The likelihood that I be able to produce a gun and use it effectively is lower than that gun being used otherwise to cause me harm. — Hanover

That is down to practice. If you live in a safe area then there indeed seems little reason to invest time in familiarizing yourself with a firearm. But not everyone is so fortunate.

I think anyone who has had practical experience with violent criminals will understand the human need to have a means of protecting oneself (and the mental cost of not having one), and that law enforcement is not going to suffice.

Where I live, the police are undermotivated, underpaid, understaffed and underpriviledged to effectively fight crime. They cannot reasonably keep people safe from criminals and other types of deranged individuals who know how to play the system. Those are basically more protected by the system than the law-abiding citizens they terrorize.

Therefore, I believe I, and any sane adult with a clean record, should be allowed to carry a handgun for protection. Though I do believe it should be heavily regulated and monitored.

Safety is something that is either carried society-wide, or it exists only as an illusion, by virtue of not having the misfortune of running into the deranged people who are basically allowed to run amok as long as they don't do anything particularly stupid infront of a camera.

If the law no longer properly functions, it should be put back into the hands of the people.

I'm not sure about Britain specifically, but left/right seem like outdated terms these days - warped and abused to score quick points with easily-misled, tribalist voters.

The majority of politicans and political parties aren't left or right - they're corrupt to a point of having no principles whatsoever. The small minority that isn't corrupt is usually dysfunctional in some other way.

The problem, as far as my own frame of reference goes, is that government hasn't just grown corrupt, but also hugely out of proportion and completely useless. So people are being overtaxed and otherwise controlled by a powerful, overbearing nanny state, which in turn does nothing for them.

People then turn to the Leviathan's natural enemy: classical liberalism, which the right pretends to be. (but actually is ran by/beholden to the same type of grifters). If by some miracle actual change threatens to happen, the system resists from within, for example via a deeply partisan bureaucracy.

Corruption is a one-way street that leads to a dead end. We are now at that dead end, where solutions and prospect for change no longer exist. People are led in circles that always end up with them getting shafted, no matter who they vote for.

There's no chance for meaningful change in the current political climate. We're living in pre-revolutionary times.

The most worrying thing about this isn't Trump. This is way, way bigger than Trump.

The implication is that these (virtually unaccountable) intelligence agencies are running massive human sex trafficking and pedophile rings.

Rumors relating the CIA to such networks have been floating around for decades.

Assuming it is true, it would explain a thing or two.

For the record, I think it is more likely true than not.

Trump is now basically Biden 2.0. — Mikie

That sums it up.

NATO has dug a nice hole for Ukraine.

I don't think that's true, but feel free to quote the scripture and change my mind.

If one were to take a historical approach to Christianity, it would lead one to the various schools of thought that actually have things in common with Christ's teachings (such as Platonism, various Eastern schools of thought, etc.), rather than to the Old Testament.

There probably were political reasons for why there was an effort to wed Christianity to the Old Testament, but the blatant contradictions remain and that should give any honest thinker reason for pause.

This is down to what people have been taught over centuries, and not down to people critically analyzing the two and concluding they are compatible.

Genuinely, they could hardly be further apart.

A child could ask you why Christ preached compassion and turning the other cheek, while the God of the Old Testament goes around commanding child sacrifice and genocide.

No idea what that means, but in fact I am secular and simply thought the New and Old Testament being incompatible was a matter of the most basic logic.

It's not even that interesting of a question, really. Anyone with eyes to see can tell that the teachings of Christ are completely incompatible with the Old Testament, and that the two should have never been conjoined in the way they have been.

You have a strange idea of hostage situations, but anyway.

Very typical to totally forget and sideline here the House of Saud, which is very crucial to the whole thing. The House of Saud, once a British protectorate, then made good relations with the rising Superpower and finally made Saudi-Aramco purely Saudi owned, without a clash with the West as had happened with Iran. That the Saudis went with the dollar when Nixon got out of the gold standard was very crucial for the US. Even if there is hostility towards the US in the country (starting famously with Osama bin Laden), the partnership that hasn't any ideological or cultural ties has continued as a real example of realpolitik. — ssu

The reason is obvious, and I'm glad you asked - Saudi Arabia, with its population of only roughly 30 million, is the perfect US "ally" because it is not a serious candidate for being a great/regional power.

Supporting minor powers in order to balance against the bigger ones is classic balance of power politics, and Saudi Arabia is a textbook example.

If this would be such an incredibly successful foreign policy towards a region, then wouldn't it then be better according to you that the US would have to bomb or occupy West European countries in order to "prevent regional powers from rising through classic 'divide & rule' strategies, and by destroying any West European country that started showing signs of prosperity and a sense of independence".

Oh, the US would be so better then...

Yet on the contrary, the US was OK with European integration and an EU to rise. Forget the Marshall Plan? Why was this so good according to your "divide & rule"? And this makes the US far different from classic imperialist countries like Russia.

In truth in the long run "divide & rule" is a constant uphill battle and a perpetual drain on the economy and resources of any country/empire. Thus after exhausting the prosperity in these quite mindless wars, then empires falter. — ssu

Europe willingly subjugated itself to the US (it didn't have a huge amount of options post-WII), and when a part of the world willingly throws itself in your lap that is of course a geopolitical wet dream. That's a unique situation and not something that is easily replicated - especially not in the Middle-East.

In terms of wars being "expensive", this entirely depends on the ways in which the war is profitable.

Vietnam was a costly, pointless failure that greatly harmed the US. The fact that the defeat greatly and observably harmed the US I view as a strong indicator that 'failure' is the appropriate word here.

With Afghanistan and various other interventions, I don't agree they were failures. The US successfully created failed states all over the world to deny resources, bloc power and trade corridors. Any damage the US may have suffered from the eventual retreat was superficial. So in these cases the geopolitical benefit far outweighed the cost. Again, that's why they keep doing it over and over, and over.

All I'm saying is that this train wreck cannot be described as an success in any way. — ssu

US Middle-East policy has been incredibly successful for many decades.

Let me list the successes:

- For decades the US successfully prevented regional powers from rising through classic 'divide & rule' strategies, and by destroying any Middle-Eastern country that started showing signs of prosperity and a sense of independence.

- It has successfully controlled Middle-Eastern oil to such an extent that it allowed the US to take the world economy hostage via the petro-dollar.

- It has successfully locked other great powers like Russia, China and India out of stable land-access to the Middle-East (and Africa and Europe, by extension).


You, and many others, are operating under an assumption that the 'forever wars' had some envisioned endpoint of permanent victory. They did not. Talk of 'spreading democracy', etc. was just the figleaf.

Causing chaos and destruction was the whole point - except in those countries that willfully kowtowed before Washington and basically assigned themselves voluntarily to vassal status.


The fact that the strategy no longer works now doesn't mean that it wasn't successful.

If the 12-Day War had succeeded in plunging Iran back into chaos, it would have extended US-Israeli dominance in the region for a long time and we wouldn't even be having this conversation. It would have been another success in a long string of successes.

However, it is specifically the 12-Day War that now heavily suggests that the US is too weak to continue this policy. It's definitely not certain. The US and Israel could be planning follow-up operations for all we know, that might yet succeed.


Calling back to my earlier point of figleafs - the US needs to pretend this wasn't the point all along. All the chaos it has sown in the Middle-East has caused millions of casualties, and to publicly come out and say it was all intentional is unthinkable.

That's why they have to come up with fairytales about spreading democracy and supposedly failling.

If your previous allies turn into your enemies, how do you think that would be a success of any kind? — ssu

It's irrelvant. US power in the Middle-East would be waning anyway as a result of the shifting balance of power, but the key here is that none of those enemies are capable of inflicting a real cost upon the US.

The US will retreat to its island, and it will leave other nations to deal with the fallout - in this case Israel. Some day it will be Europe.

This is a well-established pattern in US foreign policy, and they wouldn't be repeating it ad nauseam if it weren't so wildly effective.

If US Middle East policy is looked on the long run, it really has been a train wreck. — ssu

I wouldn't quite agree.

To make such a statement, one must first understand what the principal US goals have been in the Middle-East. In my view, it is first and foremost about securing access to cheap oil and denying stable land-based access to others (like Russia, China and India). Second, it has been to avoid any regional competitor to Israel from rising. (Note the role Iran plays in both of these)

This policy has been remarkably successful for decades. The US completely dominated the Middle-East, and successfully laid waste to the region at will.

What has changed today is the geopolitical balance of power. It's not US Middle-East policy that has ran its course; it's the US empire that has ran its course.

The US is now clearly struggling to continue achieving these two goals, and that situation looks like it will only be getting worse. That's why this long-time policy is now defunct.

The problem I have with the way you seem to frame it is probably best summarized by the following play on a well-known axiom: "Do not attribute to ignorance that which is clearly the product of malice."

They'll care as soon as they understand what it actually means.

The average American can afford to not give a fuck, until they cannot. Geopolitically, the United States is destined to be a sideshow, and that's where it's headed due to its delusional foreign policy that basically turns everyone into enemies.

When the United States reverts to its natural sideshow status, its gigantic national debt will present an obstacle the average American cannot afford to not give a fuck about.

I'm not looking to get into a semantic discussion about the word 'disaster', but it made a bad situation worse in every conceivable dimension.

The only thing that hasn't happened is for the entire narrative to collapse. People keep on believing the delusions, etc., but that's not actually something that will help the US going forward. Keeping people high on delusions and propaganda has a long-term cost, and all it is achieving is allowing the US to continue a defunct foreign policy.

But honestly I think the worst thing to come out of this, is the image of a weak Israel. It has operated for decades with the knowledge that it needed to maintain an image of invincibility to stave off the myriad enemies it has in the region. It cannot afford to look weak, but now it does, and there's seems to be nothing that can reverse that.

Meanwhile, the US is cutting aid to Ukraine as it worries about its own stockpiles - another signal that the US might not be a position to keep Israel afloat in the future.

So, basically the 12-Day War has turned out as a complete disaster for the United States and especially for Israel.

Neither of two possible goals (regime change and destruction of Iran's nuclear program) were achieved. In fact the war has made it more likely that in the long-term Iran's regime will survive and that it will get its hands on nuclear weapons.

The fact that the Iranian regime was able to survive the attempted decapitation strike has signaled to Russia and China that Iran is a safe investment - something which was entirely up for debate prior to the 12-Day War due to the questionable nature of Iran's internal security. Simultaneously, this war has pushed Iran further into the arms of Russia and China - a process which historically they have been weary of, but are now likely to fully embrace.

In terms of nuclear weapons, the war has prompted Iran to end all cooperation with the IAEA (a institution that has now been shown to blatantly spy for the US and Israel, and produce pretenses for their wars whenever it suits them) thus putting any of Iran's future nuclear development programs out of international supervision.
Of course, Iran's incentive to produce nuclear weapons has dramatically increased. That it will actively pursue nuclear armament is virtually a guarantee now, and the limited damage that was done to its nuclear facilities, and its strengthening ties with Russia and China, suggest that it will be able to do so within a relatively short timeframe.

The damage that has been done to the IAEA's credibility is something that will have global consequences for nuclear profliteration.

Meanwhile, Israel was shown to be critically vulnerable even under limited aerial bombardment. Since the country has zero strategic depth and basically only two lifelines (Haifa and Ben Gurion Airport), it was always a matter of time before western technological supremacy would wane and Israel's vulnerability would be exposed.
A couple hundred rockets and drones is all it takes to threaten Israel with economic crisis - all of Israel's enemies will have taken note of this.


When all these factors are taken together, we're looking at a critical defeat for Israel, and that makes for a very dangerous situation going forward.

Speculations abound concerning follow-up attacks that may include nuclear weapons use.

What options do the US and Israel have left? Conventional strikes were clearly shown to fall short of achieving their objectives. A ground invasion is practically unthinkable.

Uncle Sam and his rabid pet monkey Netanyahu are rapidly running out of options.

Israel started looking critically vulnerable as purportedly the economic damage it suffered threatened to cause a crisis after only twelve days of war and limited penetration of its air defenses.

So I think this strike was meant to bail Israel out, while giving Iran an off-ramp.

That is, unless there's a follow-up operation coming, which is definitely a possibility.

Obama's diplomatic policy is a deviation from the strategy of trying to contain Iran (by stick and / or carrot) to the extent of preventing development. — boethius

As I noted to Benkei, this is not a change of strategy, but a change of method.

It was never a feasible alternative to the stick, because why would Iran do business with the US (with all the baggage that brings) when it can do business with the Russians and the Chinese on a more or less equal basis, with no strings attached?

In terms of maintaining/re-establishing US primacy, the genocide in Gaza is absolutely terrible policy. — boethius

Obviously this isn't explicitly US strategy, but unwavering support for its proxy Israel is.

Israel is critically vulnerable in more ways than one, so letting Israel ethnically cleanse/commit genocide in Gaza is par for the course at this point.

Does it hurt US credibility? Sure, but what credibility did it have left to begin with?

Apparently no amount of support for genocide is going to make the Europeans or any other key strategic allies second guess their relationship with the US, so in the grand scheme of things it matters little.

If you're of the opinion that US support for the Gaza genocide damaged US interests in a significant way, I expect you to be able to point out those damages.

And the genocide not only doesn't serve US Imperial strategic interest, it doesn't serve Israel's either. — boethius

I disagree somewhat. Israeli genocide provides the US with an exit strategy that practically writes itself. And as you point out, Israel is going to be cut off sooner or later, because the US will no longer want to pay the increasing cost of keeping Israel afloat in its unsustainable situation.

The US is simply milking Israel to the fullest extent before that moment arrives. Which means causing maximum chaos, even if their capacity to sow chaos has significantly decreased.


I think you and Benkei are operating under the erroneous assumption that there's any strategy available that doesn't lose the Middle-East for the US.

We are way, way too far down the line for any salvaging operations.

Every nation in the Middle-East hates their guts. Diplomacy is a fucking pipedream, especially now that Russia and China are offering an alternative.

Tzeentch is of the view that Israel is acting on behalf of US Imperial interest in that "eliminating" Gaza and shoring up Israel's strategic position, while also creating chaos in the Middle East, is a logical next step in a rational US grand strategy in line or then formulated (or then "formulatable") by impartial imperial grand strategists. — boethius

You're making it sound a little more esoteric than it actually is.

I'm talking about the US foreign policy establishment, aka "the Blob", the neocons, etc.

It's not a homogeneous group, but since it is interested in maintaing/re-establishing US primacy, it's options are bounded by the realities of geopolitics, which leaves a very narrow margin of deviation.

Strive to be humble, and make small positive contributions to the lives of the people around you. That's already hard enough for most.

Overly lofty goals makes people lose touch with reality, inflate their ego and promote inaction rather than action, because in regards to the world's problems one is powerless and without responsibility anyway.

Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran (Brookings Institution, 2009)

In other words, you don't have a theory but a narrative, which ignores actual facts but you're hellbent on constructing something that you believe is unassaillable. — Benkei

Oh, and this is nonsense too. I'm repeatedly trying to start a conversation about actual geopolitical realities - ergo the 'root causes' - but you've been pretty much categorically ignoring them.

So your position is that the JCPOA was done for shits and giggles to make sure it continues to fit your narrative. — Benkei

What a curious strawman.

Is the thought that phoney amends are made to buy time such a strange thought to you? The Minsk accords were done in the exact same way, and Hollande and Merkel even admitted as much!

The JCPOA does not align with your core theory that says letting Iran develop peacefully was never an option. If you want to claim the JCPOA was a “carrot” toward eventual suppression still contradicts the framing: that any development at all is intolerable. So which is it? — Benkei

Iran wasn't the only threat in the region during the time the JCPOA was established, so this could easily be explained as an attempt at placating Iran with promises of American business while solving other pressing issues.

American business that, of course, never came. So I view the JCPOA as an entirely phoney endeavor to begin with - something which the US was never truly committed to, and which Israel would have never been able to accept in the long-term either.

Ultimately you're talking about an episode of a few years amidst a historical trend of nearly a century. Again - trees and forests.

As the saying goes: "politics makes for strange bedfellows", and it appears to me you're underestimating the capriciousness of geopolitics, where parties will pretend to make amends one day, and be back at each other's throats the next.

But seriously, what would disprove your theory? — Benkei

Maybe it's just a good theory if you're seemingly so keen on disproving it but unable to?

What would disprove it of course is a long-lasting move towards peace between the US, Israel and Iran - a pipedream to be sure. The reason we don't see that, and we'll probably never see that, is because geopolitical realities put these countries at odds with each other pretty much by default.

That doesn't make it a strong theory at all as it cannot explain anything... — Benkei

What doesn't it explain?

The JCPOA?

There's nothing unfair about it. It's simply a strong theory.

I point towards a long-term trend and give the deeper geopolitical dynamics that have shaped it, and make it unlikely to change in the short-to-middle term.

From a US perspective, Iran has way too much potential to let it develop peacefully. Doing so would violate balance of power politics 101, and the basic US strategy of keeping the Middle-East as divided as possible.

Especially with Iran's natural balancer Iraq out of the picture, it requires constant US-Israeli belligerence to stop Iran from naturally expanding.

I both agree and disagree. A long-term strategy does not have to be absolutely uninterrupted - there can be many practical reasons for why it must be interrupted at times - reasons for example pertaining to other nations in the region.

Controlling Iran and its oil resources, and its access point between the Middle-East and Central Asia was always the goal. Letting Iran develop peacefully was never an option. Not for the US, and not for Israel.

Sometimes it was believed this could be achieved with the carrot, sometimes with the stick.

Look at Europe for example - another region of the world that the US has sought to control. It has entirely neutered Europe with use of the carrot.

So what we're seeing are changes in method, and not in overall strategy.

The bottomline is, a strong independent Iran is and was viewed as a massive threat to US power in the Middle-East, and to Israel.

This has been the case since the '50s, when Iran was a large, wealthy, well-educated and rapidly modernizing country, which is why alarm bells started to go off in Washington - these are the building blocks that form a regional power.

Iraq was almost an exact copy in this regard, and at times the US had to balance Iran and Iraq against each other to achieve its goals.

So I'd argue you're missing the forest for the trees.

I don't think it's an oversimplification. Every theory ultimately is a simplification, and the argument "reality is more complicated" is not an argument either unless you provide a theory with greater explanatory value.

What I've described is the red thread that characterizes a century of US involvement with Iran.

US actions vis-á-vis other nations in the region have their own logic to them (and sometimes the logic conflicts). US involvement with Saudi-Arabia however is almost entirely based around using them to balance Iran - this is basic balance of power politics.

The calculus is simple.

Iran is a large country, rich in oil, with strong allies, with a large, well-educated population, situated on a geopolitically critical region of the world.

These are the basic building blocks of a regional power.

Unless it is constantly hamstrung, it will escape the US intervention window and easily surpass Israel in terms of geopolitical power. It doesn't even need WMDs for that.

That's what the past century of US-Israeli policy have been about: preventing Iran from developing into a regional power. All the rest is bullshit.

Following comments by Medvedev, it looks like the Russians might be floating the idea of giving Iran nuclear weapons. Medvedev stated "several countries" were ready to do so (the other presumably being China).

I've long wondered whether this option was being considered, but I assumed this was too hot considering the taboo on nuclear proliferation.

Medvedev has a reputation for making extreme statements, though. It's hard to say whether they're actually serious or just looking to provoke chaos/a reaction in the US-Israeli camp.

Well, my point isn't that US strategy is wickedly brilliant. Especially today it appears the US is being outplayed by China and Russia.

But it does have a strategy that accounts for basic geopolitical realities. That already seems to surpass the scope of the vast majority of people, who do not go beyond simple narratives of "us good, them bad", "Israel has a right to self-defense", "The evil jew lobby rules the US", etc. - so apparently it's brilliant enough to keep 95% of people in the dark about basic US goals.


At the same time, I would not underestimate the United States. It is easy to look at US Middle-East policy as a string of failures, but if we assume the goal was and is to sow chaos (in other words, deny to the enemy that which cannot be directly controlled) it shows a different picture.

Such foreign policy goals would obviously be impossible to explain domestically and internationally, hence they could never be said out loud. I would point to historical continuity as an indicator that such a policy is indeed in place.

There is a long list of countries that underestimated the United States' capacity for Machiavellianism and cloak & dagger practices, and that suffered the ultimate price for it.


As I've said before, I'll believe the US has met decisive failure once it starts to suffer serious blowback. Currently, that isn't happening. It always manages to export the cost of failure to its "friends".

On page 5 of this thread I give a more in-depth analysis.

I'm not sure what you believe is lacking. If you're expecting me to produce hard evidence then obviously I cannot do this - that's simply not how geopolitics works.

I can however point at nearly a century of continuity and explain how what we are currently seeing fits in that historical trend.

If I'm 'telling stories', then everyone here is.

And why now? Iran has been weeks away from a nuclear bomb for decades if we have to believe everybody ever excusing these strikes on Iran. — Benkei

Conflict with China looms, and the US needs to 'cut Iran down to size' so that it cannot exploit the power vacuum the US will leave behind when it fully pivots to Asia.

In addition, sowing chaos in Iran denies China natural resources, and a vital trade corridor to the Middle-East and beyond.

It's really not very complicated - geopolitics hardly ever is. It just requires the proper lens through which to view events.


The window to bully Iran around, as the West has done for nearly a century, is rapidly closing, however. Assuming Iran can keep the regime from rapid collapse, Russia and China will keep it standing.

So we will now see how feasible this US strategy still is.

There's a lot at stake in the Middle-East.

US influence is on a heavy down slope, and the BRICS are ready to swoop in to lay claim to all of the trade corridors and resources.

The reason the US doesn't care for diplomacy is simple: no country in the region will trust them anymore. All partners they have in the region only kowtow to Washington out of fear of reprisals, and will drop Washington the moment a safe alternative is available.

So that leaves the US with one option: sow chaos in order to deny the resources and trade corridors to its enemies.

Israel is ultimately going to pay the price for that, but until then its chronically unfeasible geopolitical situation will give the US all excuses it needs to pursue this strategy.

The worst part about it is that the American people will be happy to blame the president, and pretend that when he leaves office all the evil leaves with him. They go back to sleep, and the next administration picks up right where the last one left off.

We're looking at nearly a century of continuity of US policy vis-á-vis Iran.

One important factor in this is that while Israel is the US' preferred partner now, it needn't stay that way.

If Iran shows its willingness to cooperate, the calculus for the US will start to shift.

Ultimately the US aligns itself in whatever way is most profitable, and it's conceivable that the most profitable partner in the future will be Iran, and not Israel, simply because it will become too expensive to keep Israel in a position of regional dominance.

Possibly this is why we continue to see diplomatic contact between the US and Iran even at this time. The US is trying to keep its options open for as long as possible. Admittedly, I would be surprised if the US avoids a war with Iran, but it's possible.

The crucial thing to understand is that the balance of power in the region is shifting (just like it is shifting globally) away from the United States and Israel. If the status quo is maintained, Iran will grow in affluence, and US and Israeli influence will further diminish. This is further exacerbated by the fact that Iran has aligned itself to Russia and China. With such powerful partners it is in a good position to become the new dominant player in the Middle-East - something which the US and Israel must prevent at all costs if they wish to maintain any influence.

Israel also acknowledges that the United States is currently experiencing imperial overstretch, and is having to choose between which interests it wishes to protect. By dragging the US into a war now, it means it cannot abandon Israel later.

The United States on its part urgently needs to pivot to Asia to counterbalance China. However, it cannot do so while simply abandoning all its interests elsewhere. So here its interests align with Israel, in that they both do not want a strong Iran to emerge out of the power vacuum the US leaves behind.

Whatever the exact plans of Israel and the US, they'll both be aimed at ensuring Iran cannot expand its influence in the foreseeable future.

One way to do so is by enacting regime change, which would cause internal turmoil that it would probably take Iran several years to recover from.

At the same time, if Iran manages to produce a nuclear weapon it can threaten nuclear retaliation and impose massive costs on Israel (and indirectly the US).

So regime change and the destruction of Iran's nuclear program are two parts of the same strategy.