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The_Nybbler

If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.

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joined 2022 September 04 21:42:16 UTC

				

User ID: 174

The_Nybbler

If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.

8 followers   follows 0 users   joined 2022 September 04 21:42:16 UTC

					

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User ID: 174

The problem is that this argument is a soldier, and nothing more. The entire point of bringing up the girl's school deaths and pinning them on the US is to say "TRUMP BAD FOR ATTACKING IRAN". It stops there. Both sides know this, so one side tries as hard as it can to pin the deaths on the US (including claiming as proof footage of a missile attack on the base next door) and reports uncritically the ever-increasing death count (including a surprising number of boys, for girl's school) claimed by Iran. The other side denies regardless of the evidence, and reports fishy stories about Iranian missile misfires. If the attack was definitely shown to be an Iranian accident or an intercepted US attack, the first side would switch to instead blaming the US because the incident wouldn't have happened had the US not attacked. If it was definitely shown that it was a mistargeted US attack, the second side would blame Iran for making the war necessary in the first place.

I'm saying doom isn't a positive vision, and I'm a goddamned expert on visions of doom.

It’s going to be an Iraq level mess and nothing good will come of it.

Pick one. An Iraq-level mess means a regime change to something considerably better than the current regime, only at much higher cost and taking much longer than expected.

The most likely reason Senator Murphy can report all this without disclosing classified info is he's just making it up.

Cyprus?

Iran can keep the Hormuz closed indefinitely

So far, Iran has shown no capability to hit any ship which isn't broadcasting a location for them to punch into their drones. And they can do that anywhere in the Gulf (e.g. near Basra). For now. The fact that the Straits are straits doesn't seem to matter.

build low-cost shaheds (essentially model planes that can be put together in an outhouse)

That's a damn big outhouse, complete with engine and explosive manufacturing facility. I think it'll get blown up.

Al "The Day After Tommorrow" Gore had a more positive view of the nation's future than Bush? I.... don't think so.

Who cares if it was an errant US, Israeli or Iranian strike?

Nobody. If the US hit it through intelligence error, the US is responsible because the standard for intelligence is perfection. If the US hit it through targeting error, the US is responsible because the standard for targeting is perfection. If the US hit it due to a inaccuracy in the missile's guidance, the US is responsible because the standard for guidance is perfection. If the US hit it because Iran attempted to intercept the missile, the US is responsible because the standard for not being intercepted is perfection. If Iran hit it because it fired a missile that the US jammed, the US is responsible because the US jammed it. And if Iran hit it and the missile simply malfunctioned, the US is responsible because the US started this war and we could have simply not done so.

This is about a prince's relation with his subjects, not enemy princes or their subjects.

Them and what army?

No, never; I'm afraid that phrase is around in the civilian world as well.

Now that makes no sense at all. Ukraine doesn't need American drone interceptors for Shaheds. Even if they did, forcing the other side to spend one interceptor for one drone in Iran is no better for Russia than the same happening in Ukraine.

Please explain why it benefits Putin to supply Iran with infinite Shaheds to keep oil from flowing through the Strait.

They wouldn't even do that. Shaheds from the mountains would be shot down before they reached the strait.

The chance of Putin supplying some hardened remnant of the IRGC in the mountains of Iran with Shaheds is zero. Why would he? What would they have to offer him, compared with using the drones against Ukraine? They couldn't even pay for them.

Meanwhile, here in the real world, not only did the US win the Iraq War, it successfully managed the nation-building part as well. Iraq was not Afghanistan.

The problem with the navy escorting a tanker is that it'll be a far better target than a tanker going through alone with AIS turned off. (The Mayuree Naree, the empty bulk carrier that was hit, went in fat dumb and happy with the transponder on)

Probably the navy ought to just send in RPVs displaying tanker transponders until all the Iranian launch sites are wrecked.

Surely it prevents export from Saudi Arabia’s western ports?

Only if you hit enough of it.

Iran has done some of that recently: what did the Azeris do to them? At best they are either flailing around --- it'd be hilarious if Israel, Ukraine, or US intelligence caused them to inadvertently strike Chechnya --- or trying to appeal to the negative sum game of a more regional war.

Iran evidently warned their neighbors that in the event of a US attack they'd be hit (as part of a strategy to convince them to pressure the US into leaving them alone, though this may have backfired all by itself), and they also had a doctrine of devolving control to local commanders if the leadership was hit. So I suspect what happened is the leadership was hit, the local commanders followed their last orders (which may have been a bluff that was never intended to be followed, but there was no one to countermand them) and attacked everyone. Or maybe the Iranian leaders actually would have thought attacking everyone was a good strategy; we'll never know because they are dead. I guess the moral is if you have a deadman switch, don't make it stupid.

I mean, I can think of at least two trolls with the US military at their beck and call (Trump and Hegseth), so, yeah.

I don't know about "two weeks", but the only way to move them backwards significantly is to take or destroy the uranium they've already enriched.

The Supreme Leader is a dead man walking, but he also has access to 1000 lbs of 60%-enriched uranium.

Supposedly they're busy digging that uranium out. If I were a troll with the US military at my beck and call, I might just wait for them to do all the hard work of digging it out, then bomb all the nearby roads and send in special forces to take it.

Jask is low capacity as well as vulnerable. Even if the US doesn't take it out, it doesn't provide Iran much of a lifeline. Iran could fire Shaheds at oilfields, but Shaheds aren't exactly unstoppable, and anyway if the Straits are mined, destroying some oil infrastructure doesn't add much additional pain. They could go all out on Gulf desalination plants, but realistically that hurts the war effort not one bit. Note most of Saudi Arabia's desalination plants are on the west coast.

Iran can mine the straits, keep shipping oil from the Gulf of Oman, and dare the US to do something.

Ah, yes, daring Trump to do something will totally make him back down.

Previous bombings may have stopped Iran's progress, but they didn't move it backwards -- not as long as Iran still has the enriched nuclear material.

I really don't understand why, if Trump was considering attacking, he didn't do so when the protests were closer to their peak and he threatened intervention if people got shot.

Because carriers don't move fast enough. I don't think it matters. Against a sufficiently ruthless regime, unarmed protestors are just bullet sponges, and that holds true even if the regime is being bombed. I think some Iranians in the west have gotten this idea that "you protest, things change" is actually cause-and-effect from watching western leftists appear to pull it off; they don't realize that's kayfabe, either a way for the government to do what it wants to do anyway, or at least a faction of the government.