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United States43620 Posts
I don't think there's going to be any data on the preferences of the Iranian people collected by a party without an agenda in a specific outcome.
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On March 02 2026 04:32 KwarK wrote:
I don't think there's going to be any data on the preferences of the Iranian people collected by a party without an agenda in a specific outcome.
Sorry, I was editing to answer another question. But ya, no poling. Anyone who says the gov is bad, is dead or in jail.
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On March 02 2026 04:30 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2026 03:57 ChristianS wrote:On March 02 2026 02:45 Billyboy wrote: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 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. I agree on much of your analysis on this topic. But one factor you tend to be drastically underestimating, or even missing is how much the supreme leader and IGRC are hated. It was only a few weeks ago that there was massive protests against them and 10000 ish civilians died at their hands. There is like 95% (maybe 99%) happy that all those high ups died. If a bunch of civilians start dying in the conflict that could change. But so far it looks like the Americans and Israelis are valueing Iranian life a lot more than the IGRC ever has. That’s fine, I have no expert knowledge of Iranian public opinion but I’m sure you’re right ( except your last sentence, that’s silly). But I don’t think it’s hard to understand why getting massacred by your own government doesn’t become any less shitty if you’re also getting bombed by Americans. Iranians have had a pretty rough time for the last century, generally either at the hand of their own government or (directly or indirectly) at the hand of Americans. In the most horrific moments in their recent history, no positive outcome was possible because the Americans wouldn’t allow it. I sincerely hope they find a more humane system in my lifetime but American bombs are an impediment to that outcome, not an assist. Sadly it is true, not because the US and Israel care so much, but because of how awful the Iranian gov is. You are vastly under estimating how many civilians the Iranian kills, tortures, locks away for any number of "crimes". There is a reason so many refugees were cheering about this. Your last sentence may be true, or may not be. I certainly do not know. But it is a ignorant take to think you with such little knowledge know so much more than Iranian refugees. At some point being a little more thoughtful than America and Israel are always the bad guys is useful. Especially when there are plenty of bad guys in the world. It is not hard to look up how awful this regime is, and how awful the regimes it has supported externally are. I'm sure you can find plenty of sources that you trust that can go into detail. I also think the 30000 people that died protesting would have loved these airstikes to have happened earlier, when promised. Every Iranian civilian death is a tragedy, every IGRC member, and political member dead is a victory.
I think instead of "how bad is the Iranian government?" we should ask ourselves "will this make things better for the people in Iran?" Because yes, the Iranian government is very bad. But i think it is unlikely that this kind of attack will make anything better for anyone.
Historical evidence says that that is unlikely. Husseins Iraq was really bad, too. But the US invasion didn't make anything better for anyone, and instead created lots and lots of problems. Same can be said for Afghanistan.
I am totally with you saying that the people of Iran should have a better government. I just don't know how one would get there, and i doubt that the US knows either.
Fundamentally, if you break something, you have some responsibility for what comes afterwards. And if what comes afterwards is worse than just letting the bad thing stay, then maybe you should just let the bad thing stay and hope that the people there will eventually figure out a way to solve their problems.
Or you need to have an actually workable plan and the necessary commitment to make things better. Because we also have historical examples of that. Namely Germany and Japan in 1945. I can't really think of any other example where regime change from the outside actually made things better for the people there.
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Northern Ireland26301 Posts
On March 02 2026 03:57 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2026 02:45 Billyboy wrote: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 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. I agree on much of your analysis on this topic. But one factor you tend to be drastically underestimating, or even missing is how much the supreme leader and IGRC are hated. It was only a few weeks ago that there was massive protests against them and 10000 ish civilians died at their hands. There is like 95% (maybe 99%) happy that all those high ups died. If a bunch of civilians start dying in the conflict that could change. But so far it looks like the Americans and Israelis are valueing Iranian life a lot more than the IGRC ever has. That’s fine, I have no expert knowledge of Iranian public opinion but I’m sure you’re right (except your last sentence, that’s silly). But I don’t think it’s hard to understand why getting massacred by your own government doesn’t become any less shitty if you’re also getting bombed by Americans. Iranians have had a pretty rough time for the last century, generally either at the hand of their own government or (directly or indirectly) at the hand of Americans. In the most horrific moments in their recent history, no positive outcome was possible because the Americans wouldn’t allow it. I sincerely hope they find a more humane system in my lifetime but American bombs are an impediment to that outcome, not an assist.
I’m sure there is some sweet spot in which you can do this, I’m not sure this is it. Indeed I’m pretty sure it isn’t.
I imagine part A is at least somewhat covered, folks gotta hate the ruling classes. Part B, rather is not. Even if you hate x domestic regime, if sufficient people hate the people removing it, it can stiffen resentment to the external.
Part C is what’s liable to see this be a complete shitshow. You need some kind of path to transition. You don’t necessarily need the next government to be sitting in waiting in terms of formal political parties, a sufficiently cohesive grass roots political movement encompassing sufficient people, without equivalently large entities being in opposition to it. Doesn’t feel that’s really ticked here either.
I mean I’m not gonna gurn about some of Iran’s leadership departing this mortal coil, but it has great shitshow potential.
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Northern Ireland26301 Posts
On March 02 2026 05:09 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2026 04:30 Billyboy wrote:On March 02 2026 03:57 ChristianS wrote:On March 02 2026 02:45 Billyboy wrote: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 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. I agree on much of your analysis on this topic. But one factor you tend to be drastically underestimating, or even missing is how much the supreme leader and IGRC are hated. It was only a few weeks ago that there was massive protests against them and 10000 ish civilians died at their hands. There is like 95% (maybe 99%) happy that all those high ups died. If a bunch of civilians start dying in the conflict that could change. But so far it looks like the Americans and Israelis are valueing Iranian life a lot more than the IGRC ever has. That’s fine, I have no expert knowledge of Iranian public opinion but I’m sure you’re right ( except your last sentence, that’s silly). But I don’t think it’s hard to understand why getting massacred by your own government doesn’t become any less shitty if you’re also getting bombed by Americans. Iranians have had a pretty rough time for the last century, generally either at the hand of their own government or (directly or indirectly) at the hand of Americans. In the most horrific moments in their recent history, no positive outcome was possible because the Americans wouldn’t allow it. I sincerely hope they find a more humane system in my lifetime but American bombs are an impediment to that outcome, not an assist. Sadly it is true, not because the US and Israel care so much, but because of how awful the Iranian gov is. You are vastly under estimating how many civilians the Iranian kills, tortures, locks away for any number of "crimes". There is a reason so many refugees were cheering about this. Your last sentence may be true, or may not be. I certainly do not know. But it is a ignorant take to think you with such little knowledge know so much more than Iranian refugees. At some point being a little more thoughtful than America and Israel are always the bad guys is useful. Especially when there are plenty of bad guys in the world. It is not hard to look up how awful this regime is, and how awful the regimes it has supported externally are. I'm sure you can find plenty of sources that you trust that can go into detail. I also think the 30000 people that died protesting would have loved these airstikes to have happened earlier, when promised. Every Iranian civilian death is a tragedy, every IGRC member, and political member dead is a victory. I think instead of "how bad is the Iranian government?" we should ask ourselves "will this make things better for the people in Iran?" Because yes, the Iranian government is very bad. But i think it is unlikely that this kind of attack will make anything better for anyone. Historical evidence says that that is unlikely. Husseins Iraq was really bad, too. But the US invasion didn't make anything better for anyone, and instead created lots and lots of problems. Same can be said for Afghanistan. I am totally with you saying that the people of Iran should have a better government. I just don't know how one would get there, and i doubt that the US knows either. Fundamentally, if you break something, you have some responsibility for what comes afterwards. And if what comes afterwards is worse than just letting the bad thing stay, then maybe you should just let the bad thing stay and hope that the people there will eventually figure out a way to solve their problems. Or you need to have an actually workable plan and the necessary commitment to make things better. Because we also have historical examples of that. Namely Germany and Japan in 1945. I can't really think of any other example where regime change from the outside actually made things better for the people there.
Yeah absolutely, well-said. I think a third question one can ask is ‘was this done for the benefit for the people of Iran?’ Which I think it’s safe to say probably wasn’t
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One key thing I have not really seen. Who or what is supposed to replace the current regime? With Venezuela, there was the opposition leader who had gotten the Nobel Peace Prize, but with Iran, I have seen little. Some mentions of the crown prince, but there seems to be little support among Iranians for a return to monarchy. The talk about regime change and revolution seems quite delusional if there is no one expected to fill the power vacuum. With the Arab Spring over a decade ago, there was already a movement to support. This time, action is taken late. The latest wave of protest has already stopped by the government. Now these strikes need to inspire people to take to the streets while the military is very active and attacks can hit anywhere, as the strike at the school proves.
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On March 02 2026 05:48 Legan wrote:
One key thing I have not really seen. Who or what is supposed to replace the current regime? With Venezuela, there was the opposition leader who had gotten the Nobel Peace Prize, but with Iran, I have seen little. Some mentions of the crown prince, but there seems to be little support among Iranians for a return to monarchy. The talk about regime change and revolution seems quite delusional if there is no one expected to fill the power vacuum. With the Arab Spring over a decade ago, there was already a movement to support. This time, action is taken late. The latest wave of protest has already stopped by the government. Now these strikes need to inspire people to take to the streets while the military is very active and attacks can hit anywhere, as the strike at the school proves. The goal is not replacement of the Iran regime, the goal is to cripple Iran and reduce it to a failed state.
'But the people', yeah. Sorry but Trump and Netanyahu don't give a fuck about the people.
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On March 02 2026 04:30 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2026 03:57 ChristianS wrote:On March 02 2026 02:45 Billyboy wrote: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 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. I agree on much of your analysis on this topic. But one factor you tend to be drastically underestimating, or even missing is how much the supreme leader and IGRC are hated. It was only a few weeks ago that there was massive protests against them and 10000 ish civilians died at their hands. There is like 95% (maybe 99%) happy that all those high ups died. If a bunch of civilians start dying in the conflict that could change. But so far it looks like the Americans and Israelis are valueing Iranian life a lot more than the IGRC ever has. That’s fine, I have no expert knowledge of Iranian public opinion but I’m sure you’re right ( except your last sentence, that’s silly). But I don’t think it’s hard to understand why getting massacred by your own government doesn’t become any less shitty if you’re also getting bombed by Americans. Iranians have had a pretty rough time for the last century, generally either at the hand of their own government or (directly or indirectly) at the hand of Americans. In the most horrific moments in their recent history, no positive outcome was possible because the Americans wouldn’t allow it. I sincerely hope they find a more humane system in my lifetime but American bombs are an impediment to that outcome, not an assist. Sadly it is true, not because the US and Israel care so much, but because of how awful the Iranian gov is. You are vastly under estimating how many civilians the Iranian kills, tortures, locks away for any number of "crimes". There is a reason so many refugees were cheering about this. Your last sentence may be true, or may not be. I certainly do not know. But it is a ignorant take to think you with such little knowledge know so much more than Iranian refugees. At some point being a little more thoughtful than America and Israel are always the bad guys is useful. Especially when there are plenty of bad guys in the world. It is not hard to look up how awful this regime is, and how awful the regimes it has supported externally are. I'm sure you can find plenty of sources that you trust that can go into detail. I also think the 30000 people that died protesting would have loved these airstikes to have happened earlier, when promised. Every Iranian civilian death is a tragedy, every IGRC member, and political member dead is a victory. + Show Spoiler +On March 02 2026 03:33 Yurie wrote:
How does the city vs countryside split in Iran look like? Or the educated vs the uneducated? We know educated city people hate the regime. Does the same apply to the farmers etc? They are 75% urban. The popularity is hard to determine in the sense they don't do polling because if you said anything not extremely positive you be put in jail or killed. But the massive protests where they knew a bunch of people were going to get gunned down a disappeared suggests extreme unpopularity. If you trust those who have left, the only ones who support the government are those in it and directly benefiting which is a super small percentage.
No, it’s silly because currently the Americans and Israelis value Iranian lives at 0. Under ordinary circumstances they would care a *little* about Iranian lives because death counts create international outcry, but the current Americans and Israelis have made very clear they don’t give a shit about that, maybe even consider it a badge of honor. Bombs are expensive, so they’re not going out of their way to kill every civilian they can, but they do not value their lives.
Meanwhile the Iranian government, like any totalitarian government, views its people as a resource to be harnessed and controlled. That means they’re prepared to expend considerable resources to police, surveil, terrorize, imprison, or whatever else they think will keep people productive and compliant. To read that situation as “the Americans and Israelis value their lives more” is silly; the Iranian government views them as “our people” (emphasis on the possessive) while the bombers assign them no value or importance of any kind.
Agreed that “the Americans and Israelis are always the bad guys” is a framing with limited utility. But try to take it one step further and recognize that “good guys and bad guys” in general is only slightly less limited. It leads to morally deficient sentiments like: Every Iranian civilian death is a tragedy, every IGRC member, and political member dead is a victory.
I say this not because I doubt the Iranian government are “bad guys” but since you seem convinced I do, I’ll speak by analogy to a faction everybody should agree was evil (wouldn’t that be nice), the Nazis. I think defeat of the Nazi regime was a huge victory, and to the extent killing a Nazi soldier was helping achieve that goal I’ll call it a subvictory. If that soldier was personally complicit in atrocities I’d even call it a form of justice, albeit a shoddy one. But I would not say “every dead Nazi was a victory.” The Allies did plenty of Nazi-killing (shooting enemies trying to surrender, as one of the more polite examples) that did not further the war effort, and that is (IMO) a black mark on the otherwise heroic cause they undertook.
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On March 02 2026 05:09 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2026 04:30 Billyboy wrote:On March 02 2026 03:57 ChristianS wrote:On March 02 2026 02:45 Billyboy wrote: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 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. I agree on much of your analysis on this topic. But one factor you tend to be drastically underestimating, or even missing is how much the supreme leader and IGRC are hated. It was only a few weeks ago that there was massive protests against them and 10000 ish civilians died at their hands. There is like 95% (maybe 99%) happy that all those high ups died. If a bunch of civilians start dying in the conflict that could change. But so far it looks like the Americans and Israelis are valueing Iranian life a lot more than the IGRC ever has. That’s fine, I have no expert knowledge of Iranian public opinion but I’m sure you’re right ( except your last sentence, that’s silly). But I don’t think it’s hard to understand why getting massacred by your own government doesn’t become any less shitty if you’re also getting bombed by Americans. Iranians have had a pretty rough time for the last century, generally either at the hand of their own government or (directly or indirectly) at the hand of Americans. In the most horrific moments in their recent history, no positive outcome was possible because the Americans wouldn’t allow it. I sincerely hope they find a more humane system in my lifetime but American bombs are an impediment to that outcome, not an assist. Sadly it is true, not because the US and Israel care so much, but because of how awful the Iranian gov is. You are vastly under estimating how many civilians the Iranian kills, tortures, locks away for any number of "crimes". There is a reason so many refugees were cheering about this. Your last sentence may be true, or may not be. I certainly do not know. But it is a ignorant take to think you with such little knowledge know so much more than Iranian refugees. At some point being a little more thoughtful than America and Israel are always the bad guys is useful. Especially when there are plenty of bad guys in the world. It is not hard to look up how awful this regime is, and how awful the regimes it has supported externally are. I'm sure you can find plenty of sources that you trust that can go into detail. I also think the 30000 people that died protesting would have loved these airstikes to have happened earlier, when promised. Every Iranian civilian death is a tragedy, every IGRC member, and political member dead is a victory. I think instead of "how bad is the Iranian government?" we should ask ourselves "will this make things better for the people in Iran?" Because yes, the Iranian government is very bad. But i think it is unlikely that this kind of attack will make anything better for anyone. Historical evidence says that that is unlikely. Husseins Iraq was really bad, too. But the US invasion didn't make anything better for anyone, and instead created lots and lots of problems. Same can be said for Afghanistan. I am totally with you saying that the people of Iran should have a better government. I just don't know how one would get there, and i doubt that the US knows either. Fundamentally, if you break something, you have some responsibility for what comes afterwards. And if what comes afterwards is worse than just letting the bad thing stay, then maybe you should just let the bad thing stay and hope that the people there will eventually figure out a way to solve their problems. Or you need to have an actually workable plan and the necessary commitment to make things better. Because we also have historical examples of that. Namely Germany and Japan in 1945. I can't really think of any other example where regime change from the outside actually made things better for the people there.
That is the question. What I was responding too was that the this was going to make the Iranians hate America more. Which I don't think is true. I also, don't think it will make them hate them less, even if they cheer for the attacks.
I do think it could get marginally better. It is so bad not much of an upgrade is pretty significant. So far it looks like Syria is in a better place than with Assad. It is far from a socialist paradise or even semi functioning liberal democracy, but its better. I believe that is possible in Iran. It could also get better in Yemen and Lebanon if Iran is weak enough that it can't actively destabilize its neighbors.
I have little faith in the Trump admin or current Israel making any long term commitment to betterment. But I also don't think that targeted bombing of the Iranian elite is necessarily an awful thing.
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On March 02 2026 06:00 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2026 04:30 Billyboy wrote:On March 02 2026 03:57 ChristianS wrote:On March 02 2026 02:45 Billyboy wrote: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 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. I agree on much of your analysis on this topic. But one factor you tend to be drastically underestimating, or even missing is how much the supreme leader and IGRC are hated. It was only a few weeks ago that there was massive protests against them and 10000 ish civilians died at their hands. There is like 95% (maybe 99%) happy that all those high ups died. If a bunch of civilians start dying in the conflict that could change. But so far it looks like the Americans and Israelis are valueing Iranian life a lot more than the IGRC ever has. That’s fine, I have no expert knowledge of Iranian public opinion but I’m sure you’re right ( except your last sentence, that’s silly). But I don’t think it’s hard to understand why getting massacred by your own government doesn’t become any less shitty if you’re also getting bombed by Americans. Iranians have had a pretty rough time for the last century, generally either at the hand of their own government or (directly or indirectly) at the hand of Americans. In the most horrific moments in their recent history, no positive outcome was possible because the Americans wouldn’t allow it. I sincerely hope they find a more humane system in my lifetime but American bombs are an impediment to that outcome, not an assist. Sadly it is true, not because the US and Israel care so much, but because of how awful the Iranian gov is. You are vastly under estimating how many civilians the Iranian kills, tortures, locks away for any number of "crimes". There is a reason so many refugees were cheering about this. Your last sentence may be true, or may not be. I certainly do not know. But it is a ignorant take to think you with such little knowledge know so much more than Iranian refugees. At some point being a little more thoughtful than America and Israel are always the bad guys is useful. Especially when there are plenty of bad guys in the world. It is not hard to look up how awful this regime is, and how awful the regimes it has supported externally are. I'm sure you can find plenty of sources that you trust that can go into detail. I also think the 30000 people that died protesting would have loved these airstikes to have happened earlier, when promised. Every Iranian civilian death is a tragedy, every IGRC member, and political member dead is a victory. + Show Spoiler +On March 02 2026 03:33 Yurie wrote:
How does the city vs countryside split in Iran look like? Or the educated vs the uneducated? We know educated city people hate the regime. Does the same apply to the farmers etc? They are 75% urban. The popularity is hard to determine in the sense they don't do polling because if you said anything not extremely positive you be put in jail or killed. But the massive protests where they knew a bunch of people were going to get gunned down a disappeared suggests extreme unpopularity. If you trust those who have left, the only ones who support the government are those in it and directly benefiting which is a super small percentage. No, it’s silly because currently the Americans and Israelis value Iranian lives at 0. Under ordinary circumstances they would care a *little* about Iranian lives because death counts create international outcry, but the current Americans and Israelis have made very clear they don’t give a shit about that, maybe even consider it a badge of honor. Bombs are expensive, so they’re not going out of their way to kill every civilian they can, but they do not value their lives. Meanwhile the Iranian government, like any totalitarian government, views its people as a resource to be harnessed and controlled. That means they’re prepared to expend considerable resources to police, surveil, terrorize, imprison, or whatever else they think will keep people productive and compliant. To read that situation as “the Americans and Israelis value their lives more” is silly; the Iranian government views them as “our people” (emphasis on the possessive) while the bombers assign them no value or importance of any kind. Agreed that “the Americans and Israelis are always the bad guys” is a framing with limited utility. But try to take it one step further and recognize that “good guys and bad guys” in general is only slightly less limited. It leads to morally deficient sentiments like: Show nested quote + Every Iranian civilian death is a tragedy, every IGRC member, and political member dead is a victory. I say this not because I doubt the Iranian government are “bad guys” but since you seem convinced I do, I’ll speak by analogy to a faction everybody should agree was evil (wouldn’t that be nice), the Nazis. I think defeat of the Nazi regime was a huge victory, and to the extent killing a Nazi soldier was helping achieve that goal I’ll call it a subvictory. If that soldier was personally complicit in atrocities I’d even call it a form of justice, albeit a shoddy one. But I would not say “every dead Nazi was a victory.” The Allies did plenty of Nazi-killing (shooting enemies trying to surrender, as one of the more polite examples) that did not further the war effort, and that is (IMO) a black mark on the otherwise heroic cause they undertook.
Then Iran values them less than zero. America is not actively targeting and killing civilians, that makes them better. You even point it out, America is not using their bombs actively on civilians. Iran is using much of the IGRC bullets, bombs and other less deadly forms of repression on the people.
That was probably broad strokes. But the whole IGRC is not the Iranian army, they are separate and only loyal to the supreme commander not the people. They are not the NAZI's they are the SS. I'm pretty sure there are cases where they were not awful, I doubt that rises to 1%.
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On March 02 2026 05:52 Gorsameth wrote:
Sorry but Trump and Netanyahu don't give a fuck about the people. The problem here is that nobody does. 
At least enough for it to actually matter.
Government of Iran killed ~30k of their own people in a month or so - which is probably more than USA's and Israel's strikes will have killed in total when it ends (talking about civilians).
Iranians (in Iran) are fooked just like Palestinians are.
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On March 02 2026 06:29 ZeroByte13 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2026 05:52 Gorsameth wrote:
Sorry but Trump and Netanyahu don't give a fuck about the people. The problem here is that nobody does. At least enough for it to actually matter. Government of Iran killed ~30k of their own people in a month or so - which is probably more than USA's and Israel's strikes will have killed in total when it ends (talking about civilians). Iranians (in Iran) are fooked just like Palestinians are.
Iranians were screwed ever since CIA removed their last democratically elected leader (who was pro-west BTW) to put a dictator in place, which they did on behalf of British Petroleum who got greedy and didn't want to take a fair deal Iran was offering them.
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On March 02 2026 06:29 ZeroByte13 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2026 05:52 Gorsameth wrote:
Sorry but Trump and Netanyahu don't give a fuck about the people. The problem here is that nobody does. At least enough for it to actually matter. Government of Iran killed ~30k of their own people in a month or so - which is probably more than USA's and Israel's strikes will have killed in total when it ends (talking about civilians). Iranians (in Iran) are fooked just like Palestinians are. I suggest ignoring anybody on the Iran issue if they think its ruling government and IRGC care more about Iranian civilians than the US and Israel. That's just missing the tens of thousands slaughtered, and the many more tortured, and those killed, and those raped before they were killed so (religious interpretation) they don't enter paradise. We have too many Iranians that fled the regime and testified for any other conclusion to be reached.
I get all the anti-Western rhetoric and how little care is expended by the West in absolute terms, but that is light-years ahead of the murder torture and rape by Khamenei's lieutenants and thugs on their own ruled citizens.
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On March 02 2026 06:12 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2026 06:00 ChristianS wrote:On March 02 2026 04:30 Billyboy wrote:On March 02 2026 03:57 ChristianS wrote:On March 02 2026 02:45 Billyboy wrote: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 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. I agree on much of your analysis on this topic. But one factor you tend to be drastically underestimating, or even missing is how much the supreme leader and IGRC are hated. It was only a few weeks ago that there was massive protests against them and 10000 ish civilians died at their hands. There is like 95% (maybe 99%) happy that all those high ups died. If a bunch of civilians start dying in the conflict that could change. But so far it looks like the Americans and Israelis are valueing Iranian life a lot more than the IGRC ever has. That’s fine, I have no expert knowledge of Iranian public opinion but I’m sure you’re right ( except your last sentence, that’s silly). But I don’t think it’s hard to understand why getting massacred by your own government doesn’t become any less shitty if you’re also getting bombed by Americans. Iranians have had a pretty rough time for the last century, generally either at the hand of their own government or (directly or indirectly) at the hand of Americans. In the most horrific moments in their recent history, no positive outcome was possible because the Americans wouldn’t allow it. I sincerely hope they find a more humane system in my lifetime but American bombs are an impediment to that outcome, not an assist. Sadly it is true, not because the US and Israel care so much, but because of how awful the Iranian gov is. You are vastly under estimating how many civilians the Iranian kills, tortures, locks away for any number of "crimes". There is a reason so many refugees were cheering about this. Your last sentence may be true, or may not be. I certainly do not know. But it is a ignorant take to think you with such little knowledge know so much more than Iranian refugees. At some point being a little more thoughtful than America and Israel are always the bad guys is useful. Especially when there are plenty of bad guys in the world. It is not hard to look up how awful this regime is, and how awful the regimes it has supported externally are. I'm sure you can find plenty of sources that you trust that can go into detail. I also think the 30000 people that died protesting would have loved these airstikes to have happened earlier, when promised. Every Iranian civilian death is a tragedy, every IGRC member, and political member dead is a victory. + Show Spoiler +On March 02 2026 03:33 Yurie wrote:
How does the city vs countryside split in Iran look like? Or the educated vs the uneducated? We know educated city people hate the regime. Does the same apply to the farmers etc? They are 75% urban. The popularity is hard to determine in the sense they don't do polling because if you said anything not extremely positive you be put in jail or killed. But the massive protests where they knew a bunch of people were going to get gunned down a disappeared suggests extreme unpopularity. If you trust those who have left, the only ones who support the government are those in it and directly benefiting which is a super small percentage. No, it’s silly because currently the Americans and Israelis value Iranian lives at 0. Under ordinary circumstances they would care a *little* about Iranian lives because death counts create international outcry, but the current Americans and Israelis have made very clear they don’t give a shit about that, maybe even consider it a badge of honor. Bombs are expensive, so they’re not going out of their way to kill every civilian they can, but they do not value their lives. Meanwhile the Iranian government, like any totalitarian government, views its people as a resource to be harnessed and controlled. That means they’re prepared to expend considerable resources to police, surveil, terrorize, imprison, or whatever else they think will keep people productive and compliant. To read that situation as “the Americans and Israelis value their lives more” is silly; the Iranian government views them as “our people” (emphasis on the possessive) while the bombers assign them no value or importance of any kind. Agreed that “the Americans and Israelis are always the bad guys” is a framing with limited utility. But try to take it one step further and recognize that “good guys and bad guys” in general is only slightly less limited. It leads to morally deficient sentiments like: Every Iranian civilian death is a tragedy, every IGRC member, and political member dead is a victory. I say this not because I doubt the Iranian government are “bad guys” but since you seem convinced I do, I’ll speak by analogy to a faction everybody should agree was evil (wouldn’t that be nice), the Nazis. I think defeat of the Nazi regime was a huge victory, and to the extent killing a Nazi soldier was helping achieve that goal I’ll call it a subvictory. If that soldier was personally complicit in atrocities I’d even call it a form of justice, albeit a shoddy one. But I would not say “every dead Nazi was a victory.” The Allies did plenty of Nazi-killing (shooting enemies trying to surrender, as one of the more polite examples) that did not further the war effort, and that is (IMO) a black mark on the otherwise heroic cause they undertook. Then Iran values them less than zero. America is not actively targeting and killing civilians, that makes them better. You even point it out, America is not using their bombs actively on civilians. Iran is using much of the IGRC bullets, bombs and other less deadly forms of repression on the people. That was probably broad strokes. But the whole IGRC is not the Iranian army, they are separate and only loyal to the supreme commander not the people. They are not the NAZI's they are the SS. I'm pretty sure there are cases where they were not awful, I doubt that rises to 1%.
You’re missing the point, and I’m not totally sure what your motivation is.
Imagine two cars are coming towards me on the road. The first driver has absolutely no care whether I live or die – he won’t even brake or swerve if I’m in his path – but has no desire to steer his car just to hurt me. The second driver is planning to pull over in front of me, get out, club me over the head, throw me in the trunk, chain me in a storage container, and force me to manufacture cheap crafts for him to sell on Etsy.
Which one “values my life more”? The second one, I think pretty obviously. To him I’m a resource to be exploited, to the other I’m literally nothing. But that mostly shows “which values my life more” is not a useful framing for comparison. They’re each different types of threats to my well-being. But if the former starts setting off explosions in the storage park I’m chained up in, mostly so he can brag to his friends about it, that’s not *good news* for me. If he happens to kill the second guy in the process, I might cheer, even if his son will just take over there Etsy slave empire; fuck that guy, I’m glad he’s dead. But it certainly doesn’t make “second guy is the bad guy, first guy is the good guy“ a useful understanding of the situation.
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EPT
