[RiverStone]

All I can tell you is to go talk with Iranians. I don’t know where you live, but every major city has an Iranian expat community.

All I’m trying to communicate is the conversations that I’ve had with my Iranian wife, her expat friends, and my in-laws in Tehran.

[herewulf]

Maybe they should go be the boots on the ground for the next quagmire if it's so important to them? Commander in Chief Bonespurs and the Secretary of Booze can lead the charge straight up the Straight.

Or maybe they should just focus on being Americans in America and some day Iran will sort itself out without the US' "help".

[RiverStone]

It won’t just resolve itself, unfortunately. The last 40+ years have proven that.

A non-theocratic Iran is in the US interest.

If you give the Iranians arms, I’m sure they would be happy to fight. Have we armed anti-regime Iranians?

I do think we have an obligation to help. That’s just my personal opinion.

As an analogy: if your neighbor is beating his wife, it’s not moral to just put your earplugs in and go back to sleep. You have to take action.

[arbitrary_name]

you mean like when we deposed the Shah, creating the current regime?

you mean like when we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan? So many great examples of successful intervention to refer to!

you mean like Libya, right? or North Korea? should we fix them again too?

how... how do you hold this position without reading even just 20 years of history?

[krainboltgreene]

> If you give the Iranians arms, I’m sure they would be happy to fight. Have we armed anti-regime Iranians?

lmmaaaaaooo

[bdangubic]

why do we have a moral obligation to help? and why them? there are many places on Earth with a lot worse situation for citizens than Iranians, do we have a moral obligation to help everyone and prioritize?

[RiverStone]

Yes, we absolutely do!

We should prioritize. We have to be pragmatic and choose our battles. We can’t be everywhere at once.

Iran has destabilized the region for decades. It’s hard to imagine how game changing it would be to remove that.

[bdangubic]

again, why do we care? about this region in particular. and for whom would it be “game-changing” other than Israel?

> we have to be pragmatic and choose our battles

this sounds very far removed from “we have a moral obligation”

bottom line, we should not give two shits about what is happening there and we even went voting for a candidate who told us he’ll be the one to make sure we don’t give two shits about it except of course he turned out to be worse than all previous ones combined :)

[mhb]

Surely you can steel man this yourself. Iran wants nukes. Iran has stated it would like to destroy the US and Israel. Israel is an outpost of Western democracy and our ally. Iran has missiles that can reach Europe. Iran is an ally of Russia and China. Iran wants to control the passageway for a big chunk of the world's oil. Cooperation between Israel and its neighbors would be a great asset to the world economy.

This is not comprehensive and maybe you can quibble with some of it, but it is not mysterious why we might care.

[krainboltgreene]

I'm well aware of the insane perspective of Iranian monarchists in America. Frankly it's not really their fault, American interventionists have pushed them into this brainrot.

But having an opinion doesn't make it a good opinion and there is no way to say "please get my grandmother's blood on your hands for my insane vision of Iran" sanely.