I have to wonder how much of this is driven by Israel accounting for the risk of less favorable US relationship in the future.<p>Pre-emptive violence; not even justified with a narrative of escalating threat.<p>Bleak for anybody who knows their history.
The US has moved half of its navy in the region, and there are doubts about its support?
“In the future” is not “now”.<p>Neither the current administration nor Israel are particularly popular with the US public today, and those are correlated in that Israel has particularly lost support from Democrats and Independents in the US, suggesting that a change in power (legislative or executive, and especially both) in the US government could very easily spell much less favorable US policy toward Israel.
"Let's do it now, when they'd still move half their navy there for us, rather than in the future, when they might not."
And it happened on a Friday night. Best time of the week for the least news impact.
It was Trump or his immediate environmetn who asked Israeli to attack Iran first (better optics); Israel would have never done this without American approval.
Did Israel want this to happen though ? Yes. But so did the Americans. I guess the negotiations went badly.
More specifically, seems to be driven by Netanyahu's political accounting. Starting a potential major war going into mid-terms is pretty inconvenient for Trump who could be looking at impeachment over Epstein. But Netanyahu is facing trial and October-7 investigation commissions more imminently and can't wait that long. Netanyahu trumps Trump, evidently.
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well, they were one week away from a nuke, as usual.
The concept of nuclear brinkmanship is part of accepted WMD doctrine. A country can maintain a fixed short interval away from weaponization for decades. It is widely accepted that Iran does have a military nuclear program; the amount of material enriched, the enrichment level achieved and the hardening of the involved facilities are an open testament to that (there are many other intelligence signals that we are not privy to).
since 1992!
There's an Israeli newspaper from 1984 saying it's a month away. Definitely more than a month passed between '84 and '92.<p>Btw. They ARE not that far away from the bomb, after they enriched uranium as a consequence of Trump (in his first term) cancelling the Obama treaty.<p>But they ARE a theocracy and Ajatollah Chamenei released an order (fatwa) forbidding Iran from obtaining and using an a-bomb. The new religious leader might change the religious law tho. I mean the one that comes after Chamenei becomes a martyr.<p>Funny how, knowing just a little bit more, it all really looks like nonsense created for illiterate, just to take their attention off of Epstein Pedophile Scandal.
Please, can the administration do something useful for America instead of… whatever this is?<p>Can we follow the age old adage WWJD?<p>What would (Xi) Jinping do?
Reddit is devastated.
shameful for the west, and a tragedy. leave iran alone. defending the mullahs wasn't exactly on my bingo card, but here we are...<p>please, can somebody in the US or Israel have an "are we the baddies" epiphany?
I pinged an iranian colleague and he’s literally partying over this.<p>Iranian people have been struggling under a dictatorship for decades.<p>Unironically, the US might become a beacon of freedom again.<p>Let’s see how this unfolds.
Ask your colleague if his family is still there... May be not.<p>or ask another colleague whose family is still there. Would be different answer.
Valid point but then again:<p>1. Not everybody lives in the direct nearing of the bombing/conflict hotspot<p>2. They weren’t doing that great before anyway (because, you know, the islamic totalitarian theocratic dictatorship)<p>3. They haven’t been doing great at all lately (because, you know, protests and turmoil and the violent repression from the aforementioned islamic totalitarian theocratic dictatorship)
Agreed. I had an Iranian colleague also reach out who was ecstatic about this news. The hacker in me is curious to see how it all unfolds, as well as to see all the curious discussion that arises on this forum.
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jan/27/iran-protests-death-toll-disappeared-bodies-mass-burials-30000-dead" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jan/27/i...</a><p>> defending the mullahs wasn't exactly on my bingo card, but here we are...<p>Propaganda is a hell of a drug.
So how do the recurring airstrikes help the protesters?
It's the biggest military buildup since 2003. Kinda looks like they plan on overthrowing the regime. Which would be amazing for world peace considering Iran is building drones for Russia and supporting Hezbollah and Hamas. But we'll see...
> considering Iran is building drones for Russia<p>Not a meaningful supplier anymore, Russia just took the designs and onshored the manufacturing.
> It's the biggest military buildup since 2003. Kinda looks like they plan on overthrowing the regime. Which would be amazing for world peace<p>Almost as amazing for world peace as when the US overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime and gave birth to the Islamic State.
Because historically, we have a fantastic record when it comes to regime change.
Russia is building Shahed derivatives themselves, Iran is not a significant supplier of anything besides the design.
Easy: decapitate the leadership of the military, IRGC, Basij and let the revolution stand a chance.
> 30,000 in 2 days - half the 2-year death toll of Gaza ; With no artillery , air-strikes or heavy weapons, without million-man armies facing off in pitched battles, without health system collapsing with 100s of thousands of injuries in 48 hours, photos or satellite imagery of mass graves and bodies littering the streets<p>Propaganda is a hell of a drug.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Hutus_in_the_First_Congo_War" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Hutus_in_the_Firs...</a><p>Lots of genocides have been carried out with primitive weapons, even recently. Remember, the protesters in Iran were mostly unarmed...
A lot of them were armed as well based on the death toll for security forces. Again where is the evidence for all this. The Iranian government published the names and details for the 3000-odd death-toll they claimed. The 30,000 number is from diaspora, citing 'anonymous health and government officials' - Who all seem to be linked to Pahlavi, Israel and US-backed sources all trying to manufacture a case for the war they are now waging. If the real number is > 10x then giving names should be very easy for CIA and Mossad.<p>All this is just a excuse, when this whole war is about Israel's national security interest and hegemonic ambitions. The "negotiations" were entirely over the Nuclear program, ballistic program and proxy forces - The protestors, human rights, democracy none of it were even mentioned. Netanyahu didn't visit the White House <i>6 times</i> over the last year to advocate for the protestors.
Killing people that blind women for refusing to wear headscarf is always a good deed.<p>It may be infeasible to do it, or bad idea because of geopolitical or similar reasons, but no - in Iran's regime case - we are not the baddies.
Currently an absolute shit load of C17s landing in Germany after leaving the PG region. I guess we know which country finally caved and let the US use them for whatever fresh conquest this is.
Can any Iran simps explain why the regime couldn't just agree to zero enrichment and cease its weekly ritual of organized mobs chanting:<p>> DEATH TO AMERICA<p>in the streets like blood-thirsty lunatics, something for which there was no equivalent in the US even after 9/11 (mobs chanting "Death to Muslims/Islam"), let alone doing so with governmental encouragement as happens in Iran?<p>Do they not realize how many Americans aren't pro-Israel and aren't invested enough in the Middle East and its politics, proxy wars, and human rights abuses to want the US to support Israel in military action against Iran, <i>except for their nuclear ambitions</i>, and <i>regularly professed eternal hatred for our country</i>?
No one dares to attack North Korea because they have nukes. Ayatollahs surely want the same but didn’t have enough time/resources.<p>Current stance on negotiations is a miscalculation IMHO, they likely wanted for negotiations to drag on for a long time.
I think iran wants nuclear weapons to ensure its survival against israel
The current Iranian regime has destruction of Israel as one of their main goals. Not the other way around. I’m sure if Iran will have less threatening leadership Isreal will not bother them.
So we're supposed to<p>>justtrustmebro<p>That they'll never, in some capacity, attempt use them against the country they weekly collectively chant death to?<p>EDIT: thanks, dang, for the<p>> posting too fast<p>cooldown, for all of my four posts.<p>> perhaps we could negotiate a peace deal in which israel and iran both agree to give up nuclear weapons and allow for IAEA inspections<p>I completely agree with you. Isreal has better relations with its neighbors than its ever had, has destroyed Iran's proxies, and given its obvious conventional military supremacy and lack of regional nuclear-armed foes and US-backing, its nuclear stockpile is just a destabilizing force in the region, and them voluntarily disbanding it would earn them a great deal of goodwill and a moral highground.
Horseshoe theory and Russia-Iran axis. It's nonsensical but you've got those from the far left and right defending Iran thanks to Russian sponsored propaganda. The same kind that had them defending Hamas, Hezbollah and Maduro.
We don't have many details regarding the negotiations, but early reports suggest that Iran agreed to the "no high-enrichment" line. It was the proxy support and MRBM standoff weaponry that caused the talks to collapse (allegedly).<p><a href="https://www.thejournal.ie/iran-agrees-in-breakthrough-talks-not-to-stockpile-enriched-uranium-that-could-build-bombs-6970304-Feb2026/" rel="nofollow">https://www.thejournal.ie/iran-agrees-in-breakthrough-talks-...</a>
At this moment, dont know what looks more terrifying. This war the US just got itself into, or the contents of the unreleased Epstein files...
What a gift to the deeply unpopular Iranian regime. Nothing galvanizes support for whatever-you-have more than an external threat.<p>Think about it. If someone actually bombed or invaded the continental US you'd have woke libs cheering for Donald Trump.<p>The Iranian regime may fall, but it'll be like Iraq. We'll get something like ISIS out of it, or worse, and the place will be a complete basketcase of civil war for 25+ years. Or we'll be there for 25 years in another "forever war." Bravo.
One of the main reasons Iraq is like Iraq is the Iranian meddling and their proxy organizations which operate in Iraq with impunity. The Iraqi government is entirely subservient to the Iranians.<p>As the recent wave of protests in Iran came after the 12 days where Iranian regime was dealt a massive blow, I think your analysis is wrong. Iranians consider this an opportunity. Also, the scale of violence unleashed on the Iranian public by the regime is staggering; it’s not about the regime being simply “unpopular”.
Do you have any better ideas or is it your position that evil dictators get to rule forever?
The Iranian people overthrow their government and establish what they want?<p>My point is that an outside force coming in will <i>help</i> the current regime and/or the ideas behind it. Even if the current regime falls, democratic or pro-Western ideas in Iran will be seen as aligned with the invading force and rejected by many people who might otherwise be open to them.<p>Is there anyone who likes being invaded by a foreign power, ever?
>Do you have any better ideas or is it your position that evil dictators get to rule forever?<p>If president Trump doesn't declare martial law, start a civil war, military coup or change the constitution of the USA, he will stop ruling in 3 years. We can wait that long.
how about a negotiating a peace deal between the Israel and Iran wherein they both agree to give up nuclear weapons and allow for IAEA inspections
Things were starting to come undone naturally then we decided to 3rd party the whole thing<p>Do you think the people fighting ICE in the streets of Minneapolis would welcome a joint Chinese+North Korean decapitation strike on Washington and cruise missiles flying over Portland?
>“Think about it. If someone actually bombed or invaded the continental US you'd have woke libs cheering for Donald Trump”<p>I think this is a scenario Steven miller fantasizes about while playing with action figures but that’s the closest it gets to being real.<p>Sure derogatory terms for liberals, as you term the left, would support the armed forces if China invaded hawaii but expecting them to also support Trump is fantasy. Like supporting America and supporting Donald Trump are entirely different matters and usually divergent.
> Think about it. If someone actually bombed or invaded the continental US you'd have woke libs cheering for Donald Trump.<p>Huh? If anything, he'd try to put blame on "Antifa" and "the radical left."
> Think about it. If someone actually bombed or invaded the continental US you'd have woke libs cheering for Donald Trump.<p>Judging by how they responded to the assassination attempt(s) on Trump and the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I don't really believe that.
You're mistaking attention bait on social media for majority opinion. Almost nobody IRL sympathized with Kirk's shooter or wants to see people shot.<p>Social media is brain poison.
most liberals do not support the assassination of politicians. after the guy got killed, there was a massive search on social media where right wingers were looking for anyone who mocked him, and they got like a handful of people.
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Their entire raison d'être is "We unite because we're being attacked". If there's no attack there's no purpose [to receive US money].
You're literally trying to excuse genocide. ‘Every last man, woman and child’.<p>Keep the mask off
But thank god for good people like you doing their best to de-escalate things
At this point a good solution for de-escalation would be the voluntary relocation of Israeli citizens, as has been proposed by the Israeli government for citizens of other nations.<p>Given that Israelis are by far the least liked group in the region, why shouldn't they be the ones relocating? Instead of say, the Palestinians?
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"Zogslave?"<p>I've noticed that people online love to say that antizionism isn't antisemitism, but they themselves can't seem to tell the difference.
>I'm donating to Thomas Massie to put an end to this foreign commandeering of our government.<p>Surely it's more important to donate to others <i>like</i> Massie, no?
Trump launching bunker-busters on his midterm chances. Which depending on how bad it goes, potentially means impeachment and prison. Whatever it is the Israelis have on him, it must be good.<p>Works out great for Netanyahu though as is customary. He can be PM for a while longer and stave off his own impending trial and imprisonment. If this goes well for Israel, he might even get that pardon that Trump campaigned for tirelessly.
Seems that they are behaving intelligently - pummeling the IRGC. If the IRGC fails the public will probably have a bit of small talk with the regime officials and functionaries while the regular army and police will probably look vague amused from the sides.
Thankfully the stock market is closed
Speaking of markets... Polymarket was trading yes on this happening at quite interesting odds, "yes" was trading at around 30¢ or better over the next few days just a few hours ago...<p>I was quite surprised to see it that low... and also to find it is inaccessible for trading if a US national. Just looking at the platform it seems predominantly US driven so I gather many people are willfully attempting to breach the ToS (and probably lie to the IRS) when using it...
Nothing more important than dow 50,000
That <i>always</i> happens before an expected event or attack on another country.