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Comment by dotancohen | Hacker News Reader

American citizens have known since 1973 that their dependence on oil puts them at the mercy of every Middle East dictator. The governments have known this clearly since the 1940s - see the Barbarossa operation. The US had literal generations to reduce their oil dependency and yet chose to remain dependent. It has nothing to do with the current war.

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The US succeeded in reducing their oil dependency and the country is now a net exporter. That doesn't solve the environmental concerns, nor hermetically seal the country from trends in global oil markets, but the US's energy independence agenda has definitely been successful on its own terms.

Unfortunately, it hasn't diminished the number of American foreign policy experts who think it's very important to fight lots of wars in the Middle East.

It seems to me that the current war in the middle east has more to do with ensuring those who chant Death To America do not develop nuclear weapons and to set back their ballistic missile program.

It's kind of a problem if you can't definitely say why a war of aggression is being fought, no? But if we do say that this war is being primarily fought to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, then it has to be considered an unmitigated failure. The current outlook is immeasurably worse than it was at the end of the Biden administration, and I'd charitably describe Biden as having done next to nothing to stop them.

I agree those are big problems! That's why I supported JCPOA. The US foreign policy blob wanted to bomb Iran instead, though, with very unclear explanations of how bombing Iran would cause a kind and non-belligerent government to take over. The more articulate members seem to take it as an article of faith that people react to American bombs by doing what the American government wants; the less articulate members have just been insulting journalists when they ask basic questions about whether there's a plan or what the goal is.

A treaty whose key articles would start expiring in.. late 2025. Which Iran had no motivation whatsoever to extend had it being kept (imagine this Iran but with 2-4 trillion dollars more, more than a few going to drones and missiles). You'd have this war but on way worse terms.

If Trump truly cared about nukes, he wouldn't have torn up the treaty in his first term. This war's about catering to Israel and distracting from the Epstein files.

The treaty that would have expired in January 2026 and left Iran with far more resources? Biden gave Iran $6 billion, a month later the Gazans infiltrated Israel with Iranian-funded weaponry.

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