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PaperclipPerfector  15hr ago (text post)   3435 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026

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Trump has given a "red line" to Iran about killing protestors, but we still aren't seeing US involvement as deaths move into the thousands, reportedly. If the regime follows through with its claims, it will be executing many if not most of the thousands it has arrested.

I have an essay on my view that the US/West/Israel should clearly intervene in the Transnational Thursday thread, but the Culture War dynamics strike me as interesting in that it's not really Culture War Classic material. Traditionally, the Left has been soft on Iran and the Right has been hawkish. Iran has tried to kill Trump and Trump officials, as revenge for the Soleimani assassination.

There's a strong anti-interventionist Right and Left. During the 12-Day War, Trump went from tweeting about regime change, to abruptly demanding cessation of hostilities, which Israel and Iran complied with. (I think had the war continued the regime would already have fallen, given how easily Israel was bombing them.) This is something that's already kicked off, unlike the Maduro rendition. My understanding is that action got more popular in the polls having succeeded, though it's an open question what Venezuela's fate will be.

The Right strongly criticized Obama for declaring a red line in Syria, and then backing off. In hindsight, I think it would have been correct to have intervened against Assad. Here, I think there's a clear cost-benefit analysis case, whether you care about the plight of the Iranian people or the amoral realist power dynamics for America First Global Superpower Edition.

How would attacking Iran benefit America?

Throwing missiles around isn't going to do anything significant. How many missiles has Russia dumped on Ukraine, how many thousands of drones and missiles have they fired off? They've largely broken the Ukrainian electrical grid yet Ukraine remains in the struggle after years and years of bombing and a large-scale ground invasion.

The Saudis bombed Yemen. The US bombed Yemen. The bombing did very little.

How many bombs did the Allies drop on Germany, they flattened whole cities with firestorms comparable to nuclear strikes! This did not break the will of Nazi Germany, they fought on till ground troops conquered the country. The US flattened North Korea, they literally razed the entire country such that people were living in holes in the ground because the buildings had been destroyed. The war ended in a draw and from then on North Korea devoted massive resources into armaments and bunkerization and has taken a very hostile stance to America, as one might expect. Bombing Vietnam caused considerable casualties for Vietnam but it did not achieve the political goal, Saigon was lost. The Russians bombed the hell out of Chechnya but needed a ground invasion to secure it.

Bombing has military relevance but the political effect is very weak, often counterproductive. If you want a political effect, you need to have ground troops for an invasion and this invasion needs to be in progress or very likely to succeed to pressure leaders into surrendering. Alternately, you can aim for a military effect in that bombing can swing the tide of a relatively evenly fought civil war as in Syria or Libya. Only the bombing of Serbia worked out per the 'air campaign only' concept. Iran is a lot bigger than Serbia and a lot further away from NATO airbases. Air campaigns only work in special cases, not generally.

The prior Israeli and American bombing of Iran did nothing, there was no significant military or political effect. The bombing of Fordow had no effect since Iran does not want nuclear weapons. The Israelis have been saying the Iranians are 6-18 months away from nuclear weapons for the last 30 years. The Israelis are lying. If the Iranians wanted nuclear weapons, they'd simply acquire them like other countries that want them. Pakistan didn't stay months away from nukes for decades, they just acquired them. Same with North Korea. Iran probably wants to be a latent nuclear state like South Korea or Japan, they'll only change this stance if threatened with imminent disaster.

Bombing Iran more aggressively is the surest path to them nuclearizing.

There are also a myriad of other costs of bombing Iran. Oil prices will rise and economic uncertainty will increase. The cost in munitions will reduce US strength in more important theaters like Asia. It will further worsen US diplomatic standing. Russia and China will support Iran to inflict costs on the US, they won't be alone like Serbia was. The Iranians will fight on since a ground invasion is totally impractical and a ground invasion is the only thing that can actually deliver the goal of regime change, unless there is a civil war.

If you think the regime might be collapsing and is totally unsustainable then why bomb, why should the US not just do nothing and save a lot of effort, risk and blood? If you're right then doing nothing is the most logical choice, if you're wrong (and the semi-annual major Iran riots are another nothingburger which they seem to be) and the US bombs, then it probably won't work?

This is why strategic thought is so important. Trump shouldn't make these rash proclamations, he should take some notes from Xi about doing nothing, developing internally and biding his time. This recent Venezuela campaign seems to be incoherent. Maduro is gone, some people are dead but the whole socialist structure is still there. Maduro is a clown, not some evil wizard holding the whole country under his thrall. Trump could've just unsanctioned Venezuelan oil if he wanted to buy it, would have probably been much cheaper than moving all these troops around. He thinks he owns Venezuela, people are making memes about conquistadors but conquistadors fought ground campaigns and actually conquered territory, putting it under their complete political control. That comes first, then comes resource extraction. Montezuma's vice-emperor didn't take over the Aztecs!

By all accounts the protests are smaller than in past years (way back in 2009 the opposition could draw out half a million people at a single march!) but much more violent. No real prospect of overthrowing the regime and I can't really think of an explanation for the way the protesters are acting except to conclude that they're being intentionally lured by Mossad to be slaughtered in order to bait Trump into doing their dirty work.

This seems to be Israel's preferred strategy under Trump: pick a fight you can't win alone, get people killed and then hope that Trump will stumble onto the escalation ladder and win the fight for you. Unlike some of their other decisions this one is at least rational since their domination of the American political system is unlikely to last much longer and they could well be faced with an indifferent if not hostile administration by 2029.

No real prospect of overthrowing the regime

Weird that the regime has taken the nationwide comms blackout to a new level and been gunning people down then.

I can't really think of an explanation for the way the protesters are acting except to conclude that they're being intentionally lured by Mossad

Ah yes, your inability to reason clearly about a fairly straightforward incentive structure is better explained by the Iranians being fooled by the crafty Jews.

The Iranians know the score. The regime has been in power for nearly 50 years. Nobody doesn't know the risks.

I'm not an expert on Iran or military matters but from what I see on Twitter it doesn't look like the US is carrying out the expected movements of troops/hardware you'd expect to see before a military intervention. My weak prediction is that Trump does nothing, the protests are harshly suppressed and Trump claims "credit" along the lines of "If it weren't for my warnings there would have been a lot more bloodshed, let me tell you".

That being said, I'm not sure how long the Iranian regime can carry on in its current form. The grand masterplan of:

1/Economically immiserate yourself for 40+ years for the sake of picking a fight with Israel and the USA

2/Get militarily humiliated during the first direct conflict with these two nations

3/Seethe

4/Profit

Seems to have hit a very visible snag around the last step and I don't know how long the regime is even going to be able to recruit enough people to fill its security apparatus to the extent necessary to continue keeping a lid on public frustration while it's abundantly obvious that essentially none of their citizens benefit from the country being run like this.

it's not really Culture War Classic material.

What are you saying has changed? I’m having a hard time finding the Deomcratic Party line—I mostly get results from last summer—but Trump blustering is par for the course.

Look at George W. Plenty of tough talk, minimal actual intervention. There was no reward in the risk. It’s entirely possible that we’re in a similar scenario.

Both parties have interventionists and noninterventionists, hawks and doves. Both parties will sometimes flip based on negative polarization of the other party being in charge.

Plus, foreign policy is by default less likely to be a Culture War topic.

The major change is Trump as a person and MAGA in general have a strange, not always coherent, set of foreign policy instincts. Iran hawks wanted to pull out of JCPOA, kill Soleimani, bomb Iran's nuclear program, and foster regime change. Trump, bit by bit, seems to be going along with that agenda. I'm seeing indications we're taking a harder line on Russia, and we just did the Venezuela op. (Little Marco is getting stuff done.) But Trump also likes to shit on NATO more than seems ideal, and then there's the whole Greenland issue. Oh, and Trump has been soft on China it seems? I don't understand it.

If either Vance or Rubio becomes president, I think there will be a much more consistent foreign policy than Trump's vibe-based approach.

Tangentially related: something I recall hearing a lot from the anti-interventionist left/Ron Paul libertarian/paleocon spheres ca. 2008-2012 was the idea that sanctions and embargoes (on Iran and Cuba, at that time) are actually counterproductive to the stated goal of spreading democracy, because they provide an easy foreign scapegoat for dictators to pin their economic woes on, and the resulting “rally ‘round the flag” effect ironically gives the sanctioned regimes more domestic popular support than they would otherwise enjoy.

On the one hand, this seems like a pretty galaxy-brained take; surely, from the perspective of the man in the streets of Tehran or Havana, the more obvious conclusion is, “If our regime fell and we played ball with the Americans, they’d lift the sanctions and we wouldn’t be poor!”

But on the other, national pride is a hell of a drug, and I can definitely imagine the ordinary people of a sovereign nation—particularly one like Iran, with such a long history of being the premier regional power and a bulwark of refinement and culture—chafing at the prospect of bending the knee to foreign interlopers. Anecdatally, during the US/Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities last summer, I remember seeing assimilated, secular Persian-Americans on social media furiously condemning the US and Israel, even to the point of supporting the Ayatollah, whose very name they seldom utter without a curse before and after (cf. the old saw about not realizing “damn Yankee” was two separate words). In many cases, they were the very same people who took to the streets tweets during the anti-regime protests of 2009 and 2022!

Does anyone have any hard data on how true this hypothesis is?

On the one hand, this seems like a pretty galaxy-brained take; surely, from the perspective of the man in the streets of Tehran or Havana, the more obvious conclusion is, “If our regime fell and we played ball with the Americans, they’d lift the sanctions and we wouldn’t be poor!”

Absolutely nobody is going to think this. They are going to look at what happened when the regimes in Libya, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan fell and they played ball with the Americans. Compared to what Libya turned into, the regime is going to look pretty great by comparison.

Except for Libya, none of your examples involve a regime being overthrown from within by forces wanting an end to the sanctions, or voluntarily submitting to American demands in order to end the sanctions. Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan are all cases where the powers that be (well, were) pointedly refused to play ball, boldly stood up to American threats, and were invaded/couped in short order. If anything, they should serve as cautionary tales of what happens when you don’t play nice with America.

National pride doesn't provide working electricity or keep you warm in the winter. The current protests in Iran seem to mostly be caused by the dire economic situation, which has only come about due to sanctions.

I also think a mistake you might be making is assuming that the primary aim of sanctions is to spread democracy in the first place, rather than as a means of weakening an enemy state so it's less able to harm you. A state that's poorer is one that's less able to buy weapons, pay soldiers, fund an air force etc.

No, sanctions are not responsible for decades of Islamic socialism driving the economy into the ground and hyperinflation via mismanagement. Don't take it from me, take it from Iran's president.

The dire economic situation is the underlying reality that triggers mass discontent, but there have been plenty of mass protests before for democratic reforms (not regime change).

I don't doubt that incompetence has a large role to play, but I think sanctions have to be somewhat responsible. I don't think you can claim for instance that their economy would be just as bad if they were as free to take part in global trade as Germany.

Sure, it's not nothing. They could sell oil to China at market prices instead of at a discount, for example.

But, as with Cuba, sanctions a supporting factor.

Also, lol, consider how shitty Germany's economy is without any US sanctions.

Germany is mismanaging its economy in its own unique way, but it's still doing a lot better than Iran.

IMO the allegation that Iran tried to kill Trump is frankly too absurd to take seriously. The Iranian agent conducted an interview with the FBI while in Iran? Like he is employed by Iran for a super secret mission, and voluntarily decides to confess guilt in an interview with the FBI, while still in Iran? And it’s a phone interview, so it could be literally anyone on the other side of the phone? Disregarding the absurdity of Iran ever trying to do this, never in a million years would they task a 50-year-old who spent a decade in prison with such a mission; that is like a television drama’s idea of how intelligence work plays out in real life. I think whoever is responsible for this bizarre event gave the game away with this:

he allegedly told the FBI of the IRGC's desire to kill an Iranian American activist and target Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka with a mass shooting event. Shakeri also told investigators that the IRGC tasked him with surveilling two Jewish American citizens living in New York

Would Iran, with its half-million strong diaspora in America, able to call upon thousands of Shiite Muslim Americans to do their bidding, task a criminal for four of their highly sensitive operations, none of which have anything to do with each other? And we know all this from a phone call interview? Press X to doubt.

Would Iran, with its half-million strong diaspora in America, able to call upon thousands of Shiite Muslim Americans to do their bidding

Come on man. Think about it. They came to America. They are not regime fans.

I have some "lived experience" with Iran assassination plots and I can tell you it's real.

You're assuming he knew he was talking to the FBI when he gave up that information. You'd be surprised what people will say if they think you're in the know.

Iran has a documented history of using criminals, foreign and domestic, to conduct assassination operations because they have leverage and plausible deniability. (See how easy it was to get you to believe there's no way it could be Iran?)

Come on man. Think about it. They came to America. They are not regime fans.

For the most part I agree, but I think it's more about the circumstances of their departure, i.e. they are elites who fled Iran in the 70s in connection with the revolution. One can contrast them with Israeli-Americans who tend to be very pro-Israel.

Some % of Iranian Americans are likely Shiite extremist or Iranian extremists simply as a matter of statistics; it is not unheard of for extremists to be the children of those who left their country because of extremism. According to the official documents they were “voluntary telephonic interviews” and

SHAKERI's stated reason for participating in the interviews was to attempt to obtain a sentence reduction for another individual ("Individual-1"), who is serving a sentence in U.S. prison, by providing assistance to law enforcement on this individual's behalf.

But this really stretches the imagination, as Iran would brutally torture him to death for conducting such an interview, were he a real person.

Iran has a documented history of using criminals, foreign and domestic, to conduct assassination operations because they have leverage and plausible deniability

Plausible deniability would be paying someone who is not Iranian. Really this all sounds similar to the string of antisemitic arson attacks in Australia, where some mysterious overseas organization hired criminals to commit random acts of criminality against Jewish organizations, most of which never constituted a real threat, coincidentally as the Australian Jewish community pushed for tyrannical antisemitic hate speech laws:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8057j0mz5mo.amp

Australia's federal police have said they are investigating whether "overseas actors or individuals" are paying local criminals to carry out antisemitic crimes in the country.

There has been a spate of such incidents in recent months, the latest of which saw a childcare centre in Sydney set alight and sprayed with anti-Jewish graffiti. No-one was injured.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called a snap cabinet meeting in response, where officials agreed to set up a national database to track antisemitic incidents. Thus far, the federal police taskforce, set up in December to investigate such incidents, received more than 166 reports of antisemitic crimes. Albanese said it appeared some of the crimes were "being perpetrated by people who don't have a particular issue, aren't motivated by an ideology, but are paid actors".

These “attacks” were designed specifically to cause no damage: https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2025/3/10/mob-faked-attack-on-australian-synagogue-police

The caravan had been easily located, the AFP said, adding that the explosives were clearly visible and no detonator was present, suggesting there was never any intent to attack Jewish targets. “The caravan was never going to cause a mass casualty event but instead was concocted by criminals who wanted to cause fear for personal benefit,” Krissy Barrett, AFP’s deputy commissioner for nation

This has also been blamed on Iran, because of course.

You're right that it "could be" the case that Iranian-Americans were willing to conduct terrorism on the Islamic regime's behalf. That rate is infinitesimal, empirically.

Presumably Shakeri thought the FBI wasn't going to publish the fact of the interview. I don't know the logic of why the FBI did what it did.

There's a well-documented history of Iran conducting operations against Jews worldwide over decades.

People love to mistake Iranian incompetence for "ah they didn't actually want to hurt anyone." "They couldn't be that irrational." Like the time they wanted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US in Washington DC. Or like the time they fired ballistic missiles at US forces in Iraq and didn't do much, so the explanation among nonsensical people was "clearly it was all for show." For their part, the Iranians believed the MSM lied about the casualties they had actually caused, because they knew their missiles hit the geocoords. (We did have troops in bunkers get TBIs from the impacts.)

I've personally got to witness Iranian efforts to kill Americans and Jews, so I know not to confuse their incompetence with malicious intent.

Here’s what you are missing that explains the reluctance to wade into the Iran thing, both by Trump and the security apparatus as a whole:

ISRAEL DID NOT ACTUALLY DO THAT WELL IN THE LAST SKIRMISH WITH IRAN

While it was happening you were soaked in a bunch of propagandized news articles about how Israel completely dismantled Fordow and blew up every single Iranian missile and bombed Iran back into the Stone Age and caused every single member of Hezbollah to drop dead simultaneously.

Meanwhile any successful Iranian strikes against Israel were not covered by the mainstream media at all and if they were the damage was downplayed. And there were quite a few: a major military airfield got destroyed, the Israeli equivalent of the pentagon suffered major damage from a direct hit, a large power plant was destroyed, Tel Aviv’s largest hospital was damaged from a direct hit, a major financial building was severely damaged, there were several hits on apartment blocks that probably caused mass casualties that were covered up. And all that was in the four days before the war ended, as the interceptors were running dry. THAT’s why Trump leaned on them to stop. It was becoming unsustainable without major US military action in support, or Israel chucking nukes.

Then over the next six months the truth started leaking out: The damage against Iran’s missile sites was less severe than anticipated, Hezbollah has maintained organizational cohesion and just replaced all the officers killed in the pager attack, the attack on Fordow was so successful that we actually need to do it again.

If the US starts major strikes against Iran, the leadership will start throwing everything they have at Israel in retaliation. Combine that with the fact that every single Iranian protest action of the last 20 years has turned out to be a giant nothing burger, and it’s just not necessarily worth it risking a giant fiasco in the Middle East over a shot at toppling the Iranian regime. That’s said I think there’s a good chance they end up going for it anyway.

Within hours of the strikes mainstream western press was quoting experts saying, basically “this would have delayed them by a few months at the most; the most valuable facilities are dispersed and too deep underground”, so I don’t think this is accurate.

You’re right, but everyone kind of ignored that.

Do you have any solid sources for all these claims? What makes them more reliable than everything in the MSM? How did you verify them?

His assesment of Iran's damage roughly matches what I was seeing on Twitter and Telegram groups as it was happening.

Counter anecdote: It's the exact opposite of what I was seeing on Twitter as it was happening.

about how Israel completely dismantled Fordow

Israel?

THAT’s why Trump leaned on them to stop. It was becoming unsustainable without major US military action in support of Israel chucking nukes.

What a wonderful alternative theory of events. We had to hold Israel back for their own good.

risking a giant fiasco in the Middle East over a shot at toppling the Iranian regime.

Some would argue the giant fiasco in the Middle East is not toppling the Islamic regime. Do you know how much easier Iraq would have been without Iranian interference? Syria? Yemen? Palestine? Lebanon?

the leadership will start throwing everything they have at Israel in retaliation

Israel knows and they seem fine with it. Solve the problem once and for all, you know? They've been advocating for more strikes before these protests kicked off.

If Israel did well last time around (which on balance it seems to me they did) wouldn't the smartest thing for the US to do be "nothing" and let the Israelis sort it? They almost certainly have better intel and assets, their strike apparatus seems adequate, and they likely have better understanding of Iranian culture and society, and they have much more skin in the game.

The main argument I can see cutting against this is that US action might be more palatable to Iranians than Israeli action.

Team work makes the dream work imo.

We have complimentary capabilities in intelligence and air power. My understanding is the rate of Israeli strikes was only possible due to direct logistics support by the US.

Seems like the US could provide e.g. airborne tanker support without really doing anything that would be considered "going to war with Iran" (although ofc material support is technically an act of war [ETA: or at least a cause for war] and all that)

What a wonderful alternative theory of events. We had to hold Israel back for their own good.

Ok what’s your explanation? Trump strong-armed Netanyahu into stopping because he just loves Iran so much?

Israel knows and they seem fine with it. Solve the problem once and for all, you know?

Gambling is always fun when your losses will be covered by someone else’s money.

Trump strong-armed Netanyahu into stopping because he just loves Iran so much?

Why would Trump have to strong arm Netanyahu into stopping if Israel was getting its shit shoved in?

Netanyahu was banking on pushing things to such a critical state that large scale US intervention and regime change would be required. Failing that, it would justify using nuclear weapons.

Doesn't that mean it failed and they should have used nukes?

As I see it, the crux of the matter is the Revolutionary Guard. Unless you can somehow displace them as the primary powerbrokers/guards/corrupt overseers of Iran and its economy, it's hard to imagine meaningful improvement that is worth the number of bodies that will pile up. The system only changes if the guys with guns want it to change.

I do think it changes in the next 10 years. The leaders of the revolution seems to be dying out and my gut says the next generation isn’t the same. I have no idea if the current protest can work but I don’t think the replacements will have the same zeal.

You are correct. The protestors know this. They know the IRGC will, almost certainly, have to be forcibly removed.

The IRGC was designed to be an ideologically aligned military arm of the Islamic regime, as the name makes clear. They are very much the system that protestors seek to overthrow.

If Trump sends in Delta force and they manage to successfully yoink the Ayatollah with minimal casualties, I will buy $15,000 worth of Raytheon and Northrop Grumman stock.

Toppling the regime may or may not play out in the U.S.'s favor, but supporting the protestors in some material way also seems like an obvious win. I'm not sure what other leverage Trump can gain over Iran that doesn't involve another 'kinetic' action.

And I'm also unsure what 'Carrot' can be offered to the current regime to somehow play nice after like 50 years of entrenching as America's biggest hater.

I do know that of the few friends I have who feel strongly about the situation (because they or their family is from Iran/Persia) they are pretty vehement that it'd be worth significant amounts of death to remove the existing regime.

Toppling the regime may or may not play out in the U.S.'s favor,

Can you please point out any regime-toppling exercises that played out in the U.S.'s favor from the past 70 years? I legitimately can't think of any.

It's hard to tell what played out in the favor of the US compared to a counterfactual baseline that doesn't exist, but Grenada, Panama, Haiti and Brazil don't really seem to have backfired.

they are pretty vehement that it'd be worth significant amounts of death to remove the existing regime

But notably not their death. If they actually thought this way---from a revealed preferences angle---they'd be out guerilla-ing.

I'm not so certain that's true.

At least in a couple cases it would also be irresponsible for them to break up their extant lives in the U.S. to go over and maybe die for a regime change.

In one case, though, the guy is single and otherwise not attached to much and owns a decent number of guns.

At least in a couple cases it would also be irresponsible for them to break up their extant lives in the U.S. to go over and maybe die for a regime change.

Just like it's irresponsible for the parents in the US military to disrupt their child's development to go on deployment.

Maybe they’re being more efficient by getting high-earning jobs in America, then sending that money to fund guerillas?

Effective insurrectionists.

slow clap

If they did that, would it actually help the protestors? Ayatollah Khamenei is 86 years old, so presumably not as sharp or energetic as he once was. He stays in power by inertia, and probably also because there's a certain amount of hardline islamists in Iran who like having a theocracy. It's very possible that taking him out would just end up replacing him with a younger, sharper ayatollah. Possibly his son.

Definitely a worrisome failure mode there.

I just like the idea of demonstrating the impotence of an authoritarian in such an embarrassing manner.

What I also find amusing is that if you yoink the current leader without killing him, suddenly their 'replacement' has a dilemma. They can either try to seize power for themselves and supplant their predecessor... at which point the U.S. can force a legitimacy crisis by returning the previous one, or the new leader can insist he's just a placeholder until the return of the captive leader... while admitting his own inability to effect that return.

I feel like this sort of thing happened semi-commonly in Medieval Europe when King got captured and held for ransom.

Seems completely unprecedented in the modern era though.

You are correct that it's not about taking out one person.

Iran is generally ruled by committees of senior officials and advisors, with the Supreme Leader ultimately signing off. It gives him the ability to blame whoever advocated for a course of action if things go poorly. The Supreme Leader has ultimate authority, but is shielded from any direct accountability. Classic "good Tsar, bad Boyars" government design.

Basically the entire reason for the Iranian president is to be the fall guy for economic policies failing. You can vote him out.

What would matter is taking on the security agencies, such that they stop performing effectively at killing protestors and begin switching sides. Just the very act of intervention would probably have a large impact on people's views on the ultimate outcome. Gotta get a preference cascade started.

Not that I'd advocate for it, but Delta probably wants another try at a major Iran op, just out of unit pride.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw

Incidentally that would be why I DON'T expect Trump to pull something audacious and highly risky, since he's presumably sensitive to how a failure would crack his popularity and image. He has been VERY blessed in the success of his deployment of U.S. forces into dangerous situations. Hasn't had to reckon with a version of the Benghazi or Black Hawk Down situations, let alone the Iran Hostage Crisis. Biden even did him the favor of a hasty Afghanistan withdrawal in the interim.

I'm still in awe of the Venezuela gambit, he must have been assured there was such a disparity in capability (or they had SO MANY insiders to help out) that it would be virtually impossible to truly fail.

I'm not exactly sure what sort of material support for the protestors is most likely to help them succeed, but I do like that this tangibly reduces the likelihood of a real boots-on-ground invasion, from my perspective.

I'm still in awe of the Venezuela gambit, he must have been assured there was such a disparity in capability

They literally didn't turn on their air defences. It's not impressive from a military angle at all.

Long-range air defenses are not very effective against low-flying aircraft* (unless essentially colocated with the target, in which case they don't perform better and may perform worse than other cheaper systems) – you can see this in Ukraine, where Russian and Ukrainian aircraft have been able to operate despite the presence of air defenses much superior to those of Venezuela. Being able to get in, yoink a leader defended by small arms and MANPADS (as Maduro was) and fly off without (allegedly) loss of life or destruction of equipment is impressive. Frankly, just coordinating a joint-services time-on-target operation is difficult enough without any sort of resistance at all.

*you might be wondering "what's the point of long range missiles then?" and the answer is that is if all you are doing is forcing the enemy to do risky nap-of-the-earth operations where they will be susceptible to small-arms fire and have worse performance then your long-ranged missiles have paid for themselves already.

Did all of Maduro's security forget to take their guns off 'safe' as well?

Sorry what? I don't follow. If it wasn't clear, I was implying that the "disparity" was assured because the other side did not engage in a defense.

the likelihood of a real boots-on-ground invasion

Now do Greenland, lol [cries].

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15452323/Donald-Trump-orders-army-chiefs-plan-invade-Greenland-President.html

If Americans actually cared about Iranians they would stop trying to turn Iran into Syria. Relieve the sanctions, stop trying to steal the oil and work for peace. Another fiasco regime change war that will flood Europe with migrants and that will wreck Iran is the worst possible outcome.

In hindsight, I think it would have been correct to have intervened against Assad.

In hindsight the policy of arming jihadists while trying to sanction every aspect of the Syrian economy ended in a genocide of Syria's christian population and Europe getting flooded by migrants. If anything the west should prop up stable regimes in the middle east. Wasting another trillion trying to occupy a country in the middle east so they can get DEI would be a disastrous policy.

The recent fiasco in Yemen failed because bombing doesn't win wars. The newly installed jihadist in Syria barely controls the country. The Iraq war was a complete fiasco as well as Afghanistan. How many failures does it take before the neocons stop?

Do you routinely hear people complain about the Iranian diaspora?

Something to that, I reckon.

Who's saying anything about an occupation?

I swear to god so many people have brainworms that any potential foreign intervention must be directly compared to the interventions in Iraq or Afghanistan. There are other ways to do things than occupying and nation building. (Also, Iraq is doing ok these days.)

I swear to god so many people have brainworms that any potential foreign intervention must be directly compared to the interventions in Iraq or Afghanistan. There are other ways to do things than occupying and nation building.

It's not just Iraq and Afghanistan, it's also Syria and Libya (that I remember off the top of my head). Also I'd be more ok with your idea if anyone was punished for these blunders, and gave the current batch of pro-intervention people something to think about.

Those are better comparisons for sure.

Syria is a case of a LACK of Western intervention, however. Assad got a ton of support from Russia and Iran, which is why he really started losing when both of those countries had to focus on more immediate problems.

Libya is pretty different from Iran in a host of ways. For one, Gaddafi wasn't a major thorn in our side at the time. The Islamic regime is an ongoing threat that could be removed.

In my essay, I talk about the risk of separatism. You can't have a perfect future guaranteed. The most successful military intervention the US ever did, according to most anyway, was WWII. Which ended up leading to the Cold War with the USSR as our primary enemy, and then the rise of China. Whoops.

In my view, this case seems fairly straightforward once you consider the possible outcomes relative to baseline. The Islamic regime is really bad for Iran and the world.

Syria is a case of a LACK of Western intervention, however. Assad got a ton of support from Russia and Iran, which is why he really started losing when both of those countries had to focus on more immediate problems.

The leading alternatives to Assad were Al Qaeda and ISIS. It seems patently obvious that the Western-backed forces were objectively worse in nearly every way compared to Assad unless you're a Salafist, an Erdogan fan or an Israel-prioritizer (as in, elevating the narrow interests of Israel above all other considerations).

Assad is a major ally of Iran and Russia, traditional enemies of the US.

So far the Al Qaeda guy seems better than Assad.

Iran and Russia are only enemies of the American regime, Al Qaeda is an enemy of the American people.

The Al Qaeda guy is currently having ethnic and religious minorities thrown off of buildings, is that better than Assad?

Oh, I think Iran and Russia are just as much enemies of the American people as Al Qaeda is.

Regardless, can we do the math on how many people was Assad killing? I think it was more.

There's no great option here.

Do you routinely hear people complain about the Iranian diaspora?

There were two Iranian families in my hometown growing up (smallish town of about 30k people) thet had fled after the Shah was overthrown. One of the families had even converted to Mormonism and was a member of my congregation. The one in my my congregation was a wonderful family and I never heard any complaints about them (they had a son with some mental health issues but even that didn't really cause any problems). I had fewer interactions with the other, but the father of the other family was a school psychiatrist/counsellor at my high school and seemed like a decent guy.

But if someone pretty rabidly anti mass migration like me doesn't have any particular beef with Persians I think that's a pretty good sign of the character of the ones we have here in the US, at least the ones who came here in the 70's.

IMO he shouldn't intervene. Unlike Venezuela, Iran is a middle east shithole and intervening in the middle east has never worked well because there is no history of democracy and widespread support of theocracy. I'm sympathetic to the protestors but I wouldn't help them.

Iran is a middle east shithole

It really wasn't until the mullahs derailed South Korea-level economic growth.

Turkey is not a shithole, and that's the closest approximation to Iran on a number of levels (though they are not oil rich).

There is in fact a history of democracy and constitutional monarchy. The lack of widespread support for theocracy after nearly 50 years is why we're having this conversation.

history of democracy

How well did that work out for them?

Operation Ajax

Eh, Mossadegh was not actually that great at democracy since he violated the law to seize power and dismiss parliament.

One could also argue the US/West owe Iran a debt since we helped get them into this mess. (Which we did by basically facilitating Khomeini's return and believing his lies about running a democracy.)

Great or not it was the result of their democratic process. What came after was less so.

I would argue the best way to repay the debt would be to stay out of it now.

Traditionally, the Left has been soft on Iran and the Right has been hawkish.

I don't think the pro-establishment left has been particularly soft on Iran - although I agree at the margin the pro-establishment right has been more hawkish recently (see for example the Obama era nuclear deal).

There's a strong anti-interventionist Right and Left

I agree here - I think "pro-establishment = hawkish, anti-establishment = dovish" is a better model than "left = dovish, right = hawkish". Trump personally is an exception because he is close to both Israel and Saudi Arabia in a way which the anti-establishment right would disapprove of in anyone else.

There is also a model where the US factional politics of Iran is just the US factional politics of Israel. The pro-establishment left and right are pro-Israel and thus anti-Iran, the anti-establishment left is anti-Israel and thus pro-Iran, and the anti-establishment right is divided on Iran in ways which primarily reflect their attitudes to Israel and Jews.

Eh, I think very few members of the Establishment Left have been anything other than pretty soft of Iran.

For example, I think many of the hawkish criticisms of Obama and the JCPOA ("they wanted to give Iran nukes") are unfair (I supported it), but then there's Ben Rhodes...

The national security-focused Dems are usually pretty sane overall imo. The types who will say it's great Maduro is out of power, for example.

We have to balance how much we hate Iran with the risk that China or Russia push back against us going after their preferred Middle Eastern country. And it is better for the Iranians if they have their own Revolution, not just an American putting a new Dictator in place for them.

With that in mind, I fully believe the Iranians can have a revolution if they don't starve first. The only thing the Americans should do is try to get the protestors food and water on a humanitarian mission. Given how hostile Iran is, doing even this without attacking Iran would be a feat in itself. But it seems like the moral option if we want to help out.

We've already proven just six months ago that Russia and China ain't doin shit here.

They are having their own revolution. Problem is, the regime has all the guns. Nowhere do I advocate we put anyone on the throne. I'm saying we tip the scales against the regime.

People really love to jump to the aftermath complications, as if what's being advocated is an occupation and nation building.

Bombing and regime change aren't the same thing. They could have bombed Iran into a parking lot but it would have done nothing to change who was in power unless they were able to actually occupy Tehran and take control of government. That's a tall order considering the size and remoteness of the country and Tehran's location within it. Not that it couldn't be done, or even be done easily, it just wouldn't be same quick in and out operation and would almost certainly involve taking significant casualties.

There's an ongoing mass uprising.

You can do regime change without boots on the ground if you're providing air support for a mass uprising.

There are protests, not a mass uprising in the sense that there is a rival faction ready to take power. The situation in 2011 was markedly better than the current situation in Iran, as large parts of the country were already under rebel control, and foreign countries, the US included, had already recognized a different government. That's the only instance I can think of where we did "regime change by bombing only", and I haven't heard too many people describe that campaign as something we should try to replicate.

You can't really have "a rival faction" when the police state kills those off immediately in the normal course of business.

But also a mass uprising is a mass uprising, and you're just making up something about a "rival faction." These are the first protests where regime change, not reform, is the explicit goal. Millions of Iranians are risking their lives to take out the regime. They might succeed on their own. They'll almost certainly succeed with some shock and awe backing them up.

We did that in Libya. The result was an unmitigated disaster.

Anyone have a good postmortem on how this one ended up so fucked?

Reuters:

  • 2011—Revolt and civil war: An uprising against Muammar Gaddafi's four-decade rule rapidly spreads, becoming an armed revolt aided by NATO airstrikes. Gaddafi is ousted in August and killed in October by rebels.

  • 2012—Missed opportunities: A rebel council holds elections for an interim General National Congress which creates a transitional government. True power lies with local armed groups. Islamist militants gain ground and attack the US consulate in Benghazi, killing the ambassador.

  • 2013—Growing divisions: Armed groups are ever more powerful, besieging government buildings. The Congress is increasingly divided and trust ebbs as it seeks to extend its term and delay elections.

  • 2014—East–West schism: The Congress rejects the results of an election to a new parliament—the House of Representatives (HoR)—and sets up a government backed by armed groups in the west. The newly elected parliament moves from Tripoli to the east in support of a rival government backed by Khalifa Haftar, a former general who has brought together several armed factions as the Libyan National Army. Libya is now split between warring administrations in east and west.

  • 2015—Islamists on the march: Islamist groups take advantage of the chaos and Islamic State seizes Sirte, Gaddafi's home city in central Libya, in February. In December, the rival parliamentary bodies sign the Libyan Political Agreement to set up a new transition. The agreement confirms the HoR as Libya's parliament but gives members of the General National Congress a new role as an advisory second chamber—the High State Council (HSC).

  • 2016—Islamic State driven back: The HoR rejects the new government as it takes office in Tripoli, entrenching Libya's east–west divide. Western armed factions eventually take Sirte from Islamic State as Haftar fights militants in Derna and Benghazi and seizes the oil crescent region of central Libya.

  • 2019—Haftar attacks Tripoli: After two more years of on-off fighting across Libya, Haftar drives his LNA through the south, bringing most remaining oil fields under his control. In April, Haftar launches a surprise offensive against Tripoli, taking Sirte en route. He is backed by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Russia. Western Libyan armed groups come together to support the Tripoli government with help from Turkey, their alliance bolstered by a deal on maritime borders that angers Egypt and Greece.

  • 2020—Ceasefire: Turkey openly offers military support to Tripoli and Haftar's offensive collapses. As his forces pull back, evidence of atrocities is found in the town of Tarhuna. The sides agree a ceasefire and the UN launches a new peacemaking effort aimed at holding national elections the following year.

  • 2021—A failed election: Eastern and western factions accept a new Government of National Unity (GNU) and Presidency Council, meant to oversee elections in December. But the HoR in the east and the HSC in the west cannot agree on a new constitution or rules for the vote and the election falls apart at the last minute.

  • 2022—Standoff: Both parliamentary bodies now say the unity government has lost its legitimacy but the prime minister, Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah, refuses to quit. The HoR in eastern Libya again appoints a rival administration, but it fails to enter Tripoli. The Nawasi, a major Tripoli militia, is driven from the capital.

United Nations:

More than 14 years after the 2011 revolution and the fall of the former regime, Libya remains mired in an unstable transition marked by recurring violence, fragmented and divided institutions and the entrenchment of powerful armed groups. Its current governing and legislative institutions have continued to operate well past their mandated terms. The lack of an agreed upon constitution and the failure to hold national elections in December 2021, competing interpretations of political agreements, transitional road maps and provisional legal instruments are being used to entrench positions within the prevailing stalemate.

In the aftermath of the failure to hold national elections in December 2021, the political landscape of Libya has been defined by a prolonged stalemate and two distinct centres of power: the Government of National Unity in the west and the Libyan National Army in the east and south. In the west, in the absence of strong institutions, hybrid armed groups often act as de facto providers of security. Competition among these groups over territory, resources, control of illicit activities and institutional influence has fuelled recurring violence that often affects the civilian population. In May 2025, the killing of a major armed group leader triggered some of the deadliest clashes in Tripoli since 2011. With no unity of vision among Libyan political and institutional leaders on a national security architecture and disarmament, demobilization and reintegration, the various armed groups have limited incentives to pursue alternate paths.

In the east, over time, administrative structures that parallel those in the west have consolidated, including a military structure, executive bodies and economic institutions, presenting a challenge to efforts to unify national institutions. In the south, the situation remains characterized by divisions along tribal lines and complex security dynamics, including the presence of foreign fighters and mercenaries and the cross-border movements and activities of criminal networks, including illicit trafficking. Southern Libya, while rich in natural resources, remains politically and economically marginalized. The Amazigh, Tebu and Tuareg communities, which are the country’s three recognized non-Arab Indigenous groups, are not adequately represented in State institutions.

What if there are no guarantees and Iran is not like Libya for a multitude of reasons?

If you want America to commit to yet another military intervention in the middle east, I think you should provide something pretty close to a guarantee. The last several interventions were all disasters, and further, demonstrated that the elites in charge of managing the interventions could not actually be held accountable in any meaningful way for their disastrous management and decision-making. This has been a serious problem, and until I see some evidence that it has actually been corrected, my vote is no, hell no, are you insane?

If you want America to commit to yet another military intervention in the middle east, I think you should provide something pretty close to a guarantee.

Why? Surely it can be justified on the grounds that almost any replacement is going to be better for the US + allies than the current one.

This is famously what they thought about Syria, which is now controlled by Al Qaeda. I've yet to hear how any serious explanation for how Al Qaeda running Syria is better for America or Americans than Assad

Why? Surely it can be justified on the grounds that almost any replacement is going to be better for the US + allies than the current one.

The problem with claiming that things can't get worse is all the previous claims that things couldn't get worse, combined with the numerous, extremely horrifying examples of how they did, in fact, get worse.

We've already done a recent intervention in the Middle East that went pretty well.

Namely, we bombed Iran's nuclear program (and supported Israel bombing other targets). There were decades of handwringing about Iran's weapons program and the downsides of intervention and it turned out most of that was needless concern.

Here's another one: Heard much about ISIS lately? Probably not, because we blew the fuck out of them.

That's the great thing here: Bombing is low risk, and things are already so bad for the Iranian people it would be hard for them to get worse.

Even a humanitarian disaster would be something chosen by the Iranians, and we take an enemy of Western Civilization out.

Knowing what we know now, we could have done the invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan and then simply left. We don't have to do "you break it you buy it" if our concern is removing enemies, and not nation building. (Noting that taking out Saddam wasn't a great idea for the general geopolitical reason that he didn't have a nuclear weapons program, and Iran did, and he was their primary enemy.)

Iran is in a far better position to succeed as a country if the regime is removed than any recent example I can think of.

Here's another one: Heard much about ISIS lately? Probably not, because we blew the fuck out of them.

ISIS shot and killed numerous people in the city I live in while I was out having dinner with my partner - I actually got to see the police cars leaving to go deal with the active shooters, so I have in fact heard a lot about them recently.

Do you live in the Middle East?

Because that was the geographic context of the response. They don't control territory anymore, but they still do attacks worldwide.

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