>However much you may enjoy your moral high ground, I think you are reading something different than I am writing.
>
>American Global Empire, for godsakes, is hardly what I am proposing nor is Iran's current issue 'owning their own oil'.

Not the current, but it was the reason they were saddled with a monarch in western colors. You mentioned the case.

>I said quite clearly that whether or not it is pleasant for people to hear there is a very real chance of an Israeli strike on Iran and that if the current regime in Iran continues as it is doing now that chance becomes greater and greater.

Now why would the current regime in Israel strike Iran?

>I am not in favor of resolving these issues with bombs, but some issues do need to be resolved. If the regime in Tehran were to change or change course a lot of lives may be saved. These are not American lives at risk and we are going to be ok in any case. this is a question of potential war that will ruin a lot of lives.

So why is it any business of the US? I know the current regime in Israel is an ally, and there's a treaty - if the current regime in Israel is attacked. But if it attacks, why would the US care?

>That said, a coup or subversion that achieved the same outcome (giving 1954 as an example of regime change with little bloodshed, not as a model for the reason)

...but you're still for it, for a regime change in a foreign country? On what grounds? If not imperial divine rights, international law surely not, then what? What gives any country the right to change regime in another country?

> would be preferable to a war that involved that 90% that don't want to play. I felt that way in SE Asia 40 years ago and I haven't seen anything to change my mind. Giving peasants AK-47s or dropping napalm on villages is neither moral nor precise.

The precision is irrelevant.

>Nations will always try to do what they perceive to in their own interests (however muddled that understanding may be) but I would generally prefer they do it without trashing the lives of those who don't give much of a damn one way or the other.

>Sorry if that offends your tender sensibilities or somehow smacks of a yearning for global hegemony. I am not a polemicist but a historian and I don't see this kind of analysis as a platform to spout platitudes or an opportunity to take politically correct positions that are intended to have others think well of me for holding proper opinions.

Then, in your improper opinion, why does Iran have a regime, whereas Israel and the US have governments? All three have grown from movements which were deemed terrorist at their inception, but have managed to establish a new republic.

And, you know what, it's not tender sensibilities. It's the hypocrisy. It's the approach of "we do it because we can" and then "we are the home of the democracy". Sorry, doesn't go together. If you're fighting for people's rights, you can't do it by running over those rights with tanks. You can't help establish a democracy in any country if you start by wiping your expletive omitted with their sovereignty. And that's what it comes down to. You either respect them as countries, or treat them like subordinate fiefs - and if the latter is the case, just say so, so we can finish this with a clear statement of facts.