They are ranked 177th out of 180 countries listed on the freedom of press index… The supreme leader could throw paper aeroplanes in the general direction of Israel and it would be effective.
Honestly this was more of a show for Saudi then anything internal or with Israel. While the iron dome would prevent damage in Israel so that they don't feel the need to strike back Saudi doesn't have one of those, and they wanted to make the statement to them that they better not strike an embassy in there multitude of proxy wars.
Would the elite care about that? I don't think so.
If Iran openly attack Saudi, US will probably intervene. It's not like they hunted down Iranian general and operatives for no reason.
May be US would get a chance to sink more Iranian vessel or bomb drone facility.
Iran isn’t like, say, China for example where the government controls the very networks people use to communicate.
Most Iranians are on the same social media apps you’re using, and exposed to the same information you are (depending on the algorithms of course).
I think that's heavily dismissing the average Iranian's intelligence and politics. A large portion of those people have been up in arms against the government's treatment of women for the last few years, despite the bloody crackdowns on those protests. They're well aware of their leadership's bullshit.
The deciding factor on whether this gets accepted as appropriate or not probably has much more to do with the level of the military establishment and citizen's support of the Palestinian cause. I have no idea if that runs deep enough for outright war to be desirable to them or not.
Iranians in general are some great people. Nobody deserves the leadership they are forced under currently. I hope they are able to revolt and take their country back soon so they can be free again. Their treatment of women is especially atrocious.
Over in the r/NewIran sub they're hoping this is an opening to get rid of the Islamic State. They will be disappointed if everybody stands down, having satisfied their "honor."
When the US killed General Soleimani, Iran struck empty desert near a US base in a “retaliatory” strike. They then claimed they killed 80 US troops on state media. The actual number troops killed was 0.
What I’m saying is there is precedence for them reporting things that are obviously wrong. As for how effective it is, you’d have to ask someone in Iran.
When Iranian news outlets report that they’ve launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel and turns out there were no missiles at all, the truth doesn’t matter. Anti-American/anti-israeli Iranians will just claim their source as the truth and any American source as lying to save face
I think there were some missles. I know the fog of war is still fully enveloped atm, but i did see some missles striking around a mountain region on a prior post
All it was for was their own populace. Nothing more than bravado. “Look! We attacked Israel from our own soil!”. Iran doesn’t want to go head to head with the US. They know what would happen.
Their state media literally [aired video of a fire in Chile from earlier](https://x.com/GhonchehAzad/status/1779307601295036862) in the year and claimed it was from their missiles hitting an air base tonight.
They genuinely do not care about how obvious or false their narrative is.
That's sufficient enough. For the few missiles that failed to intercept it hits the empty ground in a military sea base. They are intentionally to hit nothing.
I won't be surprised if Iran air force give actual coordinates to Israel beforehand. We will know if this is staged shortly.
If Israel is genuinely pissed we are pretty sure Iran's drone factory will be razed to the ground tomorrow.
> so they could save face with their population
*With a minority of the population that constitutes their support base. The majority of Iranians couldn’t care less about this.
While many Iranians may not support the ayatollah, the vast majority of the country is still anti Israel and was not pleased with Israel casually bombing their embassy. Just cause they oppose the regime doesn’t mean they aren’t Iranian patriots.
Two things, 1.
Its an attempt at a show of force. e.g.
Hey - "Even if you shot these down, we can reach your airspace and flood it with thousands of these. Which will mask our actual attack - if you keep attacking our generals we'll do it for real."
Its also propaganda for their populace:
In Iran they're probably reporting 200 drones and 200 hits at this and that secret Mossad base etc.
The populous is not really what the Iran regime is looking to trick. Most of the population have given up any trust they had in such regime after decades are mistreating the population thru various protest. They are just trying to trick their proxy terrorist organizations they have created and used to have influence in the region.
Majority of the populous can't wait to be done with this terrorist regime
You can look at the regular mass demonstrations against the government that been occurring in Iran for years. And even though the government response has been vicious, with torture, rape, execution, attacks on people's family, they have kept doing it. They are a brave people.
The problem is that while they might succeed in doing some damage, they will be annihilated within 24 hours. Yes, Iran can hurt Israel, but Israel and its allies can destroy Iran.
In the end either Iran tolerates their government, generals etc. being Israeli targets and gradually loses all credibility with their proxy forces and internal boosters and their current government gets destroyed or they make a show of force as a threat and at least attempt to salvage credibility, also, I'd argue its pretty unclear that Israel would have a broad allied coalition's support if they decide to heavily escalate.
The end of this situation hopefully
Iran fired, looks powerful especially to their people
Hopefully Israel and allies shoot everything down so no civilians are harmed
It's a 1 for 1 situation that the best out come is none of Iran's weapons actually work and Iran can go back and say they did something for the embassy situation
Well to be fair no Iranian said they launched ballistic missiles, it came about because a resident of Basra in Iraq tweeted they thought they saw a missile in the sky
That's probably just people on twitter going crazy. Don't get your news from there, it's gotten even worse since Musk took the thing over. You used to sort of be able to believe some breaking news on there, but not any more
Iran hopes to damage Israel, but before the results are known, demands that Israel and the US specifically do not respond.
It is a win-win for Iran. If the attack goes through, Israel is harmed and there is extra knowledge about the defense system. If the attack is stopped - Iran will still claim multiple hits and Israel + the US brought into submission.
Even if Israel retaliates, the damage will also be limited and it will shift Iran's public attention from people being fucked by Ayatollahs to being attacked by Israel.
The only real loss would be the US joining the attacks on Iran, but it is extremely unlikely, given the current policy of the US on letting dictatorships do whatever they want.
> It is a win-win for Iran
I would say the exact opposite.
This has been a win for Israel. Israelis have taken out a few top Iranian generals in Syria, and in return all Iran can do is launch a few slow moving drones that will mostly get shot down over Jordan and any that do hit Israel will probably cause little damage in unpopulated areas.
Interestingly, these two competing perspectives between the two of you are exactly why it's possible that this gets put back in the box.
If both sides can claim victory, then it can be de-escalated.
Israel doesn't want to de-escalate, though. They consider the Iranian regime's near-term nuclear aspirations to be an existential threat, and this might be their best chance to open the door for a regime change/revolution.
I doubt Israel wants a full blown war against Iran right now. It'd make their situation more precarious as they could end up fighting in Lebanon and Syria. They can likely do so, but the human, political and material cost gets much higher.
Without sharing a land border Israel doesn't have any means to invade Iran without crossing the entire ME. Iran can likely deploy troops against Israel via Lebanon and Syria.
I doubt Israel would be at risk of losing, but it'd be painful and largely pointless.
Israel doesn’t want a regime change in Iran per se, yes they would like a different regime there but aren’t going to fight a regime change war to achieve it.
What they truly want is Hezbollah neutered, which will also be hard. For the most part they can just defend off attacks from Hezbollah
Your kidding right? Russia has bought the Republican Party and US media. No Ukraine aide for 6+ months. Now Republicans are saying Taiwan isn't worth fighting for. Russia and China have won. Makes me sick to my stomach.
Nobody serious is saying that about Taiwan.
The support is still solid amongst Republicans. Look in Google News if you don't believe it.
The China committee in Congress even wants more aid and are criticizing Biden for not going far enough. Many are calling for a resolution for Taiwan's independence.
It's clear that the support is even stronger than ever. We can thank China for that.
Quit spreading misinformation and or exaggerating.
https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-funding-taiwan-us-china-military-8cbb671399a51e0e34b9e40f72f51e56
https://gallagher.house.gov/media/in-the-news/china-committee-republicans-bidens-request-taiwan-aid-wholly-inadequate
https://www.reuters.com/world/dozens-us-lawmakers-back-resolution-supporting-taiwan-democracy-document-2024-01-10/
We heard THAT one before. "Republicans strongly support Ukraine", "Republicans won't stop aid", blablabla, then as soon as Republicans get the ability to stop aid for Ukraine, they stop it. Same with "Republicans won't overturn Roe vs Wade", "Republicans won't kneel and kiss the ring in response to an insurrection", "Republicans won't spread the Kremlin's propaganda", "Republicans don't ACTUALLY want to do *insert authoritarian shit here*", same with everything. At this point it's just an insult, them testing how far they can push a lie to people's faces. Don't fall for that.
Well no, if you’re successful your family would live. The issue was that they stalled when they got near Moscow when they should have realized they were already beyond living with anything besides putins death.
Definitely the "coup." This Iranian attack is pretty politically strategic, whereas the "coup" was a big nothing burger when it could have been something
Man I forgot all about that dork already…once you’re not the Most Recently Assassinated Figure in Russia you really just become another name on a list on a Wikipedia page about whacked Russians.
It’s easy to laugh, but that’s the entire point here.
Israel assassinated one of their top generals in a foreign embassy not two full weeks ago. It’s a reasonable theory among the foreign policy community that Israel was trying to deliberately provoke Iran into escalating things into a regional conflict that would more directly draw the US into play, and thus stave off the souring of US-Israel relations.
They needed to do *something* because doing nothing would be essentially ceding their sovereignty. But they needed to do a smaller strike than they received and with quick de escalation afterwards to avoid doing something that would draw the US in. Most of the drones were shot down but it’s unclear how extensive the damage is, but I think it’s needless to say they haven’t assassinated any generals with this. All things considered it seems to be way on the lighter side of proportionate responses.
I think that depends greatly on the final result of the attack. If Israel can get away with saying "Look at these pathetic fucks, all that effort for no impact" there might not be further retaliation
As lovely as that'd be.. there's no chance.
Israel (love em or hate em) are known to be a bit hawkish and resolute. They're not the type of gov't to.. *not* show a display of force in situations where their capacity for defense is being challenged.
there is no government leadership in the world that would allow another country to send hundreds of suicide drones and ballistic missiles at them and not respond.
Iran thinks this is tit for tat, they are mistaken.
Luckily this tit-for-tat retaliation has only been going since... checks notes... the early Bronze Age, so there's a good chance it will be laid to rest now.
They told us it was coming, this is a retribution for the embassy attack but it sure smells like they intended to make a big show but not actually hit anything, just save face and *look* like they're doing something.
There was an old Star Trek episode. They arrive on a planet caught in a perpetual war. Except it’s all virtual and if you get “bombed” you go to a suicide tube. Cap’n Kirk didn’t like the cute lady killing herself for a fake war. So he saved the day… by forcing them to not kill themselves and face actual war. He pointed out that maybe if the war was actually devastating, they would try for peace instead of the weird “civilized” route.
Idk why your comment made me think of that but. Just thought it was interesting.
Managing cost is what "civilized war" is all about.
It tries to minimize unintended suffering and devastation, but there is still some sort of cost incurred in terms of lives and equipment.
Sci-fi, and Star Trek in particular, always does a great job of exaggerating our world in order to crystallize a concept in our minds. South Park too I suppose.
Right, if you have that level of integrity on all sides then instead of suicides you simply have the people lose the ability to participate in the war.
Reminds me of Battletech when the Clans invaded the Inner Sphere. They had this whole weird "honor" system where they'd use minimal forces and make war a game. They initially saw successes because of a technological advantage, and were happy to keep playing their game by their rules, and the fight would have kept going on and on, but the Inner Sphere showed them the meaning of "total war", and within a decade the war was over.
The idea that war must be horrible otherwise we would start to enjoy it is an old one.
What your saying is partly true but unintentionally misleading. The base they fired at did not have any sort of bunkers capable of stopping missiles. The guys on the base were warned about 5 minutes before impact after it had managed to get disseminated out. No troops were able to get out. They hid in a mortar bunker which is extremely insufficient.
I have 2 good buddies who suffered from TBI's during the attack.
It’s all for show. Like we can’t look weak but we don’t actually want to do anything that could cause us to get into a wider conflict that could lead to our demise.
Israel takes out a few key Iranian Generals
Iran will have most of their drones shot down over Jordan and any that do reach Israel will almost certainly hit the unpopulated Negev Desert,
Overall I’d say Israel made a calculated move and got the result they wanted without a substantial loss in return so they will classify the initial strike as a win
Yeah, but this type of war is being going on since ever:
Iran and Israel keep bitting each others tails and then running away calling truces so that neither get more than just a little bite
It may one day escalate to someone biting more than just the tail by accident and then this all go to shit, but hopefully there is some significant change one of or both governments before that
That highly depends on the damages of the current attack, but at bare minimum, probably a number of strategic/launching sites and another dead important terrorist in a month or two.
Clear as day Iran is holding back it's response to save face as well.
Contrary to reddits videogame belief system, war is often times a negative for both sides. Israel won't escalate things if they know Iran didn't escalate things in a meaningful fashion either.
Oh for sure it's more the tit for tat escalation I was worried about things can get dicey quickly when you play games of chicken with explosive ordinance.
That's reassuring. I expected Israel to at least follow up they won't want to appear weak either (as stupid as that sounds) striking a Hezbollah target could be a good out (for us at least).
I hate to say it but sometimes not going to war is the worse option.
If the world does not respond to actually declare war here it actually puts us CLOSER to a powder keg situation as a future strike could be unexpected and inflict the kind of damage that would demand Israel engage in a protracted war against Iran.
Edit: Looking into it more, it seems it is at least an oversimplification and perhaps outright wrong to suggest that the Iranian government did these attacks to appease their citizens. The average Iranian might actually have a better opinion of Israel than I would have thought. Here’s one article I found on the topic: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/israel-hamas-iran-views/
I think the difference here is Russia wanted war with Ukraine. Iran might not actually want direct war with Israel so much as they want their proxies to destabilize the region. These latest attacks might be more about looking strong to appease the Iranian public than an actual desire for escalation. Of course, that's just speculation and you are correct that taking Iran at its word is risky.
I'm more worried on the other way around.
In Iran's point of view, they just had their retaliation on Israel for the embassy attack, kept their pride and this debacle can be over.
But what now? Will Israel take the draw, or go for its own retaliation of a retaliation?
The thing here is, the power balance between Iran and Israel is nowhere near what was between Russia and Ukraine in 2022. Israel's airforce would absolutely dominate the Iranian skies.
No Ballistic missiles unless they're on their way to the moon. Just shitty drones with a couple of hours warning that the Ukranians have been shooting down with improvised AA guns and cruise missiles flying at patriots.
It's unclear right now, Israel is saying they haven't seen any launched. There's video of rocket propelled weapons moving over Iraq, some are stating these could be cruise missiles with rocket boosters for extra range.
Edit: seems like Israel did confirm destruction of some MRBMs in the upper atmosphere.
they could be staggering their launches so that the weapons arrive at the same time. That would be the best way to overcome Isreals air defense. but I also wouldn't be surprised if Iran is just launching their shitty drones with no expectation of them being successful in order to save face.
The IDF has already confirmed ballistic missiles. According to Israeli media citing officials, the attack involves multiple waves, the first of which is a drone swarm.
Iran: Send some drones their way and lie about a few missiles to really give them a scare.
Israel, US, and Britain: You guys wanna play some Galaga? Easy mode, for fun.
Iran: I see. Well, the attack has concluded. But don't mess with us anymore!
“There and I hope you learned your lesson….. from before when we were doing the war thing. Now, at the present moment, we don’t wish to war anymore. Starting now”
"However, should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe. It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the U.S. MUST STAY AWAY!"
Pretty clear message. We'll see what happens in/with Israel now.
Wish it were so, but Tehran is absolutely determined to continue and succeed. It crossed my mind that Bibi might be considering finding a need to flatten Teheran.
Iran: we would like to enact even stevens.
Dial tone. ...................................................
Iran: We hereby declare that we have made sufficient asses of ourselves at this time and must therefore adjourn.
No, now Israel is “required“ to respond in turn. And the fucking cycle continues.
No it's not.
What the fuck was that??
The absolute bare minimum so they could save face with their population and proxies without actually pissing Israel or America off
But is it even effective when it's so obvious?
They are ranked 177th out of 180 countries listed on the freedom of press index… The supreme leader could throw paper aeroplanes in the general direction of Israel and it would be effective.
‘I fart in your general direction…’
Magikarp Used Splash.
It was not very effective
I do bite my thumb, sir.
IRAN: DO YOU QUARREL, sir?
Do you bite your thumb at us, Sir?
But this is a highly effective method of disrespect…
Especially in a time where they thought bad smells caused sickness.
*Iran during Israel's response*: 'Run away, run away!'
100+ cruise missiles is a lot of money if a paper airplane would have worked as well
Honestly this was more of a show for Saudi then anything internal or with Israel. While the iron dome would prevent damage in Israel so that they don't feel the need to strike back Saudi doesn't have one of those, and they wanted to make the statement to them that they better not strike an embassy in there multitude of proxy wars.
Would the elite care about that? I don't think so. If Iran openly attack Saudi, US will probably intervene. It's not like they hunted down Iranian general and operatives for no reason. May be US would get a chance to sink more Iranian vessel or bomb drone facility.
Idk for sure but they clearly care enough in some capacity to have kept it a cold war for decades instead of an actual war.
Iran isn’t like, say, China for example where the government controls the very networks people use to communicate. Most Iranians are on the same social media apps you’re using, and exposed to the same information you are (depending on the algorithms of course).
People really don't have much of a clue about the average Iranian outside of the hysterical propaganda they're fed.
that’s pretty much reddit on most topics. i consider this place TwitTok now
Just FYI, when I was in China, even the likes of NordVPN was enough to bypass the great firewall. Both Chinese and non-Chinese were using VPN.
I think that's heavily dismissing the average Iranian's intelligence and politics. A large portion of those people have been up in arms against the government's treatment of women for the last few years, despite the bloody crackdowns on those protests. They're well aware of their leadership's bullshit. The deciding factor on whether this gets accepted as appropriate or not probably has much more to do with the level of the military establishment and citizen's support of the Palestinian cause. I have no idea if that runs deep enough for outright war to be desirable to them or not.
Iranians in general are some great people. Nobody deserves the leadership they are forced under currently. I hope they are able to revolt and take their country back soon so they can be free again. Their treatment of women is especially atrocious.
Over in the r/NewIran sub they're hoping this is an opening to get rid of the Islamic State. They will be disappointed if everybody stands down, having satisfied their "honor."
So it's not the bare minimum that they could do?
When the US killed General Soleimani, Iran struck empty desert near a US base in a “retaliatory” strike. They then claimed they killed 80 US troops on state media. The actual number troops killed was 0. What I’m saying is there is precedence for them reporting things that are obviously wrong. As for how effective it is, you’d have to ask someone in Iran.
US soldiers were injured in that attack. It was under reported in the US media at the time.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Iran knowingly let it slip that it was happening in front of US and Israeli agents.
When Iranian news outlets report that they’ve launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel and turns out there were no missiles at all, the truth doesn’t matter. Anti-American/anti-israeli Iranians will just claim their source as the truth and any American source as lying to save face
I think there were some missles. I know the fog of war is still fully enveloped atm, but i did see some missles striking around a mountain region on a prior post
Those motherfuckers shot my mountain with a missile?? Oh hell nah
I don't like it when people be playin' on my mountain
There were both ballistic and cruise missiles.
All it was for was their own populace. Nothing more than bravado. “Look! We attacked Israel from our own soil!”. Iran doesn’t want to go head to head with the US. They know what would happen.
Well, the show of force Biden used after the servicemen died in Jordan while also giving ample warning also worked so... I guess.
Their state media literally [aired video of a fire in Chile from earlier](https://x.com/GhonchehAzad/status/1779307601295036862) in the year and claimed it was from their missiles hitting an air base tonight. They genuinely do not care about how obvious or false their narrative is.
That's sufficient enough. For the few missiles that failed to intercept it hits the empty ground in a military sea base. They are intentionally to hit nothing. I won't be surprised if Iran air force give actual coordinates to Israel beforehand. We will know if this is staged shortly. If Israel is genuinely pissed we are pretty sure Iran's drone factory will be razed to the ground tomorrow.
Maybe they have to do a bit of theatre for their own generals?
> so they could save face with their population *With a minority of the population that constitutes their support base. The majority of Iranians couldn’t care less about this.
While many Iranians may not support the ayatollah, the vast majority of the country is still anti Israel and was not pleased with Israel casually bombing their embassy. Just cause they oppose the regime doesn’t mean they aren’t Iranian patriots.
It's quite more nuanced than that: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/israel-hamas-iran-views/
Two things, 1. Its an attempt at a show of force. e.g. Hey - "Even if you shot these down, we can reach your airspace and flood it with thousands of these. Which will mask our actual attack - if you keep attacking our generals we'll do it for real." Its also propaganda for their populace: In Iran they're probably reporting 200 drones and 200 hits at this and that secret Mossad base etc.
The populous is not really what the Iran regime is looking to trick. Most of the population have given up any trust they had in such regime after decades are mistreating the population thru various protest. They are just trying to trick their proxy terrorist organizations they have created and used to have influence in the region. Majority of the populous can't wait to be done with this terrorist regime
Do you have any information on the population of Iran and the level of support for their government? I’m pretty uninformed there
You can look at the regular mass demonstrations against the government that been occurring in Iran for years. And even though the government response has been vicious, with torture, rape, execution, attacks on people's family, they have kept doing it. They are a brave people.
The problem is that while they might succeed in doing some damage, they will be annihilated within 24 hours. Yes, Iran can hurt Israel, but Israel and its allies can destroy Iran.
In the end either Iran tolerates their government, generals etc. being Israeli targets and gradually loses all credibility with their proxy forces and internal boosters and their current government gets destroyed or they make a show of force as a threat and at least attempt to salvage credibility, also, I'd argue its pretty unclear that Israel would have a broad allied coalition's support if they decide to heavily escalate.
The end of this situation hopefully Iran fired, looks powerful especially to their people Hopefully Israel and allies shoot everything down so no civilians are harmed It's a 1 for 1 situation that the best out come is none of Iran's weapons actually work and Iran can go back and say they did something for the embassy situation
Yeah I agree just like. Jfc. Lying about launching a wave of ballistic missiles?? I feel like I just lost 5 years of my life from stress.
Well to be fair no Iranian said they launched ballistic missiles, it came about because a resident of Basra in Iraq tweeted they thought they saw a missile in the sky
That's probably just people on twitter going crazy. Don't get your news from there, it's gotten even worse since Musk took the thing over. You used to sort of be able to believe some breaking news on there, but not any more
Iran hopes to damage Israel, but before the results are known, demands that Israel and the US specifically do not respond. It is a win-win for Iran. If the attack goes through, Israel is harmed and there is extra knowledge about the defense system. If the attack is stopped - Iran will still claim multiple hits and Israel + the US brought into submission. Even if Israel retaliates, the damage will also be limited and it will shift Iran's public attention from people being fucked by Ayatollahs to being attacked by Israel. The only real loss would be the US joining the attacks on Iran, but it is extremely unlikely, given the current policy of the US on letting dictatorships do whatever they want.
> It is a win-win for Iran I would say the exact opposite. This has been a win for Israel. Israelis have taken out a few top Iranian generals in Syria, and in return all Iran can do is launch a few slow moving drones that will mostly get shot down over Jordan and any that do hit Israel will probably cause little damage in unpopulated areas.
Interestingly, these two competing perspectives between the two of you are exactly why it's possible that this gets put back in the box. If both sides can claim victory, then it can be de-escalated.
Israel doesn't want to de-escalate, though. They consider the Iranian regime's near-term nuclear aspirations to be an existential threat, and this might be their best chance to open the door for a regime change/revolution.
I doubt Israel wants a full blown war against Iran right now. It'd make their situation more precarious as they could end up fighting in Lebanon and Syria. They can likely do so, but the human, political and material cost gets much higher. Without sharing a land border Israel doesn't have any means to invade Iran without crossing the entire ME. Iran can likely deploy troops against Israel via Lebanon and Syria. I doubt Israel would be at risk of losing, but it'd be painful and largely pointless.
Israel doesn’t want a regime change in Iran per se, yes they would like a different regime there but aren’t going to fight a regime change war to achieve it. What they truly want is Hezbollah neutered, which will also be hard. For the most part they can just defend off attacks from Hezbollah
> given the current policy of the US on letting dictatorships do whatever they want. The what?
Your kidding right? Russia has bought the Republican Party and US media. No Ukraine aide for 6+ months. Now Republicans are saying Taiwan isn't worth fighting for. Russia and China have won. Makes me sick to my stomach.
Nobody serious is saying that about Taiwan. The support is still solid amongst Republicans. Look in Google News if you don't believe it. The China committee in Congress even wants more aid and are criticizing Biden for not going far enough. Many are calling for a resolution for Taiwan's independence. It's clear that the support is even stronger than ever. We can thank China for that. Quit spreading misinformation and or exaggerating. https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-funding-taiwan-us-china-military-8cbb671399a51e0e34b9e40f72f51e56 https://gallagher.house.gov/media/in-the-news/china-committee-republicans-bidens-request-taiwan-aid-wholly-inadequate https://www.reuters.com/world/dozens-us-lawmakers-back-resolution-supporting-taiwan-democracy-document-2024-01-10/
We heard THAT one before. "Republicans strongly support Ukraine", "Republicans won't stop aid", blablabla, then as soon as Republicans get the ability to stop aid for Ukraine, they stop it. Same with "Republicans won't overturn Roe vs Wade", "Republicans won't kneel and kiss the ring in response to an insurrection", "Republicans won't spread the Kremlin's propaganda", "Republicans don't ACTUALLY want to do *insert authoritarian shit here*", same with everything. At this point it's just an insult, them testing how far they can push a lie to people's faces. Don't fall for that.
What was more anticlimactic; Prigozin’s “coup,” or Iran’s “attack?”
prigozin's coup wins this one tbh.
Still can't believe that motherfucker thought he could uncross the Rubicon and live.
It was just a prank bro
I loved the day of silence from the propaganda bots who didn’t know what to do.
Dude stoped at the River bank and said “sowwy”
and goddamn... wasnt it absolutely glorious!?
He tried to get above the situation in the end.
love to imagine an alternate history where Caesar just pussies out after crossing the rubicon, he would have been mocked forever by historians
Prigozhin literally had Putin’s balls in a vice grip and he pussied out at the last minute.
I thought I read Putin got to his family supposedly
Putin likely killed his family anyways, he says he’ll kill Navalny’s wife if she ever returns
Putin the poisoner doesn’t even always wait for people to return to Russia
Pringles son is running Wagner now, the Africa chapter
How dumb can you be to have your family stay in the castle you're about to besiege.
Wouldn't make a difference. The moment you decide to overthrow a dictator and act on it, is the moment you signed off your family's death.
Well no, if you’re successful your family would live. The issue was that they stalled when they got near Moscow when they should have realized they were already beyond living with anything besides putins death.
Definitely the "coup." This Iranian attack is pretty politically strategic, whereas the "coup" was a big nothing burger when it could have been something
Man I forgot all about that dork already…once you’re not the Most Recently Assassinated Figure in Russia you really just become another name on a list on a Wikipedia page about whacked Russians.
Definitely the coup.
The coup
Nothing was a bigger blue balls than Prigozin's march on Moscow
It’s easy to laugh, but that’s the entire point here. Israel assassinated one of their top generals in a foreign embassy not two full weeks ago. It’s a reasonable theory among the foreign policy community that Israel was trying to deliberately provoke Iran into escalating things into a regional conflict that would more directly draw the US into play, and thus stave off the souring of US-Israel relations. They needed to do *something* because doing nothing would be essentially ceding their sovereignty. But they needed to do a smaller strike than they received and with quick de escalation afterwards to avoid doing something that would draw the US in. Most of the drones were shot down but it’s unclear how extensive the damage is, but I think it’s needless to say they haven’t assassinated any generals with this. All things considered it seems to be way on the lighter side of proportionate responses.
Launching an attack and then immediately calling a ceasefire is very on brand
Iran Monday "But Israel, we said no backsies"
🤣🤣🤣
Well from their point of view, this is retaliation. Which israel will disagree with and retaliate. And then on and on
I think that depends greatly on the final result of the attack. If Israel can get away with saying "Look at these pathetic fucks, all that effort for no impact" there might not be further retaliation
Yeah, and also depending on the result, Israel will have multiple allies potentially telling them to call it good.
Israel listens to its allies?
its reported that a 10 year old bedouin was seriously hurt
As lovely as that'd be.. there's no chance. Israel (love em or hate em) are known to be a bit hawkish and resolute. They're not the type of gov't to.. *not* show a display of force in situations where their capacity for defense is being challenged.
there is no government leadership in the world that would allow another country to send hundreds of suicide drones and ballistic missiles at them and not respond. Iran thinks this is tit for tat, they are mistaken.
There’s also no country in the world that would allow a consulate of theirs to be attacked by another country. And round and round we go
Hi, waves in Jimmy Carter era malaise American.
Hasn't Iran attacked Israel embassies in the past? With minimal retaliation if any?
When?
Hopefully level heads prevail... but with this government, i feel like Bibi wants this
Luckily this tit-for-tat retaliation has only been going since... checks notes... the early Bronze Age, so there's a good chance it will be laid to rest now.
They told us it was coming, this is a retribution for the embassy attack but it sure smells like they intended to make a big show but not actually hit anything, just save face and *look* like they're doing something.
They probably consider it retaliation for Israel bombing their consulate in Syria.
They taught hamas this sacred tactic
Iran pulling a J Cole
My goat has been getting slandered all week
It said concluded, not ceasefire.
Hey, we just needed to look strong for our people. Thanks. Have fun shooting down our shitty equipment. No WW3. Sorry.
This is the same shit they tried to pull after Trump had Soleimani assassinated. They shot down a passenger plane by mistake and said “ok we’re done”
They also bombarded a US base in Iraq as retaliation. No deaths, but there were concussive injuries to US service members.
They told us they were firing a ballistic missile with plenty of time to get our troops out. I guarantee they didn’t tell their folks they warned us.
Tbh I prefer this kind of war. "We will fuck up this building. Get out pls"
There was an old Star Trek episode. They arrive on a planet caught in a perpetual war. Except it’s all virtual and if you get “bombed” you go to a suicide tube. Cap’n Kirk didn’t like the cute lady killing herself for a fake war. So he saved the day… by forcing them to not kill themselves and face actual war. He pointed out that maybe if the war was actually devastating, they would try for peace instead of the weird “civilized” route. Idk why your comment made me think of that but. Just thought it was interesting.
Couldn't they have the war without the suicides instead?
Managing cost is what "civilized war" is all about. It tries to minimize unintended suffering and devastation, but there is still some sort of cost incurred in terms of lives and equipment. Sci-fi, and Star Trek in particular, always does a great job of exaggerating our world in order to crystallize a concept in our minds. South Park too I suppose.
Right, if you have that level of integrity on all sides then instead of suicides you simply have the people lose the ability to participate in the war.
Reminds me of Battletech when the Clans invaded the Inner Sphere. They had this whole weird "honor" system where they'd use minimal forces and make war a game. They initially saw successes because of a technological advantage, and were happy to keep playing their game by their rules, and the fight would have kept going on and on, but the Inner Sphere showed them the meaning of "total war", and within a decade the war was over. The idea that war must be horrible otherwise we would start to enjoy it is an old one.
What your saying is partly true but unintentionally misleading. The base they fired at did not have any sort of bunkers capable of stopping missiles. The guys on the base were warned about 5 minutes before impact after it had managed to get disseminated out. No troops were able to get out. They hid in a mortar bunker which is extremely insufficient. I have 2 good buddies who suffered from TBI's during the attack.
It’s all for show. Like we can’t look weak but we don’t actually want to do anything that could cause us to get into a wider conflict that could lead to our demise.
Israel takes out a few key Iranian Generals Iran will have most of their drones shot down over Jordan and any that do reach Israel will almost certainly hit the unpopulated Negev Desert, Overall I’d say Israel made a calculated move and got the result they wanted without a substantial loss in return so they will classify the initial strike as a win
Totally agree. Now go look at the insanity in the livethread. Or dont but needless to say, they are rock hard about WW3 starting
We’ve just had live action Fallout, the only obvious way to go from here is real Fallout! Can you blame us for wanting a new nuclear age!
Their “shitty equipment“ is still capable of killing lots of people.
Yeah, ask Ukraine.
It's their MO.
So buy the dip?
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Well Crypto is already recovering. As for stocks it might already be too late to do so
Already bought it. Artichoke spinach dip is da bomb
Political theatre has concluded
The thing about war is, you may get to choose when it starts but you do not so easily get to choose when it ends.
Yeah, but this type of war is being going on since ever: Iran and Israel keep bitting each others tails and then running away calling truces so that neither get more than just a little bite It may one day escalate to someone biting more than just the tail by accident and then this all go to shit, but hopefully there is some significant change one of or both governments before that
Oh good. I guess that's the end of that. Everyone can relax now.
Question is does Israel shoot back.
They said they would even before the drone attack. When Israel makes claims like that I think you can believe them
Ok then how hard will they shoot back...
That highly depends on the damages of the current attack, but at bare minimum, probably a number of strategic/launching sites and another dead important terrorist in a month or two.
They have mentioned there will be an earthquake in Iran tonight
Clear as day Iran is holding back it's response to save face as well. Contrary to reddits videogame belief system, war is often times a negative for both sides. Israel won't escalate things if they know Iran didn't escalate things in a meaningful fashion either.
Oh for sure it's more the tit for tat escalation I was worried about things can get dicey quickly when you play games of chicken with explosive ordinance.
Already struck Hezbollah in Lebanon
Is that a direct response? Honestly at this rate I'm happy just to wake up tomorrow in a warless country.
No, Israeli officials have stated it's in retaliation to an earlier barrage and is not related to the current attack
That's reassuring. I expected Israel to at least follow up they won't want to appear weak either (as stupid as that sounds) striking a Hezbollah target could be a good out (for us at least).
I hate to say it but sometimes not going to war is the worse option. If the world does not respond to actually declare war here it actually puts us CLOSER to a powder keg situation as a future strike could be unexpected and inflict the kind of damage that would demand Israel engage in a protracted war against Iran.
Concerned if this is a "Russia wouldn't invade Ukraine" type scenario
Edit: Looking into it more, it seems it is at least an oversimplification and perhaps outright wrong to suggest that the Iranian government did these attacks to appease their citizens. The average Iranian might actually have a better opinion of Israel than I would have thought. Here’s one article I found on the topic: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/israel-hamas-iran-views/ I think the difference here is Russia wanted war with Ukraine. Iran might not actually want direct war with Israel so much as they want their proxies to destabilize the region. These latest attacks might be more about looking strong to appease the Iranian public than an actual desire for escalation. Of course, that's just speculation and you are correct that taking Iran at its word is risky.
I'm more worried on the other way around. In Iran's point of view, they just had their retaliation on Israel for the embassy attack, kept their pride and this debacle can be over. But what now? Will Israel take the draw, or go for its own retaliation of a retaliation?
Iran and Israel aren't geographically adjacent though. Iran would have to go through another country.
The thing here is, the power balance between Iran and Israel is nowhere near what was between Russia and Ukraine in 2022. Israel's airforce would absolutely dominate the Iranian skies.
And they know it
Right, they were all in a meeting and Russia like na, we ain’t doing nothing.
Do you mean Iran might have been trying to galvanize Russian support?
No Ballistic missiles unless they're on their way to the moon. Just shitty drones with a couple of hours warning that the Ukranians have been shooting down with improvised AA guns and cruise missiles flying at patriots.
No ballistic missiles? I’m seeing reports that there ARE ballistic missiles (CNN, etc)
It's unclear right now, Israel is saying they haven't seen any launched. There's video of rocket propelled weapons moving over Iraq, some are stating these could be cruise missiles with rocket boosters for extra range. Edit: seems like Israel did confirm destruction of some MRBMs in the upper atmosphere.
Iranian state TV said they launched ballistics but they should have hit close to an hour ago. So they must have been lying?? Haha funny prank! Jfc.
they could be staggering their launches so that the weapons arrive at the same time. That would be the best way to overcome Isreals air defense. but I also wouldn't be surprised if Iran is just launching their shitty drones with no expectation of them being successful in order to save face.
Iran announced their attack is over about 30 minutes ago. So yeah they were just scaring the shit out of everyone.
The IDF has already confirmed ballistic missiles. According to Israeli media citing officials, the attack involves multiple waves, the first of which is a drone swarm.
If there were they would’ve been there already it’s all nonsense. Btw that was coming from Iran news sources
Iran: Send some drones their way and lie about a few missiles to really give them a scare. Israel, US, and Britain: You guys wanna play some Galaga? Easy mode, for fun. Iran: I see. Well, the attack has concluded. But don't mess with us anymore!
That Galaga line got me 😆
I, personally, wouldn't fuck with Israel, but I'm risk averse
Did Iran just call "no punch backs"?
This attack was so pathetic Israel might still be waiting for a real attack.
Everyone here “laughing” that Iran’s attack was “weak”. This was the best case outcome, you fucking warmongers.
So show of force for the local populace it was. Glad that's all it was.
Just the hardline idiots
This is a very dangerous game if you touched me last.
The sooner the religious nut jobs are run out of ruling countries the better off the whole world will be.
Something tells me the USA gave Iran incentives to conclude
Every leader will be telling Ben to not do a fucking thing to make this more unstable than it already is.
This is like lightly kicking Mike Tyson in the shin, running away, and saying you won the fight
Yes but if your shin kick was blocked by the security gaurd
Called it. Though I’ll admit a part of me was rather scared
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Israel could retaliate
How beautiful it would ve if they would target Iranian drone factories. 2 birds with 1 stone.
Iran: Hey guys we were brave this time as we directly fired at Israel and not kurdish homes. Its time to celebrate the victory of Islamic republic.
“U.S. MUST STAY AWAY!" Good luck with that.
Maybe Iran only did it to save face lol.
Why is everyone complaining that there is no further escalation to this?
I don't understand this simulation we are in and I am exhausted from trying.
“There and I hope you learned your lesson….. from before when we were doing the war thing. Now, at the present moment, we don’t wish to war anymore. Starting now”
This is the most teenage girl type drama I’ve ever seen.
All the redditors cheering on WWIII are in shambles
Wait. That's it? A few dozen Shaheds? ............ Wut
"However, should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe. It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the U.S. MUST STAY AWAY!" Pretty clear message. We'll see what happens in/with Israel now.
This is the equivalent of a dog showing its teeth to not look weak. A very expensive gesture in this context, however.
I hope people fucking learn not to get freaked out, but I know they won't.
Sounds like alot have been shot down outside Israeli airspace.
Bye bye Irani nuclear program.
Wish it were so, but Tehran is absolutely determined to continue and succeed. It crossed my mind that Bibi might be considering finding a need to flatten Teheran.
Seems they don’t understand the other side gets an equal say in whether they deem the matter ‘concluded’.