[spwa4]

Let's see ...

One side is responsible for the "pax Americana" (but everyone here was born into the time period and so doesn't realize how exceptionally peaceful it is)

One side is responsible for at least 20.000 but more likely 60.000 Iranian deaths, just this year (and everybody seems to be worried about the other side's "warcrimes")

Not having big issues to figure out between these 2 who is the good guy ...

[adjejmxbdjdn]

The U.S. will almost certainly be responsible for an order of magnitude more deaths with the incredible costs that they’ve placed on the whole world just through the higher cost of oil.

And we haven’t even gotten to the impacts of fertilizer shortages during growing season.

And either way, how is replacing the leader of a terrible regime, with his even more hardline son, help with the killing in any ways?

The pro Democracy forces in Iran have been completely discredited and the one best opportunity they would have had to reclaim their country, during what was likely to be a contested transfer of power if the 80+ year old Ayatollah had passed naturally, has been lost. Instead the U.S. allowed the Iranian regime to transfer power without any challenges, transfer power to a guy who is the son of the old Ayatollah and even more close aligned with the IRGC, and has destroyed the pro-Democracy bases in Iran while strengthening the orthodoxy because the U.S. has been blowing up cities, where the anti-regime forces live, while the rural areas, where the regime’s supporters live, have been largely untouched.

[tdeck]

One of Israel's earliest airstrikes was a prison Iran used to hold dissidents

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8621gnknjo

Calling in a massive airstrike on a prison where the opposition is being held isn't exactly the way to support the opposition.

[spwa4]

They explicitly said that they were trying to free people held there.

Oh, AND they succeeded at that.

[mcphage]

> One side is responsible for the "pax Americana" (but everyone here was born into the time period and so doesn't realize how exceptionally peaceful it is)

The Pax Americana is great, but given America was one of the countries to start this war, I don't know how much credit they can get for something they just ended.

[ericd]

My understanding is that “Pax Americana” isn’t the absence of all war, it’s the absence of major war. So they haven’t just ended it.

[1attice]

So, more of a rhetorical flourish than actual peace, while America keeps meddling and firing. Got it.

[ericd]

I'm not making this up to make excuses for the US' behavior. Pax Britannica and Pax Romana weren't entirely peaceful either. Pax Romana had an unusual absence of civil war, but near-constant conflict at the edges of the empire. Pax Britannica refers to the absence of wars between great powers, but did have some brutal colonial conflict - the Opium wars, scramble for Africa, etc. Pax Americana has been very peaceful compared to WW1 and 2.

[barbazoo]

> One side is responsible for at least 20.000 but more likely 60.000 Iranian deaths, just this year (and everybody seems to be worried about the other side's "warcrimes")

I can see people attributing this to the US as well after reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta....

[spwa4]

We could be glib: when actually reading through that page, it's pretty obvious that the Iranian revolution was a leftist revolution (and Moscow was supporting a side, the side that "won"). But was anyone really expecting leftists to take responsibility for the consequences of what they did?

Oh and it was Britain that was supporting the Shah. The US was involved, mostly to counter the KGB, but not much at all. I totally don't understand why Britain gets a free pass.

And you'd think communists would stop supporting the mullahs, especially after the killings. You'd be wrong:

http://marxist.com/imperialists-and-pahlavis-hands-off-iran....

Sometimes one gets the impression the left now is reduced to ... well. Iran's government massacres protestors, tortures women, represses it's own people, has committed genocides and tries actively to commit more genocides, attacks and murders innocent people outside of Iran and makes weapons for Moscow.

Leftists, at least the ones on online fora, care about exactly 1 of those things.

[queenkjuul]

Ah yes, the exceptional peace of, let me check...

1.5M dead Koreans

3M dead Vietnamese

500,000-1,000,000 dead or displaced Iraqis

Coups in Honduras, Chile, Haiti, Guatemala, Venezuela, Syria, Libya...

Pax Americana my ass. Tell that to the global south

[Sabinus]

The world wasn't exactly a kind place before Pax Americana. If you check the stats, the American era does pretty well for peace and prosperity, and it's not realistic to expect the Americans would oversee a conflict-free utopia.

[tdeck]

So in other words, while America is starting the most wars, it somehow gets credit for the hypothetical wars that weren't started? The assumption being that the natural state of the world is to have a world war every few years?

[spwa4]

The norm of human history is constant wars, extreme repression, and genocide, yes.

Oh, and levels of taxation even Karl Marx would immediately agree are theft. In fact, ending the pre-pax-Americana period is what the manifesto is about. (the period stupidly referred to as "modern times", where the rich aren't fighting over who gets to mars first, but massacring poor people to gain a few square kilometers of land, which ironically Soviets know all about)

I get that that's hard to see for anyone born far enough away from the beginning of the pax Americana, ie. let's say 5-10 years after world war 2 but that's really how things work.

And that means that you just won't believe the consequences of any real victory against the US either: a return to the norm. If Iran wins, immediately, 50 genocides will start. Not just in Iran. Global trade will freeze 90%, not just oil. Inequality will explode worldwide. And that's just the start. In a way, that's what Iran is fighting for.

[tdeck]

It's interesting to see the kind of nonsensical, evidence-free ideological statements that some people use to hand wave away decades of horrifying US perpetrated atrocities.

Ignore the genocide the US is engaged in right now, if it loses the war it started with Iran there will be 50 hypothetical genocides that I made up! Why stop at 50? Maybe there will be 500 or 5,000 genocides! If not for the benevolence of the US, we'd be having another world war every 2-3 years. It just stands to reason I suppose.

[spwa4]

Since you've successfully moved into the blatantly absurd, how about I just let Captain Darling and General Melchett explain how the period before the Pax Americana worked. First, WHAT the rich were fighting over:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZT-wVnFn60

And how it affected normal people:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgyB6lwE8E0

My grandfather explained this in much harsher terms to me (he's dead now, even though he got past 100 years), with explicit mention of which of 2 options is the better one: killing 100 people in your own city or returning to this situation again. He was a baby at the end of WW1 and lived through (with kids of his own) WW2.

(but even that beats how Iran's islamic government treats it's own citizens. Did you know primary school children make excellent demining equipment, and on top of that make very cheap poison gas detectors? The islamic mullahs sure do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_key_to_paradise )

[queenkjuul]

> you check the stats, the American era does pretty well for peace and prosperity,

Well having just checked the stats i think you're very much wrong, and taking a lot of credit for the US where it isn't due.

[ebbi]

> oversee a conflict-free utopia

Oversee is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

[jim33442]

I'm fine with Pax Americana, even if you call it American imperialism, but this whole involvement with Israel and its problems is not in our interest. It's abundantly clear that we have traitors in our government working for another country. Sure Iran has a terrible regime, not supposed to be our problem though.

[thrance]

Not the first time I've seen this absurd "I'm fine with American imperialism" take on here. You must realize that if Iran is such as it is now, it's purely a reaction to the authoritarian regime of the Shah previously used to further American interests, and then to the sanctions imposed on the nation. Those 30K protesters that were murdered are a direct consequence of American imperialism. It's like suffocating someone for decades and then criticizing how they breath. And same goes for Cuba, Venezuela, etc.

The situation can't improve while the USA are doing everything they can to antagonize these places, isolate them, alienate them from their neighbors. Seeing ruthless authoritarians prevail there is completely expected.

[jim33442]

Was Reza Shah any better? He was overthrown by WW2 Allies, mainly UK and USSR. Anyway I wouldn't put it past the US to have messed up Iran during the coup against the PM, but in that case it's the Israeli control I was complaining about. Anything we do in that region is probably not in our own interest.

But Cuba and Venezuela govts deserved what they got, and it was plenty of our business being in our backyard.

[spwa4]

This sounds so incredible ... do you seriously believe that?

"it's purely a reaction to the authoritarian regime of the Shah previously used to further American interests"

Seriously? THAT is what you think Khomeini wanted and his grandson or whoever wants now?

"And same goes for Cuba, Venezuela, etc."

Oh, you're a "communism really only ever wanted good things for it's people, and it's America's fault they started shooting their own citizens" ... got it.

[thomassmith65]

I'm no supporter of Trump, but the Iranian regime plotting to assassinate an American president - if true - poses a problem for America: https://justice.gov/opa/pr/iranian-intelligence-agent-convic...

[tyrrvk]

people are missing the 3rd actor in this trifecta/shit sandwich - Israel. Its the intentional bad faith actor who'll do whatever it takes to sink any peace talks - including genocide/invading Lebanon etc etc etc.