1. Distracting from domEstic ProblemS. StarTing a rEgIoNal war is an effective way to do that.
2. Kidnapping Maduro made the rest of Venezuela's government roll over and play fetch, they are stupid enough to believe it would have worked again.
3. Israel says jump, GOP asks 'how high'?
4. There are no negative consequences to them killing people, driving the country into ruinous debt, or blowing up the American economy through higher energy prices. The drawbacks simply don't exist.
Hegseth is a white christian nationalist with a crusades tattoo. Whatcha think the intended purpose is here? People said this was going to happen when he was nominated.
There's a christian prophecy involving israel occupying certain lands, a cow, and some other nonsense. A weirdly high number of Americans, mostly christians, believe it. There are a ton of them in the Trump admin.
That's still ten years of collaboration that could have built greater trust, led to a new agreement, or worst case provided enough evidence to take a more precise military action instead of bombing girls schools.
Build greater trust? The Iranian regime's identity is based on anti-American rhetoric. They fund Hamas and Hezbollah because Israel is an American ally. They say this in their marches and their speeches and their rallies.
You are suggesting that these people change their entire identity to suit your notion that the world should be peaceful. Would you suggest that a metalhead not wear leather because you don't like loud music? Would you suggest that a gay man "be normal" because "God doesn't like gays"? Identity is not something you change in other people. Unless you're some colonial conquerer forcing your culture on others.
Should nuclear weapons be kept out of the hands of people who threaten neighbouring and allied countries with military force? Who threaten distant countries with destruction if they don't comply with their demands, which change every day? Who have a support base that makes up 30%+ of the country, and chants absolutely insane shit at their rallies?
By any rational, third-party standard, such a country should not have nuclear weapons.
That’s going to age as well as weapons of mass destruction in Iraq did. The reality is that only Israel was threatened by Iran and the US is caught up in it simply because we act as their vassal.
Then how do you explain the rockets taking on Saudi Arabia? Baharain? UAE? Even Diego Garcia - which is further from Iran than Israel is. Just as far as Europe is. So they were only developing weapons that could target Israel?
Well, it was more to target Soviet satellites in Latin America which might, in a foreseeable scenario, host Soviet missiles (also, to hit the Soviet Far East, which would be even more likely to host Soviet missiles.)
But it also wasn't not to have the capacity to target the US; if France implicitly trusted the US they wouldn't have opted out of the NATO unified military command for 43 years as well as developing their own nuclear deterrent.
I gave the example to show dotancohens absolutely ridiculous insinuation. All militaries always want to expand their capabilities. To say it somehow means Iran wants to target Europe is absolutely ridiculous.
Only Israelis have given nuclear threats to Europe. Iran hasn't. Id you say the man who threatened to nuke Europe wasn't a government agent, would you have extended the same clarity to an Iranian saying the same. Objectively all points show Israel is much more of a threat to Europe than Iran is. Every countries military wants as adcanced capabilities as possible, it is telling you ignored my France example. You simply saying the range of icbms of a country annd without anything else implying thats a threat. That's frankly unbelievable.