Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday defended strikes on Iran’s infrastructure since the U.S. and Israel began their joint war against the country in February, saying “sometimes you have to escalate to de-escalate.”

His comments came just hours after President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that he was giving Iranian leadership 48 hours to open the Strait of Hormuz or risk U.S. military strikes that “will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!”

Bessent defended Trump’s rhetoric, saying it’s “the only language the Iranians understand.”

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[–] 22 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Your politicians are idiots. It must be quite embarrassing for you.

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  • [–] 17 points 7 months ago
    [–] 14 points 7 months ago

    "War is peace"

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago

    "It's the only language the Iranians understand".

    And apparently they speak it better than you nitwits.

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    It's incredible how inept this regime is... I think it would be hard to get stupider people in power

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago

    The bombings will continue until morale improves

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  • 27 comments in c/politics@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] 81 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    Just admit it. You have no fucking clue what you're doing.

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  • [–] 33 points 7 months ago

    Sometimes you have to shoot a fascist to get them to stop doing fascist shit.

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  • [–] 23 points 7 months ago

    That's a rapist mentality.

    This is a rapist administration.

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  • [–] 22 points 7 months ago* (4 children)

    Bessent is an idiot: he thinks Trump is really clever by using Nixon's madman strategy. What he doesn't realize is that both Trump and the Iranian clerics are genuinely mad.

    Anyhow, everybody knew Bessent is an idiot before: a married gay man rooting for Trump and his MAGA cult isn't right in the head.

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  • [–] 19 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

    While I will not defend theocracy, the people running Iran are anything but mad.

    Brutal and repressive authoritarians? Sure.

    But their strategy going back 40 years has been thoughtful and measured, which are not the qualities of people who are "mad".

    The same cannot be said for Trump, obviously.

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  • [–] 14 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 child)

    Religious people who are religious enough to forcibly turn their magical thinking into the law of the land on pain of imprisonment or death meet the definition of mad to me.

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  • [–] 12 points 7 months ago*

    You were calling them mad in the context of geopolitical strategic thought i.e. madman theory, and that's just not true.

    If you need evidence that they are thoughtful and measured, then just look at this war and how it's playing out.

    And if you need more evidence, please read all of the reporting regarding the latest rounds of negotiations that Trump sabotaged.

    Those are not the actions of mad men.

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  • [–] 17 points 7 months ago

    60 percent of the time, it works every time.

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  • [–] 9 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Sometimes you have to destroy a village to save it.

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Scott Bessent is too inherently ridiculous a human being to take seriously, and he's not helping when he says idiotic nonsense like this.

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago*

    Amen to that. Just watching him talk about fiscal policy is ridiculous enough. The guy always looks like he's in a flop sweat - he has to know he's lying like a motherfucker.

    Also: Will Ferrell should bring back that character that reminds me of Scott Bessent.

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago

    I'll use that the next time I get pulled over.

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago

    I have had folk who wouldn't de-escalate until i literally punched them in the mouth or sued their companies out of existence so like, I get it but Iran has repeatedly demonstrated the opposite.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago

    So, it's doublespeak, then?

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago

    No, you don't. That's literally the opposite of "de-escalation".

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    I'm sure Trump is feeling giddy about kicking things off.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago*

    I also conduct warfare like a broken simulated annealing algorithm.

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  • Let's start by putting his head in a guillotine and negotiate from there, shall we?

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    sure trump trumped things up but that just means we need more trump. you can't untrump things without more trumping.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    You never have to do that. You choose to do that. They have lost all control of the outcome. The assholes they are fighting now are just as unhinged as they are.

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