US spend a decade fighting in Afghanistan and 0 years in Pakistan despite UBL being in Pakistan.
9/11 was used as an excuse to for these regime change wars. There are old videos where they were talking about doing this in the 2000s.
And even nuclear armed nations aren’t exactly able to use their weapons to devastate an opponents military - see Ukraine and Russia.
Today countries as various as Brazil and Australia are independent, sovereign nations. Even Ukraine which was invaded by nuclear-armed Russia is still sovereign and fighting. Iran for that matter still has its sovereignty, they just lost some military assets.
But I largely agree, if you aren't a giant economy and you don't have nukes - then if the US or Russia accesses you of building nukes, you need to start building nukes ASAP.
Well the prime minister who was elected promising not to bend the knee to Trump has bent the knee to trump.
Even despite Trump, I think the US and many western countries have actual friends that would show up if bad things happened.
It looks like it might even be Iran.
Israel only just (before this US bombing) claimed they had set Iran's nuclear program back by 2-3 years. I found the timing of the announcement curious.
This after suffering extensive damage from direct missile strikes (Haifa port/refinery, Mossad headquarters, Wiezmann institute, C4I/cyber defense, etc). I think the missile strikes have been much more damaging than expected and understandably under-reported. Weapons expert Ted Postol of MIT claims Israel's missile defense is only intercepting around 5%.
I think Israel will be very unhappy if things continue to escalate without further US involvement. Depending on how Iran retaliates against the US, further involvement might not be forthcoming. We've seen seen Iran attack a US base in Jordan without causing escalation from the US. Could expect something similar.
Do you have a link to this? I’m curious to read more.
From about 2:50
Also talks about the likely success of the 'bunker busters' at Fodrow.
mossad hq - miss. hit sewage instead https://imgur.com/a/L3PUqCi
weizman - bombed wing that contains cancer and rare deceases research labs. amazing
C4I/cyber defense. missed. hit soroka hospital.
But even a not very effective permutation of a dirty bomb seems like it could lead to headlines that look more "positive" for their leadership. (IE create outsized headlines.)
I hope the US can use hindsight right now to guide the next decisions.
Otherwise uncle Sam will let you know you have them
If Iran is willing to use its nuclear weapons in response to this (limited, conventional air strikes), then that's a clear demonstration they aren't rational actors and can't be trusted with nuclear weapons.
Perceptions of trustworthiness and rationality are orthogonal to a nation's incentives to acquire nukes.
Remember that in much of the middle east, Iran is considered an enemy.
If Kim can get nukes, Khomeini can gets nukes.
Iran's religious dictator issued a Fatwa declaring nukes haram. This is why they've consistently stopped at 60% enrichment.
In a religious cult, everything rides on the leadership. He can't just come out and change his mind. He must have a very definitive reason that doesn't disagree with the reasoning in the previous Fatwa. His only real out is an existential threat where threatening a nuke becomes a tool to preserve lives.
Israel and the US have now given him that out. It remains to be seen if he actually takes it.
I'm old enough to remember when we (the US) ran this exact playbook, except the last letter was 'q' instead of 'n'.
Spoiler: the B-2 played a part in both of the big wars we lost in the last couple of decades. The problem hinges on the definition of "work": yes, the bombs hit what they are aimed at. No, that does not result in operational success without a coherent theory of victory.
What happened next? Did it go to plan? Nearly to plan? Close enough to plan that one could kind of squint and give partial credit? Worse than that?
Did the US lose more lives in Iraq (and kill more Iraqis) before or after "Mission Accomplished"?
saddam is gone and there was a regime change.
that's it. that's what we were talking about.
no need to go into other areas of the conversation that didn't exist before you came along to insert some reason why you feel justified defending a regime that oppresses women through a "morality police" force. i don't care why you think they should be allowed to have nukes. i'm sure you can argue for it all day. you don't need to get philosophical about what is "winning" or "working".
if you can't agree on objective reality and what we are discussing, we have nothing to discuss. move on
the US lost nearly 5,000 service members in Iraq. We are still paying for the $3 trillion the war cost. Americans derived no benefit whatsoever from the change of regime in Iraq, a country that had not attacked us.
As an American who lives in a US city not currently under attack by Iran, it is reasonable to ask why we should sign up for this again. This has absolutely zero with defending Iran. How they manage their domestic affairs has no bearing on me.
If there is a case to be made that we should curtail our urgent domestic policy goals in favor of another war thousands of miles from the US, it has not been made.
My concern is this: I have no dog in this fight, but now I am going to be asked to pay for it. And it working like it "worked" in Iraq is my primary concern on that front.
Isolating the first 3 weeks or so from an 8-year war to say that it "worked" is obviously a special kind of sophistry. I'm not sure what purpose is served by such an analysis, honestly.
This hasn't aged well...unsurprisingly