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Comment by bawolff | Hacker News Reader

Rational negotiations have to be based on the relative power of the parties.

It made sense for iran to try to negotiate with the US because the alternative was a war they had no chance to win. Arguably it also made sense for them to not come to an agreement because USA wanted concessesions the Iranian regime probably couldn't do while still staying in power given how weak they are domestically.

> I don't support any of these creeps but if any of them were minimally rational, they would have all gone to total war with Israel and the US the minute they realized what Hamas was doing on October 7th.

Israel's ability to divide and conqour its enemies here has been pretty impressive.

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> It made sense for iran to try to negotiate with the US because the alternative was a war they had no chance to win.

They have no chance of winning no matter what. At least inflict some damage on your enemy while you die like Hamas chose (although I disagree with the fact that they chose that for a lot of innocent people too.)

The US isn't ever going to leave anyone, let alone Iran, alone. The options are a) fight and cease to exist and b) don't fight and cease to exist.

> The US isn't ever going to leave anyone, let alone Iran, alone. The options are a) fight and cease to exist and b) don't fight and cease to exist.

Oh boy, I see we learned nothing from Afghanistan. The US will eventually leave you alone, There will be a power vacuum, and the local warlord will rise to that opportunity.

The "military operations" don't end in decisive vistory. They end with death and destruction for the young men sent into battle, and more enemies in the surrounding areas.

The US hasn't left Afghanistan alone. They were driven out of the country by force. They are still attacking it in multiple different ways and will continue to do so until they are defeated. Time did not end when the US was kicked out. They aren't just going to give up their goals.

I do not understand what argument you are trying to make. Nowhere do I say that time stands still or that the US doesn't still have a policy for Afghanistan. I'm saying that the US (and her allies, my country among them), with their war machine the likes of which has never been seen, could not bring peace and democracy to Afghanistan. Once we left, and we will always have to leave eventually, the existing structures of opression once again asserted themselves.

My country and my Government, sent people from my generation down there to die. My countrymen died in that war, and the only thing we got out of it was more enemies in the region. The Afghan is still getting persecuted for styling their beard wrong, and the Afghan woman is still getting opressed. We have nothing to show for that sacrifice.

I see no reason to believe the same thing isn't going to happen in Iran.

> Once we left, and we will always have to leave eventually, the existing structures of opression once again asserted themselves.

The US keeps coming back is what I'm saying. The US was kicked out of Iran in 1953. That's what all this is about. They will do the same to Afghanistan eventually. That's what I meant by time didn't stop. The Taliban isn't safe by any means. It's just a temporary reprieve.

> with their war machine the likes of which has never been seen, could not bring peace and democracy to Afghanistan.

As far as i understand, the US propped up an unpopular governmet that many of the locals did not like (there were rumours about turning a blind eye to moral impropriety because it was politically expediant).

The thing about democracy is its not really democracy when forced from the outside.

> As far as i understand, the US propped up an unpopular governmet that many of the locals did not like

From what I've read it's not that simple. The American system was more well liked in the cities than the alternatives. Outside the big cities, which is most of Afghanistan, the government really didn't matter much. They were still dominated by local malitias, "elders", and gangs.

To add insult to injury, the US led effort to build up an internal defense force in the country found that the only people willing to fight for the country were the very same people who had fought for the Taliban only years before.

The question left unsaid of course is if all of these problems could have been solved by a more competent actor. I would argue they couldn't have, that you can't bring peace through war, but reasonable minds can disagree.

Large military operations and wars typically kill more civilians then fighters.

> The US isn't ever going to leave anyone, let alone Iran, alone. The options are a) fight and cease to exist and b) don't fight and cease to exist.

Well i think this is true in the present moment, i think its also important to recognize that we got to this point by a series of decisions that Iran made. They boxed themselves into this corner via long term strategic blunders.

E.g. if they threatened US & israeli interests less (i.e. did not support proxy groups), US and Israel probably wouldnt find it worth it to go this far. Alternatively if they paid more attention to the home front and kept their people happy, there would be less pressure for them to not lose face during negotiations which might allow them to make concessions they cant currently.

> At least inflict some damage on your enemy while you die like Hamas chose (although I disagree with the fact that they chose that for a lot of innocent people too.)

Ultimately? If the people who are going to kill you were elected into power by those "innocent people", why would you not lash out at them too? Some twisted sense of morality or taking the high road?

I don't know what you're talking about. It sounds like you might be saying Israelis who elected Likud (and the supporting parties) are not innocent. If that's what you mean, then I agree, but that wasn't what I was referring to.

I was speaking of the Gazans who originally elected Hamas to protect them but where Hamas eventually decided to sacrifice masses of them to achieve some of their goals. They knew what would happen and did it anyway, without the people's consent.

Thank you - I appreciate that, I was indeed thinking of that, not Gaza and Hamas.

As it is now, I agree and Hamas is about the only group in Gaza that has any weaponry, so they can continue to oppress.

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