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OK what was done was done. What should we expect the political fallout in Iran?
by markus_zhang 1y ago
OK what was done was done. What should we expect the political fallout in Iran?
- sfifs 1y agoI would worry about the fallout to the rest of us - Persian Gulf closed to shipping,maybe oil fields attacked, Oil at 300, Recession.
- nirav72 1y agoIran doesn’t quite have the capability to shutdown the shipping lanes in the PG. At least not in any way thats sustainable for a long period. A few days at best. A USN CG would put a stop to it in a hurry.
- awnird 1y agoDidn't you guys say the same thing about the Houthis? How do you still fall for this?
- nirav72 1y agoThe Houthi threat was in and around the red sea. Iran’s naval reach is limited to with whatever it is they call a “Navy” in the Gulf of Oman. Almost on other side of the Arabian peninsula. Also the Houthis got pummeled once the U.S showed up. The U.S didn’t even continue a sustained campaign to wipe them out. Something it is more than capable of doing with just a single carrier group. That’s not even counting the Saudis getting involved.
- throwaway_dang 1y agoBecause they're dumb and caught up in the propaganda. They think war is a video game and it's normal for a country to just bomb a country.
- sfifs 1y agoLet's not confuse capability with intention and consequences Straits of Hormuz is barely 40km wide and the Persian gulf is very shallow. Blocking it very feasible for nations bordering it who are willing to take the consequences. We don't know if they are and if so, unblocking it also has consequences in terms of requiring committing to prolonges military occupation. Ultimately, it appears the military industrial complex has won by replacing defense $$ in Afghanistan & Ukraine with yet another conflict.
- philistine 1y agoI chose a very good time to buy an electric car.
- gorbachev 1y agoPutin is probably having Russian caviar dinners with his oil company buddies right now. The rise in oil price is very bad news for Ukraine.
- TiredOfLife 1y agoIran already closed Red Sea.
- locallost 1y agoShort term I expect the people of Iran to unite around their hatred for the aggressor, making one of the proclaimed goals of "regime change" impossible.
- tptacek 1y agoIt's really hard to say, but probably not good (there was an Atlantic article about this last week). Part of the dynamic here is the idea that the SL can't back down without losing so much domestic credibility that he puts the regime at risk; being in a shooting war with the West probably reinforces the regime's position. The flip side of this is that I don't think there were many signs that the opposition was in position to challenge the SL any time soon.
- awongh 1y agoafaik Iran is a very very different case demographically from Iraq and Afghanistan- in terms of being bigger, more modern and secular. It seems like those are dynamics that make it harder to go to war/stay in war.
- ummonk 1y agoQuite the contrary, the religious populace is more likely to fall in line and decide the government knows best; it’s the secular populace that is demanding retaliation and critical of the government for not pursuing nuclearization already.
- awongh 1y agoIf you're in Iran it makes sense that you would want that if you feel that Israel is a threat. (But it doesn't make it a good idea). I meant that demographically, if your populace isn't as poor, battle hardened and religious (like Afghanistan) maybe going into a long ground war is less politically feasible? In Afghanistan they had basically just been fighting a war, where the last war in Iran was 30 years ago?
- sealeck 1y ago> I meant that demographically, if your populace isn't as poor, battle hardened and religious (like Afghanistan) maybe going into a long ground war is less politically feasible? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War Excerpts: > 95,000 Iranian child soldiers were casualties during the Iran–Iraq War, mostly between the ages of 16 and 17, with a few younger > The conflict has been compared to World War I: 171 in terms of the tactics used, including large-scale trench warfare with barbed wire stretched across trenches, manned machine gun posts, bayonet charges, human wave attacks across a no man's land, and extensive use of chemical weapons such as sulfur mustard by the Iraqi government against Iranian troops, civilians, and Kurds. The world powers United States and the Soviet Union, together with many Western and Arab countries, provided military, intelligence, economic, and political support for Iraq. On average, Iraq imported about $7 billion in weapons during every year of the war, accounting for fully 12% of global arms sales in the period.
- bigyabai 1y ago[flagged]
- _zagj 1y ago> Situation: 92,000,000 Iranians harbor a generational hatred for America Is this supposed to make me feel comfortable about Iran acquiring nuclear weapons?
- renewiltord 1y agoNo, mate, the joke is that they already hated us and now there's fewer of them. So this is what low SAT/GRE verbal looks like.
- smashah 1y ago[flagged]
- nozzlegear 1y ago> If you're uncomfortable, you should ask your congressAIPACSlave to nuke the entire planet. This way you can make sure there's nobody on this planet left to hate America's rape-culture-based Foreign Policy. Referring to Congress as AIPAC slaves is textbook anti-Semitic rhetoric; it relies on the old conspiracy theory that Jews secretly control governments. Smuggling in bigotry like this undermines any chance at actual discussion we might have.
- smashah 1y agoIsrael is committing a holocaust of Gaza right now, the time for good faith discussion ended a while ago. Accusing anti-zionists of Anti-semetism for pointing out that the sky is blue as a way to protect Israel from scrutiny is manuscript double anti-semetism. One should be ashamed of oneself for trafficking in genocide whitewashing by using the real issue of antisemetism almost as a human shield.
- 1y ago
- archsurface 1y agoReversion to mean. Pre-78.
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoI like this answer because of its circular logic (therefore impenetrable). Simply declare a prior good state to be "the mean," then all we need to do is let mean reversion work its magic!
- archsurface 1y agoI like this answer because you pretend you're arguing against the comment without actually addressing anything.
- sorcerer-mar 1y ago[flagged]
- margalabargala 1y agoThey addressed all substance in the comment though
- archsurface 1y ago[flagged]
- margalabargala 1y agoI was just trying to be consistent with the comment chain. I wouldn't want to stick out.
- archsurface 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- TeeMassive 1y agoThe point of Iran of enriching U beyond civilian use but not actually going full military grade was leverage. They're the only Shiia super power in the reigion. Nobody likes them. So what can we expect: * a ground invasion is pretty much out of the question considering the geography or Iran and its neighboring countries. * Iran destroys every oil production and transport sites in the region (say good by to your election, Republican Party) * they could fast produce the bomb and test it underground as a final warning * OR they fail and resort to more desperate measure like a dirty bomb * OR they fail and there is some sort of regime change * Or there is some kind of extended war of attrition and it makes the refugee crisis from the past 20 years seem like it was a mere tourist wave. In any case, this will accentuate the Qaddafi effect and more nations will follow the North Korea option of nuclear "unauthorized" nuclear dissuasion, which is also the case for Israel by the way. Talking of which, Israel will become politically radioactive in the world. Its support is already negative in nearly all countries and has dropped significantly in the US such as the evangelicals.
- fallingknife 1y agoThey're not going to escalate. They're already getting their ass handed to them by Israel and the last thing they want is to throw down with their other enemies in the region right now. You are correct that there will be no ground invasion, so there is no existential threat to the government. This means they have no incentive to do something stupid that will make anyone change their mind on that invasion.
- handfuloflight 1y ago> so there is no existential threat to the government. Do you think sitting by and doing nothing will not pose an existential threat to the government by way of constituent discontent?
- TeeMassive 1y agoAnd now every regime who feared getting regime-changed will have an interest of developing the bomb. Gaddafi effect is real.
- yyyk 1y agoFor now, nothing (everyone is kinda busy). The first infliction point would be to see whether the regime intends to strike at US forces or do they intend to climb down. IMHO, that would be suicidal, but it doesn't mean they won't do it. The second point is when they decide to end the war (they aren't doing well), and all the accusations start flying. Then there'll be political fallout.
- paxys 1y agoThere isn't going to be political fallout. The Iranian regime has systemically wiped out all dissent over the last decade and a half. The remaining population is all either pro-Khamenei or too powerless to speak out. If anything an unprovoked war will give the country stronger reason to distrust the west and rally behind their leader.
- markus_zhang 1y agoWhat about the factions within the regime? Maybe someone is going to take responsibility for all these failures?
- standardUser 1y ago> What should we expect the political fallout in Iran? The Iranian regimes favorite enemy just played their part to perfection, so we should expect that to compel the majority of Iranians to rally behind their government in the face of a brutal foreign invasion by not one but BOTH of their standard-bearer arch-nemeses.
- narrator 1y agoPropaganda isn't everything. Iran having a nuclear bomb or not having one does count for more than whether we played our part in the bad guy in their narrative.
- jjk166 1y agoWell that pre-supposes that Iran was actively working on acquiring the bomb, that this course of action would stop them from getting the bomb, and that Iran having the bomb is actually a severe issue.
- mensetmanusman 1y agoIt’s impossible to know, all we do know is that they were orders of magnitude above the enrichment required for anything else except bombs.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Beefin 1y agoyou willing to take that risk?
- einpoklum 1y agoAre you suggesting that states may bomb each other when they don't want to "take the risk" of the other state possibly carrying out a dangerous attack on them in the future? Plus, the nuclear issue is the excuse, not the reason. Palestine, Lebanon, Syria (+ regime change, sorta), Iraq (+ regime change), Afghanistan and now Iran. All attacked repeatedly and extensively over the past two decades.
- mikewarot 1y agoIt's my suspicion that most of the 60% enriched material was moved prior to the attack(Edit: which recent statements from Iran seem to support), and now undergoing enrichment to 90% in a facility the US doesn't know about. Enrichment gets easier as the percentage goes up. I expect (ok, I WORRY) a major US city to have a nuke set off in it by Iran within the next 5 years. It didn't have to be this way, we had a working treaty and inspections regime until Trump pulled us out of it. Decades of effort to prohibit nuclear proliferation have just gone down the toilet. EDIT: Ya'll are right, the idea of them doing a test and going public makes a lot more sense.
- klipt 1y ago> I expect a major US city to have a nuke set off in it by Iran within the next 5 years. Why would Iran do something so suicidal?
- roughly 1y ago> I expect a major US city to have a nuke set off in it by Iran within the next 5 years. This absolutely will not happen. Iran will make a nuke, and they will test it very publicly, and then the political math in the Middle East changes overnight. The point of a nuclear bomb for a country like Iran (or Pakistan, or North Korea) is deterrence, not attack - if Iran set off a nuke in an American city, the regime would not survive, and it’s possible the country would not. Edit: to put that differently, the only way an Iranian bomb goes off in an American city is if an American bomb goes off in an Iranian city.
- mensetmanusman 1y ago“ The point of a nuclear bomb for a country like Iran (or Pakistan, or North Korea) is deterrence” I hope this is true, but Iran has a hard time convincing people because their theocratic elements are suicidal from a secular standpoint. Eg their religious messaging is confounding.
- krainboltgreene 1y agoI think you have a typo, you wrote “Iran” instead of “the United States”.
- yibg 1y agoOptimistically given how much Trump loves attention and declaring victories: - Trump declares mission accomplished. Looks tough to his base, appeases Israel and calls it a day - Ditto for Israel. Declares Iran's nuclear ambitions over and re-affirms the friendship between the US and Israel - Iran lobs a few more missiles at Israel in retaliation to provide legitimacy at home and moves on Everyone declares victory and gets an off ramp.
- seydor 1y ago> Looks tough to his base Actually his base is very disappointed by him becoming a total neocon. The influential ones are already speaking out , harshly
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- tryauuum 1y agopolitical fallout? if you tell people the west hates you and then west bombs you, it makes it easier for you to continue preaching what you preached