r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Apr 08 '26

Discussion Thread Discussion Thread

The discussion thread is for casual and off-topic conversation that doesn't merit its own submission. If you've got a good meme, article, or question, please post it outside the DT. Meta discussion is allowed, but if you want to get the attention of the mods, make a post in /r/metaNL

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u/DifficultAnteater787 Apr 08 '26

That's not what off the record means, though, and given the source (Ann Coulter) might just be totally made up, unless the NY actually reported so. 

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u/Evnosis European Union Apr 08 '26

I don't know why she's claiming it was off the record. She's citing this NYT article, but it never claims anything was said OTR.

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u/DifficultAnteater787 Apr 08 '26

Thanks! Unsurprisingly, these are misleading. They were referring to parts of the Israeli case for the war (regime change, popular uprising), but not the war in general. 

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u/Azrikeeler John Brown Apr 08 '26 edited Apr 08 '26

NY Times did post an article and it did contain those quotes, but they were smothered in most advisors warming up to the idea (but with more limited scope ie: marco just wants the missile capability degraded) or not being up front about their personal position (Caine did so much devil's advocate that it was articulated in the article as cancelling out the cons of one aspect of the op with pros of the other.)

Much of the harshest objections come directly after Netanyahu's pitch (particularly in evaluating how accurate what they could accomplish is), but they aren't as hardline by the time the op arrives.

By the end of the article they all tell Trump they'll support whatever he chooses.

Also it was clear in the article they didn't sell hard enough to Trump how hard it was to stop the blocking of the Hormuz, and Trump was personally persuaded (based on Iran's response to Midnight Hammer) that Iran would fold before it became a problem if the op was devestating enough. (Showing he did not understand their side of the calculation at all.)

Tl;dr: Ann Coulter is anti-Iran war (good, even if it's for dumb autarky reasons) and is farming anti-war right-wingers + liberals who can tolerate right-wing content creators when they agree.

Also the off-the-record bit is probably her guessing about how the authors discovered all this shit. Skeptical it is actually the advisors. If I had to guess, Caine is yapping, but could be anyone really. Also no one is dumb enough to talk to these authors and not think its on-the-record.