Iran War?
Israeli forces seems to have struck in Teheran and Trump backed out of all his planned talks with Iran.
Are we looking at another major war happening? Maybe even with the US directly involved?
Are we looking at another major war happening? Maybe even with the US directly involved?
Comments (398)
Ha! I looked over and saw the Asian markets plummeting, crude oil shooting up. Somebody said "war."
You're really open to that? :lol:
Trump says he thinks Israel should hit Iran nuclear facilities By AFP
I don't think this problem is coming from Washington. It's Netanyahu.
Chatgpt:
Whats Likely?
Immediate: Expect a mixproxy rocket/drone strikes into Israels north mixed with ballistic missile launches aimed at military targets. Some will break through.
Cyber attacks targeting critical infrastructure.
Broader escalation: Possibly Gulf shipping attacks.
Western escalation? Minor risk, unless Iran directly hits U.S. assets.
Dont expect nuclear/civilian strikesthat would trigger full-blown war. Theyll calibrate to hurt Israel enough for domestic pride and deterrence, without crossing Israels red lines.
Bottom line: Iran needs something visible to save face. Expect rocket/missile salvos and proxy action soonand cyber subterfuge. But theyll avoid all-out war.
Trump will go along with it and try to use it to his advantage. Plus it gives Netanyahu cover for the genocide in Gaza and keeps him in power. If Isreal is at war with Iran, he can cancel elections.
Yeah, the only good thing from Trump is that he actually oppose the concept of war since hes more interested in business deals than military geopolitics. The problem is that hes too weak when shit hits the fan and it seems that people around him pressured him to accept all of this, thats why he went from talks with Iran to a big shrug over night, people around him put him in place and made him a puppet in this matter.
But even if this is all Netanyahu, which is most likely, it could drag the US into it. With so many militaries, resistance groups and terrorist groups weakened, it may be the only point in time to conduct a major invasion. With Israel leading the charge, the US might utilize it to not get blamed for initiating the war and rather act to stabilize the region as an excuse to obliterate the problem of Iran.
Weve seen that the US has indeed strengthen their presence of bombers close to Iran.
These kinds of things have a way of spiraling out of control. 20% of the world's oil goes through the Strait of Hormuz. Suppose Iran chooses to shut that down to inflict economic pain on Israel and her backers. Well, now the U.S. president is looking at a catastrophic rise in oil prices, which will lead to more inflation and higher interest rates, which is usually the death knell for an administration. The president is under tremendous pressure to reopen the Strait, so he attacks Iran's navy, but unlike 1988, Iran doesn't back down. So now what?
Yes. Although smashing someone's nuclear capability and military leadership is the kind of thing you would do before you completely level the capital, plow over the rubble, and sow salt. We'll see.
The US has its own oil reserves now, thanks to fracking. We produce 60% of our oil usage. We could increase that. I think the door is closing on any way out of an inflationary recession though. I don't think the US will act unless somebody blows up an American ship.
They wont be stopped in any way by Trump, not even when oil starts to spike which will happen if Iran is backed into a corner. Maybe well get Bibi, STOP! or some other harsh Tweet. Because thats been effective so far.
Israel uses precision strikes to target senior military officials, while Iran indiscriminately bombs Tel Aviv. Rockets are heading towards Jerusalem, and I wonder what would happen if Iran were to hit the Dome of the Rock. In any case, the Iranian regime must be toppled now. No other way forward.
Are you sad that Israel is ethnically cleansing Iran's nuclear capabilities from the planet? :fear:
Haven't we been here before? I remember another Middle Eastern adventure predicated on stopping Iraq from getting nukes. Turns out, they had no nuke program. And the adventure turned into a horrorshow. Aren't you concerned that can happen here?
Obviously Netanyahu is the one pushing for this the most and he luckily has people in the White House like Biden and Trump to do his bidding. It's funny to think just 10 years ago we got a nuclear deal with Iran which Trump foolishly ripped up in his first term, and Biden foolishly didn't get back into during his term.
Thinking of the US as foolishly causing the world's problems is a coping mechanism. Without it, you'd have to face the fact that it's all just meaningless violence.
IMHO, the mistake would be for Israel to launch a ground invasion and maintain an occupation in Iran. Israel's objectives here are more limited.
According to the UN, Iran basically broke that deal.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/06/1164291
One in a long line of strawmanned, stupid comments.
I'll leave you to guess what happened before 2019 that led to that happening.
:up:
It wouldnt be that some know-nothing imbecile tore it up for no reason other than because a black man brokered it, would it?
Apparently pallets of cash for a whole lot of nothing. There were other signatories. They were foolish for staying in a deal which Iran would eventually break.
It didnt work, though. The rules of the deal never changed and was still in place.
Now we even have Saudi and Gulf states showing sympathy with Iran. Netanyahu will blow up the whole Middle East and the Orange man will just stand by and it will never occur to him what part he played in it.
. here
This wasn't caused by Trump. The fact that Iran has been spending billions of dollars to be the Mid East's biggest pain in the ass is not Trump's fault.
Quoting Punshhh
How do you know that?
Good point.
The Iran deal was working, and Trump of course handled it with the same care and expertise he used to run his casinos. With equal success.
He blew it up because it was Obamas. Never caring about what it really was or what the consequences would be. Much like he tried to do with Obamacare, or NAFTA, or now the IRA. Stupid, stupid decisions based on ephemeral Fox & Friends soundbites.
Iran did ballistic missile testing the year after the JCPOA agreement. This is an article from NPR (read it while there's still an NPR) :smile:
The missiles they launched in 2017 were capable of delivering nuclear weapons. Israeli intelligence found documentation of secret plans for nuclear weapons in 2003, this was later confirmed by the IAEA. In short, we know Iran is committed to the destruction of Israel., we know they have secret underground development facilities, we know they violated the JCPOA regarding missile development prior to the withdrawal by Trump. I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense to say the present situation is the fault of Donald Trump. It's the fault of Iranians who will absolutely not be peaceful neighbors in the Middle East, along with Netanyahu.
Yes. The US isn't in charge of the region. It's their thing.
Israel and Iran are separated by a long distance and thus there is no ability for the land forces to engage each other. Especially after the fall of the Syrian Assad regime, the proxy war will be fought in Lebanon. The Houthis can strike Israel with few missiles if any and don't pose any threat. Hence Israel (and the US, naturally) is hellbent to get UNIFIL out of the way and start again a landwar in Lebanon (see Israel, US agree to cease UNIFIL ops. in southern Lebanon).
This is also the reason for Israel to engage in this military action against Iran. Why not? There's no capable Arab military that will join the fight, so have this war with the IDF making long range strikes and the Iranians shooting their missiles and drones.
In the end it comes down to combat survivability with Iran and air defence with Israel. As long the missile defense works, no problem for Israel. As long that Iran endure the barrage, no problem either.
Bibi might think that this will last for weeks and then both US and Israeli intelligence will give him the good news that Iran's ability to create a nuclear deterrent is only now a dream.
The reality might be something different. But then again, if Iran cannot do anything, then comes the question if the whole Iranian bluster has been as stupid as Saddam Hussein was to his country with trying to say that actually he did have a working nuclear program when he didn't.
Is Israel going for regime change?
Israel did that today.
Well, I don't think that Iran is economically back in the 1980's yet.
Even if you have had 200 combat aircraft attack Iran.
No, I meant they attacked oil and gas refineries today.
Israel simply does not have the capacity to do anywhere near the type of damage they're boasting about, nor does the US have capacity to spare to make up the difference.
This was in all likelihood principally an attempt at decapitation, meant to force regime change in Iran.
The first strike seems to have failed to accomplish this, and the Iranians are showing they do not fear retaliation by Israel or the US by striking directly at Tel Aviv. This is a very telling sign.
It remains to be seen what else the Israelis have up their sleeve, but if this is it, then it's going to be a very costly dud. Neither Israel nor the US can afford to commit fully unless some huge initial success is achieved. The longer the campaign takes, the slimmer the chances of such success.
It makes me wonder how much this really is strategy to get rid of the fetters of international law.
International law has been a fragile thing held together by the international bodies. It wasnt going to survive a breakdown in the coalition of the West. All the authoritarian rulers and oligarchs will be happy to see the end of it.
There may be a bigger picture here. Analysts will have been telling them that the climate crisis is going to hit big time over the next century. There is going to be mass emigration, starvation, food and water shortages. Large areas of the planet will become uninhabitable. Inevitably the rich and powerful will be scrabbling to shield themselves and their groups from the chaos. I see the rise in authoritarianism as a symptom of this. Also there will soon be fights over resources, this is already starting to play out.
Iran has been deliberately targeting civilian areas, and I'm wondering whether international organizations will say anything. Seems like a war crime.
Why aren't they attacking U.S. bases in the region? There's no Iron Dome protecting them.
We did the same thing in WW2.
The Allies did some very questionable things in WWII. We also didn't have precision targeting capabilities back then. Israel has kept its strikes in Iran to regime figures.
We had the Norden bombsight, which was precision at the time (turned out to not be very good). We used that a lot, but we also did a lot of indiscriminate bombing, esp. in Japan. Iran doesn't have a superpower in their corner gifting them billions a year, so they can't really target anything specifically in Israel and are hitting back the way the Brits did in WW2, by hitting cities. I don't fault Iran for that. It's war, they're going to hit back, that's expected. Also, it appears Israel is attacking more than just military targets.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/15/world/middleeast/diplomacy-with-iran-is-damaged-not-dead.html
Could the theory that Netanyahu attacked Iran to undermine diplomatic efforts be true? After all, they did attack just days before talks were supposed to happen.
Quoting RogueAI
Well, it is a war crime to target civilian areas. If Israel were firing rockets from these apartment complexes, that's one thing, but it's a war crime to engage in that type of indiscriminate bombing as Iran has been doing.
Standards of warfare change.
Well, there you go.
Dude.
Once those civilian areas are militarized, they lose that privilege and become legitimate targets.
Bullshit.
I don't make rules. See the Geneva Convention. If, e.g., a school building or a hospital is being used as a base for military operations, it becomes a valid target.
If this weren't the case and civilian targets were always off limits, then the rules of war would be absurd. The enemy could fire from schools, and no one could respond without committing a "war crime."
Oops I mean Iran. Either way, lets all be sure to believe them.
All you need is a sense of right and wrong. Everybody on the planet knows that what Israel did to Gaza was a crime against humanity. There are just a few people who don't want to face that fact.
The reason you never speak without being sarcastic is that you feel vulnerable.
:lol:
Good god youre as shallow as you are arrogant. But thats fine I always like hearing bs psychological analysis from someone who thinks hes Signund Freud because he read Chicken Soup for the Soul.
The reason you speak in Tweets while pretending to be authoritative is because your father didnt give you enough attention as a child. And because youre generally stupid.
Good thing that there are facts in these matters. Were rockets being fired from them? Were explosives and weaponry stockpiled there?
And you can reply with your sophistry: "An IDF soldier set foot in the place," but you do nothing with this but pave the way for total war, which will backfire.
We don't say that day and night don't exist because of the existence of twilight. Border cases exist, but they don't abrogate right and wrong.
That's probably true.
Try it. Just agree with whatever the person said. It sets you free.
I've always believed anything's fair if your cause is just. For example, Churchill would have been justified using chemical weapons and torture against Nazi invaders. The only real war crime is losing. That being said, I have grave concerns about Israel's motives in this.
Yes the Israeli government tells you. So its fact. Regardless of any other organization, expert, or general logic.
You can hear the same thing in Iran. No thanks.
I can sympathize with using gas on Nazi invaders on the shores, but do you honestly believe everything from the Allies is justified? This view turns soldiers into murderers and rapists if nothing else. Sometimes warfare did involve going into a town and massacring everyone, but I would like to think that we could do away with that.
It's crystal clear that Palestinians store weapons in non-military facilities. It's been documented countless times.
Israel, OTOH, does have dedicated military facilities.
War. War never changes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSq5aCZO5n8
The only possible solution is to let women run the world. This I endorse wholeheartedly.
Now this would be interesting to see. How do you figure Israel-Iran works out with women in charge? Hopefully, Iran would have backed down with its nuclear program. Khamenei must go.
Which hell get.
If it is acceptable to bomb "militarized" Israeli homes, then it's acceptable to bomb militarized Palestinian ones.
Neither is really okay, but since Israel started it, and has carried it out with brutal and morally abhorrent violence, with thousands of babies dead while grotesque internet trolls like you cheer it on then yes, Id say its kind of a laugh to hear Israelis complaining about war crimes or international law.
We all know that youre completely blind to the reality of whats happening, that much is clear. But your delusions are your own.
And by the way, this has been your mantra for years. So Im glad you can now be consistent and say that its acceptable when Iran does it.
This current war was initiated on October 7, 2023. There was a ceasefire prior.
Quoting Mikie
Should we laugh off German women when they mentioned being raped by Red Army soldiers?
Quoting Mikie
If Israel were launching operations from those homes and apt buildings, they're legitimate targets.
No.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Cool, so you support Irans actions. I applaud your consistency.
I don't even think Iran is claiming this. Nor does Israel, as a matter of policy, do such things. Unlike another group.
Quoting Mikie
Do the Jews have a right to self-determination? Does any group have a right to self-determination?
:yawn:
Hopefully Iran won't enlargen the conflict by closing the straight of Hormuz. This would put oil prices skyrocketing and force Trump to go to a full war with Iran. Somehow I think they aren't going to be so reckless, if the US stays out of attacking Iran itself. If Trump would join the party, then it's another matter.
Yet if the missile strikes continue on Israel, then Bibi will face the question of when calling it quits. Israelis (and basically people ought to know) that Israel does have a large nuclear deterrent. Because of this deterrent, it's questionable just why Israel would be hellbent prolong this war. Doesn't Israel's nuclear deterrence work? Or Iranians would want to destroy themselves just to destroy Israel?
Nevermind the "Mad-Mullahs" argument of Iranians wanting a to commit a suicide on it's whole population, the fact is that in the Middle-East the political rhetoric isn't at all in line with the military reality on the ground. But naturally this rhetoric gives the argument for Bibi to proclaim that Iranians are lunatics. Tiny actors like the Houthis in dirt poor Yemen can indeed cry for the destruction of Israel, but they don't have any means of doing it. And Bibi will remind everybody that Iranian politicians have called for the destruction of Israel.
When there is actual nuclear deterrent on both sides, you would have such limited engagements as Pakistan and India had just a short time ago. In those cases basically both sides do want for the war to stop as quickly as politically possible as both sides do not want to escalate the conflict.
The fact is that we have this false idea repeatedly given to us that a war with two nuclear armed powers will lead to a nuclear war, and in the case of the US and Russia (and China), to an all out nuclear holocaust. And that to assume something else is wrong, and only increases the possibility of a nuclear war. That we simply cannot say that anything else would happen than an all out nuclear exchange.
But the truth is that this isn't the likely outcome. This Iran-Israel war and especially the engagements between India and Pakistan after the two have built their nuclear deterrent shows otherwise. Remember that many people thought that Israel attacking Iran would be "WW3". Well, if so, we are already living it! Doesn't seem so apocalyptic to me.
This also gives credibility to the previous Biden administration saying that if Russia would use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, NATO would attack Russian forces in Ukraine with an air campaign. Likely they really would have done that: A limited air campaign that would have weakened the Russian forces in Ukraine. And then a declaration that the limited air campaign was a success. And Russia would claim that it's forces endured the onslaught well. And then both would act as India and Pakistan have acted.
Why wouldn't then NATO forces attack let's say Russian nuclear submarine bases in the Kola Peninsula? Well, not only because of Norway and Finland (and Sweden) being against that, but also then that action would truly have gotten us closer to that WW3 type nuclear war. Then Russia would indeed follow it's nuclear doctrine. Hence the response truly would have been what the Biden administration said it would do. And only that. End result: no use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, at least for now.
I was often taught the contrary: That two nuclear powers would never go to war because it would be irrational and mutually assured destruction.
Nuclear war isn't the likely outcome, but it doesn't need to be the likely outcome for it to be terrifying.
Even if it's 1%, do you want to keep running those odds year after year? Humans are mostly rational, but I would never declare human rationality an iron law of human nature. Cultures think in various ways and have different attitudes towards death. Belief in a resurrection is common for the Abrahamics.
Even if we knew there would be no nuclear war: Who loves death more? The secular or the Islamic fundamentalists? Fundamentalist religious countries (like Iran) that are nuclear do not bode well for a West that wants to live and let live. A nuclear Iran has much more bargaining power/influence, plus the possibility of proliferation, where they had their dirty work off to others to maintain plausible deniability.
You should be thanking Israel.
You live in a white supremacist state, and the entire world is also supremacist/racist/sexist. Nothing will ever be good enough for you, Mikie.
Funny how I don't remember the last time you called Gaza a supremacist society.
That's not the contrary.
What you were told is that they would never go to war. That it indeed would be impossible, because "it would be irrational and mutually assured destruction". This is the line that I'm exactly talking about! Since there's MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), nuclear powers don't go to war.
Never were you (or I) told that the two Superpower could have a limited fight, but would restrain from using nuclear weapons. Well, that's the goddam thing that has already happened twice with India and Pakistan! Both can many millions of each others population. And they have fought wars having all those nuclear weapons. The wars have just been short and limited ones.
And that's why only later we have been told that the Red Air Force fought USAF fighters in Mig Alley during the Korean war with some Russian fighter pilots even getting to ace status against Americans. Did the Air Force know that they were fighting the Soviet Air Force? Of course! But this was kept as a secret, because nobody wanted to admit that the two powers were already engaged in pitch battle over North Korea. Don't want to frighten the people.
How we talk about nuclear war is really different and quite strange. The standard example is to put someone to be the President and then have the scenario where the other side has unleashed a massive nuclear strike... and he or she has the ten minutes to come up with a response. In that situation, many will give the answer (which basically reinforces the deterrence) that a similar massive strike is launched. But put that person to situation where the opponent has used an underwater nuclear detonation to kill one our attack submarine, and the response might not be to instill a massive nuclear strike on the enemy. And these situations aren't publicly discussed because of the emphasis is on that simply nuclear weapons would not be used, because "it would be irrational and mutually assured destruction". No other discussion tolerated.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
To take the step and use nuclear weapons, even small tactical ones, is huge. That I agree. Hence I don't think that the IDF would use nukes to destroy the underground facilities that Iran has.
During Desert Storm, the US couldn't know if Saddam Hussein actually would have nuclear weapons or would use the extensive chemical weapons arsenal. Hence it was a real possibility before it was evident that the Iraqi army would simply collapse. Colin Powell, who then was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has told later that then in case of WMD's used against US forces in 1991, they would have blown the damns on the Tigris (and rivers flowing to it), which would have caused a huge flood in Baghdad. A flood can be devastating, but it doesn't sound to us as devastating as a nuclear bomb or a chemical warfare attack. This remark also shows just to what lengths the US armed forces would go NOT to use nuclear weapons.
Yet you might ask yourself: are you already in WW3? I don't think so. Neither am I. Still now you do have (again) Israel and Iran in open war.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Israel started this war, not Iran.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
The only thing I would thank them if they can deliver on time the weapons systems Finland bought from them.
The real bulwark for Western Europe is Ukraine, not Israel. I'm not seeing a nuclear armed Caliphate emerging from the Middle East, yet I do see a Russia hellbent on it's own imperialist goals to be great Power again and restore it's empire.
What I see is a Israeli administration attacking a hostile country that is 1000 kilometers away from it with it's actual neighbors still calmly looking from the side as Iranian missiles streak over them to hit Israel. Bibi is truly now is the wartime president, who thinks that military operations are the key to success. That's one big major problem.
A good example, folks. This is what defenders of genocide eventually resort to.
Dont like genocide? Must be my very high standards. Or antisemitism.
Imagine you have a homicidal and fanatical enemy in your region that is building a mighty weapon. The world has tried to persuade your enemy to stop, but to no avail. As a last resort, if you were to attack your enemy's designs, would it truly be you starting the war? Or was it your fanatical enemy who ceaselessly worked towards designing a devastating weapon?
If an enemy is amassing troops on your border and surrounding your camp, must you sit there like sitting ducks?
No, but the situation could escalate.
Quoting ssu
Do you have any doubt that we've had national leaders in the past 100 years who would have used a nuclear warhead had they had one at their disposal? Hitler, for one. We've had fanatical world leaders with zero humanitarian concern. Has humanity fundamentally changed since then? We're talking about our fathers and grandfathers here.
You can call human history many things, but "rational" is not one.
I am not saying this because I like ayatollahs or I hate my Jewish and American neighbors. I am saying this because every time there is a war, I see western "democracies" becoming more suppressive towards their own citizens, killing dissent and showing total disregard towards public opinion.
Although the majority of Americans and the overwhelming majority of Europeans are against any kind of unconditional support towards Israel, we see the western governments disregarding public opinion, firing rubber bullets to protesters, arresting people, discriminating against students, and so on. This kind of suppression --combined with manipulation, social/cultural divisions and all kinds of surveillance-- has turned western democracies into circuses, where millions of citizens either have lost faith in democratic institutions or have started becoming suspicious of everyone around them.
I don't know in what kind of societies we are living nowadays. When people are controlled all the time and are told that the only accepted types of protest are those which are approved by the two major parties, then they have definitely lost the democratic ethos. They may think that they are free, but most probably they are constantly manipulated.
Under these circumstances, what scares me the most is not what will happen to Israelis or Iranians (I see their misfortunes only in TV). What scares me is what is going to happen to us when we are not heard and we are constantly manipulated and surveilled by state apparatuses, which through foreign wars seem to test and improve all their suppressive/murdering capabilities day by day. If I am right in this opinion, then I am afraid that this alliance with Israel is causing more harm to western societies than to the Muslim world; because it is not based on moral values and it constantly asks for the erosion of trust in US/EU institutions and US/EU foreign policy.
If the Iranian regime will sign quickly a treaty with Trump or Israel, this regime will definitely sign it own death. From the first day that there will be no more hostilities, the Iranians will ask themselves why their regime brought these misfortunes to them --and most probably will start killing each-other. But if the Iranian regime endures, then with the passing of the time I see more and more Iranians being united by the resistance towards Israel.
With regard now to our Western World, if these foreign wars keep being "successful", and USA and Israel seem invincible, the same thing will happen with the groups of interest and the suppressing forces within the western "democracies". These groups and actors will become more convinced about their strength and resolution; we, the people, will become more and more weak in confronting their agendas and suppressive/murdering capabilities.
I repeat that I do not support ayatollahs, but I do believe that these foreign wars will undo the Western World, before they undo anyone else: since they ask for a constant disregard and manipulation of public opinion and democratic ethos, whereas they are making Europe lose its social/cultural homogeneity (through constant waves of millions and millions of refugees). Many people in western countries are afraid of ayatollahs having nuclear weapons, but Israel has already those weapons and Israel is not less religious than Iran (it just has less taboos towards women and sex, but it has so many other taboos which make Israel a religious country as well). We cannot ask Iran to comply with standards that apply only to Muslim countries, but not to Israel or USA. It is their right to defend themselves and attain the strongest weapons, before they become Iraq, Syria, or Libya. If the Iranian regime achieves this (not collapsing and not accepting treaties that are imposed only on Muslim countries) it will make a big favor to itself and to Americans and Europeans. The only way that we can have our democracies back is through stopping these interest groups, and especially Israel, telling us what we have to do and how we are supposed to behave. I am in favor of US and EU support towards Israel, but this support has to be conditional. If the Iranian regime collapses in the forthcoming weeks (which is a big probability), I don't see how the USA will get rid of its lobbies and of all those actors which favor suppression, manipulation and surveillance for all.
I don't have to imagine that.
I'm Finn and living next to Russia. My summer place is literally less than 10 km from the border of Russia.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
No matter how much you say about the logic and soundness of a pre-emptive attack, it still is an attack and there's no question about who is the attacker. Besides, some say an attack is the best defense. Just take it as a fact, admit it to yourself and don't be such a hypocrite.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Let's hope that Trump then doesn't escalate and sticks to his current position then.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
So you accuse president Truman to be a fanatic leader with zero humanitarian concern? That's a new one from you, @BitconnectCarlos.
Don't forget Fidel Castro and the tactical nukes that were already stationed in Cuba. Not having any intel about tactical nukes would have made it a bit hard for the Marines, if they've had landed on some beaches in Cuba. Talk about an extremely warm welcome.
Actually here the real question is: how mad do you think that general Curtis LeMay was? Or the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who wanted to strike and invade Cuba? Were they mad? Here's from the real tapes between general Curtis LeMay and President Kennedy discussing the attack on Cuba. (The following short video, 1 min 25 second, seems to be only viewed on Youtube, but it's really worth watching)
So LeMay's answer is that the Russian's won't do anything and won't make a reprisal. What's behind this? The simple conclusion is perhaps that a) Cuba isn't Soviet Union and b) the US will have an advantage at that time in a nuclear war between the two powers. Yes, Few bomber bases and few cities might be wiped off the map, but that's it. Something that LeMay seems to be an OK price.
In fact in 1961 Soviet Union had then only seven operational intercontinental missiles while the US estimated there to be 20 to 40. And the US had on the other hand 177 intercontinental missiles. The rest were shorter range missiles and free fall bombs that bombers had to carry. Hence Curtiss LeMay and other generals opted to have that war. Twenty years later in the 1980's it was totally different. Let's remember that even now Russia has more nuclear weapons than the US. We just forget this very big difference.
For Bibi to attack Iran now has the similar logic. Hit Iran while you still can. Because it won't get better. Since Trump is in Washington, since Hezbollah has been dramatically weakened and since the war in Gaza is winding down, why not then now hit Iran?
The only downside of this is that it leads to quite similar thinking that the German high command had prior to World War 1 about the Russian Empire: better have the war now before Russia becomes too strong. This thinking means that you simply won't have peace.
And what do you know, we have that Israeli-Iranian war we talked about for decades.
We dont have to imagine. Its called Israel and they already have nuclear weapons. Unfortunately.
After they have been bombed by foreign state, why would Iranians start killing each other?
Or will they say that they endured most that arch enemy could through at them and they survived with bringing the Jews so much losses that they had to stop and thus this generation has been as victorious as the previous ones were defending Iran from the attack from Iraq?
And then they will do a "lessons learned" from this, look where their weaknesses were and prepare for the next time Israel attacks them?
That could easily happen too, you know. So I don't agree with you, but that's my opinion. We'll see what happens.
As a leftist, your ideology has more blood on its hands than Israel could ever dream of. So it's not about bloodshed for you, but about who sheds it.
:rofl:
I can hear Sean Hannity now: Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin. You know, leftists.
I think the ideology youre looking for, beyond Abrahamic religions, is capitalism. But whatever you do you.
All you do is focus on the violence of some and ignore it from others. :yawn:
I focus on the violence that my country has a direct hand in.
Thats been explained to you countless times. But please do go on with your tired list of genocide deflections.
When we kill innocent people, intentions are good and its always because terrorists are around.
When they do it, its because theyre animals.
If one criticizes the genocide of our team, theyre:
- ignoring the violence in xyz.
- holding standards that are too high
- antisemites
- really responsible for more deaths somehow something about ideology
- ignoring WW2
Its encouraging that polls show lack of support for this bullshit, and its getting so strong and the lobby is so frightened that they have to suppress protests and demonstrations. A healthy sign. This latest aggression from Israel will only cement such attitudes.
Do you think it's possible for Israel to do something with the strait and pin the blame on the Iranians somehow? It seems they'd have an interest in doing a covert operation to get the US involved. Similar to what happened with Ukraine and the Nord Stream pipeline.
It is said that the regime has already so many woes to worry about. A quick defeat/retreat from Israel will add to the miseries of a big proud nation (that is overwhelmed from a nation ten times smaller). It may serve as the Falklands War example in Argentina (where it is said that their defeat from UK brought the collapse of the Argentina regime).
I don't know what is the best for the Iranian people, but for the western world I think the best outcome would be to get ourselves free from Israel and all those groups which enable Israel and suppress all of us for the sake of Israel. If this country and its enablers keep defeating other countries, their authority will become even more difficult to defy.
So much power is corrupting Israel and the US, in the same way as a jack pot might totally change me as a person. Since Israel, US and other countries have created all this big apparatus of suppressing, manipulating, surveilling, and murdering people, none can be sure that one day they might change subjects; instead of Palestinians, Iranians or Venezuelans this suppressive apparatus may turn against ordinary Americans or Europeans.
I don't think so. There's no need for an escalation like the Israeli attack on USS Liberty.
Ok, just as the man who attacks a man reaching for his gun is also the attacker. Technically right.
If a man comes at you with a gun, is the only justified time to respond after the bullet has been fired? Even while the bullet is in the air, there's technically no damage done. Guess we need to wait until after it strikes.
A policeman with a knife is an entirely different matter from Jack the Ripper with a knife.
Quoting ssu
We can talk about Truman, but I'm not entirely sure how it's relevant to the current discussion about whether Iran should be nuclear. I'll say for the record, though: What Truman did was very questionable, and if there is a God, he will likely need to answer for what transpired.
Regardless of Truman's actions 80 years ago, I still don't want a nuclear Iran. I don't think anyone wants a nuclear Iran. The question is how far we're willing to go to stop it. Maybe if it were 5 years ago, we could have approached things in a more measured manner, but intel showed that Iran was very close to going nuclear.
Quoting ssu
The problem isn't that another nation is stronger than Israel. The problem is that the nation expresses genocidal intentions towards Israel and was on the verge of going nuclear. Israel is okay with other countries being stronger than it.
Your writing about the Cuban missile crisis is engaging, but it's a different scenario than what Israel ought to do now. The actors are different, the tech is different, and the time is different. But yes, history proved Kennedy right in his decision to "quarantine"/blockade Cuba and negotiate with the USSR. IIRC the US surrounded that island with ships. Not an easy task with Iran.
Quoting Mikie
I'm not interested in an approach/worldview that hyperfixates on the violence of one group and ignores that of another.
No. As I said, if you shoot a man that didn't shoot you, you simply need a lot explaining to do to the judge, because you will be the one that shot. And at some times, it will, even under law, be legitimate. But naturally there are quite a high bar for this.
When Israel has a nuclear deterrent, those countries who see Israel as a threat to themselves will try to get a nuclear deterrent. But you simply assume that they aren't seeking a balance, their own deterrence, but their motive is simply to destroy Israel, even if this put their own people and country to the peril of the many nukes that Israel has.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
We never can know how many Americans (and Japanese) would have died if Operation Downfall would have been initiated. And naturally we forget the huge importance of the Soviet attack in Manchuria for the Japanese to admit to surrender.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
How about the Arabs? It would be interesting how Israel would react if the Saudi's would get a nuclear deterrent. What if the Egypt would also get a nuclear deterrent? Israel does have a peace agreement with Egypt (which it doesn't have with the Saudis).
Argentina claimed the Malvinas, invaded it and then fought for them with the Argentinian forces finally surrendering to the British. That's a defeat, no matter how you look at it.
If Israel attacks by air strikes Iran and then stops them let's say after two weeks, that's a different issue. If Israel (or the US) would take Quesm and Kharg islands, then it would be far more serious and the loss would be more evident. Yet I have trouble envisioning the IDF taking and occupying Tehran. And this is the real problem here: attacking Iran is problematic, because a land war would be very, very difficult.
Quoting Eros1982
One thing is totally evident, the Netanyahu administration has become a war cabinet which sees war as a natural instrument to solve it's problems. War is a normal state for Israel.
I doubt that's the cause of the present war. It's that Iran funded Hamas. This is a continuation of the invasion of Gaza, back to it's source. At least they told the residents of Tehran to evacuate. That was the right thing to do.
With Gaza, they failed to make a humanitarian corridor in a timely fashion. That was a terrible crime.
Yeah based on the news of the past few hours it seems like the US is gonna be involved anyways unless Trump changes his mind again.
Nope. :yawn:
Just stick to defending genocide because its your favorite Jewish government. Dont bother with shallow attempts at characterizing other worldviews.
What is the point with debating a supporter of a paranoid, ethno-supremacist, racist, genocide enabling state?
Is it worth pointing out trivial facts? Or should we entertain supporters of a country which has utterly overwhelming global condemnation, quite often isolated with the US in the UN.
Of course, you do you.
Israel may laugh soon. Blowback will come and it will be brutal.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/17/dozens-killed-in-gaza-waiting-for-food-trucks-says-health-ministry
I know that Trump is complicit in withdrawing US from the Obama nuclear treaty with Iran.
But, let's say that Kamala was today the POTUS, would the Democrats change anything in their approach to this conflict?
I heard Israel has been making preparations for this war for nine months. Did the previous administration collaborate on this war also?
I had those thoughts too and was, foolishly, optimistic on the Iran's options. After listening to some very respected American professors, this is what I came up with: the Iranian regime lost this war on last Friday.
I am saying this because Israel has never lost a war. If Israel isn't capable to win, the USA will win that war for the Israelis. So, Israelis know very well what they do and when they attack.
People are saying that Israel would never use nuclear weapons, but they forget that Israel is ruled by some lunatics who make Khamenei and Ahmedinejad look like angels. These lunatics of Israel see the world as a big zoo, where the humans (Israelis) can play and hunter with animals (all non-Jews). The same lunatics seem very capable of blackmailing all US presidents (after Reagan and Carter).
The failed G7 Summit last night made me realize what is going on at this moment. As there are hopefuls about Iran's options, Israel most probably is blackmailing US about its nuclear capabilities, i.e. everyone in Washington DC is told either Americans win this war for Israel, or Israel wins this war with nukes. At the same time Trump is blackmailing UK, France & EU on Ukraine. If these countries boycott Israel (as Spain and Ireland are suggesting), US will boycott Ukraine.
Netanyahu may be destroying Israeli and Western institutions, but he definitely won this war on Friday --when Trump gave him the green light to attack.
Iran is wasting its rockets on Israel. The regime would do better if it wins time, while spreading chaos in the region surrounding Israel (Lebanon, Syria and Iraq). If Iran chose this path, a US invasion or Israeli nukes would not make sense.
I hope Israel loses this war (cause we are losing the whole Western World every time that we fight for Israel... we are suppressed, manipulated, surveilled, etc., by these pro-Israel groups all the time), but I don't see that happening. In the future, this war may put Israel and US to more troubles, but the Iranian regime is set to lose its grip on power for the moment being.
He gets the absolute minimal effort or time from me. Yeah, might as well talk to a brick wall but its really in case others are reading.
Quoting Eros1982
Democrat or Republican, the Israel lobby gets what it wants. Its quite predictable. Anyone hoping Trump would be different was probably kidding themselves.
I am one of those fools. I would never vote GOP, but I am picky with democrats... So I thought in November let these war-lovers lose this year, thinking that Trump would be better. Now I see he got things much worse by undoing Obama's policies in the Middle East.
Well at least you see it now. Thats admirable.
Yeah I dont think Trump will be any different. Quite contrary to propaganda, Israel is the terrorist state in the region, and not only threatens to destroy others, they go and do it. They also claim they dont want to see nuclear weapons in the hands of other nations in the region, yet they themselves have nuclear weapons.
And none of it would be possible without the US. Since Israel is seen as a stabilizing force in the region for our interests, historically with the oil supply, and they have such a powerful lobby, I think the likely outcome is the destruction of much of Iran but much like the failure to eradicate Hamas, theyll never eradicate the Iranian threat. This will only increase solidarity domestically and animosity towards Israel. Such a stupid move for the country.
But at least Netanyahu stays out of jail a while longer.
How else am I supposed to interpret I focus on the violence that my country has a direct hand in.
Good lord. Can you perhaps support this a bit?
Yeah, must mean I ignore all other violence if the US has minimal influence in it.
It would require the U.S. to take Tehran, this is what the hawks and the Israeli lobby are trying to convince Trump to do now. Hopefully there is someone with a level head in that room.
It's not hard. If one were to focus on, let's say, abuse towards men, one would likely become a men's rights activist. OTOH, if one were to focus on abuse towards women, one likely ends up a feminist.
It's all about the lens we choose.
I think what creates this "Western World" are institutions, aesthetics, and culture. Those Western forced institutions brought to justice many Nazi officers, Ruanda criminals, Yugosllavia criminals, and so on. For the sake of Israel, the US is telling the whole world now that we should forget all internationational sanctions and courts which seek to stop or punish crimes against humanity. Needless to say, also, that for the sake of Israel public will is totally disregarded (in the Netherlands, which is much more liberal than US or UK, only the 15% of population supports Israel, but the Dutch government does not mind arming the genocidal Zionists), dissent is killed, the media are censored, etc. etc.
Then you have the waves of millions and millions of Muslims towards France, UK, etc., every time that Israel and US will bomb their countries.
Too many sacrifices and too much alienation in Europe, for the sake of Israel and USA (among other factors).
Most Americans and Europeans do not know that the Holy Qur'an bans genocide and mass destruction. This is why there is a fetwa/ban in Iran AGAINST nuclear weapons by Ayatollah Khamenei. At the same time, whoever has read the Old Testament (i.e. the The Hebrew Bible) should know that the Lord of the Armies (or as they call him, Yahwa) orders his chosen people to exterminate certain tribes and nations, to not spare either women or children. I don't remember all the tribes/nations that the Hebrew Bible says that should be exterminated by the Chosen People (Cananites and Philistines I think are grouped with five or more nationalities/tribes), nevertheless this is a real contrast between the Holy Qur'an and the Old Testament; the first has made it clear that genocide and mass destruction is haram (though it does approve slavery, but it does not encourage it), the second does order the holocaust of seven or more nationalities.
From history books we have learned that theory and practice are not the same thing. Many Muslim leaders have committed horrible crimes against Jews, Christians, and, especially, against other Muslims. Since, however, lately you are constantly educated by the mainstream media about Islamic fundamentalism and similar stuff, do not forget that Israel recently has become very fundamentalist as well and the Hebrew Bible which is sought to be brought to life by many Israeli extremists (in the 21st century) does encourage genocide and mass destruction.
It often describes events ~3000 years ago in the kill-or-be-killed world of the ancient Near East. No one is perfect in the Hebrew Bible, and commandments such as "kill the Amalekites" don't have relevance today. But yes, King David in ~1000 BC engaged in some very questionable but historically normal deeds. The Hebrew Bible is still a brilliant work of literature and deserves to be "brought to life."
What concerns me about modern Islam is its desire to spread to the entire world and its apparent hatred of non-believers. Its treatment of women is also concerning. Chieftains under Muhammad slaughtered the civilians of defeated villages, including Jews.
Above all, Islam seems to be an all-encompassing political system. I don't know whether this is compatible with the West.
Well, in the end Operation Peace for Galilee wasn't a huge success as in the end it created Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel had to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000 after a long low-intensity conflict. The 2006 Lebanon War wasn't either a huge success and Hezbollah then wasn't destroyed.
The basic problem is that you have a perpetual cycle of Israel attacking it's neighbors and responding to attacks from various groups, which then simply repeat time after time again. These attacks have basically made Lebanon a failed state and Syria is too, if it cannot rebuild itself. Failed states cannot make peace even if they wanted. But I guess the present Israeli administration is totally happy with perpetual war and wouldn't care if all of their neighbors became failed states.
Quoting Eros1982
He finally got his war after decades for craving it.
But I fear that this is only a temporary solution and simply won't solve anything in the long run. And it's crazy to think that if Israel attacks Iran, somehow then Iranians would topple their government. This is a delusional line that you can hear in Western and especially American media. Just think about it: a foreign country starts to bomb your country, what would you do? Want to overthrow your countries government? There is no "liberation" of Iran from Iranians on the cards here. Trump declaring that Iran should surrender is the tone deaf thing that idiot is perfectly capable of doing.
If now the Gulf States like Saudi-Arabia and UAE are brought into this war (for example by closing the straight of Hormuz), then we'll have a oil price shock that likely will put us into a global recession.
Quoting Eros1982
Well, if they can continue firing rockets at this pace for weeks, that's a clear sign that Israel would have failed. If no rockets are fired to Israel, then Israel has achieved it's objectives.
Hopefully indeed, as that is a really foolish idea. Just look at the size of Iran. And unlike Iraq, it's a quite unified country and likely would put up a resistance. The armed forces are nearly 1 million strong and Iran has 85 million people.
Basically any land operation would be temporary or limited. Perhaps to clear and destroy the nuclear facilities. Or then take some islands in the gulf. But to march to Tehran, over the mountains and deep inside in the interior of the country? Ludicrous idea.
You would need a huge alliance to do this, but I'm not seeing this forming. For example the Turkish leader is saying that Iran is defending itself. Not a line if you would want to be part of an invasion force.
And how eager would be the Saudis to join this? Not even lukewarm:
So reality is that this is either between Israel and Iran or Israel with sidekick USA against Iran.
Yeah and it would be they ignore the abuse of women. At least in your world.
Also no gum chewing and walking.
To which the MRA would likely say, e.g., "It's not that we ignore the abuse of women, it's that we focus on the abuse of men."
They hold the abuse of a certain group to be salient.
In my example, I was thinking of a scenario in which you are unarmed and face an enemy in the process of arming himself. Nobody is talking about Israel destroying Iran entirely.
It's impossible to know the Khameini regime's true motive. I note their policies and rhetoric. The world, ideally, would have stopped Iran from going nuclear years ago. It shouldn't be left up to Israel, ideally, but here we are.
Khameini's words: "It doesn't matter if we die. Iran is not important, Islam is important."
Quoting ssu
Operation Downfall would have likely been extremely devastating. The typical American (Western?) position is to justify the atomic bombings as a necessary evil to avoid a land invasion. This was my position for most of my life. GEM Anscombe's essay "Mr. Truman's Degree" and her essay "War and Murder" caused me to rethink my perspective on this. You can find the first one online; it's not too long.
Quoting ssu
The world should judge these countries on a case-by-case basis. Nuclear proliferation is a complex issue; I don't pretend to know all the ins and outs.
And that's not relevant to this scenario, where Israel has a nuclear deterrent and enjoys total military dominance over it's rivals. And intends to keep it so by attacking them constantly.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
One could educate oneself on it and not believe the propaganda. Yet in the Middle East one has to really try to make the difference with the rhetoric to the people and the real underlying policies and strategies.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Have you ever thought about the possibility of Israel's enemies wanting to acquire a nuclear deterrent as to be a deterrent or do you genuinely believe that they are fantasizing about starting a nuclear war that likely will be as devastating if not more devastating for their people than the invasion of the Mongol Horde?
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
That cannot be interpreted as Israel has to die and we have destroy it, even if we die trying.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
I haven't read this, but is has been known for a long time that Soviet Union joining the fight against Japan and it's rapid advance through Japanese defenses was a far bigger issue to the Japanese than American historians give credit.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
If you want to look at the geostrategic picture in the Middle East with the military balance in mind, you simply cannot forget that Israel has a functioning nuclear deterrent and it's enemies never had it.
It explains a lot more than at first you might think.
Yeah, and?
Nevermind. Just pretend Im antisemitic instead. Even more stupid, but at least this way you wont hurt your brain with something as difficult as focusing.
For others, try this: I tend to focus on my daughters well being. That doesnt really mean I ignore the well being of my nieces and nephews. I condemn the violence in Sudan but my country isnt integrally a part of that violence. This isnt hard stuff, unless youre in the process of defending a racist, genocidal government.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/world/middleeast/iran-civilian-deaths-israel-strikes.html
Well Israel says it so it must be true.
I think there is only one viable solution to this Grand Bretagna made sh.. in the Middle East: Israel should reform itself into a Belgium-like bi-ethnic country. In the long run, secular & reformed Jews may be replaced by Muslims & ultra-orthodox Jews in a Belgium-like Israel. But I see this transformation as the only way to limit all these serial mass murders in the land of Palestine-Israel. Jews and Arabs with same citizenship, same rights. Not everyone will be happy, but (as in Belgium) there will be more tourism in Israel and disagreements will become less violent.
The purpose of that narrative is to exculpate the United States, and distance it from its own and Israel's many misdeeds in the region.
The belief that a miniscule nation like Israel could control the world's premiere superpower does not pass the common sense test, even if we assumed every single Israeli was a rich banker.
The truth is that Israel is a remarkably useful asset to the US, which the US has successfully used to destroy geopolitical rivals and sow chaos in a region that it was never able to fully control.
Israel is a nation that, due to its size, will always experience geopolitical threat from its neighbors, so there's always an excuse for war.
When Israel outlives its usefulness, the exit strategy pretty much writes itself. For a credible excuse, the US only needs to point at the hundreds upon hundreds scathing UN reports and human rights reports (and simply leave out the fact that the Israelis did it all with Uncle Sam's help).
The US engages in a form of gepolitical parasitism, where it skillfully sways naive countries to prostitute themselves to the US agenda, usually leading them willingly down the path of their own destruction.
Israel is one such country. I'm sure you can think of several others. Ukraine for example is currently in the terminal stage of friendship with the US.
All of that nonsense in US congress? Just a display, crafted to play a megalomaniacal narcissist like Netanyahu like a fiddle. Those senators were more than willing to pay with what little dignity they had left, in order to have Israel follow willingly to the slaughter. Do you know the US doesn't even have a defensive alliance with Israel?
To be clear, I don't blame anyone for believing the narratives. Entire countries willingly fling themselves into the abyss for those narratives. But it's in people's best interest that they start seeing through the bullshit.
I agree that things are more complicated from what I made those to be. So, it is not enough to drop Israel or Natanyahu.... Americans have to get rid of all those US based groups which enable the likes of Natanyahu (they probably need sweeping reforms in order to get rid of those corruptive/suppressive groups).
I'd like to add two things here:
1) Almost all non-US based media are hinting that Trump was somehow forced to agree on this new Israeli attack (they seem to argue that Israel will always find its way in the White House, regardless of the intentions of a given US administration).
2) In Tel Aviv you have in power some Torah-lunatics who believe that they were destined by Yahweh to conquer whomever they want. These Torah-lunatics it is said that possess more than 90 nuclear warheads. Although you might be right in arguing that all this unfolding-catastrophe in the Middle East should not be attributed to Israeli groups only, I do take these Torah-lunatics capable of blackmailing US presidents with their nukes. In others words, I have them capable of threatening to use nuclear weapons, behind the curtains. So, there is some responsibility in Israeli politics too (apart from those Jewish-banker conspiracy theories).
Anyway, you are right in other things you said. Whoever might be the benefited groups from all these wars, the USA (seen as a whole country) does not seem to benefit.
Israel doesn't outlive its usefulness to the US because Israel/the Jews bring about the messianic age according to the evangelicals, who make up a significant share of the republican party. Christians will always be fascinated with that land where Jesus walked. Changes in the political situation in Israel directly affect Christians' abilities to access specific sites, so the interest in Israel will remain. Expansions of Israeli territory often allow new archaeological digs, which add to our knowledge of ancient Judaism, the religion of Jesus.
So this is about regime change, or it's not, or it is.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Christians think the whole Bible belongs to them. They're as fascinated by climbing Mt Sinai at dawn as they are hanging around the Jordan River.
It's nice to have other people who value the history of ancient Israel.
The current Israeli government and the people they represent aren't really all that extreme in their religious beliefs. They're extreme in their nationalist beliefs and therefore I think the term 'ultranationalist' is a more fitting characterization.
Ironically, what one might consider the most religiously extreme Jews, commonly called 'ultra-orthodox', often oppose Zionism and the state of Israel, and don't even consider themselves Israelis, for reasons stated in the Torah. (It has to do with the land being promised upon return of the Messiah, which, according to Judaism, hasn't happened yet - alas, details).
So Zionism isn't exactly a religious conviction, but a political one.
Obviously, the state of Israel does bear full responsibility for its actions. It's just that the United States (and several European states to a lesser extent) have been enabling them since the start.
Quoting Eros1982
Despite what I think of the United States' methods, I think it is involved in the Middle-East for sound strategic reasons. (Control over vital trade corridors and oil, most notably) It has also been very effective in protecting its power in the region, at the cost of everyone else's security.
So, perhaps controversially, I view the United States as a whole as the principal benefactor of it's decades-long Machiavellian malpractices in the Middle-East.
Of course there's the usual suspects - the military-industrial complex, big investment firms, etc. - but in my view these are just the vultures flocking to the smell of fresh carrion. Squarely blaming them is just another attempt at exculpating the US by pinning the blame on some 'big bad'.
No; it is carefully calculated US strategy that is and has been the principal driver behind all of this.
It's just that the days of US empire are at their end, and no amount of Machiavellianism or sound strategy can stop the reckoning that is coming its way. That is why everything is now cracking at the seams, and people are looking for scapegoats.
I am of the opinion that no nation will ever use a nuclear weapon again, the fallout (pardon the term) is just too great. The isolation and stigma will be unbearable, and the media will have a field day but much more the social media circulating images that will result in acts of violence.
Assume that is true, then it is not clear what exactly the problem with "Iran having a nuclear weapon" is, after all India and Pakistan have these and had a confrontation recently.
Is it just a propaganda tool like WMD to justify controlling Irans proxies Hamas and others? That might be the case because neither Egypt nor Saudi Arabia or Turkey are a problem.
Members will excuse me if I post a AI generated prediction: (Deepseek). Apart for the sugggestion that Iran has few missiles left, it generally looks like a reasonable prediction.
I think they're planning to kill Ali Khamenei. Nothing says let's be friends like killing their religious leader.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
They think it's the history of their own religion, and it partly is.
Israel also acknowledges that the United States is currently experiencing imperial overstretch, and is having to choose between which interests it wishes to protect. By dragging the US into a war now, it means it cannot abandon Israel later.
The United States on its part urgently needs to pivot to Asia to counterbalance China. However, it cannot do so while simply abandoning all its interests elsewhere. So here its interests align with Israel, in that they both do not want a strong Iran to emerge out of the power vacuum the US leaves behind.
Whatever the exact plans of Israel and the US, they'll both be aimed at ensuring Iran cannot expand its influence in the foreseeable future.
One way to do so is by enacting regime change, which would cause internal turmoil that it would probably take Iran several years to recover from.
At the same time, if Iran manages to produce a nuclear weapon it can threaten nuclear retaliation and impose massive costs on Israel (and indirectly the US).
So regime change and the destruction of Iran's nuclear program are two parts of the same strategy.
If Iran shows its willingness to cooperate, the calculus for the US will start to shift.
Ultimately the US aligns itself in whatever way is most profitable, and it's conceivable that the most profitable partner in the future will be Iran, and not Israel, simply because it will become too expensive to keep Israel in a position of regional dominance.
Possibly this is why we continue to see diplomatic contact between the US and Iran even at this time. The US is trying to keep its options open for as long as possible. Admittedly, I would be surprised if the US avoids a war with Iran, but it's possible.
I'm pretty sure the people of Iran hate Khameini and would celebrate if he died.
It is the history of their own religion.
Why do you think that?
Partly. Like Judaism, Christianity is partly Persian and Greek.
Because his regime murders women for not wearing hijabs.
Yes, but Israel is the land where Jesus walked. And John the Baptist.
That doesn't mean the people of Iran hate their government.
You seem to be under the impression that the people of Iran are insane fundamentalist muslims. I don't think that's right. I think they're only being ruled by insane fundamentalist muslims.
I guess there's supposed to be some kind of argument in there somewhere, but I was looking for facts.
Much like Israel is only being ruled by insane Jews. Still, a lot of support for that genocidal government too.
It must be nice to have nothing to stand for; no nation or power you stand by.
It's a simple formula, I see:
1) Have no allegiance to any nation or power. To do so, one becomes tainted with their sins.
2) Be hypercritical of the West. This demonstrates your superior virtue. In judging them you place yourself above them.
3) Be silent on the most degenerate elements.
Easy.
On the other hand, I suppose I should applaud you on discovering the principle parties shouldn't be attacking civilians. Now if only you could manage to apply it consistently.
There you have it folks. Add to the list above: if youre against genocide (when committed by Israel), you stand for nothing.
Surely you could hear similar critiques in Nazi Germany too. Ironically.
When will the UN condemn the deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians? The intentional targeting of civilians has always been wrong.
My position regarding the morality of strikes on civilians can be summarized in the doctrine of double effect. This has been my long-standing position.
I think if/when Iran starts to hit bomb shelters large malls, schools, which naturally are public information, then you can make the argument of them being like the Russians. It's simply the systematic nature: not one hospital, all of them. Like in Gaza.
Now it seems Iran is trying to hit the Israeli SAM sites, which isn't as easy as it sounds when using medium range artillery missiles. If there's a night/day with no missiles, that would be telling.
Still, the body count in both countries, even in Iran, is rather low.
Boring troll. :yawn:
As a regime, Iran is more depraved than Russia, and I'm no fan of Russia. It would be like, take the repression of Russia, and combine it with the fact that the government will throw girls in jail for removing their hijabs and often rape them before executing them (to ensure they don't get into heaven.)
Iran would hit more hospitals if it could; it's just a matter of the Iron Dome stopping them. This now raises the question of whether one's ineffectiveness makes one good/morally better: Is an assassin who is thwarted ethically superior to one who's not?
Yes, the nice thing about Iran is that they don't launch their missiles from apartment complexes and hospitals, so we can expect casualty counts not to be too high. :sweat:
Boring Nazi. :yawn:
:lol:
What can be noticed is the difference between the "normal" ballistic missiles, which rapidly decrease their speed once hitting the lower atmosphere and those that then have a motor for the last leg, usually referred to being hypersonic glide vehicles. The difference is notable, and also is the difficulty for anti-ballistic systems to get them.
Also what is noticeable is that the range between Iran and Israel is such that basically the ballistic trajectories don't take the missiles into space. The can be seen flying over Iraq and Jordan.
Tables turned, for now. Previously I remember Israelis watching from the Golan Heights the civil war in Syria. Now Lebanese and Jordanians can watch the Iran-Israel match above their sky.
Here we go again...
I suspect Israel's response is proportionate because Hamas has militarized its entire society as well as built an extensive underground tunnel system. When you militarize civilian structures, they cease being civilian and become military structures. If we look at casualty numbers, it's around 1:1 or 2:1 - historically speaking, humane. As you know, the Gaza Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures - a fundamental concept in war.
It's strange how people note the extensive destruction in Gaza and then demand that Gazans stay put. Their concerns aren't humanitarian, but political.
I sympathize with any ethnic group seeking to recover their ancestral homeland, as Judea and Samaria are to the Jews. Israel has much history in Gaza as well. I don't support forcible expulsion, but the Gazans should be given opportunities elsewhere since Gaza is a war zone.
As for genocide, let me know when Israel strips their Arab citizens of citizenship or expels them. There's no essential difference between Israeli Arabs and those living in Gaza. Israel is at war; there is no genocide. Israel has said it will not forcibly expel Gazans. I do not want to see forced expulsions, but even if forced expulsions occur it's an abuse of language to call that genocide and it's nothing near what Jews went through under Nazi Germany.
No, I would imagine the decision-making process is that they had a window of opportunity to act while Iran's proxies were largely defeated and when they would not face significant additional pressure from third parties for carrying out the strikes. Obviously, internal politics could be another factor.
My guess is that they will keep degrading Iran's air defenses and missile capabilities, trying to reach a point where they can keep inflicting costs on Iran without facing significant costs in return. Iranian missile volume is already down significantly. The goal is probably to signal an open ended commitment to destroying their military and oil infrastructure until they agree to negotiate a settlement that ends the nuclear program. Barring that, there is the idea of the US destroying the main enrichment facility or Israel doing it with a cargo plane after having fully degraded Iran's air defenses (which is probably risky and might not work), or, unlikely, an air assault operation to destroy it.
Iran was already in a precarious political situation due to major, violent unrest across the country aimed at the government. Iran is only about 60% Persian and there are separatist groups Mossad has been able to use in the past for additional pressure.
In the past year or so Iran has also had open battles with the Taliban over water rights and been bombed by Pakistan, so they sort of have issues in all fronts due to the type of foreign policy they have pursued, but obviously the successful decapitation strike on Hezbollah that forced them to make a separate peace, the collapse of the Assad regime, loss of influence in Iraq, and now this has made them significantly more vulnerable, which explains the timing as well.
Interesting, thanks! Isn't there a concern that blowing up nuclear materials will pollute the area?
[sup] France 24, AFP · Jun 19, 2025[/sup]
Putin condemned Israeli attacks on Iran ... Meanwhile in Ukraine :brow:
A growing number of Iranians and pro-Iran people have been calling the Kremlin names (e.g. untrustworthy, traitor, useless), due to not helping. Maybe their warning is partly related to that.
If the Iranian theocracy falls, the Kremlin could be impacted: some drone supply, oil/money laundering lifeline (revenue), diplomatic shield, some satellite + intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance infrastructure, strategic outpost-foothold in the Middle East.
EDIT: added some potential impact to the Kremlin
Seems also that Iran is still launching missiles into Israel.
This is really mind-boggling in a country that wishes to be remembered as the "best democracy in the world".
I hope the real patriots and the real democrats in the US stop worrying about the name of the next president, or the slogan of the next protest, but start thinking how to transform some US institutions (like courts, Congress, electoral college and, especially, sponsorship of politics).
Although it perfectly makes sense to vote in local elections, voting in presidential election does not make sense to me anymore. A president may win the popular vote in this country, he may have the 80% of population hating wars and people like Netanyahu, and at the same time this president or the Congress may feel free to do things that all Americans hate.
What kind of democracy is this? When will we see some politicians & activists pushing for sweeping reforms in this country? How can you have your country free from the Israeli and NRA lobbies if you don't reform elections funding?
Well, that happened.
Congratulations to Democrats for the next election!
There was a feeling that with the MAGA winning the popular vote, the Democrats had lost their electoral base for years to come. Those anti-ICE and No Kings rallies were seen as desperate moves from a Democratic party that has lost pace on real issues.
Now, with Trump's unpredictability, betrayal of America First values, etc., the Democrats will feel vindicated and strong again. Vindicated because within five months of his presidency, Trump is stunning Americans and the whole world; and he shows a total disregard for those 90% of Americans who oppose another Middle East War.
AOC will become the first female POTUS, I guess
lol
I didn't vote in November, but I see that with this outlandish & wicked administration, we will live in a constant crisis for the next four years. Nothing good can come from these childish imbeciles.
Nothing diplomatic offered to them by Bibi and Trump.
They have to fight for our good, not for their own. If they don't fight hard, the Israeli/NRA lobbies will become even more strong and wicked here in the US.
They already manipulate, surveil, imprison and suppress western citizens and if these wars happen at a low cost for us, we will be overwhlemed forever by manipulative/controlling/murdering apparatuses that right now have turned on Gazans, but another day may turn on ordinary Europeans and Americans.
Bibi and Trump are offering to the Iranian regime "death or death". I think it's going to be a long war there. If this war comes without a big cost to Americans, I don't see how the US will free itself from the Israeli/NRA lobbies and how the rest of the western world will free itself from the US.
The Iranians have ran out of options, I agree, but this US commitment to Israel is weakening all those "great" western institutions, like international law, humanism, public opinion, democratic debates, honest information, etc.
The US needs its democratic ethos back, and Europe should find a way to deal with Russia. If it sticks to US-Israeli alliance, there won't be European identity and European democracy in the 22nd century (in my opinion).
We're looking at nearly a century of continuity of US policy vis-á-vis Iran.
Seems that Donald "I'm not going to start wars, I'm going to stop wars." -Trump has now put aside his eager hopes for that Nobel-prize and has gone head on to the next forever war with his supporters eagerly cheering for this.
Now it's so warming to see the spineless MAGA-morons rallying around their big beautiful prez and supporting Trump's decision to go to another not-so well thought war. How desperately they now try to change their stance:
Few strikes and then go back home to eat that cherry pie? Well, might not to happen exactly that way. At best, the US is now on board with Bibi, as Bibi wanted, on this perpetual conflict of "war off - war on" where two sides stop for some time with announcements from Israel and the US that the nuclear threat has been now thwarted/eradicated... only for the next bomb strikes to happen later. But that will be enough for the MAGA-morons.
Once few weeks (or less) have gone and Israel and the US halt their strikes and declare victory, all these MAGA people will rejoice victory and the wisdom of Trump and deride those who opposed this war. Of course, likely Iran will continue to adapt it's defenses and simply then get the nuclear weapon and the clergy will stay in power in Iran. After these attacks, the young generations of Iranians will remember just how Israel and the US attacked them, hence the evil nature of the US doesn't have to be retraced back to the Pahlavi regime and the ouster of Mossadeq, which is old history for the new generations of Iranians. If Iranians had an 8 year war against Saddam Hussein, then this generation isn't going to be softer either. And then the Iranian nuclear deterrent, likely with ICBMs, will simply be a "non-issue", just like North Korea. Because that's what the US does when the country actually has nuclear weapons that could possibly strike mainland US. Bibi's Israel has opted for perpetual war already, so they are totally OK with this.
The US has an armed forces of over 1 million with roughly quarter of a million based outside of the Continental US. Of those less than 40 000 are stationed in the Middle East. Hence there's no land invasion happening. And no regime change, actually.
So along the invasion of Iraq, this is one of those stupid wars the US gets itself into.
Quoting Eros1982You meant AIPAC?
When there is a war in the Middle East the first thing a sensible citizen should do is to drop all US based media outlets and turn on British ones, for more honest and unbiased information. Reuters and BBC may not be perfect, but they are definitely less censored than their US counterparts.
Thank you.
That's a bit of a laugh honestly. Maybe slightly less propaganda than US media, but if you're looking media that is not propaganda there are plenty of independent analysts around. I'd start with Chris Hedges.
However, in terms of reporting from events on the ground, fog of war and disinformation / psychological operations make that pretty difficult.
For example in this recent US strike on Iran, what we don't know:
a. How effective the bunker busters were.
b. In the case they were effective, if anything important remained there or was already taken away.
c. If the Iranians tried to shoot at the B-2s but failed, can't shoot down B-2s at all, can shoot down B-2's but that capacity is already degraded, or then can shoot down B-2s but did not for diplomatic reasons (US says where they are going to strike to avoid actual damage, in return Iran doesn't shoot down the planes), or then Iran can shoot down B-2s but chose not to in order to assess the potential of these weapons systems (if existing architecture of similar sites are good enough, or they need to go deeper). Then all the same questions can be asked about Russia and China, as they could bring in missile and radar capacity for the purposes of trying to shoot down B-2s if they wanted to (do they want to, not want to, can't, or won't for diplomatic and/or assessing the weapons reasons).
d. What impact the strike has on Iranian enrichment and nuclear bomb production (which is almost certainly coming; hopefully when it does Israel will need to cease and desist from reckless warfare and genocide).
And there's similar unknowns about pretty much everything: how effective US / Israel missile defence is, how many missiles remain, and likewise Iranian ballistic missile effectiveness and how many of their missiles remain.
The only information we can be pretty certain of is clearly verified video evidence or then events all parties agree happened (such as this recent US attack on Iran). From this we know Iran and Israel are definitely attacking each other and both doing damage.
Agreed.
Quoting Eros1982
Their strategy is to make diplomacy impossible.
Israel elites (not just Netanyahu) make diplomacy impossible by assassinating diplomats and making sure to break any word they do give, because they don't want pressure for a diplomatic solution.
Specifically they don't want pressure from American Jewish elites who aren't as fanatical and pay a cost for Israel's genocide and warfare. If diplomacy was an option then powerful jewish voices may pressure US and Israeli politicians to cut it out. The way to solve that issue is to make diplomacy not-an-option and therefore further escalation the only option that can be discussed.
As for Trump, his strategy is to make diplomacy impossible simply by having the psychological need that anyone he's dealign with (that he doesn't like) accept humiliation as part of any agreement.
However, so far at least, if he doesn't get his way then he mostly just walks away from the situation and focuses on people he can humiliate. For example he didn't get what he wanted in the Ukraine-Russia war, so just walked away. He couldn't subdue the Houthis, so just walked away.
As with most narcissists, a challenging battle is not the goal but only preying on weaker parties.
Possibly, maybe even probably, but there's a few things that can go wrong with such a plan that are worth considering.
Israel has no way to normalize due mainly to the genocide.
The extent of the damage Iran has done can't continue to be suppressed if the war ends. Of course we don't know the extent of the damages, but it does seem pretty significant based on what we know.
Whereas the US can do as you say, as the war is far away and easily forgotten in the next news cycle, that option isn't available for Israel, so if the war didn't accomplish anything and was super destructive Israelis may not be so happy about that.
Israel has pursued a strategy of intentionally having no off ramp, so unsurprisingly finds itself with no off ramps.
Then Iran need not cease striking if Israel and US cease striking and if they continue striking then Israel will likely have to continue responding.
I believe Netanyahu said the quiet part out loud the other day that a long war favours Iran, that's what Iran wants. So there maybe no way for Israel to just "turn it off" now that its started.
The reason this war favours Iran is that even if missile interceptors were super effective (which they don't seem to be) Iran can likely outproduce ballistic missiles compared to interceptor missiles (which are more expensive and several are fired at each target).
If we ignore missile defence (assume both are depleted); in terms of Israel's strike capability, Iran is far bigger in population and geography so can absorb more destruction (along with being more accustomed to hardship and less snowflaky Westerner psychology to begin with).
Even if exchanging comparable damage, Iran is so big that most of its population aren't effected psychologically or economically (they keep having normal days as the bombs are out of sight and out of mind for the most part), whereas incoming missiles can be seen from essentially anywhere in Israel and economic activity is focused in a few major cities; so doesn't take many missiles every day / night to completely disrupt normal life for most Israelis.
Given these advantages, Iran has no incentive to just call it quits, and also Iran and China have every incentive to push for the war lasting as long as possible (to absorb US capacity, attrit weapons, damage diplomatic position, and so on).
Quoting ssu
Agreed.
Moreover, there's really no way to conquer Iran. 90 million people, and a geography that similar to 1 entire Rocky Mountain chain in addition to 1 entire France.
It's just not feasible for the US to conquer Iran without going to full total war, drafting millions of people, which is obviously not happening.
However, whereas Trump can get bored and walk away from the situation, it's not clear how Israel can just call it an "oopsie" and turn off the war and restore the status quo ante.
Nuclear weapons I would argue are no longer a feasible option now that the US has struck Iran.
So very unclear how Israel can get out of the war now that they've started it (and by the most antagonistic means of assassinating civilians, including professors, in their homes).
US influence is on a heavy down slope, and the BRICS are ready to swoop in to lay claim to all of the trade corridors and resources.
The reason the US doesn't care for diplomacy is simple: no country in the region will trust them anymore. All partners they have in the region only kowtow to Washington out of fear of reprisals, and will drop Washington the moment a safe alternative is available.
So that leaves the US with one option: sow chaos in order to deny the resources and trade corridors to its enemies.
Israel is ultimately going to pay the price for that, but until then its chronically unfeasible geopolitical situation will give the US all excuses it needs to pursue this strategy.
Really? You think the bombings would continue if Iran agreed to abandon it's enrichment program and allow UN inspectors access to any sites at any time? I think Trump would take that deal in a second.
Just what genocide?
Quoting boethius
I agree with you. This is Likud party's main line: there doesn't have to be any peace with the Palestinians, there can be a perpetual war as far it is low intensity and doesn't cost too much. And that has worked for decades now, whereas trying to do a peace with the Palestinians has been represented as utterly impossible, because it failed.
Quoting boethius
This is the main issue that Trump in his ineptness doesn't understand. The only options are limited strikes. Trump should ask himself, just how long did he fight the Houthis? How long? 30 days and that was it, and they are quite alive and kicking.
This is behind the absolute stupidity that the neocons have spread for many decades of Iran being an existential threat to Israel and the US. The politically incorrect and utterly out of the Overton window is the fact that Iranian nuclear deterrent would be to deter Israeli nuclear deterrent, not to be used in an all out attack on Israel. Why would Iran want tens of millions of it's own citizens to perish? There's no reason.
The fact is that if Iran would have a nuclear deterrent, the US response would be similar as it was to North Korea. Bill Clinton was the last president that truly thought of attacking North Korea in the similar way as Trump has now attacked Iran. Americans too are sane in the end: they attack and occupy countries that don't have a nuclear deterrence capability. Unconditional surrender, occupation of the whole country and regime change are exactly the things that countries with nuclear weapons will opt to use them against.
This all just shows how stupid this war is and how Trump has been lured into a war that in the end won't give him that victory he so eagerly wants.
And anyway, especially the vice president is going batshit crazy in trying to deny just what has happened:
We've debated at length this issue before, and I'm still not convinced these Isreali conflicts / genocide are some sort of grand US strategy.
You wouldn't need an AIPAC and endless Israeli lobbying and intelligence operations to influence US politics if it was all rational US grand strategy.
For example, contrast with Taiwan which is clearly US grand strategy to keep independent of China, we never hear of Taiwanese lobbying efforts to keep the status quo, much less increase the conflict with China.
Of course, Israel will align its goals with as many US elite faction goals as possible, such as simply having wars to sell weapons generally speaking.
Who I would argue was following some sort of rational US grand strategy was Obama, who made the nuclear deal with Iran and talked constantly of pivoting to Asia to contain China. Which is what follows rationally from a goal to stay the leading power: confronting the rising economic super power which is easily identified as the competition.
The other thing Obama did was try to restore American soft power after Bush, which he successfully did and there was clear advantages to the US system for doing that, so having it severely damaged under Trump 1, then further eroded under Biden, then jettisoned entirely in the first months of Trump 2, is not achieving some rational objective.
So I just don't see how it's a rational strategy to get into a war with Iran which there seems no pathway to victory on, and if Iran "wins" the conflict by simply surviving it will be in a far better position in the region to thwart US and Israeli interests.
Feel free to argue otherwise (I of course don't exclude there is some sort of master plan driving events), but for me a better model to explain what is happening is Israeli race-superiority settler fanaticism, Netanyahu's personal political problems, and a weakening and disastrously corrupt imperial core that can no longer assert imperial grand strategy interests over special interest factions that compose the US controlling elite.
Any powerful enough special interest gets what it wants and endless money printing satisfies all the elites generally speaking. They all (the actual major players) have yachts off Monaco, cabins in Switzerland, bunkers in New Zealand, and can all see the bigger picture that if the US does over extend and collapses they'll be doing pretty fine.
In this context of a cognitive collapse of US grand strategy the US system is erratic and essentially driven by random gyration encounters other powers it can't do anything about. They don't know what to do about Putin, so run over a decade of propaganda to "take him out" as that's what they normally do with someone they don't like, they then takeover Ukraine as that's something they know how to do, but then Russia invades and all they can do is prop Ukraine up but do nothing decisive (as it's good money for the arms industry and it "sounds good" to bleed Russia, but welding them to the Chinese for the foreseeable future is terrible grand strategy) as well as act opportunistically such as blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipeline locking Europe into buying US LNG.
I definitely see how various US elite factions profit from these events, but I don't see how it's some sort of rational plan beyond that short term profit / prophesy seeking. It's nonsense strategy we'd expect from a corrupt, easily manipulated geriatric mental case, just as the current strategy is what we'd expect from a corrupt, easily manipulated narcissistic megalomaniac.
Likud rose to power because of the intifadas and the failure of peace agreements. The nice, left-wing Israelis failed, thus you get Likud. Sort of like how on 10/7, the most left-leaning progressive Israelis were killed. Hypothetically, I believe if the Arabs living in Gaza or the West Bank truly wanted peace, we would see it, but this would not work the other way around. The Nakba always looms in the collective memory. I think the "Nakba" is how the "Palestinian" people came to beboth lies.
This is completely untrue. The intifadas were a response to Israeli invasion, occupation and control of the West Bank and Gaza. To characterize the behavior of the Israeli government during that time as "nice" is nauseating. Israel did everything it could think of to make life hell for the Palestinians in the occupied territories. They clearly wanted the Palestinians to either die or leave, and they did neither.
You're making up your own history so you can imagine that Israel is a victim. It's not. The reason there hasn't been peace in the region is very simple. It's Zionism. This is not a indictment of Judaism. It's just about a couple of generations of absolute evil bastards who happen to be Jewish. Their time will pass and they'll be forgotten. Then there will be peace.
The genocide is an openly declared policy such as starving the entire population and bombing every hospital and university, and horrendous crimes in themselves even considered in isolation to mass murder, such as sniping children, proudly boasted about by the perpetrators.
There is nothing to analyze or debate about these facts. It is as clear as anything taken for common knowledge such as the sun shining upon the earth.
If you want to live in denial about it, then you weld your soul to the fate of these evil doers. So I'd consider it carefully if you entertain the possibility of an afterlife.
Or if I misunderstand you and there's multiple genocides to consider at the moment, you're just asking which one I'm talking about, then in that case I am referencing all the genocides currently being perpetrated by Israel.
Quoting ssu
To make some sort of plausible attempt at peace, Israel would have to stop its settler activity.
That would be the bare minimum of Israel stopping at some line in the sand and then trying to negotiate some modus vivendi around that, which may include things like offering compensation for land already stolen and obviously some pathway for Palestinians to have rights; obviously 2 state solution being the only viable option if it's assume Israel "needs to be race superiority based in Jewishness".
And that's the bare minimum. If the US federal government was still kicking native Americans off their land today, you think they wouldn't still be resisting that? You think it would be the native population that "can't accept peace" when the US government keeps chipping away at their land. And that's just the land, imagine if the native Americans had also no rights.
Quoting ssu
We agree here. Also why I think this really isn't "Trump's war" but Netanyahu needed an escalation for his own problems, thought he could get Trump to go along.
The evidence that Trump and US elites broadly speaking didn't want this war is that there's no shock and awe. If you actually through you could smack Iran down from the air you'd go all in day 1, maximum air power, try to collapse the command and control, try to collapse civil society, absolutely pedal to the metal to establish air supremacy on all of Iran and keep hitting every possible military asset and especially convoy of any kind.
When analyst talked about a war with Iran being hard to win before, it was assuming maximum and relentless shock and awe.
Limited strikes by Israel (due to simply being way smaller) and then limited strikes by the US is the absolute worst strategy, as Iran can now transition smoothly to a total war system, and even better now after the US strikes knows exactly what these bunker busters can do.
So this idea that Israel has "softened up" Iran, mentioned in the mainstream media, is just widely naive as to how warfare works. Why Ukraine lost 20% of its territory in like a single week was because it did not transition to total war (as that's costly if you aren't sure a war is coming) and Russia maximized the advantage during that transition.
Point being, maybe Trump did understand it, and why he didn't just go and preemptively strike Iran, but he's not in a political position to just leave Netanyahu high and dry.
He maybe screaming for peace now precisely because he is able to understand generals explain that they can't do much, a message he's likely to believe considering they couldn't even defeat the Houthis. Whether the generals were over enthusiastic or he was overenthusiastic, it's hard to imagine the experience increased his enthusiasm for an air Vs mountain war.
Quoting ssu
I agree with all this.
Iran, like Russia, represents a lot of resources that the neocons can't control, so both they and their predecessors are psychologically damaged by the existence of Iran. They are used to being able to "do something" when they don't like someone or what's happening in a country.
Israel needed an existential enemy to justify its militarism and refusal of a 2 state solution and obstructing any peace process generally speaking. At the same time, by maintaining the conflict with Palestinians and Hezbollah and Iran, they are naturally on friendly terms, then Iran can turn around and say they are therefore Iranian proxies and no peace is possible until Iran is destroyed.
When this dynamic started, Iran didn't even have any ability to strike Israel, but has clearly developed the capacity since, so became a self fulfilling prophecy that Iran became an actual threat which certainly Israeli warhawks ideal scenario is the US go and destroy Iran.
The problem is it's just super difficult to do and the US just has no good reason to do it.
So, what really motivated this Israeli attack on Iran is either magical thinking or then a gamble, mostly for Netanyahu's personal reasons, that clearly hasn't worked. Maybe a case of becoming over confident in what the Mosad can do after the "brilliant success" of blowing up commanders and children with pagers.
Quoting ssu
Yes, further evidence they all know they can't get any good military outcome with Iran.
Just normal friendly blowing up your stuff but totally not a war. Amazing.
Maybe Netanyahu's gamble was that he thought they could show Iran "wasn't so tough" based on the idea that decapitation strikes would cause mass panic and disarray, and also that Israeli missile defence was already "good" and US hand would be forced in providing its own missile defence in the region, so certainly results would be stellar.
If Israel could show the war was easy to win, then Trump would want to come in and mop up.
Not clear why they would think that would happen (seeing as True Promise 1 and 2 already demonstrated Iran can penetrate the missile defences), but could just be old man syndrome of not really understanding technology.
If they only wanted more tensions for domestic political outcomes or distract from Gaza, then they would have started a more limited cycle of strikes and retaliation, such as we saw before but just one notch up.
That's right, Frank. How dare the Jews want to have their own land in their ancestral homeland. I agree -- that's much of what it comes down to. Why can't they just happily subject themselves to Arab rule? The Arabs play nicely. They are merciful rulers with a record of fair treatment towards their minority populations.
How dare those Jews assert themselves? If only they knew they are less, there would be no problems. Their place is under the Muslims. Under the Arabs. And how dare those Nazi Zionists challenge this fact.
It's all short term bullshit. Israel will be a footnote in the history of the 20th Century. A terrible mistake.
Just encountered this channel today.
This guy predicts a ground invasion of Iran by the US:
The reasons being that:
1. Iran wants a US ground invasion
2. Israel wants a US ground invasion
3. American people and military planners don't want a US ground invasion
4. Donald Trump wants a disastrous ground invasion of Iran [i]and[/I] a US civil war at the same time
And therefore, 1, 2, and 4 are going to get what they want.
Interesting point (though very unsure if accurate points), Israel's goal is to help collapse the US empire (such as getting it into an unwindable war with Iran) as it stands to inherit the US military infrastructure in the Middle East and so dominate the region for many generations to come. A sort of Charlemagne to the US's Pax Romana.
It's unclear to me how that would technically work, even just considering the supply chain issues, but certainly some version of it is possible if the entire region is in smouldering ruins.
The whole theory seems far fetched to me, but seems interesting to reflect on.
He also claims to predict history, so we will have to watch his career with great interest.
In other news ...
Quoting Reuters
@BitconnectCarlos, naturally you see lies in there being a "Nakba" or "Palestinians", but the people living in West Bank and Gaza don't see it that way. Besides, these Arabs living in Gaza and the West Bank don't see any prospect of peace because of Likud. Once Likud came into power, the peace process stopped. That's it. And it wasn't anymore the time of Palestinians negotiating, it was the time of Hamas.
With the other side remembering "Nakba" and the other side remembering "The Holocaust", it's no wonder you have a perpetual war.
I'll repeat one anecdote I remember from the times I was in the university. One of the brightest guys that I had started studying economics with was an Finnish reservist NCO who had been a blue beret in Lebanon. Once in the mid 1990's I was sipping beer with him in a student party and the discussion came to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The guy said in the most earnest and straight forward way possible: "There is never going to be peace in the Middle East between Israel and the Arabs." Not in our lifetime.
Looking back thirty years now, his words are still true. Yep, it might have been a conflict that could have come to the end when the Cold War ended, but it didn't. That Oslo peace process might have worked, but it didn't. And we cannot get back to that. And in the end we have this today.
I don't understand what you are saying. Are you listening to Fox News only or what?
Iran is a signing country of the IAEA; it commits to the later's standards, its inspectors, and so on. That's the reason why you know very well where to attack Iran, but you don't know where to attack Israel. Because IAEA has all the info about Iran and Israel and USA use Iran's commitment to international laws & organizations in order to kill it.
It's mind boggling what is happening in this world, but that's the situation we are talking about. The US, UK and EU had these ideas of international cooperation, international organizations, non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, and so on, and the USA are attacking Iran for committing to these norms, while defending Israel that does not recognize any of these norms and treaties.
There have been assumptions that Iran may be surpassing those limits of enriching uranium, but nothing alarming from Iran, till the day that Donald Trump decided to withdraw from the Iran Nuclear Deal Framework.
The reason why Iran is attacked has nothing to do with CNN and Fox News standard coverage, nor with what Trump & other lunatics are saying. Iran is much more committed to international treaties than Israel and Trumpistan.
Iran is attacked for: (1) it is the only country in the Middle East that still stands for a Palestinian State, and (2) somehow for all terrorist attacks on Israel, Iran is considered complicit.
There is some moral/legal justification in trying to stop Iran from 2 (though anyone in the Middle East can sponsor/support terrorists and/or false flag attacks), but there's nothing moral and legal on all the requests Trump & Netanyahu are making on the Iranian regime. They are not telling Iranians give up all support for Houthis & co. They are telling Iran no more uranium enrichment, no more ballistic missiles, and "total surrender".
As Boethius put it: Trump is making diplomacy impossible.
This is what we are talking about: Israel dragging the USA to another immoral/illegal Middle East war, USA blackmailing UK and EU in order to shut up and blame Iran on things that either it is not doing, or it has a right to do.
The Israeli lobby has assumed the duty to inform the American public with honest, educative, historical, legal and moral information through all the news outlets that it controls in this country. This why Americans are worrying now about inspectors who can't reach Iran's nuclear sites :groan:
I understand your point.
My point is that we don't really want to have inflation on the term genocide or it to be a popular derogatory adjective as "fascist" or "nazi" describing something that it isn't. With genocide we are talking about the intent of total destruction of people. Of the two million people in the Gaza strip perhaps 60 000 in truth have been killed. That yet isn't genocide, or it is a very failed attempt of genocide. Do notice that amount hasn't grown even linearly. The real threat is famine, which truly could kill a lot more with a quarter of million people in catastrophic food insecurity and one million emergency condition. That catastrophy has not been initiated yet by Israel. Yet the number 50 000 - 60 000 dead out of two million ought to make it perfectly clear the absolute disregard for human life in this conflict.
Quoting boethius
I don't think that the Bibi administration attempts a peace solution, it is attempting to win the conflict. The Oslo peace process has been dead for decades now.
Quoting boethius
Hear hear! :100: :up: :heart:
Now the clergy that rules of Iran can really go back to the times of the 1980's when it was in war. The idea that Iran's regime would fall because of this is an example of the utter stupidity now so prevalent. I mean really, think of yourself and your country that you live in. If two foreign countries that are thousands of kilometers away from you suddenly started bombing your country, why would your response be to attack your own government? Nope. Iran will try to transition to a wartime economy now.
Quoting boethius
I agree.
Yet you should give a thought here also to why is Iran, of all countries, so hellbent to be against Israel in the first place? Iranians aren't Arabs, they are (mainly) Persians. Iran doesn't have a border with Israel and Israel hasn't taken any of land that is considered part of Iran. One reason might be that the Pahlavi regime was not hostile to Israel (yet not extremely friendly either), but that isn't a reason enough.
The only reason I can understand is that in order to blow wind to the sails of the Iranian Islamic revolution, the Shiites of Iran had to attack Israel to get a following from the Sunni community. Because otherwise the Sunni states wouldn't be so accepting of the Shiite Islamic revolution. It's actually quite similar to the fact that after invading Kuwait, Saddam Hussein was suddenly extremely supportive to the Palestinian cause and lobbed few Scud missiles into Israel, because why not?
Quoting boethius
Well, a lot of countries have a lot of resources that the neocons don't control. International trade is for that. In the end, the resources of some country don't justify war, because those resources never make wars actually profitable as in the end they cost a lot more than just to buy the Goddam resources by trade. Neocons and other imperialists give as reasons the natural resources of some country as a valid reason to invade them, but in the real world this never goes out so simple.
Right now those same people who insisted Trump was better than Biden because at least he was anti-war (no wars under his four years) insist that this shouldnt be surprising, because hes just doing what all presidents have done. Which is true just really two faced to wave it off now.
Maybe its a one-off thing and Iran will restrain itself in its response. Either way its a stupid and dangerous move, and accomplishes nothing. You cant get regime change without ground forces, you cant destroy their nuclear sites, and you wont get them to surrender unconditionally.
The whole thing is stupid and pointless.
I can't blame everything on Likud. One event that sticks in my mind was the Olympic massacre of 1972. That wasn't under Likud. The violence has been there regardless of whether Israel has been liberal or conservative.
When ~1300 are murdered in a day, yes, the Holocaust will be mentioned. By and large, I don't think the Holocaust fuels violence. Any civilization would be devastated if that many of its own were murdered in a day. I think what fuels Israeli violence and paranoia is memories of Arab violence.
Regarding the Holocaust, yes, it bolstered Zionism, but Zionism doesn't delineate how large Israel ought to be. What the Holocaust did teach us is that no matter how advanced or civilized a nation is, anti-Semitism is here to stay. It shattered the Jews' belief that technological progress or social "advancement" is going to vanquish anti-Semitism somehow. Or that assimilation was the solution.
If one night of air strikes or exchanging some artillery fire makes a "war" then Iran is apparently at war with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel, the US, and itself, and seems to be leaning towards declaring war on the rest of its neighbors as its main strategic response (i.e., closing off all its most powerful neighbors main income stream and attacking their civilians at sea) immediately after losing its entire air force, most of its air defenses, and a significant portion of its standoff weapons.
I'm just saying, I'm not going to lose sleep over the people who dream this stuff up not having nuclear weapons, particularly when their country has seemed to teeter on the verge of revolution or civil war the past few years.
How serious are you being here?
Isn't it more that the Trumpets (or many of them) want a cultural revolution?
Only partially. The fact is that Iran, due to the type of foreign policy it pursues, has been involved in combat with the Taliban, significant combat in Iraq, including attacks on US forces over the last several years, major combat operations in Syria, has also been bombed by Pakistan because it allows safe haven to terrorist groups, and IIRC has also had clashes with Azerbaijan, while being in a Cold War that occasionally goes hot with the rest of its neighbors, a proxy war with the Saudis in Yemen, as well as ongoing struggles with secessionist forces and its own populace.
And now, it seems to want to triple down on its failures, given the threat to engage in an overt act of war against its remaining neighbors as a means of somehow indirectly getting back at Israel and the US instead of just accepting that supporting Hamas has been a disastrous policy and accepting defeat (which is already here, and they've already lost Assad and had Hezbollah turn to a separate peace after losing their entire leadership).
Iran pursues something like the regional foreign policy equivalent of the Soviet Union or US at the peak of the Cold War, while having the actual economic and military strength of... well, Iran. From a realpolitik view it's almost incomprehensible.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
When has Iran attacked US forces?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Hamas is alive and well. Its numbers will undoubtably grow after all this. The failure has been the professed goal that was given in justification for genocide Namely the destruction of Hamas.
Sure, the policies have now led to war crimes against Iran, from the Israeli and US governments but I for one admire the solidarity. Same for the Houthis. Standing up against genocide is commendable, regardless of outcome.
Anyway these war crimes have so far accomplished nothing. Its a publicity stunt by the casino-bankrupting moron in office, who couldnt locate Iran on a map with a gun to his head. The lies being told about nuclear weapons are laughable yet its the new weapons of mass destruction line. Guess we never learn our lesson.
Iran has used "proxies" (often actually Iranian forces) to carry out 170 attacks on US bases just since the start of the Gaza War. There were also Iranian forces involved in firing Iranian rockets at Israeli cities from almost the outset of the war until Hezbollah was militarily defeated, so, while this is certainly an escalation, the two have effectively been at war the whole time.
Unsurprisingly, counterstrikes have killed IRGC officers because they are directing the attacks.
I am not saying anything about US policy being good BTW, just that this is part of a larger pattern involving pretty much the entire region, and that from a strategic perspective it seems stupid from the Iranian side to keep doubling down.
In that case, the USs proxy is committing a genocide, and the US itself has been singing Bomb bomb Iran for years, as well as supplying its proxy with weapons and equipment to carry out its war crimes.
I wonder how we would react if Mexico, with the aid of China, decided to take out our top military personnel and bomb our nuclear facilities, simply because they didnt want us having a bomb (even though they have them illegally). Would the reaction be calm and measured?
Media is pretty awful with this stuff too.
We don't hate the Iranians, we hate the Iranian regime which unfortunately has suppressed that beautiful Persian civilization. There are streets in Israel named after great Persian rulers.
"Iran has enriched uranium particles up to just short of weapons grade, placing further pressure on western powers to issue a third censure of Iran at a meeting of the nuclear watchdog board next week."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/28/pressure-on-west-to-act-grows-after-report-on-iranian-uranium-enrichment
You don't think Iran shoulders any blame in this? There's a literal clock in Tehran counting down the days to Israel's predicted destruction. Maybe trying to enrich uranium to weapon's grade while constantly threatening Israel and The Great Satan -ahem- America with death isn't the smartest thing in the world to do?
But they've seemed like rational actors. In the past, they seemed to know where the red line is and walk right up to it without going over. They played us very well during the Iraq occupation. They were responsible for a lot of American soldier deaths and seemed to know how much damage they could inflict without pushing the Bush and Obama Administrations into retaliation.
But this latest move of theirs makes no sense. After 10/7, I don't see Israel allowing Iran to get close to a nuke, and with the election of Trump, Israel now has an ally in their corner capable of just about anything. Why on Earth were they hell bent on uranium enrichment with Bibi and Trump in power?
This!
The IAEA has been unequivocal: such attacks are illegal, dangerous and risk catastrophic radiological fallout. That no disaster has occurred yet is luck, not justification. These acts undermine not just the credibility of the IAEA but the entire non-proliferation regime. You cant uphold the rules while breaking them when it suits you. Whats being set isnt just back Irans programme, its a global precedent: that military force trumps nuclear safeguards.
If the goal was to prevent proliferation, this isnt strategy. Its arson in the name of fire safety.
And why now? Iran has been weeks away from a nuclear bomb for decades if we have to believe everybody ever excusing these strikes on Iran.
If we agree on the basic physical facts, then we are more or less in agreement.
The reason to use the word genocide is that is that the crime of genocide is defined in international law as those acts you're talking about committed with the intent of destroying a people:
Quoting Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
So, once the Nazis started systematic murder with the intent of destroying all the Jews (as well as other groups such as invalids) they were committing genocide. How successful they are at completing the objective would not impact the definition of the crime of genocide. Had they been stopped earlier by the Soviets and only succeeded in killing 50 000 Jews at that point: still genocide.
What is normally the difficult to prove part is the intention. As mass chaos and violence and death can be presented as carried out for some other goal.
For example, the US government will argue that if mass deaths occurred in Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and so on, that the intention was to achieve democracy and not destroy a people, in whole or in part.
Which is of course an entirely plausible argument as we may have many things to critique about US foreign police, the CIA, pentagon, and so on, as well as question whether the intention really is "democracy" or more mundane imperialist objectives, but I think we (definitely you and me, if not others) would certainly agree that the American people and government simply aren't genocidal (in the 21st century; they probably would be if political groups, such as communists, was in the definition of genocide but that was left out exactly to avoid that discussion). Americans, on the whole, simply don't have a culture of wanting to exterminate whole groups of peoples, and that has been reflected in US foreign policy in the 21st century.
Now, in this case of Israel, the "difficult to prove" part is simply not present. Whereas other cases the controversy is concerning the intent, especially institutional intent (such as even controversy of "the proof" that Hitler really did order and know about the Nazi genocide) Israeli culture and Israeli politicians, ministers, generals and so on, openly declare their intent to destroy the Palestinian people, including all the children are also enemies and must be destroyed.
How the laws concerning genocide are written is that the threshold of mass killing to be a genocide is super low (as the goal is to prevent genocide, and so trigger responses at a low threshold) and that the difficult part to prove is the intent..
Israel openly declares their intent to commit genocide, then go and do exactly those genocidal acts (such as mass killing and starvation) that they declared was their plan.
It's like if a murder happens and there's lots of circumstantial evidence pointing at one suspect and a lot that can be debated, plausibly denied, not at all a clear cut case ... but then the murderer keeps on confessing to the murder, keeps on describing exactly how he or she committed the murder, explaining why the murder was necessary and doing everything possible to disambiguate the situation. The debate is over about the circumstantial evidence once someone explains in detail how they committed the murder, why they committed the murder, boasts about committing the murder, and they are the only plausible possible suspect based on the material evidence that does exist (even if not conclusive in itself; maybe one plausible deniability scenario is "an accident" ... well difficult to maintain if the suspect keeps on declaring "it wasn't an accident! I killed that piece of shit!").
Quoting ssu
We are in full agreement on the military analysis.
The only intrinsic advantage (all else being equal) an invading force has is the initial invasion when taking the defenders by surprise, as it's super costly to mobilize if then turns out there is not a war. Furthermore, aggressor can just wait for demobilization and attack then, so it's really not an easy situation for the defenders to be in.
"Easing into" offensive action has zero military advantages as we are seeing.
But obviously all the military planners involved know that so it's difficult to make sense of what exactly the plan was. The only theory that fits all the data is magical thinking driven by Netanyahu's personal problems and enabled by fanatical religious fervour of his political allies.
Quoting ssu
The alternative view is that Iran supports the Palestinian cause due to real sympathies. Since Israel maintains Palestinians as an occupied people without any rights, the Iranian policy to support them doesn't go away. If Israel made a liveable peace with the Palestinians and other neighbours then Iran would no longer be "against them", even if they didn't agree with the peace terms it would no longer be their problem.
Iran also correctly identifies Israel as a Western colonial project with the fundamental goal of dividing Islam, which was explicit Western policy after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The West could have kept the Ottoman Empire intact; there's no intrinsic reason why a polity must be broken up simply due to military defeat; the reason was to remove the possibility of geopolitical competitor from reemerging down the line.
The general strategy of strife and chaos in the Middle East proposed by @Tzeentch is definitely correct; where I have doubts is that recent Israeli actions in Palestine and elsewhere are fully an extension of that policy compared to Israel's own policy (that then rides on and also exploits the Wests general policy).
Quoting ssu
Exactly why I say the US is not pursuing some rational grand strategy from the point of view of some coherent Imperial interest. These resource wars do not accomplish anything and only weaken the US' real power base which is presiding over the global trade system and being generally admired.
The toppest level view of what we see happening, I would propose is that after the fall of the Soviet Union the cold warriors had nothing much to do in any rational US imperial project and so pushed for and succeeded in making new conflicts in order to, more-or-less, entertain their sense of importance. To use a tired analogy, they still had their hands on the Cold War hammers and they couldn't help but use them. A better understanding of what we call Neocons are the more violent faction of the cold warriors who need new violence to find meaning. Hence the desire for full spectrum dominance, war's at all times, such as with Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq again, North Korea, Iran, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and clandestine operations all over the world to control political outcomes.
Of course they need some nominal reason for the war, such as resources, but they obviously have not been profitable wars, but they keep doing it as the real reason is to satiate their psychological need for conflict in which it "feels cool" to get together in secret rooms and discuss what to do; whereas in peace time that just doesn't feel so adrenaline inducing, kind of boring actually. Pathologically psychotic people can only go through the fantasy so many times before they develop the inevitable need to act out the fantasy.
Which brings up an important dynamic of what's happening now, is that the Cold Warriors are all super old, and they can't stop the younger generation slowly taking over (due to things like dying), and so there's now people like Tulsi Gabbard and JD Vance in positions of power, who went and actually fought in the Neocon wars, so regardless of their personal ideology and objectives, they at least live in reality and not the Neocon fantasy. Right now these factions have reached the compromise of "blow at least something up, but not fully engage in a disastrous war; and really big explosions! Fucking HUGE ASS explosions!".
It is evidence that the nuclear facilities are not as significant as claimed, kind of like Saddam's WMD. If you bomb the facility before it's a danger to bomb it, it's a lot safer, but justification is a lot more difficult. If it isn't justifiable, it's oppression.
Stupid strawman from the posturing village idiot. :yawn:
Quoting Wayfarer
:up: Serves no purpose otherwise.
Conflict with China looms, and the US needs to 'cut Iran down to size' so that it cannot exploit the power vacuum the US will leave behind when it fully pivots to Asia.
In addition, sowing chaos in Iran denies China natural resources, and a vital trade corridor to the Middle-East and beyond.
It's really not very complicated - geopolitics hardly ever is. It just requires the proper lens through which to view events.
The window to bully Iran around, as the West has done for nearly a century, is rapidly closing, however. Assuming Iran can keep the regime from rapid collapse, Russia and China will keep it standing.
So we will now see how feasible this US strategy still is.
More importantly, I have doubts about the idea that the US or any non-autocratic state consistently executes long-term strategic plans. Policy is usually shaped by competing interests, shifting administrations and short-term political pressures. Whatever strategy exists tends to be reactive and fragmented rather than unified or coherent.
Thats not to say power dynamics and resource competition dont matter. But treating states as if they act with a single mind and long-term purpose can obscure more than it reveals.
If the claim is that these strikes are part of a broader plan to contain China by weakening Iran, then the burden is on you to explain who is driving that plan, how it is being implemented and why we should assume it is working. Without that, its just a story dressed up as insight.
I'm not sure what you believe is lacking. If you're expecting me to produce hard evidence then obviously I cannot do this - that's simply not how geopolitics works.
I can however point at nearly a century of continuity and explain how what we are currently seeing fits in that historical trend.
If I'm 'telling stories', then everyone here is.
I don't understand the purpose of putting Israel and USA in the same sentence. You make Israel sound like a superpower, when in reality it is a US proxy that came close to death in 1973. From then the USA assumed all the defense and financing of Israel and it has become almost impossible to divide the merits of Mossad/Israel/Idf from the merits of CIA/USA/US Army.
When you speak about Israel, you are speaking about a heavily US/EU funded country, where less than 6 million Jews are contributing to it (cause you have a country with 8 million Israeli citizens, 2 million citizens are Arab and almost 30% ultra-Orthodox Jews who do not seem to contribute too much to the IDF and to the Israeli economy in general), and these less-than-six-million are supposed to occupy 8 million Palestinian Arabs and control a region with more than 200 million Muslims.
To explain you in figures... Those Western Balkan countries (which have similar size with Israel) are considered the poorest in Europe and through that EU Association Pact those countries received last year less that 200 million dollars in aid (each country) from the EU. At the same time, Israel last year received more than 22 billion from the US in aid (18 billion in war-related emergencies and more than 3.4 billion from the yearly allocation that the US Congress has approved for Israel).
In the last 80 years the US has distributed more than 320 billion USD to Israel. Those Western Balkan Countries are considered poor and developing countries, but they seem to get 1% in aid compared with what a "developed & wealthy" Israel gets from the USA.
To conclude, all that Iran-Israel conflict breaks down to foreign aid and sanctions. You have a country that is heavily sanctioned in the last 40 years and a country that is heavily funded in the last 50 years. When you sanction one country and arm/help the other one, this hatred and revenge seeking toward Israel from its neighbors shouldn't surprise you.
USA, UK and EU need a new approach in that region.
That said, I think it's a mistake to describe US policy as a singular, calculated engine of empire. American foreign policy is reactive, divided across institutions and often contradictory. There's strategy, yes, but its wrapped in election cycles, congressional theatre and real limitations. Thats not genius, its inertia.
And while regime change is often assumed as a goal, the political appetite for that kind of project has collapsed since Iraq. Iran is not an easy target. It is resilient, domestically complex and deeply embedded in regional networks. Sabotage and sanctions are likelier than a ground invasion or occupation.
If we want to critique US strategy in the Middle East, the most credible line is not that it's wickedly brilliant, but that its short-sighted, expensive and structurally inflexible in a world thats rapidly changing.
Examples of shortsightedness are
1. the 2003 Iraq War on tha bsis of fake WMDs with long-term consequences such as regional instabiilty, ISIS and Iran's rise in Iraq. This was absolutely not adequately planned for.
2. Afghanistan was left without a stable government after 20 year; long-term presence does not equate to long-term planning.
The US has spent 8 trillion USD posy-9/11, primarily in the Middle East and then there's the indirect costs of veteran care, interest on war debt and diverted funding from what US people actually need.
We also see path dependency; one's a policy track is chosen, reversing it becomes politically and logistically difficult.
But it does have a strategy that accounts for basic geopolitical realities. That already seems to surpass the scope of the vast majority of people, who do not go beyond simple narratives of "us good, them bad", "Israel has a right to self-defense", "The evil jew lobby rules the US", etc. - so apparently it's brilliant enough to keep 95% of people in the dark about basic US goals.
At the same time, I would not underestimate the United States. It is easy to look at US Middle-East policy as a string of failures, but if we assume the goal was and is to sow chaos (in other words, deny to the enemy that which cannot be directly controlled) it shows a different picture.
Such foreign policy goals would obviously be impossible to explain domestically and internationally, hence they could never be said out loud. I would point to historical continuity as an indicator that such a policy is indeed in place.
There is a long list of countries that underestimated the United States' capacity for Machiavellianism and cloak & dagger practices, and that suffered the ultimate price for it.
As I've said before, I'll believe the US has met decisive failure once it starts to suffer serious blowback. Currently, that isn't happening. It always manages to export the cost of failure to its "friends".
That's for sure. Iran needs to stop being a theocratic terrorist exporting shithole hell bent on acquiring weapons grade uranium. Why are they enriching far beyond what they need for commercial applications? What is the benign explanation for that? Are they not interested in nukes, but trying to run a bluff to get diplomatic goodies from the international community? I think that principles of MAD apply to Iran and they're not suicidal, so a nuclear armed Iran could be lived with, but I also understand Israel not necessarily agreeing with that assessment and concluding Iran really would try and take out Tel Aviv.
I brought this up earlier, but you ignored it: there is a literal clock in Tehran counting down to the predicted destruction of Israel, said prediction made by the current Ayatollah.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/iranian-outlet-publishes-footage-of-israel-doomsday-clock-that-idf-said-it-destroyed/
Why on Earth would Israel let the Iranian regime get close to a nuke if they have a decent chance of stopping or delaying them? A ruler of Israel ignoring such a threat would be guilty of dereliction of duty.
Missiles on the way according to random social media posts.
Honestly have no idea what's real and what's AI though, we'll have to wait confirmation .... just confirmed on CNN, so seems happening.
Concerning this retaliation, one of the most important details is that it comes after Iran's foreign minister meeting with Putin (I think literally this morning).
This is Russia-China's opportunity to essentially unseat the US as the world's leading power.
I feel it unlikely that it is simply face saving, because they could just keep hitting Israel if they didn't want further escalation with the US.
They don't need to "show strength" (both domestically and internationally) by hitting the US, as they can just keep hitting Israel with more missiles to accomplish that.
If they didn't want further escalation they would just repeat JD Vance's "we're not at war" and be like ... cool
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06/23/world/iran-trump-israel-news/82bf4cc2-e1b6-52cf-be4f-18c58b88975c?smid=url-share
Looks like we were right. It was all just symbolic.
How would that happen? Nothing going on in the Middle East will change the fact the U.S. military is the strongest in the world, the U.S. economy the richest in the world.
"Air raid sirens sounded in Bahrain, a Gulf State very close to Qatar, several resident have confirmed. The U.S. Fifth Fleet is headquartered Bahrain. The countrys interior ministry has asked citizens and residents to remain calm and head to the nearest safe place, according to a statement posted on X.'
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06/23/world/iran-trump-israel-news
Iran may want to keep things as friendly as possible with the gulf states, but nevertheless escalate with the US.
So giving advance warning to Qatar isn't necessarily indicative.
Also, if you don't want to escalate with the US, you don't need any symbolic strikes at all in this situation (as that anyways risks further escalation), as you can just keep striking Israel to demonstrate capability and willingness to strike things.
It could be some weird logic or then part of some negotiated theatre with the US (give Trump a further optics win of "they could do nothing! nothing!").
But weird logic and diplomacy scenarios seem unlikely as trust and diplomacy with the US is at zero.
Trump is also erratic and unpredictable so there would be no way to be certain that Trump would view retaliation as symbolic, or not take extreme issue with the symbol anyways; he's already used extreme language about any potential Iranian retaliation. Therefore, if you want to avoid escalation you'd probably conclude you simply don't need to strike US bases at all, and just keep hitting Israel, if keeping it localized is the goal.
If you want to keep it local with Israel but want to deter further US strikes ... then you need real deterrence and not a weak symbol (which just invites more strikes), so you'd want to sent US service people back in boxes, show trump the domestic political consequences of further war.
Quoting RogueAI
If Iran "wins" this war with Israel it is a massive boost for Russia's and China's lead counter-order, further eroding US credibility. However, it's only a proxy failing, like Ukraine, and the US empire could "put it behind us". So would be a big victory for Iran, but further improve Russia and China's position as being able to credibly back opposition to the US.
However, if the US went all in on Iran and then Iran won a conflict directly with the US, that would be a fatal embarrassment to US power and technology, as well as massive damage to US stockpiles, military and domestic moral etc.
Americans coming back in boxes in an unpopular war that in addition America loses, would be catastrophically different than just Israel losing the war with Iran.
Of course, they would still need to win the war with Israel and then the US to realize such geopolitical gainz.
So, I'm not saying that's what they want to do, but if they think they could "defeat" the American war system in Iran, then the firs step is to take advantage of US striking Iran to escalate with the US.
Obviously, escalating with the US isn't good for actual Iranian citizens; that should go without saying.
Iran is not going to militarily win against Israel and/or America. They are being bombed at will at this point. Their retaliation against Israel has some bite to it, but it's like the V2 rocket attacks against Britain at the end of WW2: strategically meaningless terror attacks. Iran's retaliation against America so far has been like the weak pawing of a cornered rabbit. Their strongest gambit would be to disrupt shipping, but then they would have the whole world against them.
Bombs don't win wars. Since Israel attacked Iran first and its objective is regime change, if Iran survives that's a win for Iran in this context.
This claim that Israel has air supremacy and flying over Iran at will I find incredulous, as then we'd see ballistic missiles being intercepted in the boost phase, which I've seen no evidence of.
What I find more likely is that Iran is using its air defences to cover ballistic missile launches and letting Israel bomb non-critical military asset as much as it wants. Everything military-critical in Iran is under ground ... so Israel bombing the surface is mostly just attritting Israel capacity. Any fixed asset Israel could just strike with a standoff weapon if you did manage to deny the air space to aircraft (i.e. there's no point expending surface-to-air missiles and exposing radar to protect fixed assets on the surface; even if you were successful they just send cruise or ballistic missiles of their own). Concrete buildings cannot only be rebuilt (mostly at lower cost than Israel spends to blow them up), but they aren't assets critical to war fighting so it doesn't impact the war outcome anyways.
Iran is huge, the surface area and mountainous region of essentially one entire Rocky Mountain chain in addition to one whole France, so Iran will focus air defence to ensure ballistic missile launches aren't intercepted in boost phase.
They would turn their radars on to check for planes, and reserve their anti-air capability for any planes that come at them. If there are no planes, they can launch, if planes come at them to intercept launch they don't launch and try to take down the planes. If they have established successful air denial bubbles (i.e. SEAD), those won't cover much of Iran, so Israel can still go around bombing plenty of other stuff, as well as use plenty of standoff missiles systems to make strikes anyways even covered by air denial systems.
However, regardless of Iran anti-air capability, Russia and China have far more than Iran. If you keep supplying Iran with radars and missiles, you'll eventually find ways to take down US planes and then keep doing it even if those systems get destroyed also. Iran may have a limited anti-air stock, but Russia and China can provide far more equipment and missiles. And they can keep producing them and resupplying Iran even for years! Could be the Ukraine of the air that we're still talking about in 3 years time!
Israel and the US have flipped the on-switch to war with Iran, nothing can force Iran to switch it off other than actual defeat, which would likely require a ground invasion and millions of troops. It is to Russia and China's advantage that Iran simply never switch the war off, not their fault there's a war, and so Russia and China maybe quite persuasive in their reassurances.
Iran also has reasons to never switch off the war, in that Israel may just attack them again later so letting them recover serves no military or political purpose.
If peace with Israel is not possible, because they keep on assassinating lead negotiators for example, then Israel turning on a formal war is a better state of affairs.
Since Israel air capacity is limited (for example compared to the US), the smart thing to do (considering the US may join the war), is to collect as much signal intelligence on the F-35 and prepare a giant air battle if and when the US joins the war.
That Israel can blow up concrete buildings meantime, assassinate a few professors and commanders and the like, is a reasonable cost to pay.
In order to "win" against a US lead air war, Iran will need to prevent the US from establishing true air supremacy to carry out a truly massive bombing campaign. As we see with Russia-Ukraine, even with limited resources (that are continuously re-supplied by the West) Ukraine can prevent Russia from establishing air supremacy and this is how Ukraine can stay in the fight.
If Iran (with Russian and Chinese backing) can make a similar situation in Iran, of limiting the US to standoff strikes, then they essentially "win", as there isn't even a ground game and nothing much is going to be accomplished with only standoff munitions against a country of 90 million people.
Of course, maybe stealth is essentially magical technology that nothing can touch.
But, assuming Russia and China have carefully studied this technology and are confident they have systems that can defeat it, then enticing the US into a giant air battle over Iran and defeating the US, would be an absolutely massive geopolitical shift.
Therefore, Russia and China, assuming they have geopolitical ambitions, would be preparing with Iran for such an air war and then to sustain it with resupply (which is super easy to do considering Iran connected to Russia by the Caspian).
Considering Iran would be in a far worse position if it were to completely lose control of the air -- so its missiles intercepted in boost phase and susceptible to way more bombing and interdiction of everything it does -- if I was Iran I would only escalate with the US if I had reassurance from Russia and China that they will supply air defence systems for a giant air battle and then long term battle of air attrition.
Without such an assurance, I would try to keep the conflict limited to Israel, inflict maximum damage over the short term, and deplete their air defence to make the susceptible to drones. In a mutually missile-depleted scenario, Iran has a massive advantage due to being far larger in surface area and population.
https://www.nbcnews.com/world/middle-east/live-blog/live-updates-iran-top-diplomat-meets-putin-us-braces-retaliation-rcna214428#rcrd83379
"Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan condemned Iran's attack on the Al Udeid military base in Qatar, according to statements from the countries' ministry of foreign affairs."
Yes that's the spirit.
Obviously the Iranian people don't win in such a situation.
Quoting RogueAI
Then why don't we see ballistic missiles being intercepted in boost phase? If you have air supremacy, you can just fly around and B-line to any ballistic missile launch and shoot at those missiles when most vulnerable.
That's not happening, so my conclusion is Iran is able to deny airspace to cover their ballistic missile launches. If they have sufficient deterrence, Israeli planes would just leave the area. If they didn't have deterrence, Israeli planes would be hunting for launches of ballistic missiles.
However, regardless of Iran's capability, Russia and China can supply more, and I don't know what Iran's plan is or decision making criteria. All I can say is that if I was making decisions for Iran I wouldn't escalate with the US unless I had assurances of anti-air supply from Russia and China.
Now, I have not said that what follows from all my points is that Iran will therefore win an air war with the US.
My main points are:
1. If Iran is trying to escalate, or even simply risking escalation, with the US, it's only a reasonable thing to do with in a state of belief that Iran will be supplied with air defence from Russia and China (that they "got their back") and also in the state of belief that those systems will work.
2. All Iranian critical military assets are under ground, so Iran maybe preserving anti-air capability. They clearly have a lot of ballistic missiles that work, so they may have also a lot of anti-air missiles.
Of course, there are other potential explanations for Iran's actions, and it's possible that no system on the planet could defeat US air power.
However, if you were Russia and China, defeating the US in a large air battle would be something you would probably want to do, so they may try. If the cost are to Iran, they may have little reason not to give it a go.
We'll have to see how Trump responds.
Why I (personally) would avoid such an attack if I wanted to avoid escalation, is that Trump may anyways react to the "symbol" the same as a non-symbolic attack.
And if you reached out to the US to try to be reassured that your symbolic attack won't cause further escalation ... how exactly would you trust anything the US says about it?
To me, situation seems beyond trading symbols, but I definitely could be wrong. We'll have to see what Trump does tomorrow to see what direction things are going in.
In addition to this attack, Iran is still striking Israel, so pressure is anyways quite high to go to war with Iran, so why add a symbol to the mix if you wanted to deescalate.
So faced with these kinds of statements, you'd find some other non-attacking-US way to retaliate if you wanted to avoid escalation.
If you don't want to avoid escalation, then that would only be reasonable with assurances from Russia, such as may have been provided in the Putin's meeting with the Iranian foreign minister this morning, on the subject of air defence.
Regardless of the state of Iran's current air defence system, Russia can provide more. Just as Russia essentially wiped out Ukrainian air defences in the first days of the war and had air supremacy, but then with the West's help Ukraine started to regain air deterrence, shot a few planes down, pushed Russia's planes back to operating behind the line of contact, Russia could potentially do (assuming their systems are good enough) the same to the US in Iran.
I've long wondered whether this option was being considered, but I assumed this was too hot considering the taboo on nuclear proliferation.
Medvedev has a reputation for making extreme statements, though. It's hard to say whether they're actually serious or just looking to provoke chaos/a reaction in the US-Israeli camp.
US and Israel have teased if not directly threatened nuclear weapons use, so Medvedev / Russia is at minimum just counter threatening for the deterrent effect.
Obviously threatening nuclear weapons use is not some sort of special right of the US and Israel and others can do it too.
Israel and the US need to take into consideration that Iran is supplied with nuclear weapons, including North Korean, but also needs to take into account that even after a nuclear strike on Iran that Iran could nevertheless complete development of a nuclear weapon and strike back. It would be diplomatically horrendous obviously for Israel to strike Iran with nuclear weapons, but that may not even prevent Iran developing nukes of their own and counter-striking.
Without nuclear weapons, I really don't see how Israel could potentially resolve things on their own. When your opening move is assassinating negotiators, it's difficult to declare that everyone had fun and to just call it a day.
If the US also can't force a resolution due to anti-air supply by Russia and China, very quickly the only option left is nuclear weapons.
If Iran (and Russia and co.) can successfully deter Israel from using nuclear weapons then it's really not in a good position.
"Most importantly, theyve gotten it all out of their system, and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE. I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured,"
I had to verify it directly on Truth Social, be sure it's not a prank, full message:
If this is true, turns out the code is that ALL CAPS is a bluff (that's likely to work because ... all caps, what can you do) and normal punctuation is supposed to be trustworthy.
Wars over, CONGRATULATIONS WORLD, ITS TIME FOR PEACE!
Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Honestly, I think we can go ahead and wrap up this whole philosophy business.
Weak and pathetic would be Iran unable to strike Israel: missiles intercepted, launchers interdicted, no common and control.
Iran is defeating Israel and US missile defence.
As for this recent attack on US bases, seems the gamble was Trump would take that as a win and not escalate further. In this sort of escalation game, doing nothing keeps the tension, so once you've "responded" then the other side has the option to deescalate.
However, Iran sent missiles, I heard 40 missiles but it's hard to verify, at Israel as an immediate response.
Iran has demonstrated it can survive mass assassination of commanders and then retaliate the same day (after Israel's initial strike), keep hitting Israel everyday, defeat missile defences of US and Israel, clearly manage to deal with continued covert activity in Iran, and generally unite the people.
If this is the end of US involvement, then Iran in the final analysis Iran deterred further US involvement and can keep striking Israel to missile exhaustion, and once that happens Iran can produce cheap drones to keep sending at Israel as well as the odd ballistic missile.
Israel has no advantageous end game it can perform by itself (nuclear weapons being not exactly advantageous).
The situation is difficult to evaluate as there's strict censorship now in both Iran and Israel, so it's difficult to know what's going on, but we do know Iran can and is continuing to strike Israel and Israel missile defences and air power can't do anything about that.
So already a massive win for Iran, even if more Iranians have died.
I honestly had zero clue if Iranian ballistic missiles would work as intended, that they could manage to fire them off, and in large numbers day after day. It's impressive. Not easy.
:lol:
I don't know what information you have been following, but Israel's initial decapitation strike did not work; commanders were replaced, Iran retaliated. Sure, people died but their replacements maybe more effective.
Then Iran has struck Israel with missiles and drones every single day since. If Israel owns the skies over Iran, why aren't they able to disrupt and suppress that?
Iran defeated US and Israeli missile defence, about 5 layers, day 1 and even that level of performance (that does not prevent missiles falling) cannot possibly be sustained.
The reports are Iran has successfully moved all of its enriched uranium and critical enrichment equipment to safer locations.
Israel can strike Iran too, sure, but nothing of critical military importance (which is all under ground).
And considering everything important is under ground, what would actually have a chance of seriously disrupting Iran's military capability would be mass bunker bustering. If the US is now out of the war after dropping 6 giant bombs on non-military-critical civilian infrastructure, that means Iran is basically military safe.
Israel can destroy civilian infrastructure, including prisons for some reason, but that doesn't degrade Iranian military capability and is basically just wasting ammunition, and Iran can destroy civilian infrastructure too.
Maersk has paused going to Haifa; that is a pretty big disruption.
And in the long term view, this sort of war is far more damaging to Israel's economy than it is Iran, not simply because Israel is smaller in size and population, but Israel is driven by the high tech sector and there's not only destruction of laboratories Iran has already achieved but this sort of long term disruption causes many "knowledge workers" to leave, along with lots of other duel citizens. Iranians, on the other hand, aren't going anywhere and the oil will still be in the ground when the war ends.
Oh, I dont agree with that. I think the disabling of the Iranian nuclear capacity is crucial. My point rather was scepticism about Trumps motivation.
Every Israeli that leaves Israel and doesn't return is a fatality in economic terms.
Israel hans't banned people from leaving (except rich people on boats) because people are excited to stay. That's the biggest win Iran is achieving in terms of security metrics. Less Israeli population, less power, less skills, less threat in the future. And this economic cost of missiles blowing up infrastructure, laboratories, ports, disrupting normal life, removing the "sense of Western style safety", is in addition to the economic costs Israel had already incurred due to operations in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, along with boycotts due to those actions.
Israel is a small country that has millions of citizens with duel nationality that can easily leave, in addition to something like a million ultra-orthodox citizens who don't serve in the military and many don't really work, then there's the Arab population that are there but not necessarily committed to the Zionist project.
It is in no way disabled.
The main capability is the designs needed to enrich uranium; those obviously aren't destroyed.
Iran has developed multiple generations of homegrown enrichment designs and expertise. This sort of technology is really finicky and you need trial and error to optimize things.
In addition, there's no indication that Iran's stockpile of 60% enriched uranium is destroyed, so it's safe somewhere. Enriching to 90% only requires 20% of the energy using the same centrifuge technology (you just run it for longer to get to 90%), which all indications are Iran moved to safe locations before these strikes.
Iran also has its own uranium mines. So, it has the knowledge and expertise needed to enrich uranium to weapons grade and also has the uranium.
Therefore, the only ways to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon would be by agreement or invasion and occupation.
Dropping bombs, but not invading, is the best way to guarantee Iran develops nuclear weapons.
But for their proxies in Gaza being annihilated, their nuclear facilities being devastated, their being under attack by the strongest military force on the planet, their enemy being a 3,000 year old civilization that is relentless, and that they agreed to a cease fire, Iran's got them just where they want them.
They havent.
Quoting Hanover
They havent.
Quoting Hanover
True by air, not on the ground.
Quoting Hanover
You mean a government that is psychopathic and genocidal. True.
I wouldnt say Iran has won anything. Except perhaps bringing China and Russia closer to them. But most of these US/Israeli war crimes have been largely stupid and ineffective, especially if the goal was regime change or stopping the pursuit of nuclear weapons. Otherwise, theyve made great political theater for Trump and Netanyahu.
And they havent done that. So what was the point?
We don't know that. Just as I wouldn't necessarily believe that their capability has been eliminated, there's also no reason to think it's survived. And I think you're over-estimating the resilience of the regime. They've had many of their top scientists eliminated and whether or not they succeeded in saving some enriched product, their manufacturing base has been hugely diminished. They're already in deep shit economically and isolated politically and militarily. And as much as I dislike Trump, I think the US has the upper hand. If - big if - Iran and Israel do agree to the ceasefire that Trump has (perhaps prematurely) announced, I don't think Iran is going to be in a position to dictate any terms.
Just think about it for a minute. Even if they took out all sites and materials, which they havent, Iran still have the knowledge to do so, and now an even greater incentive to start again with deeper bunkers. So what was the achievement?
Quoting Wayfarer
And you know this how? Theyve been damaged, but now theyll be more determined than ever and their powerful allies can very easily help. Its unlikely that Russia or China simply give them nuclear weapons (although Pakistan is a question mark), but they can certainly help the country rebuild militarily and economically.
So the regime change is a fail, the nuclear destruction is bullshit media propaganda, and really nothing has been accomplished beyond taking out some military leaders who will be replaced. This was an Israeli war crime and they sucked the US in as well. Much like the Gaza genocide (Were eradicating Hamas), this is a total failure and will only make Israel less safe and their enemies more determined and numerous.
Rooting for? This isnt the World Wrestling Federation, sorry.
The US has had the upper hand in this for a while but that hasn't really changed the calculus when it comes to the Iranian negotiating position. And there's also the matter that the Israelis won't trust whatever promise to never make nukes they may agree to.
Quoting Mikie
Unfortunately this will probably be the new argument that the neocons and the Israelis will use to convince the US to get involved further. There's no point in leaving Iran to rebuild their nuclear capacity after everything that just happened to them so a regime change operation is the only necessary course of action to truly secure peace. There is a very good chance that the Iranians moved their stockpiles and they have probably decided that getting a nuclear weapon is the only reasonable way to get deterrence.
This goes back to the question of whether Iran is rational or not. I believe they're rational. They haven't disrupted shipping, they made a pathetic face-saving attack on the U.S., and their terrorist proxies have been silent (but that could be because they've been decimated). Rational regimes respond to rewards and punishments and Iran has just been punished severely. I doubt the 85 year old Ayatollah wants to spend the rest of his life in hiding. Other top officials and generals certainly don't want to be killed in future air strikes. Israel has shown that no one is safe. They can get you with a beeper or they can get you with a plane. If you're Iran, at this point, don't you just say, "fuck it, the nuke's not worth it"?
Or they can look at their neighbors who aren't getting bombed and just abandon the nuke program.
What neocons? Who are you talking about?
Yes, it does. After Gulf War 1, if Iraq had been completely transparent about the end of it's WMD program and destruction of all it's WMD"s, do you think they still would have been invaded?
America did not perceive Iraq to be an existential threat. Condi Rice talked about mushroom clouds, but nobody believed Iraq could end the country. If Iran got nukes, otoh, and took out Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and Haifa, could Israel come back from that? There's a case to be made that a nuclear Iran really could end Israel's existence.
Yes because the US would've fabricated another lie instead.
Quoting RogueAI
And this is why I think the Israelis will push for war until the regime collapses. The reason why they won't accept the Iranians getting a nuke is because of their government. Iran getting rid of a nuclear deterrent will make them more vulnerable.
He didn't throw the regime, he didn't destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities, he didn't make Iran commit to abandoning terrorists. The only thing Netanyahu achieved was killing more than 700 Iranians and exposing the flaws of the Iron Dome.
Insofar as Khamenei didn't back up from anything, Iran got stronger from this war and will free itself from any IAEA non-proliferation obligations, with the help of Pakistan I guess.
I think the US knew Saddam couldn't back down. After the war, Wolfowitz explained that the point was to democratize the Middle East starting with Iraq. That was supposed to basically give al Qaeda what they wanted, so no more 9-11 style attacks.
All that thinking is in the past now. I don't think Trump entertains any middle eastern strategy.
Yes, because there's a literal clock in Tehran counting down to the prophesized destruction of Israel. Maybe stop doing stuff like that?
Quoting Mr Bee
They don't have a nuclear deterrent, that's their problem! You're arguing that Iran will think, 'if we just had nukes, we wouldn't be getting slapped around like this' but there are three objections to this:
1) The cost of pursuing a nuclear weapon has just been made prohibitively more expensive and dangerous. America and Israel aren't doing regime change, but that can easily change if Iran doesn't mend their ways. Upper echelon military and political leaders now know that their lives are expendable.
2) It's not enough to build a nuke. In order to have a credible deterrent, a nuke has to be successfully tested. So, what happens if it doesn't work right? A fizzile, in other words. Well, now Iran is truly screwed, because Israel and the U.S. really will decapitate the ruling regime and Iran has no credible deterrant.
3) Even if Iran successfully tests a nuke, what is Israel's best strategic move? Prevent Iran from getting more nukes. Regime change. And their buddy Trump will probably go along with it.
If you're Iran, isn't the best move to give up on enrichment and take your chances with diplomacy?
Every illegal attack, like the two we've recently witnessed, is an argument for them to pursue a nuclear bomb as that is the only weapon that truly acts like a deterrent. That's rather obvious.
That was undoubtedly part of it, but remember that almost all of the hijackers came from SA, and we haven't done a thing to them.
Quoting frank
The nonAmericans here don't understand this. They think Trump and Americans are just itching to take out Iran. Instead, we're looking at what Trump is doing like someone watching a horror movie with their hands over their face. It's worked out well enough for Trump so far, but there is zero appetite in the U.S. for another Middle East adventure. Trump's attempts at playing peace maker now are laughably transparent. He doesn't want to invade or keep bombing. He wants Iran to suck up to us so we can make money and build condos in Tehran.
I don't think it is obvious. Many of you here are having a very hard time putting yourselves in Israel's shoes and seeing the culpability of Iran here. If you constantly threaten the annihilation of the strongest kid on the block, and fund terrorist proxies to go after him, and you're now scheming to get your hands on a new big weapon...might the problem be you?
Iran is a large country, rich in oil, with strong allies, with a large, well-educated population, situated on a geopolitically critical region of the world.
These are the basic building blocks of a regional power.
Unless it is constantly hamstrung, it will escape the US intervention window and easily surpass Israel in terms of geopolitical power. It doesn't even need WMDs for that.
That's what the past century of US-Israeli policy have been about: preventing Iran from developing into a regional power. All the rest is bullshit.
Your original point was that they should just abandon their nuke program and everything would be fine for them.
Quoting RogueAI
And the cost of not having a nuclear weapon has also been made more clear to other countries adding to the examples of Iraq and Libya.
Quoting RogueAI
Which isn't much different from what they're doing now, particularly in Israel's case.
Quoting RogueAI
Their best strategic move is to not to recklessly anger another nuclear power. North Korea also demonizes the Americans regularly and guess what, nobody is messing with them because they actually have a bomb.
Quoting RogueAI
Maybe, if they didn't try diplomacy 10 years ago and got a deal that was eventually ripped up before getting bombed anyways.
Wolfowitz believed democracy would spread outward from Iraq and eventually change SA. He had witnessed this in SE Asia, and so thought would happen in the Middle East as well.
Quoting RogueAI
I can see why it would be difficult to grasp that American involvement is really just that Trump saw Israel winning and wanted to get in on the victory feels.
Quoting RogueAI
:grin: I read the NY Times, but I avoid news otherwise. I just don't want to hear about Trump.
You think you're seeing regime change? We've seen America do regime change. This is not regime change. I don't think Israel is doing it either. I think they could decapitate Iran if they really wanted to, but they don't want that. Yet. Israel could be much more ruthless than they currently are.
Quoting Mr Bee
Nobody messed with N. Korea before they had the bomb. They just kind of fester there on the Korean Peninsula.
Do you think Israel would allow the current regime to acquire a bomb and stay in power?
Well, he's the president. And we're attacking another country! How do you avoid it??? The NYTimes is solid, though.
What is a common thread is how Israeli governments under Netanyahu have repeatedly used this so-called threat to unite internally, secure foreign aid and justify committing war crimes again.
Israel certainly is going beyond just targeting Iran's nukes in it's strikes. Given Netanyahu's constant messages calling on the Iranians to rise up against their unpopular regime, he certaintly is trying to topple the regime also. As far as I can tell they were also planning to do a decapitation but according to reports (which could very well be false) they were told not to by the Americans.
Quoting RogueAI
And they likely never will because they have a bomb. As big and powerful as the US is it can't get in the business of every country at once, and it certainly won't get involved when those other countries can strike back with a nuclear weapon. North Korea acquired nukes as the US was invading Iraq, you know, when you would've thought that the "cost of pursuing nuclear weapons" with Iraq being made an example would've deterred them.
"Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, a confidential report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Saturday. In a separate report, the agency called on Tehran to urgently change course and comply with its years-long probe."
https://apnews.com/article/iran-nuclear-iaea-uranium-7f6c9962c1e4199e951559096bcf5cc0
Why is Iran doing that?
But "all the rest is bullshit" is not analysis. US foreign policy is not the product of a unified long-term strategy. Its the outcome of bureaucratic drift, lobbying, shifting administrations and often contradictory goals. At different times the US has supported and opposed Iran. It has sanctioned Iran while supplying arms to Iran (see: Iran-Contra affair).
If preventing Iran from becoming a regional power were the only goal, why allow Saudi Arabia to brutalise Yemen or flood the region with Salafi militias? Why oscillate on Syria?
The NYTimes has been on the cool aid since everyone kissed the ring last November.
Kool aid, with a k. What Kool aid are you talking about?
Well they realised the U.S. and Israel couldnt be trusted when Trump tore up the deal with Iran in 2016. This point became inevitable then. So much winning.
The one where you dont criticise what Trump is doing and treat him as a credible leader rather than a clown.
Lol
Quoting Benkei
Yes.
Quoting Benkei
There hasn't been nuclear fallout, there won't be nuclear fallout. Now, do Israel and America have the right to bomb Iran? Depends. What are Iran's intentions? What are they saying? What are their plans? Death to Israel and America! Well, then. What did Iran think would happen?
Quoting Benkei
If someone keeps threatening to annihilate you, and has a clock on display counting down the days to your annihilation, maybe your enemies will take you seriously on that?
I see. So, the NYTimes is drinking the Trump Koolaid. Is that what you're claiming?
What I've described is the red thread that characterizes a century of US involvement with Iran.
US actions vis-á-vis other nations in the region have their own logic to them (and sometimes the logic conflicts). US involvement with Saudi-Arabia however is almost entirely based around using them to balance Iran - this is basic balance of power politics.
Yes, they all are, every establishment is. Theres no credible opposition left, cant you see that yet.
That has been luck. Read the IAEA reports and statements on attacking nuclear sites.
Quoting RogueAI
No. Also, you're assuming a lot of things Iran supposedly says but they've never said because you like to lap up propaganda instead of fact check things. First of all, Ayatollah Khomeini in 2005 said "This regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." The original phrase (??? ???? ??????? ??? ???? ?? ???? ?????? ??? ???) has been repeatedly translated as "wiped form the face of the earth" but arises from a wrong translation.
Quoting RogueAI
Ah yes, the symbolic clock that everybody loves to interpret as a military countdown. In 2015 Khameini said "I'd say that they will not see the next 25 years". It's counting down until 2040. The clock is internal propaganda rooted in their belief Israel's regional dominance is unsustainable.
Finally, Iran's official line is that the Zionist regime is illegitimate and should be replaced. What is meant by that becomes clearer if you look at the repeated calls for a referendum among all original inhabitants of Palestine: Muslims, Christians, Jews and Palestinian refugees as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a dismantling of the "Zionist regime". (He's said this in 2000, twice in 2012 and most recently in 2020).
To be clear, Zionism is understood as the movement to acquire an Israel from the West Bank to the sea as included in Likud's charter (and Herut before it). If anybody in that area is hell bent on destroying anything, it's Israel with respect to the Palestinian lands and this should be resisted by everyone who cares about any type of international order.
Once again: prove they are suicidal or irrational and you have a case.
1. We've seen doctrinal shifts as follows: Bush's axis of evil, then we saw Obama's JCPOA, then Trump's withdrawal, Biden's wishy-washy approach and now again Trump going on the attack.
2. The 1953 coup was Cold War containment not aimed at suppressing Iranian power. Since the 1979 revolution I don't see a unified strategy, instead shifting between confrontation and limited engagement.
3. During the Iraq war, the US basically handed Baghdad to pro-Iranian forces.
4. Your analysis also ignores lobbying by regional states like SA and Israel. It's client politics not puppet mastery.
Iran's containment, for what it's been, has been tactical not an absolute goal. An alternative view (which I consider more likely) recognizes containment as a recurring motif but not a coherent doctrine. US policy toward Iran has been shaped and distorted by domestic political cycles, institutional fragmentation and pressure from regional allies. What results is not a clean or consistent strategy of suppression but a messy and contradictory exercise in reactive hegemony, where containment competes with other priorities like energy security, counterterrorism, alliance management and electoral optics. Irans rise has been resisted but never with the kind of strategic clarity your version assumes.
Palestinians did not protect Iran, but Iran tried to protest Palestinians from genocide. First of all.
The nuclear facilities are civilian facilities, everything important was already moved out or can anyways be rebuilt. At least one influential faction in the Iranian military has been pushing for the development of nuclear weapons, they wouldn't do that in civilian facilities.
The civilian program (in terms of weapons development) is only needed to develop enrichment designs, not even equipment. This stuff isn't very large, it can easily be built anywhere (such as a military bunker), and Iran has Uranian mines so all it needs is understanding the enrichment technology, which they have done by developing about 6 generations of centrifuges.
Each generation of centrifuge is more efficient than the last, and more efficiency means you need either less machines or less time, and in both cases less energy.
They already have enriched to 60% which in terms of time and energy is 80% the way to weapons grade (the enrichment is more efficient the more enriched you go).
The limiting factor for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon since decades is not technology but diplomacy.
Iran needs to project stability and rationality to its partners, such as Russia, and that's done by being stable and rational. Now, simply capitulating on civilian nuclear development is not stable and rational and is terrible diplomacy vis-a-vis Russia as Russia maintains non-Western states have the same sovereignty and can develop civilian nuclear programs (Russia also sell civilian nuclear programs); and it doesn't even increase stability because having the capacity to develop a nuclear weapon and counter-strike Israel is a better deterrent than having no capacity. However, rushing to develop a nuclear weapon out-of-the-blue is also not stable or good diplomacy. Russia would likely join in sanctioning Iran as it's simple destabilizing and would lead to accelerated proliferation (Saudi Arabia getting the bomb etc.) if not a nuclear first strike by Israel.
So, for decades Iran has pursued the most stable diplomatic position of developing a civilian nuclear program that also serves as a deterrent to war with Iran.
By striking Iran in an act of illegal aggression, moreover assassinating top commanders and scientists, it removes the diplomatic obstacle for developing nuclear weapons.
Iran can now easily sell the narrative that it's Israel and the US that are out of control, not responsible actors, and they need nuclear weapons to defend themselves from these maniacs, same as North Korea.
The US' advantage in applying diplomatic pressure on Iran was in presenting themselves as the "responsible adults" and Iran as the reckless party that shouldn't have nuclear weapons, and we're simply not going to talk about Israel's nuclear weapons.
This war completely reverses that diplomatic status quo.
Even worse, by having this war, Iran can remove all the nuclear material it had under observation in a civilian program to hardened military sites for the development of nuclear weapons. So that physical obstacle, that the Uranian is being watched and to remove it would trigger a diplomatic and then likely military crisis in which no one has sympathy for Iran, is also removed.
Controlling Iran and its oil resources, and its access point between the Middle-East and Central Asia was always the goal. Letting Iran develop peacefully was never an option. Not for the US, and not for Israel.
Sometimes it was believed this could be achieved with the carrot, sometimes with the stick.
Look at Europe for example - another region of the world that the US has sought to control. It has entirely neutered Europe with use of the carrot.
So what we're seeing are changes in method, and not in overall strategy.
The bottomline is, a strong independent Iran is and was viewed as a massive threat to US power in the Middle-East, and to Israel.
This has been the case since the '50s, when Iran was a large, wealthy, well-educated and rapidly modernizing country, which is why alarm bells started to go off in Washington - these are the building blocks that form a regional power.
Iraq was almost an exact copy in this regard, and at times the US had to balance Iran and Iraq against each other to achieve its goals.
So I'd argue you're missing the forest for the trees.
The Oslo peace process was far later than the 1970's. If you want another one to blame is of course Jasser Arafat, who didn't take the agreement when there was the chance. But still, even if he would have taken it, I'm not at all sure if even then peace would followed and the two state solution would have held.
And the structural problem for Israel that it actually needs a strong counterpart that could also keep the peace and control it's territory. With Egypt and Jordan this works. Failed states or nearly failed states Lebanon and Syria this isn't possible, hence the Israeli solution seems to be perpetual low intensity conflict.
And here the courts got an ample amount of this rhetoric after the Hamas attacks. Yet I think the real threat is ethnic cleansing on a vast scale. Our international institutions are simply collapsing as the regional players and the US don't give them any role. Trump is simply making it more natural to speak about ethnic cleansing.
Having a nuclear credible nuclear deterrent keeps the US from attacking an "axis-of-evil" country that has been declared to be a rogue state. Worst possible situation is when a country doesn't have nuclear weapons, but the US firmly thinks it's trying to make them and is considered a rogue state.
Yet Iran also should really think about it's past aggressive foreign policies in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen and just how much they have worked. Iran should understand that trying to export their Islamic Revolution will ultimately fail and just worsen the situation with fellow Muslim states. Trying to create a "Shiite Crescent" will only push other states closer to the US and even Israel. What is notable has been the stance of the Arab League and Turkey in this conflict: the idea that Saudi-Arabia would eagerly join the beating up of Iran didn't prevail. What is also notable is that UK hasn't participated (in my knowledge, I could be wrong) to the defense of Israel.
I can't right now. Every semi-capitalized comment he makes is news. It's all stream of consciousness like we're in a James Joyce novel.
You're talking about a regime that rapes female prisoners before execution so that when they die they don't go to heaven.
Also, not surprising that one of TPF's most obsessive Israel haters views the Iranian regime as seemingly reasonable and moderate.
Theres an argument that Israels nuclear weapons (which they actually HAVE) could end Irans existence. A much better argument, in fact.
Ironic that you say its other people having a hard time seeing things from anothers shoes,
Israel has nuclear weapons, and has been genocidal and psychopathic. Might the problem be them?
Yes, I get it. What I can't handle is someone (@BitconnectCarlos) suggesting that Israel has been nothing but a victim in all this. That's not true.
Yeah, that's certainly not true. The rise of nations is a zero-sum bloody game. Israel can't come into existence without taking the land from someone else. There's nothing more commonplace in history than borders being redrawn after great wars. How many times has Alsace-Lorraine changed hands in the last 1,000 years? Ah, but when the Jews do it...well, we can't have that.
This is the matter. No one cares about Muslim on Muslim violence. It's only if the Jews dare raise their hand against one of the regional players that all hell breaks loose. 500k killed in Syria by Assad and no one could care less. Iran arrests and beats women to death in their prisons, and you'll see no protests.
I don't feel that way. Israel created a lot of innocent victims and it's spitting on their graves to act like Israel had no choice. Let's just say it: Zionists are assholes. That's not antisemitism. It's the truth.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Victim complex.
Unsurprisingly, you bring no knowledge to the table. We are once again back at the "they bad, us good" myopic view of the world that brings us nothing but idiocy.
You actually went out of your way to defend attacking Iran because "you hate the regime" not the Persians living there. Well, maybe we should introduce that kind of foreign policy more broadly. Trump, for instance, is hated throughout the world. He has access to nukes and has shown himself to be irrational. Let's attack US nuclear facilities! Because, well we don't hate Americans (or Mexicans or Canadians) but hey "fuck them" that's "double effect" when invariably at some point there's going to be a nuclear fallout because it's totally legit and fine to attack countries just because you don't like them. Idiot.
You say letting Iran develop peacefully was never an option but I say the JCPOA was exactly that: an attempt to reintegrate Iran through diplomacy, with strong backing from US allies. That effort failed for contingent political reasons, not because of an unbroken strategic line.
The idea that changes in method do not reflect changes in strategy assumes far more coherence and control than US policy typically demonstrates. Weve seen containment, yes, but weve also seen drift, contradiction and decisions driven by domestic optics or lobbying pressure.
Thats not missing the forest for the trees. Its recognizing that what looks like a forest from a distance often turns out, up close, to be a tangle of competing interests with no clear path.
In truth, it isn't. If we mean by nations rising that they become prosperous.
War and conflict doesn't create prosperity, it might only transfer wealth as loot as war is extremely costly. In truth nations have gotten prosperous through voluntary trade and cooperation and investment to education and technology and in general a positive attitude toward business and private enterprise. The most successful imperialist enterprise was the Mongol Horde, and that basically created zero prosperity itself and basically immediately fell into couple of different khanates. The Mongol cavarly traditions gave these Khanates the ability to survive a few Centuries until modern rifles made it a turkey shoot to defeat cavalry fighting on horseback.
Israel hasn't become prosperous because of the wars it has fought with it's neighbors, but with the trade and tech investments. Nearly one third of it's GDP is made up of exports of goods and services.
Quoting RogueAI
Yet notice the crucial difference to the Middle East. Germans don't give a fuck that Alsace-Lorraine belongs to France now. And both French and Germans of today would be surprised just how some place like Alsace-Lorraine stirred up fervent jingoism in both countries in the past.
Yes, that is the crucial difference. So why does that difference exist? Is it religious fundamentalism and the rise of European secularism?
Quoting ssu
I was talking more along the lines of the physical land that makes up the new nation. That had to come from someone else.
The Iranian regime is wicked. This should be acknowledged, whether one chooses to strike or not. If one can't accept this fact, then it is not worth conversing with this person. Our worldviews would just not be remotely conciliable.
As for Trump, if the US were taken over by an Islamic theocracy that engages in mass repression and murder and threatens other groups with annihilation, then targeting our nuclear capabilities would be more reasonable. It's not simply hating them that justifies the strike.
As for why I'm not really interested in sharing knowledge/facts with you... what is needed is a paradigm shift, not more facts. If you don't believe in good and bad or righteousness/wickedness then we're just talking past each other.
No.
It's because millions of Europeans died in the two World Wars and many countries have had the experience that defending their country only gave them misery and a humiliating defeat. The Pre-WW1 jingoism and imperialism died especially after the Second World War. Then Europeans had their continent divided with the prospect of a nuclear WW3 being fought in their cities and countryside.
(German soldiers going onwards to war in 1914 with flowers given by onlooking women spectators)
That's what Trump the idiot doesn't understand: European integration wasn't done to fuck Americans, but to finally put securely away the wars of the past. And even still that hasn't happened: In Yugoslavia there was a bitter civil war and thanks to Putin, several decades after the Soviet Union collapsed, the "Civil War" because of that breakup is fought in Ukraine.
Actually many neocons don't understand this either: the saying that Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus and hence Europeans don't have an eager enthusiasm to fight "Rogue states" comes also from this background. Basically the only European country that has still made it's own "Great Power" politics is France. Even this old colonial master has suffered major setbacks in it's former colonies in Africa in this decade. The UK opts sometimes to be the loyal sidekick of the US, but after Suez has been very passive, even if it can still kick ass as we saw in the Falklands/Malvinas war. Everybody else are happy with having NATO around.
But in the end, this anti-militarism comes from the experience of WW1 and WW2.
A similar war has never happened in Israel and not even in the Palestinian territories. The casualties especially on the Isreali side are minimal compared to the losses that European countries suffered in WW1 and WW2, although naturally Israeli jews do truly remember and keep in mind what their parents and great grandparents suffered during WW2 under the Third Reich. Yet that isn't something that happened in Israel or is part of this conflict. Perhaps now the Palestinians in the Gaza strip are truly suffering a total war. Now the Jewish people in Israel are about seven million, so 1% would be 70 000 people.
Hence some hundred Iranians and below fifty Israelis being killed, that won't make these countries to howl for peace. The jingoists and the militant hawks will be in power in both countries for a long time still, even if the cease-fire will last for a while.
The current Harvard estimate is 400 000 Palestinians "missing", in addition to starvation and all manner of trauma, in particular to children, from physical wounds, concussions to every possible developmental disorder.
We, the West, have essentially been torturing about a million children for about 20 months, and by simple proportions 200 000 children are among those "missing" but could be a higher proportion if children are less likely to survive the weapons used.
Ethnic cleansing of simply moving the Palestinians I don't see how that could be a worse crime, since if they are still alive the situation could be reversed by the world or then at least compensated.
For example, had the Nazis moved the Jews and other undesirables to the camps but didn't starve and kill them, they would have suffered a lot less and then returned home. So I don't see how ethnic cleansing, that is not also genocide, is a worse crime than the suffering we are seeing live streamed.
That they know their suffering is live streamed and the world does nothing is an additional trauma.
Whos we?
Actually, we are indeed allowing it and not only allowing it, but supporting it. If by we you mean the US.
Theres violence and territorial disputes all over. Look at Sudan. Look at India and Pakistan. Look at China and Taiwan. Look at history. Look at the Roman Empire. Yes true. Yet we find it odd that some American citizens have particular gripes about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Vietnam, Korea, Ukraine, and Gaza? Any idea why that might be? Any idea why there were widespread Vietnam protests in the US, but little protesting about the rule of Kim Il Sung?
If this is still hard for you to understand, after literal years of explanation, thats really a matter of psychological blockage. A kind of denial, I would say. Maybe willfully, maybe subconscious.
To protest the crimes of ones state, one will naturally be called anti-whatever. In this case, anti-American, or antisemitic. The first line of pathetic counterargument from defenders of state war crimes (provided its their own state). :yawn:
I point towards a long-term trend and give the deeper geopolitical dynamics that have shaped it, and make it unlikely to change in the short-to-middle term.
From a US perspective, Iran has way too much potential to let it develop peacefully. Doing so would violate balance of power politics 101, and the basic US strategy of keeping the Middle-East as divided as possible.
Especially with Iran's natural balancer Iraq out of the picture, it requires constant US-Israeli belligerence to stop Iran from naturally expanding.
Step 1: The Iranian regime is wicked. This should be acknowledged.
This is the opening move in every bad foreign policy argument: moral branding as strategic substitute. Wicked. Thats it. No context, no history, no understanding. Just a label slapped on like its a Marvel villain. What does wicked mean in this case? That Iran is authoritarian? Brutal? Repressive? So are most US allies in the region. Saudi Arabia executes people for witchcraft. Egypt jails journalists. Israel is currently flattening Gaza block by block. Are they all wicked too, or does wicked only apply to governments youve been trained to hate?
But more to the point: what are you proposing we do with this wickedness? Because thats what this entire line of reasoning hinges on. If calling a regime wicked is just a rhetorical flourish, fine. But if its supposed to justify military action, then youve just advocated moral total warforeign policy by exorcism.
Step 2: If you cant accept that, theres no point talking.
Of course there isnt. Because your position is a closed loop. You demand agreement with your metaphysical assumptions before we can even begin to discuss facts or outcomes. Youre not interested in a debate. Youre interested in moral submission.
This is the intellectual equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting LA LA LA THEYRE EVIL. Youre not debating Iran. Youre protecting your fragile little worldview from the contamination of reality. If someone says maybe we should consider what actually works, and your response is I dont talk to people who dont believe in evil, youve left the realm of debate and entered the sandbox of magical thinking. Youve effectively said: I refuse to engage with people who ask questions I cant answer without chanting moral absolutes.
Thats not a worldview. Thats a coping mechanism for people who find cause and effect too hard.
Youre not interested in whether a policy produces peace, stability, deterrence or even long-term advantage for your own side. Youre interested in moral catharsis. In punishing the wicked, smiting the evildoers and feeling clean afterward. Its the foreign policy equivalent of burning witches.
And what makes this dumb, not just wrong, but actively disqualifying you from adult conversation, is that it refuses to process consequence.
Lets break that down further:
Sub 1. You cant reason with someone who treats disagreement as heresy.
When you say I wont talk to people who dont believe in evil, youre admitting you cant distinguish between disagreement and depravity. Youre saying: If you dont share my metaphysical priors, youre not just wrong, youre morally defective.
Thats how ideologues and fanatics operate. Strategists and philosophers, however, deal with people who dont share their assumptions all the time. Thats literally the job.
Sub 2. You're not asking what works. Youre asking what feels good.
This is the key distinction between policy and theater.
Smart people ask: If I act, will it achieve my stated goal?
You ask: If I act, will it affirm my moral disgust?
This is why people like you always support the next war.
Sub 3. It reveals an inability to hold multiple truths at once.
Yes, the Iranian regime is brutal. Also: indiscriminate military strikes tend to kill civilians, provoke retaliation and strengthen hardliners. These things are simultaneously true.
But your mind cant accommodate that tension. You flatten everything into one big moral binary where once you label something evil, no further thinking is required. Its cognitive offloading and its dumb because it rejects complexity in a domain that requires it most.
Sub 4. It treats politics as a religious warwithout even the consistency of religion.
I dont talk to people who dont believe in evil is not a policy stance. Its a self-imposed lobotomy. It means: Im not here to think, Im here to worship my disgust. But unlike religion, it offers no redemption, no coherence, no code. It's just about presumed righteous fury.
The dumbest part of this is you think this moral absolutism makes you wise. You think refusing to engage with anyone outside your moral tribe makes you principled. What it actually makes you is useless: to peace, to diplomacy, to strategy and to the very concept of accountability.
To continue with the rest of your so-called argument...
Step 3: If the US became a repressive theocracy, attacking it would be reasonable.
Ah, the hypothetical pivot. You just compared the most powerful nuclear-armed country in the world to Iran, then used that thought experiment to claim moral consistency. Lets unpack how absurd this is.
First: the US has been repressive. It has funded death squads. It has dropped nuclear weapons. By your logic, someone somewhere should have attacked US nuclear facilities decades ago. And if you say, No, because were a democracy, then congratulations, youve admitted your logic is not moral, its tribal. It's not about evil, it's about who you see as evil.
Second: attacking Iran is not a thought experiment. Youre talking about actual military strikes on actual nuclear facilities in a country of 85 million people. And your justification is well, I dont hate Persians, just the regime. Wonderful. Thatll be very comforting to the civilians who would die in the fallout. Tell the corpses it was all very morally sound.
Third: if any ideology you dont like justifies pre-emptive strikes, then every state is a target. China. Russia. India. Turkey. The list goes on. But of course, youre not applying this logic universally. Youre applying it selectively, because this isnt about wickedness. Its about who you think deserves to die.
Step 4: I dont care about facts. We need a paradigm shift.
And there it is: the moment when the mask fully drops. You admit facts dont matter to you. You just want to feel right.
Let me translate that: you dont want to debate. You want moral license to believe whatever supports your pre-selected enemy narrative. When someone challenges you with history, evidence or strategic analysis, you ignore it. Thats how cults work. This is how warmongers talk right before the bombs drop. It's how people act when they know theyre wrong but dont want to give it up.
Your paradigm shift is not visionary. Its just you giving yourself permission to ignore everything inconvenient. Iraq? Libya? Doesnt matter. Civilian death tolls? Doesnt matter. Diplomacy? Doesnt matter. Youve made up your mind. The world must conform. Where have we seen that before? Oh right... Gaza.
Step 5: If you dont believe in good and evil, were talking past each other.
No, were not talking past each other. Youve just run out of arguments and retreated into cosmic language because your position has no leg to stand on.
Lets be clear: the world is full of evil. But the presence of evil doesnt mean we drop bombs until it feels better. Thats not morality. Thats cowardice dressed up as courage. Its easy to scream about evil. Its harder to explain how your cure wont kill more than the disease.
And the irony is, you dont actually believe in good and evil. You believe in your good and their evil. Thats why youd never apply your logic to Saudi Arabia, to Israel, to the US under Trump, or to any friendly regime. Your whole worldview collapses the moment you apply it consistently.
This is why your political mumblings every time are like a childs drawing. It pretends to be moral but its tribal and incoherent. It substitutes certainty for wisdom and posture for policy. And worst of all, its been tried but its called failure. Your ideas dont need a paradigm shift. They need a burial.
As I said: Youre setting up a position that cant really be challenged, because every shift in policy, whether engagement or hostility, is framed as just another method of containment. That makes your theory immune to contradiction, which is a problem if we want to understand history analytically rather than narratively.
That doesn't make it a strong theory at all as it cannot explain anything...
What doesn't it explain?
The JCPOA?
The JCPOA does not align with your core theory that says letting Iran develop peacefully was never an option. If you want to claim the JCPOA was a carrot toward eventual suppression still contradicts the framing: that any development at all is intolerable. So which is it?
But seriously, what would disprove your theory?
From what you've written so far it doesn't seem to be possible which is what makes it "unfair" (but also not a theory; there's no theory of everything after all).
That's something I've not stumbled into and something totally on a different scale than the Gaza health officials are themselves stating. It would basically mean that Hamas and Palestinian officials are hugely downplaying the death toll. (It is a possibility, perhaps)
Quoting boethius
Ethnic cleansing on a huge scale just happened now in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan didn't get at all negative publicity, especially when they flatly denied it and said that Armenians would be wellcome to stay.
And basically that ethnic cleansing would mean a repeat of the Nakba. Then 720 000 or so Palestinians out of 1,4 million were moved off from Israeli controlled areas. Hence just to finish this you would have to move about 5 million Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank to somewhere else.
Now if you think they would be compensated or the move could be reversed, I'm not sure that would happen. But I'm sure that the Bibi administration is surely salivating about these kinds of plans. For the exrremists, that is their solution.
Iran wasn't the only threat in the region during the time the JCPOA was established, so this could easily be explained as an attempt at placating Iran with promises of American business while solving other pressing issues.
American business that, of course, never came. So I view the JCPOA as an entirely phoney endeavor to begin with - something which the US was never truly committed to, and which Israel would have never been able to accept in the long-term either.
Ultimately you're talking about an episode of a few years amidst a historical trend of nearly a century. Again - trees and forests.
As the saying goes: "politics makes for strange bedfellows", and it appears to me you're underestimating the capriciousness of geopolitics, where parties will pretend to make amends one day, and be back at each other's throats the next.
Quoting Benkei
Maybe it's just a good theory if you're seemingly so keen on disproving it but unable to?
What would disprove it of course is a long-lasting move towards peace between the US, Israel and Iran - a pipedream to be sure. The reason we don't see that, and we'll probably never see that, is because geopolitical realities put these countries at odds with each other pretty much by default.
If you want a theory to be taken seriously, it needs to be falsifiable. So your position is that the JCPOA was done for shits and giggles to make sure it continues to fit your narrative. And this is of course nonsense.
The JCPOA was the product of 20 months of multilateral negotiations involving hundres of pages of technical annexes, inspections and UN SC Resolution 2231. It was also strongly opposed in the US itself. It wasn't a PR stunt or fake but a real policy.
The impact on Iran was significant. It shipped 97% of its enriched uranium out of the country, cut its centrifuges to a third and accepted the most intrusive inspection regime ever imposed. Nuclear-related sanctions were lifted by the US. To claim it was all phoney because US firms didnt rush in fast enough simply ignores the chilling effect of the continued non-nuclear sanctions, secondary risk and the volatility of US domestic politics.
Retrofitting failure as proof of insincerity is of course silly. By that logic any diplomatic failure proves the diplomacy was fake.
As for Israeli rejection, the US pursued the deal in spite of it underlining the autonomy of the decision in the first place and proving the break with prior policy.
In other words, you don't have a theory but a narrative, which ignores actual facts but you're hellbent on constructing something that you believe is unassaillable. It will be fun to watch this narrative to become more ludicrous as time passes.
What a curious strawman.
Is the thought that phoney amends are made to buy time such a strange thought to you? The Minsk accords were done in the exact same way, and Hollande and Merkel even admitted as much!
Oh, and this is nonsense too. I'm repeatedly trying to start a conversation about actual geopolitical realities - ergo the 'root causes' - but you've been pretty much categorically ignoring them.
It's interesting to me how different countries treat it. WWII is shifting from memory to history. In Russia, it's become a source of great patriotic pride; in Germany, it's a source of shame. In the US, in the past few decades, it was often treated as a fairly milquetoast yet media-worthy and exciting good versus evil conflict. Many great series have been made about it, and it's a safe conflict to portray.
But political landscapes shift, memories fade, and modern issues, like mass immigration, challenge old taboos and force us to rethink our past.
Quoting Benkei
It's hard to reason with those who don't share common values. I can reason with Christians and Muslims because I'm familiar with the contours of their belief systems. You, OTOH, seemingly take a "view from nowhere." Like you're a disembodied mind. Perhaps we can find some common ground, but it's harder because you don't situate yourself.
If we're talking diplomacy or negotiating within a society, that reasoningthat negotiationtakes place among situated individuals, not disembodied minds. Common values & frameworks must be found for constructive dialogue to occur. In the absence of that, there is force.
Any reasoning must proceed from a shared basis. You value the universal, I get it. There is a place for universalism within my tradition, but I certainly don't envision a mass homogenization where my tradition dissolves into others because we are all "enlightened by reason." My tradition values the universal and the particular, whereas you seemingly value only the universal. This is among our main differences and likely the root of our discord.
You call me tribal because I cling to my particular tradition. I suppose you consider yourself beyond such things. Well, good for you.
No, I don't. I think you're misreading me. If you read anger into my posts, that's the reader's error.
Ok. I guess I just don't get where you're coming from. When I told what Israel did to the Palestinians so that they ended up in refugee camps, you laughed about it, but then you're horrified by the Iranian government. It really seems to me that there's something wrong with your moral compass. Take that for whatever it's worth.
Frank, I don't remember this conversation where you claimed I laughed. Could you give me a link?
That would require work on my part. :smile: I told you that when the Israelis forcibly displaced Palestinians from their homes in 1967, many of them went to the West Bank and began lemon farming. The Israelis didn't like the fact that they were surviving, so they diverted the water from their farms. The failed farmers then turned to retail sales in markets, but the Israelis raised taxes on them until they all went out of business. That's how the huge refugee camps started. It's just the truth. Israel created the horrible conditions in the West Bank that led to unrest.
You laughed about the lemons. Please don't redemonstrate your apathy. It's super depressing to hear someone do that.
The lemon farming anecdote amused me, but I don't think this is historical, as the Palestinians were displaced from the West Bank, not to the West Bank, in 1967. They largely went to Jordan.
That's because there's something wrong with your ability to discern wrong-doing.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
They came to the West Bank in waves, some of the refugees were living in the West Bank at the time. I'm getting really disgusted by this conversation, so I'm out.
Quoting Benkei
As opposed to you, where it's all just a billion shades of grey? Trump brutal. Hitler brutal. Roosevelt brutal. Khomeini brutal. Side with whoever, because the world doesn't have absolutes; we're all just different, slightly darker or lighter shades of grey. Who cares about Khomeini torturing women and beating them to death when the US has bombed Iraq. :roll:
Quoting Benkei
Please tell me more about these theory-independent prescriptive facts. We all have our lens; I acknowledge mine. You, OTOH, apparently have direct access to prescriptive objective reality independent of theory/conceptual framework.
Were the bombings of, say, Berlin or Hamburg murder or killing? What do we say about those deaths? I know civilians died, but I'd like to learn how to make sense of it, prescriptively/in the realm of judgment, without the theory. Is this just one of those cases where "the facts speak for themselves," or maybe, just maybe, we require a lens through which to process these events.
I have little time these days, but I am "fully in" the geopolitical theorizing.
However, has extremely good points.
A better framework that brings the two arguments together, as I argued for quite some time on the Ukraine thread, is "grand strategy mediated discourse".
Decisions are made by individuals in a network, which are usually best modelled by factions we usually call "special interest" today.
In these decision making processes everyone uses strategic language. For example, if you represent the arms industry and all you want is to sell more arms and have more wars and tensions to sell more arms for short term shareholder value, you're not going to just say that; rather, you're going to translate your interest to sell more arms into grand strategy language.
It's called rationalizing.
Of course, some parties in the decision making process will actually care about a US empire "as such"; for example, a lot of analysts are hired to analyze the world and the interests of "the US" and simply do that job. However, even then, what they come to define as "US interest" is going to be shaped by more powerful players that may have self serving definitions. So, simply because you're an analysis and your identity is serving US interest, doesn't mean you therefore come up with some plausible definition of what US interests are. If it becomes the institutional status quo that defeating Iran is US interest, then you'll start just repeating that as that's what's expected of you.
Point being, "US strategy" is not an accurate model of what drives decisions. All sorts of interests go into policy and government decision making, of which genuine concern for strategy is only one component, and even within this component of some plausibly impartial attempt at "US strategy" there will be a diversity of opinion.
So there are genuine attempts to argue for "US interests" within the establishment, but everyone else is going to present themselves as doing the same thing.
In this case of the 12 day war, the main faction pushing for a US war with Iran in the US establishment is obviously the American Zionists (often duel citizens). Now they want a US war with Iran for Israeli-Zionist interests but they nevertheless present that as US interest.
They've pushed hard for a war with Iran before, and didn't get it, so that in itself informs us there's other factions that disagree that a war with Iran is in US interests and / or their own interest (such as own political or economic interest). For example, the arms industry wants to sell weapons, but they don't benefit from a war's that are too big and chaotic. What they want are arms races, specifically technology driven arms races where they make the most profit, not actual resolutions to conflicts or wars so big that it disrupts the global economy (people need money to be able to buy your stuff). Arms industry doesn't want to get nuked same as everyone else.
Then there's the pentagon, US intelligence agencies, and other US institutions. Pentagon may simply have no viable plan to defeat Iran, so they may hear the rhetoric but then those analysts who identify as objective try to formulate as plausibly objective view of Iran and plausibly objective evaluation of a giant war with Iran. If the results aren't good there's going to be pushback from any general that either also identifies as representing some sort of objective US interest or then doesn't want the embarrassment of losing a war.
There's also diplomatic factions within all these institutions that don't see war as the primary tool to advance US interests, but rather diplomacy is (war being a last resort).
We put all this together, and the original plan to invade Iran was clearly as a next step to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran is in the middle. For that to happen the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would have had to go well, they don't.
Obama's elected, there's a giant push to carry out the attack Iran plan, but Obama disagrees that's a good idea, goes with diplomacy instead.
As @Benkei points out, there's no evidence this change in policy to negotiate a resolution is somehow a cynical ploy to keep Iran from developing. Definitely it's a plan to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but the only way to do that is a process of phasing out the sanctions.
One of the fundamental reasons to favour diplomacy (in which Iran also gets some of what it wants, that's how diplomacy works) is that war with Iran would be simply too costly for the US and may not even succeed in at least regime change in the short term. The US may simply lose a conventional war with Iran simply because it would be too costly to win (require a draft for example). Iranians fought an 8 year war with Iraq, so there's no good reason to assume invading Iran would be easy and it could turn out to be so difficult that the US gives up. In addition to the prospects of very clearly failing to topple the Iranian government, there's all the regional chaos Iran could cause; straights of Hormuz and all that.
I could go on, but the point is there's lots of inputs into decision making. Obama decides diplomacy is in the US interest. Then Trump gets elected, undoes Obamas deal not to then immediately start a war with Iran, but because he hates Obama so much. Of course, Zionists don't want a diplomatic resolution with Iran, they want war even if it greatly harms the US (they see Israel as winning in that scenario), so they get to work on increasing the tensions with Iran. However, overall they are losing, as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't going well, and Trump starts the withdrawal from Afghanistan process; that's really not good if you want to attack Iran.
The war we just saw, notably, was not started by the US, but directly by Israel. This isn't the Zionist preference, but a plan B of starting the war themselves and assuming the US will join in.
That also didn't work, so shows the limitations of Zionist influence in the US government.
I'm very skeptical about this approach. If you want to understand how things are, then why do we not start by taking powerful players (with their self-interest) as condition of the game and not in light of what the powerless people wish them to be (which again can be considered self-interested, namely based on the self-interest of the powerless players, no less hypocritical)? if we are talking about "interest" as in "national interest" of course a conceptual framework MUST take into account the interest of the involved subjects including powerful players. We are tempted to say: yes, but of all people part of "nation". Agreed, yet the nation includes also power relations between individuals. As national interest at interstate level must take into account power relations among states, so the notion of national interest MUST take into account power relations also within a nation. "Interest" is a very indeterminate notion per se if we do not assess costs and benefits, risks and opportunities that are de facto shaped by power relations. That's why strategic thought can impose itself and lead people and states to convergence independently from self-interest (see how people and states can converge on what is the perceived "common enemy").
Setting objectives that go beyond one's means is a problem for both powerless and powerful people. Powerful doesn't mean all mighty as much as powerless doesn't mean impactless (most certainly not, at a mass level). We disagree less on what is desirable (everybody happy rich healthy free fully-developed for all human beings and possibly animals and nature in the past present and future, on a universal and infallible just society) than on what is achievable.
Quoting boethius
Also psychologizing is a form of rationalization. Arguably the most hypocritical form of rationalization.
Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran (Brookings Institution, 2009)
I was just about to cite this very paper as an example of people trying to be objective.
The paper essentially makes the point that diplomacy is the only option likely to succeed.
I don't have time to make detailed citations right now, but of the situation we are in (American people simply don't back an invasion so the only attack option is bombing), the authors are very lucid of the likely consequences:
Quoting WHICH PATH TO PERSIA? Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran - Brookings Institute
Which is exactly what the media is arguing with Trump about presently.
Furthermore, even if the program was delayed by 3 years, which is viewed as essentially the best case scenario, what does that delay accomplish outside a followup invasion? Obviously bombing them is going to motivate them even harder to get the bomb and make diplomacy far more difficult, if not impossible (as we see), to get them to agree to give up their nuclear program (which they've stated pretty clearly they will never ever do). So if the plan is diplomacy, simply doing some bombing in the manner that has been done is not part of any rational diplomatic strategy. If there's no appetite to invade Iran, then bombing (even successful) doesn't delay the nuclear program for the purposes of organizing a successful invasion.
Without a followup invasion, what exactly is the point in simply delaying Iran getting the bomb? With the high possibility bombing: A. causes that to happen as Iran may simply not develop a nuclear bomb if not attacked (as has been Iranian policy for 40 years) B. the bombing is not even effective so don't really delay anything and C. creates domestic and international sympathy for Iran pursuing a nuclear weapon.
All the bombing accomplished is removing the nuclear material (that we for sure know about) from international inspection.
I'm not completely sure if you're disagreeing with me.
By interest I mean people's perceived interest they are working on behalf of, which is (usually) a mix of personal and collective interests of one form or another (family, company, institution, country etc.). For example, someone working in a company may have the interest of the company in mind in making decisions, what the company to succeed, but also want to advance their career; sometimes these interests are aligned (doing a good job advances your career) and sometimes in conflict (advancing one's career requires spreading rumours about someone who's actually more competent; of course in this person's perception; someone else may have "honesty is the best policy" perception as to their personal interest to advance their career).
In terms of how government decisions are made lot's of individuals representing explicitly and implicitly lots of mixes of interests go into these decisions.
However, all of them are going to say what they propose is in the national interest.
To take the war in Iran, American-Zionists who want the US to attack Iran for Israel's benefit, claim this is also the US national interest as well.
So, everyone is always talking grand strategy and sometimes that's in earnest (as earnest as they can, such as the authors of the Brookings paper discussed above) and sometimes it is obviously a lie.
A "healthy" Empire, the plausibly objective interest of the Empire as such manages to assert itself over special interests that wish to plunder the Empire or otherwise consume its capital base (including diplomatic capital) for their own ends. An unhealthy Empire everyone comes to divide up the spoils and get away with their pickings.
Quoting boethius
Why however? What do you want it to contrast to? What is there unexpected about the situation you are describing? Your expectations are based on reality or on your moral standards? National interest is and cant be anything else than what results from peoples self-serving interests on a national level AND given certain power relations between them. Here what looks very ambiguous to me is the expression self-serving. In your views, I suspect, self-serving looks very much like a proxy for selfish, which in turn looks very much like a proxy for Im not as much selfish and I can honestly judge who are more selfish ad who arent, and I defend the interest of the powerless against the abuses of the selfish powerful.
In my views, self-serving interests can simply be seen as a proxy for competing interests for both powerful and powerless players. There is no need to frame things with an allegedly impartial psychological analysis which is a surreptitious proxy for a self-promoting moral judgement and blame shifting. Thats why Im reluctant to describe things in your self-serving psychological terms.
Quoting boethius.
As I said you are framing a situation not in terms of competing interests, but in moral terms. This reflects your allegedly impartial (or virtuous?) interest. Yet your views are exposed to the same bias you are accusing others to be victim of or purposefully embracing: namely, viewing national interest in light of your self-interest. Your populist views are putatively aligned with those of the mass of powerless nobodies which are victims of the putative abuses of evil elites.
Quoting boethius
What does healthy mean? Who is going to assess what is healthy? The slaves of an empire or the lords of the empire? What if they do not converge on what's "healthy"?
What you call healthy may simply be the fact that people within a community cooperate more effectively wrt people of another community, where more effectively means that the communitys perpetuation and prosperity benefits from such cooperation. But that doesnt exclude stubborn and toxic competing interests within a community and amongst communities that can erode cooperation to the point of triggering a vicious cycle of suspicion and accusations.
"National interest" points at something that is the result of collective dynamics however inspired by individual expectations and wishes
My post wasn't an argument. I was setting forth a condition for discussion, namely, the understanding that the Iranian regime was wicked.
To which you finally get around to addressing:
Quoting Benkei
I get it: We are all sinners. The world is full of sin. Whether we throw in with the 7th century savages who behead homosexuals and rape women before their executions or those fighting them is no significant matter. We're all sinners anyway. We can all agree that those fighting the 7th-century savages are no angels. And the problems of the West will, of course, be condemned to their fullest extent, while we can rationalize away the faults of the 7th-century savages if not blame them on the West itself. It's all so tiring.
I suspect it ties back to the Marxist oppressor-oppressed dynamic, where the oppressor deserves zero leniency.
If their wickedness starts seeping over borders, that's when military action may be required. And military action has been the solution to many, many forms of evil throughout history. Sometimes you can't compromise with evil. Nor can you rationalize with it. History tells us that sometimes, evil must be destroyed with force.
The use of the word "however" is to to contrast with the fact that parties seeking their own gain at the expense of some collective gain (family, organization, business, institutional, government, country, empire, or what have you) usually don't advertise that, but will present their plan as in the interest of the group.
So, party A pursues B and party C pursues D; however, party C will usually also claim to be pursuing B.
Perfectly fine use of the word however.
Quoting neomac
The current state of the conversation is descriptive. People can be described to act in the interest of "something". That something could be anything.
For example, some people act in the interest of their pet, dedicating their whole life to their pets welfare. For this particular conversation, people making (contributing to) US foreign policy are unlikely to be dedicated to the welfare of their pet to the exclusion of all other interests.
Quoting neomac
It obviously can.
You can easily have a situation where the "certain powerful people" self-serving interest would be to plunder the national treasury and make off with the winnings. This is obviously not in the interest of any sensible concept of "the nation".
The fact of the matter is that people don't necessarily do that even if they can, as other people and even "the nation" as they conceive it has value and meaning apart from the maximization of their own store of value.
In order to analyze how policy is made we must take this obvious fact into account.
Of course, simply recognizing that some parties involved are acting in their own self interest to maximize material gains in the process (for example increase the value of a defence stock they are invested in) or then acting in the interest of another nation (perhaps simply because they are a spy or then duel nationality and are unable to serve two masters equally well) or a religious group or whatever, are going to be inputs into government decision making that likely conflict with any sensible definition of national interest.
For example, if one's reason to have a war is that it will increase defence contractor stocks, it's very unlikely that war just so happens to be also great for the national interest.
If someone else's reason to have a war is to fulfill prophecy; again, unlikely to happen to line up with any sensible definition of national interest.
Of course, what exactly is the national interest, even for people trying to be genuinely focused on that, is up for debate, but what is not really debatable is that people who have completely different objectives than the welfare of the nation, defined as the welfare of the people in the nation or then imperial strength or then any plausibly objective definition (i.e. definition apart from their own personal goals), are unlikely to just-so-happen to happen upon goals that are in the national interest (again, under any sensible definition).
However, in pursuing their ulterior motives they will present their motives as in the national interest, as they must convince and bargain with people in conversation where national interest and national strategy is the mediating discourse.
For our purposes here, if a certain powerful American Zionists puts the interests of Israel above the interest of the United States, they are unlikely to simply state that. They are far more likely to state that their Zionist objectives just so happen to be the plausibly objective interests of the United States. So, let us imagine a Zionist wants regime change in Iran at the expense of the United States, knowing full well the US won't derive any net benefit from that (would be just a really costly war), but it would result, in their estimation, in improving Israel's strategic position in the region, they are unlikely to put the argument to non-Zionist American decision makers and analysts, as well as the media and regular people, that American should embark upon an extremely costly war that will harm America but benefit Israel. Rather, they are likely to come up with arguments to try to convince people that what they want happens to be in the interest of "America".
Quoting neomac
At this point in the discussion you are interjecting into, the debate with @Tzeentch and @Benkei is descriptive of whose interest is even being served by recent policy.
@Tzeentch presents a description of the decision making process as coherent grand strategy since many decades, whereas @Benkei and I disagree the policy changes and decisions in the middle-east represent some sort of coherent US grand strategy over many decades.
@Tzeentch and I have debated this for quite some time, when the genocide first started. While both agreeing a genocide is definitely happening, @Tzeentch is of the view that Israel is acting on behalf of US Imperial interest in that "eliminating" Gaza and shoring up Israel's strategic position, while also creating chaos in the Middle East, is a logical next step in a rational US grand strategy in line or then formulated (or then "formulatable") by impartial imperial grand strategists.
I disagree with @Tzeentch, I view the genocide in Gaza as absolutely terrible for US Imperial interests (defined as preserving and expanding imperial power relative to other powers) and the policy to support and cover for Israel's genocide is due to Zionist influence in American government. That Zionism is a powerful faction, they want the genocide in Gaza and they are expending their political capital in order to achieve it vis-a-vis other factions and coalitions in the United States that disagree with them.
By factions I mean in a broad sense including entire institutions, such as the Pentagon even if the Pentagon itself is of course made up of myriad subsections (there is also resulting collective positions from all that sub-factional dynamics).
My analysis of the current situation is that Zionists "went for it" and tried to push the United States into a high-intensity war with Iran and the faction that stopped that from happening (for now) is the pentagon (because they know it conflicts with US imperial interest, represent far more costs than gains, have other regions they worry about, such as East-Asia) and (I would guess) managed to convince Trump in the situation room where it's mostly pentagon people in the room that war with Iran is incredibly high risk and don't recommend it (if they did, I have a hard time imagining the war wouldn't be on full blast right now). For, war with Iran as concept is easy to talk about, but when you get into the nitty gritty of how to actually make war with Iran, that they fought Iraq for 8 years and are not push overs, have bunkers everywhere, mountains and a surface area of 1 Rocky Mountains + 1 France, and the ballistic missiles capacity and so on, it's obviously not an easy task and many dead Americans would result tin the attempt.
At the same time, I believe Israel was threatening to escalate to them using nuclear weapons to destroy the Iranian enrichment plant. Trump bombing the plant with conventional weapons (but not killing anyone) and then Iran's symbolic counter attack, enabled Trump to simply declare a ceasefire.
The reason I was so concerned about Israel escalating to nuclear weapons is because they have no diplomatic off-ramps by design, literally opening the war with assassinating negotiators; precisely so that the US would be inevitably sucked into an expanding conflict.
Trump simply announcing a ceasefire basically short circuited that escalation process, and the bombing removed the reason for Israel to use nuclear weapons.
To summarize, in my model of what's happening, the constant escalation by Israel represents Zionist influence in America essentially cashing in their chips at a combined optimum of the combined factors of their influence in American foreign police and American power relative Iran. A sort of 'now or never' moment for Zionist whose objective is to push Iran into a failed state, as well as carry out genocide while the US can still cover for that.
To this discussion, @Benkei adds the additional information that the previous nuclear agreement with Iran negotiated by Obama was clearly part of a strategy of detente with Iran, that drops sanctions and allows them to develop and normalize, and not some sort of 5-D chess move knowing Trump would come in and tear up the agreement, then Israel embark on a genocide under Biden to be finally in a position to attack Iran in a second Trump administration.
Obviously Obama would be aware that if detente doesn't work American could go to war, but the calculation at the time was clearly that a peaceful arrangement with Iran was more in America's interest, even Imperial interest (allow that pivot to Asia), than another Middle-East war that kills plenty of Americans.
For, even if American Imperial violence hasn't stopped qua violence, there are a lot fewer American soldier deaths since many years now, and I would very much suspect that policy and decision makers with any sense of US interest are very apprehensive about any proposal that involves US soldiers returning in boxes at a high or steady volume.
Israel got lured the US to join the strikes on Iran, which sooner or later (and now sooner) were stopped.
The reality just why the noecons under Bush never attacked Iran are now quite evident: there is simply now way to "topple" the Iranian regime with a quick and inexpensive war, only a huge quagmire.
But for Israel this is totally OK: it is quite happy with the "war-on-war-off" mentality and a perpetual crisis that erupts into limited wars every couple of years or a decade. So the strike packages are sent to Iran and it's declared that it's ability to build nuclear weapons is pushed forward.
Quoting boethius
I assume that with using nukes Israel is as level headed as other nuclear powers. Why should they escalate?
Quoting boethius
Obama at least had a plan. Trump doesn't have any plan just to wobble into the next crisis that is going to erupt and try to take center stage.
Israel and the US showed just showed their limits on how far they are willing to go. Hence if Iran can build it's military industry that is survivable enough to survive an 12-day bombing campaign, that's it. And now the logical step from a military point of view would be for Iran to learn from this campaign, rearm and get that nuclear weapon and the ability to survive forthcoming attacks from Israel and the US.
You're making it sound a little more esoteric than it actually is.
I'm talking about the US foreign policy establishment, aka "the Blob", the neocons, etc.
It's not a homogeneous group, but since it is interested in maintaing/re-establishing US primacy, it's options are bounded by the realities of geopolitics, which leaves a very narrow margin of deviation.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-administration-exploring-30-billion-civilian-nuclear-deal-iran-rcna215679
I think the Trump admin would be thrilled if Iran could be bribed into giving up their nuclear ambitions.
Think about it, just for a while.
Assume your country would be striken with missiles for 12 days. Over two hundred civilians would have been killed. Then the attackers would want to bribe you with third party investment.
How eager would you to start negotiations with your attackers? How much would you trust them?
I did not mean to imply there's no variation in your model.
However, my argument is there is plenty of margin for deviation.
Obama's diplomatic policy is a deviation from the strategy of trying to contain Iran (by stick and / or carrot) to the extent of preventing development. Iran did not negotiate itself into some permanent economic hobbling in the JCPA.
Then these recent actions by Israel, there's little evidence they are carried out on behalf of "the Blob" as defined apart from the Zionist faction in the blob acting on behalf of Israel.
For example, if Israel knew about the planned Hamas attack, which seems exceedingly likely, and allowed it to happen in a catastrophic way and moreover kill their own citizens as part of the Hannibal directive, the agency there is Israel and not the US policy blob. Then if Israel used the Hamas attack and subsequent Hannabling as a pretext for genocide, my argument is that that is Israeli and Zionist agency. Likewise the attack by Israel on Iran is Israel-Zionist agency.
Plant of other parts of the blob do not see any advantage of escalating conflict in the Middle-East, for example Obama's policies represents a large coalition of the blob; if this coalition thought war with Iran was a good thing they would have attacked Iran under Obama's presidency.
In terms of maintaining/re-establishing US primacy, the genocide in Gaza is absolutely terrible policy.
Likewise war with Iran.
Now, the great power and influence, but not unlimited power and influence, explains the situation.
Zionist have enough power and influence within America to prevent America from preventing Israel committing more genocide, but not enough power and influence to get the US to fight Iran on behalf of Israel at immense cost to the US.
And, indeed, why this is happening now is that Zionism is at a pretty high maximum for power and influence as well as there being a window closing of US military power. The dollar could collapse in the short to medium term, China and Russia could simply accelerate their relative gains in economic and military power (especially if we imagine Ukraine completely collapsing and Russia outright winning) as well as Iran's continued development (made easier by being in the same sanction boat as Russia), or then conflict break out in East-Asia or elsewhere, putting into disarray any plans to have the US attack Iran. So, it's very much a likely closing window of opportunity from the Zionist point of view and therefore a now-or-never decision (in addition to Netanyahu getting older and clearly the final solution to the Palestinian problem and outright assassinating the Iranian leadership he wants as his legacy).
The model that Zionism is cashing in its political capital to try to achieve regional goals with US resources, military or diplomatic, fits the data of the genocide and attacking neighbours and then Iran.
However, that the US balks at getting into high intensity warfare with Iran where there would be US casualties and no end in sight, fits the data that this faction is in conflict with other powerful factions.
As a result the policy is not some coherent strategy with little deviation, but is extremely chaotic.
The Biden administration was well aware the genocide harmed democrat reelection chances and there's no reason to believe the friction and half measures to try to mitigate the genocide was not genuine friction, but the Biden administration simply chose genocidal Zionism (whether for ideology, blackmail, money, whatever) over their own reelection, for the simple reason that it was mostly filled with Zionists!
However, if there was coherence to the strategy then the US would have continued to escalate with Iran and be in a high intensity conflict right now.
A "bit of bombing" and a "bit of assassination" doesn't achieve any strategic objectives.
The only purpose for limited bombing that has no chance of eliminating Iran's nuclear development capability would be to delay the development of a nuclear weapon in order to prepare an invasion. The way the bombing was carried out (with dozens of trucks removing material from the enrichment plant ahead of time) makes that delay even less likely.
There's simply no appetite among the American people for high intensity war with Iran, it's high-risk and low reward in terms of "US hegemonic interests" that go far beyond Iran, and Zionism ran into this limit in using US resources to achieve Zionist objectives.
Now Israel is in a terrible strategic position, with a terrible economy and risking demographic flight, which could end the entire Zionist project. So if the point of the whole strategy, if coming from US empire, was that genocide in Gaza and attacking everyone would shore up the strategic position of the US proxy in the region, that is not what is being achieved.
And the genocide not only doesn't serve US Imperial strategic interest, it doesn't serve Israel's either.
The motivation is to get the land and also enjoy a psychopathic killing, torture and rape spree, not some strategic improvement to Israel's military position.
I was responding to your point that Trump doesn't have a plan. He does. It might be unrealistic, but the plan is to offer Iran goodies to drop their nuclear ambitions.
Would Iran trust us? Doubtful, but there is precedent for the U.S. bribing Iran to drop it's enrichment. Obama did it. What is Iran's alternative, though? They just got punished severely. They got no support from the (civilized) world and even their neighbors turned on them. Top Iranian officials now know Israel can and will take them out. Why not take the bribe the Trump Admin is offering? Isn't enrichment just not worth it at this point?
As I noted to Benkei, this is not a change of strategy, but a change of method.
It was never a feasible alternative to the stick, because why would Iran do business with the US (with all the baggage that brings) when it can do business with the Russians and the Chinese on a more or less equal basis, with no strings attached?
Quoting boethius
Obviously this isn't explicitly US strategy, but unwavering support for its proxy Israel is.
Israel is critically vulnerable in more ways than one, so letting Israel ethnically cleanse/commit genocide in Gaza is par for the course at this point.
Does it hurt US credibility? Sure, but what credibility did it have left to begin with?
Apparently no amount of support for genocide is going to make the Europeans or any other key strategic allies second guess their relationship with the US, so in the grand scheme of things it matters little.
If you're of the opinion that US support for the Gaza genocide damaged US interests in a significant way, I expect you to be able to point out those damages.
Quoting boethius
I disagree somewhat. Israeli genocide provides the US with an exit strategy that practically writes itself. And as you point out, Israel is going to be cut off sooner or later, because the US will no longer want to pay the increasing cost of keeping Israel afloat in its unsustainable situation.
The US is simply milking Israel to the fullest extent before that moment arrives. Which means causing maximum chaos, even if their capacity to sow chaos has significantly decreased.
I think you and Benkei are operating under the erroneous assumption that there's any strategy available that doesn't lose the Middle-East for the US.
We are way, way too far down the line for any salvaging operations.
Every nation in the Middle-East hates their guts. Diplomacy is a fucking pipedream, especially now that Russia and China are offering an alternative.
I do agree that Trump has plans. Many plans, actually. Like "Liberation Day" tariffs, remember? Great plans!
Yet in this occasion it's totally clear that Israel was the initiator and the real actor here, Trump simply responded when initial Israeli strikes went so well.
Quoting RogueAI
One thing would be for them to drop the program. Another thing to get Israel to believe the program is dropped.
We should remember all the talk of the "Mushroom cloud" and the "Yellow cake from Niger" when the Bush administration was making the case for war against Iraq after 9/11. Well, Saddam didn't have any nuclear program then. Saddam did have one before he went and invaded Kuwait, yet afterwards he didn't have a program. Yet in the end: that didn't matter. And similar thinking should be applied here too.
First of all, is an Iran that has great relations to it's Arab neighbors the optimum situation for Israel, or is an Iran that still is a "rogue state" that can be bombed every once and a while better? I fear that for Bibi, the war prime minister, the latter is a better option.
Iran can be later bombed again and again.
Then once Iran has the bomb they can be like "See! See! We were right all along! If only we bombed them harder!"
Then, as you note with North Korea, Iran doesn't strike anyone with nuclear weapons and the issue is forgotten about, but sanctions permanent due to having nuclear weapons.
Exactly. To welcome back Iran to the international community, or at least to accept not attacking it is against the hawkish policy. Even if Iran would want to change it's policies, it's very difficult to change the course of Israeli lead US now.
Quoting boethius
Sanctions will be a natural part, but note that's it's only Western sanctions. Iran isn't similar to the Hermit Kingdom (North Korea).
If the MAGA people cheer on how inept and totally useless the UN or other international organizations are, do note that then simply "the South" goes it's own ways. As I've said earlier, we are on track to go to an international order that was present in the 18th Century (as even the 19th Century had functioning international cooperation and organizations).
Quoting ssu
Is North Korea even so isolated now?
My understanding is that by ejecting Russia from the Western trade system they have quickly integrated with all the existing sanctioned countries.
One of the most mind boggling aspects to the Western policy with Russia, that sanctions only work against a small network of countries. Russia isn't small and to even have a chance that sanctions are meaningful would require the rest of the world to go along, not to mention China and India.
Quoting ssu
It's so wild that the US is now attacking institutions it created for its own benefit.
However, I doubt the global south would exit the UN, as it's clearly useful as a forum of diplomacy (especially if Israel stops murdering diplomats). Global South is more focused on creating parallel economic institutions, such as to substitute the IMF.
But do you reference the 18th and 19th century in it's relatively peaceful international relations, such as between European powers not having yet discovered the true power of industrial warfare, or in its ruthless colonial competition aspects? (just with non-European colonial powers competing for resources in this century)
Good point, actually North Korea is the country which is now in a firm defense pact with Russia. The North Korean troops now fighting in Europe show this.
Quoting boethius
And it's actually the real reason why the Superpower status of the US is waning.
Especially the MAGA-morons don't understand that whole system was designed for the US itself and to especially benefit Americans! But no, the brainfarts of Trump, the great populist orator, have been taken as Holy Scripture and they truly think that all the international organizations are there to fuck Americans. And that international trade is bad. And they don't need that Superpower status, that somehow it isn't useful at all for them.
18th Century was a mess in Europe. A lot of wars and very unstable alliances. Yes, there wasn't yet industrial warfare, but there were the fighting and the armies roamed, that was total warfare. And so it had been even earlier.
Colonial competition started really in the 19th Century globally as then the technological advantage the West enjoyed was totally overwhelming. It was only Napoleon who first showed European technological superiority to the Ottomans, but do noticed that he was kicked out of Egypt. Only in the 19th Century was the Ottoman Empire "the Sick Man of Europe".
In order to talk about parties seeking their own gain at the expense of some collective gain one has to establish how collective gain must be assessed. Adopting a normative standard for it. The problem Im pointing out is that involved parties do not necessarily share the same understanding of collective gain. So before talking about dishonesty one has to discuss about views of national interest.
The fact that accusing government representatives of being dishonest about their claims or policies over national interest, not only suggests (without proving it) ones own honest and/or non-exploitative attitude toward national interest (how convenient is that for powerless anonymous people whom nobody would hold accountable?), but that there is a shared view on what the national interest is. Unfortunately there are competing views of national interest within a nation (see pro-Ukraine vs pro-Russian views within Ukraine, or pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel views in Israel). And due to these competing views, whatever supporter of any of them can be accused of being self-serving and exploitative. Any propaganda has its counter-propaganda. Besides humans are generally more prone to detect the abuses they suffer from than the ones they inflict on others, and if offense is in the eye of the beholder, nobody can consider themselves immune from such accusations.
What I find peculiar to national interest wrt other concepts is that it is inherently subject to a perpetual ideological struggle with moments of greater convergence or divergence. This is what can be said, independently from what ideology one personally espouses or one side one picks.
Quoting boethius
You mean, C cant do both, pursuing B and D?
Your formula applies as well to negotiations. A sells bread, C seeks bread. If C tells A: hey Im here to buy some bread from you, is C being deceitful or exploitative toward A because in reality C wants bread, not give money to A?
What is missing in your formula is what you wished to highlight: the deceitful/exploitative part.
Yet also the notion of exploitation can be more slippery than it looks at first. See, there are cooperative games where each player can maximise their payoffs by choosing to cooperate instead of refusing to cooperate. Yet the payoffs are unequally distributed among players. Is this enough to claim that the players who get the least are exploited by the ones who get the most? What if we also add that payoffs are not only unequally distributed but also uncertain or unstable over time? What if we also add that understanding of the payoffs and uncertainties, is not shared?
Quoting boethius
Here some additional clarifications. If nation refers to a series of perceived common traits among certain individuals (e.g. shared language, geographic roots, ancestors, historical events, traditions, phenotypical traits, etc.) that supports a sense of collective identity and common fate wrt other nations, then each individual can form a certain understanding of what could be beneficial to the nation as a function of how representative of the nation one perceives himself (with his self-interest) to be and the kind of cooperation he expects to be likely among national fellows (given certain power relations).
Now multiply this by all the members forming a given nation. What you get is the number of views one nation can offer about their national interest , and we cant simply assume they converge to the point of perfectly overlapping. So more or less competing views of national interest will struggle to become popular and politically represented. Hence my point: National interest points at something that is the result of collective dynamics however inspired by individual expectations and wishes. Its a collective historical process that determines what counts as the national interest de facto, not what any isolated individual has in mind and calls national interest.
Thats where I find your focus on the honesty of powerful people about "national interest" conceptually misleading. Indeed the dishonest or exploitative intent of powerful people doesnt necessarily compromise the fact that a policy can still be legitimately perceived in line with national interest. There might be reasons independent from the trustability of certain politicians for others to support these politicians' policies. Besides, lacking moral scruples in pursuing taking certain decisions and policies cant be a-priori considered inherently unapt to achieve national interest. Its very much human the predicament where people understand what needs to be done but lack the courage or the determination to do it, also for alleged moral scruples. Any society as the human beings that form it, have its own inertia due to cross-generational habits, entrenched self-serving interests and prejudices which make non-cosmetic change hardly possible for any national government. While dramatic change will likely trigger controversy and any side will invoke "morality" to rationalize their self-serving views (and "populist" views like yours are not immune from such risk either). Besides, a politician can exploitatively promote a policy which he honestly believes detrimental to national interest and yet be mistaken as much as a honest politician can be mistaken about what is beneficial to national interest.
My considerations should be hardly surprising since politicians do not take decisions in a void of collective expectations, lobby pressure, and collaborators advice that are integral part of a nation. Even more so where decisional power is institutionally constrained and distributed over a wider network of influential people. And things get even messier when one reasons strategically under uncertainty where the payoffs of political moves by one player are determined how all other players are moving. Also at inter-national level.
Whatever plausible moral hazard one pins on Netanyahu, Hamas leaders, Iranian leaders, Trump, Putin or Zelensky, all powerful and wealthy people, and all trapped in a conflict of interest between personal gains and their political functions, even more so in times of crisis (what unexpected is there really? How else could it be? is there any instance of power in human history immune from such suspects and fears of abuses?), is not this what I find it decisive to assess the alignment of certain decisions and policies with national interest. On the contrary, it can be misleading in making us believe e.g. that if its enough to remove Netanyahu, Trump, Putin, Zelensky, current Hamas leaders or Iranian leaders things will change or align better with national interest. Also discrediting them today as national catastrophes wont preclude them from being revalued in the future as national heroes. See how Putin elevated Stalin as national hero (e.g. wrt Lenin), compared to previous presidents like Khrushchev, Yeltsin or even Medvedev. And how popular this has become amongst Russians now. Perceived national interest evolves.
Its an entire nation that is historically engaged in determining what national interest is from within and outside pressure. And thats why I agree with your following statement: what exactly is the national interest, even for people trying to be genuinely focused on that, is up for debate. However, its not just misinformation or evil intentions which make us debate and speculate over whats best for national interest. Its its inherently historical and ideological nature.
Quoting boethius
Nice summary. Im willing to accord Israel (and Ukraine and Europe) more decisional autonomy from US demands/instructions than Tzeench seems willing to concede. And I would even go further than you did: namely, even if the Israeli attacks against Iran ultimately benefits the US grand strategy, or aligns with a certain understanding of it, that wouldnt prove that the Israeli attacks were due to the US initiative or consent.
My comment is however about something else, on purpose, no matter how tangential it looks to you. Your descriptive yet ideologically loaded analysis is based on certain assumptions of what national interest of the US is and how certain political decisions fulfill such national interest (I disagree with @Tzeentch, I view the genocide in Gaza as absolutely terrible for US Imperial interests), to then identify intent and later assess responsibility (My analysis of the current situation is that Zionists "went for it and tried to push the United States into a high-intensity war with Iran and the faction that stopped that from happening (for now) is the pentagon (because they know it conflicts with US imperial interest, represent far more costs than gains, have other regions they worry about, such as East-Asia)). As far as Im concerned, I find nothing philosophically interesting in adopting certain normative standards (e.g. genocide is bad), assess (not describe) if certain actions comply or not with held normative standards (e.g. supporting a genocidal state is bad), and then attribute intentions (e.g. the US cant possibly have supported a genocidal state, if it wasnt somehow forced into doing it), and later blame accordingly (e.g. sure the Great Satan is the evilest, but we cant blame it for the initiative of Israelis attacks against Iran) be it in the moral or political domain. You as the others are engaging in a political debate and wish to be representative of certain political views, possibly contribute to amplify them and make them more influential (I dont care how honestly). Good luck with that.
Thats the gist of politics and propaganda not philosophy, though. My engagement in political debates in this philosophy forum is finalised to do philosophy no to fix the world. The philosophical task, as I understand and enjoy it, is engaging in conceptual investigations. Hence my focus on the notion of national interest to challenge views like yours.
Neither of two possible goals (regime change and destruction of Iran's nuclear program) were achieved. In fact the war has made it more likely that in the long-term Iran's regime will survive and that it will get its hands on nuclear weapons.
The fact that the Iranian regime was able to survive the attempted decapitation strike has signaled to Russia and China that Iran is a safe investment - something which was entirely up for debate prior to the 12-Day War due to the questionable nature of Iran's internal security. Simultaneously, this war has pushed Iran further into the arms of Russia and China - a process which historically they have been weary of, but are now likely to fully embrace.
In terms of nuclear weapons, the war has prompted Iran to end all cooperation with the IAEA (a institution that has now been shown to blatantly spy for the US and Israel, and produce pretenses for their wars whenever it suits them) thus putting any of Iran's future nuclear development programs out of international supervision.
Of course, Iran's incentive to produce nuclear weapons has dramatically increased. That it will actively pursue nuclear armament is virtually a guarantee now, and the limited damage that was done to its nuclear facilities, and its strengthening ties with Russia and China, suggest that it will be able to do so within a relatively short timeframe.
The damage that has been done to the IAEA's credibility is something that will have global consequences for nuclear profliteration.
Meanwhile, Israel was shown to be critically vulnerable even under limited aerial bombardment. Since the country has zero strategic depth and basically only two lifelines (Haifa and Ben Gurion Airport), it was always a matter of time before western technological supremacy would wane and Israel's vulnerability would be exposed.
A couple hundred rockets and drones is all it takes to threaten Israel with economic crisis - all of Israel's enemies will have taken note of this.
When all these factors are taken together, we're looking at a critical defeat for Israel, and that makes for a very dangerous situation going forward.
Speculations abound concerning follow-up attacks that may include nuclear weapons use.
What options do the US and Israel have left? Conventional strikes were clearly shown to fall short of achieving their objectives. A ground invasion is practically unthinkable.
Uncle Sam and his rabid pet monkey Netanyahu are rapidly running out of options.
"The American strike on the three nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan was undoubtedly effective. Most serious analysts think that the damage of the US strikes was very, very serious, and its hard to imagine that Iran still has a credible nuclear weapons programme in place that has somehow eluded intelligence, said Patrick Wintour.
...
Tehran has seen the regime parade the coffins of the martyred military chiefs and nuclear scientists who died in the strikes to state funerals."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/01/tuesday-briefing-how-weakened-is-iran-after-operation-midnight-hammer-and-where-might-it-go-from-here
Who wouldn't want to work on Iran's nuclear program? You get to be a martyr and a free state funeral.
In the long run maybe, yet it wasn't a disaster. Iran isn't parading captured Israeli or US pilots. Nor are there pictures of IDF or USAF/USN aircraft being shot down.
It's like the Patriot missiles during the Gulf War. Back then the technology was still to poor and basically the Patriots didn't hit incoming Scuds at all, but the media portrayed a stellar kill score for the old missiles. And that was enough. The public didn't care about it later when it came to light that the Patriots back then had failed. With these strikes, history will tell us in the future, but then it will be an issue the public doesn't care about.
The real failure is that there is no peace is in sight for Israel and Bibi and the Likud party have basically accepted that. Israel is in a permanent war footing, and it will need similar large scale military operations in the future. And now the US is trusty sidekick for Israel.
And the MAGA-morons are still happy with Trump. The no-new wars in the Middle East will be forgotten and what will be promoted is that Donald Trump is the only President since Reagan that has fought with the Iranians (and selectively even Reagan's successful war, Operation Praying Mantis, will be forgotten).
The only thing that hasn't happened is for the entire narrative to collapse. People keep on believing the delusions, etc., but that's not actually something that will help the US going forward. Keeping people high on delusions and propaganda has a long-term cost, and all it is achieving is allowing the US to continue a defunct foreign policy.
But honestly I think the worst thing to come out of this, is the image of a weak Israel. It has operated for decades with the knowledge that it needed to maintain an image of invincibility to stave off the myriad enemies it has in the region. It cannot afford to look weak, but now it does, and there's seems to be nothing that can reverse that.
Meanwhile, the US is cutting aid to Ukraine as it worries about its own stockpiles - another signal that the US might not be a position to keep Israel afloat in the future.
When the United States reverts to its natural sideshow status, its gigantic national debt will present an obstacle the average American cannot afford to not give a fuck about.
They don't care about that either.
U.S. is the richest country in the world, with a GDP of $27 trillion. Who do you think is going to pass them up and when?
I doubt it.
:100:
You are right. If US Middle East policy is looked on the long run, it really has been a train wreck. But people just don't think about it. Yet when you went from having CENTO, having nearly all the major regional players as your allies to then having "Twin Pillars" (of Saudi-Arabia and Iran) and then to the present, it's obvious that things have gotten just worse.
South East Asia shows how actually things can improve. The US has now ties with Vietnam. The Korean Peninsula is rather stable. It isn't involved in a shooting war in the area. Now it doesn't have such an alliance system as it has in Europe (SEATO simply failed), but the region is rather peaceful (apart of Myanmar).
The fact is that domestic politics overrides conventional foreign policy for the US especially when it comes to Israel. And Bibi understands this well, I'd consider him the only case of politician that can operate in the political realm of two countries.
I wouldn't quite agree.
To make such a statement, one must first understand what the principal US goals have been in the Middle-East. In my view, it is first and foremost about securing access to cheap oil and denying stable land-based access to others (like Russia, China and India). Second, it has been to avoid any regional competitor to Israel from rising. (Note the role Iran plays in both of these)
This policy has been remarkably successful for decades. The US completely dominated the Middle-East, and successfully laid waste to the region at will.
What has changed today is the geopolitical balance of power. It's not US Middle-East policy that has ran its course; it's the US empire that has ran its course.
The US is now clearly struggling to continue achieving these two goals, and that situation looks like it will only be getting worse. That's why this long-time policy is now defunct.
The problem I have with the way you seem to frame it is probably best summarized by the following play on a well-known axiom: "Do not attribute to ignorance that which is clearly the product of malice."
The Middle East has been fucked up since the British ruled it. The US has not returned it to a state of organic ease and well being, but all they wanted was oil, right?
Due to fracking, the US could probably meet it's own energy needs now
If your previous allies turn into your enemies, how do you think that would be a success of any kind?
Quoting Tzeentch
Bullshit. Laying waste to a region isn't anything successful. Having something like the occupation of Iraq isn't a success. US has now fought several wars in the region. It's simply a huge waste of money as the region is as volatile as before.
Having Western Europe in NATO and peaceful is what success looks like.
Just compare the UK and Saudi-Arabia as allies to the US. Which country is the US afraid of if there would be a revolution and the current regime would be ousted and a hostile to the US regime could get into power? Or how about Egypt? What if the Muslim Brotherhood takes power or an even more radical cabal takes over? How friendly are now the ties with the US and Iraq?
(Anti-US demonstration in Iraq in 2020)
Quoting frank
Don't forget the French. Thanks to technological advances like fracking, the US isn't dependent on the Middle East anymore. So what's really the point?
Trump is having fun. His advisors tell him stuff, he expounds his great wisdom to them. They say, ok. He's the commander in chief. I get that some people expect there to be more to it than that, like grand purposes, grievous failure of some continuous long-term policy. Nothing will convince them otherwise because they have a worldview that says things somehow make sense. There's a plan. There is meaning. It's not wasted breath to vent your hatred of the USA.
By the way, did you see the video I posted in the news thread about Elvira Bary's take on Russia? I guess I knew some of the things she was saying, but I was still a little shocked at the way she put it together. She says there's an underlying current of thought in Russia that says it needs to be an empire in order to survive. It's not just about being big shots, it's that the west will eat them up if they aren't strong enough. It's strange how differently people see things when we're all attached to the same rock flying through space.
Europeans do get into trouble when they project their notions onto the Middle East and insist that the region submit to their impositions.
It's irrelvant. US power in the Middle-East would be waning anyway as a result of the shifting balance of power, but the key here is that none of those enemies are capable of inflicting a real cost upon the US.
The US will retreat to its island, and it will leave other nations to deal with the fallout - in this case Israel. Some day it will be Europe.
This is a well-established pattern in US foreign policy, and they wouldn't be repeating it ad nauseam if it weren't so wildly effective.
I don't have a hatred towards the US. The US has had a great foreign policy in the long run in Europe. When other countries voluntarily join your alliance, do want keep in it, and look for the US for leadership, that is true success.
But in the Middle East, two former ally countries of the US became it's enemies (Iran, Iraq), which the other one the US invaded (Iraq), and with a third country (Pakistan) the relations are now non-existent and nearly hostile, which can be seen from the crucial role Pakistan had in the Taleban defeating the US backed regime, which meant that the US lost the longest war it had fought.
Why do you say that above is this astounding remarkable success or "a well-established pattern"? It's not my hatred of the US that I "vent" this. It's simply the truth. Losing wars like in Afghanistan isn't what the US would want to happen.
Perhaps for Trump the Middle East with the Gulf States brazenly and openly giving bribes to him is what he is indeed the place that he is exited about. That Western democracies don't do this and cannot do this perhaps makes him irritated. Why this would be a good thing I don't know.
It's not irrelevant.
How did the Warsaw Pact countries then show their gratitude towards Russia after being former "allies" of the Soviet Union? Of course, these countries were no "allies" like NATO members are as the basic objective for the Warsaw Pact to exist was to reinforce the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe. And in this role the Warsaw Pact acted very well in 1956 and in 1968. So them joining NATO when they had the opportunity just shows this. Putin's disastrous policies afterwards have just shown they were 100% correct and invading neighboring countries has just reinforced other European countries to see what kind of a danger Russia is.
Quoting Tzeentch
The Taleban couldn't inflict a real cost upon the US, but it won the war and the US lost, just like in Vietnam. That's a fact. My basic reasoning here: when you have to bomb a country, you have already lost a lot, namely peace. Being in a dominant position and having peace is the true measure of success.
If you have to bomb, occupy countries and there is true resentment of your occupation (like in Iraq), that's not success. It isn't the worst defeat, but it surely isn't success. All I'm saying is that this train wreck cannot be described as an success in any way.
US Middle-East policy has been incredibly successful for many decades.
Let me list the successes:
- For decades the US successfully prevented regional powers from rising through classic 'divide & rule' strategies, and by destroying any Middle-Eastern country that started showing signs of prosperity and a sense of independence.
- It has successfully controlled Middle-Eastern oil to such an extent that it allowed the US to take the world economy hostage via the petro-dollar.
- It has successfully locked other great powers like Russia, China and India out of stable land-access to the Middle-East (and Africa and Europe, by extension).
You, and many others, are operating under an assumption that the 'forever wars' had some envisioned endpoint of permanent victory. They did not. Talk of 'spreading democracy', etc. was just the figleaf.
Causing chaos and destruction was the whole point - except in those countries that willfully kowtowed before Washington and basically assigned themselves voluntarily to vassal status.
The fact that the strategy no longer works now doesn't mean that it wasn't successful.
If the 12-Day War had succeeded in plunging Iran back into chaos, it would have extended US-Israeli dominance in the region for a long time and we wouldn't even be having this conversation. It would have been another success in a long string of successes.
However, it is specifically the 12-Day War that now heavily suggests that the US is too weak to continue this policy. It's definitely not certain. The US and Israel could be planning follow-up operations for all we know, that might yet succeed.
Calling back to my earlier point of figleafs - the US needs to pretend this wasn't the point all along. All the chaos it has sown in the Middle-East has caused millions of casualties, and to publicly come out and say it was all intentional is unthinkable.
That's why they have to come up with fairytales about spreading democracy and supposedly failling.
I think we're talking past one another. I don't think Trump has any particular policy regarding the middle east.
Quoting ssu
I doubt it. He just does whatever he can get away with, as always.
Quoting Tzeentch
You have a strange idea of hostage situations, but anyway.
Very typical to totally forget and sideline here the House of Saud, which is very crucial to the whole thing. The House of Saud, once a British protectorate, then made good relations with the rising Superpower and finally made Saudi-Aramco purely Saudi owned, without a clash with the West as had happened with Iran. That the Saudis went with the dollar when Nixon got out of the gold standard was very crucial for the US. Even if there is hostility towards the US in the country (starting famously with Osama bin Laden), the partnership that hasn't any ideological or cultural ties has continued as a real example of realpolitik.
Quoting Tzeentch
This is the typical anti-American rant, that doesn't at all grasp the reality of how expensive wars are ...especially when you end up losing them, just like Vietnam or Afghanistan.
If this would be such an incredibly successful foreign policy towards a region, then wouldn't it then be better according to you that the US would have to bomb or occupy West European countries in order to "prevent regional powers from rising through classic 'divide & rule' strategies, and by destroying any West European country that started showing signs of prosperity and a sense of independence".
Oh, the US would be so better then...
Yet on the contrary, the US was OK with European integration and an EU to rise. Forget the Marshall Plan? Why was this so good according to your "divide & rule"? And this makes the US far different from classic imperialist countries like Russia.
In truth in the long run "divide & rule" is a constant uphill battle and a perpetual drain on the economy and resources of any country/empire. Thus after exhausting the prosperity in these quite mindless wars, then empires falter.
It seems so. We agree on this.
Perhaps the policy of Trump is be in the limelight at all times and make people/countries react to your actions?
Maybe. What I was pointing out is that Trump probably wouldn't have made any decision if it weren't for people briefing him on world events like his opinion is supposed to be of consequence. His focus is more domestic. The tariffs may have seemed like a foreign policy, but it wasn't really. It's about his ideas about taking the US back to the 1970s in terms of industrialization.
The reason is obvious, and I'm glad you asked - Saudi Arabia, with its population of only roughly 30 million, is the perfect US "ally" because it is not a serious candidate for being a great/regional power.
Supporting minor powers in order to balance against the bigger ones is classic balance of power politics, and Saudi Arabia is a textbook example.
Quoting ssu
Europe willingly subjugated itself to the US (it didn't have a huge amount of options post-WII), and when a part of the world willingly throws itself in your lap that is of course a geopolitical wet dream. That's a unique situation and not something that is easily replicated - especially not in the Middle-East.
In terms of wars being "expensive", this entirely depends on the ways in which the war is profitable.
Vietnam was a costly, pointless failure that greatly harmed the US. The fact that the defeat greatly and observably harmed the US I view as a strong indicator that 'failure' is the appropriate word here.
With Afghanistan and various other interventions, I don't agree they were failures. The US successfully created failed states all over the world to deny resources, bloc power and trade corridors. Any damage the US may have suffered from the eventual retreat was superficial. So in these cases the geopolitical benefit far outweighed the cost. Again, that's why they keep doing it over and over, and over.
As Ukraine should willingly subjugate itself to Russia. What other options does Ukraine have? Neither Europeans nor the US are offering other options to Ukraine than subjugating itself to Russia, right? That's why Europeans and the US are helping Ukraine fight against Russia, instead of supporting Russia fight against Ukraine, right?
Quoting Tzeentch
Why should Europeans and the US deny such wet dreams to Russia which wants to annex only a small portion of Ukraine, not the entire Ukraine, just a small portion that is directly linked to the control of the Black Sea? Europeans and the US should serve Russia's wet dreams, right?
If that means sacrificing Europeans and the US geopolitical wet dreams, that's not an excuse for denying Russia's wet dreams, right?
Quoting Tzeentch
But if it is difficult for the US than it is difficult for Russia and China too, right? And if Russia and China are meddling anyways in the Middle-East, why shouldn't the US?
Quoting Tzeentch
Let us know about the ways the war is profitable to Iran, Russia and China.
After you finish with the US and Israel, of course. Take your time.
Quoting Tzeentch
On the contrary Russia and Iran created successful states all over the world to grant those states resources, bloc competing powers and trade corridors.
You're playing the wrong game.
It is wrong for Russia to do what it's doing, on the view of the majority of the geopolitical sphere. No one will support that. It's potentially pragmatic in terms of appeasing a dictatorial weirdo who can't keep his shit together, but otherwise, It would be a very cowardly move. That's why the world wont service Russian's continually hostile attitudes to geopolitics. Sometimes, it is right to deny those what they want.
Whatever plausible point Tzeench has, it is then elaborated through his personal ideological glasses and with such an arrogance that it exposes his own arguments to easy dialectical retorts. Discrediting interlocutors and silence treatment are the next predictable steps from his part since he feels defenseless against such dialectical retorts.
Said that, I would add that in political debates ideological views are part of the game but also part of the problem to the extent they nurture conflicts. So in a philosophy forum like this one it would be more suitable (expected? beneficial? fun?) to take a philosophical approach about political debates, take a step back and resist the temptation to (explicitly or implicitly) reason in terms of what is right or wrong (which is still political propaganda) but in terms of what one wants and what on can get in a way that equally applies to ALL ideological conflicting views at hand (INCLUDING the ideological views one supports).
Quoting neomac
Setting side some extremely weak responses about how the conversations actually run, yeah, 100%. Probably my least-enjoyed aspect of this place is the clear ideological capture plenty of posters are under.