Professor Robert Pape (University of Chicago) has 2 substacks where he have been discussing the exactly topic heavily, as well as having webinar/ live discussions with some heavy hitters about the topic. Unfortunately both of the substacks are both subscription-only
I would rather not paraphrasing or rewrite in my interpretation too much, as the topic is difficult enough as-is. But the short version is that the mainstream analysis of "worst case" is nowhere near his level of worst-case scenario and that the US has no control of the situations any more (the US can still control its actions, but Iran is already emboldened enough to take actions on its own strategic plan). The worst-case scenario has Iran with nuke as the baseline, and Iran also growing to be the dominant regional power in Middle East, on-par with Russian in the peak strength in 2010s.
Nukes are a pretext. The former Supreme Leader, who the US chose to assassinate, had put a religious fatwa against nuclear weapons. The nut and yahoo in Israel has been saying Iran is a few years away from nukes for 30 years, literally. [1] Clearly they kicked his dog or something, and he just finally found a big enough fool to make his invasion fantasies finally come true.
I think the reason we cling onto that is because it's one way to try to retreat while waving a victory flag. Now we can claim we think the nukes are 'really' destroyed or whatever, and claim mission accomplished.
Comments
Professor Robert Pape (University of Chicago) has 2 substacks where he have been discussing the exactly topic heavily, as well as having webinar/ live discussions with some heavy hitters about the topic. Unfortunately both of the substacks are both subscription-only
https://professorrobertpape.substack.com/
https://escalationtrap.substack.com
I would rather not paraphrasing or rewrite in my interpretation too much, as the topic is difficult enough as-is. But the short version is that the mainstream analysis of "worst case" is nowhere near his level of worst-case scenario and that the US has no control of the situations any more (the US can still control its actions, but Iran is already emboldened enough to take actions on its own strategic plan). The worst-case scenario has Iran with nuke as the baseline, and Iran also growing to be the dominant regional power in Middle East, on-par with Russian in the peak strength in 2010s.
Robert Pape has been giving interviews on Mario Nawfal’s channel, among others.
I also appreciate his perspective.
https://www.youtube.com/@MarioNawfal/search?query=Robert+pap...
Does China or India care if Iran gets nuke as much the US does?
Nukes are a pretext. The former Supreme Leader, who the US chose to assassinate, had put a religious fatwa against nuclear weapons. The nut and yahoo in Israel has been saying Iran is a few years away from nukes for 30 years, literally. [1] Clearly they kicked his dog or something, and he just finally found a big enough fool to make his invasion fantasies finally come true.
I think the reason we cling onto that is because it's one way to try to retreat while waving a victory flag. Now we can claim we think the nukes are 'really' destroyed or whatever, and claim mission accomplished.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Vc_NanZ-Jos
Yes, because that increases the likelihood of Japan, Korea, Ukraine and even Taiwan getting nuke.
Japan, South Korea, Ukraine, and Taiwan are parties to the nonproliferation treaty, like Iran. Oddly, Israel isn’t.