alt Hacker NewsNo, Iran is acting like time is on their side. Because it is. The iceberg the rest of the world is about to hit in the coming month or two is strategic reserves of crude oil as well as refined petroleum products (eg jet fuel, gasoline, diesel) being drained. That's going to be a whole new level of suffering.
Trump is doubling down on Israel's demands. That's the true stumbling block here. Israel wanted this war. They still do. Israel thinks they can turn Iran into a failed-state like Somalia.
Trump is also the least reliable indicator of what's going to happen becausee, as we all hopefully know by now, he just rants stream-of-consciousness like. The Joint Chiefs, the intelligence community and allies all knew this was doomed to failure. Closing the Strait of Hormuz has been historically modeled in terms of military exercises and capability for decades. It was unproven prior to this war if the US could reopen the Strait. Well, now we know. Congratulations, everybody, the system works.
I don't know what increased Internet traffic from Iran means. As was proven last year though, Israel used that access for intelligence and assassination purposes (ie to identify target locations, particularly through the large number of of Afghan refugees that were in the country at the time, allegedly [1]).
There is no grand strategy. There are no cards left to play by the US short of the use of nuclear weapons. I mean that literally. The uS has lost but unwillingness to break with Israel has stopped the administration from admitting it publicly.
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Time is on their side - except for the embargo. That stops 90% of their revenue and that's a very real thing.
It's interesting to see how far they think they can get away with this, but they are not in an easy situation.
Soldiers and civil infrastructure don't last on $0.
That money stops is the 'most likely thing' that will cause a real revolution.
Both sides are hoping for 'regime change' by embargo it seems!
> The iceberg the rest of the world is about to hit in the coming month or two is strategic reserves of crude oil as well as refined petroleum products (eg jet fuel, gasoline, diesel) being drained.
It's not clear to me that the "world" will come down on Iran's side on this one. On the one hand you have a country that is perpetrating a violation of international norms by establishing a toll on the straight of hormuz and is shooting at or is threatening to shoot at the "world"'s ships, on the other hand you have a country that violated international norms by invading another country (ho hum, everyone does this) but isn't shooting at or threatening to shoot at your ships (mostly just iranian or dark ships). When the oil reserves run out, do you side with the bad guys that are making a token effort at helping to get oil to you, or do you side with the bad guys that are preventing oil from getting to you just to middle finger trump?