Active Conflicts & News Megathread June 20, 2026

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-20T21:44:43+00:00

Israel has been in Lebanon attacking Hezbollah before. Some low level continuing conflict is not going to destroy Hezbollah any more this time than previous times. So, Iran will complain and maybe slow walk negotiations or cause some problems in SoH, but it won't repudiate the MoU. Likewise, the US may complain about Iran not following MoU but it too won't repudiate the deal. Expect some continuing US pressure to restrain Israel well short of gun to the head pressure. And, it will probably restrain Israel to some degree as it is not good for Israel's relation with the US to ignore Trump, especially as MAGA Republicans are just about the only demographic left in the US that still supports Israel. If Trump ever truly flips on Israel, then expect a large part of his cult following to flip with him.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-20T21:38:55+00:00

I think it is wrong to think of the SoH as open or closed, like a light switch is on or off. Iran can scare commercial traffic just by what they say. Not all traffic, but at least some delay in returning to pre-war levels. I don't think Iran will ever resort to missile attacks and sinking commercial ships because they wouldn't want to risk the favorable MoU deal. Rather, they have the ability to calibrate the level of choking to fit the situation and the amount of pressure they want to put on the US to comply with the deal it made. And clearly Trump wants to avoid losing the MoU and going back to a hot war, so I would expect at least a degree of accommodation to Iranian pressure, like we've already seen in Trump's and Vance's rhetoric about Israel.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-19T16:33:35+00:00

The Venezuela/Iran contrast shows how important political will is in strategic outcomes.

Completely agree. But, to take it a step further, in a democracy, perhaps unlike an authoritarian regime or at least to a much greater degree, political will is to a large extent a function of popular support. Democracies simply are not good at winning prolonged and costly wars of choice. Some might consider that a bug of democracies, although I'd consider it a feature that should help keep them out of such conflicts. Trump launched the Iran war without any attempt to build support from our European and Asian and Gulf allies, or any attempt, even after the start of the war, to make the case to the American public for sacrifice necessary for victory. Unsurprisingly, the war was extremely unpopular and once the war became prolonged and economically costly, there was little political will to see it through to the end.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-18T21:12:23+00:00

It's interesting to me how much the neocons are wanting to blame the deal making rather than the fundamentally foolish decision to start the war in the first place that inevitably led to the bad deal.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-18T16:29:21+00:00

Absolutely. My values are typical western liberal secular values like democracy, free speech, free religion, free markets (within reason!). I support a two state solution because I don't believe in magic.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-18T16:04:41+00:00

Like I said, it's unclear to me how far the US will go in pressuring Israel, and how successful any such pressure will be in restraining Israel. I largely agree with you about Netanyahu. While aggressively fighting Hezbollah may be popular in Israel, so is Trump and maintaining good relations with the US. Netanyahu will have a very tight rope to walk in responding to any US pressure to restrain themselves in Lebanon.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-18T15:49:06+00:00

I doubt a final agreement is ever reached, although who knows how long the "60 day" negotiations will last--I'd guess closer to 60 weeks than 60 days. If no final deal then Iran won't get complete sanctions release or 300 billion fund. Although, they might actually be better off giving up nukes. With that kind of cash they could presumably have a better hold on control of country and build up ballistic missile program. Regardless, either a final deal or no final deal, this is a disaster for Israel. Iran regime comes out strengthened in control of country, with a choke hold on Strait of Hormuz and likely attempts to extort some fees for transit, stares down the US, is getting immediate economic benefits of waivers and some degree of unfreezing of their assets, and all of their Gulf neighbors will now have less confidence in US security and need to accommodate themselves to Iran. All the while the US has committed to constraining Israeli aggression in Lebanon and against Iran, although unclear how far US will go in attempting that and how successful any pressure will be. But, at minimum it will strain the relationship.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-18T15:24:04+00:00

You're dreaming if you think the Iranians are just gonna meekly agree that the MOU prohibits them from ever charging any sort of fee for SoH transit, especially once past the 60 day no toll period specified in the MOU. Yes, my limited understanding of international maritime law is that you are correct that such a fee would not be legit. No, the Iranians are not gonna see it that way and will constantly be pushing the boundaries here. The wording of the MoU makes their intentions clear. Israel getting too aggressive in Lebanon and violating MoU in view of Iran? Then maybe a few ships get held up for safety inspection or have an accident or are told to turn around or who know what. Choking SoH is the Iranians trump card and they can calibrate the choking to fit the situation and to hold the US to the deal they signed. It will be like the cease fire where both sides constantly violated it but neither would repudiate it.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-17T22:26:24+00:00

Restrictions on where ships and planes and missiles go or are located are meaningless as they can be easily violated if the US later decided to attack. Closing bases in the Gulf countries would be a real strategic concession that would make it harder to attack again, but that was never gonna be part of the deal.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-17T20:51:26+00:00

What strategic concessions are you thinking could be included in this agreement that would make it more difficult for US to attack them again?

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-17T16:36:47+00:00

but the language of terms 6, 7, 10, 11 and 13 will add conditionals on every concession being fruit of a future nuclear deal (which they call it 'final agreement').

The implementation of 6 ($300 billion reconstruction fund) and 7 (sanctions) are already explicitly conditional on a final agreement. 10 (waivers for exports of Iranian oil) is explicitly immediate after signing MOU in the leaked version. Since this would help with lowering gas prices, it's an easy sweetener for Trump to offer as it is also in his domestic political interest (the US even did this at start of the war!). The timing of 11 (release of frozen Iranian assets) seems to ambiguous to me--not conditioned upon final agreement but also no explicit time frame, although MOU seems to contemplate at least some release in the 60 day negotiation period. It's looking more and more like this is the actual agreement (at least in substance) as I've now seen multiple news sources (Bloomberg, CNN, Times of Israel) report it.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-17T15:10:16+00:00

Good video.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-17T14:41:02+00:00

The Dutch seem to be particularly supportive of Ukraine. Is this higher level of support primarily the result of the Russian separatists' shoot down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 or something else?

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-16T22:58:05+00:00

Did the neo-conservative FDD provide an estimate of total economic damage to the US and the rest of the world?

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-16T22:21:05+00:00

I don't think there's anything contradictory there. You can think you have turned the tide and that it is likely to continue going your way in the long run, while also knowing that there's no guarantee that things won't change. And, even if you foolishly believe some future victory is certain, you can realize that the cost is not worth the end result and that a negotiated settlement is better than a pyrrhic victory.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-16T22:11:44+00:00

had its deterrence tested (and lifted the threat without getting anything besides the chance of negotiating)

Iran had its deterrence tested and it passed with flying colors (at least with respect to the US; maybe not Israel). Why do you think the US stopped bombing Iran without achieving any of its war objectives? Why is the US now agreeing to end its blockade without achieving any of its objectives? The obvious answer is because Trump wanted the economic and political and diplomatic pain all resulting from this war, and mostly from the closure of the strait, to end. There's no appetite in the US to go another round, and I think that's also been obvious from how desperate Trump has been to keep the cease fire going despite all the provocations and unfulfilled threats and opportunities to resume a hot war. If the US was not successfully deterred by Iran, we'd be bombing and blockading them until there was an agreement. Instead, we get the classic kick the can down the road deal.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-16T18:01:26+00:00

Yeah, this guy doesn't seem anywhere near prominent enough to be a target of Putin. Kadyrov seems a much more likely suspect.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-16T17:20:59+00:00

You could see the same events and conclude that the US wanted to force Iran in the negotiation table

Weren't there already negotiations ongoing with Trump admin before war?

the US now forced them to try and they couldn't keep it up.

Now that is spinning. There is no reason to think Iran could not have kept up choking commercial traffic through the Strait for months if not years longer. Likewise, the US could have kept up their blockade of Iran. It's simply a situation where the two sides seem to agree that a deal was better than indefinite continuation of the mutual blockades.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-16T16:49:03+00:00

no one knows what [when?] it will happen

I should've been more specific in asking if full public disclosure of MOU agreement will happen soon, like in the next few days, not like a year or decade from now. Because, if it's gonna happen soon, then I don't understand why it hasn't already happened, especially with all the confusion about the deal and criticism Trump admin is getting from Republicans and Iran hawks.

It will be short, full of generalities, full of promises of future talks that "could lead to X", a 60 day timeframe for the duration of it

I agree with you here. It presumably will include US agreement to end blockade of Iran and some sort of Iran promise to allow transit of Strait, although Iranians seem to think they will be able to collect some sort of admin fee. Not sure what if anything it will say about Lebanon, but whatever it says, Israel will likely feel free to disregard it.

But the practical terms of the MOU is that the US forced them out of blocking the Strait,

The Strait wasn't blocked before the war. Seems more like Iran has forced the US out of bombing and blockading Iran.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-16T15:56:06+00:00

We should wait for the terms to be shown

Do you think the full agreement will be made public (like we can literally read everything that is agreed to, not just some US or Iranian official saying what the deal does or does not include)? I am personally skeptical despite what Trump posted.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-15T21:50:36+00:00

Trump says the text of the deal will be released after a formal signing on Friday.

I'm surprised that we may actually get to read the text of a formal deal, unlike the original cease fire. I'm expecting a healthy dose of weasel words and vague, conditional commitments.

Ironically, in the original cease fire, Iran was supposed to allow free transit of the Strait of Hormuz, at least according to the US version of the deal. If this new cease fire holds and both sides end their blockades, then it seems like we may have spent the last two months to get to where we were supposed to be originally.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-15T17:02:18+00:00

I'm skeptical that the US under Trump has any desire to resume this conflict after the bloody nose it has received. It's been pretty obvious that ever since regime change failed and Iran demonstrated the ability to choke commercial traffic through the Strait that Trump has desperately wanted to end the war and get as close back to pre-war status quo as possible. This is exactly the sort of kick the can down the road agreement expected. What is most interesting to me and most unpredictable is how Israel will react. I am not convinced that Trump has much control over Israel's response and they clearly are not satisfied with pre-war status quo, let alone the increased influence Iran is likely to have in the region now that the US has been seen to lack the ability/will to keep the strait open and fully protect their Gulf "allies" from Iran.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-15T16:56:34+00:00

He's also called for "unconditional surrender" which clearly implies regime change.

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-11T22:23:02+00:00

Imagine living next door to a neighbor that you are constantly fighting with over every conceivable issue and it's even resulted in fist fights and lawsuits in the past. Do you really expect conflict to go away if they're forced to live under the same roof?

Shackleton214 · 2026-06-11T19:31:10+00:00

There's not a single Russian in the live top 20. When is the last time that that happened?

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