I prefer assassinations of leaders in wars over deaths of soldiers and especially civilians.
Considering how Israel had to raze entire cities to beat 'Hamas' or the US dropping nukes in WW2 instead of bombing the Japanese Emperor. This is decent as far as wars go.
> I prefer assassinations of leaders in wars over deaths of soldiers and especially civilians.
To me, this argument doesn't hold water. Think about some counterexamples: (1) Netanyahu and Gaza. Surely, 100K+ civilians died as a result of that war. (2) Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Vietnam. A staggering number of civilians died in that war. (3) GW Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq/2.
My guess: All of those leaders are responsible for more innocent civilian deaths in each conflict than Khamenei's entire reign.
To me, I am very conflicted about the assassination of Khamenei. Yeah, he did a bunch of bad stuff and was very destabilising in the region, but I need to draw the line at assassination. It was unnecessary. It is a slippery slope.
It was a criticism of the three wars you mentioned. I think a quick victory would have limited civilian deaths in all those situations.
Except the first one, because the goal of that war was killing the civilians. They could have assassinated Hamas leaders just as easily, but then there would be no reason to bomb all those hospitals and children.
To the extent that they're actually effective, I agree.
Trouble is, higher-ups are easily replaceable, and the rank-and-file True Believers may be even more willing to follow orders in the name of a dead tyrant than a living one.
Or not. Sic semper tyrannis. Best wishes to the people of Iran.
No, Hamas was never funded by Israel. In this instance, Hamas was funded by Qatar, and the Israelis were complicit by allowing it. But it's also important to remember that Hamas is the elected sovereign in Gaza, and this money was used in part to run Gaza's infrastructure. In the same way Taliban runs Afghanistan, Hamas runs Gaza.
The assumption in Israel was that it was beneficial to have Hamas retain something to lose, and not starve them dry outright. Of course that didn't pan out well, given what Hamas did in October 7th.
But saying Hamas was funded by Israel is an outright lie, and the irony it comes from the same people who blame Israel for not letting supplies into Gaza during war. So no matter if Israel does or does not, it's always to blame simply by being.
> the irony it comes from the same people who blame Israel for not letting supplies into Gaza during war.
Israel did in fact do that. In fact there were several months of Israel not allowing any food or supplies whatsoever into Gaza. That was about a year ago. (It's possible Israel may have been supplying rival groups unfriendly to Hamas with food/supplies/weapons in secret, but all regular humanitarian aid was shut off.)
> In an interview with Politico in 2023, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that "In the last 15 years, Israel did everything to downgrade the Palestinian Authority and to boost Hamas." He continued saying "Gaza was on the brink of collapse because they had no resources, they had no money, and the PA refused to give Hamas any money. Bibi saved them. Bibi made a deal with Qatar and they started to move millions and millions of dollars to Gaza."
That looks like Israel made every effort to promote the welfare of Gazan citizens. From your own link "Gaza was on the brink of collapse" and Israel saved them.
Nonsense. They wanted to stabilize Hamas rule so that the Palestinian Authority would not be able to govern there. A unified Palestinian government in the West Bank and Gaza is what they were opposed to. They feared diplomatic success on the part of the Palestinian Authority more so than any violence from Hamas. A major oops, but ideologically consistent with the Zionist goal of keeping a foot on the neck of Palestinians. There's not much else to Israel aside from that.
That's like saying the EU fundeh Hamas because they gave aid money to Gaza. If you squint at it the right way then maybe, but fundamentally it's disingenuous to call something like that funding.
But "the Jews .. uhm, I mean Israel .. had it coming and they did it to themselves" is always a favorite, isn't it?
If that was true, it would be like that. But it isn't, so it's not. EU is wide, and does not always speak with one voice, but it has a clear history of doing their best to avoid funding the proto-democratic forces in the region. Any support of religious extremists is considered a failure and acted upon.
America is as much a victim of israel as iran is. You act like we have a choice in this matter. We are forced to cut funding for food programs, education, healthcare, etc because of soaring debt. Yet, we'll take on any amount of debt for israel's wars. It's amazing how we've become a slave of such a small nation.
> Can you imagine other countries assassinating a foreign head of state and not getting immediate blowback?
It's simply a matter of power. Who is powerful enough to do the enforcing of laws or punishing of bad actors? Might makes right.
America is run by ideologues and the EU idealists. either way we are heading in separate directions. I don’t think the US can be described as a western country anymore tbh.
What are you talking about? Russia has effectively been blocked from the west while when the United States invaded Iraq nothing happened. Europe trades with the US like nothing ever happened while Russia will never return to what it was before without at minimum Putin being gone.
Europe even still trades with Israel when what they have done is Gaza has been declared a genocide by everyone. At the same time Russia can't even take part in the Olympics or the Eurovision song contest.
The west has no moral ground to stand on and hopefully people in the west will start to see that.
You raise a lot of good points here. Another unconfortable truth: Russia is withstanding the sanctions way better than anyone expected. I don't think that they can sustain it forever, but I do think they can make it (at least) another 2-3 years.
You can't see the french or Russians doing the same thing in Africa? Because I sure can. There's be some hand wringing and posturing but that's about it.
Not that it's ok for the US, or anyone else to do it.
