503
‘Worst nightmare’: anger and frustration as Gulf states bear brunt of war they did not start
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2026
503 points (98.6% liked)
World News
54730 readers
2822 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF OCTOBER 19 2025
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The reason that every other US president has ruled out war with Iran is exactly because of this tactic. It takes a group of really ignorant, egotistical, and foolhardy leaders to melt through the layers of decision making that underlie such a course of action.
The more Trump screams on social media and Hegseth bully pulpits while whining about media coverage, the worse this war is going. Look for more avoidable Air Force and Navy incidents, more dead American soldiers, and a civilian bloodbath that will take decades to unravel the implications of.
I heard a commentator describe it as "victory disease".
Trump is in control of the largest and most sophisticated military in the world. He had a couple of one and done victories, its easy to see how he might start to feel over confident.
It was almost inevitable they would eventually pick a fight they couldn't win.
That said, going in with absolutely no plan-b was really, really stupid.
Germany in 1939: Poland has capitulated in a month. The Reich grows larger.
Germany in 1940: France has capitulated in a month. Our invincible troops march from victory to victory!
Germany in 1942: We've been fighting over this grain silo for a week now
The most ironic thing is if they had bothered to set up a practical plan and stated war goal, the US could have invaded and captured Iran in a matter of weeks.
It just that the largest and most sophisticated military in the world is completely useless if you don't spin up and use its full potential, which you can't really do without troops on the ground and congressional approval (not the literal declare war sense, just public support).
Of course they can't actually justify a proper invasion (or a draft) without causing insane fallout in the US, so they used everything except ground troops which will accomplish nothing and get the US stuck in a forever war like Vietnam.
Even though China is facing eventual oil supply issues, they're probably looking at this thing like prime cinema as the US expends its military global dominance on Iran, which will solve their Taiwan plans for them.
They didn't even have a plan A!
They went straight for plan T
They had a plan A: put the fear of god (aka USA) in Iran. This technique doesn't work on most teenagers (as well as most countries)
What victories have they had????
Venezuela and the last strike on Iran.
Venezuela wasn’t a victory. And what strike in Iran is a victory? They killed 160+ children.
It doesn't matter whether you think Venezuela was a victory. Trump certainly does.
He thinks everything he does is a victory. The comment you made doesn’t matter at all, he literally thinks that he can’t make mistakes.
Nah, im pretty fucking certain he thinks hes made an epic mistake.
The stealth bomber hitting the nuclear lab under a mountain through the vent tunnels.
You mean the claimed destruction, just like all the others times?
Im sure they destroyed something, a nuclear base or a few meters of sand i cannot say
Did it? Obliterated their nuclear facilities I heard. But I also heard from the leaked DIA assessment that "the strikes damaged above-ground structures and sealed the entrances to two targets, but did not destroy the associated underground facilities and the centrifuges".
Every time they bomb Iran they make the claim that they obliterated it. This current war was started with the same excuse as their objective, so the previous obliteration of their nuclear program must not have been very throughout.
Fuck the Americans involved in this war,nobody asked them to join the army and they're aware who and why they are fighting for
Joining the US military is just signing up to murder brown people at the direction of the oil industry and war profiteers. Been the way for at least half a century.
"I was a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism".
-Smedley Butler, 1935
That’s not very class conscious of you.
why
why don't the rich join the army
Don't worry. They asked ~~ChatGPT~~ Grok if it was a good idea, and it said "You're absolutely right". And if the magical computer box that our entire economy now rests upon says so, it must be right.