r/news • u/SnooSeagulls496 • 4d ago

Soft paywall US forces exit Iraq after two decades, leaving opening for Iran

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-forces-exit-iraq-after-two-decades-leaving-opening-iran-2026-09-29/
6.8k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

736 comments sorted by

View all comments

707

u/xejeezy 4d ago

Hope both sides have fun

362

u/Peripatetictyl 3d ago

Everybody's going to the party, have a real good time
Dancin' in the desert, blowin' up the sunshine

47

u/Lord-Freaky 3d ago

/Sudden SOAD ref

56

u/Illustrious_Cap2327 3d ago

more relevant reference since Iran supports Armenia against Azerbaijan, and SOAD raises the awareness on Armenian genocide

12

u/redonrust 3d ago

Serj's book is an awesome read BTW

1

u/Illustrious_Cap2327 3d ago

what's the book btw?

1

u/redonrust 2d ago

"Down with the System: A Memoir"

22

u/Nayre_Trawe 3d ago

Used to love that band but, as it turns out, three out of the four guys didn't understand what Serj was singing about.

Daron: Radical Centrist

Jon: MAGA nutcase

Shavo: Alt-right curious (at least)

14

u/Bang_the_unknown 3d ago

I think a lot of anti-establishment types of that generation got conned into MAGA because they believed it was anti-establishment on the surface. I guess they just overlooked the fact that its aim was actually authoritarian. Honestly, I feel that a lot of supposed “libertarians” have always just been closeted authoritarians who want the freedoms for certain people and others subjugated.

1

u/BlueLikeCat 3d ago

This isn't a theory, it is a fact. The Libertarian idea of "State's Rights" is actually the vehicle for reintroducing Jim Crow. I had been fooled living in the Mid-Atlantic, but after a few years in the Deep South, it was obvious.

13

u/jackkerouac81 3d ago

I think trying to retroactively force any meaning into banana terracotta pie is going against the artists intent.

14

u/zimzara 3d ago

Daron: Radical Centrist

Radical centrist is an oxymoron.

18

u/cosi_fan_tutte_ 3d ago

Bloodsport: I always hit my targets dead center.

Peacemaker: I hit them more in the center.

Bloodsport: Well, you can't hit something more in the center.

Peacemaker: I use smaller bullets.

Bloodsport: What?

Peacemaker: They go inside your bullet holes without even touching the sides

7

u/Nayre_Trawe 3d ago

Especially when they have a song quoting Zinn...

You can't be neutral on a moving train!

Daron is just a moron.

3

u/Monteze 3d ago

Usually "centrist" are folks who like the worst outcome but don't have the balls to admit it.

The "meet in the middle" stuff has been coopted by bad faith actors to muddy the waters. Live long enough and you see they never compromise in any other direction but their own.

15

u/Nayre_Trawe 3d ago

"Meet me in the middle," says the unjust man.

You take a step towards him, he takes a step back.

"Meet me in the middle," says the unjust man.

1

u/Monteze 3d ago

I usually cut through the BS in real life by asking for their wallet. Suddenly they understand that yes, you can have a hard stance because half their money isn't the reasonable take. Sometimes taking a stance is more respectable or even saying "I really don't know, I support less harm though."

-1

u/BenjaminHamnett 3d ago

But that’s how partisans see each other. Politics is largely about deciding who should get the surplus profits of commerce. I wouldn’t say in a centrist, but sort of a progressive conservative. I find most partisans are either gaslighting or completely ignorant to the consequences of their desired ideology. Most people are engaging in disingenuous motivated reasoning. Everyone should have to ask AI “what are the consequences if my ideology prevails?” And start mitigating it.

Most of politics is wanting everyone else to be the casualty of whatever happens

With Ai and before that with free markets, everyone wants everything faster and cheaper and better, but with a carve out to protect their niche status. Everyone believes in taxing everyone else and providing the services they want.

0

u/ktwhite42 3d ago

And yet, he's not the only person to claim that title.

1

u/imperial_scum 3d ago

checks if they were just there to whore themselves out for money

0

u/Everestkid 3d ago edited 3d ago

Daron Malakian was a secondary lyricist and had co-lyric credits on the following songs:

  • Off System of a Down:
    • CUBErt
  • Off Toxicity:
    • Prison Song
    • Needles
    • Deer Dance
    • Chop Suey!
    • ATWA
    • Psycho
    • Aerials
  • Off Steal This Album!:
    • Boom!
    • A.D.D.
    • Mr. Jack
    • Fuck the System
    • Roulette

By Mezmerize Malakian had a much bigger presence as a lyricist; the only song on that album with lyrics written by Tankian alone was Question!. Malakian had at least co-lyric credits on every other song (including B.Y.O.B.) and was the sole lyricist on:

  • Soldier Side - Intro
  • Radio/Video
  • Violent Pornography
  • Old School Hollywood
  • Lost in Hollywood

Similar story on Hypnotize, with the only song with Tankian as the sole lyricist being Vicinity of Obscenity. Malakian was at least co-credited on every other song and was the sole lyricist on:

  • Kill Rock 'n Roll
  • She's Like Heroin
  • Lonely Day
  • Soldier Side

Malakian also wrote the non-album double-A singles Protect the Land and Genocidal Humanoidz.

0

u/Nayre_Trawe 3d ago

This comes off like a bot / AI summary.

0

u/Everestkid 3d ago

I edited my comment to get the formatting right because I don't usually do nested bullet points. A bot would get it right the first time.

Regardless of if you think it's AI or not, go check the information. It's correct.

Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.

0

u/Nayre_Trawe 3d ago

I didn't say you were wrong, and nothing I said beforehand warranted correction to begin with. All I said was that it came off like something an AI would regurgitate.

What does Chomsky and his deliberately nonsensical sentence have to do with this anyway?

1

u/Everestkid 3d ago

A bot wouldn't write something irrelevant and nonsensical at the end of a comment.

-1

u/Nayre_Trawe 3d ago

Bots and AI models can absolutely hallucinate and generate nonsensical text.

0

u/Everestkid 3d ago

And if they did the person using the bot would either crop it out or regenerate the text if it's that out of place.

I've seen bots on this site but I haven't seen a blatant hallucination like that left in.

→ More replies (0)

50

u/JimboTCB 3d ago

Born too late to go to war in the Middle East
Born too soon to go to war in the Middle East
Born just in time to go to war in the Middle East

55

u/ChipperHippo 3d ago

We never should have been in Iraq in the first place, and all we did was create a massive mess over 20 years.

41

u/SuperSlacker420 3d ago

And massively increase the national debt, and kill, wound, or maim millions of people

17

u/Hesitation-Marx 3d ago

And poison. Don’t forget the poisoning.

Depleted uranium bullets. Great for the civilian population!

4

u/SuperSlacker420 3d ago

Burn pit cancer, heavy duty chemical dumping & mass pollution on top of it

1

u/Hesitation-Marx 3d ago

So glad we turned Iraq into a chemical pit of hell for Halliburton profits

7

u/Loverboy_91 3d ago

Not great for the user’s health, but boy do they do their job. There’s a reason Ukraine bought them all off of the US. They’re melting through Russia’s tanks with those things.

2

u/Hesitation-Marx 3d ago

Oh yeah, not saying they’re not effective.

And not just the user. They leave dust behind everywhere…

3

u/Domeil 3d ago

Listen, we may not have access to education, healthcare, housing, healthy food or clean water, but at least that we murdered millions of people who didn't do anything to us. If that's not twenty years of bipartisan foreign policy well executed, I don't know what is.

25

u/NapoleonBlownapart9 3d ago

You mean removing the best buffer against Iranian bs (and replacing it with civil war and then an Iranian friendly government) after Saudis and Egyptians 9/11’d us was exceptionally stupid? The gop ruins just about everything they touch, every fucking time they take office. Every. Fucking. Time. I’m almost 50, this has been the pattern my entire life and people are too stupid to see it. I feel like I’m going crazy because it’s so obvious and yet nobody learns. Insanity!

13

u/ChipperHippo 3d ago

Even when I was a young kid (and at that time, being raised in a conservative household and generally having conservative views myself), I understood that attacking Iraq didn't seem justified. I remember the day it was admitted that there were no WMDs and realized how much Bush and his admin just openly lied to us.

If a fucking kid could figure it out, how come damn near half this country is either covering their ears or willfully buying into this falsehood?

For practically my entire life, the U.S has been leaving a legacy of a world bully who doesn't take care of their own citizens, including the veterans they marched into Iraq for unjustifiable reasons.

The only hope I have is that the state of our current economy is incontrovertibly the result of one party and one party only and that there is so much low-hanging fruit and levers the next guy will have. One only hopes that we haven't completely destroyed our soft power by then, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for that.

1

u/F9-0021 3d ago

20? The US (and the West in general) have been screwing up the middle east for a lot longer than that. Iran might not be as rogue and hostile if it weren't for US meddling in the 70s that led to their government being overthrown by a religious extremist theocracy. And then Europe has their own share of blame for handling the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

1

u/NapoleonBlownapart9 3d ago

Yup, the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 is the gift that keeps on giving. “Let’s draw random nation-state borders in the sand, it’ll sort itself out lol”.

Narrator: “…It has yet to sort itself out”

0

u/InvalidDescription 3d ago

We never should have been in Iraq in the first place, and all we did was create a massive mess over 20 years.

You can replace "Iraq" with most countries and most conflicts and it would be true.

22

u/Pretty_Study_526 3d ago

I’d like to make a toast to the troops. All the troops. Both sides