Shakes
1d ago
This is a kind of sophistry that really doesn’t merit much of a response because, among other issues:
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It’s not true that the entire US intelligence apparatus is of one opinion on Iran and its nuclear aspirations (or that this conveniently backs your conspiracy)
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Joe Kent making salacious accusations that Israel is behind everything is not credible
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Trump has never shown himself to be dogwalked by these absurd plots and has been remarkably consistent on these issues across forty years
This isn’t a question of “loyalty” or whatever other fallacies you want to introduce. (Not that it’s even disloyal to believe Israeli intelligence reports — not that you’ve even shown this is in fact what has happened)
Your theory leaps over vast gulfs of supposition and proclaims them to be reasonable. Well I don’t believe that the Israelis have blackmail material of Donald Trump raping children, etc. etc., or that it takes a great mystery to explain why American foreign policymakers are opposed to Iran etc. etc.
Shakes
1d ago
China acquires energy at below-market prices from rogue states sanctioned by the American-lead world order. Russia, Venezuela, Iran. If these countries normalize relations with that order and sell at market prices China will pay more than it did previously.
Shakes
1d ago
We are talking about a regime in the Middle East
Israel is a democracy
that has circumvented the entire American intelligence establishment
Conspiracy
to push our president to start a war.
Conspiracy
They used a senator who was trained with Mossad talking points, a religiously-radical loyalist stepson, and advisors who were hand-picked by their own Middle Eastern lobbyists.
Conspiracy
This Middle Eastern regime employed Jeffrey Epstein to mass-rape Americans to secure blackmail on important figures including former President Bill Clinton and current President Donald Trump.
Conspiracy
Not even good conspiracies, totally unsubstantiated and debunked. If you think Israel has blackmail material of Donald Trump raping then I think you’ve lost the plot
Shakes
2d ago
We sank the vast majority of Iran’s navy, which is itself a strategic goal. It is in fact one of the strategic goals outlined by Trump in his speech when the war began
Shakes
2d ago
- Stopping Iranian oil from flowing to China, a massive subsidy that enables China to industrialize at our expense
- Cutting off Iran’s funding of terrorists that threaten America and our allies
- Peace and Prosperity in the Middle East is good for America’s bottom dollar and ability to project strength around the globe
- Revenge for Iranian attacks that killed Americans
Shakes
2d ago
This is a net-zero vision of strength where anyone else’s successes are a threat. This kind of model historically doesn’t work and is in fact antithetical to American success post-WWII. We remain powerful by maintaining a global system of wealth and strength in which other powers pay us the ultimate tribute of imitating us.
It’s in our interests to work with Israel because they support American power. It’s in our interests to work against Iran because they oppose American power.
Trump is already pursuing American power in the Middle East by recommitting it to a new vision of prosperity. The Abraham Accords are a far cry from Saudi Arabia funding its own proxy militias to counter Iran. (Remember that under Obama we actually funded the off-shoots of Al Qaeda out of esoteric imagined interests. — Another one of dozens of genuine Obama scandals that received no coverage or consideration until Trump was attacked for moves reversing it.)
The next step is getting Iran on board. This can be done either through regime change, or by simply overawing the current regime to the point that it cuts its losses and joins us. This would be in Iran’s interests too — as Osama Bin Laden once said, something something strong horse etc etc.
Shakes
2d ago
Come on, you can't introduce non-sequitur's to OP's point and use them as disproof of his point. "Iran has been at war with the West." "What about all these other incidents that weren't Iran's fault?" Come on, how is that logically connected at all.
Shakes
2d ago
- Venezuela signed law allowing privatization of oil companies
- Political prisoners released
- Foreign investment returning to Venezuela
- Opposition leaders shown on TV again
- Enemies of the state coming out of hiding
Yeah it's complicated but if your appraisal is just "securing their oil" it's not clear you've thought about this seriously / outside the 24-second news cycle
Shakes
2d ago
He was pretty open that the Venezuelan adventure was simply about securing their oil for the US, otherwise he does not give a fuck about who is in charge over there.
Do you still think that, now that political prisoners are being let go and foreign companies are starting to move back into Venezuela? Do you think that Venezuelans are better off now that the US is sitting on Delcy Rodriguez? Or not
Shakes
2d ago
We bombed it earlier, it made no difference. We can keep bombing the entrances to their facilities, but they can keep digging them out.
So in your opinion is the concept of a "bunker buster" just a lie?
Shakes
2d ago
Israel and the US have long tried to kick that can down the road (sometimes brilliantly bloodless like with Stuxnet, more often through bombing and murder), but don't tell me that killing their supreme leader was about preventing them from gaining nukes.
Ok what was it about then?
but even if Trump's plan (add scare quotes to taste)
Look you don't have to like Trump or agree with him in all cases but to imagine he doesn't have a plan for anything he wants to do is basically to deny any theory of mind for Donald Trump. I think it's TDS by another name. It's not even entirely up to Trump, obviously the American and Israeli militaries had plans and backup plans upon backup plans wargamed out for decades. When people say things like this I suppose that they live too much in the 24-second news cycle and don't have much of a frame of reference beyond that.
Of course, if past bombings gave good reasons why Iran would want nuclear deterrence, the present war gives them excellent reasons.
Of course, and if Iran has good reason to pursue nuclear deterrence, the justification for bombing is excellent.
Shakes
2d ago
I don’t worship power, maybe because of my portion of old American heritage.
You don't worship power so you just sit in the corner and let it happen? Watching? Melodramatically?
This is my culture, and I think any foreign value system that worships power is a fundamentally anti-American influence that must be excised,
Well, although I understand this as a threat against my interests -- I can't take it very credibly since you don't believe in using power.
Shakes
2d ago
Yes, this war has not gone well for America, but that was hardly unexpected,
America has destroyed Iran's military and leadership and experienced a scant dozen casualties. In what sense has this war gone poorly?
Shakes
2d ago
This is just way too credulous man, the line that "if you kill your enemies they win" was only ever supposed to be a meme.
great for mankind if Iran winds up controlling the strait
Like, what are we talking about? You want your enemies to have power over you? Do you think this makes you stronger?
this would constitute a powerful deterrence against future powers
When in human history did great powers losing wars deter future great powers?
that plot unjustified wars
If you think American aggression against Iran is unjustified you have absorbed far too much third world propaganda. Do you think it would be good if Iran got nuclear weapons too?
This would be good for Americans in America, because we will not be top dog forever;
We should lose the war with Iran (making America weaker) so that in one hundred years if America is weaker we will be stronger? Why not just win our wars now so that America is stronger?
in a century or two we may find ourselves in Iran’s place with a more powerful China attempting to oppress us and conquer us.
That future won't come to pass if Iranian oil isn't supplying China's economic base.
Giving Iran the strait would be a great reparative act for a country that does not deserve the families of its scientists blown up and its economy placed under crippling sanctions just because their civilization makes Israelis and Zionists uncomfortable and envious.
Those scientists are building Iran nuclear weapons so that Iran can project its power across the Middle East, and ultimately the world, in direct hostility to your interests. I think even the actual pacifists and Amish and Quakers et al. are not this credulous about the virtues of peace.
Ultimately there is nothing more important than justice and securing peace, at least not if you’re a member of the Christian West called to be peacemakers.
If you are Christian the most important thing in the world is getting right with God. Justice and peace are secondary to that ultimate goal. The Christian tradition in fact contains a lot of debate about the subject of war and just wars, which doesn't disappear just because you believe in pacifism. A very foolish form of pacifism where your enemies who hate you and in fact want to destroy Christendom would acquire power over energy and nuclear weapons if your vision won out.
So maybe those who worship power will learn something from a decline in American power, and maybe Israelis will learn something from relentless missile strikes on their cities.
Finally, to complete the set, it must be pointed out that America and Israel are winning. The comeuppance you are imagining is not coming.
Look I find it annoying to write these posts where each claim is rebutted on its own line and I imagine people find them annoying to read too. But there are some serious howlers in here that merit breaking down because they produce a very disordered line of thought. You seem to be saying, in effect, that America and Israel are losing (delusional, frankly), but that this loss is good (delusional again) because it will protect America when America is weak (which will only happen if America loses). America will be protected in our lose by our virtue in losing?
Frankly it's easier for me to understand this theory as the product of a meme parasite that's serving some sort of emotional function than as the product of anything rational. But I don't think is consistent on its own terms or with what is actually happening in the world. Iran is not an innocent poor benighted country -- they played power politics and lost. Had they won there would not be some flourishing of the human dialogue but they would work to directly attack your values because they see themselves as your enemy. Instead of that America wins, which is actually good for liberty, freedom, justice, peace, and ultimately the value of Western Civilization taken as a whole. Which is after all why we're all here in the first place.
Shakes
2d ago
...according to Iran. Conveniently, Iran has graciously extended its permission to every ship that has tried the crossing and succeeded. On the ground there are many ships that have made the crossing, such as some Greek oil tankers. Everything is down from where it was a month ago but the strait is not entirely closed because Iran's capacity to project its will is no longer there. It can harass ships and increase the risk, and that only temporarily.
The major question is not whether America will guarantee the straits but how they will do it. Right now it seems likeliest that they will negotiate a deal with Iran's remaining leadership simultaneous with an international fleet as a show of force. But if we wanted to we could always go back to bombing Iran into the stone age etc.
Shakes
2d ago
The Iranian regime is rebuilt, reinforced, made more powerful. The Iranian regime is given new credibility, where before my diasporic friends could claim that with a push the rotten structure would collapse, now they know it will not.
We completely destroyed the base of their military and they can no longer project power throughout the Middle East. They cannot even fully block traffic in the straits.
If America’s reported demands are true it’s a very good deal. Iran ceases all aspirations to project military power in the Middle East, and in exchange normal economic relations and development can resume. This is basically getting Iran to abide by the Abraham Accords and would set the Middle East up for a generation of peace.
Giving Iran anything after they close the Strait is tantamount to recognizing their sovereignty over it, de facto if not legally.
Iran has not really closed the straits. Despite what’s been reported some vessels have never stopped making the crossing. Risks are higher and costs have adjusted but Iran has failed to actually project its will.
but on a geopolitical level this seems like the US admitting defeat.
America destroyed Iran’s military capabilities to the point we are now willing to reintegrate them into the normal affairs of the Middle East. In exchange we suffered a scant dozen casualties.
Look I understand that many people are blackpilled or have been consuming a lot of different views about the war. But America totally decimated Iran. Every power in the world with more information than Twitter jockeys understands what happened. Iran had no meaningful way of retaliating. America has total air superiority. America has total space superiority. America has total naval superiority. Over the span of a few years we have shown that we can e.g.: blow up the secret pagers of every commander across a wide and dispersed military network; drop bombs that tunnel into the sides of mountains; turn off the electrical grids; track missiles from space and intercept them before they leave the launch site; decapitate the leadership of an entire country, over and over and over again whenever we want.
Everybody in the world saw it. Despite what propaganda claims nobody is really in denial about what happened. America is stronger than ever before.
The combination of what Trump has done in Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba will be studied for generations. It will inaugurate a new playbook of how to use American military power. When our war aims aren’t to spend a trillion dollars on NGOs while telling soldiers they cant shoot anybody, we can basically do whatever we want.
Now, what do we actually want? Despite a lot of commentary American aims are fairly modest. Contrary to the isolationists we do have an interest in the Middle East. Contrary to the imperialists and neocons we don’t need total regime change in Iran to achieve our aims. (The phrase “regime change” is a little misleading because by killing Iran’s leadership we already effected regime change: it might simply be an Ayatollah willing to make a deal with America instead of the Shah or a new democratic movement.)
What America wants is a stable global order made up of partners willing to trade and do business in peace. What America wants is for the oil and money to flow. What America wants is for everyone to prosper. That’s the basis of American prosperity.
So as Iran wakes up to the new reality and cuts a deal I will say without a scintilla of irony or doubt: Mission Accomplished!
The Twitterverse is full of denial of these basic facts or doom and gloom clowning on Trump himself. (Trump is right, by the way, when he declares the war both essentially over and that it will last a while yet. We destroyed Iran’s military and it’s through our good grace that we didn’t also bomb them back to the Stone Age. The discrepancy is caused by the lag in time for the mullahs to process what happened, and start negotiating.)
The alternative view, that Trump had no plan whatsoever, that Israel dog-walked the Americans, that Iran bravely resisted and stood up to the American bully, that everyone in the world is laughing at America, that the Straits will never be reopened without conceding an Iranian victory, etc. etc. etc. — the alternative view is not only ridiculous given everything that has already happened but will look even more ridiculous as time passes.
Maybe it will take some time to sink in. It took a few decades for all the Japanese holdouts to accept what had happened after we dropped the bomb.
I’m also sure though that we’ll keep having this argument forever, because that’s in the nature of history.
Shakes
3d ago
America should be invulnerable to these kinds of playground tactics from a pernicious regime, but it isn't, having surrendered too much moral high ground.
That was how I felt when Obama was president.
Shakes
4d ago
Would you change your position if Trump said so himself:
Shakes
4d ago
If we accept that countries that host US soldiers are fair targets then this proves my point: all of Iran's neighbors were already hosting US soldiers and they have no sympathy for Iran.
Shakes
4d ago
Fighting a defensive war against the Great Satan put the Iranian government in a very sympathetic position with their neighbors
Maybe on twitter. But Iran's actual neighbors (diplomats, monarchs, officials) wanted Iran curtailed a long time ago. Iran is the rogue state out. Whatever official sympathy might still have existed evaporated when Iran started bombing uninvolved countries.
Please also note that this report does not call Israel a threat
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