Subject: Re: Kuwait Air Defenses Down US Jets
Have they dig up their centrifuges yet?

Apparently so - after all, the Administration has said repeatedly that this attack was necessary to keep them from getting nuclear material. "Probably a week away," is what senior administration officials said. If blowing their stuff up has not previously been an effective strategy to keep them from advancing their weapons program over that short a time period, blowing up more of their material is unlikely to be a medium- or long-term impediment to reconstituting those weapons - much less the conventional weapons system we've now expanded our mission to prevent them from having.

And yet, who buys the vast majority of Iranian oil?

China, just like we purchase the majority of China's exports without being their patron. China wants to get raw materials to feed their economy, and they're perfectly willing to do business with all sorts of nasty countries. But they've long been publicly opposed to Iran's nuclear ambitions, and have generally refrained from much military support to Iran, knowing full well that Iran answered more to Moscow than Beijing in terms of military activity.

They now will have a golden opportunity to change that. The weaker the Iranian regime gets, the more dependent they on China they will become. No longer just economically, but technologically and diplomatically and (perhaps) militarily. China hasn't been a significant arms supplier to Iran for many years (they were back in the 1980's, but that dwindled away by the late 1990's) - but this may create a chance for them to reestablish that more formal relationship. Especially if the U.S. has to pretend that the "new" Iranian government is very different from the prior regime and backs away from sanctions and diplomatic isolation (as it has with Venezuela), opening the door for China to convert some of their covert investment in Iran into a far more open relationship.

Secondly, not only does *she* know that but the Venezuelan people do also. You think they might just be a little more emboldened to cause trouble for her? You think the Venezuelan military is going to be gung-ho about obeying orders to shoot protestors knowing that if they do they might have to go a second round with the US military?

Yeah, the Venezuelan people aren't going to have any real say in this. Because while they know that the U.S. took Maduro away in a helicopter, they also know that the U.S. didn't do anything else and left all the people that were repressing them and killing them still in charge. And the Venezuelan military is a key part of the government. They're not going to be hesitant to shoot protestors, because shooting protestors is what keeps them in charge. They're going to do that without regard to going a second round with the U.S. military, because the U.S. military is a contingent and very limited threat (we're not going to invade Venezuela, and they have to stay in power. Rodriguez isn't afraid of the Venezuelan people - if she's afraid of anyone, it's the generals who will be telling her exactly what happens if she listens to Rubio instead of them.

Tell me you’ve never met any Iranians without telling me you’ve never met many Iranians.

Tell me you don't have a cogent response without telling me you don't have a cogent response. This is one of your common phrases, and it doesn't communicate anything.

Gaza isn't Persia, but the power differential between unarmed civilians and a heavily armed military regime that controls all every single facet of the country with ruthless and violent means is the same everywhere. The reason the Gazans can't seize power from Hamas is because they don't have the resources to do it, and Hamas will kill anyone who tries to change that. The reason the Iranians won't seize power from the regime is because they don't have the resources to do it, and the regime will kill anyone who tries to change that (as they have already). It has nothing to do with the personality or culture or the specifics of the unarmed populace - it has to do with the fact that it's an unarmed civilian populace.