We are already involved with Iran giving defensive cover for Israel.

We just haven't been on the offence yet.

China and Russia are heavily dependent on Iran. No drones for Russia and no oil for China.

The other Arab nations are silent over this as if they don't want a nuclear Iran either.

Somewhat off topic. But I've been wondering why did we let Pakistan get a nuke?

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
China and Russia are heavily dependent on Iran. No drones for Russia and no oil for China.

The other Arab nations are silent over this as if they don't want a nuclear Iran either.

Yep. I don't think anyone in the neighborhood wants the Mullahs to have nukes. They may believe their own rhetoric: Death to Israel; Death to the United States.

quote:

Originally posted by walker77:
Somewhat off topic. But I've been wondering why did we let Pakistan get a nuke?

Balance of Power: Because India had a nuke...

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
(I don't know how to post tweets)

From Iranian State TV: "tonight, a great surprise will occur, one that the world will remember for centuries."

https://x.com/BRICSinfo/status/1935078521178591335

Dirty bomb perhaps? A real nuke bought (or donated) from NK or Pakistan?

I haven’t heard of any “great surprise”. I guess the dude was blowing smoke.

Somebody wants out: 2 civilian aircraft just left Iran for Oman per Fox’s Jennifer Griffin...

https://x.com/Osint613/status/1935335685671858569

quote:

Originally posted by Cassandra:

quote:

Originally posted by walker77:
Somewhat off topic. But I've been wondering why did we let Pakistan get a nuke?

Balance of Power: Because India had a nuke...

And because at the time in the late 1970s and 1980s, Pakistan was our closest ally in the region, especially after the recent overthrow in Iran (our former closest ally in the region) and the Soviet invasion of Pakistan's neighbor Afghanistan in 1979. Most of the US covert involvement in that war ran through Pakistan.

So we didn't really want Pakistan to have nukes, but didn't want to bang that drum too loudly in fear of burning bridges with our strategic regional ally. There was a lot of talk against it, and some half-hearted sanctions, but mostly we just allowed then to keep working on it.

And by the time the Soviets pulled out and shortly thereafter the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended, meaning Pakistan's importance to US lessened greatly, Pakistan already had their nukes.

https://www.newsmax.com/world/...dkt_nbr=010502zqnmrh

Trump on Iran: It's 'Late to Be Talking'

President Donald Trump on Wednesday declined to say whether the U.S. was planning to strike Iran or its nuclear facilities, and added the Iranians had reached out but he feels "it's very late to be talking."

Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump was asked about the U.S. potentially joining Israel in firing air strikes aimed at Iran.

"You don't know that I'm going to even do it. You don't know. I may do it. I may not do it," the president said. "I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do.

"I can tell you this, that Iran's got a lot of trouble and they want to negotiate. And I say, 'Why didn't you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction?' "

Israel likely would need U.S. assistance to take out Iran's Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, an underground uranium enrichment facility.

Surrounded by workers who are erecting massive new flag poles outside the White House, Trump said Iran is paying for being longtime "bullies."

"For 40 years they've been saying death to America, death to Israel, death to anybody else that they didn't like," he said. "They were bullies. They were schoolyard bullies. And now they're not bullies anymore. But we'll see what happens.

"I wouldn't say that we won anything yet. I would say that we sure as hell made a lot of progress."

In describing Iran as totally defenseless, with no air defense whatsoever, Trump said he did not know how long the conflict would continue.

The president was asked whether it was too late for Iran to enter into negotiations for a new nuclear agreement and an end to the current conflict.

"Nothing's too late," he said, before adding, "I said it's very late. You know, I said it's very late to be talking. We may meet. It's, I don't know, there's a big difference between now and a week ago.

"They [the Iranians] even suggested they come to the White House. It's a big difference but they've suggested that they come to the White House. That's, you know, courageous ... it's like not easy for them to do."

Trump said he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, when Putin offered to mediate the Israel-Iran conflict.

"I said, 'do me a favor, mediate your own,' " said Trump, referring to the Russia-Ukraine war. "Let's mediate Russia first. OK?"

Trump spoke after Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement read by a television presenter on Wednesday that his country will not accept Trump's call for an unconditional surrender.

In his first remarks since Friday, when he delivered a speech broadcast on state media after Israel began bombarding Iran, Khamenei said peace or war could not be imposed on the Islamic Republic.

"Intelligent people who know Iran, the Iranian nation, and its history will never speak to this nation in threatening language because the Iranian nation will not surrender," he said.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
I haven’t heard of any “great surprise”. I guess the dude was blowing smoke.

Just like Saddam Hussein’s “Mother of all battles”.

quote:

describing Iran as totally defenseless, with no air defense whatsoever,

Be a good time to put Iran’s navy on the ocean floor. No Air Force and no navy would make it difficult for them to continue to be a bully in Strait of Hormuz.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
Be a good time to put Iran’s navy on the ocean floor. No Air Force and no navy would make it difficult for them to continue to be a bully in Strait of Hormuz.

I'm sure our satellites are watching for Iranian mine-laying activity in the strait and that those ships won't be long for the world if anything is detected. They'd supposedly laid about 150 back in the 80s when the USS Roberts was hit, but are said to have as many as 2,000 today.

An interesting article on Iran's mines and mine capability can be found at

https://www.strausscenter.org/strait-of-hormuz-mines/

The issue of nuclear proliferation is obviously a very complex (read “messy”) one. A friend once asked rhetorically, “If we can have nukes, why can’t any country have them? Isn’t it like if I can carry a gun, why can’t my neighbor?”

When people ask why the US should be the world’s policeman, the answer is because policemen are essential to safe societies and if not us, who? In response someone will quote George Washington or the like about foreign entanglements, which of course completely ignores the fact that the world has changed more than a little in the past couple of centuries. And even way back, when the criminals got to be too much of a nuisance, the US did something about it (look up the Barbary pirates).

There is a tendency to look at the relationships among the world’s nations today as if they were a local neighborhood in a civilized nation like the United States. In fact, though, imagine a number of settlers on the edge of a frontier or on a planet far away in the galaxy that’s cut off from the rest of humanity. There are a very limited number of individuals struggling for existence there, and the best they can hope for is that they get along reasonably well without any one of them wanting to control the lives and efforts of the rest by threats and violence. As always, though, there will be one or more that want to do just that—just as Russia and China want to do that here and now.

History is also full of examples of other countries and their leaders having done that: North Vietnam, North Korea, the Soviet Union, Hitler, Mussolini, Napoleon, Britain, Spain, Rome, Persia, the Mongol and Islamic hordes, the aboriginal American nations and tribes, and others further in the past have all been examples.

Throughout most of history only the victims of aggression have made any effort to defend themselves, and then only when actually attacked. A few times, though, national leaders have thought, “Yeah, maybe it would be good if that criminal regime doesn’t get too powerful.” The most famous example of that was when France and Britain were seeing how Hitler and the Nazis were rearming Germany and making territorial demands of their neighbors. It’s generally believed that if France had resisted and prevented the reoccupation of the Rhineland by military means as they could have, Hitler would have been discredited and might have fallen from power and become just another failed would-be strongman forgotten by history. Just as one US president after another has tried to talk Vladimir Putin out of his aggressions, British leaders tried to talk Hitler out of his—and with equal success.

As an aside, why weren’t the French and British willing to risk a military confrontation with Hitler’s forces early on? The most obvious answers were that Britain had disarmed so completely after WWI that they were in no position threaten any sort of effective action, and both countries were still feeling the effects of the mass slaughters they had experienced a mere 20 years before. In both cases the leaders were later blamed for what ultimately happened, but the leaders were subject to what their peoples wanted and were willing to accept, i.e., “No more wars!” and “We [students of a British university] will not fight for King and country.”

The US helped resist Communist aggression in Greece after WWII and of course in Korea. In both cases it worked and anyone with two brain cells to rub together recognizes that the world is a better place in which to live as a result. There were many other times when the Evil Empire’s efforts were disrupted to one degree or another without the disagreements becoming shooting conflicts. The US support for the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan was another “police” type action that ended up helping to bring down the Empire. “But what about …?” some will say, but no successes last forever and I’ll take the fact that the Empire’s demise has lessened the chance that some Soviet Rocket Forces lieutenant colonel can panic and start a genuine World War III because a civilian airliner strays off course.

And to return to the question of, “If we can, why can’t they?” Part of policing in the modern world when we’re living cheek by jowl and the Atlantic and Pacific moats have long since stopped being the isolationist protection they provided as they did 150 years ago, is keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of madmen who would destroy us in a moment if they thought they could succeed.

It is one of the most fundamental tenets of Islam that every true believer’s goal should be to convert or kill everyone—every single person—who isn’t a true Muslim already.

Just one quotation that sums it all up:

“I asked KSM [Islamic terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] one time how come, since his brand of Islam is so violent, he calls it the religion of peace. He told me that my problem was that I interpreted the word peace the way Americans always do. He explained that according to his brand of Islam, peace would exist when the entire world was under Sharia law and ruled by a Muslim caliphate. He said Islam is the religion of peace because its aim is to impose Sharia law everywhere and in doing so bring peace to the world.

“KSM said that to make peace with one’s enemies is to convert, subjugate, or enslave them.”
— James E. Mitchell, Enhanced Interrogation (New York: Crown Forum, 2016), 180.

Iran is a criminal regime that has demonstrated by words and actions that they are as much a danger to other members of the world community as the crazy guy who lives next door and threatened to kill you because the leaves from your tree blew onto his driveway during the last windstorm and shot at your dog when it strayed into his yard. Many of us here believe there should be few limits on individuals’ rights to own guns, but would we make an exception in his case? (A rhetorical question; if you say “no,” I’d question your own mental competence and judgment to own guns.)

So yes, societies need the police.
Somewhat ironically, during Cold War I the Evil Empire did an effective job of performing certain policing functions in the areas under their control. It was a very brutal form of policing that our Leftists studiously ignored, but it worked. Now of course the Russians and others of their ilk don’t do even that much for the world community, so who’s left to try to keep some sort of a lid on things, and why?

VDH

https://x.com/VDHanson/status/1935398589125247371

Many are now demanding that Trump act abroad in the way they think he had promised and campaigned–which can be mostly defined as how closely he should parallel their own version of MAGA.

But Trump’s past shows that he never claimed that he was either an ideological isolationist or an interventionist.

He was and is clearly a populist-nationalist: i.e., what in a cost-to-benefit analysis is in the best interests of the U.S. at home and its own particular agendas abroad?

Trump did not like neo-conservatism because he never felt it was in our interests to spend blood and treasure on those who either did not deserve such largess, or who would never evolve in ways we thought they should, or whose fates were not central to our national interests.

So-called, optional, bad-deal, and forever wars in the Middle East and their multitrillion-dollar costs would come ultimately at the expense of shorting Middle America back home.

However, Trump’s first-term bombing of ISIS, standing down “little rocket man”, warning Putin not to invade Ukraine between 2017-21, and killing off Qasem Soleimani, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and many of the attacking Russian Wagner Group in Syria were certainly not Charles Lindberg isolationism but a sort of Jacksonian—something summed up perhaps as the Gadsen “Don’t tread on me”/ or Lucius Sulla’s “No better friend, no worse enemy” .

Trump’s much critiqued references to Putin—most recently during the G7, and his negotiations with him over Ukraine—were never, as alleged, appeasement (he was harder in his first term on Putin than was either Obama or Biden), but art-of-the-deal/transactional (e.g., you don’t gratuitously insult or ostracize your formidable rival in possible deal-making, but seek simultaneously to praise—and beat—him.)

Similarly, Churchill initially saw the mass-murdering, treacherous Stalin in the way Trump perhaps sees Putin, someone dangerous and evil, but who if handled carefully, occasionally granted his due, and approached with eyes wide open, could be useful in advancing a country’s realist interests—which for Britain in 1941 was for Russia to kill three-quarters of Nazi Germany’s soldiers, and, mutatis mutandis, for the U.S. in 2025 to cease the mass killing near Europe, save most of an autonomous Ukraine, keep Russia back eastward as far as feasible, and in Kissingerian-style derail the developing Chinese and Russian anti-American axis.

Trump was never anti-Ukraine, but rather against a seemingly endless Verdun-like war in which after three years neither side had found a pathway to strategic resolution—a war from the distance fought between two like peoples, one with nuclear weapons, and on the doorstep of Europe.

Usually, Trump prefaced the war as a nonsensical wastage of life, at staggering human cost that his supposedly more humane and sophisticated critics never mentioned all that much.

At best, one could say Trump really did lament the horrific loss of life, and at the least, as a builder and deal-maker, wars for him rarely made any practical business sense, i.e., it seems wiser to build things and mutually profit than to blow them up and impoverish all involved.

Add it all up, and what Trump is doing vis-à-vis Iran seems in line with what he has said and done about “America First”.

He sees Israel’s interests in neutering the nuclear agendas of the thuggish and dangerous Iran as strategically similar to those of our own and our allies—but not necessarily tactically in every instance identically so.

Thus, Trump wants the Iranian nuclear threat taken out by Israel—if feasible. And he will help facilitate that aim logistically and diplomatically.

If it is not possible for Israel to finish the task, in a cost-to-benefit analysis he will take it out—but, again, only after he is convinced that the end of Iran’s nukes and our intervention far outweigh the dangers of a superpower intervention, attacks on U.S. installations in the region, a wider, ongoing American commitment, spiraling oil prices, or distractions or even injury to his ambitious domestic agenda.

Trump is willing to talk to the Iranians, rarely insults their thuggish leaders, and wants to show that he always preferred exhausting negotiations to preemptive war.

That patience allows him to say legitimately that force was his last choice—as he sees all the alternatives waning.

Thus, Iran’s fate was in its own hands, either to be a non-nuclear rich state analogous to the Gulf States but no longer a half-century rogue terrorist regime seeking to overturn and then appropriate the Middle East order and to threaten the West with nukes.

Tactically, Trump thinks out loud. He offers numerous possible solutions, issues threats, and deadlines (some rhetorical or negotiable, others literal and ironclad). He alternates between sounding like a UN diplomat and a Cold War hawk, and sometime pivots and reverses himself as situations change.

All this can confuse his allies, but perhaps confounds more his enemies.

In sum, he believes as far as enemies go, public predictability is dangerous—unpredictability even volatility being the safer course.

Add it all up, and there is a reason why Putin did not invade Ukraine during Trump’s first term; why for the first time in nearly 50 years the Middle East has some chance at normality with the demise of the Iran’s Shia crescent of terror; and why Europe and our Asian allies may be more irritated by Trump than by Obama and Biden, but also probably feel that he is more likely to defend their shared Western interests in extremis, and will lead a far stronger and more deterrent West than his predecessors, one that will prevent war by assuring others that it is suicidal to attack the U.S.

As always, great analysis by Victor Davis Hanson.

It's true that the Iranians do not negotiate under duress, because they never negotiate at all. All they do is lie and deceive and stonewall.

It would be marvelous if Israel could entirely defeat the Iranians without our assistance, but these perpetual troublemakers need to have their ass handed to them and it seems that their total destruction is the only answer, and that means US involvement.

https://x.com/IsraelWarRoom/st.../1935356228802089405

The international version of suicide by cop.

quote:

Originally posted by DrDan:
The international version of suicide by cop.

Good analogy, Dan. He just can't let his ideology go.

You can have my nukes when you pry them from my cold, dead, hands.