Ok, since I respect you and we agree on a million other issues I’m gonna start with extending an olive branch. I’m not trying to call you stupid or anything despite my apparent annoyance in my responses. We just disagree and I’d like to actually explain what I think is happening and why this is a horrible course of action that will be utterly devastating for the Iranian people. There’s little reason for most to know about this, it’s openly avoided and suppressed in the media. I’ll also add that my brother’s @Jeff Swann fiancé is from Iran, is trapped in Canada due to the sanctions and Iranian immigration nightmare, and her family is still stuck in Iran. They hate their govt and in no way am I defending the regime in charge. To the contrary, I think it’s largely the fault of western govts that they are in the situation that they currently deal with. So let’s talk about Libya: In the early 2000s, Libya was one of the wealthiest nations in Africa (if not the most). They wanted to arm themselves as any sensible nation would. NATO and the US did not like this. As they had already rung the bell of “middle eastern country X is crazy psychotic and is trying to get a nuclear bomb to end the world” for decades at this point (and still is to this day) and just seem to keep swapping out what X equals. They played all the same cards with Ghaddafi in Libya; weapons of mass destruction, trying to get a bomb, violent regime, gonna mindlessly destroy the west, blah blah. Ghaddafi decided he had no desire to be the enemy of choice for the west and wanted to be seen as a friendly and cooperative partner. They became the literal poster child of disarmament and compliance, they welcomed NATO and played by all the rules. Removed all their nuclear and weapons programs and let the US and NATO check all their work in becoming defenseless. It went so far that the US and NATO even hailed them as the example *for* Iran, which is super ironic as Iran is probably behaving exactly as the Libyan example would teach them. So what happened? Within just a few short years the CIA began funding terrorist groups and rebel militant groups. In a relatively short span the rebels, with bizarrely deep pockets (shocker) kept growing and beckk ok ing more violent until in 2011, they toppled the regime, killed most of Ghaddafi’s family, and the rebels (literally on video) drug Ghaddafi out into the street and sodomized him with a bayonet for a bit before blowing his brains out. This was his reward for compliance after he got put in the “country X” blank in the endlessly touted propaganda talking point. The ultimate result was an externally funded civil war that destroyed the stability of the nation. Today, Libya is literally a failed state. They went from nearly the wealthiest nation in Africa to a violent, chaotic, human rights horror show ever since and last I knew there are multiple violent militant groups trying to gain control supported with weapons and funding by various external nations including China, the US, Israel, Russia, the UAE, etc. The rape, torture, political suppression, and murder of the citizens who got stuck there is just kinda part of the daily activities. This all happened barely over 10 years ago. SO… if I were in the position of the govt of Iran, whether I was an authoritarian lunatic, a libertarian, supporter of a strong republic, whoever I was - doesn’t matter - I would be absolutely certain of one thing: the US, NATO, and Israeli govts were not my friend. I would, as a rule, wake up and first thing every morning watch Ghaddafi get sodomized by a bayonet and repeat the words, “do not comply” 5 times in a row before starting my day. I would fully believe that unless I could defend myself, and possibly unless I had a nuclear bomb, nothing at all would stop them from killing me, my family, and completely destroying my country. Especially since my country had been “country X” spot just “months away from a nuclear bomb” since the 1990s. Now the Iranian govt is pretty awful, they *all* are, but I have absolutely no doubt that the US and Israel swooping in to “bomb the solution” into them means nothing but an absolutely horrible future for the millions of innocent people who live there - I would love to be wrong, but I feel it will turn out just like thinking Trump was going to massively cut the US budget. And I find it slightly ironic that you consider me the naive one, when you seem to believe attacking Iran will make this all better or do anything but make the risk of *all* of these horrible outcomes even greater. I can’t come up with any reason why someone in the Iranian regime would be so foolish as to think leaving their country defenseless was anything less than a ticket to be raped by a short rusty sword. And importantly, **this has nothing to do with whether it’s true, it’s just what someone with common sense would conclude.** Maybe Trump is different, but where’s the evidence of that really? 😒 I certainly don’t like the idea of Iran having a nuclear bomb, but I completely understand why they probably think they have no choice, IF that’s what they’re doing (I also have no reason to trust any of the bullshit spouted by the establishment and can’t fathom taking them at their word on this), as the only countries that the west does NOT seem to arbitrarily install dictators in, start civil wars in, fund terrorists to overthrow, or bomb to the ends of the earth, are ones that have nuclear weapons… 🤷🏻‍♂️ This is “Afghanistan attacked us, we must invade Iraq!” all over again. It almost even rhymes, “Palestine attacked us, we must invade Iran!” (Also funny that we funded Al Qeada in Afghanistan, and Israel funded Hamas in Palestine to destabilize them, create violence, and make the excuse for war easy) And Israel bombed Iran first on the *exact* same claims that they were “funding terrorists,” (the irony being that the two literal champions of terrorist funding are the ones banging this drum) and about to have a nuclear bomb to destroy the world. Because apparently literally every single country with too much oil and no nuclear deterrent has a death wish. I just refuse to buy the literal exact same lines again, and I think you are smart enough to realize that something doesn’t add up here. Personally I’m sick of being lied into wars and then pretending like “we didn’t know” when we find out later that everything they said was utter horseshit, which it always is. Seriously, have you ever even really looked at them when they are saying that “our sources know they are 🤏 this close!”? Netanyahu literally held up a picture of an ACME cartoon bomb with some lines on it that said 60% and 90% that were filling it up. Come on? They think we are all completely retarded and how they talk to is exactly in line with that. It’s always an absurd oversimplification, the proverbial “everything is a nail and here’s my trillion dollar hammer” of nation meddling, caused by the very govts who just need the next thing for their war machine. Sorry if I get frustrated that the never ending war machine gets their next war to solve the previous problems of the war machine terrorist funding by dumping ever more funding and control into the war machine. This is the fiat game. There is nothing but death and destruction on this path, and I just won’t buy the exact same line they have used over and over again. It’s just like Hollywood making the same stupid, generic film over and over again. They have their recipe and they just keep bringing it out every time. Whenever the justification of their infinite bank account starts to get the tiniest bit difficult, they swap out the characters and play the same movie on repeat, and if enough people don’t beleive it, they fund more violence and terrorism until people are convinced that bombing “country X” is the only way to prevent mass destruction. ———————— I hope you actually read all of that and give it the attention it deserves, without brushing me off as naive for thinking a war isn’t the solution to a problem caused by war, or that I’m just “sitting on the sidelines with my opinion,” when I suspect my family has more invested in the outcome than you do (though that’s a guess and I have no idea if you know anyone in/from Iran).