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Trump has bombed Iran's nuclear sites, using B2 bombers dropping 30,000-pound massive ordinance penetrators. All aircraft have successfully cleared Iranian airspace, and Trump is claiming that all three nuclear sites were wiped out. No word that I've seen of a counter-attack from Iran, as yet.
AOC has concluded that a president ordering an airstrike without congressional approval is grounds for impeachment. Fetterman thinks it was the right move. Both are, I suppose, on brand.
My feelings are mixed. I absolutely do not want us signing up for another two decades of invading and inviting the middle east, and of all the places I'd pick with a gun to my head, Iran would be dead last. I do not think our military is prepared for a serious conflict at the moment, because I think there's a pretty good likelihood that a lot of our equipment became suddenly obsolete two or three years ago, and also because I'm beginning to strongly suspect that World War 3 has already started and we've all just just been a bit slow catching on. That said, I am really not a fan of Iran, and while I could be persuaded to gamble on Iran actually acquiring nukes, it's still a hell of a gamble, and the Israelis wiping Iran's air defense grid made this about the cheapest alternative imaginable. I have zero confidence that diplomacy was ever going to work; it's pretty clear to me that Iran wanted nukes, and that in the best case this would result in considerable proliferation and upheaval. Now, assuming the strikes worked, that issue appears to be off the table for the short and medium terms. That... seems like a good thing? Maybe?
I'm hoping what appears to me to be fairly intense pressure to avoid an actual invasion keeps American boots of Iranian soil. As with zorching an Iranian general in Iraq during Trump's first term, this seems like a fairly reasonable gamble, but if we get another forever war out of this, that would be unmitigated disaster.
I'm not sure why Iran getting a nuclear weapon is such a disaster. Like, bad, yes. Saudi Arabia would nuclearize pretty much immediately and Turkey probably wouldn't be too far behind, and that means Ukraine and Taiwan, maybe Egypt too, would probably take it as permission, and...
But the Iranian leaders aren't actually insane and Iran is uninvadable anyways. Pakistan and North Korea haven't used their nukes; they're expensive dick-measuring contests that deter ground invasion and not something which even nutsy regimes would use in anger.
Isn't one of their political platforms death to America?
I think that's a good reason to stop them from having a nuclear bomb.
Isn't one of America's political platforms to go to war with Iran? Seems like a good reason for Iran to get a nuke...
Can you point to the platform of any party or politician that says "Go to war with Iran"?
Does McCain's singing bomb Iran to the tune of Barbara Ann while he was a sitting senator and on his way to being the republican presidential nominee?
It's about as close as you can get, and still, no.
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It's right next to Iran's political platform of 'death to America'.
No, it isn't. Iran's political platform is explicitly and publicly stated by their political leadership and their supporters. We have some hawks who will not miss a chance for an opportunistic war. You are constructing a false equivalency. Iran and the US are not the same in their terminal goals towards one another.
The Iranians chant death to America and have publicly gone to great length to explain that the slogan is not a direct wish for harm against American citizens, but a screed against their government and its belligerence and hostility towards Iran.
Which fits rather snugly as a contrast with the more Orwellian terminology of the west, like 'regime change'.
There are hawks on both sides. People expressing animus towards other peoples via slogans or discussions on TV does not have to exist as a direct analog to what terminal goals governments have towards one another. But as far as I can tell, both parties want a government that is favorable to them, and would prefer not to torpedo their own political projects in a costly confrontation.
To that extent there is no false equivalency that doesn't rely on some drastic otherization and dehumanization. And it's hard to pretend that Iran is hogging all the religious lunatics when Americans have decades of failed Zionist adjacent policies laying in their backyard. Which happens to also be Iran's back yard. Along with theologians like Ted Cruz...
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