re: Which of the following points do you disagree with?

Iran needed to go, for no other reason simply than all the propped up proxies firing missiles at anything that floats, flies, or fricks anywhere in the entire region.

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Sidenote--I can't believe Trump did this move. The midterms are coming and he has to know he screwed himself. But the dude refuses to admit mistakes.

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The midterms were lost regardless due to Congressional republicans wanting to lose their majority. So there was never any political capital to lose for Trump. He was always going to be a lame duck for the last part of his term, and he knows it.

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• Iran has/had a strong desire to obtain a nuclear weapon, and to use it, if acquired

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Agree

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• Iran’s nuclear enrichment capability was destroyed last year, at least for the near future.

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Agree only to the extent that it was set back a few years.

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• The material Iran had already enriched may not have been destroyed, or it's buried

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Agreed, but not destroyed

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• Iran will never stop trying to acquire nuclear weapons under the pre-war regime. Or under a like-minded regime

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Agree

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• Iran had been rapidly building up its conventional weapons arsenal to protect their ability to enrich uranium and create nuclear weapons

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Disagree. The want a conventional arsenal for the reasons they are using it today. Retaliation.

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• Iran, at some point soon, would have had a large enough arsenal of conventional weapons to prevent anyone from stopping them from rebuilding their nuclear enrichment capabilities

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Disagree. Only nuclear capabilities ensure an equal diplomatic playing field with the world's only empire. That is what all nations seeking nukes want. It ensures that the one empire does not do empire things in their country.

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• Israel was going to bomb Iran with or without us.

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Agree. Israel has already stated their goal, if you paid attention. They want oil to be pipelined to their coasts and not through the straight. It is what ME conflicts are always about. Oil revenues.

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• If we didn’t participate, our bases in the ME would have been hit, and therefore, we’d still be heavily involved

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Agree. This is the result of us being the world's only empire and our insistance on surrounding other nations with military presence as well as our insistance on proclaiming Israel as our greatest ally.

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• Iran does not need the ability to strike the US mainland with any weapon to cause great harm to the US.

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Disagree...unless you honestly believe they are really suicidal.

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Iran will never stop trying to acquire nuclear weapons under the pre-war regime

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I don't think they will stop with nuclear weapons because it is now baked into the their religious plans.

They truly believe that they are to usher in the return of the Mahdi. Their big goal with this 12th Imam business is to stir up as much chaos and trouble around the world as they can — all that 'fight the oppressors' talk — to speed up his return. According to their prophecies, things have to get real bad first, with widespread death and destruction. One part of it talks about a third of the world being wiped out.

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I don’t have enough information to say what is or isn’t true with this.

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None of us do. But no one is denying it, including those who are anti Trump or otherwise against this war.

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Not meaningfully with regard to the US military

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We're five weeks in. While they're essentially neutered militarily, it stands to reason that ti would have taken several more weeks if their arsenal were bigger. No?

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Probably… why is that our problem?

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It's our problem because our ME bases would have been targeted just the same as if we had been the attacker. We were going to be involved regardless. So why not be proactive?

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*IF* after putting our assets on full alert that took place I would then decide how best to proceed to advance AMERICAN interests in the area

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Do you think that would have looked any differently than things look now?

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Disagree with regard to domestic American concerns, that’s accurate with regard to American assets placed in the ME but they can’t project power beyond the region

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I think they've already proven they can. But the magnitude can be debated.

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Nope. At most we could’ve hit them with air and missile strikes, armed some insurgents and evaluated again down the road. No need to consider ground troops or anything beyond what was done last year because it’s unnecessary to our critical interests domestically or internationally.

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This, I can somewhat agree with. But that would be akin to kicking the can, as we've been doing for decades. I am okay with attempting to end this problem either for good, or for the foreseeable future.
I do not agree with arming insurgents. These people are irrational and barbaric. Even insurgents who may seem "friendly" now, will want us gone and turn their guns toward us once their objectives are met. And their objectives are likely different than ours.

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The midterms were lost regardless due to Congressional republicans wanting to lose their majority. So there was never any political capital to lose for Trump. He was always going to be a lame duck for the last part of his term, and he knows it.

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Well that is interesting copium.

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What would you have done differently?

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Reigned in the Israelis and prevent the initial attack and allowed negotiations to continue

They deserve some autonomy but if they're going to be reliant on the United States for security they should not be allowed to attack a nation with the damaging capabilities of Iran on a whim without our approval

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Well that is interesting copium.

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Why is it copium? I mean republicans are doing everything they can to lose the midterms, despite the efforts of the progressives to step on their dicks at every turn. It's an incredibly fascinating race to the bottom. Ineptness vs. laziness.

Not much Trump can do about that.

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What would you have done differently?

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Told the Israelis that if they go ahead with their plans that we:

1. Will cease gifting them American weapons (we’ll still sell them, but no free foreign aid anymore)

2. Will refuse to offer any military assistance to intercept missiles that aren’t threatening our military assets in the region.

3. Will actively publicly condemn Israeli aggression in Iran and Lebanon.

Basically, I would communicate clearly that they’re alone on this one, so proceed at their own caution.

I would also communicate to the IRGC, in no uncertain terms, that if they sink a single American vessel as a reprisal against an Israeli attack which we publicly condemn, we will glass the entire country. I mean full scale nuclear holocaust, all 90 million vaporized, salt the earth, just obliterate the whole damn thing, murder every civilian, reduce every building to rubble, make the Nazis and Communists shudder at our capacity for pure unadulterated evil and unchecked power.

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While they're essentially neutered militarily, it stands to reason that ti would have taken several more weeks if their arsenal were bigger. No?

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What difference does that make functionally to us either way unless the goal is to possess Iran in terms of an occupation?

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It's our problem because our ME bases would have been targeted just the same as if we had been the attacker. We were going to be involved regardless. So why not be proactive?

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Because Israel was attempting to force us into a war that is going to provide us virtually no advantage and unless Iran wanted to drag us into it via escalation we could’ve avoided all of this?

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Do you think that would have looked any differently than things look now?

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Yes. Because now Trump has his ego bruised and can’t walk away easily without losing face given his myriad of varying claims with regard to our war aims over there.

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I think they've already proven they can. But the magnitude can be debated.

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How specifically can they project power beyond the region outside of shutting down the straits which we ourselves guaranteed would happen by our involvement and attempt at regime change?

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But that would be akin to kicking the can, as we've been doing for decades.

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You’re either for regime change and willing to accept a full ground war to accomplish it (which is what all his advisors told him prior to getting involved) or you manage the threat as everyone else had by keeping the Stone Age death cult in their box via embargoes and worry about the 99 bigger issues we have facing us domestically and with regard to geopolitical concerns.

If you really want to get crazy you arm opposition groups and send them into a civil war to keep them occupied.

What you don’t do under any circumstances is commit to objectives publicly that could drag you into a ground war.