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Comment by franktankbank | Hacker News Reader

I'm sorry if my general discourse is grating in this thread/in general on HN. It really is just kind of who I am and how I figure things out for myself, I'm very off the cuff and unafraid of looking/being stupid if it wins me some knowledge. I think the point of my question is that I predict this is how the conversation is going to go in the next few days (if the bombs start dropping), and I guess I'm trying to predict for myself where this conflict is headed. Big picture, Strait of Hormuz is just one front on the war to get Iran to submit which as stated is to remove their ability to achieve the bomb (if you believe the initial justifications). I don't know if that sheds any light on what my goals were or if it gave you a migraine. Apologies if the second.

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> as stated is to remove their ability to achieve the bomb

As stated by the people committing the violence today and threatening massive civilian death and destruction, Iran's ability to achieve the bomb was already destroyed many months ago.

Non proliferation is over and done with. Every country that can afford it and has the capability will have the bomb. There is no way this genie will go back in the bottle. And that means that a future nuclear war - if not today - is all but a certainty.

So I guess we just gotta bomb every country until they call uncle!

If the capability of making a bomb is enough to allow bombing them, and every country has the capability to make a bomb, than what is the rubric again? When do we stop bombing?

You may be on to something here. Trump is too stupid to realize he's opening Pandora's box.

And all that to distract from a rape scandal...

You can believe whatever you want but I actually don't believe that Iran would use that bomb offensively even if they have been threatening to do so. In that sense they would be no different than all but two other nuclear powers. Only one country has ever used nuclear weapons and only two countries have threatened to use them in recent memory. Iran was more or less bottled up until Trump decided to cancel the deal that was in place and since then it has been going down further and further. You don't escalate like this unless you are prepared to deal with the consequences and it is pretty clear that Trump had absolutely no plan post the initial bombings and has been winging it. That makes him super dangerous, not just to Iran but to pretty much the whole world.

This conflict has the potential to spiral out of control in ways that make my hair stand on end and to not put too fine a point on it, it's the first time in my life that I actually wonder if there will be a tomorrow as we know it because apparently some idiot thinks he has the power to decide over life and death for 100's of thousands of people and for once the person with that power is deranged enough that he might actually use it unprovoked. In a sane world this guy would be behind bars instead of at the top of the food chain.

The Strait of Hormuz was open 6 weeks ago and Iran was not as determined to 'get the bomb' then as they are now.

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