Unlike other interventions in the Middle East this is not a war the US initiated. It is Israel fighting for its survival. As Natasha Hausdorf said, one can take the view that Isreal should not have been created, but like a pregnancy one can debate whether the child should be born or terminated but only up to delivery. After it is born it has the right to live.
Israel has suffered intifadas with over 1000 suicide bombings until they built the wall along the West Bank, and endless rockets from Lebanon and Gaza, the products of the death cult that is Iran. 7th October, that gleeful savagery, was their enough is enough point. The US has merely delivered the bunker buster bombs that show the US is serious about Iran not having nuclear bombs, but otherwise the war is between Israel and Iran.
Anyone who thinks that the Iranian mullahs who believe destroying Israel will bring the return of the twelfth imman can be reasoned with is as deluded as Obama and Biden. Trump has badly mishandled the messaging but support for Israel is not misplaced.
As to the fear porn about a wider middle east conflagration, other Arab states want to see Iran (and trouble making Palestinians) reigned in. No Arab state is taking Palestinain 'refugees' - they learnt their lesson about that long ago adn none want to see Iran get the bomb. There may be sleeper cells but then there is now an incentive to round them up.
Yes, there may be unforeseen consequences. Whether they are worse than the foreseen one of Iran getting the bomb remains to be seen. Israel is quite clear about what it sees.
Exactly, the vast majority of Iranians are not Muslims, they pretend to be to survive, and look to the West. Only the Revolutionary Guard keeps the Ayatollahs in power, so why didn't Trump hit their bases too? Nobody would complain, Saudi Arabia would be relieved, and Egypt.
I think Israel degrading Iranian air defences so successfully influenced his decision to send in the B2s. Up until then he was not going to risk American lives or planes - political suicide. He will now leave Israel to continue taking out Iran's military capability. It will be a slow process as tiny Israel has to manage the logistics of air to air refuelling both ways. Iran will be moving assets around but satellite intelligence from the US should keep Israel well informed about where to strike. Iran is a large country so it will take time and continued commitment (and courage) by the IDF.
2026 will mark the 250th anniversary of the American independence from the United Kingdom.
As per usual, all kinds of voices from the modern USA have been putting all sorts of poison out about the UK over the past 12 months. It's sooo USA.
Let's review the number of wars the USA has won since 1945: Zero.
Let's review the number of regime changes funded by the USA since 1945, with successful democracy: Zero.
One USA commentator recently stated the USA is a republic and is not cut out for empire.
Will the USA wake up?
Our empire is gone, but there is something about us the USA missed.
The events around 1948 are telling - the UK planned independence of Palestine by 1951 / 1952, but lest our American friends forget, every single item supplied from 1938-1946 was paid for. As usual the UK was out of cash, in part thanks to the multiple loans - so elements in the USA forced the UK to pull forward independence and to enable the formation of Israel, complete with multi-nation sing-a-long vocals.
The UK warned against this, the USA threatened to cut off loans. That's blackmail.
Like us or not, the UK had an ability to manage independence of another nation better than most.
The USA has never done this on behalf of another nation.
"Unlike most people, I do not have strong feelings on the Middle East. People like to support Israel/Iran/Palestine as if they're cheering on a football team. I prefer to leave intractable ethno-religious wars to those involved. It's not as if we don't have enough to be getting on with at home."
The Iranians want to be free from the Ayatollahs, so why didn't Trump flatten the Revoltionary Guard bases and let the Iranians take care of the Ayatollahs? The vast majority of the Iranians are not Muslims, and removing the Ayatollahs would bring stability to the Middle East.
Yeah, just like the Iraqi middle classes were going to rise up and create a Sweden in the desert, or Egypt wanted to be a free democracy (before electing the Muslim Brotherhood, surely in error), or Afghanistan desperately wanted women's lib, or Libya, or Syria, etc.
Do you ever get tired of being wrong at the expense of other people's lives?
They reinstated the military dictatorship whilst all the bleeding hearts who had helped cause the problem in the first place ignored the fact they literally had to execute hundreds of people, en masse.
I think someone as obviously intellectually challenged as you should be very careful what terms you bandy about.
You are wrong about Ukraine, any Christian should be concerned. The atrocities carried out by Putin are unforgivable. I got some refugees out, decent people, they don't deserve this. Appeasement didn't stop Hitler, did it?
My interpretation is that the IDF mission was to remove the imminent Iranian nuclear threat, and thay has probably been achieved with US help.
I don't think anyone with power in Tel Avib or Washington is contemplating enforced regime change which spectacularly failed in Iraq and Afghanistan. There aew cretins close to power and some talking heads who advocate it, but that’s white noise, not policy.
Trump ans Netanyahu need to be very disciplined to avoid mission creep, while averting ans preempting Iranian retaliation (whih in why the IAF continue to hit military targets. I can see the attactiong of blowing the gares off a prison, but I don't think it wise.
I wrote a nice long opinion here about the dumbness of humanity but I deleted it. What is the point? The USA is weirdly beholden to Israel. Israel thinks it needs to destroy all the countries around it "for it's own safety". The Islamic countries don't like having a Jewish state in their midst but it seems many of them have come round to the idea that it's there and they might as well work with it. Israel won't survive unless it stops killing and starts talking to its neighbours. People shouting that Israel has the right to kill everyone who doesn't like it and that the whole of the rest of the world has to support it - well, that's the ticket for forever war, death and destruction. If the Iranians don't like the Ayatollahs then they need to rise up and get rid of them - they did it to the Shah so they have form. If the Israelis want the Palestinians to stop trying to kill them they need to stop corralling them into smaller and smaller areas and maybe think about giving them Israeli citizenship so they can start participating. Yes, I know, how incredibly naive of me to think like this. How stupid to think anything is worth trying in an attempt to give people peace and stability. After all, there's really no money for the military industrial complex and the bankers if there is peace.
Wake up, the Ayatollahs will always be a threat. Trump should have taken out the Revolutionary Guard, without them the Ayatollahs would be gone and peace would return to the region. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan are all against them and Hamas. No sane person wants the Palestinians, ask Denmark.
Is that the sort of peace currently being enjoyed in Iraq, Libya, Syria? Or the peace thriving in Afghanistan? Or is it the one in Somalia, DR Congo or any of the other African Utopias? The sort of peace the Ukraine has been enjoying with the help of the peace-loving NATO members? Who is Trump that he is to decide the future of another country? These "world leaders" should look to their own countries first - people in glass houses and all that.
It has been grimly fascinating watching the reaction to these events. I follow people, here and elsewhere online, whose opinions I have some reason to value. They seem to be split 50-50 as to whether they think this development obviously good or obviously bad!
I am constantly perturbed by the American habit of thought which identifies the targets of the weapons as "the bad guys". It's not just Ted Cruz, it is standard terminology amongst US military people down to the very bottom level, as far as I can see, including people I would expect to know better.
I would much prefer the Americans to the Ayatollahs. If you can't see that I feel sorry for you. Have you seen how they treat women, animals. And I am not aware of homosexuals having their throats cut, or being thrown off tall buldings in the USA.
It depends whether you are looking at it from a more utilitarian or a more deontological ethical perspective. Based on different priors, it can be reasonable both to say that the Americans are worse (because they inflict vastly more destruction and misery upon the world than the Ayatollahs through their aggressive wars, support of violent regimes globally, funding and arming of terrorism on a massive scale) and that the Ayatollahs are worse (because they, but not the Americans, fall short of an ideal of virtue which consists in how one encourages women to behave, tolerating homosexuals, and being kind to animals - or whatever other tests of virtue you might invent).
Don't think I have no sympathy with your view of ethics: I think it reflects an important truth. But it also seems limited to me, and perilously arbitrary - or at least parochial.
Unlike other interventions in the Middle East this is not a war the US initiated. It is Israel fighting for its survival. As Natasha Hausdorf said, one can take the view that Isreal should not have been created, but like a pregnancy one can debate whether the child should be born or terminated but only up to delivery. After it is born it has the right to live.
Israel has suffered intifadas with over 1000 suicide bombings until they built the wall along the West Bank, and endless rockets from Lebanon and Gaza, the products of the death cult that is Iran. 7th October, that gleeful savagery, was their enough is enough point. The US has merely delivered the bunker buster bombs that show the US is serious about Iran not having nuclear bombs, but otherwise the war is between Israel and Iran.
Anyone who thinks that the Iranian mullahs who believe destroying Israel will bring the return of the twelfth imman can be reasoned with is as deluded as Obama and Biden. Trump has badly mishandled the messaging but support for Israel is not misplaced.
As to the fear porn about a wider middle east conflagration, other Arab states want to see Iran (and trouble making Palestinians) reigned in. No Arab state is taking Palestinain 'refugees' - they learnt their lesson about that long ago adn none want to see Iran get the bomb. There may be sleeper cells but then there is now an incentive to round them up.
Yes, there may be unforeseen consequences. Whether they are worse than the foreseen one of Iran getting the bomb remains to be seen. Israel is quite clear about what it sees.
Exactly, the vast majority of Iranians are not Muslims, they pretend to be to survive, and look to the West. Only the Revolutionary Guard keeps the Ayatollahs in power, so why didn't Trump hit their bases too? Nobody would complain, Saudi Arabia would be relieved, and Egypt.
I think Israel degrading Iranian air defences so successfully influenced his decision to send in the B2s. Up until then he was not going to risk American lives or planes - political suicide. He will now leave Israel to continue taking out Iran's military capability. It will be a slow process as tiny Israel has to manage the logistics of air to air refuelling both ways. Iran will be moving assets around but satellite intelligence from the US should keep Israel well informed about where to strike. Iran is a large country so it will take time and continued commitment (and courage) by the IDF.
I know of Iranians who are Christian and fled the country, my sister helped one. The sooner the Ayatollahs are gone, the better for everyone.
2026 will mark the 250th anniversary of the American independence from the United Kingdom.
As per usual, all kinds of voices from the modern USA have been putting all sorts of poison out about the UK over the past 12 months. It's sooo USA.
Let's review the number of wars the USA has won since 1945: Zero.
Let's review the number of regime changes funded by the USA since 1945, with successful democracy: Zero.
One USA commentator recently stated the USA is a republic and is not cut out for empire.
Will the USA wake up?
Our empire is gone, but there is something about us the USA missed.
The events around 1948 are telling - the UK planned independence of Palestine by 1951 / 1952, but lest our American friends forget, every single item supplied from 1938-1946 was paid for. As usual the UK was out of cash, in part thanks to the multiple loans - so elements in the USA forced the UK to pull forward independence and to enable the formation of Israel, complete with multi-nation sing-a-long vocals.
The UK warned against this, the USA threatened to cut off loans. That's blackmail.
Like us or not, the UK had an ability to manage independence of another nation better than most.
The USA has never done this on behalf of another nation.
"Unlike most people, I do not have strong feelings on the Middle East. People like to support Israel/Iran/Palestine as if they're cheering on a football team. I prefer to leave intractable ethno-religious wars to those involved. It's not as if we don't have enough to be getting on with at home."
My feelings exactly.
The Iranians want to be free from the Ayatollahs, so why didn't Trump flatten the Revoltionary Guard bases and let the Iranians take care of the Ayatollahs? The vast majority of the Iranians are not Muslims, and removing the Ayatollahs would bring stability to the Middle East.
Yeah, just like the Iraqi middle classes were going to rise up and create a Sweden in the desert, or Egypt wanted to be a free democracy (before electing the Muslim Brotherhood, surely in error), or Afghanistan desperately wanted women's lib, or Libya, or Syria, etc.
Do you ever get tired of being wrong at the expense of other people's lives?
Egypt got rid of the Muslim Brotherhood, Keep up to date moron.
They reinstated the military dictatorship whilst all the bleeding hearts who had helped cause the problem in the first place ignored the fact they literally had to execute hundreds of people, en masse.
I think someone as obviously intellectually challenged as you should be very careful what terms you bandy about.
If I was as stupid as you I would shoot myself.
If you had one tenth of my IQ we might be able to save you.
Yet, you couldn't refute one of my points and immediately resorted to abuse.
Logic never enters your head. Just one big empty space between your ears.
You are wrong about Ukraine, any Christian should be concerned. The atrocities carried out by Putin are unforgivable. I got some refugees out, decent people, they don't deserve this. Appeasement didn't stop Hitler, did it?
My interpretation is that the IDF mission was to remove the imminent Iranian nuclear threat, and thay has probably been achieved with US help.
I don't think anyone with power in Tel Avib or Washington is contemplating enforced regime change which spectacularly failed in Iraq and Afghanistan. There aew cretins close to power and some talking heads who advocate it, but that’s white noise, not policy.
Trump ans Netanyahu need to be very disciplined to avoid mission creep, while averting ans preempting Iranian retaliation (whih in why the IAF continue to hit military targets. I can see the attactiong of blowing the gares off a prison, but I don't think it wise.
I wrote a nice long opinion here about the dumbness of humanity but I deleted it. What is the point? The USA is weirdly beholden to Israel. Israel thinks it needs to destroy all the countries around it "for it's own safety". The Islamic countries don't like having a Jewish state in their midst but it seems many of them have come round to the idea that it's there and they might as well work with it. Israel won't survive unless it stops killing and starts talking to its neighbours. People shouting that Israel has the right to kill everyone who doesn't like it and that the whole of the rest of the world has to support it - well, that's the ticket for forever war, death and destruction. If the Iranians don't like the Ayatollahs then they need to rise up and get rid of them - they did it to the Shah so they have form. If the Israelis want the Palestinians to stop trying to kill them they need to stop corralling them into smaller and smaller areas and maybe think about giving them Israeli citizenship so they can start participating. Yes, I know, how incredibly naive of me to think like this. How stupid to think anything is worth trying in an attempt to give people peace and stability. After all, there's really no money for the military industrial complex and the bankers if there is peace.
Wake up, the Ayatollahs will always be a threat. Trump should have taken out the Revolutionary Guard, without them the Ayatollahs would be gone and peace would return to the region. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan are all against them and Hamas. No sane person wants the Palestinians, ask Denmark.
Is that the sort of peace currently being enjoyed in Iraq, Libya, Syria? Or the peace thriving in Afghanistan? Or is it the one in Somalia, DR Congo or any of the other African Utopias? The sort of peace the Ukraine has been enjoying with the help of the peace-loving NATO members? Who is Trump that he is to decide the future of another country? These "world leaders" should look to their own countries first - people in glass houses and all that.
It appears your head is stuffed up with God knows what. Get a brain implant.
It has been grimly fascinating watching the reaction to these events. I follow people, here and elsewhere online, whose opinions I have some reason to value. They seem to be split 50-50 as to whether they think this development obviously good or obviously bad!
I am constantly perturbed by the American habit of thought which identifies the targets of the weapons as "the bad guys". It's not just Ted Cruz, it is standard terminology amongst US military people down to the very bottom level, as far as I can see, including people I would expect to know better.
The Ayatollahs are really bad guys, if you don't know that you have been living on another planet.
But so are the Americans; that's the real point.
I would much prefer the Americans to the Ayatollahs. If you can't see that I feel sorry for you. Have you seen how they treat women, animals. And I am not aware of homosexuals having their throats cut, or being thrown off tall buldings in the USA.
It depends whether you are looking at it from a more utilitarian or a more deontological ethical perspective. Based on different priors, it can be reasonable both to say that the Americans are worse (because they inflict vastly more destruction and misery upon the world than the Ayatollahs through their aggressive wars, support of violent regimes globally, funding and arming of terrorism on a massive scale) and that the Ayatollahs are worse (because they, but not the Americans, fall short of an ideal of virtue which consists in how one encourages women to behave, tolerating homosexuals, and being kind to animals - or whatever other tests of virtue you might invent).
Don't think I have no sympathy with your view of ethics: I think it reflects an important truth. But it also seems limited to me, and perilously arbitrary - or at least parochial.