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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   29383 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026

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Top Administration Officials Are Now Openly Admitting That America Is Israel's Bitch.

Rubio: "The president made the very wise decision—we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties."

This wasn't clipped and quoted from a fringe groyper. This was posted by an official White House account.

I can't believe this shit. The United States has abdicated strategic initiative to Israel. The American armed forces in the Middle East have been reduced to reacting to and mitigating damage from Israel's operations in the theater. The straightforward interpretation of the above quote is that Israel started a war that killed American troops.

I was watching Tucker Carlson lay out this exact theory and thought, “well that’s an interesting idea. Too bad we’ll never know for sure.” And then the first thing I see when I tab over to Twitter is Marco Rubio making the exact same thought.

I'm going to put on my tinfoil hat here for a moment.

There's a whole lot of circumstantial evidence that Epstein had ties to Israeli intelligence, and that his job involved gathering blackmail material against strategic targets in the USA.

If you can buy that premise, this almost makes sense. The continuous slow leak of the material in question lowers the value of that material - you can't blackmail somebody if the blackmail material is already out in public. The Israelis are smart. They likely know that if they're going to squeeze any value out of whatever's left, they'd have to use quickly before it was released, and make sure that whatever they planned to do with it was worth it, since they might never be able to use it again. A "joint" US/Israeli strike against Israel's biggest remaining enemy in the region would probably fit the bill.

If I may…

On July 17th the Trump birthday card was first publicly reported in the WSJ; that same day, Trump called for Iran to unconditionally surrender, and he began striking Iran on the 22nd. Recall that Israel may have previously blackmailed Clinton with the Lewinsky tapes. One researcher believes this was related to the “Mega” investigation:

https://www.wrmea.org/1999-april-may/gideons-spies-the-secret-history-of-the-mossad.html

Thomas implies that downgrading the FBI search for “Mega,” just when the circle of suspects had been narrowed down, was linked to Clinton succumbing to Israeli blackmail based on the Mossad’s tapes of his telephone conversations with Monica.

Mega was some mysterious person or entity which was a conduit of the Israeli government. It likely referred to Wexner’s influence operation:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/jan/10/inside-ring-former-nsa-counterspy-says-jeffrey-eps/

Former National Security Agency counterspy John Schindler says he has connected the intelligence dots regarding the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and linked him to an Israeli influence operation.

“the heart of the Epstein saga was a clandestine intelligence operation devoted to compromising and blackmailing rich and powerful people,” Mr. Schindler said.

”We know that MEGA was viewed by Israel intelligence officials as a vehicle for espionage and influence operations in the United States,” Mr. Schindler concluded. “We know that it was co-founded by Jeffrey Epstein’s billionaire benefactor. The rest remains speculation.”

Re Epstein and Mega: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/inside-jeffrey-epsteins-decades-long-relationship-with-his-biggest-client

During the 1990s, both Epstein’s and Wexner’s profiles grew on the world stage. In 1991, Wexner cofounded a philanthropic organization of Jewish billionaires known as the Mega Group, which uses some of its vast resources to shape Middle East policy. In 2003, Wexner’s foundation commissioned GOP messaging guru Frank Luntz to advise American Jewish leaders on how to rally support for Israel. “For a year—a SOLID YEAR—you should be invoking the name of Saddam Hussein and how Israel was always behind American efforts to rid the world of this ruthless dictator and liberate their people,” Luntz’s recommendation stated.

It’s possible that the first time Israel blackmailed an American president, it was to stop an investigation into the Wexner-Epstein blackmail ring. The second time they blackmailed the president, it was using the very material from that blackmail ring. I’m convinced that the Trump birthday card is significant in this regard. It is really hard to look at this and not conclude they are referring to underage girls. There is some notable secret shared between Trump and Epstein, which involves an enjoyment that can’t be named; it is the one thing “more to life than having everything”; after they agree on this secret pleasure, Trump writes “enigmas never age”, and Epstein replies “this was clear to me the last time I saw you”. It was, ostensibly, written by Trump, with his signature on the bush of a woman’s silhouette, while another entry from the birthday book (Joel Paschow) implies that Epstein had “sold” a woman to Trump:

a photo shows Epstein holding a large novelty check for $22,500 with a "DJTRUMP" signature. An accompanying note jokes that Epstein sold a "'fully depreciated' [woman] to Donald Trump for $22,500." The New York Times reported the page was made by Joel Pashcow, a member of Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club.

There’s one last piece of evidence toward this conspiracy theory (truly the platonic ideal of a conspiracy theory): the Israel-Trump-Guccifer election interference story.

I can reveal here the details of an elaborate covert operation personally directed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that aimed to use secret intelligence to clandestinely intervene at the highest levels in the presidential election on behalf of Trump.

As part of the Mueller investigation, the bureau had conducted an extensive search for any foreign interference in the 2016 election, and the warrant was directed at securing the Google accounts of a mysterious Israeli agent acting under the direction of someone identified as “PM.” The FBI agent who wrote the affidavit noted, “I believe ‘PM’ refers to the ‘Prime Minister.’”

He would dispatch a discreet, highly trusted aide, armed with critical intelligence, to covertly “intervene” in the US election to help put his man Trump in the White House. Based on the FBI documents, the intelligence appears to have consisted of advance knowledge of Russia’s hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, and it may have included confidential details from the stolen e-mails. It was likely obtained by Israeli eavesdropping operations that were targeting secret Russian communications, as well as those of WikiLeaks.

According to the FBI warrant, the same day that Stone communicated with the Israeli agent, he began Googling some very strange terms, including “guccifer” and “dcleaks.” It would be nearly a month before those same terms would make headlines around the world. On June 14, The Washington Post reported that the DNC had been hacked by Russian government agents. The next day, someone calling himself “Guccifer 2.0” took credit for the attack. He claimed to be an American hacktivist, but according to a Justice Department indictment in July 2018, he was actually a Russian GRU employee. Soon afterward, the website DCLeaks—another front for the GRU—began releasing hacked Democratic Party documents.

The prospect of an October Surprise, along with the offer of critical intelligence, apparently got Trump’s attention. On September 25, he and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met privately with Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer in his Trump Tower penthouse. Later that day, he publicly announced that if he was elected, his administration would finally “recognize Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the State of Israel.”

Trump being compromised would explain the great lengths Israel went to get Trump elected, eg preparing for “the Russians” (lmao???) hacking and releasing the DNC emails. (As one final conspiratorial tie-in, probably not material but more of a fun fact: 4chan’s /pol/ was instrumental, if not focal, in getting the Trump train going and in searching through the Hillary emails. Epstein met with m00t, the owner of 4chan, shortly before the political board opened, and there are a number of emails where he shares threads from the site, though it’s mostly cartoon porn.).

I don’t believe at all Epstein had Kompromat on Trump. He’s a New York real estate developer in finance so he’s obviously worked with and been around a lot of Jews.

He’s probably just super racists. And has realized Jews are hyper competent and good allies. He respects competency and money and power and in a meritocracy Jews have a lot of that. So making an alliance with a group that represents 30% of Western Civs elite and 15% globally makes sense to him.

A Jewish/Maga combo robs the left of having their intellectual firepower. Then their just a dying off WASP and third worlders party.

I don’t understand why our resident Holocaust deniers are so against Ellison owning WBD and Tiktock. He’s aligned with Trump now. Maybe someday that is a problem but for now I they seem to be aligned with Americas right.

A Jewish elite plus MAGA coalition is not going to lose elections to a Democrat party that’s headed by black females. We just have to remember they have their own tribal goals.

What's really fascinating about this whole affair is that it really illustrates the whole "Trump lies like a used car salesman" idea that was popular around here a while back. Over the past two days, it's been regime change, definitely not regime change, degrading Iranian capabilities, getting compliments for Trump, preempting retaliation triggered by Israeli strikes, and protecting the US/Israel from an imminent threat. And I've probably missed some other statements coming out the administration's senior leadership. It's all nonsense, but I don't know that it's meant to be believed so much as to disorient critics.

My gut instinct is that they thought they were about to pull a repeat of the Maduro operation or Midnight Hammer. Everything was going to be over and done too fast for the haters to do anything but wring their hands. The Iranian government was going to be cowed into submission and make a much more favorable deal than the one Trump tore up. Only it hasn't been quite as clean or decisive as anticipated. We'll see how it ultimately shakes out, but I wouldn't be shocked to see them double down for fear of looking weak.

Yes, sometimes you have a nice three days of special military operation planned but your enemy did not get the memo and does not stick to your timeline.

From the recent Merz photo call:

The first question Trump's asked about the Middle East is if Israel forced his hand. "No, I might have forced their hand," he responds.

Referring to Iran, Trump says: "We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion they were going to attack first."

"I didn't want that to happen," the US president says. "So, if anything, I might have forced Israel's hand."

Referring to Iran, Trump says: "We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion they were going to attack first."

Oh, so he’s just lying.

The idea that Iran would launch an unprovoked attack on the United States is almost as absurd as Ukraine launching an unprovoked attack on Russia.

Trump as far as I can tell has been the only US official to take this position. Nobody else has mentioned a possible Iran first strike.

I do not get the impression that most Trump supporters care if he is lying.

That said, I would also expect his administration to close ranks in whatever way helps him save face. Perhaps there will be a Tweet explaining our foreign policy.

I would not even call it lying, because a lie requires someone to potentially believe it, and at this point only the 10% most gullible would even consider taking Trump's word for anything. It is more like bullshitting, like a drunkard bragging about that time he caught a fish larger than himself. Or perhaps an applause light, 'I am saying something nice about my side, and by extension America. Only someone totally unpatriotic would try to fact check such a statement'.

So we have two theories:

  • Israel maneuvered America into war with Iran
  • America maneuvered Israel into war with Iran

I'm sure all those visits by Netanyahu to the oval Office were Netanyahu taking Trump's orders for staying on the warpath (despite media reports that the opposite was the case).

Notably Trump qualifies his belief that Iran was going to attack first as his "opinion", because US intelligence has confirmed that they were not going to attack first.

Senator Warner, a top member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and "Gang of Eight" had this to say about Trump's opinion:

Let's also be clear... there was no imminent threat to the US by the Iranians. There was a threat to Israel. If you equate a threat to Israel as equivalent to an imminent threat to the United States then we are in uncharted territory.

Warner is only wrong that we are in uncharted territory, we are in the territory that brought us to Iraq twice and now here, only instead of platitudes and debates and lies about Hussein-9/11-Al Qaeda connections, existing WMDs, babies being ripped from their incubators in Kuwait, Spreading Democracy, they don't even feel the need to lie to us anymore with high ideals or fabricated intelligence.

So I guess "Iran was going to attack first" is the narrative they are going to go with, but they don't even have any fabricated intelligence or false flag or anything. IC says that is false, and Trump just says it was his opinion.

But why don’t you ascribe any agency to Trump, here? You consider it necessary that one must have manipulated the other into war.

It seems the simplest explanation. Trump likes doing things. Bibi says, here's a thing. Trump says, great, let's do it! I can't see either of them needing much prodding to get on board.

The only reason someone would need more than that was if they bought the line that Trump was some Ron Paul-esque paleo isolationist. I don't think many people believe that now.

The straightforward interpretation of the above quote is that Israel started a war that killed American troops.

That's nonsense. That war started in 1970s. The official slogan of Iran is "Death to America" and you still don't believe there's a war? The fact that you are not getting action in a specific moment of time does not mean the war disappeared. As Israel itself learned very well on October 7, and US learned before it on September 11, and on many other occasions where Iran or Iran's proxies murdered Americans. You can choose when the war turns hot, or you can let the enemy choose it for you.

Yes, Israel has its own war with Iran, and it is not going to surrender because some miserable assholes in America hate the Jews. It is an independent state, with its own independent goals. It is a very close ally of the US, but still US has its own priorities and Israel has its own. US can afford waiting for Iran to build up (though it's not smart, but US is so powerful even built-up Iran is no existential threat for the US), Israel can not. So the US can use the opportunity Israel's actions provide, or can waste it. Trump smartly decided not to waste it. Describing taking this excellent opportunity to wage war (and, with luck, end this war with a resounding victory) efficiently and coordinating with US's strongest and most motivated ally as "mitigating damage from Israel" is either stupid, or strongly motivated by finding Israel's fault in any situation, no matter what happens. It is natural that Tucker Qatarlson is doing it, that's what he's being paid for, but for any person whose brain is not replaced by Qatar's money it is just stupid.

And describing American casualties as Israel's fault is completely insane. There are casualties in every war, and in US's war in Iran there had been many and will be more, until Iran's insane government, whose official slogan is "Death to America", is destroyed. Saying it's Israel's fault because Israel is US ally is just bizarre.

The tendency of some Iranians to hate America did not just appear out of nowhere in the 1970s. There was US support for the Shah. When it comes to overall tensions between Iran and the West, we could go further back to the 1941 Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran.

Who cares? They want to kill us have spent 50 years trying to kill us and now want to acquire nuclear weapons so we can never do anything about it. It wouldn't matter if they were totally justified, they're our enemy, they hate us. (Support for the Shah 50 years ago is anyways extremely thin gruel.)

Nothing in history has ever appeared out of nowhere. There are always historical reasons. We can go to 1970s, or 1940s, or to Cain murdering Abel, if you want. All that does not change the fact that Iran, as a state, had always been in war with the US, and never considered US anything but the Great Satan. And they hadn't been quiet and theoretical about it - for them, the war is real, and violent, and if they are too weak to strike the US directly, they certainly are very willing to strike at the US by any means accessible to them. Iran (as the Islamic Republic) has always been aggressive and violent. So pretending there was no war and everything had been fine is just ignorant. The causes why there was a war is a separate business, but it does not change the fact of the existence of the war.

There were multiple Islamist terrorist attacks on US soil, none of them Iranian. Does not not look like they are very willing to stirke by any means.

They are willing to strike by means available and convenient to them. I don't think it makes sense to debate the meaning of the word "any" - the point is Iran is at war with the US, and this has been confirmed by many hostile actions, costing lives of many US citizens (as well as many other people). Is it "any" means or only "some" means that Iranians use to murder Americans, is immaterial for the question.

9/11 was carried out by (mainly) Saudi nationals based from Afghanistan. The Beirut bombing would be a better example.

Saudi nationals based from Afghanistan

I remember reading about these guying learning to fly in USA. I do not remember reading anything about them visiting Afghanistan. Bin Laden did but he wasn't carrying the attack.

Still, @yunyun333's overall point stands: most of the Islamic terrorism which reaches outside the ME is in fact Sunni terrorism (though funded and committed by citizens of allied gulf states rather than Afghans) rather than Shiite terrorism.

Blaming Iran for 9/11 (which was at least implied) is as absurd as blaming Saddam.

I'm not singling out Iran specifically here, I am talking about the mindset that "if there's no shooting/bombing right now, right this second, then there's no war". It doesn't work this way, and it had been proven over and over that you can't just ignore things like aggressive death cults because they aren't bothering you right now, because they will bother you later. When it's quiet for a while, people start thinking "oh, it's ok, it's not happening anymore" and they get complacent and relax - and then it starts happening again, because the underlying reason is still there. And yes, Iran is not the only reason, but it's a very major one.

There are such things as frozen conflicts, where the arms fall silent despite both sides maintaining competing claims.

Are you saying that it is right and proper to thaw any frozen conflicts, such as Cyprus, China, Kashmir, Korea?

Or take the Cold War. In a way, Iran was following the Cold War etiquette when it enabled Hamas to commit Oct 7 -- enabling local freedom fighters/terrorists to blow up your enemy was a pretty standard move both for the US and the USSR. (Though I will grant you that in the cold war, you normally had your terrorists slaughter civilians of some state which did not matter rather than your peer competitor.) Of course, they found that the cold war etiquette does not really apply to non-nuclear states.

Both the US and the USSR considered each other to epitomize everything what was wrong with the world, used terms such as 'Empire of Evil' etc. Would the world be better if the conflict had gone hot?

Often, the correct move when faced with a conflict which is not in a shooting stage is to not start shooting and hope the conflict goes away. Sometimes it does. Sometimes your enemy will turn it into a shooting war eventually, e.g. in Ukraine or Nagorno-Karabakh. But sometimes, it really works out, the world is a lot better for the USSR collapsing instead of nuking it out with the West.

Yes, of course, frozen conflicts exist. But Iran had been in no way "frozen" - it was actively seeking to establish long-range strike and nuclear capability. While at the same time engaging in a proxy war with the US.

You can't compare Iran with USSR though - US could not get into a hot war with USSR that it could have any hope of winning (at least if your definition of winning does not include nuclear wasteland). In fact, it can't even do this with Russia, which is much smaller and weaker than USSR. With Iran, there is a possibility of direct kinetic action that can be successful in removing the threat. But that window would be closed forever once Iran gets nukes and long-range strike capabilities. The latter he had already possessed, and reportedly was within months of the former. So the choice was a potentially short hot war now (I mean didn't have to be February 28, but sometime within 2024-2028), or 50-year-long cold war later. And given as US pretty much lost the capability to wage long cold wars anyway (the first Democratic president would immediately roll back any gains made by preceding Republican administrations), I don't think "it will eventually work out" was really a viable option. There are a lot of nations that hate America, and that's fine, as long as their hate is, as you noted, "frozen". But then there is Iran, who does not want to remain frozen. They want to arm themselves for the battle with Great Satan. That's the whole underpinning of their ideology - coexistence with Great Satan is not something that you intend to do long term, it's something that you do while you gather your forces for destroying it. Well, they got their final battle a bit sooner than they expected, hopefully it would be final enough.

Israel didn't make America bring half its military assets to Iran.

Rubio's full remarks make it clear - the US was going to attack on its own, but at a different time. Israel changed the timing when it discovered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take out all of Iran's leadership. It did not drag us into a war we weren't prepared to fight.

I highly recommend everyone watch the full 12 minute video because it is the clearest explanation of the US's rationale the leadership has given yet.

That's a pretty high heat-to-light ratio of a headline.

In the wake of Epstein files release (btw not as bad as I imagined from all the hype, though pathetic and occasionally very funny), I've noticed the popularization of terms like “goy”, “goycattle”, “goyim” (the “goyim in abundance” line was legitimately comedy gold, as was Masha Drokova's calculation of Jew percentage – she's a very entertaining person herself, and my friends in SF tell me that her parties have the hottest Russian women somehow, it's the norm to go blabber about technical secrets there, "ahaha just kidding"). There are plenty of edits of Gigachad Epstein and super-Diddy, kids are imagining ideal worlds where they have to worship pedophiles. Jews are understandably unnerved about all the Antisemitic Dogwhistles and correctly recognize over-the-top endorsements of ZOG as sarcasm and trolling, but I think it's evolving in the direction ultimately aligned with their interests. It's habituation. Israelis are more openly talking about Amalek as policy justification (and generally moving far to the religious right), Huckabee on Tucker's show has de facto endorsed Greater Israel and so far has kept his post, Kiriakou says AIPAC has all US politicians by the balls, and the public reaction is… what? Incomprehension? Trying to shoo it away like usual? Genuine Evangelical approval? Some baffled chuckling? Chuds going “we told you so”? Patriots power-tripping over the decapitation of Iranian regime and living vicariously through Israeli dominance? That's all shades of low-agency complicity, cuckoldry… Oh, I've forgotten about the insane left that hates Israel because it reminds them of Western civilization, Christianity, capitalism, heterosexual families and their own parents, reinforcing the false “Zionist vs Commie Third Worldist” dichotomy – these guys sure have fallen off. Incidentally, Israeli stocks are ripping, like 66% up over 12 months. The market is betting on Israel achieving its operational goals, even as everything else is going to the dogs.

In the end, I guess people of Western extraction are accustomed to hereditary transnational elite, and they've ran out of their own aristocracy (and it was kind of dumb and non-meritocratic anyway). Recognizing the natural nobility and greater leadership qualities of Jews and deferring to their choices in international decision-making is in line with the advice of Nietzsche and von Coudenhove-Kalergi, with best practices from Nixon (Kissinger) to Biden (Blinken) to Trump (Kushner) with lots of others in between. And frankly, haven't we all started from this, with LessWrong and Scott gushing over the genius of the Ashkenazim, Eliezer dreaming of the eugenic Dath Ilani like himself, Gwern scheming to clone or embryo-select John von Neumann, others planning to have an army of them save the world from unaligned AGI? Aren't all top AGI projects, aligned or not, led or owned by the Ashkenazim in our timeline – Altman, Amodei, Brin&Page, even Sutskever in Israel (Elon is an outlier like usual, though, but his project seems to be shitty in comparison)? Obviously Jews should make all the important decisions and the dominant American religion amounts to approving their divine right to make all the important decisions and succeed in every endeavor. That slip from Rubio is just acceptance, I think. Yeah Israel steers American foreign policy, because Jews are a natural higher caste in the American society, on account of being smarter and more based; if you oppose Affirmative Action, you have to accept this reality. Whether from the religious, from the biological or from the meritocratic perspective, deference to superiors makes perfect sense. In contrast, resistance is futile, Netanyahu had said it 25 fucking years ago: America is something really easy to steer in the right direction. G-d willing, in a few more years Americans will incorporate the doctrine of exterminating the Amalek into official policymaking.

The idea you suggest, that Jews are Just Better and Anti-Woke Whites need to Get With The Program is, well, certainly an opinion.

I don't believe it'll be very effective, long-term, but who knows? Perhaps those movements to oust critics of Israel from college campuses will be the thing that keeps them from gaining much more sway?

Well unlike last time the Americans aren't going in for a ground war and occupation, just bombing. It's already fairly unpopular as a war. With Iraq there was at least a modest honeymoon period of support.

And most of all the whole operation seems to have been planned out by a gang of dribbling buffoons. Trump has just declared that the US will safeguard shipping in the straits of Hormuz (a repeat of the Red Sea campaign) but the Navy says no, all their warships are allocated. Rubio says there are issues with missile shortages, Trump says munitions stocks are virtually infinite... They're blurting out random justifications and new strategies daily, (we'll try arming the Kurds, that's a neat trick!) Now Trump is lashing out at Spain for not providing assistance. Events have drifted out of their control.

The Ashkenazi elite are not showing proof-of-intellect either. Perhaps they simply cannot sway anyone with a high IQ, perhaps all the clever planners in the Pentagon think this is deeply retarded? Colby never wrote anything about more wars in the Middle East in his strategic vision. The Israelis are reliant on these religious weirdoes who, per the disconcerted reports of their subordinates, are saying the campaign all part of God's plan, Armageddon and the end of days. You can install a religious weirdo in the Pentagon or various high offices but you can't make the general staff and the troops all convert to Evangelical Dispensationalism.

There are limits to Israeli control of America. They have considerable power at the top end and in media but not deep within institutions or amongst the general public.

Beware of black-pills by people who hate America.

Growing awareness of the extent and mode of operation by Jews in European society has never led to habituation, it has always led to blowback, maybe this time it will be different but the cracks are beginning to show: for the first time ever Americans are more sympathetic to Palestine than Israel (yes that is largely inspired by rote third worldism but every passing day even the third worldists are sounding more antisemitic rather than just pro-Brown.)

The NYT already reported Democrat leaders questioning us being led into this war by Netanyahu, which never even entered the minds of our political representatives during the Iraq war. The Jewish archetype and genius is optimized for maximum effectiveness when it's inscrutable, when it's out in the open it historically does not work very well. Maybe this time it will be different. Or maybe Iran is able to make this war painful for America and its Allies, even if it has no chance of actually winning, and there will be blowback to Israel and diaspora Jews.

Certainly there is no plausible narrative for this war other than being led into it by Israel. You underestimate the pincer movement closing in against Jews and Israel from both the right and the left. A quick victory that beer guzzling Patriots can hang their hat on has the highest chance of fortifying their hegemony, but it's not certain and if this escalates into a prolonged crisis the Jews will be blamed, which did not happen with the Iraq crisis.

all shades of low-agency

This is the truest blackpill IMO: collective agency has been eradicated from Westerners, and it will take at least a century to rebuild the necessary infrastructure to produce it again. A shared sense of tribal origin and identity, shared heroes, shared ritual celebrations, shared sacred affinities, shared (invented) memories, allegiance to a promised land, a shared enemy, and shared tragedies are the evolved ways to collaborate as humans. Even more important is the sense of catastrophic danger to the tribe which activates threat detection. While the Westerner has all of these instincts manually turned off through years of cultural conditioning, the religiously and/or nationalistically Jewish collective does the opposite, and tries their hardest to place every member through a rigorous process of in-group allegiance to enable collective collaboration. It is a kind of asymmetrical cultural strategy and it will win every single time, because the conditioned member of the group will choose what’s best for the group for free, and more robustly.

This plays out practically as follows: the President has not been conditioned to hyper-value his own tribe, but Kushner has, so Kushner persuades Trump toward a certain path which benefits the tribe. Trump’s cabinet make-up was significantly informed by people from the tribe, and they got rid of Gaetz through what looked like a kompromat op. Trump’s favorite news guy, Mark Levin, has allegiance to the tribe, and caters his message to persuade Trump. There’s a cadre of lobbyists who will all work passionately to benefit the tribe and they are motivated by deep biological triggers and not just money, and they can wield an enormous amount of influence as we saw with Les Wexner. In fact, while the Wexner Foundation would host talks about the dangers of White nationalism, they developed a meticulous decades-long strategy to increase loyalty to Israel among American Jews and decrease the intermarriage rate (which they catastrophized as a second holocaust), employing billions of dollars toward this aim. Why would Rubio or Hegseth risk their careers and livelihood to stand up against Trump when they have no deep reflexive in-group favor? And then you have billionaires like Miriam Adelson who don’t waste their money on a random African charity but have been trained to employ it toward Israel, and she admits to this. What we see are only the branched-off actions (Miriam has a lot of money) and not the root (Miriam was conditioned at a young age, her husband was given a job by a tribe member, tribe members sought to influence her support by activating her biological instincts).

In politics, “agency” isn’t an individual thing, but a product of social network and reflexive habits and values. If a tribe member wanted to “do something positive” for his group, he can call hundreds of organizations which will paternalistically guide him and even train him toward the most effective path to benefit the group using decades of experience (“volunteer here…” “join this…” “I know a guy in this industry…”). There is no organization which does this for Westerners. You can’t just cold email someone who will hype up your feelings of collective pride, remind you of your ancestral enemy Amalek, and then tell you to do x and y and then work in z because “it’s good for the Jewish people”. Westerners are woefully behind the winning strategy of power as it is actually acquired according to EvPsych.

This is the truest blackpill IMO: collective agency has been eradicated from Westerners, and it will take at least a century to rebuild the necessary infrastructure to produce it again.

The blackpills don't end there! Demographics is destiny, and the West does no longer have "at least a century" to rebuild anything. A century from now, Westerners will no longer be in charge of what is currently thought of as the West. The world may at that point be African, or Muslim, or Chinese, or some new atomized globalized urbanized uniform brand of cultureless human mass, but it won't be recognizably Western.

This is the truest blackpill IMO: collective agency has been eradicated from Westerners, and it will take at least a century to rebuild the necessary infrastructure to produce it again

Overly pessimistic, I hope. I think it could/would be rebuild much quicker through a collective crisis. I'm watching China with a lot of interest partly because of that. I think a descend into a Cold War era international order, followed by a defeat of the West at the hands of China - could be a relative minor thing like Sputnik - would jump start the entire thing right quick. Probably requires media alignment and effective political leadership, but I assume that would emerge more or less naturally.

And frankly, haven't we all started from this, with LessWrong and Scott gushing over the genius of the Ashkenazim, Eliezer dreaming of the eugenic Dath Ilani like himself, Gwern scheming to clone or embryo-select John von Neumann, others planning to have an army of them save the world from unaligned AGI?

Do not worry, the Chinese are aware of Ashkenazi super powers and are closing this gap too.

While the Judeo-Hapa ruling class had been foretold, I am still not convinced it's any better than Jews and Chinese separately.

I think the canonical Judeo-Hapa text is Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.

Did it work? How did her children turn out?

Full professors IIRC.

I'm not seeing much discussion of what would have been a dominant explanation two decades ago: the military industrial complex.

There are companies, deep state actors, and military generals that are more than happy to start a hot war with Iran anyone even if the strategic consequences for the US are negative.

They want to test their latest toys and inventions. And while Ukraine gave them opportunities to test close range weapons (close by modern standards). Iran lets them test long range attacks and defense.

Of course this explanation for getting into the war sounds even worse than "we are Israel's bitch". Trump is usually willing to get up there on the podium and try to sell his policies, even if they are unpopular. I think most politicians would try to justify what is happening even if they didn't have control, because criticizing what is happening proves you don't have control of it. Trump is possibly just throwing a subordinate at this unpleasant job rather than doing it himself.

For the military industrial complex people that could drag the US into this war, making the civilian arm of the government that they don't get along with look bad is just a double win.

Or the gulf monarchies, very influential in the trump regime, who also hate Iran.

There are companies, deep state actors, and military generals that are more than happy to start a hot war with Iran anyone even if the strategic consequences for the US are negative.

If you are properly cold calculating Corrupt Corporate Executive of E.V.I.L.Inc you want state of cold war prolonged indefinitely (or at least till you retire).

You want to deliver small number of super weapons at extraordinary cost, replace them after few years with super-hyper weapons and then with super-hyper-duper weapons, without anyone ever using these marvels to find out whether they work as promised.

Doesn't serve the needs of the generals that want a hot war for promotions. Or the deep state actors that pleasure themselves playing puppet master.

If the people capable of pulling strings and getting America dragged into a hot war, the corporate money makers seem least in control. They are happy to benefit and will make sure the wealth gets shared around, but it's not them alone causing this.

This is a pretty bad immediate pivot of your argument after drawing out the tired MIC talking point.

needs of the generals that want a hot war for promotions

Big general? Generals are replaceable middlemen, despite their status. Promotions are unrelated to the MIC, unless you flubbed this too and meant to talk about military contractors hiring them after retirement. Which, fair, but even then, they don't need a hot war. There are plenty of peacetime generals who went/go to military contracting companies after their service.

deep state actors

Not even MIC, discounting the conspiracy-isms here.

If the people capable of pulling strings and getting America dragged into a hot war, the corporate money makers seem least in control.

Did you leave out a clause here? I'm not being an asshole; I cannot parse the end the first part of this sentence.

They are happy to benefit and will make sure the wealth gets shared around, but it's not them alone causing this.

Fair point, agreed, even though it seems counter to your original point.

Ya my effort goes down as the thread gets deeper. I try and make my points at the higher level.

I don't know what MIC stands for

Military-Industrial Complex.

The United States has been a vassal state of Israel for the entirety of my existence. How is this suprising news to anyone?

It’s certainly a very convenient defense going into midterms. I don’t think it makes a lot of sense though. From an Israeli perspective this is all 6-9 months too late. The IRGC is too deeply embedded to overthrow with a decapitation strike on the civilian/clerical leadership and the biggest protests in 30 years were quickly and mercilessly crushed a few months ago. Nuclear sites and stockpiles are dispersed and deep underground and it would take a nuclear strike or boots on the ground to have any chance of destroying them now.

The timing and other (eg WaPost) reporting suggests that MBS / the Saudis gave their go-ahead last week, which would be a major turnaround from the last two years of rapprochement with Iran on their part.
Possibly something to do with the negotiations; it was very interesting that even Oman and Qatar were hit by Iran.

The IRGC is too deeply embedded to overthrow with a decapitation strike on the civilian/clerical leadership

While I have a cursory understanding of Iranian governance, I'm not an expert. What would you say would be the number of targeted killings before the government wasn't functional?

In the US, losing 18 key people would put the entire line of succession at risk - there's no precedent for who would take over. Even if we assume that the government could lumber on for a while under some kind of provisional military government, that's really only adding about eight more people to the chain. Let's assume that a few charismatic governors could take up the mantle for a little bit and hold things together - that takes the number up to about thirty people.

How does that compare to Iran? How many people would have to be neutralized before their government formally stops working?

In the US, losing 18 key people would put the entire line of succession at risk - there's no precedent for who would take over.

The House of Representatives can select a new Speaker, who then becomes President. Or the Senate can select a new President pro tempore, who then becomes President. So an adversary going to have to knock out all of both houses of Congress to prevent anyone from taking over.

So let's bump that number up - enough senators and house reps to prevent a quorum. That's about 270 people, or 300 total.

How does that compare to Iran's structure?

Yeah, and every day that the Iranian government survives is also a day that they can use to kill more of their domestic opponents, which to them probably seems like a really really tempting thing to do right about now. I don't think that the American/Israeli bombing raids can really do much to stop a bunch of government supporters with light weapons from going around and killing unarmed or lightly armed civilians.

It's certainly a litmus test of how much support that government actually has from its population, and how many of its elites and security/military personnel are actually committed as opposed to being opportunists. I wouldn't be surprised if the government fell tomorrow, and I would be surprised but not totally shocked if it was still around a year from now.

If Republicans are going to be Israelis bitch can the Jews decide that they will play on my side in domestic politics?

I will take the deal gladly. ADL comes out and says white lives matter. Open borders are stupid. Advocate for deporting 200k Somlians. Kagan writes some eloquent opinion that birth right citizenship is obviously false.

I’m fine with shipping $200 billion in bombs to Israel if the bulk of Jewish intellect plays on my team. We can motte and bailey all day long on whether “Jews run the world” or they just “play way above their size” because they’re smart. My big issue with Jews is the bulk of their community seems to have played a game that is against my interests.

The left is too infiltrated with third-worldism for their old political arrangements to work out. If you want MAGA support then I want to see Jewish money going 80% to MAGA and the Jewish vote being 80% MAGA. I feel like these are reasonable terms.

The obvious hypothesis would be that Jews are not, in fact, a hivemind capable of making deals collectively.

Israel can do what it wants, but it actually doesn’t control the ADL or random donors. And the Republican Party has spent long enough pissing those individuals off that it can’t expect a sudden reversal.

I suppose I also think it’s wrong to describe “the left” as a monolith for similar reasons.

If specific people in power in private corporations can coordinate enough to unperson/deplatform and debank Alex Jones, Tyler Oliveira, Nick Fuentes from media, they can coordinate enough to push pro-maga/anti-immigration messaging. We already saw the level of 1984 tier bullshit google search/youtube search pulled. There was a time when you would search for Tucker Carlson's tv show and the first video was always a shitty attempted takedown by the time telling bundle of sticks from the UK's comedy show, a video with trash ammount of views compared to any other from Tucker.

So you don't need ALL jews to be a hivemind, just a couple of good old boys who can coordinate their companies version of reddit's orwellian sounding "Anti-evil operations" team.

the bulk of Jewish intellect

the bulk of their community

80% to MAGA

I dunno, it sure doesn’t sound like he was talking about the good ol’ boys.

time telling bundle of sticks from the UK

Ironically, I can’t seem to find it. Who are you hinting at?

It was this video. Don't know if they thought it would be an anti-radicalisation force in any way, but that specific video made me like Tucker, Just that little bit more. This was back then when they had not yet removed him from FOX.

Then I wouldn’t back bombing Iran if they can’t give us that. Iran is not very important to the US. It is to Israel. No reason to help Israel if they can’t return a favor.

Practicing Catholics vote 80%+ GOP. Maybe it’s even 95% for regular attendees. For decades we’ve been told we can only vote Republican. Either Israel can deliver that or they can not.

If you want to talk in practical terms, now is the unique moment that this can happen. American Jews had been traditionally Democrat voters. And when Democrats were just the socialist-curious wing of Uniparty, that worked pretty well for them. Once the woke left declared their alliance with Islam and went full-in on their program of destroying the Western civilization, that stopped working. American Jews, of course, as any multi-million population, are not homogenous. But most of them would be fine with a little socialism here and there, and maybe a little social progressivism, and with what Democratic party offered in 1980s-1990s. But a lot of them are not OK with the cult of Hamas and the antisemitic frenzy embraced by the woke left. Harris lost almost a million of Jewish votes compared to previous elections. There's certainly some potential for more gains here.

So what some of the geniuses on the right do now? Of course they hastily organize their own antisemitic wing so that the left antisemites do not have a corner on that market. They blame Israel for everything that goes wrong in the foreign policy, and blame Jews for everything that goes wrong in the domestic policy. They unearth every blood libel that can be discovered, and invent some new ones just for fun. They say radical Islam is not so bad, because see, they hate Jews and gays, just like we do. They declare every Jew in US politics their enemy, no matter how many common goals there could be between them. Is this a smart way to build a coalition? Is this the way to convince the Jews who never thought about voting anything but Democrat, but now thinking maybe it's worth considering, to switch? Is this how you build the team?

I think it'd be very smart and very beneficial for America to build a team like that. But there are a lot of people right now on the right that work very hard to make it impossible. I hope they fail, but I can not be sure of that, unfortunately.

If you want MAGA support then I want to see Jewish money going 80% to MAGA and the Jewish vote being 80% MAGA. I feel like these are reasonable terms.

That could happen. I'd like to see that happen. But for this to happen, Qatarlson, Owens and their ilk can not be part of the deal. Right now, the towering stature of Trump makes them tiny and irrelevant. But Trump will be gone from power, at least officially, in 2028, and it is not at all clear he would be able to exert any power on the movement, and have enough clout to say who's in and who's out. And Vance, who is the presumed heir, still sitting on the fence there. And if the groypers remain in, and have the influence on the movement, the Jews will not be voting for MAGA, not 80% and not even the majority. Some committed conservatives could pinch their nose and still go with it, but it won't even get to Trump numbers, let alone exceed them. Why would one vote for a movement that literally considers you a demonic entity that must be eliminated?

The problem is the Jews did do a lot of the things the right accuses them of. We are just the big party that can be transactional.

Israel and their backers did run a blood libel against white identity using the holocausts as justification. And they did a very good job of it. The ADL was the primary Jewish interest group and they’ve been promoting the blood libel for decades. I can understand how they thought that was in their best interests but today we need a new deal.

The problem is the Jews did do a lot of the things the right accuses them of.

Like what specifically? I mean, of course there are Jews that did any particular shit. There are Jewish thieves, Jewish rapists, Jewish murderers, Jewish terrorists, Jewish gangsters, Jewish anything you like. There are a lot of Jews, a lot of them are very smart, and if one also happens also to be a psychopath, you'll get yourself a very prominent criminal or a communist leader or something like that. But I'd like to figure out, what exactly is the problem about which we're talking here.

Israel and their backers did run a blood libel against white identity using the holocausts as justification.

That's not true. Israel had never been an active participant in US culture wars. Especially not in the Great Awokening, which had been thoroughly infested with violent hate for Israel. It is true that some of the Jewish organizations - like ADL - shamefully, used the Holocaust as justification for their left-wing propaganda, but Israel had nothing to do with it, and most of the Jews neither endorsed it nor had any influence on the matter. ADL is not some kind of Jewish representative, it is just a bunch of grifters whose grift happens to be in being Jews and serving Democrats. Other Jews can't really do much about it.

The ADL was the primary Jewish interest group

No it wasn't, and it certainly isn't. They were a bunch of loudmouths who were somewhat listened to because they weren't obviously corrupt, and now that it's obvious they are, they are about as representative as Naturei Karta. One can say they are "a" Jewish group, that's true, but nowhere even near "the primary" Jewish group, especially once they sold their soul to the woke. That is not exclusively Jewish phenomenon - organizations like ACLU, EFF, Greenpeece, and many others suffered the same fate, once they were maybe a left-leaning, but fundamentally sound organizations with a cause, which can be agreed or disagreed, but there was a proper cause, one which people could talk about without buying into the whole woke package. Now they are just skinsuits that the woke left wears when it's tactically convenient. ADL now happens to be a Jewish woke skinsuit, but that's where its connection with the Jewishness ends.

And if you want to make practical gains in luring Jews into MAGA, you message should not be "ADL are Jews, therefore all Jews are the same and as bad as the worst of ADL". That's just doing the same shit the left is doing to you. And I mean it can feel good, but does it work? Did it work on you when they called you a Nazi? Did you think "oh gosh, the Left called me a Nazi, I must rethink everything and change!" or did you think "fuck that noise, I am not listening to them anymore!"? If you want to do better, your message should be "ADL are Jews, but they are bad and lost the right to represent Jews in any way. Come here, my fellow Jews, let's unite under our umbrella of common sense and reject the bullshit ADL is peddling you!".

Denying the ADL after they are no longer useful. That’s like the CIA denying a spy after the fucked up. Of course you deny it now.

“The best funded Jewish group who were hardcore zionists - wasn’t us”

Whether Israel directly worked with them in messaging is a tough question. But Israel could have shut them down at any time. They are zionists. That’s like a the pope calling me and telling me I can’t do something anymore. I have to listen.

Denying the ADL after they are no longer useful

Nobody is "denying" anything. You are trying to pre-suppose you are correct and your opponents' arguments are illegitimate, this is not something that you get for free just because you want it. I described you in detail what is the deal with ADL - it was one thing, now it's a different thing. Things change. If you think what I described is not true, please address it on substance, not just resort to name calling.

That’s like the CIA denying a spy after the fucked up

No, it's not like that at all - nobody is "denying" ADL are Jews, and nobody is "denying" they fucked up.

“The best funded Jewish group who were hardcore zionists - wasn’t us”

I am not sure who you are quoting, so I am not sure I need to address that, unless you explain what do you mean.

Whether Israel directly worked with them in messaging is a tough question.

No, it's not tough at all. It didn't. Israel has its own messaging, and the interest in participating in US culture wars in Israel is pretty much none. Israel has its own troubles. It is true that Israel values US as an ally greatly, and will do a lot to help keep US as an ally and keep the positive relations between US and Israel. But there are much better venues for that and ADL does not play a major role in it, especially the woke part of ADL.

But Israel could have shut them down at any time. They are zionists.

No, it could not - Israel does not finance it and has no operational control over it. And, frankly, why would Israel shut down political activities of US citizens on US soil? Yes, they are zionists - but being zionist is not some chip that you install in your head that puts you under control of the Israeli government. Being zionists just means you don't think Israel must be destroyed. It's a pretty low bar - it is absolutely fascinating, to be honest, you even need a word for it. There's no word to call people that think Japan does not need to be destroyed. There's no word for people that think Morocco is a legitimate state that should exist. Pretty much any country on the face of Earth - sure, there might be people that want to destroy this country, haters gonna hate. But only for Israel there's a special word for people that don't think genocide is a good idea. For all other countries, these people are called "normal people". Such is the sad reality to which we are used. So yes, there are zionists. So what?

That’s like a the pope calling me and telling me I can’t do something anymore

No, it's not like that at all. First of all, Jews don't have a pope and never did. Even within Judaism, even within the most Orthodox of the Ortodox Judaism (which in the minority of Jews) there's no such concept - if you bother to study about it, Judaism had always been a pluralistic religion, and propagation of the religious law could not be more dissimilar to what Catholics have. There literally can not be an analogue to Pope in Judaism (except for Moses once and the Messiah when he comes, of course, but beyond that, none). I am not saying this to say Catholics are wrong, just in Judaism things work very differently, that's a fact.

Second, of course, not all Jews are religious or Israeli or agree to what any particular Israeli government is doing (that's an understatement like saying when the bomb explodes not all the parts stay perfectly still in the same place). ADL has neither religious nor any other obligation to listen to anything anybody in Israel says, whether in power or not. Sure, they could cooperate with Israel when they think it makes sense for them - and they do. But voluntary cooperation and total control that you are implying are very different thing. They don't have to listen to anything. They may decide to listen, or may decide to ignore.

Now, the important part here - if you are still reading - going back to what started the conversation. If you want to get more Jews to be part of the MAGA movement - which I think is a good goal, as there is a lot of intersection between what most of the American Jews want and what most of the MAGA people want - then picking up how ADL hurt you and how much Israel is at fault for that is a useless activity. I mean, it may be attractive for you, but it is useless for reaching that goal. If you want to get more Jews voting for MAGA, then chanting "you are shit because ADL is shit and you are responsible for it!" is not going to do that. We can agree ADL has become shit. You can convince more and more Jews to stop listening to ADL on this basis - because nobody likes listening to shit, so if you can convince people ADL is a shitty organization now, you can get them to stop. But if you insist that ADL is the same as Jews and Israel, and forever has been, and forever will be - they you don't leave any common platform to stand on. How then would you enable the future cooperation?

Historical intelligence and sharing allegations: In the early 1990s, a major controversy arose when San Francisco police raided ADL offices, uncovering evidence of extensive spying on thousands of activists, organizations (including Arab-American groups, anti-apartheid activists, and others critical of Israel), and individuals. Court documents and reports indicated that some of this information was shared with Israeli government officials and intelligence agencies (including Mossad). The ADL settled related lawsuits without admitting wrongdoing, but sources like The Nation, MERIP, and others described it as part of close ties where the ADL provided data to Israel (and sometimes the U.S. State Department or FBI) on critics of Israeli policy.

  • So yes in the past they have literally operated as an arm of Mossad. From Grok.

Listen, you need to decide what you want. If you want to vent about how ADL hurt you, sure, go ahead. I mean, I don't care but you are free to do it, we're in a free country. I won't debate you about this because frankly out of all shit that is happening what information ADL shared in 1990s with Mossad is pretty low on my ladder of priorities, sorry, there are much more important (for me) things that are going on right now.

If you genuinely want to get smart Jews to join MAGA, then I am just telling you right now, starting with how ADL is bad because it supposedly spied on commies and/or Jihad activists in 1990s (ah the times where there were so few of them you needed to actually seek them out instead of just pointing at a random leftist!) and how all Jews are now tainted because of it - is not going to work very well. Just so when it does not work very well at all, you won't be surprised. I mean, out of all ways to get people to play on your side, you choose pretty bad ones so far. If you really want it (and not just using it as one more item on the list of why Jews totally suck) I'd probably try some other strategy.

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Israel and their backers did run a blood libel against white identity using the holocausts as justification.

This is more or less meaningless word salad.

Come on Israel thru their proxies like the ADL have actively been trying to destroy white identities for decades. It’s not a word salad. And factually it’s like true. You can just read the ADL website.

It’s verifiable they did the thing. And that side had a complete victory for most of my adult life.

Despite the claims of our swastika-enjoying members, American Jews aren't a monolith. The ADL is more likely to support Hamas than MAGA no matter what, but Jared Kushner isn't the same. Nor are the Haredim, though they're a problem for other reasons. During the last election we saw a few prominent Jews peeled off the "ADL" side by the antics of universities, and possibly we'll see more of that, but I don't expect the bulk of American Jews to abandon leftism any time soon. Though if some Democrat does go full Hamas, more of them may hold their nose and vote your way in a specific election.

There is a reason I said I wanted them 80-20 MAGA. It’s not a monolith. But they’ve been close to 80-20 against for a long time.

The pro-life movement vote 95-5 with MAGA. In many ways GOP is not a natural place for Roman Catholics. Most of the Catholic (European variety) have always voted for big welfare state. So yes if you want MAGA bombs you better give us the votes and figure out how to make friends. This is how politics work.

Maybe Jews as a group have too many ancestral memories in their culture to ever end up giving 80% of their money to something like MAGA, at least for the foreseeable future. For them, MAGA has too many unpleasant connotations of past cultures that were violent toward Jews.

On a side note, I think that while Jews lean left in American politics, they also happen to be over-represented relative to their population size in American right-wing politics. Unsurprisingly if one believes in the hypothesis that they are influential mainly because of high intelligence, they're basically over-represented relative to their population size in every political movement that does not deliberately exclude Jews.

Maybe Jews as a group have too many ancestral memories in their culture to ever end up giving 80% of their money to something like MAGA, at least for the foreseeable future. For them, MAGA has too many unpleasant connotations of past cultures that were violent toward Jews.

What makes MAGA different from the causes they're actually supporting, like infinity Muslim immigration, or the Blue Tribe in general?

I mean, you can watch the same guy wishing for this deal turn around and accuse Jews of running their own blood libel. I could see how that would be a deal-breaker.

Yeah, but that "same guy" is as MAGA as he is Jewish, I wager.

Is there evidence that they actually support infinity Muslim immigration, as opposed to just enough of any immigration that no ethnic group gets the strength to advance its own interests by virtue of numbers? Do they encourage further Muslim immigration to countries that are majority or nearly majority Muslim, like Lebanon, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania or Indonesia?

(Maybe you could argue that (((they))) islamised Syria, but that was more about Russia. Weaponising Muslims against Russians seems like more of a gentile Anglo civilisational project to me.)

(((They))) might not advocate for literally infinite muslims, but (((their))) leftist catspaws certainly do. To them (them, not (((them)))!), immigration and muslims have become poles of GOOD on the moral compass. There is no quantitative limit; more is better.

(((This))) is fun.

Quasi-ethnic majoritarian nationalism with strong but unadhered to Christian themes has… not tended to be a good bargain for Jews in the past.

I think it’s fair to say every group hates the Jews. Being a minority group that ends up with more people at the top and does have some of their own independent desires is just not a good place to be. It’s the same thing in S Africa with the 10% white population. The 90% black population will end up singing “kill the boer” when the 10% control everything.

A multicultural society of third worlders will mostly end up hating the Jews too. As we have seen.

That hardly explains why they'd prefer infinity Muslims, or the Blue tribe.

The blue tribe has generally been good to Jews, does that need much explaining? Imperial centralizing scholar-bureaucrats usually are.

The blue tribe has generally been good to Jews, does that need much explaining?

Yes, actually. The most fanatical support for Israel and Jewish people in general seems to be coming from a particular brand of Evangelical Christianity, not the Blue Tribe. If lack of support for Christians is supposed to be explained by Christianity rhyming with Nazism, the Blue Tribe rhymes with should prevent support for them as well.

The Blue tribe is the Jews. To be more precise, the Blue Tribe is the Anglo-Jewish culture that appears when not-Orthodox PMC Jews and PMC WASPS start working at the same banks/law firms etc. and joining the same golf clubs.

Blue tribe doesn't have the connotations of "stupid angry white hicks who will come to our village and pogrom us".

The Muslim immigration doesn't seem like a viscerally real, tangible problem because so far it has only built up to small minorities in Western countries.

This seems obviously false now. We have seen the brown people march and chant “from the river to the sea” now.

Maybe 5-10 years ago it was not viscerally real. Today the visceral reality seems very real. Team third worlders if they had enough political power to pogrom Jews seem fine with it.

We have seen the brown people march and chant “from the river to the sea” now.

We have seen it. The average Jew is not a politics-obsessed person who watches the latest aggregated videos of demonstrations on social media and automatically distrusts mainstream framings of topics.

Jews don’t watch the news seems like a poor argument to me. Compared to the average American even adjusted for education they donate more to politics, volunteer more in politics, and spend more time on message boards. They are literally the most politically engaged group in America.

Blacks are the most "being an NBA player"-engaged ethnic group in America, yet the vast majority of blacks are not NBA players.

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Blue tribe doesn't have the connotations of "stupid angry white hicks who will come to our village and pogrom us".

How so? They're the ones doing all the "antisemitic" protests that they were complaining so much about.

The Muslim immigration doesn't seem like a viscerally real, tangible problem

Then why were they complaining so much about all the people celebrating October 7th?

It's all propaganda. In reality, anti-semitism in America was historically not a Red Tribe phenomenon. Anti-semitism in America wasn't pograms, it was stuff like Harvard's Jewish quotas, country clubs refusing Jews, that sort of thing. There was the Klan, who hated almost everyone, but Jews weren't their main focus. There's also black anti-Semitism and Muslim anti-Semitism -- the latter is basically imported and the former fairly recent and not Red Tribe either. Meanwhile, there's some revanchist with a Confederate flag muttering the N-word and the someone calls him an anti-Semite, and he scratches his head and says "Wasn't our Secretary of State named Judah Benjamin?"

Black anti-semitism goes back quite a ways, actually- it’s always been part of black power/black liberation.

Agreed, but I guess I'm not American enough to consider that "a long time".

How so? They're the ones doing all the "antisemitic" protests that they were complaining so much about.

That's very recent and mostly confined to a small subset of Blue tribe. So far it's not much compared to hundreds of years of being pogromed by people who seemed more like Red tribe.

Then why were they complaining so much about all thr people celebrating October 7th?

You can get viscerally upset watching some people celebrate the killing of your co-ethnics without it making you decide that their entire ethnic group is inherently unassimilable to Western civilization. And I think that Jews have been turning more against Muslim immigration recently.

I feel like this is a comfy US Jewish view that’s been accepted for a long time. I don’t believe the state of Israel shares this view.

Abu Zubaydah when he was captured told the CIA officer that he didn’t really want to kill Americans he just wanted to kill Jews.

The main difference between third world antisemitism and white antisemitism is whites are very good at war. Overall Western Europeans are likely less antisemitic than other groups but when we do turn on Jews we can kill a lot of them.

These two issues were relevant enough for them to (successfully) lobby for state actions like deportations and withdrawal of government funds. If they were such a small issue that they don't warrant any reciprocical support, their requests should have been denied. Hell, they should not have made them in the first place.

Well, they're not a monolith. Some of them wanted such radical actions, some were opposed, some indifferent.

My overall point is that, even though Jews in Western countries have been moving a bit to the right recently, white-dominated right-wing populist movements probably have, to a Jewish perspective, so much historical baggage that I don't expect 80% of Jews to support them any time in the near future. They might do it if Muslims rise to make up like 20% of Western populations or something. Even then I'm not sure.

More comments

This was confirmed by Mike Johnson too

“Israel was determined to act in their defence here, with or without our help… Because Israel was determined to act, with or without the U.S., our commander in chief had a very difficult decision to make…”

Yes, we did this because of Israel. It's incredible how powerful their influence is. They forced the Tiktok sale because they were upset about pro palestine content and politicians barely even tried to hide it.

Mike Gallagher said in his calls to ban it

rampant pro-Hamas propaganda on the app should serve as a wake-up call to Americans

Josh Hawley said

"less often discussed is TikTok’s power to radically distort the world picture that America’s young people encounter. Israel’s unfolding war with Hamas is a crucial test case,” Hawley said in a letter to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday.

They're so powerful that we give them lots of aid and money without any political controversy despite them clearly being the dominant power in their region and having universal healthcare and free higher education. We're literally giving our tax money away to a country with things we don't even have, meanwhile PEPFAR gets cut as the "waste".

I don't buy what Rubio said in that quote. He makes it seem like the Israeli action is like some natural phenomenon that cannot be stopped, like an earthquake or volcanic explosion. Whereas the reality, I'm pretty sure, is that if the US government really wanted Israel to not strike, Israel would not strike. Would Israel ignore the US if it was faced with a genuinely existential, immediate threat? Yes, I think so. But this situation was not an immediate existential threat.

On a similar note of "stuff I don't quite believe"... there's now an article in the Financial Times about how Israel tracked Khomeini. Allegedly, with sophisticated data hacking and analysis. Now, was there sophisticated data hacking and analysis? Probably. But I don't quite believe the details presented. It would be stupid of the Israelis to leak the actual details of how they did it, thus educating their enemies. Of course, an unauthorized leak is possible. But I notice that the Financial Times article is another data point in an ongoing pattern: first the info that came out about Stuxnet, then the info that came out about the pager operation in Lebanon, and now this. A series of supposed leaks about tremendous intelligence capability being deployed against Israel's enemies. It's unlikely that the intelligence agencies involved would keep letting such leaks happen over and over again.

I think it's likely that these supposed leaks are actually America + Israel running a deliberate intimidation campaign to make their enemies scared and also to potentially make them waste energy taking wrong precautions. Because if the leaks are part of a deliberate intelligence campaign, then it would be reasonable to conclude that the details are inaccurate: most likely, a combination of accurate details and inaccurate ones put together in such a way as to have enough truth to seem plausible to Israel's enemies, while being inaccurate enough to cause them to take wrong actions in response.

I don't buy what Rubio said in that quote. He makes it seem like the Israeli action is like some natural phenomenon that cannot be stopped, like an earthquake or volcanic explosion.

Mike Johnson confirmed Rubio's statement

“Israel was determined to act in their defence here, with or without our help… Because Israel was determined to act, with or without the U.S., our commander in chief had a very difficult decision to make…”

Whereas the reality, I'm pretty sure, is that if the US government really wanted Israel to not strike, Israel would not strike. Would Israel ignore the US if it was faced with a genuinely existential, immediate threat? Yes, I think so. But this situation was not an immediate existential threat.

Why? What leverage do we actually have over them? They could easily fund themselves if we cut aid (after all they spend tons of money on their universal healthcare and free higher education, they aren't hurting finacially) and that's a big IF considering how aggressively pro Israel most of the Republican and Democrat parties are. Restoring any aid cuts to them might be one of the few things that makes Congress act.

We're in more dire financial straits than them, yet we give them money as they fund things we consider frivolous back home. If that's not being their bitch then I don't know what possibly could be.

I think you're underestimating the multifaceted nature of US influence over Israel beyond just the annual aid package (which, sure, is "only" about $3.8 billion but is also overwhelmingly military specific, funding things like Iron Dome interceptors and David's Sling defence systems that can't be easily self replicated overnight). Now yes, cutting that wouldn't bankrupt Israel (they're a high-income economy with a GDP per capita higher than most of Europe, after all) but it would materially constrain their operational capabilities in a prolonged conflict like this, especially when they're already stretched thin across Gaza, Lebanon, and now Iran.

Now add intelligence sharing (the US provides a huge chunk of Israel's real time targeting data and satellite recon), diplomatic cover (vetoing UN resolutions that could lead to sanctions or isolation), and arms resupply pipelines (Israel's F-35s, JDAMs, and bunker-busters are US sourced and require ongoing parts/maintenance approvals).

If the White House truly went all-in on opposition (say, by halting those exports under the Arms Export Control Act or even threatening to abstain on a UNSC vote condemning the strikes), Israel would face immediate logistical headaches and international backlash that could force a rethink. We've seen glimpses of this before: Reagan delayed F-16 deliveries in the '80s over Lebanon incursions, Bush Sr. withheld loan guarantees over settlements in the '90s, and even Obama slow-walked munitions during the 2014 Gaza op. Israel grumbled but adjusted.

You're right that Congress is overwhelmingly pro-Israel, and restoring aid cuts would likely be bipartisan lightning fast. But this situation started with Israel's June 2025 unilateral strike on Iranian nuclear sites, which escalated to the ongoing joint op after Iran's retaliations threatened US assets directly.

It's not purely about defending Israel from an "imminent" nuke (though that's what is claimed). If the US had drawn a red line earlier and enforced it with those levers, I doubt Bibi pushes this far without coordination. I'll have to reiterate @Goodguy here, both Rubio and Johnson's statements feel like post-hoc justification for Trump's decision to join rather than restrain.

For sure, countering Iran immediately appears to align more with Israel's interests than the US', but I'm not convinced that the US has zero strategic interests in this joint op (though what those interests may be, I'm not 100% sure).

Israel isn't the country it was even in 2014 - religious Jews outbreeding secular Jews has changed the balance of power.

There was a soft right wing of Likud, including people like Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, who thought that Israel's best hope of security was to annex as much land with as few Palestinians as possible, build a fence to keep the vast majority of the Palestinians out, and rely on American support (based on shared interests and values) for defence against Iran and friends. That soft right is now de facto the centre left (parties like Kadima and Blue & White), and even so can't win elections against the Netanyahu coalition. (The only government without Likud since 2009 was a short-lived monstrosity formed when far-right Naftali Bennett went into coalition with the centre-left because he was disgusted by Netanyahu's personal corruption. It lasted 18 months, after which Bennett's party was wiped out).

Netanyahu's coalition don't want to build a fence (at least in the West Bank - Gaza is a shithole nobody wants) - they want to fill Eretz Israel with Jews (sometimes explicitly for religious reasons - religious Zionists are a core part of the coalition) and somehow-or-other have the Palestinians who currently exist there go away. And given a choice between relying on God or the United States for Israel's security, they are going to choose God. Israeli religious Zionists don't have shared interests and values with the US, but there is a popular evangelical heresy which wrongly teaches that they do. Given Netanyahu's ability (or at least perceived ability) to sic AIPAC (in a Democratic primary) or Christian Zionist evangelicals (in a Republican primary) on individual American politicians who cross him, his approach to the US is closer to oderint dum metuant.

If the US did all of that, we might actually get all the Epstein files released, but by Mossad.

I'm pretty sure, is that if the US government really wanted Israel to not strike, Israel would not strike. Would Israel ignore the US if it was faced with a genuinely existential, immediate threat? Yes, I think so. But this situation was not an immediate existential threat.

Yeah, this is pretty much where I am. I think Rubio is playing up the 'we had to because Israel and we couldn't let Iran strike first' as a cassus belli. It does make the US look like the tail is wagging the dog though.

Now, was there sophisticated data hacking and analysis? Probably. But I don't quite believe the details presented. It would be stupid of the Israelis to leak the actual details of how they did it, thus educating their enemies.

I've seen people (ex spooks) talking about targeting analysts in the public sphere. I think there's a fair bit of tradecraft guides and other bits and pieces out there, so it seems like contemporary govts aren't that concerned with basic methods that have been around for decades getting out into the public sphere.

How do we even know the method described in the Times is the one they used rather then disinformation?

Echoes of the Gulf War here, everyone was stunned when Saddam offered to let in inspectors to check for WMDs. Putin offered to mediate. But the Israelis couldn't have that, they were going 'oh well there's no way to be sure, inspectors can be deceived' and the war started anyway. The troops were being moved in, the decision had been made, all this diplomacy was just to tighten the noose, to establish the face-saving rhetoric, not for the ostensive purpose.

In this case, the US had already moved an enormous amount of striking power into the region, those F-22s, the AWACs planes, the carriers and tankers. There was clearly a strike planned. The Israelis just didn't want Trump to chicken out at the last minute, they make each stage on the path to war seem like the path of least resistance.

The Israelis were nudging and pushing and cajoling the US into this situation from start to finish. Netanyahu was constantly flying to Washington to do this cajoling... I bet the Israelis were encouraging the US to go in with maximalist objectives for the diplomacy, providing 'intelligence' that the Iranians were lying or planning a pre-emptive strike. Then they create a deadline, make it seem impossible to back out.

Attacking Iran makes little sense as a strategic objective for the US otherwise.

The US is on the other side of the world! What does MENA matter to America, now that America is energy-independent? Why were there all these troops in the Middle East in the first place? Why not make a deal with Iran to pull them away from the Russia-Chinese camp? All these Gulf allies do deals with China anyway, they are not exactly loyal or capable allies.

If you're worried about Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, why would you assassinate the man who made a fatwa against producing, deploying, using nuclear weapons? That's stupid. It's possible that this is all part of the plan, they want Iran to try nuclearizing and then that will 'justify' a massive disarming strike or ground invasion, possibly nuclear-armed, blow the conflict completely out of proportion. Or perhaps it's a risk they've considered and approved. Israel can run rings around this administration, that much is clear.

One also wonders what leverage Israel has on Trump. Trump feels free to scorn his other billionaire donors like Musk or the entire business lobby with his tariffs, suggesting that it's not just Adelson money at play here. Perhaps it's just natural affinity, he was after all Grand Marshal of the Salute to Israel in NY. Or maybe the Kushner connections. Or maybe something else, who can say?

Isreal knows its on its last presidential legs with the US as the main pro-isreal populace ages out and will be replaced by zoomers who instrinctively hate their guts, it's now or never. That's why we see the renewed vigor with the Iran shenanigans.

That quote doesn't seem so bad if true? It is much easier to hit missiles on the pad than to knock them out of the air.

I am personally much more interested in the consequences of the Iran war for nuclear proliferation. For potential dictators, the lesson of Libya, Ukraine, and North Korea was that your leadership cadres will be secured in power if they can get nuclear weapons, but that giving up a nuclear program is asking to be harrassed by your neighbors. The winning move for Iran was thought to be the nuclear progam, delaying Israeli intervention until enough weapons-grade fissile material could be covertly manufactured.

This war in Iran flips the apparent incentives. The bombing of capital ships and leadership greatly increases the costs (both military and personal) to leadership discreetly pursuing nuclearization. The new rule effectively seems to be "running a nuclear program is not enough to secure your power: you'd better complete nuclearization before you are detected." This seems like it will be a successful means of deterrence against nuclear proliferation, which benefits everyone. I strongly approve.

It is also especially interesting that this is now the third time that the US is has committed surgical strikes against leadership cadres instead of full-scale ground conflict. In the short term this provides strong motivation for leaders of other states to capitulate to US demands, and reduces casualties for everyone who is not in leadership cadres. In the long term, localizing the effects of wars close to the people who start them seems like it will be great for the achievement of world peace. I wonder if the strategy here is asymmetric in favor of the US (Iran having a higher population of Israeli informants than camels), or if the defensive game is hard enough that this opens up US leadership to threats (Iran does have a large military drone sector, but Trump is just old enough that he doesn't care).

One must also wonder what would have happened in Iraq if Saddam Hussein was droned and his replacement was told "behave, or you get droned, too." Talk about aligning incentives.

I agree with this take, nuclear proliferation is an extraordinary global risk and this really seems to be a low cost to way to prevent it.

https://www.amazon.com/Fallout-Story-Secret-Nuclear-Trafficking/dp/1439183074

Is a fantastic book which illustrates some of these risks.

If you're hanging out at a party or a bar and you notice that your friend is getting (or has already gotten) himself into an altercation that may escalate to violence, do you put down your drink and get ready to back your friend's play?

If not, how good a friend are you really?

I've done this twice with 2 different guys at two different stages in my life. They had a habit of getting into fights. I sat down (with others in our group) and told them to stop or it would end our friendship. One guy pulled his head in and we stayed friends. The other did not and we are no longer friends.

Israel and the US have been 'friends' for decades. Israel has an established habit of getting into altercations and dragging the US into it. The US has had many many opportunities to sit them down and put them straight.

'Friends' don't drag their friends into fights time and again.

Edit: Should say I backed my friends in the moment, but read them the riot act afterwards.

"Hey, I didn't fight in no war. Best of luck, though."

Depends on if your friend is the one who's picking a fight or not, I suppose.

If it’s the third or fourth time he’s done this I think I would have to let him learn the hard way that he needs to take care of himself.

Walk me through the logic?

Would Israel not have struck Iran if the U.S. weren't involved?

If Israel struck Iran would Iran NOT have launched attacks that put U.S. personnel at risk?

And if Iran did strike U.S. bases or personnel, would the U.S. not have taken that as an act of war and retaliated?

If the fact is that Israel was going to strike, Iran would retaliate, and THEN the U.S. would retaliate as a matter of course... then yes, the inevitable conclusion is that a pre-emptive strike in cooperation with Israel is preferable all around.

I don't think making the game-theoretically sound action is the same as being the other party's bitch.

Or in other words, if Israel went in alone and lit the candle, and Iran dropped ordinance on Americans, would you be blaming that on Israel or Iran right now?

Would you be against the U.S. taking further action?

Or is your contention that Israel would have withheld their actions if they didn't have U.S. backing guaranteed?

You are ignoring the military buildup. Yes, the military buildup would be likely to provoke retaliation, but why do it in the first place? Because America is Israel's bitch and Israel cannot take on Iran alone and it knows it. So Netanyahu goes to Washington, Trump sends an obvious preparation for an attack, and then the US attacks on the logic that an attack would prompt retaliation. It's not a matter of "game theory", it's a matter of the US dancing to the tune of Netanyahu. This buildup was always going to lead to an attack, you don't bluff with that degree of military hardware.

but why do it in the first place?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Iran_massacres

Look, even as someone skeptical of Israel's influence on American politics, the Iranian government is NOT some innocent widdle victim in this little drama.

And its worth mentioning that our relationship with the current government of Iran STARTED by them taking a bunch of our diplomats hostage for over a year.

As far as I know Israel was not involved in that.

This is not a state that we could happily co-exist with. Even Kim Jong Un was willing to shake Trump's hand, at least. The stick was the only way this was ever going to go with the Ayatollah, in my estimation.

In this particular matter, U.S. and Israeli motives and goals are in very close alignment. And the Israelis are clearly putting some skin in the game. Its their cities that are getting bombarded, I've seen videos of that I'm pretty sure aren't AI.

If the ultimate position represented here is "I want to see Israel get its shit pushed in even if that means Iran gets a nuke and consolidates its grip in the region" then fine, just say that.

If you think Israel is capable of kneecapping Iran unilaterally, then I'm not sure why U.S. intervention would piss you off... provided little American blood or treasure is spilt in the process.

Or if your position is that Israel would happily false flag an Iranian attack on U.S. troops to get the U.S. involved, then SAY THAT. I just want the logic explained so I can assess.

That's what I'm saying. If Iran wouldn't retaliate against U.S. assets, but Israel will happily fire on our boys whilst claiming it was Iranian missiles, THAT is a stronger argument.

Iran_massacres

US grand strategy politics are NEVER based on massacres or other heart warming considerations. It sat idly by as the UAE and Israel bombed the ever living shit out of military and civilian targets alike in Yemen. You will also notice the complete lack of action counter the various ethnic pogroms occurring in Africa on the daily.

Consider that these protestors were acting specifically in resistance to the current regime, though.

Practically, this makes them a much more useful tool.

Morally, well, its usually better to lend support to people who are actually asking for it and, in turn, have some capacity to act on their own once you give them that support.

Likewise with Venezuela, we have a friendly party to throw in with.

...and you're ignoring the fact that the build-up was itself a response to the Iranian regime gunning down protestors after being explicitly warned that doing so would have consequences.

Trump is not Obama, when he sets a "red-line" he means it.

Trump claimed credit for stopping the executions, and the mobilization happened after the protests died down. So he already claimed victory on that front, not to mention the fact that the protests themselves were pushed by the US and Israel.

And earlier you said:

Would Israel not have struck Iran if the U.S. weren't involved?

No they wouldn't have, their plan relied on US involvement and Netanyahu made sure of it.

Trump claimed credit for stopping the executions

And then Iran kept rounding up people who were involved with the protests.

The Iranian authorities have carried out sweeping arrests across the country in recent days, seizing people during night‑time home raids, at checkpoints, in workplaces, and from hospitals. In addition to protesters, among those arrested are university students, human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, and members of ethnic and religious minorities.

30 of whom still face the death penalty.

And earlier you said...

Where did I say that?

Would they have attempted a false flag operation to ensure U.S. involvement?

What's actually remarkable is that there was no false flag, not even a false pretext like Iraqi WMDs. Trump didn't even try to justify the war to the public to any significant degree. People here are struggling to develop alternative explanations (we are overthrowing Iran because of the protests, funny people actually believe that). There's not even really a solid "narrative" for the apologists for the war. The Administration briefly claimed they had intelligence claiming Iran was planning an attack on US assets, which was immediately debunked by our own intelligence agencies.

So why even need a false flag? They aren't even trying to get the support of the public, they are just doing it, that is a testament to their level of control they don't even go through the motions of trying to justify it. This Rubio statement is literally the best they can come up with! Their hands were tied by Israel, according to them.

With Iraq the dialectic was "we're doing it for Oil" versus "we're doing it to prevent WMDs and spread Democracy" (of course both sides of the dialectic were wrong, we were doing it for Israel). But there's not even anything like that dialectic for this war, Rubio's position is "our hands were tied by Israel". So people who support it and planned it and people who oppose it essentially agree we are being pulled into this by Israel.

Why'd we abduct Maduro?

Sure there were drug boats being sent over but Venezuela is even less a military threat than Iran.

The grand strategy seems to be isolating China from allies they can use to pester the U.S. or use as a staging point for their own operations.

I dunno, after managing to achieve voluntary accords with every single other regional power there, Iran is the singular inflamed festering boil that stands out as an obstacle to some semi-permanent peace. It likewise (as opposed to, say, North Korea) seems to have a significant portion of the population opposed to the current ruling party.

Generally I'm all for leaving them alone and caring primarily about domestic issues. But if a direct conflict with China is on the horizon, ensuring all the nations they could import energy from are either on our side or are sidelined entirely is just good game theory.

You're right on the china front, Venezuela was also selling oil to China/Russia. I'm sure the drug thing was just a bonus, the real considerations being grand strategy.

If Iran attacks the US in response to an attack by Israel, whose fault is it?

When Israel has the capability to acheive its objectives and has already planned a strike, does butting in to get a piece of the glory make the US Israel's bitch?

Or does it somehow look better to just sit around twiddling your thumbs while Israel takes care of it, all the while taking some collateral because Iran thinks it's a good idea to bomb literally every country in the region?

If Iran attacks the US in response to an attack by Israel, whose fault is it?

It's pretty silly to mass mobilize the military on the border of Iran and then claim a threat of retaliation from an Israeli strike as justification for a "defensive" preemptive strike. If the US didn't build its forces it wouldn't have needed to worry. Iran didn't strike US in 12-day war except as symbolic retaliation for Fordow.

Interesting account from the NYT today about Rubio not disclosing the consideration of a regime-change operation:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel walked into the Oval Office on the morning of Feb. 11, determined to keep the American president on the path to war.

For weeks, the United States and Israel had been secretly discussing a military offensive against Iran. But Trump administration officials had recently begun negotiating with the Iranians over the future of their nuclear program, and the Israeli leader wanted to make sure that the new diplomatic effort did not undermine the plans.

Over nearly three hours, the two leaders discussed the prospects of war and even possible dates for an attack, as well as the possibility — however unlikely — that President Trump might be able to reach a deal with Iran.

Days later, the U.S. president made clear publicly that he was skeptical of the diplomatic route, dismissing the history of negotiating with Iran as merely years of “talking and talking and talking.”

...

But on Feb. 24, hours before Mr. Trump’s annual State of the Union address, congressional leaders from the so-called Gang of Eight gathered in a secure conference room in the Capitol to speak on video teleconference with Mr. Rubio and Mr. Ratcliffe. The two officials were just down Pennsylvania Avenue at the White House, but security arrangements for the president’s speech made the two-mile trip onerous.

Mr. Rubio and Mr. Ratcliffe talked about the intelligence behind the strikes, the possible timing and the potential “offramp”— if the Iranians were to give up nuclear enrichment at upcoming talks.

And yet Mr. Rubio never mentioned that the administration was considering a regime-change operation.

In the briefing, Mr. Rubio argued that, no matter if Israel or the United States struck first, Iran would respond with a powerful barrage of weapons against U.S. bases and embassies. It was logical then, Mr. Rubio said, that the United States should act in concert with Israel, since America would be dragged in anyway. And Israel, Mr. Rubio said, was determined to act.

This logic sat poorly with some Democrats, who thought the Trump administration was letting Mr. Netanyahu dictate American policy — and was making a circular argument that the United States had to attack because its military buildup could prompt Iran to strike.

So Netanyahu walks into the oval office, Trump mobilizes a good portion of our military to defend Israel, then we attack Iran on the logic that Iran would attack user after Israel's attack.

The real question is what did Netanyahu tell Trump in his many visits to the Oval Office.

I would dispute whether it is inherently glorious to bomb shit and topple governments. I suppose it is cool, but not even I am callous enough to consider that a full justification.

I guess it comes down to what America is supposed to be getting out of the alliance with Israel. I can see the appeal of having a Westernized client state in the Middle East to hold down the fort, but typically one expects foreign policy optionally to be held almost exclusively by the suzerain.

If Israel can decide where and when to start major regional wars then I don’t see what the United States is getting out of this.

I would dispute whether it is inherently glorious to bomb shit and topple governments.

It is inherently glorious to bomb shit and topple the government whose official slogan is "Death to America", who started its existence with taking 66 Americans as hostages, and which had murdered over a thousand of US citizens since, and is operating the largest and strongest terrorist network on the planet. Oh and which also has a very strong ballistic missile and drone programs (strong enough that Russia is basically has them as their major supplier for their war) and are within arms reach of getting the nukes, after which the opportunity for bombing shit is gone because nobody would dare to bomb a country that is capable of nuclear response.

I don’t see what the United States is getting out of this.

Rubio literally told you. "if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties." If US did not use the opportunity to go together with Israel, but instead did their own thing, at different time, more US people would die as the result. With Israel - less American deaths. Without Israel - more American death. How do I explain it in more simple terms? Do you understand "less casualties" is better than "higher casualties"?

It is inherently glorious to bomb shit and topple the government whose official slogan is "Death to America"

It's almost as if they have a reason to hate America, they didn't spawn on this multiplayer server with the "hates freedom fries" perk pre-selected. Funny how people seem to forget why they hate us.

It's almost as if they have a reason to hate America

That's fine, they have the reason to hate America, and America has the reason to bomb shit out of them. They had a choice - give up acting on their hate, either stop hating or maybe hate without actually murdering Americans (and of course non-Americans, including hundreds of thousands of their own citizens over the years). A lot of countries took that choice. Iran did not. They chose the hate above all (same happens to Hamas and Hezbollah btw - birds of feather) - and that eventually leads to consequences. They had a lot of time to make a different choice. They consistently refused, and the time is up.

Well if we’re going back to the 70s, you know which country killed a lot of Americans? Vietnam. We have the technology to find the current addresses of 80-year-old war veterans in Hanoi with American blood on their hands.

Obviously it would be completely deranged to go back and bomb them now 50 years after the fact.

Yes, because Vietnam did not maintain and escalate the level of hostilities since then. They are not building nukes and do not commonly chant "Death to America" in their official meetings. In fact, they have been working for the last three decades on consistently normalizing and improving the relationships. And that's why nobody wants to bomb them - because the war is done there. The war with Iran isn't.

who started its existence with taking 66 Americans as hostages

Yeah, I think not enough people take this into account. Trump is old (so he remembers this personally), patriotic, and holds a grudge.

I guess it comes down to what America is supposed to be getting out of the alliance with Israel. I can see the appeal of having a Westernized client state in the Middle East to hold down the fort, but typically one expects foreign policy optionally to be held almost exclusively by the suzerain.

For decades its mostly served as a distraction and resource sink for the local crazies who want to conquer the world in the name of Muhammad and Allah. Recently its also been a leverage point that gave some people in the region the option of not being crazy in exchange for peace, and that seems to have worked decently for SA and the rest.

The option of getting out of the Israel business means you need some other proxies in the region, and there aren't good options, and there are obviously bad ones, like Iran, who only galaxy brain guys like Ben Rhodes think are a good option.

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New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


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