These last couple weeks have seen a set of definitive national failures, side-by-side.
In the United States, a definitive failure of Constitutional War Powers, a definitive failure of executive judgment, a definitive failure of coherence or consistency or discipline in carrying out an 'America-First' foreign policy for a constituency invested in it that twice provide the President's margin of political success, a failure to exercise sovereignty and not get manipulated into war, however limited or extensive it turns out to be, at the timing and convenience of a foreign power. [There's more failures, but by actors with much less power, and scarcely the same responsibilities of POTUS and the majority Party in Congress, so I've no room to expound on them.]
This did not come instantly, we've seen hints of this direction as far back as Trump #1, and certainly in personnel appointments in both Trump#1 and Trump#2. But the events of last weekend put quite a final exclamation point on it.
For Iran, this marks the definitive failure of their strategy of trying to achieve either regional mastery, 'liberation'/'resistance'*, or 'deterrence' through being a 'threshold' near nuclear weapons state or use of proxy groups and terrorist capabilities for harassment, 'stalking', and occasional lethal action.
Unlike radical Sunni Islamists of the Al-Qaeda or ISIS type, who seek to maximize their publicity and relevance by maximizing the body count of available approved victims, Iran has over the last 25 years generally preferred terrorist brinkmanship and posturing to lethal operations, sort of like it never went all the way on nuclear weapons. Lethal operations by its operatives and proxies were clearly not the most they could have done, whereas AQ and ISIS generally threw everything they had into killing people.
This mix of Iranian aggression and timidity probably reflected genuine caution and fear of what would happen in the event of unlimited escalation, but was probably rationalized by the idea that by demonstrating terrorist capabilities, but holding back full lethality, Iran was somehow establishing "deterrence". By often 'putting a laser' on the enemy, but not shooting, or 'shooting to miss', Iran believed it was showing strength, like a stalker.
But any deterrence it provided was worthless. It attracted hostility from Israel and the Gulf States. Provoked decades of sanctions. Made Israel and its supporters veto the nuclear deal and rescind it. Made Iran more of a target than ever. A punching bag. A punchable country.
Signs of failure and bankruptcy of Iran's approach as a deterrent became ever clearer as Axis of Resistance reaction to the Hizballah decapitation operations of recent years were not proportionately damaging, continued through the fall of the Asad regime, and then through the Israeli strike campaign on Iran this month.
Iran's persistence in confrontation without withdrawing from it or escalating can only be described as masochistic.
Iran can only 'win' in a perceptual sense, by transforming the conflict into one much more damaging for itself, a ground war on its home turf. The US and Israel can mainly deepen their losses or suffering by cooperating in that endeavor by engaging in ground operations or setting unattainable or ambitious goals like regime change. They may well do it. Israel probably would not and could not on its own, but two heads together can be dumber than one.
*resistance implies stopping an enemy from doing something to your side, Iran's direct and proxy actions have done none of that. Things called 'resistance' sponsored by Iran or non-Iranian Islamist radicals, whether they natively speak Persian, Arabic, or another language, actually translate into reality, and into plain English, more accurately as 'vengeance' and 'retaliation' - of which Iranian direct and proxy actions have provided small doses from time to time.
Trump says that there is a ceasefire. Sounds like a win for Iran. Will they now rush towards a nuclear deterrent with the materials they trucked out of the facility (with trumps warning)?
I’m against the bombings because Trump is too inept to pull off a high risk strategy. He’s too easily spooked by the oil markets. He claims total success as some kind of PR stunt when clarity of information is crucial. He also can’t see the job through. That last one is the wirst character trait.
He picked this route. See it through to the end which is total nuclear disarmement with current nuclear enriched materials being with a trusted third party.
What was once said of Arafat can now be said of Trump, the "master negotiator": "He never fails to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." The opportunity he missed was to say to Netanyahu, "I'll drop bunker-busters if you sign a two-state deal." That would force Netanyahu to choose between what he says are Israel's two existential threats: Iran and Palestinian self-determination. Only the former really is so it would call Netanyahu's bluff on the latter. It would have had the potential of removing the nuclear threat and addressing the Palestinian issue in the only lasting and equitable way possible. A win-win, a renewed open avenue to Saudi recognition via the Abraham Accords and maybe the only way Trump could win his coveted Nobel Peace Prize (if they give those out for dropping bombs on sovereign nations). Peace in the Middle East, and maybe regime change in Iran .. AND Israel! (A man can dream can't he?)
Israel refusing to negotiate a 2 state solution in good faith? You’re truly delusional. No Palestinian leadership has ever wanted it and still doesn’t. You’re 21 thoughts are indicative of a feckless political party and movement. You also forgot to mention that the JCPOA would’ve ended this year and didn’t prevent the development of missles and the centrifuges required for mass enrichment. They’ve been deceiving the world from the start and you’re just another flaccid, gullible westerner, drunk on inaction and whatever Obama put in your koolaid (it def wasn’t the billions he gave the regime to fund their proxies). I recommend people watch the FreePress live discussions and listen to Haviv Rettig Gur and Sam Harris for intelligent views and facts on this matter.
Matthew talks like the JCPOA was a resounding success. Didn't Iran balk at inspections left and right and violate the agreement in a dozen ways or more? Donald Trump backed out of it because it wasn't working, and I think if he had stayed in it, we would have gotten to this point sooner with a better armed and financed Iran. They are determined to get a nuke, and the agreement was just another way to appease the USA while they continued to work towards it.
Making an agreement with leaders who chant "Death to America" and call us "the great Satan" pretty much means that they are not going to honor the agreement.
Matthew, you say that Israel is blocking a 2-state solution, but the Palestinians have shot down multiple offers of a 2-state solution in the past. Many Israelis have come to understand that the Palestinians and their regional supporters don’t want a 2-state solution. They just want the destruction of Israel. You can read the pledge of destruction in the charter of every one of these groups. So blame Israel if you want but this doesn’t match history or reality.
As for the claims about the "total destruction" of Iran's nuclear weapons capability, satellite photos show long truck convoys at each entrance to the underground facility in the past few days leading up to the strike, no doubt loading and spiriting away what enriched uranium they already had and as much of the special equipment as they could carry. This is becoming a thing. Every 10 years the U.S. and Israel attack Irans's nuclear weapons program and like the Hydra it just keeps popping up in new places.
Point 9: Um, on the flip side, can someone give mean example of a nation that developed a nuclear program from scratch that was ever convinced to give it up by diplomacy? One? People say Ukraine, but they just inherited the FSU's and didn't want to manage it (and gave it up in exchange for promises the West screwed them on).
No one can or should criticize Israel and the US setting back Iran's program back years when the record of doing it diplomatically is zero (and that's before you're dealing with a religiously zealot government committed to Israel's destruction). And you're right that from Israel's perspective, a JCPOA-like deal and further enrichment are BOTH losing propositions. Israel did what was right for Israel and did the rest of the world a favor as well, as usual.
BTW: The big, underlying problem of EVERY point you bring up is that no one is EVER defeated anymore. No one ever surrenders. Wars never end with a winner and loser. They go on forever, indefinitely, and fester for decades, only taking breaks for flares to break out and the West to wag a finger and assign blame, force "ceasefires" out of "outrage," and then every festers and flares up again some years later. If things do ever end, it's because one side completely ignores the opinion of the rest of the world and moves in for the kill (see Sri Lanka). The world then tisks tisks for a while, and then moves on.
The "rules based order" is preventing the resolution of problems for *generations*. There is such a thing as a bad peace and a good war.
The issue I have about moral condemnation of Israel is that before you go condeming someone in a difficult situation the minimum responsibility you have is to credibly commit to a plausible course of behavior that you will praise them for doing instead -- just saying 2 state solution without explaining how to respond if the other side isn't interested isn't enough.
Yes, I think some of the things Israel has done in Gaza are pretty awful -- though it's hard to imagine any democracy not taking any punitive action in response to Oct 8th -- but if we can't bring ourselves to even say "this is a praiseworthy course of action that is hard but doesn't require sainthood we will laud you for doing" I feel like we are just as blameworthy. Also, it's the minimum needed for that criticism to act as an incentive.
Especially when you consider the fact that a number of western powers are pretty responsible for this situation and usually creating a problem and walking away doesn't mean you have any less of a moral responsibility.
I'm not thrilled about the US ending up in another war in the Middle East.
At the same time, negotiations between what are fundamentally enemy forces must include the possibility of military action. It was true 2000 years ago when Sun Tzu wrote about it, and it was true last night. Ignoring that is a mistake in modern America.
i think it’s absolute bullshit to blame israel because Palestinians kept turning down two states. Don’t let that leadership off the hook and enough with the excuses. “Oh they aren’t negotiating in good faith” just some piss poor reasoning to keep fighting decades old turf wars while the rest of the world has moved on
Here's a question: why is a nuclear-armed North Korea acceptable, but a nuclear-armed Iran not? It arguably is acceptable, because we haven't made efforts to bomb the shit out of them. Iran's efforts are mostly confined to funding proxy wars with Israel, while Kim Jung Un has an entire country's military trained on western democracies (AKA the U.S.) I'm not advocating for attacking either country, but I don't understand why this happened now, aside from it being because Israel knows how to play Trump.
I think from the US's perspective neither is acceptable. We bombed Iran to stop their nuclear program after their ability to attack civilian targets in Israel was degraded. If the South Koreans had figured out a way to sabotage all of NK's artillery in range of Seoul, maybe a bombing campaign to stop their nuclear program would have been an option.
"America’s top priority in the Middle East should be decreasing our involvement in the region." That is dependent on the effectiveness of our involvement which, true, has been historically poor, though with exceptions, Jimmy Carter peace deal.
"But here we are, at war." Call it what you will, but bombing Iran is a far cry from boots on the ground wars like Gulf 1 and 2 and Afghanistan, but more like the bombing in Serbia which prevented many massacres of Bosnians and Kosovars, or the Iraq no fly zone which saved many Kurds from chemical warfare. Neither of those resulted in any major military action for the US.
"But JCPOA prevented Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. What deal opponents didn’t like was that this was all that it did." That is conjecture, it likely slowed it down but it was a questionable bar to preventing the bomb. I didn't oppose it, but I think the opponents felt it was likely more ineffective then that it didn't provide for regime change. On the other hand, if this action results in some diminution of Iranian support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis attacking Israel, it will be in the interest of peace. And not that I dont find Israel culpable, too, but the chance of peace is diminished by Iran's proxies attacking Israel.
These last couple weeks have seen a set of definitive national failures, side-by-side.
In the United States, a definitive failure of Constitutional War Powers, a definitive failure of executive judgment, a definitive failure of coherence or consistency or discipline in carrying out an 'America-First' foreign policy for a constituency invested in it that twice provide the President's margin of political success, a failure to exercise sovereignty and not get manipulated into war, however limited or extensive it turns out to be, at the timing and convenience of a foreign power. [There's more failures, but by actors with much less power, and scarcely the same responsibilities of POTUS and the majority Party in Congress, so I've no room to expound on them.]
This did not come instantly, we've seen hints of this direction as far back as Trump #1, and certainly in personnel appointments in both Trump#1 and Trump#2. But the events of last weekend put quite a final exclamation point on it.
For Iran, this marks the definitive failure of their strategy of trying to achieve either regional mastery, 'liberation'/'resistance'*, or 'deterrence' through being a 'threshold' near nuclear weapons state or use of proxy groups and terrorist capabilities for harassment, 'stalking', and occasional lethal action.
Unlike radical Sunni Islamists of the Al-Qaeda or ISIS type, who seek to maximize their publicity and relevance by maximizing the body count of available approved victims, Iran has over the last 25 years generally preferred terrorist brinkmanship and posturing to lethal operations, sort of like it never went all the way on nuclear weapons. Lethal operations by its operatives and proxies were clearly not the most they could have done, whereas AQ and ISIS generally threw everything they had into killing people.
This mix of Iranian aggression and timidity probably reflected genuine caution and fear of what would happen in the event of unlimited escalation, but was probably rationalized by the idea that by demonstrating terrorist capabilities, but holding back full lethality, Iran was somehow establishing "deterrence". By often 'putting a laser' on the enemy, but not shooting, or 'shooting to miss', Iran believed it was showing strength, like a stalker.
But any deterrence it provided was worthless. It attracted hostility from Israel and the Gulf States. Provoked decades of sanctions. Made Israel and its supporters veto the nuclear deal and rescind it. Made Iran more of a target than ever. A punching bag. A punchable country.
Signs of failure and bankruptcy of Iran's approach as a deterrent became ever clearer as Axis of Resistance reaction to the Hizballah decapitation operations of recent years were not proportionately damaging, continued through the fall of the Asad regime, and then through the Israeli strike campaign on Iran this month.
Iran's persistence in confrontation without withdrawing from it or escalating can only be described as masochistic.
Iran can only 'win' in a perceptual sense, by transforming the conflict into one much more damaging for itself, a ground war on its home turf. The US and Israel can mainly deepen their losses or suffering by cooperating in that endeavor by engaging in ground operations or setting unattainable or ambitious goals like regime change. They may well do it. Israel probably would not and could not on its own, but two heads together can be dumber than one.
*resistance implies stopping an enemy from doing something to your side, Iran's direct and proxy actions have done none of that. Things called 'resistance' sponsored by Iran or non-Iranian Islamist radicals, whether they natively speak Persian, Arabic, or another language, actually translate into reality, and into plain English, more accurately as 'vengeance' and 'retaliation' - of which Iranian direct and proxy actions have provided small doses from time to time.
What does Russia want to happen with Iran?
Trump says that there is a ceasefire. Sounds like a win for Iran. Will they now rush towards a nuclear deterrent with the materials they trucked out of the facility (with trumps warning)?
I’m against the bombings because Trump is too inept to pull off a high risk strategy. He’s too easily spooked by the oil markets. He claims total success as some kind of PR stunt when clarity of information is crucial. He also can’t see the job through. That last one is the wirst character trait.
He picked this route. See it through to the end which is total nuclear disarmement with current nuclear enriched materials being with a trusted third party.
Are we ready to say it all worked out now?
What was once said of Arafat can now be said of Trump, the "master negotiator": "He never fails to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." The opportunity he missed was to say to Netanyahu, "I'll drop bunker-busters if you sign a two-state deal." That would force Netanyahu to choose between what he says are Israel's two existential threats: Iran and Palestinian self-determination. Only the former really is so it would call Netanyahu's bluff on the latter. It would have had the potential of removing the nuclear threat and addressing the Palestinian issue in the only lasting and equitable way possible. A win-win, a renewed open avenue to Saudi recognition via the Abraham Accords and maybe the only way Trump could win his coveted Nobel Peace Prize (if they give those out for dropping bombs on sovereign nations). Peace in the Middle East, and maybe regime change in Iran .. AND Israel! (A man can dream can't he?)
Israel refusing to negotiate a 2 state solution in good faith? You’re truly delusional. No Palestinian leadership has ever wanted it and still doesn’t. You’re 21 thoughts are indicative of a feckless political party and movement. You also forgot to mention that the JCPOA would’ve ended this year and didn’t prevent the development of missles and the centrifuges required for mass enrichment. They’ve been deceiving the world from the start and you’re just another flaccid, gullible westerner, drunk on inaction and whatever Obama put in your koolaid (it def wasn’t the billions he gave the regime to fund their proxies). I recommend people watch the FreePress live discussions and listen to Haviv Rettig Gur and Sam Harris for intelligent views and facts on this matter.
Matthew talks like the JCPOA was a resounding success. Didn't Iran balk at inspections left and right and violate the agreement in a dozen ways or more? Donald Trump backed out of it because it wasn't working, and I think if he had stayed in it, we would have gotten to this point sooner with a better armed and financed Iran. They are determined to get a nuke, and the agreement was just another way to appease the USA while they continued to work towards it.
Making an agreement with leaders who chant "Death to America" and call us "the great Satan" pretty much means that they are not going to honor the agreement.
Matthew, you say that Israel is blocking a 2-state solution, but the Palestinians have shot down multiple offers of a 2-state solution in the past. Many Israelis have come to understand that the Palestinians and their regional supporters don’t want a 2-state solution. They just want the destruction of Israel. You can read the pledge of destruction in the charter of every one of these groups. So blame Israel if you want but this doesn’t match history or reality.
As for the claims about the "total destruction" of Iran's nuclear weapons capability, satellite photos show long truck convoys at each entrance to the underground facility in the past few days leading up to the strike, no doubt loading and spiriting away what enriched uranium they already had and as much of the special equipment as they could carry. This is becoming a thing. Every 10 years the U.S. and Israel attack Irans's nuclear weapons program and like the Hydra it just keeps popping up in new places.
Point 9: Um, on the flip side, can someone give mean example of a nation that developed a nuclear program from scratch that was ever convinced to give it up by diplomacy? One? People say Ukraine, but they just inherited the FSU's and didn't want to manage it (and gave it up in exchange for promises the West screwed them on).
No one can or should criticize Israel and the US setting back Iran's program back years when the record of doing it diplomatically is zero (and that's before you're dealing with a religiously zealot government committed to Israel's destruction). And you're right that from Israel's perspective, a JCPOA-like deal and further enrichment are BOTH losing propositions. Israel did what was right for Israel and did the rest of the world a favor as well, as usual.
BTW: The big, underlying problem of EVERY point you bring up is that no one is EVER defeated anymore. No one ever surrenders. Wars never end with a winner and loser. They go on forever, indefinitely, and fester for decades, only taking breaks for flares to break out and the West to wag a finger and assign blame, force "ceasefires" out of "outrage," and then every festers and flares up again some years later. If things do ever end, it's because one side completely ignores the opinion of the rest of the world and moves in for the kill (see Sri Lanka). The world then tisks tisks for a while, and then moves on.
The "rules based order" is preventing the resolution of problems for *generations*. There is such a thing as a bad peace and a good war.
The issue I have about moral condemnation of Israel is that before you go condeming someone in a difficult situation the minimum responsibility you have is to credibly commit to a plausible course of behavior that you will praise them for doing instead -- just saying 2 state solution without explaining how to respond if the other side isn't interested isn't enough.
Yes, I think some of the things Israel has done in Gaza are pretty awful -- though it's hard to imagine any democracy not taking any punitive action in response to Oct 8th -- but if we can't bring ourselves to even say "this is a praiseworthy course of action that is hard but doesn't require sainthood we will laud you for doing" I feel like we are just as blameworthy. Also, it's the minimum needed for that criticism to act as an incentive.
Especially when you consider the fact that a number of western powers are pretty responsible for this situation and usually creating a problem and walking away doesn't mean you have any less of a moral responsibility.
I didn't vote for Trump.
But this is by far the best thing he's done.
Or any president has dine for a LONG time
I'm not thrilled about the US ending up in another war in the Middle East.
At the same time, negotiations between what are fundamentally enemy forces must include the possibility of military action. It was true 2000 years ago when Sun Tzu wrote about it, and it was true last night. Ignoring that is a mistake in modern America.
i think it’s absolute bullshit to blame israel because Palestinians kept turning down two states. Don’t let that leadership off the hook and enough with the excuses. “Oh they aren’t negotiating in good faith” just some piss poor reasoning to keep fighting decades old turf wars while the rest of the world has moved on
Here's a question: why is a nuclear-armed North Korea acceptable, but a nuclear-armed Iran not? It arguably is acceptable, because we haven't made efforts to bomb the shit out of them. Iran's efforts are mostly confined to funding proxy wars with Israel, while Kim Jung Un has an entire country's military trained on western democracies (AKA the U.S.) I'm not advocating for attacking either country, but I don't understand why this happened now, aside from it being because Israel knows how to play Trump.
I think from the US's perspective neither is acceptable. We bombed Iran to stop their nuclear program after their ability to attack civilian targets in Israel was degraded. If the South Koreans had figured out a way to sabotage all of NK's artillery in range of Seoul, maybe a bombing campaign to stop their nuclear program would have been an option.
Some thoughts on your thoughts:
"America’s top priority in the Middle East should be decreasing our involvement in the region." That is dependent on the effectiveness of our involvement which, true, has been historically poor, though with exceptions, Jimmy Carter peace deal.
"But here we are, at war." Call it what you will, but bombing Iran is a far cry from boots on the ground wars like Gulf 1 and 2 and Afghanistan, but more like the bombing in Serbia which prevented many massacres of Bosnians and Kosovars, or the Iraq no fly zone which saved many Kurds from chemical warfare. Neither of those resulted in any major military action for the US.
"But JCPOA prevented Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. What deal opponents didn’t like was that this was all that it did." That is conjecture, it likely slowed it down but it was a questionable bar to preventing the bomb. I didn't oppose it, but I think the opponents felt it was likely more ineffective then that it didn't provide for regime change. On the other hand, if this action results in some diminution of Iranian support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis attacking Israel, it will be in the interest of peace. And not that I dont find Israel culpable, too, but the chance of peace is diminished by Iran's proxies attacking Israel.