Neither the fuel depots nor the Qeshm desalination plant bombing fit into a broader pattern of targeting civilian infrastructure and if state collapse is the goal there are many more impactful targets (power plants, transportation hubs, hydroelectric dams etc.)
I am the first to discount public statements as evidence of intention but also don't think strikes so far point to state collapse being preferred over mere regime collapse. Industries that were bombed were all connected to aerospace and even the fuel depots were targeted as military logistics assets
I'm not sure he cares at this point. Why would he. He isn't going to run for re-election (yeah, yeah), he has no loyalty to the GOP, and he clearly despises his actual voters. Only an actual impeachment could do it
Their involvement in missile/aerospace forces, intelligence and internal security, which have been the key targets, is limited, so I assume they are mainly hanging around their barracks
Trump will only play a role in choosing Iran's next leader if they find a collaborator within the regime to make a deal with. If they manage to induce regime collapse he'll simply declare the war won and deal with whoever ultimately manages to come out on top. This debate is kinda pointless
Many people don't know that you can substitute a Leverhulme Prize for being a mujtahid as a qualification for office
I think people are getting their timeline for when, if at all, we should expect to see major unrest mixed up. The IR will be weakest right around the culmination of the strike campaign, there is no reason to move before that. Both Bibi and RP are also explicitly messaging "stand back and stand by"
While the specific kick off is due to Trumpian idiosyncrasies I reckon a lot more planning and preparation went into this contingency than some people give it credit for. Though obviously not from the political leadership of the US itself, which is the major issue ofc
Most smart Iran watchers I'm following predicted after the 12-Day-War that we'd see a similar campaign against the Iranian missile programme within a year. The January crackdown almost certainly accelerated the speed and scope of Israeli military planning.
This isn't a diaspora phenomenon anymore. In January alone the regime killed more than thirty times as many Iranians within 48 hours than Israel did during its entire war last year. And this is just on top of the regularly scheduled executions, humiliations, and economic hardship they have to endure
Perhaps best exemplified by most Iranians attaching their sense of national identity to an entirely different flag than the regime's in the first place
In Iraq and Afghanistan, anti-Saddam/Taliban opposition was still largely Islamist and anti-Western, which is not the case in Iran. Whatever your estimation of the chances of regime change is, ideological retrenchment qua rallying-round-the-flag will not be the vector through which it fails
I was harping on about ignorance on Iran leading to a reflexive reach for GWOT truisms; this is the worst one. The regime's appropriation of secular nationalism already failed (hence Iran's largest popular uprising occurring just 6 months after the 12-Day-War), popular alienation has spiralled since
Khorramabad percs got me contemplating commercial off the shelf ballistic missile components, my regional proxies WILL have exoatmospheric strike capabilities
Being elected doesn't confer additional authority qua any theological grounding but by being an already influential Shiite cleric who is now also the leader of the largest Shiite state in the world. So comparing it to the church confuses the mechanism, yes
Iran is a nation state that fuses republican governance with religious authority (at least that's the idea). The Assembly is more like an electoral college elected for fixed terms with additional stipulation that it elects someone with sufficient religious credentials.
The entire global petrochem market right now rests on the internal battle between Artesh Major Sahakian and the intrusive thought that the Sangachal terminal is just sitting there looking submissive and Shahed-able.
nightmare blunt rotation fr
That's a fair point. Though I'm not convinced that considering Iran's differing minority-majority and ideological dynamics a similar kind of fracturing is plausible. The scenario is also so different: what if you combined the protest stage of the Syrian conflict with a massive foreign air campaign?
Thought at least conceptionally it would be fun to see the Armenian Democratic Republic of Esfahan
I honestly think these scenarios are overblown. The Iranian administrative state isn't build on the kind of sectarian patronage networks that would open it up to disintegration if the regime falls. And if it survives it will become middle eastern North Korea. Neither will see Syria style collapse
War crime, domestic security overreach, foreign suppression of domestic political reform. None of them are alike, what was the point being made here?
WHY IS EVERY PAPER ON EARTH USING SCHUMER’S PICTURE WHEN HE LOST ON A PARTY-LINE VOTE??
THUNE IS THE FACE OF THIS, NOT SCHUMER.
I MEAN, COME ON.
They're throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. Arming Kurds. Pahlavi calling for protests. Perhaps a Baluchi insurgency as well. All throughout continued decapitation strikes. Accumulating strain to induce regime collapse without a clear plan for a subsequent political arrangement
Imperial Security Bureau type fit
All Kurdish sources seem to be denying it's taking place while some American and Israeli officials confirm. Extremely sketchy situation at the moment
To survive US and Israeli airpower the IRGC and Artesh land forces need to stay dispersed. To counter Kurdish or Balochi incursions they will have to concentrate forces.
How do you say Kobayashi Maru in Iranian?
A brief analysis of speculation over a Kurdish incursion into Iran
Yeah this is exactly the thing. Increasingly you are telling people to not believe their lying eyes when you tell them LLMs are useless. Their actual lives will directly contradict this. They will likely discount most other unrelated things you say as a result. This can’t become a left/lib dogma.
Boeing can manufacture more than 45k JDAM kits a year or 940~ a week. Between 2018-2023 the USAF took delivery of 107k new JDAM kits. I don't think they running out of things to drop on regime targets anytime soon.
