War, what is it good for?

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

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.

[Jamiet99uk]

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.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

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.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

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).

[Jamiet99uk]

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.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

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.

[Jamiet99uk]

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.

[Jamiet99uk]

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.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

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.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

^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.

[Jamiet99uk]

^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.

This scenario appears the more likely one, to me.

But at least there will be a Trump golf resort and mega-mall where Gaza used to be! Just don't ask where all the children's corpses are buried! Shut up and enjoy your Big Mac!

[Octavious]

In Iraq we took direct boots on the ground action and countless thousands died.

In Libya we limited ourselves to airstrikes and supporting local factions and countless thousands died.

In Syria we stood back and watched and countless thousands died.

So if we apply the lessons of history to Iran we're fucked no matter what we do. Jamie's policy of supporting action that has zero chance of ever actually happening ensures that he can avoid any blame for whatever it is the leads to the deaths of countless thousands this time, and as such is a surprisingly logical and sound strategy.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

In Iraq we took direct boots on the ground action and countless thousands died.

In Libya we limited ourselves to airstrikes and supporting local factions and countless thousands died.

In Syria we stood back and watched and countless thousands died.

So if we apply the lessons of history to Iran we're fucked no matter what we do.

It feels important to me that Iran not just be lumped in with these other regional conflicts.

The key difference being that Iran does in fact have an independently-verified nuclear weapons program.

So even if this becomes yet another middle east boondoggle that kills many thousands, on the other side of the ledger was the development of atomic weapons by Iran (and then by others in the region in response) that could easily kill millions or billions ("BABIES" aren't nuke proof).

From what I've read it seems like right wing isolationists and left wing anti-war types just largely ignore this inconvenient fact when proposing the West do nothing. Maybe striking Iran really is the wrong move, but in my mind any convincing argument in this vein would have to accurately account for what we know about Iran's nuclear ambitions and the risks posed by proliferation.