G42 isn't American - it's Emirati. But it doesn't matter.
Iran is only burning additional bridges with it's neighbors which has only incentivized them to take a much more hardline stance against the Islamic Republic.
The fact that they alienated Qatar last week is truly mindboggling though - it was QatarEnergy that was subsidizing NOIC and Qataris with clan ties in Iran like Saad al Kaabi who were some of the biggest proponents for Qatar-Iran normalization have been sidelined.
It has also now aligned the Gulf States with Ukraine [0], and now reduces Iran to become a mere extension of Russia, and arguably converts this conflict into a second theatre of the Russia-Ukraine War, which in my opinion has become a de facto world war.
> Iran is only burning additional bridges with it's neighbors..
If you are permitting your airspace to carry out continual bombing campaigns causing massive casualties and also host enemy bases, then the "bridges" have already been burnt and you are a belligerent in the War.
Did Iran really have allies in Arab Sunni ruled countries though? Pretty much all of them already see non-Arab Shia Iran as an enemy, and have for a long time. The only real mystery is how the region hasn't imploded already with all the historical tension between these countries.
> Did Iran really have allies in Arab Sunni ruled countries though
Yes. Qatar due to Iran's support of the Thani family during the tumultuous 1990s [0] and the blockade [1], Sudan under Bashir [2] and now under the Army [3], Tunisia [4] due to ties with Ennadha, Algeria until 2025 [5] due to Morocco and Israel's close defense cooperation, and Kuwait due to economic and clan ties [6].
> Pretty much all of them already see non-Arab Shia Iran as an enemy
Only those states directly aligned with Saudi or the UAE (they are not the same team) view Iran with hostility becuase of Saudi Arabia and Iran's perennial rivalry over the MidEast.
Iran on the other hand protected the Thani family during the failed 1996 countercoup, as well as collaborated with Qatar on extracting LNG from the Gulf.
In the real world, countries compartamentalize relations and are not binary in nature.
This is how India can both arm Israel [0] as well as transit Hormuz with Iranian backing [1] and continue to operate Chabahar Port [2] despite neighboring Konarak Port being hit [3].
When countries break this norm of compartmentalization, that is when they become actively belligerent.
Also, by this logic (which is flawed), we would be justified in striking Iran, as Iran has aided and abetted Russia in their war against Ukraine, thus Iran can arguably be treated as another front of the larger US-Russia and by extension US-China conflict.
> Iran always seems like they have more enemies than friends
Because the core of the Iranian Revolution is quite similar to Maoism [0] but also very interested in exporting the revolution abroad.
You have to remember that the Iranian Revolution only happened in 1979, and most of Iran's modern leadership were foot soldiers and even leadership during Iran's Cultural Revolution [1] in the 1980s (eg. Rouhani, Larijani, Aref, Arafi).
Imagine if China today was ruled by active Red Guard, or if the 1976 autocoup failed - that's Iran, but with a dose of Islamism.
> I guess I overplayed the Shia/Sunni divide.
Yep. In fact, a number of Sunni states saw contemporary attempts to mimic the Iranian Revolution such as in Saudi Arabia with the Kaaba Siege, the Afghan Revolution in 1979 which led to the Soviet Occupation, and the burning the US Embassy in Islamabad in 1979 [2].
> The fact that they alienated Qatar last week is truly mindboggling though
I mean Qatar did just give a really expensive plane to the guy who unilaterally assassinated the Iranian supreme leader and is bombing their country to smithereens.
Do any of those US tech companies have large manufacturing footprints in the region? Intel has a couple of fabs in Israel, but presumably those are on the smaller side? Nvidia's work in the region is mostly R&D, isn't it?
In any case, though manufacturing may not be too badly affected, if the Iranians can pull this off, they would discourage further investment in Israel and raise the economic costs of the war for the US, which would be an geostrategic Iranian win of the "low hanging fruit" variety.
> US tech companies have large manufacturing footprints in the region
Yes in Israel and part of the West Bank (the Mellanox founder tried to expand Nvidia's footprint in the region - as in hiring in the West Bank and Gaza - until his daughter was murdered at Nova).
Outside of Israel, not really excluding data centers which are leased.
That said, most tech companies have already been operating in Israel for decades under constant barrages already (eg. Had a family friend who was working at the Intel fab when Hezbollah was attempting to shell it during the 2006 war and the AWS skyscraper was targeted by an ISIS suicide bomber 2 years ago but foiled).
In most cases, we in the US were already being targeted by Iranian APTs before this conflict and before 2023.
> if the Iranians can pull this off, they would discourage further investment in Israel
For much of tech, the calculus hasn't changed for investing in Israel. It's hard to find similar ecosystems for cybersecurity, defense tech, chip design, and some aspects of material sciences.
And those regions that are complementary (eg. Czechia, Poland, India), the companies are either Israeli operated or Israeli funded.
If that were true statistically speaking you'd see a lot more post-war violence, after vietnam war, Iraq war, ...
In truth, the bereaved will surely be angry at the bombs dropped by party X, but at the same time understand the impatience of party X towards government Y that oppressed both you and your dead family.
There is much more room for regret: regret of not openly supporting saner voices, regret of taking what seemed to be the least personally risky path, until the final conclusion proved otherwise...
Allowing your government to rot to the core and pretending citizens do not carry any responsibility is what leads to things like Nazi germany, Iran, etc...
Has anyone else been having major reliability issues in me-south-1 since the attacks there? I've had to field several inquiries at work where the answer seems to be "sorry, there's a war on -- pick a different region".
>"AWS is waiving all usage-related charges in the ME-CENTRAL-1 Region for March 2026. This waiver applies automatically to your account(s), and no action is required from you."
Iran has been very patient with not striking American assets in surrounding countries in 2025. Their responses against an unprecedented assault on them were very limited.
That patience earned them another, bigger attack against them in 2026.
If Israel were attacked two years back to back like that, with the second attack killing its prime minister, it would have burned every belligerent country around it to ash without any consideration for whom they are killing, and the world wouldn't bat an eye.
In fact, they did just that in response to a much smaller attack, and the world didn't bat an eye. A quarter million dead and counting, many of the killings being straight-up, no ambiguity war crimes. Strange how they get to inflict disproportionate violence in retaliation with no consequences.
Somehow with all the thingamajigs that the Israeli apparatus has, from spy networks to informants at the upper levels of the IRGC, and a heavily militarized population, and a heavily fortified border along both the West Bank and Gaza (even more than the Jordanian or Egyptian borders), somehow they still couldn't detect and stop a breach of their barricades.... Hmm.....
And let's not forget, all of this happened right when protests in the streets against Netanyahu were at their highest levels.
as if they started the war, as if they killed their leaders themselves. Ofc they are being boomed in the desert, have not lost anything. US and Isreal has the most valuable things or only them considered human beings? Oh, rest of the people living in the world, they should be grateful to US and Isreal to let them live.
If Iran bombs Palantir, they're going to be winning the PR war even more than they already are. In fact it would be a huge service to US citizens and people around the globe to eliminate this terroristic spy operation. Oracle as well would be helpful as Larry Ellison has create an extremely concerning consolidation of MSM in the US.
Just... what does it say about a person who reads LotR and then thinks "I'll name my company after a corrupted magical artifact"? The intent to do evil is right there in the name I think.
Lashing out against basically everyone is not "defending themselves"
When my house gets vandalized by this neighborhood rascal, I don't defend myself by throwing rocks at my entire neighborhood
Iran is attacking the military that's preemptively attacked them. It's the US and Israel that have placed antagonistic military installations throughout the Middle East.
It's so funny to me that you compare a decapitation strike with the stated aim of regime change to vandalism; I'd compare the actions taken to Iran in 2025 to vandalism over this.
They hardly pay taxes in the U.S. so they deserve no protection. In fact, I'd encourage Iran to attack them. You didn't pay? You're delinquent? No I will not protect you, ya gotta pay.
Also, why are US corporations operating in Israel? I think Iran is justified in their actions but also feel it benefits us in the US to have US corporations hire here instead of in Israel. It also removes the moral hazard of having to work with an apartheid state engaged in a genocide.
The world is sick of US tech companies causing harm, and yet the US gets mad when China does the same.
This is also exposing how in 2026, companies do not have backup plans or high availability for the matter.
The AWS datacenter they took down recently, many services stopped working altogether. You would expect companies to have some fallback plan or something, even if running slower due to latency instead of going offline entirely.
I am pretty sure more people are supporting Iran to take down US techs datacenters. US techs for a long time has become the biggest evil within our digital world.
Thankfully, Steam alone made people see Linux as a better alternative to Windows, so did other open-source projects. Visa/MasterCard being ditched, Social Media and other techs like Google going under also.
https://www.intellinews.com/irgc-threatens-to-strike-us-tech...