ericmay • today at 5:32 PM

I don't think it's quite that simple. Of course you know the isolationist point of view goes many directions. If Russia wants to bomb Ukraine, whatever, that's Ukraine and Russia's problem, &c. (I believe in engagement in both conflicts myself). Israel alone can't really stop Iran anyway besides their "mowing the grass" strategy but how long will that work?

But you have to think about the future state. What does an Iran that continues to:

  - Build and supply drones and drone technology to Russia
  - Build and purchase missiles and missile launchers
  - Continue to pursue a nuclear weapons
  - Continue to fund groups recognized as terrorist organizations by the United States, European Union, and others

.... look like?

Well, if they have 1,000 missiles today and that's giving us a problem (I'm not sure the true extent to which it is a problem really) and then they have 5,000 missiles tomorrow maybe sprinkle in some Chinese hypersonic missiles just to see if they can take out an American aircraft carrier or other sensitive military equipment, and now when Iran decides to close the Straight or tax the Gulf States or whatever other crazy idea they get in their heads we're facing a much, much bigger problem. It's like having a North Korea in the Middle East. We can't have that. We have seen that movie already and it does not turn out great.

And that's excluding nuclear weapons or an arms race in the Middle East. You can certainly see how easy it would be for the Gulf States to decide Iran is such a threat that they start loading up on missiles and maybe everyone decides they need a nuclear deterrent and now we've got maybe 2-3 countries including Iran with nuclear weapons and there's nothing we can do about it.

Folks like to paint this as an Israel problem, and yea they've done some bad stuff too but this isn't just an Israel problem nor is it just an America problem. It's just that unfortunately the United States is the one that yet again has to go be involved to try and deal with some chaos now to prevent an untenable situation later.

I think it's certainly worthwhile to debate various assumptions, capabilities, &c. but at the end of the day it's important to actually take a look at many aspects of this situation and to try peace together what's really driving this conflict. If your frame of reference is just "what are we doing there?" I'm afraid it puts you at a real disadvantage in terms of understanding the conflict and its repercussions.