> They want it weakened, that's it.

They certainly want it gone, weakened is the fallback.

> Nobody is putting a replacement in, not even the exiled shah's family.

What Israel and the US ultimately want is not the same thing as what they will currently put resources behind achieving.

> while also making dubious WMD claims

What is dubious about the WMD claims? Even the IAEA has said Iran has not been complying with safeguards.[0] It's quite obvious based on their enrichment percentages that they have a nuclear weapons program.

> More importantly, if Israel wants something, it's not our job.

Both Israel and the US want the regime gone or at least weakened. Sure, US/Israeli interests aren't always fully aligned but they are often similar. The Iranian regime is probably only an existential threat to Israel in the near term but that doesn't mean the regime is not still a threat to US regional interests. The world shouldn't allow terrorist organizations like the IRGC to obtain nukes.

[0] https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/06/1164291

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mahboi a day ago | parent [-]

What's dubious about the WMD claims, Trump keeps waffling back and forth on whether or not we've destroyed their nuclear capabilities.

And this is Israel's interest only. Just because we've also gotten tangled up with UAE, Jordan, etc as a result of catering to their interests doesn't make it our own. Netanyahu called Trump and forced his hand on this, administration admitted it. It's either that or, at best, Trump wanting to manipulate oil markets.

> The world shouldn't allow terrorist organizations like the IRGC to obtain nukes.

It's just us. Our NATO allies don't want this war, even though they're more exposed to Mid East oil. What really shows that we're suckers, our adversaries like Russia and China don't care to get involved either, and they're even closer. They must be happy we're focusing so hard on the Mid East at the expense of say Ukraine.

	▲	jameshilliard a day ago \| parent [-]
		> What's dubious about the WMD claims, Trump keeps waffling back and forth on whether or not we've destroyed their nuclear capabilities. Well that's different from whether or not they have a nuclear weapons program, and I think one would probably describe their nuclear weapons program as being damaged but not fully destroyed. I don't think the existence of the nuclear weapons program is reasonably in question however. > And this is Israel's interest only. Just because we've also gotten tangled up with UAE, Jordan, etc as a result of catering to their interests doesn't make it our own. Saudi Arabia also wanted the US to attack Iran.[0] Most middle eastern countries seem to consider Iran to be a serious threat. > Netanyahu called Trump and forced his hand on this, administration admitted it. It's not super clear what happened here, my interpretation was more that Netanyahu may have somewhat forced Trump's hand on the specific timing of the initial strikes but not really on the decision to attack itself. Hard to say though. > It's either that or, at best, Trump wanting to manipulate oil markets. I think what happened is Trump got a bit over confident from the relatively successful Maduro abduction. > It's just us. Our NATO allies don't want this war, even though they're more exposed to Mid East oil. I'm pretty sure our NATO allies don't want Iran getting nukes either, it seems the disagreement is mostly in regards to how to prevent that. > What really shows that we're suckers, our adversaries like Russia and China don't care to get involved either, and they're even closer. Russia is already clearly involved...on Iran's side. China like usual tends to just play all sides. > They must be happy we're focusing so hard on the Mid East at the expense of say Ukraine. Yeah, the US should be doing a lot more to help Ukraine, although at least one of Russia's key allies(Iran) has been degraded a good bit. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/27/saudi-arabia-u...