Now is the question to ask, what does Iran expect out of this. At this point, I believe they are looking for nothing short of complete US withdrawal from the Gulf.

It is also possible that they will start charging for passage through the Strait of Hormuz after this - it's currently free to navigate.

Regardless, the most telling sign is that they are explicitly saying they are refusing to negotiate. At this moment, Iran is setting the pace and the US can only follow.

It's a risky move normally, but Iran is protected by the Zagros mountains to the west, and their rocketry tech against incursions. They may or may not have started to mine the Strait, it's not clear yet, but I saw a video of how they do it: it's just more missiles.

An invasion + subsequent occupation of Iran would require something like 1 million boots on the ground at the very least. We are looking at a nation that is a peer or near-peer adversary, not a paramilitary group. On top of which, the population is now even more united behind the islamic revolution. Completely unfathomable to send that many troops even with a draft, and that's just for a blitz-type occupation (go in, decapitate government, install puppet like Iraq). Iran controls its territory and the population would be hostile to soldiers at every turn. A more realistic number is 2 million soldiers on the ground to more fully occupy the territory. If they can even get through the Zagros Mountains or navigate the Strait.

What Iran is lacking is a navy and air force but their rocketry more than makes up for it. We saw the refueling airplane that was taken down over Iraq.

Likewise both the Gerald Ford and Abraham Lincoln, the two biggest aircraft carriers, turned tail and ran as soon as IRGC missiles showed up on their radar. They report no damage but it doesn't even matter - a salvo of four missiles, likely to test response, managed to get them to fuck off and out of range.

The Brent futures index is essentially a piece of paper that says "you have a proof of purchase for crude oil at this price". You don't actually get it delivered (that would be very difficult), it's a future. Unless you don't sell for a while, then yes they will deliver. This is how the Brent briefly went under 0$ during the COVID lockdowns: without buyers, people were going to get the oil delivered which is a very bad idea, and they needed to offload it any way they could.

The highest the index has been, adjusted for inflation, was in 1980 at 157$ per barrel. In the US, inflation reached 13.5% in 1980. The shock was caused by the Islamic Revolution and the subsequent Iraqi invasion. US unemployment peaked at 10.8% in 1982. The central bank sharply raised interest rates - the modern mechanism to control inflation - higher central interest rates = banks raise their interest rates as well = people and businesses borrow less = banks generate less new money (yes that's really how new money is created nowadays). But it also means fewer investments, fewer job creations (that was a thing that still happened in the 80s), etc. People were barred from driving on certain days or for non-essential reasons.

It was bad, basically. The US Bourgeoisie would indeed be fools to want another oil crisis... except fossil fuel majors and banks, of course, who made a lot of money on the crisis in the past. But everyone else would rather the barrel go back down to a more reasonable price.

As things continue, expect the oil barrel to jump up to 150$, maybe even more. It is at around 100$ currently, spurred by empty promises from Trump to try and contain it. He said US ships would start escorting tankers through the Strait, then the Navy said "what are you talking about we literally can't do that". Doesn't matter, price went down briefly. You can follow the price here: https://www.investing.com/commodities/brent-oil (pick the 1D graph). The markets are closed on the weekend so we'll have to see what it opens at on Monday.

But it's only been ~~a decade~~ two weeks, give it more time. Expect Iran to make more announcements over time - they probably have them all planned out already on a schedule. Recently, they said that any country that kicks out US bases and embassies would be allowed to cross the Strait again. Their tactics are rocketry and taking out intel capabilities, but the strategy seems to be to try and cause an oil crisis. At that stage, other countries will jump in and likely tell the US to just cut their losses and abandon the Gulf.

Iran is continuing to strike at "Israel", though with the media censorship in the entity you wouldn't necessarily know it, but it is unclear to me what exactly they are trying to achieve there. They are striking "Israel" plenty, and vary their targets from what little information filters out, but Iran also hasn't really announced any goals in regards to the entity. Time will tell I suppose.

Now, remember three things:

• we are more intelligent together than individually,
• nobody is ever an expert,
• don't hang onto someone else's words, because they will change their mind in the future while you will still be hanging onto what they said months or years ago, and then you will look like a fool.

Also time to revive the !zhukovacademy@lemmygrad.ml for military theory, Marshal Zhukov is waiting for new pupils 🫡