[somenameforme]

While I think this (and Venezuela) are arguably the biggest missteps this administration is making, it's hardly a partisan point. The political establishment loves war more than perhaps anything else. In 2016 alone Obama bombed half a dozen different countries with more than 26,000 munitions for an average rate of three bombs dropped every hour, every day, for a year. [1] Nobel Peace Prize embodied.

I think the only way to get away from the warmongering is to go for a third party. But even they would likely be corrupted by the excessive influence of the military industrial complex. Eisenhower was not only right, but plainly prophetic.

[1] - https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/list-of-c...

[hvb2]

Not defending that peace price but: Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for his efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation.

Trump this time around didn't inherit a major us deployment in a conflict area. No Iraq, no Afghanistan. Also, he's doing military strikes by himself, no Congress involved.

Syrian and Libia were both essentially civil wars with an oppressive regime with Syria using allegedly chemical weapons.

Your source is a very weird site. Countries Obama bombed 2026??? What does that even mean. Is it just a typo in the main heading and the title?

[somenameforme]

Large scale deployments shifted under Obama to widescale bombing campaigns. The site mentions its various sources such as this [1] which mentions that Obama also increased the number of drone strikes by an order of magnitude relative to his predecessor. To be clear I'm not picking on Obama, but saying solely that this isn't a partisan issue. "They" all love war.

And places being in a state of internal conflict, conflict which is itself often backed and fomented by US intelligence agencies and backed proxy forces, is hardly some reason to go bomb them. Even moreso when you look at results. See what Libya turned into, and what Syria is now turning into. It turns out that Al Qaeda in a suit is still Al Qaeda, to literally nobody's surprise if you're even vaguely familiar with our history of backing extremists and putting them in power, something which we have done repeatedly.

This war, if it escalates, is not going to be good for Iran, the people of Iran, or likely even the US. The only country that might come out a winner is Israel, but even that might not end up being the case, as Iran's retaliation will likely focus on them. To say nothing of longer term consequences.

[1] - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-preside...

[NoLinkToMe]

Not only that but it should be noted what the stated aim is of these strikes and earlier Trump strikes on Iran: take out the nuclear threat.

That nuclear threat was contained under a plan backed by US, EU, Russia, China and Iran, in which Iran would not pursue nuclear expansion and let a team of international experts in to verify this on a continuous basis, in exchange for some sanction relief. A solution Trump threw in the trash, reinstating the sanctions, pressuring Iran to pursue nuclear again as one of its few levers of power it can pull on.

In other words he created the necessity for violence by throwing away a unique solution that the entire world got behind including US allies & enemies, throwing away goodwill and trust in future deals (why would Iran negotiate now if it's clear how Trump views deals, as things to be broken even irrationally?)

Those who claim this is an anti-war president have no clue, even in the context of a 'just war' argument it simply falls flat.

[catlikesshrimp]

Regarding intervention in Venezuela, is that seen as a mistep in the US? In the rest of America it is considered as a win, except of course by Cuba (Cubans are the most, almost the only, affected)

Regarding politicians: Gustavo Petro was the most vocal protester; now that Trump told him in the White house to shut up, he is wagging his tail happily.

[roenxi]

The operation in Venezuela could be characterised as an enormous success in the sense that it didn't seem to do anything and therefore was a big improvement on most times the US activates its military. But it was still a misstep in the sense that it keeps US aggression top of mind without achieving very much.

[dgoldstein0]

My take, as an American: the outcome seems to be good - Maduro is out of power, his number 2 seems much more willing to play ball and from what I've read Venezuela's economy is now improving as money flowing in has turned around their previously out of control inflation. It managed to not flare into a full scale war, no Americans died - so I think approval is middle to high on it.

That said the justification for it made no sense to me and many others. Trump accused Maduro of narcoterrorism - profiting from the drug trade and violence. Where's the evidence? And the whole bit about the oil ... Usually that's the critique of US actions, not the reason we give; we should be moving full speed towards adopting renewables so an oil grab really doesn't make sense. Though Trump's energy policy has always been entirely backwards.

And we should probably also worry about the example we've set - that we'll just intervene when it suits us with a cooked up justification certainly incentivizes dangerous behavior - how many countries are now thinking about the deterrents they could acquire? But most Americans don't think about unintended consequences of laws or government actions.

One last thought re oil - the smart move would probably be to invest in Venezuelan oil not for sale in the US but for export to India and maybe Europe - try to use it as a replacement for Russian oil. That would in turn hurt Russia's economy and thereby reduce their efforts to wage war in Ukraine. But if that's the plan, Trump has never said that. And it also doesn't really fit his worldview that the Ukraine war should be Europe's problem and not the US's problem. But maybe it'll end up happening anyway, if Venezuela's oil production picks up and the US doesn't actually have the demand for it.

[nkrisc]

It successfully didn’t backfire on the US.