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Notes -
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 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.
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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