Comment by toomuchtodo
4 days ago
You can say the same, neither Iran nor the US is the good guy. It’s about as sane as the Star Trek episode where deaths are mandated by simulation outcome. It is what it is until political turnover provides an opportunity, but not a guarantee, of change.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon
https://www.npr.org/2026/07/18/g-s1-134037/why-is-it-so-hard... (“… the U.S. has been acting like an empire without wanting to be an empire.”)
I would say that as the form of government and the legal landscape of a country as a whole US fares much better than the Islamic Republic.
My children will avoid any form of participation in US military operations, and I legally avoid paying as much US federal tax as possible ("how many of my tax dollars have contributed to killing innocent people?"), so I don’t have a strong opinion on the topic beyond as a scholar of history and predicting the future. Old men sending young innocent people to die is a tale as old as time, and I expect it to continue long after I’m gone (regardless of nations, boundaries, etc, which are also fluid over time), so the best one can do is manage your personal risk accordingly. We must assume it to be a constant of some sort until change occurs where that assumption would change. If tail risk catches you (“wrong place at the wrong time” through no fault of your own), c'est la vie.
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-have-military-deaths-chang...