Iran vs the US Megathread

[Tarsonis]

So with the Trump admin backing down from further strikes I hate to say I told you so, but called it! Once again the cries of the end is ngih and we're totally going to war this time guys! Turned out to be nothing but fearmongering.

We’ll probably revisit this in six months, tbh.

[Holy Tedalonia]

So with the Trump admin backing down from further strikes I hate to say I told you so, but called it! Once again the cries of the end is ngih and we're totally going to war this time guys! Turned out to be nothing but fearmongering.

We’ll probably revisit this in six months, tbh.

Never a dull moment.

[The JELLEAIN Republic]

Iranians do not want war so they did not cause dalaities. But they know full well that the us base can defend itself without help. The reason they gave info looked that was 2 fold.

1 tell Iraq to keep good relations.

2 knowing that the us will intercept it, show that this is diplomatic and symbolic but so ting they had to do to save face. To both Iraq and the USA.

Both sides know this.

The only wildcard is trump, who stands to gain politically to start a war.

[Tarsonis]

Iranians do not want war so they did not cause dalaities. But they know full well that the us base can defend itself without help. The reason they gave info looked that was 2 fold.

1 tell Iraq to keep good relations.

2 knowing that the us will intercept it, show that this is diplomatic and symbolic but so ting they had to do to save face. To both Iraq and the USA.

Both sides know this.

The only wildcard is trump, who stands to gain politically to start a war.

That’s why he could have responded back to the missile attack, and instead took the high road. The US got what it wanted, Soleimani.

[Loben The 2nd]

Given how wrong your positions are as a norm, they are a good barometer for how things are going, for the wrong reasons. As for not engaging with facts, why don't you give us more apologia for the Obama drone strikes on Americans while decrying Trump a monster for striking a baddie. Let us expose the bankruptcy in your ideological position yet again.

Why don't you explain to us the difference between a member of a terrorist group and an official of a foreign government. Of course you might need to first stop your dancing around the latter's grave while ignoring the clear consequences of mindlessly making assassination an instrument of national policy.

you are aware that the recently dead was a member of the Quds force right.

which irc was declared a terrorist organization by much of the civilized world.

[Infected Mushroom]

I'm all in for a war with Iran. I want it to happen, provided there isn't a regime change. Their military should get wrecked if possible, but their government left intact so as to not enable a power vacuum. I envision it like an Iran-Iraq war 2.0, but one where Iran loses. The US can attack from both directions from Iraq and Afghanistan's border, so that's even better. Iran can't defend two fronts as effectively, without splitting their materiel.

Why do you want a war with Iran?

[Tarsonis]

I'm all in for a war with Iran. I want it to happen, provided there isn't a regime change. Their military should get wrecked if possible, but their government left intact so as to not enable a power vacuum. I envision it like an Iran-Iraq war 2.0, but one where Iran loses. The US can attack from both directions from Iraq and Afghanistan's border, so that's even better. Iran can't defend two fronts as effectively, without splitting their materiel.

Why do you want a war with Iran?

Cause the western front is far too quiet

[Alien Space Bats]

Cruise missiles do not work against aircraft. Worse they only have LOS targeting radars.
Meaning said radars are limited by the horizon. Without aircraft you cannot see a ship more than about 25NM away.

There are systems for getting a cruise missile over the horizon and into the approximate vicinity of a potential target so that the terminal guidance radars systems can kick in and take them the rest of the way. That makes their reach somewhat further than 25nm (c. 50km). I'd have to do some research on Iranian systems, but I think that they can pretty much reach anything in the Gulf with those land-based launchers. And if resupplied by, say, Russia (who would benefit immensely from the oil price shock that would come from a cessation of the flow of oil out of the Gulf), I rather expect they could keep their interdiction up for much longer than a couple of months.

Plus the US would be harmed least. Europe and Asia would get hammered, but the US only gets a tiny fraction of its net oil demand from the Gulf.

Don't forget the secondary impact on the U.S. economy of a screaming recession or outright depression in both Europe and Asia simultaneously (as well as the massive increase in global oil prices ANY interdiction of oil exports through the Gulf might bring; remember that oil prices are generally set on a global market rather than regionally, so even if the U.S. has the benefit of having lots of oil of its own [and correspondingly having to import less from the Gulf], our economy would still suffer a major slowdown due to any global oil price shock that would result from such a war). The bottom line is that we might not suffer quite as badly as the rest of the world, but we'd certainly suffer.

[North German Realm]

So with the Trump admin backing down from further strikes I hate to say I told you so, but called it! Once again the cries of the end is ngih and we're totally going to war this time guys! Turned out to be nothing but fearmongering.

We’ll probably revisit this in six months, tbh.

Maybe less. Really depends on whether the IR changes its tone into negotiating a deal that isn't flat out "give us money and we'll continue working on making nukes regardless". You know, I wouldn't even mind that if they'd used that money on the people, rather than a terrorist organization committing countless atrocities against poor Iraqis, Syrians, Lebanese, and Yemen people.

[Holy Tedalonia]

I'm all in for a war with Iran. I want it to happen, provided there isn't a regime change. Their military should get wrecked if possible, but their government left intact so as to not enable a power vacuum. I envision it like an Iran-Iraq war 2.0, but one where Iran loses. The US can attack from both directions from Iraq and Afghanistan's border, so that's even better. Iran can't defend two fronts as effectively, without splitting their materiel.

Why do you want a war with Iran?

Because to achieve victory it is relatively easy. Iran is one of those countries that you don't have to invade to win. IE cut them off from the world until they run out of supplies to commit to war. No blood really needs to be still except for those stupid enough to test the line. It would make for a incredibly demoralizing war, as one side faces nearly no repercussions while the other faces massive economic problems. Nothing is more demoralizing then a enemy that needs not to shed blood to achieve victory.

[Alien Space Bats]

I am not old enough to remember but I have read about it, and we beat Iran in 1988. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operati ... ing_Mantis
Did not topple their government but forced them to come to terms with us.

I remember it. There weren't really any terms (there wasn't any negotiation either before or after the event); it was a spat that escalated from some smaller prior engagements, and like the current crisis it pretty much petered out after we roughed up the Iranian Navy.

[Infected Mushroom]

Why do you want a war with Iran?

Because to achieve victory it is relatively easy. Iran is one of those countries that you don't have to invade to win. IE cut them off from the world until they run out of supplies to commit to war. No blood really needs to be still except for those stupid enough to test the line. It would make for a incredibly demoralizing war, as one side faces nearly no repercussions while the other faces massive economic problems. Nothing is more demoralizing then a enemy that needs not to shed blood to achieve victory.

Russia and China could keep them afloat economically I think.

[Luminesa]

And so Iran has gained almost all its policy goals while the US has advanced none, and in fact stands in a weaker position in almost all respects than it did before the assassination. By responding in a restrained way, with targeted munitions that damaged military assets but not personnel, to the assassination Iran both looks like much the more reasonable party and demonstrates its ability to launch attacks against the US at will. In addition to taking an open shot at US assets it also gets out of the nuclear agreement more or less for free and can, and will, resume research, testing, enrichment and stockpiling. Far from a support, the US presence in Iraq has become a burden that government is less and less willing to bear: another Iranian goal achieved. They won't mount more attacks for the moment for the same reason you don't shoot at an opponent who's commiting suicide. If the pace of forcing the US out of the region flags, they can always pop off a few more missiles. Bonus, the anti-Iranian demonstrations in and outside the country that had the potential to threaten its standing in the region have been quelled.

Back in DC, Trump's typically shambolic performance this morning left him looking like someone begging to be left alone. The atmosphere in the White House leading up to this latest embarassment as reported in various media most resembled an organization just realizing it has climbed to the top of Mount Stupid. Our allies are making special efforts to let us know how idiotic the assassination was; in private or in background media interviews they are revealing they don't trust the word of our leaders. Putin is being welcomed in Syria and Turkey -- our NATO ally, for the moment. The Saudis and others have more reason to question the value of their relationship with the erratic, unpredictable US. And at least one Republican Senator, appalled at the amateurishness of today's briefing, will vote to limit the administration's warmaking authority.

With one ill-thought-out, impulsive, badly considered decision, the US has handed Iran an advantage it will be able to use for years. One nation and its leaders looks reasonable, comfortable with its position and power and capable of taking steps to defend its interests and those of its allies; that nation is not the United States of America.

Restrained is not throwing missiles at a ton of bases, and then claiming they will attack DUBAI and flipping TEL-AVIV if the US retaliates. They also threatened TURKEY. Also, the Saudis don’t care to question their relationship with us. We give them money, they give us oil. It’s been that way for almost 80 years and is not gonna change (unfortunately).

Iran is the Tampa Bay Buccanneers. They haven’t won a Super Bowl since 2002, their QB throws at anything with two hands, while praying the thing that catches it scores him a touchdown (and usually doesn’t), their coach is washed-up from a time when he ran a better team, and their defense will allow roughly 30 points a game before they try to make significant damage. Oh, and they get dunked on by the Saints twice a year.

[Tarsonis]

Because to achieve victory it is relatively easy. Iran is one of those countries that you don't have to invade to win. IE cut them off from the world until they run out of supplies to commit to war. No blood really needs to be still except for those stupid enough to test the line. It would make for a incredibly demoralizing war, as one side faces nearly no repercussions while the other faces massive economic problems. Nothing is more demoralizing then a enemy that needs not to shed blood to achieve victory.

Russia and China could keep them afloat economically I think.

But would they? Probably not. Russia and China routinely leave them hanging. Iran is useful to Russia because it counters our Middle Eastern influence. But it’s not a country they’re particularly attached to. I imagine because they know its government is batshit

[Holy Tedalonia]

Cruise missiles do not work against aircraft. Worse they only have LOS targeting radars.
Meaning said radars are limited by the horizon. Without aircraft you cannot see a ship more than about 25NM away.

There are systems for getting a cruise missile over the horizon and into the approximate vicinity of a potential target so that the terminal guidance radars systems can kick in and take them the rest of the way. That makes their reach somewhat further than 25nm (c. 50km). I'd have to do some research on Iranian systems, but I think that they can pretty much reach anything in the Gulf with those land-based launchers. And if resupplied by, say, Russia (who would benefit immensely from the oil price shock that would come from a cessation of the flow of oil out of the Gulf), I rather expect they could keep their interdiction up for much longer than a couple of months.

Plus the US would be harmed least. Europe and Asia would get hammered, but the US only gets a tiny fraction of its net oil demand from the Gulf.

Don't forget the secondary impact on the U.S. economy of a screaming recession or outright depression in both Europe and Asia simultaneously (as well as the massive increase in global oil prices ANY interdiction of oil exports through the Gulf might bring; remember that oil prices are generally set on a global market rather than regionally, so even if the U.S. has the benefit of having lots of oil of its own [and correspondingly having to import less from the Gulf], our economy would still suffer a major slowdown due to any global oil price shock that would result from such a war). The bottom line is that we might not suffer quite as badly as the rest of the world, but we'd certainly suffer.

Its most gas stations in the US, don't get Middle eastern oil at all. The only oil from the middle east we import is companies that want to do tests on oil across the world. That being said, I dont doubt gas stations would raise the prices in light of a scare. But for the most part, US exports oil nowadays, having enough to be self sustaining.

As for the Russians trading with Iran. I don't recall any decent ports from russia to Iran other then routes going to the strait. The Volga does lead into the caspian sea, but I would imagine some expansion to allow bigger ships through would be necessary if your talking supply routes.

[Holy Tedalonia]

Because to achieve victory it is relatively easy. Iran is one of those countries that you don't have to invade to win. IE cut them off from the world until they run out of supplies to commit to war. No blood really needs to be still except for those stupid enough to test the line. It would make for a incredibly demoralizing war, as one side faces nearly no repercussions while the other faces massive economic problems. Nothing is more demoralizing then a enemy that needs not to shed blood to achieve victory.

Russia and China could keep them afloat economically I think.

If they can maintain control of the Strait of Hormuz, if they can't then its practically game over. Unless China or Russia coordinates with multiple countries to create a land/air route that could transfer supplies there. And many of the countries between Iran, and Russia/China are not very fond of their neighbors. As for the caspian sea, I answered that above.

[Alien Space Bats]

As long as the Shia IR regime is in place, we do.
Because right now it benefits us if the Sunnis win.

Not because we care about the religious aspects.

I see things differently. The various Sunni States of the Gulf (including the Saudi Kingdom) have sponsored far more terror (and far more dangerous terror groups) than the Iranians have. Sunni terrorists gave is 9/11, 3/11 (in Spain), 7/7 (in Britain), 26/11 (in India), the 2015 attacks in France, the Bali bombing in 2002, and a host of one-off lone-wolf attacks all around the world. Do we really gain anything by letting such people achieve their goal of subjugating (and, in many cases, slaughtering Shi'ites throughout the Middle East?

Indeed, on ideological grounds alone, I'd prefer to see the Shi'ites triumph over the Sunnis. Shi'ite Islam at least accepts the idea that society can evolve over time, something Sunni fundamentalism utterly denies. The U.S. can't really live at peace in a world where a quarter of the population thinks that the 7th Century is where humanity needs to stay from now on; in contrast, Shia Islam at least nods vaguely in the direction of allowing democracy (even if its scope is limited by the dictates of faith), permitting women to receive an education, and a few other things that Western culture believes in; then, too, even as Iranians scream "Death to America", they don't expect or demand that the U.S. become a Shi'ite theodemocracy along Iranian lines, whereas we all know how groups like ISIL want the world to be like should they manage to triumph. In contrast to Iran's goals, which are almost entirely regional, Sunni radicals want a "clash of cultures" ending in the eradication of every other civilization but their own. It's an odd point of view, then, that sees in Sunni radicalism less of a long-term threat to the U.S. and the West than mere Shi'ite militancy.

[Alien Space Bats]

Sure, but the President also needs the latitude to be able to respond to the requirements of the modern battlefield, without having to call a joint session of Congress every time. Case in point, Soleimani had long been in the US crosshairs and they had intel that he was leaving the safety of Iran and entering Iraq. They had a limited time to act, so they went ahead with it and informed Congress after the fact which is within the bounds of the current law. If they had to wait for congress to pass a resolution they wouldn’t have been able to act. While you might think that would have been good in this particular instance there are other instances where it might not be.

You're suggesting that the speed of modern warfare renders parliamentary democracy obsolete, yet I somehow doubt that this is so.

And if parliamentary democracy still works, well then Congressional oversight ought to still work as well.

[Tarsonis]

Sure, but the President also needs the latitude to be able to respond to the requirements of the modern battlefield, without having to call a joint session of Congress every time. Case in point, Soleimani had long been in the US crosshairs and they had intel that he was leaving the safety of Iran and entering Iraq. They had a limited time to act, so they went ahead with it and informed Congress after the fact which is within the bounds of the current law. If they had to wait for congress to pass a resolution they wouldn’t have been able to act. While you might think that would have been good in this particular instance there are other instances where it might not be.

You're suggesting that the speed of modern warfare renders parliamentary democracy obsolete, yet I somehow doubt that this is so.

And if parliamentary democracy still works, well then Congressional oversight ought to still work as well.

Oh ffs. You realize the world is not bound by absolutes? That not everything is a dichotomous choice between extremes?

I didn’t say any of that shit. What I said was both need to exist. The Constitution vests the most power in the US Congress, not the Executive branch. So Article 1 is a must. However the op temp has dramatically increased in the last 200+ years. And while in the past the Military would have months, even years to react and mobilize, now they often have only minutes, so the president also needs the latitude to respond to the quickly developing situations in the modern military theater. Often the President can’t afford to wait for a joint session of Congress to assemble, debate, and pass a resolution, they have only have minutes or if, they’re lucky, hours to act.


So Both are simultaneously true. Congress has Sovereign authority, while the president has some latitude to act. While we can debate how much latitude, the notion that the Executive must get congressional approval for every offensive action is simply unrealistic. Which is why Congress gave the presidency such powers in the first place.

[Nakena]

For years, my greatest concern on the Korean peninsula has been the possibility that the DPRK will develop and then use tactical nuclear weapons as a battlefield weapon to break the back of the South Korean army and then roll down the length of the peninsula before the U.S. can stabilize the situation. I agree that the ROK could easily repel any North Korean attack in a purely conventional struggle, even if there were no U.S. forces available to assist them; but no army in history has ever had to fight after suffering through a nuclear barrage aimed at destroying its forces on the battlefield through strikes at front line positions, reserves, headquarters units, depots, and the like — and it's unlikely than any really could, given the tremendous psychological impact on any force receiving such an attack.

Oh yeah I get what you mean. I was of course considering things only being conventional. That being said the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield against the South Korean Army and other military targets might be regardless be considered a crossing of the nuclear barrier and be responded in full retiliation by the US. Its of course a possible danger but i doubt the DPRK has yet the sufficient technology and even if they do, it would be for various reasons near suicidal to use them, given the small geographic distances on the korean peninsula. Political reasons not even counted.

Of course, the ultimate deterrent against any tactical use of nuclear weapons would be America's willingness to reply to such an attack with a nuclear strike of its own (ideally through a tactical counterstrike combined with a counterforce attack on North Korean nuclear assets to forestall any further use, whether on the battlefield or on a strategic level). The thing is, it's always been a little bit questionable as to whether an American President would actually be willing to risk losing one or more American cities to any North Korean response in the event that the counterforce aspect of the operation failed to successful disarm the DPRK w/re to any potential strategic response; and with Donald Trump as President, that possibility has always been magnified, due to his general antipathy towards our allies due to his absurd fixation on trade surplusses and his corresponding view that our allies have been taking advantage of us for decades, both by competing with American businesses in the global marketplace and by "not paying their fair share" of the costs of our being allies. Throw in his "America First" rhetoric (which, among the many things he claims to stand for, is probably the one thing he actually DOES believe in), and one has to wonder openly if the man who abandoned the Kurds to possible genocide would really run the risk of losing even a single American city in the defense of a nation that he basically considers a bunch of ingrates who've been exploiting their alliance with America for decades.

So basically that does makes the US Forces in South Korea (about 30.000 in total if my info is correct) a political, human shield against North Korean strikes? The thing here is I do believe the US would strike back with nuclear weapons and full force simply because an rogue nation using nuclear weapons against an ally would set an incredibly dangerous precedent Neither the chinese or the russians would stand idle by. I mean I don't say that it couldn happen.

Its all true what you said but its an absolute worst case scenario.

This is why I see a danger in the U.S. getting bogged down in a major Middle Eastern war: It creates simply far too great an opportunity for Kim Jong Un to grab South Korea through a quick tactical nuclear strike and subsequent invasion, and then extort Japan into paying him "protection" money while abandoning its alliance and trade ties with America, resulting in a catastrophic diplomatic and economic debacle for America. Whether Donald Trump survived such a disaster would be quite irrelevant: The damage would be done, and the consequences for the U.S. and the world would reverberate onwards for decades.

P.S. We should probably temper this discussion if it continues with the knowledge that it could easily turn into a threadjack, and focus more going forward on how this affects U.S. strategic options within the Middle East and particularly vis-à-vis Iran.

I believe even if he would use such an "opportunity" (which IMO isnt really a good one) it would lead to the total destruction of the DPRK within a couple of hours by a massive, partially nuclear counterstrike that would utterly demish any short-time gains made on the battlefield from the usage of tactical nuclear weapons. It would leave the korean peninsula being a wasteland, not that its horribly different from what north korea already has but I do not believe them to be that much suicidal.

PS and return to topic:

I agree and that there is other threats and problems arising from an massive war in the middle east the US involved being in. Given the most recent developments in the Iran crisis it seems that a war may have been averted for the time being. Generally speaking the strategic situation for the US-Sunni alliance is currently worse than it was like 7-8 years ago when Assad was under massive pressure and a turkish intervention being a possibility.. Now he's fully stablized and with the russians in place further solidified. Iraq is basically an mullah puppet state at this point. The Saudi-War in Yemen is not going anywhere.

So it's fair to say that the "Axis of Resistance", did win this round. The attacks on the US Embassy in Iraq and the move of Soleimani that cost him his life were unnecessary at this point.

Likewise any but gamechanging actions to the contrary are only going to delay the inevitable. Syria, Iraq and Iran and to varying degrees Lebanon and Yemen are set games.

[Novus America]

Cruise missiles do not work against aircraft. Worse they only have LOS targeting radars.
Meaning said radars are limited by the horizon. Without aircraft you cannot see a ship more than about 25NM away.

There are systems for getting a cruise missile over the horizon and into the approximate vicinity of a potential target so that the terminal guidance radars systems can kick in and take them the rest of the way. That makes their reach somewhat further than 25nm (c. 50km). I'd have to do some research on Iranian systems, but I think that they can pretty much reach anything in the Gulf with those land-based launchers. And if resupplied by, say, Russia (who would benefit immensely from the oil price shock that would come from a cessation of the flow of oil out of the Gulf), I rather expect they could keep their interdiction up for much longer than a couple of months.

Plus the US would be harmed least. Europe and Asia would get hammered, but the US only gets a tiny fraction of its net oil demand from the Gulf.

Don't forget the secondary impact on the U.S. economy of a screaming recession or outright depression in both Europe and Asia simultaneously (as well as the massive increase in global oil prices ANY interdiction of oil exports through the Gulf might bring; remember that oil prices are generally set on a global market rather than regionally, so even if the U.S. has the benefit of having lots of oil of its own [and correspondingly having to import less from the Gulf], our economy would still suffer a major slowdown due to any global oil price shock that would result from such a war). The bottom line is that we might not suffer quite as badly as the rest of the world, but we'd certainly suffer.

There are few reliable options for getting a cruise missile OTH, other than spotter aircraft (which is why the argues cruise missiles make aircraft carriers obsolete is absurd, they actually make them more relevant). In surface naval warfare not having air support is equivalent to being blind (or very sort sighted). Anyone with experience in naval warfare knows finding ships at sea that do not want to be found is actually very hard, especially without air support.
(Technically the aircraft itself has LOS sensors but the horizon is a function of the height of the target and the height of the spotter, which is why you need aircraft to keep the sensors up high enough).

OTH radars exist, but are not good for this function. Their very poor precision, and long minimum range (the cannot see anything too close) make they only very good as a early warning system.
Worse they are big enough to have their own Zip Code and extremely “loud”. (They cover the area the size of a small town and put out a ton of energy). You cannot easily move them, you cannot hide them. They are easy to destroy.

Also the US would have air superiority. CAP F-18s and F-35s would be able to detect and destroy missiles, firing a missile or using a radar immediately exposes your position.

Also just hitting a few oil tankers is not enough. Remember during the Tanker War Iran and Iraq shot at oil tankers with missiles but the oil keep flowing, to actually shut down the gulf you would need to be able to do more than fire occasional missiles now and then.

Although a global commodity, oil is not completely so, as the WTI/Brent spread shows.
Oil prices in the US (WTI) are actually lower than the global price (Brent).
The US also has an interesting position of being the world’s largest oil producer AND consumer.

While high oil prices will hurt places like New York, they actually BENEFIT places like Texas.

But the US has more than sufficient reserve capability in terms of DUC wells, as oil prices increase the number of DUCs becoming viable increases, and thus in moths our oil production would skyrocket, making us the dominant oil producers and exporter.

So in some ways we would actually benefit.

Moreover we are not particularly reliant on exports and have the lowest trade to GDP ratio of any major economy.

Sure it would still hurt some people in the US (although benefit others) but the point is the US would be one of the less harmed.

Iran would be the most harmed.
So from a cost benefit analysis why would Iran do it? The harm they would suffer would offset any gain.

[Novus America]

I am not old enough to remember but I have read about it, and we beat Iran in 1988. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operati ... ing_Mantis
Did not topple their government but forced them to come to terms with us.

I remember it. There weren't really any terms (there wasn't any negotiation either before or after the event); it was a spat that escalated from some smaller prior engagements, and like the current crisis it pretty much petered out after we roughed up the Iranian Navy.

Well we go them to stop attacking oil tankers as much.
But yes, that is the thing. We only have to rough Iran up a bit and they will back down as that shows.

[Novus America]

As long as the Shia IR regime is in place, we do.
Because right now it benefits us if the Sunnis win.

Not because we care about the religious aspects.

I see things differently. The various Sunni States of the Gulf (including the Saudi Kingdom) have sponsored far more terror (and far more dangerous terror groups) than the Iranians have. Sunni terrorists gave is 9/11, 3/11 (in Spain), 7/7 (in Britain), 26/11 (in India), the 2015 attacks in France, the Bali bombing in 2002, and a host of one-off lone-wolf attacks all around the world. Do we really gain anything by letting such people achieve their goal of subjugating (and, in many cases, slaughtering Shi'ites throughout the Middle East?

Indeed, on ideological grounds alone, I'd prefer to see the Shi'ites triumph over the Sunnis. Shi'ite Islam at least accepts the idea that society can evolve over time, something Sunni fundamentalism utterly denies. The U.S. can't really live at peace in a world where a quarter of the population thinks that the 7th Century is where humanity needs to stay from now on; in contrast, Shia Islam at least nods vaguely in the direction of allowing democracy (even if its scope is limited by the dictates of faith), permitting women to receive an education, and a few other things that Western culture believes in; then, too, even as Iranians scream "Death to America", they don't expect or demand that the U.S. become a Shi'ite theodemocracy along Iranian lines, whereas we all know how groups like ISIL want the world to be like should they manage to triumph. In contrast to Iran's goals, which are almost entirely regional, Sunni radicals want a "clash of cultures" ending in the eradication of every other civilization but their own. It's an odd point of view, then, that sees in Sunni radicalism less of a long-term threat to the U.S. and the West than mere Shi'ite militancy.

The thing is Sunnis are not a hive mind, and neither are Shia.
Most on either side are not fanatics. Backing say Kuwait does not mean backing ISIL.
Sure the Gulf states are less than ideal, but less openly hostile than the IR Regime.

Worse the IR Regime ENCOURAGES Sunni extremism, for example Iranian domination of the Iraqi government is causing Sunnis in Iraq to become more extreme and was one of the major causes of ISIL forming.

Plus the Shia are much smaller in number. So siding with them would just make more enemies for us, we would lose far more than we would gain.

IF the IR regime fell then it would change our calculus. But right now the IR regime is the biggest threat to us in the region.

[Satuga]

The response has been completely lopsided and inconsistent, a protest outside an embassy warrants the extrajudicial killing of an Iranian general whereas a direct attack on US military bases requires a stand down.

The lesson here is escalate the situation to make the US back down.

Bombadil man, it wasn't just the protest on the Embassy that made the US kill Soleimani, it was a series of events, between funding terrorist organizations, planting roadside bombs in Iraq, being in Iraq in the first place(UN order to stay in Iran), and most importantly organizing the 1998 US embassy bombing that killed over 200 people. The last protest that he organized was just the icing on the cake. The US didn't just go "meh I don't like him" and blew him up for no reason.

[Aureumterra]

Well all the WW3 fearmongering didn’t age well