[stickfigure]

> Iran no longer trusts the US as a good faith actor and negotiator

Iran ("the regime") was never a good faith actor or negotiator. Their position was something like "we won't develop nuclear weapons as long as we have free reign to torture our own citizens and fund violent groups that destabilize regional governments". And still marched on enriching uranium anyway.

There's nothing to trust on either side. This war was eventually going to happen, I'm just disappointed that it happened under such incompetent leadership in the US.

[estearum]

> Their position was something like "we won't develop nuclear weapons as long as we have free reign to torture our own citizens and fund violent groups that destabilize regional governments"

This is unfortunately the best possible outcome. Nuclear weapons have been around for 80 years now. They are quite achievable by modern states, and they are obviously the only path to sovereignty. Ukraine, North Korea, and Iran have affirmed it.

Bombing a country in pursuit only reaffirms this logic, especially after agreements have already been made or negotiations are under way.

The only path forward, for Iran and everyone else, has been established and stable since ~1945: give people major concessions in exchange for the major concession that they will not try to achieve true sovereignty via nuclear weapons.

Every attempt to bomb or coerce someone off of the nuclear trajectory just increases the motivation (globally) to pursue it with more vigor and more secrecy.

We're on this tightrope until we fall off it, no other options.

[7sigma]

The war absolutely did not need to happen. Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapon and was fully complying with the jcpoa. It's mostly the US and Israel that have acted I'm bad faith.

Most countries in the region torture their citizens, even Israel except it's Palestinians, because it's a racist apartheid state.

Let's not pretend we care about funding terrorists when it's the US that has the biggest supporter of terrorism in the last 70 years.

[RobertoG]

Iran doesn't torture its citizens. At least, no more, than, let's say, Arabia Saudi. You don't say it explicitly, but the implication is clear that the US is doing this because 'human rights'. A week ago was to save the poor Iranians, and now is to bring the country to the stone age. The fact is that US is 7000 miles from Iran and have not business being there.

The one country 'destabilizing the region' is not Iran.

[h8hawk]

> Iran doesn't torture its citizens

Wow, I can't believe someone would say this. In January, they basically killed tens of thousands of us with machine guns. After the war, the first thing they did was cut off the internet to prevent an internal uprising. They deployed many Basij checkpoints with machine guns just to warn Iranians. This is a sample scene, don't you consider it torture?

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/video/2026/01/12/ira...

[estearum]

It's easy to dunk when you just cut off half the statement!

[nixon_why69]

Since you said "us", are you there right now? How was the oil rain in Tehran, no big deal for the greater good?

[stickfigure]

I don't care why the incompetent leaders of the US are doing what they're doing. A bunch of unelected murderers just got dead. I consider that a positive improvement in the world, and I wish it happened more often.

The world is pretty small these days. Mass murderers are everyone's business. It's morally offensive to just say "well that's a long ways away, not my problem".

[crustaceansoup]

But at the same time, this war may have allowed IRGC to dig in. They've replaced a few people but the system may be stronger. Never mind that it doesn't even seem to be the administration's communicated goal to destroy IRGC in the first place.

On top of all that, they've threatened to reduce the entire country to the "stone age", and have started to target civilian industries.[0] If this campaign continues, how is this anything less than mass murder?

They're not doing this war for the reason you seem to want. They're not doing this to save Iranians.

[0] https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-shifts-to-hitting-irans...

[happosai]

Now do putin and bibi next, and maybe Xi will realize taking other people's land by murdering is unacceptable and won't invade Taiwan.

[estearum]

Second order consequences can be a real sonofabitch, and history has shown that to be doubly true in the Middle East

[zzrrt]

How many civilian deaths as the direct result of US/Israel action do you consider acceptable to achieve killing the unelected murderers? 150 school children? Wikipedia cites hundreds more civilian deaths, but I don't know what sources to believe. How many layers of the regime's onion do we have to peel before we know we got all the murderers? How many children are we going to radicalize into future unelected murderers by murdering their family members and plunging their region into worse chaos? Should we kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out? Hegseth has crusader tattoos. Is he just another unelected theocratic murderer of a different stripe? Are we the baddies?

[tovej]

HRANA says thousands civilians dead. At least ~250 children. They are a reliable Iranian opposition source.

https://www.en-hrana.org/day-35-of-u-s-and-israeli-attacks-o...

[frmersdog]

We had a deal and we tore it up. More than once, if you include the inciting incident of undermining a democratically-elected leader who was bringing the central player in the Middle East into the mainstream economic and political global order that America had set for everyone. "Not like that!"

Frankly, it's hubris all the way down. Kalief Browder.

[stickfigure]

A deal that allows the regime to murder thousands of their own citizens and export violence to the whole region really isn't worth it. Yeah not having overt conflict in that region makes our gas cheaper. But it doesn't make me sleep better.

Maybe I agree with you that the US, in 1953, planted the seeds for this situation. If I could punish the people responsible I would, but they're all dead now. Also, doesn't our historic involvement give us some moral obligation to fix it?

[geaibleu]

No, you wouldn't do anything. bush second's wars killed million, brought about isis, and caused millions of refugees. You doing nothing.

[marcosdumay]

Trying hard to maintain the facade that blowing Iran is for the good if their people..

[frankzinger]

In this context good faith means not saying you're here to negotiate only to stall for time while you're secretly planning to invade the other country in the background, which is exactly what the US did. So Iran has no reason to take US "negotiations" seriously ever again.