6 ms·

The US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working. Here is why

24 points by evo_9 7mo ago

thisislife2 7mo ago
Disregarding the fact that the author has an interest in hyping US-Israel achievements in the war (as he admits he is associated with the US Department of State and intelligence agencies) it is objectively true that Iran's military leadership and infrastructure has been definitely degraded. If you factor in the assassination of Iran's leaders, Iran has also lost substantial experiential knowledge that is a setback and something its new political and military leaders will have to struggle with and re-acquire over time. Perhaps we are already seeing evidence of that with the hubris of the new Iranian leadership refusing the possibilities of a diplomatic engagement and / or a ceasefire (to provide some kind of exit ramp for a politically hassled Trump + Netanyahu, which could de-escalate the violence). (We see this kind of politically inexperienced narrow vision with Zelensky too, in Ukraine, who still unrealistically believes that his country can militarily force a nuclear armed, militarily superior opponent to end the hostilities on his terms). While the Global South currently sympathises with Iran, prolonged warfare will disrupt the economies of many a country (due to the high energy prices), and sympathies and value-based politics will invariably be tossed in favour of increasing pressure on the weaker party - Iran - to end the conflict (possibly on politically unfavourable terms). Its neighbours will also become increasingly hostile and less tolerable to attacks on their soil. Moreover, prolonged warfare is also likely to degrade Iran's economic and military infrastructure further. True that despite facing a militarily superior force, Iran has the ability to hurt its opponents, and has displayed great resilience in bearing hurts to itself too. However, such "scorched earth" policy needs to be matched with wise political pragmatism to not become a self-defeatist policy - after all, the strength of the genocidal regime of Netanyahu and the imperialist administration of Trump is their wanton disregard for international laws, human lives, human rights and the ability to feed of these kind of warfare and destruction to build-up their political reputation. A politically hassled Netanyahu and Trump are both also desperate politicians trying to avoid possible loss of power and jail time with this war, which means that they may increasingly resort to bombing of civilians and civilians infrastructure too to spin it as as a "win" against "muslim terrorists". All that said, prolonged warfare against Iran will also hurt both the US and Israel. The Americans needs to be mindful of their history with Iran - it is their political meddling in Iran that turned Iran hostile towards them and Trump isn't the first US president to try and salvage his presidency by attacking Iran. Jimmy Carter's Operation Eagle Claw (a military operation to rescue Americans captured by Iranian revolutionaries) was a failure that cost Carter his Presidency. Ronald Reagan, who replaced him, also initiated a military operation against Iran, through Iraq - the Iraq-Iran-Contra affair became Reagan's largest political scandal and severely damaged his reputation. The US invasion of Iraq strengthened Iranian influence in the region, and weakened the policy of dual containment of both Iran and Iraq. Any goal of militarily "defeating" Iran will have to keep the post-war Iraq scenario in mind. Iran is a highly educated society with women even outnumbering men in colleges. During the Bangladesh Liberation wars, one of the reasons the indian military was able to subdue the Pakistani army there so quickly was due to the educated Bangladeshi youths who formed the guerilla force of the resistance. Indian Generals observed that these educated youngsters were quick learners and thus easier to militarily train for intelligence gathering, resistance and saboteuring. Iran has a population of around 90 million. If Iran is "defeated" (occupied or not), even if 1% of their population turn to "terrorism" to defend themselves and continue the fight, we are talking about nearly 1 million highly-educated "terrorists" in the middle-east region. For Israel too, the stakes are high. Nentahyahu's attack on his own country's democracy to become a Jewish Ayatollah -like dictator, and his genocidal warfare in Gaza has caused great damage to Israel's reputation internationally. Historic support for Israel amongst Americans is the lowest. The Iran war is not popular in the US - the more the American military gets involved and prolongs the Iran war and the more American soldiers die, Israel's reputation in America will suffer. Gallup notes that sympathy for Israel amongst the Democrats has dropped drastically, so much so that more Democrats (65%) support Palestinians than Israel today (Israelis No Longer Ahead in Americans' Middle East Sympathies - https://news.gallup.com/poll/702440/israelis-no-longer-ahead-americans-middle-east-sympathies.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/702440/israelis-no-longer-ahead... ). While support for Israel amongst Republicans remain high, Republicans youths are increasingly distrusting and less sympathetic of Israel and more sympathetic towards Palestinians today (National Poll: Younger Republicans Are Diverging From Party Leadership On Israel - https://www.imeupolicyproject.org/polls/gop-israel-2025 https://www.imeupolicyproject.org/polls/gop-israel-2025 ). So there is a real danger of Israel losing support amongst the Republicans too, thus curbing Israel's political influence in American politics. Without American political and military support, Israel will never be able to effectively defend itself. Everyone (including Trump), blames Israel for this war. Nobody in the world wants a prolonged war that will make oil and gas costlier and hurt their economy. Considering all this, seeking a military defeat of Iran may offer short-term gains but could be strategically short-sighted in the long run for Israel. A prolonged war thus benefits no one. The war now hinges on the political egos of Trump, Netanyahu and Khamenie.
nikolay 7mo ago
Yeah, right. No wonder - it's an article by the Qatari Al Jazeera.
- alephnerd 7mo ago
  The message matters waaaaay less than the messenger. Qatar used to be pro-Iran until Iran started striking them 2 weeks ago. Back when the entire Gulf blockaded Qatar from 2017-21, Qatar depended on Iran [0] for food. Qatar and Iran also had a gentleman's agreement to collaborate with each other to export LNG [1]. Both Qatar and Iran also collaborated with each other to support Hamas [2] and the Houthis [3]. The fact that a Qatari national employed by a think tank that is patronized by the Qatari royal family [4] has published this piece in Qatar's state-owned media is a massive about face and signals how livid Qatari policymakers are. Heck, Qatar's interior ministry has begun arresting Iranian sympathizers [5], forced Hamas to denounce Iran [6], and taken control of Qatar's subreddit: "You might be anonymous but we aren’t, the mod team is known to the authorities and we’re trying our best to cooperate with them and comply with all the guidelines." [7]. Qatar was Iran's last friend in the Gulf. [0] - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/6/25/iran-hassan-rouhani-condemns-siege-of-qatar https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/6/25/iran-hassan-rouhani... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pars/North_Dome_Gas-Condensate_field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pars/North_Dome_Gas-Cond... [2] - https://www.dw.com/en/who-is-hamas/a-57537872 https://www.dw.com/en/who-is-hamas/a-57537872 [3] - https://sites.bu.edu/pardeeatlas/research-and-policy/back2school/the-qatar-crisis-beyond-the-qatar-iran-terrorism-framework/ https://sites.bu.edu/pardeeatlas/research-and-policy/back2sc... [4] - https://www.dohainstitute.edu.qa/EN/About/Pages/default.aspx https://www.dohainstitute.edu.qa/EN/About/Pages/default.aspx [5] - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/3/qatar-announces-arrest-of-iranian-irgc-sleeper-cells https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/3/qatar-announces-arre... [6] - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg3xk6xgyzo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg3xk6xgyzo [7] - https://www.reddit.com/r/qatar/comments/1rt2fth/timeout/ https://www.reddit.com/r/qatar/comments/1rt2fth/timeout/
  - jltsiren 7mo ago
    The kind of pro-Iran state that has hosted the biggest US military base in the Middle East for decades. International politics are messy, as there are too many actors with their own agendas. You try to avoid taking sides and to stay out of trouble, but sometimes you end up in trouble anyway due to the choices others made.
conception 7mo ago
“Tehran was less than two weeks away from enriching enough uranium for one nuclear bomb, according to US intelligence assessments.” https://youtu.be/Vc_NanZ-Jos?si=HmZQyGZTG1VgqYaP https://youtu.be/Vc_NanZ-Jos?si=HmZQyGZTG1VgqYaP
- g8oz 7mo ago
  We’ve been hearing similar things for decades.
  - alephnerd 7mo ago
    And the US, Israel, and EU member states have been pushing back to prevent that from happening for decades. Stuxnet, the assassination of nuclear physicists [0], and the expansion of the DGSE's presence in Tehran [1] and various other actions that haven't been publicized or can't be announced have been going on for a reason. [0] - https://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2020/dec/02/part-5-assassinations-iran-nuclear-scientists https://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2020/dec/02/part-5-assassin... [1] - https://www.intelligenceonline.fr/europe-russie/2023/11/24/a-la-dgse-teheran-dans-le-viseur-de-deux-centres-de-mission,110099933-art https://www.intelligenceonline.fr/europe-russie/2023/11/24/a...
    - conception 7mo ago
      If only there was like treaty or something we could have had.
      - alephnerd 7mo ago
        None of the players in the JCPOA negotiated in good faith. Iran's continued support for Assad, the Houthis, Hezbollah (especially after their massacre of Syrian Sunnis in 2013 which lead to Jabhat Al-Nusra), and their backing of Nouri Al-Maliki's sectarian government leading to Iraq collapsing into civil war again showed Iran was negotiating with the Obama administration in bad faith. Similarly, Russia and China's continued support for Iran's ballistics missiles program and other dual use technologies showed that Russia+China as guarunteers wouldn't end well. There's a reason why the French - one of the guarunteers of the JCPOA - expanded their own offensive intelligence capacity in Tehran, unless you think the DGSE are American (ha) We would have been in the same position today if Harris was president as well.
aaron695 7mo ago
[dead]
tzury 7mo ago
[flagged]
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- gerash 7mo ago
  You somehow blame Iran for a war Israel started, twice. Do you even believe what you’re spreading?
  - OzFreedom 7mo ago
    Iran started the war by three of its proxies attacking Israel for over two years. That's called FAFO.
  - thomassmith65 7mo ago
    HN really should cut people who actually live the Middle East a little slack when it comes to comments about the Middle East. They seem to be the first to be downvoted off the site. It's turning into my pet peeve: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47196380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47196380
mamonster 7mo ago
>China, Tehran’s largest remaining economic partner, cannot receive Iranian crude while the strait is shut. We have literally had like 5 headlines from major news agencies over the past few days confirming that Iran is exporting its own oil with what looks like close to 0 problems.
- yorwba 7mo ago
  Iran does have an oil pipeline bypassing the Strait of Hormuz https://www.worldoil.com/news/2021/5/31/iran-opens-new-oil-export-pipeline-bypassing-strait-of-hormuz https://www.worldoil.com/news/2021/5/31/iran-opens-new-oil-e... but it doesn't have infinite capacity, so that doesn't mean there are zero problems.
Alan_Writer 7mo ago
If it's working, it's working slowly and in a very, very bad way.
thiagoharry 7mo ago
Sure, starting a prolonged war, having the Strait of Hormuz closed and its military bases destroyed while having the largest aircraft carrier forced to retreat, is all part of a larger plan. Everything going as predicted.
- _DeadFred_ 7mo ago
  If you look at what has been achieved versus what was achieved in the same time period in the previous Gulf wars (which had much more buildup), the military strategy so far is going better than history would have indicated and is probably way ahead of what was planned.
  - nullocator 7mo ago
    How so, will Iran be less likely to send rockets and drones at their enemies? Or will they ramp up as soon as they are able? They might be okay with it taking days, weeks, months or even years to rebuild and redeploy their munitions. Has the oppressive regime changed over, or are they more angry than ever for yet another violation of their sovereignty? Iran contains one of the longest running civilizations on earth, you seem to be assuming a lot after ~3 weeks, especially since the U.S. and Israeli sides are dishonest in their proclamations of accomplishment.
    - OzFreedom 7mo ago
      Thinking about it from a first principles pov, the regime lost many of its key people, officers, and a lot of infrastructure and resources. This 100% had some effect on its ability to function. The question is what effect. Since it is a religious ideological movement, it has very strong cohesion, so its not going to break apart, demoralize or change its core principles. It will also maintain the support of the highly religious Shias, however,while millions, they are a minority in Iran. What its probably going to lose is its logistical capabilities, and its ability to exercise power and to make decisions in the periphery. So it might still hold Tehran and places where it is strong, but Iran is a huge country, with an enormous population and mountainous geography. Places farther from the center might slip out of the regime's control. And it will need to work much harder to maintain the same level of control that it had before the war in Tehran and large cities. This means that when the dust settles it will be either challenged by oppositional forces, or be forced to make concessions to gain back authority. If it will try to massacre itself back to power, there will be a civil war.
breppp 7mo ago
Poetic justice how Qatar's propaganda wire of Al Jazeera switches so easily from anti-Israel to pro-Israel. All it took is two weeks of reality of what happens when you support the most extreme elements in the area, it all comes back hitting you in the face.
- sph 7mo ago
  Do you have other interests or is your day job only posting comments about Iran/Israel on Hacker News? From your comment history you seem to be quite dedicated to the topic. I wish there was a browser extension to tag such obvious sockpuppet accounts.
  - oa335 7mo ago
    > is your day job only posting comments about Iran/Israel on Hacker News It very well may be - state of Israel has employed people to control online narrative for around 20 years. https://electronicintifada.net/content/internet-users-paid-spread-israeli-propaganda/8355 https://electronicintifada.net/content/internet-users-paid-s...
    - breppp 7mo ago
      there are no people that think differently than me, only paid actors
      - oa335 7mo ago
        > there are no people that think differently than me, only paid actors As much as I wish that were the case wrt Palestine, I’m sadly aware that it isn’t true. E.g. “ Nearly half (47 percent) of (Israeli) respondents agreed that "when conquering an enemy city, the Israel Defense Forces should act as the Israelites did in Jericho under Joshua's command – killing all its inhabitants." https://archive.is/QvrVu https://archive.is/QvrVu
        deleted 7mo ago
        [deleted]
aborsy 7mo ago
It’s remarkable how incompetent Iranian security system has been. This has been going on for over a decade. They just can’t fix their intelligence failures. Who on earth uses consumer phones at this level (which was the case among their elites till last year)? Why do they walk in open streets and reside in residential buildings now, and all gather in single location?

24 points by evo_9 7mo ago

Disregarding the fact that the author has an interest in hyping US-Israel achievements in the war (as he admits he is associated with the US Department of State and intelligence agencies) it is objectively true that Iran's military leadership and infrastructure has been definitely degraded. If you factor in the assassination of Iran's leaders, Iran has also lost substantial experiential knowledge that is a setback and something its new political and military leaders will have to struggle with and re-acquire over time. Perhaps we are already seeing evidence of that with the hubris of the new Iranian leadership refusing the possibilities of a diplomatic engagement and / or a ceasefire (to provide some kind of exit ramp for a politically hassled Trump + Netanyahu, which could de-escalate the violence). (We see this kind of politically inexperienced narrow vision with Zelensky too, in Ukraine, who still unrealistically believes that his country can militarily force a nuclear armed, militarily superior opponent to end the hostilities on his terms). While the Global South currently sympathises with Iran, prolonged warfare will disrupt the economies of many a country (due to the high energy prices), and sympathies and value-based politics will invariably be tossed in favour of increasing pressure on the weaker party - Iran - to end the conflict (possibly on politically unfavourable terms). Its neighbours will also become increasingly hostile and less tolerable to attacks on their soil. Moreover, prolonged warfare is also likely to degrade Iran's economic and military infrastructure further. True that despite facing a militarily superior force, Iran has the ability to hurt its opponents, and has displayed great resilience in bearing hurts to itself too. However, such "scorched earth" policy needs to be matched with wise political pragmatism to not become a self-defeatist policy - after all, the strength of the genocidal regime of Netanyahu and the imperialist administration of Trump is their wanton disregard for international laws, human lives, human rights and the ability to feed of these kind of warfare and destruction to build-up their political reputation. A politically hassled Netanyahu and Trump are both also desperate politicians trying to avoid possible loss of power and jail time with this war, which means that they may increasingly resort to bombing of civilians and civilians infrastructure too to spin it as as a "win" against "muslim terrorists". All that said, prolonged warfare against Iran will also hurt both the US and Israel. The Americans needs to be mindful of their history with Iran - it is their political meddling in Iran that turned Iran hostile towards them and Trump isn't the first US president to try and salvage his presidency by attacking Iran. Jimmy Carter's Operation Eagle Claw (a military operation to rescue Americans captured by Iranian revolutionaries) was a failure that cost Carter his Presidency. Ronald Reagan, who replaced him, also initiated a military operation against Iran, through Iraq - the Iraq-Iran-Contra affair became Reagan's largest political scandal and severely damaged his reputation. The US invasion of Iraq strengthened Iranian influence in the region, and weakened the policy of dual containment of both Iran and Iraq. Any goal of militarily "defeating" Iran will have to keep the post-war Iraq scenario in mind. Iran is a highly educated society with women even outnumbering men in colleges. During the Bangladesh Liberation wars, one of the reasons the indian military was able to subdue the Pakistani army there so quickly was due to the educated Bangladeshi youths who formed the guerilla force of the resistance. Indian Generals observed that these educated youngsters were quick learners and thus easier to militarily train for intelligence gathering, resistance and saboteuring. Iran has a population of around 90 million. If Iran is "defeated" (occupied or not), even if 1% of their population turn to "terrorism" to defend themselves and continue the fight, we are talking about nearly 1 million highly-educated "terrorists" in the middle-east region. For Israel too, the stakes are high. Nentahyahu's attack on his own country's democracy to become a Jewish Ayatollah -like dictator, and his genocidal warfare in Gaza has caused great damage to Israel's reputation internationally. Historic support for Israel amongst Americans is the lowest. The Iran war is not popular in the US - the more the American military gets involved and prolongs the Iran war and the more American soldiers die, Israel's reputation in America will suffer. Gallup notes that sympathy for Israel amongst the Democrats has dropped drastically, so much so that more Democrats (65%) support Palestinians than Israel today (Israelis No Longer Ahead in Americans' Middle East Sympathies - https://news.gallup.com/poll/702440/israelis-no-longer-ahead-americans-middle-east-sympathies.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/702440/israelis-no-longer-ahead... ). While support for Israel amongst Republicans remain high, Republicans youths are increasingly distrusting and less sympathetic of Israel and more sympathetic towards Palestinians today (National Poll: Younger Republicans Are Diverging From Party Leadership On Israel - https://www.imeupolicyproject.org/polls/gop-israel-2025 https://www.imeupolicyproject.org/polls/gop-israel-2025 ). So there is a real danger of Israel losing support amongst the Republicans too, thus curbing Israel's political influence in American politics. Without American political and military support, Israel will never be able to effectively defend itself. Everyone (including Trump), blames Israel for this war. Nobody in the world wants a prolonged war that will make oil and gas costlier and hurt their economy. Considering all this, seeking a military defeat of Iran may offer short-term gains but could be strategically short-sighted in the long run for Israel. A prolonged war thus benefits no one. The war now hinges on the political egos of Trump, Netanyahu and Khamenie.

nikolay 7mo ago

Yeah, right. No wonder - it's an article by the Qatari Al Jazeera.

alephnerd 7mo ago
The message matters waaaaay less than the messenger. Qatar used to be pro-Iran until Iran started striking them 2 weeks ago. Back when the entire Gulf blockaded Qatar from 2017-21, Qatar depended on Iran [0] for food. Qatar and Iran also had a gentleman's agreement to collaborate with each other to export LNG [1]. Both Qatar and Iran also collaborated with each other to support Hamas [2] and the Houthis [3]. The fact that a Qatari national employed by a think tank that is patronized by the Qatari royal family [4] has published this piece in Qatar's state-owned media is a massive about face and signals how livid Qatari policymakers are. Heck, Qatar's interior ministry has begun arresting Iranian sympathizers [5], forced Hamas to denounce Iran [6], and taken control of Qatar's subreddit: "You might be anonymous but we aren’t, the mod team is known to the authorities and we’re trying our best to cooperate with them and comply with all the guidelines." [7]. Qatar was Iran's last friend in the Gulf. [0] - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/6/25/iran-hassan-rouhani-condemns-siege-of-qatar https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/6/25/iran-hassan-rouhani... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pars/North_Dome_Gas-Condensate_field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pars/North_Dome_Gas-Cond... [2] - https://www.dw.com/en/who-is-hamas/a-57537872 https://www.dw.com/en/who-is-hamas/a-57537872 [3] - https://sites.bu.edu/pardeeatlas/research-and-policy/back2school/the-qatar-crisis-beyond-the-qatar-iran-terrorism-framework/ https://sites.bu.edu/pardeeatlas/research-and-policy/back2sc... [4] - https://www.dohainstitute.edu.qa/EN/About/Pages/default.aspx https://www.dohainstitute.edu.qa/EN/About/Pages/default.aspx [5] - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/3/qatar-announces-arrest-of-iranian-irgc-sleeper-cells https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/3/qatar-announces-arre... [6] - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg3xk6xgyzo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg3xk6xgyzo [7] - https://www.reddit.com/r/qatar/comments/1rt2fth/timeout/ https://www.reddit.com/r/qatar/comments/1rt2fth/timeout/
- jltsiren 7mo ago
  The kind of pro-Iran state that has hosted the biggest US military base in the Middle East for decades. International politics are messy, as there are too many actors with their own agendas. You try to avoid taking sides and to stay out of trouble, but sometimes you end up in trouble anyway due to the choices others made.

conception 7mo ago

“Tehran was less than two weeks away from enriching enough uranium for one nuclear bomb, according to US intelligence assessments.” https://youtu.be/Vc_NanZ-Jos?si=HmZQyGZTG1VgqYaP https://youtu.be/Vc_NanZ-Jos?si=HmZQyGZTG1VgqYaP

g8oz 7mo ago
We’ve been hearing similar things for decades.
- alephnerd 7mo ago
  And the US, Israel, and EU member states have been pushing back to prevent that from happening for decades. Stuxnet, the assassination of nuclear physicists [0], and the expansion of the DGSE's presence in Tehran [1] and various other actions that haven't been publicized or can't be announced have been going on for a reason. [0] - https://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2020/dec/02/part-5-assassinations-iran-nuclear-scientists https://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2020/dec/02/part-5-assassin... [1] - https://www.intelligenceonline.fr/europe-russie/2023/11/24/a-la-dgse-teheran-dans-le-viseur-de-deux-centres-de-mission,110099933-art https://www.intelligenceonline.fr/europe-russie/2023/11/24/a...
  - conception 7mo ago
    If only there was like treaty or something we could have had.
    - alephnerd 7mo ago
      None of the players in the JCPOA negotiated in good faith. Iran's continued support for Assad, the Houthis, Hezbollah (especially after their massacre of Syrian Sunnis in 2013 which lead to Jabhat Al-Nusra), and their backing of Nouri Al-Maliki's sectarian government leading to Iraq collapsing into civil war again showed Iran was negotiating with the Obama administration in bad faith. Similarly, Russia and China's continued support for Iran's ballistics missiles program and other dual use technologies showed that Russia+China as guarunteers wouldn't end well. There's a reason why the French - one of the guarunteers of the JCPOA - expanded their own offensive intelligence capacity in Tehran, unless you think the DGSE are American (ha) We would have been in the same position today if Harris was president as well.

aaron695 7mo ago

[dead]

tzury 7mo ago

[flagged]

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
gerash 7mo ago
You somehow blame Iran for a war Israel started, twice. Do you even believe what you’re spreading?
- OzFreedom 7mo ago
  Iran started the war by three of its proxies attacking Israel for over two years. That's called FAFO.
- thomassmith65 7mo ago
  HN really should cut people who actually live the Middle East a little slack when it comes to comments about the Middle East. They seem to be the first to be downvoted off the site. It's turning into my pet peeve: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47196380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47196380

mamonster 7mo ago

>China, Tehran’s largest remaining economic partner, cannot receive Iranian crude while the strait is shut. We have literally had like 5 headlines from major news agencies over the past few days confirming that Iran is exporting its own oil with what looks like close to 0 problems.

yorwba 7mo ago
Iran does have an oil pipeline bypassing the Strait of Hormuz https://www.worldoil.com/news/2021/5/31/iran-opens-new-oil-export-pipeline-bypassing-strait-of-hormuz https://www.worldoil.com/news/2021/5/31/iran-opens-new-oil-e... but it doesn't have infinite capacity, so that doesn't mean there are zero problems.

Alan_Writer 7mo ago

If it's working, it's working slowly and in a very, very bad way.

thiagoharry 7mo ago

Sure, starting a prolonged war, having the Strait of Hormuz closed and its military bases destroyed while having the largest aircraft carrier forced to retreat, is all part of a larger plan. Everything going as predicted.

_DeadFred_ 7mo ago
If you look at what has been achieved versus what was achieved in the same time period in the previous Gulf wars (which had much more buildup), the military strategy so far is going better than history would have indicated and is probably way ahead of what was planned.
- nullocator 7mo ago
  How so, will Iran be less likely to send rockets and drones at their enemies? Or will they ramp up as soon as they are able? They might be okay with it taking days, weeks, months or even years to rebuild and redeploy their munitions. Has the oppressive regime changed over, or are they more angry than ever for yet another violation of their sovereignty? Iran contains one of the longest running civilizations on earth, you seem to be assuming a lot after ~3 weeks, especially since the U.S. and Israeli sides are dishonest in their proclamations of accomplishment.
  - OzFreedom 7mo ago
    Thinking about it from a first principles pov, the regime lost many of its key people, officers, and a lot of infrastructure and resources. This 100% had some effect on its ability to function. The question is what effect. Since it is a religious ideological movement, it has very strong cohesion, so its not going to break apart, demoralize or change its core principles. It will also maintain the support of the highly religious Shias, however,while millions, they are a minority in Iran. What its probably going to lose is its logistical capabilities, and its ability to exercise power and to make decisions in the periphery. So it might still hold Tehran and places where it is strong, but Iran is a huge country, with an enormous population and mountainous geography. Places farther from the center might slip out of the regime's control. And it will need to work much harder to maintain the same level of control that it had before the war in Tehran and large cities. This means that when the dust settles it will be either challenged by oppositional forces, or be forced to make concessions to gain back authority. If it will try to massacre itself back to power, there will be a civil war.

breppp 7mo ago

Poetic justice how Qatar's propaganda wire of Al Jazeera switches so easily from anti-Israel to pro-Israel. All it took is two weeks of reality of what happens when you support the most extreme elements in the area, it all comes back hitting you in the face.

sph 7mo ago
Do you have other interests or is your day job only posting comments about Iran/Israel on Hacker News? From your comment history you seem to be quite dedicated to the topic. I wish there was a browser extension to tag such obvious sockpuppet accounts.
- oa335 7mo ago
  > is your day job only posting comments about Iran/Israel on Hacker News It very well may be - state of Israel has employed people to control online narrative for around 20 years. https://electronicintifada.net/content/internet-users-paid-spread-israeli-propaganda/8355 https://electronicintifada.net/content/internet-users-paid-s...
  - breppp 7mo ago
    there are no people that think differently than me, only paid actors
    - oa335 7mo ago
      > there are no people that think differently than me, only paid actors As much as I wish that were the case wrt Palestine, I’m sadly aware that it isn’t true. E.g. “ Nearly half (47 percent) of (Israeli) respondents agreed that "when conquering an enemy city, the Israel Defense Forces should act as the Israelites did in Jericho under Joshua's command – killing all its inhabitants." https://archive.is/QvrVu https://archive.is/QvrVu
      - deleted 7mo ago
        [deleted]

aborsy 7mo ago

It’s remarkable how incompetent Iranian security system has been. This has been going on for over a decade. They just can’t fix their intelligence failures. Who on earth uses consumer phones at this level (which was the case among their elites till last year)? Why do they walk in open streets and reside in residential buildings now, and all gather in single location?