Item — HN Reader

Both Kora and Vietnam involved American ground forces, which is a significant factor in public war weariness. In the case of the blockade of Iran, aside from gas prices being too high, it's all rather abstract to the everyday American. Some ships somewhere are stopping other ships from floating in the wrong direction, the news said we bombed some thing and Iran bombed some other thing. We've been reading about bombings for more than 20 years - it's just routine now.

You're again right, the commitment of the elites in power in Iran matter. BUT if things get bad enough their hand will be forced. And if not, oh well, we can just maintain a blockade. Either way countries in the gulf region will move away from utilizing the Strait due to war uncertainty.

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One possibility is that the real activity at this point is not between the US and Iran, but between the gulf states (who are probably willing to accept a compromise) and Iran, and then also between the gulf states (again, who want this over) and Trump who needs to claim victory.

There's definitely a risk/interesting development there. I've read some reports that says some gulf countries are attempting to negotiate with Iran. But I've also read that some countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (to a less confident extent) have actually participated in strikes against Iran or Iranian forces.

They are in a hard position because while they've mostly been peaceful countries, their militaries are weak and their infrastructure is at risk to Iranian drones and missiles - which again proves the need to stop Iran from acquiring more and making this more of an issue in the future.

But the US will ultimately be the one deciding what engagement will look like and the gulf coast countries will fall in line. While they certainly want the war to be over, they also don't want the US to leave the Middle East and leave them to quite literally become vassals to Iran (the US doesn't want this either) which is an option if they decided they would somehow "end the war" with an agreement with Iran. They're toeing a fine line here.