Just to set the story straight:

- Libya was bombed primarily by France and then other NATO countries for no good reason. And from a functioning dictatorship it is a failed state.

- Syria was invaded by Turkey/US right after the civil war started.

In the world we all live in you need to have powerful deterrents so that the US/France/UK/NATO will not dare to bomb you for whatever reason they feel "justified" to do.

In an extreme, I think every country should have a lot of nukes so other countries can mind their own business.

> You imply here that those countries woes are primarily due to Israel. They are not.

The comment didn't suggest that exactly.

> One would hope, but if Allah is protecting them why would they need to fear retaliation?

Israel just launched a perfidious pre-emptive defence by assassinating a lot of their top military leadership. They've probably figured out retaliation is a possibility here - if this is Israel's defence when they aren't even being threatened, imagine what they will do in their defence when the Iranians actually do something directly! Even if the Iranians are legitimately stupid at some level the campaign of missile strikes must have registered that they are vulnerable to missiles.

> One would hope, but if Allah is protecting them why would they need to fear retaliation?

Allah or Jahwe, what's the difference. Both countries are some kind of theocracies, that see infidels as inferior. If Israel has nukes, so should Iran. At least Iran is Shia, so different from the most Muslims, which are Sunni.

You’re not going to win an argument with someone who will always blame the Jews for all the world’s (and his personal) woes.

This was Israel's thinking with Hamas - they're deterred, they're comfortable and in charge and they wouldn't do anything to jeopardise that, etc. Israel's thinking was wrong, and they've learned to believe their enemies when they say they want to destroy Israel. There isn't a country in the world that would allow their enemies, who have repeatedly stated that said country's demise is a key goal of theirs, to develop nukes if they have with the capability to stop it.

I think they are stupid for broadcasting the program and threatening Israel with it.

Believe people when they tell you what they are going to do. Even if Iran wouldn’t use it if they had it, threatening to use it shifts the probability for them using it.

Khomeini isn’t on Kim jong un’s level

> 100%. The Iranian regime is not stupid.

I'm not sure how can you say that, now that they are dead, completely due to how they positioned themselves on the regional and global landscape.

>(For example, see how Hamas will not surrender

Yup.

Hamas will fight to the last Palestinian. They could have ended the Gaza war a year ago (or more). All they have to say is: "Here are the hostages. Here are our weapons. We are now shoemakers."

Why don't they do this?

Because they would rather fight to the last Palestinian child.

Hamas has agency. They could end war any time since October 8, 2023.

By the moral law of not being a hypocrite, for one.

> gov of iran says israel is little satan

A pretty popular opinion these days

The same shit NK says about SK and the USA but still I don't see nukes flying. You shouldn't mistake propaganda for the masses with the leadership being crazy fanatics.

> some religious lunatics would deem that worthy

That would be primarily Evangelical Zionists, seeking to hasten the end of days.

it will not be mutual. look at map and size of countries.

so it even no need to be lunatic to act some nukes.

[dead]

Because Iran is a developed country and the Iranian population actually has a future if they take their government back from the clerics?

Hell, in the next 30 or so years oil will disappear from the middle east, and Iran is just about the only country that has a realistic shot at still having an economy after that.

Islamism != Islam. Plenty of Muslims (most, thankfully) are not Islamists, including Pakistan. Pakistan also does not fund terror globally (though India says they do it locally) because they do not believe they go to heaven for killing Israelis. There are a number of Muslims, including the Supreme Leader, who do. My contention was not that any muslims would nuke Israel if they had a chance, most surely would not, but it's reasonable to believe Iran would. Hamas and Hezbollah would, and Iran would love to give them the opportunity.

South Korea was never going to attack North Korea because, as I mentioned, they had plenty of conventional weapons they could easily deliver to South Korea. They had mutually assured destruction before they even tried to get nukes, that's why they succeeded. Iran does not have that yet, and must be stopped before they do.

I do now know whether this was the right way to do it by any means, and I think it's a shame that the Obama-era deal was abandoned. I think we could possibly have gotten here through peaceful measures. But we did need to get to here.

This is a minor distinction. In they end they all set off by pyrotechnic charges. Authorization sequence is nothing an industrial power can't get around.

Then why would they need a full Budapest memorandum with co-signees if Moscow could just take them back?

This sounds ridiculous.

And Ukraine built them.

That's a recurring Russian propaganda point, which is easily verifiable as a lie.

Even basic logic - Ukraine had the technical know-how to do whatever they wanted with the nukes. Moscow didn't have control, at best on paper - if they had control, there was no need for the Budapest Memorandum.

I keep debunking this propaganda point over and over again lol

What do you mean it was not theirs? The Soviet Union was dissolved and split into multiple states. Russia is not the Soviet Union, just another part of the former Soviet Union like Ukraine.

My counter-argument to norms being the main deterrent is simple. It’s never going to get easier to hide an Oak Ridge in your rogue state. The industrial scale of uranium enrichment has a fundamental limit, no matter how you do it.

You have to process massive piles of mass into a very small fraction. And you have to collect all those rocks. And that’s just for fission.

As long as any country with preemptive strike capability exists, and satellites exist… I just don’t see how anyone could do it.

Genuine question, if the US has that capability and Trump is the issue, why didn't Biden do what was needed to make the war over?

>"With a heftier backing from the US the Russo-Ukrainian war would be over by now."

And you know this how? Accordingly to all those initial predictions Russia should be already disintegrated and fallen under heavy sanctions, Putin's regime replaced etc. etc. I suspect all these analytics and think tanks should be cleaning toilets instead.

Also there is a line in that backing crossing which may lead to an all out nuclear war. Rational countries that matter understandably do not want to test it unless their existence is really threatened.

On the contrary: at this point all of that spending appears to have been a waste. Hezbollah neutralized, Syria regime-changed, Gaza in tatters, and now they've lost their nuclear program.

Imagine if they'd spent the money on education, or developing their economy. They could easily have reconciled with the U.S. if they stopped chanting "Death to America" and done something productive with their time and money. This was the inevitable result of their plans, and easily predictable.

That's a fairly apt comparison actually.

> transported things away

This implies a tunnel system, or was this transport done in plain sight?

Weird that Iran, an oil exporter with huge potential for solar, would expend so much energy on protecting a purportedly civilian nuclear program. I'm sure it's nothing.

This isn't really relevant but I'm only making one comment in this post so I'll say it here: young folks don't remember decades of Iranian state sponsored terrorism and do not understand the context of conflict in the middle east.

That sounds to me like the US seriously needs to promote non-petroleum sources of energy. If not for the environment, for their own national sovereignity.

Yes, this was also said about Iraq in 1991.

In one month if the Iranian government has not been overthrown by its own people what will you do? Will you change your beliefs or will the goalpost move?

The IRGC is unlikely to let the regime fall so easily. They'll kill a lot of Iranians to stop that from happening. The Iranian people have limited means to fight at present. The no-fly zone and sanctions approach will be used to attempt to strangle the regime over the coming years. It'll take a small miracle for the regime to fall anytime soon, it's not that weak yet (imo) despite what the propaganda is claiming.

Overthrow and get what? Another Libya?

I agree. Bombing can only "do" so much....

That would mean the USA are a theocracy too, given most senators are Christian. That doesn’t make too much sense.

Theocracy is a form of government in which religious leaders rule in the name of a deity, and religious law is the basis for all legal and political decisions.

This is not how it played out if you talk to Iranians.

They will tell you that the theocracy folks were a small minority of the entire resistance and first built a government of unity.

Once in charge they started annihilating all other opposition factions one by one.

> Iran became a theocracy through a popular uprising, too.

OP referred to democratic votes, whereas you talk about "popular uprising". Can you explain in your own words why you believe these are even comparable?

The problems of Israeli democracy are not the ones you list.

The fundamental issue is the population of the West Bank, who, outside of Palestinian Authority areas (aka "Area A"), are largely controlled by Israel but cannot vote. Note that 1-2 million West Bank Palestinians live in Area A under the Palestinian Authority.

- Within Israel, there is a Communist Party (which rejects religion and ethnicity) and other parties (including two Arab parties).

- A key problem in Israeli democracy, which it would be helpful if you noted, is that although there are two Arab parties (and majority Jewish parties who welcome Arabs), the Arab population of Israel votes at a low rate. This results in their being under-represented in the Knesset.

- The Basic Law you refer to made zero change to who can have political power.

- The 50% you refer to is neither the right percentage, nor does it take into account areas of great Palestinian autonomy.

- Function of the legal system has never been relevant to who can vote or hold office.

If you want to reflect what is on the ground, I suggest you take in the whole picture.

Enlighten me, which part of my comment was a lie?

If you have a problem with laws defining this sort of thing, you're going to have problems with the constitution of any muslim-majority country. Including ... of course Palestine.

Hamas/Gaza:

“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: O’ Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him,”

And the west bank's government pays pensions according to how many Jews you hurt:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority_Martyrs_...

(No worries the "parliamentary democracy" that the WB is - hah! - promises to stop that now. Well, except for the payments)

But this is a general problem with all muslim-majority nations. Take an extremely moderate one - Morocco - defines itself as:

"A sovereign Muslim State, attached to its national unity and to its territorial integrity, the Kingdom of Morocco intends to preserve,"

I think you have not paid attention to European and Middle Eastern countries.

They are all ethno states.

The very concept "nation-state" is an alignment of "ethnic tribe" with "political borders"

You might want to hit a history book or two.

In this regard, Israel is more normal and places like the U.S. are abnormal. (Once you get outside the U.S....)

It's a bad law (although somewhat covered with 'good intentions', it does have a scent of racism which shouldn't exist in state laws). However, note that the outcome was the unintentional creation of Jewish/Arabs communities in the Galilee, which actually help bring Jews and Arabs together. It is also important to note that Arab Israelis have full rights as citizens, have representatives in the parliament and even were a part of the previous coalition. This, of course, is not the case for Palestinians in the occupied territories, and this issue MUST be resolved (one- or two-state solution, either way the current situation is unbearable). With that, the current coalition does include extremists, and many (according to recent polls, >60%) in Israel want to see them replaced.

> Israel has never actually wanted to end the lives of every Palestinian

They clearly and openly state that they want to force Palestinians off of their land and are using violence towards that end.

If there were a button to get rid of Palestinians, Israelis would “hit it twice”.

https://youtu.be/BkP78hyLl4w

> Israel has never actually wanted to end the lives of every Palestinian

Uh? So can you explain the genocide?

It's not about democracy. If it were, we wouldn't have overthrown countless democratically elected leaders throughout South America during the 20th Century.

Our elected leaders constantly attempt to expand their own power. To maximally punish whistleblowers. Our election system is ran by a duopoly who exerts extreme power over those voicing alternative views and opinions.

About democracy, it is not.

Let's say it was though. What gives us the right to blow other countries off the face of the planet? Are we somehow so much better than everyone else because we believe we're democratic? We don't even rank in the top 10 most democratic countries. We throw more people in jail than China. Per capita AND total overall. We throw more kids in jail than any other first world country [0].

Surely, democracy does not automagically lend to treating people fairly. We have enough problems in our own damn democracy to worry about. Crazy to be starting wars to "help" someone who never asked for it. Forcing violence upon those who never consented is absolutely abhorrent.

[0] https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2016/country-chapters/afric...

Whose fault is that? The US and Russia have propped and warred every angle to extract as much oil as possible. The instability maintains a heavy flow of refugees into Europe, destabilising the freedoms they have there and pushing the politics further right.

The sudden switch yesterday from "they can't make nukes" to "they're a fortnight away from ICBMs" felt a little too reminiscent of Iraq twenty years ago.

If we want a stable Middle East, we have to stop bombing the shit out of it, and invest. Negotiate fairly for resources. Offer them a future. And demand Israel stop committing war crimes.

Israel is the only country with tiered citizenship.

It is the only country that has constitutional preference for an ethnic group instead of equality of all subjects/citizens.

It is also the only country with automatic citizenship based on religion.

It is also the only country with nuclear weapons but not part of NPT. Even North Korea is a member of NPT.

The myth of Democracy is just that, a myth. It doesn’t work anymore.

There's only 3 problems with this old claim.

1. You have to define 'Israel' quite carefully to make it work. Palestinians in East Jerusalem cannot vote in Israeli elections. Is East Jerusalem part of Israel or not?

2. There are several other democracies in the Middle East, for example Iraq and Lebanon.

3. Some of the countries which aren't democratic, would be democratic, except that representative governments were overthrown by the United States, in part to enforce cooperation with Israel, against the wishes of most of the people in the country. For example, Egypt.

Iran was democratic … until we overthrew them.

You seem to believe “democracy” is some kind of magic spell or something? This “democracy” just perpetrated and are continuing to perpetrate the worst kind of wanton and sadistic genocide in full view of the world and are doing it in high definition and with impunity. America is supposedly also a democracy and we just in fact bombed a place objectively without any provocation, in violation of our own supreme law, and being utterly counter to American interests, because an alien and foreign interest group has a stranglehold on America.

Democracy is not some magic word that justifies things

Iran used to be a democracy in the Middle East until the US got involved

A shining beacon of democracy.

> Support for Israel extends beyond religious justifications

Yes, it extends that support to cover apartheid colonial occupation, more-than-likely genocide by all the accepted definitions, and the usual smattering of targeting civilians, executing paramedics in marked ambulances and ethic cleansing.

Israel, the democratic country whose prime minister appears to be deliberately prolonging the current conflict in Gaza and starting a new war with Iran to avoid facing corruption charges?

Bad hasbara.

Israel has elections. So does Russia. Is Russia a democracy?

I could really care less what theit form of government is