6 ms·

I see a ton of bickering, however, I simply have to ask the question: how can anyone justify the United States of America and Israel attacking ANY country? It i

by eek2121 6mo ago

I see a ton of bickering, however, I simply have to ask the question: how can anyone justify the United States of America and Israel attacking ANY country? It isn't our job, nor is it Israel's, to try and be the world police. People are dying, and because of a certain corpse-to-be controlling MY country, the world is beginning to suffer and it is going to get so much worse. Some economists are saying gas rationing will begin happening within the next 9-15 months. Iran has NO incentive to be diplomatic. On top of that, invisible damage that nobody is reporting about is being done...damage that could last years or possibly decades to very small, yet super important parts of the world supply chain that powers everything from fertilizer to pharmaceuticals. There is not a single person in the world that should be supporting this war. I don't care what your beliefs are. The results WILL affect you, and you won't get a bailout.

anonymou2 6mo ago
[flagged]
mhb 6mo ago
[flagged]
- UncleOxidant 6mo ago
  Saying "Death to America" doesn't give us the right to bomb them. They've been saying that for a long time now and yet haven't posed serious threat to the US mainland. Trump says a lot of crazy shit as well, would that give other countries the right to bomb the US?
  - miketery 6mo ago
    Right someone saying they want to kill you and building an arsenal is not sufficient, the missiles have to be flying towards you, you have to let them pull the trigger before you can respond.
  - mhb 6mo ago
    Don't be intentionally obtuse. They've been saying this for over four decades and have spent at least tens of billions of dollars in their quest to make it happen. Besides attacking Israel.
    - UncleOxidant 6mo ago
      Saying things and even spending to try to make it happen doesn't mean they were even close to being able to actually do it. Under Obama we had an agreement which had rigorous inspection details to prevent them developing nuclear weapons. Trump tore that all up in his first term.
      - mhb 6mo ago
        They were violating the agreement. That is why it was torn up. Why is the burden on us to disprove what they tell us they want to do and are taking actions to accomplish? When someone says they're trying to kill you and is actively working to make that happen, it is prudent to believe them.
        UncleOxidant 6mo ago
        Be afraid, be very afraid. As an aside: Iran is one of the youngest nations on earth. The government threatening is one thing. Most of the younger Iranians were sympathetic to the West. It was only a matter of time before the regime would be gone or at least soften. But when you bomb a country that generally tends to cause a rally-round-the flag effect (see Britain in WWII, for example). So we've probably blown our chance at rapprochement for quite a while. The regime can tell it's citizens "see, we warned you about America, the Great Satan! "
        mhb 6mo ago
        This talk of the "rally-round-the-flag" effect is uninformed speculation since very little is exiting the country. Would they also have rallied around the flag if these same actions were taken when the initial protests occurred? It's not at all clear that the Iranians would ever be able to throw off their tyrannical government without outside help. There is no rapprochement with people whose goal is to kill you and who don't mind so much if they die while trying.
  - mahirsaid 6mo ago
    I wonder why they're saying that?.
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
  - LAC-Tech 6mo ago
    I've gone over this before; but they do not even chant "death to america". It's a deliberate mis-translation to stoke tensions between Iran and the US.
- jiggawatts 6mo ago
  I don’t know why you’re being voted down for stating plain facts. If you know someone in town that regularly threatens you and your friends with death[1] and you see them buying a gun, you do something about it before they also get the bullets. Before replying please read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency Iran has been steadily decreasing their “breakout time” to levels that Israel and the US considered unacceptable. Timelines too short to police with diplomacy. They forced the hand of the Western world, they and their supporters are crying crocodile tears. “We were just innocently enriching near weapons grade Uranium in underground facilities hardened against attack and inspection! Calm down bro!” [1] To stretch the analogy further: they regularly hand out knives to their cousins, all of whom have stabbed your friend in a dark alley once or twice, to the point that your friend has to wear body armor at all times.
  - metabagel 6mo ago
    The JCPOA kept Iran from developing nuclear weapons. It was only the abrogation of this agreement by Trump which led Iran to resume enrichment of uranium.
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
- hajile 6mo ago
  List the number of attacks on America by Iran. Now list the number of attacks from our "allies" like the Saudis or Israel. Words don't matter as much as actions and the biggest attacks on the US by countries in the ME were done by Israel and Saudi Arabia.
UncleOxidant 6mo ago
> gas rationing will begin happening within the next 9-15 months It really depends where in the world you are. There are places that will begin rationing in the next few weeks if not sooner.
- tejohnso 6mo ago
  There are places that has already begun. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/9/bangladesh-shuts-universities-limits-fuel-sale-as-iran-war-causes-shortage https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/9/bangladesh-shuts-uni...
- bigbugbag 6mo ago
  you may have missed that there are places where shortages have already happened and rationing is already underway.
hereme888 6mo ago
Clueless? Iran has been attacking many countries, including US and Israel, for 47 years. It's not a secret.
- orf 6mo ago
  Out of interest, what sequence of actions by which country in particular led to the modern Iranian regime?
  - troad 6mo ago
    The 1979 Islamic Revolution was staged by Iranians, in response to the despotism of the Pahlavi dynasty, founded in 1925 by Iranians. It is a disease of the Western mind - and particularly Western academia - to deny agency to others, especially people in the Middle East, as you're doing here with your painfully unsubtle attempt to link US support for the Pahlavis in 1956 to the 1979 Islamic Revolution 23 years later. Worth noting that the Pahlavi dynasty started out as autocratic as it ended, well before the US ever showed up. This is a lazy reverse Orientalism, where people in the Middle East are othered and cast as a perennial victim incapable of taking any role in, or responsibility for, what happens in their own countries. It's disempowering racism in academic garb. Iranians caused the Islamic Revolution and only the Iranians can undo it. I wish them the best of luck in doing so.
    - orf 6mo ago
      > claim that US support for the Pahlavis in 1956 “Support”. Hah. The word you’re ham-fistedly avoiding there is “coup”. You got the year wrong as well. The US and UK self-admittedly engineered it to support their national interests. If you believe not one but two superpowers can’t engineer a coup in a financially poor but resource rich nation then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
      - troad 6mo ago
        Except we're not talking about the Pahlavi dynasty, we're talking about the Islamic Republic. You're trying to draw some direct causal link from the '56 coup to the '79 revolution, just because that's the conclusion your preconceptions demand, facts be damned. Why stop there? France engineered and supported an anti-British coup in the underdeveloped but resource rich American colonies in the late 18th century, setting in motion the train of events that led to the Islamic Revolution! And the Polish General Kosciusko fought valiantly for the Americans, on account of the partitions of Poland. Were it not for those partitions, he'd have been at home! So it is the Austrian, Prussian, and Russian Empires - the partitioning powers of 18th century Poland-Lithuania - to blame for the Islamic Revolution! But why did Austria desire to get involved in the partitions of Poland, and what long game was it playing vis-a-vis the Shiite scholars of then-Persia... Hold up, we need a corkboard and some pins. Where's Pepe Silvia in all of this? Who has the Jack Ruby? You can draw the bowstring all the way to Mars if you want to, but the only people to blame for the monstrous regime of Iran are the people who put that regime in place, and that certainly wasn't the Americans. No amount of "well this encouraged that, which caused blowback to this, leading to that" Substack-level motivated reasoning is going to change that fact. The gay kids being executed by Iran are not cursing the name of America, or Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, they're cursing the ghouls who are hanging them, who are their countrymen.
miketery 6mo ago
This is the flag of the Houthis [1], they are sponsored by Iran, as are the likes of Hezbollah, and Hamas. They have similar language in their charters. How is that not casus belli? 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarkha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarkha
- shevy-java 6mo ago
  Why would that be any casus belli?
  - miketery 6mo ago
    Do you think threats and missiles from an adversary are insufficient cause for war?
    - asdff 6mo ago
      Yes. They didn't attack the US. We attacked them with no casus belli. Operation Epstein Fuckup.
      - dlubarov 6mo ago
        [flagged]
        Ar-Curunir 6mo ago
        Hm, I wonder which country overthrew the Iranian government in the 50s and replaced it with a dictatorship…
        dlubarov 6mo ago
        How is that relevant? There’s no exception to self defense for countries we once meddled with.
- culi 6mo ago
  US first started bombing Yemen in 2002. That flag was adopted by Yemen in 2014
roncesvalles 6mo ago
If you're asking in good faith, Israel isn't attacking Iran to play world police. Israel has been under constant attack from Iran-backed proxies. As for why Iran backs these proxies, the answer boils down to pure fanaticism. For a fanatic-led state to possess nukes is a dangerous situation and it's worth it for Israel to try and prevent it. As for why America is involved in a conflict between Israel and Iran, it's because we have a Republican administration and a big segment of Republicans (Christian Evangelicals) want the US to ensure Israel as a state survives (also for purely fanatical reasons).
- budududuroiu 6mo ago
  > For a fanatic-led state to possess nukes is a dangerous situation and it may be worth it to try and prevent it. So, when are we bombing Israel to prevent the world being held hostage by nuke-wielding religious fanatics?
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
- zmjone2992 6mo ago
  right iran is the fanatical country here...
- bigbugbag 6mo ago
  FWIW israel did the same to iran also via proxy, for decades too. and the starting point of all this is the US coup in Iran that eventually lead to the islamists seizing power in Iran.
- hirako2000 6mo ago
  Israel has been under attacks by Iran backed proxies which all happen to have been attacked by Israel first. 1982, Israel invades Lebanon. Iran backs Hezbollah, which triggers its first killing of Israelis in 1983. There would have been reasons to back the creation of Hamas long before 1982 but the revolution in Iran only took place in 1979, so through the decades of Palestinian oppression, massacres and occupation, Iran was aligned, so it started with a support for Lebanese resistance. Then much later the backing of Palestinian resistance, then Yemen via the Houthis. It is true there has been constant funding, and of an increasing number of proxy groups, but Israel's invasion was the trigger. Backing nations, and paramilitary groups is pretty common: see U.S backing Ukraine regular army, and private mercenaries.
Johanx64 6mo ago
> how can anyone justify the United States of America and Israel attacking ANY country? Every military action will have an on-paper "justification". It's kind of irrelevant frankly. But to cut bullshit, it really isn't that complicated. Venezuela is an extremely oil rich country. Countries in the middle-east region, including Iran are very oil rich. And that's in large part why US (by this point firmly decaying petrostate propped by petrodollar) is constantly there "meddling" and ensuring all the oil is continuously bought using US dollars. That is wholly sufficient to explain things. Every other cartoonish-evil justification "Iran wants to build nukes to bomb US, etc" is largely bullshit (why, for example, Iran doesn't want to nuke.... say Germany or France? hmmm.....)
- epsteingpt 6mo ago
  Correct. Just add Saudi Arabia / Iran Sunni-Shia hatred and you've got war.
epsteingpt 6mo ago
Many people ignoring that Saudi Arabia, now a major ally or at least erstwhile enemy of Iran, would LOVE to see the fall of the Iranian regime. Oil is the last remaining 'strategic commodity' everyone (including China) needs to keep a balance of power. Many people missing the actual game here.
stevenwoo 6mo ago
All reporting I’ve seen on Israel mention destruction of Iran as long time dream of Bibi and it distracts from his legal and political troubles and unites country behind him - war has 90 plus percent approval among Jews and about 25 percent among Arabs who don’t vote for his coalition anyways, so political win for him. For modern GOP, “the cruelty is the point” can be used to explain most of his policy decisions, the book and original essay make the argument that making “others” suffer is uniting factor for GOP since Trump took the reins (in spite of many conflicting reasons Rubio, Trump and Hegseth have given to justify this war including setting stage for apocalypse foretold in Revelations to please fundamentalist Christian voter bloc) Many GOP voters have backed Trump in interviews even after being hurt by his tariff regime, immigration crackdowns, DOGE cutbacks, threats to annex territory, the only thing that appears to move the needle a little in GOP approval has been the recent run up in gasoline prices. One case in point - Farmers got hurt in first term by Trump tariffs, overwhelming supported Trump three elections in a row, and after second term tariffs hurt them, still support Trump, one would think if one farmer said I’m off the Trump train that reporters would be all over it. There is no rational thought process going on here beyond first order effects.

by eek2121 6mo ago

anonymou2 6mo ago

[flagged]

mhb 6mo ago

[flagged]

UncleOxidant 6mo ago
Saying "Death to America" doesn't give us the right to bomb them. They've been saying that for a long time now and yet haven't posed serious threat to the US mainland. Trump says a lot of crazy shit as well, would that give other countries the right to bomb the US?
- miketery 6mo ago
  Right someone saying they want to kill you and building an arsenal is not sufficient, the missiles have to be flying towards you, you have to let them pull the trigger before you can respond.
- mhb 6mo ago
  Don't be intentionally obtuse. They've been saying this for over four decades and have spent at least tens of billions of dollars in their quest to make it happen. Besides attacking Israel.
  - UncleOxidant 6mo ago
    Saying things and even spending to try to make it happen doesn't mean they were even close to being able to actually do it. Under Obama we had an agreement which had rigorous inspection details to prevent them developing nuclear weapons. Trump tore that all up in his first term.
    - mhb 6mo ago
      They were violating the agreement. That is why it was torn up. Why is the burden on us to disprove what they tell us they want to do and are taking actions to accomplish? When someone says they're trying to kill you and is actively working to make that happen, it is prudent to believe them.
      - UncleOxidant 6mo ago
        Be afraid, be very afraid. As an aside: Iran is one of the youngest nations on earth. The government threatening is one thing. Most of the younger Iranians were sympathetic to the West. It was only a matter of time before the regime would be gone or at least soften. But when you bomb a country that generally tends to cause a rally-round-the flag effect (see Britain in WWII, for example). So we've probably blown our chance at rapprochement for quite a while. The regime can tell it's citizens "see, we warned you about America, the Great Satan! "
        mhb 6mo ago
        This talk of the "rally-round-the-flag" effect is uninformed speculation since very little is exiting the country. Would they also have rallied around the flag if these same actions were taken when the initial protests occurred? It's not at all clear that the Iranians would ever be able to throw off their tyrannical government without outside help. There is no rapprochement with people whose goal is to kill you and who don't mind so much if they die while trying.
- mahirsaid 6mo ago
  I wonder why they're saying that?.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
- LAC-Tech 6mo ago
  I've gone over this before; but they do not even chant "death to america". It's a deliberate mis-translation to stoke tensions between Iran and the US.
jiggawatts 6mo ago
I don’t know why you’re being voted down for stating plain facts. If you know someone in town that regularly threatens you and your friends with death[1] and you see them buying a gun, you do something about it before they also get the bullets. Before replying please read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency Iran has been steadily decreasing their “breakout time” to levels that Israel and the US considered unacceptable. Timelines too short to police with diplomacy. They forced the hand of the Western world, they and their supporters are crying crocodile tears. “We were just innocently enriching near weapons grade Uranium in underground facilities hardened against attack and inspection! Calm down bro!” [1] To stretch the analogy further: they regularly hand out knives to their cousins, all of whom have stabbed your friend in a dark alley once or twice, to the point that your friend has to wear body armor at all times.
- metabagel 6mo ago
  The JCPOA kept Iran from developing nuclear weapons. It was only the abrogation of this agreement by Trump which led Iran to resume enrichment of uranium.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
hajile 6mo ago
List the number of attacks on America by Iran. Now list the number of attacks from our "allies" like the Saudis or Israel. Words don't matter as much as actions and the biggest attacks on the US by countries in the ME were done by Israel and Saudi Arabia.

UncleOxidant 6mo ago

> gas rationing will begin happening within the next 9-15 months It really depends where in the world you are. There are places that will begin rationing in the next few weeks if not sooner.

tejohnso 6mo ago
There are places that has already begun. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/9/bangladesh-shuts-universities-limits-fuel-sale-as-iran-war-causes-shortage https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/9/bangladesh-shuts-uni...
bigbugbag 6mo ago
you may have missed that there are places where shortages have already happened and rationing is already underway.

hereme888 6mo ago

Clueless? Iran has been attacking many countries, including US and Israel, for 47 years. It's not a secret.

orf 6mo ago
Out of interest, what sequence of actions by which country in particular led to the modern Iranian regime?
- troad 6mo ago
  The 1979 Islamic Revolution was staged by Iranians, in response to the despotism of the Pahlavi dynasty, founded in 1925 by Iranians. It is a disease of the Western mind - and particularly Western academia - to deny agency to others, especially people in the Middle East, as you're doing here with your painfully unsubtle attempt to link US support for the Pahlavis in 1956 to the 1979 Islamic Revolution 23 years later. Worth noting that the Pahlavi dynasty started out as autocratic as it ended, well before the US ever showed up. This is a lazy reverse Orientalism, where people in the Middle East are othered and cast as a perennial victim incapable of taking any role in, or responsibility for, what happens in their own countries. It's disempowering racism in academic garb. Iranians caused the Islamic Revolution and only the Iranians can undo it. I wish them the best of luck in doing so.
  - orf 6mo ago
    > claim that US support for the Pahlavis in 1956 “Support”. Hah. The word you’re ham-fistedly avoiding there is “coup”. You got the year wrong as well. The US and UK self-admittedly engineered it to support their national interests. If you believe not one but two superpowers can’t engineer a coup in a financially poor but resource rich nation then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
    - troad 6mo ago
      Except we're not talking about the Pahlavi dynasty, we're talking about the Islamic Republic. You're trying to draw some direct causal link from the '56 coup to the '79 revolution, just because that's the conclusion your preconceptions demand, facts be damned. Why stop there? France engineered and supported an anti-British coup in the underdeveloped but resource rich American colonies in the late 18th century, setting in motion the train of events that led to the Islamic Revolution! And the Polish General Kosciusko fought valiantly for the Americans, on account of the partitions of Poland. Were it not for those partitions, he'd have been at home! So it is the Austrian, Prussian, and Russian Empires - the partitioning powers of 18th century Poland-Lithuania - to blame for the Islamic Revolution! But why did Austria desire to get involved in the partitions of Poland, and what long game was it playing vis-a-vis the Shiite scholars of then-Persia... Hold up, we need a corkboard and some pins. Where's Pepe Silvia in all of this? Who has the Jack Ruby? You can draw the bowstring all the way to Mars if you want to, but the only people to blame for the monstrous regime of Iran are the people who put that regime in place, and that certainly wasn't the Americans. No amount of "well this encouraged that, which caused blowback to this, leading to that" Substack-level motivated reasoning is going to change that fact. The gay kids being executed by Iran are not cursing the name of America, or Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, they're cursing the ghouls who are hanging them, who are their countrymen.

miketery 6mo ago

This is the flag of the Houthis [1], they are sponsored by Iran, as are the likes of Hezbollah, and Hamas. They have similar language in their charters. How is that not casus belli? 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarkha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarkha

shevy-java 6mo ago
Why would that be any casus belli?
- miketery 6mo ago
  Do you think threats and missiles from an adversary are insufficient cause for war?
  - asdff 6mo ago
    Yes. They didn't attack the US. We attacked them with no casus belli. Operation Epstein Fuckup.
    - dlubarov 6mo ago
      [flagged]
      - Ar-Curunir 6mo ago
        Hm, I wonder which country overthrew the Iranian government in the 50s and replaced it with a dictatorship…
        dlubarov 6mo ago
        How is that relevant? There’s no exception to self defense for countries we once meddled with.
culi 6mo ago
US first started bombing Yemen in 2002. That flag was adopted by Yemen in 2014

roncesvalles 6mo ago

If you're asking in good faith, Israel isn't attacking Iran to play world police. Israel has been under constant attack from Iran-backed proxies. As for why Iran backs these proxies, the answer boils down to pure fanaticism. For a fanatic-led state to possess nukes is a dangerous situation and it's worth it for Israel to try and prevent it. As for why America is involved in a conflict between Israel and Iran, it's because we have a Republican administration and a big segment of Republicans (Christian Evangelicals) want the US to ensure Israel as a state survives (also for purely fanatical reasons).

budududuroiu 6mo ago
> For a fanatic-led state to possess nukes is a dangerous situation and it may be worth it to try and prevent it. So, when are we bombing Israel to prevent the world being held hostage by nuke-wielding religious fanatics?
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
zmjone2992 6mo ago
right iran is the fanatical country here...
bigbugbag 6mo ago
FWIW israel did the same to iran also via proxy, for decades too. and the starting point of all this is the US coup in Iran that eventually lead to the islamists seizing power in Iran.
hirako2000 6mo ago
Israel has been under attacks by Iran backed proxies which all happen to have been attacked by Israel first. 1982, Israel invades Lebanon. Iran backs Hezbollah, which triggers its first killing of Israelis in 1983. There would have been reasons to back the creation of Hamas long before 1982 but the revolution in Iran only took place in 1979, so through the decades of Palestinian oppression, massacres and occupation, Iran was aligned, so it started with a support for Lebanese resistance. Then much later the backing of Palestinian resistance, then Yemen via the Houthis. It is true there has been constant funding, and of an increasing number of proxy groups, but Israel's invasion was the trigger. Backing nations, and paramilitary groups is pretty common: see U.S backing Ukraine regular army, and private mercenaries.

Johanx64 6mo ago

> how can anyone justify the United States of America and Israel attacking ANY country? Every military action will have an on-paper "justification". It's kind of irrelevant frankly. But to cut bullshit, it really isn't that complicated. Venezuela is an extremely oil rich country. Countries in the middle-east region, including Iran are very oil rich. And that's in large part why US (by this point firmly decaying petrostate propped by petrodollar) is constantly there "meddling" and ensuring all the oil is continuously bought using US dollars. That is wholly sufficient to explain things. Every other cartoonish-evil justification "Iran wants to build nukes to bomb US, etc" is largely bullshit (why, for example, Iran doesn't want to nuke.... say Germany or France? hmmm.....)

epsteingpt 6mo ago
Correct. Just add Saudi Arabia / Iran Sunni-Shia hatred and you've got war.

epsteingpt 6mo ago

Many people ignoring that Saudi Arabia, now a major ally or at least erstwhile enemy of Iran, would LOVE to see the fall of the Iranian regime. Oil is the last remaining 'strategic commodity' everyone (including China) needs to keep a balance of power. Many people missing the actual game here.

stevenwoo 6mo ago

All reporting I’ve seen on Israel mention destruction of Iran as long time dream of Bibi and it distracts from his legal and political troubles and unites country behind him - war has 90 plus percent approval among Jews and about 25 percent among Arabs who don’t vote for his coalition anyways, so political win for him. For modern GOP, “the cruelty is the point” can be used to explain most of his policy decisions, the book and original essay make the argument that making “others” suffer is uniting factor for GOP since Trump took the reins (in spite of many conflicting reasons Rubio, Trump and Hegseth have given to justify this war including setting stage for apocalypse foretold in Revelations to please fundamentalist Christian voter bloc) Many GOP voters have backed Trump in interviews even after being hurt by his tariff regime, immigration crackdowns, DOGE cutbacks, threats to annex territory, the only thing that appears to move the needle a little in GOP approval has been the recent run up in gasoline prices. One case in point - Farmers got hurt in first term by Trump tariffs, overwhelming supported Trump three elections in a row, and after second term tariffs hurt them, still support Trump, one would think if one farmer said I’m off the Trump train that reporters would be all over it. There is no rational thought process going on here beyond first order effects.