Political Memes

Israel has nukes, has never signed the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, won't allow IAEA to monitor them, and repeatedly ignores a 1981 UN SC resolution on the matter.

What if I told you UN international resolutions mean fuckall, and the only repercussions are those that other states are willing to enforce? Who was willing to enforce the consequences of stopping them while they built nukes? See North Korea, which also has nukes in violation of "international law" because their enemies were unwilling to bear the costs of stopping them.

Iran, horrible theocracy as it is, has signed the NPT and has been actually engaging with the international community, even though it is being ratfucked on every turn. Basically, they had a deal with the West, that was guaranteeing it would not develop nuclear weapons, that Israel's biggest ally, the USA, just unilaterally cancelled a few years ago.

I agree, this could have been totally prevented years ago. USA cancelled the treaty, leading to this. Still, if you build nuclear weapons,

Weirdly enough, the actually horrible repressive theocracy has been behaving as a rational actor.

VERY TRUE!!! for both Iran and Israel, being theocratic rational actors. If I was Iran, I would see nuclear weaponry as the way to go after my geopolitical influence with Assad, Hamas, Yemen, and others has been wrecked. If I was Israel, I would see Iran getting close to the nukes they promise to use on me and shit myself, and do anything I can to stop it as the blowback won't be worse than my greatest enemy having nuclear weaponry.

And it is absolutely fair to say that it's "misbehaving" in the nuclear issue is ...our fault. We had a deal. We had every chance to normalize. We tore up the deal. And now our ally, that is completely unaccountable, has broken every bit of international law and is an entirely bad faith actor in the region, is attacking them.

As I said above, I agree this was preventable. But if you build nuclear weapons, don't expect your enemies to take it lying down unless they have to. Also, building a nuclear weapon isn't "misbehaving"; it's an outright threat to anyone who feels it might be used against them.

I'm not cheering for the Iranian government. I'm more terrified for the lives of the brave progressive Iranian youths who stand up to the mullas and are now being bombed.

Here we agree in totality, my desperate dream is that this conflict creates a future where at the minimum where more countries can have political systems that value peace and prosperity over war and death.

But, my brother in Lemmy, the Iranian regime are not the crazies here.

Oh my dear sibling in Lemmy, I think we're all mad here. I see two madmen fighting, and they're both evil states with evil men in charge. I have to disagree.

Thank you for your post! This feels more like a discussion than I regularly see here!

No, I actually mean that building nuclear weapons is a very clear provocation to your enemies. Previous kid was arguing that Israel started bombing Iran for no reason. Building nukes is a pretty compelling reason to bomb a country from a realpolitik standpoint.

My overall point is that both states are awful and deserve each other, and you shouldn't cheer either of them on. There is no "good guy". Anything else unclear?