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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   26390 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

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I'm curious as to what is driving this

The impossibility of negotiations with the US and Israel. It doesn't really matter if Iranians have coherent command or not, even a midwitted officer can independently realize the payoff matrix here. Israelis will keep killing their leadership because the official Israeli objective is regime collapse or at least degrading Iran to the condition where it can be gradually collapsed with "mowing the lawn" tactics. American negotiators (Kushner, Witkoff) are now known to be a) incompetent and b) represent Israel first, so any possible ceasefire agreements will be immediately exploited to kill Iranians with more freedom of action, like the US has done to Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq after a recent ceasefire agreement.

They don't have moves that improve their situation left, sans imposing costs on the global and regional economy and hoping to provoke a strategically unsound concession via international pressure on the US&Israel, to genuinely win time and reestablish deterrence. It's a pretty absurd bet, especially seeing as neither Israel nor the US are directly harmed by the closure of Hormuz Strait and consider giving Iranians room to develop nukes (or even maintain a ballistic missile program) unacceptable. It's also arguably backfiring with GCC countries (though this is largely irrelevant as they have little offensive capability beyond hosting American forces and allowing the use of their airspace, which they've been doing anyway).

They don't have moves that improve their situation left

Well, persuade Russia and China (mostly China) to create real alliance. Explain to China that with their full support Iran could become killing ground for US like Ukraine is killing ground for Russia. Explain to China that when Iran falls, Russia will be next and China will be left facing Great Satan(TM) all alone.

Yes, we all know this is not going to happen, we know that only future for Iran is martyrdom.

They don't have moves that improve their situation left

I mean. They could voluntarily reform themselves into a peace-loving liberal democracy. They could even ally themselves to the US outright, or even to Israel!

And I know, I know, they're not gonna, it is to all intents and purposes as much of a ridiculous fantasy as "all Iranian weapon stores could spontaneously transform into rose petals overnight", but… on the other hand, no it isn't. These are human beings with moral agency and rational minds. In principle there should be nothing stopping them from just ceasing to be an oppressive warmongering theocracy, and then, miraculously, the rest of the world would stop trying to blow them up.

At some level I don't think we should lose sight of that basic fact when evaluating the decision-making ability of Iranian leadership. There is a right answer here, and although it's completely correct to start from the premise that they are simply never going to pick it, that fact alone should tell us something.

peace-loving

How can you claim they are not peace-loving? Have you ever looked at their previous wars? They had to enter the Syrian Civil War because America’s warmongering caused literal ISIS to pop up in their neighborhood; they had to enter the Iraq War to defeat ISIS after they took over the Sunni regions (and they were asked); they had to fight Iraq in the 80s because we funded the Iraqi invasion where they used chemical weapons on 50,000 Iranians. America, 6000 miles away, compelled them to defend their regional interests. I’m not even sure what the last unjustifiable war is that Iran participated in when you exclude the Shah. You might have to go back to the 1800s.

liberal

Women do not need a mahram to travel freely in Iran. This makes them more liberal than our ally Saudi Arabia, and more liberal than parts of Syria (something we caused). Women can also get away with showing their real hair, which makes them more liberal than many parts of Haredi New York City and London! There are major parties in Israel that are less liberal than Iran; shall we sanction them? Iranian women can divorce their husbands while orthodox Jewish are forbidden to without their husband’s permission.

They could even ally themselves to the US outright

They tried that. Their offer was rebuffed, perhaps because of the Israel Lobby. https://archive.nytimes.com/kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/04/28/irans-proposal-for-a-grand-bargain/

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA587314.pdf ctrl-f “grand bargain”

  • nuclear program cooperation

  • ending support for Hamas and Hezbollah

  • two-state solution

  • cooperation destabilize Iraq and Afghanistan

  • joint cooperation against Al-Qaeda

All declined. Our national security apparatus wanted it, Bush WH did not because they wanted to use an Israeli-funded militant group to foment regime change in Iran (MeK). And here we are.

There are major parties in Israel that are less liberal than Iran; shall we sanction them?

They haven't shot tens of thousands of protestors last January after being warned not to by the US.

They tried that. Their offer was rebuffed, perhaps because of the Israel Lobby

Far be it from me to accuse Israel of being reasonable either! Nor did I intend to claim that Iranians are strange evil mutants who have never considered the kinds of course of action I describe. Indeed, the fact that they did come to the table once is all the more reason to be disappointed that they don't seem willing to do so again. Bush was a long time ago. If they'd come forward with all those bullet points this year, would Trump have said no again, or would he have told the hawks in his cabinet where to stick it and leapt at the most obvious path to his Nobel Peace Prize that fate could hand to him on a gold-plated platter?

I should clarify as I did elsewhere in the thread that I don't actually support the current war. I just don't think Iran is remotely blameless for it, which is different from saying they bear sole moral responsibility for it, or that they left Israel and America no choice but to attack. I just cannot believe that there is nothing Iran could have done to deescalate once you open up the "willing to say on camera that uh, actually, maybe we're sorry we shot those protestors and maybe Jews and women and gays are alright and maybe America isn't the Great Satan and maybe it doesn't need to be destroyed" options in the decision tree.

They haven't shot tens of thousands of protestors last January after being warned not to by the US.

Is there any actual evidence of this at all? I've seen numbers ranging from ten to eighty thousand, and no specifics beyond that wrestler who beheaded police officers.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Iran says:

There are also significant disparities in reports of casualty numbers during and in the aftermath of the nationwide protests. According to a statement of 22 January by the National Security Council, 3,117 people were killed. Of these, the State describes 2,427 as “innocent civilians and defenders of public order and security” allegedly killed by “terrorists”, and the remaining 690 as “terrorists”. Figures submitted to the Rapporteur from non-State sources run into the tens of thousands, including reports from health professionals and information from families who visited overwhelmed morgues across various cities. A conservative estimate from 15 February records 7,015 confirmed deaths (at least 6,508 protesters including 226 minors; 214 security force members; and others), with a further 11,744 deaths under review. Even this conservative estimate is more than double the figures published by the State. The discrepancy between official and grassroots figures only deepens the anguish of families still searching for their loved ones. The Rapporteur stresses that even a single death resulting from the exercise of the right to peaceful protest is one too many.

I mean. They could voluntarily reform themselves into a peace-loving liberal democracy

These are human beings with moral agency and rational minds. In principle there should be nothing stopping them from just ceasing to be an oppressive warmongering theocracy, and then, miraculously, the rest of the world would stop trying to blow them up.

Haha. Holy shit man, get off your high horse. Could you, in principle, reform yourself into a sensible person? This is just laughably tone-deaf in 2026. It's not "the rest of the world" – you don't represent the world, this won't even work as a polite fiction, "the world" is overwhelmingly against this lunacy, and not because the world likes Ayatollahs. You're on the side of a clearly fascist nation committing genocide in the name of a crude ethnosupremacist theological doctrine, you endorse the second tier version of that doctrine due to being too low IQ to understand Christianity without sectarian perversions, you're ruled by millenarian fanatics worse than Shia Muslims. You openly and proudly commit perfidy, you bullshit all the time, and you're boasting of how these interventions are not even designed to create peace-loving liberal democracies but to, like, appropriate muh oil. Your democratically elected representatives are worse than their authoritarians. I'm quite serious, we can just take a glance at "them" and see that Iranian leaders you're murdering look and talk like normal white Europeans from a developed nation, while yours, authorizing those strikes – Hegseth, Trump – are barely human but instead some degenerated swine from a Fromsoft game (and unsurprisingly detest Europe and revel in harming and humiliating it directly and indirectly). There's a limit to how much you can avert your eyes from the nature of your society and people. Or is there?

Then again, I realize that talking to Americans is as pointless as talking to demons from Frieren, you're only responsive to kinetic and financial arguments at this stage.

P.S. (given the length of the ban, btw thanks for FINALLY dropping this blat and treating me like a normal user as I've been requesting, I feel the need to say this in an edit:) I would very much prefer it if @self_made_human did not disseminate my contacts on any external platforms, for many simple reasons, not least being fed up with condescension here, and also not having any valuable thoughts to share with mottizens. I'd rather you treated me as braindead.

But speaking of the patronizing discussion about being "fried", social media incentives, speculative real life struggles, clout etc.: far as I know, other people's feelings and approval have always had negligible effect on my posting, or generally actions. There are very few internet strangers who matter enough (mostly instrumentally) to deserve any amount of charity or patience, and a tiny number of real life friends whose opinion and goodwill I value above that of any amount of internet strangers. To be frank, I actually struggle with remembering or paying attention to people at all, it often takes me months to read DMs or mail or respond to calls, even with money, glory or other rewards on the line; it's a major problem that has cost me multiple communities, friendships and relationships.
There is very little change in my modus operandi anyway; the only difference is who/whom, my ire no longer being trained on people you're entertained to see savaged, fairly or not. I've gladly taken a permaban on the original subreddit for much the same behavior many years ago now, and would have accepted a permaban on TheMotte at any later point of time if that were the cost of speaking honestly. Not all communities are for everyone, certainly not this one.
My views on the US in general and this community in particular have soured in response to new evidence, such as Resistance Libs (which we've collectively hounded off here) having been, in my opinion, strongly vindicated (unlike my own sympathy for American conservatives), and not in response to having gained some number of "followers" somewhere else. What an immature idea.

There's just nothing to be said. If there's anything to apologize for, I apologize for my recent top level posts that attempted to force an unwelcome discussion.

Entitled misinterpretations of minutiae of my rant (eg "genocidal dehumanization" of Trump&Hegseth who don't constitute a genus) do not merit a comment.

P.S. (given the length of the ban, btw thanks for FINALLY dropping this blat and treating me like a normal user as I've been requesting, I feel the need to say this in an edit:) I would very much prefer it if @self_made_human did not disseminate my contacts on any external platforms, for many simple reasons, not least being fed up with condescension here, and also not having any valuable thoughts to share with mottizens. I'd rather you treated me as braindead

Noted. It was just one person over DMs, but my apologies nonetheless.

This was unnecessarily rude and a ban was deserved. Twitter is a cesspool and you shouldn’t let the zero standards of basic politeness common there change your writing.

I never actually said I supported the current war, which I don't really. But you can simultaneously reject a vigilante lynch mob as barbaric and counter-productive, and point out that in point of fact its target was guilty of a pattern of gratuitously antagonistic and frequently evil behavior which they could have quit at any time and without which the violence would not have escalated to this point. It doesn't justify the attack, but justifying the attack wasn't the topic of the thread, it was Iranian leadership's decision-making ability.

Believe it or not, "Americans" is also a category of people you aren't allowed to just say "You're a bunch of demons" about. Criticize American culture, foreign policy, and whatever else you hate about America and Americans, sure. But when you want to criticize a group you have to ground it in specific behaviors and traits, not just label everyone in the group as crazystupidevil. (Yes, I'm sure you don't literally think every single American is crazystupidevil , but that's beside the point.)

You've gotten a lot of slack because you've been around a while and as unwilling as you are to claim "emiitus" status, we do weigh positive contributions against negative ones. But something has happened to you, and lately your contributions are far more negative than positive,.and you repeatedly curl your lip and bark angrily when told to chill.

I'm giving you 90 days in liueu of a permaban. Being perfectly honest, I personally don't care whether or not you come back. I got @KMC snapping at me for "driving off the regulars," but the problem is, some regulars have never contributed anything but shit. And others stop contributing anything good. Emeritus status only goes so far.

Believe it or not, "Americans" is also a category of people you aren't allowed to just say "You're a bunch of demons" about.

I take it you’ll also be banning anyone who does the same about Europeans, right? Right? (Who am I kidding, of course you won’t)

From what I can tell most American vs. European argumentation mirrors the U.S. Republican vs. Democrat argumentation.

Democrats believe or complain about Republicans being evil (with often "subhuman" "moral degenerates" etc.). Republicans believe Democrats are stupid children.

Neither is particularly nice, but the "evil" belief and comments has historically resulted in Very Bad Things. "Stupid" usually results in protectionism and infantilization or ignoring.

So you'll see anti-Republican criticism that is far, far worse in objective terms and therefore clearer to deal with - Republicans don't usually wish Democrats dead (although it happens), the other way around is super common on Reddit.

I don't think the Euro/American divide is quite so bad yet, but I don't see anybody saying Europeans are subhuman pig men (except for a certain genre of racists complaining about non-euros in Europe.

Do you have anything in particular on your mind? Being an European myself, Dase's rant strikes me as substantially worse than anything I've ever read about Europeans on here.

If someone posts about Europeans like Dase posted about Americans, they will at least get a warning, and if they have a record like Dase's they will get a ban, yes.

What is giving you this impression? To begin with, who is even going around calling Europeans demons, or equivalent?

For some reason, this mod-hat post (along with @2rafa's un-hatted post) showed up in my volunteer mod queue. Were these posts reported out of revenge for being banned?

Modhat posts often get reported by people who disagree with the moderation.

I was inclined to go lighter on him, but then you already acted and I remembered that Dase had specifically rejected special consideration and demanded that he be treated like the average user.

So be it. He can take his ball to Twitter if he's unwilling to play along with rather basic civility standards.

It's Twitter that has fried his brain. Like many he has succumbed to the pattern where he spends his time quote tweeting the most deranged examples of his outgroup which the algorithm recognizes and then serves him more of. He's built a machine that serves him almost nothing but idiocy that he can happily dunk on. He's built up a heuristic where he pattern matches any argument made to something stupid he's seen on twitter posted by someone who he didn't need to use any intelligence to dismantle; his wit and charity have atrophied from disuse.

I didn't want to get into his Twitter, but yes, I agree. After he became a reasonably big name and a sort of authority on AI/ML (which is justifiable), the boost in popularity only encouraged him to spout far less technically grounded hot-takes on topics like politics.

Twitter moderation is not The Motte's moderation (lol, lmao). I know I code-switch a little when switching context, I'm more polite and formal on LessWrong than I would be here. But most of the time, I speak exactly as I would on our platform.

That's the thing. Some people are innately in tune with our ethos, our rules don't strike them as unreasonable because they're inclined to act that way by default. Others don't agree, on an instinctual level, but follow the rules because of the value the forum provides them.

This is hardly a binary, on one hand we have we have consistently polite effort posters, and on the other side trolls and shitposters. I hope I land pretty left on that spectrum.

And now that I contemplate it, the main reason that I lurk and rarely comment or post on my Twitter account is because the pressure towards being concise or dropping zingers isn't my style at all. I could probably do it, but I don't want to. You can do long-form text and intelligent analysis there with some success, but it's clearly not the default.

So we have Dase, who is clearly smart and talented, but has an abrasive personality, displays clears impatience for those he considers fools, and holds a few rather questionable and strongly held opinions. When he started here, with minimal X clout, he was in an environment that encouraged the the good stuff and came down strongly on the bad.

But X? The negative feedback mechanism is nowhere near as strong. Some of his insults and hot takes took off, or caused him no real harm. And sometimes, he does have a point when he's mad, the number of idiots or hostile interlocutors here is not zero, let alone on X.

Further, he's shifted mostly to posting there, only rarely visiting our site. I don't begrudge him for this, not at all. But that makes the relative impact of a ban or a warning far less meaningful to him. He knows he can pivot to X completely (and I doubt he's the kind to make an alt and scurry back, he's too proud for that).

In other words, we're less important to him than we used to be, our validation and our negative feedback means less, and he's got a fallback at hand. Shame, I like him despite all of that, and that includes tolerating him despite his anti-Indian bias. I wish he'd clean up his act, I can't defend him anymore.

What is his twitter?

Edit: nevermind I think I found it.... what a sad sight it is

He has now blocked me on X : /

I don't know how to put this in a way that won't be interpreted, incorrectly, as condescension but I think he's going through a rough time and hope he can get through to the other side alright. He wrote some posts that I cherish and arguing with him in long form helped me think particularly about the AI race with China even if I don't quite agree with him on the conclusion.

What’s his X handle?

Is it public knowledge? I don't know. I figured it out by accident while using X normally.

I'm quite loathe to share by default, even if I don't think he minds. If you really want it, I can DM you.

Edit: This wasn't intended to be an offer to DM it to everyone who asks.

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I... actually generally agree with your point, have been against this stupid war for the entire time it's been happening, and find myself similarly frustrated with many of the Amerikaposters here tribalistically supporting whatever they do. I am really not in favour of US foreign interventionism (which is long and storied) and have never been regardless of the partisan-political alignment of who's doing it.

The routine blanket portrayal of any country that's not in line with the American regime (not just Iran either, which I would consider more of a defensible position) as a dysfunctional backstabbing low-trust low-skill low-human-capital Third World hellhole is also not helping my sympathy for the pro-Americans, especially since it's so aggressively out of line with a lot of what I've seen in my expeditions travelling and living in many countries.

But yeah, this tone is going to get you banned. And I'm saying this because I think you're directionally correct and would rather you not get banned.

Look - I used to find your comments and insight to be a part of the special sauce that this place brought that I couldn't seem to find anywhere else.

But lately I've lost that feeling, and if I recall correctly you are a hair's breadth from catching a major ban.

I don't want that to happen, but you have to stop with some of this stuff. I'm not sure if it's meant to be rhetorical flourish but some of what you are saying sounds just as bad the worst TDS /r/politics user.

Yes the U.S. and the current admin has plenty worth complaining about, but saying the U.S. is a "clearly fascist nation committing genocide in the name of a crude ethnosupermacist theological doctrine" is wrong on so many levels that it has to have taken work to come up with that.

Calling Americans barely human? Come on man.

Like what the fuck are you doing.

If I was to try and deliberately write a comment to get me banned and convince Americans that Europeans have nothing worth listening to it would be like what you wrote.

What happened??????

You're [America is] on the side of a clearly fascist

Just being persnickety but I'm pretty sure a "clearly fascist nation committing genocide in the name of a crude ethnosupermacist theological doctrine" is referring to Israel.

That said, I agree that Dase is overstating his case. I personally always found his ideas interesting and his style to be an unfortunate barrier to the ideas, but I guess that's how he likes it.

Oh oops if I mixed that up but going on to add "you're ruled by millenarian fanatics worse than Shia Muslims" I'm fairly sure that's in reference to the reporting about U.S. leadership.

Also things like the later "Hegseth, Trump – are barely human but instead some degenerated swine from a Fromsoft game."

I mean that's Nazi talk. The level of dehumanization is I think new and totally collapses much of value of the contribution since you know it's all hiigghhhhly colored.

that's Nazi talk

Please, no, not that can of worms again.

If you insist, please lead with an opener about your exact definition of nazi.

Systematic dehumanization of someone you dislike and leadership figures of them is a classic sign of disordered thought processes that often lead to things like the rise of authoritarian states, ethnic cleansing, justification of deaths of people in that group (ex: Charlie Kirk).

I'm not a person who throws around Nazi very often, can't remember the last time I did it - but referring to people you disagree with as subhuman animals and drawing connections to literal demons, shit that's a pretty good reason.

You can be mad at Americans and their political stances without hitting that level of rhetoric.

It's not about Nazis specifically, it's about the modes of thought that lead to behaviors the Nazis are famous for. "That's Khmer Rouge" thinking or "that's woke thinking" are equally appropriate.

It's not about Nazis specifically

How about "fanatic", "crazy", "demagogue" or "ideologue", all of which refer to more or less suitably vague but not historically burdened concepts?

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To avoid Godwin, I might suggest "Hutu Power Radio" talk, but there are plenty of other tragic historical references you could make.

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I mean that's Nazi talk

"Hegseth, Trump" isn't a demographic category lol. Individual people can be (and are, case in point) aptly described as degenerate swine regardless of the political ideology of the person doing the describing.

See my response to Southkraut.

Sure. I just had the bit of my brain light up that goes, "No! Somebody on the internet has made an easily-correctible error!"

The millenarian bit does seem to be at least partly real, though I'm quite prepared to believe it's over-reported.

No worries, at least as of late I remember good faith engagement from you so no frustration on my part.

With respect to the millenarian bit I don't believe that at all, I haven't really heard it mentioned outside the typical TDS crowd and the amount of nonsense and propaganda right now is incredible and people are very fooled.

I mean. They could voluntarily reform themselves into a peace-loving liberal democracy.

When we talk about Iran in this debate, we talk about Iranian state and regime, not ordinary Iranian people.

As analogy, when wargamer nerds debate: "If you were Napoleon and it was morning 18 June 1815, what would be your optimal moves?" no one would answer "Just surrender, end this pointless bloodshed, let the soldiers go home back to their moms".

no one would answer "Just surrender, end this pointless bloodshed, let the soldiers go home back to their moms".

Thought to be fair that would make for a banger of a song

I mean. They could voluntarily reform themselves into a peace-loving liberal democracy.

Contemporary Iran's origin story is the US staging a coup there, and imposing a dictator. Why should anyone believe "democracy" would somehow save them?

In principle there should be nothing stopping them from just ceasing to be an oppressive warmongering theocracy,

People who start wars look ridiculous calling others "warmongers".

Inverse cause and effect. That origin story is selected by the regime to back up their diplomatic decisions, rather than their diplomatic decisions being caused by the origin story.

A counter-coup that would have almost certainly played out the same way without US involvement after the sham parliamentary dissolution referendum made it almost inevitable is not a good basis for starting up an eternal blood feud 26 years later. There's so many other similar (really worse) slights Iran could choose to blood feud over. To name 3:

1921 Coup, backed by Britain, that put the Pahlavi dynasty in charge in the first place.

1941 Soviet/British invasion of Iran and subsequent rural starvation

1946 Iran crisis where the soviets tried to sever a few occupied puppet states off Iran

Why not blood feud against Russia instead?

The US did not start this war with Iran, they have been at war with Iran for decades. Unconventional warfare is warfare. Proxy warfare is warfare. Iran has by-and-large been the aggressor in this war, but they do so in ways that are below the threshold of conventional war and usually deniable, which may be why you are confused about this. The Western mindset, for the past few decades at least, has held this idea that low-level conflict in foreign countries is just the normal state of the world, but any conventional conflict with uniformed soldiers is somehow beyond the pale. Militias can ravage a population and hold entire communities hostage, and nobody bats an eye, but a Western military uses long-range munitions on military targets and everyone loses their mind! The opposite should be the case.

low-level conflict in foreign countries is just the normal state of the world

But it is, it has been like that since forever. And it's not going to go away, so starting a major conventional war is only going to cause more surrering and death.

I'd be happy to concede for someone who wants to be concerned about both, so long as it's consistent. But as you say different forms of lethal conflict is still lethal conflict. That this is hard to determine parts of the conflict because of their deliberate and systemic use of proxies doesn't change the underlying point: there is no caveat to the right of self-defense under international law that says you can only act against proxies, any more than there is a word-cell series of claims that lets someone go 'I can hit you (indirectly), no hit backs.' There is no principle under international law that the other party must accept your denials of plausibly deniable proxy warfare: the determination of plausibility, and what to do with it, has always rested with the other party.

I generally don't contest peoples personal opinions per see, so I wouldn't spend much time or interest on anyone who wants to take the position on who 'started' the conflict. But who chose to 'start' a conflict is different from who chose to continue it in certain ways, and how, and there is plenty of agency open for the Iranians on that front as well as anyone else. There are a number of regional states that fought multiple wars against Israel who have chosen other paths, and there are an even larger number of global states who fought wars with the US for whom relations are anywhere from cool to cordial. Making hating the Americans and the joos part of your raison d'être is a thing a polity chooses to do, not something their chosen enemies chose for them.

So- with those caveats- I otherwise generally agree with the point that this conflict didn't 'start' in 2026. We are watching an air-campaign that has been a series of campaigns, from both directions, for longer than most members of this site have paid attention to global affairs. It is not the start of a long-war any more than the Iranian supplied-and-directed artillery campaign via Hezbollah that displaced tens of thousands in northern israel was the start, or the airstrike on Solemani when he was on his way to engage Iranian-allied militia groups in Iraq that off-and-on attacked Americans was the start, or the American invasion of Iraq as a neighboring security treat was the start, or the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentine was the start.

It is also not going to be the end of the long war. Personally, I doubt it was ever intended to be, but that is a post for another time.

There is no principle under international law that the other party must accept your denials of plausibly deniable proxy warfare: the determination of plausibility, and what to do with it, has always rested with the other party.

I agree. I think part of the issue is that Israel has been waiting for years to strike at Iran openly and directly. Partly because right now is a politically opportune moment, but also because a lot of groundwork had to be laid to set up a viable path to cross the hundreds of miles. During that time, a lot of people assumed that Iran's "I'm not touching you!" strategy was effective, that there was some norm or law which was preventing Israel from striking openly and directly.

There are a number of regional states that fought multiple wars against Israel who have chosen other paths

Agreed with this too. Iran doesn't need to become a peace-loving democracy, Iran's leadership just needs to find some other raison d'etre besides trying to destroy Israel.

Partly because right now is a politically opportune moment, but also because a lot of groundwork had to be laid to set up a viable path to cross the hundreds of miles.

Agreed on both of these parts. One of the frustrating elements of the early-war discussion was something barely discussed at all- the fact that both US and Israel have elections this fall. Trump was already more or less doomed to lose the Republican trifecta, but Israel was also going through a potential major shakeup. This was a political window of opportunity for both parties, even aside from other elements and potentially limited opportunities.

This is not a claim that it's an opportunity that should have been taken, or was right to have taken, or any such thing. But Israeli political calculus would be factoring the potential 6+ years before the next potentially favorable US executive, and the US executive branch that's been trying to settle issues (starting with Venezuela) would be measuring the window of opportunity in even shorter time frames.

Yes! Trump is legacy motivated and he knows that without some major shake up he's going to spend the rest of his time in office being impeached repeatedly.

This might not save him from the midterms, but it may buy him a legacy he wants.

There is a right answer here,

No, there really isn't - or at least not the one you're proposing. If you think that Iran announcing their complete capitulation and surrender would lead at all to a positive outcome you're fooling yourself. Do you remember what happened the last time Iran was a democracy? Do you remember why that changed, and how the Shah was installed?

These are human beings with moral agency and rational minds. In principle there should be nothing stopping them from just ceasing to be an oppressive warmongering theocracy, and then, miraculously, the rest of the world would stop trying to blow them up.

I'm pretty sure there are Iranians pondering the exact same thing about the US and Israel.

I doubt it. The Iranian people have significant support for the US and Israel.

Leadership is either too religious and thinks the infidels should quietly sit down and be destroyed or are going to understand that state planned terrorism is a dangerous game.

Imagine bombs falling on you daily, even if you dislike current regime you are not going to support those who bomb you and clearly have no regard for your life in the process. And they did not intervene when Iranian leadership was massacring protestors, they did when protestors already lost and with them any hope of overthrowing ayatollahs from within.

So that's the startling part - the Iranians I know are hellaciously pro-Trump and pro bombing Iran. They claim this is widely held with the country.

I imagine it will change as things progress, but it is true for now. That says something about how bad the regime is and it's one of the reasons I get frustrated with the discussion here.

One of my friends tells stories about how every day walking home from work she'd worry about wandering into a pop-up protest (and had done so) and then feeling for her life to avoid getting executed.

She is a nervous type, but that's a scary way to live.

The Iranian people have significant support for the US and Israel.

The diaspora does, and a few malcontents inside the country do. But they're probably few and definitely powerless, and thus irrelevant. Their older generations were basically all supporters of the regime, and their younger generations grew up drinking in the propaganda of the regime; I doubt there's too much discontent outside their version of the PMC.

Counter arguments:

Stats: "A June 2024 survey by GAMAAN showed only 20% of respondents want the Islamic Republic to remain in power, with only 11% supporting the foundational principles of the 1979 revolution."

Anecdote 1: I know some people in the diaspora who are recent exiters. Everyone they know both at home and abroad not directly connected with the regime is ecstatic.

Anecdote 2: I've seen footage of bombing in Tehran where you can hear people cheering in the background.

In my city that has a large Iranian diaspora, the "protests" are actually pro bombing with iranians carrying american and israeli flags it's surreal. The small anti bombing protests tend to be white college kids.

My favorite bit of this was all the pretty Iranian woman trying to learn Trump's YMCA dance a few weeks ago.

Although at this point as the realities are setting in people are getting more stressed.

You have made the point repeatedly that there exist significant portions of the American public rooting against America in the present war.

Do you think the United States would fall as a result of similar circumstances?

I'm not sure that's related to my point.

It should give you context as to why Nixon wins the election even if I don't know anyone who voted for him.

GAMAAN

It's an Internet poll issued through an anti-censorship provider. Very non-representative. Same for the diaspora. As for footage from Iran... the information environment is terrible, who even knows if it's real?

All of that is fair but it is what we have in terms of knowledge. We also have recent massive protests that required 1,000s of killings to stop. We also have a security apparatus observed in Iran that sure is looking like it was very hard to prevent an uprising.

Do we have any evidence for widespread support for the regime? Hiding and not wanting to get shot doesn't count.

There should be a strong prior for widespread support of the regime in charge. We also have the fact that they're Muslims subject to a Muslim regime, and everywhere else in the Gulf, the leaders are actually considerably LESS strict about their religion than the people. We have the various "Death to America" rallies over the years, and the massive public funeral of General Solemani a few years ago. And of course what they don't have -- any real unrest. There's some protests, but they never do anything but soak up bullets. Even if they're not armed, where's the arson and window-breaking, the rocks thrown at police? Even Palestinians can manage that much. Even now, with the regime subject to death from above, there's no indication of popular revolt.

The picture to me is of a people who overwhelmingly support their government, and a few malcontents who go out and protest, sort of cargo-culting Western protestors. And are surprised when they get shot instead of things actually changing.

More comments

I mean. They could voluntarily reform themselves into a peace-loving liberal democracy. They could even ally themselves to the US outright, or even to Israel!

While they're at it, they can institute a central bank.

They already have one.

Ally with someone who literally killed 160 little girls in the opening salvo of the war?

Why on earth would the French welcome the Allies as liberators? Tens of thousands of French civilians were killed during the opening stages of the Allied invasion of France!

To say nothing of Mers-el-Kébir!

I mean, I'm not even making a moral argument here, at least not in that second sentence. Just… they could do it. It sure would stop the war and improve their situation.

The US could be substantially harmed by the closure of the Hormuz Strait if we decide that it's a good idea to short crude oil futures and then the market moves against us.

Well you could just not try shorting oil futures in the first place, that's a pretty zany strategy. In fact, American oil/LNG companies stand to gain BIGLY from all this. Russia is banned, Iran is being destroyed, Qatar is already 20% down for the next 3-5 years, the Strait is closed. Your commodity exports are going to the moon.

The US actually temporarily lifted sanctions on Russian and Iranian oil that is currently at sea. I think they see the global price of oil as the political limitation on their ability to wage the war at all and so they're taking steps to keep oil prices down even if it means giving money to the regime they're fighting.

Well yes, that's prudent to smooth out the shock, but in the longer term the US is entrenching its position as a fossil fuel producer and exporter.

It's also arguably backfiring with GCC countries (though this is largely irrelevant as they have little offensive capability beyond hosting American forces and allowing the use of their airspace, which they've been doing anyway).

They could totally pool together 100B dollars and offer them as rewards for the heads of 2000 strong list of the Iranian elite. There will be takers.

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