Can We Stop With Being Simple Minded About Iran?

(Speaking about being simple minded, if you’re not willing to read a little, just frick off this thread, please. Stop now, and click back out to the main board. Thanks for your cooperation.)

PART I

Can we please stop with these simple minded threads about the Iran war?

Talking about it as though it's some random policy decision that Trump made for some insignificant reason, and that he should just press a button and stop it because gas prices are going up and you don’t like it?

Let's talk about the reason for the action in the first place.

We don't know with 100% certainty what the motivation was. The official narrative is that it was to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Now, before we even get into whether that's the most likely explanation or not, let's talk about this. I ask people over and over on this website what their understanding of the global effects of a nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel would be, and no one answers that question. The reason is obvious. I'm asking that of someone who is treating the war stupidly and simple mindedly, and they either don't want to answer that question because they suspect it might move the situation from the level upon which they are discussing it to another level, or they're just too fricking lazy to look it up.

So let's put that down here for everyone to see. The sources that I have consulted predict that a nuclear exchange between those two countries could result in as many as 30 million deaths, so we're talking about a Stalin/Mao type event. Those sources also say that it would cause a regional famine, destroy the world economy, cause the American stock exchange to completely tank, raise the price of oil to an unprecedented level, and could even float ionization and a limited nuclear winter as far as the US.

So anybody who is out there saying, "I don't care what those countries do to each other, it won't affect me,” you're a moron. You think $6 or $8 or $10 diesel is a problem? Wait until those two countries go at it with nuclear weapons. You'll be begging for the biggest problem we have to be $6 diesel.

There's another simple minded assumption out there on the board that denies that there's any reasonable possibility that those two countries would, in fact, bomb each other.

That's another thing we don't know for sure, and can't know for sure, but let's consider a couple of things. First, every United States president since 1979 – when Iran became a radical theocracy – has emphatically stated that Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons. Every one. Reagan, Bush one, Clinton, Bush two, Obama, Trump, Biden, and now Trump again.

Name one other policy – including foreign policy – that all of those presents have agreed upon over a 45 year stretch of time.

I can’t.

This seems to be the one and only issue that they all agree on. Even Obama, who is accused of being a Muslim his entire presidency.

That's a compelling argument to me that there really is a reasonable possibility that Iran would use the weapon if they had it. Remember, US presidents know things that you don't know. They have access to classified information that you will never have access to.

In that 45 year period, they haven't agreed on how to approach Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Congo (Republic of the Congo), Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechia, Czechoslovakia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, North Korea, North Macedonia, North Yemen, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, São Tomé and Príncipe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Serbia and Montenegro, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, South Korea, South Sudan, South Yemen, Soviet Union, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Türkiye, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vatican City (Holy See), Venezuela, Vietnam, West Germany, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zambia, or Zimbabwe.

But they’ve all agreed that Iran never needs to get nuclear weapons.

Also, the people who point out that as soon as we leave, Iran will go right back to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. That's true. That's the point. Why do they want one so badly that they will knee walk over broken glass to get one if they don't plan on using it? Not for defensive reasons. Israel has had nuclear weapons for several decades. If they had wanted to bomb a defenseless Iran with them, they would've done it a long time ago.

They are a radical theocracy who has pledged many times to erase Israel from the face of the Earth. The same type of radical theology that led to dozens, if not hundreds of acts of terrorism across the globe, including 9/11.