Live data from Hacker News

Oil hits $100 a barrel despite deal to release record amount of reserves

bbc.com

51–60 of 121 posts

Re: Oil hits $100 a barrel despite deal to release record amount of reserves

#51
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The U.S. can send in the ground force to restore the trade around the Gulf. The BUT is obvious in this case tho.

Trump, the neo-cons, and much of the Republican party might as well hang up their hats if they put boots on the ground (beyond special forces which is often ignored for some reason). The US will be bogged down for years at a minimum if we entered Iran on the ground, or we would lose quickly and tuck tail. This isn't a fight to be won in a conventional war, the administration put every chip they had on a gamble that r…

Everyone says there's no historical examples but there is no exact parallel either. I wouldn't argue based on historical precedence here.

The challenge is that regime is large and armed and they can hide and weather the storm. They'll hide in hospitals, and mosques, and schools and amongst civilians.

Getting them and disrupting their organization to a point where a popular revolt can take over seems ... lessay hard.

What needs to happen is that some parts of the military, who are a bit less fanatic, switches sides. The probability of that is very hard to gauge. There are stories of some defecting but hard to know if it's true or not.

Re: Oil hits $100 a barrel despite deal to release record amount of reserves

#52
post #4

This theory of how the US loses in Iran is looking increasingly likely: https://kasperbenjamin.substack.com/p/why-the-us-will-lose-t... It's going to be incredibly difficult to stop Iran being able to kneecap both the global economy and in particular the gulf states, who are going to be motivated to put maximum pressure on the US to sue for peace. Incredible hubris and a lobotomised diplomatic and intelligence infras…

Israel and the US completely control their airspace and Iran's entire navy got demolished. I think the US prefers not to got too far as they prefer to keep the negotiation talks open. According to reports they asked Israel not to target energy for example.

> Israel and the US completely control their airspace

Maybe the soldiers sending shaheds and missiles hitting other countries every day haven't gotten the memo? Did somebody forget to put a cover sheet on it?

Re: Oil hits $100 a barrel despite deal to release record amount of reserves

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normally what happens in these scenarios is that both sides declare victory and go home to lick their wounds. The US and Israel can claim that they've caused the IRGC sufficient damage to set them back a decade or more. Iran will declare that they've fought off a superpower with minimal real losses. They can also claim that -- despite intense foreign interference -- they got to choose and keep their preferred leader,…

Normally yes, but without regime change the Iranian leadership will have even more resolve than ever to continue weapons programs (nuclear or not) and prepare retaliation for the inevitable next round of bombing… There is no winning here for anyone.

I'm not claiming either side is actually winning, I'm merely predicting that they'll both claim to have won.

On the topic of the weapons program: The Israeli approach is to regularly "mow the lawn" to keep their regional opponents perpetually behind. Iran's nuclear weapons and ICBM programmes have almost certainly been damaged, perhaps enough to delay them for half a decade or more. Then it'll be time to mow the lawn again, or hope that by then a more moderate leadership can sign an agreement with a new US president that's a bit more trustworthy than the current one.

Re: Oil hits $100 a barrel despite deal to release record amount of reserves

#54

I think it’s wild to me just how much my mainstream news doesn’t feel like it’s covering some of what’s really going on. I have to go to YouTube to see that Iran is successfully fighting back in many ways including hitting oil tankers and depots. Not that I’m claiming the CBC and such are doing something sinister here. Just that I no-longer get the full story vibe I recall getting back in previous U.S. wars.

You'd be surprised that Israeli media has decent coverage of the damage from Iran's attacks to Israel and the gulf. Random e.g.: https://www.timesofisrael.com/at-least-25-iranian-attacks-ha...

The CBC hasn't done any good reporting in the last decade that I can tell. They just copy-paste from news agencies based on their ideological principles or something.

Another source is: https://understandingwar.org/analysis/middle-east/iran-updat...

You can definitely get some color on YouTube. Iran is fighting back but that's not what's going to decide the war (e.g. the damage to Israel or to the Gulf states). They are taking a lot more damage then they're dishing out and the scale of their counters goes down every day. The straits are a very different story since it doesn't take much to threaten the ships to the extent nobody wants to take a chance. One drone, or mine, or a missile, and the straits are closed. Even if the US and Israel are able to pretty much completely suppress Iranian attacks on Israel and the Gulf states the straits might remain closed.

EDIT: https://www.ynet.co.il/news/blogs/article/skwano1cbe#autopla...

This is Hebrew but I just saw reporting about 6 ships on fire from Iranian attacks and there are photos...

Re: Oil hits $100 a barrel despite deal to release record amount of reserves

#55
post #34

I think it’s wild to me just how much my mainstream news doesn’t feel like it’s covering some of what’s really going on. I have to go to YouTube to see that Iran is successfully fighting back in many ways including hitting oil tankers and depots. Not that I’m claiming the CBC and such are doing something sinister here. Just that I no-longer get the full story vibe I recall getting back in previous U.S. wars.

"fighting back" == blowing 3rd party civilian installations.

They randomly shoot in all directions but they also managed to hit some things (e.g. the US installation in Kuwait and a US radar) that are probably actual legit targets. But yes, hotels, apartment buildings, (civilian) airports, container ships etc. are high on the list of things hit.

Re: Oil hits $100 a barrel despite deal to release record amount of reserves

#56

https://polymarket.com/event/will-crude-oil-cl-hit-by-end-of... I wonder how prediction markets are affecting all this.

In the sense that someone is manipulating the real world to make money in the prediction markets? Otherwise it's just like options.

Re: Oil hits $100 a barrel despite deal to release record amount of reserves

#57
post #4

This theory of how the US loses in Iran is looking increasingly likely: https://kasperbenjamin.substack.com/p/why-the-us-will-lose-t... It's going to be incredibly difficult to stop Iran being able to kneecap both the global economy and in particular the gulf states, who are going to be motivated to put maximum pressure on the US to sue for peace. Incredible hubris and a lobotomised diplomatic and intelligence infras…

This is written a bit like the US dollar depends solely on the price of oil, which isn't true. It also seems like if we're to game theory this, we'd need to plot out the full escalation capacity of the USA, which the author is failing to do here. I don't like the idea of doing that because the thought is sickening, but it's necessary to consider the entire decision tree to make a remotely rational model. In retrospec…

[deleted]

Re: Oil hits $100 a barrel despite deal to release record amount of reserves

#58
post #56

https://polymarket.com/event/will-crude-oil-cl-hit-by-end-of... I wonder how prediction markets are affecting all this.

In the sense that someone is manipulating the real world to make money in the prediction markets? Otherwise it's just like options.

No, in the sense that he people who set oil prices and government policy alike can trade in those prediction markets. I'm all for the markets, very democratic and libertarian (not that I'm one), but policy makers, executives and other people from whom a conflict of interest by a prediction market translates into disaster for real people should be restricted from participating in these markets.

Re: Oil hits $100 a barrel despite deal to release record amount of reserves

#59
post #13
post #4

This theory of how the US loses in Iran is looking increasingly likely: https://kasperbenjamin.substack.com/p/why-the-us-will-lose-t... It's going to be incredibly difficult to stop Iran being able to kneecap both the global economy and in particular the gulf states, who are going to be motivated to put maximum pressure on the US to sue for peace. Incredible hubris and a lobotomised diplomatic and intelligence infras…

1/ When authors use AI for editing, it reduces their credibility. 2/ As much as I don't like the current administration (and Israel leadership), there is absolutely no way the assumptions this article makes about them are false. There is no way the US/Israel didn't calculate that: - the straight would be closed - a new leader may represent similar idiologies of the past leader. Everything that has happened so far (in…

> There is no way the US/Israel didn't calculate that - the straight would be closed, a new leader may represent similar idiologies of the past leader.

A few things to remember here. First, Israel and US have divergent strategic goals. (Well, that presumes the US has strategic goals, which appears to be false given the struggle the administration has had over the past week to explain why the fuck we're at war with Iran.) Israel's apparent goal is the complete destruction of the Iranian state, and Netanyahu certainly seems to believe that Israel will suffer no consequences as a result.

The second is that Trump has never faced any consequences for his actions. If anything goes wrong, he just lies and says that it's all right, changes the topic and since no one talks about anymore, hey, it's been fixed. It also seems as if he believes that nobody else truly has agency, so the idea that the enemy gets a vote in war may truly be foreign to him.

Note also the quality of people that Trump has surrounded himself with in this term. The head of the military is someone who washed out of the military officer corps (and also essentially failed in every managerial career he's had since them). They openly denigrate the importance of things like logistics in military, in favor of big, manly things like the awesome power of their missile salvos. I believe Hegseth legitimately doesn't give a crap about the boring things like naval escort missions because that's not manly, and instead cares more about how much big kaboom has been delivered to Iran, and so far the evidence of how the operation has gone to doubt completely vindicates that belief.

Fourth, even almost two weeks into the strait being closed, the US military has done nothing to reopen it. The strait is not closed because of the existence of mines, or because Iran is targeting ships; it is closed because shippers are absolutely terrified to send their ships through it. Reopening it thus requires giving those people confidence to send their ships through it, and that confidence of course requires clear, public statements. That is not happening. Instead, we get Trump giving off a different explanation of how to reopen it everytime he's asked, followed up by the US Navy denying whatever Trump said (e.g., the US Navy is unwilling to provide any naval escort). There is insufficient materiel in the theater right now to reopen the strait, and nothing is being shipped to the strait that can reopen it. From all apparent evidence, the current plan for reopening the strait is praying that it reopens tomorrow, although I have doubts that there is enough self-awareness or religiosity to actually do any praying here.

The risk of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz is so obvious, the catastrophe of such an action is so well-known, that you would have to be a colossal idiot to go into a situation where Iran might plausibly close the strait without a plan to reopen it swiftly. And yet all available evidence leans in that direction. So now many, many people are forced to countenance the sobering idea that the US government is led by an idiot who will destroy the economy without realizing that's what he's doing. It's time for us to wake up to the fact that there are no adults in the US government anymore and do something about that.

Re: Oil hits $100 a barrel despite deal to release record amount of reserves

#60

The stat has been raised frequently of late that 20% of the world's oil floes through the Straight. My understanding is that its 20% of total oil , but that around half of all oil production is used domestically where it is produced and never enters global markets. Unless I missed something when fact checking that, Iran is capable cutting off 40% of all purchasable oil.

There are several issues with that math.

To begin with, it assumes that oil currently used domestically isn't on the market, but what do you expect oil producers to do if foreign buyers make a higher bid for the "domestic" oil? Or to put it another way, there's a reason the market price goes up by essentially the same amount in the oil-producing countries as everywhere else.

Then it assumes that oil that currently goes through the Strait has to. Oil can also leave the middle east by going west, e.g. to Europe. You might think that doesn't help India or China, but it's still a global commodity with a global price. India and China could then buy oil from Russia, Kazakhstan or whatever other country that Europe had been buying from and now isn't because they're getting more oil from the middle east.

Does this still raise the price? Yes it does, because there is a reason they were doing it the other way previously -- doing something else will have higher transportation costs. But does it mean 20% of global oil supplies will be cut off? Not really, it mostly means you'll have to increase the average distance it gets transported and pay a few percent more to cover the higher transportation costs.

Post reply on HN