alt Hacker NewsI 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
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.
I firmly believe a nuclear-armed Iran would be a net positive for world stability. It's not an ideal state of being, but with the existence of a nuclear armed Israel destabilizing the entire region, there needs to be a check against them. But that's besides the point, because by all accounts except on odd-numbered days the Whitehouse's, Iran was responsibly following the non-proliferation agreements that we had made with them under the Obama administration. Either way "Iran might make nukes" is bad reason to start a war.
If "Iran is aiding Russia against Ukraine" was a good reason to start this war, then we should be a lot less wishy-washy about our support of Ukraine themselves. The fact that we keep playing "will they won't they" with ongoing support to Ukraine is in no small part why that war is still ongoing.
And Israel is, absolutely, unequivocally, America's problem. They exist because we decided they should exist, we armed them to keep them existing, and we get involved in absolute quagmires in the Middle East every time that they do something stupid. Every time Israel does some fucked up shit, the UN goes "wow, we should acknowledge that was some fucked up shit", and the only country that consistently backs Israel is the United States.
I am not an isolationist. I fully recognize, and appreciate, the US's (potentially soon to be former) place as global hegemon. But we achieved that position by leveraging soft power, while maintaining the capability to absolute smite parties that won't play ball. And that worked. It worked great. It's why backing Ukraine was a great play: No American lives at risk, we pay a few bucks, Ukraine damages Russia, we remind our allies just how great it is to be under America's umbrella.
But Israel bombing Iran is not the same thing. Israel and the United States are the aggressors in this conflict, plain and simple. We had half-normal relations with Iran, then because Israel decided they weren't content being one of two regional powers, we decided to kick off another damn war in the Middle East.