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Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, announced today he was resigning over the war in Iran.
What's most significant is that Kent is not a Marjorie Taylor-Green or a Thomas Massie. Kent served in the U.S Special Forces and in eleven combat tours, mostly Iraq, and then retired an became a paramilitary officer with the CIA. His wife was killed in Syria. Kent had a very public feud with the Nick Fuentes faction of America First which was started by Kent's public denunciation of Fuentes.
Kent was clearly amenable to an aspirational "middle ground" with respect to the tenuous America First/Israel Alliance, which is why he was targeted by the Groypers in the first place. Nobody can accuse him of hiding some deep-seeded Jew hatred because of his long and recent history of supporting Israel, this seems to be a genuine defection. This defection is highly significant and the first time a high-ranking official has described any of these conflicts in these terms.
There may be more shoes to drop/more resignations. My own criticism of Kent's resignation is that he tries to absolve Trump of blame, when Trump is neck-deep in all of this.
This resignation comes as the same day the Guardian reports that a UK security adviser present at US-Iran talks believed a deal was within reach immediately before the US/Israeli strikes on Iran.
America and Israel bombed Iran and they immediately started bombing other countries, so what does Saville Roberts know anyways?
Kent's resignation might be meaningful for all sorts of political-coalitional reasons but it begs the question -- who was right, Joe Kent or Donald Trump? In other words, is Iran a threat to America's interests, or only a threat to Israel's interests? Well, I don't think that's a very hard question. There's a new rising right-wing that is totally isolationist and really would pull out of the Middle East entirely but Trump has never been of that school and we don't need to resort to The Israel Lobby for an explanation. Theocratic Iran is one of America's deepest enemies. They fund Hezbollah and Hamas, they threaten America constantly. "Iran is not a threat" has never been Trump's position, even if it's the position of some of those allied with MAGA, and in this case it's not hard to decide who has the better argument.
I see these circular claims being repeated in every single thread on the topic, multiple times, and I'm really tired of it.
Well, this is a broad question. A lot of things can be a 'threat', and a lot of things can be of 'interest' to America. But how do you substantiate your point that it is?
Theocratic Iran is one of America's deepest enemies.
They fund Hezbollah and Hamas
They threaten America constantly.
There's no substance or reason to any of this except the threat of Hezbollah and Hamas, which has lead to American casualties in the region. So lets dig into that.
America is in the region chasing its yet to be substantiated 'interest'. This presence causes a response from Iran. I.e. allegedly funding proxies like Hezbollah, Houthis and Hamas.
My problem here is that this Iranian response is used as a reason to be against Iran without ever demonstrating that the Iranian response is unreasonable or unwarranted. Since the 'interest' America is seeking and the means by which they go about securing it are never explored.
For instance, back in the 50's, Iran, an allegedly democratic and sovereign nation, wants to nationalize its oil production. (We can discuss the validity of that want, but as far as I can tell the original demands weren't unreasonable) America and the UK want to prevent this. So they stage a coup and replace the democratically elected Iranian government with an authoritarian puppet. The Iranian people eventually revolt and the puppet government is replaced with a particularly ideologically fervent strain of Islam.(The rise of which is not entirely unpredictable given it was the strongest organization on the ground after the puppet government had repressed most explicitly political alternatives) The existence of this new religious government is then used to justify backing Iraq in invading Iran.
It is then, 3 years into a brutal war where America is a direct backer of a foreign nation invading Iran, that had already cost over a hundred thousand Iranian lives, that American forces are targeted by alleged Iran proxies in the Beirut attacks.
With this being said, can someone now remark on the validity of this narrative, what a reasonable Iranian response to these events would have looked like, and what the actual interests of the US is in the region and how that interest is served by continuing this particular strategy. Because it seems like we are neck deep in sunk cost and past mistakes that keep compounding with every further action being taken.
Like, if the Iranian government doesn't fall in the next three weeks, and if it isn't replaced with a regime that is anti-China, Russia and North Korea but also pro-Israel, what is the gain?
Do you think attacking the merchant ships of third party nations either directly or via proxies is "reasonable?"
Wouldn't you agree that, at a minimum, the US has an interest in preventing people from attacking US merchant and naval vessels and that to the extent that Iran supports and assists the Houthis the US has an interest in preventing such future support and aid?
I'm pretty much in favor of a realistic and restrained foreign policy and have concerns about this war but even the most pacifistic and isolationist American presidents have sent the Navy to blow up the things of people who messed with our shipping and they were correct to do so.
Destroying Iran's capability to effectively wage a conventional war while also forging a regional anti-Iranian coalition comprised of everyone Iran shot ballistic missiles at seems like a benefit, particularly if the United States would benefit from withdrawing its force presence in the Middle East but is unwilling to do so while hostile actors might target US regional friends, US shipping, etc.
I have my doubts that things will play out this neatly but if we actually thwap Iran and Israel can play nice with all of its new friends we might actually get something like regional peace and perhaps the US can even more or less stop playing in the sandbox, maybe.
Even if that doesn't happen, it will likely give the US greater freedom in the future from a force allocation/contingency planning perspective.
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America supported Iraq while Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran resulting in 50,000+ casualties. Iran did not respond in kind on religious grounds, which is ironic; they may have used them years into the war less extensively, but the evidence for this is iffy (no UN verification)
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