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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   12909 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026

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Well, it might have finally died, as the past month has been an object lesson in why you can't just bomb places, even in conditions as favorable as we had, where the opponent's air defenses are borderline useless and very few of their retaliatory strikes get through. Ditto for why decapitation doesn't work either. Trump seems to have fallen into the same trap where he assumed that there was an obvious solution to the Iran problem and that the only reason previous presidents didn't use it was because they were weak cowards or were too dumb to see what was obvious to everyone else.

They also seemed to be spurred on by Venezuela going smoothly, but that seems to be more like the US having helped with an internal coup by the Rodriguez faction. She puts on a "how dare they" facade for the politics, but there's been some reporting to suggest they were in contact with the US before this helping coordinate the Maduro takedown to at least some degree. She gains control and in exchange they give up a little oil and release a few prisoners Maduro had locked up, and no one knows the wiser.

Maybe this was planned with Iran as well, and they fucked up and happened to kill them. Given he's literally said that most of the replacements they had in mind are also dead, it is quite possible they had a plan like this in mind, "we take out your internal rivals and you be more friendly to us" but accidently struck the coup faction and that's why there was no one friendly to take charge and temper the Iranian response. Now they're left with a splintered and violently responsive regime and the few coup elements left can't (or don't want to anymore) take control with their main people dead.

Maybe this was planned with Iran as well, and they fucked up and happened to kill them. Given he's literally said that most of the replacements they had in mind are also dead, it is quite possible they had a plan like this in mind, "we take out your internal rivals and you be more friendly to us" but accidently struck the coup faction and that's why there was no one friendly to take charge and temper the Iranian response.

My understanding of the situation is actually just that the moment Israel knows who the US is trying to negotiate with they immediately kill them - they don't want a ceasefire, because it is in their best interest for the US to get drawn into a horrible quagmire and put boots on the ground in Iran. Several officials have just flat out said that they have to hide the details from the Israelis, and even the new (and already dead) ceasefire was arranged without Israel's knowledge to stop them from fucking it up (so they just kept on bombing Lebanon instead to make sure the war continues).

A mix of the two theories would make sense there. Israel kills the would be coup faction, (perhaps due to Kushner/Witkoff/Graham leaks? Graham especially has actively worked with Mossad before) in order to keep things going. It's not Bibi who is suffering domestically when he keeps war going, and the Israelis clearly hold a strong grasp on American politics that our politicians literally have to try to step around Israel and actively hide things from them, so it's not like Trump could, even if he wanted, call them out on it.

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