The US-Iran War Has Begun

[Innula Zenovka]

Marco Rubio said the reason we attacked was because Israel was planning an attack. He has walked back his comments, but that was one of the original reasons, so it is not out of thin air or because of "the Jews".

There have been umpteen different explanations from various US officials as to why the US attacked Iran.

Why do you consider that explanation any more credible than any of the others? In particular, does not the fact that people like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owen, Marjorie Taylor Green and Megyn Kelly have all jumped on this particular one not give you some pause for thought?

To my mind, this makes a great deal of sense:

the lack of a more straightforward explanation for why the war was in America’s own interests should not inevitably point to a nefarious Israeli plot. Trump has done a lot of things that either belie logical explanation — like a tariff regime that even protectionist economists have looked askance at — or have been justified in fluid ways, or not at all.

But conspiracies help people make sense of confusing and stressful events, especially in the absence of a more sensible explanation.

Amid an incoherent war with Iran, antisemitism fills the vacuum

There’s no shortage of possible explanations but Trump and his advisers haven’t been able to pick one or even to say what the war’s objective is and when it might end

forward.com

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

As mentioned before: an important oil refinery of Saudi Aramco located in Yanbu was today hit by an Iranian drone. Yanbu is located near the Red Sea, about 900 miles away from Iran.

So while diversifying the locations makes sense, nowadays the West coast of Saudi Arabia is not out of Iran's reach.

Drone crashes into Saudi Arabia’s Samref refinery

RIYADH: A drone crashed into a refinery on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast on Thursday. The drone hit the Samref refinery in the port of Yanbu, a Ministry of Defense spokesman said, adding that a damage assessment is underway. Shortly before, the ministry said a ballistic missile launched toward...

www.arabnews.com

 

[Beebo Brink]

Why do you consider that explanation any more credible than any of the others?

I see it more as a perfect storm of factors. Trump likes to play with military toys, and he's been on a "look at powerful me" high since the strike on Venezuela. Meanwhile, both Netanyahu and MBS (allied strongly with Jared Kushner), have been quietly, or not so quietly, pushing for attacking Iran.

The precipitating event seems to be that Israel identified a key meeting of Iranian leadership, a perfect opportunity to take them all out. Israel was going to go for it, and Trump wanted in on the action, too. Because what better way to strut his stuff, right?

I don't blame Israel for this; I blame the citizens of the U.S. for putting a megalomaniac idiot with the emotional development of a 5-year-old into a position of authority. And I blame the GOP with a lock on our Congress for allowing him to destroy this country. Netanyahu may have been the match, but if it hadn't been him, someone else would have triggered Trump this way or that (as Putin has done) by holding up a shiny bauble of some kind.

If this Iranian conflict goes much longer, and Trump gets angrier at the loss of face, I fully expect him to try to nuke Iran. The only question is whether our military follows his orders.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I see it more as a perfect storm of factors. Trump likes to play with military toys, and he's been on a "look at powerful me" high since the strike on Venezuela. Meanwhile, both Netanyahu and MBS (allied strongly with Jared Kushner), have been quietly, or not so quietly, pushing for attacking Iran.

The precipitating event seems to be that Israel identified a key meeting of Iranian leadership, a perfect opportunity to take them all out. Israel was going to go for it, and Trump wanted in on the action, too. Because what better way to strut his stuff, right?

I don't blame Israel for this; I blame the citizens of the U.S. for putting a megalomaniac idiot with the emotional development of a 5-year-old into a position of authority. And I blame the GOP with a lock on our Congress for allowing him to destroy this country. Netanyahu may have been the match, but if it hadn't been him, someone else would have triggered Trump this way or that (as Putin has done) by holding up a shiny bauble of some kind.

If this Iranian conflict goes much longer, and Trump gets angrier at the loss of face, I fully expect him to try to nuke Iran. The only question is whether our military follows his orders.

I agree. Israel has its own priorities, and -- probably rightly -- considers Iran an existential threat. Plus, of course, Netanyahu is desperate for a successful military operation to distract from his failures in the days before the October 7th massacre and from his continuing trial on corruption charges.

Trump, however, did not need to join in with the attack, any more than did the US' allies and China need to agree to Trump's demands that they help the US keep open the Strait of Hormuz, despite the obvious fact that the US is in a far better position to retaliate for this refusal than is Netanyahu in a position to retaliate against the US for failing to support him.

As you suggest, Trump committed the US to the attack because, at the time, he simply wanted to because it would make him feel good.

The simple fact is that we're all at the mercy of a US president who is clearly just acting on impulse, with no regard for anything but his immediate gratification and what he perceives as his self-interest at the moment he acts, and no one in the US seems able to restrain him.

Much as I dislike Netanyahu and his government, I can't blame them for Trump being who and what he is, or for the complete failure of the US's famous checks and balances when actually put to the test in a matter of the national interest rather than partisan advantage.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Financial Times: Why Hormuz will haunt us long after this war ends (Evernote link because FT paywall)

Beyond the immediate crisis lies the longer-term problem. By assassinating the leaders of Iran — and making clear that regime change is a goal of the war — the US and Israel have permanently changed Iran’s incentive structure.

Before this latest war, the Iranian regime still had a motive to avoid the all-out confrontation with the US that would be the inevitable consequence of closing the strait. But now Iran’s thinking has changed. As Sir Simon Gass, a former British ambassador to Tehran, put it to me, Trump’s effort to overthrow the Iranian government “is the moment at which the regime concludes that this is potentially a fight to the death and that therefore they have to use all of the tools at their disposal and closing the Strait of Hormuz is one”.

Iranian moderates, who once argued for diplomacy with the west rather than all-out confrontation, may have been permanently undermined by the fact that the US attacked while negotiations were still under way. Even if the Islamic republic decides, at some point, that it has an interest in reopening the Strait of Hormuz — it will always want to retain the option of closing it again as a visible threat to ward off aggressors.

 

[Beebo Brink]

Trump is going to need a bigger bus. Not sure all these guys will fit under a standard model.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Next they should tell him Iran will strike from Mar-A-Largo...

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Who the fuck has the keys to this war machine? Are there even keys? Can just anybody get in and drive away with it?

It's an autonomous vehicle.

 

[Free]

It's an autonomous vehicle.

Fuck Elon.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

 

[Free]

They were close.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

BREAKING: Trump Commits Thousands Of Troops To The Middle East - Iran Has Been Waiting For "US Boots On The Ground" For 47 Years.

Trump is gearing up to seize Kharg Island. The IRGC built their entire military doctrine around the day America tried.

deanblundell.substack.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Iranian man arrested trying to enter Faslane nuclear base

An Iranian man has been arrested with a woman after trying to enter the Faslane naval base, home to the UK's nuclear-armed submarines.

www.bbc.co.uk

Also

Two men in court charged with spying on London Jewish community for Iran

The prosecution alleges they carried out reconnaissance of targets including Britain's oldest synagogue.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Veritable Quandry]

BREAKING: Trump Commits Thousands Of Troops To The Middle East - Iran Has Been Waiting For "US Boots On The Ground" For 47 Years.

Trump is gearing up to seize Kharg Island. The IRGC built their entire military doctrine around the day America tried.

deanblundell.substack.com

I remember the Iran-Iraq war. Iran fought agaist better armed and trained troops by accepting large casualties in human wave attacks to wear down the enemy. Now the Revolutionary Guard has better equipment and battlefield experience in Syria and Iraq. Boots on the ground will result in casualties on both sides. Iran only has to wait until we are unwilling to send more troops.

 

[Soen Eber]

Fuck Elon.

Modern war has always been an autonomous vehicle.

 

[Free]

Modern war has always been an autonomous vehicle.

Autonomous like a Tesla is autonomous. Like a self-cleaning oven is autonomous. Like the Voyager spacecrafts are autonomous. Except, somebody presses their start buttons. Someone directs their actions. Someone decides if they're to do anything. Someone.

When war is truly autonomous, requiring no interaction from someone, maybe then war will stop.

 

[Lexxi]

Autonomous like a Tesla is autonomous. Like a self-cleaning oven is autonomous. Like the Voyager spacecrafts are autonomous. Except, somebody presses their start buttons. Someone directs their actions. Someone decides if they're to do anything. Someone.

When war is truly autonomous, requiring no interaction from someone, maybe then war will stop.

According to some science fiction I've seen/read, when there is no one left, the war continues with the autonomous tanks, missiles, space-ships, etc., continuing the fight.

 

[Free]

According to some science fiction I've seen/read, when there is no one left, the war continues with the autonomous tanks, missiles, space-ships, etc., continuing the fight.

Well according some science fiction I've seen/read, we as well as our autonomous tanks, missiles, space-ships, etc., will be turned into little more than gray goo. So there's that to hope for.

 

[Lexxi]

Well according some science fiction I've seen/read, we as well as our autonomous tanks, missiles, space-ships, etc., will be turned into little more than gray goo. So there's that to hope for.

Just depends on if the factories are automated or not, and if the automatons have access to space. Destroy one planet. Move on, repeat. 'Course when it came up in Star Trek, it was super easy, hardly an inconvenience, to trick or otherwise stop the automatons. (not referring to the Borg here, but instead certain episodes wherein they found automated missiles and the like).

 

[Free]

Putin offers to stop sharing intel with Iran if US cuts off Ukraine

The U.S. rejected the Russian proposal, which has nonetheless sparked concerns in Europe amid growing transatlantic tensions.

www.politico.eu

Moscow proposed a quid pro quo to the U.S. under which the Kremlin would stop sharing intelligence information with Iran, such as the precise coordinates of U.S. military assets in the Middle East, if Washington ceased supplying Ukraine with intel about Russia.

Two people familiar with the U.S.-Russia negotiations said that such a proposal was made by Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev to Trump administration envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner during their meeting last week in Miami.

The U.S. rejected the proposal, the people added. They, like all other officials cited in this article, were granted anonymity due to the sensitivity of the discussions.

But how could Moscow propose this when they said they were not sharing intelligence with Iran?

Oh. Oh my...