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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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?
Better to play the long game, corrupt them from within and wait for them to destroy themselves.
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.
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.
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.
Iran decided to play stupid games and found out.
If US needs to intervene, why are they are not intervening in Ukraine? Far worse things has been happening there for 4 years.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
They have long lost the ability to claim that any of their actions are in good faith.
...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...
Russia is already a nuclear power. They are also diminishing as a nation almost as fast as China.
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-...
Which the US actively funds…so after a $66 billion advance now the costs are being shared by other vested countries.
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?
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.
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.
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?
Yes. Without those sanctions + instigations the crack downs would not be needed. That's beyond obvious to me.
Side question what's your opinion on the war in Ukraine
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.
Now do Georgia and the DRC.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
I mean, the JCPOA verify seemed pretty well thought out.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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'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.
> 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"
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.
Which negotiators have been assasinated? (They're in Geneva.)
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.
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.
Of course I mean at the state level. Individuals is a very different story.
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Hit the rate limit so I'm attaching my response to the comment below here.
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Fair enough. I let the current situation cloud my vision, but I genuinely mean they're interchangeable. You can look up the involvement of people like Kushner, Witkoff, Barak with Israel and see where they sit in our government. Leaving aside the major donors.
If you listen to statements made by the USG spokespeople, they literally throw US servicemen under the bus to shield the IDF. That goes both for this admin and the last.
In the previous admin, it was Biden and Blinken that made a break impossible, despite landing on different political sides from Netanyahu. Another president would have cut them off at some point.
Obama was the only one who charted an independent path in recent years (post Bush. Sr.)
If America and Israel are interchangeable, so are Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis. That–I believe–is an overly simplistic approach, particularly when treating even Iran as a cohesive political entity is theoretically fraught.
Not sure it affects the outcome.
The anti-US spiel is just rhetoric. It helps save face when dealing with China, which it still utterly depends on, and it goes along with decades of internal propaganda lionizing China to its own people. Indeed North Korea wants heavy US military presence in the region, maintaining its status with regards to China as a strategically important buffer state which can act with plausible deniability instead of a resource rich neighbor with uncooperative leadership.
If North Korea only had conventional forces, what would stop China from installing a loyal puppet? The international community wouldn't lift a finger, threats to South Korea would only further alienate the regime, China could bring its full might to bear, the DPRK military would have no effective means to retaliate and would be more likely to turn on the regime than mount a credible defense, and North Korea's own people would probably welcome the change which would dramatically reduce oppression and increase prosperity. Nukes are the only way for a small number of regime loyalists to make such an operation too costly for Beijing to justify.
This is also why talks with the US have utterly "failed" for decades - there is nothing the US can offer that would provide the same security guarantee for the regime and the status quo is advantageous to the US for multiple reasons: justifying its large military presence in the region, justifying its efforts to develop and deploy ever more capable ballistic missile defense systems, and North Korea not being completely under China's control.
"safety" for whom? Definitely not the people. They starve.
Better to have privation than to get bombed and massacred in large numbers.
Russia would not have attacked Ukraine if they still had their nuclear weapons and Iran wouldn’t be under attack now if they had them too.
I’m not saying whether it’s goods or bad that any or specific countries have nuclear weapons, that’s beside the point. The point is that this attack sends the signal that the only way to guarantee your safety is to have them.
I don't believe any country having nuclear weapons is good.
Syria is the prime example of this. A major reason for the civilian slaughter was foreign intervention trying regime change.
It's a macabre study. But one could honestly argue that several countries in the latter category's populations are better off than North Korea's.
But I'd also point out that a lot of what makes it really suck to live in the worst places in the world isn't often the government but rather the international relationships. Turkey has a particularly brutal government, but it's Nato and EU ally status means that the civilians enjoy modern trade and travel.
The worst times to be in NK was the 90s when there was an ongoing famine and the US refused to lift sanctions thinking it'd spark a civil war that overthrew the regime. It didn't.
You can live a perfectly normal life in Kiev. It’s not exactly an active war zone, you see luxury cars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on every corner. You can buy bottles of Petrus in 24 hour supermarkets and eat decent food at countless fancy restaurants.
Goodwine in Kiev will also put US luxury grocers to shame. Ukraine might be at war, but the quality of life is hardly bad.
To each their own. I wouldn't. In part because once you're in North Korea, you're not getting out. That isn't the case for Ukraine, Syria or any of the other war-torn countries.
NK does actually allow people to leave, mostly to china and mostly after they attain a high social class. A decent number of tourists, including US citizens, go on tours of NK.
I didn't know this. Source? I thought Pyongyang controls its elites' movement even more strictly than its commoners'.
I guess I shouldn't have written leave, but to visit other countries. I don't think you can change your citizenship.
[1] https://www.youngpioneertours.com/can-north-koreans-travel/
Me as me? Gaza. Because I'd get out. That's a bullshit answer, though, so I'll answer as a local. And there, it's honestly a coin toss because Gaza is possibly the shittiest war zone outside Africa right now. But if you said North Korea or Syria during its civil war? North Korea or Myanmar? I'm going with not Pyongyang.
The only one where I'd honestly choose North Korea hands down is Sudan, because that's the one nobody really gives a shit about which means it's going to go on forever.
Of course it isn't, it's entirely porous to the IDF. I'm an American citizen. If I were teleported to Gaza I'd probably be fine. At material risk of being fucked up. But I'd take my chances there over being an American teleported to North Korea.
Sure. And yes, it's risky. But there are two million people in Gaza and half a dozen to a dozen, on average, being killed each day. If I, literally I, were teleported into Gaza, my primary operational concern would be avoiding Hamas. (My primary operational goal, getting to an internet-connected device.)
> no one is launching rockets onto North Korea
Correct, their security forces are undisrupted.
...nobody argued the proxy wars were good for those countries. Just that if you're turned into a random local in one of those theatres, chances are you're better off a decade or two later than if you're turned into a random North Korean.
Are you sure about this part?
War isn't glamorous. It's mechanized death and torture destroying communities, families, and loved ones. And when it's powered by foreign governments, it's worse. Because the two colliding sides are armed to the gills with the best weapons in murder along with mercenaries and no oversight.
Living in a dictatorship is hard but doable, There are literally generations of people that have survived and thrived in that sort of an environment. It's not preferable, for sure, but you still have your family, friends, and neighbors. None of them are trying to actively kill you. So long as you follow the rules, life in a dictatorship is generally predicable and the odds of the state making you specifically an example are low.
And also your neighbors absolutely will sell you out.
Thriving in a dictatorship, even not as an enforcer, is possible. It's a worse life in general but still a life you can live.
Generally speaking, the only life that truly sucks in a dictatorship is if you become an enemy of the state. That doesn't generally apply to all citizens because, if it did, a dicatorship would quickly end in revolt. That is the theory behind strong sanctions. It's believed that if you starve a nation eventually the citizens revolt. The problem is it takes little resources to keep people happy, ultimately.
Iran has had civil unrest over the last year, they weren't in the position politically to be doing much of anything to the "democracy" of Israel.
The entire reason for the US Israel attack on Iran is because of that civil unrest, not because Iran was a threat, but because both nations see an opportunity to install a puppet government that does their bidding.
What remains to be seen is if Russia sees a similar opportunity and we end up with another Syria.
It’s because your logic is flawed. It doesn’t hold up a very simple scrutiny test.
> the people there should not fight and let them take over, because war is worse than dictatorship, right?
No, I think the people should fight back, obviously. A country being actively invaded has a right to fight back. The war isn't their choosing and laying down arms is a mistake because captured civilians are rarely treated well after a war.
I'm specifically talking about an established dictatorship vs war. Specifically, as I said, a civil war which is a proxy war for foreign agents. Starting a war to end a dictatorship is bad. A dictatorship starting a war is bad. However, a dictatorship not starting wars is ultimately a better place to live vs anywhere under and active civil war.
If you're trying to say that had NK not had nukes we would bomb it for 'humanitarian purposes' or 'on behalf of its people' then I have a couple of bridges for sale.
You think the US would just leave them alone as a communist, sovereign country without nukes, bordering china???
Now if they didnt have the bomb, i dont think they would have lasted this long. I think the US would have gone and "democratized" them to smithereens a while ago.
Gaza was not occupied. There was zero military presence in Gaza prior to October 7th.
Israeli neighbors that are at peace with Israel are safe as well, e.g., Egypt and Jordan.
The spring to a nuke is riskier than ever. That doesn't change that nuclear sovereignty is a tier above the regular kind, this is something every one of the global powers (China, Russia and America) and most regional powers (Israel) have explicilty endorsed.
One of the recommended solutions was to bring tactical nuclear weapons back into the dialectic of deterrence extended to allied territories, so as to give US decision makers a range of options between Armageddon and defeat without a war. Global deterrence was ‘restored’ by creating additional rungs on the ladder of escalation, which were supposed to enable a sub-apocalyptic deterrence dialogue — before one major adversary or the other felt its key interests were threatened and resorted to extreme measures. Many theorists in the 1970s took this logic further, in particular Colin Gray in a 1979 article, now back in fashion, titled ‘Nuclear Strategy: the case for a theory of victory’.
...
In 2018 Admiral Pierre Vandier, now chief of staff of the French navy, offered a precise definition of this shift to the new strategic era, which has begun with Russia’s invasion: ‘A number of indicators suggest that we are entering a new era, a Third Nuclear Age, following the first, defined by mutual deterrence between the two superpowers, and the second, which raised hopes of a total and definitive elimination of nuclear weapons after the cold war’" [1].
I think the chances we see a tactial nuclear exchange in our lifetimes has gone from distant to almost certain.
1. According to the US and Israel, Iran has been a week away from having nuclear weapons for at least 34 years [1];
2. It's quite clear Iran could've developed nuclear weapons but chose not to. I actually think was a mistake. The real lesson from the so-called War on Terror was that only nuclear weapons will preserve your regime (ie Norht Korea);
3. Israel is a nuclear power. It's widely believed that Israel first obtained weapons grade Uranium by stealing it from the US in the 1960s [2];
4. In a just world, people would hang for what we did to Iran in 1953, 1978-79, the Iran-Iraq War and sanctions (which are a sanitized way of saying "we're starving you"); and
5. The current round of demands include Iran dismantling its ballistic missile program. This is because the 12 day war was a strategic and military disaster for the US and Israel.
Israel has a multi-layered missile defence shield. People usually talk about Iron Dome but that's just for shooting down small rockets. Separate layers exist for long-range and ballistic missiles (eg David's Sling, Arrow-2, Arrow-3). In recent times the US has complemented these with the ship-borne THAAD system.
Even with all this protection, Iran responded to the unprovoked attacks of the 12-day war by sending just enough ballistic missiles to overwhelm the defences, basically saying "if we have to, we can hit Israel".
Many suspect that the real reason the US negotiated an end to the 12 day war was because both Israel and the US were running cirtically low on the munitions for THAAD and Israel's missile defence shield. You can't just quickly make more either. Reportedly that will take over a year to get replacements.
Thing is, pretty much all of this missile defence technology is about to become obsolete once hypersonic missiles become more widespread, which is going to happen pretty soon. I suspect that's a big part of why the US and Israel are now trying so desperately to topple the regime and turn Iran into a fail-state like Somalia or Yemen.
I'm not normally one to encourage nuclear proliferation but when it's the only thing the US will listen to, what choice do countries have?
[1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2025/6/18/the-history-of-n...
[2]: https://thebulletin.org/2014/04/did-israel-steal-bomb-grade-...
I think you'll have to be more specific.
Or I guess to compare with your other observation: """Even with all this protection, Iran [sent] enough ballistic missiles to overwhelm the defences""" -- It's not a binary of "have missile defense or not => every missile will be shot down". An amount of missile defense will make it harder for missiles to successfully hit a target.
Similarly with hypersonic missiles, it's not the binary of "I have a missile that's difficult to defend against, I win".
Having a sword which can defeat a shield isn't in itself sufficient to obsolete the shield. (Infantry can be killed with bullets, yet infantry remain an important part of fighting despite that).
1. Routinely calling for death to Israel and America, turning it into part of the national curriculum and sowing hate
2. Funding, training, supplying and directing multiple violent proxy organizations around the region which attacked Israel and undermined their own countries (Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in West Bank and Gaza, other organizations in Iraq)
3. Enriching Uranium to clearly non-civilian grade in multiple militarily hardened facilities;
4. Directly attacking multiple Jewish targets around the world (like the AMIA and then embassy bombings in Argentina)
5. Attacking neighboring countries with ballistic and cruise missiles, like the attacks on Saudi Aramco in 2019
6. Holding international shipping and energy markets hostage by threatening to attack ships and tankers in the Persian Gulf
7. Abusing their own citizens, including public executions, persecutions and extreme violence
8. Providing support to Russia in their efforts in Ukraine, and especially drones used for indiscriminate dumb attack waves against civilians and infrastructure
Now we have people arguing that if they had just gotten nukes then they could have continued doing all of that.
And where are they wrong?
Probably in all of it. Iran wouldn't have a MAD arsenal, they'd have a small handful that they could pop on a ballistic. We know we can shoot down Iran's missiles. And we know they can't reach America. I'm entirely unconvinced that we wouldn't have launched an attack on Iran even if they had nuclear weapons, because we think we can intercept them, and if we can't, they aren't hitting the homeland.
If they’re using a novel, supercritical core mechanism, maybe. Otherwise, unlikely. (You would get fallout instead.)
If they’re using a novel, supercritical core mechanism, maybe. Otherwise, unlikely.
The point of having nuclear capabilities is to make the risk calculation more difficult. It doesn’t mean you need to have state of the art capabilities.
Someone in the Middle East gets hit.
> would the risk calculation for an attack on Iran be as easy as it is right now?
The risk calculation isn't easy today. Nukes would make it harder. But I'm pushing back on the notion that it would make it a non-starter.
(MAD arsenals and long-range ICBMs, on the other hand, make it a non-starter.)
Wow so no big deal then right?
Jesus Christ dude
Are you arguing it would be in this White House?
Why would Iran attack Argentina? There's plenty of Jewish Iranian citizens. Did they run out of people to attack?
There is a hardline element in the IRGC that personally profits from autarky. If the Iranian markets opened to the world, it would decimate their incomes.
More than taking control of Iranian petrol, this is probably more an attempt at cutting off China access to it (and also generally eliminating one of their allies), same as for the Venezuelan invasion.
In the first Gulf War, we placed the Patriot batteries around Israel, as they said that if an Iraqi biological or chemical SCUD attack hit Tel Aviv, they would vitrify Baghdad.
Having nukes doesn't prevent _anyone_ from attacking you, but it does constrain those attacks to conventional means. And what if you pulled off a decapitation attack against Tel Aviv? Well their fleet of nuclear capable subs would make you pay.
It ain't Iran.
Maybe Nukes do not prevent terrorism, or gorilla warfare.
Having Nukes would prevent a large strike from another state, like what US just did.
Nobody is doing this large scale of bombing on any of the nuclear powers.
I say "public case" specifically here, I don't buy that justification but it is still the one being used.
If Iran had deployable nukes, would they get invaded?
Name a country that got bombed to credibly destroy the government, and had nukes. I'll wait.
I could be wrong, but I don't buy the public story that this is about regime change. You don't topple a government with air superiority alone, and you don't do it in a matter of days. I also don't expect the US would be okay letting the Iranian people pick who comes next. We have a history of installing puppets and that similarly doesn't happen only via bombing runs.
Honestly, maybe? Like if we had high confidence we knew where they were, and Israel consented to the attack, I could absolutely see the U.S. trying to take it out in storage.
If Iran had a nuke that could hit the U.S., I'd say no. But that's a stretch from "deployable nukes."
> Name a country that got bombed to credibly destroy the government, and had nukes
Pedantically, Ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_and_weapons_of_mass_des...