alt Hacker News[flagged]
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The 12 D chess explanation, people still believe this?
This whole thing is a debacle. Trump was manipulated by his betters into engaging a war he doesn't understand at all [0], and while flailing he just reached for the most insane threat he could imagine.
The madman theory ironically actually requires a sane and competent person to perform the bluff, [1] which is not the case here.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-wa...
> The US didn't back down, it used a credible mad-man style threat to get what it wanted.
Okay. Tell me, what did the US got? You say they got what they wanted. What is that they wanted and now got?
That is certainly a favorable interpretation of events. I don't buy it. I think there's more evidence that he's actually an erratic, compulsive liar than some master strategist. What great deals has he secured for the US?
it really seems like the US is just ceding to iranian terms. the US cant solve the hormuz strait problem militarily, and so it has to come to the table
"I will end your civilization" is not credible. He'd lose a war powers vote and likely be removed if he even started down that path. To say nothing for the logistical impossibility.
He's not doing some Scott Adams master persuader nonsense. He spent a month being ignored by his counterparty so he just kept amping up the rhetoric until he was threating actual genocide. With human shields placed around the infrastructure he promised to attack, the president desperately begged Pakistan to broker a ceasefire with two sets of terms.
People keep saying this, and yet Trump just sounds like a fucking moron to me, if you’ll pardon me quoting his former Secretary of State.
Can you give me some examples of where he’s done this in the last and it actually worked?
The US is in a worse spot than before the war. Iran won.
It's a bad strategy.
A high schooler could tell you that.