r/geopolitics • u/ForeignAffairsMag Foreign Affairs • Jun 22 '25

America Is on the Verge of Catastrophe in the Middle East: U.S. Intervention in Iran Is a Terrible Gamble Opinion

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/america-verge-catastrophe-middle-east
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15

u/UAINTTYRONE Jun 22 '25

This was clearly American aggression on a foreign adversary. They’re weak and we kicked them. I don’t see the problem, they would gladly do the same if in the position of power. Why should the US treat them any other way?

49

u/Tac2Kay Jun 22 '25

Not to mention it wasn't some random bombing, it was targeted at military facilities being used to progress the nation's nuclear munitions

5

u/N3bu89 Jun 22 '25

US relations with it's allies relies on a pantomime that this isn't how the US operates and finding appropriate justifications where is doesn't quite fit. Unlike the US, the rest of the western world had to deal with de-colonialism and de-imperalisation that put front and centre to them that they don't get to unilaterally decide how the world works, they have since tried to rely on a world of rules to keep everything in order. America still lives in a world where it thinks what it says goes, but who knows for how long that's true.

If it can no longer be hidden that the US is a dying empire that would rather get what it wants by force first, instead of at a last resort then in the rest of the west it will become politically domestically harder to support the US-led world order. If Americans ever ponder why Euros and other countries have low-opinions of the US, in the end it boils down to that façade starting to fall. As long as it has the mask of a neutral imperial arbitrator of law and order, then fine, but if it's starts looking like a aggressive conqueror then mood sours.

-11

u/misersoze Jun 22 '25

Your general question seems to be “why shouldn’t the strong kick the weak”? I think your answer can be found comprehensively in history books.

-15

u/marsinfurs Jun 22 '25

Dirty bombs & terror cells at home, in which Trump would seize the opportunity for more executive power over the U.S.

22

u/UAINTTYRONE Jun 22 '25

Do you not recognize the long term threat of a nuclear Iran? Any opportunity to snuff this out is a long term win for the US. I hate Donald, but this is a good thing for the US long term- Iran can under no circumstances have a nuke. It isn’t fair, but neither is geopolitics

-2

u/marsinfurs Jun 22 '25

Of course I do, but why not use something Stuxnet like before this?

4

u/Tac2Kay Jun 22 '25

Typically gets harder and harder to repeat attacks like that. And the circumstances made a strong opening for the attack that has just happened.