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I recall someone (name escapes me at the moment) defining WW3 as ignition in 5 flashpoints between belligerent groupings: - Eastern Africa esp. Sudan, which we all nearly universally ignore - Israel Iran - Russia and a neighbor which we know today is Ukraine - Pakistan Afghanistan India - China Taiwan Plus Plus

Attributes that distinguish WW3 from previous world wars were IIRC: Contained conflagration, short targeted exchanges, probability of contamination low, material possibility of nuclear escalation. Case in point: North Korea developed nukes without being invaded, and now that they have nukes, other countries are watching and seeing that NK won't be invaded. What lesson do those other countries draw? And what of a world in which many potential belligerents hold nukes? Hiroshima weeps.

I'd like to add an important attribute here: The revolution will be live-streamed, more-or-less. And essentially none of us will know the truth, even the reasons. I predict this fact will not distress many people, such is the state of humanity.

So to the 7 or so decades of stability we and our ancestors enjoyed, here's looking at you, going down me. But Brettonwoods serves the present the least of any time since its creation. Case in point, w.r.t. eastern Africa, the geopolitical bounds of those ~4 countries seems likely meld to a degree. If we are indeed heading into WW3, I expect the world map to be redrawn afterwards, and the only lessons learned is how to win better in future.

And if we are, while disgruntled old geriatrics go at each others throats via their youthful proxies, I greatly prefer the nukes rust in peace.

Reminds me of Blaise Pascal's quote: 'All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room.' Aspiration, you gotta take care man, it just might kill ya.

His French is so simple and yet, incredibly beautiful and elegant, in a way that I am not even able to express in words. Only Voltaire compares.

"tout le malheur des hommes vient d’une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre." -- "All the woe of man comes from one single thing only: not knowing how to remain at rest, in a room"

In the same text, he follows with:

"Le roi est environné de gens qui ne pensent qu’à divertir le roi, et à l’empêcher de penser à lui. Car il est malheureux, tout roi qu’il est, s’il y pense."

"The king is surrounded by people who think only of amusing the king and preventing him from thinking about himself. For he is unhappy, though he be king, if he thinks about it."

> Attributes that distinguish WW3 from previous world wars were IIRC

You're missing the commonalities, what defined world wars: the full might of industrial economies being dedicated to military campaigns.

World War II's theatres' were incoherent–the Axis interests in e.g. China and the Pacific had basically zero stragegic overlap with Europe and North Africa. (The only parties having to consider a unified theatre being the USSR and USA.) But the entire economic surplus of Europe, Asia and North America was basically dedicated to (or extracted towards) making things that were reasonably expected to be destroyed within the year.

> But the entire economic surplus of Europe, Asia and North America was basically dedicated to (or extracted towards) making things that were reasonably expected to be destroyed within the year.

This is no longer necessary to inflict the catastrophic destruction we're really referring to when talking about a hypothetical WWIII

Their argument is that, by definition, it can’t be a world war unless all economic surplus is dedicated to war purposes.

I tend to agree with both of you, and that by extension, we will never see another world war unless society as we know it collapses significantly.

Things have changed since I was a kid. We've gone from saturation bombing and dropping nukes as the big kahuna to being able to do point assassination strikes.

Topical the Israelis just killed Khamenei.

British Empire was heavily involved in Europe, North Africa and South-East Asia. Events in India had great consequences on Europe

The USSR on the other hand barely had any involvement in the Pacific theatre, entering in August 1945.

The USSR had to carefully keep enough land forces in the Pacific region to deter a Japanese land invasion. (Remember that Japan controlled Manchukuo.) So, yes, the USSR had little involvement, and they had to be very careful to keep it from becoming an active front.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol (that was in 1939).

looks at Russia's economy

the "world" part of world war is also important. pretty much every economy involved was at least undergoing heavy handed rationing of goods, encouraging people to donate scrap metal, etc.

Russians are not under food rationing yet.

Here’s hoping they feel the war in Moscow and St Petersburg this year. A bit of rationing wouldn’t hurt them.

More than the war, they’ll feel the peace. More than 100% of the economic growth of the last few years has gone into war production, meaning the civilian economy has shrunk. When the weapons factories are scaled back the economy is going to hurt something fierce. Even Muscovites will notice.

This is why Putin can’t stop fighting. When the fighting stops Russia will face a reckoning. Better to postpone that day hoping that Europe runs out of steam.

Another aspect of a WW3 is that people- pretty much ALL people everywhere- who have nothing to do with the war will find their lives threatened or completely changed by it.

I'm less concerned about nuclear escalation than about biological escalation.

It's quite hard to destroy the human world with nukes: you can only blow up big chunks of it, maybe take out enough power plants and supply chains to drop us into a multi-decade or multi-century dark age, or maybe cause a nuclear winter, although the actual risk of that is unclear.

Whereas a year into a major war a kid in his/her basement can release something that is functionally the end of the human species.

We currently have no real safeguards against this. If we ever have descendants, they'll think we were insane during this time period and they'll be right.

Disagree: Most people live in areas dependent on the supply chain. And when the supply chain gets disrupted they aren't going to go peacefully. And there will be enough mobility that areas that could be self-sufficient get hordes descending on them.

You'd like this book - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Second_After

There’s no chance a kit in a basement can produce a biological weapon that will be successful.

Oh? A lot of the old-style genetic coders got dumped on the market cheap. The sort of stuff a microbiologist could use to synthesize smallpox. The technique has been demonstrated, although on a harmless virus. The market has shifted to outsourcing to big companies (who carefully check every order against known dangers) that have much higher capital costs but much lower per-letter costs, but that didn't invalidate the old lab bench techniques.

Seeing what people can do with a home made wet lab on youtube, I’m not so sure

You’ve got me curious. Examples?

> a biological weapon that will be successful

I think he meant one of these:

1) Biological agent, but not meant to be a weapon.

2) A biological weapon, but one that fails catastrophically.

Oh yeah?

https://theconversation.com/an-illegal-bioweapons-lab-was-fo...

https://abc30.com/post/illegal-reedley-biolab-connected-lab-...

Here's a paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.17154

> It's quite hard to destroy the human world with nukes

what about bio weapons? smallpox in the americas, for an example of many at the page below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_the_Indi...

Isn’t that their entire point?

Smallpox, which the only remaining samples exists in a couple of secure facilities controled by superpowers for use making vaccinations in case they are wrong about their only being a few samples controled by superpowers. Everyone with an ounce of sense knows bioweapons infect both sides and nuetral parties who are no longer neutral once you infect them. It like mustard gas but worse no one other than suicidal terror groups want them and they dont have the facilities equipment samples or knowhow.

Check your thinking. Korea currently has a DMZ dividing it from a war that never really ended and was fought to a stalemate. Their nuclear program didn’t result in military action because they currently have a gun to the head of every South Korean citizen and the backing of a large nuclear neighbour. Those are circumstances you can’t easily recreate elsewhere.

Adding to your point, Seoul is visible from North Korea, and vice-versa, and likely has enough conventional artillery aimed at it that even without nukes an invasion would be Very Bad for the Korean people.

North Korea is in such poor shape that they probably can't maintain much of the equipment much less keep the personnel trained and ready to use it effectively. Not a reason to go to war, but the threat to Soul and SK in general is likely massively overstated.

I think the strategic rational for unification completely swapped about 20 years ago. Up until the early 2000s it was likely in South Korea's, and the US's, interest to find a way to topple NK and unify the peninsula. The two populations had blood ties and common culture. Technologically the gap was growing but still reasonable. It would have been close to an east/west Germany type of situation where unification took effort but ultimately was clearly beneficial. China (and Russia) would have been losers in that unification would have brought a western friendly government even closer to their border. Additionally, NK still had a chance of re-energizing and becoming a real threat to SK.

Now however NK is in such bad shape that unification would be traumatic. South Korea would take on a problem of epic proportions, caring for and bringing a population of that size back into the broader world would be exceptionally costly and definitely not guaranteed to end well, possibly destabilizing SK in the process. Their cultures have grown apart making it hard for them to understand each other. The blood ties are not really there anymore. China and Russia would likely be the winners in that everyone sees NK as crazy and anyone helping them is hurting the world so they could get rid of that baggage. China especially would gain by having rail access to massive shipping assets to deliver goods even cheaper to the world. Finally, the US would loose a major rationale for stationing forces that close to China. They could, rightfully, say that NK isn't a threat and the massive US assets in South Korea and Japan should be drawn down.

> North Korea is in such poor shape that they probably can't maintain much of the equipment

Sadly we know from events in Ukraine that NK artillery works and that they have plenty of it. Yes, it's poor quality, but far from harmless.

Also to be clear: artillery is not exactly rocket science. They idea that NK doesn't have huge stockpiles is ludicrous.

It takes more than stockpiles of shells to be able to use it and maintain offensive positions capable of causing harm. From the reports I have seen NK military in Ukraine has been mostly cannon fodder and they are very untrained. That being said, joining the war effort in Ukraine is likely increasing their readiness.

Right... shells age. They blow up in the barrel, things like that. Maybe they even intentionally blow up in the barrel. Not that I would suggest sabotage. There's no way South Korean intelligence could possibly infiltrate North Korea ;)

But even so, if there was a serious threat of war, which is unlikely because China would stop North Korea, the US would place assets in the region and as we got close to a confrontation the US and South Korea (and as things are looking, probably Japan) would begin an aerial and missile bombardment to destroy in place North Korean offensive capabilities. Some would get through of course, perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of South Korean casualties, but in the context of a conventional war North Korea's capabilities would be quickly overwhelmed, at least in my opinion.

But honestly, the current status quo works pretty well for everyone except the people of North Korea, but there's not much we can do. It's a tragedy and the blame for that falls squarely on the Soviet Union and Chinese Communist Party.

Isn't artillery precisely rocket science?

The only way unification can ever happen will be with Chinese blessing, with or without democracy. That would mean a full exit of US forces from the peninsula, and substantial pandering to the CCP and influence in Seoul. Which isn't that far off a thought honestly - for the most part, Korea was a tributary of China. With rapidly changing demographics and economic heft in both countries, it's even more likely SK will gravitate towards China, to the point that the Chinese will find more persuasion in unification and predictability.

All probably close to correct. I wasn't arguing that unification would, or should, happen (especially by force). I was arguing that the strategic value to China, SK, the west, etc have flipped as well as the actual capabilities of NK are likely vastly overstated.

[dead]

Another fun trivia: Seoul and Pyongyang are closer than Washington DC (Union) and Richmond VA (Confederacy) by a considerable margin.

None of that would stop the current US administration from launching a sneak attack as we've seen several times in other countries. They simply do not care about consequences.

What is the analogous example or your argument? Was iraq sitting next to a china-grade neighbor? Who's venezuela china?

I assume you mean Iran rather than Iraq, but your point still stands.

The DPRK is a nuclear armed buffer state and shall remain so for the forseeable future.

> Reminds me of Blaise Pascal's quote: 'All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room.'

Ah but this is where modern technology comes in! Social media, Tiktoks, video games, porn...

The great pacifier.

> 'All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room.'

old men's*

Alexander "the Great" (mass murderer) began his conquests at the age of 20 and had conquered the largest empire the world had ever seen at the age of 26.

Hannibal was in his 20s when he lead the Carthagian campaign against Rome.

Napoleon began at 26 and had conquered half of Europe at 35.

War being a business of old men sending young men to die is a modern thing.

Epstein files have more potent power in them than any nuclear arsenal.

No way this many rich powerful people would go down without destroying at least half of the world.

What's missing here is the complex network of alliances that led to WWI. The Iranian regime has alienated virtually everyone, including many of its Muslim neighbors. Nor is the regime part of some overarching international movement, like the communist countries were. Who is going to lift a finger to help Iran?

I'm not supportive of these strikes. Iranians created this government, and if they want to topple it they'll have to be the ones to do it, without foreign intervention.

Interestingly Iran had moderately good relations with Russia, to whom they sold drones, and China, to whom they sold oil. But indeed not enough for either to help defend Iran.

With Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran, the US is bottling up Russian and Chinese global influence into smaller regional influence.

Agreed, nobody is going to help out Iran.

If anyone does it'll be China giving them missiles to hit a US boat.

That would make the US turn tail. Not start a war with China.

As for Iranian leadership, they just need to dig deep and wait this out. I can't imagine they don't have plenty of hardened bunkers.

> If anyone does it'll be China giving them missiles to hit a US boat.

> That would make the US turn tail. Not start a war with China.

The right kind of missiles hitting the right kind of boat could lead to a very grave escalation.

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> I'm not supportive of these strikes. Iranians created this government, and if they want to topple it they'll have to be the ones to do it, without foreign intervention.

Well, foreign intervention kind of worked in Syria, Libya and Iraq after a few backstops, didn't it? All three countries reduced to rubble and virtually eliminated as threats to the US and Israel. Iran is next on the list, now that they're close to obtaing nukes. Let's not kid ourselves, they're not doing it for the Iranians, the're doing it for themselves. Regime change on their own terms, or if that isn't possible, yet another civil war.

If they were meaningful threats to the U.S. it would be legitimate to eliminate them, without regard to Iranian sovereignty. It’s not clear to me that was true.

They're an existential threat to Israel and it also puts China's oil suppply chain under pressure as a bonus. Also, the US does absolutely not want them to get nukes. The regime is at its lowest popularity, so obviously this is the time to try and topple it. The problem is that it creates a power void ripe for terrorist factions to flourish in, as it was the case in Syria and Iraq.

“The revolution will be livestreamed” is not used correctly and not what “will be televised” means. You are using it in the opposite manner actually.

Op made an evocative point but then immediately betrayed it.

It is interesting to think about the difference of livestreaming versus television.

You can stop fighting. Nobody's going to livestream anything. The truth it too important to risk making it known/visible by accident.

First, I don't think this leads to WW3 although I would agree with you that there is a general global tendency towards escalation. Still, I think we can not call this WW3 and I am not 100% certain this is a build-up to WW3 either.

As for North Korea: I think the situation is not solely about North Korea itself but China. China is kind of acting as protective proxy here. I don't see North Korea as primary problem to the USA, but to South Korea and Japan. Both really should get nukes. Taiwan too, though mainland China would probably invade when it thinks Taiwan is about to have nukes; then again China already committed to invasion - this is the whole point of having a dictator like Xi in charge now.

The situation Russia is in is interesting, because even though they are stronger than Ukraine, Ukraine managed to stop or delay Russia, which is a huge feat, even with support. As Putin does not want to stop, and Trump is supporting him (agent Krasnov theory applies), I think this has escalation potential. Putin is killing civilians in Ukraine daily - I think he does that because he already committed to further escalation against all Europeans. So Europeans need a nuclear arsenal, but european politicians are totally lame - see Merz "we will never have nukes". Basically he wants to be abused by Putin here.

> So Europeans need a nuclear arsenal, but european politicians are totally lame

Are France's 240 submarines-launched thermonuclear ballistic missiles not adequate? Despite the need for security, nuclear proliferation is extremely bad. It seems ideal for France continue to maintain their nuclear weapons while the rest of Europe keeps their hands clean.

Say what you want about France, but their military has generally been extremely pragmatic and forward thinking*.

They've seen the writing on the wall about independent nukes for decades.

* WWII front collapse being more of a political failure than a military one: politicians dictating unachievable military strategies)

China won't invade Taiwan because it would destroy their economy and thus their country. Would wreck the entire world economy and turn every country against them.

It's nice nationalistic rhetoric, but there is literally no upside for them.

Taiwan needs nukes on low flying hypersonic cruise missles now. Seems that would halt Chinese aggression.

> And essentially none of us will know the truth, even the reasons.

Maybe not in the details, but the general geopolitical "axes" (USA/the "West" vs China/Russia/BRICS/"Global South"/etc) have become increasingly obvious in the last years. And so far, most of the recent conflicts fit pretty neatly into that pattern.

Of course there are more things running in parallel, like the general shift to the right, Trump in the US, the specific situation with Israel/Palestine, the emergence of AI, etc.

But I don't see why any of this needs any other "grand secret cause" to explain the current conflicts.

BRICS is Russia wishing that China (much less Brazil, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates) were aligned to its interests.

A more accurate description of the way the world is trending:

US / UK / Europe / Japan / South Korea (still tied by defense, if push really comes to shove) vs Russia vs China vs Non-Aligned Nations (India, Indonesia, Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, etc.)

And historically (1960s), in a multi-polar world, middle powers are best served by being ambiguously aligned to force advantageous courting by major powers.

If this spreads into a broader conflict, it remains to be seen whether Europe sticks tightly with that block. They certainly won’t align with Russia, but they may be tied so closely to China economically that they can’t afford to be dragged into a direct conflict with them. I could see a situation where they try to remain non—aligned.

Given that we now that to deploy troops to prevent the US from invading Greenland.

I'd agree, it's not a given that the US can count on Europe in a conflict with China.

But probably Europe wouldn't be trading with China or anything.

It's just given the treatment of the US administration, the US probably can't build a volunteer coalition like I Iraq - unless there is an attack on US mainland.

Then have a look who is supporting whom with weapons, which militaries are running maneuvers together, who is cooperating - or not cooperating - economically, who is visiting each others' summits, etc.

It's true that many countries are trying to have relationship with both sides or are trying to keep all options open - which is the most reasonable strategy, I think - but there are still two power centers emerging between which those countries are aligning themselves.

> but there are still two power centers emerging

Yes. There is US and Israel in one side, and countries trying to maintain relationships with everybody on the other.

The most ridiculous thing about people claiming that BRICS is a military pole is that it has both India and China right there in the name. I don't know if you noticed, but those two almost got in an open war just in the last 6 months.

It's the West vs China with Russia as an also-ran with nukes now unfortunately.

Otherwise you've got some regional issues which is where Iran falls. None of the major players in the region like them, even if they would prefer not to have a conflict they'd be pretty stoked if the volatile regime was gone.

Most of those non-aligned nations are pretty much aligned with the west. Indonesia is absolutely aligned with the USA and the USA it. They are the "Indo" in Indo-Pacific Strategy!

Well, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea seem to have a (fairly loose) "alliance of convenience" at the moment. "The enemy of my enemy", more or less.

Hmm, I'm not sure trading is an alliance.

I doubt NK sent anything to Russia without payment in hard currency (gold).

hmmm - but is it really "world war" 3 if it's a bunch of localized conflicts?

I'm a little disappointed that the internet and social media had little impact on universal disclosure about geopolitical matters. My sense is that governments updated their playbooks to both defend against them (e.g. minimize leaking) and leverage them (e.g. bury inconvenient information with propaganda). By comparison, I'm more hopeful about cellphones and bodycams generally reducing excessive police violence and discrimination (emphasis on "reduce").

prediction: the nuclear threat will look quaint compared with disposable million-drone swarms on land and in the air, targeting anything remotely interesting via onboard AI.

“A bunch of localized conflicts” is what contemporaries thought WWII was before people realized the larger pattern.

I'm surprised such a superstitious reply is so highly-upvoted. There's no "WW3" any more than there is time travel or blue smirfs. It's a hypothetical, but you're talking about it like it's an inevitability. That's just not logically-sound thinking.

WWII, contemporaneously, was thought of as several small regional wars: “wow, that Hitler guy has started a bunch of small limited conflicts.”

It was only when one stood back to regard the whole picture that it became clear that something larger was happening.

OP is making the same point.

When Hitler invaded Poland, it took all of two days for basically all of Europe to realize that they were about to replay the Great War (which we now call WW1).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declarations_of_war_during_Wor...

Of course it took longer for it to blow up into a truly global war (Pearl Harbor etc), but a conflagration across Europe is hardly a "small regional war".

Declaring war is one thing, but if you look at how leaders actually responded it's another (notice the 8 month gap from the declaration of war, into actual fighting). They were still willing to negotiate with Hitler, because most western leadership also wanted the communists to be destroyed and thought Hitler would do just that without attacking them. They were willing to push for this literally until the tanks were invading their streets.

Once Hitler invaded France the "phoney war" turned into a real war. [1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War

Hitler attacked several countries before attacking Poland.

We are not heading into WW 3. Those old rich men you worry about have to pay a much higher price in cash for their illusions of control. And that reduces what harm and how long wars can run. Keep an eye on what the markets tell everyone on Monday.

The revolution will be notably public, but not live-streamed. It will come as a swift and decisive reaction to a shock-and-awe deployment that will de-stabilize the state apparatus of a big nation outside of the “west”. The movement will be initially localized but it will spread until a perimeter of containment is setup around developed nations. Much more will come after.

Israel and the US told Iran "Don't try to develop nukes or else." Iran tried to develop nukes and got bombed. Then Iran tried to develop nukes again.

PotUS told Iran "Don't shoot the protestors or else." Iran shot the protestors.

Iran chose to FAFO; "Or else" has now arrived.

I don't like Trump and based on past bad experiences I'm not sure it's wise for the US to start a war in the Middle East. But I don't agree with people who think this war is illegitimate or Iran isn't the bad guy here.

Well hopefully this is short, minimally lethal, and leads to regime change for all those involved.

>leads to regime change for all those involved

Including for the U.S. and Israel?

Pretty sure he chose his words carefully.

It is difficult to instigate regime change for democratically elected governments.

Iran has an unelected supreme leader.

Israel has a large portion of its population completely disenfranchised.

The US has a generally democratically elected government.

If one of these governments is going to fall during military instabilities, it would most likely be Iran. The US will have significant regime change in November if polling holds.

> Israel has a large portion of its population completely disenfranchised.

Care to elaborate? As far as I know, this is false. All Israeli citizens 18 or older can vote; there are no voting restrictions based on race, religion, gender or property; prisoners can vote (unlike in many US states for example); permanent residents who are not citizens cannot vote in national elections but may vote in municipal elections (not the case in the US). National turnout ranges between 65% and 75%.

Minorities are well represented: Arab and Druze citizens vote and have representation in the Knesset.

I struggle to find any dimension in which your statement is correct.

Very obviously, I’m referring to the Palestinians in the “Palestinian Territories” being de facto governed by Israel and are not allowed to vote in Israeli elections.

There is nothing obvious about that statement. In fact it's catastrophically wrong.

Palestinians in Gaza have been governed by Hamas since 2006. Before that, they had been governed by the Palestinian Authority (Fatah) since 1994.

Palestinians in Judea and Samaria ("West bank") have been governed by the Palestinian Authority continuously since 1994, with the exception of Area C.

Palestinians who live there are NOT "de facto governed" by Israel. They pay taxes to the Palestinian Authority; receive birth certificates, IDs, business licenses and social security payments from the P.A.; Go to schools, hospitals, courts, police stations and jails run by the P.A. And most importantly, they vote in elections run by the P.A. To say that they are "de facto governed" by Israel is ridiculous, and shows a lack of basic understanding of Israel and Palestine, and the conflict between them.

"The exception of Area C" is doing a lot of work in this argument. That's 61% of the territory of the West Bank ("Judea and Samaria") (those scare quotes also doing a lot of work).

To counter your list of things that the PA does de facto control, I will add: who controls the criminal court system? The checkpoints which lead to the outside world? The airspace? The ability to import and export goods? The roads? The territorial contiguity of Areas A and B? The decisions on building new settlements?

Aside from the municipal things you mentioned, which in most places in the world are controlled by subnational entities, Israel is in de facto control of the lives and futures of all 15 million people "from the river to the sea", roughly half of them Jews and half of them Arabs, while only one of those groups has what anyone in the West could consider to be a normal existence.

I shouldn’t even have to argue here. Access to the West Bank is controlled by Israel. That is de facto governance.

At best the Palestinian Territories have “quasi-governmental control.” I’m saying this as someone who isn’t particularly pro-Palestine. Pretending that Israel isn’t de facto the government of the Palestinian Territories is an unserious position.

By de facto I mean explicitly not de jure.

> I shouldn’t even have to argue here

If you don't like to argue, may I suggest not making controversial claims on controversial topics, in a place that encourages constructive debate?

> Access to the West Bank is controlled by Israel.

That is mostly true. On the border with Jordan it is jointly controlled by Jordan and Israel (like most international borders).

> Pretending that Israel isn’t de facto the government of the Palestinian Territories is an unserious position

I already explained in great detail the specific ways in which the Palestinian Territories are, in fact, governed by the Palestinian Authority. Taxation, elections, justice, police, education, healthcare, roads, sewers, business regulation, population register...

So far your counter-argument is that Israel controls the border... and therefore Palestinians should vote in Israeli elections? Should they also vote in Palestinian ejections? Or should the P.A. simply stop to exist? What point are you even making exactly?

Calling me "unserious" doesn't make you automatically "serious", or right.

You are confusing de facto control and de jure control. That’s why I’m arguing the position is unserious. I don’t know anything about you personally.

You’re making my point anyway, by conceding that the West Bank is effectively governed without representation in the governments controlling them.

The person you're responding to said they were unable to vote in Israeli elections. You said "no, they're able to, uhh, not vote in the case of those under Hamas and they're able to vote in elections held by the Palestinian authority in the case of those in the west bank." I don't know a ton about this, but I don't believe the Palestinian authority elections are the same as the Israeli elections. As I understand it, the right to vote is gated behind a citizenship process that is restrictive enough to generally prevent Palestinians from obtaining it.

> The person you're responding to said they were unable to vote in Israeli elections.

They said Palestinians are "a large portion of the Israeli population [that] is disenfranchised". That is a wrong statement. Palestinians are not part of the Israeli population and there is no expectation (on either side) that they would participate in Israeli elections. That issue has been largely settled by the Oslo framework in 1994.

> As I understand it, the right to vote is gated behind a citizenship process that is restrictive enough to generally prevent Palestinians from obtaining it.

I'm not sure which elections you mean.

- Israeli elections are for Israeli citizens. The 20% of Israelis who are Arab (sometimes loosely referred to as "Palestinians" as a loose synonym for "Arab living in former mandatory Palestine") can participate normally

- Palestinians in the West Bank vote in Palestinian elections. ' not aware of any citizenship-related restrictions there. Possible issues might be: logistics of getting to polls because of Israeli checkpoints; or simply the absence of elections (PA hasn't held a national election since 2006, although there are municipal elections).

- Specifically in East Jerusalem, on which Israeli claims sovereignty, Palestinians are classified as permanent residents of Israel. They may apply fot Israeli citizenship but that's probably a difficult process. As permanent residents they can vote in Israeli municipal elections, and as Palestinians they can vote in Palestinian national elections. But not being Israeli citizens they cannot vote in Israeli national elections. Perhaps that is what you're referring to?

This is like saying Australians are disenfranchised because they can't vote in New Zealand elections. They're not governed by Israel in any meaningful way.

Correction: It is like saying Australians can't vote in general elections after being pushed out of 75% of the territory, except a small percentage who are tolerated in the major land since they won't make a difference.

The ostracized Aussies then can vote for their own leaders but will be blamed if they vote for the wrong ones and embargoed, regularly shot and even bombed from time to time to remind them who the place belongs to.

Counterpoint, Palestinians (many of whom were not alive in 2006, as they are children) are not exactly drenched in sovereignty at the moment.

I agree. But it is not Israel who is disenfranchising them - it is the Palestinian Authority (in West Bank) and Hamas (in Gaza).

Nakba.

Yes, but how many adults in land controlled by Israel are Israeli citizens?

The US is at “flawed democracy” in the Economist Democracy Index: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index

The US is a republic with some democratic institutions, but the economists index isn’t some platonic indicator that gets to define who’s a good government and who isn’t. Several of its higher ranking countries have outright banned extremely popular political parties in recent years.

democracy is a lower form of government in the ancient world

I wonder who those critics were and what they were motivated by. (Rhetorical)

If you want to talk about rhetoric look at the idea of a “democracy index” - a score suggesting a scientific approach for determining how good/free a nation is.

We can play the “whose saying it game”, or look at the arguments. Democracy is rule by the lowest - and it’s easily manipulated by the popular. Buying votes, focus on the carnal, and immediate is a clear sign of democracy in decline.

So is France.

And both have a similarly executive-centric form of government where the president and the majority party hold a disproportionate amount of power. Although the US is even worse than France on this regard as far as I know.

I think it makes sense that both are categorised as flawed.

The US and Israel are elected governments, but that should certainly not presuppose democratic. The Roman Republic was, for example, fully elected but simultaneously it was intentionally autocratic to the elite. That is why it fell to a dictatorship which then increased the liberty and standards of the people.

Democracy is the directness by which social participation equates to governance. The US is a federal republic with only two parties each bound by the same hostile funding system that benefits political contributions over the vote. That is far from democratic.

For democratically elected governments, doesn't regime change occur when any sitting politician loses the next election to their oponent?

In my thinking regime change doesn't only refer to the complete collapse of the political system, just change in direction of the leaders.

> Israel has a large portion of its population completely disenfranchised.

Does it?

Consider the meanings of the following words:

- sovereignty

- border

- population

In that order, in the context of that region. Then consider their meanings in the context of (say) Canada. Consider how conventional applications of those terms are different for the two.

You still believe the US regimes will allow elections as the they know it?

> It is difficult to instigate regime change for democratically elected governments.

Just ask the folks who tried on January 6.

> The US will have significant regime change in November if polling holds.

Assuming elections are held fairly. "Trump, seeking executive power over elections, is urged to declare emergency":

* https://archive.is/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2...

He said what he said.

Did he stutter?

One can only dream.

It’s possible

Possible but unlikely. The midterms are going to get actually stolen by Republicans, 100%.

We can only hope.

I did not see the US butchering 30k protesters in 2 days.

And no, stop your American exceptionalism, ICE is not the same.

The US mostly isn't interested in butchering it's own citizens, slavery is the approach we went with À la the U.S. prison system.

We killed far more Indigenous Americans than that. I agree with you on the prison system though.

> The US mostly isn't interested in butchering it's own citizens, slavery is the approach we went with À la the U.S. prison system.

I hate to break it to you, but US prisons, while maybe worse than Scandinavian ones, are on par with France, and way better than like 70% of the world.

This is not a competition who has it worse. You can acknowledge terrible things that IR does without trying to portray yourself as a victim.

You are conflating issues. As a foregone conclusion the U.S. bombing the sovereign citizens of Iran is acceptable to you, only afterwards are you and other's justifying this by cherry picking recent events. If Iran hadn't just killed protesters, it'd be because they were working on nukes, or because they've launched missiles across borders.

You blind yourself to the dozens of countries around the world doing these things and worse every day while picking and choosing enemies that are acceptable for the United States to attack like al la carte menu items. Justifying those attacks is an after thought.

> on par with France

The US per-capita incarceration rate is ~5x that of France.

[dead]

Your threshold for desiring regime change is the murder of 30,000 people?

Nah you just bully your allies and illegally tariff the entire world, no biggy

You didn't see anyone butchering 30k protesters in 2 days, because that didn't happen.

> And no, stop your American exceptionalism

I don't think you intended to use this the way you did

True but a lot of people would like to see Netanyahu and Trump replaced with other leaders.

Protesters that took to the streets, according to what I read, because the US president said he would back them. Sounds like he led them to a slaughter to generate justification.

Protests started way before Trumps tweet.

Second, why are you legitimizing gunning down thousands of people?

I'm delegitimizing the US president saying things he can't back up, causing death, and getting the US into another war that the American people didn't ask for.

> I'm delegitimizing the US president

No. You are saying that these people died because of Trump's tweet, and not because the IR goons gunned people on the streets. Seems to me that you place the fault on Trump, rather than on those who pulled the trigger.

I mean we just killed a bunch of children. So give it a bit of time I’m sure we can get those numbers up.

Trump is the kind of person who would kill protestors to stay in power. We all know it

Have we forgotten the huge amount of covid deaths?

Iran says we did.

I saw a report that it was an errant Iranian missile.

This is the Zionist modus operandi. Bomb civilian targets, then claim it's a "stray weapon". When the truth comes out, just ignore it. Zionists have been the aggressors in this region since Zionism was invented.

If you instigate a war you are responsible for all casualties.

I can understand that viewpoint, but the stories are reading as if the school was targeted.

I'll wait for some non-iranian confirmation.

There is nothing ideal about that outcome. The "regime change" people talk about is intended to look like what happened in Libya: A failed state that falls in anarchy.

> look like what happened in Libya: A failed state that falls in anarchy.

This comment just shows that you have no idea what Iran is, and how it differs from Libya.

Libya is a loose conglomerate of tribes. Iran majorly Persian that see themselves as one nation. Completely different dynamics.

It doesn't matter - when a strong and stable political structures suddenly collapse, the state fails and disintegrates due to the political infighting. While I agree with you that the chances of Iran becoming a completely failed state is unlikely, I do see an imminent civil war in Iran's future if a regime collapse happens, and the Americans and Israelis install their Shahi (royal) puppet there. A regime collapse will of course mean Iran will lose its sovereignty (probably for a decade or more), till a truly independent stable polity emerges form the ashes.

Iranian regime is neither strong nor stable though. Or did you miss the recent round of nationwide protests that led to a desperate brutal crackdown?

That's just simplistic western propaganda. Sporadic protests, nationwide or otherwise, don't mean anything unless they are backed by long-term-opposition with strong grass-roots and singular political goals. Iran's regime remains strong and stable - it controls all the political institutions, it controls the civilian government at the local level, it controls the religious / cultural institutions, it controls the military and it has substantial support from the people. Why do you think Israel or the US isn't sending boots to the ground? Apart from the official military, the IRGC has a voluntary civil force, that can be armed by the Iranian military, in every district - if Israel or US send their soldiers to Iran, they will face a very brutal urban warfare with a high death toll.

Iraq? Afghanistan? Vietnam?

I don't think any of these were short.

Desert Storm was short. The second Iraq War, the stupid one, was not.

However, to be fair, Desert Storm hasn't resulted in regime change. The Coalition bombed the shit out of the Iraqi army, but never committed to the ground operation deep inside Iraq. And Saddam's regime survived until the next war.

That alone hints that it is very hard to bring a dictatorship down with just aerial attacks - the ground component is also essential. Something tells me it is going to be the same here.

Only a land operation or a total collapse of the government, with the armed police and military joining the opposition, can topple the Iranian regime.

> That alone hints that it is very hard to bring a dictatorship down with just aerial attacks.

This has been painfully obvious since aerial bombing became possible, but we’ve had so many generals and executives obsessed with the concept that it continues to be a core doctrine, like Kissinger and Curtis LeMay, neither of for whom I have anything but deep contempt.

Was Saddam's Iraq (post Desert Storm when he no longer had the ability to wage offensive war) really that bad compared to what came after?

For a large share of the population, yes, by a huge margin. For an even larger share, no, by a large margin.

Both regimes were deeply racist.

Anyway, I don't think that information entered on the US decision making in any way.

You mean immediately post Desert Storm when this happened? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Iraqi_uprisings

Counterexanple would be Venezuela

Are you sure? They removed one guy they didn't like but the regime remains.

What was the regime change there? The vice president is in charge.

Well, she started releasing lots of political prisoners. So it does seem like the regime acts a bit differently now?

That's because Desert Storm was launched by people who remembered the Second World War. Current wars are started by draft dodgers.

Desert storm didn’t attempt regime change. Iran is not currently invading anyone.

I'm glad someone else remembers. Desert Storm was fast (kind of) because it had a limited objective: Repel an invading army from another nation. It did not lead to an invasion (long term) of Iraq. Comparing any war with the objective of regime change to Desert Storm reveals that the commenter is grossly ignorant of recent history (36 years ago, it's not that far back to be so ignorant).

Desert Storm also wasn't really fast, it led to containment operations lasting a bit over a decade in total, ending only when we decided to invade Iraq with the objective of regime change and nation building. And that one, predictably, turned into a quagmire.

This does not look like a smart one. A bit smarter would be to strike a month ago to support street protests.

It would have confused the Iranians as the regime would then claim that the foreign military attacks prove that the protests are artificially engineered by the same foreign enemy with the support of the Shah. It would also mean the automatic imposition of martial law in Iran, thus making protests even more difficult to organise.

You can’t be short, minimal lethal AND regime change. Gotta be pretty bloody to make that happen.

Unless like Venezuela. Or like 1953 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

Nothing even close to regime change happened in Venezuela.

It's the same regime, but they now take orders from Marco Rubio.

Based on previous American wars in the middle east wouldn't you say that's unlikely?

Won't there be boots on the ground? We already bombed their facilities and at the time they said best that bombs can do is fuck up the entrance to these tunnels.

u sweet summer child.

Well hopefully this is short, minimally lethal, and leads to regime change for all those involved.

That would be ideal but unfortunately not likely. Nobody will like this comment but US ships are sitting ducks. They have minimal ammo per the pentagon and no oilers. No oilers and low ammo means no prolonged conflict. Only two of the ships are nuclear powered not counting submarines. Most of Iran's military and weapons are deep underground in a massive series of underground cities and tunnels. The US would require boots on the ground if they manage to breach the tunnel openings under the mountains. Should that fail the only viable targets are civilians and that won't win favor with anyone or accomplish anything.

Iranian military could just wait it out if they wanted and then smoke Israel with supersonic missiles when the US leaves. Then we find out if Israel does have the nukes for the Samson option and that would result in the destruction of Israel. Iran's military could survive a nuclear strike but would have to clean up the fallout and I am not sure they could. Anyone not underground would likely get Acute Radiation Sickness and Cancer.

On a positive note if the US can manage to get into the tunnels and send in enough munitions to start detonating the missile stockpile a chain reaction could crack all the concrete and collapse the tunnels. Satellite could detect which tunnel they try to evac from. They have less than 5 days to accomplish the chain reaction assuming this is the plan. From the videos I have seen the missiles are literally lined up like a double-strand fuse.

The US military has seldom had problems with the blowing up the enemy bit. It's providing peace and stability after that happens where they tend to run into problems.

The US military has seldom had problems with the blowing up the enemy bit.

True however AFAIK they have never once been in this situation. Iran has spent 40+ years digging in and hunkering down. There were plenty of bunkers in WWII but this is a whole new setup, deeper under mountains, higher quality concrete assuming they knew what they were doing and dug in much deeper. To get this done in 5 days will be quite a feet. If they manage to do it I will be very impressed.

It's providing peace and stability after that happens where they tend to run into problems.

I think you are correct, what happens afterwards is usually a crap-fest. That would require a lot of boots on the ground to maintain stability for a very long time. It's not a great example but Korea is one such example. The payoff may be worth it if many of the Iranian funded terror groups are drained of resources as a result. Keeping boots on the ground for years will require funding from congress. Short of that it will just be another power vacuum filled by yet another zealot. The "if's" are doing a lot of heavy lifting in my comment.

They don't necessarily have to kill all the Iranian military, just suppress internal security enough to where the Iranian people came rise up in rebellion. It's hard for the IRGC to suppress widespread protests/rebellion if they're constantly stuck hiding in bunkers and tunnels.

I imagine that's the strategy, anyway.

I think the crap-fest bit could go better with Iran. The Iranians are closer to European in culture than many places.

[Update]: It seems my dear leader is hitting all the cities... [1] I am not OK with this. Save the handful of leaders and scientists for ground recon instead of whacking all the citizens. Take out the missiles first. Most of the military and religious leaders are under ground. Take out those underground complexes and Iran is yours.

[1] - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/28/us-and-israel-attac...

I wouldn't trust Al Jazeera here (or anywhere else) but "hitting all cities" doesn't really say much. If the attacks are going after the IRGC and the Basij then presumably you need to go after them fairly broadly. If the attacks are going at ballistic missiles and drones the same applied. The question is what are the targets and what's the plan. I'm sure they're going after those complexes as well.

> Take out those underground complexes and Iran is yours.

And how exactly would Iran be 'ours' without boots on the ground in this scenario?

Yeah, the possibility of a regime collapse / change due to this military action is unlikely. The military goal seems to be to destroy Iran's military-industrial complexes to hamper its missile production. Note however that while Iran has potent missile capability, Iran's underground complexes where it is stored presents its own problems - in the absence of adequate air defence and an Air Force, its enemies can just bomb the openings of these underground complexes, making it very, very difficult for the Iranians to use its missile arsenals from there. (This is what Israel did the last time). As for the scenario you outlined, I highly doubt the US would be willing to send boots to the ground to blow up their missiles manually - urban warfare takes a heavy toll and I doubt if the Trump administration can withstand the criticism if body bags start coming home. Even the MAGA crowd has been unexceptionally hostile to Trump's attack on Israel.

I highly doubt the US would be willing to send boots to the ground to blow up their missiles manually - urban warfare takes a heavy toll and I doubt if the Trump administration can withstand the criticism if body bags start coming home.

You could be entirely right. Honestly I hope you are right. We lost far too many in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was probably just being cynical. I trust the decisions of the senior leaders in the military but their commander and chief tends to trust the wrong advice.

The only possible correction I might add is the Air Force probably will not drop bombs but would have to fire missiles. The openings are on the sides of mountains and require horizontal access or I suppose incredibly massive bombs. Earth shattering bombs. Something closer to tactical nukes which the US has not stockpiled in a long time AFAIK.

I can't imagine a world where the US military only has the logistics for a five day offensive.

There are some factors - this is an offensive being done to prop up Netanyahu's regime in Israel and distract the Americans from the Espstein files. The US thus means to keep it short-term. Moreover, in the middle-east, the American logistic chain runs through its Arab allies in the middle-east, and Iran has explicitly said that it will not hesitate to target its Arab neighbours, hosting American military bases, if the US attacks it. (And that's why it has retaliated against these American allies when it was attacked). Except for Saudi Arabia, these countries do not wish to get into a war with Iran for Israel, and have no interest in joining the war because Iran's missiles are quite precise and effective at short ranges (meaning they and their people will be facing the brunt of the war that they have no interest in). Thus, the US military is actually hampered because it cannot do anything without the host governments permission. (For example, during the last Iran attack, some allies did not allow the US to implement a nationwide jam of the GPS over its airspace). All this highlights the really hard balancing the US has to do to even agree to bomb Iran for a few days - one wrong move and the whole of middle-east can explode, and both the US and Israel will find itself on the receiving end as American and world public opinion turns against it.

It is odd. Trump has been receiving advice on Iran from General Dan Caine. It was suggested Caine warned of risks and limited munitions Trump refuted these stating Caine believes a conflict would be easily won. Other senior officers were in shock that he said this could be done. The pentagon objected due to the lack of ammo and oilers. This is one case where I wish he would listen to the senior officers with substantial experience instead of the guy that often agrees with him.

What yt channel?

It's hard to find them now with all the AI slop being propped up but the best search terms may be "Iranian tunnel bunkers full of missiles". It is mostly YT channels run out of India. The oldest video I have seen was from CNN ten years ago. Iran will occasionally let journalists see their latest tunnel.

This is a short one showing the 2nd to last generation of tunnels. [1] The latest tunnels are painted white including some that are under water. The older tunnels are not painted and one can see what appears to be reinforced concrete. When completed every tunnel is lined on both sides with missiles. This one [2] shows a couple generations of the tunnels. Found the old CNN video. [3]

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YQ1R7ZAKxE [video][1m]

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQtSPFrnKvo [video][5m25s]

[3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_Gu_TjmV0E [video][2m12s]

Seriously? Those videos look like they were made with Blender

I know you won't believe me here but dude you are absolutely full of shit

I clear it out with Cheesecake and Beer. I'll save some for you my friend.

> Minimally lethal

“Israel strikes two schools in Iran, killing more than 80 people”

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2026/2/28/israel-strikes-...

Welp, better luck next time

This reminds me of the Al-Ahli hospital incident in Gaza, when a mysterious explosion at a hospital was immediately blamed on an Iraeli strike - first by Hamas, then by the international press. A precise death toll was immediately available: 500 killed. Israel urged caution as they investigated, but were ignored.

Eventually, it was established that 1) the casualty number had been a fabrication, 2) the explosion was in the parking lot, 3) it was NOT caused by an Israeli strike, but by a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that had fell short.

Soon the press was forced to issue corrections - New York Times [1] , Le Monde [2], BBC [3]...

This incident looks VERY similar. Which is not surprising, since Hamas was trained in information warfare by the IRGC. Note that Al Jazeera (the media arm of Qatar, who funds Hamas and hosts their leaders in Doha) is enthusiastically amplifying this story with no apparent effort to cross-examine Iran's official source.

I predict that this story will turn out to be fabricated as well.

UPDATE: preliminary reports from the OSINT community seem to indicate that the story was indeed a fabrication... https://x.com/tarikh_eran/status/2027784301840846939

[1] https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2023/the-new-york-times-e...

[2] https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2023/10/24/a-no...

[3] https://deadline.com/2023/11/bbcs-international-editor-grill...

What the comment fails to mention is that Al-Shifa hospital was ultimately destroyed by Israeli forces, with grave civilian casualties, and no Hamas tunnels ever found: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_Hospital

I am just befuddled by how much of this violence is directly motivated by religious concerns, both on the side of Iran and on the side of Israel and USA.

I have been reading on the topic of shunyata or emptiness in Mahayana Buddhism, and have been uncomfortably observing just how much of the artifacts we take to be real and substantial in the world are just "made up". They don't have an inherent reality of their own except what we attribute to them. And yet, made up stories can have very real consequences in terms human suffering.

It ought to be possible to cut through the layers of reifications and simply defuse much of the strife in the world. And yet, we continue to inflict misery on each other unnecessarily.

You’re mistaking the packaging for the product. Religion is the language leaders use. Power, territory, oil corridors, regional dominance, and domestic political survival are what they’re actually fighting over.

Tehran isn’t calculating missile ranges based on sutras. Washington doesn’t position carrier groups because of metaphysics. Israel’s security doctrine isn’t a meditation retreat.

Spiritual narratives make clean moral theater for the public. They mobilize bodies. They sanctify retaliation. But the machinery underneath runs on leverage and deterrence, not theology.

Wake up to the real world.

Calling it primarily religious violence feels tidy and tragic in a philosophical way. It’s harder, and more uncomfortable, to admit that it’s strategic violence dressed in symbols people recognize.

Shunyata is a beautiful lens for seeing through ego. It doesn’t dissolve geopolitics.

> Israel’s security doctrine isn’t a meditation retreat.

"Security doctrine" is quite a euphemism for aggressive territorial expansion and ethnic cleansing, which is tightly wrapped in religious rhetoric.

Territorial expansion and ethnic cleansing boils down to "more resources for me and those most closely related to me genetically." It's difficult to think of a course of action that is more materialist and less abstract.

religious rhetoric is for the fools they've indoctrinated to their cause. it does not drive policy. I was being sardonic with "security doctrine".

Israel today is run by a group of religious fundamentalists who do believe it is their "promised" land. And then we have an American ambassador publicly supporting this because he thinks that as a Christian he needs to support Israel's "Biblical rights" over the all of middle-east!

"a group of religious fundamentalists" led by... Netanyahu, who is completely secular if not an atheist. How does this narrative make sense?

(Of course some Israel politicians are religious; that's true of any country.)

You don't judge a person by what they say, but what they ultimately do - Netanyahu is a right-wing religious fundamentalist as is evident by the kind of right-wing identity politics he practice, his support for the assassination of Israeli (and Palestinian) leaders who didn't support his political ideology and sought peace (Israel PM Netanyahu denies incitement before murder of Rabin - https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-pm-netanyahu-denie... , Will Israel ever have another leader who truly wants peace? - https://forward.com/opinion/780946/yitzhak-rabin-assassinati... ), his attempts to usurp democracy in Israel and become a dictator (If Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition have their way, my country could deteriorate into a dictatorship. - https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/israel-ben... ), his calls for the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza, and the military sanction for the actual ongoing genocide in Gaza (and now in West Bank). The Likud party he leads emerged from a terrorist organisation that conducted Hamas like massacres of the Palestinains. ( The Terrorist Forefathers of Israel: The Irgun and Lehi - https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/03/the-terrorist-forefathers... ).

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and does what a duck does, it is a duck.

Netanyahu is not religious. He is, as the parent says, secular. If my cat quacked he's still not a duck.

There is "religion" in the broader sense which can be any set of beliefs but Netanyahu is as secular and logical as can be. He may be overly logical in the sense of advancing his personal agenda (avoiding standing trial) over the interests of his country but he's still very different than the religious crazies in Tehran where logic plays no role and g-d is everything.

I agree that one must be quite illogical and committed to some grander creed to issue a prohibition on nuclear weapons while Israel and USA are doing everything in their very much nuclear power to destroy you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei%27s_fatwa_against...

It's definitely illogical to enrich materials to nuclear grade and invest immense amounts in bunkers with centrifuges while saying you don't mean to have nuclear weapons.

I do this too. I think it is basically simulation out of fear. (modeling because of uncomfortableness with thinking with System 1 fast emotional / System 2 slow rational)

Complexity can lead to "more is different" outcomes at higher strata. I would not say reified concepts are "made up" as they can have very real effects on both higher and lower strata.

The fallacy of reification is treating something emergent as a thing-unto-itself rather than a process or interaction born from constituents at a lower stratum. A reified thing can be recognized and changed for this reason. A mental concept needs only a change of mind to mutate, or to be destroyed.

Religion may well prove to be a reification that is destroyed once it is recognized as such. But I do believe that you cannot reduce that which is real and not real to only those things that have physical antecedents at lower strata, as we see emergent phenomena in the physical world as well.

It makes a lot more sense if you picture a bunch of organized, strong and merciless chimps attacking some other chimps to plunder what they have.

Chimps generally agree war is bad and horrific. But some smart, opportunistic and hard-working chimps can create situations that make war possible. Even though the war will only bring losses to most chimps on both sides.

The best political insight in this thread. This is the planet of the apes. If any future historians are reading, some of us primates were aware of the absurdity of the situation, horrified by the senseless violence that erupts again and again, led by sociopathic chimps that somehow managed to organize whole societies against each other and profit from the whole primitive enterprise. What a waste of human potential.

I have a very hard time understanding how the US is attacking Iran because of Christianity. I cannot even anticipate the hypothesis.

When it comes to battles of religion, Alan watts said it best.

"Since opposed principles, or ideologies, are irreconcilable, wars fought over principle will be wars of mutual annihilation. But wars fought for simple greed will be far less destructive, because the aggressor will be careful not to destroy what he is fighting to capture. Reasonable–that is, human–men will always be capable of compromise, but men who have dehumanized themselves by becoming the blind worshipers of an idea or an ideal are fanatics whose devotion to abstractions makes them the enemies of life."

> I am just befuddled by how much of this violence is directly motivated by religious concerns, both on the side of Iran and on the side of Israel and USA.

Can you provide an example of this in 2026?

It seems a little tenable with the ayatollah and Iran. But even here you don’t hear much talk of this being a war in the name of religion anymore. Nowhere near a few years ago and certainly nothing like 9/11 and the Taliban.

And I hear nobody in Israel or America talking that way. Just a war defending people against attackers at the gates.

The land promised to the Israelites generally extends from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Iraq/Syria, encompassing modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and parts of Syria and Saudi Arabia.

If you're a religious Jew, then you believe you have a mandate from God (so an irrefutable right, or even obligation, needing no justification) to settle and rule not only the West Bank but the entire region. So there will always be that motivation, as long as religious Judaism exists in Israel.

That is not the ruling Likud ideology in Israel nor the allied national religious ideology; both refer to Israel+Palestine+Golan as "the Whole Land of Israel".

And in any case, the "most religious" (ie those whose politics are most totally driven by Judaism) bloc in Israel are at best ambivalent about the Israeli state and the settlement enterprise, and actively hostile to military service.

Israeli hostility to Iran is driven by a "defensive" paranoia, not a religious mission.

Israel literally has minted coins with the image of Greater Israel (they claim this is only in reference to some ancient coin designs). The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has just a few days ago given an interview where he explicitly stated that Israel / the Jewish people has a right to that entire land, from the Euphrates to the Nile. The Israeli opposition leader was then asked about this, and he agreed with the US ambassador that yes, they do have this right, but that of course it must be viewed realistically given security and operational limitations.

Of course it needs to be approached pragmatically. If Israel stated that its number one goal is to rule the entire region, they wouldn't have been as successful as they are.

Also God didn't say when. But he did promise, according to the Book.

This is insane conspiracy theory nonsense, and is also not how actual Jews read the Tanakh.

(Which is also not referred to as "the Book", since it's a collection of books. This may seem like a nitpick, but I think is indicative of you getting your information from non-Jewish conspiracy theorist circles rather than anything related to Jewish theology or culture.)

I agree with you for the most part. But we aren't talking about the ordinary spiritual Jews or Christians or Muslims. We are talking about religious fundamentalists who have a very distorted view of their religion, and mix it with identity politics. Israeli-right religious fundamentalists have captured full power in Israel, and are now even threatening their own democracy. Don't forget that the Likud party that Netanyahu leads was once a terrorist organisation in its previous avatar, that used to do Hamas like massacre of Palestinians and assassinate Israeli leaders that didn't subscribe to their ideology and wanted peace with Palestine. Indeed, if the Israelis were freed of these religious fundamentalist leaders peace is very likely. (The Terrorist Forefathers of Israel: The Irgun and Lehi - https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/03/the-terrorist-forefathers... ) .

Try to resist the temptation to lump me in with the conspiracy theorists. If you can, provide facts. Thanks for your nuance about the Books. I was using the terminology I learned for the Bible (which also consists of multiple Books, but is referred to as the Book), but I'm happy to switch to "scripture".

The Dati Leumi, the Religious Zionists, who constitute the ideological backbone of the settler movement, and have a lot of political influence in Israel, absolutely believe in their duty to govern the biblical land. For many, holding the West Bank is a religious obligation, and they consider the Golan settled and annexed. Religiously, the same principle that justifies them holding Golan applies to these territories.

Here are some recent statements from political leaders:

Bezalel Smotrich (Finance Minister, Religious Zionist party) "it is written that the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus."

Daniella Weiss (prominent settler leader) said in 2024: "We know from the Bible that the real borders of Greater Israel are the Euphrates and the Nile."

Benjamin Netanyahu said he's on a "historic and spiritual mission" and that he is "very" attached to the vision of Greater Israel, which includes Palestinian areas and possibly also places that are part of Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon.

Yair Lapid, the secular centrist opposition leader (!). "I don't think I have a dispute on the biblical level about what the original borders of Israel are... I support anything that will allow the Jews a big, vast, strong land."

Mike Huckabee (US Ambassador to Israel) "It would be fine if they took it all."

Huckabee speaks for himself and maybe some Christians.

I would say a lot of Jewish people and Israelis get upset at what you're saying and so maybe our reply will be a bit adversarial. Here's trying to be more factual (I used Gemini to research though I'm personally familiar with these figures as well).

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (1920–2013): The highly influential former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel. While his political party (Shas) later shifted rightward, Rabbi Yosef issued a landmark religious ruling in the late 1970s stating that Israel is permitted to cede land in exchange for a genuine peace treaty, prioritizing the sanctity of life over holding territory.

Rabbi Menachem Froman (1945–2013): An Orthodox rabbi and resident of a West Bank settlement who famously engaged in direct dialogue with Palestinian leaders, including the PLO and Hamas. He supported the creation of a Palestinian state, arguing that shared religious reverence for the land should be the foundation for peace rather than an obstacle.

Rabbi Michael Melchior: An Orthodox rabbi and former Israeli cabinet minister who leads the Mosaica religious peace initiative. He actively works on "track-two" diplomacy, fostering dialogue between Israeli rabbis and Palestinian imams.

Rabbi Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–1994): A highly influential Orthodox Jewish philosopher and scientist. Immediately following the 1967 Six-Day War, he became a vocal opponent of the military occupation of the Palestinian territories, warning that it would corrupt Israeli society and Judaism itself.

Rabbis for Human Rights: An active Israeli organization made up of over a hundred Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist rabbis. They physically protect Palestinian farmers, advocate against settler violence, and largely support a two-state solution based on the biblical mandate to protect the vulnerable.

On the question of the applicability of religion: "Does Judaism Mandate a Specific Political Solution?

No. Judaism predates the concept of the modern nation-state, so the religion does not explicitly mandate a "one-state" or "two-state" political framework. Instead, different religious camps emphasize competing core values within Jewish law (Halakha) and scripture to justify their political stances"

There's a lot more to explore and I encourage you do that on your own.

Remember, the claim wasn't that all Israelis believe or support this. The claim was that religious motivations for violence exist. And a stronger claim that I think I have sufficiently defended was, that many influential people have these motivations.

If the weaker claim is that some Israelis have religious motivations or feel like religion supports their position - sure. But big picture religion doesn't play as large as a role for Israelis as it might play for Iran or let's say Hamas or the Houthis. Even with those more religious actors I don't think religion is the only driver, e.g. with Iran this is probably partly just a way to control the population vs. a religious belief held by everyone in the regime (not sure about the ex-supreme leader)

> If you're a religious Jew, then you believe you have a mandate from God (so an irrefutable right, or even obligation, needing no justification) to settle and rule not only the West Bank but the entire region.

Well not really , most Orthodox definitely don't believe this in fact some of them are anti Zionist and the ones who accept Israel's existence definitely do not think Israel needs to expand its borders like that. So no to that.

Israeli have a diverse spectrum of religious denominations. This includes religious, non Orthodox Jews. Dati Leumi (the religious Zionists) are by far the most hawkish. They absolutely believe that the biblical land belongs to the Jewish people. They account for about 15% and are incredibly politically influential.

The Haredim (the ultra-Orthodox) are more complicated, and in general don't want all the promised land (they believe that the state established militarily/politically isn't the "spiritual" state that was promised). But, when it comes to the currently occupied land, they have been shifting right in recent years. They vote in coalition with the nationalist right, and their communities increasingly overlap geographically with settlements.

The Dati Leumi camp isn't as uniform as you portray it. There are many examples (e.g. Avrum Burg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avraham_Burg ) do not think Israel should be over the entire historical/biblical region ("Eretz Israel Ha-Shlema").

More examples are:

- Rabbi Yehuda Amital and the Meimad Party

- Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein

You are confusing politics and religion.

> You are confusing politics and religion.

Religious Zionism is a religious denomination.

National Religious Party–Religious Zionism is a political party.

It feels unfair and unjustified that you are accusing me of confusing them without substantiating your accusation. I am still open to learn anything that you might want to share with me that you think is important.

So Avrum Burg I mentioned in another comment is historically affiliated with the "Mafdal", the religious party. That religious party, just like religious zionism in general, isn't one uniform block. It has different opinions and it evolves.

I feel like I lost track of the discussion. At some point I thought you were claiming something along the lines that says religious Jews believe they are under an order from God to expand Israel to its maximal biblical geographical area.

If your claim is that the current day Mafdal's political (not necessarily religious) position is that Israel should annex the West Bank and Gaza. Ehm, sure, maybe. I think it's a bit more nuanced even than that but I won't argue on this point.

It's possible I just lost the thread, and if I did I apologize. HN isn't very good at facilitating this sort of discussion. If I mis-stated your position above and am agreeing with the wrong thing I'm sure you'll correct me.

[EDIT: correcting myself a little bit Burg actually ended up as a member of the Labor party in politics, but his politics did originally align with the Mafdal, the party is/was supposed to represent all Zionist Religious people but has obviously diverged a bit from that)

> At some point I thought you were claiming something along the lines that says religious Jews believe they are under an order from God to expand Israel to its maximal biblical geographical area.

I just meant that there's a part of the religious spectrum prone to that interpretation, and it mixes very well with nationalism, and expansionism. And that it isn't a meaningless fringe, but has a significant political representation. What I wrote was a reasonable way the scripture can be interpreted by someone who believes it's a true word of God.

If I'm wrong, and e.g. the Miflaga Datit Leumit party explicitly rejects this kind of intepretation then I stand corrected, but judging by what its leader says publicly this isn't the case...

> If you're a religious Jew, then you believe you have a mandate from God (so an irrefutable right, or even obligation, needing no justification) to settle and rule not only the West Bank but the entire region. So there will always be that motivation, as long as religious Judaism exists in Israel.

I would say this is generally false.

There are many religious Jews who believe there should be no state of Israel until the Messiah comes. Judaism is very open to interpretations and certainly within the question of modern state politics doesn't have as much to say as you seem to think it does.

There are many different Rabbis in Israel with different political opinions and generally their followers will tend to hold similar beliefs. There are right wing Rabbis and left wing Rabbis, it's not uniform at all. During the Oslo peace process there were many religious people supporting and many opposing, pretty much the same as secular.

What is true is that some Israelis view their right to the land in the context of the biblical promise God made our people. That is not the same thing. Funny enough I'd say more Christians believe the literal promise and it's implication on current day politics than Jews. It's also true that religious people these days tend to be more right leaning politically. But the religion isn't mandating those world views it just that they can align.

I will grant you this: there are many Israelis that don't believe this, and some of them are religious.

Will you grant me this: religious motivations for violence exist within Israel, including the ruling political class?

Tell that to the millions of Hasidic Jews in the United States who do not believe that a Jewish nation should exist at all.

Thanks for this information, I'd like to offer something in return.

Only certain Hasidic groups oppose Israel, including Satmar Hasidim (over 100k followers), and Neturei Karta (fringe, only about 1k supporters). That's less than millions, and a minority within the Hasidic world.

Theologically, they oppose it based on an interpretation a Talmudic passage saying that establishment of Israel has to happen after the coming of the Messiah.

Additionally, there are a lot different denominations of Jews within Israel, some of whom have more pragmatic views. But a significant, politically influential minority believes in their duty to govern all biblical land.

> And I hear nobody in Israel or America talking that way.

The American ambassador to Israel recently publicly said that Israel has a "biblical right" to the whole of the middle-east! (Watch these two interviews to understand how cleverly, and strongly, Israeli politics is tied up with American evangelical Christianity to keep American polity tied to Israel's existence - https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-fares-abraham-021826 and https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-mike-huckabee-022026 . Both these interviews give you a very insightful picture of how religious fundamentalist Israelis in power are total nutcases, supported by the American Christian fundamentalist fruitcakes).

Can you offer a source that wouldn't require us to listen to hours of Tucker Carlson?

The source is not Tucker Carlson - it is the person(s) he is interviewing. And if you don't want to listen to the interview, you can pay him to get a transcription of the interview and search through it. (Meanwhile, you may find this equally insightful - The Terrorist Forefathers of Israel: The Irgun and Lehi: https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/03/the-terrorist-forefathers... - supporting my arguments on how Jewish religious fundamentalists have captured power in Israel. Without getting rid of them, peace is not possible in that region as they are the other side of coin that was Hamas in Palestine).

This attack was literally lined up to coincide with the israeli holiday of purim, a celebration of murdering their enemies:

https://x.com/chrisbrunet/status/2027665287982502195

I feel like this sort of symbolic planning means you don't even need to leak to the wrong Signal chat group to telegraph your attack? Especially when enemy warships have already been hovering for a few days...

That tweet does not support your claim, and it is in fact not Purim yet.

How does that tweet not support my claim? It's CNN reporting, here's the actual article: https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/israel-iran-attack-0...

The evangelicals support isreal due to religious obligation.

Project 2025, a christian nationalist policy advisement widely followed by the current regime, prescribes supporting isreal

Evangelicals point to Genesis 12:3 as justification but never seem to have ever read any of Galatians 3.

It's not said in polite company, but Israeli concerns are racial, not religious. If you meet a Jewish zionist, then you've also met an athiest. An explanation of Christian Zionism deserves much longer discussion than can be made here, but how and why such an obvious contradiction to Jesus' ministry gained popularity is something worth studying.

Not entirely accurate:

1. Many Israeli Jewish Zionists are either "traditional" (religious but not that much) or Religious Zionist, and they are generally part of the right wing coalition. Actual atheists tend to be in the Israeli (still-Zionist) left.

2. The Zionist conception of Jewish identity is not "racial" in the American sense. The most obvious sense in which this is true is that it considers converts and their descendants full members of the nation. Probably the closest analogies are some Native American nations' identities or Armenian nationalism.

But you're directionally correct - Zionism is not a particularly religious ideology within the Jewish world, and outside of the Religious Zionist minority the political class is (openly!) on the less observant end even on the right.

Once you realize the gospels and the epistles disagree, it becomes a lot easier to understand. Christianity is the practice of cognitive dissonance. The bible, due to the nature, has a lot of mixed messaging.

Imagine, for example, you wanted to write the religion of Liberalism, so you collect the works of all the major thinkers on the subject of liberalism into one book. Now imagine someone gets the bad idea that all these authors must actually have a unified view on what liberalism is, means, and implies. You'll end up seeing that person teach a form of liberalism that's easily countered with other passages from their book and they'll mostly just wave it away because they have their passages and the others are simply you misinterpreting an "obvious" metaphor.

That is christianity in a nutshell, just replace liberalism with god. That's why there are so many sects. Because it's just too easy to yell "Context context context!" when a difficult passage comes up you don't agree with and use "spiritual" as the excuse for why you don't actually have to follow that passage.

There is also point of view that remembers that always right behind US military there is a team building next oil pipeline. US tried to used China as cheap labor, lost a lot of intelligence and now - look at how much oil Iran has and who is it exporting to and what is the percentage at the destination. The numbers add up and only the funny (?) thing is - China is (going to) be most eco country, because they already use nuclear power a lot and were forced to work on that.

What a time to be alive, again! And please, downvote me, comment that US is fighting for some country’s civilians freedom. It’s fun too.

> Buddhism

No one lives up to their ideals on a day-to-day basis:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide

Fallacy.

(Wrong) Knife fight: a fight between people about knives

(Right) Knife fight: a fight between people using knives

Religion poisons everything.

Examples abound; but for good and ill, the language-using ape seems to be a religious animal, having co-evolved with mythological memeplexes.

There's the old salt from DFW, "one can't choose whether to worship, only what to worship". Less apologetics, perhaps, than a realmythos (akin to realpolitik).

Nature abhors a vacuum, and something inevitably fills the void: the "god-shaped hole" in individuals, and the game-theoretic basin of attraction, the actual realpolitik of loyalty-signaling, load-bearing fictions which bind an "imagined community". (The first might be manageable, but the second is a doozy: a faith which could not be more explicitly anarcho-pacifist mutated into justification for brutally violent hierarchies of domination and exploitation. So it goes.)

Mythology does not equal religion.

And the fact you feel a hole that religion fills for you doesn’t mean it’s there in everyone. Enforced religious participation is never proof that religion is what people crave.

I don't disagree. I trimmed "religious and mythological memeplexes" down to avoid repetition. (Also worth considering: de-facto religious behaviors need not be supernatural or "mythological"; you can substitute your own examples of political ideologies that are difficult to distinguish from religions in practice.)

It is obviously a deeply complicated and complex phenomenon. Even the Dennett/Dawkins model of selfish replicators aren't necessarily sufficient, in addition to my claim that the relationship between genes and memes can sometimes be mutually symbiotic (and I'm aware of the great many counter-examples).

To be clear, I don't hold to a particular faith myself (and I've spent time at both ends of the spectrum). I suspect that the so-called "god-shaped hole" is one of many characteristics that varies in the human animal, not unlike those who have a mind's eye and those who don't, or those who hear their thoughts audibly and those who don't.

> Enforced religious participation is never proof that religion is what people crave.

While what people crave obviously varies, I think most people do crave something like meaning and community (or flipping it around: selection pressures seem to have selected for meaning and community, presumably at least in part from a green-beard effect [0]). While those can exist independently of faith, we can empirically observe that they tend to overlap quite a lot (again, for good and ill).

While I'd agree with you regarding illiberal theocracies and religious totalitarianism, I'd problematize your framing in two ways: (a) "forced" implies that someone is doing the forcing, meaning presumably someone craves it, or is at least willing to play along [1]; but more pertinently, (b) there is a middle ground between the extremes of "explicit individual choice", and "forced participation": norms, culture, emulation, etc.

No one "forces" anyone in the business world to wear suits, or use LinkedIn jargon; but the incentives are in favor of doing so (and against not doing so), so people play along: some cynically, some internalizing norms sincerely. If we hit a magic History Randomizer Button that shuffled historical contingencies, I don't think we'd have an absence of those norms, but other norms with different details. And I suspect we'd see different churches and myths and holy books, not an absence of them.

To reiterate, I'm just talking Darwinian functionality here, not whether religion is good or bad in a normative sense. If the niche exists, "nature finds a way".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green-beard_effect

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iEWTx_APQ4

It had nothing to do with religion, that element is used to distract.

They are following their books like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Religious concerns are, IMHO, always a facade for the underlying economic/territorial/geopolitical reasons. These religious facades help sell the war effort: get young men to enlist and fight to the death for "preserving their identity". And "muh freedom" is just as much a religious motivation to me (unsubstantiated, indoctrinated, unthreatened).

Religion isn't the facade, it is the medium through which other reasons are transmitted

> I am just befuddled by how much of this violence is directly motivated by religious concerns, both on the side of Iran and on the side of Israel and USA.

This just isn't true. Religion is never the reason for these conflicts. It's the excuse. It's how that conflict is sold to the rest of the world. It's how civilians are manipulated into dying in a conflict.

The source of these conflicts is always material. Always.

Reagan's Secretary of State, General Alexander Haig once said [1]:

> Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national security.

In 1986, then Senator and future president Joe Biden said [2]:

> [Israel] is the best $3 billion ivnestment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to an invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region.

Much of US Middle East polciy was aimed to sabotaging and undermining Pan-Arab Nationalism (particularly under then Egyptian President Nasser) [3].

Nothing about any of this has anything to do with faith. In this case it's about oil.

Whatever crimes you think Iran might've done, I'll stack up the US crimes against Iran and it won't even be close, including:

1. Iran was a liberal democracy that the US deposed in 1953 at the behest of the British because BP didn't want to have to pay higher royalties, ultimately leading Mossadegh wanting to "nationalize" their own oil;

2. In 1978, then US-puppet Saddam Hussein expelled Khomenei from Iraq. This was about the time the US realized that Iran was likely lost. it is believed that the reason for this was that a fundamentalist regime was preferred to a Communist one (which was otherwise the likely outcome) as the US didn't want Iran to fall into the Soviet sphere of influence. So all this pearl-clutching about the current regime rings hollow when you realize the US helped created it;

3. As punishment for the Revolution, the US supplied weapons to Iraq and fueled the Iran-Iraq war for almost a decade that killed over a million people; and

4. Crippling economic sanctions, which is a fancy way of saying "starving people and denying them medical care", for daring not to be a US puppet.

If you point me to any conflict you think is based on faith, I'll show you the material interests behind it.

[1]: https://archive.ph/tMTBd

[2]: https://www.c-span.org/clip/senate-highlight/user-clip-joe-b...

[3]: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v12...

> The source of these conflicts is always material. Always.

Since the beginning of the Green Revolution¹, no. The source of these conflicts are always ideological. Always. Ideology may come through religion or some other medium.

Countries don't go occupying land because they need crops or slaves anymore. Material is always cheaper to buy than to get from an occupation. The desire to annex some land is always for somebody's pet project, it doesn't make economic sense.

1 - In a very wide sense. Agriculture stopped being the bottleneck for human populations at some point in the 18th or early 19th centuries.

I think the praise of the strategic value to US military interests are rationalizations and poor ones at that. The Gulf monarchies are allies in a meaningful sense and provide useful material support to the United States. Our “ally“ on the other hand was recently caught running a child prostitution ring and money laundering operation to control business and political leaders in the United States. Kidnapping children and removing their teeth so they can’t bite their rapists for political leverage is going to be remembered by future generations with the same horror and disgust as medieval torture and 20th century concentration camps.

> Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk,

Airstrip one is disappointed.

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Hey there I'm Israeli and I'm quite politically informed and moderately religiously educated and I have never heard of this "curse of the eighth decade" thing you've heard of.

You probably know a lot more than me but my understanding is there have been two previous Jewish states in the Levant, the ancient Kingdom of Israel ruled by King David and then the Hasmonean dynasty during the Second Temple period.

Both of those states lasted for around 80 years before collapsing. My (probably worthless) 2c is there's nothing magical or surprising about that, a lot of people have pointed out that political entities often last around the length of a human life before change occurs.

The most prominent current theory is the Strauss–Howe "fourth turning" one but the idea goes back further than that

Huh. Interesting.

This is not a common narrative in Israeli discourse (especially since in that discourse David's kingdom is considered to have continued in the southern Kingdom of Judah, and to have lasted several centuries).

Isreal did have some polarization among liberal-conservative sides recently. Protests and all that. Could be

I'll know from how many downvotes I get whether I've touched a nerve or not

What are the chances that HN is getting astroturfed these days? Are mods strict about it?

I lots of relatively new accounts coming with what seems to me extreme, but altogether pop-culture acceptable opinions

I think this is probably happening, but also there are just a ton of actual Zionists and Israelis in the tech industry. Unfortunately they visit this site regularly and police it against honest reporting about their crimes.

> Unfortunately they visit this site regularly and police it against honest reporting about their crimes.

I think that's called "disagreeing".

Today we call that misinformation. Which of course should be totally illegal and in no way protected by free speech.

Luckily you don’t get to regulate who can participate in public discourse

[flagged]

100%. Especially on topics involving countries with vast online propaganda operations.

HN doesnt have any defense against it, and the userbase is small enough that it would be highly effective.

I've seen lots of suspiciously new accounts hoping into these conversations. Saying questionable things.

With things like Openclaw it’s kind of trivial to game forums now. You just have to tell an agent to “post arguments for/against this perspective on this forum.” Give it a few talking points to include if you want to get specific and let it run. Specify the tone so it sounds realistic. It’s literally going to do everything else essentially forever or until you run out of tokens. Comments in a forum are dirt cheap so it’s also going to be very cheap.

Youd have to do a lot of work to make sure it's only a few short sentences, non-specific, and ultra-quippy though.

I mean I'm sure it can be done but if you ask an LLM to produce comment reply without more instruction it's going to write something a lot more thoughtful, respectful, and substantive than a forum user would.

It’s not that hard. You can literally say between 2-4 sentences.

What are the chances that HN is getting astroturfed these days?

Happens all day every day. There are many AI agents starting discussions and replying to comments. This is how The Crappening started on 4chan. Some of them are just future grifters. Some are training AI (I have replied to a few for fun). Some are propaganda bots. Those running the bots will reply with something equiv to Errrm Proof?? when called out. Without root I can not empirically prove it and the botters know that.

I predict about 2 years before the site will have more AI noise than real people. I have no idea what can be done about it aside from tracking the bots and reporting them via email to Daniel and I don't know what he could or would do. HN has always been very hands off which is mostly good but not for this scenario. If nothing is done it will just be bots grifting and AstroTurfing one another to the benefit of Google SEO and most of the humans would eventually go elsewhere with exception of some die-hards that refuse to recognize the situation.

Anonymous internet forums will very likely die out if inference gets another order of magnitude cheaper.

The only solutions are (1) private forums, (2) strict verification or maybe (3) some sort of "web of trust" thing, if someone manages to make it user friendly and not suck.

I agree and my bet is on private and semi-private (invite only) forums making a come back. It is so much easier nowadays with so many Ansible playbooks and Dockerfiles to automate things.

Maybe this comment is also AI.

Maybe this comment is also AI.

My nickname on here would at least suggest so. I think Grok is the closest option since they were working on making a snarky insulting version of their bot. Tame that down a bit and one could get the personality of Bender. [1]

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPNGFC7-t68 [video][16s]

we need to start a paywalled private HN forum

You should point out the exact posts.

Mods are explicitly rolling back the no-political advocacy guideline - Dan G has said he’s explicitly unflagging political content which is why HN is filled with left wing activism.

I mean does it matter?

At this point, lines have been drawn. In conservative land, everything conservative is good, everything liberal is bad. So the only sane position to take is the complete opposite.

For example, if you see someone self proclaimed liberal being critical of liberals, that person is probably a conservative or its a conservative bot.

That's not totally true when it comes to Zionism though. Much of the left and the right are united against Zionism. It's the older center liberals and right that are united in being pro-Zionism.

[flagged]

2 countries with the best war technologies on earth must work together to have a war with embargod-country-for-decades. And those 2 counties are founder of Board of Peace.

The reason it is hard is not due to a power balance. Both of those countries could have sent nukes with minimal efforts.

But their goal is targeted and precise attacks, that effectively destroy targets based on specific, and high quality intelligence.

The other part is that defense against missiles is significantly harder and more expensive than sending missiles. Iran, while relatively poor, has dedicated a significant part of its economy for missile development and production.

> their goal is targeted and precise attacks

Day one and they've already bombed a school and killed dozens of children. The goals, strategy and tactics have not been clearly communicated. You can pray they are using high quality intelligence, but history tells us they are not at all concerned with collateral damage. They likely want to degrade Iran's military capabilities, but they also want them cowed and bleeding.

You are relying on unreliable news sources, the strikes are incredibly precise. See the aerial photo of Khamenei's residence that was bombed [1]. You can see how the surrounding area remains surprisingly clean in face of the utter destruction in the middle.

https://www.reddit.com/r/war/comments/1rh2f41/the_residence_...

Bored of Peace.

To obliterate a nuclear program that they claimed was totally obliterated last year

while repeating the claim that Iran is a week from having a bomb....the same claim the nutty yahoo has made for nearly 3 decades now.

Come on, you haven't lived if you were a high school senior and didn't stuff a bunch of middle schoolers in lockers with your bros for fun.

Well. Iran gets a lot of weapons from Russia which spends a whole lot of their GDP producing weaponry.

yes, yes. Poor Iran.

My greater concern is the people of Iran. Especially since Iran has conscription so the people who end up dieing in a war didn't even consent to being made soldiers.

Maybe the Iranian people would be thrilled to get some weapons.

Agreed.

http://lifegoesonintehran.com/

Yes. Poor Iran.

Because America and Israel.

Iran are the good guys?

What topsy-turvy land have I wandered into?

They've funded Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis for decades. They've assassinated dissidents on foreign soil. They sentence people to death for apostasy and flog women for not wearing hijab correctly.

The sanctions aren't about race. They're about behaviour.

> Iran are the good guys?

Nobody said that. But they are a sovereign country that did not attack America. Bombing them because you find their internal politics distasteful is appalling, to say the least.

> find their internal politics distasteful is appalling

you call their official slogan "Death to America, Death to Israel" - distasteful internal politics?

There are no "good guys" in real-life. If you as an individual revile proxy conflict, assassination of dissidents abroad, torture and summary execution, then it's hard to stand on the American soapbox and demand change. Many Iranians still remember SAVAK, and are told stories of the last time they tried nationalizing their resources.

The US doesn't need an interventionist policy with Iran any more than we need to invade North Korea. Israel needs it though, and their entire strategy is to risk American lives for their meaningless expansion campaign.

>Iran are the good guys?

No. But they are a sovereign nation who didn't directly bomb the US or its allies.

>They've funded Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis for decades. They've assassinated dissidents on foreign soil. They sentence people to death for apostasy and flog women for not wearing hijab correctly.

You want to know who the US has funded? You want to know who Israel has funded?

I mean, shit, the US took out Iran's democratically elected government in the 1970s and was a huge fan of the Mullahs because they let us steal Iranian oil. The same secular Iranian government that was quite literally the first middle eastern country to recognize the existence of Israel, and was a leading secular state in a region of ass-backwards religious nutcases.

Israel has refused to acknowledge the obvious existence of its nuclear weapons program while Iran is a full member of the IAEA and allows for full international inspection of its uranium facilities.

Fuck, the Israelis engage in massive blackmailing operations of their own "allies" (see Epstien, Jeffrey) , attack their own "allies" (see USS Liberty attack), and have tried to goad its "allies" into carrying out attacks on their behalf. They are a tiny bully that starts shit they cannot handle themselves, and American lives are sacrificed because of it.

> 2 countries with the best war technologies on earth must work together to have a war with embargod-country-for-decades

It gives us a regional coalition partner. That's never a bad thing, regardless of circumstances.

> It gives us a regional coalition partner. That's never a bad thing, regardless of circumstances.

You missed the point. The fact that it requires two of them to gang up on Iran says something about how capable Iran is in defending itself.

No it doesn't. No military power, however overpowered compared to its opponents, will ever say no to an even more unfair beatdown.

I don't think they can accomplish their goal even with that. I will be very surprised by regime change.

Iran was likely going to do that themselves by the massive inflation they caused through reckless financial policies such as Venezuelan style price controls. Russia is managed to weather sanctions decently, Iran's economic leadership is far more incompetent despite being a petrol state. Even in Tehran they can't get enough water because of the failure of infrastructure and planning (despite plenty of money being available for certain failed regional military projects).

There was a study showing almost every revolution happened not because of ideology but over the price of bread.

> There was a study showing almost every revolution happened not because of ideology but over the price of bread.

His name was Marx. ;)

Yeah. We'll see. Under what conditions will you consider yourself right or wrong? My prediction is after killing a few more heads of state, disabling some more striking capability that they'll back off under pressure from the Arab states. Trump will declare it as a victory regardless of what happens and everyone will forget about it. Iran will eventually rebuild itself as it just did, but this time it will take longer (Trump even said that himself, contradicting himself earlier).

I'd say being an apartheid state and conducting a live-streamed genocide could possibly be a minor issue. Just a PR issue mind, Lord knows we've given up on our souls long ago.

> conducting a live-streamed genocide

For what it's worth, I think the American activists on this issue bungled the messaging to disastrous effect (in the same way we bungled criminal-justice reform). It's a saturated issue with low political salience outside a specific (and increasingly constrained) demographic.

A win in Iran will be a short-term boost, in America and in Israel. Then we'll go back to being pissed about rising prices.

The activism worked. Polling shows that support for Israel is dwindling especially among the younger population.

When it comes to Israel, polling was always lower in younger populations, although yes - the trend worsened.

Israel chose to trade popularity for having real geopolitical gains on the ground. Popularity could be won back later, but removing the Iranian ring of fire around it is a real and tangible achievement that would last decades and change the Middle East.

You make it sound as if Israel merely made a few PR blunders.. They’ve killed 10s of thousands of Palestinian children.

This is not salvageable without justice and accountability.

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Not really sure what to say here. Maybe it’s a lack of empathy or imagination because the victims are Palestinians?

Perhaps a good thought experiment would be to swap out Israel and Palestine with some other similar (real or fictional) conflict to help you think through your apparent confusion.

Yes, they did and still do target children.

We’ve all seen videos of Israeli soldiers shooting kids that are running away from them in the back.

Yes, murder cases for each act of crime against humanity. Yes, Nuremberg style trials for the leaders of the genocide.

They also literally started this attack with a bombing of a girl's school in Iran: https://x.com/ME_Observer_/status/2027787999409266991

That’s not even real, just bullshit used to influence public opinion in the West.

It's real. Pick your reporting outlet: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=iran+school&t=brave&ia=news&iar=ne...

Even pro-Israel media outlets such as these are reporting it.

They all cite the same "Iranian state media" report.

Which is clearly credible enough to report on.

> You make it sound as if Israel merely made a few PR blunders.. They’ve killed 10s of thousands of Palestinian children.

> This is not salvageable without justice and accountability.

Do Palestinians have to be held accountable for their actions?

No. Any other questions, or do you want to just continue feigning interest in having an actual conversation?

> No. Any other questions, or do you want to just continue feigning interest in having an actual conversation?

This is an actual question. It seems to me that you only care about Arabs dying. Jews can die left and right in the hands of Arabs and you won’t blink an eye. Am I correct?

I just want to clarify it for others who reads your comments to see.

Assume whatever helps you move on from replying to me. I recognize your username btw.

Your silence speaks louder than a 1000 words.

About a third of American Jews now agree that Israel is an apartheid state and committing genocide against Palestinians.

It remains to be seen what impact this will have, but it will certainly impact the ability for everyone to claim that criticism of Israel and sympathy for Palestinians is motivated by antisemitism.

The democrats lost the last election in part because of their stance on Israel.

With a bit of luck this could lead to a shift in policy within a generation.

Sure, it's the activists' fault. Not the people who committed this genocide in our government.

American "activists" (didn't know being anti-genocide was a fringe belief but here we are) clearly won the narrative. Most Americans now oppose what Israel is doing in Gaza and want all support to this country to stop ASAP. This support for Israel cost Harris the election, as shown in their latest post-mortem of the 2024 election, and is making Trump and his administration ever more unpopular.

Ok. So we have just taken out all of Israel's foes with force. They are safe now right? We can stop supporting them militarily in every way now right? They no longer need any weapons, intelligence support, defense support, etc, right? If this is the right path to their long term safety then this must be true.

To take a break from breaking havoc in Gaza, there was an israeli incursion into Lebanon (which included a fantastic supply chain attack) Then they tried to pick a fight in Siria for some BS reason (intervening Siria for protecting some jew friendly faction inside Siria, a la Russia protecting russiansnin Ukraine), then went to Iran, then continued milling Gaza, and now we are back at Iran, again.

No, support will never falther.

Iranian regime was the entire middle east’s foe, including Irans. Speak to your local Persian.

For sure a lot of people in Iran hate the regime. But given their 40 or so years of rule, I doubt they could achieve that without a strong basis.

And yeah Iranians out of Iran definitely hate it too.

If by local you mean an émigré, they might be the worst person to ask.

Meanwhile Pakistan launched airstrikes on Afghanistan

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/feb/27/pakistan-...

> Iranian media now report 40 killed and 48 students injured following the strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab, as rescue and recovery efforts continue.

Congrats America!

As an Iranian-American that's familiar with the regime, I would take that with a grain of salt. I saw this being reported from the Iranian regime themselves and they know how to manipulate optics and media really well. It's possible, but needs verification. I would also not put it past Iran to build their military infrastructure around schools intentionally (similar to Hamas with hospitals) in the hopes that it has this exact effect. Of course that does nothing to take away from the tragedy of innocent people dying and I'm not trying to negate that in any way, just something to point out.

100%. In another comment [1] I drew a parallel with the Al-Ahli hospital incident in Gaza. Once you understand basic information warfare tactics, they're easy to spot. Why newsrooms still fall for it so easily is the real mystery...

I bet this story is a fabrication as well.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47199047

Why are you religiously defending Israel?

And you already bet this story is a fabrication as well.

This is exactly who media takes advantage of not the one who waits for investigation and acts rationally.

If going by your recent comments, I can say I bet you're just an Israeli propagandist. Would you be happy with that assesment?

Iran tends to lie about these things while Israel usually says the truth, at least after running an investigation. It's pretty simple: one is a dictatorship without free media, and the other one isn't. It's easy to lie when you can tell the newspapers what to write, and it's much harder when they're doing their job. You want an example? Khamenei. Iran says he's safe and wasn't hurt. Israel says he's dead. Let's see.

You being Iranian-american bares no weight on your opinion

The idea is that criticism of Iran from an Iranian-American would have more merit. However, we have no way to confirm the validity of this claim. It could very well be someone pretending to be an Iranian-American.

why?

why should it not?

Easy, it was Israel that probably did it and it's been shown time and time again that they can do this without political fallout under the guise that the target was a hiding spot for the military assets of Iran (or Hamas in the case of Palestine bombing).

> Easy, it was Israel that probably did it and it's been shown time and time again that they can do this without political fallout under the guise that the target was a hiding spot for the military assets of Iran (or Hamas in the case of Palestine bombing).

Are you claiming that Iran (or Hamas) site their military bases away from schools (or hospitals)?

No he's saying that israel intentionally bomb schools and hospitals

It's been shown time and time again that the world will eat up any propaganda against Israel without waiting to hear any facts at all.

Those videos of Israeli soldiers raping prisoners, beating prisoners, spitting on or beating people just walking in the streets.

Yeah, so much propaganda. We can see it with our own eyes.

It's been shown time and time again that some people will eat up Israeli propaganda and completely ignore facts and abject reality.

Iran regime launched a missile during their last ditch attack on every country in the middle east and it fell on a school.

> Iranian media

UPDATE: Reports now say that over 80 school children between the age of 7 and 12 were killed in Minab.

How is the Epstein Regime going to survive this politically? How is the Senate (Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, etc.) going to survive this politically?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47199047

I think you forgot /s to your last two points

He could drop a bomb on a school in Ohio, and still enjoy 40% support. There is no red line for these people.

No need to worry. They have extensively stress-tested the American public over the past few years and the conclusion is clear: Americans are never going to revolt no matter what you do to them.

You really believe that news that comes from Iran media at this point?

And the tens of thousands of Iranians murdered for protesting? Did you care about them?

Can you explain how this relates to that?

Some people are getting killed so more people should be killed?

10s of thousands of women and children were killed by the regime… so they have no right to complain that these pretend attacks have killed children

> these pretend attacks

Feel free to disagree with the death tolls and the demographics of the victims, but the bombings are very much real...

Did Israelis kill them? No. So, why would anyone care?

Did you see non-stop coverage about it from NYT, WaPo or others? No.

It's baffling to see the lengths people will go to justify israeli crimes.

It's baffling to see the lengths people will go to ignore crimes in general unless they are can be somewhat tied to Israel.

That's not the case at all. Some of us don't take our news from biased US sources.

I'm tired of Israelis killing innocent people

Then wake up

Peace president ah? American terrorists never learn to mind their own business in their own country. Where are all the MAGA clowns?

How exactly attacking Iran make their country great? Murdered million children in Iraq and now they started their terrorism in Iran.

I don't think this is terrorism, that's not what the word means. It's a clear and open act of war, so in many ways much worse, but somehow terrorism is a scarier word.

> but somehow terrorism is a scarier word.

It is, because it might impact normal citizens. Nobody has ever invaded US so coensequences of real war are unknown to most.

Some Iranian kids in Iran celebrating, I think https://x.com/shadygrooove/status/2027667467456442730

I know of at least 80 Iranian kids today who aren't in position to celebrate.

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This is also a good deal for the Iranian government since they can transfer hatred people had for them to the America and Israel. No one will see Trump as salvation and the “rally behind the flag” phenomena in times of invasion applies just as much to Iran as it does to the USA.

Nothing like a war to boost your popularity just before the elections

> Nothing like a war to boost your popularity just before the elections

If he pulls off a regime change, even a Delcy-style swaparoo, he'll get it, and arguably not undeservedly. It will ultimately come down to Iran's capacity to inflict casualties on American forces.

I’m not so sure. This is no where near a priority issue for most Americans, “I can’t afford eggs and the immigrant I buy pizza from got shipped to a warehouse but thank god the regime changed in Iran.”

More than anything else, conservatives love the feeling that they are winning. Over a rival sports team, over a political opponent, and especially over a foreign power. This is why MAGA won over the neocons so easily, the MAGA shtick is to claim to be always winning.

Many conservatives voted for trump because they thought he wasn't a "war hawk", they don't want the US in wars around the world, they don't want their children sent off to die in foreign lands. So they voted for trump and then got "Department of War", and now a war in Iran, the last thing they wanted.

This isn't a defense of the president or his policies but we don't know if this will be a (sustained) war or rather a week or two of airstrikes like the previous iteration and the Maduro thing.

> Many conservatives voted for trump because they thought he wasn't a "war hawk"

I doubt their honesty. Considering they blamed Biden for Russia invading Ukraine and October 7 with the galaxybrain reasoning of "It didn't happen while Trump was in office", I am convinced the isolationism thing is just an unserious talking point.

Even the Joe Rogan MAGAs should remember when they cried on social media about how they were about to be drafted after the Soleimani thing under Trump.

> This is no where near a priority issue for most Americans

I don't think this means the GOP keeps the House. But Trump got a bump from Venezuela, particularly within his party.

Schumer was brought into a briefing on Iran and clearly 'got his mind right' in there. I don't know who makes decisions in government, but it's not the people on camera. US elections are irrelevant to consequential matters, and we waste too much time thinking about them.

I never understand how someone can look at Trump and the last year and think elections don’t matter or have consequences.

I think this framing is bad, it's not that people don't think there are consequences it's that it's 50/50 on whether the consequences will be personally worse for them. There are few, maybe no upsides, to elections in the U.S. for the majority of the electorate.

> US elections are irrelevant to consequential matters

This is nonsense. If you actually believe this, spend some time around your elected representatives and in Washington.

Is our memory so short? Regime change in Iraq destabilized that region for 2 decades.

>Delcy-style swaparoo,

I think IRGCs are much more robust and zealous than whatever Maduro had.

Obviously. They would have kidnapped or assassinated leadership many decades ago otherwise. They have tried and failed many times. They're talking about trying to break the state though, which isn't something the US tried in Vz. This'll be much harder.

Many folks said that if the supreme leader got killed then it's all over. I honestly skeptical since IRGC folks would take over and I think they are much more militant than the Supreme Leader.

You are right to be skeptical. Khomeini died and now Khamenei is supreme leader. He too will have a successor if he dies (or is dead as Isreal clamed a moment ago). Iran has spent the last few weeks picking out successors four deep for each office. It's been the main news besides the "negotiations".

somehow I dont think regime change is gonna happen before the midterms or even before 2028

> I dont think regime change is gonna happen before the midterms

I agree. But to be fair, I would have said the same thing about Venezuela a year ago. Maybe the term should be a regime slip.

We didn’t change the regime in Venezuela though right? Just decapitated it?

No one’s thinking America cant succeed at the killing partz. It’s what comes after that people are worried about.

> We didn’t change the regime in Venezuela though right?

Practically speaking, we changed it. The foreign and energy policies we care about changed. The notion that you need to wholesale clean shop to qualify as regime change is misguided and counterproductive [1].

(On the other end of the spectrum, the fact that we kept the Japanese Emperor on his throne doesn't mean we didn't change the Japanese regime.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Ba%27athification

I don't know if the same theory works in Iran though right, Iran is amidst economic collapse. It seems like the situation in Venezula with Maduro was tenable so when we decapitated the leader and got what we wanted it was ok that maybe most things didn't change. Is there a similar theory for Iran that's not soaked in hubris?

> Is there a similar theory for Iran that's not soaked in hubris?

Lots of factions in Iran, including within the IRGC. Khamenei's bunker gets hit, oh no, new dude knives the competition and then makes a call to the White House.

The U.S. is amidst economic collapse... hubris ...

Delusional. With your line of thought Al-Qaeda got regime change in the US.

I think he meant another regime not the Iranians.

Trump could liberate every repressed country in the world and it would not impact in the slightest the cold hard fact that neither I nor most the people I know will ever vote R again.

I really hope the US electorate never forgives the Republican Party for the damage it’s done to this country, but I suspect that people’s memories will be short.

If the US public was inclined to “never forgive” those kind of offenses (or even to really fully reject them even once they no longer had dominant support) then the Democratic Party would have been destroyed for its role as the party of slavery and insurrection instead of surviving long enough to reject the bigotry that motivated those stances only to have the Republican Party immediately pick it up.

If you are admitting that you voted R in 2024, and only now you won't vote R, that really doesn't fix anything. Your bar is set so insanely low that you will vote R on someone who is slightly better than Trump.

As a life long D voter, I am personally going to vote R every election now because I want US to sink into the ground so low that people like you experience actual pain and suffering.

Stop it. You're not helping. This kind of thing is really counterproductive. Welcome your comrade with open arm. Give him time to warm up. Don't be an absolutist.

You took a presumption and ran with it into baseless vitriol

They leveraged special operations forces in Venezuela. Iran has two US carrier groups on their front door; this operation is not going to be as precise as the one against Maduro.

Only I’m not exactly sure what constituency will support this war.

He wasn’t even smart enough to leave America open to attack, manufacture a pretext, and rally people around the flag like 9/11

Heck, there was even a better case in Korea & Vietnam. Even Venezuela. What’s the case this is America’s problem?

Funny how Iran is America's problem so much but Ukraine is not, despite signed security assurance to the Ukrainian people.

This is about Religion. Hegseth is the 'Holy warrior for God' type. If there is a pretense to kill Muslims Trump and him will take it.

Israel is in charge of America and they did noy sign any assurances with Ukraine

The Jesus people love it when Americas army support Israel

The racists love it when Muslims get killed

> Only I’m not exactly sure what constituency will support this war.

The remaining neocons who have surprisingly managed to weasel their way back into influence.

If a democracy is meaningfully created in Iran I will consider that a huge win for Trump and it would certainly make me more sympathetic to his party.

To be clear, I don't think the chances of that happening are high.

Nothing like a war to boost your popularity just before the elections

Congress will not let him have a third term regardless of what he says or thinks.

Congress seems to be quite toothless lately.

True but they will have a hard time ignoring the 22nd amendment of the US constitution and it would be an easy move to remove him from the election process which a majority of the states themselves could do without opposition.

They might try the good old Putin trick, have a puppet elected on behalf of Trump and let Trump have another high-ranking position (e.g. Vice President) and hold the real power. Trump can still do most of campaigning, and there is also ample opportunity for election fraud.

> Congress will let him...

Lol, 'let'. Whose going to stop him?

Each state can decide to not list him in the election process. Some red states for sure would but plenty would not including a few red and purple states.

In russia they had 2 terms limit as well. Putin found a quick work-around by basically running through Proxy.

I can see JD being a figurehead with very public Trump support.

You sure? Seems like a war for no reason is hardly going to get popular support.

From a man who campaigned on No New Wars.

You're acting like people are rational. It's just about power. Appearing strong appeals to the apes inside the humans. And no one is more in touch with his inner ape than Trump.

Americans are bloodthirsty freaks. Killing people is always popular with Americans.

Nothing like a war to push Epstein out of the headlines.

The popularity aspect is irrelevant.

Trump can literally do all the things that the epstein files accuse him of doing, right on camera in front of everyone, and Americans will still vote for him all because he isn't a "woke" black woman.

Military action in Iran is deeply unpopular, being supported by just 27% of US adult citizens [1]. As an aside, Congress literally doesn't care what voters think [2]. The pearl-clutching about this from Congressional Democrats isn't about policy but process, with the likes of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries saying Congress should authorize this action, not that it shouldn't happen.

I'm interested in what makes empires tick, what their basis of power is.

Spain in the colonial era was propped up by looting silver from Central and South America, for example.

The British Empire is what many (including me) like to call the "drug dealer empire". First tobacco then later opium. Any claims that we didn't know about the health risks of tobacco are complete BS (eg [3]).

Circling back to your point, the US is what I like to call the "arms dealer empire". WW1 and WW2 massively enriched the United States. NATO is essentially a protection racket for Europe and the price is, you guessed it, buying arms from the United States.

And the next Budget has proposed increasing "defense" spending from an already eye-popping $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion [4]. Where does that money go? Arms, weapons programs, defense contractors, the ultra-wealthy.

War is good for business even though it's unpopular.

[1]: https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54158-few-americans-suppor...

[2]: https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba/

[3]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15198996/

[4]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-proposes-massive...

You really think the elections will happen

I hope this war will be short. And that the result will be Iran becoming a democracy that fully joins the global community. The Iranian people (Persians, Azerbaijanis, Kurds, and others), deserve better.

It would benefit the entire world to see Iran integrated and engaged internationally.

I know a lot of the responses are skeptical (for good reason), but the opportunity is certainly there. The pro-regime population is aging out, with the more secular youth taking hold. There has always been an appreciation for American culture (specifically) amongst the general population. This was true when I was there in the 80s and increasingly more true over the decades since. Concessions by the regime over the hijab laws is one example of the society drifting more towards Western norms. Alcohol and western style parties are way more present in the society than ever before. Basically, the foundation for it is certainly there.

Furthermore if Reza Pahlavi does manage to integrate into the society, he will most certainly use his business and political ties here in the US to westernize the society. He's said as much. Some of the more well known Iranian-American business leaders here in the US (CEO of Uber, CEO of intuit, founder of eBay for example) I'm sure would contribute to work towards this also.

There will be push-back from rural areas (just like anywhere else) and the regime will not go away overnight, but the possibility does exist for this outcome. I think the biggest roadblock would be America and Israel intentionally preventing this outcome for the reasons that suit them geopolitically.

EDIT: should have mentioned that after decades of widely known voter manipulation and more or less "mock" elections, Iranians would be happy to finally participate in actual democratic processes where their votes and voices matter

This is unlikelly because Iranian regime is going to execute false flag operations against their people to steer public opinion in their favour.

Not if the US kills the whole regime. They certainly have the firepower. And Israel has the intelligence.

This scenario always imagines that the people getting bombs rained down on them will somehow determine that their actual friends in the world are those dropping the bombs.

Even accepting this, how exactly are these peaceful, western friendly civilians going to withstand a war better than their country's army?

It's very depressing to see this playbook credulously trotted out yet again. When has this worked?

We literally just went through this with Venezuela. They replaced the dictator with the assistant dictator. The Iranian face of regime change making the rounds in Western media is the son of the last Shah.

> Fully joins the global community

If by that you mean that Iran will become a toothless vassal state of the U.S.-Americans, then God forbid.

What do you mean by “toothless”?

I was thinking more along the lines of Japan or South Korea. Militarily restrained, but prosperous and strong.

I understand that recent military actions have often made things worse, not better. I am just trying to stay optimistic. From what I know, many Iranians are not enthusiastic about religion controlling law and politics.

There is zero likelihood of that. The IRGC and Iranian forces are a million strong and have a loyal base of support among the population. Without boots on the ground, relying on air power and 'moderate rebels' you are looking at at least a decade of war (using Syria and Libya as best-case-scenarios examples; Assad regime was nothing like the Iranian). The Israelis are dividing the opposition by pushing the out-of-touch monarchists as their would-be puppets and the Trump regime are backing them too. Which means they are not even seriously pushing any viable or credible alternative. They are likely arming the Kurdish and other ethnic factions in the region and stoking ethnic conflict. It is in Israel's interests to prolong the conflict , to degrade Iran's military and economy (like they did in Syria) and even break it up into smaller manageable parts. The monarchists are a moon-shot; Reza Pehlavi is not his father (who also was a US puppet) - Israelis like him because he will be weak and pliable and completely dependent on foreign patronage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinon_Plan

Interesting point on Israel pushing for the monarchy to come back.

Democracy in the middle-east does not result in Israel or US aligned governments, but the monarchies have proven more interested in preserving their autocratic dynasties and quite easy and eager to work with Israel and the US to preserve themselves.

Aside from Israel are there any democracies in the Middle East?

My observation was that more democracy in the Middle East is not what Israel or the US is interested in, given that the people's choice there would be overwhelmingly against Israeli and US interests.

They replaced the last democratic choice in Egypt with another military dictator, they keep the widely unpopular autocrat in Jordan on his throne with military and intelligence subsidies, have established and propped up a network of autocratic Gulf states that toe the line...

So yeah, I would not be surprised that Israel and the US would be more than happy to but a scion of the previous Iranian autocratic dynasty back on the throne there.

Lebanon is democracy. It is true that system is sectarian (power-sharing among religious groups) but still a democracy.

Israel's a democracy the way the 3/5ths compromise promoted democracy.

Iran elects their President. Is it a shining example of a democracy, no, but it has a much stronger democratic tradition than say Saudi Arabia. If the US and British hadn't been meddling there for the last 70 years it would probably be a secular democracy now.

They elect someone from a short list approved by the supreme leader...who will execute policy dictated to him by the supreme leader. Plus thousands of Iranians are executed yearly for crimes against the regime (make it tens of thousands in 2026). Calling Iran a democracy is a joke, it's a brutal dictatorship.

Did I call it a democracy?

Anyway, democracy is not a binary. You'd be unlikely to call ancient Athens a democracy by modern standards and yet...

There is virtually zero recent historical precedent supporting your wish, and plenty of precedent suggesting the opposite will happen.

I wonder why that is.

We saw significant success with Germany, Japan, South Korea, and other countries in the past. But more recently, similar efforts seem to have ended in failure.

We fully went into those countries and were willing to spend decades rebuilding them.

They’re also nice countries, with governments and organisation. Places like Afghanistan have nothing. You have to try and start civilisation from scratch, in a hostile land.

the drones just have to fly slower for the kids and schools…”Easy, you just don't lead 'em so much”

There seems to be an uptick around 1am on Polymarket.

https://polymarket.com/event/us-strikes-iran-by

There is a huge flame war in the comments as people who had money on 27th Feb are claiming the attack started on that date

I think they don’t have an argument because technically the missile can be de-activated up until the last seconds before it reaches its intended target

Still it feels surreal to argue about these things , bomb dropping on humans and other humans attacking each other for the privilege to have their bet honored on when said bombs dropped on the other side of the world

I guess people in intelligence communities had these sort of bets going on ever since WW2 and Vietnam , but still it’s uncanny to see it widespread to potentially the whole population of the internet

Due to distance planes need to take off many hours before the bombs drop.

You can get an edge here by moving your ass somewhere where you can see the planes take off, maybe a team with people at multiple locations - boats near the aircraft carrier, near military bases in Israel, ...

Sure, it could be that. My money is on something a bit simpler.

I tried to access that URL but it's banned in my country (Romania) for being an "exploitative gambling website". It's the first time I've felt that my country has a sensible internet policy.

Yes many markets began to react at 1:14AM EST.

Does this contribute to global warming? Are the governments waging war paying their CO2 tax?

I'd think they emit slightly more than a cow's fart.

War is the ultimate distraction.

Clinton bombed Serbia for 1/100th the severity of the Epstein files.

With maps:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g0pnnj8xyo

Feb 25:

>White House officials believe ‘the politics are a lot better’ if Israel strikes Iran first

>As the administration mulls military action in Iran, officials argue it’d be best if Israel makes the first move.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/25/white-house-politic...

Looks like the rumor was incorrect. Both jointly attacked (NYtimes - https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/02/28/world/iran-strikes-t...)

But Israel announced it first, which they maybe hoped would amount to the same thing PR wise.

The rumor above specifically talks about letting Iran retaliate against Israel which would then lead US to attack.

I'm not sure what's the logic behind that PR-wise, but regardless, it didn't happen.

As I recall Iran said quite openly, in response to the US troop buildup, that they would see an attack by Israel as an attack by the US, suggesting that they could target e.g. carriers instead of Israel if Israel attacked them.

> I'm not sure what's the logic behind that PR-wise

Part of it is the stated idea that Israel still has public support. That such an exchange, even if Israel launches the first strike, would get more support. This is probably misjudging the actual public support for Israel, which is much lower amongst the general public than amongst (esp. Republican) political circles.

The other part of it is that Trump has surrounded himself with card-carrying nazis, who have not at all been subtle about their desires to harm jews.

> but regardless, it didn't happen.

That Israel didn't launch the first strike and instead insisting on a joint strike (despite otherwise being constantly warmongering), suggests to me that it's the latter 'part' of the reason that had a lot of weight here.

Just now:

Trump: "The lives of American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties - that often happens in war."

Another republican president starting a war in the middle east, once again sacrificing American lives.

While I think this (and Venezuela) are arguably the biggest missteps this administration is making, it's hardly a partisan point. The political establishment loves war more than perhaps anything else. In 2016 alone Obama bombed half a dozen different countries with more than 26,000 munitions for an average rate of three bombs dropped every hour, every day, for a year. [1] Nobel Peace Prize embodied.

I think the only way to get away from the warmongering is to go for a third party. But even they would likely be corrupted by the excessive influence of the military industrial complex. Eisenhower was not only right, but plainly prophetic.

[1] - https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/list-of-c...

Not defending that peace price but: Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for his efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation.

Trump this time around didn't inherit a major us deployment in a conflict area. No Iraq, no Afghanistan. Also, he's doing military strikes by himself, no Congress involved.

Syrian and Libia were both essentially civil wars with an oppressive regime with Syria using allegedly chemical weapons.

Your source is a very weird site. Countries Obama bombed 2026??? What does that even mean. Is it just a typo in the main heading and the title?

Large scale deployments shifted under Obama to widescale bombing campaigns. The site mentions its various sources such as this [1] which mentions that Obama also increased the number of drone strikes by an order of magnitude relative to his predecessor. To be clear I'm not picking on Obama, but saying solely that this isn't a partisan issue. "They" all love war.

And places being in a state of internal conflict, conflict which is itself often backed and fomented by US intelligence agencies and backed proxy forces, is hardly some reason to go bomb them. Even moreso when you look at results. See what Libya turned into, and what Syria is now turning into. It turns out that Al Qaeda in a suit is still Al Qaeda, to literally nobody's surprise if you're even vaguely familiar with our history of backing extremists and putting them in power, something which we have done repeatedly.

This war, if it escalates, is not going to be good for Iran, the people of Iran, or likely even the US. The only country that might come out a winner is Israel, but even that might not end up being the case, as Iran's retaliation will likely focus on them. To say nothing of longer term consequences.

[1] - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-preside...

> And places being in a state of internal conflict, conflict which is itself often backed and fomented by US intelligence agencies and backed proxy forces

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore

Drone strikes picked up, obviously as that technology became more and more mature. They're cheaper to operate and don't put a pilot in harms way. So that's kinda expected?

Agreed with most of the rest you said though

> So that's kinda expected?

Sure, if the choice is between drone bombings and conventional bombings.

But no, not expected if the choice is between bombing and not bombing.

> Large scale deployments shifted under Obama to widescale bombing campaigns

This isn't true. Small-scale targeted raids, not B52s recreating Dresden.

Not only that but it should be noted what the stated aim is of these strikes and earlier Trump strikes on Iran: take out the nuclear threat.

That nuclear threat was contained under a plan backed by US, EU, Russia, China and Iran, in which Iran would not pursue nuclear expansion and let a team of international experts in to verify this on a continuous basis, in exchange for some sanction relief. A solution Trump threw in the trash, reinstating the sanctions, pressuring Iran to pursue nuclear again as one of its few levers of power it can pull on.

In other words he created the necessity for violence by throwing away a unique solution that the entire world got behind including US allies & enemies, throwing away goodwill and trust in future deals (why would Iran negotiate now if it's clear how Trump views deals, as things to be broken even irrationally?)

Those who claim this is an anti-war president have no clue, even in the context of a 'just war' argument it simply falls flat.

Is it just another distraction from the Trump/Epstein files?

It does seem that military action is correlated with increased coverage in the media of the Trump/Epstein files.

Hard to say. Netanyahu has been calling for Iranian regime change since the 90s, and Trump is his most successful lobbying effort yet. US wants regime change, they just never saw a possibility. So the objective isn't new or driven by Epstein, perhaps the timing is though.

Even now most experts agree the chance of success is extremely small, every time this was tried you got shit returns (think Libya, still a failed state after Ghadaffi fell, and Iraq is reasonably stable now but we're 2 decades in and +1m dead Iraqis).

So it's certainly a useful distraction for Trump. It's also certainly true Trump would want to pursue this objective (despite it being a stupid move to reach it) regardless of the Epstein files.

yes, that is what it is. Nothing more, nothing less IMHO

Should we hold the media accountable for coverage of the Trump/Epstein files because of this?

I'd rather we held Trump accountable for his many crimes.

I find it astounding that the U.S. population aren't storming Washington and demanding his removal. Other countries are removing people from positions who were involved with Epstein due to the massive corruption and yet the USA seems fine with allowing Trump to continue destroying everything he touches.

Regarding intervention in Venezuela, is that seen as a mistep in the US? In the rest of America it is considered as a win, except of course by Cuba (Cubans are the most, almost the only, affected)

Regarding politicians: Gustavo Petro was the most vocal protester; now that Trump told him in the White house to shut up, he is wagging his tail happily.

The operation in Venezuela could be characterised as an enormous success in the sense that it didn't seem to do anything and therefore was a big improvement on most times the US activates its military. But it was still a misstep in the sense that it keeps US aggression top of mind without achieving very much.

It did help the US government's goals of starving Cuba.

My take, as an American: the outcome seems to be good - Maduro is out of power, his number 2 seems much more willing to play ball and from what I've read Venezuela's economy is now improving as money flowing in has turned around their previously out of control inflation. It managed to not flare into a full scale war, no Americans died - so I think approval is middle to high on it.

That said the justification for it made no sense to me and many others. Trump accused Maduro of narcoterrorism - profiting from the drug trade and violence. Where's the evidence? And the whole bit about the oil ... Usually that's the critique of US actions, not the reason we give; we should be moving full speed towards adopting renewables so an oil grab really doesn't make sense. Though Trump's energy policy has always been entirely backwards.

And we should probably also worry about the example we've set - that we'll just intervene when it suits us with a cooked up justification certainly incentivizes dangerous behavior - how many countries are now thinking about the deterrents they could acquire? But most Americans don't think about unintended consequences of laws or government actions.

One last thought re oil - the smart move would probably be to invest in Venezuelan oil not for sale in the US but for export to India and maybe Europe - try to use it as a replacement for Russian oil. That would in turn hurt Russia's economy and thereby reduce their efforts to wage war in Ukraine. But if that's the plan, Trump has never said that. And it also doesn't really fit his worldview that the Ukraine war should be Europe's problem and not the US's problem. But maybe it'll end up happening anyway, if Venezuela's oil production picks up and the US doesn't actually have the demand for it.

It successfully didn’t backfire on the US.

A war? Of course not. It’s a major combat operation. Only congress can declare wars. We haven’t had any in decades. They should call it the Dept. of Major Combat Operations.

Isn't the currently trendy term "special military operation"?

That's reserved for those lost 200,000* of personnel dead.

* Only verified number with real losses dead higher and even more crippled.

https://en.zona.media/article/2026/02/24/mapofwar

Aged quickly

The USA never even declared the Vietnam "conflict" as a war, or Korea, come to that, though that did at least have the backing of the UN.

It's not just the US, very few wars have been formally declared after WW2, because we all learned war is bad™, so we added more and more rules (both international and national) to make it harder to do it.

But the reasons wars existed didn't go away, so this just resulted in more and more people getting killed in "special military operations" or similar things. See e.g. "Why States No Longer Declare War"[0].

[0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228896825_Why_State...

That article says that nowadays countries no longer declare war, because now there are a lot of international treaties that restrict what may be done during wars.

Not declaring war provides a workaround, allowing the states to do whatever they desire, without constraints, while avoiding being accused that they do not observe their obligations assumed internationally.

Seems plausible.

As soon a country agrees to enter a conflict on a side, which the original axes declare to be a war, it's at war. You can tell the media whatever you want of course.

The US didn’t declare war since WW2 because such a declaration would give the president disruptive powers (such as the power to seize factories).

In fact, after Vietnam war congress specifically created a law to restrict hostilities without congress approval to up to 60 days, which is what the current (and prior) administrations are acting on.

The occurrence of a war is a fact whether or not it is declared, and whether or not the actor waging war does so consistent with the legal requirements their nation's laws put on doing so.

I like Special Military Operation better.

I thought he wasn't allowed to start a war without a vote in congress?

(a) It's not a war, it's just a military operation.

(2) It's only the constitution that requires an act of congress, and that document is not considered applicable by the current king.

Worse. He has to win a vote in Congress. How bothersome!

This may be the bloodiest "Wag the Dog" in modern history. They may create an Ig Nobel peace prize specifically for this.

Once again mass killing civilians and setting a country of 100 million inhabitants into chaos.

But yes, poor American soldiers.

"Some of you are going to die, but that is a sacrifice I'm willing to make"

Trump is calling them heroes now. But we know what he really thinks: "suckers and losers".

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/john-kelly-con...

> Trump: "The lives of American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties - that often happens in war."

Coming from President Bone Spurs ...

You forgot the Obama wars for some reason?

There were no Obama wars.

Americans voted for no new wars, and especially no new wars in the sandbox, and they got a new war in the sandbox.

Americans really have to be among the most gullible people on the planet.

Not to mention that Trump is a paedophile, the open corruption, attempted coup etc... it's like that Hemingway quote. The decline of the USA has been gradual, and then very sudden.

Isn't that famously a Scott Fitzgerald quote?

You're implying those who voted for Trump believed his pitch.

I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt, that they are effectively merely retarded rather than actually evil.

Why not both?

"Some of you may die, but that is a risk I am willing to take."

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I can't believe I have to say this on HN but no, the Iraq war was not started for Israel. Yes Netanyahu did testify before Congress but he was not testifying on behalf of Israel and the Israeli government quietly warned against invading Iraq.

I noticed that you somehow failed to mention 9/11, Colin Powell, George Bush or Osama Bin Laden, nor the fact that the Invasion has bipartisan support and was overwhelming popular with the American public.

Yes, thanks for confirming that the Iraq war was started because of Israel, and not oil. None of what you mentioned specifically discredits Israel as the primary cause of the Iraq war.

You ARE aware of the Heritage foundation, right?

You guys really like revising history in realtime, huh? As if we didn’t live through that era ourselves. It was never a remote secret that Israel kept pushing the US to attack Iraq and had done so for years before 9/11, which Iraq had no part in anyhow.

All these zionists ever do is lie.

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American boomers are truly like robots.

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I’m honestly perplexed. I had anticipated a scenario like “the US feared Iran was unstable and attacked to protect nuclear material”. It seems this would give them reasonable cover. I don’t see how Israel going along helps

Bibi needs Israel to keep fabricating wars. He will go to trial for previous charges if Israel runs out of wars.

How can you attack israeli pm on US site? This is not what we paid/threatened/extorted/killed for!

> Israel going along

Honinbo-sensei, you seem to have failed to recognize puppy-go for what it is and also to identify the player.

s/politics/optics/

NYT gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/02/28/world/iran-strikes-t...

There are reports that Ali Khamenei has been killed:

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202602280738

Again, little to no information for the US public. No approval from Congress.

Calling for the people to rise up. You can't bomb your way into regime change. Are we supplying arms to groups?

Is there a plan beyond pointless death and regional chaos the president would like to share?

A plan? Actually there is. This is all part of the backdrop to end US elections. We can’t have elections in the middle of a major war. And if we do have them we must greatly constrain how they are held while we are at war.

We had elections during WW2, the largest war of all time; we had elections during the civil war when confederate troops were 30 miles from DC. An air campaign in the Middle East is just another tuesday by comparison. This theory falls flat on its face - it is not a reasonable pretext for suspending elections, and this administration does not bother with creating pretexts for its power grabs.

Ah, but whether it is a "reasonable" pretext/excuse for suspending elections is up to the media and how they want to spin it for the masses, to shape their opinion, isn't it? And how practical, that more news outlets are now owned by MAGA people. Furthermore, I will not put it past Trump to use any flimsy excuse to suspend elections, if he thinks he will lose.

The president has no legal powers over elections, per the constitution. Only states can hold elections.

Of course Trump and the GOP can try all sorts of voter suppression, which is what they're doing now.

What if Trump were to say elections are illegal due to the war. We need to delay them. And Republicans in congress did nothing. And the Supreme Court decided not to hear any cases related to it. What then? We’re learning the US government has basically no teeth to stop something like this.

It's a scary thought, albeit not a realistic one at the moment, thankfully. The Supreme Court has shown ample willingness to strike down blatant (and subtle, for that matter) executive overreach. Exhibit A is Trump's tariffs, which were justified by the administration to be legal through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which allows the president to “regulate…importation” during a declared state of emergency. The Supreme Court found that the wording in the act allowing the president to “regulate…importation” was not sufficient to grant the president the power to impose tariffs. The wording in the IEEPA is vague enough that you could go either way, but the conservative majority tends to follow the Major Questions Doctrine, which essentially says that in vague matters like this, assume that the power belongs to Congress and not the president.

Meanwhile, delaying or canceling elections through executive order would be blatantly illegal, particularly when no conflict is taking place on U.S. soil. The case likely wouldn't even make it to the Supreme Court, but if it did, I have no doubt elections would be promptly reinstated.

I'm not saying the Supreme Court has a perfect record, of course. Not even two years ago, they essentially ruled that the president is above the law. But at least in matters regarding the balance of powers between branches, the Supreme Court is wary of the power of the executive branch, and that should certainly include the president's ability (or lack thereof) to interfere in elections.

Can you name something which can't be spun by the media or that you could not believe Trump would try to use as an excuse? If something is always true, it is evidence of nothing in particular.

Claiming this strike on Iran is an attempt to suspend US elections is exactly as ridiculous as claiming the last round of strikes on Iran, or the Maduro raid, or any of Trump's other previous military boondoggles were attempts to suspend US elections.

What, is the US Ukraine? Is it under attack?

When zelenskyy mentioned elections were suspended by the war to trump, in the Whitehouse while in a room full of media, trump replied something like "now that's a good idea"

I've been trying to avoid the news for a little over a year now. I needed a detox. ... Is this true? That is, are there legitimate proposals to cancel or constrain the November elections in any significant way? Or, is this all speculation?

There's a memo out about nationalizing elections and there's the SAVE America act to require much stricter voting requirements. Both of these unconstitutional obviously because federal government doesn't run elections.

Isn't this essentially what MAGA argued during the fighting over the 2020 election - that the states should be able to run their elections however-the-fvck they want, and the feds have no right tell the states how to run their elections?

> We can’t have elections in the middle of a major war.

Yes we can? Is there any provision in the US Constitution that allows delay of election because of war? We have had elections during most of our recent wars (Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan).

Trump could definitely try. Or pull an emergency card out of his ass. But it doesn't mean there is any provision for cancelling elections because of this 'war' with Iran (which they aren't even calling a war, but a "special combat operation" to get around congress having the war powers)

That statement was not on my voice, but the coming voice from this administration. IMO there is never a reason to withhold elections.

That's an absurd stretch with no basis in fact or history.

Unfortunately, you can't dismiss it based on that. Most of what this administration does is an absurd stretch with no basis in fact or history.

The president said they should cancel the elections.

You must be ignorant - the entire republican leadership is telegraphing the cancel elections

So, I heard Epstein started a war in the middle east...

> Are we supplying arms to groups?

Yes. The US supports the monarchy, the Kurds and MeK. The CIA was revealed to have armed MeK (despite designation) and my guess is that they do with the Kurds too. The CIA also talks to the Balochi groups as well although I don't know how organized or armed they are.

Needless to say, "regime change" would in reality mean civil war like Syria or collapse like Libya.

The US has spent a lot of time and money on MEK but I don't think they are very effective. Or will be very effective. My understanding is the leader of MEK has n't been seen in years(is probably dead), and MEK members are only allowed to marry other MEK members, so the number of MEK members is way down from their 80s highpoint, and it's not getting better.

Yeah, my understanding as well. Seems more like a cult that the US got too excited about.

Or Irak.

The list of exemple is long enough, no need to add Iran.

We already had ISIS thanks to the mess in Irak and Libya.

Well, Iraq is not that simple because Iran has also invested a lot in Iraq with various Shia forces. Right now Iraq is trying not to get involved. That's been their news all day. Maybe that is a sign that the Iranian investment is paying off, or just that the Iraqis are tired as fuck especially after the first Iran-Iraq invasion and then them being fucked by the US.

You spelled Iraq as "Irak". Is there a meaning to this? I couldn't find a reference but wonder if that's somehow a meaningful spelling.

It's the spelling used by French, German and couple of neighbouring languages.

Romanizations are fashion trends rather than any kind of science or real standardized system. Other than those places with Roman-era Latin spellings like Syria, others have dozens of variants.

Yeah, he's probably French.

> is there a plan...

probably not, outside of making more revenue for raytheon

>No approval from Congress.

To be fair that's been the case for decades. Trump's hardly new in this.

Needs to notify Congress within 48 hours (and he did beforehand), and has 60 days before needing Congress to declare war.

Looking at the list of countries we have declared war on

https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/declarations-...

I don't think it matters.

For better or for worse, the War Powers Resolution acts as standing approval.

Campaign to move the headlines from Epstein to something else, perhaps?

...In a couple of weeks.

> No approval from Congress.

I don't support it but there's blanket approval from Congress from the AUMF.

This authorizes an attack on Iran?

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. This joint resolution may be cited as the ‘‘Authorization for Use of Military Force’’. SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES. (a) IN GENERAL.—That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

And when was that approval passed?

The take home message from this is that the only way for any country to be secure is to have nuclear weapons.

And not to negotiate with the US in good faith.

The US demands were clear - no nuclear capability whatsoever, not really a hard demand to meet if you're coming "in good faith".

Iran decided to play stupid games and found out.

I don't understand Iran, Hezbollah's and the Houthis' patience with the US actually. It's absolutely shocking. After the US betrayed ALL of it's own fucking allies, in what world does it make sense to negotiate with them?

The Houthis are still "threatening" to do things today after already being decimated and Hezbollah's strength more than halved.

I don't support any of these creeps but if any of them were minimally rational, they would have all gone to total war with Israel and the US the minute they realized what Hamas was doing on October 7th. They look even more naive than Europeans at this point.

The Iranians are pragmatic. Look beyond their relationship with the US. There are other state actors that Iran wants to remain in good relations with.

They understand that a defensive war is not the same as an offensive war. Besides, going on the offensive isn’t something they - as a regional power - have the firepower or diplomatic “street cred” for.

They are already painted as a so-called irrational actor. Doing something reckless will only prove their detractors right.

The other part to this is keeping the negotiation door open. The idea is to demonstrate to other state actors that they are cool headed & rational - even in wartime conditions.

Rational negotiations have to be based on the relative power of the parties.

It made sense for iran to try to negotiate with the US because the alternative was a war they had no chance to win. Arguably it also made sense for them to not come to an agreement because USA wanted concessesions the Iranian regime probably couldn't do while still staying in power given how weak they are domestically.

> I don't support any of these creeps but if any of them were minimally rational, they would have all gone to total war with Israel and the US the minute they realized what Hamas was doing on October 7th.

Israel's ability to divide and conqour its enemies here has been pretty impressive.

> It made sense for iran to try to negotiate with the US because the alternative was a war they had no chance to win.

They have no chance of winning no matter what. At least inflict some damage on your enemy while you die like Hamas chose (although I disagree with the fact that they chose that for a lot of innocent people too.)

The US isn't ever going to leave anyone, let alone Iran, alone. The options are a) fight and cease to exist and b) don't fight and cease to exist.

> The US isn't ever going to leave anyone, let alone Iran, alone. The options are a) fight and cease to exist and b) don't fight and cease to exist.

Oh boy, I see we learned nothing from Afghanistan. The US will eventually leave you alone, There will be a power vacuum, and the local warlord will rise to that opportunity.

The "military operations" don't end in decisive vistory. They end with death and destruction for the young men sent into battle, and more enemies in the surrounding areas.

The US hasn't left Afghanistan alone. They were driven out of the country by force. They are still attacking it in multiple different ways and will continue to do so until they are defeated. Time did not end when the US was kicked out. They aren't just going to give up their goals.

I do not understand what argument you are trying to make. Nowhere do I say that time stands still or that the US doesn't still have a policy for Afghanistan. I'm saying that the US (and her allies, my country among them), with their war machine the likes of which has never been seen, could not bring peace and democracy to Afghanistan. Once we left, and we will always have to leave eventually, the existing structures of opression once again asserted themselves.

My country and my Government, sent people from my generation down there to die. My countrymen died in that war, and the only thing we got out of it was more enemies in the region. The Afghan is still getting persecuted for styling their beard wrong, and the Afghan woman is still getting opressed. We have nothing to show for that sacrifice.

I see no reason to believe the same thing isn't going to happen in Iran.

> Once we left, and we will always have to leave eventually, the existing structures of opression once again asserted themselves.

The US keeps coming back is what I'm saying. The US was kicked out of Iran in 1953. That's what all this is about. They will do the same to Afghanistan eventually. That's what I meant by time didn't stop. The Taliban isn't safe by any means. It's just a temporary reprieve.

> At least inflict some damage on your enemy while you die like Hamas chose (although I disagree with the fact that they chose that for a lot of innocent people too.)

Ultimately? If the people who are going to kill you were elected into power by those "innocent people", why would you not lash out at them too? Some twisted sense of morality or taking the high road?

I don't know what you're talking about. It sounds like you might be saying Israelis who elected Likud (and the supporting parties) are not innocent. If that's what you mean, then I agree, but that wasn't what I was referring to.

I was speaking of the Gazans who originally elected Hamas to protect them but where Hamas eventually decided to sacrifice masses of them to achieve some of their goals. They knew what would happen and did it anyway, without the people's consent.

> in what world does it make sense to negotiate with them?

The world in which America is a military superpower.

> if any of them were minimally rational, they would have all gone to total war with Israel and the US

They have been. They've been getting levelled. If the U.S. can staunch the flow of arms to the Houthis, they'll become irrelevant, too.

> The world in which America is a military superpower.

No, you missed my point. Iran dies no matter what happens. Better go down after eliminating Israel, taking out a huge % of the world's oil supply and banging up some Americans. Instead they were extremely restrained, squandering their capacities.

> They have been. They've been getting levelled. If the U.S. can staunch the flow of arms to the Houthis, they'll become irrelevant, too.

Incorrect.

> Better go down after eliminating Israel, taking out a huge % of the world's oil supply and banging up some Americans

One, they tried. They don’t have the capability. Two, that means more Iranians die. Cultures that choose pointless vengeance over pragmatic survival tend to get weeded out.

> Incorrect

Which part, why and based on whom?

No such thing as total war with the USA. Without the means to nuke the USA out of existence, actually engaging them is suicide. Even if by some miracle you start winning, they can just nuke you back to the stone age, thereby ending the conflict.

Better to play the long game, corrupt them from within and wait for them to destroy themselves.

Could very well be that, on a diplomatic level, they're far more reasonable and forgiving than we've been lead to believe. Maybe in order to justify an aggressively adversarial posture against them and their interests.

But that's hard to grok without corroborating evidence. Like maybe an analogous social dynamic where the American mainstream maintains a hostile posture towards a particular ethnic group, stereotyping them as violent and irrational and criminals and parasites, and doing things to them that have triggered sustained, armed uprisings in other times and places, but who, in fact, have historically and in-aggregate been steadfast in a commitment to non-violent resistance, integration, and endurance of oppression.

Safe to say that this is the first time America's ever encountered that kind of thing, though, so I guess that we can be somewhat forgiven for not recognizing it.

> Could very well be that, on a diplomatic level, they're far more reasonable and forgiving than we've been lead to believe.

If you have been following Iran over the past two years (and even before), you would know that this is empirically true and not just a hypothetical. American propag- sorry, media does its job well.

Houthi and Huzb do not have the organized armies to wage long-term war where they conquer territories. Their game plan is long term annoyance (at high casualty costs) and co-existence within a “neutral” state that provides cover and logistics for them.

> Houthi and Huzb do not have the organized armies to wage long-term war where they conquer territories.

Hezbollah did. They did it before and they were predicted by all analysts to be able to do it again, which is why Israel took the route they did with the espionage, assassinations and terrorism instead of confronting them on the battlefields.

The Houthis also are doing that right now.

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> Tell that to the 30k+ iranian protestors that were killed. > Are you actually using "in good faith" and the current horrendous iranian regime in the same sentence?

If US needs to intervene, why are they are not intervening in Ukraine? Far worse things has been happening there for 4 years.

I don't think the Ukranian people are being supressed by their own gov

Is the argument that the U.S. should only militarily intervene when conflicts are internal within another country, as opposed to when it’s one country invading another? As that’s the opposite of the established international laws around prohibiting one state from attacking another vs the principle of non-intervention.

They haven’t had an election since the war started and routinely force unwilling conscripts into vans.

> They haven’t had an election since the war started

Because that’s what their constitution says. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/ukraines-presidential...

> routinely force unwilling conscripts into vans

Can you clarify what you understand conscription to be?

What does the Iranian say? If we're all about respecting documents, we should make sure we assess them all equally. The U.S. constitution has a lot to say about many of the things that are happening right now, but those are being happily ignored. We can't even respect our own constitution, the idea that we'd respect others is laughable.

Trump’s disregard for both constitutions is not a good reason for Zelensky to ignore his own.

How do you even securely hold an election during a full scale war? Thousands are outside the country or on the front lines. You'd also be creating huge targets at polling stations. Luckily their constitution recognises it's a bad idea to try.

1. The Russian position in 2014 was that the Ukrainian people in Donbas were being oppressed by the new Ukrainian central government.

2. There's a lot of domestic political/information suppression in Ukraine but I consider this somewhat normal for a nation in a pretty existential conflict.

3. The Ukrainian military is 70-80% conscripts, increasingly of the "forcibly mobilized" variety (look up "TCC busification" for examples), with almost all military-age males banned from leaving the country. Dudes are getting beaten up, stuffed into vans, and sent to trenches to eat Russian artillery and FABs (air-to-ground bombs)....against their will. I think that definitely counts as suppression.

What is Ukraine supposed to do then?

Lose. Evacuate the government. Then mount a guerrilla, and wait for an opportunity. It'll come, most likely sooner rather than later.

Why is that unthinkable? I can understand people in the US being unable to process such a scenario, but here in Europe, there's not a single nation that wasn't off the map for some time.

I know why Ukrainians don't want that, but the demographic costs of tens to hundreds of thousands of "military age men" dying are so huge that any plausible alternative should be considered, even if it's very unpleasant.

> Why is that unthinkable?

Because it’s unthinkably stupid.

> I know why Ukrainians don't want that, but the demographic costs of tens to hundreds of thousands of "military age men" dying are so huge that any plausible alternative should be considered, even if it's very unpleasant.

And you imagine they won’t die in your guerrilla war? Or the next invasion after an emboldened Russia regroups?

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> armed men wearing balaclavas drive up in vans and abduct people off the street to draft them into the military

Every country with conscription will do this if you refuse to show up.

> Both the west and the east have been pressuring them to hold elections to no avail.

Their own constitution and laws forbids it during martial law.

“Both Putin and Trump want Zelensky to violate the Ukrainian Constitution” is not the grand slam take you imagine it to be.

> Every country with conscription will do this if you refuse to show up.

Was that MP a draft dodger? The issue isn't them picking draft dodgers, it's them picking up anybody that looks like they might be a draft dodger and the tactics they employ to do it.

My point is saying that the iranian regime is doing anything "in good faith" is just beyond absurd.

They have long lost the ability to claim that any of their actions are in good faith.

> why are they are not intervening in Ukraine?

...we are? Totally insufficiently. And immaterially, now [1]. But we're still providing intelligence support.

[1] https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-america-stockpiles-army-t...

why are they are not intervening in Ukraine?

Russia is already a nuclear power. They are also diminishing as a nation almost as fast as China.

Because in Ukraine if we intervene directly the US will be at war with Russia. Instead we are supplying weapons and intel.

> we are supplying weapons

To be more specific, since 2025, selling weapons.

"And everything we send over to Ukraine is sent through NATO and they pay us in full." - Trump

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-trumps-full-2026-...

https://app.23degrees.io/embed/j4luMuv8fnpO2frL-bar-grouped-...

And at that point the US had already provided about $66 billion directly.

Sure, that was the old US. The US that's currently invading Iran is not providing free weapons to Ukraine.

> "And everything we send over to Ukraine is sent through NATO and they pay us in full." - Trump

Which the US actively funds…so after a $66 billion advance now the costs are being shared by other vested countries.

> Tell that to the 30k+ iranian protestors that were killed

in general, "protestors" that are armed by foreigners and actively killing police officers and other government officials aren't "protestors".

And can you tell us where this 30k came from?

Yeah we care about Iranian protesters you got this right.

That's not what I said.

It's nothing to do with Iran being bad or good. US and Iran were negotiating. You don't attack mid negotiation when you're supposedly still trying to fix things by talking.

You might think Iran isn't owed the courtesy of fair negotiation but that's very shortsighted. Next country will not take US's negotiations seriously and will be, frankly, at some level justified in shooting first.

That is utter BS. If you stop negotiating in order to attack, then you are giving the enemy the advantage of knowing exactly when you will attack. This is one of the most incompetent takes I have ever heard - so much that I have to wonder if you are an Iranian agent

> Next country will not take US's negotiations seriously and will be, frankly, at some level justified in shooting first

Then they get levelled. Forgetting that America is a superpower is one way that Iran's negotiators, if they were engaging in good faith, fucked up on.

US sanctions, US/Moss instigates, makes the Iranis desparate. Irani regime (that is the result of US intervention decades ago) digs in and toughens up.

People die in the streets.

Who's to blame? The Irani regime? C'mon...

It's like crashing your car into a tree and and blaming the tree.

Also: you really think the US/Moss care about dead Iranis in the streets, other than it being a useful pretext to go to war?

Oh the US forced Iran to murder 30k civilians, it's our fault somehow.

Sanctions, instigations (admitted) lead to protests that lead to violent crack downs.

Yes. Without those sanctions + instigations the crack downs would not be needed. That's beyond obvious to me.

"needed. So Iranians protesting out of their free will, allows for a state to massacre them?

Side question what's your opinion on the war in Ukraine

It's a cuban-missle-crisis like moment for Russia. And they act accordingly.

I'm not in favor of one or the other: I just notice imperialism when I see it. And Russia+Iran have been much less aggressive than the "allied western forces" for the last 60 years, while they have a lot of reasons to dig in and toughen up not to become the next Libya/Iraq/Syria/etc.

> I just notice imperialism when I see it. And Russia

Now do Georgia and the DRC.

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I'd have been sympathetic to that argument up until a few hours ago.

But it turns out that they were actually negotiating in better faith than their counter-party, who have just launched a war whilst still claiming to be interested in a peaceful settlement.

> I'd have been sympathetic to that argument up until a few hours ago

These are somewhat independent variables. America was open about the fact that we were trying diplomacy before force. Either, one or no sides could have been negotiating in good faith and still wound up here with that setup.

No they weren’t. Trump cancelled the previous treaty and then wanted a new agreement more favorable to the US than JCPOA.

I don’t like the mullah’s in Iran anymore than the next person but no reasonable and sane person would take that to mean “negotiating in good faith.”

> no reasonable and sane person would take that to mean “negotiating in good faith.”

Taken as a whole, Trump has not been negotiating with Iran in good faith. That does not mean that Iran has been negotiating in good faith.

That’s not how life works.

If someone takes the first underhanded step, it’s not on the victim to make amends. Iran got burned on JCPOA. Whether we like them or not, you have to address that first before moving on to meaningful talks.

> ran got burned on JCPOA. Whether we like them or not, you have to address that first before moving on to meaningful talks

Sure. I think it was probably politically impossible for Iran to negotiate in good faith. That doesn't change that they were not negotiating in good faith.

You’re conflating good faith and acceding to the US’s new demands based on past behavior.

no it doesn't "turn out that". They have a long history of hiding their nuke tech and lying while also issuing death threats to israel. Trust but verify doesn't work with this country.

> Trust but verify doesn't work with this country

I mean, the JCPOA verify seemed pretty well thought out.

you don't need an analyst to see who strikes first (and the frequency of that pattern) while diplomats are still at the negotiating table

> you don't need an analyst to see who strikes first (and the frequency of that pattern) while diplomats are still at the negotiating table

Of course you do. If the diplomats' job is to stall and never make any actual concessions, that's germane. My understanding is there was a genuine desire for diplomacy on the American side. But at least this round, Tehran never conceded on any material fronts.

Then the US can formally state that it is ceasing all negotiations. But it will never do that - it always wants to retain the ability to execute a surprise backstab. Done so several times now.

> the US can formally state that it is ceasing all negotiations

Nobody has done this since before WWII.

> it always wants the ability to backstab

Yes. Geopolitics is anarchic. Pretty much every country has "backstabbed", and has legitimate claims to having been "backstabbed".

> If the diplomats' job is to stall and never make any actual concessions, that's germane.

does this line of reasoning apply to the US only, or in general?

> My understanding is there was a genuine desire for diplomacy on the American side. But at least this round, Tehran never conceded on any material fronts.

they had an option to do it and still continue a diplomatic track, they aren't obliged to devote themselves to the US preferences at the US-preferred pace.

> does this line of reasoning apply to the US only, or in general?

Are you asking serious questions? I think the evidence shows the U.S. was negotiating in good faith in the beginning (and I'm scoping to this round of negotiations only). And then it concluded there was no deal to be had, and we probably started bullshitting as well. At the same time, I think the evidence shows the Iranian side was mostly bullshitting the whole time.

> they had an option to do it and still continue a diplomatic track

Well sure. We also had the option to terminate negotiations, ratchet up sanctions and walk away. None of that changes that the Iranians weren't negotiating in good faith. (Again, based on what I've seen. Open to changing my mind. But the lack of any discussion of what Iran did in this subthread seems to underline my point.)

> they aren't obliged to devote themselves to the US preferences at the US-preferred pace

War is politics by other means. They aren't obligated to accept the other's timeline. But I wouldn't say that's negotiating either realistically or in good faith–you can't just ignore material variables because you don't like that they exist.

> Are you asking serious questions?

Just answer the question whether it applies in general as a principle. Don't "stall and never tell any actual" position on the matter.

> We also had the option to terminate negotiations, ratchet up sanctions and walk away. None of that changes that the Iranians weren't negotiating in good faith

Only according to you, based on the premise that someone didn't meet random timings that only exist in your head.

> But the lack of any discussion of what Iran did in this subthread seems to underline my point

not really, please answer the initial question I asked.

> They aren't obligated to accept the other's timeline. But I wouldn't say that's negotiating in good faith.

Exactly why? You need to be home around 5 so anyone standing in front of you and blocking you in a traffic jam aren't acting in good faith?

> Only according to you, based on the premise that someone didn't meet random timings that only exist in your head

I literally opened the top comment asking for any credible analysis that said the Iranians were negotiating in good faith. I haven't seen anything in any English, European or Asian sources that seemed to suggest they were.

So far, the only one I'm seeing arguing Iran was ready to do anything material is the Omani foreign minister. (I'm keeping an eye out for his substantiation on this point.)

> please answer the initial question I asked

Read past "are you asking serious questions." I literally answer it.

> Exactly why?

Negotiating in good faith means negotiating with a genuine intent to reach a deal. That requires acknowledging what the other side is saying and respecting reality. Someone can intentionally bullshit. Or they can be forced to bullshit because their regime at home has to save face and doesn't think it can survive being seen as giving in to America. Either way, bad faith.

> You need to be home around 5 so anyone standing in front of you and blocking you in a traffic jam aren't acting in good faith?

Bad analogy. Here's a better one: you're my landlord and I'm your tenant. (Ignoring the power imbalance between Iran and America, particularly when America is parking warships, is delusional.) You say I have ten minutes to plead for not being evicted. I genuinely don't think I did anything wrong. But I spend ten minutes talking about why your shoes are stupid. That's not engaging in good faith.

> Read past "are you asking serious questions." I literally answer it.

ok, you evaded the answer, I asked specifically about generality of the principle, you kept saying "the US did this, Iran did that". You're stalling and refusing to tell the actual answer on the question I asked, so that's germane.

> I haven't seen anything in any English, European or Asian sources that seemed to suggest they were.

too bad, get better with search

> Negotiating in good faith means negotiating with a genuine intent to reach a deal. That requires acknowledging what the other side is saying and respecting reality. Someone can intentionally bullshit. Or they can be forced to bullshit because their regime at home has to save face and doesn't think it can survive being seen as giving in to America.

Negotiating in good faith means negotiating with a genuine intent to reach a deal. That requires acknowledging what the other side is saying and respecting reality. Someone can intentionally bullshit. Or they can be forced to bullshit because their political leaders at home have to save face before their donors and don't think they can survive elections being seen as giving in to Iran.

> Bad analogy. Here's a better one: you're my landlord and I'm your tenant. (Ignoring the power imbalance between Iran and America, particularly when America is parking warships, is delusional.) You say I have ten minutes to plead for not being evicted. I genuinely don't think I did anything wrong. But I spend ten minutes talking about why your shoes are stupid. That's not engaging in good faith.

Bad analogy, I walk barefoot and I don't talk to tenants, my representatives do and they end the contract with you on a legal basis of contractual terms and that's about it. That's my property after all.

Now, you in turn are still standing in a traffic jam and getting angry at me and people around you, you claim that we all don't respect your preferences and timings, so we must be acting in bad faith.

> I asked specifically about generality of the principle, you kept saying "the US did this, Iran did that". You're stalling and refusing to tell the actual answer on the question I asked

Uh sure, yes, it generalizes. Not sure what that does for you, but yes.

> get better with search

...do you have a source? The fact that nobody in this subthread has an answer to this and is instead, as you put it, evading the question by getting distracted by whether America is negotiating in good faith should speak volumes to anyone reading this.

> Uh sure, yes, it generalizes. Not sure what that does for you, but yes.

ok, let's see

> do you have a source? The fact that nobody in this subthread has an answer to this and is instead, as you put it, evading the question by getting distracted by whether America is negotiating in good faith should speak volumes to anyone reading this.

No it shouldn't, there's no substance in your position, let alone volumes of any meaning to derive from it: "the other side must be acting in bad faith, because I don't like getting home late".

First off, I'm waiting for you to apply your previously stated principle, that you admitted to be general, to Iranian diplomats' negotiating track. And right after that, let's discuss why you did omit commenting on the other part with the substitutions around "giving in to America or Iran" and the respective interest groups having to save face.

I, as a barefoot landlord, am still wondering: why do you think your timings and preferences are the only ones to be respected?

> I'm waiting for you to apply your previously stated principle, that you admitted to be general, to Iranian diplomats' negotiating track

I've applied it. (That's why you asked for a general principle. Because I'd applied it to this specific case.) They have not been negotiating in good faith.

A case you've sustained by being unable to find any credible sources arguing Iran was negotiating in good faith.

> I've applied it. (That's why you asked for a general principle. Because I'd applied it to this specific case.) They have not been negotiating in good faith.

> My understanding is there was a genuine desire for diplomacy on the American side.

> A case you've sustained by being unable to find any credible sources

Correction: you were unable to find any credible sources, that could be your intentional bias though, as there are other patterns in your replies that suggest it too.

Also, you didn't apply the principle, you sought external validation to your preferred understanding. You appeal to external voices because there's the evident apprehension to come to inconvenient conclusions if you begin applying the principle uniformly by using your own mind.

Actually, let's see it live. Please provide the line of reasoning, starting with "If the US diplomats' job is to stall and never make any actual concessions to Iran, then ..."

> there was a genuine desire for diplomacy on the American side

By the way, how does that "genuine desire" manifest in reality? I hope it's not "I got those people in front of me extra five minutes to get lost and free my way home"

Yeah, Iran is not negotiating in good faith.

Not the other side that literally assassinates the negotiators in the most dishonorable treachery.

Not the other side that had agreed on the attacks weeks ago, but carried on with the sham negotiations so this attack would coincide with Purim.

And I must add, not the side that violates every ceasefire agreement. Zero honor, zero shame, only bloodlust.

> assassinates the negotiators in the most dishonorable treachery

Which negotiators have been assasinated? (They're in Geneva.)

https://mondoweiss.net/2025/09/israel-bombed-qatar-to-assass...

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/ali-shamkhani-iranian-neg...

Not a slight against you personally, but it's genuinely frustrating discussing this with people who don't actually follow the conflict. Thank you for probing in an inquisitive manner, but please question the state propaganda, which I'm sad to say includes just about every mainstream outlet.

> it's genuinely frustrating discussing this with people who don't actually follow the conflict

My pet war is Ukraine. I get your frustration and appreciate your patience.

And I'll admit I wasn't thinking of Israel when I made that statement since Israel wasn't directly negotiating with Iran this round.

They're interchangeable the USA and Israel, especially at this time.

Of course I mean at the state level. Individuals is a very different story.

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