All of the Gulf satrapies are de facto Iran's enemies by virtue of playing host to U.S. bases in exchange for certain goodies handed to their ruling elite structures. Iran's goal is to hit them hard enough to make them pressure the U.S. to sue for peace.
Also, many of the hotels that have been targeted are ones where Iran likely had intelligence that U.S. soldiers had been moved after the bases were abandoned before the U.S. launched its "preemptive" attack.
What ideology do you believe is driving Iran? To me it just looks like "survive and deter unprovoked attacks from a genocidal aggressor, and don't become Syria 2.0"
I think it's the actions of the United States and Israel that beggar niche ideological explanations at this point.
It's just funny that people can't stomach that their own ruling class is leading them down the primrose path so they have to go casting about for a foreign bogeyman who's making it happen, despite the fact that every major Western power has bent the knee to this action against Iran.
It's a nakedly imperial gambit, the Western ruling classes are attempting to deny Middle Eastern oil to Russia and China. Iran is their only capable opposition in the region, every other Gulf country is a bought-and-paid-for satrapy which just cosigned a genocide on its doorstep.
Okay but then why is that also seemingly a red line must have for the Department of War? Isn't it just a tool of domestic surveillance and counterinsurgency for them? Seems like a distraction from any real U.S. national security objectives.
What does domestic surveillance have to do with national security objectives or keeping denizens of the U.S. safe (that is, the ones who are not lucky enough to be in its cosseted ruling class)?
Mark Zuckerberg was in a big hurry to call Trump a "badass" in the wake of the Butler hoax, and is clearly trying to appeal to the right with his cultivated jiu jitsu Chad image. It doesn't mean a damn thing what these CEOs are willing to say behind closed doors when their public decisions are to remain in lockstep with the agenda and fire anyone who asks questions about whether it's the right one.
Are you saying that we should consider the Chinese government to be an existential threat and menace to world peace on the same level as Nazi Germany?
What if the side that did Operation Paperclip and is currently champing at the bit to impose Total Surveillance on its own citizenry maybe isn't The Good Guys?
Many conservative commentators and Palmer Luckey have been all over Twitter saying, "it's not Anthropic's job to set policy," which reminds me of the classic tune from Tom Lehrer:
"Zee rockets go up! Who cares vhere zey come down? Zat's not my department" says Wernher von Braun.
Practically the entire tech industry, including many of the higher ups currently camping out on the right, used to be firmly in a sort of centrist-with-social-justice-characteristics camp. Then many of those same people enthusiastically stood with Trump at his inauguration. It's completely reasonable that people have their doubts now.
It's also completely reasonable to expect that if Anthropic is the real deal and opposed to where the current agenda setters want to take things, they'll be destroyed for it.
Even as someone pretty staunchly opposed to this stupid "Gulf of America" Jahr Null bullshit from the Trump administration, I actually think the new labels are more honest about these institutions and their intended purpose.
The cash transactions are also not hearsay.