The Choice America Now Faces in Iran

All of this argues not only for Israeli strikes—which will surely come—but for vigorous American action as well.
Jesus fucking Christ.

All of this argues not only for Israeli strikes—which will surely come—but for vigorous American action as well. Israel may well choose to attack economic targets, and in particular the oil industry that keeps Iran’s economy afloat. Attacks on the nuclear program—buried and dispersed at different sites—would probably be more difficult. In either case, Israel will need American help.
Israel has a large and capable air force, including nearly 40 F-35s. But it lacks a large fleet of aerial refueling planes, necessary for long-range strikes, which the United States has in plenty. At the very least, the United States can quietly help supply that deficit. The question is: Should it do more?
The answer is yes.
Holy fuck this is deranged bloodthirsty shit.
- Why? It is finally time to cripple the Iranian regime. Iran has a horrible government that does not treat its citizens (especially women) much better than slaves. Those abhorrent people of Iran's leadership cannot get access to nuclear weapons under any circumstances.
  
  Is it okay to bomb economic infrastructure of a sovereign nation because it doesn't treat its women with respect? Because that's a little ironic coming from an American.
  
  I'll take "how to repeat bad mistakes from recent history" for 500 Jim.
  Did you sleep through the past 20 years or are you just not that observant?
  
  There is only one apartheid nation actively committing genocide right now, and they're the ones with nukes.
  
  This isn't about changing the Iranian government or taking nukes away. Neither will happen even in full out war. Just going to be a lot of suffering and dead people. Many if which couldn't care less about state affairs. When USA inevitably gets sucked into boots on the ground we'll have another generation of youth either dead or returning with broken bodies achieving yet another Pyrrhic victory for the US. Yet another generations Vietnam.
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_in_the_war_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%932021)
  
  They might not even be in the top 5 Middle Eastern states for bad treatment of women. American ally Saudi has got to be 1, and most of the Gulf is next.
  I mean, they're theocratic authoritarian shitbirds, don't get me wrong, but the main reason they're singled out has nothing to do with that.
  
  It's wild how western war-mongers will point to restrictive domestic policy as a justification for (seemingly) unlimited violent aggression against them
  Like, "look what you made me do! if you weren't so mean to your citizens I wouldn't have had to bomb them and destroy their homes and infrastructure!"
  As if the US hasn't overlooked exactly those humanitarian offenses when they funded and armed religious extremists in order to install pro-western governments the world over. It's the kind of double-speak you read about in science fiction.
  
  Yes i agree. The US should stop all of its support for Ukraine and withdraw from the South China Sea. Now a great war in the Middle East is where it is at.
  Deploying all of the US army to occupy Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran will be the greatest strategic decision of the 21st. century.
  The 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq has shown that the US can do it. Also the 20 years in Afghanistan were a great success.
  This will be concluded with the last epos of the triology. This time surely it will work in just 6 months and this time surely all of the problems of the Middle East will be solved by the US invading.
  
  But those abhorrent people of Israel’s leadership already having nukes is reason to help commit genocide and escalate a regional war?

Objective 1: Stay the fuck out of it.
Objective 2: Stay the fuck out of it.
Objective 3: Stay the fuck out of it.
Objective 4: Stay the fuck out of it.
US Government response: "unfortunately we weren't able to achieve any of our stated objectives. We promise we didn't try to at all. The following is unrelated I promise, but Congress is meeting to give Bibi $69420Ungabijillion for self defense and we're sending every troop, drone, and warship we have to Iran."
- The fun problem with isolationism is it just allows problems to fester; then you have something much worse to deal with later. You may want to ignore the world, but the world won't ignore you.
  Edit: An Iranian proxy has been shooting civilian shipping and civilian crews from all countries for the last year. There are problems one cannot simply ignore.
  
  That's like poking a bear and then halfway through your shenanigans claim you'll have to put it down because you're in danger. What a bunch of hollow rhetoric. There's 3 sentences in your paragraph and each one is just a slogan. Each one vague enough that it means both nothing and anything you can think of.
  Diverting from the usual warmongering is not isolationism, in fact, the problem you allude to is the result of the former, not the other way around.
  I know it's a crazy idea but perhaps we should look at our failed approaches from recent history and try to learn from it. But judging from your edit, you have an extremely short attention span mixed with tunnel vision. Where were you when the US and its allies assassinated people inside Iran? Funded terrorist groups to carry out attacks in Iran? Sabotaged their nuclear facilities? Or, you know, when the idea of another pre-emptive attack on that nation was so imminent that one presidential candidate figured it'd be funny to fuel that by singing "bomb bomb Iran", based on nothing but the lie that they were close to getting a nuclear bomb?
  Was all that a festering problem that Iran should've responded to, or is it different when you're on the receiving end?
  
  An Iranian proxy has been shooting civilian shipping and civilian crews from all countries for the last year. There are problems one cannot simply ignore.
  Hmm yes I wonder why the Houthis just suddenly decided to attack a global supply line
  
  Did Israel try stopping their genocide.
  Some problems are very easy to solve.
  
  Just out of curiosity, how do you believe blockades are enforced?
  What do you think happens(ed) to ships approaching Gaza BEFORE the war?

This author has big Dr. Strangelove energy.
He can't seem to wait for another big war to start.

One of the more-hawkish takes I've read.
- It's Eliot Cohen. That dude has been beating the drum for war with Iran for more than 20 years.
  
  So he's not a fan of apartheid per se but just hates Iran and feels the victims of Iran's oppression of women - ie Persians - need to suffer for not taking state-orchestrated mass murder lying down?
  One wonders what that guy is thinking sometimes.

The amount of comments in here treating real life like a game of Risk is honestly shocking and upsetting.
What do you all really think you would do differently if you were born in Gaza or Lebanon?

So umm, Iran's leadership won't stop nuclear weapons development. It can't stop. Therefore to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, it means that the US has to help remove Iran's leadership. Now why would this turn out any better than any of the previous times they've done this, including in Iran?
- Their ability to make nukes has been delayed several times in the past, another delaying action is likely better than letting them get nukes.
- They can absolutely stop; they just choose not to. And hamstringing their attempts to develop their nuclear program is a far better option than trying to topple their government in terms of maintaining stability in the region. Toppling the Iranian government would make every other Arab nation skittish and potentially be a rallying cry for them. Keeping their military options limited is far less incendiary.
  
  Given what we've seen over the last little while, do you think Israel won't be able and willing to topple the regime if they don't have a lethal gun pointed towards Israel? There's pressure from the outside, and from the inside on them. They have to keep terrorising to maintain the internal pressure. They have to be able to stop Israel from taking them out as a result of their terrorising. I don't know if their current arsenal is a deterrent enough for that. If I were a supreme leader who wanted to stay in power, I'd be overturning mandatory prayer for the nuclear scientists and enginners working overtime to get to a test detonation (not over Israel) ASAP. As a supreme leader I feel like last year, perhaps even weeks ago, I did have the option to not make nukes. After the attacks in Lebanon that left my primary deterrent in an unknown state of degradation, I'm not feeling so lucky.

The current editor of The Atlantic was a Zionist prison guard during the First Intifada. But don't worry, he says his friends describe him as very leftist.

Huh? America doesn't have to do anything about Iranian impotence.
- You know the last missle barrage sent by Iran to Israel had to be intercepted by Americans becsuse it would have overloaded the Israeli defense right? I wish my country could stay out of it but if they did there would be more dead Israelis already.

Something Cohen doesn't address is what getting the U.S. directly involved in a war with Iran would look like so close to Election Day in the U.S. It could hurt Harris' chance for victory, and I would argue that keeping Trump out of the White House is far more important than taking advantage of a weak moment to hamstring Iran's nuclear program.
However, I do have to say I agree that it would be great if we could somehow deal a heavy blow to Iran that cripples it further both militarily and economically. The article mentions American refueling aircraft improving the strike distance of Israeli attack fighters, which seems like an indirect way to get involved. I'm wondering if American intelligence agencies can cooperate with Mossad to successfully cripple Iran's nuclear program, but they're likely already sharing intel on that front.
At the end of the day, it's imperative the U.S. doesn't get directly involved. I personally would like to see the U.S. give Israel fewer blank checks in the form of raw arms for Netanyahu to use on hospitals and refugee camps, but we should still endeavor to find ways to help Israel hit strictly military and terrorist targets. Destroying Hamas and Hezbollah, and disarming Iran is in the interest of peace in the entire region.
- LOL, advocating for targeted strikes against military targets in nations already hell-bent on the destruction of the U.S. and its allies isn't warmongering, it's simply acknowledging that we have to fight back against those who are actively striving to harm us.
  And I, specifically am the reason "the vast majority of people on earth hate America and Americans?" What a joke. Get out of your little Anti-American bubble.

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