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by bigyabai 52 days ago
I'm not trying to spin it as support for the regime, there's no part of the thread where I did so. CENTCOM and the State of Israel both deal with the same threat vector, and their response is to use the NSA's SIGINT technology to track, profile and selectively censor their threats. The IRGC lacks the technology to perform that same level of domestic spycraft, so they naturally reach for a blanket blackout (much like what we see in Moscow right now).

There are objectively smart and dumb choices that can be made in this conflict. It's smart to blockade Iran as soon as the Strait closes, it's smart to prefer diplomacy to a taxpayer-funded land invasion. Similarly, I will credit the IRGC with using the blackout to their advantage. It's a tactically potent, symmetrical response that refuses to cede leverage to the BLUFOR coalition. Their cards are being played so well that it's fair to ask whether or not the CCP is just spoonfeeding them American tactics they found through Salt Typhoon.

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> Similarly, I will credit the IRGC with using the blackout to their advantage ...

No it's not. It's just doing what they always do: taking hostages and threatening to damage a LOT of people's lives just so they can feel good, feel strong without of course actually being strong, with both themselves and the Iranian population living in misery just to cause problems for the rest of the world. They have made every last friend they have into enemies. Both the Iraqi and Lebanese governments are attacking them now.

Hostages when you have no way out ... is about as smart as a bank robber taking a hostage. It helps until the snipers arrive. Then, a bullet with your name on it gets loaded and no further comment from you is required. Iran's islamists are creating a situation where the entire world has no other choice but to destroy them.

It is beyond stupid. The outcome they are desperate to create would utterly destroy THEM. And in their desperate attempts to so that they're giving everyone who might have chosen to protect them into enemies screaming at the world that they need to be dealt with.