Go ahead and post war things here. And let's not get political and degenerate into arguing and contaminating the site with animosity.
Hopefully there is not going to be too much to say here, at least for a while. It looks as if we do indeed have a cease fire.Go ahead and post war things here. And let's not get political and degenerate into arguing and contaminating the site with animosity.
It's what happens in the age of instantaneous information...or misinformation.I can't believe we went from "illegal" strikes on a foreign country to a "ceasefire" in 48 hours
Can't even make this stuff up
It’ll be interesting to see how degraded their military installations are. They’ve been getting hit we just don’t know how much or how due to wartime censorship. Far as I know the big commercial sat companies aren’t making imagery available of Israeli sites at this time.Multiple deaths from a missile strike in Israel
Most of the strikes in Israel haven't had deaths due to the warning systems
Neither side wants war and that’s very evident. The Israelis obviously felt the need to set back Iran’s weapons program and Iran isn’t going to take that laying down.
However.
This was just about the logical conclusion when it all kicked off. Israel is stretched as far as they can go. Their aviation can only loiter in the northwestern corner of Iran and make hero runs to Tehran with aerial refueling and drop tanks. Even using their air launched ballistic missiles they can’t really touch the eastern half of Iran. They’ve wrecked quite a bit of Iran’s ability to saturate their own defenses which has been evident with Iran pulling their more accurate, maneuverable, and expensive missiles out of storage since the cheap stuff is almost gone. Not too many of those available though. Something of note is that Iran only used ballistic missiles and a small number of drones. As far as I’ve seen they haven’t used any of their relatively advanced cruise missile stockpile. The sea skimming ones they have are especially a thorn in the side of everyone on the Persian Gulf because they’re fast and difficult to interdict. Not that the ballistics are “easy” but those systems are more mature and work a lot better against the threat.
Both nations are operating under extreme wartime censorship right now. We’ve seen a few videos from Israel of missiles striking urban areas but nothing of them hitting military targets. We know they’ve been getting hit just no way to know how much. News reports indicate replenishment of interceptor missiles was not enough to backfill so had this gone on much longer they’d be in a world of hurt. Same story with Iran we have some civilians images and some from the Israeli Air Force but not much. Their leadership has been taken out to such a degree I’m surprised their coordination is as good as it is for counter-strikes.
The US campaign is still a bit of a mystery. We don’t have a clue if the Fordow facility got rattled or destroyed. The math says destruction was unlikely but you never know. Getting through a couple hundred feet of sandstone and granite plus concrete is a bit fantastical. May or may not matter much in the end as the hard part is done for Iran as far as enrichment goes. They can easily keep plugging away “underground” even with so much leadership now gone. You can’t close Pandora’s box as they say and the knowledge won’t die with them.
As far as I know the Ayatollah still hasn’t publicly come off his position of WMDs being not allowed under his interpretation of Islam. It’s funny to think he may have been the reason they’ve stuck in the threshold status for so long despite the IRGC pushing hard for the bomb. The old man’s days are numbered though. With the regime still intact we’ll have to wait and see what his ultimate successor does. I don’t know the exact date of the Fatwa but it wasn’t recent. I personally don’t buy the opinion that as soon as they get the bomb they’d blow up Israel. In no case should they get it, but let’s be honest people like to live and you don’t live a long life by guaranteeing your own destruction.
Our attack was very clearly meant as a show of force. Lots of retired commanders making the rounds today not going so far as to criticize the administration, but bringing to light this one attack has depleted roughly half of our GBU-57 stock and by utilizing 17 of the 19 B2s, it puts us in an awkward position as far as fleet maintenance in the near future. I’ve seen some questions wrt deterrence vis a vis Russian and China in just don’t see how this affects their view in any way. A westpac war will be a couple weeks of firing every long range standoff munition each side has then who knows. We’d be hard pressed to get tankers anywhere near the Chinese mainland for the B2 to do its thing there.
Yeah, most of our oil now is coming from here locally. That Strait hurts countries in Asia, the Middle East, and especially Iran itself...it's almost an economic suicideI just read that oil prices are tumbling now! So all the worries and talk of 5$ a gallon gas soon, may not be a reality!
I just read that oil prices are tumbling now! So all the worries and talk of 5$ a gallon gas soon, may not be a reality!
That’s not how any of this works. It would be de jure admission the US is a party to the conflict (yes that legalese matters) and Iran knows the US isn’t going to invade making the demands toothless. Air strikes alone have a ceiling that falls well short of that kind of leverage.Trump messed up after the Strike on the nukes Sat night. That was great but then he should have followed up with unconditional surrender like he was talking about. He should have given Iran the terms of surrender to sign immediately or Israel will just keep bombing. The terms should have been "The United States has full access to all nuke facilities to monitor them anytime it wants".
I think the bombing Sat Night was admission we had joined the party. It was a half done job that will yield half done results. Iran getting a nuke was delayed, but just that.That’s not how any of this works. It would be de jure admission the US is a party to the conflict (yes that legalese matters) and Iran knows the US isn’t going to invade making the demands toothless. Air strikes alone have a ceiling that falls well short of that kind of leverage.
Trump messed up after the Strike on the nukes Sat night. That was great but then he should have followed up with unconditional surrender like he was talking about. He should have given Iran the terms of surrender to sign immediately or Israel will just keep bombing. The terms should have been "The United States has full access to all nuke facilities to monitor them anytime it wants". Now we begin all over again the long drawn out never ending negotiations that leads back to Iran continuing to develop nukes..
I beg to differ on half done.I think the bombing Sat Night was admission we had joined the party. It was a half done job that will yield half done results. Iran getting a nuke was delayed, but just that.
If forcing a regime change was always the goal then negotiating with the Mullahs gives then credibility. We failed 100% if the goal was regime change.I don't think it is that simple. I see two ways of thinking here.
1. The nothing ever truely changes way of thinking. In this scenario, your opinion is correct except for the fact that this is nothing more than a cyclical situation that will just repeat itself over and over again, never progressing or ending.
2. The end goal is to force a regime change and that was always the goal, not the nukes. In this situation you just keep bombing the Iran military(they can't stop you.) Until the populace grows annoyed and dumps the Mullahs.
I have no doubt the Iran nuke program was delayed. I see this like if in WW2 we had just landed in Normandy and then told Hitler lets negotiate. You can stay in power as long as you promise with a cherry on top to be nice.I beg to differ on half done.
From what I've seen, it was a decimation of the nuclear energy targets. The GB57 penetrative deep into the ground and have delayed fuses so while there doesn't appear to be as much "surface" damage, they obliterate deep within the ground, which in this case, the underground bunkers.
What that one strike did was show just a little taste of what can be done. I mean they only sent 3 stealths to carry this out and a handful of tomahawk missiles for the surface targets.
If forcing a regime change was always the goal then negotiating with the Mullahs gives then credibility. We failed 100% if the goal was regime change.
1) Become a failed state like Libya after 'giving up' nuclear or WMD potential (precisely as Gaddafi did when offered 'incentives' by Bush/Cheney/Rice.
Tehran certainly knows this, and has likely already chosen path #2 - at a moment Israeli leadership is probably worried about a future nuclear dirty bomb going off in Tel Aviv. In many ways, Trump's brazen bombing operation - which as usual saw the commander-in-chief completely bypass Congress, took things from bad to worse.2) Or, become North Korea and you are immune from regime change wars launched by the West.
If this is right then Trump made a disastrous decision to allow the Iranian nuke program to exist.
It will be easy enough to know if its true. If Iran isnt interested in talks and just slow walks and agrees to nothing then Iran knows Trump gave them the bomb and took a dump on Israel.
The way to keep Iran from getting nukes was to kill their govt leaders. We shrank form that and told Israel no. Iran won and won big.The US military isn’t an invincible leviathan from a novel. We have limits to what we can accomplish just like every other country. Iran is a relatively modern and very much not poor nation of 90+ million people 1/3 the size of the contiguous US that is stuck under the thumb of a terrible theocracy.
Delaying breakout was the goal of the mission from all accounts. Medium term non-proliferation is going to be a struggle and we have to decide how much we’re willing to expend to keep that status quo. My guess is not that much while we face China.
What you’re describing is a war crime. Our military leadership is better than that.The way to keep Iran from getting nukes was to kill their govt leaders. We shrank form that and told Israel no. Iran won and won big.
Obviously we have to wait until we get credible intelligence from the ground, but it seems that overall the operation was a success. Some will not call anything other than regime change a success, and that could still be the case, but for our security and the security of our interests in the region, the goal was to set back the Iranian Nuclear Program, not regime change.
I believe we made our statement with the mission and all parties involved, particularly Iran, have the chance to make peace work. Do I have faith that Iran will live up to its end? Honestly no, I do not. Trying to keep politics out of this, I think Trump has shown with the attack and giving Israel the go ahead, that while he is in office Iran better get in line or else he will allow Israel the go ahead to do what needs to be done.