The distinction between US government and RAND is not meaningful in practice. Both represent the same interests.
Regarding NK, there was a concerted effort to topple it. That’s why the US sanctioned NK and tried to starve them. What changed was that NK got nukes, and managed to stabilize their internal economy, at which point the US had no choice but to fuck off. Making plans doesn’t guarantee success, just as we’re now seeing with Ukraine and Iran. It’s merely a declaration of intent. And if you think there was no intent to destroy NK, then what else is there to say to you.
That’s not my point. My point is that these think tanks produce documents like that all the time, for countries all over the world. That’s what they exist for. They get paid vast sums of money to have their interns come up with what-if scenarios. These aren’t plans. They’re proposals.
And my point is that if you read these documents then they describe in great detail precisely what the actual policy is. You can call them whatever you like, but they accurately reflect what the regime actually does.
Okay, last chance. Do you believe that it’s more likely that the US started a conflict with Iran because of what-if report written in 2009 (when we were already in Afghanistan and Iraq) OR because Isreal is currently conducting a genocide and Iran is a direct threat to that?
No one is saying that the report made the us government do anything, just that it’s evidence of the long-held goals of the us foreign policy establishment
Edit: like yeah, think tanks like this produce reports for other countries all the time and it doesn’t mean anything because they’re just saying what they wish the country in question would do, but in this case we are actually interested in what the us ruling class wants the us to do
It’s neither, the US was cooking up these plans for a long time
But these aren’t plans. This is not a smoking gun. This is a proposition that was made decades ago, while we already at war in the region, to extend that war into Iran. It’s silly to point to this as the reason that the conflict started now, which is what the OP was doing.
I think that the deep state in the US has been working across many administrations with Israel to create the conditions for the war we see today. There is a clear continuity of policy here, and if you refuse to acknowledge it then I don’t know what else to tell you. People seem to like to remove all agency from the burger reich as if it just stumbles into these wars. This is the liberal delusion that things just happen completely out of the blue and there are no historical reasons leading up to current events.
The distinction between US government and RAND is not meaningful in practice. Both represent the same interests.
Regarding NK, there was a concerted effort to topple it. That’s why the US sanctioned NK and tried to starve them. What changed was that NK got nukes, and managed to stabilize their internal economy, at which point the US had no choice but to fuck off. Making plans doesn’t guarantee success, just as we’re now seeing with Ukraine and Iran. It’s merely a declaration of intent. And if you think there was no intent to destroy NK, then what else is there to say to you.
That’s not my point. My point is that these think tanks produce documents like that all the time, for countries all over the world. That’s what they exist for. They get paid vast sums of money to have their interns come up with what-if scenarios. These aren’t plans. They’re proposals.
And my point is that if you read these documents then they describe in great detail precisely what the actual policy is. You can call them whatever you like, but they accurately reflect what the regime actually does.
Okay, last chance. Do you believe that it’s more likely that the US started a conflict with Iran because of what-if report written in 2009 (when we were already in Afghanistan and Iraq) OR because Isreal is currently conducting a genocide and Iran is a direct threat to that?
No one is saying that the report made the us government do anything, just that it’s evidence of the long-held goals of the us foreign policy establishment
Edit: like yeah, think tanks like this produce reports for other countries all the time and it doesn’t mean anything because they’re just saying what they wish the country in question would do, but in this case we are actually interested in what the us ruling class wants the us to do
That is what we were arguing about. The OP said
But these aren’t plans. This is not a smoking gun. This is a proposition that was made decades ago, while we already at war in the region, to extend that war into Iran. It’s silly to point to this as the reason that the conflict started now, which is what the OP was doing.
🙄
I think that the deep state in the US has been working across many administrations with Israel to create the conditions for the war we see today. There is a clear continuity of policy here, and if you refuse to acknowledge it then I don’t know what else to tell you. People seem to like to remove all agency from the burger reich as if it just stumbles into these wars. This is the liberal delusion that things just happen completely out of the blue and there are no historical reasons leading up to current events.