remzem
5mo ago
I'm surprised how much political capital he was willing to spend on this. No clear evidence that their nuclear program is knocked out, a pretty strong incentive now between the outcomes of Libya, North Korea, Israel and Iran for any country that doesn't want to be a colony of either the eastern or western bloc to develop nukes. Meanwhile half his base is in open rebellion against him and his biggest source of support right now are Mark Levin type republicans which all of the younger "joe rogan" base despises.
You could almost draw a straight line between the republican party being overthrown by the populists and the Iraq / Afghan wars. Of all the mental gymnastics the base will commit to polish up his obvious faults I don't think he will get a pass here. He's pretty much lost the republicans Joe Rogan viewership numbers of votes. It does make the claims of Israel having compromising intel on him seem more likely.
Can add to that this kills Tulsi Powell, Rubio, and maybe even Vance's future prospects as well. George W. Trump pictures being spammed all over his x posts.
remzem
5mo ago
The administration that caved and eventually brought back an ms-13 member all because there was a minor clerical error and, despite him being cleared for deportation, he wasn't cleared for deportation to El Salvador specifically so the media spent an entire month throwing a fit about it? I lack your faith. All the institutions are still aligned against Populists.
remzem
5mo ago
It was pretty embarrassing that most of the arguments against Iran having a nuke revolve around them being not just crazy like the North Koreans, but crazy religious zealots that don't fear death so MAD wouldn't apply. Meanwhile our politicians are encouraging Trump to listen to God and ignore anything else and claiming their support for Israel is based on religion saying it will benefit us not on any real world analysis.
Because we had 8 years of Obama and then went straight to Trump I think a lot of people forgot why the neolib + neocon version of the Republican party died off, with some RINOs wanting to return to "saner old days". Seeing it suddenly revived this last week really just shows what a broken and inferior ideology it was.
remzem
5mo ago
The missiles aren't sitting on the mountains, they are under the mountains. For some sites like fordow it's unlikely even the largest conventional bunker buster in the US's entire arsenal would be able to penetrate. We don't have the power to simply destroy entire mountain ranges. Not even counting nukes.
remzem
5mo ago
Realistically they are bound by international laws about refugees that they are unlikely to tear up. Also considering both the UK and France have a nuclear triad you don't want to destroy one country just to end up with 2 new nuclear armed foes in a few decades.
remzem
5mo ago
Given how much damage the middle eastern refugee waves did to the US and Europe it would be nice if our Senator's knew that Iran's population is larger than Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria's populations (at the point of their regime change attempts) combined.
remzem
5mo ago
and though Iraq now has a population of ~45m when we invaded in 2003 their population was only 27m, Afghanistan's was 20. So if it's relative to the points of our regime change attempts in those countries Iran has more like 4x the population. The potential refugee wave would be larger than Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq combined.
remzem
5mo ago
Russian and Iranian cooperation seems more just to counter the western empire's expansion collaborate to avoid sanctions and so on. They share some military tech and iirc Russian trade with India is through Iran. Other than that economically they are less interdependent, and if the war went bad and Iran closed the strait of Hormuz and hit Saudi Arabia's oil fields it would put Russia in a spot to make a pretty huge profit and a lot of pressure for the west to back off sanctions to stabilize their economy. This threat is ironically probably a more effective weapon against the west than a nuke.
I think China would be far more likely to come to their aid. They are a huge energy importer and Iran is crucial to their overland trade routes. They recently committed to a half trillion dollar infrastructure project in Iran, etc. Already heard of a couple Chinese warships entering their waters and some cargo planes flying in and out. Guess it will depend on how things escalate.
remzem
5mo ago
So Stated preference > Revealed preference? For me it's the other way around.
remzem
5mo ago
So do you think it was a mistake to make nice with Jolani? He's ex al-qaeda and had ties to ISIS. The majority of deadly attacks in the west, 9/11, charlie hebdo, bataclan, nice, etc. Were either ISIS or al-qaeda, either directly or inspired. Iran's / hezbollah / houthi attacks have been more military targets and less civilian. Yet the US had no problem making nice with him and removing the bounty from his head the second he happened to topple a country that was an impediment to the expansion of their empire, but no real threat to American lives.
The Iran thing really has nothing to do with keeping us safe, and everything to do with expanding our dear leaders' geopolitical power.
remzem
5mo ago
haha, I like this moderating more. Less hiding behind the sterile legalese. Upvoted.
remzem
5mo ago
Only if you maintain your insubordinate and anti-American behaviors
He made it personal first?
Maybe you should stop making it personal. Have a vendetta since I think your forum's rules are garbage and are strangling this place into irrelevancy. Never liked you on the old forum either before you made mod since all the regulars quit.
remzem
5mo ago
Someone named "Hadad" telling an American whose ancestors came here in the late 1600s to stop being insubordinate in order to prosper. It's like a perfect encapsulation of what is wrong with US politics. Fuentes massively vindicated by all this.
remzem
5mo ago
Trump as well is speed running losing long term support. He's alienated the more libertarian voters by attacking Rand Paul and Massie, while having a really bloated pork filled spending bill. He's alienated the isolationists by continuing to provide intel to Ukraine, basically doing the same good cop bad cop routine he just did with Iran to claim neutrality while all the evidence points to continued support. He alienated the moderates and boomers with his poorly planned tariffs, even managed to alienate the pro tariff people by waffling too much on them. If he does the amnesty he was talking about yesterday his base is going to shrivel up. I've never seen this much hate before for Trump on right wing twitter.
remzem
5mo ago
No one is foolish enough these days to negotiate peace with the west. Every country knows it is just a pretext for the west to wait until it has a better position to destroy you.
remzem
5mo ago
Rubio has denied American involvement. Not that we'd admit it even if we were involved.
https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1933328486669697508
Though it makes sense for Israel to claim otherwise. If Iran strikes US bases it will help them pull us into their war. On the off chance the neocons haven't already greenlit it.
remzem
5mo ago
Another insult to Trump given he asked for one more weekend of talks. I suppose they own enough of the other politicians and news orgs they don't mind if he isn't 100% on board.
remzem
5mo ago
Charging everyone present because their protesting made it inconvenient to undertake a planned future action is already stretching the law beyond anything it's been used for in the past
Jan 6th?
remzem
5mo ago
Yeah he's not as influential as Tucker, but still has a decent audience. I don't really understand why Bannon still stans for Trump so hard tbh though. Trump basically tossed him aside early first term and never looked back. Trump really doesn't come close to Bannon's populist levels. First term Trump, Bannon wanted taxes raised on the 5m bracket to bring down deficits. He wants the dollar to stop being the reserve currency to help US production, etc. Trump is almost closer to Romney politically than Bannon at this point.
remzem
5mo ago
Who are they even pillaging it for? Dems are more PMC now so they are hardly all low income and will likely benefit from the tax breaks, especially the SALT deduction changes. There are plenty or rust belt Trump voters on medicaid that will lose coverage along with the inner city dems. The military gets more funding which seems to be a requirement of every democrat or republican bill so it's basically bipartisan. I guess the border funding? Seems like pretty lame spoils compared to Biden's term.
remzem
5mo ago
Yeah but everyone knew USAID was just a regime change operation and wanted it cut for that reason. That was the whole point. Neocon Rubio swept in and pretended like we really cared about mosquito nets to Africa or w/e
That's incredibly short term thinking. If you win a battle but lose the ability to fight the war it's a bad move strategically. Even if this strike wiped out all the mentioned bases it doesn't mean Iran will never be able to make a nuke ever again. Lose the midterms as is incredibly likely and he'll be even more impotent then he is now for any of his domestic policy. This does nothing to reverse Israel's already rapidly declining status in the west. It won't be long before people start questioning why we send them 4 billion a year, how it benefits us to have a rogue parasite state that manipulates our government into war.
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