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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026

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Trump should have coherently stated we are bombing Iran because they killed 30k protesting civilians.

He still can - but we both know that he won’t.

It’s going to be an Iraq level mess and nothing good will come of it.

As to your point on Iran and its legitimacy or whatever you were going for, Iran is a dangerous oppressive shit hole that has sustained terrorism over the last several decades. It’s literal dirt.

Maybe they have a great history (I have severe doubts on historical accuracy) but they’re frankly animals that need to be brought up into some sort of abject level of humanity. Even Chinese and China are … people. Iranian people seem to be just swell … but Iran isn’t, and hasn’t been.

Having said all that, we still shouldn’t have bombed - let someone else figure it out for fucks sake.

Maybe they have a great history (I have severe doubts on historical accuracy) but they’re frankly animals that need to be brought up into some sort of abject level of humanity. Even Chinese and China are … people. Iranian people seem to be just swell … but Iran isn’t, and hasn’t been.

"Iranians are animals, not people" is well beyond any defensible steelman. Do not post like this.

Fine, but ‘ Iranian people seem to be just swell ‘ follows it.

They’re like, seemingly, some of the better people in the Middle East. I meant what I wrote but my brevity made it come off wrong, seemingly.

Iranian culture? Iranian government? Islam?

You take 1000 Iranians who don’t know they’re Iranian and have them grow up in Canada I imagine they’ll be annoyingly Canadian. They grow up in Iran and here we are.

E: also you’re right, sorry

Iran is a dangerous oppressive shit hole

You are wrong.

There are levels to shit holes. It around the levels of modern day Egypt, and would be doing better if it hadn't been sanctioned into the ground. In the 2010s (well into the Ayatollah's regime), they were around 80th in GDP per capita. That's solidly middle-economy alongside nations like Thailand, Malaysia and South Africa. China only surpassed them in 2012-13.

You can't call every non-OECD nation a shit-hole. Iran still sits above China in the HDI index at a comfortably above average number.

Have you seen photos of their major cities ? They look more developed than many tier-2 American cities. 1 2 3

If I could be a architecture nerd for a second, their modernist brick work is some of the prettiest & most original of the recent past. [4] 5.

that has sustained terrorism over the last several decades

As do many of US's allies. UAE is funding genocide in Sudan. The US itself was happy to fund the Mujaheddin as long as they were terrorists allied with the US. Pakistan's entire thing is to fund terrorists, and the US has continued being friendly.

Maybe they have a great history (I have severe doubts on historical accuracy)

Oh yeah, we're about to start doubting if Persia was ever a great empire.

I’m not doubting Persia - the last 15 years have made me doubt we know fuck all about the past.

Comparing gdp to Thailand seems a bit much, yea? Thailand isn’t run by religious nutters that fund terrorism. It’s not yelling death to America as a winning political strat. It’s just a lower middle class country.

Iran isn’t.

It’s going to be an Iraq level mess and nothing good will come of it.

Pick one. An Iraq-level mess means a regime change to something considerably better than the current regime, only at much higher cost and taking much longer than expected.

Well wait, who do we thank for saving Iraq from ISIS? You can’t tank America, because we accidentally created ISIS when we purged the Baathists from all governmental roles; they regrouped under ISIS and comprised most of their leadership. We were on the verge of turning Iraq into a literal super villian tier country through our own retardation, and it was Iran-backed Shia rebels that were instrumental in their defeat on the ground, with American strikes in the air. I wonder if Americans even know that the second biggest terrorist attack in history was against Iran-linked Shias fighting ISIS, essentially their 9/11.

So, unironically, it was “Iran” that changed Iraq for the better, whereas our ineptitude almost turned them into a comically evil nation you’d only see in sepia-filtered TV war movies. You can read how stupid and callous our intervention was in the Paul Bremer emails released the other day.