YHK - yet another hacker news clone

Houthis 'take control' of key island in global shipping route

233 points consumer451 2 hours ago 287 comments

ExoticPearTree 2 hours ago | parent

Why all the quotation marks in the article? It's not like they interviewed toddlers that said funny things.

afavour 2 hours ago | parent

It’s in quotation marks because it’s a quotation. The BBC have not independently verified that the Houthis have taken control of the island, they are reporting what a government source has said.

blitzar 1 hour ago | parent

They need to start doing this when other "regimes" make wild claims.

wat10000 1 hour ago | parent

They always have.

It's funny to see the evolution of language. Quotation marks indicated that something was a direct quote. Then people started to use them as a sarcasm indicator. Now we're to the point where people can't even recognize them as indicating a direct quote.

tovej 1 hour ago | parent

I think the parent was pointing out that Israel's or USA's claims are usually stated without quotes, such as:

Israel invades Lebanon due to risk of Hezbollah attacks

rather than:

Israel says "risk of Hezbollah attacks" reason for invasion

frereubu 1 hour ago | parent

Are there good examples of this from the BBC? Genuine question - no snark intended.

blitzar 1 hour ago | parent

US insists Strait of Hormuz is open as it exchanges strikes with Iran - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj9gkpp0dkeo

Iran says Strait of Hormuz is 'open' but tracking shows few ships moving - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwydexp39ddo

wat10000 42 minutes ago | parent

Those have the same implication even if it's written slightly differently. "US insists" makes it clear that "open" is a claim by the US, not an independent fact. The first one doesn't match the supposed pattern where one side's claims are stated as facts, despite the lack of quotation marks.

sanderjd 1 hour ago | parent

I'm unconvinced that this is a pattern that is distinguished by the nation being reported on. Headlines vary. Both of your example headlines might appear at different times in the outlets I read.

I think this was just a stylistic choice and that this whole thread is a weird tangent.

59percentmore 49 minutes ago | parent

This is a stunning amount of credulity after "looted vs found" and "https://x.com/i/status/1322999903753220099" -style memes.

sanderjd 46 minutes ago | parent

I don't know what your comment means. Can you say more?

But generally, yes, I think cynicism has run amok among the very-online.

meowface 1 hour ago | parent

I am not saying this is necessarily incorrect but is it empirically actually true. Have people compared lots of different articles.

Cyph0n 54 minutes ago | parent

A few more examples:

“40 beheaded babies” and mass/systematic rape propaganda accepted with zero verification (journalism 101) and, once debunked, zero retractions were made

Hamas-run, but not Likud-run

Condemnation of atrocities by Israel and the US that comes from Israeli and Western voices is given significantly more weight than the same claims coming from Palestinian or Arab voices. After all, the native lacks the capacity to be objective.

Israeli gov statements are taken as undeniable fact, while Palestinian (Gaza or West Bank) gov spokespeople or even Palestinian people in general are barely even platformed

Over-representation of Zionists in editorial teams of every major newspaper and news channel across all Western countries, which (naturally) led to coordinated suppression of any Palestinian voice internally and externally (started to change only relatively recently).

And the list goes on.

omnicognate 47 minutes ago | parent

I don't see anything stated as fact (without quote marks) here solely on the basis of Trump having said it, and I see use of quote marks for things he has said, eg. 'Trump says Iran war will end "immediately" after US midterm elections': https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cp7r8vgl2lgt

The BBC's main sin in relation to Trump is sane-washing, treating his bizarre outbursts as if they were reasonable things for a US president to say. Eg. were he to say "I have a solid gold prostate!" they'd have an Anthony Zurcher piece entitled "Is Trump's prostate really made of gold?" with a quote from a doctor saying "while it seems unlikely and would probably be uncomfortable, having a gold prostate would be unlikely to cause any noticeable side effects as the metal is inert" and a discussion of the benefits of replacing a cancer-prone organ with a noble metal.

jimbokun 18 minutes ago | parent

There is no way to win that battle.

Not reporting on Trump is not an option because his words and actions have huge ramifications for the world.

I think in general the press has gotten much better at just straight up saying that Trump is lying or wrong, as opposed to previous policy of only reporting counter claims from other parties.

jimbokun 22 minutes ago | parent

I don't think that's true and would be curious to see evidence otherwise.

I believe BBC and other outlets with journalistic standards use quotes when reporting what officials say and only drop the quotes when they have independent verification, like eyewitness reports from one of their own journalists.

jimbokun 25 minutes ago | parent

They do.

huurtehoog 57 minutes ago | parent

It has nothing to do with verification.

They are simply reporting what sources have said:

Houthis 'take control' of Perim Island - government source published at 09:00

Houthi rebels have "taken control" of Perim Island in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, according to a source. Earlier, we were reporting that the group had reached the key island.

The AFP news agency also says Houthis have "taken over" Perim Island, also referred to as Mayyun, according to eyewitnesses and a local government official.

"Boats carrying armed Houthi fighters reached Mayyun Island after government forces withdrew from it yesterday," the official tells AFP.

afavour 11 minutes ago | parent

My point about verification is simply that if the BBC had independently verified it’s true then they wouldn’t use the quote in the headline. They’d just say taken control without quote marks, because it wouldn’t be a quote.

vanschelven 2 hours ago | parent

Presumably to indicate that the parts in quotes are indeed quoted literally from the source that is mentioned in the same sentence?

nkoren 2 hours ago | parent

When I moved from the US to the UK, the use of quotation marks in news headlines was something that confused me. In the US, these would be "scare quote", with the quotation marks basically standing in for the words "so-called". In the UK, that is NOT their meaning. The quotation marks mean "we are not ourselves in a position to verify this, but it is the words that a source has told us". Very different meaning -- and once I got used to it, I think the UK use of language in this case is more honest and useful.

tl;dr: two countries, divided by a common language.

gobip 1 hour ago | parent

This is like this in most of Europe: when in "quotes", it is not the journalist, but the person who said something. For example, Obama said "Yes we can". He did not say yes we can, he said "Yes we can".

It is not about the quotes being verified or unverified. It is about something said by somebody, that you are reporting.

cake-rusk 1 hour ago | parent

This is precisely what the word quote means!

shawnz 1 hour ago | parent

Is it really a different meaning? Isn't the implication that they tried, and failed, to independently verify the claim?

petesergeant 1 hour ago | parent

No, it's a statement of who is making the claim.

cynix 1 hour ago | parent

Does “so-called” not mean “words that someone has told us”?

NDlurker 1 hour ago | parent

Huh? That's how quotation marks are used here in the US too

jameshart 1 hour ago | parent

It’s not so much ‘we are not in a position to verify’ as the fact that the person who said the thing, and what they said, is itself newsworthy.

If you’re reporting that “Government sources say Houthis have ‘taken control’ of an island” then the fact that government sources used the words ‘taken control’ is itself interesting.

The headlines “Russia ‘will be defeated’ in Ukraine says Zelensky”, “Russia ‘will be defeated’ in Ukraine says Putin”, and “Russia ‘will be defeated’ in Ukraine says Taylor Swift” all tell of vastly different news events.

jimbokun 16 minutes ago | parent

I don't think reputable US news outlets use quotation marks in the way you say they do.

joejohnson 2 hours ago | parent

The BBC only assumes government sources as truth when it's from the crown or Israeli / US governments

nayroclade 1 hour ago | parent

This is completely standard journalistic practice when reporting a quote on something that is currently contentious or unproven. For example, consider the two hypothetical headlines:

Activists decry police murder of protester

Activists decry police "murder" of protester

The first implies that the police murdering the protestor is an established fact. The second makes it clear that it is the activists who used the term "murder" rather than it being a non-contentious fact.

JoshTriplett 1 hour ago | parent

In that case, that seems like a variation of the "past exonerative tense".

gowld 1 hour ago | parent

Do you consider every trial defendant to be exonerated?

lkey 1 hour ago | parent

Both versions are fancifully direct in our era a media+police stenography, try:

Mayor denounces "radical activists" rioting and damaging city property in response to an officer-involved incident that resulted in one fatal kinetic altercation with a "loud and provocatively dressed" man.

amiga386 1 hour ago | parent

> officer-involved incident

Ah, the past exonerative tense. https://archive.is/wPVdy

Read McSweeney's guide to ambiguous grammar, where they lead you step by step from the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog to the ultimate say-nothing sentence speed was involved in a jumping-related incident while a fox was brown, and the punchline is you can then translate "the St Louis County Police Department was involved in an officer-involved shooting after officers came under heavy gunfire" to "a police officer shot a black person"

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-interactive-guide-to-...

But no, that's the language issued by police departments covering their asses. Journalists are a little bit covering their asses in making clear what is a quote and what isn't, but they're still responsible for what they choose to quote, and to be clear on whether they have verified the claims they're quoting.

Ideally, unverified claims shouldn't even be in an article. But when there _has_ been some kind of stramash, they just don't know who did what, the need to rush out an article to get clicks means they'll just quote both sides and try to give them equal prominence until they can do more verification.

ratelimitsteve 55 minutes ago | parent

https://patch.com/california/northhollywood/my-daughter-died...

oh like this article that says a child was hit by a "LAPD bullet" as though wild bullets roam the streets of LA looking for children instead of being fired from a gun by a person who made a decision.

jimbokun 17 minutes ago | parent

Do the BBC or other outlets use "officer-involved incident" without quotes?

It's generally police officials that use that terminology.

dylan604 1 hour ago | parent

It doesn't help when snippets are post leaving out the other context clues where things like "according to" or "anonymous source stated" or similar attribute of the quote. Just putting words between quotation marks does not lead me to believe they were quotes if there is no attribution. Otherwise, it's a Trump level "people tell me" type of "quote".

bcjdjsndon 1 hour ago | parent

It's because they been taken to court for mindlessly parroting shit they hear, but instead of actually verifying the truth of the claim (ya know, the entire purpose of a journalist) they just put it in quotes as some kind of "buyer beware" disclaimer

carlosjobim 1 hour ago | parent

Journalism is just as much reporting what different influential people say, whether the underlying statement is true or not.

> actually verifying the truth

That's the job of the reader, not the journalist. Unless you're living under oppression. So you have misunderstood the purpose of reporting.

pessimizer 1 hour ago | parent

It's a garbage habit that they've all fallen into. The quotes will fall away when future stories refer back to this story.

That single quoted phrase was set in the context of other words, and that context defined its meaning. We know this to an extent that almost no one could have imagined since LLMs have become a huge part of the world.

My favorite example of this is how no article in Britain during Corbyn's leadership of the labor party would ever quote an entire sentence that he had said. Thousands of articles, and the quotes were all fragmentary phrases and lone words framed in editorial.

edit: Brits and the BBC especially do this more than most, likely because of their bizarre libel laws (that were once even worse than they are now.)

littlecranky67 2 hours ago | parent

Will this bring oil prices down in Europe? Oil tankers could still go to the mediteranian via the suez canal. This will not help asia, but I can imagine if it is too dangerous the go through bab al-mandab strait it is more lucrative to sell the crude oil to europe at a discount?

alephnerd 2 hours ago | parent

> Will this bring oil prices down in Europe ... This will not help Asia

This hurts Europe more than Asia.

The UK, France, Italy, Netherlands, Denmark, and others are similarly opposed to the Houthis having conducted airstrikes on the Houthis (eg. 2025) as well as helping target them directly or indirectly.

And a large portion of global shipping is owned by Greek conglomerates - a country that is a close ally of Israel.

Most GCC states also have some form of defense agreement with the UK or France. If those turn out to be meaningless, it reduces their incentive to cut preferential deals with European states.

Additionally, this further enhances Turkiye and Pakistan's hand, as Saudi Arabia has signed defense pacts with both and Pakistan has threatened action against Iran yesterday if further incidents threaten Saudi Arabia. If they were able to dislodge the Houthis without direct European intervention, then it is a massive black stain on the EU's power projection capacity and it's claim that it should be treated as a great power. It also gives Turkiye additional leverage against the EU.

Finally, the Houthis struck the East-West Pipeline [0]. Much of the KSA's oil is in Eastern Saudi Arabia around Dhahran. Most large Asian states like China, India, Japan, and South Korea have continued operations in Iran that allowed them continued passage. European states lack access to GCC oil as a result of Perim island being controlled by the Houthis.

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/yemens-houthis-rea...

eagleal 1 hour ago | parent

Yeah the EU leadership has been really shortsighted on these past decades (especially since the 10s), especially in their strategic energy and industrial sectors.

Be it the Ukranian conflict, the ME crisis, the NA wars and instabilities, etc. The EU is the one that geopolitically speaking lost the most.

Unless they're full puppets for foreign interests, I simply do not understand how they could leave foreign actors to dictate policies that affect thier own territory and enterprises without any sort of critical thought.

But even then, they could not have possibly been all mere puppets. And yet.

markus_zhang 1 hour ago | parent

I guess you only need maybe 20% of them to be puppets to mess around. It’s a lot easier to damage than to build.

alephnerd 1 hour ago | parent

The issue was 1990s-2000s Germany argued it was in Europe's best interest to integrate Russia into the European fabric, but 1990s-2000s France+UK+Italy argued it was in Europe's best interest to integrate the Mediterranean into the European fabric.

When the UK left the EU and France+Italy were in the midst of their economic doldrums due to the Eurozone crisis, this left the hard power states within the EU comparatively weakened.

But the collapse of Minsk II and the ongoing war in the Middle East led to a cascading crisis for a unified Europe.

eagleal 59 minutes ago | parent

Minsk per the people that brokered it was just a temporary patch to prepare Ukraine for the invasion. So no. That's not it.

It's business and by now it should be clear to anyone that there's no morality involved in this space.

There's nothing wrong with Russia as energy partner, as long as you don't shoot yourself in the foot by blowing up the alternatives. South of EU had proper energy supplies from ME/NA. For example crisis in ME was mitigated by Russian energy or NA energy (Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon, etc).

The new hegemons like Turkey, Israel, etc came only later, yet we can't say they're Saints can we? Also to appease the US administration line a lot of green energy projects were put on hold, and were only restarted this year after the Hormuz situation.

The only real explanation is shortsightness for personal interests (but even then you'd have to have all your capitals abroad), or being a tool for foreign interests.

fabian2k 1 hour ago | parent

It was cheaper, I don't think it's much more complex than that. And with fossil fuels, countries without significant local production are always dependent on someone else, with most potential suppliers being problematic in some way.

Of course we should have gone for renewable energy more forcefully, but that wouldn't have resolved the issue. That change will take time, and you can't arbitrarily accelerate it.

mytailorisrich 54 minutes ago | parent

Well the US benefit massively because of their investments in shale gas. Meanwhile the Europe suffers massively and they banned shale gas although they could exploit vast resources.

Sure, the environment, etc but Europe hasn't invested strategically in that, either. China has.

throwaway473825 35 minutes ago | parent

No, gas has always been the most expensive source of electricity. Take a look at the German merit order from 2018:

https://www.ffe.de/en/publications/merit-order-shifts-and-th...

Nuclear is cheapest, then lignite, then hard coal, and then gas. Germany phased out the cheapest option first, now continues with the second, and is expanding the most expensive.

The obvious choice would have been to do what China and India are doing - phase out gas power first and focus on electrification. But Europe did the opposite.

Tuna-Fish 1 hour ago | parent

Aren't those really easy to explain?

EU opposes the Houthis because they are a horrifying slave state that distributes children as sex slaves to their troops.

EU opposes Russia because it is a horrifying fascist dictatorship that has repeatedly invaded it's neighbors, and constantly talks about it's historical claims to EU territory.

In the NA conflicts it's harder to draw such a clear line, because the conflicts typically have about 15 sides each, but the basic algorithm you can use is generally that EU tries very hard to pick sides based on morality, not geopolitical interests.

eagleal 1 hour ago | parent

Those can be said for other economic partners that are being used so no. That's not it, that's just rhetoric for the masses. _You'll here the same thing tomorrow, after I say the complete opposite today._

gib444 1 hour ago | parent

> Unless they're full puppets for foreign interests

It's an open secret that Russian money is deep, deep in European politics.

rdm_blackhole 15 minutes ago | parent

> Unless they're full puppets for foreign interests,

The European parliament has been bought 10 times over by the lobbies.

See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/08/lobbyists-euro...

"By some estimates, they influence 75% of legislation"

> But even then, they could not have possibly been all mere puppets. And yet.

Even if the lobbying was not reason for all the bad decisions of the EU, the EU parliament has no way to actually propose any laws on its own. All the laws emanate from the commission which is also bought and paid for by you guessed it, the lobbies.

throwaway198846 1 hour ago | parent

> Japan, and South Korea have continued operations in Iran that allowed them continued passage.

1.How do they pay Iran considering the sanctions? 2.Do you think EU shouldn't sanction Iran even though they violated NNPT and their terrible record on human rights because Iran can threaten them with a sufficient price?

> a country that is a close ally of Israel

Are they? They never sent a single weapon or soldier to help israel, they have no formal or informal mutual defense agreement. Israel buy no military equipment from Greece. You mistake mutual interest because of a common enemy - Turkey to close alliance.

alephnerd 1 hour ago | parent

1. Waivers, state owned enterprises, shell corporations, barter trades, and using their own currencies for transactions

2. I agree. I'm just being prosaic as to why European states are in the pickle they are today.

3. They are closely entwined via logistics, but Cyprus would be an even closer Israel-Cyprus ties. The reality is, the Saudi-Turkiye-Kuwait-Pakistan alliance is a direct reaction to the Israel-Greece-Cyprus-UAE-India cooperation or the now signed Israel-Greece-Cyprus trilateral.

throwaway198846 1 hour ago | parent

I see, thank you for the prompt response, I think calling them close allies is overstating it.

inglor_cz 19 minutes ago | parent

A Pakistan-Iran war was not on my bingo card.

briffle 2 hours ago | parent

most large tankers are too large for both the Suez and Panama Canals.

sonotathrowaway 1 hour ago | parent

There are tankers built specifically for the Suez Canal

computomatic 1 hour ago | parent

Suezmax tankers, panamax, etc. Anything bigger needs to go around

estearum 1 hour ago | parent

Which are already being used to transit the Suez Canal.

jonplackett 1 hour ago | parent

This is part of the Houthis preventing Saudi Arabia from exporting any oil at all. So no I don’t think it’s gonna make oil lower. Higher probably. But oil is doing very weird things.

markvdb 1 hour ago | parent

No. A cynic might think a significant part of this half-arsed Iran war was:

- make sure fuel prices increase globally

- The US economy is relatively well-shielded from the fallout by its own fossil fuel sources, local and in colonies like Venezuela.

- export more US fossil fuels, especially to Europe, at inflated prices. US insiders reap the profits.

- further kneecap European competitiveness in energy intensive sectors, steal market share. Oh well, small gift to China here too, but still a net win for the US.

watwut 1 hour ago | parent

I just dont think these guy are even capable to plan that much.

p-e-w 1 hour ago | parent

Then you probably believe that the US government only consists of the half dozen clowns you see on TV every day.

discreteevent 1 hour ago | parent

That's the point this time around. They went full authoritarian and purged all the competent people.

Art9681 1 hour ago | parent

That's just the media noise. Yea there were purges. But its a big leap to go from "some" to "all" the best people. Government is the largest employer in the country. The nonsense you see constantly by politicians and other leaders is a tiny fraction of what the government workforce is. This is why despite the chaos you see in the media, life hasn't changed much for the great majority of people all things considered. The government remains functional where it needs to be.

m_fayer 30 minutes ago | parent

The purges haven’t reached too deep into the rank and file yet, which is why the walls are still standing. But they’ve hit the top of the pyramid hard, which is why nothing makes sense.

voganmother42 21 minutes ago | parent

Its been way more effective at murdering US citizens for sure.

The ICE recruits are raising the bar.

Oh and now the FBI can consider those with a background in bestiality, so lots of fresh talent there

estearum 1 hour ago | parent

Someone hasn't been paying attention to the Pentagon or State Department purges, both of which would lead precisely to this type of mistake.

We had a retard in the Oval Office 2017-2021 surrounded by "the deep state" (i.e. career managers of the ultra-complex organization called "the government"), and politically constrained by Congress.

Now we have that same retard, but supported by vast purges of aforementioned managers, and politically unconstrained by the cultists and cowards (the two forms of GOP representative) in Congress.

fofoz 1 hour ago | parent

We have no doubt that the best people are in US government and that they have the best tools at their disposal. Around the world, we are simply trying to figure out, while munching on plenty of popcorn, how this incredible sequence of actions will play out; a sequence clearly crafted using highly complex strategic planning tools that employ the most advanced techniques from game theory, AI, and who knows what else.

megous 33 minutes ago | parent

Yes, if the rest just listens and executes their wishes, then you're all clowns.

5upplied_demand 6 minutes ago | parent

I personally believe the well-sourced journalism explaining how the President ignored the opinions of Government experts to do what he wanted.

> https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/iran-war-warn...

galangalalgol 1 hour ago | parent

If you think so little of them, then imagine what the people who pay $5M for a meal with him can convince him to do. Or what people who pay his son-in-law/iran-negotiator 25M a year can call and ask him to do.

hebelehubele 1 hour ago | parent

The US sells oil and refined products to other countries. So a supply crunch would raise prices even there too. Everyday Americans are not getting fuel for cheap.

toyg 1 hour ago | parent

Nobody cares about everyday Americans, it's about American corporations. Exxon and friends are printing money.

fnordpiglet 33 minutes ago | parent

I have a suspicion that the caring is starting to mount, otherwise there’s no need to offer a $1.3T election bribe (which I’ll file a the other dividend / bribes that were never sent and the bridge Trump sold me)

EGreg 1 hour ago | parent

This was clearly a secret attempt of Trump's to be the world's best president for getting off fossil fuels and moving to renewables. The man is playing 7 dimensional chess bro!

When all is said and done it will be he, not AOC or Bernie or any "Green New Deal" folks, that will be remembered by history as the president who did more to get people off fossil fuels than any other.

fofoz 1 hour ago | parent

He's so clever that he's probably even playing chess in a Hilbert space. The whole world envies American voters, who will receive $5,000 if they re-elect this incredible genius.

EGreg 1 hour ago | parent

I think the "stable" in stable genius actually refers to the points of stability under transformations. Brower's fixed point theorem. Do your own research!

27183 1 hour ago | parent

I heard if you inject yourself with bleach you can perceive the higher dimensions. Many people say this.

bijowo1676 35 minutes ago | parent

Trump is just accelerating the course of history. The fall of American hegemony, the humiliation of the MIC, the petrodollar, the fossil fuels, the USD as reserve currency is like speedrunning the historical events to reach the next more balanced equilibrium state

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism

giardini 31 minutes ago | parent

"MIC"???

bijowo1676 27 minutes ago | parent

military industrial complex

nemomarx 26 minutes ago | parent

Military industrial complex. all the companies who make an supply weapon or technology to the US military basically. lockheed and palantir and so on

noelsusman 1 hour ago | parent

It's nice to think there was some sort of plan, but the truth is much scarier.

postsantum 1 hour ago | parent

>some sort of plan

George Friedman, The Next Decade

Rygian 52 minutes ago | parent

> Friedman [...] advocates a deal with Iran which would essentially allow it a secure sphere of influence in the region and an alliance with Turkey to counterbalance Iran and Israel.

Seems to be in contradiction.

nemomarx 28 minutes ago | parent

I think the idea is 3 regimes in power to keep a balance between them instead of two rivals?

the_gipsy 59 minutes ago | parent

Short-term benefits seem to be good enough for America in this new age.

danisth 41 minutes ago | parent

I believe there were pieces of a plan. This global energy shift gambit being one of them. I don’t think there was a unified strategy with contingencies etc though (if there was it certainly wasn’t very good).

pixl97 31 minutes ago | parent

"concept of a plan"

jimbokun 28 minutes ago | parent

Why do you believe "there were pieces of a plan"? Any reporting to corroborate that theory?

WarmWash 11 minutes ago | parent

People are so politically blinded that it's almost impossible to explain the plan, but to anyone with the strength to keep a level head, it's pretty clear what the plan was, and frankly it probably had a 50% success chance. But Trump rolled a critical failure on it.

Iranians were rioting against the regime, Israel intelligence handed the US a report that the collective "Head" of the Iranian regime will be all together at one place, at one time.

Cut off the head, and the rioters riding high on the win will topple the rest. Coming off of the swift clean victory in Venezuela, and Trumps incredible desire to put feathers in his cap, it was an irresistible proposition.

So he decided to cut off the head, which was successful. The miscalculation however was that the rioters got scared/apathetic rather than motivated. The power vacuum was filled by the same people who were there before. I'm sure Mossad and the CIA were probably on the ground trying to ground swell support, but evidently it didn't happen.

Al-Khwarizmi 1 hour ago | parent

Sure, if you make oil prices increase, US oil companies and their shareholders rake in more cash. But it's harmful for the average American because filling up the tank costs a lot more. Then that price hike spreads to everything else that relies on oil (which is pretty much everything) leading to inflation and rising interest rates (already starting to happen, the shielding you mention doesn't seem to be working, which makes sense in a relatively free-market economy). If the situation drags on, unemployment rises due to soaring costs across the board, and the economy goes to hell.

A rise in crude prices might pay off for a small country that lives almost exclusively off it (say, Saudi Arabia, in the hyphotetical case that it could keep exporting as normal) but for the US? I don't think it does. Surely, Europe is more exposed than the US and will suffer even more, but this is not a zero-sum game.

So I don't think it's an elaborate plan, it's just Trump being reckless as usual.

Catloafdev 58 minutes ago | parent

I wouldn't assume this administration gives a shit about inflation or rising interest rates or how the rest of the economy is doing. Do you have any reason to believe they do?

epolanski 1 hour ago | parent

You're missing a key part: energy prices in US go up too. It doesn't matter if US and its colonies are net producers.

Art9681 1 hour ago | parent

Realpolitik might just be the best way to do things after all.

giardini 33 minutes ago | parent

Please don't leave us in suspense: what would "realpolitik" be in this instance?

markus_zhang 7 minutes ago | parent

The greatest happiness is to vanquish your enemies, to chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth, to see those dear to them bathed in tears, to clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters.

wins32767 48 minutes ago | parent

Its almost like not having meaningful power projection capabilities when you rely on imports for essential industries is not good!

llm_nerd 30 minutes ago | parent

The US is the world's most vulnerable economy to oil shocks. I mean the real economy, not the farce that the markets currently are.

The Venezuela comment is extremely weird. You know Venezuela has negligible production, right, and that it would take 100s of billions of investments, over decades, to get reasonable production that would make a difference. That's ignoring that currently there is a laughably illegitimate puppet government -- literally just Madero's government minus him, as they did the coup with the US -- that has a 100% chance of a violent overthrow in the future. Which is exactly why all of the oil companies are shrugging and saying no thanks.

Venezuela is a farce -- much like $5000 "dividend" for a government literally on the precipice of bankruptcy, as Bessent runs around, near tears, trying to convince everyone that they're the house and he's the big dog German Shepherd instead of the face of a failing empire having its last pathetic gasp, to laughter all around -- that Trump thinks gives him leverage against Canada. It is unbelievably pathetic business, like renaming a 400+ year old name on a lake like a little bitch.

There is zero scenario where this has benefitted the US, but a drunkard incompetent secdef (sorry "secwar") convinced a foolish demented rapist, who already had Israel whispering in his ear, how easy and painless this foolish debacle will be.

ROFL.

jimbokun 29 minutes ago | parent

You honestly think the Trump administration is intelligent enough to think all of that through and execute it?

skeeter2020 1 hour ago | parent

I've never seen oil prices decrease due to any regional disruption; the market is global. If the price in Alberta went up when the Straight closed, I wouldn't hold my breathe for Europe in this scenario.

serf 48 minutes ago | parent

>I've never seen oil prices decrease due to any regional disruption; the market is global.

oil spiked and then crashed during the gulf war & the iraq war in 03.

the gulf war probably because of western price control methods kicking in, the iraq war because of an increase in confidence that the region would produce oil after western 'securing' of oil fields allowing further volume investment from the UAE and friends.

I guess it really just depends on what the definition of 'regional disruption' is.

epolanski 1 hour ago | parent

Oil is sold globally.

It doesn't matter if in Texas wells are producing it at a penny for barrel, if the global prices are high that oil is going to be sold to Philippinos, Japanese, Italians or South Africans.

So, at the same time, it doesn't matter if some new routes open or close, it doesn't particularly favor one or the other buyer, it's still sold globally on a bid.

echelon 53 minutes ago | parent

Until we bar export.

bijowo1676 33 minutes ago | parent

why would Exxon allow export ban and lose exorbitant profits ?

danans 1 hour ago | parent

> if it is too dangerous the go through bab al-mandab strait it is more lucrative to sell the crude oil to europe at a discount?

I suspect they would sooner curtail production rather then sell at a discount due to route restrictions.

Paradigma11 26 minutes ago | parent

Not really. It is very hard and expensive to get these oil well pumping again. That is why we had negative oil prices during covid. Plus, when we are talking about the Gulf states, they have extremely low production cost. The discount would be against world prices, not production cost.

talon8635 1 hour ago | parent

Aren’t these groups working with, no against, China?

And against, not with, Western Europe?

So being prices down where, in eastern Europe?

jcranmer 1 hour ago | parent

VLCCs are too large to fit through the Suez Canal. I don't know how much of Saudi export is using VLCCs versus Suezmax or smaller tankers, but I've heard that much of the Red Sea oil export is currently going through Bab al-Mandab, not that I have a source on hand.

seatac76 33 minutes ago | parent

I wouldn’t count on safe Med passage, I think last month a drone attacked a ship in Egypt. And the channel to Suez isn’t exactly wide or out of range for Houthis.

GCC will have to talk to Iran now, there is no reasonable way out of this quagmire other than a regional accommodation with Iran. Talk about a regression but here we are.

MBCook 15 minutes ago | parent

Why wouldn’t they go up?

Instability is instability. Oil is fungible.

There’s no reason to think someone else won’t escalate this further disrupting supplies even more. That will push prices up.

Even if they don’t, if oil can’t get through this straight it will have to go somewhere else, which will increase shipping traffic and demand for “your oil” right? And wouldn’t that also push up prices?

pknerd 1 hour ago | parent

Trump has decided that he'd sink along with the entire Middle east

criddell 1 hour ago | parent

What makes you think this, out of the non-stop parade of Trump crazy bullshit, is the issue that will finally sink him?

laimewhisps 1 hour ago | parent

Because his supporters have huge trucks and need tons of gas.

pknerd 58 minutes ago | parent

Wait for the November

softwaredoug 1 hour ago | parent

My understanding is we haven’t gotten to full Hormuz apocalypse mode because the Chinese have a ton of stockpiles. And the Red Sea has been an option.

Those conditions seem to be changing.

AnotherGoodName 53 minutes ago | parent

The Houthis also explicitly allow Chinese vessels and Chinese ships have been able to traverse the red sea without issue. Which means China actually has more ability to access oil than other countries right now.

I suspect the Chinese won’t be happy with the pipeline and refinery attacks on Saudi Arabia but i also assume that there will still be plenty of Chinese bound oil for the foreseeable future.

bijowo1676 51 minutes ago | parent

the reason China was using stockpiles is they want to time the gasoline price shock right to the midterm elections. The moment they stop using stockpiles and start purchasing the prices will jump

softwaredoug 49 minutes ago | parent

Well roughly now would be when you’d time a huge shock

OTOH midterm generic ballots are much more stable than top line presidential horse race polling. So it might only matter at the margins.

lowbloodsugar 43 minutes ago | parent

lol. The orange man is doing more damage to the USA than China could ever do short of actual war. He is destroying the US militarily, economically and politically. They emphatically support his efforts.

kadoban 37 minutes ago | parent

At some point they might prefer stability and sanity. I would bet that at this point they don't care much either way.

China is playing long, most of the ~unchanging things are in their favor and the US already proved that they're unreliable. People won't forget that soon even if Trump is gone.

LarsKrimi 26 minutes ago | parent

Stability and sanity is not happening whether the conflicts stop in Yemen+Hormuz or not. At that point it's just going to go back to tarriff wars and new terror campaigns that the US admin will start somewhere else

giardini 24 minutes ago | parent

IMO it is a good thing that the USA is no longer paying for (among others):

- NATO - Maintaining security on the high seas for other than USA shipping,

- tariffs imposed by other countries (yes, other countries have been imposing tariffs for decades):

https://wjno.iheart.com/content/2025-03-17-qa-how-many-count...

The USA can use the money saved for its own citizens (possibly even lowering their taxes!)

jacquesm 17 minutes ago | parent

Wow, how shortsighted.

> - NATO - Maintaining security on the high seas for other than USA shipping,

NATO consists of a lot of countries, why would they only work for USA shipping? And where do you think that shipping comes from?

> - tariffs imposed by other countries (yes, other countries have been imposing tariffs for decades):

Of course they do. But they're not usually idiots about it.

> The USA can use the money saved for its own citizens (possibly even lowering their taxes!)

You advocate for tariffs but don't understand how tariffs work...

globalnode 16 minutes ago | parent

> The USA can use the money saved for its own citizens (possibly even lowering their taxes!)

I was feeling miserable reading this thread until I saw this, thanks for cheering me up.

dgellow 10 minutes ago | parent

> The USA can use the money saved for its own citizens

How is that going? Any progress there? Are US citizens richer than they were before?

Frieren 36 minutes ago | parent

> time the gasoline price shock right to the midterm elections.

Donald Trump can end this at any time if he wants. It would have been better to not have started it, thou. Less killing of innocent people, less spending on weapons, better mental health for USA soldiers...

And why is China suddenly at fault for America's actions?

DrScientist 6 minutes ago | parent

Blaming the current situation on the actions of China is beyond bizarre.

ericmay 40 minutes ago | parent

Well at some point the problem becomes so acute that others in the world are going to have to step up and help solve it.

Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. It's an intolerable premise and if the price to be paid is global oil catastrophe it's a price well worth paying and America will force the issue as we have. You can deny this or you can accept that other actors have agency in the world and interests and they may take action that negatively affects you indirectly. You can help them, ignore them, fight against them. But we live in a world where other countries and other people will do things and you have to figure out how to best deal with it.

We have seen what happened with North Korea, but at least China and Russia can somewhat keep a lid on it. Which is the minimum they owe the rest of us since they created that problem. Iran's government is ideological in a way that westerners don't really understand (and to some extent Putin is too via his desires regarding Ukraine but the Russian system isn't too alien to our own views - they play tennis and vacation in Europe and all that stuff). Their government is simply not interested in the things that you and I are interested in.

With Iran you add in the pursuit of a nuclear weapon, Iranian continued attacks coordinated in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Israel via Palestine and it's desire to continue to destabilize the region, supporting Russia's war against Ukraine, and helping Russia evade sanctions (never mind domestic repression and murder) and you've really got a problem on your hands that needs solved one way or another if we're going to go the whole peace and stability for the globe route. The primary problem right now is that the rest of the world would rather see the United States take care of this problem (and it's having a tough time but there's a lot of nuance there) then to help because if you are Europe you're somewhat on Iran's side for some god awful reason, if you are Russia, well you work with Iran, if you are the gulf powers you have no power besides your oil, and if you are China you are not going to spend any resources (nor do you have power projection capabilities). So what do we do?

You can sit here yelling until you are blue in the face that this is Trump's war, or he shouldn't have started it (ignoring history) or some nonsense about ancient colonialism (Iran itself is attempting to be a Neo colonial power) or how Israel is so bad or something but Iran's behavior in the region simply cannot continue if you value peace and stability and global trade. Yea whatever Trump isn't a force for that either I get it, but that's not a good argument to make things worse by also letting Iran do crazy shit.

China's stockpiles are dwindling, strategically that's bad for China especially if they want to invade democratic Taiwan. You still need oil to run the military, no amount of batteries are going to power jet fighters or missiles for the foreseeable future. But dwindle they will and eventually China (and others) will be forced to buy oil and it will raise prices. We're all going to have to deal with that eventuality.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine also cut off large amounts of oil and gas supplies via sanctions, and the United States clamping down on both Venezuela and Iran has further restrained oil supplies as the US has also gone after Russian shadow fleet tankers which were adding additional capacity to the market. The EU has done a little bit here too after the US led the way.

Global chokepoints are a problem. Having so much of the world (primarily Asia) rely on oil and gas from the Middle East where you've got these militant groups funding by Iran who can at a whim decide if they don't get some concession that they're going to cut off oil for everyone else is intolerable. Again, say what you want but we as a planet should not be beholden to this kind of behavior.

pphysch 37 minutes ago | parent

Why can Israel have a nuclear weapon? It is also an insanely violent ethno-theocratic regime.

ericmay 33 minutes ago | parent

Besides the point and whataboutism, but I'm not advocating that Israel should have nuclear weapons. They do, and I'm not sure there's much we can do about it at this point. Same with North Korea. I'm opposed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and just because one country has one doesn't mean other countries should go and get them too.

nemomarx 30 minutes ago | parent

Maybe we should have brokered some kinda deal with Iran to prevent them getting a nuclear weapon then, huh.

At this point they'd be fools to not pursue getting one, and we killed everyone in a position of authority who was rational about it. Cats out of the bag, one more nuclear rogue state.

ericmay 26 minutes ago | parent

> Maybe we should have brokered some kinda deal with Iran to prevent them getting a nuclear weapon then, huh.

Maybe we should have brokered some kind of deal with Russia to prevent them from invading Ukraine. Do you trust American intelligence 100% to verify Iran is not building a nuclear bomb? And if they weren't, why also were they funding these militant groups? What's the point? It's Neo-colonialism in the Middle East.

> At this point they'd be fools to not pursue getting one, and we killed everyone in a position of authority who was rational about it.

The leadership wasn't really rational in your western sense. I'm not sure where you are coming up with that. If they were rational they wouldn't be murdering their own civilians, chanting death to Israel and death to America as a national past time (no sane nation does this, or if you want to argue they do then don't get mad when Americans are burning the Koran or whatever) and funding militants. You're trying to argue from a place that assumes your values about economics and prosperity and global human rights with an entity that does not care about those values.

If they were rational as you'd like them to be they'd just not do any of the things they've been doing. Why does Iran have to get special treatment to not build a nuclear weapon? Have you thought about that? Why do we have to pay them off? Why are they special snowflakes who get to hold the world hostage less they build nuclear bombs to threaten others?

> Cats out of the bag, one more nuclear rogue state.

That's the fault of the rest of the world then for failing to come together to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

nemomarx 20 minutes ago | parent

Burning the Koran is protected free speech, just as burning a flag is, or the Bible, or whatever else you'd like.

The point is we had a deal, and Iran kept their enrichment below weapons development levels for all of that time. Even a few years after the deal was broken by Trump, apparently. We could have kept that status quo going and not dealt with tolls in the strait and expensive military operations, and it would have been better for everyone involved. But now I don't see a path back to that, and no one is interested enough to stop the proliferation or put enough resources into it to "win". Blame whoever you like I guess, but I'm blaming Trump for tearing things up and kicking off this recent war.

ericmay 13 minutes ago | parent

Anchoring on this deal is a waste of time. We shouldn't have had to have a deal in the first place. They could just join other responsible countries like, idk, Vietnam, Brazil, and hmmm who else, Switzerland! in not pursuing nuclear weapons.

> We could have kept that status quo going

Like the last time the Houthis disrupted shipping? Or when Iran launched and supported attacks on Israel, plus continued disruption in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq? (Yemen too but mentioned via Houthis). Idk if that's a tolerable situation.

pphysch 13 minutes ago | parent

> Maybe we should have brokered some kind of deal with Russia to prevent them from invading Ukraine.

I understand history and contemporary events is not your strong suit, but such a deal was very much on the table in December 2021 and the Biden Admin laughed it off. Then again in April 2022.

ericmay 6 minutes ago | parent

> I understand history and contemporary events is not your strong suit,

I'd check your understanding but ok.

> but such a deal was very much on the table in December 2021 and the Biden Admin laughed it off.

What was the deal then? And please let us know how acceptable it was to the EU and Ukraine as well. :)

pphysch 28 minutes ago | parent

Iran clearly has the capability to flatten every major hospital and university and desalination plant in Israel, like Israel has done in Gaza, but they don't.

It's also clear that Iran having nukes would be a strategic deterrent to Israel's ultraviolent territorial expansionism.

ericmay 23 minutes ago | parent

> Iran clearly has the capability to flatten every major hospital and university and desalination plant in Israel, like Israel has done in Gaza, but they don't.

I'm not supportive of Israel having nuclear weapons, but Iran won't do something like this because the Israelis might nuke them. That doesn't excuse Iran also building nuclear weapons. Neither should have them, in my view.

Iran also supports the militants that continue to create conflict in Palestine. It's not one-sided and any vague assertion that there's only one bad actor here is illegitimate.

soperj 23 minutes ago | parent

You can ask the same question of the US. They're the only ones to have actually used them (and they try to justify it still).

For all those who are about to reply saying it was justified because it saved American lives, why didn't you use it Afghanistan or Iraq?

rconti 34 minutes ago | parent

If we accept your premise, the current war has made us less safe, because we've had previous, stronger nuclear deals that have now been torn up in a failed attempt to replace their leader with someone more favorable to the US.

ericmay 31 minutes ago | parent

Iran probably wasn't following the JCPOA, denied inspectors access to certain sites, and you'd also have to say you 100% trust American intelligence to verify that Iran isn't building a nuclear weapon in secret and if you want to do that I've got a war to sell you in Iraq.

Separately that doesn't resolve the other issues, funding militant groups, &c.

dalyons 15 minutes ago | parent

Do you think in the current situation they are more or less likely to try for a nuke than before?

ericmay 9 minutes ago | parent

I don't think there's any change. But I think it's less possible.

theplumber 34 minutes ago | parent

I doubt that the world will subscribe to the idiocy of the current US admin. China will just push harder for renewables while Europe and the rest of the world will try to coup with the shock but I am certain they won’t go to war with Iran because they have no reason. Eventually US will have to decide if it’s going to do anything or just live with high oil prices for long or just go back home in a British Suez fashion.

ericmay 30 minutes ago | parent

> Eventually US will have to decide if it’s going to do anything or just live with high oil prices for long or just go back home in a British Suez fashion.

This is the flaw in your thinking. It won't be the US who alone decides to live with high oil prices, it'll be everyone.

Vague promises of "pushing for renewables" is a gross mischaracterization and misunderstanding of the importance of oil and gas to the global economy. Note, I'm not anti-renewable or whatever, but chalking this up to a "US problem" is willfully ignorant.

globalnode 22 minutes ago | parent

Yes ofc its a world problem, and guess who the world is not going to be happy with?

ericmay 20 minutes ago | parent

You can be mad at America and ignore Iran's role if you want, but that doesn't lead you to anywhere productive. The United States like any country is an actor on the world stage that has interests and can take action to defend or assert those interests. If the world thinks this is a problem, they should have mediated between the United States and Iran and helped to prevent conflict. Instead they did next to nothing. War happened. Cue surprise and condemnation.

squidbeak 21 minutes ago | parent

Declining to follow a blunderer into a blundered war really isn't a "decision to live with high oil prices" rather common-sense. This is the USA's mess.

rdm_blackhole 8 minutes ago | parent

> Europe and the rest of the world will try to coup with the shock

The two major economies in the EU (France and Germany) are both facing severe recessions and a parliamentary deadlock + soon to be elections would will be most certainly won by Putin's allies and/or radical communists.

All of this to say I would not hold my breath on Europe doing much at all in the coming months/years.

KumaBear 29 minutes ago | parent

China is the reason we don’t have 5-6 dollar gas. They literally cut their imports to prevent economic disaster. If they begin buying at regular levels we would be the ones hurting more.

ericmay 25 minutes ago | parent

No that's not the only reason. High oil prices affect their economy quite a bit, and much of their imports form what I understand come from the Middle East.

jrajav 10 minutes ago | parent

High oil prices affect them less than any other country in the world. They have the largest oil stockpiles by far, eclipsing even the US, and they have unique access to oil sanctioned by the west.

China is essentially the only actor in the market that is able to weather this conflict in marathon fashion.

soulofmischief 28 minutes ago | parent

"Ancient" colonialism? The US and Israel are both actively seeking to expand their colonial territory.

This was an interesting piece of fiction you've written, with some very impressive mental gymnastics on display. However, it's so wrong that engaging with it would be doing you a disservice because it would make you think it's even an intellectually respectable position to have in the first place.

MSFT_Edging 20 minutes ago | parent

> Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. It's an intolerable premise

Actions have consequences. The continual attack on the sovereignty of countries around the world has made nuclear weapons one of the few ways to avoid being a client state of the US at the expense of your own population. Iran has figured out another method it seems.

This is blowback. The simple lesson that we refuse to learn.

ericmay 15 minutes ago | parent

> The continual attack on the sovereignty of countries around the world has made nuclear weapons one of the few ways to

Name the other countries pursuing a nuclear weapon. Maybe you are drumming up a fear that nobody else really has.

marcyb5st 15 minutes ago | parent

> Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. It's an intolerable premise and if the price to be paid is global oil catastrophe it's a price well worth paying

Says you.

All other nuclear nations behave (even Pakistan and India, which are at each other throat all the time). What makes you think that Iran won't? It will also have Russia and China keep a lid on them, same as North Korea. And I don't buy the "Iran is different" gospel. North Korea and China have completely different mindsets than the western world and still play ball.

Additionally, if Iran really is that adamant in getting nukes, I can see them asking some enriched material to Russia as a payment to the 100s if not 1000s of drones they are giving them. They share a "land" border through the Caspian sea and smuggling a few 10s of kilos of enriched material would be relatively easy.

Finally, it is not a good proposition if the hypotethical benefits will be reaped by US/Israel while the suffering is globally spread.

ericmay 10 minutes ago | parent

> They share a "land" border through the Caspian sea and smuggling a few 10s of kilos of enriched material would be relatively easy.

I'm not a nuclear weapons expert but from what I understand the United States and others are pretty easily able to identify where enriched material comes from. Also we probably have eyes on the material in general and can see where it is being moved. It has to be stored in places, put into a missile, &c.

But if your argument were to be taken to be correct you're also highlighting the problem with the JCPOA. Well, one of them at least.

timedude 12 minutes ago | parent

Everyone should have nuclear weapons!!! (Oprah meme)

mmooss 21 minutes ago | parent

Per the OP, the Houthis say only Saudi ships are blocked, everyone else is safe.

laimewhisps 1 hour ago | parent

All we had to do was not bomb Iran (starting with a school full of girls). There was no benefit to the US in this war, it’s 100% for Israel. Bribery and blackmail, not democracy, are now determining world events.

jswartz 53 minutes ago | parent

Trump has had it out for Iran since 1980, but sure, just blame it on the Jews.

huntertwo 48 minutes ago | parent

Is blaming the government of Israel equivalent to blaming the Jews?

jswartz 40 minutes ago | parent

Not always, but often.

The poster blaming everything "100%" on Israel tells me that they are not a person of nuance, and people who engage in rigid, black-and-white thinking often have overly simplistic views about how the world works (e.g. Jews control the world).

Correlation does not mean causation, but it hints at it.

amdivia 29 minutes ago | parent

That's... a very convoluted way of looking at the world. If he stated any other rigid thought, as, "we must exterminate all mosquitos, they are 100% not needed", would you then conclude he's antisemitic too?

tgv 26 minutes ago | parent

Israel means the state of Israel in this case, very clearly. Don't draw the antisemitism card for everything. You must have heard of the boy who cried wolf, surely?

SmasherEpilepti 14 minutes ago | parent

The majority of criticism of Israel I've seen have nothing to do with Jews or Judaism, but the war crimes by a right-wing militaristic state that engages in constant violent aggression.

Outside of extremist Muslim rhetoric, I've seen almost no anti-Jew criticism of Israel, but I've seen many statements like yours that equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

Ydarbleoj 40 minutes ago | parent

Whoa. That's not at all what they said and shows you lack intellectual honesty.

Paradigma11 20 minutes ago | parent

Rubio said that the US attacked because Israel would have attacked anyway. Take it up with him.

Patirckjdhej 45 minutes ago | parent

Oh, antisemitism is now allowed?

electrondood 32 minutes ago | parent

How exactly would you recommend criticizing the actions of the State of Israel then, without being labeled antisemitic?

I'm sick of this equivocation. Nobody is claiming that Jewish people in general manipulated Trump into touching the stove.

Some facts:

* Netanyahu met with Trump in February to show him a presentation intended to convince him to attack Iran.

* Netanyahu convinced Trump that it would be fast and easy.

* Trump's own intelligence agencies and cabinet members called this "farcical" and "bullshit."

* Trump gave the green light anyway, based on Netanyahu's presentation, and against the advice of CIA, State, and the Joint Chiefs.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-wa...

Patirckjdhej 18 minutes ago | parent

The State of Israel is a key part of our Jewish identity. The US owes the Jewish people the right to exist. This is a bipartisan agreement.

SmasherEpilepti 11 minutes ago | parent

So you're saying nobody can criticize the actions of the government of Israel without hating Jews? That's extraordinarily myopic. What happens if a Jewish person disagrees with Israel's actions? Does that revoke their right to be Jewish?

Patirckjdhej 8 minutes ago | parent

You know nothing about the Jewish people. You are just antisemitic, admit it. Next you'll say Jews control the banks lol. You just want to say it.

MBCook 10 minutes ago | parent

Is there no way to criticize the government of Israel without it being taken as a request to get rid of the entire state and Jewish people’s right to exist?

The objection here is to the particular faction in power. Not the existence of the state.

mamonster 1 hour ago | parent

That's why relying on mercs (which is what both UAE and Saudi chose in Yemen) is a double edged sword. At some point the cash isn't enough of a motivator and they will just run away.

inglor_cz 38 minutes ago | parent

We seem to be in need of a mercenary Uber, where individual mercenaries will have their reputation and the potential customers will be able to check it.

random3 35 minutes ago | parent

Likely Palantir built it already

tfigueroa 31 minutes ago | parent

Hideo Kojima intensifies

zippothrowaway 28 minutes ago | parent

One of the later, not as good, seasons of Westworld has that as an app

Apocryphon 27 minutes ago | parent

Xe Services rebrands yet again to eXe

MBCook 20 minutes ago | parent

Please stop trying to design the torment nexus.

dgellow 18 minutes ago | parent

I would bet that already exists since a while

khriss 56 minutes ago | parent

I wouldn't be surprised if this got downvoted off the front page in minutes, just like the other story about diesel being at all time highs.

There is a well coordinated group here that seems unusually allergic to inconvenient truths.

lukan 54 minutes ago | parent

Yes yes, my tinfoil protected brains thinks the same!

Or wait, maybe just flamewar style debates are not so welcome here, so people flag instead have another debate about who is more evil?

MBCook 12 minutes ago | parent

People can pretend whatever they want, but this affects technology heavily too.

Everything you buy has to be shipped. That needs gas. Everything with plastic has oil in it.

Economic downturns/depressions/panics affect investment and the amount of money available for companies to keep running. Plus consumer/business demand. Especially hard on startups who aren’t profitable or don’t even have a product out yet.

Even if you ignore the extremely obvious political stuff, this will directly affect the entire audience here.

rchaud 11 minutes ago | parent

As if the endless deluge of AI, Meta Glasses and Flock camera articles are full of friendly banter.

aliasxneo 52 minutes ago | parent

Why does that have to be the only reason? I personally think it has nothing to do with "Hacker" news, but I understand that sentiment has been in the fringe lately with HN becoming increasingly political.

Ydarbleoj 29 minutes ago | parent

Just to be clear, everything is political - whether you want to acknowledge it or not.

tomjen3 12 minutes ago | parent

It is also not really appropriate for HN.

andrewla 54 minutes ago | parent

My quibble here is with the house style "Iran-backed" that they attach to every mention of the Houthi's. While it's fine for governments to use that language, I don't think journalists should use it without being very specific to its relevance to the particular subject under discussion. The "Houthis claim major advance in Yemen - what you need to know" article could omit "Iran-backed" in its entirety and lose no information of substance, and amend the last bullet point to say that this is especially relevant given the current US-Iran conflict.

As I type this I feel somewhat vindicated by the update to the page, "Iran does not dictate every Houthi decision - but they appear increasingly aligned", which I think does a good job of clarifying the relationship. It does, however, say "Iran has publicly backed the Houthis during the latest fighting. The geography helps explain why", which is useful factual evidence (since Iranian officials have indeed made public statements in support of the Houthis) but the use of "backed" in this sentence is bad style since that word has been used in exactly this context to have a much deeper meaning than Iran saying "we've got your back bro"

makotech221 51 minutes ago | parent

its a hint to the western audience that they're supposed to be sad about this.

consumer451 48 minutes ago | parent

The first question should be: who supplies their military equipment?

The next question should be: who benefits?

ak_111 48 minutes ago | parent

This war started as a regime change operation in Iran, one of the shakiest regimes in the world pre-war, but ironically the war might end up with most of the nations who supported the war (either vocally or quietly) "regime changed" (loosely defined), including Israel, US, some European countries and now possibly some Gulf nations, awhile the Iranian regime seem to have tightened its grip more than ever.

Yet MAGA supporters were saying early in the war that they are "plan trusters" as prior US admins sucked at regime change because it is a "skills issue" and none of the prior admins had the triple digits IQ of Hegseth, Trump and Bessent.

danisth 43 minutes ago | parent

Not sure where you get the shaky regime idea, but Iran was not on the verge of collapse from protests prior to the war. It may have been on the verge of more aggressive clamping down from the IRGC, but collapse wasn’t around the corner.

somenameforme 39 minutes ago | parent

Do you even realize that one of the only reason anybody still supports this war is precisely because of comments like yours? By dividing people into teams, and antagonizing them, you result in people never willing to stomach giving an inch and doubling down on stupid.

Obviously this war has been the US' latest great failure, and at the beckoning of a foreign power which makes it especially catastrophic. If people could focus on this, rather than trying to divide things into teams and then sling mud, they'd have vastly better outcomes come November (and on) than just using it for divisive mudslinging which does nothing but ensure that all elections, regardless of how bad the decisions of a incumbent, or how awful a challenger, will remain these sort of 50/50 coinflips.

tonmoy 31 minutes ago | parent

“Someone was wrong, now I need to pretend they weren’t so that their feelings don’t get hurt so that we can all pretend it didn’t happen”

ak_111 15 minutes ago | parent

Do you realise that the only reason the average US taxpayer keeps getting wrecked into one pointless forever war after the other no matter who is in power is because the elites are never held accountable for their mad self-enriching adventures?

Holding people like Hegseth (who literally insider traded defense equities right before the start of the war) and Trump accountable (who practically made a gazillion insider trading each mad meme he posted while the world burnt) is not "dividing people into teams"

fnordpiglet 36 minutes ago | parent

Triple digit when summed I assume?

If they were going to try this it needed to be done months earlier when the protests were raging. Instead the brain trust fumbled the initiative and let the Iranian leadership kill and scourge their local allies into compliance. Then fumbling the decapitation strike coupled with the decades of preparation for a decapitation strike (via redundancy of command) the genius brigade seemed to be unaware of because they fired all the experts, and the total repression of the protesting populace, led to an unusually strong system in Iran. They also almost certainly let racism play a big role in underestimating the Iranians, who are a very technically sophisticated society and have been preparing for this scenario since day one of the revolution.

Everything that’s happened was predictable and predicted, which is why other administrations who were more than happy to topple foreign governments when it suited them to not do so in Iran. MAGA feels like the junior dev that blames the compiler for their own syntax errors.

kadoban 35 minutes ago | parent

> the triple digits IQ of Hegseth, Trump and Bessent.

One digit each.

panny 34 minutes ago | parent

>This war started as a regime change operation in Iran

I believe this war started with a tomahawk missle murdering a school full of children and then the US denying involvement. I very clearly remember it. US attacks Iran unprovoked. First act, murder their children in school. If you wanted to solidify opposition to the US in Iran, I don't think they could have done a more effective job.

mythz 25 minutes ago | parent

They haven't denied it yet, it's still under investigation. They may be able to workout they were the only country in this war with Tomahawks responsible for the triple-tap missile strike, after the mid terms. Or they may just move on from it and never talk about it again, like the Epstein files.

sys32768 42 minutes ago | parent

In other news, Cantor Fitzgerald lost about 150 information-technology workers when the north tower collapsed on this day 25 years ago.

dismalaf 42 minutes ago | parent

Attacking Iran and then backing down has just shown all the West's enemies that the US has no resolve.

bicx 30 minutes ago | parent

The U.S. leadership has a bad habit of starting conflicts that the bulk of the population doesn't want, which leads to large political costs and resulting half-measures. Our current leadership literally ran on "no more wars." Morons.

737min 42 minutes ago | parent

More properly called Ansar Allah, supported by Iranian regime, and guilty of war crimes against everyone from fellow Yemenis to people thousands of miles away.

Women, gays and infidels are pubished by Houthi police.

wuisce 38 minutes ago | parent

Yes. So sad an American supported liberal regime wasn't installed by the US in Yemen.

inglor_cz 38 minutes ago | parent

IIRC their official slogan has literally "Curse the Jews" in it.

2OEH8eoCRo0 31 minutes ago | parent

Yep

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarkha

> "God is great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam"

sicktriple 40 minutes ago | parent

The Century of American Humiliation continues

bhouston 37 minutes ago | parent

The Houthis created a fake audio of a major Yemeni commander telling his troops to retreat which was subsequently amplified on Twitter/X.

Apparently, this helped the Houthis advance quickly as the opposition forces were in disarray.

https://x.com/BashaReport/status/2097862335494795579

2OEH8eoCRo0 34 minutes ago | parent

Twitter/X should be held liable.

MSFT_Edging 28 minutes ago | parent

This is the chaos that silicon valley and the current US government has fully gotten behind.

sejje 20 minutes ago | parent

Liable for Yemeni troops taking orders from social media?

Do they have a chain of command? Are people in charge?

accountrequired 15 minutes ago | parent

... even though they aren't?

tt24 6 minutes ago | parent

Most Hackernews coded opinion I’ve ever seen

consumer451 32 minutes ago | parent

Holy shit. This is really interesting. AI used to impersonate, social media to amplify, and that led to a significant tactical defeat?

I don't want to live in interesting times anymore.

electrondood 25 minutes ago | parent

They also used Claude in a fairly sophisticated way to design their missile guidance system (PDF, search for GTG-87001).

https://www-cdn.anthropic.com/e50be2e51e7695dc4b1366a37a245a...

consumer451 23 minutes ago | parent

Yeah, I saw that. I wonder if there is any other AI lab that is naive (good?) enough to admit this type of thing.

Obviously, it's happening with all decent models.

9cb14c1ec0 12 minutes ago | parent

Makes me want to be a frontier model provider just to get the ring-side seat on what every bad actor in the world is doing.

tencentshill 11 minutes ago | parent

Where did Anthropic get that information to train their model on is a good question to ask as well.

moralestapia 25 minutes ago | parent

Oh wow! Dario and Scam were right!

We should stop everybody else from developing AI, except for both of them which are the most appropriate stewards for this technology.

seatac76 36 minutes ago | parent

If Dems win next time around they should repeal the AUMF at the very least. We cannot be at war at all times.

ajross 30 minutes ago | parent

The problem is that "being at war" isn't really the problem, it's a symptom. A lawless and destabilized gulf region is the result of incomplete and inneffective military action, and in a darkly hilarious way is only treatable by more whack-a-mole warfare.

It wasn't a war we could win. We fought it anyway. Now we're stuck trying to lose in a tolerable way. Which requires more fighting.

At some point the balance will tip and China will take over patronage of the right selection of powers to push us out, which will disentangle western involvement (and make it their problem, of course). But at this stage there really is no hope for genuine stability.

MBCook 17 minutes ago | parent

One of the best solutions would have been doing what we can to get off oil.

Luckily, we reversed that policy and have been using as much oil as possible.

All hail the great barrel of goo.

labrador 33 minutes ago | parent

Donald Trump hosted roughly 20 oil and gas executives from major companies including Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Occidental Petroleumat his Mar-a-Lago resort on April 11, 2024.

His message to the room was essentially that giving $1 billion to his campaign was a low-cost investment that would guarantee massive financial returns for their companies

Reflection Eternal | Ballad of the Black Gold https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryFMKYNJeTM

    This is the ballad of the black gold
    They call it Texas tea
    But it's bigger than a cowboy with a lasso
    It's deeper than a black hole
    Create monopolies
    Except they collect your fee when you pass Go
    Crisis international
    The government de facto
    We got no control of this fiasco
    Darker than the back roads
    Bubble hotter than Tabasco
    More than what you bargained for or asked for

Byvrsakjo10 31 minutes ago | parent

The Houthi's have a Saudi backed adversary, I haven't heard about them lately in mainstream media how are they faring? I just thought they would be a tough resistance for the houthis restraining them from what they're currently doing

737min 31 minutes ago | parent

Ansar Allah (Houthis) is a terrible Islamist group that commits warcrimws against both Yemenis and people thousands of miles away. Here’s just one example, executing men for gayness:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/03/27/yemen-houthis-sentence-m...

“In addition to death sentences that include crucifixion and stoning, the Houthi court sentenced 23 men to prison for periods of up to 10 years. Three of them were also sentenced to public flogging”

jonplackett 28 minutes ago | parent

Saudi Arabia who they’re fighting against by proxy, and who we sell lots of bombs to, and are soon going to help get nuclear technology, not so great either.

https://www.humandignitytrust.org/country-profile/saudi-arab...

737min 24 minutes ago | parent

Yes, Sharia law is bad everywhere, unfortunately.

wuisce 20 minutes ago | parent

*Religious law is bad everywhere. Sadly Halakha is becoming the norm in once liberal Israel.

xinuc 18 minutes ago | parent

Are you 11 or something?

Their other opponents, namely the US & Israel, killing thousands innocent of people every year, yet you don't really mind.

AnnikaL 14 minutes ago | parent

More than one thing can be bad at once. Opposing unprovoked wars and illegal West Bank settlements doesn't make theocratic law any less bad.

bandofthehawk 5 minutes ago | parent

Sure, but the scale of violence committed by the US and allies is very large. Are there theocratic states recently committing similar levels of violence? Too often in the past, the oppression done by Middle Eastern governments is used to build political support for their destruction by the West.

tt24 9 minutes ago | parent

lol

Why do you have to immediately redirect

Are you sensitive to this topic or something?

infamouscow 6 minutes ago | parent

This is not a serious position.

During WW2, the Allies used flame throwers for goodness sake and killed a lot of innocent people taking Europe back from the Nazis.

jghn 5 minutes ago | parent

Wait until you compare Sharia law to laws proposed by evangelicals in the USA

spwa4 17 minutes ago | parent

Just so it's clear that you're trying to cause confusion: these are light water reactors that cannot in any way shape or form be used to make bombs.

Slightly harder to design and build. Much cheaper to run. Excellent for power. Bad for bombs.

And, yes, just to get ahead of your next question: the US (and Europe and Russia and China) have offered to help Iran create these. Explaining it to them. Send people and engineers who have done it. Just get them from us. Or for free. We have tried everything. Iran has systematically refused everything, yet insist their program is for peaceful purposes only.

I'm not saying Saudi Arabia is perfect, far from it. But they are not looking to destroy the world or the region, and yes, sorry to say, but Iran is.

mamonster 26 minutes ago | parent

>Ansar Allah (Houthis) is a terrible Islamist group

IMO this is kind of bad framing because it suggests that they're the minority in Yemen, when in reality they basically are the government of 70-80% population of Yemen and absorbed 60+ percent of the Yemeni regular army.

They are basically at this point the de-facto Yemeni government

yieldcrv 23 minutes ago | parent

darn, so its antiyemetic to disagree with the de-facto state position

737min 21 minutes ago | parent

Their size - gained by brutal conquest - does not increase their legitimacy, it’s an Islamist group.

ClarityJones 10 minutes ago | parent

I decry the legitimacy of my coffee table, but my toe still hurts when I kick it.

ihumanable 5 minutes ago | parent

Brutal conquest is a pretty well traveled path to legitimacy.

Power is taken, and regardless of the ideals of the takers, enough power grants legitimacy.

QuercusMax 24 minutes ago | parent

Do they do double-tap strikes on schools and hospitals? Do they shoot children 355 times to make sure they're dead like with Hind Rajab?

Just trying to see how the compare to the US and Israeli militaries when it comes to war crimes.

adrr 24 minutes ago | parent

The other side is Al Qaeda. So who do you support? Wipe out the Houthis and you'll get another Syria where Al Qaeda controls the country.

Edit: Downvote me as much you want doesn't change the facts. the front line fighters for Yemen government is Al Qaeda. It was same thing as Syria which is why we have an Al Qaeda leader as their president.

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/02/middleeast/yemen-los...

737min 15 minutes ago | parent

Yes, but there is growing cooperation between Sunni and Shia Islamists. Support none, all kill gays, infidels and “misbehaving” women.

adrr 5 minutes ago | parent

Saudi is the exactly same as Iran. Both far right countries. Both execute gays. Both don't support women's rights. Both execute kids. My point is there is no good side so the best option is not to pick a side and get out of the middle east.

mamonster 7 minutes ago | parent

Houthis are allied/in the early stages of an alliance with Al-Shabab though

markus_zhang 24 minutes ago | parent

Aren’t they all? I guess it is better that they fight each other.

znpy 16 minutes ago | parent

Hopefully there will be another epic fury operation to clear the situation