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

51–60 of 1001 posts

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

#51

Post by ivraatiems »

renewiltord wrote: post #44
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…

Well, they're probably killing thousands of their people there. This country was once aligned with us. We may yet have an ally there.

If we attacked every country in the world killing thousands of its own people we'd be at war with half the world right now.

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

#53

Post by breppp »

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…

The point is preventing another North Korea style nuclear blackmail state.

Iran has negotiated like no one will ever attack it, and that was a correct assumption for decades

However, due to Iran's overly aggressive use of questionably rational proxies, Hamas has dragged it into a regional conflict where it lost most of its proxies power.

After the last war, it also is no longer a threshold state, so the only leverage they had left was ballistic missiles, which were also handled quite reasonably by Israeli air defense.

In this situation it is a fair request by the US to sign a nuclear deal that heavily restricts Iran's ability to enrich as well as ICBM, trigger with existing uranium stockpiles removed.

As Iran due to ideological reasons refused, and IMO had miscalculated this will be a win-win, as losing will quell the protests, the only thing really left is the metaphorical stick

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

#55

Post by Sam6late »

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.

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

#56

Post by kdheiwns »

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 gets his base fired up and excited.

Some people here might not be American or were too young to remember the lead up to the Iraq War, but it was transparently bullshit. Many people knew this. But if you dared say that, supporters would actively ruin your life. The Dixie Chicks were one of the most popular music acts in the US at the time, a country band that broke out of country and was getting huge appeal across the US. They dared to say they opposed the war. Their careers never returned.

Now with social media that isn't completely locked down, some voice of opposition can slip through and assure people that, yes, this is crazy. No, we don't need to blow the shit out of towns across the world. But these social media sites are all owned by government-aligned mega billionaires. They're rolling out AI that can comment and act very, very human and endorse everything the government does. They can auto-police opinions and spit out thousands of arguments and messages of harassment against them in seconds. Soon they'll be autoblocking any sense of disagreement.

It's at that point they can say that this is done to defend America. This is done to defend freedom. This desert country that's too screwed up to even manage its own internal affairs is somehow so dangerous that it's going to destroy the whole world with nukes it doesn't even have so we must destroy them all now. Dear leader always has your interests at heart. And you'll have no info to point to saying otherwise. Everyone who dares question it will be mocked, ridiculed, fired. Even if this administration fails, the tools are being built and laid out for the next, and I really don't know how humanity will overcome it. And I hate that I can't have optimism in this situation.

This discussion is one where it's worth looking at commenters' histories. Many have several pages where the bulk of their posts are defending Israel, saying war with Iran is necessary, and various related things. It's kind of spooky

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

#57

Post by e40 »

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.

And it happened on a Friday night. Best time of the week for the least news impact.

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

#58

Post by flyinglizard »

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…

Anyone raising their weapon against Israel in the last 20 years was armed, supplied, funded, trained and directed by Iran. There’s a special division called Quds in the IRGC responsible just for that. The list includes Hizbollah, Assad’s former regime in Syria, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Houthis, Hizbollah in Iraq and others.

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

#59

Post by ivraatiems »

breppp wrote: post #53
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…

The point is preventing another North Korea style nuclear blackmail state. Iran has negotiated like no one will ever attack it, and that was a correct assumption for decades However, due to Iran's overly aggressive use of questionably rational proxies, Hamas has dragged it into a regional conflict where it lost most of its proxies power. After the last war, it also is no longer a threshold state, so the only leverage…

> In this situation it is a fair request by the US to sign a nuclear deal that heavily restricts Iran's ability to enrich, and as Iran due to ideological reasons refused, and IMO miscalculated this will be a win-win, as losing will quell the protests, the only thing really left is the metaphorical stick

Didn't we have one of those a few years ago? I wonder what happened to it /s

Seriously, though: how can Iran both be so powerful we must avoid it becoming a blackmail state, and so weak and feckless it's not a threat to anyone?

And didn't we already attack them to stop them from getting nuclear capabilities?

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

#60

Post by ParentiSoundSys »

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.
Post reply on HN