Netanyahu wants USA nuclear weapons used against Iran.

[Jedi Guy]

16. "... hard to argue we are not teetering on WWIII..."

That assertion is just a teensy bit hyperbolic, in my opinion. I think it's pretty easy to argue that we're not teetering on the verge of WWIII.

Iran isn't comparable to any of the Axis countries in any meaningful sense. They don't have the military power of Germany, Italy, or Japan. They don't have the backing of any other nations (Hezbollah and the Houthis don't count) who are willing to rush to their aid and dive into the fray to help them. No other nation has even talked about sanctions against the US or Israel, as far as I know.

Iran is fairly friendly with Russia, China, and to a lesser extent North Korea. None of them are about to stick their necks out for the Iranians, though. Russia is bogged down in Ukraine; China doesn't give a shit about Iran and if they're going to come to blows with the US it'll be over Taiwan, not Iran; the Norks have trouble feeding their own people from one year to the next. None of the three can project force into the theater of operations anyway. At best they can supply Iran with drones and munitions but that's about the extent of it.

Apart from the aforementioned Hezbollah and Houthis, no one else in the region even likes Iran. The Sunni-Shia divide runs deep. Iran has been kind of a shitty neighbor so none of the other countries in the region want to see them realize their ambitions. They're more than content to provide indirect support and watch the US pound on Iran.

It's a regional war with wide-ranging economic effects due to the quirk of geography that is the Strait of Hormuz. That's all it is. The prelude to World War III, not so much.