All we're doing with this violent stuff is boosting terrorist recruitment drives. Especially in Gaza right now. And who can blame them? Deterrence doesn't work when you've already lost everything. Meanwhile, we have a LOT to lose. Our people get enraged when gas prices go up 20 cents, much less the whole town getting turned into rubble w…
All we're doing with this violent stuff is boosting terrorist recruitment drives. Especially in Gaza right now. And who can blame them? Deterrence doesn't work when you've already lost everything. Meanwhile, we have a LOT to lose. Our people get enraged when gas prices go up 20 cents, much less the whole town getting turned into rubble with half our family under it.
My ideal vision of America is to be a shield for the West. Exactly like what we just did in Israel and what we were doing in Ukraine. Protecting civilians, not killing them. Nothing makes us safer than general good will. Nuclear weapons aside, we built our military to be able to fight Russia and China, on different fronts, at the same time, and win. We might as well use it to protect people just trying to live their lives. We might as well live up to our values. I'm not a foreign policy expert, I just want us to operate in a way that doesn't make me fucking miserable for once in my adult lifetime. I got a taste of pride during our response to the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and I'm hungry for more.
I'm watching what works and what doesn't. For example, diplomacy- got a bunch of hostages back. Bombing the shit out of everyone and their mom- lots of dead hostages.
They do not believe they are actually under threat. If you do not feel endangered/threatened, you have no real reason to engage in diplomacy (especially when you are getting away with all kinds of things).
You don't engage in what is an open act of war against another country unless you believe that there is no danger in it for you--which is exactly what they did with the attack on Israel.
And then we plainly said that we would not get involved, which simply reinforced their perception. No real price paid. Until they have to actually pay a price, why would they negotiate?
Besides, we are rather untrusdtworthy diplomatic partners, given what Trump did to them and what we have done in the past.
Iran was clearly retaliating against Israel for the embassy bombing, and they did it in the most slapfight way possible. They telegraphed it and leaked intelligence on the attack on purpose. Reminder of the catastrophic intelligence failure of Oct. 7th. This worked out so they could look tough with no fatalities. All the used armaments are now not headed to Russia to use against Ukraine.
Also, respectfully, since when do religious extremists respond the way you want them to? This could have gone so much worse.
Iran has been engaged in escalating attacks for years, usually through the mechanism of thinly veiled proxies. They have been escalating these attacks because there has not been significant pushback.
They have funded, trained, supported attacks against a variety of targets--American, Israeli, Saudi, ships from various nations at sea.
If they are religious extremists motivated only by their religious views and extremism (which I seriously doubt, given the nature of their activities over the years) then no negotiations are actually possible with them and you would be foolish in the extreme to lift sanctions and provide them with MORE resources.
What you have been looking at over the past several years is a three way contest between Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel (with Israel largely stuck in the middle as the ethnic/religious differences actually preclude them positioning as an acceptable hegemon) about who gets to be the regional hegemon. It is part of a larger, historical contest between the Iranians (Persians) and the Arabs/Ottomans/ Byzantines/Romans (yes it goes back THAT far).
It is exacerbated by the ethnic and religious differences (Sunni v Shia and Arab v Iranian), with Israel thrown in as a handy target and rallying point/tool for Iran (and, in the past the Sauds).
The last thing you want to do at this point is lift sanctions. So what is there to actually negotiate?
Imagine how they will act WHEN they get nuclear weapons (because it is a question of when, not if).
We had an opportunity with the deal negotiated prior to Trump taking office--and then that got shat all over. There is, at this point, no real grounds for negotiations.
All we're doing with this violent stuff is boosting terrorist recruitment drives. Especially in Gaza right now. And who can blame them? Deterrence doesn't work when you've already lost everything. Meanwhile, we have a LOT to lose. Our people get enraged when gas prices go up 20 cents, much less the whole town getting turned into rubble with half our family under it.
My ideal vision of America is to be a shield for the West. Exactly like what we just did in Israel and what we were doing in Ukraine. Protecting civilians, not killing them. Nothing makes us safer than general good will. Nuclear weapons aside, we built our military to be able to fight Russia and China, on different fronts, at the same time, and win. We might as well use it to protect people just trying to live their lives. We might as well live up to our values. I'm not a foreign policy expert, I just want us to operate in a way that doesn't make me fucking miserable for once in my adult lifetime. I got a taste of pride during our response to the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and I'm hungry for more.
I'm watching what works and what doesn't. For example, diplomacy- got a bunch of hostages back. Bombing the shit out of everyone and their mom- lots of dead hostages.
They do not believe they are actually under threat. If you do not feel endangered/threatened, you have no real reason to engage in diplomacy (especially when you are getting away with all kinds of things).
You don't engage in what is an open act of war against another country unless you believe that there is no danger in it for you--which is exactly what they did with the attack on Israel.
And then we plainly said that we would not get involved, which simply reinforced their perception. No real price paid. Until they have to actually pay a price, why would they negotiate?
Besides, we are rather untrusdtworthy diplomatic partners, given what Trump did to them and what we have done in the past.
Iran was clearly retaliating against Israel for the embassy bombing, and they did it in the most slapfight way possible. They telegraphed it and leaked intelligence on the attack on purpose. Reminder of the catastrophic intelligence failure of Oct. 7th. This worked out so they could look tough with no fatalities. All the used armaments are now not headed to Russia to use against Ukraine.
Also, respectfully, since when do religious extremists respond the way you want them to? This could have gone so much worse.
Why negotiate? To lift sanctions.
Iran has been engaged in escalating attacks for years, usually through the mechanism of thinly veiled proxies. They have been escalating these attacks because there has not been significant pushback.
They have funded, trained, supported attacks against a variety of targets--American, Israeli, Saudi, ships from various nations at sea.
If they are religious extremists motivated only by their religious views and extremism (which I seriously doubt, given the nature of their activities over the years) then no negotiations are actually possible with them and you would be foolish in the extreme to lift sanctions and provide them with MORE resources.
What you have been looking at over the past several years is a three way contest between Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel (with Israel largely stuck in the middle as the ethnic/religious differences actually preclude them positioning as an acceptable hegemon) about who gets to be the regional hegemon. It is part of a larger, historical contest between the Iranians (Persians) and the Arabs/Ottomans/ Byzantines/Romans (yes it goes back THAT far).
It is exacerbated by the ethnic and religious differences (Sunni v Shia and Arab v Iranian), with Israel thrown in as a handy target and rallying point/tool for Iran (and, in the past the Sauds).
The last thing you want to do at this point is lift sanctions. So what is there to actually negotiate?
Imagine how they will act WHEN they get nuclear weapons (because it is a question of when, not if).
We had an opportunity with the deal negotiated prior to Trump taking office--and then that got shat all over. There is, at this point, no real grounds for negotiations.