| ▲ | alkyon 13 hours ago |
| If anything, the lack of competence is on the other side. Was enriched uranium destroyed? I doubt it. Have they even "obliterated" Fordow site buried 90 m deep inside the mountain? I have serious doubts. Iran's nuclear program was set back some months if anything. |
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| ▲ | birn559 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Care to elaborate? A random person doubting things doesn't help other people or bringing a discussion forward. |
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| ▲ | fifilura 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | 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. | | |
| ▲ | whilenot-dev 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | > transported things away This implies a tunnel system, or was this transport done in plain sight? | | |
| ▲ | perihelions 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There's indeed a lot of transport happening in plain sight, https://www.twz.com/news-features/u-s-has-attacked-irans-nuc... > "Prior to tonight’s airstrikes on the three Iranian nuclear-associated facilities, Maxar collected high-resolution satellite imagery on June 19th and June 20th of the Fordow fuel enrichment facility that revealed unusual truck and vehicular activity near the entrance to the underground military complex. On June 19th, a group of 16 cargo trucks were positioned along the access road that leads to the tunnel entrance of the facility. Subsequent imagery on June 20th revealed that most of the trucks had repositioned approximately one kilometer northwest along the access road; however, additional trucks and several bulldozers were seen near the entrance to the main facility and one truck was positioned immediately next to the main tunnel entrance." | |
| ▲ | yehoshuapw 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | there actually are images of lots of movement there - so perhaps plain sight is the right answer. hopefully I am wrong |
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| ▲ | motorest 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > 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? | | |
| ▲ | 01100011 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Weird that Iran, an oil exporter with huge potential for solar, would expend so much energy on protecting a purportedly civilian nuclear program. I'm sure it's nothing. This isn't really relevant but I'm only making one comment in this post so I'll say it here: young folks don't remember decades of Iranian state sponsored terrorism and do not understand the context of conflict in the middle east. | | |
| ▲ | youngtaff 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Sooner or later they’re going to run oil of oil and gas | |
| ▲ | oa335 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > context of conflict in the middle east. Conflict in the Middle East is entirely rooted in Israeli ethnic cleansing campaigns and western adventurism and protections of Israeli interests. If Iran went away tomorrow, the region would still have massive support for violent movements targeting Israel. |
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| ▲ | m000 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 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. |
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| ▲ | herbst 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > No increase in radiation levels have been detected, the UN's nuclear watchdog says I guess means no. However I have no idea what they would say if they did. "Yes we poisoned the whole area for generations to come, success!" |
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| ▲ | KevinCarbonara 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I don't know that it can be confirmed, but Iran is claiming that the US tipped them off. This is a fairly standard tactic, and it makes more sense here. This is something that would satisfy both the pro-war crowd and the group that is pro-Israel or anti-Iran, but not necessarily pro-war. We get to show our strength and support for our allies without really committing. |
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| ▲ | hackerknew 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Even if it is only set back by a few months, that is enough time to put pressure on Iran to abandon it altogether. Keep in mind, Israel has full aerial control over Iran and has taken out hundreds of their missile launchers. We can keep pounding the various nuclear facilities and hinder ant chances of rebuilding, making any effort futile. |
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| ▲ | disgruntledphd2 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | 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). | | |
| ▲ | dotancohen 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | That sounds to me like the US seriously needs to promote non-petroleum sources of energy. If not for the environment, for their own national sovereignity. | | |
| ▲ | dreghgh 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The thing is, the United States is self sufficient in petroleum. But domestic prices will go up to reflect the effect on world supply. Arguably the same could happen given widespread use of non petroleum sources of energy. Prices will go up to reflect the marginal cost of hydrocarbon based energy, even if that use is minimal, until the point where the energy network is completely decoupled from those markets. This happened in the United Kingdom after the invasion of Ukraine. More wind was used as gas became more expensive. But the price of electricity from wind also went up. | | |
| ▲ | chgs 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | US could ban fuel exports. Unlikely as rich people would suffer, but they may be placated with bribes. | |
| ▲ | disgruntledphd2 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The UK increase was because of how the contracts work but yeah agreed in general. Sustainable energy is good for a bunch of non environmental reasons. |
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| ▲ | adastra22 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The US is a net oil exporter. | | | |
| ▲ | spacecadet 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yeah, but good luck! Been trying to convince people of this for years... |
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| ▲ | Ygg2 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | 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. | |
| ▲ | UncleMeat 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | "Don't worry, we can just engage in a bombing campaign against a foreign nation indefinitely." |
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| ▲ | nmca 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| How do you purport to know this? |
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| ▲ | hajile 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | 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). | |
| ▲ | coffeebeqn 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 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) |
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| ▲ | stickfigure 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I'm willing to bet that the Americans can build another one of those GBU-57 bombs every some months if they had to. |
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| ▲ | adventured 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| The US, Israel and possibly Britain will install a no-fly zone over Iran. Israel is going to be entirely unwilling to allow Iran to go right back to building again what just got destroyed. This was a once in decades shot for Israel to take against Iran, in its very weakened state (with its proxies out of commission, Syria knocked over, and Russia very preoccupied). They'll attempt the post Gulf War I approach against Iraq (as an invasion will never be on the table). Sanctions and no-fly zone. They'll retain control over Iran's sky and in doing so will be free to bomb as they see fit if Iran attempts to build or re-start something like Fordow. If they attempt to install new air defenses, they'll simply bomb them. Whether that one bombing took care of Fordow is going to be moot, they'll hit it ten more times if that's what it takes, and destroy anything that attempts to move in or out of there. Israel can't maintain a no-fly zone over Iran so the US will be enlisted to do the heavy lifting on that. |
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| ▲ | 400thecat 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | 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 | | |
| ▲ | dreghgh 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes, this was also said about Iraq in 1991. | | |
| ▲ | adastra22 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | The US negotiators in Iraq in ‘91 stupidly didn’t enforce a total no-fly zone, allowing the use of helicopters by the regime. Saddam used helicopter gunships to mow down the would-be revolutionaries attempting regime change. Israel won’t make the same mistake. | | |
| ▲ | dreghgh 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | 91 also happened in a brief period where Russia was holding back from supplying end-of-line military hardware to anyone who wanted to take a shot at the United States and its clients. | |
| ▲ | Gonkdd 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | UncleMeat 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In one month if the Iranian government has not been overthrown by its own people what will you do? Will you change your beliefs or will the goalpost move? | |
| ▲ | adventured 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The IRGC is unlikely to let the regime fall so easily. They'll kill a lot of Iranians to stop that from happening. The Iranian people have limited means to fight at present. The no-fly zone and sanctions approach will be used to attempt to strangle the regime over the coming years. It'll take a small miracle for the regime to fall anytime soon, it's not that weak yet (imo) despite what the propaganda is claiming. | | |
| ▲ | 400thecat 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Israel can bomb the IRGC and Basij bases, police and prisons (release political prisoners). They can collapse the regime, restrict its movement, eliminate chain of command. From there the Iranian people can raise and topple the regime | | |
| ▲ | TheAlchemist 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This is quite interesting to me - how long can Isreal really continue with such intensity ? The distance between Israel and Iran is huge - it must be extremely expensive to operate the air bridge allowing their air force to operate as it did last week. But I would be really surprised if they can go on like that for a month. | |
| ▲ | disgruntledphd2 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This seems wildly implausible. I've never heard of this happening as the result of foreign attacks. And also, any new regime is very unlikely to be more pro Israel or the US. |
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| ▲ | tharmas 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Overthrow and get what? Another Libya? |
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| ▲ | foldr 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 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. | | |
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