What about tens of thousands of peaceful civilians who have been killed by the Iranian regime during past decades? The alternative to this war is allowing the Iranian government to keep doing that, business as usual.
In my opinion bombing people responsible for these atrocities increases the well-being of the world. Most Iranians seem to agree.
I don't see how this is going to work without troops on the ground?
The US had air supremacy, troops on the ground and a friendly regime in Afghanistan and Vietnam, and it did not work. (I am not sure if Iraq was a success, but I am sure that people were super tired of it, and did not want something like that again)
What is just bombing going to do? They just rebuilt their weapons and you have to bomb them again in 1-2 years?
The administration has already suggested sending troops as an option. It does not help that they are just making things up as they go.
You’re right that airpower alone will not change anything. But as you pointed out, putting troops on the ground does not automatically change the outcome either. If there is a lesson from the last few decades it is that the military is good at two things. Killing people and breaking their equipment. What it can do is create opportunities that political or covert efforts have to capitalize on.
Any military campaign needs a clear objective and an achievable end state with contingencies planned. Even then something unexpected will still happen. Afghanistan, Vietnam, and Iraq were all very different conflicts and the current situation is different again.
As for rebuilding their capabilities, that is not trivial. Iran is still operating aircraft that we retired decades ago, which says something about their supply constraints.
The outcome also does not have to be installing a perfect government of our choosing. A more realistic result would be a government the United States can work with and one that the Iranian people actually support. That could still include parts of the current system if major and unpopular things changed.
I am sure someone in the current leadership would like to be the person who reduced the influence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, loosened the grip of the religious leadership, and ended the country’s pariah status while getting sanctions lifted and money flowing back into the economy.
That would probably be a better outcome than trying to export our model of government to yet another Middle Eastern country.
Trump is at his best point to save face right now. It's now or never, IMO. He killed an entire leadership lineup of Iran. If he pulls out now it is a clear victory for him. If he continues the campaign 2 or 3 more weeks it's tough for me to find another out for him that doesn't involve a lot more risk to the USA.
Given he did take this clear victory and cash in, in Venezuela, there is some hope he'll do the same in Iran.
Now turn your argument towards Saudi Arabia, or any of the human-rights violating countries that the US supports or has supported recently.
Your opinion is respectable, but not compatible with any idea of “justice”.
The point being that eliminating a murderous tyrant is bad, because there are other murderous tyrants?
Your president is a murderous tyrant, so how about eliminating him?
sometimes there are more than two options between
"do nothing"
and the clusterfuck the current administration has embarked on.
Sometimes yes, but is there in this specific case?
Because from my vantage point it looks like the choice is, status quo or bomb them. Its not like america can double sanction iran, they are already fully economically sanctioned. What is the middle ground here?
You could relax sanctions in exchange for other priorities. A persistent pain is less effective than an acute one anyway. There’s carrots too in negotiations. But no, we cannot do what a previous president did.
How much of the current situation is a result of that previous deal?
The deal basically stopped iran's nuclear program but allowed the regime to better send money and guns to its proxy network.
The current war is effectively the downstream consequences of Iran's proxy network going off the leash.
Ultimately, negotiations work best with both a carrot and a stick. If its just a carrot, and no deal would be unacceptable to one of the parties, then the logical thing for the other party would be to always hold out.
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In any case, in this specific situation (regardless of how we got here), its hard to imagine that Iran could have made a deal and survived. The regime is very weak at home and its questionable if they could have survived the loss of face to agree to what usa wanted.
This justification for bombing Iran is dumb as fuck. In a few days the number of civilians killed by US-Israeli bombings will surpass the number of civilians killed by the regime in decades.
Possibly.
What is that threshold? I've heard anywhere from 3k to 300k. You can definitively answer this question?
Killing more people won't bring dead people back to life! I can't believe I have to spell this out.
> This justification for bombing Iran is dumb as fuck. In a few days the number of civilians killed by US-Israeli bombings will surpass the number of civilians killed by the regime in decades.
I was just curious if you had information that I don't have. I suppose not.
wonder what your view is of ICE actions against peaceful protesters in MN?
But what you describe was not the motivation behind the decision by Washington to bomb Iran. The motivations were Tehran's nuclear program and Tehran's support for groups like Hezbollah and generally Tehran's promotion of violence and instability outside Iran in the Middle East.
I’m sure the welfare of the Iranian people is a top priority for Trump.