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Andrew V's avatar

Kasparov, as a Ukrainian-American I am a fan of both your political work and your illustrious career, but one specific line from this piece echoes the sentiments, in my view, that directly led to the catastrophe which was American involvement in the Middle East post 9/11. “If you are worried about innocent people being killed, as Rhodes claims to be, spare a thought for the millions of Iranians who face imprisonment, torture, or death if they dare deviate from the strict precepts of the Islamic Revolution.” I am in no way a moral relativist, and I revile state led religious extremism, with Islamism being, unfortunately , at the forefront of some of the most vile human rights abuses in modern history. This being said, this is exactly the type of slop that was shoveled into American’s heads from the Bush administration in partially justifying militarily involvement in the Middle East, framing it as a global struggle for freedom, liberation, especially that of the women in Iraq and Afghanistan (https://naapr.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/saving_muslim_women-_feminism_u.s_policy_and_the_war_on_terror_-_university_of_san_francisco_usf.pdf). Unless you opt for a complete occupation, you cannot and will not externally end the human rights abuses that Iranian citizens face (I wrote a piece about the role of militarily occupations earlier this year for anyone interested) and suggesting so is a slap in the face to the Iranian civilians which have already and will continue to suffer under Israeli bombs. The question for you is how morally culpable is a civilian population, especially a suppressed one like in Iran, to the actions of its government. Further, I think there is one other line of reasoning which connects the current conflict with Iran and American justification for Iraq: how long has Iran supposedly been on the precipice of nuclear strength? I looked it up the other day, the first American report that Iran was approaching weapons grade uranium was 1989, I believe. 36 years and they still aren’t nuclear capable (unlike Israel, I should mention if your concern is staying within the boundaries of international law regarding nukes). To me, this smells of the justification in Iraq, supposed WMDs which were never found, and appeals to human rights abuses there. We must stop repeating history.

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Black Power's avatar

Gary Gary, you’ve lost a step if you don’t see this as a desperate deflection move by Netanyahu.

This will not change the dynamics at all. It’s the same old story and really just Netanyahu attempting to distract from his failures. Israel claims they are stopping Iran from developing a Nuke and strikes a few targets, and Iran strikes back and then it’s over. Rinse and Repeat.

Netanyahu (and you) thinks bombing Iran will get the Iranian people to turn on the regime because they are being bombed by Israel? That’s delusional.

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