Still. The US started it. I am not excusing anyone here. Happy you are safe and out! Appreciate the write up.

I have friends in Iran that celebrate the US attacking the Iranian "regime", yet I fear they will not be happy with whatever comes next. The goal is not to fix Iran. This is all about Israel's expansion and they couldn't care less about the people of Iran 😕

Good post, and I agree with your sentiment regarding people being too insensitive. I have a lot of friends and business partners in the UAE. Still I think this post needs a bit more perspective than the cartoonish depiction of the “jihadi” hell bent on destruction. If your country was being attacked, unprovoked, by a nation that has fully earned the nickname ‘the Great Satan’ all around the world, and you could hit this Great Satan in the wallet where it really hurts, by destabilising its vassals, what would you do? There is no way Iran can win a war of attrition against those bloodthirsty maniacs. They can only make it unsustainable for them, and that’s exactly what they’re doing. Bear in mind that Iran, as a mountainous fortress of a country, could very easily target energy infrastructure and de-salination plants in the flat, exposed desert countries in the region and really pull the curtain on them. They haven’t done that yet. Because they don’t want to destroy them. They want them to turn against their master and pressure them to end the aggression. That’s literally all they are asking for: for international law to be respected along with their sovereignty. They’re not 2D cartoons of bearded men with a turban and bombs strapped to their vest. They’re a nation of people telling the America and Israeli demons to get off their fucking lawn.

Letting Iran get nuclear weapons would be an absolute disaster; letting them build shahed drones by the tens of thousands, both themselves and in partnership with Russia, was already a disaster. I personally have seen the results of that here in Ukraine. "Who started it" doesn't even matter. They're extremist Jew-hating, Russia allied, islamists who have directly and indirectly killed tens of thousands of good people this year alone. The faster Iran's islamists are wiped out the better. Hopefully that doesn't need to involve destroying all of Iran in the process. But that's ultimately up to the people of Iran to reject extremist Islam. If they fail to do that soon we should permanently crush their economy to ensure they won't be a threat in the future.

How is this concept so hard for people to grasp? Iran is being attacked by two nuclear powers, Israel and the US. This is a war of aggression that started in the middle of negotiations because…checks notes (Iran was days away from a nuclear weapon, we needed to free Iranians, Iran has ballistic missiles, Iran has a Navy, Israel was about to attack so we had to join, etc.). Here’s an idea. Take a step back and ask what justifies the US to have their bases all over the world? What gives the US the high ground to then use the fact that they have bases everywhere, to then say that a sovereign nations home military is a threat to those US bases/allies, lol? What gives the US authority to decide whether a sovereign nation can have a Navy and/or have ballistic missiles? What gives the US the authority to assassinate (or kidnap) world leaders? What gives the US the right to actively attack a sovereign nations currency in the hopes that the chaos will foment regime change? What gives the US and Israel the right to destroy all of Iran’s infrastructure (bombing elementary schools, hospitals, police stations, gas stations, desalination plants, etc.)? What gives the US the moral high ground to determine how (and for how long) a sovereign nation responds when attacked? When it comes to retaliating against the US, Iran cannot strike the US homeland w/conventional warfare. So, they are attacking US bases in the region, retaliating against infrastructure, and stopping the flow of through the Straight. The sad, yet true thing about the US is that we continue to sleepwalk through all kinds of aggressions and tragedies because they occur in far away lands. However, one thing that will grab the US’ attention is $. So, destroying our bases abroad and impacting global economies is logical.

I wonder who the world collectively consideres more of a terrorist state, the US or Iran? I would bet it's the former.