As a cyclist in London, I’ve hit one pedestrian: they stepped backward(!) into a cycle lane. I had nowhere to go, as there was a curb on the other side. Pedestrian behaviour is just totally wild with respect to cycle lanes, a lot of them are just totally oblivious. If you cycle, you will come across people walking along or stepping into dedicated cycle lanes several times during the average commute.
None of those things matter if they survive and control the straight, which seems to be the situation. The toll revenue will be enough to rebuild several times over. They have proven that they can absolutely crush the gulf states with missiles and drones.
I think the fact that Trump accepted their 10-point plan as the basis for negotiation, instead of them accepting the American 15-point plan, makes it obvious this is America taking the loss.
And they haven’t come close to “crushing the gulf states”. Lobbing a middle at the oil facility is not “crushing”, it’s harassment. If anything the gulf states have decided to not retaliate themselves, but if they did it would be even worse for Iran.
Trump did not “accept” the 10 point plan. Not even close. It’s simply a list of demands from Iran, nobody has agreed to anything.
Real world events are conditional. Would you prefer I talk in absolutes?
Defacto Iran still controls the strait, as they have since the start of the war. If they start letting the ships through with no toll, I think that would indicate a tactical loss but strategic draw for Iran (well, the IRGC). If they don’t, it’s a strategic win. We’ll find out I guess.
The small gulf states are incredibly fragile because of their water supply. Major disruption to their power or desalinisation directly renders them largely uninhabitable.
You’re misquoting me on the 10 point plan. He accepted it as the _basis for negotiation_. Here’s direct quote from him on Truth Social:
“We received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate”
Lining up multiple low probability events and talking like it’s certainty isn’t that helpful to understanding the conflict.
Iran does not “control” the strait any more than neighbor controls my front door because he threatened to stop me from using it. If the US or other naval power tried to pass it would have no issue.
Have you noticed when the Houthis did the same thing (fire on ships) last year the tone was very different? Many people noticed.
Accepting something as a “basis for negotiation” means nothing. During the Korean War the US accepted a term forcing them to leave the Korean Peninsula when peace talks started and last I checked the US is still there.
> Iran does not “control” the strait any more than neighbor controls my front door because he threatened to stop me from using it. If the US or other naval power tried to pass it would have no issue
If your neighbour threatened to shoot anyone attempting to use your front door, and followed through on their threat a few times, and now no one uses your front door, I would say they control it.
Well the “expert” analysis you mentioned said the world would grind to a halt last month but that didn’t happen did it?
India and Pakistan have been running the “closure” several times with escorts, successfully. All it would take a is a naval coalition of 3-4 countries and the strait is effectively open - and no toll.
Iran is in a far worse position now than it was a month ago (and it was in a bad position back then). It’s a matter of time before Iran is no longer able to project any force in the gulf. And all the countries in the Middle East will be happy it happened.
If we look at the stated goals (as inconsistent as they have been):
Unconditional surrender -> nope
Regime change via popular uprising -> nope
Destruction or removal of enriched uranium -> nope
Destruction of drones and ballistic missile capability -> nope
Final goal of getting back to the pre-war state (which is admitting loss in itself):
Reopen in the straight of Hormuz -> nope
So no objectives have been achieved, and although you could argue they will be in the future, this seems increasingly unlikely in the short timeline the Trump admin has given themselves. It any of them were possible at all, which seems doubtful.
It's also a bit overblown. If you could rig a war, you would stand to make a lot more money playing the stock market than small potatoes prediction markets. A lot of money has been on the line based on which party wins elections even before prediction markets existed (see fracking or pipeline project approval as obvious examples).
Maybe Americans don't really get this, but the Greenland stuff was a very, very big deal. The rest of NATO was staring down the barrel of the unthinkable: war with the United States. For what? Some lib owning? A bit of fun? A real estate deal? The sense of betrayal is very strong, more than the politicians are letting on.
The sane Americans get it. We know how important NATO is, and sovereignty of nations, and so on. We get it.
We are in a state of permanent horror at what the voting majority has done, all to avoid voting a woman of color into office, to own the libs, to hate on brown-skinned people, etc., ad nauseum. Votes against today, instead of towards tomorrow. Hatred and fear as prime motivations.
The Diego Garcia stuff is a very, very big deal. I think it's unreasonable to draw the comparison between the exceptionally short-sighted Brits and the uncommonly prudent Danes. But hypothesizing Trump Tower Thule as the motive is ridiculous.
Diego Garcia is an island of exceptional strategic importance to the West. When it eventually gets granted to a client state of China, that will steadily degrade the effectiveness of bases there. I expect slower movement than the time the UK promised to protect the rights of Hong Kong citizens, but that is a matter of degree.
I am not aware of Denmark giving meaningful control of Greenland to China or Russia, nor or any plans to push the US out: therefore, while I think the principle is worth considering, I find it to be a small concern not worth angering allies over.
I don’t see how it relates very well to what I said. I think you’re trying to say the that the Chagos island lease disagreement is as big a deal as threatening to invade a NATO ally.
No, that is incorrect. I disagree that my comment draws that equivalency, not least of all because claiming "as big a deal" is to make a comparison between two radically different concerns between fairly different groups, which could only be lined up against one another in some narrowly scoped way.
I'm saying that losing stable access to Greenland sites would be similar to losing access to Diego Garcia sites, and the threat of the latter is a recent flare-up. And if you're hoping to retreat to fortress America, then Greenland becomes much more important than Diego Garcia.
Probably something along the lines of "nice nuclear deterrent shame if it was to stop working" or "nice carriers, shame if the only aeroplanes that can fly from them stopped working"....
I'm using it Infomaniak, including their KDrive as a Dropbox replacement (with 2TB of data). I've even used their video conferencing app. No complaints so far. All seems to work just fine.
Interesting, files on demand is something I'm missing a lot. I'm on BSD though :'( I'll check if it can be made to work (full support is too much to ask I'm sure but perhaps a port can be made).
Honestly, the instability of the political environment in US feels so extreme, that it seems like something could bite you that you didn't even see coming.
Just on the Gmail front: maybe Trump decides to trade embargo you country and pressures Google to cut off email access. Maybe he decides Google needs to be broken up and sold for parts, and Gmail's data goes to Truth Social. Maybe he thinks illegal immigrants or "radical left wing lunatics" shouldn't have access to American email providers and gets Google to start suspending accounts based on a some criteria. Maybe some of this seems far fetched, but we are talking about a president who threatened to to go to war with one of America's closest allies.
The non-American west's exposure to the instability is too high, and already affecting people. Switching software providers where possible is something that can be done quickly, and relatively easily by individuals in the short term.
Lol, I’ve had cutting edge models suggest I make an inflexible hole bigger by putting shim in it, and argue their case stubbornly. I don’t know what you’re using to suggest they are anywhere near solving your problem there!
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