[feb012025]

I would say it's really about opposition to death and suffering.

The activists want the excessive death and suffering to end in Palestine, and they want to avoid death and suffering in Iran.

Many politicians want to use the protests as a pretext for military intervention in Iran, and my blunt opinion is that they don't actually have the interests of Iranians in mind. There are many reasons to believe it will end up worse for both America and the Iranians than our interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A valid response would be to say that you think abuses in Iran are bad enough that a military intervention is justified and that it will lead to a better outcome for Iranians. My intuition would be to disagree with that, based on the results of past interventions, etc...

[wybiral]

You don't have to support military intervention to pay attention. People supported Palestine without wanting to bomb Israel.

Also... Are the executed protesters not also death and suffering? What about victims and conflicts resulting from the groups Iran funds?

[feb012025]

The problem is, I really do believe any kind of mass support for the Iranian protesters will in fact be co-opted to start a war with Iran--at least at this particular moment in time.

And the executed protesters are a bad thing. But I don't think military intervention will lead to a better outcome.

Supporters of Palestine had pretty specific requests, none of which apply to Iran (conditioning weapons sales, divestment, etc...)

[oldandboring]

> The activists want the excessive death and suffering to end in Palestine, and they want to avoid death and suffering in Iran.

And yet they are silent on the death and suffering in: Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Ethiopia, Congo, Myanmar, Libya. Just to name current active conflicts where people are dying, to say nothing of all the others that have flared up and subsided in my decades on this earth as I've watched "activists" ignore them all so they could hyper-focus on whatever Israel was doing at the time to protect its citizens and the Jewish diaspora. The word "exhausting" doesn't even scratch the surface of how it feels to deal with otherwise smart, educated people who roll around in this hypocrisy-laden dogpile.

[feb012025]

In none of those conflicts you mentioned does the US act as the main benefactor to the side causing excessive suffering. And in none of those conflicts do they lobby aggressively for the support of US politicians.

Considering that reality, does it not make sense that Americans would be more vocal when it comes to this conflict, because we actually have agency to affect it?

I genuinely want to know what your response is to that argument, because it's not a new one, and seems very obvious to me.