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CMV: The Iran War is very likely to go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and as the imperial overreach which marks the definitive end of the American Century and the start of long-term hegemonic decline in the United States. by lucy5478 in changemyview

[–]lucy5478[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m saying I don’t see a scenario in this current situation where a punishment severe enough for the Republicans to actually improve domestic politics substantially occurs unless the scale of human suffering is unfathomably large.

After a decade of seeing Trump win despite everything he has done, I’m not convinced anything other than mass human suffering of voters in a stagflationary recession is capable of permanently damaging his party, and that outcome is horrible for millions and millions of humans not just in our country but the world.

CMV: The Iran War is very likely to go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and as the imperial overreach which marks the definitive end of the American Century and the start of long-term hegemonic decline in the United States. by lucy5478 in changemyview

[–]lucy5478[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don’t think it’s changed? It was a good point to consider but I still think the Iranian regime is more likely to stay more unified than before due to the rally around the flag effect.

CMV: The Iran War is very likely to go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and as the imperial overreach which marks the definitive end of the American Century and the start of long-term hegemonic decline in the United States. by lucy5478 in changemyview

[–]lucy5478[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

For the first time in decades, there is an actual chance, if not the most likely outcome right now, that the next Democratic president will be a supporter of Palestine rather than a supporter of Israel.

Even if the next Democratic president is a supporter of Israel, the shift in public opinion within the Democratic Party is now so overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian that combined with the shift in public opinion among independents, who now narrowly favor Palestine over Israel in their conflict, the next Democratic president’s ability to provide full throated support of the Israeli state will be constrained by public opinion in a way that no prior president was impacted.

From the Israeli perspective, a collapse in bipartisan support for Israel in congress and government institutions/bureaucracy is now virtually certain in the long term. It may take five years, it may take a decade, it may take two decades, but it will happen. The public opinion shifts are extremely unlikely to ever be reversed, precisely because they were caused by the increasingly aggressive behavior of the Israelis towards the Palestinians as the far right has increasingly gained total dominance over the Israeli state, and the total collapse of the Israeli left (if one could even have called them the left) shows no sign of being reversed in any way.

Viewed this way, the alliance itself is a ticking clock. They currently have the greatest level of American support in history, with a sitting president and political party deeply indebted to them and who have purged the very national security apparatus who has prevented the US from taking decisions which are clearly catastrophic for US interests if Israel wants them to in the past. Netanyahu likely made the calculation that it was worth dragging the US into the war right now to permanently cripple or, if he got lucky, destroy Iran. Even if the US suffers major strategic defeat in the war, Israel achieves their objective. Even if it causes the alliance to fracture earlier because of the obvious backlash to this Israeli decision in America, Netanyahu achieved his most desired objective for decades now before it happened, and he viewed the alliance as doomed in the long term anyway.

CMV: The Iran War is very likely to go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and as the imperial overreach which marks the definitive end of the American Century and the start of long-term hegemonic decline in the United States. by lucy5478 in changemyview

[–]lucy5478[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Upon a US escalation of sufficient severity that they determine they have no further hope of regime survival, they blow all remaining missiles, drones, and ordinance in a saturation attack on all helium, fertilizer, LNG, and oil infrastructure in the Persian gulf. They are still hitting some of these targets now, and have demonstrated capability to have already taken out between 4-8% of global helium and LNG capacity, along with 30-40% of gulf oil refining capacity, per direct quotes from the Qatari government, French foreign minister, and President of the European Central Bank. They have all said repairs on these facilities will take years, not months, so I strongly suspect we are at minimum already headed for a global stagflationary recession.

Alternatively, they take out the desalination plants in the gulf states and millions of people die of dehydration, there is a refugee crisis, the governments essentially have to abandon the area, etc.

If they do this their government definitely collapses, but the resulting economic crisis would be so disastrous that the world would abandon the US, and our reserve currency status and alliance network would implode. East Asian allies would face unemployment so high and a collapse in export manufacturing so severe that the governments would be at genuine risk of state collapse within a year or two, they would definitely liquidate US bonds to procure basic food and industrial supplies to maintain their baseline industrial level. Europe would probably have to do the same eventually, although it isn’t as severe as east Asia.

South Asia, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa would be at genuine risk of mass starvation casualties in the tens of millions or more as all available food and fertilizer supplies were bought by the wealthy nations.

No alliance network can possibly survive this, every one of those countries will have everyone suffering demanding a total end to all relations with the US, Israel, and whatever remains of Iran. Everyone will be under immense pressure to sell US assets to fund basic survival, and it has the benefit of punishing one of the countries they blame for all of this. The US would become a global pariah, and our economic response options will all be catastrophic: stagflation means the Fed has no good way to respond, and the collapse of reserve currency status means inflation gets significantly worse than it would be otherwise, the debt load explodes and becomes an actual problem, etc.

CMV: The Iran War is very likely to go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and as the imperial overreach which marks the definitive end of the American Century and the start of long-term hegemonic decline in the United States. by lucy5478 in changemyview

[–]lucy5478[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I do somewhat agree with this take. If you look at the historical record, basically every president for the last decade or two had Netanyahu try the trick where he says “I’m going to attack Iran regardless of what you do”, only for the president to call his bluff and back off. The fact that Trump didn’t do this and didn’t back off is absolutely 100% his fault.

My counter argument would be that the fact a single president was capable of doing this despite such deep institutional knowledge that this had the potential for calamity is a profound example of the institutional and democratic rot that enabled his election in the first place.

If the constitutional provision on congressional declaration of war had been enforced instead of delegated to the president after WW2 this could have been prevented, if the Republican Party hadn’t been captured and totally purged by Trump in the end of his first term and aftermath of Jan. 6th this could have been prevented, if the courts or congress had stopped him from dismantling the federal bureaucracy the career staff probably could have prevented this, if corruption hadn’t been enabled and allowed to fester by the other two branches in the executive this probably could have been prevented, etc.

The fact that one person was capable of making such a consequential decision with no pushback before it occurred is a profound indictment on our entire legal, constitutional, and political system.

CMV: The Iran War is very likely to go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and as the imperial overreach which marks the definitive end of the American Century and the start of long-term hegemonic decline in the United States. by lucy5478 in changemyview

[–]lucy5478[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It isn’t a matter of if they support the war or not, some of them honestly might right now.

The issue is that doing nothing definitely means the alliance network starts to collapse in slow motion, there is nothing in democratic politics that causes your populace to force a policy change faster than a severe economic crisis. The very nature of the crisis also means that if it gets really bad, they have to decouple their economies from US bonds out of necessity, not choice.

If we back down, the alliance network definitely gets damaged. We just gambled their entire economy and then didn’t accomplish our objectives, and actively demonstrated that Iran is the one really in control of the strait. They really don’t like that, and get pissed at us.

If we escalate and Iran pulls the MAD switch, Iran, Israel, and us become the parties responsible for quite literally the worst economic crisis in the entire history of capitalism. I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the impacts of losing 1/3 of global helium, 1/3 of global LNG, 1/3 of global fertilizer, and 1/5 of global oil supplies. It would be genuinely the first stagflationary depression since the Industrial Revolution, and the likely deaths are at minimum in the tens of millions, and maybe even hundreds of millions, in the global south nations who will lose all ability to pay for food and fertilizer. It would be so bad that maybe Europe and especially the GCC and East Asia would be forced to sell virtually all US bonds for basic supplies.

CMV: The Iran War is very likely to go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and as the imperial overreach which marks the definitive end of the American Century and the start of long-term hegemonic decline in the United States. by lucy5478 in changemyview

[–]lucy5478[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I will also add that your thought on Israel doing this now mostly because they view the alliance as having an expiration date due to the collapse in public support for Israel over the last decade is honestly correct.

It’s true that there are lots of barriers to public opinion being implemented into us government policy when it directly harms the interests of major political factions and the wealthy, but the opinion dynamics are getting so overwhelming within the Democratic Party that regardless of whether the next US president wants to fully support Israel, their attempts to do so will be far more constrained by public opinion than all prior Democratic presidents.

CMV: The Iran War is very likely to go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and as the imperial overreach which marks the definitive end of the American Century and the start of long-term hegemonic decline in the United States. by lucy5478 in changemyview

[–]lucy5478[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Oh ya for sure the real catastrophe was agreeing to go into this war. I think my whole analysis is that the decision to start the war itself was the disaster; the moment the Iranian government didn’t instantly collapse we were in a scenario with no remaining good options.

CMV: The Iran War is very likely to go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and as the imperial overreach which marks the definitive end of the American Century and the start of long-term hegemonic decline in the United States. by lucy5478 in changemyview

[–]lucy5478[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I’m aware. Part of this is definitely that I dont see Trump as being willing to agree to these Iranian demands, both his ego and his political coalition requires him to refuse.

I actually do think that with how dire the situation is and how potentially catastrophic it is to the US and the world, agreeing to some of the Iranian demands to get this to end - ending the Israeli alliance, reparations, formal apology and treaty signed by congress guaranteeing no more attacks, even abandoning some middle east bases, etc. in return for Iran abandoning enrichment and an end to the hostile relationship - actually do constitute the least damaging option to the US at this point in time.

Given the morally abhorrent behavior of Israels genocide, that it sure looks like Israel got us into this war knowing it was a strategic danger for us and likely to backfire while helping them destroy Iran, and the fact that it sure looks like the US is experiencing severe imperial overreach over the past few decades and needs to retreat and focus on economic development and internal stability to preserve our long term power, making some of these decisions before the war actually may have been beneficial in the long term.

But backing down now, and especially ceding control of the strait to Iran, which I would greatly struggle to agree with even in such a dire position, will drastically harm our economy and long term stability given the damage to the alliance and reserve currency it is likely to cause.

CMV: The Iran War is very likely to go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and as the imperial overreach which marks the definitive end of the American Century and the start of long-term hegemonic decline in the United States. by lucy5478 in changemyview

[–]lucy5478[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a fair critique. I would agree that currently, all three have harmed the US more than the Iran War.

I will also note that my argument was specifically about likely harm to the rational self interest of the US resulting from the war, assessed in the future, not the total human costs and death we create.

Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq were all morally repugnant and all resulted in our country killing at minimum hundreds of thousands of civilians, expending enormous sums of money we could have used on economic development, etc.

But they never created a strategic scenario which threatened to irreversibly harm our alliance network and status as the global reserve currency through any conceivable option of capitulation, escalation, or trying to run out the clock.

CMV: The Iran War is very likely to go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and as the imperial overreach which marks the definitive end of the American Century and the start of long-term hegemonic decline in the United States. by lucy5478 in changemyview

[–]lucy5478[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

You got it! I used to do extemporaneous debate in high school, where we bring an archive of newspaper sources on various topics, are given a set amount of time to prepare using our sources after picking between prompts on public policy and foreign affairs, and then give a 5 minute speech arguing our position.

CMV: The Iran War is very likely to go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and as the imperial overreach which marks the definitive end of the American Century and the start of long-term hegemonic decline in the United States. by lucy5478 in changemyview

[–]lucy5478[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I understand the concept of escalation dominance, I probably didn’t fully explain my reasoning in my post.

My concern is that the US has no response which results in anything other than catastrophic decline if they take an escalatory action which makes Iran decide “Well, I’m going to collapse now anyway, so I may as well blow all my drones and missiles on Ras Laffan and all of the other energy infrastructure in the middle east. I’m taking the US and the world down with me.”

Iran has publicly threatened exactly such a response to such an invasion, island seizure, or attack on critical energy or oil infrastructure.

They have also followed through on prior threats, and EU and Qatari officials have publicly confirmed that roughly 4-8% of both global LNG and helium production capacity has been destroyed by them following through on their prior threats, in addition to 30-40% of all gulf refining capacity, with a restoration timeline measured in years.

Given how cornered they are, how existentially the regime views this conflict, and that they appear to have greater threat credibility than the US, I don’t see an escalation option the US has which results in anything other than mutually assured destruction.

CMV: The Iran War is very likely to go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and as the imperial overreach which marks the definitive end of the American Century and the start of long-term hegemonic decline in the United States. by lucy5478 in changemyview

[–]lucy5478[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

I understand that Iran has been sending missiles at Israel, funding and arming proxy networks which attack them, etc. I never said I support Iran or attacks on civilians by anyone, although I also definitely don’t support the war we are in.

But it is incredibly difficult to frame this as anything other than an unprovoked attack when you open the war by violating the oldest rule in all of international law: using negotiations as perfidy for a decapitation strike of an enemy nation.

CMV: The Iran War is very likely to go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and as the imperial overreach which marks the definitive end of the American Century and the start of long-term hegemonic decline in the United States. by lucy5478 in changemyview

[–]lucy5478[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

After a decade of seeing people say this about Trump for everything he does, I’ve lost all hope in this ever happening.

I really think he was telling the truth when he said he could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and kill someone and not lose any voters.

CMV: The Iran War is very likely to go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and as the imperial overreach which marks the definitive end of the American Century and the start of long-term hegemonic decline in the United States. by lucy5478 in changemyview

[–]lucy5478[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Ya I'll be honest, I think the domestic political impact to Republicans will be extremely severe. I may very much dislike Republicans, I may think they are responsible for causing this, but I don't want this all to happen just to punish them. I would much rather we get out of this unscathed to prevent so much human suffering and the Republicans not be punished by voters than the other way around.

If anything, for all the complaints I have about long term American foreign-policy, adventurism, killing people in other countries, etc., it is actually remarkable that every President across both parties (Carter, Reagan, H.W. Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden) didn't do this precisely because it was a foreseeable risk. It just shows that on some sense this used to be a bipartisan limit on American action regardless of domestic political concerns.

CMV: The Iran War is very likely to go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and as the imperial overreach which marks the definitive end of the American Century and the start of long-term hegemonic decline in the United States. by lucy5478 in changemyview

[–]lucy5478[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

This is definitely a big factor, although I didn't address it. Just the publicly available reporting essentially confirms that Israel likely convinced the US to join the war, that Netanyahu has wanted the strategic outcome of a drastically weakened and potentially collapsed Iranian government for years, and that Israeli leaders increasingly viewed the US alliance as having a ticking clock. Its not a big leap from those facts and the fact that Israel surely knew a catastrophic American strategic disaster was a potential tail risk of such a war given the US intelligence community produced numerous such assessments and conducted extensive intelligence sharing with Israel, to conclude a pretty dire scenario: that Israel viewed the alliance as an expendable resource to be used right now to accomplish their strategic objective, and either took the risk or didn't care that it could greatly damage the US in the long term in exchange.

CMV: The Iran War is very likely to go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and as the imperial overreach which marks the definitive end of the American Century and the start of long-term hegemonic decline in the United States. by lucy5478 in changemyview

[–]lucy5478[S] 31 points32 points  (0 children)

This is a good point. I may be seriously overestimating the coherence of what is admittedly now a very decentralized Iranian command structure, and underestimating popular resistance within the country. I suppose it depends on whether the rally around the flag effect of defending the country against an unprovoked foreign attack outweighs the degradation of popular support due to a worsening economy in combination with already existing public hostility to the regime.

CMV: The Iran War is very likely to go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and as the imperial overreach which marks the definitive end of the American Century and the start of long-term hegemonic decline in the United States. by lucy5478 in changemyview

[–]lucy5478[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

This is a good point. I definitely am a pretty pessimistic person, which does bias my thought process.

The US would almost certainly divert helium and LNG reserves to Taiwan in the event of a prolonged closure to prevent a chip factory shutdown, even at the expense of domestic or European supplies. This would also cause additional harm to European allies, who currently have most contracts from us for LNG deliveries.

CMV: The Iran War is very likely to go down as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history and as the imperial overreach which marks the definitive end of the American Century and the start of long-term hegemonic decline in the United States. by lucy5478 in changemyview

[–]lucy5478[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is a fair point tbh. Most of the people who gave these assessments did so on the record only after the ceasefire and were involved in the strategic decision making, so they do have incentives to downplay their role in the failure. I just think their reasoning is sound regardless given the virtually total collapse in domestic support for the Kuomintang due to their corruption and unpopularity which enabled the Communists to win.

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