It is pretty clear that Israel and the US are going all in. They have to win now, by any normal understanding of this.
I’m not a fan or Israel or US policy but that is beside the point. Their opportunity is now, and they would be foolish to squander this.
Rightly or wrongly, Iran is toast. I just hope that their leadership goes with it. They are no friends of the Iranian people. And for once, I don’t believe this aggression by Israel and the US will give rise to a major insurgency against the aggressors. This time the Iranian regime may well implode.
Even putting aside attacks by Iran's proxies, Iran directly attacked Israel first in April 2024. Biden then asked Israel to "take a win", but that Israel did not respond then, does not negate the fact of Iran's initiation of direct war
Nice analysis. I would beg to differ with you on whether or not Iran started the war. Iran, through it proxies Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis, have been waging war on Israel for 20 years. As well, Iran's stated goal was to wipe Israel off of the map, so to speak.
I agree. I don't mean to say that Iran wasn't aggressive to Israel, or that it didn't want to eliminate it. Just that this round of attacks was not initiated by them.
The Iranian regime is a theocratic totalitarian dictatorship run by murderers and terrorists with no care for their own people. On the global freedom index, Iran scores only 11 out of 100 while Israel scores 74 out of 100. I have no love for Israel's current genocide-committing government, but perhaps every Iran-apologist should try and survive an Iranian prison for a while, just to experience what they stand for. Sometimes, it takes a beast to kill an even nastier one.
I was nodding my head along to most of this: nuclear threat, yep. Two clear goals for this war, yep. Missile strikes on nuclear facilities and targeted assassinations, yep. Then I got down to this quote allegedly from Israeli defense minister Katz and my blood ran cold:
"Katz says Israel must bring about 'a mass evacuation of the population from Tehran, in order to destabilize the regime and increase deterrence.'"
UHHHH. That escalated quickly. A mass evacuation like they did in Gaza?
I broadly support Israel, but I don't think their recent approach in Gaza has been either necessary or humane. Repeating it in Tehran would be another tragedy. It would also be the farthest thing from deterrence. I understand that hatred for Israel is not limited to the Iranian government but also represented among the people due to indoctrination. However, it's not as widespread in Iran as in Gaza, yet. A mass evacuation of Tehran would change that for the worse. It would change from shallow, party-line dislike to deep, personal trauma. And whatever new government comes to power would have the perfect rallying cry of vengeance with which to collect support.
Let's hope Katz is either misrepresenting his plan for political purposes, or gets stymied by cooler heads.
I do not care for the leadership of Israel, who are committing war crimes aplenty. But I do understand that they will take any steps they deem required to ensure Israel's survival. Actually, I expect them to go brutally overboard. Golda Meir said Israelis would rather be alive with a bad image than dead and pitied. They will indeed be alive and hated.
If Iran had spent billions of rials on improving the lives of their citizens rather than building a nuclear weapon and arming proxies with a goal of annihilating Israel their country and the world would both be in a better place.
This has got me curious - do you have a post somewhere about your research process for your articles? I'm always impressed with the vast amount of sources you cite and I'm generally curious how you find, vet, and mold the information from your sources into your articles
Why celebrate death and destruction in Iran, while ignoring the fact that Israel has already built a nuclear bomb? Hundreds of nuclear warheads, most likely. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty; Israel is not.
I do not celebrate it. Death is awful. Where do you see celebration of death in Iran?
But just as the military leadership of Japan before WWII brought about mass death and destruction of their country by their actions, so now is the theocratic leadership of Iran doing so.
Thanks for reminding everybody that the US is the only country to have dropped nuclear bombs on entire cities and started the nuclear arms race. You may not be celebrating, but you are justifying.
> has recently been weeks to months away from developing a nuclear weapon.
Why are you blindly repeating Israeli propaganda? Why should Iran not have a nuclear weapons if Israel, the most aggressive terror state on this planet, has them?
At least there is an illusion to be had, whereas there is no question regarding Israel's genocidal qualities. Yet you don't seem to have a problem with its possession of nuclear weapons.
"Should" is all nice and all, and what we tell kiddies to do to behave, but in a struggle to the death, each group of people would much rather be alive than dead. Mind you, I am no fan of Israel. They are little different from South Africa when ruled by white supremacists. But I do live in reality.
The only threat Iran, Hamas or others pose to Israel is ending the exclusion of 40% of the population. The Israel enclave especially its software engineering and IDF has resources to reintegrate the country with citizenship and participation by all. Protecting Hebrews and Hebrew culture along with others isn’t rocket science, it’s called constitutional checks and balances on tyranny of majority. Until now Israel has chosen instead exclusion, terror and wars and as this article accurately concludes that has gotten to the point of needing permanent war against neighbors. This puts Israel in a weak position and likely will lead to regime change. Israel can torment Iran from the air but has no ground capacity. The US has less ground capacity in Iran than Iraq, which it lost. Nuclear weapons are mostly irrelevant to the Iran war and the larger conflict to end partition of the Land of Jerusalem because Israel is well armed with nuclear weapons and no number of Iranian nuclear bombs would degrade that capability. Israel is dependent on the American shield, communications, air and naval forces threat that so far has kept Saudi, Egypt and Turkiye neutral. Iran is resilient and most likely will shoulder bombardment. The demographics are overwhelmingly, economies are rising and sooner or later aspirant leaders will come to the region powers, Arab, Turkic, Hebrew and Persian, and deconflict and stabilize the region. That achievement could mark the end of clientelism to foreign major powers that has reigned since the disintegration of Pax Ottoman. Iran today represents the future of self ruled Middle East.
I think the world was broadly concerned about Iran having nuclear weapons. Their statements to the desired elimination of Israel and “ The great satan” are unique. If the US bombings are “one and done”, I think it will be viewed positively. Iran is sending missiles into civilian areas. Israel (if media is honest) is not.
To the extent we can see further Abraham accords develop and a general calming of things in the Middle East, it seems unlikely that Iran will see any logic in continuing the fight. If Israel will stop its attacks and let peace develop, tensions will subside. At some point, if Iran can rejoin the global economy, it could be the best environment since 1979. Here’s hoping.
> Iran is sending missiles into civilian areas. Israel (if media is honest) is not.
Not even the most biased media is trying to hide the fact that Israel bombed densely populated areas of Tehran to take out high ranking officials, yet here you are claiming Israel isn't targeting civilian areas. I hope you're simply ignorant and not getting paid to spread these lies.
It’s unfortunate that your comment reflects the polarization we see so much of today. Instead of offering evidence or engaging with what I actually said (I even acknowledged the media might be wrong), you chose to insult my intelligence or my integrity.
Neither of us lives in Tehran, so what makes you such an expert? If you have solid evidence to share, I’m open to seeing it. Let’s focus on facts instead of personal attacks.
Iran has been enriching uranium for decades, so by now it should have nuclear weapon possibilities. The fact that it suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003 does not mean it actually stopped further enrichment. That, and the fact that it cleared out its Fordow facility a few days ago leads me to think it is well capable to produce nuclear weapons.
Or better yet, provide them with Internet so they can mobilize. Actually Israel is destroying the IRGC, so there’s no need for America to intervene there.
It seems to me that, if Israel’s goal is to stop Iran from ever acquiring nuclear weapons, then regime change and full-scale invasion are the only effective options. Just hitting nuclear sites isn’t enough—they can and probably will be rebuilt again. And it’s hard to imagine Iran genuinely giving up its ambitions and sticking to non-proliferation, more so after this attack.
But the reality is, Israel doesn’t have the capacity to invade Iran or bring about regime change. It will probably push the U.S. to get involved, but that kind of intervention seems extremely unlikely given the current administration.
In the end, this attack may do more harm than good. It’s likely to deepen resentment in Iran, fuel long-term hostility, and make the region even less stable.
The region has been in a hellish stalemate for decades. Sometimes you just have to make a decision to act. I think that's why Israel is being so thorough in Gaza as well. Enough is enough.
Ah yes, nothing better than to thoroughly spring clean an area of undesirable humans, right?
Enlighten us, how exactly will this thorough cleansing solve the situation? I'm sure after everything is nice and clean the remaining Palestinians will love Israel, right?
“But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible ... If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government” - Persig. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Thank you Tomas. I'm concerned, however, that there's something else playing into this: Netanyahu will have to face up to the corruption convictions once he's out of power, and he needs continual war to delay that. As we've seen, regime change (Iraq, Afghanistan, you name it) does not necessarily result in a more friendly regime, so is no guarantee of Israel's security. Coupled with Trump's behavior regarding the previous nuclear treaty with Iran, it seems more likely both of their goal is actually war itself - neither are concerned about long term security.
The ongoing wild card, especially if Israel destabilizes the regime in Iran, I'm most concerned about was demonstrated by Ukraine's drone attack recently.
It is pretty clear that Israel and the US are going all in. They have to win now, by any normal understanding of this.
I’m not a fan or Israel or US policy but that is beside the point. Their opportunity is now, and they would be foolish to squander this.
Rightly or wrongly, Iran is toast. I just hope that their leadership goes with it. They are no friends of the Iranian people. And for once, I don’t believe this aggression by Israel and the US will give rise to a major insurgency against the aggressors. This time the Iranian regime may well implode.
I hope you’re right
Even putting aside attacks by Iran's proxies, Iran directly attacked Israel first in April 2024. Biden then asked Israel to "take a win", but that Israel did not respond then, does not negate the fact of Iran's initiation of direct war
Fair. I meant this round
Nice analysis. I would beg to differ with you on whether or not Iran started the war. Iran, through it proxies Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis, have been waging war on Israel for 20 years. As well, Iran's stated goal was to wipe Israel off of the map, so to speak.
I agree. I don't mean to say that Iran wasn't aggressive to Israel, or that it didn't want to eliminate it. Just that this round of attacks was not initiated by them.
More broadly, this war was started by Iran.
The Iranian regime is a theocratic totalitarian dictatorship run by murderers and terrorists with no care for their own people. On the global freedom index, Iran scores only 11 out of 100 while Israel scores 74 out of 100. I have no love for Israel's current genocide-committing government, but perhaps every Iran-apologist should try and survive an Iranian prison for a while, just to experience what they stand for. Sometimes, it takes a beast to kill an even nastier one.
I was nodding my head along to most of this: nuclear threat, yep. Two clear goals for this war, yep. Missile strikes on nuclear facilities and targeted assassinations, yep. Then I got down to this quote allegedly from Israeli defense minister Katz and my blood ran cold:
"Katz says Israel must bring about 'a mass evacuation of the population from Tehran, in order to destabilize the regime and increase deterrence.'"
UHHHH. That escalated quickly. A mass evacuation like they did in Gaza?
I broadly support Israel, but I don't think their recent approach in Gaza has been either necessary or humane. Repeating it in Tehran would be another tragedy. It would also be the farthest thing from deterrence. I understand that hatred for Israel is not limited to the Iranian government but also represented among the people due to indoctrination. However, it's not as widespread in Iran as in Gaza, yet. A mass evacuation of Tehran would change that for the worse. It would change from shallow, party-line dislike to deep, personal trauma. And whatever new government comes to power would have the perfect rallying cry of vengeance with which to collect support.
Let's hope Katz is either misrepresenting his plan for political purposes, or gets stymied by cooler heads.
I do not care for the leadership of Israel, who are committing war crimes aplenty. But I do understand that they will take any steps they deem required to ensure Israel's survival. Actually, I expect them to go brutally overboard. Golda Meir said Israelis would rather be alive with a bad image than dead and pitied. They will indeed be alive and hated.
Iran’s land area is 80x Israel.
Israel’s GDP is 20% higher than Iran’s GDP.
Israel’s per capita GDP is 10x Iran’s.
If Iran had spent billions of rials on improving the lives of their citizens rather than building a nuclear weapon and arming proxies with a goal of annihilating Israel their country and the world would both be in a better place.
I love your writing. But I'm surprised to see a source for you is a Twitter writer with 100 followers. Curious why this seemed sufficient to you?
Depends. Which one? I quote many Twitter sources
This has got me curious - do you have a post somewhere about your research process for your articles? I'm always impressed with the vast amount of sources you cite and I'm generally curious how you find, vet, and mold the information from your sources into your articles
Why celebrate death and destruction in Iran, while ignoring the fact that Israel has already built a nuclear bomb? Hundreds of nuclear warheads, most likely. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty; Israel is not.
I do not celebrate it. Death is awful. Where do you see celebration of death in Iran?
But just as the military leadership of Japan before WWII brought about mass death and destruction of their country by their actions, so now is the theocratic leadership of Iran doing so.
Thanks for reminding everybody that the US is the only country to have dropped nuclear bombs on entire cities and started the nuclear arms race. You may not be celebrating, but you are justifying.
Because it was justified. Are you trying to defend the Japanese invasion of China and rape of Nanking?
And are you so naive to think that if the US hadn't dropped the atomic bomb that the nuclear arms race would not have started?
> has recently been weeks to months away from developing a nuclear weapon.
Why are you blindly repeating Israeli propaganda? Why should Iran not have a nuclear weapons if Israel, the most aggressive terror state on this planet, has them?
Because Israel doesn’t threaten Iran with annihilation, but Iran threatens Israel with annihilation.
Right, threats are much more dangerous than actions.
Threats backed up with funding to at least 3 major organizations that regularly attack Israel.
I'm not in favor of starting this hot wat when negotiations were still being held but you're delusional if you think these were just paper threats.
At least there is an illusion to be had, whereas there is no question regarding Israel's genocidal qualities. Yet you don't seem to have a problem with its possession of nuclear weapons.
Repost:
"Should" is all nice and all, and what we tell kiddies to do to behave, but in a struggle to the death, each group of people would much rather be alive than dead. Mind you, I am no fan of Israel. They are little different from South Africa when ruled by white supremacists. But I do live in reality.
The only threat Iran, Hamas or others pose to Israel is ending the exclusion of 40% of the population. The Israel enclave especially its software engineering and IDF has resources to reintegrate the country with citizenship and participation by all. Protecting Hebrews and Hebrew culture along with others isn’t rocket science, it’s called constitutional checks and balances on tyranny of majority. Until now Israel has chosen instead exclusion, terror and wars and as this article accurately concludes that has gotten to the point of needing permanent war against neighbors. This puts Israel in a weak position and likely will lead to regime change. Israel can torment Iran from the air but has no ground capacity. The US has less ground capacity in Iran than Iraq, which it lost. Nuclear weapons are mostly irrelevant to the Iran war and the larger conflict to end partition of the Land of Jerusalem because Israel is well armed with nuclear weapons and no number of Iranian nuclear bombs would degrade that capability. Israel is dependent on the American shield, communications, air and naval forces threat that so far has kept Saudi, Egypt and Turkiye neutral. Iran is resilient and most likely will shoulder bombardment. The demographics are overwhelmingly, economies are rising and sooner or later aspirant leaders will come to the region powers, Arab, Turkic, Hebrew and Persian, and deconflict and stabilize the region. That achievement could mark the end of clientelism to foreign major powers that has reigned since the disintegration of Pax Ottoman. Iran today represents the future of self ruled Middle East.
I think the world was broadly concerned about Iran having nuclear weapons. Their statements to the desired elimination of Israel and “ The great satan” are unique. If the US bombings are “one and done”, I think it will be viewed positively. Iran is sending missiles into civilian areas. Israel (if media is honest) is not.
To the extent we can see further Abraham accords develop and a general calming of things in the Middle East, it seems unlikely that Iran will see any logic in continuing the fight. If Israel will stop its attacks and let peace develop, tensions will subside. At some point, if Iran can rejoin the global economy, it could be the best environment since 1979. Here’s hoping.
> Iran is sending missiles into civilian areas. Israel (if media is honest) is not.
Not even the most biased media is trying to hide the fact that Israel bombed densely populated areas of Tehran to take out high ranking officials, yet here you are claiming Israel isn't targeting civilian areas. I hope you're simply ignorant and not getting paid to spread these lies.
It’s unfortunate that your comment reflects the polarization we see so much of today. Instead of offering evidence or engaging with what I actually said (I even acknowledged the media might be wrong), you chose to insult my intelligence or my integrity.
Neither of us lives in Tehran, so what makes you such an expert? If you have solid evidence to share, I’m open to seeing it. Let’s focus on facts instead of personal attacks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Iran
Iran has been enriching uranium for decades, so by now it should have nuclear weapon possibilities. The fact that it suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003 does not mean it actually stopped further enrichment. That, and the fact that it cleared out its Fordow facility a few days ago leads me to think it is well capable to produce nuclear weapons.
I hope they do topple the regime. Iranians deserve freedom, or at least, a sane government.
That's the kind of thinking that got us a decade long war in Iraq and Afghanistan
Don’t invade or do nationbuilding. It’s too complicated. Just bomb the IRGC facilities and opposition Iranians will take it from there.
That's quite the wishful thinking!
Or better yet, provide them with Internet so they can mobilize. Actually Israel is destroying the IRGC, so there’s no need for America to intervene there.
It seems to me that, if Israel’s goal is to stop Iran from ever acquiring nuclear weapons, then regime change and full-scale invasion are the only effective options. Just hitting nuclear sites isn’t enough—they can and probably will be rebuilt again. And it’s hard to imagine Iran genuinely giving up its ambitions and sticking to non-proliferation, more so after this attack.
But the reality is, Israel doesn’t have the capacity to invade Iran or bring about regime change. It will probably push the U.S. to get involved, but that kind of intervention seems extremely unlikely given the current administration.
In the end, this attack may do more harm than good. It’s likely to deepen resentment in Iran, fuel long-term hostility, and make the region even less stable.
So you meant
Not Deeper hostility
Same long term resentment
Same stability in the region
That makes more sense.
Please describe:
Deeper hostility
More fueled long term resentment
Less stability in the region
I can't picture any of those.
I'm not sure what there is to describe? Hostility and resentment are self-explanatory, less stability means that Iran will continue to target Israel.
Perhaps you care to explain why you can't picture any of those?
The region has been in a hellish stalemate for decades. Sometimes you just have to make a decision to act. I think that's why Israel is being so thorough in Gaza as well. Enough is enough.
Ah yes, nothing better than to thoroughly spring clean an area of undesirable humans, right?
Enlighten us, how exactly will this thorough cleansing solve the situation? I'm sure after everything is nice and clean the remaining Palestinians will love Israel, right?
Clean out Hamas from Gaza. It's then the Palestinians decision if they want to live in peace.
“But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible ... If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government” - Persig. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Thank you Tomas. I'm concerned, however, that there's something else playing into this: Netanyahu will have to face up to the corruption convictions once he's out of power, and he needs continual war to delay that. As we've seen, regime change (Iraq, Afghanistan, you name it) does not necessarily result in a more friendly regime, so is no guarantee of Israel's security. Coupled with Trump's behavior regarding the previous nuclear treaty with Iran, it seems more likely both of their goal is actually war itself - neither are concerned about long term security.
The ongoing wild card, especially if Israel destabilizes the regime in Iran, I'm most concerned about was demonstrated by Ukraine's drone attack recently.