Imagine if the UK had responded to the IRA and their presence both sides of the Irish border the way Israel and America have responded to Iran and Iran backed groups.
Less than 4000 people died in the troubles with less than 50,000 injured over 30 years. Every instance a tragedy, but the nonetheless considerably better than tens of thousands being killed in repeated bombing raids that never remove the terrorist threat and trash the infrastructure and economy of the country: leaving more desperate, deprived and radicalised people to continue the cycle of violence.
What successive Israeli governments don’t seem to be able to understand is that you can not kill people into liking you, and you will always be safer surrounded by friends than enemies.
But Iran wants to remove Israel and funds people to help them do that.
Israel is supposed to respond with "let's be friends?"
But the bottom line is, what else can you do when you've tried everything else as in the case with Iran?
Try what hasn't been tried? Build on previous success a negotiated solutions to tensions between Iran and other nations - the deal negotiated between the governments of Iran, US and European nations in 2015 was a very promising approach that, though only addressing concerns over Iranian government plans to develop a nuclear bomb a similar approach would seem to be a decent place to start with concerns over exporting Islamic revolution to neighbouring nations. Of course, it helps when approaching such negotiations that you don't have a political leader on one side who has reneged on a good deal simply because it was negotiated under the Presidency of a black man (and, your current President is both a racist, and unable to negotiate his way out of a paper bag).
My understanding on the weeks of negotiations before the attack was that Iran refused to discuss the funding of terrorism or any other matter (presumably like killing their folk). They would only talk about nuclear proliferation.
Given that Iran developing nuclear weapons was the claimed problem and focus of talks why should they put anything else on the table? Was the US willing to discuss an end to funding the genocidal regime in Tel Aviv?
Because of the export of terrorism ( October 7 attacks on Israel and ongoing terrorism by Hamas?) and killing of their people during demonstrations? Not to mention appalling treatment of women?
But the bottom line is, what else can you do when you've tried everything else as in the case with Iran?
Try what hasn't been tried? Build on previous success a negotiated solutions to tensions between Iran and other nations - the deal negotiated between the governments of Iran, US and European nations in 2015 was a very promising approach that, though only addressing concerns over Iranian government plans to develop a nuclear bomb a similar approach would seem to be a decent place to start with concerns over exporting Islamic revolution to neighbouring nations. Of course, it helps when approaching such negotiations that you don't have a political leader on one side who has reneged on a good deal simply because it was negotiated under the Presidency of a black man (and, your current President is both a racist, and unable to negotiate his way out of a paper bag).
My understanding on the weeks of negotiations before the attack was that Iran refused to discuss the funding of terrorism or any other matter (presumably like killing their folk). They would only talk about nuclear proliferation.
Given that Iran developing nuclear weapons was the claimed problem and focus of talks why should they put anything else on the table? Was the US willing to discuss an end to funding the genocidal regime in Tel Aviv?
Because of the export of terrorism ( October 7 attacks on Israel and ongoing terrorism by Hamas?) and killing of their people during demonstrations? Not to mention appalling treatment of women?
Two of those apply to Bahrain, and all three to Saudi (in both of which women have even fewer rights - this is just a cynical attempt to feminist wash foreign policy).
Perhaps you could address my post re lots of people on this thread saying they don't want trump to be involved in choosing the next leader but they want him to solve all Iran's problems post war.
Perhaps you could identify exactly who has said they want Trump to solve all Iran’s problems post-war, and exactly where they said it.
Can you show us where “lots of people on this thread” have said this, or should we just assume it’s a straw man?
The other interesting thing about this war is why such a close connection between the US and Israel? Why is the US coming to Israel's defence?
It's not defence, it's offence, and a combination of Zionism and others forms of racism is the primary answer.
Also oil, and Iran trading oil not in dollars, and distraction from internal domestic issues such as Epstein. China was buying something like 20% of its crude oil in Yuan - so possibly also to screw over China.
Imagine if the UK had responded to the IRA and their presence both sides of the Irish border the way Israel and America have responded to Iran and Iran backed groups.
Less than 4000 people died in the troubles with less than 50,000 injured over 30 years. Every instance a tragedy, but the nonetheless considerably better than tens of thousands being killed in repeated bombing raids that never remove the terrorist threat and trash the infrastructure and economy of the country: leaving more desperate, deprived and radicalised people to continue the cycle of violence.
What successive Israeli governments don’t seem to be able to understand is that you can not kill people into liking you, and you will always be safer surrounded by friends than enemies.
Do you mean "considerably better" in a moral sense - is it just a numbers game? The problem with partitioning history into discrete, unconnected chunks seems pertinent to many conflicts. Here are some numbers from the Irish Potato Famine, aka The Great Famine or the Great Hunger:
The worst year of the famine was 1847, which became known as "Black '47". The population of Ireland on the eve of the famine was about 8.5 million; by 1901, it was just 4.4 million. During the Great Hunger, roughly one million people died and over one million more fled the country, causing the country's population to fall by 20–25% between 1841 and 1871, with some towns' populations falling by as much as 67%. Between 1845 and 1855, at least 2.1 million people left Ireland, one of the greatest exoduses from a single island in history.
And background:
Longer-term reasons for the massive impact of this particular famine included the system of absentee landlordism and single-crop dependence. Initial limited but constructive government actions to alleviate famine distress were ended by a new Whig administration in London, which pursued a laissez-faire economic doctrine, but also because some assumed that the famine was divine judgement or that the Irish lacked moral character, with aid only resuming to some degree later. Large amounts of food were exported from Ireland during the famine and the refusal of London to bar such exports, as had been done on previous occasions, was an immediate and continuing source of controversy, contributing to anti-British sentiment and the campaign for independence.
I am aware of England treating the Irish like shit, but I was specifically drawing analogy about responding to terrorists who attack civilians not the wider colonial project.
It would have been possible for the UK to bomb targets in Ireland, or civilian areas where they thought there was support for the IRA, or attempt genocide against the Irish or Catholic population in response to bombs on the mainland. We did various bad things - Steak Knufe being an obvious example but the British government didn’t flatten Dublin or carpet bomb Bog Side.
The point being, there are other options than negotiating for five seconds and then murdering thousands of people.
Imagine if the UK had responded to the IRA and their presence both sides of the Irish border the way Israel and America have responded to Iran and Iran backed groups.
In fairness bombing Boston MA was never going to be on the agenda. It's worth reminding people that Americans were the chief financial backers of the IRA. Hand wringing about sponsoring terrorism is deeply hypocritical.
I am aware of England treating the Irish like shit, but I was specifically drawing analogy about responding to terrorists who attack civilians not the wider colonial project.
My point is that making numerical comparisons between conflicts and ignoring the historical contexts is inane.
It would have been possible for the UK to bomb targets in Ireland, or civilian areas where they thought there was support for the IRA, or attempt genocide against the Irish or Catholic population in response to bombs on the mainland. We did various bad things - Steak Knufe being an obvious example but the British government didn’t flatten Dublin or carpet bomb Bog Side.
Your language about these being "bad things" suggests that you are continuing to make a moral evaluation based purely on the number of people who die in a particular period of time.
Drawing attention to Britain's historical track record in bombing people doesn't improve matters. It's the "at least we didn't do it this time" argument. Hurrah for us! Look at how much more enlightened we are!
The point being, there are other options than negotiating for five seconds and then murdering thousands of people.
There are other options for making your point from the one you're doubling down on.
The other interesting thing about this war is why such a close connection between the US and Israel? Why is the US coming to Israel's defence?
Is this a rhetorical question?
Israel and the US have long been allies and there are all sorts of geopolitical reasons for that.
To be fair, the US did take the moral high ground during the Suez Crisis in 1956 when Britain and France engineered a conflict between Israel and Egypt and then intervened in order to regain control of the Suez Canal.
Meanwhile, I don't think @Doublethink's comparison with the UK's response to the IRA is an exact one. The IRA wanted a united and independent Ireland (under their own terms of course) not the wholesale liquidation of all Loyalists and Northern Irish Protestants.
Iran's theocratic regime wouldn't be happy with a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine but would want the Jews expelled or massacred.
That doesn't mean that all Palestinians want genocide. Many would settle for a two-state solution. Equally, not all Israelis want right-wing Zionists to oppress Palestinians and extend Israel's borders to what they see as its God-given footprint at the expense of surrounding sovereign states.
One of the tragedies of the October 7th atrocity was that peaceful and pro-Palestinian Israelis were massacred simply for being Jewish. And the death of anyone, Jewish or Muslim is to be deplored.
The Zionist argument for seizing and controlling the West Bank is that Palestinians could use it as a platform for attacking Israel.
And so the endless round of violence continues. Gaza is levelled, tracts of Lebanon reduced to rubble, missiles strike Tel Aviv and Tehran shudders under heavy bombardment. Children are bombed at their school desks.
Trump, Netanyahu, the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah wade deep in blood.
Because of the export of terrorism ( October 7 attacks on Israel and ongoing terrorism by Hamas?) and killing of their people during demonstrations? Not to mention appalling treatment of women?
Neither Hamas nor the October 7 attacks were sponsored by Iran. As has been pointed out already Hamas are Sunni whereas Iran are Shia.
I am aware of England treating the Irish like shit, but I was specifically drawing analogy about responding to terrorists who attack civilians not the wider colonial project.
My point is that making numerical comparisons between conflicts and ignoring the historical contexts is inane.
It would have been possible for the UK to bomb targets in Ireland, or civilian areas where they thought there was support for the IRA, or attempt genocide against the Irish or Catholic population in response to bombs on the mainland. We did various bad things - Steak Knufe being an obvious example but the British government didn’t flatten Dublin or carpet bomb Bog Side.
Your language about these being "bad things" suggests that you are continuing to make a moral evaluation based purely on the number of people who die in a particular period of time.
Drawing attention to Britain's historical track record in bombing people doesn't improve matters. It's the "at least we didn't do it this time" argument. Hurrah for us! Look at how much more enlightened we are!
The point being, there are other options than negotiating for five seconds and then murdering thousands of people.
There are other options for making your point from the one you're doubling down on.
An anology is by its nature an imperfect analogy, I do not think Britain has the moral high ground. We fucked over half the world with the British Empire - are you now going to miss the point by telling me I got my percentage of square kilometres wrong ? - the point is if you are significantly more militarily powerful than an enemy your ability to bomb them into oblivion does not make it justifiable to do so. And that, even, a reactionary prejudiced Britain recognised - at that point in time - some limits.
The current American government’s one of ours a hundred of theirs is disgusting.
I am willing to say Churchill was a racist, classcist, mysognists chancer and the governments he led had many of those characteristics - I do still think they were better than Hitler. I am fast losing any sense that Trump’s regime is
Sure but Hezbollah are an Iranian proxy and has launched rocket attacks against Israel for years, however ineffectively.
Iran doesn't appear to support Hamas directly but Hamas does receive support from Hezbollah.
From what I can gather there are a range of views across the Iranian public, as indeed there are in many countries, but a general consensus over the Israel/Palestine issue across the various political groups within the country.
Opposition to Israel is hard-baked into the Islamic Republic's ideology though. Iran distanced itself from the October 7th attacks by Hamas but unless anyone can cite references I don’t remember them condemning them.
I think the US and Israel are like drunken warlords, kill, kill, kill. Do they seriously think a peaceful democratic Iran will emerge from this carnage? No, they don't.
Iran's theocratic regime wouldn't be happy with a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine but would want the Jews expelled or massacred.
Do we know that? I don't doubt Iran would prefer a single Islamic Republic of Palestine but the continued existence of a Jewish community in Iran suggests that they do not see genocide or ethnic cleansing as goals in themselves. We need to be clear eyed about the authoritarianism of the Iranian regime but at the same time not accept uncritically every US-Israeli claim about them. And that's before we get into the extent to which Iran needs Israel in much the same way that Netanyahu needs Hamas.
Opposition to Israel is hard-baked into the Islamic Republic's ideology though.
These things can change over time with sustained diplomatic effort, but it might have required Israel to deal with its Palestinian population differently.
Sure but Hezbollah are an Iranian proxy and has launched rocket attacks against Israel for years, however ineffectively.
There have been multiple ceasefire agreements between Israel and Lebanon, and usually its been the former that has broken the agreement rather than the latter.
The Shia's are 30% of the population of Lebanon, one way or the other they are going to seek political representation - especially when, as now, Israel seems intent on flattening the Shia suburbs in Beirut.
I think the US and Israel are like drunken warlords, kill, kill, kill. Do they seriously think a peaceful democratic Iran will emerge from this carnage? No, they don't.
Indeed. All they seem to want is death and destruction, even if US and Israeli lives are lost in the process.
I have this image in my mind of several odious little boys, crouched in a corner of the school playground, busily pulling off the wings and legs of insects, before going on to poking out the eyes of kittens...
Because of the export of terrorism ( October 7 attacks on Israel and ongoing terrorism by Hamas?) and killing of their people during demonstrations? Not to mention appalling treatment of women?
Neither Hamas nor the October 7 attacks were sponsored by Iran. As has been pointed out already Hamas are Sunni whereas Iran are Shia.
I'm pretty sure @WhimsicalChristian has already clarified his position that all these Muslims are the same so getting too concerned about who's responsible for what is a distraction from the collective punishment of collective guilt. Or at least that's how his "[d]oesn't matter their stripe" claim sounds to me.
An anology is by its nature an imperfect analogy, I do not think Britain has the moral high ground. We fucked over half the world with the British Empire - are you now going to miss the point by telling me I got my percentage of square kilometres wrong ? - the point is if you are significantly more militarily powerful than an enemy your ability to bomb them into oblivion does not make it justifiable to do so.
And my point is that you could have made this point without needing any numeric or moral comparisons. Can you explain how your point is made any more pointy by reference to other conflicts? How does imagining thousands of imaginary casualties improve your argument?
And that, even, a reactionary prejudiced Britain recognised - at that point in time - some limits.
The current American government’s one of ours a hundred of theirs is disgusting.
I am willing to say Churchill was a racist, classcist, mysognists chancer and the governments he led had many of those characteristics - I do still think they were better than Hitler. I am fast losing any sense that Trump’s regime is
And so you keep digging until you reach the moral lodestone, by which we end up determining our reactions to all questions of morality.
There are a few circumstances in which it might be appropriate to make more substantial comparisons with Hitler, but an argument that boils down to "we're less genocidal" really isn't one of them. I still don't understand what your purpose is in making moral comparisons between the UK, the US and Israeli governments. Is it supposed to make any of us feel better about ourselves?
An anology is by its nature an imperfect analogy, I do not think Britain has the moral high ground. We fucked over half the world with the British Empire - are you now going to miss the point by telling me I got my percentage of square kilometres wrong ? - the point is if you are significantly more militarily powerful than an enemy your ability to bomb them into oblivion does not make it justifiable to do so.
And my point is that you could have made this point without needing any numeric or moral comparisons. Can you explain how your point is made any more pointy by reference to other conflicts? How does imagining thousands of imaginary casualties improve your argument?
And that, even, a reactionary prejudiced Britain recognised - at that point in time - some limits.
The current American government’s one of ours a hundred of theirs is disgusting.
I am willing to say Churchill was a racist, classcist, mysognists chancer and the governments he led had many of those characteristics - I do still think they were better than Hitler. I am fast losing any sense that Trump’s regime is
And so you keep digging until you reach the moral lodestone, by which we end up determining our reactions to all questions of morality.
There are a few circumstances in which it might be appropriate to make more substantial comparisons with Hitler, but an argument that boils down to "we're less genocidal" really isn't one of them. I still don't understand what your purpose is in making moral comparisons between the UK, the US and Israeli governments. Is it supposed to make any of us feel better about ourselves?
It serves to show that alternatives to mass murder are not just theoretical but practical. It thoroughly undermines the deployment of TINA by apologists.
I still don't understand what your purpose is in making moral comparisons between the UK, the US and Israeli governments. Is it supposed to make any of us feel better about ourselves?
I have direct personal experience, and family memory of very few modern conflicts. I endeavoured to reference a situation I actually knew something about. My paternal family have Jewish heritage, they came to Europe fleeing pogroms in Russia at the end of the 19th century.
I grew up off and on in Britain across the 70s, 80s and 90s and I remember the bombing campaign on the mainland of the UK.
And I spent part of my childhood in the Middle East, in Syria, Libya and Yemen - my father was briefly kidnapped in the Lebanon. My father was posted in Yemen when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait - after a while we couldn’t go out to see our parents because it was too considered too dangerous, then they sent my my mother back the UK but my father was expected to stay because that’s what diplomats do. All my childhood I grew up knowing people whose lives were impacted by the conflict in the Middle East.
My parents tried to keep the worst aspects from us - making it a game where we ducked down in the taxi when we went through the main square in Damascus so we wouldn’t see bodies hanging on the gallows (we didn’t know that’s why we doing it), we weren’t told about Dad’s kidnap till years later. When my parents wrote to us at boarding school about grenades being thrown over the wall into grounds of the house, they made a joke of it.
I think the US and Israel are like drunken warlords, kill, kill, kill. Do they seriously think a peaceful democratic Iran will emerge from this carnage? No, they don't.
I am going to object to this broad-brush stroke. Polls show that the majority of Americans are against this war. I am thinking similar polls in Israel would show a large portion of that country's population are also against the war. (Who in the hell wants drones and rockets raining down on them 24-7?} However, the administrations of both countries are acting like drunken warlords. Netanyahu likes perpetual war as a way to keep from being arrested in his country. Trump also uses war as a way to distract from his other failures as a president.
Opposition to Israel is hard-baked into the Islamic Republic's ideology though.
These things can change over time with sustained diplomatic effort, but it might have required Israel to deal with its Palestinian population differently.
Of course.
I don't think anyone is disputing that.
I'm not prepared to give the Islamic Republic or its proxies a free pass though.
Years ago I attended an event in London where exiled writers read selections of their work.
One was an Iranian novelist whose books had been censored by the regime, all on the flimsiest of excuses.
There was also a Yemeni poet, a practising Muslim who had no time whatsoever for theocratic regimes or the Saudis who had, in his view, the 'worst of both worlds' - naked Western consumerism and materialism allied to fundamentalist religion.
The trouble is, it's these sort of people who get squeezed out when things polarise.
It's a vicious circle.
The comparison I think it would be legitimate to make between Northern Ireland and the Middle East is that violence begets violence and creates a spiral of tit-for-tat killings that go on for generations.
Once started it's devilishly hard to stop.
We can't turn the clock back to before 1948 or the Sykes-Picot Agreement or ...
Somehow we've got to start where we are now and that's not a very good place from which to start.
But what's the alternative? Endless wars. Orwell was right there.
@WhimsicalChristian a not-insubstantial proportion of the US government is genuinely trying to bring about Armageddon. That's why Trump tried to make Jerusalem into the Israeli capital.
I think the US and Israel are like drunken warlords, kill, kill, kill. Do they seriously think a peaceful democratic Iran will emerge from this carnage? No, they don't.
I am going to object to this broad-brush stroke. Polls show that the majority of Americans are against this war.
Doesn't matter, since we are currently not in a position to stop it, and the Trump administration doesn't care whether it's popular.
And @quetzalcoatl didn't say "Americans," he said "the US" - which means the country, and much as we may hate it, he's not wrong. The government we didn't vote for is nevertheless our government, and it's waging an illegal war and committing war crimes with our money if not our approval.
The other interesting thing about this war is why such a close connection between the US and Israel? Why is the US coming to Israel's defence?
It's not defence, it's offence, and a combination of Zionism and others forms of racism is the primary answer.
Also oil, and Iran trading oil not in dollars, and distraction from internal domestic issues such as Epstein. China was buying something like 20% of its crude oil in Yuan - so possibly also to screw over China.
Yes, reflecting his cruelty and short-sightedness. Trump wants not US energy independence but energy dominance - he wants to use oil to control other countries. He's cut off Venezuelan oil that was going to Cuba, so Cuba is in dire straits. Controling of other countries via oil will make a certain number of people's lives miserable in the near term and in the long term spur more growth of non-fossil-fuel energy sources that the US will not control. And other governments will not forget how shitty we've been while they were transitioning off oil products, while China can just be halfway decent and gain more influence.
I think the US and Israel are like drunken warlords, kill, kill, kill. Do they seriously think a peaceful democratic Iran will emerge from this carnage? No, they don't.
I am going to object to this broad-brush stroke. Polls show that the majority of Americans are against this war.
Doesn't matter, since we are currently not in a position to stop it, and the Trump administration doesn't care whether it's popular.
And @quetzalcoatl didn't say "Americans," he said "the US" - which means the country, and much as we may hate it, he's not wrong. The government we didn't vote for is nevertheless our government, and it's waging an illegal war and committing war crimes with our money if not our approval.
This is us. We collectively own it.
Most Americans may not be in a position to stop it now, but come the mid term elections, this will play into our decision making if it continues that long. Once the new Congress forms, assuming at least the House goes Democrat, It will likely refuse to fund the enterprise,
Arethosemyfeet said earlier, "The extent to which Iran is a meaningful threat to Israel is minimal". Some may remember that when Iran bombed Israel in June 2025 after being attacked by Israel they made it clear that they were prepared to do so again. Possibly you feel it is stupid to think that they may have meant it?
I still don't understand what your purpose is in making moral comparisons between the UK, the US and Israeli governments. Is it supposed to make any of us feel better about ourselves?
I have direct personal experience, and family memory of very few modern conflicts. I endeavoured to reference a situation I actually knew something about. My paternal family have Jewish heritage, they came to Europe fleeing pogroms in Russia at the end of the 19th century.
I grew up off and on in Britain across the 70s, 80s and 90s and I remember the bombing campaign on the mainland of the UK.
And I spent part of my childhood in the Middle East, in Syria, Libya and Yemen - my father was briefly kidnapped in the Lebanon. My father was posted in Yemen when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait - after a while we couldn’t go out to see our parents because it was too considered too dangerous, then they sent my my mother back the UK but my father was expected to stay because that’s what diplomats do. All my childhood I grew up knowing people whose lives were impacted by the conflict in the Middle East.
My parents tried to keep the worst aspects from us - making it a game where we ducked down in the taxi when we went through the main square in Damascus so we wouldn’t see bodies hanging on the gallows (we didn’t know that’s why we doing it), we weren’t told about Dad’s kidnap till years later. When my parents wrote to us at boarding school about grenades being thrown over the wall into grounds of the house, they made a joke of it.
Arethosemyfeet said earlier, "The extent to which Iran is a meaningful threat to Israel is minimal". Some may remember that when Iran bombed Israel in June 2025 after being attacked by Israel they made it clear that they were prepared to do so again.
You mean they made it clear that they were prepared to bombing Israel again if they were attacked again?
Well, in that case the actual threat is minimal isn't it -- unless you assume Israel should have carte blanche to bomb Iran.
If we are reduced to considering hypothetical threats, then no country in the region - bar Israel - should have any weapons.
Most Americans may not be in a position to stop it now, but come the mid term elections, this will play into our decision making if it continues that long. Once the new Congress forms, assuming at least the House goes Democrat, It will likely refuse to fund the enterprise,
Even if it ends tonight, this war will still be something the US has done, just as all the other terrible things you and I and many other Americans disapproved of, protested, and worked against are things the US has done. It is perfectly proper to speak of "the US" behaving like a drunken warlord without making rhetorical carve-outs for sober and peaceful Americans because despite our internal divisions, we are still one country. I protested the war just yesterday - and today my tax dollars are still hard at work killing innocents, our government is still entirely out of hand, our country as a whole is still a menace.
Obviously children are particularly tragic victims in any war, but it does seem that children are especially bearing the brunt after October 7th at the hands of Israel and their allies. Rachel weeping in Ramah indeed.
Arethosemyfeet said earlier, "The extent to which Iran is a meaningful threat to Israel is minimal". Some may remember that when Iran bombed Israel in June 2025 after being attacked by Israel they made it clear that they were prepared to do so again.
You mean they made it clear that they were prepared to bombing Israel again if they were attacked again?
Well, in that case the actual threat is minimal isn't it -- unless you assume Israel should have carte blanche to bomb Iran.
If we are reduced to considering hypothetical threats, then no country in the region - bar Israel - should have any weapons.
Is the threat minimal though? Or purely rhetorical?
Various Iranian Presidents and prominent clerics have called for the destruction of Israel over the years, have engaged in Holocaust denial and even called for the detonation of a nuclear bomb to wipe it from the map.
You don't have to look far to find citations nor, indeed for claims that Iran has trained and funded Hamas fighters. The Washington Post reported that 500 had been trained prior to the October 7th attack.
Whether we give credence to those reports or not it's pretty clear that opposition to Israel is a central plank in Iranian foreign policy and has been for some time. There have been times though, when relations haven't been overtly hostile.
It's a bit chicken and egg.
Rocket attacks by Iranian proxies have caused comparatively limited damage within Israel because of its anti-missile defences, sometimes augmented by US, British and other countries' air power.
If those defences weren't in place then there'd have been more damage. Those defences wouldn't have been put in place if there wasn't a threat.
There have also been significant attacks on Israeli targets elsewhere such as the destruction of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1994.
Israel, of course, has launched what it considers to be pre-emptive strikes against Iran on several occasions before the current joint US/Israeli offensive.
So both countries are locked in mutual antipathy that flares up into ugly violence from time to time, with Israel having the upper hand in terms of airpower and US support.
Most experts appear to agree that Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons is some way down the line and any immediate threat to Israel from weapons of mass destruction is not imminent.
Neither Israel nor the US have produced any evidence for an imminent threat of that kind and their assault on Iran is illegal under international law - something neither of them appears to care about.
Their proponents would claim of course, as they've done here, that international law is specious and ineffective and that there is no alternative but for them to take matters into their own hands.
Someone should have done the same to Hitler's Germany during the 1930s, the argument runs.
It's not an argument I agree with but neither do I take the repeated threats uttered by Iranian clerics and political leaders as idle and hollow ones. The late Supreme Leader called for Israel to be destroyed and Jews to be subjugated to Muslims.
Was he in a position to carry out that threat? No. Would he have done so had the capability been there? Undoubtedly. Is it right to bomb a country and kill thousands of innocent civilians on the basis of a hypothetical or potential threat? No, I don’t believe it is.
The US already claimed to have destroyed Iran's potential nuclear capability. So what are its aims this time? Its stated aims seem to change every 15 seconds.
Levelling Gaza, swathes of southern Lebanon and hitting non-military targets in Iran isn't going to minimise any threat to Israel - perceived or actual - all it will do is sow the seeds of further conflict.
Iranian clerics already believe there is a Zionist-Christian plot to eradicate Islam. This is only going to convince them further of the reality of that threat.
Both sides believe the other is out to destroy them entirely, a belief that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as the violence escalates.
Add loopy-doopy apocalyptic Christian millenarianism to the mix alongside radical jihadism and ultra-Zionist expansionism and the kind of toxic Jewish fundamentalism that is rarely talked about then it becomes even more of a nightmare scenario.
This isn't 'both-sides-ism' but a recognition of the horrors that can be and are being unleashed by all the main actors here and which are drawing others in whether they like it or not.
Because of the export of terrorism ( October 7 attacks on Israel and ongoing terrorism by Hamas?) and killing of their people during demonstrations? Not to mention appalling treatment of women?
Neither Hamas nor the October 7 attacks were sponsored by Iran. As has been pointed out already Hamas are Sunni whereas Iran are Shia.
I'm not sure where you're getting your information from but my understanding that it is widely known Iran sponsors terrorists organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah and have for ages.
Seems like Iran doesn't care whether they are Sunni or not.
Various Iranian Presidents and prominent clerics have called for the destruction of Israel over the years, have engaged in Holocaust denial and even called for the detonation of a nuclear bomb to wipe it from the map.
You can find parallels for all of that in the Epiphanies thread which is now locked, the difference in treatment is fairly evident here.
Rocket attacks by Iranian proxies have caused comparatively limited damage within Israel because of its anti-missile defences, sometimes augmented by US, British and other countries' air power.
Rocket attacks by Hamas have been largely ineffective because they are basically homemade. Rocket attacks by Hezbollah have been more lethal, but have followed a tit for tat pattern, and they have - in the past anyway - been willing to abide by ceasefires when made.
Australia has now been asked to assist. Tho the foreign minister wont say by who.
Are the US running out of fire power?
No takers to the above?
Heard an analyst on telly today saying the Australians have been asked to assist by the gulf nations because an Iranian drone costs about $50,000 but an American built missile to intercept cost about a million dollars.
Seems the gulf states are looking for cheaper options to shoot down the aggressor Iran.
Perhaps you could address my post re lots of people on this thread saying they don't want trump to be involved in choosing the next leader but they want him to solve all Iran's problems post war.
Perhaps you could identify exactly who has said they want Trump to solve all Iran’s problems post-war, and exactly where they said it.
Can you show us where “lots of people on this thread” have said this, or should we just assume it’s a straw man?
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But Iran wants to remove Israel and funds people to help them do that.
Israel is supposed to respond with "let's be friends?"
Because of the export of terrorism ( October 7 attacks on Israel and ongoing terrorism by Hamas?) and killing of their people during demonstrations? Not to mention appalling treatment of women?
Two of those apply to Bahrain, and all three to Saudi (in both of which women have even fewer rights - this is just a cynical attempt to feminist wash foreign policy).
It's not defence, it's offence, and a combination of Zionism and others forms of racism is the primary answer.
Also oil, and Iran trading oil not in dollars, and distraction from internal domestic issues such as Epstein. China was buying something like 20% of its crude oil in Yuan - so possibly also to screw over China.
And background:
It would have been possible for the UK to bomb targets in Ireland, or civilian areas where they thought there was support for the IRA, or attempt genocide against the Irish or Catholic population in response to bombs on the mainland. We did various bad things - Steak Knufe being an obvious example but the British government didn’t flatten Dublin or carpet bomb Bog Side.
The point being, there are other options than negotiating for five seconds and then murdering thousands of people.
In fairness bombing Boston MA was never going to be on the agenda. It's worth reminding people that Americans were the chief financial backers of the IRA. Hand wringing about sponsoring terrorism is deeply hypocritical.
Your language about these being "bad things" suggests that you are continuing to make a moral evaluation based purely on the number of people who die in a particular period of time.
Drawing attention to Britain's historical track record in bombing people doesn't improve matters. It's the "at least we didn't do it this time" argument. Hurrah for us! Look at how much more enlightened we are!
There are other options for making your point from the one you're doubling down on.
Is this a rhetorical question?
Israel and the US have long been allies and there are all sorts of geopolitical reasons for that.
To be fair, the US did take the moral high ground during the Suez Crisis in 1956 when Britain and France engineered a conflict between Israel and Egypt and then intervened in order to regain control of the Suez Canal.
Meanwhile, I don't think @Doublethink's comparison with the UK's response to the IRA is an exact one. The IRA wanted a united and independent Ireland (under their own terms of course) not the wholesale liquidation of all Loyalists and Northern Irish Protestants.
Iran's theocratic regime wouldn't be happy with a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine but would want the Jews expelled or massacred.
That doesn't mean that all Palestinians want genocide. Many would settle for a two-state solution. Equally, not all Israelis want right-wing Zionists to oppress Palestinians and extend Israel's borders to what they see as its God-given footprint at the expense of surrounding sovereign states.
One of the tragedies of the October 7th atrocity was that peaceful and pro-Palestinian Israelis were massacred simply for being Jewish. And the death of anyone, Jewish or Muslim is to be deplored.
The Zionist argument for seizing and controlling the West Bank is that Palestinians could use it as a platform for attacking Israel.
And so the endless round of violence continues. Gaza is levelled, tracts of Lebanon reduced to rubble, missiles strike Tel Aviv and Tehran shudders under heavy bombardment. Children are bombed at their school desks.
Trump, Netanyahu, the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah wade deep in blood.
An anology is by its nature an imperfect analogy, I do not think Britain has the moral high ground. We fucked over half the world with the British Empire - are you now going to miss the point by telling me I got my percentage of square kilometres wrong ? - the point is if you are significantly more militarily powerful than an enemy your ability to bomb them into oblivion does not make it justifiable to do so. And that, even, a reactionary prejudiced Britain recognised - at that point in time - some limits.
The current American government’s one of ours a hundred of theirs is disgusting.
I am willing to say Churchill was a racist, classcist, mysognists chancer and the governments he led had many of those characteristics - I do still think they were better than Hitler. I am fast losing any sense that Trump’s regime is
Iran doesn't appear to support Hamas directly but Hamas does receive support from Hezbollah.
From what I can gather there are a range of views across the Iranian public, as indeed there are in many countries, but a general consensus over the Israel/Palestine issue across the various political groups within the country.
Opposition to Israel is hard-baked into the Islamic Republic's ideology though. Iran distanced itself from the October 7th attacks by Hamas but unless anyone can cite references I don’t remember them condemning them.
Do we know that? I don't doubt Iran would prefer a single Islamic Republic of Palestine but the continued existence of a Jewish community in Iran suggests that they do not see genocide or ethnic cleansing as goals in themselves. We need to be clear eyed about the authoritarianism of the Iranian regime but at the same time not accept uncritically every US-Israeli claim about them. And that's before we get into the extent to which Iran needs Israel in much the same way that Netanyahu needs Hamas.
These things can change over time with sustained diplomatic effort, but it might have required Israel to deal with its Palestinian population differently.
There have been multiple ceasefire agreements between Israel and Lebanon, and usually its been the former that has broken the agreement rather than the latter.
The Shia's are 30% of the population of Lebanon, one way or the other they are going to seek political representation - especially when, as now, Israel seems intent on flattening the Shia suburbs in Beirut.
Indeed. All they seem to want is death and destruction, even if US and Israeli lives are lost in the process.
I have this image in my mind of several odious little boys, crouched in a corner of the school playground, busily pulling off the wings and legs of insects, before going on to poking out the eyes of kittens...
I'm pretty sure @WhimsicalChristian has already clarified his position that all these Muslims are the same so getting too concerned about who's responsible for what is a distraction from the collective punishment of collective guilt. Or at least that's how his "[d]oesn't matter their stripe" claim sounds to me.
And so you keep digging until you reach the moral lodestone, by which we end up determining our reactions to all questions of morality.
There are a few circumstances in which it might be appropriate to make more substantial comparisons with Hitler, but an argument that boils down to "we're less genocidal" really isn't one of them. I still don't understand what your purpose is in making moral comparisons between the UK, the US and Israeli governments. Is it supposed to make any of us feel better about ourselves?
It serves to show that alternatives to mass murder are not just theoretical but practical. It thoroughly undermines the deployment of TINA by apologists.
I have direct personal experience, and family memory of very few modern conflicts. I endeavoured to reference a situation I actually knew something about. My paternal family have Jewish heritage, they came to Europe fleeing pogroms in Russia at the end of the 19th century.
I grew up off and on in Britain across the 70s, 80s and 90s and I remember the bombing campaign on the mainland of the UK.
And I spent part of my childhood in the Middle East, in Syria, Libya and Yemen - my father was briefly kidnapped in the Lebanon. My father was posted in Yemen when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait - after a while we couldn’t go out to see our parents because it was too considered too dangerous, then they sent my my mother back the UK but my father was expected to stay because that’s what diplomats do. All my childhood I grew up knowing people whose lives were impacted by the conflict in the Middle East.
My parents tried to keep the worst aspects from us - making it a game where we ducked down in the taxi when we went through the main square in Damascus so we wouldn’t see bodies hanging on the gallows (we didn’t know that’s why we doing it), we weren’t told about Dad’s kidnap till years later. When my parents wrote to us at boarding school about grenades being thrown over the wall into grounds of the house, they made a joke of it.
This is not theoretical to me.
I am going to object to this broad-brush stroke. Polls show that the majority of Americans are against this war. I am thinking similar polls in Israel would show a large portion of that country's population are also against the war. (Who in the hell wants drones and rockets raining down on them 24-7?} However, the administrations of both countries are acting like drunken warlords. Netanyahu likes perpetual war as a way to keep from being arrested in his country. Trump also uses war as a way to distract from his other failures as a president.
Of course.
I don't think anyone is disputing that.
I'm not prepared to give the Islamic Republic or its proxies a free pass though.
Years ago I attended an event in London where exiled writers read selections of their work.
One was an Iranian novelist whose books had been censored by the regime, all on the flimsiest of excuses.
There was also a Yemeni poet, a practising Muslim who had no time whatsoever for theocratic regimes or the Saudis who had, in his view, the 'worst of both worlds' - naked Western consumerism and materialism allied to fundamentalist religion.
The trouble is, it's these sort of people who get squeezed out when things polarise.
It's a vicious circle.
The comparison I think it would be legitimate to make between Northern Ireland and the Middle East is that violence begets violence and creates a spiral of tit-for-tat killings that go on for generations.
Once started it's devilishly hard to stop.
We can't turn the clock back to before 1948 or the Sykes-Picot Agreement or ...
Somehow we've got to start where we are now and that's not a very good place from which to start.
But what's the alternative? Endless wars. Orwell was right there.
Doesn't matter, since we are currently not in a position to stop it, and the Trump administration doesn't care whether it's popular.
And @quetzalcoatl didn't say "Americans," he said "the US" - which means the country, and much as we may hate it, he's not wrong. The government we didn't vote for is nevertheless our government, and it's waging an illegal war and committing war crimes with our money if not our approval.
This is us. We collectively own it.
Did someone ask you to?
Yes, reflecting his cruelty and short-sightedness. Trump wants not US energy independence but energy dominance - he wants to use oil to control other countries. He's cut off Venezuelan oil that was going to Cuba, so Cuba is in dire straits. Controling of other countries via oil will make a certain number of people's lives miserable in the near term and in the long term spur more growth of non-fossil-fuel energy sources that the US will not control. And other governments will not forget how shitty we've been while they were transitioning off oil products, while China can just be halfway decent and gain more influence.
Most Americans may not be in a position to stop it now, but come the mid term elections, this will play into our decision making if it continues that long. Once the new Congress forms, assuming at least the House goes Democrat, It will likely refuse to fund the enterprise,
Arethosemyfeet said earlier, "The extent to which Iran is a meaningful threat to Israel is minimal". Some may remember that when Iran bombed Israel in June 2025 after being attacked by Israel they made it clear that they were prepared to do so again. Possibly you feel it is stupid to think that they may have meant it?
No. I'm not saying they did.
Ideally, we'd all be better off with Trump out of the White House, Netanyahu out of the Knesset and a different regime running Iran.
Sadly, that's not where we are at.
You mean they made it clear that they were prepared to bombing Israel again if they were attacked again?
Well, in that case the actual threat is minimal isn't it -- unless you assume Israel should have carte blanche to bomb Iran.
If we are reduced to considering hypothetical threats, then no country in the region - bar Israel - should have any weapons.
Even if it ends tonight, this war will still be something the US has done, just as all the other terrible things you and I and many other Americans disapproved of, protested, and worked against are things the US has done. It is perfectly proper to speak of "the US" behaving like a drunken warlord without making rhetorical carve-outs for sober and peaceful Americans because despite our internal divisions, we are still one country. I protested the war just yesterday - and today my tax dollars are still hard at work killing innocents, our government is still entirely out of hand, our country as a whole is still a menace.
Is the threat minimal though? Or purely rhetorical?
Various Iranian Presidents and prominent clerics have called for the destruction of Israel over the years, have engaged in Holocaust denial and even called for the detonation of a nuclear bomb to wipe it from the map.
You don't have to look far to find citations nor, indeed for claims that Iran has trained and funded Hamas fighters. The Washington Post reported that 500 had been trained prior to the October 7th attack.
Whether we give credence to those reports or not it's pretty clear that opposition to Israel is a central plank in Iranian foreign policy and has been for some time. There have been times though, when relations haven't been overtly hostile.
It's a bit chicken and egg.
Rocket attacks by Iranian proxies have caused comparatively limited damage within Israel because of its anti-missile defences, sometimes augmented by US, British and other countries' air power.
If those defences weren't in place then there'd have been more damage. Those defences wouldn't have been put in place if there wasn't a threat.
There have also been significant attacks on Israeli targets elsewhere such as the destruction of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1994.
Israel, of course, has launched what it considers to be pre-emptive strikes against Iran on several occasions before the current joint US/Israeli offensive.
So both countries are locked in mutual antipathy that flares up into ugly violence from time to time, with Israel having the upper hand in terms of airpower and US support.
Most experts appear to agree that Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons is some way down the line and any immediate threat to Israel from weapons of mass destruction is not imminent.
Neither Israel nor the US have produced any evidence for an imminent threat of that kind and their assault on Iran is illegal under international law - something neither of them appears to care about.
Their proponents would claim of course, as they've done here, that international law is specious and ineffective and that there is no alternative but for them to take matters into their own hands.
Someone should have done the same to Hitler's Germany during the 1930s, the argument runs.
It's not an argument I agree with but neither do I take the repeated threats uttered by Iranian clerics and political leaders as idle and hollow ones. The late Supreme Leader called for Israel to be destroyed and Jews to be subjugated to Muslims.
Was he in a position to carry out that threat? No. Would he have done so had the capability been there? Undoubtedly. Is it right to bomb a country and kill thousands of innocent civilians on the basis of a hypothetical or potential threat? No, I don’t believe it is.
The US already claimed to have destroyed Iran's potential nuclear capability. So what are its aims this time? Its stated aims seem to change every 15 seconds.
Levelling Gaza, swathes of southern Lebanon and hitting non-military targets in Iran isn't going to minimise any threat to Israel - perceived or actual - all it will do is sow the seeds of further conflict.
Iranian clerics already believe there is a Zionist-Christian plot to eradicate Islam. This is only going to convince them further of the reality of that threat.
Both sides believe the other is out to destroy them entirely, a belief that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as the violence escalates.
Add loopy-doopy apocalyptic Christian millenarianism to the mix alongside radical jihadism and ultra-Zionist expansionism and the kind of toxic Jewish fundamentalism that is rarely talked about then it becomes even more of a nightmare scenario.
This isn't 'both-sides-ism' but a recognition of the horrors that can be and are being unleashed by all the main actors here and which are drawing others in whether they like it or not.
I'm not sure where you're getting your information from but my understanding that it is widely known Iran sponsors terrorists organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah and have for ages.
Seems like Iran doesn't care whether they are Sunni or not.
Iranian support for Hamas
Fixed broken link, North East Quine, Purgatory host
No it's defence. Israel has been attacked for years, maybe even decades. October 7 was the clincher that started the all out war.
Israel has been occupying Palestine for decades. They are the aggressor, both on the immediate and historical scale.
You can find parallels for all of that in the Epiphanies thread which is now locked, the difference in treatment is fairly evident here.
Rocket attacks by Hamas have been largely ineffective because they are basically homemade. Rocket attacks by Hezbollah have been more lethal, but have followed a tit for tat pattern, and they have - in the past anyway - been willing to abide by ceasefires when made.
I believe that is the Hamas and Iranian position.
No takers to the above?
Heard an analyst on telly today saying the Australians have been asked to assist by the gulf nations because an Iranian drone costs about $50,000 but an American built missile to intercept cost about a million dollars.
Seems the gulf states are looking for cheaper options to shoot down the aggressor Iran.
Explain away the settlements that are permitted by the Israeli state despite not being on their territory. Isnt that occupation?
Sometimes even the position of utter bastards aligns with the facts.