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Iran has launched hypersonic missiles into the center of Tel Aviv.
This is shocking to me - I knew things were heating up in the Middle East, but now Iran is officially firing back at Israel. To be frank I was kind of not paying attention to the situation much until this happened, but seems like a major inflection point.
What are the implications of this for further war? For nuclear action in the area? Other countries getting invovled?
What are the implications for the U.S. election, and what do you think the U.S. will do in response?
How do we find a way towards peace now that Israel has been bombed in a civilian area?
EDIT: Almost goes without saying, but Iran has officially declared war on Israel.Tehran does not have the capabilities to launch a serious war against Israel. They wouldn't get an army to Baghdad, and their airforce would be lucky to get 50% of any attempted strike further than that as well.
Like their proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, their entire goal is to lose spectacularly and hope American and European leftists get extra mad at Israel for being competent at warfare.
Their strategy is simple. Israel has the non ultra orthodox population of Wisconsin and the area of El Salvador. It is a tiny country with abysmal natural resources that is deeply fractured. Israel needs to be kept in a permanent state of crisis as this will effectively make the country infeasible. Israel is going to be in a permanent state of chaos.
Europe has nothing to gain by Israel creating another refugee crisis. The support for Israel is low in Europe.
Isreal is a country of neurotic people with abysmal school results. They aren't competent at war, they are just exceptionally brutal while fighting people who barely have weapons.
I have no idea how you can analyze this conflict and not see immense Israeli competence. The pager attack, the elimination of all Hezbollah's top leaders, the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, these are all impressive results.
IMO, Israel has by far the most competent military and secret service of any country. The United States? We can't even successfully fight the Houthis in the Red Sea. China? They haven't fought a war in decades and were last seen brawling against India with melee weapons. Russia? Don't make me laugh. Europe? Competent fighters but hamstrung by effete leadership.
This is just... bizarre. This isn't a math test, this is war.
They fought a small town that doesn't have any weapons and still haven't really been able to win in a year. The only thing they manage to do is get weapons as welfare checks and blast large numbers of civilians.
And they have a population that is physically and academically weak.
Physically and academically weak? What on earth are you talking about?
Are you imagining like woody Allen in combat boots, kvetching about the quality of the food in the mess hall? Your mental image of the average Israeli is a bit off.
An IDF soldier can go toe to toe with just about any soldier in the world except the Americans and maybe the British on a good day. They’ve been actively waging war for large portions of the last fifty years and are an actual developed country with a martial tradition that is as hardcore as any of the advanced war fighting nations.
I’m having a hard time explaining this level of copium outside of a dose of anti-semitism that could kill a horse and which subsequently leaves the taker mentally retarded.
Frankly if a country gets sneak-attacked twice on the same religious holiday within living memory they have to give up the mantle of super high-IQ warrior nation. You would've thought that after Yom Kippur the Israelis would've learnt something but apparently not!
This is a nuclear level cope, I have a hard time taking this seriously. Sneak attacks work, that’s why people use them.
If Israel had even close to population parity in any of those wars some of the nations that had waged war against them in the past likely wouldn’t even exist today.
How hard is it to keep up military readiness even on a religious holiday? This does not happen to proper armies, they don't lower their guard in predictable annual patterns.
The Israelis have been fighting this war in frankly amateurish ways. They keep clustering up in ways that would get them massacred on a real battlefield in Ukraine - fortunately for them their opponents don't have much in the way of artillery or heavy equipment. Israeli urban combat performance has been pretty poor, they've failed to take and hold ground. They go on these glorified chevauchees into Gaza and Hamas just sweeps back in once they leave. There doesn't seem to be any real plan for victory, only (impressive) tactical ploys like the pager trick.
If the US weren't constantly bailing them out with weapons shipments, diplomatic and air cover they would be in a very unpleasant position.
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