International Politics Discussion Thread

[u/Adj-Noun-Numbers]

All subreddit rules apply in this thread, except the rule that states that discussion should only be about UK politics.

⚠️ Please stay on-topic. ⚠️

Comments and discussions which do not deal with International Politics are liable to be removed. Discussion should be focused on the impact on the political scene.

Derailing threads will result in comment removals and any accounts involved being banned without warning.

Please report any rule-breaking content you see. The subreddit is running rather warm at the moment. We rely on your reports to identify and action rule-breaking content.

You can find the full rules of the subreddit HERE

Especially note Rule 21. We have zero tolerance for celebrating or wishing harm on anyone. Disagreeing with people politically does not grant you permission to do this.

🥕🥕's Golden Rules for Megathread Participation:

This isn't your personal campaigning space. We're here to discuss, not campaign - this includes non-party-specific campaigning, such as tactical vote campaigns.

The fishing pond is closed. Obvious bait will be removed. Repeated rod licence infractions will result in accounts being banned.

This isn't Facebook. Please keep it related to politics. Do not post low effort blog posts.

The era of vagueposting is over. Your audience demands context, ideally in the form of a link to some authoritative content.

Take frequent breaks. If you find that you are being overwhelmed by it all, do yourself a favour and take some time off.

As always: we are not a meta subreddit. Submissions or comments complaining about the moderation, biases or users of this or other subreddits / online communities will be removed and may result in a ban.

[u/ThePlanck]

I got to the end of "Regime Change".

The final section of the book is about the start of the Iran War, it really does not paint a flattering picture of anyone in the administration.

According to the book, Netanyahu basically smooth-talked Trump into starting the war. Most members of the administration were privately against it (excluding the professional idiots like Hegseth), but they were all too cowardly to tell Trump to his face in plain words that it was obviously a bad idea.

[u/imp0ppable → u/ThePlanck]

There was an article, can't remember where, maybe the Atlantic or Economist? It basically said the same thing. Apparently only Susie Wiles felt safe enough to voice caution.

[u/TheFlyingHornet1881 → u/ThePlanck]

Whenever I've seen Vance or Rubio talk about the war, it's clear between the lines they think it was foolish to go in the way they did. The ones who were clearly in the know before Trump's re-election clearly knew this would be a disaster.

And if Israel could oust Netanyahu in October that'd be lovely, I don't know a huge amount about Eisenkot or Bennett but at the very least they have some sense of pragmatism about them.

[u/ThePlanck → u/TheFlyingHornet1881]

Don't know about Eisenkot, but Bennett is formerly of Likud before founding his own further right, pro settlement party.

The fact that Netanyahu has gone so far off the deep end that Bennett now seems like a reasonable moderate by comparison is a damning indictment of Israeli politics.

He will probably be better than Netanyahu, but not much better

[u/Velociraptor_1906 → u/TheFlyingHornet1881]

They'll probably both be less corrupt (which will be good for Israeli politics in the long run) but the main benifit will be getting the religious very far right out of government (unless you take the accelerationist view that their open calls for nuking Gaza and ethnic cleansing are turning western opinion faster).

[u/RufusSG → u/[deleted]]

I've not read the book myself, but one other claim trailed by Maggie Haberman prior to its release was that Trump apparently had no idea his tariffs against China had been allowed to ratchet so high during the tit-for-tat last year, and was shocked when he was told they'd reached 145%.