Looks like potentially major labor strikes in Israel tomorrow after massive protests today following the recovery of six dead hostages. People are fed up with Netanyahu not actually trying to make a deal to get hostages released.
And it seems Hamas murdered the hostages to prevent their being freed by the IDF, from reports I saw. Which tells me two things. One, Hamas is a wretched, horrible organization that probably deserves all of the misery it receives (this does not mean the Palestinian population at large does, though). Two, the IDF doesn’t seem to be making much of an effort to free anyone; there certainly doesn’t seem to be much urgency there.
This has been obvious to me from about two weeks in.
Indeed. Which tells us something, eh?
Oh look. Netanyahu got caught lying again. He did indeed spike yet another deal. What a surprise.
Back in reality the talk is that Hamas has realized the hostages aren’t very useful as bargaining chips with a psychopathic criminal on the other side of the table. The other psychopathic criminals seem to have calculated (correctly IMO) that killing the hostages and dangling the threat of execution at least put some pressure on Netanyahu. Even if it is indirectly. Asymmetric warfare at its worst.
Yeah, it’s an interesting problem.
We haven’t paid it much mind, but there’s also the fact that Israel is the most active enemy of Iran. Iran is our enemy too. So how much strategic sense does it make to hamstring the enemy of our enemy, put it in plain Machiavellian terms.
And how do you defend strengthening Iran’s position at the expense of Israel?
I don’t see a good resolution to this that doesn’t involve an act of actual leadership - informing people, and working to convince them that the reality has changed, before actually moving on anything else.
It’s risky - if you don’t convince people then you stand alone and look like a fool, which is every politician’s worst nightmare - and it takes time, both of which are elements that modern politicians are inherently averse to, but that is what actual leadership is. When the present sucks, you put yourself on the line to create a better future, even if the rewards are not immediately forthcoming, and if you may lose.
Increasingly I think we’ve created a profession and a game of politics that does not want to deal with problems that are sufficiently inconvenient or difficult politically. It leads to a practice of government that is at least partly founded on denial and procrastination. But opting for denial only works for the politicians personally, it does not work for their countries. Their countries suffer, and the people are under no illusions that the problems and shortcomings that bothered them a year ago, or ten years ago, still bother them today.
I think that’s one of the reasons why some people are losing faith in democracy. It hasn’t gotten more efficient at solving problems over time.
Well, as admirable as democracy is–and it is admirable–it has never been a problem-solving mechanism so much as a choice of how to approach solving problems. As folks have discussed before I think, you have to value the democratic process over the results you hope to achieve, in order to really embrace democracy. If results are your main metric, and you are willing to subordinate process to goals, well, there are other non-democratic processes that will almost certainly get you what you want more reliably than democracy.
For a while, at least, until the face-eating leopards you’ve unleashed turn on you…
I’d actually consider some backchannel talks with Iran about a full or near-full normalization of relations, and what they would want- start with joint apologies for 1953 (from us) and 1980, and then work on the more concrete stuff. Would also have a bonus of perhaps reducing drones heading to Russia.
Iran would have to commit to at least tolerable relations with the Saudis. I mean, at this point Israel’s no better morally than Iran, and a lot more damaging.
You might even get a Nobel Peace Prize out of a grand deal.
I think Iran is our enemy in the sense that Vietnam was our enemy. That is, that it was mostly our policies WRT Vietnam that made them our enemy.
This is the way. If we’re serious about realistic appraisals of our foreign policy needs, we need at least a workable relationship with Iran. Not, in the longer term, with the sorts of yahoos who are running it now necessarily, but you have to start somewhere, even if it is involves unpleasant encounters I think.
I’m no policy expert, but I do think our foreign policy towards Iran has been terrible and counterproductive. And while the regime is fucking awful, it’s not like they’re any worse than Saudi Arabia. We aren’t shy about cozying up to dictators and religious nuts when it comes to foreign policy, but we seem to make an exception here.
I had a little hope during Obama’s tenure, but them Trump came in and shit all over everything and it’s back to the status quo.
Our Iranian policy as I’ve said is kind of insane in that it reflects how ossified our understanding of the world is (or maybe how old our politicians are).
Basically American foreign policy goes like this:
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Cuba. We hate commies, we tried to send rebels to Cuba and they got massacres, but threatening to move nuclear missiles there was Open Mouth Orc Anger. Now Cuba must be destroyed or isolated forever. It doesn’t matter if that was 60 years ago - “”by definition” now Cuba is and will always be The Enemy.
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Iran. Iran took Americans hostage -and that affected a Presidential election. This is the Open Mouth Orc Anger time. They will never be forgiven for that. The fact they fund anti-Israeli movements means the Israeli lobby makes them Pure Ultimate Evil. They are The Enemy.
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OPEC hurt American growth in the 1970s - that was an unacceptable amount of leverage. The result is… we have to defend the flow of oil no matter what. Anyone who threatens oil supply is Pure Ultimate Evil (cue charging orc with Open Mouth Orc Anger)
1980 Hostage crisis made us Hangman Page/Swerve Strickland levels of angry and wishing revenge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqACVGEGuTQ (This was awesome to watch last night)
For the last 45 years, we’ve wanted Iran destroyed, and the only thing saving them from a full-on invasion has probably been how big and defensible Iran is, making a full-on invasion impossible.
Yeah, we do tend to forget how much of a shock the dual blows of the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian hostage taking were to the USA. I remember the demonstrations that we had on campus in 1979, with people flying big banners saying “Give a Damn, Nuke Iran!”
Not to mention the t-shirts!
Even as we speak, Ayatollah Razmada and his cadre of fanatics are consolidating their power.
I think that’s spot on.
I don’t think anyone should underestimate just how crazy and belligerent the Iranian regime is. They’re not suddenly going to turn into a bunch of reasonable pacifists who want to play a constructive part in the region or the world, just because we send them a muffin basket.
I also don’t think they’re going to abandon their alliance with the Chinese and the Russians. Their values align. So the hypothetical “silver bullet” that I’ve seen floated in other places, that we could either flip or fix Iran, and have them help us wield influence in the region I don’t think is real.
But what a more constructive relationship could do is provide some incentive to refrain from the worst outrages, and maybe agree to a way of fighting each other that is less destructive for the region. With that relationship at zero, they have nothing to lose, and there’s nothing to hold them back.
I think a good question is whether the US is genuinely interested in that. Maybe they see some use in having a regional villain, who is an enemy and a threat to both the Israelis and the Saudis.
We made headway with Iran, but then we elected Trump who threw it all in a fire and then tried to start a war with them.
It’s not really possible to make headway when every 4 or 8 years nothing you said matters.
China and Russia don’t have elections so their position can stay constant basically forever.
Their values align?
The value that aligns in that situation is “America is trying to get us to change how we do stuff / the people who decide what we do”.
They’re also authoritarian regimes who have a general disdain for human rights, and are very fond of persecuting and murdering protesters and dissidents.
As Kevin rightly says, none of those things stop us from embracing the Saudis, but I don’t think anyone should kid themselves that we embrace the Saudis because we want to. I think most would prefer to annihilate that regime, but that ultimately says something about the power they hold, which Iran does not.
That’s why the Iranians are so horny for nukes. The Saudis have Mecca.