• Jan 2020: Direct Iranian missiles on US bases (Iraq): 100+ troops with TBI.
• Oct 2023–early 2025: 180+ proxy attacks on US bases (Iraq/Syria/Jordan); 3 US soldiers + 1 contractor killed. 
And…
• 2011 Washington, DC: IRGC plot to bomb restaurant & assassinate Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir (foreign dignitary); also eyed Israeli/Saudi embassies. Manssor Arbabsiar (US-Iranian) convicted, sentenced to 25 years. 
• 2022: IRGC operative Shahram Poursafi charged with murder-for-hire to kill former US National Security Advisor John Bolton (offered $300k); also targeted Mike Pompeo (former Secretary of State). Foiled by FBI. 
• 2024 (ongoing into 2025): Multiple IRGC-directed plots vs. US politicians/officials, including then-candidate/President-elect Donald Trump. Asif Merchant (IRGC-trained Pakistani) convicted Mar 2026 for recruiting hitmen; Farhad Shakeri charged in related network. All disrupted. 
Building Nuclear Weapons (material for 11 known to exist) and long range ballistic missiles for delivery of same.
Please tell me why we have our soldiers stationed all over the Middle East. Whose real interest do they serve, besides Israel, multinational oil companies and the petrodollar.
The majority of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudis, yet we stay aligned with them to protect their oil and the petrodollar. If you believe in sacrificing our youth for those causes, then you send your children to the Middle East and stay away from mine.
We have a volunteer military. If your kids want to join it’s up to them. No one is coming for them if they decide to do something else. Although they’ll probably be glad not to get killed in a nuclear attack.
And those Saudis were controlled by bin Laden, a Saudi, operating out of Afghanistan, who escaped to Pakistan where he was finally located and killed. So, was he a Saudi or an Afghani or a Pakistani?
They can have all the cultural freedom they want until they start deciding that their culture gives them the right to murder, enslave and rape my people because we aren’t part of their culture or steal for us because we aren’t part of their culture.
The USA also helped overthrow Mossadegh because he had the audacity to think that Iranian oil should belong to the Iranian people. Not the USA. Then the USA installed the Shah who himself was brutal. The Iranians had a revolution and unfortunately got worse. That happens in a revolution. The USA has sanctioned Iran for nearly 40 years, causing more hardships for the people.
Just an FYI
*Iraq war claim of WMD, none found. Country destabilized. Millions dead. Thousand of us military dead. Still an unstable country. We have the oil.
*Afghanistan, they supposedly on their own did 9/11. Fought for 20 YEARS. The Taliban still in charge
*Syria, Assad was bad, yes, he was overthrown and Syria is now being run by an Al Qaeda terrorist. Who actually fought against Americans in the war. He took off his head scarf and put on a fine Italian suit, now he is ok. He even spoke at the UN 6 miles from the twin towers, he even had a personal invite to the White House and visited with Trump, who sprayed him with his Trump cologne. We won. Assad is gone. The Christian and other minorities are now suffering extermination. But apparently genocide is ok if the USA is not doing it. Just ask Israel.
Libya, Gadaffi had the audacity to say he wanted to go off the us dollar system. “ We came, we saw, he died” as Hillary so eloquently said (barf). Failed state.they even have slave markets now. But big oil still gets their cut of the prize.
Ukraine. NATO push to expand. Russia set a red line just like we did during the Cuban missile crisis. Been in a proxy war for 3 years.
Israel is taking car of the expulsion of Lebanon. The settlers just attacked the last Christian village
Now Iran.
Somalia and Sudan in chaos.
I think we have now accomplished the 7 countries in five years, extended plan. But give us a break, overthrowing governments and causing chaos is not an easy job.
What I love about you is the substance of your reasoning. Your knowledge base and the way you draw logical conclusions from sound premises is really impressive.
Is it Russian propaganda? Could you specify one (more if you like, but one will do for the purposes of an initial investigation) of her claims which you are sure is Russian propaganda and provide some evidence for that?
You seem to forget that the nation of Israel is a giant military base for the US. Have you ever thought about that? If the US did not support Israel, would we really have any problems in the Middle East? Think about that.
FWIW it is a 2 way street even if it apears that the tail is currently wagging the dog. The creation of Israel is a classic Machiavellian ploy (I mean this literally - it's right out fo the Prince). Machiavelli argues that the best way to control a region is to establish a colony - for the colony will be surrounded by enemies, entirely dependent upon its sponsor for military support and will always fight fiercely in alliance with that sponsor.
Israel has undoubtedly served the interests of the US in maintaining US control of the region and both its oil and its military significance as part of the cordon around Russia/China - and thus supporting the almighty petrodollar - for the last few decades and still does so.
However I suspect the petrodollar may now be doomed, and perhaps Israel and even the US along with it. And perhaps that is/was the plan all along. Transitions are more easily managed when their timing is controlled.
The relationship between Israel and the AngloAmerican empire was truly a marriage made in hell - a devil's bargain on both sides.
Old news. Mossaddegh was nationalizing US/UK oil companies and seizing their property and he was working with the Communists. And you probably didn’t know that in that coup some of the Mullahs supported the Shah over Mosaddegh because they were concerned about his communist leanings and his secular focus.
The Communists aided the Mullahs in the 1979 revolt against the Shah. The Mullahs subsequently suppressed the Communists.
The Communists are now part of the coalition fighting the Mullahs. So, same old, same old.
You sound as if you think there is something bad about communists. (And why capitalise the name?)
If you want to see the difference between communism and capitalism, compare the state of China with that of the USA, the UK, or other such "shithole" countries.
Let’s see. Why did the Soviet Union fall? Not because they were invaded but because they couldn’t keep up economically. Back in the day you could see a direct comparison at the Inter-German Border. Western side, Capitalist, rich. Eastern side Communist, in abject poverty.
Same thing in Korea. South, Capitalist rich. North Communist, poor and starving.
Same thing between capitalistic Taiwan and communist Mainland China. Until the WTO China was an economic basket case. Taiwan the world’s leader in microchip manufacturing.
And the “Chinese miracle”, not really a miracle. It’s not hard to show tremendous economic growth when you’re moving your population from subsistence farming and outhouses to an industrial economy with indoor toilets. After that bump, most of the growth is just mercantilism and stupid US leaders who allowed (and profited from) the hollowing out of our economy after admitting the PRC to the WTO. It’s all powered by intellectual property theft and poor quality control. Chinese concrete is much weaker than US concrete, which is why their buildings collapse. The vaunted Chinese weapons failed in Venezuela and Iran, because they are 2nd rate copies. Chinese GDP calculations are state sponsored fiction.
Compare the snails' pace of economic advancement of the USA since 1776 with the phenomenonal economic advancement of China since it became Communist in 1949.
Yes, the Communist Chinese score nearly 2/3 of a standard deviation higher than Americans do on mean IQ but so do the Taiwanese and they are nowhere near as economically advanced.
FWIW I do think there is something bad about communists. However I also think that western oil companies did steal Iranian oil and it's worth noting that Mossadegh first demanded to audit the oil companies to verify that they were complying with what they had agreed to, and only moved forward to nationalize them when they refused audits. And at that point UK and US instigated his overthrow. The British called it operation Boot - which at least has the virtue of being amusing.
It wasn't "western oil companies" going into Iran and cutting deals. During WW2 the British and Russians jointly invaded the place in an act of entirely unprovoked aggression and the just started stealing the oil for Stalin's army.
On your final point - am I entitled to steal potatoes from your garden just because you don't currently own a shovel?
It"s because the USA is Number 1 for Marxist-Leninism with American characteristics. Karl Marx worked for a New York paper and was friendly with Abe Lincoln. He loved the GOP. He praised it. And the US spreads communism all around the world. Where do you think the ideas of preferred pronouns and bending over and taking it up the butt came from?
We’ve been in this war since the start…all 47 years of it.
As for the greater civilizational conflict, the US was attacked since its founding and got formally involved starting in 1805 with the 1st Barbary War.
As RLM notes below Twelver Shiism is the basis of a conflict that’s over 900 years old.
Straight from Israeli hasbara. In response to the 1983 bombing, when Israel blamed Iran and told us to go to war w Iran, Reagan said no, pulled our troops out of the Middle East East, and told Israel to stop bombing Lebanon. That was leadership.
1. What evidence is there of Iranian involvement? You will find it's mostly (if not all) Israeli, US, or European. Evidence given by enemies is not reliable.
2. The Americans could not have been killed had they been where they had a right to be - at home. Occupy other people's countries, push them around, kill them - pay the price. Mind you, a large amount of the price is still outstanding.
Why do you think he approves of Iranian people killing dissidents?
Also why do you think the Iranians are going to get nukes? Because the same people who told us Iraq had them are now claiming Iran is about to get them (and FWIW they have been claiming this for forty years now)?
And finally - is that all we have to do - say a country is about to get nukes and then we can invade them? Since we already have nukes are they therefore justified in invading us?
PS Personally I have some doubts about whether "nukes" even exist at all - but that's a separate discussion.
No, YOU find the Trump Administration in an unhappy position. Let's pray it's a "theoretical threat". I'm willing to bet they have a nuke tipped weapon hiding in some cave somewhere they are scrambling to get operable and delaying with these "negotiations" as long as they can using Taqiyya. We already KNOW they have fissionable material enough to make 11 bombs, and we don't have it yet. That's NOT theoretical.
We took out their nuke capabilities with operation “Midnight Hammer” less than a year ago. Were we lied to then? The Covid vaccines were “safe and effective.” That was the point of “Operation Warp Speed.” And I still remember “Weapons of Mass Destruction” to eliminate Saddam Hussein and thousands of American lives, and the “Domino Theory” of communist expansion throughout South East Asia and Australia. History has taught me not to believe anything our government tells us. I feel sad for those who look through the lens of MAGA and can see nothing wrong. It’s as bad as TDS.
I almost forgot to mention our 20 year plus adventure into Afghanistan to eliminate the Taliban threat, another “effective” operation at killing off our soldiers.
Didn’t read the rest of your post, but the nuclear material was not recovered, nor were their abilities “taken out.”; only the labs were damaged in Hammer.
Other admins have been kicking this can down the road; it eventually needed to stop, and before it was too late. IDK how this will end, and hate the war, but remain hopeful.
You left out the goofball 911 quickly-trained "islamists" flying into the towers and all that amazing dust, and the invisible plane remains at the Penta gone and yank your shanksville chain and the empty field. Also left out Boston hoax a thon and that school with all the parents cracking up less than 24 hrs. These vids. have been scrubbed off Boob toobe so fagetaboutit.
" “Midnight Hammer” less than a year ago. Were we lied to then?"
Who are Iran's top super power allies? Wonder if they have anything to do with nuke capability for Iran? Agreed that the deep state, has hood winked the public for decades.
MAGA sure beats the hell out of a NWO, imo. Do nothing and we're all sitting ducks --from the crazed killers in Iran and their proxies..
Iraq had WMDs too - didn't they? We have been claiming Iran is "about to get nukes" since 1984. Was the claim true in 1984? What happened? How come they didn't have nukes by 1985, or 1986, or 1987, or 1988? We - and Israel, especially Israel, have been making claims about Iranian nuclear capability for over forty years (dozens and dozens of them - over and over again).
Since these claims have apparently not been true previously, what inclines you toward the conclusion that they are true now?
You say, "Since the claims have apparently not been true previously.....". I did not see you present any factual evidence that they were not true, previously, or at any time since. If you can document your assertions, maybe we can have a conversation on that basis.
We, and especially Israel, have been claiming that Iran has been on the verge of developing nuclear weapons since 1984.
I'm not quite sure if you are asking me to provide evidence that these claims were made, or whether you are suggestiong that these claims were in fact true which would imply that Iran has nuclear weapons and has had them since 1986 or thereabouts...?
Ignore history and you are doomed to repeat it. This assertion tells me you are either uneducated about it or choose to ignore the facts: "There is a world of difference between deciding to use naval power to protect shipping, and the decision to attack a sovereign nation on the grounds that it poses a theoretical threat."
First, US Marines landed and stormed fortifications and raised the US flag over foreign soil after it was taken in the Battle of Derna (April–May 1805). This was more than merely using naval power to protect shipping. One of the crimes committed by these pirates was kidnapping white folk and selling them into slavery. My Marine Corps father didn't tell me about these things either.
Second, Iran posed more than a "theoretic threat". They killed over 1,000 of our troops since 1979 and said they would not stop until the US and Israel no longer existed.
The Barbary pirates were the tail end of an operation that began when the founder of Islam declared that Muslims may not have Muslim slaves. So they had to get slaves elsewhere. Two million were captured from Europe, and men from southern Africa are still being sold in Libyan markets. The European model was this: capture the women and children, castrate the boys, slowly kill off the men by working them to death as galley slaves, and old men were given to young Arab soldiers to torture to death, for 'fun.'
What is the difference between that form of 'entitlement' and the present? Consider that nearly 90% of the 'workers' in, say, UAE, are foreigners.
The problem is that many Westerners don't know and don't bother to learn world history. Many forms of cruelty have stopped (cannibalizing slaves by Aztecs, raping every woman in sight by Genghis Khan's men, etc.) but the minute we let our guard down, they will come back. We live in one of the few free societies in history. We have to cherish and guard it like a priceless treasure.
No debate, the MI6 and CIA coup in 1953 overthrew a democratically elected leader. Bad idea, repeated several times around the world, all bad. None of which makes Iran's threat since 1979 theoretic.
It's obvious Mr. Leake that all the comments fall on deaf ears. I wish you'd understand (really understand) what this war is all about, because clearly you don't.
This is not a mistake. "Mistake" is optics for the American public, to ease them into a long conflict they did not vote for.
The US is depriving China of energy supplies by disrupting the Middle Eastern supply routes through the Straits, bombing oil pipelines across Iran to China, and simultaneously deindustrialising competitors such as Europe through massively inflated oil and commodity prices.
War with Iran has been a US policy since 2009 and they have had plenty of time to think it out.
This includes the policy (publicly acknowledged in their documents) of blaming the war on Israel. Do not be duped by your own US DOD Pentagon liars.
Oh the apologists and limited hangouts trying to cover up for the deep state!
What if the only true goal of this war IS to destabilize the entire world, as a prelude to shape a different and new world order?? Just thinking out loud here. Perhaps this war was never meant to be "won" in a traditional sense. But if enough chaos and harm is inflicted on great many countries, perhaps all would welcome a new world order in the end, with new rules, currency and all.
Either Mossad has videos of Trump on Epstein‘s Island or he’s doing this to secure his Jewish grandchildren‘s future, either way he is a traitor to America and bares no resemblance to the principles we thought he stood for in his first term.
The US was pushed into an unprovoked war with Iran that they are losing all the wild North Americans are paying through the nose for gasoline and our already hyper inflated food prices are increasing along with the price of transportation all to appease the maniacal war criminals of Israel.
Spend some time on Twitter you’re never going to hear about what’s really going on if you’re just getting your information from Fox or CNN, which are both owned by Larry Fink
Then we have trials. We haul everyone who served in that White House and half of Congress off to the Hague in handcuffs, and we put them on trial for crimes against humanity.
After the dust settles and the smoke clears from that, we'll pick up the topic of Iran. But not a moment before then.
Have you been awake the last 47 years? If you think this is bad, how do you think it would be if they had 11 nuclear warheads? They fired off 2 ICBM’s with a 4000km range already. No other country on the planet that would be more of a disaster than Iran to have nuclear weapons. There’s also the often overlooked fact that 90 million people in Iran have been begging for this.
I don’t recall anyone other than Islamic terrorists blowing themselves up so they can go to heaven and have 72 virgin goats. No other country in the world wants to get blown off the face of the earth.
Our interests. Access to oil. Alliances with the Saudis for the same. Terrorism. Attacks on the US in 1993 (World Trade Center Bombing) and 9/11/2001.
John and the folks here seem to like to reference history. Perhaps they should consider the nature of the enemy and his religion, the following short and incomplete list of attacks on Europeans, including Americans…
• 711 AD: Umayyad Caliphate invasion of Spain (Hispania) begins — Tariq ibn Ziyad leads Berber-Arab forces across the Strait of Gibraltar, defeats Visigothic King Roderic at Guadalete, and rapidly conquers most of the Iberian Peninsula, establishing Al-Andalus.
• 732 AD: Battle of Tours (also called Battle of Poitiers) — Umayyad forces from Al-Andalus advance into Frankish territory (modern France) but are defeated by Charles Martel’s army, halting the northward Muslim expansion into Western Europe.
• 1354: Ottomans seize Gallipoli – first foothold in Balkans
• 1389: Battle of Kosovo – Ottomans defeat major Balkan coalition
• 1453: Fall of Constantinople – Ottomans conquer Byzantine capital (& Greece)
• 1529: First Ottoman Siege of Vienna — Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent’s army besieges the Habsburg capital but fails due to supply shortages and weather, marking the high-water mark of early Ottoman westward land expansion.
• 1565: Ottoman Great Siege of Malta — Sultan Suleiman sends ~40,000 troops and 200 ships to conquer the island held by the Knights Hospitaller; after four months of brutal fighting, the defenders under Grand Master Jean de Valette repel the invasion with a Spanish relief force.
• 1571: Battle of Lepanto — Holy League (Spain, Venice, Papal States, etc.) destroys the Ottoman navy in the largest galley battle in history near Lepanto (Greece), shattering Ottoman naval dominance in the Mediterranean.
• 1683: Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna (Battle of Vienna) — Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha’s massive Ottoman army besieges Vienna for two months; a multinational Christian relief force led by King John III Sobieski of Poland crushes the Ottomans on 12 September, beginning the long Ottoman retreat from Central Europe.
In fact, the Barbary Wars (1805 and 1815) were just a continuation of these conflicts.
It’s not ethnicity it’s a particular viewpoint based on religious belief. The Mullah’s are religious fanatics dedicated to conquering the world. They are following a tradition that goes back to the founding of Islam. That tradition was exemplified by the Moors, who invaded Spain and France, and the Ottomans, who conquered the Byzantine Empire and attempted to control the Mediterranean and invaded Greece, the Balkans and Eastern Europe, and even the Barbary Pirates who attacked and enslaved Europeans in the Western Mediterranean and who we fought in the Barbary Wars. And yes, I know that the Mullah’s are Shi’a, a particular branch of Islam.
Furthermore, Iran is a mosaic of ethnic and linguistic groups. Persians make up roughly half the population while the rest comprises Azeris, Arabs, Balochis, Kurds, Gilanis, Mazanderanis, Loris, Qashqais, Bakhtiaris, Armenians, etc.
Even the Persians who conquered all of what we now call the Middle East and fought the Greeks and Macedonians from 500BC to Alexander the Great’s conquest of their Empire in the 330s BC were multi-ethnic and called themselves “the Medes and the Persians”.
Those former “Persians” contested the Middle East with the Romans and the Byzantines until they were taken over by Islam and the rise of the Ottoman Turks. The only reason that they were not invading Europe was that the Roman/Byzantine Empire stopped them, just like the Greeks did in 500BC.
Why do you say this should be a pickle to get out of?
Trump could cease bombardment at any time, and the result would be IRGC in control with fewer assets available to use. One month ago, IRGC had full team and massive expendables.
Where's the downside?
Are you going to say that IRGC will shut down Straits??? Nooo, say it isn't possible! Why, what respectable, sovereign nation would bomb third party commerce?
The best analogy for where the US now finds itself is the classic tar-baby scene in the Disney animated 1946 movie (now considered inappropriate but with some great moments) “Song of the South”. Br’er rabbit can’t resist starting a fight with the Tar Baby and is soon trapped in a struggle that he can’t win but can’t extricate himself from. Perhaps the US will eventually learn that bombing the citizens of other countries for trumped up reasons (pun intended) to satisfy the international banksters and MIC never has a happy ending, but I doubt it.
As Americans we should hang our heads in shame. When Barrack Obama delivered pallets full of cash, supposedly in the billions, we should have realized we were getting into something that would not have a pleasant outcome. But we muddled along in our stupor waiting until the covert support for Islamists led to a building nuclear threat. Crazies with nukes is always an unpleasant something to get into...
NOT A THEORETICAL THREAT; A CONTINUING THREAT
• 1979–81 Tehran Hostage Crisis: Regime seized US Embassy; 52 Americans held 444 days. 
• 1983 Beirut: Apr embassy bombing (Iran-backed): 17 Americans killed. Oct Marine barracks (Hezbollah): 241 US troops killed. 
• 1996 Khobar Towers (Saudi): Iran-backed truck bomb: 19 US airmen killed. 
• 2003–11 Iraq: Proxies (Iranian EFPs/IEDs): 603+ US troops killed. 
• Jan 2020: Direct Iranian missiles on US bases (Iraq): 100+ troops with TBI.
• Oct 2023–early 2025: 180+ proxy attacks on US bases (Iraq/Syria/Jordan); 3 US soldiers + 1 contractor killed. 
And…
• 2011 Washington, DC: IRGC plot to bomb restaurant & assassinate Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir (foreign dignitary); also eyed Israeli/Saudi embassies. Manssor Arbabsiar (US-Iranian) convicted, sentenced to 25 years. 
• 2022: IRGC operative Shahram Poursafi charged with murder-for-hire to kill former US National Security Advisor John Bolton (offered $300k); also targeted Mike Pompeo (former Secretary of State). Foiled by FBI. 
• 2024 (ongoing into 2025): Multiple IRGC-directed plots vs. US politicians/officials, including then-candidate/President-elect Donald Trump. Asif Merchant (IRGC-trained Pakistani) convicted Mar 2026 for recruiting hitmen; Farhad Shakeri charged in related network. All disrupted. 
Building Nuclear Weapons (material for 11 known to exist) and long range ballistic missiles for delivery of same.
Chants “Death to America” every day
A Real & Present Threat
Please tell me why we have our soldiers stationed all over the Middle East. Whose real interest do they serve, besides Israel, multinational oil companies and the petrodollar.
Our interests. Oil. Alliances with the Saudi’s (the reason for Desert Shield and Desert Storm). Terrorism, e.g., 1993 WTC Bombing, 9/11/2001.
The majority of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudis, yet we stay aligned with them to protect their oil and the petrodollar. If you believe in sacrificing our youth for those causes, then you send your children to the Middle East and stay away from mine.
We have a volunteer military. If your kids want to join it’s up to them. No one is coming for them if they decide to do something else. Although they’ll probably be glad not to get killed in a nuclear attack.
And those Saudis were controlled by bin Laden, a Saudi, operating out of Afghanistan, who escaped to Pakistan where he was finally located and killed. So, was he a Saudi or an Afghani or a Pakistani?
boom
Why do your interests dictate other people's behaviour - and curtail their freedom in their own countries?
If you think that you are far better and more important than brown/Muslim people, just come right out and say it.
They can have all the cultural freedom they want until they start deciding that their culture gives them the right to murder, enslave and rape my people because we aren’t part of their culture or steal for us because we aren’t part of their culture.
Since you refer to "my people", may I ask who they are?
No, you may not.
boom
You’ve answered your own question….the petrodollar. Which has nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with our interests.
boom
The USA also helped overthrow Mossadegh because he had the audacity to think that Iranian oil should belong to the Iranian people. Not the USA. Then the USA installed the Shah who himself was brutal. The Iranians had a revolution and unfortunately got worse. That happens in a revolution. The USA has sanctioned Iran for nearly 40 years, causing more hardships for the people.
Just an FYI
*Iraq war claim of WMD, none found. Country destabilized. Millions dead. Thousand of us military dead. Still an unstable country. We have the oil.
*Afghanistan, they supposedly on their own did 9/11. Fought for 20 YEARS. The Taliban still in charge
*Syria, Assad was bad, yes, he was overthrown and Syria is now being run by an Al Qaeda terrorist. Who actually fought against Americans in the war. He took off his head scarf and put on a fine Italian suit, now he is ok. He even spoke at the UN 6 miles from the twin towers, he even had a personal invite to the White House and visited with Trump, who sprayed him with his Trump cologne. We won. Assad is gone. The Christian and other minorities are now suffering extermination. But apparently genocide is ok if the USA is not doing it. Just ask Israel.
Libya, Gadaffi had the audacity to say he wanted to go off the us dollar system. “ We came, we saw, he died” as Hillary so eloquently said (barf). Failed state.they even have slave markets now. But big oil still gets their cut of the prize.
Ukraine. NATO push to expand. Russia set a red line just like we did during the Cuban missile crisis. Been in a proxy war for 3 years.
Israel is taking car of the expulsion of Lebanon. The settlers just attacked the last Christian village
Now Iran.
Somalia and Sudan in chaos.
I think we have now accomplished the 7 countries in five years, extended plan. But give us a break, overthrowing governments and causing chaos is not an easy job.
Iraq was terrible.
Iraq fought a 8 year war with Iran. So how come you are equating the 2?
Well because - yet again - we are justifying an attack on the basis of WMD. Fool me once etc.
Such a clever response.
What I love about you is the substance of your reasoning. Your knowledge base and the way you draw logical conclusions from sound premises is really impressive.
Because Iraq didn't have WMD no other country can have them. Why does Iran continuously shout death to Israel death to US.
Propagandize for Russia much?
Is it Russian propaganda? Could you specify one (more if you like, but one will do for the purposes of an initial investigation) of her claims which you are sure is Russian propaganda and provide some evidence for that?
You seem to forget that the nation of Israel is a giant military base for the US. Have you ever thought about that? If the US did not support Israel, would we really have any problems in the Middle East? Think about that.
FWIW it is a 2 way street even if it apears that the tail is currently wagging the dog. The creation of Israel is a classic Machiavellian ploy (I mean this literally - it's right out fo the Prince). Machiavelli argues that the best way to control a region is to establish a colony - for the colony will be surrounded by enemies, entirely dependent upon its sponsor for military support and will always fight fiercely in alliance with that sponsor.
Israel has undoubtedly served the interests of the US in maintaining US control of the region and both its oil and its military significance as part of the cordon around Russia/China - and thus supporting the almighty petrodollar - for the last few decades and still does so.
However I suspect the petrodollar may now be doomed, and perhaps Israel and even the US along with it. And perhaps that is/was the plan all along. Transitions are more easily managed when their timing is controlled.
The relationship between Israel and the AngloAmerican empire was truly a marriage made in hell - a devil's bargain on both sides.
1953 - Operate Ajax. Ask ChatGPT about it.
Old news. Mossaddegh was nationalizing US/UK oil companies and seizing their property and he was working with the Communists. And you probably didn’t know that in that coup some of the Mullahs supported the Shah over Mosaddegh because they were concerned about his communist leanings and his secular focus.
The Communists aided the Mullahs in the 1979 revolt against the Shah. The Mullahs subsequently suppressed the Communists.
The Communists are now part of the coalition fighting the Mullahs. So, same old, same old.
You sound as if you think there is something bad about communists. (And why capitalise the name?)
If you want to see the difference between communism and capitalism, compare the state of China with that of the USA, the UK, or other such "shithole" countries.
You are some comedian.
Let’s see. Why did the Soviet Union fall? Not because they were invaded but because they couldn’t keep up economically. Back in the day you could see a direct comparison at the Inter-German Border. Western side, Capitalist, rich. Eastern side Communist, in abject poverty.
Same thing in Korea. South, Capitalist rich. North Communist, poor and starving.
Same thing between capitalistic Taiwan and communist Mainland China. Until the WTO China was an economic basket case. Taiwan the world’s leader in microchip manufacturing.
And the “Chinese miracle”, not really a miracle. It’s not hard to show tremendous economic growth when you’re moving your population from subsistence farming and outhouses to an industrial economy with indoor toilets. After that bump, most of the growth is just mercantilism and stupid US leaders who allowed (and profited from) the hollowing out of our economy after admitting the PRC to the WTO. It’s all powered by intellectual property theft and poor quality control. Chinese concrete is much weaker than US concrete, which is why their buildings collapse. The vaunted Chinese weapons failed in Venezuela and Iran, because they are 2nd rate copies. Chinese GDP calculations are state sponsored fiction.
Compare the snails' pace of economic advancement of the USA since 1776 with the phenomenonal economic advancement of China since it became Communist in 1949.
Yes, the Communist Chinese score nearly 2/3 of a standard deviation higher than Americans do on mean IQ but so do the Taiwanese and they are nowhere near as economically advanced.
FWIW I do think there is something bad about communists. However I also think that western oil companies did steal Iranian oil and it's worth noting that Mossadegh first demanded to audit the oil companies to verify that they were complying with what they had agreed to, and only moved forward to nationalize them when they refused audits. And at that point UK and US instigated his overthrow. The British called it operation Boot - which at least has the virtue of being amusing.
So the western oil companies went into Iran without Iranian government permission. Cut me a break.
Back then there weren't Iranian companies who could get the oil.
Maybe you're not familiar with the history?
It wasn't "western oil companies" going into Iran and cutting deals. During WW2 the British and Russians jointly invaded the place in an act of entirely unprovoked aggression and the just started stealing the oil for Stalin's army.
On your final point - am I entitled to steal potatoes from your garden just because you don't currently own a shovel?
When are you moving to China?
You are a communist. I know you. ( I didn't capitalize communists.)
Yet you stay in USA.
It"s because the USA is Number 1 for Marxist-Leninism with American characteristics. Karl Marx worked for a New York paper and was friendly with Abe Lincoln. He loved the GOP. He praised it. And the US spreads communism all around the world. Where do you think the ideas of preferred pronouns and bending over and taking it up the butt came from?
100% correct. This is a 47 year old war, we just now joined it.
Twelver Shiism began about 900 years ago.
hhhmm John has some cleaver subscribers
https://palexander.substack.com/p/former-mi6-chief-iran-has-the-upper
We’ve been in this war since the start…all 47 years of it.
As for the greater civilizational conflict, the US was attacked since its founding and got formally involved starting in 1805 with the 1st Barbary War.
As RLM notes below Twelver Shiism is the basis of a conflict that’s over 900 years old.
Straight from Israeli hasbara. In response to the 1983 bombing, when Israel blamed Iran and told us to go to war w Iran, Reagan said no, pulled our troops out of the Middle East East, and told Israel to stop bombing Lebanon. That was leadership.
🎯💯
1. What evidence is there of Iranian involvement? You will find it's mostly (if not all) Israeli, US, or European. Evidence given by enemies is not reliable.
2. The Americans could not have been killed had they been where they had a right to be - at home. Occupy other people's countries, push them around, kill them - pay the price. Mind you, a large amount of the price is still outstanding.
I guess you approve of the Iranian people killing their dissidents.
What will you do if the Iranians get a nuke?
Why do you think he approves of Iranian people killing dissidents?
Also why do you think the Iranians are going to get nukes? Because the same people who told us Iraq had them are now claiming Iran is about to get them (and FWIW they have been claiming this for forty years now)?
And finally - is that all we have to do - say a country is about to get nukes and then we can invade them? Since we already have nukes are they therefore justified in invading us?
PS Personally I have some doubts about whether "nukes" even exist at all - but that's a separate discussion.
Bush said Iraq had nukes, Your TDS is ooc,
So iran isn't developing nukes. You are a Soros sheeple.
Why do you think I am a "Soros sheeple"?
No, YOU find the Trump Administration in an unhappy position. Let's pray it's a "theoretical threat". I'm willing to bet they have a nuke tipped weapon hiding in some cave somewhere they are scrambling to get operable and delaying with these "negotiations" as long as they can using Taqiyya. We already KNOW they have fissionable material enough to make 11 bombs, and we don't have it yet. That's NOT theoretical.
https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/quran/taqiyya.aspx
We took out their nuke capabilities with operation “Midnight Hammer” less than a year ago. Were we lied to then? The Covid vaccines were “safe and effective.” That was the point of “Operation Warp Speed.” And I still remember “Weapons of Mass Destruction” to eliminate Saddam Hussein and thousands of American lives, and the “Domino Theory” of communist expansion throughout South East Asia and Australia. History has taught me not to believe anything our government tells us. I feel sad for those who look through the lens of MAGA and can see nothing wrong. It’s as bad as TDS.
I almost forgot to mention our 20 year plus adventure into Afghanistan to eliminate the Taliban threat, another “effective” operation at killing off our soldiers.
Didn’t read the rest of your post, but the nuclear material was not recovered, nor were their abilities “taken out.”; only the labs were damaged in Hammer.
Other admins have been kicking this can down the road; it eventually needed to stop, and before it was too late. IDK how this will end, and hate the war, but remain hopeful.
At least I didn't vote for Biden. Ha Ha
You left out the goofball 911 quickly-trained "islamists" flying into the towers and all that amazing dust, and the invisible plane remains at the Penta gone and yank your shanksville chain and the empty field. Also left out Boston hoax a thon and that school with all the parents cracking up less than 24 hrs. These vids. have been scrubbed off Boob toobe so fagetaboutit.
I see you telling the big truth! Good for you - I appreciate that you know better. Well done.
Spot on! Facts!
" “Midnight Hammer” less than a year ago. Were we lied to then?"
Who are Iran's top super power allies? Wonder if they have anything to do with nuke capability for Iran? Agreed that the deep state, has hood winked the public for decades.
MAGA sure beats the hell out of a NWO, imo. Do nothing and we're all sitting ducks --from the crazed killers in Iran and their proxies..
What do all these other wars have to do with Iran? Was Trump president during these wars? You forgot to mention what we did to the Indians?
Iraq had WMDs too - didn't they? We have been claiming Iran is "about to get nukes" since 1984. Was the claim true in 1984? What happened? How come they didn't have nukes by 1985, or 1986, or 1987, or 1988? We - and Israel, especially Israel, have been making claims about Iranian nuclear capability for over forty years (dozens and dozens of them - over and over again).
Since these claims have apparently not been true previously, what inclines you toward the conclusion that they are true now?
You say, "Since the claims have apparently not been true previously.....". I did not see you present any factual evidence that they were not true, previously, or at any time since. If you can document your assertions, maybe we can have a conversation on that basis.
We, and especially Israel, have been claiming that Iran has been on the verge of developing nuclear weapons since 1984.
I'm not quite sure if you are asking me to provide evidence that these claims were made, or whether you are suggestiong that these claims were in fact true which would imply that Iran has nuclear weapons and has had them since 1986 or thereabouts...?
This article https://nordictimes.com/analysis/the-myth-of-irans-nuclear-weapons/ provides a list of some of the claims that have been made over the years (there are actually many more than this, but this will do for starters. Is that what you're looking for?
1984 – Jane’s Defense Weekly: Iran may have nuclear weapons within two years.
1992 – Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran close to having a bomb by 1999.
1993 – Yitzhak Rabin: Iran is building nuclear weapons, the world must act.
1995 – US government: Iran's nuclear weapons plans must be stopped
1998 – Madeleine Albright: Iran is trying to acquire nuclear weapons.
2000 – Bill Clinton: Law against support for Iran's weapons program.
2002 – George W. Bush: Iran threatens with nuclear weapons plans.
2004 – U.S. National Intelligence Estimate: Iran probably moving toward nuclear weapons.
2005 – Ariel Sharon: Iran close to technical solution for bomb.
2006 – George W. Bush: Iran's nuclear plans threaten peace.
2007 – US intelligence: Iran paused its weapons program in 2003 but is rebuilding capacity.
2008 – Ehud Olmert: Iran close to irreversible nuclear weapons point.
2009 – Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran three to five years from bomb.
2010 – Barack Obama: Iran's nuclear program a major threat.
2011 – Leon Panetta: Iran could have a bomb within a year.
2012 – Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran close to the “red line” for nuclear weapons.
2013 – Moshe Ya’alon: Iran very close to the nuclear threshold.
2014 – Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran on its way to becoming a nuclear power.
2015 – Benjamin Netanyahu: JCPOA (nuclear agreement with Iran) paves the way for Iran's bomb.
2017 – Donald Trump: Iran could quickly obtain nuclear weapons.
2018 – Mike Pompeo: Iran is seeking nuclear weapons despite JCPOA.
2019 – Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran close to manufacturing an atomic bomb.
2020 – Donald Trump: Iran economically weak but nuclear threat remains.
2021 – Joe Biden: Iran must comply with JCPOA to stop nuclear weapons.
2023 – Yoav Gallant: Iran closer to the bomb than ever.
2024 – US intelligence: Iran months away from nuclear weapons.
2025 – Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran could build nine nuclear weapons.
2025 – Donald Trump: US could bomb Iran if nuclear program is not stopped.
Ignore history and you are doomed to repeat it. This assertion tells me you are either uneducated about it or choose to ignore the facts: "There is a world of difference between deciding to use naval power to protect shipping, and the decision to attack a sovereign nation on the grounds that it poses a theoretical threat."
First, US Marines landed and stormed fortifications and raised the US flag over foreign soil after it was taken in the Battle of Derna (April–May 1805). This was more than merely using naval power to protect shipping. One of the crimes committed by these pirates was kidnapping white folk and selling them into slavery. My Marine Corps father didn't tell me about these things either.
Second, Iran posed more than a "theoretic threat". They killed over 1,000 of our troops since 1979 and said they would not stop until the US and Israel no longer existed.
The Barbary pirates were the tail end of an operation that began when the founder of Islam declared that Muslims may not have Muslim slaves. So they had to get slaves elsewhere. Two million were captured from Europe, and men from southern Africa are still being sold in Libyan markets. The European model was this: capture the women and children, castrate the boys, slowly kill off the men by working them to death as galley slaves, and old men were given to young Arab soldiers to torture to death, for 'fun.'
What is the difference between that form of 'entitlement' and the present? Consider that nearly 90% of the 'workers' in, say, UAE, are foreigners.
The problem is that many Westerners don't know and don't bother to learn world history. Many forms of cruelty have stopped (cannibalizing slaves by Aztecs, raping every woman in sight by Genghis Khan's men, etc.) but the minute we let our guard down, they will come back. We live in one of the few free societies in history. We have to cherish and guard it like a priceless treasure.
Also the USS liberty. Oh wait.
Look up Operation Ajax.
Outside of the US, Iranian history begins before 1979.
No debate, the MI6 and CIA coup in 1953 overthrew a democratically elected leader. Bad idea, repeated several times around the world, all bad. None of which makes Iran's threat since 1979 theoretic.
It's obvious Mr. Leake that all the comments fall on deaf ears. I wish you'd understand (really understand) what this war is all about, because clearly you don't.
You can't unfry an egg. But who ordered the egg, put us all in the pan, and turned on the gas. This is what we need to look at in a very public way.
This is not a mistake. "Mistake" is optics for the American public, to ease them into a long conflict they did not vote for.
The US is depriving China of energy supplies by disrupting the Middle Eastern supply routes through the Straits, bombing oil pipelines across Iran to China, and simultaneously deindustrialising competitors such as Europe through massively inflated oil and commodity prices.
War with Iran has been a US policy since 2009 and they have had plenty of time to think it out.
This includes the policy (publicly acknowledged in their documents) of blaming the war on Israel. Do not be duped by your own US DOD Pentagon liars.
Oh the apologists and limited hangouts trying to cover up for the deep state!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QZyYjeC01w
1 Month: US War on Iran Escalating Globally - Russia Sees US Aggression Growing into World War
What if the only true goal of this war IS to destabilize the entire world, as a prelude to shape a different and new world order?? Just thinking out loud here. Perhaps this war was never meant to be "won" in a traditional sense. But if enough chaos and harm is inflicted on great many countries, perhaps all would welcome a new world order in the end, with new rules, currency and all.
BINGO!
Either Mossad has videos of Trump on Epstein‘s Island or he’s doing this to secure his Jewish grandchildren‘s future, either way he is a traitor to America and bares no resemblance to the principles we thought he stood for in his first term.
The US was pushed into an unprovoked war with Iran that they are losing all the wild North Americans are paying through the nose for gasoline and our already hyper inflated food prices are increasing along with the price of transportation all to appease the maniacal war criminals of Israel.
Iran is winning. Now that's funny.
Spend some time on Twitter you’re never going to hear about what’s really going on if you’re just getting your information from Fox or CNN, which are both owned by Larry Fink
The people of this nation aren’t waging this war, it’s the criminal psychopaths who hijacked the nation waging it
You compared Iran to Iraq.
Iraq was a big mistake. Saddam fought Iran for 8 years for us. He was no threat to USA.
Iran has a history of terrorism. They have killed thousands of their dissidents.
Are you saying they didn't want a nuke?
If they got a nuke are you guaranteeing us they wouldn't have wanted to use it?
Iraq was a "big mistake", and "no threat to USA"?
Then we have trials. We haul everyone who served in that White House and half of Congress off to the Hague in handcuffs, and we put them on trial for crimes against humanity.
After the dust settles and the smoke clears from that, we'll pick up the topic of Iran. But not a moment before then.
Tell me how you know it was the White House and Congress fault. It could just as wll been our intelligent agencies.
Even the threat of use would be enough to paralyze the world.
Always easier to start a war than to end one. Something the Neo=cons NEVER Learn!
That and they don't care. They are a pathetic bunch of Sociopaths that only consider military power and nothing else.
Have you been awake the last 47 years? If you think this is bad, how do you think it would be if they had 11 nuclear warheads? They fired off 2 ICBM’s with a 4000km range already. No other country on the planet that would be more of a disaster than Iran to have nuclear weapons. There’s also the often overlooked fact that 90 million people in Iran have been begging for this.
Compare to N Korea... haven't heard of NK slinging bombs around their neighborhood. Iran, shoots at anybody and everybody. End the regime, imo.
North Korea didn't say kill Israel kill the US.
I don’t recall anyone other than Islamic terrorists blowing themselves up so they can go to heaven and have 72 virgin goats. No other country in the world wants to get blown off the face of the earth.
Our interests. Access to oil. Alliances with the Saudis for the same. Terrorism. Attacks on the US in 1993 (World Trade Center Bombing) and 9/11/2001.
John and the folks here seem to like to reference history. Perhaps they should consider the nature of the enemy and his religion, the following short and incomplete list of attacks on Europeans, including Americans…
• 711 AD: Umayyad Caliphate invasion of Spain (Hispania) begins — Tariq ibn Ziyad leads Berber-Arab forces across the Strait of Gibraltar, defeats Visigothic King Roderic at Guadalete, and rapidly conquers most of the Iberian Peninsula, establishing Al-Andalus.
• 732 AD: Battle of Tours (also called Battle of Poitiers) — Umayyad forces from Al-Andalus advance into Frankish territory (modern France) but are defeated by Charles Martel’s army, halting the northward Muslim expansion into Western Europe.
• 1354: Ottomans seize Gallipoli – first foothold in Balkans
• 1389: Battle of Kosovo – Ottomans defeat major Balkan coalition
• 1453: Fall of Constantinople – Ottomans conquer Byzantine capital (& Greece)
• 1529: First Ottoman Siege of Vienna — Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent’s army besieges the Habsburg capital but fails due to supply shortages and weather, marking the high-water mark of early Ottoman westward land expansion.
• 1565: Ottoman Great Siege of Malta — Sultan Suleiman sends ~40,000 troops and 200 ships to conquer the island held by the Knights Hospitaller; after four months of brutal fighting, the defenders under Grand Master Jean de Valette repel the invasion with a Spanish relief force.
• 1571: Battle of Lepanto — Holy League (Spain, Venice, Papal States, etc.) destroys the Ottoman navy in the largest galley battle in history near Lepanto (Greece), shattering Ottoman naval dominance in the Mediterranean.
• 1683: Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna (Battle of Vienna) — Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha’s massive Ottoman army besieges Vienna for two months; a multinational Christian relief force led by King John III Sobieski of Poland crushes the Ottomans on 12 September, beginning the long Ottoman retreat from Central Europe.
In fact, the Barbary Wars (1805 and 1815) were just a continuation of these conflicts.
The Iranians are Persians. Not Turks or Arabs. They speak Farsi, not Turkish or Arabic.
The Persians have never invaded Europe since the Graeco-Persian wars of 449 BC.
It’s not ethnicity it’s a particular viewpoint based on religious belief. The Mullah’s are religious fanatics dedicated to conquering the world. They are following a tradition that goes back to the founding of Islam. That tradition was exemplified by the Moors, who invaded Spain and France, and the Ottomans, who conquered the Byzantine Empire and attempted to control the Mediterranean and invaded Greece, the Balkans and Eastern Europe, and even the Barbary Pirates who attacked and enslaved Europeans in the Western Mediterranean and who we fought in the Barbary Wars. And yes, I know that the Mullah’s are Shi’a, a particular branch of Islam.
Furthermore, Iran is a mosaic of ethnic and linguistic groups. Persians make up roughly half the population while the rest comprises Azeris, Arabs, Balochis, Kurds, Gilanis, Mazanderanis, Loris, Qashqais, Bakhtiaris, Armenians, etc.
Even the Persians who conquered all of what we now call the Middle East and fought the Greeks and Macedonians from 500BC to Alexander the Great’s conquest of their Empire in the 330s BC were multi-ethnic and called themselves “the Medes and the Persians”.
Those former “Persians” contested the Middle East with the Romans and the Byzantines until they were taken over by Islam and the rise of the Ottoman Turks. The only reason that they were not invading Europe was that the Roman/Byzantine Empire stopped them, just like the Greeks did in 500BC.
And the Persian people don’t desire to be Muslim.
His post is about MUSLIMS, not countries.
Fear Not Iran. The tyrants and the IRGC will be taken down.
The doctor will see you now, David
Must be your appointment is drawing to a close…
How long have you been feeling this way, David?
Yup. Watch us grab Kharg this weekend.
And if that doesn't happen you'll get a booster. Commit to doing that.
Why do you say this should be a pickle to get out of?
Trump could cease bombardment at any time, and the result would be IRGC in control with fewer assets available to use. One month ago, IRGC had full team and massive expendables.
Where's the downside?
Are you going to say that IRGC will shut down Straits??? Nooo, say it isn't possible! Why, what respectable, sovereign nation would bomb third party commerce?
The best analogy for where the US now finds itself is the classic tar-baby scene in the Disney animated 1946 movie (now considered inappropriate but with some great moments) “Song of the South”. Br’er rabbit can’t resist starting a fight with the Tar Baby and is soon trapped in a struggle that he can’t win but can’t extricate himself from. Perhaps the US will eventually learn that bombing the citizens of other countries for trumped up reasons (pun intended) to satisfy the international banksters and MIC never has a happy ending, but I doubt it.
As Americans we should hang our heads in shame. When Barrack Obama delivered pallets full of cash, supposedly in the billions, we should have realized we were getting into something that would not have a pleasant outcome. But we muddled along in our stupor waiting until the covert support for Islamists led to a building nuclear threat. Crazies with nukes is always an unpleasant something to get into...
.... or get killed by