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The people in the middle east are not going to like Israel more after another Israeli war of aggression. Meanwhile the rest of the world gets a continued reminder of what a warmongering and alien state Israel is. More Americans supported Palestine than israel in a poll for the first time in the US. That number is going to take a big jump.
The people in the middle east aren't going to like Israel more if they do nothing either, so that's something of a moot point. Iran is also not particularly popular with large sections of the middle east due to religious differences and the fact that Iran has been funding proxies and trying to destabilise the region to their advantage for decades now, to the detriment of Israeli/US interests as well.
You are nakedly a partisan on this issue and therefore probably emotionally obliged to try and spin this as both a massive blunder and an act of unprovoked evil from Israel, but what they are doing now is entirely logical from a military/geo-political perspective given the circumstances, Iran is probably Israels greatest long term enemy and they're on the ropes, they would be stupid not to attack now.
As a wise man once said, "If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight".
"If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight"
And how do they know it's sure to result in victory?
The Israelis and Americans seem to operate in this Star Wars school of warfare where they just have to blow up the bad guy, the Death Star, the Emperor and that's it, war's over and they can go home.
That's not how it works. Israel has blown up all these Hamas leaders, they've bombed the hell out of Gaza... and yet Hamas is still running Gaza. Years of intense bombing and no regime change of the smallest, closest easiest possible target Israel could have. America bombed the Fordow nuclear facility, said they totally destroyed it... and that did nothing, 6 months later they come back and say Iran is about to acquire nuclear weapons, need a new deal, new disarmament... Bombing is not going to be effective this time either.
To win real victories you need to win a ground campaign that actually destroys and crushes the enemy force from the bottom up, secures the territory and directly installs a new administration. Bombing an enemy from the top down looks impressive, doesn't work. They just replace the Ayatollah or whoever else it is that gets blown up. Only very fragile states can be endangered by bombing alone and despite all the breathless media coverage of Iran, it's not a very fragile state. Unlike Venezuela, they know how to maintain their own oil infrastructure, they can make their own weapons. Even in Venezuela, there's been no fundamental change to the state, just a change of faces.
A ground campaign is not going to happen, Trump lacks the desire and the means. So this war isn't going to work out.
And bombing will impede hopes of regime change in that dissidents are going to be tarred as Israeli assets, the enemy within subverting the nation when the country is under attack.
I agree strongly with what you wrote. Bombing for regime change generally does not work.
Well, at this point, I think it would be fair to count the Shah and the people who are campaigning for his return as Israeli assets. One can always hope that Mossad knows what it is doing.
On the other hand, the interests of secular Iranians are not perfectly aligned with the interests of Nethanyahu. For Israel, anything which reduces the power of the Ayatollah regime is a win. The Shah taking over would be the best outcome, but they will also take a descent into civil war a la Syria. And even if it fails and the regime stays in control, it can hardly hate Israel more than it hates them now, so no reason not to throw the dice.
That makes sense.
However, Khameini's death means his fatwa against nuclear weapons no longer holds. If the IRGC take control, as militaries have been known to do in wartime, then we may see a much more militarized, nuclearized and aggressive Iran. They absolutely can and likely will hate Israel more than they hate them now! There are only so many regime-change attempts they can take before turning a latent nuclear program into a real nuclear program.
Yeah, after this latest attack, the Iranian government is going to REALLY hate Israel and REALLY try to develop nuclear weapons. [/sarcasm]
Edit: Oops, after reading a sarcastic comment from someone else, I had forgotten that you aren't supposed to use sarcasm here.
What I am trying to say is that the Iranian government's hatred of Israel and desire for nuclear weapons was pretty maximal before the latest attack, so I doubt that this will provoke the reaction you predict. At this point, the main thing for Israel (and the US) to do, to paraphrase the Untouchables, is the Chicago Way.
Well they did blow up a bunch of kids and the head of state on home soil whereas before Israel mostly just blew up nuclear scientists or proxies elsewhere... That could get anyone's blood up.
Things can always happen for the first time. Things can always get worse.
So you are confident it was Israel who did that?
I take it you dispute that Iran's leadership was already close to being maximally hostile to Israel?
And things can get better as well. In my view, (1) it's pretty clearly better for Israel to be feared than to be loved; and (2) things can't get much worse in terms of the hostility of the Iranian government towards Israel. I take it you disagree with these claims?
Yes, the 'actually Iranian rockets blew up their own school' storyline has been debunked.
How's that working out for Israel right now?
The notion that Iran's desire for nuclear weapons was maximal is bizarre. If they wanted nuclear weapons, they would simply acquire them like North Korea did. They would not go back and forth seeking deals or negotiating, they would just acquire the weapons, test them and deploy them. Iran has not done this! Therefore, their desire for nuclear weapons was not maximal.
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