This whole situation made me realize that the mechanism for holding presidents accountable for campaign promises really doesn’t exist. None of this is what people voted for, and is almost directly the opposite. That isn’t a new thing, of course, but this seems like a pretty huge turnaround from what the campaign was about.
This seems like a fundamental problem with the system to me.
If you can’t count on the candidate to at least attempt sticking to campaign promises, then the entire process is irrational.
Presumably the mechanism is supposed to be Congress and impeachment, but that doesn’t work if the president is directly influencing their election campaigns.
I do wonder if / how something could be implemented that addresses this, beyond just losing at the next election.
This used to be the job of the third estate, but traditional media has all been captured and the algorithms have done the rest, drowning us in a sea of content.
> but traditional media has all been captured and the algorithms have done the rest
We should be explicit about what happened:
Google and Facebook skimmed off most of advertising revenue that previously supported journalism.
Then neither originated new news in quantity or quality to replace what they ate. Revenues (from ads) without costs (of paying journalists) = their profits.
Now, we have orders of magnitude less professional journalism.
When you boil it down, their business models are less about being clever and more about redirecting a huge, previously-social-good flow of money through their toll gates and taxing it.
Sorry, have to call b.s. on lack of funds. Our media are owned by a very few, a handful, of corporations. And this happened before Google even existed. It happened in the 90s.
> business model
I don't know, is this willful ignorance? Press is political ...
That Sinclair, Nexstar, CC/iHeartMedia were allowed to consolidate in the 90s is bad.
That Google et al. decimated newspaper revenue from the mid-00s onwards without replacing their newsrooms is worse.*
I wouldn't have as big a gripe if Google or Facebook had started their own news bureaus and funded them with their profits. It still would have been a rounding error on their balance sheet.
But instead they destroyed a social good, took their bonuses, and called it a day.
The media is the fourth estate. In the modern US the first three are often interpreted as the branches of government. Historically estates were often some combination of the nobility, the clergy, and the commoners.
I think people did vote for this and the proof is that Republicans are still supporting trump almost unequivocally. The senate just voted to not curtail his actions in Iran and only one GOP senator opposed.
Those people aren’t in the streets shouting that this isn’t what they voted for. Stands to reason that many are just fine with how everything is playing out.
A lot of people voted on a platform of pissing off a lot of people. A lot of people are pissed. Polls on the day of the invasion indicated a lack of support; since then a lot of people have shown that they're pissed, and now that voter base is supporting the admin and these actions because they see people getting pissed.
It sounds petty and dumb. Unfortunately, that's what's happening. 44% support the invasion. [1] That's identical to the constant 40-45% support the admin has had since day one. There has been no change in support and there never will be. There's absolutely no convincing them, leaving us with the only option of figuring out how we're supposed to deal with a country where nearly half the population has a mindset no different from willing kamikaze pilots.
They're different questions. One is whether they support the way Trump is doing it. The other is whether they support a war overall.
Their reason for supporting a war but not the way Trump is doing it could range from it being too extreme to not being extreme enough. Some people unironically want nuclear weapons to be dropped and will settle for nothing less.
I missed that, but then it is still not correct to say 44% support the invasion. In a very different framework (clear plan, cooperation with iranian opposition, working exile government, transition plan ..) I also can see myself supporting military action against the religious fanatics in power in Iran. But this invasion I do not support.
Not to mention that a good proportion of those 44% are Christians who dgaf about Iranians; in fact they're probably "heathen" being visited by "God's judgements".
The religious bigotry on this site is out of control. Christians are labeled/talked about as a block. But Muslims are treated differently, and when it's Muslim thought that is interpreted as bad, we refer to Islamists not Muslims to avoid blanket labeling.
You should edit your post because it represents Christians in a way that is not true the majority are not aligned with a weird minority subset nor the views you are assigning them.
Christians are clearly a powerful voting bloc in the US and support reactionary politics by a vast margin. Many of them see these wars as fulfilling end time prophecy and you know it. Muslim opinions in the US aren't anywhere near as influential in national elections and do actually shift on material conditions (see Gaza & Harris in the Midwest). Like get real, you will never see a christian at an anti-war protest.
source - grew up in a baptist church, grandfather was a pastor
This right here is the bigotry/double standard I'm talking about that is accepted here. 'Muslims are a death cult and you know it' is not acceptable speech, but you proudly just made the same claim, only towards Christians.
The majority of Christians are not in an end times death cult, and the size of a religious voting block in the USA doesn't change that fact. Again, we use language to separate moderate Muslims from minority extremist views normally referred to as Islamist here, but Christians are an end times death cult who don't protest war (pretty sure the Pope is on record as being anti-war).
I talked about how we refer to different religions with a bigoted double standard here, not Muslim/Christian voting influence. You followed with the very bigoted:
"Like get real, you will never see a Christian at an anti-war protest."
HN has a bigotry/stereotyping/double standard problem towards Christians. Bigotry against a religion as a political weapon/lashout is wrong.
I think you are misunderstanding the situation "The majority of Christians are not in an end times death cult" sure maybe, but the majority of people in the "end times death cult" would loudly and proudly proclaim they are christians and represent christians. It is a failing of "real christians" to not reject and excise this.
'If <religion x> isn't awful then why aren't more of <religion x> followers in my timeline calling out <someone else>'s actions? Those people of that religion are complicit because they don't vocally enough denounce <someone else/trait I assigned them> in the way I require therefor they and <religion x> too are responsible for <random thing/person/trait I assigned>'
isn't really the 'I'm not bigoted on this' reply you might think it is. It's more just the bog standard 'this is why I am bigoted against X group' justification of bigotry.
Would it surprise you to learn I am a christian, have been my entire life? Maybe not the kind of "christian" you are/are think of though...which I guess was my point entirely. I'm more of a "respect and love thy neighbor kind of guy", than a "we should love our new christ Donald Trump, and go to war on everyone else" kind
OK. I'm not really christian (but grew up catholic) but know a lot and they are all like you. All hate Trump. All seem to hate war (but they do do fundraisers for Ukraine so I don't know if that is supporting war, it's not to me). And all work hard supporting our poor rural community. There's trump christians here too, but they don't define the religion or mean you can make blanket christian belief claims.
Condemning a religious group based on a few is bigotry. We criticize it when it happens to Muslims, but seem to support it for Christians. Demanding a group denounce other peoples actions or a trait you define to be 'inherent to them' is classic bigotry. Saying a religious group is your political enemy has never led to anything good in history. 'I think trump supporting evangelics who want to bring about armageden blah blah' could be a valid point but 'Christians are a doomsday death cult' isn't.
Fuck it you guys are right, let's endorse bigotry against religions/groups. That should work out great.
Evangelicals aren't all Christians and 80% isn't all. But fuck it, assigning traits we don't like to all members of a community? That is 100% cool for Hacker News discussions. Trash take from all of you. But I'm glad you went hard so it can't be denied.
Hacker News has a blatant bigotry problem against Christians.
I was referring to the "44%" which the previous post was making a case for represent MAGA people who support Trump no matter what he does -- not Christians in general.
MAGA has a very strong Evangelical block who are rabid "Christians" (though frankly they more closely resemble the Catholic Inquisition and have very little to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ)
Trump was mostly a known quantity when elected a second time. And on foreign policy it was clear that he would be at least erratic and unpredictable. This is not an unexpected result of voting for Trump.
People voted for a vindictive and petty criminal that doesn't care about rules or laws. This is the result of that.
On one hand he had "No new wars", he also was pretty clear on his disdain for Middle Eastern countries - the ones not giving him millions in bribes.
People knew that he was incoherent and inconsistent. He proved that during his first Presidency. So, I don't think it is a case of "not what people voted for". People are getting exactly what they voted for - chaos and incoherence.
As you said, Congress doesn't want to do anything due to elections. And courts have declared that President actions are always justified.
Choices beyond losing election requires either of these branches to act. Without that, wait for the next election.
> And courts have declared that President actions are always justified.
To be more specific, the SCOTUS has only declared one particular President's actions as always justified. I would be willing to bet any amount of money that they suddenly reverse this opinion as soon as someone from the other team becomes president.
Unfortunately this is exactly what people voted for. Did you not listen to Trump during the campaign? He promised chaos, revenge, racism, and incoherent nonsense. We're getting exactly that 10x.
It may indeed be the case that the candidate promised one thing and the voters acting irrationally (or correctly assuming he's a liar) voted with an expectation of him doing the exact opposite. The GP, however didn't say anything about voting. He was talking specifically about the mismatch between campaign promises and actions taken once in office.
Trump also has said "I will bomb the shit out of them -- I don't care" on the campaign trail.
I think a relatively accurate model of the people's opinion towards intervention might be quite simple: it is good if we win relatively swiftly and bad if we lose and/or don't gain anything, and the opinion at the time is shaped (and over time altered) based on their estimate of the outcome, but no politician says it that way so it is always cast as black and white pro-war/anti-war.
In the current case, I think many Americans, even Democrats, recognize the regime in Iran as a threat that needs to be dealt with somehow (a deal or an intervention). Their worry is the cost and ramifications, not some ulterior principle. If Trump brings home a win and some oil to boot soon-ish, you're going to see positive sentiments more clearly. If this drags on, the backlash will be there, and will be phrased as "MAGA never wanted the war" and along your lines of isolationist promises not kept.
Trump's approval rating among his base is still overwhelmingly high. They know what they were voting for, and they still support him. They know that Trump lies like he breathes, and they are perfectly fine with that. Trump supporters themselves are largely liars. They do not openly state the positions they actually hold. That Trump says X and does Y is fine because his supporters say X and believe Y. Words are a game to them, a means to accomplish a goal rather than something to communicate honestly with.
The most important thing to understand about Trump and conservatism in general, by far, is that there is one central principle that underpines the entire ideology: hierarchy. Going back to the time of kings and nobility and clergy, through to the present day.
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
One set of laws for the people higher in the hierarchy, and one set of laws for the people lower in the hierarchy. Things that are okay for them to do are not okay for you to do. Wars started by Democrats are bad. Wars started by Republicans are good. They know this is not convincing rhetoric to anyone who is not part of the in-group, so they lie about their reasons and play games with words. This, however, is what they truly believe.
It is why every action they take appears hypocritical to their opponents, but in actuality, it is perfectly consistent with their values - it is good when they do it, because everything is good when they do it, and it is bad when somebody else does it, because everything is bad when somebody else does it. It is why "the only moral abortion is my abortion". It is why the exact same policies executed by different presidents will have the same approval rating by democrats, but a completely inverse approval rating by republicans (eg 40% of Democrats approve of either Obama or Trump striking Syria, while 20% of Republicans approve if Obama does it and 80% approve if Trump does it). It is the single consistent trend through all of their policies. They know exactly what they were voting for, and that is for the man who represents their hierarchy. The games he plays with words are part of the platform.
Edit: I have rewrote the message quite a bit, apologies if anything doesn't make sense.
It may be the case that his base is still just following him and supportive of whatever he does.
But the number of people who voted for him vastly exceeds his “base”, and the entire MAGA movement is basically predicated on a form of isolationism, or at least not pro-intervention. Part of the reason it became popular was as a reaction against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So I don’t think it’s as simple and one dimensional as you paint here. Which is exactly why I think it’s a systemic problem: many people probably voted for him because of the campaign promises of being against foreign wars.
But will they still support him if gas prices and general inflation spike hard, as is nearly a given if Trump doesn't back out from the war?
My impression is that most of his voters are selfish and couldn't care less for other people's woes (migrants, sexual abuse victims, Iranians or whatever), but will care if his antics hit their own pockets. I'm not American so I may well be wrong, though.
Yes, they will still support him. Republicans dying of COVID would still deny its existence on their deathbed, so you can be sure there is no consequence that is too far for them. Farmers bankrupted and people who lost jobs because of Trump's policies continue to support him. Inflation is bad when Democrats do it, but it is fine if Republicans do it, as with all things, because that is how their hierarchy works.
Their support is not the result of a rational calculation of self-interest, and never was. If it was, a base of rural and poor people would never be supporting a coastal city New York elite born with a silver spoon in his mouth as "one of them". But they do, because he is one of them in the way that matters to them. They are fighting for something larger than themselves, and are completely committed to a cultural war for social hierarchy.
> if gas prices and general inflation spike hard, as is nearly a given if Trump doesn't back out from the war?
As an aside, I don't think there is any backing out of this war. If somebody launched a missile at your country and killed hundreds of schoolgirls, and destroyed ships on diplomatic missions while leaving the survivors to drown, while also assassinating your country's leader (but not out of any intention of liberation), would you just let things go because they stopped bombing? Of course you wouldn't. Your country would continue to retaliate. And it is trivial to punish America. Even if America unilaterally decided to "declare peace" and withdraw from attacking Iran, Iran has every reason to continue locking down the gulf and making Americans pay the price. Unlike with tariffs, there is no backing down from these price increases even if Trump gets cold feet. But, even so, there is no reason to believe it will move the needle on his base. There is already talk of "short term pain for long term gain" among those who realise this.
As much as I tried to discount sweeping accusations made against voters, increasingly I am beginning to think that a lot of those who support this administration really want to see a "whiter" and more Christian U.S. It's getting harder for me to deny.
If there are single-issue voters supporting this admin, I suspect for many that issue is not "stay out of foreign wars" but something closer to going back to some mythical time in the U.S. that looked more like Currier and Ives.
Congrats on letting it finally sink in, but I honestly don't understand how this fact wasn't clearly evident from even his first term. His base absolutely eats up any rhetoric around making the country 1. more white and 2. more christian. You don't even really have to be listening for subtle dogwhistles anymore. They're saying these things openly now.
> As an aside, I don't think there is any backing out of this war. If somebody launched a missile at your country and killed hundreds of schoolgirls, and destroyed ships on diplomatic missions while leaving the survivors to drown, while also assassinating your country's leader (but not out of any intention of liberation), would you just let things go because they stopped bombing? Of course you wouldn't. Your country would continue to retaliate. And it is trivial to punish America. Even if America unilaterally decided to "declare peace" and withdraw from attacking Iran, Iran has every reason to continue locking down the gulf and making Americans pay the price. Unlike with tariffs, there is no backing down from these price increases even if Trump gets cold feet. But, even so, there is no reason to believe it will move the needle on his base. There is already talk of "short term pain for long term gain" among those who realise this.
Yeah, that's a good point. And the fact that the new leader's closest family members were killed in the attack won't help. But I suppose the Iranian regime might want some stability, and the Gulf countries are very interested in the end of the war because for them it's pretty much an existencial treat. So maybe there's a scenario where Trump gets to declare a GREAT VICTORY because he supposedly destroyed Iran's nuclear capability or whatever, Iran gets money from the Gulf countries and the regime gets stability, and the Gulf countries get... well, avoiding ruin.
Well yeah but he is a pathological liar, fraudster and a criminal. This was well known during 2nd election campaign.
Expecting to hold any promises just because they were said and got him where he wanted is a bit naive, don't you think? Or does the idea of 'but now he will act completely differently to his entire prior life!' makes any sense to you?
> None of this is what people voted for, and is almost directly the opposite. That isn’t a new thing, of course, but this seems like a pretty huge turnaround from what the campaign was about.
Citation needed. I think there is demonstrable evidence that this is exactly what people voted for and they will continue voting and behaving exactly as they have been for the foreseeable future.
Around ~30-40% of the U.S. population is basically subject to the whims of of the other 60-70% who are either A. Cult members B. Completely apathetic or C. Stupid/Insane and openly hostile to any techniques that could be used to bring them around.
It's seemingly impossible to get off this progression, and no the apathetic people being shocked into making an opposition based choice every ~4 years before they go back to fucking off is not going to pull us out.
My gut feeling is that next person after him (if he actually gives up office which is in land of wishful thinking at this point) may be worse, and even visibly worse and US folks will still vote for him/her.
I sure hope my gut is wildly incorrect this time, for me, you, and mankind overall.
Of course, but at least there's a realistic, actually used, mechanism for replacing an administration. Impeachment in the US is a complete non-factor, so you can only wait for four years, no matter how bad things get.
This isn't politics. This is American imperialism. The constant wars happen regardless of who is elected or what they believe in. Even Obama had his Libya
The first thing you must understand, is this is the US protecting the Petro-dollar. China and Iran were trading goods for oil, and bypassing our currency. Nukes are a factor as well.
Personally I do have serious concerns about the direction 'the west' is going with the current issues of immigration, violence, and general migration to a lower trust environment...however trying to burn a capital to the ground definitely seems like the wrong approach making it any better.
Which has been obvious since 2015. 11 years later and many of us still can't even convince our own family members that Trump and Trumpism are appreciably different than "the left".
Politely, you should reconsider your views on immigration. Immigrants (even illegal ones) are on average less violent than native citizens, and net positives to the economy. Their constant scapegoating in the public discourse was always going to lead to this senseless violence the World is currently experiencing. Playing into this populist view of the issue reinforces this vicious cycle.
I trust my cool as hell Pakistani immigrant neighbors 10000x more than Bill gates, or Mark Zuckerberg or any other 'native born' pedophile associated oligarch. Sorry if thats woke :(
Why are threads on this topic (and its adjacents) always full of Americans blaming Israel for their own country’s actions? Is it a coping mechanism to not accept any moral accountability? Israel is minuscule in every way compared to the US.
People want to shift blame. The influence and money between the US and Israel is a revolving door. The US gives Israel tons of money in defense and security contracts, orgs like AIPAC redistribute some of those funds back to the US to keep the revolving door greased.
I think it's incorrect to say Israel is pulling the strings when admins of both have been colluding almost since Israel's existence.
People are saying this now because Benjamin Netanyahu has vocally and persistently been trying to get into a full scale war with Iran for 40 years. The Trump Administration is the first administration corrupt, gullible, dumb enough to agree and commit. All other U.S. Admins have primarily postured or done limited retaliation based engagements with Iran or engaged in soft power activities and got comprehensive deals.
We don't know what happened with the bulk of Epstein's private island videos. Who knows, they may well have resurfaced in Tel Aviv or Moscow. Both countries have a lot to gain from this disastrous campaign.
Israel does employ a facade of a liberal democracy that aligns itself to some extent with Western culture. Though this is very much in decline and I think, generally, sentiment on Israel has shifted quite dramatically in the West in recent years.
Israel perhaps used to project that sort of facade. With Bibi and the authoritarian ultranationalists in government, combined with the lack of a written constitution restraining power and protecting rights (for whatever that would be worth), I think that facade is forever gone. Israel is descending into an expansionist theocratic ethnostate and rapidly illiberalizing. Just look at the recent criminalization of women praying at a certain holy site.
It all started with the war in Gaza. We, the West collectively, with the exception of only a few European states like Spain and Ireland, allowed them to perpetrate war crimes, which were rarely met with criticism, let alone consequences.
To me it started with the war in Iraq.
Made up story as excuse, expensive disaster as a result.
(Afghanistan was already not great, the Taliban were open to extradict Bin Laden, they just demanded proof first, but it was still sort of a international coordinated action.)
That broke the dam. Why should russia care about international law, if the US does not? When you are superpower number one, you lead by example. For better or worse.
"the reason iran is a geopolitical threat is because they could block the strait of hormuz and cripple the world’s economy, something they have never done. so we bombed them until they did that"
"Tehran oil sites on fire as Iran exchanges strikes with Israel and US – video report"
You know, the usual independent and objective framing - its "Iran exchanges strikes", not "Israel and US started a war of aggression amid negotiations and bombed Tehran" or whatever
Earlier today in the NYTimes, this gem of unbiased headlines:
"A U.S. Tomahawk missile hit a naval base beside an Iranian school, video shows."
While in the article:
"A newly released video adds to the evidence that an American missile likely hit an Iranian elementary school where 175 people, many of them children, were reported killed."
So:
"Evidence shows US Tomahawk Missile Killed 175 people after it hits a Iranian elementary school"
I don't think that's correct according to the newly published video. Correct me if wrong, but I think it shows a Tomahawk hitting nearby the school, and based on the amount of dust it seems that the school was already hit moments earlier. So it still isn't 100% clear if the school was also hit by a Tomahawk or by something else.
This is madness. The whole region is dependent on very fragile technological infrastructure, that once it is gone, will start a countdown to the death of millions. If things like oil depots and water desalination plants are no longer off limits, this will turn into a huge humanitarian catastrophe.
There's no off ramp whatsoever for both Iran, and Israel and the USA. This will trigger a global recession, everything is about to get much more expensive.
Absolute disaster, all to fill up the coffers of American oil companies...
Oil companies in the USA seeing a price hike from ~US$60 to over US$100? It definitely fills their coffers, lots of barely-profitable/non-profitable shale extraction becomes viable.
Of course, there's also the angle with Miriam Adelson who might have sweet talked Trump into going aboard with Israel on this disaster.
Alright, it was my assumption that we'll be left with a totally dysfunctional economy, and in that sense whatever's in you bank account means very little. If I were an oil exec I wouldn't trade that world from what we had before even if money was my only objective.
If the TV show Landman is to believed, its not all rosy for the oil companies when prices go over $100 because it leads to people using less gas:
"Well, you want oil to live above 60 but below 90. And don’t get me wrong, we’re still printing money at 90, but gas gets up over $3.50 a gallon, it starts to pinch. It hits a hundred, every product in America has to readjust its price. $78 a barrel, that’s about perfect. You know, brings enough profit to keep exploring, but it don’t sting as much at the pump."
That show is 100% fiction, bullshit and propaganda, nothing in it should be believed or taken at face value. The examples, stats or stories Billy-Bob tells are contrived, false or otherwise misleading. It is entertainment, a soap opera for adult men.
What the Zionist have have been doing in Iran is criminal, plain and simple. Bad news for "Israel", what goes around comes around. And even more ominous for "Israel", God Shall not be Mocked. Some seem to never learn.
I am afraid that this will bring them closer together. That the people who would welcome outside world to do a magical thing that reforms Iran wont like the practical thing the world actually did.
By afraid I am not saying it will happen, it is not a prediction. I think that it is a risk.
Two weeks ago it was 30k, a week ago it was 35k, now it's 40k+, but OSINT sources keep the number around 15k (including 1.3 k from the Iranian government own forces) and don't move it up. I'm pretty sure the real number is higher than the one OSINT resources can give, considering the uprising and repression also happened in small, less connected cities, but the constant increase is honestly very off-putting, and the more it happens, the more it feels like manufacturing consent.
There have been numbers as high as 90k reported initially, so I wouldn't say it is "moving up" across time but across sources. There is no clear data, but at this point 30-32k appears to be the lower bound estimate over which there's a consensus. Likely to be higher.
Maybe, but I distinctly remember the numbers 15 up to 30k two weeks ago from the UN Iran watchdog.
Then a week ago, a US-based watchdog let the number 35k float, and all of the sudden that's the number used by US department of state. And now the number you just threw is 40k.
Meanwhile, the OSINT community confirmed deaths are still around 15k. I will admit, the bombing doesn't help because we cross data from funerals and morgues/hospitals, and now we will have to distinguish bombing victims from repression victims, which in some areas (southeast and west mostly) is difficult.
I didn’t see any more brutality than I saw from US regime and especially ICE.
I never saw a person shot in the face in Iran but I saw in the US. Should we bomb US?
Also, 30k dead means there would be at least some proof. Once Iran reinstated internet after protests NO VIDEOS of killings showed up. Protesters decided not to record any of the killings?!
I'm not gonna debate the obvious with an account with 53 karma who denies the existence of basic stuff or not aware of the obvious who wants to lash out against the west. No videos my ass. I'm not gonna be your Google, so I am out.
It’s just an NPC accusation thrown at Iran to justify killing millions of civilians. Why even entertain this shit from people who are just pretending to care about it. Everyone knows what they want to do is raze Iran.
Current campaigns will kill way more iranians. Plus regime didn't bomb 200 girls to pieces in their school, did it.
Thats extremely hard sell, with cherry on top when you have a literal video of tomahawks hitting that area during that time and trump claiming it was iranians who bombed it... just spits and insults in the face
Your math is not mathing. 30-40k in 2 days unarmed civilians vs I dunno 6k almost all military in a week? If you look at the stats of executions etc you'll see civilian casualties in Iran go DOWN while being bombed.
> regime didn't bomb 200 girls to pieces in their school, did it.
Yes, actually they did. It was their own missile. Just like the Ukrainian plane they shot down a few years back.
I said will, please read comments more thoroughly before replying. Everybody agrees this war will drag for some time.
Care to backup those wild claims with any facts? The video of tomahawk I talk about is circulating all over internet, so its pretty uphill battle to discredit it when clearly tomahawks are landing
Nothing about this is such a wild claim if you are familiar with their past behavior.
There were Persian language sources inside Iran that immediately after the incident attributed it to IRGC missile misfire, before some outlets started using that as propaganda material (which by the way played out perfectly.)
Do you lack proper internet connection today? Whole world media, western or not, are writing about this, how its clearly US missile. Bellingcat did a detailed analysis and confirmed this, look at washington post, guardian and so on.
Plus the video itself, you somehow avoid commenting completely about the prime evidence. Not fitting your not entirely correct narrative, is it?
If you would even care about the topic properly you could argue that school wasn't far from military base and divert the topic with some whataboutism and finish with fog of war theme, but even that's not whats happening here. 'Just trust trump' ain't going to cut it, not in 2026.
if for you to be qualified as regime is to murder tens of thousands of your own people then I think you put too high bar on it. I guess killing only few thousands or even few hundreds in your definition would rule out to someone being called totalitarian/autocratic regimes? How about not murdering own people but thousands other people? How is it called? Nazi germany AFAIK mostly murdered millions of other people.
People use this name (Regime) wrong - worth to at least read definion on wikipedia:
Look, I don't understand what you are debating here. I already agreed you can call USA regime just that should you choose to. I don't mind. You might get a scholarship to Columbia while at it.
My post was simply to clarify to the reader that PressTV is owned by the regime in Iran.
Varies. Not all of them are equal. At least not in the same way. Distinctions are important. NYT, for example, employs Farnaz Fassihi who's a known regime shill.
CNN recently sent a reporter live to the region who has to operate under the regime's restrictions to be let in and cannot accurately report everything even if they wanted to. Same with Reuters who has an office inside. They basically had a choice to bite the bullet and agree to the terms and be one of the few foreign reporters with access, or not have access at all and freely report.
That said, PressTV is different from the above a it's an officially a state-operated entity, so it is not a question of mere bias.
The moment Trump said he'd like to have a say in the next _Ayatollah_, was when the knife went it.
Listen, we know you weren't in it because you're such a swell guy, we're not stupid. But now we don't even get what we were willing to bend over for in the first place (to get rid of the regime)?!
this should seriously stop. and i am very sad Europeans are spineless and following the US in another insane middle-east war. wasn't afghanistan and iraq enough?
in what Europe are you living sorry? The only one outspoken against the war have been the Spanish. UK, Italy and Germany are on it - offering logistical support and everything the US needs.
UK is bossed around by the US, ever since WW2. We don't have many choices that don't involve the USA inflicting revenge. They're bullies
It's like criticising an abused wife with no job no money and not many friends for not just leaving immediately, and the husband is rich, powerful and knows everyone
Why fear a hypothetical conspiracy? When there's enough reason to increase budgets because of a multi year war that's being fought right at our borders by a mad man, who has shown his willingness to attack and who enjoys the sympathy of the administration that was responsible for 62% of Nato's spending?
Hi! I meant specifically the us admin pushing for more defense spending in Europe. There was so much emphasis laid on this, while saying they don't want to wage more wars. But now they are going all in, so that part was a lie.
Unrelated to that some increase in spending was due, I agree with that. All I'm saying is that I don't trust the US admin.
Price of a nation disagreeing from turning its people into lowly peasants of the Global Liberal Borg (TM)'s and not accepting its "assigned" role of satrap-y.
In contrast, look at the ignominious history in India (-n subcontinent) over the past millennia - whose moron elites are so deluded that they end up selling even more Anglo-American colonization in the name of decolonization.
Fascinating evolution of these two cousin nations.
Tell me: is the US supposed to stand idly by while the Iranian regime develops nuclear weapons? They pursue nuclear weapons of their own volition, by the way. There are paranuclear states and nuclear threshold states which have not pursued nuclear weapons and have delivered on providing for their people in every manner in which a human society needs. So what does Iran hope to achieve that diplomacy cannot?
At what point does it turn from a "disagreement" to a credible existential threat that an adversary cannot ignore?
Yes, I am fine standing idly by as Iran gets nukes, just as we did nothing when Israel got nukes, and we didn't really do much besides sanctions after North Korea got nukes. Of all these three examples of nuclear states, Israel is the only one that actually committed espionage against the US to obtain nuclear secrets, and we didn't bomb them.
The USSR also committed espionage to steal nuclear secrets from the US and we didn't bomb them either, so perhaps that is the secret? If you steal US nuclear secrets we "stand idly by" but if you develop the nukes on your own or by stealing someone else's secrets, then we go to war?
I'm really struggling to understand when someone getting nukes is reason to go to war against them, I don't see the other side making any rational arguments that don't boil down to "I don't like country X, and so want to see them weaker, but I do like country Y so I don't mind if they get stronger". But that's a very subjective judgment and should not drive national policy.
The USSR acquiring nuclear weapons was the closest humanity has come to complete annihilation. We were one bad day away from extinction during the Cold War. I'm not sure I would point to that as something we should do more of. Not to mention the potential for accidents and mistakes.
I don't think bombing a country should be the first course of action. Diplomatic action should leave no stone unturned. But if all of that fails, it is strategically advantageous and safer for the world to prevent countries from acquiring nukes by any means necessary.
If you set the example that the cost of pursuing nuclear weapons is unbearable, countries will find better things to do, like enriching themselves in more productive ways.
That is a very, uh, idiosyncratic reading of history.
You are conflating the Cuban Missile crisis of October 1962 -- which was the USSR placing nuclear weapons close to the US in Cuba in early 1962, in response to the US placing nuclear weapons close to the USSR in Turkey in 1961, and in your mind you have blended that crisis, which was a close call in which both sides ultimately agreed to withdraw their nukes, with the acquisition of nukes by the USSR 11 years earlier.
Yet when North Korea, India, China, Pakistan, South Africa, or Israel, got nukes this did not set off a crisis, it was the brinksmanship that set off a crisis.
Soon, both major powers in the gulf -- Iran and KSA will get nukes. Odds are this will happen within a decade. There is nothing anyone can do to stop it.
There are too many pressures forcing this to happen, not least of which is the clear understanding that these nations need to have nukes to prevent destruction by the other nuclear powers some of which are clearly hostile to them and bent on their destruction. It's why North Korea, which kept their nukes, is still around, but Libya, which gave up their nukes, has been dismembered. Just as a matter of self-defense and survival this is inevitable.
However what we can do is tone down the rhetoric of nuclear brinksmanship, threatening global war if a rival doesn't withdraw their nukes. That was the real lesson of the Cuban Missile crisis, which you have confused with Russia's 1949 achievement, or China's 1964 achievement.
Since no one is going to disarm their nukes, this is just something people have to live with. Threatening war over this issue is exactly what causes the risk of global catastrophe, not the spread of the technology, which is inevitable.
I never mentioned the Cuban Missile Crisis. You’ve misinterpreted what I said.
The USSR getting nukes in the first place lead to several incidents which were a judgment call away from armageddon. With the benefit of hindsight the correct call would have been to exhaust all options to prevent the soviets from acquiring nukes.
We just got lucky. Whether it was the Cuban Missile Crisis, the soviet early warning system malfunction in Sept 83, or Able Archer 83 in November, there was a lot of dumb luck.
Proliferation will bring the end of humanity. There will be too many actors, too many variables. You can get lucky with 2 actors. You can’t keep getting lucky. The only option is to ensure you don’t have to be lucky.
I assumed you meant the Cuban missile crisis since that is the only tenuous connection that can be made between "USSR acquiring nuclear weapons" and "end of humanity". If you generally meant "any nation acquiring nuclear weapons" then the statement would kind of make sense, but there is no reason to fear just the USSR, and not, say, the US, China, India, Israel, Pakistan, or North Korea. Maybe some information made it into the popular press about the USSR, but it is unlikely that there is something especially dangerous about the USSR compared to all these other nations.
And in any case, the genie is out of the bottle. There is not gonna be a situation in which a small group of nuclear powers endlessly bomb and attack other countries with impunity. The other nations will get nukes to defend themselves against the existing nuclear powers, it's just a matter of time.
One of things the US could have done to stop proliferation was to actually honor its commitments it gave to Ukraine in the 1994 agreement in return to Ukraine agreeing to abandon their nukes. It didn't. Now a country sees that US is happy to bomb other non-nuclear countries, but not nuclear countries, and they doen't help even when they agreed to. There is exactly one lesson a country will learn from that.
It's a fair point, but I would flip this around a bit:
Ukraine wants nukes to defend itself from Russia (a nuclear power). Taiwan wants nukes to defend itself from China (a nuclear power). Iran wants nukes to defend itself from the US and Israel (both nuclear powers). India and Pakistan both want nukes to defend themselves from each other (both nuclear powers).
Now I don't want to get into a debate that it is really the benevolent Pakistanis fighting off aggressive Indians or vice-versa or that really Taiwan is the aggressor and that China is a benevolent neighbor, or that poor little Israel is just trying to defend itself from Iran, etc. Those regional squabbles mean nothing to me as I don't even care who is the "real" aggressor, all that matters is that you have two nations in conflict, and when there are two nations in conflict, it is not a stable situation to pretend that just one of them will have nukes but the other will not.
The moment one side gets nukes, the surrounding nations they are in conflict with will also want to get nukes. So as soon as the US got nukes, it's rival, the USSR, also got nukes. And as soon as Israel got nukes, it made it inevitable that at least a few regional rivals in the middle east will get nukes.
Trying to prevent this is guaranteed to fail. It does not matter what the government in Iran happens to be, as long as they care about their own survival, they know they need nukes as long as Israel has them. More importantly, attacking the nation before it gets nukes speeds the process of nuclearization along. Dramatically so. For instance, when Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear power plant, Iraq, which at that time did not have a nuclear weapons program, went full speed ahead trying to develop one. Because it highlighted that they were at risk of being destroyed as nation from a violent neighbor, and so the urgency of developing their own nukes increased. As soon as India got nukes, it became a top priority for Pakistan to get them. If you don't believe that, then you don't understand the world. It does not matter who you think is the bad guy in a conflict, what matters is the asymmetry.
Whatever will be the outcome of this war with Iran, the Iranians now know that getting nukes is priority one. It will happen within a decade, most likely within a few years. The only way to stop this would be boots on the ground and a long term occupation of Iran, which of course no one, not even the US, is capable of doing.
And then Saudi Arabia will want nukes to defend itself from Iran. That's just how this works. KSA will be the next nation to get nuclear weapons after Iran.
Trying to pretend that you can maintain a long running conflict in which only one side has nuclear weapons is incredibly foolish. Obviously this is not going to happen.
Most of European countries could have had nukes by now if they weren't stopped by the US/USSR; going by your logic it was inevitable once the UK and France had them the others would follow but they didn't. Of course at the time at least the American leadership was a bit more (forward) thinking than right now.
If you are the only person in the room with a gun, you have a huge advantage. With each additional person getting a gun too the advantage will be less, but it will still make sense to try to stop that process until everyone has a gun, and we are very far from that point. It is actually cheaper to try to stop proliferation than to build your defense with 'everyone has nukes now' in mind.
I'm not sure what Iran having nukes does other than change the power dynamics in the Middle East to one where Israel can't bomb civilians with such impunity...
I think most people in the middle east will tell you that Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is bad. As I'm sure you're aware, they are a major supporter of terrorist organizations.
I'm aware that the present is informed by the past. 1953, like 1979, being a year in the past.
Discussing what terrorism is, in this context, is rather complicated. Especially speaking as a Brit, and knowing rather a lot of other dates, such as 1917.
It's surprising how many things that you would think are "cut and dried" are apparently in fact not "cut and dried", although granted it's much easier to identify instances that stray to one side of a boundary rather than another.
For example, the idea that bombing civilians is a war.
There was a deal, Trump cancelled. There were negotiations where the Iranian regime actually made big concessions. But, Trump administration was not interested in concessions and started a war with no real reason.
> At what point does it turn from a "disagreement" to a credible existential threat that an adversary cannot ignore?
It was not nearly this point. This was a point where USA, Israel and Saudi perceived Iran as weak and easier target. That is why the war started.
Iran has zero leverage. Any leverage given is an olive branch. Obama era diplomacy was the right path, Trump is a moron. But the bigger issue here is Iran's free-will pursuit of nuclear weapons. It is a choice they're making. They choose to pursue nuclear weapons, forcing the US to either take a diplomatic path to stop them, or intervene.
They don't have to build nuclear weapons! They're just doing that shit.
Well now they have to, given that a single nuke ownership (and its never a single one, is it) would prevent any such actions. I don't think anybody sane at this point thinks any sort of regime change is going to happen in this century.
The bigger problem is - current war won't prevent them from obtaining it. It may delay the date, but also will make them work smarter, hide things better and give them much more resolve. I can see ie putin helping them get through some technological or material hurdles, that would help him greatly in their war in ukraine.
We can agree that starting a war with Iran is sort of the magnum opus of the worst administration in American history.
But I do feel obligated to interrogate the idea that the US is responsible for this escalation. Iran is seeking to expand its power and influence in the region, and employs violent means upon people - even its own people - to achieve these goals. The regime is, fundamentally, amoral.
The US gets to decide if it wants to put a stop to that. But left alone, the world gets more dangerous the stronger the Iranian regime becomes. The same cannot be said about the United States. The period of history belonging to the unipolar US liberal order was probably the most prosperous and peaceful time in history.
That depends who you ask - Vietnamese, Iraqi, Afghani, heck whole middle east, almost whole north Africa? Chile? Nicaragua? Cuba? Russia? China? And so on? Not so much.
Generally US tries to represent freedom and democracy and be the force of good, but they often ending up representing it in pretty horrible and messed up ways which end very far from these ideals. Road to hell is often paved with good intentions, isn't it. So no, too strong US ain't very good for rest of the world, quadruple that with current leadership. I am not saying China or russia are better, or even equal, far from it, its rather loss in each direction.
Iran is a bit special in its absolute hate for Israel and a bit whole west, but thats purely wet dream of ayatollahs that came to power after 1978, till then they were regional friends and one of best western partners. That revolution weas triggered purely by utter incompetence of CIA and british MI6, so thanx guys for fucking up entire region for everybody.
I don't think there is a single country in this world who would welcome them becoming nuclear power - not russians, not chinese, and definitely nobody around them. But maybe its too much to expect from reality - it would require such a massive ground invasion that US is not willing to wage (and pay for) and it would take a nuke to NY or similar level to trigger it.
It was trump who killed off the original agreement. The IAEA was content with the way the inspections went, Trump just once again talked out of his ass.
That whole approach has a bad historical track record-- people tought WW1 "impossible" for the exact same reason.
Not only that, but the only way to do this is to stack the risk against yourself in the case it ever fails.
Just look at the EU/Russia energy dependency. There is good reason that no serious nation does this (intentionally) with actually vital goods like their food supply (not even among allies, really).
USA and Israel have brought this upon themselves. After decades of regime change operations in the region (usually for the worse), it is clear that any state that doesn't pursue nuclear weapons isn't really an independent state.
Do you know who doesn't get regime-changed? North Korea.
North Korea has the backing of the US' two most powerful adversaries, it was not a free pass.
The US can deploy a carrier strike group faster than any nation can build a nuclear weapon. And after seeing the hellfire unleashed on Iran, it is clear that pursuing nuclear weapons may not be the answer it once appeared to be.
Meanwhile, the so-called vassal states of the US - some of the richest countries on Earth mind you - haven't bothered to deploy nuclear weapons because we have no use for them.
Man, it seems much more like "must have" thing than it did just 2 years ago. And at that point it seemed more "must have" thing than it did 5 years ago. Trump does not mind nuclear proliferation anyway. If you pay Kushner enough, chances are they will even sell you a nuke.
> Meanwhile, the so-called vassal states of the US
I haven't seen that expression at all, ever. No one was called those state vasal states a year ago. And now, as fascists are in American government, it is becoming routine amount right wing. The logic seems to be that any former ally that does not start war with USA is a vassal or something.
> haven't bothered to deploy nuclear weapons because we have no use for them.
French recently announced change of doctrine, they will expand nuclear arsenal.
Well I won't deny that. Nevertheless, countries who "play ball" seem to have it pretty good. Awfully high cost to pay to stick it to the man in charge.
Take it to the final form. It's game theory. The US is promoting system that enables a Nash equilibrium. By playing by the US' rules you empower yourself and you empower those around you. And the US takes a service fee for operating the market.
The alternative is trying to fight that, and if you're picking a fight with the strongest player, you're playing to lose.
Now it's threatening to invade NATO allies, and other allies are deploying troops to deter that; Which makes perfect sense because you cannot appease authoritarians.
The US is in fairly rapid, self inflicted, decline at this point.
> Take it to the final form. It's game theory. The US is promoting system that enables a Nash equilibrium. By playing by the US' rules you empower yourself and you empower those around you. And the US takes a service fee for operating the market.
This is what an empire, that is competently run, should do. The US is not an empire, and it is not competently run. It has no attributes in common with empires of history. It does not occupy foreign lands, it does not extract taxes, it does not (directly) control foreign governments. If anything, in this case, the US is under the control of a foreign government.
I'm not American. There is a host of publicly available proof of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. It is not, and has never been, a well kept secret of the regime.
Pentagon made few reports that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons - I bet they have better intelligence that you. Their killed religious leader made fatwa that forbid having or using weapons of mass destruction. Surprisingly now when he is gone they can pursue it after being attacked. Also worth to watch many Bibi talks since 1980s where he sais Iran will have nukes very soon and this didn't materialize in 40 years.
You realize how much work has gone into ensuring that didn't materialize in those 40 years, right? JCPOA... Stuxnet?
The Pentagon agrees that Iran is not officially pursuing nuclear weapons. However, there are CIA reports that indicated there may have been covert operations taking place that were exploring cruder nuclear weapons. I imagine that was the basis for the US bombing of Iran in 2025.
> You realize how much work has gone into ensuring that didn't materialize in those 40 years, right? JCPOA... Stuxnet?
JCPOA agreement was nuked by Trump administration. No, I don't buy your arguments, If Iran would wanted to have Nukes would have it already made those in 5 years for sure. Kim didn't have problems for making those.
Also, by his logic they succeeded in thwarting Iran's efforts for 40 years without resorting to bombing civilians. So we still need to see proof for why this is now, all of a sudden, the only way forward.
This is downvoted, but comments mentioning pedophilia, Israel controlling the US, and other conspiratorial tropes are getting upvoted. And the folks will leave here believing still that a pro-Israel bias exists here.
I don't see how pedophilia is a conspiratorial trope. The Epstein files are real. Yes it sucks that most of our leaders are the absolute bottom of the barrel of what humanity can offer, but unfortunately it's also the truth.
And I also don't think anyone thinks Israel controls the US. They don't. Rather, the US will do almost anything to defend Israel, even if it's self-destructive. This isn't based off of words or conspiracy, but rather actions. Lots and lots of actions, which cannot be denied.
This comment is being down-voted because this post isn't talking in favor the Iranian regime, it is talking about the atrocities that the people of Iran are having to live through, how their own government is self destructing and willing to take everyone with them, so a post about whom the regime has supported feels like it's missing the mark.
No one in this thread is thinking "This makes me like the Iranian regime" or "this is in favor of the Iranian regime". And so ofcourse your pro-Israel comments are even more besides the point, especially because this article is about the suffering of the Iranian people and you're take is "HN is anti-Israel whilst believing it is pro-Israel". HN isn't a single person, it's a lot of people with differing opinions and sometimes you'll have a pro-X sentiment and another time it might go the other way.
Also labeling 'pedophilia' as a 'conspiratorial trope' kind of defeats your entire comment, but maybe that's just me.
Lesser of two evils, I guess. People are tired of Israel/The US annihilating girl schools with expensive missile strikes and then have to hear from Netanyahou that it was actuall an Hamas/Hezbollah/Whatever hidden base. Also notice that you won't find any support for these terrorist organizations here, so I don't know what listing them achieves.
Regardless of what you feel about the government of Iran, it is not inaccurate to say that country is in a fight for survival against a cabal of child molestors working to bring about the apocalypse.
Anything they do in this conflict is justified, anything less than their total victory is a disaster for the world.
This is sort of how I see it. It's so difficult to believe that the USA+Israel winning would be a good thing, if it then means that Trump just invades another country after it. He will not stop until a country stops him. It looks like it could easily be Iran.
Is that the new anti-semitic trope now, Epstein and the world Jewry? If not, what kind of facts are you linking together to have Iran defending themselves from child molesters?
The more I see the intellectual level of the political discussions here, the more I understand why dang and moderators discourage political discourse.
This seems like a fundamental problem with the system to me. If you can’t count on the candidate to at least attempt sticking to campaign promises, then the entire process is irrational.
Presumably the mechanism is supposed to be Congress and impeachment, but that doesn’t work if the president is directly influencing their election campaigns.
I do wonder if / how something could be implemented that addresses this, beyond just losing at the next election.
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