Dude is absolutely not serving a life sentence. I don't know where they got that from. There also isn't anything stopping someone from forking Durdraw if they want to.
> They want Iran to stop destabilising the ME, and to eliminate the threat to the USA consisting of the Iranian nuke program, the ballistic missile program, and the religious zeal to use them.
US and Israeli leaders have said recently that the war will continue until Iran is not a threat, for mostly the exact reasons you just listed. I'm not sure how you bomb the religious zeal out of someone.
I was listening to a fairly right wing British pundit today, who is very publicly funded by British and European NATO interests, he said that the US saying they will continue to bomb Iran until it is not a threat reminded him a lot of one of Russia's state Ukraine war goals of "we will de-Nazify Ukraine".
very open ended nebulous goals with the benefit of being easily stretched around any agenda the invading party has at the moment.
Fair point, I take back my last remark about placement of schools near bases. God I wish the Iranian regime would just surrender, it would be so much better for everyone. Look at Hamas, they refused to surrender and the result was colossal death and misery.
"Harris to Jewish voters: ‘All options on the table’ to stop Iran from going nuclear
In pre-election High Holidays call, US vice president says diplomatic solution still preferable to keep Islamic Republic from the bomb, charges Trump won’t stand by Israel"
The US has spent a lot of time and money on MEK but I don't think they are very effective. Or will be very effective. My understanding is the leader of MEK has n't been seen in years(is probably dead), and MEK members are only allowed to marry other MEK members, so the number of MEK members is way down from their 80s highpoint, and it's not getting better.
The Lebanese Muslims at the time were furious that the Sixth Fleet was constantly shelling Shouf. At the time the Phalangists, with Israeli help, had recently murdered 3500 women and children at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.
There were and are plenty of grievances to go around in Lebanon.
What an awful take devoid of context. Russia literally defaulted in 1998, and 'somehow' kept the nukes.
And today Ukraine is doing quite amazing, considering 12 years of war. I can only dream what it would be if russians didn't steal a generation. Giving up nukes was a giant mistake.
Back then, giving up on nukes never was about compromising security. In 1993, I remember being full of hope and opportunity to live in peaceful world with less nukes. It felt like we had our backs by France, UK and USA.
That was a move full of betrayed optimism, not desperation - giving up third world arsenal because the future is bright.
You also need to maintain vectors, at least functioning ICBMs, which cost quite dearly. And Russia had much more ressources than Ukraine at the time, by the way.
Ukraine didn't declare bankruptcy because Russia chose to assume 100% of the USSR external debt. Meanwhile, in 1998, Russia had a GDP PPP 80% higher than Ukraine.
It was a non-proliferation issue, I believe? The same could have been said about the pressure for Ukrainians to renounce the nukes. I agree that in retrospect Ukraine would have been safer with nuclear weapons.
However, a lot could have happened in two decades, and Ukraine had to go through many issues typical of post-Soviet countries at the time. The risk associated with warheads being sold by generals or oligarchs was seen as a real one, see for instance:
There is a hardline element in the IRGC that personally profits from autarky. If the Iranian markets opened to the world, it would decimate their incomes.
