It's not 2,500 years of history that Trump is fighting: it is the last 47 years, when the Islamic thugs, with the acquiesce of the pathetic President Carter, overthrew the Shah.

“This is not to suggest that the Islamic-led government is benevolent and deserves every consideration..”.

That's the biggest understatement in history. The lunatic regime is interested in jihad, not peace or negotiations.

Bombing Iran “back to the Stone Age” might just be Trump bombast, but it might be the only answer.

Trump must “halt hostilities”. What a joke. The author is on the same gormless level as wacky Wong and her de-escalation. Total military defeat is the only answer.

"The government has committed egregious human rights violations, systematically repressing its population. It has killed thousands during recent protests, carried out widespread arbitrary arrests, and imposed severe restrictions on women's rights."

- I think it's dishonest to state this without putting it in its true context.

Firstly, target countries of regime change are forced by these actions against them to become more repressive, and you can't mention those protests honestly and without bias unless you state that Israel and the U.S. engineered the currency collapse that lead to the protests, that they helped ferment civil unrest and support for the Shah, that they co-opted protests using their on intelligence assets on the ground, provided weapons and starlink communications, and engaged in violence and destruction to try to engineer a regime change by the U.S. and Israel,

When you have foreign agents armed and co-ordinating shooting police, beheading police, setting government buildings and people on fire, and the intent is regime change there can be only one response.

Either the government act to stop it or it falls and all of them are the ones killed like Saddam with a bayonet up his ass.
The U.S. and Israel engineered this, and are to blame for it.

And when Trump comes out and says 'If Iran kills anymore protesters I'm going to intervene', then of course the Israeli Mossad assets on the ground in Iran just start killing Iranian protesters randomly at close rage to boost the numbers the 'Iranian regime' can be blamed for later and force stupid Trump to intervene, derrr.

And then they have the same Western NGO's run out of Virginia claiming to be 'Human Rights in Iran' which are just CIA fronts run by National Endowment for Democracy and funded by USAID coming out with hugely inflated numbers of 'peaceful protesters killed by the repressive Iranian regime',
- when really it was a U.S. and Israeli planned, funded and armed violent insurrection to topple the government.

So for starters Alon, be honest about that.
Should I continue?

You mentioned Ukraine 'gave up IT'S nukes'.

Google? 'were ussr nukes ever in ukrainian control'

AI Overview
>>Yes, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, Ukraine technically POSSESSED the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal on its territory, which it controlled physically BUT NOT operationally.
While thousands of nuclear warheads were stationed in Ukraine, the command, control, and authorization codes necessary to launch them remained with the Russian Federation.<<

Context matters.
They were never Ukrainian nukes and their use remained under Russia's control.

It's good you mentioned the JCPOA.

Because any NORMAL person paying attention might ask:

'Why is Trump whinging about Iran nuclear program when he was the one that tore up the previous deal?'
- What was his EXACT ISSUE with the deal he tore up?
- Did both he and that idiot Netanyahu cause all this as usual?

Google? Why did netanyahu oppose the JCPOA

AI Overview
>>Benjamin Netanyahu opposed the 2015 JCPOA (Iran nuclear deal) because he believed it did not permanently prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, arguing that sunset clauses allowed Iran to become a nuclear threshold state. He termed it a "historic mistake" that provided a "cash bonanza" to fund regional aggression, argued it did not address missile programs or terror proxy support, and claimed Iran was "cheating" from the start.<<

* They didn't want Iran getting it's own money back.

But then... later...

Why Israel (Sort of) Misses the Iran Deal
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/why-israel-sort-misses-iran-deal

"Given the nuclear program’s advancement under the U.S. maximum pressure policy, a raft of Israeli officials now say the JCPOA was better than nothing—but rejoining it will be difficult."

* By backing out of the JCPOA and re-imposing sanctions, (While the EU expected Iran to continue to abide by it) Trump himself forced Iran to enrich again, and Iran needed a bargaining chip to try to remove the sanctions.

[From previous article]

>>In March 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Washington in a bid to rally support against a nuclear agreement with Iran that was being negotiated by then-President Barack Obama. In a notorious address to a joint session of Congress, the Israeli leader warned darkly of a repeat Holocaust facilitated by this “very bad deal” that “will not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons...it would all but guarantee that Iran gets those weapons.”

Netanyahu failed to stop the deal from being signed four months later, but ultimately got his wish when President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the deal came to be known, in May 2018. Netanyahu hailed it as a “historic move” that required “courageous leadership,” later taking credit in private conversations for Trump’s decision: “We convinced the U.S. president [to exit the deal] and I had to stand up against the whole world and come out against this agreement.”

Three years later, Iran’s nuclear program is by all estimates at its most advanced stage ever, and a growing chorus of former Israeli officials have decried Netanyahu’s (and Trump’s) strategy as nothing short of calamitous: jettisoning a nonproliferation agreement that, however flawed, was working, in favor of a coercive strategy against Iran that on every parameter has failed to achieve the results confidently predicted by those who cheered on Trump.

The last to see this, however, seems to be the new Israeli government that deposed Netanyahu last summer and that appears to be repeating the same talking points put forward in 2015. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has again come out against U.S. efforts to reengage Iran and return it to compliance under the terms of the JCPOA.

“Iran deserves no rewards, no bargain deals and no sanctions relief in return for their brutality,” Bennett said on Nov. 29. “I call upon our allies around the world: Do not give in to Iran’s nuclear blackmail.”<<

'We don't want the deal!'
'Bring back the deal!'

"the Israeli leader warned darkly of a repeat Holocaust"
He just omitted to state that it is the one being carried out by israel on the Palestinians.