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Well diarrhea donny just raised the stakes again telling the Iranian Islamic Republic (in front of the rest of the world) that he is considering killing them all
Unlike the kiddy diddler, those people are hardened fanatics and find honour in death... shit is just going to be worse and worse
Thank you Muricans... your dumbassery will be painful (if not deadly) for the entire world and we only have you to thank for it
Not crucial to your point but this sort of orientalism too often goes unchallenged. They're not "hardened fanatics who find honor in death" (at least not any more than any other culture that values martyrdom, which is most of them); everything Iran has done so far can be explained through the cold hard math of geopolitics.
IRGC is the current leadership of Iran. They did not hold complete power before the war. Previously the president and ayatollah held power as well
Their actuons have largely been rational from a geopolitical perspective, butbtheir end goals differ from what previous Iranian governments would have looked for
The mass purge of thousands of civilians being an example
That's true, but any remotely competent Iranian government democratic or not would do basically what the current regime is doing in response to the initial Israeli-American attack.
Agreed, what are US Marines but cold hard fanatics that find honor in death?
The US has cold soft fanatics that find honor in death (as long as some one else is doing all the fighting and dying)
That's why the US military is mostly people without better prospects or any prospects. Most of the people I served with came from two core demographics: trapped without hope of escape in the ghetto or trapped without hope of escape from rural bumble fuck. The somewhat literal fear of going back to where you came from vs obliterating a bunch of "bad people" is an easy math problem.
I didn’t serve, but nearly every male in the high school class before mine, mine and the class after mine did. We were one of those bum fuck areas where you couldn’t get a job unless you traveled 3 hours a day.
It was funny to watch the city and the country kids figure out that shit was fucked no matter where you came from.
When the factory and mill jobs left, nothing was there to replace that security.
In the current war, yes absolutely. Iran has been the most logical and reasonable party to this war.
But you seem to be missing my point. In Iran, thousands have been killed and their stance does not seem to change. In the USA, gas has gone up and that has done more to sway Americans against trump than the knowledge their government is actively killing thousands around the world, including women and children, without a second thought.
If push comes to shove, I would bet my bottom dollar Iran gov will hold until the end. The USA on the other hand, won't survive the AI bubble bursting.
This was ALL visible and demonstrated recently in the disaster that was the invasion of Iraq
So the answer here is twofold: First, that's not being hardened fanatics; that's a difference in popular will. America has very little popular will to prosecute this war (because it's stupid and unnecessary and Trump didn't even try to sell the American public on it), so even relatively minor setbacks or consequences produce outsized popular resentment. It's also important to note here that Americans don't meaningfully care about the humanitarian impact of their military's escapades, so "done more to sway Americans against trump than the knowledge their government is actively killing thousands around the world" isn't exactly a high bar. Meanwhile, though we can't know for sure because not much information is coming out of Iran these days, Iran presumably has a lot of popular will to prosecute the war because America and Israel are bombing their schools and hospitals. Would you want your country (presumably America) to surrender if, say, Russia started bombing your country? As long as you have a meaningful avenue of resistance, you'd want to do that until you return the favor to them twice over. That's exactly what the British thought, so much so that even after losing an order of magnitude more people out of a smaller population in less time than Iran they not only didn't surrender, they beat back the Germans and went on to fight them in three continents, bankrupting their country, losing their empire in and enduring harsh wartime rationing in the process. As history has repeatedly shown, terror bombing doesn't work. That's not a trait of hardened fanatics; that's just being human.
And of course second, even if the Iranian public wanted to surrender, that doesn't matter much (unless shit really hits the fan), because the people who would actually make the decision to surrender aren't the public; they're the ruling class, who are in a better position to weather the storm than the average Iranian. They're also likely to very much not want to surrender because it's their corrupt rule at stake.
The Oriental fanatic to whom life is cheap contrasted with the enlightened and/or decadent white man is a an age-old trope, but put in context it's not one with a lot of explanatory power.
thanks for the detailed explanation
You know how Americans came together and supported GWB to invade Iraq to get revenge for 911?
It's the same thing. The American terrorist attacks on Iran made them come together and vowed revenge, except they are actually targeting the terrorists that attacked them not another nation.
Well, they've thoroughly crushed their attacker and humiliated them, and they've successfully decolonized most of the region (US bases are closing and they're not returning). Why wouldn't they hold?
Uhhh... which part was visible and demonstrated? Iraq now has a US friendly government, it was a complete success. ISIS taking over was the disaster in Iraq, not the invasion itself. The US captured Saddam, put him through a sham trial and he was hung in a dark shed, stole the oil, destroyed the nation, and slaughtered millions of Iraqis.
They wanted to repeat that.
Not 100% sure that I agree with your point about Iraq, but I'm not saying I completely disagree either.
You're absolutely correct to call out that Iraq is not the abject failure - from the perspective of US leadership - that people often describe it as. This is one of those difficult conversations to have around a lot of well intentioned but thoughtless leftists who will go off on a hair trigger as if this means you somehow think Iraq was either a good thing, or a good decision. It was neither. But, strategically speaking, it was broadly a success. As you say, the US wanted to a) remove Saddam from power, b) establish a friendly satellite government, and c) gain access to the country's oil reserves, and they achieved all three of those goals.
I guess where I would differ is that while they achieved those short-term goals, I think it can be strongly argued that none of those goals adequately served the US' long term geopolitical interests. In that sense, I think that Iraq can still be considered a strategic misstep, even though they accomplished their immediate objectives. First, obviously, the cost they paid for those objectives was arguably far too high. I don't think the US actually meaningfully benefited from any of those goals to a degree that made it worth the lives, money, political capital, and damage to their global trust, reputation and moral standing. And I think that the destabilizing impact on the region and the galvanization of nascent movements like ISIL were pretty much inevitable.
I would tend to argue that the US could have done far more to further their geopolitical interests in the region by not choosing to invade, so in that sense I'd still consider it a poor strategic decision (and this is, of course, putting aside any question of the moral dimensions, on which it was obviously horrific), even though they were, in the limited sense you describe, successful.
I also do want to note that I think there's a sense in which Jhex is actually correct about Iraq; while the US did succeed, operationally, in achieving their strategic goals, Iraq also demonstrated some long-standing issues with the US military that have only worsened with time. Something that's not talked about enough in regard to both Iraq and Afghanistan is that there were multiple units that were activated for those invasions only to repeatedly fail their workups and ultimately end up sitting out the initial stages of those wars. That's shockingly bad. When you have whole divisions that are so incompetently trained that they are literally undeployable... Well, what are they even there for? The US military is huge, but it's becoming increasingly apparent that it's also extremely badly managed, and that these issues are not new. I know people who work alongside American soldiers, and the general consensus is that they are some of the least professional, most poorly trained in all of NATO. That's unbelievably bad for a military with that kind of budget and history. The US throws a lot of money at its army, but doesn't get a lot of bang for its buck. The fact that they're now struggling to maintain a single regional conflict has its roots in the struggles they experienced maintaining two simultaneous conflicts back in the early 2000s. These recent issues didn't come out of nowhere.
We don't differ. The empire the overstretched and cannot continue doing the same playbook indefinitely, and a failure as big as the Iran war is a huge a result of that, it's similar to WWII Germany, the US military is arrogant and thinks it's untouchable and can invade any nation at will, and the rest of the world are tired of it and starting to realize they might be next. Modern drone warfare renders American air superiority not as much of a threat, and yes the empire's expansion cannot be sustained. Celebration!
I agree with that.
I agree. For months before the war every expert worth listening to said this is how it's going to go, and now they're scrambling to sell opening the strait as a victory.
They counted on being able to use death and destruction to compensate for all the issues you highlighted. I hope it was clear I was not complementing the US on their destruction of Iraq, but as you said they achieved their primary objectives, it was a military success.
Oh, 100% clear.
My only point of contention here would be with your assertion that drones mitigate air superiority. That's not my read on what's happening in Ukraine, as an example.
In some specific aspects, drones allow long range strikes in areas where air dominance might otherwise prevent them, but we already had that capability with missiles. Modern drones just make it much more economical. But air power still matters. The reason Russian air power has been such a limited factor in Ukraine isn't because of drones, it's a combination of very effective Ukrainian air defence and limited Russian resources. Basically Russia can't afford to lose expensive aircraft and Ukraine has gotten very good at shooting them down.
More broadly, however, we're increasingly learning the limits of air power as a whole. This isn't something that arose from drones so much as something that's been naturally coming together for decades. In the advent of a full invasion of Iran, for example, much of the fighting would take place in the mountains where caves and geography make close air support and strategic bombing highly ineffective. That same terrain would also limit the use of armour and artillery, robbing the US of most of their force multipliers. The same thing happened in Afghanistan
Essentially, I agree that American air superiority is often over valued, but I don't think I agree that drones are the reason for that.
The US depends on friendly bases around Iran to refuel, reload, and launch their bombers. Iran used drones to overwhelm the air defense systems and put the bases out of service. Iranian drones are cheap, and American interceptors are extremely expensive.
Iran's use of drones is what tipped the equation and made it a war of attrition instead of just a one sided endless bombing campaign.
It changes the playing field, not makes air superiority obsolete.
OK, yeah, I can definitely see your argument there.
That's a wild stance. The vast majority of Americans now see the war as a failure. It cost trillions, was founded on abject lies, and brought nothing for the American people
I'm noticing you neglect to consider the people's perspective. You think the Iranian people care about US bases in the region? Removing US bases does not put food on their table. It doesn't give them safe, reliable drinking water
The military success of the war, from either side, has little bearing on public sentiment because neither people has anything to gain materially. It's a war of attrition with only abstract geopolitical goals
You need to look at what they're actually saying, not what you think they're saying.
3abas is completely correct when they say that - in terms of their immediate, short term, strategic goals - the US got what they were after in Iraq.
Whether or not those goals were moral, or desirable, or beneficial, are not the questions that were being addressed.
If I say "That car is red" why would you reply with "No, it's a Ford"?
It was a success for the empire, yes it was founded on lies, it helped the ruling class steal vast amounts of resources, it helped the war machine industry make bank and deepen it's grip on the world, it helped fracture the resistance to American imperialism. It helped the ruling class implement massive surveillance systems, strip citizens of basic rights in the name of national security, and more. The biggest objective win was removing Saddam and installing a US/Israel friendly puppet government that will give oil contracts away to western counties and turn a blind eye on imperialism and completely ignore the idea of reparations.
Okay.
Do I think the Iranian people care that the US no longer has air bases right across the border to launch bombers that bomb their schools? Yes, I do.
It literally does. Pushing the American empire out of the region will translate to removing sanctions, which will literally put food on the average Iranian table.
You don't understand how important the bases were for US hegemony and imperial control, and now that most host countries realize they don't offer the protection they promised, America is being eliminated from their national defense strategy.
Okay... The discussion was about the government's goals in attacking Iran, not about the public stance. You're counter arguing an argument you pulled out of thin air.
Iran, or Persia, is many times older than the USA. They figure this too shall pass.
On the topic of orientalism that too often goes unchallenged, I'm sorry but no. Iranian civilization might be very old (though the same goes for Greece, India, China and the broader Middle East so it's not like Iran is unique here) but every individual Iranian gets a few dozen years on this Earth and it'd really suck all the same if those were to prematurely end because of an Israeli bomb. American-Israeli terror bombing isn't working in Iran not because of some quality inherent to Iranian civilization but because terror bombing doesn't work. Never worked, probably never will. See my response to Jhex for what I mean, but long story short you wouldn't be any more inclined to surrender than the Iranians are if America/Russia/insert relevant boogieman blew up the school your child/little sibling/whatever goes to.
"Hardened fanatics" shut the fuck up, chauvinist. The Iranian people are not fanatics.
No one is talking about the Iranian people. The Iranian people do not make decisions for Iran
The IRGC leadership are who we're talking about. They hold near complete power over Iran, thanks to Trump's war. IRGC leadership are, generally, fanatics willing to make extreme decisions
How is that not a war crime in itself?
I'm tired of winning boss.
If the UN was actually dedicated to peace keeping they'd have arrested his ass for that shit.
The UN is just a forum that allows countries to air their grievances and talk out issues. It's there to hopefully stop wars before they start. It's not the world police
I am not my government, nor have i ever felt anything like "patriotism" at any point outside the Olympics, and that's always as fleeting as whichever event I am watching.
Much as Iranians aren't their government, Chinese aren't theirs, etc etc. Despots gonna despot.
And if you think he actually got voted in this most recent time then I've got some bridges for sale in Brooklyn for a great price if you're interested.
ETA: Hard-line religious repressive governments and the CCCP genociding Uyghrs(sp) are what I'm referring to, nothing more.
Also I'm dumb
That's not how a democracy works. And if you argue against it, then it's not a democracy any more
In the end, I don't think the rest of the world believes that this is all down to one person called Trump any more. This is down to the whole population and will require many generations of intentional cultural change to reverse.
The USA is lost to most of its allies, not because of Trump alone but because things there can unpredictably change very dramatically every 4 years
I hear the truth of what you're saying, but then by that same logic may you be blamed for all the ills of your government.
In the face of reality, that logic only applies to a few. Especially when our system was purchased by oligarchs when Millennials as a generation were infants. Our say began during the market collapse of 2008. Is it really my fault, or was my power to vote outweighed by corporate interests through no fault of my own - especially having lived and voted in MY and as close to social-humanism as my options would allow, respectively.
I don't deny we are no longer reliable as a nation, but please don't conflate normal citizens with governments. Its bad for everyone.
Why is entire Russia cut off from SWIFT then, if the war is due to the doings of despots and oligarchs? Why was the whole Iran under sanctions for decades?
Well I can tell you that I didn't put any sanctions on anyone. Nor have i made any international trips (Caribbean honeymoon cruise notwithstanding) or deals in my life.
Why are they under sanctions? Take a look at the discussions those oligarchs and despots in the US were having and please again note that I voted as much against corporate interests and corruption as my ballots would allow. If I was out-voted, am I truly to blame?
And if all these are such big issues in your life, what have you done to fix them?
Blaming people like me for the ills of the government I have disagreed with since the time I truly learned how it functioned is genuinely unhelpful; you are berating the only people in this sad excuse for a country who genuinely want to improve things for everyone because we do see the potential the US had and utterly squandered in the name of profits for a few.
We were sold the lie harder than anyone else. We fought against the lies in what ways we could. I've faced down lines of riot police firing tear gas into crowds alongside my father. I have put myself on the line against this oppression. Now I generally keep to myself and protect my babies as best I am able, which is beginning to feel increasingly futile.
So please, again, explain to me why I'm the bad guy for what the people I very specifically have voted and physically stood against every time I can have done and how its entirely the fault of me and people like me.
Edit: missing words.
Wow, a whole lot of text there. All of that will be of just as much interest to the world as who voted against Putin in Russia. Trump is still the elected emperor last I checked.
Then you shoot him in the head.
Ah yes, the usual, someone else needs to solve your problem for you. The problem that USians created and imposed on the world. But we also have to sympathize with USians about them not being able to get rid of the problem that they created.
A more measured response: it is not my responsibility to educate every ignoramus in my country. For you to suggest all the problems of my country are my fault is either incredibly stupid or incredibly disingenuous, especially when I'm on super lefty Lemmy. Clearly I agree with most of the sentiments here otherwise I'd be on Truth Social and Facebook spouting about how Murica's da greatest.
So please explain to me why, by your own logic, I shouldn't blame you for the bullshit going on in the EU or in the middle east or wherever the fuck you're from? You live there, its entirely your fault.
Or that's disingenuous and stupid. Don't be that.
Oh, he got voted in by enough people to make this rapist, childfucking, insurrectionist garbage human president the second time. There is no functioning mechanism to prevent such things or to reverse course when things are obviously fucked, and that is the fault of every american alive, regardless of patriotism. It's not limited to a single generation either - this shit has been going down since at least Nixon, who got away scot free, and Reagan, who also didn't suffer any consequences for the Contra affair.
Every American alive - minus Gen Z / Alpha at the moment, but i am sure they will carry the torch on - is part of a system that has been running amok for more than half a century, and was neither willing to consistently vote for representants that respect the rule of law nor demand that the rules are changed in a way to prevent a fascist takeover.
It's just like with genocide - if you don't speak out against it, you support it.
Most of Gen Z were 18+ in 2024, they're already carrying the torch.
They still aren't the main part of the population, and the younger voters seem to lean more free-thinking for now. We will see how it develops with them in the next decade, but i have the feeling that they (similar to GenX) are not approving of the gerontocratic power grab we are seeing today, which might actually pit them against the worst of GenX and the Millenials. I for myself, as a late GenX, am pretty ashamed of the people in my generation who adapted to the system, instead of going what their generation actually stood for: Punk and revolt against the encrusted establishment.