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As a Republican who was broadly onboard with toppling Iran well before the most recent flare up, I would like to offer an alternate narrative to the one about Trump is a Joe-Biden-esqe meat puppet being controlled by a zionist cabal, that seems to be the popular consensus here.
First off what does winning look like, in the eyes of team Trump?
Ideally, Iran makes a credible and verifiable commitment to dismantling their nuclear weapons program and stop supplying arms to HAMAS, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Russian Federation, Et Al. Less Ideally, we turn them into a failed state that wouldn't be able to muster up a nuclear weapons program even if they wanted one. If the choice is between reducing Iran to Afghanistan-esque hodge-podge of pre-industrial warring tribes and giving the IRGC access to nuclear missiles we choose to turn Iran into another Afghanistan.
Importantly we are not going to do the Clinton or Obama thing where we give them a whole bunch of cash and trade concessions in exchange for a pinky-promise not to act up again and then sit on our thumbs when they renege on those promises 6-monthes later. While I'm not privy to the specifics my guess is that the plan is to hold Kharg Island hostage to force Iranian compliance.
How is this in American interests? I think it is just as valid to ask as how is it not?
While there is something of an isolationist streak present in the online right the prevailing attitude amongst the wider GOP is that if the US is going to occupy the role of hegemon we must play the role.
First, I think it needs to be pointed out that, with the Biden-era environmental limits removed the US is once again a net petroleum exporter and the US economy is much better situated to weather possible energy-trade disruptions than say China is.
As the global hegemon, international trade flows freely (and for the most part safely) largely thanks to guarantees that are enforced by the US Navy. If the US is the world's cop, Iran is not some innocent brown kid who got shot for no reason, they're the habitual bad actor with dozens of prior complaints and arrests.
From my perspective democrats' attitude towards the Iranian regime seems to echo their attitudes towards illegal immigration, violent crime. If you ask them if they want violent schizophrenics on the train they'll answer "no", but at the same time they will vehemently oppose anyone who looks like they might try to stop violent schizophrenics from stabbing people on trains. They seem to view the occasional train stabbing or ballistic missile attack as simply the price of doing business.
They never had a nuclear weapons program. That is not a real thing. No expert has alleged that. I think everyone would be okay with quietly destroying a legitimate nuclear weapons program in Iran. But that’s not even a card on the table.
Why would this be a proportionate response to their arming Hamas and Hezbollah, two groups which pose 0 threat to America and only the tiniest threat to Israel? Why would we even be interested in turning Great Civs to dust? This is not a noble pursuit. It seems sociopathic. The ideology behind this isn’t even found in Albanian blood feuds, which have some measure of honorable proportionality. This is like African Warlord moral reasoning, or ISIS reasoning. Iran is filled with people, some of them are very smart and talented. It’s a more aesthetically beautiful country than Israel. It has cool art. If you’re interested in urban architecture, you’ve probably seen modern Iranian buildings online without knowing it. Americans (before the conflict) could just go to Iran and travel. You could be invited to someone’s home. You would be treated with more hospitality than an American treated in some religious quarter of Jerusalem, by whom you would considered an eternal stranger.
An actual problem plaguing America is the amount of drugs that come from domestic and Central American gangs. This actually threatens us. Horrible casualties from drugs. we can actually just blow up these gangs, and it would be both morally sound and effective. The cartels work with the Mexican deep state (really), and we can declare war and blow them up to save American lives. But why would I want to destroy Mexico forever just because they are responsible for some tens of thousands of dead Americans, unless I am a genuinely evil person? I wouldn’t even want us to target the homes of Mexican soldiers, which I think we are doing in Iran right now. Do we really think that we will be hegemonic forever (note the demographics), so we don’t fear China will use the same strategies against our grandchildren in 2126?
Consider that America gains power in negotiation with Israel and the Gulf Arabs if there is a strong Iran threatening them. This makes us wealthier and safer: we can obtain more things, including technology, for less under the promise of our protection. If Iran is taken out, our advantage over these foreign countries is weakened. We have also closed the door on getting anything from Iran, which sucks because we could have certainly recruited hundreds of their 150 high iq human capital in exchange for sanction reliefs. That would have helped us against China!
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?
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.
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 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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