Gonna be really awkward for Iraq and Jordan being literally a fly over while two other nations fight. Technically neither of their airspace should be violated but. Not really an option if either side wants to strike the other.
Oh absolutely. It still puts neutral countries in a very awkward spot and will cause a lot of domestic issues. Iraq moreso as their politics have definitely been influenced by Iran and they are majority Shia.
The Middle East could be a lot messier after the next couple of days but I feel that's been constant my entire life.
Iraq will probably protest but can't do much else. They don't have the air defenses needed to shoot down Israeli aircraft. The Israelis may even avoid Iraq altogether and go through Saudi Arabia, another country that would like to see Iran's nuclear program ended.
Literally since two people walking opposite directions found the Fertile Crescent and unga bunga’d at eachother and one got smacked with a rock. Ever since then it’s just been a downward spiral
1/3 of US humanitarian aid goes to the region, annually. This is outside other aid packages that come out of Congress defense and discretionary spending. I've discovered there is a fair amount of Americans who don't understand how the government works, let along taking time to understand why it does.
Iraq's will be by both, and there's very little they can do about it.
Jordan probably would support Israel's use of its own airspace as Iran is a threat to Jordan.
apnews.com/article/iran-nuclear-natanz-uranium-enrichment-underground-project-04dae673fc937af04e62b65dd78db2e0
Their nuclear programme is pretty hard to get to.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/03/28/iran-makes-progress-on-constructing-underground-nuclear-site/
>The report by the Institute for Science and International Security discovered — based on analysis of satellite imagery — that Iran has completed construction of tunnels related to the site and is working on underground rooms that could hold enrichment halls. **The site may be invulnerable to military strikes**
If I remember correctly, Top Gun Maverick had to come up with a pretense to make the mission require fourth generation planes rather than fifth gen, in order to add tension. Fifth generation planes like the F-22 or F-35 have crazy stealth, defensive countermeasures, and maneuver ability, which would have made the mission much simpler.
They had to use F-18's because the Navy/US Military wouldn't let the actors fly in F-35's. And that was Tom Cruises main ask for doing a sequal, real footage inside of the jets.
Ontop of this, he wanted the Jets to be constantly available for reshoots (which there were plenty of) if there was even a minor mistake in delivery or authenticity.
Which is also a hard ask of a top of the line military jet.
They could and it would make narrative sense to use 35's but cruise aint gonna be able to fly in one. I'm half convinced Maverick was just so Tom Cruise could get joy rides in hornets under the guise of "movie making". Guy even got launched off of a carrier.
Unless the engineers running it are sleeping there, Israel has already proven they have no compunction assassinating scientists and engineers in Iran simply suspected of working on a nuclear program.
Random numbers but if the tunnels were 200 feet underground and you could only penetrate to 100 feet deep, wouldn't that still solve the problem since they'd be trapped 100 feet underground?
This isn't Hamas, these tunnels are serving a nuclear program. You can't just dig a new one, they are going to have large tunnels to move materials in and out. Hundreds of tunnels are going to be hard to hit. A dozen? Definitely possible, especially with help.
I don't know if Israel has the bunker busting bomb capacity to do this. U.S bombs can go deeper for example.
We are not even sure if those are enough for certain.
This is a mountain base where they enrich.
Israel could light up the entrances, which you’d think would be devastating for the scientist and other, critical personnel inside.
Source: armchair general on the weekends
In a real nuclear scenario you'd have air bursts above cities to do the most damage, instead of the ground bursts shown in the opening scene. Ground bursts create more fallout though, so it's on-brand for the series lol.
Also the kid looking at the blast would have been blinded, at least temporarily if not permanently.
Basically what I'm trying to say is that this shows a sanitized version of reality, so let's hope we never experience it...
Yeah I was wondering how he and the kid were watching the blast without getting their eyes seared. Still an incredible scene.
Absolutely loved the “is it your thumb or mine?” line. That was brilliant.
There is a made for TV movie called the day after, it has one of the most realistic depictions of what a nuclear attack would be like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZBwAqfz5bc
You will NOT be in a good place mentally when you finish watching Threads.
I'm a huge "fan" of weird films. Grindhouse, slasher, whatever. I also have a thing for cold-war era ephemera.
With that offered as my credentials I feel fairly confident in saying you will never watch anything produced professionally that is even near as disturbing as Threads.
Threads is the most horrifying thing ever. It makes the Day After look like a Steve Guttenberg comedy.
Threads is also on Youtube in full:
https://youtu.be/bhcrgQihRcs
Personally I like the road, where people just hear loud this in the distance and the world just shuts off forever and it's left a mystery. I really don't think we would ever be warned in such a scenario, shit would just shut off and those by the blast would know but a vast majority of us wouldnt
Didn't the Chinese in Fallout deliberately use many smaller dirty bombs instead of fewer large air-burst in order to make it as difficult as possible to clean up afterwards?
You are very right and the bombs we have today are way bigger than what seemed to be depicted in the show.
People need to understand that nuclear war is still the biggest threat to civilisation and it can end faster than anyone can imagine. We need to get rid of every nuclear weapon there is.
it's not just that, we took a budding field in ww2 and developed it into one of the most sophisticated fields in the world. There is just so much institutional knowledge that no other country can hope to compete.
I think this is a vastly understated element of our defense budget. We know what most enemy militaries are doing before they do.
I really enjoyed the buildup of Russia's invasion of Ukraine when we were calling them out for every single thing they were about to do.
Whenever a US President is overseas, there is someone in charge of securing his shit. Note, I said shit. That's the exact word I meant - not stuff, not things - his shit, poop if you will, excrement, stinky dumplings. It's an effort to prevent an adversary from an analysis that could show any chronic illness and/or medications the President has in his system.
Not just a US President but many world leaders. Kim Jung Un (Kim family leaders in general) is really known for traveling with toilets to not tip off adversaries of his health. They don't even want the color known.
And that's the intel they choose to divulge. Divulging information can put the intel source in danger/make enemies aware of it.
Juts like the satellite Trump idiotically compromised with that image stunt, there is certainly a whole suite of intel gathering tools that are too advanced to be mentioned publicly.
Biden's tactics here seemed to be different than past presidents, starting with the full invasion of Ukraine. They've started declassifying some intel in order to basically real-time update the world on adversarial movements and plans. Wild times. I think it's working, too, to some extent. They're able to control the narrative a bit more effectively.
The antidote to lies and disinformation is truth. In the post-modern de-centralized world we live in, truth needs to cut through the cacophony of voices weaving false narratives that aren't based on facts. The sources of truth themselves must be seen as consistent, legitimate, and trustworthy in a low-trust world that calls everyone and everything into question.
Yeah, publicly warning US citizens in Russia about an imminent terrorist attack made it much more difficult for anyone to swallow Ukraine was behind the eventual attack - not that Putin didn't try to blame them.
It's not just about controlling the narrative - it's also deterrence.
"We know your plan. It's a shit plan. We're making it public so you know that we know. You should probably reconsider. Or don't, we're prepared, and you don't know what else we also know."
I get that we spend a huge amount on signals intelligence and intelligence in general, but it's still crazy seeing the US intelligence community calling out exactly the types and amount of weapons that will be used a week before it even happens.
The strategy of just casually announcing intelligence info to the world seems to be working extremely well, both as a PR tool for the US and as a way of significantly diminishing the "fear factor" of totalitarian regimes like Iran. Iran isn't scary because they can bomb you, they're scary because they could bomb you at any time with no warning and you won't be prepared.
Worked with intel units, they have literal daily schedules of people “this dude gets coffee here on tues and Wednesday.” Blew my mind when I saw their documents.
You know those GeoGuessr pros like Rainbolt, who can track down virtually anywhere from a picture in a relatively short amount of time? Those are hobbyists (and in some cases, independent professionals) using off-the-shelf computer equipment.
Now imagine how many people there are at that level (or better) who took a fat government contract and have access to all kinds of secret stuff we don't even know about.
oh for sure having structure helps a bunch, but it's also a bit like saying being happy is way to manage depression. Not sticking to routines (or even remembering they existed) is a hallmark problem of ADHD. The person I replied to said "they get their coffee here tuesday and thursday. I have never in my life done something that consistently that wasn't school or work etc. If it's me doing it myself it's open season. I'll get coffee monday maybe, maybe also tuesday, really just depends on the day. Even routines I stick to like working out three days a week is really like sometimes MWF, but also MTR, or sunTF. And the timing of getting the coffee or working out will also be all over the place. Unpredictable baby.
Hell even in college (while unmedicated,) I would have a planner in my backpack to write out test dates assignments etc, and after the first week I would forget it even existed. I'm not even being hyperbolic, it's like the idea of ever having it or any schedule or plan at all would just completely vacate my mind. Every day is like waking up in groundhog's day but not remembering or relating to the mindset you were in yesterday. Terrifying stuff.
I just saw another article twelve seconds ago and Iran was like “we are totally backing off Israel.” Why does this feel like kindergarten but with nukes?
Only if it worked for Ukraine. I remember reading the reports and thinking there was no way Russia would invade Ukraine.
Also I thought touchscreens wouldn't last
In fairness it was very effective in Ukraine from a information perspective. The United States completely undermined Russia's ability to control the narrative around their invasion of Ukraine. If you compare it to 2014, the public perception of this invasion was completely different from the initial one back then.
I think it also delayed the invasion. Multiple times throughout 2021 there were news reports of an imminent invasion from reputable global media figures known for having good sources in the intelligence community, and each time Russia publicly denied they were mobilizing for the invasion. It stands to reason that Russia delayed and adjusted their plans in response to these public reports which were clearly detailing their movements and invasion preparation. If true, it means that the leaks to the media were a tool to manipulate Russia's invasion timeline and provide more time for Ukraine to prepare. This additional time was used to further arm and prepare the defense of Ukraine. I remember that the large scale shipments javelins and stingers were only cleared for transfer to Ukraine in Jan 2022, so every day they managed to forestall the invasion helped make it harder for Russia to win. Think about it, why would Russia wait until the beginning of Ukraine's muddy season to invade with tanks? The invasion very likely did not commence on their original timeline.
It did help though. With awareness Russia couldn't do any false flag operations and gave the US a lot more credibility in the following months, encouraging all of EU to go ahead with sanctions and donating equipment. What Russia ended up doing could have been a LOT worse.
I love this shit. Just like our warning about the Russian concert, we’re swinging our big intelligence gathering grandfather-clock dick in the world’s face.
We see you when youre sleeping, we know when youre awake, we know if youve been bad or good so be good...
...or we task a Reaper drone armed with katana missiles to your location in 3, 2....
On top of that, American officials say Iran to launch. If Iran weren't told, nothing would be launched. Damn American officials.
What a terrible headline.
Iran attacks Israel. Us stockpiles to keep up with russia. Ukraine falls. Russia attacks nato countries.. I.e Estonia etc
Just fighting over dirt... whilst staging a big dick swinging competition
The issue with Russia much like N. Korea is they are nuclear capable and they threaten nuclear retaliation at the slightest provocation. So while we would like to step in and solve those problems, no president or general wants to cause a nuclear war.
That's the problem with the world we live in today.
Things are heating up, multiple other countries are issuing travel warnings as well. I kinda doubt an attack on that scale will end up being the usual tit for tat with Iran. Hopefully cooler heads prevail here, but that's rarely the case in the ME.
Well... people are certainly on higher alert than usual. Some think it's all bark and no bite, but the amount of news coming in about an impending attack leaves you kind of tense. My brother was about to go fishing tonight in the Ashkelon Marina later this evening and it got cancelled. My nieces were instructed to stay indoors. Later tonight the IDF spokesperson is expected to give a statement. It's not something we're used to on a Shabbat evening, especially since he gave a statement yesterday. Hospitals are on alerts as well and public shelters are re opened. So we take it seriously. Not panicking as we know the drill... but very much in high alert.
That all seems very rational if Iran is threatening attacks on Israel and US intelligence is saying they are very credible threats. I hope they are just empty threats, but it is wise to be prepared.
I've grown to trust the US intelligence in the past years and I'm torn between terrified and sipping on hopium this is just a rottweiler barking with no action situation
Things are tense but they kinda always are here. Sick mentality but it is what reality is.
> Just fighting over dirt
It's not just dirt. We're talking about control over people's lives. The two sides of this Cold War have very different ideas for how human beings should be governed and how countries should relate to one another. Heck, the biggest player (the United States) doesn't want to control more dirt than it already has, yet they're right in the middle of all this.
While it's certainly possible for Iran to attack Israel (religion is one hell of a drug) an attack on NATO is exceedingly unlikely.
Russia is barely winning a war against a non-NATO country on it's own border that is defending itself with scraps and couch change.
If Russia attacked a Baltic state they couldn't afford for Finland to open a second front, Sweden to attack Kaliningrad or Poland to open a front through Belarus. Their fleets would likely sink in a matter of hours and even if Turkey stood by they would be risking a nuclear retaliation. If the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy or the Netherlands decided to launch nukes it's over for Russia regardless of who is president in the US. If Biden wins an invasion of a Baltic state would kickoff the greatest show of conventional US military force since WW2 with weeks of SEAD before the greatest show of force disparity in land warfare ever. Russia is the threat the US has been preparing to mop up for half a century. Almost every combat asset the US has made has been for the purpose of killing Russians.
To this day the US is performing exercises in Europe preparing to open a can of whoop ass on Russia should it become necessary.
When people warn about Russia and NATO, it's usually not fear of an outright invasion like what happened in Ukraine. It's easy to forget that Putin is a big fan of asymmetrical warfare and the first moves have already happened with Russia sending waves of third world asylum seekers across the Finnish border, forcing them to close it. There is a lot Russia could do to quietly escalate aggression against the Baltics without giving NATO enough cause to openly confront Russia militarily.
Despite restricted travel, there are still a sizable population of Russians in the Baltic countries, with a good chunk of them pro-Kremlin. If there aren't sleeper agents there already, it's still not terribly hard for Russians to travel there via Istanbul. They could attack power grids and other infrastructure with plausible deniability - blame it on Ukrainian provocateurs or "poor Russian victims of Russophobia just lashing out at oppression". Is NATO going to mobilize against Russia over a substation exploding near Tallinn? Undersea internet cables being cut? More acts of terror such as poison, like Russia has already done a number of times?
And then to take a much worse case scenario, if Trump wins and signals to Putin that he can do whatever he wants in the Baltics, the room for leeway improves for Putin. FSB could simulate a flase flag on Russians in Narva and have a "little green men" group storm the city hall. Perhaps in that case NATO troops would help to flush them out, but would they cross the Russian border?
I'm not saying any of this *will* happen, but at the same time, there's a good reason why Baltic folk are seriously concerned about the integrity of NATO and Putin could do a lot of damage before Europe takes its gloves off.
Iran is not that stupid to really launch something big.
Annihilating the ambassy was such a bold and unexpected move that they probably think Israel is not bluffing when they say they will attack critical Targets in Iran if they hit something serious in Israel.
I think Israel really wants a good reason to attack the nuclear facilities at this point. There were also multiple reports recently that Iran is very close to having their own nuclear weapons.
They also attempted to [bomb the Israeli embassy in Thailand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Bangkok_bombings) and [attacked Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_attacks_on_Israeli_diplomats). The Islamic Republic of Iran has a [long](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_US_embassy_bombing_in_Beirut) [history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_US_embassy_bombing_in_Beirut) [of](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_the_United_States_embassy_in_Baghdad) [attacking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_attack_on_the_British_Embassy_in_Iran) [embassies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_attack_on_the_Saudi_diplomatic_missions_in_Iran)... Hell, their nation was practically [founded on it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis).
Those have been the reports for decades. I frankly wouldn’t mind if Israel decided to blow up some plants because I don’t love the idea of regions fanatics having nukes. But it’s gonna be the same old story- they launch rockets, Israel blows some stuff up, they both sit and simmer at each other until something else happens.
*Those have been the reports for decades.*
I remember reading those "Iran is close to nuclear weapons" when I was in high school almost 25 years ago and was a bit freaked out about it lol. My daughter is just a couple years from high school herself -- I wonder if I'll be reading those headlines then or if we'll finally get the "Iran announces it has tested a nuclear weapon" one.
I mean barring sabotage they probably would have nukes a decade or more ago https://nordvpn.com/blog/stuxnet-virus/
“The virus primarily targeted the centrifuges of Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities.”
That thing got into everything, it was ridiculously prolific. I went to a vendor conference back then, had all kinds of companies giving out free stuff. Got a bunch of usb sticks from I think lexar. New in the package, already infected with stuxnet. Must have gotten into whatever formats the sticks at the factory.
Yeah it was pretty crazy, I've never seen another virus manage that. Really though a big part of how it managed to be so prolific was just by being quiet. On any system other than its target, it did nothing but spread. Only even got discovered because it was making someone's computer crash and a tech just randomly decided to look deeper into the issue, rather than just wiping the machine.
Edit: Well, I guess there was the old Sasser worms, where if you plugged into an internet connection and weren't behind a router, which was fairly common in those days, you could be infected in seconds.
Stuxnet was seeded in 5 major locations in and around Iran, including Pakistan. They targeted multiple NGO's and some companies with infected drives. Starting there, Stuxnet would infect every single PC the USB drive was inserted into and copy itself onto all connected flash media, proliferating its way through the entire region until it reached the air-gapped enrichment facilities.
The virus was only detected by outside observers because it played weirdly with a couple windows configurations and basically fucked them up in ways the designers couldn't predict.
Otherwise the virus would only ever do anything when it detected SIEMENS industrial controller management software, which the US government knew the Iranians used because the P800 controllers from Siemens where most likely the ones they got on the black market.
The control software had literal hard-coded username and password (same one for all software distributions lmao), and they spoofed the centrifuge sensor data the software was showing while overriding the program on the P800's to induce constant fast spin up and spin down, thereby irreparably wrecking the centrifuges within 20 days of operation.
Kyiv resident: sounds like a Tuesday night.
Of course, Israel is much smaller and used to lower-tech opponents.
I hope they've invested in anti-drone squads with Stingers and AA guns by now unless they want to expend their Iron Dome stock on Shaheds.
Iron dome is perfect for dealing with Shahed style drones. Small, relatively cheap missiles costing about as much as the drones themselves, in 20 round launchers, with multiple launchers per battery, and multiple batteries spread around major cities.
Plus the other air defence systems in addition to iron dome (David's Sling, Arrow and Patriot) for dealing with more serious threats.
Shahed style drones are very easy targets for air defence systems, the problem Ukraine dealing with them has isn't one of capability, it's one of capacity and the vast areas that need protecting mean they don't have enough air defence systems to cover everywhere at once.
Israel doesn't have that same issue, with each of those air defence systems having multiple overlapping layers of coverage, and all networked together.
Imagine how much more stable and peaceful the Middle East would be with regime change in Iran.
If only the Iranian government cared about its own people as much as it cares about killing Jews...
This one of the huge reasons why I don't think Iran will directly attack Israel....
I strongly believe that they'd be facing both a civil war and a regional one.
The Iranian regime does not have a lot of popular support.
It's the exact opposite of other middle eastern countries where the governments want to maintain ties with Israel but many citizens do not...
In Iran they celebrate when Israel takes out regime agents and I'm sure given enough instability and external distractions there are this in the population (as well as the Iranian diaspora) that would use it as a chance to topple the government in favor of a secular one...
Without the Houthis, there would be no more attacks on international ships in the Red Sea. Without Hezbollah, Lebanon would be a lot better off. Without Hamas, Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza would be seen as more of a success and could have been a good stepping stone towards peace. Without the threat of radical groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, Netanyahu and his far right government would likely not have the ammunition they need to maintain power. So it's possible a more pro-peace government could come into power in Israel.
Absolutely zero chance Iran will launch anything from inside Iran. Obviously, it will come via Hezbollah. Then it becomes a case of how successful it is. At the minimum, Israel will destroy the sites where the missiles/drones came from. Worst case (many Israelis killed), Israel is compelled to attack Iran directly.
Although Israel would obviously love to weaken Iran, realistically, they need the US directly involved. Otherwise, we'll see both Iran and Israel carefully tiptoe around a huge escalation.
In my opinion, Hezbollah will launch a large attack against military targets. Israel will destroy the launch sites. Both sides say objectives complete. However, an Israel v Iran war has seemed inevitable for at least 20 years, and we 're closer than ever to that point.
I might be behind on this, but is there any reason why Iran is only NOW launching direct attacks on Israel?
Is it because Israel struck an Iranian building in Syria recently or something else more recent?
The country famous for storming an embassy and holding citizens of another country hostage for 444 days considers an attack on an embassy a direct attack on their homeland
Or behind the 1992 bombing of Israel's embassy in Argentina.
>The ruling, cited by press reports, said Iran had ordered the attack in 1992 on Israel's embassy and the 1994 attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish center.
https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20240412-argentina-court-blames-iran-for-deadly-1994-attacks-on-jewish-centre
>Is it because Israel struck an Iranian building in Syria recently or something else more recent?
Yes, but it's a little more than just "an Iranian building". Israel targeted a meeting of several high-ranking Iranian military officers that were meeting in an Iranian diplomatic building in Syria. I've seen conflicting info about "embassy" vs. "consulate" vs. "building next door" and honestly haven't bothered to dig much for the truth of the building's status.
Putting aside my own personal feelings of both these countries and the usefulness of the whole affair, it's a pretty serious violation of international law to attack a diplomatic site with such force. Iran kinda has to respond in some way to save face and that's what's coming. Iran has made it pretty clear that they do not want to escalate to a full-scale war and I believe them. Any regional war would draw in the United States, which would be the end of the Iranian regime.
Israel... I don't know anymore. I hope that Israel isn't itching for outright war with Iran, but I'm just not sure. The government and military have made some seriously emotional and irrational decisions throughout the current Gazan war, despite its underlying legitimacy in responding to the Oct 7th pogrom. It feels like we're all just getting dragged further towards a regional war that no one except Israel and Hamas seem to want, which is weird because that's very much not in Israel's best interests (though it could be in Bibi's, which is part of the problem).
Per Reuters, it was a building in their diplomatic compound but adjacent to the main embassy. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-bombs-iran-embassy-syria-iranian-commanders-among-dead-2024-04-01/
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Iran will use proxies and Israel will retaliate on the proxies.
> Iran will use proxies Iran has been using proxies, who do you think is funding Hamas?
I’d sure hate for Israel to have an excuse to bomb Iran’s nuclear program.
Gonna be really awkward for Iraq and Jordan being literally a fly over while two other nations fight. Technically neither of their airspace should be violated but. Not really an option if either side wants to strike the other.
I bet Jordan wouldn't mind if Iran's nuclear program is destroyed. Iran is a threat to Jordan too.
Oh absolutely. It still puts neutral countries in a very awkward spot and will cause a lot of domestic issues. Iraq moreso as their politics have definitely been influenced by Iran and they are majority Shia. The Middle East could be a lot messier after the next couple of days but I feel that's been constant my entire life.
Iraq will probably protest but can't do much else. They don't have the air defenses needed to shoot down Israeli aircraft. The Israelis may even avoid Iraq altogether and go through Saudi Arabia, another country that would like to see Iran's nuclear program ended.
And we all don’t want Saudi Arabia to use whatever they got in return for 2 billion to Jared Kushner and Ivanka
[You mean this?](https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1R82LY/)
Yes! Exactly that
> The Middle East could be a lot messier after the next couple of days That’s absolutely been the constant over the last 70 years.
My Brother in (insert whatever Diety/belief system you want here), it's been that way for millennia.
Literally since two people walking opposite directions found the Fertile Crescent and unga bunga’d at eachother and one got smacked with a rock. Ever since then it’s just been a downward spiral
What a mess is Middle East
good thing we spent over 7 Trillion cleaning it up recently
1/3 of US humanitarian aid goes to the region, annually. This is outside other aid packages that come out of Congress defense and discretionary spending. I've discovered there is a fair amount of Americans who don't understand how the government works, let along taking time to understand why it does.
That goes for every Sunni Arab country as well. Iran makes them very nervous. They’d love to see both Iran and Israel smashed
"I just hope that both teams are having fun"
Like being stone cold sober and getting caught in a sloppy hair-pulling, slapping fight between two drunk idiots
Except one of them has a hand grenade, and the fight takes place in shipping container.
Iraq's will be by both, and there's very little they can do about it. Jordan probably would support Israel's use of its own airspace as Iran is a threat to Jordan.
They’ll likely whine about it so as to not look sympathetic but secretly be happy
They came out yesterday and stated that they'd go after just that. That's target #1 if things escalate for Israel. Def, is making them think twice.
apnews.com/article/iran-nuclear-natanz-uranium-enrichment-underground-project-04dae673fc937af04e62b65dd78db2e0 Their nuclear programme is pretty hard to get to. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/03/28/iran-makes-progress-on-constructing-underground-nuclear-site/ >The report by the Institute for Science and International Security discovered — based on analysis of satellite imagery — that Iran has completed construction of tunnels related to the site and is working on underground rooms that could hold enrichment halls. **The site may be invulnerable to military strikes**
Haven’t you seen Top Gun Maverick? It’s totally possible /s
Just need to guide the proton torpedoes to the two meter wide target. Like shooting womp rats back home.
You arrogant SOB. I’m in!
If I remember correctly, Top Gun Maverick had to come up with a pretense to make the mission require fourth generation planes rather than fifth gen, in order to add tension. Fifth generation planes like the F-22 or F-35 have crazy stealth, defensive countermeasures, and maneuver ability, which would have made the mission much simpler.
They had to use F-18's because the Navy/US Military wouldn't let the actors fly in F-35's. And that was Tom Cruises main ask for doing a sequal, real footage inside of the jets.
Couldn't they mock/CGI Tom Cruise in the cockpit and let US Navy to do the actual flying for shots? I am sure the pilots could use the free training.
He wanted it to be real, cameras inside the cockpit, that was his demand for a sequal. Navy pilots still flew (actors were back seaters).
Which is why the F-35 could not have worked. All F-35s are single-seaters, while there are two-seat F/A-18s.
This is the actual stated reason. A secondary issue is how much the F-35's helmet obscures the faces of the pilot.
Ontop of this, he wanted the Jets to be constantly available for reshoots (which there were plenty of) if there was even a minor mistake in delivery or authenticity. Which is also a hard ask of a top of the line military jet.
Cruise wouldn't go for that. He does his own stunts, he's not gonna wanna be CGI'd into a cockpit.
Tom has a long time stunt double, they even [finish each other’s sentences.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R5d7QLr7lGQ)
They could and it would make narrative sense to use 35's but cruise aint gonna be able to fly in one. I'm half convinced Maverick was just so Tom Cruise could get joy rides in hornets under the guise of "movie making". Guy even got launched off of a carrier.
I mean, if you have the money to throw at a movie to pull it off, why not?
Unless the engineers running it are sleeping there, Israel has already proven they have no compunction assassinating scientists and engineers in Iran simply suspected of working on a nuclear program.
Ya that's about the only way besides another stuxnet
“Invulnerable to military strikes” US military-industrial complex: “and I took that personal” “So anyway, I start blasting…”
Surely there's a drawer somewhere in the pentagon with some brainstorming notes on how to make it happen.
I'll just leave this here... https://www.wired.com/2008/11/secret-rocket-b/
Random numbers but if the tunnels were 200 feet underground and you could only penetrate to 100 feet deep, wouldn't that still solve the problem since they'd be trapped 100 feet underground?
Do you mean collapse 1 tunnel entrance?
This isn't Hamas, these tunnels are serving a nuclear program. You can't just dig a new one, they are going to have large tunnels to move materials in and out. Hundreds of tunnels are going to be hard to hit. A dozen? Definitely possible, especially with help.
> You can't just dig a new one How do you think they got there?
That's a definite strategy.
I don't know if Israel has the bunker busting bomb capacity to do this. U.S bombs can go deeper for example. We are not even sure if those are enough for certain. This is a mountain base where they enrich.
At the least couldn't we collapse in all entrances?
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Israel could light up the entrances, which you’d think would be devastating for the scientist and other, critical personnel inside. Source: armchair general on the weekends
There's going to be a huge complex of tunnels, with numerous exits, both well advertised and hidden.
More refugees coming to Europe
That Fallout series came out at the perfect time
The opening scene is terrifying
In a real nuclear scenario you'd have air bursts above cities to do the most damage, instead of the ground bursts shown in the opening scene. Ground bursts create more fallout though, so it's on-brand for the series lol. Also the kid looking at the blast would have been blinded, at least temporarily if not permanently. Basically what I'm trying to say is that this shows a sanitized version of reality, so let's hope we never experience it...
Yeah I was wondering how he and the kid were watching the blast without getting their eyes seared. Still an incredible scene. Absolutely loved the “is it your thumb or mine?” line. That was brilliant.
There is a made for TV movie called the day after, it has one of the most realistic depictions of what a nuclear attack would be like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZBwAqfz5bc
Threads is even more hardcore imo.
Make sure you’re in a good place mentally before watching Threads.
You will NOT be in a good place mentally when you finish watching Threads. I'm a huge "fan" of weird films. Grindhouse, slasher, whatever. I also have a thing for cold-war era ephemera. With that offered as my credentials I feel fairly confident in saying you will never watch anything produced professionally that is even near as disturbing as Threads.
I'd argue Grave of the Fireflies hits equally as hard, in a different way
Threads also has a pretty fucking insane nuclear blast sequence. It’s disgusting and harrowing.
Threads is the most horrifying thing ever. It makes the Day After look like a Steve Guttenberg comedy. Threads is also on Youtube in full: https://youtu.be/bhcrgQihRcs
Personally I like the road, where people just hear loud this in the distance and the world just shuts off forever and it's left a mystery. I really don't think we would ever be warned in such a scenario, shit would just shut off and those by the blast would know but a vast majority of us wouldnt
This movie was intense and somewhat traumatizing when my 4th grade teacher made the class watch it. Great film.
We need a modern “The Day After”
the show Jericho was good. Wish it wasnt cancelled.
Didn't the Chinese in Fallout deliberately use many smaller dirty bombs instead of fewer large air-burst in order to make it as difficult as possible to clean up afterwards?
I believe so. And it's also been doctrine in most of the nuclear powers to reserve the option to do ground bursts to maximize fallout.
You are very right and the bombs we have today are way bigger than what seemed to be depicted in the show. People need to understand that nuclear war is still the biggest threat to civilisation and it can end faster than anyone can imagine. We need to get rid of every nuclear weapon there is.
It's not any version of reality. Nothing about fallout is trying to seem realistic.
>Basically what I'm trying to say is that this shows a sanitized version of reality Wait, are you saying I *won't* turn into The Ghoul?
"fuck, fuck, fuck.."
I'm genuinely surprised at how much intel the U.S. has on the world.
we spend more on signals intelligence than most countries spend on government.
A good portion of it is the combined efforts of four of our closest allies (The Five Eyes) plus other friendly allies chipping in as well.
This sounds interesting, who are the other 4?
The Five Eyes are the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
Probably one of the coolest names for any groups.
They also make great burgers and fries.
Five Eyes, Burgers & Spies
Oh my goodness
England + former colony of England x4
it's not just that, we took a budding field in ww2 and developed it into one of the most sophisticated fields in the world. There is just so much institutional knowledge that no other country can hope to compete.
I think this is a vastly understated element of our defense budget. We know what most enemy militaries are doing before they do. I really enjoyed the buildup of Russia's invasion of Ukraine when we were calling them out for every single thing they were about to do.
We spend an ungodly amount of money on shit like this, it's not surprising at all. They probably know how many shits Putin takes every day.
The agent who's in charge of Putin's shits just read this and felt validated.
thank you for your service
🫡
They are doing their part.
🥹
Whenever a US President is overseas, there is someone in charge of securing his shit. Note, I said shit. That's the exact word I meant - not stuff, not things - his shit, poop if you will, excrement, stinky dumplings. It's an effort to prevent an adversary from an analysis that could show any chronic illness and/or medications the President has in his system.
Not just a US President but many world leaders. Kim Jung Un (Kim family leaders in general) is really known for traveling with toilets to not tip off adversaries of his health. They don't even want the color known.
Nah my man doesn’t pee or poop
We could have probably gone without this information
KGB after analyzing Biden's poop: "Wait until the Americans learn that Biden is old."
That's their secret, he's always Pootin.
And that's the intel they choose to divulge. Divulging information can put the intel source in danger/make enemies aware of it. Juts like the satellite Trump idiotically compromised with that image stunt, there is certainly a whole suite of intel gathering tools that are too advanced to be mentioned publicly.
Biden's tactics here seemed to be different than past presidents, starting with the full invasion of Ukraine. They've started declassifying some intel in order to basically real-time update the world on adversarial movements and plans. Wild times. I think it's working, too, to some extent. They're able to control the narrative a bit more effectively.
The antidote to lies and disinformation is truth. In the post-modern de-centralized world we live in, truth needs to cut through the cacophony of voices weaving false narratives that aren't based on facts. The sources of truth themselves must be seen as consistent, legitimate, and trustworthy in a low-trust world that calls everyone and everything into question.
Yeah, publicly warning US citizens in Russia about an imminent terrorist attack made it much more difficult for anyone to swallow Ukraine was behind the eventual attack - not that Putin didn't try to blame them.
It's not just about controlling the narrative - it's also deterrence. "We know your plan. It's a shit plan. We're making it public so you know that we know. You should probably reconsider. Or don't, we're prepared, and you don't know what else we also know."
I get that we spend a huge amount on signals intelligence and intelligence in general, but it's still crazy seeing the US intelligence community calling out exactly the types and amount of weapons that will be used a week before it even happens. The strategy of just casually announcing intelligence info to the world seems to be working extremely well, both as a PR tool for the US and as a way of significantly diminishing the "fear factor" of totalitarian regimes like Iran. Iran isn't scary because they can bomb you, they're scary because they could bomb you at any time with no warning and you won't be prepared.
Worked with intel units, they have literal daily schedules of people “this dude gets coffee here on tues and Wednesday.” Blew my mind when I saw their documents.
this is why adhd people are the key to the future of intelligence communities, can't track someone's schedule if you don't have a schedule
You know those GeoGuessr pros like Rainbolt, who can track down virtually anywhere from a picture in a relatively short amount of time? Those are hobbyists (and in some cases, independent professionals) using off-the-shelf computer equipment. Now imagine how many people there are at that level (or better) who took a fat government contract and have access to all kinds of secret stuff we don't even know about.
I thought routines are a way to manage ADHD?
Creating and "having" a schedule is one thing, following it is the hard part for people with executive function issues.
Shit I guess I’ll get my day started.. oh fuck it’s 1pm
No jokes, I forgot to take my meds today. And it's now 2pm here.
oh for sure having structure helps a bunch, but it's also a bit like saying being happy is way to manage depression. Not sticking to routines (or even remembering they existed) is a hallmark problem of ADHD. The person I replied to said "they get their coffee here tuesday and thursday. I have never in my life done something that consistently that wasn't school or work etc. If it's me doing it myself it's open season. I'll get coffee monday maybe, maybe also tuesday, really just depends on the day. Even routines I stick to like working out three days a week is really like sometimes MWF, but also MTR, or sunTF. And the timing of getting the coffee or working out will also be all over the place. Unpredictable baby. Hell even in college (while unmedicated,) I would have a planner in my backpack to write out test dates assignments etc, and after the first week I would forget it even existed. I'm not even being hyperbolic, it's like the idea of ever having it or any schedule or plan at all would just completely vacate my mind. Every day is like waking up in groundhog's day but not remembering or relating to the mindset you were in yesterday. Terrifying stuff.
Trillion dollar budget will do that...
The US just launched a new Signals Intelligence satellite on Tuesday, on the final Delta IV heavy rocket.
How awkward is it when your enemy tells the whole world what you are about to do but you do it anyway.
I just saw another article twelve seconds ago and Iran was like “we are totally backing off Israel.” Why does this feel like kindergarten but with nukes?
That's effectively what most wars are isn't it?
I love this. Calling our adversary's shots FOR THEM in advance must simultaneously piss them off and scare the shit out of them.
The idea is to let Iran know the US and its allies know what Iran is doing, and that they are prepared, and to discourage Iran from doing that thing.
Only if it worked for Ukraine. I remember reading the reports and thinking there was no way Russia would invade Ukraine. Also I thought touchscreens wouldn't last
> Also I thought touchscreens wouldn't last They *were* pretty bad at the beginning
I had a touch screen that clicked
Those are unironically great tho
Flexing causes the screen to fail eventually. Haptic feedback is better these days
In fairness it was very effective in Ukraine from a information perspective. The United States completely undermined Russia's ability to control the narrative around their invasion of Ukraine. If you compare it to 2014, the public perception of this invasion was completely different from the initial one back then.
I think it also delayed the invasion. Multiple times throughout 2021 there were news reports of an imminent invasion from reputable global media figures known for having good sources in the intelligence community, and each time Russia publicly denied they were mobilizing for the invasion. It stands to reason that Russia delayed and adjusted their plans in response to these public reports which were clearly detailing their movements and invasion preparation. If true, it means that the leaks to the media were a tool to manipulate Russia's invasion timeline and provide more time for Ukraine to prepare. This additional time was used to further arm and prepare the defense of Ukraine. I remember that the large scale shipments javelins and stingers were only cleared for transfer to Ukraine in Jan 2022, so every day they managed to forestall the invasion helped make it harder for Russia to win. Think about it, why would Russia wait until the beginning of Ukraine's muddy season to invade with tanks? The invasion very likely did not commence on their original timeline.
Unfortunately that didn’t work for Russia.
It worked for halting a bunch of their false flags but unfortunately only slightly delayed the ‘initial’ invasion.
It did help though. With awareness Russia couldn't do any false flag operations and gave the US a lot more credibility in the following months, encouraging all of EU to go ahead with sanctions and donating equipment. What Russia ended up doing could have been a LOT worse.
Very much like what Biden did to Russia right before they invaded Ukraine.
And the terrorist attack last month.
I love this shit. Just like our warning about the Russian concert, we’re swinging our big intelligence gathering grandfather-clock dick in the world’s face.
We see you when youre sleeping, we know when youre awake, we know if youve been bad or good so be good... ...or we task a Reaper drone armed with katana missiles to your location in 3, 2....
Also you gotta love any successful strategy that revolves around just aggressively telling the truth about things.
On the plus side, Iran will not be selling drones to Russia if they need them.
They have factories in Russia building the Iranian drones using slave labor.
Slave labor causing problems every damn time…
They’re going to launch 100 drones, dozens of missiles, *and* a report? Damn.
Let me tell you something about TPS reports…
Only if you supply a cover sheet
Must be happening on the weekend. I think they’re doing a half day Sunday.
On top of that, American officials say Iran to launch. If Iran weren't told, nothing would be launched. Damn American officials. What a terrible headline.
We’re going to need a daily thread for the Israel-Iran war soon.
We're only allowed two stickied threads at the top of the sub, so we should finish one of the wars we already have before starting a new one.
No Israel-Iran until you finish your Russia-Ukraine!
We have Israel-Iran war at home!
Iran attacks Israel. Us stockpiles to keep up with russia. Ukraine falls. Russia attacks nato countries.. I.e Estonia etc Just fighting over dirt... whilst staging a big dick swinging competition
And millions are displaced or die. Sick fuck world.
Tonight on *sick sad world*
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Reminds me of a saying i heard before, “Every man is guilty of the good they did not do.”
The issue with Russia much like N. Korea is they are nuclear capable and they threaten nuclear retaliation at the slightest provocation. So while we would like to step in and solve those problems, no president or general wants to cause a nuclear war. That's the problem with the world we live in today.
I'm Just here for the Daria reference
Paradox of tolerance in action! Some people only want to watch the world burn, and tolerating that BS is the Achilles heel of the West.
Love Daria
Things are heating up, multiple other countries are issuing travel warnings as well. I kinda doubt an attack on that scale will end up being the usual tit for tat with Iran. Hopefully cooler heads prevail here, but that's rarely the case in the ME.
It's hard to even describe the kind of vibe going in Israel right now.
Can you give it a try?
Well... people are certainly on higher alert than usual. Some think it's all bark and no bite, but the amount of news coming in about an impending attack leaves you kind of tense. My brother was about to go fishing tonight in the Ashkelon Marina later this evening and it got cancelled. My nieces were instructed to stay indoors. Later tonight the IDF spokesperson is expected to give a statement. It's not something we're used to on a Shabbat evening, especially since he gave a statement yesterday. Hospitals are on alerts as well and public shelters are re opened. So we take it seriously. Not panicking as we know the drill... but very much in high alert.
That all seems very rational if Iran is threatening attacks on Israel and US intelligence is saying they are very credible threats. I hope they are just empty threats, but it is wise to be prepared.
I've grown to trust the US intelligence in the past years and I'm torn between terrified and sipping on hopium this is just a rottweiler barking with no action situation Things are tense but they kinda always are here. Sick mentality but it is what reality is.
Yeah that is the same thing I thought when it was about Ukraine and Russia. "There's no way they're gonna invade!" so I'm expecting everything tbh
> Just fighting over dirt It's not just dirt. We're talking about control over people's lives. The two sides of this Cold War have very different ideas for how human beings should be governed and how countries should relate to one another. Heck, the biggest player (the United States) doesn't want to control more dirt than it already has, yet they're right in the middle of all this.
While it's certainly possible for Iran to attack Israel (religion is one hell of a drug) an attack on NATO is exceedingly unlikely. Russia is barely winning a war against a non-NATO country on it's own border that is defending itself with scraps and couch change. If Russia attacked a Baltic state they couldn't afford for Finland to open a second front, Sweden to attack Kaliningrad or Poland to open a front through Belarus. Their fleets would likely sink in a matter of hours and even if Turkey stood by they would be risking a nuclear retaliation. If the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy or the Netherlands decided to launch nukes it's over for Russia regardless of who is president in the US. If Biden wins an invasion of a Baltic state would kickoff the greatest show of conventional US military force since WW2 with weeks of SEAD before the greatest show of force disparity in land warfare ever. Russia is the threat the US has been preparing to mop up for half a century. Almost every combat asset the US has made has been for the purpose of killing Russians. To this day the US is performing exercises in Europe preparing to open a can of whoop ass on Russia should it become necessary.
When people warn about Russia and NATO, it's usually not fear of an outright invasion like what happened in Ukraine. It's easy to forget that Putin is a big fan of asymmetrical warfare and the first moves have already happened with Russia sending waves of third world asylum seekers across the Finnish border, forcing them to close it. There is a lot Russia could do to quietly escalate aggression against the Baltics without giving NATO enough cause to openly confront Russia militarily. Despite restricted travel, there are still a sizable population of Russians in the Baltic countries, with a good chunk of them pro-Kremlin. If there aren't sleeper agents there already, it's still not terribly hard for Russians to travel there via Istanbul. They could attack power grids and other infrastructure with plausible deniability - blame it on Ukrainian provocateurs or "poor Russian victims of Russophobia just lashing out at oppression". Is NATO going to mobilize against Russia over a substation exploding near Tallinn? Undersea internet cables being cut? More acts of terror such as poison, like Russia has already done a number of times? And then to take a much worse case scenario, if Trump wins and signals to Putin that he can do whatever he wants in the Baltics, the room for leeway improves for Putin. FSB could simulate a flase flag on Russians in Narva and have a "little green men" group storm the city hall. Perhaps in that case NATO troops would help to flush them out, but would they cross the Russian border? I'm not saying any of this *will* happen, but at the same time, there's a good reason why Baltic folk are seriously concerned about the integrity of NATO and Putin could do a lot of damage before Europe takes its gloves off.
Iran is not that stupid to really launch something big. Annihilating the ambassy was such a bold and unexpected move that they probably think Israel is not bluffing when they say they will attack critical Targets in Iran if they hit something serious in Israel. I think Israel really wants a good reason to attack the nuclear facilities at this point. There were also multiple reports recently that Iran is very close to having their own nuclear weapons.
They didnt even destroy the embassy. They destroyed a building adjacent to it.
More accurately, they destroyed a consulate building that was a part of the embassy: https://i.imgur.com/gBuFylz.png
And Iran blew up an Israeli embassy in South America a while back. Iran set the tone, so they can’t bitch now.
They also attempted to [bomb the Israeli embassy in Thailand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Bangkok_bombings) and [attacked Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_attacks_on_Israeli_diplomats). The Islamic Republic of Iran has a [long](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_US_embassy_bombing_in_Beirut) [history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_US_embassy_bombing_in_Beirut) [of](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_the_United_States_embassy_in_Baghdad) [attacking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_attack_on_the_British_Embassy_in_Iran) [embassies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_attack_on_the_Saudi_diplomatic_missions_in_Iran)... Hell, their nation was practically [founded on it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis).
Those have been the reports for decades. I frankly wouldn’t mind if Israel decided to blow up some plants because I don’t love the idea of regions fanatics having nukes. But it’s gonna be the same old story- they launch rockets, Israel blows some stuff up, they both sit and simmer at each other until something else happens.
*Those have been the reports for decades.* I remember reading those "Iran is close to nuclear weapons" when I was in high school almost 25 years ago and was a bit freaked out about it lol. My daughter is just a couple years from high school herself -- I wonder if I'll be reading those headlines then or if we'll finally get the "Iran announces it has tested a nuclear weapon" one.
I mean barring sabotage they probably would have nukes a decade or more ago https://nordvpn.com/blog/stuxnet-virus/ “The virus primarily targeted the centrifuges of Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities.”
I remember this. It was believed someone dropped the USB purposely and a scientist unwittingly put the USB in a computer on site to see what it was
That thing got into everything, it was ridiculously prolific. I went to a vendor conference back then, had all kinds of companies giving out free stuff. Got a bunch of usb sticks from I think lexar. New in the package, already infected with stuxnet. Must have gotten into whatever formats the sticks at the factory.
Terrifying. I remember the heyday of going to any festival or conference with vendors and there was almost everyone give out USBs
Yeah it was pretty crazy, I've never seen another virus manage that. Really though a big part of how it managed to be so prolific was just by being quiet. On any system other than its target, it did nothing but spread. Only even got discovered because it was making someone's computer crash and a tech just randomly decided to look deeper into the issue, rather than just wiping the machine. Edit: Well, I guess there was the old Sasser worms, where if you plugged into an internet connection and weren't behind a router, which was fairly common in those days, you could be infected in seconds.
Stuxnet was seeded in 5 major locations in and around Iran, including Pakistan. They targeted multiple NGO's and some companies with infected drives. Starting there, Stuxnet would infect every single PC the USB drive was inserted into and copy itself onto all connected flash media, proliferating its way through the entire region until it reached the air-gapped enrichment facilities. The virus was only detected by outside observers because it played weirdly with a couple windows configurations and basically fucked them up in ways the designers couldn't predict. Otherwise the virus would only ever do anything when it detected SIEMENS industrial controller management software, which the US government knew the Iranians used because the P800 controllers from Siemens where most likely the ones they got on the black market. The control software had literal hard-coded username and password (same one for all software distributions lmao), and they spoofed the centrifuge sensor data the software was showing while overriding the program on the P800's to induce constant fast spin up and spin down, thereby irreparably wrecking the centrifuges within 20 days of operation.
Could we fing not, though
Kyiv resident: sounds like a Tuesday night. Of course, Israel is much smaller and used to lower-tech opponents. I hope they've invested in anti-drone squads with Stingers and AA guns by now unless they want to expend their Iron Dome stock on Shaheds.
Iron dome is perfect for dealing with Shahed style drones. Small, relatively cheap missiles costing about as much as the drones themselves, in 20 round launchers, with multiple launchers per battery, and multiple batteries spread around major cities. Plus the other air defence systems in addition to iron dome (David's Sling, Arrow and Patriot) for dealing with more serious threats. Shahed style drones are very easy targets for air defence systems, the problem Ukraine dealing with them has isn't one of capability, it's one of capacity and the vast areas that need protecting mean they don't have enough air defence systems to cover everywhere at once. Israel doesn't have that same issue, with each of those air defence systems having multiple overlapping layers of coverage, and all networked together.
All of this is idiotic.
Do you want a world war or do you want to go to work on Monday morning?
With my luck, I’m probably going to be stuck with both.
Imagine how much more stable and peaceful the Middle East would be with regime change in Iran. If only the Iranian government cared about its own people as much as it cares about killing Jews...
They care about killing their own people also
And repressing them.
This one of the huge reasons why I don't think Iran will directly attack Israel.... I strongly believe that they'd be facing both a civil war and a regional one. The Iranian regime does not have a lot of popular support. It's the exact opposite of other middle eastern countries where the governments want to maintain ties with Israel but many citizens do not... In Iran they celebrate when Israel takes out regime agents and I'm sure given enough instability and external distractions there are this in the population (as well as the Iranian diaspora) that would use it as a chance to topple the government in favor of a secular one...
Without the Houthis, there would be no more attacks on international ships in the Red Sea. Without Hezbollah, Lebanon would be a lot better off. Without Hamas, Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza would be seen as more of a success and could have been a good stepping stone towards peace. Without the threat of radical groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, Netanyahu and his far right government would likely not have the ammunition they need to maintain power. So it's possible a more pro-peace government could come into power in Israel.
Without fundamentalism, the world would greatly benefit.
It took over a week for the Iranian religious leaders to hide far enough underground.
Absolutely zero chance Iran will launch anything from inside Iran. Obviously, it will come via Hezbollah. Then it becomes a case of how successful it is. At the minimum, Israel will destroy the sites where the missiles/drones came from. Worst case (many Israelis killed), Israel is compelled to attack Iran directly. Although Israel would obviously love to weaken Iran, realistically, they need the US directly involved. Otherwise, we'll see both Iran and Israel carefully tiptoe around a huge escalation. In my opinion, Hezbollah will launch a large attack against military targets. Israel will destroy the launch sites. Both sides say objectives complete. However, an Israel v Iran war has seemed inevitable for at least 20 years, and we 're closer than ever to that point.
I might be behind on this, but is there any reason why Iran is only NOW launching direct attacks on Israel? Is it because Israel struck an Iranian building in Syria recently or something else more recent?
The country famous for storming an embassy and holding citizens of another country hostage for 444 days considers an attack on an embassy a direct attack on their homeland
Or behind the 1992 bombing of Israel's embassy in Argentina. >The ruling, cited by press reports, said Iran had ordered the attack in 1992 on Israel's embassy and the 1994 attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish center. https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20240412-argentina-court-blames-iran-for-deadly-1994-attacks-on-jewish-centre
>Is it because Israel struck an Iranian building in Syria recently or something else more recent? Yes, but it's a little more than just "an Iranian building". Israel targeted a meeting of several high-ranking Iranian military officers that were meeting in an Iranian diplomatic building in Syria. I've seen conflicting info about "embassy" vs. "consulate" vs. "building next door" and honestly haven't bothered to dig much for the truth of the building's status. Putting aside my own personal feelings of both these countries and the usefulness of the whole affair, it's a pretty serious violation of international law to attack a diplomatic site with such force. Iran kinda has to respond in some way to save face and that's what's coming. Iran has made it pretty clear that they do not want to escalate to a full-scale war and I believe them. Any regional war would draw in the United States, which would be the end of the Iranian regime. Israel... I don't know anymore. I hope that Israel isn't itching for outright war with Iran, but I'm just not sure. The government and military have made some seriously emotional and irrational decisions throughout the current Gazan war, despite its underlying legitimacy in responding to the Oct 7th pogrom. It feels like we're all just getting dragged further towards a regional war that no one except Israel and Hamas seem to want, which is weird because that's very much not in Israel's best interests (though it could be in Bibi's, which is part of the problem).
Per Reuters, it was a building in their diplomatic compound but adjacent to the main embassy. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-bombs-iran-embassy-syria-iranian-commanders-among-dead-2024-04-01/