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Comment by sircastor | Hacker News Reader

>You'd think the strongest military in the world could do something other than...just watch.

There’s an argument to be made that the strongest military in the world showing restraint and just watching is probably a good thing.

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Nothing is more intimidating than an adversary who is intimidated by nothing.

The strongest military would have the capability of safely bringing down the problem. Watching it is no better than inaction.

Moved Iran and Afghanistan back a hundred years or more. Watches ballon and earns reputation as "restrained".

The US moved Iran — the country simultaneously providing cruise missiles to Russia and modern anti-tank missiles to forces in Yemen — back a few hundred years? The 1700s must have been wild.

Iran's history is quite an interesting one if you're not familiar with it. In the 1950s Iran was a relatively secular democracy. They had a mixed relationship with the West, but it was workable. When they discovered that the West was not fairly paying oil royalties as agreed upon, they moved to nationalize their oil.

This was unacceptable to the West, so we covertly overthrew their democracy and installed an unpopular autocratic monarch in 1953. This Monarch would then rule for the next 26 years until in 1979 they would have their own "real" revolution. It was largely led by Islamic extremists, and they replaced our puppet monarchy with an Islamic theocracy. And this theocracy not only has a pretty negative view of the West, but for some reason always thinks we're trying to engage in covert actions to try to overthrow them! Go figure.

1953 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat

1979 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution

Then a decade later the US gave Khomeini F-14s, which were the king of air dominance fighters at the time.

I’m not even suggesting this was good foreign policy, just that none of the above history proves the thesis that we set them back a few hundred years.

Iran's F-14s come from the Shah era, though the Reagan administration did secretly sell Iran spare parts during the 1980s, as part of a scheme to fund fascist militias in Central America without having to ask Congress for the money.

Your misquote of "a hundred years or more" as "a few hundred years" is a very careless thing to do.

You are are aware of the difference between the 1820s and 1920s I hope.

No, I think OP edited the comment

Woops sorry.

Has Afghanistan moved in any direction? It cost a lot for little gain.

Iran wasn't touched, you may mean Iraq.

Iraq. Yes, I did. Thanks.

"Just watching" what they're calling a "surveillance" balloon continue to collect (somehow) information sounds unwise. That they watch it crossing the Atlantic onto U.S. territory seems especially asinine. It's as if we're more beholden to Disney shareholders than national security at this point, under the "Biden-Harris Administration".

Showing restraint against a controlled takedown of the balloon? Cant say I see the value in that.

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