NotSoWise

Chinese ship did not go through the blockade - POTUS has balls. The blockade seems to work now. The blockade that is working, puts a lot of pressure on Iran. Time to eat my shoes...

Greg, you misrepresent the facts, below some explanation: 1. US blockade is a joke, because Chinese ships with Iran oil can go through. (Chinese not paying any fees to US...) 2. Iran blockade in SOH is working fine, as Arab oil cant go through via SOH. Ships cant go through unless they pay USD 2m fee. 3. Saudi Arabia sends its oil via pipeline only, to Red Sea - (but only Saudi because of pipeline, the rest of Arabs cant export at all via SOH). And Saudi A. is worried that Houthis will close the Red Sea or Iran damage the pipeline, which can happen if escalation. The source was not Twitter, but BBC, quite reliable source, unlike Twitter BS.

When Iran closed the SOH - all non-Iranian ships couldnt get through - those who tried were damaged or had to go back. Iran blockade was 100% working for non-Iranian ships. When US did blockade (on top of Iranian), allied ships could not get through (because of Iran), but Iranian linked could get through (Chinese, 80% of Iranian traffic). If 80%of Iranian linked ships are Chinese and US didnt want to take them out, then what sense was it to have a blockade - US blockade is simply a joke. The source was BBC - relatively objective, reliable source. My post is purely political - does not relate to any investment ideas. NA O&G clearly benefits, but since oil is a global commodity with globally set price, all the consumers and all the US industry that uses oil as raw materials pay higher price, which is to their detriment. Net, net is probably negative for all stakeholders in US. Risk/reward has to be weighted by probability. Reward was great, but at 5-10% success rate (all Trump advisors told him it is unlikely to happen), cost of risk was also high in my view but its probability was very high 90-95%. So from my perspective the risk/ reward weighted by probability was pretty bad. But I agree, if it was successful, US would control lots of oil, good negotiating point against China. Agree, Biden made the Russian invasion more likely. However, it was not possible to close the war in one day/ week/ month, by anybody, even by Trump. His promise to shut it down was presidential campaign marketing or stupidity (I think the former). He also promissed not to make wars and focus on US and here we come with Iran war...

Its overall big picture, Iran was just another piece of information that increased the probability of the above events. Not 100% reason behind them. (edited my post, I did not express myself clearly) As per the latest news, it is 4 ships now that have crossed the SOH/ US blockade. What a joke... Another interesting point is that US aircraft carrier G. Bush sails now to Iran going around south Africa. This route is few weeks longer - why not via Suez canal? Because of scared of Houthis... Strange times we live in.

Today two Chinese ships went via SOH through US blockade - they were asked by US Navy to stop - but didnt give a f...k about this stop request. US Navy did not chase them, did not take over these ships and did not shoot at them. With 80% of Iran's oil export going to China - this US blockade is clearly not working. The idea in theory was good, but in practice it could only work if US was ready to go to war with China, which is not. Can we call it a TACO? Wars are not about how many you kill or what you damage, they are about bending the will of the adversary, to make him do what you want (e.g. Venezuela). Iran situation is already called the worst decision in US foreign policy ever - even worse than Iraq war by Bush. In general, I am pro US, but this unfortunate event could result in increasing probability of more negative outcomes like Taiwan joining China (they dont want to be the next Ukraine), Baltic countries attacked by Russia over the next 3-4 years, etc.

I am happy for Don to have his ballroom, it is sweet.

I live in EU and was never concerned about Iran having nukes, just like with N Korea having nukes. Iran nukes is problem of Israel, not EU. I am only concerned about Russian conventional forces (142m Russians), but not at all about Russian nukes... As for bombing Arabs by Iran - why not? US bases are there and they support US bombings. Most people who are in the subject were expecting this along with blockade of SOH. It is a war. Most of wars are unpredictable, but this one was an exception, most of Trump advisors were against, but he did it anyway. Why not going against N. Korea first (they have nukes) vs Iran (had only uranium)?

If Chinese ships can go through with oil from Iran, than what sense has the US blockade - you would block oil to Japan or Australia then... (plus Africa, but nobody cares about Africa)

What you wrote means shooting to Chinese ships with Iranian oil - Do you think it is a good idea? Would US do it?

Agree, the big picture looks like you wrote. Also agree that lots of what Trump says is just noise, positioning him as unpredictable, etc. So also agree that we should not get too attached to what Trump says - which with him closing SOH could be just rhetoric - as it does not make much sense, but could be useful for some of his communication strategy.

Yes, Iran decides who goes through SOH, not US. So Iran controls 20% of global oil, it is a lot of power. Iran decided to continue its nuke program, US cant stop it. If Iran was weak, JD would come with agreement.

Rubio would come back with the same result. It was not about JD or incompetency. Both parties were so far apart that is was not possible to find a common ground.

Because of TACO there wont be a global depression. I am just questioning whether what POTUS said about blocking SOH (which is already blocked by Iran) has any sense. Also not saying that Iran will crush USA - it is not possible. I am just saying that POTUS is in shit up to his nose with this Iran war and has mostly bad options in front of him. Weak Iran can block the SOH and US mighty Navy (which is no.1) can do shit about it and stays far away from Iran because of safety reasons. Also, US could not defend fully its allies - lots of rockets went through and did significant damage to Arab industry. This tells a lot who has a weak hand in this particular conflict. Iran has such good geography that the only way to win here is to nuke it. Picking parts out of context and adding different meaning to what I wrote may seem like a logical contr argument, but it is not.

Not a forecast, just saying that with 20% less oil (and fertilizers), the world economy would not look the same as with 100% oil from before the crisis.

with no deal - how come? Iran didnt have any cards? - POTUS has this idea of blocking SOH. I am just wondering... - will US Navy sink Chinese ships with oil going through - if they didnt sink Russian ship with oil to Cuba - will US block ships with fuel to US allies - Japan, Korea, Philipines, Australia, India, Pakistan, etc - wont the Saudi pipeline to Red Sea be immediately shot at by Iran - what about Hutis blocking oil in Red Sea? - is POTUS ready for 1929 crisis or worse if 20% of global oil stops My bet is on TACO again... My understanding is that POTUS wants to put pressure on China to put pressure on Iran, but its not obvious it will work.

I wish US all the best, I hope they will achieve their goals and it ends well without thousands of US soldiers dead and Iran not a threat to anyone. Agree, we are in the middle of it and despite mostly bad scenarios in front, there could be a miracle or some super genius outcome nobody foresaw - so lets wait few more weeks, even months to see how it ends. We dont have to agree today on the most likely outcome.

Agree, the bombing campaign went fantastic (US Airforce did great job, no doubt) and it was a great tactical success - BUT SO WHAT? - Ormuz is closed to Iran's enemies and US cant open it for over 4 weeks now - US Navy cant come closer due to Iran's anti-ship rockets (why they still have rockets?), not to mention to sail into the Ormuz - Iran is continuously and daily shooting its neighbours and US bases in the region - with some success - Israels anti rockes will last about three more weeks and then what? - oil is at USD 100+ - LNG in Katar damaged, hellium production damaged, aluminium plant in Saudi damaged, with the rest at risk - no regime change - they kept uranium - they are being supplied by China/ Russia without any issues - US lifted Iran's and Russia's oil sanctions - why? so they can buy more rockets and run the war longer? - ....and Trump is left with only two bad options: escalate further or negotiate with pants down US won all the battles in Vietnam, but lost the war in the end... Successful bombing campaign is not enough to win the war/ reach all the initial objectives.

Lets wait few weeks/ months and we will see how it ends. I dont think Trump will do land invasion with 15k troops. The soldiers would be decimated on these islands (casualties in thousands) - plus how he will get them there? Arab states in this scenario would be severely damaged (water plants, refineries, etc). He will also not invade Iran with 0,5m soldiers - no support and does not make any sense (another Vietnam). If desperate, he could consider nukes on Iran... not very popular move, but if cant negotiate on his terms, who knows. Most likely scenario is probably to negotiate - the number of concessions he makes will be the measure of his success, playing weak hand is tough against Iran. To start, Trump lifted oil sanctions on Iran, so Iran has more money to buy more Russian/ Chinese drons/ rockets to kill more Americans and Israelis... The game is on so too early to judge the outcome, but I think his choices are down to chosing the lesser evil.

EU has almost no army. France has good, but small contingent. UK/ Germany's land armies are big joke. Germany cant for many years build a brigade in the Baltics (they have battalion there). Practically no air defence across EU. To be honest, only Finland has strong conventional army (and reserve system), despite small population numbers. Poland is building, but is still far from where it should be. As for US, there are lots of worrying signs: - not prepared for drones warfare - most of US bases in Arab countries already destroyed. Soldiers moved to hotels, etc not to get killed. - no cheap technology for Irans USD 35k drones - US spends millions to shoot down. Small production of Patriots missles, etc it will take several years to build the stocks again. - US ships are affraid to defend Ormuz due to potential large losses. Aircraft carriers far away - 70% of population obesee or overweight - army has big problem to recruit as most people do not qualify for medical reasons - shipbuidling capacity is 200:1 China to USA. One war with China and US will not be able to rebuild military ships on time. China's industrial production 2:1 to USA - US high debt, limiting military options in the future - China leading in more and more military technologies, etc I hope US gets over these issues, EU is part of the West and still dependent on US - EU/ US interests are still mostly aligned, but not 100% identical.

Sadly what you wrote is mostly true. EU made several mistakes: - dependency on Russian energy by Germany - not spending on military enough - immigration policy - climate policy, etc. On top some of the countries are run by fools (there is rotation). In ideal scenario, EU should become federation like US, but I think it is not possible, national interests are too wide apart.

No not kidding. In the past 75 years or so, North Korea and China killed more Americans than Iran since the begining of the world.

Good assessment. One comment is that EU will not be able to defend itself without US for a minimum of another 10 years. It needs to develop technologies, build up defence industry, reform reserve system, build logistics networks (i.e. military fuel pipes extension to Poland, ports, bridges to support tanks, etc). The list is very long and on top EU countries are high in debt (UK, France, Italy, Spain). There is also asymetry of risk within EU, so it will not act as one block - eg. Spain vs Poland against Russia, etc.

Iran does not have nukes yet. Ali put on hold building nukes (fatva), but was killed by US/ Israel - so now they have no other choice than to build nukes - just like North Korea - so they are not bombed again. I am not supporter of Iran regime, just saying what the situation is. North Korea when was developing nukes, was not stopped by US. Because NK has nukes, US is affraid to bomb it, unlike Iran. NK is even more dangerous than Iran, so why US didnt start there first? Irans nukes (once they have it) will be targeted at Israel, not at Europe - why EU should bother? EU is already targeted by Russian nukes. Israel has own nukes, so they will be in equilibrium with Iran. In general, being in EU, I dont care much if Iran has nukes or not, at least not a reason to start war on Iran by EU. EU is not bombing Iran, unlike US/ Israel. It is not our problem, just like N.Korea. Russia is bigger issue at the moment, as it wants to take control of Central Europe-Baltic region/ Central Asia/ Caucasian region. We cant solve all the problems in the world. On a side note: I think the real problems will start in 15-25 years from now, due to climate warming (once we move beyond 2 degrees C - less water, less food production, soil erosion, chemicals, mass migrations to EU/ US, etc, etc. Now we have minor problems compared to what will come. We should enjoy the present good times as long as we can (and compound) and not think about the future we most likely wont be able to change. Pls note that I am not against fossil fuels, our civilisation is based on them - there is no other way and it cant be stoped (you need heat for cement and steel, then fossil fuels for fertilizers and plastics, etc). The issue is that we (rather our kids) will have to pay the price at some point for our comfortable life. But for now lets enjoy...

If you analyze Iran only in the context of the region - than this was clearly a mistake to go in and start bombing. If you watched the above podcast, the outcome was predictable. On the other hand if you increase the scope and include China in the picture, then it is not as obvious. If US wanted to clear the Iran situation before China confrontation (like clearing Cuba/ Venezuela) then it had some logic, BUT the chances of sucess were slim from the begining, you cant change regime by bombing - never happened in history. There was also no plan B if this bombing does not work out. POTUS hubris I think. As for EU Nato allies - Iran thing was not consulted, it was purely US/ Israel initiative. Ormuz was open before the war... As for the Ukraine and US - well, US is defending its sphere of influence, from which it derives many benefits (US corps making money in EU and not paying taxes, selling weapons, etc). So I guess both US and EU are benefiting from this alliance, but it is not that US is only paying and not getting back anything. With the US mighty Navy (best in the world), why POTUS needs EU ships? He needs them to get hits by Iranian rockets, to preserve US Navy and avoid own losses. Why would anyone with IQ > 1 agree to send EU navy to join now? With my all sympathy to US/ West, US&Israel created this mess, so I think they should find a solution to this situation. Unfortunately there are no good exits from this. You either escalate or negotiate with Iran with your pants down. Both terrible choices.

Checked only the last two pages of this topic, so not sure if I am not repeating someone else. I think that one of the best frameworks for the situation with Iran is presented by prof. Robert Pape - link below.