IRAN WAR Catch-All

lawtig02 said:
I agree we'll have to earn back their trust, but as long as we elect someone sane (i.e., a Democrat), I think it will happen more quickly than you're suggesting. I see this kind of like the current stock market -- it's not responding rationally because there's nowhere else for the money to go. Similarly, our traditional allies WANT the United States to resume our historical role as the leader of the free world. It's damn expensive to maintain the most dominant military in the history of the world. They want us to be a rational military power that maintains relative peace across the globe. They want the dollar to be a reliable reserve currency. They want to ally with us rather than with China or Russia.

This is one of the main reasons everything Trump and MAGA has been doing is so infuriating. If you look at the overall geopolitical landscape in 2024, we were set up for enormous, long lasting success as the dominant global superpower, the maintainer of Pax Americana. All we had to do was not fuck up. So what did we do? We fucked up in the most spectacular way imaginable. It will go down in history as one of the all-time great national fuck ups, but I do think it can be reversed, and our allies will do all they can to help us reverse it.
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I agree with this except for that we will rebuild trust quickly. That opportunity was after the first Trump administration. Had Kamala been elected, we’d have stayed on that path. But with the reelection of Trump, it’s now proven that the US is an unreliable partner, and no matter how much they might want things to go back to the way they were, they can’t take that risk and have to move forward as if we’ll remain unreliable for the foreseeable future.
 
I liked the comment on this morning's Pod Save America -- Trump is using social media and these interviews as a vision board. He's describing the world he wants to exist, not the world that actually exists. If Trump says anything that happens to be true, that's a happy accident. He's trying to create reality, not describe it.
 
lawtig02 said:
I agree we'll have to earn back their trust, but as long as we elect someone sane (i.e., a Democrat), I think it will happen more quickly than you're suggesting. I see this kind of like the current stock market -- it's not responding rationally because there's nowhere else for the money to go. Similarly, our traditional allies WANT the United States to resume our historical role as the leader of the free world. It's damn expensive to maintain the most dominant military in the history of the world. They want us to be a rational military power that maintains relative peace across the globe. They want the dollar to be a reliable reserve currency. They want to ally with us rather than with China or Russia.

This is one of the main reasons everything Trump and MAGA has been doing is so infuriating. If you look at the overall geopolitical landscape in 2024, we were set up for enormous, long lasting success as the dominant global superpower, the maintainer of Pax Americana. All we had to do was not fuck up. So what did we do? We fucked up in the most spectacular way imaginable. It will go down in history as one of the all-time great national fuck ups, but I do think it can be reversed, and our allies will do all they can to help us reverse it.
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I agree

Trump alienated us from our allies and America was no longer considered the leader of the free world. By the end of Biden's 1st year he had repaired relations with our allies and restored our role as the leader of the free world.

Of course Trump has done far more damage to our reputation and relationship with our allies this time around. Canada has no respect for this America today nor do all European countries. Repairing the damage this time around will take the entire 1st term and most of the 2nd term ... assuming we have a Democratic president and a Democratic controlled Congress.
 
heelinhell said:
I agree

Trump alienated us from our allies and America was no longer considered the leader of the free world. By the end of Biden's 1st year he had repaired relations with our allies and restored our role as the leader of the free world.

Of course Trump has done far more damage to our reputation and relationship with our allies this time around. Canada has no respect for this America today nor do all European countries. Repairing the damage this time around will take the entire 1st term and most of the 2nd term ... assuming we have a Democratic president and a Democratic controlled Congress.
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Those assumptions are why repair and back to the old ways aren’t going to work. Those bridges are burned. If I were a Western leader, I’d hold the US at arms length knowing that we could turn at any second until proven otherwise over a decade and multiple changes in government to make sure we don’t back slide. But we likely will backslide.
 
TarHeeledTexan said:
Those assumptions are why repair and back to the old ways aren’t going to work. Those bridges are burned. If I were a Western leader, I’d hold the US at arms length knowing that we could turn at any second until proven otherwise over a decade and multiple changes in government to make sure we don’t back slide. But we likely will backslide.
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We're going to have to a deMAGAfication at least to the degree that Germany did a denazification to gain credibility with the world. It would be nice if the equivalent of the Cold War pressures that let that be too much lip service there not exist here. I expect this chaos will carry its own, though.
 
TarHeeledTexan said:
Those assumptions are why repair and back to the old ways aren’t going to work. Those bridges are burned. If I were a Western leader, I’d hold the US at arms length knowing that we could turn at any second until proven otherwise over a decade and multiple changes in government to make sure we don’t back slide. But we likely will backslide.
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The only way to restore trust is a new constitution, or at least constitutional amendments that will prevent this sort of shit.
 
Is it just me, or does it seem like foreign policy is being made on the fly by the memers, on both sides?

That JD Vance in the field image -- what's the point of that? It seems inflammatory by design with no evident purposes, which is to say it's an internet flame, which is fine but really is this war being conducted by AI animators?
 
TarHeeledTexan said:
Those assumptions are why repair and back to the old ways aren’t going to work. Those bridges are burned. If I were a Western leader, I’d hold the US at arms length knowing that we could turn at any second until proven otherwise over a decade and multiple changes in government to make sure we don’t back slide. But we likely will backslide.
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"In a video address released 19 April, Prime Minister Mark Carney said that because Washington is fundamentally changing its approach to trade, Canada's economic ties to the US that were once a strength are now a 'weakness'.

Referring to US President Donald Trump's economic tariffs, Carney spoke about his government's plan to diversify trade deals, strengthen domestic industries, and attract new investments."

www.bbc.com

Canada: Ties to US are 'weaknesses we must correct'

Prime Minister Mark Carney said that due to Washington changing its trade policies, Canada's economic ties to the US that were once a strength are now a 'weakness'.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
superrific said:
Is it just me, or does it seem like foreign policy is being made on the fly by the memers, on both sides?

That JD Vance in the field image -- what's the point of that? It seems inflammatory by design with no evident purposes, which is to say it's an internet flame, which is fine but really is this war being conducted by AI animators?
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It's horrible. I think the Iranians know that Trump hates being mocked more than just about anything else. But these are really high stakes being negotiated right now, and nobody should have any confidence either side is capable of doing what will be required to reach a deal. The most likely outcome is still that Trump will quit and claim victory while leaving the situation far worse than he found it, but everything is still in play right now.
 
lawtig02 said:
It's horrible. I think the Iranians know that Trump hates being mocked more than just about anything else. But these are really high stakes being negotiated right now, and nobody should have any confidence either side is capable of doing what will be required to reach a deal. The most likely outcome is still that Trump will quit and claim victory while leaving the situation far worse than he found it, but everything is still in play right now.
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How do you reason with a mad man? Trump is behaving so erratically, it's not clear that pushing him further to the point the US realizes how dangerous he is to us and the world isn't a realistic approach. I know it risks pushing Trump to go nuclear and I don't trust him about that anyway and they probably trust him some less than me. Pointing out how feckless this whole cosplay conspiracy is might finally soak through to enough of us to put a stop to this.
 
finesse said:
How do you reason with a mad man? Trump is behaving so erratically, it's not clear that pushing him further to the point the US realizes how dangerous he is to us and the world isn't a realistic approach. I know it risks pushing Trump to go nuclear and I don't trust him about that anyway and they probably trust him some less than me. Pointing out how feckless this whole cosplay conspiracy is might finally soak through to enough of us to put a stop to this.
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I don't think anyone is going to put a stop to "this" because of memes depicting Vance in a field.
 
lawtig02 said:
I liked the comment on this morning's Pod Save America -- Trump is using social media and these interviews as a vision board. He's describing the world he wants to exist, not the world that actually exists. If Trump says anything that happens to be true, that's a happy accident. He's trying to create reality, not describe it.
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He’s been doing that since Obama. Nothing new there.
 
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