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Comment by AsyncAwait | Hacker News Reader

The thing here is that it seems Israel wants to provoke the Iranians into some sort of a response so that the U.S. gets involved before Trump leaves office.

It's mind boggling how the U.S. left the JCPOA, assassinated their top general & still somehow tries to pretend they have the moral high ground.

But these sorts of assassinations are known to be mainly Israeli operations.

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My family and everyone I know in Iran has been suffering from the sanctions before they were even born. From a shortage of diapers to medicine. Just look at the numbers of how many Iranians leave their country every year.

Literally, everyone in my family and relatives lives outside of the country (Canada, Sweden, U.S., Dubai, Armenia and etc.) and the sad thing is I don't think I will ever go back.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_diaspora

> so that the U.S. gets involved before Trump leaves office

If it's about the difference between Biden and Trump, it would be about the incoming administration being more likely to get involved, not less. Virtually the only thing Trump has done right in office was not finding some excuse to get us involved in military conflict (which I very much expected him to, to cynically whip up patriotism and knee-jerk "unity" to clinch his reelection.) Biden will return us to the conventional U.S. foreign policy of bombing with an easy conscience and wringing our hands with moral anxiety when we think about maybe not bombing.

Trump ordered the assassination of Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds force, earlier this year. So I’m not sure that this argument applies to Iran.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/02/world/middleeast/qassem-s...

Trump's justification was that Suleimani was planning attacks against US targets, which is a pretty high bar for intervention (unless it was a complete fabrication, which doesn't seem likely.) Any other Democratic or Republican administration would have identified multiple opportunities/obligations per year to improve some situation in the world by military intervention, and counted themselves moderate if they only committed to one or two in four years. Biden's Secretary of State pick, for example, believes we were wrong not to escalate our involvement in Syria until we turned the tide.

Was it really? That guy was leading one of the largest and the most effective ground forces against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. His troops had contact with the U.S. and Russia for air support. I wouldn't be surprised if one of U.S. regional allies that isn't happy about the situation in Iraq and Syria gave U.S. some made up intelligence about an attack to provoke U.S. against him.

"BBC: Qasem Soleimani: Why his killing is good news for IS jihadists" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51021861

I’m not necessarily arguing with any of that. But your assertion was that a Biden administration would be more likely to get militarily involved in Iran, and I don’t think the case for that argument is obvious. Biden wants to rejoin the nuclear agreement, while Trump has actually engaged in a violent confrontation with the country.

I would put some serious money on Trump as a lame duck doing a whole lot of nothing. Israel probably sees this as an opening to take out core operatives without reprisal and a low chance of escalation. Iran will probably do what it has always has done, continue their nuke and ballistics program, and attempt to destabilize unfriendly regimes. They don't really have an awesome military tract record outside of guerrilla tactics nor the capacity for a prolonged large scale conflict against a technically superior advisory. I don't know what this has to do with propaganda though; it will always spin conflicts as just, inventible, necessary or simply just sweep it under the rug.

The last time the White House transitioned from Republican to Democrat we had this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_War_(2008%E2%80%932009)

Well yeah, shortly after the Bush administration supported a coup in the Palestinian National Authority, it caused conflict.

I don't think you can pin that entirely on the transition.

I'm not sure what pinning it on the transition means, but it's suggesting that it seems to be an opportunistic time for controversial actions; the outgoing regime doesn't care and/or fully approves, and the New Boss avoids any association/responsibility.

Netanyahu has always been a hardliner. Perhaps the Israelis are simply expecting that Bidden won't support such actions so are making the most of Trump's last days in office, and perhaps the same goes for the US (Hypothetically if Israel and/or the US were involved, of course...)

I doubt that's it; the last American president to meaningfully oppose anything Israel does was JFK, who tried to get international inspections of Dimona to stop Israel's nuclear weapons program.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/kennedy-letter-to-ben-g...

There's oppose publicly and there's oppose behind closed doors. There's also being pissed off behind closed doors and taking less public actions to make it felt. The US take action against Israel when there are pissed off, although it's obviously quite mild (like cancelling weapon sales or grants for some time).

And then there's getting assassinated, and the odd lack of public curiosity that accompanies such events, of which there are many.

If anything, I think it likely that the Biden administration will be more pro Israel and pro war.

See eg: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/11/joe-biden-administration-cabi...

I think Biden will be less pro-Likud, but likely more hawkish, yes.

Trump admin's hawkishness varied wildly over time as various people moved in and out.

Maybe more pro-war in general, but is there any reason to believe Joe Biden won't try to pursue a similar Iranian strategy as Obama?

Probably no more and no less. US Foreign Policy never changes, no matter who is the POTUS.

The US Presidents do not run the country. They are just as much figureheads as the Queen of England.

The Establishment is who really runs the country. They do not have to answer to any electors, and they never 'go out of office'.

Or they know that Iran will hold back to not provoke the new Biden administration. If Iran wants the US to rejoin the agreement and loosen the sanctions their hands are tied.

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