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Time to pay the piper. IMO Iran is the winner (least damaged) out of all this. Their proxies are smashed, but the core strength is still the same. Israel has

by worik 2y ago

Time to pay the piper. IMO Iran is the winner (least damaged) out of all this. Their proxies are smashed, but the core strength is still the same. Israel has blown all its international credibility. The International Court of Justice verdict will be very interesting. If it goes against Israel then BDS will (should) become the policy for all countries.

shmerl 2y ago
Iran invested all its resources into proxies waging wars for it. Them being smashed means Iran is ruined on all those war investments. With economy in shambles and expansionist war failed, it's hardly "least damaged".
- sudosysgen 2y ago
  This is untrue on multiple levels. Iran invested most of its resources on its own military - the proxies are extremely cheap - and Iran's most powerful Iraqi proxies are fine, while the Houthis actually came out of this stronger.
  - 8note 2y ago
    who's the strongest proxies? i thought it was Hezbollah, who are now in shambles
    - sudosysgen 2y ago
      By equipment and manpower, it's the proxy groups of the Iraqi PMF by a country mile, and apparently the Houthis are stronger than anyone expected.
  - shmerl 2y ago
    They aren't cheap, at that scale they required huge expenses. And the more they wanted to expand, they more expenses it meant. They overstretched in hopes of that paying off, and it all went crashing down. The only upside for them now is that those expenses suddenly became unnecessary, but it's not going to stop them from trying to do it all over again.
    - sudosysgen 2y ago
      They really don't. It's estimated Hezbollah cost around a billion dollars a year, probably less now due to the massive PPP multiplier increase. The Iranian proxies are not actually fully on Iran's teat, they have their own revenue stream and direct Iranian funding is now only a small part of it.
      - shmerl 2y ago
        More like Iran pays them and tries to milk their criminal profits back to some degree. But they spend more than they make, for them it's about expansionism, not about profits.
        sudosysgen 2y ago
        Most of these groups are governmental or semi-governmental, many operate hospitals, schools, and so on. They aren't small time criminals making small time goon money, they operate at the level of states and have significant legitimate income streams. Being sanctioned organizations, they still need to launder money even if it is obtained legitimately in order to obscure their control of it. But being in the position they are, a billion dollars is not actually a huge sum compared to their assets and income streams. A conservative estimate would put total legitimate assets for Hezbollah over 10 billion dollars. There was a time where this wasn't true, somewhere in the 1980s, but that time is long past. Iran's proxies have grown beyond directly being funded and they have largely established themselves in the social and economic fabric as an essentially governmental entity. This is clear when you look at the US sanctioning various Lebanese businessmen and large companies in sectors from telecommunications to construction to pharmaceuticals as well as functionaries in it's government. It's not a question of selling weed.
        shmerl 2y ago
        Criminals handling quasi or even fully governmental functions to control the populace is nothing new. Look at Russia or Venezuela where it happens at massive scale. They do have big income streams, but "legitimate" is way more than a stretch here. More like they use population for those streams, and anything else they can reach, "legitimate" or not.
  - raxxor 2y ago
    Iran lost influence in Lebanon and Syria and these countries, for now at least, pose a much smaller threat to Israel. Perhaps we will even see normalizations in the nearer future. Leaders in the middle east are also driven by their constituents, which still harbor a lot of resentment against Israel, but that will pass as well. I think this was the last chance of a significant insurgency to reorder powers in the middle east and Iran and its proxies lost a lot of influence. Houthis have a strategic position and Yemen probably has one of the largest market for illegal weapons. But their capabilities are very limited and their raison d'être is a death cult with no future. At some point other Yemini forces will take charge. For Israel it seems possible to strike through Iraq with some effort, and technically they are still at war after Iraq attacked Israel in . But that war is quite cold and there is some exchange at least with the Kurdish part of Iraq.
tdeck 2y ago
Israel already violated multiple clear orders from the ICJ so I honestly don't see what mechanism would hold them accountable.
- worik 2y ago
  > Israel already violated multiple clear orders from the ICJ so I honestly don't see what mechanism would hold them accountable. That is the point of BDS After all it was scantions from the West that bought down the other apartheid regime in the 1990s
verdverm 2y ago
Iran has not escaped this war. Both the US and Israel have made strikes within the country https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/consequences-idf-strikes-iran https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/consequences-i... (from Nov) | https://www.understandingwar.org/publications?type%5B%5D=backgrounder&type%5B%5D=map&type%5B%5D=other_work&type%5B%5D=report&tid%5B%5D=294&field_lastname_value=&sort_by=created&sort_order=DESC https://www.understandingwar.org/publications?type%5B%5D=bac... (daily report history) With other conflicts wrapping up, there are people expecting more attacks into Iran, especially by Israel. They are in a weakened state. Their missile attacks amounted to nothing. Much like Russia, they likely look better on paper than in practice. That being said, one nuke from them against Israel would be devastating, but also likely mean the end of the regime

by worik 2y ago

shmerl 2y ago

Iran invested all its resources into proxies waging wars for it. Them being smashed means Iran is ruined on all those war investments. With economy in shambles and expansionist war failed, it's hardly "least damaged".

sudosysgen 2y ago
This is untrue on multiple levels. Iran invested most of its resources on its own military - the proxies are extremely cheap - and Iran's most powerful Iraqi proxies are fine, while the Houthis actually came out of this stronger.
- 8note 2y ago
  who's the strongest proxies? i thought it was Hezbollah, who are now in shambles
  - sudosysgen 2y ago
    By equipment and manpower, it's the proxy groups of the Iraqi PMF by a country mile, and apparently the Houthis are stronger than anyone expected.
- shmerl 2y ago
  They aren't cheap, at that scale they required huge expenses. And the more they wanted to expand, they more expenses it meant. They overstretched in hopes of that paying off, and it all went crashing down. The only upside for them now is that those expenses suddenly became unnecessary, but it's not going to stop them from trying to do it all over again.
  - sudosysgen 2y ago
    They really don't. It's estimated Hezbollah cost around a billion dollars a year, probably less now due to the massive PPP multiplier increase. The Iranian proxies are not actually fully on Iran's teat, they have their own revenue stream and direct Iranian funding is now only a small part of it.
    - shmerl 2y ago
      More like Iran pays them and tries to milk their criminal profits back to some degree. But they spend more than they make, for them it's about expansionism, not about profits.
      - sudosysgen 2y ago
        Most of these groups are governmental or semi-governmental, many operate hospitals, schools, and so on. They aren't small time criminals making small time goon money, they operate at the level of states and have significant legitimate income streams. Being sanctioned organizations, they still need to launder money even if it is obtained legitimately in order to obscure their control of it. But being in the position they are, a billion dollars is not actually a huge sum compared to their assets and income streams. A conservative estimate would put total legitimate assets for Hezbollah over 10 billion dollars. There was a time where this wasn't true, somewhere in the 1980s, but that time is long past. Iran's proxies have grown beyond directly being funded and they have largely established themselves in the social and economic fabric as an essentially governmental entity. This is clear when you look at the US sanctioning various Lebanese businessmen and large companies in sectors from telecommunications to construction to pharmaceuticals as well as functionaries in it's government. It's not a question of selling weed.
        shmerl 2y ago
        Criminals handling quasi or even fully governmental functions to control the populace is nothing new. Look at Russia or Venezuela where it happens at massive scale. They do have big income streams, but "legitimate" is way more than a stretch here. More like they use population for those streams, and anything else they can reach, "legitimate" or not.
- raxxor 2y ago
  Iran lost influence in Lebanon and Syria and these countries, for now at least, pose a much smaller threat to Israel. Perhaps we will even see normalizations in the nearer future. Leaders in the middle east are also driven by their constituents, which still harbor a lot of resentment against Israel, but that will pass as well. I think this was the last chance of a significant insurgency to reorder powers in the middle east and Iran and its proxies lost a lot of influence. Houthis have a strategic position and Yemen probably has one of the largest market for illegal weapons. But their capabilities are very limited and their raison d'être is a death cult with no future. At some point other Yemini forces will take charge. For Israel it seems possible to strike through Iraq with some effort, and technically they are still at war after Iraq attacked Israel in . But that war is quite cold and there is some exchange at least with the Kurdish part of Iraq.

tdeck 2y ago

Israel already violated multiple clear orders from the ICJ so I honestly don't see what mechanism would hold them accountable.

worik 2y ago
> Israel already violated multiple clear orders from the ICJ so I honestly don't see what mechanism would hold them accountable. That is the point of BDS After all it was scantions from the West that bought down the other apartheid regime in the 1990s

verdverm 2y ago

Iran has not escaped this war. Both the US and Israel have made strikes within the country https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/consequences-idf-strikes-iran https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/consequences-i... (from Nov) | https://www.understandingwar.org/publications?type%5B%5D=backgrounder&type%5B%5D=map&type%5B%5D=other_work&type%5B%5D=report&tid%5B%5D=294&field_lastname_value=&sort_by=created&sort_order=DESC https://www.understandingwar.org/publications?type%5B%5D=bac... (daily report history) With other conflicts wrapping up, there are people expecting more attacks into Iran, especially by Israel. They are in a weakened state. Their missile attacks amounted to nothing. Much like Russia, they likely look better on paper than in practice. That being said, one nuke from them against Israel would be devastating, but also likely mean the end of the regime