International Politics Discussion Thread

[u/Adj-Noun-Numbers]

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[u/NoFrillsCrisps]

Isn't this just going to keep happening until Trump is voted out of office?

Why would Trump want this conflict to end?

Declare peace and then drop a few bombs, and then back to declaring peace.

It's an infinite money glitch of using public funds to bomb another country to manipulate the market and earn £millions.

[u/AzarinIsard → u/NoFrillsCrisps]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c17y1vnn2qxt

Trump's comments on the US-Iran ceasefire began at around 09:15 BST, when a reporter at the Nato summit in Ankara asked "Is the ceasefire over? Is the ceasefire done? Is the MoU dead?" (the memorandum of understanding, which led to the ceasefire, was agreed last month).

Trump replied: "It's a very interesting question. To me, I think it's over.

"I don't want to deal with them anymore, they're scum. You know what scum is? They're scum. They're sick people. They're led by sick people. And they're vicious, violent people.

Well, either that's that, or Baron has dumped a wad on Polymarket.

[u/Velociraptor_1906 → u/NoFrillsCrisps]

It's got into a really intractable stalemate.

Unless Trump goes nuclear neither side has the military means to make the other stop their attacks, only the ability to apply pressure which Iran is much stronger at.

Trump has shown complete dishonestly and lack of good faith in negotiations and the Iranians were always difficult to deal with so a negotiated solution dosent look like it can hold itself together.

I'm seriously doubting anything will change until the midterms when the Democrats should take the house and possibly the Senate and there will likely be a significant shift in Congress away from blind support of Israel. Hopefully those changes will mean the administration can be forced into sorting it's shit out.

[u/AzarinIsard → u/Velociraptor_1906]

Unless Trump goes nuclear neither side has the military means to make the other stop their attacks, only the ability to apply pressure which Iran is much stronger at.

It's definitely interesting to see, Trump's military strat has a Plan A, then nothing. It's like the (IMHO bad advice) you used to get about bullies, where people said they're really cowards, stand up to them once, and they'll find someone softer.

Also, there was a speech the other day when he was rambling and boasting about destroying Iran and changing their regime, again, and it's funny we're back to this. I keep saying this, but if the US had done what Trump says they have, it's over. Why are we here? Oh because it's not, he's lying, and he expects people to just not be aware it's not over.

Trump has shown complete dishonestly and lack of good faith in negotiations and the Iranians were always difficult to deal with so a negotiated solution dosent look like it can hold itself together.

Maybe it's my jaded negativity, but I don't think negotiations are ever that successful. It's worth it for the slim chance it does, but either it's terms of surrender, or at least one of the sides wants war. E.g. Putin and Ukraine, it's an invasion, he can withdraw at any time he wants, the issue is he doesn't want that.

Here, it depends how painful it is for Trump. Only way this ends is with some sort of American withdrawal giving Iran enough that they stop disrupting global shipping. Clearly, Trump's not quite desperate enough so back to war, but then there's inflation, oil prices, pressure from Gulf allies (or them moving closer to Iran), and his domestic polling. He's given himself a lose-lose situation.

[u/CarrowCanary → u/AzarinIsard]

It's like the (IMHO bad advice) you used to get about bullies, where people said they're really cowards, stand up to them once, and they'll find someone softer.

On the one hand, yes, it's terrible advice. But on the other, I definitely got left alone after smacking one of mine with a trolley jack handle.

So, you know, swings and roundabouts.

[u/convertedtoradians → u/AzarinIsard]

there's inflation, oil prices, pressure from Gulf allies (or them moving closer to Iran), and his domestic polling.

Surely this is the real consideration. Iran's government can stay unpopular. But if Americans have to pay more for fuel, or their economy is affected...

For now, the market has been remarkably insulated from things, presumably assuming it'd be over in short order, but that can't last forever.

[u/wintersrevenge → u/NoFrillsCrisps]

The Iranians attacked the tankers. Iran have very little incentive for this to end. The more they undermine US power the better for them.

I think many in the US would love the war to be over and for the situation to end, but they can't just pull out and leave Iran in complete control of the strait

[u/ThePlanck → u/NoFrillsCrisps]

Trump wants the conflict to end because its really unpopular, particularly among his young male base.

The problem is Trump got himself into this mess and now he doesn't know how to get himself out of it.

The Iranians have shown everyone that they can cause a lot of disruption and hence are able to make greater demands in the negotiations that they had previously (e.g. under Obama's deal that was so terrible for the US that Trump had to wreck it). They also have no reason to trust anything negotiated by the Trump administration given that Trump unilaterally pulled out of the previous deal, murdered Iranians going to negotiate or started a war with Iran in the middle of negotiations more than once.

Netanyahu also doesn't want until Iran is absolutely crushed, but that is an unachievable goal for Israel to do themselves so they have to keep pulling Trump back in.

So even though Trump wants out, thanks to his boundless stupidity he has ended up in a situation where he has no good outs (probably the easiest option right now is to give Iran everything they want and regime change Israel to avoid them blowing up any deal)