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On March 01 2026 02:55 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2026 02:48 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 28 2026 22:41 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
At this point, the US deserves every bad thing that happens to it and then some. It's stomach-churning. I wish the military canon fodder wasn't involved in this stupid shit, but hey, that's life. Hopefully the majority understand what it means and get out ASAP or just AWOL. Is this just emotional, or are you seriously calling for US service members to refuse orders and abandon their posts to avoid the consequences of their governments actions? I'm a veteran so I get what the issue is. I'm calling for them to refuse orders and to abandon their posts should (and all likelihood will be) these orders be illegal. You sign a contract, you're more or less beholden to that contract. But to go gung-ho on some bullshit orders is not what they should be doing. It needs to start at the top and the rest will follow. Some Generals need to protest before anything meaningful happens.
I remembered, that's part of why it took me a bit off guard.
The clarification about the future/elusive "illegal orders" makes more sense. What do you mean by "Generals need to protest"?
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Iran is going to have a new leader at the very least after this.
Israel has confirmed that Iran’s supreme leader was killed in strikes on Saturday, according to two Israeli sources familiar with the matter.
One of the sources said Israel had obtained a photo of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s dead body. The second source said an official announcement is being prepared.
Earlier in the evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there are many signs that Khamenei is “no longer with us.”
Meanwhile, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Iran’s president and Supreme Leader are “safe and sound.” But Khamenei has not been seen in public or in videos since the strikes began.
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We didn't kidnap him and charge him for owning weapons illegal to own in the United States?
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If the US military is hesitant to start a ground war, then I'm sceptical that the protestors and opposition can actually take and keep the power from the Iranian army and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Kahmein is probably gone, but it's hard to see a successor rejoining negotiations and appeasing Israel and the US. Apparently, there are demands for Iran to give up on ballistic missiles, which would remove its key ability to retaliate.
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On March 01 2026 07:05 Legan wrote:
If the US military is hesitant to start a ground war, then I'm sceptical that the protestors and opposition can actually take and keep the power from the Iranian army and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Kahmein is probably gone, but it's hard to see a successor rejoining negotiations and appeasing Israel and the US. Apparently, there are demands for Iran to give up on ballistic missiles, which would remove its key ability to retaliate.
the parallels to Russia demanding the demilitarization of Ukraine are rather easy to make.
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On March 01 2026 07:05 Legan wrote:
If the US military is hesitant to start a ground war, then I'm sceptical that the protestors and opposition can actually take and keep the power from the Iranian army and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Kahmein is probably gone, but it's hard to see a successor rejoining negotiations and appeasing Israel and the US. Apparently, there are demands for Iran to give up on ballistic missiles, which would remove its key ability to retaliate.
Iranians have destroyed a $1.1Bn dollar US radar with one shahed drone. As Ukraine has shown the war has changed and if you can't adapt you can't compete.
Now, the question is, have US taken any lessons from the war in Ukraine or will we get second superpower humiliated by drone tech where you're losing billion dollar assets to thousand dollar drones?
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On March 01 2026 03:09 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2026 23:53 oBlade wrote:On February 28 2026 23:45 Gorsameth wrote:On February 28 2026 22:41 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
At this point, the US deserves every bad thing that happens to it and then some. It's stomach-churning. I wish the military canon fodder wasn't involved in this stupid shit, but hey, that's life. Hopefully the majority understand what it means and get out ASAP or just AWOL. The thing is that when another plane flies into a tower 30 years from now, people won't remember it will be because of America's actions today. 1) Osama ordered the 9/11 attacks despite the US specifically directly supporting the mujahideen against the Soviet Empire in Central Asia. 2) History and science indicate nuclear weapons are more powerful than airliners. Yeah it's totally about the nuclear weapons and not at all about all that oil Iran is sitting on.
It's a distraction from the fact that Hector is going to be running three Honda Civics with Spoon engines. And on top of that, he just came into Harry's and he ordered three T66 turbos, with NOS, and a Motec system exhaust.
On March 01 2026 05:11 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2026 02:55 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On March 01 2026 02:48 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 28 2026 22:41 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
At this point, the US deserves every bad thing that happens to it and then some. It's stomach-churning. I wish the military canon fodder wasn't involved in this stupid shit, but hey, that's life. Hopefully the majority understand what it means and get out ASAP or just AWOL. Is this just emotional, or are you seriously calling for US service members to refuse orders and abandon their posts to avoid the consequences of their governments actions? I'm a veteran so I get what the issue is. I'm calling for them to refuse orders and to abandon their posts should (and all likelihood will be) these orders be illegal. You sign a contract, you're more or less beholden to that contract. But to go gung-ho on some bullshit orders is not what they should be doing. It needs to start at the top and the rest will follow. Some Generals need to protest before anything meaningful happens. I remembered, that's part of why it took me a bit off guard. The clarification about the future/elusive "illegal orders" makes more sense. What do you mean by "Generals need to protest"?
Generals, in my opinion, have an obligation to stand up to bullshit. That they are scared for their pensions and benefits after retiring is bullshit. They need to say "Sir, we do not agree with these orders and will not execute them." But some people will use the Nurembourg testimony and say "We were just following orders." They have a moral obligation to tell trump to go fist himself and hegseth to autoerotic asphyxiate asap.
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On March 01 2026 04:54 Yurie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2026 03:56 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
The nuclear bomb boogeyman is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. After listening to the Iran foreign minister guy and Emperor Trump ... I am on Iran's side in this one.
I wonder if we'll get a false flag Iranian terrorist attack on US soil.
The 50% tariff on aluminum is working great! Aluminum in the USA is now double the global price. Michigan Stellantis workers are not getting a profit sharing bonus for the first time in years. Perhaps Trump's crack staff of libertarians are projecting Stellantis will move off of Aluminum and Steel and switch to Reardan Metal. Who cares if every US based manufacturer is paying artificially jacked up prices for aluminum and steel. So it seems that Oligopoly combined with tariffs just means prices increases on domestic products to the tariff level? Since there is no competition within the market with surplus capacity they want to sell vs just everybody charging the max and producing a bit less. Kind of the same thing the US has had issues with in other areas where foreign competition is hard (such as bulk food deliveries to restaurants).
The trade deficit remains the same because making anything in the USA is becoming more expensive. Trump/USA might be 'opening up new markets' from a legal perspective, however, this does not mean non-US consumers will purchase their products.
I think the wild card as time progresses on the tariff experiment will be the Matt Walshes in Trump's support base. You will notice people like this never discuss the efficacy of Tariffs publicly. That is because they know that tariffs do not work. As more evidence piles up the silent Republicans will be more and more inclined to officially oppose tariffs.
How is tourism into the USA doing these days? Lol.
On a personal, human level this is analogous to the slick talking sales person who makes the mistake of getting into a contentious debate with a customer. The sales person 'wins' the debate on a theoretical level. Then, the salesman never gets the sale. Wins the battle and loses the war.
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I’ll be honest, maybe this is just me not following the regional news closely enough but I have no idea what our motivation (stated or actual) in attacking Iran actually is. Is there even any provocation we’re pointing to? oBlade is talking like we’re killing their nuclear capacity but I haven’t seen any evidence we accomplished that or even that it was our stated goal.
There’s at least some reporting that Trump says the objective is regime change. He just says stuff sometimes, so who knows how seriously to take that, but it’s worth noting that ever since the Germans started experimenting with it in WW1, mass bombing campaigns have been spectacularly ineffective at regime change. Whether it’s Cambodia or Dresden or the Blitz, bombing civilians simply doesn’t ever work to make a foreign government surrender. To state it obviously: to achieve regime change through war, you have to take military control of the territory from the regime you’re trying to overthrow. That means invasion.
Generally it’s more Trump’s speed to just blow some people and declare victory before moving on to a new fixation; “Expeditionary Forces” and “Provisional Governments” and “nation-building” just aren’t his thing. But in that case is that all that happened here? We blew up some Iranian civilians in a manic fit with no real provocation or objective in mind?
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Just keep kill every damn political and military leader until the regime collapses for lack of authority and organizational capacity. Whack a mole.
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On March 01 2026 08:57 ChristianS wrote:
I’ll be honest, maybe this is just me not following the regional news closely enough but I have no idea what our motivation (stated or actual) in attacking Iran actually is. Is there even any provocation we’re pointing to? oBlade is talking like we’re killing their nuclear capacity but I haven’t seen any evidence we accomplished that or even that it was our stated goal.
There’s at least some reporting that Trump says the objective is regime change. He just says stuff sometimes, so who knows how seriously to take that, but it’s worth noting that ever since the Germans started experimenting with it in WW1, mass bombing campaigns have been spectacularly ineffective at regime change. Whether it’s Cambodia or Dresden or the Blitz, bombing civilians simply doesn’t ever work to make a foreign government surrender. To state it obviously: to achieve regime change through war, you have to take military control of the territory from the regime you’re trying to overthrow. That means invasion.
Generally it’s more Trump’s speed to just blow some people and declare victory before moving on to a new fixation; “Expeditionary Forces” and “Provisional Governments” and “nation-building” just aren’t his thing. But in that case is that all that happened here? We blew up some Iranian civilians in a manic fit with no real provocation or objective in mind?
Kill or capture the person who won’t do what you want seems to be it. They could care less about democracy, if anything it complicates dealing with that country. They just want a dictatorship who does what they want.
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On March 01 2026 09:02 Ze'ev wrote:
Just keep kill every damn political and military leader until the regime collapses for lack of authority and organizational capacity. Whack a mole.
And when has that worked out in the past exactly?
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On March 01 2026 09:20 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2026 09:02 Ze'ev wrote:
Just keep kill every damn political and military leader until the regime collapses for lack of authority and organizational capacity. Whack a mole. And when has that worked out in the past exactly?
Based on Trumps and his leaderships decision making, I’m certain they do not consider if it has worked before or its long term impact. How cool it sounds to boys in a junior high locker room seems to be the most critical factor in decision making.
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On March 01 2026 09:02 Ze'ev wrote:
Just keep kill every damn political and military leader until the regime collapses for lack of authority and organizational capacity. Whack a mole.
Theoretically this works, right? Your issue is with the government, not the people, so with smart enough targeting you should be able to force surrender without invading, right?
Trouble is, if you think about everybody in a country and rank them in descending order of how much their death would contribute to regime change, and then rank them in descending order of how much ability/resources they have to avoid being hit by foreign bombs, you’re likely to find the two lists look pretty similar. Blowing up schools and hospitals is a lot easier than blowing up command and control points or secret bunkers. Occasionally you get lucky and take out a high-ranking general or politician but modern states are extraordinarily resilient to having a handful of leading officials evaporate here or there. And as long as your goal is regime change, no matter who you kill, whoever takes their place is not incentivized to give you what you want.
We first started bragging about “smart bombs” in the 90s, said they were gonna revolutionize our ability to do targeted bombings. Then we spent the rest of the decade bombing Iraq periodically. That was pretty effective at, for instance, keeping large sections of the country without power indefinitely, but never threatened to approach regime change. Only invading did that.
I hesitate to focus exclusively on the efficacy criticism here – we should always keep in mind the massive humanitarian costs of civilian bombings that make them immoral. That would be true even if they *were* somewhat effective at achieving military objectives. But I think it’s also worth emphasizing the pointlessness of it.
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As soon as Iran is kneecapped enough, Israel will be able to keep Iran down forever. Iran does not need to be converted into some kind of western utopia. The minimum change needed is just for Iran to not be a problem. I think Trump and his goons plan to treat Iran similar to Venezuela. Doesn't really matter if its some sort of big government change under the western umbrella. As long as they bend the knee and can't cause a fuss, job is done.
And honestly, I think this is way better for everyone involved. We do not want Iraq 2.0. The modern political climate does not allow for stuff like Germany/Japan. It is probably no longer possible for an entire culture to be restructured to be compatible with the winners of a war.
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On March 01 2026 09:30 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2026 09:02 Ze'ev wrote:
Just keep kill every damn political and military leader until the regime collapses for lack of authority and organizational capacity. Whack a mole. Theoretically this works, right? Your issue is with the government, not the people, so with smart enough targeting you should be able to force surrender without invading, right? Trouble is, if you think about everybody in a country and rank them in descending order of how much their death would contribute to regime change, and then rank them in descending order of how much ability/resources they have to avoid being hit by foreign bombs, you’re likely to find the two lists look pretty similar. Blowing up schools and hospitals is a lot easier than blowing up command and control points or secret bunkers. Occasionally you get lucky and take out a high-ranking general or politician but modern states are extraordinarily resilient to having a handful of leading officials evaporate here or there. And as long as your goal is regime change, no matter who you kill, whoever takes their place is not incentivized to give you what you want. We first started bragging about “smart bombs” in the 90s, said they were gonna revolutionize our ability to do targeted bombings. Then we spent the rest of the decade bombing them periodically. That was pretty effective at, for instance, keeping large sections of the country without power indefinitely, but never threatened to approach regime change. Only invading did that. I hesitate to focus exclusively on the efficacy criticism here – we should always keep in mind the massive humanitarian costs of civilian bombings that make them immoral. That would be true even if they *were* somewhat effective at achieving military objectives. But I think it’s also worth emphasizing the pointlessness of it.
I understand the skepticism and dont get me wrong, I am hardly naively supportive of this: everything could fail and fail very badly with substantial blowback. But I choose to be an optimist, and lets be real the trajectory of the status quo for the people of Iran was extremely fucking bleak. This is a big, risky gamble, but at this point I think thats the best anyones really got. Apparently theres cheering in Iranian cities -- not a clue if thats true or not.
As to your other points, im not fully convinced (as in I think they're valid and good reasons to doubt this outcome will work, but none of them are completely accurate).
- The rank argument: yes, but human intelligence gathering has been very successful and already we've killed the top of the top leadership. We have reason to believe that 'hard to kill' and 'important to the functioning of the state' also correlates substantially with 'we have massive intelligence on their whereabouts'. So a lot will die.
So will a lot of civilians, though 10-40k were just killed about a month ago against the Government. We dont know what the future holds but i'd rather bomb and kill a bunch of sadistic mass murderers and hope that the cost-benefit analysis when all is said and done will be in my favour than just leave millions subject to terror and death indefinitely.
- Lack of incentive: not sure I agree. Different functionaries relate to the state differently, some for ideology and some for business relationships, for instance. There are reforming, moderate, or simply pragmatic operators in any state, and we can give them incentive; we can pardon them and give them an option of an iran not subject to u.s sanctions and bombings. The people of Iran are desperate, and im sure quite a lot of the leadership of the country is, too. Desperate not to die but also to return to a functioning society.
- Resiliency of regimes: true in general but in the specific context where the regime is economically in free fall and has limited legitimacy, often what appears to be a resilient regime simply disappears one day. We've seen that enough in modern history where even mass peaceful protests movements (mostly peaceful, anyway) have toppled seemingly stable dictatorships. If the crisis of confidence and legitimacy goes far enough, soldiers refuse to fire and mutiny. Middle ranked generals and Government employees turn on the state.
On March 01 2026 10:20 Mohdoo wrote:
As soon as Iran is kneecapped enough, Israel will be able to keep Iran down forever. Iran does not need to be converted into some kind of western utopia. The minimum change needed is just for Iran to not be a problem. I think Trump and his goons plan to treat Iran similar to Venezuela. Doesn't really matter if its some sort of big government change under the western umbrella. As long as they bend the knee and can't cause a fuss, job is done.
And honestly, I think this is way better for everyone involved. We do not want Iraq 2.0. The modern political climate does not allow for stuff like Germany/Japan. It is probably no longer possible for an entire culture to be restructured to be compatible with the winners of a war. Iran does not need its culture to be entirely 'restructured' its the most secular and liberal muslim state in the world once you exclude Albania, which is virtually entirely secular. They are a cosmopolitan, modern people, subject to a radical and unpopular minority.
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On March 01 2026 10:20 Mohdoo wrote:
As soon as Iran is kneecapped enough, Israel will be able to keep Iran down forever. Iran does not need to be converted into some kind of western utopia. The minimum change needed is just for Iran to not be a problem. I think Trump and his goons plan to treat Iran similar to Venezuela. Doesn't really matter if its some sort of big government change under the western umbrella. As long as they bend the knee and can't cause a fuss, job is done.
And honestly, I think this is way better for everyone involved. We do not want Iraq 2.0. The modern political climate does not allow for stuff like Germany/Japan. It is probably no longer possible for an entire culture to be restructured to be compatible with the winners of a war.
What does “cause a fuss” mean in this context? Stop supplying the Houthis? That seems, uh, pretty distant as an objective. To my limited military understanding Iran is not and has never been a power capable of outright conquering Israel – maybe as part of a coalition – but regarding “state sponsors of terror” stuff, what about the current intervention would make them any less likely to do that in the future?
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On March 01 2026 10:27 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2026 10:20 Mohdoo wrote:
As soon as Iran is kneecapped enough, Israel will be able to keep Iran down forever. Iran does not need to be converted into some kind of western utopia. The minimum change needed is just for Iran to not be a problem. I think Trump and his goons plan to treat Iran similar to Venezuela. Doesn't really matter if its some sort of big government change under the western umbrella. As long as they bend the knee and can't cause a fuss, job is done.
And honestly, I think this is way better for everyone involved. We do not want Iraq 2.0. The modern political climate does not allow for stuff like Germany/Japan. It is probably no longer possible for an entire culture to be restructured to be compatible with the winners of a war. What does “cause a fuss” mean in this context? Stop supplying the Houthis? That seems, uh, pretty distant as an objective. To my limited military understanding Iran is not and has never been a power capable of outright conquering Israel – maybe as part of a coalition – but regarding “state sponsors of terror” stuff, what about the current intervention would make them any less likely to do that in the future? You think funding a terrorist group which can and has shut down a trillion dollar trade corridor is a distant and minor variable in this?????
And I think 'if you fuck with us we will kill you' is a pretty clear answer as to why Iran might reconsider state sponsored terrorism.
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On March 01 2026 10:25 Ze'ev wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2026 09:30 ChristianS wrote:On March 01 2026 09:02 Ze'ev wrote:
Just keep kill every damn political and military leader until the regime collapses for lack of authority and organizational capacity. Whack a mole. Theoretically this works, right? Your issue is with the government, not the people, so with smart enough targeting you should be able to force surrender without invading, right? Trouble is, if you think about everybody in a country and rank them in descending order of how much their death would contribute to regime change, and then rank them in descending order of how much ability/resources they have to avoid being hit by foreign bombs, you’re likely to find the two lists look pretty similar. Blowing up schools and hospitals is a lot easier than blowing up command and control points or secret bunkers. Occasionally you get lucky and take out a high-ranking general or politician but modern states are extraordinarily resilient to having a handful of leading officials evaporate here or there. And as long as your goal is regime change, no matter who you kill, whoever takes their place is not incentivized to give you what you want. We first started bragging about “smart bombs” in the 90s, said they were gonna revolutionize our ability to do targeted bombings. Then we spent the rest of the decade bombing them periodically. That was pretty effective at, for instance, keeping large sections of the country without power indefinitely, but never threatened to approach regime change. Only invading did that. I hesitate to focus exclusively on the efficacy criticism here – we should always keep in mind the massive humanitarian costs of civilian bombings that make them immoral. That would be true even if they *were* somewhat effective at achieving military objectives. But I think it’s also worth emphasizing the pointlessness of it. I understand the skepticism and dont get me wrong, I am hardly naively supportive of this: everything could fail and fail very badly with substantial blowback. But I choose to be an optimist, and lets be real the trajectory of the status quo for the people of Iran was extremely fucking bleak. This is a big, risky gamble, but at this point I think thats the best anyones really got. Apparently theres cheering in Iranian cities -- not a clue if thats true or not. As to your other points, im not fully convinced (as in I think they're valid and good reasons to doubt this outcome will work, but none of them are completely accurate). - The rank argument: yes, but human intelligence gathering has been very successful and already we've killed the top of the top leadership. We have reason to believe that 'hard to kill' and 'important to the functioning of the state' also correlates substantially with 'we have massive intelligence on their whereabouts'. So a lot will die. So will a lot of civilians, though 10-40k were just killed about a month ago against the Government. We dont know what the future holds but i'd rather bomb and kill a bunch of sadistic mass murderers and hope that the cost-benefit analysis when all is said and done will be in my favour than just leave millions subject to terror and death indefinitely. - Lack of incentive: not sure I agree. Different functionaries relate to the state differently, some for ideology and some for business relationships, for instance. There are reforming, moderate, or simply pragmatic operators in any state, and we can give them incentive; we can pardon them and give them an option of an iran not subject to u.s sanctions and bombings. The people of Iran are desperate, and im sure quite a lot of the leadership of the country is, too. Desperate not to die but also to return to a functioning society. - Resiliency of Regimes: true in general but in the specific context where the regime is economically in free fall and has limited legitimacy, often what appears to be a resilient regime simply disappears one day. We've seen that enough in modern history where even mass peaceful protests movements (mostly peaceful, anyway) have toppled seemingly stable dictatorships. If the crisis of confidence and legitimacy goes far enough, soldiers refuse to fire and mutiny. Middle ranked generals and Government employees turn on the state.
As a rule foreign threat of mass civilian casualties doesn’t *reduce* domestic support for strongman governments. That makes sense, right? If you were going to cost-benefit the regime from the perspective of someone living there, perhaps the single biggest item in the benefit column would be “they’ll use autocratic power to coordinate the country against foreign threats.”
It’s unclear why foreign bombs would help here. Maybe if there were a few titanic edifices of state power that intimidate the people out of revolution, and by blowing them up you give them the courage to do it? Or if there’s a liberal prince next in line of succession, and by blowing up the leader you automatically promote someone to power who will ameliorate the situation? I haven’t seen any evidence something like that is true for Iran, have you?
I understand your reticence to accept indefinite authoritarian rule, and if you were arguing for invasion I could at least understand how an idealized version of they plan would be net positive for Iranians. But if blowing up thousands of Iranians has no plausible mechanism of achieving regime change, and a century of mass bombings has never succeeded at that goal, why is the moral failings of the regime a reason to support blowing up thousands of Iranians?
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On March 01 2026 10:32 Ze'ev wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2026 10:27 ChristianS wrote:On March 01 2026 10:20 Mohdoo wrote:
As soon as Iran is kneecapped enough, Israel will be able to keep Iran down forever. Iran does not need to be converted into some kind of western utopia. The minimum change needed is just for Iran to not be a problem. I think Trump and his goons plan to treat Iran similar to Venezuela. Doesn't really matter if its some sort of big government change under the western umbrella. As long as they bend the knee and can't cause a fuss, job is done.
And honestly, I think this is way better for everyone involved. We do not want Iraq 2.0. The modern political climate does not allow for stuff like Germany/Japan. It is probably no longer possible for an entire culture to be restructured to be compatible with the winners of a war. What does “cause a fuss” mean in this context? Stop supplying the Houthis? That seems, uh, pretty distant as an objective. To my limited military understanding Iran is not and has never been a power capable of outright conquering Israel – maybe as part of a coalition – but regarding “state sponsors of terror” stuff, what about the current intervention would make them any less likely to do that in the future? You think funding a terrorist group which can and has shut down a trillion dollar trade corridor is a distant and minor variable in this????? And I think 'if you fuck with us we will kill you' is a pretty clear answer as to why Iran might reconsider state sponsored terrorism.
I said it was a distant objective, not a distant or minor variable. As in, unlikely to be achieved by a mass bombing campaign. Authoritarians don’t stop using violence because you bomb their people. If you manage to bomb the strongman himself, one of his lieutenants takes over, kills whoever in his organization gave you the information, finds a new bunker to hide in, and uses the whole thing to rally support. “See, the Americans are as bad as we said!”
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United States43987 Posts
Blowing things up without building anything rarely makes things better but I think people confused by the strategy here are presuming an intent to make things better that just doesn’t exist.
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EPT
