Obama is the one outlier here. As far as I'm aware, all other presidents since '79 saw this as inevitable if not desirable.

> all other presidents since '79 saw this as inevitable if not desirable

I think it's helpful to distinguish Cold War-era Presidents from the others, but that obviously limits the sample.

That only cuts Carter and Reagan, and I have a hard time ignoring Carter given all the Iran issues he had to deal with.

Islamic lunatic ayatollahs, who've shown a willingness to massacre their own people, with nukes?

Can't imagine why that would be a bad thing ...

I don't much understand that about this thread. Yes Trump bad. Yes, US should not get into another war (although in here, arguably this may avoid war, and yes, that's been said before)

But when it comes to the ayatollahs at the business end of the missiles: defending them? I mean, I understand socialists brought them to power, but still: for these particular ayatollahs, having their insides spread over a few football fields ... can't happen to a more deserving bunch.

AFAIK the only country that dropped a nuke on their own soil (that luckily didn't explode) is the USA.

If Iran is unhappy with their government, they can deal with it. It is not a US problem in the slightest. Going to war with another country puts Americans at risk.

Small not, but the US hasn't declared war. That requires an act of congress, and congress has continued to neutered itself more and more for decades.

> if Iran is unhappy with their government, they can deal with it. It is not a US problem

If Tehran contented itself with oppressing its own, it probably wouldn't garner too much attention. The problem is its regional proxies constantly causing a mess. It lacks anyone willing to come to its aid right now in large part because of that foreign policy.