War In Iran

dude khamenei is apparently dead according to israeli sources.....It could lead to a large scale regime change war........Nothing good is going to come from this war 

Pahvlavi in if and only if the rest of IRGC apparatus is decapitated

We are so back!

"Persian Agartha"

It makes one deeply skeptical of Trump’s decisions when considering that many of his interventions could be attempts to divert attention from the files and "gain time" until he passes away. 

Think Putin had a similar mindset on Ukraine, rather than retreat and get defeated, he would be willing to run the war for 10 years or more until he dies, so Russians can blame its successor being the one that "lost it". 

"Operation Epstein's Fury"

Good analysis. 

The majority of Iranians wanted the Supreme Leader out, but do they really want the Shah back?

GordonGekko87

All of my Persian (and Persian Jewish) friends are crying tears of joy at the moment. 

They’ve wanted this for almost half a century.

How does the attack of Iran help US citizens? 

Similar boat here, not friends but I grew up in a school district that had a sizable Persian Jews population. Some are full on Zionists and I can't stand them for that reason. But I get why they're happy.

That being said, I voted for Trump to be "America First" and "No Wars." I'm pissed that we're possibly going to be experiencing another war in the Middle East (although I get why he captured Maduro, for that I'm a bit on the fence if I agree with the administration there).

Your friends probably live in the West. Those that fled the current regime live in the West. That's called selection bias. There are actually people that support this regime (although I disagree with them). No dictatorship can support itself if it's being hated by everybody. Point being that this doesn't automatically become a good thing just because two of your friends happen to like it, since some other people are also opposed to it and I could just as well describe it as a bad thing just because some people happen to dislike it.

Remember that the people in Iraq celebrated the fall of Saddam Hussein and we're still suffering from the negative consequences that came from that (think ISIS). If Iran experiences a similar state collapse it being a neighbouring country to Afghanistan and Pakistan could make the consequences of Iraq look like a playground in comparison. All I'm saying is that we're in a seriously risky situation and simply destroying one state without a plan concerning the day after is very reckless.

ofc GordonGekko87 wants America to figth an other war for big Yahoo.

Your sample of Zionist LA Persians is not representative of the average Iranian.

GordonGekko87

All of my Persian (and Persian Jewish) friends are crying tears of joy at the moment. 

They’ve wanted this for almost half a century.

I can confirm as a Persian American. Please America, please kill my grandparents in Iran!

Is ZOG inside your walls anon?

You are an idiot.

It was a targeted operation against a dictator who had spent decades cheering the death of American through his proxies. 

FYI, nowhere in any post I’ve ever made on this site have I ever been against operations like this. 

The families of Americans killed in Beirut (1983) and in countless other terror attacks launched by Iran’s proxies received justice tonight. 

Trump supporters: No New Wars

Trump: No

Trump supporters: Yes daddy.  We always supported wars!

(Poll is after the first Iran strike which supposedly fixed everything)

kvaradona

Rahma, GME start defending them. Im sure now your pro regime change and this is America first. Lets hear it

Those morons never post until their favorite podcasters tell them what to say. When their side is doing wrong, they run and hide like the bitches they are. 

long-term goal of Iranian decapitation of nuclear aims

In a few months Iran is gonna be "about to get WMDs" once again and Trump is gonna fall for it.  Mark my words.

Writ large, I agree with you. I think one part of the analysis that is understated is that the HTS government under Jolani/Sharaa is more or less a Turkish / quasi-Al Qaeda puppet state that is tolerated by the US and Israel due to being less anti-Western. Sharaa fought against the US during the Bush Wars, but was captured as a PoW. He learned from that that radical Islamism can work, but aligning yourself against the West leads to technological overmatch, capture, or worse. The other Kurdish and rebel groups are openly purged by HTS, and the US government does nothing in response. Israel has also seized the land around Mt. Hermon out from under Sharaa, but Sharaa knows better than to resist so long as Israel keeps its demands small (occasional bombings and land seizures). Sharaa is an Al Qaeda unicorn who is uniquely positioned to be pro-US for the time being, when he is gone, there is little reason to see stability or pro-Western viewpoints in Syria (resurgence of IS or IS-adjacent philosophies, older Al Qaeda ideologies which are not as pro-Western, Hail Mary Russian backed meddling to restore the Assad family as a Baathist dictatorship despite being in the religious minority).

Netanyahu is not going to do anything radical in the West Bank. Smotrich holds the purse strings for the PA and can basically collapse them whenever he wants with two months notice. Everyone knows this. The PA is highly morally obnoxious in Israel due to open pay-for-slay payments, but the Israelis also know that the PA is great at fundraising from other countries so that Israel doesn't have to completely pay for all the infrastructure in a backwater West Bank that can't economically support itself. Collapsing the PA or annexing things creates an economic and civic disaster that Israel is ill equipped to handle. In Gaza, Israel has seized more land east of the Yellow Line, but that area has been basically depopulated by forcing the Gazans to live west of the line under Hamas, and is therefore less of an economic burden despite looking like ethnic cleansing to the eyes of many. For Netanyahu to go all Gaza and Hamas on the West Bank and actually seize land rather than do administrative creeping control, drip-feed strategies, you basically need an October 7 level of violence to occur such that Israel's citizens call for the government to go in and collapse the PA and take the land.

john60

At least 3 American soldiers dead

I do not expect many US citizens to die.  Plenty of Israeli's will die mainly due to its proximity to Iran. We are not going to put troops in Iran, which means that it is likely to be a shit show for a while. 

Arabs hated the US and the West long before they intervened in the 1973 Yom Kippur war though. The US has interests in keeping the sea channels to flow freely though and not be filled with Islamic Jihadists. Risk free trade routes and safe naval passage = better world economy.

Interesting narrative. It’s entirely ridiculous and factually incorrect of course, but it fits into a few bullets. That’s neat.

You calling Persians Arabs shows how little you know about any of this...

Because I have the time today and tiktok historians like you are so insufferable. Here we go.

The entire argument rests on a cartoon version of history.

First, the United States did not “annex land” to create Israel. Israel was established after a UN partition vote in 1947, accepted by multinational leadership and rejected by surrounding Arab states. This after they had begun their own genocide and forced removal of Jews from their countries. The war that followed was launched by multiple Arab armies. That war, not some American land grab, shaped the borders. Israel kicked their ass, in short. The U.S. at that time was not the dominant military power in the region and was barely emerging from World War II. It recognized Israel, yes. It did not engineer the war or participate.

Second, the claim that “Arabs hate America because of Israel” collapses decades of regional politics into a bumper sticker. Anti-American sentiment has come from U.S. troop presence in Saudi Arabia, Cold War alignments, backing secular dictators, backing monarchies, sanctions, the Iraq War, cultural resentment, Islamist ideology, and internal power struggles within Arab states. Israel is one of many, many factors. It is not even historically the preeminent, just the flavor of the week.

Third, the idea that Israel manipulates the United States into endless wars strips the U.S. of agency and is just historically inaccurate. The Iraq War was driven by American decision-makers after 9/11 under a doctrine of preemption and fears about weapons of mass destruction. Afghanistan was about Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Libya was about NATO and the Arab Spring. To argue that Israel pulled the strings on all of this requires evidence that does not exist. It replaces American responsibility with conspiracy framing.

Fourth, the “Israel benefits from chaos” claim ignores basic security logic. Israel has repeatedly signed peace treaties with stable neighbors when possible. It prefers predictable borders over jihadist militias. A fragmented state can be less capable of conventional war, but it can also produce Hezbollah, Hamas, ISIS, and Iranian proxies. Instability cuts both ways. There is no grand design where permanent anarchy is the ideal outcome.

Fifth, the statement that the United States has “little to no true interests” in the Middle East is historically indefensible. For decades the region sat atop the world’s most important energy reserves. The Strait of Hormuz affects global oil prices whether America imports a drop or not. The Cold War was fought there by proxy. Counterterrorism operations originated there. Great-power competition still plays out there. You cannot argue these interests do not exist.

Most importantly, the supposed circular logic, “they hate us because we support Israel; we support Israel because they hate us”, ignores domestic politics, strategic alliances, intelligence cooperation, military technology integration, and shared political alignment. U.S.–Israel ties are rooted in Cold War strategy, congressional politics, evangelical influence, defense industry partnerships, and real military interoperability. It is not a hostage situation driven by chanting crowds.

The argument feels satisfying because it simplifies a chaotic region into a single moral feedback loop. But history is not that clean. Multiple wars began before deep U.S. involvement. Multiple interventions had causes unrelated to Israel. Multiple Arab governments have cooperated with the U.S. for decades. Multiple peace agreements have been signed.

Reducing seventy-five years of geopolitics to “Israel causes America’s problems in the Middle East” is not analysis. It is simplistic Gen Z tiktok thinking. Is that enough of a rebuttal for you? My advice, stay off tiktok, stop listening to protesters living off their parents trust funds in Brooklyn, and go learn something. Hell, go talk to some real life Iranians and Israelis. Might surprise you.

Spot on. We must remove the parasite from us.

The difference here is that he has no control over the situation.

The fact that you’re comparing Iran to Venezuela is just…wow…

FR

seekinthealpha1

My prediction is one of two scenarios: 
1. We are done in one week, then in a few years we return with more force.

2. We have just begun a war that will escalate into a continental conflict across the Middle East as Israel expands eastward into ‘Judaean Samaria’

Both of these options assume that our partnerships in the region are damaged. We cannot defend our allies in the region (places we have military bases for the sole reason of “protecting” the nations we stage troops in) because we would be defending them against eastern movement by Israel, an ally of the United States.

Both of these options also make the case that the United States has ZERO strategic rationale for launching these strikes, besides preventing Israel from being damaged in the war.

Clear betrayal of the American people on this one. It must be America First and nothing else

How can this possibly last one week?  I am not really sure how long it will last or why we have attacked a country located 6000 miles from the US.  The administration's rationale is like throwing spaghetti against a wall and seeing what sticks.  What I do know is we are risking the lives of people who serve and spending tax payer dollars. 

This reads less like analysis and more like a Reddit prophecy thread.

You’ve constructed two dramatic, cinematic outcomes and then treated them as the only possible futures. That’s not forecasting. That’s binary thinking dressed up as insight.

Option one: “We’re done in a week, then we come back later harder.”
That assumes U.S. military engagement works on a Saturday-morning-cartoon timer. Modern conflicts don’t operate on neat sequel structures. The U.S. doesn’t casually leave and return “with more force” as part of some ritual cycle. Force posture decisions are political, economic, and alliance-based. They are not plot twists.

Option two: “This becomes a continental war as Israel expands eastward into Judea and Samaria.”
First, Judea and Samaria is the West Bank. It is not “eastward expansion into the continent.” It is territory that has been under Israeli control in various forms since 1967. There is no hidden map where tanks are rolling toward Mesopotamia. If you’re going to predict a regional war, at least get the geography right.

Then you claim U.S. regional partnerships collapse because America would have to defend allies from Israel. That presumes:
1. Israel is about to militarily invade U.S.-aligned Arab states.
2. Those states would immediately turn on the U.S.
3. The U.S. would be strategically paralyzed because it cannot balance two alliances.

This ignores the fact that Middle Eastern alliances are transactional and layered. The U.S. simultaneously partners with Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and others — many of whom have quiet security coordination with Israel themselves. It’s not a high school cafeteria where you can only sit at one table.

Now the boldest claim: that the United States has ZERO strategic rationale beyond protecting Israel.

Zero?

Energy market stability.
Deterrence credibility.
Counterterrorism.
Freedom of navigation.
Great-power competition with Iran, Russia, and China.
Maintaining force projection architecture.

You can argue those priorities are misguided or overstretched. You cannot pretend they don’t exist. That’s not “America First.” That’s selective awareness.

And finally, the “clear betrayal of the American people” line. That’s not analysis. That’s rhetoric. It assumes:
• You know the full intelligence picture.
• You know the classified threat assessments.
• You know the internal strategic calculus.
• And that any involvement automatically equals treason.

Serious geopolitical decisions can be wrong. They can be costly. They can be shortsighted. But declaring betrayal because a policy doesn’t match your preferred framing isn’t serious argument. It’s populist shorthand.

If you want to make an “America First” case, you’d argue cost-benefit tradeoffs:
• What does escalation cost in dollars and lives?
• What does disengagement cost in deterrence and credibility?
• What happens to oil prices?
• What happens to Iran’s posture?
• What happens to existing defense agreements?

Instead, this prediction jumps straight to apocalypse or betrayal, skipping everything in between.

1. One week is insane. Iran is a massive nation. It's the 17th-largest country in the world. It has troops all over, and if we really are going there because of WMD's, they'll be hidden in caves in the mountains, so you'll have to painstakingly go by foot to investigae every possible site. 
    
2. It;s going to turn into GWOT 2.0. Eventually, we'll be in Afghanistan again to calm down the turmoil between them and Pakistan, and probably try to topple the Taliban again since we're there, then Lebanon, then Syria.  The US Navy will remain in or near the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz to guarantee the security of all the shipping companies since none of them have insurance anymore and we need that trading route. 
   Boots on the ground I think is gauranteed, if it hasn't happened already. If Israel and the US are saying that Iran has nukes, or is close to it, we will have to go on the ground to find evidence of it. 
   As far as regime change and nation-building go, I have no idea what will happen to Iran.