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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9676 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 14, 2026

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So actually there is a particular time limit, namely the midterms and presidential elections. The Iranians don't need to destroy the US Navy to achieve victory, they just need to inflict enough pain on the global economy to ratfuck the Republicans. Pretending the political angle isn't the core of the Iranian strategy is just preemptive cope.

The midterm elections aren't a time limit, because Trump will still be the president and commander-in-chief regardless of what happens, and continue the war at his disgression. Congress's powers to stop a war have proven very limited in modern times. The next presidential election might be, but that has a lot less to do with the war than it does all the other factors that determine elections. It's pointless to ascribe an election to any one particular factor, especially one that hasn't happened yet.

But more importantly: this was never the Iranian strategy. Their original strategy was to use an overwhelming missile barrage to level cities, banking up sheer destrictive power that no one would dare attack them. That hasn't happened, instead their missile attacks have been largely impotent, mostly thanks to the US (and Israel) blowing them up on the launchpad before they get a chance to aim and fire. It's easy to take that for granted now that it didn't happen, but it could have easily been a massive loss of life. They were building up longer-range missiles that could Europe and the US, and I, for one, am grateful that they no longer have that capability. "Paying the danegeld" was not a stable long-term solution.

Their backup plan was holding the strait hostage. In a similar way, this was supposed to cause enough economic damage that no one would dare to attack them. Predictions were for some sort of massive global recession, oil above $200 a barrel, and massive lines at the gas station like what happened in the 70s with the Arab oil embargo. But that hasn't happeend either. It's gone up a bit, but not nearly enough to cause a recession or act as any sort of serious deterrance.

At this point their real "attack" is just political propaganda. All of the people who already hated Trump (so, most Democrats) have simply latched on to this as the new Latest Thing to attack Trump. Iranians proxies make vague threats on twitter promising doom, and then all the useful idiots in the media breathlessly repeat them. They want the war to go badly so that Trump will lose the election. But if it wasn't this, they'd find some other excuse to hate him. It's kind of funny that now they're saying he's an Israel agent, when just a year ago everyone was saying he was a Russian agent.... which one is it supposed to be? But meanwhile the economy continues to grow, the world keeps not-being-an-apocalypse, and the regime change in Venezuela looks like a better deal every single day.

largely impotent

If the missiles and drones were impotent, I assume the 5th Fleet base in Bahrain was destroyed by Iran's trained attack geese.

Not only that; the Bahrain base was only in the news because of the possibility that it may never be rebuilt. The US effectively abandoned other bases in Qatar and the UAE at the same time the Bahrain base was evacuated, as the risk to men and equipment was too great to keep them functioning as operational centers. So while we theoretically have bases that could support sustained naval operations in the region, they are useless at the moment, and we're relying on other bases that are far away and out of range of Iranian attacks.

Their original strategy was to use an overwhelming missile barrage to level cities

It sounds like you got this from a call of duty mission plotline. Our intel predicted they would respond as they did respond:

https://www.dia.mil/Articles/Speeches-and-Testimonies/Article/567085/2014-annual-threat-assessment/

Iran has threatened to temporarily impede international ship traffic transiting through the Strait of Hormuz if it is attacked or in response to further sanctions on its oil exports. Additionally, Iran has threatened to launch missiles against U.S. targets and our regional allies in response to an attack. Tehran could also employ its terrorist surrogates. However, it is unlikely to initiate or intentionally provoke a conflict or launch a preemptive attack.

https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AS/AS26/20220317/114527/HHRG-117-AS26-Wstate-BerrierS-20220317.pdf

Tehran probably calibrates its attacks to pressure adversaries and proportionally retaliate for real or perceived transgressions against Iran, while attempting to prevent escalation to full-scale conflict. Iranian officials continue to perceive that they have not sufficiently retaliated for the 8 January 2020 death of former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) Commander Qasem Soleimani, and probably are planning covert actions against U.S. officials to retaliate for his death while attempting to maintain plausible deniability and minimize escalation. Iran probably will continue to focus on unconventional attacks or minimally deniable actions, such as cyberoperations, rather than overt conventional retaliation to counter Western pressure.

Even if they were evilmaxxing, it would be the dumbest decision ever to target civilian centers as it would immediately grant America et al the moral right to do the same to them.

That... literally did happen though? They've launched numerous ballistic missile attacks against cities. See the list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_during_the_2026_Iran_war#Iranian_and_allies_response

They're not exactly using precision weapons to carefully target military units and avoid civilian losses, they're launching whatever they have at whatever they can hit, which is mostly cities. If you don't hear about it very much, it's simply because most of them either miss or get intercepted, but they are very much trying to destroy cities, and some of them have gotten through.

The clearer example of this is North Korea, which maintains a massive artillery and rocket force aimed at Seoul. For decades, their main dettrance has simply been the threat of causing massive casualties in Seoul. It's worked well enough to let them flout international law, despite their terrible quality overall, so I'm sure Iran wants to copy their example.

Even if they were evilmaxxing, it would be the dumbest decision ever to target civilian centers as it would immediately grant America et al the moral right to do the same to them.

No, that's not how it works, unfortunately. America is held to a far higher moral standard, regardless of what happens. So since the US military accidentally hit one school during its initial massive precision bombing campaign to overwhelm Iran's air defenses, we have to hear forever how the Americans are monsters. Iran has carte blanche to lob crude ballistic missiles at apartment buildings, and it barely even breaks the news, so people dismiss it as "something that only happens in video games."

Iran’s strikes on Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab nations all focused on oil or military strikes. Their strategy was not to “level cities” which is why you wouldn’t be able to find a single US military report claiming this. Iran isn’t Israel, they don’t consciously try to level cities. Strikes aimed at military installations ≠ strikes aimed to level entire cities.

So in that list I linked you, which includes many examples of them hitting things like apartment buildilngs, not to mention their attempts to destroy desalinization plants... what? Were those all just "mistakes?"

To be honest, I'm not even mad at them for that. "Countervalue" ie mass bombing of cities, has been a part of military strategy for a long time now. It was basically the heart of MAD deterrance in the cold war. I'm more surprised that you think Iran wouldn't be doing something like that. Admittedly they can't "level" a city right now, but it's not for lack of trying, they just lack the firepower. That's a good reason not let them have nuclear weapons.

Because the US evacuated their bases and were housing troops in apartment buildings and hotels.

https://archive.is/A4Ebt

So now much of the land-based military is, in essence, fighting the war while working remotely, with the exception of fighter pilots and crews operating and maintaining warplanes and conducting strikes.

That was from March.

Iran’s strikes on Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab nations all focused on oil or military strikes

To be clear, you're saying power and desalination facilities are legitimate military targets?

Iran isn’t Israel, they don’t consciously try to level cities.

I assume you mean other than Israeli cities? Or are you making a distinction between "using cluster munitions indiscriminately on civilian targets" with "strikes aimed to level entire cities"? Although if you think Israel is levelling cities via bombing, you aren't making a distinction between that and "striking military (or suspected military) targets distributed throughout a city and in civilian areas".

Don't forget Iran simps defending Iran blowing up random hotels because allegedly US military could be staying in them.

Allegedly? US military and civillian officials weren't hiding that US troops working remotely from apartments, office buildings, and hotels in March.

https://archive.is/A4Ebt

Iran has bombed U.S. bases across the Middle East in retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli war, forcing many American troops to relocate to hotels and office spaces throughout the region, according to military personnel and American officials.

So now much of the land-based military is, in essence, fighting the war while working remotely, with the exception of fighter pilots and crews operating and maintaining warplanes and conducting strikes.

Is the US and Hamas guilty of terrorism via using human shields when soldiers are stationed in hotels or are Iran and Israel guilty of terrorism when they bomb said hotels for stationing soldiers?

  1. Not avoiding civilians completely (the US) is different from deliberately basing your military next to civilians as a policy with the intention of using the dead civilians (Hamas)
  2. There's no such thing as a human shield against Iran anyway, because the world has a double standard and cares about civilians killed by Israel, but not by Iran.

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