Also, “revenge against our enemies” IS a political goal.
And we’re working hard to ensure that whatever happens to the present government, “kill Americans and Israelis” will be an extremely popular political goal in Iran for generations. Something that only takes a pointed stick, not fancy military hardware.
And I think China is a great example of not being a failed state because of a shared cultural tradition in belief that China is an entity does in fact exist and is in fact worth protecting. The Koumingtang and CCCP indeed fought a long and bloody civil war. But what prevented China from becoming a failed state during this period is the fact that they were all united in the belief that China was in fact a thing. They formed two Common Fronts, first to fight warlords and ensure China’s territorial integrity and second to unite against the Japanese. That’s why China didn’t completely disintegrate.
Ok, so what’s an example in the real world of a country where the people who lived there believed in said country due to a long common history that fell apart in this way?
That’s not what I’ve heard from every Iranian I’ve ever spoken to; they say that as support for the regime tanked so did hostility to Israel and America. I guess we will see. Even if Iranians don’t like us, that doesn’t mean an Iranian democracy is bad; if they’re not going to develop ballistic missiles or nukes, or sponsor terrorists, they don’t have to like me personally.
Yeah, Iran has too much cultural intertia to fragment. Whether the replacement is good or bad remains to be seen, but one thing that won’t happen is an Iraq or Afghanistan style falling apart.
Is this administration going to start stockpiling missiles, enriching uranium, or funding proxy groups to actively attack Israel and America? Or are they just going to say mean things about us in speeches?
Probably, you don’t know yet, but that preemptive bombing is so tempting…
Excellent analogy (for real).
I don’t think “belief in the country” is proof against that happening, many countries have had “Times of troubles” where things went to hell for long periods without necessitating a lack of “belief” in the country’s existance.
It gets tricky to resort to historical examples because the modern idea of “country” has not existed for long (300 years may be?)
You didn’t answer my question?
Iran was actively bombing and killing Israelis and Americans (and plenty of Arabs in various states as well) through their proxies. If a replacement regime (or any other country) does the same thing, that should be considered an attack and responded to.
If they aren’t doing those things, and I doubt that Iranians would be interested in doing that, then everyone can coexist peacefully whether or not they like each other.
And those consequences will likely be unpredictable.
So you have no examples of a failed state occurring in a place where there’s a common understanding among pretty much the entire population that they are a state that should remain together?
Examples from that long ago aren’t going to be applicable anyways precisely because there was really no such thing as a country.
For crying out loud, we don’t even know if there’s going to be replacement regime. The current regime is still in power!
The lack of an exactly fitting historical precedent does not invalidate my theory though, it’s hard to see a bombed out, economically devastated and environmentally challenged Iran being successful.
So you are telling me that future hawks are going to wait until Iran actually has the capability to “actively bomb and kill Israelis and Americans” before preemptively effecting kinetic regime change? specially notorious threat exaggerators like Benjamin “Iran is perpetually two weeks away from getting the Bomb” Netanyahu?
My assessment is that Netanyahu is a warmongering hawk who will mercilessly destroy anything and everything in neighbouring Arab countries in the name of protecting Israel. Trump is just a fucking narcissistic simpleton who’s easily manipulated.
Trump recently claimed that he wasn’t pressured into this war by Israel, he was the one who pressured Israel into the war. Of course! The Orange Moron is never the one who is subjugated, he is the almighty one who subjugates all! 
My fear is that Netanyahu and Trump are just symptoms and when they are gone their ideological successors will continue to wreak havoc in the world.
If Iran fragments, it will be the first state with a long history of being a state to fail and fragment.
It’s certainly possible for that to happen, but the fact that an event is unprecedented makes me think that it is less likely. YMMV.
And to head off the inevitable “isn’t a regime change from the air unprecedented”, no one is expecting a regime change from the air. If regime change happens, it will be because Iranians on the ground actually overthrew the current regime. Israel and the US are just making it harder for the regime to murder everyone the next time the people rise up, as they did in January.
Well, no, I’m telling you that I trust what I hear from Iranians more than I trust what I hear from you, and none of them agree with your assessment that a democratic Iran would be hostile to Israel or the US.
But in the tortured hypothetical where you are right and they are all wrong, I don’t think just because Iranians “dislike” Americans means war will happen, so long as “dislike” doesn’t stand for “actively arm paramilitary groups in many countries and use them to kill Americans and Israelis.”
Just trying to keep track here…
Initially, Hegseth says that the US had to attack Iran because Israel was going to attack Iran, and he was afraid that US forces in the area would then be targetted.
This didn’t sound great, because it made it look like the US military is now under the command of Israel.
So then Trump changed the explanation to one of - we had to attack Iran because they were going to attack us first. And this was based on… feelings? guessing? Not sure what.
I wonder what the explanation will be tomorrow. Maybe Noem will step in, and say that Iran was going to send illegal immigrants, so we had to bomb them.
But I’m not saying that it will fragment, I’m saying that it will go hell in a handbasket, economically, politically and environmentally.
Ok, lets agree to disagree on that, perhaps your Iranian sources are correct.
Iranians didn’t even hate the U.S. nor proposed an actively hostile foreign policy in 1953, nevertheless they were forcibly regime-changed (in the old fashioned, cold war style) by the U.S.
For a few years (decades?) Myself and others thought the U.S. had changed for the better and would stop doing that kind of shit, leftists called us naive.
Then Iraq happened, then Venezuela happened, the leftists are looking more and more prescient each day.
Are we to believe that the U.S. and Israel will refrain from interfering in Iran internal political matters now? An U.S. and and Israel in the hands of the political heirs of Trump and Netanyahu?.
Probably. Getting nuclear weapons is a matter of self preservation; every country should be going for them as a matter of self interest. And if they aren’t funding proxy groups it’ll be because they are acting more like America and Israel and doing their terrorism directly.
America and Israel are their enemy; that’s objective fact, something we demonstrate over and over. I expect them to treat us as such.
At this point, regrettably, I agree with Der_Trihs on this.
I hope I don’t end up agreeing with him on his other extreme opinions but I thought the same about the leftists warning me about the U.S. and well… you see what happened.
Before you give leftists too much credit, maybe you should remember that they were on the Ayatollahs’ side in the revolution. How’d that work out for them? Don’t seem too prescient now, do they?