I wonder if the bunker buster was used. It has a somewhat indirect lineage to the ww2 grand slam designed by Barnes Wallis.
Iran has massive earthquake risks. For reasons unassociated with nuclear bunkers they do a lot of research into (fibre, and other) strengthened cement construction. With obvious applications to their nuclear industry of course.
Another unrelated point, a significant number of Iranian civil engineering graduates are women. A somewhat dichotomous economy, when you consider the theocratic restrictions on costume and behaviour.
coliveira · 3m ago
Bunker buster is not necessarily a solution for this. It was created for normal bunkers, WW2 style of construction. What they have in Iran are construction sites very deep in the mountains. I wouldn't be surprised if this type of bombs can't do more than superficial damage to the sites.
tiffanyh · 8m ago
Yes, bunker buster was used. Per a different source:
> It included a strike on the heavily-fortified Fordo nuclear site, according to Trump, which is located roughly 300 feet under a mountain about 100 miles south of Tehran. It's a move that Israel has been lobbying the U.S. to carry out, given that only the U.S. has the kind of powerful "bunker buster" bomb capable of reaching the site. Known as the GBU-57 MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator), the bomb can only be transported by one specific U.S. warplane, the B-2 stealth bomber, due to its immense 30,000 pound weight.
I've heard 6 at Fordow, and 30 or so Tomahawks across Natanz and Isfahan.
arandomusername · 2h ago
> I wonder if the bunker buster was used
Most certainly was. It's underground (Fordow is ~60m?) so it's either that or nukes.
ggm · 1h ago
As I understand it enrichment is by gas centrifuge or thermal diffusion. An earthquake bomb would disrupt both. You wouldn't be starting the feed cycle up rapidly, but since we're told Iran has stockpiles, this goes to sustainable delivery of materials more than specific short term risk.
As a strategy, I see this as flawed. A dirty bomb remains viable with partially enriched materials.
(This does not mean to imply I support either bombing or production of weapons grade materiel. It's a comment to outcome, not wisdom)
AnthonyMouse · 12m ago
> A dirty bomb remains viable with partially enriched materials.
A dirty bomb is basically Hollywood nonsense, and wouldn't use uranium to begin with because it isn't very radioactive.
The premise is that you put radioactive materials into a conventional explosive to spread it around. But spreading a kilogram of something over a small area is boring because you can fully vaporize a small area using conventional explosives, spreading a kilogram of something over a large area is useless because you'd be diluting it so much it wouldn't matter, and spreading several tons of something over a large area is back to "you could do more damage by just using several tons of far cheaper conventional explosives".
dralley · 2m ago
Also anything that is dangerous enough to actually be scary in dirty bomb form, like Cobalt-60, would be impossible to handle without providing a lethal dose of radiation to anyone working with he material within minutes if not seconds (presumably a reasonablely large & dangerous amount of this material is involved). At least, not without incredibly expensive equipment. And by the time you factor in those prerequisites it's just not worth it.
gh02t · 43m ago
Uranium, especially highly enriched uranium, is not very radioactive. That's one of the reasons its useful for weapons. UF6 is chemically really nasty, but it's heavy and also you have criticality issues that limit how much you can pack into a confined space before it explosively disassembles. That is to say, it would make an extremely poor dirty bomb that would do very little. It'd scare people of course but there are far easier things they could use to achieve that.
Far more concerning is the possibility that they give it away to someone else. Enrichment is nonlinear, going from 60% to the 90% needed for weapons is a fairly trivial amount of work.
anonymars · 14m ago
> It'd scare people of course but there are far easier things they could use to achieve that.
I wouldn't discount it, though. Remember, feelings matter more than facts. Magnitudes more people die on the road than in the air, but we know how well that translates to fear and action.
I mean heck, how about 9/11 compared to COVID? Wearing a mask for a while: heinous assault on freedom, Apple pie, and the American way. Meanwhile, the post-9/11 security and surveillance apparatus: totally justified to keep America safe
Remember that Israel had more nuclear bombs than China and never signed any international as tmy treaty.
arandomusername · 1h ago
Iran is prone to earthquakes, would an earthquake bomb do more damage than that?
Even if it just damages the centrifuges, as far as I see it, it would just delay their enrichment process, severely less than total destruction of their underground base.
ggm · 1h ago
Yes that's basically my point. They recalibrate, tighten the pipes, and flush the contamination back out of the chain. 6 to 8 weeks/days/whatever later it's back in cycle.
tehjoker · 2h ago
the bunker buster, if used, will almost certainly be nuclear. estimated tonnage: 300 kt
p_ing · 2h ago
MOP is a conventional weapon, 30,000 lbs. Only the B-2 is rated to carry it.
Genuinely surprised that Israel couldn't push one out of their c-130s
1659447091 · 29m ago
Don't think the c-130s can fly high enough with a single 30,000lb bomb. The graphic at bbc site show it would be dropped from about 12km (~40,000 ft) in order to gain the speed needed to drive it some 60m underground.
CyanLite2 · 4m ago
Various sources are saying 6 to 12 of these bombs were used. So, you'd need a lot of C-130s and those planes are too slow to NOT get shot down.
ceejayoz · 22m ago
Israel hasn’t degraded Iranian air defenses that much. The stuff that can’t threaten a F-35 can still trouble a C-130.
p_ing · 4m ago
Israel doesn't have access to the MOP.
giantg2 · 38m ago
Do they even have access to this variant? I thought they had access to the older ones that weren't as advanced.
YZF · 7m ago
They do not.
ranger_danger · 2m ago
> almost certainly be nuclear
Source:
arandomusername · 2h ago
The GBU-57 was most likely used, which is non nuclear
ggm · 1h ago
This is nonsense.
FridayoLeary · 1h ago
Thanks for trying to make this into a technical discussion.
I just realised that this bomb is not the same as the so called Mother of all bombs, which by the way has so far only been used once also by trump. That's the gbu 43. Why did they find
it necessary to build an even bigger bomb? I wonder if they anticipated strikes on the me.
As to your other point iran seems to have a decent level of education. Building an entire home grown nuclear program under sanctions is impressive.
_heimdall · 7m ago
The MOP is meant for a different use than the MOAB, it isn't about size. The MOAB is meant for surface destruction, the MOP is a penetrating ordinance meant to go deep through rock before eventually exploding.
ggm · 1h ago
Different outcomes. Moab is fuel air explosion and causes massive pressure wave disruption, it's usable against tunnels but operates on a different principle. Bunker buster is an earth penetration weapon to make a camouflet happen and destroy structural integrity.
> A camouflet, in military science, is an artificial cavern created by an explosion; if the resulting structure is open to the surface it is called a crater.[1]
jandrewrogers · 1h ago
The GBU-57 used here is an outgrowth of the demonstrated inadequacy of traditional bunker busters bombs used in the Middle East after 9/11. They needed something more specialized for deep penetration than the old bunker busters. This was kind of a stopgap weapon that works pretty well but the size limits the practicality.
US is developing a new generation of purpose-built deep penetration bombs that are a fraction of the size of the GBU-57.
hooo · 44m ago
What’s the core technology that enables them? It is crazy how deep the GBU-57 can get before detonating
kragen · 16m ago
According to public information, Eglin steel.
I was guessing either tungsten or depleted uranium, as for APDS, but the bomb's average density is only about 5 g/cc (14 tonnes in 3.1 m³). Length of 6.2 m times 5 tonnes per cubic meter gives a sectional density of 31 tonnes per square meter, which is about 15 meters of dirt. So Newton's impact depth approximation would predict a penetration depth one fourth of the reported 60-meter depth.
I don't know how to resolve the discrepancy. The plane wouldn't fly if the bomb weighed four times as much. Maybe most of the bomb's mass is in a small, dense shaft in the middle of the bomb, which detaches on impact?
giantg2 · 35m ago
It's not that crazy. It's simple physics. Drop a 15 ton metal lawn dart from 50,000 feet and it has a lot of energy.
ggm · 32m ago
Case hardening. Making something which if propelled fast enough (secondary issue) and with a G force resisting detonator (secondary issue) which has sufficient integrity and inertia to penetrate as deeply as possible before exploding. Materials science in making aerodynamic rigid, shock tolerant materials to fling at the ground.
I am sure the materials science aspects have come along since ww2, as has delivery technology, but I'd say how it goes fast, hits accurately and explodes is secondary to making a case survive impact and penetrate.
I would posit shaped charges could be amazing in this, if you could make big ones to send very high energy plasma out. I'm less sure depleted uranium would bring much to the table.
(Not in weapons engineering, happy to be corrected)
giantg2 · 27m ago
I'm not sure you would want a shaped charge unless you guarantee it was pointing in the right directionatthe right time. Modern bunker design usually includes deflection tactics.
klipt · 45m ago
> an entire home grown nuclear program
It's not entirely home grown if they were part of the NPT is it? Signing the NPT (a pinky promise not to develop weapons) means other countries then help you develop nuclear energy, which of course has a lot of overlap to weapons tech...
the__alchemist · 35m ago
- MOP: High penetration; most of its payload is not explosive. (Something heavy). Designed so its body, fuse, explosives etc remain intact after penetrating deep.
- MOAB: Fuel air explosive for massive blast effect.
PaulHoule · 2h ago
When I was doing a postdoc in Germany I shared an office with a woman from Morocco so my office was a meeting point for many islamic woman including one from Iran who complained bitterly about how women were treated in her country but who did get the opportunity to get an advanced education.
megous · 2h ago
How is this relevant to Trump bombing Iran?
bigyabai · 2h ago
It's the most-salient comment you can write without being [flagged] [dead] for "off-topic" conversation.
PaulHoule · 2h ago
The parent post was about Iranian women jobs getting jobs in engineering. Whatever restrictions are on them, they don't seem to have trouble getting STEM education.
owebmaster · 31m ago
You said it in a way that sounded like no woman is oppressed if they can get high level education.
anonymars · 19m ago
I took the contradiction as the point: that they are oppressed and yet, surprisingly, not with respect to educational opportunity
> including one from Iran who complained bitterly about how women were treated in her country but who did get the opportunity to get an advanced education
jordanb · 50m ago
Consent isn't going to manufacture itself.
leyth · 16m ago
I understand Iranian regime is not best their to their citizens, but 50% of master's degrees in Iran are held by women. Was your comment attempting to further dehumanize them, allowing us to justify bombings and aggression?
kjewsnow · 52s ago
Fuck TRUMP and FUCK THE JEWS!
IT IS WAY PAST TIME TO ROUND UP ALL THE JEWS AND GAS THEM!
FREE FREE PALESTINE. FREE PALESTINE!
and GAS THE JEWS!
BolexNOLA · 8s ago
What on earth
markus_zhang · 2h ago
OK what was done was done. What should we expect the political fallout in Iran?
tptacek · 2h ago
It's really hard to say, but probably not good (there was an Atlantic article about this last week). Part of the dynamic here is the idea that the SL can't back down without losing so much domestic credibility that he puts the regime at risk; being in a shooting war with the West probably reinforces the regime's position. The flip side of this is that I don't think there were many signs that the opposition was in position to challenge the SL any time soon.
awongh · 1h ago
afaik Iran is a very very different case demographically from Iraq and Afghanistan- in terms of being bigger, more modern and secular. It seems like those are dynamics that make it harder to go to war/stay in war.
ummonk · 1h ago
Quite the contrary, the religious populace is more likely to fall in line and decide the government knows best; it’s the secular populace that is demanding retaliation and critical of the government for not pursuing nuclearization already.
YZF · 1m ago
This doesn't sound right to me. Sources?
One data point I heard recently was 80% of Iranians oppose the current regime. That said I've also heard there is wide support for Iran to have a nuclear program. Presumably as a matter of national pride. I would still imagine the secular population to be less inclined to go to war with Israel in general.
The only Iranians I've personally talked to are ones that live in the west. They generally want to have peace with Israel and want to see the regime removed. Again very anecdotally they are still not happy about Israel bombing Iran but if the regime is actually somehow magically removed I don't think attacking Israel would be a high priority for a hypothetical secular or democratic regime.
awongh · 1h ago
If you're in Iran it makes sense that you would want that if you feel that Israel is a threat. (But it doesn't make it a good idea).
I meant that demographically, if your populace isn't as poor, battle hardened and religious (like Afghanistan) maybe going into a long ground war is less politically feasible?
In Afghanistan they had basically just been fighting a war, where the last war in Iran was 30 years ago?
sealeck · 1h ago
> I meant that demographically, if your populace isn't as poor, battle hardened and religious (like Afghanistan) maybe going into a long ground war is less politically feasible?
> 95,000 Iranian child soldiers were casualties during the Iran–Iraq War, mostly between the ages of 16 and 17, with a few younger
> The conflict has been compared to World War I: 171 in terms of the tactics used, including large-scale trench warfare with barbed wire stretched across trenches, manned machine gun posts, bayonet charges, human wave attacks across a no man's land, and extensive use of chemical weapons such as sulfur mustard by the Iraqi government against Iranian troops, civilians, and Kurds. The world powers United States and the Soviet Union, together with many Western and Arab countries, provided military, intelligence, economic, and political support for Iraq. On average, Iraq imported about $7 billion in weapons during every year of the war, accounting for fully 12% of global arms sales in the period.
awongh · 1h ago
That was 40 years ago though. So no one fighting on the ground in that war would be fighting on the ground in a war that starts today.
jjk166 · 11m ago
No, but they're the ones making the decisions about fighting such a war. The child soldiers in the 1980s are the politicians, the diplomats, and the generals in the 2020s.
BolexNOLA · 46s ago
“…and we turned out just fine!”
ummonk · 1h ago
Ah I see what you mean. Yes they don’t have the birth rate (or the suicidal fanaticism) to sustain a decades long attritional war against an occupation like Afghanistan or Yemen can.
But given the size of the existing Iranian population and geography, and the lack of any significantly sized pre-existing anti-government military faction, I’m not sure the US military is large enough to even occupy Iran in the first place, absent a draft.
awongh · 49m ago
It would be reaaalllly stupid for the USA to invade Iran.
Hopefully Iran is the one that blinks for the reasons above.
MichaelZuo · 33m ago
Why would they blink when they know they are safe from a boots on the ground invasion for the forseeable future?
I don't know that much. But I have heard about how in terms of daily outlook a lot of Iranians aren't very religious. Esp. compared to other countries in the region.
ronnier · 24m ago
With all respect please type out SL. I and many others don’t know what that means. For us it’s just two random letters thrown into a sentence
moosedev · 20m ago
I assume it's Supreme Leader.
citizenkeen · 19m ago
Supreme Leader
paxys · 1h ago
There isn't going to be political fallout. The Iranian regime has systemically wiped out all dissent over the last decade and a half. The remaining population is all either pro-Khamenei or too powerless to speak out. If anything an unprovoked war will give the country stronger reason to distrust the west and rally behind their leader.
standardUser · 56m ago
> What should we expect the political fallout in Iran?
The Iranian regimes favorite enemy just played their part to perfection, so we should expect that to compel the majority of Iranians to rally behind their government in the face of a brutal foreign invasion by not one but BOTH of their standard-bearer arch-nemeses.
narrator · 52m ago
Propaganda isn't everything. Iran having a nuclear bomb or not having one does count for more than whether we played our part in the bad guy in their narrative.
sfifs · 33m ago
I would worry about the fallout to the rest of us - Persian Gulf closed to shipping,maybe oil fields attacked, Oil at 300, Recession.
yyyk · 1h ago
For now, nothing (everyone is kinda busy).
The first infliction point would be to see whether the regime intends to strike at US forces or do they intend to climb down. IMHO, that would be suicidal, but it doesn't mean they won't do it.
The second point is when they decide to end the war (they aren't doing well), and all the accusations start flying. Then there'll be political fallout.
TeeMassive · 1h ago
The point of Iran of enriching U beyond civilian use but not actually going full military grade was leverage. They're the only Shiia super power in the reigion. Nobody likes them.
So what can we expect:
* a ground invasion is pretty much out of the question considering the geography or Iran and its neighboring countries.
* Iran destroys every oil production and transport sites in the region (say good by to your election, Republican Party)
* they could fast produce the bomb and test it underground as a final warning
* OR they fail and resort to more desperate measure like a dirty bomb
* OR they fail and there is some sort of regime change
* Or there is some kind of extended war of attrition and it makes the refugee crisis from the past 20 years seem like it was a mere tourist wave.
In any case, this will accentuate the Qaddafi effect and more nations will follow the North Korea option of nuclear "unauthorized" nuclear dissuasion, which is also the case for Israel by the way.
Talking of which, Israel will become politically radioactive in the world. Its support is already negative in nearly all countries and has dropped significantly in the US such as the evangelicals.
dh2022 · 1h ago
For me the last few days show how militarily-impotent Iran is. Even if they had the nuclear bomb they would not be able to use it against Israel-because right now Iran had no air-defenses and Israel is rumored to have about 100 nuclear warheads.
I do not think Iran has any military options. Because it is not liked the Iranian regime does not have any political options either. So I have no idea what will happen-which makes the current situation so interesting to watch.
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 · 38m ago
<< For me the last few days show how militarily-impotent Iran is.
I am confused. So it is impotent or the greatest threat in the middle east?
mgiampapa · 23m ago
They are a threat as a terrorist, not as a military force.
unethical_ban · 26m ago
Did dh say it was the greatest threat?
All this talk of Iran getting a nuke to hit Israel... doesn't the Iranian government know that it would instantly be destroyed the moment they used a nuclear weapon of any kind?
None of this makes sense.
roughly · 1m ago
> doesn't the Iranian government know that it would instantly be destroyed the moment they used a nuclear weapon of any kind?
YES. They Absolutely know this. The point of an Iranian nuke is deterrence, and the reason Israel finds that intolerable is that Israeli policy is to maintain the ability to unilaterally raise the stakes of a conflict past any of its neighbors.
klipt · 10m ago
How much plausible deniability would Iran have if they gave a nuke to Hezbollah who fired it over the border at Tel Aviv?
"That was Hezbollah, not us!"
You might say using a proxy would be a hopelessly transparent ploy, but Hezbollah has been firing other Iranian supplied weapons at Israel for years and yet many people swear up and down that Iran has "never attacked Israel". So apparently the proxy ploy does work on a lot of people.
handfuloflight · 1h ago
> Its support is already negative in nearly all countries and has dropped significantly in the US such as the evangelicals.
You mean they changed their mind and want to postpone the Armageddon now?
RickJWagner · 31m ago
Evangelical here.
That statement is ignorant.
handfuloflight · 25m ago
Do you speak for them all? If you do, please clarify.
RickJWagner · 4m ago
I speak for myself, of course. And the people I know in my community.
Do you believe all evangelicals believe the same thing, and that we want the end of the world to come immediately? Where would you get such a strange idea? I can assure you it is an ignorant thought.
fallingknife · 1h ago
They're not going to escalate. They're already getting their ass handed to them by Israel and the last thing they want is to throw down with their other enemies in the region right now. You are correct that there will be no ground invasion, so there is no existential threat to the government. This means they have no incentive to do something stupid that will make anyone change their mind on that invasion.
yonisto · 7m ago
This is a fanatic regime. I will have its people eating grass before giving up on anything.
handfuloflight · 1h ago
> so there is no existential threat to the government.
Do you think sitting by and doing nothing will not pose an existential threat to the government by way of constituent discontent?
TeeMassive · 1h ago
And now every regime who feared getting regime-changed will have an interest of developing the bomb. Gaddafi effect is real.
TeeMassive · 1h ago
It's a country of 100M people. They're not just gonna be have their "ass handed to them", just like it didn't happen in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq1, Iraq2, Yemen and Afghanistan. Countries do adapt to bombings, especially when there's a superpower nearby.
Also if they "were just about to have the bomb" then they could develop it and use it after. So there is the conflicting position that they are both insane to use it and but both sane to not escalate the conflict. This is where most pro-war arguments fail the basic logic test in the nuclear bomb era.
abletonlive · 44m ago
"just like it didn't happen in korea, vietnam, iraq1, iraq2, yemen and afghanistan."
that's a fancy retelling of history you got there. MILLIONs died in those wars and less than 100K US troops died. Out of those wars, iraq 1 led to iraq defeat and withdrawal from kuwait. iraq 2 had saddam dragged through the streets and a regime change within 3 weeks, yemen was counterterrorism - there's no regime to topple, in afghanistan the taliban regime was removed for 20 years and only once the troops were withdrawn were they able to crawl back.
the current Iranian regime is over.
Cyph0n · 11m ago
Forcing Iran into submission is not going be as easy as it was in Iraq.
One of the key reasons behind why Iraq fell so quickly is that Saddam made all the wrong moves leading up the invasion.
By that point, he had alienated every single potential ally (including Iran) - and virtually all states in the region were supportive of the invasion, regardless of their positions in public.
Not to mention that the invasion of Iraq was ultimately a failure anyways..
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 · 35m ago
Possibly, but the cost that regime being over is likely similar to that US paid with war in Afghanistan and Iraq, which, and I am being very, very charitable, was too much blood for too little gain.
TeeMassive · 9m ago
KIAs ratio is not what determine a war's success
amanaplanacanal · 14m ago
So do you think the US is going to put the boots on the ground to make that happen? Even Trump isn't that stupid. Or maybe he is. I guess we'll see.
archsurface · 1h ago
Reversion to mean. Pre-78.
sorcerer-mar · 1h ago
I like this answer because of its circular logic (therefore impenetrable).
Simply declare a prior good state to be "the mean," then all we need to do is let mean reversion work its magic!
archsurface · 1h ago
I like this answer because you pretend you're arguing against the comment without actually addressing anything.
sorcerer-mar · 1h ago
Was there an argument? I just see an article of faith. Nothing to rebut there! I hope your prayers work.
andrepd · 1h ago
The dictatorship that was so hated that it led to a plurality of people supporting an Ayatollah?
mikewarot · 31m ago
It's my suspicion that most of the 60% enriched material was moved prior to the attack, and now undergoing enrichment to 90% in a facility the US doesn't know about. Enrichment gets easier as the percentage goes up.
I expect a major US city to have a nuke set off in it by Iran within the next 5 years.
It didn't have to be this way, we had a working treaty and inspections regime until Trump pulled us out of it.
Decades of effort to prohibit nuclear proliferation have just gone down the toilet.
PeterHolzwarth · 2m ago
I don't think this makes much sense, due to the scale of the two parties: Iran somehow figuring out how to get a nuke onto a US city would invite complete and total annihilation of Iran -- and the world would largely support it. Iran knows this.
Nukes among peers aren't there to be used. They are there to immobilize and freeze a layer of conflict.
r14c · 5m ago
I really don't understand why the US didn't continue their talks with Iran. They were clearly open to joining a non-proliferation treaty at the time. They also have a religious law against developing nukes in addition to their other tentative agreements and cooperation with IAEA.
I don't expect Iran to use any nukes that they develop though. Having nukes puts a country in a special diplomatic class. Using them is almost never beneficial. The status quo risks for nuclear programs is stronger sovereignty, which would drastically shift the regional balance of power and possibly tip the scales on a broad international level.
roughly · 6m ago
> I expect a major US city to have a nuke set off in it by Iran within the next 5 years.
This absolutely will not happen. Iran will make a nuke, and they will test it very publicly, and then the political math in the Middle East changes overnight. The point of a nuclear bomb for a country like Iran (or Pakistan, or North Korea) is deterrence, not attack - if Iran set off a nuke in an American city, the regime would not survive, and it’s possible the country would not.
Edit: to put that differently, the only way an Iranian bomb goes off in an American city is if an American bomb goes off in an Iranian city.
klipt · 15m ago
> I expect a major US city to have a nuke set off in it by Iran within the next 5 years.
Why would Iran do something so suicidal?
deepsquirrelnet · 4m ago
Is “NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE” about to become the new “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED”?
cedws · 38m ago
So is that the end of Iran’s nuclear programme, or is there more to it?
giantg2 · 23m ago
They're committed. They'll rebuild. Just as Stuxnet just delayed things.
This is the end of any hope. Iran will now do everything in its power to get one. And it has all the skills it needs.
Refinement keeps getting easier.
swagasaurus-rex · 34m ago
This is just another square in my world war three bingo board. Sits pretty close to breaking the nuclear taboo square.
PeterHolzwarth · 39s ago
A country doesn't acquire nukes to use them. They acquire them to freeze layers of conflict. Actually using them among peers invites annihilation.
dkjaudyeqooe · 1h ago
There are reasons why presidents have avoided attacking Iran.
- massive instability in the ME. Just a few men with shoulder fired missiles can disrupt oil shipments from the biggest oil producers
- the high chance of being sucked into a forever war. Iran can cause a lot of problems with limited resources and can rebuild. They have no reason to give up and the US might have to continue bombing indefinitely, or launch a ground invasion.
- the increased chance of nuclear war in the ME. This action assumes that Iran has no backup facilities, or will never have, to continue building a bomb. Having already suffered the consequences, Iran has no reason not to seek a bomb.
bushbaba · 18m ago
Actually now is different. The axis of resistance that would pop up (asad, Hezbollah, Hamas, houthis) are all basically gone and unable to mount an attack.
Saudi, Egypt, Jordan, UAE, HTS, and majority of Middle East is not in favor of Iran getting a nuke.
Hatred of Iran, is a unifying force.
hiddencost · 13m ago
I guess that's better than "axis of evil".
Looking forward to the strait of Hormuz shutting down...
austin-cheney · 1h ago
Worse, is that this was done at the behest of Israel. Israel is America’s shittiest ally in the region where the relationship is exclusively one-sided. There are good reasons why, despite all the lies and bullshit from America politicians, America has not executed military actions at their behest before now.
jordanb · 40m ago
“Every time anyone says that Israel is our only friend in the Middle East, I can’t help but think that before Israel, we had no enemies in the Middle East.”
— John Sheehan, S.J.
dkjaudyeqooe · 1h ago
This is probably the worst thing about Trump, he's let Bibi lead him around like a dog on a leash.
Any other president would be infuriated with Bibi's actions, because they would know he's cornering the US. But he knew Trump was a pushover.
Ar-Curunir · 5m ago
[delayed]
I-M-S · 19m ago
I guess any other president doesn't include Trump's direct predecessor, under whose watch Gaza was allowed to happen.
Izikiel43 · 22m ago
For your first point, that’s not as big of an issue as it used to for the USA thanks to fracking, now the USA is a net exporter of oil.
For the second, I don’t think anything other than an air campaign like it’s been done will happen, it’s not like the USA is out for blood like after 9/11.
For the third, yeah, that’s unfortunately possible, North Korea, Ukraine and now this show that the only way no one messes with you is by having a good enough deterrent. However, even if this hadn’t happened, if Iran got a bomb, they wouldn’t threaten like nk does to get stuff, it would just test it on Israel, so you would get nuclear war anyway.
le-mark · 58m ago
IME the real story here is how Netanyahu played Trump. This is all Netanyahu doing, he has been driving this and dragging the US along. The lesson is Trump is unstable. The lesson for China and Russia is to act now. I predict China will invade Taiwan and Russia will invade a Baltic nation within two years. Trump won’t back Nato against his buddy Putin, and he won’t act in time to deter China. There are no adults in the Trumps administration.
standardUser · 49m ago
It's almost impossible to imagine Netanyahu acting so emboldened under any previous US president. And it's hard to deny that Trump now looks extremely diminished on the world stage, between his leading from behind with Israel over both Gaza and Iran and his comprehensive failure to have any impact on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
ImJamal · 2m ago
Israel (not under Netanyahu) stole nuclear secrets from the US and killed a bunch of sailors, damaging a Navy ship in the process.
They have always been emboldened.
I-M-S · 16m ago
> It's almost impossible to imagine Netanyahu acting so emboldened under any previous US president
Gaza happened under Biden's watch, and continued under Trump.
protocolture · 10m ago
Yeah but Netanyahu tried the same shit regarding Iran with the last few presidents, including the previous incarnation of Trump who had better advisers.
This is the first time the lie has worked to this extent.
anon84873628 · 21m ago
If Trump is unstable then how can you predict his actions? How is this an example of not acting in time / for deterrence, when it was in fact a preemptive strike? (And he did the whole "2 weeks" ruse).
827a · 39m ago
How do you, logically, draw the line from "cavalier use of deadly force" to "our enemies are going to take bolder action against US allies"? That leap of logic doesn't make sense; its a leap of pseudologic someone speaking from fear would make.
If anything, a better standpoint is: Illogical and cavalier use of deadly force should scare our enemies, because it makes expression of our nation's military power more unpredictable. If China invades Taiwan; Trump might just blow up the Three Gorges Dam. Other Presidents might move with care, logic, and intrinsic sanctity for human life; Trump doesn't.
greenavocado · 1h ago
Fascinating how this happened merely weeks after Iran-China railway link opened (Reported on May 25, 2025. Link below.). It directly threatens US hegemony by providing a faster and more secure land corridor for trade, particularly Iranian oil and gas exports to China and Chinese goods flowing into Iran and the broader Middle East. This bypasses critical maritime chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca, where the US Navy traditionally exerts significant control, reducing reliance on these US-dominated sea routes. Furthermore, the railway facilitates sanctioned Iranian oil exports to China and enables increased Chinese investment in Iran, undermining the effectiveness of US economic sanctions as a primary tool of foreign policy. It accelerates Eurasian integration under China's Belt and Road Initiative, deepening economic and strategic ties across the continent and fostering the development of a US-independent economic bloc linking China, Iran, Turkey, Central Asia, and Russia. The railway physically connects two major US adversaries, China and Iran, enabling easier movement of goods, resources, and potentially military or logistical support, thereby strengthening an anti-Western coalition challenging US global dominance. In essence, the railway erodes US control over trade routes, weakens sanctions, empowers a rival Eurasian bloc centered on China, and solidifies an opposing strategic axis.
doubt it's really game-changing. Rail is more expensive and the three other countries in the middle can be strong-armed and harassed into stalling or cutting this off.
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 · 32m ago
Depends, cutting off strait of hormuz could easily change that calculus a bit. Things can get unpredictable from here on now.
vaughands · 2h ago
Seriously, what is the benefit to the US here? I can't understand how this benefits the country at all.
kumarvvr · 54m ago
If Iran has nukes, then a nuke race will start in the middle East, especially with Saudis, who will want their own nukes.
Iran getting nukes is the spark that will start a lot of chain reactions.
And islamic populations are radicalized enough that the possibility of a nuke on Israel increases dramatically.
selcuka · 6m ago
> If Iran has nukes, then a nuke race will start in the middle East
A fair concern, but it is interesting that although "estimates of Israel's stockpile range between 90 and 400 nuclear warheads" [1], we are not concerned about those warheads as much as we do about the ones Iran might have. Should US bomb Israeli nuclear plants? No. Should they have bombed the Iranian ones? Why?
Most of Islamic republics are fiefdoms, kingdoms and dictatorships. Most of the populations are radicalized, and have very limited freedom of speech and right to protest.
Ar-Curunir · 3m ago
[delayed]
danenania · 44m ago
I think this attack makes it more likely they’ll get nukes, not less. They moved all their enriched uranium already, and now they know that there’s no longer any point in diplomacy.
The next facilities they build will be a few times deeper, and I have no doubt we’ll soon be hearing that ground troops are the only way to stop them.
dlubarov · 27m ago
They had already crossed the line into nuclear tech that's specifically for weapons, i.e. with a 400kg stockpile of uranium enriched to 60%. Unless we accept explanations like "scientific curiosity", they were already somewhere in the process of building nuclear weapons, even if success wasn't immanent.
I don't know how long these operations will set them back, but if the Iranian regime won't willingly refrain from nuclear weapons work, isn't a delay better than nothing?
danenania · 9m ago
They “could have” had nuclear weapons for a long time if they’d wanted to, yes, but they didn’t get them. They signed the NPT, allowed inspections, and their ruler issued a fatwa against developing nuclear weapons. Why’d they do all that if their goal all along was to get a nuclear weapon? They could have just done it.
These attacks make it clear that they would have been better off if they had gotten them, so it seems reasonable to assume this will be their new policy. What other strategic choice have they been left with?
mupuff1234 · 38m ago
Those can be bombed right at the beginning. Israel will probably try to establish a similar status que as in Lebanon right now - "if you make a move we immediately take it out".
And the development of a nuclear sites leaves a significant intelligence trail, not sure it can be hidden.
(Of course they can always be gifted a bomb, but that's a very different story)
danenania · 31m ago
Yeah I’m sure it will be a huge success with no unforeseen consequences whatsoever. Since that’s how these things have been going over the last thirty years.
proc0 · 1h ago
The US is the leader of the liberal empire which depends on the middle east allowing trade. Iran is standing in the way of this and wants to push back the empire's control away from the middle east... but they have their own plans to establish another empire of their own.
I know "empire" is maybe an outdated term but I'm just illustrating there are bigger incentives than at the national level. Ironically it is conservative nationalists (who are hated by the Left) that want the empire to shrink and for the US to pull back from this leadership position. The risk here is it could also destabilize the entire world, but that's a different matter.
In short, this move is an attempt to strengthen the status quo that began after WW2.If the status quo is maintained it directly benefits the US.
Workaccount2 · 56m ago
People who were born into, grew up in, and live the current western bubble take it for granted and genuinely believe it is something natural rather than carefully built and expensively maintained - for extraordinary benefit.
komali2 · 48m ago
> for extraordinary benefit.
I'm seeing a lot of death and the payoff is... Cheap gas prices? I can't imagine what. But the replies to this laying out all the benefits of blood soaked American hegemony I'm sure will be great for a laugh.
MegaButts · 41m ago
The petrodollar, which largely depends on the US having significant influence over global oil supply, is arguably the main reason why the USD is the global reserve currency and an enormous reason why the US is as wealthy as it is.
macintux · 1m ago
[delayed]
guelo · 42m ago
This is the opposite of how I see it. This move is a complete repudiation of the post-ww2 order that emphasized the system of international laws and treaties developed by the UN. For the US to blindly follow Israel into a war with a sovereign country without even taking it to the UN or Congress is preposterous and signals the end of the post-ww2 and American domestic order. Both the UN Charter and the US Constitution are trashed and we won't recover from it in our life times. There's a reason Bush W sent Colin Powell to the UN, we still paid lip service to the rule of law 20 years ago. We don't even pretend anymore. We are trashing our laws and institution all at the behest of some a tiny racist religious extremist country.
lunar-whitey · 20m ago
I don’t envy the position of American diplomats the next time they are asked to negotiate an off-ramp from hostilities while military options are simultaneously being considered. Intentional or not, the diplomatic posture leading up to this point reads like diversion.
hiddencost · 9m ago
Nonsense. The history of the US is one of regime change wars and genocide.
jandrewrogers · 1h ago
Keeping the Arab world from building their own nuclear weapons has long been contingent on Iran not having a nuclear weapons program. It only benefits the US to the extent it prevents the situation where half the countries in the Middle East having nuclear weapons.
Eisenstein · 43m ago
Iranians are not Arabs and in fact get along rather terribly with Arab countries.
Schnitz · 14m ago
The world is better off if a theocracy whose leadership believes in jihad doesn’t have nukes.
arandomusername · 2h ago
It doesn't. It's all because Israel has extreme influence over US politicians.
Jtsummers · 2h ago
It benefits the MIC, this is unlikely to be the end of this conflict.
twelve40 · 43m ago
the dude needs a PR win of some kind. I guess he gave up on the Nobel prize and decided to try something else. Aside from that, could really be a chance to end the nukes there and try to topple the regime, who knows what's going to happen, but time-wise now is the best opportunity.
andsoitis · 1h ago
Iran is the foremost sponsor of terrorism. They cannot be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. No country that doesn't have a nuclear weapons program enriches uranium to 60%. Iran must be forced to come to a diplomatic negotiation.
shihab · 1h ago
I understand Iran is a headache to Israel, but did it have to be an enemy of USA? Isn't Iran's ambition, and its proxies, are all regional in nature? Have they ever attempted to harm an american living in America?
Israel has led an amazingly succesful campaign in presenting their problems (often arising out of their territorial ambitions) as a problem for the entire west.
Workaccount2 · 54m ago
Letting a death cult of religious zealots have nukes is an awful idea for the entire world.
wudangmonk · 35m ago
I agree which is why we need to get all these evangelical nuts actively trying to destroy the world so that Jesus come back out of power. No more death cults!.
Ar-Curunir · 40s ago
[delayed]
ndiddy · 9m ago
Agreed, I also support the denuclearization of Israel.
Khamenei is largely popular, even though the youth of Iran largely doesn't support the regime at a whole.
The root problem is the military is controlled by various factions of lunatics that want to see the end of Israel. It's these people ought to be mercilessly killed and I have no qualms once so ever advocating for brutal violence and (preferably) murder against them.
andsoitis · 1h ago
The US has many economic and strategic interests in the Middle East.
Buttons840 · 46m ago
> Iran is the foremost sponsor of terrorism.
How much does Iran spend sponsoring terrorism?
hiddencost · 3m ago
I dunno, given how much the US has given to Israel it seems like the US might be the largest sponsor of terror.
standardUser · 53m ago
Iran was willing to "come to a diplomatic negotiation" before Israel pre-emptively and unilaterally attacked. In fact, Iran and the US had found a diplomatic solution before Trump tore it up and promised to get a better deal (and then repeatedly failed to do so).
fatbird · 45m ago
Iran did come to a diplomatic solution: the JCPOA [0]. Unfortunately, it was Obama who did it, so Trump tore it up in his first term. Why would Iran believe that any diplomatic outcome is meaningful?
Oil for starters. Iran is the principle destabilising element in the middle east. By proxy they are participating in every conflict.
A nuclear iran would be completely intolerable, never mind that their regime might just be lunatic enough to use them.
Add that war is bad for the whole world.
So the us benefits that it protects her economic (and strategic) interests in the ME, which are real and extremely important, at the low cost of a limited air campaign.
There are further moral arguments, but i'm answering your question in the most direct way.
shihab · 1h ago
> Iran is the principle destabilising element in the middle east
Says Israel, the nation who tore up every single international laws, directly led campaign against UN and ICC, and whose right-wing (ones in power now) have been dreaming about a Greater Israel that threatens territorial integrity of like 10 different ME countries.
34679 · 1h ago
>Oil
If we want their oil, we can buy it like reasonable people do. What you're referring to is armed robbery.
>Iran is the principle destabilising element in the middle east
Is this a joke? The country that has not started any wars in its 300 year existence is not the "destabilizing element". That would be the country that has attacked Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran this year alone.
amluto · 23m ago
This is a strange comparison. Iran funds the Houthis, for example, who commit plenty of acts of war. And if you’re talking about starting wars, it’s worth noting that the present war in Gaza was started by Hamas. (I’m making no statement about whether the actions of either side or justified — I’m just pointing out that, in the present shooting war, the first shots were fired by Hamas, not Israel.)
FridayoLeary · 1h ago
You misunderstood me. I was talking about oil from the other gulf states. About 25 percent of the global oil supply goes through the straight of Hormuz. If iran were to disrupt that it would be disastrous for obvious reasons.
It's logical for the West to work to prevent that from being a possibility.
Iran/persia is far older then 300 years old. But again you somehow missed the point. I was talking about the current 40 year old regime, which while not having directly started any wars, have since the beginning declared their intentions to do so against America and Israel.
Really you are being deliberately obtuse.
komali2 · 45m ago
It's seeming more and more like Israel, which propped up Hamas for example, is the principal destabilizing element in the region, and therefore really it's America, which spearheaded the original overthrow of Iranian democracy, alongside all its other middle eastern meddling for the last fifty years.
scythe · 37m ago
If this was about the benefit to the United States, then we would have had months of public buildup and debate like we did with the war in Iraq. It is hardly an example of a good decision, but history shows that it was at least a popular one; the majority of poll respondents and of legislators were both in favor of the initial invasion of Iraq. I was only eleven at the time, but I remember most moderate Democrats and independents who I knew (including, particularly, my seventh-grade history teacher, who was no fan of Bush) were in favor of the war.
Contrast that to the situation today, when polls show Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to involvement [1] and even some prominent Republican legislators (Gaetz, IIRC) were against the war. This is the Trump show: it's motivated by his ego and hopium. He's more erratic than ever. Historically, American presidents almost never started a major war without popular support (Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq were all popular when they started, and I think Libya and Kosovo were too). I can't even think of a case where the country was dragged into a war that was opposed 60% to 16% in favor. I would be very interested to hear if there ever was one.
We don't need a second North Korea. Nor do we want to normalize every country starting a nuclear program.
Air strikes do not constitute boots on the ground, and the rules based norms around "you break it, you own it" ended with the last flight from Kabul. Most likely, we will conduct bombing raids, but take no part in nation building.
Ironically, South Korea wanted to do this to North Korea in 2003 (edit: 1993-94), but the Bush (edit: Clinton) administration pushed back because they were concentrating on Iraq and Afghanistan (edit: Yugoslavia).
Edit 1:
Nuclear weapons ALONE do not act as a deterrent anymore. Most nuclear countries have second/third strike capabilities and nuclear triad capabilities.
This is something that Iran has been working on for decades with a fairly robust ballistics and cruise missile program, and attempts at building a domestic nuclear submarine program.
More critically, just about every regional power in the Middle East has been investing in similar capabilities in case an Iran breakout happens. Going from 1 additonal country with nuclear weapons to 3-4 leads to a cascading domino effect (a nuclear Iran means a nuclear Saudi means a nuclear Turkiye means a nuclear Egypt...)
Edit 2:
For the downvoters - a country who's leadership explicitly chants "مرگ بر آمریکا" (Death to America) will unsurprisingly be viewed as a threat. Even our large rivals China or Russia do not normalize that kind of rhetoric.
Isn't it great when people take things out of context? In this case the context that wishing death is quite common in Iranian expressions of frustrations?
mupuff1234 · 45m ago
> quite common in Iranian expressions of frustrations
Cultural differences are a nice excuse the first times you say something, not the one billion time.
And I guess burning flags are just a Persian expression of care?
yongjik · 2h ago
> Ironically, South Korea wanted to do this to North Korea in 2003
Where did you get that info? Makes no sense. South Korea has been consistently against starting another war with NK for at least 30 years or so, and besides, in 2003 South Korea was ruled by Kim Dae-Jung, famous for he's staunch support of improving relations with North Korea (he got a Nobel prize for that), and then Roh Moo-Hyun, from the same party and largely following Kim's foreign policy.
Thanks to them we had no wars, and of course now we have some young whippersnappers complaining about their "pro-NK" policies, saying we could have totally bombed NK, starting a war, and burning the peninsula to the ground, but at least North Korea won't have nukes today!
alephnerd · 2h ago
This was during the 2002-03 standoff during which the Yeongpyeong crisis occured.
It was after the Six Party Talks started in Aug 2003 that tensions started cooling down, before North Korea stunned the world in 2006.
Edit: though now that I think about it, I might be confusing this incident with the 1993-94 incident.
goatlover · 2h ago
While I understand not wanting countries like North Korea and Iran having nukes, it does protect them from invasion. We've seen what happened after Ukraine gave up their nukes. Less we forget, the Neocons of the Bush era wanted to remake the entire Middle East, not just Iraq and Afghanistan.
klipt · 34m ago
> nukes ... protect them from invasion
Israel has nukes and Hamas still invaded them.
Perhaps nukes protect you from invasion by rational actors, but I don't think they work on zealots.
alephnerd · 2h ago
Nukes alone do not prevent invasions.
You need to have delivery mechanisms like medium/long range ballistic missiles and second strike capabilities like SLCMs.
cempaka · 2h ago
Iran has been amply demonstrating their missile capabilities on the city of Tel Aviv for the past week.
No comments yet
fzeroracer · 2h ago
The actions of the US and Israel are only proving an unfortunate trend of reality: The only deterrence against invasion from other countries is nuclear deterrence. We had a comprehensive deal with Iran to limit their nuclear program which Trump tore up in 2017 and which Israel is taking advantage of today.
porridgeraisin · 2h ago
It was torn up because they were lying about limiting their nuclear program.
The source is mossad, in case anyone gets fooled by the presence of a citation like me.
fzeroracer · 2h ago
Truly the source which is currently attempting to drag us into a war with Iran (and succeeding) is one to be trusted.
tehjoker · 2h ago
they are trying to cut off chinas oil, settle a score, and defend "greater israel"
they are also punishing iran for selling oil in their national currency
imperialism run amok
thinkcontext · 38m ago
If they wanted to disrupt China's oil wouldn't they have hit the main export terminal on Kharg Island? More generally, you don't think its likely that, regardless of what you think of Israel, their main motivation is they don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon?
tptacek · 2h ago
I think Netanyahu belongs in prison, and Trump, the less said the better, but: couldn't have happened to a nicer unauthorized weapons-grade uranium enrichment facility dug into the side of a mountain hours outside of population centers.
If you haven't already, I highly recommend reading up on the GBU-57 "bunker buster" bomb, because it is some Merrie Melodies Acme brand munitions. It's deliberately as heavy as they can make a bomb, not with explosives but just with mass. They should have shaped it like a giant piano.
sodality2 · 2h ago
Let’s hope whatever intel that says Iran really does have nukes is true, given its propensity as a scapegoat for previous wars. Don’t forget that less than 2 months ago, senior intelligence officials said conclusively Iran was not close to having nuclear weapons.
If they thought Iran had nukes they wouldn’t be attacking them. Nobody thinks Iran had a nuclear weapon, or that they are even trying that hard to get one.
trebligdivad · 2h ago
I don't understand this argument; why would you have a large, acknowledged, underground nuclear purification unit if it wasn't for bombs?
Why wouldn't you cooperate with their regular IAEA inspection if it wasn't for bombs?
friendlyasparag · 2h ago
They might be making the bombs, but once they are made (and the delivery mechanism exists), then they wouldn’t be attacked for fear of nuclear retaliation.
The past two-ish decades has made it clear that nuclear weapons are the only defense against an aggressive power arbitrarily invading.
ra0x3 · 1h ago
This was my thinking as well. Iran sending a nuke at anyone effectively is the end of Iran (and many of its people). Something something…mutually assured destruction (e.g., North Korea has nukes, makes threats, doesn’t use them)
card_zero · 1h ago
So the reason to make an exception to the Non-Proliferation Treaty just for the giant tyrannical fundamentalist state is, what, because otherwise they might get insecure and anxious?
OK, they never signed up to it, but still.
amanaplanacanal · 5m ago
We made an exception for Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea.
Workaccount2 · 1h ago
The problem is that these people are religiously unhinged. They are executing Gods will with God on their side.
unyttigfjelltol · 1h ago
Add to that, its "deterrence" arsenal of intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) are credible militarily only as nuclear delivery systems. For example, the "Khaybar Breaker" rocket (English meaning), referring to a destruction of an historic Jewish stronghold, leaving little to imagination, when equiped with conventional warheads are simply an expensive way to ruin hospital wings. But, when you merge heavy rockets with diligent production of precursors of nuclear weapons, not only is that work toward military use of a nuclear weapon-- it creates a powerful inertia toward actually completing that work, from two directions, lest your very expensive work prove pointless. The current war is vividly demonstrating that IRBM's are not deterrent unless (a) impossibly numerous or (b) unconventionally armed. A threshold IRBM threat makes it more, not less, likely to provoke a first strike against it, as has occurred.
tguvot · 28m ago
for people who don't follow news. last year Iran strikes on Israel with IRBM (two times, 150 missiles each time) weren't particularly effective (either intercepted or falling in empty fields). On the other side Israel attempt on taking our Iranian AD was success.
It led Iran to make 2 decisions
- Accelerate production of IRBM in order to have 10000 in stock and to build 1000 launchers in order to execute massive launches that will not possible to defend against
- Apparently the did decide to mate their IRBM with nukes as recently there was meeting between whoever managed iranian missiles problem and heads of nuclear project (there is economist article about it).
This comes against backdrop of hamas and hezbollah been wiped. especially hezbollah which was supposed to be strike force against israel with estimated 100k-200k missiles and rockets.
1659447091 · 1h ago
Another source, from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence[0]
On that page you can download an unclassified 2025 Annual Threat Assessment [pdf] where on page 26 it states:
>> We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so. In the past year, there has been an erosion of a decades-long taboo on discussing nuclear weapons in public that has emboldened nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decisionmaking apparatus. Khamenei remains the final decisionmaker over Iran’s nuclear program, to include any decision to develop nuclear weapons.
I also think there is more reading in there that may interest people here.
The photos of the facilities are literally all over the internet. The IAEA knew about it and knew Iran was enriching weapons grade uranium. This isn't Iraq 2.
sodality2 · 2h ago
Flies in the face of the US intelligence community’s report at the end of March [0], but, I am not floored if true. Do you have any sources?
Edit: If you mean "Verification and monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran in light of United Nations Security Council resolution 2231 (2015)" [1], that report explicitly mentions up to 60% which is not weapons grade.
60% may not be weapons grade, but it takes only days or weeks to go from 60% to 90%. It is much easier than going from natural uranium to 60%.
827a · 1h ago
But maybe a little harshly: Who cares? Does it somehow raise the moral foundation of the operation if they had nukes? Would the attack suddenly be unethical if it was only against a military target with the public, accepted purpose to, one day, be able to develop precursors to nuclear weapons? Why?
frontfor · 1h ago
60% enrichment level is significantly higher than what’s required for peaceful purposes. To say that it’s not weapons grade is just disingenuous.
sorcerer-mar · 1h ago
Except that it is literally not weapons grade.
It turns out there's a big gap between most peaceful purposes and weapons grade, and this was in that gap.
twothreeone · 7m ago
Wikipedia points to a source that says it is used for parts of a multi-stage fusion bomb:
> Uranium with enrichments ranging from 40% to 80% U-235 has been used in large amounts in U.S. thermonuclear weapons as a yield-boosting jacketing material for the secondary fusion stage
When the only purpose of stepping into that gap is to get to weapons grade, it doesn't really work as a gray area.
sorcerer-mar · 1h ago
Yes, it does actually. It's called "not weapons grade."
Do words mean nothing to you?
ohazi · 5m ago
Fuel grade is like 3%. It's exponentially harder to go from 3%-60% (months-years) than 60%-90%(days-weeks). So no, the only reason to enrich that high is to keep your breakout time threateningly short.
Retric · 9m ago
The only reason to make 60% is to make a weapon, and it’s actually useful in a weapon.
Saying it’s not weapons grade only means you haven’t finished or intend to use something else for the initial stage.
That's like saying driving from NYC to Sacramento is just a "Stepping Stone" to driving to SF. You've done most of the drive.
To get 1kg of U-235 requires 1.11kg at 90% purity, 1.67kg at 60% purity, and 140.6kg at natural 0.711% purity.
busterarm · 1h ago
You only get to 60% on the road to 90%. At 60% it has no other useful purpose.
tmnvix · 1h ago
Are there other uses for highly enriched uranium? Wikipedia mentions 'research' I think.
Has the Iranian government ever explained why they are enriching uranium?
nradov · 2h ago
No one in the US government was claiming that Iran had nuclear weapons. The stated reason is that they were close to having nuclear weapons based on the current rate of uranium enrichment, anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. Of course we may never know whether that's really true.
1659447091 · 6m ago
> The stated reason is that they were close to having nuclear weapons
No the US was claiming: "We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so." in it's 2025 Threat Assessment. The reports believes they were not working on them and Khamenei has the final authority to restart the program which he had not done. However, they believe there was growing pressured to do so.
Trump just gave the guy reason to green light a weapons project he had so far not wanted.
"Not close" doesn't mean they're not working on it. I think it's reasonable to expect that unspoken bit is "... but their current avenue of work is going to eventually succeed".
I'm tired of the US playing puppetmaster (poorly) around the world, getting involved in conflicts that have nothing to do with us (or rather, creating conflicts when it has to do with access to oil or something). And it's not like we haven't messed up Iran enough already.
But I do not want a nuclear-armed Iran to be a thing. If they were working on it and had a solid program that was likely to bear fruit, I hate to say it, but this was probably the right move. But this is a big "if"; I don't trust this administration to tell the truth about any of this, no more than I trusted Bush Jr when he said Iraq had nukes.
TeeMassive · 1h ago
The predicate that Iran has them but would show restraint is the same that same that they don't have them but will show restraint and not use desperate measures like blowing up the entire Middle Eastern oil production and distribution network and ports and not use dirty bombs.
Which shows how much of BS the pro-war argument was to begin with.
yongjik · 2h ago
> dug into the side of a mountain hours outside of population centers
Did you have to add that qualifier because otherwise there's at least one other nuclear power in Middle East that regularly bombs civilians.
arandomusername · 2h ago
What does "unauthorized" mean here? Who needs to authorize weapons-grade uranium enrichment?
The GBU-57 is dope. Really curious to see how well it worked here
nradov · 2h ago
Unauthorized in the sense of a violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a signatory. Whether Iran is actually violating the treaty is a matter of some dispute.
It's literally an anvil they drop out of the sky hoping to punch through structures like an aerial drilling platform. I guess it's dope, but it seems like cartoon armament to me.
trhway · 1h ago
> I guess it's dope, but it seems like cartoon armament to me.
"According to an anecdote, the idea arose after a group of Royal Navy officers saw a similar, but fictional, bomb depicted in the 1943 Walt Disney animated propaganda film Victory Through Air Power,[Note 10] and the name Disney was consequently given to the weapon."
cwmoore · 1h ago
Curious too. I can’t even imagine driving a 16ton nail through hundreds of feet of hard rock and reinforced concrete.
hearsathought · 20m ago
> I think Netanyahu belongs in prison
Didn't Netanyahu perjure himself to congress about iraq's wmds two decades? Isn't that grounds for arrest? It's amazing how our media never mentions that netanyahu is a habitual liar when they push netanyahu's iran's wmds spiel.
At this point our media companies are israel's PR department. Fox news should be banned like RT for being a foreign mouthpiece.
sjsdaiuasgdia · 2h ago
It's a shame we got rid of the deal that brought their domestic uranium production to a halt [0]. Trump fucked this all up so badly.
The relief of sanctions enabled Iran to fund their other activities in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. It also enable the regime to invest in other weapons programs including weapons Iran has been supplying to Russia and those it and its proxies are launching against Israel.
I'm not sure Trump withdrawal from that deal was the best idea but the deal wasn't great either.
sorcerer-mar · 1h ago
The deal did address – quite precisely and successfully – the core issue. It didn't address some other side issues.
"The thing that prevented them from achieving a nuclear weapon didn't also prevent them from funding x y z other far less problematic things that can be far more easily handled through conventional diplomacy and military action"
Seriously?
bbqfog · 1h ago
If Israel, which is a rogue state committing genocide, can have nukes, then Iran should definitely have them. Someone needs to keep them in check.
duxup · 55m ago
Is there an end to this?
The US actually ends Iran's nuclear program, they quit trying and obey ... because we bombed them?
Most of the recent middle east history doesn't seem to ever end as much as just go through a continuous cycle of violence creating more of what the folks condoning violence claim they're preventing.
cryptozeus · 16m ago
Iraq completely shut down post war so yeh its possible
baobun · 8m ago
It's a completely different story. The roots and branches of Iran and its current leadership go deeper and wider on a different level. Saddam had nothing in comparison. Hamas would be a cakewalk in comparison and that's apparently still going.
This won't be over in just a couple of years.
jordanb · 44m ago
Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons program. That was the assessment of Trump's own government back in March, according to testimony of his national security advisor under oath before congress.
We knew about these sites because they have been under IAEA supervision for many years.
The smart thing for Iran to do at this point is do what Israel did: not submit to any arms control and develop their own weapons in secret. Clearly this is the only way to be safe when people in Tel Aviv and Washington are openly discussing the "Libya solution."
twelve40 · 49m ago
fwiw they do seem to have wiped out a bunch of opponents recently, some weakened to the point of giving up, others wiped out entirely. ever since the so-called "arab spring" the trend has been pretty steady.
reaperducer · 49m ago
Just yesterday I was wondering when the last time was that the Middle East had a period of peace. I know it hasn't been in my lifetime.
greenavocado · 47m ago
It was getting pretty quiet leading up to the moment Assad was deposed.
jordanb · 41m ago
Not since the Ottomans picked the wrong side in WWI.
vdupras · 23m ago
One question I have on my mind is: what side will they pick in WWIII?
greenavocado · 48m ago
Considering the fact that many US congressmen openly fly the flag of Israel in and around their congressional offices and openly proclaim absolute commitment to this foreign entity, there is no end in sight to the direct interference in US politics and subsequent military intervention and aid supporting these people while our country is sucked dry and our soldiers are ordered to die fighting in their wars.
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denkmoon · 1h ago
The irony being that Iran must get nukes now. It is readily apparent they cannot defend themselves conventionally. Nukes are the ultimate deterrence. This wouldn’t be happening if they had a credible, survivable nuclear deterrence. QED this forces Iran to acquire nukes.
paxys · 1h ago
Ukraine and Iran have showed that if a country doesn't have nukes they don't have sovereignty.
lesuorac · 47m ago
I think Pakistan is the example you're looking for.
US spend a decade fighting in Afghanistan and 0 years in Pakistan despite UBL being in Pakistan.
ExaltedPunt · 16m ago
Osama Bin Laden could have turned up outside the White house to hand himself in and they still would have gone into Afghanistan and Iraq.
9/11 was used as an excuse to for these regime change wars. There are old videos where they were talking about doing this in the 2000s.
ericmay · 1h ago
Well, it’s not really that simple. Plenty of countries are still sovereign without nuclear weapons.
And even nuclear armed nations aren’t exactly able to use their weapons to devastate an opponents military - see Ukraine and Russia.
dkjaudyeqooe · 1h ago
Thats because they have friends with nukes (or thought they did).
paxys · 1h ago
Which country? Do you think Canada is sovereign? Do you think it will be able to defend itself if Trump gives the military an order to make them the 51st state by any means necessary?
ericmay · 1h ago
Well, Afghanistan defended itself for a bit. As did Vietnam, as clear examples. Neither possess nuclear weapons.
Today countries as various as Brazil and Australia are independent, sovereign nations. Even Ukraine which was invaded by nuclear-armed Russia is still sovereign and fighting. Iran for that matter still has its sovereignty, they just lost some military assets.
nemothekid · 1h ago
Canada is sovereign because of its proximity and interconnection with US. If your economy is large enough, you can "nuke" your opponents by using mutually assured poverty.
But I largely agree, if you aren't a giant economy and you don't have nukes - then if the US or Russia accesses you of building nukes, you need to start building nukes ASAP.
jordanb · 26m ago
> Do you think Canada is sovereign
Well the prime minister who was elected promising not to bend the knee to Trump has bent the knee to trump.
Ok and so now Canada isn’t a sovereign country? That would be astonishing news to Canadians everywhere! Can someone tell them??!
ekianjo · 1h ago
Taiwan has no nukes, and still has not been invaded by China.
pixelpoet · 4m ago
I don't expect this to stay true for very long :(
have-a-break · 1h ago
Next would be manufacturing your own smartphones. Sad that not making weapons and enslaving your own populace makes you subject to external countries.
busterarm · 1h ago
That is until some country proves that developing nukes means you no longer have a country.
It looks like it might even be Iran.
arandomusername · 1h ago
Iran will definitely continue pursuing uranium enrichment. IRIB claims that the enriched uranium stockpile was moved away from those locations - which makes sense, so they probably didn't lose their stockpile. They will build new enrichment sites, which means bombing again.
tmnvix · 1h ago
I think it's too early to say that the Fordow facility has definitely been destroyed. So far I've only heard Trump make the claim and I'm not inclined to take his word for it.
arandomusername · 1h ago
True, Trump's words are worthless. I'm hearing that the Iranian state media is claiming no irreversible damage at Fordow / only entry points were targeted - but ofcourse that doesn't carry much weight either.
tmnvix · 1h ago
FWIW one take on all of this that I have considered is that Israel and the US have been looking for an out that allows them to claim to have successfully achieved their objectives. I wouldn't be surprised if this attack was unsuccessful but won't be followed up if that becomes apparent later.
Israel only just (before this US bombing) claimed they had set Iran's nuclear program back by 2-3 years. I found the timing of the announcement curious.
This after suffering extensive damage from direct missile strikes (Haifa port/refinery, Mossad headquarters, Wiezmann institute, C4I/cyber defense, etc). I think the missile strikes have been much more damaging than expected and understandably under-reported. Weapons expert Ted Postol of MIT claims Israel's missile defense is only intercepting around 5%.
I think Israel will be very unhappy if things continue to escalate without further US involvement. Depending on how Iran retaliates against the US, further involvement might not be forthcoming. We've seen seen Iran attack a US base in Jordan without causing escalation from the US. Could expect something similar.
cbsks · 28m ago
> Weapons expert Ted Postol of MIT claims Israel's missile defense is only intercepting around 5%
Do you have a link to this? I’m curious to read more.
weizman - bombed wing that contains cancer and rare deceases research labs. amazing
C4I/cyber defense. missed. hit soroka hospital.
deepsquirrelnet · 1h ago
The other irony being it starting out with claiming a country has WMDs on questionable evidence.
I hope the US can use hindsight right now to guide the next decisions.
kurtis_reed · 25m ago
Israel would say if Iran just stops attacking and threatening Israel then they wouldn't need to defend themselves.
Glyptodon · 1h ago
I've wondered how much of a deterrent dirty bombs are or aren't outside of nukes and curious if they might be in the cards for retaliatory moves by Iran.
klipt · 25m ago
My understanding is those don't accomplish much militarily since they just give people cancer 30 years later. So you commit a war crime for no military advantage, then what? The other country just hits back with a dirty bomb of their own?
smashah · 1h ago
Precisely, Trump could only do this terrorist attack because he knows for certain that Iran does not have nukes. Nukes are an abomination to the Islamic Rules of War - which is why there is/was a long standing fatwa against it.
selimthegrim · 1h ago
I guess this fatwa doesn’t apply to Pak Army?
abletonlive · 1h ago
You don't seem to understand that the government of Iran isn't going to exist in about 2 weeks. This was their only leverage in negotiation. Trump is about to make a speech in 30 minutes. It's over for them. The US does not just send B2 bombers without knowing it's going to work. Israeli intelligence and bombing for the past week was setting up for this final act.
siltcakes · 1h ago
They can continue to bomb Israel at will. These minimal attacks will not stop that and there will be no regime change.
abletonlive · 1h ago
lol remind me in 2 weeks
catlifeonmars · 16m ago
What makes you think a ground invasion is likely?
runako · 1h ago
> The US does not just send B2 bombers without knowing it's going to work.
I'm old enough to remember when we (the US) ran this exact playbook, except the last letter was 'q' instead of 'n'.
Spoiler: the B-2 played a part in both of the big wars we lost in the last couple of decades. The problem hinges on the definition of "work": yes, the bombs hit what they are aimed at. No, that does not result in operational success without a coherent theory of victory.
abletonlive · 1h ago
I'm old enough to remember that Iraq had its entire government toppled in about 3 weeks after the US invasion so this is not the example you think it is lol. You conveniently redefined what we are talking about. You must not remember saddam getting dragged through the streets.
runako · 53m ago
I do remember all of that.
What happened next? Did it go to plan? Nearly to plan? Close enough to plan that one could kind of squint and give partial credit? Worse than that?
Did the US lose more lives in Iraq (and kill more Iraqis) before or after "Mission Accomplished"?
abletonlive · 37m ago
you don't have to squint to see reality.
saddam is gone and there was a regime change.
that's it. that's what we were talking about.
no need to go into other areas of the conversation that didn't exist before you came along to insert some reason why you feel justified defending a regime that oppresses women through a "morality police" force. i don't care why you think they should be allowed to have nukes. i'm sure you can argue for it all day. you don't need to get philosophical about what is "winning" or "working".
if you can't agree on objective reality and what we are discussing, we have nothing to discuss. move on
runako · 28m ago
Yes, the regime changed. Objectively, that is true. We agree on that. And then...
the US lost nearly 5,000 service members in Iraq. We are still paying for the $3 trillion the war cost. Americans derived no benefit whatsoever from the change of regime in Iraq, a country that had not attacked us.
As an American who lives in a US city not currently under attack by Iran, it is reasonable to ask why we should sign up for this again. This has absolutely zero with defending Iran. How they manage their domestic affairs has no bearing on me.
If there is a case to be made that we should curtail our urgent domestic policy goals in favor of another war thousands of miles from the US, it has not been made.
My concern is this: I have no dog in this fight, but now I am going to be asked to pay for it. And it working like it "worked" in Iraq is my primary concern on that front.
Isolating the first 3 weeks or so from an 8-year war to say that it "worked" is obviously a special kind of sophistry. I'm not sure what purpose is served by such an analysis, honestly.
fatbird · 36m ago
I remember that being caused by a massive US ground invasion, not by sustained bombing. Has the US spent the last six months building up ground forces on Iran's borders?
Freedom2 · 2h ago
A popular HackerNews viewpoint was that Trump was against military conflict, let alone war. It's interesting how another viewpoint held by this site is yet again, wrong.
barbazoo · 12m ago
Unlikely for a forum have a single opinion.
lunarboy · 1h ago
Always amazes me how right leaning this site's populace seems to be
whateveracct · 1h ago
contrarian-leaning
sorcerer-mar · 1h ago
Right-leaning is giving them too much credit. It's just self-leaning and, like many other political groups, Trump just said the transparently false stuff that he needed to in order to appeal to them.
The dumbest and/or most self-interested of many demographics, it turns out, were happy to be tricked!
alephnerd · 2h ago
Asking HN for political analysis is like asking Politico for an in depth analysis on ML capabilities.
There are a handful of users on HN who have domain experience or knowledge in policymaking due to professional adjacencies (IP Law, High Finance, Space/Defense Tech VC, etc) but get drowned out.
Freedom2 · 2h ago
I agree completely. Try to mention that on this site though and you get replies such as "we're not the same as other social media sites!", or some variant of the community here being the smartest in the room.
At tech? Maybe. At everything else? Not so much.
kif · 1h ago
I think it’s fair to say you need another kind of domain experience to explain Trump.
tehjoker · 2h ago
the kind of domain expertise you describe results in a different kind of imperialist psychosis. you should look to analysis coming from communists, Brazil, China, Iran, Palestine, Yemen, etc. These groups have a much more clear-eyed view of US policy.
hagbard_c · 2h ago
He did order the commander of the IRGC to be taken out during his last term while simultaneously pushing the Abraham accords with several Sunni nations. The "peace through strength" concept is only believable when it is clear that strength will be used - call it Chekhov's gun of international relations.
sadaaqat · 1h ago
As putins water bearer Trump will likely sign a meaningless peace agreement
Waterluvian · 1h ago
When I look at Russia invading Ukraine, and I see how Israel is behaving, and I listen to the American president talking about annexing my country, I can see why a country might believe it needs nuclear weapons.
Whether this is good or bad is something people can discuss. But I think it’s fleetingly difficult for me to see any sort of righteous high ground these days.
bagels · 1h ago
With Trump in office, everybody should be seeking them out, Canada included.
Waterluvian · 1h ago
I'm not sure what wise national defense policy would be. But I can't argue with anyone who might reach that conclusion.
ivape · 1h ago
I mean if Russia can just walk into Ukraine, why can't Israel terrorize Iran from the sky. Why can't China just waltz into Taiwan?
The thing about Trump's isolationism is that it's actually a passive aggressive position. Imagine you know which kids in your classroom are likely to fight and you take a policy of "I won't stop it if it happens", that's basically telling some of the kids "go ahead", so how is this isolationist?
Now, literally joining in on the fight when the kids pop off, that is uniquely Trumpian.
komali2 · 32m ago
In the case of Taiwan, because there's not really a path to victory from straight up invasion that accomplishes anything really meaningful, unless Xi is down for his legacy to be 5 million deaths and the sudden burden of tens of millions of infrastructureless refugees that are apparently full throated PRC citizens now.
The PRC's only realistic hope is a soft power takeover which it seems mildly competent at progressing on. About to have a serious setback with the KMT recalls though.
dj_gitmo · 2h ago
It’s horrible that the president can start a war without even asking congress.
nicomeemes · 1h ago
"Accountability is the essence of democracy. If people do not know what their government is doing, they cannot be truly self-governing. The national security state assumes the government secrets are too important to be shared, that only those in the know can see classified information, that only the president has all the facts, that we must simply trust that our rulers of acting in our interest." ~ Garry Wills
Horrible, and illegal, but Congress has repeatedly refused to do their constitutional duty.
cvoss · 1h ago
It's, unfortunately, not illegal unless the military action continues for more than 60 days without Congressional approval. This is due to the War Powers Resolution of 1973.
sssilver · 2h ago
My impression was that this wasn’t how the US worked?
sjsdaiuasgdia · 2h ago
The last formal declaration of war by the US was during World War 2.
We got very good at gray area nonsense. The Korean War is not a war, it's a conflict. The Vietnam War is not a war, it's an engagement. We have police actions, "peacekeeping" operations, and a hundred other things...but not "wars".
We have the "global war on terror" and the accompanying Authorization for the Use of Military Force, created in the wake of 9/11 and still in effect today.
Congressional approval of military action is fundamentally dead.
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PopePompus · 2h ago
Congress has been happily shedding its powers for decades. They don't want to be held responsible if a war turns out badly, so they haven't declared a war since 1945, I believe.
The last US declaration of war was in 1942, against Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania (allies of Nazi Germany).
epgui · 2h ago
You’re right; it’s how the US malfunctions.
handfuloflight · 2h ago
Congress does not have a spine.
colechristensen · 2h ago
It wasn't supposed to be how it worked but our legislature is basically dysfunctional and either vaguely gave away or just won't protect its own power.
gxs · 2h ago
This administration has been great at finding bugs in the code where the devs refuse to do shit
That said this particular bug for starting wars without congress has been exploited for decades with no patches in site
Freedom2 · 2h ago
Generally no, but if you gaslight yourself into thinking you're the greatest democracy in the world with no equal and you need no patches or bugfixes, you can achieve a lot without any real checks or balances.
ekianjo · 1h ago
It's been like that for more than 20 years.
readthenotes1 · 2h ago
That requirement has been honored rarely or skimpingly at best.
dmschulman · 1h ago
name one instance where congress wasn't involved in decisions around war powers.
ekianjo · 57m ago
when were they involved in the past 30 years?
dmschulman · 54m ago
not once, but twice with iraq in 1990 and 2003 (just to name one). but you still haven't fielded my question.
archsurface · 2h ago
He didn't. The war was already started, he lent brief assistance.
> The War Powers Resolution requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30-day withdrawal period, without congressional authorization for use of military force (AUMF) or a declaration of war by the United States.
So it seems he's allowed to do this? It's still within 48 hours, so he has time to officially "notify" Congress, if he hasn't done so already. And since this was an aerial bombing, no armed forces remain there, so the 60-day bit is irrelevant.
stevenwoo · 1h ago
He notified the opposition leadership prior to the announcement on his social media website so he actually complied with that part.
SkyeCA · 2h ago
As is tradition: Israel says jump, the US responds "How high?"
benreesman · 1h ago
Not the situation as it stands. If it ends here its a disaster for Netanyahu.
As concerns global stability a single precision strike from an untouchable platform with zero marginal increase in obligations on strained naval assets is basically the best case scenario. If we had dropped a bomb, took a picture in front of a "Mission Accomplished" banner, and gone back to playing chess with peer adversaries in any conflict since the Korean War it would have been the smart move. The United States military is designed to protect global trade and win high intensity conflicts against peer adversaries and be seen preparing for it as a deterrant. It does this job extremely well. It was not designed for assymetrical quagmires with no possible palatable exit strategy.
Likud may be willing to fight Iran to the last American, but I'd rather we didn't.
paxys · 1h ago
Israel is "too big to fail" at this point. Netanyahu knows he can provoke every country in the world and if he ever meets real resistance the US government will take over. There's literally no way this cannot end well for him.
sjsdaiuasgdia · 2h ago
Suppose we should congratulate Bibi on his ascendancy to the US presidency.
chairmansteve · 1h ago
Elon is out, Bibi is in.
cyanydeez · 2h ago
If it were legal, Russia probably would surpass Israel in political influence...legally.
foogazi · 1h ago
Russia’s main drone supplier is about to be knocked offline
According to a Ukrainian friend Russia is now producing them themselves. They got the design plans from Iran.
bgwalter · 36m ago
That may be the perception from the outside due to theater (Trump holding Netanyahu's chair for the cameras etc.), but these plans have existed forever. Here is a plan from the Brookings Institute from 2009:
"CHAPTER FIVE Leave it to Bibi: Allowing or Encouraging an Israeli Military Strike"
flyinglizard · 2h ago
There are many people around the world who are relived with Iran denied nuclear weapons, not just Israel. There are many countries in the Middle East, some openly hostile to Israel, who are very happy that Iran will not get immunity like North Korea.
Israel did most of the dirty work, US just came in to drive the final nail.
hearsathought · 9m ago
> There are many people around the world who are relived with Iran denied nuclear weapons, not just Israel.
Even more people would be relieved if trump bombed israel's nuclear facilities. But that doesn't make it right or justified.
Do you really want military attacks based on popularity or feelings? I don't think israel would enjoy living in such a world.
jeremyjh · 1h ago
I would trust the Ayatollah with nukes much further than I would trust Stephen Miller.
mhb · 1h ago
Trust him to what? Do what he says he would do with them?
samaltmanfried · 57m ago
> Do what he says he would do with them?
Like what? Declare a fatwa against them?
When you answer, please provide sources for your claims. I'll be eagerly awaiting your response.
kelnos · 1h ago
My trust with either of them having nukes is so low it's not worth comparing.
sealeck · 1h ago
A truly sad indictment of the state of US government...
know-how · 2h ago
Yea, why don't we let the most destabilizing state sponsor of terrorism obtain a nuke? Surely that's only in Israel's interest...
You know, none of this would have happened if Hamas didn't attack Israel on Oct 7. Iran should know. They paid for it.
If Iran had a nuke, they are crazy enough to use it by slipping it to their cells.
"If someone says they are going to kill you, believe them."
Iran: Death to Israel
Iran: Death to America
Hamas: Death to Israel
Hamas: Death to America
So, hugs and pallets of cash? ...or you destroy their ability to kill a million of your civilians.
If their enrichment wasn't for weapons-development, why was it being done in a hardened under-ground bunker?
In 2023, unannounced inspections uncovered uranium particles enriched near weapons-grade. The so-called agreement was toilet paper to the terrorist state.
sealeck · 1h ago
> Yea, why don't we let the most destabilizing state sponsor of terrorism obtain a nuke? Surely that's only in Israel's interest...
Well, the Democrats had a very good plan to deal with this: diplomacy. They agreed a deal where Iran agreed not to build nuclear weapons, and in exchange they removed sanctions on Iran. A win-win scenario for everyone (except Bibi). Trump then - completely inexplicably - decided that he could do better at negotiating a deal, ripped up Obama's one, and then decided to... plunge the Middle East into chaos.
> You know, none of this would have happened if Hamas didn't attack Israel on Oct 7. Iran should know. They paid for it.
Surely the man who decided it was a good idea to alllow Qatar to give Hamas lots of money is at least partially to blame? [1] Or perhaps the person who decided to advocate to the US government that they should sell weapons to Iran [2]
Nearly all of Iran's neighbors in the region except Jordan and Syria supported our withdrawal from the agreement. The only complaining was done by Iran, European nations and the UN.
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the UAE, Egypt, etc all supported us.
sealeck · 40m ago
I really don't understand why you think this makes this a good idea. Saudi Arabia also decided to launch an extremely ill-fated and brutal invasion of Yemen, which worked out terribly for them and for the Yeminis. I don't think they have good judgement on this.
roboror · 39m ago
Ah so merely our most important and powerful allies disagreed with the move?
righthand · 1h ago
This will surely reduce government spending.
ocdtrekkie · 1h ago
I mean I don't think anyone is still taking that goal seriously.
yencabulator · 1h ago
Vietnam -> Gulf War = 15 years
Gulf War -> US invasion of Iraq = 12 years
US invasion of Iraq -> USA, Iran & Israel = 22 years
Looks like it's time for USA to feed a new generation of grunts into the PTSD grinder again.
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hnthrowaway0315 · 2h ago
Well one better goes for the bomb if one decided to go above 60% (because whatelse do you plan?). Apparently using it as a bargain doesn't work out as expected.
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l33tbro · 31m ago
A superpower being beholden to Netanyahu's impulses beggars belief. Israel, their client state, acts out in aggression against its neighbour against US advice. The US bails them out and takes the fallout now. Astounding.
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IdontKnowRust · 1h ago
This is definitely a bold movement, I pray for peace, And hoping US stops jumping in conflicts that are not theirs
nsingh2 · 28m ago
This absolutely is a conflict that the US has been involved in from near the start [1]. This a continuation of that, not something entirely new.
Some in the U.S. want peace. I guess no one else gives a shit and is just going to jettison us into a war for millennia.
avoutos · 1h ago
Preventing Iran from having a nuke is IMO a good way of preserving peace. The allies tried appeasment and most historians agree that approach was one of the main causes of WWII.
runako · 1h ago
Huge difference here IMHO is that the west has been using this line for 40-50 years. At some point it's not "appeasement" and just "diplomacy between countries with differing values are complicated."
Put another way: if you want to call it appeasement, fine, it has worked for a long time. On the other hand, "peace via war" has a terrible track record.
lwansbrough · 28m ago
What if Iran simply didn’t develop nuclear weapons? Have you considered that option?
nsingh2 · 12m ago
What if the U.S. simply stopped interfering with other nations[1]? Have you considered that option? But of course, the U.S. can do whatever it wants because of its military might and the fact that it has nukes.
And there's the answer: on the world stage, you’d better be close friends with someone who has nukes, have your own, or be forced into a client state.
Has anyone credible said/demonstrated that they have developed nuclear weapons?
The US clearly does not believe they have operational nukes, or we would not have bombed them today. The actions undermine the official statements.
Put in realpolitik: would it be worth the US spending an Iraq War's expenditure of lives and $3 trillion to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon?
Why?
What makes this moment the place where the working approach of the last half-century simply cannot work another day?
lwansbrough · 19m ago
If they had already developed them, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion because nobody is going to war with a nuclear armed state.
The question is only, did they have the means to, and was there an indication they were? The answer is yes. They were enriching uranium at levels that go beyond anything non-nefarious. Their lead nuclear scientists were going to be meeting with their ballistic missile scientists (according to the dossier.)
On would it be worth it: nuclear proliferation is probably the most dangerous existential threat that humanity faces that is completely preventable. Iran is the most destabilizing country in the region and the cascade of nuclear proliferation that would occur if they succeeded would be a nightmare. That is easily worth $3T.
barbazoo · 10m ago
Some people say Iran having a nuke isn’t the threat some think it is.
Appeasement for an imaginary weapons program our own director of national intelligence just said they don’t have.
Copy and paste this nonsense argument for Iraq 3 trillion dollars ago.
avoutos · 1h ago
Iran definitely has a nuclear weapons program. The question is how close it is to a bomb. I find it hard to believe the oil-rich nation of Iran builds a nuclear facility underneath a hardened mountain for altruistic purposes.
Iran has not yet built a bomb because the program has been repeatedly set back over the years:
I would not support an all out invasion of Iran with American troops a la iraq, but if all it takes is a few bunker busters collecting dust in the U.S> arsenal to set back Iran's program a few more years or decades, I see that as a win.
user3939382 · 40m ago
Interesting that you have more intelligence on Iran than our director of national intelligence.
lwansbrough · 15m ago
Tulsi Gabbard isn’t exactly a high bar.
CamperBob2 · 1h ago
I must've missed the part where Iran invaded Czechoslovakia and Poland.
kelnos · 1h ago
I think GP's point was that it's better to act now, before Iran does the equivalent of invading Czechoslovakia or Poland.
int_19h · 1h ago
What would be the equivalent of Czechoslovakia and Poland and this scenario?
siltcakes · 1h ago
Israel has been doing that for almost 80 years and they have nuclear weapons.
yyyk · 2h ago
Just about every intelligence agency and expert agrees on nearly all the data. The debate and the 'conflicting' reports are mainly a matter of definitions.
The data is that Iran has some weapons research, and have/had about 400kg of 60% enriched Uranium (no civilian use), an higher amount of lower grade enriched Uranium, and a certain number of centrifuges for enrichment.
The interpretation bit is regarding what's called 'weaponization' (aka taking all the materials and converting them to a bomg):
A modern bomb would use >90% (preferably >95%) Uranium and an implosion mechanism and be light and small enough to put on a common ballistic missile. While getting to 90% would have been easy for them (at one time they 'accidentally' enriched to 88%), they haven't done it yet, and it isn't entirely clear how close they are on miniaturization.
A hacky bomb could use a lower grade of Uranium (60% would barely do if they pooled all of it), be much heavier (it comes with the lower grade), possibly use a simpler gun-type mechanism, and would have to be delivered with some custom mechanism.
So 'weapons grade' could mean '90% and above', or it could mean 'enriched to a level that has no use apart from building weapons'. 'Distance to a bomb' could mean 'distance from what can be easily delivered' or 'distance from any fissile explosive'.
A consequential night for Israel: peace for many decades to come. I worry, however, that peace through bombing is not a permanent solution. Peace comes through diplomacy. Ideology does not die in the rubble.
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MarkMarine · 2h ago
This is astonishing. Our intelligence concluded Iran wasn’t moving towards a nuke and we hit them anyway, using peace negotiations as a ruse. No authorization from the representatives of the people who actually fight in the war, no thought of what this will do.
If the comparison with how we treat hostile forces with nuclear weapons wasn’t more stark. N. Korea is basically left alone, their leader praised. Libya gives up nukes and then the state falls in on itself.
This is proving to any state that nuclear arms are really the only protection. The world is less safe, and the next generation of young men like me (20 years ago) are about to be thrown into the meat grinder, sent by a ruling class that doesn’t even answer to the people anymore.
We’ve really lost our way.
shihab · 2h ago
This strike didn't happen to protect Americans from nukes, this happened to protect a rogue politician who was about to be impeached by his countrymen, and to make the Greater Israel project come true.
Reminder, a recent survey found 16% American supported an offensive strike against Iran.[1]
If not to build a nuke, why have a secret uranium enrichment facility built over 250 ft under a mountain?
Terr_ · 2h ago
That argument only works when normal aboveground civilian infrastructure won't get bombed anyway on suspicion.
Then both kinds require the same protection, and protection can't be used to distinguish between them.
"She's obviously a witch, because she's been living deep in the forest all suspicious-like ever since we burned down her cursed house."
kelnos · 1h ago
60% enriched uranium is not quite considered weapons-grade, but also has no civilian applications. Hiding the facility is immaterial if the facility is doing stuff that isn't useful for non-weapon work.
yyyk · 1h ago
Iran did not expect to be bombed back at all, which is why their defenses were so shoddy around nearly everything. The _only_ thing having this level of protection is the enrichment facility.
EnPissant · 1h ago
There is no non-nuclear weapon purpose valuable enough to build such a facility. It's obviously for nuclear bombs.
codedokode · 5m ago
So every country which has facilities to enrich uranium, needs to be bombed, correct?
MarkMarine · 2h ago
Credible deterrent against stuff like this?
EnPissant · 2h ago
> Our intelligence concluded Iran wasn’t moving towards a nuke
> Credible deterrent against stuff like this?
You mean the credible deterrent is moving towards a nuke?
MarkMarine · 1h ago
That is the point of what I was saying, yes.
Look I dgaf about what Iran was doing, there is no wool over my eyes about what that state is capable of. I saw the IEDs with copper cones used to kill and maim my friends, they almost certainly came from Iran.
What I care about is: congress declares war, not the executive. The people should decide, and we just stepped 10 steps closer to the monarchy we tried to depose 250 years ago.
christophilus · 1h ago
This has been happening my entire 40+ years of life. I agree it shouldn’t, but this ain’t anything new. If this makes Trump a monarchy, then every president since 2000 was a monarch.
dragontamer · 1h ago
Straw, camel, back.
2024 Trump is using the power of the executive in ways even more grotesquely than 2016 Trump.
archsurface · 2h ago
They could have simply had IAEA inspections.
smashah · 1h ago
Trump ripped up JCPOA and you know this. Israel could also do that. Oh but wait then the inspections would find stolen American nuclear material.
archsurface · 1h ago
Communication lines are always open for discussion and negotiation; the end of one agreement doesn't mean no more agreements.
CamperBob2 · 1h ago
Gee, I dunno. Because some berserk moron might attack their country, maybe?
Countries without nukes get victimized by countries with nukes. If you haven't noticed this pattern yet, there's not much hope for you.
smashah · 1h ago
The premise of going to war with a country because that country may have the capability to win/end it is quite demonic circular reasoning. In this case IL/US should preemptively bunker bust every person in the region that has sovereign will. I think only when the entire region is replaced by Tesla Robots loyal to western chauvinism then IL/US can finally feel safe from the consequences of their own actions like committing genocides.
I visited Nagasaki/Hiroshima a few years ago, at the end of both memorials there are celebrations of NPTs and denuclearization efforts with veneers of 90's nostalgia - as if the job were done. How wrong we all were, today 2 non-NPT nuclear powers bombed a NPT non-nuclear power to prevent imaginary WMD Nukes, triggering a possible regional conflict that will kill millions. The only country that shouldn't have nukes is America - they dropped 2 for vibes because the Nazis already surrendered and they wanted to try out their new toy. IL\US project their genocidal tendencies onto others then claim preemptive strikes. Both countries a threat to world peace. It's clear now the only way these two countries leave you alone is if you have a nuke. Any sovereign logical leader will now pursue them. IL/US have made the world a much more dangerous place just because they want to continue the holocaust of Gaza.
Shame.
archsurface · 2h ago
Gabbard has recently stated that's not true, that she was quoted out of context.
shihab · 1h ago
Her statement directly contradicted her testimony. After recent Trump's open dismissal of her remark, she had to say this to keep her job.
archsurface · 1h ago
She stated they had unprecedented levels of enriched uranium for a country without weapons.
giantg2 · 31m ago
Well, CSOCs are likely to get busy this week.
No comments yet
codedokode · 37m ago
I am a little confused. Is bombing a sovereign country under far-fetched excuse considered ok or not today?
grugagag · 34m ago
For the world I want to live in it is not. Seems surreal but maybe it’s not that world anymore, and I fear it will get worse.
lwansbrough · 29m ago
What is far fetched about preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon?
sealeck · 28m ago
Lack of nuclear weapon.
lwansbrough · 27m ago
You can’t prevent them from developing a nuclear weapon if you wait until they have it.
They were enriching uranium near weapons-grade levels. What more evidence do you need without seeing an actual assembled nuclear weapon?
billfor · 33m ago
It's OK.
k310 · 2h ago
Declaration of War vs. Authorization for Use of Military Force: How America Goes to War
So much for humanity learning from its mistakes....
arp242 · 43m ago
"But this time it's different!"
IMHO the Israeli policy of punching everyone so hard they're reeling is a massive mistake for Israel in the long term. It works great short-term, but 50 years? 100 years? Who knows what the world will look like then, and being surrounded by enemies is not going to work well when you no longer have your fancy US-backed missile shields and whatnot. The best long-term bet is for normalised relationship with its neighbours, and every time something like this happens that gets set back 20 years at least.
Then again, they had already given up on that with how it treated the Palestinians both in Gaza and West-Bank...
This doesn't mean military action is never an option under any circumstances, but no nation can perpetuate hostilities forever. Whether it's 50, 100, or 200 years: this has a massive risk of coming back to bite Israel hard.
sorcerer-mar · 33m ago
Yeah IMO the last 2 years (and especially 5 hours) have pretty much permanently shattered Israel's privileged child status in the US. Their actions in Gaza have fractured leftwing support, and dragging the US into this war have fractured rightwing support.
Hope they're building other friendships in the region, I don't see the unquestioning US patronage lasting much longer.
hagbard_c · 2h ago
That remains to be seen and, in another universe, could have been said about someone not keeping a nation from creating nuclear weaponry which it subsequently used against its opponents.
xnx · 1h ago
Did I miss the part where Congress declared war or is that passe?
wmf · 55m ago
It's not a war, it's a limited engagement or whatever.
endemic · 52m ago
A “special operation”
sealeck · 44m ago
A "special military operation", perhaps?
oceansky · 51m ago
Even Vietnam wasn't formally declared as a war. Last formal declaration was WWII.
soraminazuki · 14m ago
As I understand it, congress still authorized the use of force. Nowadays, the president effectively bypasses congress using the 2 decades old authorization for the use of force against the overly broad threat of "terror."
goodluckchuck · 34m ago
A declaration of war is an invitation for the other side to attack. Rather than being a restraint against war, empowering Congress to declare war allows them to force a potentially unwilling president into war.
Kye · 2h ago
They didn't finish manufacturing consent yet. Novice mistake.
yongjik · 2h ago
It's Trump. He could bomb LA and 30% of Americans will cheer for it. I'm not sure consent matters.
Hopefully the ensuing economic meltdown will sour enough Americans before too many people are killed, but who knows.
ExaltedPunt · 22m ago
A large portion of Trump's base are very unhappy about bombing Iran and are very critical of any comments that are pro-war in general. I see it in a lot of comments sections and social media message to the effect of "I voted for Trump, and I didn't vote for this (war in Iran)".
Generally, Any prominent pro-Israel republican if they post anything pro-war will have hundreds of negative replies.
It is incredibly depressing to see people constantly falling into the trap that their political opposition are dumb / brainwashed.
cempaka · 2h ago
Either they believe it is no longer necessary, or they are facing some other set of constraints that is making it less feasible.
MangoToupe · 2h ago
I've got to imagine the israel lobby is putting an enormous amount of pressure on DC to attack.
The bunker busters will not have worked on Fordow.
(It will be the first time a GBU-57A/B has been used in war, which is interesting)
They needed troops on the ground. Israel was going to do this.
It's possible they have just collapsed the entrances.
Trumps comments - https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump You have a loop, @Osint613 reposted Trump as "Fordow is gone" which Trump reposted. Neither of them have any idea.
(Natanz, Isfahan were already hit and damaged by Israel, the US didn't bother to bunker bust them, it was Tomahawks from subs )
You need a tactical nuke to destroy Fordow, but the USA considers tactical the same as strategic, so it would be very unlikely. Russia could, since they put tactical in a different category.
lunar-whitey · 24m ago
Expert opinions seem to differ on this. We will know once enough satellite and signal intelligence data has been analyzed for US leadership to ascertain whether further strikes may be required.
Havoc · 12m ago
Saw reports that natanz did get 2x too
mindslight · 2h ago
Tell me again how Trump represents an alternative to the uniparty's forever war? Or how you voted for him because you were "against genocide" ?
ExaltedPunt · 20m ago
One of the things he was good on was being generally more against wars than other US presidents. That unfortunately is no longer true.
mindslight · 16m ago
Trump wasn't against war, as demonstrated by his calling Putin's aggression "genius". He was just generally against everything the US did, because fundamentally he hates our country. There are a boat load of criticisms of our society and government. Trump excels at tapping into that frustration across the whole spectrum, which is why his cabinet is a circus of malcontents with no actual constructive ideas.
ExaltedPunt · 1m ago
> Trump wasn't against war, as demonstrated by his calling Putin's aggression "genius"
I think I know what statement you are referring to and it wasn't an endorsement of war.
Recognising someone for doing something well even if it is amoral/immoral, isn't an endorsement of person or action.
e.g.
I don't like George Galloway or how he operates as a politician, nor do I like his politics, or his policies. I personally think he is a scumbag.
However he is a very effective politician and his strategies, tactics and his communication skills are second to none.
hagbard_c · 2h ago
While it is hard to predict what the future will being and while the middle east has been a hotbed for conflict since times immemorial it is likely that taking the Theocratic regime in Iran out of the equation is a net-positive when it comes to limiting the amount of conflict in the region. I intentionally do not use the word 'peace' because I do not see peace ever breaking out there given the historical record and the many sources of conflict.
hkpack · 1h ago
Destabilizing Iran will make another migration crisis in Europe, will divide it politically because of the rise of anti immigrant far right, and finally set up the scene for a big european war for which russia is preparing.
If US hopes to not be involved in it, it will be up for the surprise.
sealeck · 37m ago
You think migration of refugees will lead to... civil war in Europe? There's a lot of space in Europe – it could accomodate even all 90 million Iranian refugees and not collapse (let us hope Iranian civilians not made into refugees by Trump and Netanyahu).
mindslight · 30m ago
Colin Powell, is that you? How've you been, man? You got John Yoo's number? That guy has been on fire lately! btw how'd those things with the Taliban and Saddam work out?
0xy · 29m ago
Both parties wilfully fund genocide and mess around with regime change. Trump does seem more restrained than most presidents, but it's hard to agree with this move.
All the Middle East calamities have begun with targeted and limited operations. Not believable anymore.
msgodel · 2h ago
Yeah there was no good reason for that. The main thing I liked about Trump is that he didn't start any wars his first term, if he gets us into a war I'm going to be fucking mad.
cmilton · 2h ago
I know he likes to insinuate that, but it’s simply not true.
While you are correct it wasn’t a war, but neither is this technically.
b0sk · 1h ago
It is fascinating. He lies so much, keeps repeating those lies and somehow people start believing those lies.
foogazi · 1h ago
They have to believe it to have a reason to like Trump
ekianjo · 1h ago
He did strike Syria during his first term
standardUser · 1h ago
> if he gets us into a war I'm going to be fucking mad
Maybe Trump will claim the airstrikes were just a joke, like he does when he tells his supporters to use violence towards other Americans. Otherwise, the United States is definitely, unambiguously at war with Iran.
CamperBob2 · 1h ago
11/29/11: "In order to get elected, @BarackObama will start a war with Iran."
1/17/12: "@BarackObama will attack Iran in order to get re-elected."
9/16/13: "I predict that President Obama will at some point attack Iran in order save face!"
11/10/13: "Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly - not skilled!"
"If Kamala wins, only death and destruction await because she is the candidate of endless wars. I am the candidate of peace. I am peace." - Presidential debate, 2024
If you voted for Trump, you voted precisely for this. Every accusation from him is either a confession in disguise or an unfulfilled wish.
fallingknife · 1h ago
Every accusation from Trump is some random line he pulled out of his ass on the spot, and people like you keep falling for it and trying to divine some grand strategy out of it.
lesuorac · 41m ago
Every accusation from Trump is something he himself is doing or thing about doing.
It's not random.
fldskfjdslkfj · 1h ago
Prediction: Iran will fold somewhat quickly and history will remember this as good move.
hkpack · 1h ago
Alternative prediction:
Destabilized Iran will make another migration crisis in Europe, will divide it politically because of the rise of anti immigrant far right, and finally set the scene for a full scale european war with russia, followed by other counties on both sides.
US will be forced to join and millions of its citizen will die in WW3.
abletonlive · 1h ago
"migration crisis in Europe"
well, that's entirely self inflicted by Europe at this point. i know the great china wall is pretty but there's actually nothing separating china from that landmass. there's no "migration crisis" in china.
nemothekid · 1h ago
>but there's actually nothing separating china
Yeah man, nothing except 2000+ miles of the largest mountain ranges in the fucking world. Are you serious man?
sealeck · 26m ago
I know that this kind of comment makes sense from the American perspective (based on past US actions in South America) but the EU is not actually responsible for massively destabilising the Middle East.
hkpack · 1h ago
Yeah, thanks for the war in Iraq and for the raise of ISIS, and for the war in Syria and now destabilizing Iran.
“self inflicted”
ericmay · 1h ago
Why would there be more migrants to Europe from Iran?
hkpack · 1h ago
The same reason there were millions of refugees from Syria or Libya or Ukraine or because of any other instability in the region.
There is just no much other places for people to run when shit hits fan.
ericmay · 1h ago
Maybe, but the EU has different policies and a different understanding of immigration now compared to say 2010-2023, right? Also those countries you mentioned are a bit closer to Europe compared to Iran.
But I’m also not sure that the situations are comparable. In the case of Ukraine which is probably most similar to Iran from an economic standpoint, had many refugees who were temporarily fleeing Russian aggression but planned to return to Ukraine. Iran, especially if/when it’s out from under sanctions has a more robust economy and geopolitical forces going for it, versus Libya or Syria, in my view.
hkpack · 1h ago
It won’t matter what the policies are as the majority of refugees will try to get to the EU illegally.
Economy will matter only if there will be no fallout in Iran which is not guaranteed.
ericmay · 55m ago
It will matter because they can have policies like “stricter border control” to stop legal or illegal immigration.
> Economy will matter only if there will be no fallout in Iran which is not guaranteed.
Sure it depends on what all happens, but my point was it is different than Syria or Libya in many aspects.
Avshalom · 1h ago
"Point / Counterpoint:
This War Will Destabilize the Entire Mideast and Set Off a Shockwave of Anti-Americanism
VS.
No It Won’t“
riku_iki · 52m ago
Iran and allies already did what they could during Gaza escalation. Their projection power is rather limited.
Russia will bump up arms shipments to Iran. We'll have no choice but to strike interior of Russia. Russia will not hit mainland US, but will attack US bases across Western Europe. This will be WW3.
int_19h · 1h ago
Russia needs everything it can manufacture for itself to use in Ukraine, and they have already gotten everything useful there was to get from Iran, so the latter is on their own.
827a · 47m ago
Its actually incredible how this exact thing could have been done by any other President and half the people losing their minds about WW3 in these comments wouldn't have even logged on to comment.
raincole · 1h ago
They'll do some symbolic attacks against the US bases in ME.
But yeah, I do think history will remember this as one of the few good things Trump does.
gsibble · 1h ago
Exactly what I think will happen. I think it's already inevitable.
The IDF has total air superiority. The regime has very little capabilities left at all.
coffeefirst · 38m ago
Okay. But then what?
In Lebanon the state is attempting to reassert itself. In Syria the rebels took control. But with no foreign boots on the ground, and no organized opposition ready to step in, what exactly is supposed to happen after the regime folds?
siltcakes · 1h ago
Iran has been bombing Israeli targets at will, including Tel Aviv. Israel doesn't even have control over their own airspace.
sadaaqat · 1h ago
I can see many problems with his plan.
No comments yet
senectus1 · 38m ago
sigh this is Iraq all over again.
watch as the US is now dragged into 10-20 years of war in the middle east again.
War is a racket, move along we got bombs to sell. All I can hope is that somehow someway the Iranian people will be better off in the future. Well at least America has its enemy again, the immigrants as enemy wasn’t going over as smoothly as expected. Religion and culture wars are just so much easier.
But this is still bad, may be illegal, and isn't over yet. We don't actually know what they hit, if those sites were empty, and what's happened to ~1/2 ton of highly-enriched uranium or the regime's ability to produce more.
reassess_blind · 2h ago
Illegal? I don’t think that factors into any decision made here.
amazingamazing · 2h ago
[deleted - decided to stop asking questions]
sodality2 · 2h ago
Your question necessitates the idea that the US is some sort of worldwide nanny state, where anything that happens without an action, the US “let” happen. It’s an innocent question but the assumptions are far more drastic. Reflect on some other alternatives besides “the US is in charge of everything”, especially looking at our track record in the Middle East.
tptacek · 2h ago
In matters of nuclear proliferation, that's kind of close to the truth, whether we like it or not.
amanaplanacanal · 1h ago
The US allowed Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea to get nuclear weapons, but Iran is a step too far? Pull the other one.
lossolo · 1h ago
I already heard that when the USA illegally attacked and invaded Iraq. Both of these situations, from the point of view of international law, are no different from Russia's illegal bombing of Ukraine.
kelnos · 1h ago
Yes, but as much as I don't trust Trump or his administration, it's not clear whether Iran has or doesn't have a nuclear weapons program, and if they do, how close they are to a serviceable weapon.
Bush Jr and his buddies are IMO unindicted war criminals. It remains to be seen if this current act puts Trump in the same shoes. I hope Iran really did have a nuclear weapons program and that this attack is in some way justified. But I won't believe or disbelieve it until we know more, corroborated by trustworthy sources outside the US.
twodave · 2h ago
The premise here is correct only as far as it is true that anyone besides the US possesses the capacity to act. Beyond that point, it is no longer charitable to frame it that way.
amazingamazing · 2h ago
Again, just curious - so you believe countries shouldn’t intervene if others decide they want nuclear tech and or weapons?
I see both arguments, but I’m curious what others think
sodality2 · 2h ago
By "others", you presumably mean credible threats from enemy states (since we allow Israel to secretly harbor nuclear weaponry with no problem). But no, I don't think that. I think it's nuanced, and I think that it's wrong to frame it with language like "let", instead of saying it like it is: starting a war to intervene. War in the Middle East is historically a bad idea, and there better be a good reason to justify the senseless death. I think the seriousness of that decision should not be minimized by statements like "well we couldn't just let them do anything". There is a serious chance of this escalating into something far worse.
nradov · 2h ago
Unlike Iran, Israel is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The official concern has always been that Iran signed the NPT, but then at various times seems to have possibly violated the terms. I'm not necessarily in favor of this recent attack, just pointing out that legally Israel and Iran are in completely different situations.
sodality2 · 1h ago
True. I doubt that the US would have this strong of a reaction to a different non-compliant country we were allied with, though. (Can you imagine the US bunker-bombing Germany, SK, AUS, etc?)
tdeck · 1h ago
Israel signed the Rome statue and has repeatedly violated specific orders from the ICJ to prevent genocide, so let's not pretend that this is somehow about a concern for international law.
nradov · 1h ago
The USA doesn't recognize the ICJ so your comment is irrelevant to the article under discussion.
whoknowsidont · 1h ago
Curious what the alternative is here? Let the U.S. do whatever? Genuinely curious.
UltraSane · 1h ago
If you trust Iran with nuclear weapons you are not wise.
nemothekid · 1h ago
If you are a leader of any nation, you are an idiot to not have a nuclear program. It's carteblanche for any nuclear power to come in and fuck your shit up.
Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if Ukraine has nukes.
The US would not have dismantled Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Iran if they had nukes.
You look at a country like North Korea and they get the red carpet despite have an incredibly oppressive regime and spending millions on cyber attacks and corporate espionaige. You know why? Because they have nukes.
It's not a question of "trusting" Iran. Iran with nukes is more geopolitically stable situation than Iran without nukes. As it stands today, Iran without nukes, means that Lockheed Martin gets to fleece another 10 trillion dollars from the American public for the next decade.
sahila · 1h ago
Not wise in what way? You say that likely as an American without caring at all about the people in Iran. The US is the only nation is have used a nuclear weapon and frankly is far more capable of destruction than Iran is even with nukes.
ericmay · 1h ago
On the other hand, the US only used atomic weapons to end a devastating war inflicted upon it by a ferocious and fanatical adversary, and in doing so saved both American and Japanese lives from continued fighting.
Though your point about the US being more capable of destruction than Iran is obviously true. China also is more capable of destruction than Iran, as are Israel, Russia (as we see today with their unprovoked invasion of Ukraine), and many others.
kelnos · 1h ago
I've read opinions/theories that suggest the US didn't really need to bomb Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and that Japan would have surrendered soon enough, due to fears of a Soviet invasion, without that invasion needing to actually happen. The bomb drops were so the US could claim the achievement of getting Japan to surrender, which would give it prestige and leverage over the Soviets, and more of a say in what happened to Japan and the Pacific theatre after the war. (Which, if true, worked exactly as planned.)
Beyond that, there are moral questions about the use of nuclear weapons. I know people who think it would have been more moral to force a Japanese surrender via many Japanese and American soldiers to die during an invasion of Japan, than for the US to kill civilians with nuclear weapons. I'm not sure I agree with that line of thinking, but I can't dismiss it either.
whoknowsidont · 6m ago
>I've read opinions/theories that suggest
It's not a suggestion. It's a well-supported historical fact.
ericmay · 58m ago
I don’t think there’s a particular moral concern and I’m not sure where that meme has arisen from. An atomic bomb is just a bigger bomb than other bombs. There’s nothing special about it besides it being exceptionally large in its destructive capability.
If you were firebombed or killed in a human meat wave in Stalingrad you are just as dead as someone killed with big bomb.
I think the moral argument about killing more and more Americans or Japanese during an invasion is a fun theoretical discussion, but in a war your people matter and the enemy’s don’t in cases like this where you have two clear nation states engaged in total war. Certainly the circumstances of the wars matter, but in the case of World War II I think it’s rather clear cut, and opinions to the contrary are generally revisionist history meant to continue to make America look like a bad guy in order to cause moral confusion and social division.
yencabulator · 47m ago
The difference is in targeting cities. Civilian targets. Let me remind you of the paragraph above:
> Beyond that, there are moral questions about the use of nuclear weapons. I know people who think it would have been more moral to force a Japanese surrender via many Japanese and American soldiers to die during an invasion of Japan, than for the US to kill civilians with nuclear weapons. [...]
ericmay · 36m ago
A civilian is just a soldier who hasn’t put on a uniform in this scenario, and a soldier is just a civilian who has put on a uniform. You’re making a meaningless distinction in this context. There isn’t some sort of magic status that changes here - the same Japanese civilians were working at shipyards and ordinance factories to build weapons to kill American soldiers - you think we shouldn’t bomb those factories because we would kill Japanese civilians building weapons to kill American soldiers and that’s ok because the Americans were wearing a costume and we call them “military personnel”?
> the US only used atomic weapons to end a devastating war inflicted upon it by a ferocious and fanatical adversary
This isn't true at all. You don't need to bomb civilian cities to end a war. The Japanese government, specifically the emperor had already indicated they wanted to negotiate. They were already well aware they couldn't win the war.
There is far, far more evidence that the U.S. just couldn't help itself and wanted to demonstrate our/their new weapon:
"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan."
- Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet
In true U.S. fashion, we had to create a boogeyman to commit some atrocity in order to achieve absolution for the evil we inflicted upon our fellow man.
I’ve read far too many books and spent too much time on this specific topic to have my mind changed by a random YouTube link and a random quote. You are free to choose the narrative that fits your worldview best, I’ve chosen mine based on my own research and learning.
whoknowsidont · 7m ago
No you haven't. You're lying through your teeth lol.
The quote isn't "random" and there's a whole wikipedia page for you to read.
You should take the 10 minutes and do it.
>I’ve chosen mine based on my own research and learning.
Complete and utter bullshit. Remove yourself from this website.
UltraSane · 1h ago
"The US is the only nation is have used a nuclear weapon and frankly is far more capable of destruction than Iran is even with nukes."
This is some peak "Merica bad" brain rot.
whoknowsidont · 1h ago
Do you have an actual counter-point or are you just immediately going to loop into thought-terminating cliches?
sjsdaiuasgdia · 2h ago
Stay in the deal that brought their domestic uranium production to 0. This crisis is entirely Trump's fault for pulling out.
The limits were to sunset starting from 2026 and end by 2031. The deal was to end with Iran being allowed to enrich as much as they wanted to, just a step away from a bomb.
sjsdaiuasgdia · 2h ago
The point was to build trust that Iran would not continue to pursue nuclear weapons. The trust would be built through the multi-year partnership.
The position you're taking only really works if you start from "Iran will always work towards having a nuclear bomb, no matter what." And yeah, if that's your starting place, you've figured out where that path ends up. You're never going to be satisfied with anything Iran says because your fundamental premise is that they can't be trusted to not pursue a nuclear bomb.
By walking away from the deal, we gave Iran a clear message: "you might as well pursue a bomb because we are always going to act like you are, no matter what you actually do."
yyyk · 2h ago
>The position you're taking only really works if you start from "Iran will always work towards having a nuclear bomb, no matter what."
No, it's a position that assumes some people there have an interest in a nuclear bomb, and some suspicion is warranted - which means a safe deal needed to have them some distance away from a bomb.
After all, if they just wanted nuclear power, they could have trivially had it without all this fuss. It was always so much cheaper to buy LEU than endure all these sanctions.
foogazi · 1h ago
Art of the un-deal
defrost · 2h ago
Enrichment to levels suitable for domestic nuclear power (the goal, and follow on decoupling from Russia as the supplier and extractor of fuel for existing Iran nuclear power station) is a magnitude and more less time and effort than enrichment to levels suitable for weapons.
Isotope separation by centrifuge as a physical process follows the laws of diminishing returns, getting rid of all the uranium variations save the rare target weight takes more and more time as percent purity increases.
"Just a step away" was more a hard bridge to cross back when third party inspectors were at the enrichment centres and leaving locked and logged "long soak" spectrometer instruments behind. It's hard to enrich to greater levels without leaving a ratio fingerprint behind in the gamma spectrum.
YZF · 2h ago
What was to stop Iran from secretly enriching Uranium in sites inspectors have no access to?
"The revelation that Iran had built major nuclear facilities in secret, without required disclosure to the IAEA, ignited an international crisis and raised questions about the program's true aim."
sjsdaiuasgdia · 1h ago
By unilaterally leaving the agreement, we told Iran "We are going to act as if you are going to build a bomb, so you might as well build a bomb."
defrost · 1h ago
That's a tad Descartes before the hordes .. the response that situation in 2002 was the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action of 2015 which had plenty of carrots, sticks, and ability to peer into dark places .. but not real support from Isreal or the US who scuppered the plan under Trump.
yyyk · 1h ago
>follow on decoupling from Russia
You are aware the deal was entirely dependent on Russia, and the follow-on Biden wanted to sign (but couldn't since Iran wouldn't fully cooperate with IAEA) involved Russia even more heavily? There's no other place that both sides accept can store the enriched Uranium or supply fuel rods to Iran.
>Isotope separation by centrifuge as a physical process follows the laws of diminishing returns
It's the other way around. Going from 3 to 20 percent is much harder than 20 to 60 which is harder than 60 to 90. Going to 99.9999% would be tough, but is unnecessary even for nukes.
>"Just a step away" was more a hard bridge to cross back when third party inspectors were at the enrichment centres
They were allowed to enrich to that level under the deal starting in 2031, inspections would have tested if the enriched material was diverted.
Even if they could be effective at such short notice, it would have taken the US being distracted by some other crisis and being unable to act in the short period between detection and weaponization to lead to a nuke.
hackyhacky · 2h ago
It would be great if we had a diplomatic agreement with Iran to monitor and limit its nuclear development!
Part of the reason it was cancelled was because Iran was still funding a bunch of proxy armies and still developing non-nuclear ballistic missiles?
shihab · 2h ago
Even if Iran were arming regional proxies, that's an Israel problem, not an america problem. Though AIPAC et el makes sure no american is ever aware of that distinction.
Aeolun · 2h ago
The US was angry Iran had a civilian rocket program?
hackyhacky · 2h ago
That doesn't seem like a good reason to cancel the only thing stopping them from developing nukes. Of course they fund proxy armies, but that's a reginal problem that can be addressed through conventional means.
Cancelling the Joint Agreement is a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face. In particular, it was clearly an expression of Trump's animus to Obama.
awongh · 2h ago
For sure part of it is goading them into looking like the bad guys.
Otoh, ballistic missiles eventually become a western europe/NATO security issue.
Not exactly sure how close Iran would be to that, but that is an element of the situation.
acdha · 2h ago
Ballistic missiles are a problem but also why it would be better to keep them from having nuclear bombs to put on those missiles.
sorcerer-mar · 1h ago
Yep, the JCPOA was canceled because 1) Bibi has always wanted to go to war with Iran, and knew very well how to get the US's help to do it, and 2) Trump's ego can be trivially played by just saying it's something Obama got credit for.
ugh123 · 1h ago
So you agree they were not exploring nuclear weapons with that agreement in place?
sundaeofshock · 2h ago
The main reason it was canceled is because Donald Trump is a petulant child and he wanted to erase all of Obama’s accomplishments.
andrepd · 2h ago
Not ripping up a treaty that was being upheld by Iran would be an excellent start.
anonym29 · 1h ago
China and the Soviet Union developing atomic and nuclear capabilities were never a justification to bomb Chinese or Soviet nuclear facilities.
Detrytus · 1h ago
Soviet Union was an US peer, in terms of power, and China was their ally. Bombing their nuclear facilities could result in war that the US could just as well lose, so that's why they had to show some restraint. But believe me, they would bomb those facilities if they could.
runako · 1h ago
Probably not your intent, but this is a very clear summation of why it is is likely understood as critical to Iranian security to develop and publicly test a nuclear weapon.
anonym29 · 1h ago
So just to be clear, it's only morally acceptable to wage wars against countries that are unquestionably incapable of defending themselves?
e40 · 1h ago
Did those countries vow to wipe another country off the face of the earth?
anonym29 · 1h ago
Not like when Netanyahu pledged to turn Gaza into a "deserted island"¹, but if that's the kind of rhetoric that justifies US bombing campaigns, then why haven't we bombed Israel's not-so-secret nuclear weapon production facilities, too?
Probably something other than the one thing that would justify lifting the mid 90's fatwa declaring the creation, possession, and use of nuclear weapons against Islamic law.
How aware is this community of the Supreme Leader's staunch opposition to nuclear weapons?
This is pure imperialism.
tptacek · 2h ago
They literally printed a bank note celebrating their nuclear program. The SL is not "staunchly opposed to nuclear weapons".
(I think the B-2 strikes were a terribly stupid idea and that Trump got rolled by Netanyahu here, but I'm not going to be negatively polarized into thinking the Iranian SL is a benign figure.)
CamperBob2 · 1h ago
Nuclear program != nuclear weapons program, though.
throwaway2037 · 1h ago
Ok, I will take the bait. Two countries that are frequently noted as having the capability to build nuclear weapons is Japan and Korea. (For the purpose of this post, please assume with good faith that they don't have secret programmes to build nuclear weapons.) Both have world-leading civilian nuclear power programmes and at least part of the nuclear fuel cycle onshore. Side note: One thing that I never see discussed: As both countries are signatories to the Non-Proliferation Act, I assume that they have regular audits of their facilities by IEAE. (If they were consistently failing with major mishaps, or secret programmes, I am sure that we would read about it.) Both of them have incredibly sophisticated national scientific research programmes that could easily pursue nuclear weapons.
What is the difference between Japan & Korea vs Iran? It is simple: Trust. On the surface, sure, what you say might be true. However, it is hard to trust Iran as they so consistently threaten Israel. What do you think would happen if Iran had the bomb? They would lord over Israel and threaten them on the regular. This would be massively destabilizing for the region and world.
Final question: Is it harder to build a safe, civilian nuclear power programme compared to a (safe?) nuclear weapons programme? I don't know.
aisenik · 1h ago
Israel just attacked Iran. Perhaps the perceived bellicosity of Iran is both justified and overblown?
What is the reason to trust Israel, who engaged in subterfuge to develop nuclear weapons in the 1970s, over Iran?
Iran attacked Israel with a huge barrage of missiles in October of 2024. No high-horses to ride here.
aisenik · 34m ago
Indeed. The lowest of the horses, however, is clearly the USA. Our history and our actions (POSIWID is the most effective heuristic in the modern information environment), including the capricious abandonment of the very successful JCPOA, suggest complete dishonesty in this realm. There is zero reason to believe we have any legitimate reason for attacking Iran and every reason to distrust our stated motivations. Iraq was 22 years ago.
We presented outright fabrications to the UN to justify an imperial war after the president campaigned against "nation building." It is hard to ignore the parallels to Iran and Trump, proclaimed "anti war" candidate that you had to vote for to prevent WW3. Here we are.
busterarm · 44m ago
Iran has been organizing and funding attacks on Israel via proxies for years?
Isn't that subterfuge?
aisenik · 21m ago
What has Mossad been up to? Just boolin'?
It is possible that mistakes were made in the aftermath of WW2. It is possible that the victors have rewritten history in a favorable light -- in fact, that is the most reasonable expectation. This must not be used to justify genocide for if our society takes that path the victory against the Axis powers is meaningless and evil will have triumphed in the world.
Israel is more than Netanyahu and less than the Jewish people. Humanity must unite and destroy the power structures that incentivize the hyperscale atrocities we are currently manifesting.
aisenik · 1h ago
It is remarkable to see such intellectual dishonesty from so highly a respected figure here.
Those of you who received adequate Liberal Arts education will see through him, whether you agree with his intended rhetorical outcome or not.
aisenik · 1h ago
Did I say the Supreme Leader is a benign figure? Iran has problems. Big ones.
You are disingenuous and malicious when you portray my position in this way. The Supreme Leader has a longstanding public opposition to nuclear weapons. He is the respected religious leader of the Iranian government. The actions of the Iranian government, including their adherence to the JCPOA that Trump capriciously discarded, are consistent with this fatwa.
You must provide some other justification for your stance than merely accepting the US propaganda.
selimthegrim · 1h ago
There were other candidates for supreme leader that had stronger clerical and jurisprudential backgrounds
tptacek · 1h ago
We can just disagree about this and let the evidence people can find on their own speak for itself. I find the idea that the SL is "opposed to nuclear weapons" to be risible. Iran bought from AQ Khan!
aisenik · 1h ago
I have provided information and you have provided innuendo.
tptacek · 1h ago
If you say so. I'm not interested in litigating further.
aisenik · 1h ago
Thank you for the engagement.
It is extremely important to document the facile and childish level of argumentation within the industry whose hubris seeks to force the world into the period of its greatest calamities. Society failed to highlight the intellectual immaturity of the Nazis and it has yielded the material reality we exist in today.
Again, I appreciate your labor and contributions to the historical record.
tptacek · 1h ago
K.
selimthegrim · 1h ago
You are not providing the complete context.
aisenik · 1h ago
If someone claims to be providing "the complete context" they are intentionally misleading you.
selimthegrim · 17m ago
I did not make such a claim.
aisenik · 3m ago
Crucially, neither have I.
By asking that question you are implying that I am being misleading. The reality is quite the opposite.
selimthegrim · 1h ago
That fatwa doesn’t bind Khan who is a Sunni of the Hanafi school. It’s like the US having other Five Eyes members spy on its own citizens.
UltraSane · 1h ago
"The Supreme Leader has a longstanding public opposition to nuclear weapons"
He is LYING. Because he is a liar. Who lies. Like about opposing nuclear weapons.
aisenik · 1h ago
Strict adherence to the JCPOA, capriciously discarded by the man who just bombed Iran in my name, suggests that Iran's position was legitimately held.
In fact, it implies that someone else is lying. Probably the country that just did a complete 180 on its intelligence assessment and attacked another country unprovoked, if you want my assessment.
It's not like the USA doesn't have a documented history of lying and engaging in information warfare to justify wars of choice. This isn't even our first time this century.
NoMoreWars · 2h ago
That is typically how sovereignty works, yes.
lwansbrough · 1h ago
No it isn't. Most countries work with other countries under a shared set of principles. Even China and Russia do this to an extent. Where deviation happens, it happens when a country can afford to do it (see: south China sea disputes.) Sometimes, they'll do it anyway and suffer (see: North Korea.)
Doing whatever you want is just opening yourself fully to the full spectrum of game theory outcomes. The leadership in Iran is discovering what that means.
jghn · 2h ago
I mean, we could have not torn up the JPCOA for starters
sbmthakur · 2h ago
Do we have irrefutable evidence that Iran was that close to a nuke?
hypeatei · 2h ago
The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) released a report in May saying they enriched up to 60% U-235 at one of their facilities[0].
> As previously reported, on 5 December 2024, Iran started feeding the two IR-6 cascades producing UF6 enriched up to 60% U-235 at FFEP with UF6 enriched up to 20% U-235, rather than UF6 enriched up to 5% U-235, without altering the enrichment level of the product. The effect of this change has been to significantly increase the rate of production of UF6 enriched up to 60% at FFEP to over 34 kg of uranium in the form of UF6 per month.
Why would any country enrich uranium to 60% or more?
hwillis · 1h ago
Radiopharmaceuticals are enriched to 60%. Iran is one of the top producers in the world. Iran has a natural abundance of radioactive isotopes- the background radiation of spots in Iran is extremely high: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Iran
Iran imports radiopharmaceuticals from Canada and that import was never restricted. Besides, radiopharmaceuticals are done with cyclotrons and do not require 60% HEU.
sorcerer-mar · 1h ago
To negotiate back to a prior deal that was actually pretty great for all parties involved.
hypeatei · 2h ago
No, but it was a significant jump from what they had before. I'm not a fan of what is being done by Israel and the US, to be clear.
sodality2 · 2h ago
True. Weapons grade in approximately 2 months was one estimate given by the Institute for Science and International Security.
throwaway2037 · 1h ago
I have heard similar estimates. I think what is important: It is less than one year. That is pretty quick from the view of regional geopolitics.
Here is a quote that I found from abc.net.au via Google:
> According to the US Institute for Science and International Security, "Iran can convert its current stock of 60 per cent enriched uranium into 233kg of weapon-grade uranium in three weeks at the Fordow plant", which it said would be enough for nine nuclear weapons.
Putting on my black hat for moment: I think Iran's strategy to tip toe up to the line of weapons grade uranium is strategic genius. (Of course, I don't want them to have nuclear weapons!) It provides maximum deniability so they can get as many parts as close as possible before the final 12 months dash to get nuclear weapons.
adgjlsfhk1 · 1h ago
the last bit of refinement is much easier than the initial bits. Natural abundance is 0.7%, so getting to 10% is about halfway to weapons grade and 60% is ~80-90% of the way there.
UltraSane · 1h ago
But weapons are the ONLY reason to enrich that high.
throwaway2037 · 1h ago
You raise a very good point here, probably the most important consideration if one wishes to defend Israel's and US's recent bombing of Iranian nuclear research sites. I don't know any legitimate civilian purpose to enrich uranium to near-weapons grade... except to eventually produce weapons grade material.
UltraSane · 1h ago
Honestly Iran NEVER needed to enrich uranium if it only wanted nuclear electricity. It could have imported enriched uranium fuel rods for its nuclear reactor. Spending so much on deeply buried enrichment facilities was ALWAYS about getting nuclear weapons.
sodality2 · 1h ago
Not true. Maybe the only plausible reason Iran has to make them, but that's a different claim.
Eddy_Viscosity2 · 1h ago
The US only need to claim a country has 'weapons of mass destruction' to start a war. Evidence is not required.
hackyhacky · 2h ago
No. In fact, there is no (public) evidence at all.
awongh · 2h ago
They are manufacturing consent by saying Iran was days away from having nuclear weapons.
cchance · 2h ago
LOL Daily Show had a show about it Netanyahu has been saying Iran will have nukes within weeks, since 2008
Well let's not forget stuxnet... Iran hasn't been left uncontested. They have faced considerable setbacks along the way. They've been trying to develop [all of the things you need for nuclear weapons] for some time, and more recently had been accelerating those efforts.
avoutos · 1h ago
Netanyahu may exaggerate the imminence of an Iranian nuke, but the reason Iran hasn't built a nuke is because Israel has been repeatedly setting Iran back in its progress over the years.
The single biggest setback was the JCPOA or the "Iran nuclear deal," which Netanyahu pressured Trump to unilaterally renege on.
Between this and Ukraine, the entire world knows now that even agreements with the previously highly-trusted counterparty of the USA won't keep you safe. Only nuclear weapons can keep you safe.
Off to the races!
yyyk · 1h ago
The deal was on only for about 3 years. Iran has been enriching to some extent since 2009. I'd would think there was a lot more in setting it back than a failed deal.
sorcerer-mar · 1h ago
You'd be wrong. Iran actively got rid of nearly all of its stockpile under the JCPOA.
10,000kg down to 300.
Clearly that was all for nothing, so no country will ever agree to a similar deal ever again. The deal worked great. Bibi and Trump failed.
yyyk · 1h ago
Iran did not have the tech to get beyond 20% at the time. The deal gave them time and funds for that, which is hardly nonproliferation work.
>Clearly that was all for nothing, so no country will ever agree to a similar deal ever again.
Well, yeah, bombing Libya was a huge error, so you end up between a bad deal and bombings. But that's inconvenient politically so nobody mentions who was President then.
sorcerer-mar · 1h ago
> which is hardly nonproliferation work.
Except for the part that it reduced proliferation, reduced stockpiles, and dramatically increased breakout time...? You think a workable solution is to just keep a country perpetually impoverished so it never even has the money required to learn how to enrich?
You don't understand the logic of nuclear weapons, do you?
As Ali Bhutto said: "We will eat grass, even go hungry, but we will get our own [nuclear weapon].... We have no other choice!”
> Well, yeah, bombing Libya was a huge error, so you end up between a bad deal and bombings
Say more. What's the relevance?
yyyk · 1h ago
>Except for the part that it reduced proliferation, reduced stockpiles, and dramatically increased breakout time
The breakout time was _reduced_ in the long run, since Iran was allowed to keep stocks and enrich (limits were to be removed starting from 2026 up to 2031).
>You think a workable solution is to just keep a country perpetually impoverished so it never even has the money required to learn how to enrich
They could just give up.
>You don't understand the logic of nuclear weapons, do you?
I do. They want it for offensive purposes, so it's best to handle it when it's easy. It would have been easier to handle AlQaeda without the risk of Pakistani nukes falling to it.
>Say more. What's the relevance?
Literally read the other talking points on the thread on how signing disarmament deals are cuz see how Qadaffi ended up. US did not have to make that choice.
sorcerer-mar · 55m ago
Breakout time was not reduced lol. You have a deal, then you get another deal, then you get another deal.
"I just got a 1 year discount with a vendor"
The wise man lowered his head and muttered: "No, you have earned a price increase in 12 months."
> They could just give up.
Which makes literally no sense, as we are seeing. The only sensible move for any country is to develop a nuclear weapon as quickly and secretly as possible.
yyyk · 52m ago
>You have a deal, then you get another deal
>The only sensible move for any country is to develop a nuclear weapon as quickly and secretly as possible.
That's in contradiction, no? Except there never was any plan or idea on how to get another deal. Iran would have been in a position where no deal was possible, and all the same arguments against what happened now would actually apply against a x100 stronger Iran.
sorcerer-mar · 40m ago
I get the feeling you're willfully playing dumb, but to take it step by step:
Now, after having proven that deals mean nothing both in Ukraine and Iran, the only sensible move is to develop nuclear weapons.
Prior to us having broken both of these deals, there was a believable argument for the US being an honest broker who can ensure security in lieu of you having your own nuclear weapons.
> Except there never was any plan or idea on how to get another deal
What do you mean? You do the same thing again: economic normalization for non-proliferation.
hackyhacky · 2h ago
They have been saying that (at least) since 1995.
YZF · 2h ago
Israel has been talking about the threat for some time and Iran over time has broadened its nuclear program and has enriched more and more Uranium to higher and higher levels.
Why does Iran need all this enriched Uranium? Why is it investing so much in this? Why does it invest so much in its ballistic missile program?
Would Israel be a threat to Iran if Iran didn't continuously declare it wants to wipe Israel off the map and take all these actions to follow up on that?
Israel is tiny. It can't afford the risk of a regime that openly declares it wants to wipe it off the map and has acted towards that goal to get nuclear missiles.
awongh · 2h ago
One of the problems is that we became the defenders of Israel. And it's a situation we created when we created a religious extremist government in Iran.
YZF · 1h ago
The US and Israel have a long standing partnership. During the cold war the USSR backed Syria and Egypt (E.g.) and the US backed Israel. That was not different than other places in the world where the US pushed back against soviet expansion. Unlike Europe though there was never a formal defense pact. Also unlike Europe there were actual wars with people getting killed.
I'm not sure the US "created" the religious extremist government in Iran. It's a complicated story. But the Shah was hated and like other similar dictators to date the US was happy to support that regime and turn a blind eye to the atrocities against the Iranian citizenry. Just like it is happy to work with other dictatorial regimes today as long as their interests align. When the revolution happened the Ayatollah was already well positioned to take advantage of the situation. Many of the people who rose up were eventually lined up against the wall and executed, like tends to happen in these revolutions.
- it's disgusting that the USA is always like, oops, my bad, we messed up when we helped you kill all those people, we were doing our best (sometimes in the case of Iraq going back and forth three times!)
- now that we're here, not sure what else we can do (we shouldn't let Iran fund proxy wars and have nukes)
YZF · 1h ago
The US messed up a lot of things e.g. in the Americas. Before them the Europeans also messed plenty of stuff up.
But the US has also at times been a positive force.
I don't think the way to fix "messing up" that is to just disappear and step away. Like it or not, the US is the leader of the free world. Retreating means people like Putin and Xi and going to step into the vacuum.
But I agree the US should act responsibly. I'm also unsure where the current path is leading. It is weird that you declare two weeks for negotiations and then you attack though I'm pretty sure the negotiations would have led nowhere.
cchance · 36m ago
They said it was weeks away in 2008, 2012, 2017 and 2023... and now we're back here again
archsurface · 2h ago
Well, it takes about 20 years. Throw in a virus, assassinations, inspections, ... sounds about right.
archsurface · 2h ago
Facilities deep in a mountain, no IAEA access, refusal to negotiate, October 7th, ... You'd have to be quite naive to think it's all above board. (Instead of under a mountain).
awongh · 2h ago
Let's be clear Iran is the bad guy. But so was Saddam Hussein and he didn't have the weapons they said he did.
On Fox News they'll tell you nuclear war is imminent but they say that because they want to bomb, not because it's true or not. They're only justifying their actions, not reacting to a threat.
archsurface · 1h ago
I don't watch Fox News. Blair and Bush lying about Iraq, doesn't mean Iran isn't working towards weapons. I'm all for prosecuting Blair and Bush, always have been. This is not a matter in which you can just sit back and say "well, hopefully it's all innocent". Iran had to be open - they were the opposite.
arp242 · 56m ago
> Blair and Bush lying about Iraq, doesn't mean Iran isn't working towards weapons
You're correct. However, Netanyahu also claimed that Iran was behind the two assassination attempts on Trump during the campaign trail. A laughably transparent lie obviously designed to woo Trump. Then there's that this war is politically very convenient for him as it distracts from some Knesset political drama, increasing international criticism of the Gaza situation, and it obstructs Trump's attempts at a politician solution with Iran.
I don't know if Iran has nuclear weapons. Clearly they've been playing with fire for a long time but that doesn't mean they actually have nuclear weapons. But I consider anything the Netanyahu government says as deeply and profoundly untrustworthy. So colour me highly sceptical on it all.
Iraq was also not giving sufficient access to inspectors, which was one of the reasons people were convinced he did have WMDs. Things like "you can just sit back and say 'well, hopefully it's all innocent'" is pretty much what people were saying at the time as well.
Wars have unpredictable outcomes, all of this may very well cause more problems than it solves.
anonnon · 2h ago
The alternatives were that they were enriching well beyond peaceful thresholds primarily for leverage in negotiations, or that they wanted "breakout" capability, so they could build multiple bombs quickly, if they ever chose to. But these alternatives can still be unacceptable from the standpoint of arms control and nuclear nonproliferation.
hwillis · 1h ago
Iran is one of the top producers or radiopharmaceuticals from highly enriched materials including uranium. This should be unsurprising because Iran has a natural abundance of radioactive isotopes- the background radiation of spots in Iran is extremely high: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Iran
There are some ridiculous pro-palestine/anti-israel takes out there that says that the politics of the region are more stable when Iran has nuclear weapons.
megous · 1h ago
How'd any of that be a problem, even if it was true?
sundaeofshock · 2h ago
I can understand the Iranian reluctance to negotiate with the US. Trump has demonstrated that he is particularly honorable.
archsurface · 2h ago
That would be pointlessly defeatist. Also, other parties are involved to bear witness.
dardeaup · 1h ago
Who is 'they'? United States, Israel, media outlet?
flyinglizard · 2h ago
What’s the OTHER justification for a hardened nuclear program and having a pile of enriched material that can only be used for weapons?
This is the IAEA report [0], claiming enough material for 9 weapons.
Iran has massive earthquake risks. For reasons unassociated with nuclear bunkers they do a lot of research into (fibre, and other) strengthened cement construction. With obvious applications to their nuclear industry of course.
Another unrelated point, a significant number of Iranian civil engineering graduates are women. A somewhat dichotomous economy, when you consider the theocratic restrictions on costume and behaviour.
> It included a strike on the heavily-fortified Fordo nuclear site, according to Trump, which is located roughly 300 feet under a mountain about 100 miles south of Tehran. It's a move that Israel has been lobbying the U.S. to carry out, given that only the U.S. has the kind of powerful "bunker buster" bomb capable of reaching the site. Known as the GBU-57 MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator), the bomb can only be transported by one specific U.S. warplane, the B-2 stealth bomber, due to its immense 30,000 pound weight.
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/21/nx-s1-5441127/iran-us-strike-...
Most certainly was. It's underground (Fordow is ~60m?) so it's either that or nukes.
As a strategy, I see this as flawed. A dirty bomb remains viable with partially enriched materials.
(This does not mean to imply I support either bombing or production of weapons grade materiel. It's a comment to outcome, not wisdom)
A dirty bomb is basically Hollywood nonsense, and wouldn't use uranium to begin with because it isn't very radioactive.
The premise is that you put radioactive materials into a conventional explosive to spread it around. But spreading a kilogram of something over a small area is boring because you can fully vaporize a small area using conventional explosives, spreading a kilogram of something over a large area is useless because you'd be diluting it so much it wouldn't matter, and spreading several tons of something over a large area is back to "you could do more damage by just using several tons of far cheaper conventional explosives".
Far more concerning is the possibility that they give it away to someone else. Enrichment is nonlinear, going from 60% to the 90% needed for weapons is a fairly trivial amount of work.
I wouldn't discount it, though. Remember, feelings matter more than facts. Magnitudes more people die on the road than in the air, but we know how well that translates to fear and action.
I mean heck, how about 9/11 compared to COVID? Wearing a mask for a while: heinous assault on freedom, Apple pie, and the American way. Meanwhile, the post-9/11 security and surveillance apparatus: totally justified to keep America safe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_bomb for others who haven't heard the term
Even if it just damages the centrifuges, as far as I see it, it would just delay their enrichment process, severely less than total destruction of their underground base.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-57A/B_MOP
Source:
I just realised that this bomb is not the same as the so called Mother of all bombs, which by the way has so far only been used once also by trump. That's the gbu 43. Why did they find it necessary to build an even bigger bomb? I wonder if they anticipated strikes on the me.
As to your other point iran seems to have a decent level of education. Building an entire home grown nuclear program under sanctions is impressive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camouflet
> A camouflet, in military science, is an artificial cavern created by an explosion; if the resulting structure is open to the surface it is called a crater.[1]
US is developing a new generation of purpose-built deep penetration bombs that are a fraction of the size of the GBU-57.
I was guessing either tungsten or depleted uranium, as for APDS, but the bomb's average density is only about 5 g/cc (14 tonnes in 3.1 m³). Length of 6.2 m times 5 tonnes per cubic meter gives a sectional density of 31 tonnes per square meter, which is about 15 meters of dirt. So Newton's impact depth approximation would predict a penetration depth one fourth of the reported 60-meter depth.
I don't know how to resolve the discrepancy. The plane wouldn't fly if the bomb weighed four times as much. Maybe most of the bomb's mass is in a small, dense shaft in the middle of the bomb, which detaches on impact?
I am sure the materials science aspects have come along since ww2, as has delivery technology, but I'd say how it goes fast, hits accurately and explodes is secondary to making a case survive impact and penetrate.
I would posit shaped charges could be amazing in this, if you could make big ones to send very high energy plasma out. I'm less sure depleted uranium would bring much to the table.
(Not in weapons engineering, happy to be corrected)
It's not entirely home grown if they were part of the NPT is it? Signing the NPT (a pinky promise not to develop weapons) means other countries then help you develop nuclear energy, which of course has a lot of overlap to weapons tech...
> including one from Iran who complained bitterly about how women were treated in her country but who did get the opportunity to get an advanced education
IT IS WAY PAST TIME TO ROUND UP ALL THE JEWS AND GAS THEM!
FREE FREE PALESTINE. FREE PALESTINE!
and GAS THE JEWS!
One data point I heard recently was 80% of Iranians oppose the current regime. That said I've also heard there is wide support for Iran to have a nuclear program. Presumably as a matter of national pride. I would still imagine the secular population to be less inclined to go to war with Israel in general.
The only Iranians I've personally talked to are ones that live in the west. They generally want to have peace with Israel and want to see the regime removed. Again very anecdotally they are still not happy about Israel bombing Iran but if the regime is actually somehow magically removed I don't think attacking Israel would be a high priority for a hypothetical secular or democratic regime.
I meant that demographically, if your populace isn't as poor, battle hardened and religious (like Afghanistan) maybe going into a long ground war is less politically feasible?
In Afghanistan they had basically just been fighting a war, where the last war in Iran was 30 years ago?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War
Excerpts:
> 95,000 Iranian child soldiers were casualties during the Iran–Iraq War, mostly between the ages of 16 and 17, with a few younger
> The conflict has been compared to World War I: 171 in terms of the tactics used, including large-scale trench warfare with barbed wire stretched across trenches, manned machine gun posts, bayonet charges, human wave attacks across a no man's land, and extensive use of chemical weapons such as sulfur mustard by the Iraqi government against Iranian troops, civilians, and Kurds. The world powers United States and the Soviet Union, together with many Western and Arab countries, provided military, intelligence, economic, and political support for Iraq. On average, Iraq imported about $7 billion in weapons during every year of the war, accounting for fully 12% of global arms sales in the period.
But given the size of the existing Iranian population and geography, and the lack of any significantly sized pre-existing anti-government military faction, I’m not sure the US military is large enough to even occupy Iran in the first place, absent a draft.
Hopefully Iran is the one that blinks for the reasons above.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonyad
The Iranian regimes favorite enemy just played their part to perfection, so we should expect that to compel the majority of Iranians to rally behind their government in the face of a brutal foreign invasion by not one but BOTH of their standard-bearer arch-nemeses.
The first infliction point would be to see whether the regime intends to strike at US forces or do they intend to climb down. IMHO, that would be suicidal, but it doesn't mean they won't do it.
The second point is when they decide to end the war (they aren't doing well), and all the accusations start flying. Then there'll be political fallout.
So what can we expect:
* a ground invasion is pretty much out of the question considering the geography or Iran and its neighboring countries.
* Iran destroys every oil production and transport sites in the region (say good by to your election, Republican Party)
* they could fast produce the bomb and test it underground as a final warning
* OR they fail and resort to more desperate measure like a dirty bomb
* OR they fail and there is some sort of regime change
* Or there is some kind of extended war of attrition and it makes the refugee crisis from the past 20 years seem like it was a mere tourist wave.
In any case, this will accentuate the Qaddafi effect and more nations will follow the North Korea option of nuclear "unauthorized" nuclear dissuasion, which is also the case for Israel by the way. Talking of which, Israel will become politically radioactive in the world. Its support is already negative in nearly all countries and has dropped significantly in the US such as the evangelicals.
I do not think Iran has any military options. Because it is not liked the Iranian regime does not have any political options either. So I have no idea what will happen-which makes the current situation so interesting to watch.
I am confused. So it is impotent or the greatest threat in the middle east?
All this talk of Iran getting a nuke to hit Israel... doesn't the Iranian government know that it would instantly be destroyed the moment they used a nuclear weapon of any kind?
None of this makes sense.
YES. They Absolutely know this. The point of an Iranian nuke is deterrence, and the reason Israel finds that intolerable is that Israeli policy is to maintain the ability to unilaterally raise the stakes of a conflict past any of its neighbors.
"That was Hezbollah, not us!"
You might say using a proxy would be a hopelessly transparent ploy, but Hezbollah has been firing other Iranian supplied weapons at Israel for years and yet many people swear up and down that Iran has "never attacked Israel". So apparently the proxy ploy does work on a lot of people.
You mean they changed their mind and want to postpone the Armageddon now?
That statement is ignorant.
Do you believe all evangelicals believe the same thing, and that we want the end of the world to come immediately? Where would you get such a strange idea? I can assure you it is an ignorant thought.
Do you think sitting by and doing nothing will not pose an existential threat to the government by way of constituent discontent?
Also if they "were just about to have the bomb" then they could develop it and use it after. So there is the conflicting position that they are both insane to use it and but both sane to not escalate the conflict. This is where most pro-war arguments fail the basic logic test in the nuclear bomb era.
that's a fancy retelling of history you got there. MILLIONs died in those wars and less than 100K US troops died. Out of those wars, iraq 1 led to iraq defeat and withdrawal from kuwait. iraq 2 had saddam dragged through the streets and a regime change within 3 weeks, yemen was counterterrorism - there's no regime to topple, in afghanistan the taliban regime was removed for 20 years and only once the troops were withdrawn were they able to crawl back.
the current Iranian regime is over.
One of the key reasons behind why Iraq fell so quickly is that Saddam made all the wrong moves leading up the invasion.
By that point, he had alienated every single potential ally (including Iran) - and virtually all states in the region were supportive of the invasion, regardless of their positions in public.
Not to mention that the invasion of Iraq was ultimately a failure anyways..
Simply declare a prior good state to be "the mean," then all we need to do is let mean reversion work its magic!
I expect a major US city to have a nuke set off in it by Iran within the next 5 years.
It didn't have to be this way, we had a working treaty and inspections regime until Trump pulled us out of it.
Decades of effort to prohibit nuclear proliferation have just gone down the toilet.
Nukes among peers aren't there to be used. They are there to immobilize and freeze a layer of conflict.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei%27s_fatwa_against...
I don't expect Iran to use any nukes that they develop though. Having nukes puts a country in a special diplomatic class. Using them is almost never beneficial. The status quo risks for nuclear programs is stronger sovereignty, which would drastically shift the regional balance of power and possibly tip the scales on a broad international level.
This absolutely will not happen. Iran will make a nuke, and they will test it very publicly, and then the political math in the Middle East changes overnight. The point of a nuclear bomb for a country like Iran (or Pakistan, or North Korea) is deterrence, not attack - if Iran set off a nuke in an American city, the regime would not survive, and it’s possible the country would not.
Edit: to put that differently, the only way an Iranian bomb goes off in an American city is if an American bomb goes off in an Iranian city.
Why would Iran do something so suicidal?
This is the end of any hope. Iran will now do everything in its power to get one. And it has all the skills it needs.
Refinement keeps getting easier.
- massive instability in the ME. Just a few men with shoulder fired missiles can disrupt oil shipments from the biggest oil producers
- the high chance of being sucked into a forever war. Iran can cause a lot of problems with limited resources and can rebuild. They have no reason to give up and the US might have to continue bombing indefinitely, or launch a ground invasion.
- the increased chance of nuclear war in the ME. This action assumes that Iran has no backup facilities, or will never have, to continue building a bomb. Having already suffered the consequences, Iran has no reason not to seek a bomb.
Saudi, Egypt, Jordan, UAE, HTS, and majority of Middle East is not in favor of Iran getting a nuke.
Hatred of Iran, is a unifying force.
Looking forward to the strait of Hormuz shutting down...
Any other president would be infuriated with Bibi's actions, because they would know he's cornering the US. But he knew Trump was a pushover.
For the second, I don’t think anything other than an air campaign like it’s been done will happen, it’s not like the USA is out for blood like after 9/11.
For the third, yeah, that’s unfortunately possible, North Korea, Ukraine and now this show that the only way no one messes with you is by having a good enough deterrent. However, even if this hadn’t happened, if Iran got a bomb, they wouldn’t threaten like nk does to get stuff, it would just test it on Israel, so you would get nuclear war anyway.
They have always been emboldened.
Gaza happened under Biden's watch, and continued under Trump.
This is the first time the lie has worked to this extent.
If anything, a better standpoint is: Illogical and cavalier use of deadly force should scare our enemies, because it makes expression of our nation's military power more unpredictable. If China invades Taiwan; Trump might just blow up the Three Gorges Dam. Other Presidents might move with care, logic, and intrinsic sanctity for human life; Trump doesn't.
https://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2025/05/25/3320800/freigh...
Iran getting nukes is the spark that will start a lot of chain reactions.
And islamic populations are radicalized enough that the possibility of a nuke on Israel increases dramatically.
A fair concern, but it is interesting that although "estimates of Israel's stockpile range between 90 and 400 nuclear warheads" [1], we are not concerned about those warheads as much as we do about the ones Iran might have. Should US bomb Israeli nuclear plants? No. Should they have bombed the Iranian ones? Why?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Israel
The next facilities they build will be a few times deeper, and I have no doubt we’ll soon be hearing that ground troops are the only way to stop them.
I don't know how long these operations will set them back, but if the Iranian regime won't willingly refrain from nuclear weapons work, isn't a delay better than nothing?
These attacks make it clear that they would have been better off if they had gotten them, so it seems reasonable to assume this will be their new policy. What other strategic choice have they been left with?
And the development of a nuclear sites leaves a significant intelligence trail, not sure it can be hidden.
(Of course they can always be gifted a bomb, but that's a very different story)
I know "empire" is maybe an outdated term but I'm just illustrating there are bigger incentives than at the national level. Ironically it is conservative nationalists (who are hated by the Left) that want the empire to shrink and for the US to pull back from this leadership position. The risk here is it could also destabilize the entire world, but that's a different matter.
In short, this move is an attempt to strengthen the status quo that began after WW2.If the status quo is maintained it directly benefits the US.
I'm seeing a lot of death and the payoff is... Cheap gas prices? I can't imagine what. But the replies to this laying out all the benefits of blood soaked American hegemony I'm sure will be great for a laugh.
Israel has led an amazingly succesful campaign in presenting their problems (often arising out of their territorial ambitions) as a problem for the entire west.
The root problem is the military is controlled by various factions of lunatics that want to see the end of Israel. It's these people ought to be mercilessly killed and I have no qualms once so ever advocating for brutal violence and (preferably) murder against them.
How much does Iran spend sponsoring terrorism?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Ac...
A nuclear iran would be completely intolerable, never mind that their regime might just be lunatic enough to use them.
Add that war is bad for the whole world.
So the us benefits that it protects her economic (and strategic) interests in the ME, which are real and extremely important, at the low cost of a limited air campaign.
There are further moral arguments, but i'm answering your question in the most direct way.
Says Israel, the nation who tore up every single international laws, directly led campaign against UN and ICC, and whose right-wing (ones in power now) have been dreaming about a Greater Israel that threatens territorial integrity of like 10 different ME countries.
If we want their oil, we can buy it like reasonable people do. What you're referring to is armed robbery.
>Iran is the principle destabilising element in the middle east
Is this a joke? The country that has not started any wars in its 300 year existence is not the "destabilizing element". That would be the country that has attacked Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran this year alone.
It's logical for the West to work to prevent that from being a possibility.
Iran/persia is far older then 300 years old. But again you somehow missed the point. I was talking about the current 40 year old regime, which while not having directly started any wars, have since the beginning declared their intentions to do so against America and Israel.
Really you are being deliberately obtuse.
Contrast that to the situation today, when polls show Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to involvement [1] and even some prominent Republican legislators (Gaetz, IIRC) were against the war. This is the Trump show: it's motivated by his ego and hopium. He's more erratic than ever. Historically, American presidents almost never started a major war without popular support (Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq were all popular when they started, and I think Libya and Kosovo were too). I can't even think of a case where the country was dragged into a war that was opposed 60% to 16% in favor. I would be very interested to hear if there ever was one.
1: https://www.axios.com/2025/06/19/israel-iran-war-americans-p...
Air strikes do not constitute boots on the ground, and the rules based norms around "you break it, you own it" ended with the last flight from Kabul. Most likely, we will conduct bombing raids, but take no part in nation building.
Ironically, South Korea wanted to do this to North Korea in 2003 (edit: 1993-94), but the Bush (edit: Clinton) administration pushed back because they were concentrating on Iraq and Afghanistan (edit: Yugoslavia).
Edit 1:
Nuclear weapons ALONE do not act as a deterrent anymore. Most nuclear countries have second/third strike capabilities and nuclear triad capabilities.
This is something that Iran has been working on for decades with a fairly robust ballistics and cruise missile program, and attempts at building a domestic nuclear submarine program.
More critically, just about every regional power in the Middle East has been investing in similar capabilities in case an Iran breakout happens. Going from 1 additonal country with nuclear weapons to 3-4 leads to a cascading domino effect (a nuclear Iran means a nuclear Saudi means a nuclear Turkiye means a nuclear Egypt...)
Edit 2:
For the downvoters - a country who's leadership explicitly chants "مرگ بر آمریکا" (Death to America) will unsurprisingly be viewed as a threat. Even our large rivals China or Russia do not normalize that kind of rhetoric.
Why don't you go die!
I don't mean it literally, read: https://www.mypersiancorner.com/death-to-america-explained-o...
Isn't it great when people take things out of context? In this case the context that wishing death is quite common in Iranian expressions of frustrations?
Cultural differences are a nice excuse the first times you say something, not the one billion time.
And I guess burning flags are just a Persian expression of care?
Where did you get that info? Makes no sense. South Korea has been consistently against starting another war with NK for at least 30 years or so, and besides, in 2003 South Korea was ruled by Kim Dae-Jung, famous for he's staunch support of improving relations with North Korea (he got a Nobel prize for that), and then Roh Moo-Hyun, from the same party and largely following Kim's foreign policy.
Thanks to them we had no wars, and of course now we have some young whippersnappers complaining about their "pro-NK" policies, saying we could have totally bombed NK, starting a war, and burning the peninsula to the ground, but at least North Korea won't have nukes today!
It was after the Six Party Talks started in Aug 2003 that tensions started cooling down, before North Korea stunned the world in 2006.
Edit: though now that I think about it, I might be confusing this incident with the 1993-94 incident.
Israel has nukes and Hamas still invaded them.
Perhaps nukes protect you from invasion by rational actors, but I don't think they work on zealots.
You need to have delivery mechanisms like medium/long range ballistic missiles and second strike capabilities like SLCMs.
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossad_infiltration_of_Irani...
they are also punishing iran for selling oil in their national currency
imperialism run amok
If you haven't already, I highly recommend reading up on the GBU-57 "bunker buster" bomb, because it is some Merrie Melodies Acme brand munitions. It's deliberately as heavy as they can make a bomb, not with explosives but just with mass. They should have shaped it like a giant piano.
Edit: 3 months, and source: https://www.newsweek.com/tulsi-gabbard-iran-nuclear-weapon-2...
The past two-ish decades has made it clear that nuclear weapons are the only defense against an aggressive power arbitrarily invading.
OK, they never signed up to it, but still.
It led Iran to make 2 decisions
- Accelerate production of IRBM in order to have 10000 in stock and to build 1000 launchers in order to execute massive launches that will not possible to defend against
- Apparently the did decide to mate their IRBM with nukes as recently there was meeting between whoever managed iranian missiles problem and heads of nuclear project (there is economist article about it).
This comes against backdrop of hamas and hezbollah been wiped. especially hezbollah which was supposed to be strike force against israel with estimated 100k-200k missiles and rockets.
On that page you can download an unclassified 2025 Annual Threat Assessment [pdf] where on page 26 it states:
>> We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so. In the past year, there has been an erosion of a decades-long taboo on discussing nuclear weapons in public that has emboldened nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decisionmaking apparatus. Khamenei remains the final decisionmaker over Iran’s nuclear program, to include any decision to develop nuclear weapons.
I also think there is more reading in there that may interest people here.
[0] https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/...
[pdf] https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-202...
Edit: If you mean "Verification and monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran in light of United Nations Security Council resolution 2231 (2015)" [1], that report explicitly mentions up to 60% which is not weapons grade.
[0]: https://www.newsweek.com/tulsi-gabbard-iran-nuclear-weapon-2... [1]: https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/25/06/gov2025-24.pd...
It turns out there's a big gap between most peaceful purposes and weapons grade, and this was in that gap.
> Uranium with enrichments ranging from 40% to 80% U-235 has been used in large amounts in U.S. thermonuclear weapons as a yield-boosting jacketing material for the secondary fusion stage
Source: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq6.html#nfaq6.2
Do words mean nothing to you?
Saying it’s not weapons grade only means you haven’t finished or intend to use something else for the initial stage.
Do you have a citation for this?
60% is just a stepping stone towards 90%.
To get 1kg of U-235 requires 1.11kg at 90% purity, 1.67kg at 60% purity, and 140.6kg at natural 0.711% purity.
Has the Iranian government ever explained why they are enriching uranium?
No the US was claiming: "We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so." in it's 2025 Threat Assessment. The reports believes they were not working on them and Khamenei has the final authority to restart the program which he had not done. However, they believe there was growing pressured to do so.
Trump just gave the guy reason to green light a weapons project he had so far not wanted.
[pdf] https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-202...
I'm tired of the US playing puppetmaster (poorly) around the world, getting involved in conflicts that have nothing to do with us (or rather, creating conflicts when it has to do with access to oil or something). And it's not like we haven't messed up Iran enough already.
But I do not want a nuclear-armed Iran to be a thing. If they were working on it and had a solid program that was likely to bear fruit, I hate to say it, but this was probably the right move. But this is a big "if"; I don't trust this administration to tell the truth about any of this, no more than I trusted Bush Jr when he said Iraq had nukes.
Which shows how much of BS the pro-war argument was to begin with.
Did you have to add that qualifier because otherwise there's at least one other nuclear power in Middle East that regularly bombs civilians.
The GBU-57 is dope. Really curious to see how well it worked here
https://disarmament.unoda.org/wmd/nuclear/npt/
The first bunker-buster :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_bomb
"According to an anecdote, the idea arose after a group of Royal Navy officers saw a similar, but fictional, bomb depicted in the 1943 Walt Disney animated propaganda film Victory Through Air Power,[Note 10] and the name Disney was consequently given to the weapon."
Didn't Netanyahu perjure himself to congress about iraq's wmds two decades? Isn't that grounds for arrest? It's amazing how our media never mentions that netanyahu is a habitual liar when they push netanyahu's iran's wmds spiel.
At this point our media companies are israel's PR department. Fox news should be banned like RT for being a foreign mouthpiece.
[0] https://www.statista.com/chart/23528/irans-stockpile-of--low...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Ac...
The relief of sanctions enabled Iran to fund their other activities in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. It also enable the regime to invest in other weapons programs including weapons Iran has been supplying to Russia and those it and its proxies are launching against Israel.
I'm not sure Trump withdrawal from that deal was the best idea but the deal wasn't great either.
"The thing that prevented them from achieving a nuclear weapon didn't also prevent them from funding x y z other far less problematic things that can be far more easily handled through conventional diplomacy and military action"
Seriously?
The US actually ends Iran's nuclear program, they quit trying and obey ... because we bombed them?
Most of the recent middle east history doesn't seem to ever end as much as just go through a continuous cycle of violence creating more of what the folks condoning violence claim they're preventing.
This won't be over in just a couple of years.
We knew about these sites because they have been under IAEA supervision for many years.
The smart thing for Iran to do at this point is do what Israel did: not submit to any arms control and develop their own weapons in secret. Clearly this is the only way to be safe when people in Tel Aviv and Washington are openly discussing the "Libya solution."
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US spend a decade fighting in Afghanistan and 0 years in Pakistan despite UBL being in Pakistan.
9/11 was used as an excuse to for these regime change wars. There are old videos where they were talking about doing this in the 2000s.
And even nuclear armed nations aren’t exactly able to use their weapons to devastate an opponents military - see Ukraine and Russia.
Today countries as various as Brazil and Australia are independent, sovereign nations. Even Ukraine which was invaded by nuclear-armed Russia is still sovereign and fighting. Iran for that matter still has its sovereignty, they just lost some military assets.
But I largely agree, if you aren't a giant economy and you don't have nukes - then if the US or Russia accesses you of building nukes, you need to start building nukes ASAP.
Well the prime minister who was elected promising not to bend the knee to Trump has bent the knee to trump.
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2025/06/20/Carney-Elbows-Down/
It looks like it might even be Iran.
Israel only just (before this US bombing) claimed they had set Iran's nuclear program back by 2-3 years. I found the timing of the announcement curious.
This after suffering extensive damage from direct missile strikes (Haifa port/refinery, Mossad headquarters, Wiezmann institute, C4I/cyber defense, etc). I think the missile strikes have been much more damaging than expected and understandably under-reported. Weapons expert Ted Postol of MIT claims Israel's missile defense is only intercepting around 5%.
I think Israel will be very unhappy if things continue to escalate without further US involvement. Depending on how Iran retaliates against the US, further involvement might not be forthcoming. We've seen seen Iran attack a US base in Jordan without causing escalation from the US. Could expect something similar.
Do you have a link to this? I’m curious to read more.
mossad hq - miss. hit sewage instead https://imgur.com/a/L3PUqCi
weizman - bombed wing that contains cancer and rare deceases research labs. amazing
C4I/cyber defense. missed. hit soroka hospital.
I hope the US can use hindsight right now to guide the next decisions.
I'm old enough to remember when we (the US) ran this exact playbook, except the last letter was 'q' instead of 'n'.
Spoiler: the B-2 played a part in both of the big wars we lost in the last couple of decades. The problem hinges on the definition of "work": yes, the bombs hit what they are aimed at. No, that does not result in operational success without a coherent theory of victory.
What happened next? Did it go to plan? Nearly to plan? Close enough to plan that one could kind of squint and give partial credit? Worse than that?
Did the US lose more lives in Iraq (and kill more Iraqis) before or after "Mission Accomplished"?
saddam is gone and there was a regime change.
that's it. that's what we were talking about.
no need to go into other areas of the conversation that didn't exist before you came along to insert some reason why you feel justified defending a regime that oppresses women through a "morality police" force. i don't care why you think they should be allowed to have nukes. i'm sure you can argue for it all day. you don't need to get philosophical about what is "winning" or "working".
if you can't agree on objective reality and what we are discussing, we have nothing to discuss. move on
the US lost nearly 5,000 service members in Iraq. We are still paying for the $3 trillion the war cost. Americans derived no benefit whatsoever from the change of regime in Iraq, a country that had not attacked us.
As an American who lives in a US city not currently under attack by Iran, it is reasonable to ask why we should sign up for this again. This has absolutely zero with defending Iran. How they manage their domestic affairs has no bearing on me.
If there is a case to be made that we should curtail our urgent domestic policy goals in favor of another war thousands of miles from the US, it has not been made.
My concern is this: I have no dog in this fight, but now I am going to be asked to pay for it. And it working like it "worked" in Iraq is my primary concern on that front.
Isolating the first 3 weeks or so from an 8-year war to say that it "worked" is obviously a special kind of sophistry. I'm not sure what purpose is served by such an analysis, honestly.
The dumbest and/or most self-interested of many demographics, it turns out, were happy to be tricked!
There are a handful of users on HN who have domain experience or knowledge in policymaking due to professional adjacencies (IP Law, High Finance, Space/Defense Tech VC, etc) but get drowned out.
At tech? Maybe. At everything else? Not so much.
Whether this is good or bad is something people can discuss. But I think it’s fleetingly difficult for me to see any sort of righteous high ground these days.
The thing about Trump's isolationism is that it's actually a passive aggressive position. Imagine you know which kids in your classroom are likely to fight and you take a policy of "I won't stop it if it happens", that's basically telling some of the kids "go ahead", so how is this isolationist?
Now, literally joining in on the fight when the kids pop off, that is uniquely Trumpian.
The PRC's only realistic hope is a soft power takeover which it seems mildly competent at progressing on. About to have a serious setback with the KMT recalls though.
Never heard of Wills? Whet your appetite with his masterpiece and best work (in my humble opinion): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29435.Nixon_Agonistes
We got very good at gray area nonsense. The Korean War is not a war, it's a conflict. The Vietnam War is not a war, it's an engagement. We have police actions, "peacekeeping" operations, and a hundred other things...but not "wars".
We have the "global war on terror" and the accompanying Authorization for the Use of Military Force, created in the wake of 9/11 and still in effect today.
Congressional approval of military action is fundamentally dead.
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That said this particular bug for starting wars without congress has been exploited for decades with no patches in site
So it seems he's allowed to do this? It's still within 48 hours, so he has time to officially "notify" Congress, if he hasn't done so already. And since this was an aerial bombing, no armed forces remain there, so the 60-day bit is irrelevant.
As concerns global stability a single precision strike from an untouchable platform with zero marginal increase in obligations on strained naval assets is basically the best case scenario. If we had dropped a bomb, took a picture in front of a "Mission Accomplished" banner, and gone back to playing chess with peer adversaries in any conflict since the Korean War it would have been the smart move. The United States military is designed to protect global trade and win high intensity conflicts against peer adversaries and be seen preparing for it as a deterrant. It does this job extremely well. It was not designed for assymetrical quagmires with no possible palatable exit strategy.
Likud may be willing to fight Iran to the last American, but I'd rather we didn't.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7864/j.ctt6wpgvg
"CHAPTER FIVE Leave it to Bibi: Allowing or Encouraging an Israeli Military Strike"
Israel did most of the dirty work, US just came in to drive the final nail.
Even more people would be relieved if trump bombed israel's nuclear facilities. But that doesn't make it right or justified.
Do you really want military attacks based on popularity or feelings? I don't think israel would enjoy living in such a world.
Like what? Declare a fatwa against them?
When you answer, please provide sources for your claims. I'll be eagerly awaiting your response.
You know, none of this would have happened if Hamas didn't attack Israel on Oct 7. Iran should know. They paid for it.
If Iran had a nuke, they are crazy enough to use it by slipping it to their cells.
"If someone says they are going to kill you, believe them."
Iran: Death to Israel Iran: Death to America Hamas: Death to Israel Hamas: Death to America
So, hugs and pallets of cash? ...or you destroy their ability to kill a million of your civilians.
If their enrichment wasn't for weapons-development, why was it being done in a hardened under-ground bunker?
In 2023, unannounced inspections uncovered uranium particles enriched near weapons-grade. The so-called agreement was toilet paper to the terrorist state.
Well, the Democrats had a very good plan to deal with this: diplomacy. They agreed a deal where Iran agreed not to build nuclear weapons, and in exchange they removed sanctions on Iran. A win-win scenario for everyone (except Bibi). Trump then - completely inexplicably - decided that he could do better at negotiating a deal, ripped up Obama's one, and then decided to... plunge the Middle East into chaos.
> You know, none of this would have happened if Hamas didn't attack Israel on Oct 7. Iran should know. They paid for it.
Surely the man who decided it was a good idea to alllow Qatar to give Hamas lots of money is at least partially to blame? [1] Or perhaps the person who decided to advocate to the US government that they should sell weapons to Iran [2]
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q... [2]: https://www.ft.com/content/8d75baf6-6756-4d52-a412-bc90bbbde...
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the UAE, Egypt, etc all supported us.
Gulf War -> US invasion of Iraq = 12 years
US invasion of Iraq -> USA, Iran & Israel = 22 years
Looks like it's time for USA to feed a new generation of grunts into the PTSD grinder again.
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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CsJPrHcaBs
Put another way: if you want to call it appeasement, fine, it has worked for a long time. On the other hand, "peace via war" has a terrible track record.
And there's the answer: on the world stage, you’d better be close friends with someone who has nukes, have your own, or be forced into a client state.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
The US clearly does not believe they have operational nukes, or we would not have bombed them today. The actions undermine the official statements.
Put in realpolitik: would it be worth the US spending an Iraq War's expenditure of lives and $3 trillion to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon?
Why?
What makes this moment the place where the working approach of the last half-century simply cannot work another day?
The question is only, did they have the means to, and was there an indication they were? The answer is yes. They were enriching uranium at levels that go beyond anything non-nefarious. Their lead nuclear scientists were going to be meeting with their ballistic missile scientists (according to the dossier.)
On would it be worth it: nuclear proliferation is probably the most dangerous existential threat that humanity faces that is completely preventable. Iran is the most destabilizing country in the region and the cascade of nuclear proliferation that would occur if they succeeded would be a nightmare. That is easily worth $3T.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jdxxVxtHK2M
Copy and paste this nonsense argument for Iraq 3 trillion dollars ago.
Iran has not yet built a bomb because the program has been repeatedly set back over the years:
https://apnews.com/article/israel-iran-timeline-tensions-con...
I would not support an all out invasion of Iran with American troops a la iraq, but if all it takes is a few bunker busters collecting dust in the U.S> arsenal to set back Iran's program a few more years or decades, I see that as a win.
The data is that Iran has some weapons research, and have/had about 400kg of 60% enriched Uranium (no civilian use), an higher amount of lower grade enriched Uranium, and a certain number of centrifuges for enrichment.
The interpretation bit is regarding what's called 'weaponization' (aka taking all the materials and converting them to a bomg):
A modern bomb would use >90% (preferably >95%) Uranium and an implosion mechanism and be light and small enough to put on a common ballistic missile. While getting to 90% would have been easy for them (at one time they 'accidentally' enriched to 88%), they haven't done it yet, and it isn't entirely clear how close they are on miniaturization.
A hacky bomb could use a lower grade of Uranium (60% would barely do if they pooled all of it), be much heavier (it comes with the lower grade), possibly use a simpler gun-type mechanism, and would have to be delivered with some custom mechanism.
So 'weapons grade' could mean '90% and above', or it could mean 'enriched to a level that has no use apart from building weapons'. 'Distance to a bomb' could mean 'distance from what can be easily delivered' or 'distance from any fissile explosive'.
for totally civilian purposes...
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If the comparison with how we treat hostile forces with nuclear weapons wasn’t more stark. N. Korea is basically left alone, their leader praised. Libya gives up nukes and then the state falls in on itself.
This is proving to any state that nuclear arms are really the only protection. The world is less safe, and the next generation of young men like me (20 years ago) are about to be thrown into the meat grinder, sent by a ruling class that doesn’t even answer to the people anymore.
We’ve really lost our way.
Reminder, a recent survey found 16% American supported an offensive strike against Iran.[1]
[1] https://www.axios.com/2025/06/19/israel-iran-war-americans-p...
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Then both kinds require the same protection, and protection can't be used to distinguish between them.
"She's obviously a witch, because she's been living deep in the forest all suspicious-like ever since we burned down her cursed house."
> Credible deterrent against stuff like this?
You mean the credible deterrent is moving towards a nuke?
Look I dgaf about what Iran was doing, there is no wool over my eyes about what that state is capable of. I saw the IEDs with copper cones used to kill and maim my friends, they almost certainly came from Iran.
What I care about is: congress declares war, not the executive. The people should decide, and we just stepped 10 steps closer to the monarchy we tried to depose 250 years ago.
2024 Trump is using the power of the executive in ways even more grotesquely than 2016 Trump.
Countries without nukes get victimized by countries with nukes. If you haven't noticed this pattern yet, there's not much hope for you.
I visited Nagasaki/Hiroshima a few years ago, at the end of both memorials there are celebrations of NPTs and denuclearization efforts with veneers of 90's nostalgia - as if the job were done. How wrong we all were, today 2 non-NPT nuclear powers bombed a NPT non-nuclear power to prevent imaginary WMD Nukes, triggering a possible regional conflict that will kill millions. The only country that shouldn't have nukes is America - they dropped 2 for vibes because the Nazis already surrendered and they wanted to try out their new toy. IL\US project their genocidal tendencies onto others then claim preemptive strikes. Both countries a threat to world peace. It's clear now the only way these two countries leave you alone is if you have a nuke. Any sovereign logical leader will now pursue them. IL/US have made the world a much more dangerous place just because they want to continue the holocaust of Gaza.
Shame.
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They were enriching uranium near weapons-grade levels. What more evidence do you need without seeing an actual assembled nuclear weapon?
https://govfacts.org/explainer/declaration-of-war-vs-authori...
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IMHO the Israeli policy of punching everyone so hard they're reeling is a massive mistake for Israel in the long term. It works great short-term, but 50 years? 100 years? Who knows what the world will look like then, and being surrounded by enemies is not going to work well when you no longer have your fancy US-backed missile shields and whatnot. The best long-term bet is for normalised relationship with its neighbours, and every time something like this happens that gets set back 20 years at least.
Then again, they had already given up on that with how it treated the Palestinians both in Gaza and West-Bank...
This doesn't mean military action is never an option under any circumstances, but no nation can perpetuate hostilities forever. Whether it's 50, 100, or 200 years: this has a massive risk of coming back to bite Israel hard.
Hope they're building other friendships in the region, I don't see the unquestioning US patronage lasting much longer.
Hopefully the ensuing economic meltdown will sour enough Americans before too many people are killed, but who knows.
Generally, Any prominent pro-Israel republican if they post anything pro-war will have hundreds of negative replies.
It is incredibly depressing to see people constantly falling into the trap that their political opposition are dumb / brainwashed.
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(It will be the first time a GBU-57A/B has been used in war, which is interesting)
They needed troops on the ground. Israel was going to do this.
It's possible they have just collapsed the entrances.
Trumps comments - https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump You have a loop, @Osint613 reposted Trump as "Fordow is gone" which Trump reposted. Neither of them have any idea.
(Natanz, Isfahan were already hit and damaged by Israel, the US didn't bother to bunker bust them, it was Tomahawks from subs )
3D model of Fordow - https://x.com/TheIntelLab/status/1398716540485308417
You need a tactical nuke to destroy Fordow, but the USA considers tactical the same as strategic, so it would be very unlikely. Russia could, since they put tactical in a different category.
I think I know what statement you are referring to and it wasn't an endorsement of war.
Recognising someone for doing something well even if it is amoral/immoral, isn't an endorsement of person or action.
e.g.
I don't like George Galloway or how he operates as a politician, nor do I like his politics, or his policies. I personally think he is a scumbag.
However he is a very effective politician and his strategies, tactics and his communication skills are second to none.
If US hopes to not be involved in it, it will be up for the surprise.
All the Middle East calamities have begun with targeted and limited operations. Not believable anymore.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Shayrat_missile_strike
While you are correct it wasn’t a war, but neither is this technically.
Maybe Trump will claim the airstrikes were just a joke, like he does when he tells his supporters to use violence towards other Americans. Otherwise, the United States is definitely, unambiguously at war with Iran.
1/17/12: "@BarackObama will attack Iran in order to get re-elected."
9/16/13: "I predict that President Obama will at some point attack Iran in order save face!"
11/10/13: "Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly - not skilled!"
"If Kamala wins, only death and destruction await because she is the candidate of endless wars. I am the candidate of peace. I am peace." - Presidential debate, 2024
If you voted for Trump, you voted precisely for this. Every accusation from him is either a confession in disguise or an unfulfilled wish.
It's not random.
US will be forced to join and millions of its citizen will die in WW3.
well, that's entirely self inflicted by Europe at this point. i know the great china wall is pretty but there's actually nothing separating china from that landmass. there's no "migration crisis" in china.
Yeah man, nothing except 2000+ miles of the largest mountain ranges in the fucking world. Are you serious man?
“self inflicted”
There is just no much other places for people to run when shit hits fan.
But I’m also not sure that the situations are comparable. In the case of Ukraine which is probably most similar to Iran from an economic standpoint, had many refugees who were temporarily fleeing Russian aggression but planned to return to Ukraine. Iran, especially if/when it’s out from under sanctions has a more robust economy and geopolitical forces going for it, versus Libya or Syria, in my view.
Economy will matter only if there will be no fallout in Iran which is not guaranteed.
> Economy will matter only if there will be no fallout in Iran which is not guaranteed.
Sure it depends on what all happens, but my point was it is different than Syria or Libya in many aspects.
(... no)
But yeah, I do think history will remember this as one of the few good things Trump does.
The IDF has total air superiority. The regime has very little capabilities left at all.
In Lebanon the state is attempting to reassert itself. In Syria the rebels took control. But with no foreign boots on the ground, and no organized opposition ready to step in, what exactly is supposed to happen after the regime folds?
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watch as the US is now dragged into 10-20 years of war in the middle east again.
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It could be worse.
But this is still bad, may be illegal, and isn't over yet. We don't actually know what they hit, if those sites were empty, and what's happened to ~1/2 ton of highly-enriched uranium or the regime's ability to produce more.
Bush Jr and his buddies are IMO unindicted war criminals. It remains to be seen if this current act puts Trump in the same shoes. I hope Iran really did have a nuclear weapons program and that this attack is in some way justified. But I won't believe or disbelieve it until we know more, corroborated by trustworthy sources outside the US.
I see both arguments, but I’m curious what others think
Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if Ukraine has nukes. The US would not have dismantled Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Iran if they had nukes.
You look at a country like North Korea and they get the red carpet despite have an incredibly oppressive regime and spending millions on cyber attacks and corporate espionaige. You know why? Because they have nukes.
It's not a question of "trusting" Iran. Iran with nukes is more geopolitically stable situation than Iran without nukes. As it stands today, Iran without nukes, means that Lockheed Martin gets to fleece another 10 trillion dollars from the American public for the next decade.
Though your point about the US being more capable of destruction than Iran is obviously true. China also is more capable of destruction than Iran, as are Israel, Russia (as we see today with their unprovoked invasion of Ukraine), and many others.
Beyond that, there are moral questions about the use of nuclear weapons. I know people who think it would have been more moral to force a Japanese surrender via many Japanese and American soldiers to die during an invasion of Japan, than for the US to kill civilians with nuclear weapons. I'm not sure I agree with that line of thinking, but I can't dismiss it either.
It's not a suggestion. It's a well-supported historical fact.
If you were firebombed or killed in a human meat wave in Stalingrad you are just as dead as someone killed with big bomb.
I think the moral argument about killing more and more Americans or Japanese during an invasion is a fun theoretical discussion, but in a war your people matter and the enemy’s don’t in cases like this where you have two clear nation states engaged in total war. Certainly the circumstances of the wars matter, but in the case of World War II I think it’s rather clear cut, and opinions to the contrary are generally revisionist history meant to continue to make America look like a bad guy in order to cause moral confusion and social division.
> Beyond that, there are moral questions about the use of nuclear weapons. I know people who think it would have been more moral to force a Japanese surrender via many Japanese and American soldiers to die during an invasion of Japan, than for the US to kill civilians with nuclear weapons. [...]
Nuts!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_Conventions_of_1899_and_...
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This isn't true at all. You don't need to bomb civilian cities to end a war. The Japanese government, specifically the emperor had already indicated they wanted to negotiate. They were already well aware they couldn't win the war.
There is far, far more evidence that the U.S. just couldn't help itself and wanted to demonstrate our/their new weapon:
"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan."
- Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet
In true U.S. fashion, we had to create a boogeyman to commit some atrocity in order to achieve absolution for the evil we inflicted upon our fellow man.
But hey, don't take my word for it:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombing...
* https://youtu.be/RCRTgtpC-Go?si=cXL4QevdwyYFQ-0i&t=5912
The quote isn't "random" and there's a whole wikipedia page for you to read.
You should take the 10 minutes and do it.
>I’ve chosen mine based on my own research and learning.
Complete and utter bullshit. Remove yourself from this website.
This is some peak "Merica bad" brain rot.
https://www.statista.com/chart/23528/irans-stockpile-of--low...
The position you're taking only really works if you start from "Iran will always work towards having a nuclear bomb, no matter what." And yeah, if that's your starting place, you've figured out where that path ends up. You're never going to be satisfied with anything Iran says because your fundamental premise is that they can't be trusted to not pursue a nuclear bomb.
By walking away from the deal, we gave Iran a clear message: "you might as well pursue a bomb because we are always going to act like you are, no matter what you actually do."
No, it's a position that assumes some people there have an interest in a nuclear bomb, and some suspicion is warranted - which means a safe deal needed to have them some distance away from a bomb.
After all, if they just wanted nuclear power, they could have trivially had it without all this fuss. It was always so much cheaper to buy LEU than endure all these sanctions.
Isotope separation by centrifuge as a physical process follows the laws of diminishing returns, getting rid of all the uranium variations save the rare target weight takes more and more time as percent purity increases.
"Just a step away" was more a hard bridge to cross back when third party inspectors were at the enrichment centres and leaving locked and logged "long soak" spectrometer instruments behind. It's hard to enrich to greater levels without leaving a ratio fingerprint behind in the gamma spectrum.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Iran#Secret...
"The revelation that Iran had built major nuclear facilities in secret, without required disclosure to the IAEA, ignited an international crisis and raised questions about the program's true aim."
You are aware the deal was entirely dependent on Russia, and the follow-on Biden wanted to sign (but couldn't since Iran wouldn't fully cooperate with IAEA) involved Russia even more heavily? There's no other place that both sides accept can store the enriched Uranium or supply fuel rods to Iran.
>Isotope separation by centrifuge as a physical process follows the laws of diminishing returns
It's the other way around. Going from 3 to 20 percent is much harder than 20 to 60 which is harder than 60 to 90. Going to 99.9999% would be tough, but is unnecessary even for nukes.
>"Just a step away" was more a hard bridge to cross back when third party inspectors were at the enrichment centres
They were allowed to enrich to that level under the deal starting in 2031, inspections would have tested if the enriched material was diverted.
Even if they could be effective at such short notice, it would have taken the US being distracted by some other crisis and being unable to act in the short period between detection and weaponization to lead to a nuke.
Oh wait, we did. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_...
Cancelling the Joint Agreement is a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face. In particular, it was clearly an expression of Trump's animus to Obama.
Otoh, ballistic missiles eventually become a western europe/NATO security issue.
Not exactly sure how close Iran would be to that, but that is an element of the situation.
[1] https://archive.is/IcLBh
Probably something other than the one thing that would justify lifting the mid 90's fatwa declaring the creation, possession, and use of nuclear weapons against Islamic law.
How aware is this community of the Supreme Leader's staunch opposition to nuclear weapons?
This is pure imperialism.
(I think the B-2 strikes were a terribly stupid idea and that Trump got rolled by Netanyahu here, but I'm not going to be negatively polarized into thinking the Iranian SL is a benign figure.)
What is the difference between Japan & Korea vs Iran? It is simple: Trust. On the surface, sure, what you say might be true. However, it is hard to trust Iran as they so consistently threaten Israel. What do you think would happen if Iran had the bomb? They would lord over Israel and threaten them on the regular. This would be massively destabilizing for the region and world.
Final question: Is it harder to build a safe, civilian nuclear power programme compared to a (safe?) nuclear weapons programme? I don't know.
What is the reason to trust Israel, who engaged in subterfuge to develop nuclear weapons in the 1970s, over Iran?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_incident
We presented outright fabrications to the UN to justify an imperial war after the president campaigned against "nation building." It is hard to ignore the parallels to Iran and Trump, proclaimed "anti war" candidate that you had to vote for to prevent WW3. Here we are.
Isn't that subterfuge?
It is possible that mistakes were made in the aftermath of WW2. It is possible that the victors have rewritten history in a favorable light -- in fact, that is the most reasonable expectation. This must not be used to justify genocide for if our society takes that path the victory against the Axis powers is meaningless and evil will have triumphed in the world.
Israel is more than Netanyahu and less than the Jewish people. Humanity must unite and destroy the power structures that incentivize the hyperscale atrocities we are currently manifesting.
Those of you who received adequate Liberal Arts education will see through him, whether you agree with his intended rhetorical outcome or not.
You are disingenuous and malicious when you portray my position in this way. The Supreme Leader has a longstanding public opposition to nuclear weapons. He is the respected religious leader of the Iranian government. The actions of the Iranian government, including their adherence to the JCPOA that Trump capriciously discarded, are consistent with this fatwa.
You must provide some other justification for your stance than merely accepting the US propaganda.
It is extremely important to document the facile and childish level of argumentation within the industry whose hubris seeks to force the world into the period of its greatest calamities. Society failed to highlight the intellectual immaturity of the Nazis and it has yielded the material reality we exist in today.
Again, I appreciate your labor and contributions to the historical record.
By asking that question you are implying that I am being misleading. The reality is quite the opposite.
He is LYING. Because he is a liar. Who lies. Like about opposing nuclear weapons.
In fact, it implies that someone else is lying. Probably the country that just did a complete 180 on its intelligence assessment and attacked another country unprovoked, if you want my assessment.
It's not like the USA doesn't have a documented history of lying and engaging in information warfare to justify wars of choice. This isn't even our first time this century.
Doing whatever you want is just opening yourself fully to the full spectrum of game theory outcomes. The leadership in Iran is discovering what that means.
> As previously reported, on 5 December 2024, Iran started feeding the two IR-6 cascades producing UF6 enriched up to 60% U-235 at FFEP with UF6 enriched up to 20% U-235, rather than UF6 enriched up to 5% U-235, without altering the enrichment level of the product. The effect of this change has been to significantly increase the rate of production of UF6 enriched up to 60% at FFEP to over 34 kg of uranium in the form of UF6 per month.
0: https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/25/06/gov2025-24.pd...
https://www.energy.gov/science/ip/articles/harnessing-power-...
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/04/08/723301/Iran-among-t...
Here is a quote that I found from abc.net.au via Google:
Putting on my black hat for moment: I think Iran's strategy to tip toe up to the line of weapons grade uranium is strategic genius. (Of course, I don't want them to have nuclear weapons!) It provides maximum deniability so they can get as many parts as close as possible before the final 12 months dash to get nuclear weapons.https://apnews.com/article/israel-iran-timeline-tensions-con...
Between this and Ukraine, the entire world knows now that even agreements with the previously highly-trusted counterparty of the USA won't keep you safe. Only nuclear weapons can keep you safe.
Off to the races!
10,000kg down to 300.
Clearly that was all for nothing, so no country will ever agree to a similar deal ever again. The deal worked great. Bibi and Trump failed.
>Clearly that was all for nothing, so no country will ever agree to a similar deal ever again.
Well, yeah, bombing Libya was a huge error, so you end up between a bad deal and bombings. But that's inconvenient politically so nobody mentions who was President then.
Except for the part that it reduced proliferation, reduced stockpiles, and dramatically increased breakout time...? You think a workable solution is to just keep a country perpetually impoverished so it never even has the money required to learn how to enrich?
You don't understand the logic of nuclear weapons, do you?
As Ali Bhutto said: "We will eat grass, even go hungry, but we will get our own [nuclear weapon].... We have no other choice!”
> Well, yeah, bombing Libya was a huge error, so you end up between a bad deal and bombings
Say more. What's the relevance?
The breakout time was _reduced_ in the long run, since Iran was allowed to keep stocks and enrich (limits were to be removed starting from 2026 up to 2031).
>You think a workable solution is to just keep a country perpetually impoverished so it never even has the money required to learn how to enrich
They could just give up.
>You don't understand the logic of nuclear weapons, do you?
I do. They want it for offensive purposes, so it's best to handle it when it's easy. It would have been easier to handle AlQaeda without the risk of Pakistani nukes falling to it.
>Say more. What's the relevance?
Literally read the other talking points on the thread on how signing disarmament deals are cuz see how Qadaffi ended up. US did not have to make that choice.
"I just got a 1 year discount with a vendor"
The wise man lowered his head and muttered: "No, you have earned a price increase in 12 months."
> They could just give up.
Which makes literally no sense, as we are seeing. The only sensible move for any country is to develop a nuclear weapon as quickly and secretly as possible.
>The only sensible move for any country is to develop a nuclear weapon as quickly and secretly as possible.
That's in contradiction, no? Except there never was any plan or idea on how to get another deal. Iran would have been in a position where no deal was possible, and all the same arguments against what happened now would actually apply against a x100 stronger Iran.
Now, after having proven that deals mean nothing both in Ukraine and Iran, the only sensible move is to develop nuclear weapons.
Prior to us having broken both of these deals, there was a believable argument for the US being an honest broker who can ensure security in lieu of you having your own nuclear weapons.
> Except there never was any plan or idea on how to get another deal
What do you mean? You do the same thing again: economic normalization for non-proliferation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Iran#Secret...
Why does Iran need all this enriched Uranium? Why is it investing so much in this? Why does it invest so much in its ballistic missile program?
Would Israel be a threat to Iran if Iran didn't continuously declare it wants to wipe Israel off the map and take all these actions to follow up on that?
Israel is tiny. It can't afford the risk of a regime that openly declares it wants to wipe it off the map and has acted towards that goal to get nuclear missiles.
I'm not sure the US "created" the religious extremist government in Iran. It's a complicated story. But the Shah was hated and like other similar dictators to date the US was happy to support that regime and turn a blind eye to the atrocities against the Iranian citizenry. Just like it is happy to work with other dictatorial regimes today as long as their interests align. When the revolution happened the Ayatollah was already well positioned to take advantage of the situation. Many of the people who rose up were eventually lined up against the wall and executed, like tends to happen in these revolutions.
- it's disgusting that the USA is always like, oops, my bad, we messed up when we helped you kill all those people, we were doing our best (sometimes in the case of Iraq going back and forth three times!)
- now that we're here, not sure what else we can do (we shouldn't let Iran fund proxy wars and have nukes)
But the US has also at times been a positive force.
I don't think the way to fix "messing up" that is to just disappear and step away. Like it or not, the US is the leader of the free world. Retreating means people like Putin and Xi and going to step into the vacuum.
But I agree the US should act responsibly. I'm also unsure where the current path is leading. It is weird that you declare two weeks for negotiations and then you attack though I'm pretty sure the negotiations would have led nowhere.
On Fox News they'll tell you nuclear war is imminent but they say that because they want to bomb, not because it's true or not. They're only justifying their actions, not reacting to a threat.
You're correct. However, Netanyahu also claimed that Iran was behind the two assassination attempts on Trump during the campaign trail. A laughably transparent lie obviously designed to woo Trump. Then there's that this war is politically very convenient for him as it distracts from some Knesset political drama, increasing international criticism of the Gaza situation, and it obstructs Trump's attempts at a politician solution with Iran.
I don't know if Iran has nuclear weapons. Clearly they've been playing with fire for a long time but that doesn't mean they actually have nuclear weapons. But I consider anything the Netanyahu government says as deeply and profoundly untrustworthy. So colour me highly sceptical on it all.
Iraq was also not giving sufficient access to inspectors, which was one of the reasons people were convinced he did have WMDs. Things like "you can just sit back and say 'well, hopefully it's all innocent'" is pretty much what people were saying at the time as well.
Wars have unpredictable outcomes, all of this may very well cause more problems than it solves.
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/04/08/723301/Iran-among-t...
https://www.energy.gov/science/ip/articles/harnessing-power-...
This is the IAEA report [0], claiming enough material for 9 weapons.
[0] https://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/Analy...
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