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Why is the US pleading and whining for help then?
To lower prices, America can help Europe get their oil back from the strait or it can ban sales to Europe both of which could make American oil cheap for Americans.
By not helping, Europe is screwing Americans. And, pretty soon, screwing Europeans too because Americans will be fed up with high prices. They will move to stop exports.
Where does that leave Europe?
This is a challenge, not a simple switch that can be flicked overnight.
See: https://www.fuelstreamservices.com/why-the-u-s-cant-use-the-... for surface scratch intro to the issue.
If I had to guess, I think American oil companies that operate in the strait selling oil to Europe are the only reason the US is still working so hard to control the strait. It's a lot of money on the table. But it's certainly not for Americans, just for a few rich American oil companies and their European customers.
2. Oil isn't the only commodity that is at stake here. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted the global helium supply, for instance, and helium is used in critical products Americans need.
3. Asia relies heavily on oil and other commodities that pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Asia is the factory of the world and manufactures tons of the goods that are exported to the US, from clothing to electronics. Obviously, an energy crisis in Asia has the potential to disrupt American supply chains.
4. The petrodollar system creates artificial demand for US dollars. This is a massive financial and soft power benefit to the US. If Atlas shrugs and the petrodollar system starts going away, the rebalancing/recalibration that takes place is not going to be very pleasant for Americans.
2. And Europe doesn't need any?
3. But not European supply chains?
4. That's probably true. So the US is required to serve the EU with its military because the EU is their customer? I can think of several ways that the US can keep this position without the strait. But it's much more expensive for Europeans.
2. Europe didn't launch a war against Iran. They are obviously going to suffer (like everyone else in the world) but that doesn't mean they have an obligation to allow the president of the US to effectively commandeer their resources to clean up the mess he made.
3. Of course it affects European supply chains. It's going to affect everyone on the planet basically. But again, Europe didn't launch this war. Why do you seem to think they have a moral obligation to get involved in what virtually everyone in the world sees for what it is (a foolish war started by the US and Israel)?
4. The US isn't required to do anything. Your perspective seems to be that the US is God's gift to the world and everyone else is just freeloading. Another perspective is that alliances like NATO, the petrodollar system, etc. have been the sources of America's outsize economic, political and military power post-WW2. In my opinion, Americans have no idea what is coming as Pax Americana dies. It's not going to be pretty and I believe it is an existential threat to the way of life Americans have come to expect.
>Where does that leave Europe?
Where does it leave US without allies?
Also EU can be reached and bombed by Iran so we have more to loose than some army bases in the desert like you guys. I assure you that Europeans wouldn't support getting bombed because we had to help Trump make more money.
Still time to take that out: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.Ironically, I used to teach English in Vietnam and my wife is Vietnamese.
The US didn't win anything. What Americans call the "Vietnam War" was and is called the American War in Vietnam. The country was absolutely decimated and left with scars that are still healing today (see for instance Agent Orange). After the US fled the country, it continued to wage what amounted to an economic war against Vietnam, excluding it from the global economy. Into the 90s, Vietnam was one of the poorest countries in the world. My wife's parents had relatives who survived the war only to starve to death after the war.
Vietnam, largely because of its geography, is a very smart and pragmatic country. It's the only country in the world that has comprehensive strategic relationships with the US, China and Russia.
Relations between the US and Vietnam are good because Vietnam's "bamboo diplomacy" policy allows it to leverage its unique position to extract benefit from all of the superpowers. Relations are not good because of US exceptionalism.
> The US usually starts the war because the US is the only country in the world actually trying to do anything about nefarious actors.
The good old, "I had to beat my wife because she wasn't acting right!"
> Iraq - well they had Saddam and now they have a functioning parliament and things seem to be going a lot better for them.
An estimated 300,000 to 1 million Iraqis died as a result of the war. But yeah, they have a parliament and "things seem to be going a lot better for them."
> Afghanistan - We wanted to provide schooling for little girls and stuff like that and, well, the population didn't want it. So at some point you cut your losses.
Do you actually believe anything you write? The US went into Afghanistan to get bin Laden and attempt to eliminate Afghanistan's role as a safe haven for Al Qaeda. Ironically, through Operation Cyclone, the US directly supported militant Islamic groups during the Soviet war, and where do you think the Taliban came from?
> Iran - We're not going to like invade and occupy Iran, though we could. We're just going to have to keep blowing up their military capabilities until they have a more reasonable government.
Iran has about 4 times the land area and double the population of Iraq. Given the amount of debt the US has and Trump's ecstatic destruction of Pax Americana by defecating on all of America's most important alliances, I think the most optimistic scenario is that the cost of making the Persian Empire again would be the collapse the American Empire.
They won the peace (and the war). You didn't win shit. You lost, badly. The wound in the American psyche by this defeat will never heal, to the point we have to witness claims such as yours.
> Afghanistan - We wanted to provide schooling for little girls and stuff like that and, well, the population didn't want it. So at some point you cut your losses.
So you lost. Mainly because you went on a military adventure, with unclear goals, with a population you didn't understand. Much like in Vietnam!
And here you are, in Iran.
I think the one lesson you did learn is to heavily control the media and the narrative. Body bags and mission failures are bad press. Lesson learned.
After arming the very terrorists that prevented the soviets from doing just that? How generous of you!