White House: Reopening Strait of Hormuz Not Vital to Ending Iran War

I feel like there must be a historical own-goal that's worse, but I'm hard-pressed to think of one.

And for the better part of the last decade in America, if you tried to support platforms and agendas that went the opposite direction you were largely silenced.

And the GOP has helped him at every step. Can we have a class action suit against Fox and the GOP for economic/emotional harm?

Man when we had Obama you could see the happiness in the air and the level of respect everyone has had for each other. Those 8 years were some of the most peaceful I’ve had in my 30 years. Even the back half of Bidens term I thought we were getting back to that but that is all but gone completely. Sad it had to be the years I became a full fledged adult lmao

Americans' have a massive problem on their hands, and I don't think anyone has fully realized the scope of the problem. Trump is simply a hot spot in fire that is consuming our nation. It does not begin, or end with him. The problem traces all the way back to the post revolutionary period when the notion of American exceptionalism really began to take shape, but it accelerated rapidly in the post WWII period when the US rose to power, and was fed a constant stream of fuel by the propaganda that dominated during the Cold War. For decades, Americans have been told that they're special. By many objective measures, our country has achieved superlative status. By subjective measures, we enjoyed decades of broad, positive sentiment globally, even if we did have our critics. This problem has been growing underneath for a very long time though. What we're facing right now is the natural outcome of decades of telling people they're superior: a population of super-narcissists. You see it in everything from driving habits, to airline passenger crashouts, to social media personalities, to people for whom a political figure has become their entire personality. We have reached a critical mass of "main characters", and the line of civility can no longer hold. We are outnumbered. I'm not sure how this resolves itself. Beating back narcissists is hard enough when you're dealing with one in your immediate family, much less a president who has been granted *carte blanch* immunity by the highest court in the land. Ironically, we are headed directly for the same situation Russia is in. The authoritarians are consolidating power in the US, and they will be nigh impossible to remove once they have achieved their objectives. The rest of the world is concerned about the immediate impacts we're seeing in Iran, but this party is only getting started. The US is an established nuclear power. Look at what Putin has achieved with a military that has undergone decades of decay in the hands of kleptocrats. The US military is is still very healthy, and Trump just demonstrated that he's willing to unilaterally wield military power. It will take decades for the effects of the right's mismanagement to undermine the military-industrial complex. I cannot stress how resilient and agile the US military is. I know that's a hot take to some, but look at how quickly our armed forces are adapting to conditions in the Strait of Hormuz. The Air Force are running sorties from Navy platforms. The fast boat threat that the Iranians adapted from a shocking military exercise is being rapidly nullified. The US had reduced the cost of countering these fast boats from millions to tens-of-thousands. Iran's asymmetric ratio is quickly dwindling. Of course, Trump is unwittingly doing everything he can to help the Iranians. His soft stance on Russia is going to come back to bite him. Iran might not be able to withstand this effort for long, but Russian and Iran together are constantly innovating new means of driving costs down. This war is as much economic as it is about materiel and logistical capability. Sorry this is really long, but the point is that we are facing the rise of the most dangerous population of human beings in history, and we're already behind the curve. I'm not smart enough to see where this all ends up, but I am smart enough to see the haymaker coming.

>The world is treating Trump like the criminal he is. It's honestly refreshing and satisfyingly resonant. Seeing Iran behave rationally to being attacked and the markets *begin* to react rationally to the disaster Trump is creating is weird because it's very bad that it is happening ***but at least it is finally a rational reaction*** to Trump and MAGA.

A generation? It will take many many decades, over a century, for you to regain the status you had.

MAGA = Morons Are Governing America

No offence, but if you are blaming foreign interference, you are partially absolving Americans from the problem they created. You have (had?) A functioning democracy. The dangers of foreign interference are only there now because the people of America shrugged thier shoulders when super PACs and other interests were seen to be flooding money into your politics. When your chosen team gets in, you wave a coloured flag and wipe your brow and say "thank god, we're safe for another 4 years"... Trump is just the result of a stupid and corrupt system that Americans allowed happen. Don't absolve Americans... because they allowed it. (Of course every political system around the world has some level of corruption, i dont dispute that what so ever)

The problem is your country/constitution enable this. That’s why this is a point of no return; noone can be sure this won’t happen again (if it even gets to stop). Irreparable damage sadly.

Got rich off letting it happen

You’re giving him far too much credit. Some war hawks massaged his ego after Venezuela and told him war time presidents are popular. He doesn’t have any plan beyond his next meal.

We're lucky he's as dumb as he's narcissistic.

This i was totally thinking about this today. The problem is, its not like he had good intentions and just got lost in some way. You cant turn chicken shit into chicken soup as they say.

He could have been Hitler and had things in place to do so but instead chose to be Idi Amin because he's an idiot

Going to? That ship has sailed (excuse the pun)

This war has basically slowed global trade and removed sanctions from Russia and Iran... That was their plan so now he wants to blow something else up and walk away.

With these idiots, due to their incompetence Iran wins no matter what. My biggest worry is that those idiots might want to use A-bomb. Everyone competent who would say no was fired.

This is the big long term implication of all this focus on Iran. If it wasn't obvious before, it's obvious now to every belligerent actor in the world that if you don't want the US trying to walk all over you, then you need nukes ASAP. See also: Ukraine We've spent decades building alliance and assuring nations that they don't need nukes and if they get in trouble we'll help them out. All of that has been proven not true, so back to option A: nukes

Not only that but the previous supreme leader had forbidden by a religious law (a fatwa) the development of a nuclear weapon. That's why they've been 15 days from having nuclear weapons for years. Because they are, but they didn't make the last step because there was a religious ban on it. Guess who was killed and replaced by his vengeful son that is way more fanatical? The son can remove the religious ban whenever he wants now, so there is no way they won't have it soon.

>The attack completely justified internally in Iran the *need* to have nuclear weapons. Nobody is bombing North Korea This was already their justification. North Korea is left alone for a reason.

The alliances Iran is forging and will forge are going to make them 10x more dangerous. America had Iran pretty well isolated and countries were afraid to get involved with Iran because of America, but that's in the bin. Now they are a victim and America is on its heels, unable to stop anyone from doing anything really (not to mention unwilling, since Trump allows Russia to do whatever they want, including help Iran).

We are looking at a potential scenario where Iran will have direct control over ocean shipping via control of the Straight of Hormuz and controlling the Houthis. The Houthis has already successfully altered shipping behavior. Meaning that instead of making Israel the superpower of the Middle-East, Iran has just established itself as the de-facto controller of one of the most important international shipping channels in the world.

Bibi is happy though. He’s out of jail longer. 

Israel isn't even willing to commit ground troops to the war now while the US is involved, so I don't see them doing much when they are fighting on their own either. 

Israel enjoyed the distraction while they occupied south of Lebanon actually. Hardly in the news that this happened.

Not only hand it over, but also make sure they set up a toll booth paid solely in yuan. Say goodbye to the petro doller superiority.