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Comment by throwaway-ba9 | Hacker News Reader

Throwaway account for obvious reasons.

I'm one of those operations people who have been required by a legal department to block access from sanctioned countries - I've literally written the HTTP rules to deny access to folks like the original author.

I think about how the infrastructure I write and operate creates situations like these, and while I know I'm partly to blame, it's worth highlighting that this is a by-product of United Stats policies that create pressure on US companies. I'm most certainly _not_ a lawyer, but if this sort of thing bothers you, be cognizant of candidate policies about technology if you want to help enact change - because I doubt most companies will provide services to these and other regions if it'll break export law.

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This is a good point. To add a slightly different perspective, I work for a US company that routinely has to deal with cyber attacks by Iranian professionals, probably government sponsored. I think most people don't realize how incredibly serious this is, and how basically there is already a global war being fought. And the nations with the most freedom have the most to lose.

Certainly most of the people in Iran are similar to most of the people around the world. In kindness, compassion, in just trying to get their daily job done and enjoy time with friends and family. If only it was easy to distinguish between the good, the bad, the indifferent. Probably a lot of sanctions don't hinder the most threatening of Iran's activities, while impacting the population. But it does have an effect (not always the ones intended, perhaps).

If the government in power over you is in conflict with others, and/or in conflict with it's own people, it's going to impact you. If you want your life to be better, look for ways to improve your government. True for the USA and everyone else. Another lesson that the USA has been illustrating repeatedly recently is that it's probably better for a nations citizens to reform their government themselves, instead of a foreign power. Until that happens, yes their lives are not going to be as free as they'd like. It's hard and there is a cost to be paid for those freedoms. Many of us are fortunate in that those before us did the hard work and we get to enjoy the benefits. Good luck to the author of the blog, hopefully they can find good solutions.

> I work for a US company that routinely has to deal with cyber attacks by Iranian professionals, probably government sponsored.

It's hard to posit a moral high-ground here, when basically every state is actively seeking to undermine the others' cyber security, including the US. Stuxnet is one of the most formidable state-sponsored cyber security exploits, and that was targeted at Iran, it seems easy justification to increase their offensive capability.

I have to admit some naivete here, I don't know the frequency and scale of cyber attacks emanating from Iran, but I'd guess that hostile foreign policy from the US would only intensify that threat towards the US.

I don't think Stuxnet forfeits the moral high ground. It was narrowly focused on attacking a specific military project. It's exactly the kind of thing I want the CIA (or whatever) doing, especially if the alternative is sending bombs.

State sponsored attempts to hack public network infrastructure fit into a totally different category. These are not the same.

Before stuxnet Iran had absolutely no cyber capabilities. In the years following it they have built some of the most formidable offensive teams on the planet.

There's plenty of literature on this. Whoever created stuxnet created another monster too.

You imply that without Stuxnet, Iran would not have developed these capabilities. That seems improbable. At some point every "bad actor" is going to realize the possibilities of cyber warfare - even if just for ransomware revenue - and want in on the gold rush.

I'll bet everything I have that they wouldn't have anywhere near the capability they now have in $currentyear after stuxnet.

From what we know the US was doing everything possible to be restrained about this stuff, keep it on the downlow as is the way, and history has shown they were very much right. It's insane what's happened in the aftermath.

We created a monster. We really did. It's clear to anyone watching.

And why is it ok to attack another country's military project in the peace time?

There are plenty of American military projects that deeply worry other countries.

I challenge you to name any American military project that is as worrisome as Iran's 'Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution' having control of a nuclear weapon.

Challenge accepted.

"The US nuclear forces modernization program has been portrayed to the public as an effort to ensure the reliability and safety of warheads in the US nuclear arsenal, rather than to enhance their military capabilities. In reality, however, that program has implemented revolutionary new technologies that will vastly increase the targeting capability of the US ballistic missile arsenal. This increase in capability is astonishing—boosting the overall killing power of existing US ballistic missile forces by a factor of roughly three—and it creates exactly what one would expect to see, if a nuclear-armed state were planning to have the capacity to fight and win a nuclear war by disarming enemies with a surprise first strike."

https://thebulletin.org/2017/03/how-us-nuclear-force-moderni...

Box 1: A large western democracy with a free press, who has possessed nuclear weapons since their invention 75 years ago. Has been fully capable of destroying the world all that time... and hasn't. Wants to upgrade existing weapons.

Box 2: A small theocratic dictatorship, ruled by a Supreme Leader for life, who has been at constant war with its neighbors for pretty much all of modern history and still openly calls for the obliteration of some of them. It's a place where people are executed for adultery and homosexuality, and until recently the preferred method was stoning. After losing a half-million people in human wave attacks during its last big war, the country's Supreme Leader wants a bigger badder boom.

If these two things are the same in your mind, you are so far outside the bounds of rational thought that I'll just have to assume you're trolling.

1. Why does this democracy has upgraded its weapons in this particular way? The old weapons were working fine for the purpose of MAD (retaliatory strike against cities), the new ones are fit for a surprise first strike.

This democracy hasn't destroyed the world because it wants to live itself and MAD guaranteed that nobody wins a nuclear war. When it could use nuclear weapons without fear of retaliation, it happily used them on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Now it has gotten closer towards obtaining capability to start and win a nuclear war.

2. Iran hasn't started a war in a hundred of years, the Iran-Iraq war was started by Iraq, in which Saddam, who was supported by the US at the time, has used chemical weapons. You are clearly misinformed by your free press and Iran's desire to possess a nuclear deterrent is more than understandable.

There are a couple problems with your view of the US:

* Since the invention of the H-bomb, nuclear powers have had the ability to knock out all fixed silos in a first strike. You don't need accuracy with a 10MT bomb. As accuracy improves, warheads get smaller, but the MAD calculus doesn't change: You can't guarantee you'll take out all the submarine, mobile, and airborne weapons too. Accuracy doesn't change anything.

* The US is not a dictatorship and the president doesn't have the ability to unilaterally start nuclear war. Hell, he can't even assassinate a foreign head of state[1]. While I'm not thrilled with this particular president, I am confident that the democratic institutions of the US make nuclear first strike impossible.

There are a couple problems with your view of Iran:

* Iran and Iraq have been fighting since they were named Persia and Mesopotamia. Long before the official start of the Iran-Iraq war, both were funding and encouraging insurgent groups in the other. Khomeini openly called for the overthrow of Saddam via Islamic revolution. It doesn't matter who attacked first.

* Iran spent more than half of the Iran-Iraq war on the offensive in Iraqi territory. When they had power, they pressed their advantage. Khomeini spoke openly about spreading Islamic revolution everywhere, which is probably why all the neighboring nations lined up behind Iraq. The US was a tiny bit player; all Iraq's hardware came from the Soviets and all the money came from neighboring Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (the joke would be on them later, apparently).

* Khomeini himself didn't want peace, even after 10 years of war: "Happy are those who have departed through martyrdom. Happy are those who have lost their lives in this convoy of light. Unhappy am I that I still survive and have drunk the poisoned chalice..."

There's almost nothing positive you can say about Iran's dictators since the Islamic revolution (and probably long before). Theocracies with martyr complexes must not be allowed to have nuclear weapons.

[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+mattis+assad

Also read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Iraq_War

* You are forgetting multiple things: reduction of the number of warheads, continuous enhancement of ABM systems by the US, this super-fuze upgrade giving enhanced anti-silo capability to submarine-based missiles which can reach targets in much shorter time, enhanced capability to track road-based launchers, overwhelming advantage in the number of fighter jets vs the number of Russian nuclear-capable bombers, disparity in the number of submarines. These things taken together in a couple of decades can end MAD.

* Giving the overwhelming advantage of the US and NATO in conventional weapons, the US doesn't need to actually commit a first strike to reap benefits of this capability. Nowadays the US and Russia are afraid to engage in a conventional conflict for fear of it escalating into nuclear war that would destroy both countries. After achieving first-strike capability, the US will know that Russia will be afraid to escalate by using tactical nukes against American carriers and troops. Ultimately, this will mean that the US will be able to do towards Russian allies or Russian expedionary forces whatever it feels like.

Interestingly, you don't have the answer to my simple question.

Let's see if I have this straight... the US is increasing the precision of its nuclear weaponry to use against military targets, and that's as bad as Iran's program to acquire nuclear weaponry (in violation of the NPT) and long range rockets?

You are being disingenuous here if you are trying to gloss over the fact that these 'military targets' can be silos with other party's ICBMs.

Meh, it merely caused delays in peacetime so its lasting legacy will be the official declaration of world wide cyber war. The actual "victory" over the Iranian, nuclear program starts in 2013, and was embodied by the JCPOA signed in 2015 (entering to force 2016), before the USA decided to violate it in 2018.

As other pointed out, before stuxnet cyberwarfare wasn't as firmly acknowledged as an official arena, so this type of high profile attack on unprotected target is something you get to do once, and the CIA used it to toot its own horn basically.

I expect it was much like the Manhattan project: they spent all that time developing a weapon so when it came time to use it there wasn't much reflection about how to employ it strategically.

The JCPOA was not signed by the US, so it is hard to understand how it is 'violating' the agreement. The US has a process for obligating the country to observe treaties and agreements. Treaties and agreements become binding only upon Senate ratification. That didn't happen.

The agreement was signed on behalf of the US by John Kerry. See here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JCPOA_Signatures.png It is the first one directly under the word "Action".

> It was narrowly focused on attacking a specific military project.

Stuxnet targeted some common industrial controllers being sold not only to Iran, and one usage was the control flows on the dams. Basically it just caused the control flow gates to jam. This one that I know of is not military at all!

I tried to find a source for your claim but the best I could find was a study that said that future PLCs attacks could include targets like dams.

The stuxnet targeted parameters was Siemens S7-300, connected with a Vacon or Fararo Paya PLC, spinning between 807 Hz and 1,210 Hz. It then periodically modified the frequency to 1,410 Hz and then to 2 Hz and then to 1,064 Hz.

What specific dam had their control flow gates jammed because of this? Please provide name, date and optionally a link.

Maybe I can consider this in more familiar terms, as if both sides have guns. Do they use them differently? I at least can't know for sure. What it boils down to for me is which side do you want to win? Being fair and impartial doesn't mean considering that both of the nations are the same and the outcome will be the same if either side wins, with only a different name and flag for the victor.

If the US wins, a rough semblance of the freedom and democracy the "West" is accustomed to will be able to face other existential internal or external threats. If Iran wins, the end. We start over at square one winning back our freedoms. Maybe we start immediately, maybe it takes 1,000 years. If I have to choose, I want the US to win this one. It doesn't matter who started it, who is doing it worse. I would like things that support the regime in Iran to stop supporting that regime (in the most humane way possible). And I would like the US, with all its warts and flaws, to win a cyber war with Iran if one must be fought.

Maybe this all sounds extremely unlikely, but the first step towards a superpower like the USA to lose to Iran is for the USA to not be trying at all, and Iran to be trying very hard. Also nuclear weapons are a great leveler.

Therefore the USA must do two things at minimum. Try to have cybersecurity supremacy over Iran, and try to keep Iran from having nuclear weapons. If both of these objectives can be met we don't need to fight them, we can leave them in peace. If either is not met, this war might have to get very physical very quickly. So right now the sanctions don't look so bad, among available options. Not saying there aren't better options, but it's above my pay grade.

> What it boils down to for me is which side do you want to win? Being fair and impartial doesn't mean considering that both of the nations are the same and the outcome will be the same if either side wins, with only a different name and flag for the victor.

Your argument makes sense, but it starts with a very flawed assumption: that Iran wants to dominate the world. The reality accepted by everyone except the US and its few allies on this issue is that Iran is an extremely defensive country. The current regime, and the country in general, feels threatened in the region, being generally sorrounded by belligerent hostile countries, with the backing of the US (Saudi Arabia and Israel being the most powerful and the most belligerent).

So, if Iran wins, what will actually happen is that Iran will be left alone to function just like any other non-democratic state. Is the regime bad for its people? Yes. Is it better than being at war? Absolutely.

And regarding nuclear weapons, Iran has declared numerous times that it would gladly participate in an agreement, enforced by UN/IANA inspectors, to declare the entire region a nuclear-free area. Israel is blocking any such agreement. Iran has entered deals with the US and other western countries to renounce its nuclear weapons program in exchange for lifting the embargo and other kinds of help. The US has backed up from these deals twice now. The second time, they have not even claimed to have any evidence that Iran is not respecting the deal; and the other parties to the agreement, like the entire rest of 'the West' have in fact remained in the deal, as has Iran, despite the new US sanctions (deemed illegal by the UN).

Iran is already part of an agreement (called the NPT) to not have any nukes ever, and has already violated it. It has no justification to ask for any concession from any other country for it to honour its original signature, much less from countries they have sworn to annihilate. It sounds like they want others to disarm their intended victim for them.

Iran's most rabid enemy illegally owns nuclear weapons, while the world's greatest super power is helping them hide it.

Iran's position makes logical sense, and the best way to ensure they have no reason not to abide by the NPT would be to actually uphold the NPT, not to selectively enforce it against Iran but not the country threatening it.

More accurately, the country Iran is most rabid enemy of. Its 'most rabid' enemy has never had any claim against Iran - it's Iran which has decided to declare total enmity.

So Iran picks a fight, says it wants to 'defend' itself from the enemy it created (instead of burying the hatchet), and further demands the worlds disarms its opponent to make Iran's work easier.

There are a few loan words in the English language for such behaviour like 'chutzpa'. It makes 'logical sense' only if the world sympathizes with aggression which I don't believe it does.

P.S. Said country has never signed the NPT and is therefore not bound by it, making its possession of weapons still 'legal', unlike Iran which has signed the treaty and is therefore bound by it, even when Iran ignored its own signature.

P.S.S. It would make no sense for such an arrangement to not include Pakistan, which has already taken part in past wars in the area. Weird how nobody notices that. Almost like, the idea was to disarm one side to try to give the other a killing advantage.

> Iran has entered deals with the US and other western countries to renounce its nuclear weapons program in exchange for lifting the embargo

Which weapons program? AFAIK current Iranian inspection mechanisms are the most stringent (anywhere ever).

'Most stringent' inspections with the proviso that Iran gets notification in advance, and that most inspections are in support of temporary restrictions. If these restrictions are necessary they should be permanent, otherwise we've got another NK in the future.

The second deal I was talking about is precisely the current one, the JCPOA, which Iran is abiding according to all objective observers.

How can you possibly know this? The JCPOA includes non-public "side deals" with the IAEA. How do you prove the secret fine print doesn't restore what the public large print took away?

> What it boils down to for me is which side do you want to win?

This is a bit simplistic, isn't it? First, the one between Iran and USA doesn't have to be a zero-sum game. Why is it a matter of states winning or losing? I don't recall Iran waging a war against the US, or trying to destroy civil liberties in the West. For example, with the nuclear agreement, both Iran and the US (or Europe) would have benefited- why did the US got out of it then?

Second, the two sides in this game are not necessarily Iran with its model of society and the US with its own model of society. The US is a free and democratic society, but that doesn't mean that their geo-political goals are all about freedom and democracy. In fact, the main rivals of Iran and allies of the US are Saudi Arabia- a country even less democratic than Iran itself- and Israel, a country that while internally free and democratic is illegally occupying a foreign territory and expelling its native population in violation of international law. So the US winning this particular exchange might not necessarily mean improving or preserving the freedom of US society, but making the world a worse place, with more injustice and future grievances. See what has produced the "existential" war against Saddam.

At the moment the people doing the expelling are Iranians (and their allies) in Syria, and they threaten to do it elasewhere. For whatever it's worth, Palestinians are not being expelled, and furthermore, Israeli presence is not illegal according to resolution 242.

In addition, Iran is also even more repressive than SA, because they are killing dissidents outside of their territory, unlike SA.

Then again, I don't see why we should be bothering with this given that the Iran regime is the one shouting 'Death to America'. It's pretty natural for the US to oppose those ideologically hostile to it.

> In addition, Iran is also even more repressive than SA, because they are killing dissidents outside of their territory, unlike SA.

Have you not heard about Jamal Khashoggi? It was a big story a while back.

> It's pretty natural for the US to oppose those ideologically hostile to it.

Chicken or egg? That is, if the US hadn't engaged in regime change operations in Iran and hadn't supported Saddam in attacking Iran, would Iran be hostile towards the US?

Khashoggi was killed inside Saudi embassy, that is, Saudi territory. I'm not excusing it, but had he been warned, he could have just avoided going in. Iran tends to kill people outright on foreign soil.

e.g.

https://www.tellerreport.com/news/--intelligence-service-ira...

It's funny that people think that the mullahs have any grudges against the US becuase the US overthrew a 'socialist atheist'. They didn't like Mosaddegh either and in fact took part in his overthrow. Khomeini's grudge was purely ideological.

> Khashoggi was killed inside Saudi embassy, that is, Saudi territory.

That's generally not really how embassies work, but sure.

> Khomeini's grudge was purely ideological.

As in "all islamic religious hardliners in charge of a country hate the US"? The first gulf war couldn't have anything to do with it?

Sure, the mullahs are really upset that US prevented their arch-enemy Saddam from conquering another country and getting stronger. Now, I wouldn't say "all islamic religious hardliners in charge of a country hate the US", but it sure is common.

My point was that Saddam was acting with US support when he attacked Iran in the first gulf war in the early eighties, back before he got himself on the bad-dictator-list by invading Kuwait.

US did not support the initial invasion, and in fact allowed Israel to supply arms to Iran (!) to stop it. US support for Iraq came later when Iran continued the war after throwing off the Iraqis, because they didn't want to let Iran continue into Iraq.

"That's generally not really how embassies work..."

Someone needs to tell Assange about this, if that isn't how embassies work.

> At the moment the people doing the expelling are Iranians ... For whatever it's worth, Palestinians are not being expelled

How can you say something like this? It's even happening right now, for example these are today's news:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-jerus...

Just imagine the scene:

"Bulldozers accompanied by hundreds of Israeli soldiers and police moved in to Sur Baher, a Palestinian village on the edge of East Jerusalem

Israeli forces cut through a wire section of the barrier in Sur Baher under cover of darkness early on Monday, and began clearing residents from the area.

Floodlights lit up the area as dozens of vehicles brought helmeted security forces into the village

“Since 2 a.m. they have been evacuating people from their homes by force and they have started planting explosives in the homes they want to destroy”

You can always post an eviction story from any country. We need to look at the larger picture: Palestinian population of Jerusalem is increasing both as an absolute and on percentage basis:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Jerusal...

> You can always post an eviction story from any country

At 2am in the morning, with floodlights, military and explosives? On a territory that doesn't even legally belong to that state?

The evictions and demolitions purpose is to build a wall:

From Wikipedia: "the border traced by the barrier is more than double the length of the Green Line, with 15% running along it or in Israel, while the remaining 85% cuts at times 18 kilometres (11 mi) deep into the West Bank, isolating about 9% of it, leaving an estimated 25,000 Palestinians isolated from the bulk of that territory."

So Palestinian houses are demolished to make space for the wall, while the wall bends for kilometers to include illegal Israeli settlements built in Palestinian land.

Tertium non datur?

Obama made a deal with the Iranians to stop production of weapons grade nuclear material and to destroy related infrastructure.

This also had the side-effect of strengthening the most reasonable politics within Iran.

But no, I guess this new course undermined the career of too many apparatchiks so the Orange Man was persuaded to kick the table up in the air.

And we’re back to square one, with the loudest monkeys showing their teeth at each other...

"If Iran wins, the end. We start over at square one winning back our freedoms."

You really believe there is a threat of Iran occupying the US and it's the reason for the US policy towards Iran?

Gosh, it's scary that people like you vote to choose the government controlling by far the most powerful military in the world.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m always baffled when people categorically claim that they know the source of their cyber attacks. It’s not exactly difficult for someone with the most basic knowledge of networking to disguise that information or masquerade as someone they’re not.

There is a lot more to tracking these groups than ip addresses. To impersonate any of the known groups you will need a lot of knowledge about the tools and infra that they use.

And if you have that knowledge it's impossible to imitate? Can't really tell if your comment is refuting or agreeing, attribution is hard.

Knowing that a thing is true is categorically different from knowing how to do something— Knowing that group A uses technique B doesn’t automatically make you proficient at using B yourself.

Masquerading as a particular cyber-attack group requires not only knowing what techniques and tools they tend to use, but also how to do those things yourself, while imitating their style. It’s not impossible, but neither is it trivial: We’re not talking about simply first impressions here, but fooling a concerted, post-hoc investigation.

Can you give some specific examples? What do you mean by "imitating their style"? What data would be used to "fingerprint" these groups?

I'm no "cyber security expert", but from what I can understand it can be something as simple as, what was mentioned above, tracking ip addresses to analyzing the processes leading up to and used in the attack. Whether that is how they approach the target, the tools used and/or any evidence left behind.

When a large enough amount of attacks are performed by one group you gain some insight in how they work & approach problems. Very similar to how law enforcement would be able to "fingerprint" a serial killer based on his patterns or how a professor would be able to tell you plagiarized the code for a project based on the pattern of your early assignments.

People are not immune to patterns and habits. Groups, much like people, are effectively extensions of these patterns and habits but on a grander scale. In a normal workplace this is called company "culture".

This is a great comment. Thanks.

And how these 'known' groups got attributed to a particular country in the first place?

Do you think Russian efforts on this same front are a result of US policies? Should those policies change, stay the same or something else?

Most certainly.

See 'Prevent re-emergence of a new rival (1992)'[0] and 'From Lisbon to Vladivostok: Putin Envisions a Russia-EU Free Trade Zone (2010)'[1].

Can't let that happen, can you.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/world/excerpts-from-penta...

[1] https://m.spiegel.de/international/europe/from-lisbon-to-vla...

Just wondering but:

> I work for a US company that routinely has to deal with cyber attacks by Iranian professionals, probably government sponsored.

The full article is about services blocking IPs from Iran (and how it's effecting him as a dev). I don't see what cyber attacks have to do with anything? Or do you think these IP bans are a defense against cyber attacks?

All countries do cyber attacks, most countries in the EU have been infiltrated by the NSA and friends. How is that related to companies geo fencing entire countries?

> If the government in power over you is in conflict with others, and/or in conflict with it's own people, it's going to impact you. If you want your life to be better, look for ways to improve your government.

Not to get all political but I think it's pretty clear that the US is the only western country not liking Iran, and they use their influence to have the whole world obey US sanctions. You expecting OP to raise against their government? I say odds of succeeding are slimmer than storming Area 51.

>Not to get all political but I think it's pretty clear that the US is the only western country not liking Iran, and they use their influence to have the whole world obey US sanctions. You expecting OP to raise against their government? I say odds of succeeding are slimmer than storming Area 51.

This isn't exactly true. The EU is opposed to Iran's aggressive policies in the region (e.g. in Yemen, Syria, and now Hormuz) and its continued development of ballistic missile technology. They're just content with the 2015 nuclear deal as a starting point, whereas current US policy is not.

It's also worth noting that the EU disproportionately benefits from oil purchases from Iran relative to US so they have their own political self-interests factoring into their decision.

It's also worth noting that the EU disproportionately benefits from oil purchases from Iran relative to US so they have their own political self-interests factoring into their decision.

Oil is fungible. The EU only benefits disproportionately because the US refuses to do business with Iran.

Not exactly. There are varying costs to extracting and transporting oil depending on where it is sourced. It's estimated that American natural gas, for example, would be 20% more expensive than Russian natural gas through the Nordstream 2 pipeline -- even though natural gas is nominally fungible.

Furthermore, the US is net oil exporter in 2019 and Europe is notoriously dependent on imported oil due to lack of resources on the continent. Consequently, adding a large marginal foreign supplier has significantly different impacts on oil prices in the region.

So you think Iran will use ballistic missile against the EU because... what? Because Iran gets money from the EU in exchange for oil?

The main reason for US policy changes vis-à-vis Iran in the past couple years has been spite toward the previous US administration.

There are some nasty folks in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, but Iran is a large, diverse, and complicated place, and there are many other internally powerful people with different agendas (just like most large diverse countries).

In general openness and cultural/economic exchange help progressive forces within the country, and sanctions help xenophobic hard-liners.

> The main reason for US policy changes vis-à-vis Iran in the past couple years has been spite toward the previous US administration.

Well, this is a bit simplistic. A lot of Trump actions show a pretty clear pattern: recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, recognition of the annexation of Golan by Israel, recognition of the right of Israel to annex parts of the West Bank. Israel has been campaigning for the US to attack Iran for at least the past 15 years, and has used every diplomatic resource to campaign against the nuclear deal with Iran.

Connect the dots.

>In general openness and cultural/economic exchange help progressive forces within the country, and sanctions help xenophobic hard-liners.

I've read in various places that the opposite is actually true -- sanctions from the liberal US strengthens the liberals in Iran by highlighting how the regime's aggressive policy is resulting in economic pain for Iranians.

This didn't really work with China either. Granted, there are plenty of examples where sanctions have failed/backfired but I'd like to reject any "general" statement on the best way to liberalize a country through foreign policy.

I doubt that US foreign policy has anything to do with the desire to “liberalize” a country. Unless you’re using that term in a different sense...

Given the choice between a government that poses no threat to it but is illiberal and any possibility of a liberal government the US always opts to harm the illiberal government. Libya complied with all arms control treaties and is buddy buddy with Italy. Doesn’t matter, as soon as someone whispers democracy the US does their level best to fan the flames of war. There’s an authoritarian democratically elected government in Ukraine. Let’s support a violent rebellion.

This is part of a historical pattern that’s basically unbroken but is aptly represented by the US involvement in the world wars. What business did the premier power in North America, or the Western Hemisphere, have in a European war between empires? What possible benefit would accrue to them from it? Very similar argument for the European theatre in WWII but the Pacific theatre is, if anything, more ridiculous if you don’t start the history of US involvement with Pearl Harbour. The US embargoes the Empire of Japan, banning most importantly the export of oil. They know the Empire of Japan cannot continue its never ending clusterfuck of an attempt to conquer China without oil. This was a calculated attempt to bring the Japanese to heel they had to have known could lead to war. And this was not isolated. The only reason the US military started hostilities against the Empire of Japan after Pearl Harbour rather than before was logistical fuckups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Tigers

The US is, in every part of it, hostile to anything that isn’t a democratic republic. This is true even if wide heads within USG know that democracy is bad for US interests. If the Arab Spring had actually succeeded anywhere apart from Tunisia it would have been a car crash for the US. The Arab public is a lot less willing to deal with Israel than the dictatorships, monarchies and juntas that currently surround it, and democracies are very likely to lead to civil war and ethnic cleansing in any country with no tradition of liberal government. See Syria. The US tries to arm the non-existent liberal opposition and all the weapons end up with the people who were Al Qaeda in Syria until yesterday or with those shouting “The Christians to Lebanon. The Alawites to Hell!”

This particular position baffles me, especially since we're discussing Iran here. Iran had a liberal democratic government and the US toppled it(because they dared try to take control of their own oil reserves) in favor of a military coup and a dictator. That dictatorship then proceeded to radicalize the population through oppression which led to a revolution and the installation of a theocratic anti-US government in one of the worst cases of shooting-your-own-foot US foreign policy in modern history.

The reality is: US foreign policy does not care one tiny bit about the liberal/ilieberal or democracy/dictatorship spectrums, it only cares(rightly, some may argue) about its own(mostly economic) self-interests. As pertains to the MENA region, that mostly means it only cares about the economics and politics of the oil business(though there is in an irrational, lobby-driven, tendency to protect Israel in any and all things even when it harms the aformentioned oil intersts). The liberal/illiberal thing is a red herring and mostly about gaining the support of their citizens for whatever thing they want to undertake right now.

Do note, I'm not in any way condemning the US for the way they tend to act around the world, they're just looking out for themselves. I'm just saying, it has nothing to do with favoring particular modes of government and to argue otherwise is to cherry-pick maybe 30% of the events the last 60 years and ignore the rest which does not line up with your particular worldview.

"Do note, I'm not in any way condemning the US for the way they tend to act around the world, they're just looking out for themselves."

So did the Nazi Germany.

First, I may or may not have privately held views about the morality(or lack thereof) of US foreign policy post WW2(hint: If you look at my comment history, you can probably figure it out given where I've stated that I live and some oblique comments pertaining to the subject). However, the above comment was specifically meant to not make a statement about the subject so as not to fan the flames any further, but only act as a refutation of the statement it was replying to based on historical facts rather than moral arguments.

Second, your statement is patently untrue. The genocides(against the Jewish people and countless others as well) perpetrated en masse by the Nazi state have nothing to do with self-interest or looking out for oneself. So no, this does not apply. If we were talking purely about their expansionist policies and invasions, then you may have had a point, but that's not what people usually mean when they, rightly, hold up the Nazi state as an example of criminally abhorrent and repulsive behavior.

Clearing Lebensraum from lesser races had everything to do with Nazi Germany looking for its own interests.

As others have mentioned, this would be true only if by 'liberal' you understand 'in full agreement with US policy'. The most relevant example is actually Iran: the US and UK orchestrated a coup to get rid of the last democratic regime in Iran and reinstall the militaristic, authoritarian Shah.

They have done the same or similar in a lot of South America, starting well before the world wars.

That is not to say that they are unique in this - it is how all empires operate. My point is only that the US is not some idealistic, freedom, democracy, and everything good loving benefactor of the world. It is an empire, one that is quite good to its own people but that ruthlessly pursuits its rational interests abroad.

> Given the choice between a government that poses no threat to it but is illiberal and any possibility of a liberal government the US always opts to harm the illiberal government.

This makes sense only if you define "liberal" as "aligned with the interests of Washington and/or American corporations". For god's sake, USA supported Saddam Hussein while he was gassing Kurdish civilians during the Iran-Iraq war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq...

> Joost R. Hiltermann says that when the Iraqi military turned its chemical weapons on the Kurds during the war, killing approximately 5,000 people in the town of Halabja and injuring thousands more, the Reagan administration actually sought to obscure Iraqi leadership culpability by suggesting, inaccurately, that the Iranians may have carried out the attack.

"Supported" in the sense of "not letting being conquered completely by Iran." Who was carrying out its own mass executions of non-Muslims and implementing its own cultural revolution around that time.

America definitely had some self-interest in protecting Iraq, but it's not like the alternative was clearly a better choice either.

> "Supported" in the sense of "not letting being conquered completely by Iran."

Iraq started the war.

Right, that doesn't mean it went well for them.

The US didn't provide significant aid to Iraq until it feared the Hussein government being overrun altogether.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Ir...

In a war between secularists and theocrats the liberal power will have no difficulty in deciding which side it finds more ideologically simpatico.

The US record in central/south America or the support for the princes in UAE and Saudi Arabia shows they will choose stability over democracy.

Liberal countries tend to befriend other liberal countries. So yes, even from a purely strategic perspective US foreign policy has a desire to liberalize other countries (in the classical sense of the term).

This is a hopelessly naive (and incorrect) assessment of the US relationship with Iran. The US literally deposed the first democratically elected head of government of Iran https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9...

Mossadegh wasn't exactly a liberal. He nationalized the oil industry and the very justification for Operation Ajax was the fear that Mossadegh would ally Iran with the USSR -- who were certainly socialist and most definitely not liberal.

Moreover, multiple US administrations pressured the Shah on human rights and, more generally, the US has a definite (though certainly not absolute and varying by administration) preference for working with regimes with a decent human rights record.

I would also quibble with the sole attribution of his fall to Ajax (he was already deeply unpopular when it began, albeit arguably unfairly) and note that his extensive use of emergency powers at the time make the "democratically elected" bit somewhat misleading, even if nominally true.

Your statement about naivety is interesting given that what you just said about the history of Iran is wrong and a common myth.

Mossadegh was not elected by the people of Iran to be Prime Minister.

Mossadegh was not democratically elected as head of the government. He was put into that position by dictate of the elites that ruled over Iran in fact, including with the backing of the Shah. He was democratically elected to the Majles, which is not the same thing as the people electing him as Prime Minister. The Majles largely consisted of elites that were wealthy property owners. So the de facto ruling feudal lords of Iran - including the Shah - installed Mossadegh as leader of the country, the exact opposite of democracy.

In the case of Iran US is both acting as an agent of Israel and Saudi Arabia foreign policy and punishing Iran for not knuckling under.

Censoring TeamViewer or Slack doesn’t do anything to stop the Iranian government’s cyber task force from carrying out attacks. It hurts the regular people and the Iranian economy. I’m not sure what the ultimate agenda is but considering the travel ban and extra visa requirements for visitors of Iran it appears that the goal is to isolate Iran and strangle its economy.

> And the nations with the most freedom have the most to lose.

I'm genuinely curious - can you please expand on what exactly you mean by this?

- The nations with the most freedom also have complex, efficient industries and markets that provide high standards of living - These nations have complex governments designed to protect people from each other and from external threats - These nations are technologically advanced and highly reliant on things attached to networks - These nations have a lot more information freely available, and access to things

All this adds up to a much larger surface area. It's like we're in a stone throwing fight and one side is living in a glass house and the other side is in a mud hut. Losing a cyber war could destroy governments and economies in the West. Imagine no electricity everywhere, no water, no sewer, no planes or trains, no tv or internet. It would be an apocalypse. The same thing happening to Iran might be difficult, but mostly annoying. I'm not sure. In North Korea most people wouldn't even notice.

"Imagine no electricity everywhere, no water, no sewer, no planes or trains, no tv or internet. It would be an apocalypse. The same thing happening to Iran might be difficult, but mostly annoying."

I can imagine people in Iran reading this and quite strongly disagreeing.

"And the nations with the most freedom have the most to lose."

What on Earth does this mean?

maybe that totalitarianism is the default and that "freedom" is a recent development that has been very hard won. It is not the default state of things. If you lose it i.e the state becomes totalitarian, it is orders of magnitude harder to go back the other way.

"muh freedoms" probably.

"If the government in power over you is in conflict with others ... it's going to impact you. If you want your life to be better, look for ways to improve your government."

Or help your government because it is the other government who is imposing sanctions on your country and making your life worse.

Let's do a thought experiment: What would happen if you removed the rules? Would anyone in the US actually notice? Would there be plausible deniability because, for example, a reboot has wiped all of the iptables rules?

> be cognizant of candidate policies about technology if you want to help enact change

We don't get to mix and match attributes of various policies

We get to choose 1 candidate, from 2 candidates

Their technology policy will never be a deciding factor

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