Seems significant enough for a separate thread.
Let’s hope not.
2 Likes
Hope is not a strategy. So put your cards on the table. You willing to go to war with Iran to honor the US/israeli relationship? Yes or no?
I am out. Israel did the Damascus thing. They have to own it. My obligation covers being attacked, but not when they struck first.
1 Like
I doubt there is much appetite among Americans to go to war with Iran.
But to sell Israel weapons so that they can go to war with Iran… maybe.
1 Like
I don’t support an additional attack by Israel on Iran.
Trump killed that Iran general, and Iran attacked our military base. It stopped there. Hopefully this will be the same.
It does seem to establish a dangerous precedent where the US/Israel have directly attacked Iran, they retaliated, and then…tensions. It may blow over but its still an escalation that remains unresolved.
Too late.
Their response has actually surprised me a bit as I figured they would target military installations or similar.
Have discussed this with a few friends and what seems to have set Iran off was that the UN resolution against Israel regarding the destruction of their Consulate in Damascus, which was blocked by the US/France/UK.
Unfortunately, thats a pretty glaring double-standard and it left Iran isolated. The hardliners inside Iran then drove the response because they were angry and don’t want to appear politically weak (their politics are very complex as they have many factions).
This is a failure of Diplomacy on the part of the US & others. They should not have blocked the UN resolution.
Destroying a diplomatic consulate is a very big deal and Israel should absolutely not get a pass there.
1 Like
Just want to add one thing here:
Destroying a Consulate was no “accident”. What Bibi and others on the ground wanted to do was shift public opinion away from the situation in Gaza, as well as improving their odds of staying in power.
They are very likely to accomplish this as nobody wants a regional war.
So, well played Bibi & Co.
1 Like
Sounds more and more like MAGA every day.
Yes. But with the ability to use a military directly for their own ends.
If Trump wins, the MAGA folks will also have that ability.
And then all bets are off. Would not be surprised if we end up with another serious global conflict with him in power.
Thanks for mansplaining that for me. 
3 Likes
My pleasure
I’ve voted Democrat mostly, but all the apologizing for Iran and finding fault with Israel wherever possible… might vote Republican just because that makes me sick and I’m pretty sure you’d rather me vote Democrat.
Thanks for clarifying things for me.
If you believe that, then you are ok with a country destroying a Consulate (a sovereign part of a country protected by the Vienna Convention) because “reasons”.
This is all on Israel this time around for going off the reservation. But thats also “why” Bibi gave the order.
His actions reinforce the extremists on every side (US, Israel, Iran etc) which ultimately benefits HIM, as it also keeps his coalition in power.
And thats all that really matters to Bibi right now. He doesn’t care about security like you think he does. Its always about him first.
The US knows full well Israel (Bibi & Co) are going off the reservation right now (an attack on a Consulate is a very serious escalatory matter) and that Iran would respond to that more forcefully.
Which is why they tried to back-channel to Iran via Ankara to try to contain the response.
Bibi is a politician, so of course it is about him. But also, is his response not broadly accepted by Israelis? W Bush had pretty broad support to do anything he wanted after 9/11 and high approval ratings on top of it. I think it is easy to criticize the response from a more objective position outside of Israel, but I think it is also fair to conclude that he is still acting rationally from within.
I’m still catching up, but from my understanding it seems like Iran handled this quite well. I’m far from a fan of Iran and don’t usually expect them to act rationally.
Israel calls the consulate destruction an accident, which take that statement from the Israeli government how you wish. Iran says they will attack soon, while Israeli Foreign Minister Katz says any attack by Iran will result in Israel attacking Iran.
Iran attacks as they warned and Israel almost entirely stopped the attack. I’ve found 1 civilian harmed and light damage to an airbase that remains functioning. Iran gets to go home and shout that they showed Israel who’s in charge, Israel is too scared to directly respond.
Appears to me like a measured and proportional response, as though Iran is trying to maintain their global credibility and show they can’t be attacked without consequence, while not starting WWIII.
3 Likes
Public opinion in Israel has skewed right-ward significantly since the Hamas attack.
So yes, Bibi is definitely playing to the audience now.
The attack on the Consulate has zero to do with what is happening in Gaza. It was just a continuation of the shadow war that has been going on between Israel and Iran for years.
Destroying a Consulate is very serious. When you do something like that you can fully expect “a response” from the other side. Think about what the US would do if Iran destroyed the US Consulate in Iraq.
So one can only really objectively conclude from this latest Bibi behavior that he did this so Iran would respond (US probably knows Bibi did it on purpose but they cannot say this publicly for obvious reasons).
And the response has (predictably) strengthened his hand politically from a domestic viewpoint. Likud’s popularity (which was in the doldrums) will increase, and Bibi will live on politically to fight another day.
You mean like in 2019, when Hezbollah members, backed by Iran, attacked the US Embassy in Iraq?
I think you missed the “destroy” part.
Very serious things that hardliners everywhere take seriously? Like Iran, the US, and Israel all have hardliners, and it mostly depends on who is in charge, and how much public support exists for the hardliner position, as to what happens next?
I’m not sure where the leadership of Iran sits on their political spectrum, but I think we can agree that Bibi is mostly a hardliner, and Biden is mostly not. Things look different with Trump and someone else in Iran in charge (I assume they can shift right).