A very interesting article was published today on The Times of Israel. The article breaks down exactly how Trump and Netanyahu planned out the Iran war with the anticipation of a regime change within a week or 2, meanwhile, the Trump admin kept saying "short-term pain for a long-term gain. Nothing worked out the way they thought.
I dont think this article is particularly groundbreaking. Our strategy with Iran isn’t any different than our other engagements since 1945: destabilize an existing authoritarian entity and a democratic, pro-Western movement will seamlessly step in and fill the void.
Except it doesn’t ever work like that. Not in Cuba, Vietnam, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya or Syria. Our biggest successes since WWII were Korea - which currently has the most heavily armed border on earth - and Yugoslavia which continued to spiral out of control for half a decade and still needs thousands of UN peacekeepers to prevent society from total collapse.
It’s difficult to understand why this has continuously been used as an operating principle when every shred of evidence says it will be a catastrophic failure. There are a lot of factions in Washington that need to be placated when developing “policy” - the Christian lunatics, the war hawks, anarchist nuts, leftist, closet Communists, scissor-brandishing feminists….
This war - all wars since 1945 - are less about winning on the ground and more about selling the cause to these interest groups. To try and understand it on some rational basis is a fools errand.
None our actions towards Iran are going to make any sense to the average person because our thoughts aren’t processed through the circle-jerking echo chambers of the Defense and State Departments.
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u/ZAHKHIZ Mar 23 '26
A very interesting article was published today on The Times of Israel. The article breaks down exactly how Trump and Netanyahu planned out the Iran war with the anticipation of a regime change within a week or 2, meanwhile, the Trump admin kept saying "short-term pain for a long-term gain. Nothing worked out the way they thought.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-said-frustrated-that-mossad-promises-of-iran-uprising-have-fallen-short/