isn't correct. There are plenty of people on HN working in military contract industries, high tech arms manufacturing and such. They lobby Gov and benefit financially as do their employees.
If I worked in military R&D I’d be worried that focus might shift away from the more speculative/less delivery-oriented/fun to work on products…
Military contractors do well when the military has widespread support from the voters. Congresscritters will happily approve tax dollars going to the military industrial complex when their constituents view the US as the global protector of democracy. Wars like this one that aren't popular and make us look like thugs open the floor up to anti-military candidates. So yeah, the companies building missiles do well while the war is on, but the people like me who automate military fuel farms see budget cuts and projects cancelled.
2) Iran has been naughty v. USA's allies for a long time, directly and indirectly
3) Iran has been naughty v. USA itself for a long time, directly and indirectly
So, in the interested of stable trade through Hormuz, someone decided to push Iran out. The intent was not to close the strait. The effect was to create a situation unsafe for trade, which is ironic and comical, but it's not the intent.
So, since principles determine intent, I think I was not being contradictory.
The point isn't to make a moral argument for Iran's position, just a realpolitik one. We fucked with them, they fuck with us. They're winning, unfortunately as it might be. Ergo, we shouldn't have fucked with them.
That's... not a principle though? Who else pursues geopolitics by that principle? When else has the US? It's... not a thing, unless you mess with semantics to define "bad actors" as "whoever we dislike" and "badly" as "whatever we dislike".
Iran hasn't fucked with Hormuz since before most of the commenters here were born. Arguing that we somehow "had to" goad them into fucking with Hormuz in 2026 is just madness.
I mean, look: this wasn't the plan. You know it. I know it. Trump and Bibi thought they'd get a quick win, and when they didn't their bluff was called and they don't have the cards. Hormuz opens WHEN WE PAY IRAN TO OPEN IT, and not before. We've lost. The world is just waiting for the surrender.
The entire global war on terror was basically a "We dont allow terrorist states to exist", and Iraq war 1 was pretty close to the same principles in action - feel free to shock and awe a state out of existence if it threatens global trade/oil.
And you're wrong about Iran. They have two grievous sins in USA/EU's eyes. 1) they have launched increasingly severe attacks on shipping in the last 10 years (not to mention 100s of attacks on civilians through funded terror networks), and 2) they are a key supplier and ally for Russia's invasion of Europe and former Soviet states, and their shahed drones are killing a lot of civilians.
1 https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/03/23/iran-deliberate-attacks-...
2 https://2017-2021.state.gov/irans-history-of-naval-provocati...
Trade was free in the gulf, pre-war.
> and some mixture of "we dont negotiate with terrorists"
Negotiate for what? Iran was making no demands.
Pithy or not, you seem to be just being obtuse. You're taking as a prior that there was a threat, something for which you (and the administration) have absolutely no evidence.
And to repeat, in a PRACTICAL sense, even nodding to your incorrectly framed "principled" stance, the EFFECT of the war was 100% opposite to the thing you claim to be... defending? It's just insane, to be blunt, and I genuinely can't understand why a reasonable person could hold these opinions. It seems like trolling, honestly.
The effect is to (at least temporarily) cause a war, which has diminished trade. If trade was the only thing anyone cared about, we'd acquiesce to any demand anyone with a boat made. (e.g. Somalian pirates). That's clearly not the stance anyone has here.
This is an exercise in good faith. You have to assume there's a consistent set of beliefs that are not crazy that lead to this outcome, or else you fall into the trap of just assuming anyone who disagrees with you is crazy.
So, I have not claimed any effect intended or otherwise, only an intent. You can with all love of peace intend to depose a terrorist regime (even violently), and have the effect of disrupting trade. All at once, and all without violating your intent, and from a consistent set of principles about peace, love, and free trade and all that.
OK, that's just circling back to my prior comments, so I think we're done here.
Literally none of which have been addressed by this ridiculous adventure! In fact that "harassing of shipping" has been amplified immensely, with no apparent recourse on our part except to just surrender and bribe them to open Hormuz again.
Again, EVEN ADMITTING YOUR "PRINCIPLE" ARGUMENT IN GOOD FAITH, a correct (!) implementation of that principle would have been not to start slinging bombs around without an exit strategy.
Your point amounts to "This would have been a good war if we had won it." But we lost it. So it wasn't.
> He was being a bully
> But he's still alive!!
To extend your more-apt-than-you-really-want metaphor: you punched the bully like a moron instead of involving the administration, now you have detention, you'll miss your championship game, you won't get the scholarship you want, you'll have to adjust your college plans, and the rest of your career is impacted.
You shouldn't have punched the bully. "I was only pursuing a principled stand against bullies" doesn't change that fact. You can be principled and not a moron.
[1] To repeat for the third time, because you keep ignoring the point and I suspect it's because of the cognitive dissonance required in this subthread: We Lost The War. Iran Won. They Get Paid. We Get Nothing.
The USA was doing something to guarantee that stuff can flow through it, then they start a war, now they can no longer guarantee this?
Did they suddenly loose the power to protect this flow?
Just because USA is war mongering, doesn't mean no one else would have stepped up or that it wouldn't be better without all of this involvment.
And yeah, USA might do dumb things that put them into a bind, but ultimately the peaceful flow of traffic through Hormuz is a goal worth pursuing for the world economic health.
The problem with US petro dollar is always the same: we don't know what would have been if it wouldn't exist.
But my main point was very specific to the strait of hormuz and how it was flowing without the help of the USA, now stoped because of the influnece of the USA and how the USA can't restart it.
So your point is not valid for the current state of the strait of hormuz.
You are also moving the goal post now as you state that the peaceful flow of traffic is worth it. Of course it is but now we have to do it and its not the USA helping some other country to fix their problem, in this case every other country needs to do something to fix US Americas problem they created.
USA also got very rich and powerful thanks to the petro dollar, which now shifts to China and now China is benefiting from this. This system was never fair though.
So, circling back to my original comment, the Iran war is in line with the principles of keeping peaceful free trade safe (perhaps only for "us"), but alas, as you say, free trade has paused while we try to do that.
That's it. I dont think that's a hugely controversial statement or obviously false.
Iran in its pre Trump state existed with the Khamenei family for quite a long time.