If it’s any consolation, it appears a strike by the US is imminent based on hardware that has been repositioned, with the backing or approval of the Saudis.
Well yes. The question is how many more would have had to die to get it. This question doesn’t have an easy answer. To the extent there are wrong ones, it’s anyone claiming confidence.
I have no sympathy for the Japanese who killed tens of millions of people in their WW2 atrocities, and the two bombs killed orders of magnitude fewer of their people. I also see no reason to pretend that there weren't obvious alternatives to USA dropping nukes on their cities if we are to believe that the objective was merely getting Japan to surrender (an objective most difficult to believe). No need for pretense -- they wanted to demonstrate their new weapons, AND they wanted to kill a lot of Japanese.
There is a reason it took bombing both Hiroshima and Nagasaki to cause surrender. And if you telegraph that you’re going to bomb a remote place and the bomb fails, you’ve undermined your weapon’s credibility in unique ways.
I’m not saying you’re wrong. Just that your confidence is wrong. What you’re talking about was contemporaneously and continues to be historically debated.
I'm no historian but this point doesn't sound very noteworthy unless it was the leadership who wanted that surrender. It took two bombs to make them surrender; they didn't surrender after the first.
Edit: actually this is much more nuanced than I think either of us make it sound. Japan did send out "peace feelers", but they were more like "we want peace but we don't accept your terms." The Japanese required that the US allow retention of the emperor, no occupation, self-conducted war crime trials, and even possibly keeping some of their conquered territory. The US wanted an unconditional surrender.
Furthermore they could have only destroyed only one city if Hiroshima had been an at sea demonstration instead, maybe even destroy zero cities.
After which Japan surrendered.
This logic is like arguing 99% of a drug doesn’t do anything because the bug is only eradicated by the last effective molecule.
> they could have only destroyed only one city if Hiroshima had been an at sea demonstration instead, maybe even destroy zero cities
This was considered. The bombs’ unreliability (and cost) made it a non-starter.
Given the immediate response to Hiroshima was disbelief, surely an at-sea demonstration would have been even less convincing than the observable absence of a city?
Even once the Japanese government confirmed that Hiroshima had indeed been destroyed by a nuclear weapon, part of the reason Nagasaki followed Hiroshima was that the Japanese forces estimated the US couldn't have built more than one or two more (they were correct, they just hadn't internalised what losing an entire city meant).
Even after Nagasaki, there were some who attempted a coup to prevent surrender: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyūjō_incident
It doesn’t. Maybe there is a Delcy Rodriguez in the IRGC. I’m doubtful. If there isn’t, we have the option of creating a power vacuum or quarantining the problem.
I’m arguing for the latter. The Azeri-majority northnorth to Azerbaijan; the Turkic areas to its west to Turkey [1]. Balochistani southeast to Pakistan. Arab southwest to Iraq. Hell, if you’re ambitious, find a way to give Bandar Abbas to the Emiratis and secure the Strait of Hormuz.
[1]: I won't be surprised if regime change will be coming for Erdogan not too far from now, after Iran is done.
[2]: If US really wants to shit on the region like that, there are various cards they could have played much easier: unleash groups like MEK/Kurds and start a civil war. So far, it does appear Israel/US behavior, like the way they conducted the 12 day war, is to keep Iran intact and does not mess with the balance of power in the region as much as possible.
This is strongly contested.
> we can easily find someone who is able and willing from the army or even an IRGC figure who would eagerly jump on the opportunity
This is not the history of nation building.
> Even among the minorities--let alone the majority--you specified, it is not clear that separation is the predominant preference
They have insurgencies for a reason. Many of these groups were also promised some level of self governance, promises which have been trotted back.
> why would United States prefer to hand over such important region to arguably as bad or worse governing bodies like Pakistan, Taliban, or Iraq, and questionable partners like Turkey
Never said Taliban. We have influence over Iraq. And even Pakistan isn’t really fucking with American interests that much, and giving them Balochistan might help them with their anti-terror mission. (It would also piss off India. So maybe skip that, too.)
> to keep Iran intact and does not mess with the balance of power in the region as much as possible
I’m not suggesting this is currently U.S. strategy. I’m saying there are advantages to it over trying to do the Shah again. Namely, it shatters a regional problem more evenly and protects choke points around the Caspian and Strait of Hormuz.
Sure if you watch #AyatollahBBC or Democrat media who created the beast in the first place under Carter.
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The rest I will just let you wait and see... There may be some success on the Kurdish/Azeri separationist fronts, but there is less than zero chance Pakistan and Iraq could take over the rest of the country.
The majority of Iranians hate Pakistan and Arabs. The whole undercurrent of the protest is a nationalist movement to kick Islam and Arab culture out. You take a province here a province there; what to do with the rest?
Non-English language assessments from countries in Europe or Asia that haven’t been calling theirq shots wrong in the Middle East for two generations.
I’m not saying we can conclude the Shah is unpopular. Just that we only have quality evidence that he is narrowly popular, and at that moreso abroad and in English-language press.
> You take a province here a province there; what to do with the rest?
Let them have their mullahs. (Or not.) Taliban has been fine from a regional-security perspective. So, increasingly, is Syria.