Iran has a population of 92mil and an economy vastly stronger than iraq 2003 -- it also has extremely motivated backers in China, who are eagar to use it the way the US uses Ukraine: a means to deplete a peer competitor of their military resources. The best outcome for China here is the US blowing its assets in Iran.

The propaganda at the moment is israel is winning, iran isnt using missiles because of "air superiority", and the US is able and willing to detroy the nuclear capacity via the air. All of these claims are false. Iran's capacity to strike back remains vast using only its own resources.

What the US has been dragged into by israel is an amazing opportunity for a US peer competitor (china) to grind down its arms -- it would be remarkable if China doesn't take it. It can hardly afford the US to be a well-armed protector of Taiwan.

The iranian regieme's apparent hesitation at the moment is not as extreme as russia's on the first days of the ukraine war, and look at where we are now. This apparent hesitation is waiting for israel to deplete its missile defense, waiting for a more stable intelligence environment (presumably moving assets, etc. around out of uncovered israeli operations), and most of all, waiting for a moment to strike off-guard.

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whynotminot 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The bombs used were literally designed for Iran. They deplete no real capability that matters anywhere else the US is meaningfully engaged.

If the US had lost a B2 during the operation, then sure, that would be a major loss. But as far as I can tell we did not.

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mjburgess 4 hours ago | parent [-]

The ground invasion hasn't started yet, the US is supplying israel, and you can see my other comment.

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whynotminot 4 hours ago | parent [-]

We’re always supplying Israel. I think that cost is basically priced-in at this point.

If we get involved in a ground invasion, sure, that’s a different matter.

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mjburgess 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Even if its an israeli ground invasion only, that's still a massive arms injection --- at the same time the US is supplying a ground war in europe.

A ground war in europe, one in the middle east -- all of the US assets in distant seas, its bombs in distant lands. Pretty good time to be a china on tour.

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whynotminot 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Brother take a look at a map. Exactly how does Israel pull off a sustained ground invasion of Iran, even if the US committed to help?

Sure, maybe some targeted commando raids here and there. They’re already doing that.

Large scale invasion though? Almost logistically impossible unless you’re telling me the maps I’ve looked at my whole life are state propaganda too.

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mjburgess 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Where did the US invade iraq from?

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-navy-receives-second-o...

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whynotminot 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Procuring two landing craft means Israel has the capability to sustain a sea invasion of the scale required to subdue a 92 million population? It would require something like a modern day Normandy to pull this off.

This is not a serious suggestion.

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mjburgess 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Yip, so it would require US support.

As far as I can tell, israel is doing everything it can to escalate the situation to a place where the US is forced into it. We'll have to see if it can be avoided.

The problem for iran is that while they may believe the US is unwilling to escalate, and so be happier to go "arms down" -- they won't be allowed to by israel. So they're being forced up the escalation ladder.

There are very many things that they can do which would destabilise US military and economic interests directly. One imagines israel will do everything i can to provoke such a response.

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JoRyGu 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You have literally worked yourself up into hysteria if you think Israel is in any position to invade Iran, even with US support.

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mjburgess 2 hours ago | parent [-]

What do you mean by "in a position"? Do i think it would be successful? of course not, that's mad.

Do I think israel is inclined to try, or otherwise, risk failure on the back of US blood and treasure? More or less, yes -- i think that's quite likely.

The US invasion and occupation of vietnam, afganistan, iraq, etc. were all mad. The US foreign policy elite are not very competent because america doesnt receive any real blowback from its failures -- so there's no conditioning mechanism to force it into instutitonal competence.

Do I think such an elite would do one more stupid thing? yes, its actually far more improbable that they'd learn caution

They've bankrupted america, caused half the world to turn against them -- all the while presiding over the rise and enrichment of a peer competitor (china). You could not describe a more incompent, warmongering, self-destructive set of foreign policy institutions.

It's what happens when you are isolated on your own continent and rarely have to pay for your decisions.

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bigyabai an hour ago | parent [-]

Operations are defined by goals. If you want to invade or launch a special forces op into your enemy territory, you need a small and attainable goal. Not "eliminate all nuclear threats" but more like "clear this area of nuclear materiel" in any areas you consider suspect. Otherwise you end up deploying troops that never come home.

Israel's state government is absolutely filled to the brim with war hawks - but they're not stupid. The situation they want to contain is too large to fix with IDF ground forces, they necessarily have to involve US force structures to seriously challenge Iran. And even then, it feels likely that we'd be looking at an Afghan War situation where guerrilla combat absolutely shreds the modern forces the further they push in.

	▲	mjburgess an hour ago \| parent [-]
		"they're not that stupid" has not been a good predictive theory of western foreign policy since the victorian era

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tome 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And if a ground invasion doesn't happen will you agree to never to speculate on the subject again?

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mjburgess 2 hours ago | parent [-]

No, nor have I said a ground invasion will happen. It's also an inherently ridiculous thing to say -- if I am wrong about highly complex geostrategic outcomes then i should never think about them again? By that logic, the entire US foreign policy establishment would likewise have to suspend its activities.

In any case, I'm talking about inferred goals, capacity, strategy. I'm constructing a viable theory of what their strategy would be if they achieved their aims.

The goals of israel are regime change and nuclear disarmament -- these cannot be achieved from the air. It might be that israel is content to lose on these objectives, and so be it.

I expected that most of my comments here would be heavily downvoted, and its somewhat suprising that they arent. Most people are operating from a profoundly heavily propagandized view of foreign policy, and of their own countries -- and whenever one raises thinking about these issues in ways which suspend this propaganda one gets a very angry reaction: everyone one is a nationalist, either midly or extermely, but a nationalist never the less. Asking people to thinking critically about their nation is tantamount to asking them to thinking critically about their mother.

Either way, I comment regardless for the few who are able to think clearly on these matters.

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tome 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> No, nor have I said a ground invasion will happen

Oof, OK, I suppose not, you only said "The [my emphasis] ground invasion hasn't started yet". There is some degree of ambiguity there. Forgive me for thinking you were saying one will happen.

> The goals of israel are regime change and nuclear disarmament -- these cannot be achieved from the air.

Ah! Is that a prediction you insist will happen? That there will be no regime change and no end to Iran's military nuclear programme without a ground invasion? Great! That's a testable hypothesis. Let's see.

> It's also an inherently ridiculous thing to say -- if I am wrong about highly complex geostrategic outcomes then i should never think about them again?

No, not at all (and I certainly didn't say "think", I said "speculate"). It's just a way of seeing if you put your money where your mouth is. If there is an incentive to someone predicting wrongly I'm more likely to take them seriously!

	▲	mjburgess an hour ago \| parent [-]
		P(neither of those aims being achieved from the air\|current strategy) = 90% if either were, this would be the first instnace in history -- so, presumably, i could be forgiven for the mistake but either way, I dont think israel believes they can be either

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foobarian 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I wonder if the regime is holding back so as to not piss off the remaining JCPOA signatories. They only have until October [1], and after that it's not clear if they can agree on a renewed set of sanctions.

[1] https://iranwire.com/en/politics/136431-how-the-snapback-mec...

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Invictus0 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We dropped a dozen highly specialized bombs in a single, closed-end operation, and you're arguing that this meaningfully depleted the USAF magazine enough to move the needle on a conflict in Taiwan?

	▲	mjburgess 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I'd be arguing first that the operation failed, and has made no meaningful impact on the mountain and esp. the nuclear facilities over 100m under granite. Generous estimates place relevant bomb capacity in the US at 100, though I believe only ~1/3 of that is confirmed. Reports say ~10 were used. So, speculatively, the US has used 25% of its capacity to bust deep fortifications -- and, imv, failed to make a dent. Credible estimates I'm aware of talk about dozens of bombs (per similar deep fortification), seriously depleting US capacity. It's unlikely the US would be willing to use up more than 50% of its bombing capacity here -- since a very large number of bombs are required for deep fortifications of this kind. ie., US capacity is about "destroying two mountains", and it really needs at least to retain capacity to destroy one. A well-designed nuke could take out the mountain, that's really the best air-supplied shot at taking the thing out. Either way, none of this can be confirmed without ground forces. So one wonders if at least some of this theatre is to provoke iran enough to react in a way that justifies a ground invasion. To your point, yes, china would absolutely love the US to degrade as much capacity as it possibly can. One images, even, they'd spin up a nuclear programme in iran very quickly again, just to try to drag the US back in. The US has done much worse. China's geostrategic goal at the moment is stamp on the rope-pins around the US elephant: ukraine, iran, israel, and so on. Have the US blow as much as possible of its rapidly depleting military arsenal everywhere but around china. Trump was the first president to really take this problem seriously, it's a little unfortunate that he's found himself in the same trap as every US president for the last 25 years.
	▲	4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

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bamboozled 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The propaganda

What propaganda ? I’ve seen the footage of Iran firing flak cannons somewhere in the direction of f35s. Not a single Israeli plane has been lost…where is the lie ?

Iran has a population of 92mil and an economy vastly stronger than iraq 2003* why assume they want the current leadership to remain in charge? Why assume they wanted nukes ?

You mention China grinding down its enemy ? What about the fact the air force is actually performing real missions being and gaining real experience ? Is a few bunker busters going to grind down the USAF ?

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mjburgess 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Neither you or I, and esp. not the media, have any access to facts on the ground. All photographs or videos you have seen have been placed there for you to see them.

All we can work backwards from are the most reliable facts we have before the war, about capabilities on the ground. We know the rough size of the iranian missile programme, of the country, economic, various military assets and similar.

We can work backwards from this to ask, "what would we be able to see had Israel achieved its claim re iran" -- and we're talking extraordinary levels of destruction in iran, across the country, and so on. We don't have any evidence of operations of that scale even taking place, let alone having been successful.

It is most likely, at the moment, that at least some alleged air force victories by israel are actual missiles they've issued from neighbouring states on the land.

However, either way, all of this is speculation. What can be stated with near certainty is that any picture presented in the media is an extremely careful creation of the propaganda arms of our states, and not a credible military briefing.

Our only access to reliable inferences is purely rational and hypothetical: what are X's aims, what are their claims, what are they claimed strategies, what are their capabilities and so on.. and then what would we see *if*...

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pliny 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>All photographs or videos you have seen have been placed there for you to see them

The source of most of the videos from both sides is random social media users.

Even the videos and info from the IDF I would regard as credible, since they released similar videos and info from the Lebanon operation last year that was consistently corroborated by evidence from social media (there was no internet blackout in Lebanon so every IDF strike on an urban area had multiple videos from different perspectives).

	▲	mjburgess 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Social media users placed by iran's full missile defense systems? Social media users at the bottom of 100m of granite? Social media users amongst the iranian barracks? I called the war for Russia ~2 years ago, just as the "counter offensive" by Ukraine was starting. Go back, if you wish, to that time in the news and find exactly what english-speaking western median, and social media, was saying. What is the picture you get, of Ukraine and its counteroffensive, delivered to you from these sources? It's always a little stunning just how easy it is for publics to be manipulated. Oh what a world.

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whynotminot 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I’m sorry in all this noise I’m failing to get to your point. Are you claiming that Iran is shooting down F-35s? Because that would be a pretty important piece of information that a lot of countries who have staked their Air Forces on the F-35 would like to know. It would also be a hard piece of information (damn near impossible) to keep under wraps, given the stakes, and the number of interested parties.

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mjburgess 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm claiming that the alleged air superiority is most likely partial and temporary.

I can make no specific claims as to any actions by any one involved in the conflict, if iran had shot down f35s presently, it'd be highly likely covered up by both sides. Iran to protect knowledge of its capability, and israel to ensure domestic morale is maintained.

Either way, that wasn't my claim.

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geysersam 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I think you make a good point about the facts being heavily skewed in the reporting on the attacks in Iran. But this seems very unlikely to me:

> Iran to protect knowledge of its capability

Protect knowledge against who? Israel will know if one of their planes were shot down, US will know. Besides, Iran claims to have shot down f35s, so they clearly want people to think they have that capability.

	▲	mjburgess 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I was merely giving a reason why Iran may not offer evidence of any given success --ie., , in doing so, it would reveal sensitive military information . I was not making a claim about F35s anyway, I have no specific information nor have I considered any, on relevant claims about F35s

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blindriver 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> All of these claims are false.

Source please.