Meanwhile the headlines say Trump is sending more warships to the area and telling Iran it's running out of time to make a deal or else.

▲ shevy-java 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

But what deal exactly?

I can not help but feel that a lot of what Trump is doing in general, is for the show purpose effect.

▲ unsnap_biceps 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

    But his precise objectives remain unclear. Speaking at the premiere of the documentary Melania, the US president told reporters Iran had to do “two things” to avoid military action. “Number one, no nuclear. And number two, stop killing protesters,” saying that “they are killing them by the thousands”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/30/donald-trump...

▲ throw310822 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There is no deal. The problem with Iran is that it's a regional power that is not aligned with Israel, so Israel has been insisting for decades that it must be attacked. The desired outcome of course is not to "free" Iran but to weaken it so that it can't be a rival power. So first it claimed it was because of Iran's nuclear program, and when Obama put that under control with an agreement that gave Iran the opportunity to thrive, it pushed Trump to renege the deal so Iran's nuclear could be a problem again and the sanctions restored.

	▲	dralley 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It's a regional power that funds militias and paramilitaries in half the middle east, which uses those paramilitary organizations to exert control and influence over their neighbors and occasionally to assassinate political opposition (e.g. in Lebanon, Iraq), and to prop up the likes of Assad (Hezbollah got involved in the civil war on the Assad side, and in one instance laid siege to and starved out a village) and threaten Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc. Israel is part of the equation but Middle Eastern politics is more complex than that.
	▲	mhb 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's a power whose slogan is "Death to the US" and which has been doggedly working on nuclear weapons for decades. Try and temper the Israel Derangement Syndrome sufficiently to see that the US and the Mideast would be better off without the Iranian theocracy.

▲ trvz 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Like last time, so far he’s bad mostly for his own country.

The Medrano abduction and kirking Iran’s leadership may end up positive actions from a humanitarian view.

	▲	4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

▲ smitty1e 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

In national politics, one calls for the vote when the outcome has been decided, in order to "put a bow" on matters.

Trump can be expected to pull a trigger when the results are similarly "known" (Maduro), and not a moment before.

The Iranian situation is orders of magnitude more complex than Venezuela, and the stakes are obviously higher on both ends. If the Iranian autocrats persevere, they will argue heaven is on their side. If Trump fumbles, the Loyal Opposition will be a proxy for the Ayatollah at the midterm elections this November.

For one who (according to his detractors) is an idiot with no self-control, Trump shows much strategic patience.