Clavicular
21d ago
This was your response when I replied to you earnestly. Why don’t you reply to the post I made above instead of snipping at me in the comments below saying I don’t have an argument. I gave you a response and you never replied to any of my arguments.
Clavicular
21d ago
You never replied to my argument you ignored it. Do you want me to repost it?
I made my argument in the initial post and you admitted I was right. Go back and read it. Do you want me to repost it here? Or will you ignore it here too?
Clavicular
21d ago
Sorry, I meant the initial war goals. Not an invasion. I just don’t see how we can stop at this point where we negotiate a deal both sides can accept. I’d love to be proven wrong because I think this war was a mistake.
Clavicular
21d ago
I used that as an example of conquering their capital and country decisively where its total victory. Something we won’t see here.
Clavicular
21d ago
More hedging equivocation.
Clavicular
21d ago
Basically? More hedging.
Clavicular
21d ago
Your other comment you literally admit that they haven't been all accomplished. Is this performance art?
Clavicular
21d ago
We have won the war. We achieved all of the goals President Trump laid out at the beginning of the war and Iran couldn’t do anything to stop us.
In another comment
Ok, then we keep bombing their nuclear sites any time they try to use them, and they continue to fail to impose any costs on us.
How is that not winning?
So are we winning or have we won?
Clavicular
21d ago
We’re not doing that this time.
Very true. You actually have to win the war and occupy the country first before you can lecture them about anal sex.
Clavicular
21d ago
Seem pretty irrelevant since we're probably not going to nuke them twice or do a massive ground invasion like we did to win WW2. There won't be the Iranian version of the Battle of Berlin. The US doesn't have the stomach for that. And doesn't this prove my point? Japan or Nazi Germany couldn't have been defeated unconditionally with the current limited US strategy.
Clavicular
21d ago
They can't surrender because they will all be killed or at best spend the rest of their life in prison. Their only option is to win.
Clavicular
21d ago
I'm not in a hurry. I never wanted it to happen. But now that we are there, I think we have to finish the job and stay until the job is done. We also have to face reality which is that the job is not done yet, and is going to take a long time -- potentially years. I don't see any way to leave the conflict until the regime is toppled.
Clavicular
21d ago
The Strait was open before the war.[https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-war-hormuz-trump-yemen-houthis-2b126da67b09de2f328846eb656abe0e](It is not now). That is backwards progress. But I don't even care about this because even if it was open, it wasn't in the defined objectives before the war. At best its a return to the status quo and not a victory.
If victory requires the United States to keep bombing Iran indefinitely so Iran cannot rebuild, then Iran's nuclear/missile capability hasn't actually been permanently eliminated. This is tautological. What has been established is U.S. suppression of those programs, but nothing permanent.
Plus, you are repeatedly contradicting yourself and speaking out of both sides of your mouth. If Iran literally cannot build a weapon, there should be no need for repeated future bombing. Your argument concedes the point. The United States may be able to prevent Iran from completing a weapon through continuing military intervention, but that's very different from having destroyed Iran's ability to obtain one. The US military itself admits this hasn't been accomplished yet by the way.
You simultaneously says Iran is “totally impotent” and “cannot retaliate,” while acknowledging that Iran continues launching missiles and is attacking third parties. Again, you concede the point. Those attacks have happened in the past week. Clearly this is not a completed objective, even if they have been weakened. Plus you carve out an exception (admitting you are wrong) when you say, “The only exception here are the Houthis in Yemen." By your own admission, it is not accomplished yet.
Your argument is the classically motte and bailey. What you are arguing is that Iran is badly weakened, America enjoys escalation dominance, and Iran isn't currently capable of reversing the military balance. I don't agree that is true, but it is a defensible argument. But what you are doing is claiming Trump won, then retreating to the motte of America is winning when called out. Maybe we're in a new postmodern war when you can just say you've won and you won, but by traditional metrics (and those defined by the admin) the war is so clearly not over that it isn't even a debate.
Clavicular
21d ago
Judging the Iran War on its initial goals:
There has been so much talk about the Straight of Hormuz, that people are forgetting this was never an initial goal of the war. It's easy to forget that the Straight of Hormuz was open and not tolled by Iran before the war. So by definition, how could a war aim be to something that you already have. This would be like the US declaring War on Canada and saying one of the aims is to take New York.
So looking back, it's important to see what they initially said. This is straight from the White House itself [https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/04/president-trumps-clear-and-unchanging-objectives-drive-decisive-success-against-iranian-regime/](This is straight from the White House itself:)
Tonight, @POTUS will address the nation on Operation Epic Fury.
From day one, the objectives have been clear: obliterate Iran’s missiles and production, annihilate its navy, sever its support for terrorist proxies, and ensure it never acquires a nuclear weapon.
Trump:
President Trump (March 2): “Our objectives are clear. First, we’re destroying Iran’s missile capabilities… and their capacity to produce brand new ones — pretty good ones they make. Second, we’re annihilating their navy… Third, we’re ensuring that the world’s number one sponsor of terror can never obtain a nuclear weapon… And finally, we’re ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund, and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders.”
Vice President JD Vance (March 2): “Whatever happens with the regime in one form or another, it’s incidental to the President’s primary objective here — which is to make sure the Iranian terrorist regime does not build a nuclear bomb.”
Secretary Rubio (March 3): “Our objectives remain, as they’ve been identified from the beginning and the President laid out clearly yesterday. Iran can never have a nuclear weapon and we will not allow Iran to hide behind the immunity of a massive short-term ballistic missile inventory, or the ability to make them or launch them… As well as the destruction of their navy.”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (March 4): “The mission is laser-focused: obliterate Iran’s missiles and drones and facilities that produce them, annihilate its navy and critical security infrastructure, and sever their pathway to nuclear weapons. Iran will never possess a nuclear bomb.”
It's obvious from these statements there were four goals:
- Destroy Iran’s missile capabilities and their capacity to produce brand new ones
- Destroy their Navy
- Ensure Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon
- Destroy the ability of their proxies to project power in the Middle East
The Straight of Hormuz is a red herring. The fact that we are even talking about it at all means we have gone backwards. The US has accomplished only one of its war aims and that was to destroy their Navy. The rest are not done and at best are TBD. If you had said 6 months ago that the war would still be ongoing that only one goal would be accomplished, what would you have said about the status of the war?
To me, and this is just my opinion, people would have said the war is not going well. Based on those four goals explicitly laid out by Trump, I don't see how you can say we are close to a victory.
[https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ydld0gykpo](By the way, Trump himself says that the war will continue until at least November.)
US President Donald Trump has said he does not think the Iran war will end until after November's midterm elections, adding that oil prices will not come down until then.
"I think the war's going to end immediately after the election because they can't hold out any longer," Trump said of Iran's leaders on Wednesday.
He made the comments as he headed to Texas for the Republican Party's first midterm election convention – and repeated them there, arguing that short-term economic pain was worth it to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Trump is facing falling polling numbers and pressure from within his party to end the war, which began when the US and Israel attacked Iran in February.
Here he again explicitly mentions the nuclear weapons as a warm aim (that is not accomplished yet). Personally, I don't see this war ending any time soon. At this point, the Iran government has shown it is resilient and it is in a literal fight for its life. They can't back down now. Meanwhile, I don't see any way the US can accomplish its war aims without staying until the regime collapses. How long that takes I think is anyone's guess.
Meanwhile, stocks of crude oil in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell to 285 million barrels last week, the lowest level since November 1982, according to data from the Department of Energy.
Clavicular
21d ago
President Trump (March 2): “Our objectives are clear. First, we’re destroying Iran’s missile capabilities… and their capacity to produce brand new ones — pretty good ones they make. Second, we’re annihilating their navy… Third, we’re ensuring that the world’s number one sponsor of terror can never obtain a nuclear weapon… And finally, we’re ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund, and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders.”
Iran has not tolled the Straits
Where is that in the list? I am not seeing it? I'm just seeing goals that aren't accomplished yet! Weird! The Straits weren't tolled at the time, so congrats on the "win"!
Clavicular
21d ago
Yes, they were seen like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpine_race#/media/File:Passing_of_the_Great_Race_-_Map_4.jpg
But they were never seen as black. They were always seen as Europeans, just lesser white Europeans. It's also anachronistic to think about current racial categories in the "Irish became white" meme way because Europe was essentially 100% white during this time period and full of different white ethnic groups that saw each other as distinct. Winston Churchill for example talked about the Anglo-Saxon race.
Clavicular
21d ago
Moving to the middle of nowhere to build a conservative community accomplishes the opposite of what you are encouraging people to do. It's just running away, and is actually more self destructive. You are doing nothing and lying to yourself that you are doing something. A conservative SWE at Google has more power to affect change than a whole town of conservatives in Nebraska. Your strategy is literally they worst strategy possible. The only way to make changes is to get into the most elite institutions or build alternative ones. Anything else is a waste of time.
Clavicular
21d ago
I have to travel for work to rural red areas all the time. There are not a lot of attractive, conservative white women there that are young, intelligent, and fit. This is shown in statistics too. This just isn't a reasonable option.
Regardless, doing this is admitting defeat. You will basically just see the changes maybe one generation later. Every single city in the US is diverse now or will be soon. All these areas in Texas were areas white people moved to to get away from the changes in CA, NYC, etc. 30-40 years later, it's just the same. The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed.
Clavicular
21d ago
Iran’s proxies in the Middle East will be destroyed.
They aren't destroyed though? How is this a win?
President Trump (March 2): “Our objectives are clear. First, we’re destroying Iran’s missile capabilities… and their capacity to produce brand new ones — pretty good ones they make. Second, we’re annihilating their navy… Third, we’re ensuring that the world’s number one sponsor of terror can never obtain a nuclear weapon… And finally, we’re ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund, and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders.”
Trump's own words. Only one of these is done. The rest is TBD, so by his own definition the war isn't over. The US hasn't won yet.
Please admit you were wrong as I am sure you didn’t mean to lie.
Clavicular
21d ago
Can you blame them? The government is not receptive to the changes people want. People can have some local control, but they are unable to turn back the tides of the decisions made in Washington:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_California_Proposition_187
Anything they try to do will be shot down. We have 0 control over our government and the apathy is a rational response. If you want to make serious change, you will have to make great sacrifices and dedicate your life to it. Most people just want to go along to get along, and it has always been that way.
Clavicular
21d ago
There are whole portions of Williamson County that used to be deep read that are now majority South Asian. Those people moved out to the country to get away from Austin libs and they just followed them there (plus immigrants). Now it us diverse urban sprawl. What could he have possibly done to change this at the local level? These decisions are made in big cities by powerful people, not in bum fuck nowhere by conservatives trying to organize locally. They have to just accept those decisions. There's nowhere to go now unless you want to move to like Maine or North Dakota, and even those have large non-white populations. There's tons of African refugees in Fargo, ND. I've seen it myself.
Clavicular
21d ago
Ethnic spoils system (which of course only whites can't participate in) and a divided society that is basically just an economic zone. We are arguably already there.
Clavicular
21d ago
Just in the last hundred years Greeks, Italians, Slavs, Irishmen went from distinctly "other" to "white" to all but the most dedicated haters.
This is just not true. They were always considered white, and anything saying otherwise is just misinformation. A lot of people have been fed this lie, so I don't blame you for believing it, but it is objectively not true.
You never replied to my arguments. I tagged you in it again so you can reply. It’s cute you’re down here trying to call me out when you completely ghosted our initial conversation.
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