Is (was, if the meeting's over) there much talk about the International Atomic Energy Agency inspections regime, and whether sanctions on Iran make this quasi U.N.-approved?
I didn't see anything like that, though I didn't catch the whole thing. Just a lot of namecalling back and forth and saying "international law backs us up" (but not because of the inspections, mostly because they chant "Death to Israel" and "Death to America")
I don't mean to be completely contentious, but, yeah, we did such a great job in Iraq liberating those people from any kind of normal lives. Killing babies, etc etc etc. I am anti-war. That means, generally, I am anti-Israeli influence.
That's frightening. Here are my final years spent fearfully even though I made sure I have enough money to survive well. I haven't traveled since covid except to the Olympic Peninsula and locally. Tried to go to Spain in 2021. My companion and I did not have the shots. We were told two days before scheduled departure that we weren't allowed into Spain & the US didn't think they would allow us back into the country. All the yapping about totalitarianism in the 50s, 60s, and so on - and, here it is, in our lives. Nukes, restrictions on freedom, weather manipulation......
If you want to stop war in the Middle East, stop neighboring countries from attacking Israel. I guess the Muslim Brotherhood has some great PR people, but if you follow the timeline, Israel only acts in terms of self preservation. All any of these countries need to do in order to not be attacked by Israel, is to not attack Israel.
There was a very interesting joint Israeli/Palestinian production made maybe before 1996. It showed the life of a Palestinian man who had to cross from Palestine to Israel and back every day for his work. It was fairly merciless in terms of both sides being at some fault. The Israelis, though, were the occupying force and generally behaved like Nazis. The abused became the abusers (maybe?). This was made by Israelis and Palestinians.
Anyway, fwiw, I don't agree with you at all. Even in Jimmy Carter's time the Israeli behavior was called apartheid. This movie made back in the days when Netanyahu was not in charge seemed to show honestly how both sides saw the situation. Guess what, you can't find it anymore.
Ever heard of a suicide bomber? They were commonplace. It wasn't Israelis that would send a suicide bomber into the market place to see how many Jews they could blow up. That's what Israelis were guarding against.
How about the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983?
Check out how Khamenei came to power in the first place. There was never an election, there was a genocide, perpetrated by him.
Use your imagination a bit. Imagine if every time you went to a public place you feared being blown up for no reason. Imagine you had family that had already been blown up. Now here's the part that takes no imagination; it has ALWAYS been Muslim terrorists who have done this, not Jews.
They're now covering the predictable protesting, which makes me very nervous. The IC has been trying to kick off protests for a while, and now they've got Trump's ear on Iran -- they know as well as I do that nothing will energize the left more than anti-Israel protests.
It's certainly useful to show China and Russia that we can still prosecute wars effectively. It's not a matter of "respect on the world stage" or any of that nonsense. With their recent memories of Gen. Austin and his Plague Era Star Wars get-up and the complete fuck-up of Biden's exit from Afghanistan and the happy photos of Admiral Rachel Levine to add cheer throughout our ranks, our military has been looking a wee bit tarnished.
Nothing can prevent war. It will always bust out somewhere and there's no disruption anywhere that leaves us entirely untouched.
Would've been nice if there had been consequences back in the '80s to what Iran-funded terrorism had done to our guys in Lebanon but Reagan was only good at speeches and photo opportunities so, you know, here we are.
From what I gathered, we're going to destroy their military but also not put boots on the ground but also be done in a month and also it's not our job to figure out what happens next.
Seems more like a clusterfuck than a show of strength, but we'll see how it plays out.
I'm not particularly persuaded by the 25th power/squared chess theories of Trump whisperers but I can understand why having nobody in the wide wide audience clear on our objectives can be a useful strategy.
I think the Israelis may be a little surprised right now at how vulnerable they remain to Iran's aggressive responses. That may force them to be a little less arrogant in their internal strategizing and to be far more self-reliant since Trump won't be in power forever. But Iran is extremely vulnerable right now to all their own minority separatist dreamers with their 1st chance in 50 yrs. Gonna be lively there domestically and redirect a lot of the hostile energy they've been able to focus outward. I also think this may cause considerable instability in Pakistan with their Shia minority. Shias are the craziest people in a region of crazy people. I'm wondering if taking out Khamenei leads to Pakistan getting yet another military takeover. I saw a Muharram procession in Rawalpindi once and they were commemorating a death that happened 1,346 yrs ago by whipping themselves into bloody frenzies.
I was reading this morning/last night about how happy Ukraine is re this development because Iran had been supplying drones etc. etc. to Russia. If this helps to force Putin to the actual negotiating table under whatever face-saving guise he chooses that would also be good for us.
Have not seen any anti-Iran or anti-Iran war signs/people today, going to places (in Puget Sound metro) where you might expect to see at least a couple.
There are still a few Free Palestine-type stickers around. Certainly enough people are reflexively anti-Trump too. But I haven’t seen any signs/stickers about Venezuela these past two months.
Well written, but I still see no plausible way we bomb our way to acceptable regime change. The administration is talking about bombing for weeks. Weeks quickly turn to months.
And one more thought! You can do the correct thing for the wrong reasons. You can have the right reasons and be astoundingly incompetent at explaining them.
You can find it appropriate to partner in your correct goals with sleazy scumbags who all have their own reasons for joining with you, and sometimes those sleazy scumbags with their completely unwarranted self-regard undercut you because they can't keep their mouths shut.
"Nuclear bomb!" is far more vividly compelling than "we gotta keep the lanes clear."
Everyone here I think understands that there is no international law and international order and that the UN is the treasure trove for all of the most corrupt countries on earth and NATO is probably at its most emasculated levels ever, and that the European Union is--well, eugyppius has a great post up today on that.
SimComm mentioned those he still grieves who died fighting in the GWOT. I still grieve my HS schoolmate who died in Vietnam. Forever 21, gone three months into his deployment. If only assholes didn't keep taking our finest out of the gene pool. I wish the French hadn't started this crap. I remember reading Pierre Loti's novel in HS and marveling that fucking around in Indochina had started so long ago.
No political action creates permanent peace and security. If this works to our own interests for a decade or so that might be the best we can hope for.
Trump's apparent restraint so far in Venezuela is a good sign. But Iran has 3 times as many people as Venezuela, and a more powerful government, and many more people who really hate Americans.
Elites have spent the last few centuries insisting that the way to dismantle threats is either bribery or assembling massive numbers of pawns to fight if the bribery doesn’t work. Either way, money and power flow to the elites in control.
The idea of just eliminating the king, as in chess, was vilified. We can’t put the kings in danger! It’s much more civilized to sacrifice the pawns as necessary.
Trump, with his attacks on Maduro and the ayatollah, has struck at the heart of their concept of world order. Maybe the best way to deal with a murderous threatening regime is in fact to strike directly at the head of it.
But how can the elites prosecute endless wars if someone won’t follow the rules and makes a direct move to end it quickly?
I keep forgetting how big the oceans are and was surprised when I learned it was going to take two weeks for one of our big ships (aircraft carrier?) to get in position in the ME waters. Two weeks!
Reality is brutal. The people who maintain the strongest empire win, for awhile, in any era in history. If we're too dainty to maintain an empire the Chinese will swamp us. Whoever controls shipping lanes owns the world. This will be true forever. If your enemies get the upper hand on shipping lanes and port ownership your country belongs to them.
President Donald Trump and top surrogates of his 2024 campaign — people like JD Vance and Tulsi Gabbard — said “America First” means sidestepping the quicksand of foreign intervention and stanching the flow of Americans’ blood and money to faraway conflicts in which they have no obvious stake.
Someone on this post said something about the Middle East problem going on for 5 decades. That would be funny if no one knows it's been going on for a couple thousand years.
The first documented ancestors of Persian cats might have been imported into Italy from Khorasan as early as around 1620, but this has not been proven. Instead, there is stronger evidence for a longhaired cat breed being exported from Afghanistan and Iran/Persia from the 19th century onwards. Persian cats have been widely recognised by the North-West European cat fancy since the 19th century, and after World War II by breeders from North America, Australia and New Zealand. Some cat fancier organisations' breed standards subsume the Himalayan and Exotic Shorthair as variants of this breed, while others generally treat them as separate breeds.
Jew hate doesnt seem to be in your wheelhouse. Maybe im wrong. You think trump did this for Israel, when the fucking Persians have been begging for help for 47 years?
FWIW get suspicious whenever anybody calls even the slightest criticism of Israel as "Jew hate," that's a term designed to immediately shut down all debate -- just like "racist" in the 2010s.
If Israel wants to blow up Iran, they should do so. Lord knows they have the ability to do it, even if we're not supposed to admit it.
But I didn't forget when Israel started bombing Iran and then said their weapons weren't effective and we brought out the bunker busters. Then we said the nuclear program was obliterated and saying otherwise was FAKE NEWS. 7 months later Iran is weeks away from a nuke (and planning on using it on the USA) again?
I admire your faith in dropping bombs and expecting democracy, but "the fucking Persians" are still living under the same regime they were yesterday -- just with a different guy calling the shots.
Not how it reads from “ the fucking Persians”. I gotta be honest, the American self hating Jew, the nyc law yer Jew that send their kid to Columbia and encourages them to support palestine,are tte Jews I do hate. Worked with them and them for decades. They are a horrid gob of humans. Israelis? Not so much. Those here,that get everything handed to them, are mostly atheist assholes. I don’t think they are even remnants of Israel , as they act more like muzzie pigs. But I have a problem with lumping them together. “ all Jews do this”. It’s not true. It’s like saying all niggers are stupid feral shit. Mostly,but not all. As far as them living under the same regime, a muzzie pig theocracy isn’t anything like what they will have soon. So why say that?
I think you’ve explained your position thoroughly enough in the comments. Maybe I misunderstand, we’ll see. It seems consistent, if absolute.
I think it’s reasonable to say that Iran has been waging a low intensity hot war on the U.S. and the rest of the west for almost 50 years.
So your position is that our government should let it continue until Iran gets nukes and makes it a hotter war? Or your position is that Iran wouldn’t get and use nukes and that the ongoing engagements were acceptable? Or you see some other path that I didn’t see you outline?
I’m supportive of this attack but conflicted. I’m just a little puzzled that you don’t seem conflicted in your condemnation.
I'll put it this way -- I see no plausible path to the goals we want that doesn't involve putting a lot of boots on the ground. Whoever takes over will likely be more hardline than the guy we just blew up. But maybe the CIA has been working for the last two decades and they have the "new" guy just waiting in the wings so we know who will takeover -- but that didn't work out well last time, either.
Everything I'm seeing from the government and the media today is what I saw during Iraq, and that more than gives me pause.
This is complicated by the fact that this is also going to energize the color revolution going on right here in our country, as people take to the streets against the war and against Israel. (We know this fires up the left like nothing else.)
Thank you for repeating your point so that I do fully understand it.
I guess you’re just holding to too much certainty for my taste. And the alternative is allowing Iran to continue its course.
I think “energize the left” is a cop out. The left was energized to the point of billions of dollars or rioting damage over a repeat felon dying of a drug overdose. They sainted that one and built statues, while tearing down statues of abolitionists. The left manufacture whatever outrage they desire with complete disregard for factuality.
You know what actually energizes the left? When their opposition is weak, accommodating, and afraid to offend them.
I definitely voted to stop bowing to the perpetually outraged left.
On the contrary, I have no idea what's going to happen and I hope I'm wrong.
I just don't believe the people in government and on TV that say they know it's going to be just fine and we'll be treated as liberators. They're talking about bringing in the son of the Shah -- but I fail to see how that's not interpreted as anything but an attempt to place a puppet into place.
As for your point about the left being strong, I STRONGLY disagree. The militant left the IC needs for their color revolution is extremely weak right now -- even in places like Portland. (Middle aged moms won't cut it) This will be just the kick in the pants they need to get out into the streets again. And I'm worried the IC knows this and thinks this is the best way to neuter the rest of Trump's term.
We'll find out for sure in about 2 hours when Portland starts getting spicy.
Watching UN meeting right now. We're spitting fire at Iranian action and claiming they present a threat to us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKdyfoEEWYw
There is no need for you to feel bad. FFS even -->> I <<-- have been embarrassingly, humiliatingly and completely wrong before.
Is (was, if the meeting's over) there much talk about the International Atomic Energy Agency inspections regime, and whether sanctions on Iran make this quasi U.N.-approved?
I didn't see anything like that, though I didn't catch the whole thing. Just a lot of namecalling back and forth and saying "international law backs us up" (but not because of the inspections, mostly because they chant "Death to Israel" and "Death to America")
This is from last August. "Iran’s Nuclear Program: Tehran’s Compliance with International Obligations": https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R40094
Also this on the protests, from a month ago: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF13153?s=1&r=26
Mike Waltz did indeed make a passing reference to these inspections, in a long list of UN attempts to wrangle Iran.
Australia surprisingly coming out against Iran.
uk and EU playing it safe
I bet I know why.....
Are Iranian's safe in their own country? With or without strikes from US forces, these people need to be liberated.
I don't mean to be completely contentious, but, yeah, we did such a great job in Iraq liberating those people from any kind of normal lives. Killing babies, etc etc etc. I am anti-war. That means, generally, I am anti-Israeli influence.
Here is a logical explanation to events unfolding in Iran. Anti war is good.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nGmlNS_RHMY&pp=4gcKEghzdWJzdGFjaw%3D%3D
That's frightening. Here are my final years spent fearfully even though I made sure I have enough money to survive well. I haven't traveled since covid except to the Olympic Peninsula and locally. Tried to go to Spain in 2021. My companion and I did not have the shots. We were told two days before scheduled departure that we weren't allowed into Spain & the US didn't think they would allow us back into the country. All the yapping about totalitarianism in the 50s, 60s, and so on - and, here it is, in our lives. Nukes, restrictions on freedom, weather manipulation......
If you want to stop war in the Middle East, stop neighboring countries from attacking Israel. I guess the Muslim Brotherhood has some great PR people, but if you follow the timeline, Israel only acts in terms of self preservation. All any of these countries need to do in order to not be attacked by Israel, is to not attack Israel.
There was a very interesting joint Israeli/Palestinian production made maybe before 1996. It showed the life of a Palestinian man who had to cross from Palestine to Israel and back every day for his work. It was fairly merciless in terms of both sides being at some fault. The Israelis, though, were the occupying force and generally behaved like Nazis. The abused became the abusers (maybe?). This was made by Israelis and Palestinians.
Anyway, fwiw, I don't agree with you at all. Even in Jimmy Carter's time the Israeli behavior was called apartheid. This movie made back in the days when Netanyahu was not in charge seemed to show honestly how both sides saw the situation. Guess what, you can't find it anymore.
Ever heard of a suicide bomber? They were commonplace. It wasn't Israelis that would send a suicide bomber into the market place to see how many Jews they could blow up. That's what Israelis were guarding against.
How about the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983?
Check out how Khamenei came to power in the first place. There was never an election, there was a genocide, perpetrated by him.
Use your imagination a bit. Imagine if every time you went to a public place you feared being blown up for no reason. Imagine you had family that had already been blown up. Now here's the part that takes no imagination; it has ALWAYS been Muslim terrorists who have done this, not Jews.
They're now covering the predictable protesting, which makes me very nervous. The IC has been trying to kick off protests for a while, and now they've got Trump's ear on Iran -- they know as well as I do that nothing will energize the left more than anti-Israel protests.
I ain't out of thoughts yet so:
It's certainly useful to show China and Russia that we can still prosecute wars effectively. It's not a matter of "respect on the world stage" or any of that nonsense. With their recent memories of Gen. Austin and his Plague Era Star Wars get-up and the complete fuck-up of Biden's exit from Afghanistan and the happy photos of Admiral Rachel Levine to add cheer throughout our ranks, our military has been looking a wee bit tarnished.
Nothing can prevent war. It will always bust out somewhere and there's no disruption anywhere that leaves us entirely untouched.
Would've been nice if there had been consequences back in the '80s to what Iran-funded terrorism had done to our guys in Lebanon but Reagan was only good at speeches and photo opportunities so, you know, here we are.
From what I gathered, we're going to destroy their military but also not put boots on the ground but also be done in a month and also it's not our job to figure out what happens next.
Seems more like a clusterfuck than a show of strength, but we'll see how it plays out.
I'm not particularly persuaded by the 25th power/squared chess theories of Trump whisperers but I can understand why having nobody in the wide wide audience clear on our objectives can be a useful strategy.
I think the Israelis may be a little surprised right now at how vulnerable they remain to Iran's aggressive responses. That may force them to be a little less arrogant in their internal strategizing and to be far more self-reliant since Trump won't be in power forever. But Iran is extremely vulnerable right now to all their own minority separatist dreamers with their 1st chance in 50 yrs. Gonna be lively there domestically and redirect a lot of the hostile energy they've been able to focus outward. I also think this may cause considerable instability in Pakistan with their Shia minority. Shias are the craziest people in a region of crazy people. I'm wondering if taking out Khamenei leads to Pakistan getting yet another military takeover. I saw a Muharram procession in Rawalpindi once and they were commemorating a death that happened 1,346 yrs ago by whipping themselves into bloody frenzies.
I was reading this morning/last night about how happy Ukraine is re this development because Iran had been supplying drones etc. etc. to Russia. If this helps to force Putin to the actual negotiating table under whatever face-saving guise he chooses that would also be good for us.
Have not seen any anti-Iran or anti-Iran war signs/people today, going to places (in Puget Sound metro) where you might expect to see at least a couple.
Interesting. Maybe they were caught flat-footed.
"Hundreds of cars rally on Seattle-area freeways in support of US strikes on Iran": https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/rally-seattle-freeways-us-strikes-iran/281-fa73afb9-3953-452d-a45c-7a2dbca82ff1
There are still a few Free Palestine-type stickers around. Certainly enough people are reflexively anti-Trump too. But I haven’t seen any signs/stickers about Venezuela these past two months.
Have you read amuse on this?
https://newsletter.amuseonx.com/p/rethinking-military-intervention
I’m not assigning homework 😀 You may or may not be aware of that substack. I don’t always agree with him, but he’s relatively thoughtful and thorough.
Well written, but I still see no plausible way we bomb our way to acceptable regime change. The administration is talking about bombing for weeks. Weeks quickly turn to months.
This states things nicely I think:
https://x.com/BaldingsWorld/status/2027890216866824203
This is sort of undermined by this, though:
https://apnews.com/article/chinese-student-visas-trump-maga-dce4e064ea61a4df090865668ca48cde
You don't put a horse head in the bed and then leave your front door wide open.
Yes, he's still too much persuaded by corporate interests and the preferences of friends.
But still. He never was Orange Jesus. We got the best we could've hoped for in the circumstances.
And one more thought! You can do the correct thing for the wrong reasons. You can have the right reasons and be astoundingly incompetent at explaining them.
You can find it appropriate to partner in your correct goals with sleazy scumbags who all have their own reasons for joining with you, and sometimes those sleazy scumbags with their completely unwarranted self-regard undercut you because they can't keep their mouths shut.
"Nuclear bomb!" is far more vividly compelling than "we gotta keep the lanes clear."
Everyone here I think understands that there is no international law and international order and that the UN is the treasure trove for all of the most corrupt countries on earth and NATO is probably at its most emasculated levels ever, and that the European Union is--well, eugyppius has a great post up today on that.
SimComm mentioned those he still grieves who died fighting in the GWOT. I still grieve my HS schoolmate who died in Vietnam. Forever 21, gone three months into his deployment. If only assholes didn't keep taking our finest out of the gene pool. I wish the French hadn't started this crap. I remember reading Pierre Loti's novel in HS and marveling that fucking around in Indochina had started so long ago.
No political action creates permanent peace and security. If this works to our own interests for a decade or so that might be the best we can hope for.
"If this works to our own interests for a decade or so that might be the best we can hope for."
I agree, but that's a huge IF and government hasn't done anything the last 25 years or so to earn the benefit of the doubt.
Trump's apparent restraint so far in Venezuela is a good sign. But Iran has 3 times as many people as Venezuela, and a more powerful government, and many more people who really hate Americans.
All huge problems. Offing the top 40 officials doesn't even scratch the surface.
No kidding. Nevertheless we must find a way to survive the world we got.
No other option.
Elites have spent the last few centuries insisting that the way to dismantle threats is either bribery or assembling massive numbers of pawns to fight if the bribery doesn’t work. Either way, money and power flow to the elites in control.
The idea of just eliminating the king, as in chess, was vilified. We can’t put the kings in danger! It’s much more civilized to sacrifice the pawns as necessary.
Trump, with his attacks on Maduro and the ayatollah, has struck at the heart of their concept of world order. Maybe the best way to deal with a murderous threatening regime is in fact to strike directly at the head of it.
But how can the elites prosecute endless wars if someone won’t follow the rules and makes a direct move to end it quickly?
No wonder they are furious.
More thoughts:
I keep forgetting how big the oceans are and was surprised when I learned it was going to take two weeks for one of our big ships (aircraft carrier?) to get in position in the ME waters. Two weeks!
Reality is brutal. The people who maintain the strongest empire win, for awhile, in any era in history. If we're too dainty to maintain an empire the Chinese will swamp us. Whoever controls shipping lanes owns the world. This will be true forever. If your enemies get the upper hand on shipping lanes and port ownership your country belongs to them.
President Donald Trump and top surrogates of his 2024 campaign — people like JD Vance and Tulsi Gabbard — said “America First” means sidestepping the quicksand of foreign intervention and stanching the flow of Americans’ blood and money to faraway conflicts in which they have no obvious stake.
Never forget this....
\\][//
The Epstien Administration is a transparent fraud, 100% controlled by the ziocons.
Someone on this post said something about the Middle East problem going on for 5 decades. That would be funny if no one knows it's been going on for a couple thousand years.
Saw an article on Iran’s water problems . Seems they figured out that moving Tehran was in the cards. Looks like the common person can’t catch a break
Do/did Persian cats come from Iran/Persia?
That’s one of the things I love about you! “ ask and ye shall receive “
If I don't already know, I want to find out!
The first documented ancestors of Persian cats might have been imported into Italy from Khorasan as early as around 1620, but this has not been proven. Instead, there is stronger evidence for a longhaired cat breed being exported from Afghanistan and Iran/Persia from the 19th century onwards. Persian cats have been widely recognised by the North-West European cat fancy since the 19th century, and after World War II by breeders from North America, Australia and New Zealand. Some cat fancier organisations' breed standards subsume the Himalayan and Exotic Shorthair as variants of this breed, while others generally treat them as separate breeds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_cat
Looks like it!
Who names these war campaigns? They need some more kitsch
At least we didn't make the "OIL" mistake again!
I’m surprised at you.
I'm surprised that you're surprised. I had a very similar reaction to Midnight Hammer.
Jew hate doesnt seem to be in your wheelhouse. Maybe im wrong. You think trump did this for Israel, when the fucking Persians have been begging for help for 47 years?
FWIW get suspicious whenever anybody calls even the slightest criticism of Israel as "Jew hate," that's a term designed to immediately shut down all debate -- just like "racist" in the 2010s.
If Israel wants to blow up Iran, they should do so. Lord knows they have the ability to do it, even if we're not supposed to admit it.
But I didn't forget when Israel started bombing Iran and then said their weapons weren't effective and we brought out the bunker busters. Then we said the nuclear program was obliterated and saying otherwise was FAKE NEWS. 7 months later Iran is weeks away from a nuke (and planning on using it on the USA) again?
I admire your faith in dropping bombs and expecting democracy, but "the fucking Persians" are still living under the same regime they were yesterday -- just with a different guy calling the shots.
Not how it reads from “ the fucking Persians”. I gotta be honest, the American self hating Jew, the nyc law yer Jew that send their kid to Columbia and encourages them to support palestine,are tte Jews I do hate. Worked with them and them for decades. They are a horrid gob of humans. Israelis? Not so much. Those here,that get everything handed to them, are mostly atheist assholes. I don’t think they are even remnants of Israel , as they act more like muzzie pigs. But I have a problem with lumping them together. “ all Jews do this”. It’s not true. It’s like saying all niggers are stupid feral shit. Mostly,but not all. As far as them living under the same regime, a muzzie pig theocracy isn’t anything like what they will have soon. So why say that?
I didn't say that, but you're certainly implying it.
I think you’ve explained your position thoroughly enough in the comments. Maybe I misunderstand, we’ll see. It seems consistent, if absolute.
I think it’s reasonable to say that Iran has been waging a low intensity hot war on the U.S. and the rest of the west for almost 50 years.
So your position is that our government should let it continue until Iran gets nukes and makes it a hotter war? Or your position is that Iran wouldn’t get and use nukes and that the ongoing engagements were acceptable? Or you see some other path that I didn’t see you outline?
I’m supportive of this attack but conflicted. I’m just a little puzzled that you don’t seem conflicted in your condemnation.
Thanks for your post and ongoing commentary.
I'll put it this way -- I see no plausible path to the goals we want that doesn't involve putting a lot of boots on the ground. Whoever takes over will likely be more hardline than the guy we just blew up. But maybe the CIA has been working for the last two decades and they have the "new" guy just waiting in the wings so we know who will takeover -- but that didn't work out well last time, either.
Everything I'm seeing from the government and the media today is what I saw during Iraq, and that more than gives me pause.
This is complicated by the fact that this is also going to energize the color revolution going on right here in our country, as people take to the streets against the war and against Israel. (We know this fires up the left like nothing else.)
Thank you for repeating your point so that I do fully understand it.
I guess you’re just holding to too much certainty for my taste. And the alternative is allowing Iran to continue its course.
I think “energize the left” is a cop out. The left was energized to the point of billions of dollars or rioting damage over a repeat felon dying of a drug overdose. They sainted that one and built statues, while tearing down statues of abolitionists. The left manufacture whatever outrage they desire with complete disregard for factuality.
You know what actually energizes the left? When their opposition is weak, accommodating, and afraid to offend them.
I definitely voted to stop bowing to the perpetually outraged left.
Have a nice day.
On the contrary, I have no idea what's going to happen and I hope I'm wrong.
I just don't believe the people in government and on TV that say they know it's going to be just fine and we'll be treated as liberators. They're talking about bringing in the son of the Shah -- but I fail to see how that's not interpreted as anything but an attempt to place a puppet into place.
As for your point about the left being strong, I STRONGLY disagree. The militant left the IC needs for their color revolution is extremely weak right now -- even in places like Portland. (Middle aged moms won't cut it) This will be just the kick in the pants they need to get out into the streets again. And I'm worried the IC knows this and thinks this is the best way to neuter the rest of Trump's term.
We'll find out for sure in about 2 hours when Portland starts getting spicy.