[jmyeet]

> I am just befuddled by how much of this violence is directly motivated by religious concerns, both on the side of Iran and on the side of Israel and USA.

This just isn't true. Religion is never the reason for these conflicts. It's the excuse. It's how that conflict is sold to the rest of the world. It's how civilians are manipulated into dying in a conflict.

The source of these conflicts is always material. Always.

Reagan's Secretary of State, General Alexander Haig once said [1]:

> Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national security.

In 1986, then Senator and future president Joe Biden said [2]:

> [Israel] is the best $3 billion ivnestment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to an invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region.

Much of US Middle East polciy was aimed to sabotaging and undermining Pan-Arab Nationalism (particularly under then Egyptian President Nasser) [3].

Nothing about any of this has anything to do with faith. In this case it's about oil.

Whatever crimes you think Iran might've done, I'll stack up the US crimes against Iran and it won't even be close, including:

1. Iran was a liberal democracy that the US deposed in 1953 at the behest of the British because BP didn't want to have to pay higher royalties, ultimately leading Mossadegh wanting to "nationalize" their own oil;

2. In 1978, then US-puppet Saddam Hussein expelled Khomenei from Iraq. This was about the time the US realized that Iran was likely lost. it is believed that the reason for this was that a fundamentalist regime was preferred to a Communist one (which was otherwise the likely outcome) as the US didn't want Iran to fall into the Soviet sphere of influence. So all this pearl-clutching about the current regime rings hollow when you realize the US helped created it;

3. As punishment for the Revolution, the US supplied weapons to Iraq and fueled the Iran-Iraq war for almost a decade that killed over a million people; and

4. Crippling economic sanctions, which is a fancy way of saying "starving people and denying them medical care", for daring not to be a US puppet.

If you point me to any conflict you think is based on faith, I'll show you the material interests behind it.

[1]: https://archive.ph/tMTBd

[2]: https://www.c-span.org/clip/senate-highlight/user-clip-joe-b...

[3]: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v12...

[marcosdumay]

> The source of these conflicts is always material. Always.

Since the beginning of the Green Revolution¹, no. The source of these conflicts are always ideological. Always. Ideology may come through religion or some other medium.

Countries don't go occupying land because they need crops or slaves anymore. Material is always cheaper to buy than to get from an occupation. The desire to annex some land is always for somebody's pet project, it doesn't make economic sense.

1 - In a very wide sense. Agriculture stopped being the bottleneck for human populations at some point in the 18th or early 19th centuries.

[jcstk]

Religion is a subset of ideology, and both are a mechanism to recruit labor to fight and not the reason for conflict. Material isn't cheaper to buy, the "owner" of the material has all of the leverage - lock them in like a SaaS contract and them jump the price up, and the buyer can't do anything. Crops and slaves are no longer valuable as port worthy coast and natural resource deposits, but the fight is still over land and power.

[GorbachevyChase]

I think the praise of the strategic value to US military interests are rationalizations and poor ones at that. The Gulf monarchies are allies in a meaningful sense and provide useful material support to the United States. Our “ally“ on the other hand was recently caught running a child prostitution ring and money laundering operation to control business and political leaders in the United States. Kidnapping children and removing their teeth so they can’t bite their rapists for political leverage is going to be remembered by future generations with the same horror and disgust as medieval torture and 20th century concentration camps.

[gpderetta]

> Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk,

Airstrip one is disappointed.