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Comment by ericmay | Hacker News Reader

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The Iranian government is terrible, but that doesn’t mean that the U.S. relationship with the gulf states isn’t worse off than in February. The United States made our alignment with Israel hard to ignore and was significantly unable to protect allied countries while drawing fire onto them. It’s entirely possible for both sides to lose a war and I’d bet we’re going to see enough of a shift away from us, likely to China, to solidly count this as a loss.

It hard to say which way this goes. It's a possibility. But China can offer even less protection than the US can.

We have seen that the US ability to project power is great. We've also seen (and I don't think anyone didn't know that) that power has its limits. Especially when it comes to fighting fanatics with nothing to lose.

The US is still the only world power that has the ability to e.g. prevent Iran from just walking in and taking the gulf countries. It's true that protection isn't hermetic.

> It's true that protection isn't hermetic.

But hermetic protection is REALLY important when your entire economy is based off of oil and water desalination plants. Iran still retains the ability to damage that infrastructure. The Gulf countries have some hard decisions to make, but I wouldn’t be surprised if several of them sprint closer to Iran. Already we are hearing of a joint Omani-Irani agreement on Hormuz administration…

But it's not new that there's no hermetic protection.

There is no real possible alignment between the regime in Tehran and the Sunni Emirates or Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. There is no way they are sprinting closer to Iran.

Oman is more complicated but they are also not going to align with Iran.

It's hard to evaluate but I don't see huge shifts from the gulf states. The US is still their best bet (not to mention that they are heavily invested in that). They have major investments that aren't oil, i.e. unlike Iran they can live very comfortably even if the energy sector is shut down. They prefer to make money from oil and gas but they also prefer a weaker Iran.

It's looking like more of the same and counting down to the next round.

> it's not new that there's no hermetic protection.

I think what new is the realization of Iran’s willingness to escalate.

> There is no real possible alignment between the regime in Tehran and the Sunni Emirates or Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. There is no way they are sprinting closer to Iran.

Can you please expand on that? I don’t understand why they couldn’t be aligned.

Iran are Shia and the other gulf countries are Sunni. There is a big religious gap between these and historical animosity and rivalry.

The Islamic Republic of Iran believes in exporting the revolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exporting_the_Islamic_Revoluti...

Basically they believe the rulers of the gulf countries should be overthrown and that those countries should be run by Islamic rules. So basically MBZ who rules the UAE (as an example) wants to keep ruling the country and strike some balance between economic prosperity and maintaining his rule while Iran would want to see him removed and his government replaced by a theocratic regime. Naturally the UAE also wants not to be bombarded by Iran but the personal survival of the UAE rulers is a bit more important to them than that goal.

> But China can offer even less protection than the US can.

I think a lot of those states are wondering how much protection they’d need if we weren’t based there and drawing fire. China can offer economic stability and sales of modern military equipment for self-defense, and I think the entire world is working through the implications of the United States allowing an unsound octogenarian to destabilize the dollar or declare a major war on a whim. There’s a lot to dislike about China but the gulf states aren’t exactly sticklers for democracy and stability is good for business.

> We have seen that the US ability to project power is great. We've also seen (and I don't think anyone didn't know that) that power has its limits. Especially when it comes to fighting fanatics with nothing to lose.

My unprovable pet theory is that the US would've had less black eyes if we didn't have incompetent people like Kegseth in charge, and especially if he hadn't been allowed to dismiss top brass across the military just because they were too woke/not "warrior" enough.

Hegseth didn’t help matters at all but the problem started at the top. In past administrations, the various people leading the military & State would’ve pushed back against Netanyahu/Graham’s sales pitch that it’d be an easy war, identified actual goals, and planned ahead to achieve them (e.g. assembling a coalition like their counterparts did against Iraq twice) but everyone with backbone or independence was purged under the Republican’s new unitary executive theory. Hegseth was selected because he would never say “sir, that’s a bad idea” as happened so many times during Trump’s first term.

Nobody is taking the side of the IRGC here, it's an awful regime that should fall in a just world. But it's inevitable they will retaliate against their neighbors, if their neighbors are complicit in attacking them. Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait are not innocent, they picked a side and are paying for it.

That’s fine just stop grandstanding about little ole’ Iran being attacked or civilians dying if you don’t care that innocent civilians in other countries are dying. When you do you are taking a side and suggesting Iran is the moral actor here. They’re not.

Lots of people here are taking the side of the IRGC. It's not ok to attack the civilians of the gulf countries because they are aligned with the US whichever way you look at it. Attacking US military assets are fair game.

Lots of people are taking the side of the US, which has attacked civilian infrastructure and killed civilians in Iran and threatened to completely destroy Iran. And you have lots of people taking the side of Israel, which is has been conduction a genocide openly. All the sides have blood in their hands but I would argue the IRGC has the least blood in their hands.

There is no data based view of this world where the IRGC and the Islamic Republic doesn't have the most blood on their hands and is the least moral player here by modern standards by far. Just in 1988 they executed 30,000 people. In 2025 at least 1000. In 2026 10's of thousands.

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202601255198

https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/mde130...

https://www.ecpm.org/2025/02/20/the-death-penalty-in-iran-th...

Dissidents are being hanged in Iran as we write this.

Israel has claims of self defense after being brutally attacked. The US has claims of wanting to take down the regime and prevent them from getting nuclear weapons. You can argue about claims and actions. The Iranian regime has no shred of excuse other than their total lack of humanity.

What in the world?? Iraq was a million civilians killed by the US. Gaza was 100,000 civilians killed by Israel in the last 3 years. And that’s not including all of the other atrocities committed by the two countries.

And there is no proof of the 10s of thousands of protesters killed claiming. That was just propaganda to enable this recent war.

Countries can claim this and that about defense and brutal attacks, and depending on who you are you believe the propaganda or not, but in the end what matters is the destruction and killing they do. Which US and Israel and done more of by a long shot.

> Doesn’t excuse bombing actual civilian targets, apartment complexes, &c, nor does it excuse executing peaceful domestic protestors

Reading just this far and it could be either the US or Iran you’re talking about. It almost makes you think…

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