this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2024
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I really don't think there's a huge amount of difference in policy because ultimately it's all driven by the permanent bureaucracy. For example, Nuland served under Bush, Obama, then Biden. She doesn't care which party is in charge. Meanwhile, the current admin has probably gotten US closer to a war with Iran than it's ever been. I agree that a lot of it is happenstance, but currently neocons are gravitating towards the dem party.
...under Trump, the U.S. assassinated an Iranian war hero on a diplomatic mission, then Iran attacked a U.S. base in retaliation. Those are real acts of war from both sides. Apparently further escalation was a matter of how long John Bolton could stay in the same room as Trump. You say neocons are gravitating towards Democrats; they're actually right there in Republican administrations stoking the fire of an already active situation.
I agree 70-80% is the same. But that last chunk is significant -- almost no lib will even admit the U.S. is an empire; meanwhile you have Eric Price openly calling for the U.S. to serve as an empire and the 2008 Republican presidential nominee saying "100 years in Iraq."
I'd argue that that current level of escalation is far beyond Soleimani assassination. We just narrowly avoided US doing a strike directly in Iran, and that might still happen if things keep going the way they are. Libs won't admit to running an empire, but there's no correlation between what libs say and what libs do. I think the fact that people see libs as being more tame is precisely why they're able to get away with more.
I really can't see the "Democrats are actually worse" argument when the two most relevant wars -- Iraq and Afghanistan -- were both started by Republicans, and when Republicans committed (not almost committed, not came close to committing) an act of war against Iran just a few years ago.
As I said, I don't think there's any major difference between the two parties. Importantly, all the actual decisions are made by the permanent bureaucracy. The party that's in charge has little influence over these decisions in the grand scheme of things.