Devils advocate myself here. If that same regime within the last 3 months killed 30,000 of their own citizens for the crime of protesting, would that make them less likely to attack themselves in the future? It's perplexing how one side of the isle totally ignored that atrocity.

Possible, but no indication that I've seen. IR isn't DPRK or Gaza... they don't have a tight enough hold on their own population to get away with pulling a stunt like that if they got caught. Too risky IMO.

Usually these kinds of things seem to blow up more on our end than anything.

You never know with squirrely admin talking heads.

A drone strike was dubbed as “righteous” by the JCS a few years back, it wasn’t so “righteous”

A Chinese embassy bombed on “accident”, etc etc etc…..

Mods, ANOTHER case of mobile platform screwing up the quote function. I did NOT accidentally delete any script in the process.

Which OS and browser?

ios, safari.

Multiple other quotes/posters in other forums I see same.

Makes trying to follow a discussion difficult after a while.

It is fair counterpoint, but impossible to entertain the hypothetical as the United States is not a Tyrannical Theocracy and if it were I'm not sure I'd be too disappointed with someone trying to remove it from power. That statement comes with my bias of course of NOT preferring tyrannical theocracies. Some people think thats the way to go.....it's just not for me.

How about the deaths in the Arab spring? Oh wait, the west is okay with those protestor deaths because they don’t want US-friendly governments in the ME to be toppled in any way.

Arab spring achieved much progress, at least short-term, including governments over-thrown. So it all went pretty well, if you're reform-minded.

We were fairly preoccupied with ensuring the safety and security of US forces and AMCITs in the region. Didn't really have the bandwidth to wade into multiple civil wars (in addition to OIF/OEF).

Now the Saudi Prince wants Trump to put boots on the ground to destroy Iran’s “hard line government.” The sheer irony of any Saudi prince to say hard line government is astounding. And Bibi saying the U.S. can’t end this war, only when Israel wants to end it, it will end.

We are being played on the world stage and it is an embarrassment.

I’m not even sure it’s a side-of-the-aisle issue. I don’t know which way the current leader of Iran leaned prior to the war. He might have had a privately held love for bourbon, rock and roll, and the F150. Or not. We know he spent months in the U.S. getting IVF for his wife. But after his wife, son, and father were turned into pink mist, and his brother and sister-in-law are only alive because they got buried under concrete - we can probably guess what his views are now. Not criticizing, but it is a factor.

The truth is likely in the middle. Allow a school to be housed abutting a major military HQ, with classes in session, during a major conflict is human shield adjacent behavior.