4 ms·

3 generations of wealth poured into the most expensive military in recorded history - the reason that we don't have health care, clean energy, decent social saf

3 generations of wealth poured into the most expensive military in recorded history - the reason that we don't have health care, clean energy, decent social safety nets and so many other things... and they can't even control a small stretch of water. What a waste.

rbanffy 2mo ago
Soft power would have gone a long way towards furthering US interests in the Middle East. Unfortunately, it seems too late for that. By the time a new administration's diplomacy reverts the current antagonism and lack of trust, the dollar will have lost ground as the default reserve currency and financing US debt will become much more expensive than it is now, making military expenses prohibitive, but still a priority. This is usually the point the economy is flipped around into a war-based economy where all output is directed to military equipment.
simonh 2mo ago
The health care issue in the USA isn't due to lack of funding, the US spends more on health care per person than any other country, double that of many European countries with single payer systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea... The costs of medicare, medicaid and CHIP to tax payers are about what most Europeans pay in tax for universal health care, but then they also need to pay for health insurance for themselves. As for controlling Hormuz, the US military absolutely could control Hormuz. I'm confident it's quite capable of it. It's that the US public wouldn't support the immense cost in lives and treasure it would take to do it, and maintain that control. No other military could even try, but the the USA could. It's not a matter of lack of military capacity.
- aeve890 2mo ago
  >No other military could even try Iran military is trying alright.
  - simonh 2mo ago
    You got me there.
- nwatson 2mo ago
  Health insurance company margins are 3% to 5%. The book America’s Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Back-Room Deals, and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System (2015) by journalist Steven Brill blames mostly wasteful practices in hospitals, pharma and device manufacturers, government and corporate health administration costs.
  - simonh 2mo ago
    Thanks for the recommendation.
  - orwin 2mo ago
    US health insurance margins are thinner than European private insurance. Their administrative cost however are 9-10%, when in Europe (or really, France and Germany, I haven't looked elsewhere) they are 5-8%. The difference is probably in negotiating costs and audits. But that means that in total, for every 100 dollar paid, US insuree pay 4-10 dollar in efficiency+dividend that a European doesn't.
  - ethbr1 2mo ago
    Not to dismiss your point, but the US healthcare system has one meta problem. Complexity. There are too many parties. There are too many bespoke party-party contract. There are too many new middle-parties being created, with their own contracts. There are too many systems. There's too much tech debt. That's a reason improvements to the US healthcare system have generally been via HHS/CMS imposing standardization mandates ('or no Medicare payments'). But providers, facilities, and insurers (most operating on low margins) can't be collectively more meta-efficient without simplifying the system. Single payer / Medicare for all is a critical start not because of coverage, but because of simplicity. There are so many intractable problems with the current system simply by virtue that changing anything about them requires 100s of parties to update 10,000s of party-party contracts and interfaces. That's the biggest source of waste in the current system: constant duplicative re-engineering.
  - franktankbank 2mo ago
    Dumb argument though when UHG owns the hospitals, pharmacy and the insurance company. They can make the "profit" of any one of them be anything they want really.
- irishcule 2mo ago
  > the US military absolutely could control Hormuz. I'm confident it's quite capable of it. It's that the US public wouldn't support the immense cost in lives and treasure it would take to do it, and maintain that control I never understood these kinds of arguments and they always come from those defending US military might. Either they can do it or they cannot, if "the US public wouldn't support the immense cost in lives and treasure it would take to do it" is true, which it appears to be, then the US Military cannot control Hormuz.
  - steveBK123 2mo ago
    Right I think its only an interesting argument in separating existential vs non-existential threats to the country. So it means we aren't fighting in Iran the way we would in defending a hypothetical invasion of the lower 48 states, great. But does it mean we'd fight any differently in the South China Sea, a Russian incursion into Poland, etc. Unclear, and presidential whim based.
    - msabalau 2mo ago
      The American public has shown willingness over decades and decades to commit to long term wars of choice. Not infinitely patient, but patient. Of course, other Presidents have been willing to put in some sort of effort to make to make a case. And usually have some of theory of victory or purpose. And generally avoid making weird random claims about invading NATO allies.
      - steveBK123 2mo ago
        That willingness is predicated on being at war with much weaker powers / enduring FAR lower casualty rates than Vietnam / Korea / world wars. The entire 25+ year GWOT era has resulted in 7k American military personnel dying. Vietnam that number was closer to 60K in 8 years, when US population was also 33% lower. Dramatically different impact on society. Sending marines to take an island in Hormuz or a carrier under fire in the South China Sea might look a lot closer to Vietnam than GWOT in a hurry.
  - 2mo ago
- thiht 2mo ago
  > As for controlling Hormuz, the US military absolutely could control Hormuz They don't though
- scoofy 2mo ago
  > The costs of medicare, medicaid and CHIP to tax payers are about what most Europeans pay in tax for universal health care, but then they also need to pay for health insurance for themselves. People always say this, but I suspect Americans are more unhealthy in general and actually need more healthcare per person. We have a development pattern where people barely walk, but less walk or cycle to work.
- ndsipa_pomu 2mo ago
  > As for controlling Hormuz, the US military absolutely could control Hormuz I don't see how they could manage that without a full-scale invasion and control of Iran. It's far too easy for Iran to launch drones/torpedoes from small watercraft or from nearby land. I expect they could control Hormuz for a while, but it would be very expensive and I'd expect the logistics to break down fairly quickly if the economics doesn't stop it first.
  - switchbak 2mo ago
    "I don't see how they could manage that without a full-scale invasion and control of Iran" - that's precisely what they're saying, and that the domestic populace wouldn't put up with it. I suppose "could" here is a bit of a stretch. Like technically, yes, you could if you whipped up your country into enough of a frenzy to support it. Hell, Iraq happened (twice), so I suppose it has historical precedent. And yes, a full-scale invasion of a fully committed US military should absolutely be able to conquer and hold Iran. But I can't imagine any circumstance where that's possibly going to happen in today's reality (outside of an Iranian terrorist event on USA soil, for instance).
    - ndsipa_pomu 2mo ago
      > a full-scale invasion of a fully committed US military should absolutely be able to conquer and hold Iran I doubt that - Iran is very large and would require something like conscription in the US to get anywhere near the required amount of troops. The US doesn't have a great track record with conquering and occupying other countries.
- nemothekid 2mo ago
  >As for controlling Hormuz, the US military absolutely could control Hormuz. I'm confident it's quite capable of it. It's that the US public wouldn't support the immense cost in lives and treasure it would take to do it, and maintain that control. This is like saying "I could easily afford a Ferrari. It's just that I wouldn't be able to make the interest payments on the loan". Military conquest is more than just guns.
  - thehappypm 2mo ago
    The reason the US can’t take the strait is that the war is unpopular and the American people don’t want it to happen. The US military could absolutely 100% invade and take the street, but it would be extremely unpopular and very expensive.
    - elendilm 2mo ago
      [flagged]
      - stevenwoo 2mo ago
        The argument echoes similar speculation about the USA's 20 years in Vietnam, the "military was held back" despite killing more than a million southeast Asians in the attempt.
      - thehappypm 2mo ago
        It is public opinion that is keeping the US from using boots on the ground.
        samrus 2mo ago
        And what prevented those boots on the ground from winning in vietnam?
        thehappypm 2mo ago
        The objectives are wildly different. Vietnam is more like asking the question, could the US Military occupy all of Iran? Which I think the answer is essentially No, just like Vietnam. The strait is one small objective , and the US had lots of successes in Vietnam with capturing key strategic areas, they just couldn’t cover that into a successful occupation
svpk 2mo ago
I think it's worth pointing out that the US almost certainly could have taken control of the strait. But it would have required boats in the water and boots on the ground. But that puts many more lives at risk, would have been very unpopular (much moreso then the current war situation), etc. You can't win a war purely through air superiority and bombs. That's not a new lesson but it's one the administration failed to learn through history and is apparently now failing to learn through practice).
- ksudb 2mo ago
  There's control and there's enough control so not a single missile can hit a cargo ship in the strait. Maritime insurers are understandably conservative. If the ship stays trapped it continues to pay premiums (insurance company wins). If it risks passage it risks a $10M payout (insurance company loses). If there's risk of a single missile the insurers won't allow the ships through. How can an insurance company thousands of miles away stop a ship? "If you risk the passage you're not covered by insurance" Pretty sure Iran has spent the last 30 years ensuring that they can mount gorilla attacks indefinitely in the face of overwhelming invasion. That has been their deterrent strategy for decades. Intelligence analysts out front should have told ya. (A massive invasion would also not open the strait.)
- datsci_est_2015 2mo ago
  > You can't win a war purely through air superiority and bombs. That's not a new lesson but it's one the administration failed to learn through history and is apparently now failing to learn through practice. This is a lesson that conservative administrations have refused to learn for decades. I hope Curtis Lemay is experiencing a toasty afterlife for all of the suffering he has caused humanity due to a zealous conviction that aerial bombing campaigns win wars, and his lasting legacy in conservative war strategy.
  - bell-cot 2mo ago
    The delusion is somewhat over a century old now. It originates from factions within the military community (vs. politicians) and there's nothing particularly conservative about it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell#Post-war_advocate_of_air_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell#Post-war_advoca... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_Mafia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_Mafia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_hawk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_hawk Big picture, I'd categorize the problem as human nature and "sounds too good to be false".
_menelaus 2mo ago
What are we even talking about here? Controlling the strait? This actually means controlling so much land around the strait that Iran can't launch missiles or drones at ships. Essentially conquering all of Iran by ground invasion. The USA could do this, sure, but we don't want to because its too stupid even for us.
- aaomidi 2mo ago
  Just like how US conquered all of Vietnam and Afghanistan. US would lose a land war with Iran. They’d lose it spectacularly too.
  - estearum 2mo ago
    If the US were ruled by a dictator and had no market forces, the US could obviously conquer any of the above. It would just come at such immense cost and require such horrors that a voting public and a responsive market make it politically untenable to actually pursue. Which is good!
  - jpgvm 2mo ago
    Iran is on a level so much worse than even Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, there are some mountains, but they are in the middle. The Taliban fucked off into the mountains and they couldn't do jack. Iran on the other hand is a plateau fortress lined by mountains on all (accessible to US/western allies) sides. A land invasion of Iran means no supply lines and no way out. The words "one does not simply" come to mind. It is essentially the ultimate meat grinder unless you can win decisively in days, which is impossible because the entire apparatus you are trying to destroy is distributed within aforementioned mountains and operates with decentralised/autonomous command that has been preparing for this exact eventuality (being invaded by an opponent with vastly more firepower and overwhelming air superiority) for the last 40 years. Not to mention absolute fucking hellscape it will be for troops on the ground with FPV drones and Shahed flying into clusters of US marines and being broadcast on Telegram. A land invasion of Iran is empire suicide. You can't win, you can't go home and you are left with just pouring an infinite amount of resources and lives into the most asymmetric and geographically hostile theatre of all time.
bpodgursky 2mo ago
1. It's not the reason for any of those things 2. Running out of munitions is bad but it's the least bad possible problem. We know how to solve it, just pay for higher volume munition purchases. There's no suggestion the missiles don't work well. They actually are quite effective! We just spent the minimum on expendable purchases and bought new carrier groups instead. Restocking at much much much higher volume than we just spent will cost $50-100 billion, which is not cheap, but is not THAT expensive compared to any other government program (it's like... 2% of our COVID spending). And it's actual effective reindustrialization unlike other uses of the money.
semiquaver 2mo ago
> the reason I can promise you if the military disappeared tomorrow we would not suddenly obtain the things you say we lack.
- Varelion 2mo ago
  Leaders profit off the military industrial complex. Take away that complex and they would certainly look for the next opportunity so bleed the working class, but the sham would be far more visible and less efficient. Either way, a massive stepfoward -- at least it wouldn't be there to actively make the world a worse place, as it has done exclusively post 1945.
FuckButtons 2mo ago
I mean, we could, the issue is that it would be politically untenable. Controlling the straight means controlling Iranian territory, which means a ground invasion and occupation, which means ~2 million deployed personnel until you set up a compliant regime (because Iran, is absolutely massive). Which is why literally every other president has chosen to negotiate with them or keep them at arms length.
threethirtytwo 2mo ago
Jobs creation. That's another way to think about it. There are, of course, better jobs to be created than military though, but job creation is still a factor.

rbanffy 2mo ago

Soft power would have gone a long way towards furthering US interests in the Middle East. Unfortunately, it seems too late for that. By the time a new administration's diplomacy reverts the current antagonism and lack of trust, the dollar will have lost ground as the default reserve currency and financing US debt will become much more expensive than it is now, making military expenses prohibitive, but still a priority. This is usually the point the economy is flipped around into a war-based economy where all output is directed to military equipment.

simonh 2mo ago

The health care issue in the USA isn't due to lack of funding, the US spends more on health care per person than any other country, double that of many European countries with single payer systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea... The costs of medicare, medicaid and CHIP to tax payers are about what most Europeans pay in tax for universal health care, but then they also need to pay for health insurance for themselves. As for controlling Hormuz, the US military absolutely could control Hormuz. I'm confident it's quite capable of it. It's that the US public wouldn't support the immense cost in lives and treasure it would take to do it, and maintain that control. No other military could even try, but the the USA could. It's not a matter of lack of military capacity.

aeve890 2mo ago
>No other military could even try Iran military is trying alright.
- simonh 2mo ago
  You got me there.
nwatson 2mo ago
Health insurance company margins are 3% to 5%. The book America’s Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Back-Room Deals, and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System (2015) by journalist Steven Brill blames mostly wasteful practices in hospitals, pharma and device manufacturers, government and corporate health administration costs.
- simonh 2mo ago
  Thanks for the recommendation.
- orwin 2mo ago
  US health insurance margins are thinner than European private insurance. Their administrative cost however are 9-10%, when in Europe (or really, France and Germany, I haven't looked elsewhere) they are 5-8%. The difference is probably in negotiating costs and audits. But that means that in total, for every 100 dollar paid, US insuree pay 4-10 dollar in efficiency+dividend that a European doesn't.
- ethbr1 2mo ago
  Not to dismiss your point, but the US healthcare system has one meta problem. Complexity. There are too many parties. There are too many bespoke party-party contract. There are too many new middle-parties being created, with their own contracts. There are too many systems. There's too much tech debt. That's a reason improvements to the US healthcare system have generally been via HHS/CMS imposing standardization mandates ('or no Medicare payments'). But providers, facilities, and insurers (most operating on low margins) can't be collectively more meta-efficient without simplifying the system. Single payer / Medicare for all is a critical start not because of coverage, but because of simplicity. There are so many intractable problems with the current system simply by virtue that changing anything about them requires 100s of parties to update 10,000s of party-party contracts and interfaces. That's the biggest source of waste in the current system: constant duplicative re-engineering.
- franktankbank 2mo ago
  Dumb argument though when UHG owns the hospitals, pharmacy and the insurance company. They can make the "profit" of any one of them be anything they want really.
irishcule 2mo ago
> the US military absolutely could control Hormuz. I'm confident it's quite capable of it. It's that the US public wouldn't support the immense cost in lives and treasure it would take to do it, and maintain that control I never understood these kinds of arguments and they always come from those defending US military might. Either they can do it or they cannot, if "the US public wouldn't support the immense cost in lives and treasure it would take to do it" is true, which it appears to be, then the US Military cannot control Hormuz.
- steveBK123 2mo ago
  Right I think its only an interesting argument in separating existential vs non-existential threats to the country. So it means we aren't fighting in Iran the way we would in defending a hypothetical invasion of the lower 48 states, great. But does it mean we'd fight any differently in the South China Sea, a Russian incursion into Poland, etc. Unclear, and presidential whim based.
  - msabalau 2mo ago
    The American public has shown willingness over decades and decades to commit to long term wars of choice. Not infinitely patient, but patient. Of course, other Presidents have been willing to put in some sort of effort to make to make a case. And usually have some of theory of victory or purpose. And generally avoid making weird random claims about invading NATO allies.
    - steveBK123 2mo ago
      That willingness is predicated on being at war with much weaker powers / enduring FAR lower casualty rates than Vietnam / Korea / world wars. The entire 25+ year GWOT era has resulted in 7k American military personnel dying. Vietnam that number was closer to 60K in 8 years, when US population was also 33% lower. Dramatically different impact on society. Sending marines to take an island in Hormuz or a carrier under fire in the South China Sea might look a lot closer to Vietnam than GWOT in a hurry.
- 2mo ago
thiht 2mo ago
> As for controlling Hormuz, the US military absolutely could control Hormuz They don't though
scoofy 2mo ago
> The costs of medicare, medicaid and CHIP to tax payers are about what most Europeans pay in tax for universal health care, but then they also need to pay for health insurance for themselves. People always say this, but I suspect Americans are more unhealthy in general and actually need more healthcare per person. We have a development pattern where people barely walk, but less walk or cycle to work.
ndsipa_pomu 2mo ago
> As for controlling Hormuz, the US military absolutely could control Hormuz I don't see how they could manage that without a full-scale invasion and control of Iran. It's far too easy for Iran to launch drones/torpedoes from small watercraft or from nearby land. I expect they could control Hormuz for a while, but it would be very expensive and I'd expect the logistics to break down fairly quickly if the economics doesn't stop it first.
- switchbak 2mo ago
  "I don't see how they could manage that without a full-scale invasion and control of Iran" - that's precisely what they're saying, and that the domestic populace wouldn't put up with it. I suppose "could" here is a bit of a stretch. Like technically, yes, you could if you whipped up your country into enough of a frenzy to support it. Hell, Iraq happened (twice), so I suppose it has historical precedent. And yes, a full-scale invasion of a fully committed US military should absolutely be able to conquer and hold Iran. But I can't imagine any circumstance where that's possibly going to happen in today's reality (outside of an Iranian terrorist event on USA soil, for instance).
  - ndsipa_pomu 2mo ago
    > a full-scale invasion of a fully committed US military should absolutely be able to conquer and hold Iran I doubt that - Iran is very large and would require something like conscription in the US to get anywhere near the required amount of troops. The US doesn't have a great track record with conquering and occupying other countries.
nemothekid 2mo ago
>As for controlling Hormuz, the US military absolutely could control Hormuz. I'm confident it's quite capable of it. It's that the US public wouldn't support the immense cost in lives and treasure it would take to do it, and maintain that control. This is like saying "I could easily afford a Ferrari. It's just that I wouldn't be able to make the interest payments on the loan". Military conquest is more than just guns.
- thehappypm 2mo ago
  The reason the US can’t take the strait is that the war is unpopular and the American people don’t want it to happen. The US military could absolutely 100% invade and take the street, but it would be extremely unpopular and very expensive.
  - elendilm 2mo ago
    [flagged]
    - stevenwoo 2mo ago
      The argument echoes similar speculation about the USA's 20 years in Vietnam, the "military was held back" despite killing more than a million southeast Asians in the attempt.
    - thehappypm 2mo ago
      It is public opinion that is keeping the US from using boots on the ground.
      - samrus 2mo ago
        And what prevented those boots on the ground from winning in vietnam?
        thehappypm 2mo ago
        The objectives are wildly different. Vietnam is more like asking the question, could the US Military occupy all of Iran? Which I think the answer is essentially No, just like Vietnam. The strait is one small objective , and the US had lots of successes in Vietnam with capturing key strategic areas, they just couldn’t cover that into a successful occupation

svpk 2mo ago

I think it's worth pointing out that the US almost certainly could have taken control of the strait. But it would have required boats in the water and boots on the ground. But that puts many more lives at risk, would have been very unpopular (much moreso then the current war situation), etc. You can't win a war purely through air superiority and bombs. That's not a new lesson but it's one the administration failed to learn through history and is apparently now failing to learn through practice).

ksudb 2mo ago
There's control and there's enough control so not a single missile can hit a cargo ship in the strait. Maritime insurers are understandably conservative. If the ship stays trapped it continues to pay premiums (insurance company wins). If it risks passage it risks a $10M payout (insurance company loses). If there's risk of a single missile the insurers won't allow the ships through. How can an insurance company thousands of miles away stop a ship? "If you risk the passage you're not covered by insurance" Pretty sure Iran has spent the last 30 years ensuring that they can mount gorilla attacks indefinitely in the face of overwhelming invasion. That has been their deterrent strategy for decades. Intelligence analysts out front should have told ya. (A massive invasion would also not open the strait.)
datsci_est_2015 2mo ago
> You can't win a war purely through air superiority and bombs. That's not a new lesson but it's one the administration failed to learn through history and is apparently now failing to learn through practice. This is a lesson that conservative administrations have refused to learn for decades. I hope Curtis Lemay is experiencing a toasty afterlife for all of the suffering he has caused humanity due to a zealous conviction that aerial bombing campaigns win wars, and his lasting legacy in conservative war strategy.
- bell-cot 2mo ago
  The delusion is somewhat over a century old now. It originates from factions within the military community (vs. politicians) and there's nothing particularly conservative about it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell#Post-war_advocate_of_air_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell#Post-war_advoca... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_Mafia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_Mafia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_hawk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_hawk Big picture, I'd categorize the problem as human nature and "sounds too good to be false".

_menelaus 2mo ago

What are we even talking about here? Controlling the strait? This actually means controlling so much land around the strait that Iran can't launch missiles or drones at ships. Essentially conquering all of Iran by ground invasion. The USA could do this, sure, but we don't want to because its too stupid even for us.

aaomidi 2mo ago
Just like how US conquered all of Vietnam and Afghanistan. US would lose a land war with Iran. They’d lose it spectacularly too.
- estearum 2mo ago
  If the US were ruled by a dictator and had no market forces, the US could obviously conquer any of the above. It would just come at such immense cost and require such horrors that a voting public and a responsive market make it politically untenable to actually pursue. Which is good!
- jpgvm 2mo ago
  Iran is on a level so much worse than even Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, there are some mountains, but they are in the middle. The Taliban fucked off into the mountains and they couldn't do jack. Iran on the other hand is a plateau fortress lined by mountains on all (accessible to US/western allies) sides. A land invasion of Iran means no supply lines and no way out. The words "one does not simply" come to mind. It is essentially the ultimate meat grinder unless you can win decisively in days, which is impossible because the entire apparatus you are trying to destroy is distributed within aforementioned mountains and operates with decentralised/autonomous command that has been preparing for this exact eventuality (being invaded by an opponent with vastly more firepower and overwhelming air superiority) for the last 40 years. Not to mention absolute fucking hellscape it will be for troops on the ground with FPV drones and Shahed flying into clusters of US marines and being broadcast on Telegram. A land invasion of Iran is empire suicide. You can't win, you can't go home and you are left with just pouring an infinite amount of resources and lives into the most asymmetric and geographically hostile theatre of all time.

bpodgursky 2mo ago

1. It's not the reason for any of those things 2. Running out of munitions is bad but it's the least bad possible problem. We know how to solve it, just pay for higher volume munition purchases. There's no suggestion the missiles don't work well. They actually are quite effective! We just spent the minimum on expendable purchases and bought new carrier groups instead. Restocking at much much much higher volume than we just spent will cost $50-100 billion, which is not cheap, but is not THAT expensive compared to any other government program (it's like... 2% of our COVID spending). And it's actual effective reindustrialization unlike other uses of the money.

semiquaver 2mo ago

> the reason I can promise you if the military disappeared tomorrow we would not suddenly obtain the things you say we lack.

Varelion 2mo ago
Leaders profit off the military industrial complex. Take away that complex and they would certainly look for the next opportunity so bleed the working class, but the sham would be far more visible and less efficient. Either way, a massive stepfoward -- at least it wouldn't be there to actively make the world a worse place, as it has done exclusively post 1945.

FuckButtons 2mo ago

I mean, we could, the issue is that it would be politically untenable. Controlling the straight means controlling Iranian territory, which means a ground invasion and occupation, which means ~2 million deployed personnel until you set up a compliant regime (because Iran, is absolutely massive). Which is why literally every other president has chosen to negotiate with them or keep them at arms length.

threethirtytwo 2mo ago

Jobs creation. That's another way to think about it. There are, of course, better jobs to be created than military though, but job creation is still a factor.