One Week Into the Iran War ...
What's your opinion now? (Not paywalled).
Thanks for the 367 comments that my late February post “What Do You Think About the Iran War?” elicited.
Now, a week into the war, what do you think?
I’m especially interested in hearing from those of you (if any) who have changed your minds, pro or con.
Personally, I haven’t been following Iran much in recent years. It’s been in the news for about 48 years now, and, to be frank, I got bored with it.
But my not knowing much about Iran in recent years means that I don’t feel confident in issuing Hot Takes about it.
My general opinion is that starting a war of killing people and breaking things is something that should be taken on only reluctantly.
The U.S. seemed to be on the upswing since Trump’s re-election, as I suggested in my recent post, “Is Nature Healing?”
So why risk so much on the chances of war?
What do you think?
The Iranian government is something out of the 12th century. They own all the oil and print money whenever they need it; since they're first in line they don't feel the effects and it doesn't matter. Meanwhile a country that should rival the US for living standards is a dreary Muslim dump. But I don't see any scenario where they lose power without US soldiers marching into the place and destroying them. Also Iran has 91 million people. How many of them support their fanatical Shia government--10 million, 20 million, 30 million, 50 million? I have no idea.
Does the Trump administration know something I don't? Does the CIA have an interim leader on ice somewhere waiting to swoop in? Are we in touch with the Iranian Ataturkists? Does anything like that exist? Again, no idea.
I find it difficult to believe that the Trump administration decided to take this leap without some sort of shadow government waiting to get installed. Did everybody just nod in agreement when Trump and whoever said we'll just blow stuff up for a zillion dollars a day and see what happens? I would find it very out of character for our Developer-in-Chief, who has so far always kept an ace as his hole card. But maybe i'm overestimating him this time.
Still too soon to tell, Steve. But I will be greatly disappointed if it turns out the plan was let's just blow everything up and see what happens. It's not like we don't have things to worry about and spend our global reserve currency on here.
Steve, I was a teenager at the time of the 1979 Iranian revolution and subsequent 444-day hostage crisis. I still remember how weak the U.S. looked under Carter. As you know, what followed was 45 years of Iranian funded islamic terrorism and lots of dead Americans and Westerners. I'm personally enjoying some long overdue payback against the mullahs and ayatollahs. That being said, let's not be dragged into another ground war and attempt at nation building.