They can just hold the world’s supply of oil, ammonia and helium to ransom. Breaking an Iranian blockade by force would require a WW2-scale effort, with the US, Europe, China and the gulf states fighting alongside each other to take Tehran and impose some kind of regime change all parties find acceptable.
Isnt china and Iran allies and already have agreements for discounted oil trades?
China and Russia would be fighting against the EU and US in that hypothetical wwiii scenario
You don’t think the US army would be enough to conquer Iran if they actually started puttng boots on the ground?
Genuinely no
This combined with the domestic unpopularity of such a decision would make a full ground invasion a very desperate choice.
Also American infantry is just not that good tbh
He could launch the invasion and use it as an excuse to declare state of emergency and postpone the mid-terms to… never.
He made several comments about how convenient it is for Zelensky that Ukraine holds no elections during the war.
The domestic unpopularity is most likely the stopping point really. If the US were to ignore a lot of laws and treaties, we could turn Iran into 90 million starving people, then walk away and offer food for drone locations.
The world doesn’t really have the time or stomach for that kind of campaign, both here and abroad. People are going to be starving this winter as it is, just because of the delays that have already happened. All we’re doing now is debating how many.
Tbh I disagree. Domestic unrest won’t come from the immense horror of starving millions of people into submission. We’ve been doing that for decades and it has never been a significant issue. It will come from the frustration of feeling the detoriation of our quality of life while we all watch hundreds of billions be spent on a war that doesn’t benefit the public at all.
I wish I thought Americans would act out of moral concern but palestine alone has shown this to be untrue.
World citizens don’t bat an eyelash at US/Israel starving Palestinians, Cubans, Free Korea, Somalia, or anywhere else they please.
You mean the same army that spent 20 years replacing the Taliban with the Taliban? And is now under new, significantly dumber management? No, no I don’t.
As an Afghan friend of mine says, it was not the fault of the US. The Afghan people is not ready to form a western-style government, as it’s a land of a hundred tribes where most just think of themselves. This is why the government fell so quickly when the US left. Few are motivated to defend the country, corruption is immense.
In her words, it was totally understandable for them to leave, as they saw this and realized they would be fighting a losing battle for decades by staying.
Pretty much spot on; the only way for Afghanistan to have succeeded as a democracy would have required multiple generations of occupation, in order to permanently impact the culture through ideological immersion.
Only once the pre-occupation population dies out (or at least severely diminished due to old age) - and are replaced by successive generations that grew up in that environment - would it become self-sustaining.
It’s very easy to dismiss the Afghan people have “always been like that” - all the while forgetting that the current religious ferver is mostly due to a power vacuum following the failed Soviet invasion of the late ‘80s.
Prior to that, the metropolitan areas weren’t all that different to pre-revolution Iran.
So America can at max half ass all their decisions without thinking of the long term aside from the money the private military contractors made during 20 years? Got it make sure the USA stays the fuck out of the middle east
you’re describing colonisation
That’s overly reductive, and not very accurate - would you describe West Germany and Japan as colonised post-WW2?
While an imperfect comparison, I’d liken it more to reparations; if someone were to drive a bulldozer through your house, should they not be responsible for ensuring that the property is fully repaired and you as the homeowner made whole?
Afghanistan pre-Soviet invasion was not too dissimilar to Iran pre-Revolution; it was only once the US abandoned the reconstruction following the collapse of the USSR, that Afghanistan found itself under the despotic rule of the Taliban.
This directly lead to the 9/11 attacks, and the Afghanistan war. Now, by again abandoning their allies in the fledgling Afghan Government and allowing it to fall back into radicalised hands - it has ultimately devalued all of the hard work the US had spent for the prior 20 years.
if someone were to drive a bulldozer through your house, should they not be responsible for ensuring that the property is fully repaired and you as the homeowner made whole?
Not when that guy owns the construction company
Would you describe West Germany and Japan as colonised post-WW2?
Obviously yes? They both literally have american military base on their soil to this day. They empowered fascists infiltrating security services and the governement.
Oh, absolutely. My point is more that the US shouldn’t have been there to begin with, just like the US shouldn’t be bombing Iranian children now.
Perhaps. The same friend is thankful that the US did try to save them from the Taliban, at least.
the US empowered the talibans in the first place lmao
In her words, it was totally understandable for them to leave, as they saw this and realized they would be fighting a losing battle for decades by staying.
Shouldn’t have started started a war without intending to ‘win the peace’, in a Marshall Plan sort of way.
yea just buy them out /s. Marshall plan wasn’t the only thing that made america win the peace. They also murdered politicians
they are not “ready”? What makes you think western-style governement are somehow more evolved? wtf
Winning a war and installing a lasting regime are two very different things. The US crushed the war part and fumbled the regime building.
So they won the battle but lost the war?
They won the war but failed at installing a lasting regime that aligns with their interests. A decades-long occupation is not generally counted as part of a war.
So… they lost the war?
It really is. War means you crush your enemies. We absolutely did not.
That is correct, and don’t let anybody tell you you are wrong.
Given how well they did in Afghanistan and Iraq, sure.
And Vietnam. Our military isn’t great with boots on the ground because that’s not the point. This is for making military money and that’s it.
That isn’t quite accurate. The US military is very good at killing people and destroying things. To win you need a strategy that goes beyond those things. It involves aspects outside the military. You need diplomats to coordinate and negotiate with allies, diplomats to meet and negotiate with the opposition in conflicts where that is feasible, a strategy that has end goals and a reasonable way to get to those goals, political entities to explain to the US citizenry and the world at large why the conflict is necessary, and a bunch more. The military doesn’t really do most of that, and the US hasn’t bothered with having any of those things for a long time. The problem is the US government keeps just saying to ‘conquer’ some country and giving no real sense of what that even means.
And making Petrobarons* spelling richer and maintaining USD hegemony through petrodollar. We invaded Iraq because Hussein was trying to convert Iraq’s UN Food-for-Oil account from petrodollar to petroeuro.
That’s kind of my point. The US military is pretty good at doing what militaries are for. Its other parts of the government that decide where to point them. And where they have been pointed has been stupid/destructive/dictated by oligarchs for a long time.
Pretty sure at this point we know what it means.
It’s an attempt to distract from the Epstein files.
They conquere Iraq and Afghanistan quite fast, what they half-heartedly tried and failed at was building a lasting regime that they didn’t directly control.
Trump has fired a lot of our best generals, alienated NATO, and screwed over the young men he’d need to join up.
One thing that people overlook is that FDR had been helping Americans for almost a decade when WW2 broke out. And there was still a memory of the draft from WW1. Trump’s already having to reduce military standards and the War hasn’t gotten out of first gear yet.
Considering how bad Afghanistan was with half population and no stranglehold on critical shortcut… yeah not a chance. USA population is what 300mil+? Iran is about 90+.
Considering how bad Afghanistan was
How bad what was? America took that entire country in two months. Iraq was just one.
America took parts of it and camped out in the cities for 20 years. The rest of it ebbed and flowed depending on the date.
I’m all in favor of getting rid of the US military, I’m not sure I support doing so by sending American troops to die
Fuckall.
Have you looked at a map? Do you know how far Hormuz is from Tehran?
That’s the point. You would need to conquer the entire country to a point where firing off truck-launched ballistic missiles and Shahed drones isn’t viable any more.
Unless Dickhead drops a nuke and threatens more. Which I wouldn’t put past him.
Iran also has nukes.
Says who? Definitely not Iran or any international organisation, and even Netanyahu only claims they are two weeks away for the last 20 years.
They probably could make dirty bombs with the enriched Uranium they have, but unless they are playing the world’s best feint, they aren’t going to have a working nuke any time soon.
Still wouldn’t put it past him unfortunately
No they don’t
Imagine if Iran nuked Washington DC, or even every American city with a population over 1 million. Would the US government surrender? Would the American people surrender even if the government did?
I imagine the US government would retreat to its mountain bunkers and say “come and get it”, and many American civilians would join or support guerillas to fight any Iranian attempt at occupation. And that’s true despite many Americans hating the current regime.
So why would the Iranian government or its people be any different?
Iran doesn’t have 5,177 nuclear warheads.
I’m not saying you’re wrong; I suspect the IRGC is stubborn enough to never surrender no matter what happens to Iran’s civilians… But that’s because they’re stupid.
Hence I think this is a bad analogy, as Japan surrendered in exactly the circumstances you’re describing. In Man In The High Castle, the US did too, and I think that’s a plausible fictional scenario, as nuclear war basically makes resistance impractical.
Honestly I give the iranian disinformation team 1 of 5 stars, a pathetic job really.
I mean, they don’t actually need to have the Epstein files, they can just start sharing stuff that seems plausible.
Their propaganda has actually generally sucked pretty bad this war. They had the opportunity to make the US and Israel (and particularly Trump and Bebe) into a global pariah. They could have started showing videos of schools and other graphic terrible images of people the US has murdered and things they have destroyed. They could have turned the whole world against the US and Israel, just like Biden and Zelinski were able to turn the would world against Russia.
But instead they dug in, started bombing everyone else around them, and made everyone remember why they are hated in the first place.
Yeah but your plan has one big flaw: the dead are Muslims, which means we (as in the northern hemisphere population) don’t give a fuck. See Gaza. We all know. We know children eat dirt because they are starving. We know Israel targets journalists and even NATO forces. We know everything but we don’t care.
That’s a fair criticism.
The 1% who controls the media and our countries are the ones that don’t care.
They aren’t bombing everyone around them like they are lashing out randomly, they are bombing US and allied bases and military/radar infrastructure to reduce their ability to carry out air missions. They have targeted infrastructure like desalination plants in Israeli-aligned nations after saying they would if Israel attacked their electrical or other public infrastructure. I don’t know what media you are watching, but the west is widely referred to as the “Epstein Coalition” and most of the world is united against them.
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I honestly don’t understand how you Americans still seem to believe that anything in the Epstein files could possibly harm Trump. It was known before the 2016 election, that he was peeping in dressing rooms at Miss Teen contests. Before the 2016 election he bragged about sexually assalting women. Before the 2024 election he was convicted for sexual abuse.
And people did vote for him, not despite of that, but because of it. Because they are misogynistic assholes who adore and envy him for doing stuff like that.
He raped a 13 year old violently and there’s probably video in those epstein files.
And? These allegations were also known since 2016. But that didn’t stop anyone from voting for him, twice.
- His Conspiracy Theorist supporters will call it an AI fake, created by the deep state.
- For his Christian voters he’ll be redeemed if he pays 50 shekels to the girls father and marries her.
- His nazi supporters might say: “Whell that’s not nice. But at least he’s getting rid of the immigrants.”
- His sexist supporters will say “Well 13 might be a bit young, but after all it’s her fault for wearing such a short skirt. And with these kids nowadays you never know their real age”.
- His MAGA supporters will say “I don’t care, he’s our saviour. If he deems such things necessary, who am I to question him.”
- The Idiots say “Well he might be an asshole, but Kamala Harris also did some bad things.”
- And his courts say that it’s already barred or he’s got immunity or he just enacts a new law that makes rape legal if the perpetrator is a politician. He’ll have the Congress’s support, as soon as the files are released.
Did I forget anyone?
Those things aren’t known by everyone. My conservative MIL didn’t vote for Trump having known about those things, but my SIL did. She was shocked when I told her about it.
Americans generally aren’t as well educated as many other countries of its caliber and a bit part of that manifests in media literacy and general interest in anything, really. My SIL claims she made her decision to vote for him because his campaign page was more convincing about lowering prices and Karris’ I kid you not.
Yeah this is a single anecdote about a single person, but this largely has been my experience.
checking if your candidate isn’t a pedophile should be the fucking bare minimum lmao
I agree, but we’re talking about a white Christian in rural america. They don’t put effort into it because they aren’t meaningfully affected by outcomes either way. The SAVE act might be the first time they directly experience an erosion of rights but even then, theyre wealthy enough to travel regularly so their passport is likely recent.
But that didn’t stop anyone from voting for him, twice.
Most of them voted for him thrice
Video of him raping a 13 year old girl is different.
I think most of these things are why he got elected. He did the things the average american wishes he could do.
Because if he committed an actual, irrefutable crime, like raping a 13 year old, or being heavily involved with the trafficking of minors, it doesn’t matter if he’s president, he should still face the law. The fact that Republicans wouldn’t consider that disqualifying should not be relevant.
But he already committed multiple irrefutable crimes, like the aforementioned Sexual abuse, Conspiracy against the United States, 34 other felonies and much more. He never had to face the law, because he owns the prosecutors as well as the judges.
Don’t worry, USA has the best court system money can buy.
The fact that Republicans wouldn’t consider that disqualifying should not be relevant.
Unfortunately, it is relevant. The double standard is insane.
Because a huge swath of Republicans were obsessed with the Epstein files.
It was a conservative darling for years, the issue for many voters. You don’t get how big of a deal it was in the US before it was common knowledge that Trump was in them.
It’s why it’s the only controversy Trump isn’t leaning into. It’s simply too much of a conservative cornerstone for him to deal with.
yea we all know america is a pedocracy.
pedocracy
Ruled by a child? Yeah, that fits.
No that’s an infentocract. A pedocracy is ruled by pedos
Mixing Latin and Greek roots? You sociopath1.
Yes, pedocracies are ruled by pedos; the Greek word for ‘child’. See also Pedagogy (teaching children), pediatrics (medicine for children), and pedophily (sexual attraction to children).
A society ruled by pedophiles would be a pedophilocracy. From the Greek words ‘pedos’ (child), ‘philia’ (lust), and ‘cratos’ (rule). Like aristocracy (rule by the best), democracy (rule by the people), or autocracy (rule by oneself).
1: from Latin ‘socius’ (comrade) and Greek ‘pathos’ (caring).
what’s the difference? Romans stole everything from the greek anyway
Fuck that, trade it for Trump dead or alive
or alive
No no, let’s keep it simple.
Why would they accept replacing a senile figurehead with a more competent fascist government? Why would they let the Democrats that had a standing ovation over the commitment to attack Iran go off scot-free?
Project 2025 wasn’t written by Trump, it was written by smarter people who are more dangerous to Iran. Attacking Iran has been on the US agenda for decades. It would be foolish to let the US off this lightly
They already released most of the victims names, they can’t really pretend they care about them anymore.
I’ve been seing stuff like this a lot lately, but it seems detached from reality to me. How does Iran benefit from the Epstein files?
It’s a typical American problem centre of the universe and all that.
Because Trump is 100% willing to start a war so people stop talking about it. So he’ll have to start another war somewhere else…
The reasoning would be: You’re right. They don’t care. But he will never voluntarily release them and it results in maximum embarrassment.
It wouldn’t be a sincere negotiating tactic but it works because they don’t need to negotiate.
This. Imagine a condition for terms of surrender is to unredact and release all files. And the Trump administration openly says “no” to that?
That would be a TERRIBLE admission by the administration
But Iran does need to negotiate. They are being bombed quite a lot right now. Iran is not going to surrender, but they would prefer not to get bombed. Antagonizing Trump is not going to help Iran.
Negotiating with Trump is like negotiating with Putin. It’s a pointless theatre that Trump is would do for the benefit of spectators, but with no actual value for Iran because you absolutely cannot believe anything Trump says.
They don’t need to negotiate, they needed to be left the fuck alone in the first place, but Trump, like daddy Putin, is incapable of rational thoughts anymore.
Looks like the special operation is gonna last at least until next election, at this rate.This shooting war is going to end some way, eventually. And the ending is going to be some form of diplomacy, implicit or explicit. Even just agreeing to pretend each other don’t exist is a form of diplomacy.
The only case where Iran should not care about pissing off Trump, was if the US was totally annihilated. Trump is a madman with a nuclear suitcase.
I think the thinking is that if you released the epstein files in their entirety Trump would be impeached.
Or maybe that’s not really it. If you wanted to harm the US, then releasing the full unredacted epstein files is probably the easiest way to achieve maximum chaos.
The idea is that giving the ultimatum, regardless of whether the US obliges or not, would cause massive shift in power. They’d be hoping any changes in leadership would be better aligned with them.
Files released -> Traffickers imprisoned -> New sane leaders sworn in
Files withheld -> Greater discontent -> Elections swing harder left -> Dem majorities force war to end
UNO reverse your regime change war goal
Because the whole world’s leaders are in there, including a shit ton of bank execs. Trump will stop bombing before he lets the files get out. It truly is a solid plan.
Okay sure, having and releasing the Epstein files can be adventagious for Iran. But what I don’t see is how demanding the files would ever lead to peace. Wouldn’t it only incite Trump and co. instead of getting to a reasonable negotiating position?
It would lead to peace by decapitating the enemy.
Do you actually believe this?
Because Trump was above Epstein in the operation and Israel controlled both of them. Plus all the stuff about Netanyahu sleeping with Jared Kushner. The main players in the Epstein files are literally the ones currently trying to massacre their entire country.
I have no idea if the Kushner/Netanyahu thing is true, but have an upvote because it’s funny.
Presumably if the couchfucker became prez he’d be slightly less likely to be Bibi’s lickspittle because he has at least a couple more brain cells to rub together.
Vance is just a vessel, what does Thiel want? Feels like that guy would be all over war in the middle east and kicking off a biblical prophecy.
Yea, For me it has “this is how Bernie can still win”-vibes.
why would they want the US regime to change? It’s a poor long term strategy, you want the useless idiots to ruin their country, not have them replaced by competent people.
I think they would prefer people who weren’t bombing their country with Israel.
I think they would prefer people who weren’t bombing their country with Israel.
Have you read history? Authoritarian places need external enemies to rally people behind so that the population will ignore whatever bullshit they do to exploit and abuse them. The only rule is “don’t be the one to lose”. As long as the theocracy does not surrender, they are winning.
See also : The US after 9/11. We’re STILL dealing with the fucking bullshit fallout from that.
Dude, they’re continuing to kill school children. 911 was a one off that made everyone scared. Scared, yes. Bombing the shit out of your citizens, no.
Who would that be? The Haudenoshaunee? The US has been bombing Iran at least since there has been an Israel.
“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake” - Napoleon Bonaparte
Well to not get bombed, naturally. The uselessness of said idiots does not have an impact on the fact that the bombs are actively landing on Iran
see here : https://lemmy.world/post/44957285/22958875
The only rule is “don’t be the one to lose”. As long as the theocracy does not surrender, they are winning.
It’s entirely reasonable to believe that it is more likely that a new administration would take the chance to end the war than the current one is to make America incapable of bombing Iran on a reasonable timeline
Of course, that assumes that Iran thinks that this would work at all. They might make the full release of the files a condition to open the strait, but America would then just say “well we already released them so that won’t work as a deal” and rely on the current administrations cultish supporters to believe that
Demanding Epstein files would be a sure shot way to get bombed.
As if they’re not already?
The issue with this is that Iran wants to strait open eventually, its a huge financial gain.
Most of Trumps supporters think all the Trump-Epstien connections are liberal fabrications. Some of them are convinced that Trump was a secret FBI agent working undercover to expose the whole operation.
Hard evidence will never convince the delusional masses who worship him.
MAGAts only wanted the files released so they could be used to attack “them librul pedos”
To be fair, there are liberal pedos in there too.
Let them all burn.
And that’s the crazy thing. QAnon and all these crazy conspiracists finally get an honest to god pedo cabal, and… shrug?
This gets posted every now and then, and the consensus in the comments is typically that this is an incredibly dumb thought, but somehow it has a thousand upvotes over 20 downvotes. What gives?
Legit just flood the zone.
Geopolitics really be turning into play your strongest card and hope for chaos 😬
