This was a stupid war to get into and it’s been prosecuted embarrassingly poorly, but Iran has been sponsoring terrorist groups all over the world for decades. They’re not some innocent country going about their business who was suddenly attacked unprovoked.

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cogman10 6 hours ago | parent [-]

> but Iran has been sponsoring terrorist groups all over the world for decades.

Let's say I grant this. The problem you run into is these terrorist groups have not attacked the US. The last time Iran did anything aggressive towards the US was in the 1980s.

In fact, Iran has aided the US in going after common enemies like ISIS/ISIL and Al-Qaeda.

The terrorist groups supported by Iran have primarily been groups fighting Israel, not the US. That's what makes it particularly unprovoked.

In fact, the US has a stronger argument to attack Saudi Arabia than it does Iran because they actually have funded terrorists that directly attacked the US. Heck, you could argue that the US is justified in directly attacking Russia with this sort of argument.

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mahboi 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Last time wasn't 1980s. 2024 was the Iran-Israel war, but US was involved too. Iranian proxies attacked US troops then. Iran itself attacked US forces in 2020 after the US killed general Soleimani, after years of Iran's proxies attacking US troops in Iraq etc. It goes back and forth, and I'm sure the bottom of it was the US being involved in the Mid East for no good reason (the reason was Israel/AIPAC), but this didn't start in 2026.

Even the Russian invasion of Ukraine wasn't unprovoked. Yeah Ukraine didn't attack Russia, but they did try to join NATO, then after Germany blocked that, the US was getting involved there in more covert ways. Ukraine overturned pro-Russia Yanukovych's presidential election in '04 which saw meddling from both Russia and US, then he reran and won in '10, then Ukrainian protestors forcibly removed him in '14.

I think the least provoked thing was the Iraq War, cause Bush blamed Saddam Hussein for 9/11 and fake WMDs. He was a legit problem ever since invading Iran and Kuwait, but that wasn't the reason for the war.

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cogman10 5 hours ago | parent [-]

It actually hasn't "gone back and forth". That's the issue. What you have is 2 good examples of Iran being attacked, unprovoked, and then responding to the attack and STILL after those attacks trying to establish peace negotiations.

For the 2024 conflict I see no indicator that US troops were involved, other than providing defensive support for Israel. Iran didn't target the US even as it was shooting down their missiles and drones.

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mahboi 5 hours ago | parent [-]

There have been 20 years of Iranian proxies attacking US forces, mostly after the Iraq War and during the Syrian Civil War.

2024 Hezbollah killed US troops in Jordan. Houthis also attacked US ships if you count that.

	▲	cogman10 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> 2024 Hezbollah killed US troops in Jordan Nope. It was a proxy of Hezbollah who Hamas, Iran, and Hezbollah all condemned. And after the US attacked Iran in retaliation, they again de-escalated. > Houthis also attacked US ships if you count that. This is probably the best example of the point you are making. It was because of Israel's actions in Gaza, but yes, this is a case of an Iranian proxy attacking US ships. Look, I'm not saying Iran is great or their government good. But I am saying they have been pretty level headed towards the US for quite some time. The main reason the US comes into any sort of conflict with them is Israel and Israeli aggression in the region.