion/paranoia.
I will now go listen to the words of a bloodthirsty fascist. Thank you for the advice.
"Only true power is respected"—what’s this even supposed to mean? Right now, the American military is shooting with all its mighty glory on Iran, yet loosing the war, money, and yes, respect from the rest of the world. Well, except for Putin maybe, who is unilaterally benefiting from this disaster.
This little incel power fantasy of rule by force you guys are cooking up there is complete and utter bollocks.
This would all be funny if it wasn't so sad.
Although the American troops are wildly disproportionately “white” because that is historically the pool of peasants the people with the pen draw on to sacrifice and murder for their wars, if you look at the forces and the US military in general, it’s the most diverse, multi-cultural, rainbow coalition in existence on this planet. You literally have people of every race, ethnicity, and nationality included in a rainbow of killing and they are proud of it; yet here we are being sarcastic about it being as simple as “whites” killing “browns”, not realizing that just demonstrates the pen’s lingering albeit still useful control over the mind.
Your point is well made though, the pen is indeed far more powerful when it can hide in plain sight the multi-cultural, rainbow coalition, diversity sword of the maniacal, narcissistic, psychopathic, child raping, Epstein class right in front of you.
The pen is indeed far mightier than the sword
Racism isn't necessarily perfectly confined to color, it's just a convenient shorthand so people can do what they want to do anyway.
I do sometimes wonder how Americans would react if I told them the palest person I know is Iraqi.
But I agree, the pen controlling “racism” in ways that always coincide with ruling class objectives is very correct. It is something people have never understood over the centuries, even at the height of slavery, that it’s always been the parasitic and perfidious, thieving Epstein class of their day who manipulate things like “race” with the common objective being keeping themselves at the top to parasitize everyone else, by forcing and keeping the multitude fighting in many different ways.
I figure that if you are racist enough you're welcome to the Klan, no matter what your actual skin color.
That is a false equivalence, ignoring the countless criminals that have been removed from our neighborhoods.
One of THOUSANDS of examples below. You want this guy as your neighbor, really?
Kindness to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
"Eduardo Temoxtle-Calihua, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico, convicted for cruelty toward a child and DUI in Lincoln County, Idaho."
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/03/16/ice-continued-arrest-mur...
I was expecting some curve balls at the end with undecidable constellations but it was all quite straightforward.
Edit: For the record this actually happened 10 years ago under Obama.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/03/politics/us-sends-plane-iran-...
> Washington CNN — The Obama administration secretly arranged a plane delivery of $400 million in cash on the same day Iran released four American prisoners and formally implemented the nuclear deal, US officials confirmed Wednesday.
Most American post I have seen here since ages.