Trump Tells Aides He's Willing to End War Without Reopening Hormuz | Hacker News Reader

Trump Tells Aides He's Willing to End War Without Reopening Hormuz

wsj.com

38 pointsJimmc41432 comments

Iran has four times the land area and over three times the population that Iraq did at the start of Bush Jr.'s war, plus they've been preparing for an invasion by the U.S. specifically since 1979. Bush assembled a large coalition of many allies to share the costs, but the U.S. is still struggling with the debt that resulted from the second Iraq war. A land war in Iran would bankrupt the U.S. and the Iranians know it. Occupying the entire country is also the only way to secure the straight of Hormuz by force, because every part of Iran is within drone range of Hormuz. For the IRGC, this is a threat to their very existence. They are very much on what Sun Tzu would consider "desperate ground". For the U.S., this invasion is a "wag the dog" operation that is devoid of concrete policy goals.

To put things in Trump's parlance, Iran has the cards and the U.S. doesn't. If Trump is going to declare victory and TACO, he's going to have to accept Iranian control of Hormuz and pay for the passage of ships. This is going to take epic levels of reality distortion to sell as a win, but the alternative is far worse.

This is going to take epic levels of reality distortion to sell as a win, but the alternative is far worse.

I don't think he can pull it off this time. I think he's finally gone too far.

Netanyahu and Hegseth may have unwittingly accomplished what Clinton and Harris couldn't.

> I think he's finally gone too far.

He'll be fine. It should be pretty clear by now that 40% of the country prefers Trump regardless of policy.

It's fallen below 40% for the first time, per Nate Silver, and that poll was taken before this story came out.

If he follows through on his threat to destroy all of Iran's petroleum infrastructure, fuel prices will rise to unprecedented levels and remain there for a very long time. He will not be able to blame anyone else. People will plaster gas pumps with "I did that!" stickers, only with Trump's picture this time, rather than Biden's.

And it still won't force Iran to open the Strait. He has no good options there. Iran is second only to Russia when it comes to shrugging off staggering losses in wartime. Trump cannot force the Iranians to do much of anything without either invading them or nuking them. If he does the former, the resulting carnage will cost him his remaining support among Republicans at all levels including the MAGA faithful. If he does the latter, he's definitely finished.

Nuking won't accomplish anything anyway. There's no obvious target that would "defeat" Iran given the seemingly decentralized command structure, and using nuclear weapons anywhere near the Strait would render it unusable.

>the resulting carnage will cost him his remaining support among Republicans at all levels *including the MAGA faithful*

Doubt

It will cost him some of his remaining support among the MAGA faithful. Some of them are just in love with Trump, or at least with the image Trump presents. Some are in love with Trump's (stated) policies, like "America first" and "no new wars".

And even of those who are in love with Trump's image, this may tarnish the image enough for some of them to fall out of love with it.

It won't cost him all of MAGA. But it will cost him some.

I mean personally even a white Christian european country Ukraine didn't garner much maga support, Iran are "brown Muslims" and the "enemy". I feel it doesn't have much impact except for the truly ideologically antiwar otherwise most magas seem to without much difficulty flit between contradictory opinions, especially if Trump said it. It will cost some of the support yes, but I think that's because of people like Tucker Carlson.

To clarify my point above, I meant "the resulting carnage" among America's armed forces, not Iran's.

MAGA obviously doesn't care about carnage that we dole out to the Iranians, including Iranian children, but they presumably will object to a tide of body bags arising from the actions of a President who promised them "No more foreign wars."

Approval rating is different from preference, which is what the OP was talking about. He may have only a 40% approval rating, but if the approval rating of a putative Democratic opponent is lower, he'd still win an election.

Of course he (supposedly) can't be on the ballot any more, but a midterm election is always seen as a referendum on the President. If Democrats win in November they have some ability to hamper his ability to do... whatever it is people voted for him to do.

A 40% approval rating for the President doesn't bode especially well for him in November. But "Democrats in Congress" have an 18% approval rating, so voters aren't thrilled with them, either.

> I don't think he can pull it off this time. I think he's finally gone too far.

I'm honestly not sure there is a 'too far' for his fans.

US can just keep bombing Iran into nineteenth century. The very least this will accomplish is no more ballistic missiles for Iran and its affiliated terrorist organizations around the region.

I think Iran getting nukes will probably be the best outcome on balance. It should be a damper on Israeli willy nilly belligerence which is the chief source of issues in that region. Iran hasn't nuked anyone and didn't even particularly wanted to build nukes that hard. Israel is the only country in that region wil illegal nukes so if anyone is an existential threat who must be bombed it should be Israel. But really, rather noboby bomb anyone and to this end Iran getting nukes and perhaps some Arab countries building nukes in response should calm them down.

Iran getting nukes is the worst outcome, it will mean full impunity Hezbollah and Houthis. think this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houthi_attacks_on_commercial_v...

but backed by nuclear power. Look at the weapons listed in that table, where do you think a cave dwelling terrorist in Yemen gets its hands on a cruise missile, or anti-ship ballistic missile. Its not like they make those in house. It was all Iran.

>Houthi forces began attacking shipping vessels affiliated with Israel passing through the Red Sea on 19 November 2023.

It says but then of course says later on they started attacking more, I am not sure I can take these unreliable persons on face value on the fact that only ships reaching Israel were being targeted. But if that's true I have no problems, I am not Israeli and if they aren't bothering anyone else that will only serve to cool down Israeli warmongering and indiscriminate violence further.

I absolutely do not like any party in this but Israel seems the most misbehaving of the lot. With parties I hate, the best possible outcome is to keep them at razors edge of each others capabilities and busy with each other. In that light, currently I hope Iran bolsters itself and obtains nukes. I doubt it'd increase their belligerence much, rather the more important outcome is that it makes Israel think a bit more before starting brazen invasions of Iran, and should hopefully quickly lead to the gulf countries developing their own nukes causing a balancing of powers. The gulfs weird subservience to Israel would no longer be as much of a geopolitical necessity for them effectively making warmaking quite tough for Israel and silencing most of the violence in the region.

I seriously doubt that it will accomplish that.

> Bush assembled a large coalition of many allies to share the costs

Assembled, and also blackmailed UN security council.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5431890/

The movie synopsis you posted says that the plot was revealed and didn't go ahead.

Iran is making a lot of money with their "troll gate". [0]

I am sure that the great negotiator would be willing to end hostilities if they merely split the money with him. That follows his usual pattern of settling disputes he can't win.

[0] https://www.lloydslist.com/LL1156720/Tehrans-toll-booth-syst...

It's actually not that much money in terms of price for end consumers, if the figures are around 2mio USD per ship as reported then it's like a 0.5-2% tax (depends on ship type and cargo).

That said, obviously it's a huge amount of money for Iran.

https://archive.is/ivJeE

Unfortunately the links beyond the first page of comments don't work, but if the visible comments are anything to go by, wow. Trump dun goofed. You get the sense that he's finally reached his Waterloo. No one is even trying to defend him.

Question for regular WSJ readers: do their comments normally read this way, or is this new?

WSJ is for rich conservatives where FoxNews is for poor conservatives (both are owned by Murdoch). But they have skin in the game (business/finance/they own stocks) so their criticism of Trump can be pretty brutal if it hurts their bottom line.

Is this some kind of gift to domestic oil producers who are big donors to Trump and MAGA PACs? I saw the government just approved E15 ethanol mixed gas as an emergency measure. I feel like every decision and crisis is somehow used to corruptly build power and wealth for someone in the Trump sphere.

It’s more likely that the US does not have a strategically viable path to open the Strait of Hormuz.

That is my read, some saner heads have communicated there is no way to win. So, just walk away and declare Mission Accomplished.

I honestly do see Trump just declaring he lost. "These Iranians put up a good fight and we weren't prepared." or something to that effect. He's been known to acknowledge defeat, like his complete 180 when Mamdani won.

Can we set up a bet on Polymarket or something? I'll take that action any day. He would have to phrase such an acknowledgement as an apology, and a Trump doesn't do that. Ever.

He didn't directly acknowledge defeat with Mamdani, at least not that I heard. It was more a case of populist game recognizing populist game.

> "These Iranians put up a good fight and we weren't prepared." or something to that effect.

Not an American but. There is no fucking way Trump will acknowledge that.

I would be shocked if he ever does that. Much more likely is just say something completely different and pretend that has always been the case

You may find this article interesting; as with all things trump, when he is actually involved in the goings-on of things (measured by his level of personal participatory activity) -- look for the money/grift.

[How Trump and the oil markets move in sync: A tango in five charts]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgk8zk9epgo

Operation Epic Fiasco is going really well.

Yo boys and girls in the Pentagon, who fucked up the crayon drawing of what the word "win" means for the President and the Secretary?

I request their Pizza Hut privileges be removed effective immediately.

Cheese crust is for winners only.

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