Comment by ericmay

> seems like that actually did happen, and maritime trade is already impacted? Seems a bit silly to say "the US must act to prevent the very thing that the action will provoke."

No it’s not silly. It’s called a preemptive action. It’s a very well understood concept. In the case of Iran it’s very straight forward. We could do nothing and then in a few years they just say hey the Strait is now closed, pay us, and then there isn’t anything anyone can do about it. We can disagree on the likelihood but I think it’s dishonest, as many pro-IRGC folks like to do, to suggest that it wasn’t a possibility, certainly a strong one, that Iran was moving in that direction.

Why is it that Iran, after all the US has tried to do (US because nobody else has any ability to do anything) that they need special treatment and to hold the world hostage else they get to develop nuclear weapons? I don’t think Iran or more countries in general having nuclear weapons is a good thing. Do you?

> You listed 9 things, 2 are far too recent to evaluate, and of the remaining 7 these 5 are regime-change failures (or simply not-regime-change-attempts):

Sure, what list of regime change operations do you want to use? Happy to discuss any of them. But at the same time you can’t simultaneously criticize American action here as being ineffective and then also say for other operations that “You listed 9 things, 2 are far too recent to evaluate”.

> The biggest direct threat to date from the Middle East to the US itself hasn't been from nation states, it's been terror groups that have festered post-intervention attempts.

Currently sponsored by Iran. Why don’t they just stop?

Is it lost on you that nobody in America gives the slightest shit about Iran except that they keep funding terrorists and killing people, selling drones and helping Russia murder Ukrainians, killing 30,000+ of their own people who were peacefully protesting, and constantly trying to build a nuclear weapon? If they just stop doing these things, which are unique to Iran, mind you, then none of this needs to happen.

> Notably left off your list regime-change-wise here is Iran in the 50s. That one seems to have backfired. (And that's a great example of why Venezuela, Afghanistan, this-iteration of Iran, even Iraq all are still open-books with potential unforeseen consequences left to come.)

Not a great point because, well, the world is always changing.

> The regime still existed, and wasn't prevented by that restriction from nuke/missile development like you are so worried about in Iran.

And the world is worse off for it. Millions of North Koreans are living in one of the most brutal and inhumane dictatorships to ever exist. Them obtaining nuclear weapons isn’t a model to follow.

> "It's other countries fault" isn't an excuse here, it's something that should be taken into consideration more generally in advance.

It’s not an excuse it’s just the fact of the matter. Communist governments in China and Russia are responsible for North Korea. We should prevent more such countries from coming in to existence if we can.

Alternatively, I’m fine being an isolationist. It’s a lot cheaper and everyone else can just worry about all this stuff instead. There is no in between. You get the US involvement and the good that it does, or you get isolationism. You don’t ever get “America only takes international actions that I agree with”. Impossible standard. Which do you want? I’m happy to lift sanctions on Russia and Iran and North Korea and everyone else, withdraw the US military, and leave everyone else to fend for themselves militarily unless we have an interest we want to pursue. It’s a valid enough strategy.