hey remember when we got told for like decades straight that we would need nuclear bunker busters to deal with iran's underground enrichment sites?

[sonatine]

yeah what the fuck is going on over there exactly?

is this all theater?

what strategic goal is israel pursuing here exactly?

[sonatine]

AND ANOTHER THING

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/LordofBathrobes/status/1933699079743131935

[1dollarboxcar]

so are you saying these underground uranium enrichment caverns don't exist? (that's what i'm hearing) kinda like the WMD's that never existed...? please explain, sometimes i miss interpret your sarcasm (if that's what you're doing) and don't know how to take some of your statements at times...

[sonatine]

so are you saying these underground uranium enrichment caverns don't exist? (that's what i'm hearing) kinda like the WMD's that never existed...? please explain, sometimes i miss interpret your sarcasm (if that's what you're doing) and don't know how to take some of your statements at times...

no i think the only pragmatic purpose of this attack was to provoke a situation that the US can justify getting directly involved in. the underground caverns absolutely 100% exist.


perhaps the endgame is to topple the regime and allow a more progressive / less belligerent government to step into its place?


because if thats the case it only happens with US assistance.

[Sanlmar]

because if thats the case it only happens with US assistance.

Why can’t Israel just cut a check to Palmer Luckey directly?

By the way, what economic miracle has their GDP so flush in 2024?

[sonatine]

because if thats the case it only happens with US assistance.

Why can’t Israel just cut a check to Palmer Luckey directly?

By the way, what economic miracle has their GDP so flush in 2024?

wait who iran or israel?


because israeli tech grifter founders are the headlice of the nasdaq.

[sonatine]

also the only way youre taking out those bunkers are with low yield nukes in like depleted uranium sabots. it will be another few years before palmer has that access.

[Kalam]

Maybe Netanyahu and Trump made a deal where Israel would strike first, so Iran would use up most of their arsenal on them. So when the US comes in Iran has nothing to target US forces with.

As the IRGC is an existential threat to them, Israel has a much larger threshold to accept casualties than the US does. If Iran took out one US bomber it would probably be game over for whatever plan Trump has. His base would revolt and demand we leave.

[Sanlmar]

Maybe Netanyahu and Trump made a deal where Israel would strike first, so Iran would use up most of their arsenal on them. So when the US comes in Iran has nothing to target US forces with.

As the IRGC is an existential threat to them, Israel has a much larger threshold to accept casualties than the US does. If Iran took out one US bomber it would probably be game over for whatever plan Trump has. His base would revolt and demand we leave.

Given the wide range conflicting responses from the Trump team (particularly Rubio) shortly after the initial attack I think you are attributing 4D chess to the gang. This was Netanyahu and frankly the chances of Israeli success were greater if he operated independently.

[Kalam]

Maybe Netanyahu and Trump made a deal where Israel would strike first, so Iran would use up most of their arsenal on them. So when the US comes in Iran has nothing to target US forces with.

As the IRGC is an existential threat to them, Israel has a much larger threshold to accept casualties than the US does. If Iran took out one US bomber it would probably be game over for whatever plan Trump has. His base would revolt and demand we leave.

Given the wide range conflicting responses from the Trump team (particularly Rubio) shortly after the initial attack I think you are attributing 4D chess to the gang. This was Netanyahu and frankly the chances of Israeli success were greater if he operated independently.

What is success though? Israel tanks aren't rolling into Tehran no matter how well this goes for Israel. So unless they were planning on prompting regime change (which would be nice, but realistically probably a long shot) the IRGC can rebuild/repair/resupply whatever Israel destroys or they use up attacking Israel. So what was the actual goal?

[sonatine]

its a strange thing the more i think about it.


someone knew about it early enough to scalp the polymarket lines but somehow china didnt mention to iran that they might want to get their senior talent and leadership in hideyholes?


its all so fucking odd.


israel are acting like they sent boots on the ground in but really all they did was clip a few big names. reminds me of when they used a remote control .50 machine gun to assassinate one of the previous nuke scientists but on a much grander scale of course.


maybe its really just as simple as lakud going rogue? we know they gave trump notice tho. and again no one can tell me this was a situation where 'oh iran was minutes away from crafting a nuke' because no one has touched the most critical elements of the iranian nuke program.


i think it was just a feint. and iran hasnt taken the bait by going after american bases in the region, so we cant drop any rods of god on them.


good way to destabilize the regime a bit tho.. i suppose...

[Sanlmar]

You’re more tuned up on this subject than I. Maybe that gives me an advantage.

I’ll offer this. Perhaps this is just an opening gambit leading to more (undetermined as yet) strategic play by Natenyahu.

He is the craftiest player on this stage. We are here to serve.

Any kind of win in Iran and Netanyahu doesn’t have to go into exile after he leaves office. Just keep the Mideast chaos going.

[Dan Druff]

Had to remove a garrett troll post and also remove him from the thread.

garrett, you are welcome to express your distaste for sonatine, but please don't fuck up serious threads with that stuff. You already started a thread recently about hating sonatine (which I let stand), so please do any bashing over there. Thank you.

[Dan Druff]

To me this isn't particularly complicated.

Israel has wanted to do this ever since 10/7/23. With Trump in office, they figured they had a legit shot. By their own admission, this plan has been in the works for 8 months. That puts preparations starting in mid-October 2024 -- right around when it was starting to look like Trump was the favorite to win the election.

I'm guessing Trump has known most of the way -- possibly soon after he got re-elected, and has just been quietly waiting for Israel to make its move. This is actually ideal for the US, because they don't have to send any troops or actively join the war, and at most they will quietly provide funding or weaponry.

According to reports, Iran lost their 3 top nuclear scientists, and the facilities have severely been damaged. If they attempt to repair and restart, the same thing can happen again.

I'm assuming that Israel's goal here is to make Iran realize that they're going to get the shit bombed out of them every time they attempt this nuke program from now on, so not to bother. It's also probably a message along the lines of, "You keep fucking with us? We're gonna fuck with you."

Iran has to be a bit shaken by this. Not only did they lose a number of top IGRC guys, but their own facilities were used against them to disable or destroy their anti-aircraft weaponry, as Mossad apparently gained access to this stuff within Iran, which is crazy.

This was basically punching the bully really hard in the face, knocking him on his ass, and saying, "Stop what you've been doing, or you're getting it much worse next time."

The question becomes what Israel does if Iran puts up more of a retaliation than just firing some rockets into Tel Aviv. If it gets to the point where Israel has to start obliterating Tehran itself from the air, this can get really, really messy. But it's probably a gamble they're willing to take. The alternative is to allow Iran to develop nukes, which will pretty much be game over for Israel's deterrent power in the region.

[sonatine]

To me this isn't particularly complicated.

Israel has wanted to do this ever since 10/7/23. With Trump in office, they figured they had a legit shot. By their own admission, this plan has been in the works for 8 months. That puts preparations starting in mid-October 2024 -- right around when it was starting to look like Trump was the favorite to win the election.

I'm guessing Trump has known most of the way -- possibly soon after he got re-elected, and has just been quietly waiting for Israel to make its move. This is actually ideal for the US, because they don't have to send any troops or actively join the war, and at most they will quietly provide funding or weaponry.

According to reports, Iran lost their 3 top nuclear scientists, and the facilities have severely been damaged. If they attempt to repair and restart, the same thing can happen again.

I'm assuming that Israel's goal here is to make Iran realize that they're going to get the shit bombed out of them every time they attempt this nuke program from now on, so not to bother. It's also probably a message along the lines of, "You keep fucking with us? We're gonna fuck with you."

Iran has to be a bit shaken by this. Not only did they lose a number of top IGRC guys, but their own facilities were used against them to disable or destroy their anti-aircraft weaponry, as Mossad apparently gained access to this stuff within Iran, which is crazy.

This was basically punching the bully really hard in the face, knocking him on his ass, and saying, "Stop what you've been doing, or you're getting it much worse next time."

The question becomes what Israel does if Iran puts up more of a retaliation than just firing some rockets into Tel Aviv. If it gets to the point where Israel has to start obliterating Tehran itself from the air, this can get really, really messy. But it's probably a gamble they're willing to take. The alternative is to allow Iran to develop nukes, which will pretty much be game over for Israel's deterrent power in the region.

yeah this is a strong take.

i think im confused by israel's rhetoric, which is of a very 'we have ended the nuclear threat from iran' timbre and it just has no real basis in reality.

that said, iran has now stated that it will 100% be going after US bases in the coming days/hours and that says to me the bunker busters are coming if we cant just facilitate a regime change and donate all the existing tech to peter thiel.

[Dan Druff]

Iran has to give some response, so the leaders do not look weak.

After the rockets were sent into Tel Aviv, a bunch of state-sponsored Iranian accounts (though not officially listed as such) went into full propaganda mode, taunting Israel and overstating the damage that was caused.

I have no doubt that there will be some kind of attack on the US, but it will likely be minimal enough to where we won't further retaliate. Might be like the 2020 Soleimani situation, where Iran let a US base know that it would be attacked, everyone evacuated, and then rockets hit it. Iran could claim "victory" by hitting a US base with rockets, no US servicemen were hurt, Soleimani was dead, and everyone moved on.

Iran does NOT want to draw the US into actively attacking them. If they make this into a 2025 Pearl Harbor, a very harsh response will come from the US, including possibly full scale war.

Iran is that weird sort of enemy who doesn't want to do anything to seriously antagonize the US, yet at the same time, cannot be made friendlier by olive-branch type overtures or humanitarian aid. They should be regarded as a true enemy of this country, but one which is very afraid of a major military conflict with us.

At the same time, you cannot sleep on Iran, because the only reason they're afraid of a major military conflict right now is because they haven't accomplished their fanatical goals yet of destroying Israel.

[sonatine]

theres also a sort of x factor here which is a weird stalemate between the US, russia, china, and iran where we are all completely wormed into each others grids / infrastructure but have a literal soft agreement to never ever drop each other's grids because it takes like half a fucking year to restore them once they get taken down.

and there really isnt a path forward for unrolling that situation because the only logical way to do it would be to swap out vast amounts of hardware with new, trusted units. which would require something like 10 manhattan projects worth of resources at once, just for the US. its just not realistic.

so just like russia has said 'whats to stop us from launching nukes in a world where russia would cease to exist', iran does have a trap card where a collapsing regime facing ionizing radiation leaking from power plants and centrifuges and christ knows what else really could create blackouts in LA and NY and DC that would persist well into winter.

full disclosure this was the lay of the land maybe 5 years ago but i doubt much has changed since then, all things considered.

[Kalam]

its a strange thing the more i think about it.

someone knew about it early enough to scalp the polymarket lines but somehow china didnt mention to iran that they might want to get their senior talent and leadership in hideyholes?

At this point the IRGC might be seen as a liability to China. China has (had?) a lot of business in the Arab world. But Iran and their proxies destabilizing the region, starting a bunch of wars, getting bootstomped, and getting pushed out seems to have shifted a lot of power to the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood Qatar-Turkey axis and by association the US. China cant be happy about that.

Seems the way power has shifted Turkey-Qatar-US are going to have the inside track in rebuilding Syria, Lebanon and Gaza; as opposed to Chinese contracts.

China might be looking forward to a post IRGC world where they have a close economic relationship with a more functional Iranian govt that isn't stuck a liability.