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What does the anti-war side in the US want in the Iran conflict? I'm woefully ignorant on this point of view, so I'm wondering if I can get some steelmans here.
The special military operation has not necessarily turned in the US's favor. And I understand why a majority of people were against getting into this absolute mess in the first place. But now that this mess has happened, it doesn't seem so easy to just pack up and go home. Assuming that the US passed a war powers vote, or otherwise just decided just to drop everything and go home, what next? It's a total capitulation, and to me it seems braindead obvious that Iran isn't going to stop harassing and extorting nearby shipping. I mean, what have they got to lose, meanwhile the more they extort the more money they get. So it seems like the only way that the shipment of oil can return to a normal state is if Iran is backed into a corner and is forced to stop what they are doing.
So I don't really understand the point of view of the anti-war side, such as the Democrat establishment
If their vote actually succeeded wouldn't this be pretty much the worst possible outcome? Iran commits piracy and extortion and the rest of the word twiddles their thumbs and just lets Iran do it? I can see a few hypotheses, but none of them seem to be a principled anti-war stance:
I'm sure I'm missing something here. What are the strongest ideas that make the anti-war side's case in terms of what should be done about the situation?
The humiliating defeat of Donald Trump. They want the US to leave with its tail between its legs, the Iranian regime in full possession of its nuclear capabilities, the strait in Iranian hands, reparations paid to Iran, and a break between the US and Gulf allies. And a NATO led by Canada and the Europeans. A subset would also like to see the US/Israel relationship broken, but I think anti-Trumpism is a far bigger factor than anti-Semitism.
They don't believe (probably accurately) that this would wreck the world economy; Iran, after all, would open the strait in this circumstance and any tolls it charged would be less damaging than full closure, which has itself not wrecked the world economy. They also don't believe that Iran getting a nuclear weapon would be a big problem, either because they have convinced themselves that the Iranian regime are the good guys actually (TDS at its fullest) or they figure Iran would be no worse than North Korea.
One of the things I liked about Trump was a promise of no new wars. You can't just say it's TDS people that will oppose Trump no matter what when no new wars was a huge campaign point of his.
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Straw-man much? "Oh, you are against Trump, so you must love the Ayatollah".
FWIW, I do not think that Iran gaining nukes would cause a catastrophe. I honestly think it is likely (90%) that they and Israel can successfully play cold war.
If Iran getting tolls from Hormuz is the price to pay for Trump getting removed or defanged and the US returning to a more cooperative foreign policy, that is a price I am willing to pay.
"Oh, you do not approve of the US fighting wars for Israel. You are an anti-Semite."
The current Israel government has very little overlap with my values, nor are they strategically important. The West has little to gain by covering them while they find new Lebensraum in the West Bank or Lebanon. I would very much prefer if they elected a leader who championed peaceful coexistence, but while they let Nethanyahu and his allies run the show I have little sympathy for them -- unlike the Iranians, they could have simply voted for someone different.
Did I say anyone loved any Ayatollah? (Nope)
Iran's a lot bigger, physically; it could absorb a lot more nukes.
They used to elect leaders who championed peaceful coexistence. Unfortunately their enemies always chose leaders who championed killing them all.
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Hostile powers with nukes aimed at each other certainly pushes the world closer to nuclear use. One Soviet submarine officer prevented the Cuban missile crisis from going nuclear; another successfully nothing ever happens'd a false early warning. India and Pakistan is the most likely flashpoint for nuclear war; they are neighbors, have actually fired missiles at each other, and India even managed to accidentally fire a nuclear capable missile into Pakistan a few years ago. All it takes is one stupid misunderstanding and an overzealous trigger man. Iran and Israel have the mitigating factor of distance, but Iran's paucity of early warning systems will increase paranoia.
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I am an anti-war single-issue voter and despite detecting derision in this description, I will admit that this is fairly close to my thinking on the issue.
Some changes I would make so it is more accurate to me, personally:
I am not particularly interested in the humiliation of Donald Trump, but rather the humiliation of the MIC, and the pro-war think-tanks, chicken-hawk Republicans, and establishment Democrats that support it.
NATO doesn't really factor into my thinking on the Iran war but I certainly would like to see the dissolution an an expensive alliance that only serves to pointlessly harass the Russians.
It's the opposite for me, as I would jump for joy if the United States abandoned Israel to reap what it has sown in the region.
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Nah, the goal is to salvage the best exit ramp possible. What I think this probably looks like is something like the return of JCPOA and Iran retaining control of the strait, which, I agree, sucks; hopefully we can do better! While I would like Trump to suffer a humiliating defeat in the abstract, I recognize that such a defeat would generally be tied to bad outcomes and thus very much do not want it to happen in the case of Iran. Far better would be for the SC to issue a ruling that completely smashes the administration's tariff rationale or something; a humiliating legal defeat on that issue would be a good outcome for the US, in my view, so I can root for that one unconditionally.
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I think you might be underestimating the depth of anti-Israel sentiment. Many share the sense that in the present configuration ever-greater Israeli victory (of conquest, expansion and extermination) is basically inevitable: they can always keep fomenting a bit more instability in their periphery, provoke their neighbours and subjects and then use the reaction to slice off a bit more of their land and remaining freedoms, and it's only a question of how they pace it to maximise their comfort along the way, and if all else fails they always have Daddy America's credit card and their nukes to fall back on. A nuclear-armed Iran is one of the few attainable scenarios that could significantly reshape the game tree there, and for those who don't want Israel to prevail in such a fashion this seems like an important enough goal that they would be willing to hold their nose and accept the Mullahs.
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