They can just hold the world’s supply of oil, ammonia and helium to ransom. Breaking an Iranian blockade by force would require a WW2-scale effort, with the US, Europe, China and the gulf states fighting alongside each other to take Tehran and impose some kind of regime change all parties find acceptable.
Isnt china and Iran allies and already have agreements for discounted oil trades?
China aren’t strictly speaking allies. They get a lot of oil from Iran and have plenty of deals in place, to the point that many people believe that the Venezuela coup and Iran war are a US ploy to destabilise China specifically.
China basically stay out of geopolitics far more than people assume. They are very unlikely to enter the Iran war on either side, ever.
China and Russia would be fighting against the EU and US in that hypothetical wwiii scenario
Unless Dickhead drops a nuke and threatens more. Which I wouldn’t put past him.
Imagine if Iran nuked Washington DC, or even every American city with a population over 1 million. Would the US government surrender? Would the American people surrender even if the government did?
I imagine the US government would retreat to its mountain bunkers and say “come and get it”, and many American civilians would join or support guerillas to fight any Iranian attempt at occupation. And that’s true despite many Americans hating the current regime.
So why would the Iranian government or its people be any different?
Iran doesn’t have 5,177 nuclear warheads.
I’m not saying you’re wrong; I suspect the IRGC is stubborn enough to never surrender no matter what happens to Iran’s civilians… But that’s because they’re stupid.
Hence I think this is a bad analogy, as Japan surrendered in exactly the circumstances you’re describing. In Man In The High Castle, the US did too, and I think that’s a plausible fictional scenario, as nuclear war basically makes resistance impractical.
Iran also has nukes.
Says who? Definitely not Iran or any international organisation, and even Netanyahu only claims they are two weeks away for the last 20 years.
They probably could make dirty bombs with the enriched Uranium they have, but unless they are playing the world’s best feint, they aren’t going to have a working nuke any time soon.
Still wouldn’t put it past him unfortunately
No they don’t
Have you looked at a map? Do you know how far Hormuz is from Tehran?
That’s the point. You would need to conquer the entire country to a point where firing off truck-launched ballistic missiles and Shahed drones isn’t viable any more.
Honestly I give the iranian disinformation team 1 of 5 stars, a pathetic job really.
I mean, they don’t actually need to have the Epstein files, they can just start sharing stuff that seems plausible.
They are making Lego memes that are pretty fire though.
Are they though?
It would be pretty easy to eviscerate Trump.
The videos and memes I’ve seen are a bit vanilla. More about trying to make Iran seem righteous and wholesome than trying to embarrass Trump.
And yeah, his ego makes it easier than most but dang haha
Wasn’t that like 90% the reason Sora AI shot down too? Nice.
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Their propaganda has actually generally sucked pretty bad this war. They had the opportunity to make the US and Israel (and particularly Trump and Bebe) into a global pariah. They could have started showing videos of schools and other graphic terrible images of people the US has murdered and things they have destroyed. They could have turned the whole world against the US and Israel, just like Biden and Zelinski were able to turn the would world against Russia.
But instead they dug in, started bombing everyone else around them, and made everyone remember why they are hated in the first place.
Yeah but your plan has one big flaw: the dead are Muslims, which means we (as in the northern hemisphere population) don’t give a fuck. See Gaza. We all know. We know children eat dirt because they are starving. We know Israel targets journalists and even NATO forces. We know everything but we don’t care.
That’s a fair criticism.
It’s not that we don’t care, it’s that there’s nothing we can do about it short of a violent revolution.
You can care about a cause without being willing to die for it.
No, the collective we does not care. I’m sorry, but this is just how it is. They are Muslims so European and American countries do not give a fuck.
And it is hard when you care, but the collective doesn’t, so you’re just a lone voice to be ignored. No matter what you try or how much you struggle, it’s not gonna change the fact that the majority doesn’t care, and especially that the people who stay in power don’t care.
Which is all extremely disheartening and makes the world a worse place. How to keep fighting when there’s no hope?
The 1% who controls the media and our countries are the ones that don’t care.
I honestly don’t understand how you Americans still seem to believe that anything in the Epstein files could possibly harm Trump. It was known before the 2016 election, that he was peeping in dressing rooms at Miss Teen contests. Before the 2016 election he bragged about sexually assalting women. Before the 2024 election he was convicted for sexual abuse.
And people did vote for him, not despite of that, but because of it. Because they are misogynistic assholes who adore and envy him for doing stuff like that.
He raped a 13 year old violently and there’s probably video in those epstein files.
And? These allegations were also known since 2016. But that didn’t stop anyone from voting for him, twice.
- His Conspiracy Theorist supporters will call it an AI fake, created by the deep state.
- For his Christian voters he’ll be redeemed if he pays 50 shekels to the girls father and marries her.
- His nazi supporters might say: “Whell that’s not nice. But at least he’s getting rid of the immigrants.”
- His sexist supporters will say “Well 13 might be a bit young, but after all it’s her fault for wearing such a short skirt. And with these kids nowadays you never know their real age”.
- His MAGA supporters will say “I don’t care, he’s our saviour. If he deems such things necessary, who am I to question him.”
- The Idiots say “Well he might be an asshole, but Kamala Harris also did some bad things.”
- And his courts say that it’s already barred or he’s got immunity or he just enacts a new law that makes rape legal if the perpetrator is a politician. He’ll have the Congress’s support, as soon as the files are released.
Did I forget anyone?
Those things aren’t known by everyone. My conservative MIL didn’t vote for Trump having known about those things, but my SIL did. She was shocked when I told her about it.
Americans generally aren’t as well educated as many other countries of its caliber and a bit part of that manifests in media literacy and general interest in anything, really. My SIL claims she made her decision to vote for him because his campaign page was more convincing about lowering prices and Karris’ I kid you not.
Yeah this is a single anecdote about a single person, but this largely has been my experience.
checking if your candidate isn’t a pedophile should be the fucking bare minimum lmao
I agree, but we’re talking about a white Christian in rural america. They don’t put effort into it because they aren’t meaningfully affected by outcomes either way. The SAVE act might be the first time they directly experience an erosion of rights but even then, theyre wealthy enough to travel regularly so their passport is likely recent.
But that didn’t stop anyone from voting for him, twice.
Most of them voted for him thrice
Video of him raping a 13 year old girl is different.
I think most of these things are why he got elected. He did the things the average american wishes he could do.
yea we all know america is a pedocracy.
pedocracy
Ruled by a child? Yeah, that fits.
No that’s an infentocract. A pedocracy is ruled by pedos
Mixing Latin and Greek roots? You sociopath1.
Yes, pedocracies are ruled by pedos; the Greek word for ‘child’. See also Pedagogy (teaching children), pediatrics (medicine for children), and pedophily (sexual attraction to children).
A society ruled by pedophiles would be a pedophilocracy. From the Greek words ‘pedos’ (child), ‘philia’ (lust), and ‘cratos’ (rule). Like aristocracy (rule by the best), democracy (rule by the people), or autocracy (rule by oneself).
1: from Latin ‘socius’ (comrade) and Greek ‘pathos’ (caring).
what’s the difference? Romans stole everything from the greek anyway
Because if he committed an actual, irrefutable crime, like raping a 13 year old, or being heavily involved with the trafficking of minors, it doesn’t matter if he’s president, he should still face the law. The fact that Republicans wouldn’t consider that disqualifying should not be relevant.
But he already committed multiple irrefutable crimes, like the aforementioned Sexual abuse, Conspiracy against the United States, 34 other felonies and much more. He never had to face the law, because he owns the prosecutors as well as the judges.
Don’t worry, USA has the best court system money can buy.
The fact that Republicans wouldn’t consider that disqualifying should not be relevant.
Unfortunately, it is relevant. The double standard is insane.
Because a huge swath of Republicans were obsessed with the Epstein files.
It was a conservative darling for years, the issue for many voters. You don’t get how big of a deal it was in the US before it was common knowledge that Trump was in them.
It’s why it’s the only controversy Trump isn’t leaning into. It’s simply too much of a conservative cornerstone for him to deal with.
Fuck that, trade it for Trump dead or alive
or alive
No no, let’s keep it simple.
Why would they accept replacing a senile figurehead with a more competent fascist government? Why would they let the Democrats that had a standing ovation over the commitment to attack Iran go off scot-free?
Project 2025 wasn’t written by Trump, it was written by smarter people who are more dangerous to Iran. Attacking Iran has been on the US agenda for decades. It would be foolish to let the US off this lightly
They already released most of the victims names, they can’t really pretend they care about them anymore.
why would they want the US regime to change? It’s a poor long term strategy, you want the useless idiots to ruin their country, not have them replaced by competent people.
I think they would prefer people who weren’t bombing their country with Israel.
I think they would prefer people who weren’t bombing their country with Israel.
Have you read history? Authoritarian places need external enemies to rally people behind so that the population will ignore whatever bullshit they do to exploit and abuse them. The only rule is “don’t be the one to lose”. As long as the theocracy does not surrender, they are winning.
See also : The US after 9/11. We’re STILL dealing with the fucking bullshit fallout from that.
Dude, they’re continuing to kill school children. 911 was a one off that made everyone scared. Scared, yes. Bombing the shit out of your citizens, no.
Who would that be? The Haudenoshaunee? The US has been bombing Iran at least since there has been an Israel.
“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake” - Napoleon Bonaparte
Well to not get bombed, naturally. The uselessness of said idiots does not have an impact on the fact that the bombs are actively landing on Iran
see here : https://lemmy.world/post/44957285/22958875
The only rule is “don’t be the one to lose”. As long as the theocracy does not surrender, they are winning.
It’s entirely reasonable to believe that it is more likely that a new administration would take the chance to end the war than the current one is to make America incapable of bombing Iran on a reasonable timeline
Of course, that assumes that Iran thinks that this would work at all. They might make the full release of the files a condition to open the strait, but America would then just say “well we already released them so that won’t work as a deal” and rely on the current administrations cultish supporters to believe that
I’ve been seing stuff like this a lot lately, but it seems detached from reality to me. How does Iran benefit from the Epstein files?
Because Trump is 100% willing to start a war so people stop talking about it. So he’ll have to start another war somewhere else…
I think the thinking is that if you released the epstein files in their entirety Trump would be impeached.
Or maybe that’s not really it. If you wanted to harm the US, then releasing the full unredacted epstein files is probably the easiest way to achieve maximum chaos.
The idea is that giving the ultimatum, regardless of whether the US obliges or not, would cause massive shift in power. They’d be hoping any changes in leadership would be better aligned with them.
Files released -> Traffickers imprisoned -> New sane leaders sworn in
Files withheld -> Greater discontent -> Elections swing harder left -> Dem majorities force war to end
UNO reverse your regime change war goal
It’s a typical American problem centre of the universe and all that.
What are you talking about? This is a war the US started, so of course they’d be the center of discussions on how to stop it.
If trump actually started the war to distract from the files, then Iran using it as leverage is a sensible thing to do.
Because the whole world’s leaders are in there, including a shit ton of bank execs. Trump will stop bombing before he lets the files get out. It truly is a solid plan.
Okay sure, having and releasing the Epstein files can be adventagious for Iran. But what I don’t see is how demanding the files would ever lead to peace. Wouldn’t it only incite Trump and co. instead of getting to a reasonable negotiating position?
Because Trump was above Epstein in the operation and Israel controlled both of them. Plus all the stuff about Netanyahu sleeping with Jared Kushner. The main players in the Epstein files are literally the ones currently trying to massacre their entire country.
I have no idea if the Kushner/Netanyahu thing is true, but have an upvote because it’s funny.
Presumably if the couchfucker became prez he’d be slightly less likely to be Bibi’s lickspittle because he has at least a couple more brain cells to rub together.
Vance is just a vessel, what does Thiel want? Feels like that guy would be all over war in the middle east and kicking off a biblical prophecy.
Demanding Epstein files would be a sure shot way to get bombed.
As if they’re not already?
The issue with this is that Iran wants to strait open eventually, its a huge financial gain.
Most of Trumps supporters think all the Trump-Epstien connections are liberal fabrications. Some of them are convinced that Trump was a secret FBI agent working undercover to expose the whole operation.
Hard evidence will never convince the delusional masses who worship him.
MAGAts only wanted the files released so they could be used to attack “them librul pedos”
To be fair, there are liberal pedos in there too.
Let them all burn.
And that’s the crazy thing. QAnon and all these crazy conspiracists finally get an honest to god pedo cabal, and… shrug?
Legit just flood the zone.
This gets posted every now and then, and the consensus in the comments is typically that this is an incredibly dumb thought, but somehow it has a thousand upvotes over 20 downvotes. What gives?
Geopolitics really be turning into play your strongest card and hope for chaos 😬
