US military has launched ‘major combat operations’ in Iran - Trump
Trump says the US military has launched “major combat operations” in Iran, saying the country had attempted to rebuild its nuclear programme.
Edit: Gift link to the NYT live coverage
Edit2: updated headline
How convenient for the Iranian government, now they can call protestors US backed terrorists, crush them even harder and consolidate support. Wouldn’t be surprised if Ayatollah is in on this.
This is just setting up for Israel’s expansion plans, they’re very open about what they want to do and what land they want to claim. Iran is powerful but doesn’t stand a chance against US and Israel combined, even if the US only commits air power.
US gets to spend trillions on a no-boots* war to enrich investors and donors and distract from Epstein, Israel gets to send its army in for more protracted, house-to-house murder sessions now that it’s nearly done with wiping Gaza off the map. That’s all they want, huge, hateful, Crusades 2.0 and US evangelicals want Israel to start World War 3 so Jeeeesus comes back, and that’s not even a joke or exageration for the most part.
Israel will probably feel emboldened by their success in manipulating America and decide they can control Iran’s dissidents and set up their own puppet ruler after they carpet bomb the cities to dust.
* just a few boots bro, I promise bro, we’ll get in and out real fast, just a few months tops, come on bro, just a couple boots. Limited operation, just support, I promise bro. Do it for a college tuition?
Definitely not. You’re assuming Iran wins the war with small enough losses that it doesn’t set up the regime’s fall. This is far from a likely outcome.
Does not need to win just needs to have some minor to medium damages.
By “win” I mean “survive without regime change” (which automatically implies dealing enough damage that they’re left alone). Even that is far from guaranteed.
The US couldn’t even beat the Houthis. I, for one, don’t feel like it’s time to be beating our chests.
There are consequences for putting legitimately incompetent people in charge.
That was very different RoE. There are reports that we’ve bombed some schools, and the implication at this point is that the regime and the military no longer gives a shit about that sort of thing. The strikes on the Houthis did, at some level, have some restraint compared to this shit.
This isn’t me “beating my chest”. I’m simply pointing out that any limited faith I had in US military leadership ultimately doing “the right thing” in a domestic context is rapidly diminishing.
Like that residential building y’all bombed to get that Houthi guy hanging out with his girlfriend? Whatever restraint was exercised in the Houthi bombings was strictly performative; the real difference between these two cases is the possibilities of US boots on the ground.
I mean, I thought that was super fucked up and almost certainly illegal too, and I am by no means trying to excuse or justify it when I say the following: there is a significant difference of degree between a targeted strike that kills the target and the target’s girlfriend, and bombing a school and killing 51 children (which is the last count I saw).
Both are bad. One is a lot worse than the other.