The next six posts will be crucial…
“America, American interests, and Israel are much safer now that Iran no longer has nuclear capacity and has agreed to no longer pursue nuclear weapons. The minor disruption in oil prices will be alleviated shortly, and the death of Irans’ leader will lead to the Middle East being safer, more secure, and less terroristic.”
That’s still the denial stage…
Prove it wrong.
It is almost exactly the way my friend, who is a lifelong Republican, but (supposedly) not MAGA, explained how the Iran war was a victory for the US.
“Iran was a major, imminent threat to both the US and Israel, and now without its zealot leader and devastated nuclear ability, the Middle East will shortly be a much more stable area and US interests are much better protected from terrorism and the potential of nuclear war.”
I am not making this argument, and it certainly ignores the massive cost in money and human suffering, but it is not easy to disprove amorphous ideas like “safer”, “imminent threat”, and nuclear capabilities of foreign nations.
What does your friend say when reminded of how many times we supposedly obliterated Iran’s nuclear capability for the foreseeable future last year?
The issue isn’t whether there can in theory be some geopolitical merit in the idea of an effective and conclusive anti-nuclear-proliferation tightly targeted military strike on a potentially dangerous adversary. The issue is whether any reasonable person has a plausible reason to regard any of this Administration’s rhetoric about such a scenario as anything more than shameless bullshitting.
The bombings in 2025, the US destroyed a good deal, but not all, of Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Based on newly discovered intelligence, continued threats made by Iran, and Iran’s continued attempts to develop nuclear weapons, further action was necessary to protect the US, Israel, and remove the possibility of either nuclear and/or other terroristic actions by Iran. If we didn’t take action, Iran wanted to, and could have, murdered hundreds of thousands of people within anywhere from a couple of days to a few years.
I personally don’t believe it. But I also recognize it is all but impossible to counter these kinds of allegations with any concrete proof. Especially when you don’t have to trust just Trump. You can believe the vague suppositions of “international intelligence” or “insider information”.
It’s killed lots of Muslims, and any Republican will be ecstatic about that. Everything else is secondary to that.
I mean…Mojtaba Khamenei is arguably more of a hardliner than his dear old dad was and was the former head of (and purportedly still pretty much controls) the Basij, aka the Brownshirts of the regime. AND he now has a powerful personal grudge after losing his father and having been wounded. It’s like the U.S. took out a “9.5” on the international baddie scale and replaced him with an “11”. He was so hardline and also so not accomplished as a scholar theologically, some analysts thought he still would have had a tough time getting the internal support to succeed his father. Until the U.S. and Israel kicked down the door for him.
I’ll be honest - despite the fact that I occasionally glance at it, I think this is mostly a fucking stupid thread. I don’t think much of gloating and baiting in general. It’s a shitty look.
Doesn’t change the fact that whatever highly arguable and extremely dubious merits there were to the United States getting into this cockup of a war, it’s been managed from the top about as ineptly as is humanly possible.
It remains true that if Trump wanted to, it was possible to depose Iran’s regime.
Of course Trump was never willing to put boots on the ground, Netanyahu reportedly sold him this bullshit that non state actors in Iran would just do it on their own, and anyone with a brain can see that taking the existing paradigm and bombing one more desalination plant was not going to bring down the regime.
And just going smoothly to democracy after regime change was delusional.
Babale seemed to always talk about any escalation being good idk if this has been eye opening at all, because it also seems fairly obvious that if there had been literally no military action instead of all this stuff since march, Iran’s regime would be weaker and Israel would be stronger. You know, a thing that has happened repeatedly when people have gone to war without a plan or realistic goals.
Two weeks? 
The last thing we want is for Iran or anywhere else is democracy. Trump and company would prefer is to be a Christofascist sate subordinate to the US. Trump would want it to be his personal piggy bank to loot at will, and the Republicans would want it to be devoted to converting the population to Christianity by the sword and killing all those who refuse. And as much rape and torture as possible.
There’s also the issue that an actual democracy would be still the enemy of both the US and Israel, just better at it.
It’s okay to admit you love it. We all have our little vices, and this one is safer than most. Join us…
Exactly!
I don’t want it to go unnoticed how great this post was. I can’t believe Tom Friedman is posting here!
Well the six posts have already come and gone, but I’m sure, sure I tell you, that the next six will define everything…
Man, Tom, you never learn…
LOL. Not the yellow belly insult. Thats worse than a double dog dare.
I don’t like islamic extremists or religious extremists in general. They are a cancer on the human race, and the Iranian government is a major source of funding and support for proxies.
The term ‘useful idiot’ has the word idiot in it for a reason. The people whose views on foreign policy almost always align with islamic extremists don’t have the self awareness to understand that they are patsies. In 1979 leftists allied with Islamic extremists to overthrow the shah of Iran. Once the shah was overthrown, all the leftists were tortured, killed and put in prison so the islamic extremists could cement power.
Trump is an idiot and I knew he’d fuck the war up. However, that doesn’t change the fact that islamic extremism is a cancer on the human race and we should be fighting against it. Nor does it change the fact that 80%+ of Iranian people dislike the regime.
It is funny watching trump flail helplessly knowing that he can’t stop netanyahu from continuing the war which will increase gas prices and tank trumps approval ratings though.
Hopefully this situation results in a stronger Arab-Israeli alliance to stop Iran
Yeah, it will be really fun to watch Republicans blame the coming economic and agriculture crash on the next Democratic President!
And we can all celebrate by roasting an extra sparrow on the curtain rod.
This war, and Israel’s actions over the last few years, have made Iran’s government immeasurably stronger, wealthier, more stable, and more influential, while weakening Israel’s position (as well as the US) in the region and around the world.
Do you still support it, or do you now recognize that this war was monumentally stupid and the outcome of a stronger Iran and weaker US and Israel was obvious from the get go?