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Operation Poseidon Archer
Reported by CNN:
I have mixed feelings about this. It is clearly the responsibility of the imperial hegemon to protect global shipping lanes. But by that same logic, it's time for the imperial hegemon to force a settlement onto the Israelis due to their never-ending destabilization of the region. That would entail the EU forcing a peace onto Israel, performing a Special Military Operation within Israel if necessary.
Bring back the 117 AD borders, with EU administration of Jerusalem. Jews may live in Jerusalem, wail at their wall and study Torah in peace, but it is utterly nonsensical for the West to continue to bear the burden of Israeli destabilization of the region.
This washy middle ground of appealing to imperial obligations when it comes to Middle Eastern intervention, without control of the "vassal" state destabilizing the region, is a never-ending pattern that has to stop. The US and EU has more than enough leverage to force a settlement onto Israel.
Israel is a nuclear armed state. You want a special military operation against a nuclear armed state to enforce what is likely an existential crisis for the nuclear armed nation? Israel differs from Iran and Pakistan in that its a dense nation. Its population centers are close to everywhere. You cant do limited attacks on it without attacking an Israeli population center. Thats a redline for the Israelis. They might genuinely choose to detonate a thermonuclear bomb over Europe in response. And Europe would deserve it.
Im going to answer some concerns and questions pre-emptively. The Israeli are mostly self sufficient when it comes to weapons. They do rely on outside parties for munitions, aircraft(as in piloted aircraft), and precision guided bombs. That ignores the Israeli ability to build bomb and munition making factories. They also have access to F35s and could reverse engineer them. In the 80s, the Israelis engineered an F15 competitor called the Lavi. An F15 was the major US air fighter jet btw, before it was replaced by the F35. Without US help, the Lavi aircraft showed the Israelis have the manpower and technical expertise to make advanced war weapons on their own. It was mainly a cost issue that they decided against, and it was only by a margin of one vote that it was decided against. After the fall of the Soviet Union, over a million Soviet Jews immigrated to Israel. This was a highly educated population with lots of technical expertise. Even before that happened, they had enough of it to survive.
Many people really dont look at the 50s-80s of Israeli history. They were precarious times, but the state of Israel survived under much worse circumstances. They have only grown richer and more established.
Lets say you cut off all military weaponry to Israel, including US aid. They already spend 5% of gdp on military. You likely only raise it to 7%, with no US aid. The Israelis have the technical expertise to manufacture the basics of war.
Lets say you start a trade embargo.
How far do you take it? Are you going to starve the Israelis to death? That would kill more Palestinians than israelis...because ding ding ding, Palestinians are controlled by Israel.
Okay, lets say not that. You only hit the Israeli pocketbook. You might convince them. Emphasis on might.
All this goes out the door the instance a Palestinian state starts shooting rockets at Israel. Which I find likely. Lets say a Palestinian state shoots rockets, what happens? A Palestinian state is positioned near Israeli population centers. Most Gaza rockets only affected the Israeli South. Not Tel Aviv or the Center. That wouldnt be the case with a Palestinian state, because of how the West Bank is positioned. If a Palestinian state fails to establish peace, I find it likely the Israelis expel the Palestinians. The Israelis will get sick of rockets over their heads, eventually.
Israel expelling the Palestinians leads to a regional war. A war the middle east would not win. All Israel has to do is survive. Israel has the superior military in the Levant. It has nukes. The conventional militaries of the Arab states are made for keeping the populations in line, although I suspect they will do better than even the Israelis predict. Israel would win, because at the very worst, they would use tactical nukes on advancing Arab militaries. The Arab militaries that also do show prowess, are mainly guerilla fighters in populated territories. Not conventional forces. If their population centers were threatned, they would use nukes on Arab population centers like Cairo, Amman, Beirut, Damascus. They might even target Riyadh in Saudi Arab in the Gulf if they feel malicious.
So Israel wins. It is now a heavily sanctioned pariah state like North Korea. Except unlike North Korea, they have decades of built up infrastructure and technical expertise. The Israeli population will also be much more motivated, because its their survival at stake. Not some stupid regime.
Israel likely wins a middle east war. What you have next, is waves of millions of refugees on Europes borders. Not just Palestinians. Lebanese, Jordanians, Syrians. I could see Israel taking the East side of the Jordan and expelling any all Jordanians to give a buffer. Jordan likely collapses because of internal instability caused by too many Palestinian refugees.
All youve done is destroy the Middle East, and send hordes of refugees to Europe. You probably havent even destroyed Israel, just punched it. This also ignores the one unknown. Russia. If push came to shove, and Israel was already isolated, I could see the Russians supporting Israel in trade. A state that could become a Russian proxy to threaten Europe? Russia would love that.
Frankly the worlds obsession with the Israeli Palestinian conflict is absurd and more trouble than its worth. Fine boycott arms if you want to feel morally superior, but all you do is make the situation worse just to sniff farts up your own ass.
Why Europe even needs an opinion to care about this conflict, that they need to impose a solution, is whats ridiculous? The Arab states barely care about the Palestinians as they have shown. Not enough to militarily intervene. Not enough to stop trading oil. Why should Europe do anything only to make a contained situation worse. that they have nothing riding on?
I’ve been saying the same thing for a while. I don’t get the west’s obsession. People are marching in the streets of London flying PLO flags… why? It’s just another ethnic conflict in the middle-east, and a low stakes one at that. It’s baffling.
When you see grassroots, suspect astroturf. Someone's propagandizing, organizing, and funding those marches. You'll likely find a web of NGOs behind them, but maybe it won't be opaque enough to hide the (Middle Eastern) state funding.
Probably. I'd expect this to be more well-known, though, especially these days and in pro-Israeli circles. I think there's also a torrent of info and mis-info coming out of true-believers in the Palestinian cause - there are quite a lot of Muslims in the world where that can originate from. Still, I'd imagined the median person to be more apathetic than this.
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A two-state solution enforced by the EU is not an existential crisis for Israel.
I don't think the Israelis are going to nuke their Plan B. A decent portion of dual citizens have already left. If they are willing to nuke Europe for forcing a two-state solution onto them, by force if necessary, then that already says everything we need to know about our Greatest Ally.
But it wouldn't get that far, the Israelis would fold like a cheap suit if the EU plausibly threatened to enforce a two-state solution with the threat of force, with the backing of the majority of the world community. The international community brought Israel into this world, if Israel is going to throw nukes to stop a two-state solution then that is a big problem for the entire world which needs to be solved.
History rhymes, that would end poorly for Israel, but it wouldn't come to that.
You realize Israel has already, again, brought the region to the brink of war? The purpose of enforcing a two-state solution onto Israel with international administration of Jerusalem would be to prevent the likelihood of a regional war which Western support of Israel is currently enabling under the status quo.
You just explained why a regional war is a catastrophe for European and American interests. I've already explained that these military operations in the Middle East are a huge burden of resources and credibility, now we are fighting Yemen in a very expensive engagement that is probably going to last quite a while. It's our problem, it's not just Israel's problem.
I do not know what you are smoking if you call the situation "contained." It is not contained. Israel has failed for decades to contain the situation. They aren't capable of it. It's time for the international community to intervene.
Most Israeli jews dont have a second passport. Theyre for the most part, born and bred in Israel. If anything, some have a passport to Russia. Thats about it.
You propose military invading a nation and then that nation not responding? Is this not ridiculous bad faith? If you invade a nuclear armed nation, why are you even remotely surprised in response? Europe would deserve a nuke or two if they were that stupid.
The world didnt bring Israel into this world? What are you even on about? The British limited immigration to Palestine during the Holocaust. America embargoed Israel from 1948-1962, onlyproviding weapons sales when they also sold to Egypt. The British and Americans tried to limit arms going to the Israelis during the war of independence. It was the Soviet Union, France and Czechoslovakia that allowed arm sales to israel that helped the Israelis win. The israelis arent dependent on arms sales any longer.
I mean....if Israel uses a nuke, it means they already made the rational calculation your going to destroy their survival. Why not use a nuke if thats the case?
And you would station European troops inside Palestine and Israel?
Europe cant even defend its borders, and you want it to manage a conflict in the middle east? Youd have 7-8 million angry Israeli Jews doing an insurgency, and possibly 5 million Palestinians, because they would not likely react to European forces being maintained there positvely.
Yes...50 years ago. Not today. No one is going to war over Gaza or the West Bank. No one cares enough. Not Egypt. Not Jordan. Hezbollah is content lighting some rockets on fire at the Israeli north.
And Ive just explained why enforcing a solution just to make an even bigger mess for almost no gain seems ridiculous. There is no regional war going on for the West Bank and Gaza. Why do you propose a military solution to something that doesnt even matter to Europe? Why do you propose a solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict at all, when no one in the Middle East cares enough except for Iranian proxies which mainly focus on attacking Israel?
You also seem to think most of these military operations in the Middle East are for israels sake. They arent. Israel was neutral about the invasion of Iraq. No Netanyahu wasnt Prime Minister even though he was in favor during the time, Ariel Sharon was. Israel didnt care about Gaddafi in Libya. Houthis are being bombed because they attack all shipping going through the red sea, not just Israeli. Almost none of these military operations are for Israels sake. Israel fights alone usually, at most relying on foreign arm imports when necessary, and rely on domestic arms manufacturers when it can.
I mean they mostly have. The West Bank doesnt explode in violence. The only reason Gaza became such a handful was that Israel chose to leave it. Why pray tell, should Israel deoccupy the West Bank and Gaza when the history has shown that they are contained when Israel has military control, and the region doesnt ignite on fire without big political moves.
For someone who wants less problems for Europe, it seems very counter intuitive to desire a possible military action against Israel and enforce a failed Palestinian state, which would likely set up a regional war when there isnt one anyway.
From what it sounds like, you seem to think Israel is a weak little state that will fold at the drop of the hat. They arent. They are the Middle East's Prussia. A military with a state.
You are talking out of both sides of your mouth... Israel is this invincible Middle East Prussia, but then at the same time Israel's survival is threated by a Palestinian state. Which is it?
Forcing Israel to accept a two-state solution is not going to destroy Israel. It might destroy some expansionist ambitions fueled by fanatical belief in biblical prophecy. And that's a good thing, that has not been good for the region.
That's why Israel would capitulate. If the entire world is pressuring Israel to accept a two-state solutions, with EU peacekeepers to put down any troublemakers on either side to make it happen, there's no reason to humor the notion of Israel nuking Europe.
This is a whole other debate. They publicly had one position, but privately they funneled bogus intelligence about WMDs to the White House, including claims like an Iraqi spy supplying a 9/11 hijacker with Anthrax while in Prague. Israel pushed this intelligence in October, just a month after the WTC and anthrax attacks.
Because the US/EU has no control over Israel yet we are responsible for and impacted by what happens in the Middle East. When the Yemenis shut down shipping lanes, it's the problem of the United States. You've already explained why a regional war in the Middle East would be a catastrophe for Europe, so why do you keep asking why the US/EU cares what happens there?
If it were up to me, there would be a one-state solution with equal political rights between Israelis and Palestinians, and constitutional protections for any minority groups. But you would regard that as a bigger existential threat than a two-state solution. So the reality is you have no solutions, you are demanding we accept the status quo, or demanding we accept an ethnic cleansing of the region which will destroy our credibility and myths surrounding our own hegemony. The international community is getting tired of it, and yes they brought Israel into this world with a vote. That's the sort of origin story that gives the demands of the international community a lot of weight.
I have to say, the very idea of lethargic, cowardly Europe trying to occupy Israel is about as unserious as it gets. Europeans don't even have the political will to defend their own back yard in Ukraine, let alone shed blood in the middle east. Besides, how do you suppose "EU peacekeepers [...] put down any troublemakers" such as Hamas, any better than Israel can? As in, technically, how? Your track record in fighting guerillas isn't very good.
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The international community recognized Israel. They did not bring into existence. You can partially thank the Arab states for expelling their Jews for that. Without the million or so Mizrahi Jews from the Arab states, Israel would not have survived. The international community did not build up Israeli institutions, and for the most part, did not give the Israelis out of good will. The British and Americans embargoed the Israelis.
Neither side even wants this. And not to mention, that a one state would look like Lebanon. A failed state run by either religious Zionist militias or Islamist militias. Add in nukes, and youve successfully destabilized the middle east for another several generations. Very divorced from the realities of wanting stability and peace.
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I have not been clear. A Palestinian state would not jeopardize the existence of Israel. However, when a Palestinian state fires rockets over Israeli population centers, you hit a red line for what the Israelis will be willing to take. There is only so much duress they will be willing to live under.
You want the EU to project force out of Europe to make israel capitulate, when they cant even find the will to help Ukraine against Russia?
A failed Palestinian state, would lead to a regional war. As it currently stands, the Houthis will end their stupid attacks on shipping once the Israeli war in Gaza ends. We would not be having this discussion, if Israel had just kept up its occupation of Gaza. There would be no war in Gaza, no massive civilian deaths. That is what is likely if a Palestinian state is made in the West Bank. Not a political solution or peace in anyway.
I say, yes accept the status quo. Why not accept the status quo of Israeli occupation? The current Gaza war is only because Israel left Gaza. If Israel hadnt left and ended the occupation, it would be all quiet on the Palestinian front.
I dont say accept ethnic cleansing. I dont want that. Im saying, a failed Palestinian state will resolve into ethnic cleansing. Notice, I mean failed. There is a possibility for success with a Palestinian state.
A successful Palestinian state will have to be at least 20 years down the line. Reform the PA. The PA is a corrupt govt, like very badly corrupt that siphons off most the aid given to it. Gradually deradicalize the population. Make economic incentives that intertwine the economies of Israel and Palestine.
An economic peace must come first, than a political peace. Once that is established, we can talk about a Palestinian state.
As I see it, an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank will just result in more fighting. Just like Gaza did. That will result in a regional war and more death and instability in the Middle East. Better for the occupation to continue than for chaos.
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As others said, I do not think Israel is particularly destabilizing force in the region compared to all the alternatives. Historically you have all types of conflict in the Middle-East including religious and sectarian strife, ethnic strife, ideological strife between monarchies and republics and socialist revolutionary states as well as tribal and all other types of conflicts. If anything, Israel has quite cordial relations with some of its neighbors like Egypt or Saudi Arabia, which is obviously the reason why somebody sees an ally of my enemy as his enemy.
In fact the civil war in Yemen is a proof that Israel does not have much to do with instability in the region as it is generally viewed as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran where Saudis are actually propped up by western aid in this conflict. So now what - should US and EU depose the Saudi dynasty and establish the country as some direct protectorate to ensure flow of oil and secure Red See and straight of Hormuz?
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Israel as a destabilising force is overblown. The Middle East is unstable because of poverty, despotism, the smartphone revolution, the resource curse, and good old fashioned regional rivalry. Today, Few Arabs with real power actually give a fuck about Palestinians, and of those that do, even fewer give enough of a fuck that they are willing to upset the apple cart over it. Normalisation of relations between Israel and its historical antagonists was well underway before 10/7, and will be well underway again in 18 months or so.
Once you get past the racial animus, all that Israel is doing is using military force to deal with an uppity subpopulation, something Arabic states think is totally reasonable.
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If your position is practical, rather than moral, wouldn't it be simpler and cheaper to stop sending aid to Gaza and Yemen, and let the populations there starve to death? It would be much more effective than bombing weapons caches, and nobody seems to care about starving Yemenis anyway.
That's not practical, because it discredits America and makes enemies of a billion Arabs. Even Joe Biden enabling the Israelis in their current operation is a huge blow to the perceived legitimacy of America in the region. Israel is not and has never been worth all the animosity it has earned the United States from the Arab world. Practical considerations means it's time's up on Israel failing to secure peace after many decades and enormous leeway and support.
It does not discredit the US one bit if it stops sending aid to Yemen. Note how the crisis in Yemen is caused by their Arab brethren, not by any western entity. In truth, the way that the US currently handles the situation - on the one hand arming the Saudis, and on the other hand feeding the Houthis - is causing you to look as two-faced as possible. Same goes for the Israeli-Arab situation. You're not winning any friends by playing both sides and prolonging wars, no matter what humanitarian justifications you may think up.
You also say that "Israel [...] has never been worth all the animosity it has earned the United States from the Arab world." To counter a "never" claim, one example is enough, thus I present you with "have doughnut". Western powers are well-known for being fickle and untrustworthy, only concerned with what your allies can supply you in the short term, but you don't have to play up to stereotype by totally forgetting the past. Maybe a more mild statement is called for.
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Or to put it in another metric - 400 nukes.
I'm not aware of any Arab countries with nukes. Are you thinking of Pakistan?
No. I was referring to that it takes 400 nukes to make 0 arabs hate us from 1 billion
Ah, I see. I'm not an expert on nukes, but I'd think you'd need more than that to get them down to 0. Also, if you want to color only within the lines - i.e. not hit Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan etc. - you'd need to add some other, more accurate ordinance, just to get those corners filled out.
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Killing a billion people would presumably make you several additional enemies among the people you didn't kill.
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If the Iraq war and invasion (and eventual desertion) of Afghanistan didn't achieve this, not sure why Palestine is the red line.
I don't think you've got a strong argument for why "not sending endless amounts of aid" leads to making enemies of "a billion Arabs," most of whom have zero capability to even hurt U.S. interests.
I find the whole premise actively silly, to be honest.
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There's only half a billion Arabs.
Maybe he was including future Arabs too?
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Why would it be practical to genocide millions of people and piss off the entire middle east? Israel provides little benefit at an enormous cost. The sensible solution is to dump Israel and befriend the arab states.
What do you mean "why"? If you want to stop the Houthis from blocking trade routes, surely their disappearance would achieve that goal. Dead people cannot initiate hostilities.
You're welcome to try to "befriend the arab states", though you'll have to choose which ones. Currently you're on the Saudi-Sunni axis, which is one of the reasons the Iranian don't like you. Rest assured that your support for Israel is a minor issue at best.
Chinese ships sail through just fine. They have no problem because they haven't been killing large numbers of people in the middle east. Trillions have been wasted on warmongering in the middle east and the result is that Chinese ships are safer in the red sea.
Yes, that's pretty much what I said. the Iranian proxy groups do not target China, since they're on good terms with each other. The US, however, has chosen to side with the Saudi-Sunni side (in general). At the same time, you're also feeding your friends' enemies - literally sending aid to the Houthis and Gazans at the same time your allies are fighting them. You expect to not be hated when acting in such a two-faced manner? You're playing both sides, prolonging every conflict for as long as possible, and now everyone hates you. Just FYI, the Israeli public isn't very happy with you either. What else do you expect?
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Their is no evidence any of the Arab states care at all about Palestinians or Yemenis. They definitely don’t want those people in their borders.
Pakistan kicked millions of Afganistans out. It would seem to be a stretch to say any of those countries care about a Palestinian.
Pakistan and Pashto groups have been in conflict for a long time. Palestinians are often the same ethnic group as a large portion of the surrounding countries. They clearly don't want many of the holiest sites in Islam occupied by jews.
Maybe 30 years ago. Saudis already signed off on Jewish ownership. Your statement is no longer correct.
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Why would Christians and Jews want many of the holiest sites in Christendom and Judaism occupied by Muslims?
A lot of Palestinians are christians and if anything the muslims see Jesus and the biblical stories as a part of their religion. Most importantly, it means 7 million Palestinians stay in Palestine and we don't get another massive neocon refugee crisis on Europe's doorstep. Europe and the middle east both benefit from stable middle eastern regimes. Israel wants destabilize the region.
As far as I know, historically speaking, the only times the region has been 'stable' was when it was ruled by a single empire. Similar to Iraq's Sunni-Shia fighting only being tamped down while Saddam was in power.
So this seems like an argument for European re-establishing the region as a colony.
Like, do you apply the same standards to the Balkans region of Europe itself? Would we benefit if control of the entire region to one of the local powers? Would Europe benefit from stable Eastern European regimes?
Compare Libya under Gadaffi and after Israel-supporters wrecked it. Iran, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia are fairly stable states because there hasn't been intervention. Egypt is stable and peaceful. There is no reason why Palestine can't function as well as Egypt.
It is the opposite. Every time the neocons send troops to the middle east we get flooded with migrants. The best policy for the west is to get out of the middle east, support stable regimes and ending support for Israel.
I generally support smaller states. However, in south eastern Europe bigger alliances are needed to defend Europe's borders from invasions from the middle east.
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"Reintroducing the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem" will not actually bring stability to the reason. It would, honestly, probably be worse(does Sixtus Enrique de Borbon Parma start another Lebanese civil war trying to retake the crown of the crusader states? He's certainly radical enough to try and there's probably enough disaffected Maronites). The alternative to Israeli domination of the southern Levant is domination by an Iranian proxy Islamic kleptocracy which commits ethnic cleansing at the drop of a hat and probably reintroduces slavery while trying to shut down the Suez canal every few weeks. Local geopolitics being what it is, they'll be at war with their neighbors all the time even if one of their neighbors is Israel.
We live in the real world. French and Italian troops storming Tel Aviv to bring racial equality to the middle east will fail and just turn into another failed state.
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More seriously, I think it is true that one of the worst aspects of the American era of Western hegemony is the informal and indirect nature of empire. It is much cheaper than the French, British or (arguably) Spanish approaches, but it’s much more destabilized and mostly much worse for the ruled populations. Yes, Bukele aside, McKinsey under contract from the State Department could do a better job of running most of Latin America than the locals. BCG and 20,000 American mercenaries in charge of Haiti would save countless lives. It would be both humane and reasonable for America to assume control over its colonies. Hand the treasury and tax collection of every country that was a Western colony in 1950 to Citigroup + enforcers and they would do a better job than the average corps of corrupt third-world officials. America has the right to rule Israel, just as it has the right to rule the EU. It is a shame that, in practice, it rules neither (it took over a decade, a war and a little sabotage to convince the Germans to drop their pipeline, after all).
And there’s an aesthetic aspect, too. The Union flag once flew in Vancouver, in Belize, in Accra, in Cape Town, in Cairo, in Delhi, in Hong Kong, in Auckland, in New York for that matter. The American flag does not fly in Seoul, not in Tokyo, not in Riyadh, nor in Bogota or Mexico City, not even in London. It’s sad. Painting the world blue, forcing the other nations to sing your song, bow to your flag, put pictures of your leader in their public buildings, isn’t that what it’s all about? McDonald’s and Starbucks in Jakarta and Nairobi can never fully replace that.
Having other countries side with you, use your symbols and laws, and aspire to your culture by choice is certainly a more impressive measure of your global stature than only being able to make them do that by force.
Go to a political rally in Seoul and I assure you that you will indeed see countless American flags; go to Mexico City, or any City in Mexico, and you can see their numerous statues of Abraham Lincoln. American flags fly in Taiwan, in Argentina, in Brazil, in countries no one would even think of, and there are statues of Reagan, Clinton, Lincoln, George Washington, Woodrow Wilson, even irrelevant Presidents like Rutherford Hayes, in countries across the world, in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo, even in the lands of our mortal enemies like China and Russia.
Countries we've fought brutal wars with like Vietnam and the Philippines still have incredibly favorable impressions of us and line up for American trade and security guarantees out of choice rather than at the point of a gun; there are West Africans who will frown when they think you're British and break out into a grin when they see you're American, Liberians who will proudly tell you they are in fact American as well, 750 military bases across nearly half the countries in the world where American soldiers walk armed and freely by request of the host nation, countless constitutions and legal systems inspired by the American foundational blueprint, police forces the world over taught by Americans, a world learning English and watching American media and crossing oceans and deserts to come be part of the United States.
Don't pine for empire, we already have it - the footprint of America covers every corner of the world.
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Much like the common wisdom about political positions, under no circumstances should any country explicitly seeking a world empire ever be permitted to form one.
The problem about the American empire is that it doesn't actually work without Americans (or at least, the Americans of the past). And Americans are a real special lot simply because the founding of that country was, for the most part, one massive selection effect for those with genes expressing strong slave morality (something its geography and massive amount of natural resources also enabled).
"Slave" morality is a bit of misnomer (Nietzsche had great branding, but the branding really distracts from the underlying ideas) - it's more a statement that the ultimate good in the world comes from what you can do, and not who you are. It's the counterargument to "if you have freedom, what you get is seven zillion witches and three principled libertarians", and it's an attempt to solve the Iron Law of Bureaucracy in favor of the people who are actually providing the value; it's also why civil rights legislation and feminism [have had to] use that language to get anywhere, and wouldn't morph into the naked group supremacy movements they are today until they had stripped every branch of the "protection XYZ would make it easier for us to serve you" tree. ("Who you are" is inherently toxic to a society because it comes at the expense of "what you can do".)
But it's much better for the Americans themselves, which is what actually matters when it comes to keeping the empire operating and dominant. And the longer you can keep slave morality as the law of the land, the longer you can keep the parasites (an emergent property of any society) from strangling the golden goose that is the cultural milieu of "people actually want to serve others, serving is the highest good, and going the extra mile is godliness".
But the one thing slave morality can't solve for is "it's for your own good". You see this in the societal zeitgeist everywhere- a lot of rebelling against the people who believe they know better, and these people are never portrayed in a positive light.
Now sure, there's some master morality in America- this is why the term "Puritans" means what it means to American ears (though it wouldn't matter if they were just slightly more strict than the other three nations- not that it was, but still), and combined with the above, why that word being used is almost always meant as an insult. But it's never really been dominant- partially due to even its master-moralizers (for the most part traditionalists, but sometimes even the progressives of their day) having slave morality as a religion that could be appealed to, and partially because economic development in the US has almost never been zero-sum.
When those things are no longer true, or as they become less salient, you can expect American-specific parasitism to be pushed harder in every Western state. You can see the ones that are closest to the American orbit flying the New American flag in their government offices- typically a rainbow flag of some sort simply named "Progress"- and espousing the related social policies that the parasitic class in American power centers prefers.
I don't think this is completely true, and if anything a lot of 20th and early 21st century progressivism was imported into America rather than exported to Europe, Canada and other vassals. The US wasn't ahead of other Western countries in feminism or even racial politics, Fanon etc, Said taught at Columbia but he wasn't really a product of the metropole.
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You personally happen to care about the aesthetics of aristocracy and conquest probably much more than the average person does. Conquering a country, building a big statue of yourself in the middle of its capital, and sending your sons over to be its governors is something that, for the average person, has not seemed romantic outside of historical fiction in what, probably 80 years or so now? We live in an age in which the underdog is celebrated, the plucky rebel who blows up the Death Star, and it does not really matter whether the Empire or the Rebellion are better at giving the galaxy on average a decent quality of life. That is why, for example, in America both the left and the right paint themselves as morally righteous underdogs fighting against authoritarian oppression. There is just not much appetite among the general public for a proud "might makes right" ideology.
This is a Chesterson's Fence situation. We decided that it was Very Enlightened to not care about things like aesthetics, building giant statues, or verbalizing imperial ambitions in polite company (you are supposed to couch your imperial ambitions in terms of Saving Democracy and Spreading Freedom, much more progressive and enlightened). But without those things, it's pretty damn hard to maintain an empire. Take something like Demographic change. Is it possible for us to let go of the grug-brain attachment to flags and statues without committing demographic suicide and losing the empire? Apparently not.
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I very much disagree with your assessment as to what is destabilizing the region. If not for Israel some other excuse would be made. Stabilization in the Mid East is probably synonymous with aggressive depopulation and/or heavy handed colonialism.
There are stable countries in the middle east. There have been long peacefull periods. Bombing them relentlessly, engaging in regime change and undermining stable regimes has been a disaster. Libya was stable for decades before the neocons decided to have a war and flood Europe with migrants. Syria could have been as stable as Jordan or the UAE if it hadn't been destroyed.
What has created stable states in the middle east is not intervening in them.
You also blame Israel for Syria? Syria had a civil war because Al Assad was shitty at managing his state. The Syrian economy didnt fundamentally improve the lives of its citizens. I remember reading that climate change forced Syrian farmers into cities in Syria. Food prices increased a lot, which led to the Syrian 2011 protests that became a national rebellion.
The Middle East is unstable because its leaders and elites have been shit at managing their states. This leads to major rebellions and wars. This is why there was a rebellion against Gaddafi in Libya and Al Assad in Syria. The French went into Libya because of a mix of morality and wanting to maintain power over their former colonial holdings. Not neocon interventionism on behalf of Israel.
Sanctions, Israeli bombing of Libya and Israeli support for jihadist groups did not help at all. Israel has clearly seen Syria as an enemy and has done its best for decades to undermine and destroy Syria.
Why do these rebels end up with air support and expensive weapons? Who trains these militias? How did thousands of mercenaries show up in Libya and why was Libya bombed to pieces from the sky? The countries in the middle east that haven't been bombed are more stable, more peaceful, don't have massive outflows of refugees and are far better to live in than the ones destroyed by interventionists who attend AIPAC conferences.
Jordan, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi is stable. Iran is unusually stable for a country that has fought a major war and has had a neighboring country invaded three times in the past decades.
When did Israel bomb Libya? Your making stuff up. Sanctions on Libya were because of French neocolonial and Western morality, Same with Syria.
Israel did also not train Jihadist groups in Syria. It at most, provided medical support for anyone who came to the border. Which included Syrian civilians. The West backing the Free Syrian Army was because of Western morality and some love for Western democracy. Not Israel.
You really believe Israel is the answer for all of this? Dont you see you have a ton of regional actors like the Gulf States, Iran, Algeria, Egypt or even far away regional actors like France or Russia? They are the ones who provide weapons and training. Look at Sudan currently and the RSF vs the Sudanese govt. The RSF is gaining support militarily from the UAE. While the Sudanese govt gains support from Saudi Arabia. Its a proxy conflict between them. Nothing to do with Israel.
Your looking for Israel to be the answer for why the Middle East is unstable. Its not. The Middle East is unstable because of the Middle Easts characteristics. The West projecting their values on the Middle East doesnt help. Its not the Israelis making Libya rise up against Gaddafi nor against Assad. Its not the Israelis that make Jihadist groups or political Islam attractive. Its more likely extreme religiosity and poverty.
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The EU is itself a vassal state of the US and, honestly, has more anti-leverage than leverage in this regard. It's only European countries that are really affected by this; trade between China and the US naturally continues uninterrupted.
I mean, the US does have control over Israel. They already know who their leaders are, and they already know who their sympathizers/propaganda arms are (ADL members and wealthy American Jews happy with Israel's existence have names, addresses, and a host of young and violent enemies as willing to act on that information in 2024 as they were in 2020). Sure, going full Kristallnacht is probably not a good look for the Left, but the Left is powerful/popular enough to keep its brownshirts safe while they commit the violence (under the banner of anti-Naziism, naturally) so I don't think they really need to care.
No, the reason Israel gets a free pass is because, like South Korea (and the Philippines, to an extent) is with respect to China, they're a Roman beachhead right on Parthia's doorstep. So I'm not surprised the Romans are not particularly concerned about what the king of Judea does to non-Judeans on his border; I'm also not surprised that the Parthian response was to charge a massive toll for any trader wanting to transit the Silk Road.
It was pretty negligent of the Romans to permit a Parthian proxy to entrench itself between a Roman ally (the King of Arabia) and the Silk Road itself, but they were busy wasting quadrillions of denarii (and exhausting the will of the people) on some revenge mission in the strategically insignificant no-man's land between Parthia and China to bother.
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Poseidon Archer is nothing if not a wishy-washy middle ground. It's the sort of operation that exists to satisfy the impulse to do something, without having the ability to solve- or resolve- the instigating factor(s).
The Houthis endure far more- and far worse- bombardment from the Saudis than the US operation is going to deliver... and the fact that the US is now dropping bombs on Yemen without Saudi help, after compromising relations with the Saudis in no small part over disapproval and pressuring the Saudis to stop, is stark irony. This is precisely the wrong sort of target for a long-range bombardment campaign to try and resolve, if the goal is to render the Houthis unable to continue attacking the naval route... which is already seeing mass and systemic divergences around Africa. That naval traffic flow isn't coming back unless the threat is resolved, and convoys alone won't be enough.
That's not to say that the attempt is all a waste. The Brits at least have done some successful test engagements with novel anti-drone ship systems which may evolve into cost-effective ship defense norms, and the real target of using things like stealth bombers isn't the Houthis the bombs are dropped on, but the Iranians who are having it demonstrated how easily the Americans could drop on them. There's an argument to be made on regional deterrence, and that in part goes back to the analysis that October 7 was an Iranian effort to start a broader intifada, and that it largely failed and everything since has been trying to cope and compensate for not getting the effects they anticipated.
But all the same, it's not going to stop the Houthis any time soon- the public-facing problem- and it's so easy for it to be framed as a failure regardless of outcome that it's hard to see it being counted as a success. Even if no ships are damaged, basic cost-comparisons of the Houthis attack drones/missiles versus ship defense systems can make some awkward cost-benefit propaganda to frame it as a net loss. If ships are damaged, it can be humiliation, and if critical casualties occured, it'd be very easy to see it spinning into a scandal (for putting the sailors in danger, for ineffective air campaigns, for not going after the broadly acknowledged source i.e. Iran). It's an invitation to mission creed, waste, and/or easy adversary propaganda.
At best, maybe it's a politically beneficial stall tactic that lasts for the next few months, while Israel continues to cut through Gaza. But even that may give it too much credit.
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Let's say Israel agrees to a two-state solution but Palestine just keeps attacking Israel over and over. What is Israel entitled to do in response? Do they just keep retaliating tit-for-tat? Are they allowed to invade, depose the government, but then must leave just to return when the new government does the same thing? Do they just have to improve their defences?
I don't see how this goes any way other than "Palestinian state is created. Palestinian state builds up military force. Palestinian state attacks Israel". Once that happens, most likely the Palestinian state is defeated and occupied and we're back where we started. The other, far less likely, alternatives are that the Palestinian state wins and genocides any Jews who don't flee, or the Samson option.
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Let them do whatever they like, with their own capabilities and let them deal with the consequences. We, the West, shouldn't be standing behind the Israeli military, supplying the bombs and shells they're using, bankrolling their operation, threatening anyone who attacks them. Once they start taking our aid, we become a participant.
Azerbaijan has a spat with Armenia? Not my problem, let them handle it.
Except your example also demonstrates that "let them do it on their own" is BS. The Azeris had Iranian, Turkish, and Israeli backing...the Armenians "fought on their own" and got stomped. Little countries will always cozy up to big countries, and whoever doesn't have a patron had best find one quick or risk domination by their mobbed-up neighbors.
Iran supports Armenia, not Azerbaijan.
You are correct, thank you.
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They're awkwardly trying to maintain good relations with both countries these days, but they have recognized Artsakh as Azeri clay for several years now.
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I don't know that Iran supports Armenia so much as it opposes Azerbaijan, because it has its own Azeri population that Azerbaijani nationalists would love to anschluss.
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And so Turkey, Israel and Iran take on partial responsibility for Azerbaijani expansion, the pros and the cons. Turkey gets to suppress Armenia, they make a useful oil-rich, nearby ally. In contrast, we would gain nothing from helping Armenia, so we don't do it.
Likewise we take on partial responsibility for Israeli expansion/suppression of Palestinians, the pros (all of which are taken by Israel) and the cons (which filter through to us). We get Muslim anger and terrorism from our support of Israel, higher oil prices, enhanced Chinese influence in MENA. The Israelis never provide any useful assistance, they send us faulty intelligence about WMDs in Iraq and Iran (considering they've been shrieking about the Iranian nuclear program for 30 years). We get nothing from helping them, only pain, so we should stop it.
Armenia is just lower on our list of priorities, not totally irrelevant. Ethnic Armenians are a relevant interest group in the US and blocking Turkish expansion and coaxing away Russian allies are their own end goal, which is part of why American troops were training Armenian soldiers. It's likely we would have done something if Azerbaijan actually invaded Armenia rather than just a piece of territory we formally recognize as Azeri, even despite our multiple commitments. When Azerbaijan blockaded Armenia after the first NK war we aggressively sanctioned them even though American multinationals were drilling oil in country, so there's certainly precedent for us being willing to retaliate against them at personal cost.
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But the Palestinians are far more dependent on US and EU aid than the Israelis are. We are much more funding the terror campaigns against Israel than the military operation in Gaza.
No you're not - Biden sent $14 billion in military aid to Israel for this conflict alone, plus the baseline $3 billion in military aid annually. Palestinians don't get any military aid from the West, only a few hundred million annually in humanitarian aid.
Over 6 years, the entire UN gave about 1.5 years of annual US military aid. The US sent about 1.7 years of Israeli military aid and tries hard to avoid it going to Palestinian war effort. If anything the aid serves more as a bribe to keep them from electing Hamas, they cut funding when that happened.
I propose complete non-interference, to cut aid to both sides.
Without which the entire economy would collapse and they wouldn't be able to afford a single scrap of metal, let alone a bomb or weapon. Plus the international orgs that aid and abet Iranian resupplies. Its not magnitude alone that matters, its percentage. If we left Palestine 100% on a branch, they would have nothing.
Look, if you provide 14 billion in military aid to one side and a few hundreds of millions in civilian aid to the other side (openly talking about how you try to prevent it going to their military wing), you clearly support the former over the latter. This is absolutely basic logic. Every US politician will tell you that they love Israel and hate Hamas.
Who cares if Palestine has nothing? Who cares if the Israelis have to pay for their own bombs? Not my problem!
If you dont care for why the Israelis pay for their own bombs, why do you even care about imposing a solution? I understand not wnating to give military weapons, but the Israelis can likely just succeed without that.
The Arab states dont care enough about Palestine to intervene. They dont cut off trade, they dont oil embargo the West. Why care about what Israel does enough to impose a solution, like by embargoing trade?
The Arabs get angry with us when we provide aid to Israel, just like the Israelis get angry with Iran when Iran aids Hamas/Hezbollah. It makes it much harder to work with Arab governments and it angers Arabs, who can do us harm.
Why did Osama Bin Laden hate the West? In large part he resented that we were helping Israel dominate Palestine.
I have no interest in an Israel-Palestine solution, just like I don't know or care about who should govern South Sudan, Somalia or Myanmar. Let them handle their own affairs. What I want is for the West not to be attached to this dead weight that causes us problems in so many fields. Wouldn't it be great if we enjoyed the support of the Middle Eastern public, or at least got along with them like China does?
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I disagree. 14 billion looks like a bigger number because the spending is asymmetric. Iron dome is expensive suicide vests and rockets are cheap. Defense against this kind of aggression is easily 100x more expensive, probably closer to the 10000x multiplier. So its not clear that Israel is coming out ahead.
Israel. If they have nothing, Israel needs nothing. But we give them a lot, and they divert much of it to waging terror campaigns.
My interpretation of this sentence was that Israel needs nothing, but we give them (Israel) a lot and they use much of it to wage terror campaigns. I agree with this but I'm not sure that's what you were actually saying.
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Who cares?
Probably because the US has a need for Israel in the Middle East as basically the best army in the region. Perhaps not 100% capable of paying for their own bombs but extremely capable at using those bombs to modern military standards.
Also, America is a Democracy and I would like to remind you American Jews pay a hugely disproportionate amount of US taxes and are almost certainly net payers to the US treasury far above whatever aid we give to Israel.
This seems like a bit of circular reasoning. The US support Israel because it has the best army in the region. Why does US need to support Israel? Because the Arabs (generally) hate the US and the US need geopolitical support in the region. Why do the Arabs hate the US? Because the US supports Israel.
Additionally, the US actually gets very little from Israel. Israel fragrantly acts against US interests and ignores US calls all the time. Even the most milquetoast request from the US to Israel to maybe tone it down just a bit is just blatantly ignored. Israel demands the US intervene on its behalf all the time but rarely reciprocates. Prior to post-WW2, the Americans were actually seen very favorably by the Arabs.
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Israel may have the best army in the region - they're also enemies with the rest of the region and are so politically toxic they can't fight with any US force without causing more problems than they solve. That's why the US and Israel have never fought on the same side in a war, they're the worst ally anyone could have. All liability, no benefit.
The cost of US support for Israel is absolutely staggering. The Arab Oil Embargo in 1973 did immense harm to the US and world economy, a decade of high oil prices. Anti-Western terrorism - the first WTC bombing was solely motivated by anti-Israel sentiment. Osama Bin Laden was also heavily motivated by frustration regarding Palestinians. The Iraq half of the War on Terror was primarily about Israel, there are plenty of revealing quotes from generals and senators admitting that Iraq posed no threat to America (as a glance at a map would show) but that it might threaten Israel. Israel naturally sent some fake intel about Iraqi WMDs as well, so the US would deal with their rival.
And then there's the billions spent every year on direct military aid. American Jews would need to pay a hell of a lot of taxes to pay for all of this, if we take that tax-influence model. And it doesn't hold - whites are even bigger net taxpayers than Jews, yet this didn't stop US sanctions on apartheid South Africa. They didn't even recognize Rhodesia.
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Why not? If Israel is in the right, it only makes sense to help them.
Everyone claims to be in the right, everyone has their own 'facts'. Should we support Russia in the war against Ukraine because Ukraine tried to suppress Russian minorities and shelled ethnic Russians?
Should we uphold the One China Principle and give Taiwan to China, since it's part of China and we recognize the PRC as China?
Should we invade Russia to stop their imperial megalomania and genocidal war in Ukraine?
We should follow our strategic interests, not arbitrarily pick out moral justifications and dubious 'facts'. Those who are best at convincing you that they're the victims may not be in the right. Our interests are not served by propping up the Israeli military and angering hundreds of millions of Muslims (who control resources we need), encouraging anti-Western terrorism. Nor would they be served by aiding Palestine and pushing a nuclear power to the brink. We should do nothing.
First of all, those are very different situations. It's not true that if Israel is justified in attacking Palestine that those other causes are justifiable, nor is it necessarily wise for the US to get involved. Secondly, it's not true that if the US helps one country it has to help them all.
Well, are the Palestinians justified in attacking Israel?
The Palestinians have a bunch of complaints about being suppressed and undermined. If I were Israeli, no doubt I would agree that it was right for Israel to win, vae victis, they don't matter as much as we do. But I'm not Israeli. We, the Western world, are not getting anything out of this conflict, we're paying so that another nation can do imperialism.
We're talking about a hypothetical in which the Palestinians have their own state.
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Those Americans who wish to are free to personally send their own money to Israel. I would like it if the rest of us, however, were not compelled to also send money to Israel.
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Theyre in the right so they get extra billions on top of their regular billions? Why would that make sense, can you actually justify your claims? Does your justification generalize to other countries?
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Say the EU forces a two-state solution which includes EU administration of Jerusalem and the resettlement of all Jewish settlers out of the West Bank. Is a Palestinian state going to attack Tel-Aviv? Or Jewish locals in EU-administered Jerusalem? Then it's the EU's problem to solve that. That's a better arrangement than America being forced to fight all the enemies through the Middle East of a rogue Israel which it doesn't control.
This does assume a remilitarization of Europe which is already underway due to Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Probably, after all the Gazans will still have their grievances and have tried to disrupt / violate peace negotiations before. They consider Tel Aviv / Jaffa their land.
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And how do they solve that?
The US isn't being forced to do anything. It's choosing to support Israel which is retaliating against Hamas. It can stop at any time if it doesn't like what Israel is doing.
I do blame Biden for enabling the status quo. It's going to destroy his legacy, particularly if things continue to escalate.
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Why not? In your fantasy, the Palestinian position is better, and much closer to victory than they are today. We know to what extent Europeans will go to disarm Arabs and impose a peace. Europeans are not prepared to trade their lives for peace in Israel, and even if they were, then I don't see why they themselves don't become the "rogue state" destabilizing the Middle East. A European force that is willing to occupy and pacify Gaza/West Bank could very well be even more threatening to a power like Iran than the Jews are today. The devil you know and all that.
I don't even disagree that if lasting peace becomes a desirable goal, then Israel's right should have to come to terms with the reality of a two-state solution. It is possible the West could play a role in making this happen, but it does feel as if we are further from this fantasy than we were 20 years ago.
Or just do some good old fashioned ethnic cleansing. They're probably extremely cynical about the possibility of civilizing the Palestinians, understandably so.
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Part of me wonders how much more stable the Middle East would have been if the UN had made Jerusalem an international zone/international city like was proposed back in 1947. The proposal had overwhelming support from the international community at the time.
Being an "international city" sure worked out well for Danzig and Istanbul...
Bit of a false equivalence, because Danzig and Istanbul were specifically made international cities as a punitive post-war measure against Germany and Turkey respectively. A better analogy would be the various international and concession cities of the 19th century, which were generally pretty successful until the wave of anti-colonialism in the 20th century made them politically unpalatable. But even this is an imperfect analogy.
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What leverage does the EU have? We could cut off aid to the palestinians, I’m all for it, but somehow I doubt that will sway israel. We could stop trading with israel, but that seems expensive for a conflict which does not threaten our security (unlike a certain other conflict). Assuaging the islamic world’s perpetual religious anger isn’t worth a euro cent, frankly. It’s not like the region was a bastion of stability before this, the pirates were just on the other side of the gulf of aden.
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Can you explain to me how a 2-state solution would solve Israel’s issues in the Middle East. This all started because Palestine attacked Israel. Israel then counter-attacked. Iran wanted to mess with the Saudis and armed Houthis to attack Americans.
To be honest this war doesn’t even have anything to do with the Jews. It’s a Saudi-Iran proxy war.
And if we do a 2-state solution and Israel isn’t allowed to fight back what is your proposal?
I feel like you are not speaking clearly here since you completely ignored where should the Jews go if they aren’t allowed to defend themselves.
I don't understand why this framing would have more validity than the one that says that this all started because they colonized/set up shop in Palestine, then there were multiple iterations of attacks and counterattacks and we are here. In the same vein,
seems rather far-fetched (what percentage of combatants do you figure would say that they are doing this for the sake of the Saudis/Iranians?). This war has been going on since before the current Iranian political system existed.
Who is saying Israel isn't allowed to fight back in that scenario? If there is a two-state solution, and then the Palestinians cross the border to attack, then they should by all means fight back, and I'm even okay with us Europeans contributing material military help to make this happen. Conversely, though, if in that scenario some settlers with military backing still cross the border into the Palestinian state, then I think the same should apply for the other side.
The people who make the decision are Iran/Saudi.
The people who fire the guns are not. But Houthis can’t do anything without their Persian masters.
Why are the Houthis relevant to evaluating a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine? As I understand, they used the general atmosphere of chaos and anger to take a handful of potshots at Israel and adjacent shipping, but had negligible agency in bringing about that general atmosphere to begin with. Without the mutual slaughter preoccupying everyone, chances are they would not have stuck their necks out here.
Houthis are the only ones that have an effect on the globe and America.
If we are just talking might makes right Israel could just kick out the Palestinians and we solve the problem. As is this entire debate is the Israelis need to play nice with the Palestinians or America gets Arabs acting up in these other places. Since, Palestine can’t play nice with Israel I have no problem with Israelis removing them. Israel doesn’t need US guns to brute force the matter.
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That is a really gross oversimplification. Under a real two-state solution enforced by external parties, there would be no illegal blockades and settlements and Israeli expansionism. Yes, I do think that would go a long way in cooling tensions and setting the groundwork for long-term peace.
And if Hamas still attacked Israel you would agree Europe can (and preferebly you useful) would help to remove Hamas completely if they attacked again?
I feel like you should have skin in the game if you proposed this peace plan.
Also, you completely avoided the fact that the Houthis are being funded by Iran who don’t give two shits about Israel but are trying to hurt Arab interests. If Biden went to Iran tomorrow and told them No military weapons will be sold to the Saudis for the next ten years the Houthi issue would disappear tomorrow.
For that deal the Iranians would kick the Palestinians out of Israel for us and defeat the Houthis.
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Israel was well on the way to coming to an understanding with its neighbors prior to 10/7.
The role of the global hegemon here, if we're really talking about 'just do whatever creates stability' would be take the population of Palestine, break it up into families, and scatter them around the globe, then decapitate the regime in Tehran and hand the reins over to a transitional government and leave. The Middle East would calm down very quickly.
You're being far too nice here from the perspective of an actual global hegemon with no ethical concerns. If you're talking about "whatever creates stability" then the Israelis are going to have to go too - they can either get wiped out and replaced by whatever ethnicity runs the global hegemon, or they can get forcibly mixed with arab populations in order to completely remove the possibility of this ancient tribal conflict starting back up again.
Just to clarify, I'm not actually suggesting this as a course of action.
The point is that the Israelis aren't actually a source of instability in the region, except in terms of their relationship with the Palestinians. Get rid of the latter and you've solved the problem. Get rid of the former and you've still got a problem because they're a radicalized Islamist population which hates all of their neighbors.
They are actually still a source of instability in the region due to their contentious relations with the other arab states, and the current state of affairs involves large sums of money being given to their neighbours in order to stop them from attacking Israel. Get rid of the Palestinians and you solve nothing - you give the entire Islamic world a causus belli against Israel and then they do things like attack international shipping vessels to disrupt the region.
And as for keeping the Israelis... ever read much Roman history? The Israelites made absolutely terrible imperial/hegemonic subjects to the point that they brag about it - an efficient hegemon would just exterminate them for good and resettle the territory.
The other Arab states couldn't care less about Israel. The Baathists were the only ones who ever actually disliked Israel at higher echelons of government and Saddam is dead and Assad has got bigger problems to worry about. The monarchies occasionally make anti-Israeli noises for their populaces but otherwise don't give a damn, Egypt has been sucking on the American military funding teet in exchange for peaceful relations with Israel for so long that the mask-for-money has become just standard Egyptian policy, and other Arab states are too distant to actually be bothered.
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This would be a terrible idea. The palestinians are a segmentary lineage society and to break them up into families would just be building clans wherever they get dumped.
You have to separate the families from one another and dump them all mixed up in whatever unfortunate place is going to receive them. The crime rate in Myanmar or the Congo isn't any of our concern.
If you break them up into conjugal family units, you can even get some cultural change going.
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I didn't know John Bolton was on this website. You want to invade a mountainous country of 80 million that's spent the last 20-30 years preparing for just this scenario, armed to the teeth with missiles and SAMs. You want to do this after we tried exactly this twice in two of its smaller, weaker neighbours and failed abysmally. It'll tar the opposition to the Iranian govt as foreign collaborators and traitors. You want to give China and Russia the perfect opportunity to act on their own fronts, now that we're even more distracted and bogged down. Just imagine how much military aid they'll give Iran! You want to stir up Shia fervour against the West, ignite a conflict right next to the straits of Hormuz. It'll inevitably draw in Iran's allies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen. The whole region will be up in flames. You want to test just how far Iran's nuclear program has gotten, whether they can rustle up a few dirty bombs. And at the same time you want to scatter Palestinians all around the world, presumably in our countries, just as we're attacking and blowing up their sponsors and friends - suicide bombings galore!
WHY??? Why, after 20 years of these disastrous interventions do people still think 'our error was not attacking stronger opponents'? We've conclusively shown that we have no clue about the 'hand the reigns over to a transitional govt and leave', we can't manage it, it doesn't work and it turns into a quagmire. People don't like it when you attack their country, this is a universal tendency. Nothing could make the Iranian government more popular than a US invasion. Iraqis rallied around Saddam Hussein of all people when we invaded Iraq, the Iraqi army fought hard, albeit without a hope of success. They rallied around Iranian militias, Sunni militias, everything except liberal democracy since that's the ideology of the invader.
Who said anything about invading?
Kill the Guardian Council, the President, the top layer or two of the cabinet and the IRG, and tell the people who were trying to overthrow the government because of the overreach of the morality police that they're in charge now and leave the place to its own devices.
Seriously, OP talked about stabilizing the Middle East. The Oil Princes just want to make money, the military in Egypt wants more or less the same, the Turks just want to be able to play regional hegemon, and the Israelis just wanna feel like they won't all be killed for letting their guard down. It's the Iranian government that throws a wrench into the works. Get rid of them and break the back of the IRG and there's no longer going to be anyone who cares enough to spend time destabilizing other countries (and the Arab world will be all too happy to quietly wash their hands of the Palestinians).
And then the rest of the IRG overthrows (and kills) them the second you're out the door, and after their leadership struggle we end up with basically the same government in Iran. Maybe hating the US a little bit more, but who could tell?
Then add a few layers of IRG command structure to the kill list.
"A few layers" effectively means "half the country". That's the problem with Hamas, for that matter; if the population supports something strongly enough the only way to deal with them is to go full Carthage where you either kill or enslave everyone (effectively, banning their culture), raze every city, and salt the earth for good measure.
88 million Parthians is a lot of Parthians.
The IRG is a few hundred thousand personnel. If 'a few layers' was more than a couple of thousand people I would be shocked.
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What keeps the replacement government from rather quickly becoming just as hostile as the current government?
Dunno, but Iran has had several waves of very large scale anti-regime protests. I think you could prevent something exactly like the Mullahs taking back over if you just hand the government over to the right people. Iran isn't really like Iraq, it's a more developed place, even with the sanctions.
The current government of Iran has a very deep organization; just beheading it won't do. As for the protests, they're probably astroturfed Western-backed events anyway.
If Western governments had the reach to mobilize the failed protest movements Iran has had over the last decade, we'd have just overthrown the Guardian council and been done with it.
Setting up a few people to protest and then be suppressed by the regime is a far lesser problem than actually overthrowing the regime.
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Do you have any source for that or did you just make it up? The government wouldn't need to be so draconian if it really thought it had broad support for it's policies. The Islamist faction gained power through a coup and quickly suppressed it's rivals who helped it gain power.
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I guess it's a selected sample, but they seem very popular among the recent Iranian immigrants that I know, and they report widespread support back home.
That doesn't matter, it's impossible to prove that a particular movement is not astroturfed. False consciousness arguments are in full effect.
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