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[โ€“] 2 points 2 hours ago (1 child)

but basically European sanctions, arms sales and diplomacy have been crucial in getting Iran into a position where its only recourse to an American attack is closing Hormuz

Just to reply to that: Even if the Europeans didn't sanction Iran and were providing them with weapons: The USA is the worlds biggest and strongest military and there is no chance that Iran would not have to use their biggest geopolitical leverage against them in a war. Do not try to blame the EU for Trump starting a war.

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  • [โ€“] 0 points 2 hours ago

    Finally an intelligent response. As a minimum culpability measure, we know that America entered this war because Israel did, and it's undeniably Israel wouldn't have started this war if he knew it'd cause European trade to dry up. The EU+Britain deserve at least the blame for not using that. With that in mind,

    there is no chance that Iran would not have to use their biggest geopolitical leverage against them in a war.

    True, but America wouldn't have started this war if there were going to be consequences for doing so. I remember last year when Canada, Japan and the EU+Britain started selling American bonds to force Trump to back off from Greenland and Canada (which he did, rhetoric aside), so Europe clearly has options for escalation. We've also gotten no indication that European countries tried to pressure the countries hosting America's military bases not to cooperate with the war (which they obviously have the leverage to do since they keep selling them weapons), and it's entirely possible that those countries would've refused to allow it from the beginning if they knew it'd get them in hot water with the EU and Britain. And of course there's no way to know if an Iran not hampered by EU sanctions would've had better diplomatic contacts able to stop this mess from happening peacefully, or stronger proxies able to make it foolish enough that even MBS decides he'd rather not try his luck. Maybe the war would've happened anyway, but it could've not happened either and Europe decided it'd rather not even try to prevent it.

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