No, this is now America's war. Israel has a part in it but the US is the main belligerent at this point and if Trump follows through on his threats he all but guarantees the downfall of the United States. This has gone way too far already and since the internal checks and balances of the United States appear not to be working it will be up to the rest of the world to draw a line. We can not afford to let this spiral into another world war, especially not with multiple nuclear powers involved.
Think of it this way: Iran is isolated on the world stage. But turn it into a significant enough victim and there will be two major religions on either side of a war. That's a recipe for something that could potentially make WWII look 'mild'. I know there are people that actually want this, but let's at least see clearly here: nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody will benefit from that. Even the ones who think they will benefit. Democrats that are supportive of this are hopefully a small enough minority that sanity will prevail.
Think avalanche: you can start one, but you can't stop one. Avalanches stop themselves, but only when all potential energy is expended.
I agree.
What I mean by Israel's war is that the motivation was Israel's, they got Americans to be their grunts.
I don't see this de-escalating soon unless Europe shows more teeth.
It's pretty much nightmare fuel out there.
> I don't see this de-escalating soon unless Europe shows more teeth.
Can you describe what you have in mind?
Unless Trump perceives a new unexpected threat I don't see him backing down. Russian and Chinese opposition has been accounted for.
Europe's more belligerent opposition as opposed toothless diplomatic speeches may give them a reason to pause. Say, cancellations of major contracts where the primary beneficiary would have been the US.
Don't know whether it will happen, but am happy to see some European countries to take a stand and back their stand with more than words.
Trump is a boomer who grow in a age where American power was incontested. Second, he is a narcisist and he will let Rome burn down before he let someone call him a loser.
Third. Even if our gerontocrat had a saner mind, I doubt he would be able to control Israel. Let them alone fighting Iran, with their missile defense depleted leting Iranian missiles rain down everywhere, Bibi would surely nuke Tehran and the Yemen, so I don't even think there's a way out of this.
Europe has one 'weapon' they can use but they can use it just once: dump the bonds. The problem with that is that you need a reason big enough that by the time you're going to do it it will likely be too late to be effective and as a punitive measure it makes little sense, it's just one step short of a declaration of war. If Trump goes ahead with this madness then tomorrow morning the world economy will be in shambles, no matter what. Note that we got here ostensibly to 'free the Iranian people', apparently they need to be murdered to make them free. It's grotesque.
It is to you and me. Not everyone sees it that way.
When one day the dust settles, hopefully of the benign kind, I wish some lessons to be learned on what kind of leaders to elect.
This has had me so disturbed, that I have barely been able to get much work done for weeks. Work that I enjoy doing. Then I think of Iranian citizens and feel guilty about complaining.
At least we have answers to the question of how World War II started. All it takes is a couple of idiots that think they are all powerful and the stage is set.
The technical term seems to be: entrapment. The war could have ended after the first few "successful" days.
And still every day it continues, it becomes a little bit harder to back out. Like Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan this war cannot be won.
> the internal checks and balances of the United States appear not to be working
There is one last test, but it's not until November. Until then, Trump is on a speed run to destroy everything he can
You need to get to November first.
Hence the speed running part of the comment
There's the 25th too but I dont think anyone with access to that option has the spine.
That requires that 15 cabinet members invoke the 25th followed by 2/3 of both house of Congress agree. So, yeah, not enough spine involved to count on the 25th in this situation
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