Setting aside any considerations on our side: for this war (or really any war), it's worth turning the chessboard around to look at things from your adversary's perspective as much as possible.
If you're the Iranian regime, the world is a hostile place. You're surrounded by enemies and potential enemies. In your time of crisis, the friends you thought you had are acting like they don't know you. The situation is one of existential threat. A future reality with your head on a pike is a very real possibility. You don't exactly have many options here, so maybe you play the only move you can make. It's a risky one, but it's at least bold and will be effectuating.
Interestingly, this move also attacks your real enemy: the globalized market. Iran would do well for itself in a world of 1926; in 2026, there's going to be friction.
In a sense, they're not fighting the US/Israel. They're fighting our datacenters. I'm sure the strategy for this conflict was vibe-planned to a large extent. A hyper-conservative regime like this will probably fare (at least in the long run) about as well as you would if you decide to nope out of society and go live in a Hobbesian state of nature in your local park. That might work for awhile, but eventually, the system will come for you. And that's just neutrality. Pick a fight with capital, and you'll always lose.
Yes this is pretty much my read as well. You can debate the morality or pragmatism of this war (or any war) but fundamentally there is no winning against global Capital. The US, some other country, are just vectors for larger forces.
Which IMO is why attempting to combat that from the outside is probably fruitless, and a better route is to try and gain control from the inside. Iran (or Russia, for that matter) would be dominant forces if they were integrated with their neighbors. Imagine Russia inside the EU – they'd have as much/more influence than Germany.
But they're outside, increasingly isolated, and thus open to erosion, whether in a hostile war like today's, or just by being outcompeted and culturally left behind.
Some would say Russia is very much inside the US and somewhat inside the EU through its proxies (currently govts of Hungary and Slovakia, quite possibly in the future - France and Germany).
Iran is on “death ground” as Sarah Paine would say. It’s a TERRIBLE idea to put your enemy on death ground because all they can do is fight now. We’re going to keep bombing them until there’s nothing left. Iran is going to end up looking like Afghanistan (a broken country of small feudal states) at the end of this.
Edit: By Iran, I'm referring to what's left of the current Iranian administration and military, not the entirety of the Iranian people.
You’re overlooking the fundamental difference between Iranian society and Afghan society. In Afghanistan, the U.S. was trying to bomb a place that was always a collection of small feudal states into being a functioning country. In Iran, it’s trying to dislodge a theocracy that’s taken over a country that’s had orderly, centralized administration for almost two thousand years.
I wouldn’t bet on either approach working. But a good outcome in Afghanistan was always completely hopeless. A good outcome in Iran is merely unlikely.
> In Iran, it’s trying to dislodge a theocracy that’s taken over a country that’s had orderly, centralized administration for almost two thousand years.
You don't actually know anything about Iran's history, do you. Sure, back in the pre-Islamic days, Persia had two empires that pretty much set the standard for "centralized administration". After Arab invasion, it's a mixed record. The Safavid's (possibly) can be considered a "centrally administered" kingdom. To wit, Reza Shah Pahlavi's feather in his cap was that he managed to (finally after centuries) put the various provincial grandees and nomadic tribes in a box. That's basically 100 years.
A good primer background (on modern Iran at least) is "Iranian Nationalism" by Richard Cottam, 1963.
I agree with you that Afghanistan is a much different country. My fear is that once the entire centralized theocracy is bombed out of existence it will open the door for localize warlords to begin carving up territory. The alternative is a Khamenei 2.0 character stepping in. But then the question is, will Israel/the US not just assassinate them too? I don't know but there's no way this ends well.
I hate the idea of nation building. But I’ve long thought that if there was any Muslim country where we could pull off the feat we did in Germany and Japan—turning it into a stable democracy—it’s Iran. But that would take boots on the ground, which I don’t support. (I don’t support the assassination either to be clear.)
That’s my point. Germany already had a developed state with burgeoning democratic government. So it wasn’t a tall order to reboot it as a stable democracy. Japan likewise had already developed a modern state under Emperor Meiji.
I am sure they are trying to "dislodge theocracy". We know USA and Israel are always hypertruthful about their real goals in Middle eastern adventurism. One country "doesn't" have any nukes and the other attacked Iraq because they "had" nukes. So tou should understand if different people have different levels of trust in the stated motivations.
The objective of the mission is clearly to dislodge the theocracy. The motivation for doing so is clearly US and Israeli security, not concern for the welfare of Iranians. Which is as it should be. Countries should act in their own interest, not in the interests of other countries.
The objective is bs, most probably oil and Israeli interests. After all there have been many stated "objectives" of all their past middle eastern campaigns. I literally cited an example where false lie of nukes was used to invade Iraq while the actual country lying about nukes sits scot free and is again directing another misadventure. If the USA hated theocracies so much it won't be allying with arab countries or have been propping up the "Mujahideen".
No, this isn't what Paine means by death ground. Paine used that to refer to Soviet citizens/soldiers that knew they would be erased/eliminated if they lost. The Iranians don't think that their opponents want to eliminate their entire civilization.
People in the west who talk about “Islamophobia” are often just ignorant about what Muslim countries themselves do to control political Islam. In my home country, where Islam is the official religion, the government banned Islam-associated parties until recently and went around killing Islamists without due process. In majority-Muslim Turkey, political Islam was suppressed—e.g. hijabs were banned until Erdogan came to power. Singapore bans the hijab for certain civil servants. None of that is “Islamophobia”—it’s an effort to make sure that what happened in Iran doesn’t happen in their country.
We talk about Mosques shooting, women and girls wearing the hijab attacked/assaulted in the streets (being a woman in the streets after the sun is down always is a risk, if you're wearing anything Muslim-looking, you multiply that risk,), and a lot of aggression here.
The shah of Iran heavily suppressed Islam as well…and It led directly to the Islamic revolution. Suppression of normal political and religious expression leads to more extremists, not less.
When i talk about Islamophobia, I think about the time when my mom was run off the road by a couple of guys in a truck yelling slurs, or the woman who was stabbed walking home from our mosque, or the bulletholes in our mosque windows, or the weekly bomb/death threats.
You wield your ethnicity like a bludgeon to “win” these types of arguments but you are quite remote from the actual experience of others who look like you.
You understand that Egypt is a Muslim country and El Sisi is a Muslim, right? This is a discussion about what moderate Muslims must do in countries like Egypt and Bangladesh to keep their countries from ending up like Iran.
That comparison is ignorant. We’re not talking about Mitt Romney, okay? We’re talking about a hypothetical where polygamists overthrow the government of Utah, stone Mitt Romney to death, and threaten to do the same in Idaho. That’s the equivalent of what happened in Iran, what happened in Egypt recently, and the threat across the Muslim world.
The last time we faced a similar risk from Christianity, it resulted in a military occupation of Utah: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF3UqUH6y-M&vl=en. If that was happening now, we’d be having a serious conversation about military responses to “political Christianity.” But it’s not.
> We’re talking about a hypothetical where polygamists overthrow the government of Utah, stone Mitt Romney to death, and threaten to do the same in Idaho.
I’m morbidly interested in hearing your rationalizations, if any, for the Jan 6th protests.
Christian psychos are already at the forefront of the government, its not the end, its barely even the beginning of their insanity. And this batch doesn't yet need to engage in militantism, because...the entire government apparatus is already there for doing their bidding, but that's hardly any reason to see they aren't escalating with their insanity. I mean, Israel itself has even more of religious extremism in their government and society than present day America.
All of that is also quite irrelevant to the fact that Iran wasn't attacking the USA or Israel, Israel and America attacked them unprovoked while making a pretense of negotiating peace deals with them. I hate religion and I hate theocracies, while these are shitty countries they haven't been shitty to me, only to their internal populace. Iran also isn't the country that "doesn't have" nukes and refuses to get their nuclear facilities inspected. There is only one country in the middle east that does. Iran is far more trustworthy in the nuclear department than Israel. Israel, if it hadn't already shown how much of a reprobate traitorous liar they already are, shows yet another iteration of their old colors to the new generation. The same Israel that did the USS Liberty and so on.
edit: Holy shit and to say nothing of the reports coming that soldiers are being told this is a Holy war for Armageddon. That's literal theocratic extremism right under our noses.
It’s not even remotely similar. We’re talking about countries where (almost) everyone is Muslim and Muslims control the political system, police, etc. Moderate Muslims who can’t reasonably be accused of “Islamophobia” understand that political Islam is a danger and often take extreme measures to keep it in check.
Projecting American racial politics onto other countries is an extremely bad (and bizarrely ethnocentric) way to try to understand how the world works.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45945758 - He dismisses someone who opposed a fascist dictatorship as being "antisocial" and says she was harming society by opposing said dictatorship. The most generous interpretation of that position is a tacit, rather than explicit, endorsement of fascism.
I was, but my dad was active in politics in a third world country, and worked in international development. Also, I still have family in Bangladesh so I can watch third-world people overthrowing their government again in real time on Facebook. My views on democracy and culture are directly borrowed from my dad’s crushing disillusionment with third world people and their attempts at running a democracy.
If I had to rely on my American K-12 education I’d be completely unprepared to understand what life is like for the majority of the world that wasn’t born on “socio-cultural third base.”
It is good proof the mods lie about moderation though. Regardless of what you think of this particular user, I’ve seen dang jump down even long time user’s throats for much less.
I’m on the naughty list because I pushed back on nonsense like he posts and also questioned dang’s moderating ability as a result. Blatant sexism and racism are perfectly fine here as long as it’s “polite”. Pushing back on people spouting it will get you a timeout and a lecture.
I can't help but think the 'death to America' chants going away plus the end of Iranian funding for Islamic terror/Islamic based violence will help fight Islamophobic perceptions in the US. My entire life it's seemed like a very visible section of Islam wanted my country/the West destroyed which by extension has influenced my opinion of Islam. I think a secular Iran is going to improve the perception of Islam in the West. I feel like the US and Iran have been at low level war my entire life and that Iran by their actions/words have felt the same.
Who knows. This is all pointless idiocy extending from again what I feel has been Iran waging low level war against my country my entire life. I hate it all. What did Iran think would be the outcome if their attempt to assassinate Trump would have succeeded?
and sadly Iranian schoolgirls have long been the victims of this low level war the Islamic theocracy has been waging in the name of Islam/Islamic morals:
> Iran is going to end up looking like Afghanistan (a broken country of small feudal states) at the end of this.
Soooo, lateral move from 1999 with the benefit of the theocratic regime that rules over those states having a bit of hindsight this time and being keenly aware that they ought not to let themselves be exploited puppet or proxy for larger international conflict? I'm not saying Afghanistan on track to be a shining beacon of modernity in an otherwise backwards region but things are looking pretty up for them and I wish them the best.
An equivalent for Iran would be what? Next guy shows up in charge, promises a few token reforms. Bombs stop falling, protestors go home, business as usual resumes but with a little more normalcy toward the rest of the world.
> A hyper-conservative regime like this will probably fare (at least in the long run) about as well as you would if you decide to nope out of society and go live in a Hobbesian state of nature in your local park.
Sounds more like the Taliban than Iran's ex-leadership.
Pete Hegseth is hyper-conservative too. Actually all three of the main combatants are hardline religious groups.
> Pete Hegseth is hyper-conservative too. Actually all three of the main combatants are hardline religious groups.
You get downvoted for saying something that's true, and it's not even a defense of the Irani theocratic dictatorship.
Namely: at least some of the support for the war (and for Israel) in the US is religiously motivated. Religious as in "fundamentalist". This doesn't make the US a theocracy, but it does mean many of the decision makers are making decisions based at least partly on Christian fundamentalist doctrine.
There are already some reports [1] of US troops complaining they are being told they've embarked on a mission from God. It boggles the mind.
> "One complainant, identified as a noncommissioned officer (NCO) in a unit that could be deployed “at any moment to join” operations against Iran, told MRFF in a complaint viewed by the Guardian that their commander had “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ”
> "“He said that ‘President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth’”, the NCO added."
Edit: wow, downvotes for quoting a mainstream newspaper with evidence that US policy is at least influenced by Christian fundamentalists, and this without any real argument to counter this, just drive-by downvoting? Sheesh, is this what passes for debate in HN?
Now this is all conspiracy theory, but it's food for thought.
The USA's media strategy appears to be aimed at Christian Zionism to justify involvement in Israel's regional affairs. There are many influential Christian Zionists in government and politics in the US. Ted Cruz comes to mind as one outspoken example.
If you subscribe to these beliefs, all of this is perfectly rational, that this war is a signal of the end times, that the faithful should not shrink before the fight, the return of the Christ and millennium of peace are within reach.
There has also been conspiratorial speculation that one of the goals of this war is to incite antisemitism in the United States, to spur the return of the diaspora in America to the Holy Land. Israel needs bodies, if they are to realize the Greater Israel Project. Now this is all conspiracy theory, but it's food for thought.
Thanks for providing another link. I quoted The Guardian (a mainstream newspaper, whatever you may think of it) mentioning this same source, and got downvoted for it. Oh well.
There are not many Christian zionists in decision making positions in the US. You’ve named 1 person and how much power does Cruz actually have. The powerful are non Christian zionists. That much is blatantly obvious. Kushner, Witkoff, Lutnick, the entourage around Epstein, most of the cabinet of the current (non Christian president), most of the cabinet of the prior (catholic so non dispensationalist) former president. The media itself, which is used to manufacture consent is filled with, owned by and answers to non Christian zionists. Get a clue.
the people currently making decisions may not be christian but are certainly beholden to christian zionist, their largest voting bloc are reactionary suburban white evangelicals
Absurd. There are very few Christian zionists amongst Christians, and a dwindling number of Christians overall, most especially in the suburbs. Christian zionists are almost entirely poor uneducated (hence their misreading of scripture) rural southerners who have effectively zero political power outside very small regional elections where international politics have no relevance.
They're fighting our datacenters. (...) A hyper-conservative regime like this will probably fare (at least in the long run) about as well as you would if you decide to nope out of society
You do know that Iran has technical universities, works on advanced weaponry, and the leader of their National Security council has a computer science degree?
It is important to at least look at things as they are, and not through the prism of orientalism.
Iran's regime is socially conservative. But so is the current US government. There is no sign that they are anti-technology or isolationist.
I agree, that's why they lasted as long as they did. It's a strategy that works, but only for awhile. They tried to use the apparatuses of global capital without fully integrating within it. That makes them an exteriority from the perspective of the market.
In the end, that (plus their essential resource flows) only make them a more viable candidate for expansion of capital's machinic assemblage. The force of the market hasn't colonized all of the Earth yet; it yet has many peripheries. There's plenty of room for expansion in, say, central Africa. It'll get there eventually, but right now its focus is elsewhere. The assemblage will always weigh the costs/benefits, then select the next best space to expand into. That's what it's doing here. The goal is to convert some of its surplus value into ingesting a bit of its frontier, and make of it its own.
Iran is firmly sided with China and Russia. China buys all their oil and doesn't want to see US/Israel expand their reach. They are very likely to support Iran.
On their end, Iran has been preparing for exactly this for decades. If anything, the complexity of the globalized market means more weak points to strike. Which in 2026 is cheap and easy with swarms of drones. Meanwhile, the US is still carrying out precision attacks with expensive ordnance which they have limited supplies of.
You should sprinkle in a few other news sources because that’s not what is happening at all.
Iran also has further escalation paths it can take. So far, they have only been targeting US-affiliated targets in the Gulf. You can imagine what would happen if they decide to expand their target list. But I think this will only happen if GCC countries decide to participate.
Everything I've read suggests the US and Israel are stomping all over Iran, and have destroyed their air force, navy, and even anti-air defenses.
I know these news are necessarily biased (e.g. do we know for a fact the three F-15E Strike Eagles were really downed by Kuwaiti friendly fire and none were downed by Iran?), but the chance of credible news of Iran putting up any real resistance is very, very slim.
Iran has been sanctioned for decades. As a result, they do not have a modern airforce, navy, or even air defense systems. So it is completely unsurprising that USIS has complete air superiority. You can rest assured that Iran has planned for this.
Their entire defense strategy post-war (Iran-Iraq war) has been centered around ballistic missiles. More recently, they “pioneered” the use of kamikaze drones (Shahed) and included their use in their strategy. Note that they have aggressively optimized Shahed when it comes to cost, ease of manufacturing, and ease of launch. Shahed drones have seen extensive combat usage in the Ukraine war.
The other “hint” when it comes to Iran’s response is the increasing estimates by the US as to how long this “operation” will last. Initially, it was a few days. Now they are saying 4-5 weeks. Edit: Looks like it could up to 8 weeks..
Long story short, until we start to see significant degradation in launches - both missiles and drones - we simply cannot say that Iran has been defeated.
As far as news sources go, the easy recommendation is Al Jazeera. Twitter/X is also decent, but there is a ton of noise.
It is biased - interestingly less than expected on this topic because Iran is shelling them - but the idea is to read something to counteract Western bias. Asian outlets (non-Japanese) are another good source.
Russia isn't moving for obvious reasons (I don't think IRGC planners even expected them to move, Putin has made it clear a 100 times he is out of anything involving Israel). But that said Putin arguably did his job already by destroying Patriot stocks and thus putting US on a timeline in terms of protection.
With China the issue is different: They have a completely different military ecosystem so it's not like they can send them their own stuff. We already saw in Ukraine that running 2 types of equipment along each other is a pain in the ass and strains logistics. China is likely aiding them with satellite imagery instead.
I think China will sit this one out. There's nothing to gain for them with direct involvement.
Any assistance to Iran (like satellite imagery) will have limited effect, and the Chinese know it. In my opinion, there's no way the Islamic Republic survives this. For any rational international actor, there's no sense in becoming involved in a lost fight.
> In my opinion, there's no way the Islamic Republic survives this.
But what if the Islamic Republic isn't a material thing, it isn't a government apparatus, it is actually the ideas and culture of a population under siege? 50-60 million Persians, and another 30-40 million muslims of other ethnicities. They have been embargoed for decades, the message that the US and Israel are evil has seeped into every corner of society there. It will not be so simple to erase that programming and you can expect a large portion of the population to resist to the bitter end. It's been over 20 years of planning to bring the USA to this point, 20 years because it was never a sure bet, and even today it's still not clear who wins. No, I think 4 days in it's too early to call winners and losers.
> The US air superiority has completely done them, it'd seem.
They're managing to successfully counterattack with strikes in every country in the region, while the bulk of their central leadership has been KIA. They still control the Strait of Hormuz and very intense naval, land, and air operations will be required to dislodge them.
If this war was started with the goal of the complete destruction of Iran, ground troops will have to go in (President Trump et. al. is already in the media telegraphing the requirement). Iran is a mountain fortress, and the home team (pop. 91 million) holds advantage. This has the potential to become and long and bloody war.
I think people in the US are seriously discounting this. The only thing that Iranian forces have to do is keep lobbing drones. You don't need leadership, heavy industry, or even a lot of drones as long as you keep lobbing them.
It takes very little for them to keep disrupting things which affect the global economy.
Even if leadership changes at the top and isn't killed, why would independent cells of fighters stop?
I think there's a huge possibility that Iran can keep being disruptive longer than the US is willing to spend $$$$$ bombing and intercepting.
One nuance here is where that $$$$ actually goes. The US has a history of diverting a staggering amount of money to the war companies every 2 decades or so. The spend here might be the goal, not the cost.
Well, they've managed to launch and land strikes on every country in the region. "Successful counterattack" is a considerably higher bar than that, IMHO.
Russia has their hands full with Ukraine and has failed in the past to protect other allies such as Syria.
China seems wise enough to provide some support to Iran while sitting out of direct involvement in the war. China has everything to lose with war and nothing to gain. If anything, they are signaling "stability" to the Global South -- something from which the US is increasingly drifting away -- and war is the opposite of stability.
> Meanwhile, the US is still carrying out precision attacks with expensive ordnance which they have limited supplies of.
I think they have more than enough, plus Iran faces an even worse situation. Limited stockpiles of their only effective weapons, missiles and drones, and quickly running out. What's worse, by not using those weapons in huge salvoes, they reduce their efficiency... they only work if they can overcome defenses, but if they spend them too fast they lose their only effective weapon.
I think the Islamic Republic will be overthrown, but this requires boots on the ground, and it'll become a quagmire like Iraq or Afghanistan. At some point the US will declare success and leave, and from the ashes of Iran countless warring factions will emerge, an endless insurgency, and possibly the next ISIS. We've seen this happen more than once, no reason to believe this will go a different way.
Russia and China cannot stop this.
Edit: rather than downvotes, I prefer debate. Be better, HN. I realize this is difficult in times of war involving the country where the majority of HN hails from, but I trust you can do it. Engage in rational debate please.
> In a sense, they're not fighting the US/Israel. They're fighting our datacenters.
LOL. Sorry, this is silly. Do you really think that Iran hates data centers?
The best scenario for Trump is to make this a limited war that nobody even notices outside of Iran's borders. He wants to announce to Americans "see? We did what we wanted and it was over in a few days, you barely noticed it".
While the nightmare scenario is to end up bogged down in a long drawn war with global repercussions, inflation, market crashes or even boots on the ground for months and years.
Iran can't win a military confrontation with the US, but it can make it so expensive that the US will decide to back off. These are strategic attacks, their form of "second strike". Raising the price of an attack on them, exactly as a nuclear armed country would retaliate on cities and not on military bases.
> And so is being Israel with Iran right there with Hezbollah, Hamas etc... Incredibly biased comment.
How would it help any of us, to imagine ourselves being an alternate reality version of the Iranian leadership who in turn are imagining themselves being the Israeli leadership?
In order to guess what Iran does next, all we have to do is the first step, to imagine ourselves in the Iranian position, not to hypothesise about a much more competent Iranian leadership than actually exists which had the empathy needed to put itself in anyone else's position rather than call Israel and the USA un-metaphorically the big and little Satan.
It explains that one of Iran's goals is to make the GCC (UAE, Kuwait, etc) uninvestable by making them non-safe and choke the Strait of Hormuz. This affects the petrodollar as well as American stock market since the GCC invest much of that oil money back into American companies.
He also explains in this video why a ground invasion of Iran is damn near impossible due to the terrains and how Saudi Arabia and Iran are connected: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y_hbz6loEo
As someone who doesn't know much about the highly complex history, goals of the Middle East and the world, they're informative but I'm also open to people who disagree with this guy. Would love to hear things from all sides.
Warning: The Youtube channel has a very doomish view of this conflict though. He thinks this is the start of WW3.
I don't know about the guys take on Iran, but I came across his channel a long time ago regarding some predictions on things I work with + I think Ukraine war? And it was so handwavy and "cherry picking stats to fit a narrative" style of reasoning, it was hard to take him seriously when many predictions were proven wrong and not even sound.
Granted, most YouTube analyst channels with ~=>500k subscribers usually do deploy exaggerated claims or "one parameter to explain everything" narrative (Zeihan, Varoufakis, Mersheimer, William Spaniel) so you should take their infotainment with a grain of salt. Current trendy buzzword is "Realism" and "Game Theory" so those two term are mired with wish washy handwaving.
Usually, just like tech stuff, the actually valuable insight is not found in the blogs but the source material they refer to, because they have nuances.
I agree with you. I followed him out of curiosity for one or two months, watched about 10 of his videos.
He seems to have a good intuition, but he gives weak and often cherry-picked reasonings, to the point that many of his takes are completely unreliable.
For a channel called Predictive History, he made too many weirdly precise explanations and predictions that turned out to be wrong. Then, he'd look over the old failed ones to find new ones.
That being said, I'd say his macro level analysis is directionally correct, as well as his read on the incentives of each party involved. Watch his lectures, but be skeptical and double check everything he says, because he does indeed make factual mistakes... some of them are caught in the comments by other viewers, some are not obvious.
I agree with your more thought out assessment of the channel.
I stil think the effort of trying to predict history (trying to understand causal patterns and extrapolate) is a valiant effort, and don't want to write his entire channel off. So I can't comment on his Iran take until I've seen it.
But yes, everyone makes mistakes and that just shows we don't have some universal theory for predicting history, so one shouldn't get obsessed with one school of thinking, but try it out, find its limits, and be open to other school of thoughts too.
One of your "YouTube analysts" is a professor that developed one of the schools of realism, so maybe that's why he's using that "buzzword".
Edit: and varoufakis was the finance minister of Greece. I have no idea if he was any good at it or not, but your characterization is a little silly either way.
Would they be more credible to you if they gave 2 minute soundbites in between advertisements for drugs and gold on cable news?
Maybe I should've added a line break between the sentence.
I'm fully aware of prof Mearsheimers credential, and what realism is. I'm also aware that the biggest proponent of realism with the most power at hand, was Henry Kissinger. Not the brightest shining beacon.
Their worldview is funny. A self fulfilling prophecy kind of take that is most often used to justify heinous behavior by saying "well everyone is doing it" and take a selective look at history and deriving some universal theory of international politics.
So I think the "using one parameter to explain everything" is an apt description of him. A hallmark of pop social science gifter pattern is when they try to apply that one thing to everything. Mearsheimer isn't (wasn't?) that until the podcast fame inevitably asked questions to him that is outside his expertise and audience capture, inevitably, kicked in
Edit: indeed. He was finance minister during the Greek financial crisis. With your appeal to authority Fallacy, Lizz Tuss should still be taken seriously because she was UK prime minister (that was out lasted by a lettuce).
I like Varoufakis. He's at least consistent. His technofeudalism observation have some merit. But still his analysis comes from a limited scope, and (he's open about this) colored heavily by his communist stance.
The point was:
All those expert often have a compelling analysis, but the nuance is often lost in the medium such as YouTube. It's better to dive in to the nuance, critically examine it, and then listen broadly and repeat.
Yeah, I guess I zeroed in on the YouTube part and missed the one parameter part, which I'm not really qualified to speak to. I happen to think audio/video (basically lectures and dialogues) is a fine part of the toolkit for learning.
I was reading it as "look at these dumb tiktok'ers" or something like that, which seems like it would be selling at least those 2 quite a bit short.
This guy's videos were immediately going viral after the conflict began. I enjoyed and found them educational, but I'm taking all of his claims with a grain of salt because I also don't know much about the region or its history. He talks very authoritatively which makes for compelling storytelling but conflicts of this magnitude require much more context to really understand.
Been following this guy for a few months now. On Iran i think he is right on the money. He also has some very good lectures about personal development.
He might indeed need some personal development himself. I followed him when the US bombed Iran's nuclear sites last year. He was involved in a controversy with his kid and turned into a dick, going into a charade against the Western education system, for being overly harsh to his kid in a public space and getting reprimanded for it. I'm not condoning his behavior, I wasn't there, but I'd take anything this guy has to say on personal development with a pinch of salt. By the way, he published a post of apologies in his Substack IIRC.
While I agree with some of his sentiments the entire video reeks of half-baked conspiratorial thinking and shallow engagement with the facts.
A quick tell is that the video's title includes "Game Theory", while only referencing game-theoretical concepts twice in an off-hand comment. In both instances the usage is plainly wrong.
In general, he loves making big assertions without backing them up with evidence or explanations that go beyond hand-wavy examples.
He makes quite a few quite controversial assertions without evidence or even bothering to explain them. At the top of my head and paraphrasing:
- "The conflict is a game of chicken." Only in the vaguest sense in which any war or confrontation could be called that.
- "The USA is not equipped to handle a war against drones and fanatics". Idk they seem more capable than any other nation save Ukraine given that those two things have been a major feature of their recent wars.
- "Countries that are poor have more energy and are more cohesive". This is just demonstrably false, but he does not bother to explain why he thinks this.
- "The US wants to break Iran into ethno-states that compete for water until they are all dead." He even admits that this is pure conjecture and hand-waves this as the game-theoretic "optimal" strategy which is completely bonkers.
I do share his negative sentiment and outlook about the war, but there are way better critics that don't resort to this type of intellectual laziness.
- "The US wants to break Iran into ethno-states that compete for water until they are all dead." He even admits that this is pure conjecture and hand-waves this as the game-theoretic "optimal" strategy which is completely bonkers.
I think that there is a huge leap between using the Kurds to do your fighting (like in Syria) and what he claims if you look at the map that he pulls up in that section.
Game Theory is the name of his class. He is a high school teacher. I agree his ideas about the conflict are only loosely connected to "Game Theory" in the Academic sense. If you engage with more of his content, he often repeats that he is probably wrong and exhorts you to think for yourself and make your own conclusions. His perspective on past and current events is certainly not mainstream.
I think we should hold people to a higher standard especially when they talk with this much confidence and present themselves as a professor. The issue is that "Game Theory" is a technical term so there really only is an "Academic" sense otherwise it's just a marketing term for whatever ideas you want to push.
Equally, were he based in the UK (or even the US during wartime, despite the First Amendment), he wouldn't be able to say things those governments don't approve of.
So yes to some extent it might be CCP propaganda, but that doesn't mean it's always wrong, and the alternative is western propaganda, which is also sometimes wrong
Seeing as people like Tim Pool were based in the US to say things to large youtube audiences Funded and directed by the Kremlin, this does not seem true.
One difference is that in the UK/US it has in practice only applied during actual war time. I remember the instant switch in tone of reporting from the BBC the moment war broke out in 2003.
And I have never seen it apply to individuals in UK/US. (Post WW2.)
In China it's all the time. And the control is _so_ much stricter.
There definitely is some relevant stuff, but unfortunately by definition I can't say what it is.
Also I would point out that there is a lower tier of things that are not exactly illegal to say per se, but will still result in you being ostracised, probably getting fired etc. Especially if you're a university professor, academics probably have among the lowest freedom of speech of anyone
Cut off the EU's main energy supplier and make it dependent on the US.
Grab the largest oil reserves.
Start a special military operation with Iran, knowing that Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz, thus cutting off a large part of the world's oil and gas.
The US profits from this are going to be staggering.
Japan and korean has it's oil imports from havoc at a 70-90% percent i think? very interesting to see how will this go.
very smart move for Iran to attach USA millity base at UAE...
The only thing Trump achieved so far was replacing Khamenei with Khamenei. Otherwise, it's a total disaster from the strategic point of view. Making the US that much weaker in the long run is somewhat ironic for a guy wearing a MAGA hat.
But yes, I generally agree with you. It’s like the US/Israel don’t know how Iranians think about their country, their government, and the history of US in the region.
Do they not know that many people who hate their government’s domestic policy actually support their foreign policy?
Do they know that of dozens of ace fighter pilots (e.g. Jalil Zandi) minted by Iran during the Iraq-Iran war, most of them were “Shah loyalists” who preferred an Islamic Iran over foreign invasion of Iran?
It’s too incredible to think that they don’t know these things, so I guess they don’t care. So the goal must not be military, but something else.
As an Iranian in the West who has a family of Shia mulsims, what Westerners don't understand is that the sectarians _pray_ for death..
It's difficult for someone on this forum to fathom how anyone would _want to die_, but that's how these guys operate. Killing Khamenei did nothing but to grant him exactly what he wanted. He was martyred at the hands of the enemy during the holy month of Ramadan. He had already delegated all his operations and stayed home, waiting for bombs to drop.
Assassinating him simply poured more gasoline to the fire. Decapitating extremist leadership doesn't achieve much (as we just witnessed), you can't kill an ideology like this with guns.
The other thing that I'll mention is about 30% of the population in Iran supports IRGC and within those 30%, at least _half_ of them are willing to die for the cause. in a country of 90M, that's millions of people..
So unless you're going to conduct a genocide, you're not killing all of them, and even if you do, the few that remain will grow again.
United States did a great job exporting liberalism to Iran over the past 40 years and some of those ideas were starting to take shape. However I feel like now they undid all that work and united all IRGC supporters because of the war.
I think TRUMP miscalculated Iranian's abilities to take over the regime. The diaspora celebrating Iran getting bombed are out of touch with the reality of the country.
As a rule - I disregard the opinions of the diaspora. It's nothing personal but often they are often the least informed and most biased when speaking about any given homeland.
As a rule you disregard the opinions of refugees because you think they are the least informed on the topic that has intense personal impact on them and their families? WTF?
What do you think the prospect is of those 15% successfully stopping the secession of Balochistan and Kurdistan? Not a trick question, I'm genuinely curious.
Not really, I think it was more that Iran thought the US could control Israel, so they said 'if Israel betray the ceasefire agreement, we will hit your bases'.
The US probably asked Israel to not betray the agreement, Israel as usual betrayed the agreement, said to the US 'we will attack during the negotiations', probably because it was effective the last few times they did, and the US couldn't force them to stop, so they had to preemptively strike.
Do you agree there is a meaningful difference between the US feeling forced to follow Israel because of their own political choices, and the US being controlled by Israel ? The outcomes are the same, but acknowledging why and how the US got themselves involved is key if people don't want this kind of situation again.
Israel completely depends on USA. USA are the ones with all the power in that particular relationship. There is no way for Israel to force USA. USA has a lot of ways to force Israel.
USA can be convinced to do something by Israel, but not forced.
Prior political choices prevent the US from saying to Iran "Sorry that Israel attacked you, that's unfair, please don't attack our base, we won't fund Israel military anymore, and we remove the embargo".
Hence, since during the previous ceasefire, Iran told the US "If Israel break the ceasefire again, we will attack your ME bases", US was "forced" into preventive strikes against Iran military installations, and into an offensive war, without any preparation.
I'm not a huge fan of this US admin _at all_, but in this very case, the amateurism isn't caused by the childishness and the whininess (is that a word? i mean constant whining and victimization) of the US admin and their overall lack of skills, but by the fact they were forced into it without preparations.
Is that argument more clear? I feel you talked past my argument which is probably my fault since i have trouble expressing myself without thinking for hours beforehand
I dont find that believable argument at all. USA in fact can not attack along of Israel. Nothing prevents then from removing embargo, tho that is not relevant.
USA can tell Israel to not attack. Full stop. It can even tell Israel they will give them less support. And dont tell me that Trump administration would be afraid to pressure or even bully other goverment. If USA did not wanted this war, it would not happened.
Third, USA had option of approaching negotiations seriously. It simply did not.
> US was "forced" into preventive strikes against Iran military installations, and into an offensive war, without any preparation.
This is nonsense. It was not preventive attack, it was active first strike attack against opponent that is not much threat right now.
USA was not in defense. It was not forced to attack either.
So, what was the actual threat supposed to be about? Israel will stop defend USA? Common.
But to your other point, they both lie often and confidently. If they are nerveus, they probably just thought they look like idiots (regardless of whether they are saying the truth).
Exactly. Normally u would think that the Security Services would see tRump as unsuitable for President because he's compromised by a foreign power. However, the Zionists tentacles are deeply embedded within the US Govt including the CIA et al. Schumer deliberately delayed the vote until after this attack because he too is a Zionist. MAGA were deeply naive about the influence the Zionists have on US Govt departments.
This is what "move fast and break things" looks like when it is applied to foreign policy. It is called imperialism.
As Mark Carney said: "if the middle powers are not in the table, they are in the menu" meaning "if the weak don't unite and resist together we'll be eaten by the strong".
OTOH, does anyone remember the "shock and awe" in the first days of Iraq War? It was pretty much like this. Soon, the orange buffoon might have a "mission accomplished" [1] moment and revert the tendency in the midterms. And then the U.S. gets even more screwed in the long run.
The beautiful irony is that Carney initially went all in supporting this illegal war of aggression. It seems he tempered his language a bit since then. Perhaps his team realized how hypocritical he sounds after that whole speech on Greenland.
I am not following. Is it not the definition of hypocrisy to essentially cry about how international law has always been dead, and then unflinchingly support an act in violation of international law a few weeks later?
Have you watched a Trump "speech" in the past few years? It's all incoherent rambling; he's not a unifying figure and never will be so I don't think midterm chances will suddenly go up if he gets on stage and declares victory. The things he's doing domestically are quite unpopular (e.g. killing American citizens with an immigration agency) and there hasn't been real governance -- just illegal tariffs, corrupt pardons, meme coins, attacks on free speech, and a vengeful, politicized DOJ.
Unfortunately the people who vote for him don't watch the speeches either and literally do not care that he does stupid things and generally wrecks shit because lower business taxes and he isn't a (D)
The conservative business class, since literally before Marx wrote anything, will do whatever it takes to never ever ever ever accept even a tiny reduction in their handouts. They will burn America down and destroy their own revenue before they let us collect an extra dollar in tax revenue for the betterment of society.
This war has been planned for decades. I was a boy in 2003, but I distinctly remember the threats against Iran during that time period. Time Magazine ran it on their cover...
The other issue that is less said is that the USA probably doesn't have the capacity to keep bombing in this way. They are using all the fancy missiles first, but haven't made a safe path to do unguided cheap bombing. This is Russian level stupidity, and shows the danger of letting "true believers" organise things over actual planners who've done this before.
more over, allies can't keep up that level of air defence.
It _could be_ bullshit that iran has a whole load of ballistic and drones spread all over the place, but frankly the US can't afford to find out if thats the case.
Sure the US could escort tankers, but that would mean much higher risk of casualties. Given that the USA is reasonably self sufficient in oil, thats probably a hard sell.
Also, does the US have enough stock of ship born anti-missle systems? Sure it has the expensive stuff, and the Phalanx at last resort, but does the USA have the stomach to have a ship sink? I fear what happens after that.
Why would the US and Israel resort to unguided cheap bombing? That’s how you end up with wide scale civilian deaths. They’ll use more and more jdams vs stand off weapons as air superiority has been mostly established. There’s also been a significant drop in missile attacks as more and more launchers are destroyed.
> Why would the US and Israel resort to unguided cheap bombing? That’s how you end up with wide scale civilian deaths.
It is cheap and neither cares about civilian deaths. That is why. Both countries show it both in rhetoric and action. The leadership literally brags about not caring about civilian deaths.
Even if you take the current US leadership at their word, they do not. They've all but said that war crimes are on the table here.
America, regardless of what so-called international institutions say, is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history. B-2s, fighters, drones, missiles, and of course classified effects. All on our terms with maximum authorities. No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win, and we don't waste time or lives.
Literally, on day 1, they bombed an elementary school and killed dozens of little girls.
When you are constantly hearing the words 'precise', 'controlled', 'surgical' you absolutely must wipe the propaganda off of your ears. A protracted aerial bombing campaign will never, ever, be precise and surgical. Doesn't matter how good the tech is. One only needs to look at Gaza to see what is planned for Iran.
First, USA literally officially does not care about it right now. That is the stated official politics. Hegseth, Vance and Trump are proud and open about it. Hegseth was referring to literally this war when he was saying they will not care about things like civilian deaths.
Second, the number of civilians deaths caused by USA was going up due to drones usage. That is prior Trump, in administrations that kind of cared at least a little. And that was at the time when media sorta kinda cared. Nowdays, media do not care at all.
Third, Israel is not just ok with genocide, but wants it to happen. And USA is one of the leading countries in the project of helping them. I am not singling out America here, it is not JUST America. But America is very consistent in that.
> First, USA literally officially does not care about it right now. That is the stated official politics.
All indications so far indicate the US military is in fact still trying to minimize civilian casualties regardless of the statements being made by some of the individuals in the leadership.
> Hegseth, Vance and Trump are proud and open about it. Hegseth was referring to literally this war when he was saying they will not care about things like civilian deaths.
I wouldn't take the statements being made by these 3 individuals as fact as they are known to lie constantly for various(usually dumb) reasons.
The decision to use cheap bombing or an expensive one will go from the top. And the military already shown they will obey unlawful orders. They also got rid of leaders who were not aligned with Trump on this point.
Yes these three lie a lot. They are also setting the rules for military. They also already shown in actions they dont value evwn American lives much.
They had in speeches toward military telling them to be violent and unrestrained. They are leaders. If they lie, military will eventually lie. If they dont care, military wont care.
> The decision to use cheap bombing or an expensive one will go from the top.
I don't see any indications that unguided munitions are being used if that's what you're referring to. The advantages in terms of accuracy from precision guided munitions tends to largely eliminate any cost advantages unguided munitions may theoretically have.
Regardless of the statements being made by some of the leadership the actual targeting appears to be done in a way that tries to avoid civilian casualties.
Trump went on TV and openly stated we just have to accept the death of Americans. "Oh well, that's what happens." As if this conflict is an act of God.
You think he - a raging, narcissistic, racist, pedophile rapist - gives a single fuck about Iranian citizens? You think He Seth - an alcoholic, "lethalmaxxing", Tate bro with nazi tattoos - gives a single fuck about Iranian citizens?
whether Israel cares or not the US people definitely care and half the nation literally wants Trump hanging from a tree. The US midterm elections in November are going to make things 1,000% harder for the Trump admin and widespread Iranian civilian deaths will up that by an order of magnitude.
Back to speaking tactically, JDAMs are cost effective enough that I bet they are the only gravity bomb used. I could see using unguided bombs for things like airbase runways but i bet they stick with JDAMs for logistical simplicity.
Its worked before (see 1980s https://www.strausscenter.org/strait-of-hormuz-tanker-war/), and it'll probably work again. Especially as Iran has different values on loss.
One of the lessons learned:
The oil market is likely to adapt to disruption in the Strait of Hormuz. Initially, the Tanker War led to a 25 percent drop in commercial shipping and a sharp rise in the price of crude oil. But the Tanker War did not significantly disrupt oil shipments. In fact, Iran lowered the price of oil to offset higher insurance premiums on shipments, and the real global oil price steadily declined during the 1980s. Even at the its most intense point, the Tanker War failed to disrupt more than two percent of ships passing through the Persian Gulf.[x]
This seems relevant to the global stock/oil market overreaction.
> This seems relevant to the global stock/oil market overreaction.
This is true, but as with the start of the tanker wars:
> Initially, the Tanker War led to a 25 percent drop in commercial shipping and a sharp rise in the price of crude oil.
currently something like 90% of shipping is stopped.
But your general point about moving around it is valid, assuming that Iran doesn't attack refineries and distribution points. Last time Iran had to use artillery to attack shipping, this time they have better weapons
That's my assessment. By threatening and targeting bystanders, Iran tries to make any military action against them costly to those not involved, who will naturally apply pressure to whomever is taking the action.
So, the USA and Israel started a war with Iran when they were in the negotiating table and the Iranians were accepting all the nuclear demands.
In the first unprovoked attack they killed an important religious leader of a big part of the population of the area (not only Iran) and a bunch of civilians (160 children in a school between them).
But the assesment is that 'is Iran who is threatening and targeting bystanders'. No surprise that we are in the mess we are.
look at the stats of what the UAE has defended against, what is the purpose of those attacks? They make no sense to me.
Iran attacks on the UAE
186 ballistic missiles
812 drones
this article even states that the UAE has been attacked more than Israel itself which, again, blows my mind. The UAE is, wisely IMO, choosing to stay out of it but i mean how much can they take?
> UAE has been attacked more than Israel itself which, again, blows my mind.
UAE is closer and so it is harder for them to intercept attacking missiles and drones. Israel is further and thus harder target. They have more time to destroy the attacking drone or missile, making such attack more wasteful.
Second, the goals are likely American soldiers stationed there and the defense systems themselves. Intercepting missiles can run out and Iran likely wants them to run out.
> So, the USA and Israel started a war with Iran when they were in the negotiating table and the Iranians were accepting all the nuclear demands.
They were not accepting all the nuclear demands[0].
> In the first unprovoked attack they killed an important religious leader of a big part of the population of the area (not only Iran) and a bunch of civilians (160 children in a school between them).
Calling the attack "unprovoked" is just wildly inaccurate, Iran has for years funded terrorist proxies to attack both Israel and US interests in the region.
> But the assesment is that 'is Iran who is threatening and targeting bystanders'. No surprise that we are in the mess we are.
Iran deliberately targets their own civilians as well as 3rd party countries.[1]
I think the massacres and not the nuclear program were however what finally pushed the US and Israel into a war with the regime itself as a primary target as the massacres opened up an opportunity to potentially take out the regime once and for all.
that funding has been for years, and Israel itself has funded some of those same proxies.
the massacres also arent timely. we're months later with the unrest settled down, but its also not something unique to iran. lots of countries, including israel go about massacring civilians
nothing has substantially changed in many years. not even oct 7 is timely anymore
The protest massacres opening up an opportunity for regime change, I think that's ultimately what pushed Israel and the US to take action.
> Israel itself has funded some of those same proxies
Israel facilitating aid/funds into Gaza for humanitarian reasons which often got diverted by Hamas is not the same as Israel funding Hamas.
> the massacres also arent timely. we're months later with the unrest settled down, but its also not something unique to iran.
The war happened as soon as one could reasonably expect it to happen given the necessary logistics involved.
> including israel go about massacring civilians
Israel does not have a top down policy of deliberately targeting/massacring civilians, Iran on the other hand does.
> nothing has substantially changed in many years. not even oct 7 is timely anymore
Oct 7 drastically changed Israel's perspective on containment and deterrence being effective policies for dealing with enemies like Hamas and Iran. Part of the problem with a containment and deterrence strategy here is that groups like Hamas and the Iranian regime don't respond to incentives in the way one would expect a rational actor to respond.
> By threatening and targeting bystanders, Iran tries to make any military action against them costly to those not involved, who will naturally apply pressure to whomever is taking the action.
i'm no geopolitical expert but the most likely outcome of bombing bystanders is more enemies and fewer bystanders.
> They are using all the fancy missiles first, but haven't made a safe path to do unguided cheap bombing.
Global media is reporting B-52s over Iran, which implies complete air supremecy and complete Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses, so this, on the face of it, seems to be untrue.
It could also signal a command that is less risk averse than the past. We lost B52s bombing Asia back in the day because even old SAM systems are a danger to them, maybe the Trump admin is just fine with losing a handful of irreplaceable old workhorses. I don't think the DoD ever planned to use those B52s in a war against China either, which this is essentially all in concert of.
What do you mean, Lybia happened 2 days after France met with Libyan rebels leaders and one of Ghadafi's son, the first strike targeted ground installations so that the rebels could take over.
It was carefully planed for a swift takeover, way, way more than what is happening there, and it still ended up being a cluster fuck. The rebels were the fucking ground groups.
Here, it will probably be Iraqis, like during the first gulf war. Hopefully less people will die, but clearly this is a terrible decision.
Yay! Another wave of hyperinflation and affordability crisis coming in, while youth unemployment is at its highest and the millennials are losing their jobs to AI. What could go wrong?
The whole ME is in chaos nowadays. Some of those Arabian countries, such as Bahrain and Jordan, may even see civil unrest and such, which will further destabilize the region.
If the Kurdish people decided to take up the deal and go against Iran, and Turkey/Azerbaijan decided to follow suite, then it's going to be really messy.
Bahrain always had unrest issues due to it's laggard economy and communal issues - this was why KSA invaded it back during the Arab Spring. Something similar is always on the table for KSA.
> Jordan
Shia are nonexistent in Jordan, and Jordan was much more affected by the decade long Syrian Civil War right across the border and some of it's largest urban areas (especially the Irbid-Daraa area).
> Kurdish people
Kurds are not uniform. The Iraqi and Iranian Kurds tend to be much more socially conservative than their Syrian brethren (Turkish Kurds are somewhere in the middle).
Turkiye also supports the KRG and PJAK as they don't support Oclanism and act as a buffer against Iran.
> it's going to be really messy
No one wants to admit it but that's the whole point. I mentioned this before on HN [0] - no one wants to admit this because it is a bad look, but it aligns with our interests.
Thanks. For Jordan I'm mostly thinking about their past history with Palestinian. Yeah I agree Kurds are not uniform. I'm not exactly sure about the differences but there was a piece of news from CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/03/politics/cia-arming-kurds-ira...
What do you think the possibility of Kurds getting a piece of land from Iran?
> For Jordan I'm mostly thinking about their past history with Palestinian...
Jordanian Palestinians tend to be middle and upper middle class now and cornered the Ex-Im business with Israel and the US (most Arab goods in the US are "Made in Jordan" for a reason, and why "Made in Jordan" textiles have become so common now at Costco and Walmart).
Jordan also neighbored a similarly industrial country that collapsed into a decade long civil war (Syria).
> What do you think the possibility of Kurds getting a piece of land from Iran
Kurds are not uniform. The KRG (Iraqi Kurdistan) is fairly socially conservative as is Iranian Kurdistan. They are also extremely pro-America (the US protected the KRG since 1991), pro-Israel (Iraqi Kurdish Jews of the Barzani and Talabani clans are overrepresented in Israeli politics and defense careerists), and pro-Turkiye (they are a counterweight against Apo's PKK).
I think it is likely we will allow a KRG dominated rump state form around Ilam-Kermanshah-Sanandaj-Mahabad. We will likely see a similar thing arise in Iranian Azerbaijan with Turkish+Azeri backing. Iran is already de facto nonexistent in much of Sistan-ve-Balochistan. Iraqi Shia Arab militias will most likely end up backing a rump state in the portions of Khuzestan neighboring southern Iraq and Kuwait.
What are the Kurds supposed to get in the "deal" to go against Iran? It is pretty much guaranteed they wont get anything except betrayal in the long term, so it must be something "right now".
It does not answer my question - what will the Kurds get. That article makes it super clear what USA and Israel get. It says nothing about what Kurds get. And crucially, it does not says that Kurds agreed yet, it says that CIA is trying to make it happen.
And the history is Kurds helping USA just to be abandoned later on. If they settled for some long term promises, they would be stupid. So, lets assume they get something in short term.
The problem is with own official country between Iraq and Iran is that it is long term promise. Will USA and Israel hold on their word a year or two later? Assuming success of course. Can Kurds rely on Trump administration and its succeeding administration to keep the word here? Will they?
The Kurd aren't dumb. They know they'll be betrayed. It's still their best shot. Many of them have been hanging out in the mountains for decades waiting for an opportunity like this. They are going to take it whether the US helps them further or not -- even if they don't they are likely to be blamed and punished as if they had while the regime lashes out. Surely they'll accept pallets the US is about to drop to them.
Can't believe I am saying it but the tax rates during the WWs gave the whole system a needed reset... like we do now and WWIII might the only way to get it through.
I kinda said the same thing about the Cold War. But with AI and such, I'm afraid that they are going to just fast track AI development and deployment because AI has the potential and they don't want to lag behind.
This was only the case because FDR wanted entry level socialism and disliked how capitalism was doing things and he had immense popular support and then once the USA couldn't avoid the war any longer, real, undeniable power to change things, and was followed up by an administration who wanted to continue his work and wanted to again limit the capital class from running the US and genuinely wanted a Democratic future for the world.
Big war policy under fiscal conservatives looks like the GWOT, they will just charge everything to the Country credit card, rack up tens of Trillions of Dollars bombing sand, and bombing the sand again when it doesn't magically turn into an allied country, because then if they ever lose control of the Whitehouse they can scream about the debt and austerity for another term, and get to cut taxes for rich people and maybe finally kill that horrific welfare state that FDR made.
IE, what you are seeing now is literally the wealthy class's response to that WW2 reset. They've been itching to "Make America Great Again" for them and their class alone ever since.
The KRG is different from the YPG/PKK led Syrian Kurds. A significant portion of Israel's leadership are ethnic Kurdish as well with continued blood ties in Iraqi Kurdistan (eg. Ben Gvir).
Setting aside any considerations on our side: for this war (or really any war), it's worth turning the chessboard around to look at things from your adversary's perspective as much as possible.
If you're the Iranian regime, the world is a hostile place. You're surrounded by enemies and potential enemies. In your time of crisis, the friends you thought you had are acting like they don't know you. The situation is one of existential threat. A future reality with your head on a pike is a very real possibility. You don't exactly have many options here, so maybe you play the only move you can make. It's a risky one, but it's at least bold and will be effectuating.
Interestingly, this move also attacks your real enemy: the globalized market. Iran would do well for itself in a world of 1926; in 2026, there's going to be friction.
In a sense, they're not fighting the US/Israel. They're fighting our datacenters. I'm sure the strategy for this conflict was vibe-planned to a large extent. A hyper-conservative regime like this will probably fare (at least in the long run) about as well as you would if you decide to nope out of society and go live in a Hobbesian state of nature in your local park. That might work for awhile, but eventually, the system will come for you. And that's just neutrality. Pick a fight with capital, and you'll always lose.
Yes this is pretty much my read as well. You can debate the morality or pragmatism of this war (or any war) but fundamentally there is no winning against global Capital. The US, some other country, are just vectors for larger forces.
Which IMO is why attempting to combat that from the outside is probably fruitless, and a better route is to try and gain control from the inside. Iran (or Russia, for that matter) would be dominant forces if they were integrated with their neighbors. Imagine Russia inside the EU – they'd have as much/more influence than Germany.
But they're outside, increasingly isolated, and thus open to erosion, whether in a hostile war like today's, or just by being outcompeted and culturally left behind.
This old clip comes to mind: https://youtu.be/ZVYqB0uTKlE
Some would say Russia is very much inside the US and somewhat inside the EU through its proxies (currently govts of Hungary and Slovakia, quite possibly in the future - France and Germany).
Iran is on “death ground” as Sarah Paine would say. It’s a TERRIBLE idea to put your enemy on death ground because all they can do is fight now. We’re going to keep bombing them until there’s nothing left. Iran is going to end up looking like Afghanistan (a broken country of small feudal states) at the end of this.
Edit: By Iran, I'm referring to what's left of the current Iranian administration and military, not the entirety of the Iranian people.
You’re overlooking the fundamental difference between Iranian society and Afghan society. In Afghanistan, the U.S. was trying to bomb a place that was always a collection of small feudal states into being a functioning country. In Iran, it’s trying to dislodge a theocracy that’s taken over a country that’s had orderly, centralized administration for almost two thousand years.
I wouldn’t bet on either approach working. But a good outcome in Afghanistan was always completely hopeless. A good outcome in Iran is merely unlikely.
> In Iran, it’s trying to dislodge a theocracy that’s taken over a country that’s had orderly, centralized administration for almost two thousand years.
You don't actually know anything about Iran's history, do you. Sure, back in the pre-Islamic days, Persia had two empires that pretty much set the standard for "centralized administration". After Arab invasion, it's a mixed record. The Safavid's (possibly) can be considered a "centrally administered" kingdom. To wit, Reza Shah Pahlavi's feather in his cap was that he managed to (finally after centuries) put the various provincial grandees and nomadic tribes in a box. That's basically 100 years.
A good primer background (on modern Iran at least) is "Iranian Nationalism" by Richard Cottam, 1963.
I agree with you that Afghanistan is a much different country. My fear is that once the entire centralized theocracy is bombed out of existence it will open the door for localize warlords to begin carving up territory. The alternative is a Khamenei 2.0 character stepping in. But then the question is, will Israel/the US not just assassinate them too? I don't know but there's no way this ends well.
I hate the idea of nation building. But I’ve long thought that if there was any Muslim country where we could pull off the feat we did in Germany and Japan—turning it into a stable democracy—it’s Iran. But that would take boots on the ground, which I don’t support. (I don’t support the assassination either to be clear.)
> where we could pull off the feat we did in Germany
Germany was already a democracy just 12 years prior and has been a loose union of constitutional monarchies for a century before. Just saying.
That’s my point. Germany already had a developed state with burgeoning democratic government. So it wasn’t a tall order to reboot it as a stable democracy. Japan likewise had already developed a modern state under Emperor Meiji.
> But a good outcome in Afghanistan was always completely hopeless.
I was with you up until this. Just wanted to point out that a "good outcome" is relative and not necessarily synonymous with a centralised state.
I am sure they are trying to "dislodge theocracy". We know USA and Israel are always hypertruthful about their real goals in Middle eastern adventurism. One country "doesn't" have any nukes and the other attacked Iraq because they "had" nukes. So tou should understand if different people have different levels of trust in the stated motivations.
The objective of the mission is clearly to dislodge the theocracy. The motivation for doing so is clearly US and Israeli security, not concern for the welfare of Iranians. Which is as it should be. Countries should act in their own interest, not in the interests of other countries.
The objective is bs, most probably oil and Israeli interests. After all there have been many stated "objectives" of all their past middle eastern campaigns. I literally cited an example where false lie of nukes was used to invade Iraq while the actual country lying about nukes sits scot free and is again directing another misadventure. If the USA hated theocracies so much it won't be allying with arab countries or have been propping up the "Mujahideen".
> We know USA and Israel are always hypertruthful about their real goals in Middle eastern adventurism.
Really? Has they talk about bombing a school due to incorrect intel, over 150 are dead with lot of being children. https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/03/1167063
Please read my message again.
No, this isn't what Paine means by death ground. Paine used that to refer to Soviet citizens/soldiers that knew they would be erased/eliminated if they lost. The Iranians don't think that their opponents want to eliminate their entire civilization.
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> Have you seen the Islamophobia in the west
People in the west who talk about “Islamophobia” are often just ignorant about what Muslim countries themselves do to control political Islam. In my home country, where Islam is the official religion, the government banned Islam-associated parties until recently and went around killing Islamists without due process. In majority-Muslim Turkey, political Islam was suppressed—e.g. hijabs were banned until Erdogan came to power. Singapore bans the hijab for certain civil servants. None of that is “Islamophobia”—it’s an effort to make sure that what happened in Iran doesn’t happen in their country.
We talk about Mosques shooting, women and girls wearing the hijab attacked/assaulted in the streets (being a woman in the streets after the sun is down always is a risk, if you're wearing anything Muslim-looking, you multiply that risk,), and a lot of aggression here.
The shah of Iran heavily suppressed Islam as well…and It led directly to the Islamic revolution. Suppression of normal political and religious expression leads to more extremists, not less.
When i talk about Islamophobia, I think about the time when my mom was run off the road by a couple of guys in a truck yelling slurs, or the woman who was stabbed walking home from our mosque, or the bulletholes in our mosque windows, or the weekly bomb/death threats.
You wield your ethnicity like a bludgeon to “win” these types of arguments but you are quite remote from the actual experience of others who look like you.
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You understand that Egypt is a Muslim country and El Sisi is a Muslim, right? This is a discussion about what moderate Muslims must do in countries like Egypt and Bangladesh to keep their countries from ending up like Iran.
Of course but Iran or Egypt pose no threat to me. I'd believe you if you said it was more urgent to do the same to christians in the USA and west.
That comparison is ignorant. We’re not talking about Mitt Romney, okay? We’re talking about a hypothetical where polygamists overthrow the government of Utah, stone Mitt Romney to death, and threaten to do the same in Idaho. That’s the equivalent of what happened in Iran, what happened in Egypt recently, and the threat across the Muslim world.
The last time we faced a similar risk from Christianity, it resulted in a military occupation of Utah: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF3UqUH6y-M&vl=en. If that was happening now, we’d be having a serious conversation about military responses to “political Christianity.” But it’s not.
> We’re talking about a hypothetical where polygamists overthrow the government of Utah, stone Mitt Romney to death, and threaten to do the same in Idaho.
I’m morbidly interested in hearing your rationalizations, if any, for the Jan 6th protests.
Christian psychos are already at the forefront of the government, its not the end, its barely even the beginning of their insanity. And this batch doesn't yet need to engage in militantism, because...the entire government apparatus is already there for doing their bidding, but that's hardly any reason to see they aren't escalating with their insanity. I mean, Israel itself has even more of religious extremism in their government and society than present day America.
All of that is also quite irrelevant to the fact that Iran wasn't attacking the USA or Israel, Israel and America attacked them unprovoked while making a pretense of negotiating peace deals with them. I hate religion and I hate theocracies, while these are shitty countries they haven't been shitty to me, only to their internal populace. Iran also isn't the country that "doesn't have" nukes and refuses to get their nuclear facilities inspected. There is only one country in the middle east that does. Iran is far more trustworthy in the nuclear department than Israel. Israel, if it hadn't already shown how much of a reprobate traitorous liar they already are, shows yet another iteration of their old colors to the new generation. The same Israel that did the USS Liberty and so on.
edit: Holy shit and to say nothing of the reports coming that soldiers are being told this is a Holy war for Armageddon. That's literal theocratic extremism right under our noses.
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It’s not even remotely similar. We’re talking about countries where (almost) everyone is Muslim and Muslims control the political system, police, etc. Moderate Muslims who can’t reasonably be accused of “Islamophobia” understand that political Islam is a danger and often take extreme measures to keep it in check.
Projecting American racial politics onto other countries is an extremely bad (and bizarrely ethnocentric) way to try to understand how the world works.
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Cultural relativism is a liberal concept; orthogonal to socialism/communism.
Welcome to rayiner's posts. You'll see weird stuff on race too.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46885305 - He believes only property owners should be allowed to vote, and would explicitly disenfranchise the majority of US citizens.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45945758 - He dismisses someone who opposed a fascist dictatorship as being "antisocial" and says she was harming society by opposing said dictatorship. The most generous interpretation of that position is a tacit, rather than explicit, endorsement of fascism.
He's got some strange views, indeed.
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> America’s poor history education strikes again.
I like how full of assumptions you are. You were educated in US public schools, weren't you?
I was, but my dad was active in politics in a third world country, and worked in international development. Also, I still have family in Bangladesh so I can watch third-world people overthrowing their government again in real time on Facebook. My views on democracy and culture are directly borrowed from my dad’s crushing disillusionment with third world people and their attempts at running a democracy.
If I had to rely on my American K-12 education I’d be completely unprepared to understand what life is like for the majority of the world that wasn’t born on “socio-cultural third base.”
You seem unprepared to understand what life is like for the majority of the world
It's wild how much karma someone has who looks like all they do is post ragebait racist takes.
It is good proof the mods lie about moderation though. Regardless of what you think of this particular user, I’ve seen dang jump down even long time user’s throats for much less.
I’m on the naughty list because I pushed back on nonsense like he posts and also questioned dang’s moderating ability as a result. Blatant sexism and racism are perfectly fine here as long as it’s “polite”. Pushing back on people spouting it will get you a timeout and a lecture.
Sure, those things exist, but let's not pretend that modern war is remotely comparable to the Eastern Front of WW2.
I can't help but think the 'death to America' chants going away plus the end of Iranian funding for Islamic terror/Islamic based violence will help fight Islamophobic perceptions in the US. My entire life it's seemed like a very visible section of Islam wanted my country/the West destroyed which by extension has influenced my opinion of Islam. I think a secular Iran is going to improve the perception of Islam in the West. I feel like the US and Iran have been at low level war my entire life and that Iran by their actions/words have felt the same.
> I can't help but think the 'death to America' chants going away
With the recent actions of the US you can bet those chants won't go away for a long time.
Were they ever going away before? Like I said this has been going on my entire life. It has shaped my worldview, especially in relation to Islam.
The bombings will continue until sentiment about the USA improves.
And you think assassinating their leaders in an unjustified war and bombing school children and infrastructure will bring about those changes?
Who knows. This is all pointless idiocy extending from again what I feel has been Iran waging low level war against my country my entire life. I hate it all. What did Iran think would be the outcome if their attempt to assassinate Trump would have succeeded?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/03/03/trump-ass...
At this point Iran has killed/maimed/injured civilians in many of their neighboring countries for no purpose:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/1/us-israel-attacks-on...
and sadly Iranian schoolgirls have long been the victims of this low level war the Islamic theocracy has been waging in the name of Islam/Islamic morals:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/12/iran-security...
https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/child-detainees-in...
https://iranwire.com/en/society/60172/
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202602031576
>What did Iran think would be the outcome if their attempt to assassinate Trump would have succeeded?
Most probably mass celebrations on the streets of America.
Or, here me out, you could just leave and go home. But I suppose that's unthinkable.
> Iran is going to end up looking like Afghanistan (a broken country of small feudal states) at the end of this.
Soooo, lateral move from 1999 with the benefit of the theocratic regime that rules over those states having a bit of hindsight this time and being keenly aware that they ought not to let themselves be exploited puppet or proxy for larger international conflict? I'm not saying Afghanistan on track to be a shining beacon of modernity in an otherwise backwards region but things are looking pretty up for them and I wish them the best.
An equivalent for Iran would be what? Next guy shows up in charge, promises a few token reforms. Bombs stop falling, protestors go home, business as usual resumes but with a little more normalcy toward the rest of the world.
> A hyper-conservative regime like this will probably fare (at least in the long run) about as well as you would if you decide to nope out of society and go live in a Hobbesian state of nature in your local park.
Sounds more like the Taliban than Iran's ex-leadership.
Pete Hegseth is hyper-conservative too. Actually all three of the main combatants are hardline religious groups.
> Pete Hegseth is hyper-conservative too. Actually all three of the main combatants are hardline religious groups.
You get downvoted for saying something that's true, and it's not even a defense of the Irani theocratic dictatorship.
Namely: at least some of the support for the war (and for Israel) in the US is religiously motivated. Religious as in "fundamentalist". This doesn't make the US a theocracy, but it does mean many of the decision makers are making decisions based at least partly on Christian fundamentalist doctrine.
There are already some reports [1] of US troops complaining they are being told they've embarked on a mission from God. It boggles the mind.
> "One complainant, identified as a noncommissioned officer (NCO) in a unit that could be deployed “at any moment to join” operations against Iran, told MRFF in a complaint viewed by the Guardian that their commander had “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ”
> "“He said that ‘President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth’”, the NCO added."
(This was just one report of many).
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran...
Edit: wow, downvotes for quoting a mainstream newspaper with evidence that US policy is at least influenced by Christian fundamentalists, and this without any real argument to counter this, just drive-by downvoting? Sheesh, is this what passes for debate in HN?
That would explain his May 2025 Tweet that "nothing can stop what is coming"
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gzqc6BLWYAAat2i.jpg
Iran had to be bombed just in time for the Jewish Purim, in the month of Ramadan.
Now this is all conspiracy theory, but it's food for thought.
The USA's media strategy appears to be aimed at Christian Zionism to justify involvement in Israel's regional affairs. There are many influential Christian Zionists in government and politics in the US. Ted Cruz comes to mind as one outspoken example.
If you subscribe to these beliefs, all of this is perfectly rational, that this war is a signal of the end times, that the faithful should not shrink before the fight, the return of the Christ and millennium of peace are within reach.
There has also been conspiratorial speculation that one of the goals of this war is to incite antisemitism in the United States, to spur the return of the diaspora in America to the Holy Land. Israel needs bodies, if they are to realize the Greater Israel Project. Now this is all conspiracy theory, but it's food for thought.
Not sure why it would be considered a conspiracy theory when they told the troops that’s why they are doing it.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2026/03/03/military-offi...
Thanks for providing another link. I quoted The Guardian (a mainstream newspaper, whatever you may think of it) mentioning this same source, and got downvoted for it. Oh well.
There are not many Christian zionists in decision making positions in the US. You’ve named 1 person and how much power does Cruz actually have. The powerful are non Christian zionists. That much is blatantly obvious. Kushner, Witkoff, Lutnick, the entourage around Epstein, most of the cabinet of the current (non Christian president), most of the cabinet of the prior (catholic so non dispensationalist) former president. The media itself, which is used to manufacture consent is filled with, owned by and answers to non Christian zionists. Get a clue.
the people currently making decisions may not be christian but are certainly beholden to christian zionist, their largest voting bloc are reactionary suburban white evangelicals
Absurd. There are very few Christian zionists amongst Christians, and a dwindling number of Christians overall, most especially in the suburbs. Christian zionists are almost entirely poor uneducated (hence their misreading of scripture) rural southerners who have effectively zero political power outside very small regional elections where international politics have no relevance.
It is important to at least look at things as they are, and not through the prism of orientalism.
Iran's regime is socially conservative. But so is the current US government. There is no sign that they are anti-technology or isolationist.
I agree, that's why they lasted as long as they did. It's a strategy that works, but only for awhile. They tried to use the apparatuses of global capital without fully integrating within it. That makes them an exteriority from the perspective of the market.
In the end, that (plus their essential resource flows) only make them a more viable candidate for expansion of capital's machinic assemblage. The force of the market hasn't colonized all of the Earth yet; it yet has many peripheries. There's plenty of room for expansion in, say, central Africa. It'll get there eventually, but right now its focus is elsewhere. The assemblage will always weigh the costs/benefits, then select the next best space to expand into. That's what it's doing here. The goal is to convert some of its surplus value into ingesting a bit of its frontier, and make of it its own.
> well for itself in a world of 1926
The explanation is here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Seyed-Hosseini-23/publi...
Population grew from 1950 at 20+million to today 80+million; every country quadrupling the population would collapse?
Iran is firmly sided with China and Russia. China buys all their oil and doesn't want to see US/Israel expand their reach. They are very likely to support Iran.
On their end, Iran has been preparing for exactly this for decades. If anything, the complexity of the globalized market means more weak points to strike. Which in 2026 is cheap and easy with swarms of drones. Meanwhile, the US is still carrying out precision attacks with expensive ordnance which they have limited supplies of.
TL;DR: Capital might very well lose this one.
> On their end, Iran has been preparing for exactly this for decades
Given the 12 day war and now, it doesn't seem like they are putting much of a fight. The US air superiority has completely done them, it'd seem.
> Iran is firmly sided with China and Russia.
Doesn't seem like those two will move an inch.
You should sprinkle in a few other news sources because that’s not what is happening at all.
Iran also has further escalation paths it can take. So far, they have only been targeting US-affiliated targets in the Gulf. You can imagine what would happen if they decide to expand their target list. But I think this will only happen if GCC countries decide to participate.
Which sources do you suggest?
Everything I've read suggests the US and Israel are stomping all over Iran, and have destroyed their air force, navy, and even anti-air defenses.
I know these news are necessarily biased (e.g. do we know for a fact the three F-15E Strike Eagles were really downed by Kuwaiti friendly fire and none were downed by Iran?), but the chance of credible news of Iran putting up any real resistance is very, very slim.
Iran has been sanctioned for decades. As a result, they do not have a modern airforce, navy, or even air defense systems. So it is completely unsurprising that USIS has complete air superiority. You can rest assured that Iran has planned for this.
Their entire defense strategy post-war (Iran-Iraq war) has been centered around ballistic missiles. More recently, they “pioneered” the use of kamikaze drones (Shahed) and included their use in their strategy. Note that they have aggressively optimized Shahed when it comes to cost, ease of manufacturing, and ease of launch. Shahed drones have seen extensive combat usage in the Ukraine war.
The other “hint” when it comes to Iran’s response is the increasing estimates by the US as to how long this “operation” will last. Initially, it was a few days. Now they are saying 4-5 weeks. Edit: Looks like it could up to 8 weeks..
Long story short, until we start to see significant degradation in launches - both missiles and drones - we simply cannot say that Iran has been defeated.
As far as news sources go, the easy recommendation is Al Jazeera. Twitter/X is also decent, but there is a ton of noise.
Wouldn't we expect AJE to be pretty biased in this situation? I was thinking something from Europe or Asia (SCMP) might have less skin in the game.
It is biased - interestingly less than expected on this topic because Iran is shelling them - but the idea is to read something to counteract Western bias. Asian outlets (non-Japanese) are another good source.
Even US own war games against an unspecified country in the region went extreme badly for them, long before drones were a thing.
Russia isn't moving for obvious reasons (I don't think IRGC planners even expected them to move, Putin has made it clear a 100 times he is out of anything involving Israel). But that said Putin arguably did his job already by destroying Patriot stocks and thus putting US on a timeline in terms of protection.
With China the issue is different: They have a completely different military ecosystem so it's not like they can send them their own stuff. We already saw in Ukraine that running 2 types of equipment along each other is a pain in the ass and strains logistics. China is likely aiding them with satellite imagery instead.
I think China will sit this one out. There's nothing to gain for them with direct involvement.
Any assistance to Iran (like satellite imagery) will have limited effect, and the Chinese know it. In my opinion, there's no way the Islamic Republic survives this. For any rational international actor, there's no sense in becoming involved in a lost fight.
> In my opinion, there's no way the Islamic Republic survives this.
But what if the Islamic Republic isn't a material thing, it isn't a government apparatus, it is actually the ideas and culture of a population under siege? 50-60 million Persians, and another 30-40 million muslims of other ethnicities. They have been embargoed for decades, the message that the US and Israel are evil has seeped into every corner of society there. It will not be so simple to erase that programming and you can expect a large portion of the population to resist to the bitter end. It's been over 20 years of planning to bring the USA to this point, 20 years because it was never a sure bet, and even today it's still not clear who wins. No, I think 4 days in it's too early to call winners and losers.
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> The US air superiority has completely done them, it'd seem.
They're managing to successfully counterattack with strikes in every country in the region, while the bulk of their central leadership has been KIA. They still control the Strait of Hormuz and very intense naval, land, and air operations will be required to dislodge them.
If this war was started with the goal of the complete destruction of Iran, ground troops will have to go in (President Trump et. al. is already in the media telegraphing the requirement). Iran is a mountain fortress, and the home team (pop. 91 million) holds advantage. This has the potential to become and long and bloody war.
I think people in the US are seriously discounting this. The only thing that Iranian forces have to do is keep lobbing drones. You don't need leadership, heavy industry, or even a lot of drones as long as you keep lobbing them.
It takes very little for them to keep disrupting things which affect the global economy.
Even if leadership changes at the top and isn't killed, why would independent cells of fighters stop?
I think there's a huge possibility that Iran can keep being disruptive longer than the US is willing to spend $$$$$ bombing and intercepting.
One nuance here is where that $$$$ actually goes. The US has a history of diverting a staggering amount of money to the war companies every 2 decades or so. The spend here might be the goal, not the cost.
Well, they've managed to launch and land strikes on every country in the region. "Successful counterattack" is a considerably higher bar than that, IMHO.
What use is that quibble?
Everyone agrees the United States and Israel have inflicted more damage than the Iranians have in reverse. That's not an interesting point.
More interesting is the Iranian strategy moving forward, since our insight into their world is restricted.
I don't see it.
Russia has their hands full with Ukraine and has failed in the past to protect other allies such as Syria.
China seems wise enough to provide some support to Iran while sitting out of direct involvement in the war. China has everything to lose with war and nothing to gain. If anything, they are signaling "stability" to the Global South -- something from which the US is increasingly drifting away -- and war is the opposite of stability.
> Meanwhile, the US is still carrying out precision attacks with expensive ordnance which they have limited supplies of.
I think they have more than enough, plus Iran faces an even worse situation. Limited stockpiles of their only effective weapons, missiles and drones, and quickly running out. What's worse, by not using those weapons in huge salvoes, they reduce their efficiency... they only work if they can overcome defenses, but if they spend them too fast they lose their only effective weapon.
I think the Islamic Republic will be overthrown, but this requires boots on the ground, and it'll become a quagmire like Iraq or Afghanistan. At some point the US will declare success and leave, and from the ashes of Iran countless warring factions will emerge, an endless insurgency, and possibly the next ISIS. We've seen this happen more than once, no reason to believe this will go a different way.
Russia and China cannot stop this.
Edit: rather than downvotes, I prefer debate. Be better, HN. I realize this is difficult in times of war involving the country where the majority of HN hails from, but I trust you can do it. Engage in rational debate please.
> In a sense, they're not fighting the US/Israel. They're fighting our datacenters.
LOL. Sorry, this is silly. Do you really think that Iran hates data centers?
The best scenario for Trump is to make this a limited war that nobody even notices outside of Iran's borders. He wants to announce to Americans "see? We did what we wanted and it was over in a few days, you barely noticed it".
While the nightmare scenario is to end up bogged down in a long drawn war with global repercussions, inflation, market crashes or even boots on the ground for months and years.
Iran can't win a military confrontation with the US, but it can make it so expensive that the US will decide to back off. These are strategic attacks, their form of "second strike". Raising the price of an attack on them, exactly as a nuclear armed country would retaliate on cities and not on military bases.
>If you're the Iranian regime, the world is a hostile place.
And so is being Israel with Iran right there with Hezbollah, Hamas etc... Incredibly biased comment.
How many here are commies living in USA suburbs or thirdies?
> And so is being Israel with Iran right there with Hezbollah, Hamas etc... Incredibly biased comment.
How would it help any of us, to imagine ourselves being an alternate reality version of the Iranian leadership who in turn are imagining themselves being the Israeli leadership?
In order to guess what Iran does next, all we have to do is the first step, to imagine ourselves in the Iranian position, not to hypothesise about a much more competent Iranian leadership than actually exists which had the empathy needed to put itself in anyone else's position rather than call Israel and the USA un-metaphorically the big and little Satan.
I highly recommend this video: https://youtu.be/jIS2eB-rGv0?si=uEOmzYpsvYocDz6B
It explains that one of Iran's goals is to make the GCC (UAE, Kuwait, etc) uninvestable by making them non-safe and choke the Strait of Hormuz. This affects the petrodollar as well as American stock market since the GCC invest much of that oil money back into American companies.
His other videos on Iran, Israel, and America through the lens of game theory are also quite good. It's a side you often you don't hear in mainstream media: https://www.youtube.com/@PredictiveHistory/search?query=iran
He also explains in this video why a ground invasion of Iran is damn near impossible due to the terrains and how Saudi Arabia and Iran are connected: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y_hbz6loEo
As someone who doesn't know much about the highly complex history, goals of the Middle East and the world, they're informative but I'm also open to people who disagree with this guy. Would love to hear things from all sides.
Warning: The Youtube channel has a very doomish view of this conflict though. He thinks this is the start of WW3.
I don't know about the guys take on Iran, but I came across his channel a long time ago regarding some predictions on things I work with + I think Ukraine war? And it was so handwavy and "cherry picking stats to fit a narrative" style of reasoning, it was hard to take him seriously when many predictions were proven wrong and not even sound.
Granted, most YouTube analyst channels with ~=>500k subscribers usually do deploy exaggerated claims or "one parameter to explain everything" narrative (Zeihan, Varoufakis, Mersheimer, William Spaniel) so you should take their infotainment with a grain of salt. Current trendy buzzword is "Realism" and "Game Theory" so those two term are mired with wish washy handwaving.
Usually, just like tech stuff, the actually valuable insight is not found in the blogs but the source material they refer to, because they have nuances.
I agree with you. I followed him out of curiosity for one or two months, watched about 10 of his videos.
He seems to have a good intuition, but he gives weak and often cherry-picked reasonings, to the point that many of his takes are completely unreliable.
For a channel called Predictive History, he made too many weirdly precise explanations and predictions that turned out to be wrong. Then, he'd look over the old failed ones to find new ones.
That being said, I'd say his macro level analysis is directionally correct, as well as his read on the incentives of each party involved. Watch his lectures, but be skeptical and double check everything he says, because he does indeed make factual mistakes... some of them are caught in the comments by other viewers, some are not obvious.
I agree with your more thought out assessment of the channel.
I stil think the effort of trying to predict history (trying to understand causal patterns and extrapolate) is a valiant effort, and don't want to write his entire channel off. So I can't comment on his Iran take until I've seen it.
But yes, everyone makes mistakes and that just shows we don't have some universal theory for predicting history, so one shouldn't get obsessed with one school of thinking, but try it out, find its limits, and be open to other school of thoughts too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mearsheimer
One of your "YouTube analysts" is a professor that developed one of the schools of realism, so maybe that's why he's using that "buzzword".
Edit: and varoufakis was the finance minister of Greece. I have no idea if he was any good at it or not, but your characterization is a little silly either way.
Would they be more credible to you if they gave 2 minute soundbites in between advertisements for drugs and gold on cable news?
Maybe I should've added a line break between the sentence.
I'm fully aware of prof Mearsheimers credential, and what realism is. I'm also aware that the biggest proponent of realism with the most power at hand, was Henry Kissinger. Not the brightest shining beacon.
Their worldview is funny. A self fulfilling prophecy kind of take that is most often used to justify heinous behavior by saying "well everyone is doing it" and take a selective look at history and deriving some universal theory of international politics.
So I think the "using one parameter to explain everything" is an apt description of him. A hallmark of pop social science gifter pattern is when they try to apply that one thing to everything. Mearsheimer isn't (wasn't?) that until the podcast fame inevitably asked questions to him that is outside his expertise and audience capture, inevitably, kicked in
Edit: indeed. He was finance minister during the Greek financial crisis. With your appeal to authority Fallacy, Lizz Tuss should still be taken seriously because she was UK prime minister (that was out lasted by a lettuce).
I like Varoufakis. He's at least consistent. His technofeudalism observation have some merit. But still his analysis comes from a limited scope, and (he's open about this) colored heavily by his communist stance.
The point was:
All those expert often have a compelling analysis, but the nuance is often lost in the medium such as YouTube. It's better to dive in to the nuance, critically examine it, and then listen broadly and repeat.
Yeah, I guess I zeroed in on the YouTube part and missed the one parameter part, which I'm not really qualified to speak to. I happen to think audio/video (basically lectures and dialogues) is a fine part of the toolkit for learning.
I was reading it as "look at these dumb tiktok'ers" or something like that, which seems like it would be selling at least those 2 quite a bit short.
This guy's videos were immediately going viral after the conflict began. I enjoyed and found them educational, but I'm taking all of his claims with a grain of salt because I also don't know much about the region or its history. He talks very authoritatively which makes for compelling storytelling but conflicts of this magnitude require much more context to really understand.
I don't disagree. That's why I'm open to the opinions of others in this matter. I'm no subject expert.
Been following this guy for a few months now. On Iran i think he is right on the money. He also has some very good lectures about personal development.
He might indeed need some personal development himself. I followed him when the US bombed Iran's nuclear sites last year. He was involved in a controversy with his kid and turned into a dick, going into a charade against the Western education system, for being overly harsh to his kid in a public space and getting reprimanded for it. I'm not condoning his behavior, I wasn't there, but I'd take anything this guy has to say on personal development with a pinch of salt. By the way, he published a post of apologies in his Substack IIRC.
This is natural behavior as a father, specially from Asians. You do not know what actually happened to the kid, we too have done the same.
No way you are suggesting this guy... there is no way.
The guy who thinks the Jesuit illuminati run the world?
https://youtu.be/4Ql24Z8SIeE?si=csY0Jl19VYXNouk2&t=860
While I agree with some of his sentiments the entire video reeks of half-baked conspiratorial thinking and shallow engagement with the facts.
A quick tell is that the video's title includes "Game Theory", while only referencing game-theoretical concepts twice in an off-hand comment. In both instances the usage is plainly wrong.
In general, he loves making big assertions without backing them up with evidence or explanations that go beyond hand-wavy examples.
Any thing he said that about the conflict that you disagree with?
He makes quite a few quite controversial assertions without evidence or even bothering to explain them. At the top of my head and paraphrasing:
- "The conflict is a game of chicken." Only in the vaguest sense in which any war or confrontation could be called that.
- "The USA is not equipped to handle a war against drones and fanatics". Idk they seem more capable than any other nation save Ukraine given that those two things have been a major feature of their recent wars.
- "Countries that are poor have more energy and are more cohesive". This is just demonstrably false, but he does not bother to explain why he thinks this.
- "The US wants to break Iran into ethno-states that compete for water until they are all dead." He even admits that this is pure conjecture and hand-waves this as the game-theoretic "optimal" strategy which is completely bonkers.
I do share his negative sentiment and outlook about the war, but there are way better critics that don't resort to this type of intellectual laziness.
What do you think of this?
I think that there is a huge leap between using the Kurds to do your fighting (like in Syria) and what he claims if you look at the map that he pulls up in that section.
Game Theory is the name of his class. He is a high school teacher. I agree his ideas about the conflict are only loosely connected to "Game Theory" in the Academic sense. If you engage with more of his content, he often repeats that he is probably wrong and exhorts you to think for yourself and make your own conclusions. His perspective on past and current events is certainly not mainstream.
I think we should hold people to a higher standard especially when they talk with this much confidence and present themselves as a professor. The issue is that "Game Theory" is a technical term so there really only is an "Academic" sense otherwise it's just a marketing term for whatever ideas you want to push.
It's YouTube, cuz'
And? There's endless high quality content on YouTube.
He is based in Beijing according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Xueqin.
That matters. China would not allow him to broadcast things they do not approve of.
Equally, were he based in the UK (or even the US during wartime, despite the First Amendment), he wouldn't be able to say things those governments don't approve of.
So yes to some extent it might be CCP propaganda, but that doesn't mean it's always wrong, and the alternative is western propaganda, which is also sometimes wrong
Seeing as people like Tim Pool were based in the US to say things to large youtube audiences Funded and directed by the Kremlin, this does not seem true.
One difference is that in the UK/US it has in practice only applied during actual war time. I remember the instant switch in tone of reporting from the BBC the moment war broke out in 2003.
And I have never seen it apply to individuals in UK/US. (Post WW2.)
In China it's all the time. And the control is _so_ much stricter.
That is true but there are still some things that are illegal to say in the UK 365 days a year every year.
One topical one which I won't repeat here for obvious reasons but it relates to the middle east
So much is illegal to say in the UK. Let's just focus on [what is illegal to say in the context of] political/military analysis?
There definitely is some relevant stuff, but unfortunately by definition I can't say what it is.
Also I would point out that there is a lower tier of things that are not exactly illegal to say per se, but will still result in you being ostracised, probably getting fired etc. Especially if you're a university professor, academics probably have among the lowest freedom of speech of anyone
It's a bold plan...
Cut off the EU's main energy supplier and make it dependent on the US.
Grab the largest oil reserves.
Start a special military operation with Iran, knowing that Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz, thus cutting off a large part of the world's oil and gas.
The US profits from this are going to be staggering.
Japan and korean has it's oil imports from havoc at a 70-90% percent i think? very interesting to see how will this go. very smart move for Iran to attach USA millity base at UAE...
The EU noticed that they exchanged Russia with Texas...
From one evil war monger to the next.
The only thing Trump achieved so far was replacing Khamenei with Khamenei. Otherwise, it's a total disaster from the strategic point of view. Making the US that much weaker in the long run is somewhat ironic for a guy wearing a MAGA hat.
I guess he achieved the same thing Bill Clinton achieved - he took the spotlight off of his personal issues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_bombing_of_Iraq#Distracti...
But yes, I generally agree with you. It’s like the US/Israel don’t know how Iranians think about their country, their government, and the history of US in the region.
Do they not know that many people who hate their government’s domestic policy actually support their foreign policy?
Do they know that of dozens of ace fighter pilots (e.g. Jalil Zandi) minted by Iran during the Iraq-Iran war, most of them were “Shah loyalists” who preferred an Islamic Iran over foreign invasion of Iran?
It’s too incredible to think that they don’t know these things, so I guess they don’t care. So the goal must not be military, but something else.
> I guess he achieved the same thing Bill Clinton achieved - he took the spotlight off of his personal issues.
Not, if you start calling US+Israel an Epstein coalition (forces). :-)
Ironic, but par for the course
As an Iranian in the West who has a family of Shia mulsims, what Westerners don't understand is that the sectarians _pray_ for death..
It's difficult for someone on this forum to fathom how anyone would _want to die_, but that's how these guys operate. Killing Khamenei did nothing but to grant him exactly what he wanted. He was martyred at the hands of the enemy during the holy month of Ramadan. He had already delegated all his operations and stayed home, waiting for bombs to drop.
Assassinating him simply poured more gasoline to the fire. Decapitating extremist leadership doesn't achieve much (as we just witnessed), you can't kill an ideology like this with guns.
The other thing that I'll mention is about 30% of the population in Iran supports IRGC and within those 30%, at least _half_ of them are willing to die for the cause. in a country of 90M, that's millions of people..
So unless you're going to conduct a genocide, you're not killing all of them, and even if you do, the few that remain will grow again.
United States did a great job exporting liberalism to Iran over the past 40 years and some of those ideas were starting to take shape. However I feel like now they undid all that work and united all IRGC supporters because of the war.
I think TRUMP miscalculated Iranian's abilities to take over the regime. The diaspora celebrating Iran getting bombed are out of touch with the reality of the country.
As a rule - I disregard the opinions of the diaspora. It's nothing personal but often they are often the least informed and most biased when speaking about any given homeland.
Are you suggesting you are more informed about Iran than someone from Iran?
As a rule you disregard the opinions of refugees because you think they are the least informed on the topic that has intense personal impact on them and their families? WTF?
yes
What do you think the prospect is of those 15% successfully stopping the secession of Balochistan and Kurdistan? Not a trick question, I'm genuinely curious.
All commanded by Israel. Truly, truly, appalling how much control they have over the US. What a clown world we're living in.
This is my suspicion too, it seems to be all tied to Epstein files
Not really, I think it was more that Iran thought the US could control Israel, so they said 'if Israel betray the ceasefire agreement, we will hit your bases'.
The US probably asked Israel to not betray the agreement, Israel as usual betrayed the agreement, said to the US 'we will attack during the negotiations', probably because it was effective the last few times they did, and the US couldn't force them to stop, so they had to preemptively strike.
That proves my point: US still joined them.
Do you agree there is a meaningful difference between the US feeling forced to follow Israel because of their own political choices, and the US being controlled by Israel ? The outcomes are the same, but acknowledging why and how the US got themselves involved is key if people don't want this kind of situation again.
Israel completely depends on USA. USA are the ones with all the power in that particular relationship. There is no way for Israel to force USA. USA has a lot of ways to force Israel.
USA can be convinced to do something by Israel, but not forced.
Here is my argument:
Prior political choices prevent the US from saying to Iran "Sorry that Israel attacked you, that's unfair, please don't attack our base, we won't fund Israel military anymore, and we remove the embargo".
Hence, since during the previous ceasefire, Iran told the US "If Israel break the ceasefire again, we will attack your ME bases", US was "forced" into preventive strikes against Iran military installations, and into an offensive war, without any preparation.
I'm not a huge fan of this US admin _at all_, but in this very case, the amateurism isn't caused by the childishness and the whininess (is that a word? i mean constant whining and victimization) of the US admin and their overall lack of skills, but by the fact they were forced into it without preparations.
Is that argument more clear? I feel you talked past my argument which is probably my fault since i have trouble expressing myself without thinking for hours beforehand
I dont find that believable argument at all. USA in fact can not attack along of Israel. Nothing prevents then from removing embargo, tho that is not relevant.
USA can tell Israel to not attack. Full stop. It can even tell Israel they will give them less support. And dont tell me that Trump administration would be afraid to pressure or even bully other goverment. If USA did not wanted this war, it would not happened.
Third, USA had option of approaching negotiations seriously. It simply did not.
> US was "forced" into preventive strikes against Iran military installations, and into an offensive war, without any preparation.
This is nonsense. It was not preventive attack, it was active first strike attack against opponent that is not much threat right now.
USA was not in defense. It was not forced to attack either.
both secretary of state and the majority leader in congress have gone to the press giving a story of Israel forcing the US into it.
maybe theyre lying; both were very nervous while telling the tale
So, what was the actual threat supposed to be about? Israel will stop defend USA? Common.
But to your other point, they both lie often and confidently. If they are nerveus, they probably just thought they look like idiots (regardless of whether they are saying the truth).
Exactly. Normally u would think that the Security Services would see tRump as unsuitable for President because he's compromised by a foreign power. However, the Zionists tentacles are deeply embedded within the US Govt including the CIA et al. Schumer deliberately delayed the vote until after this attack because he too is a Zionist. MAGA were deeply naive about the influence the Zionists have on US Govt departments.
Crazy that the 79 revolution led to just another royal line, this time with added theocratic repression and Iranian refugees spread around the world.
This is what "move fast and break things" looks like when it is applied to foreign policy. It is called imperialism.
As Mark Carney said: "if the middle powers are not in the table, they are in the menu" meaning "if the weak don't unite and resist together we'll be eaten by the strong".
OTOH, does anyone remember the "shock and awe" in the first days of Iraq War? It was pretty much like this. Soon, the orange buffoon might have a "mission accomplished" [1] moment and revert the tendency in the midterms. And then the U.S. gets even more screwed in the long run.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Accomplished_speech
The beautiful irony is that Carney initially went all in supporting this illegal war of aggression. It seems he tempered his language a bit since then. Perhaps his team realized how hypocritical he sounds after that whole speech on Greenland.
https://x.com/markjcarney/status/2027721462233141679?s=46
Here is the partial walk back: https://x.com/harry__faulkner/status/2028950225683894395?s=4...
i dont think he sounds hypocritical. its exactly as described by havel - the sign is in the window but nobody believes it.
being hypocritical would be not helping Spain out whos taking the sign down.
within canada though, there is a gigantic iranian diaspora and getting rid of the islamic regime brings out a ton of protesters in support.
I am not following. Is it not the definition of hypocrisy to essentially cry about how international law has always been dead, and then unflinchingly support an act in violation of international law a few weeks later?
Have you watched a Trump "speech" in the past few years? It's all incoherent rambling; he's not a unifying figure and never will be so I don't think midterm chances will suddenly go up if he gets on stage and declares victory. The things he's doing domestically are quite unpopular (e.g. killing American citizens with an immigration agency) and there hasn't been real governance -- just illegal tariffs, corrupt pardons, meme coins, attacks on free speech, and a vengeful, politicized DOJ.
Unfortunately the people who vote for him don't watch the speeches either and literally do not care that he does stupid things and generally wrecks shit because lower business taxes and he isn't a (D)
The conservative business class, since literally before Marx wrote anything, will do whatever it takes to never ever ever ever accept even a tiny reduction in their handouts. They will burn America down and destroy their own revenue before they let us collect an extra dollar in tax revenue for the betterment of society.
This war has been planned for decades. I was a boy in 2003, but I distinctly remember the threats against Iran during that time period. Time Magazine ran it on their cover...
https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20060925,00.htm...
The countries most impacted by the ONG crisis are China, India, and South Korea.
Europe largely shifted to a mix of US and Norway following the Russian-Ukraine War in 2022.
That's mostly non sequitur. Even before this war those countries knew they shouldn't trust the U.S.
Specifically, India and France know this for decades.
I mean thats Iran's play right?
Its worked before (see 1980s https://www.strausscenter.org/strait-of-hormuz-tanker-war/), and it'll probably work again. Especially as Iran has different values on loss.
The other issue that is less said is that the USA probably doesn't have the capacity to keep bombing in this way. They are using all the fancy missiles first, but haven't made a safe path to do unguided cheap bombing. This is Russian level stupidity, and shows the danger of letting "true believers" organise things over actual planners who've done this before.
more over, allies can't keep up that level of air defence.
It _could be_ bullshit that iran has a whole load of ballistic and drones spread all over the place, but frankly the US can't afford to find out if thats the case.
Sure the US could escort tankers, but that would mean much higher risk of casualties. Given that the USA is reasonably self sufficient in oil, thats probably a hard sell.
Also, does the US have enough stock of ship born anti-missle systems? Sure it has the expensive stuff, and the Phalanx at last resort, but does the USA have the stomach to have a ship sink? I fear what happens after that.
Why would the US and Israel resort to unguided cheap bombing? That’s how you end up with wide scale civilian deaths. They’ll use more and more jdams vs stand off weapons as air superiority has been mostly established. There’s also been a significant drop in missile attacks as more and more launchers are destroyed.
https://understandingwar.org/research/middle-east/iran-updat...
> Why would the US and Israel resort to X?
> That’s how you end up with wide scale civilian deaths.
Has Israel ever shown restraint wrt civilian deaths?
> Why would the US and Israel resort to unguided cheap bombing? That’s how you end up with wide scale civilian deaths.
It is cheap and neither cares about civilian deaths. That is why. Both countries show it both in rhetoric and action. The leadership literally brags about not caring about civilian deaths.
There is basically no country in the world who cares more about civilian deaths than the US. Get out of your bubble
Lots of countries in the EU care more about civilian deaths than the US. However the US cares a lot more than Russia.
The us is indeed very interested in how many innocents its enemies kill.
70 years of bombing random coutries an causing caos and military dictatorships show that is might not apply inward.
Even if you take the current US leadership at their word, they do not. They've all but said that war crimes are on the table here.
America, regardless of what so-called international institutions say, is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history. B-2s, fighters, drones, missiles, and of course classified effects. All on our terms with maximum authorities. No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win, and we don't waste time or lives.
Literally, on day 1, they bombed an elementary school and killed dozens of little girls.
When you are constantly hearing the words 'precise', 'controlled', 'surgical' you absolutely must wipe the propaganda off of your ears. A protracted aerial bombing campaign will never, ever, be precise and surgical. Doesn't matter how good the tech is. One only needs to look at Gaza to see what is planned for Iran.
First, USA literally officially does not care about it right now. That is the stated official politics. Hegseth, Vance and Trump are proud and open about it. Hegseth was referring to literally this war when he was saying they will not care about things like civilian deaths.
Second, the number of civilians deaths caused by USA was going up due to drones usage. That is prior Trump, in administrations that kind of cared at least a little. And that was at the time when media sorta kinda cared. Nowdays, media do not care at all.
Third, Israel is not just ok with genocide, but wants it to happen. And USA is one of the leading countries in the project of helping them. I am not singling out America here, it is not JUST America. But America is very consistent in that.
> First, USA literally officially does not care about it right now. That is the stated official politics.
All indications so far indicate the US military is in fact still trying to minimize civilian casualties regardless of the statements being made by some of the individuals in the leadership.
> Hegseth, Vance and Trump are proud and open about it. Hegseth was referring to literally this war when he was saying they will not care about things like civilian deaths.
I wouldn't take the statements being made by these 3 individuals as fact as they are known to lie constantly for various(usually dumb) reasons.
The decision to use cheap bombing or an expensive one will go from the top. And the military already shown they will obey unlawful orders. They also got rid of leaders who were not aligned with Trump on this point.
Yes these three lie a lot. They are also setting the rules for military. They also already shown in actions they dont value evwn American lives much.
They had in speeches toward military telling them to be violent and unrestrained. They are leaders. If they lie, military will eventually lie. If they dont care, military wont care.
> The decision to use cheap bombing or an expensive one will go from the top.
I don't see any indications that unguided munitions are being used if that's what you're referring to. The advantages in terms of accuracy from precision guided munitions tends to largely eliminate any cost advantages unguided munitions may theoretically have.
Regardless of the statements being made by some of the leadership the actual targeting appears to be done in a way that tries to avoid civilian casualties.
Trump went on TV and openly stated we just have to accept the death of Americans. "Oh well, that's what happens." As if this conflict is an act of God.
You think he - a raging, narcissistic, racist, pedophile rapist - gives a single fuck about Iranian citizens? You think He Seth - an alcoholic, "lethalmaxxing", Tate bro with nazi tattoos - gives a single fuck about Iranian citizens?
How naive of you to think that Israel cares bout civilian deaths.
whether Israel cares or not the US people definitely care and half the nation literally wants Trump hanging from a tree. The US midterm elections in November are going to make things 1,000% harder for the Trump admin and widespread Iranian civilian deaths will up that by an order of magnitude.
Back to speaking tactically, JDAMs are cost effective enough that I bet they are the only gravity bomb used. I could see using unguided bombs for things like airbase runways but i bet they stick with JDAMs for logistical simplicity.
The oil market is likely to adapt to disruption in the Strait of Hormuz. Initially, the Tanker War led to a 25 percent drop in commercial shipping and a sharp rise in the price of crude oil. But the Tanker War did not significantly disrupt oil shipments. In fact, Iran lowered the price of oil to offset higher insurance premiums on shipments, and the real global oil price steadily declined during the 1980s. Even at the its most intense point, the Tanker War failed to disrupt more than two percent of ships passing through the Persian Gulf.[x]
This seems relevant to the global stock/oil market overreaction.
> This seems relevant to the global stock/oil market overreaction.
This is true, but as with the start of the tanker wars:
> Initially, the Tanker War led to a 25 percent drop in commercial shipping and a sharp rise in the price of crude oil.
currently something like 90% of shipping is stopped.
But your general point about moving around it is valid, assuming that Iran doesn't attack refineries and distribution points. Last time Iran had to use artillery to attack shipping, this time they have better weapons
There's already videos of US/Israeli jets over tehran dropping guided bombs.
That's my assessment. By threatening and targeting bystanders, Iran tries to make any military action against them costly to those not involved, who will naturally apply pressure to whomever is taking the action.
So, the USA and Israel started a war with Iran when they were in the negotiating table and the Iranians were accepting all the nuclear demands.
In the first unprovoked attack they killed an important religious leader of a big part of the population of the area (not only Iran) and a bunch of civilians (160 children in a school between them).
But the assesment is that 'is Iran who is threatening and targeting bystanders'. No surprise that we are in the mess we are.
look at the stats of what the UAE has defended against, what is the purpose of those attacks? They make no sense to me.
Iran attacks on the UAE 186 ballistic missiles 812 drones
this article even states that the UAE has been attacked more than Israel itself which, again, blows my mind. The UAE is, wisely IMO, choosing to stay out of it but i mean how much can they take?
https://www.axios.com/2026/03/03/uae-iran-missiles-strike-is...
The UAE is hosting multiple US military bases and is absolutely a valid target.
> UAE has been attacked more than Israel itself which, again, blows my mind.
UAE is closer and so it is harder for them to intercept attacking missiles and drones. Israel is further and thus harder target. They have more time to destroy the attacking drone or missile, making such attack more wasteful.
Second, the goals are likely American soldiers stationed there and the defense systems themselves. Intercepting missiles can run out and Iran likely wants them to run out.
> So, the USA and Israel started a war with Iran when they were in the negotiating table and the Iranians were accepting all the nuclear demands.
They were not accepting all the nuclear demands[0].
> In the first unprovoked attack they killed an important religious leader of a big part of the population of the area (not only Iran) and a bunch of civilians (160 children in a school between them).
Calling the attack "unprovoked" is just wildly inaccurate, Iran has for years funded terrorist proxies to attack both Israel and US interests in the region.
> But the assesment is that 'is Iran who is threatening and targeting bystanders'. No surprise that we are in the mess we are.
Iran deliberately targets their own civilians as well as 3rd party countries.[1]
I think the massacres and not the nuclear program were however what finally pushed the US and Israel into a war with the regime itself as a primary target as the massacres opened up an opportunity to potentially take out the regime once and for all.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/world/middleeast/iran-us-...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Iran_massacres
unprovoked is "why now?"
that funding has been for years, and Israel itself has funded some of those same proxies.
the massacres also arent timely. we're months later with the unrest settled down, but its also not something unique to iran. lots of countries, including israel go about massacring civilians
nothing has substantially changed in many years. not even oct 7 is timely anymore
> unprovoked is "why now?"
The protest massacres opening up an opportunity for regime change, I think that's ultimately what pushed Israel and the US to take action.
> Israel itself has funded some of those same proxies
Israel facilitating aid/funds into Gaza for humanitarian reasons which often got diverted by Hamas is not the same as Israel funding Hamas.
> the massacres also arent timely. we're months later with the unrest settled down, but its also not something unique to iran.
The war happened as soon as one could reasonably expect it to happen given the necessary logistics involved.
> including israel go about massacring civilians
Israel does not have a top down policy of deliberately targeting/massacring civilians, Iran on the other hand does.
> nothing has substantially changed in many years. not even oct 7 is timely anymore
Oct 7 drastically changed Israel's perspective on containment and deterrence being effective policies for dealing with enemies like Hamas and Iran. Part of the problem with a containment and deterrence strategy here is that groups like Hamas and the Iranian regime don't respond to incentives in the way one would expect a rational actor to respond.
Embarrassing hasbara.
> By threatening and targeting bystanders, Iran tries to make any military action against them costly to those not involved, who will naturally apply pressure to whomever is taking the action.
i'm no geopolitical expert but the most likely outcome of bombing bystanders is more enemies and fewer bystanders.
> They are using all the fancy missiles first, but haven't made a safe path to do unguided cheap bombing.
Global media is reporting B-52s over Iran, which implies complete air supremecy and complete Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses, so this, on the face of it, seems to be untrue.
It appears that now there are b-52s making their way over. So this seems to back up the claim of ait superiority.
i doubt it. you dont have verification on that without boots on the ground, and consistently not being shot down.
iran could easily be keeping air defenses hidden in caves waiting for the right opportunity
It could also signal a command that is less risk averse than the past. We lost B52s bombing Asia back in the day because even old SAM systems are a danger to them, maybe the Trump admin is just fine with losing a handful of irreplaceable old workhorses. I don't think the DoD ever planned to use those B52s in a war against China either, which this is essentially all in concert of.
This war will end with regime change in Iran one way or another. Whatever the 'play' is won't change that.
> but haven't made a safe path to do unguided cheap bombing
Do you seriously believe it? That we're not going to see the US/Israel bombers over Iran?
Up until this afternoon, I hadn't seen evidence of non-long range munitions.
Lots of cruise missiles, but not short range guided bombs.
It appears that b-52s are being flown over to the middle east now, which means they must be fairly confident of air superiority
Air power alone has _never_ achieved regime change.
Libya begs to differ
What do you mean, Lybia happened 2 days after France met with Libyan rebels leaders and one of Ghadafi's son, the first strike targeted ground installations so that the rebels could take over.
It was carefully planed for a swift takeover, way, way more than what is happening there, and it still ended up being a cluster fuck. The rebels were the fucking ground groups.
Here, it will probably be Iraqis, like during the first gulf war. Hopefully less people will die, but clearly this is a terrible decision.
I think it could finish with regime change in the USA.
Yay! Another wave of hyperinflation and affordability crisis coming in, while youth unemployment is at its highest and the millennials are losing their jobs to AI. What could go wrong?
We could fail to do something about the problem. That is a thing that could go wrong.
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The whole ME is in chaos nowadays. Some of those Arabian countries, such as Bahrain and Jordan, may even see civil unrest and such, which will further destabilize the region.
If the Kurdish people decided to take up the deal and go against Iran, and Turkey/Azerbaijan decided to follow suite, then it's going to be really messy.
> Bahrain
Bahrain always had unrest issues due to it's laggard economy and communal issues - this was why KSA invaded it back during the Arab Spring. Something similar is always on the table for KSA.
> Jordan
Shia are nonexistent in Jordan, and Jordan was much more affected by the decade long Syrian Civil War right across the border and some of it's largest urban areas (especially the Irbid-Daraa area).
> Kurdish people
Kurds are not uniform. The Iraqi and Iranian Kurds tend to be much more socially conservative than their Syrian brethren (Turkish Kurds are somewhere in the middle).
Turkiye also supports the KRG and PJAK as they don't support Oclanism and act as a buffer against Iran.
> it's going to be really messy
No one wants to admit it but that's the whole point. I mentioned this before on HN [0] - no one wants to admit this because it is a bad look, but it aligns with our interests.
[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47092612
Thanks. For Jordan I'm mostly thinking about their past history with Palestinian. Yeah I agree Kurds are not uniform. I'm not exactly sure about the differences but there was a piece of news from CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/03/politics/cia-arming-kurds-ira...
What do you think the possibility of Kurds getting a piece of land from Iran?
> For Jordan I'm mostly thinking about their past history with Palestinian...
Jordanian Palestinians tend to be middle and upper middle class now and cornered the Ex-Im business with Israel and the US (most Arab goods in the US are "Made in Jordan" for a reason, and why "Made in Jordan" textiles have become so common now at Costco and Walmart).
Jordan also neighbored a similarly industrial country that collapsed into a decade long civil war (Syria).
> What do you think the possibility of Kurds getting a piece of land from Iran
Kurds are not uniform. The KRG (Iraqi Kurdistan) is fairly socially conservative as is Iranian Kurdistan. They are also extremely pro-America (the US protected the KRG since 1991), pro-Israel (Iraqi Kurdish Jews of the Barzani and Talabani clans are overrepresented in Israeli politics and defense careerists), and pro-Turkiye (they are a counterweight against Apo's PKK).
I think it is likely we will allow a KRG dominated rump state form around Ilam-Kermanshah-Sanandaj-Mahabad. We will likely see a similar thing arise in Iranian Azerbaijan with Turkish+Azeri backing. Iran is already de facto nonexistent in much of Sistan-ve-Balochistan. Iraqi Shia Arab militias will most likely end up backing a rump state in the portions of Khuzestan neighboring southern Iraq and Kuwait.
> I think it is likely we will allow a KRG dominated rump state form around Ilam-Kermanshah-Sanandaj-Mahabad.
Thanks, I think along the same line.
We will be lucky if this does not start WWIII.
What are the Kurds supposed to get in the "deal" to go against Iran? It is pretty much guaranteed they wont get anything except betrayal in the long term, so it must be something "right now".
There is a piece of news from CNN that says CIA arming them to fight Iran:
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/03/politics/cia-arming-kurds-ira...
CIA and arming paramilitary groups to fight the US enemies with massive ramifications over the decades, name a better duo
It does not answer my question - what will the Kurds get. That article makes it super clear what USA and Israel get. It says nothing about what Kurds get. And crucially, it does not says that Kurds agreed yet, it says that CIA is trying to make it happen.
And the history is Kurds helping USA just to be abandoned later on. If they settled for some long term promises, they would be stupid. So, lets assume they get something in short term.
I do not know exactly. But I think they might be able to get their own official country somewhere in between Iraq and Iran.
The problem is with own official country between Iraq and Iran is that it is long term promise. Will USA and Israel hold on their word a year or two later? Assuming success of course. Can Kurds rely on Trump administration and its succeeding administration to keep the word here? Will they?
I think it’s better to rely on themselves. But I do think IL would like to have them as an ally. Just my guess though.
The Kurd aren't dumb. They know they'll be betrayed. It's still their best shot. Many of them have been hanging out in the mountains for decades waiting for an opportunity like this. They are going to take it whether the US helps them further or not -- even if they don't they are likely to be blamed and punished as if they had while the regime lashes out. Surely they'll accept pallets the US is about to drop to them.
Can't believe I am saying it but the tax rates during the WWs gave the whole system a needed reset... like we do now and WWIII might the only way to get it through.
I kinda said the same thing about the Cold War. But with AI and such, I'm afraid that they are going to just fast track AI development and deployment because AI has the potential and they don't want to lag behind.
This was only the case because FDR wanted entry level socialism and disliked how capitalism was doing things and he had immense popular support and then once the USA couldn't avoid the war any longer, real, undeniable power to change things, and was followed up by an administration who wanted to continue his work and wanted to again limit the capital class from running the US and genuinely wanted a Democratic future for the world.
Big war policy under fiscal conservatives looks like the GWOT, they will just charge everything to the Country credit card, rack up tens of Trillions of Dollars bombing sand, and bombing the sand again when it doesn't magically turn into an allied country, because then if they ever lose control of the Whitehouse they can scream about the debt and austerity for another term, and get to cut taxes for rich people and maybe finally kill that horrific welfare state that FDR made.
IE, what you are seeing now is literally the wealthy class's response to that WW2 reset. They've been itching to "Make America Great Again" for them and their class alone ever since.
The KRG is different from the YPG/PKK led Syrian Kurds. A significant portion of Israel's leadership are ethnic Kurdish as well with continued blood ties in Iraqi Kurdistan (eg. Ben Gvir).