US Attacks Iran 2026

[JohnH]

Also, before the invasion, many Iranians saw the United States as an ally. The civilian casualties and the cost of the war on Iranian civilians is changing that. We are losing hearts and minds.

Based on what evidence?

Civilian casualties and war conditions almost always change public opinion. We no longer look like their liberators when we are killing civilians and bombing schools.

I could give you lots of examples from other wars, but I think you probably know them.

Any removal of the regime is going to have civilian casualties.

[ohio jones]

The fact Iran has these capabilities is quite clearly a problem, though, and makes it very obvious such a regime cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons.

Why should the US, the only country who has ever used nuclear weapons in combat, be trusted with them?

[Judas Maccabeus]

I can recognize that others volunteer to serve without feeling morally obligated to support every use of military force. Those aren’t the same thing.

Yet they would feel insulted & discouraged by the attitudes here while they are willing to lay down their own lives that others might live. I do t expect to understand it all but I’ve been listening to those who are explaining it well as it is their, not our, area of expertise.
Certainly praying rather than criticizing the Lord would see as a better use of time. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous one availed much. Amen?

I have forebears who were persecuted here in the US for their refusal to serve in the military. During WWI, one of my Great-Great Uncles was forced to boot camp and tortured. My grandmother was expelled from public school in the 1920s for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

There were Mennonites who were imprisoned at Fort Leavenworth for refusing to enlist. Others faced mob violence for refusing to buy war bonds.

That history shapes how I understand conscience and war. For some of us here, dissent isn’t disrespect. It’s inheritance and faith.

I would suggest preparing your young people for the draft that is to come. It may be more difficult than in the past to claim, conscientious, objector status, make sure they understand that just membership in a peace church may not be sufficient.

[Thomas_muntzer]

The fact Iran has these capabilities is quite clearly a problem, though, and makes it very obvious such a regime cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons.

Withdrawing from the JCPOA in 2017 was a tremendous mistake. This agreement effectively prevented Iran from developing any kind of nuclear weapons capability. After its unilateral withdrawal (Iran had fully complied with its part of the agreement), the United States imposed severe sanctions that crushed Iran's economy, which has been the main factor in the anti-government protests of recent years.

Then, in the midst of negotiations, Israel attacked in 2025, and in 2026, using diplomatic negotiations as a distraction tactic and acting in bad faith, going against all the principles that govern diplomacy, the United States started the current war.

In the current war, Iran has been progressively responding to the attacks made by the United States, and despite all my contempt for the ayatollahs, it was the United States and Israel who first attacked civilian infrastructure, and Iran has only been responding in kind to those attacks that have the entire world on the brink of the worst economic crisis of the 21st century

[Thomas_muntzer]

Also, before the invasion, many Iranians saw the United States as an ally. The civilian casualties and the cost of the war on Iranian civilians is changing that. We are losing hearts and minds.

Exactly, not only did the United States lose support among the Iranian civilian population, who today have rallied around the Iranian regime because when your neighborhood is bombed, you unite with your enemy to defend yourself, but even worse, with the death of Ayatollah Khamenei, an 86-year-old octogenarian with prostate cancer (I don't really think he would have lived much longer naturally), his successors are far more radical. Ayatollah Khamenei had written two fatwas against the development of nuclear weapons; I don't think the new Iranian leadership shares that same perspective.

[Bootstrap]

Any removal of the regime is going to have civilian casualties.

But we used to have much more careful screening to minimize them. Pete Hegseth campaigned against that screening. And I think we see the result.

Preserving lives is not woke or feminine. You can do lots of pushups and still check carefully to see if you might be bombing a school or a hospital.

[JohnH]

But we used to have much more careful screening to minimize them. Pete Hegseth campaigned against that screening. And I think we see the result.

Preserving lives is not woke or feminine. You can do lots of pushups and still check carefully to see if you might be bombing a school or a hospital.

We'll probably have to agree to disagree, but I do not think the U.S. has been engaging in intentionally bombing schools.

[ohio jones]

But we used to have much more careful screening to minimize them. Pete Hegseth campaigned against that screening. And I think we see the result.

Preserving lives is not woke or feminine. You can do lots of pushups and still check carefully to see if you might be bombing a school or a hospital.

We'll probably have to agree to disagree, but I do not think the U.S. has been engaging in intentionally bombing schools.

Unintentionally bombing schools is still a problem.

[Szdfan]

But we used to have much more careful screening to minimize them. Pete Hegseth campaigned against that screening. And I think we see the result.

Preserving lives is not woke or feminine. You can do lots of pushups and still check carefully to see if you might be bombing a school or a hospital.

We'll probably have to agree to disagree, but I do not think the U.S. has been engaging in intentionally bombing schools.

Unintentionally bombing schools is still a problem.

The US had an obligation under international law to confirm the school wasn’t a civilian target and I’m not sure that Iranians who lost loved ones in that bombing are going to care whether it was intentional

[JohnH]

The US had an obligation under international law to confirm the school wasn’t a civilian target and I’m not sure that Iranians who lost loved ones in that bombing are going to care whether it was intentional

There are no obligations under "international law". Your argument would be quite a bit more persuasive if you claimed there is a moral obligation to try not to bomb schools, though.