America has lost its war with Iran
independent.co.uk
independent.co.uk
Materiel - a huge amount of expensive and long lead time to replace missiles/interceptors expended - a $300,000,000 radar station destroyed - like 30 Reaper drones (approximately 1/5 of the total) - 1 AWACs destroyed and 3-5 others heavily damaged (we only have about 20 of them - tons of damage to infrastructure in the area (like refineries, ports, chemical plants)
Geopolitical - primacy of American military power shown to be truly questionable (I consider this as the biggest part of the L; can't decide if it's an unforced error or it was bound to happen under any administration) - Iran now knows it can leverage its drones and missiles to influence the region and world; they don't even need a nuke anymore to project power
I guess if there is a silver lining it's that the conflict has exposed how unprepared some of our doctrines and orders of battle are when dealing against an adversary that needs to operate on a more asymmetric level. But also it feels like that should be already known after years of monitoring the Ukrainian conflict.
Tehran probably needs nukes to project power. As in reärm its proxies and have them go off and start being a nuisance again without real fear of facing any consequences for it.
What Iran has learned–and globally demonstrated–is America is willing to pay more to its enemies than it's willing to spend defending its allies. (We're discussing arranging financing for Iran in an amount equal to what it costs us to support NATO for a decade.)
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/088c14d3-f708-44d8-a306-7996aa521...
That is known for almost 25 years since Millennium Challenge. However US military decided that to cove their ears, close their eyes and start screaming
Just saying...Junk away...
This. Pax Americana is dead.
Bibi and Israel set in motion a trap that the USA can't easily escape. Netanyahu never believed America would back down, and America never believed it could lose.
So what now?
Do you surrender? Do you invade?
Trump and Hegseth, being the fools they are, were never equipped to deal with a situation like this. The only outcome they seriously considered was Iranian surrender. They seemed convinced that Iran would fold, and gave little thought to what happens if it doesn't.
More accurately, they've been pushing this trap for decades and US presidents have been sidestepping it for decades.
From that PoV it's always been easily avoided.
Clearly the answer is you pay them off.
There is enough frustration between Bibi and Trump that I could see Israel unilaterally trying to blow up this deal massively backfiring. (To the point that it might be in e.g. Hezbollah's strategic interest to goad them into it.)
It's very difficult for me to think of such a terrible peace agreement that I'd personally reject it.
We're no longer in a position to unilaterally disengage. If the IRGC decides its political establishment is wrong and starts potting random shit again, we'll be dragged back in.
This is as unified as Iran is going to get in the near future. So we gotta work with what we have.
I'm not saying we don't negotiate. I'm saying we shouldn't expect the results of any negotiations to hold. Various parties will keep trying to torpedo the peace, including by attacking American interests, because they either think they can get more or profited from the war.
But I will perpetually trust and hope in the peace process.
Not much to do but offer my support for the end of this war. No matter how unlikely it is.
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No one here knows how bad the peace deal is. It's not even published yet (and it's not even a real*(edit) peace deal but instead only a Memorandum of Understanding). I guess I do reserve the right to grow disgusted at whatever was negotiated as the details come out.
I'm referring to elements in the IRGC that consolidate power and wealth through the war. The ones agitatig for autarky.
> I do reserve the right to grow disgusted at whatever was negotiated as the details come out
I'm super curious about the timeline for payouts. If they fucked that up, it's literally in Tehran's interest to start shooting rockets into the Strait right before the midterms to try and get another goody bag.
And let's be clear, we now have a straight throughline to two directly antagonist, racist governed-by autocratic genocidalist nuclear states in the Middle East with weapons ranged for each others' territories, interspersed with a sea of un-coordinated air-defence systems which even in good times have trouble distinguishing friend from foe, thereby making the best-case ending for the next 50 years being Jordan and Lebanon littered with fallout from intercepted nukes.
All of this is basically the full of shitty planning. Further continuation of the war will likely only fracture the IRGC and make further peace deals even more unreachable.
Now if we actually had competent leadership who could make wartime decisions that actually lead to our benefit, the calculus would be different. But as it stands now, further war only strengthens the worst of the worst actors in Iran.
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Like seriously, it's like people didn't study WW2 and our decision to keep the Japanese Emperor alive/protected (why our nukes and firebombings were so far away from the Emperor). We used to think ahead and figure out the correct people worth negotiating with as part of our wartime strategy.
This is reductive. One can absolutely stalemate. Regardless of whether you start a war, if it ends with you worse off and the other party either where they were at the start or arguably better off, you lost.
If all that happened was the Strait was reopened, I'd call it a stalemate. The fact that Tehran got reparations equal to a third of a trillion dollars–over $800 from every American and $1,100 from each and every voter–makes it an Irania victory and American defeat.
It vaguely sounds as though there is some sort of nuclear deal in the works ... but the US already had a nuclear deal with Iran, that Trump tore up. So I guess you could squint and say that the US won something back that was previously foolishly discarded.
Does this answer your note? (That's Bloomberg above - "phrase it as you want...")
Trump Celebrates While America Capitulates The peace deal with Tehran is an Iranian victory.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/06/trump-iran-deal/68...