War with...Iran?

[Coriolanus]

 

[Coriolanus]

At least we bombed them for the purpose of beating Israel to the punch. I mean, imagine if Israel had gone first, right?

Israel attacked first. It was called Operation Shield of Judah.

 

[Coriolanus]

Senior lawmakers in both parties are saying that Trump's decision to attack Iran was dictated by Israel's plan to attack Iran, with or without US support.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5764030-trump-administration-iran-strikes-israel/

 

[Coriolanus]

Can we not have Iranian embedded tweets posted here, please? I don't to be on some sort of surveillance list because someone wanted to show off how much he dislikes Tel Aviv.

 

[Coriolanus]

What the heck is substack and why does every YouTuber I subscribe to want me to subscribe to theirs?

Is it like the new geocities?

 

[Coriolanus]

How serious this is depends entirely on how hard the Iranians were trying. Did they fire one missile at the site and did it get through? Or did they fire 100 and did the anti-BM assets simply get satturated? If it's the former, it's a seriously painful moment, but if it's the latter it's kind of what you would expect. US anti-BM systems aren't perfect, they're not expected to protect from everything

There was an article recently on NY Times about how asymmetric the current missile strikes are. Currently, Iran is sending out thousands of cheap $20,000 Shahed drones and cheap missiles, while the US and Gulf states are spending over a million dollars per interceptor. Iran is basically just trying to overwhelm the system because they just need to get 1 through.

 

[Coriolanus]

China Deploys 30,000-Ton Liaowang-1 “Floating Supercomputer” to Gulf of Oman​

I’m not sure the extent to which China actually supplied the Iranian regime with advanced equipment, but I am sure Beijing is salivating at the amount of data they can capture from the theater.

There's some chatter on the conservative side of the internet that this conflict has the effect of showing China how strong the US military is.

It seems to me that what China will likely see is how much expensive ammunition the US is willing to deplete on cheap weapons, and how relatively ineffective it is at dislodging an entrenched enemy purely from an air campaign.

 

[Coriolanus]

Nuclear weapons is now technology which is over half a century old.

The Project Trinity test was 80 years ago.

 

[Coriolanus]

I don't see how Iran could be considered winning. Unless it's of the "not losing 100% equals winning" kind.

Even if the war stops now, Iran's military capabilities already took a hit that will take a decade or two to rebuild, tens of billions of dollars in damage that they may not be able to cover, encouraged anti-government camp, harmed relations with most of its neighbors, and more.

Just because they don't win doesn't mean that the rest of us don't lose.

 

[Coriolanus]

How about we stop arguing about who is brown and just talk about how Israel is doing some terrible shit in Lebanon?

 

[Coriolanus]

wait, are you sure there are China's registered ones gotten hit? I do not remember seeing that in any recent articles.

No Chinese vessels. One is Thai, one is Japanese, and one is Marshall Islands.

 

[Coriolanus]

the New York Times has generally been in the pocket of the White House for decades at this point, though obviously it's been leaning farther right in recent times.

I haven't noticed any shift rightward on the NYT. Most of the articles are fairly neutral, in my experience (and I have been a subscriber for years and I read a ton of news).

The editorial section have some annoying right wing pundits like Ross Douthat, but for the most part, most commentary range from the fairly progressive (like Jamelle Bouie) to moderate Democratic leaning. Hell, even most of the "conservative" commentators like David French are not really Republicans anymore.

 

[Coriolanus]

It's not a shift.

View attachment 130279

That article is 101 years old (from Dec, 1924). I don't think the editorial direction of a newspaper is comparable to what it was a century ago.

 

[Coriolanus]

This war is between Jewish religious fundamentalists, supported by US Christian religious fundamentalists, to exterminate Muslim religious fundamentalists, in order to bring about something believed by religious fundamentalists.

Likud isn't a religious fundamentalist party. It caucuses with some hardline Orthodox parties, but Likud itself is not fundamentalist.

 

[Coriolanus]

Were a kamikaze swarm viable why was it not used early when damaging US forces would interfere with early strikes in a mediagenic manner by damaging warships?

Well, I would imagine that it's because the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Group isn't parked close enough to land for it to ne in range of a speedboat.

Only an idiot would park a carrier group close enough to land so as to open itself to attack.

 

[Coriolanus]

Currently $3.00 in my area of Arkansas.

 

[Coriolanus]

I've heard that getting into a land war in central Asia is never a blunder.

 

[Coriolanus]

I've heard that getting into a land war in central Asia is never a blunder.

 

[Coriolanus]

I've heard that getting into a land war in central Asia is never a blunder.

 

[Coriolanus]

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/0...-b18c-4d5f0d827772?smid=nytcore-android-share

Israeli bombing campaigns have expanded beyond Hezbollah held territories. Now it has struck Christian-majority suburbs of Beirut.

 

[Coriolanus]

Is this the accepted opinion on this forum? I hardly believe designing an airframe even as small as a done is something you just cobble together because lulz, especially something that is designed for war.

https://english.elpais.com/internat...he-front-lines-in-ukraine.html?outputType=amp

There’s photos and journalism that confirms this.

 

[Coriolanus]

Final assembly is only one part of production

Motors, batteries, and circuit boards aren't being built in garages. The factories and/or shipments can be destroyed

Jesus Christ. All @Lt_Storm said was that you can cobble together cheap combat drones in a makerspace. Nobody said people are expected to build components from scratch.

 

[Coriolanus]

Okay. That’s the objective of Phase I and Phase II of any attack. So why am I hearing that the US is “losing” badly? It is, quite evidently, not.

You can win every battle but never win the war. I thought we learned how that worked during Vietnam.

 

[Coriolanus]

They aren’t. Even chip exports to China have been relaxed. Trump is still scheduled to go to China by the end of this month (though it may end up getting delayed). All of this looks like preparations for trade agreements and a more favorable relationship, not increased hostility.

You realize that whatever trade agreements that come out of any negotiations between China and the US will never be as mutually beneficial as what was in place before Trump initiated trade wars, right?

Everyone is just going to be in a worse off position than where they started. That's not an improvement, that's just making things slightly less terrible.

 

[Coriolanus]

This is also why things like civilian casualties are a huge fucking deal, beyond the simple morality of it. Blowing up 150 school girls hardens civilian resolve.

What Israel and the US is doing in Iran is that they are creating a new generation of anti-US/Israel hardliners in Iran.

In the US, if you look at polling among Gen Z voters, across the political divide, the recent Gaza war as basically resulted in a generation that largely distrust Israel's intentions. That will come to roost some day.

 

[Coriolanus]

Well, I’ve been told that we should increase carbon taxes and switch to EVs (which I agree with). Congratulations, this will incentivize that. Do I lose sleep at night that everyone continuously betting on cheap oil in 2026 now has to pay 10% more for their gas? Not really. Global equity markets are up 4% year to date, up 25% over one year, and up 75% over three years. So clearly markets are not seeing impeding doom either.

This has a very Pam Bondi vibe.

I would note, once again, that the student protests magically disappeared after Iranian funding sources got cut off. Am I just not hearing about encampments at Columbia anymore? Or are the students now off protesting gas prices, or something else entirely?

Just asking questions, right, mate?

 

[Coriolanus]

No, I don’t realize that. Biden’s restrictions on AI chips were much more severe and would have affected not only China but many other countries. It wouldn’t have been possible to build a cutting-edge data center in Switzerland, for example. The Biden administration did not, in fact, reverse any of Trump’s tariffs.

All of the 301 tariffs initiated in Trump 1 and maintained during Biden are still in place.

In Trump 2, there was also an additional 34% additional tariff under IEEPA. That was struck down and replaced by a 15% Sec. 122 tariff with an additional pending Sec. 301 investigation initiated by Trump two weeks ago as a pretext for additional tariffs.

Even if some semiconductor restrictions are lifted, there will be more taxes on Chinese US trade no matter what the outcomes of the discussions are.

 

[Coriolanus]

I think the impact on LNG will be even more acute and the result will be a panicked solar+battery build-out, with the key beneficiary being China.

People are focused too much on fuel shortages due to the Iran conflict.

Pay closer attention to the stoppage of urea shipments. 30% of its passes through Hormuz and that's a major source of the global fertilizer supply. Helium is also being restricted, and that's absolutely necessary in semiconductor processing. You can look forward to more expensive food (since planting season is under way) and even more expensive semiconductors in the future.

 

[Coriolanus]

I would refer the right honourable gentleman to the following article on Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_on_religious_sites_during_the_Israeli_invasion_of_Gaza

where it would apear to state that by 10 March 2024, more than 1,000 mosques had been destroyed by Israeli attacks.[13] In May 2024, an Israeli bombing on a mosque in Gaza City reportedly killed at least 10 people.[14]

So yeah...about jews destroying mosques.

For both you and Soriak - can we please consistently clarify that it's the Israeli government doing this? Let's avoid the antisemitism.

 

[Coriolanus]

I had this whimsical theory about trump 1.0 that maintained that he wasnt really in charge. He was a monstrous figurehead that managed to rally lots of monstrous idiots around him and make a lot of noise. And the theory said that if he REALLY started doing a lot of damage then the men (obviously men) who really did run the show would shut him down. He would get mysteriously sick or disapear, or have a plane crash.

He was in charge, but his staff in the first term were people who will disagree with him. This time, he figured out that he doesn't like that, so everyone he picks will agree with him on everything he said.

 

[Coriolanus]

A few months back I had made this post titled “A fresh approach to geopolitics by the US is the need of the hour.”

https://meincmagazine.com/civis/threa...cs-by-the-us-is-the-need-of-the-hour.1509453/

If people are interested in having that conversation, do go through it and let me know what you think.

TLDR: The US must recognise Iran as the natural power of the Middle East region, make peace with them and use that opportunity to solve a number of other geopolitical problems.

Your original post proposed peeling Iran away from Russia and China by making it more of a recognized regional power as a way to weaken BRIC+.

I think that boat has hit a drone in the Strait of Hormuz and sunk.

 

[Coriolanus]

True. My idea is not something that can be done currently but it may become possible a couple of decades down the road.

At the moment, I don't think we are in any position to predict what the world will be like in a few decades. Russia might have devolved into something irrelevant by that point. Right now, China and a bunch of private startups are working on a bunch of initiatives to bring fusion reactors to the grid in the 2030s. It's possible that in 20 or 30 years, the Strait of Hormuz wouldn't be as big of a major choke point as it is today. Hell, who knows if the US even have the soft power necessary to even influence how other countries behave at that point.

You’ve been given free access to this story from The Economist as a gift. You can open the link five times within seven days. After that it will expire.

China is a serious contender in the race for fusion energy
https://www.economist.com/science-a...tYWNlYjVlMDg2MDc3&utm_campaign=gifted_article

 

[Coriolanus]

Fusion would be great, but we have access to cheap, clean energy now: solar and wind. And the fossil fuel industry is doing their level best to stop renewables. Trump trying to ban wind turbines and mandating coal are just the most obvious.

The world doesn't need to wait until the 2030s, the world just has to find the will to do it.

Sure, and I think they will be massively important. I mention fusion because it's yet another source of power that uses inputs that would render the straits of Hormuz irrelevant.

Whether the fossil fuel industry keeps trying to wreck renewables or not isn't going to stop the progress in other countries like China.

 

[Coriolanus]

So when is the 48 hour deadline officially over?

When Donald Trump feels it in his bones.

 

[Coriolanus]

Sure, they're winning. So much winning. They've managed to impose massive economic costs on the United States, with the S&P 500 up only 15% over the past year. Financial ruin facing us all.

Uh, the S&P was 6845 on Jan 1. It's currently 6640.

 

[Coriolanus]

Yeah, Iran called for a fatwah against Trump... also against Salman Rushdie, who's still alive and kicking (you'd think Ars posters would be sympathetic to an author who has survived state-sponsored assassination attempts for the crime of writing fiction, but who knows these days).

If you look closely, you can see a red herring in the wild.