[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.

[CapricornNoble]

>Iran wants nukes.

Entirely rational, given their desire for sovereignty and avoiding getting bombed to oblivion.

> Iran has stated it would like to destroy the US and Israel.

The linguistic nuance of the slogan "Death to America" has been articulated and clarified over a decade ago.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/irans-ayatollah-ali-khame...

https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/what-does-death-america-r...

>Israel is an outpost of Western democracy and our ally.

The former is a meaningless characteristic when said democracy commits a genocide and runs an apartheid state (hard to deny with the recent capital punishment law exclusively for Palestinian prisoners). Hardly model behavior for anyone else in the region to emulate. The latter is meaningless since this ally only ever drags us into problems, almost all of which are of its own making.

> Cooperation between Israel and its neighbors would be a great asset to the world economy.

It's easier to cooperate with your neighbors when you stop squatting on their territory, or stop massacring them.

>but it is not mysterious why we might care.

I think "people who care" should volunteer to serve in the IDF, and leave the rest of America out of it. Kinda like the various low-friction pipelines for people to go fight/die for Ukraine without committing US Service Members to such a wasteful endeavor.