Iโll suggest Next Steps:
Unless we have real prospects that the Islamic Republic will be overthrown, be conquered, or fail, we ought to take off the kid gloves re: Iranโs oil & ind. infrastructure.
If Iran canโt export oil for 5-15 years, China suddenly has to restrain Iran from attacking the oil production of the gulf states. China must get oil from somewhere - and they have leverage with Iran.
As an industrial & economic basket case, they are de-fanged longer from producing their own ballistic missiles (already able to threaten all of Europe & Diego Garcia).
The ability of the Islamic Republic to survive long enough to ever resume its quest for nuclear weapons is in grave doubt. Time becomes our friend.
Rebuilding itself, Iran will have little interest and less ability to support and direct its proxies. Unless they find resources from other states, itโs likely they will fade into irrelevance.
Finally, the people of Itan, at least those we have any reason to sympathize with, are not likely to be significantly worse off than they are and will be under continued Shia theocratic rule. Hope for freedom and a better future should not be undervalued.
In building, sometimes it is far easier and cheaper (practical & do-able) to raze a structure and replace than to try piecemeal fixes. And there is no reason they would have to rebuild on their own, any more than Germany after WWII.
๐ฎ๐ท๐ด๐ฒ Iran and Oman reportedly met in Muscat to jointly assert sovereign control over the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran's Abbas Bagherpour, the director general of International Law Affairs at the FM met with Omani FM Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi to stress their territorial rights over those waters.
With the U.S. and Israel circling the region, Tehran is starting to lock in allies to control the one lever that could bring global energy markets to their knees.
Source: Islamic Republic News Agency