it is rational for the americans to want to take control of iran. as an anarchist, my solidarity is with the people on the ground fighting the regime. american air support is what anarchists have been asking for since the spanish revolution.

but the americans do not want a war in the region. even if the americans had the bestest of intentions, which is silly, allowing a war to develop would just be giving less sincere actors an ability to get in there.

i have been criticizing putin for years for not just pulling the trigger in ukraine. as time has developed, i've realized the russians were more cynical than i thought, and were carrying out a kind of byzantine barbarian management. putin's goal in ukraine is not conquest of kiev, but to bog the europeans down. the russian tactic is to have the inevitable war in ukraine now rather than in russia later. it's overly pessimistic, but it's also delusional in it's longterm optimism. even in terms of barbarian management, it made more sense for the russians to rapidly advance to the dnieper to cut the country in half and eliminate supplies.

in trying to control iran in a managerial, capitalistic manner (like it's a corporate takeover) rather than in an all out destructive orgy, trump is making the same error of restraint that putin made in ukraine, and the result is likely to be the same outcome.