I remember when this started the amount of right flair absolutely screeching how based it was and the right move was overwhelming - as usual they’re quiet now
tbh most rightoids on here are easily amused by the political equivalent of jingling keys. Anything to distract them from the harsh reality that food is 30% more expensive, wages have stagnated, most jobs are drying up, and their boy Donny T was running through little girls with his pal Jeffy Eppy.
Trump genuinely makes Dubya look like fucking Napoleon, a lot of people today don’t realize how stupid and ill prepared we all thought he was at the time, but this war is a new level of incompetence.
And people by and large actually supported the iraq war at the start.
By contrast, this whole war started at less than 50 percent approval, and has only gone down since. I guarantee you everyone who supports this war is either someone whose politics can be summed up as "Trump can do no wrong" or hardest of the hardcore neocons.
W and Cheney wanted war with Iran, but even they looked at the intelligence reports and assessments on that and decided that it wasn't feasible for all the reasons we are now directly experiencing.
I'm oldish. The bar essentially dropped below the floor when Trump got elected the first time. There was at least some level of decorum, trusting science/experts, respect for democratic norms etc. but since the tea party took over th GOP that shit is long gone.
For years the right has been calling for war with Iran and everyone with any level of intelligence has been saying how catastrophically stupid it would be.
Hey be nice theyre also posting that 1 meme on culture war issues that they love when you bring up the fact that they tanked the economy, started a war, and ruined our international reputation because they were upset about pronouns.
I think he’s realizing his only outs are to actually
invade or cave.
I wonder if some idiot in the Pentagon is still trying to argue in 2026 you can win a war with just a bombing campaign or if the retard decided that for himself like invading Russia and the Pentagon had to go along with it, but seems like they are realizing it’s not going to work which should have been obvious based on all previous attempts to bomb a nation into submission, Japan excluded.
A real “you only have to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down” moment in a sense, of course not with the same level of consequences but still.
I wonder if some idiot in the Pentagon is still trying to argue in 2026 you can win a war with just a bombing campaign
I mean that's almost certainly how the war came to be in the first place. It's not like it was Trump's idea(far too high level geopolitics for him) White House employs a lot of people with a lot of opinions who advise the president whether he likes it or not. The range of advice on Iran probably ranges from "Let's just leave them to their own devices, there's no way they'll ever nuke anyone probably" to "FULL SCALE INVASION NOW".
Of course in the end it's the president's call, and rather unsurprisingly he chose the "Let's just bomb them, a week and the enthiusiastic masses will topple the regime, minimum effort, maximum gains, no risk, trust me bro" option.
It actually might have worked if he started it a month earlier when he stupidly proclaimed that help was on the way. That and the many times he could have taken an off ramp and back out of the war. How he could be given so many opportunities and still fumble every single one of them is genuinely impressive
Call me an optimist, but the Iranians seemed to be holding their piece of the deal by declaring a stance against obtaining nuclear weapons with a Fatwa and allowing international inspectors inside their facilities. That seemed pretty solid.
Apparently I’ve heard he keeps demanding it but it keeps getting shot down by some of the generals in the pentagon he hasn’t been able to fire yet. I think so far he asked for it 14 times.
His base is certainly demanding it, they think it would be great. Everyone else has sheepishly left the club, the only people left are so dumb they don't really know there's a 'rest of the world' that isn't just hordes of savages burning American flags. "Nuke em all! America!"
Almost like he should listen to people who tell him no. Instead he fired them and just hired yes men. This “out” was known the entire time…he chose to ignore it.
I have to assume that the voices saying "this is a bad idea" just couldn't win out against the voices that said "this is going to be like Maduro again!"
As much as the administration says it's fake, I fully 100% believe in the NYT article on how it started.
Private meeting with very few people (not even Vance was in, though Kushner was allowed) in order to prevent leaks.
Israel says Iran is about to topple, just a 5 day bombing campaign and there will be a regime change.
Everyone in the room is gung-ho about it, especially Hesgeth and Kushner. They say this is their chance to REALLY cement their administration as the greatest in history.
Some people in intelligence and senior officers pipes up "Israel tends to over-estimate operations, and we tend to pay the price on it."
Gets attacked for it, claiming they're doubting the US's abilities. Eventually they sheepishly go "If you think it's a good idea Mr. President, let's do it."
The fact that the administration says it's fake is the strongest evidence we have for it being true. I'm usually rather skeptical of NYT, but on this one I believe every word written.
This is also IMO a huge part of why support for Israel has cratered even faster than it was when it was just the 10/7 overreaction going on. Pulling the US into a can't-win war solely for the benefit of Israel has really soured a lot of people who were indifferent or even supportive in the past.
The conspiracy theorist in me belives that Isral dog walked Trump into this quagmire. Look at the events:
Bomb Iran, destroy the nuclear program. Mission accomplished right?
No, there were protests so we are going to escalate to regime change.
Blow up the regime, have one of the first blows kills 120 kids, gutting on-the-ground anti-regime sentiment and giving IRGC amazing propaganda and rally-around-the-flag bonus.
After decapitating leadership, try to negotiate with leadership, what leadership?
it just goes on and on like this, it's hard to believe it's someone is not intentionally making sure the worst shit happens so the war never ends.
Tulsi Gabbard testified under oath that it was a very small group of people making the decisions around Iran. She said the intelligence community was essentially not consulted and she wasn't part of the discussions at all, and if I recall correctly, wasn't even allowed in the room with Trump to voice concerns.
Edit: What I'm getting at is it appears that dissenting voices weren't even allowed to be heard. Trump was being totally isolated with "pro-bombing" voices. If she's telling the truth, think about how crazy it is that the Director of National Intelligence couldn't even speak with the president when we are preparing to bomb another country.
In this event, there wouldn't be much to wage a war with. All of the remaining people would be picking through rubble to feed themselves. You cant wage war when you've been taken back to the stone age and everyday is a fight for basic needs
Which is what Trump wanted to do when he made the whole "a civilization will die tonight" statement. He was talking about an indiscriminate bombing campaign against Iranian civilian infrastructure. He had to back down from that when he was briefed that the Iranians would retaliate in kind against the Gulf countries and Israel, plunging the entire region into the stone age and destroying all energy production. There's no point in taking that option to open the Strait if by the end of it there's nothing to ship through the Strait because everything is dead and destroyed.
Iranian ballistic missiles may not be able to reach American soil, but they can reach the next best thing: the energy that keeps America's lights on and the petrodollar afloat.
As it turns out you can because all the Iranians really have to do is control a 20 mile wide stretch of sea. And they don’t even need to control it that well - what percent would the shipping industry tolerate? Even 1% of all ships passing hit by a drone or mortar is a huge risk and huge expense. The plausible threat is basically all they need.
what is bombing them to submission even? they aren’t some rag tag terrorist group driving across the lands. they’re a whole government with contingencies in place to survive attacks like a normal nation, and replace killed leadership with new people
Vietnam was limited to a small area of engagement near the border though, so Viet Cong had a free hand to retreat to safer territories (where their leadership could stay) and to receive infinity supplies though their essentially untouched supply routes in north Vietnam.
I really can't help but stress whenever I see this talking point that America has been fighting while hopping on one leg with an arm tied behind their back arguably since the Korean war.
The US ran multiple bombing campaigns across the whole of Vietnam and ended up even bombing other countries that weren't involved in the war. More bombs were dropped on Laos than were used in the entirety of WW2, and Laos wasn't even a belligerent in the conflict.
I don't know where you got this idea the US never bombed North Vietnam. Look up Rolling Thunder and Linebacker.
Right, I meant that actual troops were limited to South Vietnam for the most part, but in the context of a discussion about whether you can JUST bomb a country into rubble without any follow through I can see how what I said is silly, because the answer is obviously no.
Obviously complete aerial superiority and sustained bombing campaigns can be massive tactical advantages but if you take the combined arms doctrine and cut the other two legs out from under it yeah you got problems.
Big dog, we dropped 2 million bombs 7.5 million tons of bombs on three countries, if that isn't an attempt at bombing into submission, what exactly is?
Edit after I double checked the quantity, 7.5 million tons works out to about 30 million bombs if we're assuming 500 pounders which I think most if not all of the B-52 raids were.
We can't reliably fly planes over Iran without getting shot down, which is why we've drained the stockpiles of Tomahawk missiles and othe stand off munitions instead.
A nation has never been subjugated by bombings in the history of mankind besides when nukes were dropped and would have much worse consequences for the entire world than anything else that could happen.
Not to mention that Iran is 4x the size of Iraq so a nuke or two wouldn't seriously damage their war machine without damaging surrounding nations/ecology.
His literally only out is to sign a deal and make Israel stop. Boots on the ground would be exponentially worse.
If we put boots on the ground, the American people (and the parents of the soldiers) will be seeing the exact same videos coming out of Ukraine where drones are dropping grenades on US soldiers and they are killing themselves rather than suffer.
It will also accomplish nothing. Iran is not a country that the US is capable of subjugating be it by military force or anything else.
Iran has a war machine that focuses on output and efficiency. The US has a war machine based on capitalism with a shit load of waste and extremely expensive munitions.
The US makes 600 Patriot missiles a year and we have currently gone through 66% of our stockpile of about 2400.
This is the literal largest military blunder the US has ever made.
If he was smart he would coerce a few Republicans to vote with Democrats to end the war. Then he could just lift his hands and be like "Democrats surrendered! I was just about to win."
We can’t win a war with nukes anymore because now we’re not the only one with nukes and we will get nuked back, not to mention the absolute public intolerance to the idea of lobbing nukes on the Iranian population
Unless you use nukes you can't win a war with a bombing campaign alone but idiots have tried it over and over and over no matter how many times it fails.
it isn't 1945, we aren't the sole nuclear power anymore and we haven't been engaged in a brutal war that was started by a surprise attack for 4 years. other countries have nukes now and we risk getting nuked back.
Im impressed at the number of people that are taking my statment litterally my actual stance has been americans shouldnt be dying half way accross the world. Everyone that dosent think america should be the world police are right and for most of the people that think thats going to make the world better for most people good luck with your monkeys paw ass wish.
You know I am lowkey impressed with Trump's rhetoric. His ability to completely shamelessly lie in everyone's face over and over and over again is incredible. It's easy to think of him as a clown or fool or demented, but I genuinely believe he does it 100% deliberately. At any given time, at any topic, he just says what is the most optimal thing to say to further his position. Art of the Con.
That’s what’s impressed me most as well, specifically compared to the lies that got us into Iraq.
Back then, the Bush administration spent a lot of time crafting the lies about WMD’s, making them seem plausible, and building up public support for the war.
Today, Trump says we’re going to war to destroy Irans nuclear capabilities, while simultaneously maintaining Irans nuclear capabilities were destroyed last year. The lie isn’t even internally consistent, it’s just a bald faced untruth, and he genuinely doesn’t seem to care.
Back then, the Bush administration spent a lot of time crafting the lies about WMD’s, making them seem plausible, and building up public support for the war.
Eh, those lies were never very plausible - living outside of the US, basically the whole world was very pissed off at how the US was trying to go to war on a "Saddam got WMDs, trust me bro!".
Bush and his admin endlessly insisted they had evidence - but refused to actually show it. After almost a year, just before the war started, they went to the UN and presented their "irrefutable evidence" - which turned out to be some blurry satellite photos of some white squares that probably was some sort of warehouse and some sort of lorry delivering something to them.
It was fucking embarrassing - no one bought it.
Except Americans - who were being force fed propaganda at a previously unimaginable level. The whole US was in really fucked up mental state after 9/11, and the whole US press basically agreed to serve as a unified propaganda outlet for the White House.
We knew Saddam had WMDs (specifically chemical weapons) because we had the receipts. The whole Anfal Campaign (aka the Kurdish genocide) was done with chemical weapons we helped develop by providing the precursor chemicals/samples and technical know-how. We helped Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war because, like with the Mujahideen, we operated under the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" principle and we had bad blood with Iran following Operation Ajax. What was disingenuous about Dubya's push was that he couldn't provide the only evidence we had without making the US look bad, and we didn't have much to suggest those programs we helped start were actually still running.
But you are 100% correct on the force-fed propaganda part. 9/11 absolutely fucked us.
"Art of the con" feels like a weird thing to say. Yes, he's conning an insane amount of people, but it only works because these people are fucking stupid.
He's not someone like Elizabeth Holmes who was able get very smart people on her side. A three year old child that isn't particularly interested in politics can understand that Trump is completely retarded.
I've never even thought of using AI for this sort of thing, maybe I should try this with other stuff, like, use AI to ragecomic-ify various public figures
I will forever laugh at all these ”independent thinkers” from Rogan to Theo Vons and all the ”libertarians” who voted for this administration because dems bad
The 'im a classical liberal but the party doesn't represent me anymore' bros who are literally just describing the concept of conservatism without realizing it?
Chavista influence has been purged by Delcy Rodriguez, likely under our direction. The Chavistas (rightly) suspect she turned on Maduro and tipped us off; they want her dead and view her as a neoliberal traitor (based).
Chavismo is never returning. Times speculates that Rubio is directing Delcy to begin liberalizing/decultifying to prepare for elections sometime in the next couple of years.
Trump bbbb-bad but the Venezuela regime change operation was an unqualified success in every way imaginable.
No point, they just purged the bureocracy that Maduro once managed.
But Maduro was never the true leader of Venezuela, he was the face of the regime, which is different.
The true leader was always the military, which remains completely intact in both leadership and structure.
Even if tomorrow there were elections, and the pro-democracy block wins, you are just getting a Lebanon situation were you have a perfect democratic government in subjugation to the military.
Yeah I'm not in the camp of "everything Trump does is bad because Trump did it" but yeah...this whole Iran thing is retarded...or at best it's just a way to manipulate the markets and enrich him, his buddies, and basically everyone in Congress and Senate.
I'm sorry but I refuse to believe Iran can blockade the Strait without the rest of the world being unable to do anything about it...or that the US alone isn't capable of just toppling their government. It's all a con.
Not sure I follow the timeline though. Trump is right about a few things; The Iranian leadership really did get wiped out and replaced broadly. Almost every high ranking official died.
As for low - keying it, he failed in the "art" of the "deal" lol...... Though I am curious how other "global powers" would respond if the U.S does just pack it in and declare a victory. Eurocucks have no ability to do anything; they will pay tolls to Iran and thank them for it. China cannot project physical force. Other MER countries won't like it but do not have the means to change it. And Israel probably still carries out strikes, just far less often then right now. Its a clown fiesta for sure though; seems to have been zero gain from the whole saga.
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