Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure. So let's say Iran stops building up massive amounts of missiles, funding these terrorist groups, stops pursuing a nuclear weapon, stops mass killing of its own civilians, and stops helping Russia prosecute its war against Ukraine (we can even leave this optional just to not introduce additional complexities). What will the United States now have to do on its side as it pertains to Iran?
are you implying that the US share in the hostilities is only direct military intervention? because that's not correct. through their alliances, they are additionally responsible for more
UAE to leave OPEC
641–650 of 750 posts
Re: UAE to leave OPEC
#642Earlier quoted context omitted.
Iran is weak compared to the United States. The war wasn't started because Iran is weak, it was started because Iran is engaging in various activities that have effects in the world that the United States finds unacceptable. > To protect themselves when America starta Another war. Yet, only Iran has to protect themselves. Why is that? Well it's because they're doing bad things, and they know that we may do something…
> Stop making excuses and defending brutal authoritarian dictatorships. this style of argument really falls flat in 2026 tho. at least for a global audience. it seems you don't appreciate how much america's image as a champion in good faith of freedom, democracy and prosperity has been shattered. not least because the old neoliberal guard has been busy undermining it (see carney's speech at WEF, where he started by p…
Part of the problem here is that folks have become so angry about Donald Trump that they've forgotten the broader picture. Taking out Maduro, taking action to stop Iran's regime, and more are unambiguously good things from the prospect of "freedom and democracy". There's a lot of conflict and anger and whatnot regarding trade and Trump's general idiocy, but if all of the world order, all of the good faith, all of that stuff is shattered so quickly? It wasn't very strong or valuable to begin with and so I don't mourn its loss.
If we no longer have a high horse, that gives us much more flexibility to act in our own self-interest since we no longer have to focus on taking losses to placate an image.
Re: UAE to leave OPEC
#643Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're probably aware of your bigotry, as the stupid smiley at the end of your comment seems to suggest, but your reasoning only serves to support the pre-made conclusion of 'Palestinians are genetically evil'.
How can you not acknowledge that essentialism is basically correct? Some cultures go thousands of years without ever forming civilizations that escape barbarism. Slavs in particular seem especially unable to find their way out of tyranny, for literally thousands of years. Sometimes you call a spade a spade. Essences exist. Copes against it like “intersectionality” have been thoroughly rejected by the body politic and…
Re: UAE to leave OPEC
#644Earlier quoted context omitted.
> At some points people need to wonder why. Could you imagine me making the same argument with other historically 'unwanted' groups, like for example Black people or Jews? If these populations keeep getting kicked out and marginalised through millennia, surely you have to start wondering why.
We need actual coherent answers to that question, because whenever the myriad number of kids in school ask such questions and get non answers, they start to actually buy the “global conspiracy” framing of everything. It’s probably more anti-Semitic to lie and say “jews don’t control Hollywood” rather than try to explain correctly why they do. Yet, most people don’t even want to try to explain historical factors.
Re: UAE to leave OPEC
#645Earlier quoted context omitted.
> threatened civilisation destruction Iran threatens to erase Israel and the United States off the map pretty much daily. So I just don't care that Trump did the same back to them. If they don't like threats like that, perhaps they should stop issuing them yea? > murdered political leaders and attacked BOTH civilian and military infrastructure What civilian infrastructure was deliberately attacked? We do know that Ir…
> What civilian infrastructure was deliberately attacked? Its clear you have only been getting your information from a certain set of sources. a lot of civilian infrastructure has been destroyed in Iran. One of Israel's goals is to cripple the economy of Iran. "Israeli leaders, including Defense Minister Israel Katz, have ordered the military to carry out strikes on targets that cause economic blows to the Iranian re…
I would consider it military infrastructure, but if you don't then you can't really complain about the US attacking, say, a petrochemical facility while Iran is/was simultaneously attacking infrastructure in the Gulf and attacking actual civilian targets like apartment buildings.
So you have to be consistent. It's either military or not. Iran is doing the same thing the US is doing or neither are doing it. Either way there's no room for moral superiority or outrage when both countries are somewhat acting the same, of course with Iran attacking and killing more civilians and whatnot.
Re: UAE to leave OPEC
#646Earlier quoted context omitted.
Iran has been using Hezbollah to attack Israel for over 30 years now. The explicit goal of Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas is the destruction of Israel.
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Re: UAE to leave OPEC
#647Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fundamentalists tend not to be pragmatists.
i don't think you know much about islamist parties and are just grasping for reasons to justify suppressing democracy in certain places. ennahada (tunisia), pks (indonesia), jui (pakistan) are all examples of islamist parties that have compromised or reached across the aisle at various points just off the top of my head. besides, isn't the point of democracy to allow people to be led by those who represent their prin…
One reason I'm skeptical of Arab democracy is that Arab nationalism is weak. In the Arab world, Islam and hatred of Israel seem like the most powerful forces. Much stronger than nationalism. Would countries governed by those forces be stable? Would their policies be desirable from the perspective of the rest of the world?
There are Arab democracies that may prove that Islamists can be pragmatic. Tunisia like you said, Iraq, and possibly the new Syrian government. We'll see. The world is always changing.
Re: UAE to leave OPEC
#648Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be honest this comment kind of reads like anti-US fanfiction. >That diversification helps everyone else, but will hurt the US, which hurts financial markets, and thus everyone else. These are huge jumps in logic, I'm not even sure where to begin. I guess the most glaring question is: If other countries are actively diversifying from US assets as you claim, why would they still be so hurt by a US financial market d…
> If other countries are actively diversifying from US assets as you claim It's not a claim, it's been reported for years. US foreign exchange reserves are at a 30-year low. Central banks have bought ~900 tonnes of gold in 2025, nearly matching the historic high during the pandemic. Central banks' holdings in gold now surpass US Treasury holdings (and we all know that gold is nearly 5x its price from last year). Pola…
This is where you're losing me. You seem to be suggesting that de-dollarization will cause a US financial pain large enough that it will cause significant pain to other countries, AND that it will happen so fast that the de-dollarization itself (which was the impetus for this pain!) will not be sufficient to shield them from it.
>The US is where people put their money because putting it elsewhere was riskier. But now the US might be more risky. So you diversify... to the places that were risky before. So you can only move to risky places. That risk eventually leads to some loss. It's a "least-worst option" situation, but the end result isn't going to be great.
Lots of assumptions here: 1. That the US is in fact becoming a much riskier place to invest (mostly only true for countries at risk of sanctions). 2. Other countries have stayed as risky as they always have been (do we know this isn't the case?). 3. That despite the inherent risk advantages of diversification to a wide range of countries/currencies is not significant enough to overcome the level of risk that the US has increased recently.
>That's now how capitalism works, that's how rich people work. The echo chamber of HN is full of upper-middle-class people with disposable incomes that are happy to waste money to feel emotionally better about their choices. But businesses aren't emotional, they're competitive. They want lower costs and higher profits. That means spending less. If a business can use a model that's 1/6th the price to get approximately the same results, they're going to do that, in order to gain a competitive edge. China is the place you go when you want to cut costs.
It is how capitalism works sometimes. If the cost of using the new technology is very cheap AND top-of-the-line options result in significant productivity increases, most companies will be willing to pay higher multiples of cost for even marginal increases in performance.
If I'm so-and-so software company spending millions on various business costs, I dont care if I'm spending .5% of my costs on claude code when I could be spending .1% on deepseek. I want the best one (even if it's just slightly better) because the costs are marginal anyway.
Re: UAE to leave OPEC
#649Context: (1) “The United Arab Emirates,” today “made a shock request of [Pakistan] — repay $3.5bn immediately” [1]. (2) Saudi-Emirati relations were at an all-time low before the Iran War [2]. (Saudi Arabia just bailed Pakistan out of its Emirati loan. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan agreed a mutual-defence treaty last year [3].) Put together, we’re seeing an Emirati-Israeli axis emerging to balance Saudi hegemony in the G…
Re: UAE to leave OPEC
#650Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the US petrodollar promise to protect UAE states from aggression in exchange for trade in USD could not be upheld Well the war is still ongoing, and Iran's regime is already feeling the pain of the blockade [1]. Pricing oil in Yuan because, I guess, the US is somehow not protecting the UAE doesn't make sense because China won't be there to protect them either. The US can just say, well fine you can sell your oil in…
* Strait. "Strait" refers to something which is narrow, especially at sea. It can be pluralised as "Straits" in many cases. "Straitjacket" also comes from this root. "Straight" refers to something which is not curved. The "gh" used to be pronounced and still is in some parts of Scotland.