There no feasible escalation path for the US. Trump has alienated allies and much of his anti war supporters. A forever war quagmire in a country 3x larger than Iraq is unlikely, as is carpet bombing. So what's left? A JCPOA style agreement with a Maga bumper sticker on it, with heavy concessions to Iran to prevent them from racing to a bomb, which is the best option from their pov at this point.
Carpet bombing would be a waste of munitions. Iran to your point is massive and surface level bombing would mostly take out civilians. The civilians have been through enough. Most of Irans military and religious leaders are in missile cities that are 500 meters+ under mountains of rock, the same places they are creating nuclear material. These bunkers are immune to bunker busters and nukes. That will require ground troops and likely a lot of them. How that plays out specifically I have not a clue. I can only hope that they share body-cam footage and that casualties are kept to a minimum. If there is one thing I can give Iran credit for that is building some amazing and very impressive bunkers using US dollars.
with heavy concessions to Iran to prevent them from racing to a bomb
This game has already been played out many times before. Obama unfroze 1.7 billion, Biden gave them upwards of 6 billion. All together the US has given them upwards of 60 billion to pinky promise they wont build nukes. Never pay a bully, ever. They used that extortion money to build bunkers, pay their proxy soldiers to attack Israel and all the gulf states and to work on their bunkers. There will be no more of that. Shame on anyone that falls for those shenanigans again.
Age old story of all choke points of course. I was taught about choke points by a family member that served in WWII and it's funny, thinking back I was in trouble because I could not find the Strait of Hormuz on a world globe that had no writing on it. I mean seriously ... who keeps such a globe just sitting around for such an obscure moment? That lesson stuck with me. It was a strange lesson but it stuck nonetheless.
Was just reading that this is the first time a waterway choke point (other than canals which are man made) has had a toll. The implications are intriguing for their novelty and unknown second order effects.
Also, the comment about the globe reminds me of a quip from The Daily Show that went something like "... something something War, or how Americans learn geography." You are lucky to have prior generations which provide such inter-generational teaching moments.
The Iran nuclear agreement was absolutely working for the year or so it lasted. International inspectors finally got to see things. Iran did not have a significant nuclear program during Trump's first term when he killed the agreement.
After Trump killed the agreement, what was Iran supposed to do? If the US can just ignore a diplomatic agreement, there's no reason for Iran to follow it. That means diplomacy is basically off the table. So they built a nuclear weapons industry again.
If Iran just wants to kill kill kill, why did it shut down it's chemical weapon industry? Why no dirty bombs? Why no gas attacks? Why is Iran, fighting an actually existential war, pulling it's punches? Why is it not hitting desalination plants like it can? They demonstrated that they have weapons that could hit Europe.
International inspectors finally got to see things.
Or so we are told. I have my doubts that they had access to all the missile cities. We will never know. Nobody will ever know until ICBM's, SRBM's and SRAM's start rolling out of their bunkers and Iran becomes a nuclear power. I believe this has been the goal of their stalling tactics and bullying. Too many nations trust but never really verify. This is how things went wrong with North Korea.
Give tourists paid access to all the bunkers. I want to ride an e-bike through all of them.
> Never pay a bully, ever. They used that extortion money to build bunkers
Which bully are we talking about here? I'm guessing Donald Trump, who took millions in "donations" to demolish a 3rd of the white house to build a new bunker with a stupid ballroom on top (which will never get built, but the GOP will just shrug when asked where the money went).
Had Iran done anything to the US as heinous as this one "mistake" in the last 50 years that compares? Imagine if some country did this to us and just brushed it off as a mistake.
In 1979–1981, Iranian revolutionary forces and aligned militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage during the Iran hostage crisis.
In 1983, IRGC-backed proxies carried out the Beirut barracks bombing, a suicide truck attack that killed 241 U.S. service members in Beirut.
In 1983–84, IRGC-backed proxies bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing dozens of Americans and local staff.
In 1984, IRGC-backed proxies kidnapped CIA station chief William Francis Buckley in Beirut, held and tortured him, and he died in captivity in 1985.
In 1984, militants linked to IRGC-backed Hezbollah hijacked Kuwait Airways Flight 221, holding multiple passengers including Americans hostage.
In 1985, Hezbollah operatives hijacked TWA Flight 847, during which U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem was murdered.
In 1996, a truck bomb destroyed the Khobar Towers, killing 19 U.S. Air Force personnel; U.S. authorities later linked the attack to Saudi Hezbollah backed by Iran.
From 2003–2011, IRGC-backed militias in Iraq used EFP roadside bombs and other attacks that killed and wounded hundreds of U.S. troops.
In 2011, U.S. authorities disrupted an alleged IRGC-directed plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, which could have caused American civilian casualties.
In 2007, IRGC-backed militants carried out the Karbala provincial headquarters attack, killing five U.S. soldiers.
In the 2010s–2020s, IRGC-backed groups have been linked to attempted or foiled plots against U.S. individuals abroad, including dissidents and officials.
In 2019, IRGC-backed militias attacked the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad.
From 2019–present, IRGC-backed groups have conducted repeated rocket and drone attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria.
In 2024, IRGC-backed militants carried out the Tower 22 drone attack, killing three U.S. service members.
With exception of embassies, most of what you mentioned are military targets and those proxies are native citizens who are attacking hostile aliens. When you send soldiers to other countries what do you expect?
Why US has military presence in every other country? Be more MAGA
Yes please, but start a bit earlier and tell me the white house version of how the US staged a coup against Mossadegh in 1953 to install the Shah regime and control oil (ring a bell?)
That just means that you agree that there has been a war going on for 50 years which was the OPs point. You are agreeing with the person you responded to.
I am not sure why you are operating on such a weird definition of "war" that because 1 thing happened 50+ years ago that changes whats happening now.
Just look at whats happening now. Iran is shooting missiles at all sorts of countries all over the place. (not just the US or israel). Its clearly in a war with a lot of groups right now. It is a silly handwave to pretend like a war isn't going on now, because of something that happened 50 years ago.
Its clearly not unilateral, given how many other countries, that are not the US, have had missiles shot at them by Iran.
As a similar example Russia invaded Ukraine. There is a war going on between them and Ukraine. And when there is a war, countries attack each other. "Who started it" doesn't change the fact that a war is happening.
Your strongest example should be good enough. So far you've got 1) flights between Venezuela and Iran 2) whitehouse.gov.
Even if Trump's Whitehouse was a good source and you took it at face value, most of the items in that list are by Iranian proxy, i.e. Iranian intelligence involvement. So by comparison you'd have to include Israel and CIA actions and then it's just a mess to figure out who's worse.
But even then, I don't see anything in there that's as evil as blowing apart dozens of school children in one blow, mistake or not.
No, because when you grow up life becomes short and full of mundane things like making money and raising children, and you realize those were all fantasies someone made up and sold to you, and even if those things came true it would not suddenly add adventure to your life, which was the real hook.
That's what people said about sailing across the sea, flying, and a million other things as they toiled in the dirt growing beets. Many of those fantasies did come true. Maybe not for the dreamers themselves, but for someone.
Interstellar FTL travel will likely never happen for anyone. There's a difference.
So? Flying is a chore. What do you expect to find with FTL travel anyway? We pretty much know what's out there and it doesn't look all that interesting. It's a lot of rocks. Maybe there are some weird life forms that would be interesting in an academic way.
Otherwise it looks very much like we are outliers and that nature's purpose, if it has any, is different and orthogonal to ours. This human drama is just a side show.
I've seen the video where all these methods were tried to no avail, so I don't have much faith in them. The safest solution is to put the animal down, but of course you have to have something on hand to do that. A 4x2 to the temple should do it. That'll end the aggressor and save the victim.
"Should", maybe, but I've seen a pretty disturbing video where a pit bull took a lot more than one hit... it was multiple minutes of hits. And it only let go after it died, I've never seen anything like it.
Carmack can be enthusiastic about AI because it's no threat to him, he's already set. He's not going to be laid off, and if he is, he can just do coding as a hobby for the rest of his life. He doesn't need to worry about what blue collar job to retrain for in middle age to be able to pay his mortgage and clothe his kids.
And it is a form of cheating to take a gift and profit off of it, keeping all the profits for yourself, it goes against the spirit of it. Until now that was fine, because there was a sense that it made more things possible and created jobs, and these projects were improved through reciprocal contribution.
AI vacuumed everything up for itself and turned around and said now I'm going to replace you.
Why wouldn't it be, you think the body was made to run all day? Most animals lay around all day with some bursts of activity. The exercise fad is just a peculiar neuroticism modern Westerners have.
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