And those "proxies" are not "against" America or Israel - they exist solely as resistance groups that counter Israeli aggression, ethic cleansing, land theft etc. You know, like Israel is doing right now in their stated aim of annexing South Lebanon, after displacing over a million people from their homes. Without Israeli aggression and land theft, these resistance groups wouldn't exist.
They explicitly call for the destruction of Israel.
It’s tempting to turn adversary into heroism. But the truth is Iran has supported the laughter of Gazans and Yemenis to keep war away from its shores for a few more years. These proxies need to rule ruthlessly, like their parent, because they’re violent, ruthless and cruel regimes. Powerful. But no paragon, and certainly not one who give two shits about Western notions of who is committing genocide or war crimes against whom.
Such "religious extremism" that they've plainly had the capability to end Israel for many years, and yet have shown incredible restraint?
No, there are religious extremists involved for sure, but mostly of the Israeli variety.
One cleric issuing a prohibition while another pursues them isn’t particularly interesting from a political perspective.
> they've plainly had the capability to end Israel for many years
They plainly have not. Their proxies were insufficient. And their kinetics prone to interception and destruction at source.
> there are religious extremists involved for sure, but mostly of the Israeli variety
They’re both extremist. Iran has been funding extremists around the Middle East, in Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis. Israel has a religious nutter wing in charge turbocharged by America’s own camp of evangelical idiots.
Except there's no evidence that any in Iran were pursuing nuclear weapons - Joe Kent has said every intelligence agency in the US agrees with that. British intelligence has agrees with that. Even the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) agrees.
It's plain that this war was started at the behest and benefit of Israel. And Israel is also using it as cover to annex Southern Lebanon, just as they want a slice of Iran.
> They’re both extremist. Iran has been funding extremists around the Middle East, in Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis.
See, those groups would call themselves resistance against Israeli aggression - afterall, resistance against constant Israel aggression is the only reason they even exist!
> Israel has a religious nutter wing in charge
Oh, it's much more than one nutter. Netanyahu may well be dead (he hasn't made any public appearance in a while, and Israel has been releasing AI videos of him), yet the genocide, ethnic cleansing and aggression continue, unabated. And let's not forgot about Israel and US' proxies in the region, ISIS and Al Qaeda.