i chuckled at the idea of after the meeting and formalities had gone, and it was just don and like one or two others in the room as he holds the pager and offhandedly goes “…this is a pretty fked gift, ay”
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More like he said: “Here - you take this and I’ll page you to check it works and it’s not booby-trapped”!
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Putting aside the personality running the country for a moment, surely this is a golden opportunity to capitalise on Iran’s weakness and vulnerability and strike it now to eliminate its nuclear program? Whether that requires the USA to provide their bunker bomb is the bit that needs to be sorted out. If that bomb destroys Irans nuclear program, the time is now and it has to be a green light opportunity I’d have thought.
There’s a lot of assumptions underpinning that whole paragraph.
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I get that, it can become very tangled and complex quickly. I’m trying to put the US domestic politics and its machinations aside and focussing on the strategic play.
Just sense on the surface this could be an opportunity to capitalise now. A vulnerable country on its knees, a chance to eliminate its nuclear ambitions at a time it appears it hasn’t got ‘friends’ to support it.
But you’re not really saying anything.
I meant there were a lot of assumptions related to:
Iran’s nuclear program
Regime weakness
The ability of the BB to actually produce their desired result.
Etc etc
I mean from afar the whole thing seems a little bit of a convenient distraction doesn’t it?
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got people to stop talking about gaza
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I think the israelis are war fit and on a killing roll at the moment , they have the yanks hanging out of of their back pocket so no doubt this is a good time for them to do this. I do say Iran does need to be knocked down a few pegs as far as nuclear goes . they are the worst regime in the world by far. they sponsor and encourage terroists all over the world .
I think the regime change thing is hard if not impossible . I think Israel is dreaming or pretending this is part of what they are doing. pretty obvious to me they are doing this while they are in a war groove and have an idiot like Trump tagging along .
I don’t disagree that Iran needs to be controlled
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the worry might not be what happens in Iran , the problem might be where this spreads to and who else gets involved . ie Russia
And then what? You can’t put the nuclear genie back in the box. The physics involved are common knowledge. When Iran starts up another nuclear program, what happens then? Do you bomb them again, forever, with no declaration of war, no UN resolution, no nothing? Just keep on murdering their scientists and politicians and generals and anyone unfortunate enough to be standing near them indefinitely? Who are the good guys in that world?
Remember, Iran HAD backed off their nuclear weapon program - under the treaty they signed with Obama, which trump then tore up. The US has clearly demonstrated to Iran that even if Iran does agree to stop its nuclear weapon program, the US can’t be trusted to keep its side of any agreement they make. And remember - Israel has been deliberately targeting the Iranians who are being sent to negotiate!
By doing this, in combination with US policy re Ukraine, you’d be teaching everyone the lesson that to be secure you absolutely must get nukes. Make a deal with the US to stop seeking nukes? They’ll break it, then bomb you for not adhering to the agreement they violated. Give up your nuclear arsenal in exchange for a US security guarantee? As soon as you need them, they’ll welch on the deal and lecture you how you should have never started a war with the country who invaded you unprovoked.
You don’t hear much about regime change in North Korea any more, do you? Cos they got nukes, and now it’s all too hard. US policy (led blindly by the nose by Netanyahu, who’s spent 30 years telling scare stories about how Iran will have nukes tomorrow) is making nuclear proliferation more likely, not less, and is making regime change in Iran less likely, not more, and is making everyday Iranians more hostile to the US and Israel, not less. Maybe Iran stops trying to build their own nukes and instead go buy a superannuated Russian SSBN complete with loadout off some corrupt naval officer. Then what?
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Yes, it’s not like they have worried before about legalities of bombing countries or mounting illegal wars.
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A distraction… That’s not how I see it. 
My sense is… Israel are on the warpath to finish the job it started as it seems that it feels like it has a metaphoric green light to carry on. Iran pulled out of recent nuclear disablement talks. Iran has for a long time been regarded as a nuclear threat. The USA could appear to get Israel to do much of the heavy lifting to achieve disablement. USA to provide their bunker bomb as the sealer.
Very top line but I’m trying to keep the personalities out of the strategic outcome convo on this situation.
That’s my read basically. Nullify Iran whilst the timing is right.
There’s plenty of “strategic” discussions that could be had, but alas, this thread is not the place, and this board is not the place as the mods have made clear.
History would suggest that whatever this “finish the job” plan is, it isn’t going to end anything much.
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So, changing the topic …
Why are Americans so bad at world geography? I remember many years ago, the joke was the same. Americans have no idea where anything overseas is.
I assume it is their curriculum. I assume their curriculum is the result of their disdain for the rest of the world. Any American based blitzers?
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Finish the job like Russia or the US did Afghanistan? How the US finished it in Iraq?
The results are almost universally worse than before.
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Cos everything they need is in Murica. If you really need to see the Eiffel go to Vegas, duuuuh. They’re still enough of them to almost ruin Rome every Summer though.
“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography”.
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