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Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

167 points by alephnerd 7mo ago

carbocation 7mo ago
The article kind of downplays the most interesting elements. Not an expert, but to my limited understanding: * I think this is the longest-range use of a ballistic missile in anger, possibly ever? * This seems to reveal previously-unknown range of Iranian ballistic missiles and, if true, could touch basically all of Europe?
- madaxe_again 7mo ago
  Iran have boats.
  - myth_drannon 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    - fnordpiglet 7mo ago
      They’ve been preparing for this day for 5 decades, and I wouldn’t believe this administrations propaganda if they claimed the sky was blue.
      - nozzlegear 7mo ago
        Five decades doesn't seem to mean much when most of their leadership, military and air defenses can be laid prostrate by the US and Israel in a couple of days. I don't ever take Trump for his word, but neither do I think there's wisdom in believing that a technologically superior force couldn't easily wipe out Iran's ballistic-capable navy just because they've been preparing for a long time. Edit: am I wrong? Can copium in fact save inferior boats from a vastly superior military force?
        fnordpiglet 7mo ago
        You’re wrong in a few ways - - Iran has structured the functioning of its government and military to be highly resilient to decapitation. Every function has redundancy and every military unit can exercise autonomy. Their goal is to build a theocratic revolution around an ideology and not a personality, and intentionally built a system to survive a hostile environment. - You have to find what you want to destroy and quantity can out last highly sophisticated and expensive systems. They have been aware of satellite imaging for some time and almost certainly have planned for closing the straight against the US navy for decades. What they have going for them is asymmetric warfare that relies on mass and surprise. For instance, the $20,000 drone that requires multiple $4mm interceptors to stop. They can just keep dropping those randomly indefinitely on their time table and burn a steady supply of interceptors that are increasingly spread out then roll out the hypersonic missiles they have but haven’t even used yet knowing the defenses have been spread thin across an ever increasingly wide region as they demonstrate the radius of attack they have. Ground warfare would be against an enemy who has fortified and prepared for decades with full awareness of our capabilities as we demonstrated them globally. - the idiocy of a talk show host leading a military commanded by a real estate developer turned reality tv show host with delusions of megalomaniacal grandeur can self defeat any military against any foe
        nozzlegear 7mo ago
        Thanks, I appreciate the reply. My contention was only about Iran's navy and their ability to field ships that can launch ballistic missiles. I believe the GP or GGP was implying that Iran still has "boats" with which they could extend the range of their ballistic missiles even further. That's what I think is a far cry from reality – the US and Israel surely know where those ships would be and would be more than capable of destroying them. Regarding the substance of your comment: I'm not sure I agree about being resilient to decapitation, as the US and Israel have apparently become very skilled at locating the people they want to kill. But I agree with all the rest, especially regarding that bloviating ass, Hegseth.
        fnordpiglet 7mo ago
      - 1over137 7mo ago
        >They’ve been preparing for this day for 5 decades... So have the USA & Israel I suspect.
    - spiderfarmer 7mo ago
      Don’t believe Hegseths obvious buffoonery. They still have boats.
    - verdverm 7mo ago
      Large surface and mini subs, yes. They still have many small boats for laying mines. These are indistinguishable from a typical motor boat. Look at how Ukraine has denied Russia access to most of the Black Sea. It's going to be real hard to stop Iran from creating enough uncertainty to ease the worries of the shipping world. Iran will have to say they are done threatening the straight.
      - nozzlegear 7mo ago
        We're losing the plot here. What use are small motor boats for launching ballistic missiles?
        verdverm 7mo ago
        Comments and threads typically digress into related topics, so I don't see the plot lost, rather the context expanded in a subthread.
      - irishcoffee 7mo ago
        The haven’t even started using these yet, curious who wins this game of chess: https://www.usff.navy.mil/press-room/news-stories/article/3111891/initial-operating-capability-declared-for-unmanned-influence-sweep-system-uiss/ https://www.usff.navy.mil/press-room/news-stories/article/31...
        verdverm 7mo ago
        Many experts think Iran has already won. They don't have to lay mines to seed doubt, they don't need boats to close the straights, shaheds are sufficient. One does need to define what it means to "win" For Iran, it seems the regime will stay in power, you can't remove them from the air. The geography and population size of Iran will prove more challenging than Iraq or Afghanistan. There is very little support for Trump's War. They never sought to persuade the people, it appears they have no plan b (which they wish to be illegal /s) Hubris is an apt way to describe Trump's approach to Iran. One evidence to this is that they thought Venezuela was the model for Iran. A SA dictator is nothing like a religious movement that has taken root for ~50 years. What does winning look like for the US & Israel? Trump has already claimed they won, but have more winning to do. What they have said changes daily and between who's talking. I imagine this will continue after hostilities end, they will backfill their goals to claim they "won", like so many other things they do this with. The real winners from this? Probably Russia and China more than others.
  - derektank 7mo ago
    Obviously they have boats. The question is, do they still have boats which are capable of serving as a launch platform for ballistic missiles? And could those boats meaningfully close the distance between Iran and its adversaries. This launch demonstrates that if the answer to both of those questions is still no, they can still place them at threat.
    - zer00eyz 7mo ago
      The question is do they have a launcher that fits in a shipping container...
- alephnerd 7mo ago
  Yep. Hence why I posted it. > previously-unknown It was implied by Iran's space program. There's a reason most regional powers also invested in a space program as well as a civilian uncles program. The name of the game is dual-use technologies. The Biden admin also warned about Iran-NK collaboration on building these kinds of capabilities [0] [0] - https://www.janes.com/osint-insights/defence-news/us-official-says-iran-has-restarted-missile-co-operation-with-north-korea https://www.janes.com/osint-insights/defence-news/us-officia...
  - arkensaw 7mo ago
    > civilian uncles program I know its just a typo but lol'ed so hard
    - alephnerd 7mo ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RejrrkrRShM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RejrrkrRShM
- AnotherGoodName 7mo ago
  > This seems to reveal previously-unknown range of Iranian ballistic missiles and, if true, could touch basically all of Europe True but they have also literally launched multiple orbital satellites from iran on iranian rockets. Eg. The Noor 2 spy satellite and before that the Noor 1 series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_2_(satellite) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_2_(satellite) These are in orbit to this day. They regularly post images it takes of US military bases. Essentially it’s similar to how sputnik was a demonstration of icbm capability. Iran can launch a first generation ICBM right now. Pointless if they use a conventional payload (too small payload to be cost effective militarily) and a non manoeuvrable warhead (would just be intercepted) and so these aren’t used militarily but essentially everyone acting shocked they can hit 4000km range was not paying attention. I think one of the problems we are having right now is that we have leaders who actively believed the downplaying of Irans military capabilities. It’s one thing for the common civilian to think the enemies missiles are made of cardboard and tanks of paper but it’s another when the leader of a nation believes it. Now here we are with a war that’s stalemated and no way out.
  - breppp 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    - bdangubic 7mo ago
      that would be stupid and their regime is not stupid
      - breppp 7mo ago
        Hardly, after attacking all their friends in the region, which would leave them even more isolated after the war, I would not attribute careful strategic planning either
        cjbgkagh 7mo ago
        “Better to be feared than loved” - Niccolo Machiavelli
- bawolff 7mo ago
  > * This seems to reveal previously-unknown range of Iranian ballistic missiles and, if true, could touch basically all of Europe? The Wikipedia article has said they had missiles that can range 4300km since 2019 (as in the article was updated in 2019) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shahab-5&oldid=911582208 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shahab-5&oldid=91... . If Wikipedia has known about it for 7 years, surely military planners were already aware.
- jandrewrogers 7mo ago
  US intelligence had assessed that this was possible a long time ago. It was one of the motivations behind the installation of long-range missile defense capabilities in Poland and Czechia in the late 2000s. Obama killed that program to appease Russia. Of course, there is a significant gap between Iran possessing the capability, having the temperament to use it, and actually doing so.
  - alephnerd 7mo ago
    > It was one of the motivations behind the installation of long-range missile defense capabilities in Poland and Czechia in the late 2000s. Obama killed that program to appease Russia This was sidestepped by allowing the Poland-SK defense partnership to kick off in 2013 [0] which was further entrenched in 2022 [1], and itself acted as a message against North Korea for acting in a similar manner with Iran [2] [0] - https://www.president.pl/archives/bronislaw-komorowski/news/poland-south-korea-adopt-strategic-partnership-declaration,38801 https://www.president.pl/archives/bronislaw-komorowski/news/... [1] - https://www.irsem.fr/storage/file_manager_files/2025/03/nr-irsem-140-paik.pdf https://www.irsem.fr/storage/file_manager_files/2025/03/nr-i... [2] - https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/middleeast/29missiles.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/middleeast/29missil...
- dragonelite 7mo ago
  It's a message toward the west don't think you're safe further away. Iran is pushing the west out of west Asia. Time will tell what USIS and EU will do to combat this.
  - ignoramous 7mo ago
    > Time will tell what USIS and EU will do to combat this. Diplomacy was working fine, per high-ranking diplomats: https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2026/03/18/americas-friends-must-help-extricate-it-from-an-unlawful-war https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2026/03/18/americas-...
    - rayiner 7mo ago
      [flagged]
      - ignoramous 7mo ago
        Yes, war is bad. Unless you're from the Complex. No big insight here, Mr. Rayiner.
    - magic_hamster 7mo ago
      Anyone thinking they can talk their way into controlling Iran, a fundamentalist fanatic country with a very loud and visible doctrine literally calling to destroy the west, is delusional. The western "avoid conflict at all cost" approach is extremely detrimental.
      - ignoramous 7mo ago
        > Anyone thinking they can talk their way into controlling Iran, a fundamentalist fanatic country with a very loud and visible doctrine literally calling to destroy the west, is delusional Yeah, what's it about peoples of the third world that they're always fanatical, that they're always out to destroy the first world... https://theconversation.com/orientalism-edward-saids-groundbreaking-book-explained-197429 https://theconversation.com/orientalism-edward-saids-groundb... / https://archive.vn/HoEk5 https://archive.vn/HoEk5
- ChuckMcM 7mo ago
  I think the article downplays the element that the attack probably achieved its goal which was not to actually hit something at Diego Garcia, but to show that thing 2500 miles from Iran are potentially targetable by Iran. That starts conversations like the one here and in other fora about whether or not Iran would limit themselves to military targets (Russia doesn't as an example) and if not how could Europe and its East Asian allies protect literally everything with their finite supply of defensive units.
  - big-and-small 7mo ago
    Except it would be very weird goal to achieve because it's only give more reasons to bomb whole country into oblivion and justify deployment of ground troops.
    - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
      There is probably a hardline faction within Iran that still thinks it gains from further bombing and forced isolation.
      - PixyMisa 7mo ago
        Yep. The IRGC runs the country at this point, and they do not have anyone else's best interests in mind.
      - jhanschoo 7mo ago
        Why would Iran end up further isolated due to this war, and out of escalation? (your sentence is slightly ambiguous so I assume that you are referring to it.) If it successfully asserts control over the Strait as it seems to presently be doing, it should be able to negotiate a peace favorable to itself. Even with the status quo, I don't know how that figures into things, but the US has temporarily lifted sanctions on Iranian oil. I don't follow the news very well, but from what I know the claim that you make isn't very obviously true but needs some evidence for it to stand.
        7mo ago
mikeyouse 7mo ago
Unfortunately this is more interesting than a failed Diego Garcia attack — the late Ayatollah had a self-imposed range limit on the strikes or tests they would carry out. By using IRBMs in this fashion, it’s clear the new regime no longer feels bound by that restriction.. Which is notable since it’s about the same distance from Southern Iran to Diego Garcia (3,800km) as it is from Northern Iran to London.
- greesil 7mo ago
  Excellent point. Maybe it's the goal of this attack to demonstrate this capability.
- mytailorisrich 7mo ago
  Iran has always said a lot of things (mostly BS). This is worthless without evidence and I don't think anyone had evidence that their missiles were restricted to 2,000km. Certainly, I don't think anyone took their word for it. In fact this attack proves that there was no such limitation (although it is unclear to me if the missiles fired could actually jave reached Diego Garcia). Now this may be a demonstration and veiled threat, on the other hand if Iran was to fire a missile at continental Europe I would hope that the consequence for them would be to be flattened, so...
  - mda 7mo ago
    Like they flattened Afghanistan? It is funny people thinks land war in an huge mountainous country with 90 million people is easy.
    - mytailorisrich 7mo ago
      I wrote "flatten", not "invade".
      - mda 7mo ago
        flatten with what?
georgeburdell 7mo ago
The fact that it was unsuccessful does not make it any less worrying. Iran was a regional problem before the war, but this new escalation shows they’re a threat to the entire world. They might have previously had a chance at a Vietnam or perhaps a Korea-style stalemate
- cardanome 7mo ago
  Iran is fighting for survival, Israel and the US are fighting by choice. They attacked Iran not the other way round. US bases, even if also used by UK which aides US it their war, are legitimate targets. US imperialism is the greatest threat to the world.
  - anvuong 7mo ago
    The IRGC is fighting for survival, most Iranian want them gone, and Iran will be better as a whole if the IRGC is all dead. Don't try to conflate the government with the country, they don't always align.
    - spaghetdefects 7mo ago
      Most Iranians do not want the IRGC gone, that's US/Israeli propaganda. Thousands of people have been marching in support of the IRGC. Common sense would also tell you that Iranians aren't going to support the people bombing their schools.
      - gambutin 7mo ago
        [flagged]
      - tuna74 7mo ago
        It is impossible to know how may Iranians want the IRGC gone. But bombing schools (and bombings in general) will definitely increase the support for it.
    - cardanome 7mo ago
AndrewKemendo 7mo ago
Diego Garcia is strategically very important to global security according to the US Had something actually struck within the ADIZ there would have been massive implications. My guess is they intentionally failed as a warning shot. This isn’t a random act and its quite the signal if you know what it means, Iran knows what it did here.
- visuhire 7mo ago
  I was reading that one of the two failed en route, and the other was intercepted. I don't think this was an intentional failure to hit.
  - AndrewKemendo 7mo ago
    Sometimes getting shot down is the goal or at least a test to see what kind of response you’ll get
    - roughly 7mo ago
      Iran did the same before the conflict in response to prior Israeli attacks - the two drone waves they sent that were intercepted were both demonstrations of capability, not actual attacks. Unfortunately I’m not sure their current audience is gonna pick up the implied threat.
      - picture 7mo ago
        How do you know their intentions? It's also a bit unreasonable to launch live munitions that have some 90% probability of being intercepted by a given system on a good day, while intending for "just a warning"
        AndrewKemendo 7mo ago
        It’s more like if David and Goliath are in a standoff David takes a small rock and whips it at a sensitive spot on Goliath’s ankles that most people don’t know about (Diego Garcia) David knows Goliath will probably dodge it, and most likely kick it away given it’s importance, but there’s a point being made by shooting: if it hits then that’s a win, but if gets knocked down it’s a warning that they know where they need to hit for it to hurt
spaghetdefects 7mo ago
Iran repeatedly stated that they will not attack any country's assets if they do not assist the US/Israel. Most European countries have refused to take part, the UK decided to help so this seems like a very easy situation to have avoided.
- chronic20001 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - embedding-shape 7mo ago
    Yeah, US/Israel won this war as quickly as Russia won their war with Ukraine. Incredible how much winning you can do once you get over-confident.
  - spaghetdefects 7mo ago
    No, the US/Israel are losing the war. Iran is successfully controlling the economic situation and continuously removing western forces from the Middle East. They are also successfully targeting Israel every day. There's very little support for this war in the US and Trump is on the ropes.
    - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
      > US/Israel are losing the war This is incorrect. It’s grinding to a stalemate.
      - thrance 7mo ago
        The US just allowed Iran to sell their oil [1]. If that's not a sign that Iran has the upper hand, I don't know what is. [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-authorizes-temporary-delivery-sale-oil-originating-iran-2026-03-20/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-authorizes-tempor...
        7mo ago
cardanome 7mo ago
Accusing Iran of "lashing out" and being "reckless" by attacking US bases while the US and Israel literally murder school children, bomb hospitals and assassinate state leaders is rich. It didn't have to be this way but they decided this to turn into a fight of survival for Iran and destroy any option for a peaceful resolution. Now they are going to pay the price.
- netsharc 7mo ago
  Unfortunately it's we who will pay the price, with "we" being the entire world, considering the destruction of a lot of oil production infrastructure will cause a price hike for everything.
  - cardanome 7mo ago
    Well China is still getting Iranian oil no problem. We in the West, well we are aiding the US in this war by allowing it to operate from military bases in our countries. We deserve it for looking the other way while Israel has been mass murdering Palestinians for more than two years now. At least Spain showed some guts. Of course it will also potentially cause suffering in the global south but that is on those that started the war.
    - kortilla 7mo ago
      How is China getting that oil without problem? Something like 90% of it when through Kharg island which is now rubble.
      - cardanome 7mo ago
        The attacks against Kharg Island were relatively limited as even the US wanted to avoid that level of escalation. The war has been painful but Iran could rebuild, if you destroyed Kharg island it would take decades to rebuild the Iranian economy, that would be a complete scorched earth point of no return. Maybe there have been further attacks today that I missed but if true that would be an huge escalation. My last information was that China has no problem getting oil but that was like two days ago.
NooneAtAll3 7mo ago
considering that there were already provocations about "unsuccessful attacks on Turkey", I have doubts that this attack was also Iran's the "notable distance/unexpectedly high range" quoted everywhere seems like a nice war justification: "see, they do have rockets that can threaten us!"
- pcrh 7mo ago
  I'm suspicious as well... Supposedly this missile was hit during the boost phase over Iran, the evidence is that it was actually targeted at Diego Garcia relies on US reports.
shishcat 7mo ago
The .io tld is going through rough times :pensive:
10xDev 7mo ago
Can we just leave countries alone, like we do with North Korea?
- AndrewKemendo 7mo ago
  The reason people leave North Korea alone is because they have nuclear weapon(s)
  - 10xDev 7mo ago
    So we can only reach stalemate once a country has nukes and otherwise have to start blowing up their schools?
    - AndrewKemendo 7mo ago
      According to postwar foreign policy clearly that’s true: Look at Libya and Ukraine for your most direct examples - give away your nukes, get invaded. South Africa is an odd example that proves the rule: they simply bend the knee to the west. Nuclear deterrents and mutual assured destruction has been the key driver in preventing large scale conflict in the “postwar period.” Everyone knows Israel has nukes it’s just a matter of when they can get enough public support to use them
      - cameronh90 7mo ago
        Mutually assured destruction does seem to deter conflict, but even assuming it works, it always seemed like a poor tradeoff to me. Significantly reduce the frequency of small to medium-scale conflicts, in exchange for an inevitable, possibly apocalyptic nuclear conflict at some point. Maybe not this year, maybe not for centuries, but one day, someone will press the button.
    - lm28469 7mo ago
      Why do you think Iran wanted to have nukes? It's the only way to not get raped by the US whenever their supreme leader decides it's war time
lokar 7mo ago
Question: could this lead to much more expensive war risk insurance for all ships transiting the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean? That’s a lot of traffic
- DrProtic 7mo ago
  US affected war risk insurance by sinking Iranian ship, this will to although probably not much.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
mmmm2 7mo ago
To me this is like the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo during WWII. The tactical result isn't important, the range of the strike is, and that it happened at all. Japan thought it was immune from air attack on the home islands in 1942, and the raid shocked them. Iran is showing the world (especially Europe), that it's more vulnerable than it thinks. Europe has more skin in the game than just the price of oil and nitrogen. Also think about what would happen if Iran is able to recreate something like the Cuban missile crisis now that we've moved a bunch of our military assets to the middle east.
- ttul 7mo ago
  Strategically, it seems like a dumb move. Right now, Congress is unlikely to approve Trump’s request for $200B to fund the war effort. But if Americans can be convinced that Iran could somehow hit American cities, they would call their members of Congress in a heartbeat and that money would presumably flow without interruption. Why time the medium range missiles now? It seems like yet another own-goal for this desperate and poorly coordinated regime.
  - vasac 7mo ago
    Americans can be convinced of anything without too much effort so that isn’t really a factor here.
    - scottyah 7mo ago
      They just don't need to be convinced of anything. It's not like normal people have a say in this, just a few leaders doing what they want. A few fake news stories saying that there's so much support.
  - tuna74 7mo ago
    Or the US could just stop bombing Iran? Then there would be no reason for Iran to attack American cities.
    - mmmm2 7mo ago
drnick1 7mo ago
What kind of game is Iran playing here? It's as if the regime wanted to get nuked.
IAmGraydon 7mo ago
As NATO has thus far neglected to get involved, this seems like an incredibly dumb move by Iran. Making Europe feel threatened will not turn things in their favor.
- DrProtic 7mo ago
  On what basis should NATO get involved? US and Israel sneak attacked Iran during negotiations that presumably were going very well. Iran is attacking only the countries that were involved in the attacks.
penguin_booze 7mo ago
> see a swift end to the conflict I'll tell you a swifter method: rest of the world attack the US efforts and send them home. Then lock up the presidumb [sic] somewhere. They stirred the hornets' nest. Now the rest of the world are getting stung, slowly dragging into an all-out war. The rest of us could really use a regime change now--and it's not in Iran.
MagicMoonlight 7mo ago
[flagged]
- alephnerd 7mo ago
  I hope this the HN moderator team is actively looking at this. Based on the live HN dataset on HuggingFace [0], it confirms that much of HN's recent traffic doesn't align with American hours. I've also been noticing some unused and underused accounts suddenly becoming active, showing hallmarks of an LOTL attack. Given HN's unique characteristics it is actually significantly at risk for such tactics. I've also been messing around with the types of responses I write over the past few months as a smoke test - it feels DRAGONBRIDGE-esque. [0] - https://huggingface.co/datasets/open-index/hacker-news https://huggingface.co/datasets/open-index/hacker-news
  - _DeadFred_ 7mo ago
    HN won't even moderate when people's comments are flagged to death simply because they have the wrong opinion on Iran/Israel threads, showing the threads are just being used to push a one sided narrative not serve as a place for discussion.
    - alephnerd 7mo ago
      That is actually one of my indicators - I found significantly higher flagging and mutual acrimony about West Asian affairs during non-US hours versus US hours irrespective of bias. What will be interesting is what happens on HN tomorrow - Sunday is the equivalent of Monday in MENA. Additionally, tne fact it took hours for this to get flagged is worrisome for me. I have also noticed increased usage of HackerSmacker. HN needs a hard ban on politics and much stricter off-topic controls to reduce the risk of misuse of HN. It will make HN significantly harder to use and for diamonds in the rough to arise, but will help ensure good faith discourse amongst users Also, this isn't meant to be a slight at the HN moderating team - they are doing commendable work, but there is a deluge that is very difficult to manage (so I can only imagine how much hard work they are putting into moderating already).
tsoukase 7mo ago
I still doubt that this enemy of the West, once more, is invented, created and sustained. Trillion dollar armies against a deserted country without allies should be a few days attack from earth and space, while neutralising the country abroad. This is not a modern war, this is a soft fight with goals to destabilise fossil energy and mainly to feed the media with a daily event. The same holds for Russia/Ukraine and in the past Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria whatever.
ndsipa_pomu 7mo ago
Oh great, here we go with a false flag operation designed to provide an excuse to drag the UK into another war. https://labourheartlands.com/the-four-thousand-kilometre-mirage/ https://labourheartlands.com/the-four-thousand-kilometre-mir...

167 points by alephnerd 7mo ago

The article kind of downplays the most interesting elements. Not an expert, but to my limited understanding: * I think this is the longest-range use of a ballistic missile in anger, possibly ever? * This seems to reveal previously-unknown range of Iranian ballistic missiles and, if true, could touch basically all of Europe?

madaxe_again 7mo ago
Iran have boats.
- myth_drannon 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - fnordpiglet 7mo ago
    They’ve been preparing for this day for 5 decades, and I wouldn’t believe this administrations propaganda if they claimed the sky was blue.
    - nozzlegear 7mo ago
      Five decades doesn't seem to mean much when most of their leadership, military and air defenses can be laid prostrate by the US and Israel in a couple of days. I don't ever take Trump for his word, but neither do I think there's wisdom in believing that a technologically superior force couldn't easily wipe out Iran's ballistic-capable navy just because they've been preparing for a long time. Edit: am I wrong? Can copium in fact save inferior boats from a vastly superior military force?
      - fnordpiglet 7mo ago
        You’re wrong in a few ways - - Iran has structured the functioning of its government and military to be highly resilient to decapitation. Every function has redundancy and every military unit can exercise autonomy. Their goal is to build a theocratic revolution around an ideology and not a personality, and intentionally built a system to survive a hostile environment. - You have to find what you want to destroy and quantity can out last highly sophisticated and expensive systems. They have been aware of satellite imaging for some time and almost certainly have planned for closing the straight against the US navy for decades. What they have going for them is asymmetric warfare that relies on mass and surprise. For instance, the $20,000 drone that requires multiple $4mm interceptors to stop. They can just keep dropping those randomly indefinitely on their time table and burn a steady supply of interceptors that are increasingly spread out then roll out the hypersonic missiles they have but haven’t even used yet knowing the defenses have been spread thin across an ever increasingly wide region as they demonstrate the radius of attack they have. Ground warfare would be against an enemy who has fortified and prepared for decades with full awareness of our capabilities as we demonstrated them globally. - the idiocy of a talk show host leading a military commanded by a real estate developer turned reality tv show host with delusions of megalomaniacal grandeur can self defeat any military against any foe
        nozzlegear 7mo ago
        Thanks, I appreciate the reply. My contention was only about Iran's navy and their ability to field ships that can launch ballistic missiles. I believe the GP or GGP was implying that Iran still has "boats" with which they could extend the range of their ballistic missiles even further. That's what I think is a far cry from reality – the US and Israel surely know where those ships would be and would be more than capable of destroying them. Regarding the substance of your comment: I'm not sure I agree about being resilient to decapitation, as the US and Israel have apparently become very skilled at locating the people they want to kill. But I agree with all the rest, especially regarding that bloviating ass, Hegseth.
        fnordpiglet 7mo ago
    - 1over137 7mo ago
      >They’ve been preparing for this day for 5 decades... So have the USA & Israel I suspect.
  - spiderfarmer 7mo ago
    Don’t believe Hegseths obvious buffoonery. They still have boats.
  - verdverm 7mo ago
    Large surface and mini subs, yes. They still have many small boats for laying mines. These are indistinguishable from a typical motor boat. Look at how Ukraine has denied Russia access to most of the Black Sea. It's going to be real hard to stop Iran from creating enough uncertainty to ease the worries of the shipping world. Iran will have to say they are done threatening the straight.
    - nozzlegear 7mo ago
      We're losing the plot here. What use are small motor boats for launching ballistic missiles?
      - verdverm 7mo ago
        Comments and threads typically digress into related topics, so I don't see the plot lost, rather the context expanded in a subthread.
    - irishcoffee 7mo ago
      The haven’t even started using these yet, curious who wins this game of chess: https://www.usff.navy.mil/press-room/news-stories/article/3111891/initial-operating-capability-declared-for-unmanned-influence-sweep-system-uiss/ https://www.usff.navy.mil/press-room/news-stories/article/31...
      - verdverm 7mo ago
        Many experts think Iran has already won. They don't have to lay mines to seed doubt, they don't need boats to close the straights, shaheds are sufficient. One does need to define what it means to "win" For Iran, it seems the regime will stay in power, you can't remove them from the air. The geography and population size of Iran will prove more challenging than Iraq or Afghanistan. There is very little support for Trump's War. They never sought to persuade the people, it appears they have no plan b (which they wish to be illegal /s) Hubris is an apt way to describe Trump's approach to Iran. One evidence to this is that they thought Venezuela was the model for Iran. A SA dictator is nothing like a religious movement that has taken root for ~50 years. What does winning look like for the US & Israel? Trump has already claimed they won, but have more winning to do. What they have said changes daily and between who's talking. I imagine this will continue after hostilities end, they will backfill their goals to claim they "won", like so many other things they do this with. The real winners from this? Probably Russia and China more than others.
- derektank 7mo ago
  Obviously they have boats. The question is, do they still have boats which are capable of serving as a launch platform for ballistic missiles? And could those boats meaningfully close the distance between Iran and its adversaries. This launch demonstrates that if the answer to both of those questions is still no, they can still place them at threat.
  - zer00eyz 7mo ago
    The question is do they have a launcher that fits in a shipping container...
alephnerd 7mo ago
Yep. Hence why I posted it. > previously-unknown It was implied by Iran's space program. There's a reason most regional powers also invested in a space program as well as a civilian uncles program. The name of the game is dual-use technologies. The Biden admin also warned about Iran-NK collaboration on building these kinds of capabilities [0] [0] - https://www.janes.com/osint-insights/defence-news/us-official-says-iran-has-restarted-missile-co-operation-with-north-korea https://www.janes.com/osint-insights/defence-news/us-officia...
- arkensaw 7mo ago
  > civilian uncles program I know its just a typo but lol'ed so hard
  - alephnerd 7mo ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RejrrkrRShM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RejrrkrRShM
AnotherGoodName 7mo ago
> This seems to reveal previously-unknown range of Iranian ballistic missiles and, if true, could touch basically all of Europe True but they have also literally launched multiple orbital satellites from iran on iranian rockets. Eg. The Noor 2 spy satellite and before that the Noor 1 series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_2_(satellite) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_2_(satellite) These are in orbit to this day. They regularly post images it takes of US military bases. Essentially it’s similar to how sputnik was a demonstration of icbm capability. Iran can launch a first generation ICBM right now. Pointless if they use a conventional payload (too small payload to be cost effective militarily) and a non manoeuvrable warhead (would just be intercepted) and so these aren’t used militarily but essentially everyone acting shocked they can hit 4000km range was not paying attention. I think one of the problems we are having right now is that we have leaders who actively believed the downplaying of Irans military capabilities. It’s one thing for the common civilian to think the enemies missiles are made of cardboard and tanks of paper but it’s another when the leader of a nation believes it. Now here we are with a war that’s stalemated and no way out.
- breppp 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - bdangubic 7mo ago
    that would be stupid and their regime is not stupid
    - breppp 7mo ago
      Hardly, after attacking all their friends in the region, which would leave them even more isolated after the war, I would not attribute careful strategic planning either
      - cjbgkagh 7mo ago
        “Better to be feared than loved” - Niccolo Machiavelli
bawolff 7mo ago
> * This seems to reveal previously-unknown range of Iranian ballistic missiles and, if true, could touch basically all of Europe? The Wikipedia article has said they had missiles that can range 4300km since 2019 (as in the article was updated in 2019) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shahab-5&oldid=911582208 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shahab-5&oldid=91... . If Wikipedia has known about it for 7 years, surely military planners were already aware.
jandrewrogers 7mo ago
US intelligence had assessed that this was possible a long time ago. It was one of the motivations behind the installation of long-range missile defense capabilities in Poland and Czechia in the late 2000s. Obama killed that program to appease Russia. Of course, there is a significant gap between Iran possessing the capability, having the temperament to use it, and actually doing so.
- alephnerd 7mo ago
  > It was one of the motivations behind the installation of long-range missile defense capabilities in Poland and Czechia in the late 2000s. Obama killed that program to appease Russia This was sidestepped by allowing the Poland-SK defense partnership to kick off in 2013 [0] which was further entrenched in 2022 [1], and itself acted as a message against North Korea for acting in a similar manner with Iran [2] [0] - https://www.president.pl/archives/bronislaw-komorowski/news/poland-south-korea-adopt-strategic-partnership-declaration,38801 https://www.president.pl/archives/bronislaw-komorowski/news/... [1] - https://www.irsem.fr/storage/file_manager_files/2025/03/nr-irsem-140-paik.pdf https://www.irsem.fr/storage/file_manager_files/2025/03/nr-i... [2] - https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/middleeast/29missiles.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/middleeast/29missil...
dragonelite 7mo ago
It's a message toward the west don't think you're safe further away. Iran is pushing the west out of west Asia. Time will tell what USIS and EU will do to combat this.
- ignoramous 7mo ago
  > Time will tell what USIS and EU will do to combat this. Diplomacy was working fine, per high-ranking diplomats: https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2026/03/18/americas-friends-must-help-extricate-it-from-an-unlawful-war https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2026/03/18/americas-...
  - rayiner 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    - ignoramous 7mo ago
      Yes, war is bad. Unless you're from the Complex. No big insight here, Mr. Rayiner.
  - magic_hamster 7mo ago
    Anyone thinking they can talk their way into controlling Iran, a fundamentalist fanatic country with a very loud and visible doctrine literally calling to destroy the west, is delusional. The western "avoid conflict at all cost" approach is extremely detrimental.
    - ignoramous 7mo ago
      > Anyone thinking they can talk their way into controlling Iran, a fundamentalist fanatic country with a very loud and visible doctrine literally calling to destroy the west, is delusional Yeah, what's it about peoples of the third world that they're always fanatical, that they're always out to destroy the first world... https://theconversation.com/orientalism-edward-saids-groundbreaking-book-explained-197429 https://theconversation.com/orientalism-edward-saids-groundb... / https://archive.vn/HoEk5 https://archive.vn/HoEk5
ChuckMcM 7mo ago
I think the article downplays the element that the attack probably achieved its goal which was not to actually hit something at Diego Garcia, but to show that thing 2500 miles from Iran are potentially targetable by Iran. That starts conversations like the one here and in other fora about whether or not Iran would limit themselves to military targets (Russia doesn't as an example) and if not how could Europe and its East Asian allies protect literally everything with their finite supply of defensive units.
- big-and-small 7mo ago
  Except it would be very weird goal to achieve because it's only give more reasons to bomb whole country into oblivion and justify deployment of ground troops.
  - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
    There is probably a hardline faction within Iran that still thinks it gains from further bombing and forced isolation.
    - PixyMisa 7mo ago
      Yep. The IRGC runs the country at this point, and they do not have anyone else's best interests in mind.
    - jhanschoo 7mo ago
      Why would Iran end up further isolated due to this war, and out of escalation? (your sentence is slightly ambiguous so I assume that you are referring to it.) If it successfully asserts control over the Strait as it seems to presently be doing, it should be able to negotiate a peace favorable to itself. Even with the status quo, I don't know how that figures into things, but the US has temporarily lifted sanctions on Iranian oil. I don't follow the news very well, but from what I know the claim that you make isn't very obviously true but needs some evidence for it to stand.
      - 7mo ago

mikeyouse 7mo ago

Unfortunately this is more interesting than a failed Diego Garcia attack — the late Ayatollah had a self-imposed range limit on the strikes or tests they would carry out. By using IRBMs in this fashion, it’s clear the new regime no longer feels bound by that restriction.. Which is notable since it’s about the same distance from Southern Iran to Diego Garcia (3,800km) as it is from Northern Iran to London.

greesil 7mo ago
Excellent point. Maybe it's the goal of this attack to demonstrate this capability.
mytailorisrich 7mo ago
Iran has always said a lot of things (mostly BS). This is worthless without evidence and I don't think anyone had evidence that their missiles were restricted to 2,000km. Certainly, I don't think anyone took their word for it. In fact this attack proves that there was no such limitation (although it is unclear to me if the missiles fired could actually jave reached Diego Garcia). Now this may be a demonstration and veiled threat, on the other hand if Iran was to fire a missile at continental Europe I would hope that the consequence for them would be to be flattened, so...
- mda 7mo ago
  Like they flattened Afghanistan? It is funny people thinks land war in an huge mountainous country with 90 million people is easy.
  - mytailorisrich 7mo ago
    I wrote "flatten", not "invade".
    - mda 7mo ago
      flatten with what?

georgeburdell 7mo ago

The fact that it was unsuccessful does not make it any less worrying. Iran was a regional problem before the war, but this new escalation shows they’re a threat to the entire world. They might have previously had a chance at a Vietnam or perhaps a Korea-style stalemate

cardanome 7mo ago
Iran is fighting for survival, Israel and the US are fighting by choice. They attacked Iran not the other way round. US bases, even if also used by UK which aides US it their war, are legitimate targets. US imperialism is the greatest threat to the world.
- anvuong 7mo ago
  The IRGC is fighting for survival, most Iranian want them gone, and Iran will be better as a whole if the IRGC is all dead. Don't try to conflate the government with the country, they don't always align.
  - spaghetdefects 7mo ago
    Most Iranians do not want the IRGC gone, that's US/Israeli propaganda. Thousands of people have been marching in support of the IRGC. Common sense would also tell you that Iranians aren't going to support the people bombing their schools.
    - gambutin 7mo ago
      [flagged]
    - tuna74 7mo ago
      It is impossible to know how may Iranians want the IRGC gone. But bombing schools (and bombings in general) will definitely increase the support for it.
  - cardanome 7mo ago

AndrewKemendo 7mo ago

Diego Garcia is strategically very important to global security according to the US Had something actually struck within the ADIZ there would have been massive implications. My guess is they intentionally failed as a warning shot. This isn’t a random act and its quite the signal if you know what it means, Iran knows what it did here.

visuhire 7mo ago
I was reading that one of the two failed en route, and the other was intercepted. I don't think this was an intentional failure to hit.
- AndrewKemendo 7mo ago
  Sometimes getting shot down is the goal or at least a test to see what kind of response you’ll get
  - roughly 7mo ago
    Iran did the same before the conflict in response to prior Israeli attacks - the two drone waves they sent that were intercepted were both demonstrations of capability, not actual attacks. Unfortunately I’m not sure their current audience is gonna pick up the implied threat.
    - picture 7mo ago
      How do you know their intentions? It's also a bit unreasonable to launch live munitions that have some 90% probability of being intercepted by a given system on a good day, while intending for "just a warning"
      - AndrewKemendo 7mo ago
        It’s more like if David and Goliath are in a standoff David takes a small rock and whips it at a sensitive spot on Goliath’s ankles that most people don’t know about (Diego Garcia) David knows Goliath will probably dodge it, and most likely kick it away given it’s importance, but there’s a point being made by shooting: if it hits then that’s a win, but if gets knocked down it’s a warning that they know where they need to hit for it to hurt

spaghetdefects 7mo ago

Iran repeatedly stated that they will not attack any country's assets if they do not assist the US/Israel. Most European countries have refused to take part, the UK decided to help so this seems like a very easy situation to have avoided.

chronic20001 7mo ago
[flagged]
- embedding-shape 7mo ago
  Yeah, US/Israel won this war as quickly as Russia won their war with Ukraine. Incredible how much winning you can do once you get over-confident.
- spaghetdefects 7mo ago
  No, the US/Israel are losing the war. Iran is successfully controlling the economic situation and continuously removing western forces from the Middle East. They are also successfully targeting Israel every day. There's very little support for this war in the US and Trump is on the ropes.
  - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
    > US/Israel are losing the war This is incorrect. It’s grinding to a stalemate.
    - thrance 7mo ago
      The US just allowed Iran to sell their oil [1]. If that's not a sign that Iran has the upper hand, I don't know what is. [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-authorizes-temporary-delivery-sale-oil-originating-iran-2026-03-20/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-authorizes-tempor...
      - 7mo ago

cardanome 7mo ago

Accusing Iran of "lashing out" and being "reckless" by attacking US bases while the US and Israel literally murder school children, bomb hospitals and assassinate state leaders is rich. It didn't have to be this way but they decided this to turn into a fight of survival for Iran and destroy any option for a peaceful resolution. Now they are going to pay the price.

netsharc 7mo ago
Unfortunately it's we who will pay the price, with "we" being the entire world, considering the destruction of a lot of oil production infrastructure will cause a price hike for everything.
- cardanome 7mo ago
  Well China is still getting Iranian oil no problem. We in the West, well we are aiding the US in this war by allowing it to operate from military bases in our countries. We deserve it for looking the other way while Israel has been mass murdering Palestinians for more than two years now. At least Spain showed some guts. Of course it will also potentially cause suffering in the global south but that is on those that started the war.
  - kortilla 7mo ago
    How is China getting that oil without problem? Something like 90% of it when through Kharg island which is now rubble.
    - cardanome 7mo ago
      The attacks against Kharg Island were relatively limited as even the US wanted to avoid that level of escalation. The war has been painful but Iran could rebuild, if you destroyed Kharg island it would take decades to rebuild the Iranian economy, that would be a complete scorched earth point of no return. Maybe there have been further attacks today that I missed but if true that would be an huge escalation. My last information was that China has no problem getting oil but that was like two days ago.

NooneAtAll3 7mo ago

considering that there were already provocations about "unsuccessful attacks on Turkey", I have doubts that this attack was also Iran's the "notable distance/unexpectedly high range" quoted everywhere seems like a nice war justification: "see, they do have rockets that can threaten us!"

pcrh 7mo ago
I'm suspicious as well... Supposedly this missile was hit during the boost phase over Iran, the evidence is that it was actually targeted at Diego Garcia relies on US reports.

shishcat 7mo ago

The .io tld is going through rough times :pensive:

10xDev 7mo ago

Can we just leave countries alone, like we do with North Korea?

AndrewKemendo 7mo ago
The reason people leave North Korea alone is because they have nuclear weapon(s)
- 10xDev 7mo ago
  So we can only reach stalemate once a country has nukes and otherwise have to start blowing up their schools?
  - AndrewKemendo 7mo ago
    According to postwar foreign policy clearly that’s true: Look at Libya and Ukraine for your most direct examples - give away your nukes, get invaded. South Africa is an odd example that proves the rule: they simply bend the knee to the west. Nuclear deterrents and mutual assured destruction has been the key driver in preventing large scale conflict in the “postwar period.” Everyone knows Israel has nukes it’s just a matter of when they can get enough public support to use them
    - cameronh90 7mo ago
      Mutually assured destruction does seem to deter conflict, but even assuming it works, it always seemed like a poor tradeoff to me. Significantly reduce the frequency of small to medium-scale conflicts, in exchange for an inevitable, possibly apocalyptic nuclear conflict at some point. Maybe not this year, maybe not for centuries, but one day, someone will press the button.
  - lm28469 7mo ago
    Why do you think Iran wanted to have nukes? It's the only way to not get raped by the US whenever their supreme leader decides it's war time

lokar 7mo ago

Question: could this lead to much more expensive war risk insurance for all ships transiting the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean? That’s a lot of traffic

DrProtic 7mo ago
US affected war risk insurance by sinking Iranian ship, this will to although probably not much.

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

mmmm2 7mo ago

To me this is like the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo during WWII. The tactical result isn't important, the range of the strike is, and that it happened at all. Japan thought it was immune from air attack on the home islands in 1942, and the raid shocked them. Iran is showing the world (especially Europe), that it's more vulnerable than it thinks. Europe has more skin in the game than just the price of oil and nitrogen. Also think about what would happen if Iran is able to recreate something like the Cuban missile crisis now that we've moved a bunch of our military assets to the middle east.

ttul 7mo ago
Strategically, it seems like a dumb move. Right now, Congress is unlikely to approve Trump’s request for $200B to fund the war effort. But if Americans can be convinced that Iran could somehow hit American cities, they would call their members of Congress in a heartbeat and that money would presumably flow without interruption. Why time the medium range missiles now? It seems like yet another own-goal for this desperate and poorly coordinated regime.
- vasac 7mo ago
  Americans can be convinced of anything without too much effort so that isn’t really a factor here.
  - scottyah 7mo ago
    They just don't need to be convinced of anything. It's not like normal people have a say in this, just a few leaders doing what they want. A few fake news stories saying that there's so much support.
- tuna74 7mo ago
  Or the US could just stop bombing Iran? Then there would be no reason for Iran to attack American cities.
  - mmmm2 7mo ago

drnick1 7mo ago

What kind of game is Iran playing here? It's as if the regime wanted to get nuked.

IAmGraydon 7mo ago

As NATO has thus far neglected to get involved, this seems like an incredibly dumb move by Iran. Making Europe feel threatened will not turn things in their favor.

DrProtic 7mo ago
On what basis should NATO get involved? US and Israel sneak attacked Iran during negotiations that presumably were going very well. Iran is attacking only the countries that were involved in the attacks.

penguin_booze 7mo ago

> see a swift end to the conflict I'll tell you a swifter method: rest of the world attack the US efforts and send them home. Then lock up the presidumb [sic] somewhere. They stirred the hornets' nest. Now the rest of the world are getting stung, slowly dragging into an all-out war. The rest of us could really use a regime change now--and it's not in Iran.

MagicMoonlight 7mo ago

[flagged]

alephnerd 7mo ago
I hope this the HN moderator team is actively looking at this. Based on the live HN dataset on HuggingFace [0], it confirms that much of HN's recent traffic doesn't align with American hours. I've also been noticing some unused and underused accounts suddenly becoming active, showing hallmarks of an LOTL attack. Given HN's unique characteristics it is actually significantly at risk for such tactics. I've also been messing around with the types of responses I write over the past few months as a smoke test - it feels DRAGONBRIDGE-esque. [0] - https://huggingface.co/datasets/open-index/hacker-news https://huggingface.co/datasets/open-index/hacker-news
- _DeadFred_ 7mo ago
  HN won't even moderate when people's comments are flagged to death simply because they have the wrong opinion on Iran/Israel threads, showing the threads are just being used to push a one sided narrative not serve as a place for discussion.
  - alephnerd 7mo ago
    That is actually one of my indicators - I found significantly higher flagging and mutual acrimony about West Asian affairs during non-US hours versus US hours irrespective of bias. What will be interesting is what happens on HN tomorrow - Sunday is the equivalent of Monday in MENA. Additionally, tne fact it took hours for this to get flagged is worrisome for me. I have also noticed increased usage of HackerSmacker. HN needs a hard ban on politics and much stricter off-topic controls to reduce the risk of misuse of HN. It will make HN significantly harder to use and for diamonds in the rough to arise, but will help ensure good faith discourse amongst users Also, this isn't meant to be a slight at the HN moderating team - they are doing commendable work, but there is a deluge that is very difficult to manage (so I can only imagine how much hard work they are putting into moderating already).

tsoukase 7mo ago

I still doubt that this enemy of the West, once more, is invented, created and sustained. Trillion dollar armies against a deserted country without allies should be a few days attack from earth and space, while neutralising the country abroad. This is not a modern war, this is a soft fight with goals to destabilise fossil energy and mainly to feed the media with a daily event. The same holds for Russia/Ukraine and in the past Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria whatever.

ndsipa_pomu 7mo ago

Oh great, here we go with a false flag operation designed to provide an excuse to drag the UK into another war. https://labourheartlands.com/the-four-thousand-kilometre-mirage/ https://labourheartlands.com/the-four-thousand-kilometre-mir...