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

cnn.com

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

#161

Post by pjc50 »

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…

Yes, when you ask the basic Clauzewitz question about "continuation of politics by other means": what are the war aims, and how is this action connected to them?

What are the strikes even against?

Do they seriously think that after Iran shot all the street revolutionaries, another group will come forward and collapse the government?

Are they treating Iran as Big Serbia? It's a very different situation!

Or is this just for the Posting?

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

#163

Post by wolfd »

Ekaros wrote: post #61
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…

Anti-nuclear proliferation should now be treated as crime against humanity. Nuclear proliferation is only way to ensure world peace. Every single country should get nukes and capability to use them against each others. And be fully ready to do it.

I hope you and I never get the opportunity to learn how this would end. We’ve had nukes on Earth for less than 100 years, do you expect the next few thousand to go that well? Do you think in that time, nobody will ever roll a nat 1 on a wisdom check?

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

#164

Post by kdheiwns »

waihtis wrote: post #116
TheAlchemist wrote: post #105

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.

Putin said it himself, there are over 2 million russians in Israel - they will not participate

I have to wonder how many are in governmental roles and realized they can steer the US into conflicts and ruining itself without any of those involved identifying as Russian. It's the cleanest backdoor for espionage that there ever was.

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

#165

Post by bawolff »

usrnm wrote: post #160
nomilk wrote: post #95

Are there any accurate sources on how many Iranian citizens the Iran regime has killed in the past couple of months? (some sources suggest tens of thousands, but I wonder if it could be a 'WMDs' situation [lie to get support for a war]). Trump said in the State of the Union [0]: > in just over the past couple of months with the protests they've killed at least 32000 protestors And just moments ago Trump says 'tens of…

I don't get that argument at all. Americans felt that they were missing out on all the fun, so they decided to kill even more Iranians? Does anyone really believe that bombing cities saves lives?

Whether it will in this case i don't know.

But yes, i do think sometimes war can be a net positive for civilians over the alternative in the long term. Not often, but sometimes.

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

#166

Post by rando1234 »

Devasta wrote: post #125

Iran is a lesson to all: as soon as Israel or the US take a disliking to you you have to rush for nuclear weapons. Iran has been the grown up in the room for well over a decade at this stage and it didn't matter one bit. You cannot appease Israel or the US because that don't want to be appeased, they want to bomb Iran into a lawless wasteland. They could have switched to a secular liberal democracy and it'd make no d…

Don't know why you are being down voted. I mean Iran had a democracy that was toppled by the CIA when they tried to nationalise their resources in favour of a puppet dictator. If the US cared so much about human rights why not go invade Saudi Arabia.

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

#167

Post by Etheryte »

TheAlchemist wrote: post #105

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.

Russia and Ukraine are now at war for the fifth year running, you're just used to the fact that there is ongoing war in Europe.

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

#168

Post by dgxyz »

TheAlchemist wrote: post #105

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.

I don't think it's bigger than Russia-Ukraine - it's part of it. This is all about destabilising Iran's incumbent government, which is probably a good thing at the moment. It'll damage supply lines to Russia's Ukraine offensive, give the chance for Iranian citizens to rise up against Khamenei and the IRGC and break the command chain for their foreign proxy operations. Part of Dugan's work on geopolitics, which they seem to be following to the word (c'mon guys seriously?) suggests that Moscow and Tehran should be allied which they are behind the scenes.

As for the nuclear threat, literally Iran said it was going to destroy Israel to the point it had a massive countdown clock in Tehran until Israel blew it up, so meh. If I was on the receiving end of that threat I'd make it a policy to respond to it, escalation or not. I make no claims of the accuracy of the threats past IAEA being unable to verify they aren't enriching stuff.

Doubt it'll escalate into WW3. The only other powers involved are Russia, who are totally hands tied with Ukraine if they like it or not and China is only interested keeping what's left in its sphere of influence later through their outreach initiatives. I suspect most Middle Eastern countries will be quite happy about this conflict as they have persistent problems with Iran as well from the Houthis, Hezbollah and tens of other factions. They won't want to say anything though in case their own citizens turn on them.

The cringeworthy thing is how the US gov are communicating this and that does the operation a lot of damage. It's really quite terrible. Sounds like it was written by a bunch of 9 year olds after too many sugary drinks. Urgh.

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

#169

Post by RobotToaster »

baxtr wrote: post #71
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…

> No more Iranian nuclear program? There barely was one before. How do you know?

The US department of war said last month that it was "obliterated"

>No other military in the world could have executed an operation of such scale, complexity, and consequence as Operation MIDNIGHT HAMMER. Yet the Joint Force did so flawlessly and obliterated Iran’s nuclear program.

https://media.defense.gov/2026/Jan/23/2003864773/-1/-1/0/202...

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

#170

Post by concinds »

TheAlchemist wrote: post #105

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.

No it's not. This is an air strike campaign, no boots on the ground. It'll end in two weeks. There is no chance China or Russia get involved, like last time, so "WW3" is completely non-credible.
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