[JeremyNT]

In most wars, everybody loses.

The best Iran could hope for given its inevitable defeat by a far superior aggressor was to deny the invader any kind of spoils. And by those standards they seem to be succeeding.

So now we have a pointless war that has resulted in thousands of dead with no tangible benefit to anybody, except of course those cronies of the administration doing insider trading.

[tristanj]

This is not pointless. It exists to exchange a future nuclear war with Iran with a conventional war today.

The US and Israel can fight a conventional war with Iran. In a nuclear war, Israel would be destroyed by nuclear missiles in the two days. The possibility of a nuclear Iran is an existential crisis for Israel, and Israel will do anything possible to prevent Iran from gaining nukes.

Most people do not comprehend this conventional war is happening today, (with unclear goals), to prevent a nuclear one in the future.

[platinumrad]

Hitting desalination plants across the gulf isn't much better than a nuclear war. If anything, the takeaway from this conflict is that nobody is ready for even the modest number of conventional ballistic missiles produced by an impoverished and dysfunctional state.

[dfedbeef]

You think Iran's takeaway from this will be that they don't need nukes?

[citrin_ru]

They always wanted nukes. So this war doesn't change already strong resolution to get them but can reduce resources available for this.

[JeremyNT]

So instead of using diplomacy to ensure Iran stopped short of acquiring nukes - which had been effective - the US preemptively has attacked them, disrupting the region, killing civilians... to continue to prevent them from getting nukes.

What is the cost to the US to go on this excursion in an effort to simply maintain the status quo wrt nukes? Of course there's the real cost in treasure and the damage to its gulf allies, but there's a continued erosion of soft power and a deeply weakened relationship with other NATO countries.

So the upside here - the reason to suddenly switch from "diplomacy" to "aggression" was - what exactly? Oh, it's that Israel saw its opening, Netanyahu wanted a boost in his polls, and the old man in charge of the US was glad to do what his friend asked of him [0].

People want to believe that there's some purpose here, that there's method in the madness. But that continued belief relies on being blind to the reality before us.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-wa...

[js8]

> It exists to exchange a future nuclear war with Iran with a conventional war today.

That's just ridiculous. Nobody can predict the future, so trading uncertain war in the future for a certain war today is completely irrational. (And for the same reason, the war today is unlikely gonna be easier than the war tomorrow.)

Besides, Iran has avoided having nuclear weapon, because it causes too many civilian casualties, and that's against their beliefs. In this, they're more civilized than Americans (and Europeans), despite that this might be considered to be an irrational view by barbarians like you.

I think you're just coping with the fact that this war was utterly pointless, destructive for almost everyone in the world, and a poor attempt to increase power by a small group of people.

[tristanj]

You've got the wrong premise. Iran was actively developing nuclear weapons, and officials even admitted to it when interviewed.

https://www.memri.org/tv/former-iranian-majles-member-motaha...

Former Iranian Majles member Ali Motahari said in an April 24, 2022 interview on ISCA News (Iran) that when Iran began developing its nuclear program, the goal was to build a nuclear bomb. He said that there is no need to beat around the bush, and that the bomb would have been used as a "means of intimidation" in accordance with a Quranic verse about striking "fear in the hearts of the enemies of Allah."

"When we began our nuclear activity, our goal was indeed to build a bomb,” former Iranian politician Ali Motahari told ISCA News. “There is no need to beat around the bush,” he said.

[js8]

Read the last two lines of that interview. Khamenei interpreted Islam as forbidding even building the bomb, and he is the moral authority on this, like it or not.

Japan could also have built a nuclear bomb, but chose not to. They decided that out of nothing else than their moral beliefs.

You simply don't want to accept than other cultures can be (in some respects, and even regardless of what individuals think on average - that's probably similar for large enough groups) more ethical than your own.

[dingaling]

Iran enriched over 450kg of uranium to at least 60%.

There's no need for anything over 5% for powerplant use. They were preparing HEU for weapons; whether those weapons were to be built now or in 20 years is irrelevant.

[watwut]

Per international agreements, it was their right. The idiotic thing about this argument is that now everyone knows they want nukes and that not having ones is strategic mistake. Because Iran and Ukraine did not have one. Meanwhile, countries with nukes are safer.

[js8]

Yes, I agree, except it's not irrelevant whether they built functional nuke or not, because this is used as a justification for war. (Not to mention, as a justification for war, "they could have built a nuke" is even more barbaric than "they have built a nuke".)

Still, that doesn't counter the fact they didn't actually make a nuclear bomb out of the material, nor the fact that their highest moral authority banned them from doing that, so it doesn't do anything to disprove that culturally they are more civilized (in that respect).

(Maybe an example from a corporation would clarify this better - the fact that there is a group of people in it doing things unethically doesn't mean that the company as a whole condones this behavior, even if structurally - how the corporation or capitalist society is constructed - might lead to some people doing it internally off the books. But once it is known to the CEO - the highest moral authority in a corporation, if he is not to be implicated in this, he must tell them to stop.)

It's frankly just moving the goalpost in an attempt not to accept your own barbarism. Is your culture OK with using nuclear weapons, even in self-defense? If yes, how do you dare to judge?

[8note]

> The best Iran could hope for given its inevitable defeat by a far superior aggressor was to deny the invader any kind of spoils

clearly not, they had an already planned goal to remove the american ability to impose sanctions, and implemented the plan, while sufferjng a ton of losses to personel and materiel.

this is a major improvement from where the US could impose sanctions and states would comply. surviving iranians are in a much better position now than before the war