Iran War?

[Legbiter]

After a week of this we'll be in a global crisis that will make the 1973 Arab oil embargo look like a picnic.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Apart from any moral qualms there are utilitarian reasons why bombing a girls' primary school and sinking the ship may have additional bad consequences. The USA is claiming to be fighting the current Iranian regime, it is a very obnoxious regime so many are loth to criticise, but the more civilian/non-regime assets that are destroyed the more it becomes a war against Iran the country rather than the regime. Right now a large proportion of Iran's population support the attacks by the USA....but how long will that last?

[OttoVonBismarck]

Sinking the ship itself wasn't really a bad act--it was an Iranian war ship. It's more the inappropriate after behavior that appears to have happened for no reason at all other than simple malice or spite towards norms.

[The Minsky Moment]

We knew what we were getting when the Senate confirmed Hegseth as SecDef.  Someone whose entire military career was a relatively junior officer role and then entered mass media. Someone with no experience managing large organizations and no experience in a role requiring strategic planning. Somone who had very strong opinions about NOT enforcing the laws of war on US military personnel and sought to exculpate those convicted of war crimes.  Somone with contempt for the laws of war and who believes that they are obnoxious and counterproductive restraints on a "warrior" ethos.  Someone who believes that any negative results in America's recent conflicts could be chalked up to the failure to unleash the military from moral or prudential restraints on conduct and from pursuing political objectives beyond kinetic destruction and applied lethality.

What we are seeing in Iran is exactly what America elected when it voted Trump in 2024 and then confirmed his choice of Hegseth.

[mongers]

If they are successful in bombing Iran to oblivion, then the quagmire may be outsourced to Turkey and Europe with a new destabilized country and refugee crisis.

Iran has a little over 90 million people.

What does "bombing into oblivion" mean in this context?

See the phrase "Bombing [insert country name] back to the Stone Age".

I believe it was once in vogue, not the magazine, but that era.

[Jacob]

We knew what we were getting when the Senate confirmed Hegseth as SecDef.  Someone whose entire military career was a relatively junior officer role and then entered mass media. Someone with no experience managing large organizations and no experience in a role requiring strategic planning. Somone who had very strong opinions about NOT enforcing the laws of war on US military personnel and sought to exculpate those convicted of war crimes.  Somone with contempt for the laws of war and who believes that they are obnoxious and counterproductive restraints on a "warrior" ethos.  Someone who believes that any negative results in America's recent conflicts could be chalked up to the failure to unleash the military from moral or prudential restraints on conduct and from pursuing political objectives beyond kinetic destruction and applied lethality.

What we are seeing in Iran is exactly what America elected when it voted Trump in 2024 and then confirmed his choice of Hegseth.

It does seem like the US government is doing a speed run to unlearn the lessons from WWII and Vietnam around ethics, responsibility, and the use of force.