War with...Iran?

[Sajuuk]

I think that this misses the era that we live in, and unless the center right and center left adapt we will see a swing to the hard right. Competent governance from the center has yielded to a muddled status quo that leaves the field open for the far right.

A large swathe of voters have just given up on the status quo of "Assets go up; cost of living becomee more challenging;everyone is openly trying to offshore/automate you out of a job; DC is run by special interests." Especially after the Iraq War, Global Financial Crisis, post-COVID inflation, Epstein, Gaza, and similar events that have cemented the primacy of and lack of accountability for a cohort of flawed elites. They're willing to hit the big red button and see what change brings instead of slowly grinding down their hope for the future. Especially given that ossified, co-opted government looks feckless and useless compared to a single strong leader.

Voters have been flocking to the possibility of change with Obama and Trump (save for a pandemic flight to stability with Biden). And 2024 was all about "throwing the bums out" after the Democratic candidate was revealed to be in severe decline and his empty replacement couldn't answer basic questions like "what would you do differently from the incumbent?"

The optimal response is to harness the power of FDR spinning in his grave to open up a clean energy revolution that floats all boats. The next best option would be shaking off the lobbyists and MATERIALLY starting to correct the systemic abuse of the average voter so they're not desperation voting towards change. Patting each other on the back and dismissing half the electorate as fatally stupid is just lazy accelerationism.

TL;DR: You need to articulate a courageous plan for change instead of muddling forward or voters will throw the bums out and default to the far right.

The optimal response is to harness the power of FDR spinning in his grave to open up a clean energy revolution that floats all boats.

This is not really born out by voting patterns. Green New Deal proposals have been roundly rejected by both politicians and the electorate. The Biden administration got the BBBA passed and their reward was being thrown out of the government. Is it a messaging problem? Partially, but the Democratic party can't control for 9/10 media outlets calling them communists. Is it an education issue? Partially, but again the Democratic party can't control for the last few decades of public education and Americans being taught that the state doing stuff is communist.

Voting is a feedback loop. If voters continue to vote out all the clean energy people, well, that's the lesson that will be learned.

 

[mpat]

Possibly, but recall Erdoğan cut a deal with the major Turkish-Kurd militant opposition group PKK very recently, and they are in process of disarming.
As long as the Iraqi or Iranian Kurds aren't talking about a single unified Kurdish state that includes Turkish territory, he's more likely to ignore them; and I haven't seen anything in that vein.

Erdogan was extremely negative towards Kurds in Syria working their way towards autonomy and intervened to prevent that. He was exceptionally pissy about the YPG and how the west was generally fine with them.

(Story is basically that the PKK was declared a terrorist organization back in the eighties because they were, essentially. They have since improved, but Türkiye is opposed to removing them from any terrorist list. YPG is a separate organization with strong ties to the PKK, and they have not been declared a terrorist organization because they haven't done any terror attacks, essentially. Türkiye thinks that this makes no sense as they consider the two to different faces of the same thing, but the west tried to make a difference so they could still work with YPG.)

What some Kurds in Iran and Iraq want, and possibly some people in the Trump Admin, is for Iranian Kurds with their territory to join the Kurdish Autonomous Regoin in Iraq.

And this is interesting. The policy of essentially the entire world since 1945 has been that we Do Not Move Lines On A Map. The maps remain the same, and then we declare some bits autonomous as a compromise, or freeze the conflict. In rare cases did we allow some countries to split up, but we don't cede land from one to the other. If that is no longer the policy, all of Africa is now up for grabs, and there a few weird corners even in Europe that might want to move. Everyone up to date on Sud-Tirol, for instance?

 

[VividVerism]

I’m really not up for arguing this again. My final word is to clarify that this post:



Is a straight up recitation of the Zionist Occupied Government antisemitic conspiracy theory. If y’all want to believe that “The U.S. has been a client state of Israel [for your] entire life,” just know that you’re buying into an argument that antisemites have been pushing for eons.

I think the view is overstated, but I'm not interpreting that conspiracy theory from it. I'm pretty sure it's merely bemoaning the outsized influence of AIPAC and similar groups on US politics, in Thank You and Best of Luck!'s characteristically hyperbolic and over-the-top rhetorical style. It's a fact that attracting the ire of AIPAC is political suicide for representatives in close election races. US congresspeople thus frequently walk on eggshells when criticizing or going against Israel's policies, and often lean hard into expressing unconditional support and providing unrestricted aid to Israel. It's easy to get jaded on that without any hint of antisemitism or secret cabals actually running the government. I doubt TYABOL would agree Israelis are literally running US government or even foreign policy, only that they call the shots vis a vis US policy on Israel, specifically.

For me, in previous administrations, even that last bit would be too much of a stretch. The current regime's explicitly stated unconditional and complete support combined with multiple military engagements at their behest does take it up a notch, though.

Our decades-long history of vetoing or voting against every UN action on occupied Palestine in opposition to pretty much the entire rest of the world doesn't help, but doesn't extend to the point of "control", just very twisted morals and abuse of power.

 

[flipside]

Possibly, but recall Erdoğan cut a deal with the major Turkish-Kurd militant opposition group PKK very recently, and they are in process of disarming.
As long as the Iraqi or Iranian Kurds aren't talking about a single unified Kurdish state that includes Turkish territory, he's more likely to ignore them; and I haven't seen anything in that vein.
What some Kurds in Iran and Iraq want, and possibly some people in the Trump Admin, is for Iranian Kurds with their territory to join the Kurdish Autonomous Regoin in Iraq.

Turkey will hardly accept a kurdish state next to its borders, even if it doesn‘t include turkish territory. A shame, because the Kurds are some of the more humane actors in a region of barbarians (in relation)

 

[Macam]

We're now setting the stage and rhetoric for boots on the ground:



Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is down by 90%. Meanwhile, NATO shot down a missile aimed for Turkey.

And the major news outlets are positively horny to be covering wars again, as every headline is now 42 pt font.

 

[Sajuuk]

We're now setting the stage and rhetoric for boots on the ground:



Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is down by 90%. Meanwhile, NATO shot down a missile aimed for Turkey.

And the major news outlets are positively horny to be covering wars again, as every headline is now 42 pt font.

Yet more evidence that public opinion is fundamentally irrelevant in America. Forever War 2 3: Electric Boogaloo, here we come.

 

[angrysand]

Iranian frigate is sunk by submarine off coast Srilanka.

so in international waters? is that generally allowed?

 

[Bad Monkey!]

so in international waters? is that generally allowed?

During a declared war? Of course. What would be disallowed would be to sink it in neutral territorial waters, or to sink it anywhere without a formal declaration of war.

 

[Sajuuk]

During a declared war? Of course. What would be disallowed would be to sink it in neutral territorial waters, or to sink it anywhere without a formal declaration of war.

Depending on which talking head you prefer, this is specifically not a war.

 

[linnen]

Was it a vote? Wasnt it just the islamists hijacked the revolution and screwing over everybody that had been revolting for liberal democracy?

The number of groups agitating for 'liberal democracy' that were not fronts for CIA or KGB supported strong-men at the time could have been counted with the fingers of one hand.

That said, the Revolutionary Guard (that occupied the American Embassy) and other groups supporting the Returned-From-Exile Khomeini did push out the more moderate groups.

 

[angrysand]

During a declared war? Of course. What would be disallowed would be to sink it in neutral territorial waters, or to sink it anywhere without a formal declaration of war.

I keep hearing the US hasn't declared war. not be overly pedantic or technical, but it seems like this keeps changign dependin gon what is happening and what action is being argued or defended.

 

[DarthSlack]

I think the view is overstated, but I'm not interpreting that conspiracy theory from it. I'm pretty sure it's merely bemoaning the outsized influence of AIPAC and similar groups on US politics, in Thank You and Best of Luck!'s characteristically hyperbolic and over-the-top rhetorical style. It's a fact that attracting the ire of AIPAC is political suicide for representatives in close election races. US congresspeople thus frequently walk on eggshells when criticizing or going against Israel's policies, and often lean hard into expressing unconditional support and providing unrestricted aid to Israel. It's easy to get jaded on that without any hint of antisemitism or secret cabals actually running the government. I doubt TYABOL would agree Israelis are literally running US government or even foreign policy, only that they call the shots vis a vis US policy on Israel, specifically.

For me, in previous administrations, even that last bit would be too much of a stretch. The current regime's explicitly stated unconditional and complete support combined with multiple military engagements at their behest does take it up a notch, though.

Our decades-long history of vetoing or voting against every UN action on occupied Palestine in opposition to pretty much the entire rest of the world doesn't help, but doesn't extend to the point of "control", just very twisted morals and abuse of power.

I think one of the major lessons from QAnon is that a huge slice of Americans don't recognize anti-semitic themes when they stumble into them. Most of QAnon's conspiracy theories had their roots in very old anti-semitic tropes like blood libel, but that was rarely, if ever, pointed out. So it wouldn't surprise me if posters here didn't entirely understand what they were insinuating, just like it wouldn't surprise me that better informed posters got seriously offended.

 

[Macam]

I keep hearing the US hasn't declared war. not be overly pedantic or technical, but it seems like this keeps changign dependin gon what is happening and what action is being argued or defended.

Correct. It’s all obfuscation and messaging to avoid accountability or being rhetorically cornered by the electorate or journalists in the moment. The regime can say whatever they want, but it doesn’t matter.

It’s a war, flat out.

 

[Papageno]

If anyone is interested there was an interesting interview today on WBUR'S OnPoint radio show with an exiled Iranian journalist and a Western academic who was imprisoned for some time in Iran after going under the auspices of an NGO during a period of seeming "liberalization" that was quickly co-opted and neutralized by the IRGC.

 

[Kyuu]

I think one of the major lessons from QAnon is that a huge slice of Americans don't recognize anti-semitic themes when they stumble into them. Most of QAnon's conspiracy theories had their roots in very old anti-semitic tropes like blood libel, but that was rarely, if ever, pointed out.

It was pointed out early and often.

So it wouldn't surprise me if posters here didn't entirely understand what they were insinuating, just like it wouldn't surprise me that better informed posters got seriously offended.

Reading antisemitism into any complaint about observed behavior of the Israeli government and the U.S. enabling their behavior is tiresome and counterproductive.

 

[Aurich]

The left has a massive anti-semitism problem.

It's weird how it's always the left has a massive anti-semitism problem, and never the right has a massive nazi problem.

So strange.

 

[Lycanthropos]

Well it's simple: the right doesn't think it's a problem. Just a nice multi-cultural club that 'respects tradition.' /s

 

[NewNinetyNine]

The optimal response is to harness the power of FDR spinning in his grave to open up a clean energy revolution that floats all boats.

This is not really born out by voting patterns. Green New Deal proposals have been roundly rejected by both politicians and the electorate. The Biden administration got the BBBA passed and their reward was being thrown out of the government. Is it a messaging problem? Partially, but the Democratic party can't control for 9/10 media outlets calling them communists. Is it an education issue? Partially, but again the Democratic party can't control for the last few decades of public education and Americans being taught that the state doing stuff is communist.

Voting is a feedback loop. If voters continue to vote out all the clean energy people, well, that's the lesson that will be learned.

It was a joke about how FDR's legacy of championing the man on the street over the oligarchs of his time has transitioned into lobbyists and donors leading politicians around by the nose.

Hence use of the phrase "spinning in his grave."

 

[Carewolf]

The number of groups agitating for 'liberal democracy' that were not fronts for CIA or KGB supported strong-men at the time could have been counted with the fingers of one hand.

That said, the Revolutionary Guard (that occupied the American Embassy) and other groups supporting the Returned-From-Exile Khomeini did push out the more moderate groups.

Right. Saying 'liberal democracy' was a mistake on my part, though that is how I have heard young Iranians describe the history, but I will trust historians over them. The other revolutionaries were mostly various types of communists.

 

[terrydactyl]

Yet more evidence that public opinion is fundamentally irrelevant in America. Forever War 2 3: Electric Boogaloo, here we come.

It's that line attributed to William Randolph Hearst to a correspondent, "You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war."

 

[wobblytickle]

I've not been able to confirm that this 1.1 Bil$ radar site was hit to the extent being claimed. Anyone have any hard evidence either way?

"US AN/FPS-132 early warning radar system at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, valued at $1.1 billion, which was hit with a missile strike by Iran on Saturday. Qatar confirmed that the radar was hit and damaged."

I mean if the Qatari's are admitting it got hit, billion dollar sensitive instruments generally require complete rebuilds after a missile hit. Iran is showing that there are big holes in the defenses of the West. I don't imagine they'll be able to sustain it after a few more days of US/Israel strikes on anything that resembles a target there, but you would think that 1.1 billion dollar radar specifically for tracking ballistic missiles might have a some anti - BM assets protecting it. Apparently not, or they don't work.

Came across this this evening:


View: https://bsky.app/profile/brucewilson.bsky.social/post/3mgacp2j2ps2n


which I think has different sources?

 

[wco81]

Israeli and US Intelligence have sources so deep in Iranian government that they knew that the top leadership would all be together. Netanyahu has been waiting for this day for decades and decided to launch because he knew Trump was too weak to stop him.

They have a religious thing against Zoom or FaceTime or WhatsApp video calls?

It's not like there was little chance of the US and Israel striking. They did it last year and the US has been building up forces for weeks before they finally struck.

So an all-hands meeting in person is like putting a searchlight aimed straight above from the meeting place.

 

[Klinn]

The New Republic's short post about Hegseth's recent press conference noted:

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth spoke unapologetically about causing “death and destruction from the sky all day long” in Iran at a press briefing Wednesday.

Hegseth proudly crowed Monday that this war with Iran has “no stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy-building exercise, no politically correct wars,” meaning that “playing for keeps” doesn’t mean a proper transition of power.

Through Hegseth, the Trump administration is saying that it doesn’t care about civilian casualties, war crimes, or any kind of well-being for the Iranian people. It’s more bravado and machismo

Demonstrating once again that he's a demented sociopath loser who shouldn't be trusted with anything more powerful than a water pistol.

Hegseth also complained that the press was making Trump "look bad" with all the reporting on casualties (including Americans), the bombing of a school, going to war without authorization or any sort of idea of an outcome other than the aforementioned "death and destruction".

Poor, poor Hegseth & Trump, even Fox is turning against them. So sad.

 

[ramases]

Don't call for the deaths of elected officials. It's really not that high bar for civil discourse on a message board.

In this case: Eh.

dio82 didn't call for the murder or extrajudicial killing of elected officials. They called for their conviction: They made an argument that a certain law of the US has been violated, and that the perpretators of that crime shall be held responsible for their actions under that law.

The possible sentences for violating that law include capital punishment.

I don't like that, because I am opposed to the death penalty for any crime under any circumstance. However both the laws of the US and the current US administration disagree; Donald Trump lifted the moratorium on the federal death penalty twice. However much I hate the circumstance, I have to say I'd hate placing elected officials above the law even less.

 

[wco81]

Apologists of Israeli actions will never stop playing the anti-semitism card.

As if there's no rationale for criticizing the things Israel are DOING as opposed to attacking them for their ethnic or religious identity.

 

[Deleted member 28951]

I think that this misses the era that we live in, and unless the center right and center left adapt we will see a swing to the hard right. Competent governance from the center has yielded to a muddled status quo that leaves the field open for the far right.

A large swathe of voters have just given up on the status quo of "Assets go up; cost of living becomee more challenging;everyone is openly trying to offshore/automate you out of a job; DC is run by special interests." Especially after the Iraq War, Global Financial Crisis, post-COVID inflation, Epstein, Gaza, and similar events that have cemented the primacy of and lack of accountability for a cohort of flawed elites. They're willing to hit the big red button and see what change brings instead of slowly grinding down their hope for the future. Especially given that ossified, co-opted government looks feckless and useless compared to a single strong leader.

Voters have been flocking to the possibility of change with Obama and Trump (save for a pandemic flight to stability with Biden). And 2024 was all about "throwing the bums out" after the Democratic candidate was revealed to be in severe decline and his empty replacement couldn't answer basic questions like "what would you do differently from the incumbent?"

The optimal response is to harness the power of FDR spinning in his grave to open up a clean energy revolution that floats all boats. The next best option would be shaking off the lobbyists and MATERIALLY starting to correct the systemic abuse of the average voter so they're not desperation voting towards change. Patting each other on the back and dismissing half the electorate as fatally stupid is just lazy accelerationism.

TL;DR: You need to articulate a courageous plan for change instead of muddling forward or voters will throw the bums out and default to the far right.

Very likely. I'm not American so don't follow US politics as closely as USians in the SB do.
I will just say that I lived in the US in 1991-1994, followed the 1992 presidential campaign very closely, and even back then it was clear to me neither the R or D parties counted as political parties from a civics viewpoint. They were both governing elites from the same political class where power was its own goal, not public service or ideology. This was all the more evident given the numerous dynasties, and the very minimal candidate turnaround, let alone new ideas.
/offtopic

 

[Macam]

The New Republic's short post about Hegseth's recent press conference noted:



Demonstrating once again that he's a demented sociopath loser who shouldn't be trusted with anything more powerful than a water pistol.

Hegseth also complained that the press was making Trump "look bad" with all the reporting on casualties (including Americans), the bombing of a school, going to war without authorization or any sort of idea of an outcome other than the aforementioned "death and destruction".

Poor, poor Hegseth & Trump, even Fox is turning against them. So sad.

Hegseth is exactly why most administrations don't look to the Xbox Live community to source their next Secretary of Defense.

 

[Deleted member 28951]

Turkey will hardly accept a kurdish state next to its borders, even if it doesn‘t include turkish territory. A shame, because the Kurds are some of the more humane actors in a region of barbarians (in relation)

Maybe, maybe not.
Erdoğan has his work cut out for him dealing with the Turkish economy, and now also getting Iranian missiles launched at Turkey (for no reason that anyone can understand).
Turkey is also straining with a huge number of Syrian refugees (one of the good things which can be said about Erdoğan), and has already said it'll have a problem accepting many Iranian ones.
He used to be a moderate Islamist (Turkey is fairly progressive w.r.t. women, no Burqas, just hijabs) but has become a Jihad supporter.

I don't think a Kurdish state/autonomy with no desire to bite off Turkish territory will be high on his list of priorities.

 

[KobayashiSaru]

USians

I get the reasoning that "Americans should refer to anyone living on the western continents" but given that this has basically become a pejorative term used against US Citizens as whole (I see it used a lot lately to express anti-US sentiments towards regular citizens), this probably falls under the "cutesy name" rule.

Edit: added linked context (it's the only other social media site I really look at where political matters and current events are discussed regularly)

 

[Peldor]

New soap box mod?

 

[KobayashiSaru]

Sorry, wasn't trying to armchair mod but also felt like it would be sort of petty and annoying to the mods to report about where a mod might feel the need to reprimand and my comment was supposed to just be a "hey man, heads up before this becomes a thing" kind of thing, not finger-pointy.

 

[Deleted member 28951]

Erdogan was extremely negative towards Kurds in Syria working their way towards autonomy and intervened to prevent that. He was exceptionally pissy about the YPG and how the west was generally fine with them.

(Story is basically that the PKK was declared a terrorist organization back in the eighties because they were, essentially. They have since improved, but Türkiye is opposed to removing them from any terrorist list. YPG is a separate organization with strong ties to the PKK, and they have not been declared a terrorist organization because they haven't done any terror attacks, essentially. Türkiye thinks that this makes no sense as they consider the two to different faces of the same thing, but the west tried to make a difference so they could still work with YPG.)



And this is interesting. The policy of essentially the entire world since 1945 has been that we Do Not Move Lines On A Map. The maps remain the same, and then we declare some bits autonomous as a compromise, or freeze the conflict. In rare cases did we allow some countries to split up, but we don't cede land from one to the other. If that is no longer the policy, all of Africa is now up for grabs, and there a few weird corners even in Europe that might want to move. Everyone up to date on Sud-Tirol, for instance?

The world is still full of border disputes, and that includes Europe.
Spain still claims all of Gibraltar, saying the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht was illegal.
Of course, that dispute thankfully doesn't include people shooting at each other.

There's nothing magic about borders, anywhere, and there are plenty of places where there are de-facto borders which have nothing to do with "official" borders. E.g., Taiwan, Kashmir, and places which never had official borders at all.
"Do Not Move Lines On A Map" was never official policy.

 

[NewNinetyNine]

I think the view is overstated, but I'm not interpreting that conspiracy theory from it. I'm pretty sure it's merely bemoaning the outsized influence of AIPAC and similar groups on US politics, in Thank You and Best of Luck!'s characteristically hyperbolic and over-the-top rhetorical style. It's a fact that attracting the ire of AIPAC is political suicide for representatives in close election races. US congresspeople thus frequently walk on eggshells when criticizing or going against Israel's policies, and often lean hard into expressing unconditional support and providing unrestricted aid to Israel.

The 'Box should be nuanced and thoughtful enough to reject ADL/MAGA definitions and framing that attempt to shut down discourse. Especially as AIPAC throws its weight around in the 2026 primary / election cycle and POTUS is sharing AI videos about the billions that he will make developing Gaza into a new Riviera.

 

[Deleted member 28951]

I get the reasoning that "Americans should refer to anyone living on the western continents" but given that this has basically become a pejorative term used against US Citizens as whole (I see it used a lot lately to express anti-US sentiments towards regular citizens), this probably falls under the "cutesy name" rule.

I've never seen it used pejoratively (and rarely seen it at all outside the Ars SB), and that was not my intent.
And there's nothing cutesy about it either way.

 

[Deleted member 28951]

Sorry, wasn't trying to armchair mod but also felt like it would be sort of petty and annoying to the mods to report about where a mod might feel the need to reprimand and my comment was supposed to just be a "hey man, heads up before this becomes a thing" kind of thing, not finger-pointy.

So why not just drop me a PM, as netiquette would indicate?

 

[KobayashiSaru]

ok fair, that would have been the better move. My bad, noted for the future and I don't wanna derail any further.

 

[NewNinetyNine]

Sorry, wasn't trying to armchair mod but also felt like it would be sort of petty and annoying to the mods to report about where a mod might feel the need to reprimand and my comment was supposed to just be a "hey man, heads up before this becomes a thing" kind of thing, not finger-pointy.

I'm not as politically online as I used to be, but it just looks like shorthand in an era of tiny capacitive keyboards.

Outside of this thread, Newsom is taking a surprisingly strident tone on the Iran War: Gavin Newsom likens Israel to ‘an apartheid state’ and decries war on Iran

I see Newsom as a weathervane for the party's center of gravity and am surprised that he is so definitive for this underdeveloped situation.

 

[timby]

I see Newsom as a weathervane for the party's center of gravity and am surprised that he is so definitive for this underdeveloped situation.

Newsom doesn't have the rigid structure (in the form of a spine) to be a weathervane.

A mild breeze could shift him into saying that this invasion was long overdue.

 

[Sajuuk]

I'm not as politically online as I used to be, but it just looks like shorthand in an era of tiny capacitive keyboards.

Outside of this thread, Newsom is taking a surprisingly strident tone on the Iran War: Gavin Newsom likens Israel to ‘an apartheid state’ and decries war on Iran

I see Newsom as a weathervane for the party's center of gravity and am surprised that he is so definitive for this underdeveloped situation.

Until the next time he talks to Ben Shapiro, anyway.

 

[Gary Patterson]

The quick turnaround in support for foreign adventurers is really the biggest cultish behavior I’ve seen in awhile.

I misread that at first, but it still made sense.