2rafa
20hr ago
Most regulars are relatively open about what they support and what their broad tribal identity is, I don’t think this is a big issue here.
2rafa
20hr ago
The discussion has been fine so far. What you are noticing is that the war is contentious compared to most discussion here because while the sub has been broadly right-leaning and probably honestly strongly right wing since (at least) 2017, there is a lot of disagreement about this war. That’s not a bad thing, although it does create more work for the moderators.
The transnational thursday thread is pointless. There is essentially a separation between ‘issue’ discussion and ‘community’ discussion on the board. Issue discussion (encompassing news, politics, diplomacy, the economy, culture as it relates to the above obviously) goes on the culture war thread, community (encompassing casual social discussion, media recommendation, slice of life updates, advice, humor) goes into the various other threads.
There is only one overlap thread (Sunday) which kind of works since it’s the last thread of the week and the CW thread is quieter. Other threads are the occasional essay and links to blogs.
2rafa
22hr ago
Indeed. And if you look at California, there was this huge outburst of public anger, they passed the law, SCOTUS overturned it, and then it just faded away. People gave up, demographics changed, now it’s over. Why won’t that happen everywhere else?
2rafa
1d ago
Iran has a very low tfr compared to Afghanistan or even Iraq at the time of the US invasion. Broadly I agree with you but the incoming supply of young men is proportionately lower.
2rafa
1d ago
That said, in this analogy arrakis produces only a small fraction of the world’s spice.
2rafa
1d ago
Because the Gulf states have weak armies and fat populations with no strong ideological loyalty (whether they are Sunni or Shia) to their ruling monarchies. Their armies are well-equipped but have very low risk tolerance and are often staffed by essentially mercenaries and or low competence locals unable to get more lucrative employment elsewhere as an employer of last resort. Iran can keep the Hormuz closed indefinitely, and can build low-cost shaheds (essentially model planes that can be put together in an outhouse) infinitely that can make oil production and transport effectively impossible, destroying their economies which are reliant on welfare spending funding by oil sales (with one exception, Dubai, which is funded by international business and tourism - oh well!).
The Gulf countries mostly dislike the Islamic Republic. The GCC was arguably formed in hostility to Iran. Leading Iranian revolutionaries preached Islamic revolution in the Gulf. But faced with destitution and collapse as a result of asymmetric and low cost IRGC pot-shotting, and lacking any ability to invade or occupy Iran themselves, they may have no choice but to agree to a deal.
2rafa
1d ago
Masterclass in giving a man so little to lose he might say ‘fuck it’ and nuke you even with guaranteed MAD, genius. They’ve got to be kicking themselves if he really is alive.
2rafa
1d ago
Because American interceptors at bases in Iran are ones that can’t be donated to Ukraine, and are worth far more than a few cheap drones?
2rafa
1d ago
I suspect Israel’s logic is more out of desperation. The know Iran’s going to get nukes and they know a core mission of the Islamic Revolution is the elimination of the ‘Zionist Entity’ by any means necessary - why wouldn’t that include nukes? Iran after all destroyed its relationships with countless others in the region, got sanctioned by half the world and spent billions of dollars just to fund pretty much every major hostile force on Israel’s border (none of whom are ethnically Persian, many of whom aren’t even Shia). They did it solely to attack Israel, for purely ideological reasons. An Iranian nuclear first strike was always a possibility.
In that scenario, maybe the Israelis calculated that even a war with Iran with a 20% chance of destroying the government or sparking a collapse or uprising was worth it.
2rafa
1d ago
Shaheds are tiny and there’s a huge border where they can be resupplied, not least through Iraq which is majority Shia and sympathetic. Maybe you can get Putin to promise pretty please that he’s not going to supply them, but come on. So again you’re in an insurgent situation that maybe looks a little less like Afghanistan and more like a cross between what happened in Iraq, the Troubles, and the second intifada, except far larger, more entrenched and on larger territory, and with enemies happy to die.
2rafa
1d ago
Immigration is like boiling a frog. It really is too late by the time you notice it getting a little warm. Occasionally, you start thinking “man, it’s getting hot in here”, but then you’re distracted by geopolitics, or by the economy, or another financial crisis, or a pandemic, and the water temperature goes to the back of your mind.
I think this probably ought to be the greatest cause of pessimism for the Western right - you can have a few great years where immigration is the number one issue, but then there’s another recession and suddenly all anyone cares about is stimulus and unemployment and bank bailouts and it’s another decade before people remember what’s happening.
What makes you think that it failing in Iran isn’t due to specific characteristics of Iran rather than some universal strategic truth?
Let me give you an example: if Trump bombs Belgium heavily tomorrow demanding some political arrangement, they would surrender by midnight; the political leadership don’t want to fight and won’t, they would rather be ruled by America than die. Maduro’s party preferred making a deal with America to dying. The Iranians don’t.
Taiwan is neither Venezuela nor Belgium nor Iran, but its political leadership is closer - when it comes to ideological position on this - to the former than the latter. If the Islamic Revolution is overthrown then the IRGC are penniless and prosecuted at best and hunted and slaughtered at worst, probably the latter. If the Taiwanese elite accept Chinese rule relatively quickly…they get to go back to being rich in Taipei, or at worst exile themselves to America if they love democracy.
If Iran was ruled by people with the character and belief system of EU bureaucrats they would have surrendered on the day, shaking their heads.
2rafa
1d ago
Their most obvious path (diplomatic / ‘peaceful’ / semi-peaceful unification aside) is a blitz campaign (with or without attacks on US bases in the region) followed by a quick deal with whoever survives in the leadership. The options for them at that point are “make a deal with Xi” or “call in the yankees and turn my country into a wasteland and die along with hundreds of thousands of civilians and my family and friends”, and they will pick the former.
2rafa
1d ago
China has extensive overland routes, are the world leaders in renewable energy, have a year of oil reserves, have the state capacity to make unpopular decisions about limiting energy usage, can be resupplied through Russia, Central Asia etc, and has large food reserves. Terrible for an export-led economy but not something impossible to survive for a year or two.
2rafa
1d ago
I sympathize with exiled Iranians but they don’t know more about regime change than anyone else, many are just clinging onto whatever hope they might be able to go home in their lifetime, if this is it it’s it.
2rafa
1d ago
I didn’t say it would happen this time. I said ‘when’ it happens. Trump can still easily save himself here.
2rafa
1d ago
The unique setup of the IRGC is unlike that of other Gulf countries. It’s an armed ideological and economic core operation designed specifically to rule over a hostile middle and upper class by design, it’s unlike other “militarized countries” where the army controls large amounts of the economy but is also very corrupt and ideologically disunited (Pakistan, Egypt) and it’s also unlike security states ruled by comparatively small intelligence communities like East Germany or arguably even modern Russia. The IRGC doesn’t need ordinary Iranians to rally to the cause, it just needs to avoid open revolution and to keep the public scared enough that nobody stands against them.
2rafa
1d ago
It’s just not true that people haven’t called Trump’s bluff. Plenty of people have, including over tariffs, when China did.
if the Straits are mined, destroying some oil infrastructure doesn't add much additional pain
Surely it prevents export from Saudi Arabia’s western ports?
2rafa
1d ago
It’s kind of up to Iran. While there’s a lot of online rumor-mongering that the ‘Samson doctrine’ means that Israel will nuke third countries if Iran nukes it, the more commonly accepted version of it is just that it’s a second-strike trigger. So Iran nukes Israel, Israel nukes Iran, then what? For WW3, either Israel nukes another Arab country (increasingly unlikely as time goes on, at least for now, and even then the path of escalation is unclear), or Iran nukes Saudi Arabia (drawing Pakistan into the conflict, drawing India into the conflict, which is a more plausible route to a world war), which again, is far from a given and doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Will Iran strike first? I’m not sure. They might announce they have nukes and see what happens. At that point, the Israeli reasoning changes.
2rafa
1d ago
My opinion is that the previous efforts (targeted assassinations and then the bombing campaign) were as effective as possible given the circumstances (limits of conventional weaponry, contributions of individual scientists), but that a society of 80 million capable of procuring and enriching to 60%+ with an intelligent and well-developed academy and domestic population of scientists is going to get there sooner rather than later. There is no big technical hurdle they cannot quickly overcome. Israel will keep trying, but interventions can set a program back by weeks or months at the most, not more.
I don’t think moderation has become much more lax. Regulars were always held to lower standards (justified in many ways) and now the board is pretty much all regulars, so the spectacular flameouts of the Reddit days are few and far between (the last was what, Hlynka?).
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