Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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What does it have to do with "proportion"? Hitting a public school with no military purpose behind it is wrong. This is because of how our society and our morals work, not because Iranians didn't hit exactly the same school before. Even if they did, it still would be wrong. If Iranians killed 100 random US civilians, would "proportionate" answer be killing random 100 Iranians civilians? I don't think a lot of people in the US would endorse such notion of "proportionality", neither should they.
If you're saying we should not inflict unnecessary civilian casualties, and if there is a collateral damage, there must be a very good justification of why that was unavoidable - I totally agree. But "proportionate" doesn't sound like a very good term to use in such case.
As for hitting power facilities, that depends on the goals of the campaign. If the goal is to degrade Iran's capacity of making trouble, then destroying its energy system is a reasonable step towards this goal. It's hard to manufacture advanced weaponry - or in fact any weaponry beyond light arms - without a functioning power grid. If, however, the goal is to cause the regime change, then it may be less effective, since people would be disorganized and depressed by the lack of basic necessities, and may not be able to resist the regime troops who probably have generators and other provisions to survive independently. Maybe also specific power plants are important for specific weapons factories or communication facilities and knocking them out will disable some important pieces. That's a tactical question.
Yes, that's what I am saying. Feel free to use a different word - I use it because, as I explained earlier, it's a term of art.
Yes, I agree with this. But (if my priors are correct) the decision to hit power plants instead of weapons factories or communications facilities would be a curious one. I would guess that it would likely be easier to hit Iran's weapons factories and military communications nodes than to take out their power network.
I'm not sure that is inherently the case, of course. If Iran decentralized its arms production facilities and situated them in civilian neighborhoods and dwellings, for instance, bombing power plants would likely be both more efficient and more humane. So I agree with you that the facts of the case really matter, there's not some blanket rule saying you can't hit power plants.
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