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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.
I don't consider myself qualified to argue the war on the merits, because I honestly don't know what's gone on behind closed doors, or even what the point of it really is. But I will ask you this.
If Trump had run on starting a war with Iran, would he have won the election?
I guess we'll never know. But I really, really doubt it. Instead, he claimed to be against exactly this kind of war. It's hard to look at this as anything but an overt betrayal of the people who elected him. At least when Bush started the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, there was a 9/11 standing between that and his campaign. You could understand why his position changed. (And I'm hardly defending Bush for this, the result was disastrous anyway)
There's nothing so visible here. He never made a case for this crap to the voters.
This had better turn out really, unbelievably, unexpectedly well or I don't see how this is defensible, except maybe in a really cynical realpolitik way, but even that will take a long time to shake out.
I think a lot depends on what you think "this kind of war" is, as I said down thread I think a lot of people here misunderstand what exactly a lot of republicans (and more moderate Democrats) found objectionable about the establishment's handling of Iraq and Afghanistan.
That he failed.
If we're being honest.
If Trump can deliver a clear success, one so clear that no one can whine about media bias, Americans will accept it, regardless of the morality. Changing Supreme Leaders and another inconclusive war in Lebanon isn't going to count for much.
You forget the lying about WMDs.
That's the bigger deal because that's what makes it so hard to motivate a war with Iran.
They had one blank cheque for that and they blew it on Saddam.
This is painful for me to admit, because I'm at my emotional core an American patriot, but I don't really think Americans would have cared about that all that much if we had clearly succeeded in our goals.
Smaller, successful regime change actions in Latin America have generally been well received, and the reasons for doing so have rarely been well communicated and reasoned.
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