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Comment by vaughands | Hacker News Reader

Seriously, what is the benefit to the US here? I can't understand how this benefits the country at all.

If Iran has nukes, then a nuke race will start in the middle East, especially with Saudis, who will want their own nukes.

Iran getting nukes is the spark that will start a lot of chain reactions.

And islamic populations are radicalized enough that the possibility of a nuke on Israel increases dramatically.

> If Iran has nukes, then a nuke race will start in the middle East

A fair concern, but it is interesting that although "estimates of Israel's stockpile range between 90 and 400 nuclear warheads" [1], we are not concerned about those warheads as much as we do about the ones Iran might have. Should US bomb Israeli nuclear plants? No. Should they have bombed the Iranian ones? Why?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Israel

We didn't want Israel to have nukes either, we tried to stop them and failed. We wouldn't bomb Israel's nukes because they -already- have them, and they have grown in a semi-reliable regional ally since then. We are trying to stop Iran from having them at all to prevent them from being essentially off-limits to retaliation (note Iran is the #1 state sponsor of terrorism / people's fears of supporting Ukraine given Russia keeps threatening nuclear action) and kicking off a regional nuclear arms race.

Maybe it has something to do with Israel being an ally and Iran sponsoring terrorism all over the region

> it has something to do with Israel being an ally

There are many allies of the US, still they are not exempt from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). I'm not sure if it's a sane strategy to permit a single ally who has never signed the NPT [1] to build nuclear weapons, unlike your many other allies or non-allies:

> The roots of this preferential treatment go back to a secret 1969 understanding between U.S. President Richard Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. The agreement essentially allowed Israel to keep its nuclear weapons as long as it remained silent about them and avoided nuclear tests. That bargain has held ever since, with successive U.S. administrations turning a blind eye to what would be a clear violation of international norms if committed by any other state.

Causing a power imbalance in the region doesn't seem the right way to keep peace.

[1] https://www.eurasiareview.com/23062025-israels-nuclear-ambig...

"terrorism" is just war fighting that we don't like. Israel is by far the biggest aggressor in the middle east having bombed half a dozen countries in the last year.

More and more I find our alliance with Israel in need of justification.

I think this attack makes it more likely they’ll get nukes, not less. They moved all their enriched uranium already, and now they know that there’s no longer any point in diplomacy.

The next facilities they build will be a few times deeper, and I have no doubt we’ll soon be hearing that ground troops are the only way to stop them.

They had already crossed the line into nuclear tech that's specifically for weapons, i.e. with a 400kg stockpile of uranium enriched to 60%. Unless we accept explanations like "scientific curiosity", they were already somewhere in the process of building nuclear weapons, even if success wasn't immanent.

I don't know how long these operations will set them back, but if the Iranian regime won't willingly refrain from nuclear weapons work, isn't a delay better than nothing?

They “could have” had nuclear weapons for a long time if they’d wanted to, yes, but they didn’t get them. They signed the NPT, allowed inspections, and their ruler issued a fatwa against developing nuclear weapons. Why’d they do all that if their goal all along was to get a nuclear weapon? They could have just done it.

These attacks make it clear that they would have been better off if they had gotten them, so it seems reasonable to assume this will be their new policy. What other strategic choice have they been left with?

Just to clarify, is your position that Iran was never working toward nuclear weapons, or just not until recently? I think enriching uranium to 60% is pretty clear evidence of their intent, even though it's just one component of an eventual weapon.

Being an NPT signatory could be evidence of Iran not working toward nuclear weapons, if they were compliant. But they have violated their NPT obligations on some occasions, with major violations recently.

I think they wanted to be seen as credibly close as a deterrent and bargaining chip in negotiations, but they had no intention of going all the way unless attacked.

Now they likely do intend to get them asap if they’re able to.

Why would it be up to a rogue non-NPT country, Israel, to enforce the NPT?

There isn't really such a thing as (forcefully) enforcing the NPT. Israel's casus belli (if we consider this a new war and not a continuation of one) would be based on self-defense.

60% enrichment is not weapons grade. Weapons grade is 80%. High enrichment is used in certain reactor designs, such as naval reactors.

There are a lot of reasons to be enriching uranium besides building nuclear weapons. Considering the US reneged on its deal to drop sanctions in exchange for Iran to not enrich uranium, it is pretty obviously useful as a bargaining chip, in the negotiations.

The US intelligence community assessed that Iran has not been working on a bomb since the program was shut down in 2003. They didn't want a nuke, they wanted an end to sanctions. They further wanted to avoid provoking exactly this sort of conflict. This did not delay them getting nuclear weapons, it will make them get nuclear weapons.

To quote an ISIS report, "Iran has no civilian use or justification for its production of 60 percent enriched uranium, particularly at the level of hundreds of kilograms". In theory it could be for naval propulsion, but experts (including IAEA inspectors) seem unconvinced.

They had a very obvious use for it: trade it to the US in exchange for sanctions relief.

Those can be bombed right at the beginning. Israel will probably try to establish a similar status que as in Lebanon right now - "if you make a move we immediately take it out".

And the development of a nuclear sites leaves a significant intelligence trail, not sure it can be hidden.

(Of course they can always be gifted a bomb, but that's a very different story)

Yeah I’m sure it will be a huge success with no unforeseen consequences whatsoever. Since that’s how these things have been going over the last thirty years.

Can't that be said about every path of action in this scenario?

And that's something we will have to accept, that Islamic populations will always have nukes.

How do you plan to handle a world with Islamic populations having nukes? Because that's something you will have to plan for. You have no choice. They will not let you not let them have nukes. They will make sure they will have nukes. That's just given.

Islamic populations?

Most of Islamic republics are fiefdoms, kingdoms and dictatorships. Most of the populations are radicalized, and have very limited freedom of speech and right to protest.

I will not seek to engage with you on this matter. You have developed a cynical and propagandistic approach to demonize and vilify. Just understand that all of your information is wrong.

Have you lived in any of these Islamic countries?

You just have to read a wikipedia article on them. No need to live there.

Is that a pre-condition to know about countries, leaderships and general public?

I have not lived in the US, and I know a lot about the US national character.

> I have not lived in the US, and I know a lot about the US national character

That is not a good comparison. The US is well reported enough in news and media and movie to have a good awareness of the culture within. You also understand their language.

However, the Arab world is not reported well enough apart from biased sources that seek to defame and discredit them. And neither would you understand their language. So no your awareness of their culture and country and leadership is so far fallen yet you think it is sufficient that it becomes dangerous.

There is no such thing as Islamic population unless you are an Islamophobe who have sought to “other” this part of the world

Yes, I would say that making sweeping statements about a populace does require actual first-hand experience with said populace.

Almost a kind of domino theory, if you will?

It doesn't. It's all because Israel has extreme influence over US politicians.

The US is the leader of the liberal empire which depends on the middle east allowing trade. Iran is standing in the way of this and wants to push back the empire's control away from the middle east... but they have their own plans to establish another empire of their own.

I know "empire" is maybe an outdated term but I'm just illustrating there are bigger incentives than at the national level. Ironically it is conservative nationalists (who are hated by the Left) that want the empire to shrink and for the US to pull back from this leadership position. The risk here is it could also destabilize the entire world, but that's a different matter.

In short, this move is an attempt to strengthen the status quo that began after WW2.If the status quo is maintained it directly benefits the US.

This is the opposite of how I see it. This move is a complete repudiation of the post-ww2 order that emphasized the system of international laws and treaties developed by the UN. For the US to blindly follow Israel into a war with a sovereign country without even taking it to the UN or Congress is preposterous and signals the end of the post-ww2 and American domestic order. Both the UN Charter and the US Constitution are trashed and we won't recover from it in our life times. There's a reason Bush W sent Colin Powell to the UN, we still paid lip service to the rule of law 20 years ago. We don't even pretend anymore. We are trashing our laws and institution all at the behest of some a tiny racist religious extremist country.

I don’t envy the position of American diplomats the next time they are asked to negotiate an off-ramp from hostilities while military options are simultaneously being considered. Intentional or not, the diplomatic posture leading up to this point reads like diversion.

This is also how I see it. This child-man has just blown 80 years of careful control and credibility. Who allowed this to happen? A bunch of feckless children, who should never have been allowed to rule. Way to go, people. It all goes downhill from here.

I hate how much I agree with this assessment.

"the system of international laws and treaties" are only effective to the extent that someone is going to enforce it, and that someone is the US and its allies. So ultimately it's military power that matters.

The status quo is only maintained because the US has military bases all over the world. If we retreat from the world and let Iran do whatever it wants (which is more influence and an Islamic empire), the the world order crumbles and that has an even more increased chance of WW3, as multiple nations will fight over the void left behind by the US.

Part of the reason things are unfolding this way is because the US rose to world power with the invention of the nuclear bomb.... which automatically means that toppling the US might mean nuclear war, which spells doom for the entire world. Not sure I would call that luck, but that is why the world cannot change to a new world order easily without existential risk. And as the "world police" the US doesn't want non-allies to get the bomb for this reason (something that Trump has been saying for years, which proves he is just maintaining status quo).

You realize we (us) are a large, religious, racist country? Generally speaking, anti muslim, anti Iran sentiment is EXTREMELY high in the parts of the US that voted for Trump, at least based on my personal network.

People who were born into, grew up in, and live the current western bubble take it for granted and genuinely believe it is something natural rather than carefully built and expensively maintained - for extraordinary benefit.

I don't take it for granted, but Israel and these trillion-dollar Mid East wars don't seem to help it. China and Russia must be very pleased with the US being so distracted for the past 50 years while they established economic control even in the Mid East.

> for extraordinary benefit.

I'm seeing a lot of death and the payoff is... Cheap gas prices? I can't imagine what. But the replies to this laying out all the benefits of blood soaked American hegemony I'm sure will be great for a laugh.

The petrodollar, which largely depends on the US having significant influence over global oil supply, is arguably the main reason why the USD is the global reserve currency and an enormous reason why the US is as wealthy as it is.

The petrodollar is severely overrated by people who claim it's the cause for every foreign policy decision they disagree with. USD is attractive because the US government is stable and US companies are attractive investments, due to a historical track record of competence and rule of law adherence - unlike, say, Saudi currency, or Russian currency, or Chinese currency. The US government doesn't do a lot of currency manipulation relative to those other countries either.

Of course, that historical record is being shat upon currently, and the importance of petroleum is on a downward trajectory from here on.

We aren't even really getting cheap gas prices out of this. Iran is one of the largest oil producers, and we won't allow trade with them, so instead we've built a relationship with other dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, who know we have no other choice. But our actions are also straining that.

If I had only one wish, it would be to burst this bubble.

Trump has undermined the status quo at every opportunity. He feels the US hasn’t been compensated for its efforts.

Nonsense. The history of the US is one of regime change wars and genocide.

Keeping the Arab world from building their own nuclear weapons has long been contingent on Iran not having a nuclear weapons program. It only benefits the US to the extent it prevents the situation where half the countries in the Middle East having nuclear weapons.

Good lord, it benefits far more than just America if the broader middle east doesn't enter into a rapid nuclear weapons proliferation stage. Iran is considered to be a very serious enemy throughout much of the middle east. A nuclear armed Iran is a very bad idea.

It benefits the MIC, this is unlikely to be the end of this conflict.

This paper from 1999 provides some context about the US and Israel relationship in the context of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.

The third temple's holy of holies : Israel's nuclear weapons

https://dp.la/item/525bc46d51878c5e285d9069a80246d0

the dude needs a PR win of some kind. I guess he gave up on the Nobel prize and decided to try something else. Aside from that, could really be a chance to end the nukes there and try to topple the regime, who knows what's going to happen, but time-wise now is the best opportunity.

The world is better off if a theocracy whose leadership believes in jihad doesn’t have nukes.

Why do you highlight that the theocracy "believes in jihad" and not that the theocracy has issued a religious decree opposing weapons of mass destruction?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei%27s_fatwa_against...

Actions speak louder than words. Iran has been enriching Uranium beyond what is needed for civilian use and openly admits to doing so.

We should probably keep nukes away from these NAR whackadoodles and their puppets as well.

If this was about the benefit to the United States, then we would have had months of public buildup and debate like we did with the war in Iraq. It is hardly an example of a good decision, but history shows that it was at least a popular one; the majority of poll respondents and of legislators were both in favor of the initial invasion of Iraq. I was only eleven at the time, but I remember most moderate Democrats and independents who I knew (including, particularly, my seventh-grade history teacher, who was no fan of Bush) were in favor of the war.

Contrast that to the situation today, when polls show Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to involvement [1] and even some prominent Republican legislators (Gaetz, IIRC) were against the war. This is the Trump show: it's motivated by his ego and hopium. He's more erratic than ever. Historically, American presidents almost never started a major war without popular support (Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq were all popular when they started, and I think Libya and Kosovo were too). I can't even think of a case where the country was dragged into a war that was opposed 60% to 16% in favor. I would be very interested to hear if there ever was one.

1: https://www.axios.com/2025/06/19/israel-iran-war-americans-p...

This is my honest assessment of the calculus of the move. Please don't interpret any of this as me personally supporting or approving of these motives. I'm just trying to have a genuine intellectual discussion about the potential thought processes of our collective leaders.

* Quick, victorious wars can be incredibly popular domestically, regardless of whether surveys say that only 16% of the US population supports the war. Trump needs an approval ratings boost. The global tariff shock was a PR disaster. A quick, victorious war is a tried-and-true approval rating booster over the last 200-300 years. The key, of course, is actually keeping the war truly short and victorious. If it drags on, or if people start asking "have we truly won?", then that's a whole different matter.

* We have moved out of a unipolar geopolitical world and into a multipolar one. The USA is checking the ambitions of the rival powers. Want to invade Ukraine? Sure, go ahead and try, but it will be a multi-year slog. Want to go for years maybe developing nuclear weapons, maybe not, and making US antagonism a central part of your political platform? Watch us systematically attack your nuclear program and and air power and do highly targeted assassinations of your political elites over the course of two weeks. Want to invade Taiwan? Look at what happened in Ukraine and Iran and maybe reset your expectations about how that will pan out.

* There has been a lot of questioning lately around whether the US will actually help their allies when they're in a pinch. This is sending a pretty strong message of reassurance to allies.

* Trump may actually want things to escalate to a point where he can reasonably declare martial law within the US. How do you stay in power when you've already hit your two-term constitutional limit?

Your question was "how does it benefit the US?" but I don't think that's answerable because everyone has a different take on what's best for the US. It's much more feasible to discuss "how does it benefit Trump?" or "how does it maintain US's position as a world power?"

they are trying to cut off chinas oil, settle a score, and defend "greater israel"

they are also punishing iran for selling oil in their national currency

imperialism run amok

If they wanted to disrupt China's oil wouldn't they have hit the main export terminal on Kharg Island? More generally, you don't think its likely that, regardless of what you think of Israel, their main motivation is they don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon?

> If they wanted to disrupt China's oil wouldn't they have hit the main export terminal on Kharg Island?

They aren't ready to directly start that war. They are trying to cut off the alliances first. Iran is a much smaller country (90M vs over a billion) with a lot of oil. Conveniently, Iran is already so dehumanized many Americans don't even recognize their rights to sovereignty.

> their main motivation is they don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon?

No. They have been trying to attack Iran since the revolution. It's similar to how Cuba embarrassed America and was never forgiven. If Iran wanted a weapon they'd have one. However, these attacks may force Iran to get one because countries with nuclear weapons appear to actually have sovereignty. Iran of course retains the possibility of making one, hoping that will have the same effect, but it appears that doesn't do it.

We don't need a second North Korea. Nor do we want to normalize every country starting a nuclear program.

Air strikes do not constitute boots on the ground, and the rules based norms around "you break it, you own it" ended with the last flight from Kabul. Most likely, we will conduct bombing raids, but take no part in nation building.

Ironically, South Korea wanted to do this to North Korea in 2003 (edit: 1993-94), but the Bush (edit: Clinton) administration pushed back because they were concentrating on Iraq and Afghanistan (edit: Yugoslavia).

Edit 1:

Nuclear weapons ALONE do not act as a deterrent anymore. Most nuclear countries have second/third strike capabilities and nuclear triad capabilities.

This is something that Iran has been working on for decades with a fairly robust ballistics and cruise missile program, and attempts at building a domestic nuclear submarine program.

More critically, just about every regional power in the Middle East has been investing in similar capabilities in case an Iran breakout happens. Going from 1 additonal country with nuclear weapons to 3-4 leads to a cascading domino effect (a nuclear Iran means a nuclear Saudi means a nuclear Turkiye means a nuclear Egypt...)

Edit 2:

For the downvoters - a country who's leadership explicitly chants "مرگ بر آمریکا" (Death to America) will unsurprisingly be viewed as a threat. Even our large rivals China or Russia do not normalize that kind of rhetoric.

> Ironically, South Korea wanted to do this to North Korea in 2003

Where did you get that info? Makes no sense. South Korea has been consistently against starting another war with NK for at least 30 years or so, and besides, in 2003 South Korea was ruled by Kim Dae-Jung, famous for he's staunch support of improving relations with North Korea (he got a Nobel prize for that), and then Roh Moo-Hyun, from the same party and largely following Kim's foreign policy.

Thanks to them we had no wars, and of course now we have some young whippersnappers complaining about their "pro-NK" policies, saying we could have totally bombed NK, starting a war, and burning the peninsula to the ground, but at least North Korea won't have nukes today!

This was during the 2002-03 standoff during which the Yeongpyeong crisis occured.

It was after the Six Party Talks started in Aug 2003 that tensions started cooling down, before North Korea stunned the world in 2006.

Edit: though now that I think about it, I might be confusing this incident with the 1993-94 incident.

Re: Death to America.

Why don't you go die!

I don't mean it literally, read: https://www.mypersiancorner.com/death-to-america-explained-o...

Isn't it great when people take things out of context? In this case the context that wishing death is quite common in Iranian expressions of frustrations?

I understand that the phrase is intended to call for the end of the US government, not the end of the US people.

That even better supports my point though. Diplomacy is between two governments, not one government and the population of another government. Iran has practiced diplomacy at times, but calling for the end of the US government wouldn't exactly fit well in the implied reality of Iran having done everything they could diplomatically.

While I understand not wanting countries like North Korea and Iran having nukes, it does protect them from invasion. We've seen what happened after Ukraine gave up their nukes. Less we forget, the Neocons of the Bush era wanted to remake the entire Middle East, not just Iraq and Afghanistan.

> nukes ... protect them from invasion

Israel has nukes and Hamas still invaded them.

Perhaps nukes protect you from invasion by rational actors, but I don't think they work on zealots.

And yet Israel does not denuclearize.

I certainly hope Iran's adversaries are rational actors.

Nukes alone do not prevent invasions.

You need to have delivery mechanisms like medium/long range ballistic missiles and second strike capabilities like SLCMs.

Iran has been amply demonstrating their missile capabilities on the city of Tel Aviv for the past week.

Which country with nukes has been invaded?

The actions of the US and Israel are only proving an unfortunate trend of reality: The only deterrence against invasion from other countries is nuclear deterrence. We had a comprehensive deal with Iran to limit their nuclear program which Trump tore up in 2017 and which Israel is taking advantage of today.

Oil for starters. Iran is the principle destabilising element in the middle east. By proxy they are participating in every conflict.

A nuclear iran would be completely intolerable, never mind that their regime might just be lunatic enough to use them.

Add that war is bad for the whole world.

So the us benefits that it protects her economic (and strategic) interests in the ME, which are real and extremely important, at the low cost of a limited air campaign.

There are further moral arguments, but i'm answering your question in the most direct way.

Israel is the principal destabilising element in the Middle East. It cannot even be argued at this point. It's them, the Israelis.

That is true in much the same way that the UK caused ww2 by refusing to make peace with the Germans in 1940. Or the soviets for selfishly resisting their invasion attempt.

Israel doesn't start any wars, it just finishes them. Hamas, hezbolla, syria, yemen and iran started up with Israel for no good reason. So they end up with a bloody nose. That's on them.

Israel is committing genocide in Gaza as we speak and is expanding settlements more and more in the West Bank. The end game of the Israelis is very clearly complete ethnic cleansing. Israel is no victim here, it's a settler colonialist state that happens to be successful in being a settler colonialist state.

> Hamas, hezbolla, syria, yemen and iran started up with Israel for no good reason

If the UN decided to put a country for the Roma in the middle of India, how do you think that turn out? Very well or very badly? Is it surprising that everything turned out so badly in the ME with regards Israel? Seems obvious to me that putting a new country in the middle of a colony just as said colony is gaining independence seems like a shit idea?

Simply put, the very creation of Israel was fundamentally destabilising. We basically torpedoed our relations with the entire Islamic world (and especially the Arab world) just for the sake of some mostly (at that time) European colonists in Israel (who later became Israelis). That was retarded as shit. Say what you like about how good it was for the Israelis, but for us that was shit geopolitics, shit realpolitik, and a shit deal. Israel has now, rather predictably, become an ethnofascist state run by a (war)criminal. And we enabled them the whole way. And for what??? How exactly has anyone in the West actually benefited from this? It was clearly good for Israel and for Israelis, but how have we benefited from this???

i actually hate it when people pull the victim card and i can't stand apologists either but happily i have a very pragmatic answer;

the West benefits from israel that at least one country in the region isn't an authoritarian hellhole and actually contributes to the global economy beyond just providing petrol.

You might resent it but that's the truth.

That's my point though, that's not pragmatic in the slightest. It would be ruthlessly pragmatic to favour the 400M Arabs and 2B Muslims over the 10M Israelis. The Israeli economy is 0.5% of global GDP.

> region isn't an authoritarian hellhole

It's colonising the West Bank, committing genocide in Gaza, is led by a (war)criminal... Israel is arguably worse than many of its neighbours. I honestly don't care how good gay people have it in Tel Aviv when they're simultaneously committing genocide in Gaza or settling the West Bank like it's 1899. And yeah Israel is a democracy but they use their democratic choice to vote for a war criminal who's in bed with the settlers and other theocratic extremists. So Israel is really no better than many of its neighbours and arguably worse than many of them. And it's only getting worse, the Israelis are only becoming crazier and more extreme. And now they've got the US into a war with Iran. Sorry, 0.5% of GDP: not fucking worth it.

You are exaggerating. Israel is not that bad and they and the Arab states have basically worked things out by now. And America are not in a war with Iran. They are simply engaging in bigger arms diplomacy.

I am not exaggerating at all. Israel is that bad, indeed it's worse than many of its neighbours.

> And America are not in a war with Iran

Bombing a country's nuclear infrastructure is surely an act of war.

We're going to see a big turn from Israel in the West. Boomers are absolutely obsessed with the place but the younger generations aren't. Netanyahu throwing his lot in with Trump means that Israel will become a partisan issue. Europeans already have mostly turned against Israel: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/03/public-support...

It's seeming more and more like Israel, which propped up Hamas for example, is the principal destabilizing element in the region, and therefore really it's America, which spearheaded the original overthrow of Iranian democracy, alongside all its other middle eastern meddling for the last fifty years.

> Iran is the principle destabilising element in the middle east

Says Israel, the nation who tore up every single international laws, directly led campaign against UN and ICC, and whose right-wing (ones in power now) have been dreaming about a Greater Israel that threatens territorial integrity of like 10 different ME countries.

>Oil

If we want their oil, we can buy it like reasonable people do. What you're referring to is armed robbery.

>Iran is the principle destabilising element in the middle east

Is this a joke? The country that has not started any wars in its 300 year existence is not the "destabilizing element". That would be the country that has attacked Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran this year alone.

This is a strange comparison. Iran funds the Houthis, for example, who commit plenty of acts of war. And if you’re talking about starting wars, it’s worth noting that the present war in Gaza was started by Hamas. (I’m making no statement about whether the actions of either side or justified — I’m just pointing out that, in the present shooting war, the first shots were fired by Hamas, not Israel.)

You ignore decades of aggression and occupation in Gaza, along with the 4 other countries Israel has decided to launch wars against this year. "But Hamas" is not a convincing argument.

I’m not ignoring anything. The situation in Gaza and elsewhere has been horrible for decades. Israel has imposed various forms of nastiness on Gaza, and I imagine that Israel’s government and many of its people saw some of that nastiness (heavy handed restrictions on imports to Gaza for example) as necessary, since Hamas quite regularly converted whatever materials they could into weapons to fire across the border into Israel. Meanwhile, I imagine that Hamas, and many of the people of Gaza, saw that as necessary because Israel treated them poorly. It was a catch-22. Meanwhile, Iran most definitely interfered heavily from the sidelines, and I imagine that Iran’s government had reasons that seemed valid to them.

The situation was and remains unstable, and the factors that made it unstable were did not come from just one place. And you don’t have to look hard to find acts of war initiated by multiple different parties in the area.

I think that claiming that any one country “decided to launch wars” against multiple other parties ignores a whole lot of complexity.

You misunderstood me. I was talking about oil from the other gulf states. About 25 percent of the global oil supply goes through the straight of Hormuz. If iran were to disrupt that it would be disastrous for obvious reasons.

It's logical for the West to work to prevent that from being a possibility.

Iran/persia is far older then 300 years old. But again you somehow missed the point. I was talking about the current 40 year old regime, which while not having directly started any wars, have since the beginning declared their intentions to do so against America and Israel.

Really you are being deliberately obtuse.

>I was talking about the current 40 year old regime

Oh, and how did it come to power?

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