USA Goes to War Against Iran
Time for a dedicated thread to the war.
How long will it last and what will be the probable outcome?
The school was 500m from the IRGC base and the building used to be part of it before it was converted to a school -- 500m from a high value military target. Not too hard to figure out.
Converted to a school like 10 years ago, but yeah, not too hard to figure out they blew up a school and have plausible deniability. Kind of goes against Hegseth's, "We're hitting them surgically" unless you think it's understandable if you go in for an appendectomy and walk out with no testicles instead.
Tariffs polled at 45-50% approval before they were implemented, and Trump prepped everyone by campaigning on them the whole time.
In this instance, attacking Iran polled at 20-35% approval (a massive difference in terms of political calculus) throughout February, and this is from a guy who ran on America First, accused Biden of starting WW3, etc...
Please, I am begging for your explanation.
kind of surprised its that low. I guess the uneducated just think of iraq
I already gave my explanation.
I wish that I could say I was surprised, but I'm not at all surprised. Trump getting heady about the use of military power after what I'm sure he viewed as a flawless operation to capture Maduro was the most predictable development ever. But Trump shouldn't have taken anything away from the military's ability to capture Maduro in a tactical operation. The U.S.'s ability to a
Also, I'm sure there were people around Trump who have wanted to pursue military action against Iran for a long time, and this was an opportune time to convince him. We all know how capricious and impressionable Trump can be.
I think the above shows why Trump feels confident, but not why he is motivated.
There is no doubt in my mind it’s just because Iran didn’t kowtow to him.
I think the above shows why Trump feels confident, but not why he is motivated.
There is no doubt in my mind it’s just because Iran didn’t kowtow to him.
If the Iranian leadership had told Trump how disappointed they were that he didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize , Trump would have given then $10B to rebuild their uranium enrichment facility.
addendum: $15B if they name the new facility after him.
All of these ideas that what's going on with Iran has to do with Trump's personality are just idiotic. Again-- it's been the dream to attack Iran for decades, going back to before 9/11.
I already gave my explanation.
Also, I'm sure there were people around Trump who have wanted to pursue military action against Iran for a long time, and this was an opportune time to convince him. We all know how capricious and impressionable Trump can be.
So you think Trump thought that this would be the first time in history air power alone could achieve regime change (the only Maduro-level win possible in this scenario), and that he was willing to pull the trigger even in the face of the worst polling of any presidential action in history?
I can see how the success in Venezuela might lead to that, but at the same time, he has to know that an overnight tactical operation with a specific objective is far different than bombing and praying. The bolded is closer to the truth in my view. Either he has far stronger allegiances to the people who wanted to attack Iran (Zionists) than he ever let on (which strikes me as odd given that his #1 most consistent character trait was being non-ideological), or he is being blackmailed and actually has no choice.
I view this from a probabilistic perspective. I have no idea how likely blackmail is, but given everything we've seen over the past few years, the odds of it truly being the case have skyrocketed.
All of these ideas that what's going on with Iran has to do with Trump's personality are just idiotic. Again-- it's been the dream to attack Iran for decades, going back to before 9/11.
It's been the Israeli and neocon dream. You think it's a no-brainer that Trump, a guy who separated himself and remade the Republican party by critiquing the neocons and the Iraq War, was going to follow through with it, even in the face of insanely bad polling?
Was it obvious that he was a closet neocon the whole time, despite deviating on numerous occasions (free trade, government stakes in private companies, populist handouts, etc)?
Decisions on things like going to war with Iran are rarely made for just one reason. For that matter, trivial decisions often are not made for just one reason. Have neocons always been interested in regime change in Iran? Yes. Is legacy neocon thinking and influence part of the stew here? That's entirely plausible. I don't think it is the entire stew, but it's probably an ingredient.
Economist Michael Hudson:
“The whole reason that America has attacked Iran has nothing to do with its getting an atom bomb,” but instead the aim was U.S. control of oil, says Hudson. The Trump administration may have been after the ability to “turn off the power” to countries that don’t follow U.S. foreign policy, he says.
The fact that progress was being made, and that Iran negotiators had agreed not to only — not to have an atom bomb, but to reduce their refined uranium, to shift the refined uranium outside of the country, and to submit to an unprecedented degree of oversight, made it urgent that the United States attack Iran immediately, because what happened was that after the Iranian negotiators went back to Iran, Khamenei and his religious leaders and the military leaders sat down to have a meeting to draft their reply accepting the U.S. demands.
But none of this was about an atom bomb to begin with. The whole reason that America has attacked Iran has nothing to do with its getting an atom bomb, because it wasn’t getting an atom bomb. The aim was to control Near Eastern oil by the United States. And General Petraeus, years ago, had outlined this whole plan in saying, “Well, we’re going to conquer seven Near Eastern countries, culminating in Iran.”
Economist Michael Hudson:
That's the dumbest take imaginable. Your knee jerk reactions are a couple decades out of date.
Economist Michael Hudson:
Oh well if economist Michael Hudson says it on a blog, case closed.
First confirmed dogfight. an Israeli f-35 destroyed a yak-130 the first time they shot down a plane since 1985. Most have been destroyed in the hanger tho
The school was 500m from the IRGC base and the building used to be part of it before it was converted to a school -- 500m from a high value military target. Not too hard to figure out.
You shouldn't uncritically accept every half ass excuse for war crimes issued in the immediate wake of the war crime. Did you forget we found out that what we labeled as mobile chemical weapons labs in Iraq were actually food trucks? How many times does someone have to lie to you before you start to doubt them, especially in spots where anyone would lie.
What we know is over 100 school children are dead. What we know is Israel, and the U.S. under their command, are heavily focused on hitting civilian infrastructure. What we know is that those carrying out this war consider international agreements and treaties to protect civilians to be the outgrowth of the "woke mind virus". We know that those carrying out this aggression are deluded and think the only reason the U.S. has lost a series of wars is leadership wasn't cruel enough.
The intentional killing of children is a war crime. Those responsible should be put on trial for their lives. Let the courts decide. If you want to defend monsters then you are also a monster, but a pathetic tiny one not even getting rich or powerful from the deeds of the bigger monsters, and that is the most pathetic creature ever conceived on this planet.
For the anti war people how do you justify not taking this opportunity to prevent iran from helping russians invade ukraine?
You shouldn't uncritically accept every half ass excuse for war crimes issued in the immediate wake of the war crime. Did you forget we found out that what we labeled as mobile chemical weapons labs in Iraq were actually food trucks? How many times does someone have to lie to you before you start to doubt them, especially in spots where anyone would lie.What we know is over 100
theyve already bombed a bunch of hosptials, police stations, and other schools. they killed 20 female volleyball players at a gym on the first day. its all intention. its how White Supremacists and Jewish Supremacists fight wars.
I figured his post had to be sarcastic given its pretty much self evident oil is a huge part of this.
Converted to a school like 10 years ago, but yeah, not too hard to figure out they blew up a school and have plausible deniability. Kind of goes against Hegseth's, "We're hitting them surgically" unless you think it's understandable if you go in for an appendectomy and walk out with no testicles instead.
I don't believe anyone in our chain of command intentionally targeted a school. But that doesn't exonerate Trump from committing war crimes either.
Trump's Achilles heel is that he's like the guy who can't help but show the bluff or that he's leveling his opponents. I think that obsession drives a lot of tactical decisions he makes. So given two options, he's going to pick the one that makes him look like he's smarter than anyone else. And we see it with all his misdirection, like duping the regime into thinking they were going into negotiations when they weren't. Heck they may have the offer that would work for Iran with enough wiggle room so they could continue working on a nuke.
There's nothing wrong with that until you're operating in areas of high civilian concentrations. I'm sure we're all familiar with Israel and the requirements to warn civilians and give them time to get out of harms way when the target is a dual-use facility like they were doing early on with the hospitals. But that article extends beyond dual-use targets and puts an affirmative burden on doing all you can do to avoid harming civilians.
I'm not going to unpack all that. But based on my understanding, while in and of itself the surprise attack isn't a violation of the rules of war, some of the targets and tactics involved were. One test is proportionality. A base where they were preparing to launch a nuke from is justifiable in my mind. A logistics unit with a few hundred personnel isn't a remotely close comparison considering the civilians killed.
Obviously they have their legal defenses but that may not be enough. Trump's made a lot of enemies both foreign and domestic and if they can make a solid case, what he thinks of as his firewall might go up in flames. Maybe.
^ Pretty close to how I feel about it. It’s reported in mainstream outlets that at the least the school was built on top of a former IRGC base. That in itself doesn’t excuse anything, especially since the building seems to have been hit multiple times.
The US or Israel hasn’t taken credit for the bombing of the school as of last night. I’m not sure what other explanation there could be as it seems doubtful this would be a false flag attack by Iran. It seems more likely there was faulty intelligence or some kind of targeting error. No matter what it’s a horrific tragedy that is a horrible start to this war.
if it was just a one off then your arguments may have merit. but this is a pattern going back decades.
its also funny that Israeli media is bragging about hacking into the traffic lights. US media is publishing propaganda about how the amazing CIA is tracking everything. but they somehow missed that this was a girls school?
no. the Ameri-Israeli Empire are the greatest terrorists in the history of the world. this is their modus operandi. they enjoy killing kids. it is the hallmark of our Empire.
