These aren’t standoffs, you think I’m talking about Russia, where yes MAD prevents either from attacking, I’m talking about the people living outside the small group of countries that have nukes. Iran isn’t covered by MAD, the u.s. could nuke Tehran tomorrow and nothing would be done besides severe diplomatic push back. Any “enemy of the u.s.” that doesn’t have nukes is subject to the constant fear of the u.s. war machine, which may not nuke you but will definitely relentlessly bomb your territory with drones. That doesn’t give them the right to attack the u.s. because they feel threatened.
Maybe they did act recklessly, that doesn’t make it right to attack them. Reckless is such a subjective term in that it’s heavily dependent on the party you sympathize with. You sympathize with Israel so you think the Arab states acted recklessly for the above reasons. I sympathize more with the Arab states because they were just blockading a single port to a country which they saw as being a serial bad actor in the region. This wasn’t some existential threat to them, they were still better off than near landlocked Jordan since they have a ton of Mediterranean coast. And again Israel was also fully mobilized, apparently a lot more then the Arab states.
Either way you and I can argue back and forth all day on who behaved more recklessly, just like north Koreans and south Koreans can argue back and forth all day on whose behaving recklessly, they won’t get anywhere because it’s a subjective opinion. This is why “preemptive strikes” are against international law, they always rely on these subjective terms like “threatening” and “reckless” such that any major power with significant sway in the international sphere can use them to justify any attack.
These aren’t standoffs, you think I’m talking about Russia, where yes MAD prevents either from attacking, I’m talking about the people living outside the small group of countries that have nukes. Iran isn’t covered by MAD, the u.s. could nuke Tehran tomorrow and nothing would be done besides severe diplomatic push back. Any “enemy of the u.s.” that doesn’t have nukes is subject to the constant fear of the u.s. war machine, which may not nuke you but will definitely relentlessly bomb your territory with drones. That doesn’t give them the right to attack the u.s. because they feel threatened.
Maybe they did act recklessly, that doesn’t make it right to attack them. Reckless is such a subjective term in that it’s heavily dependent on the party you sympathize with. You sympathize with Israel so you think the Arab states acted recklessly for the above reasons. I sympathize more with the Arab states because they were just blockading a single port to a country which they saw as being a serial bad actor in the region. This wasn’t some existential threat to them, they were still better off than near landlocked Jordan since they have a ton of Mediterranean coast. And again Israel was also fully mobilized, apparently a lot more then the Arab states.
Either way you and I can argue back and forth all day on who behaved more recklessly, just like north Koreans and south Koreans can argue back and forth all day on whose behaving recklessly, they won’t get anywhere because it’s a subjective opinion. This is why “preemptive strikes” are against international law, they always rely on these subjective terms like “threatening” and “reckless” such that any major power with significant sway in the international sphere can use them to justify any attack.