one missile fails, the other is intercepted

your conclusion: US will pull those resources back?

Yep. The IRGC runs the country at this point, and they do not have anyone else's best interests in mind.

Well I live in one of those countries in Europe, it's quite embarrassing: our government basically said:

"sure we would like to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, but only under peaceful conditions"

So, suppose the peaceful conditions are obtained, they will sail back the moment a single shot is fired? They want to partake only for show? I totally agree the Hegseth fulminating speeches are over the top and tasteless show... but what were European countries saying just days ago (they are turning around these days): that they want to pose and posture and pretend to be part of the power projection group, but not actually run any risks? They are willing to waste their taxpayer money on sending a mission, but only if they are required to pose for a show?

I'm glad they are starting to think a bit deeper than the initial b-hurt about not having received prior notice... consider the huge potential for leaks if each and every nitwit politician in every nation had been informed beforehand! Sometimes when I hear local politicians speak its almost if they WANT Iran to succeed, to possess nuclear warheads and ICBM's capable of reaching Europe!

False: I live in Europe, and I most definitely want Iran's ICBM, nuclear, weapons, etc facilities to be bombed to smithereens. I welcome the news every morning when I read about the exponential decay in absolute numbers of Iran's rockets and drones fired. It will take time until the last caches are depleted, but this intervention seems surprisingly cheap until now. Seeing how this evolves, its not just puzzling that this didn't happen before, its also saddening: if it was this easy to bring Iran to it's knees, a Hamas-less Gaza or Hezbollah-less Lebanon would have been spared the genocide Gaza endures now, and the instability in Lebanon now...

> and maybe Saudi Arabia?

The war is extremely bad for business for Saudi Arabia and has already cost them enormous amounts of money. It is causing damage to their oil refineries that will take years to repair.

The only person who gains anything out of this is Netanyahu and his friends. Everyone else loses, including the Israeli people.

Europe to do what to stop the war? EU cant even stop war on their own borders. And we seen what Trump buddies think about EU in their leaked Signal chat.

Also it's not like EU and UK actually have any military capacity to bomb Iran even if they wanted because again everything they do have is going to Ukraine already.

> the US president…

The President is a political leader.

To be fair Trump admins most optimistic timeline was “4-6 weeks maybe longer”. We’re at the end of week 3.

> Iranians are white, the name "Iran" literally means "Land of the Aryans".

The Indians were also Aryan according to race theories. I wouldn't put much sense into racism

These were ballistic missiles. They are only vulnerable during the terminal phase, when they are moving at hypersonic speeds. Standard fighter jets aren't going to do it. It would take ground based THAAD, Patriot, or ship based Aegis systems. London might want to budget for that.

They can fly well above any commercial and military aircraft.

It still does/is. Most of what I'm seeing with Iran is similar to what was discussed back in the early 2010s.

There hasn't been significant churn in the NatSec space aside from political appointees, and core policymakers like Doshi, Maestro, Allison, Colby, and even Hill have worked with administrations irrespective of party affiliation.

Did you protest when they killed 40,000 unarmed civilians in early January?

Intent is literally the difference in terrorism though. The US hitting 500 targets in Iran and one of them being a school is the exact opposite of a strategy of terrorism. With terrorism you explicitly target civilians to drive fear.

Trying to hit the Burj Khalifa without targeting any military or high political office is terrorism.

When Iran launched at military bases or tried to shoot at planes, it was not called terrorism.

Its a mystery how "the terrorists" have launched 1000's of missiles & drones, in 70+ (and counting) waves, across 3 weeks, spanning across the region, and yet they have ABJECTLY FAILED to:

* hit any hospital

* blow up any school

* nor murder any journalists.

Yet, despite this stunning lack of accuracy from ... "the terrorists", they have somehow managed to hit EVERYTHING ELSE they were aiming at.

On the other hand, the "West", who are absolutely NOT terrorists, have managed to blow up schools, slaughter hundreds and hundreds of school children, smash multiple hospitals, take out as many health workers & first responders as possible with double tap strikes ...

and let's not even mention the number of journalists deliberately targeted & killed, nor the families of journalists, deliberately targeted & killed

And to answer the "but they killed 25 million of their own civilians just weeks ago", it would be almost churlish to point out that the MASSIVE pro-Iran public sentiments expressed by ALL sectors of Iranian society would, to a logically thinking person, lead one to conclude that perhaps, just perhaps, the media campaign behind those riots was just pushing a complete LIE. Because those reports don't fit in a reality where, under direct bombardment and personal risk, those same civilians are supporting their state, their government & their leadership.

As always, the simplest explanations which fit observable facts are usually closest to the actual truth. And the simplest explanation is that the "definitely NOT terroristic" West has been lying about Iran, consistantly, for decades.

Either that, or the Mango Mussolini is the new Oracle of Delphi.

Go pick the hill you want to stand on ...

[dead]

Those were mostly UAVs, you can see the abysmal aiming ability in Israel, where they have largely stopped aiming at facilities and moved to cluster warheads to maximize civilian hit ratio in large metropolis

Hardly, after attacking all their friends in the region, which would leave them even more isolated after the war, I would not attribute careful strategic planning either

Do you think launching a dumb ICBM at New York would make the US put boots on the ground.

I kind of doubt it's enough. This wouldn't be another 9/11, it would be merely be retaliation.

> their regime is not stupid

It’s pretty fucking stupid. Convening the top brass above ground, failing to scatter the navy, bombing Azerbaijan and Qatar and Oman. I’m not saying the individual actors are dumb. But the result of the competing centers of power between the IRGC, military proper, clerical establishment and god knows who else produces a stupid strategy.

Their regime is made up of hardline Shia Twelvers that believe that if they kill enough people the Twelfth Imam will appear and lead them to global victory.

Only problem is the Twelfth Imam has been dead for a thousand years.

They may not be stupid, but they consistently act based on counterfactual beliefs.

They're Muslims. You can debate whether that means 'stupid', but they've come to totally erroneous opinions on the structure of reality.

> Iran, a fundamentalist fanatic country

United States, a fundamentalist fanatic country: https://bsky.app/profile/gregsargent.bsky.social/post/3mhgag...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47469696

I don't think they had any reason to destroy us until trump decided to kick the hornet's nest. In fact they were quite reasonable and agreed to inspections of their nuclear programme which is also something Trump broke before, and now with his petty war.

I mean they hate Israel way more than us and they never attacked them either (until this war obviously). And regime change was already happening there slowly. They would have become more moderate, the public opinion inside Iran was more and more against them especially since what they did to the protesters.

This war was unnecessary and only cemented the regime's hold on their people by giving them an external enemy.

> Anyone thinking they can talk their way into controlling Iran, a fundamentalist fanatic country with a very loud and visible doctrine literally calling to destroy the west, is delusional

Yeah, what's it about peoples of the third world that they're always fanatical, that they're always out to destroy the first world... https://theconversation.com/orientalism-edward-saids-groundb... / https://archive.vn/HoEk5

Yes, war is bad. Unless you're from the Complex. No big insight here, Mr. Rayiner.

>They’ve been preparing for this day for 5 decades...

So have the USA & Israel I suspect.

Five decades doesn't seem to mean much when most of their leadership, military and air defenses can be laid prostrate by the US and Israel in a couple of days. I don't ever take Trump for his word, but neither do I think there's wisdom in believing that a technologically superior force couldn't easily wipe out Iran's ballistic-capable navy just because they've been preparing for a long time.

Edit: am I wrong? Can copium in fact save inferior boats from a vastly superior military force?

We're losing the plot here. What use are small motor boats for launching ballistic missiles?

The haven’t even started using these yet, curious who wins this game of chess: https://www.usff.navy.mil/press-room/news-stories/article/31...