I've given my thoughts about this on HN before the current escalation [0] and given the recent vague statement by Hegseth about how this will not be a "politically correct war" I think this is why we are seeing conflicting messaging - we are fine toppling Iran into a Libyan or Syrian style civil war due to Iran's status as a nuclear threshold state and do not care if mass civilian casualties arise.
No administration can admit that publicly because of the destabilizing nature of it's implication with regards to the rules based order. Increasingly, I think Fiona Hill might be right [1] about how we've entered a polycrisis in 2022. Interesting times...
No administration can admit that publicly because of the destabilizing nature of it's implication with regards to the rules based order. Increasingly, I think Fiona Hill might be right [1] about how we've entered a polycrisis in 2022. Interesting times...
[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47092612
[1] - https://xcancel.com/FrankRGardner/status/2027098560647348410...