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Comment by bawolff | Hacker News Reader

If you want to be unreasonably sympathetic to the trump admin, they could be assuming that iran et al are trying to hold out until the election on the belief that that might change something (see also the timing of houthi offensive and attacks on saudi arabia), and that if trump get over the hump of the election, iran no longer has a way to affect anything short term and will throw in the towel as they lack the ability to hold out long term.

Personally i think trump does not have a plan, but if you tried to sanewash it, i think that is the best rationale i've been able to find.

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I think the general interpretation that both sides think something will change after the midterms is reasonable.

But

> Iran et al are trying to hold out until the election

> [Iran will] throw in the towel as they lack the ability to hold out long term

is something that I don't think even the most thoughtless parts of the administration really think right?

It's obvious that Iran is winning, not close to throwing in the towel. The US is reduced to trying to get the Straights of Hormuz open without paying a toll to Iran, which is a worse position than the US was in at the start of the war.

That is not at all obvious. Iran's Hormuz leverage has proven much less effective than they had originally hoped for and now they are feeling the economic cost of the decision. The SPR is drawing at a rate of 400K bbl/wk over the past few weeks. That's not great, but very far from catastrophic and is sustainable for years at current level of 285 mmbbl. It was recently Iran that tried to get the US back to the negotiating table, not the other way around.

Its not obvious.

To be clear, im not predicting an imminent collapse.

However, countries win wars by projecting strength. Sometimes that is true, and sometimes that is bluffing. It is extremely hard to tell which is which from the outside.

We do know that Iran was looking shakey prior to this war, and that this war has taken a significant toll, especially economically.

Will that translate to something? idk. In many ways you would think that if it was going to, it would already have happened.

However i think sometimes westerners have a very america centric perspective. The costs being suffered here are pretty low for america. Price at the pump is slightly higher. America used up some of its interceptors. That is a pretty low cost. Sure american allies are getting pounded, which has long term impacts, but that is not something ordinary americans will feel. On the other hand Iranians are feeling huge costs, and the longer it goes on, the worse their bargaining position gets (e.g. people frak more, pipelines get built etc).

All this to say, i dont know what is going to happen, but the Iranian position is fragile, and gets more fragile with time. Anything could happen.

I wouldn't necessarily say Iran is walking away unscathed. From what I've read on Reuters and other places, they're having serious economic problems due to this blockade. They've had to start reducing subsidies for gas, and they deliberately started with the heaviest users because they're worried that their citizens are going to reach a point where they're going to snap.

Again, we don't really know all the facts on the ground, and we don't know what the breaking point is, but this is partly the U.S.'s strategy here. Seems like it is producing results because Iran is open to more negotiation as these past few weeks have passed. Why would they do this if they were walking away unscathed and winning?

On the flip side, though, I do concede that the US people have just not borne the brunt of the disaster yet. When that happens, they snap like a twig, only because they didn't support this war to begin with. Support was at a record low when the war began and continued to drop to this day.

In the end Iran's goal seems more attainable: Make this so painful for the US that they do not dare try this again for a long time if ever.

The US's goal was topple the regime, install their puppet and acquire the nuclear material. Now its just getting back to the JCPOA or something like it. Not good enough for Iran. They want to make sure this stops for good.

Yes it's very painful for Iran, but when have economic sanctions ever created regime change (Or whatever the US's actual goal is)?

The Iranian expats I talk to (who are all very very opposed to the Iranian regime) are depressed because their read is that the regime has increased support within Iran because of their success standing up to the US.

The sanctions have made Iran much closer to Russia and China though.

> In the end Iran's goal seems more attainable: Make this so painful for the US that they do not dare try this again for a long time if ever.

> The US's goal was topple the regime, install their puppet and acquire the nuclear material. Now its just getting back to the JCPOA or something like it. Not good enough for Iran. They want to make sure this stops for good.

I agree with this analysis. If the US could walk away with JCPOA back they'd love it (of course they couldn't call it the "Obama Iran deal" anymore, but putting that aside).

Iran seems to think they can get a more favorable deal because the US has no appetite to make this a long war. I think there is evidence to support that position.

> Yes it's very painful for Iran, but when have economic sanctions ever created regime change (Or whatever the US's actual goal is)?

South Africa comes to mind.

More generally though, economic sanctions usually don't create regime change, they convince regimes to quietly change policies. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. However even if it doesn't work, it can weaken the regime to the point of irrelevance. Sanctions did not cause regime change in north korea, but it made them so poor that they weren't really a threat.

And really this isn't sanctions, this is a blockade which is sanctions on steriods.

> Iran seems to think they can get a more favorable deal because the US has no appetite to make this a long war. I think there is evidence to support that position.

Who can hold out longer is the million dollar question. US clearly has no appetite for war, especially this one. Iran clearly is economically struggling (If it gets to the point where they can't pay the police or the populace cant afford food, things can get very bad very quickly). Long term the leverage on the strait will disappear as the market finds alternative.

So who is more on the clock? I guess time will tell.

Iran is mostly self-sufficient in food. I don't think there is social license in the West to starve a civilian population.

> So who is more on the clock? I guess time will tell.

Well we know the US's deadlines. The midterms are one, and in 2 years time US policy will change (although unclear how exactly).

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