US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire • Hacker News Board

Re: US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire

#541

Post by tristanj » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 4:08 AM UTC

bigyabai wrote: post #514

tristanj wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA and Israel could always win the war, at any time, by playing the "destroy all your power plants and fuel facilities" card. They've been sitting on this card the entire time. They don't want to play it, because it would cause near permanent economic damage to Iran. It is not possible to run a modern economy without fuel or electricity. Without fuel, there are no logistics; there is no capability to transport a…

Iran can still escalate too. Past a certain point we really have to examine what "winning" means if regime change is only feasible via mass starvation.

Escalate, how? By bombing gulf countries infrastructure? So they cannot produce oil, gas, and water; extending the humanitarian crisis to the rest of the Gulf countries?

Doing so does nothing to prevent Iran from being bombed itself. Iran (so far) has shown no ability to prevent the USA and Israel from dropping thousands of bombs on Iranian daily.

Re: US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire

#542

Post by KennyBlanken » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 4:10 AM UTC

noosphr wrote: post #432

karim79 wrote: post #420

I'm putting this[0] here just as a reminder of how horrible things can be and for basically nothing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_attack

This is the counter argument: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Iran_massacres Here's hoping the regime is destabilised enough to topple by itself.

Aside from the fact that the events you linked to have no connection whatsoever to why the US started attacking Iran, there is absolutely no reality or moral code in which "a government kills a couple hundred of its citizens" justifies another government on the other side of the world blowing up a hundred plus schoolchildren and other civilians.

Re: US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire

#543

Post by Schmerika » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 4:10 AM UTC

pstuart wrote: post #509

zhoujing204 wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Too many are either disinterested in politics because it's ugly, or mad that their assigned candidate betrayed one of their values (e.g., genocide in Gaza). I think a lot of younger people just don't want to be bothered.

Being against genocide isn't a "value". It's not idealistic, or naive either.

It's a duty. Moral, and legal; domestic and international.

Drawing a hard red line at genocide is damn near the very least any human must demand from their leader; perhaps only exceeded by "don't threaten entire civilizations with nuclear weapons".

Same with prosecuting rapist insurrectionists, and going after billionaire's child-trafficking/murdering blackmail rings. These are not "nice to haves" - ya simply gotta do it.

If you're not "mad" when people fail to do these things, then are you really "interested in politics", or are you simply caught in some kind of us-vs-them death spiral?

Re: US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire

#544

Post by Nursie » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 4:10 AM UTC

RiverStone wrote: post #416

cheriot wrote: post #102

Let's not forget the road to war started in 2016 when Trump walked into the White House at withdrew from the JCPOA. He's wanted the war for years, got it, and lost it.

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And where has that gone now?

From all reports the regime has not lost control domestically, and internationally it is now emboldened - the US tried to get rid of them and has failed, and they have demonstrated their power to disrupt the region and much of the world's economy.

They come out of this looking stronger.

Re: US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire

#545

Post by throwafffff » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 4:10 AM UTC

tartoran wrote: post #456

annexrichmond wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Nukes are not really for actual use but for deterrence so likely no lives would have been lost. Israel has nukes and they don't use them unless somebody attacks them with nukes. Same with other countries. Ideally both Israel and Iran as well as North Korea, maybe also Pakistan and India should not have nukes. And even more ideal it would be if nobody had them but the cat's out of the bag already.

India, The biggest democratic country should not have nukes but its ok for a bunch of colonizers and authoritarian state like china to have.

Re: US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire

#546

Post by jillesvangurp » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 4:13 AM UTC

smcnc wrote: post #237

I don’t see how the majority of comments paint this as a victory for Iran. Your entire formal military apparatus was destroyed, nuclear sites in rubble, defense industrial complex leveled, two levels of leadership KIA, and the only thing preventing you from permanent destruction or regime change is an impotent threat of attacking ships? I guess I’m missing something. War sucks but in this case Iran is a shell of the…

That's asymmetric warfare basically. The regime is more or less intact. There are no US booths on the ground. And Iran just demonstrated it can majorly disrupt international energy markets by blocking the strait of Hormuz more or less indefinitely. With a major power like the US seemingly unable to prevent that or put a stop to it militarily.

Painting this as a victory for Iran would be a stretch. But they definitely did not lose either.

This is something that keeps on happening to the US. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. are all conflicts where the US won militarily and then had to withdraw anyway. Vietnam is still ruled by the communists, Afghanistan is ruled by the Taliban once more, and the regime in Iraq is nominally Iran supported and not exactly on the best of terms with the US either. This conflict seems to be a repeat of past mistakes. The US went in, bombed the shit out of stuff for a few weeks and only then steps back to literally think "Now what?!". It could have done that a few months ago and saved us all the trouble of having to deal with this BS.

Painting this as a US victory is also quite a stretch. Iran never really posed a credible military threat beyond its borders. Nor did Afghanistan or Iraq. I think China might consider this a win though. And they definitely pose a non trivial military threat. Some historians might end up arguing the US took some long term strategic hits here for essentially very little meaningful gains. And we'll see in November how Republicans fare on the economic aftermath of what you might describe as a gigantic cluster f** at this point.

Re: US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire

#547

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 4:15 AM UTC

mandeepj wrote: post #537

I call the orange guy many things! I believe he's an accidental president. DNC screwed up big time both times. The stakes were higher than ever, so they could have played it safe by looking at past elections, but nope. They wanted to write history, but got the other guy to do it. Bush (reminder: a republican) screwed things so bad that the country opened to something that had never happened before - A black President…

[deleted]

Re: US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire

#548

Post by ARandomerDude » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 4:16 AM UTC

gpm wrote: post #530

Aloisius wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency (via China's state news agency Xinhua[0]) claims the 10 points are: 1. U.S. commitment to ensure no further acts of aggression 2. Continued Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz 3. Acceptance of Iran's nuclear enrichment rights 4. Lifting of all primary sanctions 5. Lifting of all secondary sanctions 6. Termination of all United Nations Security Council resolutions against Iran…

> 2. Continued Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz > 6. Termination of all United Nations Security Council resolutions against Iran > 7. Termination of all International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors resolutions against Iran These seem remarkably outside the USes power to unilaterally agree to. The first violates international treaties and while I'd be thrilled with the precedent as a Canadian eyeing my…

If the US wants the IAEA to agree to something like this, especially considering the global economic impact of refusing, I imagine the IAEA could be convinced.

The JCPOA came about when the US pushed for it in 2013.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal

Re: US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire

#549

Post by razster » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 4:17 AM UTC

chasd00 wrote: post #335

mgfist wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes, so basically Iran gets everything it wants. It paid a heavy price for it, but it would get so much out of this. At pre war ship rates, that toll would be ~$90B per year ($45B if split half with Oman). Iran's government generates something like $40B in income, so this would be absolutely monumental.

Posts like this from the HN community are almost surreal. Any review of the actual deal would show a two week ceasefire in exchange for the strait being open and safe while negotiations continue. This 10 point plan is just a place to start talking, no country has agreed to anything on it. How is this missed on the community here?

I understand this perspective a lot more. I assume they're going to haggle and work on a few items, and adjust pieces here and there. What if they at least get sanctions lifted, that would be huge, no? Going to be an interesting couple of weeks.

Re: US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire

#550

Post by tristanj » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 4:18 AM UTC

cheriot wrote: post #102

Let's not forget the road to war started in 2016 when Trump walked into the White House at withdrew from the JCPOA. He's wanted the war for years, got it, and lost it.

JCPOA was a really stupid, badly designed deal, it never placed any limits on missile or drone production. Obama wanted a deal badly, and it was rushed through negotiations without addressing this point for a quick political win.

Iran kept developing its ballistic missiles and drone program even after the deal was signed, and a decade later, Iran has hundreds of thousands of drones and 20,000+ ballistic missiles. A thousand ballistic missiles do as much damage, if not more, than a single nuke.

It also leads to the interceptor problem, namely, it is not possible to stop thousands of missiles coming towards you, and eventually you run out of interceptors and get overwhelmed.

It was a really dumb deal, and this issue was called out at the time, but nothing was done about it. It's like an agreement between Mom and two kids that are fighting. Mom tells one kid, "Okay, promise not to kick your brother!" and he agrees. So he starts learning to punch instead.