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RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
9m ago
If they wanted to do this, why muck about for the last 30-40 years without getting nukes? It really doesn't take that long. They've got plenty of engineering expertise and oil money to spend on it.
Iran has demonstrated that it has the intent to strike the west and US if it can. They are working on the capability, and once that's done, an active nuclear arsenal presents them the opportunity at any time.
The West? What Western country has Iran struck? France? Germany? Japan? Canada? They could bring out a bunch of drones from a shipping container and cause mayhem in any major city if they wanted.
Iran only strikes Israel and US bases right on its borders, with the US launching strikes on Iran and generally acting in a hostile fashion (sanctions, cyberattacks, proxy wars, assassinations, open threats to invade). The Houthis attacked a bunch of shipping as part of a campaign against Israel.
Iran is an American foe. But it doesn't necessarily have to be this way. It could be less of a US foe, like Venezuela for instance. Or it could be a friend. The US's biggest victory in the Cold War was swaying Maoist China away from the Soviet Union. Maoist China had actively fought and killed thousands, maybe tens of thousands of US troops in a major war. Total ideological incompatibility. They hated America and were super, duper crazy. Iran is much less of a foe than China was in the 1960s. Yet the US was able to work constructively with China and shift 1/3 or so of the Red Army into the far east, facing their former ally. Suddenly the US stopped needing to fight wars in East Asia! Diplomacy is really powerful!
There were opportunities to reopen relations with Iran during the 1990s but the US pursued an unhelpful strategy of 'dual containment' of both Iran and Iraq since neither were friendly towards Israel. Obama tried to improve relations with Iran but Trump then nixed this initiative.
Now the US is involved in yet another Middle East conflict. This is strategically foolish - China and Iran were the biggest winner of the Iraq War. China got much of the liberated oilfields and the US navy defending their shipping lanes for free! Iran got most of the country of Iraq. Terraforming the Middle East to be friendly towards Israel is extremely costly and dangerous and doesn't work. It should be much less of a priority than the primary theatre of conflict, with the great powers.
Iranian militias in Iraq wouldn't exist if the Iraqi government hadn't been demolished by America. No US troops would die if they weren't there. There's no need for them to be present, the damage is already done. Iraq has been pushed into Iran's sphere of influence (about 40% of the way to puppet state), at US/Coalition expense. It's time to take the L and depart.
China will be a winner of this war too. There is little they want to see more than US air defence stockpiles depleted by Iranian missiles, carrier groups redeployed from the Pacific to the Middle East. Russia is another winner if oil prices rise, though it's bad for China, probably evens out. There is no reason to face Russia, China and Iran at the same time when Iran could've been turned. Too late now but don't double down further on an error!
A better strategy would be to tell Israel to shut up about Iran and move on. Iran hasn't nuclearized in the last 30 years when the Israelis continuously shrieked it was going to happen in a few months or so. Barring a major shock like this attempted disarming strike, they're unlikely to nuclearize, there's a fatwa against it. Iran didn't retaliate with chemical weapons after Iraq gassed 20,000 of them to death, a more than reasonable provocation! Putting more pressure on Iran is the exact way to get them to undo the fatwa and nuclearize.
More than that, North Korea is an extremely poor country which has continuously struggled to develop a missile program. I don't think that it's outside the realm of possibility that they do, but again, at least there's some reason as to why we all sat around on it.
They already have ICBMs that can hit the US. North Korea is another example of the danger of the 'I can't even spell diplomacy' trend in DC. Sanctions and threats don't result in compliant denuclearization (certainly not after going in on Iraq and Libya when they'd complied), they end up with tens of thousands of North Korean troops fighting on Russia's side in Ukraine.
GBRK
30m ago
Not an argument, but I have a hard time accepting that the "bomb iran" people are working in good faith from solid natsec principles-- because the majority of rabidly pro-israel partisans I've met are republican and therefore at least defacto ukraine-skeptic. Like, I can intellectually understand that there are honest to god neocons out there voting for Holden Bloodfeast whenever possible, and in principle I sympathize quite a lot with them. But they seem to occupy very, very little of the media environment I'm exposed to. Pairing that with my supreme lack of faith in the current administration, I have this kneejerk response that any ammunition we're throwing into the middle east is probably being wasted compared to the alternative option of putting it into Ukrainian stockpiles.
GBRK
38m ago
Naw, I just have the right combination of impatience, paranoia, and astigmatism.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
54m ago
Right, I understand that much, I just don’t understand what their existence is supposed to imply about social relations on this continent. Are people able to suppress the appearance of spren related to an emotion they’re currently feeling but would like to conceal? Can actors cause spren to appear which outwardly indicate the appearance of a particular emotion, even when the actor is not authentically experiencing that emotion internally? Maybe some of these things get explored later in the series, but for right now they just seem like a weird decoration or curiosity.
The author flexes further by churning out an enormous number of memorable and likeable characters, the majority of them worthy of their own novels. Yet the world is cruel, and he's crueler, and few who go up against Fang Yuan come out of it the victor. I've wept at some of their fates, the sheer valiance, their raging against the dying of the light or their efforts to uphold their values till the end. They inhabit the world they're in, they think, reason and plot. Fang Yuan isn't the one character in the universe with the ability to plan ahead.
Indeed. I've always struggled to write solid characters, and I'd be loathe to throw them away unless absolutely necessary for the plot. Gu Zhen Ren doesn't give two fucks, he'll make you feel for people who have maybe 5 lines of dialogue.
Even Fang Yuan says that he's not the only main character, that's just the perspective of his story. There are plenty of other people fated and blessed with good fortune and talent, and they get plenty of limelight. I suppose that's a strong perk of writing in third person, the author can easily show off alternative perspectives, and much of the time, they're no dumber or less internally rich than the MC.
Said regime hates the US with a burning passion, both for backing the monarchy and for getting in the way of a regional Islamic revolution in the entire region.
I feel like this is so emblematic of the blinders people have. Really, you think Iran hates the US for the Islamic revolution and not the US-Israeli "alliance" and its belligerence towards all Iran's regional neighbors- Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, and so forth. Saying it's about the Islamic revolution just makes me wonder what planet you are living on. Israel has said it will only accept the "Libya model" of nuclear disarmament. The "Libya model" means: you give up your nuclear program, then we topple your regime. The notion Iran just has some irrational hatred towards the US is so ridiculous.
Personally, it makes me understand why some people think Israel is simply America's attack dog, doing the dirty work we don't want to be involved in directly.
Again- living in the land of pure fantasy. Israel got America to do the dirty work in Iraq and Afghanistan and Lebanon and Syria. How many troops did Israel deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan? Zero, despite the loss of thousands of American lives. And now it is plainly obvious that Israel initiated war with Iran with the intent and plan to force the United States to enter the war. They have already requested US assistance to enter the war and admitted they can't achieve their war objectives without the United States.
I agree with the thrust of your post in that I am not isolationist, I understand America as an Empire with imperial interests and obligations. But doing so leads to the obvious conclusion that Zionism is and has been immensely harmful to the imperial interests of the United States, and that toppling the regime in Iran is foremost a play for the interests of International Zionism and not the United States or Europe.
Well, exercise could always speed it up although that'd probably be incredibly unpleasant I guess.
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