LazyLongposter
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User ID: 2993
LazyLongposter
2mo ago
Them getting into a cold war with Iran might not be the worst thing in the world, there.
I don't deny this, but it's nonetheless an insane risk that risks global consequences. If you presented me a button of "these countries may nuke each other but you can guarantee it will never affect the world outside the middle east", I'd probably press it. But such an eventuality is no more a guarantee than some zealot in Tehran sees the Israeli missiles on the way and goes "fuck it, I'll take Europe/America out with me".
The conquest of the Taliban was undone in a heartbeat as soon as the US withdrew, and the US invasion of Iraq prepared the ground for daesh.
I mention this in another post but I think the prolonged nation-building stuff doesn't work if you don't a. rout the actual supporters (which would include a lot of collateral damage and questionable arrests where Afghanistan was concerned) and b. Don't work with the surviving establishment to make something new. In Iraq, this would have meant letting at least some Ba'ath party members be involved in the reorganization of the party, rather than completely ousting them and making them and all their supporters de facto enemies (hence the insurgency) while propping up a bunch of previously uninvolved Sunnis (hence ISIS). In Afghanistan, this likely never would have worked, because the only existing mass establishment they had was the Taliban. There were no mid level bureaucrats who were going "I'm just in the Taliban to do city planning", the Taliban was it. You can't replace them with tribal, sometimes boy raping farmers, and declare victory.
Point being, as I said in another post, you can just gut a country's military and leave, a la Gulf War 1. There's a reason we had an even easier time rolling over their conventional army in Gulf War 2, which is that they were never able to recover to the level they were at pre-Gulf War 1. I would be fine with the same thing happening to Iran.
LazyLongposter
2mo ago
Russia – the world's nuclear power – has been subjected to a conventional land invasion and have been struck within their borders innumerable times by Ukraine.
I mention in my reply that strikes within a border are different than a conventional land invasion. Secondly, said Ukrainian land invasion barely penetrated the Russian borders before they were expelled. It was also a retaliation in an active conflict - likely to pull Russian forces off the front line - which colors it differently than, say, an unprovoked mass invasion of Russia. Put differently: If Ukraine was magically and decisively winning this war, and pushed the Russians back to the border, I seriously doubt they'd get much further than there, out of a very founded fear that Russia would use nuclear weapons against them. Russia has said they would use nuclear weapons if their sovereignty was threatened. While this was a veiled threat along the lines of "Ukraine and the occupied portions of it are part of Russia, so don't you dare take them back", I don't doubt it would ring very true if Russia proper was legitimately under threat of losing territory.
You opened your original post saying that you were arguing in opposition to the "let the two parties sort it out" position, but it seems to me that you're happy to let Israel sort it out and your main concern is that they will be unable to "finish the job." What exactly do you think the US can do that Israel cannot?
A very large army (but you don't want ground occupation)
You can invade a country without a prolonged occupation. Once again, see the first Gulf War. We rolled over then-one-of-the-largest armies in the world in a month and then immediately pulled out. I mentioned I wouldn't be explicitly against killing their leaders and leaving, but thoroughly gutting the military and their nuclear stores/bunkers (very easy to do if you've conquered them and can walk right up!) and leaving the leadership humiliated would even be fine by me. It would leave a very credible threat in the Iranian government's mind that we could do it again, because we already did it when they had years to build up their defenses. I don't want to be involved in nation building because (this is a separate thesis of mine) modern militaries, at least the United States', seem to be incapable of totally subduing an enemy via mass bombardment (i.e. killing a shitload of civilians), or nation-building. I don't think the former is necessarily "what it would take", as I am against civilians dying, so blowing up all their major military and nuclear assets and making them toothless for a good long time would be as good a solution as any.
On this note, a large army would likely not be the primary thing we'd need to fight China if they up and decided a US invasion of Iran was the perfect time to strike. In the short term, it would be primarily a naval and air defense, with the biggest land target I can think of being Taiwan (who has their own army - and ideally we'd want to keep the Chinese marines from ever making a landing, making them secondary). I'm not saying an army couldn't or wouldn't become necessary in the long term, only that a land component would not necessarily be a huge limiting factor. A CSG? Maybe, but we do famously have many more than only one CSG. And as you mention below, Israeli air support may prove mostly sufficient in such a circumstance.
More air power of the sort Israel essentially already has (which seems relatively pointless right now if the Israeli air campaign is as effective as is currently believed, doesn't it?)
Obviously this is a developing situation. Since I made the original post, Iran has apparently come crawling back to the bargaining table since the Israeli air campaign so completely dominated them. I genuinely hope this puts a bow on the whole situation, and the US never needs to lift a finger to change this. As I said, I have skin in the game when it comes to American conflicts, and one less is fine by me.
You opened your original post saying that you were arguing in opposition to the "let the two parties sort it out" position
The attitude was "let the two parties sort it out regardless of the outcome". The second part is what I take issue with. I have no need for an American flag to be on the wikipedia page for this conflict, I just explicitly and powerfully do not want a nuclear Iran - or any new nuclear country that has even a chance in hell of using them.
LazyLongposter
2mo ago
Two caveats. Firstly, my thesis was not "the US should strike NOW", but that Israel succeeding here is undoubtedly very very good for us, and if they needed help to succeed, I'd want to do so. I say that as someone with skin in the game.
It seems to me that obviously either nations with nuclear warheads can be threatened, in which case they can be deterred. Or they can't be, in which case the United States (and Israel) has nothing to worry about. But you seem to be trying to have it both ways!
Secondly, allow me to rephrase: Nuclear weapons make you functionally immune to a conventional invasion and will make anyone think twice about even striking within your borders. At any point during a real conventional invasion you can consider (or declare) your existence threatened and use them to great effect, either wiping out entire armies or the invaders' home front. They do not make you immune to internal rot, discord, economic decline, or anything else, as the USSR will gladly tell you. That this is your opening argument is disheartening, because I find it quite intellectually dishonest to feign ignorance of that distinction.
As such, I don't worry about someone invading the United States. If decades of discord and hostile messaging (bolstered by adversaries who are quite happy to watch us tear ourselves apart without firing a single shot) leads to the United States to cease to exist as a political entity, then we would be quite susceptible to invasion, be it by a hostile force or something more covert. A "North American" continent with dozens of individual nation states that are likely at each others' throats would present a foreign actor many potential inroads into allying with, occupying, subverting, or otherwise controlling part of the landmass. As I live on that landmass, I'd like the huge boon that "two massive oceans and only two continental neighbors" to stay that way. We already have Chinese and other agents coming through our weak border to the south. Imagine that ten or a hundred fold. That is why we can be both a nuclear power and vulnerable.
Nuclear powers can also be defeated abroad, as in within other people's borders, without really having the right (in international eyes) to use the nuclear option. We have failed to achieve many military objectives, as has Russia, and neither have deployed nuclear weapons. But it also means no one can ever go to the source. As for Iran, yes, they have weapons that can reach us, but they are not yet nuclear capable. Once they are, you essentially waive all your chances to military deterrence. And from there stems the problem. A nuclear Iran can proxy war to their hearts' content. A nuclear Iran can threaten to retaliate to conventional Israeli strikes with nuclear weapons (whereas now only Israel can), leading both to consider a nuclear first strike necessary to preserve their existence/secure their victory, depending on perspective. A nuclear Iran can lock up within its borders when its armaments are exhausted and refill its stockpiles and have a credible threat against anyone trying to stop them. They go from being a regional power to a fact of life unless some sort of unconventional method deters them or causes their regime to collapse. Once again, see America. I am reasonably hopeful that we won't collapse in the near future, and I am also reasonably sure that a nuclear Iran would also last quite a while. Even if they didn't, those nukes would have to go somewhere once they collapse, and that's a huge security risk. All you need is one powerful higher up or base deciding they wanted to get massively rich, or being insanely anti-Israeli/American/whatever to sell or use them.
These were all real arguments up to the end of the Cold War, and they ring true now. Every single nation that develops its own nuclear weapons increases the risk of some sort of horrible outcome, be it an entrenched regime, accident, or sale to/use by crazies within or without the government. I don't want it to happen.
FIRST, the United States does not have infinite capacity to do things. If we actually want to fight China, which we've said we want to be able to do publicly, that means very specifically that we cannot write blank checks where ballistic missile interceptors, smart munitions, etc. are involved. We are already arguably under-equipped to deal with the very real Chinese threat, which will likely be a more serious threat to American hegemony than anything that Iran can do. And part of the reason we are under-equipped to fight China is because we canceled procurement and research programs throughout the Global War on Terror to fund the Global War on Terror – effectively eating our own seed corn.
I agree with this. I admittedly did not make this clear enough in my post, but I must say I am aware of the looming threat of China to American interests and I don't want to be bogged down in this. I really hope that Israel succeeds or Iran comes back to the negotiating table, as you said. However, there are two issues here. Firstly, Iran has been "at the negotiating table" several times, including with previous administrations, leading to billions of funds going into their pockets in return for them only pursuing civil nuclear reactors... which they then proceeded to ignore completely. Secondly, the inverse of your statement is true as well: Iran does not have infinite capacity to do things either. They have already used a huge amount of missiles in the current exchange, and their IADS seems to be in shambles. They may already be close to their limit as far as projecting power is concerned, and dealing with them now is a lot more appealing than waiting for an armistice where they are able to refill their reserves. If they actually nuclearize, or perhaps state their intent to use those weapons against the US, and we suddenly have to divert resources back to them to stop an imminent threat, it will be a lot costlier, and likely bloodier.
And the only reliable way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is regime change.
I don't know that this is true. There was a lot of fear about Iraq getting one, and after we utterly demolished their ability to make war in the first Gulf War, they were never a credible threat. That's why the "they're making WMDs" justification for Gulf War 2 is a persistent joke.
Second (another commenter posted in response to this but I'm going to put my reply here, as it's relevant and I've received a number of replies) I think the biggest issue with Gulf War 2 (other than doing it) was that we picked the worst middle ground imaginable. We banned every single Ba'ath party member from ever being in government, which is not even a thing we did with the Nazis or Japanese. This essentially left a fledgling government in the middle of a war zone filled with the unqualified, malcontents, and sometimes literal terrorists in power. That Iraq even exists after ISIS is kind of a miracle to me, not that they're somehow doing great. I think we should have either:
- Completely obliterated their military again, ousted their leaders that time, and left.
- Actually worked with the remaining government to allow for some kind of legitimate regime change.
Both of these things are something I would accept, at least on the home front. "Don't fuck with the US or they'll show up, kill all your leaders, and break all your stuff" is at least something we can credibly do multiple countries. We cannot get continuously bogged down in a 20 year nation building/peacekeeping quagmire.
SECONDLY
I somewhat responded to these points above, but I agree partially. I'll explain below.
If Israel conducts the war successfully, they may reduce the cost of a limited US intervention (destroying the buried nuclear facilities with bunker busters – although it's possible that some of them are buried even too deeply for oversized US ordinance!) to near-zero.
As I said above, I want this to happen. As with Ukraine, I like the idea of adversaries blunting themselves against our allies at zero cost to American lives and (relatively) low cost with materiel. As it is, if we're going to have to strike, I want to strike while the iron is hot and their munitions and defenses are depleted. If we're not going to take our hands off the steering wheel of the entire region and withdraw entirely (which I think is a bad idea outside the scope of this already long-winded discussion), then I want it done now when it's going to be the easiest for us to do.
The Iranian regime may not last forever.
I hope it doesn't. The average Iranian is not a lover of their regime, which is why we see regular protests despite the authoritarian nature of their government. While I've mentioned I prioritize American interests over others, I don't want a single life to be lost. But I have to be realistic and consider the fact that their nation will be able to do damage as long as they're in power, even more if they nuclearize.
I recently got into an argument regarding Israel vs Iran with a staunch "America First Isolationism Now" type. It cemented my views on the issue, not from an "Israel is righteous and Iran is not" angle but a practical weighing of the facts. The other party's opinion was "I don't want another war, and that region is bloodthirsty anyway. Let them sort it out." My thesis is simply: I cannot understand anyone who has Western or even strictly American interests in mind could think that the strikes on Iran are none of our business.
Mind you, I don't mean "United States Government" interests. I mean the interests of every single living American.
To recap the history: The current Iranian regime rose from a revolution overthrowing a US-backed monarchy, which we had previously supported economically and supplied with military technology (The F-4 and F-14 being the big examples you can still see today). Said regime hates the US with a burning passion, both for backing the monarchy and for getting in the way of a regional Islamic revolution in the entire region. This is why they back the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hamas and Hezbollah are strictly against Israel, but the Houthis were explicitly anti-American and attempted to strike us, luckily with no loss of life (RIP drones). I can't say the same for the militias in Iraq, which successfully killed several US service members in 2023. Nowadays that's mostly directed at Israel, but I cannot imagine these groups and their funders suddenly had a change in heart towards Americans themselves.
Even putting that all aside, even when you think the whole region is a backwater shithole that can sort itself out, a hands-off position on Iran makes no sense when they're developing nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are a complete game changer, making your nation functionally immune to any threat to its sovereignty. It was bad enough when North Korea developed them, but I can at least understand the hesitancy there due to its Chinese backing and already-existing existential threat to South Korea (thousands of artillery pieces would reduce Seoul to rubble regardless of NK's nuclear program). More than that, North Korea is an extremely poor country which has continuously struggled to develop a missile program. I don't think that it's outside the realm of possibility that they do, but again, at least there's some reason as to why we all sat around on it.
This is not true of Iran. Iran has ties with Russia and China, but they've never made so bold a defense pact as China did with North Korea. They are geographically separated from their backers as well. This makes them assailable. However, they are not geographically separated from the west. Iran already has MRBMs that could be converted to take a nuclear payload right now. Those threaten our bases and our allies. They have a functional space program, and if you have put a satellite in orbit you can build an ICBM. Those threaten the continental US. Iran has demonstrated that it has the intent to strike the west and US if it can. They are working on the capability, and once that's done, an active nuclear arsenal presents them the opportunity at any time. They will be incapable of being invaded lest you risk nuclear hellfire for the region, at absolute best. The only time you can strike them is now, before their nuclear program yields results.
I was genuinely shocked when I saw the posts from Rubio and the like denying our involvement in the Israeli strikes and implying that they were unwarranted aggression. Personally, it makes me understand why some people think Israel is simply America's attack dog, doing the dirty work we don't want to be involved in directly. Perhaps it is will be a fortuitous outcome for us simply because Israel would be in even more danger, and felt they had to attack no matter what. I wouldn't mind Iran buckling without a single American life lost.
I mentioned this in another post long ago, but it seems to me that echoes of the bygone neolib/neocon 90s and early 2000s world order have been crystallized in a really stupid way. An aversion to quagmires and wars of questionable outcome seems to make a lot of people (including Rubio - a bad indicator of the administration's position) think that any American intervention is some kind of ill fated, possibly bloodthirsty action. In the opinion of the person that spawned this post, it would be a war to continue some kind of dominion in the Middle East, which would hurt individual Americans to benefit the rich and powerful. While I don't think the US can magically fix countries in the area (see: Iraq), there is a middle zone between "Try to prop up an unwanted regime after removing the previous one" and "do nothing". Applying Iraq's sample size of one reeks of an embarrassing application of prior results to me.
At the end of the day, I can say that Israel's righteousness in this matter does not have a bit of sway as to whether or not I think these strikes are justified (or whether or not American involvement is a good thing). I do not want another nuclear power in the world, especially one so blatantly aggressive toward the West. I will admit that the odds of them cementing their own destruction via a nuclear strike against another nuclear power is low, but I worry about the insurgents they fund or political instability within leading to a device going "missing". That these are even possibilities makes my skin crawl. I find it ignorant and borderline cowardly that there are so many purportedly in favor of American interests who can plug their ears and say "let it sort itself out".
As an aside, to illustrate where I'm coming from: In political terms I am completely disinterested in the outcomes of the world apart from America. Not that I consider them lesser, or that any disasters anywhere else are unimportant; but I still must practically value my home, my life, and those of my loved ones first. As such, I strongly empathize with the "America First" sentiment. What I don't empathize with is the completely unrealistic expectation that we can simply close our borders, give people the middle finger, and not wake up to a vastly worse world for us in twenty years. The world is connected, and a collapse in one place will have follow on effects in others. See: Syria, Haiti, Somalia. You'd have to be crazy to think that every administration in every coming year would be able to or even want to hold the borders that tight and move all manufacturing to be domestic (the only way to be truly isolationist in my eyes). That's just a pipe dream. Thus America taking its hands of the reins would not be truly isolationist, and the soft power we'd be subjected to by countries filling in the void we leave would affect us at home. We already have adversaries fanning the flames of social unrest in the country (and useful idiots that play into their hands), and that's bad enough. A United States is impossible to invade. A broken one is anything but. So global affairs are our business, and if America can project its power to mitigate much worse threats downstream then I am on board with that.
This doesn't mean I blindly want a war, or to bomb every single potential threat all the time everywhere. But nuclear weapons make this entirely a different question.
LazyLongposter
11mo ago
Do you have some trustworthy - and by that I mean palatable to the average democrat voter - sources to back this up? The whole January 6th debacle is a poison pill in discussions with anyone who has an opinion on it. And unfortunately, anyone with whom I end up discussing it already has an opinion on it! Trump offering National Guard assistance completely changes the dynamic of the event, so it would be nice to have some fact-check-proof evidence I can throw at people who loudly proclaim he wanted an insurrection to happen.
A quick response, as I'm mostly on board with your response (and I'm burning my night!):
This was because Iraq capitulated. The regular army had surrendered by the tens of thousands and only the Republican Guard remained. I don't mean they would walk right up or go unopposed - but had they chosen to do so, they could have. It was a common criticism of the war at the time that we did not go far enough (not even Saddam, just allowing the Republican Guard to escape/continue).
In this case, as we've agreed, the Israelis are doing quite alright in that regard (RIP F-14s). Not that I think we'd need no air support - despite anti-Israel concerns, neither the US or Israel is at the other's beck and call, and only a fool would assume there is no situation where US forces would need support - but the cost would be greatly diminished due to Israel's exceptionally successful air campaign.
I actually somewhat agree with your overall assessment. Rational actors will likely never use them unless pushed to the brink. And they contribute to a lasting peace. But my worry is that an increasing number of countries with nuclear arsenals greatly increases the odds that an irrational actor gets into power, or that poor safeguards are implemented. To separate my feelings from my (theoretical) policy suggestions: I am against any country nuclearizing. I am not in favor of world policing literally any country nuclearizing. But Iran, or as worse hypotheticals, Syria, or Sudan - those are problems. With the African continent in mind, I am counting my lucky stars that South Africa denuclearized before going through its current continually corrupt and often hostile decline. That would be another situation where the world (i.e. the US because no one else has power projection) would need to step in and make sure nothing went missing. That is my concern.
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