Iran Catch-All | IRAN WAR

[rodoheel]

I hope I’m wrong, but from everything I’m reading, it sounds like we and Israel are getting our asses handed to us by an enemy we completely underestimated, had no respect for, did not plan for, and have no means of de-escalation now.

I don't know what you're referring to reading but I sincerely doubt that is happening. Iran lost its senior leadership in the first hours of the US/Israel strikes. US/Israeli losses pale in comparison to that alone.

Is it possible we underestimated certain aspects of Iranian defenses? Sure. But the most that would mean is that we are incurring some unavoidable and unnecessary casualties. there's not really any realistic way for us to "lose" this sort of conflict with Iran in a military sense. I don't mean that this whole thing can't or won't be seen as a net negative for the US in the long run. But if that happens it won't be because we "got our asses handed to us."

 

[Duke Mu]

Oh yeah, no, I totally agree with you. I think you're spot-on. Most of what I've been reading has been saying that we are strategically getting our asses handed to us as opposed to tactically, in the sense that we've initiated an attack on an enemy whom we don't respect, don't fully understand, underestimated their resolve, and overlooked their capacity and desire to retaliate proportionately.

That's because we have no geopolitical strategy. Trump and Hegseth are incapable of that level of thinking.

"Stupid Hitler."

 

[Zoo_View]

Therein lies the problem, though. This “regime change” is turning out to be anything but. If anything, it’s likely to be regime change for the worse.

There’s another problem.

Iran was not a “Liberal” nation under the Shah in the ‘70’s. It was a dictatorship. Iran’s secret police, the SAVAK, operated in many nations around the world spying on Iranians. SAVAK was brutal.

 

[Duke Mu]

I don't know what you're referring to reading but I sincerely doubt that is happening. Iran lost its senior leadership in the first hours of the US/Israel strikes. US/Israeli losses pale in comparison to that alone.

Is it possible we underestimated certain aspects of Iranian defenses? Sure. But the most that would mean is that we are incurring some unavoidable and unnecessary casualties. there's not really any realistic way for us to "lose" this sort of conflict with Iran in a military sense. I don't mean that this whole thing can't or won't be seen as a net negative for the US in the long run. But if that happens it won't be because we "got our asses handed to us."

I think it's that Iran's size and capability is much greater than pea brained Trump could conceive.

 

[finesse]

My default setting has become, after thousands of confirmations, that the trump administration and its congressional supporters, are lying.

Yeah ,de fault of de people telling de lies.

 

[rodoheel]

And this is PRECISELY what has been missing from the Democratic party. Contrary to popular opinion, there is no blow too low to land on a Republican at this point.

I know this is emotionally satisfying, and I generally welcome a little less decorum and little more combativeness from Dems, but "being meaner to Republicans" is not very high on my list about fundamental changes needed for/from the Dems.

 

[TangledUpInBlue06]

Oh yeah, no, I totally agree with you. I think you're spot-on. Most of what I've been reading has been saying that we are strategically getting our asses handed to us as opposed to tactically, in the sense that we've initiated an attack on an enemy whom we don't respect, don't fully understand, underestimated their resolve, and overlooked their capacity and desire to retaliate proportionately.

The one outcome of this conflict I'm certain of is that the solution to any shortcomings will be to pour more money into weapons.

 

[rodoheel]

I think it's that Iran's size and capability is much greater than pea brained Trump could conceive.

I don't have any doubt about this, especially with regard to the size of the country.

 

[heelinhell]

There are reports we plan to be sending ground troops into Iran.

Pete says we are not going to abide by rules of engagement so fuck the Geneva Convention and let the war crimes ensue.

 

[rodoheel]

That's because we have no geopolitical strategy. Trump and Hegseth are incapable of that level of thinking.

"Stupid Hitler."

I don't think it's that we have no geopolitical strategy. It's just that the strategy is written in crayon and fails in innumerable ways to appreciate the complexities of actual geopolitics. The current strategy is basically just "give us what we want, or we will threaten and/or attack you."

 

[nycfan]

CNN says Trump just told Jake Tapper that the “big wave” has yet to come.

 

[finesse]

There’s another problem.

Iran was not a “Liberal” nation under the Shah in the ‘70’s. It was a dictatorship. Iran’s secret police, the SAVAK, operated in many nations around the world spying on Iranians. SAVAK was brutal.

Trained by the finest in the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia. There are a lot of bitter memories in third world countries of our outreach programs we conducted there. We trained some of the finest secret police, interrogators and torturers this side of the Iron Curtain.

 

[pspsps]

I know this is emotionally satisfying, and I generally welcome a little less decorum and little more combativeness from Dems, but "being meaner to Republicans" is not very high on my list about fundamental changes needed for/from the Dems.

I think you are dumbing down something more layered to make your point. Mean is not in the first three adjectives that come to my mind when reading that tweet.

 

[Icky Mettle]

If this war/regime change returns Iran to the liberal Iran of the 70's, I'd say that is worth it to US and most of the world for a variety of reasons.

The Iran of the 1970s triggered the Iranian Revolution, which resulted in the Iran we’ve been dealing with the for past 4.5 decades and has been one of the bases for much of the animosity Iran has had toward us dating back to the 1970s. It was also an oppressive regime.

 

[donbosco]

I’ve still got my trading cards..

 

[ZenMode]

The Iran of the 1970s triggered the Iranian Revolution, which resulted in the Iran we’ve been dealing with the for past 4.5 decades and has been one of the bases for much of the animosity Iran has had toward us dating back to the 1970s. It was also an oppressive regime.

I would take the Iran of the 70s over the Iran we've had since.

 

[superrific]

Just curious - how and why do you think this will come to pass? That we will use technology to alter ourselves biologically?

Or do you mean more along the lines of human civilization in 500 years will be unrecognizable to us today?

I don't know. I'm just going with the trend. Technology moves so much faster than human life now. People just can't keep up.

Humans take about 20 years to form into adulthood, and then after reaching age 30 or so, are basically static in terms of outlook or world view for the next 50.

On a technology time line, 20 years ago is forever. It was pre-iPad. And change is getting faster and faster. ChatGPT is what, four years old, and it's already laying waste to our educational systems (according to many teachers/professors). And now that AI can help program AI . . .

These are all very humdrum insights so I won't go on about them. The point is that humans cannot keep up. We evolved in stable environments where change was slow. Even late in our evolution, even a thousand years ago -- what a person learned as a child was useful and valid for all of life. Even our transformational periods, like the Renaissance, played out over generations. Take any given 50 year period prior to the Industrial Revolution and life at the end of it was more or less the same as life prior to, with some minor modifications. In the 20th century, change accelerated but it was still gradual. Life at the end of a decade was generally the same as at the beginning (not counting specific events like war). Now things change practically year to year.

So projecting out 500 years, I have no way of knowing what will happen but the change vector is so steep that I do not think humans will be able to cope. Maybe we all kill each other, or we have mass starvation, or we become siliconized, or who knows but we are not adapted to having our world completely rewritten every few years.

 

[rodoheel]

I think you are dumbing down something more layered to make your point. Mean is not in the first three adjectives that come to my mind when reading that tweet.

Change mean to whatever you want. "Willingness to be combative" or something like that. The tone that Dems have taken with Pubs absolutely has been a weakness. But a willingness to be more verbally combative, and less of a concern about being crass, is more of a window dressing issue, not a substantive issue, IMO.

 

[Zoo_View]

To have any chance of that happening, we would have needed to have a closely coordinated strategy with liberal insurgent groups within Iran to take power from the theocratic government as soon as the bombs started hitting. We clearly had no such plan. Trump is now demanding that Iran surrender ... to whom? There is nobody in Iran other than the IRGC who is able and ready to assume power.

I doubt sufficiently large armed “liberal insurgent groups” exist in Iran to fight the IRGC.

Iraq’s population in 2003 was about 25 million; Iran’s population in 2026 is 93 million.

How many hundreds of thousands of US Troops would need to be on the ground to create regime change in Iran?

Didn’t Gen. Eric Shinseki, Army Chief of Staff, estimate that it would take “several hundred thousand soldiers” to occupy Iraq?

 

[mynameisbond]

There’s another problem.

Iran was not a “Liberal” nation under the Shah in the ‘70’s. It was a dictatorship. Iran’s secret police, the SAVAK, operated in many nations around the world spying on Iranians. SAVAK was brutal.

After the Shah was deposed and Iran became an Islamic state, things only got worse. I was active duty military during the hostage crisis. We were ready to go then. They've been an enemy of the state ever since the Shah was overthrown. What I don't understand is why Trump pulled us out of a nuclear agreement with oversight by UN inspectors, apparently because he believed he could do better than Obama. That clearly hasn't been the case. I guess he had a "concept of plan" about that too.