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On February 28 2026 16:20 pmp10 wrote: The strikes today are still a part of a pressure campaign, so talks are very much not dead. Israel just works as a conveniently deniable 'mad man'.
That said, so far nothing indicates that US is capable of a quick and easy regime change. I wonder what Trump does if there are no results before the mid-terms.
He blames Biden for it? He inherited the situation. (In reality Trump inherited it from his first term as it was stable before that and made it worse this one.)
On February 28 2026 16:20 pmp10 wrote: The strikes today are still a part of a pressure campaign, so talks are very much not dead. Israel just works as a conveniently deniable 'mad man'.
That said, so far nothing indicates that US is capable of a quick and easy regime change. I wonder what Trump does if there are no results before the mid-terms.
Kind of aged like milk if they killed Khameni and ~40ish other leaders.
Are there any non-nuclear thorns in the US's side at this point? All that's left is Yemen and..Cuba? US Hegemony now has the middle east and south america locked down.
On February 28 2026 16:20 pmp10 wrote: The strikes today are still a part of a pressure campaign, so talks are very much not dead. Israel just works as a conveniently deniable 'mad man'.
That said, so far nothing indicates that US is capable of a quick and easy regime change. I wonder what Trump does if there are no results before the mid-terms.
Kind of aged like milk if they killed Khameni and ~40ish other leaders.
Even if they did, it really changes little. All indications are that in Iran there is no option to overthrow Mullah rule in a short time frame.
Unless of course US is open to year+ of bombing campaign, but I can't see how Trump survives the mid-terms having started another forever war.
On March 01 2026 20:42 Nebuchad wrote: 1) he's not surviving the midterms anyway and 2) 0% chance his strategy is coherent enough to go that far in the future
Current projections are 50/50 on Republicans keeping the Senate. Impeachment requires 2/3's of votes? So he might lose majority but is far from at risk of being impeached.
On March 01 2026 20:42 Nebuchad wrote: 1) he's not surviving the midterms anyway and 2) 0% chance his strategy is coherent enough to go that far in the future
Current projections are 50/50 on Republicans keeping the Senate. Impeachment requires 2/3's of votes? So he might lose majority but is far from at risk of being impeached.
Impeached? Come on bro we're talking about Democrats I would never ask for something this big. If they had 98% of seats in the Senate I wouldn't be betting on them impeaching him. Surviving just means keeping his majorities.
On March 01 2026 20:42 Nebuchad wrote: 1) he's not surviving the midterms anyway and 2) 0% chance his strategy is coherent enough to go that far in the future
Well, if he is right and most experts wrong then Iran can be neutralized quickly and at a small cost. I could definitely see that salvaging his midterm chances.
So, it looks like Hamenei was killed in a very straight forward air strike on a meeting he held with some of his top advisors.
I, honestly, can't understand how were the people in charge of his security so bad at their jobs. Less then a year ago a bunch of them got picked off, they had the time to make sure everyone around him was loyal, and yet.
Don't get me wrong, good riddance, him being dead increases the chances of this ending sooner rather then later, he was a horrific piece of theocratic shit and I'm glad he's dead, but it boggles my mind how bad and obviously very compromised and penetrated Iranian security forces are, very similar to Venezuelan ones.
I would have though that when it was painfully obvious to everyone in the world that these strikes are coming that this guy wouldn't be meeting with anyone and would be stashed away into a super secret bunker somewhere in mountains, but nope, this moron and his to advisors were meeting in the middle of Teheran.
In any case, people suffering are, as always, civilians and US and Israel allies in the region, plus, of course, US and Israeli tax payers who are racking up quite a bill, here's hoping that whoever replaces Hamenei has a look that Trump likes so he can negotiate some sort of ceasefire as soon as possible.
On March 01 2026 20:42 Nebuchad wrote: 1) he's not surviving the midterms anyway and 2) 0% chance his strategy is coherent enough to go that far in the future
Well, if he is right and most experts wrong then Iran can be neutralized quickly and at a small cost. I could definitely see that salvaging his midterm chances.
It won't, no. In order to go against electoral mechanics you don't need one big success (which btw targets an increasingly small demographic that sees it as a success; there are not many pro-Israel democrats left), you need actual popularity, which there was never a shot that he would get. On nov 7th 2024 it was already very obvious that he would lose the midterms quite badly, which is probably a large part of why Democrats chose the strategy of not doing anything at all.
On March 01 2026 20:42 Nebuchad wrote: 1) he's not surviving the midterms anyway and 2) 0% chance his strategy is coherent enough to go that far in the future
Well, if he is right and most experts wrong then Iran can be neutralized quickly and at a small cost. I could definitely see that salvaging his midterm chances.
"A Reuters/Ipsos poll of 1,282 US adults taken on Saturday and Sunday showed that only 1 in 4 respondents approved of the US-Israeli attack on Iran."
Even if everything goes miraculously well for the anti-Iran coalition, I don't see that number getting much better. It's still our tax dollars being spent for Israel's war.
Shocking that they would attack Hezbollah, after Hezbollah launched a bunch of rockets at their civilians exactly like they said they would...
The interesting part is that the Lebanon government for the first time is openly criticizing Hezbollah. Perhaps they finally see a world where they can get their sovereignty back from one of Iran's proxy armies.
On March 03 2026 23:43 Billyboy wrote: Shocking that they would attack Hezbollah, after Hezbollah launched a bunch of rockets at their civilians exactly like they said they would...
The interesting part is that the Lebanon government for the first time is openly criticizing Hezbollah. Perhaps they finally see a world where they can get their sovereignty back from one of Iran's proxy armies.
Why didn't you quote my post do you want to pretend that it's me engaging you when I answer?
It is indeed not shocking that they are taking more lebanese territory, the reason why it's not shocking however is because that is what they clearly want to do and consistent with what they have done in the past, rather than because their hand is forced by Hezbollah.
Coming from an emigrate who left because CCP "took over" Hong Kong and got rid of the two system and knowing several Chinese families who ran away from the cultural revolution, I can't imagine how happy we would feel if similar things happened to the CCP today.
In all honesty, I don't think Chinese living in China would be nearly this supportive of the regime collapses. It's precisely this that make me think the attack is very justified, even if it is relatively split within Iran itself.
Personal rambling aside, it's not a surprise the US general public isn't all too supportive of it, let's not forget the US also entered WW2 late with the public not wanting to get dragged into a war.
What I am most concerned about, is just whether the west can keep leading and have the ability to action. International order used to be a good excuse to get voters support, but in the age where social media dominate agendas, it's almost impossible to reach consensus on ACTION, it's easier to stop and disincentives.
One thing I would give to China is, their control over agendas on and offline, is just unparallel.
As for the current situation, I think there's a lot of fearmongering about the cost of strikes vs air defense. Their hardware is well designed to be quickly assembled and strikes, but at the rate their officials are being killed off, there's no way they can keep firing this rate, at the same precision and coordination anyways.
EPT
