alt Hacker NewsI don’t see how the majority of comments paint this as a victory for Iran. Your entire formal military apparatus was destroyed, nuclear sites in rubble, defense industrial complex leveled, two levels of leadership KIA, and the only thing preventing you from permanent destruction or regime change is an impotent threat of attacking ships? I guess I’m missing something. War sucks but in this case Iran is a shell of the threat it was a month ago.
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Wars are about objectives. The USA managed to accomplish none of its objectives. Iran forced USA to concede and call for ceasefire before US could achieve objectives. That’s the definition of defeat. Iran won by not losing and holding out.
Iran has more leverage at the end of this war than it did at the start. Iran has proven that it has the capability to catastrophically disrupt global economy.
> Your entire formal military apparatus was destroyed, nuclear sites in rubble, defense industrial complex leveled, two levels of leadership KIA, and the only thing preventing you from permanent destruction or regime change is an impotent threat of attacking ships?
* Which doesn't mean much nowadays: see Ukraine, and the perseverance of the Taliban who eventually got their way.
* Are you talking about now? Or last year when everyone was told that the nuclear program was obliterated? If it was then, why was there a second round of attacks in this year? And it's not like the existing stockpiles of enriched uranium vanished.
* As Ukraine has shown, you can have a defence industry in people's basements churning out 4M drones per year that can do a lot of damage.
* Yes, the past leadership was KIA. And new people were put in place who are more hardliner hawks than what was taken out. So how is a more hawk-ish regime a "win" for the US?
* An "impotent attack" that has kept several thousand ships sidelined in the Gulf? That has caused fuel (petrol, diesel, kerosene, LNG) prices skyrocket? That have caused helium (needed in chip manufacturing, MRIs, etc) prices to triple? If that's "impotent" I would hate to see effective.
Perhaps stop taking the administration's claims at face value. Their army has not been destroyed. They continue to launch missiles daily and have been extraordinarily successful in targeting US/Israel radar and defensive assets throughout the region. They have suffered air force and naval losses, but if you look back at analysis from before the war started, exactly nobody considered the Iranian air force or navy to be of any strategic significance. Iran operates on a distributed military structure rather than a centralized command, so the assassination of senior political and military leaders is not the crippling blow the US expected it to be.
And really, that expectation is itself stupid. Suppose the US got involved in a hot conventional war with another superpower, and in the first week they killed the President, the vice President, a bunch of Representatives and Senators, and a bunch of senior figures at the Pentagon. Would the US just fold, or would it fill those positions via the line of succession, declare a national emergency, and fight back vigorously? You know the answer is #2, and the idea that other countries might do the same thing should not be a surprise. It appears the US administration has fallen into the trap of believing the shallowest version of its own propaganda about other countries, and assuming that Iran was just like Iraq under Saddam Hussein but with slightly different outfits.
The Iranian strategy is basically Mohammed Ali's Rope-a-dope: absorb punishment administered at exhausting cost (very expensive munitions with limited stocks) while spending relatively little of their own (dirt cheap drones with small payloads but effective targeting, continually degrading the aggressor's radar visibility and military infrastructure). The one limited ground incursion so far (ostensibly to rescue an airman, but almost certainly a cover for something else) resulted in the loss of multiple heavy transport aircraft, helicopters, and drones at a cost of hundred$ of million$.
The companies with billions on the line didn't seem to think Iran's threats to attack ships were impotent.
Their military capabilities are diminished in the short term, but if their ability to impose a toll on the Strait of Hormuz holds then that's a massive win for Iran in the medium/long term. A mere $2M per ship represents 10% of Iran's GDP. They would become the only country in the world to impose a toll on international waters, and they would have established a defensive deterrent almost as effective as having a nuclear bomb.
They took on the most powerful military ever seen and lived to tell the tale. It's hard to spin that as a loss for Iran.
In most wars, everybody loses.
The best Iran could hope for given its inevitable defeat by a far superior aggressor was to deny the invader any kind of spoils. And by those standards they seem to be succeeding.
So now we have a pointless war that has resulted in thousands of dead with no tangible benefit to anybody, except of course those cronies of the administration doing insider trading.
I think the nature of war has changed. A slow moving swarm of drones, will keep large Aircraft carriers well outside the range of their fighter jets.
A nation can swarm an aircraft carrier with a 1000 drones, each costing about 40k USD. Only a few are needed to seriously damage the carrier. Not to mention ballistic missiles.
In this scenario, does a US massive, slow moving aircraft carrier possibly carrying hundreds of billions of assets really work ? Can the US meaningfully project power with these?
In this scenario, who holds more power or leverage ?
An aircraft carrier can project power within 500 miles. The idea is to use a few of these to knock out the air power of the opposing nation, basically airfields, missile stockpiles, factories, power infra, etc. And then drop in a ground invasion force.
Does this now work? I dont think so. 10 drones can be launched from the back of a truck.
> Your entire formal military apparatus was destroyed
How are they still firing missiles and downing aircraft?
> is an impotent threat of attacking ships?
All the ships stuck in the Gulf probably didn't consider the threat impotent.
On the other side: what more can the US do? Target civilian infrastructure? There is no appetite for getting stuck with boots on the ground, and everyone (including Iran) knows this.
You're probably right that it won't a win for anyone. If some of the points includes removing sanctions from Iran, it might be a huge win -- for Iran, or at-least it's population.
> is an impotent threat of attacking ships?
It not that impotent. Attacking civilan targets in the age of drones is not that hard - a small motor boat with explosives or a shahed style drone is all you need. And to keep the strait closed they don't need to attack all ships. Even 0.1% probability of an attack (maybe even 0.01%) is enough to halt the traffic. And they don't need to sink the ship - a fire on board is enough to create an unacceptable security risk for tankers and LNG carriers.
It was a while since Houthis attacked any ships and yet traffic via Suez is still 60% down from what is was befor attacks started in 2023. Because the risk of an attack is not zero.
They've frustrated the biggest military on the planet to the point of issuing expletives. It's a huge moral win. Symbolism matters more than anything else in these situations.
>impotent threat of attacking ships
Seeing diehard MAGAs in these comment threads is always so amusing. Clearly Agent Orange didn't think the threat was impotent if he crawled on his knees to negotiation table hastened by dire predictions of impending economic collapse but you somehow think it was "impotent" ? Astonishing :)
Asymmetric warfare shouldn't be measured on the metrics of conventional warfare. Iran can continue to cause enormous economic pain for the world without any of that.
> Your entire formal military apparatus was destroyed, nuclear sites in rubble, defense industrial complex leveled, two levels of leadership KIA
the same thing the media keeps asking trump: what do these things matter?
there's a meaningful change to iran's negotiating position basically forever into the future: the US cannot impose sanctions without also banning states from using the strait, and its clear what states will choose between the two. I still dont think they care about nukes, but now they can keep enriching as much uranium as they want to 60% and they can use that as a negotiation chip for something else.
the US and israel are not nearly the threats they were a month ago, not just iran has paid the costs of war
the real problem for iran is that now they actually have to deliver good stuff for their citizens - for all the western bluster, its still a democracy, and they do have to hydrate their population
Stop watching Fox. You are completely misinformed on global politics.
We'll see if gas prices go down I suppose?
> Your entire formal military apparatus was destroyed, nuclear sites in rubble, defense industrial complex leveled
According to whom? POTUS claimed to have done this back in June 2025.
It's not clear to me they are much less of a threat than they ever were, but it's also not clear to me they were ever much of a threat.
They did everything they could in this war, didn't they, and apparently it didn't do too too much? (other than the economic damage of closing the strait, which seems to be what worked). But I think they could probably keep doing everything they've been doing still? (including controlling the strait).
You think the US could destroy the regime, but has not? Can you explain? How would this work?
> Iran is a shell of the threat it was a month ago.
That's why it is crippling the entire world's economy and demanding concessions bigger than the status quo ante bellum, with the US powerless to stop it. Because it's no threat.
> impotent threat of attacking ships
You've been paying attention to what's happened over the last few weeks and you qualify that threat as impotent? That impotent threat basically brought the rest of the world to it's knees.
in 2 years they'll have 100x the drone production and chinese anti ship missles
I don't think its a victory for either Iran or the US.
Iran suffered a lot of losses in terms of people and widescale destruction of infrastructure.
But the US lost too, we come out of this war looking much weaker and more chaotic than we did going in, not to mention the amount of money we poured into it while accomplishing nothing (nothing we destroyed in Iran was a threat to us until we bombed them in the first place).
That's asymmetric warfare basically. The regime is more or less intact. There are no US booths on the ground. And Iran just demonstrated it can majorly disrupt international energy markets by blocking the strait of Hormuz more or less indefinitely. With a major power like the US seemingly unable to prevent that or put a stop to it militarily.
Painting this as a victory for Iran would be a stretch. But they definitely did not lose either.
This is something that keeps on happening to the US. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. are all conflicts where the US won militarily and then had to withdraw anyway. Vietnam is still ruled by the communists, Afghanistan is ruled by the Taliban once more, and the regime in Iraq is nominally Iran supported and not exactly on the best of terms with the US either. This conflict seems to be a repeat of past mistakes. The US went in, bombed the shit out of stuff for a few weeks and only then steps back to literally think "Now what?!". It could have done that a few months ago and saved us all the trouble of having to deal with this BS.
Painting this as a US victory is also quite a stretch. Iran never really posed a credible military threat beyond its borders. Nor did Afghanistan or Iraq. I think China might consider this a win though. And they definitely pose a non trivial military threat. Some historians might end up arguing the US took some long term strategic hits here for essentially very little meaningful gains. And we'll see in November how Republicans fare on the economic aftermath of what you might describe as a gigantic cluster f** at this point.
I think you are right. Leadership vacuum will not resolve by itself: Iran either will go democratic way or into some internal fights (this one more probable IMHO).
Have you missed the lessons of the last 25 years of US involvement in the middle east I guess?
Well it's all settled then! Guess the show's over. Everything will be fine from now on. What else can be done to avoid the Epstein files?
And the US / Israel demonstrated that Iran has their balls in a vice.
Win some lose some.
1) Trump threatens stone age for Iran if they don't open the strait.
2) Iran agrees to open the strait if they're not attacked.
What happened here is they caved under Trump's threat but they're going to make it look like they're opening the strait on their terms, while Trump will make it look like they're opening the strait on his terms (which actually makes more sense, because if they didn't open the strait we'd have probably started bombing them)
And Iran's military hasn't been destroyed, they still control the strait. How do you explain that if they don't have a military?
And destroyed a school full of children too.
Before the war, Ships passed freely through the strait, and Iran did not profit from it.
US gas was affordable, keeping not only passenger vehicle fuel low, but farming costs and groceries/ transporting goods in US.
Trump then claims Iran is dangerous and building nukes and is a threat, despite IAEA reports to the contrary.
At Geneva, Iran offers to hand over all their uranium. Trump refuses.
Hours later trump starts bombing Iran.
Iran closes the strait to choke US economy.
US fuel costs skyrocket affecting CPI basket.
Trump demands they open the strait, and makes threat if they don’t.
Iran now says “okay, we will open it if u stop bombing us but now we will charge 2million fee for vessels passage”.
Now US fuel remains high, an additional fee is in place, and Iran keeps their uranium.
No regime change. No uranium shift. Just a major inflation spike to the US (and global) economies. Oh, and Iran gains full control of the strait.
Art of the deal
1. Nuclear sites are not "in rubble", uranium is very much intact. They attempted to extract some of it with the failed F15 mission and had to scrap it (oversight by CIA) near Isfahan.
2. Leadership KIA doesn't matter, IRAN has a decentralized leadership, not a top down one.
3. Military apparatus is intact, majority of missile cities are still operating, over 1M IRGC forces mobilized with many more men willing to sign up.
4. Strait of Hormuz is fully under control of IRAN, "impotent threat of attacking ships" (even though IRAN has much more power) is more than enough to control it.
6. No regime change, IRGC is stronger than ever
7. Millions of dollars of damage to all US assets in the gulf
8. Multiple US air crafts damaged and many wounded (we'll see what the actual numbers are after CENTCOM releases them finally)
9. Sanctions lifted on Russia, helping them majorly profit. China is still collecting cheap oil.
10. Israel took heavy damage, losing many interceptors as well.
11. Brent 100$+ for 40 days, causing major global issues.
To be fair, US did manage to kill 170 kids on day 1 and bomb bridges, hospitals, universities and civilian areas.. so I guess that's a "win" for you?