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@MarioNawfal The USA still thinks it has leverage. All Iran has to do is insist that the amount be topped up PLUS billions in reparations.

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@elliottbay @mdubowitz What choice do they have? Iran planned for this day decades ago and so far has executed their plan almost perfectly. Meanwhile...

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Beck shows a 30 year-old clip of an Iranian describing exactly how they are operating now to exhaust the USA and win this war. He's still a warmonger but he makes at least a few good points.

[Glenn Beck @glennbeck]

Here's the hard truth about the Iran war: Iran isn't trying to win. It's trying to outlast. This has been their plan for decades. We even have footage of them saying EXACTLY THAT in the 1990s.

By every conventional measurement, Iran has lost. But they learned something important over the past decades: The only wars America has ever lost are the ones we've grown tired of. So, they have kept the war JUST hot enough to wear the American people out.

They know they can’t beat us on the battlefield. So they hurt us at the gas pump and wait for us to vote in new people. That has always been their ultimate plan.

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@OsintPlain83402 @mdubowitz People arguing your side have said this every day for 3 months. You will still be saying this in 12 months and 18 months.

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@mdubowitz Why trust Trump? Trump tears up agreements and kills negotiating teams filled with moderates. Trump has trained the world never to trust him.

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@elliottbay @mdubowitz Iran is actually about to become everybody's best friend.
Every country is quietly determining that paying Iran gets them oil while not paying starves their economy.
They will pay—and gladly.

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@MarioNawfal Who got Rabin killed? Answer the that question and you will understand his longevity.

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@boriquagato @paulmelzer1 @_theoracle44 Make a model that extracts resources given energy as an input.

You will find that to get the last resources energy goes to infinity.

Which, of course, is impossible.

This truly is basic physics. Do you have training in math or physics?

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@boriquagato @paulmelzer1 @_theoracle44 Resources get used until they are too diffuse to be productively extracted. This is a law of physics and you can resist it all you want but it cannot be overcome.

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All that does is cause more unemployment. In a contracting economy, efficiency is the enemy of full employment and without full employment eventually the society becomes destabilized. War breaks out between societies to obtain the remaining resources.

In a very real way, the USA is trying to keep hold of the Middle Eastern oil by having bases there and arranging alliances.

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Yes, there is because the Earth is finite. Every resource starts with high densities in the crust but as the resource is extracted the density declines. Eventually, it takes too much energy to get ever-decreasing resources and the mine is abandoned. Mines are abandoned all the time when they become unprofitable.

I expected you to understand this basic law of reality. Strange.

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@paulmelzer1 @_theoracle44 @boriquagato Because we are rounding the peaks of both resource use and population. What works during the growth phase of our species does not work during the contraction phase.

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@SrAbuelo60 @BrettErickson28 Correct.

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Not everyone understands that there is no military "solution" to the Iran situation without 500,000 boots on the ground. Brett is one of few who do, though.
He also understands that Iran gets a say—and they won't accept a US blockade forever.

[Brett Erickson @BrettErickson28]

One of the most concerning aspects about the United States’ Iran War strategy is that it significantly underestimates the availability of Iranian response IF the economic pain from the blockade and Operation Economic Fury become severe.

This is one of the core reasons why I hold the belief that Iran is not particularly concerned about mass domestic uprisings, and why they are not moving an inch at the negotiating table.

Throughout the past month in particular, the term “escalation dominance” has been used so many times it’s almost a joke at this point. But it is true.

Iran has a plethora of options they COULD use if need be, and each of these options would be downright catastrophic for the global economy.

Most notably, and this is something people have been talking about since the very first day of the war, is that Iran could quite easily shut down the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. In effect, this would more or less double the current global economic crisis spiral. As we have seen with maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, just a few drones or missiles is enough of a threat for vessels to halt their navigation.

Iran can cut undersea Internet cables. This is something that they themselves have threatened just in the past few weeks. Again… a pretty extreme move, but for a country legitimately facing an existential threat from what they consider to be the “Great and Little Satan”? I’d count on it.

They can strike and destroy even more Gulf energy infrastructure. Time and time again, we see that U.S. defenses that the Gulf countries depend on for their safety fail to be able to effectively protect against Iranian attacks. The only reason the global energy crisis is not far worse, is purely due to restraint from Iran.

These are only a few of the MANY options Iran would have to escalate if need be.

At this time, however, Iran seems MORE confident in their control on power. Not less.

Just this past week, Iran reactivated the Internet for the population after a historically long shut down. Now, to be fair, it is still heavily filtered and restricted, but this is not the action of a government fearful of being overthrown.

The Iranian stock exchange also reopened just a few weeks ago, and just last week saw the first time all positions ended the day in the green. If Iran was fearful of mass chaos, reopening the stock market would not be the move they would take.

All of these are actions of a regime MORE confident in their support from the people… not less.

But IF, and it is a very major if, they find that they miscalculated on the economic warfare battle between Iran and the United States. IF they find that they are losing the battle of the Dueling Blockades… then they can escalate.

Iran has calculated that they can endure economic pain far longer than not just the United States, but more importantly, the global economy. And so far? They’re 100% correct.

Inflation in Iran, while absolutely eye popping at ~80% year over year, has not notably risen since the blockade was imposed. In fact, over the previous 11 months, inflation averaged out to about 6.5% month over month. Since the blockade? About 8%. Bad? Absolutely. Notable worse than Iranian’s were already accustomed to? No.

Exchange Rates between the Iranian Toman and the U.S. Dollar also has not been impacted… hardly at all? On February 27th, the exchange rate between the Rial and USD stood at 172,050:$1. Terrible, obviously. But now a full three months into the conflict, and 51 days into the blockade? 173,900:$1. Total percent change over the last 3 months? 1.08%. Month over month change? 0.36%.

Oil well shut-ins? Oil storage capacity issues? Give me a break.

So, while the United States and Iran continue to wage the Battle of Blockades, while the global economy hangs in the balance of the outcome, Iran does not need to cross their fingers and hope the same way that the Trump Administration does.

If the time comes? Iran will escalate.

Hard.

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@MtpArturo @BrettErickson28 Sure, buddy. Iran today is so similar to the one in 1950, why hasn't anyone thought of this? I'll nominate you to Trump's team.

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@BrettErickson28 Agreed.

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@mdubowitz Still don't get that there is no military solution without 500,000 boots on the ground, huh?

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I'm pointing out that the system we use works only while our species population is growing which, in turn, increases resource use.

The people made redundant by new technology may not get more work in their lifetime (though some do) but at least the expanding economy provides work for the subsequent generation. Things more or less work out and the society stays stable.

Once we are past the economically accessible resource peak (before mid-century), making people redundant through technology just increases unemployment with no commensurate increase in wealth.

In fact, the whole system starts to get poorer and people fight for the scraps.

Are we starting to see the peaking of economically viable resource extraction even now? Might be. I would have to pull some numbers to determine the productivity per unit of energy and plot it out. The model in the graph shows we are very, very close.

Notice how we are right in front of Seneca's Cliff (the rapid drop in the orange line, which is global industrial output).