by almostdeadguy | 2025-06-24 00:11:32+00:00
> I don't think "acts of war" mean much in real statecraft; there's no referee, things are what people say they are and outcomes are determined by military and economic power. But anyone going down that path has to recognize the hole Iran dug for itself here. They didn't have to do any of this.

I'll preface this by saying I understand fixating on a small detail, and as evidenced by this thread, I readily engage in that. I also think the thing about the fatwa against nuclear weapons is a little silly, it seems like there are incredibly obvious, rational reasons for Iran to want a nuclear arsenal.

To back up to Oct 2024 (to make a different point, I'm not trying to take us further down the rabbit hole), I think it's worth pointing out how arbitrary it is to choose this moment in time as a point where Iran "dug a hole for itself". Presumably a moment of intervening agency that breaks from what came before and after. It's a vantage point that has no real significance to the broader conflict, doesn't tie to the beginning or end of anything significant. It's unclear why that moment in particular is where Iran could have set us on a different course, and why we should consider jettisoning the rest of historical baggage that lead up to that moment. And it has the whiff of being chosen arbitrarily to exculpate (or sideline any notion of) the United State's involvement in this conflict. It's the kind of detail I expect to see fixated on CNN, without any mention of events like Israel's former invasion of Lebanon, the impact of the Nakba and the One Million Plan on the surrounding Arab states, the Dulles brother's lead coup in Iran that deposed a secular, democratic leader, etc. Not that you even really need to go back that far, there's plenty of events proximate to 10/1/24 that lead to Iran launching missiles, like Israel staging a land invasion outside Lebanon.

I don't think that's what you're doing (I'd rather not speculate on why that moment is significant to you, and would be curious to hear your own take), but I want to explain why discourse like this becomes touchy. For some of us millennials, our defining political experience was seeing the United States become an incredibly sore loser via a problem of our own making (and infuriatingly, we apparently learned nothing from the consequences of funding the Mujahideen). We are obviously, also a victim of our own circumstances, no less than Iran, but we are also an agent of incomparable power in world events. And for many of us it became clear how carelessly, callously, and selfishly that power is wielded and how quickly we victimized ourselves and were unwilling to tolerate criticism. Aaron Sorkin wasn't even able to make the movie that depicted how much of a problem of our own making this was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Wilson%27s_War_(film)#...

All this to say, if you feel ganged up on, I get it and sympathize. I think you have good intentions here, and I'm sorry if I came in too hot. Some of us are just nauseated by our position in the world and culpability for all this harm, and are constantly frustrated by the hegemonic political discourse that is adamant to deflect criticism and prioritize American exceptionalism above all.