I try to approach it logically, not emotionally. I'd love to hear a logical argument about why Iran is a danger to the US. I'd also like to hear why it's a good idea for 90% of our Congress to take money from AIPAC, and whether or not that has any impact at all in why we end up fighting wars for Israel.
I'm all ears. But I only ever hear emotional responses not grounded in facts. Iran does not pose a threat to the US. I've been hearing the same shit about how Iran is "weeks away from a nuclear weapon" since last century. At some point you start to recognize patterns and can't help but see it for what it is.
Logical reasons for why attack Iran: It is a malignant tumor. It does not pose a 'direct' threat to the US. No country does. No country will directly attack the homeland. No military force that is conceivable could invade or conquer a significant part of the United States. No other country has a navy that can even get a force of 100,000 out of its littoral and then keep them supplied and covered from the air. The US has a virtual monopoly on force projection with combined arms warfare. This is so. But the Islamic Republic has been, and remains, a tumor attacking the systems that maintains the health of our empire. Iran, at best, in the past 20 years, we've had it in a no-growth remission. Sanctions, wars against its paramilitaries, temporary alliances against ISIS, even the JCPOA, this is all chemo. This operation is the surgery to take the tumor out. You may think our empire is somehow unjust. Sadly nothing in politics is very just the more broadmindedly you consider it. You are left to love what you have and love what you are all the same. Justice is for God to mete out in His ways. As an American you are an heir to a vast global empire with remarkable potentials before you. Denying this or not wanting it is un-American, it is an insult to your heritage and birthright. It's willing poverty and disgrace on your countrymen.
Why Iran is a malignant tumor: They enable China access to cheap energy, they use this money to create a continuous vector of paramilitaries that harass and oppose the Gulf Monarchies, who are our allies, while also antagonizing Israel, who is also our ally. They're important allies, Israel is a top 5 global military limited mostly by its size, and the Gulf states have lots of energy. Iran keeps striking sparks at the tinder box. They've been doing this for decades. We can exert pressure on our allies over time in different ways. The present rulers of the Gulf monarchies are at least more progressive and less interested in open-ended holy war via paramilitaries than the ones we were dealing with in the 2000s. We can work with them at least, and they are not trying to build nukes. Iran on the other hand arms militant groups who harass international shipping lanes including the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. This is not acceptable since our wealth and way of life are underpinned on commodities being traded in dollars and maintenance of free international shipping. They have trained and armed militias who attacked US forces during the occupation of Iraq as well. Their desire to build a Shia axis from Iran to Lebanon has created multiple conflicts, egged on civil wars, and enabled migrant crises in Europe, who sadly are still our allies. Iran has taken Americans hostages and forced a ransom in the 1979-1980 crisis. It is in living memory, and the grievances of the old in America are grievances of Americans. Iran has proliferated extremely dangerous drone technology which has been used against Ukraine, a US ally, and will be used against other US allies in Eastern Europe when or if Ukraine falls. They have enabled Russian ambitions to undermine the American security architecture in Europe.
Why it's a neutral idea for Congress to take money from AIPAC: 100k is about the most I've ever seen people point to from AIPAC donations. That's not a lot of TV ads. That's not a lot for a congressional campaign. It really isn't. Buy some media and tell me how far 100k gets you. Congress has to fundraise constantly. They'll take money from whomever, and on net, they're a lot less corrupt than you'd think. Their main goal is to get chunks of the federal budget for their constituents, constituents being people who vote and donate to them or talk to and volunteer for them. That's the political universe they're in. America gives money to Israel to keep leverage over them in negotiations regarding Palestine, and also regarding Israel's normal desire to eliminate antagonists at its borders. Israel does not want America to contribute directly to its defense budget since it gives America strategic leverage over Israel's actions in the region. Israel is a fairly wealthy country with a developed economy and an educated population. Israel wants a free hand to do what it wants, and at most an alliance to backstop its miscalculations. Either way, Congress has limited-at-best influence over what wars the US fights and hasn't for over 20 years. The US has acted against Israeli interests for 3 of the last 5 administrations. The JCPOA is proof Obama was no friend of Israel. Biden was no friend of Israel. The Democrats are no friends of Israel. At best AIPAC is throwing money to prevent one party from behaving even more like jihadis and the other party from caving to the anti-interventionist-da-joos types who are clearly bought by Gulf monarchies and Iran, who hate the Jews for Mohammedan reasons. It is hard to point to Iraq or Afghanistan as "wars for Israel," Iraq was arguably a war for Iran considering their net benefits. Afghanistan benefitted nobody. I don't know what other wars we've fought 'for Israel,' we haven't attacked Lebanon, our intervention in Syria was far more limited and counterproductive to Israel's interests. It's not like we took the Golan for them or sanctioned Egypt for its role in helping arm Hamas. The war in Afghanistan was poorly conceived and successive administrations' sense of commitment to the government we installed was foolish and likely fueled by corruption.
War is good now because it was inevitable, and now is better than later. They would have more drones, more dead protestors, more dead anti-regime elements, more missiles, deeper bunkers, more highly enriched uranium if we'd waited a week longer. They've been close to a bomb for years, and playing at strategic ambiguity about whether they will or won't put the stuff they have together to make a dirty bomb or a full nuclear weapon. They've had the means for a long time and persistent campaigns of assassination and sabotage and inducement are all why they've stayed close to the event horizon but never crossed it.
The bigger picture: China will potentially invade Taiwan within a year. China needs the ability to exert pressure on the US interests in multiple theaters if it is to succeed with its inexperienced military in a complex amphibious landing operation against a population that really believes "better dead than red." It needs to pressure the US in the Indian Ocean and West Asia via Iran, from the Caribbean and southern border via Venezuela and Mexico, in Eastern Europe via Russia. If they have this capability, even somewhat abstractly, and they maintain ready access to energy and the potential to open multiple fronts in West Asia, while we commit our navy to dealing with a very large and possibly competent Chinese navy blockading the world's most important island, it will undermine our ability to deter and stop this. It will mean lots of dead Taiwanese, a longer war, a fucked up everything for much longer. Peace with Iran is peace with a group that antagonizes our allies, harasses global trade.
There's a bigger picture, there is the smaller picture. There is no reason to have a horrible war in Asia when we could knock out each regime that enables China, fuels conflict, fuels migrant waves, sells drugs and arms to hostile clients. The tumor can possibly be removed via strategic bombing.