> why don't we apply the same reasoning to the other authoritarian theocracies in the region that are just as oppressive?
They're either our allies, aren't pursuing nuclear weapons and/or aren't actively destabilising everything in their vicinity.
America calling for regime change in the Middle East is fraught, and I'm honestly not yet on board with direct action (though that's about as influential as what shade the moon is tonight). But Iran is "uniquely bad." It's also uniquely imperialistic in the region, up there with to Israel.
> It's also uniquely imperialistic in the region, up there with to Israel.
Iran hasn't had a direct conflicr with anyone but Iraq and Israel in the last fifty years, last I checked, and the conflict with Israel was in response to unproved aggression.
If you're talking proxy wars, how are Iran's proxies any worse than UAE's, or Turkey's, or the Saudi's? And Israel has certainly been orders of magnitude more destabilizing.
Hiding behind proxies doesn't absolve the Iranian regime of culpability for their aggression. Hezbollah alone fired tens of thousands of Iranian rockets at Israel just in 2023-24. There's no mystery about who provided the weapons or for what purpose. Calling any Israeli action against Iran "unprov[ok]ed" is absurd.
They're either our allies, aren't pursuing nuclear weapons and/or aren't actively destabilising everything in their vicinity.
America calling for regime change in the Middle East is fraught, and I'm honestly not yet on board with direct action (though that's about as influential as what shade the moon is tonight). But Iran is "uniquely bad." It's also uniquely imperialistic in the region, up there with to Israel.