4 ms·

It feels like the US-Iran war is inevitable now.

alephnerd 8mo ago
A US-Iran conflict has been inevitable for decades. A nuclear Iran would lead to a nuclear KSA, Turkiye, UAE, Egypt, Qatar, etc and would make the Middle East more unstable. We don't need to put boots on the ground though. The reason why we had boots in Afghanistan and Iraq which led to it's unpopularity was due to our moral commitment to nation-building in the 1990s-2000s (especially after Yugoslavia). Americans no longer feel that moral compulsion. If Iran shatters like Libya, the problem is solved and KSA, UAE, Qatar, Turkiye, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Russia, China, and India can fight over the carcass just like how ASEAN, China, Russia, and India are doing in now collapsed Myanmar (which had similar ambitions in the 2000s); how the Gulf, Med states, and Russia are meddling in Libya; and how the Gulf, Turkiye, Russia, China, and India are meddling in the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia). This is why North Korea prioritized nuclear weapons - in order to gain strategic autonomy from the US and China [0], especially because China has constantly offered to forcibly denuclearize North Korea as a token to SK and Japan for a China-SK-Japan FTA [1] Edit: can't reply > How many more years will it remain inevitable, do you think? As long as Iranian leadership remain committed to building a nuclear program. Thus Iran either completely hands off it's nuclear program to the US or the EU, or it shatters. The former is not happening because the key veto players in Iran (the clerics, the Bonyads, the IRGC, the Army, and regime-aligned oligarchs) are profiting from sanctions and substituting US/EU relations with Russia and China, and have an incentive to have a nuclear weapon in order to solidify their perpetual control in the same manner that North Korea did. That only leaves the latter. The same thing happened to Libya and Myanmar. The only reason the Obama administration went with the JCPOA was because the EU, Russia, and China lobbied the Obama admin that they could prevent Iran from nuclearizing. China+Russia are now indifferent to Iranian nuclear ambitions due to ONG (China) and technology (Russia) dependencies, and the EU does not have the power projection capacity nor the economic linkages to stop Iran. [0] - https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/six-party-talks-north-koreas-nuclear-program https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/six-party-talks-north-kore... [1] - https://english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/47844?device=smartphone&phrase=okinawa&words= https://english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/47844?device=smartp...
- BoredPositron 8mo ago
  Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.
  - alephnerd 8mo ago
    We truly don't need boots on the ground though. The NATO campaign in Libya was similar with no American boots on the ground, with the Gulf and Turkiye largely stepping in. And unlike Libya, we don't have US citizens in a consulate in Iran. "You break it, you buy it" doesn't hold in 2026 anymore.
    - bigyabai 8mo ago
      Libya has a 10x lower population density than Iran, among other disparities. I'd be careful leaping to comparisons before anything has happened, considering how benign the Twelve Day War ended up being. "Hands off the nuke or we kill you" is a great populist policy on paper, but difficult to implement in reality. Especially if your air campaign fails, necessitating a suicidal ground invasion.
      - alephnerd 8mo ago
        > Libya has a 10x lower population density than Iran, among other disparities Libya's population was overwhelmingly concentrated in a handful of regions in the same manner as Iran. Furthermore, Iran no longer has functional AD systems and the initial strikes were limited to nuclear sites and a handful of strategic site. This time strikes are planned to be more generalized > "Hands off the nuke or we kill you" is a great populist policy on paper, but difficult to implement in reality. Especially if your air campaign fails, necessitating a suicidal ground invasion We can keep striking Iran indefinetly. A nuclear program requires an industrial base, and with what is current being proposed, a scorched earth approach of targeting Iranian industrial [0], security [0], and leadership capacity [1] is being planned. You truly do not need boots on the ground if you do not care about maintaining a functional country at the end of such strikes. That is the approach the US is adopting now. For all this talk of "regime change", the answer is we don't care what happens after. This is why I called out Libya - it was an industrialized country with an active nuclear and ballistics missile program with the capacity to harm much of Europe. The months of NATO strikes degraded their industrial capacity and the country collapsed into civil war, but it was no longer a major headache for Europe in the same manner that it was under Gaddafi. Iran collapsing into a Libya or even Syrian style civil war is a good outcome for the US. It sucks for the region (and hence why the Gulf and Turkiye has been lobbying against it) but it is good enough for us in the USA. [0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-military-preparing-potentially-weeks-long-iran-operations-2026-02-13/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-military-prepar... [1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-strikes-iran-could-target-individual-leaders-officials-say-2026-02-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-strikes-iran-co...
not_a_bot_4sho 8mo ago
10 days to go https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c86yjnw4x49o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c86yjnw4x49o
- alephnerd 8mo ago
  Most likely this weekend.
  - bubblewand 8mo ago
    Second carrier's not arriving in-theater until tomorrow at the earliest, and the latest report I saw on its position made it look more like Monday or so. They might go without it, but if they're waiting on the Ford, they'll be cutting it close to fit the opening strike into this weekend.
    - alephnerd 8mo ago
      IMO it depends on the War Powers Act. If it appears they have the votes, they might initate operations earlier.
      - bubblewand 8mo ago
        Votes? That’s pre-9/11 stuff. We already bombed Iran and launched missile strikes and a special forces raid to capture the head of state of Venezuela without Congress voting on it, within the last few months. They don’t appear to be planning an actual invasion (moving troops in-theater takes time and is impossible to hide) and Congress lets presidents bomb anyone they like without restraint, these days.
csense 8mo ago
Trump said "Don't shoot the protestors or else." Iran shot the protestors. US military assets were out of position dealing with Venezuela. Now the assets are in position, the administration now feels obligated to impose "or else." I doubt Trump's seriously seeking a nuclear deal as he (in)famously withdrew from the deal established by the Obama administration [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_the_Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_...
ycsux 8mo ago
Wag the dog, to distract us while pedo, grifting Trump family at work
potatium 8mo ago
It is, but not because of this decision.
- bigyabai 8mo ago
  Correct, because of the Epstein files.

A US-Iran conflict has been inevitable for decades. A nuclear Iran would lead to a nuclear KSA, Turkiye, UAE, Egypt, Qatar, etc and would make the Middle East more unstable. We don't need to put boots on the ground though. The reason why we had boots in Afghanistan and Iraq which led to it's unpopularity was due to our moral commitment to nation-building in the 1990s-2000s (especially after Yugoslavia). Americans no longer feel that moral compulsion. If Iran shatters like Libya, the problem is solved and KSA, UAE, Qatar, Turkiye, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Russia, China, and India can fight over the carcass just like how ASEAN, China, Russia, and India are doing in now collapsed Myanmar (which had similar ambitions in the 2000s); how the Gulf, Med states, and Russia are meddling in Libya; and how the Gulf, Turkiye, Russia, China, and India are meddling in the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia). This is why North Korea prioritized nuclear weapons - in order to gain strategic autonomy from the US and China [0], especially because China has constantly offered to forcibly denuclearize North Korea as a token to SK and Japan for a China-SK-Japan FTA [1] Edit: can't reply > How many more years will it remain inevitable, do you think? As long as Iranian leadership remain committed to building a nuclear program. Thus Iran either completely hands off it's nuclear program to the US or the EU, or it shatters. The former is not happening because the key veto players in Iran (the clerics, the Bonyads, the IRGC, the Army, and regime-aligned oligarchs) are profiting from sanctions and substituting US/EU relations with Russia and China, and have an incentive to have a nuclear weapon in order to solidify their perpetual control in the same manner that North Korea did. That only leaves the latter. The same thing happened to Libya and Myanmar. The only reason the Obama administration went with the JCPOA was because the EU, Russia, and China lobbied the Obama admin that they could prevent Iran from nuclearizing. China+Russia are now indifferent to Iranian nuclear ambitions due to ONG (China) and technology (Russia) dependencies, and the EU does not have the power projection capacity nor the economic linkages to stop Iran. [0] - https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/six-party-talks-north-koreas-nuclear-program https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/six-party-talks-north-kore... [1] - https://english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/47844?device=smartphone&phrase=okinawa&words= https://english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/47844?device=smartp...

BoredPositron 8mo ago
Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.
- alephnerd 8mo ago
  We truly don't need boots on the ground though. The NATO campaign in Libya was similar with no American boots on the ground, with the Gulf and Turkiye largely stepping in. And unlike Libya, we don't have US citizens in a consulate in Iran. "You break it, you buy it" doesn't hold in 2026 anymore.
  - bigyabai 8mo ago
    Libya has a 10x lower population density than Iran, among other disparities. I'd be careful leaping to comparisons before anything has happened, considering how benign the Twelve Day War ended up being. "Hands off the nuke or we kill you" is a great populist policy on paper, but difficult to implement in reality. Especially if your air campaign fails, necessitating a suicidal ground invasion.
    - alephnerd 8mo ago
      > Libya has a 10x lower population density than Iran, among other disparities Libya's population was overwhelmingly concentrated in a handful of regions in the same manner as Iran. Furthermore, Iran no longer has functional AD systems and the initial strikes were limited to nuclear sites and a handful of strategic site. This time strikes are planned to be more generalized > "Hands off the nuke or we kill you" is a great populist policy on paper, but difficult to implement in reality. Especially if your air campaign fails, necessitating a suicidal ground invasion We can keep striking Iran indefinetly. A nuclear program requires an industrial base, and with what is current being proposed, a scorched earth approach of targeting Iranian industrial [0], security [0], and leadership capacity [1] is being planned. You truly do not need boots on the ground if you do not care about maintaining a functional country at the end of such strikes. That is the approach the US is adopting now. For all this talk of "regime change", the answer is we don't care what happens after. This is why I called out Libya - it was an industrialized country with an active nuclear and ballistics missile program with the capacity to harm much of Europe. The months of NATO strikes degraded their industrial capacity and the country collapsed into civil war, but it was no longer a major headache for Europe in the same manner that it was under Gaddafi. Iran collapsing into a Libya or even Syrian style civil war is a good outcome for the US. It sucks for the region (and hence why the Gulf and Turkiye has been lobbying against it) but it is good enough for us in the USA. [0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-military-preparing-potentially-weeks-long-iran-operations-2026-02-13/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-military-prepar... [1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-strikes-iran-could-target-individual-leaders-officials-say-2026-02-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-strikes-iran-co...

not_a_bot_4sho 8mo ago

10 days to go https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c86yjnw4x49o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c86yjnw4x49o

alephnerd 8mo ago
Most likely this weekend.
- bubblewand 8mo ago
  Second carrier's not arriving in-theater until tomorrow at the earliest, and the latest report I saw on its position made it look more like Monday or so. They might go without it, but if they're waiting on the Ford, they'll be cutting it close to fit the opening strike into this weekend.
  - alephnerd 8mo ago
    IMO it depends on the War Powers Act. If it appears they have the votes, they might initate operations earlier.
    - bubblewand 8mo ago
      Votes? That’s pre-9/11 stuff. We already bombed Iran and launched missile strikes and a special forces raid to capture the head of state of Venezuela without Congress voting on it, within the last few months. They don’t appear to be planning an actual invasion (moving troops in-theater takes time and is impossible to hide) and Congress lets presidents bomb anyone they like without restraint, these days.

csense 8mo ago

Trump said "Don't shoot the protestors or else." Iran shot the protestors. US military assets were out of position dealing with Venezuela. Now the assets are in position, the administration now feels obligated to impose "or else." I doubt Trump's seriously seeking a nuclear deal as he (in)famously withdrew from the deal established by the Obama administration [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_the_Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_...

ycsux 8mo ago

Wag the dog, to distract us while pedo, grifting Trump family at work

potatium 8mo ago

It is, but not because of this decision.

bigyabai 8mo ago
Correct, because of the Epstein files.