Israel launches attack on Iran | US bombs Iran nuke sites

Paine said:
No, it’s not. It’s grounded in an Orientalist fantasy that paints Muslims, especially when they resist U.S. or Israeli power, as irrational, apocalyptic, and incapable of strategic thinking. Iran’s leadership, for all its authoritarianism, has consistently acted according to a logic of deterrence and regime preservation.

You don’t survive decades of sanctions, regional war, and international pressure by being reckless. You do it by being patient, calculating, and rational. The “they’re just religious fanatics” line isn’t analysis. It’s a permission slip for more violence.

North Korea has nukes. Pakistan has nukes. Israel has nukes. The only reason we pretend Iran can’t be trusted with deterrence is because we’re not ready to admit this was never about nukes.
Click to expand...
And if we could have prevented NK from obtaining nukes with a precision strike with essentially no military risk we would have. Sometimes you have to take the opportunities that you are given.
 
dukeman92 said:
IMG_2448.jpeg
Click to expand...
So it's true that even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in awhile. Of course, now that Dear Leader has bombed Iran I'm sure that by this afternoon she will have forgotten all about this post and will be 100% behind Dear Leader. And as MAGAs never double check anything her statement here will be forgotten by tonight. It's the MAGA way.
 
BlueSmoke said:
Any other President could pull it off. So you're betting Trump can? Comforting.
Click to expand...
No, I would greatly prefer a different POTUS was making this decision rather than the one who helped create the current situation by pulling out of the JCPOA.

I fully admit I could be catastrophically wrong in my view, just owning up to it. I was dead set opposed to the invasion of Iraq under GWB and still consider it one of the worst foreign policy debacles in U.S. history. I am assuming (hoping) this is a very limited engagement in Iran and that Trump genuinely fears (for purely political reasons) engaging in a wider war, and believe the opportunity now is quite different than any time this century due to Iran’s political and military weakness and isolation in this moment.

I do think that any POTUS should have sought Congressional authorization in advance, that more data should have been shared with Americans to justify this prior to acting and that we are owed more information about plans for the political and military response to this action. We also need some plan for confirmation of the success (or not) of the effort and how to make this stick by preventing reconstituting a nuclear weapons program in Iran.

One of the obvious risks of this action is confirming to Iran that the continued existence of their regime depends on obtaining a nuclear weapon to give them similar protection as North Korea. But I think that (a) the Iranian regime already thought this regardless (though the strikes may convince the general populace) and (b) North Korea has a handler in China that makes that risk a bit different than Iran, which is more its own master and has a stated goal of destroying the Great Satan (U.S.).
 
Paine said:
No, it’s not. It’s grounded in an Orientalist fantasy that paints Muslims, especially when they resist U.S. or Israeli power, as irrational, apocalyptic, and incapable of strategic thinking. Iran’s leadership, for all its authoritarianism, has consistently acted according to a logic of deterrence and regime preservation.

You don’t survive decades of sanctions, regional war, and international pressure by being reckless. You do it by being patient, calculating, and rational. The “they’re just religious fanatics” line isn’t analysis. It’s a permission slip for more violence.

North Korea has nukes. Pakistan has nukes. Israel has nukes. The only reason we pretend Iran can’t be trusted with deterrence is because we’re not ready to admit this was never about nukes.
Click to expand...
You are 100% correct here. I don't think your political program benefits from terms like Orientalist. I'm almost positive that your interlocutor here has no idea what that means, and probably is going to skip over it rather than think about or ask. And you know what? There's no reason he should know what that means. Very few college grads do unless they study in a particular discipline. I know what it means because I'm unusually intellectually curious (especially years ago) and I absorb information like a sponge.

This poster has said he's a fire fighter. Of course that doesn't mean he couldn't understand Said. But it does mean that he's unlikely to have encountered that terminology, and it's OK that he hasn't. Fire fighting is a noble pursuit, but one that takes different training. I'm positive ZZLPHeels cannot teach law. Statistically speaking, it's unlikely he ever could (generally speaking, law professors come from the top 1% of a profession culled from the top 30-40% of college grads, who are themselves the top 30-40% of the population). But by the same token, I can't be a firefighter and I doubt I ever could. Nobody wants my dumb pontificating ass fighting fires. It would be like that Simpsons episode where the nerds calculate air resistance when they are supposed to push the guy out of the way of an oncoming car.

You can talk Orientalism all day with me (though I'd get bored and probably so would you) and probably with a dozen or two dozen other posters. But my guess it that the general population of posters doesn't know what that means. Just my guess. I could be wrong.
 
an0maly said:
I didn't want to, but I watched him. I consider this the most embarrassing time in the history of American government.
Click to expand...
I've read in several places that the Joint Chiefs basically ignore him as much as possible, as he's regarded as an incompetent joke in the Defense Department, and they planned this strike without him for the most part. Which is a good thing.
 
The only talking point that matters is that this wasn't Trump's plan. He wanted to make a deal. This was Bibi's plan.

So if we want to know what comes next, better follow Bibi's thinking. Bibi thinks Regime change is a necessity. So watch how this evolves.
 
Calheel said:
Certainly? You are posting with a lot more confidence than the known facts on the ground warrant. Rule No. 1 of military actions is that both sides lie about what is actually happening for propaganda purposes.
Click to expand...
And, I in this specific case we have Trump, Trump’s Administration, Bibi and the Israeli government and military, and Iran. Add in Putin and Russia’s comments.

Not a believable or trustworthy person in the bunch.
 
1. North Korea's stated goals are much more "destroy the US" than Iran's. I mean, North Korea still honors the old Comintern dream of worldwide communism.
2. How the fuck would Iran get a nuclear bomb to the US? It's impossible. Ironically, Trump wants to build the expensive boondoggle missile defense system, which is sort of redundant with this bombing but whatever.

We already have the ability to shoot down a single ICBM. We've had that ability for decades. It's the more than one ICBM that's a problem. Iran has no ICBMs.

3. If Iran wants to destroy the Great Satan, they're going to need more than one nuke. I mean, seriously. Russia and the US have literally thousands of nukes. One nuke would probably get intercepted; if it didn't, it would hit at most one US city; and then Iran would be completely and utterly destroyed. Obviously hitting a city would be bad, but the point is that Iran isn't going to try.

4. OBL proved that the way to defeat America is to cause internal divisions. The Muslim world hates the US now, more than any other time in history. I knew a guy who wrote on Indonesian law and trade policy. Indonesia loved Clinton. It was cooperating with the US on all sorts of development projects. Then after the disastrous Iraq debacle and W's generally anti-Muslim foreign policy, Indonesia stopped cooperating so readily and there was tons of domestic political pressure to push back.

5. What the Islamists want more than anything is unity in the Islamic world, which can best be achieved by arraying all Muslim countries against the west, which is much easier to do when the west acts like emperors or tyrants toward them.
 
superrific said:
Dude. The Soviets got the bomb in 1949 I think. China followed. India and Pakistan have nukes. Israel has a nuke. North Korea has nukes.

All of those countries have been ruled by religious fanatics and/or even worse fanatics like Kim Jong Un. India and Israel are currently ruled by religious fanatics, and just give Pakistan a few years and they will swing back.

How many times have any of those countries used their nukes? Oh right. But you think the religious fanatics in Iran -- unlike the religious fanatics ruling those other countries -- would self-destruct? Explain how the Supreme Leader of Iran is 86 years old, then. If he didn't care about his own welfare, if he didn't care about his life, how the fuck did he get so old? Wouldn't the religious fanatic have done something, well, fanatical? Look at their councils of clerics. Old, old, old. They are not suicidal and never have been.

The burden is on you and all proponents of bombing to provide evidence that Iran -- uniquely among the world's governments -- would be suicidal end-time armageddonists. Since they have never been that way, it's going to be a tough case but we'll see what you come up with.
Click to expand...
So, just to be clear, your argument is that more unstable regimes with nuclear weapons is a good thing?
 
HandsonFire said:
For the sake of discussion I’m not really interested in whether we are in a full scale war or not. Assume we are at war (not a fan) does Iran have any hope of keeping the Strait closed. I guess they could sink all of the tankers in the area causing massive oil spills and ecological destruction. But can they hold the Strait for any amount of time before they are annihilated. Is it a suicide mission?
Googled quickly the depth, I’m not sure it’s something that can be blocked with a graveyard of ships at 690’ but maybe there are places that could be blocked.
Militarily Iran seems impotent. Maybe they strike back at the US but I see that option being terror attacks not full on assaults.
Click to expand...
The Straits can be mined.
 
It is just comical the way the administration is talking about bringing Iran to the table for diplomacy.

WE SOLVED THE PROBLEM WITH DIPLOMACY. Trump tore it up. There will be no further deals, like there are no trade deals, because you can't deal with someone when your word is shit. Trump has made an entire life's work of going back on his word -- it's sort of amazing that even with his incredibly rapacious behavior toward his contractors, he STILL ran casinos into the ground. I guess he thinks that will fly on the international stage. It will not.

Trump has boasted about 90 trade deals in 90 days. We have zero trade deals, given that the UK deal has not actually been implemented or fleshed out to my knowledge. Trump has made zero deals period. He ain't gonna get a diplomatic deal with Iran.
 
Healing said:
Aren’t you middle aged? Because this is some 16yo TikTok brain shit right here. My god, you think the IRGC response is comprised of the last 1-2 weeks? This is a civilization that measures itself in millennia; they aren’t going to knee jerk respond with their most substantial leverage point. The current government of Iran has survived western pariah statehood for how long? Not to mention being backed by China and Russia.

Good god.
Click to expand...
So Iran has been letting Israel absolutely dominate it over the last two weeks out of choice? Not a chance. They are weak. They want to respond significantly. They can't.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top