I'm no fan of this administration but another way to look at things is that the US can essentially destabilize a region while facing mild commodity price increases. Actually it shows that the US could eliminate the leadership at its leisure even if it can't hand select the replacements. I'm also not sure the powers that be in the ME hate the rising oil prices.

Again, not a fan of the situation and while I think it is the US's loss I do not really see how it is a win for Iran.

Also, I would expect Iran cultural influence to continue to grow in its region. And they now have the strait toll as a new source of revenue.

Note that it is also a win for Israel, so far. They are still invading Lebanon with no plans to stop.

And a clear loss for the US who literally got nothing from that whole thing and triggered a massive global crisis

I think you're mostly right, except maybe a bit misinformed on #1. The younger Khamenei is, according to recent reports, in a very unstable condition, has likely never actually had an input on the leadership of Iran so far, and his future state is uncertain.

So I think there will be another leader elected soon.

I'd say more like a loss for the US than a win for Iran.

> 4. Showed everyone in the ME and the world that if anyone messes with them they’ll close the straight. Then gas prices go up. Then your own domestic pop gets pissed. Then your chances of re-election drop.

Everyone knew from the beginning that closing the strait was something Iran would do. But it is current US government that is either inept or too smart for their own good and thought with US producing surplus oil for domestic use, it will not impact them. They didn't care for the consequences and it came back to bite them.

Also, wasn't it that even if the war was stop/ceasefire oil prices will take a long time to recover? If that is true the domestic pop getting pissed might be true even with this ceasefire and it will hurt the current government in their upcoming elections.

> 3. Reminded the anti regime population that they’re not going anywhere and that the US can’t help them.

More like galvanized people against a common enemy. Regime is going to come down hard on the protestors than ever before and some might find it easier to blame the power which claimed to deliver the regime change. Then Americans will talk about how Iranians hate their way of life and the attack was justified.

Still looking at the details, but this morning, one of the biggest French newspapers was basically headlining (a slightly more polite version of) TACO.

Not a good image for the US around the world, including its (former?) allies, I guess.

This war (not the ceasefire) is basically a loss for the USA. Many people don't yet grasp the scale of the reputational, economic, and power damage that has occurred and will continue to occur.

Let’s discuss this again in two weeks. I suggest.

This ceasefire will defuse the global economy’s tensions. That’s its sole purpose.

It’s unlikely they’ll find enough common ground for a lasting agreement.

The real winners are those psychic commodities/future traders and the arms industry. Again.

I disagree. Iran was about to lose. If this ceasefire had not happened, the US and Israel would bomb all of Iran's electricity and fuel facilities. That's what was supposed to happen today, and is what forced Iran to the negotiating table with an hour to spare.

Without electricity, there is no modern life. There is no ability to communicate, pay salaries, run a business, have running water, etc. Without fuel, there are no logistics; there is no capability to transport an army. Nor is there an ability to transport food, people will starve; it would cause an enormous civilian crisis, and this would cause massive riots bigger than the ones seen in January.

The Iranian government would have no ability to coordinate a response, and Iran would collapse within a week. The country would devolve into chaos, into paramilitary factions, and a civil war would start, similar to in Syria.

The US and Israel have been sitting on this the entire time. They don't want to do it, because it would cause near permanent economic damage to Iran.

Once Iran showed it had no ability to prevent the US/Israel from doing a indiscriminate bombing campaign, it was clear the US and Israel could always win this war through this outcome.

It's very hard for me to see this war (regardless of final outcome) as anything other than a massive strategic loss for the USA. The US has spent a stunning amount of materiel and political capital to achieve nothing of lasting benefit to themselves, and have killed thousands while further destabilising and impoverishing the region. A catastrophic outcome.

It's absolutely possible for both sides in a major conflict to lose, and they've managed to do so in this case.

> much younger and more formidable Khameini

Formidable?

6. Permanently destroyed many US bases and radar installations in the Middle East which aren’t coming back anytime soon.

> 3. Reminded the anti regime population that they’re not going anywhere and that the US can’t help them.

More like: Reminded the anti regime population that US has no interest to help them and will happily kill all Iranians and proudly destroy all of civil infrastructure.

> 5. Destabilised the whole region costing the ME lots and lots of money.

In this case, the destabilization is firmly the fault of USA and Israel.

Parable of the sun and the wind..

More loss for US, as in customary US not winning fast is functionally the same as losing.

Heavy weight boxing a teen it should have brained in round 1.

Teen lands a few punches back is embarrassing.

Teen slapping heavy weights protectorates more embarrassing.

Teen surviving week 4 is like heavy weight failing to brain teen by round 7.

At this point it's looking like we're going to round 10 TKO, whoever "wins", US loses. People still going to wank over if US wins on TKO because muh K:D ratio or something, but real signal is teen's strategy was to survive hits and ultimately 10000s of heavy weight hits weren't haymaker strong enough to brain a teen. At >2% of GDP of PRC, Iran is basically teen/toddler territory that drew down significant % of US active force and munition stockpiles, so there's also layer of US losing more based on relative effort expended.

This is in no way a win for Iran.

Hundreds of regime leadership is gone. Massive destruction of infrastructure. Bombed all their neighbors who weren’t even at war with them. Pushed those same neighbors into closer partnership with Israel and the US.

Now the regime is severely weakened.

Yup, and it's a demonstration that the US is unable to just impose its will wherever it wants, making the US look weaker.

Failure all around.

But no doubt Trump and his people will tell the world what an amazing success the whole thing was, and how they exceeded all their goals, whatever those goals might have been.

There will be a 2 week ceasefire, western countries will move ships out of the straight, the Saudis will reroute oil, the 10 point plan is idiotic and the US will have an easy excuse to resume bombing them.

Only on hacker news is the destruction of all your military hardware and the death of all your leaders a win

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Why isn't Iran doing more? It seems like they are pandering to the USA when they have the moral high ground.