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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.
I'm very skeptical that any member of the general public could already know -- with confidence -- who was behind this situation. I'm also suspicious of your use of the passive voice. Can you please link to a source? TIA.
Very well. Israel has peace treaties with many of its former enemies despite those societies being rife with anti-Semitism. Hezbollah hasn't launched a ground invasion, nor has the Palestinian Authority. That's not because they love Israel or Jews. And it's not because they are peaceful people who only want peace.
Exactly what steps would be required to "simply acquire" nuclear weapons?
https://x.com/GeoConfirmed/status/2028088723770945712
Occam's razor suggests that if a school is bombed in a country being bombed, it is overwhelmingly likely that the country bombing it that did the bombing. There needs to be evidence to the contrary to support any alternate hypothesis. There is no such valid evidence. This 'air of uncertainty' about what might be happening is silly. It would be ridiculous to say 'actually it's the US that is bombing their troops in Kuwait' without any evidence.
It's 1940s technology. Enrich uranium, build the bomb casing, test and deploy.
I don't necessarily agree, particularly given the nature of the countries involved. However it looks to me like there is a threshold issue, which is that you claimed you were confident that it is Israel who was behind the bombing:
Given that the US is also involved in the war, how exactly does Occam's razor work here?
Well do you agree that
(1) enriching Uranium requires large amounts of specialized equipment, such as centrifuges;
(2) the Iranians did actually construct a facility with such centrifuges;
(3) those centrifuge facilities have been sabotaged and/or bombed?
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