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Notes -
Iran - US - Israel War Flareup
“Israel says it has launched attack on Iran, as explosions reported in Tehran”
“The US has begun Major Combat Operations in Iran” - Donald Trump (headline flashed up just now on my phone, no link yet)
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More to follow but thought I’d post quickly for any commenting.
Isn't this just an admission of failure? Last summer we were told that the strikes on the Iranian nuclear facilities had solved the problem, or at least crippled the program to the point that there would be no way they could get a bomb in the foreseeable future. Now we apparently need to take out the regime, which isn't going to happen without a committed ground war. Trump says he wants a deal, but his deals tend to fall apart once he decides he doesn't like them, and he cancelled the last deal presumably because he didn't trust them to abide by the terms. This war is going nowhere.
It also proved that they no longer have any deterrent capabilities. The Israelis operated freely over the entire country, there is no Hezbollah or Hamas left to retaliate. Their entire ballistic missile attack on Israel killed, what, one person? Two people?
Last I checked they've been firing missiles and drones more or less nonstop almost immediately after they were hit. At the current rate they're going to exceed the total from the 12 Day War within a few days and that was sufficient to drain global interceptor stockpiles by a quarter.
Another way to look at the current situation is that Dubai, Doha, Kuwait and Bahrain invested billions in American hardware under the premise that it would protect them and instead Trump evacuated and parked all of his assets as far as possible, leaving his hapless clients to get smoked.
It actually seems impressive how many Iranian missiles the Gulf states have seemingly shot down. A few casualties here and there, but nothing crazy yet.
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