Israel / Iran thread

Victor is a bad faith actor so his response to the tweet is expected.

But SRM response to Bass’s tweet doesn’t show very good insight into the local political situation here. Or the motivation for the tweet in the first place.

why NK has it today ?
you think they are better then the iranians ?

damn right isnt the same with irak, its even worst lol.
irak was suppose to have it to make it ok to invade and get rid of them .
iran we already know they dont have it so its even worst for everybody except for the blood thirsty ....

Can we get a regime change here first?

it just show you cant democratizes a religious fanatic region.
but u probably think a westernize democratic system is worst then theocracies and other non freedom regime like those, so its all good.

touché

I didn’t say anyone did become secular and westernized.

But Iraq and Afghanistan both had democracies, that we decided as a country weren’t worth protecting anymore.

Also you’re conflating different foreign policy issues here. The region is full of non-secular, authoritarian states. Seeing as that’s true we have to pick our allies of the bunch. When we do that we just choose the ones that will be most amenable to US interests.

Anyway the point of saying that I would love them to do x was to contrast it with what I actually think will happen, which is not x. I don’t see a reason to think that regime change is possible and just asking people who think it will happen how they envision it happening.

I will also say that I think Iran had, at one point, the possibility of becoming a Westernized, secular democracy but they were betrayed by the islamists in the revolution. So of all the countries in the Middle East outside of perhaps Turkey, Iran probably has the most squandered potential as a candidate to “join the West” to use a crude phrase.

Iran is much worse than NK I don’t think that’s debatable. Either way, that’s irrelevant

Well as someone who is not currently on the side of supporting regime change but is open to it as a possibility, this doesn’t really bring me much confidence that the possibility is anything more than a hope.

I’m also somewhat worried how normalized assassination attempts have become. I understand Israel is trying to leverage its relatively small country against much larger countries, but it seems like there is now a new precedent of open assassination as a method of warfare.

the next leaders of iran dont have to be secular, westernised or democratic iyam. just dont put 20% of GDP into a nuclear program/arming terrorists like the last lot

To be fair, the people being assassinated are brutal terrorist dictators whose intent is killing as many innocents as possible to maintain their power.

He is old and there is no obvious successor, so Trumpism may just die with Trump; but Trump seems to be doing his best impression to "join Erdogan/Turkey" as opposed to the other way around.

Maybe you just have a too basic and childish understanding. If that’s what you think then go ahead. Either way it’s irrelevant whataboutism.

Over/under Trump was mad Iran was enriching uranium instead of himself?

Ok and how exactly do you see that going down? Any particular person or group of people we are thinking should step up?

I’m just concerned at how vague and opaque the strategy is for people that are pro-regime change.

And by the way you can probably still get that under the current regime of Iran.

Israel is colony based on thousand year old texts. based on the idea that G-d gave the land to the Jews. just this week Rubio said that he supports Israel bc the bible told him to.

this whole idea that Iran is full of religious extremists that cant be reasoned with is based on ignorance, racist, and Supremacy.

also, Iran is at least as much a democracy as the USA or Ukraine.

then you wonder why no one takes you seriously

I didn't realise what that Taco meme was until I googled it. So the most unpredictable president in US history who is the most influenced by social media is told that he chickens out and now they think he won't respond by doing something such as this. The likelihood is that these strikes were planned months ago between he and Netanyahu but egging him on because they don't feel he doesn't follow through certainly does not help matters knowing who Trump is.

And btw - I probably would have made a comment elsewhere but the whole point of his tariffs and this is what that meme would particularly be aimed at and especially the tariffs against China is not to actually get what the maximum amount that he is after. It is just in many cases to get something from these countries or especially in China's case access to their markets. This is what happens with Trump - there is a lot of shock value or bluster with what he does. But his bark is usually worse than his bite but we certainly don't want people to mock him with memes like that because he isn't someone to just simply forgive and move on - he has a very revengeful personality.

Didn't Iran being westernised under the Shah kinda play a part in the Islamic revolution to begin with?

Gabbard may have just got her lines crossed up when she has been toeing that anti-war establishing view in relation to Russia and thinking that Iran would be the same

thats what the US picks from bc that is what the US supports. the whole point is to prop up comprador regimes that oppress their people so that the USA and its proxy Israel can profit.

and you might want to look up what happened when Iran actually tried to go Western and secular and left liberal. the USA absolutely could not abide that.

You forget to mention Iraq - which is the main one

its amazing to see you guys talk about reforming Iran and bringing in freedom and democracy in one breath and then in the next talk about how great the Shah was.

best guess is a group of ambitious youngish colonels and generals fronted by a popular figurehead. i dont know who that would be. maybe drag some elderly hero of the iran/iraq war our of retirement. or just give it to the iranian walter cronkite.

a continuation of theocratic gerontocracy is fine by me as long as they are sans nuclear and sans funding jerkoffs all over the middle east. aint going to happen with the current crew in charge but i think mossad might have a solution for that

Netanyahu probably just said, "Come on, Donald, think of all the resorts you can build in Iran if we change the regime - unchartered territory," and Donald was in.

We'll see if this "we have no plans to change the regime" is as truthful as two weeks was.