The Iran War Is a Whole New Level of Quagmire for the US
As the US struggles to find a strategy in Iran, officials admit the situation is worse than Iraq: the stakes are higher, the options are all bad, and the administration is flailing. Three camps have emerged—hawks, restrainers, and blockade advocates—but none offers a clear path to victory, and the world economy suffers as Iran seizes the Strait of Hormuz.
It’s common to have difficult trade-offs, but it is rare to find ourselves in a cul-de-sac of our own making with literally only bad options.
- NhanH
Professor Robert Pape (University of Chicago) has 2 substacks where he have been discussing the exactly topic heavily, as well as having webinar/ live discussions with some heavy hitters about the topic. Unfortunately both of the substacks are both subscription-only
https://professorrobertpape.substack.com/
https://escalationtrap.substack.com
I would rather not paraphrasing or rewrite in my interpretation too much, as the topic is difficult enough as-is. But the short version is that the mainstream analysis of "worst case" is nowhere near his level of worst-case scenario and that the US has no control of the situations any more (the US can still control its actions, but Iran is already emboldened enough to take actions on its own strategic plan). The worst-case scenario has Iran with nuke as the baseline, and Iran also growing to be the dominant regional power in Middle East, on-par with Russian in the peak strength in 2010s.
- green_wheel
It's hard to overstate how poorly this whole thing was thought out and executed. They obviously had no plan for what we'd do when Iran seized the strait. This is going to go down as the definitive beginning of the decline leading to the eventual end of US global hegemony. To think anyone ever mentioned defending Taiwan from China lol
- ExoticPearTree
Crazy idea: what if the US starts minding its own business and stops bombing countries just because it can?
- jojocool0501
Well if it isn't the time for a "protest" song ! https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NonW9jozKYg
- ggm
I'm down for a good political rant as much as the next guy but I can't make an HN moment in this.
Is it about department of war using AI instead of people to decide things? Or Amazon's material losses in DC assets?