When the civil war was ongoing, and the rebels had a good chance, the West did not help them enough. Russia went in, Iran went in, and now we have Syria still with its appalling Government, plus strong Russian and Iranian influence.
Ukraine is at war, the West helps but holds back in various ways and is slow, Russia is forging ties with Iran and North Korea, and those ties are going to cause problems.
In the wings also we have the Chinese Government, now a fundamental player in the Russian war effort, who I think are keeping the war going in their own interest as part of their wish to seize Taiwan by force.
The longer the war goes on, the more contagion happens.
The West needs to step up and actually force Russia out of Ukraine, and that means direct military intervention. The longer we wait, the more trouble we are going to be in.
It's not a great situation to be in, but we have to look to ourselves for that; if Ukraine had been in NATO, I can't imagine Russia would have invaded, and the world would be a much safer and happier place.
Pakistan has had nukes for decades now, and would wipe India off the face of the map if they could. Ask yourself why they don't, and vice versa, and look at the middle east. I don't relish Iran having nukes but it would be a mistake to assume the winning move now is first strike while we can. A reality of my childhood was MAD and we have been complacent about it for far too long. Welcome back to the 1950s and 1960s.
Quite why Iran helps a nation state which willingly slaughters their co-religionists is beyond me.
Having atomic weapons is basically a cheatcode for infinite lives. Back then it was a normal concern for a country to be entirely eliminated, idk. Prussia, but once you have atomic weapons, suddenly nobody can wipe you out of the map.
