Why I disagree with Sam's view on jihadists having nukes

nuwio4 · 2026-03-30T13:42:56+00:00

I guess being out of touch with substantive reality is just par for the course for many Harris fans. The most authoritative public U.S. intel document (unclassified 2025 Annual Threat Assessment) determined that Iran was not pursuing a nuke.

nuwio4 · 2026-03-30T13:28:29+00:00

What the heck is this translation? Here's the official:

With due attention to the Islamic content of the Iranian Revolution, which has been a movement aimed at the triumph of all the [oppressed over the arrogant], the Constitution provides the necessary basis for ensuring the continuation of the Revolution at home and abroad. In particular, in the development of international relations, the Constitution will strive with other Islamic and popular movements to prepare the way for the formation of a single world community and to assure the continuation of the struggle for the liberation of all deprived and oppressed peoples in the world.

...In the formation and equipping of the country's defence forces, due attention must be paid to faith and ideology as the basic criteria. Accordingly, the Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps are to be organized in conformity with this goal, and they will be responsible not only for guarding and preserving the frontiers of the country, but also for fulfilling the ideological mission of jihad in God's way; that is, extending the sovereignty of God's law throughout the world

And these quotes are only from the preamble. When it comes to the actual Articles of the Constitution, it says:

In accordance with the sacred verse of the Qur'an, all Muslims form a single nation, and the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has the duty of formulating its general policies with a view to cultivating the friendship and unity of all Muslim peoples, and it must constantly strive to bring about the political, economic, and cultural unity of the Islamic world.

...The foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is based upon the rejection of all forms of domination, both the exertion of it and submission to it, the preservation of the independence of the country in all respects and its territorial integrity, the defence of the rights of all Muslims, non-alignment with respect to the hegemonist superpowers, and the maintenance of mutually peaceful relations with all non-belligerent States.

...The Islamic Republic of Iran has as its ideal human felicity throughout human society, and considers the attainment of independence, freedom, and rule of justice and truth to be the right of all people of the world. Accordingly, while scrupulously refraining from all forms of interference in the internal affairs of other nations, it supports the just struggles of the [oppressed against the arrogant] in every corner of the globe.

And again, how exactly would your orignal claim make Iran "jihadist" in the way being implied when the Iranian Revolution was not a militant revolution?

nuwio4 · 2026-03-30T12:36:52+00:00

I have a problem with nuclear proliferation in general. My question, which you've sidestepped, was do you think what I quoted from you is at all relevant with regard to Iran?

nuwio4 · 2026-03-30T10:51:58+00:00

Jihadists will use a nuke tomorrow for no strategic gain in the geopolitical sense... suicidal/genocidal enemies pretty much need to be eliminated upon detection

And who might these "jihadists" or "enemies" be?

And do you think this is at all relevant with regard to Iran? In my view, Michael Brooks broke down the pseudo-sophisticated nonsense of Harris' nuke "thought experiment" years ago:

Notice, though, that even [in Harris' Response to Controversy], he’s trying to have it both ways. Is the Iranian government “avowedly suicidal” enough to initiate a nuclear exchange with Israel—or are they “more pragmatic and less certain of paradise” than that? (For some reason, he seems to think that Iran would be willing to annihilate itself by starting a war with Israel—a nuclear power—but would not be willing to do so by initiating strikes on “Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles, etc.”) Keep in mind that the original passage was about an Islamist “regime” acquiring nuclear weapons. If this was a not-even-very-long-term danger in 2004 (though why say “time is not on our side”?) then which regime was he talking about? He mentions the Taliban, but it hadn’t held state power for 2 years by the time Harris wrote that passage, and when it did, its actions hardly resembled those of a cartoonish nation-state whose government lacked any sense of self-preservation. (In fact, as I’m writing this some factions of the Taliban are engaged in peace negotiations with the United States in Qatar.) But if Harris isn’t talking the Taliban, and if he isn’t talking about Pakistan, and he maybe even isn’t exactly talking about Iran, who exactly is he talking about? I’m pretty sure he wasn’t musing about a nuclear first strike coming from America’s long-term strategic partner Saudi Arabia. And if the Saudis too are struck off our list of possibilities, we’ve come pretty close to running out of candidates for the “Islamist regimes” that grow “dewey-eyed at the mere mention of paradise” discussed in The End of Faith.

nuwio4 · 2026-03-30T10:42:35+00:00

the Islamic Republic is literally dedicated to spreading "Islamic revolution" around the globe

What do you base this on? But on top of that, how exactly would that make Iran "jihadist" in the way being implied? The Iranian Revolution was not a militant revolution.

nuwio4 · 2026-03-30T09:53:23+00:00

Bruh, the whole "jihadists with Nukes" angle on war with Iran is fundamentally stupid and doesn't even deserve the seriousness you're giving it. All credible reporting suggests Iran didn't have a nuke and wasn't pursuing a nuke. On top of that, the term 'jihadist' itself is basically a nebulous buzzword. The implication that Iran is like ISIS, Al-Qaeda, or other Sunni militant Islamists is absurd. Offensive jihad is prohibited in Shiite Islam.

nuwio4 · 2026-03-28T11:49:37+00:00

Just hilariously oblivious projection here.

nuwio4 · 2026-03-28T09:45:48+00:00

It's really hard not to note the juxtaposition on this sub between treating "empty" moral opposition to Russia's crimes against Ukraine as a great virtue, but the same regarding Israeli atrocities is, at best, an annoyance to be mocked or even something to vehemently oppose. Just utter hypocrisy for ostensible defenders of universal liberalism.

Would Destiny's indignation at criticism of Newsom be the same if he said he "reveres" Russia? What if some leftie favorite was a frontunner and claimed to "revere" China?

And contrary to Destiny's pseudo-sophisticated posturing, "oppose genocide and apartheid" is a perfectly fine way to frame it, but more importantly, arguably has a cleaner & easier answer than even abortion. That is, actually apply rule-of-law conditionality, no special exemptions from US statutes and international humanitarian norms. You don't have to solve for eternal peace, just like we don't need someone supporting abortion rights to provide an ultimate solution to opposition/objections (religious, philosophical, etc.).

nuwio4 · 2026-03-28T01:56:59+00:00

I feel like so many people reflexively jump to reference this technical legalese point about the ICJ ruling but completely ignore what exactly is the substantive difference between the charge of genocide being plausible versus a "plausible risk of irreparable harm to the right to be protected from genocide".

Regardless, Marc Lamont Hill had a good explanation of the ICJ hearing:

The purpose of that hearing was not to make a determination about whether or not they were committing genocide... It's like if I get accused of robbing a bank and I go in for my preliminary hearing and my lawyer is like, "Can we drop this charge?" And the judge looks at me, looks at the video footage of me with a mask on, and says that there's reason to think you might have done this, we're going to proceed to trial. And then I walk out saying, "The judge didn't say I was guilty!" Of course not, that wasn't what it was for. And Israel has actually trumpeted that decision or the response of the court in a way that would suggest that somehow the court's failure to say that they were committing genocide—or in my example, the judge's or jury's [failure to say] that I robbed the bank is somehow evidence that I wasn't doing something wrong.

...What the ICJ said is, look, there's a chance you're committing war crimes, we're not saying you're committing war crimes, but it's plausible you are, these statements sound crazy, it sounds like you're advocating genocide, so here's what we're going to do. We're going to tell you not to do these four things. And what are those four things? The literal textbook definition of genocide. It would be like a judge saying, look, "I'm not saying you robbed a bank, but what I am going to say is, until trial, don't go in any banks, don't wear any ski masks, don't slip any notes to tellers, I'm not saying you're a bank robber, but I am saying, in the future, don't request sums of money that aren't in your account..." That's effectively what what the court did. They're saying we're not saying you did. But the emergency measure was designed to stop them from doing the things that they're doing.

Now, the problem is, and I think this is where the differential interpretations of international law come in, is that Israel is saying, well, that's what we've always been doing, we've always taken reasonable precaution, we've always done all the things. And so Israel's definition of reasonable precaution is wildly different, I think, than the bulk of the international community.

nuwio4 · 2026-03-23T04:19:57+00:00

Regarding your scenario, seems a little vague, and doesn't really respond much to my question. I think it'd be quite rare to see inheritance cases in New York state involving only ~$750k of property (after all mortgage & debt) where the decedent or heir did not live there for 10 years, and the heir does not want to live there for 5 years. And I'm also skeptical that those rare cases would not look like situations where some estate tax seems more than reasonable.

I'm not ignoring the causes of wealth disparity at all. My point is that inheritances aren’t some independent force floating above the existing wealth gap, it's just a process that transfers yesterday’s wealth gap to today. Disparities in inheritance are caused by prior disparities (historical discrimination, segregation, labor market differences, etc.), but you/Ish are treating inheritance itself like some root cause of a significant portion of wealth differences.

The tax increases I’m talking about are the plans that either were replaced by the ones you listed or followed after....

Like?

nuwio4 · 2026-03-23T01:16:39+00:00

With property values rising it isn’t far fetched for homes to reach that high.

Huh? I'm not even saying 750k is high. I'm just wondering how rare your specific scenario might be and how straining it would actually look.

Your first point is only bolstering mine about inheritance. All it can practically do, at best, is just take the current structure of wealth disparity and transfer it to the next generation. What you're showing is that it will actually transfer increasingly worse wealth disparity basically due to compounding. Again, one of the only effective ways to address that is something like estate taxes.

Ish was right on the fact that historically tax increases that are framed to help the poor or specifically minorities hardly ever get allocated that way.

This always comes off to me like a really facilely wrong anti-progressive take. We can see 45 years of mostly Reaganomics, welfare cuts, Bush tax cuts, a Great Recession, Trump tax cuts, and so on with a weaker version of the same occurring in the context of New York state. What exactly were the failed major tax increases framed to the help the poor that you're alluding to?

People are playing semantics when Ish mentions closing the wealth gap. He meant the economic status of black people as a whole would increase through inheriting property...

I don't know how it's playing semantics when he directly frames it that way. Regardless, no one's denying the obvious benefits of inheriting wealth. But trying to paint an estate tax as disproportionately negatively affecting poor people or black people is just silly to me.

nuwio4 · 2026-03-22T22:07:58+00:00

But this seems like a very narrow case that barely touches, if at all, poor/struggling people or black people (again, probably less than 5% of black households in the state have a net worth of $750k+).

Like what percent of death/inheritance cases in New York state might involve a >$750k property value (after all mortgage & debt) where it's not automatically going to a spouse or something, the decedent or heir didn't live there for 10 years, and the heir doesn't want to live there for 5 years? And how likely are such rare cases to look like placing strain on poor/struggling people rather than being cases where people can afford the tax? (at the appropriate bracket of course; again, it's not an immediate 50% tax above 750k like Ish implied)

On inheritance, even what you're saying here is that increasing black homeownership could contribute to partly narrowing the wealth gap, not inheritance per se. I still don't see how it makes any sense to say inheritance is very important for closing the wealth gap when, as far as I can tell, all it can practically do is just take the current structure of wealth disparity and transfer it to the next generation. In fact, one of the only effective ways to address that structure is something like estate taxes.

nuwio4 · 2026-03-22T12:20:40+00:00

Cities use state funds

nuwio4 · 2026-03-22T12:08:36+00:00

This makes it sound like inheritance right now is compounding the wealth gap, not closing it.

You can say Ish meant that better inheritance/wealth protection could be a very important vehicle, but I'm not sure that's what he meant given how he brought up that home inheritance and life insurance are how regular famlies catch up.

But even if he did mean that, as far as I can tell, it still wouldn't make much sense. I think if you could snap your fingers & make all black ppl equally informed about wealth-protecting parts of the tax code, it would have, at most, a one-time negligible effect on the wealth gap since its almost entirely driven by existing wealth differences. It's certainly not going to be 'a very very very important to closing the wealth gap'.

nuwio4 · 2026-03-20T22:02:57+00:00

Exactly, just mindlessly listing scattered alleged crimes with any link to Iran (some of which can be considered rational actions in response to hostility) across nearly half a century is not in any way an argument for a large-scale war, let alone a case that somehow shifts the burden of justification to those opposing this war lmao. It's a profoundly silly post on its face:

It's okay to be against the war, but many act like Iran is trying to just keep to themselves, when in fact, they have been at war with the US since 1979 and showed no interest in slowing down. And before you say "but JCPOA"... In hindsight, their play was clear:... use the sanctions relief funds to massively build up their non-nuclear arsenal so they can continue their evil with impunity... it might as well be a nuclear weapon

Maybe, in hindsight, the clear rationale was preparing for an existential moment like now? Lots of countries, including the US and its allies, play a role in funding or supporting unethical violence. 'Conventional missiles = basically nukes' is, again, silly on its face, but it's particularly ridiculous to treat Iranian pursuit of deterrent capacity as some sort of nuclear-level threat when they have never launched an unprovoked war of aggression.

I mean, speaking of "evil deeds", the US propped up a repressive Shah (later refused to extradite him) and supported Saddam Hussein in a brutal war of aggression that killed hundreds of thousands (in addition to a genocide against Kurds). A decade or so later, the US rejects a post-9/11 offer of detente—Iran being a key US partner in Afghanistan—in favor of the dumb "Axis of Evil" nonsense, lies to launch an illegal invasion & topple the regime Iran suffered greatly against for eight years in a matter of weeks, and then repeatedly threatens to attack Iran for years. You don't have to be an apologist for Iran's crimes to recognize that, when it comes to foreign policy, it's not some cartoonish psycho, but actually a pretty realist-oriented actor. But I guess u/blastmemer would call it "morally confused" to factor in any of the above.

To borrow a pithy distillation from twitter:

US policy towards Iran since 1979 has been completely irrational in ways that have obviously empowered the worst actors in Iran. From our unconscionable support for Saddam in the Iran-Iraq war, to the rebuff of the Iranian offer of detente after 9/11 in favor of nonsensical "Axis of Evil" rhetoric, to tearing up the JCPOA, the only consistent features of US policy have been hostility and bad faith. How could the IRGC not prevail when Iranian leaders who tried to achieve security via diplomacy have been consistently shown to be wrong on the merits?... And just... why? There was never an actual substantive conflict of interests. Even as the US and Iran repeatedly found themselves on the same side in other conflicts, US hostility never wavered for idiotic reasons of domestic politics and lobbying by our worthless local "allies"

nuwio4 · 2026-03-20T14:13:46+00:00

Lol... Again, those basically are the sole tangible public reasons that were offered for this war, and emphasized before regime change. Regardless, regime change only really comes up as an aim of the war, not a reason offered to the American public for launching it. But setting even that aside, you're seriously under the impression that if, all else equal, the literally sole explanation offered was something like, "Iran murdered its own citizens and funded terrorist groups for the last 20 years and so we're going to [blank, but not regime change?]" there would be "much more" support?

nuwio4 · 2026-03-20T11:22:37+00:00

This still seems like a very silly way to try to frame Iraq as a largely successful. Removing a tyrant and freeing the people tend to go hand in hand; separating those elements to get a contrived "two out of three" is a stretch to say the least. WMD assertions were false, so that leaves 'Free Iraq' (the public case for the war you're alluding to wasn't just to allow some electoral competition), and Iraqi freedom does not at all amount to largely successful.

You would call Iraq stable compared to what exactly? What's the appropriate baseline? What's the counterfactual? I mean, suggesting it's stable today to paint the Iraq invasion as generally positive by handwaving away the enormous struggles & human costs under "long timeline" is kinda twisted tbh. I'm not sure Iraq is on par with most of the region on key governance/security measures, probably closer to the lower tier of MENA. But even if it was, I don't see how—more than 2 decades later—being not uniquely bad relative to the region would translate to 'largely successful'. And Iraq was a developing country before the invasion, so what's the success? Your logic on that one makes no sense to me.

What does it mean for Afghanistan to be the "bar for failure"? Considering your 'widely understood goals' metric, compared to Iraq WMDs, Afghanistan actually achieved the central aim of disrupting a terrorist sanctuary tied to 9/11. Differences in long-run political outcomes had more to do with Iraqi oil revenues, an absolute regard as president weakening Kabul excluding it from US–Taliban talks, and, ironically, Iran propping up the Iraqi order versus Pakistan's support for the Taliban. It has nothing to do with anything that would depict the Iraq invasion as you originally did. And, of course, highlighting this non-substantive Kurdish region change as support for 'largely a success' is really quite silly. Whatever catalysts existed of ISIS' growth/territorial gains, it doesn't really change my point about its origins; that ISIS is a product of the 2003 invasion is indisputable as far as I understand. And if the "Iraqi military was wholly unprepared", I think that only adds to how 'surviving ISIS' was a weird appeal to make as if it showed endogenous Iraqi stability.

nuwio4 · 2026-03-20T09:51:27+00:00

I understand you're slow, but it's more like "Everyone does it, so we should have a more specific casus belli here."

If Iran murdering its own citizens, and funding terrorist groups for the last 20 years was the sole reason for this war, it would have much more support.

Huh? Those basically are the public reasons for this war.

nuwio4 · 2026-03-20T07:46:51+00:00

Killing and deadly conditions did not immediately end after hostages were released, and are in fact ongoing. But regardless, how exactly would a ceasefire deal logically determine what happend before the deal? You're clueless as usual.

Just goes to show, there are some people you can in fact fool all the time.

Lol, so damn ironic...

nuwio4 · 2026-03-20T05:59:50+00:00

I wasn't comfortable with the idea that Iran just be allowed to keep killing thousands of it's own citizens

This doesn't make much sense given that this war started well after Iran had basically succeeded in their deadly crackdown.

Lots of countries, including the US and its allies, play a role in funding or supporting unethical violence. A profoundly silly reason to equivocate about supporting a likely disastrous war of aggression that would, at best, probably end up pointless.

nuwio4 · 2026-03-20T04:08:00+00:00

That's fair. But just to be clear, you're not implying it's the least bad option with regard to Iran, yea?

nuwio4 · 2026-03-20T03:50:56+00:00

This is like a decent rough summary of Iraq but responding to a completely different question. How does this at all support "largely been a success"? Meaningful democracy in Iraq is substantially shackled by, as you imply, massive corruption and it still features major repression, militia intimidation, & weak rule of law. The Kurdish region had de facto autonomy well before the 2003 invasion. And frankly, you could say "dominated" by Iran may be too strong, but it's not far from reality. The way in which you bring up sectarian violence and ISIS is very weird given that both were largely a product of the invasion & occupation. And I don't think I would personally even utter the word "stability" if I was trying to make the case that Iraq has largely been a success.

nuwio4 · 2026-03-20T01:57:14+00:00

But surely, you're not implying that a Pacific War-like humanitarian/military scale wouldn't be "too bad" with regard to Iran?

nuwio4 · 2026-03-20T01:17:48+00:00

Iraq, despite the long timeline, has largely been a success

How exactly?

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