This was not inevitable. This is a war Israel chose. It could have been prevented. Diplomatic talks were ongoing when the bombers took off for Iran. Israel’s continuing, illegal, unjustified airstrikes are unlikely to achieve their stated aim – permanently ending Tehran’s presumed efforts to build nuclear weapons – and may accelerate it. They must stop now. Likewise, Iran must halt its retaliation immediately and drop its escalatory threats to attack US and UK bases.

This conflict is not limited, as was the case last year, to tit-for-tat exchanges and “precision strikes” on a narrow range of military targets. It’s reached a wholly different level. Potentially nothing is off the table. Civilians are being killed on both sides. Leaders are targets. The rhetoric is out of control. With Israel fighting on several fronts, and Iran’s battered regime backed against a wall, the Middle East is closer than ever to a disastrous conflagration.

Reasons can always be found to go to war. The roots of major conflicts often reach back decades – and this is true of the Israel-Iran vendetta, which dates to the 1979 Islamic revolution. The so-called “shadow war” between the two intensified in recent years. Yet all-out conflict had been avoided, until now. So who is principally to blame for this sudden, unprecedented explosion?

Answer: three angry old men whose behaviour raises serious doubts about their judgment, common sense, motives and even their sanity.

  • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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    1 day ago

    Don’t forget Putin…

    Fuck thes old, power-hungry war-mongering pieces of excrement. Their death will be celebrated by millions.

    Please put an age restriction on politicians, it would solev sooo much nonsense.

    • vga@sopuli.xyz
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      2 hours ago

      Please put an age restriction on politicians, it would solev sooo much nonsense.

      While I partially agree on this, let’s consider some cases:

      • Hitler’s reign 1933-1945, his age: 44-56
      • Stalin 1922-1952, age 44-74
      • Putin 2000-?, age 48-?
      • Pol Pot 1963-1981, age 38-56
      • Louis XIV 1643-1715, age 5-77 or 16-77 if you count coronation as the start (sacre bleu jesus fuck)
      • Xi Jinping 2012-?, age 59-?

      Youth is clearly not enough. Age limit + term limit might be a useful combination, but it all falls down when you allow somebody to just grab all power anyway and reset all the rules and limits, like Putin and Xi Jinping have done.

    • Honytawk@feddit.nl
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      1 day ago

      Putin is by far the worst one.

      Neither Netanyahu nor Khamenei have the capacity for war the way the other 2 have.

      And Putin already has achieved what Trump wants to achieve: being a dictator with full control of the state.

      Oh how much the world would improve is all 4 of them suddenly get a bullet between the eyes.

      • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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        3 hours ago

        Putin is by far the worst one.

        Only if you believe that white lives are far more valuable than non-white lives

      • shroomato@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        They would immediately get replaced with someone just as bad if not worse. The world has an endless supply of power hungry warmongering assholes.

        • vga@sopuli.xyz
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          4 hours ago

          Who knows for sure? But we can assume that Putin had something to do with Hamas launching the strike just by the fact how much it helped him. It did cause half of the world to turn their eyes away from Ukraine, to believe that Gaza is now the most important crisis on this planet.

          • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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            3 hours ago

            But we can assume that Putin had something to do with Hamas launching the strike just by the fact how much it helped him.

            This is like a parody of what a BlueAnon liberal would say, my god

          • RadioFreeArabia@lemmy.world
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            3 hours ago

            Why would a population living under a military occupation since 1967 do such a thing? And why would the world see a genocide as the most important crisis?

            Putin, of course.

            • vga@sopuli.xyz
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              2 hours ago

              You’re biased, based on your handle. You think Gaza is important.

              I’m also biased, because I live next to Russia. I think defending against Russia in the current situation is much more important than anything that could happen in Gaza. And if you want to take the historical perspective, Russia has violated my country and the people of my country several times during the last 300 years at least, and probably more. Middle East obviously has the potential to beat us on the historical record, given how the whole of human civilization practically rose in that area, but still. It’s not like this is happening for the first time over here either.

              It’s not that I don’t care about their tragedies, it’s just that it’s nowhere near a top priority right now. If Russia stops being a crazy asshole, things farther away from my country’s borders may become more important to me. Still, note that if what I’m suggesting is true, Putin and Russia are partially to blame about what’s happening In Gaza. With a handle like yours, you probably cared about Gaza already before Putin’s manipulations, but half of the eyes of the lefties in west were looking at Ukraine. They are not looking at Ukraine anymore, like they should be doing.

              Truth to be told, geopolitically speaking it seems much more sane to be on Israel’s side because they’re against Iran, who’s on Russia’s side. And Palestine seems to be kinda on Russia’s side as well so remind me again why I should support them at all?

    • EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com
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      1 day ago

      Please put an age restriction on politicians, it would solev sooo much nonsense.

      Yeah, people who are young enough to actually have to worry about the future.