You know what engenders nationalism? Attack on your way of life and the murder of someone you know by said attack.
If the enemy does the same kind of mindless killing to the civilians, then I would have different ideas.
You mean like bombing a school and killing about 150 schoolgirls?
The USA had a lot of local support and goodwill in Afghanistan, and turned it into support for the Taliban, because they kept killing civilians in their attempts to beat the Taliban with bombs, because they wanted to limit the unpopular ground troop deloyments. The chance that the same will happen in Iran is precisely 100%
Even Hamas knows western powers don’t do this on purpose - which is why they take up arms inside of civilian facilities. The Iranian people know the US doesn’t intentionally kill little girls.
Meanwhile the Iranian government quite literally has killed upwards of 30,000 people (maybe some were little girls even) and is hanging people in the public square for protesting.
Not to mention Iran intentionally targeting apartment complexes and other civilian targets throughout the region. Why are we even talking about the US accidentally blowing up a school? We should be talking about Iran and their revolting crimes instead.
My family are in the GCC, and my parents live near the coast. Iran has not once targeted a civilian infrastructure there directly, except for specific landmarks (Burj al Arab, the Palm, etc.). Whenever Iran prepares a barrage, they usually announce it on state TV, which is then picked up by local authorities or by social media channels. All the attacks that have resulted in deaths in civilian settings are due to intercepted debris falling on civilians. If Iran wanted to destroy Dubai and kill civilians, they could've easily done that by just swarming the skies with drones and exact maximum damage - but they haven't done that. It also doesn't help their case either - most civilians in the GCC are foreign expats, and the backlash against Iran from most countries like Russia, India, China and Pakistan would be severe. Iran isn't stupid, as much as you'd want to believe that.
Civilian life in the GCC is still pretty normal, except for the downturn in business and the lack of tourists during the season. People are losing jobs and Airbnbs are turning into long-term stays. But otherwise civilian life is still pedestrian - heck, my younger brother is going to the Atlantis water park tomorrow because they offered him free tickets.
Israel is obviously a different story, being directly responsible for attacking civilian targets in Iran.
You really think someone who just had to bury the mangled, burned corpse of their daughter cares whether it was intentional, or because the US military couldn't be arsed to update the data their targeting system operates on?
And it's not going to end with that one "accident". The war hasn't even really started, and the US military is led by a vaguely human-shaped lump of feces who absolutely will start ordering the intentional bombing of civilian targets and gleefully boast about it once he's starting to feel personally offended by the continued failure of "the Iranians" to submit to his will.
> Why are we even talking about the US accidentally blowing up a school?
Asking that question puts you outside the boundaries of polite conversation, so I'll end with a hearty "may you get what you deserve".
You realize that Iran provided 24h notice about attacks that were upcoming today advising people to evacuate and Israel bombs hospitals without warning, right?
You can't say for sure that you wouldn't wilfully join up if you were in that kind of information environment.
If the Fox news watching Americans can be broadly supportive of this war, you'd best believe that there's an equally large contingent of Iranians who feel an equal and opposite antipathy towards the US.
