Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

Imagine if Snowden decided to just do his work and move on? How much longer would it have taken for these facts to be revealed to the public?

The backdoor in Lotus Notes (differential cryptography) wasn't a secret. It was public information. Ray Ozzie used it as a way to circumvent US encryption export laws. Today companies have to be more discrete.

[1] http://www.cypherspace.org/adam/hacks/lotus-nsa-key.html

Mixed metaphors aside, you can't cheat the law by naming yourself something.

Well, you can try, but the courts take a dim view of it.

What's your take on it ?

I don't want to speak to the other foreign governments, and I think there is a LOT of room for healthy criticism of how the USA handles its foreign policy, past & present.

But to answer the question directly with respects to Iran, specifically: the leadership has been repeatedly chanting "Death To America" for its 45 year history and have been actively trying to develop a nuclear weapon program. It calls Israel the "Little Satan" and America the "Big Satan." A mantra often repeated: "First we come for the Saturday people, then we go for the Sunday people."

Say what you want about the USA. I'll be the first to join you in criticism of many of it's foreign policy actions, including the 1953 CIA-backed Iranian coup that arguably led to the Islamic revolution in 1979 and got us the Iran we have today. And if people want to express concern for what evils could fill the vacuum if the current regime falls... fair.

But I'm certainly not going to blame any free country for responding to an enemy state vowing to destroy it while actively trying to develop the means to do so. If there is ever any moral justification for going to war - that's it. It's defensive. That's arguably the only justification for going to war.

Feel free to disagree with me about the threat that Iran poses to the western world. Maybe it's all propaganda and overstated. You're welcome to that theory. But this is the answer to the question: "Why should the USA get involved?"

If we're being extremely generous, the goal of regime change would be to bring a new stability with economic prosperity and inclusion as well as more meaningful political inclusion, so as to reduce the amount of marginalized population with nothing to loose that are easy to recruit for terrorism.

Of course, when the nation building fails or is never even tried, it's pretty easy for recruiters to say "look around, they destroyed our country (with bombs or embargoes or tariffs or resource exploitation or offensive media), we have nothing to live for, and it's their fault; let's make them pay"

I don't think you can stop all terrorism, but if you want to put a dent in it, you need to give the broad population hope for prosperity, and you need to fulfill that hope on the regular.

1) we want to control oil and oil prices because it’s crucial to our bank accounts. 2) if the Middle East unites we will lose control over oil 3) we must make sure they never unite 4) we need to support varying regimes to increase instability in the region. If we keep the Middle East fighting we can continue to extract oil.

Lots has changed since 50s so one would think this strategy would get updated, but it seems it has not.

(Also for the record I think this is abhorrent, but I think some people do think like this)

Oh absolutely. I compared it to Kabul and Baghdad (and not Libya) for a reason. There is not a mobilised resistance in Iran.

The lack of boots-on-the-ground plans is why I don’t see us teetering towards Iraq 2.0, but instead the U.S. eventually using bunker busters at Fordo and calling it a day. (To the extent we’re seeing the right recipe “liberation” rhetoric, it’s in respect of domestically deploying the military.)

A number of meetings / manifestations of expatriate Iranians happened around the world, supporting the Israeli actions. The current regime earned no love from most of the population, it seems; massive anti-government protests happened in Iran for last few years, sometimes lasting for months.

If there is no civil war and no actual troops on the ground, the regime may still be unstable enough, its pillars like IRGC being paper tigers, and willing to defect. It can still fall. An example: the Soviet regime fell in 1991 within a week, basically without any war, and the USSR split into its formal constituent republics, most of which stayed peaceful since then. Another example: the Portuguese regime fell within a week in 1974, with zero shots fired.

The BRICS meme from a security standpoint is hollower than the financial one.

Russia and China have no interest (the former, ability) in getting enmeshed in another Anglo-Iranian war. Most of the oil travelling through the Strait of Hormuz goes to Chinese refineries; they really don’t want this to escalate. Both would probably make the occupation phase painful for Americans. Like we did for the Soviets. And the Iranians did for us. But that’s again post-regime change, the part we’ve never figured out how to do since the Marshall Plan, and not in the toppling of the regime bit, which we’re ridiculously good at.

The evidence for the above is the current lack of military or intelligence support anyone is providing Iran.