Exactly. I don't understand why everybody in the US seems to just accept that there needs to be a war against Iran. How is the US endangered by Iran?

These strikes were on oil production facilities of the Saudi kingdom, which is known for beheading people, murdering journalists, and supporting the 9/11 attacks. The US is one of the top oil producers and has its own oil, as well as strategic reserves. Why does everyone accept that the US has to "retaliate" or wage war against Iran? Why is Iran even being named at this point?

I think it is sad that we are allowing this to happen. Instead of making sure we don't completely destroy our planet and go extinct, we accept our politicians' war-drumming as a fact of life.

I don't think "everybody" in the US thinks there needs to be a war with Iran, in fact I would expect (based on listening to Podcasts such as Pod Save the World which is produced by some former Obama admin folks) that even much of the establishment is against it.

I do have to say, I would have thought the rhetoric we're seeing would have cooled down now that Bolton is out.

My conspiracy theory is that it's a false flag op, I'm guessing Saudi, Israel, and a few other players would love a diminished Iran so they can fill the power vacuum in the ME (or just feel more secure from not having a large power near them) and having America come in with a wrecking ball is a great way to accomplish their strategic objectives without getting their hands dirty. And many of those lobbies (Netanyahu, MBS, etc.) have strong voices in the current admin

> I don't think "everybody" in the US thinks there needs to be a war with Iran

I used the word "accept". The media is all about war and there is no public outcry, not even a strong dissenting voice. The discussions are mostly about when and how, not about why. It seems inevitable and obvious that a war is what must happen. This is what I find bizarre.

Helpful to point out to Americans that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost 2.4 trillion. Also helpful to point out that's approximately 100 times the cost of the Apollo program.

Trump killed the Iran deal. Iran has to get out of their sanctions somehow, so they have to start their nuclear program again. And before they finish their first bomb, or immediately after the first successful test, Israel has to attack them. And if the US doesn't want Iran to crush Israel (Iran probably wouldn't win, but they can devastate Israel), the US (and others) have to help Israel.

Trump had a choice, the rest of the path to war is almost inevitable.

Israel has to do nothing of the sort, they have more then enough submarines carrying nuclear weapons to scare off any first strike. Its the sole reason why Germany sold them at a highly subsidized price in the first place. Neither does the US have to support yet another war of aggression. The only thing nuclear weapons for Iran would change is that they wont be the victim of yet another illegal "intervention" in the region. Northkorea showed that rather clearly. Looking at the despots, warcriminals and aggressors in the region who openly talk about annihilating Iran, not forgetting the attrocities of the Irak Iran war, its a rather reasonable idea.

Lets please not sugarcoat or justify warcrimes and remember that a lot of the people at Nurnberg were there for starting a war of aggression.

In reality there is a large international consensus that Iran must not get nukes, and that such weapons would be an existential threat to Israel. The Israelis definitely see it that way, and it's hard to blame them. The question of who is the aggressor is pretty muddled because Iran has threatened to annihilate Israel and is attacking all sorts country's assets, territory or people all the time anyway.

Deterrence is a nice idea. When the opponent is rational, and the weapons in question are not likely to depopulate the region. The Mullahs in Iran can not be counted on to be rational actors. They also can't be counted on to keep in power.

I'd have much preferred the old solution of delaying their nuclear breakout, all the while their prosperity and development reaches a point where the Mullahs lose their power.

>In reality there is a large international consensus that Iran must not get nukes

As long as its not based on a resolution of the UN security council that means nothing. Might makes right isnt part of international law of war. Just because we have actors who cant be held responsible for their illegal behavior at the moment doesnt mean we should just ignore international law altogether. Starting a war of aggression is still wrong and voters shouldnt be complicit in such actions by authorizing politicians to do so. Our continuous failure to do so in democracys sets an absolute horrible precedent, in which the voting population of a country is responsible for warcrimes. Might I remind everyone that that was the pretext for atrocities like the British punitive bombardments of German cities during WW2 or, since we had the anniversary last week, al Quaidas pretext for 9/11?

Ignoring international law sets a horrible precedent. If your side isnt adhering to it, the opposite side will neither. This warmongering risks yet again the few achievements we as humanity have made in the last century. I myself really dont want to see a future where i have to worry about state sponsored bio terrorism in response to a neocolonial might is right approach of my government.

Even a resolution of the UN security council means nothing.

I wasn't talking about international law. Israel is willing to go to the mat on this, and apparently convinced this is a life-or-death issue. A lot of other countries, including the only superpower, NATO and the EU agree or at the very least don't want to let Israel be destroyed if Israel chose to stop Iran's nuclear program. As far as international consensus goes, that's pretty strong.

"Aggression" is quite an arbitrary definition. Iran has threatened Israel with annihilation for decades, and occasionally they tried. They do/did have a nuclear program, they certainly have chemical weapons. They keep attacking shipping and causing further armed conflict around the region...

"International Law", which today mainly consists of Russia and China sabotaging everyone else, is not going to stop Israel from defending itself.

>I wasn't talking about international law.

I know, I was. I dont care much for the semantics of how warcrimes are tried to be painted as "the right thing to do".

> War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

If you forgo international law in favor of might is right what you do is cultivating terrorism as the victims get radicalized and have no other way to left to respond. And thats not a new insight. Al Quaida was rather vocal about drone strikes and the atrocities in Abu-Ghuraib and Guantanamo being the best recruitment tools they could have ever asked for. And lets also not forget that the war on terror only recently cumulated into the emergence of ISIS, with the rank and file of Saddams dismantled army being there for the creation. People cant be so thick that they believe the phrase "They hate us for our Freedom". "They" hate us for invading their countries with our politicians and soldiers acting with impunity. I mean the US even sanctioned the ICC for gods sake. All those "necessary evils" breaking international law are only making the situation worse.

Nothing is "inevitable" and what you wrote still doesn't explain how exactly the US is threatened and needs to go to war against anyone.

I said "almost" inevitable. And if you are arguing that the US should not prevent annihilation of the Jewish state, or other allies, well, you are arguing a lost cause...

Israel is not going to accept a nuclear power that wants to destroy them, especially not if it can do something about that. The US (and I hope most of Europe) is not going to let Iran destroy Israel, either. The Iran is not going to stop meddling in the middle east, nor are they going to just accept economic starvation.

So what gives?

It seems to me that we have been conditioned into accepting certain theories as facts/truths. Most of the above is non-sequitur to me: how does bombing of oil production facilities in Saudi Arabia have anything to do with the "annihilation of the Jewish state", and how does this supposed anihilation automatically follow from anything? How did we get to Iran and Israel from Saudi Arabia? And why did you say "a lost cause"?

There are so many jumps here that they would be really hard to follow for someone who hasn't been soaked in official messaging for the last years.

Yes, American media is pro-war nowadays for some reason, so that's entirely possible to me.

What "American media" is "for" a war with Iran? I had the impression that the decision to stop the nuclear treaty was received with rather mixed feelings.

The driving force behind any such development is Donald Trump, his administration and somehow the Israeli government that seems strangely eager to encourage Iran to start working on nukes again.

Actually, Trump was advised by Bolton to attack Iran after they shot down the unmanned drone a few weeks ago, and was heavily criticized by the press for not killing 100 people over a drone.

Then you need to pay better attention. Most of the criticism was directed at the way he waffled about the decision.

We don't know what actually happened in the brain of the president. On a good day he is lying, corrupt and lazy. On a bad day he has obvious cognitive deficiencies. So we can't know if he intended to follow through on the attack or if it was just a show. We don't know how certain he and his people are about Iran attacking the drone.

I see.

I wonder though, he is lazy and has cognitive deficiencies you say, but he made billions and is the president of the United States. How do you account for that?

For one thing, nobody knows how much money he had or has, let alone "made". We do know that he inherited about $400 Million through illegal schemes. Over a few decades, invested in the stock market, or almost anything else really, he could have been a totally unskilled billionaire. What he actually did, however, was to lose billions. There is indeed no apparent way he could have "earned" even a single billion, between all his failures. And no proof he ever personally owned a billion. He certainly seems in no rush to prove otherwise.

And you don't want to get me started on what lead to his electoral win. It certainly wasn't his smarts.

LOL, that's pretty delusional.

However, whatever makes you happy.

Trump was heavily criticized because he claimed that he stopped an attack he had authorized, when he learned people would die.

His reason for stopping the attack was either transparent BS, or he was sleeping through the initial briefing when he authorized the attack in the first place, because there is absolutely no way that they realized only after the attack was in motion, that people would die.

The more likely reason he stopped the attack was he watched criticism of a possible attack on Fox News, right after he had authorized it, since there was a segment around that time where Fox News hosts were discussing how it would negatively impact his polling to start a war against Iran.