Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 1001 posts

Re: The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

#101

Post by pfannkuchen »

ivraatiems wrote: post #34

I was discussing this with a friend today. It just feels like there's no point to these actions. Not in the sense of "I don't ideologically agree with our decision to do this," but in the sense of, "I do not see how this accomplishes any ideological or practical goal." What are they trying for? Regime change in Iran? No more Iranian nuclear program? There barely was one before. Keeping Israel safe? It's been an open…

On Israel, is it possible that they feel their influence on US foreign policy is waning and they want to push over Iran before they can’t do it anymore, even if the propaganda in America hasn’t been sufficiently set up yet to provide cover? Where pushing Iran over is useful because having weak neighbors is good for their expansion?

Possibly wishful thinking, but that’s the only way I can make it make sense in my head.

Re: The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

#102

Post by anigbrowl »

Sam6late wrote: post #55

They have chosen the weekend not to disturb the stock markets. They may pull that off when they get inside support as the corruption of the regime has made it unpopular with business class and the middle class. Trump may achieve another 'Venezuela' short war.

I'm very skeptical that external attacks bring about a resurgence of domestic Iranian protest resulting in a tidy regime change. I think the downward lurch of BTC tells you how it's going to go, because Trump's mouth is writing checks others are going to have to cash and there's a lot of contradictions involved.

How is he guaranteeing immunity to members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard if they do nothing? Likewise, if he's telling the general Iranian public to simultaneously rise up and stay home, how does he plan to manage the hoped-for happy ending? In the event they succeed and topple the regime, are they just going to let bygones be bygones with the suddenly displaced IRGC while also giving Trump the keys to their treasury?

Re: The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

#103

Post by tempodox »

ivraatiems wrote: post #34

I was discussing this with a friend today. It just feels like there's no point to these actions. Not in the sense of "I don't ideologically agree with our decision to do this," but in the sense of, "I do not see how this accomplishes any ideological or practical goal." What are they trying for? Regime change in Iran? No more Iranian nuclear program? There barely was one before. Keeping Israel safe? It's been an open…

You don’t unseat the Fraudster in Chief while at war. So starting a war is a slightly less conspicuous trick than outright preventing relevant elections from taking place.

Re: The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

#104

Post by lucketone »

ParentiSoundSys wrote: post #60
ivraatiems wrote: post #34

I was discussing this with a friend today. It just feels like there's no point to these actions. Not in the sense of "I don't ideologically agree with our decision to do this," but in the sense of, "I do not see how this accomplishes any ideological or practical goal." What are they trying for? Regime change in Iran? No more Iranian nuclear program? There barely was one before. Keeping Israel safe? It's been an open…

It's a nakedly imperial gambit, the Western ruling classes are attempting to deny Middle Eastern oil to Russia and China. Iran is their only capable opposition in the region, every other Gulf country is a bought-and-paid-for satrapy which just cosigned a genocide on its doorstep.

Oil to Russia? Please review that

Re: The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

#105

Post by TheAlchemist »

Regardless of how it ends, and it can go both ways, we're witnessing history here. This feels like a much bigger development than Russia-Ukraine. Iran is a major partner for Russia and China, mostly for military technology and oil. Hope it's not a start of WW3.

Re: The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

#106

Post by replooda »

seydor wrote: post #67
athrowaway3z wrote: post #41

I have to wonder how much of this is driven by Israel accounting for the risk of less favorable US relationship in the future. Pre-emptive violence; not even justified with a narrative of escalating threat. Bleak for anybody who knows their history.

The US has moved half of its navy in the region, and there are doubts about its support?

"Let's do it now, when they'd still move half their navy there for us, rather than in the future, when they might not."

Re: The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

#107

Post by dragonwriter »

seydor wrote: post #67
athrowaway3z wrote: post #41

I have to wonder how much of this is driven by Israel accounting for the risk of less favorable US relationship in the future. Pre-emptive violence; not even justified with a narrative of escalating threat. Bleak for anybody who knows their history.

The US has moved half of its navy in the region, and there are doubts about its support?

“In the future” is not “now”.

Neither the current administration nor Israel are particularly popular with the US public today, and those are correlated in that Israel has particularly lost support from Democrats and Independents in the US, suggesting that a change in power (legislative or executive, and especially both) in the US government could very easily spell much less favorable US policy toward Israel.

Re: The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

#108

Post by beeflet »

_zagj wrote: post #94

Can any Iran simps explain why the regime couldn't just agree to zero enrichment and cease its weekly ritual of organized mobs chanting: > DEATH TO AMERICA in the streets like blood-thirsty lunatics, something for which there was no equivalent in the US even after 9/11 (mobs chanting "Death to Muslims/Islam"), let alone doing so with governmental encouragement as happens in Iran? Do they not realize how many American…

I think iran wants nuclear weapons to ensure its survival against israel

Re: The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

#109

Post by CapricornNoble »

HappyPanacea wrote: post #76
optimalsolver wrote: post #39

My previous comment: The most salient lesson of the post-Cold War era: Get nukes or die trying. A nation's relationship to other states, up to and especially including superpowers, is completely different once it's in the nuclear club. Pakistan can host bin Laden for years and still enjoy US military funding. North Korea can literally fire missiles over South Korea and Japan and get a strongly-worded letter of condem…

If nukes are so good why Israel isn't safe? Or in other words you overestimate how useful nukes are. On contrary for Iran them having nukes mean Israel have to guess if coming missiles contain nukes or not and whatever to strike back with their own nukes where as now they can freely sand missiles without escalation concerns.

>If nukes are so good why Israel isn't safe?

Israeli nukes are the main reason we haven't had regime change in Tel Aviv at the hands of a Turkish/Egyptian/Saudi/Iranian coalition. Israeli nukes are why Iran has had to settle into a pattern of slow, distant, annoyance via proxy forces (which lack a capability for existentially challenging the IDF).

Post reply on HN