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You state that Iran never had a nuclear weapons program but many organizations most notably the IAEA and the Iranian Government themselves have claimed otherwise.
You ask "Why would this be a proportionate response to their arming Hamas and Hezbollah?"...
...and my response is that I never claimed that it was "proportionate". In fact, I see no reason why it ought to be "proportionate". What I believe I said was that bombing them to a pre-industrial tech level was preferable to the letting the IRGC have access to nuclear missiles.
You talk about how a powerful Iran granting us leverage? My reply to you is that you're looking at the small picture, I'm looking at the fact that over 3/4ths of Iran's oil and just over a 1/4ths of the rest of the Gulf State's oil is bound for China and we want ensure that the Petro-Dollar stays a Dollar and doesn't become a Yuan because, once again, "if the US is going to occupy the role of hegemon we must play the role."
My question for you is do you think that allowing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to have nukes would have a stabilizing effect on world affairs or do you agree with me that it would have a destabilizing effect, if the latter how much of a destabilizing effect?
If you care about stability as a terminal goal, then we need to get rid of Israel’s nukes, and also get them out of their occupied land, which is a precondition for normalization among the Arab nations. But I don’t think pro-Israelis care about “stability”, they just care about Israel.
Is it though? Israel has had decent relations with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab nations for decades now.
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Which land is that, exactly? "From the river to the sea?"
I would not characterize myself as "pro-Israel" but it's weird to me that you (and many, many others) present anti-Israel as the neutral position. The fact is, a significant percentage of Muslims will not be satisfied with anything less than the total annihilation of Israel. If the Muslims and Arab colonists terrorizing the non-Muslims in the region stop fighting, there will be no more fighting. If Israel stops fighting, there will be no more Israel.
Of course, "no more Israel" is plausibly a more stable equilibrium than "some Israel remaining!" But I don't think one needs to be "pro Israel" to suspect that "just somehow convince all the Jews and Christians to vacate the region, or agree to be subjugated under under Islamic rule" is neither a humane nor a plausible position.
According to Saudi Arabia, normalization is possible with a return to 1967 borders and a sovereign Palestinian state. My suggestion is that if “stabilization” was what we really wanted, this would stabilize the region.
I’m not so sure. Israel, as a condition for their recognition of a Palestinian state, can ask the Arab monarchies to enshrine its borders into law and penalize those who openly call to dispute these borders. I think MBS would genuinely consider doing this for regional stability, but would Israel ever consider it? (Likely not, they want more land!)
I do not think there is any country safer in the Middle East than Israel. They are nuclear-armed, they have western leaders constantly harkening to them, they have the most sophisticated intelligence network by a large margin, the have an incredible tech sector and they have an extraordinarily wealthy and committed diaspora located throughout the world. No single group is safer. I just do not see a reality in which Israel is threatened.
What exactly does "rule of law" mean to a bunch of autocrats and how is it supposed to protect them from the paroxysms of their own people when they have to go murder Palestinians for the sake of the Jews?
Because that IS what it'll come to. And it won't be a clean war. It'll be the terrorists doing what they do now and hiding under hospitals and other places that'll make it even more monstrous in the eyes of the Ummah to do Israel's dirty work.
There's always this selective lack of realism . I don't think I've ever seen anyone suggest that passing a law would protect Ukraine from Putin's Russia.
Are you really asking why an absolutist monarch would be able to enshrine something into law and actually have it followed? Saudi Arabia does mass executions all the time. Including on Muslim clerics that they disagree with. If the King says that his subjects must assent to Israel’s borders and not protest, then they will obey him. MBS does not have a lot of Arabs openly disagreeing with him. Is Israel more trustworthy with their constant ceasefire violations?
An absolutist monarch can do whatever they like. Why bring up the law element? Presumably because you want something more stable than his whim.
But therein lies the problem: what an absolutist monarch has done, he can undo (or just ignore). The appeal to law is just pointless at best then. What you're actually appealing to is the idea that it's always going to be in their interests to not only suppress domestic hatred of Israel but also help suppress revisionist Palestinian attacks on Israel. Not turn a blind eye, be actively complicit (when simply refusing to do anything about Palestine is already unpopular).
And they're going to do this forever, no matter what happens, because ??
I personally wouldn't feel very comfortable here.
Is Saudi Arabia's defense against genocide taking Israel's word for things?
What the king says becomes the law, that’s why I brought up law.
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Sure, that clearly matters.
Perhaps not! And yet your own recommendation seems to have been in part--
By your own logic, Israel should give up (at least some portion of) their safety. And my response was, and is--that is not plausible, but even if it was, it seems very likely to end badly for them.
I mean, sure, #notallMuslims, but as a rule a majority of Palestinians report that their preference is for Israel to cease to exist. (I believe that the reverse is now true as well, though my memory is that it did not used to be--most Israelis today apparently report a preference that e.g. all Palestinians be expelled from Gaza. I'm less sure about the West Bank.) Likewise, Egyptians do not seem to favor the existence of Israel. Other Muslims in the region seem to broadly follow this pattern. People want peace in theory, and favor de-escalation in principle, but are nevertheless comfortable with the proposition that Israel should not exist, that they should not do business with Israel, nor accept aid from Israel, nor come to Israel's aid in case of a natural disaster, etc.
Muslims are a diverse group, with a lot of factions and infighting, so there are always counterexamples, of course. Whether they should be required to coexist with Jews is an interesting question! But as things stand, I do not think there is very much likelihood of Muslims willingly coexisting with Jews anywhere Muslims wield significant political influence. I don't think it requires a person to be "pro-Israel" to observe the reality of public opinion among the Middle Eastern Muslim demographic clearly favoring the destruction of Israel. Realistically, I suspect that without the United States' continued involvement, we would eventually be looking at the genocide of Middle Eastern Jews as an inevitable historical outcome. Perhaps it is inevitable anyway. But certainly there is no Israeli capitulation beyond mass migration that I see the Muslim world accepting on a permanent basis, and I'm sure Israel knows that; certainly, they are beginning to behave as if they know it.
(But only beginning. If Israel still exists in 200 years, it may only be because they have, and perhaps will have used, nuclear weapons.)
The problem with Israel having nukes is that it incentivizes other states to have nukes. While the Israelis may be solipsistic enough to feel they are the only ensouled and rational creatures dwelling in the Middle East, we can’t actually expect other sovereign states and cultures to feel this way. If what we want is regional stability, then enemies don’t just get a vote, they also get theory of mind and dignity. Would Israel be fine with Oman getting nukes? Egypt? Is the region safer with Saudi Arabia under the nuclear umbrella of Pakistan? (Do you know that was triggered by Israel breaking all international norms by trying to kill a negotiating team in a sovereign country? How might a rational country change their policies after witnessing that?)
A majority of Palestinians exist in a perpetual post-9/11 state due to the relentless Israeli atrocities that go unpunished. Just this week, the stories are that a family of five was gunned down in the West Bank, while another family was tied up and raped as state-sponsored Jewish-supremacist terrorists beat random women and stole their valuables. This comes as the Defense Minister of Israel has apologized to five IDF rapists, believing that they should not have been charged for raping a detained prisoner, an act that was corroborated by the chief lawyer of the IDF (since resigned), a medical report, and a video. Just this week.
In any case, the surrounding Muslim countries have genuinely sought normalized relations contingent upon a Palestinian state. That was behind the Abraham Accords (no settling in West Bank). Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait are all willing to do this, unless you think they are just making things up. Turkey’s relationship with Israel has soured because of Gaza which shows that they are genuinely interested in Palestinian rights. Wouldn’t Jews behave the same way if the roles were reversed? If there were a group of oppressed Jews somewhere in the world, then Jewish communities worldwide would be pressuring their governments to intervene.
Okay, but it's not clear to me what I am supposed to conclude from all that.
I am trying to speak as descriptively as possible, here. If you think Israel should not exist (is that what you think?) then like--I don't have much to say about that. I'm not interested in (or, probably even very capable of) defending any particular Israeli action on the international stage. The country exists. Like all countries, I'm confident that they get up to some shady stuff. I don't know all the answers to your (rhetorical?) questions, but I don't think that any of them have any substantive bearing on my point.
We do see some of that, though interestingly some American Jews seem to also be of the view that Israeli Jews should, ultimately, be subjected to mass migration or genocide (though they would not phrase it that way, it would be the result of their advocacy succeeding). Politics makes strange bedfellows! But one perhaps important difference between Middle Eastern Muslims and Middle Eastern Jews is that there are many Muslim countries, both in the Middle East and outside of it, and there is only one Jewish country. Strangely, very few Muslim countries are therefore willing to open their borders to Palestinians. Indeed, in many Muslim circles, Palestinians are scarcely better than Jews! Outside of Israel/Palestine, the Middle Eastern Muslim attitude toward Palestinians seems to be that they are useful idiots and foot soldiers, but you wouldn't want your daughter to bring one home for dinner.
If you're right that (A) Israel's nukes are what is substantially destabilizing the region and (B) Israel is safe because it has nukes then you are suggesting, deductively, that the stability of the region depends on Israel no longer being safe. I think that what I am doing here is agreeing with you, while pointing out that "therefore Israel should stop being safe" is neither a humane nor a plausible solution to the problem as you've described it. Indeed, it seems like your real argument boils down to something like "Israel's existence is what destabilizes the Middle East, so probably the rest of the world would be better off if Israel didn't exist."
I have my doubts about this--I think that the Middle East would be filled with different conflicts, absent Israel--but even if I'm wrong about that, I find myself quite unable to endorse "allow the expulsion and/or extermination of Middle Eastern Jews and Christians from Israel/Palestine" as a humane approach to the problem. YMMV! But that seems like one hell of a Danegeld.
The Muslim nations surrounding Israel are not saying “Israel shouldn’t exist”, no one is saying that there, they are saying “return to determined borders and give Palestinians freedom, and in return relations are normalized”. (The object-level discussion is on whether stability is desired.)
Because having a lot of land, or being in a large religious tent, does not give an alien people the right to take land illegally. This does not absolve the crime. Just like I can’t just steal a percent of a Jewish billionaire’s bank account simply because his group owns an enormous amount of resources globally. If I were to do that as a sovereign nation, many Jews would get mad and petition their government to destroy me. There is only one Jewish country because Jews are 0.7% the size of Islam (and only half of them have a desire to live in Israel, so it’s more like 0.4% factoring for Muslim diaspora). In other words, they are owed one tiny country if we intend to allocate countries based on size. They do not deserve more than one country if your framework for deciding these things is population size. If those countries opened their border, Israel would close their border on Palestinians forever, stealing their land, as they have done in the past.
This was, also, the Ashkenazi opinion on mizrachim. Yet they are only nation regardless.
No, you would need to prove that Israel is “no longer safe” if they don’t have nukes, and then you would have to explain why this wouldn’t apply to Saudi Arabians or Syrians or Egyptians. Israel would be plenty safe even without nukes.
Excluding Iran right? because that is essentially what this is all about is it not?
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A cynic might say people want peace when they're losing. When they're winning (or even vaguely appear to be inching towards their goals) they get emboldened.
When I hear pro-Palestinian supporters in the West complain that unilateral withdrawal doesn't work or withdrawing from Lebanon discredited the more peaceable types who wanted to negotiate I don't know how to take it except as an admission that the particular memeplex Palestinians have adopted (or has possessed them) makes showing weakness (what some call "good faith") the exact wrong thing to do.
Yeah, sadly I think this has become the new equilibrium in many contexts, including a lot of U.S. politics. Losers seek coexistence. Winners exterminate the opposition. The fact that this seems to inevitably descend into a cycle of conflict which both sides would be better off having never entered in the first place is simply shrugged off as a problem for some later generation. It's maddening.
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The lesson to take from this is that if you're unreasoningly hostile other people will find it more convenient to bend to you rather than forcing you to a compromise position.
No perverse incentives here of course.
People talk a lot about not paying the Danegeld, but the Vikings did have a long successful run.
What are you trying to say?
Did you intend to imply that "paying the danegeld" is/was the virtuous choice?
No, I'm saying demanding Danegeld often works.
Works for who?
For the Danes.
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I mean... during my lifetime, no one had a more destabilizing effect on the world in general, and the Middle East in particular than the United States. If it's even true that Iran is scrambling for nukes, it's patently clear the reason they're doing so is because America deposed a ruler that handed off his in good faith, on the assurance that he will not be attacked. I'm not sure what effect a nuclear Iran would have, but a world that becomes more stable as a result is not difficult to imagine.
During your lifetime, the US has also been the glue that holds the world together. We "destabilize" within the paradigm that we are the source of all stability.
But ok, I have some sympathy with the notion that the rest of the world doesn't deserve the effort. How do you think that would go? Take a look at the Belt and Road, Empire of Dust, the fishing fleets, and explain why you think Pax China will be better.
The Chinese don't want a Pax China though. They aren't going to intervene in Middle Eastern conflicts no matter what. They don't intervene because they don't want to not because they can't. Russia had their fingers all over Syria and China did nothing. The same thing with this current Iran conflict. People keep asking why China doesn't help their ally! Because they aren't really allies just friendly associates and China doesn't see it as their business They'll condemn America and move on. Despite getting double digit percentages of their oil from Iran they are likely to come out ahead instead of trying to "secure their oil" by sticking their hands in the hornets nest.
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Of the things you mentioned this is what I'm most familiar with. What's supposed to be the problem with building infrastructure while being mildly derogatory of the natives? Even if I'm the target, I'll literally take it over the gay race communism you guys shoved into Europe.
Empire was part of the broader Belt and Road Initiative, which was basically corporatist colonialism without any noblisse oblige. I namedropped it because I figured people might be more familiar with it. It's just a prompt.
Let's say the US massively pulls back from it's efforts stabilizing the world. What do you think fills the void, and why would it be better?
I'm happy to admit that European colonialism with noblesse oblige was better (I think even the Chinese were impressed with what was left over), but we seem to have decided that it's racist and it's better to do nothing, send food over every mce in a while, and constantly self-flagelate. So the Chinese seem to win this one.
Probably some rough times initially, with people jumping in to fill the power vacuum, and later on more uneasy truces, and less galaxy brained attempt at End Of History-esque spread of liberalism.
Though I have a bit of an issue with the question - pulling out now means we'd get the worst of both worlds. You already messed up the world several times, and withdrawing isn't going to undo it.
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That doesn't answer the question. Do you think that a world where the IRGC has nukes is more stable or less stable than the counterfactual that we currently live in?
Secondly the only two countries to voluntarily relinquish an existing nuclear weapons capability that I am aware of are South Africa and Ukraine, who are you referring to?
Yeah, the part that answered it is "I'm not sure, but it's not difficult to imagine". You can round it off to "yes" if you don't like my uncertainty.
Gaddafi. Looking it up now, I see he didn't quite make it to the finish line.
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I think there's a decent case to be made that Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi had an effect at least comparable to the United States in the Middle East since 2011, being the spark that ultimately deposed 4 governments in the region (Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen), and indirectly kicked off regional wars (ISIS) in Iraq, Syria (ultimately deposing that regime as well), and Yemen. Longer term, several other countries have also seen major changes. Yeah, the US was involved in some of those peripherally (Libya, Yemen, likely political pressure on Egypt), but I hardly consider it central to those events.
Although I'm not an expert on the region and would be interested in hearing other opinions.
Given the crackdown of western governments against social media, when a few elections didn't go the way they wanted, I find it hard to believe that the role of the US in the Arab Spring was non-central, and it was all about some dude setting himself on fire.
Frankly, the very notion of "organic" mass movements is in dire need of evidence.
Why would the US organize protests against their allies?
To get local politics more on side. There was a story bout Trump looking into supporting the populist right-wing parties in Europe, or Europens helping the campaign against Trump, for example.
Also, during the era in question, liberalism was particularly high on it's own supply, and it seemed like the western elites literally believed the End of History thing, and thought they can turn Arabs into gay race communists overnight.
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I see why it could look that way: at the time, it looked like a plausible hypothesis. But I'll also note that the deposed governments were a mix of traditional US/West enemies (Libya) and at least soft allies (Egypt, Yemen). Egypt, in particular, became much less Western-aligned during the tenure of the Muslim Brotherhood. Western relations with Syria had been improving prior to the kickoff of its civil war in 2011, then got worse quickly.
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Middle eastern governments in 2011 were likely much worse at bullying social media companies than first world governments in 2020.
The companies were also probably not the same, in part because of the Arab Spring. IIRC around the time of ISIS Twitter was more libertarian about the whole thing but then were stuck on the horns of a dilemma. Do you let your platform be used to show beheaded Americans and propaganda that was actively radicalizing people? Do you shut down those accounts and kill possible intelligence sources? Their solution was more coordination with the government.
Once you cede that principle you're not going back.
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Why crack down on social media if mass movements are not a threat?
Emphasis on "organic". Mass movements require coordination, and anyone who tried organizing something as simple as a book club will tell you how much inertia coordination typically needs to overcome.
I suppose an organic mass movement is not entirely impossible, but when we're talking about simultaneous uprisings spanning multiple countries, we're entering pissing on some and telling them it's raining territory. Even with the recent protests in Iran, you could literally see the blob prepping for the op.
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