We know.

Edit: well, some of us do.

God willing, Iran will give them such a bloody nose that they're dissuaded from any further actions.

Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

That being said, we also need to understand the situation from all angles. It is in our best interests to have the US as a reliable trading partner. Sharing such a large geographic border with them gives us access to their large market, meaning that we can buy their products and services, and sell ours. Free trade generally tends to be a very very good thing, and we must hope for that.

BUT, we must also staunchly defend our sovereignty. The current American admin is extremely hostile ofc. Looking at this, we should now be building our own products and services (those that are key to maintaining our sovereignty). It does not matter if it is economically a worse choice in the short term. The price we pay for this onshoring is the price of national security. What would these industries be in my opinion?
They would be:

• Selling and consuming our own natural resources independently.
• Anything involving information. This means news, social media and so on. We should continue funding "Canadian culture" related media.
• Maybe the automobile sector, but I'm not really educated on how sovereign we already are/are not in that area.
• Food maybe, but again, I'm not sure how independent we are there. If someone knows about this, I'd love to learn more.

So in short, here's what I'm saying:
We must defend our sovereignty right now and in the long term. But, if an opportunity for economic cooperation presents itself in the future with the Americans, we must take it (while defending our sovereignty long term). Free trade with someone who isn't a psychopath is good and we must not forget that.

That's why I'm not so upset with the Iran situation. The American government will face so much damage from this (economic, militaristic, political) that their appetite for war wouldn't be much (for a decade perhaps). At least that's my opinion after looking at iraq and Afghanistan.

This obviously changes if somehow the Iranian people topple the theocracy without American boots on the ground. This is definitely what the us admin is hoping for (and getting the shah back), but this looks... difficult...

Once American boots hit the ground, it's just another Iraq. So many factions and separatists sitting in Iran rn, who are being suppressed by the theocracy.

Also, the theocracy was arming, training and supporting islamist fascists in the neighborhood for decades. Will remnants of this regime just forget how to do that in their own country?

Again, this all hinges on the will of the Iranian public. How hard are they willing to fight for democracy? Will they get rid of the theocracy? Will they resist the terrorists? Will they resist US pressure to reestablish the monarchy? How do they deal with the separatists? Does a sentiment of war take precedence over a sentiment of "stfu, please stfu and keep the peace, we're Iranians, war is bad, peace is good, please please just stfu"?

That's an interesting take. I was assuming the US was just going to destroy a bunch of infrastructure with munitions and declare victory. If US soldiers are deployed it seems like there could be a huge backlash.

I hope you're right.

It very much looks like the Iranian people have rallied around the flag and are ready to resist the Americans. If they put boots on the ground, it won't be another Iraq but another Vietnam. Worse, even.

I wouldn't doubt it. They know the USA is not there for them. Israel and the US may as well be the same country to them.

True - although oddly the author seems to frame this as something our federal leadership understands but that 'everyday Canadians' don't ... and yet it seems to me to be the exact opposite.

If the feds really understood the threat — or perhaps more accurately, if they cared about the threat; as long as capital's interests aren't threatened, it seems they aren't too bothered — then they wouldn't be cheering on the attacks on Venezuela and kidnapping of Maduro, or deflecting the ridiculous fentanyl accusations by saying "nah it's actually Mexico's fault", or staying near-silent about the blockade of Cuba. Instead, they would be standing up to the US alongside those countries.

Yeah, I can't see how just destroying infrastructure is going to accomplish anything. Total regime change seems to be the only logical end goal.

Military angle:
Intelligence says that Iran is super close to having nukes. Random strikes on nuke labs, assassinations of nuke scientists, etc. won't help anymore cuz Iran has put all their facilities inside that big ass mountain. Total regime change is the only method through which Iran stops pursuit of nukes. Just killing the Ayatollah and the entirety of the high command is a waste of bombs if that momentum isn't used to build something further.

Trumpian angle:
My guess is that he's just doing it for "legacy" purposes. Similar to Putin and Ukraine. Putin wanted a legacy similar to Peter the great. Trump probably wants something like that. That's why he was trying to force himself on Greenland and Canada. That's why the Gulf of America bullshit exists. Little men with big egos. He was getting too rapey, which is probably why his advisors advised him to take it out on Iran as it would be the least damaging compared to Greenland or fkin Canada lol.
But this again becomes super unpredictable too! This entire Iran thing could stop on Trump's whim.

Economic angle:
Not so confident of what I'm saying here, but my guess is that this is quite good for big oil and defense contractors. Defense contractors want more consumption of their wares and services. Big oil wants to be able to have a stake in extracting and exporting Iranian oil and gas. Anything aside from achieving this final goal hurts them, as their product becomes more expensive due to higher shipping costs through the strait of Hormuz, thus reducing demand.

I hope you're right. Although that Pahlavi fellow scares me. I'm not aware of how much support he truly has, but I hope it's super low.

I'm not the most informed person about this, but I think I'm more informed than average. To me, it looks like Pahlavi has lost whatever legitimacy he's built up among the anti-government side in Iran.

Many don’t seem to. I have lots of family members who think the US will completely correct course at the midterm elections. A group of parents at my kids’ school were all standing around talking about whether they should travel to the US and how it probably isn’t really that bad. There seem to be a large number of people that want the security blanket of convincing themselves that this is totally normal

What’s happening in Iran is one step away from WWIII. If Iran attacks a NATO country (Turkey maybe), Turkey’s part of NATO, they invoke article 5, Canada and other NATO countries have to help (but they determine what that help looks like). And Canada and other NaTO countries are drawn into the war of aggression started by the US. The US started this illegal war, so Canada doesn’t have to help them. Thankfully.