Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Well oil is frequently trotted out as a reason to do this, so we certainly can't take oil out of the discussion, whether it feels like it's an obvious bad reason or not.

It's been all throughout the news throughout March and April, here's some examples (please excuse the LLM summary, but summarizing lots of repetitive news links is actually one thing that LLMs do not hallucinate on often):

> March 29-30, 2026: Trump told the Financial Times that his "preference would be to take the oil" and discussed seizing Kharg Island, which handles over 90% of Iran's oil exports.

> April 3, 2026: In a social media post, he claimed that with more time, the U.S. could "OPEN THE HORMUZ STRAIT, TAKE THE OIL, & MAKE A FORTUNE".

> April 6, 2026: At the White House Easter Egg Roll, Trump told reporters, "If I had my choice, I'd keep the oil," but noted that he hadn't fully done so because he wanted to "make the people of our country happy" who wanted the war to end

March 29 - https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-pre...

April 3 - Trump posting on social media https://uk.news.yahoo.com/trump-makes-cryptic-social-media-2...

April 6 - https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/06/trump-says-he-would...

They’ve also said it was to stop their nuclear weapons program, the same program they said they destroyed at the beginning of the year.

They additionally said it was to free the Iranian people from the oppressive regime, and later said we would end their civilization if they don’t agree to a cease fire.

I’m sure obtaining their oil is a goal, but it’s not their primary goal.

Well even "a" goal is a big change from "obviously not".

Historians will debate the true reasons for this invasion, but in the end I think they'll conclude it's just the random actions of a very incompetint and not very intelligent person that acts with pure id.

If I go to the supermarket for groceries and fill up the gas in my car to get there, my goal wasn’t to get gas, it was to get groceries.

The historians are already saying this war is for Israel, that’s what John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs are saying. I’m sure the companies that produce the textbooks will find a way to say how it’s all rather more complicated than that though.

> John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs

lol those people are absolute shills and frauds, completely discredited liars.

I do agree that Israel is largely the impetus, but citing fools like those people is a bit discrediting. They might be right by accident but they are not serious people.

Plus, you're completely ignoring that Trump was aglow with the thrill of stealing Venezuela's oil. The idea that stealing Iran's oil wasn't a driver is a bit ridiculous, as evidence abounds both before and after the war, in his own words. Just never listen to Sachs or Mearshmeirer unless it is to understand what their puppet masters are trying to trick you into believing.

Do you have any specifics about Mearsheimer or Sachs? Or just vague insinuations.

Pretty much anything they have said about Ukraine. Look at their predictions in Ukraine, or Sachs lying blatantly about Maidan:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/1ohpa7j/italian_se...

These people serve highly political ends, and do not have factual goals in their communication.

I don't know about their recent comments on Iran/Israel/US, but these two certainly participated in distributing pro-Kremlin propaganda about Russia/Ukraine conflict:

>Sachs has suggested that the U.S. was responsible for the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline. In February 2023, he was invited by the Russian government to address the United Nations Security Council about the topic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Sachs#Russian_invasion...

>They willingly appear on the programs of Russia’s most odious state propagandist, Vladimir Solovyov ... Mr. Sachs has made three appearances on Mr. Solovyov’s programs since November.

https://archive.is/WRODG (WSJ)

>In John Mearsheimer's 2023 book How States Think, the preface acknowledges him receiving a small financial support from Valdai in conjunction with Best Book award for his 2019 book The Great Delusion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valdai_Discussion_Club

https://valdaiclub.com/about/experts/4624/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mearsheimer#Russian_invas...

So you know who blew up nordstream?

The financial support point seems like it could have some legs. The other ones aren't terribly convincing. "They went on the bad guys show" or "they said the same things the bad guys say" isn't all that compelling to me.

I don't see how any of it rises up to "lol they've been completely debunked"

As someone who has no dog in the Russia/Ukraine fight (other than my tax dollars), I never liked how if one side said the sky was blue and you entertained the idea, suddenly you love the enemy, and you're parroting their talking points. Nevermind that neither of them are my friend.

>So you know who blew up nordstream?

It's pretty well known for now that it was a team of Ukrainians (the only question is whether Zelensky or CIA knew about it at the time, here's one of recent articles: https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/pipeline-explosio...).

Anyway I linked that for "he was invited by the Russian government to address the United Nations Security Council" bit to show he's aligned with Russian state views on the topic.

>"They went on the bad guys show"

The thing is that people who disagree with Russian state are not invited on that show.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com