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Well hopefully this is short, minimally lethal, and leads to regime change for all those involved.
by adverbly 8mo ago
Well hopefully this is short, minimally lethal, and leads to regime change for all those involved.
- shevy-java 8mo agoIraq? Afghanistan? Vietnam? I don't think any of these were short.
- thomassmith65 8mo agoDesert Storm was short. The second Iraq War, the stupid one, was not.
- UncleMeat 8mo agoDesert storm didn’t attempt regime change. Iran is not currently invading anyone.
- Jtsummers 8mo agoI'm glad someone else remembers. Desert Storm was fast (kind of) because it had a limited objective: Repel an invading army from another nation. It did not lead to an invasion (long term) of Iraq. Comparing any war with the objective of regime change to Desert Storm reveals that the commenter is grossly ignorant of recent history (36 years ago, it's not that far back to be so ignorant). Desert Storm also wasn't really fast, it led to containment operations lasting a bit over a decade in total, ending only when we decided to invade Iraq with the objective of regime change and nation building. And that one, predictably, turned into a quagmire.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- invader 8mo agoHowever, to be fair, Desert Storm hasn't resulted in regime change. The Coalition bombed the shit out of the Iraqi army, but never committed to the ground operation deep inside Iraq. And Saddam's regime survived until the next war. That alone hints that it is very hard to bring a dictatorship down with just aerial attacks - the ground component is also essential. Something tells me it is going to be the same here. Only a land operation or a total collapse of the government, with the armed police and military joining the opposition, can topple the Iranian regime.
- AbstractH24 8mo agoCounterexanple would be Venezuela
- Braxton1980 8mo agoWhat was the regime change there? The vice president is in charge.
- ericd 8mo agoWell, she started releasing lots of political prisoners. So it does seem like the regime acts a bit differently now?
- djeastm 8mo agoAre you sure? They removed one guy they didn't like but the regime remains.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- platinumrad 8mo agoWas Saddam's Iraq (post Desert Storm when he no longer had the ability to wage offensive war) really that bad compared to what came after?
- 8mo ago
- ponector 8mo agoThis does not look like a smart one. A bit smarter would be to strike a month ago to support street protests.
- thisislife2 8mo agoIt would have confused the Iranians as the regime would then claim that the foreign military attacks prove that the protests are artificially engineered by the same foreign enemy with the support of the Shah. It would also mean the automatic imposition of martial law in Iran, thus making protests even more difficult to organise.
- torlok 8mo agoThat's because Desert Storm was launched by people who remembered the Second World War. Current wars are started by draft dodgers.
- fuzzfactor 8mo agoDesert Storm was mainly the US fighting for the Kuwaiti way of life.
- Zealotux 8mo ago>leads to regime change for all those involved Including for the U.S. and Israel?
- gambiting 8mo agoWe can only hope.
- methyl 8mo agoIt’s possible
- ActorNightly 8mo agoPossible but unlikely. The midterms are going to get actually stolen by Republicans, 100%.
- Revanche1367 8mo agoPretty sure he chose his words carefully.
- reliabilityguy 8mo ago[flagged]
- lm28469 8mo agoNah you just bully your allies and illegally tariff the entire world, no biggy
- tim333 8mo agoTrue but a lot of people would like to see Netanyahu and Trump replaced with other leaders.
- unethical_ban 8mo agoProtesters that took to the streets, according to what I read, because the US president said he would back them. Sounds like he led them to a slaughter to generate justification.
- Bender 8mo agoWell hopefully this is short, minimally lethal, and leads to regime change for all those involved. That would be ideal but unfortunately not likely. Nobody will like this comment but US ships are sitting ducks. They have minimal ammo per the pentagon and no oilers. No oilers and low ammo means no prolonged conflict. Only two of the ships are nuclear powered not counting submarines. Most of Iran's military and weapons are deep underground in a massive series of underground cities and tunnels. The US would require boots on the ground if they manage to breach the tunnel openings under the mountains. Should that fail the only viable targets are civilians and that won't win favor with anyone or accomplish anything. Iranian military could just wait it out if they wanted and then smoke Israel with supersonic missiles when the US leaves. Then we find out if Israel does have the nukes for the Samson option and that would result in the destruction of Israel. Iran's military could survive a nuclear strike but would have to clean up the fallout and I am not sure they could. Anyone not underground would likely get Acute Radiation Sickness and Cancer. On a positive note if the US can manage to get into the tunnels and send in enough munitions to start detonating the missile stockpile a chain reaction could crack all the concrete and collapse the tunnels. Satellite could detect which tunnel they try to evac from. They have less than 5 days to accomplish the chain reaction assuming this is the plan. From the videos I have seen the missiles are literally lined up like a double-strand fuse.
- tim333 8mo agoThe US military has seldom had problems with the blowing up the enemy bit. It's providing peace and stability after that happens where they tend to run into problems.
- Bender 8mo agoThe US military has seldom had problems with the blowing up the enemy bit. True however AFAIK they have never once been in this situation. Iran has spent 40+ years digging in and hunkering down. There were plenty of bunkers in WWII but this is a whole new setup, deeper under mountains, higher quality concrete assuming they knew what they were doing and dug in much deeper. To get this done in 5 days will be quite a feet. If they manage to do it I will be very impressed. It's providing peace and stability after that happens where they tend to run into problems. I think you are correct, what happens afterwards is usually a crap-fest. That would require a lot of boots on the ground to maintain stability for a very long time. It's not a great example but Korea is one such example. The payoff may be worth it if many of the Iranian funded terror groups are drained of resources as a result. Keeping boots on the ground for years will require funding from congress. Short of that it will just be another power vacuum filled by yet another zealot. The "if's" are doing a lot of heavy lifting in my comment.
- franktankbank 8mo agoWon't there be boots on the ground? We already bombed their facilities and at the time they said best that bombs can do is fuck up the entrance to these tunnels.
- Braxton1980 8mo agoBased on previous American wars in the middle east wouldn't you say that's unlikely?
- jari_mustonen 8mo agoThere is nothing ideal about that outcome. The "regime change" people talk about is intended to look like what happened in Libya: A failed state that falls in anarchy.
- reliabilityguy 8mo ago> look like what happened in Libya: A failed state that falls in anarchy. This comment just shows that you have no idea what Iran is, and how it differs from Libya. Libya is a loose conglomerate of tribes. Iran majorly Persian that see themselves as one nation. Completely different dynamics.
- thisislife2 8mo agoIt doesn't matter - when a strong and stable political structures suddenly collapse, the state fails and disintegrates due to the political infighting. While I agree with you that the chances of Iran becoming a completely failed state is unlikely, I do see an imminent civil war in Iran's future if a regime collapse happens, and the Americans and Israelis install their Shahi (royal) puppet there. A regime collapse will of course mean Iran will lose its sovereignty (probably for a decade or more), till a truly independent stable polity emerges form the ashes.
- enraged_camel 8mo agoIranian regime is neither strong nor stable though. Or did you miss the recent round of nationwide protests that led to a desperate brutal crackdown?
- thisislife2 8mo agoThat's just simplistic western propaganda. Sporadic protests, nationwide or otherwise, don't mean anything unless they are backed by long-term-opposition with strong grass-roots and singular political goals. Iran's regime remains strong and stable - it controls all the political institutions, it controls the civilian government at the local level, it controls the religious / cultural institutions, it controls the military and it has substantial support from the people. Why do you think Israel or the US isn't sending boots to the ground? Apart from the official military, the IRGC has a voluntary civil force, that can be armed by the Iranian military, in every district - if Israel or US send their soldiers to Iran, they will face a very brutal urban warfare with a high death toll.
- markus_zhang 8mo agoYou can’t be short, minimal lethal AND regime change. Gotta be pretty bloody to make that happen.
- tim333 8mo agoUnless like Venezuela. Or like 1953 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
- tokai 8mo agoNothing even close to regime change happened in Venezuela.
- BurningFrog 8mo agoIt's the same regime, but they now take orders from Marco Rubio.
- jasomill 8mo agoFomenting a coup is very different than toppling a regime through military force. My biggest concern has always been that US military action against Iran would undermine domestic factions pushing for democratic reforms, at best leading to the installation of a different autocratic regime more amenable to US interests, at worst leading to a wellspring of support for the existing regime both internally, and externally in the form of alliances with other nations who stand to benefit from a reshuffling of the existing world order.
- alex43578 8mo ago"At best leading to the installation of a different autocratic regime more amenable to US interests" seems like a pretty fine outcome in US eyes, doesn't it? Outside of Israel, is democracy in the Middle East even realistic? An autocrat regime friendly to US interests, who we could do business with, who won't pursue nuclear weapons, and who won't imperil US allies or the Strait of Hormuz would be a drastic improvement over the current state of affairs. We don't need to nation-build to have a good outcome for the US: that's something we should've learned after Iraq and Afghanistan.
- rambojohnson 8mo agou sweet summer child.
- plaidfuji 8mo ago> Minimally lethal “Israel strikes two schools in Iran, killing more than 80 people” https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2026/2/28/israel-strikes-two-schools-in-iran-killing-more-than-50-people https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2026/2/28/israel-strikes-... Welp, better luck next time
- shykes 8mo agoThis reminds me of the Al-Ahli hospital incident in Gaza, when a mysterious explosion at a hospital was immediately blamed on an Iraeli strike - first by Hamas, then by the international press. A precise death toll was immediately available: 500 killed. Israel urged caution as they investigated, but were ignored. Eventually, it was established that 1) the casualty number had been a fabrication, 2) the explosion was in the parking lot, 3) it was NOT caused by an Israeli strike, but by a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that had fell short. Soon the press was forced to issue corrections - New York Times [1] , Le Monde [2], BBC [3]... This incident looks VERY similar. Which is not surprising, since Hamas was trained in information warfare by the IRGC. Note that Al Jazeera (the media arm of Qatar, who funds Hamas and hosts their leaders in Doha) is enthusiastically amplifying this story with no apparent effort to cross-examine Iran's official source. I predict that this story will turn out to be fabricated as well. UPDATE: preliminary reports from the OSINT community seem to indicate that the story was indeed a fabrication... https://x.com/tarikh_eran/status/2027784301840846939 https://x.com/tarikh_eran/status/2027784301840846939 [1] https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2023/the-new-york-times-explains-its-gaza-hospital-blast-headline-change https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2023/the-new-york-times-e... [2] https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2023/10/24/a-nos-lecteurs_6196266_3210.html https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2023/10/24/a-no... [3] https://deadline.com/2023/11/bbcs-international-editor-grilled-on-coverage-gaza-hospital-bombing-1235637829 https://deadline.com/2023/11/bbcs-international-editor-grill...
- I-M-S 8mo agoWhat the comment fails to mention is that Al-Shifa hospital was ultimately destroyed by Israeli forces, with grave civilian casualties, and no Hamas tunnels ever found: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_Hospital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_Hospital
- sschueller 8mo agoThere is no such thing but I guess the US still has not learned this after so many conflicts.
- steve-atx-7600 8mo agoRegime change is not the same thing as a "forever war". I don't think you read the post that you replied to.
- Aeolun 8mo ago> minimally lethal The US and Israel are involved. The only way it’s going to turn out is maximally lethal to all those not involved at all. See… basically any military operation participated in by those nations in recent history. We got a couple strikes and already managed to hit an elementary school. Nothing I’ve seen in Gaza or Iraq leads me to believe this will be any different.
- throw102225 8mo agoSee Israel’s take down of Hezbollah.
- cman1444 8mo agoWouldn't you consider the Maduro capture a minimally lethal operation?