[zzgo]

The Iraq War was pushed through under the claim of preventing Iraq from obtaining Weapons of Mass Destruction, which presumably could have included nuclear weapons.

The Bush administration sold the claim in part because of aluminum tubes which they claimed could be used to create ballistic missiles. Clinton, who herself voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, is aware that parts that could be used to build ballistic missiles is pretty much fungible with nukes in a lot of American's minds.

It's not the commenter who is trying to equate missiles with nukes, it's the American political discourse that posited and accepted this claim nearly 25 years ago.

[warshinder]

No the point, as I understand it, is that with enough missiles, enforcing the JCPOA becomes impossible. Iran can dominate other regional powers, cause global suffering, decide they want to build nuclear weapons after all and not much can be done to stop them. As we are seeing, they are powerful enough now that Trump isn’t having an easy time winning, and it may even impact the midterms it’s that bad.

[zzgo]

At the start of 2017, we were in a position where we could have negotiated another deal with Iran to limit their missile production and stockpile while keeping the JCPOA in place. Nine years later, and we're not in a position to even negotiate a durable cease fire. We could have negotiated a diplomatic solution to those ballistic missiles to buttress the JCPOA.

> Trump isn’t having an easy time winning

I've seen no indication that Trump is winning in any way.

> it may even impact the midterms it’s that bad

I'm not worried. Democrats haven't been out in any meaningful way banging the drum of affordability. They could hang $5/gal gas and $14 fast food combos on Trump and this war he started, but instead they've been beating back Democratic Socialists, declaring themselves capitalists, and extolling the virtues of Graham Platner up until about a week ago.

[warshinder]

> hang $5/gal gas and $14 fast food combos on Trump

In my mind, this is anachronistic thinking. The average poor person isn’t as concerned about gas or burger prices as boomer politicos think. The difficulty most Americans face now is neither of those, it is housing and energy costs, and increasingly jobs. Your typical homeless person isn’t stressing on how they’ll get their next burger. There very little sunlight between the parties on these big issues. Neither party has moved the needle on housing aside from inflating costs. They can’t. Nobody that owns wants housing prices to collapse, and the economy wouldn’t stand it, and even if they did want housing prices to collapse, it’s impossible to scale up production enough to lower costs. We can at most flatten the second derivative. And jobs? Jobs can be created through stimulus like the inflation reduction act, but that causes inflation. And those jobs, having been artificially produced, will be quickly liquidated when the stimulus runs dry.

[zzgo]

I locked in my $210K mortgage for 3.875% over a decade ago, housing affordability isn't what's on my mind. I'm pissed that I spent $5/gal on gas at Costco and $14 for a combo meal at Carl's Jr. last night.

It may be anachronistic thinking in _your_ mind, but people like me who had been insulated from the affordability problems under Biden are no longer able to ignore just how expensive things have gotten. I assure you that Democrats can target middle class Gen X and Baby Boomer independents to vote blue this fall by pointing out that Chili's has a 3 for $11 deal going on right now while a Famous Star combo at Carl's is $14.