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Assassination of leaders is very common in war. Nobody claims the US wanted to negotiate a cease fire with the old regime, they want to negotiate it with whatever phoenix rises from its ashes.
> Because who the fuck will you negotiate with after? Who surrenders? That's why historically people don't do that in wars.
You negotiate with the power structure that remains, it could be equally oppressive figures from the same organizations, it could be opposition leaders, it could be labor unions, it could be whomever locally consolidates power. Put public keys on the shells and rockets. One can not credibly claim lack of agency while firing rockets and drones. Old enough to fire? Old enough to get hit!
I just described a protocol to identify who is in power, administration-agnostic Pentagon can demand the Iranians hold a crypto party bootstrap their own web of trust and forward the keys through physicists then IAEA. The web of trust can be established before any voting or alliance forming.
If Iran predelegated all hostilities in the event of regime decapitation, they effectively sent their troops (and population) on a never ending suicide mission.
The longer power vacuum persists the more casualties result.
Ultimately it is more in the interest of both Iran regime and population to even bootstrap this web of trust without Pentagon demanding it!
> Israel/The US just want to destroy Iran as a nation state. Thinking that there are going to be any talks with someone with a mandate from the Iranian people in weeks or months is misguided. This is a decades-long thing. We better buckle up.
Why does establishing the local power nexus necessarily take decades? The faster it is unambiguously established, the faster negotiation can actually start.
1) The US and Israel have repeatedly assassinated Iranian negotiators when they did come to the table. Who's gonna want to negotiate at this point and put themselves on the kill list next? The repeated shady dealings have ruined the reputation of the US as a party one can even negotiate with.
2) You have to understand that Iranian leadership (but also big parts of society!) are actually religious nuts. It's not all for show. They believe that their sacrifice on the earthly sphere will be rewarded in the afterlife. Their considerations aren't immediate material wealth and well-being the same way they are for the Americans. They're willing to endure this long-term pain for what they see as the longer-term reward of punishing the Great Satan.
From the Iranian perspective, they are winning and keeping at it is the rational move.
The US navigated itself into a no-win situation, driven by misguided illusions of imperial power, hubris and (in the case of Hegseth) toxic masculinity.
"coming to the table" is an expression conveying sincere negotiation. One can physically or telecomatically "come to the table" without actually coming to the table!
Consider how North Korea kept pretending coming to the table until it was too late! Perhaps you want another North Korea in the middle east, but I believe most on HN don't!
I would even say that publically confessing what was done to Mahsa Amini (both internationally and domestically) for a prolonged period would be a precondition for accepting ceasefire conditions.
You can not reliably negotiate with a counterparty that is lying in your face.
2) Iranian leadership perfectly understands what they did to Mahsa Amini for example. They can't seriously believe they will go to this afterlife, if they felt they had nothing to hide they would be open about it and portray without shame what they did to her. They use religion the same way the Inquisition used religion: as a loyalty indicator. The actions of such actors in Iran are better explained by those of someone who became complicit (intentionally or by the trickery and pressure of others) and from then on feel aligned by a survival mechanism to keep the skeletons in the closet.
The US can very much find progress, depending on their level or lack of respect for international law, in the sense of civil disobedience (sometimes you break rules to improve a situation): regardless of legality, how would Iranian high society react if US progressively bombs neighborhoods starting from the richest neighborhoods (with sufficient advance warning). As you turn the elites homeless they either display the homeless fate to the next echelon of high society of what would happen to them, or they take the housing of the next echelon of high society for themselves... This puts pressure on exactly the people who were calling the shots in Iran. Legal? not at all! About as legal as signing chemical weapons conventions treaty and then applying hydrogen cyanide on Mahsa Amini...
The world economy, the oil price, the reality in Hormuz and the Iranian regime disagree with you. None of what you propose is capable of changing this.
If the US were to bomb neighborhoods, it would strengthen the resolve of Iranians. Hard power is not an effective solution for the problem the US created.
The inquisition parallel is somewhat apt, but more accurate would be the crusades. Christians took the risk of death because of their religious beliefs, the same is the case here.
Obviously lots of possibilities exist, for example in the most absurdist scenario, the US demands that Iran evacuates, and announces nuclear carpet bombing plenty ahead of time. Likely? No. Possible? Yes. Iran can not do the same (yet), and the US would like to keep it that way, they don't want another North Korea. They understand the long term price. If other nations refuse to drop their fossil fuel habits, they can either pay the premium price (directly or indirectly by helping secure the Strait of Hormuz) or drop their fossil fuel habits. It's unsustainable in the long run anyway...
I also strongly disagree with you equating war crimes and R&D.
There's your answer.
this isn't a poll about what you or I believe, it's pointing to the existence of at least one lower-noise avenue than the ones pursued
observe that your position is not verifiable by the world at large, while cryptographically signed messages would be veriable by us individuals across the whole world.
one may counter that the US could make up a large number of fake crypto key / Iranian associations; but surely to the extent that Iran has a functioning regime, surely it could use the IAEA as a channel to communicate the Iranian cryptographic key observations like:
* Khamenei confirms meeting Aragchi in person and Aragchi has chosen such and such a public key
* Aragchi confirms meeting Khamenei in person and Khamenei has chosen such and such a public key
* and so on for all players interested in participating in confirming the present regime or establishing a new one amidst chaos.
(if you don't have control over your physicists at a nuclear power plant, then you don't have control over your regime)
Why would you oppose a protocol that vindicates the correctness of your interpretation if you are so certain that you are right?
Perhaps because you don't feel very certain that you are right...
I don't understand how Americans mistakenly keep referring to the Strait of Hormuz as the Straight of Hormuz in spite of English being their first language.
Yes while even mapmakers etc during 1500-1700's sometimes used "Straight", the subsequent standardizations in English selected "Strait" as the standard spelling.
How would you know if English is or isn't my first language?