The US actually ends Iran's nuclear program, they quit trying and obey ... because we bombed them?
Most of the recent middle east history doesn't seem to ever end as much as just go through a continuous cycle of violence creating more of what the folks condoning violence claim they're preventing.
fwiw they do seem to have wiped out a bunch of opponents recently, some weakened to the point of giving up, others wiped out entirely. ever since the so-called "arab spring" the trend has been pretty steady.
I wonder that too, with Gaza with the current approach the only endgame seems to be to either just kill everyone or to displace every single person somewhere else, but if those children continue to have living conditions of animals, their resistance will be of no consequence. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but i think this is not inaccurate unfortunately.
Assad was deposed more than a year after the start of the current Israel/Gaza flare up, which has included conflict in Lebanon and Yemen. He was also deposed nearly 14 years into the Syrian Civil War.
We fought a war against Iraq, conducted no fly zone operations over them for 12 years, fought another war, occupied them for 9 years, left and came back less than 3 years later for another 7 year long military operation against the terrorist group that filled the power vacuum. We still have about 2500 troops stationed in Iraq.
Thank you for the additional examples of things not simply shutting down after a quick conflict. Lasting peace requires decades of military involvement. That is my point.
It's a completely different story. The roots and branches of Iran and its current leadership go deeper and wider on a different level. Saddam had nothing in comparison. Hamas would be a cakewalk in comparison and that's apparently still going.
Hard to see this being achievable over a just a couple of years if at all.
Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons program. That was the assessment of Trump's own government back in March, according to testimony of his national security advisor under oath before congress.
We knew about these sites because they have been under IAEA supervision for many years.
The smart thing for Iran to do at this point is do what Israel did: not submit to any arms control and develop their own weapons in secret. Clearly this is the only way to be safe when people in Tel Aviv and Washington are openly discussing the "Libya solution."
According to the IAEA, Iran has around 400kg of 60% enriched Uranium. Nobody disputes this. There is zero reason to ever enrich beyond around 5% for civilian purposes, and zero reason to ever enrich beyond around 20% for non-bomb purposes (naval ship reactors typically use higher enrichment to avoid refueling and increase power density). That's enough Uranium to build around 10 bombs if fully enriched. They've done work on designing the actual bomb itself, too, and there's very little dispute about that either.
They have a nuclear weapons program. What Iran hasn't done, or there's no evidence of them having done, is actually start putting one together. But many of the prerequisites to do so are in place, though people dispute exactly how long it would take them to pull it off once they decided to do so.
Gaining the knowledge to build a nuclear weapon is not the same thing as assembling one.
Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, March 2025:
"the IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003. The IC continues to monitor closely if Tehran decides to reauthorize its nuclear weapons program." [1]
Please explain how "Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons program" is grammar hacking the above quote.
If you're actively doing the research and design required to build a nuclear weapon, and you're enriching uranium for the purpose of building a nuclear weapon, you have a nuclear weapons program. Whether you're actually physically assembling one immediately or not.
You wouldn't argue that the Manhattan Project wasn't a "real" nuclear weapons program until they started physically building the prototype.
I think our discussion hinges on the definition of "program". I agree that Iran was attempting to reduce its breakout time.
"doing the research and design required to build a nuclear weapon" ... "enriching uranium for the purpose of building a nuclear weapon"
Gabbard says "Iran's enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons," but if there was knowledge they were actually building a nuclear weapon, she would have said so.
I could believe, but haven't seen claimed, that Iran was doing R&D in order to shorten the time between deciding they want an atomic bomb and having one completed. Or perhaps to have a second-order deterrent ("we could make a bomb") not a first order deterrent ("we have a bomb"). I think it's a big difference from actually trying to make one. Maybe you disagree on that point.
I think his point is: you knew about this 60% because we have visibility into their plants. But if we didn't, we probably have less of an idea of what is going on there.
This is grossly incorrect: Iran has been pursuing nuclear weapons and uranium enrichment for decades - and the west (and even the not-west) has been working to counter it the whole time.
Iran is considered a bellicose enemy in much of the middle east. A nuclear-armed Iran would quickly lead to the rest of the middle east pursing their own nuclear weapons programs to counter Iran.
A nuclear armed Iran leads to rapid nuclear proliferation throughout the middle east.
I remember an old interview of Robert Fisk where in which his analysis was that the only way to stay safe from attacks like this was to have a nuclear weapon.
I can't think of any other way. Their rhetoric is needlessly belligerent but it doesn't seem like there's anything they can do to guarantee their own safety.
Considering the fact that many US congressmen openly fly the flag of Israel in and around their congressional offices and openly proclaim absolute commitment to this foreign entity, there is no end in sight to the direct interference in US politics and subsequent military intervention and aid supporting these people while our country is sucked dry and our soldiers are ordered to die fighting in their wars.
The US actually ends Iran's nuclear program, they quit trying and obey ... because we bombed them?
Most of the recent middle east history doesn't seem to ever end as much as just go through a continuous cycle of violence creating more of what the folks condoning violence claim they're preventing.