How do think a ground invasion of Iran, the famously impossible to invade area for literally thousands of years, would go?

There were a couple of mongol and Turkish invasion, as well as the Islamic Conquest. Last century the Soviets and British invaded Iran rather easily during WW2 as well.

Do you think that it would be like Iraq where the USA blitzkrieged with tanks through to the capital?

You use helicopters and paratroopers to take an airport close to Theran and then land troops with planes. That is how the US would invade. Iran has lost its air defense, so that is possible.

I honestly have very little doubt, that the US can take Iran, if they wanted too. The issue is leaving it is a decent state after the war. However Israel does not care about that.

If all you do is vote then you’re left with candidates determined by others.

I thought the US has primaries, in which you can vote.

We can certainly see the results

Source: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-15679351/Britain-hit-harder-G7-economy-Middle-East-shock-growth-collapses-inflation-soars-OECD-warns.html

More like 3% and another 2% is for infrastructure. You only need to pretend that that infrastructure is really badly needed for defense, which is rather easy for a lot of it. Like say those are not metro stations, they are bunkers…

The US is “just” bombing Iran right now. Take for example Pakistan. They launched missiles against each other two years ago. It would be relatively easy for Pakistan to invade Iran and get support from the US and the Gulf states for that. Iran controls some islands in the Strait of Hormuz, which the UAE claims to be theirs. The Azerbijan and Iran also are not exactly friends.

A ground invasion could seriously dethrone the Islamic leadership.

I disagree with that. High oil prices help to built alternatives, but low ones destroy the oil industry. No profits no new wells. The best thing is to uses taxes to articially create high oil prices, without giving big oil massive profits.

c/nottheonion

Friendica is the Fediverse version of Facebook.

Wikipedia has a long list of sources for US seizures of oil tankers sailing to Cuba: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_oil_blockade_during_Operation_Southern_Spear#Interdiction_activity

No the US is taking ships sailing oil to Cuba. It is not just sanctions.

Trump signed a deal with the Taliban, but that deal was not honored fully by either site. Biden then made the call to move out of the country. That resulted in a massive shitshow.

That is the reason European countries do not block Russian oil exports. There are sanctions and if there is any chance of stoping a ship in line with international law is being used. However it is not a full blockade.

If Iran loses the war, due to either a massive US ground invasion(will turn out bad for the US, but whatever) or them losing control of the country, would add Irans massive oil supply to the global market and lower oil prices a lot. If there is peace in the region, oil prices would also fall. If prices continue to be high, then EV adoption will lower oil consumption. Also shale takes like 3-6months to start a new project. So prices will fall. With $100 WTI, the oil price is also lower then the peak in 2022.

Also Ukraine can hit Russian oil exports as well and has done so as well.

Read the headline again…

Obama ended Iraq and Biden Afghanistan. That were by far the biggest two wars US wars this century. It is kind of crazy that genocide Biden is the most peaceful of the lot though.

That is what meat replacement products are for. Seriously Oktoberfest , which is hardly a vegan festival, manages to have vegan options in basically every tent thanks to that.

Also food culture is changing over time. Pizza was a mostly Italian dish a century ago. Today there are pizza chains in Japan all over the country.

Most of these countries are probably low key happy about the war. It distracts the US from invading Greenland for example. The only big issue is that the strait should be open, so the oil price does not go even higher.

The line is:

We express our readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait.

That is not quite the same thing as safeguard. Appropriate efforts can just be working on peace in the region and brining in some minesweepers to clean up the strait after the fighting ends. My understanding is that most of these countries have ruled out opening the strait by military means.

The Line is actually a massive success. Saudi Arabia has a massive problem, in that it is dependend on oil and gas, while radical Islam causes a lot of problems for switching to a more sustainable future. Especialls womens rights have improved a lot(still bad, but better). If you ban married women from talking with unmarried men, travel without guardian, drive a car and so forth, you are not using half your potential work force. These sort of strict laws also make the country less attractive to outside visitors. That however is required, when you have business travel and tourism.

If you want to avoid a big backlash, you need to bring the Saudi public on your site and crack down on the most radical faction. A utopian project like the Line is perfect for that. It can inspire the public, while distracting from the crackdowns. It also works as great advertising for tourism. If you are able to deliver something similar, then you have a pretty good product. That is not as true for the Line itself, but for other parts of Neom. A big port in the area makes sense and tourism on the Red Sea is big business in Egypt.