Thank you for attacking the strawman I knew someone would: I never said and never implied that ISIS and the IRI, Syria, and Hezballah were allies. To make the point again, you will not see the way ideologues act as logical unless you understand their ideologies and accord them due importance. Didn't nearly the whole of the West completely misunderstand what was happening in the Arab Spring? We just assumed they were following the 'historical progression' to secular democracy. We do not understand the motivations and conditions of these social movements and societies.
ed: Except with very simple things like "fundamentalists run into heretics", of course.
No reason exists to be surprised that Shia Iran opposes the rise of a fundamentalist, expansionist Sunni Caliphate (within their client state, no less). Seriously, if a pundit or politician is surprised about this, it's a good time to disregard them completely. How many
years decades centuries of sectarian violence do we need to acknowledge that radical Islam despises heretics worse than heathens?
I thought we learned our lesson on pre-emptive aggression back in Iraq.
I hope we learned our lesson about trying to nation-build in places that have no national identity and all kinds of civil strife kept under wraps by an oppressive government. Preemptive aggression has gone pretty well, unsurprisingly, considering our training, technical, and logistic advantages. I think Netanyahu and war hawks are arguing for gunboat diplomacy, not nation-building or condescending colonialism.
I, like many others, don't trust a nation that saber-rattles with threats of genocide to have the real capability to do it. Mass murder is a thing nuclear weapons are good at. If we start supporting Israel when it gets nuked, I don't think there will be many Israelis who appreciate that support.
The election of Rouhani does not signify change until Khamenei is no longer Supreme Leader. Khamenei commands the military and the intelligence services. Khamenei is a common thread over the past 34 years of Iranian politics and he is the most senior religious figure in that theocracy. He said that Israeli leaders aren't human and suggested that the Holocaust never happened...
last year. Iran is liberalizing, but why do I have to tell people that young, liberal movements don't necessarily control their government's policies and secret goals?