Iran did not win the war, it won something more dangerous | The Jerusalem Post
https://www.jpost.com/defense-and-tech/article-897084
Iran did not win the war, it won something more dangerous | The Jerusalem Post
https://www.jpost.com/defense-and-tech/article-897084
2 Comments
The war didn’t collapse Iran. It cemented its control over Hormuz, rewired its alliances, and strengthened the very institutions the US targeted.
This war was not primarily about Iran’s nuclear program.
Iran sits on the world’s second-largest lithium deposit, discovered in Hamedan province in 2023. It holds 85 million tons of newly discovered rare earth elements. Its total proven mineral reserves are valued at $770 billion. The 21st century runs on lithium and rare earths the way the 20th century ran on oil. China controls ±85% of global rare earth processing and ±60% of global lithium processing.
An Iran under American-aligned governance would represent the single largest resource acquisition in American history and would simultaneously break China’s monopoly on 21st-century critical mineral supply chains.
If Iran survives this war with its institutional architecture intact, the demonstration effect for every mineral-rich developing nation currently calculating whether to align with Washington or hedge toward Beijing is more strategically consequential than any military outcome.
Iran does not need to win this war. It needs to not lose it in a way that validates the American model of force as the instrument of resource acquisition.
It’s getting increasingly frustrating to see everyone talk about Iran’s terrorism in the Strait as a wholly dependent variable. As though US/Israel strikes warped spacetime and placed Iran along the Strait. Iran could always terrorize the Strait. If the US isn’t willing to deploy massive numbers of troops and matériel to force it open that is a problem, but not one *created* by the strikes, merely *forced forward* by them.
Consider the world of the alternate history of JCPOA never being withdrawn from. Iran obeys the terms, and then simply refuses to renew them. The centrifuge limits lift in January 2026, and five years later the HEU storage limits are eliminated. What is the world’s reaction if Iran said it would acquire a nuclear weapon in that world?
If you say let them, then you have outlined the only viable alternative to military action of some kind.
And if military action was taken against Iran, they were always going to terrorize the Strait in retaliation.