[thisislife2]

Both Netanyahu and Trump have a vested interest in promoting the idea of how much influence Israel has over US foreign policy. For Netanyahu, the propaganda that he manipulated Trump into waging a war against Iran boosts his political image with some Israelis. (And it is near election season in Israel).

[TurdF3rguson]

I don't see how that's a win for him since the outcome was a stronger Iran.

[woodruffw]

It's simpler than this: Israel benefits from Iran needing to spend large amounts of money on its own infrastructure and civilian needs, rather than on military development. Getting a larger country (the US) to create those money sinks (in the form of a broadly unserious conflict) achieves that outcome.

(The irony being that this is Iran's strategy w/r/t Hormuz as well.)

[mikewarot]

> Israel benefits from Iran needing to spend large amounts of money on its own infrastructure and civilian needs, rather than on military development.

Yeah, but the rest of the world is now going to pay for that, and more, with the $2million toll on oil through the Straight of Hormuz.

[woodruffw]

Yes, to be clear that wasn't a normative (as in "this is good") appraisal.

[t-3]

Netanyahu avoids domestic issues and stays in power through the continuation of the conflict. Israel continues to receive US money and weapons, and can continue to run a wartime economy, which has been lucrative for many.

[Spooky23]

It’s not a win for Israel. It’s a win for him. The stronger Iran is, the more you need him.

Netanyahu is Trump like - his core constituency is whack job Americans and the Israelis whom they firehose money at.

The commentators and idiots running the government miss the forest for the trees. Iran is radically stronger than they were, even with the destruction rained down. The entire American military supremacy story is toast. The strategy of them and North Korea with respect to ballistic missiles and drones works.

It’s Vietnam with missiles and drone. The US slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, “never lost a battle”, yet got whooped.

[anukin]

Stronger how? The central command is gone.

[swat535]

I'm Iranian, now living in the west. Allow me to chime in..

So Iran doesn't have a central command, they've developed a mosaic system where the 30+ chains operate autonomously. It is also multi-layered (IRGC, Artesh, Basij, etc).

The multi-layered design was developed after the revolution, when they realized that the regime should be protected in case of internal mutiny.

IRGC specifically was put in place to protect the regime and it only responds to the Supreme Leader. Neither the president or the parliament control it.

The mosaic system was started few years back after the assassination of Qasem Soleimani (though it possibly dates further, I can't confirm this).

The biggest mistake US & Israel did was underestimating Iran, specifically their defensive capabilities. They've prepared for this war for 47 years, _literally_ praying for it. You had Abbas Araghchi on TV literally inviting American army into Iran for a ground invasion.

What the West doesn't understand is that you can't really dismantle an ideology by dropping bombs on civilians. It didn't work in Afghanistan, it didn't work in IRAQ and it's not working with IRAN.

The Shia martyrdom culture is misunderstood. I was not being hyperbolic when I said they have been praying for this war. Their motto is "Every day in Ashura, every land is Karbala".

Anyway, I'll land it here for now.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashura - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karbala

[JumpCrisscross]

> They've prepared for this war for 47 years, _literally_ praying for it

Is there an apocalyptic religious movement in Iran? Similar to American Evangelists hoping for Armageddon?

[fakedang]

The entire Shia sect is basically an apocalyptic religious movement. Has been since the start when Ali, the first Imam and fourth Caliph for the Sunnis, was assassinated, his sons following him, only for the assassination mastermind to usurp his Caliphate. Combine that with the millenarianism of the Safavids in the 15th and 16th centuries.

[JumpCrisscross]

> entire Shia sect is basically an apocalyptic religious movement

This seems incredible? Like, apocalypitc evangelists have practically never built a proper civilisation. Shia Islam has golden-age Islam to its credit.

[evanjrowley]

There is a potential for bias among Iranian converts to Christianity, but for those whose stories I've listened to, the common answer is yes, there is an apocalyptic religious movement in Iran.

[jameshilliard]

> Is there an apocalyptic religious movement in Iran?

It's more of a Jihad/Martyrdom ideology that's driving them.

> Similar to American Evangelists hoping for Armageddon?

That's a rather different issue, and luckily one that at least causes a lot less problems in practice. Sam Harris has some decent material on why this is(a lot of it comes down to important differences in doctrine).

[yubblegum]

Why do people buy this bs is beyond me. Let's review actual warfare and its requirements.

Logistics. You can mosaic your heart out but you need to provide arms, food, water, electricity, medicines, parts, fuels ... for each of these high level cells. None of that is "distributed" or "independent" or quite frankly given the kleptocracy that is IRI is even given. All that the so called mosaic has achieved is that when the leadership cadre was killed this did not affect a loss of operational readiness as each high level cell had independent command authority. Read that again: operational readiness.

US military could trivially end this shit show. The question is why is this strange war being dragged on like this. For example, we are told "they have dug out the entrances to the missile cities". Now besides the fact that most of those videos of the missile cities scream CGI, even assuming they do exists, this nation is supposed to have a fucking "space force" and was reading license plates back during cold war from outer space. Are we to believe Centcom is incapable of burying those entraces yet again?

The "who would have thunk it!" b.s. about the Strait of Hormuz. Of course, everybody and their mommy knew this was a strong possibility. Equally, most knew if US used its bases in the area the host nations would be targeted. I am convinced part of this shit show is to make Arabs sweat. US "provokes" IRGC and some parts of Arab infrastructure is smoked. "They need to all agree to be on board with Abraham Accords" said the Orange front man, the other day.

The "we now toll Strait of Hormuz". Aha. Let's see: we live in a planet where great powers started and fought world wars to decide exactly this sort of matter: who controls what parts. Are we to assume that the funky IRI regime and the IRGC have now achieved what world powers achieved after sacrificing tens of millions of casualties with just some stupid surface to surface missile batteries in northern shores of the Persian Gulf? Bullocks, as they say in the isle of perfidy.

From where I sit, US removed all obstacles for the succession of Khamenei's "gay" son. The other day one of these cheeky IRI embassy twitter accounts (who have a pretty good propaganda chops these days) were self congratulating since the Orange frontman who used to m.c. "pro wrestling matches" said "I'd be honored to meet him!". Will he bring a cake in the shape of a 'Pink' Dildo? One wonders.

https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/11/us/mcfarlane-took-cake-an...

If the United States permits IRI to actually have a control over the well being of the entire global economy, then folks, you must realize this is all a plan that we are not privy to. There is no way, none whatsoever, in any reasonable reality, where a middle tier nearly bankrupt, socialy unstable, and isolated theocracy can have the lever to dictate terms to Superpowers armed with atomic weapons.

IRI dictating terms to whoever needs the spice to flow from the Persian Gulf -- and that includes China, India, Japan, S. Korea, EU ... -- without the great powers saying 'no you dont' simply does not compute in any rational universe.

As to Karbala and Ashura. Well, 2023 came by and then "ready to die" martyrs of the fabled "Shia" weren't exactly lining up to fight Israel. Also, I can not think of any slogan that does more to cheapen the martyrdom of Hussein son of 'Ali than to claim that anywhere, anytime and anyone is equivalent to where, when, and who of the actual Karbala.

p.s. US was already worried in 70s about the Shah of Iran controlling the Persian Gulf. One of the reasons they got rid of him, as a matter of fact.

Read this short story that was published in 1976 in New York magazine. This was the psyops back then ! that was used to scare the Gulf Arabs to accept US bases. It's a fun read. The Shah takes over the Persian Gulf and controls the Strait of Hormuz. Atom bombs are involved ...

https://iranian.com/History/2002/October/Crash/index.html

[jameshilliard]

> The biggest mistake US & Israel did was underestimating Iran, specifically their defensive capabilities. They've prepared for this war for 47 years, _literally_ praying for it. You had Abbas Araghchi on TV literally inviting American army into Iran for a ground invasion.

Iran would be highly unlikely to be able to prevent a ground invasion from the US since Iran's convention military capabilities are not particularly strong(hence why Iran often fights through proxies or other non-convention means). They can obviously cause a lot of damage but they would obviously lose that war if the US decided they had to remove the regime by force.

> What the West doesn't understand is that you can't really dismantle an ideology by dropping bombs on civilians. It didn't work in Afghanistan, it didn't work in IRAQ and it's not working with IRAN.

The problem is more that those with the ideology have all the weapons in Iran, so even though the regime and their ideology may be extremely unpopular it's still quite difficult to change things when the fanatics are the ones in power.

> The Shia martyrdom culture is misunderstood. I was not being hyperbolic when I said they have been praying for this war.

Yeah, unfortunately this likely is going to end up resulting in a ground invasion being inevitable at some point as Iran seems to be unwilling to abandon their goal of destroying Israel and nuclear weapons program.

[iugtmkbdfil834]

Ngl, anyone arguing for a ground invasion of Iran will have a hard time convincing US population. I get that president's war powers are pretty expansive, but everything has limits.

[jameshilliard]

> Ngl, anyone arguing for a ground invasion of Iran will have a hard time convincing US population.

I agree under current conditions it would obviously be quite difficult to convince the US population, and if it ends up happening obviously the US would want as much support as possible from other countries, my point was just that it's probably going to be inevitable at some point due to the Regime's ultimate ideological goals.

[macintux]

> They can obviously cause a lot of damage but they would obviously lose that war if the US decided they had to remove the regime by force.

That is far from obvious. A command structure scattered around a huge country should be able to outlast U.S. willingness to throw bodies into a shredder.

[onemoresoop]

It’s easy to look at Ukraine for example. Since drones came into the picture it’s way harder to do a successful ground invasion. Russia has unimaginable losses and they still haven’t reached their strategic goal.

[awesome_dude]

The Vietnamese proved that it's not the bombs you can throw at the country - it's whether you have hearts and minds on your side.

The Americans learnt from that and went to Iraq claiming to have hearts and minds on their side - but quickly discovered that, in fact, they did not (and still do not).

The Americans need to take stock of their own actions in this conflict - they put Trump in the white house, they allowed him to be influenced by other governments, they gave him the power to get involved in the conflict.

[JumpCrisscross]

> they can obviously cause a lot of damage but they would obviously lose that war if the US decided they had to remove the regime by force

I'm genuinely sceptical of this. If America literally invaded Iran, there is a good chance Chinese production comes to back them up. At that point we're fighting with a long logistics chain on someone else's territory (giving them advantages of knowing the land, having local sympathies and having a greater reason to fight) while getting pelted by asymmetric-warfare tactics we can't meaningfully reciprocate.

> unfortunately this likely is going to end up resulting in a ground invasion being inevitable at some point

Why? Just remove their ability to destroy Israel. Keep taking out their nuclear programme from time to time and have the Congress ratify the JCPOA in case they come back to the table.

[jameshilliard]

> If America literally invaded Iran, there is a good chance Chinese production comes to back them up.

It could happen, but even if it did I'm not so sure how big a difference it would make, would highly depend on what weapons systems were provided. So far it doesn't seem like China is all that interested in getting all that involved in any conflict with Iran and the US.

> At that point we're fighting with a long logistics chain on someone else's territory (giving them advantages of knowing the land, having local sympathies and having a greater reason to fight) while getting pelted by asymmetric-warfare tactics we can't meaningfully reciprocate.

There's also many Iranians that hate the regime so it's hard to say how things would play out.

> Why? Just remove their ability to destroy Israel.

That's easier said than done, obviously one can keep bombing nuclear/missile facilities but I'm not sure how sustainable a strategy that is long term.

> Keep taking out their nuclear programme from time to time and have the Congress ratify the JCPOA in case they come back to the table.

JCPOA was just a delay tactic on the part of the Iranians. The main Iranian threats to the region are proxies, Missiles and Nukes. The JCPOA only addressed the Nukes issue over a limited time frame.

[nemomarx]

They seem to be heading towards control of the strait, and the tolls from that could be a pretty good pickup for whatever new government forms?

[gizajob]

Not sure how the gulf states on the other side of the strait are going to feel about that.

[no-name-here]

Apparently not enough for them to intervene (militarily?) even now while they have both the US and Israel actively on their side there?

[nerfbatplz]

Oman doesn't seem to care, Qatar capitulated quickly, the UAE is a walking corpse, Kuwait is as well until they kick the 5th fleet out, Iraq is already majority Shia, Saudi Arabia doesn't seem to care much.

[avidphantasm]

They have proven to the world they have a deterrent akin to a nuclear weapon, but they can actually use it.

[JumpCrisscross]

> they have a deterrent akin to a nuclear weapon

Far from akin to. It's a good deterrent. Tehran still isn't Pyongyang.

[etiam]

Not denying they're getting great leverage from that. I still don't quite understand why the shortcut is supposedly so irreplaceable.

[Exoristos]

Perhaps because modern economies are allergic to long-term planning.

[etiam]

Perhaps. And seemingly also a bit even to short-term reactive adaptation?

[thisislife2]

It is not irreplaceable - you can avoid it as a shipping route and take a longer route. It's just more costly because it is a long route. Which means higher oil prices, which is universally unpopular everywhere with the citizens. (In oil-importing economies, oil prices have a rippling effect as any increase in oil prices increases the transportation cost of goods there by resulting in price increases of all such goods).

[etiam]

That's pretty much what I've been thinking. Maybe I'm underestimating how much more expensive, but it seems for most of those ships if they'd got going on an alternative route instead of crowding around the peninsula they'd be arriving soon. For all I know the goods they're carrying may already have been sold at a rate assuming the cheap freight of course...

[QQ00]

more like weaker iran than ever, now that the central command are gone, no leader at the top and no high level generals, the power at the hand of mid level thugs of the IRGC.

[JumpCrisscross]

> no leader at the top and no high level generals, the power at the hand of mid level thugs of the IRGC

One could argue a junta makes for a stronger Iran than the previous gerontocratic autocracy. Of course, we don't know. And I think it's silly to say Iran is stronger today than it was at the start of the war. But relative to America? At least in the region, I'd say one could argue that sensibly.

[t-3]

It is stronger. The weapons capabilities only matter if people are willing to man them. The obvious interference in otherwise organic protests and the threats and the multiple bombings during negotiations united the people against outside threats. Without an enemy, they will fight each other as long as sanctions pressure is continued and internal conflicts are amplified.

[varjag]

Certain figures are gone but political and military organization appears mostly intact. Iran also emerged as potent enough to deliver stalemate to combined force of CENTCOM and Israel. Its standing certainly had improved next to the lows after decimation of its proxies and the fall of client regime in Syria.

[iugtmkbdfil834]

The argument is interesting, because it happens to repeat administration's assertions. It also is interesting, because the argument itself attempts make peace with the idea that wiping out central command & leadership did not put US in a more favorable position in general.

I guess I will just point out that 'weaker than ever' is doing a lot of work here without being specific on what strength means here. I don't want to put words in your mouth.

It is quite ridiculous to watch though. There are ( well, were ) reasons as to why IC was very vocal about not doing what Trump admin's decided to do. And now they are looking to find a reason, any reason that can deflect the blame..

Why? No one likes a loser politician.. not even Trump's electorate. And it is hard to spin lost war AND higher gas prices AND higher inflation.

[QQ00]

it's actually weaker than before, and these who left are the kind that power hungry with no class or protocols of the leadership(that died), bunch of power hungry, blood thirsty mid level leaders who understand that they cannot allow the regime to change, at all cost, they even forced the son of the previous leader to take the reign (which in reality just a public face). they are actually more brutal and the chances of change from within through the people of iran is even smaller than before by multiple orders of magnitude.

now, why the regime didn't collapse? 2 things, 1. mesh network so they don't need to have a central command 2. they know they will be executed if they lose the grip on power.

it's actually weaker but more brutal now than ever, against their own people and against the outsider threats. like a cornered rats with no escape so they decided a fight to death.

[iugtmkbdfil834]

<< 1. mesh network so they don't need to have a central command 2. they know they will be executed if they lose the grip on power. << more brutal now than ever,

So... they now have distributed command and are more willing to employ force. Note that all of that was known before the attack so the attack on Iran was a spectacular gamble, which failed. Worse, it undermined strategic interests of US.

Does that actually strike as weaker? It does not sound that way to me.

edit: Oh, somehow I forgot: Iran did not actually carry out some of their bigger threats ( internet cables and so on ). So, yeah, Iran may be weaker in terms of -- hmm, whats the proper phrase here -- conventional war units, but it now has outsized leverage compared to what it had before the attack AND, which it makes it worse even from pure propaganda perspective, a moral claim for self-defense.

Yeah, so much weaker.

[QQ00]

>Both Netanyahu and Trump have a vested interest in promoting the idea of...

you mentioned what Netanyahu gained from this but what about trump?

[AnimalMuppet]

Maybe that it's not his fault?

But that's at the price of not being in control. I don't know if he thinks that's a win...

[QQ00]

considering Trump's personality, i don't think this is a win, his followers certainly wouldn't like that as well. I'm pretty sure this idea isn't even part of their stream of thoughts that trump is a puppet of bibi and this whole war was conducted following the command from Netanyahu.