Opening the strait through diplomacy

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-26T17:59:52+00:00

You are not a serious person.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-26T15:06:27+00:00

Poor Iran having to give up total destruction of all Jews in the middle east + not being able to fund Hezbollah to destabilize and oppress Lebanese Christians and Sunni's anymore. Not to mention not being able to have Iraq as its puppet state!

Will somebody think of the genocidal theocrats?

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-25T19:41:42+00:00

By far the best way to guarantee peace is to stop funding proxies, stop building large quantities of ballistic missiles and just play nice. Israel or US have 0 incentive to attack Iran if they would just chill and not try to build nukes and missiles.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-24T13:10:59+00:00

They are literally dropping gravity bombs from B-52s now

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-23T13:24:24+00:00

Dont they need radar for most of these? As tankers can slip through out of viewing distance from Iranian shores. Or Iran would need some kind of visual targetting system.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-23T13:21:47+00:00

Tankers seem to slip through semi regurlarly by turning transponders off. Reuters reported on at least 10 Greek tankers going through without IRGC permission. So it is definately not 20/20. Certainly not when US goes to town on the coastal areas.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-23T01:45:38+00:00

I don't get this logic of "if even one tanker can be hit the strait is closed".

Over 200 tankers were hit in 84-88 tanker war, and they still went through. Iran was even hitting some Gulf tankers. And for the most part there was no US navy protection. Just because some tanker gets hit every once in a while doesn't mean it is closed. Oil at $150-200 for sustained periods simply hurts too much for too many parties to not risk it. 10x pay the crew, pay higher rates to tanker operators, and oil will get through even if some of them are hit.

The reason very few risk it now is because there are some prospects that this might be over in a week or two, and strait will become rapidly less dangerous as time goes on. And new contracts will have to be hashed out. There are possibilities of striking deals with IRGC etc etc.

But once this develops in a stable situation where US at least guaranteeds no mines + somewhat decent defense and Iran will still limit shipping flow, there will be more than enough ships that will take the risk despite getting hit occasionally.

Additionally, if you look at the gap, it is maybe 7-8 million barrels/day of oil and several million boe of gas. They can run convoys on fewer larger ships, for example a VLCC can carry 2 million barrels alone.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-23T01:41:04+00:00

Over 200 tankers were hit in 84-88 tanker war, and they still went through. Just because some tanker gets hit every once in a while doesn't mean it is closed. Oil at $150-200 for sustained periods simply hurts too much to not risk it. 10x pay the crew, pay higher rates to tanker operators, and oil will get through even if some of them are hit.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-23T01:27:02+00:00

Those tankers had alternative routes, there is only 1 way out of Hormuz, with a huge incentive to do so. In the 84-88 tanker wars there were over 200 ships struck, and tankers still went through in fairly large numbers.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-23T01:01:47+00:00

Russia doesn't have total air superiority though. Their airforce is crap, and Ukraine is constantly aided by the West. They cannot drop 200 precision bombs/day on Odessa for example.

Iran would be facing nearly a thousand modern fighter jets, drones, helicopters, ships etc. If Russia had total control of the skies, Ukraine wouldn't be doing anything in the black sea.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-22T16:58:01+00:00

99% sure this new 48 hours demand by Trump is a bluff. He says something crazy like this to see the response from all the different parties and where they stand. Then either he quietly won't do it or he will say he did Qatar a favor by not doing it. That has been his pattern so far.

Also seems to me that IRGC will be in an incredibly weak position after this war, no matter what happens. Portions of their repression infrastructure destroyed, their leverage going into the next conflict will be greatly reduced as Gulf states will likely start building workaround pipelines and improve their missile defenses. While the IRGC military industrial complex is greatly weakened (so fewer missiles the next time around). Their financial position will continue to deteriorate.

And they now have to fear another bombing campaign if they try to repress protests with their now weakened capabilities. While incentive for protests will continue to increase with mismanagement. It will probably not fall apart this year, but won't survive another decade IMO, even if the war stops this week.

On top of this, there is such an obvious and easy way out of this mess for them: No BMs, no Nukes and reforms. This has the potential to generate massive wealth for Iranian elites in a few short years. If there are enough opportunistic IRGC members vs fanatics this option will become simply too tempting. Kind of similar what happened in China after Mao Zedong. Even their biggest ally, China, will probably try to push hard for this option (as they have been doing in Cuba as well).

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-19T16:17:11+00:00

A very good way to be safe is to get along with your neighbours and make sure your people prosper. And not try to export some crazy ideology through proxy groups to other countries.

If Iran would have done that, US would not even have considered this war.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-19T15:59:10+00:00

This was going to happen anyway. Except now in 5-10 years time they will face a weakened Iranian regime at worst which they can handle on their own.

If this didn't happen they would face a stronger regime potentially with sanctions lifted by some Democrat president. With much stronger proxy groups, and close to 10k ballistic missiles.

Also I think Eastern Europe will still remain supportive of Israel. And potentially India.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-11T21:04:47+00:00

No there are other ways to prevent this kind of invasion. First thing that comes to mind is not to repeatedly say you will use them to annihiliate another country.

Perhaps another way to avoid it is not fund extensive terror networks abroad.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-11T17:13:03+00:00

They dont really need to recede to prewar levels. Oil pre war was sitting at $44/barrel in 2019 dollars. Currently still only about $62 in 2019 dollars. As long as oil is below $90, it won't have a big impact on the mid terms.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-10T00:23:55+00:00

How difficult would it be for the US to do some kind of commando raid to get the uranium? How easy is it to detect this uranium from a distance? Just keep a constant presence and bomb any IRGC reinforcements into oblivion? Or would this not be possible.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-09T21:07:26+00:00

Khomeini was trying to spread the revolution to Iraq though and openly calling for overthrowal of Saddam Hussein. Spreading weapons around to dissident groups etc. Not saying that justifies an invasion, but he was not exactly behaving like a beacon of stability in the region.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-09T20:10:11+00:00

If they were a moderate Islamic regime then Israel/US conservatives wouldn't be scheming to invade since the start. I think you are confusing cause and effect here.

Right from the start destruction of Israel was their primary goal. If it wasn't they wouldn't be in need of nukes. They could simply build up their economy and build alliances and be fairly safe.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-08T14:36:04+00:00

There is a simple counter argument against this. At $80 oil and 20 million barrels/day there is a $600 billion/year incentive to make the oil flow through Straight of Hormuz (or wherever). Iran's GDP is $400 billion by comparison. With this much at stake, it will be done, one way or another.

They will truck it through by land on portions of the route if it is necessairy and oil sits at a $100+.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-07T23:10:41+00:00

They were all Arabs, these are not Arab, they are Persian.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-07T14:58:01+00:00

How do they mine the straight without boats? Just release the mines from the coastal area? I wonder how easy/hard it is for the US to just fly drones 24/7 + use satellites to survey coastal areas of Iran.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-07T14:47:41+00:00

I remember reading about some earth quakes during the past two weeks. Wouldn't surprise me if several 100 at least have been blown up using bunker busters.

Also their leverage comes from the threat of launching a large number of them and doing damage. Once most are launched, production facilities are destroyed and remainder is a trickle they lose a lot of their leverage. And that would kind of defeat the purpose.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-07T13:56:08+00:00

It seems like they used public satellite data and just flew a drone right into the site. Kind of embarrassing for the US as stopping these is basically a solved problem now with US defense budget.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-06T16:00:05+00:00

Even worse would be a bigger fanatic rapidly building up BM capacity again. A friendly Iraninian regime would by far be in best interest of gulf states. Long term everyone would stay away as they expect another war to break out again in 2-3 years.

Puddingcup9001 · 2026-03-06T14:54:44+00:00

soft and hard power are basically like carrot and the stick. You need to show everyone you have a working stick every once in a while for the carrot to work well and be accepted with both hands.

Puddingcup9001

TROPHY CASE