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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   13677 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026

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And NATO was not going to help either, as they don't feel any inclination to help dig trump out of the hole he created.

I think this understates the problem. I think a large part of the failures of the Iran war were predictable, but probably not by people in the mainstream, and probably not people in the Trump admin. I have very large outlier views on the matters of Iran and Iran's relations with other countries, which I think would have been necessary to predict what actually happened.

Because yes, NATO not helping is predictable, they barely ever do anything.

What no one in just about ANY mainstream, left or right, warroom would have predicted is that France, Germany, England, etc would be just fine with Iran pirating boats destined for their countries and/or flagged to their countries and/or crewed by people from their countries. Which is what we have seen. Iran bombs a tanker bound for Germany, and Germany just shrugs, or even more derangedly, blames the USA. Its like blaming the SWAT team when a highjacker intentionally kills a hostage during the raid. But this is Europe's mentality now. And IMO not predictable by any mainstream people.

Unless you understood the JCPOA as I did, as tacit approval by all the signatories for Iran to obtain nukes and continue terrorist operations while obtaining nukes for the purpose of deploying them against Israel and ultimately the USA. If you think that is what all those countries actually wanted, then you understand why they act so limply while their ships are bombed by a hostile power.

Its like blaming the SWAT team when a highjacker intentionally kills a hostage during the raid.

America is not the SWAT. There is no SWAT. It's like blaming a rival terrorist group who thought they can take out the hijacker's leader, and have him replaced with their guy.

or even more derangedly, blames the USA.

would this be happening had Trump not attacked Iran in the first place ?

In a directly causal way, this is true. Iran realized it could do this thing only because they were so desperate.

In the real world, Iran could always do this thing. Ever since the Euros basically sanctioned it we have seen it proliferate through the mid east. Imagine if Israel shuts down Suez Canal traffic after a Gazan Hamas attack. Will the French blame Hamas then? You and I both know that is silly.

We had hundreds of years of countries enforcing maritime norms abandoned because Euros are wimps now.

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