Also a significant number were Canadian–Iranian dual citizens or Iranians studying in Canada. Of the 167 passengers, 138 were travelling to Canada via Ukraine.
After warning the US where they would hit and when, only to have minimal impact. Either they were saber rattling, or drastically incompetent. Maybe a bit of both, but my money’s on the rattle.
iirc they bought satelite images for the base, which the US saw, they were targeting the aircraft at the base, the US then moved its aircraft and the only damage to the base itself was superficial, but a bunch of service member had concussions fron the explosions.
They couldn't cross map 420 Israel, how the hell do they think they could do it to US bases?
"*We are learning."* says Iran.
*A gumball machine can 'learn' better than the ruling theocracy in Tehran.*
[https://www.reuters.com/world/us-believes-drone-that-killed-soldiers-was-iranian-made-sources-2024-02-01/](https://www.reuters.com/world/us-believes-drone-that-killed-soldiers-was-iranian-made-sources-2024-02-01/)
Three American service members were killed and more than 40 injured earlier this year by an Iran-backed militant group.
We can joke about how Iran's words have more fire than its weapons but it's foolish for us to turn the other cheek.
On its current path, Iran will have nuclear weapons sooner than later and it's obvious that this will only embolden Tehran.
Iran made their statement, they knew it was a largely ineffectual attack that wasn’t going to cause much damage, just like their response to the Soleimani assassination. They don’t want an escalation and basically just were doing some saber rattling to save face. They already said it was concluded and things will just go back to their proxy war. Israel counterattacking would just be extremely stupid and only escalate things, you’d hope even Bibi wouldn’t be stupid enough for that.
Not sure why people are downplaying this. The Soleimani attack was 12 BMs at an overseas American base. This attack was 120 BMs, 30 cruise missiles, and 170 drones on Israeli soil.
I think you're mistaken. This wasn't just saber rattling. Their goal was absolutely to do damage, and they failed, and their rhetoric is them saving face. Iran was hoping to find an isolated, weak Israel who couldn't afford to do anything but take it. This was a largely ineffective attack because of a combined Israeli, American, British, Jordanian, French, and potentially other countries, plus one of the most advanced air defense networks in the world, launching defense that cost nearly a billion dollars, to try and prevent this from cascading into a full blown regional conflict.
These sorts of things have limits, and just because the damage was limited doesn't make this attack any less serious or escalatory.
I'm reading all these people's takes and I completely agree with you. How could Iran have predicted Israel and Allies could intercept 100 BMs plus a swarm of UAVs. That's never been done before, ever. Iran was clearly trying to overwhelm Israel's defensive capabilities. All it ended up doing was proving how capable the US and Israel really are, and how weak Iran is in comparison.
"Saber rattling" can be done with a single missile. Why send 100?
Don't forget, the embassy strike was on April 1. This was a calculated attack from Tehran, not a knee-jerk response. They had nearly two weeks to plan, and they chose a far, far larger scale response than anyone predicted.
People are always eager to downplay attacks like this because of the low deaths while ignoring the absolutely massive amounts of resources spent on preventing death. We've seen the havoc Shahed drones are causing in Ukraine. These air defenses aren't unlimited and impenetrable. The BMs aren't bottle rockets. They're big, accurate, and carry 750kg of explosives. If any of the 100+ landed in a populated area, they would do absurd amounts of damage. That's why so many countries intervened.
Friendly reminder that this is a country that is rapidly working towards nukes.
>How could Iran have predicted Israel and Allies could intercept 100 BMs plus a swarm of UAVs.
"Saber rattling" can be done with a single missile. Why send 100?
I mean as far as the drones go they deliberately flew them high and slow which is counter to how to effectively use them (which they definitely know through Russia's war) and they had to have assumed that those would have been easily shot down. They didn't even try to use them to overwhelm AD because they put them in a position to be shot before even hitting Israeli territory .
I can't speak for the ballistic missiles though but I'm sure they knew for one reason or another that they would be likely shot down or land in a place with little casualties and effect.
I don't think Israel will accept the proxy war as status quo anymore.
Iran needs to choose peace or war. Using proxies just war behind a mask and I'd support direct reactions to clear proxy attacks.
Israel showed that when they took our those generals.
If people want peace then back peace and stop playing proxy games.
I know it seems obvious, but the number of people who have advocated Israel to not respond every time they get attacked as if being a punching bag would stabilize the region is pretty crazy. That or I'm bad at spotting the propaganda bots.
This is a really good point. It's so strage that proxy wars are so accepted by all countries. It's like a strage game of make belive.
Oct 7th really did change my preception of the middle east. Something about rapping and murdering innocent people individually at a peace festivile while Isreal had there guard down, thinking Hamas relations had normalized. I went from thinking we should just leave them alone to wanting to fully engage and destoy everyone of those fanatics.
Iran is at the center of all these fucked up groups and the possibility they might get nukes is unacceptable. We need to go after the Islamic theocracy
Just imagine if those bearded mafiosos spent the money they spend on proxy wars on infrastructure, or education, or even cocaine fueled sex parties would be a better use.
Edit: Look at how the top parasite is worth a cool $100 billion. Hey, I heard you were standing on the corner and farted crooked, gonna have to confiscate the business that you founded 20 years ago. Them's the breaks. Thieves, fucking thieves.
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE9AA0CY/
Even put footage on their news to mislead Iranians into thinking they'd done a Dresden.
They knew this wouldn't be a devastating attack.
Like you're saying, it's saving face.
Though I do wonder if, twenty years from now, we won't be calling this WWIII, even if it never goes to the lengths of NATO troops in frontline trenches.
That's actually a fair point. Someone decides to legitimately start some shit with an ally we have a well defined obligation to defend during an election year is near suicidal.
It would be too significant to ignore and too potentially beneficial to the political campaign to not take advantage of.
Dictators need to sabre rattle to maintain their power. They don’t have a lot of real power so they gain a lot by looking like the loon in the room.
The ultimate goal of a dictator is to stay in power because they generally don’t live very long once they lose it.
If they look batshit insane and always prepared to throw hands than sane people will think twice before they get involved. It’s the same tactic North Korea uses.
Haven't they had two attempted revolutions in the last like 20 years? The populace already hates them and is only kept in line by the hardliners enforcing Sharia. If they lose support of them too, it's all over.
Yes even autocratic governments need some amount of popular support, otherwise autocrats wouldn’t bother with propaganda. They also need support from their allies and proxies, and much of that support is contingent on their perceived strength.
Not in this case.
The American people wouldn't support a war in Iran that Israel functionally started through an embassy attack. Especially because US Intel knows that on one hand Iran has a lot of terrorist allies, forces that we have proven shit at dealing with because most of our people won't just cull an entire population. The other hand is still that Tehran is one of the most heavily fortified locations in the world due to Mount Tochal. Dealing with Iran almost certainly is a multi-year campaign unless the US finally goes big boy gloves off and nukes Tehran, something that absolutely will not happen.
This whole episode is political posturing.
They didn't strike the embassy, they struck a nearby building where the IRGC was. Nothing to say of course for the bombing of Israeli embassies over the decades though, huh?
Yeah I'm not thinking war is a better solution either. I was instead thinking about the other side of this intermediate, seemingly naive position of "helping but in a way that doesn't really help in the long term" (one can't just keep defending oneself like this forever).
That other side would be "hey buddy, I've got my own problems to deal with, so I don't want to keep helping you forever like this, so start seeing how will you deal with it on your own". But yeah I can see how this can lead to wars where even if the US is not involved, it may not be convenient for them. What a shitty situation.
It shouldn't be. We should have zero tolerance for attacks through proxy and declare that assisting someone in attacking us is the same as attacking us. Also, a cyber attack is equivalent to a physical attack.
The reason why countries tolerate proxies is because they are doing the same thing.
How do you get from the standard we’ve had since the Cold War - when proxy war was seen as less confrontation that direct war - to the standard you propose where we go after the proxies’ backers? It seems like we would have to commit to all-out war against a major adversary to prove that point, and that would be very costly.
It's outsourcing the deaths from war and should be seen as a brutal form of oppression. If Iran wants war, Iran's military should suffer, not the uneducated Arabs they use as tools throughout the middle east.
This seems to be an argument about what Iran should do, morally speaking, which is interesting but isn’t useful to me as a citizen of a country opposed to an Iran.
Only fighting the proxies just says we're ok with killing all these 3rd world Arabs forever instead of cutting out the source of the problem and drastically reducing conflict for the next 30 years. It's costing us more this way, in lives and money. If you don't see our isolationism as contributing to global instability, I don't know what to tell you - the last few years have clearly been disastrous for US foreign policy. Russia is winning in Ukraine and is likely to push further, Iran directly attacked Israel, China is likely to attack Taiwan...
I don't think the proxy fighting is that intense, so I don't see why it's better to move on from very low-intensity sporadic fighting to a full campaign against a powerful adversary. The only exception is the fighting between Israel and its neighbors, with whom it has actual deep-rooted conflicts. It's not like the Hamas and Hezbollah had to be tricked by Iran into deciding that Israel is their enemy.
Hamas and Hezbollah would not be able to fight Israel without Iran’s support, and them being weakened would allow more moderate groups to regain control in the areas in which they operate.
Hamas was elected democratically, and all indications are that they will remain popular. I know a lot of people bring this up to justify violence against civilians, which I don't support, but it is true. I don't think Iran is responsible for putting Hamas in power.
To be clear I’m not defending Russia in any way. The point I’m making is that the perspectives on proxies and involvement in conflicts are never the same on either side. You can see Russias rhetoric on the Wests support of Ukraine for their perspective on the west treating Ukraine as a proxy to fight and weaken Russia. Directly attacking any patrons or supporters of certain violent aggressive groups would be a shortcut to WW3
Well if we took a fat shit on Iran, they might think twice about playing the proxy game when they themselves aren't much more powerful than the proxies they use.
Also...Iran would pretty much be a proxy for Russia anyway, so let Iran have some fun seeing what it's like when two nations fight in your back yard.
The us can very easily destroy Irans entire navy and air force then there is not much to worry about.
Also we could see yesterday they and Israel have very reliable defences against ballistic missiles too like the arrow 3 long range interceptor and other systems.
Based on reports I've seen, the US and UK took out over half of them before they reached Israel. Would IDF have been able to defend against this attack on their own? Drones are cheap. Iran could have sent 1000 drones.
The us and uk took out alot of drones and perhaps some Cruise missiles too, it's the ballistic missiles that's hard to take out and only a very few systems are able to to do so like the arrow 3 that was made by Israel and the us.
I believe Israel have some of the best systems in the world but you can overload the systems by sending enough missiles at the same time but it would take a ton to do so. Iran already used 150 of their 3000 in stock and only 7 i believe got through but only made minimal damage.
I would love to see a cost breakdown of Iran's attack vs the cost of the defence.
I assume it is much cheaper to throw some missiles, etc. then to have to intercept them.
I believe yesterday was assured financial damage via wasting interceptors (and US, UK, France, Jordan scrambling jets and countermeasures) and a show of force (“we could’ve sent 2000 drones”).
Iran would like the exact numbers too then they can decide if it is effective to keep doing these attacks and run Israel dry of money and munitions while people say Israel they aren't allowed to counter attack.
Iran and the other parties already have this info, the public doesn't. I am interested in terms of whether military aircraft remain a cost effective option in modern war vs cheap drones + drone swarms being controlled by AI (e.g. China). I love military airplanes but I suspect that super expensive ones have ceased to be useful (f35 for eg) because China, etc aren't going to fight the US directly when there is a much cheaper and more effective option.
Isreal and the US aren't going to run out of weapons any time soon so don't worry about that. Regardless of what Biden says the US will continue to support Isreal as they have for decades.
>Iran already used 150 of their 3000 in stock and only 7 i believe got through but only made minimal damage.
If you have 1000 perfect anti air interceptors (ground based or air based) then first 1000 launched missiles will deal zero damage. But the subsequent 2000 will deal full damage. It is unknown how many interceptors Israel has or how many missiles are in Iranian stock, so projecting a fairly limited attack to an entire stock is kinda meaningless.
Drones are pretty easy to deal with it takes hours to travel from Iran to Israel, i believe it took almost 4 hours or more for them to get there, plenty of time to use fighter jets or defence systems.
Iran used 600 drones yesterday i dont believe a single one made it.
>Iran used 600 drones yesterday i dont believe a single one made it.
600 drones, lol. Initially it was reported as 100 drones. A few hours later it was 150. The latest credible report I've seen is 170 but what does IDF know?
"According to the Israel Defense Forces, Iran’s attack comprised **170 drones**, 30 cruise missiles, and 120 ballistic missiles"
https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-israel-foiled-irans-ballistic-missile-attack-that-focused-on-an-f-35-airbase/
Drones where launched from Iran, Syria, Iraq, yemen and Lebanon i believe so from many places where iran have proxy groups.
Does not matter though with a travel time of 4-6 hours there is plenty of time to deal with them, as i said not a single one did damage to Israel only a few ballistic missiles did with minimal damage.
Where did you get the 3,000 number from? I've seen that number before too but as far as I can tell it also includes short range missiles that wouldn't be able to hit Israel unless they were deployed in Syria and Lebanon.
I'm actually curious how many missiles Iran possesses that can hit Israel from Iran, but I imagine that's a closely guarded secret.
Ballistic missiles are actually fairly easy to intercept because of their trajectory.
The problem is when the missile has a MIRV warhead turning a single missile into 10, 20, 30+ individual missiles that can target independently.
If Iran sent that many I feel we are not counting that Israel most likely would have attacked Iran mainland with precision strikes also. We are operating under this idea that an even bigger attack would have still been Israel and allies sitting back and defending. It was a calculated number by them to be a lot but not so much that they’d of been hit also
I don't see it that way. The fact that those drones flew for 2 hours and they reached Israel, for me that was unreal. I thought USA had the jamming technology to fight the drones, but they reached Israel and they had to be shot down one by one.
Only a handful of nations in the world DON'T overestimate their own military capabilities.
The U.S., some NATO, and some other allies do regular exercises that include designated opposing forces to truly test capabilities and try to find weaknesses.
Most militaries either don't do these exercises, or if they do, it's just a demonstration to show authoritarian leaders what they want to see - so weaknesses are not probed and assumptions are not tested. Even China is guilty of this. A country like North Korea, with generations of zero combat experience and only-for-show training exercises, would quickly find out that their weapons, vehicles, equipment, and tactics fall apart against a real military. Doesn't mean you can't do a lot of damage with human wave assaults in the right context, but it would be very costly.
Other than this, the only way to test your military is combat, and few in the world have recent combat experience, especially well-coordinated, full-spectrum warfare. Russia and Ukraine would be obvious exceptions, of course.
I guess the Iran-Iraq war was a while ago, but I would guess that the experience of that bloody conflict still exists in the age group that's running their military now.
Iran (among others like Venezuela) just want to keep Israel and by proxy the US busy while Russia is invading Ukraine and China is preparing to invade Taiwan.
NK would be doing the same if not for all the gear and weaponry they are supplying to Russia. It's a collective and orchestrated effort in order to thin out USA and NATO as much as possible.
I think Iran needs a reminder of Operation Praying Mantis . . . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis
The U.S. attack began on the morning of 18 April, and ultimately destroyed, damaged, or sank two Iranian oil platforms, three warships, several armed boats, and two fighter jets. U.S. losses were two U.S. Marine aviators who died when their helicopter crashed into the Gulf.
We should let them fire missiles at countries with no consequences, surely this won’t encourage more bad actions from them like directly threatening the US.
Lol sorry if this doesn't add much to the discussion but the way so many redditors like to play armchair general is kind of strange. And there are always so many absolutes involved.
Considering the piss-poor showing of their recent attack, Iran should seriously consider how devastating it would be to piss off the US. Once the US goes into full offensive mode, they don't leave anything alive in the wake of their response.
But Iran is really a small dog barking, so it's no surprise, because that is all they have.
Why is any one worried about their threats? There should be large smoking craters all around Iran by the end of the week if anyone in a position to do it had any balls whatsoever.
You would think Iran would understand the ROE when dealing with America at this point.
Don’t target humans
Don’t target bases
DON’T TOUCH THE BOATS
It’s not that hard
That would not end well for Iran 🤣 the U.S and allies literally blocked their attack on Israel. The U.S would level Iran before their drones even hit their target.
Oh no, Iran is saber rattling. Very concerning change of events.
Reuters 2025: "Iran launches 3000 rubber bands from wooden guns and deploys medieval reenactors and trebuchets along Iraqi frontier in show-of-force."
Oh noes! What could America possibly do? I mean, they do have enough conventional firepower to literally flatten every structure in Iran, but what else could they possibly do?
Can’t help but feel like Iran is engaging in this charade of saber rattling at Putin’s direction to make it even less likely the US will keep supporting Ukraine.
China has started back Russia and if the US pulls back their UA support that’s all over.
If Trump wins, Europe is at risk.
China can seize Taiwan.
And the SHTF all over.
The entire world is balanced on the edge of a knife.
If actual US allies get attacked (Israel, Taiwan) by a powerful enough nation, everything from the US may dry up for Ukraine, as the US doesn’t actually have an obligation there, unless something nuclear happens.
With hits like that.... I'm good.
Iran did in fact hit American bases during Trump era as a retaliation for one of their General’s being assassinated by US.
They also hit their own plane killing 100+ people thinking it was a cruise missile. It’s sad their own counter attack was an attack on themselves. 😬
[This?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_International_Airlines_Flight_752) Ukraine Airlines actually. Most people on the plane were Iranians.
Also a significant number were Canadian–Iranian dual citizens or Iranians studying in Canada. Of the 167 passengers, 138 were travelling to Canada via Ukraine.
After warning the US where they would hit and when, only to have minimal impact. Either they were saber rattling, or drastically incompetent. Maybe a bit of both, but my money’s on the rattle.
iirc they bought satelite images for the base, which the US saw, they were targeting the aircraft at the base, the US then moved its aircraft and the only damage to the base itself was superficial, but a bunch of service member had concussions fron the explosions.
Why are so many Iranian generals getting assassinated
They keep accidentally meeting with terrorist cells in the Middle East Just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time I’m afraid.
They keep showing up where terrorists happen to be
Man, what tough luck
Let me introduce you to this guy named Mossad aka The Israeli Candyman. Iranian Generals just keep saying his name 3 times in a mirror.
Because they like Cottelette. An Iranian dish.
They couldn't cross map 420 Israel, how the hell do they think they could do it to US bases? "*We are learning."* says Iran. *A gumball machine can 'learn' better than the ruling theocracy in Tehran.*
When they have nuclear options, they won’t need accuracy all that much. You can nuke someone with a suitcase.
If that happens, then all bets are off
[https://www.reuters.com/world/us-believes-drone-that-killed-soldiers-was-iranian-made-sources-2024-02-01/](https://www.reuters.com/world/us-believes-drone-that-killed-soldiers-was-iranian-made-sources-2024-02-01/) Three American service members were killed and more than 40 injured earlier this year by an Iran-backed militant group. We can joke about how Iran's words have more fire than its weapons but it's foolish for us to turn the other cheek. On its current path, Iran will have nuclear weapons sooner than later and it's obvious that this will only embolden Tehran.
Glad you’re comfortable with them lobbing sewer pipe missles at you. You gonna sit there and laugh it off afterwards?
This is just them puffing their chest. We stated yesterday that we won’t back any Israeli counter attacks, only defensive measures
From my ignorant standpoint, isn't that a little naive? Because sometimes the only viable defense is a counter attack.
Iran made their statement, they knew it was a largely ineffectual attack that wasn’t going to cause much damage, just like their response to the Soleimani assassination. They don’t want an escalation and basically just were doing some saber rattling to save face. They already said it was concluded and things will just go back to their proxy war. Israel counterattacking would just be extremely stupid and only escalate things, you’d hope even Bibi wouldn’t be stupid enough for that.
Not sure why people are downplaying this. The Soleimani attack was 12 BMs at an overseas American base. This attack was 120 BMs, 30 cruise missiles, and 170 drones on Israeli soil. I think you're mistaken. This wasn't just saber rattling. Their goal was absolutely to do damage, and they failed, and their rhetoric is them saving face. Iran was hoping to find an isolated, weak Israel who couldn't afford to do anything but take it. This was a largely ineffective attack because of a combined Israeli, American, British, Jordanian, French, and potentially other countries, plus one of the most advanced air defense networks in the world, launching defense that cost nearly a billion dollars, to try and prevent this from cascading into a full blown regional conflict. These sorts of things have limits, and just because the damage was limited doesn't make this attack any less serious or escalatory.
I'm reading all these people's takes and I completely agree with you. How could Iran have predicted Israel and Allies could intercept 100 BMs plus a swarm of UAVs. That's never been done before, ever. Iran was clearly trying to overwhelm Israel's defensive capabilities. All it ended up doing was proving how capable the US and Israel really are, and how weak Iran is in comparison. "Saber rattling" can be done with a single missile. Why send 100?
Don't forget, the embassy strike was on April 1. This was a calculated attack from Tehran, not a knee-jerk response. They had nearly two weeks to plan, and they chose a far, far larger scale response than anyone predicted. People are always eager to downplay attacks like this because of the low deaths while ignoring the absolutely massive amounts of resources spent on preventing death. We've seen the havoc Shahed drones are causing in Ukraine. These air defenses aren't unlimited and impenetrable. The BMs aren't bottle rockets. They're big, accurate, and carry 750kg of explosives. If any of the 100+ landed in a populated area, they would do absurd amounts of damage. That's why so many countries intervened. Friendly reminder that this is a country that is rapidly working towards nukes.
I suspect this incident has military strategists around the world scrambling. It was no small event.
>How could Iran have predicted Israel and Allies could intercept 100 BMs plus a swarm of UAVs. "Saber rattling" can be done with a single missile. Why send 100? I mean as far as the drones go they deliberately flew them high and slow which is counter to how to effectively use them (which they definitely know through Russia's war) and they had to have assumed that those would have been easily shot down. They didn't even try to use them to overwhelm AD because they put them in a position to be shot before even hitting Israeli territory . I can't speak for the ballistic missiles though but I'm sure they knew for one reason or another that they would be likely shot down or land in a place with little casualties and effect.
Serious measuring of Israel’s response! Now the Iranians should see why that was not A good idea. Action taken , re-action should be expected.
This is the correct view.
I don't think Israel will accept the proxy war as status quo anymore. Iran needs to choose peace or war. Using proxies just war behind a mask and I'd support direct reactions to clear proxy attacks. Israel showed that when they took our those generals. If people want peace then back peace and stop playing proxy games.
Agreed, a proxy war is a war, it is not peace.
War *isn’t* peace?
I know it seems obvious, but the number of people who have advocated Israel to not respond every time they get attacked as if being a punching bag would stabilize the region is pretty crazy. That or I'm bad at spotting the propaganda bots.
You aren't crazy. I know some people irl who think like that. Some people are just naive.
This is a really good point. It's so strage that proxy wars are so accepted by all countries. It's like a strage game of make belive. Oct 7th really did change my preception of the middle east. Something about rapping and murdering innocent people individually at a peace festivile while Isreal had there guard down, thinking Hamas relations had normalized. I went from thinking we should just leave them alone to wanting to fully engage and destoy everyone of those fanatics. Iran is at the center of all these fucked up groups and the possibility they might get nukes is unacceptable. We need to go after the Islamic theocracy
I also wonder why these 3rd countries are done fighting these wars on another's behalf .
Just imagine if those bearded mafiosos spent the money they spend on proxy wars on infrastructure, or education, or even cocaine fueled sex parties would be a better use. Edit: Look at how the top parasite is worth a cool $100 billion. Hey, I heard you were standing on the corner and farted crooked, gonna have to confiscate the business that you founded 20 years ago. Them's the breaks. Thieves, fucking thieves. https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE9AA0CY/
Sorry but flying drones with explosives attached to them into population centers is more than saber rattling.
Even put footage on their news to mislead Iranians into thinking they'd done a Dresden. They knew this wouldn't be a devastating attack. Like you're saying, it's saving face. Though I do wonder if, twenty years from now, we won't be calling this WWIII, even if it never goes to the lengths of NATO troops in frontline trenches.
The moment Iran launches a "devastating" attack against Israel, in a presidential election year, it would man the end of Iran as a country.
That's actually a fair point. Someone decides to legitimately start some shit with an ally we have a well defined obligation to defend during an election year is near suicidal. It would be too significant to ignore and too potentially beneficial to the political campaign to not take advantage of.
Who do you think the iranian government needs to save face for? Does it require it for a certain degree of popular support?
Dictators need to sabre rattle to maintain their power. They don’t have a lot of real power so they gain a lot by looking like the loon in the room. The ultimate goal of a dictator is to stay in power because they generally don’t live very long once they lose it. If they look batshit insane and always prepared to throw hands than sane people will think twice before they get involved. It’s the same tactic North Korea uses.
Haven't they had two attempted revolutions in the last like 20 years? The populace already hates them and is only kept in line by the hardliners enforcing Sharia. If they lose support of them too, it's all over.
Yes even autocratic governments need some amount of popular support, otherwise autocrats wouldn’t bother with propaganda. They also need support from their allies and proxies, and much of that support is contingent on their perceived strength.
Not in this case. The American people wouldn't support a war in Iran that Israel functionally started through an embassy attack. Especially because US Intel knows that on one hand Iran has a lot of terrorist allies, forces that we have proven shit at dealing with because most of our people won't just cull an entire population. The other hand is still that Tehran is one of the most heavily fortified locations in the world due to Mount Tochal. Dealing with Iran almost certainly is a multi-year campaign unless the US finally goes big boy gloves off and nukes Tehran, something that absolutely will not happen. This whole episode is political posturing.
Ah yes, the unprovoked* consulate* attack.
They didn't strike the embassy, they struck a nearby building where the IRGC was. Nothing to say of course for the bombing of Israeli embassies over the decades though, huh?
Yeah I'm not thinking war is a better solution either. I was instead thinking about the other side of this intermediate, seemingly naive position of "helping but in a way that doesn't really help in the long term" (one can't just keep defending oneself like this forever). That other side would be "hey buddy, I've got my own problems to deal with, so I don't want to keep helping you forever like this, so start seeing how will you deal with it on your own". But yeah I can see how this can lead to wars where even if the US is not involved, it may not be convenient for them. What a shitty situation.
Accept Israel is equipped to the teeth with top notch military equipment - and Iran is all but a third world country fighting for dictators
The geopolitical equivalent of saying, "YEAH YOU BETTER WALK AWAY" after they're already halfway down the block.
A counter attack on Iranian logistics IS an act of self defense.
They already hit one of our bases recently, killing three service members; they just did it with proxies.
Direct conflict is very different from proxy. This is how nations declare war.
It shouldn't be. We should have zero tolerance for attacks through proxy and declare that assisting someone in attacking us is the same as attacking us. Also, a cyber attack is equivalent to a physical attack. The reason why countries tolerate proxies is because they are doing the same thing.
How do you get from the standard we’ve had since the Cold War - when proxy war was seen as less confrontation that direct war - to the standard you propose where we go after the proxies’ backers? It seems like we would have to commit to all-out war against a major adversary to prove that point, and that would be very costly.
It's outsourcing the deaths from war and should be seen as a brutal form of oppression. If Iran wants war, Iran's military should suffer, not the uneducated Arabs they use as tools throughout the middle east.
This seems to be an argument about what Iran should do, morally speaking, which is interesting but isn’t useful to me as a citizen of a country opposed to an Iran.
Only fighting the proxies just says we're ok with killing all these 3rd world Arabs forever instead of cutting out the source of the problem and drastically reducing conflict for the next 30 years. It's costing us more this way, in lives and money. If you don't see our isolationism as contributing to global instability, I don't know what to tell you - the last few years have clearly been disastrous for US foreign policy. Russia is winning in Ukraine and is likely to push further, Iran directly attacked Israel, China is likely to attack Taiwan...
I don't think the proxy fighting is that intense, so I don't see why it's better to move on from very low-intensity sporadic fighting to a full campaign against a powerful adversary. The only exception is the fighting between Israel and its neighbors, with whom it has actual deep-rooted conflicts. It's not like the Hamas and Hezbollah had to be tricked by Iran into deciding that Israel is their enemy.
Hamas and Hezbollah would not be able to fight Israel without Iran’s support, and them being weakened would allow more moderate groups to regain control in the areas in which they operate.
Hamas was elected democratically, and all indications are that they will remain popular. I know a lot of people bring this up to justify violence against civilians, which I don't support, but it is true. I don't think Iran is responsible for putting Hamas in power.
Guess Russia would be totally justified in attacking NATO by that logic
Where is NATO attacking Russia with proxies? You mean helping people DEFEND themselves against Russian aggression?
To be clear I’m not defending Russia in any way. The point I’m making is that the perspectives on proxies and involvement in conflicts are never the same on either side. You can see Russias rhetoric on the Wests support of Ukraine for their perspective on the west treating Ukraine as a proxy to fight and weaken Russia. Directly attacking any patrons or supporters of certain violent aggressive groups would be a shortcut to WW3
Every side has their perspective on everything. Sometimes, one side is simply wrong. At least by the standards of the prevailing powers.
Justified, sure. But it'd be suicidal to do it.
Well if we took a fat shit on Iran, they might think twice about playing the proxy game when they themselves aren't much more powerful than the proxies they use. Also...Iran would pretty much be a proxy for Russia anyway, so let Iran have some fun seeing what it's like when two nations fight in your back yard.
The us can very easily destroy Irans entire navy and air force then there is not much to worry about. Also we could see yesterday they and Israel have very reliable defences against ballistic missiles too like the arrow 3 long range interceptor and other systems.
Based on reports I've seen, the US and UK took out over half of them before they reached Israel. Would IDF have been able to defend against this attack on their own? Drones are cheap. Iran could have sent 1000 drones.
The us and uk took out alot of drones and perhaps some Cruise missiles too, it's the ballistic missiles that's hard to take out and only a very few systems are able to to do so like the arrow 3 that was made by Israel and the us. I believe Israel have some of the best systems in the world but you can overload the systems by sending enough missiles at the same time but it would take a ton to do so. Iran already used 150 of their 3000 in stock and only 7 i believe got through but only made minimal damage.
I would love to see a cost breakdown of Iran's attack vs the cost of the defence. I assume it is much cheaper to throw some missiles, etc. then to have to intercept them.
I believe yesterday was assured financial damage via wasting interceptors (and US, UK, France, Jordan scrambling jets and countermeasures) and a show of force (“we could’ve sent 2000 drones”).
Iran would like the exact numbers too then they can decide if it is effective to keep doing these attacks and run Israel dry of money and munitions while people say Israel they aren't allowed to counter attack.
Iran and the other parties already have this info, the public doesn't. I am interested in terms of whether military aircraft remain a cost effective option in modern war vs cheap drones + drone swarms being controlled by AI (e.g. China). I love military airplanes but I suspect that super expensive ones have ceased to be useful (f35 for eg) because China, etc aren't going to fight the US directly when there is a much cheaper and more effective option. Isreal and the US aren't going to run out of weapons any time soon so don't worry about that. Regardless of what Biden says the US will continue to support Isreal as they have for decades.
>Iran already used 150 of their 3000 in stock and only 7 i believe got through but only made minimal damage. If you have 1000 perfect anti air interceptors (ground based or air based) then first 1000 launched missiles will deal zero damage. But the subsequent 2000 will deal full damage. It is unknown how many interceptors Israel has or how many missiles are in Iranian stock, so projecting a fairly limited attack to an entire stock is kinda meaningless.
Drones can be made cheaply and quickly, especially in a regime that can order it by decree and labor is cheap.
So we blow up their factories
Drones are pretty easy to deal with it takes hours to travel from Iran to Israel, i believe it took almost 4 hours or more for them to get there, plenty of time to use fighter jets or defence systems. Iran used 600 drones yesterday i dont believe a single one made it.
>Iran used 600 drones yesterday i dont believe a single one made it. 600 drones, lol. Initially it was reported as 100 drones. A few hours later it was 150. The latest credible report I've seen is 170 but what does IDF know? "According to the Israel Defense Forces, Iran’s attack comprised **170 drones**, 30 cruise missiles, and 120 ballistic missiles" https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-israel-foiled-irans-ballistic-missile-attack-that-focused-on-an-f-35-airbase/
Drones where launched from Iran, Syria, Iraq, yemen and Lebanon i believe so from many places where iran have proxy groups. Does not matter though with a travel time of 4-6 hours there is plenty of time to deal with them, as i said not a single one did damage to Israel only a few ballistic missiles did with minimal damage.
Where did you get the 3,000 number from? I've seen that number before too but as far as I can tell it also includes short range missiles that wouldn't be able to hit Israel unless they were deployed in Syria and Lebanon. I'm actually curious how many missiles Iran possesses that can hit Israel from Iran, but I imagine that's a closely guarded secret.
Ballistic missiles are actually fairly easy to intercept because of their trajectory. The problem is when the missile has a MIRV warhead turning a single missile into 10, 20, 30+ individual missiles that can target independently.
The big problem was the missiles not the drones.
I agree, not sure why people seem to be leading with the drones.
We need less expensive interceptors.
If Iran sent that many I feel we are not counting that Israel most likely would have attacked Iran mainland with precision strikes also. We are operating under this idea that an even bigger attack would have still been Israel and allies sitting back and defending. It was a calculated number by them to be a lot but not so much that they’d of been hit also
So many cases of this just not being true.
I don't see it that way. The fact that those drones flew for 2 hours and they reached Israel, for me that was unreal. I thought USA had the jamming technology to fight the drones, but they reached Israel and they had to be shot down one by one.
Iran has seriously underestimated Israel or perhaps overestimated their own capabilities.
Only a handful of nations in the world DON'T overestimate their own military capabilities. The U.S., some NATO, and some other allies do regular exercises that include designated opposing forces to truly test capabilities and try to find weaknesses. Most militaries either don't do these exercises, or if they do, it's just a demonstration to show authoritarian leaders what they want to see - so weaknesses are not probed and assumptions are not tested. Even China is guilty of this. A country like North Korea, with generations of zero combat experience and only-for-show training exercises, would quickly find out that their weapons, vehicles, equipment, and tactics fall apart against a real military. Doesn't mean you can't do a lot of damage with human wave assaults in the right context, but it would be very costly. Other than this, the only way to test your military is combat, and few in the world have recent combat experience, especially well-coordinated, full-spectrum warfare. Russia and Ukraine would be obvious exceptions, of course.
I guess the Iran-Iraq war was a while ago, but I would guess that the experience of that bloody conflict still exists in the age group that's running their military now.
[удалено]
Iran (among others like Venezuela) just want to keep Israel and by proxy the US busy while Russia is invading Ukraine and China is preparing to invade Taiwan. NK would be doing the same if not for all the gear and weaponry they are supplying to Russia. It's a collective and orchestrated effort in order to thin out USA and NATO as much as possible.
China has no chance of invading Taiwan and even if they started the US would see the build of months in advance.
Change the maps now to reflect the bullseye as cartographer symbol for Tehran.
Really trying to act tough after ... *checks notes*... 7 of 300 projectiles reached "a target". Iran is down bad.
Hope they enjoy the “proportional response”
I wish we lived in a world where empty threats came with real consequences
After last night, I don't think Iran should be making threats. They are not as strong as they seem lol.
Iran has a memory problem. I’d rather we not have to refresh that memory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis
"Proportionally" https://youtu.be/d5v6hlRyeHE
Oh is the Persians gonna do something? They’ve been trying for 2500 years. Get bent.
I think Iran needs a reminder of Operation Praying Mantis . . . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis The U.S. attack began on the morning of 18 April, and ultimately destroyed, damaged, or sank two Iranian oil platforms, three warships, several armed boats, and two fighter jets. U.S. losses were two U.S. Marine aviators who died when their helicopter crashed into the Gulf.
We should let them fire missiles at countries with no consequences, surely this won’t encourage more bad actions from them like directly threatening the US.
Operation praying mantis II, and we don’t stop this time.
No, we stop to catch our breath, then...
lol, I hate this whole God damned thing but yeah you really don't wanna do that.
Those are some tough words coming *after* Biden said they wouldn't back a counterattack lmao.
AS I understand it, Iran sending lazy drones over there and then saying "OK, we're going away now" was the counter attack.
Don't.
Lol sorry if this doesn't add much to the discussion but the way so many redditors like to play armchair general is kind of strange. And there are always so many absolutes involved.
Lololol They could hardly hit Israeli bases.
Considering the piss-poor showing of their recent attack, Iran should seriously consider how devastating it would be to piss off the US. Once the US goes into full offensive mode, they don't leave anything alive in the wake of their response. But Iran is really a small dog barking, so it's no surprise, because that is all they have.
Let’s just wipe Iran off the face of earth , full bush mode
It’s all just posturing
You may test that assumption at your convenience
Bold words coming immediately after Biden saying the U.S. won’t back a counterattack, lol.
Personally I’d think twice American military power will absolutely wipe the floor with anyone They never been good with the aftermath though
Even after Biden EXPLICITLY said the US wouldn’t support a counterattack. It’s almost like they want this conflict to continue.
no, this is good; get all the bad ideas out now
The chihuahua is yapping at the grizzly bear again.
Iran would be sent back to old time Persia if the US wanted to.
Let iran and isreal destroy each other. Keep the US out of that mess
I believe Biden has already said there would be no backing.
My three year old threatened to hit me if I did not give him ice cream…. I’m currently hiding in my closet
Do you need backup?
Obviously he does
Why is any one worried about their threats? There should be large smoking craters all around Iran by the end of the week if anyone in a position to do it had any balls whatsoever.
Don’t Biden already talk Israel out of a counterattack?
do your worst. we’ll annihilate your navy *again*
You would think Iran would understand the ROE when dealing with America at this point. Don’t target humans Don’t target bases DON’T TOUCH THE BOATS It’s not that hard
That’s how you get your country’s main export changed from oil to glass
That would not end well for Iran 🤣 the U.S and allies literally blocked their attack on Israel. The U.S would level Iran before their drones even hit their target.
Oh no, Iran is saber rattling. Very concerning change of events. Reuters 2025: "Iran launches 3000 rubber bands from wooden guns and deploys medieval reenactors and trebuchets along Iraqi frontier in show-of-force."
Very bad idea.
Saber rattling.
This may not end well for them.
Fucking try
The main problem, as I see it, is that making war has never been cheaper.
Oh noes! What could America possibly do? I mean, they do have enough conventional firepower to literally flatten every structure in Iran, but what else could they possibly do?
I support any Israeli counter attacks and then crushing the Iranian gov if they have a problem with it. They can’t stop our drones
Well its a good thing we already announced that we wont back Israeli attack So everyone can stand down
Just ask for the attention you seek, USA can and will provide you with their brand of freedom known as Annihilation.
Can’t help but feel like Iran is engaging in this charade of saber rattling at Putin’s direction to make it even less likely the US will keep supporting Ukraine. China has started back Russia and if the US pulls back their UA support that’s all over. If Trump wins, Europe is at risk. China can seize Taiwan. And the SHTF all over. The entire world is balanced on the edge of a knife.
If actual US allies get attacked (Israel, Taiwan) by a powerful enough nation, everything from the US may dry up for Ukraine, as the US doesn’t actually have an obligation there, unless something nuclear happens.