They've been on the verge of a nuke my entire life. Maybe they really were this time. There has to be a reason this finally happened. But I'm never really going to believe it.
Iran. Nuff said.
- Thread starter Nevermore
- Start date
Iran was no closer now than they were 20 years ago. They don't need to have a bomb: all they need is a market for enriched, weapons grade fissionable material. And they didn't need THAT under the JCPOA... which trump destroyed.
Bibi wanted to try to bomb his way out of his legal problems, and trump was so gullible that he fell for it. The US started yet another forever war in the middle east because two psychopathic narcissists refused to bend to the law.
Bibi wanted to try to bomb his way out of his legal problems, and trump was so gullible that he fell for it. The US started yet another forever war in the middle east because two psychopathic narcissists refused to bend to the law.
Who precisely do you think is going to take up arms with Iran?
Russia, china, north korea, the UAE, and the usual stooges in the middle east and africa?
It's not world war 3; It's yet another regional conflict, the economic consequences of which will probably end up pushing the world into a depression. It's the US entering into another low scale, slow burning forever war ending with a failed regime change and the emplacement of something worse for the iranians.
But hey, at least the world will finally stop using oil: not like we have a choice.
No other countries are siding with Iran, because nobody, and that includes Russia and China, wants Iran to have nukes. Their proxy armies have been decimated in the last year, and the proxies had been their whole strategy because they couldn't possibly hold their own in a 1:1 war even back when they still had their nuke sites, leaders, and anti-aircraft defenses.
Both dissent and consent can be manufactured. Critically evaluate sources that say a direct war with Iran is going to ruin your life.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...tion-protest-proscription-iran-israel-london/
Both dissent and consent can be manufactured. Critically evaluate sources that say a direct war with Iran is going to ruin your life.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...tion-protest-proscription-iran-israel-london/
Russia can't. Doing so would result in them fighting a war on two fronts and they can barely hold the territory they've taken from Ukraine. China likely won't for economic reasons and North Korea is too far from from Iran to be of much help, besides they are already giving war material to Russia. Not sure if they can afford to help Iran too. It could possibly make things worse for Israel, though. Possibly the US as well. These sort of things tend to work remarkably well as recruitment tools for terrorist groups. Of course Netanyahu knows this. He uses the fear of terrorist attacks to help maintain power in Israel. You better believe these attacks will be used by the Ayatollah to strengthen his position within Iran as well. This likely won't trigger WWIII, but it sure as hell will be used by powers in all three countries to stave off efforts at reform and push all three more rightward and authoritarian(not that Iran has much further right to go). Until the people of the US, Israel and Iran realize they are being used by powerful men as pawns to stoke their own egos and maintain power in their own countries, not much is going to change.
The IAEA seemed to think they were/are, and there have been numerous events that have stalled and pushed the program back over those 20 years.
Thy pretty much summed it up already. No one, including their "allies" supports them having nukes. Any of their alliances with legit/semi legit countries are trade/economic based. None of them are going to attack Israel on Iran's behalf, let alone the United States.
Iran has sizeable oil production, but even if it where to cease entirely, it would be highly unlikely to cause a global depression. Both the United States and Canada produce a surplus.
We'll just have to see if this begins and ends with bombing Iran's "nuclear program."
The ISIS report shows Iran's enriching a lot, yeah, but it doesn’t prove they’re building a bomb. Even US intel says they haven't restarted a weapons program.
People are twisting "breakout potential" into "they’re about to nuke us" to justify strikes. That's the same fear-mongering playbook we saw with Iraq.
Why are they enriching uranium past 60% - or past 80%?
www.pbs.org
World's most expensive paperweight?
If the "God Hates F#gs" guy had 60% uranium in his basement there would be no benefit of the doubt or urging of patience or suggestion we pay him $100,000,000,000 in exchange for his pinky-swear promise not to build a bomb for 15 years.
UN report says uranium particles enriched up to 83.7 percent found in Iran
Inspectors from the United Nations nuclear watchdog have found uranium particles enriched up to 83.7 percent in Iran's underground Fordo nuclear site.
www.pbs.org
World's most expensive paperweight?
If the "God Hates F#gs" guy had 60% uranium in his basement there would be no benefit of the doubt or urging of patience or suggestion we pay him $100,000,000,000 in exchange for his pinky-swear promise not to build a bomb for 15 years.
The IAEA did find traces enriched to 83.7%, but even they said it was likely unintentional. It was probably a fluctuation during calibration, not sustained enrichment. Iran hasn't stockpiled uranium above 60%, which is still short of weapons-grade (90%+). So far, there's no evidence they've restarted a full bomb-building program.
And yeah, no one is giving Iran a free pass. The whole point of the JCPOA was to lock them into inspections and limit enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief. Not to "trust" them, but to keep them under a microscope. That deal actually worked for a while. When it was scrapped, they ramped up again.
You don't have to like the regime to admit that diplomacy slowed their program more effectively than airstrikes have.
And yeah, no one is giving Iran a free pass. The whole point of the JCPOA was to lock them into inspections and limit enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief. Not to "trust" them, but to keep them under a microscope. That deal actually worked for a while. When it was scrapped, they ramped up again.
You don't have to like the regime to admit that diplomacy slowed their program more effectively than airstrikes have.
The US and Canada produce a lot, sure, but it's not as simple as "we have a surplus, so we're fine."
We mostly drill light crude but import heavy crude because our refineries are built for it.
Canada's in a similar spot: they export tons of heavy crude, but still import lighter oil for their own refineries.
If Iran's oil vanishes and the Strait of Hormuz gets messy, global prices spike. Hard. It might not cause a depression, but it'd definitely hit wallets and rattle markets.
If Iran tries to lock down Hormuz, it will be blown back open in a day, over the dead bodies of the entire Iranian Navy.
Without Hezbollah, without their imperial land corridor, and without their nuclear program, their threat calculus has to be strongly re-evaluated.
Without Hezbollah, without their imperial land corridor, and without their nuclear program, their threat calculus has to be strongly re-evaluated.
Not an energy recession (though there will be that as well.) an economy recession, if not worse: we were on track for that anyway until the dollar general dear leader decided to create the conditions to turn off ONE FIFTH! of the global oil trade.
And again: Iran didn't want a bomb, at least not anymore. They wanted a marketable product to make up the difference against international sanctions. The threat to hang over israel was a pretty nice bonus as well.
Sure, we could blast the Strait open in a day, but Iran doesn't need to win a naval battle. They just need to threaten shipping enough to spook markets. Even a few mines or missile strikes could drive oil to $150+ and mess with global trade. It's not about military parity. It's about how fragile the system is.
And yeah, their proxies and programs have taken hits, but they're not out of the game. If anything, that just raises the risk they'll lash out harder, not roll over. "Dead bodies of the Iranian Navy" sounds dramatic, but markets and civilians are the ones who would feel it first.
They concealed nuclear activity during the JCPOA. It may have slowed down there progress, but it was not stopping it. Afaik there is no non-weapon reason to enrich that far. They either wanted a nuclear weapon, or the credible threat of one to bully and black mail with. Its absolutely naivety to think otherwise.
Sounds like the Vietnam War but without the Viet Cong, just a uniformed conventional North military. An entirely different strategy and most likely different outcome.
The system is nowhere near as fragile as Iran is. Their strategy was always based on being too unconventionally frightening to face conventionally. If the Iran of June 2025 (as opposed to June 2024) tried to choke off the entire world's oil supply, it would find itself in a stand-up fight against that entire world, alone, with no allies or air defenses. And it would wind up like Libya.
(For the record, this would be scary and bad. But it would be predictable, and short.)
Are you talking about something beyond Iran? Because they don't produce anywhere near 1/5 of the global supply.