Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Iran threatens to hit Gulf states if US launches new strikes

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 68 posts

Re: Iran threatens to hit Gulf states if US launches new strikes

#41

Post by wasfgwp »

thraway3837 wrote: post #10
relug wrote: post #2

interesting why usa wants to keep escalating, muat be some strat behind it maybe to induce strategical global recession or try and slow down china or something else

Military–industrial complex and Israel. The Iraq war lasted nearly a decade. Afghanistan 2 decades. And the US accomplished nothing. They made things worse, I don't need to go into details because that is an easy lookup. That's ultimately the purpose of this war. Israel wants us to fight Iran because "Iran was close to making a nuke", which is an excuse they have been using for nearly 30 years. Have you seen how much…

> Military–industrial complex and Israel.

Or general stupidity and incompetence. Trump and his cabinet of clowns thought they could score a big win (I suppose like Russia back in 2022). Now they are stuck in shit and have no clue how to get out.

If the military industrial complex was in control of the US gov. they would stop President Cheeto from antagonizing the rest of NATO and therefore reducing the competitiveness of US arms manufacturers.

You are of course right about Israel Netanyahu is playing cheeto like a fiddle..

Re: Iran threatens to hit Gulf states if US launches new strikes

#42

Post by wasfgwp »

exabrial wrote: post #39
relug wrote: post #2

interesting why usa wants to keep escalating, muat be some strat behind it maybe to induce strategical global recession or try and slow down china or something else

Everyone says Israel, which is at least partly true, but the other reason is Ukraine. Iran is a major partner for Russia.

Yes, Trump certainly did this to help Ukraine. Despite doing as much as he can to minimize US support for Ukraine since he came to office…

Also that implies he (or his cabinet) is capable of understanding basic cause and effect and thinking more than one step ahead and there is absolutely zero evidence that’s the case.

Re: Iran threatens to hit Gulf states if US launches new strikes

#43

Post by wasfgwp »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #3
relug wrote: post #2

interesting why usa wants to keep escalating, muat be some strat behind it maybe to induce strategical global recession or try and slow down china or something else

The only way for the US to win is to concede and acquiesce control of the Strait to Iran, but the administration has too much pride and hubris so they’ll keep bullying until stopped. It’s not a complex geopolitical game, it’s saving face.

I think returning (to some extent) to the status quo is possible but only if Trump’s admin is replaced or at least neutered. Then both Iran and US can make a deal without losing face and expect than US won’t break its word the next day.

Re: Iran threatens to hit Gulf states if US launches new strikes

#44

Post by wasfgwp »

krapp wrote: post #24
jdlshore wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s Trump, not the USA, and he seems to be ruled by passions rather than logic. Mostly, his goals seem to be to seek wealth and adoration by any means necessary. Now that he’s in it, there’s no way out, and particularly no way out that doesn’t make him look like an even bigger fool. So he’ll stay in it until things get so bad he has no other choice. But that won’t stop him from lying about progress and enriching him…

The American right has wanted war in Iran for decades, it was added to the "Axis of Evil" for that reason. Plenty of Americans support war with Iran in concept at least. It's true that Trump is deranged and this war is driven partly by ego and partly by the Christian dominionist Department of War's slavish obedience to Israel and fetish for holy war. But let's be real - gross negligence and incompetence aside war wit…

> The American right has wanted war in Iran

Yeah but at least the brighter ones there like Bolton would have preferred to start a war they knew they could win at least by defining some clear objectives.

The issue is not so much the war (from their perspective) but that US has no clue and at this point what it’s trying to do there.

Compared to Trump Bush was basically Napoleon in how we handled Iran and Afghanistan (at least they knew perfectly well what they wanted to achieve during the conventional part of the war and how to achieve those objectives. Fumbling the aftermath of a war he “wins” is not something Trump will have a chance to do since he’ll never get there)

Re: Iran threatens to hit Gulf states if US launches new strikes

#45

Post by wasfgwp »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #27
krapp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American right has wanted war in Iran for decades, it was added to the "Axis of Evil" for that reason. Plenty of Americans support war with Iran in concept at least. It's true that Trump is deranged and this war is driven partly by ego and partly by the Christian dominionist Department of War's slavish obedience to Israel and fetish for holy war. But let's be real - gross negligence and incompetence aside war wit…

> But let's be real - gross negligence and incompetence aside war with Iran was always going to happen, somehow, under some pretext. And they prepared for it for a long time. And that preparation has paid off for them. We seem to not have prepared for it in the same way.

Well no. Iran is not in a great state and is not doing that well. They are just willing to sacrifice and suffer through several magnitudes more than US ever could.

Re: Iran threatens to hit Gulf states if US launches new strikes

#46

Post by maxglute »

DivingForGold wrote: post #36
toomuchtodo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could, but they’ll wait, they’re not ready yet. Until then, they’ll continue to electrify their economy, build out domestic energy supply, rebuild their oil inventories from Russia and Iran when able (at below market prices, dominated in yuan, avoiding dollar systems and sanctions) and prepare to take Taiwan as the US continues to weaken itself. If Taiwan toasts TSMC when that happens, well, that’s part of what…

>If Taiwan toasts TSMC when that happens ... You can bet that all TSMC chip factories in Taiwan have strategic installs of explosives just for this scenario, China will get nothing, and the US has multiple TSMC chip factories now and will gladly accept Taiwan victims.

Bad bet, wanking about TW blowing up their golden goose fabs is US hopium/threat - literally US Army War College insinuated US would blow up fabs to deny PRC while TW politicians/defense minister retorted under no circumstances was that acceptable nor would they evacuate semi talent to US before women and children. Not that they could under PRC blockade/quarantine. The entire notion is fundamentally stupid, TW with fabs is at least useful to PRC and sustains wealth after, or they'd be subsistence pineapple farmers. US has 0 TSMC factories that would operate for long with TW semi sole supplier, Arizonal would grind to halt until US reshores every piece of semi supply chain which even CHIPS ACT didn't pretend US was capable of. Only PRC pursuing end to end full vertical semi integration. TW goes byebye in next few years, PRC will likely be capable of making wholey indigenize 7+nm while entire western semi is fucked because they lost TW inputs. Now consider PRC land based munitions can make anything on TW go byebye in 7 minutes, reality is PRC has maximum semi leverage during war while US has semi leverage during peacetime (lawfare/export controls etc).

Re: Iran threatens to hit Gulf states if US launches new strikes

#47

Post by wasfgwp »

mrtesthah wrote: post #33
OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really the argument they are making I believe. The issue is if you suddenly cut back oil countries pivot to bringing coal back because it's the fastest to scale up. Some places may scale up natural gas but unless a regional already has a lot of LNG infrastructure in place, a sudden drop in oil means bringing back coal. And coal is of course far worse than oil. Gradual sustained economic pressure will push…

> The issue is if you suddenly cut back oil countries pivot to bringing coal back because it's the fastest to scale up. That may have been true a couple of decades ago, but as of 2023[1] it was significantly cheaper to build new solar than to continue operating existing coal plants. And building new coal plants takes 5 years. 1. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/01/30/building-new-solar-pr...

It’s not that useful if you don’t have enough storage.

And in more northern latitude you’ll still need to turn those plants back on since just won’t at all for at least a couple of months in winter.

Re: Iran threatens to hit Gulf states if US launches new strikes

#48

Post by wasfgwp »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #18
OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really the argument they are making I believe. The issue is if you suddenly cut back oil countries pivot to bringing coal back because it's the fastest to scale up. Some places may scale up natural gas but unless a regional already has a lot of LNG infrastructure in place, a sudden drop in oil means bringing back coal. And coal is of course far worse than oil. Gradual sustained economic pressure will push…

Asia is cancelling LNG plans for renewables, and many markets have seen EV sales explode. Coal plants are more expensive than new renewables and batteries, existing generators may run longer, but aren’t going to be built in any material amount. China, Europe, and the US can build ~25-30M EVs per year with existing manufacturing capacity, as of this comment. That is 1/4th of global annual light vehicle sales. We can d…

Solar doesn’t really work in Europe during winter outside pf the southern countries so you still need alternative sources.

Re: Iran threatens to hit Gulf states if US launches new strikes

#49

Post by wasfgwp »

triceratops wrote: post #25
shaewest wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel as if you missed their point. Their point from my understanding is, coal might be more expensive than new renewables/batteries, but it's significantly quicker to get up and running so if you have a choice between quick coal and nothing, coal will be chosen.

> coal might be more expensive than new renewables/batteries, but it's significantly quicker to get up and running How so? I can have a crew out installing panels tomorrow.

10-100+ MW of panels?

Re: Iran threatens to hit Gulf states if US launches new strikes

#50

Post by wasfgwp »

HDBaseT wrote: post #30
toomuchtodo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not missing the point. You can deploy hundreds of megawatts of solar and batteries providing firm generation in 12-18 months. You cannot build a coal generator that quickly (usually takes 2-5 years). If you can turn on or up an existing coal generator, yes, faster. If you must build it from scratch, no, slower. Solar and batteries are not only the cheapest form of new generation, they are also the fastest to dep…

You can deploy solar and batteries rapidly, Australia is doing it. Australia has the highest number of solar panels per capita in the world. Batteries are following suit with government subsidies. Yet, Australia has some of the highest energy prices in the world, its not a fool proof solution. My comment wasn't even really about coal, it was about oil (and fuel). I'm talking about transport (even public transport) bu…

Australia is pretty unique since it’s extremely suitable for solar. Countries in more northern latitudes, especially in Europe (where you need alternative sources in winter regardless of how much solar you (realistically) build) are in a slightly different situation.

Also aren’t wholesale prices in Australia very cheap or often negative? If that’s the case then the issue very high prices isn’t really on the production side but due to taxes/distribution

Post reply on HN