Comment by ericmay
1 day ago
Doesn’t excuse bombing actual civilian targets, apartment complexes, &c, nor does it excuse executing peaceful domestic protestors - all of which this Iranian government has done.
Maybe if they, idk, stopped funding Hamas, Hezbollah, and Yemen rebels stopped trying to get a nuke, stopped stockpiling missiles for no reason and stopped chanting death to America we wouldn’t be here.
The Iranian government is terrible, but that doesn’t mean that the U.S. relationship with the gulf states isn’t worse off than in February. The United States made our alignment with Israel hard to ignore and was significantly unable to protect allied countries while drawing fire onto them. It’s entirely possible for both sides to lose a war and I’d bet we’re going to see enough of a shift away from us, likely to China, to solidly count this as a loss.
It hard to say which way this goes. It's a possibility. But China can offer even less protection than the US can.
We have seen that the US ability to project power is great. We've also seen (and I don't think anyone didn't know that) that power has its limits. Especially when it comes to fighting fanatics with nothing to lose.
The US is still the only world power that has the ability to e.g. prevent Iran from just walking in and taking the gulf countries. It's true that protection isn't hermetic.
> But China can offer even less protection than the US can.
I think a lot of those states are wondering how much protection they’d need if we weren’t based there and drawing fire. China can offer economic stability and sales of modern military equipment for self-defense, and I think the entire world is working through the implications of the United States allowing an unsound octogenarian to destabilize the dollar or declare a major war on a whim. There’s a lot to dislike about China but the gulf states aren’t exactly sticklers for democracy and stability is good for business.
> It's true that protection isn't hermetic.
But hermetic protection is REALLY important when your entire economy is based off of oil and water desalination plants. Iran still retains the ability to damage that infrastructure. The Gulf countries have some hard decisions to make, but I wouldn’t be surprised if several of them sprint closer to Iran. Already we are hearing of a joint Omani-Irani agreement on Hormuz administration…
3 replies →
> We have seen that the US ability to project power is great. We've also seen (and I don't think anyone didn't know that) that power has its limits. Especially when it comes to fighting fanatics with nothing to lose.
My unprovable pet theory is that the US would've had less black eyes if we didn't have incompetent people like Kegseth in charge, and especially if he hadn't been allowed to dismiss top brass across the military just because they were too woke/not "warrior" enough.
1 reply →
Nobody is taking the side of the IRGC here, it's an awful regime that should fall in a just world. But it's inevitable they will retaliate against their neighbors, if their neighbors are complicit in attacking them. Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait are not innocent, they picked a side and are paying for it.
That’s fine just stop grandstanding about little ole’ Iran being attacked or civilians dying if you don’t care that innocent civilians in other countries are dying. When you do you are taking a side and suggesting Iran is the moral actor here. They’re not.
Lots of people here are taking the side of the IRGC. It's not ok to attack the civilians of the gulf countries because they are aligned with the US whichever way you look at it. Attacking US military assets are fair game.
Lots of people are taking the side of the US, which has attacked civilian infrastructure and killed civilians in Iran and threatened to completely destroy Iran. And you have lots of people taking the side of Israel, which is has been conduction a genocide openly. All the sides have blood in their hands but I would argue the IRGC has the least blood in their hands.
3 replies →
> Doesn’t excuse bombing actual civilian targets, apartment complexes, &c, nor does it excuse executing peaceful domestic protestors
Reading just this far and it could be either the US or Iran you’re talking about. It almost makes you think…