As the article states, a war with Iran would not be good for anyone but it would be worse for Iran than for the USA. If the USA and Iran were purely rational agents, the USA would push back against Iranian influence and Iran would back down - its options would be to lose without a fight or to lose even more if it fought a war.
Of course in the real world rulers are often irrational, or more concerned about domestic affairs than foreign ones. (Maybe it’s better to rule an Iran battered by war than to be overthrown in an Iran that passively accepts containment.) Even rational rulers can miscalculate or underestimate their enemies.
Still, I think much of Iran’s recent success in growing its influence is due to a lack of political will in the USA for any sort of foreign intervention after Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than to a deliberate decision that allowing Iran to expand its influence is in America’s best interests.
In a completely rational world, the USA wouldn’t care about Israel nearly as much either, and would be willing to have the same sort of relationship with Iran as all the other Middle Eastern theocracies. Of course, they have their own domestic concerns that drive them, namely local Christian theocratic factions, and a desire to not change course on any given autocracy even when the original reason for a policy is long gone.
Pretty much. There’s no particular reason to have competing sovereign countries in the first place, going by any reasonable system of ethics I can think of.
Edit: To be clear, in OP I was assuming the “realist” picture where states have free will like actual human people and work tirelessly towards national self-interest. Obviously, that’s not the world we live in.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you, although I think Iran has a lot more ambition to expand its sphere of influence than the other Middle Eastern theocracies do and this would naturally bring it into conflict with the USA even if there wasn’t a historic enmity between the two countries. (Consider Russia as an example of a country that the USA had no particular hostility towards, despite the Cold War, but now actively opposes due to its ambitions.)
As the article states, a war with Iran would not be good for anyone but it would be worse for Iran than for the USA. If the USA and Iran were purely rational agents, the USA would push back against Iranian influence and Iran would back down - its options would be to lose without a fight or to lose even more if it fought a war.
Of course in the real world rulers are often irrational, or more concerned about domestic affairs than foreign ones. (Maybe it’s better to rule an Iran battered by war than to be overthrown in an Iran that passively accepts containment.) Even rational rulers can miscalculate or underestimate their enemies.
Still, I think much of Iran’s recent success in growing its influence is due to a lack of political will in the USA for any sort of foreign intervention after Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than to a deliberate decision that allowing Iran to expand its influence is in America’s best interests.
In a completely rational world, the USA wouldn’t care about Israel nearly as much either, and would be willing to have the same sort of relationship with Iran as all the other Middle Eastern theocracies. Of course, they have their own domestic concerns that drive them, namely local Christian theocratic factions, and a desire to not change course on any given autocracy even when the original reason for a policy is long gone.
In a rational world we would stop war entirely and use our heads not our fists.
Sounds more painful. Helmets allowed?
Pretty much. There’s no particular reason to have competing sovereign countries in the first place, going by any reasonable system of ethics I can think of.
Edit: To be clear, in OP I was assuming the “realist” picture where states have free will like actual human people and work tirelessly towards national self-interest. Obviously, that’s not the world we live in.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you, although I think Iran has a lot more ambition to expand its sphere of influence than the other Middle Eastern theocracies do and this would naturally bring it into conflict with the USA even if there wasn’t a historic enmity between the two countries. (Consider Russia as an example of a country that the USA had no particular hostility towards, despite the Cold War, but now actively opposes due to its ambitions.)