[ericmay]

Well they don’t have to, but we aren’t going to let Iran obtain a nuclear weapon or build up such a missile and drone stockpile that they could then threaten and attack their Gulf neighbors and implement restrictions maritime trade, which they were likely to do, hence the build up.

> What's your sales pitch exactly for how that's the best thing for the non-US rest-of-the-world? What's the US's post-WWII track record, success-wise, in regime-change foreign wars, how much would you trust the US on this one?

Honestly not all that bad for the US.

Korea - we stopped the North Koreans from taking over the entire peninsula. It’s China and Russia’s fault that the hell hole we know as North Korea exists today.

Vietnam - unnecessary war, but we won the peace.

Panama - took out Noriega

Desert Storm - stopped Saddam and kicked his thugs out of Iraq.

Serbia and Bosnia - NATO campaign. I’m personally a little unsure if the results were good or not but I understand we collectively stopped a genocide.

Afghanistan - we tried our best and made some mistakes along the way. Eventually got Bin Laden though. Too bad the rest of the world didn’t help. Now we’re seeing a massive regression in women’s rights there.

Iraq - probably not worth the money, but Iraq went from a brutal dictatorship under Saddam to a much more stable and peaceful country with a Parliament.

Venezuela - Took out Maduro with no losses.

Iran - TBD on the long term but we’ve stopped the IRGC buildup and at least bought time to figure out what to do.

The rest of the world stands on the sidelines and complains and complains yet the United States actually has the balls and will to do things. We aren’t perfect, but without US military action or at least the threat the world would be much more dangerous and much worse off. China sure as hell isn’t going to send troops to liberate Kuwait. Europe doesn’t have the military capability to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and exerting a stranglehold on a large chunk of global oil supply.

[toraway]

  > Vietnam - unnecessary war, but we won the peace

I’m struggling to understand what this spin is even supposed to mean?

  > Afghanistan - we tried our best and made some mistakes along the way. Eventually got Bin Laden though. *Too bad the rest of the world didn’t help.* Now we’re seeing a massive regression in women’s rights there.

Why are you lying about this?

  > At its peak between 2010 and 2012, ISAF had 400 military bases throughout Afghanistan (compared to 300 for the ANSF) and roughly 130,000 troops.[7] Forty-two countries contributed troops to ISAF, including all 30 members of NATO.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Security_Assista...

[ericmay]

> I’m struggling to understand what this spin is even supposed to mean?

Are you unfamiliar with the term? In the case of Vietnam we “lost” the war, yet today we have pretty strong and good relations with Vietnam. Hence we won the peace.

> Why are you lying about this?

I have a different perspective, but that doesn’t mean I’m lying.

Of course many countries contributed in various ways to Afghanistan, and as a former member of US military I have incredible respect for our friends and allies and still do today. But at the end of the day the vast majority of the manpower, cost, and equipment was American and the country could not be won solely on military power alone and needed much more support diplomatically, politically, economically, and in terms of aid.

The other problem with your argument is if you claim that Afghanistan was an American failure it contradicts your assertion and instead everyone failed, except that the US contributed the most. You can’t have it both ways.

[majormajor]

There's a reason I mentioned regime change in there. It's a FAR more difficult operation than a war of defense or a tactical campaign. And it's why I think none of these support your "not all that bad" conclusion. You listed 9 things, 2 are far too recent to evaluate, and of the remaining 7 these 5 are regime-change failures (or simply not-regime-change-attempts):

> Korea - we stopped the North Koreans from taking over the entire peninsula. It’s China and Russia’s fault that the hell hole we know as North Korea exists today.

The regime still existed, and wasn't prevented by that restriction from nuke/missile development like you are so worried about in Iran. "It's other countries fault" isn't an excuse here, it's something that should be taken into consideration more generally in advance.

> Vietnam - unnecessary war, but we won the peace.

But no regime change accomplished with the war itself, yes?

> Desert Storm - stopped Saddam and kicked his thugs out of Iraq.

I think you mean "kicked his thugs out of Kuwait". And let's keep that in mind: a defensive operation worked well.

> Serbia and Bosnia - NATO campaign. I’m personally a little unsure if the results were good or not but I understand we collectively stopped a genocide.

I don't really think this qualifies as "regime change" vs intervention campaign in a "traditional" existing conflict?

> Afghanistan - we tried our best and made some mistakes along the way. Eventually got Bin Laden though. Too bad the rest of the world didn’t help. Now we’re seeing a massive regression in women’s rights there.

"Got Bin Laden" isn't a regime change, and now obviously the regime is not good. What was the rest of the world supposed to do to make it better? Occupy every square mile of the country with soldiers for a couple generations?

And then this one:

> Iraq - probably not worth the money, but Iraq went from a brutal dictatorship under Saddam to a much more stable and peaceful country with a Parliament.

There's no face of a dictator like Saddam anymore but I think "stable and peaceful" oversells it. But yeah, this is the most direct not-yet-imploded regime change in the area on the list.

Notably left off your list regime-change-wise here is Iran in the 50s. That one seems to have backfired. (And that's a great example of why Venezuela, Afghanistan, this-iteration of Iran, even Iraq all are still open-books with potential unforeseen consequences left to come.) The biggest direct threat to date from the Middle East to the US itself hasn't been from nation states, it's been terror groups that have festered post-intervention attempts.

The calculus for this attack on Iran assumes that they were going to escalate imminently in a new, more direct, way and that it would directly threaten the US itself; both of these seem a bit far-fetched after decades of the status quo. It's also an area where the US seems to not have much credibility because there was that whole less-than-a-year-ago "we knocked back the nuclear program" post-bombing claim.

And in particular:

> we aren’t going to let Iran obtain a nuclear weapon or build up such a missile and drone stockpile that they could then threaten and attack their Gulf neighbors and implement restrictions maritime trade, which they were likely to do

seems like that actually did happen, and maritime trade is already impacted? Seems a bit silly to say "the US must act to prevent the very thing that the action will provoke."

[ericmay]

> seems like that actually did happen, and maritime trade is already impacted? Seems a bit silly to say "the US must act to prevent the very thing that the action will provoke."

No it’s not silly. It’s called a preemptive action. It’s a very well understood concept. In the case of Iran it’s very straight forward. We could do nothing and then in a few years they just say hey the Strait is now closed, pay us, and then there isn’t anything anyone can do about it. We can disagree on the likelihood but I think it’s dishonest, as many pro-IRGC folks like to do, to suggest that it wasn’t a possibility, certainly a strong one, that Iran was moving in that direction.

Why is it that Iran, after all the US has tried to do (US because nobody else has any ability to do anything) that they need special treatment and to hold the world hostage else they get to develop nuclear weapons? I don’t think Iran or more countries in general having nuclear weapons is a good thing. Do you?

> You listed 9 things, 2 are far too recent to evaluate, and of the remaining 7 these 5 are regime-change failures (or simply not-regime-change-attempts):

Sure, what list of regime change operations do you want to use? Happy to discuss any of them. But at the same time you can’t simultaneously criticize American action here as being ineffective and then also say for other operations that “You listed 9 things, 2 are far too recent to evaluate”.

> The biggest direct threat to date from the Middle East to the US itself hasn't been from nation states, it's been terror groups that have festered post-intervention attempts.

Currently sponsored by Iran. Why don’t they just stop?

Is it lost on you that nobody in America gives the slightest shit about Iran except that they keep funding terrorists and killing people, selling drones and helping Russia murder Ukrainians, killing 30,000+ of their own people who were peacefully protesting, and constantly trying to build a nuclear weapon? If they just stop doing these things, which are unique to Iran, mind you, then none of this needs to happen.

> Notably left off your list regime-change-wise here is Iran in the 50s. That one seems to have backfired. (And that's a great example of why Venezuela, Afghanistan, this-iteration of Iran, even Iraq all are still open-books with potential unforeseen consequences left to come.)

Not a great point because, well, the world is always changing.

> The regime still existed, and wasn't prevented by that restriction from nuke/missile development like you are so worried about in Iran.

And the world is worse off for it. Millions of North Koreans are living in one of the most brutal and inhumane dictatorships to ever exist. Them obtaining nuclear weapons isn’t a model to follow.

> "It's other countries fault" isn't an excuse here, it's something that should be taken into consideration more generally in advance.

It’s not an excuse it’s just the fact of the matter. Communist governments in China and Russia are responsible for North Korea. We should prevent more such countries from coming in to existence if we can.

Alternatively, I’m fine being an isolationist. It’s a lot cheaper and everyone else can just worry about all this stuff instead. There is no in between. You get the US involvement and the good that it does, or you get isolationism. You don’t ever get “America only takes international actions that I agree with”. Impossible standard. Which do you want? I’m happy to lift sanctions on Russia and Iran and North Korea and everyone else, withdraw the US military, and leave everyone else to fend for themselves militarily unless we have an interest we want to pursue. It’s a valid enough strategy.