alt Hacker News> find those people who make your policy decisions
Genuine question: who put Iran in their policy portfolio?
Replies
I see this as Trump going after governments that were close to Russia and China. Which is why he is going after Iran, Venezuela and Cuba.
Also there are many countries in the middle east that we are friends with which would be happy if Iran falls.
The voters
The rumor I heard was that high-level Pentagon generals had subtly suggested that Trump target Iran. The reason was to distract his attention from Greenland. Logic goes that if you have a reality TV star who built his brand on being a tough guy in the White House, it's far better that he attack a theocratic dictatorship that funds a host of terrorist organizations and whose country is already on the verge of collapse than a NATO ally and fellow democracy that didn't do anything to us.
Indeed, the permanent bureaucracies and think tanks have advised all administrations:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7864/j.ctt6wpgvg
This is bipartisan. The long term goals were to start with Libya, Iraq, Syria and then Iran. The latter two required Russia to be tied up in another conflict.
They don't explicitly put Iran in their portfolio because for Reality TV it is better to be a peace lover.
Now, undoubtedly the Democrats will pretend to complain, but Schumer and Pelosi want this, too.
[I am expanding on your comment, not trying to contradict anything.]
AIPAC is a thing...
And now of course you're going to label me an AIPAC nutter, but in this particular case I think the evidence is fairly plain given the collaboration between the two countries on this. If Israel had done this by their lonesome or if the US had not involved Israel then you could make the case that they reached this point independently, right now it looks to me as if collusion is a 100% certainty and that the US is executing a foreign policy that will not benefit it but that will benefit Israel. It also makes me wonder whether this will end up as a Venzuela re-run where the top names change but everything else remains the same, just with US companies the beneficiaries of the oil, which is, besides policy the main driver behind these things anyway.