390
Diplomatic cables show Iran war is damaging US on multiple fronts across the world
(www.politico.com)
this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2026
390 points (98.8% liked)
News
37272 readers
2318 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.
Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.
7. No duplicate posts.
If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.
All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Apart from all the obvious US policy failures, there are also the less obvious ones.
The current admin has no understanding of soft power. The US spent decades building trust in the Voice of America. Sure, it was US propaganda in some ways, but it was often much more truthful about the facts than the local government news. The people who worked at VoA cared about being reporters and wanted to tell the truth. They had bureaus around the world broadcasting in local languages, and it cost almost nothing. It was old fashioned radio, a technology that's a century old. Something that might have been useful in Iran where the Internet has been cut off for months now. So, Iran can now get their narrative out to all the other countries nearby, and the US has no way of correcting / countering the Iranian propaganda.
The US also used to know the value of diplomats. The Trump admin doesn't think expertise matters. So, the Iran deals are being conducted by the President's son in law, and a buddy of Trump's who's also a real estate developer. Unsurprisingly, they're not succeeding. Ambassadors have always been a cushy job, often given to big donors or friends. But, Trump has made it so entire embassies are effectively useless.
The kinds of damage being done in just a couple of years will last for decades. I don't know if the US will ever recover from this. Many of the problems probably won't even show up for more than 5 years. Instead of a US military base in a foreign country having a lease that's easy to renew, the next time it comes up there will be pushback or refusals.
The US dominated world sucked in a lot of ways, but at least it was stable. My guess is that the next few decades will be a lot less stable. Maybe the end result will be better. I'd love it if Europe stepped into the vacuum left by the US. They're doing a lot of good things when it comes to environmental laws, privacy, anti-monopoly, etc. If it's China that steps forward, I'm less confident it will be an improvement on the US. Other than those two, I don't really see any other country or bloc of countries that could try to do the necessary work.
Agreed
Highly debatable.
I think we're going to appreciate how stable it was soon.
You are assuming it was stable for everyone. It used to be unstable for specific groups, now its unstable for everyone. Fair is fair I guess.