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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   17334 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 15, 2026

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The MOU Homesick Blues

Over the last two days, Donald Trump and JD Vance have been selling their embryonic Iran Deal to the American public and to the world. Trump has said, among other things:

  • Hamas is behaving very well these days.
  • Iran should have missiles. Why not?
  • We're going to unfreeze Iran's money. It's their money. Why should we steal their money?
  • If the war kept going there would have been an economic catastrophe. So we had to end it.
  • Some of the guys in the Islamic regime are really nice.
  • If Iran didn't open the Strait of Hormuz our oil reserves would have run out in 4 weeks. We had to make a deal.
  • Netanyahu is crazy. They keep killing innocent civilians. He needs to be more responsible.
  • Without me and America, Israel wouldn't exist.

Directly he states:

“The alternative to this deal was a global recession. There are stupid people who want to see a global recession. They are just stupid people. The Strait of Hormuz would never have been opened."

Along with this banger

“I think [Israel] could do better … I'm not saying they shouldn't protect themselves. I'm saying when two drones are shot into the desert and drop harmlessly, you don't have to knock down buildings in Beirut. They could behave better…”

JD has said:

“If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have left. 2/3 of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars. The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump, and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the President of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in”

"Do I think there are people within Israeli society who would like to turn Iran into Libya, basically a failed state with 90 million people? Probably."

"What is your exact proposal? You’re a country of 9 million people. You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have."

Israeli ministers have been striking out against the deal

For every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep. All of Lebanon must burn! With all due respect to the Americans, Israel must make it clear to the entire world that the blood of our sons and the security of our citizens are not forfeit. All of Lebanon must burn. Our supreme duty is to protect the citizens of Israel and the soldiers of the IDF, and this commitment takes precedence over every other consideration. I told the Prime Minister, even in our private meetings: For every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep. Enough with the ping-pong. In the Middle East, you don’t win with measured responses and restraint—you need to go berserk. To obliterate. To crush the terror.

The entire first line of Lebanese villages has been destroyed. We are destroying all the houses. The residents will never see them standing before their eyes again.

Now reports are coming in that Israel does not consider itself bound by the MOU, and intends to keep bombing Lebanon without reference to it.

The IRGC has stated today:

“Since Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, the complete lifting of the naval blockade, and the withdrawal of American terrorist forces from the Persian Gulf and the region are among the main conditions of the agreement between Iran and the United States. The Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until these conditions are met. All ships are requested, for the sake of their security and safety, not to approach the Strait of Hormuz. Any vessel that defies this directive will be targeted.”

With the United States executive committed to the MOU, and Israel committed to the opposite policy, Yeshiva World News reports:

Israeli officials told Maariv that Trump’s demands are not merely theoretical and that issues concerning Lebanon, Syria, and the Syrian Hermon were raised in recent discussions with Netanyahu, adding that the prime minister made it clear that Israel will not agree to withdrawing from its security positions in the north. A senior Israeli official told Reuters that Israel is carrying out “stubborn negotiations” with the US on maintaining its military presence in southern Lebanon and has no intention of backing down. The officials warned that the messages coming from Washington are no longer limited to difficult discussions. The US is signaling that if Israel continues to insist on its position, it will consider practical measures, ranging from delays in weapons shipments to restrictions on operational assistance, and even more severe steps that could potentially amount to a de facto arms embargo.

So, what now?

How does the USA navigate this problem with its erstwhile ally?

Part of me feels very strongly, the patriotic Toby Keith, regardless of your feelings about US policy or about this administration, that we can't have our president get cucked like that on the world stage. Trump has publicly signed, endorsed, justified, sold the MOU. He's stated clearly that it is necessary to the interests of the United States in maintaining the global economy. If Israel is our ally, our greatest ally, then they can't be allowed to do this to us. They can't insult and undermine the clear foreign policy of the POTUS and be allowed to do so. From the beginning I've said that Israeli forces, inasmuch as they are allied to the USA, should be under the command of an American general, Spartan style. They can't be allowed to go against us and continue to suck off the teat of the American taxpayer.

So plan trusters, antisemities, pro-Palestinians, shitlibs, anyone. Where do we go from here with Israel? What happens next? How can you, as the American President, allow your ally to undermine your own clearly stated foreign policy goals and, in your own opinion, wreck the world economy? At this point in the process what pressure can even be put on Iran?

This feels bad.

What exactly is Israel supposed to do? Not make a fuss about jihadist Muslims killing their citizens because it will mess up Trump's "peace deal" (read: humiliating capitulation virtually unparalleled in US history)?

If Trump wants to prostrate himself to the IRGC, he's free to do so, but when the Israelis said "Never again", it wasn't just an empty statement.

What's really funny is that Israel's enemies don't understand that it's America that protects them from Israel. The dissolution of the friendship between the US and Israel is not good news for Iran, Syria, etc.

It seems rather obvious that the Iran war was Israel's idea, and they managed to sell it to Trump.

There are ways they can respond to the odd missile which do not blow up the world economy. Blow up a few more pagers or whatever.

but when the Israelis said "Never again", it wasn't just an empty statement.

Come on. How many thousand Jews does Iran murder in their camps per day, again?

Sure, Oct 7 was bad, and Iran is partly to blame for arming the murderous thugs known as Hamas, but it was still just a terrorist attack, not a genocide. Personally, if I were arguing for Israel's side of things, I would stay the hell away from genocide rhetoric, because the party most likely to have crossed the line from ordinary war crimes to that is not Iran.

For example, they are demolishing villages in Lebanon. The aim is clearly to forcibly displace the native population. Arguably, that is already genocide.

Personally, I have very little sympathy for the objective of keeping Iran away from nukes. "A Middle-Eastern country run by bloodthirsty, slightly genocidal religious nutjobs has nukes" is something we have survived before. If we can get Iran not to develop nukes with some modest effort (e.g. Obama's deal), I am all for it. If we need to wreck the world economy to prevent it, it is simply not worth it.

What's really funny is that Israel's enemies don't understand that it's America that protects them from Israel. The dissolution of the friendship between the US and Israel is not good news for Iran, Syria, etc.

We will just have to see, won't we? I am a bit skeptical that their current strategy of jeopardizing the opening of Hormuz will endear them to the autocrats of the gulf states. Israel does not have the manpower to occupy Iran. I think it is fair to say that cowing Iran through conventional air power has been tried extensively. Extending the bombing to civilian infrastructure will not help.

Perhaps they can nuke Iran, but at that point the gulf autocrats might feel obliged to do something about them for appearances sake, even if they secretly welcome them decimating a rival regional power. Their population does not get to vote, but Israel killing a few tens of millions of Muslims might still incite some anger.

Last year, Israel weathered the Iranian drone and missile attacks very well in part because the US and their regional allies were shooting them down. If the US decides that the crazies bombing each other in the ME does not concern them, things might turn out differently.

On a longer timeline, being cut off from US military tech will definitely hurt Israel. How many different weapon systems can a country of nine million citizens develop by themselves, really?

Personally, I have very little sympathy for the objective of keeping Iran away from nukes. "A Middle-Eastern country run by bloodthirsty, slightly genocidal religious nutjobs has nukes" is something we have survived before

Well, you can survive a decent number of rounds of Russian roulette, too. Which isn't to say I'm an Iran hawk, but "very little sympathy" seems extreme.

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