> end up like Libya, Syria or any other country Israel considers a threat.

You imply here that those countries woes are primarily due to Israel. They are not.

Syria was embroiled and toppled by Islamic Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham backed by Turkey. Libya was due to civil war. Several of these conflicts were funded by Iran as well.

You can go down the list. Please study at least some basics on the region.

> So thinking Iran will simply nuke Israel because it has that capability is silly - it would mean mutual destruction.

One would hope, but if Allah is protecting them why would they need to fear retaliation? Theocracies can be unpredictable. Also they could provide dirty bombs to their proxies in the region.

> So thinking Iran will simply nuke Israel because it has that capability is silly - it would mean mutual destruction.

100%. The Iranian regime is not stupid. The "existential threat" bs being peddled by a certain government is simply to give cover to illegal attacks on a sovereign nation. This is "WMDs in Iraq" all over again.

It can be both. You're creating a false dichotomy.

https://www.bu.edu/history/files/2015/04/Khalaji-Apocalyptic...

Mutual destruction makes sense when you're a death cult and the enemy is evil. Iran nuking Israel knowing full well they will get nuked back IS rational if your belief is that Allah will reward you for it in the afterlife and they do sincerly believe that.

You should read books published by reformed Islamists. Radical by Maajid Nawaz is a good one.

They profess to believe (and they are sincere) that they will be rewarded for dying killing Israelis. There's a reason that if I tell you a story about a suicide bomber blowing up a public square in political protest you do not have to wonder what religion they are. It's not because all Muslims are insane, they aren't, it's because some of them have beliefs that make that action rational.

(For example, see how Hamas will not surrender even when offered free passage out of Gaza. They'd rather Israel grind their way through the Palestinian population bomb by bomb because they think every Palestinian killed goes to heaven. If they were rational as we understand the world, they'd realize their plight is hopeless and the only thing they ensure by staying is civillian deaths.)

When I said I was conflicted I meant that on one side it seems like a bad idea to give up WMDs for these countries, but it's also a bad idea for them to have them.

In Iran's case this is further compounded by their consistent anti Israeli PR and anti-Israeli militias funding.

> illegal WMD

Who has "legal" WMDs - the P5? Israel is a non-signatory to NPT, meaning their WMDs are as legal as anyone else's.

They would use some proxxy and shroud the nuke in ambiguity . They have driven 45 years of proxxy war against israel and had it comingbso long its 1.5 generations family buisness now

> And a reminder - Israel has illegals WMDs, using technology and nuclear material stolen from the US.

By what means are the israeli nukes (I assume thats whats meant by WMDs?) illegal? They didn't sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and I don't think spying and stealing is illegal between countries under international law.

Silly! Such flippant language. Yes, it would be silly. Jihadists do “silly” things all the time. Their goals are “silly”.

afaik as i recall gov of iran says israel is little satan and says it goal to kill it.

is it crazy, sure. is it crazy story to say,no. it seems real.

> it would mean mutual destruction.

some religious lunatics would deem that worthy

israel is way smaller and easier to bomb.

why would not iran gov sacrifice few million of its people to kill whole israel?

Ukraine never had "control" of nukes. Russia was the sole producer/controller of nukes within the USSR. Those nukes were then deployed throughout the USSR, but the individual regions within the USSR never had any capability to independently launch or control those nukes. It would be akin to what will happen when the US eventually collapses and we have military bases and nukes scattered throughout the world.

Germany in that case will then briefly technically have nukes, but no ability to knowledge of how to launch or control them. Had Ukraine tried to hold onto those nukes and/or figure out how to launch them they would likely have been invaded by just about every country in the world, including the US, so they gave them up for a few bucks and some kind words.

And I strongly disagree about Iran. Pakistan is also an Islamic country (with its proper name being the Islamic Republic of Pakistan) and a nuclear power, and they haven't just decided to go nuke India who they have abysmal relations with. Religion does provide a different level of comfort with death (and Iran has a longgggggg history of enduring pain to expel invaders on top), but it does not just turn people into death cult members.

There's some irony in that if Iran had nuclear weapons their relations with Israel would likely have been much better. Because Israel wouldn't have been constantly attacking, assassinating, and otherwise doing everything they could to undermine the country. It's similar to how if North Korea didn't have nukes then South Korea, largely as a proxy of the US, would likely have been actively attacking them.

They never really had them. They were in Ukraine but Moscow had control.

Not theirs and you conveniently omit everything what happened in between, including the giant amounts of money directly and indirectly poured into it.

Now every country that has the capacity to get a strategic deterrent will race to get one. So much for Biden's escalation management. Too bad Trump likes Russia so much he does everything not to step on their toes. With a heftier backing from the US the Russo-Ukrainian war would be over by now.

North Korea deterrent has always been the amount of artillery 50 km from soul.

Nuclear weapons can target, the US based on the region, sure. But NK does not need nukes to reduce the south Korean capital to rubble.

I have a question: why did China allow NK to develop nukes?

Ukraine would like to have a word with you.

> clearly all these smart people are not involved in the decision making

Why not? Smart people can make decisions that look weird from the outside.

The foreign policy of the US been looking weird for decades to most outside parties, yet I'm sure there are smart people involved in it on a daily basis. But even with smart people involved, the US been invading countries based on false premises more than once, not sure why it would need to be different for Iran or any other country.

Compare military spending by Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt and the United States (only Middle East related) with Iranian military spending, over the four decades of Iran's shadow wars with these countries and isolation by much of the rest of the world.

And yet Iranian proxies have repeatedly challenged these powers across the Middle East, in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Sinai, etc. And a lot of Iran's actions have broad support in many other Middle Eastern countries, including strong US allies, those where there are no natural ethnic, religious or linguistic ties to Iran, and where there is prosperity based on peace and the American world order.

Whatever else the Iranian govt are, they are not foreign policy under-hitters or flawed tacticians blinded by dogmatism.

Of course you get down voted.So many delusional people on this forum that believe themselves to be experts in all domains because they get well paid to write javascript.

We will just forget that von Neumann advocated for nuclear first strike based on game theory.

then what is the US pray tell? The cloudflare of killing?

I agree with the gp.

Iran is a huge country and USA and Israel has been pointing their finger on this exakt spot for weeks.

Either they dug further down or they just transported things away.

Leaving it all there just seems like a really weird thing to do.

> Care to elaborate? A random person doubting things doesn't help other people or bringing a discussion forward.

I don't know if you noticed, but what you are arguing for is in fact for mindlessly accepting unverified claims and extrapolate them to an optimal outcome. This is the opposite of critical thinking, and goes well beyond wishful thinking.

Meanwhile, if you pay attention to OP's point, you'll understand that Iran's nuclear sites have been continuously designed and developed for decades, while subjected to an almost evolutionary pressure, to continue operations even after withstanding direct attacks in scenarios matching exactly Trump's attacks.

In the very least, you must assess the effect of those strikes before making any sort of claim.

Another factor which it seems you somehow missed was the fact that Russia, another nuclear-capable totalitarian regime, is nowadays heavily dependent on Iran to conduct it's imperialist agenda. If Russia was negotiating handing over nuclear capabilities to North Korea in exchange for supporting it's war effort, do you believe Russia now has no interest to speed up Iran's nuclear weapons programmes?

To be frank, it wouldn't be a surprise for Trump to claim "total obliteration" while having achieved nothing substantial.

This would also be a very convenient way to break the current impasse: Trump can claim victory and brag about US weapons, Iranians can continue their program virtually unscathed, perhaps after bombing some minor evacuated US base for show.

After the dust settles, Iran can withdraw fron NNPT and the next day have Pakistan ship them a bomb. Peace (via MAD) achieved! Maybe we should even give Donald his Nobel prize for that.

This would be a really risky strategy as it will push the Iranians into a corner with potentially large impacts on the oil price (which will change US public opinion).

As Sun Tzu famously said: "You really should back your enemy in a corner and ask them for negotiations. Having someone's feet on hot coals really speeds it up. And if they break it, it's a case for using nukes against them. "

Such advanced people, the Chinese are.

"Don't worry, we can just engage in a bombing campaign against a foreign nation indefinitely."

Fordow is widely reported to be significantly deeper than GBU-57 can penetrate (which is just 60 meters). The only way they penetrate is landing two of them in the exact same hole (think Robin Hood splitting an arrow with another arrow). Off by just a little and it winds up with it's own separate 60m hole.

CEP with GPS for our most accurate glide bombs is 5 meters. But GPS jamming is cheap and easy and the best precision we get in that case is 30 meters CEP.

GPU-57 gets its power from gravity. Reaching that 60 meter maximum penetration requires dropping the bomb from maximum elevation, but without GPS, that further increases the CEP.

With just 6 bombs, it seems unlikely that they could reliably penetrate. Actual penetration would likely require nuclear penetrators, but those also break the nuclear prohibition and open Pandora's box in places like Ukraine.

A great example of the problem is Yemen. We tried to get the Houthi to stop by dropping bunker busters on their tunnel systems and completely failed. We were forced to reach a ceasefire agreement (one that likely went up in smoke last night).

The layout of Fordow from what we’ve seen is not a single site. Depending on how many runs they did maybe it is all but destroyed or maybe it’s 1/3 destroyed. I’m sure Israel’s intelligence on it is pretty accurate (probably not public at this point)

aiding regime change would be much easier, and would solve all these problems better. At some point in the next few days, the regime will be so weakened that the Iranian people will overthrow it themselves

I’d be somewhat skeptical of how much can be achieved just by bombing. It didn’t do much to stop the Nazi war machine in WWII. We have better munitions now, but we also have a lot fewer of them, and the US public won’t tolerate 121,000 dead airmen, either.

Iran became a theocracy through a popular uprising, too. Democracy and theocracy are quite compatible, as long as the people are religious enough.

Is it a fair democratic vote when a very substantial number of the people that Israel claims are residents cannot participate in this vote?

your selective definition of democracy accommodates a country

- whose Basic Law 2018 declared it a Jewish supremacist state

- where 50% of the population doesn't have the right to vote, land ownership, or travel on the same roads

- and faces 99% conviction rates in military, not civil, courts

- where parties can be banned directly by government decision if it arbitrarily deems them to be anti-Jewish

Liar

They said "theocracy with nukes screams nuke them first". If this is true - and it is their stated position - then, since Israel has nukes, either they are not a theocracy or they are begging to be nuked. The commenter has, I think reasonably, concluded that the other commenter doesn't think Israel is begging to be nuked, and is therefore addressing the apparent contradiction. It seems entirely genuous.

The Basic Law (their Constitution) of Israel defines it as a Jewish state. Its first page says:

  The Land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish People, in which the State of Israel was established.
  (b) The State of Israel is the nation state of the Jewish People in which it realizes its natural, cultural, religious and historical right to self-determination.
  (c) The realization of the right to national self- determination in the State of Israel is exclusive to the Jewish People.

With such a commitment to equality it's hard to believe policies like this slipped through

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaization_of_the_Galilee

Absurd.

_How do you think Palestinians sleep at night? With the threat of Israel, funded by the largest military in the world, looming over them every night?_

Probably pretty badly now after squandering decades on building tunnels, hiding weapons and generally being a backwards fundamentalist cultish death camp. It's a mini Iran, and just as hateful. There's a reasom there's a massive security wall along the Egyptian border. They know what's up.

>> It's that they believe they have a religious duty to destroy the state of Israel.

> And the US is full of Christo-fascists who believe they have a religious duty to "defend" Israel by any means necessary.

How do you even begin to equivocate this? One wants to destroy a country, one wants to protect it from destruction.

> How do you think Palestinians sleep at night? With the threat of Israel, funded by the largest military in the world, looming over them every night?

Israel has never actually wanted to end the lives of every Palestinian - and they've had ample capacity to do. The reverse can't be said to be true. If there's a button that the Iraqi or Palestinian leadership that can press that would wipe out the state of Israel and everyone in it, do you think that they won't press it as fast as they can?

Those with the spirit to strike, will always dominate those with a mind to moderate.

> Every side has an ordained right to blow the others off the face of the planet.

What? Israel is 2000 Kms away from Iran, and would want nothing do to with them if not for Iran's "Death to Israel" slogan and policy...

> Do they?

The IAEA declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations, hardly a "bullshit made-up excuse"

None of what is going on in the Middle East is a "religious war" as such. That's a thought-terminating cliche that you're putting in practice pretty clearly here.

Israel is the only democratic country in the Middle East. Support for Israel extends beyond religious justifications.

How about the UN censuring Iran for not complying with the agreement? Was this a manufactured consensus? I don't see anyone mentioning IAEA's decision here.

www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/world/un-nuclear-watchdog-censures-iran-a-move-that-could-lead-to-restore-sanctions

Realistically, a secular Iran would be the only real ally of Israel in the region. This is how it was under the shah, until 1979.

Israel is set to benefit enormously from an economically functional Iran, with sanctions lifted, and a sane, non-fanatical, non-oppressive government. Iran used to be a pretty cool and developed country in 1960s, and could be now.

(Edit: typo)

> The worst possible outcome for them is Iran proving it has no nuclear weapons at all and having its sanctions lifted.

Circumstantial evidence seems to be that Iran indeed was enriching Uranium beyond what was necessary for electricity. Why would they build enrichment facility deep underground? It is not that Iran is having energy crisis. The claim that Iran is thinking of green energy and climate change effects is a bit weak.

Iran has violated the NPT so many times at this stage that no good faith observer can say what you've said here with a straight face. This is just using words to persuade for political purposes, it is not analysis.

Sure, they're making weapons grade uranium to exhibit it in the Museum of the Islamic Revolution and the Holy Defense in Teheran.

These positions are not mutually exclusive though. You can both be in favor of stripping Irans ability to build nukes and oppose Israel’s settlements.

My understanding is that most countries support a two nation solution. I have not seen any Iranian statement that accepts this. On the other hand I have seen them consistently calling for outright destruction of Israel. Given their declared intend of destruction, no one in right mind would allow them the capability of destruction.

just exactly predating goverment was friendly with israel:

https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/496386/Pahlavi-and-Israel-t...

so what exact goverment your arr referring?

Occupation of "Muslim lands"?

Under the Ottoman Empire it was (relatively) scarcely populated and a mix of Jews, Christians and Muslims, plus some religious minorities.

Before the Ottomans and various Islamic conquests it was almost entirely Christian/Roman (as was the whole Middle East). Before that Jewish.

And keep in mind Zionism started during the Ottoman era, with Jews simply immigrating there.

Also let's not forget that the partition plan for Palestine was proposed by the UN which you reference.

You can oppose something or you can create terorrist militias to attack Israel and destabilize its neighboring countries.

Anyone who unironically attributes any land to be Muslim, Jewish or of any other religion must be immediately dealt with.

Land is land. It should never, never be beholden to any one religion.

> Iran opposition to Israel's occupation of Muslim lands and territories, predates the current government of Iran.

And yet, the previous government of Iran had friendly relations with Israel, as do some other Arab and Muslim countries.

The US also has friendly relations with countries with whom it disagrees vehemently, and that do (IMO) far worse things than Israel does.

A complete inversion of history. What an insane take!

[flagged]

Israel occupies lands belonging to the Biblical patriarch Jacob. That was something like 1800 BCE, two and a half millennia before Mohammed. Islam refers to Jacob, as does the Torah/Old Testament as "Israel".

I find the repeated suggestion that those are Muslim lands because Israel is a new territory to be strange -- it can't be a Quranic position. It doesn't appear consistent with history either.

Last time I checked history books said Britain donated land to Jews. At the time Britain took house land there were no state and no nation called Palestinians, just tribes. Since then Palestinians formed as a nation.

So what do you want Israel to do, disappear? Or negotiate, but with whom? The only power there is hamas which is non-negotiable. I really interested in seeing any realistic solution to the problem, however far fetched it is.

Even if you believe Israelis don’t have a right to the land, it’s still not a colonial outpost. That’s just lazy European and American self important intellectualizing in my opinion.

First a colony is one controlled by a foreign nation. Next the population of Israel is, or was, about half Sephardim. Meaning Jews from the Middle East, many of whom were unwilling expelled from Muslim countries.

Secondly Arab Muslim Palestinians could also be considered colonizers if ones that’d been there many generations.

The Israel and Palestine conflict in many aspects is more similar to between Turkey and Greece after WWI. In 1923 they “swapped populations” due to the aftermaths of Greeces independence from the Turkish Ottaman Empire and the following wars. Populations which had lived together segregated after the wars and were expelled on both sides in roughly equal numbers.

It was similar after the 1948 war with about 850,000 Middle Eastern Jews and 750,000 Palestinians being displaced.

Except Palestinians were never integrated into Egypt or Jordan. Partly by their own choice and partly by that of the Arab countries. The stated goal was that they’d destroy the new state of Israel and return.

you do know that jews come from the current state of israel right? and that they lived there before the founding of said state? and that, no, neither group of 7M people are going to pack up and leave.

Ah, yes, Israel famously publicly declaring that its' holy mission is to destroy Iran. Happened so many times, yes.

Nothing in most of their beliefs. They’re both monotheistic and similar in many regards as Islam largely inherited its tenants from both Judaism and Christianity.

Jews were often well treated and flourished in the earlier Islamic caliphates.

But with the formation of a Jewish Israel the conflict. Generally in Islamic belief there must be an Islamic caliphate with Sharia Law. Jerusalem is considered one of the holy sites of Islam and therefore belongs to that caliphate.

That’s contrasted with Judaism and Israel being the land promised to the Jews. Though modern Israel was largely founded by secular Jews so it’s a bit more complicated on that front.

There's "having nukes" and there's "using nukes".

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QgkUVIj3KWY

The trouble with a regime like Iran is that they are a death cult. The price the put on human life (their own people as much as anyone else) is low, and they're all for martyrdom. With Iran, you cannot assume it's a just a deterrent in a cold war. You have to assume an increased likelihood that they will actually use them.

The main point of having nukes is not using them. The moment one uses them -- they lost.

Nukes are good as a deterrent, not good as a weapon.

Same reason the U.S. and USSR were afraid of each other in the Cold War.

People are just fear mongering to suggest Iran would use them or give them to those who would. The real issue here is that once you have them, you basically entrench yourself as a regional power. If the regime started falling out of favor, all their neighbors would be obliged to come to their aid to protect the nukes. Also, you would be far more limited in how you fight your proxy war. These are the things the involved parties are considering, not Armageddon fantasies.

[flagged]

[flagged]

[flagged]

Was this bombing a genocide?

I don't think the average Iranian citizen cares at all about Israel, one way or the other, but they don't have any say in Iranian state politics.

There's no natural law setting the mullahs against the existence of Israel, as I said they think and vocally declaim publicly that it is divine law. Don't believe me, just look up what they say.

I do think the way this is being handled is a travesty though. There was a functioning agreement with international monitoring in place in 2016 and Trump tore it up. Since then Iran has increased their enrichment capacity, and their stockpile of enriched material by 22 time above what they committed to in that agreement. Canceling that deal was a foolish blunder that had lead us to this.

Ultimately the only path to long term peace has to be the fall of theocratic rule in Iran, but that's a mater for the Iranian people. It's quite possible the nuclear question could have been managed, but just as with NAFTA Trump saw personal political advantage is scrapping an old deal in order to rebrand it as his better deal, but dropped the ball because he doesn't understand the geopolitics, and here we are.

The dehumanising thing is to steadfastly believe that deep down everyone holds secular liberal values, regardless of their words and actions.

Secular discussion about conflict in the Middle East frequently discounts the possibility that self-professed religious fundamentalists are in fact religious fundamentalists. A lot of Israeli settlers really do believe that they are fulfilling a sacred duty. A lot of Palestinians really do believe that becoming a martyr for al-Aqsa guarantees them an eternity in paradise. A lot of American Evangelicals really do believe that conflict in the Middle East will bring about the day of judgement.

I might believe that we live in a godless and meaningless universe in which death is final, but that puts me in a very small minority. Most people -throughout history and across the world - frequently act in ways that are totally irrational from a secular perspective, but are perfectly logical within a framework of faith.

You’d need to make a distinction between the Iranian regime, a corrupt band of thieves in charge of the government, infused by religion, and the Iranian people, who have been suffering through this for almost half a century. Any criticism is directed against the former, and fully valid: These people are fanatical idiots, albeit dangerous.

That is why they formed the Axis of Resistance. They will act through their proxies. And imagine if Hezbollah or the Houthis got nuclear weapons, the whole world would be threatened.

  > To suggest Iran would do it anyway is equivalent to saying that they're completely, crazy, fanatical, genocidal and stupid

There is nothing racist or dehumanising about acknowledging cultures different from your own. In fact, I would say that assuming everybody adheres to your cultural values is the racist position.

To suggest Iran would do it anyway would actually just be taking Iranian leadership at their word.

[flagged]

> Why are you assuming that Iran wants to destroy Israel?

I'm guessing from the words and actions of Iranian leaders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Israel_in_Irani...

> Why are you assuming that Iran wants to destroy Israel? Everything I’ve actually seen is the complete opposite: it’s Israel that clearly wants to destroy Israel.

Even by your own logic, do you believe that having a country threaten your existence is not reason enough to want them destroyed?

Iran was one of the first countries in the Middle East to recognize Israel. But it all changed since Islamic Revolution. Their official position since than have been that Israel cannot exist. They don't even refer to it as Israel but as "Zionist Regime". It's their official public position and what they say on their (government controlled) TV. They've been fighting proxy war with Israel since 80s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Israel_in_Irani...

If you are familiar with how Israel came to be founded, and how Iran became an Islamic republic, you'll see how that is a naive narrative.

For one, Balfour's illegal concession of Palestine to the Israelis had the clear strategic purpose of keeping pan-Arabism at bay. The ensuing establishment of Israel - by the UNSCOP, in contravention of international law - had the side effect of turbocharging settler colonialist violence (1948 and ongoing) and expansionism (e.g. 1967 annexations).

That was the background to the 1953 CIA coup, and the eventual Islamic revolution in 1979. Sure, it's not the liberal democratic outcome Iranians would've liked, but it reclaimed sovereignty lost, and they are aware of the historic role of Israel and their strategic and moral position in relation to it, regardless of their regime.

Bottom line, if we look closely at who really is threatening whom, the reactions of the Iranians are probably quite understandable

Are you seriously suggesting that Israel doesn’t target civilians? Are you following the events of the last 2 years?

Oh! I remember this one. The next part goes, “They’re going to greet us as liberators and give our troops flowers.”

And then twenty years from now everyone will say they were always against it.

You hear and read about it, but it’s still surreal to see the effects of propaganda in real life. I’m glad I’m old enough to have seen this show before live.

Even those who want a regime change tend to dislike getting bombs on their heads.

And if anything, the last 20 years taught us that revolutions imposed from the outside never work

Nothing is more effective at unifying a country than being attacked by a foreign power. This is how Bush secured a second term and how Giuliani became America's Mayor, two individuals who were previously disrespected and/or hated by a majority of their constituents.

Iraq flash backs , they were sure very happy to greet their liberators , it's amazing to see propaganda's effects working in action

I believe you that the regime is hated.

But can you define what "this moment" is that they have been waiting for?

I don't think "this moment" helps them along the way. It is rather a reason for more internal repression.

how does this do anything except strengthen the resolve of those thugs in power? even those against the regime will want retribution for an attack on their home land.

regime change has never worked, not with actual boots on the ground, let alone targeted air strikes.

I live in a major world city with considerable immigrant populations from many parts of the world, and saw some of the pro-Palestine demonstrations yesterday.

There were numerous groups of Iranians protesting against Israel's actions and in support of the Palestinians. These are Iranians living abroad so can be expected statistically to be less supportive of the current government than the average Iranian resident.

The counter-protest, mainly of pro-Israel demonstrators, this time also had Iranians, demonstrating against the current regime (and broadly in support of Israel). All the Iranian flags in this very small group were the Shah-era design with the lion.

The visibly Iranian groups in the pro-Palestinian demo vastly outnumbered the counter protest. They seemed quite ideologically diverse. There were some people holding pictures of the ayatollah with the words 'No Surrender'. But there were also groups with the sign "don't bomb us and claim it's for women's rights" (can't remember exact wording). Groups including women with headscarves, other groups with only bare headed women. As well as the current official flag with the swords, I saw people holding the lion flag, and others with the neutral tricolour without emblem. So at least some of the people present were anti the current regime, but supported the Palestinians in the current conflict.

Obviously a very selective sampling for many reasons, but far from what you might expect if almost all Iranians were united against their current government.

How many Iranians do you know that told you that?

Please don't promote war. Ain't no one going to overthrow the Iranian government now that we attacked them. The US and Israel just screwed up everything there. Thanks.

Imagine a terrorist attack against the Trump admin in the following weeks, and someone coming in to say "you'd be surprised, but the people of the USA have been waiting for this moment for months. There are 100 million people who want an end to Trump".

People never, ever, under any circumstances, want to be attacked and bombed by another country. Not even the biggest dissidents rotting in regime jails would welcome this. Not even a little bit.

> Whether this fulfills that goal, we will see, but anything that weakens the regime is good for the Iranian people.

Oh, enough to look at Libya, Syria, Iraq, to see what happens next:

1. Lots of infrastructure would be destroyed. It's the first thing NATO does in any invasion: bomb powerplants, water treatment plants, airports, hospitals, business centers (remember, that Iraq invasion started with destroying Baghdad business center, it was shown in all Western media). Infrastructure is super-expensive to rebuild, many countries in the world have no resources to build decent infrastructure.

2. At least several millions of Iranians would die. It's obvious. Somebody's moms and dads, somebody's children. The bombs do not choose. And we all know that West is indifferent to the deaths of non-Western non-white population (remember, e.g. killings and war crimes in Afghanistan).

3. In the end the country will end up in half-feudal anarchistic ruins (like Libya) or with "democratic" puppet government. Any outcome will allow selling Iran oil and gas to the West for the price of water, further lowering living standards of Iran.

I fail to see a single benefit for anyone living in Iran.

That's nonsense. This is what westerners like to tell themselves because all they read is western media coverage of Iran.

No, 80 million people don't want to end the regime. Westerners can't fathom the fact that not everyone wants to live in a democratic free-for-all.... so clearly anyone who doesn't deserves bombing.

Pathetic. Imperialism is encoded in the DNA of Americans at this point.

There is some truth to that, but if it was that important for them to overthrow the regime…why not do it internally but instead they wait for someone to bomb them? 80mill is not a small number. You are saying 87% asked for this lol.

US didn't like it the last time the Iranian people got their regime change.

[flagged]

[flagged]

[flagged]

I know a similar precedent from Belarus, an Eastern European country. The population is way smaller, and their main problem is Moscow in the east, but it's the same sentiment -- please bomb us as we cannot throw out this regime ourselves, yes.

Internet used to joke about US "freedom bombs", but it's taken quite seriously and positively there.

Iran isn't being attacked because it's not nice to its own people (which is a shame really, all dictators and theocrats should worry for their lives). It's being attacked because it has ballistic missiles, a nuclear weapons program, a giant sign in the middle of Tehran counting down the existence of Israel and its leaders have repeatedly called for Israel's destruction. So weapon, opportunity and motive. It's of course free to work towards the destruction of Israel but then it's hardly fair to complain that Israel may try to preempt that.