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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   986 thread views

Transnational Thursday for March 19, 2026

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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attacking other nations seemingly at random

This is the Motte - please leave takes sourced from John Stewart and other talk show hosts where they belong. What they are actually doing is attacking nations which are hosting US forces and military bases, and the hotels they have been attacking were used to host American troops. They've been positively saintlike when compared to the US' blowing up of primary schools and oil depots in Tehran.

targeting infrastructure

Iran attacked a gas field after one of their gas fields was attacked and they explicitly said that was a proportional response. Even Trump chickened out from destroying their powerplants after the Iranians explained what they would blow up if he did.

This is not factually accurate.

I am unaware of any U.S. military bases or U.S. troops in several of the attacked countries, of which there are over ten.

To list, at least: Israel, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Cyprus. By implication also the U.S., U.K., and France, and depending on how you want to count it Diego Garcia. Several of these were explicitly not getting involved.

I am also unaware of any evidence of U.S. military assets being present in a majority of the attacked civilian infrastructure. Some of the targets can be painted as part of an escalation ladder. Random civilian buildings can not.

I think Iran's response is massively scattershot, but Azerbaijan is the only country in that list without US bases and/or troops.

IIRC Cyprus wasn't the U.S. (well I think they might have some classified assets there maybe?), I'm not sure where France got attacked but that probably was non-U.S. Iran seems to have accidentally attacked Palestine and Lebanon.

Iran lacks the targeting ability to actually hit what they are aiming at, which further complicates matters (see accidental attacks in Palestine, Lebanon).

Ultimately I think the comment can be reasonably described as uncritical repetition of Iranian propaganda however.

It's true that Iran can't target very well over long distance, but accidentally hitting Azerbaijan is probably too far fetched. Like, when they want to hit "something" in Israel and end up hitting Arab village, that's likely random. But if they hit Azerbaijan or Cyprus, that's likely on purpose, whatever that purpose might be.

If you define random as "missiles unable to target adequately and therefore landing at random locations" they certainly to do lots of that.

If you define random as "flailing around targeting nearly every country in the area (every country but Syria?) intentionally and unintentionally for unclear reasons*" then that sounds random and that's happening.

Both are running at the same time.

*likely to sow terror and expense, which has been a frequent part of their strategic posture.

I admit I don't really understand what their strategy of "make everybody hate you" aims to achieve, but I think there's clearly a strategy. Maybe a crazy one, but there's a method in this craziness.

I mean it's deeply unethical but it isn't a bad choice if you don't care about that. "Don't attack us or we'll make you regret it" requires carrying out the threat. And again their whole vibe has often been well, terrorism.

The random pain inflicted is part of the point.

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