Comment by cogman10
5 days ago
It's a war of aggression. That is a war crime.
Iraq was also a war crime.
The reason Putin is a war criminal is because of his unprovoked attack of Ukraine.
5 days ago
It's a war of aggression. That is a war crime.
Iraq was also a war crime.
The reason Putin is a war criminal is because of his unprovoked attack of Ukraine.
This was a stupid war to get into and it’s been prosecuted embarrassingly poorly, but Iran has been sponsoring terrorist groups all over the world for decades. They’re not some innocent country going about their business who was suddenly attacked unprovoked.
> but Iran has been sponsoring terrorist groups all over the world for decades.
Let's say I grant this. The problem you run into is these terrorist groups have not attacked the US. The last time Iran did anything aggressive towards the US was in the 1980s.
In fact, Iran has aided the US in going after common enemies like ISIS/ISIL and Al-Qaeda.
The terrorist groups supported by Iran have primarily been groups fighting Israel, not the US. That's what makes it particularly unprovoked.
In fact, the US has a stronger argument to attack Saudi Arabia than it does Iran because they actually have funded terrorists that directly attacked the US. Heck, you could argue that the US is justified in directly attacking Russia with this sort of argument.
Last time wasn't 1980s. 2024 was the Iran-Israel war, but US was involved too. Iranian proxies attacked US troops then. Iran itself attacked US forces in 2020 after the US killed general Soleimani, after years of Iran's proxies attacking US troops in Iraq etc. It goes back and forth, and I'm sure the bottom of it was the US being involved in the Mid East for no good reason (the reason was Israel/AIPAC), but this didn't start in 2026.
Even the Russian invasion of Ukraine wasn't unprovoked. Yeah Ukraine didn't attack Russia, but they did try to join NATO, then after Germany blocked that, the US was getting involved there in more covert ways. Ukraine overturned pro-Russia Yanukovych's presidential election in '04 which saw meddling from both Russia and US, then he reran and won in '10, then Ukrainian protestors forcibly removed him in '14.
I think the least provoked thing was the Iraq War, cause Bush blamed Saddam Hussein for 9/11 and fake WMDs. He was a legit problem ever since invading Iran and Kuwait, but that wasn't the reason for the war.
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For better or worse, Israel is our ally, and countries go to war on behalf of their allies being attacked.
And yes, the US has a valid argument for attacking Saudi Arabia for funding terrorists that have attacked the US. That they have not does not in any way bolster your argument.
Sorry, there’s just no rational argument for the idea that the US attacking Iran was an unprovoked war of aggression and thus a war crime.