If he is including civilians then yes. Surface targets are easy and their civilians have done nothing to deserve this.
Otherwise their leadership have been begging for decades to be decimated. The leadership that the US put in place. It would be quite a feat. Much of their leadership are secured waiting us out in missile cities that are immune to bunker busters and nukes. It would take a massive and prolonged ground assault to clear all of them out. Most people on all sides do not want this to become yet another multi-decade multi-trillion dollar war.
I would expect most of the civilians to flee the country and I have no idea who could or would accommodate 90 million refugees.
Explain to me how you will 'kill a civilization' without including civilians. It's sort of in the name.
I think you and I know he says a lot of whacky stuff to make people think he is unstable and will do anything so other nations are more likely to assume he may do something unethical and to take him seriously.
But yes to your point if I took him literally then that would include civilians. I suppose we will only know if and when tactical nukes are dropped on cities. I have learned to never take him literally at his word.
> I have learned to never take him literally at his word.
So far his words seem to have been pretty good predictors for his future actions. Maybe not always in the same order and/or with the intended effect. But the list of stuff he said he would do compared with the list of stuff he said he would do but didn't do is changing day-by-day and for some of those things he didn't do the clock hasn't run out yet. I think you ignore these kinds of statements at your peril when means, motive and opportunity are a fact.
I suppose I agree with that. If he's taking out 90 million civilians that would be by far the most extreme action and this assumes people follow orders. He did recently purge a few generals. Purge as in fired, not Xi-stinguished. I don't know to what end this would accomplish anything. A strong message to China? What would be the point in removing the cost burden of the Iranian government that is their civilians? Purge Muslims? There are something like 2 billion so it can't be that. What other reasons might there be? Untrained and inexperienced civilians offer little benefit to their existing IRGC that I can see. They are all soft targets and a cost to Iran's government.
He's bluffed in the past. Some call it taco, I call it a bluff. All entirely expected from a former real-estate empire builder.
Certain people in power dont care about global trillions lost, rather billions they earned for themselves in insider trading. Quite a few articles in recent weeks pointing out billion+ moves just before some potus announcement.
Also, US is certainly gaining here from high oil prices since its not an optional luxury rather a necessity for entire economies.
Many people don't think Ukraine is worth resisting Russia over either. But as you just said, the world is not black and white. Your decree of what is and is not worthwhile to do, is nothing more than that.
Bullying only works against the weak.
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