Saudi Arabia has the East-West Pipeline [1] that takes ~7Mbpd (million barrels per day) of oil to Red Sea ports to avoid the Strait of Hormuz. They were already using it so there's not a lot of extra capacity they can get out. If we continue up the escalation ladder, the next big risk is that the Houthis close Bab al-Mandab, which is a not-quite-as-narrow but still vulnerable chokepoint to the Red Sea.
The UAE has the ADCOP (Abu Dhabi Cross Oil Pipeline) [2], which takes ~1.8Mbpd to the Gulf of Oman. This is beyond the Strait of Hormuz but not that far so technically is still vulnerable to drone attacks (in particular) from Iran if, again, we climb the escalation ladder.
The real issue is American security guarantees to GCC nations have been shown to be an illusion. Heck, the US can't protect their own bases in the region. Also, the US can't protect maritime traffic through the Strait. I mean this is in all seriousness: there is no military solution to this problem short of the use of nuclear weapons.
That means we are now in a situation where the US has to either split with Israel and offer Iran significantly better terms than they had before the war, likely including the lfiting of economic sanctions, or the US has to sit and watch the world plunge into recession and Asian countries in particular are going to burn. And who knows what a prolonged impasse will do to Europe, particularly come winter.
So far, the US seems to prefer letting the world burn rather thans plitting with Israel.
A protection racket ceases to be a protection racket if it no longer offers protection.
> […] or the US has to sit and watch the world plunge into recession and Asian countries in particular are going to burn.
Perhaps worth noting that the US is not unscathed in this, as oil/petroleum is a global market that includes the US. US domestic gas pump prices (which is input into everything, including groceries) go up when global oil prices go up. Not to mention things like fertilize (and, as a lot of people suddenly found out, the importance of helium).
And it's not like the US can practically stop exports, as a lot what the US produces can't be processed by their own refineries (at least at prices palatable to the consumer).
So it's not wrong to say that the world may end up in a global recession, and Asian countries have more acute problems that will hit sooner than the US, but the US will also face those issues if things drag on.
They won't sit still, though. Eventually, if this were tried, we'd see Chinese-flagged tankers buying passage rights from Iran and being escorted by PLAN ships.
No way does Commander TACO take that shot. The US interdiction threat in the gulf is empty, and everyone know it. Iran gets paid at the end of every story. The whole boondoggle has been a failure for the US in every analysis.
For the record: it was both, more or less. Some of the elders in this community were around in the Slashdot days, so it was sort of a pun on our shared cultural heritage, albeit not geopolitical strategy.
Again, there's no need to "break" a blockade that is an empty threat. I mean, yes, they could try to open it with military force or the threat thereof, but literally just painting a red flag would do just as well. Trump won't fire on a Chinese vessel, period.
This would be a blunder by Beijing. It would involve trotting their ships through half a world of American and allied sensors, only to put an untested-in-blue-waters navy perilously far from nearest bases or support if anything goes wrong.
I’m not saying the likes of Xi, Putin or Trump couldn’t do it. But it would be an intelligence bonanza for the West, India, Japan and Taiwan.
I disagree with this assessment. While they have not engaged in combat in blue waters, they certainly are all over the Pacific, far from home. Also, the US and Canada regularly run spy flights that capture photos and radio signals from Chinese naval vessels. I'm sure their boats are well painted with NATO radars by now.
Even if PLAN ships aren’t as capable or matching the U.S, it doesn’t really matter. They just have to be there. The U.S is not going to risk an escalation with China.
>That means we are now in a situation where the US has to either split with Israel and offer Iran significantly better terms than they had before the war, likely including the lfiting of economic sanctions, or the US has to sit and watch the world plunge into recession and Asian countries in particular are going to burn. And who knows what a prolonged impasse will do to Europe, particularly come winter.
I have the impression that somehow if the world will go into a recession, China will come out ahead. It looks like they either prepared for it or they have enough space to maneuver.
> So far, the US seems to prefer letting the world burn rather thans plitting with Israel.
That is the plan: After decoupling the EU from Russia gas by provoking the Ukraine war, now it is time for the Asian countries to be cut off from gulf oil/gas, so the US fracking projects become economical and the entire "allied" countries depend on the US petrostate.
It is the only way to preserve US hegemony. Since this long term project is bipartisan, higher gas prices in the US don't matter before the midterm elections.
The only difference in foreign policy between Trump and Biden is that Trump is more risk taking and often spells out the real intentions, such as "we'll take the oil".
Iran started the war. They threatened the USA funded Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis. The US decided to respond but that’s more a surprise they didn’t do something earlier.
When your opponent in an argument is this disconnected from reality, that's when you realizing engaging rationally is fruitless. This is just hasbara propaganda and Zionist lies and it has no place in a civil discussion.
> When your opponent in an argument is this disconnected from reality, that's when you realizing engaging rationally is fruitless.
Yes precisely.
> This is just hasbara propaganda and Zionist lies and it has no place in a civil discussion.
Oh I thought you meant the Islamist propaganda. Iran threatening the US, funding Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis are documented facts. Iran even wanted a ceasefire against Hezbollah in the recent negotations. And Jewish people deserve to be able to live in their own homeland, thinking otherwise is racist.
Jewish people live peacefully in Palestine for centuries before the Zionists came from Europe.
What's absent from your comment entirely is the humanity and rights of the Palestinians whose presence the Israelis deny entirely. This is what I mean by being detached from reality.
First thing: your response failed to address anything in the comment you're replying to:
> > Iran threatening the US, funding Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis are documented facts. Iran even wanted a ceasefire against Hezbollah in the recent negotations. And Jewish people deserve to be able to live in their own homeland, thinking otherwise is racist.
Do you actually want to respond to that or will you just want to rant about people thinking Jews should dare live in their homeland?
> Jewish people live peacefully in Palestine
No. There is documented history of violence and suppression by Muslim colonisers towards Jewish people. This is consistent with how Islam has treated other minority groups in areas it has controlled for the last thousand years. This is why the British partitioned the area into Jewish and Arab states.
> Zionists came from Europe.
Jewish people are from Judea. The key is in the name. A name which is older than the Bar Kochba rebellion which caused the Romans to rename Judea to Philestinia, which Yassar Arafat and the other people that invented the "Palestinian" identity in the 1960 are not.
> rights of the Palestinians whose presence the Israelis deny entirely.
Arabs in Israel have more rights than Arabs in Arab countries.
Jewish people in Gaza and Palestinian parts of Judea/Samaria are torturedm raped and killed.
totally. iran’s navy was advancing towards us east coast, their bombers were getting ready to fly over the atlantic and rain down on us heavily. we were all sitting here scared shitless of iran :)
yes, this also makes sense, they will deploy a nuke (which they don't have and never will have) knowing fully well that this will cause full and total destructions of their country and all of their citizens. c'mon mate, be real :)
UAE is the third largest producer in OPEC, and has options to avoid the straight, yet Their economy recently get shocked though by the war they wanted to avoid
> When you make a ceasefire and then strike first, that’s called being the aggressor.
Oh boy, let me tell you about October 7th. Attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, and Iran followed. Oh, and half a dozen other Palestinian groups were involved in 10/7 but they don't like to talk about that.
> How many civilians has Israel killed since oct 7? When is it enough?
Probably not too far off from how many Iran has killed in the same timeframe (of course, they are killing their own). Iran killed 30,000 of their own just this year.
And just so we're clear, Iran supported Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen, both or whom are responsible for easily 10x as many deaths as Israel (total). The civil wars in Lebanon and Syria left millions dead, and the one in Yemen also resulted in hundreds of thousands dead.
> Israelis also rape, kill, and do other vile things to prisoners, innocent or guilty, who they imprison with or without charge.
well but do israelis parade their dead rape victims openly?
> When you make a ceasefire and then strike first
well that's between trump and iran? did netanyahu agree?
I agree that netanyahu is being a dick here: he should have focused on iran, instead of invading lebanon. That alone is a huge political/PR mistake
but... how's that ceasefire related? is israel a proxy of usa? does Trump control israel directly?
Ethically, the israel politicians goes at great length NOT to damage civilians: the walkie-talkie bomb is a classic example of "try to kill all the militants WITHOUT carpet bombing"
(though they failed to "kill all" with that scheme, and... well they did bomb a lot after that)
> well but do israelis parade their dead rape victims openly?
1) why is that an important distinction?
2) but since you asked, they do, western media just refuse to show it but all you need to do is follow a bunch of israeli instagram accounts and you'll see more than enough sooner rather than later
> 2) but since you asked, they do, western media just refuse to show it but all you need to do is follow a bunch of israeli instagram accounts and you'll see more than enough sooner rather than later
woah... big claims here! maybe you should post source?
One side openly tries to do maximum death on everyone including infants (eg. fire random missiles, intifada, and the oct 7th attack)
The other side at least tried their best NOT to attack back (expensive missile defense systems) or at least kill only the militants selectively (walkietalkie boomboom)
I mean, you should be ashamed of even comparing israel vs iran/hamas/etc
> Iran shown more restraint then Israel and USA against other countries
> They played tit for tat.
like... firing missiles at UAE...? launching drone to dubai tower?
did India do anything to iran to get its ships fired upon?
blocking hormuz strait... that alone was enough to trigger global coalition -- though due to Trump's trade dick move to allies... no one sent troops...
if it's "tit for tat", then why does iran make so many un-related countries suffer (eg india?)
well simple: iran is the new pirate of 21st century. nothing more or less.
if anyone says "that's because US attacked", then if I got hit by a car, can I have my revenge on nearby pedestrians?
> On 1 April, Israel bombed an Iranian consulate complex in Damascus, Syria, killing multiple senior Iranian officials.[28] In response, Iran and its Axis of Resistance allies seized the Israeli-linked ship MSC Aries and launched strikes inside Israel on 13 April.[6]
Not to mention, Israeli occupations in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank. Iran is not the only bad actor.
Yes, they hit the building in Syria where Iran and proxy military leadership were meeting two weeks prior. That’s a lot different than attacking another country directly, let alone recklessly targeting civilians as Iran has in every attack they’ve led or had proxies lead.
And it's really important that you understand this was after 45 years of proxy warfare by the Islamic regime against Israel, which resulted in tens of thousands of Israeli dead. This was entirely instigated by the Islamic regime - Iran was friendly with Israel prior to the Islamic revolution. Israel did not pick the fight with Iran, Iran picked the fight with Israel and has maintained it for decades because it drives support for their regime - the holy war is great motivation for the cultists.
There was extensive planning for a multi front attack including Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah.
The story of this war is the previous idea in Israel that you could work out with an extremely religious enemy at the border as underneath their claiming to want to destroy you, they are rational.
After Hamas decided to go on a national suicide for no achievement except for a single day of an orgy of violence and the complete destruction of gaza, that view has changed.
This puts Hezbollah similar to Hamas, and their patron Iran ballistic and nuclear weapon program in a different light, and makes preemptive strikes and the complete destruction of the Iranian Axis (largely successful) as an important goal for Israel
Absolute bullcrap. Hezbollah was created to stop illegal Israeli occupation of Lebanon. What hezbollah has done to the Israelis is nothing more than what they deserve
"Hezbollah was created to stop illegal Israeli occupation of Lebanon" Hezbollah fires thousands of rockets at Israel civilians. They actually murdered 12 Syrian Druze children playing soccer because they just love firing rockets so indiscriminately at Israel.
Israel only ended up in Lebanon due to PLO attacks from Lebanon.
Hezbollah is responsible for the deaths of nearly a million Lebanese and Syrians. They are much better at killing other Arabs than Israelis. They are a tool for Shia clerics and Iran, not a legitimate force for good in any way.
This sentiment strikes me as somewhat beneath the usual caliber I see here. Perhaps it would serve you well to step away from the keyboard for a while: take a walk, grab a drink at a bar, enjoy a quiet evening, and allow some real-world perspective to settle in.
Lol you mean until two years from now, when tides will inevitably shift?
The so-called "Zion-don" won't be in office forever, despite what he seems to believe.
Look at the polling. The current U.S. stance on Iran and Israel is extremely unpopular. It's only a matter of time before a natural course correction occurs, and the voters' voice is heard, whether at the upcoming midterms or the next presidential election.
And let me tell you, if you think HN is bad, you better not check Zoomer social media.
The problems the UAE has are not based on Iran attacking the UAE but Iran closing the Strait - which is a direct and foreseeable result of Israel attacking Iran.
Finding myself in the awkward position of defending Saudi Arabia here, but this is not at all a consensus of the political analysis community.
Relying on statements by the Trump administration as proof of this makes it even more spurious.
That said, MBS has done worse and it's not impossible, but alignment with UAE is faltering more and more so it's possible even if they once favored that action by the US they no longer hold the same view.
I am not claiming Saudis want what's best for the region, only that, even if they wanted war with Iran, they likely now no longer do, or at least would like the conflict to wrap up due to the heavy costs its inflicted on the region.
UAE will see the the whole region burn if it means MBZ can keep his seat.
Sure, but the Saudi Crown prince comments seem reasonable, and don’t seem to have been denied by the Saudi’s
Regardless, my point was that people have a political axe to grind and call this “Israel’s war”.
They intentionally ignore the political realities that the Iranians have pissed off almost everyone in the region and the longstanding tension of the IRGC and the US and our new “Cold War” with China.
Your source documents a real phenomenon but doesn't support the universal claim that "Israelis hate Arabs". Please provide evidence proportional to the scope of your argument.
They are being forced to release the files by a new law passed by congress. This is malicious compliance and they’re not actually releasing what they’re supposed to be releasing.
Rich people are hiding their crimes against children with corruption. This law seeks to reveal this corruption. Why is that wrong?
The public in this case is effectively a defense attorney waiting for discovery - we only get what the other side determined to be worth providing and catching them breaking the law is extremely difficult.
Very true - the one caveat being that certain people know of the existence of things that should be published - lots of way to trip yourself up and get caught if you’re trying to conceal things or otherwise improperly redact information.
There's the police and the criminal justice system for that.
I suggest you post your e-mail login details and here and a dump of the contents of your phone, then all of HN can all check through and see what crimes you're guilty of.
I'm sure you'll say you haven't committed any crimes, but why should we be expected to believe you if you don't share all your information with the world?
> There's the police and the criminal justice system for that.
Well yes, however there was an orchestrated effort to convince people that the system is not working. That effort was successful enough to generate public interest we observe now. Beyond morbid curiosity, there is a belief that the exposure may force the system to do now what it was supposed to do in the first place
This is all supposedly Epstein's property. Dead people have a very short list of rights or things that resemble rights that belong to their estate. Privacy and protection from slander aren't among those rights. You could argue that digging him up and gratuitously posting pictures of a postmortem would violate the right to dignity for corporeal remains. But apart from that, if you emailed Jeffrey, he has no power to keep that correspondence private.
When you sue someone, you can subpoena for evidence. Any evidence from that presented to the court is then public record. The police and criminal justice system doesn’t usually enforce privacy like that in criminal proceedings.
Are you trying to say that these documents shouldn’t be public because it violates someone’s right to privacy?
But there's no reasonable indication that the person you're replying to has committed any crime, while there is evidence that some of the people on Epstein's list, including Trump, have committed crimes. In fact, Trump made a big deal of asserting this, back when he didn't expect this to blow back on him.
It's not the same to ask for public disclosure for people likely to be involved in a crime, for which there is at least some initial (albeit inconclusive) evidence than it is to ask the same of a random person for which there is no evidence at all.
I would agree that anyone who is specifically named in an Act of Congress requiring that to happen, which Act is then duly signed into law[1], should release their information. That doesn't currently apply to anyone other than the late Jeffrey Epstein, so we are all good.
> I can see why someone would hesitate to release them - there's a lot to sift through and it's likely even the government couldn't sift through all of them to make sure their friends weren't mentioned somewhere.
It’s ok, it follows the rules - I made the comment very thoughtfully and it is indeed substantive. It’s also not snarky and isn’t a shallow internet trope.
Three things, not all of which any specific employee does:
1. Fix security issues
2. Create “features” in order to seem useful that the world was better without
3. Rest upon laurels of gmail from 15 years ago
Make Google multiple millions by improving ad delivery and conversion within Gmail. Probably by also helping Google land big corporate or public contracts, but last I checked most of the money was made via ads in the free tier of GMail.
I think Japan likely shares more values culturally with China than USA outside of political systems. In any aspect outside of that Japan is not western.
The leaders of Japan during the Meiji era (starting 1868) will be sad to learn that their attempt to thoroughly Westernize Japanese society failed even though it enabled Japan to dominate China (and most of the Western Pacific) for decades.
5 years behind becomes 3 years behind. China is expanding their manufacturing abilities faster than the US. Soon they will surpass the US. Look no further than their generic consumer electronics manufacturing.
It's not 5 years behind, engine tech is more on a ~15 year cycle, or even more.
CFM LEAP, latest short-to-medium-haul airliner engine from CFM (GE+Safran) is from 2013 (first run). Its predecessor, CFM56, is from 1974 (first run) and saw a few evolutions, including as late as 2009.
The whole “China copies everything” narrative is becoming less and less true.
It’s funny - it’s at the point with Chinese manufacturing for niche electronic goods (e.g rooftop van air conditioner) where some Chinese brands are more trustworthy - more value for your money and sometimes even better overall quality. With American brands you gotta make sure you’re not overpaying for dated tech that is inefficient. Maybe the same will happen with LLMs.
It's most notable to me in mid level manufacturing equipment. Once upon a time you would never touch a chinese made CNC, lathe, mill etc. Now they're totally fine, and offer significant value for your dollar. Sometimes outperforming other countries offerings while being cheaper to boot. Especially in new industries and processes, suggesting innovation is not the differentiator it used to be.
Enterprises often prefer having US based support and so can prefer US or European machines that have that supply chain setup.
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