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Notes -
Trump just announced they destroyed all military targets on Kharg Island, so, presumably they'll conquer that?
Kharg Island, I have learned through situation monitoring, is the way Iran processes 90% or so if its oil for export.
I have no idea how sane this is. Maybe it'll be fine?
Sounds like more bad news for oil prices.
At worst we are seeing a slow but emerging strategy of just running Iran into the ground like with Syria and all the rest. Where sub par targets get selected due to a lack of better options. The decision makers have to make decisions, after all.
Sub par targets? Kharg Island is one of the most important targets in any Iranian scenario because it’s where all the oil gets processed. Please stop thinking in hour-long news cycles and imagine what an Iranian operation would look like if it was planned to take five weeks and we were only halfway into it.
Do you have a conception of what the original US plan might have been; and how it might have changed due to events thus far? Just curious.
That's something that's bothering me about this entire enterprise. I'm not the most plugged-in person when it comes to geopolitical events, but I like to think I can read and understand the news, at least.
As it stands, I don't know quite why we're there, or what we want to accomplish, or how we plan to do it, or what our win condition is.
It makes me long for the days of desert storm, she that was all clearly laid out before lead started flying.
Why?
Look what Iran is doing - shutting down the global economy, launching missiles at and deliberately attacking civilian infrastructure and the economy (oil, travel, etc etc) of its neighbors. They've always been interested in doing this in all likelihood, but didn't think they could get away with it. They also had their civilian terror networks temporarily defanged.
What happens if they get the bomb? What happens if they rebuild the missile capacity and expand the drone capacity?
What if two years from now they wanted to close Hormuz and were a nuclear state? We'd have to just accept it or much riskier things.
The U.S. and Israel absolutely have classified timelines on missile production, they may have timelines on the nuclear stuff.
Iran can't be allowed to do what it wants to do, because it would do this. We know this, we can see now exactly why that is.
It just happened Trump was sitting in the chair instead of a cowardly president who might end up just waiting and praying.
Why now, specifically?
Trump made his threats and it was clear something was going to happen eventually, it appears to have gone off a bit half cocked but I imagine that's because the Iranians foolishly put enough of the government in one room together.
Why don't people understand this?
The government has been very explicit with stated public war aims and reasons, and has a number of private elements that are easily guessable. The media has landed on a meme to criticize this conflict as "they weren't clear" so people think it isn't clear when it is.
Iran can’t be blamed for defending themselves from an unjust attack by Israel. I would hope Americans would do the same if they were in Iran’s place; if they wouldn’t, I think they lack courage and a moral compass. If Israel decided to start targeting the homes of every American service member, and our only hope was to shut it down, then that’s what America should do. This is the proper response to an Israeli attempt at your national annihilation, something they have a track record of doing in the past 80 years.
Israel does this
This applies to Israel
Israel has the bomb. Every accusation is an admission when it comes to Israel. The Israelis, with a straight face, will tell you we should “help the Iranian people have their voices heard” while they keep three million Palestinians under a military occupation and prevent them from voting and moving freely in violation of international law.
Iran has been waging proxy war against Israel for 44 years via Hezbollah, Hamas and their other paramilitaries. it has a literal doomsday clock counting down the days until Israel's destruction. If the regime didn't want a war with Israel, they've been going about it a funny way.
And it's not as if Israel is a threat to Iran. They're seperated by two countries and hundreds of miles. If Iran wanted peaceful relations with Israel, all they would need to do is stop funding Hezbollah and Hamas and stop threatening to nuke Israel.
There is a lot to criticise Israel about regarding Gaza and the West Bank, but Iran's conflict with Israel is one of Iran's making.
Their official stated policy goal is to leave the fate of Israel up to a democratic referendum which includes displaced Palestinians. Oh the horrors of justice and the rule of law! Is our heart so small and our palate so delicate that we should ignore three million Palestinians in the West Bank living in a dehumanizing and disenfranchised state as Israel’s state-sponsored proxy settlers (some labeled terrorist groups in the US) torture and torment Palestinian women and children nearly every month? I hope not. America should be unironic social justice warriors (not the gay kind).
Israel has been waging a proxy war upon much of the Middle East through her greatest proxy America. I hope I don’t need to list all of the atrocities and damage caused by this proxy in the region. We are literally their proxy. We do their bidding because their supporters pay us to. You can pick up a copy of the Israel Lobby and read about it. If it weren’t for Israeli lobbyists it is unlikely that Iraq and Afghanistan would happen, and we likely would not have taken out Assad (half a million dead), and so on.
Other proxies include the South Lebanon Army which caused the Sabra and Shatila massacre. You can read how “prior to the massacre, the IDF took [their proxies] to training camps in Israel and showed them documentaries about the Holocaust. The Israelis told the Lebanese fighters that the same would happen to them too, as a minority in Lebanon, if the fighters did not take action against the Palestinians”. And “as the massacre unfolded, the IDF received reports of atrocities being committed, but did not take any action to stop it. Instead, Israeli troops were stationed at the exits of the area to prevent the camp's residents from leaving and, at the request of the Lebanese Forces, shot flares to illuminate Sabra and Shatila through the night during the massacre.” Another group that Israel has funded is MEK which carried out assassinations in Iran.
It is completely reasonable for Iran to fund proxy forces against an expansionist power which has a history of oppressing their neighbors. You may have noticed that America has been doing the same thing, as we fund Ukraine because of the territorial ambitions of Russia. The difference is that any Ukrainian left in Russian territory will eventually be given full rights; the Israelis cleanse the land of every Muslim and Christian they can before acquiring it, and any remaining non-Jew is oppressed and cannot participate in Israeli democracy. Horrifying. Do you think Russia has the right to target American scientists sleeping in their homes with their children via ballistic missiles, because we funded a proxy group to defend against their expansionist ambitions?
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