5 ms·

If anything, the lack of competence is on the other side. Was enriched uranium destroyed? I doubt it. Have they even "obliterated" Fordow site buried 90 m dee

by alkyon 1y ago

If anything, the lack of competence is on the other side. Was enriched uranium destroyed? I doubt it. Have they even "obliterated" Fordow site buried 90 m deep inside the mountain? I have serious doubts. Iran's nuclear program was set back some months if anything.

nmca 1y ago
How do you purport to know this?
- coffeebeqn 1y ago
  The layout of Fordow from what we’ve seen is not a single site. Depending on how many runs they did maybe it is all but destroyed or maybe it’s 1/3 destroyed. I’m sure Israel’s intelligence on it is pretty accurate (probably not public at this point)
- hajile 1y ago
  Fordow is widely reported to be significantly deeper than GBU-57 can penetrate (which is just 60 meters). The only way they penetrate is landing two of them in the exact same hole (think Robin Hood splitting an arrow with another arrow). Off by just a little and it winds up with it's own separate 60m hole. CEP with GPS for our most accurate glide bombs is 5 meters. But GPS jamming is cheap and easy and the best precision we get in that case is 30 meters CEP. GPU-57 gets its power from gravity. Reaching that 60 meter maximum penetration requires dropping the bomb from maximum elevation, but without GPS, that further increases the CEP. With just 6 bombs, it seems unlikely that they could reliably penetrate. Actual penetration would likely require nuclear penetrators, but those also break the nuclear prohibition and open Pandora's box in places like Ukraine. A great example of the problem is Yemen. We tried to get the Houthi to stop by dropping bunker busters on their tunnel systems and completely failed. We were forced to reach a ceasefire agreement (one that likely went up in smoke last night).
birn559 1y ago
Care to elaborate? A random person doubting things doesn't help other people or bringing a discussion forward.
- motorest 1y ago
  > Care to elaborate? A random person doubting things doesn't help other people or bringing a discussion forward. I don't know if you noticed, but what you are arguing for is in fact for mindlessly accepting unverified claims and extrapolate them to an optimal outcome. This is the opposite of critical thinking, and goes well beyond wishful thinking. Meanwhile, if you pay attention to OP's point, you'll understand that Iran's nuclear sites have been continuously designed and developed for decades, while subjected to an almost evolutionary pressure, to continue operations even after withstanding direct attacks in scenarios matching exactly Trump's attacks. In the very least, you must assess the effect of those strikes before making any sort of claim. Another factor which it seems you somehow missed was the fact that Russia, another nuclear-capable totalitarian regime, is nowadays heavily dependent on Iran to conduct it's imperialist agenda. If Russia was negotiating handing over nuclear capabilities to North Korea in exchange for supporting it's war effort, do you believe Russia now has no interest to speed up Iran's nuclear weapons programmes?
  - 01100011 1y ago
    Weird that Iran, an oil exporter with huge potential for solar, would expend so much energy on protecting a purportedly civilian nuclear program. I'm sure it's nothing. This isn't really relevant but I'm only making one comment in this post so I'll say it here: young folks don't remember decades of Iranian state sponsored terrorism and do not understand the context of conflict in the middle east.
    - youngtaff 1y ago
      Sooner or later they’re going to run oil of oil and gas
    - oa335 1y ago
      > context of conflict in the middle east. Conflict in the Middle East is entirely rooted in Israeli ethnic cleansing campaigns and western adventurism and protections of Israeli interests. If Iran went away tomorrow, the region would still have massive support for violent movements targeting Israel.
adventured 1y ago
The US, Israel and possibly Britain will install a no-fly zone over Iran. Israel is going to be entirely unwilling to allow Iran to go right back to building again what just got destroyed. This was a once in decades shot for Israel to take against Iran, in its very weakened state (with its proxies out of commission, Syria knocked over, and Russia very preoccupied). They'll attempt the post Gulf War I approach against Iraq (as an invasion will never be on the table). Sanctions and no-fly zone. They'll retain control over Iran's sky and in doing so will be free to bomb as they see fit if Iran attempts to build or re-start something like Fordow. If they attempt to install new air defenses, they'll simply bomb them. Whether that one bombing took care of Fordow is going to be moot, they'll hit it ten more times if that's what it takes, and destroy anything that attempts to move in or out of there. Israel can't maintain a no-fly zone over Iran so the US will be enlisted to do the heavy lifting on that.
- 400thecat 1y ago
  aiding regime change would be much easier, and would solve all these problems better. At some point in the next few days, the regime will be so weakened that the Iranian people will overthrow it themselves
  - tharmas 1y ago
    Overthrow and get what? Another Libya?
  - adventured 1y ago
    The IRGC is unlikely to let the regime fall so easily. They'll kill a lot of Iranians to stop that from happening. The Iranian people have limited means to fight at present. The no-fly zone and sanctions approach will be used to attempt to strangle the regime over the coming years. It'll take a small miracle for the regime to fall anytime soon, it's not that weak yet (imo) despite what the propaganda is claiming.
    - 400thecat 1y ago
      Israel can bomb the IRGC and Basij bases, police and prisons (release political prisoners). They can collapse the regime, restrict its movement, eliminate chain of command. From there the Iranian people can raise and topple the regime
stickfigure 1y ago
I'm willing to bet that the Americans can build another one of those GBU-57 bombs every some months if they had to.
hackerknew 1y ago
Even if it is only set back by a few months, that is enough time to put pressure on Iran to abandon it altogether. Keep in mind, Israel has full aerial control over Iran and has taken out hundreds of their missile launchers. We can keep pounding the various nuclear facilities and hinder ant chances of rebuilding, making any effort futile.
- disgruntledphd2 1y ago
  This would be a really risky strategy as it will push the Iranians into a corner with potentially large impacts on the oil price (which will change US public opinion).
  - dotancohen 1y ago
    That sounds to me like the US seriously needs to promote non-petroleum sources of energy. If not for the environment, for their own national sovereignity.
    - dreghgh 1y ago
      The thing is, the United States is self sufficient in petroleum. But domestic prices will go up to reflect the effect on world supply. Arguably the same could happen given widespread use of non petroleum sources of energy. Prices will go up to reflect the marginal cost of hydrocarbon based energy, even if that use is minimal, until the point where the energy network is completely decoupled from those markets. This happened in the United Kingdom after the invasion of Ukraine. More wind was used as gas became more expensive. But the price of electricity from wind also went up.
      - chgs 1y ago
        US could ban fuel exports. Unlikely as rich people would suffer, but they may be placated with bribes.
      - disgruntledphd2 1y ago
        The UK increase was because of how the contracts work but yeah agreed in general. Sustainable energy is good for a bunch of non environmental reasons.
KevinCarbonara 1y ago
I don't know that it can be confirmed, but Iran is claiming that the US tipped them off. This is a fairly standard tactic, and it makes more sense here. This is something that would satisfy both the pro-war crowd and the group that is pro-Israel or anti-Iran, but not necessarily pro-war. We get to show our strength and support for our allies without really committing.
herbst 1y ago
> No increase in radiation levels have been detected, the UN's nuclear watchdog says I guess means no. However I have no idea what they would say if they did. "Yes we poisoned the whole area for generations to come, success!"

by alkyon 1y ago

nmca 1y ago

How do you purport to know this?

coffeebeqn 1y ago
The layout of Fordow from what we’ve seen is not a single site. Depending on how many runs they did maybe it is all but destroyed or maybe it’s 1/3 destroyed. I’m sure Israel’s intelligence on it is pretty accurate (probably not public at this point)
hajile 1y ago
Fordow is widely reported to be significantly deeper than GBU-57 can penetrate (which is just 60 meters). The only way they penetrate is landing two of them in the exact same hole (think Robin Hood splitting an arrow with another arrow). Off by just a little and it winds up with it's own separate 60m hole. CEP with GPS for our most accurate glide bombs is 5 meters. But GPS jamming is cheap and easy and the best precision we get in that case is 30 meters CEP. GPU-57 gets its power from gravity. Reaching that 60 meter maximum penetration requires dropping the bomb from maximum elevation, but without GPS, that further increases the CEP. With just 6 bombs, it seems unlikely that they could reliably penetrate. Actual penetration would likely require nuclear penetrators, but those also break the nuclear prohibition and open Pandora's box in places like Ukraine. A great example of the problem is Yemen. We tried to get the Houthi to stop by dropping bunker busters on their tunnel systems and completely failed. We were forced to reach a ceasefire agreement (one that likely went up in smoke last night).

birn559 1y ago

Care to elaborate? A random person doubting things doesn't help other people or bringing a discussion forward.

motorest 1y ago
> Care to elaborate? A random person doubting things doesn't help other people or bringing a discussion forward. I don't know if you noticed, but what you are arguing for is in fact for mindlessly accepting unverified claims and extrapolate them to an optimal outcome. This is the opposite of critical thinking, and goes well beyond wishful thinking. Meanwhile, if you pay attention to OP's point, you'll understand that Iran's nuclear sites have been continuously designed and developed for decades, while subjected to an almost evolutionary pressure, to continue operations even after withstanding direct attacks in scenarios matching exactly Trump's attacks. In the very least, you must assess the effect of those strikes before making any sort of claim. Another factor which it seems you somehow missed was the fact that Russia, another nuclear-capable totalitarian regime, is nowadays heavily dependent on Iran to conduct it's imperialist agenda. If Russia was negotiating handing over nuclear capabilities to North Korea in exchange for supporting it's war effort, do you believe Russia now has no interest to speed up Iran's nuclear weapons programmes?
- 01100011 1y ago
  Weird that Iran, an oil exporter with huge potential for solar, would expend so much energy on protecting a purportedly civilian nuclear program. I'm sure it's nothing. This isn't really relevant but I'm only making one comment in this post so I'll say it here: young folks don't remember decades of Iranian state sponsored terrorism and do not understand the context of conflict in the middle east.
  - youngtaff 1y ago
    Sooner or later they’re going to run oil of oil and gas
  - oa335 1y ago
    > context of conflict in the middle east. Conflict in the Middle East is entirely rooted in Israeli ethnic cleansing campaigns and western adventurism and protections of Israeli interests. If Iran went away tomorrow, the region would still have massive support for violent movements targeting Israel.

adventured 1y ago

The US, Israel and possibly Britain will install a no-fly zone over Iran. Israel is going to be entirely unwilling to allow Iran to go right back to building again what just got destroyed. This was a once in decades shot for Israel to take against Iran, in its very weakened state (with its proxies out of commission, Syria knocked over, and Russia very preoccupied). They'll attempt the post Gulf War I approach against Iraq (as an invasion will never be on the table). Sanctions and no-fly zone. They'll retain control over Iran's sky and in doing so will be free to bomb as they see fit if Iran attempts to build or re-start something like Fordow. If they attempt to install new air defenses, they'll simply bomb them. Whether that one bombing took care of Fordow is going to be moot, they'll hit it ten more times if that's what it takes, and destroy anything that attempts to move in or out of there. Israel can't maintain a no-fly zone over Iran so the US will be enlisted to do the heavy lifting on that.

400thecat 1y ago
aiding regime change would be much easier, and would solve all these problems better. At some point in the next few days, the regime will be so weakened that the Iranian people will overthrow it themselves
- tharmas 1y ago
  Overthrow and get what? Another Libya?
- adventured 1y ago
  The IRGC is unlikely to let the regime fall so easily. They'll kill a lot of Iranians to stop that from happening. The Iranian people have limited means to fight at present. The no-fly zone and sanctions approach will be used to attempt to strangle the regime over the coming years. It'll take a small miracle for the regime to fall anytime soon, it's not that weak yet (imo) despite what the propaganda is claiming.
  - 400thecat 1y ago
    Israel can bomb the IRGC and Basij bases, police and prisons (release political prisoners). They can collapse the regime, restrict its movement, eliminate chain of command. From there the Iranian people can raise and topple the regime

stickfigure 1y ago

I'm willing to bet that the Americans can build another one of those GBU-57 bombs every some months if they had to.

hackerknew 1y ago

Even if it is only set back by a few months, that is enough time to put pressure on Iran to abandon it altogether. Keep in mind, Israel has full aerial control over Iran and has taken out hundreds of their missile launchers. We can keep pounding the various nuclear facilities and hinder ant chances of rebuilding, making any effort futile.

disgruntledphd2 1y ago
This would be a really risky strategy as it will push the Iranians into a corner with potentially large impacts on the oil price (which will change US public opinion).
- dotancohen 1y ago
  That sounds to me like the US seriously needs to promote non-petroleum sources of energy. If not for the environment, for their own national sovereignity.
  - dreghgh 1y ago
    The thing is, the United States is self sufficient in petroleum. But domestic prices will go up to reflect the effect on world supply. Arguably the same could happen given widespread use of non petroleum sources of energy. Prices will go up to reflect the marginal cost of hydrocarbon based energy, even if that use is minimal, until the point where the energy network is completely decoupled from those markets. This happened in the United Kingdom after the invasion of Ukraine. More wind was used as gas became more expensive. But the price of electricity from wind also went up.
    - chgs 1y ago
      US could ban fuel exports. Unlikely as rich people would suffer, but they may be placated with bribes.
    - disgruntledphd2 1y ago
      The UK increase was because of how the contracts work but yeah agreed in general. Sustainable energy is good for a bunch of non environmental reasons.

KevinCarbonara 1y ago

I don't know that it can be confirmed, but Iran is claiming that the US tipped them off. This is a fairly standard tactic, and it makes more sense here. This is something that would satisfy both the pro-war crowd and the group that is pro-Israel or anti-Iran, but not necessarily pro-war. We get to show our strength and support for our allies without really committing.

herbst 1y ago

> No increase in radiation levels have been detected, the UN's nuclear watchdog says I guess means no. However I have no idea what they would say if they did. "Yes we poisoned the whole area for generations to come, success!"