Iran Super Thread- Merged

[PrairieFella]

They sort of did. But the US didn’t like who they picked so staged a coup, installing the Shah who was no Angel which eventually led to the monsters taking over in the 70s.

The US created this mess after WW2 while flexing its new found power and position in the free world.

But Mossadeigh was a...social democrat. Abandon all hope.

 

[brihard]

Do not mistake Government decisions for lack of Military capability.



Or maybe it’s just the lack of willingness to exert force in a meaningful manner, and over a required period of time.


FPV Drones are a social media clickbait their military value is very limited.

The biggest issue with the entire Iranian ‘campaign’ is the lack of a defined goal. What is the planned end state?

Folks from all walks of life seem to have forgotten how many troops it required and how many years it took to change Post WW2 Germany and Japan. If you get into ‘nation building’ you need to think in a decade or more and a few million troops.

Otherwise you waste blood and treasure for nothing.


I spent a decent amount of my adult life in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am not sure (well I am sure they don’t) that the West has the stomach to do what is required.

So the question is what does half measures get us?

Agreed.

They are separate despite what On War may describe. Capabilities and Willingness to use them are two separate items.
The Military has the capability to glass Iran - but that doesn’t mean it will get done.


Again Political errors / after Tet the VC was decimated and the NVA in RV was mangled. But Politics played its card and the American public decided it was time to bring the ball home.

I don’t disagree. But it won’t be significant from a Military aspect. Losing a few hundred troops while awful, doesn’t affect the capability of the Military to wage war.

Exactly.

Other than we need to understand that the other option was Israel conducting a nuclear strike in Iran.

So now the pile of shit we are in, isn’t as bad as it could have been.

Kev, nobody here is saying FPV drones are some sort of super weapon. Of course they aren’t. By all accounts most don’t hit, and when they do it’s with a small payload.

But you seem to be dismissing them based on your other major position here, the hand waving-away of the political quality of war. War isn’t the ‘What?’ or the ‘Why?’. Politics is The what and the why. War is how those politics are accomplished when political leadership decide it’s the way to achieve political aims. That means the political calculus matters. Hell, you’ve already conceded that by crediting losses in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan to political actors rather than military capability. Domestic politics play a role in the willingness to continue expending blood and treasure.

The domestic politics don’t matter the same everywhere. China, Russia, North Korea… They could largely give a shit when they take losses. The U.S., however, has built an unparalleled exquisite military with a huge risk to casualty aversion. In the U.S., the fatalities are named and are briefly national or at least regional news. We see the faces, the biographies, the families get honoured personally… It’s all a very direct moral tie between America’s soldiers and its people.

FPV drones are like a combination of sniper and IED that don’t work most of the time, but when you do, you get high detail video of someone’s death, often with their face visible and recognizable. Most of us here have consumed some of the war porn out of Ukraine and have seen Russian or Ukrainian soldiers isolated, helpless and hunted, sometimes visibly pleading with the operator of the drone who then kills them. Sometimes we get the video shot ten minutes later of the body on the ground where the back half of their torso is gone and a bunch of what’s left is smouldering. And the pilots will make sure to capture the American Flag patches on the shoulder.

Do you think for a second America’s enemies don’t recognize the profound power of these kinds of videos against the American psyche? And again, we’ll see some published before families of the fallen even get the knock on the door. Politically, such graphic deaths of American troops are profoundly powerful, all the more so when the current administration campaign on avoiding foreign wars. We’ll see these kill videos slickly packaged alongside the portraits and biographies of the fallen they portray. It’s gonna be some of the sickest psyops shit we’ve ever seen. Will it enrage and even radicalize many too? Absolutely. But that will come from the support that’s already baked in anyway. But it will also cause many Americans to ask their political leaders even more strongly, “what the hell are we doing there?”

I desperately hope I’m wrong. I don’t think that I am. The enemy COAs here are pretty obvious.

 

[PrairieFella]

Kev, nobody here is saying FPV drones are some sort of super weapon. Of course they aren’t. By all accounts most don’t hit, and when they do it’s with a small payload.

But you seem to be dismissing them based on your other major position here, the hand waving-away of the political quality of war. War isn’t the ‘What?’ or the ‘Why?’. Politics is The what and the why. War is how those politics are accomplished when political leadership decide it’s the way to achieve political aims. That means the political calculus matters. Hell, you’ve already conceded that by crediting losses in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan to political actors rather than military capability. Domestic politics play a role in the willingness to continue expending blood and treasure.

The domestic politics don’t matter the same everywhere. China, Russia, North Korea… They could largely give a shit when they take losses. The U.S., however, has built an unparalleled exquisite military with a huge risk to casualty aversion. In the U.S., the fatalities are named and are briefly national or at least regional news. We see the faces, the biographies, the families get honoured personally… It’s all a very direct moral tie between America’s soldiers and its people.

FPV drones are like a combination of sniper and IED that don’t work most of the time, but when you do, you get high detail video of someone’s death, often with their face visible and recognizable. Most of us here have consumed some of the war porn out of Ukraine and have seen Russian or Ukrainian soldiers isolated, helpless and hunted, sometimes visibly pleading with the operator of the drone who then kills them. Sometimes we get the video shot ten minutes later of the body on the ground where the back half of their torso is gone and a bunch of what’s left is smouldering. And the pilots will make sure to capture the American Flag patches on the shoulder.

Do you think for a second America’s enemies don’t recognize the profound power of these kinds of videos against the American psyche? And again, we’ll see some published before families of the fallen even get the knock on the door. Politically, such graphic deaths of American troops are profoundly powerful, all the more so when the current administration campaign on avoiding foreign wars. We’ll see these kill videos slickly packaged alongside the portraits and biographies of the fallen they portray. It’s gonna be some of the sickest psyops shit we’ve ever seen. Will it enrage and even radicalize many too? Absolutely. But that will come from the support that’s already baked in anyway. But it will also cause many Americans to ask their political leaders even more strongly, “what the hell are we doing there?”

I desperately hope I’m wrong. I don’t think that I am. The enemy COAs here are pretty obvious.

Perfectly said.

 

[HavokFour]

Back to the drawing board.

Iran Rejects US Peace Plan in Blow to Efforts to End War​

Archive

 

[HavokFour]

On that note, Ukraine hit Russia’s oil export terminal at Primorsk (Baltic sea) pretty hard.

They hit the one near the Estonian border again, early this morning. So now both of the major export terminals in the Baltic are burning.

Oil Terminals Archive - FleetLeaks

Oil Terminals Archive - FleetLeaks

fleetleaks.com

https://twitter.com/x/status/2036824460108402919

 

[Colin Parkinson]

But Kevin, wasn't that the same issue with both Iraq and Afghanistan? The naive belief that 'democracy' could be installed in both places by picking a person that the US - not the people - wanted to run the country and do their bidding?

In the case of Iran, they have at least dropped the facade of 'democracy' being installed.

Technically Iran is in better shape, you have a highly educated population, they are used to voting, but just had no real choices. They have a long collective history, courts and are heavily business oriented and are connected with the world. They also have a government in waiting for the transition period and a plan to move through the transition, rebuild, referendum, selection of new political structure. They already said the army will not be disbanded and no major "Debaathistcation", instead a Truth and reconciliation process to separate the IRGC members into those that did it because they had to, and those with blood on their hands. Interesting in one video it was noted that the regions closest to Afghanistan are not seeing any real activity from Israel and the US, as if they are encouraging the IRGC to flee to that area and eventually push them out into Afghanistan, where some have already fled to.
There appears to be an armed group of Persians in Iran hunting the IRGC and Basij members, with video of them being sniped at checkpoint and gates. The IDF have set up a site to allow Iranians to report any activity of the regime, launchers, checkpoints and Israel will then check those coordinates, for targets. In turn the IRGC/Basij are driving around in civilian clothing in unmarked car raiding peoples homes and arresting anyone they find with any anti-regime stuff.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

They sort of did. But the US didn’t like who they picked so staged a coup, installing the Shah who was no Angel which eventually led to the monsters taking over in the 70s.

The US created this mess after WW2 while flexing its new found power and position in the free world.

The Shah was no where near as bad as the Islamists turned out to be and France had a hand in allowing the Islamists to succeed. The Shah's main targets were Islamists and communists, both a real threat and he was also trying to secularize the country and put in land reforms.