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Comment by crisdux | Hacker News Reader

Your reply is like textbook liberal American foreign policy. Another idea is Iran is developing those weapons to ensure their sovereignty against ruthless western influences. The version of democracy that the U.S. exports to other countries is easily manipulated by the American special interests. It is not done to promote human rights.

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> Iran is developing those weapons to ensure their sovereignty

Iran is about as meddlesome in other sovereign states’ affairs as America is. They work to export their influence as much as we do. We do it more and better because we’re bigger. But it’s the same impulse.

So sure, they’re developing nukes to protect their regime. I’m not sure how that’s a hot take, it’s why we have war. The problem is with what and to whom that regime likes doing.

Well I dont agree it’s the same impulse. Iranian sovereignty is directly influenced by the actions of its immediate neighbors. U.S. doesn’t have the same concerns, as they aren’t even on the same continent. Neither regime has the moral high ground, but the Iranian regime has a more pressing obligation to its people to ensure their survival. The U.S. is the expeditionary force acting in foreign lands. Their actions are not equivalent.

> actions of its immediate neighbors

Syria isn’t Iran’s immediate neighbour. Neither are North Africa or Yemen, but there are natural strategic complements to Tehran having influence in each. Same as America. Again, same impulse, different scales. Iran is no Iceland.

> the Iranian regime has a more pressing obligation to its people to ensure their survival

I'm not sure survival of the existing regime is high on the list of priorities of the average Iranian person at the moment...

And the subject of the thread is talking about Iran developing long range weapons and sending them and their drone technicians to Russia, which does not border Iran, in order to facilitate its war of aggression against Ukraine, which neither borders Iran nor possesses any credible threat towards it. The idea that when the US extends its military reach around the world it's an expeditionary force in foreign lands but when Iran does it has only the salvation of its people in mind is textbook anti-liberal double standards...

Bullshit. No moral high ground?

The US is no nation governed by Angels, but orders of magnitudes "better" in most regards. Allies of the US fare much better than those of Iran or Russia. Its citizens have orders of magnitude more rights and access to self-fulfillment, among other things. The insistence on Israel not to get wiped out by an Iranian nuke is hardly a questionable goal.

Only the most black-and-white perspective can justify this false equivalency.

I don’t know, if we were to go off of “total number of innocent civilians murdered globally” for establishing moral high ground, Iran has done less harm than the United States.

American citizens don't regularly march down the street chanting "Death to Iran", though. I mean, that could be just for show. But I sure don't want them to ever have the means to carry it out, so we could see what they would do...

Totally bogus metric, actually. You again have to ignore the size and historical comparisons. Or that Iran's current regime has tortured, disappeared, executed or murdered tens of thousands of its own citizens. You have to ignore the circumstances and motivations for some of the wars the US forces killed civilians in. You have to ignore that US forces do a lot to avoid killing civilians, while Iran just doesn't give a damn and actually targets those.

If you think Iran is such a good place, you should move there. As you can't see the moral difference between an imperfect democracy and an authocratic regime, you are certainly not capable of defending a democracy.

They claim they want to destroy Israel and call the US the big satan. They aren't famous for rational decision making.

Letting them of all people get nukes is a very bad idea.

> They claim they want to destroy Israel and call the US the big satan. They aren't famous for rational decision making.

Both of those are very rational ways of ginning up domestic support in a way that commits to absolutely nothing meaningful on the geopolitical stage. There's very little reason to believe Iran's power brokers are privately suicidal.

The US says all sorts of things it doesn't really mean, too.

I'm really not counting on their rationality.

You can't compare the US and Iran on their records concerning threats. The US does mostly follow through.

> I'm really not counting on their rationality.

There's very little evidence the Iranians are acting irrationally.

Their pursuit of a nuclear program is pragmatic (as evidenced by the kid gloves we treat North Korea with, versus how we treated Libya). Their negotiations and the resulting agreement for its suspension was pragmatic. Their response to Trump blowing that agreement up was pragmatic. Their funding of anti-Israeli groups is pragmatic. Their playing up of external threats for internal political purposes is pragmatic.

What genuinely irrational things has Iran done in, say, the last two decades?

> You can't compare the US and Iran on their records concerning threats.

The US made a bunch of "red lines" in Syria, without following through, but I was more referencing stuff like tough talk on human rights contrasting with business involvements in China.

A nuclear weapons program may be in the interest of Iran (though I doubt it). It's not in anyone else's interest.

Much of what Iran is doing is somewhat irrational... meddling in conflicts around the reason in particular is often much to its own detriment, but serves some "irrational" purpose. Same as with posturing over the Hormuz strait, well knowing they can't do shit against the US navy.

Yes, if you ignore all the things contrary to your world view and only look at what fits it, and squint really hard, you can say the stuff you say.

> It's not in anyone else's interest.

So? Acting in self-interest isn't irrational.

Similarly, posturing over the Hormuz strait is a rational act; they don't need to go after the US Navy when commercial shipping would suffice.

> they don't need to go after the US Navy when commercial shipping would suffice

What do you think the Navy is there for?

The Navy was present during every incident listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Hormuz#Events, including seizures of oil tankers and cargo ships. Minefields are also a handy option. Iran can and has disrupted traffic through the strait; it's an effective threat even if they can't keep the US Navy out.

Yes the Iranian Navy can pester a commercial ship here and there. They can't blockade the entire Hormuz street and even if they ramped up those seizures too much, they'd draw an international response they wouldn't like. Iran can't want a shoot out with the US in any form...

We should disarm any countries with a state religion. Problem solved.

"My imaginary friend is better than yours!!"

It's order of magnitudes easier to stop Iran from getting the bomb rather than "disarming" them completely.

And there are good reasons for countries having at least some kind of army. You need a police force to stop a few gangsters from teaming up and raiding weaker civilians. You need an army to prevent/deter the police forces of your neighbor countries to team up and overwhelm your police force to take your stuff.

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