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Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

bbc.com

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Re: Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

#271

Post by srean »

bigfatkitten wrote: post #258
hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Because no one in Europe wants to bomb Iran into oblivion, if for no other reason but the fact that the Europeans (and Turkey) would face another massive refugee crisis. The only people wanting to continue this war are the U.S. and Israel (and maybe Saudi Arabia?) and even Trump is clearly looking for an off ramp. This is most likely a way for Iran to tell Europe to do what they can to end this otherwise…

> and maybe Saudi Arabia? The war is extremely bad for business for Saudi Arabia and has already cost them enormous amounts of money. It is causing damage to their oil refineries that will take years to repair. The only person who gains anything out of this is Netanyahu and his friends. Everyone else loses, including the Israeli people.

That is so because of Iran's choice of targets. SA might have misjudged that their business assets would be attacked.

There is some chatter that crown prince supported and approved the assassination of Khamenei and possibly supplies supportive intelligence.

They haven't been exactly friendly with Iran.

The odd ball is Qatar. Qatar had been working hard to have friendly relations with Iran. So I was surprised by Iran's attack on Qatari interests.

Re: Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

#272

Post by breppp »

logicchains wrote: post #210
rayiner wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The downplaying of Iran’s capabilities is a weird kind of racism IMHO. In the modern view, Iranians have been categorized as “brown” so people lump them together with Somalians and Afghans. But Iran is a technologically and politically sophisticated country. In terms of the Civ tech tree, it’s higher than any middle eastern country except Israel.

>Iranians have been categorized as “brown” so people lump them together with Somalians and Afghans. Even from a racist perspective that's completely wrong; Iranians are white, the name "Iran" literally means "Land of the Aryans".

> Iranians are white, the name "Iran" literally means "Land of the Aryans".

The Indians were also Aryan according to race theories. I wouldn't put much sense into racism

Re: Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

#273

Post by alephnerd »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #230
einszwei wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment made me realise that while Iran has attacked a dozen countries, they have yet to attack a school or a hospital. Not condoning anyone but shows the priority of both sides.

> they have yet to attack a school or a hospital Most of their ordinance has been intercepted. And a good fraction was unguided enough that it would have hit a school or hospital.

> hit a school

Already has in Azerbaijan [0] and attempted in Israel [1].

Most reporting is hyper-regional and somewhat kept under wraps (eg. Qatar and UAE are actively prosecuting leakers who are using Reddit, and have even taken control of Qatar's subreddit [2]) or reported on in regional languages.

I've found the information control in this conflict to be much more strategic/professional in comparison to what was is seen in Ukraine and Russia.

[0] - https://www.euronews.com/2026/03/06/aliyev-vows-attacks-on-a...

[1] - https://www.jns.org/news/israel-news/iranian-cluster-bomb-hi...

[2] - https://www.reddit.com/r/qatar/comments/1rt2fth/timeout/

Re: Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

#274

Post by JumpCrisscross »

bdangubic wrote: post #267
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their regime is not stupid It’s pretty fucking stupid. Convening the top brass above ground, failing to scatter the navy, bombing Azerbaijan and Qatar and Oman. I’m not saying the individual actors are dumb. But the result of the competing centers of power between the IRGC, military proper, clerical establishment and god knows who else produces a stupid strategy.

what would be a non-stupid strategy?

Broadly, taking American and Israeli threats seriously. And not overestimating how easily their neighbors would capitulate if bombed.

Tactically, this would mean not concentrating senior leadership above ground. Scattering their navies out of port. Targeting U.S. military bases and not the civilian infrastructure around them.

Re: Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

#276

Post by JumpCrisscross »

hirako2000 wrote: post #255
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we have leaders who actively believed the downplaying of Irans military capabilities Iran has done precisely nothing unexpected in the entire course of this war. Closing Hormuz has been mooted since the 70s. And its IRBM stockpile has been known. This is more a case of something between political leaders and possibly the media being ignorant of even open-source intelligence.

I thought the US president said they didn't expect a number of things that happened. It also expected a quick intervention, 2 weeks max.

> the US president…

The President is a political leader.

Re: Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

#277

Post by wongarsu »

nozzlegear wrote: post #224
spaghetdefects wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's incorrect: https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/02/middleeast/us-b2-bombers-dieg...

I don't think the article you linked disagrees with what I've quoted from the BBC, does it? Aircraft being present at the airbase isn't the same as aircraft launching for an attack from the airbase.

True on technicalities. If it isn't useful to the operation of the bombers in the region, why did it happen? And if it is useful that sounds like a UK base participating in the war

Re: Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

#278

Post by roughly »

picture wrote: post #89
roughly wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran did the same before the conflict in response to prior Israeli attacks - the two drone waves they sent that were intercepted were both demonstrations of capability, not actual attacks. Unfortunately I’m not sure their current audience is gonna pick up the implied threat.

How do you know their intentions? It's also a bit unreasonable to launch live munitions that have some 90% probability of being intercepted by a given system on a good day, while intending for "just a warning"

> How do you know their intentions?

Because they declared them loudly.

When they launched the drone strikes on Israel, they gave Israel and the US warning time so they could be intercepted. The second time, they gave them much less warning time.

The Iranians have a long history of negotiating loudly via their actions, which anyone who's spent any reasonable amount of time studying Iran knows and has seen in action. They're really not a mystery, they're very transparent, we just don't like what they're saying.

Re: Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

#279

Post by srean »

magic_hamster wrote: post #203
ignoramous wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Time will tell what USIS and EU will do to combat this. Diplomacy was working fine, per high-ranking diplomats: https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2026/03/18/americas-...

Anyone thinking they can talk their way into controlling Iran, a fundamentalist fanatic country with a very loud and visible doctrine literally calling to destroy the west, is delusional. The western "avoid conflict at all cost" approach is extremely detrimental.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47469696

Re: Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

#280

Post by srean »

magic_hamster wrote: post #264
wolvoleo wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they had any reason to destroy us until trump decided to kick the hornet's nest. In fact they were quite reasonable and agreed to inspections of their nuclear programme which is also something Trump broke before, and now with his petty war. I mean they hate Israel way more than us and they never attacked them either (until this war obviously). And regime change was already happening there slowly. They w…

You are just uninformed. Iran has sponsored, built and trained organizations all over the middle east so they could destroy Israel: Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and groups in Iraq are all proxies propped up by Iran. Iran was the first to attack Israel, this happened in 2024 when Israel killed Nasrallah (Hezbollah) and Iran fired hundreds of ballistic missiles directly at Israel. Iran hates the US…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47469696
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