As a matter of fact, if Iran comes out of the war having not committed war crimes they’ll have a huge worldwide moral and public image victory over the United States and Israel.
Iran already has won on this matter, which is a major concern considering it is an islamist dictatorship that recently killed thousands if not ten of thousands of its own population.
yet israel and the US both come out are infinitely worse in comparison, committing massive war crimes, lead by incompetent far-right extremists blinded by ideology and motivated by greed, personal gain and attempting to evade legal issues.
How am I reading this? Wasn't the regime mowing down tens of thousands of its own citizens prior to this war? I mean, not a "war" crime, I guess, but it seems ludicrous to give them any "moral victories".
You forget that there's different moral codes in the world. There is yours, which is effectively Judeo-Christian and you judge Iran's islamist regime as reprehensible because of the amount of lives they destroyed. Brutally destroyed.
There is also "pride" as a moral code, where appearances of military superiority are what matters. At the start of the conflict the US and Israel appeared 100% invincible, and now they appear ... 99.9% invincible. So ... "victory for Iran" ... I guess.
In reality, of course, in response to "Israeli agression", Iran has severely damaged literally everyone who might have been on their side, with near-zero damage to Israel and US, while their own forces are dying in large numbers, while boasting of it. What an achievement! But that's where appearances matter. If they boast of it enough, maybe they can convince enough people ...
I’m not convinced that Iran has damaged their relationship to the gulf states any more than the US and Israel have damaged theirs. The US has clearly demonstrated that they are willing to use their bases in an allied state to start a war of at least questionable legality that has the entirety predicted outcome of massively damaging the allies economy, possibly for decades to come. All the gulf states will soon re-evaluate their security relationship with the US. On the side, the US has also severely damaged NATO, to the point that NATO states have closed their air space to US planes involved in the war. On top of that, some European states have blocked flights transporting weapons for Israel. Not to mention the fact that Iran and the rest of the world has been demonstrated again that negotiations or agreements with the US do not mean anything. China will look appealing as a guarantor or peace soon to a lot of people.
I believe the long term damage this has caused in immeasurable and the only way to remedy this would be that both Israel and the US find some way to investigate who and why started this war - and possibly prosecuting any war crime that may have occurred.
Also, the EU needs to grow a spine, fast.
But alas, I have no hope of that happening. We’re all worse off for that.
They already targetted civilian infrastructure, so they already commited war crime. They also threatened to attack universities wh8ch is war crime on itself (after attack on their universities).
Iran has for nearly fifty years pursued unilateral hostilities against the US and Israel, including funding numerous terrorist groups and militias to wage war on them. It can’t negotiate its way out of this quagmire because the IRGC’s core ideology and mission is hatred (and hostage-taking).
In addition to waging continuous offensive militia operations, it’s been cultivating a conventional and nuclear offensive option which it most definitely would use if it had it, because again, the IRGC’s reason for existence is to “resist” Israel and the US, by which they mean obliterate those nations. What Trump recently has been saying about Iran is exactly what Iran has been saying for decades about the US and Israel.
One of those militias went all Leroy Jenkins in 2023 and prematurely initiated the current hot war, which Iran is losing. In frustration, Iran has embarked on a terror campaign of bombing neutral neighbors to punish them for … friendly diplomacy with the US I guess, and bombing civilians in Israel. And annexing an international waterway.
What Trump and folks on this board don’t seem to realize is that war with Iran is more like fighting a bunch of lawyers. You hurt them kinetically and they make you feel like you hurt yourself, get all confused. They slaughter 35k of their own people and shut off the Internet; the US mixes up the boundaries of an IRGC naval base in a much more constrained horror and the UN starts strutting around.
Narratives do matter for winning wars and between Trump derangement syndrome and the IRGC’s natural cleverness at permanent victimhood, it’s the narrative that’s at risk in a war between great nations that, unfortunately, sadly has been perfectly inevitable for decades.
I doubt anyone actually thinks the Iranian regime is good in anyway. But I thought the whole points of MAGA was "No new wars".
And now there's a new war, without any real reason (other than something something Netanyahu and they don't like the US) against a country that is a much more sophisticated adversary than Afghanistan or Iraq.
"sadly has been perfectly inevitable for decades"
Surely by now we know nothing is inevitable? Especially over the range of decades.
It's not unilateral, the US have been deeply involved in Iran since the 50´s and the overthrow of the democratic government in order to allow the US companies to continue to steal Iran's oil.
Then of course they had to deal with Irak who invaded them using US weapons and intel. Including use of sarin gas, thanks to US intel.
The argument about democracy in Iran is hypocritical given that neither Trump or Israelis care about it at all. They just want weak client States.
The Iranians didn't wake up hating the USA one day and a little techouva would be healthy if we want this conflict to end.
So you're saying, as soon as a party does something serious against you, say taking your embassy staff hostage (just to select a random thing one might do), then ANY future and continued hostilities, no matter how immoral the means used, are justified, even 50+ years later? I mean, you're singing the praises of long-term revenge. Oh and the 1979 revolution was a socialist revolution that even had support from the KGB.
So that's great. Then, of course, anything the US does against Iran's islamist regime is justified according to you! Excellent news, that. Strange, I got a different impression from your tone.
P.S. you are now supposed to say that it merely means "you understand why" they act like this, not if it's justified. Even though you absolutely won't understand the US killing a few hundred Iranians in revenge.
I'm saying that violence between the two countries wasn't unilateral and that the US have a long history of aggression against Iran, culminating now. My post is quite clear.
Ending a cycle of violence also requires to accept where you did wrong (i.e "techouva"). The US have been bombing the world since 1943, with for the most part, little effect aside on the suffering of the civilians under fire.
The only intelligent move to stop the cycle of violence with Iran was the nuclear deal framework made by Obama. It was of course was terminated by Trump, which worked very well as the current war shows.
Bombing Iran during negociations, killing their supreme leader and negociators, commiting war crimes, won't clearly solve anything.
When I read such post, I feel that many people supporting the war in the US just have a sadistic instinct that needs to be expressed, whatever the consequences. Hurting (or, as the Trump aides say "fucking") other people won't fix the emptiness of your lives.
Trump’s bargaining position has been: stop raising foreign armies to attack Israel; stop trying to sneak into the nuclear club, because we know what you’re going to do.
Translated to human terms: stop threatening the US and its allies.
The US position is not sadism, it’s how every nation except Iran tolerates one another, live and let live.
Russia and the US— they competed strongly with one another during the Cold War but generally respected red lines. Russia withdrew its kinetic threat from Cuba, the US knew circa 1998 that expanding NATO through the old Warsaw Pact would make no friends in Moscow. Strong, rules-based brinksmanship all the way around.
Iran is just about ideological extremism. Sometimes there are rules, or used to be, but the IRGC signed up a bunch of unprofessional clowns to wage total war on its behalf and, at core, talks like “mutually assured destruction” would be a total “win”, provided Israel was on the other side. If either superpower exposed that kind of philosophy in the Cold War can you imagine the calamity? It’s inherently destabilizing.
Trump's position is to do what the Israelis ask him. Nothing else. Iran doesn't threaten the US. On the other hand, the US has multiple times helped Iran's enemies (Irak) commit atrocities[0] or enforced a coup to continue stealing its oil. As stated by Tulsi Gabbard, there was no imminent threat to the US before the war.
Few things:
- Please don't talk about “rules-based brinksmanship” when the US commits bombing and decapitation strikes during negotiations. Or when they send real estate developers to discuss nuclear programs[1].
- Iran had agreed to limit its enrichment and allow inspectors in to verify it. Of course, it was too much for Israelis who didn't want another competing power in the region. The end of the agreement led Iran to restart enriching its uranium at higher rates, having the (expected) complete opposite effect than what was wanted. Who's the clown here? Trump.
- The US' “ally”, Israel, currently has a far-right religious Zionist government that ticks all the boxes for ideological extremism. It also has a MAD doctrine regarding its illegal nukes. [2]
- Hezbollah was born after the Israeli occupation of Lebanon. While it was structured by Iran, its ranks are made of Lebanese citizens. Many non-Shia Lebanese will agree that it's the main defense against the invasion of their country, which is desired by the Zionist right to achieve their “greater Israel” project[3]. While Hezbollah is problematic now, its removal should be accompanied by a commitment by Israel not to invade its neighbors and to stop the illegal colonization of the West Bank.
In general, it's a recurrent strategy by Israel: favor frictions, violence, and fuel the most extremist of your opponents, to justify retaliation, and then allow you to extend your position. For instance, Israel was helping Gulf States to fund Hamas before the recent war started.[4] The US is an accomplice, as Israeli money heavily funds its politicians. It's not an ally.
The United States is perfectly capable of performing atrocities without Israeli permission, and Israel is completely dependent on US funding and weaponry, not the other way around. And who's actually ever managed to put a leash on Trump?
I really think this sort of "Israel is in control" thing leans into conspiracy lala land at best, and certain very dangerous and bad territory at worst.
The last two operations in Iran were done on the instigation of Israel. The bunker bombing and the current war. The administration gladly admitted it.
And Israel is, through AIPAC, one of the largest donors in congress. Myriam Adelson, an Israeli billionaire and outspoken zionist, gave Trump $100 million for his campaign. Of course she is outright buying Trump, asking him to support the illegal colonization of the West Bank.
On top of that, evangelical christians, who tend to be radical zionists, are Trump's core voter base and fund directly Tsahal and Israel through donations. You can learn directly from the actors in this excellent israeli documentary:
So yeah, not really a conspiration, it's all out in the open. It's also not just a foreign policy, Trump threatened to end universities' funding if they didn't forbid criticism of Israel and allowed the administration to monitor them. A large part of his aides and government members are also Jewish and zionist advocates, which of course steers the policy.
Jared Kushner even does real estate promotion in the illegal colonies, when he's not sent to fail negociations regarding nuclear enrichment
If you start with the view that Israel has a right to exist, like Kuwait has a right to exist, what common ground then is possible with the IRGC? Did Saddam Hussein think it was a winning strategy to lecture the world about Kuwaitis pulling the strings in the original Desert Storm?
The IRGC and Iranian leadership assume that since Israel is just one nation, and not a big one, that they really really want to annihilate, it should be no big deal for everyone else to accept. But that is a dangerous, even existential proposal on both sides, as the IRGC knows, partly because the US position worldwide is about projecting security for partners.
Iran actually occupies a mirror position regarding the Palestinians, who have fought and suffered greatly. So Iran strives to reverse the positions of the Israelis and Palestinians— not to raise all ships, but swap them— which isn’t a moral cause from an impartial perspective, it’s just picking a different winner.
The US and Israel sought peace through negotiations for decades regarding the Palestinians, while Iran has continually plotted and waged war, which it now has on its home soil. The US and Israel have genuinely sought to peacefully resolve the situation, while Iran has not, not in my lifetime.
Israelis didn't "sought peace through negotiations for decades regarding the Palestinians". They have a long history if violence and apartheid policies, since the beginning. Negociation attempt have been done under the pressure of the US, and Israelis commonly break ceasefires, and favor the most extremist of their opponents to keep the tension going.
The problem with Israel is that the initial colonization was mostly illegal and problematic. Now, time has passed and countries should recognize its existence, while Israel should also stop its plans of a "greater Israel", including invading and bombing all of its neighbors. And stop the illegal colonization of the West Bank, along with their policies and ideology treating Palestinians like animals.
Israel is a rogue state, with illegal nuclear weapons, that protects criminals from all over the world and refuses to extrade them and commits war crimes in the open. Your way of thinking, which it is a pure white dove in a sea of evil muslims won't solve anything : Israelis have to do techouva if they want peace.
Unfortunately, the current far-right government pursues a religious messianic plan, including the destruction of muslim holy sites to rebuild the temple, so they won't accept a lasting peace.
Iran is however not an existential threat to Israel, as long as it doesn't have a nuke. So the efforts should concentrate on this aspect, to which the Iranians were open to discuss...until the Israelis assassinated the negotiation team and the supreme leader that could have imposed a desescalation deal.
Prisoner exchanges are a pretty strong motivator for any group, even hardline ones. If the Taliban was up for exchanges I think the IRGC is pretty likely to want to keep prisoners for that too.
I would note ISIS put out some high res, professionally edited video of burning a (Jordanian?) pilot to death while inside a cage. Quite savage, but the propaganda effect is more profound than about anything else I've seen.
Yes, after that video it was clear that Daesh and everyone in their little caliphate would be hunted down. And it was, they were. They were attacked everywhere they tried to return to. From minor girls returning to the Netherlands to 45 year old men (trying to) return to South Africa, all were persecuted, and that one video had a lot to do with that happening. After that video, even muslim nations started hunting these people.
And yet, they are still around, made famous and split into separate groups, still actively fighting on multiple fronts all over Africa. And if the Iranian government falls for sure they will be coming back with a vengeance in the area.
When they struck desalination plants in Bahrain would be an easy example. You can say that they are retaliatory strikes, but they are certainly against the Geneva Conventions.
Iran's use of cluster munitions to attack swaths of Israeli cities is also against the Geneva Convention (though I'd again point out that we started hitting civilian targets in Iran first).
Both sides have violated the conventions, but the US and Israel have violated them to a much greater degree (especially Israel and all their attacks on Lebanese civilians not to mention razing Gaza).
That's a lovely thing to say, but if your existence is being threatened by an aggressor, I wouldn't blame you for throwing out the rulebook.
In my view, if someone invades your territory and starts attacking you, you have no obligation to follow any sort of "principles" or "rules" when it comes to how you fight back. Anything you need to do to the attackers in order to defend yourself and your people is, by definition, morally defensible.
(Do note that I said "need". Doing arbitrary messed-up things that don't actually further the goal of driving back the attackers is not ok.)
They tried restraint and proportionality for decades and where did that get them? 47 years of non-stop aggression, espionage, sanctions and the mass deaths of Iranian civilians.
There is no if. We've already done that. So yes, we are no better than them. So answer the question. Why would Iran follow conventions it's enemy that started a war of aggression is not following?
First: count the responses to my thread of people suggesting Iran cannot/should not be held to the Geneva convention: 4,5 (I'm counting the Hegseth comment as 0.5)
The point is there are a great deal of people, even in the US, who advocate that it is unreasonable to hold people fighting the west in general and US in particular to the Geneva conventions. I don't know where this idea comes from, because morally it is of course indefensible, but there you go.
I would expect the number to be bigger in Iran. I would expect the number among IRGC extremists to be even higher than in Iran in general.
Second: war crimes have 2 interpretations. First as violations of the Rome treaty which require that the state where the warcrimes happen has signed the Rome treaty. Iran hasn't.
The second interpretation of warcrimes is that they are violations of the Geneva conventions, and the reaction would be that the UN security council intervenes. Well, the UNSC has preemptively declared they will not hold Iran to account for warcrimes (to be exact: France, Russia and China have declared they will veto). So at minimum you can say that Iranian warcrimes will not have any "official" consequences.
The world and the UN have decided that warcrimes "don't count". As in there will not be any consequences unless the government of the country where they happened implements those consequences.
Third: Iran has already kidnapped a US civilian (a reporter, Shelly Kittleson) and are holding her hostage. This is already a violation of the Geneva convention. They have also kidnapped hundreds of foreign nationals of other nations and are also holding them for ransom, which is also a violation of human rights, ie. a warcrime.
So those are my three reasons Iran won't hold itself to human rights standards.
France vetoed proposal about opening the straight by force. France and Europe in general dont want to dragged into this war.
Also, I dont see UN punishing Israel or American war crimes either ... so it makes sense to not apply "whatever goes" standard to aggressors and different one to the defender.
> Iran has already kidnapped a US civilian (a reporter, Shelly Kittleson) and are holding her hostage.
Expect there to be a lot of operatives of the US in Iran. Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it wouldn't be the first time a CIA or something operative is caught and this is the cover.
You mean the army shooting 40.000 protestors just 2 months ago including 1000+ children, then executed a child that won an international wrestling competition, now accusing everyone else of warcrimes?
I think I'll need some reeducation on this concept of "dignity" you speak. Could you explain further?
None of those numbers are verifiable. The opposition has every incentive to lie. And let's not forget there was a lot of armed agitators amongst those protesters. Mike Huckabee let the cat out of the bag with a tweet boasting of how a mossad agent walks beside every protester.
You're confidently replying to a point that I did not make. Protesters were certainly killed, both peaceful ones and agitators. In addition, government claims hundreds of police officers died and places of worship were attacked and burned.
My point is there is simply no verifiable numbers because both the opposition, particularly diaspora groups backed by the regimes enemies, and the government have incentives to be inaccurate. So trying to use the death toll as a talking point is not a good idea.
It's completely naive to underestimate the role of Mossad and the United States in the unrest. The former through actual Iranian nationals in their employ, and the latter in engineering the dollar shortage that led to the unrest in the first place (Scott Besant bragged about this).
Especially after the double-tap on civilians and first responders the US just did on that bridge. Or the threat for no quarters from the secretary of defense. Or the threats to destroy critical civilian infrastructure for water or power.
