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Notes -
Third Gulf War Negotiations Thread
As we approach the end of the 5 day pause(?) before the USA ramps up attacks again, reports are coming in that the Trump team has sent Iran a 15 point plan for peace. I don’t think the full text has been credibly made public at this time, as should be expected, but from what I’ve gathered the points can be reduced from redundant and detail points, Iran gives:
— Iran stops funding proxies abroad, especially Hamas and Hezbollah
— Iran pinky promises to never get a nuclear weapon, surrenders nuclear material, agrees to various future restrictions/inspections
— Iran opens the Strait of Hormuz
In exchange Iran gets:
— Full sanctions relief, including removal of the snapback provisions that removed sanctions would go back on Iran immediately if Iran violated the agreement
— American assistance with their civilian nuclear program.
Iran, after denying that negotiations were happening at all, has come back with the following demands:
— Bombing of Iran ends, assassination of Iranian officials ends, guarantees that it won’t start again
— Reparations
— Recognition of Iranian sovereignty over the strait of Hormuz
— They won’t negotiate with Steve and Jared, only with JD Vance
Trump has delayed bombing Iranian civilian infrastructure for this week, while Iran has let some ships through the strait as a gesture of good faith, or as Trump put it a “very expensive present.”
Now none of this is being reported clearly, and this all might be bullshit, and maybe one or both sides is engaging in distractionism.
But I’m filled with a deep sense of disquiet and defeat. The Iranian regime is rebuilt, reinforced, made more powerful. The Iranian regime is given new credibility, where before my diasporic friends could claim that with a push the rotten structure would collapse, now they know it will not. Iran gets effective, if not formal, sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. Iran gets sanctions relief. Iran gives up more or less nothing, just some fissionable material that is easily enough replaced and a few proxies that have already been degraded. I don’t really credit the promises Iran is making here for much, especially if the snapback provision is removed.
Giving Iran anything after they close the Strait is tantamount to recognizing their sovereignty over it, de facto if not legally. Simply by asking for it, and then making a deal, Iran is going to be perceived as getting sovereignty over the strait. The USA, by accepting Iran's "gift" of letting ships through the strait, is already acknowledging that Iran has control of the strait! And this would be disastrous.
The flip side is that there’s little guarantee that the US would keep its promises in the future, but that doesn’t feel very good to me either. I’m not sure where I see the off-ramp at this point that isn’t a full invasion of Iran.
Another view is that given the conditions, this isn't really the Iran war, it's the Lebanon war and the Iran war is a sideshow and a distraction. The casualties are higher in Lebanon, there are troops on the ground in Lebanon, Israel is considering expanding its territory into Lebanon, occupation will inevitably result in settlements which will not be removed, etc. Perhaps the purpose of the Iran war never had anything to do with Iran herself, which is why the goals against Iran never seemed achievable, but were instead more local to protecting the Israeli homefront against Hezbollah. The USA distracts Iran and forces it to accept Hezbollah's defeat.
I suppose at least we’ll get good pistachios and saffron now? I’d love to see sanctions relief on a personal level, and I think sanctions are a wildly ineffective method of international relations, but on a geopolitical level this seems like the US admitting defeat.
I think it would be great for mankind if Iran winds up controlling the strait, as this would constitute a powerful deterrence against future powers that plot unjustified wars without regard for humanitarian consequences. If this deterrence is permanently inked into history, then it could save millions of lives in the future when leaders read about the aggression of America and Israel against the underdog Iran. This would be good for Americans in America, because we will not be top dog forever; in a century or two we may find ourselves in Iran’s place with a more powerful China attempting to oppress us and conquer us. Giving Iran the strait would be a great reparative act for a country that does not deserve the families of its scientists blown up and its economy placed under crippling sanctions just because their civilization makes Israelis and Zionists uncomfortable and envious.
Ultimately there is nothing more important than justice and securing peace, at least not if you’re a member of the Christian West called to be peacemakers. If this reduces our power and prosperity, then that’s an adequate sacrifice for twenty years of mistakes we refuse to learn from. So perhaps we can learn from this one and boot the warmongers out of power. Obviously, we did not learn anything from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, and Palestine. So maybe those who worship power will learn something from a decline in American power, and maybe Israelis will learn something from relentless missile strikes on their cities. I’m doubtful, but it’s possible.
They would just build pipelines. It’s one reason why in the past pipeline politics are complicated. But now that Syria is western friendly it’s believed pipelines become easier.
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Is there anything in particular about modern Iran toward which Israelis/Zionists are envious? I'm not trying to make a point here; I ask out of genuine curiosity. There is much in the very long history of Persian culture to be proud of. I ask because I hear things like this from time to time from very, very anti-Velayat-e Faqih Iranian exiles but there's never any follow up. Modern Isreal seems to have little to envy modern Iran about, with the giga-caveat that much of this is Isreal's doing I suppose. Perhaps its that Isreal is driven to harm Iran out of theoretical envy at what Iran might have become in a counterfactual recent history where there is no Isreal to have prevented their greatness?
In the proxy conflict for control of the Middle East, a conflict which Iran did not start, Iran has held on to influence in the region despite Israel dragging the hegemonic world superpower into the conflict. And despite Israel’s great tactics against Hezbollah, they still appear able to launch powerful attacks.
That is not an answer to the question he asked.
There might be many things to envy about Persian civilisation, which certainly has a storied and impressive history, but Hezbollah's resilience seems more like a strategic observation. You posited that Israelis are envious of Persian or Iranian civilisation.
I would consider their military competency a byproduct of their civilization, if not just a part of their civilization. I mean, without their military all Sparta had was pithy quotes.
The Israelis at present seem to have proven dramatically more militarily competent than the Iranians, though. What reason is there to think that the Israelis envy Iranian military skill? Or for that matter Iranian civilisation in general, for which I do not consider military competence a general proxy for anyway.
(I grant that military competence and civilisational worthiness, however defined, probably correlate positively. However, I would be willing to point to plenty examples of enviable civilisations that underperformed militarily - my respect for China as one of the world's great civilisations persists despite the Century of Humiliation.)
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Just objectively, I actually think that America continues to be the single best-positioned country to dominate the future. We don't expect this outcome, because we think we are Rome 2.0 and our best past was behind us and we are an empire and that empire will crumble tragically at some point and we're just kicking the can down the road, but...that might not happen. The US and its successor states might actually be top dog ~forever.
I don't really put it past China to still be a contender in 100 years but right now the future does not look bright for them, or any of our competitors.
But while you are worried about the practical consequences if someone else is in charge, I am actually worried about the morally corrosive consequences of being top dog forever. Either way, I think we directionally share concerns about the consequences of US success.
But I don't actually think "Iran controlling the strait" would establish a powerful deterrence against future powers that plot unjustified wars without regard for humanitarian consequences. Either the Sunni Arabian powers will reroute all of their stuff through the Red Sea, rendering Iranian control of the Strait a nothingburger (thus minimizing the didactic value of Iran controlling the strait) or the Sunni Arabian powers will kick off a massive war to wrest control of the strait from Iran. If the US is not involved, this war is likely to be an extremely ghastly slog (just like the Iran-Iraq War) and short of the US intervention you oppose, it is unlikely the US could prevent this, as Iran cutting off Sunni Arabian oil exports is almost certainly a nonstarter for those powers, and they can buy arms from Russia and China if the US cuts them off. (China and particularly Russia would likely prefer to ally with an Israeli-Saudi coalition against the Iranians rather than the other way around; my understanding is that the Russians perceive the Iranians under their current leadership as erratic.)
If they succeed in forcing the opening of the strait, the US will likely receive partial credit for their victory given that the Arabians will likely start the war in easy mode (no Iranian navy left to speak of, for instance), which will justify US intervention. If they do not succeed in opening the strait, leading to a loss of the region's oil production (it's unlikely that the Saudis will be content to let Iran export its oil during a prolonged conflict) it will strengthen the United States over the long term as we will control a much larger percentage of the world's oil than we did pre-conflict.
In either case, it seems to me that the results are much more likely to be bloody and horrific than if the US compels Iran to seek terms in the near future.
You will object to my model inasmuch as it renders a US loss impossible. I disagree: it is actually possible to have a situation where most outcomes of a situation lead to a victory (e.g. if merely destabilizing the region is likely to lead to a success in either direction). However, I do think there are "loss conditions" for the US here. I think it is unlikely, but the war is not over, and Iran could still possibly inflict military losses on the US so severe that the US has to retreat unilaterally. And the US may have already lost from a broader strategic perspective (expended munitions).
In my opinion, "securing justice and [a lasting] peace" is exactly the sort of maximalist thinking that drove, and drives, the neocons. Unless the fundamental problems of the region - intractable problems like the Sunni-Shia divide, and the competing national interests of different states - are resolved, all peace is likely to be to some degree temporary. There is a way to remove these sources of conflict, but it is fundamentally both horrific and unjust. Barring that, until Christ rules the earth, the other options are either settle for peace of a greater or lesser duration or for things like "nation-building" and "counter-terrorism operations" which are often of indefinite or extremely lengthy duration.
Mind you, I think that seeking honorable peace of a decent duration is a good and admirable goal. But I am fundamentally skeptical of the idea that "the US not being involved will bring about peace." There are specific areas where US action has arguably made things worse, or where US action has directly led to military conflict. But it does not follow that the US withdrawing from everything will create greater peace. It may increase peace for the United States - and that is not itself a bad thing! But it is not a magic button for world peace (and may be quite the opposite). Prolonged peace is not the default or expected state of humankind, and unless a single power becomes world hegemon, it is unlikely.
As a guy who would like to get out of the sandbox and who is concerned about the consequences of attempting US global hegemony, my personal hope is that Iran absolutely destroying all of our regional bases will make acceding to Iran's demands that we leave the region an easy "yes," that Iranian self-government will be restored, and that in the aftermath of that restoration the various parties in the region will be able to reach an amicable peace.
Who is “we”, exactly?
I don’t think there’s a ton of overlap between the circles who most criticize American hegemony and the ones which compare everything to Roman history.
Sorry, I could have been more specific. I meant Americans, particularly educated ones.
Maybe you are correct. I definitely think there's a certain strain (maybe moreso on the right?) of people who at least opportunistically pattern-match contemporary issues, e.g. declining birthrates and the GWOT, with the decline of the Roman Empire.
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This is just way too credulous man, the line that "if you kill your enemies they win" was only ever supposed to be a meme.
Like, what are we talking about? You want your enemies to have power over you? Do you think this makes you stronger?
When in human history did great powers losing wars deter future great powers?
If you think American aggression against Iran is unjustified you have absorbed far too much third world propaganda. Do you think it would be good if Iran got nuclear weapons too?
We should lose the war with Iran (making America weaker) so that in one hundred years if America is weaker we will be stronger? Why not just win our wars now so that America is stronger?
That future won't come to pass if Iranian oil isn't supplying China's economic base.
Those scientists are building Iran nuclear weapons so that Iran can project its power across the Middle East, and ultimately the world, in direct hostility to your interests. I think even the actual pacifists and Amish and Quakers et al. are not this credulous about the virtues of peace.
If you are Christian the most important thing in the world is getting right with God. Justice and peace are secondary to that ultimate goal. The Christian tradition in fact contains a lot of debate about the subject of war and just wars, which doesn't disappear just because you believe in pacifism. A very foolish form of pacifism where your enemies who hate you and in fact want to destroy Christendom would acquire power over energy and nuclear weapons if your vision won out.
Finally, to complete the set, it must be pointed out that America and Israel are winning. The comeuppance you are imagining is not coming.
Look I find it annoying to write these posts where each claim is rebutted on its own line and I imagine people find them annoying to read too. But there are some serious howlers in here that merit breaking down because they produce a very disordered line of thought. You seem to be saying, in effect, that America and Israel are losing (delusional, frankly), but that this loss is good (delusional again) because it will protect America when America is weak (which will only happen if America loses). America will be protected in our lose by our virtue in losing?
Frankly it's easier for me to understand this theory as the product of a meme parasite that's serving some sort of emotional function than as the product of anything rational. But I don't think is consistent on its own terms or with what is actually happening in the world. Iran is not an innocent poor benighted country -- they played power politics and lost. Had they won there would not be some flourishing of the human dialogue but they would work to directly attack your values because they see themselves as your enemy. Instead of that America wins, which is actually good for liberty, freedom, justice, peace, and ultimately the value of Western Civilization taken as a whole. Which is after all why we're all here in the first place.
Israel and the US have long tried to kick that can down the road (sometimes brilliantly bloodless like with Stuxnet, more often through bombing and murder), but don't tell me that killing their supreme leader was about preventing them from gaining nukes.
I would prefer if Iran did not get nukes, but even if Trump's plan (add scare quotes to taste) prevented this, it is entirely possible that the price for it is too high. For one thing, even with nukes Iran is not a threat to North America any more than North Korea is.
Of course, if past bombings gave good reasons why Iran would want nuclear deterrence, the present war gives them excellent reasons.
Sure, perhaps their plan is to mutually annihilate Iran and Israel the minute they have enough nukes, but with Nethanyahu in charge I simply find myself not caring much. If the religious crazies really want to murder each other, that is not sufficient reason to drag civilized countries into it preemptively.
Ok what was it about then?
Look you don't have to like Trump or agree with him in all cases but to imagine he doesn't have a plan for anything he wants to do is basically to deny any theory of mind for Donald Trump. I think it's TDS by another name. It's not even entirely up to Trump, obviously the American and Israeli militaries had plans and backup plans upon backup plans wargamed out for decades. When people say things like this I suppose that they live too much in the 24-second news cycle and don't have much of a frame of reference beyond that.
Of course, and if Iran has good reason to pursue nuclear deterrence, the justification for bombing is excellent.
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I don’t worship power, maybe because of my portion of old American heritage. Most of us have worshipped God, and this means understanding certain acts as beneath us. When George Washington was accused by the French of allowing the assassination of a negotiating party, it was a severe mark of disgrace that haunted him for the rest of his life and stained his reputation across Europe. This is my culture, and I think any foreign value system that worships power is a fundamentally anti-American influence that must be excised, just as much as any dangerous entanglement in foreign nations must be excised. I don’t know if you’re familiar with American culture so I will quote to you something from our first President and Founding Father:
Real patriots — in the eyes of the Founding Fathers — don’t start unjust and unnecessary wars for a random foreign tribe 6000 miles away. This is just not what we do. That’s why none of the American security apparatus supported this war. That’s why Israel had to put pressure on Trump to start the war. That’s why the #1 authority on terrorism in the American security state, Joe Kent, resigned to speak to Americans on the dangerous and subversive influence of Israel on American soil. Allowing Iran to become a little stronger is a great punishment and deterrence against the foreign tribe bringing us to war, but even more importantly, it is something that future powers will read about when deciding whether to commit acts of aggression.
I don’t know if you’re trolling when you ask whether history informs the decision of modern nations to go to war. That’s the basic curricula at any war college. I also don’t know if you’re trolling when you say Iran was building nuclear weapons, because that’s not the assessment of American intelligence, which means you trust Israel more than America, which seems slightly treasonous to me and very strange. But perhaps you’re not an American, I don’t know. But if you’re not an American, why are you pretending to speak for our nation?
No, in this religion justice and peace are getting right with God; they are one and the same thing; we will be judged by how we treat strangers and neighbors and others. There is a long history of Christian Just War philosophy, and it all concurs that our act of war against Iran was unjustified. And the Just God may punish those who support it; He will certainly punish those who promote “no mercy” and “no quarter”.
Wait, since when were you a Christian? This is new.
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You don't worship power so you just sit in the corner and let it happen? Watching? Melodramatically?
Well, although I understand this as a threat against my interests -- I can't take it very credibly since you don't believe in using power.
Hypothetically, would you support allying with Iran and bombing Israel is it advanced American power and interests? If what you want is American power, then a destroyed Israel means that many tech and defense jobs come back to America. We can also poach high IQ Israeli AI developers. Or if the math shows that the best way to maximize American power is to arm both Iran and Israel to bomb each other to the abyss, so that we can poach their highest IQ talent, would you support this? (This may entail allowing Iran to turn Tel Aviv into Gaza). This is a very serious consideration for a person who loves the notion of maximizing power, as future wars will be decided by drones and AI; we can exploit Iran’s smart drone tech and Israel’s smart STEM talent by pitting them against each other.
This is a net-zero vision of strength where anyone else’s successes are a threat. This kind of model historically doesn’t work and is in fact antithetical to American success post-WWII. We remain powerful by maintaining a global system of wealth and strength in which other powers pay us the ultimate tribute of imitating us.
It’s in our interests to work with Israel because they support American power. It’s in our interests to work against Iran because they oppose American power.
Trump is already pursuing American power in the Middle East by recommitting it to a new vision of prosperity. The Abraham Accords are a far cry from Saudi Arabia funding its own proxy militias to counter Iran. (Remember that under Obama we actually funded the off-shoots of Al Qaeda out of esoteric imagined interests. — Another one of dozens of genuine Obama scandals that received no coverage or consideration until Trump was attacked for moves reversing it.)
The next step is getting Iran on board. This can be done either through regime change, or by simply overawing the current regime to the point that it cuts its losses and joins us. This would be in Iran’s interests too — as Osama Bin Laden once said, something something strong horse etc etc.
Let me get this straight. We are talking about a regime in the Middle East that has circumvented the entire American intelligence establishment to push our president to start a war. They used a senator who was trained with Mossad talking points, a religiously-radical loyalist stepson, and advisors who were hand-picked by their own Middle Eastern lobbyists. Because of our support for this Middle Eastern regime, passage through the Suez Canal has fallen to a fraction of what it once was, and now the Strait of Hormuz is closed. We have harmed the global economy while our allies in Europe and Asia are baffled at our decision-making. This Middle Eastern regime employed Jeffrey Epstein to mass-rape Americans to secure blackmail on important figures including former President Bill Clinton and current President Donald Trump. They sell our secrets to our greatest global adversary, China. They disrupt America’s ability to negotiate with Iran, and sought to destroy our important alliance with Qatar (a true friend who has pledged to invest 1 trillion dollars in America) by violating all semblance of international norms and launching an attack on a negotiating team. Meanwhile, important American technology and military jobs are siphoned off to this middle eastern nation state while they enjoy free college and medical care.
It seems clear to me that American power is being curtailed by this regime, and that — per your power-loving guiding philosophy — America is essentially obliged to enact regime change therein. If the United States Military reigns white phosphorus down on Haifa today and cluster munitions down on Tel Aviv tomorrow, then within a few weeks we would have secured free transit along the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz, opened up trade opportunities with Iran (a country 9x bigger than Israel), gained more allies across the Middle East, loosened a perfidious influence on our Body Politic, and returned essential defense work back to Americans.
I can’t conceive why you are not advocating for the USM to strike Israel, unless perhaps you do not really want America to be more powerful against her enemies, but instead favor Israel for some other reason.
Israel is a democracy
Conspiracy
Conspiracy
Conspiracy
Conspiracy
Not even good conspiracies, totally unsubstantiated and debunked. If you think Israel has blackmail material of Donald Trump raping then I think you’ve lost the plot
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It's sad that my only hope is that the Secretary of War is too stupid to understand what he's saying when he says that the intention is to fight this war with no quarter allowed or asked for, and is merely repeating something he thought sounded badass in an Alestorm song.
I don't know. I kind of think that you should ant the guy that's in charge of the actual fighting to buy in to the whole Conan The Barbarian meme about "what is best in life?" unironically.
I also think that if I were President Truman in the spring of '45 I would want to keep Morgenthau and his plan on hand, in part because the whole "Good Cop, Bad Cop" cliche is a cliche for a reason. That reason is that it works.
I do know. Assuming for a second that this does end with ground forces coming to grips with the enemy, a declaration of "no quarter, no mercy" is both profoundly stupid and profoundly evil.
Stupid, because we'd like Iranian footsoldiers to surrender. A process made more difficult when we're handing them ready made, authentic propaganda in which the American government declares that they will be summarily shot if they surrender and no prisoners will be taken. Stupid, because setting that standard makes turnabout fair play when a Marine is captured, and I don't want captured American troops torture-murdered. I'd like to see PoW conditions on both sides closer to the Western front than the Eastern front.
Evil, because it's obviously evil to murder a surrendered enemy soldier on the spot. It serves no purpose beyond the gratification of base human desires. This is a betrayal of American tradition dating back at least to the Lieber Code in the Civil War:
But then you say
Which makes me wonder if you understand what a declaration of "no quarter" means exactly, and are using it just to say "we should be meaner."
"no quarter" means that if someone is trying to run away you should shoot them in the back. What it means is that anyone on the field who isn't a friendly or who hasn't already been killed or taken prisoner is not only a legitimate target but a mission objective.
What he's saying is that we aren't trying to hold territory, we're trying to send a message, that message being that if you try to fuck with us you die and your nation gets set back a generation per @MaiqTheTrue's post above.
I asked DeepSeek. I think "common understanding of a term" is a pretty good use case for LLMs at the moment. You are flatly incorrect.
The phrase comes from the practice of "giving quarter," which refers to a victor sparing the life of a captured enemy and holding them as a prisoner of war. To declare "no quarter" is to announce that surrender will not be accepted; the enemy is to be fought to the death.
Key aspects:
· Legal status: Granting no quarter is considered a war crime under the Geneva Conventions (specifically Article 23 of the 1907 Hague Convention and Article 40 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions), as it violates the principle that captured combatants are entitled to humane treatment. · Historical usage: In earlier naval warfare, a "no quarter" flag (such as a solid red flag or the Jolly Roger) signaled that the crew would fight without accepting surrender.
Though it does say
Even leaving aside the moral concerns, it's a grave sin to kill a man trying to surrender, it also is the opposite of the theory that you kick the door in and the whole rotten edifice falls apart, because you're telling the Iranian troops in advance that surrender (unconditional or not) is pointless, they're going to be killed either way. It also pretty much entitles the enemy against whom you have declared No Quarter to kill your men if they are captured (see eg the Battle of the Crater).
It's something that looks tough on a BJJ rash guard but is a definitional war crime.
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I think there's an Honor Harrington bit where the difference between "No Mercy" and "No Quarter" is demonstrated... by not killing the survivors in lifepods.
Speaking of Honor Harrington, no quarter, and songs...
It always baffled me that they chose the wrong "no" for the song.
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The Founding Fathers themselves (Jefferson! Madison!) lived long enough to send the nascent US Navy and Marine Corps to attack distant nations (also Muslim) a mere 4500 miles away. Twice.
We fought those wars because they were illegally seizing our vessels and then enslaving our sailors. That is a perfect case of just war, and we behaved in a perfectly moral fashion. We requested a treaty, compensation, and the return of captured sailors. We did not assassinate the ruler of Algeria and his family while they were sleeping, or set the entire city ablaze. We secured our interests with little bloodshed. The wars were just (!), necesssary (!), in furtherance of our commerce (!) and directly impacted American citizens and property (!).
And Iran was (supposedly) seizing tankers illegally within just the last few months (although so was the US near Venezuela, with at least paper legal authority on incorrectly-flagged vessels). Admittedly, those probably weren't US-flagged and if this were (hypothetical) a response to that it'd probably still be overzealous.
No, but several European powers (the British and the Dutch) collectively bombarded Algiers in 1816 before the treaty ending the Second Barbary War was finalized. A bit later the French invaded, forcing the Dey to abdicate in 1830.
Paper legal authority is, aside from guns, the only legal authority that matters on the high seas. You’ll notice everyone from the Indians to the French to the Swedes have started following course.
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Iran seized a couple oil tankers (not owned or flagged by America) which were on their way to America in response to the US seizing the Suez Rajan. So, not at all incomparable.
The bombartment of Algiers occurred after diplomacy failed to make progress to end the practice of enslaving Europeans, and after the execution of 200 European sailors. And even then, the request for surrender reads —
This is another case of just and necessary war, and even though Algiers was massacring and enslaving Europeans, the British commander did not see it fit to target innocent inhabitants of a city.
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Iran has declared war on the west without declaring war on the west since I’ve been alive.
They’ve killed maimed and disrupted as much as they could.
Legitimizing them is embarrassing.
This whole Trump 2.0 is an embarrassment (and I voted for him!).
I was against the war, but now that we’re in it, stopping without a new regime is wild, and bombing should restart as soon as a dollar of Iranian funds go to terrorism of the west.
The US will not not be a world super power in 200 years.
This. Remember 9/11, London, Madrid.
Oh, my mistake. Turns out that most of the terror attacks on western countries are actually Sunni attacks, not Shi'ite.
I do not like the Iranian regime, but if their 1985 bombings in Paris qualify as "continuous state of war", then we might as well claim that Saudi Arabia pursues a relentless war of extermination against the West given 9/11 etc.
They monetarily pay terrorist organizations.
I do concur that all of Islam is actually bad for the west.
They pay Hamas, which is very much pure evil, along with Hezbollah and the Houtis.
However, the original claim was that
If Hamas has the priority of waging war against the West in general, they are doing a piss-poor job of it. And we know that they can conduct complex operations when the goal is to kill Jews. It is reasonable to conclude that their mission is to destroy Israel, not the broader West.
Al-Qaida had some modest success killing Westerners, and a tremendous success is goading the US into costly wars which ended in defeat.
If Iran was funding a Shi'ite equivalent, then there would be some substance to the claim that they have 'declared war without declaring war' against the West. But simply calling the US the Great Satan is not declaring war against the West.
This is what I tried to point out with my original comment which was criticized by @Shakes. I concede that there are non-terrorist avenues which might be called war in hyperbole. However, it is not feasible for me to iterate through all the woes of Western society and point out that Iran did not craft COVID, it did not cause the Ukraine war, it did had little if anything to do with the opioid and obesity crisis, is below the US, China and Russia in per-capita CO2 emissions, does not cause modern Western dating dynamics, had no hand in crafting the later seasons of GoT and so on.
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So does the US, so does Israel. Can we stop with the pearl clutching, please?
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Come on, you can't introduce non-sequitur's to OP's point and use them as disproof of his point. "Iran has been at war with the West." "What about all these other incidents that weren't Iran's fault?" Come on, how is that logically connected at all.
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Has Iran funded a lot of terrorism in the west? I was under the impression they were one of the smaller players in that arena.
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I think this is disingenuous. There's room for legitimate disagreement over whether the US should be starting wars in defense of Israel, but calling Iran's funding of Hamas "making Israel uncomfortable" is rather understating the situation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas
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I agree, it’s disingenuous when people suggest Israel started the conflict with Iran. A core objective of the Islamic revolution is the destruction of the “Zionist entity”, not partially but wholly and absolutely, a raison d’etre of the modern Iranian state is Israel’s destruction, even at colossal political and economic cost (as we’ve seen). Since the neutering of Iraq in 2003 and Saddam’s replacement with a quasi democratic largely Shia government, no foreign power or group realistically wants to annex major parts of Iranian territory (other than perhaps the Kurds, but nobody else including Turkey would want that, and it won’t happen).
Israel’s hostility to Iran isn’t ethnic or national or irredentist or religious, like the hostility to the Palestinians. Iran is far away and Israel doesn’t claim any of it. It’s solely downstream from the Islamic revolution.
Just to add to @coffee_enjoyer's comment, it's disingenuous to suggest that Israel actually starting both wars does not constitute Israel starting the war with Iran. You simply have the ground truth that both wars started with Israel launching surprise attacks on Iran.
It's more disingenuous to suggest coarse propaganda slogans constitutes a start of a war. And by that standard, you would also have to consider the Jewish religion itself, which is an esoteric war-cry against its enemies including Iran. Jews to this day publicly celebrate Purim, the mass slaughter of Persian civilians on the basis of a "pre-emptive strike" dubiously similar to the narrative Israel is using to justify its own surprise attacks and aggressive war on Iran. Passover is publicly celebrated, which is the celebration of a mass slaughter of the first born sons of the Gentiles in Egypt. Israeli society has identified its war on Iran as a holy war on Aamalek, and that's not a new association.
The Jewish Synagogue, although slightly more esoteric than "Death to Israel", is a much more profound and esoteric war-cry than Iran's slogans, and a more indispensable raison d’etre for the entire religion itself which is why we have Israel in the first place causing so much war in the region. The religion is a war cry.
Quite awhile back, you argued that none of Israel's enemies in the region could defeat it even without US help. I countered that they wouldn't need to militarily defeat Israel, they would just need to cause enough insecurity and instability to threaten the colonial project. Not only has that proven more true than ever, but I think this war given the enormous investment by the US military shows that Israel could not have fought Iran without US help. And in fact a Iran/Hezbolahh/Houthis scenario against Israel with US neutrality very well may have resulted in the actual military defeat of Israel.
And that's the real reason for this war, going back to the "New Strategy for Securing the Realm." There was a balance of power between Iran and Israel, which is good for the US but bad highly threatening for Israel. Israel is starting this war to disrupt the balance of power, so they are hegemonic in the region.
To say Israel didn't start the wars is disingenuous in every respect.
This war and Israel itself would not exist without its religion. The Jewish religion has brought that region to this exact point, it is a religious hostility.
I would say it would be disingenuous if one were to ignore (1) Iran's threats to wipe Israel off the map; (2) it's incessant proxy attacks against Israel; and (3) it's decision to enrich Uranium in deep underground bunkers.
I think that @2rafa asked a key question: If the 1979 revolution had not taken place in Iran, would Israel and Iran be fighting each other right now? It seems pretty clear that the answer is "no." And if the answer is "no," what changed?
Here's another question to ask: What was the very first significant act of military hostility by Israel towards Iran since 1947?
That is not at all a clear answer given that Israel has been hostile to relatively secular regimes like Nasser, Hussein, Gaddafi, and Assad. Why would the Shah in this counterfactual not be included in that list of Israel's enemies? If it were like Syria, Israel would leverage fundamentalist elements in Iran to destabilize the regime and undermine the Shah like it did in Syria.
Because Israel is a threat to Iran. Israel has spent decades overtly planning for a war with Iran and petitioning the United States to attack Iran. Keep in mind Israel supported Iran during the Iran-Iraq war to provide a counterweight to Iraq. Then they take out Iraq by subverting the US foreign policy apparatus and overtly agitate for US to wage war on Iran. They take out Gaddafi (who was actually attempting to cooperate with demands placed on him), Assad, and by all accounts Iran is the crowned jewel of this policy strategy. Do you stop to think maybe that Iranian rhetoric is downstream from Israel's openly admitted foreign policy objectives and actions in pursuing highly destructive regime change throughout the region?
Rallying the country against Israel is fundamentally necessary for the survival of the regime because of Israel's own political strategy.
Syria's new leader was affiliated with al-Qaeda and ISIS! So why is his ascension over Assad considered such a huge win by Israel and US if this is ultimately about combatting religious extremism in favor of secular leadership? Doesn't that blow the entire "it was the Islamic Revolution's fault" theory out of the water? Israel WANTS an ISIS affiliate to lead Syria instead of Assad. How does this reality correspond to your impression here when it perfectly fits mine?
Edit: It's actually funnier the more you think about. Syria had Israel leveraging radical Islamist groups against the relatively secular Assad regime. Iran had Israel leveraging relatively secular monarchists against the Islamist regime. The only common denominator is Israel's objective to destabilize and destroy its rivals, it's not about fighting Islamism.
Well do you agree that before 1979, Israel and Iran were not hostile to each other? If so, what changed in 1979?
In that case, it should be pretty easy to answer my question:
What was the very first significant act of military hostility by Israel towards Iran since 1947?
When did this overt planning and petitioning start? What month and year?
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I will try to find my old comment, so you might be right, but I think what I said is that Israel’s destruction would not be inevitable in that event, or another statement that was maybe at least a little more cautious than what you imply. I’ve been pretty negative about Israel’s long-term prospects here for a while.
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This is a response to a generic argument but not the specific one. Iran and Israel were not historic enemies. Historically, Jews were sometime treated poorly in Persia and sometimes well, but that was true in many places. Israel doesn’t have any territorial claims on Iran. Even the most fantastical, maximalist Zionist claims disavowed even by most religious zionists end in Western Iraq, nowhere near Iran, and would require conquering other nations to reach. Israel and Iran had a coldly neutral or allied relationship for most of the Cold War.
It is disingenuous to pretend that what changed was not the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which brought to power in Iran a theocratic government let by a clerical leadership that considered the destruction of Israel its central and absolute foreign policy goal (not the only goal, of course, it also sought to export the revolution to Iraq and Sunni states, but the central goal, yes). This government was not threatened by Israel, which has neither the population nor any economic or political reason, independently, to rule over an Iran that is not hostile toward it. Iranians have no ethnic and scant religious relations (other than those they imagine themselves) with the Palestinians, Sunni Arabs who have themselves fought wars against them for centuries (millennia, Iran being Muslim because the Gulf Arab conquerors destroyed the Persian Sassanids, of course) and today - Hamas fighters fighting against Assad in Syria for example.
The sole reason for Israeli hostility toward Iran for the last 45 years has been the revolutionary mission of the Islamic Republic, which seeks to destroy it. Or ask yourself a simple question - if the Islamic Revolution had never occurred, do you think Israel would care to fight a war against Iran?
So the Jews create their colony in the middle of the Muslim world on the basis of superstitious, cult nonsense, and now Muslim religious hostility is cited as the justification for Israel launching these surprise attacks on its neighbors and conquering their territory and displacing the Muslims and destabilizing the region and most likely world economy. The raison d'etre for Israel is far more religious in nature than the Islamic regime in Iran.
The regimes of Assad and Saddam Hussein were not marked by rote Islamic fanaticism towards Israel, yet they were targeted by Israel for the exact same reasons I suggested. In Sryia the new regime is more Islamic than the Assad, accomplished with the support of Israel. A colonial project does not survive given a balance of power with enemies who are surrounding you. It results in colonists leaving. The US colonial project did not thrive on the basis of a balance of power with the Indians, nor the Spanish colonial project.
To answer your question, it would depend on the political objectives of the Shah. The threat of Pan-Arabism is actually what Israel has been trying to nip in the bud for all these years, preventing the political alliance of actually more secular leaders like Assad, Hussein, Nasser, and since the fall of Iraq Iran is the greatest threat of providing a basis for greater political unity and cooperation among Arabs. That is the 100x greater threat to Israel than Islamic fundamentalism- Israel's policy does not reduce to Muslim hostility, it's about making Israel the regional hegemon to secure its colonial project.
Iran is hostile to pan-Arabism, its people aren’t Arabs, and a pan-Arabist state that incorporated Assad, Hussein and Nasser’s states would become (regardless of who was in charge of Iran) a huge threat to Iran militarily and civilizationally. Israel didn’t bring war to a region that was beset with countless sectarian and ethnic divides long before it was founded.
Not necessarily a state but an Alliance, Iraqi militias are cooperating with Iran and inflicting huge damage on US assets in Iraq for example.
The point was that secular cooperation among Arabs (with Persians potentially at the helm) is what actually keeps Israeli planners up at night, sectarian fundamentalist slogans are what they point to as a pretext and they actually benefit from it and exploit it. Israel is not pursuing the policy it is because of "Death to Israel" chants, it's doing so for the reasons laid out in the Clean Break Memo, which directly plans on using sectarian fundamentalism to destabilize hostile and relatively secular regimes like Syria to prevent that type of cooperation.
In the counterfactual with the Shah, it would depend on whether he were more of an Assad figure or King of Jordan figure. But it doesn't reduce to the Islamic Revolution.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clean_Break:_A_New_Strategy_for_Securing_the_Realm
…written almost 20 years after the Islamic Revolution, and 12 years after Hezbollah officially joined an alliance with Iran, receiving funding toward its mission of destroying Israel, which had been enshrined as a central goal of the Islamic Revolution from nearly the beginning. Israel didn’t start the hostility with revolutionary Iran.
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Whatever the Chinese decide is or isn’t in their interest in a century’s time, I have absolutely no doubt that it will not be determined by the comparative empathy level of American foreign policy in the early 21st century.
There’s ample evidence that the Chinese consult history to a greater degree in their foreign policy deliberations. In 2126, in the First AI War, when China considers how to strike our techies (being the invaluable engine to the American war machine), they may decide on a strategy of targetting them in their sleep along with their wives and children and neighbors, because this is the exact strategy that America signed off on against the Persians. The Chinese would simply be following America’s rendition of customary international law and applying it against its very authors. Consider Kissinger:
I don’t know if our conduct comes from a certainty that we will always be on top (despite demographic-dysgenic catastrophe), or a hardness of heart for our own descendants, or just a general disregard for longterm thinking, but the acts committed today are written down as the standards applied against us tomorrow. And this is a decent stand-in thought for those who have dehumanized Iranians or otherwise can’t empathize with anyone outside their fold. If the Iranians are “third worldists”, then at least imagine your own great grandchildren preferring not to be destroyed by China in their sleep in the next century.
USA will always be on top, because of two huge oceans that are unmovable at least on human scales. The only real danger is Brasil getting their shit together. But when it comes to odds - Brasil getting powerful is up there with the new Ayatollah becoming catholic.
And when it comes to them hitting west techies first - this scene is the biggest perversion inflicted on source material ever. But is illustrating about various defenses to that approach. https://youtube.com/watch?v=B203twyaMfM&t=34
Oceans historically were, and in many ways still are, bridges, not barriers. When the Royal Navy pwned the US Navy, you were our bitch, to the point where we could casually loot and burn Washington DC as a side quest while fighting the Napoleonic Wars. The oceans give the US the option (just as the English Channel gave the UK the same option) of neglecting you land forces and being a pure sea power - as long as the US rules (or at least contests) the waves, you are indeed safe from invasion (as we were and probably still are).
The nature of late C20/early C21 air and sea power makes the oceans a barrier to attack even if the US wasn't a major naval power - sea power is carrier-based air power and land-based aircraft have a massive advantage over carrier-based aircraft with equivalent men and materiel. This means that the late C20/early C21 USA was impregnable because the USAF could defend the coasts against the navy of a somewhat superior adversary. (This is the "The Falklands War wasn't supposed to be winnable for the British" argument - the RN overperformed and the Argentinian Air Force underperformed). But that tech stack is obsolete, as Russia learned en route to the bottom of the Black Sea and the US is currently learning the hard way in the Gulf. Will the same logic apply in a world where sea power consists of drone carriers escorted by laser cruisers? I don't know.
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I think you're not wrong that different takes on foreign policy are informed differently by history, but I don't think that is necessarily a better take. If it were, Putin's "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians" might have landed differently. How is citing the history of the Kievan Rus working out for him?
I do think it's important to consider the long-term impacts of normalizing certain types of uses of force, though.
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