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Comment by ericmay | Hacker News Reader

> And in the real world I see, the Iranian regime is able to absorb a tremendous amount of pain and stay in power.

Tragic for the Iranian people, but also it has only been 5 weeks. We’ve destroyed whatever we can find and their regime is routinely blown up once we find them. Exercising control and staying in power amounts to them hanging 19 year old kids. But sure they’re “in power”.

The US can do damage too. As Trump threatened we could quite literally ensure that the country has no functioning infrastructure forever. No power. Nothing. Meanwhile Iran will eventually run out of missiles, unless of course Russia helps them out. Not that anyone seems to remember Iran helping Russia for some reason when they gloat about how they think the Iranians have the upper hand. Hell the US just forced them to open the straight for 2 weeks and sit down at the table.

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The US 'forced' them to do this by agreeing in principal that Iran could charge that toll (along with 9 other points).

The question isn't whether the US can destroy Iran, it obviously could(as evil as that would be). The question is does the US want to pay the price of continuing the war more than the price of agreeing to those points, and would Iran pay the price required to fight back if it does not get the US to capitulate on those points.

I can tell you what will happen to any boat that doesn't pay the extortion (toll) and enters the straight. So realistically it doesn't matter if it's in breach of maritime norms, who's going to restart attacks on Iran to enforce those norms if the US capitulated on it?

> I can tell you what will happen to any boat that doesn't pay the extortion (toll) and enters the straight. (sic)

Whatever "might" happen won't be happening for very long when the entire country at large is in the stone age.

The Iranian regime doesn't care what "age" their people are living in and have been stockpiling weapons for enough decades to follow through on their threats.

And every time I read "we have destroyed 3000% of Iran's weapons capability", I read about more missiles and drones flying.

Weapons aren't magic, and there exists no rule that says "destroy them all or you lose."

Eventually they will have none or few left, and without power or running water, they won't be able to feed their people, much less manufacture more.

It should be remembered these points have not been agreed - they are the basis for the Iranian negotiation over the next two weeks. There is no guarantee that the US will not simply reject it and start bombing again - in fact, considering the model for Trump's strategies (comrade Vladimir Putin and his "special military operation" in Ukraine), that's probably what they'll do.

> Exercising control and staying in power amounts to them hanging 19 year old kids.

If you're going to play the utilitarian card, you need to actually compare the numbers.

How many kids does Iran government execute every year?

How many kids have died in that one single school that was hit by US? How many more of that will happen if the war continues?

Technically this war might be "won" by carrying out this threat--just as it could be "won" by using nuclear weapons--but the long-term strategic damage done to the winner by using those means would perhaps spawn a new phrase with more a sweeping strategic connotation than "Pyrrhic". "Trumpian" springs to mind.

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