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Sounds like more bad news for oil prices.
At worst we are seeing a slow but emerging strategy of just running Iran into the ground like with Syria and all the rest. Where sub par targets get selected due to a lack of better options. The decision makers have to make decisions, after all.
Sub par targets? Kharg Island is one of the most important targets in any Iranian scenario because it’s where all the oil gets processed. Please stop thinking in hour-long news cycles and imagine what an Iranian operation would look like if it was planned to take five weeks and we were only halfway into it.
Do you have a conception of what the original US plan might have been; and how it might have changed due to events thus far? Just curious.
That's something that's bothering me about this entire enterprise. I'm not the most plugged-in person when it comes to geopolitical events, but I like to think I can read and understand the news, at least.
As it stands, I don't know quite why we're there, or what we want to accomplish, or how we plan to do it, or what our win condition is.
It makes me long for the days of desert storm, she that was all clearly laid out before lead started flying.
Why?
Look what Iran is doing - shutting down the global economy, launching missiles at and deliberately attacking civilian infrastructure and the economy (oil, travel, etc etc) of its neighbors. They've always been interested in doing this in all likelihood, but didn't think they could get away with it. They also had their civilian terror networks temporarily defanged.
What happens if they get the bomb? What happens if they rebuild the missile capacity and expand the drone capacity?
What if two years from now they wanted to close Hormuz and were a nuclear state? We'd have to just accept it or much riskier things.
The U.S. and Israel absolutely have classified timelines on missile production, they may have timelines on the nuclear stuff.
Iran can't be allowed to do what it wants to do, because it would do this. We know this, we can see now exactly why that is.
It just happened Trump was sitting in the chair instead of a cowardly president who might end up just waiting and praying.
Why now, specifically?
Trump made his threats and it was clear something was going to happen eventually, it appears to have gone off a bit half cocked but I imagine that's because the Iranians foolishly put enough of the government in one room together.
Why don't people understand this?
The government has been very explicit with stated public war aims and reasons, and has a number of private elements that are easily guessable. The media has landed on a meme to criticize this conflict as "they weren't clear" so people think it isn't clear when it is.
Iran can’t be blamed for defending themselves from an unjust attack by Israel. I would hope Americans would do the same if they were in Iran’s place; if they wouldn’t, I think they lack courage and a moral compass. If Israel decided to start targeting the homes of every American service member, and our only hope was to shut it down, then that’s what America should do. This is the proper response to an Israeli attempt at your national annihilation, something they have a track record of doing in the past 80 years.
Israel does this
This applies to Israel
Israel has the bomb. Every accusation is an admission when it comes to Israel. The Israelis, with a straight face, will tell you we should “help the Iranian people have their voices heard” while they keep three million Palestinians under a military occupation and prevent them from voting and moving freely in violation of international law.
I appreciate your response but I won't be engaging with you on this. I've personally found the anti-Israel/anti-Jewish posters to be too laser focused on that end of the conflict to the point where it makes the conclusions questionable and discussion unrewarding.
My apologies if I have you pegged incorrectly on the Jewish front.
Then don't reply.
I mean it's a tough situation, I'd prefer to not be rude and both options are rude.
I think many people here have something interesting to say for or against this conflict but at this point I've started to find the anti-jew posters aggressively one note on anything that can be blamed on jews. On reddit I'd tag people with RES so I could keep track of things like this, but I don't know how to do that here and I wasn't 100% if he was one of those...and well he made it clear.*
If you are more irked by my lack of response to you, well I watched mainstream media on the recent events, personally heard the talking points in real time, felt convinced I understand the public justification and aims, then watched the dem talking heads land on a narrative of "not clear" and people download that.* I am happy to explore how valid my thought process is on this with a curious party like OP, but your stance suggests a fixed position and willingness to use disingenuous talking point to affirm your stance.
Ex: At this point Trump has been in the public sphere long enough that unwillingness or inability to adjust to his administrations communication style is the fault of the interlocutor. The lack of professionalism is a reason to critsizie them for lack of professionalism, it is not a reason to fail to appropriately engage with their communication.
*Plenty of reasons to dislike Israel and its recent actions, but if what you are saying tries to make Israel seem worse than or equivalent to Iran+terrorists than the complaints just aren't credible and I think discussion is unlikely to be fruitful.
*Seen many times in recent high quality political discussion like with Mark Halperin going "here are the aims! They said that in this speech! Stop pretending it wasn't clear" and talking heads just not engaging.
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