Thanks for the info I guess. Not sure how relevant or irrelevant any of it will be if we put boots on the ground in the Middle East for another 20 years. There is a disturbing amount of people calling for exactly that. Guys with friends from high school who died in Afghanistan getting all gassed up to enlist their sons. We can't pretend that's not real. That's to say nothing of the apocalypse fetishism of the Christians who run the white house Faith Office. They want nuclear holocaust so Jesus can come back.
Eyes on the prize: the apocalyptic Christian fetishists want a red heifer sacrificed in a rebuilt Holy Temple. Said Holy Temple would need to replace the Dome of the Rock so... go Jews I guess? This, of course, is a cross-eyed evangelical Revelations-related read of the Book of Numbers and is subject to whim. Christian thought on the issue has a lot more to do with Tim LaHaye than it does with John the Apostle so it's pretty squishy. Squishy as it is, it has fuckall to do with Iran. The Iran thing is Ezekeil 38-39 which doesn't say "holocaust" and actually fits the USSR better than Iran - Ezekiel 38 reads out Persia as an "ally" of Gog among modern-day Turkey, Ukraine, Ethiopia and Libya. And sure - they'll interpret it however they want. But the prophetic backing for a Left Behind War diminished greatly on October 8th, 9th, 10th and subsequent retaliatory events. I'm not seeing boots on the ground in Iran. There's no advantage to it. I could be wrong? The amount of bizarro-ass shit since 2016 is mind-numbing. But there will be significant resistance to putting soldiers anywhere they are within easy reach of a truck bomb.
Sure. Stochastic assassination is a real and driving concern. But what does it have to do with Iran? What does it have to do with end-times evangelical Christians? This is where I lose patience with quote-unquote liberals, and I say that as a guy any political quiz will out as borderline socialist: "the sky is falling" is not a useful political or philosophical position. Shit's all fucked up. Craven nazis are running the government. There's plenty to freak out about why do you find it necessary to skip-load to a completely different argument just so you can find something to shout at me about? Oh boo hoo hoo the only credible choices are inaction and assassination, everyone on BSky agrees.
Specifically, any conflict with Israel is used to stoke the fires and ramp up the 'We must be faithful instruments of His Will' talk. Iran is easy to use as the next 'Great Enemy' no matter what the book says. The 'Death to America' chanting makes this very easy. Vance Boelter has a traceable education in Christian Nationalism. Places like Christ for the Nations Institute still exist today, and are where he got his start. https://slowcivilwar.substack.com/p/on-the-christian-education-of-dr Not trying to move any goalposts.But what does it have to do with Iran? What does it have to do with end-times evangelical Christians?
"Great" enemies must be exactly that - "great." Let's suppose we were dealing with a Khrushchev-era USSR - beating us at spaceflight, rolling up non-aligned states, possessing a(n apocryphal) "missile gap." The Communists were definitely Godless and the John Birch Society made great hay with it. But even then, it wasn't apocalyptic it was "must be defeated." We're not dealing with a Khrushchev-era USSR tho. We're dealing with a country that lost control of its own skies in three days, whose navy is principally equipped with outboard motors, which has been throwing shit with a CEP on the order of hundreds of meters at a country the size of New Jersey. You can't pop off at their nuclear weapons program between rounds of golf and still argue they're "great." Besides which, evangelicals are going extinct. I know they occupy an outsized place in your universe but other than the Charlie Kirk millennial incels, every demo is down. So on the one hand, you look like a chump calling an enemy "great" if you can push them over without so much as a congressional hearing. And on the other hand, the number of people willing to listen to "because Jesus said so" has never been so low as now.
Was there any advantage? From a PNAC standpoint, there was obviously advantage. 1) It allowed the Bush administration to move the narrative from "we were caught unawares" to "Toby Keith Approved." 2) It allowed the United States to assert hegemony over the TAPI Pipeline. 3) It allowed the United States to reshape the Middle East from a disparate patchwork of treaty states to a unified American framework of peace and prosperity. Oops, no it didn't but if you don't think that was the goal you haven't been paying attention. You can't argue that Trump will do anything for money out one side of your mouth and out the other insist that "tangible advantage or benefit doesn't enter into the conversation" out the other. It's ALL about tangible advantage or benefit. Refusing to demean yourself with empathy for your opponent's positions does not eliminate them.
There was a miscommunication of the word 'advantage' that made this convey something I didn't mean. Specifically in the second instance, I meant 'tangible advantage or benefit' for anyone other than Trump personally or whatever given foreign interest he has most lately acted in the interest of. Obviously he does things that are self serving. Regarding point 1: Do we expect retaliatory asymmetrical violence? If so, will one of those attacks be used by the media and the nashville industrial country music complex to create another Angry American moment to justify boots on the ground? We seem primed for it. 2: Good point. Less specific material reasons to want to assert that tier of control. 3: Footage of pre/post revolution is being used by right wing media right now on substack, tiktok and probably facebook and twitter, to test the waters on how does right wing america feel about supporting 'Regime change.' This makes me worried that the right wing think tanks know how to get people in the 'send my son to die in the desert' mood.
Okay, "tangible advantage or benefit for anyone other than Trump." But what tangible advantage or benefit would Trump derive from boots-on-ground in Iran? He's not a man of firm philosophical standing, but "isolationist" is something he gets called a lot more than "imperialist." There would be heavy political cost to deploying troops anywhere they aren't needed for humanitarian aims and considering how sclerotic and ineffectual the Iranian regime is, why fucking bother? Do we expect retaliation? As I said, I expected retaliation after Soleimani and it effectively never came. Shit, I think the world expected retaliation after Nimr al-Nimr and it came in the form of memes. There was a time when the Iranians were enthusiastic and skillful practitioners of terrorism but that time is clearly past. If they were gonna pop off they woulda done long since. As far as workshopping a regime change, it serves the same purpose as "bombing is good tho", something they definitely need to do considering Trump ran on isolationism. Besides which the right-wing think tanks have long been at "wall it off and it will collapse on its own" with Iran, even before the Soviet Union did exactly that (and long, LONG before Syria did exactly that). The argument is basically that the tree is about to fall anyway, why rush at it with an axe when you can sit back, crack open a Busch Light and watch it fall. Operation Enduring Freedom cost about $2.3T. Trump ain't big on numbers or statistics but he definitely listens to prices. I guarantee you he asked how much a MOAB cost.
Will there be more resistance than there was before we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq? If there IS quantifiably MORE resistance than pre- Afghanistan and Iraq is it actually enough to stop Gulf War 3? If the coequal branches of government were functioning that way I might be tentatively able to think that would be enough. As it stands I don't think so. Unless the armed forces themselves refuse to go, the whole chain of command as it currently exists has no concern for soldiers within reach of truck bombs. Current evidence suggests those in charge of issuing orders to make Netanyahus wishes into military reality will do so when ordered. That's why Trump and Co gutted the generals and the JAG. that's the purpose behind doing that. I won't talk the finer points of the theology of the crazies. We agree that it's perfectly malleable to the political demands of Republicans. That's the important part. I keep my finger on their pulse because it's often predictive of the specifics of the latest stochastic terrorism. At the moment the crazies are promoting the morality and hilarity of running over Pride parades with their trucks.But there will be significant resistance to putting soldiers anywhere they are within easy reach of a truck bomb.
Fucking lol we were hella better off 20 years ago and the Dems still rubber-stamped the invasion of Iraq. If Trump wanted boots-on-ground in Iran we'd have boots-on-ground. But what would be the point? Iraq was all about mobile weapons labs and dumb shit like that; we're three days past "we took off from Elmendorf and within twelve hours the Iranian nuclear program was a smoking ruin." is it a smoking ruin? Does it matter? The only thing keeping us from doing it again is we don't currently have the inventory of MOABs (or whatever they're calling them these days). The first time you violate a nation's sovereignty is a problem but after that, it's just a job. Prolly won't even make the news, tbh. Netanyahu doesn't want boots-on-ground in Iran either. Israeli interests start and stop at Israeli sovereignty and the reason Netanyahu is grinding so deeply into this shitshow is Oct 7 showed that he fucked up royally at the ONE PRIORITY he kept harping on, which was "keep Israel safe." "Send a bunch of conscripts a thousand miles away for regime change" is a tough sell.If there IS quantifiably MORE resistance than pre- Afghanistan and Iraq is it actually enough to stop Gulf War 3? If the coequal branches of government were functioning that way I might be tentatively able to think that would be enough.
Current evidence suggests those in charge of issuing orders to make Netanyahus wishes into military reality will do so when ordered.
Well that took me aback. Your point about the relative low 'cost' of a targeted air campaign carries a lot of weight. I suppose this illustrates that I don't have a particularly clear idea of what Bibi and his cohort do want in specific material terms beyond 'Set fire to every country that funds or houses Hamas, Hesbollah, etc.'Fucking lol we were hella better off 20 years ago and the Dems still rubber-stamped the invasion of Iraq.
Netanyahu doesn't want boots-on-ground in Iran either.
"Send a bunch of conscripts a thousand miles away for regime change" is a tough sell.
If you can figure out a way to assign blame to them for something else horrific, real, fake or otherwise, I'm sure someone could manage it.
So imagine a man so hell-bent on preserving the security of Israel that he prompted the stochastic assassination of the guy who signed peace accords. Now imagine that for more than 20 years, he's been running on "I keep you safe." Imagine that he's been riding this grift for so long that his gravy train is leaking into the press and he's been legit indicted for bribery and corruption. Now imagine he's suddenly responsible for the worst failure of security in the history of the nation, and responsible for more deaths than any tragedy since the War of Independence in 1948. Your first instinct is likely "dude's chum." But then you remember how countries rally around their leaders in times of strife. Netanyahu has postponed a reckoning. If he lands this plane correctly he can sail off into the sunset without going to jail but anything short of "I made you safe again" and it will not only be bad for Netanyahu, it will be bad for Likud. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Benjamin_Netanyahu#Trial Israel is proud of its conscript army and its tradition of service. That hinges on Israel's successful defense of its borders. Pacifying Lebanon or Syria is one thing; hopping a plane to Iran is quite another.I suppose this illustrates that I don't have a particularly clear idea of what Bibi and his cohort do want in specific material terms beyond 'Set fire to every country that funds or houses Hamas, Hesbollah, etc.'