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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   31397 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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Iran has launched hypersonic missiles into the center of Tel Aviv.

This is shocking to me - I knew things were heating up in the Middle East, but now Iran is officially firing back at Israel. To be frank I was kind of not paying attention to the situation much until this happened, but seems like a major inflection point.

What are the implications of this for further war? For nuclear action in the area? Other countries getting invovled?

What are the implications for the U.S. election, and what do you think the U.S. will do in response?

How do we find a way towards peace now that Israel has been bombed in a civilian area?

EDIT: Almost goes without saying, but Iran has officially declared war on Israel.

The most surprising thing to me is that apparantly Iran didn't clear their airspace before launching their missiles, significantly raising the chances of a horrific accident.

This makes me suspect the attack was a rash decision, rather than something carefully thought through.

The most surprising thing to me is that apparantly Iran didn't clear their airspace before launching their missiles, significantly raising the chances of a horrific accident.

This makes me suspect the attack was a rash decision, rather than something carefully thought through.

Or maybe they considered clearing airspace would tip-off Israel to an impending attack? I would guess Israel's enemies are currently quite paranoid about how deeply Israel might have penetrated their operations after what happened to Hezbollah.

hypersonic missiles

I'm just going to note that hypersonic is generally used as a buzzword in the Iranian context, not the 'uber weapon to fear' of cutting edge missile technology. It's the difference between categorizing by speed or by form-function.

Basically any form of ballistic missile moves fast enough in the terminal phase to reach velocities of Mach 5 (6100 km/hr or 3800 miles/hr). That's what the Iranian Fattah-1 does. That's what the Cold War SCUD used by Iraq in the Gulf War did. And that's what the WW2 German V2 did. This is basically just the applies physics of gravity on an object high enough and with enough time (distance) to be accelerating. It's not particularly impressive, and it's not particularly hard to defeat in missile defense terms because that speed comes with an increasingly locked-in trajectory that makes interception (relatively) easy because it's pretty clear roughly where a ballistic trajectory is going to end up. And because it is a ballistic trajectory- meaning because it is going high- it can be detected relatively early in the transit process.

Hypersonic weapons in the 'this is scary new technology' are referring more to 'hypersonic glide bodies.' These are the things that are pushing through the air on the power of rockets / scramjets / etc, like, well, hypersonic missiles that are not ballistic missiles. These are far harder to do, because they have to rely on their motors/propellant more than re-entry acceleration, and more significant stresses to critical components. However, because these are taking a far more direct route to the target, and are reaching their hypersonic speeds more as the mode of travel rather than the re-entry criteria, they are doing so considerably faster, and are going to be detected relatively later (and thus with less time to react) due to the reduced ballistic trajectory exposure. This is the scary thing in future wars because of the potential for a hypersonic adversary to first-strike you with almost no-effective warning.

This is a picture from the wiki page on the relative difference. When Iran boasts about its hypersonic weapons, it's using the ballistics but trying to claim the reputation / insinuations of the HGBs. (Such as by claiming that the final-stage re-entry munition is a glide vehicle, and thus furthering the conflation, even though the more relevant capability is the path between launch and final-phase.)

...which is actually one of the reasons the technical claim of yesterday's attack on Israel was met with a relative shrug. It's roughly the equivalent of when Russia boasts about having successfully conducted an attack with a nuclear-capable missile. So many of Russia's conventional weapons are nuclear-capable that it doesn't actually mean anything special. Similarly, when Iran boasts of its hypersonic ballistic weapons, it's generally boasting on the cutting-edge prowess of 60-year-old-tech (hypersonic as a function of speed).

60-year-old tech is certainly still usable, and the Iranian missiles are probably better than anything that could have been built 60 years ago thanks to GPS if nothing else, but it's still a bit of an obvious flex to impress people less familiar with the distinctions.

No, does not go without saying, because it's wrong.

Iran did not declare war. An Israeli political party leader (and reserve general) said it was like a declaration of war. There's a very big difference there. Not that the Israeli rhetoric isn't worth noting, but this is a MASSIVE difference. One requires a formal process and is initiated by the declarer, but the other is just words from someone prominent, but who isn't in the actual administration.

Furthermore, Iran has done this once before, I think a few months ago when Israel made a strike in Iran proper. That's not to say they aren't flirting with war, but we aren't there right now. Only difference is Iran didn't give warning this time, but similar to before, no major impact on Israel directly.

TBH even if they're at war, it still won't be declared. Few countries bother declaring war these days due to the UN charter prohibiting the use of force in international relations. The last time the US declared war it was against Romania in 1942. Russia has the Special Military Operation, America has the police action or authorized use of force.

There's an exceedingly soy 'existence of a state of war' which Israel declared against Hamas on October 7th and Hezbollah did just recently against Israel. The passive voice has even infected warfare.

Didnt you see my disclaimer in front of that? lol

Theory time: Israel is pushing very hard to start a regional war with US involvement before US elections so the next president (the one that won’t be a zombie presumably) has no choice but to continue.

This missile attack is a dramatic warning that Iran can decimate oil production and other regime critical infrastructure in every single American ally in the region. Iranian leadership has been very consistently acting like they are aware that they won’t survive a war with the US.

This missile attack is a dramatic warning that Iran can decimate oil production and other regime critical infrastructure

Didn't they spend the major fraction of their most modern ones just now?

If anything, the expenditure of materiel means that they have diminished capacity as compared to before.

I highly doubt they spent any noticeable fraction of their total capacity yesterday. This is homemade gear not some artefact they bought from soviets half a century ago (like most US enemy gear)

By most estimates this was 5-10% of their supply.

I am interested if you can link some sources

Iran launched 180 missiles. Their total stockpile is estimated around 3000. That would be 6% of the total.

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-iran-hezbollah-conflict/card/how-big-is-iran-s-missile-arsenal--earTfWyIeIJgWnm5UHor

Theory time: Israel is pushing very hard to start a regional war with US involvement before US elections so the next president (the one that won’t be a zombie presumably) has no choice but to continue.

Doesn't really seem to bear out. It mostly seems like Israel has decided "today's the day!" Factors have converged to mean that world-wide support for Israel is likely at its peak, at least for the next 20 odd years. The Booomers and their record-highs of not hating Jews are dying off, Europe is Islamicizing with shocking rapidity, and the American left have adopted identity politics that mean Israel will never again be as supported as it is today, barring a tectonic shift.

So, if your world-wide support is almost guaranteed to decline over the next 20-40 years, but there are still existential threats to your people's survival, do you (A) keep hoping that a post-WW2 UN-led drum circle kumbaya session will resolve everything, or (B) go balls to the wall and beat the everloving shit out of your enemies to the point where it will take them decades to present a real threat again? This calculus likely took place some time after Oct7, because Oct7 provided Israel with casus belli nobody rational could gainsay, and yet Western leftists tried to gainsay it! Articles about how "Israel shouldn't invade Gaza over this" or "won't someone think of the poor Palestinians" were coming out on October 8th. If you're Israeli, how can you not see that and think "right, fuck it, time to settle this shit."

Is Israel trying to get America involved? I doubt it. Israel doesn't want American boots on the ground. Other than some coupons at American defense contractors and maybe some air cover against Iranian missile strikes, Israel doesn't really need much American intervention. Which I know will make the resident JooPosters very angry, but it's true. Israel borders six countries. Or four countries and two territories. Whichever. In no particular order these six are; Egypt, Jordan, Syria, The West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon. Egypt is perfectly content with the status quo. Jordan is perfectly content with the status quo. Syria is a war-torn shit-hole that couldn't invade a wet paper bag much less a foreign country. The West Bank is very firmly under Israel's thumb and will not be getting out from under it any time soon. Gaza has been turned into so much rubble, and Hamas' leadership gutted. Which only leaves... Lebanon. By which I mean Hezbollah. The Lebanese government basically doesn't exist. It definitely doesn't exist in Southern Lebanon, which is where Hezbollah (or Hizbollah, or Hiz'b'allah, or whatever spelling you want to use) operates. In short order Israel has destroyed Hezbollah's leadership, crippled their ability to coordinate, and put thousands of their fighters in the hospital. Without so much as exposing a single IDF reservist to danger.

Will the invasion of South Lebanon go well? Maybe, maybe not. But the build-up sure as shit hasn't gone well for Hezbollah.

Europe is Islamicizing with shocking rapidity

PEW Research's current estimates are rather lower, though. (ie. 10,9 % for France in 2050, 11,3 % for UK in 2050 etc. - higher than now but not in line of the 2017 study).

From your link:

Even though 2020 is now in the past, figures for that year (and all future years) are demographic projections based on 2010 baseline estimates.

So while this article is newer, it is using older data.

How are they lower? That link says it's 9% the 2017 study puts 10% muslim around 2035 in the "high immigration" projection. It looks much higher to me.

What numbers are you comparing, exactly? If you compare them country-to-country then numbers in at least the major countries (France, UK, Italy, Germany) are below the medium estimate of 2017 for 2050 in the 2022 version.

I mean how much Islam is going to change the calculation here. Depending on the rest of the makeup of Europe, 11% can be a good sized voting block. Especially if the rest of the population isn’t vocally pro-Israel (and secular people generally are at best indifferent and at worst pro-Palestine). That 11% is laser focused on Israel, and will absolutely insist that any party that wants its vote must support Palestine over Israel. If the rest don’t care enough to make this conflict the center of their voting decisions, then Europe will likely support Palestine simply to capture the Islamic Vote.

That's pretty uncertain, many Muslims don't vote at all and the rest aren't, as a group, that focused on Israel/Palestine (despite the efforts and a drop in share a majority of them still voted for Labour in 2024 UK elections AFAIK).

However, my point was really just mentioning that the Pew projections for Muslim percentages in 2050 have been updated, something that many probably don't know about.

That's pretty uncertain, many Muslims don't vote at all and the rest aren't, as a group, that focused on Israel/Palestine (despite the efforts and a drop in share a majority of them still voted for Labour in 2024 UK elections AFAIK).

Labour MPs in Muslim-heavy constituencies are probably very vocally pro-Hamas, though. I know it's more typical to vote for the party rather than the MP, but maybe it's different when it comes to Muslims in the UK?

They want US bunker busters sufficient to get at Iranian reactors under mountains. That is the existential threat. The only way Israel can get to the reactors is to use nukes. Israel's terminal value is preventing Iran from getting nukes. Forcing the US's hand is the only plausible way this happens. To this end they are incentivized to continue escalating in the hope that US has to join, and attack Iran itself, at least from the air.

But Israel already has American bunker-busters, and the F-35s to bypass Iranian air defense. If Israel really wanted to drop a bomb on an Iranian reactor, they could.

I believe that there are degrees of bunker buster missiles. What they have isn't sufficient to get through the mountains near Tehran.

It seems to me the main risk for Israel is getting dragged into another ground war that ends in a stalemate like 2006, or even a loss. Think Iraq insurgency. Probably why Hizbullah hasn't done too much in response in order to goad them to do such a thing (well, also because they are paralyzed with fear and communications issues). But I don't think either America nor Israel want Americans to physically show up. What the US just did, which is move another carrier nearby, is all Israel actually wants from us (other than maybe more weapons, but those are already flowing, and to not be too critical/pushy, which the admin is mostly doing). Not even Iran actually wants to duke it out -- they thought (wrongly, whoops) that Hizbullah would be enough of a deterrent or proxy.

So yeah. Experience says that the most likely result is more of the same. But if I were an Israeli military planner, and I weren't haunted by my constant skirting around in the rough neighborhood of war crimes (they are toeing the line more than my personal ethics allow but less than genocidal) I would be to avoid going in on foot if at all possible. Politically, it's a bit tougher because of the ~60k semi-permanently evacuated from border regions.

Israel just needs to get the shia population moved to Syria. Loudly threatening ethnic cleansing, or getting local proxies to do it, probably accomplishes this goal as long as they're winning the ground war. Hezbollah can't fight once their base of support is relocated.

Although I wouldn’t put it past Israeli politicians to think about this, I find it a very unlikely scenario

2006 was one month, then the UN brokered a ceasefire to effect 1701. If both sides adhered to 1701 the war would not be seen as a unilateral victory. Hezbollah being duplicitous in its negotiations reflects poorly on the UN, not on Israeli military.

The previous major effort where Israel got its shit pushed in, it was Yom Kippur. For the first few days, Egypt orchestrated a masterful breach of the Israeli defenses along the Suez, then fought a competent (by their standards) ground campaign against the Israelis. That the Egyptians were losing this ground campaign even before their disaster is ignored, and the Israelis, like any competent entity, pivoted and responded in light of changing facts on the ground.

So too would 2006, had it gone on. Urban peer combat is horrendous, and the Israeli advantage in firepower is negated in such a war. Disciplined guerillas are notoriously difficult to react against following an ambush, so it is uncertain whether an Israeli pivot would have necessarily succeeded, but to claim 2006 is proof of Hezbollahs immunity is insane.

1701, if abided by, was a win condition for the Israelis. Hezb and Hamas all know they cannot actually stand up to even a modest IDF operation. Jihadi group terrorists waste immense amounts of money buying uniforms to cosplay as soldiers, making dramatic videos of themselves in balaclavas and camo ready to fight the dirty jew. In all the combat footage of Hezb or Hamas fighters, not a SINGLE uniform has been seen. Bitching about IDF heavyhanded policing and airstrikes entirely glosses over the total failure of Hamas and Hezb to put up the barest of token resistance. The Iraqis at least had the dignity to die in uniform when fighting the US, and ISIS wears vests to identify themselves clearly.

idk how to strikethrough

Put a tilde before and after.

(tilde = ~)

It's fascinating to me how thoroughly we've moved from a world of declarations of war being a core concept of international law, to existing in a permanent state of war across huge portions of the globe.

Famously Congress has never declared war since WW2.

What I've heard, and I'm not really competent to explain, is that it has to do with the UN and changes to international law post WW2.

There were a bunch of attempts to use rules to make war without the security council's approval illegal. Also major leaders were unhappy with countries who tried to stay neutral during WW2, so there are a bunch of rules that make staying neutral difficult. I don't remember the specifics, but it's something like letting one side's ships use your ports or pass through your waters makes you a co-belligerent. There are also some rules about trade.

So actually declaring war makes things extremely awkward for your friends and allies.

Perhaps it’s a technology thing. Declarations of war made more sense when war involved marching 250k men armies in fields or packing 5M men in trains towards the enemy. It’s really not clear when a “war” starts when you can chuck hypersonic missiles at some select targets once in a while

I don't think it's about technology. Even Putin called his Ukraine war a “special military operation” and it was pretty much a classical war involving large numbers of boots on the ground invading enemy territory.

Perhaps it’s a technology thing

It's probably also an accountability thing. For democracies like America it can be very damaging to have your name on a political boondoggle like a war. Arguably, voting for the Iraq War is what cost Hillary the Presidency. So it's easier to just let the President stretch his powers to wage what are effectively wars.

For other states a declaration of war would have to be withdrawn in a negotiated or imposed peace which may cause the regime to incur political costs it just doesn't want to deal with.

Arguably, voting for the Iraq War is what cost Hillary the Presidency.

please elaborate

Did she press Congress to declare war in old pre-UN style?

She was a senator, and Bush asked Congress for authorization (which totes wasn't a declaration of war, though) to invade Iraq. She voted in favor.

Declaring wars is for peer nations.

By contrast, empires ‘conduct police action’, as they claim the entire world as their own sovereign territory (aspirationally or otherwise).

I think you're right about the technology aspect, but I sometimes worry that we've normalized lethal force (literal in-flight ballistic missiles) as sub-casus belli because the (expensive!) technology exists to block those attacks, and that Peace In Our Timeniks believe that actually hitting back in these sorts of cases is the dreaded "escalation", rather than inaction normalizing escalating attacks everywhere.

There's an effortpost to be made on how the Iron Dome is, from a geopolitical standpoint, the most counterproductive technology of the past few decades.

I’d be interested, too. Judging by this graph there was no shortage of rocket attacks before the Dome went up. There are surges in later years, but how do we know they aren’t more about availability?

There's an effortpost to be made on how the Iron Dome is, from a geopolitical standpoint, the most counterproductive technology of the past few decades.

I would be interested to see that. My read is that (at least from a US or NATO perspective) the Iron Dome is hugely effective in preventing an accidental hot war between Israel and Iran.

Turns out stacking DEF and taking feats in riposte has no value if you can't prove you were attacked in the first place. All you get is a bloody sword, pristine armor and a dying lvl 1 goblin claiming it was just walking by.

The theories of a spectrum of state of conflict rather than binaries goes back a long time, arguably centuries, and has only gotten more polished and refined since. Before today was the countless insurgencies of the cold war, before the cold war was the great game between empires, before the empires were the contests of feudalism, and before feudalism there were constant migratory wars and civilizational collapses.

Non-formal war is practically a constant. What's new is that you can do it with rockets across other countries, not the principles behind it.

The vast majority of the world is not experiencing interstate conflict, you're just hearing about the bits that are because it creates explosive headlines (heh). Then your brain is automatically the availability heuristic (incorrectly). Simple as.

https://ourworldindata.org/conflict-measures-how-do-researchers-measure-how-common-and-deadly-armed-conflicts-are

This largely proves my point.

Looks like that backs up Ben’s description, no?

Most of the conflict is intrastate or non-state. Death rates are up from 2010 but down from basically every year before 1988.

Ya, I'm not disagreeing, just adding data to the discussion

It seems like part of a broader trend where Europe from like 1700–1945 was just a giant outlier and now we're returning to baseline.

Humans have almost always been in state of permanent undeclared war with their neighbors.

Declarations of war were simply a brief European affectation.

Were they?

Most of the classical world held the declaration of war sacred. I'm less familiar with Islamic or Chinese law on the matter.

Yeah, this is just posturing. Iran has to make some kind of response to save face/show support for Iranian proxies. It's not interested in a war with Israel (and the United States). The United States (or at least the Democratic Party) isn't interested in a war with Iran. Israel really wants to drag the United States into a war with Iran.

If it's not interested in a war, why does it stand behind proxies that do?

To weaken Israel politically, economically, and militarily. Hamas helps erode international support for Israel and wastes economic and military resources. Hezbollah disrupts northern Israel and makes it unsafe for civilians, who may leave for the United States. Every little bit helps.

Why does Iran care about Israel so much? I get why the Arab states hated them, but what has Israel ever done to Persia? Palestinians are Sunni, not Shia, so there’s no obvious alliance there. Is it all about Jerusalem? Why don’t Pakistan or Bangladesh or Indonesia fund resistance groups? Is it just a cynical power play?

The Al-Jazeera article linked below gives a decent overview, but it's surface-level. I'll try to give a more in-depth summary. After WWII, there was significant local resistance to the traditional Middle-Eastern monarchies. These were seen as decadent, old-fashioned stooges to Western sugar daddies. Arab Nationalism, and related ideologies like Nasserism and Ba-athism, sought to cast off the yoke of these monarchies and institute modern, socialist-leaning, authoritarian governments that wouldn't be afraid to play the US and USSR against each other. Egypt was the most dramatic of these. Nasser skillfully kicked out both the monarchy and the British, and while Western governments initially had confidence in him as a reformer, he was soon regarded as a loose cannon; when the US refused to sell him arms for use against Israel, he had no problem turning to the USSR, who had no problem accommodating him. Iran would have its own shot at this in the early 1950s, which was famously cut short by the US's own covert restoration of the monarchy.

Nasser's own pan-Arab dreams would lead him to advocate for similar revolutions in other countries. Iraq and Syria would see their own revolutions, and Aden would kick out the British along similar lines. But monarchies still remained, most notably Saudi Arabia, whose close ties with the United States were regarded as suspect. When dispossessed Palestinians formed the PLO in 1964, they looked to the Pan-Arab revolutionaries for inspiration. It was a nationalist movement, but it was also socialist.

When Israel occupied the West Bank following the 6-day war in 1967, the PLO was forced into Jordan, from where they staged terrorist attacks into Israel. The problem was that Jordan was a monarchy under King Hussein. The other problem was that while Jordan was officially at war with Israel, Hussein was a pragmatist who enjoyed good relations with the United States, and he didn't like the idea of the PLO turning his country into a terrorist state. The last straw came with the PLO's attempted assassination of Hussein and overthrow of the Jordanian government in 1970. Jordanian troops would expel the PLO, who then took up in Lebanon.

So now the PLO is in southern Lebanon, and Yassir Arafat is gaining notoriety as the world's preeminent Arab terrorist. The situation is much the same as it was in Jordan, except that the Lebanese government is a mess and isn't equipped to do anything about it, giving the PLO essentially free-reign in the South. When Lebanon erupts into civil war in 1975, Israel, who supported the existing Maronite government, took the opportunity to invade and establish a buffer zone. While they got their buffer zone, it didn't eliminate the PLO, but drove them further north. By 1981, and international peacekeeping force had brokered a ceasefire agreement, which ended the war but left a peacekeeping force in place.

In the meantime, Pan-Arabism was on its last legs. Following Nasser's death, Anwar Sadat took control of Egypt in the early 1970s. With Soviet help, he took one last shot at Israel in the Yom Kippur War, but was soundly defeated. Realizing that the only hope at regaining any of the lost territory was through a negotiated settlement, he agreed to the Camp David Accords in 1978. While this didn't mean the immediate fall of the other secular states, it cast a pall on the movement as a whole. Egypt would no longer be the alpha dog in the region.

But who would? Among the remaining secular states, Iraq was the most obvious candidate, with its central location, large population, and large army. In a couple years Sadaam Hussein would rise to power in an attempt to assert this vision. Syria was small and was wrapped up in wars in Israel and Lebanon it couldn't win. Jordan had its own Israel problems; while officially at war, Hussein was too pragmatic about his relationship with the country to be openly hostile. The other monarchies were small and weak, and some were barely independent. The one that wasn't was Saudi Arabia, awash in American arms and domestic oil money. But as a monarchy, it had a credibility problem similar to Egypt's. The ruling family was significantly more conservative than most of the various Kings and Emirs, and while this meant they didn't seem as decadent as the others, it did make them seem more old-fashioned. It would be hard to unite the people around a King, of all things.

And then there was Iran. Persian where the rest of the region is Arab, Shia where the rest of the region is Sunni. Still one of the monarchies, but things are changing. An exiled Ayatollah has found something for the people to cling to that's a far cry from Pan-Arabism: Religious fervor. Guys like Nasser saw this kind of thing as detrimental to their countries' modernization, but by 1979, its day had come. Kohmeni would swoop into Tehran and depose the Shah, instituting his own ideal form of religious-led government. I'm going to assume you know about the Iranian revolution so I won't recount the story here. But there was a lesser-known revolution in Saudi Arabia around the same time. In the wake of the Ayatollah taking power, Juhayman al-Otaybi and a group of 600 fanatics seized the Grand Mosque at Mecca in an attempt to overthrow the House of Saud. The attempt was unsuccessful, but it spooked the royal family enough that they abandoned the meager steps they had taken towards modernization in favor of an increasingly Islamist policy.

By the early 1980s, there were three powers squaring off to dominate the region: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran. Iraq, sensing weakness in the chaos surrounding the Iranian Revolution, struck first, invading Iran in 1980. Meanwhile, Israel invaded Lebanon again in 1982, laying siege to Beirut, in an attempt to drive out the PLO for good. By the end of the year, Arafat agreed to move operations to Tunis, far out of striking distance of Israel. But that didn't solve Lebanon's problems. Shiites in the south had become resentful of the constant occupations, whether from the PLO, Israel, or international peacekeepers. This resentment culminated in the 1983 bombing of the American embassy in Beirut and the formation of Hezbollah.

Iraq, having committed itself to a war that was looking increasingly like a stalemate, and not being too keen on the whole religious fanaticism thing, was looking less and less like the new alpha dog. Iran's chance didn't look much better. It was bogged down in the war itself, and it would be hard to find followers of Shiites in a region that was overwhelmingly Sunni. There were plenty of Shiites in Iraq, but the situation on the ground made it inconceivable that Iran would be able to draw them into its sphere. But Iran did have one advantage that Saudi Arabia didn't. In 1983, Egypt was at peace with Israel, and Hussein was unwilling to get too involved. Assad in Syria blamed Israel for everything, but he was a secular Ba'athist and his military situation wasn't great. But now there was Hezbollah, Shiites in a land of Sunnis, in perfect position to pick up where the PLO left off before being exiled to Tunis.

So Iran decided to become Hezbollah's sugar daddy. This became readily apparent to the United States relatively early. As Hezbollah started taking Americans hostages in the 1980s, it became clear to negotiators pretty quickly that they took their marching orders from Iran (the Iran-Contra Affair was an attempt to negotiate the release of these hostages). As the power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia has grown more acute over the decades, Iran has used its position as a supporter of Iran and enemy of Israel to gain support among the wider region. Consider the Abraham Accords. The basic idea behind them is that if Muslim-majority countries establish diplomatic relations with Israel, it will isolate Palestinian hardliners and force them to the negotiating table. The one potential weakness in such a policy is that, while the governments of these countries know that peace with Israel benefits them in the long run, the position is still wildly unpopular among the Arab public.

Iran knows that keeping the Israeli-Palestinian conflict going on as long as possible is to its long-term benefit. While I agree with the Trump's policy in this area generally, I shake my head when he or Jared Kushner says that the October 7 attacks wouldn't have happened had he been president. Biden continued Trump's diplomatic policy in the region, and a year ago it looked like Saudi Arabia would be establishing relations with Israel in the not-too-distant future. October 7 provoked a response from Israel that made any chance of recognition politically impossible. A policy of alienating Hamas terrorists has been replaced by a policy of simply eliminating them. The more support Iran can give to those who are on the front lines, the more credibility they build with the Arab public, while Saudi Arabia, beholden to the United States, is forced to stand aloof. They're also far enough away from Israel that the risk of direct conflict is relatively low. This is why Israel assassinated Haniyeh in Iran. Beyond being a high-value target, it sends a message — You're not safe. We can waltz into your country any time and kill anyone we want to, and there's nothing you can do about it. Lob all the poorly-guided missiles you want to.

Whether this strategy plays out for Iran is anyone's guess. Power politics has completely overtaken religious fundamentalism. Saudi Arabia is liberalizing, and the more extreme fanaticism of Al-Qaeda and ISIL has given the movement a bad name locally in some of these places. After 45 years, Iran's sphere of influence is limited to Hezbollah, Yemen, parts of Iraq, and Hamas, and the last of those is very recent and not exactly in a good position right now. The Saudis, meanwhile, have all the weapons and all the money. They have the West; Iran has Russia and North Korea. They've also seen internal resistance in recent years that, while it was never close to bringing down the government, was much more than Saudi Arabia has had to deal with.

Just wanted to express my appreciation of this post.

In theory it shouldn't need to be an issue - historically, Persia/Iran has been one of the safest and friendly countries in the region to Jews, and today there's no obvious material necessity for conflict. In fact, they would seem to have common interests, especially since both the Israelis and the Iranians hate the Arabs. Israel-Turkey-Iran would be a fairly natural anti-Arab alliance.

I believe the issue is the West. Iran also very much hates the Americans and the British, for understandable reasons going back to WWII and earlier, and Israel is understood to be a proxy or ally of those powers in the Middle East. Ideologically, after the revolution Iran also developed a view of itself as the aspiring champion of Islam, and insofar as Israel represents a major non-Islamic incursion on to core Islamic territory, attacking Israel is a great way to make that view credible to others.

The spiritual leadership of the Islamic world is something valuable, and multiple powers have sought to assume that role before. The most natural candidate for it is usually whoever controls the Hejaz, which at present is Saudi Arabia. The Saudis make a good effort at this - they're the Guardians of the Holy Places, which counts for much. However, the Saudis are also visibly quite corrupt, they're closely linked to the Americans, and the Saudis are also now warming towards and becoming more friendly to Israel. Championing the Palestinian cause gives Iran an avenue into undermining Saudi Arabia's position. They're failing to act as the leader of the Islamic world; therefore we will assume that role.

This isn't really about Palestine in a direct sense. The idea of Palestine as a 'nation of martyrs' has great pull in the Islamic world, and supporting or championing Palestine is a good way to get credit as a leader of Islam. However, that doesn't extend to actually caring about Palestinian people or wanting the situation resolved. That was why, immediately after October 7, Hezbollah chucked a few rockets across the border but kept it fairly limited, to avoid escalation. Generally Iran does the minimum needed to make their claim to be the leader of the Islamic world seem credible, but pulls back before it does anything truly risky. Iran doesn't want to fight Israel. Iran wants to be seen to fight Israel.

They're pushing it a bit more at the moment - contra the OP, they haven't formally declared war, but as the conflict escalates, they need to increase their commitment in order to maintain the perception that they're the leaders. Of course, this may eventually lead them into a war that no one truly wants...

There's also the dimension of political boogeymen and a common enemy are nice unifying forces. Iran is going through a rough time domestically, in part due to the West, in part not, but having someone to blame and to criticize is useful.

Plus, there's also some bad blood dating back to the Bush years, when Iran felt backstabbed by Bush including them in the "axis of evil", a missed era of rapprochement as far as I'm aware (IIRC, things were very slowly on the mend but there might be some other issue I forget about). No accident Ahmadinejad becomes president in 2005, who presided over a classic period of "death to America" and I believe some heightened Israeli hostility too.

There’s actually pretty good secular geo-strategic power politics reasons. Without the other, Israel or Iran would probably dominate the Persian Gulf Arab States. They’re both frustrating the other’s shot at being a major regional power. That’s why this conflict didn’t really start coming to a head until after Iraq turned into a failed state.

History that I'm unfamiliar with, but this article seems to sum it up decently. I'm sure there's more to it.

Why wouldn't Iran defend its allies when they are under attack? Why would they let Sunni jihadists with American and Israeli weapons wreck Syria? Why wouldn't they back people who are really similar to them in a neighbouring country when they get invaded?

Another big advantage is that the proxies are a cheap way to drain resources from the enemies.

Not starting a war is the whole point of standing behind proxies. If you want to start a war you just... start a war.

But then you're supposed to just support the proxies, not join in personally to "save face". Otherwise that's pretty clearly just asking to start a war.

No, then you're just defending your allies.

In practice, modern geopolitics consider "targetted" missile strikes as below the threshold of declaring war. As are spy games, assassinations, sabotage and the arming of proxy militant groups or rebels.

As long as Iran stays under that threshold, retaliation from Israel is likely to stay under that threshold too. The danger zone though is that mass civilian causalties is above the treshold, and can happen accidentally (or parties can differ as to what qualifies), so as the rough play intensifies so does the risk of being dragged into something bigger.

How precisely can the strike package planners control/predict when and where missiles are going to be during the strike? Functionally this isn't much damage dealt, but maybe it could be trying for an intelligence objective instead, probing locations and stores depths of anti-missile batteries?

You had me for a second with the official declaration of war.

When the dust settles I predict very little damage as Iran is not a serious country. The question of course is Israel’s response. Do they go after Iran’s nuclear sites, its oil exports, or its leaders? Or do they call it even? Bibi in general seems happy to escalate since Israel is winning every encounter.

IMO, oil makes the best target. We’re in this mess partly because Biden unfroze Iranian funds and let them triple their oil exports. Israel should undo this mistake by crippling their source of funding.

Biden let Iran triple their oil exports because he didn't really have a choice. After Russia invaded Ukraine, gas prices shot through the roof, and he would've gotten skewered if he didn't do something to get them down. He had three options: Ease sanctions on Iran, decline to put sanctions on Russia, or do nothing. Declining to sanction Russia would have made him look incredibly weak at a time there was broad consensus that something had to be done to punish Russia for the invasion. Doing nothing would have led to complaints about rising gas prices. Easing sanctions on Iran was the most palatable option at the time. Americans don't like Iran, but not enough that they're willing to pay $4.50/gallon to extend the middle finger.

Option 4: Drill in America.

The Extreme-Greens the world over, but especially in American and unquestionably in Europe, hold a great deal of responsibility for global destabilization. The Green party in Germany is directly responsible for that State's reliance on Russian oil (without which, the Russian war machine would be out of gas...lol, I'm having a little fun).

The ongoing decision to not use proven American reserves is baffling and will be looked down on by the history books. One of Vance's better lines last night was that cheaper energy is both one of the most effective and immediate means of reducing inflation.

Greens aren't just a degrowth movement, they're genocidal.

Claim: The US now produces 50% more oil than Saudi Arabia

How much more do we know we could produce in the absence of federal drilling bans?

Yes, Biden decided to (in effect) give hundreds of billions to Iran and Venezuela to lower pump prices and increase the Democrats chances of winning in 2022.

We're still dealing with the consequences of those cowardly choices.

Iran is not a serious country

Is this anything more than just a smear?

They are not serious about total war with Israel, for often discussed reasons.
They are serious enough to develop means to strike Israeli ground targets - can't say that about Poland (assuming the requirement is that such capabilities are not dependent on the whims of allies), and we need such weapons just as much as Iranians do.

If a serious person says they will hurt you, they will hurt you.

Iran is trying to demonstrate power but instead shows only impotence. But they talk a big game. On the playground, this would be an open invitation to get bullied. Sadly, it's no different for nation states.

What are the implications of this for further war? For nuclear action in the area? Other countries getting invovled?

From what I read the strike appears to have been largely ineffective? For possibly the largest ballistic missile attack in history to produce, as of now, zero causalties, it's a striking display of how utterly powerless Iran is comparatively. If I were Israel I'd just laugh and invite Iran to keep wasting its missiles this way.

I'm seeing some reporting that they did hit Israeli airbases, even if the damage was minimaal. Which I supposed would be a more successful threat-by-missile than hitting some rando Palestinian and would give people less reason to be sanguine.

AFAIK they managed to kill Palestinian with a failing booster. Captured at video, because it is 2024.

Tehran does not have the capabilities to launch a serious war against Israel. They wouldn't get an army to Baghdad, and their airforce would be lucky to get 50% of any attempted strike further than that as well.

Like their proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, their entire goal is to lose spectacularly and hope American and European leftists get extra mad at Israel for being competent at warfare.

Like their proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, their entire goal is to lose spectacularly and hope American and European leftists get extra mad at Israel for being competent at warfare

Their strategy is simple. Israel has the non ultra orthodox population of Wisconsin and the area of El Salvador. It is a tiny country with abysmal natural resources that is deeply fractured. Israel needs to be kept in a permanent state of crisis as this will effectively make the country infeasible. Israel is going to be in a permanent state of chaos.

Europe has nothing to gain by Israel creating another refugee crisis. The support for Israel is low in Europe.

Isreal is a country of neurotic people with abysmal school results. They aren't competent at war, they are just exceptionally brutal while fighting people who barely have weapons.

  • -13

They aren't competent at war

I am curious: who would you consider as competent at war?

Based on his other responses in the thread I’m guessing he thinks the Wermarcht was pretty competent.

What is kind of hilarious, because while they had some part of brilliance overall performance was bad. Unless you care primarily about murdering Jews.

Hmm, maybe it is actual the most important metric for functor? That would explain why he claims that IDF is not competent at war.

Let’s avoid casting aspersions. You may be correct, but it’s not really constructive.

Israeli IQ scores are not normally distributed on a country-wide level due to ethnic diversity, so I wouldn't index on their pisa scores much.

I wouldn't index on PISA scores too much.

National curriculums and latent interest in PISA scores play a large role. East/South Asian curriculum is STEM focused. By age 15, Asians are spending 10+hr/day studying for their standardized tests (Gaokao, Jee, Suneung ). In comparison, western students seem to be chilling. Even rigorous schools focus on students' ability to do projects and be well rounded. Also some countries care a lot about the day of the test (East Asia, some parts of Europe) and it is practically unknown in other countries.

Lastly, it can be gamed easily. PISA mostly samples from major cities. Due to the nature of the Hukuo system, urban China has a disproportionately high achieving population.

The scores are directionally correct and the quartiles won't change even after accounting for gamification. But a country's true rank can easily be off by a good 15 ranks in either direction.

Isreal is a country of neurotic people with abysmal school results

Care to explain?

Jews are famously neurotic and their school math scores are just above Turkey's in the pisa ranking.

Jews dumb

Interesting argument. Let's see if it bears relation to reality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_Nobel_laureates#Laureates

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Turkish_Nobel_laureates

Keep in mind turkey has 10x the population.

Hmm, maybe there's more to the story.

Also, note how smoothly criticism of Israel has become criticism of Jews instead.

Also, note how smoothly criticism of Israel has become criticism of Jews instead.

In every other situation that'd be true, but saying "Israel is a country of Jews" is hardly antisemitism, more tautology.

Also, note how smoothly criticism of Israel has become criticism of Jews instead.

I always try and avoid doing this myself, and I think that the argument here is transparently bad from a HBD perspective (those are the IQ results I'd expect from a high IQ ashkenazim population coexisting with lower average IQ sephardim and mizrahim) but I don't think you're really making much of a point here. Israel very proudly advertises itself as The Jewish State, For Jews, By Jews and frequently claims that criticism of Israel is criticism of Jews and their right to exist. It might be a very smooth transition from criticising Israel to criticising jews, but the lubrication here was actually supplied by the Israelis themselves.

Israeli Jews aren’t like American Jews.

You’re talking about a self selected group of people who were the most martial Jews in the world in the years before its founding and most of the Jews that joined them afterwards were mostly pulled from the middle east and North Africa.

And it keeps happening. Every year a small amount of even more self selected Jews leave the countries of their birth to go live in Israel. Making Aliyah is like all that homesteading LARP you see on the DR but even more hardcore.

They are largely middle eastern jews. In other words, lower IQ than eastern European jews. A nation of bazaar hagglers isn't really that martial. Israel performs abysmally in international sport for a reason. They aren't a physical people.

Napoleon: “Britain is a nation of shopkeepers, we needn’t fear them.”

Same energy.

I have no idea how you can analyze this conflict and not see immense Israeli competence. The pager attack, the elimination of all Hezbollah's top leaders, the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, these are all impressive results.

IMO, Israel has by far the most competent military and secret service of any country. The United States? We can't even successfully fight the Houthis in the Red Sea. China? They haven't fought a war in decades and were last seen brawling against India with melee weapons. Russia? Don't make me laugh. Europe? Competent fighters but hamstrung by effete leadership.

Isreal is a country of neurotic people with abysmal school results.

This is just... bizarre. This isn't a math test, this is war.

I mean just yesterday former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed that the head of Iranian counterintelligence was found in 2021 to be a Mossad double agent (alongside about 20 others in the unit). The head of counterintelligence! Pardon my swearing, but the one guy whose job it was to find spies was a fucking spy himself! Assuming it's true, and I don't see why it wouldn't be as it's massively shameful for Iranians to admit it, it's an absurd level of superiority and dominance Israel is showing. Israeli intelligence is so ahead of them that Iranians were unable to meaningfully vet that ONE guy at the top of the pyramid.

US had something similar happen two decades ago: Ana Montes, the senior analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) responsible for Cuba (nicknamed "Queen of Cuba") turned out to spy for Cuba throughout her entire career at the DIA.

This situation isn't as ironic as it sounds. Cuba recruited Montes back when she was a college student, and persuaded her to go into the career that would be of most benefit. I am sure there were others, but this one happened to be the one that succeeded.

I'd bet the success rate is higher than you think, because the Cubans can feed her accurate or seemingly accurate Scoops about Cuba.

An intelligence analyst isn't that different from a beat reporter. They're examining a pile of information from different sources and trying to write a report guessing at the truth.

So much like a Yankees blogger secretly handpicked by Brian Cashman could quickly rise to the top by "correctly" predicting roster moves, a Cuban intelligence analyst working for Cuba can repeatedly guess meaningless facts correctly, showing brilliance in intuitions from limited data because she already knows the answers.

Didn't the same thing happen with the head of British counterintelligence being a Soviet double agent? And look how that turned out.

Yes, and Soviet human intelligence was the best there was. The west kept up by dominating in turn on signal intelligence.

Israel is dominating its opponents on both.

An aside, and I don't mean to pick on you, but I'd like to kill the trend of relying on a a single historical anecdote when making an argument.

The two biggest fallacies I see are this:

  • Chamberlain appeased Hitler in 1938 therefore all appeasement is bad.

  • Prohibition in the United States led to more crime therefore all drugs must be legalized

There are huge differences between Israel today and the Soviet Union then. Yes, the Soviet Union's secret service was elite, just like Israel's. So why did the West win despite an inferior secret service? It's simple, Russians willingly defected to the West and then just gave us all their secrets.

To make the parallel work, we'd have to see Israelis defecting to Iran or other Muslim countries. Since this isn't happening, I just don't think the analogy works.

My point is just that I don't think intelligence and counterintelligence are all they're cracked up to be. The Soviets won the intelligence war, but their little victory was swept away by the uncaring maelstrom of socioeconomic forces, along with their country and their ideology. They should have spent less on guns and more on butter.

Israel is far and away the wealthiest country in the region that earned it(Dubai did not). It's unclear what socioeconomic forces are going to get them got.

Yeah, I heard that too. The Mossad is scary good. I'll bet that they have something to do with the recent helicopter crashes as well. If not, Iran could be forgiven for thinking so. I doubt Khameini will be hopping into any choppers for the next while.

Further speculation: Iran's nuclear program is riddled with Israeli spies and key elements of its supply chain are tainted. I wouldn't be surprised if there is an "accidental" nuclear explosion in Iran some time in the next 10 years, assuming they can even get that far.

I have no idea how you can analyze this conflict and not see immense Israeli competenc

They fought a small town that doesn't have any weapons and still haven't really been able to win in a year. The only thing they manage to do is get weapons as welfare checks and blast large numbers of civilians.

This is just... bizarre. This isn't a math test, this is war.

And they have a population that is physically and academically weak.

  • -11

While Israeli badassery is overstated, 'physically and mentally weak' is just not true. Israel's military is up to first world snuff and functions like it.

Physically and academically weak? What on earth are you talking about?

Are you imagining like woody Allen in combat boots, kvetching about the quality of the food in the mess hall? Your mental image of the average Israeli is a bit off.

An IDF soldier can go toe to toe with just about any soldier in the world except the Americans and maybe the British on a good day. They’ve been actively waging war for large portions of the last fifty years and are an actual developed country with a martial tradition that is as hardcore as any of the advanced war fighting nations.

I’m having a hard time explaining this level of copium outside of a dose of anti-semitism that could kill a horse and which subsequently leaves the taker mentally retarded.

An IDF soldier can go toe to toe with just about any soldier in the world except the Americans and maybe the British on a good day.

Where is the evidence that the Americans or the British are particularly effective soldiers? They haven't fought a war that didn't amount to clicking targets on a screen in a context of absolute air superiority for over half a century. In a 1v1 setting like paintball with real guns, I'd bet on the average Russian, Ukrainian or even North Korean (assuming they get to eat full meals for a month prior) soldier, and, yes, of course on an average Israeli one, over the average American.

where is the evidence that the American or British are particularly effective soldiers.

Time on task.

Frankly if a country gets sneak-attacked twice on the same religious holiday within living memory they have to give up the mantle of super high-IQ warrior nation. You would've thought that after Yom Kippur the Israelis would've learnt something but apparently not!

This is a nuclear level cope, I have a hard time taking this seriously. Sneak attacks work, that’s why people use them.

If Israel had even close to population parity in any of those wars some of the nations that had waged war against them in the past likely wouldn’t even exist today.

How hard is it to keep up military readiness even on a religious holiday? This does not happen to proper armies, they don't lower their guard in predictable annual patterns.

The Israelis have been fighting this war in frankly amateurish ways. They keep clustering up in ways that would get them massacred on a real battlefield in Ukraine - fortunately for them their opponents don't have much in the way of artillery or heavy equipment. Israeli urban combat performance has been pretty poor, they've failed to take and hold ground. They go on these glorified chevauchees into Gaza and Hamas just sweeps back in once they leave. There doesn't seem to be any real plan for victory, only (impressive) tactical ploys like the pager trick.

If the US weren't constantly bailing them out with weapons shipments, diplomatic and air cover they would be in a very unpleasant position.

They fought a small town that doesn't have any weapons and still haven't really been able to win in a year.

Are we talking about the Gaza Strip?

Yes, it is abolutely tiny and they haven't been able to properly take it in a year despite exceptional brutality.

Gaza is not a small town, it's a city. It has a higher population than Phoenix, AZ.

I don't think your point is entirely well-formed. This isn't a game of capture the flag, it isn't enough to just "take" Gaza. They're looking for insurgents who are hiding among the general population. It's naturally time-consuming. They could just bomb all 2.1 million civilians into smithereens in about a week, but if they did I doubt that would satisfy either you or the American government.

They fought a small town that doesn't have any weapons and still haven't really been able to win in a year. The only thing they manage to do is get weapons as welfare checks and blast large numbers of civilians.

They are barely fighting that war. Again, they have to take into account the opinion of American leftists who view military competency as evil and think hiding rocket launchers in hospitals and preschools are legitimate tactics.

They are commiting war crimes on a regular basis. They have fought with exceptional brutality.

They also have to deal with people who are sick of AIPAC influencing the US, Europeans who don't want Ben Gvir to move the population of Gaza to Europe and those who dislike Israel when they are ethnically cleansing christians.

Specify the war crimes. I am unaware of any Israeli strikes that were executed without reasonable suspicion of combatants or assets being in the area.

The population of Gaza should obviously stay in Gaza and be annexed by Egypt. This is the common sense solution. The Egyptians will then execute a repression of the population dozens of times harsher, but without people complaining about it in the US/Europe.

All of the middle east, minus Israel has already ethnically cleansed their Christians. I am unaware of credible accusations of such in Israeli territory.

I think the argument that Israel’s offer to the Maronites being rejected by the Maronites constitutes ethnic cleansing of Lebanon’s Christians.

More comments

War crimes, yes. Deliberately attacking humanitarian relief convoys, yes. Cruelly doing their utmost to starve the Gazans to death while still maintaining some level of deniability, also unfortunately yes. But given the relatively low fatality rate, can you really say that the actual fighting has been all that brutal?

I’m no fan of Israel’s behavior, but let’s be clear about what heinous actions they are and aren’t committing.

A bunch of inaccurate statements. No war crimes , no DELIBERATE attack of relief convoys , and nobody is starving. Absolute hamas propaganda by you.

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As I was saying. An iranian bot

That is the craziest and most nonsensical thing I have heard in a long time. Are you an Iranian bot or something? Maybe you can read up on some history.

While @functor's arguments are not, shall we say, well-formed, it's okay to point out motivated reasoning (in his case, it's actually a seething hatred of Jews - he's been very explicit about this), but not to accuse people of being "bots" or agents of some other power.

I assume it's fine to report a spotted bot (e.g. "As a large language model, I can't...") as "bot", as long as it's only in the report function rather than a public accusation?

We would prefer such accusations be made in reports rather than in public, though strictly speaking it's not against the rules to say "This looks like it was written by ChatGPT." Note that we won't necessarily mod someone for using an LLM, depending on the context and how certain we are that it was written by an LLM. We don't want people spamming the board with bot text. We also don't want people spamming the board with accusations of being a bot. Nor do we want to waste our effort judging whether someone used a bot.

You keep saying "just keep harassing Israel and they'll crumble any second now", but that looks more like wishful thinking than anything. How does this square with the recently discussed observation that Israel is currently the second happiest country among the youth and 18th among the old, 5th averaged? They're up there with European countries where nothing is happening.

My guess is that winning a war actually increases happiness. Many people who lived through WWII in the US and UK report it as the best time of their lives.

A big question is how many casualties. So far civilian numbers seems very light. I don't think it's clear that many of these ballistic missiles hit "the center of Tel Aviv". Right now I'm getting the impression that - like last time - it's air bases and desert getting hit. The impressive videos could perhaps cool things down as it makes Iran not look completely impotent, and they can use that in their propaganda while Israel took little to know civilian casualties and almost certainly moved anything really pricey (e.g. F-35s) out of the way.

This indicates to me that Hezbollah is heavily attritted, or we'd see a much bigger response from them. Instead the response had to come from Iran.

I mean, it's entirely possible Iran targeted like, empty deserts and artillery ranges because the point was showing that they could get through Israeli air defenses, not inflicting casualties.

Agree that Hezbollah is likely not very militarily effective right now. I've seen scattered reports on twitter indicating most of Hezbollah has retreated as far away from Israel as possible and the non-Hezbollah Lebanese are just letting Israel hit them wherever they happen to be if not actively betraying them. This is probably what you'd expect from a SMO against an adversary softened up enough to not have much command and control left.

I mean, it's entirely possible Iran targeted like, empty deserts and artillery ranges because the point was showing that they could get through Israeli air defenses, not inflicting casualties.

Iran seems to have targeted Israeli air bases

Maybe they weren't aiming at casualties, but they seem to have been making a statement.

I wouldn't be surprised if Iran was just after the photo op. For all we know, the point of firing the missiles could be just to remind the world that they're capable of making trouble if anyone pushes them too far. The world duly reminded, the Iranians don't have to fear looking weak as they make the strategically sound decision to back off, regroup, and let their allies take the L.

The real threat seems to be towards the oil fields and other crucial infrastructure (ie desalination plants!!!) of neighbouring American allied countries.

They are reminding Saudis (who will presumably give a call to the US) that they can absolutely wreak havoc if it comes to real war

The impressive videos will cool things down? Is this a serious statement? The 'impressive videos' tell us nothing about how effective the barrage actually was. In any case nothing about this will cool things down. Iran must be hit and they must be hit now.

Officially firing back? As opposed to the last time they were firing actual missiles? I guess those weren’t civilian targets.

I look forward to all the Reddit takes about how Israel was totally asking for it.

Wow I really haven't been paying attention to this conflict. Okay this seems like much more of a nothingburger than I had thought.

The more I learn about the Middle East, the worse it sounds. I’m glad to be over here.

The last attack was actually quite different. There was much more communication between the US and Iran about the timing of the "attack" and it was seen as more of a way to regain face and be seen as doing something. Far more missiles were shot down and only a handful of impacts were recorded. This attack was launched with less forewarning and dozens or maybe 100s of missiles managed to impact as there was less of a coordinated response and Israel lacks sufficient anti-ballistic missile platforms to defend itself w/o the US.

Using the word 'hypersonic' is not exactly accurate and may be a little misleading, better just call them balistic missiles. And no the Iranians haven't actually declared war , it's just a phrase used in the article. Doubtful that this attack will be particularly effective, though not for lack of trying. The Israelis and the US I believe MUST respond. The Iranians don't have nukes yet. Now is the time to hit them as hard as possible though I doubt the gutless Biden goverment will actually do what must be done unfortunately.

Using the word 'hypersonic' is not exactly accurate and may be a little misleading, better just call them balistic missiles.

Are these not Kalibur-style cruise missles? From the video, it looks like they're burning till impact.

I have to assume that the glow is from compressive heating during atmospheric reentry.

Pretty cool tbh. I hope Hollywood was watching. This is some Avengers shit.

I have no idea if people know what they're talking about but over in the credibledefense thread I'm seeing Shahab-3, Kheibar Shekan, and Fattah-1 ballistic missiles being mentioned.

I am actually not certain what missiles these are. It could be the fatah 2 which is a cruise missile that goes hypersonic and Iran says is also maneuverable ( I doubt that to be honest) . But I am mostly reading that these are ballistic missiles. In any case I guess we will find out soon.

All the sources I find call it a ballistic missile strike

The "declaration of war" language came from Israeli commentators, though?

Ahh you're right. Fake news I guess.

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