War, what is it good for?

by **Esquire Bertissimmo** » Wed Jun 18, 2025 3:24 pm

^Alternatively, I guess if this Iran war because an Iraq style debacle and tens of thousands perish, Iran gets taken over by an even more extreme Islamist group, this all turns into a regional war, etc. then I guess we'll look back and maybe think we should have just taken the nuclear risk instead.

I'm really not hopeful for this century lol, this but one of many corners we've backed ourselves into.

by **Esquire Bertissimmo** » Wed Jun 18, 2025 3:11 pm

I'm looking at the current situation and wondering what we might think in retrospect. If by 2030 there are five nuclear powers in the middle east, and in some conflict in 2045 one of them uses a bomb in self-defense, we may all wish the US had bombed the shit out of the Fordow site regardless of whether or not it looked like supporting a genocidal Israel back in the year 2025.

by **Jamiet99uk** » Wed Jun 18, 2025 3:07 pm

And in this case by "bad outcomes" I mean tens of thousands of innocent people, including many thousands of children, being MURDERED by a regime we still suck up to and disgustingly refer to as an ally, instead of seeking to put all their leaders in jail.

by **Jamiet99uk** » Wed Jun 18, 2025 3:06 pm

Indeed.

The thing is, you see - of course from a purely temporal standpoint I accept we can't "go back in time".

However, we can, and we should, hold our political leaders to account for decisions they have made prior to waking up this morning, and hold them robustly to account if those decisions were wrong-headed decisions which have led to bad outcomes.

by **Esquire Bertissimmo** » Wed Jun 18, 2025 3:01 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Wed Jun 18, 2025 2:58 pm

Esquire Bertissimmo wrote: ↑
Wed Jun 18, 2025 2:37 pm
I'm a bit confused what you want the UK and other Western powers to do.
I want them to have managed relations with Israel differently over the past several years so that this situation would not have come about.

I am deeply ashamed at the utterly spineless conduct of the UK's so-called "labour" government, in regards to Israel, since coming to power.

I assume you are confused because you appear to think that policy starts afresh with a clean slate every morning. Clearly, I do not.

That's totally fair. I think, likewise, something different should have been done re: Iran's nuclear ambitions. If we could rewind the tape ~10 years (but not further), then maybe the US and Europe could have done better than the on-again-off-again nuclear "deals". Getting this right might have preempted this conflict and would have made it easier for Western leaders to find the fortitude to restrain Israel in Gaza.

by **Jamiet99uk** » Wed Jun 18, 2025 2:58 pm

Esquire Bertissimmo wrote: ↑
Wed Jun 18, 2025 2:37 pm
I'm a bit confused what you want the UK and other Western powers to do.

I want them to have managed relations with Israel differently over the past several years so that this situation would not have come about.

I am deeply ashamed at the utterly spineless conduct of the UK's so-called "labour" government, in regards to Israel, since coming to power.

I assume you are confused because you appear to think that policy starts afresh with a clean slate every morning. Clearly, I do not.

by **Esquire Bertissimmo** » Wed Jun 18, 2025 2:47 pm

The US demands were clarified. They want the total elimination of the nuclear program, a cap on Iran's ordinary missile count, and an end to Iran's support for proxies. Regime change is apparently a lesser priority (but a threat they're going to keep making).

by **Esquire Bertissimmo** » Wed Jun 18, 2025 2:37 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Wed Jun 18, 2025 2:27 pm

Esquire Bertissimmo wrote: ↑
Wed Jun 18, 2025 1:00 pm
Israel's genocide in Gaza today would be wrong even in a totally different historical context. Outsiders intervening in the current war between Israel and Iran should be motivated entirely by minimizing casualties of living people and achieving the best outcomes for the future, not trying to balance the scales of past injustices.
Well apparently they are not motivated by any of that either.

Our leaders are happy to sit back and watch the civilian death toll rocket upwards.

I am ashamed to live in the United Kingdom.

I'm a bit confused what you want the UK and other Western powers to do.

Israel's strikes, even if they were totally unjustified, started a chain of events. If Iran wasn't close to a bomb before, they will absolutely sprint towards it now. If Iran gets a bomb it's not guaranteed, nor even likely, that they'd use it—but it would create the preconditions for the most dangerous nuclear proliferation since India-Pakistan, which threatens to kill billions at some point in the future (even if just by mistake).

It seems to me the US, UK, etc. have few good choices here. They cannot stop Israel or Iran from fighting one another in any sane way. If they were to say, threaten to kill Israelis unless they desist, then they may as well just gift Iran some nukes. The Western powers have an obvious interest in maintaining the status quo of only one nation in the region having atomic weapons.

by **Jamiet99uk** » Wed Jun 18, 2025 2:27 pm

Esquire Bertissimmo wrote: ↑
Wed Jun 18, 2025 1:00 pm
Israel's genocide in Gaza today would be wrong even in a totally different historical context. Outsiders intervening in the current war between Israel and Iran should be motivated entirely by minimizing casualties of living people and achieving the best outcomes for the future, not trying to balance the scales of past injustices.

Well apparently they are not motivated by any of that either.

Our leaders are happy to sit back and watch the civilian death toll rocket upwards.

I am ashamed to live in the United Kingdom.

by **Esquire Bertissimmo** » Wed Jun 18, 2025 1:00 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Wed Jun 18, 2025 9:08 am

CaptainFritz28 wrote: ↑
Tue Jun 17, 2025 11:11 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Tue Jun 17, 2025 10:39 pm
Oh so we should just stop talking about the holocaust then because nobody who did it is still alive?

Got it.
"Talking about it" and "basing modern foreign policy around it" are two totally different things. If we were to treat Germany based on what they did in WW2, then we would have an immense distrust of Germany and would be moving for German disarmament of their military. Learning from the past is entirely different from what we're talking about.
The difference here is that the organisations which perpetrated the Nakba are the ones in power in Israel today.

If the Nazi Party was still ruling Germany would your comment above be different?

Israel has had 25 governments since 1948. It's demographics are totally different. Nations don't have souls.

There is nothing essentializing about the past. There have been a handful of times where a two state solution was a coin toss away, and if that had happened the entire incentive structure on both sides would be totally different.

Israel's genocide in Gaza today would be wrong even in a totally different historical context. Outsiders intervening in the current war between Israel and Iran should be motivated entirely by minimizing casualties of living people and achieving the best outcomes for the future, not trying to balance the scales of past injustices.

by **Jamiet99uk** » Wed Jun 18, 2025 9:08 am

CaptainFritz28 wrote: ↑
Tue Jun 17, 2025 11:11 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Tue Jun 17, 2025 10:39 pm
Oh so we should just stop talking about the holocaust then because nobody who did it is still alive?

Got it.
"Talking about it" and "basing modern foreign policy around it" are two totally different things. If we were to treat Germany based on what they did in WW2, then we would have an immense distrust of Germany and would be moving for German disarmament of their military. Learning from the past is entirely different from what we're talking about.

The difference here is that the organisations which perpetrated the Nakba are the ones in power in Israel today.

If the Nazi Party was still ruling Germany would your comment above be different?

by **CaptainFritz28** » Tue Jun 17, 2025 11:11 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Tue Jun 17, 2025 10:39 pm
Oh so we should just stop talking about the holocaust then because nobody who did it is still alive?

Got it.

"Talking about it" and "basing modern foreign policy around it" are two totally different things. If we were to treat Germany based on what they did in WW2, then we would have an immense distrust of Germany and would be moving for German disarmament of their military. Learning from the past is entirely different from what we're talking about.

by **Esquire Bertissimmo** » Tue Jun 17, 2025 10:43 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Tue Jun 17, 2025 10:39 pm
Oh so we should just stop talking about the holocaust then because nobody who did it is still alive?

Got it.

The Holocaust is a very poignant example of how exterminationist violence plays out. It is not, however, a great argument to use in favour of characterizing modern day Germany/Germans, nor as some endless unquestionable foundational argument for the Jewish-nationalist version of Israel.

Today’s policy choices should be weighed primarily by their impact on living people and current realities. I don’t see how punishing or rewarding entire populations today makes sense as payback for what long-dead governments did 80+ years ago, let alone why we'd stop the chain at 80 years and not 200 or 2000.

by **Jamiet99uk** » Tue Jun 17, 2025 10:39 pm

Oh so we should just stop talking about the holocaust then because nobody who did it is still alive?

Got it.

by **Esquire Bertissimmo** » Tue Jun 17, 2025 10:34 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Tue Jun 17, 2025 10:28 pm
You clearly know very little about this history. It might benefit you to read some.

I don't see how. It's honestly not obvious to me how decisions in the 1940s are particularly relevant, or why they're more relevant than the Ottoman empire decisions before them, or the Mamluk Sultanate before that, etc.

The people in the 40s who committed and supported the Nakba were bad hombres. They're literally all long dead in 2025. 80+ years later we're talking about an entirely new crop of people on both sides who have lived their lives under totally changed conditions.

The badness of the Gazan genocide today is about the harm to current people. Whether Iran or Israel prevails in the current conflict matters on the basis of what people in both countries are going to suffer in the coming months and the character of their current governments, not whether it provides some poetic righting of an historic injustice.

by **Jamiet99uk** » Tue Jun 17, 2025 10:28 pm

You clearly know very little about this history. It might benefit you to read some.

by **Jamiet99uk** » Tue Jun 17, 2025 10:28 pm

Esquire Bertissimmo wrote: ↑
Tue Jun 17, 2025 10:04 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Tue Jun 17, 2025 9:35 pm

Octavious wrote: ↑
Tue Jun 17, 2025 9:31 pm
The world according to Jamie:

Britain was responsible for the creation of the brutal Israeli regime therefore has a responsibility to facilitate it's removal

Britain was responsible for the creation of the brutal Iranian regime therefore has a responsibility to ensure it's survival
Entirely incorrect because the (secular) dictatorship installed by the West in Iran in 1953, and led by the absolute monarch chosen and backed by the West, was itself overthrown by a religious uprising which installed the regime that is in place in Iran today.
What resemblance does modern day Israel bear to the government propped up by the British mandate? Israel has been an independent country since 1948. It's changed from a socialist to nationalist country. It's demographics are unrecognizably changed. Britain is no more responsible for modern day Israel than it is for modern day Iran, which is to say basically not at all.

Modern day Israel was forged on the basis of Zionist atrocities in 1948 which partly came about due to Britain's mis-handling of the situation, and which the British then stepped back and failed to prevent.

by **Esquire Bertissimmo** » Tue Jun 17, 2025 10:04 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Tue Jun 17, 2025 9:35 pm

Octavious wrote: ↑
Tue Jun 17, 2025 9:31 pm
The world according to Jamie:

Britain was responsible for the creation of the brutal Israeli regime therefore has a responsibility to facilitate it's removal

Britain was responsible for the creation of the brutal Iranian regime therefore has a responsibility to ensure it's survival
Entirely incorrect because the (secular) dictatorship installed by the West in Iran in 1953, and led by the absolute monarch chosen and backed by the West, was itself overthrown by a religious uprising which installed the regime that is in place in Iran today.

What resemblance does modern day Israel bear to the government propped up by the British mandate? Israel has been an independent country since 1948. It's changed from a socialist to nationalist country. It's demographics are unrecognizably changed. Britain is no more responsible for modern day Israel than it is for modern day Iran, which is to say basically not at all.

These sorts of historical debates seem to muddy the waters. None of that history can be taken back and the people who made those decisions are senile or dead. It's probably best for those intervening (or not) in this conflict to base their decisions on the current state of affairs rather than some vision of righting historical injustice.

by **Esquire Bertissimmo** » Tue Jun 17, 2025 9:40 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Tue Jun 17, 2025 9:32 pm
Second, why do you think Bibi will be removed / lose power as a result of any of this?

The war is going well now, but that's not guaranteed to continue. Bibi has demonstrated a penchant for starting wars but not for finishing them. If the war goes south, it was Bibi's gamble. If the war goes swimmingly he's no doubt popular for a time—but he loses the boogeyman he's predicated his whole political career on. Debates about when and how to end the war could yet pull apart his coalition even (perhaps especially) if the war goes "well" from an Israeli perspective.

by **Jamiet99uk** » Tue Jun 17, 2025 9:35 pm

Octavious wrote: ↑
Tue Jun 17, 2025 9:31 pm
The world according to Jamie:

Britain was responsible for the creation of the brutal Israeli regime therefore has a responsibility to facilitate it's removal

Britain was responsible for the creation of the brutal Iranian regime therefore has a responsibility to ensure it's survival

Entirely incorrect because the (secular) dictatorship installed by the West in Iran in 1953, and led by the absolute monarch chosen and backed by the West, was itself overthrown by a religious uprising which installed the regime that is in place in Iran today.

War, what is it good for?

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