You say "actively" as if it wasn'y a one-off event... maybe because Iran is forcing children to sit at IRGC checkpoints or other military targets?
None of the gulf countries allowed offensive US strikes to occur from their territory. Its all used to defend against attacks from Iran trying to kill Gulf country children.
Maybe ones who don't follow supreme religious leaders that called for the gunning down of 3000 men, women, and children in the streets. And then approve beatings/the murder of doctors that treated them.
Imagine that being your moral leadership. And 3000 is the official Iranian number. Some claim as high as 30,000. Those religious leaders are calling for more murder/death in todays Friday prayers. I don't know how anyone who calls for (or especially signs off on in a religious theocracy) murder can be called spiritual leaders or anyone could follow their 'teachings' .
Edit: Just highlighting the horrors/behaviors you are normalizing/waive away as 'shared by everyone' with your statement 'but what humans aren't like this'.
Ok but could you point to anyone or any people and tell me that they're rational? I didn't just ask for a possible condition of rationality and "maybe" feels like a very flimsy foundation for the acidity of what you're saying.
I think you're conflating "rational" with "moral". The question was about rationality, and from their POV (given the goal of keeping the regime going) everything was rational.
They have always done the same. Just attack everyone and then get the win by getting others to fight for them. Get the maximum reaction through PR/propaganda. It's how they came to power in the first place. It's how they got a massive leftist uprising to unseat the previous government.
Before and during 1979. They'd attack the security forces, deny their involvement and then blame the government for the response, which then was supposedly an attack (e.g. Khomeini would send armed men into protests then put out propaganda that security forces "fired at protestors"). Or argue that the response to their attack was disproportionate. Or argue that his forces "don't have any choice but to" ... etc. This has been the way their proxy forces fight (hamas, houthi's, hezbollah). Control and punish people who detail what their side does (they massacred their own soldiers and their own allies, not just once. This is why people argue they're not leftists: they massacred the leftist factions that helped them unseat the Shah government)
They never explain their own actions. If anything, they put them forth as rational. But more likely you'll never hear about them. Such as killing 30000 people in January when their propaganda efforts totally failed. That's what happened: due to devaluation a number of traders in the "Tehran Bazaar" (a set of streets with lots of stands) very publicly, including to tourists, complained that the government made their lives impossible through economic mismanagement.
They locked off the streets and started going through, killing everybody they possibly could, "clearing" the market as they called it. Men, women, a few children who were sent to buy bread for their families. A few hundred dead. (yes, the way the Iranian government fights has more than a few parallels to what the Nazi's did)
This then set off the large scale protests everywhere in Iran.
Btw: the Iranian tactics are obviously working to some extent. Hence it's probably rational to do this because
'gunning down 3,000 to 30,000 of your country's men, women, and children in the streets because they don't feel one gender should be forced to wear hats upon pain of abuse/rape/death is completely rational'
I'm not sure dismissing the people who invented the term "checkmate" as a bunch of irrational terrorists really works. They stared down Saddam Hussein, so how hard can it be to stare down Donald Trump?
Bombing Iran is like nuking an asteroid. Now, instead of one giant asteroid on a collision course with Earth, there are a half-dozen medium-sized radioactive asteroids on a collision course with Earth.
Similar arguments could be made about the US republic. The land of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and Lincoln, now also speed running its way to failed state status and being run and supported by loons.
Whether true or not, the article’s author also argued this point in 2023 (link below), and this article uses some of the same language (empty bins) as the paper.
For me, the main point comes down to exactly how much of a weapons stockpile should a peaceful nation carry? We (US) already have a large number of nuclear weapons, and have been fighting a proxy war of sorts with Russia for over a year. Now we’re the aggressor in several other high profile strikes that have taken out the leaders of several nations. In my opinion, this _should_ be stressing the supplies of our military, _because it’s not (or shouldn’t be) our normal mode of operation_. We already have mechanisms like the Defense Production Act which would allow us to rapidly scale the creation of weapons when needed. Carrying enough weaponry to fight an extended large-scale conflict is incredibly wasteful, and seems like it would mostly serve those who would profit from the required spending to accomplish it.
It was also perplexing when Iran was shooting missiles at their allies, until you realize they aren't rational humans.
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