The resistance knows better than us what is at stake and what an all-out war would look like. Although it almost certainly wouldn't entail less Palestinians dying.

i don't believe Iran has avoided getting weapons out of a faith in the west or flawed understanding of what they would do to protect them, but because other priorities have been more pressing in recent years

In that regard being close to having nukes already gives you much of the leverage of having them. Countries don't build nukes because they plan on actually using them. It's about the threat, which still exists to a large extent if you are close to getting the bomb. But without the cost of maintaining nukes.

Investing in missile and nuclear technology is worth it because that tech can be used for other applications. Actual nukes just sit in a warehouse until they have to be replaced.

Yeah, if you repeat enough times that you're willing to send troops it becomes a matter of your own legitimacy. Whether you really wanted to actually do it in the first place, now you have to.

Which is the real danger of these statements by Macron. You're creating a red line for yourself and hoping the other side blinks first.

It is true that the European elite is loyal to the US, but more importantly they are completely dependent on the US. At the same time the Europeans are enthusiastic participants when it comes to Ukraine, moreso than the US.

The US has always held the position that the aim of military aid is to strengthen Ukraine's position at the eventual negotiation table. But the Europeans for a long time believed the goal to be a total retreat by the Russians.

Because of those fantasies, the Europeans have jumped in head first. Now the mood has soured and the Europeans are starting to realised that they have wagered the stability of their entire system on the outcome of this war. Hence those comments Macron has been making.

I hope that all this talk of sending troops to Ukraine is part of a process of Europe accepting the reality that they played themselves. Hopefully the Americans can reign their dogs in before they do anything stupid.

Yeah, as much as we sometimes wish for something to happen right now, Ansar Allah just inviting an all-out war doesn't give them any direct benefit. It's not going to stop the genocide of Gaza tomorrow.

Or at least there is no extra benefit to shooting every ship in range as opposed to small-scale attacks consistently enough to disrupt shipping in the area and place stress on Western economies. They know for sure that they can withstand another bombing campaign better than the West can withstand losing their treats.

Wait, is that my boy Prigozhin?

Critical support in that case.

If anything big was going to be announced we'd probably already have heard rumours. If Hezbollah is going to make move, they wouldn't announce it first.

A lot of these settlements have either contracters or the IDF directly providing security. So the idea that Hamas could have broken out of Gaza and just found all the soldiers neatly in their bases seems unbelievable. The IDF is an occupying force, not a European military where it's just some dudes with their thumbs up their asses in a barracks near some nature reserve.

Ultimately we can't know how Hamas leadership told their soldiers to behave. But they do have a clear incentives not to condone the killing of civilians: they want to capture hostages and use them as leverage. They need to create the expectation that these hostages are treated fairly and can be returned safely so that it is entirely up to Israel whether it wants those civilians to die.

Tragically, civilians always die in wars. Both sides always propagandise this to claim that it is the other side that is just killing civilians as policy. The facts however, are abundantly clear when it comes to the question of which side shows the greater disregard for civilian casualties.

I think this ignores the fact that Israel has nukes. Them actually using nukes would be disastrous for all sides of course. But it does create a situation where it is unlikely that Israel will back down due to threats of invasion by arab countries.

At this point I am becoming more skeptical of the idea that other countries will get involved directly. Hezbollah is the most likely candidate to act, but their relationships with Syria and Iran would force those countries into the conflict. I don't think either of those countries want to be in a situation where they are dragged in rather than make the active choice to (not) intervene. Likely there is pressure back and forth between those parties to be very careful in how they respond.

The fact that Israel has nukes all but insures that the US will be forced to act no matter what. If Israel would look to be anywhere near collapse, the US would want to prevent at any cost a scenario where Israeli nukes fall into the 'wrong hands'.

I'll have you know that the 'Two Megathreads One Community'-policy has been recognised by almost the entire world.

Hey, you got to have something to do during meetings.