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I am pretty sure that Iran and Israel have been going at that for decades, so at this point the question of who escalated at which points is moot. Israel had Trump kill Qasem Soleimani, then Iran helped Hamas commit Oct 7, then Nethanyahu killed a couple of ten thousands in Gaza, and now convinced Trump to kill the Ayatollah. We will see what Iran will do next.
But at this point, it feels to me that this is a conflict without good guys, and the rest of the world should simply stay out of it. Perhaps after five years of ground warfare both sides will wisen up and deescalate. Or perhaps the religious nutjobs will stay in power.
That may very well be so, but the question I was addressing is what Iran can do -- as a practical matter -- to stop being attacked by Israel and/or the United States. One possibility would be to acquire nuclear weapons and/or otherwise get so strong that (perhaps) nobody would dare attack them. A second possibility would be for Iran to (1) stop supporting Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and any other similar proxy organizations which is uses to engage in terrorist campaigns against Israel; and (2) stop calling for Israel to be wiped off the map, etc.
"But that's not fair! Israel is the aggressor!" I can hear people saying. I disagree, but even if that were true, Iran could still take the second option.
With respect to most of the conflicts Israel is involved in, I would agree. But with Iran, I am not so sure. My impression is that Iran is fomenting Shiite unrest throughout the Middle East, including in the Persian Gulf. This implicates vital American interests.
The problem is that it is hard to know if a deescalation would be reciprocated. If your opposite is playing a non-zero-sum game, he might reciprocate. Or he might be playing chess, where any attempt to deescalate will fail because your opponent is committed to crushing you no matter what. Together with institutional inertia, this tends to keep negative-sum conflicts going for a long time.
Sure. Iran is one of several regional players using ethnic tensions to advance their influence. For example, Daesh ('ISIS') was Sunni, as was Al-Qaida. It is perfectly reasonable to be against religious terrorists both when they are funded by Iran and by Saudi-Arabia, though.
This is not literally true. If Iran takes over the whole ME, that will not cause a single American to starve. Ukraine has a vital interest that Putin does not take Kiev.
The interests of the US in the ME are hegemonic. That does not mean that they are invalid -- being a hegemon is a good deal for the US voters, generally, and also for some of your client states (e.g. in Europe).
In this case, it's not that hard to know. Israel clearly has the power to roll in and crush Jordan; same thing with Egypt; same thing with Gaza; and same thing with Area A. But as the saying goes, one of these things is not like the others.
If food is the only consideration, then sure. But at the moment oil is also a vital resource. And I'm sure you are aware that a major fraction of the world's oil comes from the Persian Gulf region.
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