Iran Launches Ballistic Missiles At American Bases in Iraq

[Baruch]

I'm not sure what they are, but I think there may be negative consequences to glassing the entire area.  It does seem like a simple solution, but the fact that our government isn't about to do it tells me that someone respected as an authority on geopolitics is anticipating an unwanted outcome.  However, glassing is never off the table either, and I can easily imagine many scenarios that would precipitate glassing, none of which would lead to a glorious victory for Iran.  This does not mean it would automatically be a victory for the US, however.  We would undoubtedly win the war, but at costs that could be intolerable...  Maybe.

It is bigoted to only glass theists, or only glass Muslims.

[Unbeliever]

That said... take that with a grain of salt. Irani media is not exactly what I would call the most credible source.

Yeah, much like American media.

[Unbeliever]

Maybe Iran's oil fields would be irradiated, and so be unusable for millennia.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm not sure what they are, but I think there may be negative consequences to glassing the entire area.  It does seem like a simple solution, but the fact that our government isn't about to do it tells me that someone respected as an authority on geopolitics is anticipating an unwanted outcome.  However, glassing is never off the table either, and I can easily imagine many scenarios that would precipitate glassing, none of which would lead to a glorious victory for Iran.  This does not mean it would automatically be a victory for the US, however.  We would undoubtedly win the war, but at costs that could be intolerable...  Maybe.

Oh, please. A shower of nuclear tipped-missiles would solve a whole shit load of Iraqis.

[Baruch]

Maybe Iran's oil fields would be irradiated, and so be unusable for millennia.

Radiation weapon, contamination by radioisotope.  Fukushima without a tidal wave.  How about Japan ships their Fukushima waste to Iran, and bury it there, in their water table?

[Jason Harvestdancer]

How barbaric.

I think just not interfering with their petty tribal wars is good enough.

[SGOS]

I think just not interfering with their petty tribal wars is good enough.

We must maintain stability in the Middle East.  Otherwise there will be instability.  Stability through sterilization of everything, even the sand, is our only hope. There can be no tribal wars without tribes.  Only then we can have peace and quiet.

[Baruch]

How barbaric.

I think just not interfering with their petty tribal wars is good enough.

If the US produced everything, and needed no trade with the barbarians outside?

I take SGOS point as satire.  There is no need for stability, anywhere.

[Unbeliever]

It's all just chaos anyway. We may be coming to a strange attractor.

[Baruch]

It's all just chaos anyway. We may be coming to a strange attractor.

We don't want to know about your strange SO ;-)

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Peaceful trade with all, entangling alliances with none.

The third world has suffered from outside forces funneling money in so that the outcome can be manipulated.  During the Cold War it was competition between USA and USSR.  Now that the USSR is gone, Russia is doing the same in a more limited manner only in issues that actually benefit them.  The USA is still trying to police the world and impose an order on the world that doesn't actually exist.

All efforts to stabilize the Middle East have destabilized it.  Just look at Libya.  There are Arab slave traders trafficking African Slaves there now.  That sort of thing was mostly stomped out for a while.

The US has a very bad habit.  When the North Elbonians and the South Elbonians go to war, the US politicians think they MUST determine which side is the good side and then back that side entirely.  Sometimes there is no good side and the best you can hope for is that they slap fight each other into exhaustion.

[Baruch]

The British Empire took the lead in the 19th century stamping out slavery.  Not the US, not Russia.  All slavers say ... Death to the British Empire.