The neocons are steering us towards war. The military is steering us towards war. Today I’m hearing just about every possible explanation for what’s going on with respect to Iran. The best remark I’ve heard is that we’ve dodged the bullet of war with Iran for tonight.
The revolutionary government of Iran declared war against the United States 40 years ago. So far we’ve largely ignored it for a simple reason. Iran doesn’t really threaten us. I think that has been prudent and remains prudent. Iran is larger than Iraq, more populous than Iraq, richer than Iraq, has better friends than Iraq, and is culturally better prepared to mount a strong defense than Iraq.
We should not go to war with Iran unless and until we are prepared to bomb its cities into oblivion which is presently not the case.
We should not go to war with the ayatollahs (NOT the Iranian people) unless we intend to eliminate them. Anything less would be a waste of time, treasure, and blood.
Yeah, and reconnaissance drones are an at risk asset, no matter how many millions they cost. We just need to lessen our exposure to Iran, continue course. That drone probably WAS over Iranian airspace anyway.
Also, any half measure retaliatory airstrike would make our enemies and our allies sneer. As with Syria.
Perhaps it’s not US actors we should be worried about escalating, but Iranian.
With the agreement they had a free path to a nuke until such time as they could turn and say, “well, we’ve got it now; what are you going to do about it?â€
I heard some pathetic political attempts to invoke red lines. Not by neocons by the way. What would constitute a red line if Iran decided to just keep ratcheting up?
I really doubt that we will forever be able to prevent Iran from having nukes. The goal is to convince them they are better off without one. having a nuke is like having a hostage, great deterrent until you use it, then you’re way worse off.
Red line? Meaning, as Trump said, total obliteration? That would surprise you and I and everyone else in the world. The actual “red line” would be when they used a nuke, then “total obliteration” is what they would expect and they would get, and no one would be surprised.
Americans have forgotten or abandoned deterrence. They might be surprised but many would be bitterly opposed.
“Americans have forgotten or abandoned deterrence.”
And that’s my point. I’m no war monger. But I think the neocon label has become a convenient and lazy criticism, and overstated. We don’t live in Kansas anymore, and have to deal with the actors and realities we face whether we like it or not. Iran’s leaders are not stupid. This is calculated. When is enough enough?
Let me throw out a couple what ifs –
An Iranian missile, speedboat, whatever takes US military lives.
Iranians mine, sink a vessel, shoot at US planes or obstruct by other military means the Straights.
It seems to me that’s a red line. Now, what if they take aggressive but intermediate level actions, but no loss of life occurs to the US. Who takes up the baton?
And is total obliteration the only solution? I don’t think I see that.
I think there is a general misunderstanding of what a “proportionate response” is. It doesn’t mean a response in kind or of equal damage. It means a response that is proportional to the risk presented. So, for example, a proportionate response to the Iranians’ recent actions would be to destroy all of their missile emplacements because that’s the risk that’s being presented. Not “you fire a missile at us we fire one at you”. The response I suggested in the foregoing would be an escalation but it would also be a proportionate response and might conceivably provide a deterrent. The other alternative would not.