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Kathleen Weber's avatar

Iran's attack upon Israel yesterday was the military equivalent of a squirt gun. They sent an attack they knew was likely to cause hardly any damage. This isn't the time for anyone to escalate!

It is true that a simmering war has been going on in the Middle East for decades now, but a simmer is better than a boil. When you turn the heat to maximum that's when the kitchen is set on fire. When you start something with Iran, you'd better be determined to finish it. Bombing isn't going to do it and invading a large Middle Eastern country turned out so well when we tried it in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bill Kristol is a well-known neocon who thinks way too highly of the usefulness of warfare.

The Middle East has been simmering for centuries, due to many disagreements, fundamental among them the Sunni Shia split. There is no military means of settling these permanent conflicts.

BTW, I think we should take every defensive means to discourage China in the Pacific, and we should also arm Ukraine. But the Middle East is a hellhole best left to its own devices. We don't need to attack Iran to defend Israel. And, by the way, Iran's nuclear facilities are buried too deep for us to destroy. We'd have to have someone on the inside or a cyberattack to take them out.

What is absolutely wonderful is that we no longer need Middle Eastern oil—we've got plenty of our own.

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SandyG's avatar

Kathleen, re "the Middle East is a hellhole best left to its own devices", it was the US and the Sunni Arab nations in the Middle East that helped Israel fend off Iran's attack. This is unprecedented, no? Could this be an inflection point in the Middle East hellhole?

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

Perhaps yes Sandy. If the Middle East is ever going to achieve peace, it must be done by the countries of the Middle East without western intervention. Leaving the Middle East to its own devices is probably the only path to Middle East peace. One of the eternal complaints by the dissatisfied parties in the Middle East is western imperialist meddling.

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CarlP's avatar

I also agree with your assessment. Max Boot had a great piece in WaPo yesterday, where he points out that Iran could have directed Hezbollah to launch far more missiles from a much closer distance. With less time to react, this could have overwhelmed the Israeli defense systems. By launching from Iran, Israel and their partners had time to react, which Iran surely must have anticipated. They broadcast this response well in advance, and it was conducted to minimize any actual damage. This was entirely performative, and now is the time for BiBi to finally show some restraint to gain back some of the Western support he has lost in Gaza.

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

Actually, poor little Israel being attacked by missiles brings out the protective instincts in western powers, even if the attack was halfhearted. Unfortunately, BiBi may have gained back some of the support he lost in Gaza.

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severn's avatar

my only advice to israel (call me bibi!), the us and so on is to have specific attainable goals in these things. look at afghanistan. what was the goal? to get bin laden? somewhere along the lines we widened the goals to such an extent as to invite failure, and fail we did. whatever the response is to iranian's attack -- and it isn't even clear to me that defeating their attack almost 100% isn't THE response. it should be clear, concise and well gettable. what that means is for those sitting in meetings right now watching grandiose powerpoint slides on "now this is a perfect opportunity to ..." -- those should be considered very very carefully. and probably just dispensed with.

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

Iran as the center of the Shiite universe has a deeply engrained “us against the world" mentality. This mentality is impervious to military attack.

Someone suggested that we take out the drone factories, which might actually be a good move. We can destroy the means, but we cannot destroy the mentality.

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severn's avatar

I replied in the wrong spot, to myself!

I mean -- Iran would if it could "get rid of Israel". It doesn't have the ability. It's developed some kind of drone, cruise tech but we can handle it. Today They're working on nukes. This bothers me. It bothers me in the same way the North Koreans do, who are doing the same. The ability to send target-able ballistic nukes to any place on the world by either regime is more than troubling. While deterrence might work, both of these countries are run by mad-men, or at least mad-people -- it's not clear deterrence is enough.

Given all that -- there's some kind of case to be made that perhaps, in this immediate one, that some message should be send to Iran. But I'm not making it, I can just see the case's outlines a little. But having said that, the case if it can be made has to be very clean and concise -- otherwise, it'll just be another roll of the proverbial snowball down the hill and pretty soon this thing will go side ways... or it seems likely at least.

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

Well, deterrence is the best we have. If we invade either country to take out the nukes, we almost guarantee the regimes will use them. BTW, I think Iran cares about its civilian population somewhat more than North Korea does—N Korea is willing to tolerate some percentage of its population starving to death.

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severn's avatar

Ah but they don't have them yet. And I didn't say anything about invading. The point I was going for was for a possible calibrated response -- we're talking Iran. That there could be a case to made about a calibrated response because "nukes" (in development). I mean I'm not making that case, I'm just saying I can see some perhaps making it.

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

Yep. Maybe someone is making that case, but I fail to see how attacking Iran will make them less likely to develop nukes. I think it would make them want to speed up their program. The only way we can prevent the development of Iranian nukes is either to bribe Iran (unlikely) or take out the nuclear facility by infiltration or cyberattack. Or assassinate key personnel.

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severn's avatar

well wanting to and being able to are two different things. also i note there seems to have been a mid-east coalition against the attack. perhaps these same countries are not that interested in iran attaining well.. anything, either.

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Victoria Wright's avatar

300% Maybe, just maybe, we should be investing in DIPLOMACY instead. Biden has the right idea here- hey, yeah, Israel did totally bomb an embassy and kill a bunch of Iranian big-wigs, maybe they OUGHT NOT to have done that. I'm willing to let it go.

Not to mention, a big reason why Iran is the way it is, is because we made it that way. We actually helped destroy their democracy. This isn't the time to escalate, it's the time to give Ukraine whatever it needs, fill up the Iron Dome, and work on easing tensions- not inflaming them.

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SandyG's avatar

So true about our responsibility for why Iran is the way it is. I sure wish Bill would acknowledge that.

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Victoria Wright's avatar

I can't believe, unless I missed it, that he didn't even mention WHY Iran did it.

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SandyG's avatar

I just checked. He didn't.

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Victoria Wright's avatar

... Wow. I'd say that honestly borders on misinformation.

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SandyG's avatar

Certainly cherry-picking . . .

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Migs's avatar

That’s impossible when republicans constantly stir shit up. Iran was on its best behavior when jcpoa was being negotiated and signed. Then Trump walked away from the agreement and everything goes to shit.

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Victoria Wright's avatar

It was honestly in the top 5 worst things he's ever done.

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Migs's avatar

It’s always hard to rate all the bad shit he has done. Just so many things. Probably a few in the top 10 that I already forgot about

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Victoria Wright's avatar

Definitely, it's literally impossible to keep it all in your head at once. I just read a WaPo story about how regular people are putting their life savings in Trump stocks and it's... REALLY sad. I can't even find it funny, cause I can see those people finding violence a lot easier after another election loss if they lose their retirement savings.

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Migs's avatar

Yep and then somehow it will be the stupid libs fault

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knowltok's avatar

Yeah, they are right (IMO) about the geopolitical situation and the alignment of the four bad actors on the stage. They are wrong about where to respond. Ukraine is where we should be stopping the bad guys cold by giving the aid that is needed. China is the main threat, and the key to all of it is providing the lesson that the west won't back down.

About the only reason I'd be in favor of any hitting of Iran is if it was targeted strikes on any drone and missile manufacturing sites that might help cut into Russian supplies.

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Stephen's avatar

Yup, agree. The diagnosis is correct, but the prescription is not necessarily right.

Support for Ukraine, even now but especially 6 months ago (!!!!), would do more for deterrence and stability than even the most well executed precision strike at Iran. Of course, simple minds (ie GOP reps) and even intelligent but misguided minds will make noise about needing to lash out at Iran with hard power.

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BriDub's avatar

Hard agree. "America backs her allies 110%" is much more of a deterrent than "Sometimes an American president wants to support our allies 80%, but Congress won't let him."

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

That's what we get with a constitution that has separation of powers. Congress controls the purse.

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Terry Mc Kenna's avatar

Yep.. a land war in Asia has been tried.

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knowltok's avatar

It is only slightly worse than crossing a Sicilian when death is on the line.

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Color Me Skeptical's avatar

Nice Princess Bride reference!

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Douglas Peterson's avatar

Oh, thanks! I've been racking my brain: Godfather I, II, III? Goodfellas? .....

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TomD's avatar

I've been wondering when they might lay off Israel and get back to the important issues: e.g., "How many prophets?"

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Apr 15, 2024
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Migs's avatar

It’s crazy. Bill would want us to go to war if Iran or Russia attacked our embassy to kill a CIA operative. That’s what Israel did

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