Most countries, if they could, would like to advance one narrative on the world stage and a separate one to their citizens.

Perhaps this isn't aimed at us westerners - and instead it's aimed at Iranians.

The message being "Yet more evidence that our country is under constant assault by the forces of evil who are threatened by our growing strength. They are the cause of any problems you see, support our homeland security and military"

There's also a message for possible allies in the region: "As you can see, Western countries don't respect our sovereignty, any respect they claim to have for yours is an illusion, show solidarity with us fellow autocratic religious oil-producing countries"

Except for the "evil" part, isn't that exactly what's happening?

I mean, the "growing strength" part and the "cause of any problems" part would be pretty farfetched in any serious conversation. Iran has been on its back foot ever since Obama left the picture because US policy got far more hawkish, and the fact that Iran shot down a passenger plane and tried to lie about it was a self-own. The Iranian people don't seem to blame foreign governments, they blame the Islamic regime. Oil prices have bumped back up but their crash was damaging to Iran's revenue expectations. The country was hit very hard by the virus and it's hard to blame the West for something that came from Wuhan.

The government there doesn't choose its narrative based on what's true or believable. When you think of it as a mafia that controls the country and presents a caricature of representative government while stealing and killing, things start to make more sense.

Yep.

And "evil" is entirely subjective, one can easily say that Israel is evil for human rights and international law violations, and a similar argument can easily be made against the US, Turkey, UK, France, Saudi Arabia Iran as well.

At the end of the day the would like to have their sanctions removed in exchange for shutting down their nuclear program. And it also feeds the narrative of beeing the victim of the other states beeing the aggressors.

> they would like to have their sanctions removed in exchange for shutting down their nuclear program.

They would like to have their sanctions removed while keeping their nuclear program - there is no scenario where Iran will stop short of having ICBMs.

Exept that there was no evidence that they broke the nuclear agreement when all signature states where still adhering it.

> feeds the narrative of beeing the victim of the other states beeing the aggressors

Does it? Someone blew up my secret nuclear enrichment facility isn’t exactly an endearing pitch.

It isn't secret at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natanz#Nuclear_facility

Stupid question, but why isn’t it bombed (or all trucks coming/leaving targeted)? As far as I know, it is “illegal” (whatever the international equivalent is) to attempt to acquire the nuclear bomb.

Which triggers the question, how did France obtain leniency from international powers when it gave the nuclear bomb to Israel in the 1960ies? Who decides what is legal? And who decides that Iran’s facility is not “slated for immediate removal”, given it seems USA is down to targeting cigarette smugglers with drones in other countries, and nuclear bomb seems a bit more threatening?

What is illegal between nations? Countries may be part of the UN but they're not regions of a global government.

What you're describing are acts of war.

> but why isn’t it bombed (or all trucks coming/leaving targeted)?

You mean like killing enough scientists who work at the facility that it ends up with its own Wikipedia article?

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

It isn't bombed because it's not that easy, as Iran has sophisticated anti aircraft capabilities like the S-300. And as the area is already a powder keg there is no deniability with aircrafts or cruise missiles flying across closely monitored borders.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Republic_of_Iran_Air...

WMD was the casus belli for the Iraq War, and look how that worked out. Israel has performed one-off airstrikes in the past (look up the Osirak reactor project).

It is only illegal if you signed the nuclear non prolifiration treaty.

Anyway Iran with the bomb is a good thing if you don't want another war in the middle-east.

> It is only illegal if you signed the nuclear non prolifiration treaty.

Which Iran did.

And they can leave it if they want to.

Why do you think it's not bombed?

If it was that easy, Israel would have done it.

Its like Iraq, Israel sends the Americans to die en masse for their geopolitical goals. Iran is a formidable enemy and would be able to do significant damage with their missiles. Why risk it when your AIPAC buddies will get Americans to die for you?

"created: 19 minutes ago"

You create an account to just post some political comments or to stir the hornet nest?

Nothing I said is controversial, if you want to read about Israel’s strong influence on US middle east policy, I suggest the seminal work by Meatsheimer and Walt.

Mearsheimer and Walt is nothing if not controversial!