[War] Trump declares war on Iran for regime change

they have brought up at least 3 different reasons for why we went to war with Iran…you can call it speculation, but I believe Jared Kushner or Witkoff’s incompetence or whatever they might have said mattered very little

We already did a bombing campaign with Israel months ago and this regime said they had completely destroyed Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but then a few months later they’re just weeks away again? Those were never serious negotiations to begin with

1st it’s nukes that we had already destroyed according to the regime itself, then it’s a preemptive strike because Iran was going to attack us, then it’s regime change, then next week it will be something else

 

Trump says the 'quiet part out loud' with brag US makes 'a lot of money' from oil crisis

 

Exactly, it wasn't a good faith negotiation. Trump sent two Zionists to negotiate. It's obvious they never intended to make a deal. It's crazy that America can start a war with zero representation for the people.

 

Iran does support and harbor and give intelligence to a number of terrorist organizations in the Middle East. There is a reason why there are so many countries in the Middle East that dislike them. Having said that -- there are a lot of nations in the Middle East that dislike Israel, and yet we support them more than we do our own people.... also, if we hadn't invaded Iraq, then sanctioned and invaded again --- they would be keeping Iran in check.

All of these interests involved in the Middle East -- and the reality is that none of them actually give a **** about civilians.

 

A lot of things that happened during WWII would likely be considered war crimes today, but even then there were rules of war like the Hague Conventions. After WWII, when tens of millions of civilians had died, the world expanded those protections through the Geneva Conventions.

Those rules exist for a reason. Political leaders are generally civilians unless they are directly participating in hostilities, and treating entire political leaderships as targets erodes the protections meant to limit civilian deaths.

Even in WWII, the Allies were not systematically hunting every political figure in Nazi Germany. The strategy was to defeat the military and force surrender.

These norms benefit everyone. If countries abandon them, the risk in future large wars is not just escalation but massive civilian casualties again.

 

What mattered was not starting the war in the first place, and Witkoff/Kushner were part of the diplomatic failure that helped get us there.

Once a war starts, the margin for error collapses. If the leadership wasn’t prepared, which the shifting explanations suggest they weren’t, then things can spiral quickly. The fact that the justification keeps moving, first nukes, then a preemptive strike, then regime change, only reinforces the concern that this wasn’t thought through.

The other reason their competence matters is simple: we are now at war. When a country is in a war, you want the most qualified people possible making decisions. Not political loyalists or people learning on the job.

That is why this matters beyond just criticizing a couple of negotiators. Congress and the public often treat appointments like they are routine political fights. They are not. If unqualified people are placed in top national security positions, the risk is not abstract. In a crisis like this, those decisions can burn the whole house down.

At this point the priority should be obvious: stop treating competence as optional and start removing people who clearly are not up to the job. And to be clear, the goal should not be expanding this war, but finding the most competent path to ending it.

 

The Allies were very much interested in assassinating Nazi government officials; they just could not get to them - and historically that has been the case, but that has changed the last 25 years. Now it is easier to reach people in positions of leadership with missiles and drones. We did it under Bush and Obama.

Whether political leaders are civilians or are combatants is debatable as they drive policy. I understand your position, and think it is a valid point of view. However, the social structure that was established after WWI and WWII is largely gone at this point.

 

A fair point that leaders have been targets in war, and technology today certainly makes it easier to reach individuals with drones or precision strikes. But the historical comparison needs some correction.

During WWII, there were discussions about assassinating figures like Adolf Hitler, but the Allies were not running a campaign to kill the entire Nazi political leadership. The main strategy was defeating Germany’s military and industrial capacity.

The modern examples you mention under George W. Bush and Barack Obama mostly targeted leaders of armed groups like Al-Qaeda who were actively engaged in hostilities. That is treated differently under international law than targeting the civilian political leadership of a state.

I agree technology has changed what is possible. The post-WWII framework, like the Geneva Conventions, draws these distinctions to avoid normalizing political assassination between states, because once that line disappears, escalation becomes much harder to contain. Internation law structure isn’t gone. it can be updated as situations change, but wholesale ignoring it, as Fetterman’s suggested, would not only be illegal but extremely dangerous.

 

the issue is Trump himself…there is nothing Kushner or Witkoff were gonna do that overrides Netanyahu

the negotiations were never serious to begin with, because the goal of destroying Iran was already determined…those attempts at diplomacy were a farce and nothing more than a formality

We’re having negotiations regarding something we had already fully destroyed just a few months ago via a bombing campaign? I mean, c’mon

I agree that competence is important, but we were attacking Iran regardless because it is what Netanyahu wants…and it is obvious that this is something we are being forced to do which is why it’s been poorly thought out and the goalposts keep moving to try and rationalize it

so yeah, Kushner and Witkoff are dumb, but the negotiations were never a serious thing from the start

 

If they had reached a nuclear deal, there wouldn't be a war now. As I said, it's plausible that the nuclear deal negotiations were a farce, but I'd rather deal with what we know than speculate.

No one believed the "fully destroyed" claim; it was just red meat. That situation actually indicated that the US would, like it did in Trump 1, limit their attack. Quick strike and get out. In fact, and now I'm speculating, I think Trump thought this was that too: big bomb attack and done. His pattern has been a quick attack, market it as a big win, and move on. of course, we all know that approach never accomplished anything with high risks of bad outcome, and eventually it was going to run into something that completely spirals out of control, like now.

Yes, he's THE issue. But I much rather a competent general leading the DOD starting today. Not a druken talking TV head.

 

Energy Sec Wright said they would organize escort convoys to get tankers through the Strait, but they aren't ready to do so yet: US Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the US Navy cannot safely escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz but may be able to do so by the end of this month | Upstream.

You would think that the government would prepare for the entirely predictable scenario that Iran would threaten ships in the Strait if we went to war with them. So I'm not sure why an escort strategy wasn't already fully developed.

But also, I'm not sure if it possible for a naval escort to give a tanker sufficient comfort to navigate the Strait if Iran isn't actually neutralized. A Phalanx can probably shoot down approaching drones, but you also have to worry about submarines, underwater mines, ballistic missiles fired from close range mobile units along the coast, and I don't know what else.

They only looked like poor laborers. In reality, they were Iranian sleeper cells!

Eh, you don't need special ships to lay mines. You can do it with subs, with divers, with speed boats, with fishing boats. Maybe less efficient than the minelaying boats we sank, but more clandestine. I don't know if the Navy can be confident that the path for tankers is clear of mines without controlling the Iranian coast.

Hopefully, the help desk hasn't wiped their laptops yet.

 

you can say nobody believed it, but they are the ones who put it out there and said anything to the contrary is fake news…that was them

they thought that earlier bombing campaign would be good enough for Israel and that would be the end of that, but then Netanyahu said nope



this attempt at a nuclear deal was no different from the farce ceasefires they try to broker between Russia and Ukraine…it’s nothing more than a sham

I would too…all I’m saying is that competence only matters so much if who you are truly beholden to is the leader of another nation

Netanyahu wanted this, so he got it…his opinion is the one that mattered to Trump

what they need to do is find out what blackmail he has on Trump and other members of the regime and then impeach him, but that’s not gonna happen

 

Iran appears to have conducted a significant cyberattack against a U.S. company, a first since the war started

That's an Act of War!!!

 

The US Navy needs to grow a pair.

 

And the only way to control the coast is with boots on the ground. The Iranian side of the strait is mountainous. The gulf states side is flat. One side has cover and the other is wide open. The Iranians can do hit and run attacks for years. It's one of the many reasons why no serious military advisor thought this war was a good idea.

 

Guess we get to see the WWII era escort convoys in modern times...assuming there isn't a course correction. See how it does. It could go very badly but trump thinks it will go 'very greatly' is what the people told him. all of the people. we got this cause 'every rose has no thorn' (it's all super-safe rose flowers from here folks)! It's like a bed of roses. It really is. That's what they tell me!

 

All you need to read is the “sHaH cOmInG”

and then you realize the disconnect between inbred hillbillies and the geopolitics an ocean over. Literally nobody likes the puppet shah’s pansy of a son

there is a reason this is going to poorly and the average American is going to bankruptcy for this bs

 

There probably is some blackmail, but the Epstein files have shown us that Trump is a piece of an international power network that seemed like a wild conspiracy a few months ago.
This power structure has been exposed and is falling apart. England just ended part of it's aristocracy. The former PM of Norway and Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland attempted suicide. People in this network are resigning left and right. That's why this war was rushed with what seems like little planning. Israel will never have this chance again.