that's not my point though, if you think it was rational, adequate, appropriate or not - your claim was that trump was 'pretty tame' compared to his predecessor, which is demonstrably not true. he significantly expanded on drone strikes and bombings, and deregulated reporting on civilian casualties as well. that's all i said in that post.

https://twitter.com/JasonMBrodsky/status/1216006826367516672



https://twitter.com/AlinejadMasih/status/1216004196077592579



Looks like the missile strike lit a fire under the anti-govt people in Iran.

that's really great. the people have every reason to demonstrate against their shitty government. that does, however, not refute the fact that the religious right and conservatives in iran rallied behind their leadership, and that trump's escalation of the conflict, especially the assassination of soleimani, has been a great recruitment tool for radicals.

I think it's incredible how a regime can give up so much to gain so little. Imagine if Iran was not seeking nukes and how that would completely change the dynamics of the discussion. Imagine how much wealth and investment can be generated with a country that's relatively educated & large in comparison to the region, which can easily form ties and partnerships with foreign markets.

I understand that they want regional clout, but why not yield, give up nukes and grow strong economically? I think the Euros would shift towards being 'for' Iran if only they were willing to give this up. In a way it's similar to Russia, as in, at some point the Germans & other Euro powers were willing to tell US regional interests to fuck off and form deep energy ties with Russia out of self interest. I've long said and believe this. You don't get compliance and influence by shunning countries and painting them into a corner where their only choice is to be erratic. You get them to conform by forming strong economic ties, which leads to those populations having higher standards of living and having a certain expectation, so when the gov't acts out and threatens that domestic comfort the populace itself will rise up.

True, but the missile strike is really something Iranian leadership will kick themselves for. Lots of political ammo, nothing gained and even lost the high ground argument vs the US "You once took down our civilian airliner". I hope this can be cause for some political change in Iran, for the better.



Iran focuses on the nukes because if you look at them they're geopolitically sandwiched between major nuclear powers. Israel, Russia, China, India. All have nukes and could in future threaten Iran.

And I do have to note here that Iran has afaik always insisted they only seek nuclear energy, not nuclear weaponry. They are a signatory and ratifier of the NNPT.

This post was edited by balrog66 on Jan 11 2020 01:12pm

I don't believe this for a second. Why would China or Russia or any of these other countries start a nuclear war of aggression against Iran? Even Israel is tolerating and has been for 70 years because they don't have nukes. Nederland is sandwiched between nuclear powers but they don't have this impending feeling that ze Germans will come, even though historically they should feel more threatened compared to a country like Iran that's never really been domineered by others.

I don't believe that they only seek nuclear energy and neither does the international community. There's caps on things like heavy water production, etc, that honestly they have no reason to cross, other than the obvious reason.

Pelosi doing the entire Democratic Party an injustice and should have retired already. Time to pass the mantle. She’s a large part of why the Democrats will not be competitive in 2020

All political offices outside the SCOTUS should have term limits.

SCOTUS working as intended for the most part. Roberts has been a good chief.

agree,

agree

This should be the amendment of our generation. could change the whole system