US Strikes on Iran (Operation Epic Fury)

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Curse you and your facts! Curse them, I say!! 

Boru

I didnt even count various "genocides" and "massacres" outside of the Levant and in the early 20th century, which most of you may already know. I tried to stick close to his original claim about 19th century and "this region".

There is a reason the Ottoman Empire was called "Sick man at the Bosporus" in the early 19th century already. There are reasons this was the result of a rather slow and agonizing decline in earlier decades/centuries. There are reasons for the decline of this particularly multiethnic empire, namely inter-ethnic and inter-religious issues.

One wonders why Leo the Turk of all people does not seem to know this, yet its the same Leo who reads Mao and Che Guevara, and who follows the "theory" of Swami sonandso and his ideas of "human ages" and "energy". Maybe, just maybe a book about history of the Ottoman Empire would have been useful? 

There you go again - encouraging Leo to actually learn things. A fool’s errand if ever there was one. 😉

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

@Leonardo17


A million dead Armenians (at least) would like a word about the ‘quiet and peaceful life.’ Idiot.

Boru

Ask the Assyrians and Bulgarian Thracians while you are at it.

‘I wish Europe would let Russia annihilate Turkey a little - not much, but enough to make it difficult to find the place again without a divining rod or a diving bell.’ - Mark Twain

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

Not everything that happens is because of Donald Trump. All I am saying is that this path that has been taken by Iran 46 years ago is not a sustainable path. Sooner or later there was going to be a US president that was going to hit them in one way or the other. And the only remaining card of this regime is the “pressuring its own people” card.  

My only concern at this point is the amount of munition + missiles + patriot system D. Trump has wasted in this war. But I cannot really talk about that because I’m not a military expert. But putting economic pressure on the regime by blockading its ports is not a bad move. In fact, it’s the only logical strategy at this point.

There are no logical options at this point.  Alot of that is the book of business so far, and some of it comes down to not dealing with explicitly or exclusively rational negotiators in the first place. Economic pressure had already been tried, and failed.  The jcpoa was probably the best agreement this generation of leaders on either side were going to come up with. Relief, not pressure. Blockading the strait is, among a range of exclusively suboptimal decisions, possibly the worst.  This is mostly because Iran does not see this as the us "winning"...rather, this is the us as an unwitting (or witless, take your pick) coconspirator on their blockade of global trade and energy supplies.  They become more powerful, not less, the more dire the situation there becomes. Iran could cease to exist as a state and that would not necessarily remove the strait from the guards grip. Welcome to war in the 21st centruy.