[spwa4]

I don't think reasonable people are going to defend the Iranian government on moral grounds. The president is fine, btw. It was the "supreme leader" that got killed, and he is known to have ordered the extermination of 600,000 Syrian muslims. Hell, he ordered the extermination of thousands of dissidents over the past years AND the execution of tens of thousands of protestors in his last weeks.

So ... this guy and his cronies that got killed. They had it coming.

[cbolton]

I'm not defending what the Iranian government did to their people. I suppose I am defending their reaction (closing the strait) to the assassination of their head of state and other government officials.

The reaction was predictable and very much understandable from a human psychology perspective. So in my mind the responsibility for the strait being closed rests mostly with the US.

> The president is fine, btw. It was the "supreme leader" that got killed

In Iran the supreme leader is the head of state. In the US it's the president.

> he is known to have ordered the extermination of 600,000 Syrian muslims

Do you mean the Syrian civil war? According to Wikipedia it's 650,000 deaths on all sides together (more than half being combatants). I'm not sure it's fair to attribute all these deaths to Iran. By the way these numbers are similar to those of the Iraq War of GWB.

[spwa4]

> I'm not defending what the Iranian government did to their people. I suppose I am defending their reaction (closing the strait) to the assassination of their head of state and other government officials.

First, the Iranian state was (and is) collapsing. In other words: even though Trump changed the timing of their closing of the strait (not by much), he did not cause it. Iran's government has no choice but to continue the war. Which is another way of saying: the west has no choice but to destroy them. This is just a bunch of little kids arguing: "that's hard! you do it".

Iran is, by the way, not just closing the strait. They are holding Lebanon hostage. They are trying to hold Syria hostage. They are holding the Bab El-Mandeb strait hostage. They are holding (and executing) people as hostages. They are looking to hold internet cables and satellites hostage. They are only limited by their capabilities, which are increasing. Obviously, ignoring the Iran problem will not work even in the medium term.

Plus I hate it when people defend the indefensible, such as Iran's government. Besides, you care about 1 thing: that the oil price rose a bit. As I said, unless the US left the middle east, conflict with Iran was and is unavoidable. US presence was always going to lead to conflict with Iran, only the timing was in question. Iran holding the strait hostage was unavoidable, and the oil price rise was unavoidable.

So what will you do when the inevitable happens? The problem Iran has with Israel, aside from Iran being murderous racists, is that, as the supreme leader has put it, "it is a US military base in the middle east". In other words: Iran's problem with Israel is that Israel prevents Iran from holding Europe hostage (notice that Iran's rockets can obviously reach Israel ... and they're continuing to extend the range, why is that, you think? They are looking to target Europe with nukes). This will mean other countries will have no choice but to do the same. Indonesia, China, they must attack and take control of the Malacca strait if the US retreats. They must conquer oil sources.

You do realize that if a country like Iran acquires ICBMs, nuclear war is the next step, right? That is also what Trump is trying to prevent (in fact that's what the US created the UN for all the way back in 1945, when all that existed of Donald Trump was his father looking very interested at his mother)

In other words, what you're advocating for, US retreat, will not cause a local conflict in the middle east. Let's just call it what it is: you are advocating for is WW3, a nuclear WW3. You're calling in doubt it will be WW3, because it's so much easier and cheaper to let a German dictator run rampant (sorry, I mean Iranian) than it is to deal with the problem ...

And yes, I'm very sorry how inconvenient it is that the rest of the world does not just let you live in peace.

[cbolton]

Much speculation here. It could well be that Iran's hard-line government will become stronger because of the war. People that were not specially pro- or anti-government probably didn't like seeing the US and Israel bomb their country and kill their government officials. On the other hand Iran is taking a big economic hit indeed... We'll see.

Regarding the nuclear threat posed by Iran: the deal Obama made with Iran was not perfect but it was working, at least on that aspect. Quoting the New York Times[1]: "Under the deal, Iran shipped 98 percent of its uranium stockpile out of the country. Iran previously had enough uranium to fashion eight to 10 atomic bombs once fully processed; afterward it was left without enough for even one". It also enabled an unprecedented level of inspections by the IAEA.

Compare that with what Trump has achieved so far... It's really sad that he had to tank that deal because he couldn't stand Obama having a great lasting diplomatic achievement. So Trump effectively manufactured the conditions for Iran to be a nuclear threat again.

I also don't see evidence that Iran wants to target Europe. The Iranian government does have a despicable rhetoric (mostly against Israel) but their actions have been limited. Israel talks less but inflicts far more harm. Iran has indeed been messing around the region and in particular "holding Lebanon hostage" to some extent with the Hezbollah... We'll see if that gets better after this war.

As for holding internet cables hostage and such: they are just playing the only cards they have, as they are being forced to, by the US.

> Besides, you care about 1 thing: that the oil price rose a bit.

I'm personally rather happy that oil prices are rising. We should get off oil as fast as possible for geopolitical and ecological reasons.

> And yes, I'm very sorry how inconvenient it is that the rest of the world does not just let you live in peace.

Not sure what you mean. We had international institutions and international law to try and avoid conflicts. The UN is a beautiful project created by the US at a time when they had good thinking people in charge. Trump hates and tries to dismantle international institutions. He likes the law of the jungle. It puts us all closer to WW3.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/us/politics/2015-iran-nuc...