Amerikanets 📉@ripplebrain
Here's my best guess at what's going on right now. Iran and Israel are in a game of diplomatic chicken, each trying to fracture the other's military coalition. The Israelis want to either continue the broader war or reduce it in scope by forcing the Iranians to abandon Hezbollah. The Iranians are attempting to exert pressure on the US to restrain Israel and withdraw from the war, while trying to isolate Israel internationally.
Much of the commentariat on here is focused on the Iranians 'revealing their weakness' by not immediately launching a counterattack on Israel. This doesn't make much sense to me. The Iranians almost immediately played their strongest non-escalatory card by re-closing the strait. Doing so exerts pressure on the US, not on Israel, which shows the Iranians understand the fundamental reality of the power structure they're up against. The Israelis can only be stopped by forcing the US to restrain them, or taking huge escalatory steps that have a good chance of leading to Israeli nuclear strikes on Iran (desalination plants, energy infrastructure). The closure of the strait denies Trump any claim to a military victory and compounds the economic damage that's already inevitable at this point.
Meanwhile, there's been a flurry of diplomatic activity from Iran. Spain and South Korea are making moves by reopening their embassy in Iran and sending a special envoy to Tehran, respectively. A increasingly long list of countries have made public statements over the past day demanding Lebanon be covered by the ceasefire. Araghchi has been calling everyone in the region over the past 24 hours, and the UAE has publicly condemned the Israeli strikes on Lebanon (very surprising). These are good signs for Iran, which can achieve major gains in Israel's international isolation by capitalizing on their breaking of the ceasefire.
Even better are the signs of the normalization of relations with the rest of the world. If this continues, it'll demonstrate how fundamentally effective the Iranian strategy has been in this war. If they can secure broad international recognition of their right to control and impose tolls on passage through the strait, it'll be a massive victory. The continued closure of the strait, which the Iranians have made clear is the fault of Israel, will drive a wedge into the coalition currently fighting Iran.
The Iranians have made dozens of statements asserting they will not abandon Lebanon. And I don't think it's politically tenable (internally) for them to do so even if they wanted to. The Israelis aren't doing particularly well in their ground war against Hezbollah either.
So we'll have to wait to see how this plays out. It's not impossible that the Iranians are in a weakened position, or that they'll lose their nerve. But I don't see any reason to assume this is the case as long as the strait remains closed. The current situation is a pressure cooker for the US/Israeli relationship, and the American relationship with the rest of the world. Iranian patience makes sense here.
