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(1) Three dead American servicemen confirmed by Centcom
(2) A disinformation war is happening in regards to whether a school in Iran was hit, and if it were hit, whether its destruction was caused by Iran, Israel, or America. 100+ Iranian girls were killed.
(3a) It isn’t clear why negotiations failed with Iran. A day before the attack, the designated Omani mediator asserted that Iran conceded fully on enrichment and nuclear weapons: “The single most important achievement, I believe, is the agreement that Iran will never, ever have a nuclear material that will create a bomb,” said Albusaidi, describing the understanding as “something completely new” compared to the previous nuclear deal negotiated under former US President Barack Obama. He said the negotiations have produced an agreement on “zero accumulation, zero stockpiling, and full verification” by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), calling it a breakthrough that makes the enrichment argument “less relevant.” On existing stockpiles inside Iran, Albusaidi said that “there is agreement now that this will be down-blended to the lowest-level possible … and converted into fuel, and that fuel will be irreversible.”
(3b) It appears that Witkoff and Kushner were instrumental in the decision to strike Iran: ”Witkoff and Jared Kushner, U.S. officials said. They told him the talks had gone badly: Tehran wasn’t willing to end its nuclear enrichment or dismantle its missile program, the officials said. That further confirmed for Trump that he had one option left, the officials said. The U.S. also had intelligence that Iran considered attacking American targets before Trump authorized strikes, a senior administration official said, adding a sense of urgency to the president’s decision. U.S. casualties and damage to American interests would be higher unless the U.S. moved first, the senior official said.”
I find it tremendously frustrating that Iran can be indirectly and directly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians over decades and decades but suddenly this is a huge problem.
I think it's a sign that most westerners are fundamentally unprepared to defend their societies from aggression and stagnation.
I think it's good, actually, when people push back on their government killing civilians for bad reasons, and the bigger problem by far is that we're much too quick to accept nebulous assertions of national security as a justification for collateral damage. If the US were intervening to stop the IRI from massacring protestors, the comparison would have some bearing, but that isn't what is happening.
Notably, there was fairly little consternation over coalition-inflicted civilian casualties in Mosul or Raqqa because it was generally accepted that ISIS was Really Bad and coalition forces were trying to stop them (even if not for purely selfless reasons) and taking reasonable precautions while dealing with an adversary using human shields. US airstrikes more broadly were criticized because there was no clear aim/end beyond killing terrorists and the target selection was often incredibly careless/callous. By contrast, this current campaign looks like gunboat diplomacy at best.
I think it speaks more to the damage the Iraq War (and to a much lesser extent Libya) did to the credibility of military interventionism. Many, if not most people have no faith that these actions aren't going to squander a bunch of money and lives for no worthwhile outcome.
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