• rwrwefwef@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    18 hours ago

    Reasons for the invasion matter of course, but they matter for different people. The American people deserve to know why their treasury is being expended on a war half across the world instead of being used to improve life at home. Or exactly what improvements they reap in terms of security by fighting this war, if their administration is going to tell them that Iran is two weeks from getting the bomb for the last decade anyway.

    But these reasons are irrelevant for Iran. Trump could be attacking Iran because he legitimately feels threatened; or for its oil; or to distract the public, or maybe simply because he wants to build a Trump Tower&Casino in Persepolis. The point is that, whatever the insane reasons the United States have for their attack, Iran CANNOT prevent them from acting upon them. Nor can it change the minds of those in charge of writing American foreign policy; no more than the Zulus could change the reasons for why the British Empire attacked them, for example.

    What Iran CAN do is set clear consequences for attacks on its sovereignty. “You strike our Consulate. Fine.” Two days later Hzb retaliates on a diplomatic mission of the Epstein Coalition. “You kill our officials. Okay” A week later an American military contractor happens to “disappear”. And so on. This is tit-for-tat retaliation.

    Reasons for war are for the American people to debate on. And I agree with the idea that with such baseless reasons, it really does show the corruption of the leadership that started this war, as well as of those who do nothing to prevent it. But for Iran, it isn’t about determining whether the reasons of their attacker are good or bad. It is about making the likelihood of an attack go from possible to impossible, without significant casualties. And Iran has blundered massively on the latter.

    • Lucius_Sweet@lemmy.world
      1·
      8 hours ago

      I understand the concept of tit for tat retaliation, the problem is American foreign policy for these instances is tit for tat tat. America makes sure its retaliatory responses are overwhelming making a tit for tat deterrence useless against them, this is the advantage of having the largest stick in the world. This is also why America’s rivals engage in asymmetric warfare with layers of plausible deniability.

      This also assumes Iran is dealing with a rational actor acting logically, there is no evidence Trump is one in this case. This strike has no logical beneficial outcome for the American people, it will be interesting to see if Congress allows America to continue. Trumps reasons for doing Netenyahus bidding to the detriment of the American people is certainly a choice that we can all speculate on.

      I disagree with your comparing Iran Vs US to the Brits Vs the Zulu’s. It is almost as if you have slept through the last 110 years of insurgency warfare and how effective it can be. Iran is a huge country with a population of 90 million. The USA can bomb with impunity sure but Iran has more people than Afghanistan and Iraq combined with greater military capabilities. Boots on the ground will be needed, you can’t win a war with stand off munitions alone. America was entirely unsuccessful with their previous two attempts at regime change by force this century, why would they do better against a bigger and better armed country? Look at the bunch of clowns in charge in America currently, I would not trust them to mind my plants for a week away let alone regime change in Iran.