UK and Japan among countries that are considering options but yet to commit warships to blockaded shipping route
Countries including the UK, Japan, China and South Korea have said they are still considering their options but without making commitments after the US president, Donald Trump, urged them to send warships to the strait of Hormuz to secure the vital shipping route.
The effective closure of the strait of Hormuz by Tehran, in retaliation for airstrikes by the US and Israel, has proved catastrophic for global energy and trade flows, causing the largest oil supply disruption in history and soaring global oil prices.
However, the international response to Trump’s call for the dispatch of warships has so far proved vague and reluctant, with countries unwilling to commit to a military response that could prove treacherous for their navies.
This seems to suggest that shitting on our allies, behaving erratically, and stabbing them in the back (and front) isn’t the best way to build a broad coalition devoted to mutual interests, to say nothing of a narrow coalition devoted to obvious imperialism. I look forward to learning more about this hypothesis in The Art of the Deal 2.
Everyone is heavily incentivized to watch Trump sweat a bit more.
I imagine there are very few leaders who wouldn’t be happy to see Trump replaced.
Why would we come to his aid to mitigate this catastrophic unforced error.
The US has fucked everyone. I’ve literally been angry about it for a decade now.
The dildo of consequence rarely arrives lubed.
There isn’t a lot of reason for any world leaders to help Trump at the moment. Our strategic oil reserves had some oil in them, it’s always a good idea to make sure you have lots of reserve oil before attacking an petrostate, so we can just sit it out for a couple of months.
Also it takes time to ready a naval fleet they’re not just sitting around on the off chance that some despotic old fart causes an international incident for literally no reason at all.
So between taking the time to equip and it being strategically advantageous to hold off for a while no one’s coming to help any time soon. Also the war is extremely unpopular with the public so there’s not a lot of reason for international politicians to damage their reputations, it’s not like Trump would be grateful.
If Trump doesn’t TACO in the next 6 months then maybe there will be some ships.
I don’t think Trump really can TACO on this one. I’m certain that he would like to turn this one off but Iran will continue attacking US allies in the region.
The economic situation will force Trump to negotiate with Iran or the general public will lynch him. Iran’s big problem is that the Americans are attacking them so if they stopped doing that and went away Iran could spin it as a victory and Trump can just lie about it and claim that Iran gave massive concessions which never happened. It’s not like MAGAs will fact check.
I dont think thats true at all.
An external aggressor allows the Iranian regime to consolidate their support.
I dont think they have much incentive to end this war.
An easy offramp without resolving nuclear issue is the US will agree to leave if SoH shipping is open to all but Israel. Israel and Iran can make their own deal. This is harder to spin as a victory than buying Iran’s uranium, but it’s something Iran would agree to.
There isn’t even “a nuclear issue” that’s just a made-up nonsense story from the White House with absolutely no basis in fact.
Does Iran want to develop nuclear weapons, well probably. Are they developing nuclear weapons, no.
So what’s the problem?
In terms of a country likely to develop illicit nuclear weapons I would be much more concerned Israel ramping up their supply but surprise surprise Trump doesn’t think that’s a concern.
The United States itself is well outside weapons range, it’s not even clear that they could hit Northern Europe, (Cyprus is the most northernly target they’ve hit so far) so this war is only happening because the US has military forces in the region. If they just left, the war would end, by necessity.
While the real motive for Iran antagonism is to permit more Israel genocide and expansion, there is a lot of “political capital” invested in ending Iranian nuclear program. Buying Iran’s uranium at a high price can satisfy both US victory over denuclearization, and Iran’s demand for reparations as well as trade normalization.
Also suggests Trump floated the idea with the press before discussion in detail with, you know, the actual people who would be sending the boats
Even Bush had a coalition of the willing.
I guarantee you they have not made that connection at all.
The documentaries in ten or twenty years are gonna slap
… If we get there