France has been the most bellicose in rhetoric among European states, and they've given assistance to the Saudis in their conflict with Yemen. Given that Iran seems to view all these conflicts as different parts of a broader geopolitical and regional struggle, choosing to target France makes some sense. In the context of France's current political troubles it makes less sense to meddle and invite backlash, but perhaps they think that they will have the sympathy of the protesters and large immigrant community in France.

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spwa4 a day ago | parent [-]

List of countries Iran has attacked: Israel, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Azerbeidjan, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Greece, Oman, Syria, Azerbaijan, Turkey and of course US forces.

Of course, they targeted civilians in all of the above countries.

And if you include attacks on ships, the list goes all the way from China to Paraguay and has dozens of entries. Essentially all civilian as well, meaning their attacks against actual military ships were a minority of their attacks.

Of those, perhaps Israel and maybe Qatar can be considered defensive actions. And perhaps the attack on Greece was accidental (really aiming for a US ship in the Mediterranean)

If you made a full list of everything Iran has the physical ability to hit and compared to the list they did hit, the only missing countries would be Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan and Armenia.

I must say, it also seems to me unlikely in the extreme the French immigrant community, or anywhere in Europe, would significantly be on Iran's side. First, they're largely economic migrants, suffering due to Iran's actions. Second, they're largely from countries Iran attacked. Third, they're Sunni, not exactly Iran's traditional allies. Fourth: they're not making any money of Iran.

So ... maybe it's just me but I don't think rhetoric is the problem here.

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phainopepla2 a day ago | parent | next [-]

This comment makes it seem as if all these other countries were just standing around peacefully and Iran decided to attack them for no reason. The majority of those countries host US bases, many of which were used to stage attacks on Iran, and all of which are fair targets in a war started by the US (and Israel). It's also extremely puzzling, to say the least, why you would say that "perhaps" their attacks on Israel could be considered defensive, when Israel is one of the two that started this last war.

	▲	constantius a day ago \| parent [-]
		Exactly. France also has very few migrants from the countries 'Iran attacked': they're largely from North African and Francophone African countries. A lot of inconsistencies and half facts in that comment.

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t-3 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Of course, they targeted civilians in all of the above countries.

I haven't dug into it deeply, but I was under the impression that most of the Iranian targets were US bases and US-owned oil fields/energy infrastructure, with relatively few domestic civilian interests harmed. Am I mistaken?

I doubt the public in any country cares much about Iran's blockade, given that the US has "counter-blockaded" and claimed ownership and control of the stait. Iran was attacked first, then sneak attacked during negotiations, and has maintained a coherent and consistent policy during negotiations. Common people are sympathetic and view them as the underdog.

> Third, they're Sunni, not exactly Iran's traditional allies.

Muslims are far less divided than Western policy-makers imagine IMO, most have solidarity WRT Palestine and broader Middle Eastern geopolitics regardless of sectarian affiliation. Iran has been mostly successful in tying their struggle to the issue of Israel/Palestine, especially with the recently-interested younger people in western countries who have less reflexive reaction against Iran.

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jst1fthsdys a day ago | parent [-]

The US started to host US military personnel in civilian hotels after Iran targeted US bases and they weren't safe to stay there.

So, in essence, the US used the civilians as human shields.

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spwa4 14 hours ago | parent [-]

First, in many places (UAE for example, also Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Israel) they definitely did aim at civilians. For example, they aimed at civilian airport terminals in Israel and Saudi Arabia.

And for the military targets, it's just as accurate to say that Iran just doesn't have the technology to actually reliably aim for military forces and still fired at everything they could find, and this increased by a lot after it became clear almost none of their attacks on military targets actually landed. The result was explosives delivered in people's bedrooms.

From the published results, only 3 rockets/drones, out of tens of thousands, actually hit their targets. And one of those was ... people died so we don't criticize. But let's just say that the commander of those soldiers who died made a very suboptimal decision (hours) before they died.

The hits on civilians are despite those military bases targeted being hundreds of kilometers away from the civilians who died. One issue was that they used the same drones Russia is firing at Ukraine (some were Russian-made, even) and flew as low as possible, without avoiding highrise buildings on the flight path. They even hit civilians in Iran.

And can I just add: THIS you consider the US using human shields, but Iran putting a school of minority children on a military base without so much as a sign isn't using human shields? WTF.

	▲	jst1fthsdys 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Israel and the KSA have been shipping arms via their so called civilian airports. > none of their attacks on military targets actually landed. That they bothered to tell you about. They devastated the US bases so much the US can't operate out of them. You have to be a fool if you think only 3 rockets hit their targets. I'm not going to bother addressing the other parts. You are just repeating some mixture of incoherent propaganda.

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bulbar 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Of those, perhaps Israel and maybe Qatar can be considered defensive actions.

The regime started a proxy war against Israel decades ago, financing Hisbollah and eventually also Hamas, both with the official goal of destroying Israel.

Before the regime came into power, Iran had good relations to Israel.

So no, there's nothing 'defensive' when it comes to Iran's actions.

	▲	spwa4 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Actually, after the regime came into power they also had good relations with Israel. As long as they thought they could win the Iran-Iraq war they kept good relations (Iran-Iraq war: 2 years of Iraq attacking Iran, 7 years of Iran attempting to conquer Iraq). In fact Israel saved many high ranking Iranian officials from Iraqi assassination. Just shows: dictators will show no loyalty or gratitude. The second they can use you as a cheap excuse to stay in power and abuse that power, you better believe it will happen that very second. Iran has shown they will abuse everyone every way they can. This is the regime that is SO pure in their religious beliefs they distributed "plastic keys to heaven" to their cheapest demining equipment (primary school children, to the point that one problem was sometimes the kids weren't yet heavy enough that they wouldn't trigger an anti-personnel mine that an adult soldier coming later would still not be safe)