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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   10552 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026

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And notably the one party in the Iran conflict for whom this stuff is - rightly or wrongly - somewhat existential is Israel and they are ultimately pretty accepting of casualties.

The war is obviously more existential for Iran than it is for any of the aggressors. The destruction of the Iranian state is a plausible outcome, indeed it may be Netanyahu's goal. And a million excess deaths (mostly due to starvation and disease) is a reasonable estimate of the likely human cost of a failed state in Iran.

The war is obviously more existential for Iran than it is for any of the aggressors.

To be clear, Iran IS the aggressor -- certainly with respect to Israel. People seem to forget the facts that (1) for many years, Iran has been relentlessly attacking Israel by means of its proxies; (2) Iran's leadership has openly threatened to wipe Israel off the map; and (3) Iran's leadership has prioritized building a nuclear bomb.

I agree that at the moment, Iran has a lot more to lose than Israel or the United States. Probably Iran's leadership should have thought about that before engaging in its aggressive behavior.

Talking smack about an unfriendly country doesn't constitute waging war against them. Building nukes may justify a pre-emptive war as a matter of sound policy, but it doesn't as a matter of international law, and it certainly doesn't make you the aggressor if someone does wage a pre-emptive war against you - as a matter of ordinary English meanings of words, building nukes does not constitute aggression unless they are used.

You have a better case on point (1) - Iran is indeed supporting proxies which are attacking Israel (and indeed committing war crimes against Israeli civilians). But they are not an aggressor here - they skate on two technicalities.

  • The attacks on Israel aren't by Iranians and don't come from Iranian territory. There is a lot of state practice (very much including the US and Israel) of funding plausibly deniable proxies to engage in military action against countries you are at peace with. I don't think the involvement of US government officials in NORAID makes the US the aggressor in the IRA's war against my country. Iran funding Hamas and Hezbullah is a hostile act against Israel, and a despicable one given the circumstances in the current year, but it isn't military aggression in the way the term is usually used in practice.
  • Hamas and Hezbullah's attacks on Israel are not aggressive. Both are resistance movements that started their wars when Israel was in belligerent occupation of the Palestinian Territories and southern Lebanon respectively. If NATO funds resistance to Russia in occupied Ukraine, that is a hostile act against Russia but not an aggressive one. Hezbullah has continued their defensive war against Israel long after Israel withdrew from Lebanese territory and have been told to stop by the UNSC, which makes their continued war against Israel wrong, but it doesn't make it aggression.

Talking smack about an unfriendly country doesn't constitute waging war against them. Building nukes may justify a pre-emptive war as a matter of sound policy, but it doesn't as a matter of international law, and it certainly doesn't make you the aggressor if someone does wage a pre-emptive war against you - as a matter of ordinary English meanings of words, building nukes does not constitute aggression unless they are used.

You have a better case on point (1) - Iran is indeed supporting proxies which are attacking Israel (and indeed committing war crimes against Israeli civilians). But they are not an aggressor here - they skate on two technicalities.

The attacks on Israel aren't by Iranians and don't come from Iranian territory. There is a lot of state practice (very much including the US and Israel) of funding plausibly deniable proxies to engage in military action against countries you are at peace with. I don't think the involvement of US government officials in NORAID makes the US the aggressor in the IRA's war against my country. Iran funding Hamas and Hezbullah is a hostile act against Israel, and a despicable one given the circumstances in the current year, but it isn't military aggression in the way the term is usually used in practice.

Hamas and Hezbullah's attacks on Israel are not aggressive. Both are resistance movements that started their wars when Israel was in belligerent occupation of the Palestinian Territories and southern Lebanon respectively. If NATO funds resistance to Russia in occupied Ukraine, that is a hostile act against Russia but not an aggressive one. Hezbullah has continued their defensive war against Israel long after Israel withdrew from Lebanese territory and have been told to stop by the UNSC, which makes their continued war against Israel wrong, but it doesn't make it aggression.

I wasn't aware that you were using the word "aggressor" as a legal term of art. And assuming that the word is in fact such a term, I am extremely skeptical of your claim that proxy attacks do not count.

Please provide cites and links to support your claim. TIA.

Separately, since you have used the phrase "Palestinian Territories," can you please tell me (1) which land areas constitute "Palestinian Territories" (e.g. do they include Ramallah, Gaza City, Hebron, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, etc.); and (2) how those areas came to be "Palestinian Territories"? TIA

I am extremely skeptical of your claim that proxy attacks do not count.

It seems extraordinarily obvious that proxies do not count, based on common international practice. Russia isn't nuking NATO over Ukraine, and in Vietnam and Korea the US didn't nuke the USSR or China.

Russia isn't nuking NATO over Ukraine

  1. In your view, does the US control the Ukrainian military the way that Iran has in the past with Hezbollah?

  2. If you believe that the US does exercise that level of control, if the US ordered the Ukrainian military to start attacking Russian villages, do you believe that Russia would have any justification to retaliate directly against the United States?

Ultimately wars don't start when the leader of a formerly peaceful nation wakes up and decides to kill some people, they are an escalation of a violent and hostile relationship. If invading Iranian territory and killing its head of state doesn't make A+I the aggressors, probably aggressor/defender is the wrong way to look at this conflict.

For example, if Iran had nuked America six months ago, I think people would call them the aggressor even though America was imposing heavy sanctions i.e. blockades on them, had multiple times threatened/attempted to/historically actually achieved regime change, was attacking them via regional proxies (Israel) and had already bombed them.

Ultimately wars don't start when the leader of a formerly peaceful nation wakes up and decides to kill some people, they are an escalation of a violent and hostile relationship. If invading Iranian territory and killing its head of state doesn't make A+I the aggressors, probably aggressor/defender is the wrong way to look at this conflict.

Perhaps, but it's pretty clear that if anyone is the "aggressor," it's Iran.

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