• bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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    1 hour ago

    All of this argues not only for Israeli strikes—which will surely come—but for vigorous American action as well. Israel may well choose to attack economic targets, and in particular the oil industry that keeps Iran’s economy afloat. Attacks on the nuclear program—buried and dispersed at different sites—would probably be more difficult. In either case, Israel will need American help.

    Israel has a large and capable air force, including nearly 40 F-35s. But it lacks a large fleet of aerial refueling planes, necessary for long-range strikes, which the United States has in plenty. At the very least, the United States can quietly help supply that deficit. The question is: Should it do more?

    The answer is yes.

    Holy fuck this is deranged bloodthirsty shit.

    • Richard@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      Why? It is finally time to cripple the Iranian regime. Iran has a horrible government that does not treat its citizens (especially women) much better than slaves. Those abhorrent people of Iran’s leadership cannot get access to nuclear weapons under any circumstances.

      • Saleh@feddit.org
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        1 minute ago

        Yes i agree. The US should stop all of its support for Ukraine and withdraw from the South China Sea. Now a great war in the Middle East is where it is at.

        Deploying all of the US army to occupy Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran will be the greatest strategic decision of the 21st. century.

        The 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq has shown that the US can do it. Also the 20 years in Afghanistan were a great success.

        This will be concluded with the last epos of the triology. This time surely it will work in just 6 months and this time surely all of the problems of the Middle East will be solved by the US invading.

      • untorquer@lemmy.world
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        35 minutes ago

        This isn’t about changing the Iranian government or taking nukes away. Neither will happen even in full out war. Just going to be a lot of suffering and dead people. Many if which couldn’t care less about state affairs. When USA inevitably gets sucked into boots on the ground we’ll have another generation of youth either dead or returning with broken bodies achieving yet another Pyrrhic victory for the US. Yet another generations Vietnam.

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_in_the_war_in_Afghanistan_(2001–2021)

      • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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        24 minutes ago

        But those abhorrent people of Israel’s leadership already having nukes is reason to help commit genocide and escalate a regional war?

      • Count042@lemmy.ml
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        51 minutes ago

        There is only one apartheid nation actively committing genocide right now, and they’re the ones with nukes.

  • superkret@feddit.org
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    4 hours ago

    This author has big Dr. Strangelove energy.
    He can’t seem to wait for another big war to start.

  • Asafum@feddit.nl
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    6 hours ago

    Objective 1: Stay the fuck out of it.

    Objective 2: Stay the fuck out of it.

    Objective 3: Stay the fuck out of it.

    Objective 4: Stay the fuck out of it.

    US Government response: “unfortunately we weren’t able to achieve any of our stated objectives. We promise we didn’t try to at all. The following is unrelated I promise, but Congress is meeting to give Bibi $69420Ungabijillion for self defense and we’re sending every troop, drone, and warship we have to Iran.”

    • BombOmOm@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      The fun problem with isolationism is it just allows problems to fester; then you have something much worse to deal with later. You may want to ignore the world, but the world won’t ignore you.

      Edit: An Iranian proxy has been shooting civilian shipping and civilian crews from all countries for the last year. There are problems one cannot simply ignore.

      • Count042@lemmy.ml
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        56 minutes ago

        Did Israel try stopping their genocide.

        Some problems are very easy to solve.

      • mlg@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        An Iranian proxy has been shooting civilian shipping and civilian crews from all countries for the last year. There are problems one cannot simply ignore.

        Hmm yes I wonder why the Houthis just suddenly decided to attack a global supply line

  • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    All of this argues not only for Israeli strikes—which will surely come—but for vigorous American action as well.

    Jesus fucking Christ.

  • Tedesche@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    Something Cohen doesn’t address is what getting the U.S. directly involved in a war with Iran would look like so close to Election Day in the U.S. It could hurt Harris’ chance for victory, and I would argue that keeping Trump out of the White House is far more important than taking advantage of a weak moment to hamstring Iran’s nuclear program.

    However, I do have to say I agree that it would be great if we could somehow deal a heavy blow to Iran that cripples it further both militarily and economically. The article mentions American refueling aircraft improving the strike distance of Israeli attack fighters, which seems like an indirect way to get involved. I’m wondering if American intelligence agencies can cooperate with Mossad to successfully cripple Iran’s nuclear program, but they’re likely already sharing intel on that front.

    At the end of the day, it’s imperative the U.S. doesn’t get directly involved. I personally would like to see the U.S. give Israel fewer blank checks in the form of raw arms for Netanyahu to use on hospitals and refugee camps, but we should still endeavor to find ways to help Israel hit strictly military and terrorist targets. Destroying Hamas and Hezbollah, and disarming Iran is in the interest of peace in the entire region.

    • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      Could you, like, not advocate crippling a country’s economy of who’s civilians are already struggling?

      You want Iran to no longer be a threat? Than help Iran change. Especially the younger generations are quite sick and tired of living in an oppressive, religious regime and would like to very much see it gone. But they don’t have the resources to actually do anything beyond the occasional riot.

    • basmati@lemm.ee
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      5 hours ago

      It’s not. Stop war mongering. Stop advocating for the death of people that only exist because we killed their parents.

      You, specifically, are why the vast majority of people on earth hate America and Americans.

      • Tedesche@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        LOL, advocating for targeted strikes against military targets in nations already hell-bent on the destruction of the U.S. and its allies isn’t warmongering, it’s simply acknowledging that we have to fight back against those who are actively striving to harm us.

        And I, specifically am the reason “the vast majority of people on earth hate America and Americans?” What a joke. Get out of your little Anti-American bubble.

        • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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          1 hour ago

          Yes. Yes you are the reason why people are anti-american. Kinda difficult not to be when the only place outside the “anti-american bubble” is far up some American ass.

    • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      I worked with someone who worked in intelligence for 30-ish years. from discussions they and I had you’re absolutely spot on. in-fact they warned me that once things in Israel begin to heat up prepare for a war to accelerate with Russia.

      this new development isn’t surprising and I’m sure there are already gears in motion to reduce impacts on the election.

      it’s funny because it’s clearly the Iranian government’s goal to influence the American election because it’s all they’ve been doing for the past six months.

      this can only mean one thing, the axis of power that is attempting to drag the west into a war does not want Harris in office. this only makes me vote for her even more.

  • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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    8 hours ago

    So umm, Iran’s leadership won’t stop nuclear weapons development. It can’t stop. Therefore to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, it means that the US has to help remove Iran’s leadership. Now why would this turn out any better than any of the previous times they’ve done this, including in Iran?

    • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      Well, the Iranian youth would certainly love it if the current leadership were replaced with something a lot less hateful and a lot more secular.

    • Tedesche@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      They can absolutely stop; they just choose not to. And hamstringing their attempts to develop their nuclear program is a far better option than trying to topple their government in terms of maintaining stability in the region. Toppling the Iranian government would make every other Arab nation skittish and potentially be a rallying cry for them. Keeping their military options limited is far less incendiary.

      • basmati@lemm.ee
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        5 hours ago

        No, they stop developing nuclear weapons they get wiped out by an unwarranted US invasion. The only reason north Korea exists is because of their nuclear program, and their weapons of mass destruction before that. It’s the only way to actually prevent the US from invading you or putting a military base in you.

        • Tedesche@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          Your argument is refuted by the existence of plenty of other non-terrorist-supporting, non-dictatorship-led, non-oppressive, non-nuclear nations in the world that the U.S. isn’t fucking over in the manners you describe.

          • Count042@lemmy.ml
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            53 minutes ago

            Spoken like someone who hasn’t been paying attention or actively supports genocide.

            Huh, kinda like how Israel supported South Africa.

            Apartheid nations gotta stick together, right?

          • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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            5 hours ago

            I think it was implicit in their statement that they’re talking about terrorist-supporting, dictatorship-led, oppressive, non-nuclear nations. You can even scratch terrorist-supporting and you still have plenty of tombstones to point to.

      • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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        5 hours ago

        Given what we’ve seen over the last little while, do you think Israel won’t be able and willing to topple the regime if they don’t have a lethal gun pointed towards Israel? There’s pressure from the outside, and from the inside on them. They have to keep terrorising to maintain the internal pressure. They have to be able to stop Israel from taking them out as a result of their terrorising. I don’t know if their current arsenal is a deterrent enough for that. If I were a supreme leader who wanted to stay in power, I’d be overturning mandatory prayer for the nuclear scientists and enginners working overtime to get to a test detonation (not over Israel) ASAP. As a supreme leader I feel like last year, perhaps even weeks ago, I did have the option to not make nukes. After the attacks in Lebanon that left my primary deterrent in an unknown state of degradation, I’m not feeling so lucky.

        • Tedesche@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          No one is forcing Iran’s dictators to remain dictators. They could become benevolent leaders or simply flee the nation. Israel gains relatively little from creating a power vacuum in Iran that will likely just be filled by another Israel-hating regime. They gain much more by destroying Ming the current regime’s ability to attack Israel.

          • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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            4 hours ago

            Israel gains relatively little from creating a power vacuum in Iran that will likely just be filled by another Israel-hating regime.

            Exactly.

            They gain much more by destroying Ming the current regime’s ability to attack Israel.

            Agreed. If this could be achieved without dragging the rest of us in an Iraq-like war. It might be possible but I don’t trust the current Israeli leadership to act in a way that achieves it. Especially given their PM said straight up he’s up to toppling the regime couple of days ago.

            No one is forcing Iran’s dictators to remain dictators.

            If that were possible, it would have likely happened already given how long this regime has stayed in power. It’s also very unlikely that it’s 5 guys in rags after so many decades, so even if they go crazy, the remainder would likely say fuck that and replace them. I think it’s much more useful to look at people as automatons whose actions are driven by the systems they exist in, than to consider them as free actors.

    • BombOmOm@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      Their ability to make nukes has been delayed several times in the past, another delaying action is likely better than letting them get nukes.

      • basmati@lemm.ee
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        5 hours ago

        Incorrect, not waging war is better than spending another 20 trillion killing civilians.

        • superkret@feddit.org
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          5 hours ago

          It’s scary how even during 2 horrible wars, people still can’t accept the simple truth that war is always the worst possible option.

  • sepi@piefed.social
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    7 hours ago

    Huh? America doesn’t have to do anything about Iranian impotence.