Iran Crisis & the 2026 War between Iran and the United States, Gulf States, and Israel - Please focus on news and coverage, not argumentation.

[mindlessobserver]

I could see the Marines being used to take control of a major port like Bandar Abbas. Any sort of ground involvement wont be to hold the entire country, but I would not rule it out categorically. Besides, if the goal is regime change being able to get the crown prince back on Iranian soil would go a long way towards that. That may require ground forces in some sort of capacity.

 

[Crex Crex]

I could see the Marines being used to take control of a major port like Bandar Abbas. Any sort of ground involvement wont be to hold the entire country, but I would not rule it out categorically. Besides, if the goal is regime change being able to get the crown prince back on Iranian soil would go a long way towards that. That may require ground forces in some sort of capacity.

I think Trump is betting on a decapitation strike to weaken the regime and embolden protestors at the same time, sufficiently so that they riot again and overthrow it. Risky for sure but not impossible, after all it's what they did with Gaddafi.

 

[Falcos_Commisar]

The issue was the political leadership lacked the stones to do what needed to be done, which was pretty much sending the whole country through reeducation and forcing them to not breed with their cousins.
Talking with Iraqis in the teens, they universally considered Paul Bremer the best Iraqi leader and the general vibe had been, post invasion, they wanted the US to withdraw its troops and leave Bremer to run the country.
(of course they couldn't grasp why that wouldn't be possible given how violent and inbred retared they are, but)

This. Iraq was a powder keg of seething ethic and religious tensions for decades before the 2003 invasion and it was going to blow regardless.

The disbandment of the old Iraqi army was part of De-baathification and did have to occur reset the country.

Now Bremer did makes mistakes but on the whole he did ok and to avoid an Iraqi civil war you'd need an occupation force 2-3x as large and some pretty extreme laws like "shoot looters on sight" and "black bag and disappear" rabble rousers

 

[Astro Galactic Megalul]

I think Trump is betting on a decapitation strike to weaken the regime and embolden protestors at the same time, sufficiently so that they riot again and overthrow it. Risky for sure but not impossible, after all it's what they did with Gaddafi.

I'm interested in whether this would involve arming insurgents, America's favorite pastime abroad. Unarmed resistance can only go so far when standing against violent muslim rape monkeys with guns.

I subscribed to this thread when protests started, haven't been keeping up for at least two weeks and still waiting for anything to happen. One has to wonder if there's going to be anyone left to save by the time it does, if it does.
At the same time, I don't know shit. Planning any sort of action here is probably a logistical nightmare with a myriad of factors to consider and contingencies to plan for (although I'm pretty sure there's a brain tank somewhere in Pentagon working 24/7 simulating all sorts of scenarios just in case, and US military probably had some sort of plan prepared already).

Edit: Grammar/misspelling

 

[Ghostse]

Now Bremer did makes mistakes but on the whole he did ok and to avoid an Iraqi civil war you'd need an occupation force 2-3x as large and some pretty extreme laws like "shoot looters on sight" and "black bag and disappear" rabble rousers

From talks with Iraqis, its less that Bremer was any sort of adroit genius at administration and more he was not ridiculously and wantonly corrupt, and didn't have an entire family+village+tribe of patrons he was funneling the state resources to enrich. That was the low bar Bremer was able to clear.
"He's actually making choices for the good of the country and evenly distributing resources? How is this possible?! Allah has sent one of his angels to rule us!"

On top of everything said above, there were additional factors.

Flying without EA-6B Prowler EW support was error #1. The flight that night was completely unescorted. In addition to the Serb aligned spies, much of the U.S.-NATO UHF/VHF interoperability frequencies were being used unencrypted.

The U.S. was also using the same air corridor over and over again, and making attack runs at roughly the same time of night. Cmdr. Dani was able to set up his battery right underneath the flight path.

There's a lot of other things which added up, but suffice it to say that complacency kills. It took the U.S. Air Force being completely retarded, in addition to an admittedly very skilled and cunning air defense unit to make that shot.

To say that this is an extremely well studied object lesson is an understatement.

Yeah, I think I left off that connection editing down the autism:
Dani waited until there was stormy weather because he knew that the F-117s launched without their prowler support and thus new he didn't need to fear any detection or being HARM'ed before he could move.

And as you point out, It took the airforce being at its absolute worst and most complacent and the serbs being beyond the top of their game, and they STILL needed a ton of luck to pull it off.

But since he did, we know have to forever deal with BRICS fags acting like soviet-pattern equipment isn't garbage.

 

[Scout Trooper]

Obligatory heavy lift update:

- 12 visible RCH flights entering/departing CENTCOM AOR (1 landed at McGuire AFB right before I took this)


- Steady stream of British RRR flights to US, Cyprus and CENTCOM

 

[Fanatical Pragmatist]

On top of everything said above, there were additional factors.

Flying without EA-6B Prowler EW support was error #1. The flight that night was completely unescorted. In addition to the Serb aligned spies, much of the U.S.-NATO UHF/VHF interoperability frequencies were being used unencrypted.

The U.S. was also using the same air corridor over and over again, and making attack runs at roughly the same time of night. Cmdr. Dani was able to set up his battery right underneath the flight path.

There's a lot of other things which added up, but suffice it to say that complacency kills. It took the U.S. Air Force being completely retarded, in addition to an admittedly very skilled and cunning air defense unit to make that shot.

To say that this is an extremely well studied object lesson is an understatement.

Three more caveats:

1) Had the US/NATO done all of the above factors and sent an aircraft that wasn't stealth (i.e. F-16s or Tornados armed entirely with bombs) then there is good reason to suggest the casualties that night would have been much higher

2) Sans stealth, the F-117 is basically a very poorly armed, low-manueverable and sensor-lacking light bomber.
Sans stealth an F-35 is a still a brutal sensor and electronics platform armed with an array of air-to-air and air-to-ground weaponry.
Negate the F-117s stealth and it's a helpless flying truck.
Negate the F-35 or even F-22s stealth and you've just downgraded to a high-end 4th generation jet fighter.

3) The F-117s the night of the shoot down still dropped their payload.
While this sounds like an irrelevant detail, it's still a huge factor of "can our air defense save [insert target here] from being hit?"

 

[Blue Flying Leaf]

On top of everything said above, there were additional factors.

Flying without EA-6B Prowler EW support was error #1. The flight that night was completely unescorted. In addition to the Serb aligned spies, much of the U.S.-NATO UHF/VHF interoperability frequencies were being used unencrypted.

The U.S. was also using the same air corridor over and over again, and making attack runs at roughly the same time of night. Cmdr. Dani was able to set up his battery right underneath the flight path.

There's a lot of other things which added up, but suffice it to say that complacency kills. It took the U.S. Air Force being completely retarded, in addition to an admittedly very skilled and cunning air defense unit to make that shot.

To say that this is an extremely well studied object lesson is an understatement.

There's more to this.
The first radar sweep only gave them the faintest signal, a chance and a vector to calculate the interception window.
They fired missiles without any guidance into the dark of night.
Only at the last approach frame they turned on the radar and updated the plane coordinates to fix a lock on, that lasted perhaps 15s tops.
There was no way or time for pilot to even understand what was going on.
Plane was almost on top of radar with maximum reflection.
The missiles almost missed and one exploded just enough to kick the plane's engine kaputt. It was not a direct hit.

These were the highest trained troops in the balkans.
That the arabs can muster anything close is cope

 

[JeanRob1]

From talks with Iraqis, its less that Bremer was any sort of adroit genius at administration and more he was not ridiculously and wantonly corrupt, and didn't have an entire family+village+tribe of patrons he was funneling the state resources to enrich. That was the low bar Bremer was able to clear.
"He's actually making choices for the good of the country and evenly distributing resources? How is this possible?! Allah has sent one of his angels to rule us!"

They were ruled by that kind of Islamic regime for the last 14 centuries, you don't need much to look like a better regime. I hope Iran will have one soon.

I was already some kind of Persiaboo before the protest, but right now I'm thinking about learning Persian.

 

[draggs]

one last bit of anti-aircraft radar sperging, i remembered the guy's name who gave us many deets about the S-300 (and a whole lot of other shit): Adolf Tolkachev. although as is usual in glowniggery, as you can see from the wiki article, glowniggers also deny that he was useful, he was probably a KGB dangle, blah blah blah. which is exactly what they would say in either case

 

[Catch The Rainbow]

Trump confirmed 32k protesters were killed. Iran international almost got it exactly right.

AMC Director of Operations has cancelled all flight evaluations and qualifications for every single Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard, and Air Force active duty crews indefinitely.

The letter signed by Brigadier General Derek Salmi was directed to the entire Air Mobility Command force, and goes into effect immediately.

All air crews are being pushed into service to facilitate urgent and contingency transportation efforts.

Translation:

Anyone able bodied but missing qualifications is now approved for flights regardless of standing or outstanding evaluations or certifications needed. Anyone can fly.

Has not happened since 2003.

 

[Chuckwagon]

Trump confirmed 32k protesters were killed. Iran international almost got it exactly right.

For comparison, the highest casualty estimates from Tiananmen sit around 2-3000 dead, and the one from Assad's massacres of the first Syrian protests in 2011 was in the same ballpark (plus about 2k 'disappeared' into prisons like Sednaya, so even if you assume every one of those prisoners died later, that's still 'only' 5000 dead at maximum).

 

[DumbDude43]

For comparison, the highest casualty estimates from Tiananmen sit around 2-3000 dead, and the one from Assad's massacres of the first Syrian protests in 2011 was in the same ballpark (plus about 2k 'disappeared' into prisons like Sednaya, so even if you assume every one of those prisoners died later, that's still 'only' 5000 dead at maximum).

and that stuff in syria went down when the country was already in a full scale civil war, the earlier anti assad protests did not see anything near this level of violence from the regime.

these massacres in iran were probably the most bloody act of state repression the world has seen in decades. like, you'd probably have to go back all the way to the yugoslav wars or saddams borderline genocidal campaign against iraqi kurdistan to find an act of domestic oppression that was more brutal.

 

[Blue Flying Leaf]

For comparison, the highest casualty estimates from Tiananmen sit around 2-3000 dead, and the one from Assad's massacres of the first Syrian protests in 2011 was in the same ballpark (plus about 2k 'disappeared' into prisons like Sednaya, so even if you assume every one of those prisoners died later, that's still 'only' 5000 dead at maximum).

 

[draggs]

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-887303

https://archive.ph/TAIjG

Former deputy commander of CENTCOM says none of us spergy niggers has any idea of what the US is capable of if it decides to go all-out

 

[Clotso Coof]

Now we're just waiting for a statement from Sen. Holden Bloodfeast, who is currently rallying bipartisan support.

 

[FloydsFeedandSeed]

Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan are all under control of either violent jihadis far worse than the prior government

I'd exclude Syria from that list, I was sceptical of Al-Sharaa at first, and yeah, governments collapsing in a war torn hellhole will never be peaceful but it seems to be better than it was before, . The US only had an indirect role in Assad's fall.
Saddam started the Faith Campaign which did help indirectly lead to the rise of ISIS and eased up on groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.
I'm not a big defender of invading Iraq in 2003 partly because it became a clusterfuck dealing with the aftermath, but today, Iran's economy is better than it was before the fall of Saddam, the main problem in the area is Iranian influence.
Libya was an unmitigated disaster though.

Take it from an Iraqi: Link

Because our role as experts is to challenge common wisdom and not parrot populist talking points, I’ll say this unpopular opinion: Iraq today is, by any stretch, in a much better economic, social and political shape than it was under Saddam in 2003 or than Iraq would have been had America not toppled Saddam in 2003. Had McCain been elected in 2008 instead of Obama, Iraq would have enjoyed uninterrupted stability and growth starting in 2010. It took Iraq longer time to get to where it is today, but, other than Lebanon, Iraq is the only non-liberal Arab democracy, more democratic than even NATO countries like Erdogan’s Turkey. And if Islamist Iran regime collapses, Iraq will clear one of the last obstacles on its way to becoming one of the better countries in the region

 

[Falcos_Commisar]

Yeah, I think I left off that connection editing down the autism:
Dani waited until there was stormy weather because he knew that the F-117s launched without their prowler support and thus new he didn't need to fear any detection or being HARM'ed before he could move.

And as you point out, It took the airforce being at its absolute worst and most complacent and the serbs being beyond the top of their game, and they STILL needed a ton of luck to pull it off.

But since he did, we know have to forever deal with BRICS fags acting like soviet-pattern equipment isn't garbage.

Plus, tbh by then the F-117 was kinda out of date. It was in the clear (not classified) for over a decade at that point and in service for 15+ years.

The B-2 was ready to go and if the idiotic "Defense Dividend" aka gutting of the US military hadn't occured under Clinton and tbh the last year of Bush 1, the stealth A-12 had a good chance of entering service and the F-22 was coming along well and the JSF program was chugging along.

Ex. The F-117 was almost old news by the time it was shot down.

This is like someone saying a jet fighter is useless because a few early jets were shot down by position engined fighters.

 

[Maori Kiwifruit Growers]

AMC Director of Operations has cancelled all flight evaluations and qualifications for every single Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard, and Air Force active duty crews indefinitely.

The letter signed by Brigadier General Derek Salmi was directed to the entire Air Mobility Command force, and goes into effect immediately.

All air crews are being pushed into service to facilitate urgent and contingency transportation efforts.

Translation:

Anyone able bodied but missing qualifications is now approved for flights regardless of standing or outstanding evaluations or certifications needed. Anyone can fly.

Has not happened since 2003.

Source?

Also, I am glad the Air Force is getting to have fun.

 

[Chuckwagon]

While everyone's still waiting for Uncle Sam's boot to drop, have a video of wounded Iranian protesters still defiantly chanting anti-mullah slogans like Javid Shah. Seems to be a more recent upload, these are possibly post-40-day-mourning-period demonstrators who got fired upon in places like Abdanan.

Spoiler: NSFW, they're not dead but clearly badly injured, including at least one dude who took a nutshot and another who got hit in the face/eyes