That has been the bargain since WWII though. Pax Americana meant the US owned and enforced a global order, in return international trade and finance ran on its platform. Most Americans can't fathom how bad the alternative is to not being the world police.
The US have a good share of responsibility for what's going on in Iran, first by overthrowing the democratic government of Mossadegh, then by imposing crippling sanctions (reneging on a previous agreement) that brought the population to this level of desperation.
The US doesn't make foreign policy decisions altruistically. If we are involved somewhere, it's solely because it's to our benefit. The idea that we enforce order is childish; we do nothing that doesn't enforce our own international supremacy.
If we want to have the almost 800 military bases stationed in about 80 countries around the world, then there are some responsibilities that come with that.
Yes we are. You may not like it, you may not want to pay for it. You may even have voted to not be. But we have been in the past so the US will be judged for not picking up the mantle this time.
It's not a "grammatical technicality" to misuse a word. Iran is not carrying out a genocide.
>It's your mess, now clean it up.
The US is under no obligation to the people of Iran whatsoever. If we take action in Iran, it will be solely to our benefit, and it may or may not improve those peoples' lives. In all likelihood, it will be another Libya or Afghanistan situation in which we take what we want and leave a power vacuum in our wake.
> It's not a "grammatical technicality" to misuse a word. Iran is not carrying out a genocide.
10,000 dead in 2 days.
> The US is under no obligation to the people of Iran whatsoever
Nobody can make you do anything, but the moral obligation is there. People say things like "we're not the world police", as if overthrowing the elected government of a country is nothing. It cuts both ways.
Again, "genocide" doesn't have to do with the scale of the killing. It's a specific word with its own meaning.
>Nobody can make you do anything, but the moral obligation is there. People say things like "we're not the world police", as if overthrowing the elected government of a country is nothing. It cuts both ways.
Governments don't have "morals". They do whatever is most expedient. We have never done something because it's the moral thing to do, and we never will. That's just not how hegemonic powers like the US work.
"Genocidal" is not an order of magnitude; it's a description of purpose. What's going on in Iran is an atrocity, but it's not "genocidal."
>History will judge us for negotiating
We're not the world police.