Iran stops negotiations with U.S., vows to 'completely' block Strait of Hormuz
49 points by dgellow 3 hours ago | 38 comments

barbazoo 3 hours ago
I'm probably wrong but it seems glaringly obvious to me that the two supposed allies are not at all acting in a coordinated way. One hand doesn't know what the other one is doing or one hand is just ignoring it.
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joxdosba 2 hours ago
This would be standard negotiations if the parties involved were competent.

In theory this gives the US the opportunity to offer Iran concessions in Lebanon at zero cost.

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selivanovp 30 minutes ago
Quite contrary, I'm pretty sure that USA is well aware of what Israel is doing and both are acting in coordinated way. Both do not want any settlement in a region, they need more chaos and global supply interruptions. If it wasn't the case, USA could've stop weapons supply to Israel long ago.
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LanceH 2 hours ago
What allies would those be?
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Hugsbox 2 hours ago
The US and Israel. Nothing about their approach here seems coordinated, they're both just doing whatever.
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Danox 52 minutes ago
Guess partner is the useful idiot in alliance?
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Synaesthesia 3 hours ago
I'm glad Iran is teaching the US and Israel a lesson. Their aggression and attacks have gone unchecked for far too long.
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barbazoo 3 hours ago
I'm having a hard time not cheering for "the little guy" here before realizing that everyone actively involved here is actually bad.
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lawn 12 minutes ago
You can have two thoughts at the same time.

It's good that Iran is teaching USA and Israel a lesson, while Iran (also) being bad guys.

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spwa4 2 hours ago
Let's see ...

One side is responsible for the "pax Americana" (but everyone here was born into the time period and so doesn't realize how exceptionally peaceful it is)

One side is responsible for at least 20.000 but more likely 60.000 Iranian deaths, just this year (and everybody seems to be worried about the other side's "warcrimes")

Not having big issues to figure out between these 2 who is the good guy ...

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mcphage 2 hours ago
> One side is responsible for the "pax Americana" (but everyone here was born into the time period and so doesn't realize how exceptionally peaceful it is)

The Pax Americana is great, but given America was one of the countries to start this war, I don't know how much credit they can get for something they just ended.

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spwa4 2 hours ago
> given America was one of the countries to start this war

Are you sure? I am actually somewhat ambivalent on this. Iran wasn't exactly peaceful before February and attacked shipping regularly before then too. Oh and they attacked their own people, foreign nationals, Iranians abroad, and committed terror attacks abroad. They were involved in the Brussels Metro and airport bombing, not 2km from where I'm sitting right now.

> The Pax Americana is great, but given America was one of the countries to start this war, I don't know how much credit they can get for something they just ended

As I said, I'm sitting in Brussels, and everyone here is far more worried about the Ukraine war. Plus nobody's dying, nobody's making life impossible here. I find declaring the Pax Americana dead somewhat premature.

Maybe I'll be proven wrong, I guess. But people here are far more worried about Ukraine than Iran. I think they're wrong ... or at least, that's only a short term threat. The Iran war ... will end the strategic significance of the middle east if it lasts any longer. It will end oil. This is not 1972. Iran may destroy the middle east and itself, they will not destroy the EU, or even significantly hurt it. If their threats materialize, the EU is not America. We will simply say "No. Go F- yourself. Kthxbye", and that will only really suck for the middle east, not for us.

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mcphage 12 minutes ago
> Iran wasn't exactly peaceful before February and attacked shipping regularly before then too. Oh and they attacked their own people, foreign nationals, Iranians abroad, and committed terror attacks abroad.

None of the nations involved in this fight have been peaceful. That's why I'm talking about just this specific war.

> I find declaring the Pax Americana dead somewhat premature.

If America wins, then yeah, probably it'll limp on. If America loses, and Iran gets to dictate terms in the Strait of Hormuz, then I'm not sure how long it will last before other nations follow suit.

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SilverElfin 2 hours ago
Are you being sarcastic? Iran is ruled by a an authoritarian theocratic regime that took over through violence and has been ruling over their citizens through violence. Iran is also the biggest backer of terrorists in the Middle East, and has supported Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, and many others. It’s Iran’s ruling power that has been unchecked for too long.
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unshavedyak 2 hours ago
Are they mutually exclusive?
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b345 2 hours ago
Most people view Israel and the US as the terrorists and Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis as the revolutionaries.
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Ancapistani 2 hours ago
"Most people", meaning "most people in your social circles" presumably - because that's certainly not the case where I am, and I'd like to see some polling data before considering that it's the case globally. I seriously doubt it.
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pjc50 2 hours ago
"He's out of line, but he's right": while Iran are an extremely bad actor, before Trump the situation was stable. And the start of conventional hostilities was clearly from the US+Israel side.

(open question as to how much the October 2023 attack is the fault of Iran, specifically?)

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Izkata 2 hours ago
There were negotiations before it all started and people seem to have missed or forgotten the claim that Iran mentioned having material to create 11 nukes during this. When this first came out all the news reported there was no evidence Iran had that, but now their refined uranium isn't really in question.

Also during this one of their missiles hit a target 4000 kilometers away, much further than they were claiming they had. That's far enough to hit Europe if it had gone in the other direction.

To me it's looking like the stability was an illusion.

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wetpaws 2 hours ago
[dead]
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bak3y 3 hours ago
[flagged]
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garbawarb 2 hours ago
I suspect Iran's goal is to drag this out until US midterm elections.
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tim333 59 minutes ago
Probably as that gets closer their leverage will increase both due to that and stocks running down.
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david927 3 hours ago
A CAPE ratio of 40x and record-high margin debt; what could go wrong?
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10xDev 3 hours ago
There has been a lot of posturing from both sides, this is probably going to continue for a couple of months more before they reach equilibrium.
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cdrnsf 3 hours ago
I don't think we should consider gross incompetence on the part of the US to be posturing.
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10xDev 2 hours ago
I'm only giving a neutral perspective. The moment the world stops relying on oil, Iran will lose its biggest leverage in this situation. Other sources of energy are going to be pushed even more.
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dh2022 2 hours ago
There is more that goes through Hormuz than just oil- like fertilizer for example. Just been able to charge a fee for crossing the Hormuz is a strategic goal for Iran. This is an outcome of the war. Previously Iran did not know how weak US is - but now they figured out.

It would be interesting to see if this war will be a net negative for Israel. If Iran emerges with more financial resources out of the war you can bet they will fund Hamas and Hezbollah more than before the war.

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nradov 24 minutes ago
Fertilizer exports are a problem but trucks are keeping it moving at a somewhat higher cost.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/fertiliser-stuck-i...

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outside1234 3 hours ago
The craziest thing to me is that the conventional wisdom is that this will be over by July.

We will be lucky if any ships get through the straight by December.

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cassianoleal 2 hours ago
> the conventional wisdom is that this will be over by July

Whose "conventional" wisdom?

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bryanlarsen 2 hours ago
Crude oil prices appear to encode an optimistic outcome.
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cassianoleal 42 minutes ago
So "the market" is conventional "wisdom"?
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DivingForGold 3 hours ago
Here we go ...
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outside1234 3 hours ago
Can't wait for Trump to offer them $300B of our money for this to go away so he can get back to golfing with our money.
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luke5441 2 hours ago
As far as I understood he already offered the reparations. Including real estate projects & investment fund, obviously.

Didn't make the problem go away.

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kashunstva 2 hours ago
I’m not sure he ever stopped golfing. But yes, getting back to some other distraction, an expensive one, no doubt - I’m sure that would ease his mind considerably.
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kevin_thibedeau 2 hours ago
Cuba is up next but that can't get started until he has a "win" on Iran. They aren't giving him the chance to pretend he's a genius like all his lackeys do for him.
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sheikhnbake 2 hours ago
Maybe we can throw in some US treasury printing plates too
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silexia 2 hours ago
[flagged]
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tim333 56 minutes ago
You're not really supposed to steal oil these days and troops on the ground would be easy targets for Iranian drones. I think the military solution would to be have Ukraine help out as they have offered with land and air and marine drones controlled remotely via starlink or similar.

Trump was a bit negative about that "last person we need help from is Zelensky" - but the tech is quite good - vid of them trouncing NATO in drone exercises https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl-jU8XUdhQ also control system and a kind of amazon for drones https://youtu.be/W6pryqt1dwY

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