The regime change in Syria seems to be a good example of a “least awful regime change outcome”, at least for now.
If that happens in Iran, it might be a geopolitical improvement. But I’m cynical enough to think it might not be.
Are you saying there could be unintended negative consequences if a very large country’s government were to collapse in the Middle East?
Surely not!
One of those “rare, fictional” governments is alive and well and murdering Jews right now, every day.. In Gaza-- only a 20 minute drive (or 60 second missile trajectory) from my house.
It’s not rare, it’s not fiction–it’s very, very real.
The government of Gaza is proud to risk its own obliteration for a chance at killing Jews. They proudly have no concern for the welfare of their own citizens.
And the UN, (actually, UNWRA.) proudly assists them, funds their propaganda-filled schools, knowingly lets them store weapons in UN facilities and under UN-funded hospitals, etc.
And the verification is absolutely, positively trustworthy-- because the sacred UN says so. This is like telling me that the Earth was created 6000 years ago, because the authorities say so.
Why didn’t the UN inspectors ask to verify that warehouse?.
Yes, Netanyahu can be a liar, like all politicians. But the UN “verification” is also built on lies..
Yes, Hamas is a murderous death cult. But they’re not the Iranian government. The Iranian government, evil as it is, has not governed without regard to its own long-term security (unlike Hamas).
Certainly more trustworthy than Netanyahu, Trump, and their disgusting allies. Everything publicly available in 2018 said the JCPOA was working as intended. Absolutely everything. That strikes me as more trustworthy than the whims of Trump and Netanyahu at the time.
And you’re still trusting these liars. Even after it was (among many other things) the lies and failures of Netanyahu that enabled the Oct 7th attacks!
I thought a strike on Iran’s nuclear program would look a lot like the strike from the 80s on Iraq’s program. One night, one big raid (this time at multiple locations), one chance at success (a much lower one than in Iraq, at that). That’s the paradigm under which I would have opposed the idea of a strike on Iran, especially without direct American involvement. That would have been my stance if you asked me 2 weeks ago.
I never even imagined it would be as successful as total air dominance over Iran for days at a time, allowing us to systematically destroy not only their nuclear program and ballistic missiles, but the industries upon which those programs are dependent.
That’s another reason I’m optimistic.
The war with Hezbollah is another example of the same thing. A week before the pager attack, if you told me the IDF was about to launch a major offensive against Hezbollah, I’d never have thought it could possibly go this well. And I certainly wouldn’t have thought the cascading impacts of this would be regime change in Syria. What a fantastic outcome!
What October 7 has shown (and likewise, what the Ukraine War is showing) is that we (in the US, in Israel, and supporters of the current world order in general) have been far too passive in supporting our allies and far too scared of our opponents for far too long.
While this may be factually true, could I respectfully ask that you be very careful about your word choice? I’m not trying to be the Word Police here, but
Killing Israelis who are also Jews because they are Israelis
is very different from
Killing Jews who happen to be Israeli because they are Jews
and this matters a great deal in this context: are you talking about a religious conflict which ultimately boils down to theology, or a geopolitical conflict which ultimately boils down to control of territory and resources?
I realize that the two are not so easy to extricate, but it seems to me that the Israel-Gaza conflict is rather more geopolitical than religious (though religion is an easy proxy), while the Iran-Israel conflict is a little more religious than geopolitical (though religion is foundational to the power base of the rulers in each nation-state).
You’re absolutely right. That is a key difference of the utmost importance. Luckily, Iran and their proxies have made it very clear what they mean. For example, here’s the (late, not so great) Nasrallah:
I hope that clears up any confusion you may have had!
Except that those aren’t two different conflicts.
They are and they aren’t. Iran’s role in funding and promoting the violence from Gaza is not in question. The Iranian leadership’s antipathy to Israel is not in question. But Palestinians and Iranians are different peoples, with different histories and reasons for their roles in these conflicts. But I can’t pretend I know how Hamas is thinking, and I certainly won’t defend their actions.
I think I will bow out of the thread, though: emotions are running high, with good reason, and I don’t have enough of a stake in the issues to insist on inserting my perspective.
Yes. Israel having Nukes has probably protected it quite a bit from full scale invasion. Also Libya’s regime fell after they gave up nukes too.
Sadly Nukes work. If North Korea didn’t have nukes they would’ve been invaded and toppled long ago.
Ukraine is looking into developing nukes to deter a Russian invasion in the future.
That’s an interesting take, mainly because whatever happens, the US and Israel of the present day are not supporters of the current world order. The European countries, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, and (after a brief interlude where they seemed to be going the way the US and Israel are currently going), South Korea are the countries that I would consider the major supporters of that world order. Whatever the outcome of this conflict, those supporting the “current world order” of 1945-2016 are not going to be winners.
ETA. Except for the vanishingly low possibility that the Aytollah’s regime falls and is replaced by a 1945-2016 style western government.
More on Netanyahu’s history of lying about Iran and nukes:
He’s been making shit up about Iranian nukes since 1992!
That’s an interesting take.
Trump’s idiotic rhetoric and general unpredictability is certainly extremely dangerous, and critically jeopardizes the role the United States plays in global affairs. But it’s not like he has a coherent view of an alternative role for the United States to play, so while he’s not a supporter of the current world order, and he could fairly be described as an obstacle to it, he is also hardly a force for any alternative ideology.
Netanyahu meanwhile has a million and one faults, but opposing the existing world order is hardly one of them.
This includes such a wide array of states that I fail to see how either Trump or Netanyahu falls radically outside it.
Except that Israel doesn’t have nukes, Libya never had nukes, and North Korea probably doesn’t have nukes and certainly didn’t “long ago”.
The one singular example in history of a country that did have nukes and gave them up was Ukraine, and giving them up didn’t work out too well for them, so I’ll give you that one.
I just caught a snippet of a press conference. Not even joking, Karoline Leavitt said that Trump will make his decision on whether or not to attack within two weeks.
I was pretty hopeful, but this looks like another TACO situation.
Israel has had nukes since the 1960s.
North Korea got nuclear weapons in 2006, possibly earlier.
Libya gave up its nuclear weapons program in 2003, and in 2011 the government was overthrown with help from the west.
South Africa also gave up their nuclear weapons
A wide range in terms of things like domestic policy, but not when it comes to the form of government. They were all liberal democracies where all the major parties played within the systems for their respective countries. No fascists, no attempted coups, no threats to jail political opponents, etc. The closest we (the western world*) came during that time period, as far as I’m aware, was Richard Nixon, and when push came to shove he went peacefully rather than even making the attempt to overthrow the established order.
*. In other words I’m not including countries like Chile under Pinochet, Cuba under Batista, Spain under Franco, and so on.
That won’t be a great way to start infrastructure week.