yes, yes. Poor Iran.

Looks like the rumor was incorrect. Both jointly attacked (NYtimes - https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/02/28/world/iran-strikes-t...)

I’m honestly perplexed. I had anticipated a scenario like “the US feared Iran was unstable and attacked to protect nuclear material”. It seems this would give them reasonable cover. I don’t see how Israel going along helps

Just now:

Trump: "The lives of American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties - that often happens in war."

Another republican president starting a war in the middle east, once again sacrificing American lives.

Due to distance planes need to take off many hours before the bombs drop.

You can get an edge here by moving your ass somewhere where you can see the planes take off, maybe a team with people at multiple locations - boats near the aircraft carrier, near military bases in Israel, ...

Iraq was not an Islamic regime in the same sense. It was not a theocracy. There were non Muslims in senior political positions.

The Iraqi government was a lot more stable.

What exactly do you imagine will replace the Iranian government that is worse?

> While I have no love for the Iranian regime

Who say US is not regime? It is the world largest regime in the world, with bidders in every country to do their bidding, mass surveillance including their own country men. People blame only Russia, China, Iran etc when US have been doing the same for years.

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/w6_2Ul3Ght8

> Boots on the ground? In Iran?

Trump is a coward. He knows that boots on the ground will mean massive losses.

The only way he does that is if someone convinces him that they can go in and out very quickly.

Unlike Venezuela I doubt there are people in the right place to oust Khamenei.

The plan is a show of power. Trump will leave in 2 years, leaving much of the world in disarray because he had no plan whatsoever, and his staff is literally out of the movie Idiocracy. Nothing of lasting value will come out of the horrors that happened in the past 3 years, and in 10 years we (the world) will look back into the present with disbelief.

I don’t think it’s possible to change regime without boots on the ground which is not currently considered. So there will be no power vacuum, at most Iran military will be weaken. It’s not a big win for the US but would allow Trump to safe face after his demands were essentially rejected.

What does it mean "fail"?

What is the goal, to overthrow the regime, so success would mean a change of government?

(sorry, I haven't followed)

So replacing a fascist with western antagonism and constant threat on American allies, with a somewhat democratic, weak, and western aligned government?

Sounds like a good idea

Your description of what happened in Iraq was exactly the point of why we invaded. Iraq and Iran were the two biggest threats to Israel, we got rid of Iraq and now we are removing the only other rival to Israel remaining in the Middle East.

After this, Israel, being the only nuclear power in the region and having massive funding from the American taxpayer, will dominate the entire region. This has always been the goal.

The place has 90 million people, how do you even deal with this without throwing the whole place into chaos?

Besides, after this the collective west has no moral high-ground anymore, the global south will resent us more than ever. If other countries go to aggressive wars, our condemnation is worthless.

Trump is completely compromised and it was probably the powers that be who told them that this is how it is going to be.

You just need access to the videos then the pedo cabal does whatever you want

I'm pretty sure US higher-ups have been publicly describing Iran regime change as a todo-list item for a while now...

It was pretty obvious that if the negotiations failed that the US would respond by attacking Iran. Iran didn't seem willing to give up their nuclear weapons program regardless of the quite predictable consequences.

Somehow world will close eyes again ... Somehow we need to bring back moral standards that we all have deep in ourselves and screw this money world me all made together... I dont have answers or ideas how but this is just nonsense

His court appearance are continuing as scheduled, twice a week, for the last year. except for some specific incidents where he had to leave of cancel due to running a state.

No matter what you think, there is no way for him to avoid these hearings

While Netanyahu definitely deserves that, don't expect anything to change for the better in Israeli foreign policy if he gets deposed and tried. Israeli politicians have become radicalized to a level that is hard to imagine from a European or US perspective.

Even the leader of the "left wing" opposition has recently explicitly stated that Israel was gifted the entire region from the Euphrates to the Nile by God, so they would have a right to own the entire region, but that this must be balanced by security concerns and tactical realities. This happened in response to the US ambassador's explicit public remarks in the Tucker Carlson interview that also asserted Israel's God-given right to the entire region. Note that this region, from the Euphrates to the Nile, includes about half of Irak, parts of Syria, most of Lebanon, parts of Saudi Arabia, and of Egypt.

Same, this is disgusting. Actions like these need oversight by the US people.

To add to this: anyone who still does not see that Israel is by and far the most dangerous rogue state in the region is (at best) blinded by propaganda.

Iran has repeatedly demonstrated restraint and pragmatism throughout these aggressions on their sovereignty, starting with Israel’s strike on their consulate in Damascus.

There is a curious cognitive dissonance in which people think is somehow more morally correct to do human rights abuses abroad than at home. The US is doing both currently, though.

Can't have Gaza have relief for a second!

LOL. The US is on it too. So what you have to say for yourself now?

What peace talks? The ones where for over a year Iran refused to deescalate their nuclear war program and the now Europe range ballistic missiles?

Sure seems that way. I don't really see how this military action is justified from a US perspective. Or even from an Israeli one. The most likely justification is that the leadership of the US and Israel are a little bit unhinged and want a war to distract from domestic issues.

What makes you think it suits Israel? There is only one person here it serves

careful, you might get flagged by the self appointed hackernews mods

Israel is the tip of the USA spear. We've seen this already, this should come as no surprise.

No. They're made in Virginia and broadcast to proxies around the world.

Seriously, I'm constantly amazed by how oblivious some Americans are. You got it all backwards.

You know the answer ;-)

I am not convinced that Israel is such an important ally.

I suspect a fourth column.

Oh, it's not only Israel. It's also a powerful distraction from the Epstein files.

This doesn't even benefit Israel, it benefits a bunch of power-hungry sociopaths in Israel.

Nope. In Jerusalem.

> This feels like a much bigger development than Russia-Ukraine.

Russia-Ukraine war is 1M+ combat casualties deep and is nowhere near finished. You are out of touch.

Depends how you count “big”. Russia-Ukraine has had about 1 million deaths, and has completely changed how Europe thinks about security- it’s hardly a sideshow. Then again, not much territory has changed hands and there has been no regime change yet.

Russia and Ukraine are now at war for the fifth year running, you're just used to the fact that there is ongoing war in Europe.

No it's not. This is an air strike campaign, no boots on the ground. It'll end in two weeks. There is no chance China or Russia get involved, like last time, so "WW3" is completely non-credible.

Could be more of an intimidation tactic. The United States of Israel wouldnt go to a land war in Iran, that's unwinnable

There's no land campaign. It's an isolated series of strikes for PR reasons and wishful thinking about Iran collapse.

Otoh, what russia desperately needs in the short term is oil prices to go up, so there is probably a major silver lining for them.

WW3 started with the invasion of Ukraine.

I doubt either of them is keen to enter the fray here. Russia is making shaheeds at home now anyway

More like this is a small piece of the puzzle in Russian-Ukraine war. Iran plays quite a big role in supplying Russians. If Iran is taken out, power balance in that war may change too.

I don't think it's bigger than Russia-Ukraine - it's part of it. This is all about destabilising Iran's incumbent government, which is probably a good thing at the moment. It'll damage supply lines to Russia's Ukraine offensive, give the chance for Iranian citizens to rise up against Khamenei and the IRGC and break the command chain for their foreign proxy operations. Part of Dugan's work on geopolitics, which they seem to be following to the word (c'mon guys seriously?) suggests that Moscow and Tehran should be allied which they are behind the scenes.

As for the nuclear threat, literally Iran said it was going to destroy Israel to the point it had a massive countdown clock in Tehran until Israel blew it up, so meh. If I was on the receiving end of that threat I'd make it a policy to respond to it, escalation or not. I make no claims of the accuracy of the threats past IAEA being unable to verify they aren't enriching stuff.

Doubt it'll escalate into WW3. The only other powers involved are Russia, who are totally hands tied with Ukraine if they like it or not and China is only interested keeping what's left in its sphere of influence later through their outreach initiatives. I suspect most Middle Eastern countries will be quite happy about this conflict as they have persistent problems with Iran as well from the Houthis, Hezbollah and tens of other factions. They won't want to say anything though in case their own citizens turn on them.

The cringeworthy thing is how the US gov are communicating this and that does the operation a lot of damage. It's really quite terrible. Sounds like it was written by a bunch of 9 year olds after too many sugary drinks. Urgh.

As big as this is, the Russia-Ukraine war pretty much marked the end of the post-WW2 era and redefined global relations between the powers. In that sense, this is yet another major shift within this new era. But also, the series of events that led to this point does connect to the Russia-Ukraine war, and maybe doesn't happen without it.

Putin said it himself, there are over 2 million russians in Israel - they will not participate

This is a laudable position, and I don't say this to discourage you or others from taking this action, but taxation does not effectively constrain US military spending, as long as the USD remains globally desirable and the US retains the ability to print more of them.

If you're willing to go through all this trouble, why not just become politically active? Don't underestimate what a motivated individual can do. All these public figures (or institutions) swaying the country back and forth are only people too.

That would be unsound? Travel to Europe _before_ giving your assets away so you can stick the landing and work on building useful stuff there instead.

I’ll be a willing receptacle for your donations. I am homeless living with schizoaffective disorder and could use the help!

You're a good person and I feel similarly. We live under the Fourth Reich.

I do not think ceasing work is the right move, but definitely get involved politically and don't equivocate when you condemn our elected "representatives".

It might also soothe your soul to be in the company of like-minded individuals. A Quaker prayer is a sure place to find many.

16 months ago, he was campaigning on no new wars.

Presumably, what he meant was 'No, new wars!'

Did anybody need those? The deployment of half the US army near israel was not enough evidence?

Those spiked like 50x in the past 4 months. Doesn't seem to mean anything.

The way they justify everything in the modern time.

“The strong do what they will. The weak suffer what they must.”

If you are in the US, pray that you are never weak.

They stopped doing that, really.

You might've missed it but the "department of defense" is now "department of war'.

I don't get that argument at all. Americans felt that they were missing out on all the fun, so they decided to kill even more Iranians? Does anyone really believe that bombing cities saves lives?

Why are we even talking about this? As if this is being done for the 'protestors'? Netanyahu didn't visit the White House 6 times in the last year to advocate for the welfare of the Iranian people. The "negotiations" over the last several weeks weren't over protestors - it was over the Nuclear program, ballistic program and proxy forces. It wasn't even about US interests. Iran offered mining, oil and other valuable rights. Trump wasn't buying. This is about Israel's national security interests and hegemonic ambitions. Protestors are just pawns in service of that.

If this turns into a full-scale war or a civil war breaks out, we are looking at 1 million Iranian deaths conservatively speaking. Just look at happened at every single foreign intervention in the region - Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia. How does a million dead Iranians help them? How does it help the Americans, and the world if oil infrastructures or shipping lanes are targeted ? How does it help the region or Europe when millions of refugees flood out, and armouries are broken open and weapons and insurgents flood the region (like it did with Iraq and Libya)? It helps Israel greatly though, since they take out their arch nemesis, their conventional military and the nuclear program. And they think can shield themselves from the chaos they create around them.

I think its incredibly difficult to get confirmed numbers in a situation like that.

I do think its on the higher end though as i dont think they would have bothered with a costly extended internet blackout if the number was small.

Why does it matter? Is it justification to attack them?

The point is preventing another North Korea style nuclear blackmail state.

Iran has negotiated like no one will ever attack it, and that was a correct assumption for decades

However, due to Iran's overly aggressive use of questionably rational proxies, Hamas has dragged it into a regional conflict where it lost most of its proxies power.

After the last war, it also is no longer a threshold state, so the only leverage they had left was ballistic missiles, which were also handled quite reasonably by Israeli air defense.

In this situation it is a fair request by the US to sign a nuclear deal that heavily restricts Iran's ability to enrich as well as ICBM, trigger with existing uranium stockpiles removed.

As Iran due to ideological reasons refused, and IMO had miscalculated this will be a win-win, as losing will quell the protests, the only thing really left is the metaphorical stick

On Israel, is it possible that they feel their influence on US foreign policy is waning and they want to push over Iran before they can’t do it anymore, even if the propaganda in America hasn’t been sufficiently set up yet to provide cover? Where pushing Iran over is useful because having weak neighbors is good for their expansion?

Possibly wishful thinking, but that’s the only way I can make it make sense in my head.

You don’t unseat the Fraudster in Chief while at war. So starting a war is a slightly less conspicuous trick than outright preventing relevant elections from taking place.

The point is that Israel can't tolerate any competition in the area.

Wesley Clark: "We're going to take out 7 countries in 5 years":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWxKn-1S8ts

Yes, when you ask the basic Clauzewitz question about "continuation of politics by other means": what are the war aims, and how is this action connected to them?

What are the strikes even against?

Do they seriously think that after Iran shot all the street revolutionaries, another group will come forward and collapse the government?

Are they treating Iran as Big Serbia? It's a very different situation!

Or is this just for the Posting?

Probably a continuation of the 'mowing the lawn' strategy (as used against the Palestinians). Every now and again use massive military force to set back Iran's capabilities, time and effort they spend rebuilding is time and effort not spent causing problems elsewhere.

> What are they trying for? Regime change in Iran?

Seems like it. I can't imagine what else they might try for.

I suppose USA might think some shock and awe will result in iran making concessions at the bargaining table, but that seems unrealistic to me.

> No more Iranian nuclear program? There barely was one before.

That seems very debatable.

> Keeping Israel safe? It's been an open secret for years that Iran is not a real threat to Israel, because any action it took against Israel would be existential for Iran and its leadership.

Well they did take action against israel (you could say they were indirectly responsible for oct 7). Now they are facing said existential threat.

---

Ultimately though. Iran has been a major threat to both israeli and US interests, largely by funding proxy groups that take violent action against those interests. That's your motive for a war.

Iran is currently weak, facing multiple internal and eexternal crisises.

A war is happening because there is a limited window where iran is weak but the window potentially won't remain. That's the reason behind a lot of wars in history.

To save the persians from islam

It accomplishes the goal of diverting attention away from the recent revelations of a pedophile ring among the elites having operated from a private island for decades, with current US president and serial rapist Trump being best friends with the ring leader.

It's bound to be incredibly successful at accomplishing that goal.

Similarly, wars against Iraq and Afghanistan were very successful in diverting attention away from 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers being from Saudi Arabia, and later on from the funding provided to one or more of the hijackers by Saudi officials. With a certain Ms. Maxwell being asked to join the investigatory committee on the event in question.

Anyone raising their weapon against Israel in the last 20 years was armed, supplied, funded, trained and directed by Iran. There’s a special division called Quds in the IRGC responsible just for that. The list includes Hizbollah, Assad’s former regime in Syria, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Houthis, Hizbollah in Iraq and others.

Well, they're probably killing thousands of their people there. This country was once aligned with us. We may yet have an ally there.

It gets his base fired up and excited.

Some people here might not be American or were too young to remember the lead up to the Iraq War, but it was transparently bullshit. Many people knew this. But if you dared say that, supporters would actively ruin your life. The Dixie Chicks were one of the most popular music acts in the US at the time, a country band that broke out of country and was getting huge appeal across the US. They dared to say they opposed the war. Their careers never returned.

Now with social media that isn't completely locked down, some voice of opposition can slip through and assure people that, yes, this is crazy. No, we don't need to blow the shit out of towns across the world. But these social media sites are all owned by government-aligned mega billionaires. They're rolling out AI that can comment and act very, very human and endorse everything the government does. They can auto-police opinions and spit out thousands of arguments and messages of harassment against them in seconds. Soon they'll be autoblocking any sense of disagreement.

It's at that point they can say that this is done to defend America. This is done to defend freedom. This desert country that's too screwed up to even manage its own internal affairs is somehow so dangerous that it's going to destroy the whole world with nukes it doesn't even have so we must destroy them all now. Dear leader always has your interests at heart. And you'll have no info to point to saying otherwise. Everyone who dares question it will be mocked, ridiculed, fired. Even if this administration fails, the tools are being built and laid out for the next, and I really don't know how humanity will overcome it. And I hate that I can't have optimism in this situation.

This discussion is one where it's worth looking at commenters' histories. Many have several pages where the bulk of their posts are defending Israel, saying war with Iran is necessary, and various related things. It's kind of spooky

It's regime change this time. Trump published a message calling for all Iranian military forces to surrender and the Iranian people to take over the government.

Their endgame is genocide. They will be happy to only enslave the Iranian people too. Seriously, USA and its colony in Palestine are colonialist supremacists and they just want to extract all the resources and don't mind killing all the people of that land.

It's a nakedly imperial gambit, the Western ruling classes are attempting to deny Middle Eastern oil to Russia and China. Iran is their only capable opposition in the region, every other Gulf country is a bought-and-paid-for satrapy which just cosigned a genocide on its doorstep.