It (normally) has an effect on the military calculus - e.g. if the US weren't allowed to have military bases in these countries, the possibility to take such action seems less plausible.
Correct, but that's not my point. My point is whether the Gulf States can realistically dictate what the US does. Perhaps they can affect US actions, but I doubt it's that cut and dried.
Nobody can realistically maintain bases in a country without some sort of agreement with the local government (and a certain level of tolerance from the population at large) or an expensive full-on occupation. As far as I know, there is a single US base on a territory where the local government does not want it (Guantanamo, Cuba), literally on the doorstep - anywhere else would be prohibitive to maintain long-term hostile occupation.
Everything else is maintained and operated in agreement with local authorities - which is why the US, at the moment, cannot use Spanish bases and Diego Garcia to wage war on Iran. Even Saudi bases have been blocked in the past (notably to invade Iraq).
Without long-term bases, it becomes extremely difficult to project power with continuity. Can you still do the occasional special op, like killing Osama? Sure, but you can't do things like ensuring free navigation (and hence the flow of resources and goods) and signal intelligence gets so much harder.
the mask can be taken off at least, that the bases are there so that americans can kill the gulf state leaders in a moment's notice, rather than for any defenses.
You need to think that all the way through. The answer is obviously yes. Yemen is a perfect example. Iran is obviously as well. Afghanistan another great case. It is certainly possible to resist US pressure. Iran is asking the gulf countries to do that. Imagine how much better they would all be able to resist the US together as well, better than each alone.
Of course it isn't. In reality, being able to resist requires power. Power that's gained more or less independently such as Iran's. Gulf states should be in a position of power to able to resist US presence. The power they have right now is mostly gained through the help of USA and its allies. It's not the same as Iran. Not even close.
> Of course it isn't. In reality, being able to resist requires power.
I gave examples of it actually happening. If sandal-wearing Houthis can resist, then well-funded oil states can as well. The Taliban beat the US. In fact, very few people have failed at ejecting the US from the country when they tried if you think back. The US tends to lose a lot.
Ironically Yemen (Houthis) are fighting not only with US but against other gulf sates like Saudi Arabia as well. It's not really an example that demonstrates unity in gulf.
> The Taliban beat the US.
Taliban, brought to you by US of A to combat Soviet Union's influence! Well, it seems they are done beating US and are now busy beating Afghan women.
> The US tends to lose a lot.
Do they really? After the war is over and US is beat, how does the life of an average American compare to someone's from your list. It is the people of Middle East who pay the biggest price. That's the real loss.
Korea was wiped off the map… until the Chinese arrived with nukes and millions of soldiers. That wasn’t a Korean victory.
Vietnam was wiped off the map… until the Chinese arrived with millions of soldiers. The Vietcong had something like a 99% yearly casualty rate. They were completely obliterated every year of fighting, but more villagers were simply conscripted and sent forward into the napalm.
The US military is the world's best killing machine, but the US as a country cannot win a war. These are different things. Hell, I'd say it didn't even win the first civil war. And with the bullshit that has been perpetrated on the world in the last year, it might not be possible for the US to ever win another one.
To keep a military base in a country you either need to be allowed to do so, or you have to do so by force, by occupying the country.
Occupation is doable, but very costly. The US did it recently in Afghanistan (which is barely a functioning country itself).
So yeah, it keeping military bases abroad via occupation is doable for some time, but not very feasible. It is more realistic to have a system of allied countries.
It's sort of a meme how people in the US imagine all middle eastern countries to be a bunch of mud huts in the world's largest gravel quarry.
> To keep a military base in a country you either need to be allowed to do so, or you have to do so by force, by occupying the country.
There are all sorts of levers US, China, Russia can pull to in order to put pressure on a country for such things. There's occupation, mutual benefits, long standing agreements post wars, soft power, sanctions, etc. Geopolitics is complicated.
And this is all is part of what "allowing" means. If a country is unwilling to allow for it, the only thing is left is either accepting is as a reality or trying to do so by force.
The gulf countries hate Iran and have for a very very long time, longer than even the concept of the west has existed. Iran throwing around ballistic missiles is far more like a temper tantrum than a viable military strategy. And its a strategic gift to Trump. Whether he/we can take advantage of that, IDK.
I'm not so sure it's a strategic gift for Trump. Before the war (oh, sorry, I meant the "special military operation") everything was largely fine for the Gulf states. Now, it's not.
My pet peeve with all LLM discourse is whenever someone mentions any problem they experience with LLMs or any mistake they make, someone comments that humans make the same mistake.
But how’s that helpful? What the affirmation is correct occasionally and following you instructions it just rejects something where it shouldn’t? How would you know?
That’s a purely ideological way of looking at the situation which IMO is not sufficient. As the article states, this war was not unprovoked either, regardless of whether the provocations warrant such a response. Iran is seeking its own hegemony. Now, this does not negate your point on the hegemonic approach of US in the region. I think this war can be viewed as a power struggle between a regional and global power that’s developing into a struggle dominance and survival.
>As the article states, this war was not unprovoked either
Using the same extraordinarily broad definition of "provocation" required here, can you name a single war in history that was unprovoked? And if not, haven't we just neutralized all meaning from the phrase "provoked war" with our overly broad definition of "provocation"?
What you see here is the limits of liberal discourse on war, it's always 'here are the reasons why the war is justified' now let me explain why i'm against the war. Then discourse devolves into 'what is war even'? Believe in something, anything, dear god.
Is anyone going to mention what these provocations are? I've yet to figure it out after 6-12 months. Pretty much everything going on seems to involve the Israelis aggressively expanding their borders or viciously attacking anyone who might oppose their expansion. I've lost count of the number of negotiators they've killed.
Trump has averaged something like 1 bombing run on Iranian leadership ever 2 years. Iranian provocations must be quite effective at making him see red.
> Is anyone going to mention what these provocations are?
Sure, it’s not hard to find. These started long before Trump. You should look beyond the last few months’ news cycles. Iranian government’s issues with Israel are of ideological nature (according to the regime) and their open support (financially and militarily) of a part of Palestinian resistance and Hezbollah. Iran has been active at Israel’s borders for years. Their heavy involvement (including sending troops) in Syria’s civil war is another one to name. All of these are the ones that Iran openly admits to. You can’t explain these away with Israel’s expansionist tendencies because that’s not been a threat to Iran. No serious analyst believes that Israel wants/can to expand into even Iraq, let alone Iran!
The hostilities towards US and vice versa are a whole different topic.
Now to be clear I’m not siding with Israel on this and not saying that caring for Palestinians is not right, just answering your question and naming a few examples. Now, it’s all happened during many decades and not sure if it matters anymore who started it because it’s become a total shit show that is very hard to reconcile.
You might find it surprising that during Iran-Iraq war, Israel was the only country in the region who helped Iran against Iraq (which had the backing of the Arab countries including Palestinians).
Would it be fair to characterise these provocations as all involving Iran providing resistance to Israel aggressively expanding their borders? Because these cases seem to have a tendency to Israel controlling more land at the end of the day. It looks like a pretty classic situation where an aggressive power builds up in a series of "defensive" expansions.
> Iranian government’s issues with Israel are of ideological nature
I think they're just good at threat assessment. There seem to be a lot of Iranians dying of Sudden Acute Missile Disease this month. Frankly I'm struggling to see what aspect of their actions aren't just common sense over the last decade, except for their charmingly simplicity in that they didn't make a break for a nuclear bomb when they first got within a year or two of being able to develop one. Israel and their supporters have done a very bad job of offering an explanation of why the repeated hits were justified or helpful.
Israel withdrew fully from Lebanon in 2000, and this was certified by the UN, yet Hezbollah kept attacking them anyway.
If Hezbollah offered Israel a choice between: peace with Hezbollah OR occupy land in Lebanon, I think Israel would rationally choose peace.
But Hezbollah has never offered this. Their stated goal is complete destruction of Israel.
So if the options are: Hezbollah shoots at you from right across the border OR you occupy a buffer zone and Hezbollah still shoots at you but from further away:
Isn't it perfectly rational to choose the buffer zone?
Israel just communited genocide in one place and displaced millions in two others.
It "ordered" wast places full of people to lead, destroyed bridges, created shoot at will area on other side and is getting ready to move settlers there.
Isreal is not defending itself. It is cleansing and expanding, feeling entitled to kill at will everyone not them.
> Would it be fair to characterise these provocations as all involving Iran providing resistance to Israel aggressively expanding its borders?
Considering the results of this war so far and the one before, as well as Iran's military strategy, it doesn't seem plausible to think Iran sees (or ever saw) Israel as a threat to its borders' integrity. This may be the basis for Iran's strategy in the region in some version of the future, but to extend it to what they've done in the past would be hindsight bias.
IMO, the regime is not as much worried about Israel as it is about the US. Just compare the number of missiles and drones they shot at Gulf countries vs Israel.
But consider that Israel, rightfully or not, can make similar claims, which actually conform to the Iranian regime's long-stated goal of "destruction of Israel".
> Frankly, I'm struggling to see what aspect of their actions isn’t just common sense over the last decade.
That’s because it didn’t all start in the last decade. As you get closer to “present” in this timeline, it looks more like a one-sided affair. This is similar to the view which sees the whole Israel-Palestine issue only from October 7th onwards.
> Israel and their supporters have done a very bad job of offering an explanation of why the repeated hits were justified or helpful.
True, I’m also not sure if this is going to turn out as they wish it did. Although the jury's still out, but as the article points out, it seems unlikely.
> IMO, the regime is not as much worried about Israel as it is about the US.
The Islamic Regime is not a normal rational actor, their opposition to Israel is driven primarily by their ideology.
> Just compare the number of missiles and drones they shot at Gulf countries vs Israel.
This is probably more just a matter of Iran having more short range weapons than long range weapons, Israel is a long range target that much of their weapons will be unable to reach.
Can you back this with linking the said videos and maybe some info on legal proceedings of the fair trial in which this person was convicted? I’m curious.
In other engineering fields, no one calculates the numbers for building a plane or a dam by hand anymore. They rely heavily on software for design, simulations, etc. throughout the entire development cycle. Yet, starting in university, those engineers still learn to do those calculations by hand so they comprehend the underlying principles.
IMO, that’s what we should do as software engineers. The idea of letting AI "do the thinking" for you is a bad idea. Sure, it can trivially write a sort function for you. Let it! But you still need to understand how that sort function works. If having the tool was a substitute for understanding the fundamentals, anyone with access to Catia, etc. could design a working airplane.
> In short: the implementation was performed in a very similar way to how a human programmer would do it, and not outputting a complete implementation from scratch “uncompressing” it from the weights.
> Instead, different classes of instructions were implemented incrementally, and there were bugs that were fixed…
Not sure the author fully grasps how and why LLM agents work this way. There’s a leap of logic here: the agent runs in a loop where command outputs get fed back as context for further token generation, which is what produces the incremental human like process he’s observing. It’s still that “decompression” from the weights, still the LLM’s unique way of extracting and blending patterns from training data, that’s doing the actual work. The agentic scaffolding just lets it happen in many small steps against real feedback instead of all at once. So the novel output is real, but he’s crediting the wrong thing for it.
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