Iran Super Thread- Merged

[brihard]

He could also point the finger at Israel, with certain incredibly unhelpful comments that have been made.

Israeli official spurns call for truce: ‘All of Lebanon must burn’​

Yeah… Netenyahu’s between an increasingly hard rock and an increasingly hard place. Some of the other Israeli leadership are really not helping.

This.

U.S. is around 25% of its SPR capacity and burning more to keep gas prices low at home. The SPR floor is variously reported to be 10-20% of max holdings (~850MBBL IIRC), so the U.S. is approaching a formative moment soon regarding its reserve.

Mm hm. It’s not like a pint of beer or a box of cereal where empty is just empty. Storage, pipes, and refining equipment need a lot of stock moving through pipes to maintain safe operating pressures, refining processes, etc etc. my understanding is the system does not lend itself to much stop and start. Functionally empty comes well before physically empty.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Not to mention the salt caverns they use to store the oil might become unstable.

 

[brihard]

Not to mention the salt caverns they use to store the oil might become unstable.

Both sides face potential infrastructure problems, yes. It may well come down to which side is more resilient to the economic and societal pain, and is willing to take the punches longer. The dynamics in play there will be very, very different between a somewhat fractured democracy facing elections in five months, and an autocracy willing to do a bit of murder-death-kill when the population gets uppity.

If it’s a question of oil trade chicken, my money is reluctantly on Iran.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I get why you place your bets with Iran. One of our struggles in the west is understanding authoritarian regimes. We don't get their internal power struggles, or the fact that they lie to themselves routinely. These regimes snap and fall apart without warning in our view, when the facades can no longer be maintained. I think the regime was suffering far more than we know and this deal was their lifeline. However many inside it, think they can maintain the status quo or even humiliate the west further. In their view the west is weak and soft, and they are not wrong to a point. WWII shows what happens when the west resolves itself to win at all costs. Getting us there or even close is a mammoth task however.

 

[Altair]

I get why you place your bets with Iran. One of our struggles in the west is understanding authoritarian regimes. We don't get their internal power struggles, or the fact that they lie to themselves routinely. These regimes snap and fall apart without warning in our view, when the facades can no longer be maintained. I think the regime was suffering far more than we know and this deal was their lifeline. However many inside it, think they can maintain the status quo or even humiliate the west further. In their view the west is weak and soft, and they are not wrong to a point. WWII shows what happens when the west resolves itself to win at all costs. Getting us there or even close is a mammoth task however.

WW two is a great example of the west.

Name the western democracies that joined the war without being attacked or defending an ally that got attacked?

If the Third Reich had just kept to themselves and not invaded their neighbours, nobody in Europe was going to war to stop them, regardless of the atrocities.

So if Iran had attacked America directly, and caused significant enough damage or death the american public and NATO would have gone through a wall to crush them.

But an offensive war of choice? I'm trying to think of a war in the past 150 years that a western democracy (israel isnt a western democracy) galvanized their population into thinking it was good thing. Spanish American war? Maybe? Even then you had the Maine...

The point is, dictatorships have figured the west out. They can do whatever yhey please within their borders, up until they actually attack anyone people in democracies just dont care.

 

[Infanteer]

(israel isnt a western democracy)

Why not?

 

[Altair]

Why not?

By virtue of their geographic location, generational trauma, and religious dynamic, they are locked into a fortress mentality that isn't representative of a typical western country.

Or put another way, one can compare the politics of the UK and New zealand, Germany and the USA, France and Australia, but none of these would be comparable to Israel.

Most nations have a web of security partnerships or the geography to weather any attack on their nation, or both, Israel has neither and as such will go on happy crusades from time to time.

 

[brihard]

I get why you place your bets with Iran. One of our struggles in the west is understanding authoritarian regimes. We don't get their internal power struggles, or the fact that they lie to themselves routinely. These regimes snap and fall apart without warning in our view, when the facades can no longer be maintained. I think the regime was suffering far more than we know and this deal was their lifeline. However many inside it, think they can maintain the status quo or even humiliate the west further. In their view the west is weak and soft, and they are not wrong to a point. WWII shows what happens when the west resolves itself to win at all costs. Getting us there or even close is a mammoth task however.

To be clear I’m speaking strictly of which of the two sides I believe can stick it out longer than the other with the Strait mostly closed. I see that as an almost entirely political question; the economics are all very real but those merely impact political decisions. There’s no clear ‘line in the sand’ economic breaking point that will be definitively determinative for either side.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I think the blockade of Iran shook them much harder than we think, even without that, the civil unrest has tanked much of Iran's economy and it's not going to recover anytime soon. Most of the oil money coming in benefits the IRGC elite and to some extent their supporters, average Iranians will see little of that. Add on the drought crisis that helped push the civil unrest and Iran's regime is on very unstable ground.

 

[Altair]

I think the blockade of Iran shook them much harder than we think, even without that, the civil unrest has tanked much of Iran's economy and it's not going to recover anytime soon. Most of the oil money coming in benefits the IRGC elite and to some extent their supporters, average Iranians will see little of that. Add on the drought crisis that helped push the civil unrest and Iran's regime is on very unstable ground.

Nothing a little bloodletting after the peace deal is signed wont resolve.

It's written in the deal that the other nations will more or less turn a blind eye to the others internal affairs.

Unless this was written to protect Kash Patel, I think we all know what that means.

 

[Infanteer]

By virtue of their geographic location, generational trauma, and religious dynamic, they are locked into a fortress mentality that isn't representative of a typical western country.

Or put another way, one can compare the politics of the UK and New zealand, Germany and the USA, France and Australia, but none of these would be comparable to Israel.

Most nations have a web of security partnerships or the geography to weather any attack on their nation, or both, Israel has neither and as such will go on happy crusades from time to time.

Geographic location, generational trauma, and religious dynamic are not indicators of western liberal democracy.

Factors that are:

• Representative democracy;
• Free and fair elections;
• Rule of law;
• Independent Judiciary;
• Some degree of guaranteed individual liberties;
• Independent press;
• Healthy civil-military relations.

Israel possesses all of these.

 

[Altair]

Geographic location, generational trauma, and religious dynamic are not indicators of western liberal democracy.

Factors that are:

• Representative democracy;
• Free and fair elections;
• Rule of law;
• Independent Judiciary;
• Some degree of guaranteed individual liberties;
• Independent press;
• Healthy civil-military relations.

Israel possesses all of these.

So does India, but we don't consider it a Western Liberal Democracy.

Regardless, even if it were, and I don't consider it as a western liberal democracy, but even if it were, it would be so extreme an outlier, that I would simply say,

I'm trying to think of a offensive war in the past 150 years that a western democracy (Outside of Israel) galvanized their population into thinking it was good thing.

 

[Infanteer]

So does India, but we don't consider it a Western Liberal Democracy.

Ask yourself why we don't.

 

[Altair]

Ask yourself why we don't.

I would love to but I don't feel like derailing the Iran thread.

You want to make a new one?

 

[Eaglelord17]

Geographic location, generational trauma, and religious dynamic are not indicators of western liberal democracy.

Factors that are:

• Representative democracy;
• Free and fair elections;
• Rule of law;
• Independent Judiciary;
• Some degree of guaranteed individual liberties;
• Independent press;
• Healthy civil-military relations.

Israel possesses all of these.

Is it free and fair elections when you run a apartheid system denying the right to vote to many who live in the area?

 

[Altair]

Is it free and fair elections when you run a apartheid system denying the right to vote to many who live in the area?

Occupied people don't count. Although if it's occupied, you cannot settle it...

Hmmm....

Moving on before anyone thinks too hard on that one.

 

[Brad Sallows]

By virtue of their geographic location,

They're slightly across the water from Greece.

generational trauma

Completely opaque as to how that would negate obviously democratic institutions. Care to expand?

, and religious dynamic

Same for that one.

 

[Altair]

They're slightly across the water from Greece.

Completely opaque as to how that would negate obviously democratic institutions. Care to expand?

Same for that one.

If you read further down that sentence you would realize why those dynamics make it so israel is very different than other western liberal democracies.

If you read further down the thread you would see that even if some people view it as a legitimate liberal western democracy, i would exclude it on principle from any list seeking a liberal western denocracy galvanizing its population into a purely offensive war that the people viewed as worth it in the last 150 years.

So now that we are all caught up, onwards to the future.