re: Vice President says U.S. expects Strait of Hormuz to be open ‘toll free’ long term

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A bunch got martyr'd and we're supposedly giving them billions in reparations.

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If your argument is that killing senior IRGC personnel and degrading military infrastructure is actually a win for the IRGC because they can call themselves martyrs, then literally no military action against any enemy in history has ever been successful.

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Their entire nuclear program was completely destroyed prior to this action

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Then what exactly are they negotiating about? Why does the international community continue discussing enrichment, centrifuges, inspections, and nuclear capability if the program was already completely destroyed?

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They have more power now than they did 3 months ago.

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If that's true, then why are they negotiating after suffering military strikes? Countries that are gaining power don't usually come to the table because things are going great.

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I don't think that answer is remotely clear.

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You don't have to think it's clear. You just have to explain how a regime funding proxies, enriching uranium, expanding missile capabilities, and facing no military consequences would somehow be less dangerous than one that has had its infrastructure damaged and its options narrowed.

Also, credit where it's due: I actually answered the question you asked instead of copy/pasting whatever my preferred political echo chamber told me to say that day. Naturally, you skipped right past that part. :-)

They seemed to prove the threat of action is enough to shut the strait.

Not sure how that gets exercised in the future. Seems they crossed a forbidden line that may make future crossings easier.

That's a fair concern.

But there's a difference between proving you can cause a disruption and proving you can maintain control.

Quite a few, actually. Which is why I'm confused by your point.

If ships are still moving through the Strait, then you've demonstrated Iran can disrupt shipping and increase risk...not that they have absolute control.

Those are two very different claims. One is obviously true. The other obviously isn't.

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How many ships have passed through the straight in the last two weeks?

Month?

Three Months?

Why is that?

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It will take months for traffic to normalize and virtually all of the traffic will be ships leaving the Gulf. The 10-14th had less than 30 crossings. Should have been hundreds.

There is still no agreement so shippers will be very hesitant to enter in to get cargos.

They stopped enriching uranium? Is that before or after they admitted they had been enriching it past civilian uses? I am sure they stopped enriching it after Obama’s speech lol why would they possess enriched uranium that is highly enriched if not for weapons purposes? Just to have it or because it sounds cool? You people are laughably stupid

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My argument is that we didn't really eliminate the regime (the IRGC still controls Iran) and we are giving them billions and billions to re-establish themselves.

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Then you're arguing against a position I never took. I never claimed regime change occurred. You asked what was achieved. Degrading military infrastructure, eliminating personnel, and forcing a hostile regime to react are achievements whether regime change happens or not.

If the standard is "anything short of regime change accomplished nothing," then virtually every military action in history was a failure.

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No idea. According to the WH, their nuclear program was completely elimnated last year and anyone saying otherwise is fake news. I trust the WH.

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Then your disagreement isn't with me. It's with the White House.

I'm operating in reality, where Iran's nuclear capabilities, enrichment, inspections, and negotiations are still being discussed because nobody seriously believes the issue ceased to exist.

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We brought them to the brink and we showed the world that not even trump has what it takes to effect actual regime change in Iran.

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Again, you're obsessed with regime change.

I'm not.

In fact, one of the reasons I opposed many of our gazillion dollar Middle East adventures was the delusional belief that every conflict required nation-building and regime change.

You asked what was achieved. Not whether Iran was transformed into Iowa.

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The US doesn't have the stomach for an invasion and won't last more than a month or two with the strait closed.

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Cool. I don't want an invasion. Never did. Been very clear about that.

Most Americans don't want an invasion.

You're rebutting arguments that nobody in this conversation between us is making.

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They proved it is an effective strategy to put domestic and international pressure on the US to cease engagement. It worked.

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Interesting theory.

How many times has Iran threatened to close the Strait over the last several decades?

Now ask yourself why global commerce continued flowing through it for most of those decades despite those threats. I'll say it again: the ability to create disruption isn't the same thing as demonstrating long-term control.

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What a faggy little retort.

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there it is.

For a guy who started this conversation demanding thoughtful analysis instead of "talking points," you've been arguing against positions I never took, moving the goalposts from "what was achieved?" to "why wasn't there regime change?", and finishing with a middle-school insult. ;-)

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What a faggy little retort.

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Thank you for being an independent thinker and moderate

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If the standard is "anything short of regime change accomplished nothing," then virtually every military action in history was a failure.

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Virtually every military action in history has failed to result in regime change? That's odd. I can think of hundreds that did.

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I'm operating in reality, where Iran's nuclear capabilities, enrichment, inspections, and negotiations are still being discussed because nobody seriously believes the issue ceased to exist.

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So it's your position that Donald Trump lied to the American people? Why would he do that?

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Again, you're obsessed with regime change.

I'm not.

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There's no reason to frick with Iran if you're not going for regime change. If that's off the table then it's a fruitless endeavor. Hence, nothing was achieved. I don't really care that we killed 1000 top IRGC personnel if the IRGC still controls Iran and is still pursuing their mission of funding terror proxies word wide. I hope you're not naive enough to think that's going to stop.

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I'll say it again: the ability to create disruption isn't the same thing as demonstrating long-term control.

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They don't need long-term control. 2 months of disruption was enough. They proved that closing (or severely restricting) the strait for a a month or two is going to be enough to get even the strongest adversary to say "no mas".

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For a guy who started this conversation demanding thoughtful analysis instead of "talking points," you've been arguing against positions I never took, moving the goalposts from "what was achieved?" to "why wasn't there regime change?", and finishing with a middle-school insult. ;-)

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So I guess your answer to what was achieved essentially boils down to "not much"

Got it.