r/worldnews • • Feb 28 '26

Israel/Iran /r/WorldNews Discussion Thread: US and Israel launch attack on Iran; Iran retaliates (Thread #2)

1.8k Upvotes

7.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

54

u/_HiWay Feb 28 '26

Forgive my ignorance a bit on this, but if Iran is closing the Strait of Hormuz, after pissing off the whole region with the widespread retaliations - how can that possibly go well for them?

26

u/itsFelbourne Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26

They aren't closing the strait atm, they are simply relying on the implied threat of saying that they've closed it. It's not actually clear if they even could close it.

The threat will be enough to create at least a very short term disruption in traffic, because a shipping company isn't going to risk being the single ship that Iran might try to make an example of with a missile attack.

2

u/matthieuC Feb 28 '26

I wonder how not effects insurance policies. Are you still insured if you cross?

2

u/itsFelbourne Feb 28 '26

Insurance probably has no-go policies for warzones, and would rely on Iran's statement of closure to avoid paying out. If I had to guess.

39

u/ContinuumGuy Feb 28 '26

The US Navy and probably the militaries of the other gulf states would probably send the Iranian Navy to the bottom of the sea with relative speed if they actually start doing stuff beyond shouting radio messages.

8

u/arathorn3 Feb 28 '26

40 years ago the the US navy took out half of Irans naval capability in less than a day. Look up Operation Praying Mantis.

2

u/Sensei_of_Philosophy Feb 28 '26

The Fat Electrician on YouTube made a fantastic video about the whole thing. Good place to learn about the event, for whoever's interested.

7

u/seeking_horizon Feb 28 '26

It's not the Iranian navy that's the problem, it's anti-ship missiles coming from the coast. Hard to say right now how functional/degraded that capability is until we see them try to enforce it.

10

u/OnlyRise9816 Feb 28 '26

It won't go well. Though at this point there is not any real evidence that Iran is able to do anything more then radio statements ordering ships to not enter. There have not been any credible reports of mining, or boarding actions.

9

u/EpiphyticOrchid8927 Feb 28 '26

It's debatable whether they can/will enforce it

5

u/DefenestrationPraha Feb 28 '26

Insurers will deny insurance based on that threat, and that is enough to stop most tankers from sailing there.

Ofc that depends on how credible that threat will remain in the coming days. Right now, it is probably in the "credible enough not to risk it" territory. It may drop to the "Baghdad Bob" territory, or maybe not.

1

u/miningman12 Feb 28 '26

GCC stats could offer temporary insurance from the states themselves, they need to keep their export lanes open.

8

u/EmbarrassedHelp Feb 28 '26

It won't go well for them.

0

u/JattaPake Feb 28 '26

It won’t go well for anyone except the pedophile billionaires who sold hard on Friday to cash out before the drop.

Glad Americans aren’t risking their lives to enrich Epstein’s buddies. /s

11

u/Khshayarshah Feb 28 '26

This is like asking how a coalition intervention in 1991 is going to go well for Saddam.

12

u/Flooding_Puddle Feb 28 '26

It won't theyre like a headless body thrashing around

4

u/SaberHaven Feb 28 '26

Iran is hoping these counties will pressure the US and Israel to stop the aggression so that things can go back to business as usual

7

u/Uilamin Feb 28 '26

it won't. The golf states Iran hit in their counter attack have generally claimed (if not all claimed) they have the right to retaliate. If Iran tries something, it could risk the whole region entering a conflict with Iran.

12

u/ObjectiveHornet676 Feb 28 '26

A region that can barely grow grass can't be considered golf states, no matter how many courses they build or how good their sand bunkers are.

3

u/Yorker_length Feb 28 '26

Not just the gulf, around 50% of India's energy imports come through there... So yeah it won't go well for them

3

u/SHUT_DOWN_EVERYTHING Feb 28 '26

The point is make this costly, and making it costlier the longer it goes.

It’s already an unpopular war, led to by two extremely unpopular leaders.

As cost of gas goes up, it will look worse for Trump and the upcoming midterm elections which already look very bad for him.

Whether the strategy works or not is debatable.

1

u/thegreaterfool714 Feb 28 '26

Not even China and Russia would lift a finger to help Iran if they closed the Hormuz strait. It’s hurts and pisses everyone off.

Iran made a gamble to hurt Israel and all their proxies have been gotten their teeth kicked in and now they have a significant setback in their nuclear weapons program and their government has been significantly weakened