Yet another war, this time with Iran

[Derec]

What basis do you have for your unsupported belief that there is any military action the US could plausibly take that would "likely lead to a defeat of the Regime"?

Why would it not? Military action led to the defeat of the Nazi regime too, for example.

This is the error at the heart of all of this shit. And it is caused by Trump's absurd simpleton view, presumably taken from Saturday morning Westerns, that violence is a good solution to problems, because the world is cleanly divided into black hats and white hats, so all we need do is shoot the black hats and ride off into the sunset.

The Regime is about as "black hat" as any real-world leadership can be.

Are you really naïve enough to concur with that insanity?

I am certainly not naïve enough to think that giving them even more money will lead them to moderate.

 

[Derec]

Iran is winning this.

Only if US gives up now. The Regime knows this, which is why they are turning up a propaganda machine worthy of Göbbels and Riefenstahl. Only, it's 21st century, and so it involves anti-Western influences like Hasan Piker, armies of Reddit bots taking over a bunch of subreddits, and of course, silly AI slop.

 

[Derec]

And, I'm sure you all noticed that Vance's attempts to make a deal with Iran were a failure.

Maybe he can replace him with Little Marco?

I really don't get the obsession with keeping nuclear arms from Iran.

You don't think it's important to keep an islamofascist theocracy that funds, arms and controls much of international islamic terrorism, from acquiring nuclear weapons?

N. Korea has nukes.

And they are using that status to threaten and blackmail S. Korea.

The US who we know has the most insane, psychopathic leader of all has nukes.

Far less insane and psychopathic than the Iranian leadership.

The US is the only country who has used nukes,

For a very good reason. Those two nukes probably saved a lot of American and Japanese lives.

and based on what little history I recall, Iran isn't the country that usually starts major wars.

They prefer to operate through vassals that are controlled by the IRGC. They control much of Yemen through the Houthis, much of Lebanon through Hezbollah, and much of Iraq through various Shiite militias. They used to control Syria through the Assad regime.

If the Obama deal had been kept in place, it would have been much better, but the madman in the WH who despises Obama had to end that deal.

Had the Obama deal been kept in place, it would have expired by now, so Iran would be back to developing nukes anyway. But in the meantime, they would have had sanctions relief, which would have given them more funds to expand their missile threat even more. In addition, they would have had more funds to give to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, meaning that they would have been more powerful too. Hell, had the JCPOA been kept in place, it is even questionable that the Assad regime would have fallen.

Now I predict that that Trump will probably throw Vance under the bus for not getting a deal with Iran. Not that I'm any fan of Vance, but this is what happens when you give your soul to someone like Trump. ( No, I don't mean soul in the literal sense )

Vance is probably worse than Trump overall. I really hope he never becomes POTUS.

 

[Derec]

You sound like Hamas leadership.

More like Churchill or Roosevelt. My point is that we should not capitulate to the islamofascists just because oil prices went up some.

 

[Derec]

Bill Maher has his biases. He is staunchly pro-Israel and anti-Muslim.

What's wrong with that?

 

[Derec]

Seems some of the old atheist heroes have fallen a tad out of favor: Maher, Hitchens, Harris...

Dawkins, too.

They all fell out of favor with many atheists because they did not subscribe to left wing orthodoxy of so-called "Atheism+". Where "plus" meant "plus left wing politics and social justice warfare". "Wokeness" would belong there too thematically, even if it did not enter the mainstream lexicon back at the time of the Great Schism in the aftermath of the Elevatorgate scandal where a young man was shamed and attacked for having the temerity to talk to a young woman in an elevator at a conference.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Iran is winning this.

Only if US gives up now.

The US can't really give up, because it was never exactly in a position to fight this battle in the first place! In order to defeat Iran, we first need to clear the Strait of Hormuz, which would require securing a Pennsylvania size strip of rugged and very hostile territory. We ain't got that capacity, as in to take it, secure it, hold it. Trump was sold a NYC bridge by Netanyahu. It was going to be swift, effective, final. No need for domestic sacrifice, they were going to decapitate the Iranian Theocracy. Trump wasn't aiming for a years long engagement.

So please, stop it with the 'we can't give up now' crap. We haven't even started what it would actually take to put this off. We ain't close to defeating Iran and we aren't remotely positioned to even try. We mobilized for half a year plus for Iraq... and we got the Iraqi military to give up.

The Regime knows this, which is why they are turning up a propaganda machine worthy of Göbbels and Riefenstahl.

Well yeah. So? It comes down to how many Iranians:

1) are willing to die
2) think their death will lead to the fall of the theocracy

If that number isn't at a certain threshold, there is no fall of the Theocracy, and the propaganda (well the bullets and threats against them and their families) do wonders in keeping the repressed repressed.

 

[Toni]

I don’t know, to be honest. If Trump can be peacefully removed from office by the US, and a person who is both sane and competent and not military were to take the office, perhaps the US could issue a very large apology for allowing a mad demented asshole be in charge, that would be a start. Frankly, I don’t think that Iran’s heart is in this. It would help if Israel similarly retired Bibi and Putin had a nice stiff drink of some special cocktail and accidentally fell out of a window, we might be at the edge of a new beginning.

I will say this: I think that it has been a mistake for the US or any one nation to become the main police of the world. Not only is there always the potential fur a madman to gain control but as galling as it is to admit: Trump had had a point in that too much of the cost and responsibility for trying to maintain peace has fallen to the US. It is better, more just and safer if the responsibility is more equitably shared among nations. With a smaller amount of our GDP invested in military, perhaps we could better afford some of the good thins other modern nations afford: more accessible healthcare, more affordable or even free higher education and universal daycare, better family leave policies for all, a better work/life balance. A cleaner environment, sustainable agriculture and sustainable communities.

 

[bilby]

And other times, like right now, it is unnecessary and counterproductive. The US is in a far worse position, by almost any measure, and in almost every field of international relations, than it was before they attacked Iran.

Even if this were the case, giving up now would be the worst possible outcome.

If you genuinely believe this, then you seriously lack imagination.

The world and domestic economies have been severely harmed.

Have they? I do not see much evidence of that.

Really? Do you think that a massive increase in the price of diesel fuel and aviation fuel is going to be economically beneficial?

Relations with allies (other than Israel) have been severely harmed.

That is true, but it is not just because of the Iran war. It also has to do with the Greenland nonsense and generally with how Trump acts.

Sure. But the Iran war, and his comments directly relating to it, are a big part of it.

On the other hand, European allies have been pushing Obama to agree to the rotten JCPOA that left Iran more powerful because of sanction relief.

Well as Obama hasn't been in a position to agree to anything for almost a decade, that probably isn't important right now.

They used that to expand their missile program and fund more terrorism abroad - including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.

The nascent opposition in Iran has been massacred.

That happened in January.

...and then stopped happening. Obviously. Because the IRGC wouldn't massacre its opponents without telling you, surely?

So if anything, that's an argument that military action should have happened sooner.

Given that military action short of boots on the ground couldn't have prevented it, no, it isn't.

NATO has been severely weakened,

Not just the fault of the US, but also the fault of unreliable partners like Spain, which has an islamolefist government that hates Israel.

WTF are you on about? Even if Spain were "unreliable" with respect to her NATO obligations (a claim for which there is zero evidence), hating Israel isn't a NATO issue - when the US invoked Article 5 for the only time in the history of NATO, Spain was right there along with the rest of the members of the treaty organisation.

Slandering Spain doesn't in any way alter the fact that Trump has weakened NATO, which would remain true even in the counterfactual world in which Spain had also done that.

and Russia both emboldened and provided with economic windfalls both from increased oil prices and reduced sanctions.

That is unfortunately true.

As are my other points.

Not only was this military action not necessary, it was foreseeably and obviously stupid and counterproductive in a vast array of ways.

I still think that a military confrontation with the regime was inevitable.

You can think whatever you like. You have no good reasons to think that, though.

Yes, this was not a good time for it, but five years from now it would probably have been a lot worse.

Or not happened at all. Five years from now the Ayatollahs might well have been overthrown, if Trump hadn't intervened and provoked the massacre of the opposition.

Before JCPOA, before Regime's vassals the Houthis took over much of Yemen, before they sent even more arms to Hezbollah, would have been a better time to act decisively,

Decisive action might have been a good idea; Military action, not so much.

At no time has it been, nor will it be, possible to bomb people into being your friends.

instead of giving the Regime sanctions relief and pallets of cash for very few concessions.

They had stopped working on an atomic bomb, which was the key concession. If you don't think that that was a concession worth having, then I am afraid I will have to disagree.

If you don't believe that they had, then I am afraid reality will have to disagree. "They were probably still doing it secretly" is a conspiracy theory, and a propaganda claim, but has no evidence to support it.

 

[laughing dog]

You sound like Hamas leadership.

More like Churchill or Roosevelt.

Nah. It is Hama's policy.

My point is that we should not capitulate to the islamofascists just because oil prices went up some.

What on earth are you on about now? The US has achieved its objectives - eliminate the regime leaders, and nuclear and missile capabilities.

 

[bilby]

What basis do you have for your unsupported belief that there is any military action the US could plausibly take that would "likely lead to a defeat of the Regime"?

Why would it not? Military action led to the defeat of the Nazi regime too, for example.

Do you really think that a ground invasion costing hundreds of thousands of US soldiers' lives qualifies as "military action the US could plausibly take"?

Because that's what it took to defeat the Nazis. And most of the work there was done by the USSR; Are you expecting Russia to plausibly join in as a US ally in this hypothetical military action?

This is the error at the heart of all of this shit. And it is caused by Trump's absurd simpleton view, presumably taken from Saturday morning Westerns, that violence is a good solution to problems, because the world is cleanly divided into black hats and white hats, so all we need do is shoot the black hats and ride off into the sunset.

The Regime is about as "black hat" as any real-world leadership can be.

Even if that's true, it still isn't sensible to just try to kill them to the last man. Not only would that be genocidal, it would be impossible to achieve - identifying who is (or isn't) a part of "The Regime" is impossible, and it's also a moving target, because by acting against "The Regime" you change its membership - people will join because they want to defend their country, and people will leave because they don't want to die.

The Regime is not a person, its membership and leadership cannot be readily identified, and they constantly change. Kill all the leaders, and the Regime persists. That's not a hypothetical, it's a current observation.

Even if the cartoonish characterisation of "The Regime" as black-hats were reasonable (it's not), it would still be impossible to simply kill "The Regime" and go home for tea and medals.

The US and Israel literally just tried that. It achieved nothing other than to make their situation worse than it was before.

Are you really naïve enough to concur with that insanity?

I am certainly not naïve enough to think that giving them even more money will lead them to moderate.

When did I suggest giving anyone any money?

Is this some kind of bizarre belief of yours, that the only possible way to interact with someone is to either kill them, or give them money?

There was no urgent or pressing need to "lead them to moderate"; The main thing was to avoid pushing them the other way - which is why no previous US President was dumb enough to emabark on Operation Epic Fail.

 

[bilby]

You sound like Hamas leadership.

More like Churchill or Roosevelt. My point is that we should not capitulate to the islamofascists just because oil prices went up some.

Capitulation would only be on the cards if they had attacked you. It was the other way around. America attacked, and Iran refused to capitulate. America then realised that she had no plan for that entirely predictable eventuality.