September 2026: The world today, as seen by one Polish guy
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September 2026: The world today, as seen by one Polish guy
Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.
jakozaur · · focus · HN ↗
The war in Ukraine is a tragedy, but it has proved that Russia is weak. The price shock will speed up the transition to renewables, and Iran is losing its grip on Hormuz. So many of the other issues are solvable.
It's easy to be a pessimist, but there's a bright future ahead of us.
traceroute66 · · focus · HN ↗
Remember this is a war that Iran has spent 40 years planning for.
Netanyahu has been doing the same "two weeks away" stand-up comedy since 1992.
Netanyahu asked every single US president. They all took advice and then went back with a polite "thanks, but no thanks".
You don't need to have access to super-secret intel to know going into this frivolous war was a very stupid idea. You just need to look at a standard map and use your brain.
Finally Mr Netanyahu found a stupid enough US president.
And the problem with the current US president is he won't accept a loss.
He is not the sort of person willing to accept he has bitten off more than he can chew.
Nor is he the sort of person who is willing to sit down and have a proper negotiated discussion. Infact he's the very person who just tore up the JPCOA seemingly just because he doesn't like Obama.
Nor is he the sort of person willing to learn from Iraq or Afghanistan.
So we have a stalemate. And a US president who doesn't believe in diplomacy, old-school politics or anything else.
And this stalemate is not one that is going to be resolved with more military firepower. Again, just look at the map....
jonnybgood · · focus · HN ↗
So has the US. But as the saying goes: Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
dcss_gardener · · focus · HN ↗
My understanding is that the US's longstanding evaluation is that their strategic goals in the region can't be accomplished by brawling with Iran over the strait, and their best move is to avoid it. The actions of every previous administration align with this view.
Where Iran's strategic position can be improved by drawing the US into an open conflict. Disrupting global petroleum markets, forcing the US to spend disproportionate resources defending its regional allies or withdraw and admit it can't, weakening the US's influence as a diplomatic power, all are achievable (or, frankly, achieved) with this conflict.
The US has no comparable strategic wins to even aim for here. At this point their only reasonable goal is restoring open trade through the strait, the status quo before the conflict. Fighting a war to successfully reclaim the status quo that was disrupted by entering the war is, strategically, losing a war.
jonnybgood · · focus · HN ↗
traceroute66 · · focus · HN ↗
The US has incurred plenty of costs though....
Those very expensive billion-dollar THAAD radars of which there are "not many" in the world ? Those are not getting replaced any time soon. IIRC following the destruction they have redeployed the one they had stationed in South Korea, much to the annoyance of the Koreans.
All those very expensive fancy missiles that have been used ? Expensive to re-manufacture and long lead-time.
The jets, helicopters and drones the Iranians shot down ?
The cost of running those ships they have parked off the Iranian shores ?
Those AWS datacentres ?
And that's before we get to the broader indirect non-military economy impacts.
That's the whole point of this war and Iran knows it.
Yes, Iran's GDP might have contracted 10% but that's nothing compared to what the US has incurred and the impact on the rest of the world.
> We've already seen the most Iran can do.
Except as Iran has demonstrated with the entirely predictable Part 2, the Houthis enter stage-left and disrupt Bab.
So now the US have the mess they created in Hormuz, plus a second front in Bab.
The only way out of this is going to be the US accepting old-school diplomatic resolution. More guns won't fix anything.
dzonga · · focus · HN ↗
largely due the us gvt hiding information, suppressing. e.g all the bases in the Middle East are toast in range of missiles or drones. that means the us will withdraw from them silently.
weapons stockpiles are almost depleted. and replacing them takes years.
so 10% of Iran GDP vs that --
stickfigure · · focus · HN ↗
I really don't think you've considered the scale of these things. Yeah the US burned some billions of dollars and tens of lives. On the scale of the US, this is nothing compared to what Iran is experiencing.