Attributes that distinguish WW3 from previous world wars were IIRC: Contained conflagration, short targeted exchanges, probability of contamination low, material possibility of nuclear escalation. Case in point: North Korea developed nukes without being invaded, and now that they have nukes, other countries are watching and seeing that NK won't be invaded. What lesson do those other countries draw? And what of a world in which many potential belligerents hold nukes? Hiroshima weeps.
I'd like to add an important attribute here: The revolution will be live-streamed, more-or-less. And essentially none of us will know the truth, even the reasons. I predict this fact will not distress many people, such is the state of humanity.
So to the 7 or so decades of stability we and our ancestors enjoyed, here's looking at you, going down me. But Brettonwoods serves the present the least of any time since its creation. Case in point, w.r.t. eastern Africa, the geopolitical bounds of those ~4 countries seems likely meld to a degree. If we are indeed heading into WW3, I expect the world map to be redrawn afterwards, and the only lessons learned is how to win better in future.
And if we are, while disgruntled old geriatrics go at each others throats via their youthful proxies, I greatly prefer the nukes rust in peace.
Reminds me of Blaise Pascal's quote: 'All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room.' Aspiration, you gotta take care man, it just might kill ya.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/feb/27/pakistan-...
What a headline. Anybody else have this on their election day bingo card?
Midterms should be a blood bath though, right? Right? (insert Anakin meme).
1. https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/trump-rolls-the-dice-o...
I have been reading on the topic of shunyata or emptiness in Mahayana Buddhism, and have been uncomfortably observing just how much of the artifacts we take to be real and substantial in the world are just "made up". They don't have an inherent reality of their own except what we attribute to them. And yet, made up stories can have very real consequences in terms human suffering.
It ought to be possible to cut through the layers of reifications and simply defuse much of the strife in the world. And yet, we continue to inflict misery on each other unnecessarily.
I lots of relatively new accounts coming with what seems to me extreme, but altogether pop-culture acceptable opinions
How exactly attacking Iran make their country great? Murdered million children in Iraq and now they started their terrorism in Iran.
It would benefit the entire world to see Iran integrated and engaged internationally.
Calling for the people to rise up. You can't bomb your way into regime change. Are we supplying arms to groups?
Is there a plan beyond pointless death and regional chaos the president would like to share?
Congrats America!
>White House officials believe ‘the politics are a lot better’ if Israel strikes Iran first
>As the administration mulls military action in Iran, officials argue it’d be best if Israel makes the first move.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/25/white-house-politic...
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 secret for years that Iran is not a real threat to Israel, because any action it took against Israel would be existential for Iran and its leadership.
A US president who vocally and repeatedly promised he would not start new conflicts keeps starting them, and there's not even a reason. It's infuriating. I have my partisan opinions, but that should not be a partisan statement! It's just disturbing!
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/iran-nears-deal-buy-supe...
Also, the US News media silence on this is noteworthy.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=reuters+cm-302+missile&ia=w...
"In order to get elected Barack Obama will start a war with Iran"
—Donald Trump, Nov 29, 2011
"Barack Obama will attack Iran to get re-elected."
—Trump, Jan 17, 2012
"Now that Obama's poll numbers are in tailspin watch for him to launch a strike on Libya or Iran. He is desperate."
—Trump, Oct 9, 2012
Israel did not mass bomb civilians, and Iranian agents did not commit sabotage against infrastructure on US soil.
I hope this pattern persists.
A hand full of determined Ukrainians managed to blow up North Stream, some people plunged part of Berlin into darkness for 2 weeks.
Power and data cables as well as pipelines are as vulnerable in the US, as they are here. Maybe even more so.
A regime that truly feared for its existence, might decide to escalate, since there is nothing to loose.
What even is the plan here if the air assault fails? Boots on the ground? In Iran?
Nor do I even know how to begin to grasp the enablement displayed by Europe as a whole. People constantly cite China’s “human rights abuses” (which seem to pale in comparison to all this) and rightly so, but continue to enable this blood thirsty and power hungry tag team to indulge in flagrant abuses of international law and general morality.
This is a sad day for level headed and empathetic humans across the globe. At which point do we accept that WW3 began quite a while ago? Because it sure as shit did.
Edit: fully expect this to be downvoted to oblivion but it’s my truth.
It hurts my heart to see Americans destroying them (and the thousands of lifes).
And Iran? Every single time it’s just performance art. I’m already sick of watching it.
Besides, Iran has been heavily sanctioned and blocked by the U.S. and Israel for so many years that its impact on the global economy is basically zero. So what the hell is there to dump over?
Oil prices? Venezuela’s situation has already been dealt with. The U.S. can produce its own oil, Canada still has plenty of oil, and Russia is still selling at bargain-bin prices. Iran and the surrounding major oil-producing countries are barely even moving in sync, and there’s basically no real incentive for anything major to happen to oil. So why the hell would the market drop?
As for all this fearmongering, I’d say go harder. Seriously, make it as apocalyptic as possible, so my gold can moon, I can pick up cheap Taiwan stocks, and short crypto, so I can completely clean out all the people panicking in fear.
Pre-emptive violence; not even justified with a narrative of escalating threat.
Bleak for anybody who knows their history.
I don't think any of these were short.
Including for the U.S. and Israel?
"tout le malheur des hommes vient d’une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre." -- "All the woe of man comes from one single thing only: not knowing how to remain at rest, in a room"
In the same text, he follows with:
"Le roi est environné de gens qui ne pensent qu’à divertir le roi, et à l’empêcher de penser à lui. Car il est malheureux, tout roi qu’il est, s’il y pense."
"The king is surrounded by people who think only of amusing the king and preventing him from thinking about himself. For he is unhappy, though he be king, if he thinks about it."
No way this many rich powerful people would go down without destroying at least half of the world.
You're missing the commonalities, what defined world wars: the full might of industrial economies being dedicated to military campaigns.
World War II's theatres' were incoherent–the Axis interests in e.g. China and the Pacific had basically zero stragegic overlap with Europe and North Africa. (The only parties having to consider a unified theatre being the USSR and USA.) But the entire economic surplus of Europe, Asia and North America was basically dedicated to (or extracted towards) making things that were reasonably expected to be destroyed within the year.
I'm less concerned about nuclear escalation than about biological escalation.
It's quite hard to destroy the human world with nukes: you can only blow up big chunks of it, maybe take out enough power plants and supply chains to drop us into a multi-decade or multi-century dark age, or maybe cause a nuclear winter, although the actual risk of that is unclear.
Whereas a year into a major war a kid in his/her basement can release something that is functionally the end of the human species.
We currently have no real safeguards against this. If we ever have descendants, they'll think we were insane during this time period and they'll be right.
old men's*
Ah but this is where modern technology comes in! Social media, Tiktoks, video games, porn...
I'm not supportive of these strikes. Iranians created this government, and if they want to topple it they'll have to be the ones to do it, without foreign intervention.
(Wrong) Knife fight: a fight between people about knives
(Right) Knife fight: a fight between people using knives
The United States and Israel launched a major joint attack on Iran on Saturday, which US President Donald Trump said would lay waste to the country’s military, destroy its missile program, and had the bigger goal of regime change.
In a video on Truth Social, Trump accused Iran of rejecting “every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions,” and said the US “can’t take it anymore.”
Unlike the last time the US and Israel struck Iran, in June, these strikes began in daylight on Saturday morning – the first day of the week in Iran – as millions went to work or school. And whereas the US strikes in June were over within a few hours, sources have told CNN that the US military is this time planning for several days of attacks, suggesting broader objectives.
In response, the Iranian regime has launched an unprecedented wave of strikes across the Middle East, targeting several countries that host US military bases. Blasts have been heard from the beaches of Dubai to the streets of Doha, in what could be the opening salvos of a war that threatens to engulf the region.
The extent of the damage in Iran and across the region is still emerging. Here’s what we know so far.
The Iranian government has been under severe pressure since the turn of the year. Already weakened by last summer’s war with Israel, which the US briefly joined, the regime has been battling a severe economic crisis which sparked nationwide protests in January.
After a crackdown left thousands of protesters dead, Trump promised to come to their aid. He warned the US was “locked and loaded” to attack and began moving huge amounts of materiel to the region.
Despite the military buildup, the US also resumed efforts to reach a new nuclear deal with Iran. The last round of talks ended in Switzerland on Thursday, with Iran agreeing “never” to stockpile enriched uranium. The Omani foreign minister, who has acted as a mediator in the talks, said there had been “significant” progress.

That progress, however, was not enough to prevent the US from taking military action. In his 2.30 a.m. address, Trump said the main objective of the strikes – which the Department of Defense is calling “Operation Epic Fury” – is “to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.”
Those threats, he said, included Iran’s nuclear program – which the White House claimed to have “totally” obliterated with its strikes in June.
“It has always been the policy of the United States, in particular my administration, that this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said, without providing evidence that Iran was any closer to obtaining a nuclear weapon. “They rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore.”
The president also repeated his recent claims that Iran is building ballistic missiles which could reach the US mainland. In his State of the Union address Tuesday, Trump said Iran has “already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they’re working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.”
But these claims are not backed up by US intelligence, CNN has previously reported. An unclassified assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) from 2025 said that Iran could develop a “militarily-viable” intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) by 2035 “should Tehran decide to pursue the capability.”
According to two sources, the claim that Iran will soon have a missile capable of hitting the US is not backed up by intelligence. There is no intelligence to suggest that Iran is pursuing an ICBM program to hit the US at this time, the sources said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long viewed Iran as Israel’s most dangerous adversary. After crippling Iran’s proxies – Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon – Israel last summer launched a war against Iran itself.
Although Israel halted the conflict after the US struck Iran’s nuclear sites, analysts had long suspected that Netanyahu would take an opportunity to resume attacks on Iran. With elections due in October, Netanyahu may also see the return to war as a chance to shore up his standing domestically.
In a video statement Saturday, explaining why Israel was resuming its strikes on Iran, Netanyahu also repeated his claim that the Islamic regime must not be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon.
In their statements, both Trump and Netanyahu were clear about their hopes for regime change in Iran.
Trump addressed the Iranian people directly, telling them that “the hour of your freedom is at hand.”
“When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be, probably, your only chance for generations,” he said.
Netanyahu also called on “all parts of the Iranian people” to “cast off the yoke of tyranny and bring about a free and peaceful Iran.” He said the US and Israeli actions “will create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their destiny into their own hands.”
An Israeli military official has, however, emphasized that the main focus of the operation remains on military targets.
Explosions were heard in Tehran’s Pasteur district, where the highly secure compound housing the residence and office of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is located, Iranian state-affiliated news outlets said. Several other cities were hit.
Two Israeli sources told CNN that the strikes targeted senior figures, including Khamenei, President Masoud Pezeshkian, and the armed forces’ chief of staff Abdolrahim Mousavi.
Images from after the strikes showed severe damage and a plume of black smoke at Khamenei’s compound.
Iranian state media said top officials were safe, including Pezeshkian, but the targets suggest that Israel is seeking to decapitate the Iranian leadership.
The attacks killed at least 200 people and left more than 700 wounded across Iran, state media reported.
Among those killed are 85 people who died following a strike on a girls’ school in southern Iran, according to state news agency IRNA, which cited the prosecutor of Minab city, where the school was located.
Israel is preparing for several days of strikes against Iran and “even more if needed,” an Israeli source told CNN.
Iran has retaliated with an unprecedented wave of strikes across the Middle East, targeting several nearby countries that host US military bases, as well as Israel.
When the US and Israel last struck Iran in June, they targeted its stockpile of ballistic missiles, hampering its ability to retaliate. Iran could be trying to make use of its arsenal while it still has it.
Blasts have been reported in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain, as well as in Iran’s key regional rival, Saudi Arabia, which vowed to take “all necessary measures” to defend itself.
A drone strike caused damage and minor injuries at Kuwait International Airport.
Qatar and Jordan intercepted missiles targeting their countries. One person was reportedly killed by falling debris after air defenses intercepted missiles targeting sites in Abu Dhabi.
An Iranian Shahed drone struck a heavily populated part of Dubai, causing a large explosion and fire.
The clashes disrupted traffic in the Strait of Hormuz – a crucial shipping route located between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
The US hasn’t suffered any combat-related casualties in its operation against Iran and damage to US military installations has been minimal, US Central Command said in a statement.
Iranian officials have condemned the US-Israeli strikes as an act of aggression.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, described the attack as unprovoked and illegal.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told CNN that Iran views the attack as an “egregious act of aggression without any reason.”
Baghaei accused the Trump administration of being “dragged” into a conflict in which “the only beneficiary” would be Israel.
The spokesperson also defended Iran’s retaliatory strikes throughout the region as part of their “inherent, legitimate right of self-defense.”
Iran “didn’t welcome this war — it was imposed on us,” Baghaei said.
CNN’s Kareem El Damanhoury, Christian Sierra, Max Saltman, Catherine Nicholls, Frederik Pleitgen, Dana Karni, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Adam Pourahmadi and Lauren Kent contributed to this report.
Hannibal was in his 20s when he lead the Carthagian campaign against Rome.
Napoleon began at 26 and had conquered half of Europe at 35.
War being a business of old men sending young men to die is a modern thing.
With Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran, the US is bottling up Russian and Chinese global influence into smaller regional influence.
That would be ideal but unfortunately not likely. Nobody will like this comment but US ships are sitting ducks. They have minimal ammo per the pentagon and no oilers. No oilers and low ammo means no prolonged conflict. Only two of the ships are nuclear powered not counting submarines. Most of Iran's military and weapons are deep underground in a massive series of underground cities and tunnels. The US would require boots on the ground if they manage to breach the tunnel openings under the mountains. Should that fail the only viable targets are civilians and that won't win favor with anyone or accomplish anything.
Iranian military could just wait it out if they wanted and then smoke Israel with supersonic missiles when the US leaves. Then we find out if Israel does have the nukes for the Samson option and that would result in the destruction of Israel. Iran's military could survive a nuclear strike but would have to clean up the fallout and I am not sure they could. Anyone not underground would likely get Acute Radiation Sickness and Cancer.
On a positive note if the US can manage to get into the tunnels and send in enough munitions to start detonating the missile stockpile a chain reaction could crack all the concrete and collapse the tunnels. Satellite could detect which tunnel they try to evac from. They have less than 5 days to accomplish the chain reaction assuming this is the plan. From the videos I have seen the missiles are literally lined up like a double-strand fuse.
“Israel strikes two schools in Iran, killing more than 80 people”
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2026/2/28/israel-strikes-...
Welp, better luck next time
How is the Epstein Regime going to survive this politically? How is the Senate (Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, etc.) going to survive this politically?
Now I really wonder if those protests were indeed fueled and funded by Israel, because we have seen videos of mosques being burned down by protestors, which is strange for Shia Muslim country, even if they don't like their government
This is no longer necessary to inflict the catastrophic destruction we're really referring to when talking about a hypothetical WWIII
The USSR on the other hand barely had any involvement in the Pacific theatre, entering in August 1945.
what about bio weapons? smallpox in the americas, for an example of many at the page below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_the_Indi...
If anyone does it'll be China giving them missiles to hit a US boat.
That would make the US turn tail. Not start a war with China.
As for Iranian leadership, they just need to dig deep and wait this out. I can't imagine they don't have plenty of hardened bunkers.
Well, foreign intervention kind of worked in Syria, Libya and Iraq after a few backstops, didn't it? All three countries reduced to rubble and virtually eliminated as threats to the US and Israel. Iran is next on the list, now that they're close to obtaing nukes. Let's not kid ourselves, they're not doing it for the Iranians, the're doing it for themselves. Regime change on their own terms, or if that isn't possible, yet another civil war.
The fallacy of reification is treating something emergent as a thing-unto-itself rather than a process or interaction born from constituents at a lower stratum. A reified thing can be recognized and changed for this reason. A mental concept needs only a change of mind to mutate, or to be destroyed.
Religion may well prove to be a reification that is destroyed once it is recognized as such. But I do believe that you cannot reduce that which is real and not real to only those things that have physical antecedents at lower strata, as we see emergent phenomena in the physical world as well.
"Since opposed principles, or ideologies, are irreconcilable, wars fought over principle will be wars of mutual annihilation. But wars fought for simple greed will be far less destructive, because the aggressor will be careful not to destroy what he is fighting to capture. Reasonable–that is, human–men will always be capable of compromise, but men who have dehumanized themselves by becoming the blind worshipers of an idea or an ideal are fanatics whose devotion to abstractions makes them the enemies of life."
What a time to be alive, again! And please, downvote me, comment that US is fighting for some country’s civilians freedom. It’s fun too.
No one lives up to their ideals on a day-to-day basis:
I'm interested in what makes empires tick, what their basis of power is.
Spain in the colonial era was propped up by looting silver from Central and South America, for example.
The British Empire is what many (including me) like to call the "drug dealer empire". First tobacco then later opium. Any claims that we didn't know about the health risks of tobacco are complete BS (eg [3]).
Circling back to your point, the US is what I like to call the "arms dealer empire". WW1 and WW2 massively enriched the United States. NATO is essentially a protection racket for Europe and the price is, you guessed it, buying arms from the United States.
And the next Budget has proposed increasing "defense" spending from an already eye-popping $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion [4]. Where does that money go? Arms, weapons programs, defense contractors, the ultra-wealthy.
War is good for business even though it's unpopular.
[1]: https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54158-few-americans-suppor...
[2]: https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba/
[3]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15198996/
[4]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-proposes-massive...
Trump can literally do all the things that the epstein files accuse him of doing, right on camera in front of everyone, and Americans will still vote for him all because he isn't a "woke" black woman.
Furthermore if Reza Pahlavi does manage to integrate into the society, he will most certainly use his business and political ties here in the US to westernize the society. He's said as much. Some of the more well known Iranian-American business leaders here in the US (CEO of Uber, CEO of intuit, founder of eBay for example) I'm sure would contribute to work towards this also.
There will be push-back from rural areas (just like anywhere else) and the regime will not go away overnight, but the possibility does exist for this outcome. I think the biggest roadblock would be America and Israel intentionally preventing this outcome for the reasons that suit them geopolitically.
EDIT: should have mentioned that after decades of widely known voter manipulation and more or less "mock" elections, Iranians would be happy to finally participate in actual democratic processes where their votes and voices matter
How biased is the press? Iran slaughters 36k people in a week and... crickets. Israel refuses to let its hostages die while Hamas hides out in hospitals and schools and the world is against Israel not Iran.
>Trump urges Iranians to keep protesting, saying 'help is on its way'
stuff if pretty relevant.
Tehran isn’t calculating missile ranges based on sutras. Washington doesn’t position carrier groups because of metaphysics. Israel’s security doctrine isn’t a meditation retreat.
Spiritual narratives make clean moral theater for the public. They mobilize bodies. They sanctify retaliation. But the machinery underneath runs on leverage and deterrence, not theology.
Wake up to the real world.
Calling it primarily religious violence feels tidy and tragic in a philosophical way. It’s harder, and more uncomfortable, to admit that it’s strategic violence dressed in symbols people recognize.
Shunyata is a beautiful lens for seeing through ego. It doesn’t dissolve geopolitics.
Chimps generally agree war is bad and horrific. But some smart, opportunistic and hard-working chimps can create situations that make war possible. Even though the war will only bring losses to most chimps on both sides.
Can you provide an example of this in 2026?
It seems a little tenable with the ayatollah and Iran. But even here you don’t hear much talk of this being a war in the name of religion anymore. Nowhere near a few years ago and certainly nothing like 9/11 and the Taliban.
And I hear nobody in Israel or America talking that way. Just a war defending people against attackers at the gates.
Happens all day every day. There are many AI agents starting discussions and replying to comments. This is how The Crappening started on 4chan. Some of them are just future grifters. Some are training AI (I have replied to a few for fun). Some are propaganda bots. Those running the bots will reply with something equiv to Errrm Proof?? when called out. Without root I can not empirically prove it and the botters know that.
I predict about 2 years before the site will have more AI noise than real people. I have no idea what can be done about it aside from tracking the bots and reporting them via email to Daniel and I don't know what he could or would do. HN has always been very hands off which is mostly good but not for this scenario. If nothing is done it will just be bots grifting and AstroTurfing one another to the benefit of Google SEO and most of the humans would eventually go elsewhere with exception of some die-hards that refuse to recognize the situation.
At this point, lines have been drawn. In conservative land, everything conservative is good, everything liberal is bad. So the only sane position to take is the complete opposite.
For example, if you see someone self proclaimed liberal being critical of liberals, that person is probably a conservative or its a conservative bot.
If he pulls off a regime change, even a Delcy-style swaparoo, he'll get it, and arguably not undeservedly. It will ultimately come down to Iran's capacity to inflict casualties on American forces.
He wasn’t even smart enough to leave America open to attack, manufacture a pretext, and rally people around the flag like 9/11
Heck, there was even a better case in Korea & Vietnam. Even Venezuela. What’s the case this is America’s problem?
Congress will not let him have a third term regardless of what he says or thinks.
It gives us a regional coalition partner. That's never a bad thing, regardless of circumstances.
Trump: "The lives of American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties - that often happens in war."
Another republican president starting a war in the middle east, once again sacrificing American lives.
One of the recommended solutions was to bring tactical nuclear weapons back into the dialectic of deterrence extended to allied territories, so as to give US decision makers a range of options between Armageddon and defeat without a war. Global deterrence was ‘restored’ by creating additional rungs on the ladder of escalation, which were supposed to enable a sub-apocalyptic deterrence dialogue — before one major adversary or the other felt its key interests were threatened and resorted to extreme measures. Many theorists in the 1970s took this logic further, in particular Colin Gray in a 1979 article, now back in fashion, titled ‘Nuclear Strategy: the case for a theory of victory’.
...
In 2018 Admiral Pierre Vandier, now chief of staff of the French navy, offered a precise definition of this shift to the new strategic era, which has begun with Russia’s invasion: ‘A number of indicators suggest that we are entering a new era, a Third Nuclear Age, following the first, defined by mutual deterrence between the two superpowers, and the second, which raised hopes of a total and definitive elimination of nuclear weapons after the cold war’" [1].
I think the chances we see a tactial nuclear exchange in our lifetimes has gone from distant to almost certain.
1. According to the US and Israel, Iran has been a week away from having nuclear weapons for at least 34 years [1];
2. It's quite clear Iran could've developed nuclear weapons but chose not to. I actually think was a mistake. The real lesson from the so-called War on Terror was that only nuclear weapons will preserve your regime (ie Norht Korea);
3. Israel is a nuclear power. It's widely believed that Israel first obtained weapons grade Uranium by stealing it from the US in the 1960s [2];
4. In a just world, people would hang for what we did to Iran in 1953, 1978-79, the Iran-Iraq War and sanctions (which are a sanitized way of saying "we're starving you"); and
5. The current round of demands include Iran dismantling its ballistic missile program. This is because the 12 day war was a strategic and military disaster for the US and Israel.
Israel has a multi-layered missile defence shield. People usually talk about Iron Dome but that's just for shooting down small rockets. Separate layers exist for long-range and ballistic missiles (eg David's Sling, Arrow-2, Arrow-3). In recent times the US has complemented these with the ship-borne THAAD system.
Even with all this protection, Iran responded to the unprovoked attacks of the 12-day war by sending just enough ballistic missiles to overwhelm the defences, basically saying "if we have to, we can hit Israel".
Many suspect that the real reason the US negotiated an end to the 12 day war was because both Israel and the US were running cirtically low on the munitions for THAAD and Israel's missile defence shield. You can't just quickly make more either. Reportedly that will take over a year to get replacements.
Thing is, pretty much all of this missile defence technology is about to become obsolete once hypersonic missiles become more widespread, which is going to happen pretty soon. I suspect that's a big part of why the US and Israel are now trying so desperately to topple the regime and turn Iran into a fail-state like Somalia or Yemen.
I'm not normally one to encourage nuclear proliferation but when it's the only thing the US will listen to, what choice do countries have?
[1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2025/6/18/the-history-of-n...
[2]: https://thebulletin.org/2014/04/did-israel-steal-bomb-grade-...
I tend to agree with both of you, and that by extension, we will never see another world war unless society as we know it collapses significantly.
Topical the Israelis just killed Khamenei.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol (that was in 1939).
I think he meant one of these:
1) Biological agent, but not meant to be a weapon.
2) A biological weapon, but one that fails catastrophically.
> That would make the US turn tail. Not start a war with China.
The right kind of missiles hitting the right kind of boat could lead to a very grave escalation.
1. Many Israeli Jewish Zionists are either "traditional" (religious but not that much) or Religious Zionist, and they are generally part of the right wing coalition. Actual atheists tend to be in the Israeli (still-Zionist) left.
2. The Zionist conception of Jewish identity is not "racial" in the American sense. The most obvious sense in which this is true is that it considers converts and their descendants full members of the nation. Probably the closest analogies are some Native American nations' identities or Armenian nationalism.
But you're directionally correct - Zionism is not a particularly religious ideology within the Jewish world, and outside of the Religious Zionist minority the political class is (openly!) on the less observant end even on the right.
Imagine, for example, you wanted to write the religion of Liberalism, so you collect the works of all the major thinkers on the subject of liberalism into one book. Now imagine someone gets the bad idea that all these authors must actually have a unified view on what liberalism is, means, and implies. You'll end up seeing that person teach a form of liberalism that's easily countered with other passages from their book and they'll mostly just wave it away because they have their passages and the others are simply you misinterpreting an "obvious" metaphor.
That is christianity in a nutshell, just replace liberalism with god. That's why there are so many sects. Because it's just too easy to yell "Context context context!" when a difficult passage comes up you don't agree with and use "spiritual" as the excuse for why you don't actually have to follow that passage.
It is, because it might impact normal citizens. Nobody has ever invaded US so coensequences of real war are unknown to most.
The racists love it when Muslims get killed
The remaining neocons who have surprisingly managed to weasel their way back into influence.
To be clear, I don't think the chances of that happening are high.
I can see JD being a figurehead with very public Trump support.
Did you see non-stop coverage about it from NYT, WaPo or others? No.
Some people are getting killed so more people should be killed?
Has this been argued?
Russians are not under food rationing yet.
I think the strategic rational for unification completely swapped about 20 years ago. Up until the early 2000s it was likely in South Korea's, and the US's, interest to find a way to topple NK and unify the peninsula. The two populations had blood ties and common culture. Technologically the gap was growing but still reasonable. It would have been close to an east/west Germany type of situation where unification took effort but ultimately was clearly beneficial. China (and Russia) would have been losers in that unification would have brought a western friendly government even closer to their border. Additionally, NK still had a chance of re-energizing and becoming a real threat to SK.
Now however NK is in such bad shape that unification would be traumatic. South Korea would take on a problem of epic proportions, caring for and bringing a population of that size back into the broader world would be exceptionally costly and definitely not guaranteed to end well, possibly destabilizing SK in the process. Their cultures have grown apart making it hard for them to understand each other. The blood ties are not really there anymore. China and Russia would likely be the winners in that everyone sees NK as crazy and anyone helping them is hurting the world so they could get rid of that baggage. China especially would gain by having rail access to massive shipping assets to deliver goods even cheaper to the world. Finally, the US would loose a major rationale for stationing forces that close to China. They could, rightfully, say that NK isn't a threat and the massive US assets in South Korea and Japan should be drawn down.
It is interesting to think about the difference of livestreaming versus television.
"Security doctrine" is quite a euphemism for aggressive territorial expansion and ethnic cleansing, which is tightly wrapped in religious rhetoric.
If you're a religious Jew, then you believe you have a mandate from God (so an irrefutable right, or even obligation, needing no justification) to settle and rule not only the West Bank but the entire region. So there will always be that motivation, as long as religious Judaism exists in Israel.
The American ambassador to Israel recently publicly said that Israel has a "biblical right" to the whole of the middle-east! (Watch these two interviews to understand how cleverly, and strongly, Israeli politics is tied up with American evangelical Christianity to keep American polity tied to Israel's existence - https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-fares-abraham-021826 and https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-mike-huckabee-022026 . Both these interviews give you a very insightful picture of how religious fundamentalist Israelis in power are total nutcases, supported by the American Christian fundamentalist fruitcakes).
Project 2025, a christian nationalist policy advisement widely followed by the current regime, prescribes supporting isreal
I think that's called "disagreeing".
The only solutions are (1) private forums, (2) strict verification or maybe (3) some sort of "web of trust" thing, if someone manages to make it user friendly and not suck.
I mean I'm sure it can be done but if you ask an LLM to produce comment reply without more instruction it's going to write something a lot more thoughtful, respectful, and substantive than a forum user would.
I think IRGCs are much more robust and zealous than whatever Maduro had.
Lol, 'let'. Whose going to stop him?
Even accepting this, how exactly are these peaceful, western friendly civilians going to withstand a war better than their country's army?
It's very depressing to see this playbook credulously trotted out yet again. When has this worked?
I think they don’t have an argument because technically the missile can be de-activated up until the last seconds before it reaches its intended target
Still it feels surreal to argue about these things , bomb dropping on humans and other humans attacking each other for the privilege to have their bet honored on when said bombs dropped on the other side of the world
I guess people in intelligence communities had these sort of bets going on ever since WW2 and Vietnam , but still it’s uncanny to see it widespread to potentially the whole population of the internet
probably not, outside of making more revenue for raytheon
No, support will never falther.
Wesley Clark: "We're going to take out 7 countries in 5 years":
And yeah Iranians out of Iran definitely hate it too.
But yes, poor American soldiers.
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?
Seems like it. I can't imagine what else they might try for.
I suppose USA might think some shock and awe will result in iran making concessions at the bargaining table, but that seems unrealistic to me.
> No more Iranian nuclear program? There barely was one before.
That seems very debatable.
> Keeping Israel safe? It's been an open secret for years that Iran is not a real threat to Israel, because any action it took against Israel would be existential for Iran and its leadership.
Well they did take action against israel (you could say they were indirectly responsible for oct 7). Now they are facing said existential threat.
---
Ultimately though. Iran has been a major threat to both israeli and US interests, largely by funding proxy groups that take violent action against those interests. That's your motive for a war.
Iran is currently weak, facing multiple internal and eexternal crisises.
A war is happening because there is a limited window where iran is weak but the window potentially won't remain. That's the reason behind a lot of wars in history.
Decoupling from China while taking out China’s allies is the overarching foreign policy.
What could threaten US carries are China’s DF-21D/26D – anti-ship ballistic missiles with reported ranges of > 2000km – and Iran is not getting them
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/chinas-carrier-killer...
What is the goal, to overthrow the regime, so success would mean a change of government?
(sorry, I haven't followed)
Iran has repeatedly demonstrated restraint and pragmatism throughout these aggressions on their sovereignty, starting with Israel’s strike on their consulate in Damascus.
The world already know this. Having an agreement with the USA is a lot like having an agreement with Darth Vader. The terms of the deal can be altered unexpectedly at any time.
That doesn't mean that such agreements are worthless. They can still be of value to the counties making them. It is just that those countries have to take into account the unreliability of the entity they are making the deal with. Deals with the USA involve a lot of forecasting.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/06/irans-nuclear-fa...
“The strong do what they will. The weak suffer what they must.”
If you are in the US, pray that you are never weak.
You might've missed it but the "department of defense" is now "department of war'.
In earlier strikes Iran signaled it did not want to escalate. It warned US bases prior to its attack, and sent small symbolic strikes to pacify their base, while trying to de-escalate through all diplomatic channels.
This time it looks different, Israel/US have targetted their president and political (religious) leader. There is hardly a more existential threat you can imagine for the current regime, so it will do everything in its power to strike back. If you put someone with his back on the wall and start a firing squad, don't expect a non-response.
Beyond that it's the middle east, last time US tried regime change we had two decades of violence with 1m Iraqi's dead and ISIS rampaging in the region. It's a human catastrophe that people are worried about, not just stock markets. To come here and talk about your stocks is insane.
2. Islamists massacred them.
3. Trump said "help is on its way" ( https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/13/trump-promises... )
4. Now is the help.
---
Trump also said that when he says things he means them, unlike Obama's red lines in Syria (his words). When he said that, it was pretty clear he couldn't back off of attacking Iran.
I assume it took so long because he's going for regime change, not just a few bombings. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, it took the US 5 months to launch a counter-invasion (mostly because of coalition building).
To be clear, I'm not trying to suggest that's why we're bombing Iran today. Just pointing out a data point supporting your hypothesis.
If by that you mean that Iran will become a toothless vassal state of the U.S.-Americans, then God forbid.
You can get an edge here by moving your ass somewhere where you can see the planes take off, maybe a team with people at multiple locations - boats near the aircraft carrier, near military bases in Israel, ...
Yes. The US supports the monarchy, the Kurds and MeK. The CIA was revealed to have armed MeK (despite designation) and my guess is that they do with the Kurds too. The CIA also talks to the Balochi groups as well although I don't know how organized or armed they are.
Needless to say, "regime change" would in reality mean civil war like Syria or collapse like Libya.
To be fair that's been the case for decades. Trump's hardly new in this.
I don't support it but there's blanket approval from Congress from the AUMF.
But their goal is targeted and precise attacks, that effectively destroy targets based on specific, and high quality intelligence.
The other part is that defense against missiles is significantly harder and more expensive than sending missiles. Iran, while relatively poor, has dedicated a significant part of its economy for missile development and production.
Possibly wishful thinking, but that’s the only way I can make it make sense in my head.
The US is aware of this, that's why they evacuated all their bases etc within range
You missed the point. The fact that it requires two of them to gang up on Iran says something about how capable Iran is in defending itself.
I think the only way to get away from the warmongering is to go for a third party. But even they would likely be corrupted by the excessive influence of the military industrial complex. Eisenhower was not only right, but plainly prophetic.
[1] - https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/list-of-c...
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
Within an hour Israel blew up an elementary school, killing 80 civilians.
It's bound to be incredibly successful at accomplishing that goal.
Similarly, wars against Iraq and Afghanistan were very successful in diverting attention away from 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers being from Saudi Arabia, and later on from the funding provided to one or more of the hijackers by Saudi officials. With a certain Ms. Maxwell being asked to join the investigatory committee on the event in question.
The Iraqi government was a lot more stable.
What exactly do you imagine will replace the Iranian government that is worse?
Who say US is not regime? It is the world largest regime in the world, with bidders in every country to do their bidding, mass surveillance including their own country men. People blame only Russia, China, Iran etc when US have been doing the same for years.
Other than nukes that would be the only option if they can blast the doors to the underground military cities. They will have to do it fast as the ships will not sustain combat for more than 5 days with their current ammo per the pentagon.
After this, Israel, being the only nuclear power in the region and having massive funding from the American taxpayer, will dominate the entire region. This has always been the goal.
Trump is a coward. He knows that boots on the ground will mean massive losses.
The only way he does that is if someone convinces him that they can go in and out very quickly.
Unlike Venezuela I doubt there are people in the right place to oust Khamenei.
Presumably, what he meant was 'No, new wars!'
So I don't think Israel has anything to fear there.
This comment just shows that you have no idea what Iran is, and how it differs from Libya.
Libya is a loose conglomerate of tribes. Iran majorly Persian that see themselves as one nation. Completely different dynamics.
Iran has an unelected supreme leader.
Israel has a large portion of its population completely disenfranchised.
The US has a generally democratically elected government.
If one of these governments is going to fall during military instabilities, it would most likely be Iran. The US will have significant regime change in November if polling holds.
And no, stop your American exceptionalism, ICE is not the same.
Eventually, it was established that 1) the casualty number had been a fabrication, 2) the explosion was in the parking lot, 3) it was NOT caused by an Israeli strike, but by a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that had fell short.
Soon the press was forced to issue corrections - New York Times [1] , Le Monde [2], BBC [3]...
This incident looks VERY similar. Which is not surprising, since Hamas was trained in information warfare by the IRGC. Note that Al Jazeera (the media arm of Qatar, who funds Hamas and hosts their leaders in Doha) is enthusiastically amplifying this story with no apparent effort to cross-examine Iran's official source.
I predict that this story will turn out to be fabricated as well.
UPDATE: preliminary reports from the OSINT community seem to indicate that the story was indeed a fabrication... https://x.com/tarikh_eran/status/2027784301840846939
[1] https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2023/the-new-york-times-e...
[2] https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2023/10/24/a-no...
[3] https://deadline.com/2023/11/bbcs-international-editor-grill...
[1] - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/28/us-and-israel-attac...
I bet this story is a fabrication as well.
Are you claiming that Iran (or Hamas) site their military bases away from schools (or hospitals)?
More than the war, they’ll feel the peace. More than 100% of the economic growth of the last few years has gone into war production, meaning the civilian economy has shrunk. When the weapons factories are scaled back the economy is going to hurt something fierce. Even Muscovites will notice.
This is why Putin can’t stop fighting. When the fighting stops Russia will face a reckoning. Better to postpone that day hoping that Europe runs out of steam.
My nickname on here would at least suggest so. I think Grok is the closest option since they were working on making a snarky insulting version of their bot. Tame that down a bit and one could get the personality of Bender. [1]
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPNGFC7-t68 [video][16s]
I was thinking more along the lines of Japan or South Korea. Militarily restrained, but prosperous and strong.
I understand that recent military actions have often made things worse, not better. I am just trying to stay optimistic. From what I know, many Iranians are not enthusiastic about religion controlling law and politics.
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. This joint resolution may be cited as the ‘‘Authorization for Use of Military Force’’. SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES. (a) IN GENERAL.—That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.
(2) It's only the constitution that requires an act of congress, and that document is not considered applicable by the current king.
Americans really have to be among the most gullible people on the planet.
Not to mention that Trump is a paedophile, the open corruption, attempted coup etc... it's like that Hemingway quote. The decline of the USA has been gradual, and then very sudden.
Sadly we know from events in Ukraine that NK artillery works and that they have plenty of it. Yes, it's poor quality, but far from harmless.
Also to be clear: artillery is not exactly rocket science. They idea that NK doesn't have huge stockpiles is ludicrous.
Well not really , most Orthodox definitely don't believe this in fact some of them are anti Zionist and the ones who accept Israel's existence definitely do not think Israel needs to expand its borders like that. So no to that.
And in any case, the "most religious" (ie those whose politics are most totally driven by Judaism) bloc in Israel are at best ambivalent about the Israeli state and the settlement enterprise, and actively hostile to military service.
Israeli hostility to Iran is driven by a "defensive" paranoia, not a religious mission.
I would say this is generally false.
There are many religious Jews who believe there should be no state of Israel until the Messiah comes. Judaism is very open to interpretations and certainly within the question of modern state politics doesn't have as much to say as you seem to think it does.
There are many different Rabbis in Israel with different political opinions and generally their followers will tend to hold similar beliefs. There are right wing Rabbis and left wing Rabbis, it's not uniform at all. During the Oslo peace process there were many religious people supporting and many opposing, pretty much the same as secular.
What is true is that some Israelis view their right to the land in the context of the biblical promise God made our people. That is not the same thing. Funny enough I'd say more Christians believe the literal promise and it's implication on current day politics than Jews. It's also true that religious people these days tend to be more right leaning politically. But the religion isn't mandating those world views it just that they can align.
I don't think this means the GOP keeps the House. But Trump got a bump from Venezuela, particularly within his party.
As a life long D voter, I am personally going to vote R every election now because I want US to sink into the ground so low that people like you experience actual pain and suffering.
I agree. But to be fair, I would have said the same thing about Venezuela a year ago. Maybe the term should be a regime slip.
Democracy in the middle-east does not result in Israel or US aligned governments, but the monarchies have proven more interested in preserving their autocratic dynasties and quite easy and eager to work with Israel and the US to preserve themselves.
We saw significant success with Germany, Japan, South Korea, and other countries in the past. But more recently, similar efforts seem to have ended in failure.
Yes we can? Is there any provision in the US Constitution that allows delay of election because of war? We have had elections during most of our recent wars (Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan).
Trump could definitely try. Or pull an emergency card out of his ass. But it doesn't mean there is any provision for cancelling elections because of this 'war' with Iran (which they aren't even calling a war, but a "special combat operation" to get around congress having the war powers)
The list of exemple is long enough, no need to add Iran.
We already had ISIS thanks to the mess in Irak and Libya.
Day one and they've already bombed a school and killed dozens of children. The goals, strategy and tactics have not been clearly communicated. You can pray they are using high quality intelligence, but history tells us they are not at all concerned with collateral damage. They likely want to degrade Iran's military capabilities, but they also want them cowed and bleeding.
I missed that press release. Where is it?
For what it's worth, I think the American activists on this issue bungled the messaging to disastrous effect (in the same way we bungled criminal-justice reform). It's a saturated issue with low political salience outside a specific (and increasingly constrained) demographic.
A win in Iran will be a short-term boost, in America and in Israel. Then we'll go back to being pissed about rising prices.
Trump this time around didn't inherit a major us deployment in a conflict area. No Iraq, no Afghanistan. Also, he's doing military strikes by himself, no Congress involved.
Syrian and Libia were both essentially civil wars with an oppressive regime with Syria using allegedly chemical weapons.
Your source is a very weird site. Countries Obama bombed 2026??? What does that even mean. Is it just a typo in the main heading and the title?
I'm not sure what's the logic behind that PR-wise, but regardless, it didn't happen.
Regarding politicians: Gustavo Petro was the most vocal protester; now that Trump told him in the White house to shut up, he is wagging his tail happily.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/john-kelly-con...
Coming from President Bone Spurs ...
Honinbo-sensei, you seem to have failed to recognize puppy-go for what it is and also to identify the player.
Iran decided to play stupid games and found out.
Not sure it affects the outcome.
You can bomb the leadership all day long.
Without boots on the ground the regime will probably continue.
I don't see how this stops Iran from building nukes. Sure they may have a temporary set back.
But do you think this will change their minds?
Can they even negotiate a resolution with the US. Given that the current administration won't honor its own agreements.
Did Trump issue an ultimatum here? And demand something?
> After the last war, it also is no longer a threshold state
That's also wrong. Trump claimed Iran's enrichment capabilities were totally destroyed, but they weren't.
> In this situation it is a fair request by the US to sign a nuclear deal
America already had a good deal. Trump got rid of it.
Iran had a signed agreement, trump cancelled it. Israel literally killed Irans negotiators just a few months ago. What is this nuclear level ignorance.
North Korea aspires be to be a Israel-style nuclear blackmail state.
I think Trump would taco.
A carrier is fair game, especially when you shoot first.
There wouldn't be a coalition with half of Europe. Because of bridges burned.
A regime that only controls the capital, leaving the rest of the country in a power vacuum leading to internal conflicts and sectarian violence that will eventually spill over the borders into Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iraq etc...
One of the issues with Iraq was that Rumsfeld didn't want to acknowledge that it takes more personnel post-toppling (to rebuild infrastructure and institutions) than during invasion. It seems like the current government could be prone to make the same mistake.
I recommend anyone interested in this to read Cobra II. It's an excellent book.
Who says it isn't? Regime literally means a system of government [1].
One hopes, anyway. That’s the best chance we have to remove the Nazis currently in power here.
Turns out they bombed him
Lets pray for the people of Iran we get rid of the regime this time, and eventually reach peace in the middle east.
They could have named the DOD the "Department Of Peace", instead they called it the "Department Of War", showing their true face and trajectory.
At this point it is really the people of the US to rise up and implement a Regime Change from within to change things for the better.
Iran is a bad guy state ... but the "fair" atgunent hwre dont apply.
Feel free to disagree with the death tolls and the demographics of the victims, but the bombings are very much real...
Will you grant me this: religious motivations for violence exist within Israel, including the ruling political class?
Only certain Hasidic groups oppose Israel, including Satmar Hasidim (over 100k followers), and Neturei Karta (fringe, only about 1k supporters). That's less than millions, and a minority within the Hasidic world.
Theologically, they oppose it based on an interpretation a Talmudic passage saying that establishment of Israel has to happen after the coming of the Messiah.
Additionally, there are a lot different denominations of Jews within Israel, some of whom have more pragmatic views. But a significant, politically influential minority believes in their duty to govern all biblical land.
Btw. They ARE not that far away from the bomb, after they enriched uranium as a consequence of Trump (in his first term) cancelling the Obama treaty.
But they ARE a theocracy and Ajatollah Chamenei released an order (fatwa) forbidding Iran from obtaining and using an a-bomb. The new religious leader might change the religious law tho. I mean the one that comes after Chamenei becomes a martyr.
Funny how, knowing just a little bit more, it all really looks like nonsense created for illiterate, just to take their attention off of Epstein Pedophile Scandal.
The Houthis are still "threatening" to do things today after already being decimated and Hezbollah's strength more than halved.
I don't support any of these creeps but if any of them were minimally rational, they would have all gone to total war with Israel and the US the minute they realized what Hamas was doing on October 7th. They look even more naive than Europeans at this point.
If that was true, obviously they would have built one buy now. Being one year away from building would be non-urgency inducing.
The constant lying about timelines does not imply Iran does not enrich uranium, but, as you remember, after the last bombing the leaders of the USA and Israel said they had completely obliterated Iran's nuclear program. Except, apparently After six months they are one week away from a nuke again.
This seems to indicate the USA should be bombing Iran every few weeks, forever, just in case they get a bit faster next time.
Except, when we don't have any scandal or other crisis going on, then Iran does not seem to be getting a nuke quickly. I wonder why.
> The point is preventing another North Korea style nuclear blackmail state
The US and Israel are currently nuclear blackmail states. The rational move for Iran to prevent itself from being bullied is to have nukes like North Korea.
> In this situation it is a fair request by the US
Fair if you're the US, sure.
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?
Iran has shown that it is remarkably sane actually, given the aggression shown towards it by Israel and the US and has made a lot of efforts to reach a deal.
Remember, it was the US that exited the JCPOA and now it wants Iran to give up all its misses so that they would be defenseless.
I have no love for theocracies, but I do think the Iranian system is a lot better than the likes of Saudi Arabia, which we're buddy buddy with.
Oh and I guess the founder of Syrian branch of AQ and deputy head of ISIS running Syria is better that what was before too, in your book?
So I have hope that they'll find a way to organize when the current regime falls.
Are the Americans going to bomb the Saudis next? or only if Israel ask for it?
What are you talking about?
Iraq is >95% Muslim, but there are a few different sub groups. With those numbers there were few in government then and now who are not Muslim.
Trump is democratically elected, for now.
I'm not actually sure if this is correct, English is not my native language.
This is a very optimistic outlook, to the point of naivete, though I really hope you are right. In reality, neither Trump nor his cronies are acting like people who imagine they will be out of power anytime soon. In 10 years the world will likely still be dealing with the fallout of this administration, if not still dealing with the administration itself.
You mean in 10 years, when the US is a stable and high-functioning democracy with independent media, a universally liked, charming, and polite president, supported by both the right and the left, who finally manage to overcome their minor differences? Is... is this the direction this is all heading?
You don't go and rename a whole federal department to 'Department of War' when you don't intend to get into wars.
1. The U.S. and Iran had already negotiated and signed a nuclear agreement between our countries but Trump reneged on the already-negotiated agreement.
2. Trump claimed that his previous attacks on Iran within the last year “completely and totally obliterated” their nuclear program, “obliterated like nobody’s ever seen before” - both direct Trump quotes. Trump was quite clear that Iran’s nuclear program had already been destroyed like nothing had ever been destroyed before.https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/28/peace-within-reach-...
There is an absolute moral justification for this war. Saying that US is the aggressor here is an absolute revisionism of history. Let us not pretend that Islamic Republic minded its own business since its inception, and suddenly the US and Israel decided to wage war on it.
One example of IR's aggression is Beirut bombing in 1983 sponsored and planned by IR.
The Haredim (the ultra-Orthodox) are more complicated, and in general don't want all the promised land (they believe that the state established militarily/politically isn't the "spiritual" state that was promised). But, when it comes to the currently occupied land, they have been shifting right in recent years. They vote in coalition with the nationalist right, and their communities increasingly overlap geographically with settlements.
Also God didn't say when. But he did promise, according to the Book.
No one’s thinking America cant succeed at the killing partz. It’s what comes after that people are worried about.
More than taking control of Iranian petrol, this is probably more an attempt at cutting off China access to it (and also generally eliminating one of their allies), same as for the Venezuelan invasion.
I think you'll have to be more specific.
Or I guess to compare with your other observation: """Even with all this protection, Iran [sent] enough ballistic missiles to overwhelm the defences""" -- It's not a binary of "have missile defense or not => every missile will be shot down". An amount of missile defense will make it harder for missiles to successfully hit a target.
Similarly with hypersonic missiles, it's not the binary of "I have a missile that's difficult to defend against, I win".
Having a sword which can defeat a shield isn't in itself sufficient to obsolete the shield. (Infantry can be killed with bullets, yet infantry remain an important part of fighting despite that).
The spring to a nuke is riskier than ever. That doesn't change that nuclear sovereignty is a tier above the regular kind, this is something every one of the global powers (China, Russia and America) and most regional powers (Israel) have explicilty endorsed.
It remains to be seen what impact this will have, but it will certainly impact the ability for everyone to claim that criticism of Israel and sympathy for Palestinians is motivated by antisemitism.
The democrats lost the last election in part because of their stance on Israel.
With a bit of luck this could lead to a shift in policy within a generation.
https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/declarations-...
I don't think it matters.
https://www.reddit.com/r/war/comments/1rh2f41/the_residence_...
1. Routinely calling for death to Israel and America, turning it into part of the national curriculum and sowing hate
2. Funding, training, supplying and directing multiple violent proxy organizations around the region which attacked Israel and undermined their own countries (Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in West Bank and Gaza, other organizations in Iraq)
3. Enriching Uranium to clearly non-civilian grade in multiple militarily hardened facilities;
4. Directly attacking multiple Jewish targets around the world (like the AMIA and then embassy bombings in Argentina)
5. Attacking neighboring countries with ballistic and cruise missiles, like the attacks on Saudi Aramco in 2019
6. Holding international shipping and energy markets hostage by threatening to attack ships and tankers in the Persian Gulf
7. Abusing their own citizens, including public executions, persecutions and extreme violence
8. Providing support to Russia in their efforts in Ukraine, and especially drones used for indiscriminate dumb attack waves against civilians and infrastructure
Now we have people arguing that if they had just gotten nukes then they could have continued doing all of that.
But the reasons wars existed didn't go away, so this just resulted in more and more people getting killed in "special military operations" or similar things. See e.g. "Why States No Longer Declare War"[0].
[0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228896825_Why_State...
And places being in a state of internal conflict, conflict which is itself often backed and fomented by US intelligence agencies and backed proxy forces, is hardly some reason to go bomb them. Even moreso when you look at results. See what Libya turned into, and what Syria is now turning into. It turns out that Al Qaeda in a suit is still Al Qaeda, to literally nobody's surprise if you're even vaguely familiar with our history of backing extremists and putting them in power, something which we have done repeatedly.
This war, if it escalates, is not going to be good for Iran, the people of Iran, or likely even the US. The only country that might come out a winner is Israel, but even that might not end up being the case, as Iran's retaliation will likely focus on them. To say nothing of longer term consequences.
[1] - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-preside...
Just ask the folks who tried on January 6.
> The US will have significant regime change in November if polling holds.
Assuming elections are held fairly. "Trump, seeking executive power over elections, is urged to declare emergency":
* https://archive.is/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2...
Democracy is the directness by which social participation equates to governance. The US is a federal republic with only two parties each bound by the same hostile funding system that benefits political contributions over the vote. That is far from democratic.
They’re also nice countries, with governments and organisation. Places like Afghanistan have nothing. You have to try and start civilisation from scratch, in a hostile land.
That said the justification for it made no sense to me and many others. Trump accused Maduro of narcoterrorism - profiting from the drug trade and violence. Where's the evidence? And the whole bit about the oil ... Usually that's the critique of US actions, not the reason we give; we should be moving full speed towards adopting renewables so an oil grab really doesn't make sense. Though Trump's energy policy has always been entirely backwards.
And we should probably also worry about the example we've set - that we'll just intervene when it suits us with a cooked up justification certainly incentivizes dangerous behavior - how many countries are now thinking about the deterrents they could acquire? But most Americans don't think about unintended consequences of laws or government actions.
One last thought re oil - the smart move would probably be to invest in Venezuelan oil not for sale in the US but for export to India and maybe Europe - try to use it as a replacement for Russian oil. That would in turn hurt Russia's economy and thereby reduce their efforts to wage war in Ukraine. But if that's the plan, Trump has never said that. And it also doesn't really fit his worldview that the Ukraine war should be Europe's problem and not the US's problem. But maybe it'll end up happening anyway, if Venezuela's oil production picks up and the US doesn't actually have the demand for it.
I mean, it is a pretty convenient distraction from the epstein files tho, so win-win for Trump/Netanyahu
In my thinking regime change doesn't only refer to the complete collapse of the political system, just change in direction of the leaders.
I don't think you intended to use this the way you did
* Only verified number with real losses dead higher and even more crippled.
And how exactly would Iran be 'ours' without boots on the ground in this scenario?
They understand that a defensive war is not the same as an offensive war. Besides, going on the offensive isn’t something they - as a regional power - have the firepower or diplomatic “street cred” for.
They are already painted as a so-called irrational actor. Doing something reckless will only prove their detractors right.
The other part to this is keeping the negotiation door open. The idea is to demonstrate to other state actors that they are cool headed & rational - even in wartime conditions.
You could be entirely right. Honestly I hope you are right. We lost far too many in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was probably just being cynical. I trust the decisions of the senior leaders in the military but their commander and chief tends to trust the wrong advice.
The only possible correction I might add is the Air Force probably will not drop bombs but would have to fire missiles. The openings are on the sides of mountains and require horizontal access or I suppose incredibly massive bombs. Earth shattering bombs. Something closer to tactical nukes which the US has not stockpiled in a long time AFAIK.
Yeah, so much propaganda. We can see it with our own eyes.
This is a short one showing the 2nd to last generation of tunnels. [1] The latest tunnels are painted white including some that are under water. The older tunnels are not painted and one can see what appears to be reinforced concrete. When completed every tunnel is lined on both sides with missiles. This one [2] shows a couple generations of the tunnels. Found the old CNN video. [3]
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YQ1R7ZAKxE [video][1m]
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQtSPFrnKvo [video][5m25s]
[3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_Gu_TjmV0E [video][2m12s]
Perhaps you will argue that the US or Israel or Pakistan or North Korea have conducted themselves in a way where they do not have that moral right either, but that is a different debate, and either way it is moot because they do have them.
I don't believe any country having nuclear weapons is good.
"Khamenei's body has been found and he is confirmed dead, Israeli official says"
<https://www.reuters.com/world/iran-crisis-live-explosions-te...>
Times of Israel: <https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-february-28-2026/>
I believe there's a much better change of democracy / sane regime in Iran, than there ever was in Iraq and other Arab states.
IT was a dictatorship, of course, but not a theocratic one.
It was pretty clear the negotiations had stalled based on statements put out by Iranian officials.
Which is fine.
"In theory, the term need not imply anything about the particular government to which it relates, and most social scientists use it in a normative and neutral manner. The term, though, can be used in a political context. It is used colloquially by some, such as government officials, media journalists, and policy makers, when referring to governments that they believe are repressive, undemocratic, or illegitimate or simply do not square with the person’s own view of the world. Used in this context, the concept of regime communicates a sense of ideological or moral disapproval or political opposition" [1].
> All we know is that they did launch a missile that blew up a school. That's it. Just a little woopsies!
Ignore what schools are for and who are in them and what communities exist around them. Ignore that a school is clearly not a fucking military target. Ignore the workers digging through rubble and the reported deaths.
No, despite the past 25 years, the US and Israel's governments are not only trustworthy, but the only source of truth. There are no deaths in Ba Sing Se. There were nuclear missiles hidden in that school!
And, of course, I'm sure we'll hear next that any deaths were terrorists. And if any photos of lifeless kids come up, clearly they're some kind of pinatas or AI! And if their names and life stories come out and there are funerals - duh, state actors!
My country has completely lost its fucking mind. Which I guess makes sense enough after spending my entire adult life watching people basically shrug over little kids being gunned down at school.
Which, dang, that reminds me how Sandy Hook was also a conspiracy and I've had to suffer listening to the same exact "state actor" thing with that.
Better to play the long game, corrupt them from within and wait for them to destroy themselves.
Yes, although it had merit it was far worse than what can be signed now, especially the sunset clause was problematic
> 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?
that's the nature of nuclear weapons, your conventional force can be abysmal (pretty much NK situation vs US) and yet you can create epic destruction
> And didn't we already attack them to stop them from getting nuclear capabilities?
Yes, the thing here is the long term goal of signing a deal, whose main goal is removing the existing highly enriched uranium from Iran and restricting their ability to redevelop nuclear capabilities. Essentially this is the part where "Diplomacy is the continuation of war by other means" (to highly paraphrase), because the alternative to a deal is maintenance attacks such as these every two years
North Korea invaded South Korea, stole a US Navy ship (the Pueblo, which they still proudly exhibit), dug large infiltration tunnels under the DMZ, kidnapped hundreds, or even thousands people from SK (and Japan, to a lesser extent), and have assassinated, or attempted to assassinate, multiple SK heads of state, and perpetrated acts of terror like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Flight_858
What did the US or SK do to them before their nuclear program that constituted "bullying?"
The question is really whether negotiations were going on in good faith with the actual goal of realistic compromise.
None of us know that side, I would assume.
The US then lied through their teeth to the security council about wanting to conduct a humanitarian operation and instead acted as the rebels' air force, helping them win and subsequently leaving the country in utter ruin.
No. If they wanted self-defense and sovereignty they should have become stronger not weaker after the revolution.
Iranian officials publicly refused to give up their nuclear program, no need to trust the US here.
But even so, if there was a serious threat of war, which is unlikely because China would stop North Korea, the US would place assets in the region and as we got close to a confrontation the US and South Korea (and as things are looking, probably Japan) would begin an aerial and missile bombardment to destroy in place North Korean offensive capabilities. Some would get through of course, perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of South Korean casualties, but in the context of a conventional war North Korea's capabilities would be quickly overwhelmed, at least in my opinion.
But honestly, the current status quo works pretty well for everyone except the people of North Korea, but there's not much we can do. It's a tragedy and the blame for that falls squarely on the Soviet Union and Chinese Communist Party.
This is nonsense. If you actually believe this, spend some time around your elected representatives and in Washington.
Israeli neighbors that are at peace with Israel are safe as well, e.g., Egypt and Jordan.
> Many conservatives voted for trump because they thought he wasn't a "war hawk"
I doubt their honesty. Considering they blamed Biden for Russia invading Ukraine and October 7 with the galaxybrain reasoning of "It didn't happen while Trump was in office", I am convinced the isolationism thing is just an unserious talking point.
Even the Joe Rogan MAGAs should remember when they cried on social media about how they were about to be drafted after the Soleimani thing under Trump.
Does it?
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/us-and-israel-launch-a-ma...
What topsy-turvy land have I wandered into?
They've funded Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis for decades. They've assassinated dissidents on foreign soil. They sentence people to death for apostasy and flog women for not wearing hijab correctly.
The sanctions aren't about race. They're about behaviour.
Part of it is the stated idea that Israel still has public support. That such an exchange, even if Israel launches the first strike, would get more support. This is probably misjudging the actual public support for Israel, which is much lower amongst the general public than amongst (esp. Republican) political circles.
The other part of it is that Trump has surrounded himself with card-carrying nazis, who have not at all been subtle about their desires to harm jews.
> but regardless, it didn't happen.
That Israel didn't launch the first strike and instead insisting on a joint strike (despite otherwise being constantly warmongering), suggests to me that it's the latter 'part' of the reason that had a lot of weight here.
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.
That nuclear threat was contained under a plan backed by US, EU, Russia, China and Iran, in which Iran would not pursue nuclear expansion and let a team of international experts in to verify this on a continuous basis, in exchange for some sanction relief. A solution Trump threw in the trash, reinstating the sanctions, pressuring Iran to pursue nuclear again as one of its few levers of power it can pull on.
In other words he created the necessity for violence by throwing away a unique solution that the entire world got behind including US allies & enemies, throwing away goodwill and trust in future deals (why would Iran negotiate now if it's clear how Trump views deals, as things to be broken even irrationally?)
Those who claim this is an anti-war president have no clue, even in the context of a 'just war' argument it simply falls flat.
Care to elaborate? As far as I know, this is false. All Israeli citizens 18 or older can vote; there are no voting restrictions based on race, religion, gender or property; prisoners can vote (unlike in many US states for example); permanent residents who are not citizens cannot vote in national elections but may vote in municipal elections (not the case in the US). National turnout ranges between 65% and 75%.
Minorities are well represented: Arab and Druze citizens vote and have representation in the Knesset.
I struggle to find any dimension in which your statement is correct.
At this point, the pizza index is another vector of (dis)information managed by the Pentagon.
The US is also doing this albeit fewer people.
Trump is the kind of person who would kill protestors to stay in power. We all know it
And you already bet this story is a fabrication as well.
This is exactly who media takes advantage of not the one who waits for investigation and acts rationally.
If going by your recent comments, I can say I bet you're just an Israeli propagandist. Would you be happy with that assesment?
Sounds like you might be making a very strong claim! Can you make it more precise? For example, "President Trump will not peaceably transfer power at the end of his current term". Is it something you'd be willing to put money on, for example on Polymarket?
True however AFAIK they have never once been in this situation. Iran has spent 40+ years digging in and hunkering down. There were plenty of bunkers in WWII but this is a whole new setup, deeper under mountains, higher quality concrete assuming they knew what they were doing and dug in much deeper. To get this done in 5 days will be quite a feet. If they manage to do it I will be very impressed.
It's providing peace and stability after that happens where they tend to run into problems.
I think you are correct, what happens afterwards is usually a crap-fest. That would require a lot of boots on the ground to maintain stability for a very long time. It's not a great example but Korea is one such example. The payoff may be worth it if many of the Iranian funded terror groups are drained of resources as a result. Keeping boots on the ground for years will require funding from congress. Short of that it will just be another power vacuum filled by yet another zealot. The "if's" are doing a lot of heavy lifting in my comment.
It made sense for iran to try to negotiate with the US because the alternative was a war they had no chance to win. Arguably it also made sense for them to not come to an agreement because USA wanted concessesions the Iranian regime probably couldn't do while still staying in power given how weak they are domestically.
> I don't support any of these creeps but if any of them were minimally rational, they would have all gone to total war with Israel and the US the minute they realized what Hamas was doing on October 7th.
Israel's ability to divide and conqour its enemies here has been pretty impressive.
But that's hard to grok without corroborating evidence. Like maybe an analogous social dynamic where the American mainstream maintains a hostile posture towards a particular ethnic group, stereotyping them as violent and irrational and criminals and parasites, and doing things to them that have triggered sustained, armed uprisings in other times and places, but who, in fact, have historically and in-aggregate been steadfast in a commitment to non-violent resistance, integration, and endurance of oppression.
Safe to say that this is the first time America's ever encountered that kind of thing, though, so I guess that we can be somewhat forgiven for not recognizing it.
That alone hints that it is very hard to bring a dictatorship down with just aerial attacks - the ground component is also essential. Something tells me it is going to be the same here.
Only a land operation or a total collapse of the government, with the armed police and military joining the opposition, can topple the Iranian regime.
The world in which America is a military superpower.
> if any of them were minimally rational, they would have all gone to total war with Israel and the US
They have been. They've been getting levelled. If the U.S. can staunch the flow of arms to the Houthis, they'll become irrelevant, too.
Reread your parent comment, the concept of a threshold nuclear state is that they are constantly a month away, for years. That's the entire point, being effectively a nuclear state without holding a nuclear weapon
Iran signed Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
- Military - their regional proxies destroyed, missile and drone stocks low, provably weak air defences.
- Economically - the currency is worthless, extreme inflation for seven years and hyper inflation for a few months, the economy is currently producing nothing due to unrest, they have a massive water shortage of their own making. They have no goods worth exporting. Their oil is sanctioned, meaning only China will buy from them and at a steep discount. And oil is extremely cheap at this minute.
- Politically - they have no friends willing to bail them out. Russia has no money to spare. China doesn’t care about anyone outside of China. North Korea is even poorer. All sections within Iranian society detest the mullahs running the government. They’re hanging on by killing tens of thousands of protestors.
Trump bets that Iran’s leaders are at their weakest since their war with Saddam ended in 1988. Meaning now is the best time to negotiate a deal where they hand over their fissile material and uranium enrichment equipment. In return they could get a heavy water reactor(s) that produces energy but no fissile material.
If he lets this opportunity slip Iran could fix all of their many problems in a year or three. Manufacture more missiles and drones. Build up their proxies once more. Maybe the price of oil recovers. Russia’s war ends and they aid Iran best they can. The economy recovers and the Iranian people stop trying to overthrow the government. Maybe a conflict starts elsewhere that draws America’s full attention.
Will Trump get that deal? Probably not. That fissile material is the only leverage the mullahs have. If they give it up they’ll be toppled like the other dictators who gave up their weapons programs - Gaddafi and Saddam.
But if you don’t ask you don’t get, right?
The NPT did not exist at the time of the US developing nuclear weapons, and it explicitly allows US (and other pre-existing nuclear powers') weapons.
Israel, like India and Pakistan, simply never signed it, forgoing the international nuclear technology market as a consequence but also avoiding a treaty obligation not to develop them.
I take that back, Trump doesn't believe in anything but himself, but he's surrounded himself in a blanket of Christian nationalists.
The only reason to enrich uranium to 60% like Iran was doing is for nuclear weapons purposes.
Just to be clear I’m not pro war! I take Iranian regime as the first and foremost responsible party in this mess and then US! My people stuck in this disaster of a power struggle.
Especially not when they’re mass murdering protestors and funding islamic extremism left and right
Neither of these states have at any point said anything on the modern era that can be implied to be a threat to nuke anybody.
Part of that is because it would be a bad strategy for them, but nonetheless "nuclear blackmail state" and "nuclear state" is not the same thing.
Nonsense. Iran has been stirring up trouble in the region for a long time.
> Trump is democratically elected, for now.
He was convicted felon before the election, I cannot believe that he won.
Now if they didnt have the bomb, i dont think they would have lasted this long. I think the US would have gone and "democratized" them to smithereens a while ago.
Yeah, I agree that was probably a bad idea, doesn't make what I stated above any less true.
> 2. Trump claimed that his previous attacks on Iran within the last year “completely and totally obliterated” their nuclear program, “obliterated like nobody’s ever seen before” - both direct Trump quotes. Trump was quite clear that Iran’s nuclear program had already been destroyed like nothing had ever been destroyed before.
Yes...Trump lies all the time, that's nothing new.
We have Ramadan here now. No one cares. Arab influencer come and make videos and are shocked
Everyone eats and drinks during the days we don’t care
> Islamic Republic minded its own business since its inception
That's a straw man argument since nobody claimed that.
Just to anticipate another weak argument that is a non-starter, a war of aggression is also illegal if it is started under the pretense of caring about a human rights situation. This kind of justification is quite common anyway. For the same reason, preventive wars are also prohibited and immoral. Not even you want to live in a world where such wars are common, you're more likely merely arguing from the perspective of someone whose country you believe to be in a position of strength.
Iranian officials made public statements refusing to give up their nuclear weapons program so they weren't negotiating in good faith either. Terrorists like the Iranian regime can never be allowed to have access to nuclear weapons for obvious reasons.
(Of course some Israel politicians are religious; that's true of any country.)
Practically speaking, we changed it. The foreign and energy policies we care about changed. The notion that you need to wholesale clean shop to qualify as regime change is misguided and counterproductive [1].
(On the other end of the spectrum, the fact that we kept the Japanese Emperor on his throne doesn't mean we didn't change the Japanese regime.)
(Which is also not referred to as "the Book", since it's a collection of books. This may seem like a nitpick, but I think is indicative of you getting your information from non-Jewish conspiracy theorist circles rather than anything related to Jewish theology or culture.)
More examples are:
- Rabbi Yehuda Amital and the Meimad Party
- Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein
You are confusing politics and religion.
Not declaring war provides a workaround, allowing the states to do whatever they desire, without constraints, while avoiding being accused that they do not observe their obligations assumed internationally.
Seems plausible.
They replaced the last democratic choice in Egypt with another military dictator, they keep the widely unpopular autocrat in Jordan on his throne with military and intelligence subsidies, have established and propped up a network of autocratic Gulf states that toe the line...
So yeah, I would not be surprised that Israel and the US would be more than happy to but a scion of the previous Iranian autocratic dynasty back on the throne there.
Claiming this strike on Iran is an attempt to suspend US elections is exactly as ridiculous as claiming the last round of strikes on Iran, or the Maduro raid, or any of Trump's other previous military boondoggles were attempts to suspend US elections.
This isn't true. Small-scale targeted raids, not B52s recreating Dresden.
Thanks.
The US doesn't need an interventionist policy with Iran any more than we need to invade North Korea. Israel needs it though, and their entire strategy is to risk American lives for their meaningless expansion campaign.
No. But they are a sovereign nation who didn't directly bomb the US or its allies.
>They've funded Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis for decades. They've assassinated dissidents on foreign soil. They sentence people to death for apostasy and flog women for not wearing hijab correctly.
You want to know who the US has funded? You want to know who Israel has funded?
I mean, shit, the US took out Iran's democratically elected government in the 1970s and was a huge fan of the Mullahs because they let us steal Iranian oil. The same secular Iranian government that was quite literally the first middle eastern country to recognize the existence of Israel, and was a leading secular state in a region of ass-backwards religious nutcases.
Israel has refused to acknowledge the obvious existence of its nuclear weapons program while Iran is a full member of the IAEA and allows for full international inspection of its uranium facilities.
Fuck, the Israelis engage in massive blackmailing operations of their own "allies" (see Epstien, Jeffrey) , attack their own "allies" (see USS Liberty attack), and have tried to goad its "allies" into carrying out attacks on their behalf. They are a tiny bully that starts shit they cannot handle themselves, and American lives are sacrificed because of it.
- sovereignty
- border
- population
In that order, in the context of that region. Then consider their meanings in the context of (say) Canada. Consider how conventional applications of those terms are different for the two.
In fact, after Vietnam war congress specifically created a law to restrict hostilities without congress approval to up to 60 days, which is what the current (and prior) administrations are acting on.
I imagine that's the strategy, anyway.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/26/trump-ele...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
If you have been following Iran over the past two years (and even before), you would know that this is empirically true and not just a hypothetical. American propag- sorry, media does its job well.
This has been painfully obvious since aerial bombing became possible, but we’ve had so many generals and executives obsessed with the concept that it continues to be a core doctrine, like Kissinger and Curtis LeMay, neither of for whom I have anything but deep contempt.
The problem I have with this doctrine is that if it's supposed to deter an opponent who already has a nuclear deterrent, they may decide their deterrent is not so deterring anymore and actively go and use it against you.
The whole idea of nuclear deterrence relies on all parties being rational and sensible about nuclear weapons use, but I don't see a lot of rationality in the current eventuality.
Hezbollah did. They did it before and they were predicted by all analysts to be able to do it again, which is why Israel took the route they did with the espionage, assassinations and terrorism instead of confronting them on the battlefields.
The Houthis also are doing that right now.
It was one of the primary triggers for the protests. People are very upset about the economy and willing to protest and die for it.
1. an under-reported fact pertaining to matters of military strategy. 2. The lack of coverage in the US News Media
BTW, you're also presumptuous AND mistaken about my nationality. As if nationality is a indicator or in your case a guarantee of a person's ideology.
Why would Iran attack Argentina? There's plenty of Jewish Iranian citizens. Did they run out of people to attack?
And where are they wrong?
I can't make up a story that will be good for iranian people in the end. Is there even an example in last 100 years that started out like this thing is starting out and ended well for the people?
There was a study showing almost every revolution happened not because of ideology but over the price of bread.
Of course Trump and the GOP can try all sorts of voter suppression, which is what they're doing now.
Agreed with most of the rest you said though
So that’s why said Iranians chant Javid Shah?
Nobody said that. But they are a sovereign country that did not attack America. Bombing them because you find their internal politics distasteful is appalling, to say the least.
It does seem that military action is correlated with increased coverage in the media of the Trump/Epstein files.
The whole reason the 1979 revolution happened in the first place was because the Shah was a blatant US/Israeli puppet
Israel chose to trade popularity for having real geopolitical gains on the ground. Popularity could be won back later, but removing the Iranian ring of fire around it is a real and tangible achievement that would last decades and change the Middle East.
You can take that to your bookie.
I hate to break it to you, but US prisons, while maybe worse than Scandinavian ones, are on par with France, and way better than like 70% of the world.
This is not a competition who has it worse. You can acknowledge terrible things that IR does without trying to portray yourself as a victim.
Desert Storm also wasn't really fast, it led to containment operations lasting a bit over a decade in total, ending only when we decided to invade Iraq with the objective of regime change and nation building. And that one, predictably, turned into a quagmire.
I saw a report that it was an errant Iranian missile.
Second, why are you legitimizing gunning down thousands of people?
They have no chance of winning no matter what. At least inflict some damage on your enemy while you die like Hamas chose (although I disagree with the fact that they chose that for a lot of innocent people too.)
The US isn't ever going to leave anyone, let alone Iran, alone. The options are a) fight and cease to exist and b) don't fight and cease to exist.
"safety" for whom? Definitely not the people. They starve.
No, you missed my point. Iran dies no matter what happens. Better go down after eliminating Israel, taking out a huge % of the world's oil supply and banging up some Americans. Instead they were extremely restrained, squandering their capacities.
> They have been. They've been getting levelled. If the U.S. can staunch the flow of arms to the Houthis, they'll become irrelevant, too.
Incorrect.
By the way, I am a lot more worried about Israel and its actual nuclear stockpile that has zero oversight.
Overall the goal is not to stop Iran's nuclear program, though that is part of it. The goal would be to install a government in Iran that is friendly to Israel and the USA, or, failing that, to completely destroy their economy and defense such that they effectively can't act outside their own borders.
Iran's funding for these groups is a part of its 'defense in depth' strategy since it doesn't have the capability to project power otherwise. I am not saying that it is the right thing to do, but I am also not that surprised that backed into a corner, they're trying to build regional proxies. It's not like the US and Israel are not doing the same in and around Iran.
But I like how these statements, like yours, are always made with zero context and hope for an uninformed audience to upvote them.
Obviously the leaders of both our countries want what’s best for all of us and always tell us the truth, right?
What recent months show us, is that it's a rough world - there are no friends. I'm rooting for European countries to accelerate their nuclear weapons programs. In an ideal world, of course I would be against. But the world is far from ideal. The current alternative is being dictated the rules by Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin. Thanks, but no.
But afaik both are related to the same conflict.
The current hypothesis is that a left wing group triggered the outage in “protest” against Germanys involvement in the war.
I'm pretty sure there are also a lot of people on this site that anecdotally know this from their contact with Iranian diaspora.
Perhaps you forgot that it was Iraq who attacked Iran and Kuwait while Iran attacked no country but hey.
Many countries have hardcore conservative rulers AND population, but in Iran the problem is mostly just the rulers. With better government, Iran would have so much potential.
It would be foolish for the Iranians to agree to that. But useful idiots will be useful idiots.
The magnitude of human suffering this will bring, civil war, sectarian violence, it all leads to hundreds of millions of people dying, millions of people displaced. Nobody likes the Iranian regime, just like nobody liked Saddam, its not the point. These wars are barbaric, not in the interests of anybody but Israel and a select few American arms dealers and pedophiles that propagandize their way to barely conscious sheep in the west clapping along to the barbarism AGAIN.
Same as the Gaza and Lebanon ceasefires where one side stops attacking and the other (Israel) keeps bombing?
I see how this works.
Anyway, best of luck in this. Your people deserve better.
Can you clarify the "moral point of view", please?
> This is not even worth a discussion.
How do you know without a discussion that you are right?
> The fact that you need cite a terrorist attack from 1983 to justify an illegal war of aggression in 2026 instigated by a US president without Congressional oversight speaks volumes.
This is a straw man you just made. The 1983 event is to show that Iran was in forever war with the US through either 3rd parties or directly on the territories of other states.
> That's a straw man argument since nobody claimed that.
Now it seems we are in a strange situation. If it is a war of aggression by the US, the implication is that Iran was not aggressive towards US. But we know it is not true. So, which is it?
Also, how would congress authorization make US non-aggressor here?
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and does what a duck does, it is a duck.
Yes it does, it makes everything you said untrue. You stated Iran doesn't want to give up its nuclear programme, not true. Iran in fact already did agree to it, Trump then threw that in the trash.
Second, it shows the Nuclear threat wasn't the issue because he had a solution for it and threw it away. Then bombed Iran destroying it ostensibly, then continued bombing for regime change. So it's not obvious negotiations failed over nuclear which you stated, because it wasn't about nuclear.
Negotiations failed over dismantling Iranian power, mostly its ballistic weapons. i.e. give up weapons and make yourself defenseless to maintain peace. Like the Palestinians did with Israel, after which they're still being murdered daily, aid is still being blocked, and the west bank is increasingly being colonised. In other words an absurd ask from a sovereign country with multiple expansionist neighbours including one that bombed you and virtually all its neighbours last year.
There is a hardline element in the IRGC that personally profits from autarky. If the Iranian markets opened to the world, it would decimate their incomes.
What hasn’t come up enough in this thread is the currency crisis that triggered the protests. The economy is in shambles and they’re still simmering anger about the Mahsa Amini killing.
There Iranian people are tired of being under the thumb of the mullahs. They don’t want to live under an Islamic theocracy.
Millions of Iranians all over the world and inside Iran are cheering us on. They’re done. Yes, they’re scared and they don’t know what will come next, but they know what they have now is intolerable.
it’s possible this could all go badly, but what the Iranian people have now is worse. We have to try. Every Iranian person I’ve met is hopeful something better will come.
His name was Marx. ;)
Yeah. We'll see. Under what conditions will you consider yourself right or wrong? My prediction is after killing a few more heads of state, disabling some more striking capability that they'll back off under pressure from the Arab states. Trump will declare it as a victory regardless of what happens and everyone will forget about it. Iran will eventually rebuild itself as it just did, but this time it will take longer (Trump even said that himself, contradicting himself earlier).
Sure, if the choice is between drone bombings and conventional bombings.
But no, not expected if the choice is between bombing and not bombing.
Iran is a big complex country and is more diverse than people think.
I think it makes sense that both are categorised as flawed.
you call their official slogan "Death to America, Death to Israel" - distasteful internal politics?
Even now most experts agree the chance of success is extremely small, every time this was tried you got shit returns (think Libya, still a failed state after Ghadaffi fell, and Iraq is reasonably stable now but we're 2 decades in and +1m dead Iraqis).
So it's certainly a useful distraction for Trump. It's also certainly true Trump would want to pursue this objective (despite it being a stupid move to reach it) regardless of the Epstein files.
unpopular shah -> 1979 revolution -> islamists take control, prison and kill the leftists of 1979 revolution.
Most of the opponents of Israel and its policies in the US are either anti-Zionists who are not and do not identify as anti-Semites, or people who don't even identify as anti-Zionists just opponents of Israeli policy. And many in both groups are Jewish themselves.
You blind yourself to the dozens of countries around the world doing these things and worse every day while picking and choosing enemies that are acceptable for the United States to attack like al la carte menu items. Justifying those attacks is an after thought.
There are more recent examples in Europe, like Putin, Orban and Vucic. All of them got elected fairly, and all of them engaged in the process of slowly but surely breaking democratic institutions and checks and balances down. The guidebook is actually exactly the same. Putin is now 25 years in power, Orban 16 years and Vucic 14 years.
You could say that those Eastern European democracies were fragile to begin with, but what MAGA is so far very much successfully doing is fully matching the existing proven guidebook.
If Polymarket were legal in my country I'd actually consider betting on it.
The US per-capita incarceration rate is ~5x that of France.
If it's a strong claim it's not much of a gamble, is it? Talk is cheap.
Russia would not have attacked Ukraine if they still had their nuclear weapons and Iran wouldn’t be under attack now if they had them too.
I’m not saying whether it’s goods or bad that any or specific countries have nuclear weapons, that’s beside the point. The point is that this attack sends the signal that the only way to guarantee your safety is to have them.
Both regimes were deeply racist.
Anyway, I don't think that information entered on the US decision making in any way.
One, they tried. They don’t have the capability. Two, that means more Iranians die. Cultures that choose pointless vengeance over pragmatic survival tend to get weeded out.
> Incorrect
Which part, why and based on whom?
Trump has said numerous times he’s going to run a third time and there’s no indication the Supreme Court has any ability to stop him.
We’ll see how democracy holds up when people intentionally are derelict in their duties.
Iran regularly threatens to destroy Israel, the opposite is not the case.
The anti-US spiel is just rhetoric. It helps save face when dealing with China, which it still utterly depends on, and it goes along with decades of internal propaganda lionizing China to its own people. Indeed North Korea wants heavy US military presence in the region, maintaining its status with regards to China as a strategically important buffer state which can act with plausible deniability instead of a resource rich neighbor with uncooperative leadership.
If North Korea only had conventional forces, what would stop China from installing a loyal puppet? The international community wouldn't lift a finger, threats to South Korea would only further alienate the regime, China could bring its full might to bear, the DPRK military would have no effective means to retaliate and would be more likely to turn on the regime than mount a credible defense, and North Korea's own people would probably welcome the change which would dramatically reduce oppression and increase prosperity. Nukes are the only way for a small number of regime loyalists to make such an operation too costly for Beijing to justify.
This is also why talks with the US have utterly "failed" for decades - there is nothing the US can offer that would provide the same security guarantee for the regime and the status quo is advantageous to the US for multiple reasons: justifying its large military presence in the region, justifying its efforts to develop and deploy ever more capable ballistic missile defense systems, and North Korea not being completely under China's control.
Most Persians I know will support just about anyone who will go against the regime, there were huge protests all over the world recently by the Iranian diaspora calling for the regime to be destroyed after tens of thousands of protesters were murdered by the regime all over Iran.
Probably in all of it. Iran wouldn't have a MAD arsenal, they'd have a small handful that they could pop on a ballistic. We know we can shoot down Iran's missiles. And we know they can't reach America. I'm entirely unconvinced that we wouldn't have launched an attack on Iran even if they had nuclear weapons, because we think we can intercept them, and if we can't, they aren't hitting the homeland.
Religious Zionism is a religious denomination.
National Religious Party–Religious Zionism is a political party.
It feels unfair and unjustified that you are accusing me of confusing them without substantiating your accusation. I am still open to learn anything that you might want to share with me that you think is important.
The Dati Leumi, the Religious Zionists, who constitute the ideological backbone of the settler movement, and have a lot of political influence in Israel, absolutely believe in their duty to govern the biblical land. For many, holding the West Bank is a religious obligation, and they consider the Golan settled and annexed. Religiously, the same principle that justifies them holding Golan applies to these territories.
Here are some recent statements from political leaders:
Bezalel Smotrich (Finance Minister, Religious Zionist party) "it is written that the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus."
Daniella Weiss (prominent settler leader) said in 2024: "We know from the Bible that the real borders of Greater Israel are the Euphrates and the Nile."
Benjamin Netanyahu said he's on a "historic and spiritual mission" and that he is "very" attached to the vision of Greater Israel, which includes Palestinian areas and possibly also places that are part of Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon.
Yair Lapid, the secular centrist opposition leader (!). "I don't think I have a dispute on the biblical level about what the original borders of Israel are... I support anything that will allow the Jews a big, vast, strong land."
Mike Huckabee (US Ambassador to Israel) "It would be fine if they took it all."
Palestinians in Gaza have been governed by Hamas since 2006. Before that, they had been governed by the Palestinian Authority (Fatah) since 1994.
Palestinians in Judea and Samaria ("West bank") have been governed by the Palestinian Authority continuously since 1994, with the exception of Area C.
Palestinians who live there are NOT "de facto governed" by Israel. They pay taxes to the Palestinian Authority; receive birth certificates, IDs, business licenses and social security payments from the P.A.; Go to schools, hospitals, courts, police stations and jails run by the P.A. And most importantly, they vote in elections run by the P.A. To say that they are "de facto governed" by Israel is ridiculous, and shows a lack of basic understanding of Israel and Palestine, and the conflict between them.
This is not salvageable without justice and accountability.
Normal people distinguish between Israel and Jews and call themselves antizionists. It's Zionists who blur the distinction.
There are several countries throughout history where the citizens have been absolutely obsessed with their own race and considered the crusader state to be the sole representative of it. It never ended well.
Ultimately? If the people who are going to kill you were elected into power by those "innocent people", why would you not lash out at them too? Some twisted sense of morality or taking the high road?
Oh boy, I see we learned nothing from Afghanistan. The US will eventually leave you alone, There will be a power vacuum, and the local warlord will rise to that opportunity.
The "military operations" don't end in decisive vistory. They end with death and destruction for the young men sent into battle, and more enemies in the surrounding areas.
Better to have privation than to get bombed and massacred in large numbers.
Which parts of Lebanon does Israel occupy?
That's the rationalisation. Not a justification. Defence in depth was Hitler's rationale for invading Russia, is Israel's strategy for pacifying neighbors, and is Russia's excuse for invading Ukraine.
Creating weak neighbors is checklist-item one for any classical aspiring land empire. It's also tremendously destabilising to its neighbourhood. (It's not a coincidence that China and Russia are bordered by (a) shitshows or (b) countries militarily posturing against them.)
Syria is the prime example of this. A major reason for the civilian slaughter was foreign intervention trying regime change.
If you're trying to say that had NK not had nukes we would bomb it for 'humanitarian purposes' or 'on behalf of its people' then I have a couple of bridges for sale.
The obnoxious sanctimonious behavior of telling random Iranians to “wake the fuck up” as if we have a saying in what either Iranian government or the US side does. Go pound sand.
They also have (had?) a very active ballistic missile program, and have conducted implosion experiments.
The constellation of evidence is quite clear: Iran is a threshold nuclear state with all the pieces necessary to credibly threaten the region (and soon the US homeland) with nuclear weapons.
I was in a major car accident, I cannot walk.
Oh the car accident was years ago, I was fine. I cannot walk because I'm seatbelted into a car driving down the road at the moment. Why would you have ever thought there was a connection?
You do not enrich uranium to 60% like Iran was doing unless you have a nuclear weapons program.
Yes, it’s complex. Firstly, the regime isn’t truly theocratic.
There are many online videos of regime family members enjoying parties and alcohol.
The second piece: I assume 10-20% of people were participating in the exploitation of our country. They kept the other 80% in control for a long time.
Lots of factions in Iran, including within the IRGC. Khamenei's bunker gets hit, oh no, new dude knives the competition and then makes a call to the White House.
The moral point of view is that a war of aggression violates the sovereignty of the people in the attacked country. The aggressor country's officials are not elected by the people of the defending country, nor do they in any other way represent the people of that country. They have no right to decide the fate of the people in another country.
> How do you know without a discussion that you are right?
I'm reasonably certain about that because I've studied philosophy and worked in ethics, though not specifically on any issues concerning international rights. I'm also overall a well-educated person with an intact sense of justice.
> This is a straw man you just made. The 1983 event is to show that Iran was in forever war with the US through either 3rd parties or directly on the territories of other states.
No it's not a straw man. You came up with the 1983 event, not me. It would have been a straw man argument if I suddenly had come up with that. My reply to your position is that there are no "forever wars" - this category does not exist in international right and obviously makes no sense. Once you start justifying your attacks with a "forever war" you're in the realm of historical justifications, and these are principally wrong. Why? Because you can find some historical justification for just about any war you want to start. The whole world would be constantly at war if historical justifications were used and deemed acceptable. They are not acceptable.
> Now it seems we are in a strange situation. If it is a war of aggression by the US, the implication is that Iran was not aggressive towards US. But we know it is not true. So, which is it?
I believe you're trolling. In any case, that is not the implication. Not every act of aggression is an act of war. However, the US military has just started a widespread bombing campaign, and that is an act of war. The US is the aggressor not just from an international rights point of view, they're the aggressor as evidenced by the speech of the US President.
> Also, how would congress authorization make US non-aggressor here?
Not at all, and I didn't say that.
JCPOA didn't fully eliminate the nuclear program, it mostly just kept it from getting too far along.
> Second, it shows the Nuclear threat wasn't the issue because he had a solution for it and threw it away. Then bombed Iran destroying it ostensibly, then continued bombing for regime change. So it's not obvious negotiations failed over nuclear which you stated, because it wasn't about nuclear.
Nuclear isn't the only issue either, but Iranian officials made it clear they would not give up their nuclear program.
> Negotiations failed over dismantling Iranian power, mostly its ballistic weapons. i.e. give up weapons and make yourself defenseless to maintain peace.
Iran isn't interested in maintaining peace, they want to continue destabilizing the entire region.
> Like the Palestinians did with Israel, after which they're still being murdered daily, aid is still being blocked, and the west bank is increasingly being colonised.
Last I checked Hamas has refused to give up their weapons.
> In other words an absurd ask from a sovereign country with multiple expansionist neighbours including one that bombed you and virtually all its neighbours last year.
Iran has repeatedly threatened the destruction of Israel, it's not surprising that Israel and the US are taking those threats seriously.
There is "religion" in the broader sense which can be any set of beliefs but Netanyahu is as secular and logical as can be. He may be overly logical in the sense of advancing his personal agenda (avoiding standing trial) over the interests of his country but he's still very different than the religious crazies in Tehran where logic plays no role and g-d is everything.
Anyway, democracy is not a binary. You'd be unlikely to call ancient Athens a democracy by modern standards and yet...
Meanwhile, delaying or canceling elections through executive order would be blatantly illegal, particularly when no conflict is taking place on U.S. soil. The case likely wouldn't even make it to the Supreme Court, but if it did, I have no doubt elections would be promptly reinstated.
I'm not saying the Supreme Court has a perfect record, of course. Not even two years ago, they essentially ruled that the president is above the law. But at least in matters regarding the balance of powers between branches, the Supreme Court is wary of the power of the executive branch, and that should certainly include the president's ability (or lack thereof) to interfere in elections.
We can play the “whose saying it game”, or look at the arguments. Democracy is rule by the lowest - and it’s easily manipulated by the popular. Buying votes, focus on the carnal, and immediate is a clear sign of democracy in decline.
To counter your list of things that the PA does de facto control, I will add: who controls the criminal court system? The checkpoints which lead to the outside world? The airspace? The ability to import and export goods? The roads? The territorial contiguity of Areas A and B? The decisions on building new settlements?
Aside from the municipal things you mentioned, which in most places in the world are controlled by subnational entities, Israel is in de facto control of the lives and futures of all 15 million people "from the river to the sea", roughly half of them Jews and half of them Arabs, while only one of those groups has what anyone in the West could consider to be a normal existence.
I find it astounding that the U.S. population aren't storming Washington and demanding his removal. Other countries are removing people from positions who were involved with Epstein due to the massive corruption and yet the USA seems fine with allowing Trump to continue destroying everything he touches.
No. You are saying that these people died because of Trump's tweet, and not because the IR goons gunned people on the streets. Seems to me that you place the fault on Trump, rather than on those who pulled the trigger.
I'll wait for some non-iranian confirmation.
I was speaking of the Gazans who originally elected Hamas to protect them but where Hamas eventually decided to sacrifice masses of them to achieve some of their goals. They knew what would happen and did it anyway, without the people's consent.
In Syria, Israel had a buffer zone since 1974. Last year they said the agreement had "collapsed" and went on to occupy even more territoru: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/26/israel-carries-out-...
Palestine is occupied.
The point of having nuclear capabilities is to make the risk calculation more difficult. It doesn’t mean you need to have state of the art capabilities.
I feel like I lost track of the discussion. At some point I thought you were claiming something along the lines that says religious Jews believe they are under an order from God to expand Israel to its maximal biblical geographical area.
If your claim is that the current day Mafdal's political (not necessarily religious) position is that Israel should annex the West Bank and Gaza. Ehm, sure, maybe. I think it's a bit more nuanced even than that but I won't argue on this point.
It's possible I just lost the thread, and if I did I apologize. HN isn't very good at facilitating this sort of discussion. If I mis-stated your position above and am agreeing with the wrong thing I'm sure you'll correct me.
[EDIT: correcting myself a little bit Burg actually ended up as a member of the Labor party in politics, but his politics did originally align with the Mafdal, the party is/was supposed to represent all Zionist Religious people but has obviously diverged a bit from that)
I would say a lot of Jewish people and Israelis get upset at what you're saying and so maybe our reply will be a bit adversarial. Here's trying to be more factual (I used Gemini to research though I'm personally familiar with these figures as well).
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (1920–2013): The highly influential former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel. While his political party (Shas) later shifted rightward, Rabbi Yosef issued a landmark religious ruling in the late 1970s stating that Israel is permitted to cede land in exchange for a genuine peace treaty, prioritizing the sanctity of life over holding territory.
Rabbi Menachem Froman (1945–2013): An Orthodox rabbi and resident of a West Bank settlement who famously engaged in direct dialogue with Palestinian leaders, including the PLO and Hamas. He supported the creation of a Palestinian state, arguing that shared religious reverence for the land should be the foundation for peace rather than an obstacle.
Rabbi Michael Melchior: An Orthodox rabbi and former Israeli cabinet minister who leads the Mosaica religious peace initiative. He actively works on "track-two" diplomacy, fostering dialogue between Israeli rabbis and Palestinian imams.
Rabbi Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–1994): A highly influential Orthodox Jewish philosopher and scientist. Immediately following the 1967 Six-Day War, he became a vocal opponent of the military occupation of the Palestinian territories, warning that it would corrupt Israeli society and Judaism itself.
Rabbis for Human Rights: An active Israeli organization made up of over a hundred Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist rabbis. They physically protect Palestinian farmers, advocate against settler violence, and largely support a two-state solution based on the biblical mandate to protect the vulnerable.
On the question of the applicability of religion: "Does Judaism Mandate a Specific Political Solution?
No. Judaism predates the concept of the modern nation-state, so the religion does not explicitly mandate a "one-state" or "two-state" political framework. Instead, different religious camps emphasize competing core values within Jewish law (Halakha) and scripture to justify their political stances"
There's a lot more to explore and I encourage you do that on your own.
At best the Palestinian Territories have “quasi-governmental control.” I’m saying this as someone who isn’t particularly pro-Palestine. Pretending that Israel isn’t de facto the government of the Palestinian Territories is an unserious position.
By de facto I mean explicitly not de jure.
> This is not salvageable without justice and accountability.
Do Palestinians have to be held accountable for their actions?
It's a macabre study. But one could honestly argue that several countries in the latter category's populations are better off than North Korea's.
Ah yes, give any discussion enough time and Hitler inevitably gets to be whoever your opponent is.
Unlike Hitler, unlike Israel and unlike the US, Iran has not proactively attacked.
Hitler had no reason to fear attack from Russia, Czechoslovakia or France. Iran has every reason to fear an attack from the US and Israel, look at what is happening right now ffs.
Western governments provide funding and shelter for extremist Iranian groups like People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran and various separatists movements inside the country, so please spare me this Hitler nonsense.
You think the US would just leave them alone as a communist, sovereign country without nukes, bordering china???
Are you sure about this part?
They also said the US demands are completely unreasonable, which you conveniently left out.
> Nuclear isn't the only issue either, but Iranian officials made it clear they would not give up their nuclear program.
False, they were very clear they would give it up. Are you at all aware of what Iran has been saying through its diplomatic channels? Listen to what the neutral parties are saying, it's clear on this.
> Iran isn't interested in maintaining peace, they want to continue destabilizing the entire region.
Alright time to stop talking to you. You've got a very black/white child like view on geopolitics.
> Last I checked Hamas has refused to give up their weapons.
Hamas had one lever to pull: hostages. Hamas gave the last tens of them up in return for a cease-fire to stop the killing of at the time exceeding 100 thousand civilians (admitted by Israel itself), but Israeli killing and expansion has only continued. Iran set-up the deal, US tore its own deal apart and bombed it. Do you think these are parties to make another deal with, to give up any leverage you still have in the hope they won't reneg later and leave you worse off? Don't be silly.
> Iran has repeatedly threatened the destruction of Israel, it's not surprising that Israel and the US are taking those threats seriously.
As have Israel and the US, does it warrant a strike on these countries? Don't be ridiculous, it's rhetoric to the base. What matters is policy. Israel has expanded its borders, Iran hasn't. Israel has bombed Iran and assasinated its leadership, the reverse isn't true. Israel and US reneged on their agreements that Iran upheld.
Interesting. So, US intervention in WW2 was not moral? Germans did not consent.
> I know that because I've studied philosophy and worked in ethics, though not specifically on any issues concerning international rights. I'm also overall a well-educated person with an intact sense of justice.
And? So, you cannot be mistaken?
> Because you can find some historical justification for just about any war you want to start. The whole world would be constantly at war if historical justifications were used and deemed acceptable. They are not acceptable.
Great. Then no war is acceptable. Any action that is not yet take is in the past, and thus historical. Why respond?
You see, thinking in absolutes will take you only this far. The hardest issues to reason about are in the gray area, where you have to make a judgement call because it is not a clear cut issue. Unlike you, I realize that it's not a simple "aggression" but rather way more complicated issue.
> I believe you're trolling.
I am not. I am having an opposing point of view to yours. However, I am not basing my argument on my personal qualities as the most moral person in the world. I am trying to use universal values and reasoning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei%27s_fatwa_against...
If they’re using a novel, supercritical core mechanism, maybe. Otherwise, unlikely.
If they’re using a novel, supercritical core mechanism, maybe. Otherwise, unlikely. (You would get fallout instead.)
I just meant that there's a part of the religious spectrum prone to that interpretation, and it mixes very well with nationalism, and expansionism. And that it isn't a meaningless fringe, but has a significant political representation. What I wrote was a reasonable way the scripture can be interpreted by someone who believes it's a true word of God.
If I'm wrong, and e.g. the Miflaga Datit Leumit party explicitly rejects this kind of intepretation then I stand corrected, but judging by what its leader says publicly this isn't the case...
Someone in the Middle East gets hit.
> would the risk calculation for an attack on Iran be as easy as it is right now?
The risk calculation isn't easy today. Nukes would make it harder. But I'm pushing back on the notion that it would make it a non-starter.
(MAD arsenals and long-range ICBMs, on the other hand, make it a non-starter.)
They said Palestinians are "a large portion of the Israeli population [that] is disenfranchised". That is a wrong statement. Palestinians are not part of the Israeli population and there is no expectation (on either side) that they would participate in Israeli elections. That issue has been largely settled by the Oslo framework in 1994.
> As I understand it, the right to vote is gated behind a citizenship process that is restrictive enough to generally prevent Palestinians from obtaining it.
I'm not sure which elections you mean.
- Israeli elections are for Israeli citizens. The 20% of Israelis who are Arab (sometimes loosely referred to as "Palestinians" as a loose synonym for "Arab living in former mandatory Palestine") can participate normally
- Palestinians in the West Bank vote in Palestinian elections. ' not aware of any citizenship-related restrictions there. Possible issues might be: logistics of getting to polls because of Israeli checkpoints; or simply the absence of elections (PA hasn't held a national election since 2006, although there are municipal elections).
- Specifically in East Jerusalem, on which Israeli claims sovereignty, Palestinians are classified as permanent residents of Israel. They may apply fot Israeli citizenship but that's probably a difficult process. As permanent residents they can vote in Israeli municipal elections, and as Palestinians they can vote in Palestinian national elections. But not being Israeli citizens they cannot vote in Israeli national elections. Perhaps that is what you're referring to?
Building military defenses against crazed, genocidal, racial supremacists who routinely fire missiles at your country seems more like sensible forward planning to me rather than evidence of a guilty conscience.
If you don't like to argue, may I suggest not making controversial claims on controversial topics, in a place that encourages constructive debate?
> Access to the West Bank is controlled by Israel.
That is mostly true. On the border with Jordan it is jointly controlled by Jordan and Israel (like most international borders).
> Pretending that Israel isn’t de facto the government of the Palestinian Territories is an unserious position
I already explained in great detail the specific ways in which the Palestinian Territories are, in fact, governed by the Palestinian Authority. Taxation, elections, justice, police, education, healthcare, roads, sewers, business regulation, population register...
So far your counter-argument is that Israel controls the border... and therefore Palestinians should vote in Israeli elections? Should they also vote in Palestinian ejections? Or should the P.A. simply stop to exist? What point are you even making exactly?
Calling me "unserious" doesn't make you automatically "serious", or right.
My country and my Government, sent people from my generation down there to die. My countrymen died in that war, and the only thing we got out of it was more enemies in the region. The Afghan is still getting persecuted for styling their beard wrong, and the Afghan woman is still getting opressed. We have nothing to show for that sacrifice.
I see no reason to believe the same thing isn't going to happen in Iran.
Gaza was not occupied. There was zero military presence in Gaza prior to October 7th.
So you're saying Israel's occupation of Lebanon amounts to 4,000 square metres? About the area of an athletics track, I guess? (Not counting the bit inside the athletics track.)
But I'd also point out that a lot of what makes it really suck to live in the worst places in the world isn't often the government but rather the international relationships. Turkey has a particularly brutal government, but it's Nato and EU ally status means that the civilians enjoy modern trade and travel.
The worst times to be in NK was the 90s when there was an ongoing famine and the US refused to lift sanctions thinking it'd spark a civil war that overthrew the regime. It didn't.
Don’t you see any similarity between what you say and any colonial. And my brain is broken?
Let me put it in a way that’s easy to comprehend for you. War is bad and Iranian government is as much responsible for this war as the US. I don’t understand how this is so triggering for some.
edit.
> Evidently I care more about the hundreds of thousands of Iranian people that will die in this war than you.
Did you care equally when thousands of Iranians were massacred in the streets by the government or the “care” activates only when convenient?
Because it fits. Nazi Germany was an aspiring land power. You can see the same effect in Imperial Rome and the Persian empires. (And, while America was conquering its own continent, on the peripheries of Manifest-Destiny America.)
> Unlike Hitler, unlike Israel and unlike the US, Iran has not proactively attacked
Of course they have. Its proxies are constantly proactively attacking everyone in their neighbourhood.
> Hitler had no reason to fear attack from Russia, Czechoslovakia or France. Iran has every reason to fear an attack from the US and Israel, look at what is happening right now ffs
Everyone has reason to fear attack from everyone. Defence in depth is a regionally-destabilising response to that security imperative. And by the way, Russia and Germany did wind up going to war with each other. Same as Iran and Israel, that same one whose anihiliation the former has been chanting for since its revolution.
Arguing Iran has been some peaceful country minding its own business is totally inaccurate.
We've gone from, "The amazing Islamic Republic of Iran isn't even capable of building deliverable nuclear weapons and they have lots of peaceful reasons to do enrichment to 60%!" to "Yeah OK, they are capable and they are indeed enriching Uranium for their weapons program--hey, look over here! USA and Israel!!!"
Can you give me some official sources that explain what exactly was negotiated and demanded on both sides?
War isn't glamorous. It's mechanized death and torture destroying communities, families, and loved ones. And when it's powered by foreign governments, it's worse. Because the two colliding sides are armed to the gills with the best weapons in murder along with mercenaries and no oversight.
Living in a dictatorship is hard but doable, There are literally generations of people that have survived and thrived in that sort of an environment. It's not preferable, for sure, but you still have your family, friends, and neighbors. None of them are trying to actively kill you. So long as you follow the rules, life in a dictatorship is generally predicable and the odds of the state making you specifically an example are low.
1. The US "intervention" in WW2 was fully justified because the US was attacked. It's also justified to help another country that is attacked, for example the US campaign against Iraq during the First Gulf war was justified. Both were defensive actions, not wars of aggression. Preventive wars are also wars of aggression, though, and classified as such by international law. There are fairly direct equivalents of all of this in regular penal law.
2. I never claimed I cannot be mistaken. It's best to focus on arguments, not persons.
> Great. Then no war is acceptable.
War has at least two sides (often more). A war of aggression is never acceptable. You've got that right. That's also how it's viewed in international law. Defending against a war of aggression is always acceptable. Helping someone defend against a war of aggression is also acceptable. There is a third category, a military intervention by a broad alliance legitimized by some international body. That is in the "it depends" category but plays no role here. Now countries that start wars of aggression know all that and therefore often argue they're just defending themselves. I'm stating that this is a pretense and not a correct justification in this particular case of the US attacking Iran. I'm not planning to go into the details why this is the case, it is obvious enough anyway. Just to make this clear.
I have no comments about the rest of your comment, which, frankly speaking, to me mostly sounds like self-aggrandizing remarks. I was mostly referring to how established international law looks at the matter and your personal views interest me less. Have a good day!
Wow so no big deal then right?
Jesus Christ dude
The ostracized Aussies then can vote for their own leaders but will be blamed if they vote for the wrong ones and embargoed, regularly shot and even bombed from time to time to remind them who the place belongs to.
You’re making my point anyway, by conceding that the West Bank is effectively governed without representation in the governments controlling them.
The US keeps coming back is what I'm saying. The US was kicked out of Iran in 1953. That's what all this is about. They will do the same to Afghanistan eventually. That's what I meant by time didn't stop. The Taliban isn't safe by any means. It's just a temporary reprieve.
This is an actual question. It seems to me that you only care about Arabs dying. Jews can die left and right in the hands of Arabs and you won’t blink an eye. Am I correct?
I just want to clarify it for others who reads your comments to see.
You can live a perfectly normal life in Kiev. It’s not exactly an active war zone, you see luxury cars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on every corner. You can buy bottles of Petrus in 24 hour supermarkets and eat decent food at countless fancy restaurants.
Goodwine in Kiev will also put US luxury grocers to shame. Ukraine might be at war, but the quality of life is hardly bad.
...nobody argued the proxy wars were good for those countries. Just that if you're turned into a random local in one of those theatres, chances are you're better off a decade or two later than if you're turned into a random North Korean.
Me as me? Gaza. Because I'd get out. That's a bullshit answer, though, so I'll answer as a local. And there, it's honestly a coin toss because Gaza is possibly the shittiest war zone outside Africa right now. But if you said North Korea or Syria during its civil war? North Korea or Myanmar? I'm going with not Pyongyang.
The only one where I'd honestly choose North Korea hands down is Sudan, because that's the one nobody really gives a shit about which means it's going to go on forever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Lebanese_confl...
To each their own. I wouldn't. In part because once you're in North Korea, you're not getting out. That isn't the case for Ukraine, Syria or any of the other war-torn countries.
I'm anti-interventionism, you can't seriously reframe that into western chauvinism.
> War is bad and Iranian government is as much responsible for this war as the US. I don’t understand how this is so triggering for some.
Because its just not true, there would be no war without the US and Israel starting it, PERIOD. It's triggering because you could've said exactly the same thing about the Iraq war, its always the same disaster and people never listen or learn anything, that's why its frustrating.
Compared to Israel and the US, it would be a massive understatement to call Iran peaceful.
Look at the mass murder by Israel in Gaza. Or how the US just overthrew Venezuela and seized their resources, threatened to take Greenland, taunts Canada and suggests more countries are in their sights.
And now the two of them teamed up to bomb Iran, unprovoked, saying it's going to "annihilate their Navy" as their citizens run for cover.
And your conclusion is Iran is the one that resembles Nazi Germany?
Are you seriously arguing that Hitler was rational for preemptively attacking Russia because AFTER Hitler attacked Russia, Russia did not simply sit back and let itself be attacked but in fact started defending itself? And are you arguing that Israel doing the same is rational because AFTER Israel attacked Iran, Iran launched some missiles towards Israel IN RESPONSE TO THE ISRAELI ATTACK, therefore proving Israel right that Iran is going to attack them?
> that same one whose anihiliation the former has been chanting for since its revolution.
Oh and Israel has been nothing but wishing them happy Ramadan?
The reason Israel does not want the current Iranian system to survive is because it sees it as the only possible threat to its eternal domination of the Palestinians and its ability to dictate its borders in the Middle East.
Are you arguing it would be in this White House?
I want to avoid linking particular sources because I know it's easy to call this or that biased etc. but it's easy to look up even in Israeli sources.
And also your neighbors absolutely will sell you out.
NK does actually allow people to leave, mostly to china and mostly after they attain a high social class. A decent number of tourists, including US citizens, go on tours of NK.
“there would be no war without Hamas starting it, PERIOD.”
See how dishonest and ignorant that sounds?
For everyone else reading this thread as Iran being bombed: In 47 years of constant confrontation, islamic regime has not built one fucking bomb shelter for its people for these days. Let that sink in. Don’t believe these people who suddenly start to care about Iranian lives by taking the regime’s side and also don’t believe US officials when they say they do all these for our freedom.
Sure. Which makes Iran a decidedly not-peaceful country.
In this strategic aspect, yes. So does Israel. So do Russia and China. They're all acting like land empires. And they're all pursuing a strategy that seeks weak, unstable neighbours.
It's a shitty strategy that does't earn one friends. The fact that it's theoretically coherent doesn't make it less shitty.
No. I'm saying Hitler's theory of attacking Russia was the same as Iran's simultaneous proxy wars with its entire neighbourhood. It's not theoretically wrong. Just antiquated, destructive and–in the trade-based modern world–increasingly counterproductive. (You're trashing and alienating your natural trading partners.)
And I'm drawing analogy between (a) "Iran has every reason to fear an attack from the US and Israel, look at what is happening right now" and (b) the nonsense argument "that Hitler was rational for preemptively attacking Russia because AFTER Hitler attacked Russia, Russia did not simply sit back and let itself be attacked." In both cases, retaliation is being used to justify the preceding (note: not initial) aggression.
> Oh and Israel has been nothing but wishing them happy Ramadan?
If your neighbour is developing ballistic missiles and explicitly calling for your anihilation, you're not going to "simply sit back and let [your]self be attacked."
> reason Israel does not want the current Iranian system to survive is because it sees it as the only possible threat to its eternal domination of the Palestinians and its ability to dictate its borders in the Middle East
Iran isn't a material threat to Israel's power projection into Gaza and the West Bank. Its ballistic missiles and nuclear programme, on the other hand, are an existential threat to Tel Aviv/Jerusalem. And yes, it's a regional competitor to Israeli (and Saudi and Emirati) hegemony.
Thriving in a dictatorship, even not as an enforcer, is possible. It's a worse life in general but still a life you can live.
Generally speaking, the only life that truly sucks in a dictatorship is if you become an enemy of the state. That doesn't generally apply to all citizens because, if it did, a dicatorship would quickly end in revolt. That is the theory behind strong sanctions. It's believed that if you starve a nation eventually the citizens revolt. The problem is it takes little resources to keep people happy, ultimately.
> The US demands were for Iran to give up all its offensive capabilities
Iran has had civil unrest over the last year, they weren't in the position politically to be doing much of anything to the "democracy" of Israel.
The entire reason for the US Israel attack on Iran is because of that civil unrest, not because Iran was a threat, but because both nations see an opportunity to install a puppet government that does their bidding.
What remains to be seen is if Russia sees a similar opportunity and we end up with another Syria.
Of course it isn't, it's entirely porous to the IDF. I'm an American citizen. If I were teleported to Gaza I'd probably be fine. At material risk of being fucked up. But I'd take my chances there over being an American teleported to North Korea.
I didn't know this. Source? I thought Pyongyang controls its elites' movement even more strictly than its commoners'.
They are practically Gandhi in this story.
Looking forward, the problem with being irrationally hateful is that its irrational. What's the plan here? Persia will still exist, and its unlikely any future rulers will like Israel, given what's going on. So what's the win condition?
The issue is that you seem to be ignoring the context and using this (weak imo) comparison to defend the US and Israel's decision to attack them.
Except that's not happening and is complete BS. It also assumes these proxies have no agency and would not have acted on their own.
> It's not theoretically wrong. Just antiquated, destructive and–in the trade-based modern world–increasingly counterproductive. (You're trashing and alienating your natural trading partners.)
Guess what would allow Iran to peacefully trade with Israel. The end of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. The reason Iran cannot simply ignore that occupation is because it would loose the moral high ground in the Shia/Muslim world. And having that moral high ground (i.e. its support for the Palestinian cause) is also part of its power projection strategy.
> If your neighbour is developing ballistic missiles and explicitly calling for your anihilation, you're not going to "simply sit back and let [your]self be attacked.
Given that Israel does indeed have ballistic missiles and is explicitly calling for for the annihilation of Palestinians, or even 'Arabs' in general, does that in your mind justify October 7th?
> Iran isn't a material threat to Israel's power projection into Gaza and the West Bank.
Not Iran itself, but Israel insists that Iran support for 'proxies' is. Maybe not to Israeli power projection, but to its security at least.
What's your point?
It’s because your logic is flawed. It doesn’t hold up a very simple scrutiny test.
I guess I shouldn't have written leave, but to visit other countries. I don't think you can change your citizenship.
[1] https://www.youngpioneertours.com/can-north-koreans-travel/
They've also, simultaneously, tried to escalate.
> All of these attacks completely unprovoked except for the fact that they are friendly with Hamas and Hezbollah
"Friendly with" in the way America was friendly with South Vietnam and South Korea. (Also, the IRGC has directly sponsored attacks, e.g. Bondi Beach.)
> They are practically Gandhi in this story
This is either stupid or dishonest.
> What's the plan here?
Don't confuse specific criticism with endorsement of the war.
Sure. And yes, it's risky. But there are two million people in Gaza and half a dozen to a dozen, on average, being killed each day. If I, literally I, were teleported into Gaza, my primary operational concern would be avoiding Hamas. (My primary operational goal, getting to an internet-connected device.)
> no one is launching rockets onto North Korea
Correct, their security forces are undisrupted.
> the people there should not fight and let them take over, because war is worse than dictatorship, right?
No, I think the people should fight back, obviously. A country being actively invaded has a right to fight back. The war isn't their choosing and laying down arms is a mistake because captured civilians are rarely treated well after a war.
I'm specifically talking about an established dictatorship vs war. Specifically, as I said, a civil war which is a proxy war for foreign agents. Starting a war to end a dictatorship is bad. A dictatorship starting a war is bad. However, a dictatorship not starting wars is ultimately a better place to live vs anywhere under and active civil war.