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Israel launches attack on Iran | US bombs Iran nuke sites

Anyone who has been paying attention could see this coming. I called this during Trump's first term. All his bluster about "No more endless wars" and "peacetime president" were always just a shuck and jive. He has wanted to be a wartime president since he first came down that elevator to announce he was running. And being the bully that he is, he wanted to be able to choose his adversary for the easiest path to victory. You could see during his first term how he had this unnatural obsession with Iran, even though they posed almost no threat to us. Pulling out of the nuke deal was just the beginning. I believe the assassination of Soleimani was him trying to goad them into a war in 2020 so he could use it to his advantage during the election later that year. It's completely transparent.
 
WaynetheDrain said:
Anyone who has been paying attention could see this coming. I called this during Trump's first term. All his bluster about "No more endless wars" and "peacetime president" were always just a shuck and jive. He has wanted to be a wartime president since he first came down that elevator to announce he was running. And being the bully that he is, he wanted to be able to choose his adversary for the easiest path to victory. You could see during his first term how he had this unnatural obsession with Iran, even though they posed almost no threat to us. Pulling out of the nuke deal was just the beginning. I believe the assassination of Soleimani was him trying to goad them into a war in 2020 so he could use it to his advantage during the election later that year. It's completely transparent.
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This isn’t a war.
 
It is difficult to fairly judge this decision due to the dearth of intel information shared by the Administration and the fog of Trump worship from Hegseth and others.

That said, based on what we do know, I think this attack may have been the better choice (despite the risks, and we’ll see how that plays out in the coming days and months). Israel has made astonishing progress weakening Iran and limiting or severing the support of Iran’s proxies. Israel has control of the airspace and appears to have decapitates Iran’s military and intelligence leadership.

It might have been criminal not to take this opportunity now, in my view. We may come to regret it depending on the unpredictable nature of the response and possible terrorist blow-back.

Anyway, none of that means I support what Israel is doing in Gaza or the West Bank. I don’t and I hope that after this action the Trump Admin will finally take some action to restrain Israel in Gaza and the West Bank to pursue a genuine regional realignment and wider stability. I don’t have great hope for that in the face of the current realities, though.

I am and expect I will remain critical of Trump’s policies, conflicts of interest retest and narcissistic bullying. But this moment, given the extreme weakening of Iran and its proxies, is the best opportunity we have had to greatly disrupt Iran’s nuclear ambitions and further weaken a sclerotic and despotic regime that wishes death to all Americans.

I do think that Trump should seek authorization under the War Powers Act for any further action and to essentially ratify this attack, though I won’t hold my breath on that.
 
lawtig02 said:
That would be extraordinarily escalating even over what happened last night. If we take out Iran’s “navy,” we’re undoubtedly in a full-scale war.
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For the sake of discussion I’m not really interested in whether we are in a full scale war or not. Assume we are at war (not a fan) does Iran have any hope of keeping the Strait closed. I guess they could sink all of the tankers in the area causing massive oil spills and ecological destruction. But can they hold the Strait for any amount of time before they are annihilated. Is it a suicide mission?
Googled quickly the depth, I’m not sure it’s something that can be blocked with a graveyard of ships at 690’ but maybe there are places that could be blocked.
Militarily Iran seems impotent. Maybe they strike back at the US but I see that option being terror attacks not full on assaults.
 
HintonJamesHeel said:
People getting worked up that Iran wasn’t close to a nuke are missing the point. Let it play out. If there’s no escalation from here, this strike was a total success.
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So we ignore the fact that the intel case was flimsy, there was no congressional authorization, and it risks regional chaos…all because there hasn’t been escalation yet? We’re supposed to high-five because it hasn’t spiraled yet? Less than 24 hours later? People said this kind of thing about Iraq too, until they didn’t.
 
nycfan said:
That said, based on what we do know, I think this attack may have been the better choice (despite the risks, and we’ll see how that plays out in the coming days and months). Israel has made astonishing progress weakening Iran and limiting or severing the support of Iran’s proxies. Israel has control of the airspace and appears to have decapitates Iran’s military and intelligence leadership.
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If Israel had done such a great job weakening Iran, why did we need to get involved? Why not just let them finish the job? We could have had the same result without the need to dirty our hands.
 
HandsonFire said:
For the sake of discussion I’m not really interested in whether we are in a full scale war or not. Assume we are at war (not a fan) does Iran have any hope of keeping the Strait closed. I guess they could sink all of the tankers in the area causing massive oil spills and ecological destruction. But can they hold the Strait for any amount of time before they are annihilated. Is it a suicide mission?
Googled quickly the depth, I’m not sure it’s something that can be blocked with a graveyard of ships at 690’ but maybe there are places that could be blocked.
Militarily Iran seems impotent. Maybe they strike back at the US but I see that option being terror attacks not full on assaults.
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Ok. Agree we could prevent Iran from blocking the strait. We have plenty of resources to do that. I just don’t think you can separate that decision from the fact it would be a massive escalation and a direct engagement between the US and Iranian militaries.
 
Paine said:
So we ignore the fact that the intel case was flimsy, there was no congressional authorization, and it risks regional chaos…all because there hasn’t been escalation yet? We’re supposed to high-five because it hasn’t spiraled yet? Less than 24 hours later? People said this kind of thing about Iraq too, until they didn’t.
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It has to play out.
 
HandsonFire said:
For the sake of discussion I’m not really interested in whether we are in a full scale war or not. Assume we are at war (not a fan) does Iran have any hope of keeping the Strait closed. I guess they could sink all of the tankers in the area causing massive oil spills and ecological destruction. But can they hold the Strait for any amount of time before they are annihilated. Is it a suicide mission?
Googled quickly the depth, I’m not sure it’s something that can be blocked with a graveyard of ships at 690’ but maybe there are places that could be blocked.
Militarily Iran seems impotent. Maybe they strike back at the US but I see that option being terror attacks not full on assaults.
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I don’t think we know the full extent of the asymmetrical options Iran has right now.

Iran was quite successful mining the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran-Iraq war, but obviously that was a very different situation. If they try it now, it likely draws the USA into a wider war and will freeze traffic through the Strait until an all clear can be given to commercial traffic, which could take weeks or months. Blocking oil and gas out of the strait will likely skyrocket oil prices (and actually benefit Russia in the short term as a result) until the matter is resolved and could result in a full-blown war.

Knowing all that, based on available reporting, I still think this was the right call. But we have to be realistic about the very serious potential repercussions…
 
HintonJamesHeel said:
It has to play out.
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There’s a pattern here. Whether it’s “let it play out” or “it might have been criminal not to take this opportunity,” both stances dodge accountability while dressing up deference to elite violence in the language of realism. Nycfan wraps her support in lawyerly caveats and vague hopes for regional ‘realignment,’ sprinkled with ritual disavowals of Trump to keep her liberal credentials intact. You defer judgment altogether, waiting for history to hand down a verdict you can live with. But neither of you confronts the core question: was this strike justifiable, lawful, and necessary?

Worse, neither of you grapples with what regime collapse would actually mean. You talk about decapitating Iran’s leadership like it’s a clean, strategic win, but if that regime falls, it won’t be replaced by democracy. It’ll be replaced by chaos, by civil war, by power vacuums and proxy escalations. That’s the problem with this kind of liberal hawk logic: it obsesses over opportunity, ignores blowback, and never stops to ask who’s left to pick up the pieces.
 
Paine said:
There’s a pattern here. Whether it’s “let it play out” or “it might have been criminal not to take this opportunity,” both stances dodge accountability while dressing up deference to elite violence in the language of realism. Nycfan wraps her support in legalese and vague hopes for regional ‘realignment’; you hold out for a verdict from history. But neither of you confronts the core question: was this strike justifiable, lawful, and necessary?

And worse, neither of you grapples with what regime collapse would actually mean. You treat the decapitation of Iran’s leadership like a clean, strategic win, but if the regime falls, it won’t be replaced by a democracy. It’ll be replaced by chaos, civil war, or something even worse. That’s the problem with this kind of liberal hawk logic: it obsesses over opportunity, ignores blowback, and never asks who’s left to pick up the pieces.
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So IOW - we need to see how it plays out.
 
WaynetheDrain said:
If Israel had done such a great job weakening Iran, why did we need to get involved? Why not just let them finish the job? We could have had the same result without the need to dirty our hands.
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In the eyes of most of the region and the rest of the world, our hands are dirty any time Israel takes military action.

I understand that our direct involvement was necessitated because we have the munitions needed for this. That said, people keep saying that we have the only bomb that could penetrate this mountain fortress, but that is not entirely true. We have the only CONVENTIONAL weapon that (we think — it had never been used in a real conflict) can do the job. Nuclear weapons could also destroy the Fordow facility. We don’t want anyone with nuke taking that action, I don’t think.

Anyway, I understand your points. I have been very conflicted about this and fully admit my instinct here could be completely misguided. I hope the U.S. and our allies don’t pay a heavy price if so.
 
HintonJamesHeel said:
So IOW - we need to see how it plays out.
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No. “Let’s see how it plays out” is a posture of non-judgment, a shrug at the exercise of power. What I’m arguing is the opposite: that we should judge this action now, based on what we know: its legality, its precedent, its likely consequences.

You want to wait for history to confirm or refute your instincts. I’m saying the history is already there: we’ve seen this playbook before. Iraq. Libya. Syria. Toppling regimes without a plan for what comes next doesn’t lead to stability; it leads to catastrophe. Pretending that’s unknowable or premature is just a way of avoiding responsibility for cheering it on.
 
nycfan said:
It is difficult to fairly judge this decision due to the dearth of intel information shared by the Administration and the fog of Trump worship from Hegseth and others.

It might have been criminal not to take this opportunity now, in my view. We may come to regret it depending on the unpredictable nature of the response and possible terrorist blow-back.
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This is a nonsensical and unthinking post. The sentence I have put in bold is completely at odds with the other sentences here.

What is your conception of outer boundaries of how Iran and its proxies (or say, North Korea) will respond, given the sentence in bold?
 
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