[swat535]

1. Nuclear sites are not "in rubble", uranium is very much intact. They attempted to extract some of it with the failed F15 mission and had to scrap it (oversight by CIA) near Isfahan.

2. Leadership KIA doesn't matter, IRAN has a decentralized leadership, not a top down one.

3. Military apparatus is intact, majority of missile cities are still operating, over 1M IRGC forces mobilized with many more men willing to sign up.

4. Strait of Hormuz is fully under control of IRAN, "impotent threat of attacking ships" (even though IRAN has much more power) is more than enough to control it.

6. No regime change, IRGC is stronger than ever

7. Millions of dollars of damage to all US assets in the gulf

8. Multiple US air crafts damaged and many wounded (we'll see what the actual numbers are after CENTCOM releases them finally)

9. Sanctions lifted on Russia, helping them majorly profit. China is still collecting cheap oil.

10. Israel took heavy damage, losing many interceptors as well.

11. Brent 100$+ for 40 days, causing major global issues.

To be fair, US did manage to kill 170 kids on day 1 and bomb bridges, hospitals, universities and civilian areas.. so I guess that's a "win" for you?

[gpt5]

The reality is far more nuanced, and not clearly a win to Iran. We saw how degraded their military capabilities became when they couldn't capture a pilot on their own land for nearly 48 hours. We also saw that the number of rockets that they used "in total" has only just recently reached the number they used in the June war last year with Israel.

Diplomatically, we saw Lebanon, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia expelling Iranian diplomats (some even threatening war with Iran). And the entire gulf region unite against Iran. All while Iran's allies were mostly passive.

It's quite likely that Iran would need to deal with the mess both internally (as the power grab in the leadership vacuum could take place), and externally with the neighbors it bombed. Iran needs to make it appear as a win internally, and that's something that would affect any long term agreement.

Regardless, whether it's a win to ETTHER side remains to be seen when a more permanent agreement is signed. If for example Iran actually manages to impose a fee on passing ships, then that's a major achievement for Iran, and could create a dangerous pretendant for other regions (like the strait of Malacca in Indonesia, Bab El-Mandeb and even the South China sea.

[kaveh_h]

The only thing really destroyed is the image of the west and particularly it’s leader the US. Whatever you view of Iranian acts, even wars have laws related to portionality that has been broken.

Also if there ever was an ounce of internal resistance then this war have probably galvanized the population and is aligning everyone to common cause of working on the build up of particularly their national security.

[gpt5]

Perceptions are fickle, and that includes the local population. There are many cases of countries the US bombed whose population later became strong supporters of the US.

[kaveh_h]

Iran’s government haven’t been toppled. People are rallying and united in opposition to foreign invasion and interference.

Iran is a strategic important ally of China and Russia.

US is no longer the world superpower as it once was and has dropped it’s use of soft power completely and relies only upon military force or it’s threat and barely any diplomatic efforts.

The world is not what was even a decade ago. So don’t expect a repeat on what happened after Vietnam and Japan.

[herewulf]

Not capturing the weapons officer (the pilot was quickly rescued) was a missed opportunity for Iran, not a failure. The Trump Admin was incredibly lucky there is not currently a hostage situation and no one else was killed or injured[1] in the rescue. "Merely" 10s or 100s(?) of millions of dollars in equipment was lost in the process.

A bunch of US servicemembers have died or been maimed to achieve a rocky ceasefire with the end state looking worse than before the operation.

I certainly feel for the civilians affected, but from a pure "America First" perspective, this is a complete and total US failure.

[1]: Though I'm skeptical about the truth in this when officials have been bragging about helicopters with bullet holes in them.

[Sanju_2306]

>We saw how degraded their military capabilities became when they couldn't capture a pilot on their own land for nearly 48 hours

This is a such a armchair opinion. One country has the location information and other has vast forest and mountains. How it took 48 hrs for US is a eye opening scene for rest of the world. Multiple trillion of defense budget still a minion.

[blix]

All policy aimed at preventing nuclear Iran has one goal: buy time. I think it is hard to argue that time has not been bought (though how much and whether the price was right is another question). The only semi-stable long term option is a friendly Iranian government. The IRGC's main purpose is to occupy Iran, so anything that makes them weaker, less stable and more decentralized improves the odds of successful internal revolt in the long run. It is really hard for me to see how any of this has made the IRGC more stable in the long run.

The threat of the strait closure has always been a major factor in Iran policy from all relevant nations, it is just now explicit. It's hard to take the Russia point seriously when the war forced both Russia and Iran to shift resources form the Ukrainian theater to the Persian Gulf; it seems to be close to a wash. It's also kinda silly to gas up using interceptors for their intended purpose as "heavy damage" or catastrophize about rounding errors in damage to USA assets, while simulatenously writing off the total effect of all USA/Israel actions as inconsequential.

Disruption to global fossil fuel supply chains was also a goal of this war, so I am not sure you should list it as a negative. In the current state of the world, USA interests and global economic interests are becoming increasingly decoupled, and one shouldn't assume they are automatically aligned.

Also this has probably done more to hasten the world's weaning off fossil fuels than any action by any other government.

[seer]

IRGS domestic propaganda has always been that US is a military murderous malevolent regime, mercilessly going after their land and their children.

With just a little bit of propaganda spin, or even without it, US just proved to the entire Iranian population that IRGS was right all along.

This should strengthen or even harden their regime as they will have new generation of hardliners join the movement.

This is like 1930s Germany kinda thing. Who won or lost is semantics at this point, the regime is free to spin it any way they want, and will have quite the support to do it.

[int_19h]

> All policy aimed at preventing nuclear Iran has one goal: buy time.

Buy time to do what?

[thisisit]

> All policy aimed at preventing nuclear Iran has one goal: buy time. I think it is hard to argue that time has not been bought (though how much and whether the price was right is another question).

Given that Iran has been one week/one month/one year away from acquiring nuclear capabilities since 2014 - first Trump Presidency, and they are not any closer a decade later this "buying time" rhetoric is nothing short of "Iraq has WMD" level of absurdity.

[trymas]

> Iran has been one week/one month/one year away from acquiring nuclear capabilities since 2014

Not disagreeing, but Bibi is saying this since 1980s. Now he found US leader stupid enough to believe these tales.

[blix]

It is not jist Bibi, but also the IAEA and other international organizations. And at least the last 5 US administrations. I suppose they could also all be in Israel's pocket though.

Iran's 60% enriched uranium stockpile is really not up for debate. Iran is happy to tell everyone that they have it. With the proper equipment, 60% can go to 90% in a single month. So the question is how advanced is the Iranian infrastructure for the final enrichment step, and (less commonly talked about) how ready they are to actually make a fission bomb out of that material. The latter task is not considered to be very hard, North Korea did it after all, so the main focus has been on the former. There does seem to be some decent information that the centrifuge array has been under active development at various points, and has been consitently, actively targetted by Mossad/CIA for at least the past 20 years or so. For example, Stuxnet was a joint CIA/Mossad operation that begain in 2005 and continued through both GWBush and Obama.

Unfortunately, even with some nice bribes from Obama, Iran was always a little cagey with the IAEA inspectors, and officially kicked them out in 2021. So after that, the only sources for the state of Irans nuclear infrastructure information effectively became Iran itself and Mossad.

[leadingthenet]

> I suppose they could also all be in Israel's pocket though.

Now you're getting it.

[blix]

I'm not gonna argue whether it is true or false, but the scale of the conspiracy you are proposing is pretty massive. Multiple orders of magnitude bigger than anything that is currently within the mainstream public consciousness.

In this case, I think a network of mostly independent actors whose interests happen to align makes more sense. But maybe sometimes those interests are a little different than what people commonly understand them to be.

[saulapremium]

>It is really hard for me to see how any of this has made the IRGC more stable in the long run.

It's not hard for me to see. It's very similar to the situation in Ukraine. They have suffered losses but I can only imagine that their morale and confidence is through the roof. Conversely, the population must feel that there is no hope of getting rid of them. The cavalry sounded the horns but mostly rode into the river.

>Disruption to global fossil fuel supply chains was also a goal of this war

..what?

[blix]

I am not convinced that a population that just recently had 30k people die in a revolt is gonna immediately rally around their oppressors after a foreign power kills 2k. I have yet to see compelling evidence that formerly IGRC-hostile segments of the population have switched alleigances. It is possible. But one could also imagine an exhausted population that is tired of a goverment they despise putting a target on their backs. The Iranians I personally know suggest that the second idea is more true, but it is anecdotal evidence with heavy selection bias. Another factor is that Iran has an unstable food and water supply, and people who lack food and water tend to focus their anger on whoever is closest that has food and water.

The Trump administration is actively interested in the dissolution of the current global economic order. This is why they are relatively unbothtered by the global economic shock that is a Strait of Hormuz closure, whereas the globally-oriented neoliberal administrations of the past wanted to avoid this at all costs.

[saulapremium]

I am not suggesting that the IRGC has gained popularity, I am suggesting that they are emboldened, and conversely that the population is discouraged.

>they are relatively unbothtered

I mean, obviously, Trumps word is worth about as much as the air it's spoken into, but his recent "truths" don't seem unbothered to me.

[Tangurena2]

> a friendly Iranian government

That will take hundreds of years to accomplish. No Iranian has forgotten Operation Ajax in 1953[0] - overthrowing the lawfully elected government of Iran and replacing it with a dictator[1].

> In the current state of the world, USA interests and global economic interests are becoming increasingly decoupled

This is entirely due to Trump constantly "ripping up" previous agreements and treaties. It has become obvious to all observers that the US can no longer be trusted to act in the interests of any other nation. For their own survival, they have to become independent of US economic and political interests.

Notes:

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

1 - The book The Persian Puzzle explains much of the history behind why the US/Iran relationships have always been and will always be terrible. https://www.amazon.com/Persian-Puzzle-Conflict-Between-Ameri...

[Schmerika]

> It is really hard for me to see how any of this has made the IRGC more stable in the long run.

It's not really that hard to see - if you open your eyes.

If you refuse to do that, to the point where you see nothing but the hint of a silver lining in every carcinogenic cloud, then yeah I guess things must look pretty silvery.

[kaveh_h]

It’s a nation of 90 million people. Now that basically every facet of society has been hit by a single common enemy, they will galvanize and it won’t matter what name IRGC or whatever you give it they will start to work in unison for common security and deterrence.

[Schmerika]

Yes - but OP would need to take off their blinkers to see any of that.

As long as they refuse to do that, they can keep claiming this war was a big cool success.

[BobbyJo]

> No regime change, IRGC is stronger than ever

Pretty sure they've seen better days

[tristanj]

> They attempted to extract some of it with the failed F15 mission

This is fake Iranian propaganda. It makes no logical sense. The force sent to extract the F15 officer (approx 2 C130s of equipment) is far to small to retrieve tons of nuclear material stored at Isfahan.

> Military apparatus is intact

No, the IRGC is struggling. After weeks of bombardment, they are unable to provide food or basic supplies for its own army. https://www.iranintl.com/en/202604074692

Sources said that over the past 72 hours, operational forces have faced acute shortages of basic supplies, including edible food, hygiene facilities and places to sleep.

Recent strikes on infrastructure and bases have left many Guards and Basij personnel sleeping in the streets, and in some areas they have had access to only one meal a day.

According to informed sources, some personnel were forced to buy food from shops and restaurants with their own money after expired rations were distributed.

At the same time, disruptions affecting Bank Sepah’s electronic systems have reportedly delayed the salaries and benefits of military personnel, fueling fresh anger and mistrust within the ranks.

Iran International had previously reported similarly dire conditions in field units, including severe shortages of ammunition, water and food, as well as growing desertions by exhausted soldiers.

Even in the Guards’ missile units, which have historically received priority treatment, sources reported serious communications failures and food shortages. They said commanders were continuing to send only technical components needed to keep missile systems operational, rather than food or basic individual supplies for personnel.

> majority of missile cities are still operating

Missile launch volume is down ~90% from the beginning days of the war.

> Millions of dollars of damage to all US assets in the gulf

Iran has taken $150-200 billion dollars in damage, to its assets, and also economy.

Their entire missile manufacturing supply chain was destroyed, with the destruction of both the Parchin Military Complex and Khojir Missile Production Center, they have no ability to produce more. The Iranian missile problem was one of the primary causes of this conflict.

Both the Mobarakeh Steel & Khuzestan Steel factories have shut down. They are responsible for 1% of Iran's GDP, and billions of dollars of profits which fund the Iranian economy.

If there were no ceasefire, Iranian power and petroleum facilities would be destroyed today. Both sides do not want this to happen, because it would set back the Iranian economy by a decade, and cause an enormous humanitarian crisis.

It is not possible to run a modern economy without fuel or electricity.

> Multiple US air crafts damaged and many wounded

Iran lost its entire air force, and navy; losses are far higher on the Iranian side than US/Israeli.

So far, the US/Israel have not lost any ability to continue combat operations; they can maintain this level of bombardment for months.

It is not possible to run an advanced economy, capable of manufacturing missiles and drones at scale, under perpetual bombardment.

[0xffff2]

I basically believe you're right, but I can't wrap my head around this: How is it that they still have any control at all of the strait after all of this? Is their significantly depleted missile force enough of a threat as long as they have any credible capability whatsoever left?

[tristanj]

Iran "controls" the strait by shooting missiles at any ship that passes through without paying them a protection fee. This includes ships that pass through Omani waters, which it has no legal control of. It's terrorism, and also an act of war.

Iran built thousands of fast-attack speedboats which patrol the strait, get up close, fire a few missiles, and quickly return. This video gives a good explanation of their strategy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKJHaODzP-0

This can be mitigated by the US/Gulf Countries, with a large number of airplanes / drones patrolling the Iranian shore, and preventing these boats from launching.

[0xffff2]

But we've been bombing them for a month... They hide the boats in caves or something? (I'm really trying to learn here, not trying to argue)

[tristanj]

Yes, Iran built underground caves specifically to store their attack speedboat fleet. The US and Israel bombed the entrance to one on Qeshm Island multiple times, and it's unknown how many boats are still functional.

More information here https://news.sky.com/story/iran-unveils-underground-naval-ba...

[sysworld]

Hard to believe the video when they use all AI generated clips.

[int_19h]

The straight is narrow enough that they could use artillery to hit the ships in it.

And for US and/or Israel to prevent it, they would have to occupy the correspondingly wide strip of Iranian coast. At which point we're talking about a massive ground invasion (and of course then the same artillery would be firing at those troops, so you can't really just stop there either).

[15155]

Or, you know, counter-battery systems and hundreds of patrolling drones.

During Desert Storm, US batteries returned fire before enemy rounds even hit apogee.

[Tangurena2]

Desert Storm involved half a million troops on the ground. Iran is about 4x the size of Iraq and has more than 3x the population. The part of Iraq involved was flat desert terrain. Most of Iran is mountainous.

> During Desert Storm, US batteries returned fire before enemy rounds even hit apogee.

That's something ground-based. And to avoid counter-battery fire, tanks move after every shot.

The Arleigh Burke class of destroyers[0] might have similar capacity since each one holds 90 missiles in the vertical launch system[1] (so they might be loaded with anything: anti-ship, anti-sub, anti-satellite, anti-aircraft, ground attack or maybe anti-missile missiles). However, to reload those missiles involves several days in port. There are only 75 Arleigh Burke destroyers at this time. Not all are near the Gulf. It wouldn't be too hard for Iranian forces to fire $10k drones that require $1M missiles to stop.

Notes:

0 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke-class_destroyer

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_41_vertical_launching_sys...

[Tangurena2]

1. There is only a narrow passage through the strait which is "navigable" (meaning deep enough for supertankers - many are too big for the Suez Canal). This passage is within artillery range of the coastal mountains along the strait.

2. Now that the region is a "war zone", no insurance company will cover ships entering/transiting the strait. This was an issue during the Iran-Iraq war only solved by US Naval vessels escorting tankers. At that time, hitting a US ship would have started a war. This time, the US is an active participant in this war and every ship escorted by US ships would be a valid/legitimate military target. Shipping companies work on razor thin margins and cannot afford the risk themselves. Losing one ship (or it being out of service for months due to missile strikes) is an existential threat to the smaller shipping companies.

[pphysch]

> This is fake Iranian propaganda. It makes no logical sense. The force sent to extract the F15 officer (approx 2 C130s of people) is far to small to retrieve tons of nuclear material stored at Isfahan.

And how does it make any logical sense to send 100+ spec ops guys in two big planes to rescue one (1) guy in a remote mountainous location? That's begging for >1 casualties and PoWs in situation which would otherwise be capped at 1. Mickey mouse nonsense.

It's far more logical that there was a different operation planned, one that would actually require hundreds of special ops guys, like securing a strategic site. And just because two planes were "stuck in the mud" doesn't mean there weren't more involved or planned to be.

[ARandomerDude]

> And how does it make any logical sense to send 100+ spec ops guys in two big planes to rescue one (1) guy in a remote mountainous location?

I’m a former Air Force officer, and can attest that this is in fact a long-term standing policy. “Never leave a man behind” exists because if we didn’t have that policy, pilots would be too risk averse to fly the missions aggressively.

Check out the “Notable Missions” section for a few very public examples over the past decades:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_search_and_rescue

[y-curious]

Love it! Thanks for the context.

[pphysch]

I never claimed there was no CSAR operation, and you still can't explain why you need 100+ spec ops guys in two big landing planes for this particular operation.

The US military had information assymmetry and aerial dominance. They established contact with the missing WSO through a magical CIA technology known as a "satellite phone". They secured the area with aerial surveillance and strikes, then sent in a couple helicopters to do the extraction. Nowhere does this require 100s of operators on the ground, risking their lives and escalating to a ground war. This isn't the 1960s in Vietnam.

[strawhatguy]

It's one of the reasons the US military is so good. As a soldier, you know they will come for you, behind enemy lines, so you can fight like hell, knowing that your fellows have your back.

The gains in morale can not be underestimated.

[palmotea]

> And how does it make any logical sense to send 100+ spec ops guys in two big planes to rescue one (1) guy in a remote mountainous location? That's begging for >1 casualties and PoWs in situation which would otherwise be capped at 1. Mickey mouse nonsense.

Fucking software engineer "logic." They're not playing starcraft, pushing around mindless units that will thoughtlessly follow any stupid order you give them?

I'm a person. You make it clear you'll abandon me the moment it's "logical," I will abandon you. If you make it clear you'll go the extra mile for me, I may be motivated to do the same for you.

[mlrtime]

Below answered well, but if you were that 1 guy, wouldn't you want 100+ spec ops looking for you?

[pphysch]

No, I would absolutely not want 100s of guys blindly crawling over the dirt, I would want someone to pick up my satellite phone calls and send a couple helicopters.

[senordevnyc]

I thought the consensus was that Iran had less than 500kg of enriched uranium?

[spiderice]

1. Why pretend like you have any insight into the state of Iranian uranium? Just immediately makes you unreliable.

2. Ah yes, "supreme leader" doesn't sound "top down" at all

3. If by "still operating" you mean, not shooting missiles out of fear of getting destroyed. Sure. But that's silly.

4. For now. But very unlikely to last, imo.

6. "IRGC stronger than ever" is an insane take. How could they be stronger than before this war? They aren't. Again, shows that you're completely unreliable on this subject

7. "Millions of dollars" haha. Oh no, not millions with an "M"!

8. Sure. But how are you going to downplay the damage to Iran and then emphasize the damage to the US when they are many orders of magnitude different? Like, surely you don't think the damages are at all comparable

9. So long as Iran has oil to sell, yes

10. K.. again, playing up damages that are orders of magnitude less than what Iran has sustained

11. True

You seem to be very confident in your understanding of what is currently going on in Iran, despite the fact that you no longer live there. Obviously the IRGC has the internet turned off for a reason. They want to be able to control the narrative. And if it were all roses like you're making it out to be, they would personally be paying the internet bill of every Iranian to spread the word. Yet instead, they silence your people.

And do you really want to bring up the school, as tragic as it was, after your government slaughtered like 30,000 of its own citizens days before that? Motes and beams and all that.

[bingkaa]

you seems very confident about 30k casualties propagated by western media. all we, in the south east, see from west media and leader are just lies and hypocrisy

[jatora]

yikes