Iran / Israel Conflict

[Dave Gray]

I'm in an in-between spot.  I wouldn't mind seeing Iran get its leadership swapped out.  That surely might not work or lead to other bad dudes filling the void, but who knows -- maybe it'll work out.  I don't want to be left holding the bag, either morally or financially, dealing with a situation where we are stuck supporting a place we can't get out of or anything like that.

I want to support Israel's defense, not their offense.  Maybe that's being a little cute, but you know what I mean.

As for seeing people like Tulsi and Tucker going against the MAGA movement, that's a weird spot for me.  I see Tucker getting a lot of praise from the left for sticking it to Ted Cruz, but I don't.  Firstly, I think that Tucker's attack on Cruz is full of gotcha questions and is incredibly insincere.  (I think you can have an opinion on a conflict, without having an encyclopedic knowledge of the population and makeup.)  Though I agree with Tucker that our involvement isn't a good idea, I think that he (and Tulsi) are only on the right side of this by mistake, because they are both Russian stooges.  So, no points for Tucker -- right for the wrong reasons and not good at arguing the point.

It's hard to predict what Trump is gonna do, but I wouldn't be surprised if Trump gets involved.  I think that's dumb, bad for him politically, but maybe that can be good in the long-run for how I'd like to see things work out for Iran and it could weaken a Russian ally.

[Downunder Dolphan]

I'm in an in-between spot.  I wouldn't mind seeing Iran get its leadership swapped out.  That surely might not work or lead to other bad dudes filling the void, but who knows -- maybe it'll work out.  I don't want to be left holding the bag, either morally or financially, dealing with a situation where we are stuck supporting a place we can't get out of or anything like that.

The WOMD war in Iraq will do that. You had an absolutely evil but predictable Dictator with no support from everywhere else to be replaced by... a massive mess.

It's the same with Libya when Gaddafi was toppled, there was a brief moment of the feeling of changeover, until ISIS made a big play, just like they did in Iraq. Does anyone know what's really going on in Syria since Assad fled to Moscow with his family?  It's quiet, but another potential powder keg situation in that part of the world given their prior history.

[CF DolFan]

I have to wonder about Iran if they were to lose this regime. They are kind of the step children Muslims. Countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt do not support their craziness. They aren't as primitive as Afghanistan so there is infrastructure to actually work with. As well, their people have tried to overthrow the govt already.

[pondwater]

Someone remind me, how long those people over there been fighting?

[Sibster]

Someone remind me, how long those people over there been fighting?

For the longest time.   And all this time, these other Middle Eastern countries have slapped Israel around and Israel's allies have told them to exercise restraint.   Now Israel is sending a message to the rest of the Middle East.

[Sibster]

Looks like the U.S. is now involved.   Let's hope that those nuclear enrichment facilities were obliterated like President Trump says they were

[Denver2]

It’s an illegal military action full stop. No one wants it.

Iran’s been months away from a nuke for 30 years according to Netanyahu.

I have no love for the Ayatollahs and I hope to one day see them no longer in charge of that country but this is not the way.

People sold Trump as the non intervention candidate and now he has us bombing Iran.

[Spider-Dan]

Hey, at least it took the "anti-war candidate" Donald Trump until his 2nd term to keep alive the streak of Republican presidents entering a war in the Middle East.

[Sibster]

Hey, at least it took the "anti-war candidate" Donald Trump until his 2nd term to keep alive the streak of Republican presidents entering a war in the Middle East.

As if the Democratic presidents didn't. 

[CF DolFan]

Someone remind me, how long those people over there been fighting?

Since Abraham had a son out of marriage with an Arabic women. Half brothers Isaac and Ishmael's descendents have been fighting ever since.

Hey, at least it took the "anti-war candidate" Donald Trump until his 2nd term to keep alive the streak of Republican presidents entering a war in the Middle East.

I love the Republican dig even when evidence is calling you out like a freight train. hahahaha Obama dropped bombs the whole time in office.

[i]In President Obama’s last year in office, the United States dropped 26,172 bombs in seven countries. This estimate is undoubtedly low, considering reliable data is only available for airstrikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya, and a single "strike," according to the Pentagon’s definition, can involve multiple bombs or munitions. In 2016, the United States dropped 3,028 more bombs—and in one more country, Libya—than in 2015.[/i]

Every President and leader has said Iran cannot be allowed to get nuclear weapons as they are a terrorist nation.  President Trump did what is best for us in the long run.

[Pappy13]

Hey, at least it took the "anti-war candidate" Donald Trump until his 2nd term to keep alive the streak of Republican presidents entering a war in the Middle East.

And he still hasn't put an end to the war in Russia/Ukraine like he said he would on day 1 of his presidency. Maybe he's just joking about bombing Iran?

[Dave Gray]

My distaste for Trump aside, I still try to look at each thing earnestly and here's where I come down on this:

1) This may be a good result.  It may be bad.  We really have no idea.  Iran could retaliate or they could ramp up nuke production.  They could also be in a weakened state and already unpopular and get overthrown by their people.  Time will tell, I guess.

2) The messaging from the White House is incomprehensible, so it's hard to know what to believe or what we even know.  Tulsi said that Iran wasn't close to getting a weapon, but I think that Tulsi has a vested interested in helping Russia, so I don't believe her.  Then Trump said that she was wrong, but apparently that wasn't backed with intelligence, so I don't believe him either.  Then Trump said that the weapons program was fully obliterated but firstly, there's no way that he could know that yet -- Iran probably doesn't even know that, it just happened and secondly, if that's true, how could this escalate -- we ended the program, problem solved?  Then Vance and Rubio and Hegseth all came out and said that this was only about the weapons and they weren't interested in regime change but then Trump came out 5 minutes later and contradicted that.  I just don't know who to believe, because I think that Trump is a known liar AND he has bad operatives on top of that disinforming him.  I don't know what he even believes.

3) I am choosing not to get upset about the decision to go ahead without the approval of Congress.  The norm for the last many, many decades is for the President to act with strikes without approval.  In this case, I guess you can argue that there was a limited window and if we believe that this was simply a one-and-done strike, I'm not gonna be upset that he didn't get approval.  For greater action past this point, though, there needs to be Congress involved.  Also, the fact that Trump only informed the Republicans of the decision is some banana-republic-level bullshit and that bothers me more than most of this.


I hope for the best.  I hope that Israel gets what they want and that Iran is toppled and taken by a Western-minded moderate regime and that we don't have to be involved in that, but I'm afraid that instead, we just bought another decade of mess that I wish we wouldn't have.

[CF DolFan]

It came out today they notified Chuck Schumer and Jeffries ... only Jeffries didn't answer them until after the descuision was made and orders given.

'The White House made bipartisan courtesy calls to Congressional Leadership and spoke to ⁦Sen. Schumer⁩ before the strike,' she added, before admitting: 'Rep. Jeffries⁩ could not be reached until after, but he was briefed.'

I think it's kind of funny that there are many hardliner MAGA calling Trump out and yet you have Democrats like Van Jones, Joe Scarborough Congressman Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania saying he did the right thing. All point to every single other president and Hillary Clinton who promised Iran could not be allowed to make nuclear weapons. Just kind of weird where it falls on the political scale of these days when everything is so opposite. 

[Spider-Dan]

I love the Republican dig even when evidence is calling you out like a freight train. hahahaha Obama dropped bombs the whole time in office.

Let's stipulate that Trump's current war with Iran hasn't (currently) gone any further than bombing, and can be compared to the military action under Obama you are describing.

Obama ended a 10-year-long Republican war of choice in Iraq.
Biden ended a 20-year-long Republican war in Afghanistan.
Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine "on day 1" and instead is trying to start a new war with Iran; a war Republicans have been desperately pining to start for decades, including when John McCain was singing "Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran."

Every President and leader has said Iran cannot be allowed to get nuclear weapons as they are a terrorist nation.  President Trump did what is best for us in the long run.

Obama took action to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon: the 2016 JCPOA.  But that would have prevented war with Iran, so Trump made it a priority in his first term to end that treaty.  The result?



Trump's actions, as a whole, have made America less safe by pushing Iran further down the path towards a nuclear weapon... now expanding to the possibility of another country simply giving Iran nukes.

The real motivation for Trump's war with Iran is simple.  As always, every accusation is a confession:

[Phishfan]

Let's Devil's advocate here a bit. STUXNET was unleashed on Iran in 2010 and then we were in need of an agreement in 2016. How long do we expect any of that to last? How much do you trust that country? I was growing up during the hostage crisis and I bet many of you were not alive or old enough to remember. The middle east has long memories and Iran has a serious distaste for us and Israel. They top my list of countries that I don't trust. At least with Russia I always had faith in avoidance of mutual destruction. The Ayatollah has no such concern. Only time will tell if this was the right decision.